# A Question Of Agency?



## zarionofarabel

So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.

I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.

Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.

But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.

So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.

So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?


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## Jd Smith1

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?




I would say that in an 'improv' method such as yours (which I have used in the past), is going to be a shallow pond. Working off the cuff, improvising as you go, you can certainly come up with memorable gaming; it can even allow for some player agency.

But for real, dynamic player agency, I believe that you need more detail and depth of plot than a GM can come up with 'on the fly'.

But at the bottom line,  if your players keep showing up week after week, you're doing it right.


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## macd21

I would say quite the opposite - that the players have far more agency in your game than in most. It’s not that they lack choices, it’s that you’re reacting to their choices, and just not bothering to flesh out the choices they didn’t take.

Sure, you could think about choices A, B and C ahead of time, and let them pick one. But this tends to actually limit their agency, as the GM pushes them to pick one of these three. Your method of GMing doesn’t presuppose they’ll go with one of these options, so you’re more open to accepting option G, Q or X when they go for that.


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## pming

Hiya!



zarionofarabel said:


> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?




Is everyone having fun? Yes? Ok, so what's the problem?

Seriously. If everyone is having a blast and nobody is complaining...you're doing it right. Keep doing that. 

^_^

Paul L. Ming


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## Umbran

zarionofarabel said:


> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices?




That depends.

How the content comes about is not the important bit.  Meaningful choice and agency happen when player choices make a difference in what happens. 

So, let's say the PCs are traveling long distance cross-country, and you imagined beforehand that a tribe of orcs was in the way.  If the PCs negotiate with giant eagles to fly them over much of the intervening territory, but they then have to fight the orcs as soon as they land anyway, then you have rendered the choice to negotiate with the birds meaningless, and thus removed some of the player's agency.

If the players can make their own lives better (or worse) thorugh their choices, they have agency.


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## Bedrockgames

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?




I don't know if this will answer your question or not, but I also had a dilemma with this around 2002-04 or so. Where I was running a lot of very typical type adventures at the time (mostly at the request of my players who wanted the mainstream 3E experience). This was a bit opposite your problem because those were high prep games, but the prep was all oriented around stuff assumed to happen (structuring adventures around encounters, using encounter levels as a guide, and having a kind of clear set of events or scenarios that were expected to occur). As a GM I found it incredibly unsatisfying, because I had been experimenting with looser structures focused on player agency in the past couple of years in other campaigns. What I realized was, for me, it was no fun to realize I might as well just hand my players my notes for that session. There just wasn't enough agency for me and there weren't enough surprises at the table holding my interest. I found a solution to my problems by going back to the older material that embraced the luck of the dice, exploration and not being so focused on things like is the session paced and building toward something, are the encounters all perfectly balanced and exciting, etc. I think you could call the issue I was experience "the tyranny of fun", where there was advice about how to run the perfect session that had become the default, but it just wasn't working for me: because for me the perfect session has a lot of imperfections in it and is centered around players having the ability to make meaningful choices that legitimately shape the direction of the campaign and the events that unfold. 

For me this led to focusing more on characters, more on creating a world to be explored, and embracing the randomness of the game component (I realized it was the not knowing how things would turn out that was driving my excitement at the table, and that sometimes that meant PCs and NPCs dying in anti-climactic ways, or the adventure wrapping up earlier than expected). I don't think in your case you need to prep a lot to provide player agency but you probably need some amount of concrete. If I were you I would focus on NPCs. Your style, if you want it to be more about player agency, would probably work with a character driven adventure (where you flesh out your NPCs, give them clear goals and motivations and deploy them in the world). That way while you may be deciding what happens on the fly and in response to player choices, you are responding through characters who have a logic to them. So you aren't just saying "Would it be cool for Lord Agitator to join forces against Lady Death with the players right now?" you are saying "Would Lord Agitator take the players up on their offer to join forces against Lady Death?".


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## billd91

zarionofarabel said:


> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?



It depends on what you mean by agency, I suppose. Your players' choices are both all-determining in the sense that aside from a little bit of framing, you're entirely riffing off of them. And yet there seems to be no road not taken to give meaning to the choices they made. Both ideas - responding to choices freely made and the implications of choices not made - inform aspects of agency.


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## MGibster

zarionofarabel said:


> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.



My primary concern is that we're all having fun, and while I admit I don't look too deeply at issues like player agency I would agree having it makes the game more enjoyable for players.  But we all have such idle thoughts and what would this message board be without them?  I handle adventures a bit differently.  I figure out what the bad guys have planned and I know exactly what they'll do if the PCs don't interfere.  

I'm running an adventure for Alien this week where the PCs are the crew of a rescue ship responding to an SOS from the USCSS Cronus.  A member of the crew has attempted to sabotage the Cronus and only did it half right.  The ship is flooded with radiation, Schultz has murdered several of his crewmates, and the cargo is loose and also stalking the crew.  

I know exactly what's going to happen if the PCs decide they don't want to board the Cronus and attempt a rescue/salvage.  Schultz will continue to murder the crew as best he can until he succumbs to radiation poisoning and the cargo will stalk them until they are all gone.


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## Ralif Redhammer

That's a question I go back and forth on - if there was never a planned outcome for the PCs to have an effect on or completely change, do their decisions matter? If the all-improv adventure has a world that's defined, has places and NPCs that will react to the PCs' choices, that's enough. If everything is just appearing before them, the track being laid before them as they go, then is that just another form of railroading? I don't really have an answer.

I tend to go with a mix of improv and planning, to try to get the best of both worlds. One thing I read is that your mind will come up with different things based on whether you're doing it in the moment or thinking it through at leisure.


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## MGibster

Ralif Redhammer said:


> I tend to go with a mix of improv and planning, to try to get the best of both worlds. One thing I read is that your mind will come up with different things based on whether you're doing it in the moment or thinking it through at leisure.



I've found that failure to plan on my part leads to lackluster games.  There might be some GMs out there whose improvisational skills are off the hook but that's not me.  Though I do find every Gm needs to be willing to improvise at times as player characters will do things you never expected.  And a lot of times that's fun.


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## prabe

Ralif Redhammer said:


> That's a question I go back and forth on - if there was never a planned outcome for the PCs to have an effect on or completely change, do their decisions matter? If the all-improv adventure has a world that's defined, has places and NPCs that will react to the PCs' choices, that's enough. If everything is just appearing before them, the track being laid before them as they go, then is that just another form of railroading? I don't really have an answer.
> 
> I tend to go with a mix of improv and planning, to try to get the best of both worlds. One thing I read is that your mind will come up with different things based on whether you're doing it in the moment or thinking it through at leisure.



I tend to do something similar to @MGibster describes above, and think through what will happen if the PCs don't interfere, and usually some of the obvious reactions/responses/results. I don't try to plan everything, because that way lies madness. 

I think the only pitfall in total improv, as far as avoiding railroading, is that you as GM might be sub/un-consciously railroading yourself. If you're improvising everything it can be hard to prove either way, but the possibility seems there.


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## zarionofarabel

Well, I do keep notes on what has happened in the narrative after the fact. I do think about what NPCs may be doing when the PCs are not around so if the PCs encounter them again it will not be as if they existed in a vacuum while the PCs were gone. I also allow the players to drive the narrative where they want to take it.

I just wonder if any choices I present them are real as the above mentioned road-not-taken could be said to not exist...


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## prabe

zarionofarabel said:


> Well, I do keep notes on what has happened in the narrative after the fact. I do think about what NPCs may be doing when the PCs are not around so if the PCs encounter them again it will not be as if they existed in a vacuum while the PCs were gone. I also allow the players to drive the narrative where they want to take it.
> 
> I just wonder if any choices I present them are real as the above mentioned road-not-taken could be said to not exist...



I'm inclined to suspect that if you're worrying (or worried) about this, you're probably doing fine. Even if you aren't thinking this way when you're deciding in the moment, the thoughts are in your brain somewhere. I'd be more worried about a GM who didn't even give agency a thought.


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## Ralif Redhammer

Agreed on all counts. Even if where I think the adventure is going to go never happens, I find it much easier to improvise if I have that material. A good DM has to be willing to do some amount of improvisation, because yeah, players will always end up doing something you didn't expect.

I also don't like building combat encounters on the fly. I've done it, but I really prefer to put the time and effort into making them interesting and more than just a room full of foes.



MGibster said:


> I've found that failure to plan on my part leads to lackluster games.  There might be some GMs out there whose improvisational skills are off the hook but that's not me.  Though I do find every Gm needs to be willing to improvise at times as player characters will do things you never expected.  And a lot of times that's fun.






prabe said:


> I tend to do something similar to @MGibster describes above, and think through what will happen if the PCs don't interfere, and usually some of the obvious reactions/responses/results. I don't try to plan everything, because that way lies madness.
> 
> I think the only pitfall in total improv, as far as avoiding railroading, is that you as GM might be sub/un-consciously railroading yourself. If you're improvising everything it can be hard to prove either way, but the possibility seems there.


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## Ovinomancer

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?



You can improvise a railroad as easily as you can prep one.  It's a bit easier to engage player agency while improvising, though.  It is a very different way to play from prep, though.  I think the key thing with enabling player agency in either is to follow through on resolutions.  By this, I mean that success should move the game towards the PC's goal every time, and failure should complicate or impose a consequence that makes the PC's goal harder or that changes the fiction such that the PC's original goal no longer applies.  And don't renege on either -- don't reduce a success through a following piece of framing or narration, and don't soften a failure.  If future PC's action resolutions do this, fine, but don't blunt the impact without player action.

If you do this -- follow through on resolutions from actions the players choose -- then you're engaging player agency.  They get to make important decisions and those decisions have consequences -- good and bad.  As long as you're not forcing choices (railroads, illusionism, etc) and you don't blunt resolutions, you're doing just fine.  And this goes for prep or improv.


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## Ovinomancer

Jd Smith1 said:


> I would say that in an 'improv' method such as yours (which I have used in the past), is going to be a shallow pond. Working off the cuff, improvising as you go, you can certainly come up with memorable gaming; it can even allow for some player agency.
> 
> But for real, dynamic player agency, I believe that you need more detail and depth of plot than a GM can come up with 'on the fly'.



This is wildly incorrect.  It can apply if the focus is on exploring the GM's ideas, yes, but this isn't at all the only approach to take.  If the focus is on the PCs, then an improv-style can have deeply immersive and detailed play because it's the players themselves that are helping.  On the other hand, as I just said, if the focus is on exploring a detailed setting not focused on the PCs, then, sure, prep helps quite a lot unless you're just very gifted.

Take Blades in the Dark, my favorite non-D&D go to game.  It has a loosely defined setting with only a few hard points that act as boundaries to the game (you can't easily leave the city, so you have to deal with the consequences of your actions -- no murderhoboing).  As settings go, it's got a very light touch -- almost no details past some thumbnails for some gangs and neighborhoods.  The game itself is entirely driven by player actions and the resolutions of such.  It's very improv -- you can't prep the game because the way the mechanics work the first few checks thrown will spiral out of any possible prep you could have done, and if you try to use prepped material, you'll break the game mechanics.  But, within that, I've run games of shocking depth and detail, largely because Blades spreads that load by focusing play on PC goals and using PC actions to build the fiction, so the players are right there with you helping detail out the game.  It's not the players exploring the GM's game, but rather everyone at the table discovering the game together.

And, this isn't to knock D&D -- I'm ending a Blades rotation shortly and diving right back into my 5e campaign.  Covid and the fact I play with some first responders while I started in a new project at work has made things pretty hectic, so the Blades campaign game, where a consistent player group isn't much of a problem, made more sense.  Still, excited to get back to my Planescape game.  Although, to be fair, I don't prep too heavily there and still have a pretty detailed and intricate game going.  


Jd Smith1 said:


> But at the bottom line,  if your players keep showing up week after week, you're doing it right.



Now, this... this is absolutely 100% right.  If everyone's having fun, you're playing the right way.


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## Umbran

Ralif Redhammer said:


> That's a question I go back and forth on - if there was never a planned outcome for the PCs to have an effect on or completely change, do their decisions matter?




Is there a planned outcome for your real life for you to have an effect on or completely change?  Do your real decisions matter?


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## Ralif Redhammer

Well, this turned anxiety-provokingly philosophical! I don't know, is there a DM out there planning my adventures? Is there a player running me? If so, I have some complaints to voice - I hope those extra points you got for picking the Male Pattern Baldness flaw were worth it!



Umbran said:


> Is there a planned outcome for your real life for you to have an effect on or completely change?  Do your real decisions matter?


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## MGibster

Ralif Redhammer said:


> I hope those extra points you got for picking the Male Pattern Baldness flaw were worth it!



I'm afraid that decision was just made for the lulz.


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## Ralif Redhammer

MGibster said:


> I'm afraid that decision was just made for the lulz.


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## Umbran

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Well, this turned anxiety-provokingly philosophical!




Sorry about the anxiety.  I was kind of expecting folks to not be nihilistic, and say, "Well, okay, yes, so a planned end isn't the issue - impact on the course of events is the issue."

For example - the GM probably doesn't _plan_ for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?


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## MGibster

Umbran said:


> For example - the GM probably doesn't _*plan*_ for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?



<Furtively looks left and right>  Right.  We don't "plan" for that kind of thing to happen.


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## Crimson Longinus

If your players feel that they have agency then they have sufficient agency.


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## Ralif Redhammer

These days, it doesn't take much to trigger anxiety for me, alas. No worries. 

You are correct, it's not always about a planned end (and some of the best moments in D&D can come from not having one). Rather, perhaps it's about intentions. As a DM I can plan that there's a cultist that wants to summon a demon lord into the world, unleashing all sorts of horrible consequences. Their success may not be assured, but they have a goal that the party can affect, one that exists outside of the PCs. If an improved game comes up with this cultist and they didn't exist until just then and there, are the PC's subsequent actions really affecting the world? Yes, the course of events from their actions will have an effect on the world, but if they hadn't encountered that cultist, nothing would've happened, because they didn't exist. Whereas a party that knew that the cultist was out there and decided to do something else would end up with a definite consequence of that inaction.



Umbran said:


> Sorry about the anxiety.  I was kind of expecting folks to not be nihilistic, and say, "Well, okay, yes, so a planned end isn't the issue - impact on the course of events is the issue."
> 
> For example - the GM probably doesn't _plan_ for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?


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## Tonguez

I find that improv tends to mean you are responding directly to what the players are presenting as their characters actions and motivations. Indeed, with no pre determined plot it means that players and GM are in an active dialogue concieving the game and setting in situ with each response - that to me is absolutely Player Agency. The only way it could be better is if you allowed for players to actively describe setting elements and influence NPC description/action (say via a Action Point system)  

and if the players keep coming, then it must be working for them.


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## Tonguez

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Tonguez said:
> 
> 
> 
> I find that improv tends to mean you are responding directly to what the players are presenting as their characters actions and motivations. Indeed, with no pre determined plot it means that players and GM are in an active dialogue concieving the game and setting in situ with each response - that to me is absolutely Player Agency. The only way it could be better is if you allowed for players to actively describe setting elements and influence NPC description/action (say via a Action Point system)
> 
> and if the players keep coming, then it must be working for them.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Ralif Redhammer said:
> 
> 
> 
> That's a question I go back and forth on - if there was never a planned outcome for the PCs to have an effect on or completely change, do their decisions matter? If the all-improv adventure has a world that's defined, has places and NPCs that will react to the PCs' choices, that's enough. If everything is just appearing before them, the track being laid before them as they go, then is that just another form of railroading? I don't really have an answer.
> 
> I tend to go with a mix of improv and planning, to try to get the best of both worlds. One thing I read is that your mind will come up with different things based on whether you're doing it in the moment or thinking it through at leisure.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...


I Think this essentially comes down to NPC motivation - even in an pure Improv session with only a very vague plot (say fetch the Mcguffin for the local Noble) the antagonistic NPCs need to have a motivation beyond ‘be an obstacle for the PCs’. 
AS DM I should at least know Why they are being obstacles to the PCs. Answering Why is enough to make PCs actions matter regardless of the outcome, revealing the Why acts as another hook for the players.

NB I also tend to follow the maxim of every answer should be 5-Whys deep. I suppose those 5 whys could be called a plot.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> If your players feel that they have agency then they have sufficient agency.



I don't agree with this.  An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.


Ralif Redhammer said:


> These days, it doesn't take much to trigger anxiety for me, alas. No worries.
> 
> You are correct, it's not always about a planned end (and some of the best moments in D&D can come from not having one). Rather, perhaps it's about intentions. As a DM I can plan that there's a cultist that wants to summon a demon lord into the world, unleashing all sorts of horrible consequences. Their success may not be assured, but they have a goal that the party can affect, one that exists outside of the PCs. If an improved game comes up with this cultist and they didn't exist until just then and there, are the PC's subsequent actions really affecting the world? Yes, the course of events from their actions will have an effect on the world, but if they hadn't encountered that cultist, nothing would've happened, because they didn't exist. Whereas a party that knew that the cultist was out there and decided to do something else would end up with a definite consequence of that inaction.



You're comparing different events here -- one in which the NPC is invented (prior to play, presumably) to one where the NPC is not invented at all.  In your first instance, the GM has invented the NPC prior to play and imagined how that NPC will act.  Then you have the same NPC invented in play and concede that this is largely equivalent.  But, then you imagine that the NPC was not created prior to play and then not created in play, and wonder how this works against a case where the NPC is invented.  If you lay it out this way, the resolution becomes apparent -- there's no issue because that NPC wasn't created.  It's the same as asking what happens if you, as GM, don't create this NPC prior to play -- does nothing happen then?  Yes, nothing happens with that NPC, because it wasn't created.  Instead, presumably, something else was created (a game was played), so that's what happens -- and it doesn't really matter, for this argument, whether the something is created before or during play.  Compare like to like.


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## MGibster

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't agree with this. An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.




You can objectively determine whether or not someone has told a lie.  How do we objectively measure agency?  If the players feel they have enough agency then they have enough agency.  There's no other way to determine whether they have enough.


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## Ovinomancer

MGibster said:


> You can objectively determine whether or not someone has told a lie.  How do we objectively measure agency?  If the players feel they have enough agency then they have enough agency.  There's no other way to determine whether they have enough.



Let's examine illusionism.  I offer you the appearance of a choice, but, no matter what you pick, my preplanned encounter occurs.  A specific example would be the I have an encounter with orcs planned, but ask the party how they plan to traverse the Dark Wood.  The party can choose to move quickly, hoping to avoid encounters, but get orcs.  Or then can choose to sneak through, but they get orcs.  Or they may decide something else, and still get orcs.  From the player perspective, the choice they made appears to have weight, but something bad happens.  They cannot tell that their choice is meaningless.  According to your argument, here, they have as much agency as a party who's choice do affect what they encounter -- if they sneak, then maybe no orcs, for instance.  I disagree this is the case.

To further this, the players involved could find out that the GM forced the encounter, about as easily as a person might find out a lie.  In this case, the situation is exactly the same as a lie discovered.  I also disagree that lies are objectively discoverable as a trait.  Some are, some aren't.


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## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> If you do this -- follow through on resolutions from actions the players choose -- then you're engaging player agency.  They get to make important decisions and those decisions have consequences -- good and bad.  As long as you're not forcing choices (railroads, illusionism, etc) and you don't blunt resolutions, you're doing just fine.  And this goes for prep or improv.



If you want to ensure that players are seeing the story-direction when it comes to mechanical points, you can make it very clear by use of the "If you fail, you get..."
While this can mitigate some of the surprise, it can also increase the tension of a die-roll.

Let them have a sight of the consequence their roll avoids.


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## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Let's examine illusionism.  I offer you the appearance of a choice, but, no matter what you pick, my preplanned encounter occurs.  A specific example would be the I have an encounter with orcs planned, but ask the party how they plan to traverse the Dark Wood.  The party can choose to move quickly, hoping to avoid encounters, but get orcs.  Or then can choose to sneak through, but they get orcs.  Or they may decide something else, and still get orcs.  From the player perspective, the choice they made appears to have weight, but something bad happens.  They cannot tell that their choice is meaningless.  According to your argument, here, they have as much agency as a party who's choice do affect what they encounter -- if they sneak, then maybe no orcs, for instance.  I disagree this is the case.
> 
> To further this, the players involved could find out that the GM forced the encounter, about as easily as a person might find out a lie.  In this case, the situation is exactly the same as a lie discovered.  I also disagree that lies are objectively discoverable as a trait.  Some are, some aren't.




That was a rather awkward use of illusionism and thus a poor example, but ultimately it doesn't matter how the engine runs behind the curtains. In an style which relies heavily on improvisation the difference between illusionsim and making up naughty word on the spot is murky and not worth agonising over. If the players feel that they're making meaningful choices then that's good enough.


----------



## MGibster

Ovinomancer said:


> According to your argument, here, they have as much agency as a party who's choice do affect what they encounter -- if they sneak, then maybe no orcs, for instance. I disagree this is the case.



But my argument has nothing to do with how much agency anyone actually has.  I can't measure agency.  If the players are happy with the amount of agency they have then they have enough agency.


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## hawkeyefan

I don’t know if “ignorance is bliss” is all that strong a stance to take. 

I’m also not sure how we can measure happiness if measuring agency is beyond us. 

A player may be happy with the game they’re in. Could they be less happy if something were to change? Seems likely. Couldn’t they also be more happy if something were to change? Seems equally likely.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> That was a rather awkward use of illusionism and thus a poor example, but ultimately it doesn't matter how the engine runs behind the curtains. In an style which relies heavily on improvisation the difference between illusionsim and making up naughty word on the spot is murky and not worth agonising over. If the players feel that they're making meaningful choices then that's good enough.



I think there is a difference, and it's intent.  Illusionism is an a deliberate act to conceal the removal of agency.  That's not necessarily bad -- I do not think the removal or limitation of agency is inherently bad in games -- in fact, most games require strong limitations on agency to function.  D&D, played in the traditional way where the GM preps ahead of time and owns the setting the players explore, quite often encourages techniques like Illusionism so that the work done by the GM is not overwhelming.  There are reasonable applications of Illusionism in D&D, although I personally avoid them.  Regardless, Illusionism is always a deliberate act.

'Making things up,' on the other hand, may be a deliberate choice to remove agency, but it's very, very hard to conceal.  If you're making things up so that you're maintaining a hard level of control over the fiction such that you're engaged in a railroad, or a playground version of nuh-uh, then, yes, this is both an abusive and deliberate act to remove agency, but it's also not concealed.  However, you can 'make things up' using a strong set of principles and constraints and not do either of these things.  You can 'make things up' in a way that doesn't remove any agency and instead promotes it (just like you can run traditional D&D in ways that promote agency, this isn't a competition).  Illusionism can never do this -- it's a deliberate removal of agency.

So, yeah, I don't think the difference is either murky or not worth discussing.  There's a clear line in how the technique function, regardless of whether or not you're invoking degenerate and bad faith play for either.  If you stick to good faith play, there's still a difference, and, yes, I think Illusionism can be used in good faith -- it's a tool to reduce GM prep.  I think overuse moves to bad faith, regardless of motivation in any specific instance -- it's a tool that creates railroads and hides the tracks if overused.  Occasional use, especially as a buffer to use when you need bridge content because the party has either thrown you a loop or you didn't have enough direction to prep the next leg is, to me, just fine.  I don't need to tell players that this encounter chain was going to happen no matter what because I need more time to prep where they just decided to go.  In that case, orcs in the Dark Wood are what you get.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I think there is a difference, and it's intent.  Illusionism is an a deliberate act to conceal the removal of agency.  That's not necessarily bad -- I do not think the removal or limitation of agency is inherently bad in games -- in fact, most games require strong limitations on agency to function.  D&D, played in the traditional way where the GM preps ahead of time and owns the setting the players explore, quite often encourages techniques like Illusionism so that the work done by the GM is not overwhelming.  There are reasonable applications of Illusionism in D&D, although I personally avoid them.  Regardless, Illusionism is always a deliberate act.
> 
> 'Making things up,' on the other hand, may be a deliberate choice to remove agency, but it's very, very hard to conceal.  If you're making things up so that you're maintaining a hard level of control over the fiction such that you're engaged in a railroad, or a playground version of nuh-uh, then, yes, this is both an abusive and deliberate act to remove agency, but it's also not concealed.  However, you can 'make things up' using a strong set of principles and constraints and not do either of these things.  You can 'make things up' in a way that doesn't remove any agency and instead promotes it (just like you can run traditional D&D in ways that promote agency, this isn't a competition).  Illusionism can never do this -- it's a deliberate removal of agency.
> 
> So, yeah, I don't think the difference is either murky or not worth discussing.  There's a clear line in how the technique function, regardless of whether or not you're invoking degenerate and bad faith play for either.  If you stick to good faith play, there's still a difference, and, yes, I think Illusionism can be used in good faith -- it's a tool to reduce GM prep.  I think overuse moves to bad faith, regardless of motivation in any specific instance -- it's a tool that creates railroads and hides the tracks if overused.  Occasional use, especially as a buffer to use when you need bridge content because the party has either thrown you a loop or you didn't have enough direction to prep the next leg is, to me, just fine.  I don't need to tell players that this encounter chain was going to happen no matter what because I need more time to prep where they just decided to go.  In that case, orcs in the Dark Wood are what you get.



I'm not really following you. Every GM uses some combination of preplanning, improvisation and probably some incidental illusionism too. And distinctions between these are not clear cut. You may have preplanned some aspects and not others, or 'preplanning' might be just some vague notion that only solidifies via improvisation. What was the actual agency of the players if during the game they decide to go into the dark forest and this prompts the GM to remember a cool location from a movie they saw last week so they decide to place something like that there? And why does it even matter?


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## Ovinomancer

MGibster said:


> But my argument has nothing to do with how much agency anyone actually has.  I can't measure agency.  If the players are happy with the amount of agency they have then they have enough agency.



Did you not just measure agency by  the yardstick of player happiness?  And, as @hawkeyefan so simply put, can we measure player happiness?

Further, this is situational -- players may be happy with their agency in one specific event and unhappy in the next, even though we cannot differentiate a difference in agency.  This usually happens when agency is evaluates in conjunction with outcomes -- lacking agency but receiving a positive outcome or a fun experience will result in a player being happy, not necessarily with the agency but with the outcome.  On the other hand, a similar amount of agency where the outcome is poor may have the player notice the lack of agency and be dissatisfied with both outcome and lack of agency.  There's not a general statement that can say that happiness means agency is sufficient because you're not measuring satisfaction with agency, but satisfaction with outcomes.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not really following you. Every GM uses some combination of preplanning, improvisation and probably some incidental illusionism too. And distinctions between these are not clear cut. You may have preplanned some aspects and not others, or 'preplanning' might be just some vague notion that only solidifies via improvisation. What was the actual agency of the players if during the game they decide to go into the dark forest and this prompts the GM to remember a cool location from a movie they saw last week so they decide to place something like that there? And why does it even matter?



I'm not sure you're using the same definition for Illusionism that I'm familiar with if you don't follow my above.  Illusionism is, quite simply, offering the illusion that a choice is meaningful when, regardless of the choice made, the same outcome occurs.  This cannot be the same as making things up in response to player input, because the player input is the prompt to make the thing up.  Illusionism requires that the GM offering the choice with the outcome already decided.

As for your question about making up something based on a cool scene if the players decide to go into the Dark Forest, this is pretty different.  The choice here is that the players decided to go into the Dark Forest, at which point the GM remembers the cool scene and frames it for the players to engage.  The choice had meaning -- they chose the Dark Forest, the GM frames a scene that reflects that choice.  If the players had chosen a different option, like instead going into the Fell Chasm, then the GM would not have framed that scene -- the choice mattered.  With Illusionism, the GM would have recalled the scene prior to play, and then framed that scene whether or not the players chose to go into the Dark Forest or the Fell Chasm -- the choice doesn't matter, you get the same outcome.

In other words, Illusionism is about appearing to offer a choice when none actually exists.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure you're using the same definition for Illusionism that I'm familiar with if you don't follow my above.  Illusionism is, quite simply, offering the illusion that a choice is meaningful when, regardless of the choice made, the same outcome occurs.  This cannot be the same as making things up in response to player input, because the player input is the prompt to make the thing up.  Illusionism requires that the GM offering the choice with the outcome already decided.
> 
> As for your question about making up something based on a cool scene if the players decide to go into the Dark Forest, this is pretty different.  The choice here is that the players decided to go into the Dark Forest, at which point the GM remembers the cool scene and frames it for the players to engage.  The choice had meaning -- they chose the Dark Forest, the GM frames a scene that reflects that choice.  If the players had chosen a different option, like instead going into the Fell Chasm, then the GM would not have framed that scene -- the choice mattered.  With Illusionism, the GM would have recalled the scene prior to play, and then framed that scene whether or not the players chose to go into the Dark Forest or the Fell Chasm -- the choice doesn't matter, you get the same outcome.
> 
> In other words, Illusionism is about appearing to offer a choice when none actually exists.



Except in practice it is not so clear cut. It might be more like "oh something like this would be cool, I try to work it in the game somehow when an opportunity for it arises." Perhaps if it would involve the same scene for the Fell Chasm if it would work with that too. Perhaps the GM firmly decided beforehand to do so, perhaps they just considered the possibility or perhaps it spontaneously popped in their head at the moment. And again, why does it even matter?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Except in practice it is not so clear cut. It might be more like "oh something like this would be cool, I try to work it in the game somehow when an opportunity for it arises." Perhaps if it would involve the same scene for the Fell Chasm if it would work with that too. Perhaps the GM firmly decided beforehand to do so, perhaps they just considered the possibility or perhaps it spontaneously popped in their head at the moment. And again, why does it even matter?



You're not talking about Illusionism, though.  You've confused it for prep.  If I, as a GM, prepare a cool forest encounter, but leave it on the shelf until and unless the players choose to go to a forest, this isn't Illusionism.  I didn't offer them a choice that isn't, I've just prepared some material in case the players make that choice.  Anticipation isn't Illusionism.

Again, Illusionism is only the case where you appear to offer the players a choice but the outcome is already decided.  My earlier example was actually a clear example of Illusionism.  The GM is offering the players a choice of how they will traverse the Dark Forest. The players weigh the options and decide that their going to sneak through the forest so as to avoid encounters.  However, the GM wants to run his Orc encounter, so he has the players be caught out by the orcs even though they tried to sneak through to avoid encounters.  Had the players just gone through the forest normally, the same would have happened.  This is Illusionism -- the choice to sneak by the players is meaningless because the GM determines the outcome is the same as the other option.

Now, had the GM just prepared an orc encounter in the Dark Forest, and then asked the players how their going to traverse the Forest and followed through on that choice, this is prep, not Illusionism.  If the players, in this case, decide to sneak through the Forest, they can avoid the orcs entirely.  Their decision matters.  That you prepped the orcs beforehand is irrelevant, because Illusionism is not about prepared material or improved material, but about whether or not the offered choice matters or not.

If you're, instead, asking what the difference is between preparing an orc encounter and using it if the players choose to sneak and fail their checks or inventing the orcs on the spot after the players fail their sneaking checks, then, yeah, you're right, there's little difference in outcome.  A good bit in where the GM's work occurs, but that's a different discussion, and largely depends on the game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You're not talking about Illusionism, though.  You've confused it for prep.  If I, as a GM, prepare a cool forest encounter, but leave it on the shelf until and unless the players choose to go to a forest, this isn't Illusionism.  I didn't offer them a choice that isn't, I've just prepared some material in case the players make that choice.  Anticipation isn't Illusionism.



Except if that same forest encounter appears in any forest the players might go that is illusionism. They might choose to whether to go to Grim Woods, Ghastly Forest or the Nasty Grove but the same encounter will still be there. Reskinning that same forest encounter to different environs that the characters might decide to go to would also be illusionism.



Ovinomancer said:


> Again, Illusionism is only the case where you appear to offer the players a choice but the outcome is already decided.  My earlier example was actually a clear example of Illusionism.  The GM is offering the players a choice of how they will traverse the Dark Forest. The players weigh the options and decide that their going to sneak through the forest so as to avoid encounters.  However, the GM wants to run his Orc encounter, so he has the players be caught out by the orcs even though they tried to sneak through to avoid encounters.  Had the players just gone through the forest normally, the same would have happened.  This is Illusionism -- the choice to sneak by the players is meaningless because the GM determines the outcome is the same as the other option.




So what does 'decided' mean in this context? If I write on my notes "this happens no matter what" that seems to be pretty firmly decided. What if I just thought about it? What if I instead though "I try to get this thing to happen"? What if I merely think "it would be cool if this thing would happen?" 



Ovinomancer said:


> Now, had the GM just prepared an orc encounter in the Dark Forest, and then asked the players how their going to traverse the Forest and followed through on that choice, this is prep, not Illusionism.  If the players, in this case, decide to sneak through the Forest, they can avoid the orcs entirely.  Their decision matters.  That you prepped the orcs beforehand is irrelevant, because Illusionism is not about prepared material or improved material, but about whether or not the offered choice matters or not.




And if you had not decided sneaking DCs, the number of checks required etc beforehand, can you guarantee that you spending a significant amount of time preparing that orc encounter wouldn't affect how hard you decide to make the sneaking? This is what I mean, the difference between illusionism and the GM gently tipping the scales towards the outcome they want is really flimsy.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Except if that same forest encounter appears in any forest the players might go that is illusionism. They might choose to whether to go to Grim Woods, Ghastly Forest or the Nasty Grove but the same encounter will still be there. Reskinning that same forest encounter to different environs that the characters might decide to go to would also be illusionism.




No, it's not, unless the offerred choice is to go to one of those other places to avoid that encounter.  You're still confusing prep with Illusionism because your focusing on using prep elements rather than what choice was offered.



> So what does 'decided' mean in this context? If I write on my notes "this happens no matter what" that seems to be pretty firmly decided. What if I just thought about it? What if I instead though "I try to get this thing to happen"? What if I merely think "it would be cool if this thing would happen?"




You look at the choices you offer.  If you offer a choice but it doesn't matter what they choose the outcome is the same, that's Illusionism.   Especially if you conceal it.

The other things you mention may lead to Illusionism but are not it on their own.  If having cool ideas is removing agency to you, I'm not sure there's near enough common ground to have this discussion.



> And if you had not decided sneaking DCs, the number of checks required etc beforehand, can you guarantee that you spending a significant amount of time preparing that orc encounter wouldn't affect how hard you decide to make the sneaking? This is what I mean, the difference between illusionism and the GM gently tipping the scales towards the outcome they want is really flimsy.



Sure, there are other ways to use Force.  If you're reaching to bad faith play to make a point, it's not very strong.  This is because the problem is really the bad faith play and is usually cured by playing in good faith.  When ypu're assuming that Force is in play (the tipping scales) then, sure, there's going to be similarities between the different flavors of Force.  Illusionism is a specific example of GM Force, as is abusing mechanics to get a preferred outcome.  That these look similar is no shock.

But, that wasn't your point, originally.  You said that there's little difference between Illusionism and making things up.  Again, there is, especially if "making things up" isn't assumed to be code for "GM Forces their preference."


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## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> No, it's not, unless the offerred choice is to go to one of those other places to avoid that encounter.  You're still confusing prep with Illusionism because your focusing on using prep elements rather than what choice was offered.



Then your definition is illusionism is far narrower than commonly understood. I have had many discussions where anti-illusionism people are livid about the sort of thing mentioned here (i.e. a blind decision leading to a predetermined outcome regardless of the choice being made.)



Ovinomancer said:


> You look at the choices you offer.  If you offer a choice but it doesn't matter what they choose the outcome is the same, that's Illusionism.   Especially if you conceal it.




"Do you want to go to the Grim Woods or to the Ghastly Forest?" Regardless: orcs! 



Ovinomancer said:


> The other things you mention may lead to Illusionism but are not it on their own.  If having cool ideas is removing agency to you, I'm not sure there's near enough common ground to have this discussion.
> 
> 
> Sure, there are other ways to use Force.  If you're reaching to bad faith play to make a point, it's not very strong.  This is because the problem is really the bad faith play and is usually cured by playing in good faith.  When ypu're assuming that Force is in play (the tipping scales) then, sure, there's going to be similarities between the different flavors of Force.  Illusionism is a specific example of GM Force, as is abusing mechanics to get a preferred outcome.  That these look similar is no shock.
> 
> But, that wasn't your point, originally.  You said that there's little difference between Illusionism and making things up.  Again, there is, especially if "making things up" isn't assumed to be code for "GM Forces their preference."



The thing is, whether one recognises or not, everyone has preferences. Illusionism and improvisation are similar in the sense that in both the reality outside what has already been established remains fluid. It is not really there until the GM tells to the players that it is. When the GM is 'making things up' what they make up is guided by their preferences. Illusionism is merely somewhat more methodical form of the same thing.


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## Ralif Redhammer

That's fine, I'm not claiming to have any answers here. However, just because things are not exactly equivalent, does not mean one can't compare them and discuss them. One can, for example, discuss the pros and cons of travelling by train versus by plane.



Ovinomancer said:


> I don't agree with this.  An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.
> 
> You're comparing different events here -- one in which the NPC is invented (prior to play, presumably) to one where the NPC is not invented at all.  In your first instance, the GM has invented the NPC prior to play and imagined how that NPC will act.  Then you have the same NPC invented in play and concede that this is largely equivalent.  But, then you imagine that the NPC was not created prior to play and then not created in play, and wonder how this works against a case where the NPC is invented.  If you lay it out this way, the resolution becomes apparent -- there's no issue because that NPC wasn't created.  It's the same as asking what happens if you, as GM, don't create this NPC prior to play -- does nothing happen then?  Yes, nothing happens with that NPC, because it wasn't created.  Instead, presumably, something else was created (a game was played), so that's what happens -- and it doesn't really matter, for this argument, whether the something is created before or during play.  Compare like to like.


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## hawkeyefan

I think that what matters most is that the players’ choice has an impact. So if the GM has presented a forking path in their road and says that one goes into the Dark Forest and the other heads to the Grim Chasm, then the results of that choice should be different in some way that matters.

So, if the GM has prepped an encounter with giant spiders in the forest and one with Tuscan Raider type sandpeople in the Grim Chasm, that’s not illusionism despite the fact that these encounters are preset. Nor would it be illusionism if the GM took the choice into consideration, and then crafted an encounter based on that choice. 

Where it could be illusionism is if the GM has an encounter with some ogres planned and it happens in the Forest or the Chasm. Likewise, if the GM is crafting details on the fly and uses the same enemy stats, but simply labels the enemies by a different name. So his 2HD humanoids that have a +2 to hit are Orcs in the Forest or Sandpeople in the Chasm....that’s illusionism as well, I’d say. 

There needs to be meaningful difference. At the very least the terrain of the encounters and therefore the difficulty should vary. 

There can be lots of other factors that can be brought to bear on this...travel time, treasure gained, information learned or known ahead of time....many others. These things can enhance or diminish player agency. 

But at it’s very core, it boils down to their decision mattering to the fiction and the game. Can things go differently if they take Option A instead of Option B?


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## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that what matters most is that the players’ choice has an impact. So if the GM has presented a forking path in their road and says that one goes into the Dark Forest and the other heads to the Grim Chasm, then the results of that choice should be different in some way that matters.
> 
> So, if the GM has prepped an encounter with giant spiders in the forest and one with Tuscan Raider type sandpeople in the Grim Chasm, that’s not illusionism despite the fact that these encounters are preset. Nor would it be illusionism if the GM took the choice into consideration, and then crafted an encounter based on that choice.
> 
> Where it could be illusionism is if the GM has an encounter with some ogres planned and it happens in the Forest or the Chasm. Likewise, if the GM is crafting details on the fly and uses the same enemy stats, but simply labels the enemies by a different name. So his 2HD humanoids that have a +2 to hit are Orcs in the Forest or Sandpeople in the Chasm....that’s illusionism as well, I’d say.
> 
> There needs to be meaningful difference. At the very least the terrain of the encounters and therefore the difficulty should vary.
> 
> There can be lots of other factors that can be brought to bear on this...travel time, treasure gained, information learned or known ahead of time....many others. These things can enhance or diminish player agency.
> 
> But at it’s very core, it boils down to their decision mattering to the fiction and the game. Can things go differently if they take Option A instead of Option B?



But if the characters really didn't know anything about the Grim Chasm or the Dark Forest before deciding which to go, why does it matter? As long as the encounter doesn't seem weirdly out of place to the players it's all fine.

The actual meaningful choices are not the sort of things like to which direction to go or which door to randomly open, those exist just for the verisimilitude and flavour. The real meaningful choices need to be informed.


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if the characters really didn't know anything about the Grim Chasm or the Dark Forest before deciding which to go, why does it matter? As long as the encounter doesn't seem weirdly out of place to the players it's all fine.
> 
> The actual meaningful choices are not the sort of things like to which direction to go or which door to randomly open, those exist just for the verisimilitude and flavour. The real meaningful choices need to be informed.




I wouldn’t disagree with you about most of that. My example was intentionally simple and I assumed some amount of information being available to players to make a decision. I should have made that clearer. 

I think it was @Ovinomancer who mentioned it being situational, and i think that’s accurate. Something like a choice of which passage to take, the east or the west, in a dungeon doesn’t need to rely heavily on player agency. The context of the moment and how important it may be to the unfolding narrative should likely matter quite a bit.

I want to clarify, too, that whether a game allows for a high degree of player agency or not doesn’t make it a good game or not. That’s all about the amount of agency that is present and how desired agency is by the players. 

So that’s why I disagreed with the sentiment that as long as players are satisfied, there was the right amount of agency.


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## macd21

Crimson Longinus said:


> Then your definition is illusionism is far narrower than commonly understood. I have had many discussions where anti-illusionism people are livid about the sort of thing mentioned here (i.e. a blind decision leading to a predetermined outcome regardless of the choice being made.)
> 
> 
> 
> "Do you want to go to the Grim Woods or to the Ghastly Forest?" Regardless: orcs!



His definition of illusionism is the same as mine, and one I've certainly seen used elsewhere. 

Illusionism only takes place where the players appear to have a meaningful choice, but don't. Whether the Grim Woods or the Ghastly Forest is chosen is only meaningful if the players have reason to believe choosing one over the other has the potential to lead to a different outcome. The fact that they'll meet orcs either way is only illusionism if they were trying to avoid (or engage) the orcs.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if the characters really didn't know anything about the Grim Chasm or the Dark Forest before deciding which to go, why does it matter? As long as the encounter doesn't seem weirdly out of place to the players it's all fine.
> 
> The actual meaningful choices are not the sort of things like to which direction to go or which door to randomly open, those exist just for the verisimilitude and flavour. The real meaningful choices need to be informed.



You're substituting in a different way to remove agency, here.  Illusionism is the appearance of a choice that matter than then doesn't because the GM Forces the same outcome no matter the choice.  A blind choice is a different thing from a choice that matters -- there's little agency here because the players have no way to determine which choice is better.  This is a coin flip, which isn't something that enables agency.  Blind choices are a way to reduce agency, just like Illusionism, and they're similar in that there's not actually a choice (in the former, the outcome is just random, in the latter, it's whatever the GM wanted anyway).  You can join these together -- offer a blind choice that has the same outcome, but that's stacking issues and not part of Illusionism.


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## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't agree with this.  An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.




With respect, Ovinomancer, it isn't your call.  "Enough" is subjective, and a matter of personal preference.  You don't get to say whether someone else has enough agency in a game - only they get to have an opinion on the matter.


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## Ovinomancer

Umbran said:


> With respect, Ovinomancer, it isn't your call.  "Enough" is subjective, and a matter of personal preference.  You don't get to say whether someone else has enough agency in a game - only they get to have an opinion on the matter.



With respect, I didn't say it was my call or that I had the right answer on enough.  I've been very careful to make that point a few times, if not explicitly in the part you've quoted.  I find the argument that not being aware of a lack of agency means that you have enough agency to be flawed, without once saying exactly how much agency is enough.  That is, as you so respectfully put it, a subjective opinion.  I'm not required to insist on a necessary amount to disagree with an argument on how to determine the necessary amount, am I?  Or, in other words, is not your argument sauce for the statement I responded to, as well?


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## zarionofarabel

Down a rabbit hole we go...

So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.

However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.

What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?


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## macd21

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.
> 
> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?




That's complicated, but yeah, you're probably denying them agency, especially if you decided that the NPC was lying after the fact. If, when the PCs were talking to the NPC, there was the possibility that they could detect that he was lying (and therefore infer that anything he told them was false, and make their decisions with that in mind), then they still have agency. 

It all comes down to the players' ability to make meaningful choices that impact the game world. WIll their choice of direction actually make any difference? If it does, then they have agency. If it doesn't, then they don't.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.
> 
> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



Yeah, maybe, but who cares? 

This is the sort of murky area between improvisation and illusionism I was trying to allude to. These sort of situations arise commonly unless you have everything preplanner and set in stone (and who has time for that?) I just think it is not worth worrying about. Yeah, sometimes some choices the characters make that  the players think mattered end up not mattering. It's not a big deal, it is a part of how this works. And it is not like this happens to every choice they make. Some choices actually matter, some seem to matter but don't, some don't seem to matter but do and some choices matter in a different way than they seem to. It's all fine.


----------



## hawkeyefan

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.
> 
> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



I think that in situations like this, it’s up to the GM to know the players and their preferences and then shape the situation accordingly. 

It would seem to me that if Agency or lack thereof is important to the players, then retroactively deciding that the info a NPC gave them is actually false seems a bit questionable. Typically, I think there would be some potential roll to detect the lie, or at least the opportunity to do so. 

I think the GM has to give some thought as to why he’s proceeding this why. What is the point of having the NPC turn out to be a liar? Is it to maintain some control over the narrative? To force a desired outcome of the GM’s? If so, why? And while I’d never say you can’t have NPCs who lie to or otherwise betray the characters, I think you have to be careful of how often you do this and in what ways. The players may feel that nothing they’re told can be trusted, and then you’re veering into adversarial territory. 

I think that ultimately,  it’s situational. The GM has to decide if this is how he wants to run the game and how the players want it run. It’ll vary from group to group for sure. But I do think it’s good to examine these instances and learn from them.


----------



## Ovinomancer

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.



So, there's a pretty big pea being hidden under this mattress, and that's the assumption that the player choice is uniformed.  This almost never happens -- players are making a choice to go in a "random" direction not because they are actually random but usually because there's some other motive at play.  Perhaps they don't like what's otherwise available, so the choice is on to not choose any of what's already up.  Or, they're engaged in some level of metaplay where they think their thwarting a GM plan they don't want, or, maybe they are random.  In each of these cases, though, the players are exerting their agency.

The kind of uninformed choice that's problematic isn't one where players make a choice without perfect information, but rather when the GM offers the players a choice without sufficient information.  A T-intersection in a dungeon passage, for instance, is an uninformed choice if the GM hasn't provided any information about what on either path.  Provided the GM has prepped the dungeon, the choice can matter, but it's a coin flip at the time of the choice.  This doesn't engage agency because they players aren't actually making a choice, they're selecting a random outcome.  If the GM does provide information, though, perhaps in foreshadowing or prior fiction (like a map), then this choice is fully engaged in agency.  

Illusionism happens when the GM offers such a choice but both passages lead to the same thing -- and becomes worse if there's additional information that appears to make the choice an informed one.  

Uniformed choices are about what information is available before or during the choice.  Illusionism is about a forced outcome making the choice irrelevant.


zarionofarabel said:


> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



This is engaging in Illusionism, and is denying agency.  It's an interesting subvariant of Illusionism, because the decision to create the illusion of choice is after the fact.  By deciding after the fact that the NPC is lying, you've negated any choices made during the encounter with the NPC and forced a specific outcome.  The most important thing to do in either prepped or improved play is to honor established fiction.  Do not introduce a change to established fiction unless it makes sense as a direct outcome of current play.  In other words, you deciding as the GM that the NPC was lying is removing agency.  The players discovering that the NPC had lied because they've suffered a failure on an important task that relied on the NPC's statement can work, though.  Here, the NPC's truthfulness is a trusted fact, but the PCs have failed their task due to a bad roll or poor approach, then discovering that the reason their attempt failed was bad info can be a reasonable play.  I'd be careful about using this, though, unless you're table is strongly rooted in play that directly challenges PC beliefs.  It can result in bad feelings.  I usually find it better to not engage in such things, as I'd rather my players not develop paranoid tendencies -- they're not fun for me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yeah, maybe, but who cares?
> 
> This is the sort of murky area between improvisation and illusionism I was trying to allude to. These sort of situations arise commonly unless you have everything preplanner and set in stone (and who has time for that?) I just think it is not worth worrying about. Yeah, sometimes some choices the characters make that  the players think mattered end up not mattering. It's not a big deal, it is a part of how this works. And it is not like this happens to every choice they make. Some choices actually matter, some seem to matter but don't, some don't seem to matter but do and some choices matter in a different way than they seem to. It's all fine.



You still seem to be using Illusionism to describe uninformed choices, which are a different thing and can occur in any style of play.  The continued comparing of Illusionism to improvisational play is unwarranted -- Illusionism is a type of GM Force, not of playstyle.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You still seem to be using Illusionism to describe uninformed choices, which are a different thing and can occur in any style of play.  The continued comparing of Illusionism to improvisational play is unwarranted -- Illusionism is a type of GM Force, not of playstyle.



 I was referring to the same situation which you literally described in your previous post thusly:



> This is engaging in Illusionism, and is denying agency. It's an interesting subvariant of Illusionism, because the decision to create the illusion of choice is after the fact.




This sort of illusionism arises easily in improvised playstyle, where many things are left undefined until they're needed. It was not exactly defined that the NPC was originally trustworthy, it was merely defined that they said a thing. Their motivations for doing so were in quantum superposition, which only later collapsed to 'he was deceitful.'


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I was referring to the same situation which you literally described in your previous post thusly:



Ah, my bad, then.  In my defense, this isn't entirely clear.



> This sort of illusionism arises easily in improvised playstyle, where many things are left undefined until they're needed. It was not exactly defined that the NPC was originally trustworthy, it was merely defined that they said a thing. Their motivations for doing so were in quantum superposition, which only later collapsed to 'he was deceitful.'



I strongly disagree it has anything to do with style of play.  Prep GMs can easily do the same thing.  It isn't a function of improv but rather a function of a GM wanting to force an outcome.  Assigning it as a common thing in improv is more a function of prejudice rather than a analysis.  And , to be clear, it's 100% fine to not like improv games, especially if you had a bad experience with a GM abusing Force (I maintain some use of Force to be okay, depending on the game in question).  Just don't generalized those experiences such that you start telling people their playstyle is so close to Illusionism that it makes no difference.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I strongly disagree it has anything to do with style of play.  Prep GMs can easily do the same thing.  It isn't a function of improv but rather a function of a GM wanting to force an outcome.  Assigning it as a common thing in improv is more a function of prejudice rather than a analysis.  And , to be clear, it's 100% fine to not like improv games, especially if you had a bad experience with a GM abusing Force (I maintain some use of Force to be okay, depending on the game in question).  Just don't generalized those experiences such that you start telling people their playstyle is so close to Illusionism that it makes no difference.



It is not a judgement. I'm 100% fine with improvisation and illusionism. But as I said, the reason why such 'incidental illusionism' arises more easily in a game that relies heavily on improv is because less things are predefined. In a prep-heavy game the GM has planned the NPC's motivations before the PC even meet them, in an improv game they may remain undefined until there is some specific reason to examine them.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is not a judgement. I'm 100% fine with improvisation and illusionism. But as I said, the reason why such 'incidental illusionism' arises more easily in a game that relies heavily on improv is because less things are predefined. In a prep-heavy game the GM has planned the NPC's motivations before the PC even meet them, in an improv game they may remain undefined until there is some specific reason to examine them.



This rests on the conceit that a prep GM will be faithful to the established fiction while an improvisational GM will not be.  That's the issue -- you're assigning virtue to one and denying it to the other.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> This rests on the conceit that a prep GM will be faithful to the established fiction while an improvisational GM will not be.  That's the issue -- you're assigning virtue to one and denying it to the other.



In the example 'established fiction' it that the NPC said a thing. This doesn't change. What has not been established is the NPC's motivation for saying the thing. 

When improvising and then tying things together later, you sometimes might have to reframe certain things that happened earlier, and if you do it well, it may appear as genius foreshadowing. "Oh naughty word, that crazy travelling cartographer we met three weeks ago had the similar glassed over eyes than these mind-controlled pawns of Prince Draculus! He was one of them!"


----------



## hawkeyefan

I don’t see how a GM who’s prepped a NPC must be any more faithful to his prep than a GM who has improvised a NPC must be faithful to what’s been improvised.

The example is very minimal, and I think the particulars of the encounter in which a NPC has said whatever was said matters quite a lot. What was said? Was it simply accepted at face value? Were chances allowed to determine if it was true? Were those attempts unsuccessful? Did the PCs later hear some conflicting info from another NPC? Were they given the opportunity at that point to question the conflicting info? These things matter.

What prompted the GM to change their mind? Was it the emerging fiction? Was it a consequence of a failed check of some sort? Are there GM principles in play that would discourage such a change? These also matter quite a lot. 

I don’t think that the example given of “NPC said a thing that the GM later decided was false” is complete enough. If anything, without knowing the answers to all the questions above, it simply looks like a case of poor GMing regardless of prep or improv.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t see how a GM who’s prepped a NPC must be any more faithful to his prep than a GM who has improvised a NPC must be faithful to what’s been improvised.



My own rule is that what happens next needs to be consistent with what has happened. If an NPC said or did something, that'll remain in the fiction, but the motivation might change--though if they're giving the party false information it's more likely to be because the NPC has been misinformed rather than because they're setting out to betray the party. In principle, if I've prepped something to happen in the absence of PC action, I then treat it as having happened--but I'm willing to change it if A) the party hasn't really encountered those "facts," B) I can remain consistent with what the party has encountered, and C) it causes/allows a better story to emerge.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> My own rule is that what happens next needs to be consistent with what has happened. If an NPC said or did something, that'll remain in the fiction, but the motivation might change--though if they're giving the party false information it's more likely to be because the NPC has been misinformed rather than because they're setting out to betray the party. In principle, if I've prepped something to happen in the absence of PC action, I then treat it as having happened--but I'm willing to change it if A) the party hasn't really encountered those "facts," B) I can remain consistent with what the party has encountered, and C) it causes/allows a better story to emerge.




That’s all reasonable. 

How would you handle the case of a NPC having lied to the PCs? Let’s say that whatever was said by the NPC was meant to be true from the GM’s perspective at the time os was said. Under what circumstances would you change that truth to a lie? I get your A, B, and C above....I think I’m mostly interested in an example of C, and if it can be accomplished in some way that doesn’t inhibit agency.


----------



## zarionofarabel

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t see how a GM who’s prepped a NPC must be any more faithful to his prep than a GM who has improvised a NPC must be faithful to what’s been improvised.
> 
> The example is very minimal, and I think the particulars of the encounter in which a NPC has said whatever was said matters quite a lot. What was said? Was it simply accepted at face value? Were chances allowed to determine if it was true? Were those attempts unsuccessful? Did the PCs later hear some conflicting info from another NPC? Were they given the opportunity at that point to question the conflicting info? These things matter.
> 
> What prompted the GM to change their mind? Was it the emerging fiction? Was it a consequence of a failed check of some sort? Are there GM principles in play that would discourage such a change? These also matter quite a lot.
> 
> I don’t think that the example given of “NPC said a thing that the GM later decided was false” is complete enough. If anything, without knowing the answers to all the questions above, it simply looks like a case of poor GMing regardless of prep or improv.



It was just an example as to what might happen at the table. As for the details of the scene where the PCs interacted with the NPC, there are none, as it was just an example of what might happen. Just a thought project to gauge where I am in offering my players meaningful informed choices so I can ensure they have agency to act within the narrative.

So let's keep thought projecting!

For the purposes of this thought project details such as the reasons why the GM might change the truth of what the NPC said really don't matter. The GM might have decided it was better for the story, or the GM is just being a jerk. You decide!

Anyway, on to the thought project!

A) The NPC was telling the truth, but then the GM changed that fact later.

B) The NPC was lying but the players bought the lie and didn't bother to check to see if the NPC was lying.

C) The NPC was lying, the players thought the NPC was lying, but failed their "detect lies" roll so the PCs bought the lie.

Which example(s) are illusionism? Which example(s) deny the players agency? Which example(s) DO NOT deny the players agency?


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s all reasonable.
> 
> How would you handle the case of a NPC having lied to the PCs? Let’s say that whatever was said by the NPC was meant to be true from the GM’s perspective at the time os was said. Under what circumstances would you change that truth to a lie? I get your A, B, and C above....I think I’m mostly interested in an example of C, and if it can be accomplished in some way that doesn’t inhibit agency.



I think how I'd handle it would depend on the nature of the lie. If the NPC lied to the PCs about facts on the ground, I'd try to give the PCs an opportunity to learn the facts were different before acting on the misinformation. As to a situation where I'd do it? The only thing I can think of would be if I somehow prepped myself into a paradox, and something I'd thought was true couldn't be; I'd probably decide what "fact" wasn't true and give the PCs a chance to figure out what wasn't true, and plausibly give them a way to figure out if it was an intentional act on the NPC's part. (I don't much care for betrayals in fiction, so I'm very reluctant to deploy them as a GM.)


----------



## prabe

zarionofarabel said:


> Anyway, on to the thought project!
> 
> A) The NPC was telling the truth, but then the GM changed that fact later.
> 
> B) The NPC was lying but the players bought the lie and didn't bother to check to see if the NPC was lying.
> 
> C) The NPC was lying, the players thought the NPC was lying, but failed their "detect lies" roll so the PCs bought the lie.
> 
> Which example(s) are illusionism? Which example(s) deny the players agency? Which example(s) DO NOT deny the players agency?



None of those three strictly *needs to be* illusionism, but the only one that seems likely to lead down that dark path (and forever dominate the GM's destiny) is your A. It's plausible--though you're leaving the GM's motivations out of it--that something arose in prep and something needed to change; in that case, I'd say the GM is as much a victim of the illusionism as the players ...


----------



## hawkeyefan

zarionofarabel said:


> Which example(s) are illusionism? Which example(s) deny the players agency? Which example(s) DO NOT deny the players agency?




I don’t know if we can ignore why the GM has made the changes as you say. I think those reasons could potentially greatly influence player agency. 


zarionofarabel said:


> A) The NPC was telling the truth, but then the GM changed that fact later.



Like here. I need to know the details for why and what it was, the existing details in the fiction (is this NPC trusted by the PCs or someone they’ve just met, etc) and other details.

Without some details that justify this decision, it seems questionable to me. 


zarionofarabel said:


> B) The NPC was lying but the players bought the lie and didn't bother to check to see if the NPC was lying.



This seems acceptable in general. But again, the relationship between this NPC and the PCs is crucial. Is this the equivalent of Gandalf turning out to have lied to Frodo? Or is it someone they’ve just met? Did the GM prompt them in any way to either accept or challenge this information? 


zarionofarabel said:


> C) The NPC was lying, the players thought the NPC was lying, but failed their "detect lies" roll so the PCs bought the lie.



This would seem fine to me. The dice have determined the consequence. When the GM reveals the lie, he can point to the roll where the PCs had a chance to detect it and failed. 

I think the absence of this specific cause is what makes A and B more questionable. When the players ask why, there isn’t some neutral point of arbitration to cite. All the GM has to explain is vague notions along the lines of “I thought it’d be cool” or similar. 

That being said, again I think that many other factors can come into play here.


----------



## zarionofarabel

prabe said:


> None of those three strictly *needs to be* illusionism, but the only one that seems likely to lead down that dark path (and forever dominate the GM's destiny) is your A. It's plausible--though you're leaving the GM's motivations out of it--that something arose in prep and something needed to change; in that case, I'd say the GM is as much a victim of the illusionism as the players ...






hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know if we can ignore why the GM has made the changes as you say. I think those reasons could potentially greatly influence player agency.
> 
> Like here. I need to know the details for why and what it was, the existing details in the fiction (is this NPC trusted by the PCs or someone they’ve just met, etc) and other details.
> 
> Without some details that justify this decision, it seems questionable to me.
> 
> This seems acceptable in general. But again, the relationship between this NPC and the PCs is crucial. Is this the equivalent of Gandalf turning out to have lied to Frodo? Or is it someone they’ve just met? Did the GM prompt them in any way to either accept or challenge this information?
> 
> This would seem fine to me. The dice have determined the consequence. When the GM reveals the lie, he can point to the roll where the PCs had a chance to detect it and failed.
> 
> I think the absence of this specific cause is what makes A and B more questionable. When the players ask why, there isn’t some neutral point of arbitration to cite. All the GM has to explain is vague notions along the lines of “I thought it’d be cool” or similar.
> 
> That being said, again I think that many other factors can come into play here.



So, what factors would make it illusionism? What factors would make it so the players retain their agency?


----------



## Ovinomancer

zarionofarabel said:


> It was just an example as to what might happen at the table. As for the details of the scene where the PCs interacted with the NPC, there are none, as it was just an example of what might happen. Just a thought project to gauge where I am in offering my players meaningful informed choices so I can ensure they have agency to act within the narrative.
> 
> So let's keep thought projecting!
> 
> For the purposes of this thought project details such as the reasons why the GM might change the truth of what the NPC said really don't matter. The GM might have decided it was better for the story, or the GM is just being a jerk. You decide!
> 
> Anyway, on to the thought project!
> 
> A) The NPC was telling the truth, but then the GM changed that fact later.
> 
> B) The NPC was lying but the players bought the lie and didn't bother to check to see if the NPC was lying.
> 
> C) The NPC was lying, the players thought the NPC was lying, but failed their "detect lies" roll so the PCs bought the lie.
> 
> Which example(s) are illusionism? Which example(s) deny the players agency? Which example(s) DO NOT deny the players agency?



A can be illusionism, but also might not, depending on outcome.  The issue with A is that any decisions the PCs made during the interaction end in the same result -- the NPC lied and the players believed them.  

B is not illusionism, or even any reduction in agency.  The players had the option to try to detect falsehood and did not.  However, if the GM downplayed any tells and played up the veracity of the NPC, then it's teetering on the edge of Force anyway.

C is not illusionism, nor a reduction in agency, provided the failed check was fairly handled.  Failure has consequences, and that's a fine one.  Agency doesn't involved success, it involves choice.  Here the players made the choice, but failed the execution.  That's perfectly fine, agency-wise.  The way this could slid towards Force is if the GM doesn't provide a fair check, either through overly high DC setting (for games that feature such) or overriding outcomes (not honoring the roll) or by calling for multiple checks and stopping on a failure.


----------



## Ovinomancer

zarionofarabel said:


> So, what factors would make it illusionism? What factors would make it so the players retain their agency?



Illusionism is simple -- the GM offers a choice that appears to have weight, but the outcome is already decided. Usually, the knowledge the outcome is fixed is hidden from the players.  In the toy example presented, the post hoc decision to force an outcome invalidates the choice offered (ie, how the PCs interacted with the NPC).  This is hidden from the PCs until the GM pulls the trigger on the betrayal, and so fits into Illusionism.  That the GM Forced the outcome will likely be apparent when that happens is a good indication you probably shouldn't do this.


----------



## Michael Silverbane

So, I do preps for my game by describing locations (a room, a building, a town, a county, a nation, and a world might get equal treatment or differing treatment depending on how inspiration strikes me) and peoples (again, Steve, the DeVillio Family, the Dwarfs of Illigrad, and the Mantid Species all get varying levels of detail depending on how much comes to me when the mood hits) and phenomena (bad weather, kidnappings, a bumper crop of air willow, a prophesied birth, etc.). Some of these preps have no relation to what my players are currently involved in and will never see the light of day. Some get called back to in later sessions or are callbacks from earlier sessions. Some are directly related to things that I know the players are interested in.

I like to have enough preps to offer players three new enumerated choices for any given lull in the action. Once the player characters have ensured that Steve has been dealt with, fir instance, I might feed them rumors about local lumber workers going missing in the silver forest, a number of troll sightings in the dank marsh, and a wizard's convention in the burg to the north. Players are free then to explore one of those new things, go back and revisit things that they learned about previously, pursue some personal agenda, or do some other thing that I hadn't considered.

Much of the time, I end up adding substance to those preps that I have already done, rather than making things up whole-cloth, and rarely I will find myself either presenting a fully-formed thing to the players, or coming up with something entirely new.

My thoughts are that if I am making a good faith attempt to make the players' choices meaningful, and if the players feel like their choices are meaningful, then I'm doing a pretty good job.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Illusionism is simple -- the GM offers a choice that appears to have weight, but the outcome is already decided. Usually, the knowledge the outcome is fixed is hidden from the players.  In the toy example presented, the post hoc decision to force an outcome invalidates the choice offered (ie, how the PCs interacted with the NPC).  This is hidden from the PCs until the GM pulls the trigger on the betrayal, and so fits into Illusionism.  That the GM Forced the outcome will likely be apparent when that happens is a good indication you probably shouldn't do this.



It seems (and I hope @Ovinomancer will correct me if I misunderstand) that the question--whether deciding later in the course of the campaign that an NPC has misled the PCs is Illusionism--comes down to whether it invalidates the decisions the PCs have made. Springing it on them--pulling the trigger on the betrayal, as it's roughly phrased in the quote above--is going to feel more like Illusionism and/or Force than a more gradual revelation, as is prepping it so the NPC was wrong or misinformed, instead of as a betrayal.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> None of those three strictly *needs to be* illusionism, but the only one that seems likely to lead down that dark path (and forever dominate the GM's destiny) is your A. It's plausible--though you're leaving the GM's motivations out of it--that something arose in prep and something needed to change; in that case, I'd say the GM is as much a victim of the illusionism as the players ...



You seem to be saying that if the GM has a good reason to change it, it is not illusionism, which seems like a weird definition to me. Of course the GM will  think they have a good reason for the change, they certainly wouldn't change it otherwise!

Furthermore, I must protest the assumption that anything has even been changed. My mindset is that if the PCs did not learn whether the NPC was speaking truth or was lying, then there is nothing to be changed. The NPC's liar/honest state is undetermined and establishing it later in one way or another is no more of a change than adding any other fact or setting detail that was previously undetermined.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> You seem to be saying that if the GM has a good reason to change it, it is not illusionism, which seems like a weird definition to me. Of course the GM will  think they have a good reason for the change, they certainly wouldn't change it otherwise!
> 
> Furthermore, I must protest the assumption that anything has even been changed. My mindset is that if the PCs did not learn whether the NPC was speaking truth or was lying, then there is nothing to be changed. The NPC's liar/honest state is undetermined and establishing it later in one way or another is no more of a change than adding any other fact or setting detail that was previously undetermined.



What I'm saying is that the GM can change facts on the ground without it being Illusionism. Just because what you were told isn't true doesn't mean you didn't make a choice that mattered. I agree with @Ovinomancer above that "you probably shouldn't do this," but you'll note that's not an absolute.

As to whether anything has changed ... There's a good argument that the stakes of the PCs' decision/s have changed, which might at least seem to be denying them agency. Certainly they didn't make the decision they thought they were making, which is part of why I'm not a huge fan of the sudden-but-inevitable betrayal as a plot point: I strongly prefer for an NPC to be wrong, as opposed to lying; it seems less complicated to me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

L


Crimson Longinus said:


> You seem to be saying that if the GM has a good reason to change it, it is not illusionism, which seems like a weird definition to me. Of course the GM will  think they have a good reason for the change, they certainly wouldn't change it otherwise!
> 
> Furthermore, I must protest the assumption that anything has even been changed. My mindset is that if the PCs did not learn whether the NPC was speaking truth or was lying, then there is nothing to be changed. The NPC's liar/honest state is undetermined and establishing it later in one way or another is no more of a change than adding any other fact or setting detail that was previously undetermined.



I think this is a valid point. But I think the question becomes how was this framed at the time. What checks if any were allowed and were they successful? Depending on all of this, it very well may be that something is changed.


----------



## aramis erak

hawkeyefan said:


> Where it could be illusionism is if the GM has an encounter with some ogres planned and it happens in the Forest or the Chasm. Likewise, if the GM is crafting details on the fly and uses the same enemy stats, but simply labels the enemies by a different name. So his 2HD humanoids that have a +2 to hit are Orcs in the Forest or Sandpeople in the Chasm....that’s illusionism as well, I’d say.



Note that, in several published games, monsters literally have only one mechanical impact.

The best known of these is Tunnels and Trolls, where most monsters are defined by a description and one mechanical rating: Monster Rating. (Combat power of MR being 1d per 10 points, plus a number of pips equal to half the MR.) So, in T&T, the only difference is how the GM describes the Monster.
Literally, the only difference between a MR 20 Ork and a MR20 skeleton is the description. (except, perhaps, in 7th, where the critters might have spite triggered abilities.)

So it may or may not be illusionism...


----------



## hawkeyefan

aramis erak said:


> Note that, in several published games, monsters literally have only one mechanical impact.
> 
> The best known of these is Tunnels and Trolls, where most monsters are defined by a description and one mechanical rating: Monster Rating. (Combat power of MR being 1d per 10 points, plus a number of pips equal to half the MR.) So, in T&T, the only difference is how the GM describes the Monster.
> Literally, the only difference between a MR 20 Ork and a MR20 skeleton is the description. (except, perhaps, in 7th, where the critters might have spite triggered abilities.)
> 
> So it may or may not be illusionism...




Sure, there will always be exceptions. If that’s the way the game is set up then I don’t think anyone’s expectations would be otherwise. If I was running such a game, then I’d likely not rely on monster stats as a factor of meaningful choice. There are many other things that you can bring to bear in this way. 

But if the game doesn't work that way, then I think physical environment may be a big factor in player choice, especially if supported by what’s already been established in the fiction. The types of hazards they face depends greatly on environment. 

Again, this is all assuming some amount of knowledge of the choices offered.


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?



I haven't read the rest of the thread yet, just your OP.

But I don't see the issue.

If you plot stuff in advance, then the focus of play becomes _the players learning what is in your notes_. My shorthand description of this is _RPG-as-puzzle_.

Personally I don't like this much either as player or GM, except perhaps in small doses used to support some other focus of play.

Playing in the improv style you describe - _no myth _as it is sometimes called - is very apt to provide the players with agency _provided that_ they system (i) allows them to make meaningful action declarations, and (ii) the outcomes of action resolution are honoured in subsequent play.

This how games otherwise as different as Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World and Wuthering Heights work. It's also how I approach 4e D&D, Classic Traveller, and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+.


----------



## pemerton

Jd Smith1 said:


> I would say that in an 'improv' method such as yours (which I have used in the past), is going to be a shallow pond. Working off the cuff, improvising as you go, you can certainly come up with memorable gaming; it can even allow for some player agency.
> 
> But for real, dynamic player agency, I believe that you need more detail and depth of plot than a GM can come up with 'on the fly'.



This is an empirical claim. I've never seen any evidence to suggest that it is true.

Here's a link to an actual play report of a Wuthering Heights one-off. As you can read, nothing was planned (beyond what is implicit in playing a game set in Victorian-era Britain): the players rolled up their PCs, including their "problems"; on the basis of that we established an initial situation that made sense (the mute monk PC had turned up at the bookshop where the politically radical and occult-obsessed PC worked); I (as GM) elaborated on that scene; and then we followed the logic of play.

We had fisticuffs, a political meeting that degenerated into a fracas, hearts smitten and broken, a body dumped in the Thames, a prison riot and escape, a middle-aged policeman brought to the side of radical politics, ghostly possession, and in the end the bookshop burned down by the PC who worked there, with himself inside it.

I wouldn't pretend it's great literature, but equally I wouldn't describe it as a particularly "shallow pond" compared to a comparable prepared scenario (say a Cthulhu by Gaslight one-shot). If the players have genuine agency - that is, are able to make action declarations where the consequences of resolution _actually stick _and are followed through - then (i) the GM doesn't need to "come up with" a plot either in advance or on the fly, as the play of the game will do that, and (ii) there will be plenty of detail and depth.



Umbran said:


> How the content comes about it not the important bit.  Meaningful choice and agency happen when player choices make a difference in what happens.
> 
> So, let's say the PCs are traveling long distance cross-country, and you imagined beforehand that a tribe of orcs was in the way.  If the PCs negotiate with giant eagles to fly them over much of the intervening territory, but they then have to fight the orcs as soon as they land anyway, then you have rendered the choice to negotiate with the birds meaningless, and thus removed some of the player's agency.
> 
> If the players can make their own lives better (or worse) through their choices, they have agency.



I don't think that "better" or "worse" is the right metric here. When playing Cthulhu Dark, for instance, we know in advance that the PCs' lives will probably get worse (they will have horrible experiences and lose their grip on sanity). But that doesn't stop the players exercising agency in Cthulhu Dark play.

What is key is _do the actions the players declare, and the resolution of those actions, actually matter?_ Because _what matters_ is highly context-sensitive, so is player agency.

For instance, in your example, what is at stake in the players' successful recruitment (via their PCs) of the eagles as a player-side resource? If the goal is to avoid encounters, then the GM who allows the players to believe that they have succeeded, and then springs the orc encounter on them anyway, is negating or disregarding player agency. If the goal is to avoid the exhaustion of travel, then the GM who springs the orc encounter is probably not negating agency: the players get the benefit (be that mechanical, or fictional positioning, depending on system) of confronting the orcs unexhausted.

This illustrates why a useful tool for helping to preserve or enhance player agency is to understand what the players hope they will achieve on a successful check. Eg if it is clear to everyone at the table that the goal of the eagle gambit is to avoid encounters, and the players succeed on the relevant check(s), then it will be crystal-clear what the GM is doing when s/he nevertheless springs the orc encounter. (I think this relates to @Ovinomancer's comments upthread about techniques that avoid illusionism.)



aramis erak said:


> If you want to ensure that players are seeing the story-direction when it comes to mechanical points, you can make it very clear by use of the "If you fail, you get..."
> While this can mitigate some of the surprise, it can also increase the tension of a die-roll.



This is the canonical procedure in Burning Wheel (as you, aramis erak, already know). Luke Crane admits in his commentary (in the Adventure Burner/Codex) that he doesn't always follow it. I'm the same when I GM BW.

But I think the idea of _clear stakes_ - be they express or implicit in the situation - is pretty important. Umbran's eagles example, and the various ways of cashing that out, shows why.

If the players don't know what is at stake (eg choosing a T-intersection with no knowledge of what is one way or another), then - in my own view - it doesn't increase their agency because the GM is narrating consequences based on pre-planning (eg a dungeon map and key) rather than making stuff up on the spot.

There are additional (sometimes unstated) GM-side conventions, beyond just preparing a map and key and sticking to it, that govern the design and adjudication of traditional dungeons that allow these temporary moments of low-agency to be the prelude to moments of high-agency (see eg Gygax's discussion of Successful Adventures in the closing pre-Appendix pages of his PHB). Roughly speaking, the more the game involves a "living, breathing, realistic" world the less those conventions will be observed, and hence the less agency the players can generate out of initial low-agency situations where they simply discover what the GM has prepared.

Hence, for player agency-oriented RPGing which wants to deal with rich, verisimilitudinous characters and settings, the appeal of non-map-and-key based approaches like PbtA, Burning Wheel, BitD, etc. That's not to say that these games are, or have to be, prep free; but the role of prep is pretty different from what it is in traditional D&D. Most importantly, prep rarely provides a basis for declaring - by reference to fiction known only to the GM - that an action declaration fails. That's key to how these approaches maintain player agency by not obscuring the stakes in action resolution.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> I don't think that "better" or "worse" is the right metric here.




Well, if you want to be picky/pedantic about it, I didn't say "If _and only if_...."  So, I am not really pretending to give the One True Metric.

I think that I can stand by what I said as true, if not technically all-encompassing, and probably a significantly relevant bit for much of the audience at hand. 




pemerton said:


> Because _what matters_ is highly context-sensitive, so is player agency.




I daresay that is it so context-sensitive that the level of generality required to talk about it will tend to leave the discussion vague and unhelpful.  I chose to narrow down into a space that is, in my estimation, likely to be practical, rather than theoretical.


----------



## pemerton

Tonguez said:


> I find that improv tends to mean you are responding directly to what the players are presenting as their characters actions and motivations. Indeed, with no pre determined plot it means that players and GM are in an active dialogue concieving the game and setting in situ with each response - that to me is absolutely Player Agency.



Agreed.



Tonguez said:


> The only way it could be better is if you allowed for players to actively describe setting elements and influence NPC description/action (say via a Action Point system)



Not fully agreed. I've got nothing against such systems - though the ones I use (eg Burning Wheel, MHRP/Cortex+) tend to treat it as part of ordinary action resolution rather than via a separate point-expenditure system.

But games can have full-fledge player agency without those sorts of mechanics - eg Prince Valiant, and (most of the time) Classic Traveller.



Tonguez said:


> I Think this essentially comes down to NPC motivation - even in an pure Improv session with only a very vague plot (say fetch the Mcguffin for the local Noble) the antagonistic NPCs need to have a motivation beyond ‘be an obstacle for the PCs’.
> AS DM I should at least know Why they are being obstacles to the PCs. Answering Why is enough to make PCs actions matter regardless of the outcome, revealing the Why acts as another hook for the players.



I tend to take a fairly relaxed approach to this: I will often start with the NPC first, establishing their attitude either by fiat or by reading of some other system cue (eg in Classic Traveller there might be a reaction roll; or if the NPC is the outcome of a roll on the random patron table, then that establishes that they are in the market for some non-standard service providers such as the PCs!); and then build up the details of motivation and backstory as things unfold, both as part of action resolution and in order to keep things moving if they seem to be flagging.

My approach here has been influenced, I think, by this old Forge post from Paul Czege:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
I don't think my games are very often as emotionally intense as the sort of thing Paul Czege is going for, but the basic approach is one I've found very instructive. I used it at the start of my current Classic Traveller campaign, for example, to gradually build up the details of the bioweapons plot the PCs were enmeshed in (some relevant actual play posts here and here).

This approach helps preserve player agency and avoid illusionism, because consequences and revelations happen downstream of action resolution, not upstream.



prabe said:


> I think the only pitfall in total improv, as far as avoiding railroading, is that you as GM might be sub/un-consciously railroading yourself. If you're improvising everything it can be hard to prove either way, but the possibility seems there.



I don't know what "railroading yourself" means here.

As a GM it's natural to frame situations and establish fiction that seem interesting to you (with the hope that they will also interest the players). But if the players are genuinely exercising agency then I don't see where any railroading is going to come from.



Crimson Longinus said:


> If your players feel that they have agency then they have sufficient agency.



I don't agree with this at all, for basically the same reasons as @Ovinomancer.

If the players _know_ how much agency they have, and are happy with that, then I agree that that is sufficient. But _feel _seems to leave open the possibility of misapprehension, perhaps as a result of deliberate trickery or manipulation ("illusionism") on the part of the GM. As a GM, I'm not interested in that; and as a player I think it's pretty fraught - I've seen games come unstuck when the illusion has been revealed!

If the GM is going to curtail player agency I would prefer that be clear upfront - which can include it being implicit in the system (eg if I play a CoC scenario at a tournament, as used to back in the day, I don't expect to have much influence on events beyond thespianising my character; in return I expect to be entertained by a GM who is able to evoke mood and feeling through effective narration and characterisation of NPCs).



zarionofarabel said:


> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



I think there can be good reasons not to retrospectively decide that something was a lie, because this risks destabilising the players' confidence in GM narration, which - somewhat independent of the agency question - can lead to a bit of a downward spiral.

But just focusing on the relationship between the NPC lie, the retrospectivity, and player agency - to me this goes right back to the issue of _how is it decided_ and _how does it relate to action resolution_? If the decision that the information was false is part of adjudicating a failed check, that would seem fair game.

Or imagine an Apocalypse World game where, at some earlier point, the PC (and hence player) learned such-and-such from a NPC. And then further play has revealed that NPC to be a slimy weasel who's not to be trusted. And then a player _succeeds _on a check to read a charged situation - maybe the GM gives information that is (i) true, as it must be given the player's success, and (ii) reveals the NPC to have been lying all along! In the right context that needn't be any sort of illusionism, nor threat to player agency - it might _affirm _the players' emerging sense of the NPC's untrustworthiness and provide them with a valuable edge at a crucial moment (which presumably this is, given that at least one player is having his/her PC read a charged situation).

In the opening session of my Classic Traveller game (linked to above in this post), the players met a patron (rolled by me as GM on the random patron encounter table) who recruited them for a particular cargo-carrying job (made up by me on the spot so as to incorporate both (i) what little established backstory we had out of PC generation and initial world generation, and (ii) a couple of other worlds that I'd rolled up before the session). The story didn't make much sense, and so the "spy" PC invited the patron NPC back to his room where he "interrogated" (ie seduced) her and got more information. I had to make up that additional information, and part of that involved revealing some elements of her initial approach as, if not outright lies, at least less than full disclosure.

This didn't negate any player agency. It affirmed it.


----------



## pemerton

This is the last of my slightly spammy replies, as I catch up on this interesting thread.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think that what matters most is that the players’ choice has an impact. So if the GM has presented a forking path in their road and says that one goes into the Dark Forest and the other heads to the Grim Chasm, then the results of that choice should be different in some way that matters.
> 
> So, if the GM has prepped an encounter with giant spiders in the forest and one with Tuscan Raider type sandpeople in the Grim Chasm, that’s not illusionism despite the fact that these encounters are preset. Nor would it be illusionism if the GM took the choice into consideration, and then crafted an encounter based on that choice.
> 
> Where it could be illusionism is if the GM has an encounter with some ogres planned and it happens in the Forest or the Chasm. Likewise, if the GM is crafting details on the fly and uses the same enemy stats, but simply labels the enemies by a different name. So his 2HD humanoids that have a +2 to hit are Orcs in the Forest or Sandpeople in the Chasm....that’s illusionism as well, I’d say.



Again, I think context is the determinant here.

First, as @aramis erak has pointed out, in some systems the only difference between Orcs and Sandpeople is in the fiction. This is not just Tunnels & Trolls, either - it's largely true in Prince Valiant and can also be true for many "mob" (ie non-unique) opponents in Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic. But if the _fiction_ of whom the PCs encounter is different, _and_ if the game being played is one where that fiction matters (in Prince Valiant it normally will; in White Plume Mountain it normally won't; so this too is contextual), then there is no illusionism: the players chose a trope/theme (forest rather than badlands) and the GM served up the appropriate fiction.

I'm not sure that's the most epic demonstration of player agency ever - the fact that the results are different doesn't tell us much about agency, if the players were choosing essentially randomly. All I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be illusionism. (Eg if it's not illusionism and is also low agency, maybe we're seeing a potentially boring sandbox. Not my sort of game, but they do exist and back in the day I've run them - not on purpose, but because at the time I didn't know how to do better.)



hawkeyefan said:


> There needs to be meaningful difference. At the very least the terrain of the encounters and therefore the difficulty should vary.
> 
> There can be lots of other factors that can be brought to bear on this...travel time, treasure gained, information learned or known ahead of time....many others. These things can enhance or diminish player agency.
> 
> But at it’s very core, it boils down to their decision mattering to the fiction and the game. Can things go differently if they take Option A instead of Option B?



My view is that the game can be a total railroad - ie almost zero player agency - and yet your last sentence be true.

Eg if the GM has planned everything out (like the sort of decision-tree @prabe alluded to upthread), and then when the players choose A or B the GM moves down the decision tree, narrates the appropriate outcome, and frames the next choice, things will go differently if the players take Option A instead of Option B. But that game (self-evidently) won't involve any more player agency than a choose-your-own adventure book.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> I think that I can stand by what I said as true, if not technically all-encompassing, and probably a significantly relevant bit for much of the audience at hand.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I chose to narrow down into a space that is, in my estimation, likely to be practical, rather than theoretical.



I think there's good reason, when discussing player agency in RPGing, to avoid focusing on D&D-type choices like _do we fight Orcs rather than Sandpeople?_ or _do we heal (by walking through the blessed meadows) rather than lose hp (by taking the path through the forest of darkness)?_

Those sorts of essentially tactical choices are important for the resource management and wargaming aspects of RPGing. But I think that at the core of player agency in RPGing - and where one sees the flash points around railroading, the role of prep, adjudication of alignment, etc - is _who gets to decide what matters and what is at stake_? Eg if at the start of the campaign the GM tells the players (whether directly, or via a quest-giver, or via a reminder of alignment or divine affiliation, etc) _who the big bad is_, then I predict that that will be a low-agency campaign regardless of how the GM handles things like choosing how _what is encountered_ correlates to _which path is taken_.


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?




When I think of player agency in TTRPGing, I think of two different axes:

*Breadth/Potency*

_*Interesting/Provocative*_

Here is an example of a decision-point in the style of play you're describing above:

A Whisper (Warlock/Spiritualist/Weirdo-Arcanist type) PC in Blades in the Dark is on a Score within one of Duskvol's Lightning Towers in order to secretly replace some failing infrastructure before it goes critical.  A failure in a prior Action Roll yields a Standard Complication; 2 ticks on the "Critical Mass" Racing Clock (vs the Crisis Averted Clock for the PC's Progress). The gamestate has changed (become more desperate) so the attendant fiction has to escalate/change likewise.

There are many ways the GM could go here.  Two such ways are:

a)  Introduce a Spirit obstacle as the Lightning Boundary winks out momentarily, letting the supernatural manifest.  After brief parley, the Spirit offers the Whisper insight into the Ghost Field if a mutually beneficial attunement will be agreed upon so the creature can extract material vengeance through the Whisper for something that happened during its life that went unresolved.  If they can't come to an agreement, then Possession is on the menu.

b)  Introduce a physical obstacle.  The Leviathan Blood Manifold (whatever this is) on the floor above the PCs suffers a containment leak.  Let's say in a cost-cutting move, the supernatural material wasn't sufficiently processed and refined so when it comes into contact with the cast-iron framing of the tower, it animates it with the latent vengeance of the beast it was pilfered from.  As the PCs ascend the steps, the door flies open and two engineers attempt a screaming escape as a pair of Venom-like tendrils impales one and grasps the leg of the other and pulls them back into the room...

These are going to be interesting/provocative for a Whisper or a Leech while some other type of complication will be more thematically compelling for a Slide or a Lurk.

The *Breadth/Potency* question is answered by "To what extent is the present gamestate/fiction an emergent quality of prior player decision-point navigation meeting with the game's systematized resolution procedures and ethos (or to what extent is it a subordination/suspension of that navigation/those procedures and ethos)."

The *Interesting/Provocative* question is answered by some combination (% TBD) of system (eg in Blades "does it hook into a Vice/Heritage/Beliefs/Drives/Backgrounds/Relationships, can it lead to a Devil's Bargain or a Desperate Action Roll, etc), genre, personal player taste.

My personal sense of navigating this question is, agency increases in proportion to fidelity to the question above and agency "feels more meaningful" when its interesting/provocative.

You can have robust agency that isn't terribly interesting/provocative, so good GMing needs to be focusing on honing their craft to produce both at every moment of play.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I think there's good reason, when discussing player agency in RPGing, to avoid focusing on D&D-type choices like _do we fight Orcs rather than Sandpeople?_ or _do we heal (by walking through the blessed meadows) rather than lose hp (by taking the path through the forest of darkness)?_
> 
> Those sorts of essentially tactical choices are important for the resource management and wargaming aspects of RPGing. But I think that at the core of player agency in RPGing - and where one sees the flash points around railroading, the role of prep, adjudication of alignment, etc - is _who gets to decide what matters and what is at stake_? Eg if at the start of the campaign the GM tells the players (whether directly, or via a quest-giver, or via a reminder of alignment or divine affiliation, etc) _who the big bad is_, then I predict that that will be a low-agency campaign regardless of how the GM handles things like choosing how _what is encountered_ correlates to _which path is taken_.



Very true. The actual interesting choices tend to be about bigger things, morals, overall goals, life or death etc. I sometimes use various sort of force, illusionism included on small choices, if it ends up the PCs getting into place where big choices can be made and will matter.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Again, I think context is the determinant here.
> 
> First, as @aramis erak has pointed out, in some systems the only difference between Orcs and Sandpeople is in the fiction. This is not just Tunnels & Trolls, either - it's largely true in Prince Valiant and can also be true for many "mob" (ie non-unique) opponents in Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic. But if the _fiction_ of whom the PCs encounter is different, _and_ if the game being played is one where that fiction matters (in Prince Valiant it normally will; in White Plume Mountain it normally won't; so this too is contextual), then there is no illusionism: the players chose a trope/theme (forest rather than badlands) and the GM served up the appropriate fiction.
> 
> I'm not sure that's the most epic demonstration of player agency ever - the fact that the results are different doesn't tell us much about agency, if the players were choosing essentially randomly. All I'm saying is that it doesn't have to be illusionism. (Eg if it's not illusionism and is also low agency, maybe we're seeing a potentially boring sandbox. Not my sort of game, but they do exist and back in the day I've run them - not on purpose, but because at the time I didn't know how to do better.)




Oh I agree.....my example was very basic, and based on previous comments. I assumed some level of knowledge of the options that made the choice not random, but even then, this is a pretty minor example of agency as it relates to play. 



pemerton said:


> My view is that the game can be a total railroad - ie almost zero player agency - and yet your last sentence be true.
> 
> Eg if the GM has planned everything out (like the sort of decision-tree @prabe alluded to upthread), and then when the players choose A or B the GM moves down the decision tree, narrates the appropriate outcome, and frames the next choice, things will go differently if the players take Option A instead of Option B. But that game (self-evidently) won't involve any more player agency than a choose-your-own adventure book.




I suppose that's true if all decision points have been given a set amount of options to choose from, and then the GM simply follows the choice to the next set of options to choose, in a kind of branching pattern. That's not what I had in mind, but that's what I get for trying to sum it up in a sentence. 

I think I was more intending that the choices of the players setting things off on new branches that have not been predetermined by the GM. To use a metaphor, the PCs are blazing their own trail rather than following one of those set by the GM. As you point out, the system and the goals and methods of play will matter quite a bit in this regard.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't know what "railroading yourself" means here.
> 
> As a GM it's natural to frame situations and establish fiction that seem interesting to you (with the hope that they will also interest the players). But if the players are genuinely exercising agency then I don't see where any railroading is going to come from.




I'm not really looking to argue with you, here--I don't think we understand each other well enough for that to be productive--but my thinking about a GM railroading themself goes along with a GM being the victim of their own Illusionism (which I mentioned elsewhere in this thread). If you as GM are in a position where you don't even have the starting position prepped, you might well end up coming to the same place no matter what the PCs do, because you are trapped in your own brain and in the moment; I'm thinking sort of when a GM decides what an "interesting result" would be.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I'm not really looking to argue with you, here--I don't think we understand each other well enough for that to be productive--but my thinking about a GM railroading themself goes along with a GM being the victim of their own Illusionism (which I mentioned elsewhere in this thread). If you as GM are in a position where you don't even have the starting position prepped, you might well end up coming to the same place no matter what the PCs do, because you are trapped in your own brain and in the moment; I'm thinking sort of when a GM decides what an "interesting result" would be.




Can you go a bit deeper into what you have in mind here?

Maybe use the component parts of the Blades example that I posted above?

Keep in mind, "Illusionism" is a GM using "Force" covertly to subordinate the trajectory of play as one or more outcomes are an outgrowth of that applied Force rather than an emergent byproduct of players' navigating decision-points + resolution mechanic deployment.

For instance, are you saying in my above scenario, that Blades GM (who is, by system ethos, to prep less and let the system's structure + the creative energy at the table propel play) would be more apt to covertly subordinate the trajectory of play...yet not be aware of it?  If so, is this some kind of statement on the alleged values and malleability of games that are more "Structured Free-Form-Inclined" being a bit of a cognitive trap or cognitive boondoggle?

So if I'm GMing that above Blades scenario and the Whisper fails a Risky Attune Action Roll (the Whisper tries to reach into the Ghost Field to experience the last moments of life of a fresh, grisly corpse that was discovered just below the engineering deck of the Lightning Tower), leading to two ticks of the Critical Mass Racing Clock, leading to one of the two Complications I roughed out above.  This moment of play becomes vulnerable to being a product of Illusionism because I'm thinking along the axes of thematic, interesting results (which hook into the constituent parts of play - the fiction of the Score to date, the gamestate of the two Racing Clocks, etc)?  Is that perhaps what you're proposing?  If so, is a GM that also incorporates uninteresting and/or thematically unprovocative Complications less vulnerable to this "you Illusionified yourself silly GM(!)" phenomenon you're depicting?


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Can you go a bit deeper into what you have in mind here?
> 
> Maybe use the component parts of the Blades example that I posted above?
> 
> Keep in mind, "Illusionism" is a GM using "Force" covertly to subordinate the trajectory of play as one or more outcomes are an outgrowth of that applied Force rather than an emergent byproduct of players' navigating decision-points + resolution mechanic deployment.
> 
> For instance, are you saying in my above scenario, that Blades GM (who is, by system ethos, to prep less and let the system's structure + the creative energy at the table propel play) would be more apt to covertly subordinate the trajectory of play...yet not be aware of it?  If so, is this some kind of statement on the alleged values and malleability of games that are more "Structured Free-Form-Inclined" being a bit of a cognitive trap or cognitive boondoggle?
> 
> So if I'm GMing that above Blades scenario and the Whisper fails a Risky Attune Action Roll (the Whisper tries to reach into the Ghost Field to experience the last moments of life of a fresh, grisly corpse that was discovered just below the engineering deck of the Lightning Tower), leading to two ticks of the Critical Mass Racing Clock, leading to one of the two Complications I roughed out above.  This moment of play becomes vulnerable to being a product of Illusionism because I'm thinking along the axes of thematic, interesting results (which hook into the constituent parts of play - the fiction of the Score to date, the gamestate of the two Racing Clocks, etc)?  Is that perhaps what you're proposing?  If so, is a GM that also incorporates uninteresting and/or thematically unprovocative Complications less vulnerable to this "you Illusionified yourself silly GM(!)" phenomenon you're depicting?



What I'm getting at, here, is that to the extent GMing is like writing fiction, a GM who has gotten far enough past his prep might be unintentionally taking the story where he wants it to go regardless of what the PCs do, the same way a novelist who doesn't outline or sketch ahead of where he is writing would. I'm not saying it's inevitable--or even necessarily likely; I'm just saying it's possible. I'm certainly not calling any game or playstyle a trap or a boondoggle.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> What I'm getting at, here, is that to the extent GMing is like writing fiction, a GM who has gotten far enough past his prep might be unintentionally taking the story where he wants it to go regardless of what the PCs do, the same way a novelist who doesn't outline or sketch ahead of where he is writing would. I'm not saying it's inevitable--or even necessarily likely; I'm just saying it's possible. I'm certainly not calling any game or playstyle a trap or a boondoggle.




I read you.  I gathered that is what you were saying.

I'm asking you to outline the machinery of how you think that would work.  This is why I brought up "cognitive trap" or "cognitive boondoggle."  That depicts some machinery of how this might work for a GM (and I've seen something like this implied before).  A GM (i) _believes _they aren't subordinating play to their will, but their lack of prep (ii) creates an inertia that leads to unconscious subordination of play (your proposed "victim of their own illusionism") because of (iii) properties x/y/z (however many) that is native to low prep systems/play.

What I'm asking you to do is describe this machinery in clear terms; (i), (ii), (iii) above.  If you described it using the Blades example I laid out above, all the better.  I can continuously draw up hypotheses and ask you "yes or no" until something hits, but it would be easier if you just explained it in a level of detail (a "premortem" of sorts).


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> I read you.  I gathered that is what you were saying.
> 
> I'm asking you to outline the machinery of how you think that would work.  This is why I brought up "cognitive trap" or "cognitive boondoggle."  That depicts some machinery of how this might work for a GM (and I've seen something like this implied before).  A GM (i) _believes _they aren't subordinating play to their will, but their lack of prep (ii) creates an inertia that leads to unconscious subordination of play (your proposed "victim of their own illusionism") because of (iii) properties x/y/z (however many) that is native to low prep systems/play.
> 
> What I'm asking you to do is describe this machinery in clear terms; (i), (ii), (iii) above.  If you described it using the Blades example I laid out above, all the better.  I can continuously draw up hypotheses and ask you "yes or no" until something hits, but it would be easier if you just explained it in a level of detail (a "premortem" of sorts).




So, guessing at the mechanism:

GM hasn't prepped (or even considered) what happens if the PCs don't do anything, so when PCs act in ways to change the fiction, the GM doesn't have a starting point. GM reacts to PCs' action/s with the first thing that comes to mind--doesn't consider multiple results/effects--and maybe eventually the story results of success start to look like the story results of failure. While I don't think there's anything particular about low/no-prep play that makes it inevitable, this particular path seems to require the GM to at least get outside of what they've prepped (which in a no-prep style means at the start of the session).



Manbearcat said:


> So if I'm GMing that above Blades scenario and the Whisper fails a Risky Attune Action Roll (the Whisper tries to reach into the Ghost Field to experience the last moments of life of a fresh, grisly corpse that was discovered just below the engineering deck of the Lightning Tower), leading to two ticks of the Critical Mass Racing Clock, leading to one of the two Complications I roughed out above. This moment of play becomes vulnerable to being a product of Illusionism because I'm thinking along the axes of thematic, interesting results (which hook into the constituent parts of play - the fiction of the Score to date, the gamestate of the two Racing Clocks, etc)? Is that perhaps what you're proposing? If so, is a GM that also incorporates uninteresting and/or thematically unprovocative Complications less vulnerable to this "you Illusionified yourself silly GM(!)" phenomenon you're depicting?




I think the GM in Blades is supposed to pick Complications that are relevant to the PCs. I think it's only something like Illusionism if the same result was going to happen no matter which PC failed what sort of check, which could be a matter of too much prep or the GM being in a bit of a rut.


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## zarionofarabel

You peeps have moved far beyond me. Suffice to say I have little motive to see the narrative move in a specific direction other than to stick to what I believe would be a logical outcome. If the players take me to happy places I'm happy to go there, if they take me dark places I will indulge them as long as everyone is comfortable with it. There are only twelve stories, or seven plots, or five stories, or four plots, so what does it matter where the story goes it's all a story that's already been told. Mostly I'm trying to make a fun experience for the players.


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## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> You peeps have moved far beyond me. Suffice to say I have little motive to see the narrative move in a specific direction other than to stick to what I believe would be a logical outcome. If the players take me to happy places I'm happy to go there, if they take me dark places I will indulge them as long as everyone is comfortable with it. There are only twelve stories, or seven plots, or five stories, or four plots, so what does it matter where the story goes it's all a story that's already been told. Mostly I'm trying to make a fun experience for the players.




I involved myself because a post went "beyond you (meaning your original post...though it was certainly related)."  I don't post much anymore, rarely read the boards, but sometimes I'll read something that piques my interest and I'll throw some words at it.

As far as your lead post goes, "play to find out what happens" is a Vincent Baker-ism that has been around for a decade and a half +.  His games are precisely how you depict your GMing ethos in the lead post; low prep and no metaplot (along with some other aspects).  I've heard a lot of laments that this style of play inherently leads to either (a) shallow content or (b) incoherent narrative (I vehemently dispute this claim and do so with empirical backing...I'm confident the people making that claim don't have sufficient first-hand data to back it up)  However, I have never heard someone make the claim that this sort of GMing can lead to a state of "GM Cognitive Blind Spot Ilusionism" (where the GM subordinates play to their will unknowingly and without intent).  That is a very interesting bit of conjecture so I think entertaining a conversation on that is relevant to your initial ask (and certainly a curiosity to me).


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## zarionofarabel

Please by all means continue the discussion! 

I kinda understand some of it I guess, alot of the specialized language everyone has been using is unfamiliar to me, but the examples make sense. I kinda think I might understand but I do not want to divert the thread by asking dumb questions.

So please, please, please, continue the discussion!!!


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## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> The Leviathan Blood Manifold (whatever this is) on the floor above the PCs suffers a containment leak.



A side-comment on this, and relevant to the issue of _prep_: I think part of good framing is introducing story elements - like the _Leviathan Blood Manifold_ - that are evocative, make sense in light of genre and established fiction, and not fully defined. This gives the players something to riff on. Even something as simply as a wizard's tower (in a fantasy game) or an enemy base (in a sci-fi game) can be the starting point for interesting action declarations.

Tying everything down in advance will produce a very different play experience. It doesn't _have_ to negate player agency - everything in White Plume Mountain is pretty tied down, but the players can still manifest agency in making decisions about how to overcome the puzzles - but you're probably going to get more of a focus on engineering details and fewer Leviathan Blood Manifolds.

This also relates to @Tonguez's comment upthread about player-introduced story elements. In my 4e game, much of the detail about how magic works and what can be achieved using it was introduced by the player of the invoker/wizard. But not as overt "player narrative control" based on spending fate points (or whatever); rather, he would declare actions (typically in skill challenges) and as part of that would set out his theory of how magic worked and what his PC was trying to do with it - and if the action succeeded, then his theory is validated!

I think of that as an important manifestation of player agency.



prabe said:


> my thinking about a GM railroading themself goes along with a GM being the victim of their own Illusionism (which I mentioned elsewhere in this thread). If you as GM are in a position where you don't even have the starting position prepped, you might well end up coming to the same place no matter what the PCs do, because you are trapped in your own brain and in the moment; I'm thinking sort of when a GM decides what an "interesting result" would be.





prabe said:


> What I'm getting at, here, is that to the extent GMing is like writing fiction, a GM who has gotten far enough past his prep might be unintentionally taking the story where he wants it to go regardless of what the PCs do, the same way a novelist who doesn't outline or sketch ahead of where he is writing would. I'm not saying it's inevitable--or even necessarily likely; I'm just saying it's possible.



I don't really follow this. A novelist who writes without outlining or sketching ahead _takes the story where s/he wants it to go_. Presumably, though, a novelist who outlines or sketches ahead also _takes the story where s/he wants it to go_. Why would you write an outline or sketch that isn't what you want?

But in any event GMing isn't all that much like writing fiction, because - assuming player agency is manifested at the table - the GM is not the sole or even the primary author. The players, in declaring actions for their PCs and making it clear what they hope those actions to intend, play a key role in establishing the parameters of the subsequently-narrated fiction.

Just thinking through the games I've run over the past few years, most had no starting position prepped:

* Prince Valiant: the players created their PCs, we invented some backstory (two were father and son; the third had joined them on the road; all were on their way to a tournament); I looked through the books and chose a first episode; the game currently has the PCs crusading in Cyprus at the head of the holy order they founded, which is not where I (or, I think, they) anticipated things would end up;

* Classic Traveller: the players rolled up their PCs; I rolled a starting world; we invented some backstory to establish the nature of the world and explain why all the PCs were on it; I rolled a random patron on the patron encounter table; and we went from there into a bioweapons conspiracy; currently the PCs are on the other side of a galactic rift (following a misjump) investigating a 2 billion year old alien pyramid embedded in ice;

* Dark Sun 4e D&D: the players built their PCs; I told them we would be starting in Tyr after the revolution, and then asked them to write "kickers"; one of those kickers established that the revolution was in train at that very moment, and that it was taking place during a gladiatorial contest, and so this established the starting situation; this game has been on hiatus for quite a while now but it was heading in the direction of urban intrigue last time we played it;

* Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy Hack: I distributed the pre-gen PCs; the players opted to interpret them in Viking rather than Japanese terms (I'd designed them to suit either); we then established a starting situation, of the players being sent north to investigate omens of trouble among the spirits and the gods; their first attempt failed when most of the PCs got lost in a dungeon except for one who robbed the dark elves of their gold and returned back south for a while; with the signs of the Ragnarok becoming more evident, they are currently in the middle of a second attempt;

* Cortex+ Heroic LotR/MERP: the players chose their PCs from the pregens I'd prepared; we worked out why they were going to set out from Imladris; and then started playing (I'd prepared some material for a journey to Ost-in-Edhil, but the PCs headed north into Angmar because Gandalf's player explained that Gandalf had heard rumours of the recovery of a palantir in Forochel); the PCs ended up heading south in pursuit of the palantir (after they failed to stop Orcs from taking it), and currently they are in Moria after the dwarf PC led them back into the halls of his ancestors in order to escape the scrutiny of Crebain of Dunland;

I've also run Cthulhu Dark, Wuthering Heights and AD&D (the last using the Appendix A random dungeon generation process) with no starting position prepped. One Cthulhu Dark session ended up with the three PCs - a journalist, a longshoreman and a legal secretary - using a tugboat to crash a cargo ship onto rocks; in another one the PCs remained essentially strangers to one another but ended up helping thwart a colonial venture involving were-hyenas.

The only games I can think of in which there _was _a starting position prepped is The Dying Earth, where we used the example scenario in the book; and one session of Castle Amber (using AD&D mechanics).

I haven't experienced any connection between no-prep and "coming to the same place no matter what the PCs do". And I don't really see how that would even happen, for two reasons: first, if there is no prep then almost inevitably the players play a greater role in establishing the starting situation; and second, the players will declare actions for their PCs which produce consequences which in turn determine what "place" is arrived at.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think I was more intending that the choices of the players setting things off on new branches that have not been predetermined by the GM. To use a metaphor, the PCs are blazing their own trail rather than following one of those set by the GM. As you point out, the system and the goals and methods of play will matter quite a bit in this regard.



This "blazing of their own trail" is, for me, the core of player agency in RPGing. It's why action declarations and their resolution are so fundamental. And it's why - if players are to exercise agency - there have to be limits on what can be determined via GM prep.

With regard to "system and methods of play", I'll reiterate an example I've mentioned in other threads: Classic Traveller generally is (in my view) a very robust system which reliably permits genuine and effective action resolution. That's not to say it's as tight as (say) Apocalypse World, but it's pretty good. With one exception: on-world exploration. There is no resolution framework for this beyond _the GM decides where the <whatever it is you're looking for> is and how long it will take you to find it_. There are rules for chances of vehicular malfunction per day, and for encounters, which are fine in themselves, but nothing analogous to a skill challenge or similar framework for actually finding things onworld.

Since I discovered this the hard way (ie during play!), I've handled all onworld exploration simply via free narration. Eg most recently, in order for the PCs to _find_ their pyramid embedded in ice, the checks required were actually social checks (to find a sect and then persuade it to hand over certain occult drawings which were actually time-series tectonic maps). But the actual journeying took place in a spaceship and was resolved via free narration: there are simply no mechanics to support making it, in itself, a focus of play.

If someone is mostly used to systems that don't have robust action resolution (except perhaps for small-group combat), then I see how they might posit that prep is _necessary _as a curb on the GM, because otherwise the GM might come to the same place no matter what the PCs do. I don't know what systems @prabe is familiar with beyond D&D; but the only version of D&D that has robust action resolution of the sort I'm talking about, across a wide range of possible action declarations, is 4e. Classic D&D is robust for dungeon exploration, and semi-robust for hex crawls, but not for much beyond that; and 5e seems pretty similar to classic (ie AD&D, B/X, etc), to me at least.

But if the action resolution rules are robust, prep is not needed to curb the GM and - if it is prep of outcomes, or of "branches" - starts to risk becoming a curb on player agency.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't really follow this. A novelist who writes without outlining or sketching ahead _takes the story where s/he wants it to go_. Presumably, though, a novelist who outlines or sketches ahead also _takes the story where s/he wants it to go_. Why would you write an outline or sketch that isn't what you want?
> 
> But in any event GMing isn't all that much like writing fiction, because - assuming player agency is manifested at the table - the GM is not the sole or even the primary author. The players, in declaring actions for their PCs and making it clear what they hope those actions to intend, play a key role in establishing the parameters of the subsequently-narrated fiction.




I agree that GMing isn't much like writing fiction, but the writer who doesn't plan probably experiences the writing process as one of discovery, more so than the one working from an outline. I am not a particularly good example, here, but when I was writing fiction it never entirely felt as though I was in control of where the stories went, and I've seen interviews with more successful writers who seemed to have similar experiences. I think I'm a better GM than I was a writer, and I think the interaction/gestalt around the table is most of why.



pemerton said:


> Just thinking through the games I've run over the past few years, most had no starting position prepped:



{snip}

By "starting position" I meant a combination of "what happens if the PCs don't do anything" and "where the PCs are." It's part of framing the fiction, I think, and I think that a GM who isn't careful about framing the fiction can find himself in a position where all paths lead to the same place.


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## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> However, I have never heard someone make the claim that this sort of GMing can lead to a state of "GM Cognitive Blind Spot Ilusionism" (where the GM subordinates play to their will unknowingly and without intent). That is a very interesting bit of conjecture so I think entertaining a conversation on that is relevant to your initial ask (and certainly a curiosity to me




I’m trying to imagine running Blades and trying to force a specific outcome, but to also be unaware that I’m doing so. 

I can’t seem to quite picture how it could be. When I run Blades, I do have ideas in mind of things I want to bring into play, but I don’t think that these elements are a case of force because they’re either a result of prior play....let’s say the PCs have killed a few opponents on a couple of scores, so now they’re being investigated by the Spirit Wardens....or they’re elements that the players have indicated they’d like to see....such as a player whose PC used to be a member of the Red Sashes, so I have the crew run afoul of that gang to see what happens. 

I suppose maybe an example could be if I wanted to incorporate Lord Scurlock as a foil to the PCs and so invariably the story runs headlong into him one way or the other, despite him not really being connected to anything that’s already been established in the game. Maybe that’s a GM forcing a specific element....but I’d think it’d be obvious. If not to the GM then to the players.


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## Lanefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Then your definition is illusionism is far narrower than commonly understood. I have had many discussions where anti-illusionism people are livid about the sort of thing mentioned here (i.e. a blind decision leading to a predetermined outcome regardless of the choice being made.)
> 
> "Do you want to go to the Grim Woods or to the Ghastly Forest?" Regardless: orcs!



Which raises a side-along question: in a situation where the DM has prepped the map and pre-assigned what kind of creatures live (or are likely to be found) in what areas, if the Black Shield Orcs live in the Grim Woods and the Bloodknife Orcs live in the Ghastly Forest* then no matter which way the PCs go they're probably going to meet Orcs, like it or not.  

It won't be until-unless they visit both forest that they'll realize they're not the same Orcs; until then it might very well look like the DM is dropping the Orcs in front of them no matter where they go.

* - though the inhabitants of something called the Ghastly Forest should really all be Ghasts, right?


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I’d think it’d be obvious. If not to the GM then to the players.



This.

If action resolution, and framing, and establishing consequences, are all happening in a robust way in accordance with known principles, then departures from them will be obvious.

This was a feature of the first session or two of BW that I played in. These were the first RPG sessions the GM had ever GMed - and a couple of times he introduced a NPC who clearly was of interest to him, but with nothing having been done to link that NPC to my PC's Beliefs or relationships.

I didn't complain about it. I just minimised my PC's interaction with those PCs, and used the resources at my disposal - in particular, action declaration - to restore the focus to what I was interested in.


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## Lanefan

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.



Disagree.  They had agency, and exercised it in choosing to go off in a random direction and also (oddly enough) in failing to seek out any information on which to base their choice.

With this combination they hand the agency over to you-as-DM, in expectation you'll put (or already have) something interesting for them to find and interact with in said random direction.  And so you do; and then in effect hand the agency back to them so they can decide what to do with or about whatever you've thrown at them.

Had you instead found some way to invalidate their decision and made it impossible to go where they wanted then chances are high you've impinged on their agency.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> I think there is a difference, and it's intent.  Illusionism is an a deliberate act to conceal the removal of agency.  That's not necessarily bad -- I do not think the removal or limitation of agency is inherently bad in games -- in fact, most games require strong limitations on agency to function.  D&D, played in the traditional way where the GM preps ahead of time and owns the setting the players explore, quite often encourages techniques like Illusionism so that the work done by the GM is not overwhelming.  There are reasonable applications of Illusionism in D&D, although I personally avoid them.  Regardless, Illusionism is always a deliberate act.
> 
> 'Making things up,' on the other hand, may be a deliberate choice to remove agency, but it's very, very hard to conceal.  If you're making things up so that you're maintaining a hard level of control over the fiction such that you're engaged in a railroad, or a playground version of nuh-uh, then, yes, this is both an abusive and deliberate act to remove agency, but it's also not concealed.  However, you can 'make things up' using a strong set of principles and constraints and not do either of these things.  You can 'make things up' in a way that doesn't remove any agency and instead promotes it (just like you can run traditional D&D in ways that promote agency, this isn't a competition).  Illusionism can never do this -- it's a deliberate removal of agency.
> 
> So, yeah, I don't think the difference is either murky or not worth discussing.  There's a clear line in how the technique function, regardless of whether or not you're invoking degenerate and bad faith play for either.  If you stick to good faith play, there's still a difference, and, yes, I think Illusionism can be used in good faith -- it's a tool to reduce GM prep.  I think overuse moves to bad faith, regardless of motivation in any specific instance -- it's a tool that creates railroads and hides the tracks if overused.  Occasional use, especially as a buffer to use when you need bridge content because the party has either thrown you a loop or you didn't have enough direction to prep the next leg is, to me, just fine.  I don't need to tell players that this encounter chain was going to happen no matter what because I need more time to prep where they just decided to go.  In that case, orcs in the Dark Wood are what you get.



Sorry, I know I'm behind the thread a bit, but...
I see this sort of 'orcs in the Dark Wood' a bit differently, perhaps. Suppose the players have evinced a desire to fight orcs. They have put up stakes, so to speak, on their PCs ability to kick the Dark Woods Orc's butts. Encountering orcs in this case is entirely appropriate NO MATTER WHAT, and maybe the limit of what to do about it is some variance in the details of the encounter. They sneak, OK, they bypass the orc scouts and get to surprise an orc sub-leader (but this is a tougher encounter, where they get a tactical advantage). Again, this resolution is assuming I'm understanding what the PLAYERS are telling me about the further evolution of the story. Also, as another poster stated up thread from here a bit, the curtain can be pulled back a bit here, so the players (not the PCs) can see this. It can be done in-narrative too, like "You see an orc patrol, do you go in fighting or sneak past and try to find their base?" 

So, there's a level of 'illusionism' possible here, depending on how you play it, but it is only problematic if the dynamic is "I the GM want to make the story about fighting orcs, no matter what the players asked for!" If they said "we use up our favor with the Giant Eagle King to bypass the Dark Wood, because we want to go to the Lost Mine and make money to..." AND THEY STILL get the orcs, then there's a problem! I mean, now you're just playing out the story in your head and all the players are is a dice rolling service! That's (IMHO) bad.


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## aco175

Over the last few pages there has been some talk about an NPC interaction and later deciding that he was lying.  This ties to the improv DM and the prep DM.  I was thinking that there is some chance of missing something if you improv the lying later at some point.  There would be no chance to tell if the NPC was lying with a check or investigation around town or such.  

I'm more of a prep DM, so I'm likely biased, but I was thinking if you had some sort of outline or cheat notes you could note that this NPC would lie to the PCs about X if asked.  I do not think it is a big problem that you completely improv.  There have been games I have played in that are like that and they are fine.  I have had to go improv at times myself when the PCs are in places and change directions from what I thought they were planning.  Like what others said, if people are having fun, then it is fine.


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## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> This rests on the conceit that a prep GM will be faithful to the established fiction while an improvisational GM will not be.



This would be my issue, yes, for one very simple reason borne out by experience:

A fully-improvisational GM will inevitably run into problems where fiction-now doesn't match what was established before.  I've done this myself on the simplest of things: telling a party an ordinary non-magical tower (which I was completely making up on the fly) was 60x60' as they approached it from the outside and then once they got inside telling them there was about 90x70' worth of rooms in there on one floor and about 70x40' on the next.

And that's something as simple as a tower whose outside dimensions I'd told them roughly an hour before I messed up the inside ones.  Now, spin that out over potentially several years and there's no way in hell anyone could keep it all straight.  And players pick up on these sort of things in a flash.


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## Lanefan

zarionofarabel said:


> Anyway, on to the thought project!
> 
> A) The NPC was telling the truth, but then the GM changed that fact later.
> 
> B) The NPC was lying but the players bought the lie and didn't bother to check to see if the NPC was lying.
> 
> C) The NPC was lying, the players thought the NPC was lying, but failed their "detect lies" roll so the PCs bought the lie.
> 
> Which example(s) are illusionism? Which example(s) deny the players agency? Which example(s) DO NOT deny the players agency?



D) The NPC was lying but thought she was telling the truth; her own information was faulty, or she herself had been deceived

E) Things changed such that the NPC's information, while truthful at the time, had become outdated by the time the PCs could put it to use

There's a gajillion ways something like this could come about.  The trick is just not to try it too often.


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## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> This.
> 
> If action resolution, and framing, and establishing consequences, are all happening in a robust way in accordance with known principles, then departures from them will be obvious.
> 
> This was a feature of the first session or two of BW that I played in. These were the first RPG sessions the GM had ever GMed - and a couple of times he introduced a NPC who clearly was of interest to him, but with nothing having been done to link that NPC to my PC's Beliefs or relationships.
> 
> I didn't complain about it. I just minimised my PC's interaction with those PCs, and used the resources at my disposal - in particular, action declaration - to restore the focus to what I was interested in.




Right. With Blades, the fiction is largely built by consequences that the GM throws at the PCs based on their action rolls. These consequences should fit the fiction and the action being attempted. So if the crew’s Lurk PC is walking a tightrope high above a courtyard that’s patrolled by guards, some likely consequences would be being noticed, losing his balance, and the like. The player chose to have the PC go out on the tightrope, and the GM’s actions are therefore based on that player choice. 

If a GM in Blades starts inflicting consequences that don’t flow from the fiction, it’s pretty obvious. And while I think there’s a lot of leeway....indeed, coming up with interesting consequences is one of the key elements of GMing Blades....the more often this happens and the less related it is to the established fiction, the more obvious it would be.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> I’m trying to imagine running Blades and trying to force a specific outcome, but to also be unaware that I’m doing so.
> 
> I can’t seem to quite picture how it could be. When I run Blades, I do have ideas in mind of things I want to bring into play, but I don’t think that these elements are a case of force because they’re either a result of prior play....let’s say the PCs have killed a few opponents on a couple of scores, so now they’re being investigated by the Spirit Wardens....or they’re elements that the players have indicated they’d like to see....such as a player whose PC used to be a member of the Red Sashes, so I have the crew run afoul of that gang to see what happens.
> 
> I suppose maybe an example could be if I wanted to incorporate Lord Scurlock as a foil to the PCs and so invariably the story runs headlong into him one way or the other, despite him not really being connected to anything that’s already been established in the game. Maybe that’s a GM forcing a specific element....but I’d think it’d be obvious. If not to the GM then to the players.



Quick aside, my Blades game just finished a daring recovery from Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor in Six Towers about two sessions ago.  What I had thought was going to be a fairly straight theft with some loot turned into a real Fall of the House of Usher thing!  There was an uncorked spirit well, paintings that tried to steal souls, and a cult now reeling from the disaster their effort to control the well turned into and now reeeeeallly hates the Crew.  Oh, and a necklace turned over from some nice loot and a few other trinkets.  Most of this because the Hound decided the manor had to have some neat things worth taking to give to his friends at the University so he could by back his good graces and a Whisper that decided his missing ghost friend might be involved with the cult and using the manor for a base of operations.  Many failed checks later and the whole thing was blowing up!

I love how Blades goes off the rails in the best ways possible, but, man, sometimes it's work to keep up!


----------



## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sorry, I know I'm behind the thread a bit, but...
> I see this sort of 'orcs in the Dark Wood' a bit differently, perhaps. Suppose the players have evinced a desire to fight orcs. They have put up stakes, so to speak, on their PCs ability to kick the Dark Woods Orc's butts. Encountering orcs in this case is entirely appropriate NO MATTER WHAT, and maybe the limit of what to do about it is some variance in the details of the encounter. They sneak, OK, they bypass the orc scouts and get to surprise an orc sub-leader (but this is a tougher encounter, where they get a tactical advantage). Again, this resolution is assuming I'm understanding what the PLAYERS are telling me about the further evolution of the story. Also, as another poster stated up thread from here a bit, the curtain can be pulled back a bit here, so the players (not the PCs) can see this. It can be done in-narrative too, like "You see an orc patrol, do you go in fighting or sneak past and try to find their base?"
> 
> So, there's a level of 'illusionism' possible here, depending on how you play it, but it is only problematic if the dynamic is "I the GM want to make the story about fighting orcs, no matter what the players asked for!" If they said "we use up our favor with the Giant Eagle King to bypass the Dark Wood, because we want to go to the Lost Mine and make money to..." AND THEY STILL get the orcs, then there's a problem! I mean, now you're just playing out the story in your head and all the players are is a dice rolling service! That's (IMHO) bad.



Different choice made, though, isn't it?  Of course, if you're looking at a different choice, then the nature of the outcomes should be evaluated with that choice in mind, not a different one.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> This would be my issue, yes, for one very simple reason borne out by experience:
> 
> A fully-improvisational GM will inevitably run into problems where fiction-now doesn't match what was established before.  I've done this myself on the simplest of things: telling a party an ordinary non-magical tower (which I was completely making up on the fly) was 60x60' as they approached it from the outside and then once they got inside telling them there was about 90x70' worth of rooms in there on one floor and about 70x40' on the next.
> 
> And that's something as simple as a tower whose outside dimensions I'd told them roughly an hour before I messed up the inside ones.  Now, spin that out over potentially several years and there's no way in hell anyone could keep it all straight.  And players pick up on these sort of things in a flash.



I fail to see why the Improv GM is unable to take notes on what happens.  Prep doesn't mean you're incapable of misremembering what's happened before -- that's what notes are for, and Improv doesn't mean you can't have notes on things that have happened.  Even on stage, one of the big rules of improv is not to invalidate what's come before.  I take notes when I run Blades because it means that when the players re-engage a threat or faction or location, the fiction they established before is still there.  This isn't a strong argument, as it supposes that Improv requires never taking notes.

Prep is the things the GM writes down (or keeping in mind) that haven't happened yet.  Improv doesn't prep.  There's nothing about notes there.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> And if you had not decided sneaking DCs, the number of checks required etc beforehand, can you guarantee that you spending a significant amount of time preparing that orc encounter wouldn't affect how hard you decide to make the sneaking? This is what I mean, the difference between illusionism and the GM gently tipping the scales towards the outcome they want is really flimsy.



Now THIS is why I considered 4e's SC mechanism so much of a tool for player control of the game, because it puts all this in the realm of a rule, which even the GM is supposed to follow (there's still some leeway for GMs to fudge things of course, but that is just another form of force, though maybe not illusionism).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that what matters most is that the players’ choice has an impact. So if the GM has presented a forking path in their road and says that one goes into the Dark Forest and the other heads to the Grim Chasm, then the results of that choice should be different in some way that matters.
> 
> So, if the GM has prepped an encounter with giant spiders in the forest and one with Tuscan Raider type sandpeople in the Grim Chasm, that’s not illusionism despite the fact that these encounters are preset. Nor would it be illusionism if the GM took the choice into consideration, and then crafted an encounter based on that choice.
> 
> Where it could be illusionism is if the GM has an encounter with some ogres planned and it happens in the Forest or the Chasm. Likewise, if the GM is crafting details on the fly and uses the same enemy stats, but simply labels the enemies by a different name. So his 2HD humanoids that have a +2 to hit are Orcs in the Forest or Sandpeople in the Chasm....that’s illusionism as well, I’d say.
> 
> There needs to be meaningful difference. At the very least the terrain of the encounters and therefore the difficulty should vary.
> 
> There can be lots of other factors that can be brought to bear on this...travel time, treasure gained, information learned or known ahead of time....many others. These things can enhance or diminish player agency.
> 
> But at it’s very core, it boils down to their decision mattering to the fiction and the game. Can things go differently if they take Option A instead of Option B?



And now we get to the NUT of the OP's original question! It has been called 'illusionism' and 'GM Force' when the GM presents the same encounter to the players regardless of where they go. But what if I said to you this is incoherent? I present to you the thesis that THE GAME WORLD DOESN'T EXIST. What does exist? The NARRATIVE! So it is impossible to say that the GM gave you the same encounter either way. The players chose the Grim Chasm, and they got spiders. They never chose the Gnarly Forest! THERE ARE NO SPIDERS AWAITING THEM THERE. In fact there is NOTHING there, because it is an unexplored terra incognita within the narrative of the game, which is the only thing that is actualized and thus exists. 

Certainly from the player's perspective there was no 'force' applied, no illusion at all. The only question, in my thesis, which can be asked, is whether or not the players got WHAT THEY WANTED. Did they encounter a narrative of a type and character which they had asked to be served up by the GM? Did it meet their genre expectations? Did the milieu seem coherent enough to be described and for sufficient suspension of disbelief? Did they 'play to see what happens' when they explored the Chasm? Was it dramatic? These are good questions!

None of this is to say that illusionism and force cannot and do not exist in some forms. It is just to say that we need to be careful, because if we aren't, we will be deluding ourselves by talking about literally non-existent things. See, we cannot even say for certain that the GM WOULD HAVE put the spiders in the Gnarly Forest. That is not a path that REALITY ITSELF took! It is just as unreal, even at the game table, as the imagined world of the narrative is unreal. Yes, the GM might have fully intended to do that, and we might rightly predict it, but he didn't do it. We will never know. You cannot condemn people for things they haven't done. This is a fundamental rule of ethics.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if the characters really didn't know anything about the Grim Chasm or the Dark Forest before deciding which to go, why does it matter? As long as the encounter doesn't seem weirdly out of place to the players it's all fine.
> 
> The actual meaningful choices are not the sort of things like to which direction to go or which door to randomly open, those exist just for the verisimilitude and flavour. The real meaningful choices need to be informed.



And this was the prize! You won it  Real meaningful choices must be informed. You cannot say that a blind choice made by a player is in any way shape or form meaningful, and thus cannot deprive them of agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> D) The NPC was lying but thought she was telling the truth; her own information was faulty, or she herself had been deceived
> 
> E) Things changed such that the NPC's information, while truthful at the time, had become outdated by the time the PCs could put it to use
> 
> There's a gajillion ways something like this could come about.  The trick is just not to try it too often.




I don’t think either of the examples you gave qualify as a lie. Sure, either of these things could be used as a fictional reason to retroactively explain the discrepancy, but I don’t think that was really the concern.

If a GM decides something that a NPC said to the PCs which was intended to be true at the time retroactively becomes a lie, then this likely can be an example of GM Force. It isn’t certain, but it seems like there’d be a good chance.

Because the retroactive decision....while easily explained in the fiction using your examples or earlier ones....you can’t retroactively play out that scene and give the players the chance to detect the lie.

So I think that example was an interesting one because there are so many ways it can play out. Depending on the details and how it was run, it could be an example of allowing player agency, or it could be an example of completely removing it.


Ovinomancer said:


> Quick aside, my Blades game just finished a daring recovery from Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor in Six Towers about two sessions ago.  What I had thought was going to be a fairly straight theft with some loot turned into a real Fall of the House of Usher thing!  There was an uncorked spirit well, paintings that tried to steal souls, and a cult now reeling from the disaster their effort to control the well turned into and now reeeeeallly hates the Crew.  Oh, and a necklace turned over from some nice loot and a few other trinkets.  Most of this because the Hound decided the manor had to have some neat things worth taking to give to his friends at the University so he could by back his good graces and a Whisper that decided his missing ghost friend might be involved with the cult and using the manor for a base of operations.  Many failed checks later and the whole thing was blowing up!
> 
> I love how Blades goes off the rails in the best ways possible, but, man, sometimes it's work to keep up!




That’s great! I’m a big fan of the game and love how it just gains momentum. It’s definitely challenging to run at times, but in a good way. 

I’ve really been trying to broaden my consequences instead of relying on the most readily available (harm, heat, clocks for guards to notice you, etc) and the more I do that, the better the game gets.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> By "starting position" I meant a combination of "what happens if the PCs don't do anything" and "where the PCs are." It's part of framing the fiction, I think, and I think that a GM who isn't careful about framing the fiction can find himself in a position where all paths lead to the same place.



I really don't see any evidence for this.

In Apocalypse World, part of the GM's job can be to decide _what happens if the PCs don't do anything._ This is approached through the idea of _fronts_, each of which includes one or more _threats _(AW, pp 136, 143):

The purpose of your prep is to give you interesting things to say. As MC you’re going to be playing your fronts, playing your threats, but that doesn’t mean anything mechanical. It means saying what they do. It means offering opportunities to the players to have their characters do interesting things, and it means responding in interesting ways to what the players have their characters do. . . .

A countdown clock is a reminder to you as MC that your threats have impulse, direction, plans, intentions, the will to sustain action and to respond coherently to others’. When you create a threat, if you have a vision of its future, give it a countdown clock. You can also add countdown clocks to threats you’ve already created. . . .

As you play, advance the clocks, each at their own pace, by marking their segments.

Countdown clocks are both descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive: when something you’ve listed happens, advance the clock to that point. Prescriptive: when you advance the clock otherwise, it causes the things you’ve listed. Furthermore, countdown clocks can be derailed: when something happens that changes circumstances so that the countdown no longer makes sense, just scribble it out.

For the most part, list things that are beyond the players’ characters’ control: NPCs’ decisions and actions, conditions in a population or a landscape, off-screen relations between
rival compounds, the instability of a window into the world’s psychic maelstrom. When you list something within the players’ characters’ control, always list it with an “if,” implied or explicit:
“_if_ Bish goes out into the ruins,” not “Bish goes out into the ruins.” Prep circumstances, pressures, developing NPC actions, not (and again, I’m not [fooling] around here) NOT future scenes
you intend to lead the PCs to.​
Notice that the point of this is _to give the GM interesting things to say_. It's to support the collective creation of a certain sort of fiction.

In my Cortex+ Vikings game, it's implicit that if the PCs don't act successfully the Ragnarok will come. But I don't have clocks for that. I just make stuff up as we go along.

In my Prince Valiant and Classic Traveller games, there is no overarching threat in the "fronts" sense. In Traveller there have been. At one point the starship-owning PC had his ship mortgaged, meaning that he had periodic repayments to make. (He's since upgraded to a ship owned free-and-clear.) And at one point there was a bioweapons conspiracy that the PCs were (mostly) unwitting participants in, and then became opponents of, but this was never specified with the sort of detail and clocks that characterise an AW front.

But there are no _paths_, let alone _paths leading to the same place_. In those games, I (as GM) am not the sole or even principal decider of _what happens next_. That is determined via action declarations and action resolution.



prabe said:


> So, guessing at the mechanism:
> 
> GM hasn't prepped (or even considered) what happens if the PCs don't do anything, so when PCs act in ways to change the fiction, the GM doesn't have a starting point. GM reacts to PCs' action/s with the first thing that comes to mind--doesn't consider multiple results/effects--and maybe eventually the story results of success start to look like the story results of failure.



The mechanism that you are positing seems to pertain to a game that lacks robust action resolution mechanics: you refer to _the PCs _acting in ways to change the fiction, and then you posit that it is _the GM_ who reacts to those actions with the first thing that comes to mind. But where are _the players' action declarations_? If those actions are being declared, _and they succeed_, why is _the GM _getting to make up whatever fiction s/he likes?

This is actually very consistent with what I posted upthread:


pemerton said:


> If someone is mostly used to systems that don't have robust action resolution (except perhaps for small-group combat), then I see how they might posit that prep is _necessary _as a curb on the GM, because otherwise the GM might come to the same place no matter what the PCs do. I don't know what systems @prabe is familiar with beyond D&D; but the only version of D&D that has robust action resolution of the sort I'm talking about, across a wide range of possible action declarations, is 4e. Classic D&D is robust for dungeon exploration, and semi-robust for hex crawls, but not for much beyond that; and 5e seems pretty similar to classic (ie AD&D, B/X, etc), to me at least.



I don't know what systems you are familiar with besides D&D, but it seems - on the strength of what I've quoted - that you're not all that familiar with systems with robust action resolution.

To give a concrete example, from a pretty well-known RPG, namely, Classic Traveller c 1977: if the players declare that their starship is jumping from planet X to planet Y, then there is a completely robust rules procedure to work out what happens: check they have the appropriate software on the ship computer, check their ship has the appropriate fuel, check they have the appropriate crew skills, make the misjump and drive failure checks, etc. If all the hurdles are satisfied, and if the checks are successful, then _in the fiction_, the PCs's starship has arrived at Y with them in it after a week in jumpspace. If there is a misjump, then they arrive at a random place 1d6(1d6) parsecs away.

There simply isn't scope, in that resolution subsystem, for the GM to decide that _the story results of success look like the story results of failure_.

The game has many other subsystems that are similarly robust (an escape/evasion subsystem; a use of vacc suit subystem; various social subystems, including one for dealing with police, customs officials and other bureaucrats; a collection of interstellare commerce and trade subystem; etc). These subystems take the players' action declarations as input, and produce outputs that establish clear differences between success and failure.



prabe said:


> I think I'm a better GM than I was a writer, and I think the interaction/gestalt around the table is most of why.



That's not a strong advertisement for the utility or importance of GM prep!


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Certainly from the player's perspective there was no 'force' applied, no illusion at all. The only question, in my thesis, which can be asked, is whether or not the players got WHAT THEY WANTED.



This is why, in my responses to this and the similar example about being flown by the eagles over the woods, I emphasised that context is all-important.

Suppose the game being played is Burning Wheel, and one of the players declares, and succeeds in, a Spiders-wise check to establish that there are great spiders in the Gnarly Forest. And then the PCs head there. The GM who presents them with Orc encounters is coming close to force - not honouring the intended result of the successful check. Whether or not it is _illusionism_ will depend on how well the GM conceals the force. This is hard in BW; there are other systems with weaker action resolution frameworks which therefore make it easier.

Consider a D&D game where the GM has a rumours table, and there are two true rumours on it: that great spiders lurk in the Gnarly Forest; and that the Grim Chasm is dotted with Orc patrols. And suppose the PCs (and thus their players) acquire both rumours. And the players therefore decide that their PCs will go to the Forest, hoping to fight spiders. Finally, suppose that the GM is intending to spring an Orc encounter on the players no matter what! In this case, the whole thing with rumours and apparently giving the players the choice of which place to go to, is all pointless - it has the appearance of mattering, but it actually doesn't.

I think that would be an example of illusionism. And frankly I reckon stuff like that is probably pretty common in the RPGing world. Rather then the rumours serving the function that they once did in Gygaxian play (for the classic Gygaxian rumour table, like in KotB, acting on the rumours actually does make a difference to what is encountered), they are simply there to give an impression of a "living, breathing world". When the PCs hear rumours of spiders but nevertheless meet Orcs, this even allows the GM to drive home how "living and breathing" the world is!


----------



## pemerton

aco175 said:


> Over the last few pages there has been some talk about an NPC interaction and later deciding that he was lying.  This ties to the improv DM and the prep DM.  I was thinking that there is some chance of missing something if you improv the lying later at some point.  There would be no chance to tell if the NPC was lying with a check or investigation around town or such.





hawkeyefan said:


> If a GM decides something that a NPC said to the PCs which was intended to be true at the time retroactively becomes a lie, then this likely can be an example of GM Force. It isn’t certain, but it seems like there’d be a good chance.
> 
> Because the retroactive decision....while easily explained in the fiction using your examples or earlier ones....you can’t retroactively play out that scene and give the players the chance to detect the lie.



I have no bone to pick with either of these posts - I just wanted to say that they show how contextual things are. We can't just describe an episode of GM narration and determine, in the abstract away from system, established fiction, etc, whether it honoured or fostered or thwarted player agency.

Whether it is salient to _make a check_ or _investigate around town_ or do anything else to determine whether or not some remark from a NPC was a lie, is totally dependent on those contextual factors.

And upthread I already gave an actual play example where _it was the decision by a player to do those things _(ie seduce the PCs' patron to get more information from her) that made the question of truth or falsity salient, and motivated me to establish the falsity of some of what the patron had said - as this both increased the verisimilitude of the fiction and gave that player (of the spy PC) more fiction to work with.


----------



## FrogReaver

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?



Ask yourself “would my world be different if the players acted differently?”  If yes then they had agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And now we get to the NUT of the OP's original question! It has been called 'illusionism' and 'GM Force' when the GM presents the same encounter to the players regardless of where they go. But what if I said to you this is incoherent? I present to you the thesis that THE GAME WORLD DOESN'T EXIST. What does exist? The NARRATIVE! So it is impossible to say that the GM gave you the same encounter either way. The players chose the Grim Chasm, and they got spiders. They never chose the Gnarly Forest! THERE ARE NO SPIDERS AWAITING THEM THERE. In fact there is NOTHING there, because it is an unexplored terra incognita within the narrative of the game, which is the only thing that is actualized and thus exists.
> 
> Certainly from the player's perspective there was no 'force' applied, no illusion at all. The only question, in my thesis, which can be asked, is whether or not the players got WHAT THEY WANTED. Did they encounter a narrative of a type and character which they had asked to be served up by the GM? Did it meet their genre expectations? Did the milieu seem coherent enough to be described and for sufficient suspension of disbelief? Did they 'play to see what happens' when they explored the Chasm? Was it dramatic? These are good questions!
> 
> None of this is to say that illusionism and force cannot and do not exist in some forms. It is just to say that we need to be careful, because if we aren't, we will be deluding ourselves by talking about literally non-existent things. See, we cannot even say for certain that the GM WOULD HAVE put the spiders in the Gnarly Forest. That is not a path that REALITY ITSELF took! It is just as unreal, even at the game table, as the imagined world of the narrative is unreal. Yes, the GM might have fully intended to do that, and we might rightly predict it, but he didn't do it. We will never know. You cannot condemn people for things they haven't done. This is a fundamental rule of ethics.



You've fixated on the example and have missed that the example isn't the case, it's the example of a case.  The case is that the players are offered a choice, but the outcome is predetermined -- the choice doesn't matter.  This is Force.  If you hide this from the players such that the choice appears meaningful -- perhaps by spinning the yarn that the other fork didn't occur so only this line matters, despite the fact that it's really the choice that didn't matter -- then you're into Illusionism as a subset of Force.  I'm not really sure why you're putting all of this effort into a throwaway example to illuminate the case of Illusionism, but I don't think that your argument -- that since the other fork (or forks) didn't happen there's no there there -- is particularly worthwhile.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Ask yourself “would my world be different if the players acted differently?”  If yes then they had agency.



While true, it's too shallow a statement to say much.  If there was one choice that would have changed things, then you can say this, the same as if there were myriad choices that did so.  It's not a very good yardstick to evaluate agency.  This is essentially an OR gate over all choices in the campaign -- it could have been a total railroad except for one thing.


----------



## chaochou

pemerton said:


> This is why, in my responses to this and the similar example about being flown by the eagles over the woods, I emphasised that context is all-important.




Right. And so what’s important is to define context. And in the case of player agency, the context is this: who is creating the purpose of the character?

That‘s the matter in question. Let’s say the GM creates the purpose of the character(s). If the players object to their predetermined fate, you have force. If they are unaware, you have illusionism. If they are aware, but don’t object (such as when a player accepts a ‘hook’ for a scripted plot line) then you have participationism.

Player agency is player freedom to create the purpose for their character and for the game content to begin, and grow, from that ongoing act of creation. It’s not one and done, the purpose can and should change as the game state changes through resolution. When the game follows the player’s protagonism in this way, then there is agency, and it’s completely obvious.


----------



## pemerton

chaochou said:


> Player agency is player freedom to create the purpose for their character and for the game content to begin, and grow, from that ongoing act of creation.



The second conjunct - _the game content begins, and grows, from the ongoing act of the players creating the purposes for their characters _- is why I see action declaration and action resolution as so important. In practical terms this is perhaps the principal way whereby player purposes are manifested, and hence are able to shape the growth of the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Ask yourself “would my world be different if the players acted differently?”  If yes then they had agency.



I don't agree with this. There was at least one Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book - The House of Horror, I think it was called - where the fiction was different depending on the choices made as a reader. And not just different in terms of the protagonist living or dying, but different in terms of the backstory - the "world" of the book.

Yet in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure the reader has no agency.

Player agency is about being able to determine _why_ and _how_ the world is different. Which relates closely to @chaochou's point about character purpose.


----------



## aramis erak

hawkeyefan said:


> I think I was more intending that the choices of the players setting things off on new branches that have not been predetermined by the GM. To use a metaphor, the PCs are blazing their own trail rather than following one of those set by the GM. As you point out, the system and the goals and methods of play will matter quite a bit in this regard.



Indeed. But the basic principles behind Burning Wheel can be used in most... 

Fundamentally...
only propose a roll when at least two different outcomes are interesting.
Make certain players know the reward cycle
Reward the play you want to see.
Don't let failure stop the action.
Use the rules only when they're useful. (note that that point varies widely, and I'm more likely than most to stick to the rules.)
Say yes or set a difficulty.
Knowledge rolls can be used by players to establish (or disestablish on failure) truths of the fiction state.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I fail to see why the Improv GM is unable to take notes on what happens.  Prep doesn't mean you're incapable of misremembering what's happened before -- that's what notes are for, and Improv doesn't mean you can't have notes on things that have happened.



Nice in theory.

In practice, if I took down notes in enough detail to be worth it I'd spend 2/3 of the session writing...which would mean 2/3 of the session would be wasted time for the players as I'm really no good at either talking or listening while I'm writing.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think either of the examples you gave qualify as a lie. Sure, either of these things could be used as a fictional reason to retroactively explain the discrepancy, but I don’t think that was really the concern.
> 
> If a GM decides something that a NPC said to the PCs which was intended to be true at the time retroactively becomes a lie, then this likely can be an example of GM Force. It isn’t certain, but it seems like there’d be a good chance.
> 
> Because the retroactive decision....while easily explained in the fiction using your examples or earlier ones....you can’t retroactively play out that scene and give the players the chance to detect the lie.



That's just it - in the two examples I gave there'd have been no chance to detect a lie anyway, as in both cases the NPC legitimately thought she was telling the truth.  Advantage: no need to retcon anything as nothing would have played out any differently.

That said, GMs still need to be careful with this sort of thing as it'd be so easy to mess it up and simply invalidate previous play (as per your example of had the NPC been lying from square one the PCs might have had a chance to detect it); and that is bad.


----------



## aramis erak

Lanefan said:


> That's just it - in the two examples I gave there'd have been no chance to detect a lie anyway, as in both cases the NPC legitimately thought she was telling the truth.  Advantage: no need to retcon anything as nothing would have played out any differently.
> 
> That said, GMs still need to be careful with this sort of thing as it'd be so easy to mess it up and simply invalidate previous play (as per your example of had the NPC been lying from square one the PCs might have had a chance to detect it); and that is bad.



If the GM's always prepared for the player decision that is made, stats to hand, one very quickly begins to see through the illusion of choice.

Which is why, when I wind up with prep for all the choices, I make certain players are aware of my having prepped more than was used.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Consider a D&D game where the GM has a rumours table, and there are two true rumours on it: that great spiders lurk in the Gnarly Forest; and that the Grim Chasm is dotted with Orc patrols. And suppose the PCs (and thus their players) acquire both rumours.



Acquiring the rumours is one thing, confirming their truthfulness (and timeliness) is something else again.


pemerton said:


> And the players therefore decide that their PCs will go to the Forest, hoping to fight spiders. Finally, suppose that the GM is intending to spring an Orc encounter on the players no matter what! In this case, the whole thing with rumours and apparently giving the players the choice of which place to go to, is all pointless - it has the appearance of mattering, but it actually doesn't.



Here I both agree and disagree at the same time, and it comes down to intent.  If the GM has predetermined she's going to plonks the Orcs in no matter where the PCs go, I agree that's illusionism; and probably not good if the run of play had led them to legitimately expect spiders.

But, if the rumours - while true - are incomplete; and each forest has both Orcs _and_ spiders in it meaning no matter which way the PCs go they have a decent chance of encountering both, what then?

Or the rumours are true ot the best of the teller's knowledge, but in the intervening time someone's gone in and cleared out the spiders such that if the PCs go that way they meet nothing at all.  What then?

Or, say the rumours are both true and the PCs will meet Orcs if they go one way and spiders if they go the other; but in either case they're also going to meet a nasty Druid and his pet Displacer Beasts shortly afterward.  What then?  The Druid's not on the rumours list and thus the PCs don't know he's out there or where he might be - for all the players know he was rolled on a wandering encounters table. (yes this one's illusionism but I don't think it's the bad kind - to me it's on par with a module saying "there are five chests; no matter in which order they are searched the second one will contain [treasure] and the third one will contain a gas trap", which is not at all uncommon in published modules)

I guess what I'm getting at - unclearly, I suspect - is that this question really can't be answered until and unless the PCs take both routes and find out what's where.


----------



## chaochou

pemerton said:


> The second conjunct - _the game content begins, and grows, from the ongoing act of the players creating the purposes for their characters _- is why I see action declaration and action resolution as so important. In practical terms this is perhaps the principal way whereby player purposes are manifested, and hence are able to shape the growth of the shared fiction.




Yes, this is critical. Nearly all the examples I see, of choosing left paths or right paths, of orcs or spiders, fail to examine the real questions of agency such as:

Who created the need for my character to travel at all?
Who authored where my character needed to go?
Who created the reason for my character going there?
What is my character going to do when they get there?
Most discussions on the topic implicitly include the answers:

The GM
The GM
The GM
The thing the GM says needs doing
In other words, GM force is so heavily presupposed in nearly all the given examples that there's no point engaging them.

Player agency is a loop which has to begin from the first moment of play (or not). From that point on the creation of purpose for the character doesn't change hands - either the player gets to do it explicitly, or the GM does it implicitly.

And if it features agency then play from that point on is, as you describe, a cycle of action declaration and action resolution until the player decides their purpose is achieved or failed or that the character has changed and their purpose has shifted.


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Ask yourself “would my world be different if the players acted differently?”  If yes then they had agency.



In and of itself this statement is correct.

What it ignores is whether the players had the opportunity to act differently, and-or whether those actions-differently would have been somehow blocked by the GM above and beyond the whims of simple random chance.

By this I mean: say a party decides on a whim to sail across the sea.  IMO a GM blocks that agency if to keep them here she arbitrarily decides there's no boats available to buy or to book passage on, where if she legitimately rolls for boat availability and the dice come up dry she hasn't blocked their agency at all - they just hit some bad luck which might, given time, pass.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> This is why, in my responses to this and the similar example about being flown by the eagles over the woods, I emphasised that context is all-important.
> 
> Suppose the game being played is Burning Wheel, and one of the players declares, and succeeds in, a Spiders-wise check to establish that there are great spiders in the Gnarly Forest. And then the PCs head there. The GM who presents them with Orc encounters is coming close to force - not honouring the intended result of the successful check. Whether or not it is _illusionism_ will depend on how well the GM conceals the force. This is hard in BW; there are other systems with weaker action resolution frameworks which therefore make it easier.
> 
> Consider a D&D game where the GM has a rumours table, and there are two true rumours on it: that great spiders lurk in the Gnarly Forest; and that the Grim Chasm is dotted with Orc patrols. And suppose the PCs (and thus their players) acquire both rumours. And the players therefore decide that their PCs will go to the Forest, hoping to fight spiders. Finally, suppose that the GM is intending to spring an Orc encounter on the players no matter what! In this case, the whole thing with rumours and apparently giving the players the choice of which place to go to, is all pointless - it has the appearance of mattering, but it actually doesn't.
> 
> I think that would be an example of illusionism. And frankly I reckon stuff like that is probably pretty common in the RPGing world. Rather then the rumours serving the function that they once did in Gygaxian play (for the classic Gygaxian rumour table, like in KotB, acting on the rumours actually does make a difference to what is encountered), they are simply there to give an impression of a "living, breathing world". When the PCs hear rumours of spiders but nevertheless meet Orcs, this even allows the GM to drive home how "living and breathing" the world is!




And if it was just left at that it would be a pretty terrible use of illusionism, and I'd have to question why the GM included the rumour table in the first place if they didn't intend to do anything with the rumours. 

But let's suppose I want to do this exact thing for some reason. Maybe I intended to prep for both orcs and spiders, but my pet iguana ate the MM pages containing the rules fore spiders so now I have only the orc encounter prepped. Or perhaps I'm just a nefarious power-mad illusionist. Anyway, as the characters arrive to the Gnarly Forest they come upon several slain spiders, and if they investigate they manage to find some arrows of orcish manufacture. But there are no orcs in the Gnarly Forest, and the closest orc settlement in the Grim Chasm is a significant distance away! What are the orcs doing here? This is not just some random orc raiding party, the spiders have nothing of value. Has someone send the orcs here and to what end? So now instead of just one random encounter with orcs on the orc territory, the encounter will now be tied to an emerging sublot. The actions of PCs did affect things, just not in the way they may have anticipated.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You've fixated on the example and have missed that the example isn't the case, it's the example of a case.  The case is that the players are offered a choice, but the outcome is predetermined -- the choice doesn't matter.  This is Force.  If you hide this from the players such that the choice appears meaningful -- perhaps by spinning the yarn that the other fork didn't occur so only this line matters, despite the fact that it's really the choice that didn't matter -- then you're into Illusionism as a subset of Force.  I'm not really sure why you're putting all of this effort into a throwaway example to illuminate the case of Illusionism, but I don't think that your argument -- that since the other fork (or forks) didn't happen there's no there there -- is particularly worthwhile.



What I don't find worthwhile is agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head. The players will always experience only one set of events, hypothetical ifs and buts don't matter.


----------



## macd21

Crimson Longinus said:


> What I don't find worthwhile is agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head. The players will always experience only one set of events, hypothetical ifs and buts don't matter.




It’s not agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head, it’s ‘agonising’ over whether or not players have agency, which is different. The reason it is a worthwhile discussion is because agency is often (though not always) a factor on how much players enjoy a game. If players feel they lack agency, they’ll probably grow frustrated with the game. Illusionism is a method of hiding their lack of agency from players.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> And if it was just left at that it would be a pretty terrible use of illusionism, and I'd have to question why the GM included the rumour table in the first place if they didn't intend to do anything with the rumours.
> 
> But let's suppose I want to do this exact thing for some reason. Maybe I intended to prep for both orcs and spiders, but my pet iguana ate the MM pages containing the rules fore spiders so now I have only the orc encounter prepped. Or perhaps I'm just a nefarious power-mad illusionist. Anyway, as the characters arrive to the Gnarly Forest they come upon several slain spiders, and if they investigate they manage to find some arrows of orcish manufacture. But there are no orcs in the Gnarly Forest, and the closest orc settlement in the Grim Chasm is a significant distance away! What are the orcs doing here? This is not just some random orc raiding party, the spiders have nothing of value. Has someone send the orcs here and to what end? So now instead of just one random encounter with orcs on the orc territory, the encounter will now be tied to an emerging sublot. The actions of PCs did affect things, just not in the way they may have anticipated.




Interesting, but not sure I can agree that a brief gloss of fiction actually represents honoring the players' choice.  Especially when it seems the result is pretty much the same thing, now pretending a mystery.  This feels like another layer of Illusionism rather than a step out of it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Interesting, but not sure I can agree that a brief gloss of fiction actually represents honoring the players' choice.  Especially when it seems the result is pretty much the same thing, now pretending a mystery.  This feels like another layer of Illusionism rather than a step out of it.



Yes, it absolutely is. So what?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

macd21 said:


> It’s not agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head, it’s ‘agonising’ over whether or not players have agency, which is different. The reason it is a worthwhile discussion is because agency is often (though not always) a factor on how much players enjoy a game. If players* feel they lack agency*, they’ll probably grow frustrated with the game. Illusionism is a method of hiding their lack of agency from players.




Yes. Thus what matters whether the players _feel_ whether they have agency. This has more to do with presentation than the actual decision making process the GM uses.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> What I don't find worthwhile is agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head. The players will always experience only one set of events, hypothetical ifs and buts don't matter.



You've missed my point -- who chose the things the players experience?  This argument is substituting  that only one story is experienced (ad arguendo) for saying choices and who makes them are irrelevant.  They aren't -- the story experienced revolves on the axis if who chooses what.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, it absolutely is. So what?



My bad, I thought you were providing an argument for hiw a GM might engage in the thread's favorite Illusionism example in a way that wasn't Illusionism.  If you're intent was just to provide sn example where the GM is nudged into tge Illusionism, I guess that works.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You've missed my point -- who chose the things the players experience?



Why does it matter?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Nice in theory.
> 
> In practice, if I took down notes in enough detail to be worth it I'd spend 2/3 of the session writing...which would mean 2/3 of the session would be wasted time for the players as I'm really no good at either talking or listening while I'm writing.



Okay, this is saying that memorilaizing 2/3rds of a improv session is equivalent to prep + some lesser amount note taking, and that this is the minimum amount of work needed to avoid errors in presenting existing fiction.  I'd say this is unplayable if even close to true.  After a bare handful of sessions, the depth of notes, either from prep or play, is massive and either requires a constant major effort to collate and review or will itself lead to errors in presentation.

Given as I don't currently have issues of lots of errors creeping into my games with the light notes I take during play (introduced NPCs, actions taken, etc) I can say your fear is overblown.  It has happened, sure, but at the same frequency and kevel of impact from when I had heavy prep.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why does it matter?



Not sure what "it" is here.  My first guess is that your saying that there's no difference between a choice the players make and a choice the GM makes for the players.  If so, then I think we're way too far apart here to discuss -- your position is anathema to my concept of games in general, much less RPG theory.  I hope this is not the case.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Not sure what "it" is here.  My first guess is that your saying that there's no difference between a choice the players make and a choice the GM makes for the players.  If so, then I think we're way too far apart here to discuss -- your position is anathema to my concept of games in general, much less RPG theory.  I hope this is not the case.



In practice in any RPG the amount of influence the GM and that players have on the outcome of any given situation varies, and there is not some optimal ratio that one always has to adhere to and agonising over it is pretty pointless, and possibly detrimental for actually achieving desirable outcomes. If the GM is more concerned over some theoretical purity that is unperceivable to the players anyway, rather than what actually is fun then that is not good.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> While true, it's too shallow a statement to say much.  If there was one choice that would have changed things, then you can say this, the same as if there were myriad choices that did so.  It's not a very good yardstick to evaluate agency.  This is essentially an OR gate over all choices in the campaign -- it could have been a total railroad except for one thing.



Huh?  Let’s take the railroad except 1 thing and apply my test.

Let’s test 10 events from the campaign. 9 of those events will be ones where whatever happens was going to happen either way. The other was agency allowing one.

My test answers each of those questions correctly. It’s not shallow at all, instead it’s quite robust.

And most importantly it answers the OPs question by being able to show agency in absence of preplanning anything.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why does it matter?



I’m with you. Agency for agency’s sake isn’t something to strive for.

My favorite example is a railroad with no agency that leads the players to an interesting situation where they have complete agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> That's just it - in the two examples I gave there'd have been no chance to detect a lie anyway, as in both cases the NPC legitimately thought she was telling the truth.  Advantage: no need to retcon anything as nothing would have played out any differently.
> 
> That said, GMs still need to be careful with this sort of thing as it'd be so easy to mess it up and simply invalidate previous play (as per your example of had the NPC been lying from square one the PCs might have had a chance to detect it); and that is bad.




But it is a retcon, as you label it. The example in question was specifically about a detail that was true but then later the GM decides to make it a lie.

Revealing that it was simply a mistake is a means of explaining the contradiction.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> But it is a retcon, as you label it. The example in question was specifically about a detail that was true but then later the GM decides to make it a lie.



Except really not, at least not from my point of view. Why you assume that it is the default that the NPC is speaking truth? Their liar/truthful status was merely undetermined.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I really don't see any evidence for this.



You don't need to, and I wouldn't expect you to, as our experiences, expectations, and preferences around TRPGs are radically different.


pemerton said:


> But there are no _paths_, let alone _paths leading to the same place_. In those games, I (as GM) am not the sole or even principal decider of _what happens next_. That is determined via action declarations and action resolution.



The GM decides what happens if the PCs don't do anything, and the GM decides how the world reacts to what the PCs do; and paths are sometimes visible (if not obvious) in retrospect, because all we can see looking back is what happened, not what could have.



pemerton said:


> The mechanism that you are positing seems to pertain to a game that lacks robust action resolution mechanics: you refer to _the PCs _acting in ways to change the fiction, and then you posit that it is _the GM_ who reacts to those actions with the first thing that comes to mind. But where are _the players' action declarations_? If those actions are being declared, _and they succeed_, why is _the GM _getting to make up whatever fiction s/he likes?



I dunno. "Action declarations" seem kinda implicit in "actions" in a TRPG context, and as I said above, the GM gets to decide how the world reacts to what the PCs do, whether they succeed or fail.



pemerton said:


> This is actually very consistent with what I posted upthread:
> 
> I don't know what systems you are familiar with besides D&D, but it seems - on the strength of what I've quoted - that you're not all that familiar with systems with robust action resolution.



I'm most familiar with D&D, sure--5E is what I've been dedicating brainspace to lately, but I've played every edition from 1st through Pathfinder (skipped 4E because none of the groups I was playing with gave it a go). I've run Fate, for about a year--everyone seemed to be enjoying it until things accrued and I abruptly wasn't--and I've played it some outside that. I've played some CoC, some various White Wolf style games, some Champions, a lot of Mutants & Masterminds 2E, and smatterings and handfuls of other games. I've bounced hard off (in the sense that I don't particularly ever want to read anything about them again) Gumshoe (specifically Esoterrorists), Apocalypse World, and Blades in the Dark--the last left me particularly irked because I *really* wanted to like it, but didn't, at all (on reading).

I think it's just--as I said--that our experiences, expectations, and preferences are so radically different that we end up talking past each other, and I at least find that immensely frustrating, because it never seems as though you understand anything I say.



pemerton said:


> That's not a strong advertisement for the utility or importance of GM prep!



I dunno. I feel much more confident as a GM if I've prepped things, even if the PCs go off and find/do other things, because I've thought about where they are and where the game-world is, and I'm better able to improvise. Also, it was more a dig on my own writing than a comment on GMing.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

zarionofarabel said:


> Down a rabbit hole we go...
> 
> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair, as long as the info I gave them is correct.
> 
> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



Again, look at this from a NARRATIVE perspective. What are the PLAYERS asking for? If what they want to do is play to find out what happens when their characters confront the guy who killed their friend, then lying about it so that doesn't happen is kind of a dick move, right? If instead the players want to play to find out what happens when the PCs are betrayed, well, then obviously the lie cannot possibly be disempowering them! In fact it is simply a necessary component of the desired narrative structure.

Characters don't exist. They cannot have agency. When you try to talk about agency from a character perspective, it never makes sense. It cannot make sense. I mean, we COULD talk about whether, fictionally, a certain character had control of his or her fate in a given circumstance, and that might be INTERESTING, but it has nothing to do with the agency of the PLAYER. IMHO this is what makes these kinds of discussions difficult. 

Now, there's a position that some will take that says they never ever want to be in 'player stance' and deciding anything based on their motivations and understanding of the game as a player, that it is some sort of anathema to RP. IMHO this is a 'unicorn' type of philosophy. Nobody is ever really entirely in 'character stance'. Every aspect of play is heavily influenced by gamist considerations and by practical considerations that form the 'game contract' between the game's participants.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> So, there's a pretty big pea being hidden under this mattress, and that's the assumption that the player choice is uniformed.  This almost never happens -- players are making a choice to go in a "random" direction not because they are actually random but usually because there's some other motive at play.  Perhaps they don't like what's otherwise available, so the choice is on to not choose any of what's already up.  Or, they're engaged in some level of metaplay where they think their thwarting a GM plan they don't want, or, maybe they are random.  In each of these cases, though, the players are exerting their agency.



This is key. ALL forms of interaction at the table between players and the GM, all decisions they make, everything they direct their characters to do and say, and every use they make of the mechanics of the game, are saying something. At least in games (like D&D, which seems to be assumed in this thread) which lack any formal mechanism for managing and controlling the plot, and have no explicit principles and process aimed at narrative/plot development, this is the ONLY form of communication the players have! They can outright say to the DM "we want our players to engage in a desperate endeavor which they believe is ultimately futile." but few players really think in such conceptual narrative terms very often. Yet that might be, at some level, what the players are asking for! This sort of plot could arise pretty naturally out of the goals, imperatives, and process of play in, say, Dungeon World, where the DM's imperative is to "turn up the heat, and then play to see what happens." In D&D things are a lot more nebulous. So PLAYER AGENCY is only REALLY achieved when you pay pretty close attention to the players and what they're communicating, and then test your assumptions, read their responses, and go with what they seem to be asking for. Its an imperfect process, and D&D generally is thus a somewhat imperfect narrative experience.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> In practice in any RPG the amount of influence the GM and that players have on the outcome of any given situation varies, and there is not some optimal ratio that one always has to adhere to and agonising over it is pretty pointless, and possibly detrimental for actually achieving desirable outcomes. If the GM is more concerned over some theoretical purity that is unperceivable to the players anyway, rather than what actually is fun then that is not good.




Well the entire thread began because @zarionofarabel wanted to know if his style of GMing allowed for meaningful choices for his players. So I’ve been approaching the conversation with the expectation that agency is desired by those that are playing.

If it’s not desired, then yes, I would agree with you that worrying about the level of agency allowed in a game would be pointless. But I don’t know how that really helps. 

Much as in the same way if a GM asked how to craft compelling intrigue scenarios for his game, and I decided to post “agonizing over how to incorporate intrigue is pointless because dungeon delving can be perfectly satisfying” kind of misses the point. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> Except really not, at least not from my point of view. Why you assume that it is the default that the NPC is speaking truth? Their liar/truthful status was merely undetermined.




The example was literally what if a NPC told something and it was true and then the GM later decides to reveal it was a lie. It’s about the GM altering what’s established on a whim. 

I’m sure that you’ll cite how if the actual status of the information’s truth was not known to the players, then how can their agency be affected....and that’s a relevant question. But it absolutely may be affected (may, not must.....we lack sufficient detail to really say for sure) because of how it was handled in the moment. The mechanics of play that were engaged in that moment cannot be changed as easily as the fiction can to explain away this change. 

To give a more specific example, let’s say that in the moment of play when the NPC gives the PCs the information, one of the players asks for some kind of check to determine if it’s true. Now, depending on the game, the result of such a roll could be definitively known to the players, meaning they know if this information is true or not.  In other games, perhaps they don’t know if they’ve succeeded; the GM simply says “you think he is telling the truth.”

If this information is important to the players so that they can make informed decisions in play, then not letting the results stand is absolutely subverting their agency. 

If that doesn’t matter to you, that’s fine....but that doesn’t mean it’s not what’s happening.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> To give a more specific example, let’s say that in the moment of play when the NPC gives the PCs the information, one of the players asks for some kind of check to determine if it’s true. Now, depending on the game, the result of such a roll could be definitively known to the players, meaning they know if this information is true or not.  In other games, perhaps they don’t know if they’ve succeeded; the GM simply says “you think he is telling the truth.”




If the players/PCs have made an effort to determine that the NPC is telling the truth, I'd be very reluctant to change those particular facts; I think the only time I would is if there were other facts that conflicted with them, and I felt more strongly about those.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Well the entire thread began because @zarionofarabel wanted to know if his style of GMing allowed for meaningful choices for his players. So I’ve been approaching the conversation with the expectation that agency is desired by those that are playing.



They didn't say their players have expressed any dissatisfaction. If they have, then how to address that depends on the exact form the dissatisfaction takes.



hawkeyefan said:


> The example was literally what if a NPC told something and it was true and then the GM later decides to reveal it was a lie. It’s about the GM altering what’s established on a whim.



Literally it wasn't.


zarionofarabel said:


> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?



There is no mention the there being a decision about truthfulness of the NPC at the moment they were providing the information. It was undetermined and later it was determined they were lying. No change has been made, merely additional details have been added.



hawkeyefan said:


> I’m sure that you’ll cite how if the actual status of the information’s truth was not known to the players, then how can their agency be affected....and that’s a relevant question. But it absolutely may be affected (may, not must.....we lack sufficient detail to really say for sure) because of how it was handled in the moment. The mechanics of play that were engaged in that moment cannot be changed as easily as the fiction can to explain away this change.
> 
> To give a more specific example, let’s say that in the moment of play when the NPC gives the PCs the information, one of the players asks for some kind of check to determine if it’s true. Now, depending on the game, the result of such a roll could be definitively known to the players, meaning they know if this information is true or not.  In other games, perhaps they don’t know if they’ve succeeded; the GM simply says “you think he is telling the truth.”
> 
> If this information is important to the players so that they can make informed decisions in play, then not letting the results stand is absolutely subverting their agency.
> 
> If that doesn’t matter to you, that’s fine....but that doesn’t mean it’s not what’s happening.



Of course this assumes that no successful attempt to determine whether the NPC was lying was made at the moment. If it had, then the wave function would have collapsed then already.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I don't think that "better" or "worse" is the right metric here. When playing Cthulhu Dark, for instance, we know in advance that the PCs' lives will probably get worse (they will have horrible experiences and lose their grip on sanity). But that doesn't stop the players exercising agency in Cthulhu Dark play.
> 
> What is key is _do the actions the players declare, and the resolution of those actions, actually matter?_ Because _what matters_ is highly context-sensitive, so is player agency.
> 
> For instance, in your example, what is at stake in the players' successful recruitment (via their PCs) of the eagles as a player-side resource? If the goal is to avoid encounters, then the GM who allows the players to believe that they have succeeded, and then springs the orc encounter on them anyway, is negating or disregarding player agency. If the goal is to avoid the exhaustion of travel, then the GM who springs the orc encounter is probably not negating agency: the players get the benefit (be that mechanical, or fictional positioning, depending on system) of confronting the orcs unexhausted.
> 
> This illustrates why a useful tool for helping to preserve or enhance player agency is to understand what the players hope they will achieve on a successful check. Eg if it is clear to everyone at the table that the goal of the eagle gambit is to avoid encounters, and the players succeed on the relevant check(s), then it will be crystal-clear what the GM is doing when s/he nevertheless springs the orc encounter. (I think this relates to @Ovinomancer's comments upthread about techniques that avoid illusionism.)



As usual your exposition is quite clear, and it gives me a chance to say something about game design, which might be illustrative:

I designed a '4e-like game', Heroes of Myth and Legend, which we sometimes play. It takes the SC mechanic of 4e and turns it into a universal process. The reason for this is to produce exactly the clarity which you are describing here. In other words, the summoning of the eagles would be a 'Ritual' (or something similar, there are a few categories of such activities). Rituals in this game work as resources in a challenge. So if they Summon Eagles, then there would be an EXPLICIT reason, that is it would be an attempt to achieve a success in the challenge, and the players would have to supply the narrative justification for that. If they stated they were 'avoiding encounters by flying over the wood' then success would plainly indicate they avoided encounters. A GM who didn't honor that would thus be plainly and explicitly violating the process spelled out in HoML. Obviously, as you say, if the players stated that the justification for the success was "to reduce fatigue" then an encounter has not been explicitly avoided, in the fiction, and thus having one is perfectly consonant. 

Of course, D&D, which seems to be the primary assumption here, doesn't have any mechanism for establishing when success has been achieved, let alone what position in the fiction is necessarily being established. An experienced DM might carefully make that happen, but it isn't really clear in either mechanics or process. At best there is a subset of cases where mechanics and fiction exactly coincide. An example might be an Athletics check to leap a chasm. Certainly here the goal is clear and the GM would be clearly remiss to have the PC fall when they successfully jumped. Illusionism here might be something lame like "Oh, the ledge on the other side is an illusion, haha, you fall."


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Again, look at this from a NARRATIVE perspective. What are the PLAYERS asking for? If what they want to do is play to find out what happens when their characters confront the guy who killed their friend, then lying about it so that doesn't happen is kind of a dick move, right? If instead the players want to play to find out what happens when the PCs are betrayed, well, then obviously the lie cannot possibly be disempowering them! In fact it is simply a necessary component of the desired narrative structure.



IMO this sounds like too much focus on the narrative being what the players want.  Which while being one way to play an RPG is not a universal preference.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Characters don't exist. They cannot have agency. When you try to talk about agency from a character perspective, it never makes sense. It cannot make sense. I mean, we COULD talk about whether, fictionally, a certain character had control of his or her fate in a given circumstance, and that might be INTERESTING, but it has nothing to do with the agency of the PLAYER. IMHO this is what makes these kinds of discussions difficult.



Do characters not act?  Do their choices not alter the world they exist in?  That sounds like agency to me.

So what exactly is player agency?  Player agency is when a player chooses the actions of his character and those actions have an actual impact on the characters world.  But this isn't complete because there is also another kind of player agency where the player manipulates the fictional world via meta-rules giving the player often alot of agency over the fiction, but not necessarily agency over their character's actions.

It's this distinction of agencys that cause issues in these discussions IMO. 



> Now, there's a position that some will take that says they never ever want to be in 'player stance' and deciding anything based on their motivations and understanding of the game as a player, that it is some sort of anathema to RP. IMHO this is a 'unicorn' type of philosophy. Nobody is ever really entirely in 'character stance'. Every aspect of play is heavily influenced by gamist considerations and by practical considerations that form the 'game contract' between the game's participants.



Or that position just hasn't went through enough critique and reinvention to become nuanced enough to stand up to such attacks.  For example, one could view that preference as the Platonic ideal of roleplaying with the full knowledge that all we have in our world incomplete forms and shadows of it - albeit some forms and shadows are more true to its true form than others.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> By "starting position" I meant a combination of "what happens if the PCs don't do anything" and "where the PCs are." It's part of framing the fiction, I think, and I think that a GM who isn't careful about framing the fiction can find himself in a position where all paths lead to the same place.



I would like to point out that in my own analytical technique this kind of statement is meaningless. There is no 'same place' for them to end up, as DEFINITIONALLY the GM has not created such a place to start with! Thus you have only the epistemologically empty statement that you 'believe' that if the players had made other choices the narrative would have been (in some substantive sense) 'the same'. This is of course not a falisfiable statement, and thus can never be anything EXCEPT an unsupported belief. I question whether it even matters, or if perhaps it simply elucidates that the real question is only "who is able to have the most meaningful input into the fiction at the table." Given a 'no myth' starting point, we can never actually be sure. All we can do is observe the process, and if we can agree on what is meaningful, then 'count' the points at which each participant meets the criteria. Still, we can only say that some other method (IE extensive prep) works better in this regard by resorting to experimentation! 

So, I can buy that people may 'feel that this is true' and even base that to an extent on reference to their experience with using both techniques, but all that can really be said is "participants of type X get more agency using techniques A, B, and C vs techniques L, M, and Q."


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> You've fixated on the example and have missed that the example isn't the case, it's the example of a case.  The case is that the players are offered a choice, but the outcome is predetermined -- the choice doesn't matter.  This is Force.  If you hide this from the players such that the choice appears meaningful -- perhaps by spinning the yarn that the other fork didn't occur so only this line matters, despite the fact that it's really the choice that didn't matter -- then you're into Illusionism as a subset of Force.  I'm not really sure why you're putting all of this effort into a throwaway example to illuminate the case of Illusionism, but I don't think that your argument -- that since the other fork (or forks) didn't happen there's no there there -- is particularly worthwhile.



My underlying point, which maybe isn't fully explicated in this one post, is that subverting CHARACTER choices in-narrative isn't really determinitive. It doesn't establish the existence of force or not. What matters is what the players goals were, and if the results flowed logically from their action declarations and check results (or whatever, depending on the rules in question). This is at least a consistent construction of the idea of force which is not dependent on unprovable assertions about what narrative other choices would have produced.

And I think it IS generalizable. There are certainly other types of scenarios, like: I the GM have decided that this NPC who is about to be defeated will appear again, thus I fudge his attack role so he knocks the fighter down and escapes. This is certainly a type of force. It doesn't involve (much) uncertainty about what would have happened had the GM made a different choice, and it doesn't involve any subversion of a player choice at all. So, what am I saying here? We don't know where the other branch would have gone where the GM didn't fudge the roll? I think its pretty clear (I say it is in this example) that the NPC would be defeated. Still, what if the escape meets the requirements of developing narrative in the direction the players wanted? Well, frankly, D&D at least, isn't very accomplished at dealing with this situation. A player could literally say "we let him go", but there isn't really a mechanism to translate that into fiction. Now in some other games maybe there is. If the GM in such a game were to deny that possibility, then a mechanic/process/principle of play was violated (this might be the case in BitD for instance, as I understand it, though we would have to develop the fiction more to elucidate that).

So, I agree that there are different situation, and different games that work in different ways, but I don't see that my point is invalid or empty.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

chaochou said:


> Right. And so what’s important is to define context. And in the case of player agency, the context is this: who is creating the purpose of the character?
> 
> That‘s the matter in question. Let’s say the GM creates the purpose of the character(s). If the players object to their predetermined fate, you have force. If they are unaware, you have illusionism. If they are aware, but don’t object (such as when a player accepts a ‘hook’ for a scripted plot line) then you have participationism.
> 
> Player agency is player freedom to create the purpose for their character and for the game content to begin, and grow, from that ongoing act of creation. It’s not one and done, the purpose can and should change as the game state changes through resolution. When the game follows the player’s protagonism in this way, then there is agency, and it’s completely obvious.



Right. I have an example. Once I ran a one-shot (using Traveler IIRC, but really it could have been anything). In this one-shot the PCs were on a doomed space station. Nothing the PCs were going to do, no action they could take, was going to alter the fact that when the orbit decayed it burned up, and everyone inside burned up with it. This scenario was, IMHO, in no way shape or form a 'railroad' or example of 'DM force'. I admit, I didn't explicitly indicate to the players that their choices wouldn't materially change the outcome for the PCs. Still, playing through the scenario provided them all ample chances to make decisions, to explore different aspects of their characters, and to answer the question "how would I face an unavoidable death?" This is high concept RP and evoked a lot of interesting play.


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## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I think it IS generalizable. There are certainly other types of scenarios, like: I the GM have decided that this NPC who is about to be defeated will appear again, thus I fudge his attack role so he knocks the fighter down and escapes. This is certainly a type of force. It doesn't involve (much) uncertainty about what would have happened had the GM made a different choice, and it doesn't involve any subversion of a player choice at all. So, what am I saying here? We don't know where the other branch would have gone where the GM didn't fudge the roll? I think its pretty clear (I say it is in this example) that the NPC would be defeated. Still, what if the escape meets the requirements of developing narrative in the direction the players wanted? Well, frankly, D&D at least, isn't very accomplished at dealing with this situation. A player could literally say "we let him go", but there isn't really a mechanism to translate that into fiction. Now in some other games maybe there is. If the GM in such a game were to deny that possibility, then a mechanic/process/principle of play was violated (this might be the case in BitD for instance, as I understand it, though we would have to develop the fiction more to elucidate that).



This relates to the rather obvious but nevertheless often overlooked fact that what the _characters_ want and what the_ players_ want is often not the same thing at all. The characters would probably want to solve any possible issue speedily with ease and avoid any danger or drama. The players however want to experience an engaging fantasy adventure with a lot of thrilling and dangerous situations and dramatic twists.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> This relates to the rather obvious but nevertheless often overlooked fact that what the _characters_ want and what the_ players_ want is often not the same thing at all. The characters would probably want to solve any possible issue speedily with ease and avoid any danger or drama. The players however want to experience an engaging fantasy adventure with a lot of thrilling and dangerous situations and dramatic twists.



Quite true


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would like to point out that in my own analytical technique this kind of statement is meaningless. There is no 'same place' for them to end up, as DEFINITIONALLY the GM has not created such a place to start with! Thus you have only the epistemologically empty statement that you 'believe' that if the players had made other choices the narrative would have been (in some substantive sense) 'the same'. This is of course not a falisfiable statement, and thus can never be anything EXCEPT an unsupported belief. I question whether it even matters, or if perhaps it simply elucidates that the real question is only "who is able to have the most meaningful input into the fiction at the table." Given a 'no myth' starting point, we can never actually be sure. All we can do is observe the process, and if we can agree on what is meaningful, then 'count' the points at which each participant meets the criteria. Still, we can only say that some other method (IE extensive prep) works better in this regard by resorting to experimentation!
> 
> So, I can buy that people may 'feel that this is true' and even base that to an extent on reference to their experience with using both techniques, but all that can really be said is "participants of type X get more agency using techniques A, B, and C vs techniques L, M, and Q."



Would you find the statement less objectionable if I said that a GM who isn't careful about framing the fiction might find himself leading it where he wants it to go, regardless of what the players/characters want?


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## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Would you find the statement less objectionable if I said that a GM who isn't careful about framing the fiction might find himself leading it where he wants it to go, regardless of what the players/characters want?



I would say that this is a possible outcome of play, sure. I am not sure it has a lot to do with prep though. I think I join @pemerton and others in being dubious of THAT assertion. Having GMed a vast number of different games, both with and without prep (or some pre-built content) I found that the temptation to put the game on 'rails' leading to said pre-built content was strong. As I said before, I cannot even speculate on what improv leads to, except "whatever it actually leads to." As a rationalist realist I highly value evidence or speculation or anecdote, so I don't put huge credence on people's feelings about how things work. Humans are notoriously good at fooling themselves, better than they are at seeing objective truth.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Humans are notoriously good at fooling themselves, better than they are at seeing objective truth.



Yes, they are. This is why some aforethought seems like a way to avoid accidentally railroading the game. Some GMs might prefer to avoid prep, so they're not tempted to force the fiction toward what they've prepared; others might prefer at least some prep, so they can be ready to improvise based on what the PCs do. I guess my point is that no level of prep makes railroading impossible, and different GMs at different tables will have different preferences/needs.


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> There is no mention the there being a decision about truthfulness of the NPC at the moment they were providing the information. It was undetermined and later it was determined they were lying. No change has been made, merely additional details have been added.



Well, the full quote was as below:


zarionofarabel said:


> So, if my players go off in some random direction without asking me about it then that choice was not informed and thus they lack agency because I could just make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better. Sounds fair.
> 
> However, if they ask me to provide details about where they might go and I give them info about it, then they have agency because they are informed about the possible consequences of going there. Sounds fair,* as long as the info I gave them is correct.*
> 
> What if the info I give them comes from an in game source, such as an NPC, *then later I decide that the NPC was lying and the info they got was wrong*. Then I could make up whatever and they wouldn't know any better, but then does that mean they lack agency because of the fact that they made an informed choice based on an in game lie?




I read it as the bold applying even if the info came from a NPC. But, although I think that's a valid interpretation, you're right in that it is not as certain as I was recalling. So my apologies to both you and @Lanefan .



Crimson Longinus said:


> Of course this assumes that no successful attempt to determine whether the NPC was lying was made at the moment. If it had, then the wave function would have collapsed then already.




And I think this largely relates to the point I was making that it all depends on how it was handled in the moment. Were mechanics used at the time? Which NPC was involved and how was this information presented? And so on. I think all these kinds of details would factor into how a GM should handle this kind of situation. As I said earlier, I wouldn't say having a NPC betray the PCs is Illusionism or any other kind of GM Force in and of itself.....it's all in about how it all plays out at the table. 

Maybe a better way to put it is that we can always revise the fiction in any way that is needed. We can't revise how things actually played out at the table. Subverting that is what I am warning against, even if the players would be unaware.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, this is saying that memorilaizing 2/3rds of a improv session is equivalent to prep + some lesser amount note taking, and that this is the minimum amount of work needed to avoid errors in presenting existing fiction.  I'd say this is unplayable if even close to true.  After a bare handful of sessions, the depth of notes, either from prep or play, is massive and either requires a constant major effort to collate and review or will itself lead to errors in presentation.



That's just it - if the heavy lifting is done ahead of time there's less (but, alas, still more than no) likelihood of errors creeping in.  It's not unplayable, but it can very quickly get unwieldy if not kept on top of.


Ovinomancer said:


> Given as I don't currently have issues of lots of errors creeping into my games with the light notes I take during play (introduced NPCs, actions taken, etc) I can say your fear is overblown.  It has happened, sure, but at the same frequency and kevel of impact from when I had heavy prep.



Which tells me either or both of a) you have a stupendous memory or b) you're nowhere near as concerned with detail and accuracy as I am.

And it's the same if I'm a player: if something in the narration doesn't agree with what we already heard or knew I'm usually the one who flags it.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> The example was literally what if a NPC told something and it was true and then the GM later decides to reveal it was a lie. It’s about the GM altering what’s established on a whim.
> 
> I’m sure that you’ll cite how if the actual status of the information’s truth was not known to the players, then how can their agency be affected....and that’s a relevant question. But it absolutely may be affected (may, not must.....we lack sufficient detail to really say for sure) because of how it was handled in the moment. The mechanics of play that were engaged in that moment cannot be changed as easily as the fiction can to explain away this change.
> 
> To give a more specific example, let’s say that in the moment of play when the NPC gives the PCs the information, one of the players asks for some kind of check to determine if it’s true. Now, depending on the game, the result of such a roll could be definitively known to the players, meaning they know if this information is true or not.  In other games, perhaps they don’t know if they’ve succeeded; the GM simply says “you think he is telling the truth.”



Either way, because it's been brought up in play I'd say the GM is locked in at that point and would have to do some serious skating in order to change things later. (it also means the GM has been forced to think about it now rather than later)

However, if it wasn't brought up and determined at the time then one could argue the GM is still free to spin it however she likes, provided she has a robust in-game rationale to back it up.


hawkeyefan said:


> If this information is important to the players [***] so that they can make informed decisions in play, then not letting the results stand is absolutely subverting their agency.
> 
> If that doesn’t matter to you, that’s fine....but that doesn’t mean it’s not what’s happening.



Insert "and verified in-fiction as being true" where I put '[***]' and I'd agree.

Without that verification, anything goes.  There's nothing saying NPC information ever has to be true.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would like to point out that in my own analytical technique this kind of statement is meaningless. There is no 'same place' for them to end up, as DEFINITIONALLY the GM has not created such a place to start with!



Er...sure she has.

In fact, that she has is part of the problem: she's created this 'place'* (either in her mind, or in her notes, or wherever) and is now determined that the PCs are going to get there no matter what they do.

* - which in itself can be anything: a set-piece battle, a mystery clue, a plot-device prisoner, a cool trap, a teleporter to a new land, etc.  'Place' here doesn't mean just an in-fiction physical location.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Do characters not act? Do their choices not alter the world they exist in? That sounds like agency to me.
> 
> So what exactly is player agency? Player agency is when a player chooses the actions of his character and those actions have an actual impact on the characters world. But this isn't complete because there is also another kind of player agency where the player manipulates the fictional world via meta-rules giving the player often alot of agency over the fiction, but not necessarily agency over their character's actions.
> 
> It's this distinction of agencys that cause issues in these discussions IMO.




You seem to be making a distinction between the player characters and the fiction here. Why is that? The PCs are simply one element of the fiction. Yes, they are the most likely to be guided by player decisions, but they are ultimately part of the fictional world. There really is no character agency of the kind we're talking about. The players are guiding the fiction, and the PCs are their main interface for doing so. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I the GM have decided that this NPC who is about to be defeated will appear again, thus I fudge his attack role so he knocks the fighter down and escapes. This is certainly a type of force. It doesn't involve (much) uncertainty about what would have happened had the GM made a different choice, and it doesn't involve any subversion of a player choice at all.




Why does it not? I mean, I see how it may not. As you and @Crimson Longinus go on to comment, sometimes what players want and what their characters want are different things. But probably more often, what they want is in some state of alignment. 

So, if you don't mind, I want to look at this a bit more using some examples.

Let's say Mandy is playing Inigo Montoya, and Cary is playing Wesley. The character of Inigo certainly wants revenge against Count Rugen, the six-fingered man who murdered his father. So, when they finally meet in the fiction, Inigo will want to do everything he can to kill Rugen. The player Mandy, however, has no idea what to do with his character after the revenge plays out, so he wouldn't mind at all for this drama to continue, and if Rugen were to escape, he'd be okay with it. 

If the GM fudges a roll or uses some other application of force to ensure that Rugen escapes, you think this isn't altering agency; would that be accurate?

Where as with Wesley, his goal is to rescue Princess Buttercup. And we also know that Cary is interested to see what will happen in the game after Wesley does rescue her. So if Wesley was on the verge of rescuing her, and the GM were to somehow fudge a roll or resort to Force to make sure she remained unrescued, you would consider this a subversion of agency, is that right? 

If I've followed correctly, then that's interesting. I get why you may hold that stance....as I say above to @FrogReaver , the characters don't have agency, so player desire is the big factor here. I think my only concern is that because the characters are the main means by which the players will cue their desires for play, a GM somehow being aware of less obvious player desires seems less likely. I've certainly had players who have been happy to have their characters suffer temporary failure or setback, but this is always mentioned after the fact. I can't recall any player ever saying to me ahead of time "you know, if my character doesn't avenge his father for a few more sessions, that's fine."

I'm not saying that can't happen or that the GM and players can't have very candid discussions about the goals of play and so on, but that level of awareness of player desire would not be my expectation.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> say the rumours are both true and the PCs will meet Orcs if they go one way and spiders if they go the other; but in either case they're also going to meet a nasty Druid and his pet Displacer Beasts shortly afterward.  What then?  The Druid's not on the rumours list and thus the PCs don't know he's out there or where he might be - for all the players know he was rolled on a wandering encounters table.



Whether or not this is illusionism depends on details not provided in the example - eg what did the GM tell to, and/or imply to, the players about the decision-making process.

But it doesn't sound like it involves very much player agency. The GM seems to be deciding what play is going to be about (ie this druid encounter).



Crimson Longinus said:


> Maybe I intended to prep for both orcs and spiders, but my pet iguana ate the MM pages containing the rules fore spiders so now I have only the orc encounter prepped.



It seems that the GM could just tell the players _today it's going to be Orcs, because that's all we've got!_



Crimson Longinus said:


> Anyway, as the characters arrive to the Gnarly Forest they come upon several slain spiders, and if they investigate they manage to find some arrows of orcish manufacture. But there are no orcs in the Gnarly Forest, and the closest orc settlement in the Grim Chasm is a significant distance away! What are the orcs doing here? This is not just some random orc raiding party, the spiders have nothing of value. Has someone send the orcs here and to what end? So now instead of just one random encounter with orcs on the orc territory, the encounter will now be tied to an emerging sublot. The actions of PCs did affect things, just not in the way they may have anticipated.



This may or may not involve illusionism, ie, a false belief engendered in the players that their choices of action declaration will affect the content of the fiction.

As to whether or not it involves player agency, _where does the mystery come from_? _Why orcs-vs-spiders_? If this is all being set up by the GM, there seems to be little or no player agency.



chaochou said:


> Yes, this is critical. Nearly all the examples I see, of choosing left paths or right paths, of orcs or spiders, fail to examine the real questions of agency such as:
> 
> Who created the need for my character to travel at all?
> Who authored where my character needed to go?
> Who created the reason for my character going there?
> What is my character going to do when they get there?
> Most discussions on the topic implicitly include the answers:
> 
> The GM
> The GM
> The GM
> The thing the GM says needs doing
> In other words, GM force is so heavily presupposed in nearly all the given examples that there's no point engaging them.
> 
> Player agency is a loop which has to begin from the first moment of play (or not). From that point on the creation of purpose for the character doesn't change hands - either the player gets to do it explicitly, or the GM does it implicitly.
> 
> And if it features agency then play from that point on is, as you describe, a cycle of action declaration and action resolution until the player decides their purpose is achieved or failed or that the character has changed and their purpose has shifted.



Your point about presupposition of GM decision-making is evident, I think, in the examples of the druid-with-displacer-beast, and in the example of orcs-vs-spiders.

A concomitant of that presupposition is a narrow conception of both _action declaration_ and _action resolution_.

If action declaration is thought of simply as _we go to place X_, then in a typical map-and-key approach to setting design and travel resolution there will be no player agency. The players move their tokens about the gameboard, but the GM is deciding at each moment of play what actually happens in the game.

As I posted upthread it is possible to use map-and-key techniques in a game that involves player agency, by relying on the phenomenon of _time_: initial moments of play are low-agency, as the players (metaphorically, at least) turn over the board tiles and learn what is under them; but subsequent moments of play are high-agency, as the players use the information they have acquired to formulate and execute plans for extraction of assets from tiles. _ Because _of the role that time plays in this approach, there are essential constraints that must apply if agency is to be generated and preserved: most importantly, the GM can't change the gameboard once the players start exploring it!

Hence the fundamental conflict between the sort of play I've just described, and a "living, breathing world". Even Gygax fell foul of this contradiction in his published rulebooks for AD&D: his advice in the PHB, under the heading Successful Adventures, presupposes that the dungeon situation is largely static and hence that players can engage in meaningful exploration and planning; but in his DMG he gives advice on how to make dungeons non-static, which will have the effect of rendering the exploration and planning largely meaningless (unless the dynamics unfold in _very_ predictable ways such that the players can account for them in their planning).

The only way I know of to combine a "living, breathing world" with genuine player agency is to expressly or implicitly expand the scope of action declaration: _we go to place X to achieve goal Y_. And if the GM doesn't just say "yes", then there needs to be a meaningful way of resolving this action declaration.

There are a lot of options here: anything from Wises-checks (as per Burning Wheel), to letting the PCs turn up but framing them into a situation where their goal Y is at stake (my Classic Traveller play often looks like this; so does my Prince Valiant play), to various forms of checks to see how the travel goes relative to the goal (I've done this in Burning Wheel - Orienteering check where the consequence of failure was that a renegade elf had interposed himself between the PCs (who included a rather self-consciously upright elf) and Y - and in Cortex+ Heroic - checks in an action scene to eliminate Scene Distinctions which, if not eliminated, posit that Y has not been attained or remains unattainable), or probably other approaches I'm not thinking of at the moment.

But what is key to all of them is that _the players _are the ones who are giving content and meaning to the goal Y; and the connection of travel to X in order to achieve Y is up for grabs, in the moment of play, as an outcome of action resolution. And one upshot of all of them is that if the PCs are at X but Y has eluded them, the players know why in both fictional and real-world terms: _our negotiations with those sect members didn't work out _(failed social resolution); _we took too long and lacked sufficient endurance to cross the Bright Desert in good order_ (failed Orienteering resolution); _I guess so-and-so wasn't the good guy I thought he was _(this one is from Burning Wheel, and was actually the consequence of a failed Scavenging check in so-and-so's old headquarters); _the Nazgul didn't stop us reaching Forochel, but - almost as if there were forces in the world working against us! - the orcs had already made off with the re-discovered palantir_ (this one was in Cortex+ LotR, with a 2d12 doom pool expenditure to end the scene, made possible because Gandalf's flagrant displays of power to defeat the Nazgul grew the doom pool unusually rapidly); etc.

The other upshot, of course, is that if the players succeed on the relevant checks then the PCs get Y: they destroy the conspirators lab and thereby put an end to the bioweapons plot; they arrive in Cyprus and take their first castle; they catch and defeat the orcs (but don't find the palantir - more Gandalf cutting loose => another 2d12 spent to end the scene); Thurgon and Aramina find Evard's tower north of the Jewel river, where the tales and rumours said it could be found (successful Great Masters-wise check); etc.

If the players establish their PCs' goals, and can - via action resolution - attain them, then in my view the players have agency. The GM is not the sole author of the important parts of the fiction.

But if all the players can do is change some superficial set dressing - _we're in the Gnarly Forest, not the Grim Chasm_ - but everything that matters is decided by the GM (_you meet a druid and displacer beast_; _you defeat them, but an apprentice rises up to keep their evil schemes alive_; _the orcs are also opposed to the druid's spider minions, but allying with the orcs just causes grief and backstabbing no matter what you do_; etc), then it's obvious that the players have no real agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> That's just it - if the heavy lifting is done ahead of time there's less (but, alas, still more than no) likelihood of errors creeping in. It's not unplayable, but it can very quickly get unwieldy if not kept on top of.




It depends on what you mean by heavy lifting. I don't think all that great an amount of effort is needed to run things in a more player-driven, improvised way. I do this in my 5E campaign which is based in Sigil, but which uses pretty much the entirety of D&D lore. Now, I know a good amount of lore for D&D, but there are many people who would put me to shame. And I don't by any means pin down every detail ahead of time. I just use my general knowledge to help guide things. So if the players say they want to go to Waterdeep, I have a rough idea what that entails, and I can present their encounters there accordingly.

On a smaller scale, but along the same lines, when I play Blades in the Dark, the action all takes place in the city of Doskvol. The setting is evocative, but it's actually very loosely defined. The broad strokes are provided....it's industrial, there are several districts divided by canals, there are many factions in the city, etc. But the details of those elements are largely left for the GM and players to determine through play. 

What I have in both these instances is a framework on which to lean and which to draw inspiration so that when my players decide what they do, I can have the world respond in a way that matters and makes sense. 

There really isn't a strong need to do any significant prep ahead of time. 



Lanefan said:


> Which tells me either or both of a) you have a stupendous memory or b) you're nowhere near as concerned with detail and accuracy as I am.
> 
> And it's the same if I'm a player: if something in the narration doesn't agree with what we already heard or knew I'm usually the one who flags it.




Not to answer for @Ovinomancer , but for me it's not exactly these things. I have a decent memory and I do take some notes as things are established. So do the players. I rely on them to remind me of things from time to time. They often even craft some of the details we have to make note of. 

Detail depends.....I mean, I am not at all worried about a building being 400' by 600' as opposed to 800' by 300'; this is simply not a concern, an error of this kind (if noticed) can just be corrected. That's not the kind of detail our game is concerned with. Accuracy is also not too much of a concern because we know the important stuff, and anything else can be corrected if need be.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> It seems that the GM could just tell the players _today it's going to be Orcs, because that's all we've got!_



They could, but that would be boring. Why spoil the magic?



pemerton said:


> This may or may not involve illusionism, ie, a false belief engendered in the players that their choices of action declaration will affect the content of the fiction.



I'd classify it as a combination of illusionism and improvisation. And I don't consider that to be a bad thing at all.



pemerton said:


> As to whether or not it involves player agency, _where does the mystery come from_? _Why orcs-vs-spiders_? If this is all being set up by the GM, there seems to be little or no player agency.



GM's pretty commonly set up quests and adventures...


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## aramis erak

Crimson Longinus said:


> What I don't find worthwhile is agonising over things that only exist in the GMs head. The players will always experience only one set of events, hypothetical ifs and buts don't matter.



to you, perhaps not. Most of the players I've GM'd for (in the hundreds) have at least occasionally asked "What would have happened if we'd done ..."


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## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Why does it matter?




* The lead post was about no/low prep vs (some level of more than that) prep and attendant agency.

* Force/Illusionism was integrated into the conversation at some point as a component to be examined (and how it relates to prep, GMing ethos, and the downstream effects on play).

* Players (being the humans they are) come with extreme variance in terms of interests, aesthetic tastes, cognitive horsepower, awareness, and investment in play.

* Systems matter significantly (Dungeon World couldn't be further from D&D 5e and they're the same genre...Dogs in the Vineyard and Blades in the Dark are hugely different from each other and hugely different from each of the prior 2 mentioned games despite the fact that (a) V Baker wrote Dogs and (b) Dogs was the GMing/play ethos that inspired his writing of Apocalypse World which in turn inspired both DW and Blades...and Torchbearer is like none of these games!) and that intersects with player archetypes directly above.

* GMs come here to discuss all the various constituent parts of GMing (techniques, ethos, etc), system, and how integral each of those constituent parts are to the trajectory of play and the play experience for the (widely varying) player base...and for themselves and their own tastes/interests/strengths/weaknesses.

If all of these things are true (and they certainly are) then _how can it *not *matter?  _Why are you_ actively pushing back against/hostile to analysis? _ I don't understand this perspective (hostility to analysis and active effort to censor it/shut it down) that so deeply pervades our hobby (or at least a good cross-section of ENWorld).

If your players or your play is not sensitive to (in the "the experience of play isn't impacted one way or another" sense of the word) changes in the systematized aspects of gaming (action resolution, ethos/agenda, GMing techniques, etc) then something is happening at your table (that is specific to your table) to drown out the inherent sensitivity to systematization variance on the experience of play.  If you're not interested in interrogating that to discover what lies beneath...then fine...don't investigate it.  But these threads are meant to rigorously investigate those things because they matter to the people that post them (the lead poster) and the people that reply to the thread.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> If all of these things are true (and they certainly are) then _how can it *not *matter?  _Why are you_ actively pushing back against/hostile to analysis? _ I don't understand this perspective (hostility to analysis and active effort to censor it/shut it down) that so deeply pervades our hobby (or at least a good cross-section of ENWorld).



I am not hostile to analysis, though I feel that often these discussion become a tad dogmatic and prescriptive and lose the sight of things that actually matter for enjoyable gaming experience. And 'why does it matter?' is a perfectly valid question. If you're weighing pros and cons of various GMing methods, then it is pretty valid to ask what practical difference these actually make from the perspective of the players.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not hostile to analysis, though I feel that often these discussion become a tad dogmatic and prescriptive and lose the sight of things that actually matter for enjoyable gaming experience. And 'why does it matter?' is a perfectly valid question. If you're weighing pros and cons of various GMing methods, then it is pretty valid to ask what practical difference these actually make from the perspective of the players.




If your "why does it matter" was "please further unpack the mystery of x, y, z so I can better interface with your reasoning" then great.  The exchange just didn't look that way at all and looked more like "it doesn't matter because n (which is typically some handwave toward "if your table is having fun then who cares and all this analysis is just unproductive or masterbatory navel-gazing) so stop discussing it."

If you truly think analysis of TTRPG play isn't unproductive, masterbatory navel-gazing and potentially of use to some people...then awesome.  Carry on.


----------



## macd21

Lanefan said:


> That's just it - if the heavy lifting is done ahead of time there's less (but, alas, still more than no) likelihood of errors creeping in.  It's not unplayable, but it can very quickly get unwieldy if not kept on top of.
> 
> Which tells me either or both of a) you have a stupendous memory or b) you're nowhere near as concerned with detail and accuracy as I am.
> 
> And it's the same if I'm a player: if something in the narration doesn't agree with what we already heard or knew I'm usually the one who flags it.



I’ve played with numerous high-prep and low-prep GMs. In my experience, both make these kinds of mistakes. If anything, the high-prep GMs make more of them, because they’re trying to keep track of a lot of useless information that never comes up in play.


----------



## Manbearcat

macd21 said:


> I’ve played with numerous high-prep and low-prep GMs. In my experience, both make these kinds of mistakes. If anything, the high-prep GMs make more of them, because they’re trying to keep track of a lot of useless information that never comes up in play.




This is a great point that I used to stress a lot a long time ago.

Forgetting creativity, dynamism, and agency for a moment, detail-intensive cognitive load (the type a high-prep, high-resolution setting GM is continuously working under) can absolutely lead to more continuity errors, not less.

Less prep (especially prep of the extraneous type - the type that never comes up in play or isn't helpful as a focus of play) offloads a significant amount of overhead (onto system, which typically means emergent content as a result of player action declaration meeting player-facing, codified resolution procedures), which can enable more creativity, more dynamism, more thematic focus, and less continuity errors.

GMs have a high variance in terms of mental framework.  Some have less continuity errors with less prep/detail-oriented overhead and some have less continuity errors with more prep/detail-oriented overhead.  Some are capable of toggling deftly and handling both types of games.  

The issue I see is that the D&D community is a culture that is saturated by the high prep/detail-oriented overhead GM who has little to no experience or exposure to the later so they're just working off an untested hypothesis (or at least not tested with any rigor).  If they were to actually try the opposite style, play those games and train themselves on inhabiting that cognitive space and train themselves on those play procedures and their attendant outcomes, they may very well be (pleasantly) surprised at the outcome.  They may find that they're just as good at running a high prep/detail-intensive sandbox 5e high fantasy game as they are at running a low prep/low-setting-resolution Dogs in the Vineyard game


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As I posted upthread it is possible to use map-and-key techniques in a game that involves player agency, by relying on the phenomenon of _time_: initial moments of play are low-agency, as the players (metaphorically, at least) turn over the board tiles and learn what is under them; but subsequent moments of play are high-agency, as the players use the information they have acquired to formulate and execute plans for extraction of assets from tiles. _ Because _of the role that time plays in this approach, there are essential constraints that must apply if agency is to be generated and preserved: most importantly, the GM can't change the gameboard once the players start exploring it!



This is fine as far as it goes, but it predicates itself on a very static game world; where events can't occur that alter what the players (think they) know.  In many cases this is what happens, but not always...


pemerton said:


> Hence the fundamental conflict between the sort of play I've just described, and a "living, breathing world". Even Gygax fell foul of this contradiction in his published rulebooks for AD&D: his advice in the PHB, under the heading Successful Adventures, presupposes that the dungeon situation is largely static and hence that players can engage in meaningful exploration and planning; but in his DMG he gives advice on how to make dungeons non-static, which will have the effect of rendering the exploration and planning largely meaningless (unless the dynamics unfold in _very_ predictable ways such that the players can account for them in their planning).



...such as an example where the PCs pass a room in which there is an Ogre; they sneak away, spend ten minutes planning an assault, and return only to find the Ogre isn't there any more. (it has by random chance and for whatever reason moved to another nearby room)  Or now there's two Ogres (the first one's mate returned from another room).

I don't see this as invalidating player agency.  They had agency at the time they saw the Ogre and made the choices to a) sneak off and b) return later rather than attack right then; and returning later always runs the risk - however slight - of things having materially changed in the meantime.

On a larger scale, the PCs might have visited a town at some point in their played careers, and want to go back there now; but either before or after getting there they learn to their dismay that town's been almost wiped out by some natural disaster.  This natural disaster could be either due to GM pre-planning (e.g. notes "_Volcano erupts over Fjallsburg three days after midwinter 1088 causing [50+d45]% casualties to each of people and structures_" and the PCs go there in 1089) or due to random roll (e.g. GM rolls d% to see how the town's been doing, dice come up 01 i.e. as bad as possible, GM has to dream up what might have happened). Obviously this sort of thing won't be common, but I don't see any reason why it can't be allowed to happen at all.


pemerton said:


> The only way I know of to combine a "living, breathing world" with genuine player agency is to expressly or implicitly expand the scope of action declaration: _we go to place X to achieve goal Y_. And if the GM doesn't just say "yes", then there needs to be a meaningful way of resolving this action declaration.



Which takes away the option of "_We go to place X without any real goal at all_", which is often how exploratory play can unfold: basically the players are for whatever reason(s) asking the GM to set them a new scene with which to interact.  Or perhaps the goal is simply to get to place X (i.e. "_We go to place X to achieve the goal of going to place X_"); or to get away from some element at place W from which they depart.


pemerton said:


> There are a lot of options here: anything from Wises-checks (as per Burning Wheel), to letting the PCs turn up but framing them into a situation where their goal Y is at stake (my Classic Traveller play often looks like this; so does my Prince Valiant play), to various forms of checks to see how the travel goes relative to the goal (I've done this in Burning Wheel - Orienteering check where the consequence of failure was that a renegade elf had interposed himself between the PCs (who included a rather self-consciously upright elf) and Y - and in Cortex+ Heroic - checks in an action scene to eliminate Scene Distinctions which, if not eliminated, posit that Y has not been attained or remains unattainable), or probably other approaches I'm not thinking of at the moment.



Fine, though all of those seem to be interposing between the PCs and getting to place X, before achieving goal Y even enters the picture. (in other words, the original action declaration might need to be unpacked a bit or broken down into stages)


pemerton said:


> If the players establish their PCs' goals, and can - via action resolution - attain them, then in my view the players have agency. The GM is not the sole author of the important parts of the fiction.



That, I suppose, depends on the types of goals the players set for their PCs.  If a player's goal for their PC is simply to get rich or die trying, then what?


pemerton said:


> But if all the players can do is change some superficial set dressing - _we're in the Gnarly Forest, not the Grim Chasm_ - but everything that matters is decided by the GM (_you meet a druid and displacer beast_; _you defeat them, but an apprentice rises up to keep their evil schemes alive_; _the orcs are also opposed to the druid's spider minions, but allying with the orcs just causes grief and backstabbing no matter what you do_; etc), then it's obvious that the players have no real agency.



They do and they don't.  They have agency over their own PCs and over those PCs' interactions with the game world and events therein.  They don't have agency over how elements within the game world are going to react to them and-or what they do.  The GM plays the NPCs; and if the PCs are wading into a three-way conflict in those woods between the Druid, some Orcs, and a pack of spiders then so be it - it's on them to figure it out and-or to figure out whose if any side they want to support.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> It depends on what you mean by heavy lifting. I don't think all that great an amount of effort is needed to run things in a more player-driven, improvised way. I do this in my 5E campaign which is based in Sigil, but which uses pretty much the entirety of D&D lore. Now, I know a good amount of lore for D&D, but there are many people who would put me to shame. And I don't by any means pin down every detail ahead of time. I just use my general knowledge to help guide things. So if the players say they want to go to Waterdeep, I have a rough idea what that entails, and I can present their encounters there accordingly.



This is why I don't use pre-fab settings: to avoid just this, and to avoid 'canon arguments'.

One of my big campaigns used FR as the setting, except the core part where the PCs were based and did most of their adventuring (which was pretty much everything north of Water deep and west of the Anauroch Desert) was completely stripped out and re-done.  Which meant yes, I too had players go to Waterdeep; fortunately neither I nor they were steeped in FR lore so no real arguments arose.

When they went to Baldur's Gate, however, I ran aground: one of the players had played the video game set there and so I couldn't just make stuff up.


hawkeyefan said:


> On a smaller scale, but along the same lines, when I play Blades in the Dark, the action all takes place in the city of Doskvol. The setting is evocative, but it's actually very loosely defined. The broad strokes are provided....it's industrial, there are several districts divided by canals, there are many factions in the city, etc. But the details of those elements are largely left for the GM and players to determine through play.



Were it me, if the action all takes place in one city I'd want that city mapped down to the nails before ever starting play.

EDIt to add: and were I a player running a character in that city, the first thing I'd have my PC do is buy or steal an accurate map of the place.


hawkeyefan said:


> What I have in both these instances is a framework on which to lean and which to draw inspiration so that when my players decide what they do, I can have the world respond in a way that matters and makes sense.



Exactly - and that framework IMO needs to be solid enough such that things can and will make sense not just now but two or five or ten years from now.  Therre's no way I'm going to be able to do this during play and keep play going at the same time, so doing as much of it ahead of time as I can becomes the answer. (which is a large part of why I don't start new campaigns very often as thus far each has represented well over a year of pre-play design and prep)


hawkeyefan said:


> Not to answer for @Ovinomancer , but for me it's not exactly these things. I have a decent memory and I do take some notes as things are established. So do the players. I rely on them to remind me of things from time to time. They often even craft some of the details we have to make note of.



IME players' note-taking is unreliable at best and non-existent at worst; and this includes me-as-player. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Detail depends.....I mean, I am not at all worried about a building being 400' by 600' as opposed to 800' by 300'; this is simply not a concern, an error of this kind (if noticed) can just be corrected.



Where to me that sort of error is close to unforgivable, and red-flags me that if the GM can mess up something this simple who knows what else is going to be messed up as things progress.


hawkeyefan said:


> That's not the kind of detail our game is concerned with. Accuracy is also not too much of a concern because we know the important stuff, and anything else can be corrected if need be.



Until and unless that correction retroactively affects play; and it's absolutely inevitable that at some point it will.

A simple example: an 800' wall takes longer to run along to get around the corner than does a 600' wall, and if a character dies due to not being able to get to cover in time and then it's found later that this was due to the wall's length increasing 200' by mistake - yeah, that game's on its way over the cliff.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not hostile to analysis, though I feel that often these discussion become a tad dogmatic and prescriptive and lose the sight of things that actually matter for enjoyable gaming experience. And 'why does it matter?' is a perfectly valid question. If you're weighing pros and cons of various GMing methods, then it is pretty valid to ask what practical difference these actually make from the perspective of the players.




This post has been nagging me and I realize now why that is, so I want to explain.

You say you aren't hostile to analysis but then the first sentence conveys a premise that seems pretty fundamentally hostile to analysis:

"<TTRPG analysis often> lose(s) sight of things that actually matter for enjoyable gaming experience."

That fundamentally disagrees with the post I wrote that you responded to because it seems to presupposes that you can derive some unified theory of "things that actually matter for an enjoyable gaming experience" that people agree upon.  The point of this analysis (again, unless you think its just navel-gazing...which someone who is not hostile to this sort of analysis wouldn't think) in the first place is uncovering the significant variance within "enjoyable gaming experience" and then working from first principles to pick (or design) and successfully run games that cater to a particular type of "enjoyable gaming experience"

Then the last sentence asking "what practical difference these actually make from the perspective of the players" seems to presuppose a lot of things regarding system and play ethos such as (i) system is (or should) be mostly/wholly GM-facing and (ii) players don't (or shouldn't) care about how content is generated and the machinery of action resolution.

Let me put this all together to show why this paragraph has been nagging at me (and relate it directly to Illusionism).

Let us say I'm playing (not GMing) Dungeon World.  The game's ethos is "play to find out what happens", "make a map but leave blanks (to fill in during play as content emerges as a byproduct of play - no metaplot and no high-resolution setting)", and "fill the character's lives with adventure (by challenge their thematic portfolio - Bonds, Alignment - and through the type of danger and discover inherent to the genre and the End of Session questions)."  The robust PCs, the player-facing mechanics, the "ask the players questions and use their answers", the advancement paradigm being heavily predicated upon failure encourages bold, thematic play (it does not encourage turtling).

This arrangement spits out a very specific type of play and is an "enjoyable gaming experience" for a particular type of player.  

The deployment of overt Force and covert Illusionism is fundamentally anathema to this game in every way:

a)  It fundamentally goes against the game's basic tenants.

b)  The game has a beautiful engine for emergent play so you don't need to deploy it anyway.

c)  If you try to deploy it (i) the game will fight you (the results will be absolutely ham-fisted...there is no such thing as "deft Illusionism" in Dungeon World) because its so deeply player-facing (from ethos to resolution mechanics) (ii) , as such, it will be bloody obvious, and (iii) the sum of which will be a betrayal of the spirit of play and the players (and your own) investment in playing the game at all (the social contract).

So if you try to impose metaplot by (say) using moves that the game forbids on certain results...it will be obvious and everything falls apart.  

If you secretly flesh out the setting behind the scenes and don't let the map (and subsequent maps to that) flesh out through the process of play...it will be obvious and everything falls apart.  

If you don't challenge the players along the axis of each of their (and the collective that will emerge through their entangled Bonds and what is established through play) thematic portfolios, but rather propel play through thematically neutral setting stuff (making the setting the protagonist) or through the villain's dramatic need (eg Strahd's dramatic need being the overwhelming/exclusive propellant of Ravenloft games...thereby turning Strahd into the actual protagonist)...it will be bloody obvious and will make for a completely incoherent Dungeon World game, not an "enjoyable gaming experience" and "the practical difference (with respect to orthodox DW play) from the perspective of the players" will be significant and almost surely insurmountable.

I hope that illuminates my issue with your response here.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> let’s say that in the moment of play when the NPC gives the PCs the information, one of the players asks for some kind of check to determine if it’s true. Now, depending on the game, the result of such a roll could be definitively known to the players, meaning they know if this information is true or not.  In other games, perhaps they don’t know if they’ve succeeded; the GM simply says “you think he is telling the truth.”
> 
> If this information is important to the players so that they can make informed decisions in play, then not letting the results stand is absolutely subverting their agency.



If it has been established _in the shared fiction _that the NPC spoke the truth, then where does the GM get the authority unilaterally to change that?

A fortiori, if that component of the shared fiction was established _because a player succeeded in a declared action_, where does the GM get the authority to just set aside the outcome of action resolution?

If my questions are treated non-rhetorically, the answer can only be: by using force (whether illusionistically or overtly) and completely disregarded player agency.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> D&D, which seems to be assumed in this thread





AbdulAlhazred said:


> D&D, which seems to be the primary assumption here



This thread is in General, and so I am very definitely not assuming D&D.

For the reasons you give - ie the lack of robust resolution mechanics outside of combat and a few other context, with the exception of 4e skill challenges - D&D is not a game which is very conducive to player agency, and hence not the best system to support discussions thereof!

That's not to say that D&D _has_ to be a railroad: but - again just as you have posted upthread - a GM will need to work hard and carefully to allow player agency to manifest. And will probably want to drift some of the action resolutions subsystems away from their default presentation, which (in 5e, at least) seems to allow the GM to subvert connections between _successful check_ and _player impact on the fiction_ pretty much at will.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Player agency is when a player chooses the actions of his character and those actions have an actual impact on the characters world.



By this measure the reader of a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book has player agency. Which is absurd.

Triggering the GM to offer up _output B_ rather than _output B_ isn't agency. Even a railroad has that (unless it is so utterly degenerate that the GM doesn't even bother responding to player action declarations; but I don't think there is very much of that in the RPGing world).


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> If it has been established _in the shared fiction _that the NPC spoke the truth, then where does the GM get the authority unilaterally to change that?
> 
> A fortiori, if that component of the shared fiction was established _because a player succeeded in a declared action_, where does the GM get the authority to just set aside the outcome of action resolution?
> 
> If my questions are treated non-rhetorically, the answer can only be: by using force (whether illusionistically or overtly) and completely disregarded player agency.




The place that the GM gets that authority is in games that place the GM's role as "lead storyteller" while giving them a mandate to ignore/change rules and action resolution results in the interest of (the GM's idea of) "a good story" and, by proxy, "an enjoyable playing experience." 

That sort of positioning of GM role and that sort of authority over the propulsion of play (along with several other riders regarding how table-facing mechanics should be and how participatory/acquiescent players should be to this paradigm) is something that just gets assumed in these conversations.

The reality is, there is an enormous amount of games that not only don't support that paradigm, they actually (and with focused intent) are structured to be experiences entirely alternative to that paradigm.  Then there are games that that are orthogonal to that paradigm (alternatives to the orthodox and the alternatives).  We're in a golden era of diverse gaming.  This is why analysis is more important than ever and assumptions of orthodoxy are less helpful than ever.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right. I have an example. Once I ran a one-shot (using Traveler IIRC, but really it could have been anything). In this one-shot the PCs were on a doomed space station. Nothing the PCs were going to do, no action they could take, was going to alter the fact that when the orbit decayed it burned up, and everyone inside burned up with it. This scenario was, IMHO, in no way shape or form a 'railroad' or example of 'DM force'. I admit, I didn't explicitly indicate to the players that their choices wouldn't materially change the outcome for the PCs. Still, playing through the scenario provided them all ample chances to make decisions, to explore different aspects of their characters, and to answer the question "how would I face an unavoidable death?" This is high concept RP and evoked a lot of interesting play.



Ron Edwards discussed this sort of thing nearly 20 years ago:

neither Setting-based Premise nor a complex Setting history necessarily entails metaplot, as I'm using the term anyway. The best example is afforded by Glorantha: an extremely rich setting with history in place not only for the past, but for the future of play. The magical world of Glorantha will be destroyed and reborn into a relatively mundane new existence, because of the Hero Wars. Many key events during the process are fixed, such as the Dragonrise of 1625. Why isn't this metaplot?

Because none of the above represent decisions made by player-characters; they only provide context for them. The players know all about the upcoming events prior to play. The key issue is this: in playing in (say) a Werewolf game following the published metaplot, the players are intended to be ignorant of the changes in the setting, and to encounter them only through play. The more they participate in these changes (e.g. ferrying a crucial message from one NPC to another), the _less_ they provide theme-based resolution to Premise, not more. Whereas in playing _HeroQuest_, there's no secret: the Hero Wars are here, and the more everyone enjoys and knows the canonical future events, the _more_ they can provide theme through their characters' decisions during those events.​
From the point of view of authorship - which is what we're talking about when we talk about player agency over the shared fiction of a RPG - there is no fundamental difference between past and future in the fiction. A player's goal can be to establish that his/her PC really _is_ the child of the duke (ie a past-oriented goal), just as much as to overthrow the duke (ie a future-oriented goal). And you don't need particularly fancy mechanical systems to support this: my current Classic Traveller game has action declarations that aim at establishing truths about the past as well as truths about the future.

So playing in a context where we know the setting is a doomed space station can be just as meaningful as playing in a setting where we know the revolution has just happened.

What is anathema to player agency - as Edwards points out - is the GM using _secret _backstory and _covert_ manipulation of unilaterally-imagined fiction to shape and thwart action resolution outcomes.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> If it has been established _in the shared fiction _that the NPC spoke the truth, then where does the GM get the authority unilaterally to change that?
> 
> A fortiori, if that component of the shared fiction was established _because a player succeeded in a declared action_, where does the GM get the authority to just set aside the outcome of action resolution?
> 
> If my questions are treated non-rhetorically, the answer can only be: by using force (whether illusionistically or overtly) and completely disregarded player agency.




I was in a game....I believe it was D&D 3E but may have been 3.5 or possibly Pathfinder.....and the GM did not state the Difficulty Classes for any attempted skill check. He claimed that this was to maintain a level of uncertainty for the players. Then we would roll, and he would narrate the results. In some cases, success or failure was very obvious...the lock would remain unpicked, the wall unclimbed. 

In other cases, success or failure was not obvious at all. Things like Sense Motive checks to determine if someone is lying definitely fell into that category. You’d roll, you’d know the total you got based on the roll plus your skill....but you didn’t know the DC that the GM set. And his narration could be really vague, like “you’re reasonably sure the captain’s not lying”. 

This approach soon became obvious as a cover for him to simply decide if things succeeded or failed. It gave him enough plausible deniability to do what he wanted “without the players knowing.”

Ultimately, we absolutely knew. His campaign ground to a halt not ling after, and someone else picked up the GM reins. Since then, I’ve only ever played in one shots with him as GM, where that approach is far less irksome to me as a player.


----------



## pemerton

@hawkeyefan - what you describe in your latest post is, for me, the absolute pits.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> GM's pretty commonly set up quests and adventures...



Sure. That's why I posited, upthread, that low-player-agency games are pretty common in the world of RPGing.

I think on this, at least, @chaochou and I are ad idem.

EDIT because this subsequent post of yours also seemed relevant to this:


Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not hostile to analysis, though I feel that often these discussion become a tad dogmatic and prescriptive and lose the sight of things that actually matter for enjoyable gaming experience. And 'why does it matter?' is a perfectly valid question. If you're weighing pros and cons of various GMing methods, then it is pretty valid to ask what practical difference these actually make from the perspective of the players.



The practical difference is huge, for me at least. As player and GM.

As GM: I am not interested in writing a plot in advance, or setting up a "quest" or "adventure". That's not why I engage in RPGing as my main creative outlet (outside of my work).

As a player: I posted upthread about my Burning Wheel GM who introduced NPCs who had no connection to my PC but were of interest to him; and how I (in playing my PC) ignored them, and used the tools at my disposal (ie action declarations) to shift the focus of the action back onto the stuff I cared about.

One way to get better at GMing, or RPGing in general, is to do it.

But another way is to talk and read about it. Which is what these threads are for.

Before I read Ron Edwards's essays on The Forge, I hadn't been able to work out what it was that made my Rolemaster games good, and what it was that caused them to have moments of frustration. (Of course I could tell when I was being frustrated; but it was Edwards who let me work out _why_, and what techniques I could change or just let go of to alter that.)

Before I read @Campbell's posts on this forum I didn't appreciate the significant difference between how Apocalypse World works and how Burning Wheel (and other systems closer to it, eg Cortex+ Heroic; 4e D&D) work. Having learned that from Campbell has been a big help to me in running my current Classic Traveller game.

Etc.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> I was in a game....I believe it was D&D 3E but may have been 3.5 or possibly Pathfinder.....and the GM did not state the Difficulty Classes for any attempted skill check. He claimed that this was to maintain a level of uncertainty for the players. Then we would roll, and he would narrate the results. In some cases, success or failure was very obvious...the lock would remain unpicked, the wall unclimbed.
> 
> In other cases, success or failure was not obvious at all. Things like Sense Motive checks to determine if someone is lying definitely fell into that category. You’d roll, you’d know the total you got based on the roll plus your skill....but you didn’t know the DC that the GM set. And his narration could be really vague, like “you’re reasonably sure the captain’s not lying”.
> 
> This approach soon became obvious as a cover for him to simply decide if things succeeded or failed. It gave him enough plausible deniability to do what he wanted “without the players knowing.”
> 
> Ultimately, we absolutely knew. His campaign ground to a halt not ling after, and someone else picked up the GM reins. Since then, I’ve only ever played in one shots with him as GM, where that approach is far less irksome to me as a player.




This is a perfect example of what I was talking about above.

The less player-facing the game is, the more vulnerable it is to Illusionism (in precisely the way you described).  This can be a feature or a bug depending upon what sort of experience people are looking for.  

If you consider it a bug (either as a GM or as a player), then a game that is codified and player-facing is going to put you in an infinitely more secure position.  

If you consider it a feature, then a game that is codified and player-facing is going to put you in an infinitely more insecure position.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> This is why I don't use pre-fab settings: to avoid just this, and to avoid 'canon arguments'.




Oh we don’t argue about that kind of stuff at all. Our group long ago agreed to make our own canon for any pre-existing setting, using broad strokes for most of it, and picking and choosing what elements we want to include.



Lanefan said:


> When they went to Baldur's Gate, however, I ran aground: one of the players had played the video game set there and so I couldn't just make stuff up.




Sure you could have. Just tell the guy “forget what you learned in that video game.”



Lanefan said:


> Were it me, if the action all takes place in one city I'd want that city mapped down to the nails before ever starting play.
> 
> EDIt to add: and were I a player running a character in that city, the first thing I'd have my PC do is buy or steal an accurate map of the place.




The PCs are inhabitants of the city, so they know their way around and no such map is needed. Now maybe the specific layout of buildings in a specific neighborhood, sure, they may not know that. But they know their way around just as anyone knows their way around their hometown.



Lanefan said:


> Where to me that sort of error is close to unforgivable, and red-flags me that if the GM can mess up something this simple who knows what else is going to be messed up as things progress.




I don’t know....mistakes are gonna happen and that seems an easy one to correct, in the grand scheme. “Oops, guys the building is actually 800 by 300. My bad.” Problem solved.



Lanefan said:


> A simple example: an 800' wall takes longer to run along to get around the corner than does a 600' wall, and if a character dies due to not being able to get to cover in time and then it's found later that this was due to the wall's length increasing 200' by mistake - yeah, that game's on its way over the cliff.




I mean if an error like that led to a PC death, I’d just go with the shorter length.

Honestly, this just need not be an issue at all.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> The place that the GM gets that authority is in games that place the GM's role as "lead storyteller" while giving them a mandate to ignore/change rules and action resolution results in the interest of (the GM's idea of) "a good story" and, by proxy, "an enjoyable playing experience."
> 
> That sort of positioning of GM role and that sort of authority over the propulsion of play (along with several other riders regarding how table-facing mechanics should be and how participatory/acquiescent players should be to this paradigm) is something that just gets assumed in these conversations.



If a poster in this thread is assuming that that sort of GM authority is just part-and-parcel of GMing, then they ought to conclude that player agency is impossible!

Because a necessary condition of player agency is that the GM _does not have_ that sort of authority.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Which takes away the option of "_We go to place X without any real goal at all_", which is often how exploratory play can unfold
> 
> <snip>
> 
> That, I suppose, depends on the types of goals the players set for their PCs.  If a player's goal for their PC is simply to get rich or die trying, then what?





prabe said:


> The GM decides what happens if the PCs don't do anything,



I have never played a RPG where the players don't have their PCs do things. And don't have goals for their PCs beyond _Hey, GM, here I am, throw something at me!_

Those sorts of players seem to not be interested in exercising agency, and so I don't think examples of play involving them are going to be very illustrative of what player agency looks like.



prabe said:


> *the GM decides how the world reacts to what the PCs do;*
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *as I said above, the GM gets to decide how the world reacts to what the PCs do, whether they succeed or fail.*
> 
> I'm most familiar with D&D, sure--5E is what I've been dedicating brainspace to lately, but I've played every edition from 1st through Pathfinder (skipped 4E because none of the groups I was playing with gave it a go). I've run Fate, for about a year--everyone seemed to be enjoying it until things accrued and I abruptly wasn't--and I've played it some outside that. I've played some CoC, some various White Wolf style games, some Champions, a lot of Mutants & Masterminds 2E, and smatterings and handfuls of other games. I've bounced hard off (in the sense that I don't particularly ever want to read anything about them again) Gumshoe (specifically Esoterrorists), Apocalypse World, and Blades in the Dark--the last left me particularly irked because I *really* wanted to like it, but didn't, at all (on reading).
> 
> I think it's just--as I said--that our experiences, expectations, and preferences are so radically different that we end up talking past each other



The bits that I've bolded reinforce my conjecture upthread, that you are simply unfamiliar with systems that have robust action resolution mechanics. And at least for my part we do not seem to be talking past one another - your posts seem completely consistent with familiarity with "storyteller-GM" style RPGing that I would associate with games like 2nd ed AD&D, White Wolf, CoC, and that seemed to be evident in a story hour your linked to in a thread some months (I think it was) ago.

To go back to the bolded bits: in D&D combat, if a player - through the action resolution process - reduces a monster's hit points to zero by way of a sword attack, the GM _does not get to decide how the world reacts to the PC's swing of a sword_. The rules mandate that the GM narrate the monster being killed (or KO'ed, depending on the wrinkles of edition) by the PC's sword-blow.

Now just generalise that.

If the players succeed on action resolution, the GM is not _free to decide how the world reacts_. Rather, s/he is bound to honour the success. (This can't work if there is not an action resolution system that bears upon the matter at hand - see my post upthread about the weakness of onworld exploration in Classic Traveller as an example - but good RPG systems have good action resolution systems that cover at least the bulk of the action one might expect given setting, genre etc.)

This is why the sort of "unconscious railroading" you are positing is simply not possible in any system with robust action resolution.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> This is a perfect example of what I was talking about above.
> 
> The less player-facing the game is, the more vulnerable it is to Illusionism (in precisely the way you described).  This can be a feature or a bug depending upon what sort of experience people are looking for.
> 
> If you consider it a bug (either as a GM or as a player), then a game that is codified and player-facing is going to put you in an infinitely more secure position.
> 
> If you consider it a feature, then a game that is codified and player-facing is going to put you in an infinitely more insecure position.




A lot of it seems to be about the constraints that are placed on the GM. Games like Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark limit how the GM can act and expect the GM to adhere to very specific principles. These things are designed to remove the chance for Force to come into play.

On the other hand, D&D grants the DM almost complete authority, although there are some limits that are expected, and others that are suggested.

So for D&D to allow for a high degree of player agency, the DM has to essentially place constraints on himself. This requires some real discipline on their part, and also some real shifting of play focus and expectation.

I run a 5E game, and it’s very player driven. Not as much as my BitD game, but more so than standard 5E D&D tends to be. I largely run material that I come up with, based on what the PCs are doing at any given time, and in response to the fiction that’s been established. 

For some reason (largely because the Chult location from Forgotten Realms was an important element in our game) I decided to incorporate the published adventure Tomb of Annihilation into our game. I thought it would be cool to do an old fashioned dungeoncrawl, especially since it could easily connect to our ongoing game.

It was disastrous. 

Which is a shame because the adventure seems pretty good for what it is and what it wants to do. But it was simply a poor fit for our game. The clash in approach was too much. The adventure needed to be run in a way that I had not been running a game for some time.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I have never played a RPG where the players don't have their PCs do things. And don't have goals for their PCs beyond _Hey, GM, here I am, throw something at me!_



If I as the GM frame a scenario, and the players don't have their PCs interfere with it, I feel as though I should know beforehand what happens then. Maybe they're doing something in the same place and time, in which case it can happen around them; maybe they're going somewhere else, in which case it might have happened by the time they get back.



pemerton said:


> The bits that I've bolded reinforce my conjecture upthread, that you are simply unfamiliar with systems that have robust action resolution mechanics. And at least for my part we do not seem to be talking past one another - your posts seem completely consistent with familiarity with "storyteller-GM" style RPGing that I would associate with games like 2nd ed AD&D, White Wolf, CoC, and that seemed to be evident in a story hour your linked to in a thread some months (I think it was) ago.



What is evident in the play notes that I have--copy-pasta from the notes my wife takes at the table and types up and shares later--is what happened. She doesn't usually write up the mechanics of play, and I don't usually care to edit them in.

To the extent that we seem to me to talk past each other--and to be clear, I'm pretty sure it's not intentional on either of our parts--it seem/feels that you don't believe that I can read, e.g., Apocalypse World, and feel as though I as a player would have less agency than I would in a well-run (yes, that does a lot of work) game of 5E. I'm willing to believe that the experience of play is different than it looks from the book (and please don't ask me to read it again), but the game seems to want a very specific type of story which I don't like to emerge from play.



pemerton said:


> To go back to the bolded bits: in D&D combat, if a player - through the action resolution process - reduces a monster's hit points to zero by way of a sword attack, the GM _does not get to decide how the world reacts to the PC's swing of a sword_. The rules mandate that the GM narrate the monster being killed (or KO'ed, depending on the wrinkles of edition) by the PC's sword-blow.
> 
> Now just generalise that.
> 
> If the players succeed on action resolution, the GM is not _free to decide how the world reacts_. Rather, s/he is bound to honour the success. (This can't work if there is not an action resolution system that bears upon the matter at hand - see my post upthread about the weakness of onworld exploration in Classic Traveller as an example - but good RPG systems have good action resolution systems that cover at least the bulk of the action one might expect given setting, genre etc.)
> 
> This is why the sort of "unconscious railroading" you are positing is simply not possible in any system with robust action resolution.



In a D&D game, it is possible that killing an enemy will lead other enemies to act differently. I believe the GM is free to have them do so. Generalize that, and I believe the GM is free to decide how the world reacts to the PCs' successes. I don't believe that any kind or amount of prep can prevent unintentional railroading; I think avoiding it requires some care, and can be done by a GM who preps tons, and by a GM who preps next to nothing, and by GMs who fall between those two poles.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> A lot of it seems to be about the constraints that are placed on the GM. Games like Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark limit how the GM can act and expect the GM to adhere to very specific principles. These things are designed to remove the chance for Force to come into play.
> 
> On the other hand, D&D grants the DM almost complete authority, although there are some limits that are expected, and others that are suggested.
> 
> So for D&D to allow for a high degree of player agency, the DM has to essentially place constraints on himself. This requires some real discipline on their part, and also some real shifting of play focus and expectation.
> 
> I run a 5E game, and it’s very player driven. Not as much as my BitD game, but more so than standard 5E D&D tends to be. I largely run material that I come up with, based on what the PCs are doing at any given time, and in response to the fiction that’s been established.
> 
> For some reason (largely because the Chult location from Forgotten Realms was an important element in our game) I decided to incorporate the published adventure Tomb of Annihilation into our game. I thought it would be cool to do an old fashioned dungeoncrawl, especially since it could easily connect to our ongoing game.
> 
> It was disastrous.
> 
> Which is a shame because the adventure seems pretty good for what it is and what it wants to do. But it was simply a poor fit for our game. The clash in approach was too much. The adventure needed to be run in a way that I had not been running a game for some time.




Yup.  This is absolutely true.  Explicit instruction to "follow the rules" and "play to find out what happens" do a huge amount of work in those games.  However, that isn't the only thing those have that make them that way and 4e is a perfect example of why a particular cross-section of D&D culture revolted against it:

* Intense codification of action resolution that is overt and heavily bounded.  4e maths were explicit and by level;  Defenses/HPs/To Hit/Damage, Easy, Moderate, Hard DCs.  Skill Challenges codified noncombat conflict resolution in the same way that Clocks in Apocalypse World (and Blades) does, both in terms of maths and procedures.

* Robust, thematic PCs that are encouraged to be bold by the system and the ethos.

* Player-facing action resolution, Rest cycle and Milestone mechanics, treasure-handling, etc.

* Quest Mechanics (this is your "Expressed a Challenge via" and Expressed your Beliefs, Drives, etc" and all the rest in Blades).

* It all...just works to propel play through snowballing conflict with the PCs as protagonists...no Force needed.

I'm sure that all sounds familiar!

Well, if you're either a GM or a player that doesn't like any of:


Intense codification
Player-facing mechanics
The responsibility being put on the players to provide the energy to propel play through their PCs
An environment that makes any application of GM Force extremely obvious

...well, you're not going to like 4e.

There are plenty of other reasons to not like 4e (they've been discussed ad nauseum and this isn't about 4e but rather constituent parts of system and their impact on play), but as it pertains to this thread and the subject at hand, those 4 are certainly big ones (with other downstream intangible effects arising because of one or multiple of them).


----------



## zarionofarabel

So...does that mean I'm railroading my players because I use systems that don't specifically give them the option of making up details of the campaign world???


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> So...does that mean I'm railroading my players because I use systems that don't specifically give them the option of making up details of the campaign world???




Absolutely not.  

Railroading is a very specific thing, but you evaluate it qualitatively, not quantitatively so the threshold can be difficult to pin down.

The way I think of the phenomena is like this:

* *Force *is a singular unit.  Its an instance of play where a GM subordinates the outcome of a player's strategic/tactical/thematic decision (whatever the decision-point hangs upon) to their own will, wresting the imposition of the gamestate's trajectory from the player to the GM.

* *Railroading *occurs when Force is deployed sufficient to cross the threshold where the meaningful trajectory of play is wrested from the player(s) to the GM.

Letting the details of a setting/backstory mostly emerge during play can increase player agency or invest players with a sense of anchoring to and investment in the shared imaginary space.  But that isn't always the case.  Some people feel more anchored and more invested if the GM does that work.  

HOWEVER, if a fundamental part of an actual system is letting certain details of setting/backstory emerge during play (eg action resolution mechanics or PC build components and/or advancement are schematically tied to this) AND a GM wrests control of this process in a moment of play, THAT is Force.  If it passes the threshold then its Railroading.

But not all games work like that and hexcrawls require that hexes be codified tightly and with sufficient resolution so the game's most important decision-points that are tethered to that information can be navigated by players.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh we don’t argue about that kind of stuff at all. Our group long ago agreed to make our own canon for any pre-existing setting, using broad strokes for most of it, and picking and choosing what elements we want to include.
> 
> Sure you could have. Just tell the guy “forget what you learned in that video game.”



Believe me, this is not a player to whom one can say something like this and have it stick. 


hawkeyefan said:


> The PCs are inhabitants of the city, so they know their way around and no such map is needed. Now maybe the specific layout of buildings in a specific neighborhood, sure, they may not know that. But they know their way around just as anyone knows their way around their hometown.



Which is fine in the fiction, but to replicate that at the table I-as-player need a map so I can plan my approach and getaway routes, determine distances and-or expected travel times as best as possible, know where obvious fixed-site threats (e.g. the cop shop) are located in order to avoid them, stuff like that.

And I wouldn't want to just handwave this by the GM saying "your character knows all this", as for me it'd be far more fun digging in and having us work it out for ourselves...literally role-playing the gang sitting in a basement around a map plotting out these details for the score.

And if we really wanted to get creative, we could even try to locate our scores to form some sort of pattern on the map. 


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know....mistakes are gonna happen and that seems an easy one to correct, in the grand scheme. “Oops, guys the building is actually 800 by 300. My bad.” Problem solved.



At the very least this is going to be an inconvenience for the mapper, who will have already drawn the initially-narrated size on the map.  (yes, we map things)

It's when mistakes lead to in-play consequences that wouldn't have happened had the mistake not been made is when things go right off the rails.


hawkeyefan said:


> I mean if an error like that led to a PC death, I’d just go with the shorter length.



Which would most likely mean retconning that whole encounter and at the very least would invalidate all play that came after.  As a player I'd be furious; as a GM I'd be embarrassed as all hell (and I speak from experience on both sides here).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I have never played a RPG where the players don't have their PCs do things. And don't have goals for their PCs beyond _Hey, GM, here I am, throw something at me!_



I have, as both player and DM.

Some players are simply more passive than others when it comes to trying to drive story.  As long as they can role-play their characters without interference (other than occasionally being charmed or whatever), feel they have the freedom to try anything, and trust the DM to be able to seamlessly react on the fly if they do something unexpected, all is good.


pemerton said:


> Those sorts of players seem to not be interested in exercising agency, and so I don't think examples of play involving them are going to be very illustrative of what player agency looks like.



Thing is, you see agency as including far more than I (or, I posit, most people) do.  Those players are very much interested in exercising agency but are also aware that their agency does not extend beyond their own characters except in unusual circumstances.  This doesn't mean those players are interested in exercising (or even interested in having, in some cases) agency over the setting or the story within that setting.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Yup.  This is absolutely true.  Explicit instruction to "follow the rules" and "play to find out what happens" do a huge amount of work in those games.  However, that isn't the only thing those have that make them that way and 4e is a perfect example of why a particular cross-section of D&D culture revolted against it:
> 
> * Intense codification of action resolution that is overt and heavily bounded.  4e maths were explicit and by level;  Defenses/HPs/To Hit/Damage, Easy, Moderate, Hard DCs.  Skill Challenges codified noncombat conflict resolution in the same way that Clocks in Apocalypse World (and Blades) does, both in terms of maths and procedures.
> 
> * Robust, thematic PCs that are encouraged to be bold by the system and the ethos.
> 
> * Player-facing action resolution, Rest cycle and Milestone mechanics, treasure-handling, etc.
> 
> * Quest Mechanics (this is your "Expressed a Challenge via" and Expressed your Beliefs, Drives, etc" and all the rest in Blades).
> 
> * It all...just works to propel play through snowballing conflict with the PCs as protagonists...no Force needed.
> 
> I'm sure that all sounds familiar!



Other than the last point, when put in those terms it also all sounds rather...prepackaged, for lack of a better term; or maybe...constrained.  Or codified, though that's a label I tend to want to lay more at the feet of 3e D&D and other a-rule-for-everything systems.

It also forces players to interact with the mechanics much more than they otherwise might; and while some players might like this, others don't, as almost any interaction with mechanics usually comes at cost of immersion.

And, perhaps worse, it wants to very strongly suggest a particular style of play (goodly, heroic, non-gritty) and tends to fight against other styles a bit - which if I'm designing a system is the last thing I want, in that I'd ideally want my system to be flexible enough to handle anything with roughly-equal aplomb.


Manbearcat said:


> Well, if you're either a GM or a player that doesn't like any of:
> 
> 
> Intense codification
> Player-facing mechanics
> The responsibility being put on the players to provide the energy to propel play through their PCs
> An environment that makes any application of GM Force extremely obvious
> 
> ...well, you're not going to like 4e.



My readings and conversions of 4e material* pointed strongly to the first two of these but didn't really highlight the latter two at all.  The third one in particular must have been a later development during 4e's lifespan, as I don't recall seeing any more said about this in the 4e books* than in the books for any other D&D edition.

* - first-run DMG, PH and MM only, plus some adventures.  I've neither bought nor read any later 4e core books, in part out of a sense of they ought to be giving me the game-as-designed in the first run of books and if they don't that's on them, not me.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Sure. That's why I posited, upthread, that low-player-agency games are pretty common in the world of RPGing.
> 
> I think on this, at least, @chaochou and I are ad idem.



Not saying that that you're doing this, but there are parts of this formulation that I feel might lead to the sort of dogmatism that I consider harmful for actually having a fun game. I.e. if one considers player agency to be desirable (valid) and any action that might reduce it to be axiomatically a problem (less so) and thus to be avoided, then that might lead to shunning perfectly functional methods. Like for example GM setting up quests and plot hooks is often desirable and this in itself doesn't mean that the players cannot initiate action unrelated to such prompts. I think that a huge part of GM's skillset is to gauge which tools work in which situation and completely throwing away some tools is usually not a good idea.



pemerton said:


> EDIT because this subsequent post of yours also seemed relevant to this:
> 
> The practical difference is huge, for me at least. As player and GM.
> 
> As GM: I am not interested in writing a plot in advance, or setting up a "quest" or "adventure". That's not why I engage in RPGing as my main creative outlet (outside of my work).



Then what do you do as a GM? 



pemerton said:


> As a player: I posted upthread about my Burning Wheel GM who introduced NPCs who had no connection to my PC but were of interest to him; and how I (in playing my PC) ignored them, and used the tools at my disposal (ie action declarations) to shift the focus of the action back onto the stuff I cared about.



If your GM kept introducing content you were not interested in then they failed at reading you. Now here the system helped to mitigate this, but ideally the issue would be corrected at an earlier point, i.e. the GM learning to gauge better what the players are actually interested in.



pemerton said:


> One way to get better at GMing, or RPGing in general, is to do it.
> 
> But another way is to talk and read about it. Which is what these threads are for.
> 
> Before I read Ron Edwards's essays on The Forge, I hadn't been able to work out what it was that made my Rolemaster games good, and what it was that caused them to have moments of frustration. (Of course I could tell when I was being frustrated; but it was Edwards who let me work out _why_, and what techniques I could change or just let go of to alter that.)
> 
> Before I read @Campbell's posts on this forum I didn't appreciate the significant difference between how Apocalypse World works and how Burning Wheel (and other systems closer to it, eg Cortex+ Heroic; 4e D&D) work. Having learned that from Campbell has been a big help to me in running my current Classic Traveller game.
> 
> Etc.



Sure.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

zarionofarabel said:


> So...does that mean I'm railroading my players because I use systems that don't specifically give them the option of making up details of the campaign world???



As several people are reasonably pointed out (and which I originally kinda overlooked,) different systems handle agency differently and have differently codified roles for the GM and the players. I was working under assumption that you were playing more traditional GM-driven game. If you want the discussion to be more relevant to your game, then it might be helpful if you told what system you're using. Furthermore, I'd really like to know what actually prompted this thread. I mean what made you worried about the player agency? Are the players expressed some dissatisfaction about this either directly or indirectly?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> The bits that I've bolded reinforce my conjecture upthread, that you are simply unfamiliar with systems that have robust action resolution mechanics. And at least for my part we do not seem to be talking past one another - your posts seem completely consistent with familiarity with "storyteller-GM" style RPGing that I would associate with games like 2nd ed AD&D, White Wolf, CoC, and that seemed to be evident in a story hour your linked to in a thread some months (I think it was) ago.
> 
> To go back to the bolded bits: in D&D combat, if a player - through the action resolution process - reduces a monster's hit points to zero by way of a sword attack, the GM _does not get to decide how the world reacts to the PC's swing of a sword_. The rules mandate that the GM narrate the monster being killed (or KO'ed, depending on the wrinkles of edition) by the PC's sword-blow.
> 
> Now just generalise that.
> 
> If the players succeed on action resolution, the GM is not _free to decide how the world reacts_. Rather, s/he is bound to honour the success. (This can't work if there is not an action resolution system that bears upon the matter at hand - see my post upthread about the weakness of onworld exploration in Classic Traveller as an example - but good RPG systems have good action resolution systems that cover at least the bulk of the action one might expect given setting, genre etc.)



Good explanation. Though actually in D&D the GM is fully within rights to overrule the rules if they see it fit. And as a GM I want to have that authority and as a player I want the GM to have that authority. Because that's why there is a human being there to make these calls, I trust them to be able to read the situation, and adjudicate things better than any rule system alone could. And if I don't trust the GM to do that, then no amount of constrains placed on them will help.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Good explanation. Though actually in D&D the GM is fully within rights to overrule the rules if they see it fit. And as a GM I want to have that authority and as a player I want the GM to have that authority. Because that's why there is a human being there to make these calls, I trust them to be able to read the situation, and adjudicate things better than any rule system alone could. And if I don't trust the GM to do that, then no amount of constrains placed on them will help.




This it the reply I was looking for as this is where I expected you were coming from (hence the framing of my posts prior).

Two things:

1)  This is D&D system-specific.  Not all D&D provides GMs that level of authority.  Moldvay Basic, RC, and D&D 4e do not and Gygax's 1e DMG calls for a much more neutral brand of refereeing (curating nonsensical outcomes or outcomes that are arbitrary and cheat the process of filtering skilled play from unskilled play...not curating outcomes that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience").  

Now if you're playing AD&D 2e (which started the curating outcomes and revising rules that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience"), 3.x, or 5e (which adopted the AD&D 2e GM role and authority basically whole cloth), then you have that authority.

I'm assuming you're running D&D 5e and you're assuming the lead poster is as well?

2)  _"Because that's why there is a human being there to make these calls, I trust them to be able to read the situation, and adjudicate things better than any rule system alone could. And if I don't trust the GM to do that, then no amount of constraints placed on them will help."_

You were concerned about dogmatism in TTRPGing upthread.  Did this not strike you as dogmatism while you were writing it?  You can't extend this principle to all of D&D let alone outside of that rubric to other games.  Highly functional rules + great GMing advice + system constraints on the GM (through the holistic integration of procedures + system architecture + the game's ethos/agenda) can create games where (a) the premise of play is beautifully and consistently addressed and (b) the GM's authority and cognitive workload are simultaneously reigned in.  So its fundamentally not true that constraints and great rules won't "help" <to achieve a consistently coherent and fulfilling play experience>.  

Now, in a particular style of play this is true (the type that 2e and 5e promote; heavily GM-driven games where their conception of a fun/fulfilling time and a good story is made mandate through the authority the system grants them and the system architecture that consistently demands their mediation in, overwhelmingly GM-facing, action resolution). But that is only one style of play.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> This it the reply I was looking for as this is where I expected you were coming from (hence the framing of my posts prior).
> 
> Two things:
> 
> 1)  This is D&D system-specific.  Not all D&D provides GMs that level of authority.  Moldvay Basic, RC, and D&D 4e do not and Gygax's 1e DMG calls for a much more neutral brand of refereeing (curating nonsensical outcomes or outcomes that are arbitrary and cheat the process of filtering skilled play from unskilled play...not curating outcomes that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience").
> 
> Now if you're playing AD&D 2e (which started the curating outcomes and revising rules that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience"), 3.x, or 5e (which adopted the AD&D 2e GM role and authority basically whole cloth), then you have that authority.



Perhaps you're right, I really don't recall specifics of past editions. Not that we played 4e any differently. Did it really not have the usual 'GM makes the final call' clause? I'd be somewhat surprised if that was the case...



Manbearcat said:


> I'm assuming you're running D&D 5e and you're assuming the lead poster is as well?



I did not assume any specific game, but yes, I assumed a traditional GM-has-the-final-authority stance. I've played and run a shitton of different RPGs and also written some (for personal uses) and that has pretty much always been the assumption. But you're right that this is not always the case, albeit I'd be surprised if it wasn't the case with the OP considering how they described their playstyle.



Manbearcat said:


> 2)  _"Because that's why there is a human being there to make these calls, I trust them to be able to read the situation, and adjudicate things better than any rule system alone could. And if I don't trust the GM to do that, then no amount of constraints placed on them will help."_
> 
> You were concerned about dogmatism in TTRPGing upthread.  Did this not strike you as dogmatism while you were writing it?



I can see how it could be read that way.



Manbearcat said:


> You can't extend this principle to all of D&D let alone outside of that rubric to other games.  Highly functional rules + great GMing advice + system constraints on the GM (through the holistic integration of procedures + system architecture + the game's ethos/agenda) can create games where (a) the premise of play is beautifully and consistently addressed and (b) the GM's authority and cognitive workload are simultaneously reigned in.  So its fundamentally not true that constraints and great rules won't "help" <to achieve a consistently coherent and fulfilling play experience>.



Fair, they may 'help', perhaps I worded that poorly. But ultimately my point was that a good GM is far more important than a good system, nor I have desire to restrain the GM's ability to use their judgement. This doesn't mean that the GM should routinely overrule the system, after all if they have to, then that perhaps is not an ideal system for that GM. But no system can take account every possible situation. The GM always has to make some judgement calls and even the best systems occasionally produce undesirable results.



Manbearcat said:


> Now, in a particular style of play this is true (the type that 2e and 5e promote; heavily GM-driven games where their conception of a fun/fulfilling time and a good story is made mandate through the authority the system grants them and the system architecture that consistently demands their mediation in, overwhelmingly GM-facing, action resolution). But that is only one style of play.



Ultimately I feel that attitudes of the people on the table affect how much the game is player driven or GM driven more than the system, though of course certain systems might encourage certain approaches. But ultimately even in a game where the GM has the nominal final authority the players can be proactive, their characters can come up with plans and start to execute them and the GM can go along with it. That the GM _can_ direct the game in direction they want doesn't mean that they _have to. _


----------



## Manbearcat

@Crimson Longinus 

That's a good post.  I don't agree with particular parts of it, but very good post.  I think we have a measure of clarity, so lets leave it there.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Crimson Longinus said:


> As several people are reasonably pointed out (and which I originally kinda overlooked,) different systems handle agency differently and have differently codified roles for the GM and the players. I was working under assumption that you were playing more traditional GM-driven game. If you want the discussion to be more relevant to your game, then it might be helpful if you told what system you're using. Furthermore, I'd really like to know what actually prompted this thread. I mean what made you worried about the player agency? Are the players expressed some dissatisfaction about this either directly or indirectly?



Yeah. I employ more traditional systems like Mythras, Ubiquity, and Far Trek.

I started this thread after an argument on a different forum made me wonder if I was robbing my players of their agency because I just make up everything right before I add it to the narrative.

I fell down a rabbit hole...


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Now if you're playing AD&D 2e (which started the curating outcomes and revising rules that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience"), 3.x, or 5e (which adopted the AD&D 2e GM role and authority basically whole cloth), then you have that authority.




Something worth keeping in mind is 2E evolved a lot, had tons of products, and not all of those products were consistent. I think overall, the 90s were saturated with an idea of the GM using power to ensure story unfolded. With 2E, my impression and memory, are this increased the more popular games like vampire got (I could be wrong as I haven't sat down and compared texts from the time, but that is my memory). However I did run a number of 2E campaigns not so long ago. I did so using the Ravenloft line, which was pretty much what I ran all through the 90s. This meant revisiting a lot of old books I hadn't read in years. If you begin with a module like Feast of Goblyns, it actually has a lot more interest in player agency than later Ravenloft modules (it is still a product of the time, but it emphasizes running the adventure as a 'living adventure' where the NPCs react to the players. There is an assumed course of events, in a way,  but it is a very easy module to run in more of a sandbox mode. However, toward the mid-90s you really see story start to become more important (to the point that 'scenes' and 'acts' are sometimes used as headers). But all that said, take a look at the Van Richten books. Those are all about monster hunts and the party chasing after individual variations of lycanthrope, vampire, golem, etc. Those books were foundational to my running of Ravenloft back in the day and it is really hard to use the tools in them without allowing for tremendous player agency (because they are all about having a threat, who is essentially a mystery to solve----i..e. you need to learn about this particular vampire or golem in order to discover how to kill them). And that doesn't work as well if you are organizing the adventure around story beats. It works much better if you just drop the players into a situation where that monster is on the lose and they freely roam about figuring out how to contend with it. I think one of the bad things about 2E was the DMG. It was only partial really. You needed the blue book campaign guide to truly round out the GM advice (and many people I knew still used the 1E DMG while running 2E).  I guess my point is there was a trajectory with 2E where story got emphasized more over time, but I think that was really more a product of what was becoming fashionable (and much of it had the appearance of D&D playing catch up with some of its hipper competition----the 90s is when I started to see advice like 'only kill player characters if they do something really stupid' become ubiquitous).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Believe me, this is not a player to whom one can say something like this and have it stick.




Why not? I mean, I get not wanting to have arguments over what is or is not canon during a game, but why does this guy cling so strongly to a video game?



Lanefan said:


> Which is fine in the fiction, but to replicate that at the table I-as-player need a map so I can plan my approach and getaway routes, determine distances and-or expected travel times as best as possible, know where obvious fixed-site threats (e.g. the cop shop) are located in order to avoid them, stuff like that.
> 
> And I wouldn't want to just handwave this by the GM saying "your character knows all this", as for me it'd be far more fun digging in and having us work it out for ourselves...literally role-playing the gang sitting in a basement around a map plotting out these details for the score.
> 
> And if we really wanted to get creative, we could even try to locate our scores to form some sort of pattern on the map.




There is a map of the city, but it only details some major areas. There are maps you can find online that have much more specific detail (down to naming each street and canal and many of the buildings), but the game intentionally leaves these kinds of details up to the group. 

So when the need arises for a specific location, the GM can pick a spot for it, and there it is. There’s no reason they can’t also label the map so that that location is set. 

This is what I’m talking about when it comes to prep. There’s no need, nor really any benefit other than preference, to determining all these locations so specifically ahead of time. Not when you can absolutely do that in play if that level of detail is needed.



Lanefan said:


> Which would most likely mean retconning that whole encounter and at the very least would invalidate all play that came after. As a player I'd be furious; as a GM I'd be embarrassed as all hell (and I speak from experience on both sides here).




It’s hard to engage this half-sketched example. Why would you allow an error on the GM’s part to stand in such a way? Just amend the detail in play and don’t have the PC die because of the mistake. Why go through it all and then retcon it afterward? Just pause, acknowledge the situation, and say something like “Okay, so you had decided to make a run for it expecting the wall to be much shorter because that’s how I described it. My bad. We’ll go with the shorter distance, and you make it around the corner before the arrows hit. Sorry about that.” 

Seriously, I feel like you’re inventing concerns that simply aren’t much of an issue, nor are they any more prevalent than they would be in prepped play. 

As a counter point, I’ll bring up running Tomb of Annihilation in my 5E campaign again. Running prepped material was far more prone to errors....room sizes and positioning and all that kind of stuff matter much more in a traditional dungeoncrawl. I made a lot of minor descriptive errors, either because the room descriptions were tricky or (more often) taking what was in the book and translating it to players just allowed for minor errors or omissions. 

In this sense, I can see how you feel that details of this kind are a requirement...it’s all potentially relevant when the trap goes off and so on. 

But it’s not necessary if you’re not playing in a manner that requires it. If the system or the playstyle isn't really worried about the exact location of each PC when the trap goes off....if there’s another way to handle it than D&D style grid maps and area of effects....then you don’t need that stuff. 

There were far less errors once I realized the issues we were having with Tomb of Annihilation, and I adjusted. Once I wasn’t as concerned with adhering to the prepped material, our play became much more smooth and enjoyable. It was likely more cinematic and less simulationist than what you’re proposing, but there were far fewer errors of the kind you’re concerned about.

I mean, look at the example of the 800 or 600 foot wall. The conflict comes from you having one written down and then saying the other to the players. If you don't have one written down ahead of time, there’s no conflict....the “truth” is simply what you’ve told the players.


----------



## darkbard

zarionofarabel said:


> I fell down a rabbit hole...




I reckon that depends on how you mean the metaphor. If you mean that you experienced a paradigm shift that offered a prism through which to view the familiar differently, I see why you might employ this metaphor. If you mean that you opened up a Pandora's box (excuse my mixing of metaphors here) by which unwelcome ideas are thrust upon you beyond your control, then I think the metaphor unfit. But I'm pretty sure you meant this in the former framing.

In any event, really just chiming in to say recent months of what I feel to be lackluster conversation has kept me from posting. But this thread has changed that, if, perhaps, only temporarily. 

Also, so very good to see the band back together!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

zarionofarabel said:


> Yeah. I employ more traditional systems like Mythras, Ubiquity, and Far Trek.
> 
> I started this thread after an argument on a different forum made me wonder if I was robbing my players of their agency because I just make up everything right before I add it to the narrative.
> 
> I fell down a rabbit hole...



Pretty much what I assumed.

Whilst discussion of GMing techniques are of course helpful, ultimately you're the one who knows your own table the best. And sometimes tones get a tad prescriptive;  "you should do this" instead of "you could try this." (Not that there has been terribly much that here.) I stand by my assessment that if you players feel that they have enough agency, then they do have enough agency. There is no need to aim for some theoretical level of agency-purity if everyone at the table is already fine with how the things are done.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> Something worth keeping in mind is 2E evolved a lot, had tons of products, and not all of those products were consistent. I think overall, the 90s were saturated with an idea of the GM using power to ensure story unfolded. With 2E, my impression and memory, are this increased the more popular games like vampire got (I could be wrong as I haven't sat down and compared texts from the time, but that is my memory). However I did run a number of 2E campaigns not so long ago. I did so using the Ravenloft line, which was pretty much what I ran all through the 90s. This meant revisiting a lot of old books I hadn't read in years. If you begin with a module like Feast of Goblyns, it actually has a lot more interest in player agency than later Ravenloft modules (it is still a product of the time, but it emphasizes running the adventure as a 'living adventure' where the NPCs react to the players. There is an assumed course of events, in a way,  but it is a very easy module to run in more of a sandbox mode. However, toward the mid-90s you really see story start to become more important (to the point that 'scenes' and 'acts' are sometimes used as headers). But all that said, take a look at the Van Richten books. Those are all about monster hunts and the party chasing after individual variations of lycanthrope, vampire, golem, etc. Those books were foundational to my running of Ravenloft back in the day and it is really hard to use the tools in them without allowing for tremendous player agency (because they are all about having a threat, who is essentially a mystery to solve----i..e. you need to learn about this particular vampire or golem in order to discover how to kill them). And that doesn't work as well if you are organizing the adventure around story beats. It works much better if you just drop the players into a situation where that monster is on the lose and they freely roam about figuring out how to contend with it. I think one of the bad things about 2E was the DMG. It was only partial really. You needed the blue book campaign guide to truly round out the GM advice (and many people I knew still used the 1E DMG while running 2E).  I guess my point is there was a trajectory with 2E where story got emphasized more over time, but I think that was really more a product of what was becoming fashionable (and much of it had the appearance of D&D playing catch up with some of its hipper competition----the 90s is when I started to see advice like 'only kill player characters if they do something really stupid' become ubiquitous).




Great post.  That is exactly how my memory banks have ordered the period of late 80s through the 90s as well.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Just a note, that while the books may not have spelled it out quite that clearly, D&D has, as a _game culture_, very much had a top down bias pretty much from day one.  If you look at old apas and magazines even in the OD&D days the emphasis on DM authority was extremely strong, and made no distinction as to reasons.

(Note: This is not me saying I don't think that wasn't pretty overboard in retrospect).


----------



## darkbard

Thomas Shey said:


> Just a note, that while the books may not have spelled it out quite that clearly, D&D has, as a _game culture_, very much had a top down bias pretty much from day one.  If you look at old apas and magazines even in the OD&D days the emphasis on DM authority was extremely strong, and made no distinction as to reasons.
> 
> (Note: This is not me saying I don't think that wasn't pretty overboard in retrospect).




Agreed. Completely. And I think (as has been noted here and in other similar discussions on these boards) that so many gamers posting here were raised in this top-down tradition, if only because that was what they were being exposed to through the precedent of older friends or gaming circles, that they forget the ideology (to reframe Zizek) of the things they don't know they know (in this case, the mental architecture of what they assume it means to play an RPG). Which is why it is so important to keep having these critical/theoretical discussions!


----------



## Bedrockgames

zarionofarabel said:


> Yeah. I employ more traditional systems like Mythras, Ubiquity, and Far Trek.
> 
> I started this thread after an argument on a different forum made me wonder if I was robbing my players of their agency because I just make up everything right before I add it to the narrative.
> 
> I fell down a rabbit hole...




Since this is a thread started to help you with your table, if I could give some advice here: beware of rabbit holes if they don't help you at the table. Online discussions are great for exposing yourself to other approaches to play. They are also great for the better debaters and the more clever posters, convincing others that their preferred style is best. And there is sometimes an intensification of ideas that occurs, where an idea that is pretty good if used sparingly or with the right degree of flexibility, becomes hardened and fanatical (where it always has to be this one way and all things in your game have to derive logically from its principles). Focus on what adds to the enjoyment of play at your table. Your table is the ultimate test of what works. I gained a lot from online discussion but it also planted some bad ideas, some blinders, and a degree of inflexibility, which I had to repair by focusing strictly on what works at the table (at the end of the day you are running the game for your group of players, not for Bedrockgames, Manbearcat or Darkbard----none of our opinions, no matter how persuasive, matter if they don't work at your table).


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Why not? I mean, I get not wanting to have arguments over what is or is not canon during a game, but why does this guy cling so strongly to a video game?



Official-ism, I suppose.

In any case, I ceased having to worry about any of this about 2007 when that campaign ended; the one since has been a completely-homebrew setting (with which, as an aside, I've found myself unexpectedly pleased as time has gone on) and thus there ain't no canon arguments as there ain't no official canon from any external source.

Now - as per below - I just have to make damn sure I'm consistent with my internal canon. 


hawkeyefan said:


> There is a map of the city, but it only details some major areas. There are maps you can find online that have much more specific detail (down to naming each street and canal and many of the buildings), but the game intentionally leaves these kinds of details up to the group.
> 
> So when the need arises for a specific location, the GM can pick a spot for it, and there it is. There’s no reason they can’t also label the map so that that location is set.



OK, so there is a map.  That's something. 


hawkeyefan said:


> This is what I’m talking about when it comes to prep. There’s no need, nor really any benefit other than preference, to determining all these locations so specifically ahead of time. Not when you can absolutely do that in play if that level of detail is needed.



Were it me I'd just assume that level of detail is needed, if not right away then at some point durng the campaign; and to avoid wasting game time filling it all in I'd get it done up front.


hawkeyefan said:


> It’s hard to engage this half-sketched example. Why would you allow an error on the GM’s part to stand in such a way? Just amend the detail in play and don’t have the PC die because of the mistake. Why go through it all and then retcon it afterward? Just pause, acknowledge the situation, and say something like “Okay, so you had decided to make a run for it expecting the wall to be much shorter because that’s how I described it. My bad. We’ll go with the shorter distance, and you make it around the corner before the arrows hit. Sorry about that.”



If it's in the very moment it's not so bad - it's still egg on the GM's face, but that's about it.  I'm talking about a situation where the PC dies, the game goes on, and sometime during the week - or next session when someone looks more carefully at the map - a player comes to me and points out the mistake.


hawkeyefan said:


> Seriously, I feel like you’re inventing concerns that simply aren’t much of an issue, nor are they any more prevalent than they would be in prepped play.
> 
> As a counter point, I’ll bring up running Tomb of Annihilation in my 5E campaign again. Running prepped material was far more prone to errors....room sizes and positioning and all that kind of stuff matter much more in a traditional dungeoncrawl. I made a lot of minor descriptive errors, either because the room descriptions were tricky or (more often) taking what was in the book and translating it to players just allowed for minor errors or omissions.



If your players weren't mapping it you could probably get away with some minor errors.  But we map, and thus if I'm just guessing at room sizes and hallway lengths it's inevitable I'm going to unfairly mess them up. (and in the fiction it's not like the PCs can't pace off the distances or even measure using lengths of string, assuming they have the time)


hawkeyefan said:


> In this sense, I can see how you feel that details of this kind are a requirement...it’s all potentially relevant when the trap goes off and so on.
> 
> But it’s not necessary if you’re not playing in a manner that requires it. If the system or the playstyle isn't really worried about the exact location of each PC when the trap goes off....if there’s another way to handle it than D&D style grid maps and area of effects....then you don’t need that stuff.



Hmmm...I'd say distance and spatiality are important no matter what.  Sure there's non-grid ways of determining who happens to be where when something goes boom; but you also need distances when it comes to things like speed and move rates, visibility (as in who can see what in fog or dim light), spell or missile ranges, and so forth.


hawkeyefan said:


> There were far less errors once I realized the issues we were having with Tomb of Annihilation, and I adjusted. Once I wasn’t as concerned with adhering to the prepped material, our play became much more smooth and enjoyable. It was likely more cinematic and less simulationist than what you’re proposing, but there were far fewer errors of the kind you’re concerned about.
> 
> I mean, look at the example of the 800 or 600 foot wall. The conflict comes from you having one written down and then saying the other to the players. If you don't have one written down ahead of time, there’s no conflict....the “truth” is simply what you’ve told the players.



If I only ever told them 800' where my map (or my mind) says 600 then it's on me to adjust things as best I can to suit what I said to them.  The players still only hear one consistent thing.

The conflict comes when I tell them 600' one time and 800' the next, and that difference somehow affects play.

The conflict also comes when I tell them a building is 70x70' on the outside then once they're inside I end up giving them 90x70' worth of room descriptions that don't fit into the 70x70 square they've drawn on the map, because I'm making it all up on the fly and due to three intervening combats over several hours I've already forgotten it's supposed to only be 70x70.  I've done this in the past, much to my shame.

* - and this is exactly the sort of notes I'm awful at taking during play.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Lanefan said:


> The conflict comes when I tell them 600' one time and 800' the next, and that difference somehow affects play.
> 
> The conflict also comes when I tell them a building is 70x70' on the outside then once they're inside I end up giving them 90x70' worth of room descriptions that don't fit into the 70x70 square they've drawn on the map, because I'm making it all up on the fly and due to three intervening combats over several hours I've already forgotten it's supposed to only be 70x70.  I've done this in the past, much to my shame.
> 
> * - and this is exactly the sort of notes I'm awful at taking during play.



I have hard time imagining these sort of small things mattering and it is not like the characters in the setting could necessarily even eyeball sizes of things with that sort of accuracy.


----------



## Lanefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I have hard time imagining these sort of small things mattering and it is not like the characters in the setting could necessarily even eyeball sizes of things with that sort of accuracy.



They matter.

And who needs eyeballs if you've got pre-measured lengths of string...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Lanefan said:


> They matter.
> 
> And who needs eyeballs if you've got pre-measured lengths of string...



Just start describing things more vaguely (and confiscate their strings.) "You see a large stone building" instead  of "you see a 90x70' building." Problem solved.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Just start describing things more vaguely (and confiscate their strings.) "You see a large stone building" instead  of "you see a 90x70' building." Problem solved.




I don't know.  That feels like it would shatter my immersion.

When I walk into a building in real life, my User Interface pops up which gives me all building schematics to scroll through; dimensions, all ingress and egress, ventilation duct system, exterior wall material and depth, the work schedule of the inhabitants, the Starbucks barista's names, the recipe for the holiday cheesecake, the rodent's favorite cheese, etc.

I'm not even a level 12 Fighter in a high fantasy setting so imagine what info is in those guys' UI!


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> here is a map of the city, but it only details some major areas. There are maps you can find online that have much more specific detail (down to naming each street and canal and many of the buildings), but the game intentionally leaves these kinds of details up to the group.
> 
> So when the need arises for a specific location, the GM can pick a spot for it, and there it is. There’s no reason they can’t also label the map so that that location is set.
> 
> This is what I’m talking about when it comes to prep. There’s no need, nor really any benefit other than preference, to determining all these locations so specifically ahead of time.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Why would you allow an error on the GM’s part to stand in such a way? Just amend the detail in play and don’t have the PC die because of the mistake.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Seriously, I feel like you’re inventing concerns that simply aren’t much of an issue, nor are they any more prevalent than they would be in prepped play.
> 
> As a counter point, I’ll bring up running Tomb of Annihilation in my 5E campaign again. Running prepped material was far more prone to errors....room sizes and positioning and all that kind of stuff matter much more in a traditional dungeoncrawl. I made a lot of minor descriptive errors, either because the room descriptions were tricky or (more often) taking what was in the book and translating it to players just allowed for minor errors or omissions.
> 
> In this sense, I can see how you feel that details of this kind are a requirement...it’s all potentially relevant when the trap goes off and so on.
> 
> But it’s not necessary if you’re not playing in a manner that requires it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I mean, look at the example of the 800 or 600 foot wall. The conflict comes from you having one written down and then saying the other to the players. If you don't have one written down ahead of time, there’s no conflict....the “truth” is simply what you’ve told the players.



The importance of architecture, urban design etc measured down to the last inch of length is an artefact of a particular action resolution system, namely:

(i) the location of individuals is tracked on a map;
(ii) the location of threats is tracked on the same map;
(iii) the AoE of those threats is determined by extrapolating from (ii) to _the fiction_ (eg "a cone of blasting fire 5' long is emitted from this part of this wall") to (i).

This is a method of action resolution derived from wargames.

In RPG it has been adapted to other contexts besides being hit by poison gas or cannon fire, like running races. But of course there are other, and frankly more robust, options available. For instance, for running races I prefer opposed checks (this works better in systems where individual traits are prominent relative to the random spread): this makes it fairly easy to factor in terrain, headstarts etc as bonuses, allows for ties, etc.

A lot of action of the RPGs I GM happens in urban areas, but it hasn't been necessary to know the precise length of a wall in any system for a long time. Even in 4e D&D, once the wall is longer than 10 or 20 squares its precise length ceases to matter, because precise distances only really matter in combat resolution and most of the time combat resolution doesn't invoke distances larger than that.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Not saying that that you're doing this, but there are parts of this formulation that I feel might lead to the sort of dogmatism that I consider harmful for actually having a fun game.



I think the concept of _dogmatism_ is misplaced here.

I like playing backgammon. The rolling of dice is pretty important to play - letting a player just choose how far to move their pieces would wreck the game! That's not "dogmatic" - that's me wanting to play backgammon!

Of course chess players don't roll dice - but that's because they are playing a different game.

If people want to play RPGs where the GM does most of the deciding of what happens, and the players contribute narrowly-conceived of action declarations (_We go to place X; we ask person Y what she's doing there; _etc) but most of the outcome of the action declaration is provided by the GM either reading from his/her notes or making it up on the spot, that's their prerogative.

But using different methods means that the resulting games will have different properties. A property of backgammon, compared to chess, is its randomness. A property of the sort of RPGing I just described, compared to the sort I prefer, is the higher degree of GM vs player agency.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I.e. if one considers player agency to be desirable (valid) and any action that might reduce it to be axiomatically a problem (less so) and thus to be avoided, then that might lead to shunning perfectly functional methods.



Functional for whom?

Chess is functional for the chess players, but insisting to someone who wants to play backgammon that _choosing how far your piece moves is perfectly functional_ is just sillly.

I don't want to play or GM RPGs with a low degree of player agency.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Like for example GM setting up quests and plot hooks is often desirable and this in itself doesn't mean that the players cannot initiate action unrelated to such prompts. I think that a huge part of GM's skillset is to gauge which tools work in which situation and completely throwing away some tools is usually not a good idea.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Then what do you do as a GM?



I've provided examples upthread, and plenty of links to actual play posts.

As a player, I want the GM to engage my PC. Here's an extract from an actual play report that shows what that looked like (my PC is Thurgon; I had chosen to return to my homeland of Auxol; Aramina is Thurgon's sidekick; the system is Burning Wheel):


pemerton said:


> This was heading into the neighbourhood of Auxol, and so Thurgon kept his eye out for friends and family. The Circles check (base 3 dice +1 for an Affiliation with the nobility and another +1 for an Affiliation with his family) succeeded again, and the two characters came upon Thurgon's older brother Rufus driving a horse and cart. (Thurgon has a Relationship with his mother Xanthippe but no other family members; hence the Circles check to meet his brother.)
> 
> There was a reunion between Rufus and Thurgon. But (as described by the GM) it was clear to Thurgon that Rufus was not who he had been, but seemed cowed - as Rufus explained when Thurgon asked after Auxol, he (Rufus) was on his way to collect wine for the master. Rufus mentioned that Thurgon's younger son had married not long ago - a bit of lore (like Rufus hmself) taken from the background I'd prepared for Thurgon as part of PC gen - and had headed south in search of glory (that was something new the GM introduced). I mentioned that Aramina was not meeting Rufus's gaze, and the GM picked up on this - Rufus asked Thurgon who this woman was who wouldn't look at him from beneath the hood of her cloak - was she a witch? Thurgon answered that she travelled with him and mended his armour. Then I switched to Aramina, and she looked Rufus directly in the eye and told him what she thought of him - "Thurgon has trained and is now seeking glory on his errantry, and his younger brother has gone too to seek glory, but your, Rufus . . ." I told the GM that I wanted to check Ugly Truth for Aramina, to cause a Steel check on Rufus's part. The GM decided that Rufus has Will 3, and then we quickly calculated his Steel which also came out at 3. My Ugly Truth check was a success, and the Steel check failed. Rufus looked at Aramina, shamed but unable to respond. Switching back to Thurgon, I tried to break Rufus out of it with a Command check: he should pull himself together and join in restoring Auxol to its former glory. But the check failed, and Rufus, broken, explained that he had to go and get the wine. Switching back to Aramina, I had a last go - she tried for untrained Command, saying that if he wasn't going to join with Thurgon he might at least give us some coin so that we might spend the night at an inn rather than camping. This was Will 5, with an advantage die for having cowed him the first time, against a double obstacle penalty for untrained (ie 6) +1 penalty because Rufus was very set in his way. It failed. and so Rufus rode on and now has animosity towards Aramina. As the GM said, she better not have her back to him while he has a knife ready to hand.



The GM here has not come up with a quest or an adventure or a plot hook. The GM follows through on action declarations: with the successful Circles check introduces the NPC Rufus (Thurgon's brother), presented and played consistently with established backstory but also embellished in ways that the GM thinks/hopes will be interesting and provocative. As I declare further actions for Thurgon and Aramina the GM adjudicates the consequences - where they succeed (eg Aramina shaming Rufus) he honoured that; where they failed (eg the attempts to Command Rufus) he narrates the failure in ways that he intends to drive things forward (Rufus turns into something like a Wormtongue character - though we don't yet know who "the master" is).

As a GM, I do the same sorts of things. There are differences across systems - eg in Prince Valiant I want to present opportunities for gallant errantry; in Traveller I want to present worlds for the PCs to travel to in their starship - but the core is following and building on player goals for their PCs.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I think the concept of _dogmatism_ is misplaced here.
> 
> I like playing backgammon. The rolling of dice is pretty important to play - letting a player just choose how far to move their pieces would wreck the game! That's not "dogmatic" - that's me wanting to play backgammon!
> 
> Of course chess players don't roll dice - but that's because they are playing a different game.
> 
> If people want to play RPGs where the GM does most of the deciding of what happens, and the players contribute narrowly-conceived of action declarations (_We go to place X; we ask person Y what she's doing there; _etc) but most of the outcome of the action declaration is provided by the GM either reading from his/her notes or making it up on the spot, that's their prerogative.
> 
> But using different methods means that the resulting games will have different properties. A property of backgammon, compared to chess, is its randomness. A property of the sort of RPGing I just described, compared to the sort I prefer, is the higher degree of GM vs player agency.



I really cannot reasonably engage with this as you're conflating rules with playstyles/GMing styles and those are not the same thing.




pemerton said:


> Functional for whom?



To the OP in this instance.



pemerton said:


> The GM here has not come up with a quest or an adventure or a plot hook. The GM follows through on action declarations: with the successful Circles check introduces the NPC Rufus (Thurgon's brother), presented and played consistently with established backstory but also embellished in ways that the GM thinks/hopes will be interesting and provocative. As I declare further actions for Thurgon and Aramina the GM adjudicates the consequences - where they succeed (eg Aramina shaming Rufus) he honoured that; where they failed (eg the attempts to Command Rufus) he narrates the failure in ways that he intends to drive things forward (Rufus turns into something like a Wormtongue character - though we don't yet know who "the master" is).



The mechanics are unfamiliar to me so I have some difficulty following this, for example I have no idea what these circles are. But does the GM know who the 'master' is, and what are their motivations? How is creating that not creating plot hooks? How the GM choosing actions for NPCs that they hope would be interesting/provocative to you is not creating a plot point?



pemerton said:


> As a GM, I do the same sorts of things. There are differences across systems - eg in Prince Valiant I want to present opportunities for gallant errantry; in Traveller I want to present worlds for the PCs to travel to in their starship - but the core is following and building on player goals for their PCs.



The GM has to create a lot of NPCs, they have to create events that happen independently from the characters, they have to create a lot of naughty word. This by necessity creates 'plot hooks' and 'adventure opportunities' or 'quest', and it would be weird to pretend otherwise.


----------



## hawkeyefan

@Lanefan I don’t want to reply point for point because I feel like each response would boil down to essentially the same thing. 

The things that you’re concerned about....consistency of minutiae and distances and movement speeds and mapping and all that stuff...those are all valid concerns in the play approach that you and your players have. 

And that’s an absolutely fine way to play, but it isn’t the only way. So some of the things I’m suggesting wouldn’t make sense to be incorporated into a game where mapping and positioning are important elements. 

But if someone is not mapping and not concerned with the kind of simulationist exactitude, then the lack of these things is not important.

I’d argue further that details can still be made up on the fly and work with this approach if some of the simulationism was toned down.....but if you got players looking at maps weeks later and questioning things, I get why maybe your case is unique. 

But regardless, other approaches to play eschew all that stuff. Some systems don’t even factor it in at all. Blades, for instance, doesn’t have speed rates or initiative, there’s no mapping and the NPCs don’t even have turns. The players are encouraged to add details to the environment through play. In that system, having the GM determine all kinds of details beforehand would be a very poor fit.

 All this is to say that it’s a matter of both the system used, and the approach to that system. Different things may work or not for different games, and different participants.


----------



## zarionofarabel

I definitely agree that the precise measurements thing is a matter of playstyle and something I am aware of in a larger context.

I don't think I would be willing to indulge a player that wanted to enforce precise measurements and high granularity movement in, say, Far Trek, because the system doesn't have rules to support that. If the player then accused me of robbing them of their agency I would be quite likely to tell them to go get stuffed!

On the flipside, if I was running a game of Mythras, and I declared that during the opening round of combat the guy with a dagger gets to strike the guy with the longspear, I would certainly think my players would tell me to get stuffed! And rightly so!

Yay! I'm contributing..maybe...


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> So...does that mean I'm railroading my players because I use systems that don't specifically give them the option of making up details of the campaign world???



I think we have to be really careful about _making up details of the campaign world_.

Here are some examples:

* A player is building his/her PC. S/he writes down some notes about his/her PC's family.

* It's halfway through a session. The GM narrates the PCs arriving at the City of Greyhawk. A PC's established backstory is that she is a native of Greyhawk City. The PC's player says "Let's go and stay with my mum and dad!" The PCs' mum and dad have never been mentioned before by any player or the GM.

* A player announces to the GM "My PC really wants to find a magic sword!" The GM decides to include a magic sword in the next dungeon s/he builds. (A more interesting variant: the player announces "My PC really want so find her grandmother's lost magic sword!", and this is the first time the grandmother or her lost sword have been mentioned by anyone.)

* The action is taking place in a tavern. Not much has been said about the tavern except that it has a common room, where the PC's have been eating and drinking. Something comes up that makes the ceiling of the place relevant. A player says "I pull up a stool and stand on it so I can get a better look at the ceiling."

* A player says "I want to find someone who'll sell me illegal firearms at a fair price". The GM sets a difficulty for a Streetwise check. The player makes the roll and succeeds - the player and GM now start discussing the details of the transaction. (This example is taken straight from Traveller Book 1, 1977.)

* A player wants his PC to catch the blood draining from the neck of a decapitated sorcerer, and asks "Is there a basin or jug in the room?" The GM calls for a Perception check; the check succeeds; so the answer is "Yes, there is." (This example is taken from actual play of Burning Wheel.)

* The GM rolls a 1, and as per the rules of the game a player spends a point to create a Resource that correlates to one of his/her PC's specialties. This rule is taken from Marvel Heroic RP. An example of it in play: the PCs were in the steading of a giant chieftain, and arguing about whether the giants should help them on their quest. The PC warthane looks around to see if their is a giant shaman or advisor who will agree with him - and see that there is! (Mechanically: I roll a 1, the player spends a point and creates a Resource - Giant Shaman who agrees with me - based on his Social specialty.)

* As per the rules of the game, the player spends a point to flat-out stipulate that some bit of fiction s/he cares about obtains. I've never played any RPGs like this, but OGL Conan (based on the 3E D&D mechanics) is an example of one.

There's a pretty wide range of techniques and mechanics (or their absence) in that list. More examples, illustrating further techniques and further mechanics, could be given.

I would say that _if the players in a RPG cannot influence - whether mechanically, or by suggestion, or by stipulation - what the possibility-space is for their action declarations for their PCs_, then there is a high likelihood it's a railroad. I see this as very closely connected to @hawkeyefan's reference, upthread, to the players "blazing their own trail".

 I say "high likelihood" deliberately, and not just as a euphemism for _certainly_. Eg: in KotB, or ToH, the players cannot influence, either mechanically or by suggestion or by stipulation, the possibility-space of action declarations. That's all set out in the GM's maps and keys. But playing those modules probably won't be a railroad. Rather, and assuming the GM doesn't "cheat" by moving the "tiles" or what is hidden under them, then it is puzzle-solving.

But based on my reading of ENworld and other blogs and my general sense of the zeitgesist, I think that that sort of puzzle-solving RPGing is, today, a minority of play. The default for contemporary play seems to be some variant on the "living, breathing world".


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> if I was running a game of Mythras, and I declared that during the opening round of combat the guy with a dagger gets to strike the guy with the longspear, I would certainly think my players would tell me to get stuffed! And rightly so!



Mythras is RuneQuest, right, with the Gloranthan IP removed?

In which case I absolutely agree with you here. I don't know if the most contemporary versions still use strike ranks, but the versions of RQ that I have experience with care about that sort of thing to a high degree of detail.



zarionofarabel said:


> I don't think I would be willing to indulge a player that wanted to enforce precise measurements and high granularity movement in, say, Far Trek, because the system doesn't have rules to support that. If the player then accused me of robbing them of their agency I would be quite likely to tell them to go get stuffed!



I don't know Far Trek but guess that it's a sci-fi game with a Star Trek-ish flavour? (I just did a quick Google and that seems right.)

Anyway, what you posted here reminded me of this extract from the rules for Maelstrom Storytelling (which I first encountered being quoted by Ron Edwards):

focus on the intent behind the scene and not on how big or how far things might be. If the difficulty of the task at hand (such as jumping across a chasm in a cave) is explained in terms of difficulty, it doesn't matter how far across the actual chasm spans. In a movie, for instance, the camera zooms or pans to emphasize the danger or emotional reaction to the scene, and in so doing it manipulates the real distance of a chasm to suit the mood or "feel" of the moment. It is then no longer about how far across the character has to jump, but how hard the feat is for the character... If the players enjoy the challenge of figuring out how high and far someone can jump, they should be allowed the pleasure of doing so - as long as it doesn't interfere with the narrative flow and enjoyment of the game.

The scene should be presented therefore in terms relative to the character's abilities ... Players who want to climb onto your coffee table and jump across your living room to prove that their character could jump over the chasm have probably missed the whole point of the story.​
Action resolution in Malestrom Storytelling is a dice pool in which successes (evens, I think) are counted against a difficulty number. The dice pool is a function of PC build plus player choices about using 1x/session resources.

The GM's job is to maintain pacing and tension by presenting challenges/obstacles of <whatever> difficulty between the players and their goals. The roll of the dice, plus players' decisions about burning their limited-use resources, will determine what happens.

This is _completely _different from a resolution framework in which _first_, the GM specifies how far across the chasm is in feet, and _second_, the player works out how many feet his/her PC can jump based on stats + athletics skill, then _third _the player scrounges around for other buffs and bonuses (from spells, springy shoes, or whatever else might be available) and finally _fourth _a check is made, the difficulty of which may be easy or hard depending not on the GM's opinion of what pacing and tension demand but rather the outcome of steps two and three in the context of step one.

There can be hybrid approaches too. Burning Wheel, for instance, resemble Maelstrom Storytelling - and doesn't involve any step 1 - but does allow step three, because gear and spells are a thing in BW beyond simply figuring as potential 1x/session resources. It does have other mechanical features, though - in particular its PC improvement rules - which mean players don't always have a reason to max-out at step three.

Which approach provides more player agency? I think the agency in Maelstrom is clear: the player sets the goal; the player decides what resources to burn; the GM is providing opposition and narrating failure.

I think the agency in the more "simulationist" or "traditional" approach is harder to unpack. Why is there a chasm here? What process determined what buffs and gear might be available at step 3? It could be high agency, or could be pretty close to a railroad. We can't tell without more information and context.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> 1)  I really cannot reasonably engage with this as you're conflating rules with playstyles/GMing styles and those are not the same thing.
> 
> 
> 
> 2)  To the OP in this instance.
> 
> 
> 3)  The mechanics are unfamiliar to me so I have some difficulty following this, for example I have no idea what these circles are. But does the GM know who the 'master' is, and what are their motivations? How is creating that not creating plot hooks? How the GM choosing actions for NPCs that they hope would be interesting/provocative to you is not creating a plot point?
> 
> The GM has to create a lot of NPCs, they have to create events that happen independently from the characters, they have to create a lot of naughty word. This by necessity creates 'plot hooks' and 'adventure opportunities' or 'quest', and it would be weird to pretend otherwise.




Since @pemerton hasn't had a chance to answer, I'll go ahead and fill in the blanks for him (because I'm clearly a presumptuous douche).  Numbered for reference but I'm including everything in the last two paragraphs under header (3):

1)  He's not conflating them.  He's integrating them, which is a fundamental part of holistic systems like Burning Wheel. You can't silo play procedures from action resolution mechanics from GM instruction from the system's premise/ethos in the sort of game he's referring to.  If you do so, you're likely going to introduce downstream problems that you now have to solve.

2)  Perfect (intending this for the OP).  This is because in a low prep game (like the OP is running) you need a level of malleable/unfixed backstory and setting (like in a game such as Burning Wheel or the games I've mentioned above). More on this in below.

3)  Instead of explaining the rules of Burning Wheel/Torchbearer, I'm going to attempt to roughly map them to 5e and then change 5e's premise (that won't remotely be an analogue - see the holistic commentary above - but I think it will have better explanatory power because you are familiar with 5e).

On _Circles_:

First, imagine that the premise of 5e was (exclusively) to test each PC's core ethics and nature (Beliefs and Instincts in BW but Ideals/Bonds/Flaws in 5e) and, through this feedback loop, see how they evolve in the course of play.  This is great for the OP's example because Burning Wheel is entirely unscripted play.  "Story" emerges "now" (meaning at the table through the accumulation of moments of play) rather than "before" (prescripted adventures).

No imagine that there was a Skill in 5e called _Relationships.  _Now imagine that a player can declare an action like the following:

_"I look at the barkeep pouring drinks to the soldiers.  I wonder if I served with any of these men during my time in the Legions.  Some of them went into Guide-work and know the territory well.  We could use a Guide right about now."_

The GM says "_sounds good...roll Relationships DC 15 and lets find out._"

If the Player succeeds, they get to name them, briefly describe them, and add the to their _Allies _section of their character sheet (which is mechanically relevant...this isn't just fluff/color).  The GM is now obliged to help the PCs through that NPC in a way that honors the mechanics and the fiction.

If the Player fails, the GM should introduce either (a) a nemesis from the PC's time in the Legions and a complication that will challenge that player's conception of their PC or (b) a dear friend from the Legions who has fallen on hard times and will complicate that player's conception of their PC or (c) a new antagonist entirely.  If (a) or (c) then the player adds the new NPC to their Enemies section.  

Regardless, the fallout of the failed action resolution won't be something that the player can ignore.  It will introduce new content that must be dealt with.

This is how content is generated in Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and games like this (including the games I've listed above...they have analogues to this).  Players build PCs with thematically potent cues for the GM that say "PUSH THIS CANDY RED BUTTON."  The players declare actions and the GM's job is to constantly push the candy red buttons and the the resolution mechanics tell us what happens (pass and fail).  This feedback loop persists, the story emerges "now" and the PCs' ethic and motivations invariably change as a result of the intersection of these things.  

Hopefully it should be clear that backstory and setting has to have a low enough resolution at the beginning/level of malleability/lack of fixedness in order for this to work.  Scripted metaplot, PC-irrelevant side quests, and high resolution setting is anathema to this style of play.  Consequently, there is no "adventure module", no "GM-devised plot hooks/quests."  All thematic content is "uploaded into the engine" by the players and the system's procedures, the players (through their PCs), and the GM each play their discrete part to find out who/what/why/when.

Presumably, this paradigm is somewhat/mostly similar to what the OP does.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> If I as the GM frame a scenario, and the players don't have their PCs interfere with it, I feel as though I should know beforehand what happens then. Maybe they're doing something in the same place and time, in which case it can happen around them; maybe they're going somewhere else, in which case it might have happened by the time they get back.



My feeling about this is that something more important would be going on: If I present a situation to the players, and they don't engage it with their PCs, I feel that _something has gone wrong at that point_ ie my idea was meant to be interesting, but it turns out that it wasn't!

I wouldn't worry about what happens to the fictional stuff I thought up that no one else at the table seemed interest in. I would try and come up with something that sparked more interest! If, down the track, in narrating some consequence or presenting some new situation it seemed worthwhile to pick up some aspect of my earlier idea that fell flat, well I might do that. At that point I might think about possible in-fiction pathways from _then _to _now_, if they seemed relevant.



prabe said:


> In a D&D game, it is possible that killing an enemy will lead other enemies to act differently. I believe the GM is free to have them do so. Generalize that, and I believe the GM is free to decide how the world reacts to the PCs' successes.



I'm not questioning your belief. But a game played in accordance with that belief will be one with relatively low player agency, because the players have no way to "lock in" outcomes.

Here's a contrast, taken from Dungeon World (p 68):

Discern Realities​When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1. Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.​• What happened here recently?​• What is about to happen?​• What should I be on the lookout for?​• What here is useful or valuable to me?​• Who’s really in control here?​• What here is not what it appears to be?​
The GM is not free, if the player succeeds at this move, to make subsequent unfettered decisions about how the world reacts. Eg if the player ask _who is really in control here?_ or _what here is useful or valuable to me?_, then the GM has to stick to the answer given. If the GM decides that Pup is in control, and then the player(s) (via their PCs) bring Pup around to their side, the GM isn't at liberty just to decide that now Pup's followers change their minds about their allegiance to Pup!

This is just one illustration of how robust action declaration can be a mechanism for players exercising agency over the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I don't believe that any kind or amount of prep can prevent unintentional railroading; I think avoiding it requires some care, and can be done by a GM who preps tons, and by a GM who preps next to nothing, and by GMs who fall between those two poles.



Sure, as you have characterised it (ie _unintentional railroading_) and if you allow that the GM is free to narrate whatever s/he likes without being obliged to honour success in action resolution.

This is why the key to player agency is, as I have posted multiple times in this thread, robust action resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I really cannot reasonably engage with this as you're conflating rules with playstyles/GMing styles and those are not the same thing.





Manbearcat said:


> Since @pemerton hasn't had a chance to answer, I'll go ahead and fill in the blanks for him (because I'm clearly a presumptuous douche).  Numbered for reference but I'm including everything in the last two paragraphs under header (3):
> 
> 1)  He's not conflating them.  He's integrating them, which is a fundamental part of holistic systems like Burning Wheel. You can't silo play procedures from action resolution mechanics from GM instruction from the system's premise/ethos in the sort of game he's referring to.  If you do so, you're likely going to introduce downstream problems that you now have to solve.



To add to what Manbearcat has said: the idea that you can separate _rules _from _GMing techniques_ seems to take as a premise that the rules are something like _what is the range of a longbow_ or _how do we work out how much my PC can carry?_ , while _GMing techniques _are things like _frame scenes that will engage the players via the flags they've run up in PC build_.

I don't accept that premise.

The rules of Burning Wheel are pretty clearly stated in the books, and they include things like _how to frame scenes _and _how to narrate successes and failures_ as much as _how far a longbow can shoot_ or _how well elves and half-elves can spot concealed and secret doors_.

Personally I think that the rules of AD&D include things like _what sorts of things should be in a dungeon_ as much as _how far a longbow can shoot_. The idea that you can drop the first sort of thing while keep the second is (in my view) responsible for a lot of RPGing in which there really are no significant action resolution rules: because the mechanics are modelled on classic D&D, and so deal with weaponry, architecture and carrying stuff but not much else; while most of what matters in the actual action of the game is something else.



Crimson Longinus said:


> The mechanics are unfamiliar to me so I have some difficulty following this, for example I have no idea what these circles are.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But does the GM know who the 'master' is, and what are their motivations? How is creating that not creating plot hooks? How the GM choosing actions for NPCs that they hope would be interesting/provocative to you is not creating a plot point?
> 
> 
> The GM has to create a lot of NPCs, they have to create events that happen independently from the characters, they have to create a lot of naughty word. This by necessity creates 'plot hooks' and 'adventure opportunities' or 'quest', and it would be weird to pretend otherwise.





Manbearcat said:


> On _Circles_:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> imagine that there was a Skill in 5e called _Relationships.  _Now imagine that a player can declare an action like the following:
> 
> _"I look at the barkeep pouring drinks to the soldiers.  I wonder if I served with any of these men during my time in the Legions.  Some of them went into Guide-work and know the territory well.  We could use a Guide right about now."_
> 
> The GM says "_sounds good...roll Relationships DC 15 and lets find out._"
> 
> If the Player succeeds, they get to name them, briefly describe them, and add the to their _Allies _section of their character sheet (which is mechanically relevant...this isn't just fluff/color).  The GM is now obliged to help the PCs through that NPC in a way that honors the mechanics and the fiction.
> 
> If the Player fails, the GM should introduce either (a) a nemesis from the PC's time in the Legions and a complication that will challenge that player's conception of their PC or (b) a dear friend from the Legions who has fallen on hard times and will complicate that player's conception of their PC or (c) a new antagonist entirely.  If (a) or (c) then the player adds the new NPC to their Enemies section.
> 
> Regardless, the fallout of the failed action resolution won't be something that the player can ignore.  It will introduce new content that must be dealt with.
> 
> This is how content is generated in Burning Wheel
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Hopefully it should be clear that backstory and setting has to have a low enough resolution at the beginning/level of malleability/lack of fixedness in order for this to work.  Scripted metaplot, PC-irrelevant side quests, and high resolution setting is anathema to this style of play.  Consequently, there is no "adventure module", no "GM-devised plot hooks/quests."  All thematic content is "uploaded into the engine" by the players and the system's procedures, the players (through their PCs), and the GM each play their discrete part to find out who/what/why/when.



Manbearcat has explained how Circles works. I see it as an extension of, and more character-focused than, Classic Traveller's Streetwise mechanics.

I don't think the GM knows who "the master" is. He may have some ideas of where he might take that element that he's introduced; but he doesn't have the sole authority to decided it. Eg suppose I declare and succeed in a Wises check to learn that "the master" is actually XYZ (some interesting NPC connected to backstory and prior action), then the GM would have to respect that outcome.

More generally, when the GM is creating NPCs they will be in response to action declarations, or as part of framing that is itself designed to challenge the PCs' Beliefs, and so will be responsive to those.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> To add to what Manbearcat has said: the idea that you can separate _rules _from _GMing techniques_ seems to take as a premise that the rules are something like _what is the range of a longbow_ or _how do we work out how much my PC can carry?_ , while _GMing techniques _are things like _frame scenes that will engage the players via the flags they've run up in PC build_.
> 
> I don't accept that premise.



The premise is true for a lot of games. In a lot of games the sort of things we're talking about simply are not covered by the rules; if they were. we wouldn't be having this discussion. 



> The rules of Burning Wheel are pretty clearly stated in the books, and they include things like _how to frame scenes _and _how to narrate successes and failures_ as much as _how far a longbow can shoot_ or _how well elves and half-elves can spot concealed and secret doors_.
> 
> Personally I think that the rules of AD&D include things like _what sorts of things should be in a dungeon_ as much as _how far a longbow can shoot_. The idea that you can drop the first sort of thing while keep the second is (in my view) responsible for a lot of RPGing in which there really are no significant action resolution rules: because the mechanics are modelled on classic D&D, and so deal with weaponry, architecture and carrying stuff but not much else; while most of what matters in the actual action of the game is something else.
> 
> 
> 
> Manbearcat has explained how Circles works. I see it as an extension of, and more character-focused than, Classic Traveller's Streetwise mechanics.
> 
> I don't think the GM knows who "the master" is. He may have some ideas of where he might take that element that he's introduced; but he doesn't have the sole authority to decided it. Eg suppose I declare and succeed in a Wises check to learn that "the master" is actually XYZ (some interesting NPC connected to backstory and prior action), then the GM would have to respect that outcome.
> 
> More generally, when the GM is creating NPCs they will be in response to action declarations, or as part of framing that is itself designed to challenge the PCs' Beliefs, and so will be responsive to those.



Ok, I think I get the idea. I've certainly used mechanics where the players can dictate to at least suggest facts about setting, albeit these mechanics have been in more ancillary role. Various influence or contacts traits in WW games, or perhaps some drama points to dictate some setting details etc.

But I absolutely would not want the game to revolve around such approach. At that point it becomes more like collective storytelling around some rules like Once Upon a Time (card game) and less like a tabletop RPG. Now in a GMless freeform games it is pretty common (and necessary) that the players just collectively make up the environment around their characters, but that is rather different format and one I'd personally consider inferior to GM-curated approach. 

To me the whole point of having the GM there is for them to use their judgement. I want them to come up with interesting things I want them to come up with surprising things and I trust them to do it better than a codified rule system could. And when I play a character, I don't want to be deciding setting details because that forces me constantly from in-character perspective to the narrator-perspective. Now this is not absolute, you always need to consider things from system or narrator perspective somewhat, and of course that is what the GM does all the time. But as player that is not what I primarily seek.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> My feeling about this is that something more important would be going on: If I present a situation to the players, and they don't engage it with their PCs, I feel that _something has gone wrong at that point_ ie my idea was meant to be interesting, but it turns out that it wasn't!
> 
> I wouldn't worry about what happens to the fictional stuff I thought up that no one else at the table seemed interest in. I would try and come up with something that sparked more interest! If, down the track, in narrating some consequence or presenting some new situation it seemed worthwhile to pick up some aspect of my earlier idea that fell flat, well I might do that. At that point I might think about possible in-fiction pathways from _then _to _now_, if they seemed relevant.



You might not believe this, but that doesn't sound radically different from how I'd handle such a thing as a GM. When I'm pondering situations/scenarios, a large part of the thinking goes into getting from what has happened--including the PCs' successes and failures--to something else that can happen.



pemerton said:


> I'm not questioning your belief. But a game played in accordance with that belief will be one with relatively low player agency, because the players have no way to "lock in" outcomes.



I disagree. The rest of the world reacting to the PCs' success doesn't (or really shouldn't) change or negate the success. If they defeat a baddie in a permanent-seeming way, that baddie should stay defeated. If they (to use your example below) convince someone to their side, they should stay convinced.



pemerton said:


> Here's a contrast, taken from Dungeon World (p 68):
> 
> Discern Realities​When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1. Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.​• What happened here recently?​• What is about to happen?​• What should I be on the lookout for?​• What here is useful or valuable to me?​• Who’s really in control here?​• What here is not what it appears to be?​
> The GM is not free, if the player succeeds at this move, to make subsequent unfettered decisions about how the world reacts. Eg if the player ask _who is really in control here?_ or _what here is useful or valuable to me?_, then the GM has to stick to the answer given. If the GM decides that Pup is in control, and then the player(s) (via their PCs) bring Pup around to their side, the GM isn't at liberty just to decide that now Pup's followers change their minds about their allegiance to Pup!
> 
> This is just one illustration of how robust action declaration can be a mechanism for players exercising agency over the shared fiction.



And if the PCs convince Pup to do something that weakens his followers' allegiance, I think the GM is behaving reasonably to have the followers become less loyal or shift their allegiance. The PCs have changed the situation, and the shared fiction; it's just changed (again) afterward--as situations tend to do.


----------



## nevin

If the players can't have permanant successes eventually they end up either wondering why they are there, or they start go CN on you because success doesn't mean anything.  I've played in games where all my "successes" involved lots of innocent deaths.  I was supposed to be happy I prevented a larger scale of death.  DM got really confused that I just went CN and stopped worrying about NPC;s  But to me they were just going to be used against me and then die. It was so predictable that it just wasn't fun.  The DM thought that we'd learn how to be tough.  The party  just stopped caring because the more they cared about an NPC the more likely they were to be killed or screwed over.   A party of hero's that can't make permanent changes for the better to the lives of the NPC's around them is pointless.   

I also think DM needs to be very very judicous in messing with character's through thier followers and cohorts.  Rarely and carefully used can be a great story line.  If assasains show up every week and kill a few of them or every other game one of them turns on you for relatively small things, or everything about them is a pain ,  you risk flipping your players into me vs the GM mindset.  That's not a good place for any game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> You might not believe this, but that doesn't sound radically different from how I'd handle such a thing as a GM. When I'm pondering situations/scenarios, a large part of the thinking goes into getting from what has happened--including the PCs' successes and failures--to something else that can happen.



It is different, though.  I get what you're saying, but there's a pretty big gulf between a game where the GM considers such things and uses them to create more story (ie, GM driven) and a game where the GM is only ever reacting to player action declarations and the mechanical resolution of these.  I have direct experiences, in that I still run (and enjoy) 5e, where even as I allow a much greater degree of input to the game the very nature of the mechanics and game mean I'm still in the drivers seat as GM, and I also currently run Blades in the Dark, where as the GM I'm just spinning off whatever the player actions and mechanics say.  These two things deliver very different play experiences, even as I strive to make my 5e game much more open to player input and driving.  Very different.


prabe said:


> I disagree. The rest of the world reacting to the PCs' success doesn't (or really shouldn't) change or negate the success. If they defeat a baddie in a permanent-seeming way, that baddie should stay defeated. If they (to use your example below) convince someone to their side, they should stay convinced.



The argument @pemerton is making is that the very fact that the GM is not beholden to do so -- that it's, at best, the GM informally agreeing to do so -- means that agency is impacted.  I don't necessarily agree -- you can run a 5e game in a principled way that maximizes agency, but you're going to have to agree to a set of table rules or social conventions that make it so; the game as written largely discounts player agency.  And, while it's true an individual table or group can have quite a bit of agency, I think it's a fair evaluation to say that absent direct and independent action by those players, the baseline is low agency.

Honestly, I think that a symptom of low agency in D&D games is murderhobo-ism.  If you evaluate any complaint of players behaving as murder hobos, you can find concrete examples of how agency is being abridged in ways that have pushed players into this play or habit of play.


prabe said:


> And if the PCs convince Pup to do something that weakens his followers' allegiance, I think the GM is behaving reasonably to have the followers become less loyal or shift their allegiance. The PCs have changed the situation, and the shared fiction; it's just changed (again) afterward--as situations tend to do.



And, you're right back to the GM deciding how things work based on the GM's appreciation of the situation.  If you, instead, follow the mechanical outcomes, then only a failure on a check that fictionally ties into the followers' allegiance could do so, and there's not any stealth action declarations that the GM is evaluating outside of the mechanics to deliver this failure.  You don't have to ignore these events, no, by all means, do not do this.  Just, instead of deciding unilaterally what the result is, call it out and either put it to a check or ask what the PCs are going to do to prevent this bad thing and put that to a check.  I mean, if your goal is to maximize agency, which isn't always desirable or according to preferences.  And it's fine if it isn't -- as I say, when I run 5e I definitely step on agency compared to when I run Blades, but then the games deliver different modes of enjoyment for myself and my players -- Blades is wild and emotionally impactful (it's like a rollercoaster), and 5e is much more tactical in nature.  As I run for a bunch of wargame and boardgame lovers, it's not unsurprising that they enjoy this as well.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Honestly, I think that a symptom of low agency in D&D games is murderhobo-ism. If you evaluate any complaint of players behaving as murder hobos, you can find concrete examples of how agency is being abridged in ways that have pushed players into this play or habit of play.



I might come back to the rest of what you've said but I wanted to specifically call this out as, I think, a good insight into the murderhobo phenomenon. It hasn't been a problem in either of the campaigns I'm running*, but it's been a bit of a temptation in the one I'm playing in, which at least conforms (I think) to your comments elsewhere in the post about D&D being more variable, table-to-table, in the amount of agency the players/characters have.

*except in some narrow instances where something like "kill everything in the ruins of [place]" was one of the PCs' goals.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> It is different, though.  I get what you're saying, but there's a pretty big gulf between a game where the GM considers such things and uses them to create more story (ie, GM driven) and a game where the GM is only ever reacting to player action declarations and the mechanical resolution of these.  I have direct experiences, in that I still run (and enjoy) 5e, where even as I allow a much greater degree of input to the game the very nature of the mechanics and game mean I'm still in the drivers seat as GM, and I also currently run Blades in the Dark, where as the GM I'm just spinning off whatever the player actions and mechanics say.  These two things deliver very different play experiences, even as I strive to make my 5e game much more open to player input and driving.  Very different.



"What has happened" in the game has been resolved mechanically. Every thing that has happened has changed the fiction, the vast majority (and here's where I suspect you'll say agency is being stepped on, because not all) of which are the direct result of the PC's actions. I have run before, doing little prep and just spinning off what the players did, and ... I got tired of it, and I lost my ability to suspend my disbelief enough to play, let alone GM, while running that way. I'm far happier running in what at least feels like a more consistent world; I suspect I'd be happier playing in one, too.



Ovinomancer said:


> The argument @pemerton is making is that the very fact that the GM is not beholden to do so -- that it's, at best, the GM informally agreeing to do so -- means that agency is impacted.  I don't necessarily agree -- you can run a 5e game in a principled way that maximizes agency, but you're going to have to agree to a set of table rules or social conventions that make it so; the game as written largely discounts player agency.  And, while it's true an individual table or group can have quite a bit of agency, I think it's a fair evaluation to say that absent direct and independent action by those players, the baseline is low agency.



I actually don't disagree that the baseline level of agency in 5E is lower than either of us run it, but that's because the baseline style of play is going through an Adventure Path (even if WotC doesn't use Paizo's term for it), and agency is ... not strongly featured in that style of play.



Ovinomancer said:


> And, you're right back to the GM deciding how things work based on the GM's appreciation of the situation.  If you, instead, follow the mechanical outcomes, then only a failure on a check that fictionally ties into the followers' allegiance could do so, and there's not any stealth action declarations that the GM is evaluating outside of the mechanics to deliver this failure.  You don't have to ignore these events, no, by all means, do not do this.  Just, instead of deciding unilaterally what the result is, call it out and either put it to a check or ask what the PCs are going to do to prevent this bad thing and put that to a check.  I mean, if your goal is to maximize agency, which isn't always desirable or according to preferences.  And it's fine if it isn't -- as I say, when I run 5e I definitely step on agency compared to when I run Blades, but then the games deliver different modes of enjoyment for myself and my players -- Blades is wild and emotionally impactful (it's like a rollercoaster), and 5e is much more tactical in nature.  As I run for a bunch of wargame and boardgame lovers, it's not unsurprising that they enjoy this as well.



Apparently the GM was able to decide that Pup was in control; I presume the GM is able to determine why. If the PCs don't find out about that--maybe they don't think to ask--I don't see how it impinges on their agency to have unforeseen consequences, especially on anything other than an uncomplicated success. And if they know about it and mess with it anyway, they can deal with the results.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Just a note about something that struck me as jarring: at one point Lanefan referred to an error in distance of 600' to 800', and it appears some others have referred to this as "minutia".  Even on an in-character level I'd expect, no matter what the game system does in terms of movement, speed and so on, to be able to get an indication of size on those scales and expect it to stay the same.  You have to have a really awfully zoomed out view of a game for that sort of difference to be considered trivial or irrelevant.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Just a note about something that struck me as jarring: at one point Lanefan referred to an error in distance of 600' to 800', and it appears some others have referred to this as "minutia".  Even on an in-character level I'd expect, no matter what the game system does in terms of movement, speed and so on, to be able to get an indication of size on those scales and expect it to stay the same.  You have to have a really awfully zoomed out view of a game for that sort of difference to be considered trivial or irrelevant.




That was me. Honestly, it depends entirely in the game you’re playing and what kind of play expectations you and your players have.

Not too long ago, I was a player in a Five Torches Deep game. This was a very traditional dungeon crawl style of game, and for that kind of game, measurements of the kind in question will matter. 

In the 5E game that I run, this kind of thing may matter a bit from time to time. Generally speaking, we tend to simply rely on descriptors such as “a really big building” or “a very tall wall” and so on. If a player asks for specifics, I’ll likely ballpark it for them, as people would tend to do in the real world. Something like “it’s at least 50 feet tall, but maybe as high as 70”. This kind of stuff tends not to come up a whole lot. When there is a combat encounter, we generally use a battle mat, so they can count in squares, and we’re good. 

For my Blades in the Dark games, it’s pretty much always abstract. On the occasions when measurements of this sort do matter and they come into play, they’re determined in play.

So I chose the word minutiae because for me, that’s almost always what it is. But yes, that will vary from game to game and from table to table, for sure.


----------



## Thomas Shey

It was just that the idea of something as much as a one third difference in distance with something that big seemed pretty odd to describe as "minutae" unless distance literally never matters at all, and that's pretty much the definition of "zoomed out" to me.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> Apparently the GM was able to decide that Pup was in control; I presume the GM is able to determine why. If the PCs don't find out about that--maybe they don't think to ask--I don't see how it impinges on their agency to have unforeseen consequences, especially on anything other than an uncomplicated success. And if they know about it and mess with it anyway, they can deal with the results.



This is where I run aground to some extent: the inferred disallowance of unforeseen consequences or knock-on effects irregardless of the success-failure state of any given action: the GM isn't allowed to weave a behind-the-scenes backstory into things such as to explain what happens within the PCs' awareness.

This gets brought up in two ways, here paraphrased:

1. All consequences of both success and failure should be known before the player makes a roll.

2. Successes must be absolute.

I disagree with 1 in terms of it being an inviolate rule.  Sure, often times the immediate consequences of a proposed action's success or failure are fairly obvious.  "_I climb the wall so I can scope out the ground behind_" has a pretty clear success-fail state: you either climb the wall or you don't.

But other times, there's going to be unseen effects no matter what you do; the only difference perhaps being what those unseen effects will consist of.  These are the purview of the GM.  Problem is, in a situation where there is no backstory or setting she can't factor these sort of unforeseen things in (or if she tries it risks being awkward or unwieldy) because she doesn't yet know what they might be.  It also works against any kind of mystery-solving game.  

"_I talk to the Baroness to see if she knows anything about the missing jewels_".  In a simple situation, either she knows something or she doesn't, regardless of whether this is pre-known through prep or determined on the spot by action resolution.  But the advantage of a pre-prepped setting is that if the GM has in her background notes that the Baroness is a spy for a local Thieves' guild, an unforeseen consequence of the PCs speaking to her here (and _successfully_ determining that she legitimately has no knowledge of the missing jewels) is that if she didn't know about the missing jewels before she does now, and can report that to her guild...which alerts the guild that someone's operating freelance in their territory; and consequences of this might rear up as suspicion or distrust the next time the party's Rogue approaches that guild for something. 

I think this sort of thing is completely within the GM's purview and that the GM shouldn't be constrained from using these type of elements.

As for 2, even outright successes ought to be able to lead to headaches later.  For example, a party of thief-y PCs plans a theft and executes it flawlessly - successes all round, not a failure to be seen.  Does this mean there may never be consequences later, particularly in a game world with any kind of reliable divination magics?  I sure hope not... 

And there's a bizarre corollary people sometimes apply to 2 above: successes must be absolute but failures need not be.  Why not go the other way around - failure is absolute but success isn't always - and thus make things a little harder on the players/PCs?


----------



## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> And there's a bizarre corollary people sometimes apply to 2 above: successes must be absolute but failures need not be.  Why not go the other way around - failure is absolute but success isn't always - and thus make things a little harder on the players/PCs?




There's no intrinsic reason, but it should be noted some players hate it like hell.  Its one reason no one locally wants much to do with PbtA games, which have a lot of "success, but..." results.


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> There's no intrinsic reason, but it should be noted some players hate it like hell.



If they are or have become used to a success-is-absolute paradigm it's not hard to see why. 

This is something of a concern, I suppose: a huge cohort of players being introduced to RPGing through 5e D&D are going to balk on meeting a system where things don't come so easily and where success is to be valued rather than expected.


----------



## prabe

Thomas Shey said:


> There's no intrinsic reason, but it should be noted some players hate it like hell.  Its one reason no one locally wants much to do with PbtA games, which have a lot of "success, but..." results.



I'll admit that's the cause for part of my distaste for those games, combined with the fact I interpret "success with complications" as "partial failure." The fact that putatively competent characters seem to fail so routinely ... bothers me.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> Just a note about something that struck me as jarring: at one point Lanefan referred to an error in distance of 600' to 800', and it appears some others have referred to this as "minutia".  Even on an in-character level I'd expect, no matter what the game system does in terms of movement, speed and so on, to be able to get an indication of size on those scales and expect it to stay the same.  You have to have a really awfully zoomed out view of a game for that sort of difference to be considered trivial or irrelevant.




I'm going to meander my way through this, because there are a lot of moving parts to this, so hopefully this comes out somewhat coherently.  If you (or someone else) needs clarification, let me know.  I'm going to call this:

*D&D THEORY OF MIND*

D&D's genesis was as a wargame (as we all know).  

Over the years it has evolved from those wargaming roots and has attempted to straddle multiple fences (depending on edition).  The most prominent pair of fences it has attempted to straddle is this is this wargaming aesthetic + setting/metaplot tourism = story paradigm.  While this is undeniably the most popular form of D&D, In my opinion, the formulation is incoherent (not as an epithet but as a descriptor) because even a moment's worth of scrutiny reveals it to require an undeniable mental toggle to inhabit these disparate vantages.  However, it just so happens that many (through hard-earned hours and hours and hours of play inhabiting this mental framework) have internalized it to the point that they don't even realize they're engaging in cognitive gymnastics.  Because of this synthesis of these "D&D oddities" (and presumably the enjoyment of the byproducts), there is often a spirited defense of this "state of D&D and its participants' internalized mindset" as "immersive" or "verisimilitude."  When alternatives are proposed or actualized (in the form of game systems that achieve the same genre tropes but through different systemization and attendant cognitive framework), its decried as _inherently _"jarring" or "immersion-breaking."  

The problem is the _inherently_.  There is nothing inherently jarring or immersion-breaking about changing from the orthodox D&D systematized approach to another one.  In fact, if scrutinized by an outside 3rd party of even a 30+ year D&D player, it may be clear that a newly systematized approach either (a) requires 0 mental toggle to engage in the varying constituent parts of play (because everything is unified mechanically and/or ethos-wise) or (b) it does require a mental toggle but the nature of this new mental toggle isn't objectively more or less "jarring" (therefore the only difference is the prior-earned assimilation of the old mental toggle...so basically people are saying "NO NEW GAME WITH NEW MENTAL TOGGLE BECAUSE I'VE EARNED MY ASSIMILATION OF THE WEIRD MENTAL TOGGLE OF YORE SO NEW ITERATIONS OF THE GAME MUST BE PREMISED UPON IT!")

To put it all together:

* Torchbearer's brutal Dungeon Crawl Attrition (of mind, body, and loadout) and Logistics Management game is 100 % a more coherent experience (cognitively) than 1e or B/X (the standard bearers for crawls) because of its holistic, tight design and consistent cognitive positioning.

* Dungeon World (as a Powered By the Apocalypse "love letter to D&D) runs circles around classic and 5e D&D as an engine that produces emergent D&D trappings and tropes.  The cognitive consistency a player/GM inhabits is approximately a 0 on the "jarring-o-meter" when compared to the toggle-requirement of D&D.

* 4e D&D absolutely has the same toggle that D&D historically has but its (let's call it) micro-toggles (of which all D&D possesses) are different than the D&D that has come before it (Noncombat Conflict Resolution - The Skill Challenge - is like Clocks in Apocalypse World/Blades or Conflict! in Mouse Guard or Cortex+ while its Combat Resolution is kindred with classic D&D except that the units weighed and decision-points made have shifted).  But there is nothing inherently "jarring" or "immersion-breaking" with 4e D&D, its just that players that feel that way haven't earned the internalization of those cognitive gymnastics through decades and perhaps they (not consciously) feel their neuroplasticity isn't up to the task to earn new cognitive gymnastics or that its all cost with benefit pending (and they're older now with a different partitioning of time/mental exertion) 

TLDR - The D&D mental gymnastics that we've all been saddled with makes conversations about "jarring" and "immersion" and "verisimilitude" unbelievably fraught.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> TLDR - The D&D mental gymnastics that we've all been saddled with makes conversations about "jarring" and "immersion" and "verisimilitude" unbelievably fraught.



I actually did read it, I just didn't want to quote the whole thing to reply (and I wanted this to be a reply).

Do you think that the lack, or different sets, of toggles would by why a long-time player of D&D might feel as though they'd have *less* agency in a game like Dungeon World than in (well-run) D&D 5E? I'm asking because that's me: 5E clicked more-or-less audibly for me when we acquired the rulebooks, and it has rarely behaved in ways I didn't expect; I'm not asking in a quest for an argument or as an invitation to convince me I'm wrong (I recognize that a game might play differently from how it reads, and I haven't played anything PbtA).


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## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I'll admit that's the cause for part of my distaste for those games, combined with the fact I interpret "success with complications" as "partial failure." The fact that putatively competent characters seem to fail so routinely ... bothers me.




People who are competent (even hyper-competent) deal with failure and setbacks constantly.  Master-level climbers and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu players suffer setbacks and complications that they have to overcome (injuries, equipment failure, mental fatigue/distraction leading to suboptimal outcome, technical soundness failing in a challenging situation 1 in 20 times, misjudged route to success - applies to both, etc).  Its all "success with complications."  In my martial life (which includes BJJ among other things) its overwhelmingly success with complications despite being very accomplished.  In my social and intellectual life, its, again, overwhelmingly "success with complications" with a smattering of successes and failures.  By my reckoning, "success with complications" being the engine of the snowballing nature of PBtA games both (a) makes for compelling play and (b) comports with the experience of being a social animal thrust into competition/conflict with other social animals.

So, in this, I think one of a few things are happening (or both):

1)  Your calibration of "failure" vs "success but complication/cost" vs "success" is off (I remember we had the discussion prior about the AW example and I don't think we ever had a meeting of the minds...so my guess is this is part of it).

2)  The GM you've seen run it (I don't believe you've played it?) wasn't doing their job correctly.


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## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> So, in this, I think one of a few things are happening (or both):
> 
> 1)  Your calibration of "failure" vs "success but complication/cost" vs "success" is off (I remember we had the discussion prior about the AW example and I don't think we ever had a meeting of the minds...so my guess is this is part of it).
> 
> 2)  The GM you've seen run it (I don't believe you've played it?) wasn't doing their job correctly.




I don't know that I've ever even seen anyone play it. PbtA games are all so ... tightly-focused on telling one narrow type of story (I'm intending that to be a neutral description; I don't believe it to be an unintended feature) and I've never read one that was focused on telling a type of story I'd want to have emerge at a table, either as a player or as a GM.

I'm more of a glass-half-empty guy, and the perpetual perceived failures (as I'd interpret "success with complication" as "partial failure") don't seem as though they would be fun. Frankly, I suspect it'd be too much like my real life ...


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## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I actually did read it, I just didn't want to quote the whole thing to reply (and I wanted this to be a reply).
> 
> Do you think that the lack, or different sets, of toggles would by why a long-time player of D&D might feel as though they'd have *less* agency in a game like Dungeon World than in (well-run) D&D 5E? I'm asking because that's me: 5E clicked more-or-less audibly for me when we acquired the rulebooks, and it has rarely behaved in ways I didn't expect; I'm not asking in a quest for an argument or as an invitation to convince me I'm wrong (I recognize that a game might play differently from how it reads, and I haven't played anything PbtA).




Lets call it 80 % (not quite 100 %).  Garbage, back of the envelope made up nonsense numbers but lets say the other 20 % are made up of 10 % people who just don't like the gameplay and for 10 % its a partisan thing (a culture war between indie games and trad games).

But the lack of and/or different sets of toggles is THE issue (and the biggest cross-section overall in terms of population) when it comes to a long-term D&D player citing "jarring" for these other games.

And its sincere.  I believe them.  I know it to be true because I personally know many of these people (who are sincere, earnest people).

The problem is/was (certainly a decade ago and 5 years hence) the culture war aspect of it and those 10 % above being not so self-aware or intellectually dishonest (about the nature of the toggle paradigm) and asserting aggressively and endlessly that the locus of the "jarring" was the new game itself...and not the habituation of themselves to another toggle over a period of years.


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## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I don't know that I've ever even seen anyone play it. PbtA games are all so ... tightly-focused on telling one narrow type of story (I'm intending that to be a neutral description; I don't believe it to be an unintended feature) and I've never read one that was focused on telling a type of story I'd want to have emerge at a table, either as a player or as a GM.
> 
> I'm more of a glass-half-empty guy, and the perpetual perceived failures (as I'd interpret "success with complication" as "partial failure") don't seem as though they would be fun. Frankly, I suspect it'd be too much like my real life ...




Could be!  I don't know!

I have friends who share your aesthetic tastes (and who are long time trad gamers) that I've run various PBtA games.  I've had overwhelming success with them, but I do have to (much to my dismay) admit to having one friend be completely at odds and bow out after 4 sessions (of Blades no less...and I was very confident going in that he would love it because he loves the genre).


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## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> I have friends who share your aesthetic tastes (and who are long time trad gamers) that I've run various PBtA games.  I've had overwhelming success with them, but I do have to (much to my dismay) admit to having one friend be completely at odds and bow out after 4 sessions (of Blades no less...and I was very confident going in that he would love it because he loves the genre).



I read the rules for Blades, somewhere between wanting and expecting to like the game, and ... didn't. I can't and won't speak for your friend, but to me it seemed to approach the Heist thing kinda backward--and I know that's the intent, it just seems too determined for things to start in medias res.


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## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> If they are or have become used to a success-is-absolute paradigm it's not hard to see why.




Its more than that; its that marred success doesn't feel like, well, success.



Lanefan said:


> This is something of a concern, I suppose: a huge cohort of players being introduced to RPGing through 5e D&D are going to balk on meeting a system where things don't come so easily and where success is to be valued rather than expected.




That isn't an issue specific to D&D 5e; the people in my group either have never played that or didn't like it much.  Its just not a common paradigm, and for better or worse, people who have a tendency to focus on failure don't see it as success--they see it as conditional failure.  I think its got far less to do with system experience and far more to do with general life outlook by a lot of people.


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## Thomas Shey

prabe said:


> I'll admit that's the cause for part of my distaste for those games, combined with the fact I interpret "success with complications" as "partial failure." The fact that putatively competent characters seem to fail so routinely ... bothers me.




And here's an example of that.  You aren't alone.  This is almost exactly my wife's perception of it.


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## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> I'm going to meander my way through this, because there are a lot of moving parts to this, so hopefully this comes out somewhat coherently.  If you (or someone else) needs clarification, let me know.  I'm going to call this:
> 
> *D&D THEORY OF MIND*




[Much snippage]

I don't think this is really it, MCB.  I think it involves more how you're going to engage with a fictional world in general.  If your natural inclination is toward the concrete, then a sense of size, of distance, of appearance, and other things is going to be that no matter whether the game system involved engages with those elements directly or not.  If your inclination is toward the impression you get, then more figurative language is going to be fine (and may also engage with the system mechanics better depending on what they are).  But I don't think for many people these are dependent on the systemic hooks; its just how they view a fictional space in general; they'd have the same issues with a story.  I can read a story that avoids the concrete, but parts of it will always feel fuzzy to me.  It doesn't _have_ to use physical units of measure exactly, but it has to use _something_ in context where those would relevant (an exchange of archery fire in the story, or trying to travel a distance) and those have to be consistent.

This is one reason "Speed of Plot" in some fiction works for some people and is jarring for others (the notable case being on Game of Thrones where travel times and distances were often really dissonant to some people because they matched so poorly--and they did, indeed, notice since those travel times were often plot-relevant).


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> 1)  Your calibration of "failure" vs "success but complication/cost" vs "success" is off (I remember we had the discussion prior about the AW example and I don't think we ever had a meeting of the minds...so my guess is this is part of it).




This may well be very much true--but if someone still sees it that way, that's still how it feels to them, and telling them its incorrect or irrational is, functionally, useless.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> 1. All consequences of both success and failure should be known before the player makes a roll.




I don’t know if I’d say all consequences need to be disclosed ahead of time. I think that in most cases, a sense of the risk inherent in an action that’s to be attempted and some sense of the odds, too.

For example, in my 5E game, I almost always share the DCs for any kind of action roll. Keeping those unknown just leaves the door open for fudging and illusionism or even just the possibility of those things. And for what? To obscure the chance of success?



Lanefan said:


> 2. Successes must be absolute.




I think you have to honor the dice results. If a player achieves a success, a GM adjusting things so that the success does not stand is undermining player agency.

There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for it than a GM deciding “no, that’s not how I wanted things to go...I’ll just go ahead and change that.”

And honestly, if the GM can’t think of other ways to challenge the PCs than by undoing a success, then the GM has a lot to learn.

Seriously, let the PCs have their success and come up with some other thing to challenge them.



Lanefan said:


> And there's a bizarre corollary people sometimes apply to 2 above: successes must be absolute but failures need not be. Why not go the other way around - failure is absolute but success isn't always - and thus make things a little harder on the players/PCs?




I don’t personally follow that mentality. I have no problem allowing PCs to fail. However, the mindset for the fail forward approach you’re critiquing here is that there are times when failure will bring the game to a halt, and so therefore, fail forward is about finding alternative ways to apply consequences than simply declaring a failure and then watch as everyone stares at each other for a half hour.

The intention is to keep the game moving in instances where it may otherwise slow or stop. And I know that you personally don’t mind when a game slows to a crawl, but there are plenty of us who do.



prabe said:


> I'll admit that's the cause for part of my distaste for those games, combined with the fact I interpret "success with complications" as "partial failure." The fact that putatively competent characters seem to fail so routinely ... bothers me.




Well, hall of fame baseball players hit less than 4 times out of 10. Also, the frequency of rolls in D&D means that my D&D players miss more often than my BitD players. And we also tend to be harsher in failure narration in D&D as opposed to Blades.

Roll a 1 on a roll in D&D and my group will mock and laugh and explain how the character falls on his face or similar, and we don’t even use fumbles. By comparison, Blades specifically tells the GM to not make the PCs look foolish on a failure. It’s not so much that they blundered as it is that they’re trying something that’s very difficult. 

And this is not even addressing that a success with complication isn’t really a failure. You succeed at what you attempt, it just doesn't go perfectly. 



prabe said:


> I read the rules for Blades, somewhere between wanting and expecting to like the game, and ... didn't. I can't and won't speak for your friend, but to me it seemed to approach the Heist thing kinda backward--and I know that's the intent, it just seems too determined for things to start in medias res.




I don’t know if this will help, but maybe don’t think of the game as trying to simulate criminals committing crimes and instead think of the game as trying to simulate a crime story. Because if you read some crime fiction or watch crime movies, things begin in media res all the time. Relevant details and plans are revealed in flashback....all the time. The criminals have the items they wind up needing....all the time.

All that stuff is baked into crime fiction.


----------



## prabe

Thomas Shey said:


> This may well be very much true--but if someone still sees it that way, that's still how it feels to them, and telling them its incorrect or irrational is, functionally, useless.



To be fair to @Manbearcat I didn't take it in those terms. I took it more as ... not as the designers intended/expected, I guess. I'm not inclined to dispute such a description.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, hall of fame baseball players hit less than 4 times out of 10. Also, the frequency of rolls in D&D means that my D&D players miss more often than my BitD players. And we also tend to be harsher in failure narration in D&D as opposed to Blades.



Well, uncomplicated success seems to come up about one time in three (ish) in Blades. So maybe that's about right. I guess "statistically correct" doesn't necessarily equal "fun."



hawkeyefan said:


> And this is not even addressing that a success with complication isn’t really a failure. You succeed at what you attempt, it just doesn't go perfectly.



Yeah. As @Thomas Shey has said, there are people who see the other way from that. I'm one. That doesn't mean it's bad, just that it's going to stick in my craw.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know if this will help, but maybe don’t think of the game as trying to simulate criminals committing crimes and instead think of the game as trying to simulate a crime story. Because if you read some crime fiction or watch crime movies, things begin in media res all the time. Relevant details and plans are revealed in flashback....all the time. The criminals have the items they wind up needing....all the time.
> 
> All that stuff is baked into crime fiction.



It's trying to emulate a narrow type of crime fiction, I agree. It's trying to emulate a combination of the "reveal the plan as things go flawlessly" and the "heist turns into a fiasco" type. Strangely, neither type of crime fiction is a type I care much for.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> But I absolutely would not want the game to revolve around such approach. At that point it becomes more like collective storytelling around some rules like Once Upon a Time (card game) and less like a tabletop RPG.



Burning Wheel is a tabletop RPG. It's no more "collective storytelling" than is D&D combat. It's just that it extends the principle of "finality" that applies in D&D combat to other areas of character activity.



Crimson Longinus said:


> To me the whole point of having the GM there is for them to use their judgement. I want them to come up with interesting things I want them to come up with surprising things and I trust them to do it better than a codified rule system could.



This is why Burning Wheel has a GM. The GM uses his/her judgement (see eg the GM deciding what happens when Thurgon and Aramina fail to command Rufus). The GM comes up with interesting things (eg deciding that Rusus is on his way to pick up wine for "the master"). The GM comes up with surprising things (eg that Thurgon's younger brother has gone south in search of glory).

But Burning Wheel also has players who are able to exercise agency: they can declare actions for their PCs, and if those actions succeed then the GM is bound.



Crimson Longinus said:


> And when I play a character, I don't want to be deciding setting details because that forces me constantly from in-character perspective to the narrator-perspective.



Notice how in the example of play I posted there is not point at which I (as the player of Thurgon and Aramina) ever had to switch from an "in-character" to a "narrator" perspective. All I did was say what Thurgon and Aramina were doing.

This is a recurring feature of discussion on these boards: one poster sets out an example of, or an account of, RPGing that involves player agency; and another poster responds by expressing his/her dislike of _quite a different thing _(ie shared storytelling and narrator perspective). I don't quite get why.



prabe said:


> The rest of the world reacting to the PCs' success doesn't (or really shouldn't) change or negate the success. If they defeat a baddie in a permanent-seeming way, that baddie should stay defeated. If they (to use your example below) convince someone to their side, they should stay convinced.
> 
> 
> And if the PCs convince Pup to do something that weakens his followers' allegiance, I think the GM is behaving reasonably to have the followers become less loyal or shift their allegiance. The PCs have changed the situation, and the shared fiction; it's just changed (again) afterward--as situations tend to do.



Suppose, in resolving a D&D combat, the player declares "I attack the Orc with  my sword", and rolls to hit. The GM is not at liberty to just decide that the Orc blocks the sword-blow with its shield. The GM can only narrate such a thing _if the roll to hit fails_.

In Classic Traveller, if a player has his/her PC attempt a tricky manoeuvre while wearing a vacc suit, the GM is not at liberty just to narrate that the PC gets stuck or catches an air pipe or similar. There is an action resolution subsystem for this, and only if the player fails the check is the GM at liberty to narrate the dangerous situation coming to pass. (The resolution system then goes on to specify the check required to get out of the dangerous situation without damage to vacc suit ingegrity.)

What might weaken Pup's followers' allegiance? Who knows! If the GM has declared that _Pup is in control here_, and if the players have then successfully brought Pup to heel, _they have taken control of the controller_. The GM is not just at liberty to decide Pup is no longer the controller. That would have to be the outcome of something else going wrong for the PCs - at which point the GM is free to indulge his/her conception of what sorts of things might weaken the followers' allegiance.

The idea that _the GM is free to make up whatever fiction s/he wants regardless of the outcomes of action resolution _is anathema to player agency. Because it makes action declarations pointless: whatever they are, and whatever follows from them, the GM can do what s/he likes!

And to head off the recurrent question, _so what is the GM for then? _Not all action declarations succeed. When they fail, the players have forfeited their agency to the GM. That's (roughly) how winning and losing rolls goes in a dice-based game!

And sometimes it's not clear what happens next. In a RPG with a GM, that's where the GM has a special role to set the scene ("framing"). But framing need not negate or disregard player agency. It can easily honour it.

To follow on from what @Ovinomancer said not far upthread, if the players look to the GM to see what happens next, and it's clear that the PCs have been pushing Pup around, the GM can tell them that _Pup's followers are starting to mutter among themselves and give you surly glances when they think you're nor looking at them_. Now the status of Pup's followers has clearly been put at stake, and the players can decide what (if anything) their PCs do about it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Well, uncomplicated success seems to come up about one time in three (ish) in Blades. So maybe that's about right. I guess "statistically correct" doesn't necessarily equal "fun."




Again, my D&D game includes many more failed attempts by an order of magnitude. Honestly, it seems like you prefer straight up failure to success with complication, which seems odd.

My group played a BitD variant last night. One of the players declared his PC was going to take out a guard. He rolled a 4. He took the guard out with one action, but in doing so, his weapon jammed. I would think that someone who looked at that as a failure is either aggressively pessimistic, or maybe your reading of what Success with Complication means is giving you a very narrow idea of what it may actually be.



prabe said:


> Yeah. As @Thomas Shey has said, there are people who see the other way from that. I'm one. That doesn't mean it's bad, just that it's going to stick in my craw.




Right, but again, D&D doesn’t stick in your craw even though (generally speaking) success/failure is the binary state.

I think perhaps we also need to look past how the player feels about his PC succeeding with a complication, and look at what that does for the game. 

The result of 4-5 is what drives the game forward. It propels the fiction and creates a sense of rising action and pacing to the events. It’s what keeps the game from devolving into everyone taking turns punching each other until everyone on one side is down. 




prabe said:


> It's trying to emulate a narrow type of crime fiction, I agree. It's trying to emulate a combination of the "reveal the plan as things go flawlessly" and the "heist turns into a fiasco" type. Strangely, neither type of crime fiction is a type I care much for.




I mean....a blend of those two extremes seems to cover a whole wide swath of crime fiction. Not sure what examples you may have in mind.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Suppose, in resolving a D&D combat, the player declares "I attack the Orc with  my sword", and rolls to hit. The GM is not at liberty to just decide that the Orc blocks the sword-blow with its shield. The GM can only narrate such a thing _if the roll to hit fails_.
> 
> In Classic Traveller, if a player has his/her PC attempt a tricky manoeuvre while wearing a vacc suit, the GM is not at liberty just to narrate that the PC gets stuck or catches an air pipe or similar. There is an action resolution subsystem for this, and only if the player fails the check is the GM at liberty to narrate the dangerous situation coming to pass. (The resolution system then goes on to specify the check required to get out of the dangerous situation without damage to vacc suit ingegrity.)



Yes. This is pretty basic GMing (in games that have something like a GM).



pemerton said:


> What might weaken Pup's followers' allegiance? Who knows! If the GM has declared that _Pup is in control here_, and if the players have then successfully brought Pup to heel, _they have taken control of the controller_. The GM is not just at liberty to decide Pup is no longer the controller. That would have to be the outcome of something else going wrong for the PCs - at which point the GM is free to indulge his/her conception of what sorts of things might weaken the followers' allegiance.



The question "Who is in control here?" contains an implicit component of "now." Once the PCs change that, it's changed. I never said (at least I don't think I ever said--I'm not going to scroll back and check) that the GM should just do it; I said the GM should/could do it if it fit: While I was thinking as a consequence for however the PCs suborn Pup, having it happen when the PCs get something other than an unqualified success on a relevant check would be mechanically sound, as I understand PbtA.



pemerton said:


> The idea that _the GM is free to make up whatever fiction s/he wants regardless of the outcomes of action resolution _is anathema to player agency. Because it makes action declarations pointless: whatever they are, and whatever follows from them, the GM can do what s/he likes!



I'm not talking about "regardless of the outcomes of action resolution." I'm really not. I might be open to the idea of "because of the PCs' decisions" but once the PCs succeed at something, that's part of the established fiction, and what happens next has to be consistent with that.

I had a thought--and it's escaped somewhat, and I'm trying to recapture it--that we are probably thinking about action-resolution, and/or success, at a different zoom-level (for lack of a better convenient metaphor). That you want/expect an action-resolution to resolve something more or different (probably not less) than I do. If I'm right (or if I was, in the thought I had before, which this might not be the same thought) then I'm not sure we can really communicate about this.



pemerton said:


> And sometimes it's not clear what happens next. In a RPG with a GM, that's where the GM has a special role to set the scene ("framing"). But framing need not negate or disregard player agency. It can easily honour it.
> 
> To follow on from what @Ovinomancer said not far upthread, if the players look to the GM to see what happens next, and it's clear that the PCs have been pushing Pup around, the GM can tell them that _Pup's followers are starting to mutter among themselves and give you surly glances when they think you're nor looking at them_. Now the status of Pup's followers has clearly been put at stake, and the players can decide what (if anything) their PCs do about it.



That last seems like a reasonable way to GM the situation. As I've said, I make a sincere effort frame things that are consistent with previous fiction, which includes the PCs' actions.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Again, my D&D game includes many more failed attempts by an order of magnitude. Honestly, it seems like you prefer straight up failure to success with complication, which seems odd.



Maybe it will seem less odd if I point out that I see "success with complication" as "partial failure." And yes, I think I do prefer failures that don't pretend to be successes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> This is why Burning Wheel has a GM. The GM uses his/her judgement (see eg the GM deciding what happens when Thurgon and Aramina fail to command Rufus). The GM comes up with interesting things (eg deciding that Rusus is on his way to pick up wine for "the master"). The GM comes up with surprising things (eg that Thurgon's younger brother has gone south in search of glory).



Yet IIRC you noted that my example of the GM giving motivations and plans for the orcs was the GM setting up a 'quest' or 'plot' which is a feature of a low player agency game, yet those things the GM does here are the same thing...



> Notice how in the example of play I posted there is not point at which I (as the player of Thurgon and Aramina) ever had to switch from an "in-character" to a "narrator" perspective. All I did was say what Thurgon and Aramina were doing.
> 
> This is a recurring feature of discussion on these boards: one poster sets out an example of, or an account of, RPGing that involves player agency; and another poster responds by expressing his/her dislike of quite a different thing (ie shared storytelling and narrator perspective). I don't quite get why



I think that in another example you said that a player could use their circles to declare some people they know are present, maybe Rufus was 'summoned' this way too? And you said that the GM couldn't fully independently set the identity or the motivations of the 'master'. These are narrator stance things. 

Anyway, I think your framing of this is rather weird. You're super focused on 'action resolution' and mechanics. Those are ultimately a tiny part of a RPG. Outside resolutions of specific actions there is shitton of other stuff the GM (or someone) has to make up, (what is there, what they're doing, what are their motivations and million other things) which affect the direction the game massively. So how decides these things? Either the GM sets up these, which in effect is them setting up 'plot hooks' etc which according to you is lowering player agency, or the players decide these, which is the players assuming the narrator stance.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> Maybe it will seem less odd if I point out that I see "success with complication" as "partial failure." And yes, I think I do prefer failures that don't pretend to be successes.



I think 'success with complication' or 'partial failure' are often good results in a situation where the task resolution roll failed, but very narrowly (or perhaps if it succeeded very narrowly, depending you like to look at it.) Anyway, they're a good tool for making the task resolution less binary. (I like systems with degrees of success instead of simple pass/fail.)


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think 'success with complication' or 'partial failure' are often good results in a situation where the task resolution roll failed, but very narrowly (or perhaps if it succeeded very narrowly, depending you like to look at it.) Anyway, they're a good tool for making the task resolution less binary. (I like systems with degrees of success instead of simple pass/fail.)



In principle I don't have a problem with degrees of success. I think of them more for appropriate skill/ability checks (and I prep them as such from time to time in my 5E campaigns). I'm not sure I like them for everything, though, and I really don't like them as something that "drives the fiction" as @hawkeyefan puts it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Maybe it will seem less odd if I point out that I see "success with complication" as "partial failure." And yes, I think I do prefer failures that don't pretend to be successes.



I feel that it’s a pretty skewed view of what Success w/Complication is. I mean, even if you do view it as a partial failure, how is a complete failure preferable to a partial failure? 

Blades in the Dark....which took its inspiration from Apocalypse World....allows for three results when dice are rolled. D&D is largely binary Succeed/Fail, unless the GM decides to bring in some measure of degrees of success or similar, but that’s not the default.


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## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I feel that it’s a pretty skewed view of what Success w/Complication is. I mean, even if you do view it as a partial failure, how is a complete failure preferable to a partial failure?



Because it's less complicated (heh, heh)?

Seriously, it's as much about the odds as anything else. I don't think a complicated success should be twice as likely as an uncomplicated one; I don't think that failure should be five times as likely as success. The desperation those odds create seems to be necessary for the games to generate the stories they want to; I don't like to play games with that sort of desperation baked into the mechanics.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> In principle I don't have a problem with degrees of success. I think of them more for appropriate skill/ability checks (and I prep them as such from time to time in my 5E campaigns). I'm not sure I like them for everything, though, and I really don't like them as something that "drives the fiction" as @hawkeyefan puts it.




This post makes me think of a couple of things.

First, you’re making a distinction on the kind of actions that might be suited for degrees of success, you mention skill/ability checks in particular. Is there a reason for this distinction? And what types of rolls would you say are not suited for degrees of success? 

Would you put combat rolls into that category? If so, do you use static damage? 

Second, the way that Blades (and many PbtA games) function relies on there being consequences. This is what I mean by “drives the fiction”. Consequences, or at the very least the threat of them, are essential because the GM doesn’t have any turns. Failure after failure will result in PCs quickly burning through all their resources just to stay alive and have no progress to show for it. Full success after full success and things will be a breeze.  That middle ground of 4-5 Success with Complication is what allows things to move forward, while still ratcheting the tension up. Yes, the PCs are moving toward their goal, but there have been costs of some kind.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> This post makes me think of a couple of things.
> 
> First, you’re making a distinction on the kind of actions that might be suited for degrees of success, you mention skill/ability checks in particular. Is there a reason for this distinction? And what types of rolls would you say are not suited for degrees of success?



Some things are pretty clearly binary: Jumping, climbing, finding the secret door.

Some things are less clearly binary: Performing, researching, many social interactions.



hawkeyefan said:


> Would you put combat rolls into that category? If so, do you use static damage?



Nope. You hit or you miss. I roll for damage, because static damage is boring (which is probably a legacy of 40+ years of rolling for damage).



hawkeyefan said:


> Second, the way that Blades (and many PbtA games) function relies on there being consequences. This is what I mean by “drives the fiction”. Consequences, or at the very least the threat of them, are essential because the GM doesn’t have any turns. Failure after failure will result in PCs quickly burning through all their resources just to stay alive and have no progress to show for it. Full success after full success and things will be a breeze.  That middle ground of 4-5 Success with Complication is what allows things to move forward, while still ratcheting the tension up. Yes, the PCs are moving toward their goal, but there have been costs of some kind.



I was going to ask this: It seems (IIRC) as though Blades (at least--this might apply to PbtA games as well) really wants "success with complication" to be the most-common result. Is that right?


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Because it's less complicated (heh, heh)?
> 
> Seriously, it's as much about the odds as anything else. I don't think a complicated success should be twice as likely as an uncomplicated one; I don't think that failure should be five times as likely as success. The desperation those odds create seems to be necessary for the games to generate the stories they want to; I don't like to play games with that sort of desperation baked into the mechanics.




Well, there are a lot more resources that players can bring to bear on these rolls to improve their chances or the results. 

But even then, you’re really ignoring the actual math as it’s explained in the book. With 1 die, you have a 50% chance to succeed. A character who has zero dice in an action would normally roll 2 dice and take the lower roll. That character can push the roll so that they get 1 die and then have a 50% chance to succeed at something they aren’t even good at. 

Yes, some of the time when characters succeed at something, something else will happen that they likely didn’t want. That doesn’t negate their success. 

It’s also no different than your typical combat turn in D&D. When my fighter hits the orc it doesn’t mean he also gets to avoid being attacked in return, or hit by the orc’s archer pal, or charmed by the orc shaman.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, there are a lot more resources that players can bring to bear on these rolls to improve their chances or the results.
> 
> But even then, you’re really ignoring the actual math as it’s explained in the book. With 1 die, you have a 50% chance to succeed. A character who has zero dice in an action would normally roll 2 dice and take the lower roll. That character can push the roll so that they get 1 die and then have a 50% chance to succeed at something they aren’t even good at.



Again: I see "complicated success" as "partial failure" so as I see it on one die you have a 5-in-6 chance of failure. That's not even baseball chances of success. And I've played enough boardgames that involve piles of d6s to know how many dice I need to ensure a 6 (usually about twenty, with my dice luck).



hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, some of the time when characters succeed at something, something else will happen that they likely didn’t want. That doesn’t negate their success.
> 
> It’s also no different than your typical combat turn in D&D. When my fighter hits the orc it doesn’t mean he also gets to avoid being attacked in return, or hit by the orc’s archer pal, or charmed by the orc shaman.



People use that comparison (to D&D combat) often, I think, and I don't think it's entirely accurate. The fact that the orc you attack (and any friends he has) gets a chance to retaliate if you don't do enough damage to kill him doesn't mean you didn't succeed at hitting him.


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## aramis erak

zarionofarabel said:


> So...does that mean I'm railroading my players because I use systems that don't specifically give them the option of making up details of the campaign world???



THe question isn't if they get to make stuff up... it's whether their decisions are informed (based upon available knowledge at decision time) and that decisions makes a difference in the game state and/or fiction state (in other words, the outcome is based upon their decision).
If you aren't providing adequate information,  based upon the current game and story states, then there's no agency because the decision is based upon less data than the character should have.
If their decision has no impact, that is, you haven't an idea before their decision of what the outcomes will be before they decide, then agency is lost because their decision has no meaning.

*Only YOU can answer* the latter part. Your players have a valid view on the first - occasionally, you might want to ask if they feel they've known what their characters should before decision time - but again, you as GM have a better fix overall. So, ask yourself, *"Are my players getting the information to make a reasonably informed decision, and do I have two or more outcomes in mind that make a difference in story and game states before they decide?*"


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## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yet IIRC you noted that my example of the GM giving motivations and plans for the orcs was the GM setting up a 'quest' or 'plot' which is a feature of a low player agency game, yet those things the GM does here are the same thing



But I didn't give an example of a GM giving motivations and plans for Rufus.

I gave an example of the GM _narrating an encounter with Rufus_, in which _Rufus says certain things_.

This is (in my view) a very big difference. As I see it, it is the difference between (1) the GM coming up with a story on his/her own, and gradually revealing it to the players - the paradigm RPG for this approach that I know of is CoC, but a lot of D&D also seems to be played this way - and (2) the GM presenting a fictional situation which is pregnant with possibility that the participants care about (because the GM has built on what those participants have signalled that they care about) and relying on the play of the game, including the action resolution mechanics, to determine what happens next.

The GM can introduce Rufus collecting wine for 'the Master' with none of the following questions being answered: _who is the Master? is he related to Thurgon, or Aramina, or Evard (whose tower Thurgon and Aramina not long ago burned down), or Thurgon's fallen order (the Knights of the Iron Tower, specified in backstory as a component of PC build)? Why does the master want wine - for a dinner party? for a sacrament? because he's an alcoholic? because he wants to bribe some orcs from attacking Auxol?_

Those things - and of course indefinitely many others - are all put in play by the encounter with Rufus that I described. I don't know the answer to any of them. Neither does the GM, and he doesn't need to in order to frame and adjudicate the encounter (which he did).

_Where in the south has Thurgon's brother gone looking for glory?_ The Hold of the Sea Princes? The Amedio Jungle? The south of the Pomarj? _Did his wife go with him? _Again, none of this is, or needs to be, known in order for the play that occurred to occur.

What's one way that we might learn whether the younger brother's wife went with him? If I declare a Circles check for Thurgon to meet her. If I succeed, we know she's still in Auxol. If I fail, one  narration of that failure could be _She's not here, she's gone south with her husband_. That would be player agency in action.

This is all illustrative of the technique described by Paul Czege that I quoted upthread:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this​
And both in itself as a technique, _and_ in its relationship to player agency, it's quite different from the GM giving motivations and plans for the orcs.




Crimson Longinus said:


> I think that in another example you said that a player could use their circles to declare some people they know are present, maybe Rufus was 'summoned' this way too? And you said that the GM couldn't fully independently set the identity or the motivations of the 'master'. These are narrator stance things.



No. Action declaration: _As we ride through the outskirts of Auxol, I keep my eye out for Rufus. It's five years since I've seen him - I wonder how he is doing?_ Resolution: make a Circles check.

The basic structure of declaration and resolution is no different from a Streetwise check in Classic Traveller c 1977, or Gather Information in 3E D&D.




Crimson Longinus said:


> You're super focused on 'action resolution' and mechanics. Those are ultimately a tiny part of a RPG. Outside resolutions of specific actions there is shitton of other stuff the GM (or someone) has to make up, (what is there, what they're doing, what are their motivations and million other things) which affect the direction the game massively. So how decides these things? Either the GM sets up these, which in effect is them setting up 'plot hooks' etc which according to you is lowering player agency, or the players decide these, which is the players assuming the narrator stance.



What can I say - I don't agree that there is that "shitton" of other stuff that the GM has to make up. If the players haven't declared an action for their PCs, or aren't looking for the GM to frame a situation that will spur them to do so, then what is the GM doing worrying about things?

Perhaps concrete examples would help me work out what you have in mind?


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Again: I see "complicated success" as "partial failure" so as I see it on one die you have a 5-in-6 chance of failure. That's not even baseball chances of success. And I've played enough boardgames that involve piles of d6s to know how many dice I need to ensure a 6 (usually about twenty, with my dice luck).
> 
> 
> People use that comparison (to D&D combat) often, I think, and I don't think it's entirely accurate. The fact that the orc you attack (and any friends he has) gets a chance to retaliate if you don't do enough damage to kill him doesn't mean you didn't succeed at hitting him.



The way you're talking about the 4-5 result makes me think you might not quite grasp it.  It is a success -- the player achieves the goal they were after.  It's not a partial success, or a failure, it's a complete success.  The issue is that it comes with a complication.  Up above you listed, "Jumping, climbing, finding the secret door, as obviously binary success tasks.  Let's look at how I would do these as 4-5 results in Blades.

Jumping:
The PC is running away from guards along the rooftops and tries to lose the guards by jumping an alleyway.  The position is risky -- it's not a wide alleyway, so the complications will have teeth but not be disastrous.  Player agrees and rolls a 4 -- success with complication.  Here the action is to jump the alley, but the intent of the action is to escape the guards.  So, the player does both -- jumps the alley, but the guards pull up short on the other side.  I now need to add a complication.  I can say, "You land on the other side, but feel something give in your left ankle when you land -- apparently someone was working up here and has left a bunch of nails scattered on the rooftop and you've slipped on one.  Take Harm 1, bruised ankle."  Or, I can say, "The guards pull up short as you leap the alleyway, but one has pulled a pistol, screaming, 'You're not going to get away again!'  You recognize this guard from your last caper, when you tied him up and stuffed him in a closet.  Apparently, he holds a grudge."  In the first example, the PC takes some harm -- a pretty mild complication that lingers in Blades and requires resources to be spent to overcome during downtime.  The second introduces a new threat -- you might get shot! -- and extends the drama of the scene.  Both give full 100% success to the PC, as they've jumped and the guards aren't following.

Climbing:
This one came up as the first roll in my first Blades game.  The plan was stealth, the entry detail a skylight, the result was Risky, so the scene opened with the PCs having opened the skylight into the upper rafters of a large warehouse.  I described some guards on a nearby catwalk patrolling, so the PC declared they were waiting for the guards to move past on their patrol and slip down a rope into the shadows of the rafters away from the catwalk.  The Leech got a 4, and so managed to hit the rafters silent as a mouse after a small bobble and steal into the shadows.  That when the Leech noticed that the flap on her tools was open, and a quick frantic check revealed that her lockpicks had fallen  out (loss of equipment consequence, check the box) and were spotted lying on the floor of the warehouse.  They were unlikely to be seen, but also would be a challenge to recover.  They opted to not pursue the picks, and I didn't snowball this because the damage was still done. But, the PC got a full success on the action taken and the intent -- the guards never knew she was there.

Secret doors.
This one is super duper easy.  You find the secret door, but it's locked.  You find the secret door, but there's a guard on the other side when you open it.  You find the secret door, but it doesn't lead where you wanted it too.  Huge range of "you 100% find the secret door" alongside complications.

These aren't failures -- you absolutely do the thing, and do the thing well.  But, something new adds a wrinkle -- not related to you not getting what you wanted, but that something else is now causing a problem.  You've now got a limp because you landed poorly leaping the alleyway.  You lost an item even though you made a stealthy climb.  You found the door, just as you wanted, but now discover there's a lock on it or a passphrase.  You get what you were aiming for, always and unequivocally, there's just something unexpected there as well.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> THe question isn't if they get to make stuff up... it's whether their decisions are informed (based upon available knowledge at decision time) and that decisions makes a difference in the game state and/or fiction state (in other words, the outcome is based upon their decision).
> If you aren't providing adequate information,  based upon the current game and story states, then there's no agency because the decision is based upon less data than the character should have.
> If their decision has no impact, that is, you haven't an idea before their decision of what the outcomes will be before they decide, then agency is lost because their decision has no meaning.
> 
> *Only YOU can answer* the latter part. Your players have a valid view on the first - occasionally, you might want to ask if they feel they've known what their characters should before decision time - but again, you as GM have a better fix overall. So, ask yourself, *"Are my players getting the information to make a reasonably informed decision, and do I have two or more outcomes in mind that make a difference in story and game states before they decide?*"



This is a reasonable formulation for a GM driven game -- where the GM determines the available options for play.  However, you can have NO outcomes in mind and still get this, if you're using a principled approach and honoring the outcomes of mechanics.  When I run Blades, I don't have outcomes in mind at all -- you can't, the system will fight you if you try.  Instead, I take what the PCs are trying to do (actions), engage the mechanics, and then follow the outcomes faithfully -- if the succeed, they succeed!  If they fail, do bad things!  If it's partial, they succeed AND you do bad things!  The story generates organically, and in unexpected ways -- you are, after all, all playing to find out what happens, GM included.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> The question "Who is in control here?" contains an implicit component of "now."



Why? Says who?

I'll repost the rules text, plus some of the commentary that follows it:

Discern Realities​When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1. Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.​• What happened here recently?​• What is about to happen?​• What should I be on the lookout for?​• What here is useful or valuable to me?​• Who’s really in control here?​• What here is not what it appears to be?​. . .​​Discerning realities isn’t just about noticing a detail, it’s about figuring out the bigger picture. The GM always describes what the player characters experience honestly, so during a fight the GM will say that the kobold mage stays at the other end of the hall. Discerning realities could reveal the reason behind that: the kobold’s motions reveal that he’s actually pulling energy from the room behind him, he can’t come any closer.​​Just like spout lore [another player-side move], the answers you get are always honest ones. Even if the GM has to figure it out on the spot. Once they answer, it’s set in stone.​
The +1 forward when acting on the answer isn't arbitrary, either. It correlates to the fictional state of affairs that the PC has learned something about the situation.

This notion that _success in action resolution stands_ isn't confined to DW of AW. Burning Wheel states it as "Let it Ride". One of the 4e designers/developers had a blog about the same thing on the WotC website some time around 10 years ago. The MHRP rules have a discussion about how long assets and resources that the players have generated for their PCs stick around.

No one thinks that fiction can't evolve. But if it is "set in stone" then, in order for the GM to legitimately change it, _the players_ have to put it in issue. This can happen in different ways: the MHRP rules give the example of the Thing's player (I think that's right - anyway, a "strong guy") establishing a car as an asset, which is then used to hit the villain over the head. If the player keeps doing this, eventually the car is going to break up and the GM is entitled to declare that the asset has come to an end. Burning Wheel has a long discussion of principles and examples of when Let it Ride ceases to apply. I gave the example upthread of the players having their PCs push Pup around, and the GM flagging the signs of this as muttering and dirty looks from the followers. If the players keep pushing Pup around, well now they've put the allegiance of the followers to the test.

Of course these are all matters of judgement. As a GM you can generally tell you've been unfair if the players start muttering and giving you dirty looks! The point is that the GM is not just free to change the fiction in a way that negates the players' successes.



prabe said:


> once the PCs succeed at something, that's part of the established fiction, and what happens next has to be consistent with that.



_Consistency _is not a very strong constraint, because nearly everything can be consistent with what's gone before if enough backstory is introduced to explain why. I mean, maybe the followers have sworn an oath to abandon Pup should (s)he ever yield to another! In which case it would be consistent for the players to work out who's in control, take control of that person, and then have the whole gang of followers turn on them straight away. But that would not honour their success in action resolution.

That's not to say that there can never be cases of followers who have sworn such oaths. Just that, if the GM wants to introduce them, doing so as a response to successfully Discerning Realities about who's really in control is not the right time.



prabe said:


> I'll admit that's the cause for part of my distaste for those games, combined with the fact I interpret "success with complications" as "partial failure." The fact that putatively competent characters seem to fail so routinely ... bothers me.



To me this sits very oddly with the post I've replied to just above.

You lament the incidence of "partial failure" yet want to reserve the right for the GM to narrate matters so that notional successes turn out to be full or partial failures!

I also suspect that you are working with a much narrower notion of how failure is to be narrated than the authors of BitD, AW, Burning Wheel etc intend. I'll give an example or two below in this post.



Lanefan said:


> This is where I run aground to some extent: the inferred disallowance of unforeseen consequences or knock-on effects irregardless of the success-failure state of any given action: the GM isn't allowed to weave a behind-the-scenes backstory into things such as to explain what happens within the PCs' awareness.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But other times, there's going to be unseen effects no matter what you do; the only difference perhaps being what those unseen effects will consist of.  These are the purview of the GM.  Problem is, in a situation where there is no backstory or setting she can't factor these sort of unforeseen things in (or if she tries it risks being awkward or unwieldy) because she doesn't yet know what they might be.  It also works against any kind of mystery-solving game.
> 
> "_I talk to the Baroness to see if she knows anything about the missing jewels_".  In a simple situation, either she knows something or she doesn't, regardless of whether this is pre-known through prep or determined on the spot by action resolution.  But the advantage of a pre-prepped setting is that if the GM has in her background notes that the Baroness is a spy for a local Thieves' guild, an unforeseen consequence of the PCs speaking to her here (and _successfully_ determining that she legitimately has no knowledge of the missing jewels) is that if she didn't know about the missing jewels before she does now, and can report that to her guild
> 
> <snip>
> 
> even outright successes ought to be able to lead to headaches later.  For example, a party of thief-y PCs plans a theft and executes it flawlessly - successes all round, not a failure to be seen.  Does this mean there may never be consequences later, particularly in a game world with any kind of reliable divination magics?  I sure hope not...



If the PCs speak to the Baroness or flawlessly execute the theft _and then the campaign comes to its end_, the issue of subsequent consequences is moot. What happened to De Niro's character after the events of the film _Ronin_? Any fan is free to make up answers in his/her imagination; but the canonical answer must be _there is no answer_. That story hasn't been written or told yet.

Conversely, _if the campaign keeps going _then there will be subsequent action declarations. And some of these will fail, or will succeed with complications mandated. And the GM is then able to introduce "unforeseen consequences" or "knock-on effects". There are also moments when there is no obvious answer, at the table, to _what happens next_, and so everyone will look at the GM (who, in a conventional TTRPG, has a special responsibility in this regard) and the GM can then signal a possible unforeseen consequence or knock-on effect.

Consider a downstream Discern Realities - _what here is not what it appears to be?_ The player succeeds. The GM narrates, _The servant cowering in the corner steps forward. She flashes a small medallion hidden in the cloth wrapped about her waist - you recognise it as the mark of the <insert sinister guild or organisation here>. "Do not think you can prevail here," she says. "For you are marked by my masters."_

In any RPG, if there is play taking place then the GM should have ample opportunity to do this sort of thing without having to manipulate fiction behind the scenes so as to thwart or undercut players' successes.



hawkeyefan said:


> My group played a BitD variant last night. One of the players declared his PC was going to take out a guard. He rolled a 4. He took the guard out with one action, but in doing so, his weapon jammed. I would think that someone who looked at that as a failure is either aggressively pessimistic, or maybe your reading of what Success with Complication means is giving you a very narrow idea of what it may actually be.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The result of 4-5 is what drives the game forward. It propels the fiction and creates a sense of rising action and pacing to the events. It’s what keeps the game from devolving into everyone taking turns punching each other until everyone on one side is down.



I agree. I also think "partial failure" or "success with complications" can go further than this. (I suspect you agree.)

For instance, _the guard goes down with one punch, and his mask falls off. It's your brother-in-law!_ Or, _the guard goes down with one punch, dropping his truncheon. It clatters down the stairs - all twenty of them - and the sound echoes through the alleyway. Anyone within a block or two has probably heard it!_

And of course, in any particular context, there's stuff of more ambitious scope that might suggest itself.


----------



## Thomas Shey

prabe said:


> To be fair to @Manbearcat I didn't take it in those terms. I took it more as ... not as the designers intended/expected, I guess. I'm not inclined to dispute such a description.




Oh, I'm absolutely sure that's true, and it clearly works for a lot of people or PbtA wouldn't be as popular as it is.  But for people who it doesn't work, it _really_ doesn't work. Its the sort of thing that's a dealbreaker.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> the way that Blades (and many PbtA games) function relies on there being consequences. This is what I mean by “drives the fiction”.



I find it quote odd that posters who are asserting the freedom of the GM to impose consequences by deciding how the world reacts (eg @prabe, @Lanefan) are also expressing hostility to a system that mechanically dictates when consequences are to be imposed and (roughly, at least) what those parameters are.

To me it suggests that the true hostility is not to consequences, but to the removal of GM freedom to impose them willy-nilly and independent of the action resolution process.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> The way you're talking about the 4-5 result makes me think you might not quite grasp it.  It is a success -- the player achieves the goal they were after.  It's not a partial success, or a failure, it's a complete success.  The issue is that it comes with a complication.



It's not that I don't understand the way the game says it works (I haven't played it, so that's what I'm working from). It's that the way I see things, it seems as though on a 4-5 you get some of what you want--presumably what you want is not to limp after jumping over a gap, for instance--and something else goes wrong because you tried to do something. That 4-5 range looks more like a partial failure to me than a partial success, to me. I have a really hard time imaging why a character would try to do anything, given those kinds of odds.



Ovinomancer said:


> These aren't failures -- you absolutely do the thing, and do the thing well.  But, something new adds a wrinkle -- not related to you not getting what you wanted, but that something else is now causing a problem.  You've now got a limp because you landed poorly leaping the alleyway.  You lost an item even though you made a stealthy climb.  You found the door, just as you wanted, but now discover there's a lock on it or a passphrase.  You get what you were aiming for, always and unequivocally, there's just something unexpected there as well.



Nope. If you didn't want what you get as a result of the check, it's not "you absolutely do the thing, and do the thing well." At least not in my brain. It's without question a large part of why the game failed to appeal to me when I read the SRD.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Some things are pretty clearly binary: Jumping, climbing, finding the secret door.



No they're not. @Ovinomancer has given examples tailored to BitD. I'll give some examples that are generic:

You jump across the chasm, but your hat falls off and is now 100' below in the chill water of the underground river.

Once you reach the top of the cliff, you realise that you've lost your dagger. It must have snagged and pulled loose on an outcropping at some point during the climb.

You find and open the secret door. Right behind it is Darth Vader, about to step through. Good luck!


----------



## Thomas Shey

prabe said:


> Maybe it will seem less odd if I point out that I see "success with complication" as "partial failure." And yes, I think I do prefer failures that don't pretend to be successes.




I wonder if that would be my wife's feeling too...


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Why? Says who?



Um. The word "is." It's present tense, innit?


pemerton said:


> _Consistency _is not a very strong constraint, because nearly everything can be consistent with what's gone before if enough backstory is introduced to explain why. I mean, maybe the followers have sworn an oath to abandon Pup should (s)he ever yield to another! In which case it would be consistent for the players to work out who's in control, take control of that person, and then have the whole gang of followers turn on them straight away. But that would not honour their success in action resolution.



I agree that wouldn't be good GMing. In DW, as I understand it, it would have to come up as the result of some check that was not an uncomlicated success; in something like D&D it would be best if it was in the adventure notes--whether the GM had made up the adventure or bought it.


pemerton said:


> You lament the incidence of "partial failure" yet want to reserve the right for the GM to narrate matters so that notional successes turn out to be full or partial failures!



No. I want the world to respond to the PCs' successes. I want Duke Fornyard to resent them for succeeding in swaying the king; I want the merchant thief Iltan to mark them as potential marks after a profitable dungeon raid; I want Winter's Fang to notice that Auriqua is no longer under the Tundra Queen's protection and take interest. To take examples that at least would fit into the campaigns I'm running.


pemerton said:


> I also suspect that you are working with a much narrower notion of how failure is to be narrated than the authors of BitD, AW, Burning Wheel etc intend. I'll give an example or two below in this post.



I have to agree that there's probably some difference in how we mean "action resolution," "success," and "failure" that is being a bulwark to communication.


pemerton said:


> Consider a downstream Discern Realities - _what here is not what it appears to be?_ The player succeeds. The GM narrates, _The servant cowering in the corner steps forward. She flashes a small medallion hidden in the cloth wrapped about her waist - you recognise it as the mark of the <insert sinister guild or organisation here>. "Do not think you can prevail here," she says. "For you are marked by my masters."_
> 
> In any RPG, if there is play taking place then the GM should have ample opportunity to do this sort of thing without having to manipulate fiction behind the scenes so as to thwart or undercut players' successes.



Other than having an NPC do something as a result of what sounds like a Perception-type check (and I'll trust you on that being a legitimate way for that to shake out in that game) this isn't wildly different from how I GM.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I find it quote odd that posters who are asserting the freedom of the GM to impose consequences by deciding how the world reacts (eg @prabe, @Lanefan) are also expressing hostility to a system that mechanically dictates when consequences are to be imposed and (roughly, at least) what those parameters are.
> 
> To me it suggests that the true hostility is not to consequences, but to the removal of GM freedom to impose them willy-nilly and independent of the action resolution process.



So, a couple of things.

I am not saying the GM should impose consequences willy-nilly. I'm saying the GM should have the world react to the successes and failures of the PCs in ways that are consistent with the established fiction--which perforce includes those successes and failures.

I am not being hostile toward games such as BitD or anything PbtA, or to the idea of a game where the mechanics dictate the timing and nature of consequences. I have not seen any lately I'd want to play or run, but I see that as mostly a matter of "I don't like the stories these games want to generate" and "I feel more comfortable as a GM if I'm responsible for establishing most of the world as part of framing the fiction."


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Some things are pretty clearly binary: Jumping, climbing, finding the secret door.
> 
> Some things are less clearly binary: Performing, researching, many social interactions.




I don’t know if any of those things are binary in that way. I think in each case, the intended goal is what’s in question. It’s not a question of whether you jump or not, it’s how far or high, how effectively, how safely, and so on. Plenty of track and field events display this very clearly. 



prabe said:


> Nope. You hit or you miss. I roll for damage, because static damage is boring (which is probably a legacy of 40+ years of rolling for damage).




So you don’t see a damage roll as a degree of success? If my Fighter hits the ogre for 8 points of damage, and then your Barbarian hits it for 20 points, we’ve both succeeded equally? 



prabe said:


> I was going to ask this: It seems (IIRC) as though Blades (at least--this might apply to PbtA games as well) really wants "success with complication" to be the most-common result. Is that right?




That’s a good question, and I’m not certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised. When I mentioned how the 4-5 result really drives the game, I was recalling how the designer John Harper said as much during a discussion on game design. I don’t know if the math supports it, especially once additional dice start getting added and so on, but it would make sense. 

I think it’s the most important. 



prabe said:


> Again: I see "complicated success" as "partial failure" so as I see it on one die you have a 5-in-6 chance of failure. That's not even baseball chances of success. And I've played enough boardgames that involve piles of d6s to know how many dice I need to ensure a 6 (usually about twenty, with my dice luck).




Okay, I can get you don't like it, but your math is very clearly wrong. It’s not failure 5 out of 6 times. I know it “feels that way to you” but it’s inaccurate. 



prabe said:


> People use that comparison (to D&D combat) often, I think, and I don't think it's entirely accurate. The fact that the orc you attack (and any friends he has) gets a chance to retaliate if you don't do enough damage to kill him doesn't mean you didn't succeed at hitting him.




Yes this is precisely my point. 

My Fighter succeeds at hitting the orc. That doesn’t render him free from complications. He very likely succeeds....with complications.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I agree. I also think "partial failure" or "success with complications" can go further than this. (I suspect you agree.)
> 
> For instance, _the guard goes down with one punch, and his mask falls off. It's your brother-in-law!_ Or, _the guard goes down with one punch, dropping his truncheon. It clatters down the stairs - all twenty of them - and the sound echoes through the alleyway. Anyone within a block or two has probably heard it!_
> 
> And of course, in any particular context, there's stuff of more ambitious scope that might suggest itself.




Oh absolutely. I mean, one of the principles that guides play is “Fiction First” so you’re always looking to the established fiction to help shape unfolding events. But yes, what kind of consequences a GM puts forth is crucial to the play experience being dynamic. 



pemerton said:


> I find it quote odd that posters who are asserting the freedom of the GM to impose consequences by deciding how the world reacts (eg @prabe, @Lanefan) are also expressing hostility to a system that mechanically dictates when consequences are to be imposed and (roughly, at least) what those parameters are.
> 
> To me it suggests that the true hostility is not to consequences, but to the removal of GM freedom to impose them willy-nilly and independent of the action resolution process.




I don’t know if it’s hostility, but I do think it’s related to the shift in narrative authority. It’s a change in the classic or standard approach to play. I get that one might have concerns about how that would impact the play experience. 

I don’t know how founded those concerns are in this case, given the significant lack of experience with the kind of approach that’s being discussed. 

And there’s always going to be preference involved. Some games or styles will just appeal more to some folks than others.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know if I’d say all consequences need to be disclosed ahead of time. I think that in most cases, a sense of the risk inherent in an action that’s to be attempted and some sense of the odds, too.
> 
> For example, in my 5E game, I almost always share the DCs for any kind of action roll. Keeping those unknown just leaves the door open for fudging and illusionism or even just the possibility of those things. And for what? To obscure the chance of success?



If there was in-fiction evidence the PCs could use (e.g. quickly examining the wall they're about to climb) then I'd have no problem with telling them the DC at least in somewhat specific terms, but non-numeric as the PCs wouldn't be thinking in terms of numbers and I generally try my best to narrate things as seen/known by the PCs.

If there's no in-fiction evidence to go by (e.g. they're trying to sneak across ground they've had no way of pre-scouting and thus they've no idea what the ground is like or what might be met there) then they ain't gettin' no DC nohow. 

And in situations where even the premise of what they're trying is open to question, i.e they might be trying something they don't realize is impossible, not only do they not get a DC but I do the rolling behind the screen for them.  The most common of these is trying to disbelieve an illusion.  If they end up still believing it I don't want them knowing whether it's due to a bad roll or to there being no illusion present at all.


hawkeyefan said:


> I think you have to honor the dice results. If a player achieves a success, a GM adjusting things so that the success does not stand is undermining player agency.
> 
> There doesn’t seem to be any other reason for it than a GM deciding “no, that’s not how I wanted things to go...I’ll just go ahead and change that.”



I think @prabe has hinted downthread at a corollary question here: while success should clearly be honoured in the moment, for how long does that success remain valid?

Using my example of the Baroness from upthread a bit: the PCs talk to her in order to determine if she knows anything about some missing jewels, and on a few successes conclude that she legitimately and truthfully does not.  The PCs take this success and turn their investigations elsewhere.

However, the PCs in asking her about said jewels have, as a probably-unintentional side effect, just informed her that the jewels are in fact (according to them, anyway) missing.  In your view does it invalidate the PCs' successes in that conversation if the Baroness then acts on this new-to-her information behind the scenes in a manner that may or may not affect the PCs down the road, depending how things go?


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t personally follow that mentality. I have no problem allowing PCs to fail. However, the mindset for the fail forward approach you’re critiquing here is that there are times when failure will bring the game to a halt, and so therefore, fail forward is about finding alternative ways to apply consequences than simply declaring a failure and then watch as everyone stares at each other for a half hour.
> 
> The intention is to keep the game moving in instances where it may otherwise slow or stop. And I know that you personally don’t mind when a game slows to a crawl, but there are plenty of us who do.



To me, if plan A has stalled out it's on the players/PCs to come up with a plan B and try that; and if no plan B suggests itself then abandoning whatever it was they were trying is also always an option.

I'm reminded of a PC in one of my games who, when first brought in to the party in a recently-abandoned Dwarven city, was a rescued prisoner and badly hurt.  They didn't have the resources to patch him (and all the other rescuees) up, and he was in no fit shape for adventuring, so they plopped him in front of an old vault door with the other rescuees while they went out to rescue some more.

This PC was a thief.  A greedy one.  And, as I soon found out, a stubborn one.

And they'd put him in front of the vault door of a Dwarven bank.

So instead of sitting there recovering, he tried moving heaven and earth to get into that damn vault!  Neither the PC nor the player knew (though both kinda suspected) his chance of successfully stealing anything was less than zero; but it was: not only was the PC the wrong race (the door would _only_ open to a Dwarf; the PC was Human) but if he had managed to open it he'd have been dead - or worse - the moment he tried to enter as he didn't know any of the passwords to disarm the various lethal glyphs and curses.

This is a classic case where 'just give it up!' comes into play...but some players (and some PCs) just can't wrap around this concept. 


hawkeyefan said:


> And this is not even addressing that a success with complication isn’t really a failure. You succeed at what you attempt, it just doesn't go perfectly.



I agree with this statement as long as it's applied when 'success' is rolled and not when 'failure' is rolled. 


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know if this will help, but maybe don’t think of the game as trying to simulate criminals committing crimes and instead think of the game as trying to simulate a crime story. Because if you read some crime fiction or watch crime movies, things begin in media res all the time. Relevant details and plans are revealed in flashback....all the time. The criminals have the items they wind up needing....all the time.
> 
> All that stuff is baked into crime fiction.



Which is fine for someone who's reading a book; but for someone trying to play a character in a game setting, having things happen non-sequentially kinda butchers any idea of one thing or action or decision leading to the next.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Oh snap! I just realized something reading the last, well, lots of posts on the granularity of resolution.

I am a fan of Pass/Fail systems! I am okay with adding Fumble and Super Duper Awesome Pass to either end of the scale, but I prefer Pass/Fail over more granular systems. I think it has alot to do with how and when I call for rolls and how I result stuff. I don't know all the proper language so if this makes no sense I apologize.

If a player rolls and succeeds, I always frame the result as a _complete success_. The reason I do so is that I feel that anything other than a _complete success_ is me as GM being mean and robbing the player of their victory. Why I feel I need to do this is because I only call for rolls when a _complete failure_ would also be an interesting result. If neither, or both, _complete success_ or _complete failure_ is not an interesting result, then I simply tell the player they automatically succeed or fail. Thus far I haven't had too many fits of rage from players as I am very prone to auto-pass, and almost never auto-fail. I'm probably a super pushover GM I guess, I just like to see the PCs be awesome and make the players happy. Anyway, I'm prepared to get flamed to death now...let it begin!!!


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Again, my D&D game includes many more failed attempts by an order of magnitude. Honestly, it seems like you prefer straight up failure to success with complication, which seems odd.



Success with complication is fine if the roll indicates success (particularly if it indicates marginal success e.g. the DC is 10 and you roll 11).  It's not OK if the roll indicates failure, because it's turning that failure into a success.


hawkeyefan said:


> My group played a BitD variant last night. One of the players declared his PC was going to take out a guard. He rolled a 4. He took the guard out with one action, but in doing so, his weapon jammed. I would think that someone who looked at that as a failure is either aggressively pessimistic, or maybe your reading of what Success with Complication means is giving you a very narrow idea of what it may actually be.



Without knowing the context, e.g. was this PC likely to need that weapon again anytime soon, this doesn't tell us much. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Right, but again, D&D doesn’t stick in your craw even though (generally speaking) success/failure is the binary state.



Truth be told, oftentimes the binary state does stick in my craw when more than two simple outcomes are possible, but it's easy enough to mitigate in many cases.  PF2 has a good idea in having there be four possible outcomes to a lot of rolls; I'm not suggesting it should always be four - sometimes it could be three or five or who knows, but the principle is sound.

Also, while I know it's not for everyone I also see the status quo as being a possible result a lot of the time; either because of a fail state changing nothing (e.g. failing to pick a lock) or in very rare instances where success and failure are so finely balanced that the net effect is a wash.

On broader terms, maybe more GMs need to go all drill sergeant during session 0:

"_In this game, as a character you will fail!  You will fail often!  Sometimes, you will fail hard!  Others will laugh at you, and sometimes you'll have no choice but to laugh at yourself; and if you are incapable of laughing at yourself this is no place for you! _ 

"_But! If those failures don't kill you - and believe me, there'll be times when they will - you gotta pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again or better yet try something else!  Nothing's handed to you in here, and from your perspective much of the game world has only one reason for existing, and that's to kill you dead. Success is fleeting, and to be valued.  Failure is constant, and thus must be accepted._

"_Now get out there and make me proud!_"


(is it too easy to tell that I just watched _Patton_ the other night?  )


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> First, you’re making a distinction on the kind of actions that might be suited for degrees of success, you mention skill/ability checks in particular. Is there a reason for this distinction? And what types of rolls would you say are not suited for degrees of success?
> 
> Would you put combat rolls into that category? If so, do you use static damage?



Though you asked this of @prabe, I'll give it a shot if I may:

Some rolls are pretty binary, in that what they're trying to resolve in the fiction is binary; being one of '_either A happens or it doesn't_' or '_either A happens or B happens_'.  The guard sees you or she doesn't.   You lift the boulder or you don't.  You push the door closed first or the Orc pushes it open first.  You hit the opponent for damage or you don't (so yes, combat to-hit rolls go here).

Degree-of-success can be applied to many things...including, oddly enough, combat rolls: if your binary to-hit roll succeeds then your degree of success is shown by the damage roll (no, I do not use static damage).  If damage was built in to the to-hit roll e.g. on a hit you do 1 point damage per point your roll exceeded the foe's AC by, then it's be a degree-of-success roll.  Climbing is always degree-of-success: if you succeed is somethingwaiting for you at the top, and if you fail at what  point during the climb does this occur (and are you stuck in place or do you fall).  Just about any social roll would be degree of success and that degree would inform me-as-GM as to the basic reaction of the NPC(s) - if the DC is 10 to gain a favour from someone you're going to get a far more enthusiastic "Yes" on a roll of 20 than you are on a roll of 11; and an "I really dunno 'bout this" decline on a 9 vs a "Get the f--- out of my office!" that a 1 would produce.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Of course these are all matters of judgement. As a GM you can generally tell you've been unfair if the players start muttering and giving you dirty looks! The point is that the GM is not just free to change the fiction in a way that negates the players' successes.



I earnestly hope you'll also agree with this equal and opposite variant: _the GM is not just free to change the fiction in a way that negates the players' failures_. If yes, then alert the media! We've found common ground: the GM can't arbitrarily change stuff to negate what the players/PCs did, for good or bad.

Yet the whole idea of 'fail-forward' seems to be based on exactly this concept: changing or massaging the fiction such that failures aren't really failures.  How do you square that?


pemerton said:


> If the PCs speak to the Baroness or flawlessly execute the theft _and then the campaign comes to its end_, the issue of subsequent consequences is moot. What happened to De Niro's character after the events of the film _Ronin_? Any fan is free to make up answers in his/her imagination; but the canonical answer must be _there is no answer_. That story hasn't been written or told yet.



This is a complete red herring.  Everything I posted assumed an ongoing campaign, which I thought would go wihtout saying.


pemerton said:


> Conversely, _if the campaign keeps going _then there will be subsequent action declarations. And some of these will fail, or will succeed with complications mandated. And the GM is then able to introduce "unforeseen consequences" or "knock-on effects". There are also moments when there is no obvious answer, at the table, to _what happens next_, and so everyone will look at the GM (who, in a conventional TTRPG, has a special responsibility in this regard) and the GM can then signal a possible unforeseen consequence or knock-on effect.
> 
> Consider a downstream Discern Realities - _what here is not what it appears to be?_ The player succeeds. The GM narrates, _The servant cowering in the corner steps forward. She flashes a small medallion hidden in the cloth wrapped about her waist - you recognise it as the mark of the <insert sinister guild or organisation here>. "Do not think you can prevail here," she says. "For you are marked by my masters."_



Unless the players/PCs have reason to suspect an illusion or deception, asking "What here is not what it appears to be?" sounds like someone fishing for adventure hooks. 


pemerton said:


> I agree. I also think "partial failure" or "success with complications" can go further than this. (I suspect you agree.)
> 
> For instance, _the guard goes down with one punch, and his mask falls off. It's your brother-in-law!_ Or, _the guard goes down with one punch, dropping his truncheon. It clatters down the stairs - all twenty of them - and the sound echoes through the alleyway. Anyone within a block or two has probably heard it!_
> 
> And of course, in any particular context, there's stuff of more ambitious scope that might suggest itself.



I probably just use a different series of not-necessarily-hardcoded mechanics to get to a similar type of result here.

I'd likely never use the brother-in-law one as I'm not too fond of dragging PCs' families into things unless the player puts them there first.

The truncheon example: I might arrive at the same result where, after the PC one-shots the guard, I think to myself - and often ask myself out loud so the players know what I'm up to - "_Did anything go wrong with that?_"*, particularly if stealth is intended. Either I or the player roll some dice and on a poor roll then maybe the truncheon does clatter down some stairs or the guard makes some noise as he crumples or someone nearby saw/heard something and raises a shout or whatever. But more often we'll be covering this sort of thing in the moment: roll to hit, roll damage, and roll to see how quiet you kept things.

* - and if I can't quickly think of anything that could have gone wrong, I skip this step.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I find it quote odd that posters who are asserting the freedom of the GM to impose consequences by deciding how the world reacts (eg @prabe, @Lanefan) are also expressing hostility to a system that mechanically dictates when consequences are to be imposed and (roughly, at least) what those parameters are.
> 
> To me it suggests that the true hostility is not to consequences, but to the removal of GM freedom to impose them willy-nilly and independent of the action resolution process.



My 'hostility' (nice inflammatory choice of term there, by the way - duly noted) is to the idea that the GM can't have any ongoing mysteries or overarching secrets that the players may or may not one day find out about.  That she can't have her world/setting do anything in a cause-effect way absent the PCs' direct involvement; i.e. can't have something happen that isn't a consequence of anything involving the PCs but is instead either pre-scheduled or by sheer random chance (e.g. a volcano erupts, a pirate ship sails into harbour and opens fire on the town, etc.).  That there's too much constraint on when and how consequences may be imposed and what form those consequences may take.  That consequences cannot be imposed on an outright success even when logic would say they likely would occur.

Who gets to determine the weather conditions when the PCs wake up each morning?  Or does 'the sun always shine on TV'?


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> It's not that I don't understand the way the game says it works (I haven't played it, so that's what I'm working from). It's that the way I see things, it seems as though on a 4-5 you get some of what you want--presumably what you want is not to limp after jumping over a gap, for instance--and something else goes wrong because you tried to do something. That 4-5 range looks more like a partial failure to me than a partial success, to me. I have a really hard time imaging why a character would try to do anything, given those kinds of odds.



Because a) the odds of success are still not zero and b) not doing anything is liable to lead to a rather dull game. 

It's a matter of making failure the standard and success the exception, rather than the other way around.  Successes then become much more valued and memorable because they're less common and thus liable to have greater impact when they do occur.

Someone upthread mentioned baseball hitters.  Each time they go up to bat even the very best of 'em only get a hit about 1/3 of the time; they get on base some other way maybe 1/6 of the time, which means that half the time they accomplish nothing.

In hockey the odds are even worse: a non-goalie player is doing really well if he consistently scores on 15% - or 3/20 - of his shots on goal (and this ignores any shots that go wide, or are blocked before reaching the goalie).  By what you're saying, that player shoud just give up trying to score at all.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> I think @prabe has hinted downthread at a corollary question here: while success should clearly be honoured in the moment, for how long does that success remain valid?




Lots and lots of posts.  I've got a lot to say about several topics but not the time to say them, so I'm just going to address this.

*HOW LONG DOES SUCCESS REMAIN VALID IN PBTA GAMES (AND THE LIKE)*

There are three conditions under which a GM can put an earned gamestate (eg - gained asset/ally, etc) under pressure (pressure here meaning threaten a potential change in gamestate, not outright revoke by fiat):

1)  While interacting with the establish fiction, the PCs have actively done something to perturb the nature of their prior earned gamestate (meaning, the GM cannot use their uniquely situated access to deploy offscreen backstory that players aren't privy to...and again, going back to the lead post, offscreen info on Fronts in DW and Threats in AW are low resolution things so GMs can basically "have interesting things to say"; conflicts to frame, threats to telegraph and then put to action if the PCs don't act upon them).  

Example:

* The PCs have established an alliance with Gang A who has an alliance with Gang B (who happens to specialize in running cargo from x to y) and the PCs are aware.  The PCs attack Gang B's caravan causing monetary and personnel damage to Gang B.  Gang A is going to need some answers.  Its time for the GM to make a "soft move", meaning frame a looming social conflict with Gang A to right this ship (GM:  _You arrive back at your warehouse after delivering the stolen cargo.  There are motorcycle tire tracks leading off to the road like someone lit out not long ago.  The overhead door has a letter pinned to it by a piece of scrap violently smashed through the aluminum.  "We need to talk.  Meet at the cesspool at dusk.  D <leader of Gang A>  PS:  If you bring guns I'll know."_)

2)  The PCs have violated the mechanical terms of a hireling/henchman/companion's "social contract".  That means they've put the hireling in a spot/bad position.

Example:

You've asked a Minstrel or a Porter to pick up a weapon and help fight off a Wyvern that has attacked camp.  Minstrels and Porters ain't warriors so you made the Loyalty move and either got a 7-9 (they'll do it, but they come back with major demands) or they failed with a 6 or lower (which means they aren't doing crap but those major demands are coming).  The higher the Loyalty (which comes with consistently paid the hireling's specific Cost - whether that is money or vice or glory or whatever), the less likely this move goes bad.  Refuse to address their demands and the hireling is done with you (carry your own overladen sacks of equipment/treasure and compose/sing your own ballads).

3)  Your Warhorse is a fine specimen and can carry 12 Load (Encumbrance stat) beyond you.   After a successful delve, it has multiple sacks of coin that puts it right at its Load limit of 12 (1200 Coin).  On the Undertake a Perilous Journey move on the way back to town, the Scout move failed which led to an ambush with Worg-Riding-Orcs and an ensuing chase.  You made your Warhorse Skill move and it yielded a 7-9; Y_our horse is galloping and huffing and frothing with all its might...its stride tires after a good stretch, fatigue taking it...you can get away but you're going to have to unburden the horse of 1 Load worth of Coin (100 out of the 1200) or you'll exhaust it.  Or you can stand and fight...or go off the Old Road and into Bleak Mire in the dead of the night...you know the legends...the Orcs sure as hell won't follow you in there._

Success with a Cost/Complication or some kind of alternative choice that outright removes the orc threat or engages with it.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, there are a lot more resources that players can bring to bear on these rolls to improve their chances or the results.
> 
> But even then, you’re really ignoring the actual math as it’s explained in the book. With 1 die, you have a 50% chance to succeed. A character who has zero dice in an action would normally roll 2 dice and take the lower roll. That character can push the roll so that they get 1 die and then have a 50% chance to succeed at something they aren’t even good at.
> 
> Yes, some of the time when characters succeed at something, something else will happen that they likely didn’t want. That doesn’t negate their success.
> 
> It’s also no different than your typical combat turn in D&D. When my fighter hits the orc it doesn’t mean he also gets to avoid being attacked in return, or hit by the orc’s archer pal, or charmed by the orc shaman.




The math indeed is a bell curve with the basic distribution putting about 45-50 % of the outcomes in the Success w/ Cost/Complication range then 25-27.5 % on the tails (or about 2/3 success rate).  Obviously as resources are brought to bear, you use your better score, you get help, odds will increase (and vice versa).

This is by design as you noted.  Success w/ Cost/Complication is the snowballing engine, the primary content creator, the beating heart of the PBtA games.


----------



## aramis erak

Lanefan said:


> In hockey the odds are even worse: a non-goalie player is doing really well if he consistently scores on 15% - or 3/20 - of his shots on goal (and this ignores any shots that go wide, or are blocked before reaching the goalie).  By what you're saying, that player shoud just give up trying to score at all.



The thing is, if one were to play out a hockey game in combat rounds, it's quite possible that there could be 3 shots on goal in one round, but I doubt the average hockey player qualifies for 2 attacks per round, let alone 4, with the puck off his stick. The roll to score against the Goalie's score is better than shots rate.

Likewise, the rounds in D&D were 1 per 6 sec (1 per 60 sec in AD&D1, too lazy to look up AD&D2)... In both, that's multiple attacks for even incompetent fighters.

Assuming zero defense other than blocking, most people can hit a man or his shield about 90% of the time. But landing that blow hard enough to injure? much lower. so the 3-5 presumed swings/strikes in a D&D round are combined into a "did I hurt him?" check, mislabeled as a to-hit. That blows are landing is presumed. (Explicitly presumed, in AD&D.)


----------



## Lanefan

Not quite sure what you're getting at here...


aramis erak said:


> The thing is, if one were to play out a hockey game in combat rounds, it's quite possible that there could be 3 shots on goal in one round, but I doubt the average hockey player qualifies for 2 attacks per round, let alone 4, with the puck off his stick. The roll to score against the Goalie's score is better than shots rate.



???

The rough average of shot attempts per game for a TEAM in the NHL is about 55-60*; with roughly 30 of those counting as shots on goal as they either go in or the goalie stops them, while the rest either hit the post, go wide, or are blocked by someone other than the goaltender.  The average number of goals per game per team is about 3 (actually a bit less but close enough for here), meaning the overall average score-per-shot-on-goal rate is close to 10% and the score-per-shot-attempt rate is about 5%

* - as a non-overtime game is 60 minutes of play, that's about one shot attempt per team per minute...which nicely dovetails with the 1-minute 1e round length. 


aramis erak said:


> Likewise, the rounds in D&D were 1 per 6 sec (1 per 60 sec in AD&D1, too lazy to look up AD&D2)... In both, that's multiple attacks for even incompetent fighters.
> 
> Assuming zero defense other than blocking, most people can hit a man or his shield about 90% of the time. But landing that blow hard enough to injure? much lower. so the 3-5 presumed swings/strikes in a D&D round are combined into a "did I hurt him?" check, mislabeled as a to-hit. That blows are landing is presumed. (Explicitly presumed, in AD&D.)



Sure.  But the game concatenates this all down to one (or more if a fighter has multiple attacks) roll per round, under the "this is your best attempt" theory.

1-minute rounds are too long to be realistic.  6-second rounds are too short to allow very much movement or to allow enough time for anything external to develop while the combat continues (e.g. someone running to get help and having that help arrive before the battle's over).  As a compromise I went to 30-second rounds in about 1986 and still use that today.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I find it quote odd that posters who are asserting the freedom of the GM to impose consequences by deciding how the world reacts (eg @prabe, @Lanefan) are also expressing hostility to a system that mechanically dictates when consequences are to be imposed and (roughly, at least) what those parameters are.
> 
> To me it suggests that the true hostility is not to consequences, but to the removal of GM freedom to impose them willy-nilly and independent of the action resolution process.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don’t know if it’s hostility, but I do think it’s related to the shift in narrative authority. It’s a change in the classic or standard approach to play. I get that one might have concerns about how that would impact the play experience.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> there’s always going to be preference involved. Some games or styles will just appeal more to some folks than others.
Click to expand...


I absolutely agree that preferences are involved. And concerns about the play experience. But what's the fulcrum about which those concerns are pivoting? As best I can tell - given the expressed desire to be free to narrate consequences, and the expressed desire not to have a mechanical system for rationing/determining that - it is precisely _the degree of latitude the GM has to introduce whatever fiction s/he wants_.



prabe said:


> I want the world to respond to the PCs' successes. I want Duke Fornyard to resent them for succeeding in swaying the king; I want the merchant thief Iltan to mark them as potential marks after a profitable dungeon raid; I want Winter's Fang to notice that Auriqua is no longer under the Tundra Queen's protection and take interest. To take examples that at least would fit into the campaigns I'm running.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Other than having an NPC do something as a result of what sounds like a Perception-type check (and I'll trust you on that being a legitimate way for that to shake out in that game) this isn't wildly different from how I GM.



As @AbdulAlhazred has posted (forcefully) in this thread, _the world_ is a fiction. So "the world responds to the PC's successes", as you are using it, equals _the GM establishes the fiction that s/he wants_. In RPG systems that foster player agency, the GM's ability to do that is constrained - by dice roll outcomes (eg DW, AW, BW., 4e combat and skill challenges), or by a combination of those plus rationed resources (Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic, with its Doom Pool), or by principled restraint (the "set in stone" of DW's Discern Realities, Let it Ride in BW, in general honouring successful action resolution if the players haven't re-staked it).

To pick up a concrete example, what does _the merchant thief Iltan marks them as potential marks_ actually mean? Assuming that you are not referring here to an actual encounter (and by you reference to "other than having an NPC do something as a result of what sounds like a Perception-type check" I take it that you're not), then it is not part of the shared fiction. It's just a notion the GM has. A Burning Wheel GM can have the same notion, but should be having regard to the principles of the game: (1) does it speak to a PC's player-authored Belief? (if not, don't do it); (2) if it's something adverse, introduce it as a consequence of failure.

Assuming that (1) is satisfied, then when can Iltan's plans be brought onto the stage? An obvious opportunity would be a failed Wises, or Circles, or perhaps Resources check - the PC is looking around for the <info, informant, goods, etc> and is having trouble finding them, when lo-and-behold, a cloaked NPC steps out of the shadows: _Iltan can given you what you're looking for . . ._

This is player agency building and helping to drive the fiction - Iltan is not just a conceit the GM has and plonks into the fiction to determine its direction; but is an element in an unfolding story driven by the PCs' protagonism.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> the GM can't have any ongoing mysteries or overarching secrets that the players may or may not one day find out about.



It's quite easy _to have mysteries_ in RPGing that have a high-degree of player agency.

I've already posted an example from my BW play: _who is Rufus's master?_ and perhaps _why does he want wine?_

Another example from the same campaign: while exploring Evard's tower, Thurgon found old correspondence that implied that Xanthippe, his mother, is Evard's daughter. That was a shocking revelation!

But you are correct that the mysteries and reveals will not be unilaterally driven by the GM; with the play in respect of them just consisting of the players trying to work out what the GM has thought up. That is a consequence of the players having agency! And hence of the focus of play being something other than _learning what is in the GM's notes_.



Lanefan said:


> she can't have her world/setting do anything in a cause-effect way absent the PCs' direct involvement; i.e. can't have something happen that isn't a consequence of anything involving the PCs but is instead either pre-scheduled or by sheer random chance (e.g. a volcano erupts, a pirate ship sails into harbour and opens fire on the town, etc.).  That there's too much constraint on when and how consequences may be imposed and what form those consequences may take.  That consequences cannot be imposed on an outright success even when logic would say they likely would occur.



This is exactly what I posted upthread: you object to the limits on the GM that flow from player agency.

In a player-driven game events are not narrated _just because _the GM thinks they would be interesting to him/her.

There can be pirate ships and volcanoes - but these will be used in accordance with the sorts of principles I, @Manbearcat and others have described upthread.



Lanefan said:


> Who gets to determine the weather conditions when the PCs wake up each morning?



Luke Crane discusses this in the BW rulebook: if a character chooses the Weather Prediction ability it's because s/he wants to be able to do something involving a certain sort of weather, and its often easiest just to let him/her have that weather.

If the weather is not at stake, then the GM can narrate it just as s/he might narrate the colour of the flowers on a windowsill. A skilled player might then play on that fiction, but given that we know it's not what is at stake that would be means, not ends. Just as if the GM had narrated red flowers, and then a PC needs to dress as a clown, the player might know how his/her PC can colour his/her cheeks red.


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> If a player rolls and succeeds, I always frame the result as a _complete success_. The reason I do so is that I feel that anything other than a _complete success_ is me as GM being mean and robbing the player of their victory. Why I feel I need to do this is because I only call for rolls when a _complete failure_ would also be an interesting result. If neither, or both, _complete success_ or _complete failure_ is not an interesting result, then I simply tell the player they automatically succeed or fail. Thus far I haven't had too many fits of rage from players as I am very prone to auto-pass, and almost never auto-fail. I'm probably a super pushover GM I guess, I just like to see the PCs be awesome and make the players happy. Anyway, I'm prepared to get flamed to death now...let it begin!!!



Burning Wheel is a _complete success _system. That's a fundamental principle stated and emphasised very clearly in the rulebook.

But it's not a _complete failure _system. Action declaration requires both _task_ and _intent_ (eg as we head through the outskirts of Auxol I'm keeping an eye out <task> for Rufus <intent>). The general advice for GM narration of failure is to focus on _intent_ - so the GM is entitled to narrate failure as success at task, but never intent. Of course sometimes task fails to - in BW that's up to the GM.

In AW and DW, on a failure the GM is entitled to make as "hard and direct a move as s/he likes" - ie s/he can narrate whatever s/he wants that follows from the established fiction. This may be failed task, failed intent, or both. "Success with complication" happens in those systems on a 7 to 9 result - most moves elaborate in more detail what this looks like so eg an attack action might allow dealing damage on 7+, but unless it is 10+ the PC also suffers damage in return; an escape or avoidance action might succeed on 7+, but unless it is 10+ the escaping PC "brings something with him/her" eg one opponent follows, or s/he takes a wound on the way out, or something more elaborate or specific appropriate to the fictional context.

To relate this to what @prabe and @Lanefan have been posting - a 7 to 9 will generally be the context in which the GM might establish those adverse consequences (_you've brought Pup to heel, but the followers may not be going along with it_; _you've stolen the jewel, but you catch a hint of a scrying viewer shimmering in the air as you make good your escape_); whereas a 10+ is more likely to be genuinely free-and-clear.

That's how these PbtA systems use mechanics to generate rising action, climax, pay-off etc (on a probability curve rather than strictly deterministically); whereas Burning Wheel leans more heavily into GM judgement in this respect, and so does a system like Classic Traveller which (in most of its subsystems) doesn't have the mechanical sophistication of the PbtA games, leaving the referee to decide what consequences should look like and to manage pacing as part of that.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> But I didn't give an example of a GM giving motivations and plans for Rufus.
> 
> I gave an example of the GM _narrating an encounter with Rufus_, in which _Rufus says certain things_.
> 
> This is (in my view) a very big difference. As I see it, it is the difference between (1) the GM coming up with a story on his/her own, and gradually revealing it to the players - the paradigm RPG for this approach that I know of is CoC, but a lot of D&D also seems to be played this way - and (2) the GM presenting a fictional situation which is pregnant with possibility that the participants care about (because the GM has built on what those participants have signalled that they care about) and relying on the play of the game, including the action resolution mechanics, to determine what happens next.



Semantics. You're describing the same thing with different words. _"GM presenting a fictional situation which is pregnant with possibility that the participants care about (because the GM has built on what those participants have signalled that they care about)" _is literally what setting up a plot hook is.



> The GM can introduce Rufus collecting wine for 'the Master' with none of the following questions being answered: _who is the Master? is he related to Thurgon, or Aramina, or Evard (whose tower Thurgon and Aramina not long ago burned down), or Thurgon's fallen order (the Knights of the Iron Tower, specified in backstory as a component of PC build)? Why does the master want wine - for a dinner party? for a sacrament? because he's an alcoholic? because he wants to bribe some orcs from attacking Auxol?_
> 
> Those things - and of course indefinitely many others - are all put in play by the encounter with Rufus that I described. I don't know the answer to any of them. Neither does the GM, and he doesn't need to in order to frame and adjudicate the encounter (which he did).
> 
> _Where in the south has Thurgon's brother gone looking for glory?_ The Hold of the Sea Princes? The Amedio Jungle? The south of the Pomarj? _Did his wife go with him? _Again, none of this is, or needs to be, known in order for the play that occurred to occur.



But sooner or later someone has to determine these things.



> What's one way that we might learn whether the younger brother's wife went with him? If I declare a Circles check for Thurgon to meet her. If I succeed, we know she's still in Auxol. If I fail, one  narration of that failure could be _She's not here, she's gone south with her husband_. That would be player agency in action.



That is clearly narrative level power. Your character in the setting cannot affect where people in the setting are.



> This is all illustrative of the technique described by Paul Czege that I quoted upthread:
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this​
> And both in itself as a technique, _and_ in its relationship to player agency, it's quite different from the GM giving motivations and plans for the orcs.



Yes, this is 'the quantum reality' illusionism relies upon. We discussed this earlier in this thread in the case of the lying/truthful NPC.

But he fact remains that at some point someone has to decided certain things, be it it the GM, the player or some random chart. At some point it (presumably) will be revealed who the 'master' is, and what they want, and someone has to decide that! If the player decides that, they're assuming narrator stance, if the GM does, that's the GM setting up plots.




> No. Action declaration: _As we ride through the outskirts of Auxol, I keep my eye out for Rufus. It's five years since I've seen him - I wonder how he is doing?_ Resolution: make a Circles check.
> 
> The basic structure of declaration and resolution is no different from a Streetwise check in Classic Traveller c 1977, or Gather Information in 3E D&D.



Difference here seems to be that you want the player have the power to dictate the reality rather than to merely discern it. Like you basically want the player to be able to declare "I try to find a person X" and on a successful roll that person manifests. 



> What can I say - I don't agree that there is that "shitton" of other stuff that the GM has to make up. If the players haven't declared an action for their PCs, or aren't looking for the GM to frame a situation that will spur them to do so, then what is the GM doing worrying about things?
> 
> Perhaps concrete examples would help me work out what you have in mind?



Let's go back to our earlier example. Characters are deciding whether to go to Grim Chasm or the Gnarly Forest. Who decided that these places even exist and where they are?

The characters try to recall what they know of these places. Who determines what there is to  be known and how easy it is to know?

They decide to go to the Gnarly Forest. Who determines what they meet there?

It is somehow determined that they find some dead spiders in the forest. They decide to examine the corpses and their vicinity. Assuming that they're successful, who determines what they will find out?

It is somehow determined that the orcs have skilled the spiders. It was also earlier somehow determined that orcs are not native to this area. Now the characters wonder what the motivations of the orcs are and prepare to a confrontation with them. Who determines what the orcs want and why they are there there?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Another example from the same campaign: while exploring Evard's tower, Thurgon found old correspondence that implied that Xanthippe, his mother, is Evard's daughter. That was a shocking revelation!



And who decided that this was the case?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Semantics. You're describing the same thing with different words. _"GM presenting a fictional situation which is pregnant with possibility that the participants care about (because the GM has built on what those participants have signalled that they care about)" _is literally what setting up a plot hook is.



No it's not!

I'm going into my PDF files to find a D&D module with a plot-hook <looks in folder> - here's one, H3 Pyramid of Shadows.

Page 4 has, on the left hand side, an Adventure Synopsis:

Karavakos desperately wants to escape from the Pyramid of Shadows. . . .  Karavakos has been sending visions of the pyramid, its location in the natural world, and promises of power associated with the pyramid. The adventure begins when the player characters encounter the pyramid and are drawn into its timeless depths. From that point on, Karavakos​encourages the adventurers to destroy the splinters of his life force so that the power each possesses returns to him. With his power fully restored, Karavakos plans to perform arcane rituals that will set him free. . . . Presenting herself as an ally, Vyrellis guides the adventurers toward the Sanctuary of Light and urges them to destroy Karavakos—all of the splintered versions of him as well as the true wizard—and​win their freedom in the process.​​Over the course of the adventure, the player characters explore the bizarre halls and chambers of the Pyramid of Shadows, fight its hostile inhabitants (including the splinters of Karavakos’s life force), collect the three keys needed to open the Sanctuary of Light, and finally face the true Karavakos in a pitched battle—with death or eternal imprisonment the price of failure. Along the way, Vyrellis also guides them to collect the splinters of her life force from the gemstones that hold them in hopes of restoring herself once she is freed from the pyramid.​
That's a plot, with NPC with pre-authored motivations and plans.

And the right hand side of p 4 has some Adventure Hooks:

If the adventurers experienced the events of H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth, then they discovered a map among Paldemar’s possessions.​​The map shows a glowing pyramid within a lush forest . . .​​OR​​Wherever the adventurers happen to be prior to the start of this adventure, a local wizard, scholar, or sage has been troubled by strange and compelling visions every night when he or she sleeps and dreams. In these dream visions, the tiefling wizard Karavakos appears to the dreaming mage and whispers about the power and secrets waiting within the Pyramid of Shadows. . . . The local wizard or sage is intrigued by the visions and anxious to claim the promised power. He or she is also suspicious of these dreams, and as frightened by the implications as he or she is desirous to fulfill the impulse to follow the dream.​​Hearing of the exploits of the adventurers, or perhaps knowing them as friends or colleagues or acquaintances, the wizard/scholar/sage asks them to look into this matter.​
There are some more like this on p 5.

The episode I described from my Burning Wheel session has nothing in common with this. There is no hook into the GM's pre-authored adventure. There is a series of action declarations by _me_, the player, for my PC and his sidekick, and the GM responds to those as the rules and principles of the game call for. _Going in_, neither of us knows anything about Rufus beyond what was in my PC backstory:

Thurgon’s father is deceased, but his mother Xanthippe (now 61 years old) still lives on the estate. So does his older brother Rufus (40 years old)., the 9th Count of Adir (although for the past 66 years that title has counted for little, having been usurped by others). . . . Although Auxol is now owned by servants of evil, the family continues to manage it. Xanthippe ensures that the estate serves as a bolthole for refugees. Rufus is sympathetic to their plight, but sees them ultimately as someone else’s problem. His interests are more mundane (it is fairly common knowledge that he has a 3 year old illegitimate son with a middle class townswoman).​
Coming out, we now know that _Rufus is serving 'the master', who needs wine_ and that _Rufus is ashamed_ and that _Thurgon and Aramina could not snap him out of his shame, nor cow him into giving them some coin_.

There is nothing like the structure of _plot _and _plot-hook_. This goes all the way back to @chaochou's post upthread:



chaochou said:


> in the case of player agency, the context is this: who is creating the purpose of the character?
> 
> That‘s the matter in question. Let’s say the GM creates the purpose of the character(s). If the players object to their predetermined fate, you have force. If they are unaware, you have illusionism. If they are aware, but don’t object (such as when a player accepts a ‘hook’ for a scripted plot line) then you have participationism.
> 
> Player agency is player freedom to create the purpose for their character and for the game content to begin, and grow, from that ongoing act of creation. It’s not one and done, the purpose can and should change as the game state changes through resolution. When the game follows the player’s protagonism in this way, then there is agency, and it’s completely obvious.



******************************************************



Crimson Longinus said:


> But sooner or later someone has to determine these things.



But all those things - like who the master is, why he wants wine, where Thurgon's younger brother has gone, whether or not his wife has gone with him - can be determined in _just the same way_ as the encounter with Rufus was resolved: that is to say, as part of the back-and-forth of action declaration, action resolution, narration of consequences, and principled addition of further framing elements.



Crimson Longinus said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Another example from the same campaign: while exploring Evard's tower, Thurgon found old correspondence that implied that Xanthippe, his mother, is Evard's daughter. That was a shocking revelation!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And who decided that this was the case?
Click to expand...


The GM, as part of the process of action resolution.

The discovery of Evard's Tower was (in the fiction) a result of Aramina's memory of tales of its presence in the area, and (at the table) a result of a successful check on Aramina's Great Masters-wise ability. The salience of Thurgon's mother is due to her being a Relationship purchased as part of the process of PC building.



Crimson Longinus said:


> That is clearly narrative level power. Your character in the setting cannot affect where people in the setting are.



Upthread you used the phrases "narrator perspective" and "narrator stance". I made the point that, in fact, I never did anything but declare what my PC is doing - ie looking out for Rufus. Now you are talking about "narrative level power", by which you seem to mean _action resolution that can produce outcomes that, in the fiction, are not solely under the causal influence of the player character_.

As the example I posted shows, that sort of power does not require any distinctive "perspective" or "stance". And if players never have such power in RPGing, they will have very little or no agency. For instance, _whether or not the Orc blocks my sword with a shield_ is not solely under the control of my PC. So if I can never influence that via action resolution, the GM is always free to narrate the Orc's shield block as a response to my action declaration _I attack the Orc with my sword_.



Crimson Longinus said:


> The fact remains that at some point someone has to decided certain things, be it it the GM, the player or some random chart. At some point it (presumably) will be revealed who the 'master' is, and what they want, and someone has to decide that! If the player decides that, they're assuming narrator stance, if the GM does, that's the GM setting up plots.



Now you are back to "stance".

There are any number of ways these things can be done. As I've already noted, Classic Traveller (1977) - that game well-known for its radical indie features! - settles the question of _whether or not there is someone willing to sell illegal firearms at a good price_ via a Streetwise check. This doesn't require the player entering "narrator stance". It just requires the player to say "I put feelers out - who here sells illegal guns at a good price?" On a successful check, the referee provides the answer. (Classic Traveller is a bit weak when it comes to advice on the narration of failures, but this one seems easy enough: it could be anything from a visit by the local constabulary, to some toughs come to rough the PC up.)



Crimson Longinus said:


> Like you basically want the player to be able to declare "I try to find a person X" and on a successful roll that person manifests.



That is how Circles work in Burning Wheel. That is how Streetwise works in Classic Traveller. That is how a paladin calling for his/her warhorse works in AD&D. It's not a very radical mechanic.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Let's go back to our earlier example. Characters are deciding whether to go to Grim Chasm or the Gnarly Forest. Who decided that these places even exist and where they are?
> 
> The characters try to recall what they know of these places. Who determines what there is to  be known and how easy it is to know?
> 
> They decide to go to the Gnarly Forest. Who determines what they meet there?
> 
> It is somehow determined that they find some dead spiders in the forest. They decide to examine the corpses and their vicinity. Assuming that they're successful, who determines what they will find out?
> 
> It is somehow determined that the orcs have skilled the spiders. It was also earlier somehow determined that orcs are not native to this area. Now the characters wonder what the motivations of the orcs are and prepare to a confrontation with them. Who determines what the orcs want and why they are there there?



I don't know. What system are you playing? What mechanics does it involve? What principles apply?

In my Burning Wheel game, a successful Great Masters-wise check established that Evard's tower existed nearby. The GM decided that, when we arrived there, a demon attacked - that's the GM's prerogative in framing, and given that (i) the successful check established that Evard is an evil sorcerer and (ii) Thurgon is a faithful knight of a holy order, it accorded with the principles of _go to the players' evinced interests and concerns for their PCs._

In the Prince Valiant game that I GM, the players decided to travel to the Holy Land to go on a crusade. I decided - using my prerogative in framing - that their ships had to land on the Dalmatian coast, so that the last leg was to be undertaken overland. I decided - again using my prerogative in framing - that they encountered the Bone Laird. The players decided to spend a fiat resource (Storyteller's Certificate) to find the locus of the Bone Laird's curse. When one of the players succeeded on a check to interpret the magical signs of that place, I narrated what they learned (not unlike Discern Realities in DW or Read a Situation in AW, which trigger GM narration). You can read the rest by following the link, if you like.

In some approaches, of course, the system and techniques are more like that evinced in H3 Pyramid of Shadows - the GM decides everything in advance and the main thing the players do is declare actions to trigger the appropriate GM narration. This is RPGing with low player agency.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> The math indeed is a bell curve with the basic distribution putting about 45-50 % of the outcomes in the Success w/ Cost/Complication range then 25-27.5 % on the tails (or about 2/3 success rate).  Obviously as resources are brought to bear, you use your better score, you get help, odds will increase (and vice versa).
> 
> This is by design as you noted.  Success w/ Cost/Complication is the snowballing engine, the primary content creator, the beating heart of the PBtA games.




That's actually a big part of the problem, I think, for some people; its not only that success-with-a-cost exists, its what the game _wants_ to produce, so the mechanics put a thumb on the scale. Which means the vast majority of successes to them actually feel more like "mitigated failure", and that feels incompetent to them. They constantly want to aim for the unmixed successes, but relatively rarely get it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> No it's not!
> 
> I'm going into my PDF files to find a D&D module with a plot-hook <looks in folder> - here's one, H3 Pyramid of Shadows.
> 
> Page 4 has, on the left hand side, an Adventure Synopsis:
> 
> Karavakos desperately wants to escape from the Pyramid of Shadows. . . .  Karavakos has been sending visions of the pyramid, its location in the natural world, and promises of power associated with the pyramid. The adventure begins when the player characters encounter the pyramid and are drawn into its timeless depths. From that point on, Karavakos​encourages the adventurers to destroy the splinters of his life force so that the power each possesses returns to him. With his power fully restored, Karavakos plans to perform arcane rituals that will set him free. . . . Presenting herself as an ally, Vyrellis guides the adventurers toward the Sanctuary of Light and urges them to destroy Karavakos—all of the splintered versions of him as well as the true wizard—and​win their freedom in the process.​​Over the course of the adventure, the player characters explore the bizarre halls and chambers of the Pyramid of Shadows, fight its hostile inhabitants (including the splinters of Karavakos’s life force), collect the three keys needed to open the Sanctuary of Light, and finally face the true Karavakos in a pitched battle—with death or eternal imprisonment the price of failure. Along the way, Vyrellis also guides them to collect the splinters of her life force from the gemstones that hold them in hopes of restoring herself once she is freed from the pyramid.​
> That's a plot, with NPC with pre-authored motivations and plans.
> 
> And the right hand side of p 4 has some Adventure Hooks:
> 
> If the adventurers experienced the events of H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth, then they discovered a map among Paldemar’s possessions.​​The map shows a glowing pyramid within a lush forest . . .​​OR​​Wherever the adventurers happen to be prior to the start of this adventure, a local wizard, scholar, or sage has been troubled by strange and compelling visions every night when he or she sleeps and dreams. In these dream visions, the tiefling wizard Karavakos appears to the dreaming mage and whispers about the power and secrets waiting within the Pyramid of Shadows. . . . The local wizard or sage is intrigued by the visions and anxious to claim the promised power. He or she is also suspicious of these dreams, and as frightened by the implications as he or she is desirous to fulfill the impulse to follow the dream.​​Hearing of the exploits of the adventurers, or perhaps knowing them as friends or colleagues or acquaintances, the wizard/scholar/sage asks them to look into this matter.​
> There are some more like this on p 5.
> 
> The episode I described from my Burning Wheel session has nothing in common with this. There is no hook into the GM's pre-authored adventure. There is a series of action declarations by _me_, the player, for my PC and his sidekick, and the GM responds to those as the rules and principles of the game call for. _Going in_, neither of us knows anything about Rufus beyond what was in my PC backstory:
> 
> Thurgon’s father is deceased, but his mother Xanthippe (now 61 years old) still lives on the estate. So does his older brother Rufus (40 years old)., the 9th Count of Adir (although for the past 66 years that title has counted for little, having been usurped by others). . . . Although Auxol is now owned by servants of evil, the family continues to manage it. Xanthippe ensures that the estate serves as a bolthole for refugees. Rufus is sympathetic to their plight, but sees them ultimately as someone else’s problem. His interests are more mundane (it is fairly common knowledge that he has a 3 year old illegitimate son with a middle class townswoman).​
> Coming out, we now know that _Rufus is serving 'the master', who needs wine_ and that _Rufus is ashamed_ and that _Thurgon and Aramina could not snap him out of his shame, nor cow him into giving them some coin_.
> 
> There is nothing like the structure of _plot _and _plot-hook_. This goes all the way back to @chaochou's post upthread:



You are overtly focusing the form over function. Of course plot hooks in a pre-written module that is meant to be usable by anyone who happens to pick it up will be presented differently than those generated by a GM who knows their players and characters. But here 'who is the master' and 'why is Rufus getting wine' are clearly plot hooks (albeit the latter barely qualifies) and in essence are not different than 'what are the orcs doing here' from my earlier example. 


pemerton said:


> But all those things - like who the master is, why he wants wine, where Thurgon's younger brother has gone, whether or not his wife has gone with him - can be determined in _just the same way_ as the encounter with Rufus was resolved: that is to say, as part of the back-and-forth of action declaration, action resolution, narration of consequences, and principled addition of further framing elements.
> 
> The GM, as part of the process of action resolution.
> 
> The discovery of Evard's Tower was (in the fiction) a result of Aramina's memory of tales of its presence in the area, and (at the table) a result of a successful check on Aramina's Great Masters-wise ability. The salience of Thurgon's mother is due to her being a Relationship purchased as part of the process of PC building.



You're merely obfuscating things under jargon. At some point a human being has to make a conscious decision about these things.



pemerton said:


> Upthread you used the phrases "narrator perspective" and "narrator stance". I made the point that, in fact, I never did anything but declare what my PC is doing - ie looking out for Rufus. Now you are talking about "narrative level power", by which you seem to mean _action resolution that can produce outcomes that, in the fiction, are not solely under the causal influence of the player character_.
> 
> As the example I posted shows, that sort of power does not require any distinctive "perspective" or "stance". And if players never have such power in RPGing, they will have very little or no agency. For instance, _whether or not the Orc blocks my sword with a shield_ is not solely under the control of my PC. So if I can never influence that via action resolution, the GM is always free to narrate the Orc's shield block as a response to my action declaration _I attack the Orc with my sword_.
> 
> 
> Now you are back to "stance".
> 
> There are any number of ways these things can be done. As I've already noted, Classic Traveller (1977) - that game well-known for its radical indie features! - settles the question of _whether or not there is someone willing to sell illegal firearms at a good price_ via a Streetwise check. This doesn't require the player entering "narrator stance". It just requires the player to say "I put feelers out - who here sells illegal guns at a good price?" On a successful check, the referee provides the answer. (Classic Traveller is a bit weak when it comes to advice on the narration of failures, but this one seems easy enough: it could be anything from a visit by the local constabulary, to some toughs come to rough the PC up.)
> 
> 
> That is how Circles work in Burning Wheel. That is how Streetwise works in Classic Traveller. That is how a paladin calling for his/her warhorse works in AD&D. It's not a very radical mechanic.



Being able to find out whether there is someone willing to sell weapons is a different thing than being able to dictate existence of certain things. And if the players can do that, they are considering things from narrator perspective. You have given them power to summon things into being, and they certainly are aware of that. The claim that true agency requires the players to have reality editing powers is rather extreme one. A lot of people wind such highly unimmersive.



pemerton said:


> I don't know. What system are you playing? What mechanics does it involve? What principles apply?
> 
> In my Burning Wheel game, a successful Great Masters-wise check established that Evard's tower existed nearby.



How? Who came up with the idea that the tower could even potentially exist? Who determined that Edward exist and that he would live in a tower instead of a Winnebago? Who determined which exact results of the dice result the tower being there and which would result something else? You're again just trying to obfuscate the decision making process under mechanical jargon. 'Action resolution mechanic' is just a mathematical construct, it does nothing unless a human being set the axioms for it.



pemerton said:


> The GM decided that, when we arrived there, a demon attacked -  that's the GM's prerogative in framing,



That's pretty effective plot hook! The characters must instantly respond!



pemerton said:


> and given that (i) the successful check established that Evard is an evil sorcerer and (ii)



Same questions than with the tower. Who decided that it was even a possibility that Edward was sorcerer, or evil? Why are we rolling for that and not whether he is a peaceful florist? Where do these concepts come from?



pemerton said:


> Thurgon is a faithful knight of a holy order, it accorded with the principles of _go to the players' evinced interests and concerns for their PCs._



Are you trying to say here that the GM (based on their knowledge of the PCs motivations) set up a plot hook for which the PCs would be likely to respond?



pemerton said:


> In the Prince Valiant game that I GM, the players decided to travel to the Holy Land to go on a crusade. I decided - using my prerogative in framing - that their ships had to land on the Dalmatian coast, so that the last leg was to be undertaken overland. I decided - again using my prerogative in framing - that they encountered the Bone Laird.



GM setting up an adventure or 'quest'. Yep.



pemerton said:


> The players decided to spend a fiat resource (Storyteller's Certificate) to find the locus of the Bone Laird's curse.



Players using the narrator stance.



pemerton said:


> When one of the players succeeded on a check to interpret the magical signs of that place, I narrated what they learned (not unlike Discern Realities in DW or Read a Situation in AW, which trigger GM narration). You can read the rest by following the link, if you like.



Pretty basic skill check resolution where the GM gives information relating to the adventure they have made.



pemerton said:


> In some approaches, of course, the system and techniques are more like that evinced in H3 Pyramid of Shadows - the GM decides everything in advance and the main thing the players do is declare actions to trigger the appropriate GM narration. This is RPGing with low player agency.



Attitudes matter more than the system though. You can easily have a high player agency game with a completely traditional system. It merely requires that the players are proactive, declare goals, take initiative; it doesn't require giving them reality editing powers.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> Attitudes matter more than the system though. You can easily have a high player agency game with a completely traditional system. It merely requires that the players are proactive, declare goals, take initiative; it doesn't require giving them reality editing powers.




Of course "attitude" matters. That's what accounts for @prabe's dislike for PbtA games (even though they haven't played any). But many here have been arguing for the significant role system takes in establishing relative agency; @hawkeyefan has been particularly painstaking in laying this out. 

This is the point I alluded to above (and which @Manbearcat further expounded):  our past experiences, which inform our aesthetic preferences, including "attitude," shape how we interact with a given system. But system architecture absolutely can be tailored to or fight against attitude, including player and/or GM primacy with regards to agency. Again, hawkeye fan, as well as @pemerton here more recently, have been particularly clear in providing examples of _how_ that is so.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

Crimson Longinus said:


> You are overtly focusing the form over function.



Form determines function.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> This it the reply I was looking for as this is where I expected you were coming from (hence the framing of my posts prior).
> 
> Two things:
> 
> 1)  This is D&D system-specific.  Not all D&D provides GMs that level of authority.  Moldvay Basic, RC, and D&D 4e do not and Gygax's 1e DMG calls for a much more neutral brand of refereeing (curating nonsensical outcomes or outcomes that are arbitrary and cheat the process of filtering skilled play from unskilled play...not curating outcomes that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience").



I'd quibble with this definition of 1e. It is true, to a degree, but by the DMG I think even Gygax had reached the limits of what his original conception of participant roles and process could yield. So you run into a whole bunch of passages in his DMG where he basically advocates a kind of very hard 'enforcer DM' kind of role. It CAN be seen as 'gatekeeper of skilled play', but it VERY easily, even in his hands, becomes simply GM force. I think that, plus the understanding of the inability of the original 'Dungeon Master' role to produce a wider variety of narratives is what birthed 2e's horrible "just fudge it until you get the story you want" DM role.


Manbearcat said:


> Now if you're playing AD&D 2e (which started the curating outcomes and revising rules that don't lead to (a) GM-preferred story or (b) GM-conception of what a will yield a "fun play experience"), 3.x, or 5e (which adopted the AD&D 2e GM role and authority basically whole cloth), then you have that authority.
> 
> I'm assuming you're running D&D 5e and you're assuming the lead poster is as well?
> 
> 2)  _"Because that's why there is a human being there to make these calls, I trust them to be able to read the situation, and adjudicate things better than any rule system alone could. And if I don't trust the GM to do that, then no amount of constraints placed on them will help."_
> 
> You were concerned about dogmatism in TTRPGing upthread.  Did this not strike you as dogmatism while you were writing it?  You can't extend this principle to all of D&D let alone outside of that rubric to other games.  Highly functional rules + great GMing advice + system constraints on the GM (through the holistic integration of procedures + system architecture + the game's ethos/agenda) can create games where (a) the premise of play is beautifully and consistently addressed and (b) the GM's authority and cognitive workload are simultaneously reigned in.  So its fundamentally not true that constraints and great rules won't "help" <to achieve a consistently coherent and fulfilling play experience>.
> 
> Now, in a particular style of play this is true (the type that 2e and 5e promote; heavily GM-driven games where their conception of a fun/fulfilling time and a good story is made mandate through the authority the system grants them and the system architecture that consistently demands their mediation in, overwhelmingly GM-facing, action resolution). But that is only one style of play.



And now you are dead on, and why 5e to me is simply an uninteresting game design (and also why all we ever took from 2e was basically THAC0 and some updated class mechanics). For us 4e has evolved into a whole other level of D&D-esque gameplay. We have a lot of the fun aspects of the D&D milieu and narrative system architecture from top to bottom to go with it. 13a definitely tried to do this. I guess it is also a fairly successful experiment, not quite my style I guess


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

zarionofarabel said:


> Yeah. I employ more traditional systems like Mythras, Ubiquity, and Far Trek.
> 
> I started this thread after an argument on a different forum made me wonder if I was robbing my players of their agency because I just make up everything right before I add it to the narrative.
> 
> I fell down a rabbit hole...



Honestly, D&D fell down a rabbit hole in 1989 with the publication of 2e. Though obviously people's understanding and adherence to the conceptual framework exemplified in 1e (and I would say also explicated fairly well, albeit in slightly different ways in the 'BASIC' set of products) varied and a lot of people didn't play in the way Gygax seemed to intend.

So, Gary basically outlines a game of what we would now call 'skilled play'. The basic structure is that the DM (and this term, DUNGEON MASTER is not arbitrary) builds a 'MAP' and a 'KEY', which explicates a complex series of challenges for a set of players (this can also be performed using a random generator, either entirely or partially). The DM's job from there is to act as a narrator, bringing the map and key into 3-dimensional life and providing additional sensory information as needed. The DM also acts as referee, adjudicating in a neutral fashion all situations which the exploration and/or combat rules don't cover, or which their simplistic application might produce ridiculous results. The DM is also expected to guard against 'rules exploitation' in which the player's find flaws in the mechanics in order to 'cheat the world' and get what they want in some unrealistic and (here we get into a grey area) 'unfair' way.

The 1e DM is NOT supposed to be aiming at 'creating a story', not supposed to railroad the PCs into his preferred situations, etc. He's simply supposed to stand by and referee neutrally as the players guide their PCs across the dungeon or hex grid (outdoors) encountering whatever is on the map, or perhaps dealing with wandering monsters, lack of healing, and dwindling supplies (the original game actually used AH's Outdoor Survival rules to adjudicate this part). 

There are a few issues which arise in practice. First of all the DM probably wants to showcase his most fun tricks, traps, and nasty cunning challenges (all of these are 'fair play' in the skilled play paradigm of 1e). Often things won't go as planned, and thus the DM may be tempted to use a bit of force (illusionism usually) to 'set things straight'. Thus when the Elf doesn't roll well to find a secret door, maybe the DM fudges the outcome. Maybe his favorite NPC always escapes at the end of being beaten by the party, etc. too. This is where 'fun story' creeps in, because the simple 'skilled play maze' doesn't really lead to that. It can lead to a lot of fun annecdotes and whatnot, but you have to abandon that paradigm at a certain point, to a degree, to really make things like high level play 'work'. And then of course there is a constant incentive in this system for the players to undermine the game, because they are fundamentally 'playing against the DM'. This leads to another source and rationalization of pushback. 

Gygax D&D doesn't lead to things that sound like Conan, or Beowulf, or even a lot like "Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser". That was where 2e fell into the rabbit hole. It substituted a whole new set of incentives and admonitions, while removing a lot of the mechanical structure that made the dungeon crawl work in 1e (most people who played 2e never noticed this, they just carried over the older rules processes). 2e's formula is literally to discard the DM's 'fair arbiter' role and replace it with a 'storymaster' role, one in which the DM shapes the action of play and the trajectory of the game's narrative and fiction such that it reaches his or her predefined 'correct' outcomes. This is very explicit in the introductory material for 2e, where the DM is advised to alter die rolls and such. You can see this as just basically a codification of the tendency for 1e DMs to 'make sure the PCs see the interesting stuff' or even of Gygax's sporadic "DM as enforcer" admonitions. It isn't really though, it goes way beyond that. 

The problem is, D&D was never given any mechanism, process, or even advice on how to make it actually work. A really skilled DM can kinda do that. They can listen carefully, prepare skillfully, and execute their agenda with a light enough hand and with an interesting and compelling enough narrative, to pull it off. At least for some subset of all players (which is probably a lot if you are really skilled, but NOT @pemerton ). 

4e is the only point at which any attempt has been made to really come close to addressing this. It is hard to say exactly which elements of 4e drove Mike to develop 5e, I'm not convinced it was the "make a better narrative technique" part, but more the "make a better Euro Game" part (read what the designers have said about this, that was a primary goal, not "make it like an MMO"). 

5e just kind of gives up, and IMHO that makes it uninteresting. You could beat on it and make a game that uses a lot of 5e's mechanics that would play more in the way I'm talking about, but why bother? There are plenty of games, including 13a and 4e itself, that already do it. Plenty of non-D&D-likes that do it MUCH better.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> If there's no in-fiction evidence to go by (e.g. they're trying to sneak across ground they've had no way of pre-scouting and thus they've no idea what the ground is like or what might be met there) then they ain't gettin' no DC nohow.




Why not? Just give them the DC. Then they are making informed decisions. 

And for the record, it’s okay to not give them the DC. It’s perfectly valid. But it leaves the players with less agency than if they did have the DC.



Lanefan said:


> I think @prabe has hinted downthread at a corollary question here: while success should clearly be honoured in the moment, for how long does that success remain valid?




Until something in the fiction happens to make it so. Not just the GM deciding “it’d make sense for this sage that they convinced to work for them to betray them now” because the GM can just as easily decide “this sage they convinced to work for them still remains totally loyal to then because he knows what the alternative would be”. 

You point to logic...and yes you may perhaps be able to justify the GM’s whim in the fiction. But that doesn't mean it’s not the GM’s whim. 

Now, if the PCs treat the NPC sage poorly, or something similar happens,  then sure, the door to betrayal is open. 

But to resort to “well, unbeknownst to the PCs the necromancer reached out to the sage and promised him power if he betrays the PCs” is absolutely sidestepping any kind of player agency. 

And again, it’s fine to do that if it’s the preferred mode of play....but you can’t say that there’s a high degree of player agency going on. 



Lanefan said:


> To me, if plan A has stalled out it's on the players/PCs to come up with a plan B and try that; and if no plan B suggests itself then abandoning whatever it was they were trying is also always an option.




Sure, I get that, and largely agree. However, my preference doesn’t make it a universality. Others may not like letting a game stall out like that. 



Lanefan said:


> I agree with this statement as long as it's applied when 'success' is rolled and not when 'failure' is rolled.




Well, I think it’s best when there is clear degrees involved. But I’d also say that there are certain systems or genres where the fail forward approach makes sense. Pretty sure the main one I can think of is the Gumshoe system used for Trail of Cthulhu and some other games. Given the investigative nature of the game, it makes sense to have a means to proceed with the investigation even if the players don’t succeed at every step. 

This isn’t turning a failure into a success, as you describe it. It’s more about imposing consequences of the failure that manifest in another way. So if the players fail to find the clue, it’s not that they never find it, it’s that it takes them far too long and by the time they get to the library (where the clue pointed them) the professor has been killed. Had they succeeded in their attempt, they’d have arrived in time to possibly save him. 

My experience with these games is minimal, so I’m sure others can offer more and correct any inaccuracies on my part, but that’s a kind of quick sketch of that kind of play. 



Lanefan said:


> Which is fine for someone who's reading a book; but for someone trying to play a character in a game setting, having things happen non-sequentially kinda butchers any idea of one thing or action or decision leading to the next.




It simply doesn’t. Just like when you watch a movie, and a flashback happens, you’re able to process it. You fold what you’ve learned from the flashback into the ongoing fiction, and proceed with this new understanding. 

It doesn’t do what you’re afraid it does. 



Lanefan said:


> they're trying to resolve in the fiction is binary; being one of '_either A happens or it doesn't_' or '_either A happens or B happens_'. The guard sees you or she doesn't. You lift the boulder or you don't. You push the door closed first or the Orc pushes it open first. You hit the opponent for damage or you don't (so yes, combat to-hit rolls go here).




So a roll may be binary....you hit or you miss. But if you look at the entire action, very few will be so simply A or B. Don’t separate attack and damage rolls....look at them as the entire action. 

Most actions have plenty of room for degrees of success. You jump and don’t fall into the chasm.....but you don’t make it all the way to the other side, and now you’re scrambling to climb up onto the ledge. Etc etc.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> Great post.  That is exactly how my memory banks have ordered the period of late 80s through the 90s as well.



It is funny, because by the early 90's I was long since out of college and been working a few years. No longer had any kind of contact with any 'gamer community' (and there really wasn't a FLGS, you had to go 50 miles to get to a game store). V:tM and all had no impact on us, we didn't know any of this was even going on as a 'thing' in games (I do remember a few people talking about LARPing, which we just thought was weird, we played laser tag instead). So, when 2e came out, it was just sort of bizarre and difficult to understand why someone would be so dumb as to write a bunch of crap into D&D that clearly didn't belong! I think we basically took the 2e DMG/PHB combat and class mechanics chapters and forgot the rest of it even existed. I suspect, at the time, I didn't even read most of the material, as we just considered it "low quality." 

Not to say that none of us were cognizant of issues with 'story play'. This was the era when I created a GARGANTUAN sandbox plus meta plot. Every single thing that was going to happen during the envisaged campaign was plotted out, and I imagined the various scenarios in which the PCs would, or would not, reshape the flow of events, complete with statistical models that defined under which conditions various military actions and whatnot would produce different results, Battlesystem scenarios to play out battles that the PCs might get into, etc. 

It really just wasn't that interesting, because of course D&D doesn't really provide the driving process that would guide play into a set of activities that engaged with the player's/PC's agendas. I mean, we had a fun game, but most of all that material simply became clearly irrelevant and a waste of time within a few sessions. I guess, however, I can credit 2e with breaking things enough that we had to figure out how to fix it... lol. There were definitely a few approaches to that! I especially recall my best friend, who simply became Railroader in Chief. You could be 100% certain that ever scene of every game would play out to his design, no matter what. He was just so awesome at creating a fun story and was so talented at creating distinctive characters and situations that it didn't matter. I suspect that was sort of the V:tM ideal, and probably what the people who invented that game came from. Of course it failed miserably for us mere mortals.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> The GM has to create a lot of NPCs, they have to create events that happen independently from the characters, they have to create a lot of naughty word. This by necessity creates 'plot hooks' and 'adventure opportunities' or 'quest', and it would be weird to pretend otherwise.



Do they? I don't do this. OK, maybe I have some canonically established locations and NPCs in my long-running D&D-esque game world that I can use, but they're simply props.  I mean, I don't need to determine anything before some players start developing an agenda and need scenes to interact with. I might even have some idea of meta plot, but if so I will make it pretty explicit to the players and it will be generated, or at least shaped, in a fashion that caters to their interests/agenda. At most I might be said to be in charge of what falls within the acceptable genre conventions for the milieu.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Do they? I don't do this. OK, maybe I have some canonically established locations and NPCs in my long-running D&D-esque game world that I can use, but they're simply props.  I mean, I don't need to determine anything before some players start developing an agenda and need scenes to interact with. I might even have some idea of meta plot, but if so I will make it pretty explicit to the players and it will be generated, or at least shaped, in a fashion that caters to their interests/agenda. At most I might be said to be in charge of what falls within the acceptable genre conventions for the milieu.



So unexpected things never happen? The players do not come upon things that they didn't know about before? The people they meet are just blank robots with no motivations or goals? 

Like I think I get what you actually mean, you let the players dictate the direction and generate things around that, right? But that still requires creating a lot of stuff that will have an enormous impact on how the campaign ultimately unfolds.


----------



## nevin

I think you miss that some DM's Ad lib almost everything and just keep notes to remind them what they Ad Libbed.   If I need to think that far I'll worry about the innkeeper or NPC's motivations.  A lot NPC don't need that much attention.  A lot of my NPC's are 2 dimensional till the players do something that requires more of them.  Why put that much effort into them till I need too?  

Now I have a good friend who'll spend 2 weeks of his free time mapping out 25 contingencies and all the NPC's thier family, motivations etc.  That works for him.  Doesn't work for me.   we both love each others games.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

nevin said:


> I think you miss that some DM's Ad lib almost everything and just keep notes to remind them what they Ad Libbed.



No, I don't mean that.



nevin said:


> If I need to think that far I'll worry about the innkeeper or NPC's motivations.  A lot NPC don't need that much attention.  A lot of my NPC's are 2 dimensional till the players do something that requires more of them.



Yes, but you're still the one who makes up that stuff once it becomes needed, right?


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, but you're still the one who makes up that stuff once it becomes needed, right?




I don't understand what seems to be an insistence on binarism here, GM OR players. What about collaboration, where the GM works _with_ the players on what they have signalled as their interests ("with" here denoting both playing to their interests in context neutral situations or in cases of successful action declaration but against such interests in the case of action declaration failure). Why such sharply defined roles?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

darkbard said:


> I don't understand what seems to be an insistence on binarism here, GM OR players. What about collaboration, where the GM works _with_ the players on what they have signalled as their interests ("with" here denoting both playing to their interests in context neutral situations or in cases of successful action declaration but against such interests in the case of action declaration failure). Why such sharply defined roles?



It can be collaboration, some people just seem to think that their 'action resolution' causes the fiction to manifest out of thin air without human input or something like that. But ultimately if the players are directly affecting things that are beyond the control of their characters, that is the players assuming the narrator stance, and this is simply something that a lot of players don't want to do, and it is pretty extreme to claim that true player agency cannot exist without it. I get that there is kind of soft, informal version of this, where the GM picks up the interests of the players and crafts the reality to conform to that. Most GMs do this to certain extend and it is obviously a good idea. But that doesn't force the players to actively think of these sort of things from the narrator perspective, so in that sense it is very different.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> And if the PCs convince Pup to do something that weakens his followers' allegiance, I think the GM is behaving reasonably to have the followers become less loyal or shift their allegiance. The PCs have changed the situation, and the shared fiction; it's just changed (again) afterward--as situations tend to do.



Sure, that would be the players STAKING THEIR RESOURCE on some further venture. Dungeon World has a couple of moves which might be appropriate to carry out aspects of that, depending on the details. There is Parley for instance, which might come up in an attempt to enforce a bargain on the followers. Defy Danger (a CHA check version) might also be useful here. However, you have to understand the DW process. The players make a 'move', and then the GM makes either a soft or hard move (sometimes one or the other is dictated, sometimes the choice is up to the GM) in response. A 'soft' move is one that ratchets up the pressure, but doesn't require an immediate mechanical response (IE you notice that your torch supply has reached the point where you must either turn back or risk running out of light). A hard move is one which must be answered directly by one or more players (IE the floor gives way beneath you). 

So, in the Pup case. The players might demand that Pup do something not in the interests of his followers (IE give them something valuable). They know this might create discord and even physical danger, but one of the PCs points out to the followers that he's in charge and there's a chance they will all strike it rich, he offers to share some of the spoils with them later on. Parley, maybe they buy it, maybe they walk out, maybe they attack! I think Bards and maybe Barbarians also have class moves that could be unleashed in this situation that specifically address getting people to do what you want, I don't remember OTTOMH.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> To pick up a concrete example, what does _the merchant thief Iltan marks them as potential marks_ actually mean?



It's not the most-likely of my examples to occur in one of my campaigns, but that aside it's framing the fiction. If the characters loot a dungeon and take their gains to a city known for thieving merchants (as in, it's established in the fiction that the merchants and the criminals are the same people there--there are such cities established as existing in my world) then I might have the PCs deal with a merchant looking to swindle them, and I might call that merchant Iltan. That wouldn't negate their success in looting the dungeon, but it would be something (someone) in the world reacting to that success.


----------



## prabe

darkbard said:


> Of course "attitude" matters. That's what accounts for @prabe's dislike for PbtA games (even though they haven't played any). But many here have been arguing for the significant role system takes in establishing relative agency; @hawkeyefan has been particularly painstaking in laying this out.



If by "attitude" you mean my inability to see "success-with-complication" as anything other than "partial failure," I'll accept that; but I read AW with an open mind, motivated by curiosity, thinking I might like it, and I read the SRD for BitD actively expecting to like the game and didn't, so it doesn't feel from the inside as though I started with an axe to grind. The fact that I came away from reading the games actively wanting not to play them (or, frankly, read them again) means at a minimum there's a severe disconnect, I'll concede.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, that would be the players STAKING THEIR RESOURCE on some further venture. Dungeon World has a couple of moves which might be appropriate to carry out aspects of that, depending on the details. There is Parley for instance, which might come up in an attempt to enforce a bargain on the followers. Defy Danger (a CHA check version) might also be useful here. However, you have to understand the DW process. The players make a 'move', and then the GM makes either a soft or hard move (sometimes one or the other is dictated, sometimes the choice is up to the GM) in response. A 'soft' move is one that ratchets up the pressure, but doesn't require an immediate mechanical response (IE you notice that your torch supply has reached the point where you must either turn back or risk running out of light). A hard move is one which must be answered directly by one or more players (IE the floor gives way beneath you).
> 
> So, in the Pup case. The players might demand that Pup do something not in the interests of his followers (IE give them something valuable). They know this might create discord and even physical danger, but one of the PCs points out to the followers that he's in charge and there's a chance they will all strike it rich, he offers to share some of the spoils with them later on. Parley, maybe they buy it, maybe they walk out, maybe they attack! I think Bards and maybe Barbarians also have class moves that could be unleashed in this situation that specifically address getting people to do what you want, I don't remember OTTOMH.



Thanks. That was about how I would have expected it would work, from what I've read in PbtA games.


----------



## darkbard

prabe said:


> If by "attitude" you mean my inability to see "success-with-complication" as anything other than "partial failure," I'll accept that; but I read AW with an open mind, motivated by curiosity, thinking I might like it, and I read the SRD for BitD actively expecting to like the game and didn't, so it doesn't feel from the inside as though I started with an axe to grind. The fact that I came away from reading the games actively wanting not to play them (or, frankly, read them again) means at a minimum there's a severe disconnect, I'll concede.




I take you at your word. My point is simply, as an experienced gamer raised in the milieu of D&D (if not necessarily that game explicitly), there is no "open mind" in the sense of a tabula rasa. Your preferences, attitudes, etc. have already been shaped by the architecture of those games you were raised in. 

Did you go in with the attitude of wanting to like PbtA etc. games? Again, I take you at your word you did. But unless you had no previous experience with RPGs or even much sense of what they might be as informed by popular culture, you did not read AW and BitD without preformed notions that already shaped your response to these games.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Honestly, D&D fell down a rabbit hole in 1989 with the publication of 2e.



In fairness, in large part due to the influence of Dragonlance and similar ventures, players and DMs in 1989 were a different breed of rabbits from 1982.  Couple that with external pressures e.g. the Satanic panic and it's easy to see how and why 2e went the way it did.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, Gary basically outlines a game of what we would now call 'skilled play'. The basic structure is that the DM (and this term, DUNGEON MASTER is not arbitrary) builds a 'MAP' and a 'KEY', which explicates a complex series of challenges for a set of players (this can also be performed using a random generator, either entirely or partially). The DM's job from there is to act as a narrator, bringing the map and key into 3-dimensional life and providing additional sensory information as needed. The DM also acts as referee, adjudicating in a neutral fashion all situations which the exploration and/or combat rules don't cover, or which their simplistic application might produce ridiculous results. The DM is also expected to guard against 'rules exploitation' in which the player's find flaws in the mechanics in order to 'cheat the world' and get what they want in some unrealistic and (here we get into a grey area) 'unfair' way.
> 
> The 1e DM is NOT supposed to be aiming at 'creating a story', not supposed to railroad the PCs into his preferred situations, etc. He's simply supposed to stand by and referee neutrally as the players guide their PCs across the dungeon or hex grid (outdoors) encountering whatever is on the map, or perhaps dealing with wandering monsters, lack of healing, and dwindling supplies (the original game actually used AH's Outdoor Survival rules to adjudicate this part).



And in all of this the story (or more likely a series of only-sometimes-related stories all at once) more or less creates itself as the campaign goes along and the DM and-or the players start tying previously-seen elements into current adventuring.

For example, the party goes into White Plume Mountain, brings out the three weapons, and dutifully returns them to their owners.  During downtime a few months later the party hears tell of some noble having recently gone crazy and started killing his people; the PCs investigate and find it's the same guy to whom they returned Blackrazor and that the weapon has since cursed him.  So here the DM is able to tie a past element into current adventuring; and while she could just as easily have the noble be someone previously unknown, why do that when the opportunity exists to tie some things together?

Or, the party wander around the hexes and by sheer random chance happen to meet Goblins at every turn.  The players in-character start wondering why there's so damn many Goblins out here and maybe even come up with some conspiracy theories...and the DM takes one of those theories and runs with it.  Suddenly what were initially a bunch of random events have germinated into the beginnings of a previously-unforeseen storyline, which will either go somewhere or it won't depending on what the players/PCs decide to do as the campaign goes on.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> There are a few issues which arise in practice. First of all the DM probably wants to showcase his most fun tricks, traps, and nasty cunning challenges (all of these are 'fair play' in the skilled play paradigm of 1e). Often things won't go as planned, and thus the DM may be tempted to use a bit of force (illusionism usually) to 'set things straight'. Thus when the Elf doesn't roll well to find a secret door, maybe the DM fudges the outcome. Maybe his favorite NPC always escapes at the end of being beaten by the party, etc. too. This is where 'fun story' creeps in, because the simple 'skilled play maze' doesn't really lead to that. It can lead to a lot of fun annecdotes and whatnot, but you have to abandon that paradigm at a certain point, to a degree, to really make things like high level play 'work'. And then of course there is a constant incentive in this system for the players to undermine the game, because they are fundamentally 'playing against the DM'. This leads to another source and rationalization of pushback.



Trying to make high-level play work well in 1e is something of a lost cause IMO.   That said, by the time they get to high level there should in theory be all kinds of established elements the DM (or players!) can draw on to provide continuity of story if such is desired.

And sometimes some DM force (or outright hard-railroading) can be a good thing.  Other times not, and the challenge often lies in figuring out which is which.


----------



## prabe

darkbard said:


> I take you at your word. My point is simply, as an experienced gamer raised in the milieu of D&D (if not necessarily that game explicitly), there is no "open mind" in the sense of a tabula rasa. Your preferences, attitudes, etc. have already been shaped by the architecture of those games you were raised in.
> 
> Did you go in with the attitude of wanting to like PbtA etc. games? Again, I take you at your word you did. But unless you had no previous experience with RPGs or even much sense of what they might be as informed by popular culture, you did not read AW and BitD without preformed notions that already shaped your response to these games.



Thank you for clarifying your meaning and for taking me at my word.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> That's actually a big part of the problem, I think, for some people; its not only that success-with-a-cost exists, its what the game _wants_ to produce, so the mechanics put a thumb on the scale. Which means the vast majority of successes to them actually feel more like "mitigated failure", and that feels incompetent to them. They constantly want to aim for the unmixed successes, but relatively rarely get it.



What's interesting about this is that a game like Blades in the Dark, which uses success with complication, actually directs the GM to always treat the characters as competent.  Even in complete failure, it's against the directions of the game to narrate the character acting incompetently.  No one screws up because they did a dumb, or are inept -- when complications or failures occur, it's because the other guy got lucky, was better, or the situation wasn't exactly as they thought it was.  The feeling of competence in Blades is one much higher that I usually see in D&D games where success is binary.  This is one of the things I've absolutely brought back into my 5e games -- PCs are competent at all times.  Even when they do outlandishly unwise things, they do so with competence.

There's a good bit of "feeling" about games that those doing the feeling haven't actually played.


----------



## hawkeyefan

darkbard said:


> I take you at your word. My point is simply, as an experienced gamer raised in the milieu of D&D (if not necessarily that game explicitly), there is no "open mind" in the sense of a tabula rasa. Your preferences, attitudes, etc. have already been shaped by the architecture of those games you were raised in.
> 
> Did you go in with the attitude of wanting to like PbtA etc. games? Again, I take you at your word you did. But unless you had no previous experience with RPGs or even much sense of what they might be as informed by popular culture, you did not read AW and BitD without preformed notions that already shaped your response to these games.




I know I’ve said this elsewhere, but it seems at least a bit relevant here.

When I introduced Blades in the Dark to my group, it was my usual players (friends of 30 odd years and long time RPGers) and one player’s nephew, about 15 years younger than us and whose RPG experience was almost entirely through video games. He’d played Pathfinder a handful of times, and not much else.

He grasped Blades in the Dark much more quickly than my long time players. He just didn’t have as much to unlearn and was less certain of the way things were “supposed” to go.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> People who are competent (even hyper-competent) deal with failure and setbacks constantly.  Master-level climbers and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu players suffer setbacks and complications that they have to overcome (injuries, equipment failure, mental fatigue/distraction leading to suboptimal outcome, technical soundness failing in a challenging situation 1 in 20 times, misjudged route to success - applies to both, etc).  Its all "success with complications."  In my martial life (which includes BJJ among other things) its overwhelmingly success with complications despite being very accomplished.  In my social and intellectual life, its, again, overwhelmingly "success with complications" with a smattering of successes and failures.  By my reckoning, "success with complications" being the engine of the snowballing nature of PBtA games both (a) makes for compelling play and (b) comports with the experience of being a social animal thrust into competition/conflict with other social animals.
> 
> So, in this, I think one of a few things are happening (or both):
> 
> 1)  Your calibration of "failure" vs "success but complication/cost" vs "success" is off (I remember we had the discussion prior about the AW example and I don't think we ever had a meeting of the minds...so my guess is this is part of it).
> 
> 2)  The GM you've seen run it (I don't believe you've played it?) wasn't doing their job correctly.



AND, honestly, with PbtA (or at least DW, I'm less familiar with the other flavors of this system) its hard to see how it would really WORK without the core being 'success with complications'. The game is SUPPOSED to snowball. It wouldn't be that interesting if the PCs plan to raid the Orc Temple simply went from success to success. They would waltz in, achieve their goals, and waltz back out! That might, now and then, be fun, but it isn't a formula for an interesting game (and I doubt more traditional D&Ders would see it that way either).  So, in the (nearly) zero-myth world of DW, where there is just a sketch-map of the Orc Temple, only sufficient to support the motive for a raid (relate it to PC Bonds), the 7-9 rolls are what drives the narrative! 

Each time a PC makes a move and gets 'success with complication' they move deeper into the Orc Temple (after all, they succeeded). At the same time the GM made a move, and their mission got a bit more complicated. The ranger wasn't able to erase their tracks as they crossed the clearing, and the party begins to notice things are getting quieter in the woods... The thief killed the sentry at the bridge, but his body slipped off into the river and floated downstream. When they arrived at the place where the secret entrance was supposed to be, they discovered that the sketchy dude they bought the map from lied to them! Now they're searching for the back door way in, but orc patrols are clearly on the hunt for them. Can they still get in? Can they still get back out? Tune in next week!


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> What's interesting about this is that a game like Blades in the Dark, which uses success with complication, actually directs the GM to always treat the characters as competent.  Even in complete failure, it's against the directions of the game to narrate the character acting incompetently.  No one screws up because they did a dumb, or are inept -- when complications or failures occur, it's because the other guy got lucky, was better, or the situation wasn't exactly as they thought it was.  The feeling of competence in Blades is one much higher that I usually see in D&D games where success is binary.  This is one of the things I've absolutely brought back into my 5e games -- PCs are competent at all times.  Even when they do outlandishly unwise things, they do so with competence.
> 
> There's a good bit of "feeling" about games that those doing the feeling haven't actually played.




I suspect you're assuming anything the GM could do with a flawed-success system that would make the people I'm talking about feel competent when it happens.  There's not.  You're seriously underestimating how much they'll focus on any downside.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Attitudes matter more than the system though. You can easily have a high player agency game with a completely traditional system. It merely requires that the players are proactive, declare goals, take initiative; it doesn't require giving them reality editing powers.



I take it that by "system" here you mean _mechanics_ - not _mechanics + techniques_.

In which case it depends a bit on mechanics. I run Classic Traveller - I think that gets to count as a "traditional system", given it's from 1977 (though I do incorporate some elements of some of the later supplements). It does have the Streetwise mechanic I've described upthread, which some may regard as "non-traditional", and it encourages the referee to work with the player to make sense of superficially contradictory upshots of random world generation, which some may regard as a "non-traditional" degree of collaboration in background and world-building.

I think my Classic Traveller game has quite a high degree of player agency.

I don't think it's easy to run a high player agency game with Gygax's AD&D, though, unless that is going to be very traditional dungeon-crawling. There aren't the mechanics, for instance, to support a high agency urban intrigue game (eg nothing comparable to Classic Traveller's Admin, Streetwise and Bribery skills).

EDIT: I just read @AbdulAlhazred's posts about AD&D. They explain really well, in more detail, my reasons for the paragraph above this one.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Until something in the fiction happens to make it so. Not just the GM deciding “it’d make sense for this sage that they convinced to work for them to betray them now” because the GM can just as easily decide “this sage they convinced to work for them still remains totally loyal to then because he knows what the alternative would be”.
> 
> You point to logic...and yes you may perhaps be able to justify the GM’s whim in the fiction. But that doesn't mean it’s not the GM’s whim.
> 
> Now, if the PCs treat the NPC sage poorly, or something similar happens,  then sure, the door to betrayal is open.
> 
> But to resort to “well, unbeknownst to the PCs the necromancer reached out to the sage and promised him power if he betrays the PCs” is absolutely sidestepping any kind of player agency.
> 
> And again, it’s fine to do that if it’s the preferred mode of play....but you can’t say that there’s a high degree of player agency going on.



This is a good example of the contrast between high and low player agency.

The second example involves the GM inventing, unilaterally in his/her imagination, a fictional event - the necromancer reaching out to the stage - which then serves, in the GM's imagined fiction, as the reason for the sage's betrayal.

_At the table_, what we have is (i) the players' recruiting the sage (via whatever action resolution mechanism permitted this) and then (ii) the GM deciding the recruitment has failed or been subverted. The fact that the GM can, in his/her imagination, come up with a reason in the fiction why that might have happened, doesn't affect this basic analysis.

And of course in a game with high player agency the GM can still exercise that sort of imagination. It just happens in a different way. If the players fail a check in which their PCs are relying on the sage, then the GM might narrate that failure as the sage's betrayal. Subsequent play might reveal that the sage has been suborned by the necromancer. But it all happens "downstream" of action resolution, as part of the narration and embellishment of consequences; rather than as an "upstream" input into action resolution that determines what the fiction will look like independently of the players' checks.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> AND, honestly, with PbtA (or at least DW, I'm less familiar with the other flavors of this system) its hard to see how it would really WORK without the core being 'success with complications'. The game is SUPPOSED to snowball. It wouldn't be that interesting if the PCs plan to raid the Orc Temple simply went from success to success.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> in the (nearly) zero-myth world of DW, where there is just a sketch-map of the Orc Temple, only sufficient to support the motive for a raid (relate it to PC Bonds), the 7-9 rolls are what drives the narrative!



Yes. I posted about this upthread.

None of the critics of "success with complications"/"partial failure" in this thread have said they want a game with no complications/challenges.

What they have either said, or very strongly implied, is that they want the introduction of those things to be solely under the GM's control independent of any mechanical system (and associated techniques) designed to ration or pace or manage that process.

This is why this discussion about complication-introduction is highly salient to the thread topic of player agency.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> You are overtly focusing the form over function. Of course plot hooks in a pre-written module that is meant to be usable by anyone who happens to pick it up will be presented differently than those generated by a GM who knows their players and characters. But here 'who is the master' and 'why is Rufus getting wine' are clearly plot hooks (albeit the latter barely qualifies) and in essence are not different than 'what are the orcs doing here' from my earlier example.



They are not "plot hooks". There's no _plot_. They don't _hook_ anyone onto anything.

_In the shared fiction_, there is the master. That's it. _In the real world_, no one knows who the master is, what his motivations are, why Rufus serves him, why he wants wine.

This is not a superficial difference from H3 Pyramids of Shadow. It's a fundamental one.



Crimson Longinus said:


> At some point a human being has to make a conscious decision about these things.



Who denies that? We're talking about _who makes the decision_, _at what point during play_, _under what constraints_, _following what principles_? The answers to those questions tell us whether or not the players have agency.

In H3 Pyramid of Shadows, the GM/module author has decided _who the NPCs are_, _what their motivations are_, _what actions they will take in relation to the PCs_ and even (as per my quote upthread _what the PCs will do_.

In the example of play I posted, I the player decided that Rufus was a salient NPC. The GM was then obliged to bring Rufus onto the stage because I succeeded on a Circles check. Consistent with the established backstory (ie that Rufus was Thurgon's ineffectual older brother still living in Auxol as "puppet" count), Rufus referred to "the master". Rufus's interactions then followed the outcomes of action resolution: Aramina shamed him (successful Ugly Truth, failed Steel); Thurgon failed to push him from shame to action (failed Command check to negate the Hestitation resulting from the failed Steel check); Aramina failed to get any concession of coins from him (failed Command check to have him hand over some coins).

Some of what happened was authored by me (the player), some by the GM. None of it was authored in advance; it was determined via play.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Being able to find out whether there is someone willing to sell weapons is a different thing than being able to dictate existence of certain things.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Who came up with the idea that the tower could even potentially exist? Who determined that Edward exist and that he would live in a tower instead of a Winnebago? Who determined which exact results of the dice result the tower being there and which would result something else? You're again just trying to obfuscate the decision making process under mechanical jargon. 'Action resolution mechanic' is just a mathematical construct, it does nothing unless a human being set the axioms for it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> Same questions than with the tower. Who decided that it was even a possibility that Edward was sorcerer, or evil? Why are we rolling for that and not whether he is a peaceful florist? Where do these concepts come from?



RPG action resolution mechanics are not mere mathematical constructs. They are processes for determining the content of a shared fiction.

I, playing Thurgon's sidekick Aramina, declare a Great Masters-wise check: _Isn't the tower of Evard the black somewhere around here?_ (I may have been reading Heroes of Shadow (I think it is), a 4e supplement that discusses Evard, around that time.) The GM set the difficulty in accordance with the rules for setting the difficulty of a Wises check. I succeeded, and so Aramina does indeed have a correct recollection of the matter.

You have also mis-stated the Traveller mechanic. Here it is, from Classic Traveller Book 1 (1977):

The referee should set the throw required to obtain any item specified by the players (for ex-ample, the name of an official willing to issue li-censes without hassle = 5+, the location of high quality guns at a low price = 9+). DMs based on streetwise should be allowed at +1 per level. No expertise DM = −5.​
The referee doesn't _first _decide whether or not success is even possible. The player specifies the item, the referee sets the throw. If the throw succeeds the player finds the item.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Being able to find out whether there is someone willing to sell weapons is a different thing than being able to dictate existence of certain things. And if the players can do that, they are considering things from narrator perspective. You have given them power to summon things into being, and they certainly are aware of that. The claim that true agency requires the players to have reality editing powers is rather extreme one. A lot of people wind such highly unimmersive.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Players using the narrator stance.





Crimson Longinus said:


> But ultimately if the players are directly affecting things that are beyond the control of their characters, that is the players assuming the narrator stance, and this is simply something that a lot of players don't want to do, and it is pretty extreme to claim that true player agency cannot exist without it.



Upthread you criticised dogma. Now you're trotting it out. You shift between "perspective" (a type of mental state, I guess), "stance" (a type of orientation in action) and "power" (a type of capacity) as if they're synonyms, and assert that it is "unimmersive" for players to have an impact on the fiction that is something beyond their character doing XYZ here and now.

If that were true, why is immersion not ruined by the players "to hit" roll determining what the Orc does or doesn't do with it's shield?



Crimson Longinus said:


> That's pretty effective plot hook! The characters must instantly respond!
> 
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Are you trying to say here that the GM (based on their knowledge of the PCs motivations) set up a plot hook for which the PCs would be likely to respond?



An attack by a demon is not a "plot hook". What's the plot? What's the hook.

I mean, it's your prerogative to use "plot hook" as a synonym for _establishing an element of the shared fiction to which the players might respond_, but that's not the standard use, that's not how it's used in modules like H3, nor when posters on these boards say _players have a duty to follow GM plot hooks_.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Anyway, I think your framing of this is rather weird. You're super focused on 'action resolution' and mechanics. Those are ultimately a tiny part of a RPG. Outside resolutions of specific actions there is shitton of other stuff the GM (or someone) has to make up, (what is there, what they're doing, what are their motivations and million other things) which affect the direction the game massively. So how decides these things? Either the GM sets up these, which in effect is them setting up 'plot hooks' etc which according to you is lowering player agency, or the players decide these, which is the players assuming the narrator stance.



I've noted a few places where different posters have said something along similar lines. I don't really agree. In games like BitD, DW, and I expect BW as well, there is nothing except action resolution and the direct fallout from it. In DW, for instance, the GM is advised to build sketch maps and develop 'fronts', which are a type of meta plot where there can be 'clocks' which can regulate and structure making GM moves to an extent (and might even answer some "what if the PCs just go off and don't deal with this," if that is even interesting). 

Mostly everything is pretty focused on what the PCs can see and what is in arm's reach of them. There are not a "million other things." That is an observation drawn from a completely different process of play. Nor would anything except what the players are interested in doing "affect the direction massively." Why would it? The players and their characters are what the game is ABOUT. That is the whole point. There REALLY ARE no plothooks in a pure 'zero myth' kind of play. Of course, you are correct, even DW allows for SOME GM decisions about the world, but DW isn't really a hard 'players invent the narrative' game, at least not directly. 

In fact, if you read DW carefully, you will come to understand that the GM is, technically, 'in charge of' the contents of the world. She creates Fronts, Steadings, Maps, etc. HOWEVER, while the GM is allowed to have a 'campaign concept' (which is going to center on a Campaign Front presumably) the GM is not supposed to simply impose this idea on the players. She might not even have such a concept going in. She's supposed to ask questions, note what the answers are, and investigate the players and what their characters are like. If the players want to know something about the world, the GM LETS THEM SUPPLY THE ANSWERS (IE if a player asks about who rules the land, turn it back "Well, I don't know, who is it?"). Only AFTER character generation should the GM really start to define some fronts and such. They should reflect what the players want (there is likely to be at least an initial Adventure Front, but it might be something fairly small scale).


----------



## Scott Christian

I would go back to the teaching thread for this question.

Can a teacher run a good class without serious prep work and guides? Yup.
Can a teacher have a memorable class experience for both the students and themselves making stuff up on the fly? Yup.
Can the teacher, week after week, provide the depth and interconnectivity of the material making it up on the fly? Doubtful.

Note: I am not downplaying anyone's game. If you are an impromptu guru, sweet. Your table is as valid as anyone else's. But having been at both tables as a player, and run both types of tables as a DM, there is not really a difference per session. But the long term accumulation of impromptu becomes noticeable, ime.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> That's actually a big part of the problem, I think, for some people; its not only that success-with-a-cost exists, its what the game _wants_ to produce, so the mechanics put a thumb on the scale. Which means the vast majority of successes to them actually feel more like "mitigated failure", and that feels incompetent to them. They constantly want to aim for the unmixed successes, but relatively rarely get it.




I'm sure that is the case for these people you describe just like I'm sure that play priorities and aesthetic preferences and turn-offs are something of a Rorschach Test (which is what I was alluding to above) just like Hit Points are. 

I believe you're fairly new, but these issues are at the heart of many, many discussions that we've had over the years (which is why I alluded to this all being fraught upthread).

But this is also why I brought up "hostility to analysis" upthread.  It is ok to occupy a duality of mental frameworks that are entirely at tension.  You (not you, people) have a problem with _this _thing, but _that _thing (which, from first principles seems to occupy the same space) you have a problem with.  A person has been abused for a long time by someone who has power over them but inhabits an emotional space (due to myriad reasons) that manifests as Stockholm Syndrome and an empathic bond results.  That same person sees another person in the same place two decades later and is utterly confused by their incoherent behavior and ends up having contempt (not understanding) for them. 

We are extraordinarily complex social animals capable of all manner of oddities, paradoxes, post-hoc justifications, and rationalizations.

But allowing for that, it seems particularly unhelpful (when analyzing resolution mechanics and their games for *actual *agency) to describe something that is unequivocally, objectively a continuum as a binary because a certain mental framework feels less good than they would like to about a thing that is fundamentally not able to be placed on either side of a distribution.  And due to that discontent, the thing therefore gets binned on _this _side of the distribution (vs _that _side of the distribution or...better yet...where it should be, inside the tails of the distribution).

I mean, it tells us a biographical fact about those parties, and it _may _(or it _may not_) allow us to extrapolate like cognitive positioning for them when it comes to continuums broadly; they're _all or nothing_ people, glass half-empty, defeat/rejection sticks with them far/far longer than it should, they have a purity test for themselves or others that is stark and possibly lacking prospects for redemption if it isn't met, etc etc. 

Or, again, none of those things could be true.  And it doesn't matter to the analysis because it doesn't tell us if a core mechanic does what it set out to do.  In this case:

1) A bell curve of results with Success on one end, Success w/ Cost/Complication in the middle, and Failure + Mark xp on the other end.

2)  Success (moving you closer to victory in the present conflict) but Cost/Complications (interesting decision-points and a dynamically evolving threat/situation as an outgrowth) is the "best" result (for the system's aims) because "trouble (with a trajectory of victory) is where the fun of the game happens!"

Now that is where the rubber meets the road with these games.  There is (a) trajectory of victory (on a per conflict basis) but (b) a virtually perpetual state of dynamism and trouble until (c) the conflict is resolved (and the on-going, emergent narrative evolves with a new gamestate).

This is a fact and this was the design intent.  They accomplished this. 

Whether some folks don't like (b) as a design intent because they feel that a perpetual state of (not going to include dynamism here as I'm sure everyone wants dynamism...the question is how to achieve it and is a system capable of it and to what degree) trouble leaves them in a "negative cognitive workspace (lets call it)" is orthogonal to the questions of (i) design vision and execution and (ii) agency therein.

The only thing left to say about that is (actually try them first to be sure your intuitions aren't deceiving you and then if they suck) "don't play those games!"

*ADDENDUM*

The PBtA and FitD games are _trivially _hackable to change the distribution of results.  PBtA - 7+ is Success, 4, 5 is SwC, 1, 2 is Failure.  FitD - 4, 5, 6 is Success, 3 is SwC, 1, 2 is Failure.  And/or change the default Position to Controlled and default Effect to Great!  Decision-point stakes decrease and suddenly "a virtually perpetual state of dynamism and trouble" gives way to endless "bubble gum and ass-kicking and you're all out of bubble game!"


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> It can be collaboration, some people just seem to think that their 'action resolution' causes the fiction to manifest out of thin air without human input or something like that.




I've been trying to think how to address this (no one thinks a gamestate evolves and a fiction emerges exclusively of its own volition) without going through all of the various aspects of very explicit and integrated System Agenda, GMing Principles and Techniques, Conversation/Play Structure, PC Build Components, Resolution Mechanics, Reward Cycles, and Feedback Loops in these games.  

How about this.  I'm assuming most people have played Pictionary.  

When you sit down to play Pictionary, there are codified constraints on how you can "pantomime through drawing" (no prearranged cipher- eg draw an ear for "sounds like", can't use letters or numbers or hashes for letters like hangman, no noises, and other things as well along these lines).

The GM is the Pictionary drawer.  They're (1) constrained by these rules and (2) constrained by the content on the cards that they're going to try to telegraph to the players by drawing and (3) constrained by the premise and the results of play (they don't get to go Calvinball and change any of these 3 things).  Now there are (4) an innumerable ways that any individual (2) can be made manifest on the sketchboard.  

That (4) there?  THAT is what the GM does in these kinds of games.  That is their contribution.  They take their (4) (creative energy, genre aptitude, and general cognitive horsepower and industry), which is (1) constrained by the rules, (2) constrained by the thematic content that has been signalled to them (by the players through their PCs), and (3) constrained by the game's premise and the results of play...and they apply that (4) continuously where the play loop calls for it (and no more...they don't draw for the other team or provide the answer to their own drawing).  Through this process, the gamestate evolves organically until the game is done.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect you're assuming anything the GM could do with a flawed-success system that would make the people I'm talking about feel competent when it happens.  There's not.  You're seriously underestimating how much they'll focus on any downside.



I'm willing to accept that there's a preference thing about how a thing feels, but this argument is incoherent in that EVERY RPG does this thing, you're just used to it in the RPGs you prefer to play.  Combat in D&D is all about incomplete success, often with a cost or consequence -- you successfully hit the orc, but don't kill it (partial success), and now the orc tries to hit you (consequence).  Heck, upthread @prabe was discussing how and why a successful check to win over a gang by suborning the leader (Pup was the name) might be undone because the GM decides that such suborning rubs the gang members the wrong way!  How is that not exactly a success with consequence -- you succeed in your action to win over the gang leader, but suffer a consequence because now the gang is surly about it?  

Success coupled with cost or consequence is part of almost every RPG out there -- it's just traditionally hidden behind the GM's screen.  It might not taste the same, and so not be liked, if it's out in the open, but it's not any different, really, from the things you're used to eating.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Scott Christian said:


> I would go back to the teaching thread for this question.
> 
> Can a teacher run a good class without serious prep work and guides? Yup.
> Can a teacher have a memorable class experience for both the students and themselves making stuff up on the fly? Yup.
> Can the teacher, week after week, provide the depth and interconnectivity of the material making it up on the fly? Doubtful.
> 
> Note: I am not downplaying anyone's game. If you are an impromptu guru, sweet. Your table is as valid as anyone else's. But having been at both tables as a player, and run both types of tables as a DM, there is not really a difference per session. But the long term accumulation of impromptu becomes noticeable, ime.



Teaching has a concrete and expected outcome.  If the goal is to reach that outcome, then, yes, preparation helps a good deal.  If this isn't your goal -- if the goal isn't to reach an expected outcome but merely have an exciting and engaging game -- then prep may or may not help.  I have concrete personal evidence, and general data in that games that are structured such that prep is impossible if you're playing according to the rule systems, that this kind of game generates quite deep and interconnected games.  Heck, the interlocking systems that drive Blades in the Dark are a thing of absolutely beauty in how they effectively force interconnections and depth in play.   In my game, there's so many pressing demands on the Crew that there's never a moment.  Last session (granted two weeks ago, timing has been bad lately), ended up with the Crew being approached by a member of the Red Sashes who demanded a service from the Crew because the Crew had tangled with the Sashes and earlier and it had come out.  So the Sashes demanded payment in the form of help with their turf war against the Lampblacks, who absolutely didn't like the Crew due to some impolite words and a refusal to pay tithe to the Lampblacks (the Crew was using the turf war between the Lampblacks and the Sashes to refuse to pay either).  This wasn't good timing for the Crew, because they had just caused a major supernatural event in Lord Scurlock's old manor house, earning enmity from a cult they have been tangling with for awhile now (a Demon has charged the Crew to not let the cult complete their plans -- and Demons in Blades are seriously bad news).  And, because of that, the Spirit Wardens are hot to trot after the Crew, although that heat has subsided when one of the Crew intentionally got nicked, took the blame, and is currently doing a stint in prison.  So, they were really hoping to put paid to the Demon's demands and that cult is seriously gunning for them, making normal activity difficult (gang wars are unpleasant).  But, they were caught dead to rights, and are back in the middle of the turf war between the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes, trying to plant false orders so the Red Sashes can ambush some important members of the Lampblacks and get a leg up (the Sashes are currently losing the turf war).  In the meantime, the Crew's Whisper has blackmailed a supernatural tinkerer and has a ready supply of critical parts to build the next part of his Hull so he can get his faithful dead dog (who haunts him) back.  The Leech is plotting ways to get back at a priestess of the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh who did her grandmother wrong and is who caused an entire score to go sidewise when the Leech decided that she needed stabbing during a conversation with a lead they desperately needed.  The Whisper is also looking for his ghost friend, who's gone missing -- likely due to the cult's activities.  The Hound got cut off from his gambling vice, and is has decided that it's time to try to quit gambling -- it already cost him his career with the University.  So, he's undertaking the effort to do the hard work to get back into the Universities good graces by recovering interesting artifacts and history, even if it, so far, has almost cost him his soul.  

Yeah, that's a thumbnail of the things that have happened in my Blades game -- a lot of it stretching back to the start of the game.  We get through about two scores a evening, so a huge amount happens -- this game moves insanely fast at times -- but they're still dealing with things that happened in the first session.  And none of it, not a single bit, was planned except for the very first job offer of the game being from the Lampblacks to help kick off their turf war against the Red Sashes -- which they declined and instead did something else.  And that was only to get the ball rolling and consisted of nothing more than the offer -- the actual job wasn't set.


----------



## aramis erak

AbdulAlhazred said:


> AND, honestly, with PbtA (or at least DW, I'm less familiar with the other flavors of this system) its hard to see how it would really WORK without the core being 'success with complications'. The game is SUPPOSED to snowball.



The different odds of success+complication vary widely in the PBTA and its related games.
For comparison
*AW* ≤6/7-9/≥10  giving fail, success with compilation, and success that's 
+0 15/15/6 out of 36. 
+1 makes it 10/16/10 of 36. 
+2 makes it 6/15/15,
+3 makes it 3/12/21
*Blades *Best die of Xd6 similar lables
1d 3/2/1/0 of 6
2d 9/16/10/1 of 36
3d  27/98/75/16 of 216
4d 162/588/375/171 of 1296 Maximum skill
5d 243/2882/3125/1526 of 7776 Max Skill + Help or devil's bargain
6d 729/14896/18750/12281 of 46656 Max Skill + Help + Devil's Bargain.
Fourth outcome is "critical"
*Ironsworn* 2×1d10 vs 1d6+Modifier for 0-2 successes. 0 is miss, 1 is weak hit, 2 is strong hit. Essentially the same as AW's levels. But the odds...
+0 355/190/55 of 600
+1 271/238/91 of 600
+2 199/262/139 of 600
+3 139/262/199 of 600
+4 91/238/271 of 600
+5 55/190/355 of 600
+9  1/18/581 of 600
*Sentinel Comics* by default median of dA dP dC ±5 (Max boost +5, max hinder -5), A is an attribute (d4-d12) P is a Power (same) C is condition die(again d4 to d12). 
Result space <1/1-3/4-7/8-11/12+
Note that it's got two more levels than the others. Basically Actual Fail/Success with major complication/success with minor complication/success without complication/success plus inflict a complication on the foe/victim...

The furthest afield that I've seen explicitly referencing AW is Sentinel Comics. It also mentions Cam Banks (of Cortex Plus/Cortex Prime).
They all presume that, largely, the action usually (in SC, always) succeeds but may have side effects (success with complication) or not do much (thus fails on intent but not action). 
Technically, all of them do allow for actual failure - but only if the move is such that an actual failure is the only real way to not give the intent. (In SC, the only one I've run from the AW/PBTA spectrum, only on a result under 1 is actual failure of the task allowed. And that can only happen if there are hindrances on the acting character.)

Ironsworn's odds really should be figured to +9... because it has ways to get that much. It's almost as far afield as SC in terms of mechanical difference, but its closer in outcomes than, say, Blades.



*It's worth noting that, at peak skill +3, Apocalypse World is very much "Succeed a lot." (21/36 = 7/12)*
Most of the others get to that point. Blades at 5d




Ovinomancer said:


> Success coupled with cost or consequence is part of almost every RPG out there -- it's just traditionally hidden behind the GM's screen.  It might not taste the same, and so not be liked, if it's out in the open, but it's not any different, really, from the things you're used to eating.



Only if the GM's being a jerk. Why? Because the system provides only 3 results (4 if optional fumbles are used)

But also - D&D specifically limits intent rather than allowing partial success. The game ignores your intent as a player by having a process for attacks that has several very limiting intent options: Attack to inflict harm, attack to disarm, attack to force movement, attack to grapple.
Each of these has a specific built in intent and 3 of them have different mechanics from the basic harm. It is irrelevant to the mechanics whether your intent is to capture or to kill with harm, until the round you run them out of HP. And you (generally) don't know your opponent's HP until you run them out. 

The only "partial success" in D&D is on attacks - and that's not from the attack  roll at all. That's 3 outcomes: fail, succeed, critical. The partial success is rolling a lower than maximum damage. And even then, that's a VERY weak argument, since the D&D player's intent mechanically has no bearing upon the outcome. If they pick an attack, they will do harm (HP), do a forced movement, do a grapple, or disarm the opponent.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> They are not "plot hooks". There's no _plot_. They don't _hook_ anyone onto anything.
> 
> _In the shared fiction_, there is the master. That's it. _In the real world_, no one knows who the master is, what his motivations are, why Rufus serves him, why he wants wine.



And the characters are not going to investigate any of those? They were not dropped there to possibly characters to that direction? That no one at the moment doesn't know exactly know where they lead doesn't change that they're plot hooks. In improvisational game the GM often drops plot hooks and only after the players decide to follow some of them they decide where exactly they lead. Same thing here.



pemerton said:


> Who denies that? We're talking about _who makes the decision_, _at what point during play_, _under what constraints_, _following what principles_? The answers to those questions tell us whether or not the players have agency.
> 
> In H3 Pyramid of Shadows, the GM/module author has decided _who the NPCs are_, _what their motivations are_, _what actions they will take in relation to the PCs_ and even (as per my quote upthread _what the PCs will do_.
> 
> In the example of play I posted, I the player decided that Rufus was a salient NPC. The GM was then obliged to bring Rufus onto the stage because I succeeded on a Circles check. Consistent with the established backstory (ie that Rufus was Thurgon's ineffectual older brother still living in Auxol as "puppet" count), Rufus referred to "the master". Rufus's interactions then followed the outcomes of action resolution: Aramina shamed him (successful Ugly Truth, failed Steel); Thurgon failed to push him from shame to action (failed Command check to negate the Hestitation resulting from the failed Steel check); Aramina failed to get any concession of coins from him (failed Command check to have him hand over some coins).
> 
> Some of what happened was authored by me (the player), some by the GM. None of it was authored in advance; it was determined via play.



_When _the thing was determined really has nothing to do with point. 



pemerton said:


> RPG action resolution mechanics are not mere mathematical constructs. They are processes for determining the content of a shared fiction.
> 
> I, playing Thurgon's sidekick Aramina, declare a Great Masters-wise check: _Isn't the tower of Evard the black somewhere around here?_ (I may have been reading Heroes of Shadow (I think it is), a 4e supplement that discusses Evard, around that time.) The GM set the difficulty in accordance with the rules for setting the difficulty of a Wises check. I succeeded, and so Aramina does indeed have a correct recollection of the matter.



Right. So you as a player used a meta power to summon a setting element you had invented into the existence and then had to roll whether that meta power actually works. 



pemerton said:


> You have also mis-stated the Traveller mechanic. Here it is, from Classic Traveller Book 1 (1977):
> 
> The referee should set the throw required to obtain any item specified by the players (for ex-ample, the name of an official willing to issue li-censes without hassle = 5+, the location of high quality guns at a low price = 9+). DMs based on streetwise should be allowed at +1 per level. No expertise DM = −5.​
> The referee doesn't _first _decide whether or not success is even possible. The player specifies the item, the referee sets the throw. If the throw succeeds the player finds the item.



I have not ever player Traveller, but it seems to me that the GM setting up difficulty is the same thing than the GM determining what is possible. 



pemerton said:


> Upthread you criticised dogma. Now you're trotting it out. You shift between "perspective" (a type of mental state, I guess), "stance" (a type of orientation in action) and "power" (a type of capacity) as if they're synonyms, and assert that it is "unimmersive" for players to have an impact on the fiction that is something beyond their character doing XYZ here and now.



Words are not synonyms but describe the same situation. And it definitely is unimmersive to a lot of people, I know it is for me. This is not some absolute 'and thus it never ever should be done', but yes, it is something I do prefer not to be a central element in a RPG. 



pemerton said:


> If that were true, why is immersion not ruined by the players "to hit" roll determining what the Orc does or doesn't do with it's shield?



Who physically rolls the randomiser or what exact sort of randomiser is used doesn't really matter here. The player is not introducing any significant setting details with their action declaration.



pemerton said:


> An attack by a demon is not a "plot hook". What's the plot? What's the hook.



A dangerous demon is loose; maybe fight it guys? Pretty standard RPG plot. And in a good game this would probably be connected to something else (i.e. to a more complicated plot) instead of being a mere random encounter.



pemerton said:


> I mean, it's your prerogative to use "plot hook" as a synonym for _establishing an element of the shared fiction to which the players might respond_, but that's not the



Yes, it is pretty much that.


pemerton said:


> standard use, that's not how it's used in modules like H3, nor when posters on these boards say _players have a duty to follow GM plot hooks_.



Modules by their nature must present things differently.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I've noted a few places where different posters have said something along similar lines. I don't really agree. In games like BitD, DW, and I expect BW as well, there is nothing except action resolution and the direct fallout from it. In DW, for instance, the GM is advised to build sketch maps and develop 'fronts', which are a type of meta plot where there can be 'clocks' which can regulate and structure making GM moves to an extent (and might even answer some "what if the PCs just go off and don't deal with this," if that is even interesting).
> 
> Mostly everything is pretty focused on what the PCs can see and what is in arm's reach of them. There are not a "million other things." That is an observation drawn from a completely different process of play. Nor would anything except what the players are interested in doing "affect the direction massively." Why would it? The players and their characters are what the game is ABOUT. That is the whole point. There REALLY ARE no plothooks in a pure 'zero myth' kind of play. Of course, you are correct, even DW allows for SOME GM decisions about the world, but DW isn't really a hard 'players invent the narrative' game, at least not directly.
> 
> In fact, if you read DW carefully, you will come to understand that the GM is, technically, 'in charge of' the contents of the world. She creates Fronts, Steadings, Maps, etc. HOWEVER, while the GM is allowed to have a 'campaign concept' (which is going to center on a Campaign Front presumably) the GM is not supposed to simply impose this idea on the players. She might not even have such a concept going in. She's supposed to ask questions, note what the answers are, and investigate the players and what their characters are like. If the players want to know something about the world, the GM LETS THEM SUPPLY THE ANSWERS (IE if a player asks about who rules the land, turn it back "Well, I don't know, who is it?"). Only AFTER character generation should the GM really start to define some fronts and such. They should reflect what the players want (there is likely to be at least an initial Adventure Front, but it might be something fairly small scale).



Right. I have understood this for a while. Talk about these action resolution mechanics obfuscated the fact that what people actually meant is that they want the players to use meta level agency to edit the reality of the fictional setting. That's fine, but not something I personally want when playing a tabletop RPG.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Only if the GM's being a jerk. Why? Because the system provides only 3 results (4 if optional fumbles are used)
> 
> But also - D&D specifically limits intent rather than allowing partial success. The game ignores your intent as a player by having a process for attacks that has several very limiting intent options: Attack to inflict harm, attack to disarm, attack to force movement, attack to grapple.
> Each of these has a specific built in intent and 3 of them have different mechanics from the basic harm. It is irrelevant to the mechanics whether your intent is to capture or to kill with harm, until the round you run them out of HP. And you (generally) don't know your opponent's HP until you run them out.
> 
> The only "partial success" in D&D is on attacks - and that's not from the attack  roll at all. That's 3 outcomes: fail, succeed, critical. The partial success is rolling a lower than maximum damage. And even then, that's a VERY weak argument, since the D&D player's intent mechanically has no bearing upon the outcome. If they pick an attack, they will do harm (HP), do a forced movement, do a grapple, or disarm the opponent.



The part you had quoted had moved on from the combat example, so no jerkiness needed.  

The fact is that if you view combat as the extended resolution mechanic it is, then the success with cost becomes absolutely apparent -- you can succeed outright, defeating your opponents without expending any additional resources (unlikely), you can defeat your opponents while suffering various levels of resource expenditure from mild to severe, and you can be defeated, either fleeing or being incapacitated or killed.  It's only when you start to try to sever the individual actions as somehow independent of the whole that you get into the idea that combat isn't a success with cost mechanic but instead argue that attack rolls are fail/succeed/succeed wildly.  Trying to defeat the argument about success with cost by doing this kind of analysis is exactly the kind of internalized justifications I was talking about.  Combat in 5e is not the attack roll, it's the whole thing from pre-initiative through resolution, and it's absolutely chock-full of costs to success.

But, again, to move on from combat, there's also the common approach to running D&D where the GM undermines player successes that thwart the desired or expected story.  Things like having a module that hard codes NPC behavior and ignoring PC successes to enforce this, or the gang example from above, these are ways the GMs, even in good faith, act to complicate the PC's lives because the binary nature of the D&D check system is, at least sometimes, unfulfilling.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. I have understood this for a while. Talk about these action resolution mechanics obfuscated the fact that what people actually meant is that they want the players to use meta level agency to edit the reality of the fictional setting. That's fine, but not something I personally want when playing a tabletop RPG.



Hitpoints are a meta-level agency used to edit the reality of the fictional setting.  View them in this lens:  The GM rolls for the orc, declares a hit, and that your PC is killed!  You say, wait, I want to spend some hitpoints to prevent that, how many do I need to spend.  The GM then rolls to determine the cost for this rewrite, gets a 7, and tells the player.  The player sighs, and says they only have 6 right now, so the orc does kill the player (ignoring death saves for now, which are another meta-level tool).

All games have meta elements.  Some you're used to, some you don't like, some you don't notice.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Hitpoints are a meta-level agency used to edit the reality of the fictional setting.  View them in this lens:  The GM rolls for the orc, declares a hit, and that your PC is killed!  You say, wait, I want to spend some hitpoints to prevent that, how many do I need to spend.  The GM then rolls to determine the cost for this rewrite, gets a 7, and tells the player.  The player sighs, and says they only have 6 right now, so the orc does kill the player (ignoring death saves for now, which are another meta-level tool).



Nope. You don't decide to use hit points. Sure, they're not realistic but that's another matter. 



Ovinomancer said:


> All games have meta elements.  Some you're used to, some you don't like, some you don't notice.



Of course they do. And I am not saying that no such elements should ever exist. But there is a difference in prevalence and scope of these things. People were talking about summoning entire towers and their evil owners into existence.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Nope. You don't decide to use hit points. Sure, they're not realistic but that's another matter.



Curiously, if a player wanted their PC to die, would you force expending hp on them?  I mean, presumably hitpoints are always used because there's a baseline assumption that players don't want their PCs to be defeated.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Of course they do. And I am not saying that no such elements should ever exist. But there is a difference in prevalence and scope of these things. People were talking about summoning entire towers and their evil owners into existence.



You've never once ad libbed something into a game because it was needed or because the idea just struck you?  GMs do this ALL THE TIME.  The issue here isn't the creation whole cloth of a tower and evil owner, but rather who has that power -- is it entirely vested in one player who gets a special title or is it shared?  It's fine to like one structure over the other, but you shouldn't complain about meta-tools or making things up on the spot because that's not the issue -- that's entirely accepted so long as the right person is doing it.  And, again, perfectly fine to like that structure -- I like it (I run D&D after all), but I also like games where it's not like that.


----------



## Aldarc

A single roll in PbtA/DW can represent a fairly large number of discreet/atomic actions in a game like D&D. So success-with-a-complication in PbtA combat, for example, can reflect a more complicated series of exchanges than the more discreet turn-based actions in D&D: e.g., you attack goblin 1, you damage the goblin, other goblins get opportunity attacks, you take damage, and now the goblins have you surrounded, etc. This can be resolved in a single roll in DW but it may require 3+ rolls in D&D to resolve. But this is largely because PbtA games are more interested/invested in the fictional positioning of the narrative than the resource management mini-game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Curiously, if a player wanted their PC to die, would you force expending hp on them?  I mean, presumably hitpoints are always used because there's a baseline assumption that players don't want their PCs to be defeated.



That really isn't a situation the system is designed to handle. It would depends on the specifics. I guess in normal D&D paradigm they would at least 'spend' the hit points in a sense that the hit points would be gone. So basically they would choose to take extra damage.



Ovinomancer said:


> You've never once ad libbed something into a game because it was needed or because the idea just struck you?  GMs do this ALL THE TIME.  The issue here isn't the creation whole cloth of a tower and evil owner, but rather who has that power -- is it entirely vested in one player who gets a special title or is it shared?  It's fine to like one structure over the other, but you shouldn't complain about meta-tools or making things up on the spot because that's not the issue -- that's entirely accepted so long as the right person is doing it.  And, again, perfectly fine to like that structure -- I like it (I run D&D after all), but I also like games where it's not like that.



Yes. And someone has to have that power. I prefer it to be the GM. (Mostly. There of course will be some small exceptions.) Now some people might have different preferences, and that's fine. But it would perhaps been clearer if people had said from the get go, that when they talk about player agency, they actually speak about the player having narrative level control. Because that is another matter entirely, and I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.




What do you mean, then, by player agency?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

darkbard said:


> What do you mean, then, by player agency?



To put it super simply, it is that the actions of the characters matter.

(Perhaps I should have said 'narrative control mechanics,' or 'direct narrative control' instead of just 'narrative control' because I guess it could be argued that by choosing the actions of their characters the players in a way indirectly partly control the narrative.)


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Heck, upthread @prabe was discussing how and why a successful check to win over a gang by suborning the leader (Pup was the name) might be undone because the GM decides that such suborning rubs the gang members the wrong way!  How is that not exactly a success with consequence -- you succeed in your action to win over the gang leader, but suffer a consequence because now the gang is surly about it?



I might not have been clear about my intent; if so, I apologize.

I didn't mean that (in the example) having Pup's followers resist forcefully was supposed to be the inevitable result of the PCs' suborning Pup. The idea was always that it'd be because of something the PCs did *after* suborning Pup. It might be a consequence of the original check, if the result allowed, or it might be the result of a subsequent one. Or (in a game with fewer/different mechanical restraints) it might happen when the PCs did something the GM thought Pup's followers would particularly resent. In at least the latter, it is in principle possible the PCs wouldn't trigger the rebellion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> That really isn't a situation the system is designed to handle. It would depends on the specifics. I guess in normal D&D paradigm they would at least 'spend' the hit points in a sense that the hit points would be gone. So basically they would choose to take extra damage.
> 
> 
> Yes. And someone has to have that power. I prefer it to be the GM (Mostly. There of course will be some small exceptions.) Now some people might have different preferences, and that's fine. But it would perhaps been clearer if people had said from the get go, that when they talk about player agency, they actually speak about the player having narrative level control. Because that is another matter entirely, and I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.




I don’t know if narrative control is what’s needed so much as narrative influence. Or at least, the potential for narrative influence through the established mechanics of the game.

And this narrative influence need not be absolute....it actually can’t be....but the more of it that is present, the more agency a player will have. 

So I run a 5E D&D game. I run it in a way that is very player driven compared to the default assumptions. The players have helped shape the setting through introduction of elements of their characters’ backstories and though ideas suggested during play. The “adventures” they go on are largely of their choosing. Yes, there are some metaplot elements that I’ve scattered throughout, and which will largely serve as the “endgame” but those have all been crafted with these specific PCs and players in mind. So there are still plenty of GM driven elements. 

Overall a decent amount of agency for the players, but still plenty for the GM. 

Compared with my Blades in the Dark game with the same players, it has less player agency. It’s largely just due to the way each game is designed. D&D requires that I as GM limit player agency in how challenges are crafted and how play proceeds. Even in our approach where I try to do so less than what’s expected in the game as designed. Blades is designed to actively promote the style I’ve adopted for my 5E game. It’s inherent in the design of BitD. I don’t have to radically tweak the game and its mechanics and techniques to get to that point.

All this is to say that it sounds like you enjoy games where player agency is more limited, and where the GM is driving the action, with the players responding, and then the GM building on that response. This is a perfectly fine way to play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> No. I want the world to respond to the PCs' successes. I want Duke Fornyard to resent them for succeeding in swaying the king; I want the merchant thief Iltan to mark them as potential marks after a profitable dungeon raid; I want Winter's Fang to notice that Auriqua is no longer under the Tundra Queen's protection and take interest. To take examples that at least would fit into the campaigns I'm running.



And every one of these is accomplished in Dungeon World's mechanics/process. Duke Fornyard, Merchant Thief Iltan, Winter's Fang, these are all 'Dangers' within 'fronts' in Dungeon World, and part of the GM's job is to both construct these, and manage them through 'doom clocks'. There's an entire chapter in which all of this is spelled out in great detail in the DW rules. These things are established (either at/near the start of a campaign, or as added adventure fronts as-needed). There is a structure to them, including portents, goals, dramatic conflicts to be addressed (IIRC they're called 'questions'), etc. Whenever a 'Doom' comes to pass, the world changes. This will then reflect back onto the PCs in some fashion, usually creating difficult conditions, bringing consequences of failures home to roost, etc. The purpose though is always to bring focus onto the PCs' stories. 

So, in these kinds of narrative games, generally speaking, there may be things which happen where the explanation is consequences of PC actions in the past, as simple 'living world, stuff happens', or even as someone gunning directly for the PCs (and this could simply be introduced by the GM, not necessarily a consequence of anything). The focus is always on how these situations relate to the premises and goals of play. 

Now, it would be PERFECTLY consonant in a game of this kind for some action that PCs took in the past to boomerang back onto them for completely unknown reasons. This might, for example, be a great way to develop the theme of pathos and ultimate hopelessness in the face of cosmic forces which would inform a Cthulhu Mythos (Cosmic Horror) genre game. Yes, the protagonists closed the gate and dismissed the Mi Go menace, but now the investigator has vanished and left behind only a strange pool of icor, the reporter is hearing strange piping sounds and wakes up in the mornings dressed exhausted. The Miskatonic U professor has a strange compulsion to peruse certain books in the library's secret collection... Rumors of strange events in the South Pacific filter into the news wires. Apparently something is still loose in the world, and it is even WORSE than the Mi Go! And it knows who you are...


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm willing to accept that there's a preference thing about how a thing feels, but this argument is incoherent in that EVERY RPG does this thing, you're just used to it in the RPGs you prefer to play.  Combat in D&D is all about incomplete success, often with a cost or consequence -- you successfully hit the orc, but don't kill it (partial success), and now the orc tries to hit you (consequence).  Heck, upthread @prabe was discussing how and why a successful check to win over a gang by suborning the leader (Pup was the name) might be undone because the GM decides that such suborning rubs the gang members the wrong way!  How is that not exactly a success with consequence -- you succeed in your action to win over the gang leader, but suffer a consequence because now the gang is surly about it?
> 
> Success coupled with cost or consequence is part of almost every RPG out there -- it's just traditionally hidden behind the GM's screen.  It might not taste the same, and so not be liked, if it's out in the open, but it's not any different, really, from the things you're used to eating.




But how it feels to people is absolutely all that matters here.  You can make an argument about it being the same as what you're used to all you want, but if it doesn't feel that way to them--and for a lot of people it absolutely doesn't--then the problem is every bit as real.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And every one of these is accomplished in Dungeon World's mechanics/process.



{snip}


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, in these kinds of narrative games, generally speaking, there may be things which happen where the explanation is consequences of PC actions in the past, as simple 'living world, stuff happens', or even as someone gunning directly for the PCs (and this could simply be introduced by the GM, not necessarily a consequence of anything). The focus is always on how these situations relate to the premises and goals of play.



Sorry to snip, trying to keep it limited to what I'm directly responding to (but genuinely thank you for explaining DW further).

Since I don't actively prep more than about a session's worth of material at a time--about what I expect the PCs to encounter in a session--I keep track of a lot of ideas in my head that are sorta pending. (Though there was one situation where I kept track of time while the PCs were out of town, so I'd know how long ago things had happened when they got back--this is not my usual approach.) From what I read of AW (which I realize isn't exactly DW, and which I bounced off of pretty hard so my understanding might be skewed) it's a more-formalized version of my approach to things; it really didn't seem likely to generate different stories than the D&D games I run (setting settings aside), and your description of how the ideas I floated could be brought into a DW game doesn't change that impression.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> I'm sure that is the case for these people you describe just like I'm sure that play priorities and aesthetic preferences and turn-offs are something of a Rorschach Test (which is what I was alluding to above) just like Hit Points are.
> 
> I believe you're fairly new, but these issues are at the heart of many, many discussions that we've had over the years (which is why I alluded to this all being fraught upthread).
> 
> But this is also why I brought up "hostility to analysis" upthread.  It is ok to occupy a duality of mental frameworks that are entirely at tension.  You (not you, people) have a problem with _this _thing, but _that _thing (which, from first principles seems to occupy the same space) you have a problem with.  A person has been abused for a long time by someone who has power over them but inhabits an emotional space (due to myriad reasons) that manifests as Stockholm Syndrome and an empathic bond results.  That same person sees another person in the same place two decades later and is utterly confused by their incoherent behavior and ends up having contempt (not understanding) for them.
> 
> We are extraordinarily complex social animals capable of all manner of oddities, paradoxes, post-hoc justifications, and rationalizations.
> 
> But allowing for that, it seems particularly unhelpful (when analyzing resolution mechanics and their games for *actual *agency) to describe something that is unequivocally, objectively a continuum as a binary because a certain mental framework feels less good than they would like to about a thing that is fundamentally not able to be placed on either side of a distribution.  And due to that discontent, the thing therefore gets binned on _this _side of the distribution (vs _that _side of the distribution or...better yet...where it should be, inside the tails of the distribution).




I understand what you're saying but, well, to be really blunt, I think a discussion of this topic that does not engage with the psychology of perception when it comes to these things  is largely useless.  After all, at the end of the day, this is not any more a case of biased perception than what leads to a concern or not for a degree of agency in the first place.  Some people care a great degree; some people really, really don't.  And what things draw the line where that happens are almost entirely internal and how it feels to them.  Otherwise, as I noted, any improvisation whatsoever would be unacceptable, which is largely impossible outside a very narrow kind of game.

So I think the concern for agency and where someone sees it being impaired is an almost entirely internal matter, and ignoring where people draw these lines leave any analysis as pointless.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> So I think the concern for agency and where someone sees it being impaired is an almost entirely internal matter, and ignoring where people draw these lines leave any analysis as pointless.




I think you have a valid point; perception matters and will ultimately determine one’s preference. 

However, I don’t think that such perception is absolute. I do think that perception can change. Especially when that perception is based on admittedly limited information or experience. 

I know that my perception on games and how they work has changed due to discussion with others. I’m pretty sure I’m not special in that regard.


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## nevin

I think agency is all about perception.  If the players are able to make changes and feel that those changes were good, by thier goals and perceptions they feel they had agency.  If every single thing they do boomerangs back with bad, or pain in the ass consequences then it's very easy to percieve that as the DM actively screwing over the Players attempt to exercise thier agency.  Some DM's get so wrapped up in how cool consequences are that they loose sight of the fact that if every action has negative conseqences , (usually because it's an easy way to keep the players off balance), then at some point you lose all ability to motivate them because they are screwed no matter what they do.  
If you get burned no matter what you do then it doesn't matter what you do.   That's really not much different that putting the game on rails and taking away all agency.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> In games like BitD, DW, and I expect BW as well, there is nothing except action resolution and the direct fallout from it.



Agreed.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> In DW, for instance, the GM is advised to build sketch maps and develop 'fronts', which are a type of meta plot where there can be 'clocks' which can regulate and structure making GM moves to an extent (and might even answer some "what if the PCs just go off and don't deal with this," if that is even interesting).
> 
> Mostly everything is pretty focused on what the PCs can see and what is in arm's reach of them. There are not a "million other things."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if you read DW carefully, you will come to understand that the GM is, technically, 'in charge of' the contents of the world. She creates Fronts, Steadings, Maps, etc. HOWEVER, while the GM is allowed to have a 'campaign concept' (which is going to center on a Campaign Front presumably) the GM is not supposed to simply impose this idea on the players. She might not even have such a concept going in. She's supposed to ask questions, note what the answers are, and investigate the players and what their characters are like. If the players want to know something about the world, the GM LETS THEM SUPPLY THE ANSWERS (IE if a player asks about who rules the land, turn it back "Well, I don't know, who is it?"). Only AFTER character generation should the GM really start to define some fronts and such.



Certainly in AW, the fronts are built by the GM _after _the first session.

There are many ways the players in a RPG can influence the subject matter of the fiction: action declaration and resolution; sheer narration; suggestions to the GM; formal signals via PC build (eg Beliefs in Burning Wheel or Milestone in Marvel Heroic RP); etc. DW is at the less "formal" end of any spectrum of such methods.

Whatever method is used, there's just no need for the GM to make up other stuff that doesn't relate to play except as part of the GM's private imagining about what is happening in the fiction.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I didn't mean that (in the example) having Pup's followers resist forcefully was supposed to be the inevitable result of the PCs' suborning Pup. The idea was always that it'd be because of something the PCs did *after* suborning Pup. It might be a consequence of the original check, if the result allowed, or it might be the result of a subsequent one. *Or (in a game with fewer/different mechanical restraints) it might happen when the PCs did something the GM thought Pup's followers would particularly resent*. In at least the latter, it is in principle possible the PCs wouldn't trigger the rebellion.



Here, in the sentence that I've bolded, we see a clear statement of the position that _GM agency _should predominate: it is not any mechanical or player-driven process but rather _the GM's thought_ that determines what happens in the fiction.



Thomas Shey said:


> I think a discussion of this topic that does not engage with the psychology of perception when it comes to these things  is largely useless.  After all, at the end of the day, this is not any more a case of biased perception than what leads to a concern or not for a degree of agency in the first place.  Some people care a great degree; some people really, really don't.  And what things draw the line where that happens are almost entirely internal and how it feels to them.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think the concern for agency and where someone sees it being impaired is an almost entirely internal matter, and ignoring where people draw these lines leave any analysis as pointless.



The thread topic is not _who enjoys Dungeon World_? or _who wants agency? _It's about whether certain techniques thwart player agency.

That topic is (in my view) actually much more interesting than a discussion of who enjoys what. Learning what someone else enjoys doesn't give me any useful understanding about how to GM or play a RPG. Learning how various techniques relate to various possibilities of agency does.



nevin said:


> I think agency is all about perception.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If you get burned no matter what you do then it doesn't matter what you do.   That's really not much different that putting the game on rails and taking away all agency.



I don't know of any RPG that (i) supports a high degree of player agency and (ii) can produce the result _you get burned no matter what you do_.

Based on my own experience, I would associate _you get burned no matter what you do_ with 2nd-ed style D&D play, or a style of play using or influenced by CoC or some approaches to White Wolf. And I would associate with very low player agency and very high GM control over the content of the fiction, with action resolution making little or no contribution to that content.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Here, in the sentence that I've bolded, we see a clear statement of the position that _GM agency _should predominate: it is not any mechanical or player-driven process but rather _the GM's thought_ that determines what happens in the fiction.



I'll grant that it's not mechanical, in that there's no check that results in it happening, but if it's in response to something the PCs do, how can it not be player-driven? You are acting as though I'm saying it should happen regardless, and I'm not saying that; I'm saying it should happen if the PCs do something that makes it happen. Merely taking control from or of Pup (in your example) wouldn't--I'd be inclined to say shouldn't--be enough; it should happen if/when the PCs do something after taking control that goes against the followers' interests or desires.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> The math indeed is a bell curve with the basic distribution putting about 45-50 % of the outcomes in the Success w/ Cost/Complication range then 25-27.5 % on the tails (or about 2/3 success rate).  Obviously as resources are brought to bear, you use your better score, you get help, odds will increase (and vice versa).
> 
> This is by design as you noted.  Success w/ Cost/Complication is the snowballing engine, the primary content creator, the beating heart of the PBtA games.



I think you COULD make a PbtA type of game work even without the 7-9 complication mechanism. At least in DW a LOT of the moves the GM makes are "Make a move when the players look to you for what happens next." Since DW is particularly focused on exploration that might be more true of it than AW or other PbtAs, I don't know. In any case, the 7-9s are definitely the place where the GM generally applies the most direct and immediate pressure.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I'll grant that it's not mechanical, in that there's no check that results in it happening, but if it's in response to something the PCs do, how can it not be player-driven? You are acting as though I'm saying it should happen regardless, and I'm not saying that; I'm saying it should happen if the PCs do something that makes it happen.



First, and for clarity, _the PCs do something that makes it happen_ means, in this context, _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction_.

Second, and following on, and as you point to in the first sentence, _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction in response to something the PCs do_.

Third, and assuming that it is the players who are narrating what it is that their PCs do, we therefore have _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction in response to the players deciding that something happens in the fiction_.

That _cannot_ count as player-driven. Because if it did, then every time the players declare an action for their PCs _in response to some framing or event or situation that the GM narrates_ we would have something that is GM-driven! And no one in this thread has been arguing for that.

The bigger picture: _for the players to effect the fiction by prompting the GM to narrate stuff_ is a minimum condition for their being a RPG at all. Without that, it's just a monologue from the "GM" - and I use the inverted commas to signal that such monologuing wouldn't _really _be GMing at all, as there would be no game taking place.

For such prompting to actually count as player agency to any meaningful degree, the player needs to be exercising some influence over _what it is that the GM narrates_. There are 101 ways that can be done - as per my post 355 not far upthread - but all of them put constraints, informal or formal, operating in respect of both timing and content, around the GM's decision-making process.


----------



## Aldarc

Thomas Shey said:


> I understand what you're saying but, well, to be really blunt, I think a discussion of this topic that does not engage with the psychology of perception when it comes to these things  is largely useless.  After all, at the end of the day, this is not any more a case of biased perception than what leads to a concern or not for a degree of agency in the first place.  Some people care a great degree; some people really, really don't.  And what things draw the line where that happens are almost entirely internal and how it feels to them.  Otherwise, as I noted, any improvisation whatsoever would be unacceptable, which is largely impossible outside a very narrow kind of game.
> 
> So I think the concern for agency and where someone sees it being impaired is an almost entirely internal matter, and ignoring where people draw these lines leave any analysis as pointless.



If you want to talk about the psychology of a complicated success, I would say that I often feel that I have a greater deal of agency when it comes to PbtA games than in traditional D&D games. This is because (1) success still happens, (2) complications are often negotiated from the fiction, and (3) a number of PbtA hand players the ability to decide (in part) what happens when it transpires. In DW I may decide what ongoing effects or issues may wizard is facing as a result of the complicated success when casting a spell. This is not dictated to me by the GM. Even though it triggers a GM soft move, there is also a player-facing component. That's often more psychologically satisfying to me than the GM dictating my character's errors or incompetency.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> First, and for clarity, _the PCs do something that makes it happen_ means, in this context, _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction_.



I flatly reject this premise. "The PCs do something that makes it happen" can absolutely include "Someone rolls a Success-with-complication on a relevant check." If you think the GM deciding which move to make in that context is "the GM decides that something happens in the fiction" then you're not really arguing with me.


pemerton said:


> Second, and following on, and as you point to in the first sentence, _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction in response to something the PCs do_.



Again, this is, as I understand it, *exactly the mechanism by which complications accrue in BitD or PbtA games.* The PCs roll either a failure or a success-with-complications, and the GM makes a move in response to that--and the GM decides what that move is.


pemerton said:


> Third, and assuming that it is the players who are narrating what it is that their PCs do, we therefore have _the GM decides that something happens in the fiction in response to the players deciding that something happens in the fiction_.



This is what GMs do, whether it's choosing which move to make in a PbtA game, or something less ... regulated, or maybe constrained, like D&D. It neither specifically follows from nor contradicts your other points, that I can see.


pemerton said:


> That _cannot_ count as player-driven. Because if it did, then every time the players declare an action for their PCs _in response to some framing or event or situation that the GM narrates_ we would have something that is GM-driven! And no one in this thread has been arguing for that.



It looks to me as though you just said that PbtA games aren't player-driven, and I know you don't believe that. Heck, I don't believe that--at least, I don't believe that so many people who experience it differently are either lying or deluded.


pemerton said:


> The bigger picture: _for the players to effect the fiction by prompting the GM to narrate stuff_ is a minimum condition for their being a RPG at all. Without that, it's just a monologue from the "GM" - and I use the inverted commas to signal that such monologuing wouldn't _really _be GMing at all, as there would be no game taking place.



I don't disagree, actually.


pemerton said:


> For such prompting to actually count as player agency to any meaningful degree, the player needs to be exercising some influence over _what it is that the GM narrates_. There are 101 ways that can be done - as per my post 355 not far upthread - but all of them put constraints, informal or formal, operating in respect of both timing and content, around the GM's decision-making process.



Again, I don't disagree. I think I disagree that the constraints must (or at least strongly should) be mechanical in order for there to be player agency, the way you seem to strongly prefer, but I believe that GM constraint is a strong indicator of good (or at least good faith) GMing. Heck, much of how @Lanefan describes their games is radically different from how I play/run, but I'd say that sticking so meticulously to extensive prep is a form of constraint, just not one that you prefer (it's closer to my own preferences, I'll admit).


----------



## zarionofarabel

Many of the posts on the thread make me wish I could understand Blades In The Dark. I read it through a couple of times but it still makes me go, huh?


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> If you want to talk about the psychology of a complicated success, I would say that I often feel that I have a greater deal of agency when it comes to PbtA games than in traditional D&D games. This is because (1) success still happens, (2) complications are often negotiated from the fiction, and (3) a number of PbtA hand players the ability to decide (in part) what happens when it transpires. In DW I may decide what ongoing effects or issues may wizard is facing as a result of the complicated success when casting a spell. This is not dictated to me by the GM. Even though it triggers a GM soft move, there is also a player-facing component. That's often more psychologically satisfying to me than the GM dictating my character's errors or incompetency.



I don't doubt you for a moment, but looking at the rules for AW (and BitD, which you don't mention) it seemed to me as though I'd be playing (not GMing, playing) in a metaphorical straightjacket. It just seemed as though everything was so tightly constrained, and there wasn't any world to push against or grab onto so reactions to my actions seemed wildly unpredictable--and if I can't predict the reactions, the actions themselves feel random to me.

All of that aside from my strong distaste for way games of that broad type lean so hard on complicated success, which I perceive as partial failure.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> So unexpected things never happen? The players do not come upon things that they didn't know about before? The people they meet are just blank robots with no motivations or goals?
> 
> Like I think I get what you actually mean, you let the players dictate the direction and generate things around that, right? But that still requires creating a lot of stuff that will have an enormous impact on how the campaign ultimately unfolds.



Right, so it is by no means the case that, in at least the stuff that has happened in 4e etc. in my D&D games, that I as GM am not a significant influence on what is happening. I think this would be true in a BW game, or a DW game as well. In all of these games the GM has a significant role in framing scenes. There are mechanical limits on GM authority in all of them though, and at least BW (and to a bit lesser extend DW) pass a lot of narrative influence onto the players. They express both intent and action, may actually introduce elements to the game world themselves, and certainly are expected to set out the basic elements to be used in play.

So, for example, in DW (not so familiar with BW personally) the players establish BONDS between the PCs. These can be anything, although some 'canned' ones are provided which different classes can use. This establishes some level of social dynamics in the party. You get actual XP for acting on and 'retiring' these bonds. You would then establish new ones (there's not a detailed process for that, but logically each bond should emerge from elements of play). PCs can also have background, and the description of the process for starting play, the 'first session', heavily emphasizes player participation in both world creation and defining the characters place in it. DW then tells the GM to place the characters in the thick of things, even going so far as to advise that they might start in the middle of a fight or other action sequence. This is intended to immediately and forcefully test and refine their initial concepts.

Admittedly, you could run a DW game in which the GM came up with pretty much all of this stuff (except bonds, those are owned by players explicitly) and not entirely invalidate the DW principles of play, though the players MUST be informed before the fact of the gist of what is established canon and the general 'concept' of the campaign (which probably means at least some understanding of the Campaign Front). For example if the GM's concept is 'Zombie Plague' then that would be communicated to the players as part of the decision to start a game, potentially along with a description of parameters of the nature of zombies and how they will initially manifest. If the players like this, then obviously they can simply generate their own agendas on this basis. If they don't, then the GM is advised to adapt (IE maybe the zombies seem less interesting than political intrigue, and so get adjusted down to being a mere 'adventure front', a menace that disappears after a couple sessions).


----------



## prabe

zarionofarabel said:


> Many of the posts on the thread make me wish I could understand Blades In The Dark. I read it through a couple of times but it still makes me go, huh?



At least it didn't make you actively angry. I think I would have preferred being puzzled to that.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> I understand what you're saying but, well, to be really blunt, I think a discussion of this topic that does not engage with the psychology of perception when it comes to these things  is largely useless.  After all, at the end of the day, this is not any more a case of biased perception than what leads to a concern or not for a degree of agency in the first place.  Some people care a great degree; some people really, really don't.  And what things draw the line where that happens are almost entirely internal and how it feels to them.  Otherwise, as I noted, any improvisation whatsoever would be unacceptable, which is largely impossible outside a very narrow kind of game.
> 
> So I think the concern for agency and where someone sees it being impaired is an almost entirely internal matter, and ignoring where people draw these lines leave any analysis as pointless.




I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying here.  Let me clarify:

I'm not remotely saying (and I would never say because its absurd) that game designers should not engage in understanding and leveraging well-understood cognitive fundamentals of humanity at large.  They 100 % have to.  In fact, one of the primary things that these (PBtA, FitD, et al) games do (which I often champion) is that their reward cycles are entirely Skinner Theory motivated:

- xp for failure or xp for very specific things you want to reward so they animate players to pursue in play (pursuing thematic interests, making Action Rolls in Desperate Position in Blades, etc).

Things like this are absolutely insightful and brilliant game design.

And "say yes or roll the dice", "follow the players' lead", "do NOT have a solution in mind", "drive play toward conflict", "no plot points/don't play the story/there is no story/play to find out what happens" (Vincent Baker's axioms from Dogs in the Vineyard that informed Apocalypse World and all of its offshoots and, in my opinion, are the most influential indie design tenants there is) are ALL about broad human psychology.  They're about how to invest agency and provoke action within the players thus handing over a huge chunk of the responsibility for the trajectory of play.

What I AM saying in my post above is the following:

(a)  Human neurological diversity is extreme.

(b)  Among that diversity are absolutely niche cognitive frameworks.

(c)  I've been running these games and talking to people about them (thousands of people) for 16 years now (since I first ran Dogs in the Vineyard).  This is the FIRST time I've encountered it.  I've never encountered people saying "Success With Cost/Complication" feels indecipherable from "Failure."  That doesn't mean its not legitimate.  I'm sure they/you feel that way.  

(d)  But because its niche its not something that is inferable by designers or something that can be uncovered via research (a la Skinner's research/experiments/theory).

(e)  So they aren't going to design around the uninferrable.

That is unless they're intentionally creating niche design for a very specific subset of people.  And don't get me wrong here either.  I'm not remotely against niche design.  I'm enormously encouraging of it.  That is one of the absolute best aspects of the indie design scene of the last 20 years (focused, intentful design for niche themes/premise/crowds).  

And the last thing that I'm saying is that I don't know that all of this isn't a perception of "Success With Complications" as consistent with "Failure" is something that is actually native to all (or even much) of these people.  I have to wonder (like SO much that happens with D&D) how much of this is cultural or cognitive conditioning due to nearly exclusive exposure to one play paradigm (and its action resolution mechanics) for a long period of time.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I flatly reject this premise. "The PCs do something that makes it happen" can absolutely include "Someone rolls a Success-with-complication on a relevant check." I



I think you missed my phrase "in this context". The context was your post which was about an _alternative to_ "someone rolls a Success-with-complication on a relevant check."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, so it is by no means the case that, in at least the stuff that has happened in 4e etc. in my D&D games, that I as GM am not a significant influence on what is happening. I think this would be true in a BW game, or a DW game as well. In all of these games the GM has a significant role in framing scenes. There are mechanical limits on GM authority in all of them though, and at least BW (and to a bit lesser extend DW) pass a lot of narrative influence onto the players. They express both intent and action, may actually introduce elements to the game world themselves, and certainly are expected to set out the basic elements to be used in play.
> 
> So, for example, in DW (not so familiar with BW personally) the players establish BONDS between the PCs. These can be anything, although some 'canned' ones are provided which different classes can use. This establishes some level of social dynamics in the party. You get actual XP for acting on and 'retiring' these bonds. You would then establish new ones (there's not a detailed process for that, but logically each bond should emerge from elements of play). PCs can also have background, and the description of the process for starting play, the 'first session', heavily emphasizes player participation in both world creation and defining the characters place in it. DW then tells the GM to place the characters in the thick of things, even going so far as to advise that they might start in the middle of a fight or other action sequence. This is intended to immediately and forcefully test and refine their initial concepts.
> 
> Admittedly, you could run a DW game in which the GM came up with pretty much all of this stuff (except bonds, those are owned by players explicitly) and not entirely invalidate the DW principles of play, though the players MUST be informed before the fact of the gist of what is established canon and the general 'concept' of the campaign (which probably means at least some understanding of the Campaign Front). For example if the GM's concept is 'Zombie Plague' then that would be communicated to the players as part of the decision to start a game, potentially along with a description of parameters of the nature of zombies and how they will initially manifest. If the players like this, then obviously they can simply generate their own agendas on this basis. If they don't, then the GM is advised to adapt (IE maybe the zombies seem less interesting than political intrigue, and so get adjusted down to being a mere 'adventure front', a menace that disappears after a couple sessions).



What you describe here seems like a perfectly normal traditional RPG, except perhaps some things that are more codified in the rules. GM frames the scenes. Characters have backgrounds and motivations and relationships. The GM creates a campaign premise and a get's a buy in for that from the players. And of course players can come up with agendas for their character's in any game. Now I am still even more perplexed what your objection was with my claim that the GM has to make up and decide a lot of stuff, because nothing in this precludes that.


----------



## chaochou

?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> And the characters are not going to investigate any of those? They were not dropped there to possibly characters to that direction? That no one at the moment doesn't know exactly know where they lead doesn't change that they're plot hooks. In improvisational game the GM often drops plot hooks and only after the players decide to follow some of them they decide where exactly they lead. Same thing here.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> _When _the thing was determined really has nothing to do with point.



This makes no sense to me.

If I walk randomly through a town, drawing a map as I go to record where I've travelled, it makes no sense to say that _I undertook a walk by following a map_. Rather, I undertook a walk and in the process I created a map.

By fairly close analogy: if me and my Burning Wheel GM play some BW, and at the end of the session, or of the campaign, have a record of all that happened as a result of play, it doesn't follow that _play was led by that record_. That record was created out of the process of play.

"Plot hook" is not a synonym for "interesting thing in the fiction". No one disputes, as far as I know, that the GM has a job to present interesting things. That doesn't mean the GM has a job to present "hooks" that lead into "plots" that the GM is the sole or primary author of.



Crimson Longinus said:


> So you as a player used a meta power to summon a setting element you had invented into the existence and then had to roll whether that meta power actually works.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I have not ever player Traveller, but it seems to me that the GM setting up difficulty is the same thing than the GM determining what is possible.



This makes no sense to me either. The BW mechanic and the Traveller mechanic are almost exactly the same:

In Classic Traveller: _I'm looking for someone who will sell me illegal guns at a good price._ Referee: _OK, if you make a Streetwise check at <insert throw required> you find such a person._

In Burning Wheel: _Is Evard's tower around here?_ GM: _If you make a Great Masters-wise check at <insert number of successes required> then yes, it's around here_.​
Before the action declaration, the existence of _someone who will sell me illegal guns at a good price_ or of _Evard's tower _is a mere genre-appropriate possibility (we know it's genre-appropriate in Traveller because the game includes worlds with specified law levels and includes characters with abilities like Admin and Bribery and Streetwise; we know it's genre-appropriate in Burning Wheel because the game includes characters who are sorcerers and summoners and witches and augurs and they have abilities like Great Masters-wise.)

And if the action is successful, in both cases it is established that there is, in a concrete sense known to the character, _a person here who will sell illegal guns at a good price_ or _Evard's tower in this general vicinity_.

The difference is on failure narration: Burning Wheel gives very clear guidelines and principles for the narration of failure; Traveller doesn't, leaving it all as an exercise for the GM to work out.



Crimson Longinus said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> why is immersion not ruined by the players "to hit" roll determining what the Orc does or doesn't do with it's shield?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Who physically rolls the randomiser or what exact sort of randomiser is used doesn't really matter here. The player is not introducing any significant setting details with their action declaration.
Click to expand...


This doesn't make sense to me either.

The Traveller or Burning Wheel action declarations could instead be handled in the following way:

(1) Player asks the question: _can I find someone who will sell illegal guns for a good price?_ or _Isn't Evard's tower around here?_

(2) The GM makes a secret roll to determine whether or not there is such a gun seller, or such a tower.

(3) The player then makes a check to determine if his/her PC knows the answer.

(4) If the player's check succeeds, the GM tells her the answer.​
(This is in fact pretty close to how Classic Traveller handles a hunt for branches of the Psionics Institute - they are not handled just by application of the general Streetwise rules.)

That would not change the range of possible outcomes in play, though it would change some of the play dynamics - eg if the player rolls a success but the GM says _you can't find it_, the player knows that that is due to the GM's secret roll, and so knows her failure reflects knowledge on the part of her PC; whereas if the player rolls a failure and the GM says _you can't find it_, the player doesn't know what the GM's secret roll said.

That change in dynamics is much the same as what one gets in systems that don't determine the issue of shield-blockage by reading it off a single roll by the attacking character. Eg in RuneQuest we can tell whether the PC's miss is due to being blocked by the Orc's shield (if the player rolls a hit and the GM rolls a successful shield parry for the orc) or perhaps for some other reason (if the player fails the roll to hit).

So anyway, what doesn't make sense to me is that you assert that in one case it makes no difference to who rolls the randomiser, but in the other your complaint only makes sense if that _does _matter.

I also don't really follow your remark about _significant setting details_. If my PC is fighting an Orc, and kills it because it fails to block with its shield, that failure seems pretty significant! And conversely, had it blocked and therefore lived to try and kill me, the significance would have been driven home even more! Evard's tower is also significant, but I don't see why it is _more_ significant. Both get their significance from the fact that the player cares about them as elements of the shared fiction.



Crimson Longinus said:


> A dangerous demon is loose; maybe fight it guys? Pretty standard RPG plot. And in a good game this would probably be connected to something else (i.e. to a more complicated plot) instead of being a mere random encounter.



Well, I personally think the BW game I play in is a good game. The demon seemed to be connected to Evard. After some pretty demanding exchanges, it fled the battle (Thurgon doesn't know much about demons, but conjectures that this may be due to the conditions or constraints of its summoning). It hasn't turned up again, so I don't know what that connection was. I don't know what the GM had or has in mind for it.

Burning Wheel doesn't use random encounters as a device, so that possibility doesn't need to be considered.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Modules by their nature must present things differently.



That's not really true.

Robin Laws has some sample adventures in his Narrator's Book for HeroWars. They are not presented anything like H3 Pyramid of Shadows. One difference is that they don't prescript what the players have their PCs do.

Greg Stafford has many Episodes in the Prince Valiant rulebook. They present situations - all standard knightly stuff - but likewise don't prescript what the players have their PCs do. The Episode Book for Prince Valiant, which is much more recent than Stafford's book, is interesting in this context because some of the Episodes it contains are similar to Stafford's in design (eg the Bone Laird episode that I mentioned upthread) and others are much closer to H3 and hence need a reasonable amount of work to be useful (eg Mark Rein*Hagen's episode). So it is a concrete illustration of the quite different ways that GM-side prep can be undertaken.


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> Many of the posts on the thread make me wish I could understand Blades In The Dark. I read it through a couple of times but it still makes me go, huh?




Make a thread and ask questions!  I (and several others I'm sure) would be glad to help you out (especially if it means you play the game and spread the indie plague to others!)!


----------



## hawkeyefan

zarionofarabel said:


> Many of the posts on the thread make me wish I could understand Blades In The Dark. I read it through a couple of times but it still makes me go, huh?




So I first learned about Blades online, and I took a look at the SRD to see if it was a game I’d consider running before buying it. The SRD gave me some impressions, but I was not at all sure if I understood everything. 

So I checked online and found some actual play videos by the designer John Harper. I’m not typically a big fan of actual plays, but I found these to be very illuminating about the game and how it plays. After watching a few, I ordered the book. 

And even after it arrived, I kept watching the actual play videos. 

I then introduced it to my group. We went slowly at first and focused on the basics and then expanded with each session. 

It’s become a big hit with my group, and it may be my favorite game. 

I recommend it. Pretty sure you can get the pdf for a reasonable price. But maybe consider watching  the actual plays by John Harper if you’re not sure.


----------



## darkbard

hawkeyefan said:


> So I checked online and found some actual play videos by the designer John Harper. I’m not typically a big fan of actual plays, but I found these to be very illuminating about the game and how it plays.




@Campbell introduced me to the game via conversations on these boards and strongly recommended Harper's gameplay videos. I _love_ them (I too am not a big fan of gameplay videos generally), and think the game is the best thing in game design since sliced bread. Well, you know what I mean.

The videos can be found here:


----------



## pemerton

@zarionofarabel

I don't play or own BitD so can't help you with the details of that system.

One thing I would say, though, about games like Apocalypse World, Burning Wheel, Marvel Heroic RP and (I'm guessing) BitD: they are presented in a much more "didactic" fashion than games like D&D or classics like RuneQuest and Traveller. That is, they speak much more overtly about what the jobs are that the various participants are expected to do, rather than leaving it - especially in the GM case - for people to just "work it out" based on their experience with wargaming and other RPGs.

That can mean that it is helpful to try and leave some baggage at the (metaphorical) door and to try and take that didactic material seriously and at face value.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> "Plot hook" is not a synonym for "interesting thing in the fiction". No one disputes, as far as I know, that the GM has a job to present interesting things. That doesn't mean the GM has a job to present "hooks" that lead into "plots" that the GM is the sole or primary author of.



You seem to be tripping up on semantics again. 'Plot hook' definitely is just an interesting thing that potentially directs towards more interesting things. In your example the mention of the Rufus' master is a clear plot hook for investigating who this master is and what they want. By your definition a GM who improvises could never use 'plot hooks' and that definitely is not the case.



pemerton said:


> This makes no sense to me either. The BW mechanic and the Traveller mechanic are almost exactly the same:
> 
> In Classic Traveller: _I'm looking for someone who will sell me illegal guns at a good price._ Referee: _OK, if you make a Streetwise check at <insert throw required> you find such a person._​​In Burning Wheel: _Is Evard's tower around here?_ GM: _If you make a Great Masters-wise check at <insert number of successes required> then yes, it's around here_.​
> Before the action declaration, the existence of _someone who will sell me illegal guns at a good price_ or of _Evard's tower _is a mere genre-appropriate possibility (we know it's genre-appropriate in Traveller because the game includes worlds with specified law levels and includes characters with abilities like Admin and Bribery and Streetwise; we know it's genre-appropriate in Burning Wheel because the game includes characters who are sorcerers and summoners and witches and augurs and they have abilities like Great Masters-wise.)
> 
> And if the action is successful, in both cases it is established that there is, in a concrete sense known to the character, _a person here who will sell illegal guns at a good price_ or _Evard's tower in this general vicinity_.



(I still don't actually know anything about Traveller. Space something probably...) First of, existence of general type of a person or good and existence of _an unique specific thing you made_ up are rather drastically different things. Furthermore, in most games in these sort of "I see if I can find any guns/drugs/etc" situations the Gm is perfectly within their rights to just say "no, this is not sort of place they can be found at." I.e. the GM actually determines whether the thing is present, the player determines whether their character manages to find it.



pemerton said:


> I also don't really follow your remark about _significant setting details_. If my PC is fighting an Orc, and kills it because it fails to block with its shield, that failure seems pretty significant! And conversely, had it blocked and therefore lived to try and kill me, the significance would have been driven home even more! Evard's tower is also significant, but I don't see why it is _more_ significant. Both get their significance from the fact that the player cares about them as elements of the shared fiction.



You have some sort of weird category error going on here. These are completely different sort of things. If your character decides to attack the orc, you don't get to decide what the orc does, the GM decides that. And whether that orcs attempts to defend (assuming that the GM decides that this is what they do) is represented via some passive number such as in D&D or via some active roll like in many other games really does not affect that. That is completely different than narrative level ability to summon towers into being! Can you really not tell the difference between deciding the actions of your character and deciding things about the world, external to your character? Damn, this is a bizarre conversation...



pemerton said:


> Well, I personally think the BW game I play in is a good game. The demon seemed to be connected to Evard. After some pretty demanding exchanges, it fled the battle (Thurgon doesn't know much about demons, but conjectures that this may be due to the conditions or constraints of its summoning). It hasn't turned up again, so I don't know what that connection was. I don't know what the GM had or has in mind for it.



Right. the demon encounter is a clear plot hook towards Evard then. 



pemerton said:


> Burning Wheel doesn't use random encounters as a device, so that possibility doesn't need to be considered.



Encounters can still be 'random' in a sense that they're just standalone things and not really connected to anything. I  meanly meant it like that.



pemerton said:


> That's not really true.
> 
> Robin Laws has some sample adventures in his Narrator's Book for HeroWars. They are not presented anything like H3 Pyramid of Shadows. One difference is that they don't prescript what the players have their PCs do.
> 
> Greg Stafford has many Episodes in the Prince Valiant rulebook. They present situations - all standard knightly stuff - but likewise don't prescript what the players have their PCs do. The Episode Book for Prince Valiant, which is much more recent than Stafford's book, is interesting in this context because some of the Episodes it contains are similar to Stafford's in design (eg the Bone Laird episode that I mentioned upthread) and others are much closer to H3 and hence need a reasonable amount of work to be useful (eg Mark Rein*Hagen's episode). So it is a concrete illustration of the quite different ways that GM-side prep can be undertaken.



Yes, there can be many different kinds of plot hooks. I already know that...


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> It just seemed as though everything was so tightly constrained, and there wasn't any world to push against or grab onto so reactions to my actions seemed wildly unpredictable--and if I can't predict the reactions, the actions themselves feel random to me.




So I just read this and was kind of dumbfounded; the world of Blades in the Dark involves a specific setting, though it is sketched rather than fully drawn. 

But I just realized the SRD does not contain the setting information. So you didn’t have any of the setting specific info at hand, just the mechanics. 

I think that a lot of context would be missed in that case. I remember the SRD not doing much for me, too....but I had forgotten that there was no setting info in it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> You seem to be tripping up on semantics again. 'Plot hook' definitely is just an interesting thing that potentially directs towards more interesting things. In your example the mention of the Rufus' master is a clear plot hook for investigating who this master is and what they want. By your definition a GM who improvises could never use 'plot hooks' and that definitely is not the case.
> 
> 
> (I still don't actually know anything about Traveller. Space something probably...) First of, existence of general type of a person or good and existence of _an unique specific thing you made_ up are rather drastically different things. Furthermore, in most games in these sort of "I see if I can find any guns/drugs/etc" situations the Gm is perfectly within their rights to just say "no, this is not sort of place they can be found at." I.e. the GM actually determines whether the thing is present, the player determines whether their character manages to find it.
> 
> 
> You have some sort of weird category error going on here. These are completely different sort of things. If your character decides to attack the orc, you don't get to decide what the orc does, the GM decides that. And whether that orcs attempts to defend (assuming that the GM decides that this is what they do) is represented via some passive number such as in D&D or via some active roll like in many other games really does not affect that. That is completely different than narrative level ability to summon towers into being! Can you really not tell the difference between deciding the actions of your character and deciding things about the world, external to your character? Damn, this is a bizarre conversation...
> 
> 
> Right. the demon encounter is a clear plot hook towards Evard then.
> 
> 
> Encounters can still be 'random' in a sense that they're just standalone things and not really connected to anything. I  meanly meant it like that.
> 
> 
> Yes, there can be many different kinds of plot hooks. I already know that...



That is absolutely not my understanding of what a "plot hook" is.  Plot hooks are things that try to engage the players in the GM's plot, which often take the shape of things that interest the players.  But an interesting thing isn't a plot hook if there's no plot there.  I mean, it's right there in the term -- plot hook.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> So I just read this and was kind of dumbfounded; the world of Blades in the Dark involves a specific setting, though it is sketched rather than fully drawn.
> 
> But I just realized the SRD does not contain the setting information. So you didn’t have any of the setting specific info at hand, just the mechanics.
> 
> I think that a lot of context would be missed in that case. I remember the SRD not doing much for me, too....but I had forgotten that there was no setting info in it.



Yeah, @prabe, the very play of the game is wholly rooted in the fiction, so a given action has clear results that flow directly from the fiction -- there's plenty of handles.  If you mean the rules don't state explicitly what given actions do -- yeah, they don't at all.  If you're just reading the rules and trying to figure out what a Hunt action results in, I cannot tell you without a game context to place it into, only say it likely involves you trying to shoot or track or hunt something or someone.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> That is absolutely not my understanding of what a "plot hook" is.  Plot hooks are things that try to engage the players in the GM's plot, which often take the shape of things that interest the players.  But an interesting thing isn't a plot hook if there's no plot there.  I mean, it's right there in the term -- plot hook.



It definitely needs to potentially go somewhere. But it doesn't mean that 'somewhere' needs to be clearly defined that the moment of planting the hook. Pretty common in more improvisational style. Plant some interesting things with a vague idea of which sort of direction they might lead and then actually elaborate if the players bite.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> But how it feels to people is absolutely all that matters here.  You can make an argument about it being the same as what you're used to all you want, but if it doesn't feel that way to them--and for a lot of people it absolutely doesn't--then the problem is every bit as real.



No, how people take things is not all that matters here.  Here we're having a discussion about WHY people take it that way, so asserting that there's no discussion to be had because people don't like something is not terribly helpful.  I'm very curious as to why people don't like success with complication because, to me, D&D is pretty much full of it.  In D&D, though, it manifests because the GM gets a "turn" which can be used to act against whatever you're trying to do as a player with your PC -- the orc fights back, the merchant haggles, the noble condescends, etc.  Here, sure, you roll a check and get the success or failure, but what happens next is usually that the GM uses their turn to introduce a complication.  Success with complications, in games that feature them, do not have GM turns, so it's wrapped up into a single mechanic -- you roll, and the situation reacts accordingly.  I'm curious why it's okay that someone else (the GM) can just make up complications, but so long as it's not directly tied to a roll it's just fine if the GM makes up whatever, even if you succeeded.  I mean, I've run D&D for decades, I know how this works.

Honestly, this understanding that the mechanics in games that focus on success at cost are the replacement for the GM's "turn" to do thing was one of the keys for me grasping the new paradigm.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> It definitely needs to potentially go somewhere. But it doesn't mean that 'somewhere' needs to be clearly defined that the moment of planting the hook. Pretty common in more improvisational style. Plant some interesting things with a vague idea of which sort of direction they might lead and then actually elaborate if the players bite.



You've, again, smeared a term to be so broad as to be useless.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> I think I disagree that the constraints must (or at least strongly should) be mechanical in order for there to be player agency, the way you seem to strongly prefer, but I believe that GM constraint is a strong indicator of good (or at least good faith) GMing. Heck, much of how @Lanefan describes their games is radically different from how I play/run, but I'd say that sticking so meticulously to extensive prep is a form of constraint, just not one that you prefer (it's closer to my own preferences, I'll admit).



Thing is, and oddly enough, having that "extensive prep" in place allows me to not stick quite so meticulously to it during play! 

What it does do is make it clear to me-as-DM at which point(s) I'm deviating from said prep (a fairly common occurrence, believe it or not), and gives me a pretty good idea of a) whether my deviation threatens violation of anything previously established in play and-or b) what effects if any that deviation might have in the long run.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> That is absolutely not my understanding of what a "plot hook" is.  Plot hooks are things that try to engage the players in the GM's plot, which often take the shape of things that interest the players.  But an interesting thing isn't a plot hook if there's no plot there.  I mean, it's right there in the term -- plot hook.




Put another way:

All "plot hooks" are "provocations to action" but not all "provocations to action" are "plot hooks."

Indie games of the like we're discussing (of which the lead post may not be playing, but the way he is playing is "indie-inspired") are premised upon "provocations to action" (that do not entail metaplot but are ignited in the GM's creative center by the player and the system's overt signalling to that GM) whereas "plot hooks" are fundamental to a working metaplot.

I wrote above several of Baker's seminal indie axioms above;  "There is no story/plot" and "drive play toward conflict" are what I'm talking about (Dogs also talks about provoking to action in its GMing section).   



> *Dogs in the Vineyard 138*
> 
> _All I'm saying is that the PCs stories aren't yours to write and aren't yours to plan.  If you've GMed other roleplaying games, this will be the hardest part of all:  let go of 'what's going to happen.'
> 
> ...Leave 'what's going to happen' to what happens."_




Pretty apt for the lead post of this thread and his style of GMing.  Know your genre.  Know your game's premise.  Know the PCs (who have been invested with thematic questions to be answered).  Follow their lead.  Do not plot...provoke.  Follow the rules.  Then follow their lead some more (rinse, repeat).


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> It definitely needs to potentially go somewhere. But it doesn't mean that 'somewhere' needs to be clearly defined that the moment of planting the hook. Pretty common in more improvisational style. Plant some interesting things with a vague idea of which sort of direction they might lead and then actually elaborate if the players bite.




I don't think you're getting an disagreement here.  This looks good.  This looks exactly like "provoke...and follow their lead."  

But that isn't the same as "plot hook."  Its not semantics to say they aren't the same thing.  A shared technical language is of the utmost important for analysis and my guess is that the overwhelming % of people will qualify "plot hook" as necessitating an intertwined relationship with a persistent metaplot.  If that isn't there, its just a "provocation to action."

Again, all "plot hooks" are "provocations to action" but not all "provocations to action" are plot hooks.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> No, how people take things is not all that matters here.  Here we're having a discussion about WHY people take it that way, so asserting that there's no discussion to be had because people don't like something is not terribly helpful.




Not what I'm saying.  I'm saying dismissing what they feel and that they'd feel differently _if they just looked at it right_ is not only useless, but counterproductive. If you genuinely feel otherwise on that, then we have nothing much to talk about.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying here.  Let me clarify:
> 
> I'm not remotely saying (and I would never say because its absurd) that game designers should not engage in understanding and leveraging well-understood cognitive fundamentals of humanity at large.  They 100 % have to.  In fact, one of the primary things that these (PBtA, FitD, et al) games do (which I often champion) is that their reward cycles are entirely Skinner Theory motivated:
> 
> - xp for failure or xp for very specific things you want to reward so they animate players to pursue in play (pursuing thematic interests, making Action Rolls in Desperate Position in Blades, etc).
> 
> Things like this are absolutely insightful and brilliant game design.
> 
> And "say yes or roll the dice", "follow the players' lead", "do NOT have a solution in mind", "drive play toward conflict", "no plot points/don't play the story/there is no story/play to find out what happens" (Vincent Baker's axioms from Dogs in the Vineyard that informed Apocalypse World and all of its offshoots and, in my opinion, are the most influential indie design tenants there is) are ALL about broad human psychology.  They're about how to invest agency and provoke action within the players thus handing over a huge chunk of the responsibility for the trajectory of play.
> 
> What I AM saying in my post above is the following:
> 
> (a)  Human neurological diversity is extreme.
> 
> (b)  Among that diversity are absolutely niche cognitive frameworks.
> 
> (c)  I've been running these games and talking to people about them (thousands of people) for 16 years now (since I first ran Dogs in the Vineyard).  This is the FIRST time I've encountered it.  I've never encountered people saying "Success With Cost/Complication" feels indecipherable from "Failure."  That doesn't mean its not legitimate.  I'm sure they/you feel that way.




I think if this is your way of saying "this is rare fringe position" it is elevating your own experiences, which probably involve at least some degree of self-selection in the people you encountered on this subject to a more dominant group than is supported.  I could also note I've hit at least a half dozen people like it before, and that's in addition to the people in this thread who've indicated they share the same position.

So, while I won't say its a majority by any mean, I'm afraid your premise--that its "niche"--is not one I accept.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> So I just read this and was kind of dumbfounded; the world of Blades in the Dark involves a specific setting, though it is sketched rather than fully drawn.
> 
> But I just realized the SRD does not contain the setting information. So you didn’t have any of the setting specific info at hand, just the mechanics.
> 
> I think that a lot of context would be missed in that case. I remember the SRD not doing much for me, too....but I had forgotten that there was no setting info in it.



Yeah, but I was talking as much about Apocalypse World as Blades.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> Not what I'm saying.  I'm saying dismissing what they feel and that they'd feel differently _if they just looked at it right_ is not only useless, but counterproductive. If you genuinely feel otherwise on that, then we have nothing much to talk about.



No one's done that.  I've said the arguments presented so far are incoherent in that arguing that success with complication is a partial failure means ignoring when it's happening all around you in more traditional play.  Not liking that particular iteration of it is, of course, just fine.  It bears discussing what makes it different though, which you appear to be shutting down by just making it a preference thing.  I can tell you exactly why I hate green beans, for instance (I'm a supertaster, which is anything but super).  Saying you don't like it because you it feels like your success is being partially negated is fine -- so long as you can also explain why it's fine when this happens in more traditional play, because it does, all the time.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Aldarc said:


> If you want to talk about the psychology of a complicated success, I would say that I often feel that I have a greater deal of agency when it comes to PbtA games than in traditional D&D games.




That's absolutely legitimate.  I'm not saying PbtA and similar systems automatically violate people's sense of agency.  The lines people draw in terms of what impinges on that are almost always personal and idiosyncratic.  All I'm noting is that some degree-of-success systems can butt up against that, and it seems like ones that really want to center the result of attempts as mixed can very much do so, especially since their whole point is to be plot drivers.  If it doesn't do so for you, you aren't one of those.



Aldarc said:


> This is because (1) success still happens, (2) complications are often negotiated from the fiction, and (3) a number of PbtA hand players the ability to decide (in part) what happens when it transpires. In DW I may decide what ongoing effects or issues may wizard is facing as a result of the complicated success when casting a spell. This is not dictated to me by the GM. Even though it triggers a GM soft move, there is also a player-facing component. That's often more psychologically satisfying to me than the GM dictating my character's errors or incompetency.




I'll also note from this one of the issues is that you're comfortable being involved in outcomes on a metalevel, which not everyone is.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, @prabe, the very play of the game is wholly rooted in the fiction, so a given action has clear results that flow directly from the fiction -- there's plenty of handles.  If you mean the rules don't state explicitly what given actions do -- yeah, they don't at all.  If you're just reading the rules and trying to figure out what a Hunt action results in, I cannot tell you without a game context to place it into, only say it likely involves you trying to shoot or track or hunt something or someone.



So, the lack of setting information was about Apocalypse World. In both games, though, it is--as I understand the games, and an intentionally-designed aspect of them--roughly impossible to know beforehand what complication is going to arise when you fail to get an uncomplicated success on a given check. My feeling--I think aside from my dislike of the implementations of complicated success--is that being forced to make the checks partially-blind that way seems to have less agency than making them with the results known.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Yeah, but I was talking as much about Apocalypse World as Blades.



These games, while similar in general approach, actually have very different resolution mechanics.  Position and effect are entirely tied to the current fictional state, and clearly enunciate what's at stake.  Reading the game without putting it into the context of a current fictional state might seem very vague, and that's intentional because it's supposed to be refined within the current context of play.  Absent that context, reading the rules for Blades probably isn't going to sate a desire to know what's possible with a given action.

AW, from what I've read (I haven't had the opportunity to play or run), seems very similar -- outside of a context, the moves don't really clearly tell you what will happen when you use them.  Certainly not like how a D&D spell description or class feature does.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> I think if this is your way of saying "this is rare fringe position" it is elevating your own experiences, which probably involve at least some degree of self-selection in the people you encountered on this subject to a more dominant group than is supported.  I could also note I've hit at least a half dozen people like it before, and that's in addition to the people in this thread who've indicated they share the same position.
> 
> So, while I won't say its a majority by any mean, I'm afraid your premise--that its "niche"--is not one I accept.




With respect, this is a bit rich when I've been a member of extreme minority tastes in the TTRPGing community for over a decade and a half and have consistently had that reality reinforced to me in discussions in order to basically tell me to "piss off" because mainstream tastes etc etc.

My tastes are niche (they absolutely are) and I take no offense to that.  Its self-evident.  

And its not my way of saying its a "fringe position" and elevating my own thoughts or experiences on it.  Its clearly niche because of all the conversations we've had on ENWorld in the last many years on the subject, this is the very first time this has come up.  Now many, many, many other objections have come up.  But this one?  First time ever.  

And the other line of evidence that it is a niche cognitive framework (I'm not going to call it a "position" because its the habitation of an emotional state) is because (even without the 800 lb gorilla backing them), these indie games have been enormously successful and they've had at their beating heart the exact Success With Complications that we're talking about!  And when (broadly) people don't play them its overwhelmingly because of access (they can't get a game or can't arouse a game because everyone is just playing D&D because overwhelmingly TTRPGers are casual and just play the cultural icon with the most ease of access).  

Its no big deal to have a niche cognitive framework when it comes to this thing or that thing.  I've got more than most.  Plenty of others do as well.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> So, the lack of setting information was about Apocalypse World. In both games, though, it is--as I understand the games, and an intentionally-designed aspect of them--roughly impossible to know beforehand what complication is going to arise when you fail to get an uncomplicated success on a given check. My feeling--I think aside from my dislike of the implementations of complicated success--is that being forced to make the checks partially-blind that way seems to have less agency than making them with the results known.



Right, but the fictional state should give you a very good idea of what could happen.  If you're pulling heat on a guy with a pistol and get a failure or partial success, then you can expect that something involving that gun's gonna figure in it.  If there's other things going on, then those might be the trigger.  The point being that whatever the consequence is, you have a reasonable idea of the severity of consequence you may face and a pretty good idea of vectors for that given a specific action in a specific context.  I've never had one of my group go "wait, WHAT?" to a consequence -- they're all direct evolutions of what's going on or what's reasonable within that context (ie, if you're sneaking into a guarded facility, guards showing up is expected).


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> The thread topic is not _who enjoys Dungeon World_? or _who wants agency? _It's about whether certain techniques thwart player agency.
> 
> That topic is (in my view) actually much more interesting than a discussion of who enjoys what. Learning what someone else enjoys doesn't give me any useful understanding about how to GM or play a RPG. Learning how various techniques relate to various possibilities of agency does.




I buy that.  But when the response is "The people who feel that way aren't thinking it through" I can't think that's a useful way to engage with that reaction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I buy that.  But when the response is "The people who feel that way aren't thinking it through" I can't think that's a useful way to engage with that reaction.



I'm not fond of vinegar in any real quantity.  The moment I'm saying, "hey, that's vinegar," is usually where the line is crossed.  That said, I love a whole bunch of things with vinegar in them.  Likewise, if you're going to say you don't the taste of success with complication when the complications are palette forward in your die rolls, but you're fine with it if it's hidden behind some GM spices, that's fine, but "I feel like it's partial failure," doesn't address the fact that you eat meals with partial failure in them all the time in traditional gaming; it just comes from the GM rather than your dice.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Right, but the fictional state should give you a very good idea of what could happen.  If you're pulling heat on a guy with a pistol and get a failure or partial success, then you can expect that something involving that gun's gonna figure in it.  If there's other things going on, then those might be the trigger.  The point being that whatever the consequence is, you have a reasonable idea of the severity of consequence you may face and a pretty good idea of vectors for that given a specific action in a specific context.  I've never had one of my group go "wait, WHAT?" to a consequence -- they're all direct evolutions of what's going on or what's reasonable within that context (ie, if you're sneaking into a guarded facility, guards showing up is expected).



Yeah, the fictional state should point to possible results--I'd argue in any TRPG. I guess in reading the rules, there really didn't seem to be anything preventing the complications from being, at best, tenuously connected to the check being made.

It'd be like ... having a criminal merchant show up to swindle the PCs as the result of a botched Performance check. It's not something I think someone running in good-faith would do, of course, but I didn't see anything preventing it--which seemed kinda strange for a game that came across as so tightly constrained in other ways.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> I'll also note from this one of the issues is that you're comfortable being involved in outcomes on a metalevel, which not everyone is.




Now this? 

THIS is the overwhelmingly majority position held by TTRPG players.  This is not niche.  My position (and others like me) is niche.

But my issue with all of these aspects of play (system, emotional states of being - including jarred/agitated, GM techniques + action resolution = level of agency) is how impervious they seem to be to analysis from the greater community.  There is this censorious impulse/offense-taking toward evaluating why/what/how a thing is.  Its mystifying.  I think two big factors are (a) profound cultural gatekeeping toward the status quo and (b) its because there is a powerful undercurrent of "its art, not engineering" among the GMing community whereby deep analysis feels like a perversion of the aesthetic (obviously I couldn't disagree more).  

But there are clearly other, much more nuanced, aspects going on.  Those interest me (as a curiosity), but that is another subject.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Yeah, the fictional state should point to possible results--I'd argue in any TRPG. I guess in reading the rules, there really didn't seem to be anything preventing the complications from being, at best, tenuously connected to the check being made.
> 
> It'd be like ... having a criminal merchant show up to swindle the PCs as the result of a botched Performance check. It's not something I think someone running in good-faith would do, of course, but I didn't see anything preventing it--which seemed kinda strange for a game that came across as so tightly constrained in other ways.



It's literally in the constraints of the game, though.  From the Blades rules, GM Principles:



> *Let everything flow from the fiction. *The game’s starting situations and your
> opening scene will put things in motion. Ask how the characters react and
> see what happens next. NPCs react according to their goals and methods.
> Events snowball. You don’t need to “manage” the game. Action, reaction, and
> consequences will drive everything.



Emphasis in original.

If you're playing in AW or Blades and your GM is adding off the wall consequences, they're not following the principles of play.  I mean, you can also have D&D GMs that force things, but that's not good faith play.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> If you're playing in AW or Blades and your GM is adding off the wall consequences, they're not following the principles of play.  I mean, you can also have D&D GMs that force things, but that's not good faith play.



Yeah. Bad-faith GMing is potentially a problem for any TRPG, though.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> With respect, this is a bit rich when I've been a member of extreme minority tastes in the TTRPGing community for over a decade and a half and have consistently had that reality reinforced to me in discussions in order to basically tell me to "piss off" because mainstream tastes etc etc.




I can't see how my response is changed by the fact your tastes are fringe.  It doesn't change my feeling that treating this as a fringe position is extrapolating beyond the available data.  It also doesn't say your making that assumption is insulting; it just says that an argument based on it does not seem well founded.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I can't see how my response is changed by the fact your tastes are fringe.  It doesn't change my feeling that treating this as a fringe position is extrapolating beyond the available data.  It also doesn't say your making that assumption is insulting; it just says that an argument based on it does not seem well founded.



Then it should be fairly trivial to find counterexamples to show it's not well founded.  I love a well constructed argument, and MBC has the experience and longevity to make a case based on his interactions, considering he pretty much only joins in discussions of how games play and has been an outspoken champion of indie games for a long time.  Saying his experience doesn't count because it might be wrong isn't a strong position to counter from.  And, given the regularity of posts in the 5e forum (and in previous editions) on rules modifications to add in tiers of success and failure, it would appear that many in the mainstream are keen to add such mechanics into their gaming.  This doesn't suggest to me that there's a silent majority (or even large minority) that find success with complications to be anathema.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> No one's done that.  I've said the arguments presented so far are incoherent in that arguing that success with complication is a partial failure means ignoring when it's happening all around you in more traditional play.  Not liking that particular iteration of it is, of course, just fine.  It bears discussing what makes it different though, which you appear to be shutting down by just making it a preference thing.  I can tell you exactly why I hate green beans, for instance (I'm a supertaster, which is anything but super).  Saying you don't like it because you it feels like your success is being partially negated is fine -- so long as you can also explain why it's fine when this happens in more traditional play, because it does, all the time.




I'm not so much shutting it down as suggesting you're asking a question that for many, maybe most of the people feeling that way, they could not answer.  To use your example, there are foods I dislike that I couldn't not disassemble the reasons for in any useful fashion; I just do (there are also others I very much could answer it about too).  

(To make it clear, my own feelings on this are only mildly negative, sufficiently mildly so that digging down to find where it comes from when it doesn't with a conventional game systems is not worth it to me (though I'm unconvinced the situations are as parallel as you're depicting it).  But I'm well aware other people feel otherwise).


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> I can't see how my response is changed by the fact your tastes are fringe.  It doesn't change my feeling that treating this as a fringe position is extrapolating beyond the available data.  It also doesn't say your making that assumption is insulting; it just says that an argument based on it does not seem well founded.




No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.

But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.  

In the last 8.5 years I've been engaged in damn near every_single_indie game thread there is (either starting it or participating vigorously).  I've never seen this position espoused to date until the last several pages of this thread.  If anyone else who has been a participant in this thread who is a very long term, tenured poster has contact with this ( @pemerton , @Lanefan , @Ovinomancer , @AbdulAlhazred , @chaochau , @Campbell , @Bedrockgames , @darkbard , @hawkeyefan ), I would love to hear about it and how much actual contact they've had with it if they have.

Seems odd to me (someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the various complaints about indie games and could list them in a moment's notice) that this one would have somehow escaped me and/or not stuck with me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.
> 
> But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.
> 
> In the last 8.5 years I've been engaged in damn near every_single_indie game thread there is (either starting it or participating vigorously).  I've never seen this position espoused to date until the last several pages of this thread.  If anyone else who has been a participant in this thread who is a very long term, tenured poster has contact with this ( @pemerton , @Lanefan , @Ovinomancer , @AbdulAlhazred , @chaochau , @Campbell , @Bedrockgames , @darkbard , @hawkeyefan ), I would love to hear about it and how much actual contact they've had with it if they have.
> 
> Seems odd to me (someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the various complaints about indie games and could list them in a moment's notice) that this one would have somehow escaped me and/or not stuck with me.



Nope, new to me here.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> Now this?
> 
> THIS is the overwhelmingly majority position held by TTRPG players.  This is not niche.  My position (and others like me) is niche.




For what its worth, some degree of it is okay with everyone I play with, but there's some matter of degree.



Manbearcat said:


> But my issue with all of these aspects of play (system, emotional states of being - including jarred/agitated, GM techniques + action resolution = level of agency) is how impervious they seem to be to analysis from the greater community.  There is this censorious impulse/offense-taking toward evaluating why/what/how a thing is.  Its mystifying.  I think two big factors are (a) profound cultural gatekeeping toward the status quo and (b) its because there is a powerful undercurrent of "its art, not engineering" among the GMing community whereby deep analysis feels like a perversion of the aesthetic (obviously I couldn't disagree more).




For what its worth, I'm all on board analysis of why some things work and others don't.  That's not been my issue in the responses I have responded to, but with some of the priors assumed in the analysis.


----------



## Manbearcat

Let me just say one final thing on this before signing off (as I'm trying to jog my memory banks).

What we have seen and have seen decried (as it should be) is extremely relevant the OP's premise and agency:

GM adjudicating Success With Complications poorly (even if not willfully so) such that their adjudication negates/doesn't honor the PCs earned success aspect of the equation.

User error and "Agency Deprivation 101".

That?  That has absolutely been a thing that the community has discussed and broken down in detail to help GM's to better and more consistently make rules-abiding decisions that are simultaneously dynamic, interesting, provocative.

If, perchance, someone played a game that featured Success With Complications and their GM inconsistently adjudicated things (such that success was negated arbitrarily, even if by accident), I could 100 % see how their takeaway after some play exclusively under this GM may be ("this mechanic doesn't seem like it works...").


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Then it should be fairly trivial to find counterexamples to show it's not well founded.




Nope.  Because this an area where there is simply not enough data to say it is or isn't.  But "you can't prove X" is not a good argument intrinsically for "it's not-X".  What it says is that any argument using either one as an important element in analysis is weak.



Ovinomancer said:


> I love a well constructed argument, and MBC has the experience and longevity to make a case based on his interactions, considering he pretty much only joins in discussions of how games play and has been an outspoken champion of indie games for a long time.  Saying his experience doesn't count because it might be wrong isn't a strong position to counter from.  And, given the regularity of posts in the 5e forum (and in previous editions) on rules modifications to add in tiers of success and failure, it would appear that many in the mainstream are keen to add such mechanics into their gaming.  This doesn't suggest to me that there's a silent majority (or even large minority) that find success with complications to be anathema.




Good for you.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I'm not so much shutting it down as suggesting you're asking a question that for many, maybe most of the people feeling that way, they could not answer.  To use your example, there are foods I dislike that I couldn't not disassemble the reasons for in any useful fashion; I just do (there are also others I very much could answer it about too).
> 
> (To make it clear, my own feelings on this are only mildly negative, sufficiently mildly so that digging down to find where it comes from when it doesn't with a conventional game systems is not worth it to me (though I'm unconvinced the situations are as parallel as you're depicting it).  But I'm well aware other people feel otherwise).



I don't find this persuasive, though.  This is a discussion about how things work, and therefore preferences are fair game to be challenged and analyzed -- largely because you can't fully understand a game until you understand your own preferences.  I get this may not be something a person is inclined or willing to do, but if that's the case, why engage at all?  @prabe seems to be willing to discuss.  I'm fine with @prabe deciding at the end of the day that they don't like a thing, as I am with you, but I'm going to challenge a statement that something is not liked in one context but enjoyed in a slightly different context.  If the response is that the context is the key, I get that, but it's at least looking at the situation and evaluating your approach, which is helpful for both you and the discussion to key in on similarities and differences and analyze those for a better understanding, each to own, what makes a game work better.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> (I still don't actually know anything about Traveller. Space something probably...)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Furthermore, in most games in these sort of "I see if I can find any guns/drugs/etc" situations the Gm is perfectly within their rights to just say "no, this is not sort of place they can be found at." I.e. the GM actually determines whether the thing is present, the player determines whether their character manages to find it.



I don't know what you have in mind with "in most games of these sort". Do you mean D&D circa mid-80s onwards? Vampire? CoC?

Classic Traveller ("Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future) doesn't anywhere state _the GM is perfectly within their rights to just say no_. The rule is the one I quoted: _the referee should set the throw required_. This is just one manifestation of how Classic Traveller (1977 version) supports high player agency RPGing. (I am deliberately citing the publication date because there were changes in later versions to make it more like "most games of these sort". That's one reason I prefer the 1977 vesrion.)

1977 Classic Traveller doesn't anywhere have a single definitive statement of the referee's role - that's a contrast with the editing/presentation of (say) Apocalypse World or Burning Wheel. But when you read through the books you can actually put together a fairly clear list of referee responsibilities:

* The referee adjudicates action resolution, by setting throws required (following and building on the rules and subsystems presented) and establishing consequences;

* There is quite an elaborate system for random encounters (both onworld and in space) but the referee is entitled to also introduce non-random encounters where s/he wants to, in order to reflect the established fiction, present situations and drive the action;

* The referee manages NPCs, having regard to their skills and abilities and the results of throws on the reaction table;

* The referee may introduce new technology or equipment beyond the lists, and may create star systems, worlds and ecologies deliberately rather than using the random generation methods that are presented.

There are also a couple of referee "options":

* The referee can generate a star map in advance; but the game also expressly supports more "spontaneous" creation of the star map on an "as-needed" basis;

* The referee may indicate possible quests using various "in fiction" devices (eg rumours, patrons, the ship's Library program) for signalling these possibilities.

The game is also explicit about the importance of referee-player collaboration. From Book 3:

* "At times . . . combinations of features [of randomly generated worlds] may seem contradictory or unreasonable. Common sense should rule in such cases; either the players or referee will generate a rationale which explains the situation, or an alternative description should be made."

* "A group involved in playing a scenario or campaign can make their adventures more elaborate, more detailed, more interesting, with the input of a great deal of imagination. . . . Above all, the referee and the players should work together. . . . the situation is not primarily an adversary relationship. The referee simply administers rules in situations where the players themselves have an incomplete understanding of the universe. The results should reflect a consistent reality."

It's not part of the referee's job to decide, prior to a Streewise check made to find someone who will sell illegal guns at a good price, to decide whether or not there is such a someone to be found.



Crimson Longinus said:


> existence of general type of a person or good and existence of _an unique specific thing you made_ up are rather drastically different things
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You have some sort of weird category error going on here. These are completely different sort of things. If your character decides to attack the orc, you don't get to decide what the orc does, the GM decides that. And whether that orcs attempts to defend (assuming that the GM decides that this is what they do) is represented via some passive number such as in D&D or via some active roll like in many other games really does not affect that. That is completely different than narrative level ability to summon towers into being! Can you really not tell the difference between deciding the actions of your character and deciding things about the world, external to your character?



You assert these differences. I'm sure they're important to you. I don't really feel the force of them.

If there exists _someone willing to sell illegal guns at a good price_, it follows that _there exists a unique specific person in a particular place willing to engage in that activity_.

The impersonal framing in Traveller mostly reflects that - as the name of the game suggests - the PCs are travellers through the universe. The Streetwise rules address this head-on by saying (Book 1) that "local subcultures . . . tend to be the same everywhere in human society" so that the ability is a portable one.

The personal framing in the Burning Wheel scenario I described, conversely, mostly reflects the fact that asking the referee _Do I know anything about local wizard's towers?_ is incredibly non-immersive (the only time I've ever had to ask someone else to tell me what it is that I know is when I had a (thankfully) brief period of amnesia), whereas asking _Am I right to think that we're in the neighbourhood of Evard's tower?_ actually inhabits my character's mental space. Burning Wheel is not a game that focuses on strangers in strange lands. Connections and relationships are an important part of the game.

As far as the difference between _knowing and_ _finding things_ and _circumventing Orc shields_, they both involve interaction between the character and the broader (fictional) world. When my PC attacks an Orc, it is _the Orc_ who decides whether and how to defend, who instigates the causal process that might result in my attack being blocked, etc. That process interacts with the process my PC initiates - of attacking the Orc with a sword.

When my PC's sidekick contemplates the location of Evard's tower, it is _Evard and his assistants_ who have decided whether or not to build a tower, and where. That process interacts with processes that are internal to my character - like having heard rumours of Evard's tower and its location, and now trying to accurately recall those stories.

It's sheer dogma to insist that one set of processes "naturally" lends itself to all being settled on the player side (via a to-hit roll against static AC) while the other "naturally" lends itself to being settled in some different fashion (GM makes an unconstrainted prior decision, and then has the player make a roll to determine whether or not that decision is communicated to the player). RuneQuest is a RPG that has been around for a pretty long time and handles the shield issue differently from how D&D does - it uses checks to model both processes. Classic Traveller has also been around for a pretty long time, and it handles the _person and place _issue much the same as D&D handles the Orc shield issue.

I understand that a lot of players seem to prefer to play RPGs where they learn their PCs' memories and experiences by having the GM narrate them to them in a 2nd person fashion. It puzzles me that anyone would find this very immersive (unless playing an amnesiac!), but there's no accounting for differences of taste.

But those matters of difference and taste don't really bear upon the actual analysis of the mechanical approaches and the principles that govern them.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> Nope.  Because this an area where there is simply not enough data to say it is or isn't.  But "you can't prove X" is not a good argument intrinsically for "it's not-X".  What it says is that any argument using either one as an important element in analysis is weak.
> 
> 
> 
> Good for you.



I didn't ask you to prove not-X -- that would be silly.  I asked you to show any evidence that thinking of success with complication as failure is even relatively prevalent.  There's lots and lots of discussions about success with complications or even tiers of success, so this isn't a case of not-X, it's a case of any-X.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't find this persuasive, though.  This is a discussion about how things work, and therefore preferences are fair game to be challenged and analyzed -- largely because you can't fully understand a game until you understand your own preferences.  I get this may not be something a person is inclined or willing to do, but if that's the case, why engage at all?  @prabe seems to be willing to discuss.  I'm fine with @prabe deciding at the end of the day that they don't like a thing, as I am with you, but I'm going to challenge a statement that something is not liked in one context but enjoyed in a slightly different context.  If the response is that the context is the key, I get that, but it's at least looking at the situation and evaluating your approach, which is helpful for both you and the discussion to key in on similarities and differences and analyze those for a better understanding, each to own, what makes a game work better.



I'm willing to discuss, to try to figure out why it grates on me as hard as it does. I think it'll be a more useful discussion for all if people don't try to persuade/convince/argue me into liking it. I'm pretty sure it's in with a chance of improving my understanding of my preferences, and it might help others.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> So, the lack of setting information was about Apocalypse World.



The following is really just an in-passing comment: AW seems to me to have a pretty rich implied setting (there's been some sort of apocalypse, there's plenty of petrol and ammunition left over, there are "hardholds" governed (in some loose sense of that term) by hardholders, there are motorcycle gangs and brooding drivers and there's also the world's psychic maelstrom and those who interact with it).

Whether or not someone's into that is of course another thing; but to me the setting seems to be pretty front-and-centre in the game.



prabe said:


> In both games, though, it is--as I understand the games, and an intentionally-designed aspect of them--roughly impossible to know beforehand what complication is going to arise when you fail to get an uncomplicated success on a given check. My feeling--I think aside from my dislike of the implementations of complicated success--is that being forced to make the checks partially-blind that way seems to have less agency than making them with the results known.





Ovinomancer said:


> Right, but the fictional state should give you a very good idea of what could happen.





prabe said:


> Yeah, the fictional state should point to possible results--I'd argue in any TRPG. I guess in reading the rules, there really didn't seem to be anything preventing the complications from being, at best, tenuously connected to the check being made.
> 
> It'd be like ... having a criminal merchant show up to swindle the PCs as the result of a botched Performance check. It's not something I think someone running in good-faith would do, of course, but I didn't see anything preventing it--which seemed kinda strange for a game that came across as so tightly constrained in other ways.



So first, that last example you give is canonical in 4e D&D. From the Rules Compendium (p 163, setting out an imagined example of the play of a skill challenge):

_Kathra_: I’d like to talk to the men to see if any of them saw the demon come by here. How about a Diplomacy check—an 11.​​_DM (marking the second failure)_: The thugs make a show of ignoring you as you approach. Then one of them snarls: “Around here, folks know better than to stick their noses where they’re not wanted.” He puts a hand on the hilt of his dagger.​​_Shara_: I put a hand on my greatsword and growl back at them, “I’ll stick my sword where it’s not wanted if you keep up that attitude.” I got a 21 on my Intimidate check.​​_DM (marking the second success)_: The thug turns pale in fear as his friends bolt back into the tavern. He points at the building behind you before darting after them.​​_Dendric_: What’s the place look like? Is it a shop, or a private residence?​​_DM_: Someone make a Streetwise check.​​_Uldane_: Using aid another, I try to assist Dendric, since he has the highest Streetwise. I got a 12, so Dendric gets a +2 bonus.​​_Dendric_: Thanks, Uldane. Here’s my check . . . great, a natural 1. That’s a 10, even with Uldane’s assistance.​​_DM (marking the third and final failure)_: It looks like an old shop that’s been closed and boarded up. You heard something about this place before, but you can’t quite remember it. As you look the place over, the tavern door opens up behind you. A hulk of a half-orc lumbers out, followed by the thugs you talked to earlier. “I heard you thought you could push my crew around. Well, let’s see​you talk tough through a set of broken teeth.” Roll for initiative!​​_Unfortunately for the adventurers, they failed the skill challenge. If they had succeeded on the last check, they would have remembered stories of a secret entrance into the building._​
This is not actually a very good teaching text, because there is no explanation of what is going on and in particular of how the GM is making decisions. But what we see taking place is that as a result of a failed check to recognise and remember something about a building, which brings the whole skill challenge to a (failed) conclusion, the GM introduces a hostile half-orc accompanied by the earlier-introduced thugs.

But it's hardly unknowable or unfair - it follows right from the prior events, of the thugs retreating into the tavern. Using the terminology of Apocalypse World MC moves, the GM first _announced future badness_ (you're in a rough part of town with unfriendly thugs about) and then followed through by _putting someone (in fact, the whole party) into a spot_ by having the half-orc and crew come out of the tavern to beat them up.

Frankly, when I compare the play of these sorts of player-driven, fiction-first systems (and for current purposes, despite significant differences of technique and mechanics across AW, DW, BW, 4e D&D, MHRP, etc, they all count as player-driven and fiction first) to more "traditional" or typical D&D play, the concern about "partial blindness" just seems bizarre to me. In a D&D adventure when I open a dungeon door there might be one orc or five ogres on the other side; when I walk down a corridor I might fall down a 10' pit or fall down a 20' pit onto spikes or trigger a scything blade or wh knows what; when my PC is walking through an urban area and the GM tells me that someone in a cloak is approach my PC I don't know whether its a friendly cleric with a message or a spy trying to trick me or an assassin hoping to kill me; when the GM reads me one of the plot hooks to H3 Pyramid of Shadows and I have my PC follow the proffered lead who knows what I'm going to find?

If you play GM-driven D&D and are not affected by your almost total inability to control these sorts of possibilities, what are you worried is going to happen in AW play?


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> So first, that last example you give is canonical in 4e D&D. From the Rules Compendium (p 163, setting out an imagined example of the play of a skill challenge):



{snipped the play example for space, sorry}


pemerton said:


> This is not actually a very good teaching text, because there is no explanation of what is going on and in particular of how the GM is making decisions. But what we see taking place is that as a result of a failed check to recognise and remember something about a building, which brings the whole skill challenge to a (failed) conclusion, the GM introduces a hostile half-orc accompanied by the earlier-introduced thugs.



So, 4E really as a teaching example had the PCs fail to remember something based on Charisma checks? (Diplomacy and Intimidate I'm sure about; I think Streetwise was Cha-based in 3E, dunno about 4E) That doesn't seem like a logical consequence to me. I mean, otherwise the outcome (showdown! roll for initiative!) seems pretty reasonable as the outcome of failed checks (or a failed Skill Challenge, which I gather isn't quite the same thing--as I think I've made clear, I missed 4E because no one in the groups I played in played 4E).

My example was a criminal merchant showing up to swindle the PCs *as the result of a failed Performance check*. I tried to pick a skill that was wildly unlikely to have that as a consequence of a failed check. At least, it seems like a helluva reach ...



pemerton said:


> But it's hardly unknowable or unfair - it follows right from the prior events, of the thugs retreating into the tavern. Using the terminology of Apocalypse World MC moves, the GM first _announced future badness_ (you're in a rough part of town with unfriendly thugs about) and then followed through by _putting someone (in fact, the whole party) into a spot_ by having the half-orc and crew come out of the tavern to beat them up.



Aside from the description of "failed to remember" as the result of what I think are Charisma-based checks, I agree, the example of play from 4E seems reasonable.



pemerton said:


> Frankly, when I compare the play of these sorts of player-driven, fiction-first systems (and for current purposes, despite significant differences of technique and mechanics across AW, DW, BW, 4e D&D, MHRP, etc, they all count as player-driven and fiction first) to more "traditional" or typical D&D play, the concern about "partial blindness" just seems bizarre to me. In a D&D adventure when I open a dungeon door there might be one orc or five ogres on the other side; when I walk down a corridor I met fall down a 10' pit or fall down a 20' pit onto spikes or trigger a scything blade or wh knows what; when my PC is walking through an urban area and the GM tells me that someone in a cloak is approach my PC I don't know whether its a friendly cleric with a message or a spy trying to trick me or an assassin hoping to kill me; when the GM reads me one of the plot hooks to H3 Pyramid of Shadows and I have my PC follow the proffered lead who knows what I'm going to find?
> 
> If you play GM-driven D&D and are not affected by your almost total inability to control these sorts of possibilities, what are you worried is going to happen in AW play?



You say "play." I'll presume that if you meant "GM" (or, as I think AW styles is, "MC") you would say that.

So, when I read AW I didn't like the stories it seemed built to ... allow to emerge, to pick a less-than-graceful verb construction; clearly the main worry is that I won't enjoy the story that emerges. I mean, when I was reading it I realized that there was no way I would care at all about any character I played in the game--almost as though the game was specifically written to make me not care.

That aside, the fact that (on reading it, not playing it--I think I've always been clear about that) the outcomes of actions seemed disconnected from the actions made it very hard to feel as though I would be operating with any sense of what the results of anything I wanted my character to do would be. The setting is broadly drawn and intentionally vague, because it seems clear that most of it would emerge during play; even if the players can add things to the setting (which might be the case--I'm not re-reading the rules) but maybe you can see that adding something to the setting is different from changing it, and if nothing exists before it is placed then changing things is (or seems) particularly difficult. I guess a summary could be that the game seemed to be engineered to make it nearly impossible for the PCs to actually solve problems.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Nope. You don't decide to use hit points. Sure, they're not realistic but that's another matter.
> 
> 
> Of course they do. And I am not saying that no such elements should ever exist. But there is a difference in prevalence and scope of these things. People were talking about summoning entire towers and their evil owners into existence.



What is the difference? None of these things is real. They are all figments of our imaginations. None is 'bigger' or 'smaller' than another, there's no law of conservation of significance that needs to be obeyed here. You're simply imagining barriers for yourself which don't exist, putting your imagination about play process into a box. There is no box.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> {snip}
> 
> Sorry to snip, trying to keep it limited to what I'm directly responding to (but genuinely thank you for explaining DW further).
> 
> Since I don't actively prep more than about a session's worth of material at a time--about what I expect the PCs to encounter in a session--I keep track of a lot of ideas in my head that are sorta pending. (Though there was one situation where I kept track of time while the PCs were out of town, so I'd know how long ago things had happened when they got back--this is not my usual approach.) From what I read of AW (which I realize isn't exactly DW, and which I bounced off of pretty hard so my understanding might be skewed) it's a more-formalized version of my approach to things; it really didn't seem likely to generate different stories than the D&D games I run (setting settings aside), and your description of how the ideas I floated could be brought into a DW game doesn't change that impression.



I agree, to a point. First of all, DW definitely gives the GM a good bit of scope. OTOH it heavily discourages what I would call 'overprep', which means developing a lot more than you need. Adventure fronts for example are generated and added to the game as-needed, so probably you'd be writing one up before a play session, if a new one is needed. The campaign front would generally be created at/near the start of the campaign, though it could be left pretty incomplete (you would normally create 3 dangers for a front, and several 'dooms' as well, but maybe not all on day one for the campaign front). 

Steadings are intended to be developed as the game proceeds, largely on the fly, though again some prep is certainly possible. Maps also indicate a bit of basic prep, mostly just to insure there IS some geography when needed (DW doesn't have any notion or particular structured rules for exploration or mapping).

The KEY though is 'what the PCs are interested in'. The GM is a 'fan of the characters'. He's not an objective judge running a world on puppet strings. His explicit goal is to produce a cool narrative of the incredible exploits of the PCs (it may include their deaths, but death is just more drama). So, a front or a steading is simply a tool for the PCs to interact with. It may provide justification, or offscreen 'living world' or cater the GM's creative urges (he's a player too) but fundamentally, starting with the process of the first adventure, it centers on bringing story to the PCs, that is its only explicit purpose, the agenda of the GM. 

So, a DW game has the trappings of D&D, a conceptually similar milieu and subject matter, but a D&D style adventure is not really the process. You could get the exact same story from D&D and DW, but it would come from different participants, to a degree. If the DW GM is following his given agenda and process of play, the players will have crafted the story at least as much as he has.


----------



## prabe

Thank you for being so patient about this. I just want to quibble with one paragraph, I think.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> The KEY though is 'what the PCs are interested in'. The GM is a 'fan of the characters'. He's not an objective judge running a world on puppet strings. His explicit goal is to produce a cool narrative of the incredible exploits of the PCs (it may include their deaths, but death is just more drama). So, a front or a steading is simply a tool for the PCs to interact with. It may provide justification, or offscreen 'living world' or cater the GM's creative urges (he's a player too) but fundamentally, starting with the process of the first adventure, it centers on bringing story to the PCs, that is its only explicit purpose, the agenda of the GM.



I don't think that "fan of the characters" and "objective judge of the rules/world" are mutually exclusive the way your construction implies.

And, I think it's possible to structure a D&D campaign around what the PCs are interested in. The general structure of my campaigns has been: They start with all the characters at the same place and time, and smelly stuff hitting the fan; after a short time settling that, I start to tie in story-options from the characters' backstories (which I request; not everyone gives me one); after some of that, I start to tie in story-options from previous events in the campaign; once the PCs have finished a given story-option to their satisfaction, they have an opportunity to pursue another.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.
> 
> But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.
> 
> In the last 8.5 years I've been engaged in damn near every_single_indie game thread there is (either starting it or participating vigorously).  I've never seen this position espoused to date until the last several pages of this thread.  If anyone else who has been a participant in this thread who is a very long term, tenured poster has contact with this ( @pemerton , @Lanefan , @Ovinomancer , @AbdulAlhazred , @chaochau , @Campbell , @Bedrockgames , @darkbard , @hawkeyefan ), I would love to hear about it and how much actual contact they've had with it if they have.
> 
> Seems odd to me (someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the various complaints about indie games and could list them in a moment's notice) that this one would have somehow escaped me and/or not stuck with me.



Sorry, but what position/viewpoint is it that you think you've never seen?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> I don't think you're getting an disagreement here.  This looks good.  This looks exactly like "provoke...and follow their lead."
> 
> But that isn't the same as "plot hook."  Its not semantics to say they aren't the same thing.  A shared technical language is of the utmost important for analysis and my guess is that the overwhelming % of people will qualify "plot hook" as necessitating an intertwined relationship with a persistent metaplot.  If that isn't there, its just a "provocation to action."
> 
> Again, all "plot hooks" are "provocations to action" but not all "provocations to action" are plot hooks.



I understand the difference you're trying to make, and you kinda have a point, but this difference doesn't exist in practice in any sort of binary fashion. If the characters find out that recently several travellers have vanished in the nearby woods how clearly the GM (or someone) has to know what has happened to these people and why before this qualifies as a 'plot hook' by your definition?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I don't know what you have in mind with "in most games of these sort". Do you mean D&D circa mid-80s onwards? Vampire? CoC?



Yes, probably. 



pemerton said:


> Classic Traveller ("Science-Fiction Adventure in the Far Future) doesn't anywhere state _the GM is perfectly within their rights to just say no_. The rule is the one I quoted: _the referee should set the throw required_. This is just one manifestation of how Classic Traveller (1977 version) supports high player agency RPGing. (I am deliberately citing the publication date because there were changes in later versions to make it more like "most games of these sort". That's one reason I prefer the 1977 vesrion.)



So can they set the difficulty to be impossible? Because in practice that is same as saying 'no.' Anyway, I am not interested arguing about specifics of rules of games I have not read.



pemerton said:


> As far as the difference between _knowing and_ _finding things_ and _circumventing Orc shields_, they both involve interaction between the character and the broader (fictional) world. When my PC attacks an Orc, it is _the Orc_ who decides whether and how to defend, who instigates the causal process that might result in my attack being blocked, etc. That proce



Here the GM decides the actions of the orc, as the orc is not your character.


pemerton said:


> ss interacts with the process my PC initiates - of attacking the Orc with a sword.
> 
> When my PC's sidekick contemplates the location of Evard's tower, it is _Evard and his assistants_ who have decided whether or not to build a tower, and where. That process interacts with processes that are internal to my character - like having heard rumours of Evard's tower and its location, and now trying to accurately recall those stories.



Here the player is deciding actions of Evard and his assistants, even though they're not the player's character.



pemerton said:


> It's sheer dogma to insist that one set of processes "naturally" lends itself to all being settled on the player side (via a to-hit roll against static AC) while the other "naturally" lends itself to being settled in some different fashion (GM makes an unconstrainted prior decision, and then has the player make a roll to determine whether or not that decision is communicated to the player). RuneQuest is a RPG that has been around for a pretty long time and handles the shield issue differently from how D&D does - it uses checks to model both processes. Classic Traveller has also been around for a pretty long time, and it handles the _person and place _issue much the same as D&D handles the Orc shield issue.



I said nothing of 'naturalness'. I merely said that a clear distinction exists and which I prefer. 



pemerton said:


> But those matters of difference and taste don't really bear upon the actual analysis of the mechanical approaches and the principles that govern them.



Really?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> But my issue with all of these aspects of play (system, emotional states of being - including jarred/agitated, GM techniques + action resolution = level of agency) is how impervious they seem to be to analysis from the greater community.  There is this censorious impulse/offense-taking toward evaluating why/what/how a thing is.  Its mystifying.  I think two big factors are (a) profound cultural gatekeeping toward the status quo and (b) its because there is a powerful undercurrent of "its art, not engineering" among the GMing community whereby deep analysis feels like a perversion of the aesthetic (obviously I couldn't disagree more).



It definitely is art, not engineering. But art can be studied and analysed as well.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I don't doubt you for a moment, but looking at the rules for AW (and BitD, which you don't mention) it seemed to me as though I'd be playing (not GMing, playing) in a metaphorical straightjacket. It just seemed as though everything was so tightly constrained, and there wasn't any world to push against or grab onto so reactions to my actions seemed wildly unpredictable--and if I can't predict the reactions, the actions themselves feel random to me.



I will admit that I find this reaction to the game perplexing. IME, it's an atypical one as I don't think that I've ever heard people read the PbtA family of games and say "everything was so tightly constrained" when it comes to world interaction, as the game lives and dies by the principle @Ovinomancer outlines ("the fiction must flow from the fiction") as well as "say yes or roll the dice." That said, I could see from this how you may prefer games like 3e and/or PF2, where action outcomes are more delineated for each skill or action. Though in the case of PF2, it has introduced critical failure, failure, success, and critical success to the mix of outcomes for even things like spells and skills. I think a lot of the desire or motivation for adding complicated success to increasingly more games is not to create "partial failure," but, rather, to add "at least some success." 

I will agree that sometimes one of the more difficult aspects when GMing PbtA comes from understanding the difference between a soft move and a hard move and understanding what GM responses (even if they flow from the fiction) are appropriate to each type of move. If a person doesn't have a solid grasp on those principles or rules, then it can potentially make 7-9 seem more like failure than is intended, hence (I suspect) your feeling of unpredictability with outcomes. 



> All of that aside from my strong distaste for way games of that broad type lean so hard on complicated success, which I perceive as partial failure.



Not to invalidate your tastes, but I haven't really experienced the feeling of "partial failure" as a player when dealing with complicated success games. In fact, a lot of the fun for me as a player comes from these moments of complicated success. For example, if I try climbing a wall in some games like D&D, my only options are often make it fully or fail to climb. But complicated successes add twists to the outcome, sometimes with decisions to make. I can make it up the wall, but there may be a cost: e.g., I alert the guards below or the guards are waiting for me at the top. Or maybe I drop my family heirloom or weapon while climbing. Or maybe I have to make a choice: do I make it up stealthily but lose the gold I'm stealing or do I keep the gold but alert the guards? Or even do I try saving my family heirloom or the gold? You may view this as a "partial failure," but to me it's a success. I feel successful as I ultimately get what I wanted from the action: i.e., I make it up the wall. I may not make it up the wall smoothly or with the gold, but I do successfully climb the wall. But complications and costs for success drive the narrative forward for me as a player in new and interesting ways outside of binary success and failure states. It results in new fictional situations that my character has to deal with, and that's fun for me. 



prabe said:


> My feeling--I think aside from my dislike of the implementations of complicated success--is that being forced to make the checks partially-blind that way seems to have less agency than making them with the results known.



Hmmm...I don't think it's that far removed, for example, from the relatively common use of a critical fumble in d20 games. It's often a point where you don't know what the outcome will be or how the GM will adjudicate it. And one of the oft floated criticisms of critical fumbles is that they often don't honor the competency of the PCs or humiliate them in some way. IME, however, soft/hard moves triggered by failures and complicated success in PbtA/FitD/Fate games more frequently flow from the fiction than critical fumbles and the like in D&D. Again, all IME. If I am rushing into battle with goblins triggering Hack and Slash and I get a 7-9 success, then I likely know what some of the potential outcomes could be: e.g., I take damage from the goblins in the exchange, I get surrounded by goblins, or maybe running into the goblins now leaves my young ward defenseless. The outcomes are fiction-bound. 

I honor how you may see the checks as "partially blind," but I see the checks as mostly transparent, as I _know each and every time_ I pick up the dice that I achieve full success on a 10+, trigger a soft move or complicated success on 7-9, and that I trigger a hard move on 1-6. I often have played "complicated success" games where the stakes are stated forthright so you know what the potential outcomes before you roll, but I also think that clear stakes are an important part of making rolls. Games like Fate and Cortex often operate by the principle of "don't roll unless there are interesting positive AND negative consequences." Or don't roll unless something is at stake. But this is basically another way of saying "say yes or roll the dice."


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Sorry, but what position/viewpoint is it that you think you've never seen?




I too can't recall any previous discussions wherein folks claim that success with a complication feels indistinguishable from failure.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> You say "play." I'll presume that if you meant "GM" (or, as I think AW styles is, "MC") you would say that.



I said "play" and meant "play" (as opposed to GM/MC).



prabe said:


> the game seemed to be engineered to make it nearly impossible for the PCs to actually solve problems.



I don't get this at all. The sample of play shows a player solving a problem for her PC (by dispatching the intruders with her pain wave projector, violation gloves and a chainsaw).


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Here the GM decides the actions of the orc, as the orc is not your character.



Not in D&D. What the Orc does (or fails to do) is determined by the player's to hit roll.


----------



## pemerton

This is from the d20SRD.org:

*Gather Information (Cha)*

Check
An evening’s time, a few gold pieces for buying drinks and making friends, and a DC 10 Gather Information check get you a general idea of a city’s major news items, assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld. The higher your check result, the better the information.

If you want to find out about a specific rumor, or a specific item, or obtain a map, or do something else along those lines, the DC for the check is 15 to 25, or even higher.​
I've never heard that this is a "narrative stance" ability because the player decides that people for whom drinks are bought share the local gossip.

The 5e Basic PDF has something similar on p 62:

*Other Charisma Checks*. The DM might call for a Charisma check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:
• Find the best person to talk to for news, rumors, and gossip​
I don't think there has ever been a RPG where all a player can do is declare what bodily motion his/her PC performs, with everything else being decided by the GM.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Not in D&D. What the Orc does (or fails to do) is determined by the player's to hit roll.



Nonsense. The player declares that the character attacks, the GM declares that the orc defends, the dice dictates which succeeds. Who rolls the dice really doesn't matter. The exact form of the randomisation really has nothing to do with who decides what. You could easily swap AC to be bonus + d20 instead of bonus + 10 and flip the attack same way but in other direction and nothing would change. You seem to get easily confused by mechanics, letting the mechanics to obfuscate where the decisions actually lie. 

Your tower example would be more analogous to a character being able to declare that they attack an orc even when the GM had not told that any orcs are present and this very act would summon an orc into existence.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> This is from the d20SRD.org:
> 
> *Gather Information (Cha)*​​Check​An evening’s time, a few gold pieces for buying drinks and making friends, and a DC 10 Gather Information check get you a general idea of a city’s major news items, assuming there are no obvious reasons why the information would be withheld. The higher your check result, the better the information.​​If you want to find out about a specific rumor, or a specific item, or obtain a map, or do something else along those lines, the DC for the check is 15 to 25, or even higher.​
> I've never heard that this is a "narrative stance" ability because the player decides that people for whom drinks are bought share the local gossip.
> 
> The 5e Basic PDF has something similar on p 62:
> 
> *Other Charisma Checks*. The DM might call for a Charisma check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:​• Find the best person to talk to for news, rumors, and gossip​
> I don't think there has ever been a RPG where all a player can do is declare what bodily motion his/her PC performs, with everything else being decided by the GM.



All of these assumes that the people, and the rumours and the information _exists,_ and that is for the GM to decide as is the exact information the characters might learn. You cannot just declare a gather information check to find out the location of the Crown of the Lich Queen, and that very act summoning the people with information, the Crown and the Lich Queen into existence. Gather information is simply a perception check on social level. You seem to think that a player should be able to declare that their character is trying to find a firebrand magic longsword in a room, succeed in investigation and this very act would summon the sword into existence. 

And if you're not effectively arguing for that, and the GM can say 'no silly' then your approach has nothing to do with increased player agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.
> 
> But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.
> 
> In the last 8.5 years I've been engaged in damn near every_single_indie game thread there is (either starting it or participating vigorously).  I've never seen this position espoused to date until the last several pages of this thread.  If anyone else who has been a participant in this thread who is a very long term, tenured poster has contact with this ( @pemerton , @Lanefan , @Ovinomancer , @AbdulAlhazred , @chaochau , @Campbell , @Bedrockgames , @darkbard , @hawkeyefan ), I would love to hear about it and how much actual contact they've had with it if they have.
> 
> Seems odd to me (someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the various complaints about indie games and could list them in a moment's notice) that this one would have somehow escaped me and/or not stuck with me.




I am not clear on what is being disputed here. I followed the thread but lost the line leading to this post. Is the question over whether tastes in mechanics that do things like fail forward are niche?

Just a note on RPG forums. I do think that it is really, really hard to gauge the prevalence of a particular trend in gaming from online forums in general. I have been trying to do this for years and I always sense an enormous gulf between what people do at the table, what tastes are common (and which are more niche) and what I see on internet forums. I think this is for a few reasons. One is the nature of online discussion, which I think  can lead people away from what they do in reality (it is easy to not have an answer for a particular criticism or observation in a discussion, essentially capitulate to the point online, but in practice still not find utility in the conclusion for example). Another is online forums are a self selected group (in my experience only a small fraction (between 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 players) in any group I am in, regularly participate in online TTRPG discussion. Sometimes online discussions are at the forefront of changes about to happen at tables, sometimes they are representative of more narrow tastes. None of this really says anything one way or the other about the above point, but this seemed worth mentioning. I can say, at least in my case, all of my live gaming groups do not in any way resemble the sensibilities I see expressed on online forums (in terms of tone of speech, gaming system preferences, campaign style, etc). This is one of the reasons why I always emphasize do what works at your table, don't worry about what posters online think about your gaming style or your design preferences


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> What is the difference? None of these things is real. They are all figments of our imaginations. None is 'bigger' or 'smaller' than another, there's no law of conservation of significance that needs to be obeyed here. You're simply imagining barriers for yourself which don't exist, putting your imagination about play process into a box. There is no box.



I made a similar point upthread about past and future.

As far as a reader can tell, it takes JRRT no more authorial effort to introduce the past (Aragorn's memory of ancient events of the First Age) than the present (Aragorn's recognition of Glorfindel when he turns up towards the end of Book 1).

In a film, a single moment of physical confrontation may carry more narrative significance than the whole of the set (props, scenery, matte paintings and all) in which it takes place.

All this is equally true in RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> All of these assumes that the people, and the rumours and the information _exists,_ and that is for the GM to decide as is the exact information the characters might learn. You cannot just declare a gather information check to find out the location of the Crown of the Lich Queen, and that very act summoning the people with information, the Crown and the Lich Queen into existence.



Nowhere in the skill description for Gather Information does it say that it is a skill for perceiving events whose existence is established by the GM. That would be Listen (declared to hear what someone the GM has described is saying).

If there is a city, its major not-obviously-withheld news items can be learned by making a DC 10 Gather Information check. The GM doesn't get to declare the check fails simply because no one is talking that day. (That might be a possible narration of a _failed_ check.)

If the information sort is something more specialised or secret, like a rumour as to the location of the Crown of the Lich Queen, the DC may be higher as the skill description explains.

The successful use of this skill dictates that people who are not the PC are talking among themselves and to the PC, sharing their information. The information is not transmitted to the PC via mind-reading!

What the difference is between _people talking_ and _people building_ isn't any clearer to me than the difference between _people blocking with their shields_ and _people building_.


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## nevin

I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Nowhere in the skill description for Gather Information does it say that it is a skill for perceiving events whose existence is established by the GM. That would be Listen (declared to hear what someone the GM has described is saying).
> 
> If there is a city, its major not-obviously-withheld news items can be learned by making a DC 10 Gather Information check. The GM doesn't get to declare the check fails simply because no one is talking that day. (That might be a possible narration of a _failed_ check.)
> 
> If the information sort is something more specialised or secret, like a rumour as to the location of the Crown of the Lich Queen, the DC may be higher as the skill description explains.
> 
> The successful use of this skill dictates that people who are not the PC are talking among themselves and to the PC, sharing their information. The information is not transmitted to the PC via mind-reading!
> 
> What the difference is between _people talking_ and _people building_ isn't any clearer to me than the difference between _people blocking with their shields_ and _people building_.



'In a city, people are talking' is rather logical assumption, some might even say it is self evident and it would indeed be weird for the GM to rule that this is not the case. (They still _could,_ but unless there was some really good reason for it, it would be terrible GMing.) Similarly it is practically automatic that a city would have some rumours and local goings on as that simply is a part of definition of city. But again what exactly those things are is for the GM to decide.

And you continue your obfuscation of who decides what. In normal 5e D&D it is not assumed that a player can invent a a thing and then declare that they seek information about that thing and this act causing the thing or even the information to exist. If a player just invents a Lich Queen and their crown and declare that they are seeking information about it, the GM is fully within their rights to declare that the character finds out nothing, _because the Lich Queen and their crown simply are not things that exist. _And even if it was established that they exist, the player cannot just declare that they investigate whether the crown is hidden in any location they happen to be in, and the success causing the crown to appear there.

EDIT:
Also, I thought you originally argued that Burning Wheel has greater player agency than D&D based its different mechanics yet now you seem to be arguing the D&D actually works similarly so I really have no idea what you're even arguing about...


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## Bedrockgames

Crimson Longinus said:


> 'In a city, people are talking' is rather logical assumption, some might even say it is self evident and it would indeed be weird for the GM to rule that this is not the case. (They still _could,_ but unless there was some really good reason for it, it would be terrible GMing.) Similarly it is practically automatic that a city would have some rumours and local goings on as that simply is a part of definition of city. But again what exactly those things are is for the GM to decide.
> 
> And you continue your obfuscation of who decides what. In normal 5e D&D it is not assumed that a player can invent a a thing and then declare that they seek information about that thing and this act causing the thing or even the information to exist. If a player just invents a Lich Queen and their crown and declare that they are seeking information about it, the GM is fully within their rights to declare that the character finds out nothing, _because the Lich Queen and their crown simply are not things that exist. _And even if it was established that they exist, the player cannot just declare that they investigate whether the crown is hidden in any location they happen to be in, and the success causing the crown to appear there.
> 
> EDIT:
> Also, I thought you originally argued that Burning Wheel has greater player agency than D&D based its different mechanics yet now you seem to be arguing the D&D actually works similarly so I really have no idea what you're even arguing about...




There is a fundamental divide about what player agency means here. I think for Pemerton it means being able to shape the story, whereas I suspect for you (like me) it has more to do with freedom to operate freely in the setting (but not to shape or control things typically held under the GMs prevue: for example what threat lies in yonder cave). You guys can debate the meanings of the term agency all day long, but I think in the end it boils down to you have different preferences and something that is seen as a moral good in gaming (player agency) is being vied for to win a discussion about play style. These kinds of arguments are generally why I am wary of internet forum gaming discussions, or at least wary of the rhetoric we tend to encounter on them. 

On the topic of D&D, generally I don't think most groups assume the player can set things like plot details, monsters, etc by front loading a skill roll with a statement like "I use gather information to find news about the lich queen" (when the GM has made no mention of the lich queen). I think a more standard use would be "I use gather information to find out if there is a Lich Queen" (oddly specific but doesn't have a player inventing a detail that would normally be up for the game master to make). Not sure if that is what Pemerton was arguing though.


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## Ovinomancer

nevin said:


> I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.



Fudging rolls absolutely impacts agency.  Agency isn't a universal good, though, and maximizing it doesn't automatically translate into maximizing fun at the table.  While I absolutely am personally against fudging, the goal of it is usually to promote a better story, at least from the GM's perspective.  This is why it impacts agency -- the GM is substituting their judgement on what makes for the better story over faithfully following through on PC actions.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

nevin said:


> I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.



That relates to how 'agency' is not a clearly defined thing. Like it might seem obvious that the GM fudging would decrease the player agency, but if player declares an intent, and the GM fudges the dice so that the player's intent is fulfilled, then how was the players agency harmed? It could even be argued that it was enhanced...

Also there have various levels to examine. Micro levels of singe rolls, overall goals of the characters and the overall goals of the players. These are all different things. A character's goal might be to defeat the BBEG swiftly and easily, _player's _goal might be to have an epic and dramatic showdown as a climax of their character's arc. So if the GM tips the scales against the former so that the latter is fulfilled, is that a bad thing and was the player's agency harmed?


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## Aldarc

nevin said:


> I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.



I'm perplexed how narratively advantageous loss of agency does not constitute a loss of agency.


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## Bedrockgames

nevin said:


> I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.




Fudging to prevent a BBEG from getting one shotted definitely impacts agency. That would actually be my go to example. Because in a case of one shot, clearly the player has chosen the right course of action for his or her attack (as it would have one shotted the BBEG had the GM not intervened), but the GM deprives the player of a rightly won victory, in the interest of prolonging the drama. I once had this sort of thing come up in a campaign, where the players swarmed the evil Bishop Lich, who was my big bad, and slaughtered him very anti-climactically. He ended up dying trying to flee out a window (which only added to the lack of climax). One of the players came up after and thanked me, saying it was awesome I let them kill the lich like that because by doing so, he knew I wasn't fudging and was playing all the rolls straight (and that I was respecting their tactical choices).


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## nevin

darkbard said:


> I too can't recall any previous discussions wherein folks claim that success with a complication feels indistinguishable from failure.



go to the Paizo 2e forums and read all the discussions on magic.   Partial success is ok sometimes but I completely agree that if it's a normal thing it begins to feel like failure that you can't completely suceed.


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## nevin

Bedrockgames said:


> Fudging to prevent a BBEG from getting one shotted definitely impacts agency. That would actually be my go to example. Because in a case of one shot, clearly the player has chosen the right course of action for his or her attack (as it would have one shotted the BBEG had the GM not intervened), but the GM deprives the player of a rightly won victory, in the interest of prolonging the drama. I once had this sort of thing come up in a campaign, where the players swarmed the evil Bishop Lich, who was my big bad, and slaughtered him very anti-climactically. He ended up dying trying to flee out a window (which only added to the lack of climax). One of the players came up after and thanked me, saying it was awesome I let them kill the lich like that because by doing so, he knew I wasn't fudging and was playing all the rolls straight (and that I was respecting their tactical choices).



While I see your point, DM's make mistakes, sometimes you realize in the middle of the combat that it was a mistake.  Most of the time if I do that I simply let the Characters have thier win and story wise the Baddy just screwed up.  But story trumps dice.  Sometimes to have a good story you have to fudge a roll or two in the course of a game.  know if the DM fudges all the time I suspect we'd be closer to agreement.  If your suggesting a DM should never ever fudge, We are never going to agree.  And that's ok  Different Strokes..


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## nevin

Aldarc said:


> I'm perplexed how narratively advantageous loss of agency does not constitute a loss of agency.



Loss of Agency is taking the players ability to change things away from them.  Fudging a die roll because I've overtuned the encounter or undertuned the encounter doesn't prevent them from doing anything they decide to do.    Now if I'm fudging rolls to force them to do something I want them to do or railroad the encounter to a predetermined end, or control how the fight ends, sure that's taking agency.  Fudging  a roll in combat to fix DM Human error's doesn't take away agency anymore than deciding if they fight a monster they can't possibly beat or just throwing an orc at them. 

By that logic if I screw up and throw a monster at them that they can't possibly damage in a situation where they can't run away, dropping some of the monsters special abilities that the party doesn't know about so the fight can possibly be won would be taking away their agency.  I'd argue it would be giving it back.   If DM isn't allowed to adjust as the game goes on he's irrelevant and shouldn't be there.  Might as well play a video game. 

Most of these discussions seem to assume the DM never makes a mistake and any change in combat or too a die roll is taking control away from the players.


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## Crimson Longinus

Bedrockgames said:


> There is a fundamental divide about what player agency means here. I think for Pemerton it means being able to shape the story, whereas I suspect for you (like me) it has more to do with freedom to operate freely in the setting (but not to shape or control things typically held under the GMs prevue: for example what threat lies in yonder cave). You guys can debate the meanings of the term agency all day long, but I think in the end it boils down to you have different preferences and something that is seen as a moral good in gaming (player agency) is being vied for to win a discussion about play style. These kinds of arguments are generally why I am wary of internet forum gaming discussions, or at least wary of the rhetoric we tend to encounter on them.
> 
> On the topic of D&D, generally I don't think most groups assume the player can set things like plot details, monsters, etc by front loading a skill roll with a statement like "I use gather information to find news about the lich queen" (when the GM has made no mention of the lich queen). I think a more standard use would be "I use gather information to find out if there is a Lich Queen" (oddly specific but doesn't have a player inventing a detail that would normally be up for the game master to make). Not sure if that is what Pemerton was arguing though.



Yes, definitely. And I don't think that one approach is objectively better, I just know what I like. But Pemerton does seem to think that one of these approaches is required for player agency whilst at the same time being unable to recognise what the difference between the approaches actually is, so I am a tad perplexed...


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## Aldarc

nevin said:


> Loss of Agency is taking the players ability to change things away from them.  Fudging a die roll because I've overtuned the encounter or undertuned the encounter doesn't prevent them from doing anything they decide to do.    Now if I'm fudging rolls to force them to do something I want them to do or railroad the encounter to a predetermined end, or control how the fight ends, sure that's taking agency.  Fudging  a roll in combat to fix DM Human error's doesn't take away agency anymore than deciding if they fight a monster they can't possibly beat or just throwing an orc at them.
> 
> By that logic if I screw up and throw a monster at them that they can't possibly damage in a situation where they can't run away, dropping some of the monsters special abilities that the party doesn't know about so the fight can possibly be won would be taking away their agency.  I'd argue it would be giving it back.   If DM isn't allowed to adjust as the game goes on he's irrelevant and shouldn't be there.  Might as well play a video game.
> 
> Most of these discussions seem to assume the DM never makes a mistake and any change in combat or too a die roll is taking control away from the players.



I think that @Ovinomancer addresses your point cogently enough.


----------



## Aldarc

nevin said:


> go to the Paizo 2e forums and read all the discussions on magic.   Partial success is ok sometimes but I completely agree that if it's a normal thing it begins to feel like failure that you can't completely suceed.



"Partial success" is not a thing in PF2. It's success and critical success, much in the same manner as a hit and a critical hit. Or are we now gonna argue that a hit now constitutes "partial failure" when critical hits exist?


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't get this at all. The sample of play shows a player solving a problem for her PC (by dispatching the intruders with her pain wave projector, violation gloves and a chainsaw).



That's resolving an encounter (or a situation) not solving a problem. The "problems" I had in mind were more what are on the MC's Fronts, and--it seems to me--complications would accrue so quickly and in such large amounts that those Fronts would tick to their conclusion/s without the PCs being able to do anything about it.


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## prabe

darkbard said:


> I too can't recall any previous discussions wherein folks claim that success with a complication feels indistinguishable from failure.



Well, I'm clearly weird (which I knew).

Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.

I have been turning things over in my head, thinking about this, and I have further come to realize that a resolution mechanic that A) had greater odds of uncomplicated success and B) allowed the player/character to choose to accept a complication-esque consequence to turn failure into success would bother me a good deal less. I'm sure a game exists with such mechanics, I just can't bring any to mind at the moment.


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## prabe

Aldarc said:


> I will admit that I find this reaction to the game perplexing. IME, it's an atypical one as I don't think that I've ever heard people read the PbtA family of games and say "everything was so tightly constrained" when it comes to world interaction, as the game lives and dies by the principle @Ovinomancer outlines ("the fiction must flow from the fiction") as well as "say yes or roll the dice." That said, I could see from this how you may prefer games like 3e and/or PF2, where action outcomes are more delineated for each skill or action. Though in the case of PF2, it has introduced critical failure, failure, success, and critical success to the mix of outcomes for even things like spells and skills. I think a lot of the desire or motivation for adding complicated success to increasingly more games is not to create "partial failure," but, rather, to add "at least some success."



I will admit that a system like PF2 that has a range of outcomes (extreme failure/failure/success/extreme success) bothers me a good deal less than one that tries to mix failure and success, and I'll admit that I'm enjoying the heck out of 5E at the moment. Which is probably more confirming your suspicions than anything else.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I don't doubt you for a moment, but looking at the rules for AW (and BitD, which you don't mention) it seemed to me as though I'd be playing (not GMing, playing) in a metaphorical straightjacket. It just seemed as though everything was so tightly constrained, and there wasn't any world to push against or grab onto so reactions to my actions seemed wildly unpredictable--and if I can't predict the reactions, the actions themselves feel random to me.
> 
> All of that aside from my strong distaste for way games of that broad type lean so hard on complicated success, which I perceive as partial failure.



As I've stated a few times, the difference between a 5e game and a DW game (as examples) is focus and authorial control. We start a 5e campaign, the GM gives us a handout that states what the basic situation is and what sort of PC options exist. We start a DW campaign, we discuss possible campaign premises and develop an idea of what the initial steading is like, our characters and their bonds, etc. In either case we then create the actual characters. Now, I usually play D&D with people I know pretty well and we usually do something similar to what DW explicitly calls out, but it is notable that 5e doesn't even mention this topic at all. It is rather left up in the air how a game starts and who's input goes into that. I have the feeling 5e kind of assumes maybe the game just starts with a module being unwrapped. 

From there, if we examine the 5e and DW materials, DW's text, particularly the section dedicated to the GM, is almost entirely focused on describing the GM's principles and agenda, and how those drive player-focused story/narrative. The advice and process here are QUITE specific, structured, clear, and get reinforced constantly throughout the text. Where 5e talks about how the mechanics are structured around 'regulating what happens'. 5e's perspective includes some discussion of story considerations and how the player's input can be taken into account, but mechanically it is all about how to adjudicate events. Where DW doesn't really even have a combat system, per se, and simply talks about a 'fiction first' kind of action resolution, 5e has a detailed wargame-like procedure. Fiction in 5e is there, but as a series of exceptions and elaborations of a basic core combat mechanic that is only related to fiction to the extent decided by the GM. 

In both games players obviously decide what their PCs DO. In both games the GM has a significant role in determining what happens next, how the world reacts. 5e comes from and continues a tradition that includes 'fair referee' (IE generate the world's reactions to things based on what would 'really happen' or what 'seems realistic') and also 'storymaster' (this is the 2e story game admonishment which amounts to 'use GM force to get the story to work'). Note that in DW the story could be generated by the GM (as fronts) but the agenda states flatly that the story must be about the PCs and center on them, and that the player's input in terms of what they try to do should help drive things and shape what fronts are created, which are dropped, how the dooms play out, etc. The D&D story is sort of just implicitly a map and other world elements that the GM manages. 

For example: We played a 5e campaign for a while in which I outlined and discussed with the GM how my character could establish a territory, a stronghold, and achieve various goals. The other players at least supplied plot hooks in terms of background and motivations as well. During play the GM put us through various adventures, and often we devised 'missions' for ourselves that related to our various agendas, although generally they were also shaped by what adventures the GM had available. This seems fairly typical to me. Whenever the GM's existing world details worked against this agenda, we would kind of get stuck. Although my character started to create a stronghold there was a lot of logistics and whatnot that kept getting in the way. Eventually we got sent on a mission by the GM and while we were gone some NPCs wiped out the whole operation. I guess this was 'realistic' maybe? I dunno. It definitely came across as "what was already established was taken away." There wasn't a process where my character staked his castle against some other goal, he just left for a few days and when he got back everything was undone. 

I have to believe that a DW version of this campaign would have been a lot more focused on the matter at hand. Instead of a lot of the game being driven by "this is the module I have today, lets run it" the game would stay tightly focused on the PC's story goals. Things would not be taken away once they were gained, but instead situations would arise where they could be risked against either conflicting goals or further gains. Perhaps a Doom Clock would be ticking in the background which would involve a building monumental threat, which might wipe out the PCs entirely in principle. However, its portents would be clear and the story would be about how the PCs overcame the adversity, not a sort of simulation of what 'realistically' happened. Remember, the DW GM is a FAN OF THE PCS! Challenges to the PCs agendas are intended to give them a way to shine, or possibly go down in a blaze of glory, not to simply enact some GM master campaign meta plot.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> For example: We played a 5e campaign for a while in which I outlined and discussed with the GM how my character could establish a territory, a stronghold, and achieve various goals. The other players at least supplied plot hooks in terms of background and motivations as well. During play the GM put us through various adventures, and often we devised 'missions' for ourselves that related to our various agendas, although generally they were also shaped by what adventures the GM had available. This seems fairly typical to me. Whenever the GM's existing world details worked against this agenda, we would kind of get stuck. Although my character started to create a stronghold there was a lot of logistics and whatnot that kept getting in the way. Eventually we got sent on a mission by the GM and while we were gone some NPCs wiped out the whole operation. I guess this was 'realistic' maybe? I dunno. It definitely came across as "what was already established was taken away." There wasn't a process where my character staked his castle against some other goal, he just left for a few days and when he got back everything was undone.
> 
> I have to believe that a DW version of this campaign would have been a lot more focused on the matter at hand. Instead of a lot of the game being driven by "this is the module I have today, lets run it" the game would stay tightly focused on the PC's story goals. Things would not be taken away once they were gained, but instead situations would arise where they could be risked against either conflicting goals or further gains. Perhaps a Doom Clock would be ticking in the background which would involve a building monumental threat, which might wipe out the PCs entirely in principle. However, its portents would be clear and the story would be about how the PCs overcame the adversity, not a sort of simulation of what 'realistically' happened. Remember, the DW GM is a FAN OF THE PCS! Challenges to the PCs agendas are intended to give them a way to shine, or possibly go down in a blaze of glory, not to simply enact some GM master campaign meta plot.




Ultimately the issue here seemed to be more about differing expectations than the system being used. Now certainly systems can communicate some expectations so in that sense they can be part of establishing shared expectations, but generally I feel that trying to fix people issues with rules is not the most effective approach.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I will admit that a system like PF2 that has a range of outcomes (extreme failure/failure/success/extreme success) bothers me a good deal less than one that tries to mix failure and success, and I'll admit that I'm enjoying the heck out of 5E at the moment. Which is probably more confirming your suspicions than anything else.



Again, I don't think that complicated success necessarily mixes "failure and success." It adds complications and consequences. 

For example, let's take the Wizard in Dungeon World who Casts a Spell: 


> Cast a Spell (Int)
> When you release a spell you’ve prepared, roll+Int.
> 
> ✴ On a 10+, the spell is successfully cast and you do not forget the spell—you may cast it again later.
> 
> ✴ On a 7-9, the spell is cast, but choose one:
> -You draw unwelcome attention or put yourself in a spot. The GM will tell you how.
> 
> The spell disturbs the fabric of reality as it is cast—take -1 ongoing to cast a spell until the next time you Prepare Spells.
> After it is cast, the spell is forgotten. You cannot cast the spell again until you prepare spells.



How is 7-9 "partial failure"? You succeed with the spell. But now you have a choice of the consequences. Taking an ongoing penalty isn't failure. Drawing attention to yourself is something the GM would likely do anyway in a game like D&D. Forgetting the spell is not far removed from Vancian casting and forgetting or casting a spell and losing the spell slot regardless of whether it succeeds or not. But not all of these happen to you. So if you are more failure averse, then choose to forget the spell or draw unwelcome attention to yourself. But I'm not clear how this would necessarily constitute partial failure when the spell cast still succeeds on a 7-9. Do you view yourself as a partial failure in D&D when your spell causes the monster to consider you a threat or look your way? That would be news to me as most people see it as a natural consequence of the fiction. Or losing the spell cast until next spell preparation? Sounds like a typical adventuring day in D&D. Is this now a partial failure too?

So I am confused about the "failure" part about added consequences or complications. What makes it "failure"? How would goblins surrounding you be "partial failure" when you went charging into the goblins by your agency? I'm just not clear how narrative complications translate to failure? Because success still happens. Success is never invalidated with a 7-9. NEVER. I apologize if this is coming across aggressively, but I'm having my own hurdle trying to understand how complicated success constitutes a "partial failure".


----------



## nevin

It's all about perception.   For some people not working as expected or not being optimal is a failure.  Those people want it to "Succeed" or "Fail" adding a mini game in the middle that makes it all a sliding scale of fail to absolute success is not fun for those people. 

Some people want it to be "complicated" which they generally refer to as "more realistic"   for those people that's a good fit.  I've generally found over the years that most people want their games to be  fail or succeed on checks, all that other complication just annoys them. Obviously that's just my experience not sure if that's the norm or not.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> Again, I don't think that complicated success necessarily mixes "failure and success." It adds complications and consequences.



As I said in response to @darkbard :


prabe said:


> Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.



I dunno if that makes things any clearer. Kinda hope so (because I don't enjoy being misunderstood).



Aldarc said:


> For example, let's take the Wizard in Dungeon World who Casts a Spell:
> How is 7-9 "partial failure"? You succeed with the spell. But now you have a choice of the consequences. Taking an ongoing penalty isn't failure. Drawing attention to yourself is something the GM would likely do anyway in a game like D&D. Forgetting the spell is not far removed from Vancian casting and forgetting or casting a spell and losing the spell slot regardless of whether it succeeds or not. But not all of these happen to you. So if you are more failure averse, then choose to forget the spell or draw unwelcome attention to yourself. But I'm not clear how this would necessarily constitute partial failure when the spell cast still succeeds on a 7-9. Do you view yourself as a partial failure in D&D when your spell causes the monster to consider you a threat or look your way? That would be news to me as most people see it as a natural consequence of the fiction. Or losing the spell cast until next spell preparation? Sounds like a typical adventuring day in D&D. Is this now a partial failure too?



Given my formulation, "success" in this instance is "casting the spell and not forgetting it (and not having it disturb the fabric of reality)." The enemy responding tactically is a natural consequence to any action, and I honestly wouldn't expect complete success at casting the spell to remove the possibility of it (as in, I wouldn't object to it happening on a 10+), but any of the other two consequences would feel like failure, because I'm getting something I don't want as a result of the check.

I never cared much for Vancian casting--it was one of the first things I worked to houserule away, in 3E to the point of outlawing sorcerers and having everyone else work a lot more like 5E works now. Spell slots--as a way to model the ability to direct spell energy--never bothered me the same way.



Aldarc said:


> I apologize if this is coming across aggressively, but I'm having my own hurdle trying to understand how complicated success constitutes a "partial failure".



You aren't coming across as aggressive--at least not to me. I completely get how extreme bafflement can generate strong reactions.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> There is a fundamental divide about what player agency means here. I think for Pemerton it means being able to shape the story, whereas I suspect for you (like me) it has more to do with freedom to operate freely in the setting (but not to shape or control things typically held under the GMs prevue: for example what threat lies in yonder cave). You guys can debate the meanings of the term agency all day long, but I think in the end it boils down to you have different preferences and something that is seen as a moral good in gaming (player agency) is being vied for to win a discussion about play style. These kinds of arguments are generally why I am wary of internet forum gaming discussions, or at least wary of the rhetoric we tend to encounter on them.




I honestly don't think there is a real conflict in these definitions, though. Freedom to operate freely in the setting is a manner of agency. Narrative authority by players beyond declaring what their characters do is another manner. A further manner. 

I'd say that allowing a player to declare actions for their character is almost the baseline level of agency, and if it is absent then likely something has gone very wrong. 

Games that allow players to more definitively shape the fiction than just that baseline of declaring actions allow more agency. I don't even really see how this is up for debate. 

It seems that because the conversation largely assumes agency is a good thing, that any reduction of it is a reduction of good, and no one wants to admit that their game is less good......so they insist that their game has all the good. All the agency. 

But it's just not the case. My 5E game allows less player agency than my Blades in the Dark game. That's not a bad thing. The game is designed that way, after all.



nevin said:


> Loss of Agency is taking the players ability to change things away from them.  Fudging a die roll because I've overtuned the encounter or undertuned the encounter doesn't prevent them from doing anything they decide to do.    Now if I'm fudging rolls to force them to do something I want them to do or railroad the encounter to a predetermined end, or control how the fight ends, sure that's taking agency.  Fudging  a roll in combat to fix DM Human error's doesn't take away agency anymore than deciding if they fight a monster they can't possibly beat or just throwing an orc at them.
> 
> By that logic if I screw up and throw a monster at them that they can't possibly damage in a situation where they can't run away, dropping some of the monsters special abilities that the party doesn't know about so the fight can possibly be won would be taking away their agency.  I'd argue it would be giving it back.   If DM isn't allowed to adjust as the game goes on he's irrelevant and shouldn't be there.  Might as well play a video game.
> 
> Most of these discussions seem to assume the DM never makes a mistake and any change in combat or too a die roll is taking control away from the players.




I can understand this, and I've done it myself, although more so in the past than I would today. Because it absolutely is reducing the players' agency. If the fight is too easy....then the fight is easy. Let the results stand. I get the idea of trying to preserve the status of a threat that's been built up, but the game isn't about preserving my ideas of what it is about. 

If the encounter is too hard.....then maybe they need to approach things differently than trying to fight? Maybe they need to negotiate or run away? 

Typically, the GM would only do these things if they had an expected outcome, which could even be something like "after a difficult battle, the PCs emerge victorious!"



prabe said:


> Well, I'm clearly weird (which I knew).
> 
> Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.
> 
> I have been turning things over in my head, thinking about this, and I have further come to realize that a resolution mechanic that A) had greater odds of uncomplicated success and B) allowed the player/character to choose to accept a complication-esque consequence to turn failure into success would bother me a good deal less. I'm sure a game exists with such mechanics, I just can't bring any to mind at the moment.




I don't think that your definition of success can ever really exist. I mean, in D&D the PCs want to win the fight with the evil necromancer and his undead minions. Ultimately, they do win.....but it took some resources, and no one emerged unscathed. Would you say that they failed to win the fight? 

I feel you are applying the concept of success far too broadly. I mean, my PC wants to jump the chasm. That's his goal, and that's what the roll is for. In the case of BitD and most PbtA games, the roll is also folding in several other rolls (the kind typically made by the GM in D&D and similar games) into that roll. 

So, to kind of compare it to combat in D&D, the player makes a roll to attack the orc. Then the orc and everyone else involved in combat would get a turn of some kind. The equivalent roll in BitD/PbtA games would encompass the orc's response, and potentially his allies' responses as well, depending on what had been established already. Each individual roll is doing more than what a roll in D&D does.



prabe said:


> one that tries to mix failure and success




I don't think that's an accurate way to look at it. Complication is not a failure. 

I realize I may be beating a dead horse here, and I don't mean to.....I just think that your take on this is skewed by a bit of flawed reasoning.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that your definition of success can ever really exist. I mean, in D&D the PCs want to win the fight with the evil necromancer and his undead minions. Ultimately, they do win.....but it took some resources, and no one emerged unscathed. Would you say that they failed to win the fight?



No. But I don't consider getting hurt in a fight to be failure. I'd consider it failure if some other goal--maybe some part of why they were fighting the necromancer--were made more difficult as the result of the fight.



hawkeyefan said:


> I feel you are applying the concept of success far too broadly. I mean, my PC wants to jump the chasm. That's his goal, and that's what the roll is for. In the case of BitD and most PbtA games, the roll is also folding in several other rolls (the kind typically made by the GM in D&D and similar games) into that roll.



So, what the character jumping from one building to another is to make the distance, land safely, and not attract attention. Most of the complications I've seen proposed for a complicated success on that jump check have been to either have that character land badly (and get hurt) or get noticed; both of those feel like failure to me.



hawkeyefan said:


> So, to kind of compare it to combat in D&D, the player makes a roll to attack the orc. Then the orc and everyone else involved in combat would get a turn of some kind. The equivalent roll in BitD/PbtA games would encompass the orc's response, and potentially his allies' responses as well, depending on what had been established already. Each individual roll is doing more than what a roll in D&D does.



Yeah, especially when it comes to fighting, D&D is much more ... granular, I think I want to say, which makes using combat to talk about success/failure ... not the best choice, I think.



hawkeyefan said:


> I realize I may be beating a dead horse here, and I don't mean to.....I just think that your take on this is skewed by a bit of flawed reasoning.



I think maybe it's just that I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy ...


----------



## nevin

ok look at it this way then.  For some people it's an unnecessary complication that adds nothing they want to the game.  They want a simple mechanic and they just want to play.    

Some people like complications and it enhances thier play experience.  
Those groups of people generally don't play together because they detract from each others fun. 

I don't think it's Flawed reasoning to feel a complication in the expected outcome is not a full success.  Some people only consider unqualified successes to be successes.  I'm sure they'd tell you that it's your reason that is flawed.  Thus all the fights over it on the 2e paizo forums.  

Both playstyles are legitimate and it's perfectly fair to not want to play the one you don't like.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> As I said in response to @darkbard :
> 
> I dunno if that makes things any clearer. Kinda hope so (because I don't enjoy being misunderstood).



Kinda, but still baffling because, as I see it, you still got what you wanted. If I only measured "success" by avoiding unwanted consequences, then every combat in D&D would be a failure because it often involves a loss of HP, narrative complications, or other resources. So why is it partial failure and not complicated success? Much as @hawkeyefan says, a fight will still often require that you expend resources to succeed: e.g., HP, spells, abilities, etc. A complicated success often operates in this vein. You may have to spend resources to achieve your goals. That's the point. 

For example, if I was writing a college paper and it required me to "pull an all-nighter" (likely a 7-9), then I successfully wrote that paper. I may experience consequences (e.g., loss of sleep) but I succeeded. I don't think I ever considered my success in pulling an all-nighter as a "partial failure." 



> Given my formulation, "success" in this instance is "casting the spell and not forgetting it (and not having it disturb the fabric of reality)." The enemy responding tactically is a natural consequence to any action, and I honestly wouldn't expect complete success at casting the spell to remove the possibility of it (as in, I wouldn't object to it happening on a 10+), but any of the other two consequences would feel like failure, because I'm getting something I don't want as a result of the check.



These seems like you are circularly defining success only as the optimum outcome rather than completion of the intended goal: e.g., to hit, to cast, etc. 



prabe said:


> So, what the character jumping from one building to another is to make the distance, land safely, and not attract attention. Most of the complications I've seen proposed for a complicated success on that jump check have been to either have that character land badly (and get hurt) or get noticed; both of those feel like failure to me.



The consequence of failure is not making the jump at all. You made the jump. You're still alive. How is that failure? If the difference is death or bruised ribs, which is actually failure? I don't think, for example, when we watch "success with complication" transpire on TV or movies that we necessarily think, "Oh, man. The protagonist is a failure because they made it across the chasm with a bruised ribs or attracting the guards." We generally think, IME, more along the lines of "Wow. They're lucky to have made the jump at all."


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> What you describe here seems like a perfectly normal traditional RPG, except perhaps some things that are more codified in the rules. GM frames the scenes. Characters have backgrounds and motivations and relationships. The GM creates a campaign premise and a get's a buy in for that from the players. And of course players can come up with agendas for their character's in any game. Now I am still even more perplexed what your objection was with my claim that the GM has to make up and decide a lot of stuff, because nothing in this precludes that.



Any game, DW included, has to obviously cater to a range of 'table dynamics'. So, at least in practice, there are a range of possible scenarios and outcomes. A GM could simply state (or a group could simply nominate) a DW game, and it could literally just start with 6 people sitting down at a table, assigning a GM, and starting play. The DW process and principles will guide what happens next, and no initial "GM concept" is REQUIRED. OTOH an individual could say to some group of people "Hey, I want to run a DW game with a 'Zombie Apocalypse' theme." Assuming a group of players assembles to that theme, then clearly this is a GM established theme. IN NO CASE would a DW game include a whole pre-built world equivalent to a D&D module or setting. You COULD set a DW game in a pre-existing 'world', but the geography of that game would have to be such that there were 'blank spaces on the map' and a good bit of who everyone was and what they were up to was left to be defined. You could combine a 'thematic concept' of a GM along with a pre-existing setting even. Even then the setting would need to be 'loose' enough to allow for insertion of elements at various scales during play. 

So, yes, DW allows for the GM to make up stuff, but very little 'stuff' is supposed to be made up. A 'front' for example is maybe a hand-written page of notes, at most. It might get more elaborate as it is played through, but it should start as very much an outline. A map must have 'holes in it' (literally, this is mandated) which will be filled in directly during play in order to further the agenda. Likewise steadings are to be developed purely as needed, though it is likely that the most basic parameters of whichever one hosts the PCs might be established in a scene described by the GM as a soft move. It is even possible a player would describe it as part of background or Spout Lore or something like that. Note how DW is normally meant to start 'in media res', so it is quite possible the PCs are in the middle of the Gnatbite Swamp in scene 1. If the Ranger says "what is the quickest way out of the swamp?" the GM would respond "I don't know, what is the quickest way out." and the player would be expected to respond "Oh, the Shadow Hills are just a couple miles to the north." The players then make a move, lets say "Undertake a Perilous Journey" to go north to the hills, and so on and so forth, with that move indicating some sort of check(s). Here the GM gets to influence the story, does failure mean the PCs got lost, or does it mean they walked into a big patch of quicksand and are now stuck? The GM might also narrate specific scenes of the travel, with Defy Danger perhaps to avoid quicksand or whatnot. Here we see the GM has distinct input, but again remember the principles, he's going to frame scenes that allow the PCs to shine, to potentially show how awesome they are, and to play to find out how their bonds and such play out. The GM could use a front to produce a move here too, which would be a more DM-centered kind of action, but the front should still be designed to complement what the players agenda is.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> Kinda, but still baffling because, as I see it, you still got what you wanted. If I only measured "success" by avoiding unwanted consequences, then every combat in D&D would be a failure because it often involves a loss of HP, narrative complications, or other resources. So why is it partial failure and not complicated success? Much as @hawkeyefan says, a fight will still often require that you expend resources to succeed: e.g., HP, spells, abilities, etc. A complicated success often operates in this vein. You may have to spend resources to achieve your goals. That's the point.



Yeah, and as I said in response to @hawkeyefan I don't consider spending resources necessarily partial failure. In the case of combat, partial failure would have to affect some other goal.



Aldarc said:


> For example, if I was writing a college paper and it required me to "pull an all-nighter" (likely a 7-9), then I successfully wrote that paper. I may experience consequences (e.g., loss of sleep) but I succeeded. I don't think I ever considered my success in pulling an all-nighter as a "partial failure."



Some people might call needing an all-nighter to write a paper an error (or failure) of planning. ;-) Others might consider it a choice of approach.



Aldarc said:


> The consequence of failure is not making the jump at all. You made the jump. You're still alive. How is that failure? If the difference is death or bruised ribs, which is actually failure? I don't think, for example, when we watch "success with complication" transpire on TV or movies that we necessarily think, "Oh, man. The protagonist is a failure because they made it across the chasm with a bruised ribs or attracting the guards." We generally think, IME, more along the lines of "Wow. They're lucky to have made the jump at all."



Eh. Authored fiction (like a movie or TV show) is different from the fiction that emerges from TRPG play in ways that make this sort of comparison ...fraught, IMO. (And I hope if I'm using terms you're not used to that you still understand my point.)


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't find this persuasive, though.  This is a discussion about how things work, and therefore preferences are fair game to be challenged and analyzed -- largely because you can't fully understand a game until you understand your own preferences.  I get this may not be something a person is inclined or willing to do, but if that's the case, why engage at all?




Because you still need to engage with people's preferences here in the wild whether they're able or willing to engage with their reasons or not.

This is the issue to me: I GM probably 95% of the time, and have a relatively flexible set of expectations when I don't.  So it doesn't really matter what I feel about this.  It very much matters what my players do, however, and I've seen enough of this to believe this is an area where a fairly strong reaction to some of this exists.  So I get to engage with it whether someone else thinks their preferences here are incoherent or not.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> That is absolutely not my understanding of what a "plot hook" is.  Plot hooks are things that try to engage the players in the GM's plot, which often take the shape of things that interest the players.  But an interesting thing isn't a plot hook if there's no plot there.  I mean, it's right there in the term -- plot hook.



Right, what I would say about a plot hook is that it is literally descriptive. It is a device which 'hooks' the player. If the hook is 'taken' then some sort of plot attached to it is engaged. An example might be "A shadowy figure waves at you as you pass the alley." The player could decide his character takes the 'hook' and enters the alley, or not. Whatever happens next must surely have been devised by the GM, and then the attached plot (a mugging, a meeting with an informant, whatever) happens. Presumably this event at least potentially leads somewhere.

Now, contrast that with what might happen in a narrative focused game. In the course of resolving some action, or framing the next scene relating to whatever agenda the PCs are pursuing, a shadowy figure might wave at the PCs from an alley. If this is in response to a player rolling a success/success with complications, then the player will presumably know what it is about, they will have defined the INTENT of the action! If the GM is framing a scene/making a move/etc. then perhaps the player cannot immediately tie it to something specific, but there will be SOME sort of relationship to whatever they are up to. At worst it might be a 'hook' to the extent that it might be an attempt by the GM to engage with some latent agenda (maybe shift the spotlight to another PC or something). That might happen if, say, the previous story arc had played out to a point of resolution. In DW this is likely to be a 'front move' of some kind.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> I didn't ask you to prove not-X -- that would be silly.  I asked you to show any evidence that thinking of success with complication as failure is even relatively prevalent.  There's lots and lots of discussions about success with complications or even tiers of success, so this isn't a case of not-X, it's a case of any-X.




And most of the people who talk about that are going to be preselected for people who find it a useful design feature, and thus presumably not hostile to it.  I've never suggested that isn't relatively prevalent--in fact I mentioned it clearly is because of the popularity of PbtA games--but you can absolutely have a large populace of X while still having a large populace of hostile-to-X, and this is an area where I don't believe there is any practical way to say the latter is a small populace when there are a very large number of games that don't do it (at least in an obvious way, to address your other argument) so they're already well served.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> No. But I don't consider getting hurt in a fight to be failure. I'd consider it failure if some other goal--maybe some part of why they were fighting the necromancer--were made more difficult as the result of the fight.




Okay, so what if the cleric has to use all his spell slots to heal the party, and then the battle with the necromancer will be a lot tougher because the cleric can't use them to face the undead? 

Is that a failure or a complication?



prabe said:


> So, what the character jumping from one building to another is to make the distance, land safely, and not attract attention. Most of the complications I've seen proposed for a complicated success on that jump check have been to either have that character land badly (and get hurt) or get noticed; both of those feel like failure to me.




So what if in D&D the DM says to you "Okay, this jump is the longest jump you've ever attempted. You may be able to do it, but there's no way you'll be able to do so quietly. The guards below are almost certain to notice you."; how would you look at that? 

What if you make the jump, tucking and rolling to avoid injury, and you come to a stop to see two more guards step from the shadows, drawing their swords? Does the previously undetected presence of more enemies mean that you failed your jump? 



prabe said:


> Yeah, especially when it comes to fighting, D&D is much more ... granular, I think I want to say, which makes using combat to talk about success/failure ... not the best choice, I think.




Well, sure....but isn't this more of a comment on the limitations of D&D when it comes to non-combat related actions and rolls? These kinds of actions are clearly defined in the other games we're talking about.....in fact, they function the same as combat actions do, for the most part. 

If D&D social and similar actions had the granularity of combat ones, then maybe you'd see it differently? Maybe not, of course, but perhaps it's the fact that D&D is so binary in this regard, and that's unduly influencing your view here?



prabe said:


> I think maybe it's just that I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy ...




I mean, I guess. Seems more like a "the glass isn't permanent, nothing's permanent, we don't matter, we're all just dust" kind of guy to me.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.
> 
> But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.




That, in fact, is largely my position.  That this is not an area you can make assumptions about populations on except in the most broadly general cases, and that there's enough preselection for forum usage to make it unrepresentative of much of anything other than people who want to talk about games on webfora enough to do the heavy lifting (and that group is off the mainstream enough by itself to, again, not represent anything except in the most limited ways).


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> T
> 
> I don't think there has ever been a RPG where all a player can do is declare what bodily motion his/her PC performs, with everything else being decided by the GM.




OD&D certainly had awfully limited mechanical support for anything else, barring some rules about morale and henchmen.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not clear on what is being disputed here. I followed the thread but lost the line leading to this post. Is the question over whether tastes in mechanics that do things like fail forward are niche?




Its more regarding its flipside, as to whether people feel like success-with-consequences is success in the sense they think of it.  I believe a fairly large subset of the hobby doesn't.  Others think that's a very minority view.  Its my position that neither of our views can be substantiated in a way that supports an argument based around it as a significant underpinning.



Bedrockgames said:


> Just a note on RPG forums. I do think that it is really, really hard to gauge the prevalence of a particular trend in gaming from online forums in general. I have been trying to do this for years and I always sense an enormous gulf between what people do at the table, what tastes are common (and which are more niche) and what I see on internet forums. I think this is for a few reasons. One is the nature of online discussion, which I think  can lead people away from what they do in reality (it is easy to not have an answer for a particular criticism or observation in a discussion, essentially capitulate to the point online, but in practice still not find utility in the conclusion for example). Another is online forums are a self selected group (in my experience only a small fraction (between 1 in 6 and 1 in 4 players) in any group I am in, regularly participate in online TTRPG discussion. Sometimes online discussions are at the forefront of changes about to happen at tables, sometimes they are representative of more narrow tastes. None of this really says anything one way or the other about the above point, but this seemed worth mentioning. I can say, at least in my case, all of my live gaming groups do not in any way resemble the sensibilities I see expressed on online forums (in terms of tone of speech, gaming system preferences, campaign style, etc). This is one of the reasons why I always emphasize do what works at your table, don't worry about what posters online think about your gaming style or your design preferences




This all seems fair to me, with the caveat that when groups one interacts with don't match online experience, it can entirely possibly be the group that's the unusual case.  There are absolutely things about the groups I game with (our relatively high acceptance of crunch for example) that do not appear to be a majority taste, and that's also the indicator from fora.  But that doesn't mean in some areas that fora aren't sort of hothouses, too, where things appear to flourish that show no sign of doing so in the wild.  So the presence of things in forum discussion does not for the most part say anything particularly strong about its general existence in the wild.


----------



## Thomas Shey

nevin said:


> I've noticed a lot of people assume they lose agency if DM fudges a roll here and there. Generally in my experience rolls are mostly fudged in the players favor, or just to make a fight more dramatic so the BBEG doesn't get one shotted.  If your playing with DM's who fudges to hurt the players the problem is a lot worse than loss of Agency.




Its not actually clear that fudging in a player's favor, given its always going to be selective, is any better for agency than its opposite.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, so what if the cleric has to use all his spell slots to heal the party, and then the battle with the necromancer will be a lot tougher because the cleric can't use them to face the undead?
> 
> Is that a failure or a complication?



Erm ... happenstance? Encounter design (since it's D&D, that's a thing and all ...)?



hawkeyefan said:


> So what if in D&D the DM says to you "Okay, this jump is the longest jump you've ever attempted. You may be able to do it, but there's no way you'll be able to do so quietly. The guards below are almost certain to notice you."; how would you look at that?



Then the fiction has been adequately framed, and I can decide whether jumping is the right course of action or not.


hawkeyefan said:


> What if you make the jump, tucking and rolling to avoid injury, and you come to a stop to see two more guards step from the shadows, drawing their swords? Does the previously undetected presence of more enemies mean that you failed your jump?



No. It kinda indicates the stakes or the fiction has been inadequately framed/made clear.


hawkeyefan said:


> Well, sure....but isn't this more of a comment on the limitations of D&D when it comes to non-combat related actions and rolls? These kinds of actions are clearly defined in the other games we're talking about.....in fact, they function the same as combat actions do, for the most part.
> 
> If D&D social and similar actions had the granularity of combat ones, then maybe you'd see it differently? Maybe not, of course, but perhaps it's the fact that D&D is so binary in this regard, and that's unduly influencing your view here?



I've played and enjoyed games where social conflicts played the same as physical ones, so it's not that in particular that I'm objecting to (in fact, I thought it was clever design (now I'm not so sure)). I think it's more that looking comparing a skill check (or equivalent) in, say, BitD, to a single to-hit roll in D&D is ... unhelpful, simply because that's the one place D&D is granular. I have said elsewhere in the thread that I don't particularly object to more than two outcomes; it's the particular dependence on and implementation of it in PbtA and FitD games that I object to.


hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, I guess. Seems more like a "the glass isn't permanent, nothing's permanent, we don't matter, we're all just dust" kind of guy to me.



Well, I do have a particularly dark outlook, I'll admit. While I have a history of depression (I'm here to tell you that anhedonia is a kind of living hell) I don't feel particularly depressed at the moment--and haven't for quite some time.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> That's absolutely legitimate.  I'm not saying PbtA and similar systems automatically violate people's sense of agency.  The lines people draw in terms of what impinges on that are almost always personal and idiosyncratic.  All I'm noting is that some degree-of-success systems can butt up against that, and it seems like ones that really want to center the result of attempts as mixed can very much do so, especially since their whole point is to be plot drivers.  If it doesn't do so for you, you aren't one of those.
> 
> 
> 
> I'll also note from this one of the issues is that you're comfortable being involved in outcomes on a metalevel, which not everyone is.



I suspect what people are really trying to say is that when you PLAY something like DW,y the 7-9 results just play like "I hit the orc!" <GM> "The orc slams his shield down on you in return, take 7 damage." In DW the GM NEVER THROWS DICE at all. Only the players make moves with resolution mechanics. The GM's moves simply produce a narrative effect. So 7-9 just looks like the GM's 'turn' (there aren't really turns in DW). Say with Hack-n-Slash if the player gets 10+ he does damage, there's no counter! The DM really has no move here, unless he wants to introduce something new (IE another monster appears). One of the players should now do something, like make an attack, etc. If the attack got a 7-9, then the GM has a move and that move is a direct consequence, it could be "deal damage" (this is kind of the basic assumed response). It could also be a monster special move, or perhaps something else entirely (IE the fighter engages the orc, he hits him, but then steps back to make another blow and falls in a pit!). If the result is 6- there's no specified result, but the GM is well within his rights to simply deal damage to the PC or make some other hard move. 

As you can see, NARRATIVELY, success with complications is just "the story moves on", just in a fairly specific way. a 7-9 Hack-n-Slash means something is going to happen to the character making that move, OTOH if the player got a success, then the next move is going to be less closely related, but it could still be a monster attacking and damaging a PC, if that seems like the best choice to the GM (where best choice means 'adds most the the story').


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> No one has actual hard data at our fingerprints (forgetting for a moment that actual social data is notoriously fraught).  If that was the litmus test for discussing things like this, our conversations would by limited to <crickets>.
> 
> But the data that we do have is this website being available for the last decade + and many of us here being extremely active participants in that period.  If ENWorld (and RPG.Net) isn't a viable cross-section of the non-casual TTRPG gaming base then there can be no such thing.
> 
> In the last 8.5 years I've been engaged in damn near every_single_indie game thread there is (either starting it or participating vigorously).  I've never seen this position espoused to date until the last several pages of this thread.  If anyone else who has been a participant in this thread who is a very long term, tenured poster has contact with this ( @pemerton , @Lanefan , @Ovinomancer , @AbdulAlhazred , @chaochau , @Campbell , @Bedrockgames , @darkbard , @hawkeyefan ), I would love to hear about it and how much actual contact they've had with it if they have.
> 
> Seems odd to me (someone who has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of the various complaints about indie games and could list them in a moment's notice) that this one would have somehow escaped me and/or not stuck with me.



I'd pretty much concur with this. Now, its possible that some people have failed to articulate objections to this type of game process/mechanic this way, while agreeing with position. That is possible. I suspect that most people, even in the forums, mainly play D&D, and if they play other games they play games that are either similar to D&D in architecture, or they just try to play these other games using a D&D-based approach (and they might even find a way to make it work for them, though I would expect it would usually run into huge problems). So, this question never comes up. If they accept 'success with complications' they're not really focused on how the game's process works very much, and they just 'do it'. I've had 'levels of success' in my 4e-like game for a long while. It works there fine, and has evolved into something pretty close to 'success with complications', but that game does have some other avenues to get to presenting narrative (there are more clearly defined turn orders for instance).


----------



## darkbard

prabe said:


> Well, I'm clearly weird (which I knew).
> 
> Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.
> 
> I have been turning things over in my head, thinking about this, and I have further come to realize that a resolution mechanic that A) had greater odds of uncomplicated success and B) allowed the player/character to choose to accept a complication-esque consequence to turn failure into success would bother me a good deal less. I'm sure a game exists with such mechanics, I just can't bring any to mind at the moment.




I make no claims about your _being_ but rather about your emotional response to success with complications. 

As to the rest of your argument here ff., anything else I would add would merely be another iteration of what Aldarc and hawkeyefan have already laid out before me.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> 'In a city, people are talking' is rather logical assumption, some might even say it is self evident and it would indeed be weird for the GM to rule that this is not the case. (They still _could,_ but unless there was some really good reason for it, it would be terrible GMing.) Similarly it is practically automatic that a city would have some rumours and local goings on as that simply is a part of definition of city. But again what exactly those things are is for the GM to decide.
> 
> And you continue your obfuscation of who decides what. In normal 5e D&D it is not assumed that a player can invent a a thing and then declare that they seek information about that thing and this act causing the thing or even the information to exist. If a player just invents a Lich Queen and their crown and declare that they are seeking information about it, the GM is fully within their rights to declare that the character finds out nothing, _because the Lich Queen and their crown simply are not things that exist. _And even if it was established that they exist, the player cannot just declare that they investigate whether the crown is hidden in any location they happen to be in, and the success causing the crown to appear there.
> 
> EDIT:
> Also, I thought you originally argued that Burning Wheel has greater player agency than D&D based its different mechanics yet now you seem to be arguing the D&D actually works similarly so I really have no idea what you're even arguing about...



D&D, generally, doesn't really clarify this point. Recall that Skills, per se, are an addition to the core framework of D&D, which had only a few places where players would roll dice to make a determination (primarily combat, but also saves). Those cases were VERY explicit about how things worked, and generally the only fictional question was maybe what the details looked like (IE did the Orc block with his shield, or his scimitar). In that case, players could simply ask the DM for information, and there really wasn't any hard limit to what they could ask "Barbaz the dwarf goes up to the bar, plunks down 5gp and asks if anyone has heard of the Crown of the Lich Queen." Now, the DM in classic D&D has the authority to object that the action is not consonant with the fiction "this is no such thing as the Crown of the Lich Queen", or a more sophisticated DM might likely take up the gauntlet and follow with some fictional response. Up through 1e and AFAIK all the iterations of 'BASIC' D&D this is all simply RP and the rules are utterly silent on this topic, Gygax never even hints about what he would do in the above situation.

2e (or OA if you prefer) introduces OPTIONAL skills, which could be invoked in this situation. OA is pretty focused on 'social situation' type play. It doesn't answer the question of how the DM should react, but it has tools like honor and social status, along with skills, that can be brought to bear on the possible nature of the responses, should the fiction be carried forward. This is also the situation in 3.x, as it uses effectively close to the same skill system in a general sense. Anyway, 'story' is more a focus in these games, but it is generally understood to be the DM's story, so YMMV in actual play...

4e says explicitly "say yes." So, while it doesn't quite say that the players are empowered explicitly to make these kinds of 'moves', it is at least FAVORED as an approach. The DM in that case might create an SC, or the player could declare the gaining of this treasure to be a Quest (DMs have input on these, but they are supposed to be generated based on input from the players primarily). I would not say that "there is no Lich Queen" is breaking a 4e rule, but it is at least coming close! This is part of the sense in which 4e is much more of a narrative/story game with high(er) player empowerment than earlier D&Ds. It also illustrates where 5e backslid somewhat.


----------



## nevin

Thomas Shey said:


> Its not actually clear that fudging in a player's favor, given its always going to be selective, is any better for agency than its opposite.




True but most arguments i see about it start with the assumption that any fudged roll is malicous and against them. That seems to be the spark that sets them off.   I understand that I've played a few games with DM's like that.  In my experience it seems to be more likely when things are fudged it's in favor of the PC's.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> But again what exactly those things are is for the GM to decide.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And you continue your obfuscation of who decides what. In normal 5e D&D it is not assumed that a player can invent




As to your first statement, it is patently untrue of many game systems. And while I agree with your second statement _where "normal" denotes out-of-the-box 5E,_ posters like @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer have argued here again and again how they have brought different play principles to their 5E games _as a means of increasing player agency._

And yet those games still fall short of the degree of agency afforded by other games. Whether this is good is not a matter of morality but aesthetic preference.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Erm ... happenstance? Encounter design (since it's D&D, that's a thing and all ...)?




Okay, sure. I mean, it's a consequence of the cleric needing to heal everyone that later he doesn't have spells to deal with the necromancer. That's all that Success with Complication entails. A Consequence of some kind.

Is it that it's tied to a roll directly?



prabe said:


> Then the fiction has been adequately framed, and I can decide whether jumping is the right course of action or not.




So if you decide to proceed and you make the jump, would you consider the PC having failed?



prabe said:


> No. It kinda indicates the stakes or the fiction has been inadequately framed/made clear.




Perhaps. Or that a passive perception didn't exceed the DC to notice the guards? 

In standard D&D, the guards would only be there if the DM had already placed them there ahead of time. In Blades, they are there as a complication for the roll the player made for their PC to jump to the next building. Now, a complication of this kind should follow the fiction that's been established.....so if the GM decides to introduce the presence of additional guards, maybe a rumor that more guards have been added would have been mentioned ahead of this point, but I don't think that's absolutely necessary. Other consequences may demand that something's been established.



prabe said:


> I've played and enjoyed games where social conflicts played the same as physical ones, so it's not that in particular that I'm objecting to (in fact, I thought it was clever design (now I'm not so sure)). I think it's more that looking comparing a skill check (or equivalent) in, say, BitD, to a single to-hit roll in D&D is ... unhelpful, simply because that's the one place D&D is granular. I have said elsewhere in the thread that I don't particularly object to more than two outcomes; it's the particular dependence on and implementation of it in PbtA and FitD games that I object to.




Right, I agree that D&D is far more granular when it comes to combat. I think that's what makes it hard to compare. I'd much rather compare like actions. But doing so is even murkier. The only edition of D&D that came even close to such granularity outside of combat was 4E.

So let's say in 5E D&D, you attempt to make a jump from one building to another. It's a 30 foot drop to the alley below, where there are two guards; you don't want to alert them, or else they'll summon more guards. It's shadowy on the other side....you think it's clear, but you can't say for sure. The DM checks the distance and says this is a tough jump....and he assigns a DC of 20 for the Strength-Athletics check to get across. 

You know that you need to get across based on what you and your party are there to do. 

How would you expect a DM to adjudicate this? 20 or more and you land silently on the other side? Under 20 and you plummet to the cobbles below, taking 3d6 damage and alerting the guards? 

If a DM were to come up with some other results based on how close you got to the DC, or by how much you exceeded it, would you accept those results? If we broadened this moment in the fiction to potentially play out more like a combat encounter, would that work for you?

How would you handle this situation as a DM?



prabe said:


> Well, I do have a particularly dark outlook, I'll admit. While I have a history of depression (I'm here to tell you that anhedonia is a kind of living hell) I don't feel particularly depressed at the moment--and haven't for quite some time.




I was just busting your chops.....I hope that didn't come across poorly. If so, I apologize, that wasn't my intent.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Well, I'm clearly weird (which I knew).
> 
> Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.
> 
> I have been turning things over in my head, thinking about this, and I have further come to realize that a resolution mechanic that A) had greater odds of uncomplicated success and B) allowed the player/character to choose to accept a complication-esque consequence to turn failure into success would bother me a good deal less. I'm sure a game exists with such mechanics, I just can't bring any to mind at the moment.



I could see a game which allowed a player to expend some resource to indicate I GOT THIS and the resource would simply be a way of limiting how much a given player could string successes together. In the end I suspect it would simply get 'factored into' overall success rates, but it would add a way to highlight was was especially interesting to the player and focus it on what their PC does well, is determined to accomplish, etc.

My own game has something like this, where a player can pay an in-game cost to invoke automatic success with a power used in a challenge. It serves basically this purpose, it lets you show JUST HOW GOOD Sanders is at sneaking! Furthermore 'practices' and 'rituals' use this mechanic and allow you to substitute in skill checks of a specific sort (IE if you had a practice 'be incredibly sneaky' then you could interpose 'incredibly sneaky' DEX checks into an SC in place of whatever would normally obtain there). Then pay an extra in-game cost (special camouflage paint or something) to automatically succeed. Obviously this avoids any overt complications! I'd note though that there's no way to short circuit an entire challenge, although you can certainly use this on the final success.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I can't say that I really understand this partial success discussion. Partial successes/degrees of success are just a perfectly natural thing and any system should support them to certain extent as they happen in real life all the time. Like in that jumping example _not quite making it and ending up hanging from the edge of the roof instead_ seems like a perfectly possible outcome. Now if these mechanics 'create' completely new fictional elements that might not be even directly related to the thing the character is doing, then I can see it rubbing some people the wrong way. Like if a failed jump check caused new guards to 'spawn' etc.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, sure. I mean, it's a consequence of the cleric needing to heal everyone that later he doesn't have spells to deal with the necromancer. That's all that Success with Complication entails. A Consequence of some kind.
> 
> Is it that it's tied to a roll directly?



Yeah, it's probably tied to it being directly tied to a roll. You try to do something and the dice say "sure but have this thing you didn't want as well" and you try to do something else and the dice say "sure and have this other thing you didn't want as well" and before long all the things you've gotten that you didn't want have penned you in and you're no longer trying to do what you wanted to do but just trying to get out from all these other things you didn't want that landed on you because the dice said so.

As I said, I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy. ;-)


hawkeyefan said:


> So if you decide to proceed and you make the jump, would you consider the PC having failed?



I might (depending on context) think the PC had screwed something up to be in such a desperate position, but I don't think I'd think they'd failed that particular check. Hope that's clear-ish.


hawkeyefan said:


> In standard D&D, the guards would only be there if the DM had already placed them there ahead of time. In Blades, they are there as a complication for the roll the player made for their PC to jump to the next building. Now, a complication of this kind should follow the fiction that's been established.....so if the GM decides to introduce the presence of additional guards, maybe a rumor that more guards have been added would have been mentioned ahead of this point, but I don't think that's absolutely necessary. Other consequences may demand that something's been established.



Yeah, that's consistent with my understanding of both D&D and Blades.  I think I have a strong preference for it being knowable prior to the decision to act. I think if the GM has pre-placed guards on the rooftop, then the character is existing in something more like an objective reality, and there's more possibility to do something to avoid them (like taking a different way in, after suitable reconaissance) than if "guards appear" can be the result of any action-resolution check.




hawkeyefan said:


> So let's say in 5E D&D, you attempt to make a jump from one building to another. It's a 30 foot drop to the alley below, where there are two guards; you don't want to alert them, or else they'll summon more guards. It's shadowy on the other side....you think it's clear, but you can't say for sure. The DM checks the distance and says this is a tough jump....and he assigns a DC of 20 for the Strength-Athletics check to get across.
> 
> You know that you need to get across based on what you and your party are there to do.
> 
> How would you expect a DM to adjudicate this? 20 or more and you land silently on the other side? Under 20 and you plummet to the cobbles below, taking 3d6 damage and alerting the guards?



I'd ask if there was a higher DC to jump quietly, or if there was the possibility of a concurrent Dex/Stealth check to make the jump quietly, possibly at Disadvantage--trusting the DM's judgment, there.


hawkeyefan said:


> If a DM were to come up with some other results based on how close you got to the DC, or by how much you exceeded it, would you accept those results? If we broadened this moment in the fiction to potentially play out more like a combat encounter, would that work for you?



Hrm. If I missed the DC and he gave me the option to land on the other side in a clattering heap, as opposed to falling prone at the guards' feet, taking 3d6 falling damage, I might take that.


hawkeyefan said:


> How would you handle this situation as a DM?



Probably about how it looks, from my answers above. Separate Str/Athletics and Dex/Stealth checks--maybe a floating Disadvantage, up to the player (do you want Disadvantage on the Str/Athletics to jump, or on the Dex/Stealth to be quiet about it?). If just the one check, maybe offering some middle ground if they miss the DC by 1 or maybe 2.


hawkeyefan said:


> I was just busting your chops.....I hope that didn't come across poorly. If so, I apologize, that wasn't my intent.



This is important: I grokked that you were kidding around, and it's OK. I make fun of my own mental issues, a lot. The gap between my own kinda-blighted outlook and everyone else's amuses me, much of the time. I didn't mean to dump a guilt-trip on you over this.


----------



## Bedrockgames

I am sorry @hawkeyefan  (Re: Agency), but it really just feels like you are trying to define agency so that it perfectly fits the play style you want to advocate for. And since agency is being seen as a good thing (even a moral good I would argue as some are talking about it), I don't think that is a good way to have a discussion about this term (when it is clearly being used to mean very different things by these two posters). We have already had this discussion actually about agency and narrative versus more traditional approaches. I don't think it is worth diving into again. But I do think people trying to control the language in order to advance their preferred play style is a big reason these discussions often break down or end in tears

EDIT: Just to add here, I think it is a much better approach for you to talk about 'narrative agency', which sounds like a good term for what you are describing to me. But I don't think most people take character agency or player agency in RPGs to mean an ability to shape the narrative or plot. Certainly some might, but to me it seems like a play style concept is being loaded on to an existing term, to get people to agree with that approach. If you like narrative agency, that is fine. There is clearly an appetite for it out there, and the more clear you are about that as a play style approach, the more people you will win over to it. But I think this business of getting play style preferences into things by stealth is something we should really abandoned on both sides of these debates. It isn't good for the hobby, it isn't good for discussion and it just makes people hostile towards play styles they might otherwise enjoy.


----------



## prabe

Bedrockgames said:


> I am sorry @hawkeyefan  (Re: Agency), but it really just feels like you are trying to define agency so that it perfectly fits the play style you want to advocate for. And since agency is being seen as a good thing (even a moral good I would argue as some are talking about it), I don't think that is a good way to have a discussion about this term (when it is clearly being used to mean very different things by these two posters). We have already had this discussion actually about agency and narrative versus more traditional approaches. I don't think it is worth diving into again. But I do think people trying to control the language in order to advance their preferred play style is a big reason these discussions often break down or end in tears



So far, I'm willing to presume that @hawkeyefan (among others) is genuinely baffled by my feelings/preferences on success-with-complication, and trying to figure them out.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately the issue here seemed to be more about differing expectations than the system being used. Now certainly systems can communicate some expectations so in that sense they can be part of establishing shared expectations, but generally I feel that trying to fix people issues with rules is not the most effective approach.



But this is THE WHOLE WAY classic D&D has worked, since Gygax day 1, see? This is not some small "people thing", this is THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF HOW D&D (except 4e, sort of) HAS BEEN DESIGNED. It is INTENDED to work this way. Its not some minor nit that gets addressed at the table. Sure, highly conscientious and skilled DMs and players can negotiate past this, but why isn't it just better to design a game from the ground up so it isn't going to happen? There are VERY few players in RPGs where they aren't interested in addressing at least some stuff that THEY care about. 

In a DW game, I'd have just set myself on an agenda of building that freehold at the edge of Greenvale. Once I built a stronghold, it would have required AT LEAST the imposition of a doom (with all attendant need for PC failures in adventures and prior signs and signals) in order for it to become at risk! Nor were the participants in this game inexperienced or anything like that. D&D simply doesn't help you here, and even sometimes actively thwarts such attempts. I posit that, people's resistance to change aside, something like DW's approach is just objectively much more likely to produce good results. I think this comes back to @Manbearcat's assertion of not having ever heard the "complicated success is failure" meme before. It often feels like these memes just arise in response to any suggestion that there are ways to improve RPG play beyond 1977 levels of technique. It really feels like stubbornness a lot of the time.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> 'In a city, people are talking' is rather logical assumption, some might even say it is self evident
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And you continue your obfuscation of who decides what. I*n normal 5e D&D it is not assumed that a player can invent a a thing and then declare that they seek information about that thing*



I haven't asserted anything to the contrary of what I've bolded.

My point is simply that _people are talking _is not a fact about the PC's action, anymore than _people are building_ are.

If you think it is _not_ "logical" or "natural" that a fantasy gameworld should contain wizard's towers built by notorious wizards, well, that's on you!

Here are the difficulties for a Wises check in Burning Wheel:

Common knowledge of the subject, Ob 1; an interesting fact, Ob 2; details, Ob 3; uncommon knowledge, Ob 4; rare details, Ob 5; bizarre or obscure details, Ob 7; freaky or specific details, Ob 8​
I don't remember now what the obstacle was for the Great Mastters-wise check that I made to settle the accuracy of Aramina's recollection of Evard, but it would have been Ob2 or maybe Ob 3.

The basic issue of agency, in my view, is this: if I have a character who wants to recover magical treasure (at the time, one of Aramina's three Beliefs was _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse_) then - if I have agency as a player - I will be able to pursue this goal in a meaningful way. There are different ways of operationalising this. Burning Wheel uses a mechanical framework that includes Wises checks, Scavenging checks, Circles checks, Resource checks, etc. Dungeon World uses a less formal framework of techniques and principles. From p 164:

Ask questions and use the answers​Part of playing to find out what happens is explicitly not knowing everything, and being curious. . . .​​Think about time when asking questions: ask about what came before, what is true now and what might happen in the future.​​Ask the Cleric about the gods, Ask the Wizard about magic and then switch it up—maybe the Thief has some ideas about the gods, too?​
A game in which the player of the cleric learns about the gods only by asking the GM or making checks to learn the GM's notes; in which the wizard learns about other great wizards and their towers only by learning what is in his/her notes; is probably going to be a low-agency game.

EDIT:


Bedrockgames said:


> There is a fundamental divide about what player agency means here. I think for Pemerton it means being able to shape the story, whereas I suspect for you (like me) it has more to do with freedom to operate freely in the setting



This is what I call _playing a RPG_. Assuming that we are interested in whether the play of a RPG involves more or less player agency, defining _agency _as simply the baseline act of _playing_ seems like it will be unhelpful.



Bedrockgames said:


> On the topic of D&D, generally I don't think most groups assume the player can set things like plot details, monsters, etc by front loading a skill roll with a statement like "I use gather information to find news about the lich queen"



The claim about skill use is generally true. But the bigger issue is addressed in the 4e PHB (p 258):

Sometimes a quest is spelled out for you at the start of an adventure. The town mayor might implore you to find the goblin raiders’ lair, or the priest of Pelor might relate the history of the Adamantine Scepter, before sending you on your quest. . . .

You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your character’s background. For instance, perhaps your mother is the person whose remains lie in the Fortress of the Iron Ring. Quests can also relate to individual goals, such as a ranger searching for a magic bow to wield. Individual quests give you a stake in a campaign’s unfolding story and give your DM ingredients to help develop that story.​
And from the 4e DMG (p 103):

Player-Designed Quests
You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!​
This clearly contemplates that the player will introduce goals for his/her PC, including facts about parents and fortresses and the like. But it is closer to Dungeon World - informal principles ("say yes") and techniques (conversation between player and GM) - than to Burning Wheel's formal framework of skill checks.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> But this is THE WHOLE WAY classic D&D has worked, since Gygax day 1, see? This is not some small "people thing", this is THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE OF HOW D&D (except 4e, sort of) HAS BEEN DESIGNED. It is INTENDED to work this way. Its not some minor nit that gets addressed at the table. Sure, highly conscientious and skilled DMs and players can negotiate past this, but why isn't it just better to design a game from the ground up so it isn't going to happen? There are VERY few players in RPGs where they aren't interested in addressing at least some stuff that THEY care about.



I mean nothing is stopping a D&D GM from recognising what the players want and then focusing on that. You don't need to have rules for it. Like for example here it seems to me that it should be pretty apparent that you care about that stronghold, so tying content to that would have been pretty obvious (content other than burning it down!) Now perhaps the GM didn't wan to run the sort of game where the characters are overtly focused to one location, that's fair. But they could have just told you that when you drought up the idea of the stronghold in the first place, or even better it would have been expressed in session zero that this is a game about roaming adventurers that don't stay in one place for a long. And yes, you of course can have rules for all of this, but you don't really have to.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> In a DW game, I'd have just set myself on an agenda of building that freehold at the edge of Greenvale. Once I built a stronghold, it would have required AT LEAST the imposition of a doom (with all attendant need for PC failures in adventures and prior signs and signals) in order for it to become at risk! Nor were the participants in this game inexperienced or anything like that. D&D simply doesn't help you here, and even sometimes actively thwarts such attempts. I posit that, people's resistance to change aside, something like DW's approach is just objectively much more likely to produce good results. I think this comes back to @Manbearcat's assertion of not having ever heard the "complicated success is failure" meme before. It often feels like these memes just arise in response to any suggestion that there are ways to improve RPG play beyond 1977 levels of technique. It really feels like stubbornness a lot of the time.



Sometimes it just feel that people want to have rules to protect them from bad GMs, but I have hard time imagining that it will ultimately be a satisfying solution for that particular problem.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> it might seem obvious that the GM fudging would decrease the player agency, but if player declares an intent, and the GM fudges the dice so that the player's intent is fulfilled, then how was the players agency harmed? It could even be argued that it was enhanced...



I would argue that this GM is confused. Why is s/he calling for a die to be rolled if s/he is going to ignore the result? Just say _yes_!

The effect of calling for a roll, but then - covertly - conferring success in any event, is to hide from the players what is actually going on at the table and to obscure how the fiction is being established. That is classic illusionism. And is in my view clearly a burden on the players exercising agency in the play of the game.



nevin said:


> While I see your point, DM's make mistakes, sometimes you realize in the middle of the combat that it was a mistake.





nevin said:


> if I screw up and throw a monster at them that they can't possibly damage in a situation where they can't run away, dropping some of the monsters special abilities that the party doesn't know about so the fight can possibly be won would be taking away their agency.  I'd argue it would be giving it back.



This is a system issue. In  my view it shows weakness in the mechanics and also weakness in techniques.



nevin said:


> story trumps dice.  Sometimes to have a good story you have to fudge a roll or two in the course of a game.





nevin said:


> If DM isn't allowed to adjust as the game goes on he's irrelevant and shouldn't be there.  Might as well play a video game.



To be blunt, these remarks make me think that you're not familiar with RPGs beyond some version or variants of D&D (probably 2nd ed AD&D, 3E and 5e) and that you've never played a RPG where the GM _frames situations_ but does not just _choose the consequences_.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> If you think it is _not_ "logical" or "natural" that a fantasy gameworld should contain wizard's towers built by notorious wizards, well, that's on you!



I'm sure it is logical for such things to exist. But the player being able to decide where such a thing is is a clear use of a narrative level power.



pemerton said:


> A game in which the player of the cleric learns about the gods only by asking the GM or making checks to learn the GM's notes; in which the wizard learns about other great wizards and their towers only by learning what is in his/her notes; is probably going to be a low-agency game.



Nope. It simply is one where the players generally do not operate from the narrator perspective.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> That's resolving an encounter (or a situation) not solving a problem. The "problems" I had in mind were more what are on the MC's Fronts, and--it seems to me--complications would accrue so quickly and in such large amounts that those Fronts would tick to their conclusion/s without the PCs being able to do anything about it.



From the AW rulebook (p 143):

Countdown clocks are both descriptive and prescriptive. Descriptive: when something you’ve listed happens, advance the clock to that point. Prescriptive: when you advance the clock otherwise, it causes the things you’ve listed. Furthermore, countdown clocks can be derailed: when something happens that changes circumstances so that the countdown no longer makes sense, just scribble it out.​
So the designer certainly doesn't agree with you. And I really don't know what your perception is based on.

Player moves for actually changing the in-fiction situation include Going Aggro, Seizing by Force, and Seducing and Manipulating. (The fact that these are all oriented towards other people tells us something about the game: the action is focused more on _people_ than on _things_ - the latter are of mostly instrumental interest).

Of course if the GM sets aside the outcome of action resolution then the GM might do whatever s/he wants with the clocks and the fronts - but that just takes us back to the previous conversation. Which does reinforce my impression that you seem not to appreciate the significance of robust action resolution processes. _That _is how players in an AW impose their will on the fiction.

Whereas you seem to be thinking that the way players deal with problems is by having the GM hold back. That is a technique that I see as paradigmatic of low-player-agency RPGing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I would argue that this GM is confused. Why is s/he calling for a die to be rolled if s/he is going to ignore the result? Just say _yes_!



Perhaps they were willing to accept most of the potential outcomes but not that specific one (for example a monster crits with a powerful attack second or third time etc.) 



pemerton said:


> The effect of calling for a roll, but then - covertly - conferring success in any event, is to hide from the players what is actually going on at the table and to obscure how the fiction is being established. That is classic illusionism. And is in my view clearly a burden on the players exercising agency in the play of the game.



I mean sure, it is really unimaginative form of illusionsim. I'm personally not a fan of fudging. I prefer better illusions.



pemerton said:


> This is a system issue. In  my view it shows weakness in the mechanics and also weakness in techniques.



Sure. Fudging is a kludge, a band-aid. But if one uses it to fix issues that crop up very rarely, then it could be argued that it is not worth the effort to come up with a better fix for the problem.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> So the designer certainly doesn't agree with you. And I really don't know what your perception is based on.



At this point, I'm not sure I do either. I do know that reading AW made me actively angry, and that I'm not going to read it again, so I suppose you'll have to do without an answer here. I genuinely apologize.


pemerton said:


> Of course if the GM sets aside the outcome of action resolution then the GM might do whatever s/he wants with the clocks and the fronts - but that just takes us back to the previous conversation. Which does reinforce my impression that you seem not to appreciate the significance of robust action resolution processes. _That _is how players in an AW impose their will on the fiction.



If you mean "appreciate" to mean "understand" you are incorrect; if you mean it to mean "enjoy" or "prefer" you might be correct, primarily because you seem to consider "robust action resolution processes" to mean explicit game mechanics that allow the players to alter the fiction in ways outside of what their character could accomplish in the fiction, whereas I believe "action resolution" involves things the characters actually do.


pemerton said:


> Whereas you seem to be thinking that the way players deal with problems is by having the GM hold back. That is a technique that I see as paradigmatic of low-player-agency RPGing.



And here we skidding back toward an unproductive conversation we had a while ago. I believe that the way the players have the characters solve problems is by having the characters do things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

prabe said:


> So far, I'm willing to presume that @hawkeyefan (among others) is genuinely baffled by my feelings/preferences on success-with-complication, and trying to figure them out.




I was more responding to the defining of the term "agency" in his reply to me than that


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> OD&D certainly had awfully limited mechanical support for anything else, barring some rules about morale and henchmen.



OD&D has combat resolution mechanics (either Chainmail or the "alternative" combat mechanics), which allow players to do more than just declare the bodily movements their PCs make.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> Not to invalidate your tastes, but I haven't really experienced the feeling of "partial failure" as a player when dealing with complicated success games. In fact, a lot of the fun for me as a player comes from these moments of complicated success. For example, if I try climbing a wall in some games like D&D, my only options are often make it fully or fail to climb. But complicated successes add twists to the outcome, sometimes with decisions to make. I can make it up the wall, but there may be a cost: e.g., I alert the guards below or the guards are waiting for me at the top. Or maybe I drop my family heirloom or weapon while climbing. Or maybe I have to make a choice: do I make it up stealthily but lose the gold I'm stealing or do I keep the gold but alert the guards? Or even do I try saving my family heirloom or the gold? You may view this as a "partial failure," but to me it's a success. I feel successful as I ultimately get what I wanted from the action: i.e., I make it up the wall. I may not make it up the wall smoothly or with the gold, but I do successfully climb the wall. But complications and costs for success drive the narrative forward for me as a player in new and interesting ways outside of binary success and failure states. It results in new fictional situations that my character has to deal with, and that's fun for me.



In large part I agree with this.

Where I run aground is trying to square "success-plus-complication" with "fail-forward", as they seem to me to be basically the same thing under different names; only one is mitigating success (which, all other things being equal, makes the game harder on the players/PCs) while the other is mitigating failure (which makes the game easier).

Given the choice, I think I prefer success-with-complication.


Aldarc said:


> Hmmm...I don't think it's that far removed, for example, from the relatively common use of a critical fumble in d20 games. It's often a point where you don't know what the outcome will be or how the GM will adjudicate it. And one of the oft floated criticisms of critical fumbles is that they often don't honor the competency of the PCs or humiliate them in some way.



It's a valid criticism.

That said, it's one which I roundly ignore in favour of the humour value and occasional in-game chaos (or tragedy!) fumbles can lead to.


Aldarc said:


> IME, however, soft/hard moves triggered by failures and complicated success in PbtA/FitD/Fate games more frequently flow from the fiction than critical fumbles and the like in D&D. Again, all IME. If I am rushing into battle with goblins triggering Hack and Slash and I get a 7-9 success, then I likely know what some of the potential outcomes could be: e.g., I take damage from the goblins in the exchange, I get surrounded by goblins, or maybe running into the goblins now leaves my young ward defenseless. The outcomes are fiction-bound.



This is one thing that would bug me: that things are resolved at such a high non-granular level rather than digging in and sorting out the details, both in combat (as shown in the quote) and in exploration.  It strikes me as a design very much geared toward a 'hurry-up' style of play, as if the game expects players (and GMs) to want to rush through any one scenario/adventure/campaign in order to get to the next.

Not my cup of tea.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This is what I call _playing a RPG_. Assuming that we are interested in whether the play of a RPG involves more or less player agency, defining _agency _as simply the baseline act of _playing_ seems like it will be unhelpful.




I don't think this is the definition of playing an RPG. Many, many groups and many modules don't allow you to freely operate in the setting. This is one of the reasons agency took on as a term (it was picked up by players frustrated with railroading and overly linear adventures). So I don't think agency here is being  being defined as the baseline act of playing. I do think what you are talking about is a thing (empowering the players to shape the narrative). But I think it only muddies the waters when that is folded into the agency debate. Maybe it is narrative agency. But when I talk about agency, and when I see it used in most discussions, it is about giving the players freedom to explore, set goals, interact with who they want, pursue what interests them and not railroad them. It isn't about giving them powers that in a normal game are assumed to belong to the GM. If you want players to have those powers, fine, that is fair. But I don't find these discussions at all fruitful when a term like agency is used to float in that concept (i.e. "So you say you like agency? Well surely you must also like giving players the power to shape the plot because that is also clearly a form of agency"). I think it is obvious in most of these discussions, when we get to that area of debate, this isn't what people are meaning by agency.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Not in D&D. What the Orc does (or fails to do) is determined by the player's to hit roll.



What is *done* (or not) *to* the Orc is determined by the player's to-hit roll and a corollary damage roll if the to-hit succeeds. What the Orc does in reaction is determined by either the game state (e.g. the damage roll takes it to or below 0 thus rules-forcing it to crumple to the ground) or by the DM. Barring compulsion effects, the player has no say over what the Orc does as long as the Orc is in a condition in the fiction (i.e. alive, conscious) to think and act for itself.

The difference between what the Orc *does* and what is *done to it* is small, but rather significant I think.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Yeah, it's probably tied to it being directly tied to a roll. You try to do something and the dice say "sure but have this thing you didn't want as well" and you try to do something else and the dice say "sure and have this other thing you didn't want as well" and before long all the things you've gotten that you didn't want have penned you in and you're no longer trying to do what you wanted to do but just trying to get out from all these other things you didn't want that landed on you because the dice said so.
> 
> As I said, I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy. ;-)




Okay, I can see that. I don't think that's exactly how Blades plays out, but in way it can be. There's supposed to be conflict, and things are supposed to be dangerous. I think at least with Blades and how it compares to D&D (this may not apply to PbtA and similar games), D&D encourages mitigation of risk. Blades encourages rushing headlong at the risk. 

Perhaps that is also a factor? 



prabe said:


> I might (depending on context) think the PC had screwed something up to be in such a desperate position, but I don't think I'd think they'd failed that particular check. Hope that's clear-ish.




As clear as we're like to get, I think! 



prabe said:


> Yeah, that's consistent with my understanding of both D&D and Blades. I think I have a strong preference for it being knowable prior to the decision to act. I think if the GM has pre-placed guards on the rooftop, then the character is existing in something more like an objective reality, and there's more possibility to do something to avoid them (like taking a different way in, after suitable reconaissance) than if "guards appear" can be the result of any action-resolution check.




That's something that comes up a lot, and I get it, even if I don't agree. The reason being that when I GM D&D, and just about every GM for D&D that I know, it's trivially easy to add/subtract things from the map at any time, and most do so, at least occasionally.



prabe said:


> I'd ask if there was a higher DC to jump quietly, or if there was the possibility of a concurrent Dex/Stealth check to make the jump quietly, possibly at Disadvantage--trusting the DM's judgment, there.






prabe said:


> Hrm. If I missed the DC and he gave me the option to land on the other side in a clattering heap, as opposed to falling prone at the guards' feet, taking 3d6 falling damage, I might take that.






prabe said:


> Probably about how it looks, from my answers above. Separate Str/Athletics and Dex/Stealth checks--maybe a floating Disadvantage, up to the player (do you want Disadvantage on the Str/Athletics to jump, or on the Dex/Stealth to be quiet about it?). If just the one check, maybe offering some middle ground if they miss the DC by 1 or maybe 2.




That's a great way to handle it, honestly. I may have done it slightly differently, but I think I like your idea better. 

So let's say we do it this way, and there's a success on the Athletics check and a failure on the Stealth check. How would you describe that outcome? 



prabe said:


> This is important: I grokked that you were kidding around, and it's OK. I make fun of my own mental issues, a lot. The gap between my own kinda-blighted outlook and everyone else's amuses me, much of the time. I didn't mean to dump a guilt-trip on you over this.




No need to apologize, I hoped it was clear that I was kidding, but wanted to be sure. Glad to see that was the case.


----------



## pemerton

nevin said:


> ok look at it this way then.  For some people it's an unnecessary complication that adds nothing they want to the game.  They want a simple mechanic and they just want to play.
> 
> Some people like complications and it enhances thier play experience.



DW's mechanics are _much _simpler than 5e D&D's.

And DW player also "just want to play".

Assumptions about "ordinary folks" vs the "unnecessarily complicated" just obscures analysis of how fictional content is established (eg by whom, based on what sorts of considerations).



Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately the issue here seemed to be more about differing expectations than the system being used. Now certainly systems can communicate some expectations so in that sense they can be part of establishing shared expectations, but generally I feel that trying to fix people issues with rules is not the most effective approach.



I don't really see how it can be true both that mechanics don't make a difference, and that the Burning Wheel Great Masters-wise checks provokes all the (virtual) ink you've spilled on it!

@AbdulAlhazred's post not too far upthread really got to the essence of this: if the goal of play is _to have play focus on the things players care about for their PCs_, why use a system and approach that begins from the premise that the GM establishes the setting without regard to such things?

If the goal is _for the players, through their PCs, to be able to meaningfully impact the fiction_, why advocate for techniques where the GM (overtly or covertly) decides what that impact is?

Now those may not be the goal. If the goal is _for the players to be taken on an exciting ride by the GM _- and a lot of posts on ENworld suggest that that is the goal of a fair bit of RPGing - then it makes sense to have the GM unilaterally establish the setting and to be the one who decides what the impact on the fiction is of player action declarations. But fairly obviously  that is not going to be a high-player-agency game.


----------



## innerdude

prabe said:


> So, what the character jumping from one building to another is to make the distance, land safely, and not attract attention. Most of the complications I've seen proposed for a complicated success on that jump check have been to either have that character land badly (and get hurt) or get noticed; both of those feel like failure to me.






hawkeyefan said:


> So what if in D&D the DM says to you "Okay, this jump is the longest jump you've ever attempted. You may be able to do it, but there's no way you'll be able to do so quietly. The guards below are almost certain to notice you."; how would you look at that?
> 
> What if you make the jump, tucking and rolling to avoid injury, and you come to a stop to see two more guards step from the shadows, drawing their swords? Does the previously undetected presence of more enemies mean that you failed your jump?





This exchange speaks to some of the thoughts I've had while reading through this thread, namely that much of what we perceive as "player agency" is directly tied to the GM's willingness + ability to correctly "frame the fiction" and offer clear information around what's at stake with any given test of skill/ability.

It's interesting to me that the opposition to "success with complication" is described as denying some inherent measure of player expectation --- "As defined by the rules, my dice roll plus modifiers was high enough to succeeded at my action declaration, and should therefore succeed."

For RPG play, the nature of success is ALWAYS constrained/framed by the fictional state in which the action is attempted. From where I sit, it seems a bit . . . odd, I guess, to complain about a rule system that specifically indicates that complications _will be introduced_. A GM is given full ability to introduce complications _ad hoc_, at any time . . . but having it hard-coded in the rules is somehow badwrong?

I'd guess some of that stems from the super-old-school dungeon-crawler mindset, where as a player one of the primary goals of play is to be a "smart" player and completely eliminate any and all possible means of failure before attempting anything risky. *Edit --- this isn't necessarily limited to old school dungeon-crawling; in my experience with GURPS, it can also happen when system lethality is very high and the threat of character death is ever-present.

For example, in some groups I've played with, @hawkeyefan 's example of more guards stepping from the shadows with drawn swords would be decried as a "foul", because the GM should have allowed the players/PCs to make an attempt at _noticing_ those guards first. It's a specific type of group social contract, where the GM is only ever allowed to introduce risk in a fashion such that the players have some ability to mitigate it. If you're coming from that narrow view of play, I could see how introducing complications feels like a GM "cheat code", because old-school dungeon crawling is all about "smart" play allowing the player to eliminate risks.

Apocalypse World / Blades in the Dark and their respective offspring very much work against the idea that a key goal of play is to eliminate risks.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> It isn't about giving them powers that in *a normal game* are assumed to belong to the GM.



I've already posted upthread the Streetwise rules from Classic Traveller (1977).

This idea about what is "normal" is a bit frustrating.

Upthread I also quoted the text from 4e D&D PHB and DMG about player-established quests. This doesn't make 4e an "abnormal" game. It just makes it a game that tackles head-on the question of _who gets to decide what the game will be about_.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> The claim about skill use is generally true. But the bigger issue is addressed in the 4e PHB (p 258):
> 
> Sometimes a quest is spelled out for you at the start of an adventure. The town mayor might implore you to find the goblin raiders’ lair, or the priest of Pelor might relate the history of the Adamantine Scepter, before sending you on your quest. . . .​​You can also, with your DM’s approval, create a quest for your character. Such a quest can tie into your character’s background. For instance, perhaps your mother is the person whose remains lie in the Fortress of the Iron Ring. Quests can also relate to individual goals, such as a ranger searching for a magic bow to wield. Individual quests give you a stake in a campaign’s unfolding story and give your DM ingredients to help develop that story.​
> And from the 4e DMG (p 103):
> 
> Player-Designed Quests​You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!​
> This clearly contemplates that the player will introduce goals for his/her PC, including facts about parents and fortresses and the like. But it is closer to Dungeon World - informal principles ("say yes") and techniques (conversation between player and GM) - than to Burning Wheel's formal framework of skill checks.




This seems like a broader topic than the skill rolls. I think there has long been a gray area here, and that can often vary a lot from group to group. I wasn't a fan of 4E so I can't really comment on what the norm was in that edition. I do think though that they mention this requires GM approval at least is a nod to the idea that the GM is governing world details and this may be an area in the game, especially if it has to do with something like player family background, where there can be some suggestions offered by the player and if they are acceptable they can be taken up. Again, I don't really know enough about 4E to know what they were driving at here exactly (it is a little unclear to me if they are using quest to mean going on an adventure, or if it is something that is meant to happen in the background). Even in a heavy exploration traditional game, there is going to be some gray when players start asking questions and giving answers about the world (i.e. are there any magic shops over yonder hill?-------which some might argue leads to a magic shop that didn't exist now existing over yonder hill). At the same time, playing D&D up through 3E, I think the default assumption in most groups is players inventing anything in the setting is either an exception or something they should be doing through their character. 

Also I don't think a player setting goals for themselves is an issue, even in a very traditional RPG. I mean, I can set goals for myself in real life too. The real issue is how much that goal setting is being allowed to shape the world (and how much of a sense of a concrete, objective world outside the character the GM is trying to create). 

In traditional RPGs I think the things you mention above, tend to be handled more as a session zero thing if they do come up. 

That said, I am not averse to these kinds of techniques (my main issue is with the rhetoric around them in these threads-----because so many of these terms become wedges for persuading people that play style A or B is better). I just ran a campaign not long ago where I allowed the players to help me create the town and surrounding county. In this case, because the PC was the county magistrate (he had just been assigned there), it actually made some amount of in game sense. But they were also inventing things that would have had nothing to do with how he was administrating the region (for instance inventing a cult in the area that stole babies and sacrificed them to a bird demon). My natural style is more  traditional, but I have definitely had fun with play like this. There is a game called Hillfolk which allowed for players to create plot elements and even fabricate peoples and places during scenes, which I really loved (for some reason the way it operated in hill folk felt very immersive to me).


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> Let me try this formulation: "Success" is "getting what you want, and not what you don't." "Complicated success" by adding something the player/character didn't want, turns success into failure.
> 
> I have been turning things over in my head, thinking about this, and I have further come to realize that a resolution mechanic that A) had greater odds of uncomplicated success and B) allowed the player/character to choose to accept a complication-esque consequence to turn failure into success would bother me a good deal less. I'm sure a game exists with such mechanics, I just can't bring any to mind at the moment.



Which boils down, if I'm reading this right, to you simply want to succeed more often; frequently outright, sometimes with complications.

There's way to take that which are charitable, and others which are not, but either way I somehow don't think you'd like my game very much.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I've already posted upthread the Streetwise rules from Classic Traveller (1977).
> 
> This idea about what is "normal" is a bit frustrating.
> 
> Upthread I also quoted the text from 4e D&D PHB and DMG about player-established quests. This doesn't make 4e an "abnormal" game. It just makes it a game that tackles head-on the question of _who gets to decide what the game will be about_.




I am not going to chase through the thread to find this, but I don't really see how a skill appearing in traveller in 1977, shows that something is or isn't how people normally approach the game. 

I don't think normal here is being used in an exclusionary way. It is just saying there are ways people generally approach play, and there are widespread assumptions about play. We can debate what those are. Maybe I am wrong on the specifics. But I think you can say "this is how people normally play D&D".


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I don't really see how it can be true both that mechanics don't make a difference, and that the Burning Wheel Great Masters-wise checks provokes all the (virtual) ink you've spilled on it!



A choice of mechanics is one way to communicate expectations but not the only one (and definitely not the best.)



pemerton said:


> @AbdulAlhazred's post not too far upthread really got to the essence of this: if the goal of play is _to have play focus on the things players care about for their PCs_, why use a system and approach that begins from the premise that the GM establishes the setting without regard to such things?
> 
> If the goal is _for the players, through their PCs, to be able to meaningfully impact the fiction_, why advocate for techniques where the GM (overtly or covertly) decides what that impact is?
> 
> Now those may not be the goal. If the goal is _for the players to be taken on an exciting ride by the GM _- and a lot of posts on ENworld suggest that that is the goal of a fair bit of RPGing - then it makes sense to have the GM unilaterally establish the setting and to be the one who decides what the impact on the fiction is of player action declarations. But fairly obviously  that is not going to be a high-player-agency game.



This is disingenuous and frankly condescending framing. That the players do not have ability to directly edit the fictional reality doesn't mean they're spectators. @Bedrockgames explained this couple of posts ago better than I could, and more politely than I at this point would bother to.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, I can see that. I don't think that's exactly how Blades plays out, but in way it can be. There's supposed to be conflict, and things are supposed to be dangerous. I think at least with Blades and how it compares to D&D (this may not apply to PbtA and similar games), D&D encourages mitigation of risk. Blades encourages rushing headlong at the risk.
> 
> Perhaps that is also a factor?



That almost certainly is a factor. Part of it also that the attraction of a heist for me would be planning it out and then making it work, which ... is roughly exactly the opposite of how Blades plays.


hawkeyefan said:


> That's something that comes up a lot, and I get it, even if I don't agree. The reason being that when I GM D&D, and just about every GM for D&D that I know, it's trivially easy to add/subtract things from the map at any time, and most do so, at least occasionally.



Oh, sure, there's flexibility, but if you play everything zero-myth it feels to me as though everything is sorta indeterminate, with no fixed points for the PCs use for leverage.


hawkeyefan said:


> That's a great way to handle it, honestly. I may have done it slightly differently, but I think I like your idea better.
> 
> So let's say we do it this way, and there's a success on the Athletics check and a failure on the Stealth check. How would you describe that outcome?



Probably exactly how you think: You made the jump, but you attracted the attention of the guards below. This isn't exactly the same thing as having guards on the rooftop because you rolled a complicated success on a straight jump, IMO; among other things, by making it two checks you made the various failure-states pretty clear.

(And if I'm playing that pair of checks I almost certainly take Disadvantage on the Stealth, because being noticed is literally less painful than falling.)


----------



## prabe

Lanefan said:


> Which boils down, if I'm reading this right, to you simply want to succeed more often; frequently outright, sometimes with complications.
> 
> There's way to take that which are charitable, and others which are not, but either way I somehow don't think you'd like my game very much.



I have come to believe that, while I deeply respect much of how you (and I presume your table) approach your game, you are probably correct. OTOH, it's plausible we could both be surprised.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I honestly don't think there is a real conflict in these definitions, though. Freedom to operate freely in the setting is a manner of agency. Narrative authority by players beyond declaring what their characters do is another manner. A further manner.
> 
> I'd say that allowing a player to declare actions for their character is almost the baseline level of agency, and if it is absent then likely something has gone very wrong.
> 
> Games that allow players to more definitively shape the fiction than just that baseline of declaring actions allow more agency. I don't even really see how this is up for debate.



The debate is whether that agency is warranted.


hawkeyefan said:


> It seems that because the conversation largely assumes agency is a good thing, that any reduction of it is a reduction of good, and no one wants to admit that their game is less good......so they insist that their game has all the good. All the agency.



My assumption is that as agency increases a point arrives at which said acengy is no longer warranted, and therefore not good.  For me that point arrives when players' agency goes beyond their own characters (and obvious outcomes of their actions) and starts affecting setting elements which are the purview of the GM.

Example: players being able to create setting elements out of thin air on a successful action declaration = unwarranted agency.


hawkeyefan said:


> I can understand this, and I've done it myself, although more so in the past than I would today. Because it absolutely is reducing the players' agency. If the fight is too easy....then the fight is easy. Let the results stand. I get the idea of trying to preserve the status of a threat that's been built up, but the game isn't about preserving my ideas of what it is about.
> 
> If the encounter is too hard.....then maybe they need to approach things differently than trying to fight? Maybe they need to negotiate or run away?
> 
> Typically, the GM would only do these things if they had an expected outcome, which could even be something like "after a difficult battle, the PCs emerge victorious!"



Agreed here.  Fudging is generally bad; and if the players aren't allowed to do it the GM shouldn't be allowed to either.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that your definition of success can ever really exist. I mean, in D&D the PCs want to win the fight with the evil necromancer and his undead minions. Ultimately, they do win.....but it took some resources, and no one emerged unscathed. Would you say that they failed to win the fight?
> 
> I feel you are applying the concept of success far too broadly. I mean, my PC wants to jump the chasm. That's his goal, and that's what the roll is for. In the case of BitD and most PbtA games, the roll is also folding in several other rolls (the kind typically made by the GM in D&D and similar games) into that roll.



My view is that such a high-level non-granular resolution system mixed with a desire for a binary end-result is where the problem lies.  If all those sub-rolls actually took place, each on a more-or-less binary level, then the macro-result might end up looking like success-with-complication (or fail-forward) but the integrity of each binary success-fail point within that sequence would be maintained.  Example: combat.

To me the obvious solution is to take the time, break it down, and do the sub-rolls - even if the system tells you not to.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> Oh, sure, there's flexibility, but if you play everything zero-myth it feels to me as though everything is sorta indeterminate, with no fixed points for the PCs use for leverage.



I think this is actually a part of the reason why some players don't like having the narrative level control. They want to have the illusion that the setting is something 'real' that exists outside of them. Being able to edit that reality instantly breaks the illusion. I mean the GM knows it is naughty word and made up and probably in flux and the players actually know it too, but they don't want their attention to be constantly drawn to it. They want to pretend to be real people in a real world that exists independently of them, as fictional as it all may be.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> So, what the character jumping from one building to another is to make the distance, land safely, and not attract attention.



That's three separate goals for one action; to me that should prompt three separate rolls: using D&D terms it'd be a Strength roll to make the distance, a Dex roll to land safely, and a Stealth (or equivalent) roll to not be noticed.


prabe said:


> Most of the complications I've seen proposed for a complicated success on that jump check have been to either have that character land badly (and get hurt) or get noticed; both of those feel like failure to me.



A fault of concatenating everything into one roll.


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> It's interesting to me that the opposition to "success with complication" is described as denying some inherent measure of player expectation --- "As defined by the rules, my dice roll plus modifiers was high enough to succeeded at my action declaration, and should therefore succeed."
> 
> For RPG play, the nature of success is ALWAYS constrained/framed by the fictional state in which the action is attempted. From where I sit, it seems a bit . . . odd, I guess, to complain about a rule system that specifically indicates that complications _will be introduced_. A GM is given full ability to introduce complications _ad hoc_, at any time . . . but having it hard-coded in the rules is somehow badwrong?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For example, in some groups I've played with, @hawkeyefan 's example of more guards stepping from the shadows with drawn swords would be decried as a "foul", because the GM should have allowed the players/PCs to make an attempt at _noticing_ those guards first. It's a specific type of group social contract, where the GM is only ever allowed to introduce risk in a fashion such that the players have some ability to mitigate it. If you're coming from that narrow view of play, I could see how introducing complications feels like a GM "cheat code", because old-school dungeon crawling is all about "smart" play allowing the player to eliminate risks.



Again, this goes back to @AbdulAlhazred's point - that "the way things happened to be done by Gygax in the mid 1970s" is treated as a hard norm for RPG play.

This is from Vincent Baker's blog:

When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not.

So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"

What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush?

1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.

2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."

3. Sometimes, mechanics. "An orc? Only if you make your having-an-orc-show-up roll. Throw down!" "Rawk! 57!" "Dude, orc it is!" The thing to notice here is that the mechanics _serve the exact same purpose_ as the explanation about this thing about her tribe in point 2, which is to establish your credibility wrt the orc in question.

4. And sometimes, lots of mechanics and negotiation. Debate the likelihood of a lone orc in the underbrush way out here, make a having-an-orc-show-up roll, a having-an-orc-hide-in-the-underbrush roll, a having-the-orc-jump-out roll, argue about the modifiers for each of the rolls, get into a philosophical thing about the rules' modeling of orc-jump-out likelihood... all to establish one little thing. Wave a stick in a game store and every game you knock of the shelves will have a combat system that works like this.​
To undertake clear analysis we need to set aside assumptions about "what's normal" in RPGing, and look at who enjoys credibility/authority over some element of the fiction, how contests over this are resolved, etc. Eg in "skilled play" dungeon crawling, the GM has total authority over pre-play creation of fiction (ie drawing the map and writing up the key) but during play it is expected to be mediated through wandering monster checks (the "having-an-orc-show-up" roll).

I think for some players its important to their experience that all of this (except for combat?) be concealed during actual play - so that eg the GM throws the wandering monster die in secret rather than taunting the players with it; or complications are just introduced by the GM through "free roleplay" rather than paced and constrained by check results. Because concealing something from X isn't very consistent with X exercising control over it, those concealment practices tend to push towards low-player-agency RPGing.


----------



## prabe

Lanefan said:


> That's three separate goals for one action; to me that should prompt three separate rolls: using D&D terms it'd be a Strength roll to make the distance, a Dex roll to land safely, and a Stealth (or equivalent) roll to not be noticed.



If you look at the conversation @hawkeyefan and have had, that's one more than I'd use, but it's not wildly different thinking, IMO.


Lanefan said:


> A fault of concatenating everything into one roll.



In this circumstance, I agree. There might be things where you don't want or need all the rolls rolled (which is a preference and not a right/wrong thing), but I don't believe this is one.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I am sorry @hawkeyefan  (Re: Agency), but it really just feels like you are trying to define agency so that it perfectly fits the play style you want to advocate for. And since agency is being seen as a good thing (even a moral good I would argue as some are talking about it), I don't think that is a good way to have a discussion about this term (when it is clearly being used to mean very different things by these two posters). We have already had this discussion actually about agency and narrative versus more traditional approaches. I don't think it is worth diving into again. But I do think people trying to control the language in order to advance their preferred play style is a big reason these discussions often break down or end in tears
> 
> EDIT: Just to add here, I think it is a much better approach for you to talk about 'narrative agency', which sounds like a good term for what you are describing to me. But I don't think most people take character agency or player agency in RPGs to mean an ability to shape the narrative or plot. Certainly some might, but to me it seems like a play style concept is being loaded on to an existing term, to get people to agree with that approach. If you like narrative agency, that is fine. There is clearly an appetite for it out there, and the more clear you are about that as a play style approach, the more people you will win over to it. But I think this business of getting play style preferences into things by stealth is something we should really abandoned on both sides of these debates. It isn't good for the hobby, it isn't good for discussion and it just makes people hostile towards play styles they might otherwise enjoy.




I don't see player agency as an objectively good trait, honestly. I like it and prefer it, but that's my taste. There are plenty of people who enjoy games with low agency. One of my buddies occasionally runs short 3- 4 session Call of Cthulhu games for us. These by their very nature allow for less agency than what I'd typically look for in a game.....and yet I really enjoy them. It's because he weaves history and mythos lore in interesting ways, and puts forth an interesting goal for the PCs. There is a plot for us to engage with, although how we do so is fairly open. But we can't just disregard it and go hunting for mythos creatures in the forests of New England....we need to engage the core scenario that he's come up with.

I think I'm being very clear and I don't think I'm putting down anyone's play style. There's nothing worse about a game that has less player agency than another game has. It just means they are seeking different goals, or trying to evoke different play experiences. What makes a game better or worse is when it does or doesn't do what the participants want.

In regard to what player agency is.....it has nothing to do with character agency, because that isn't something that gets exercised at the table, but is instead wholly a fictional element of the game, the same way the character's appearance is. 

Player agency is about how much say the player has, right? About what? About the game. The game is what? A conversation that establishes a fictional world. So the more say the player has about the fictional world, the more agency they have. The more ways that they can steer the conversation, the more agency they have. That's just the way it is.

Certain games allow for more agency on the part of the player. That's how they are designed. There are also ways to change existing games to increase or decrease the amount of agency they allow the players to have. 

But agency in and of itself is a subjective thing.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Note how DW is normally meant to start 'in media res', so it is quite possible the PCs are in the middle of the Gnatbite Swamp in scene 1.



Grrrr....  As a player the first words out of my mouth would be some version of "Why are we here, how did we get here, and why - if we don't need to be here - didn't we go around?"


AbdulAlhazred said:


> If the Ranger says "what is the quickest way out of the swamp?" the GM would respond "I don't know, what is the quickest way out." and the player would be expected to respond "Oh, the Shadow Hills are just a couple miles to the north."



30 seconds into the game and we're already into the realm of co-operative storytelling rather than in-character role-playing.

Fine if that's what you want but for pity's sake own up to the fact that this is what you're doing.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> We can debate what those are. Maybe I am wrong on the specifics. But I think you can say "this is how people normally play D&D".





Bedrockgames said:


> I wasn't a fan of 4E so I can't really comment on what the norm was in that edition.



This thread is in General. It's not about D&D exclusively, or even in particular. And I note that even your "normal for D&D" appears to exclude 4e D&D.

The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal (if it was, skills like Gather Information couldn't work) and is a dogma and shibboleth that seems to have crystallised (as best I can tell) sometime in the first half of the 1980s.

It can be tracked across editions of Classic Traveller, where the 1980s revisions introduce text that was not only absent, but was implicitly contradicted, in the 1977 version.

My impression is that a lot of actual play in the 1970s was far more relaxed about player-introduced content I've got in mind things like the famous "baby balrog" in one of Gygax's campaigns; and even the shift from OD&D being very relaxed about players making up new character types - like balrogs - to Gygax's DMG being sternly against it. And Gygax is still relaxed about the matter in his discussion of stronghold-building (from his DMG, p 93):

Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that he can do so.​
The difference between this and the Great Masters-wise check made to establish that Aramina truly recollects the location of Evard's tower is that what Gygax describes is (i) more informal, and (ii) not gated behind a player build decision (ie spending points to develop Great Masters-wise). But there is no difference in terms of whose ideas are establishing the content of the shared fiction. Just like Dungeon World, it is an example of "drawing maps but leaving blank spaces" and then looking to one of the players to fill in those blanks.

What puzzles me is that no one seems ever to have thought the passage from Gygax worth mentioning, except for me! Whereas something basically the same but made more overt as a feature of playing other systems generates all this debate and discussion about "narrative perspective" or "narrative stance" or "narrative power".

I'm certainly not Gygax's number-one advocate, but I think that his rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running, although - like @AbdulAlhazred - I don't think he'd come up with a perfect set of tools to solve all the problems.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> A fault of concatenating everything into one roll.



Feature not a flaw. 

I may respond to your earlier post tomorrow, but it's bedtime in Euroland.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> That almost certainly is a factor. Part of it also that the attraction of a heist for me would be planning it out and then making it work, which ... is roughly exactly the opposite of how Blades plays.




hah yeah, kind of. I think the Flashback mechanic is one of the toughest to wrap your head around. But once you do, it opens up new avenues of play that are very interesting.

I would expect this aspect of Blades to not be for everyone, though.



prabe said:


> Oh, sure, there's flexibility, but if you play everything zero-myth it feels to me as though everything is sorta indeterminate, with no fixed points for the PCs use for leverage.




I can see that may be a concern. I don't know how true it is. The players can leverage things in lots of ways. They can determine these points themselves. 



prabe said:


> Probably exactly how you think: You made the jump, but you attracted the attention of the guards below. This isn't exactly the same thing as having guards on the rooftop because you rolled a complicated success on a straight jump, IMO; among other things, by making it two checks you made the various failure-states pretty clear.
> 
> (And if I'm playing that pair of checks I almost certainly take Disadvantage on the Stealth, because being noticed is literally less painful than falling.)




Right, and this is success with complication. 

As you've gone on to post in reply to @Lanefan , it's just a matter of the game kind of compressing multiple things into one roll instead of breaking it out into several. This is just the different mechanics manifesting. 

I think maybe that it seems you would prefer more input points or dice rolls to determine what you see as aspects of failure, or complications. Rather than allowing one roll to kind of help determine it all, based on what makes sense for the fiction.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This thread is in General. It's not about D&D exclusively, or even in particular. And I note that even your "normal for D&D" appears to exclude 4e D&D.
> 
> The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal (if it was, skills like Gather Information couldn't work) and is a dogma and shibboleth that seems to have crystallised (as best I can tell) sometime in the first half of the 1980s.
> 
> It can be tracked across editions of Classic Traveller, where the 1980s revisions introduce text that was not only absent, but was implicitly contradicted, in the 1977 version.
> 
> My impression is that a lot of actual play in the 1970s was far more relaxed about player-introduced content I've got in mind things like the famous "baby balrog" in one of Gygax's campaigns; and even the shift from OD&D being very relaxed about players making up new character types - like balrogs - to Gygax's DMG being sternly against it. And Gygax is still relaxed about the matter in his discussion of stronghold-building (from his DMG, p 93):
> 
> Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that he can do so.​
> The difference between this and the Great Masters-wise check made to establish that Aramina truly recollects the location of Evard's tower is that what Gygax describes is (i) more informal, and (ii) not gated behind a player build decision (ie spending points to develop Great Masters-wise). But there is no difference in terms of whose ideas are establishing the content of the shared fiction. Just like Dungeon World, it is an example of "drawing maps but leaving blank spaces" and then looking to one of the players to fill in those blanks.
> 
> What puzzles me is that no one seems ever to have thought the passage from Gygax worth mentioning, except for me! Whereas something basically the same but made more overt as a feature of playing other systems generates all this debate and discussion about "narrative perspective" or "narrative stance" or "narrative power".
> 
> I'm certainly not Gygax's number-one advocate, but I think that his rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running, although - like @AbdulAlhazred - I don't think he'd come up with a perfect set of tools to solve all the problems.




Normal D&D doesn't exclude 4E, but neither does a single edition define D&D (I can't take some rule from 2E or OD&D to show that it is a norm *across editions*). If something is present in 4E alone (and maybe it isn't, perhaps there are passages in other editions that support your point, and I just don't remember them or never read them), I just don't think it makes much a case for something being the norm. I think we'd both agree 4E was one of the more experimental editions. They definitely took some chances, and some of those things didn't make it into 5th. I don't play 5th though, so I can't say if this aspect of the rulebook is present or not (though speaking with my 5th edition friends, they seem to be playing the game more in the way I am talking about as the norm).

I don't know where I got the idea this was a D&D specific thread. If we are talking more broadly, I still think there is a default assumption similar to what you find in D&D in mainstream play, but I also think there are much larger audiences doing different things outside D&D. I don't even really play D&D much myself. Most of my games are either one of my own systems (because I publish I have to spend most of my game time playtesting my own stuff), or something like Savage Worlds. When I do play D&D these days it is usually a retroclone or prior edition (5E just didn't click with me).

In that passage Gygax is saying you allow it because it is possible (that is the whole point of "unless this is totally foreign to the area). The player isn't creating a bluff, he is able to put his stronghold overlooking a bluff, because bluffs are present there. And I don't think you can take a passage like this, dealing with the case of strongholds, and extrapolate that to the rest of play. Like I said, these games have gray areas. But gray areas and edge cases don't establish norms in other situations. It is pretty obvious what is guiding the GM ruling in that instance is whether something would plausibly exist in the area.

Where I will agree with you is in the 70s no one was thinking about the stylistic lines that have been drawn on the internet (particularly in recent years). Gygax probably wouldn't have cared if you or I regarded something he did as narrative. Reading the 1E DMG, it is obviously not really a concept at the time (and I don't remember even encountering such ideas until the early 2000s myself.

In terms of this specific point:



> The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal (if it was, skills like Gather Information couldn't work) and is a dogma and shibboleth that seems to have crystallised (as best I can tell) sometime in the first half of the 1980s.




This is why I mentioned gray areas. I don't think you are entirely wrong here, but I also think you are very much overstating the case and using things like exceptions and edge cases to paint things as being more widespread parts of the rules. Tables definitely varied a lot more back in the 80s. I don't dispute that. I think there wasn't really much in terms of homogenous play. And I think that was good. Now we have chunks of homogenization in the hobby. But I do think the idea that the player had control of setting material was pretty outside most of our experiences in the 80s and into the 90s. It certainly came up here and there, and as I said there were gray areas where you could sort of see it being negotiated (but I don't think people were even aware it was so). But again, just because something appears in the corner of the rulebook somewhere, that doesn't make it the standard way the game was played. I may well not notice, not mind, or enjoy something that appears as a minor blip during play. But if you make it more central its impact is going to be very different.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> That the players do not have ability to directly edit the fictional reality doesn't mean they're spectators.





Crimson Longinus said:


> I think this is actually a part of the reason why some players don't like having the narrative level control. They want to have the illusion that the setting is something 'real' that exists outside of them. Being able to edit that reality instantly breaks the illusion. I mean the GM knows it is naughty word and made up and probably in flux and the players actually know it too, but they don't want their attention to be constantly drawn to it. They want to pretend to be real people in a real world that exists independently of them, as fictional as it all may be.



In my Burning Wheel game I tell the GM "I'm looking out for Rufus as we ride through the outskirts of Auxol." Then I make a Circles check. This is pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

In the same game I tell the GM "Aramina has studied the lore of the Great Masters. She thinks that Evard's tower is somewhere arond here." Then I make a Great Masters-wise check. This is also pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

Upthread you said that who gets to control the randomiser is irrelevant. The only difference between what happened in my game, and a system in which there are two checks - first the GM's secret is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here roll; and then the player's does-my-PC-know-or-see-this roll - is that the two are bundled into one.

There is a more obvious difference between what happens in BW play and a system where the GM can, instead of making an is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here-roll, just decide unilaterally that the looked-for thing is not here. But that has nothing to do with whether the fiction exists "outside of" or "independently of" the player. It is entirely about who gets to establish the content of the shared fiction. (And as I posted not far upthread, this transition in expectations, from distributed authority over the fiction managed via checks to unilateral GM control, can be traced through the early 80s revisions of Classic Traveller. And again through the changes from 1st ed to 2nd ed AD&D.)



Lanefan said:


> 30 seconds into the game and we're already into the realm of co-operative storytelling rather than in-character role-playing.
> 
> Fine if that's what you want but for pity's sake own up to the fact that this is what you're doing.



To me it seems pretty in-character to remember something. As I posted upthread, I have experienced amnesia, for about a week-and-a-half. Having to rely on someone else's second-person narration to learn what it is that you know is not typical. Nor is it terribly immersive.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't see player agency as an objectively good trait, honestly. I like it and prefer it, but that's my taste. There are plenty of people who enjoy games with low agency. One of my buddies occasionally runs short 3- 4 session Call of Cthulhu games for us. These by their very nature allow for less agency than what I'd typically look for in a game.....and yet I really enjoy them. It's because he weaves history and mythos lore in interesting ways, and puts forth an interesting goal for the PCs. There is a plot for us to engage with, although how we do so is fairly open. But we can't just disregard it and go hunting for mythos creatures in the forests of New England....we need to engage the core scenario that he's come up with.



I think well-GMed Cthulhu is the poster child for enjoyable but low-player-agency RPGing.

The situation and the plot - typically some sort of descent into madness - needs to be tightly constructed. (So I think it's not coincidence that we're talking relatively short-form one-shots here.)

And it's very demanding on the GM. S/he has to be a competent performer.

It's a long time since I've played this sort of thing, but I suspect I could still enjoy it. I certainly can't GM it.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I think maybe that it seems you would prefer more input points or dice rolls to determine what you see as aspects of failure, or complications. Rather than allowing one roll to kind of help determine it all, based on what makes sense for the fiction.



I believe you are correct, though you might have noticed I'm open to the possibility of accepting a complication (or whatever the term is in a given game) to turn a failed roll into a success, especially a near-miss.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I am sorry @hawkeyefan  (Re: Agency), but it really just feels like you are trying to define agency so that it perfectly fits the play style you want to advocate for. And since agency is being seen as a good thing (even a moral good I would argue as some are talking about it), I don't think that is a good way to have a discussion about this term (when it is clearly being used to mean very different things by these two posters). We have already had this discussion actually about agency and narrative versus more traditional approaches. I don't think it is worth diving into again. But I do think people trying to control the language in order to advance their preferred play style is a big reason these discussions often break down or end in tears
> 
> EDIT: Just to add here, I think it is a much better approach for you to talk about 'narrative agency', which sounds like a good term for what you are describing to me. But I don't think most people take character agency or player agency in RPGs to mean an ability to shape the narrative or plot. Certainly some might, but to me it seems like a play style concept is being loaded on to an existing term, to get people to agree with that approach. If you like narrative agency, that is fine. There is clearly an appetite for it out there, and the more clear you are about that as a play style approach, the more people you will win over to it. But I think this business of getting play style preferences into things by stealth is something we should really abandoned on both sides of these debates. It isn't good for the hobby, it isn't good for discussion and it just makes people hostile towards play styles they might otherwise enjoy.



Well, I would look at it as the idea of "bodily agency", that a player can expect to direct the physical activity of the character, and form her intentions and opinions is not really worth noting, except maybe where it might be lacking. I'll admit, there are a VERY few niche games that don't grant it (Paranoia, the computer regularly forces PCs to do things, shoving pills down their throats if necessary to get it done). D&D has 'charm', which might be placed on a PC in a very limited situation, generally (and few players are happy about it most of the time). Still, we can assume players direct their characters. There's no real need to discuss this in terms of 'agency', and if it is ALL a player gets, we can consider that to be the minimum of possible agency available in RPGs.

So, ANY really meaningful discussion of agency, and the way the OP framed his question, dealt not with that, but with actual power over the fate and destiny of the characters, and over the material which they will encounter, BEYOND simply choosing to go through the door with orcish voices behind it, or the one with the horrible rotting smell. As long as the plot and content of the game remain absolutely 100% the domain of the GM, there is certainly a hard limit!

We can establish that certain practices of principled play can increase agency. If the GM informs players of the consequences of their moves; if the GM only threatens players prior 'winnings' by offering to accept them as stakes in some new enterprise; if the GM always builds upon what the players are signalling they want to engage in when framing scenes or narrating consequences. These would be at a 'next level' where players and PCs are more central, where the shape and direction of the narrative often (or even always) shape themselves in a shape that the players influence. This is basically where DW and other PbtA games are. In a few cases DW gives the player a bit more. For example the previously mentioned wizard 'cast a spell' move, or even the Volley move, where the consequences of a 7-9 are picked by the player, though the GM usually still has some role in that. Players deciding which questions must be answered in the Discern Realities move can also be a form of input.

Now, beyond that we get into BW, where players regularly add information to the setting, as @pemerton has described in the game he was playing in. That is a bit higher level type of agency, though it certainly falls short of really directly dictating the narrative, except in specific areas. The GM is still pretty free to shape what exactly things mean in a lot of cases. Rufus would be a case where the player pretty much dictated, since he was getting something from his background.

Obviously we can go on from there into truly collaborative story telling games and whatnot, though I am personally not really familiar with that genre.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> In my Burning Wheel game I tell the GM "I'm looking out for Rufus as we ride through the outskirts of Auxol." Then I make a Circles check. This is pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.
> 
> In the same game I tell the GM "Aramina has studied the lore of the Great Masters. She thinks that Evard's tower is somewhere arond here." Then I make a Great Masters-wise check. This is also pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.
> 
> Upthread you said that who gets to control the randomiser is irrelevant. The only difference between what happened in my game, and a system in which there are two checks - first the GM's secret is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here roll; and then the player's does-my-PC-know-or-see-this roll - is that the two are bundled into one.



Who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter. Who gets to decide what is rolled for, when, and what are the possible outcomes matters quite a bit. But I see that you have adamantly decided to not to understand, so there is really no point in this discussion.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I would look at it as the idea of "bodily agency", that a player can expect to direct the physical activity of the character, and form her intentions and opinions is not really worth noting, except maybe where it might be lacking. I'll admit, there are a VERY few niche games that don't grant it (Paranoia, the computer regularly forces PCs to do things, shoving pills down their throats if necessary to get it done). D&D has 'charm', which might be placed on a PC in a very limited situation, generally (and few players are happy about it most of the time). Still, we can assume players direct their characters. There's no real need to discuss this in terms of 'agency', and if it is ALL a player gets, we can consider that to be the minimum of possible agency available in RPGs.




Except this ignores the issues of things like railroads, linear adventures, GM fudging, etc. These are all obstacles to agency. In a lot of these threads, when people invoke agency, they mean their ability to move and act freely in the setting. Taking that, and saying "well maximum agency only occurs when you have narrative control" I think is almost a form of equivocation to get people to sign onto a play style when it is done in this way.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, ANY really meaningful discussion of agency, and the way the OP framed his question, dealt not with that, but with actual power over the fate and destiny of the characters, and over the material which they will encounter, BEYOND simply choosing to go through the door with orcish voices behind it, or the one with the horrible rotting smell. As long as the plot and content of the game remain absolutely 100% the domain of the GM, there is certainly a hard limit!




I think a better approach would be to ask the OP if they had an interest in giving narrative powers to the players. If that is what they mean by agency, then sure, it makes sense. I just get the sense that this wasn't really what the OP had in mind when they invoked agency (and certainly didn't seem to be what many of the posters in the last few pages had in mind)


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> In that passage Gygax is saying you allow it because it is possible (that is the whole point of "unless this is totally foreign to the area). The player isn't creating a bluff, he is able to put his stronghold overlooking a bluff, because bluffs are present there. And *I don't think you can take a passage like this, dealing with the case of strongholds, and extrapolate that to the rest of play*. Like I said, these games have gray areas. But gray areas and edge cases don't establish norms in other situations. It is pretty obvious what is guiding the GM ruling in that instance is whether something would plausibly exist in the area.



I think you haven't fully seen my point, and I'm optimistic that if I make it clearer you might actually agree with me!

I've bolded a bit of your quote that I agree with but that needs more consideration. In my post that you replied to I said that _Gygax's rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running_. In the sort of game he was running strongholds play one sort of role, and NPC wizard's towers play a different sort of role. Whether or not the latter exist in the fiction is under the purview of the GM. This is because, in the sort of game Gygax was running (as best I can tell from his rulebooks and my knowledge of the historical record), _finding a NPC wizard's tower_, with its promise of lore and spellbooks, is itself an accomplishment. Whereas finding somewhere to built your stronghold is more like a starting point than a finishing point.

Burning Wheel, and Dungeon World, are not "accomplishment"-oriented games in that sense. (Which is why I found another poster's invocation of "video games" weird - in terms of play goals these RPGs are a long way away from EQ or WoW as I understand them.) Finding Evard's tower is not an accomplishment that needs to be gated behind GM decision-making, such that establishing it via a player-initiated check is a type of "cheat". It's a starting point, not a finishing point, just like the bluff overlooking the river.

Related to the "success with complications discussion": it would be fair to say that games like BW and DW don't really have "finishing points" until the campaign itself comes to an end. The whole purpose of "success with complications" (in PbtA-type games) or "fail forward" (in BW-type games) is to ensure that everything is always a starting point, with the more that is to come already being implicit in the current situation. That's also why PbtA games use the language of moves "snowballing".

Playing a non-accomplishment oriented RPG of the sort I have described, but confining Gygax's bluff-overlooking-a-river technique to the case of strongholds, would be a mistake. With the change of play purpose, it would be sheer reaction or dogma to not use the technique in other contexts where it can serve the same purpose, of establishing player-driven "starting points".

And a final comment, somewhat of an aside: the stronghold-building character didn't create the bluff - _in the fiction _it was already there. But the _player _of that character is clearly the one who introduced, into the shared fiction, the existence of that bluff overlooking the river.

If Evard's tower being present was "totally foreign to the area" then the GM in my Burning Wheel game would have politely pointed that out - eg maybe we're in a land where all towers have been demolished by the god of ruin - but that's a fairly high threshold for a fantasy RPG. Like Gygax's player I introduced into the shared fiction the idea of Evard's tower being nearby the PCs. But my character didn't create it - _in the fiction _it was already there. That's how she had been able to learn about it.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If the goal is _for the players, through their PCs, to be able to meaningfully impact the fiction_, why advocate for techniques where the GM (overtly or covertly) decides what that impact is?



Note however that "_meaningfully impact the fiction_" does not equate to "_impact the fiction in ways that match what the players/PCs want_", though it seems this is an equivalence you often assume. Obviously the players are going to want their impacts on the fiction to fall in line with their desires, and it's on the GM to counter that. Otherwise, all you've got is "We win. Let's go home." which is neither challenging nor exciting nor fun.

The players/PCs do something.  The GM* then determines, either by mechanics or fiat, what the impacts of that 'something' are.  Seems simple enough to me.

* and 'GM' here also includes the rules-based game state e.g. the thing which makes an Orc collapse on being taken down to 0 or less hit points.


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## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter. Who gets to decide what is rolled for, when, and what are the possible outcomes matters quite a bit.





Crimson Longinus said:


> darkbard said:
> 
> 
> 
> What do you mean, then, by player agency?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To put it super simply, it is that the actions of the characters matter.
Click to expand...


If I, playing a character, conjecture "Isn't Evard's tower around here somewhere" or if I, playing a character, say "I'm looking out for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol", and nothing can flow from that because the GM has unilaterally decided that Rufus is not about or that there is no such tower, then on this occasion my actions don't matter.

Hence by your own account I, as a player, don't have agency on this occasion.

And generalising the point: the only actions that _will_ matter, on an approach of unilateral GM control, will be actions directed towards elements that the GM has introduced. Just like H3 Pyramid of Shadows that I quoted upthread.

That is low-player-agency RPGing.

EDIT:


Bedrockgames said:


> Except this ignores the issues of things like railroads, linear adventures, GM fudging, etc. These are all obstacles to agency.



H3 Pyramid of Shadows _is_ a railroad.

If the GM sets things up so the players can (say) choose between H3 or H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth, now maybe we have a choice between two railroads.

But ultimately if (i) the goal of play is to experience a story in a "living, breathing world" and (ii) we are not just going to have the GM decide the key elements of it, the players need to be able to have input.

There are different ways this can be done: taking suggestions (as Gygax mentions in relation to strongholds; as is a big part of PbtA-type games; as 4e D&D allows for in player-defined quests), or action resolution frameworks (which BW and Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic emphasise), or sheer player stipulation (off the top of my head I can't think of a RPG that allows this for key elements of the shared fiction - OGL Conan allows it for peripheral elements).

Without it - if the GM just unilaterally decides whether or not there are bluffs overlooking rivers, or wizard's towers, or family members to be engaged with - then play becomes an exploration of the content of the GM's mind.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Note however that "_meaningfully impact the fiction_" does not equate to "_impact the fiction in ways that match what the players/PCs want_", though it seems this is an equivalence you often assume. Obviously the players are going to want their impacts on the fiction to fall in line with their desires, and it's on the GM to counter that.



This looks like a description of freeform cooperative storytelling, though in a slightly adversarial mode.

My preference is to use mechanics and associated principles and techniques to decide whether or not the PCs win or are countered.


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## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Note however that "_meaningfully impact the fiction_" does not equate to "_impact the fiction in ways that match what the players/PCs want_", though it seems this is an equivalence you often assume. Obviously the players are going to want their impacts on the fiction to fall in line with their desires, and it's on the GM to counter that. Otherwise, all you've got is "We win. Let's go home." which is neither challenging nor exciting nor fun.




Come on, man, you've participated in way too many of these discussions to state something like this. You know very well that PC desiderata, when in question, are put to a mechanical test. And you also know about the Czege Principle and how your framework would be a clear violation thereof.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Playing a non-accomplishment oriented RPG of the sort I have described, but confining Gygax's bluff-overlooking-a-river technique to the case of strongholds, would be a mistake. With the change of play purpose, it would be sheer reaction or dogma to not use the technique in other contexts where it can serve the same purpose, of establishing player-driven "starting points".



I don't think this is reactionary dogma. I think the reaction comes before the dogma actually. This is something where I would say you ought o be cautious. Obviously it depends on what one is attempting to do. I wouldn't want to stop you Pemerton from applying this corner principle to other parts of the game. But I do think when you have a rule or principle like this relegated to a part of the game like it is here, you shouldn't assume it will have the same impact if it is made more ubiquitous. When 4E came out, I objected to a lot of the class powers, a lot of the ways healing worked and a lot of the assumptions behind many of the rules. Many people rightly pointed out, these things existed in parts of the game already. But my reaction, I think, came about because aspects of play that didn't bother me if they came up rarely or happened with this one class or situation, bothered me a lot when they came up all the time. Now not every player is going to be bothered by pcs being able to create plot or geography in the setting but many will be. And those who are bothered by it, are going to react a lot more to it than would if it were just part of the stronghold system. 

Now, where I will agree with you is that things have become very dogmatic around play style issues and we often project them back onto the past. There is a throw the baby out with the bathwater mentality that can arise when people are engaged in these discussions and decide they don't like mechanic X because it is that darn mechanic pemerton is always advocating. And then maybe they don't realize the issue they actually have isn't itself, but the quantity of that mechanic. I encounter this a lot in these discussions. We can get closed minded around playstyle. I am trying to avoid doing that here myself. I think what you are advocating can certainly be a fun way to play. I think where I tend to get irritated is when the argument seems to be 'well you say you like X, and this is the most X you can possibly have, so you will love this approach" or when things just get muddied because we are dealing in edge cases to justify something always being a certain way, or suggesting they ought to be. But we should also be mindful a lot of that dogma is because of these kinds of exchanges people like you and I have on these threads, where things get heated, egos get in the way, and people try to advance their play style over others (not saying you are doing that in this instance, just this is something that happens in these discussions all the time).


----------



## innerdude

prabe said:


> [hawkeye fan asks: "So let's say we do it this way, and there's a success on the Athletics check and a failure on the Stealth check. How would you describe that outcome?"]
> 
> Probably exactly how you think: You made the jump, but you attracted the attention of the guards below. This isn't exactly the same thing as having guards on the rooftop because you rolled a complicated success on a straight jump, IMO; among other things, by making it two checks you made the various failure-states pretty clear.
> 
> (And if I'm playing that pair of checks I almost certainly take Disadvantage on the Stealth, because being noticed is literally less painful than falling.)




And I don't think there's anything wrong with this approach. It's certainly valid, depending on desired playstyle. I've done much the same thing hundreds of times. 

Having some actual play experience with Dungeon World (and having recently read through Ironsworn, which appears to be a much-improved take on fantasy Powered by the Apocalypse that solves many of the problems I had with DW), it could equally be valid to have the GM frame the check as follows:  

GM: "You can definitely accomplish the jump across the chasm to the other side of the battlement. However, it's a decent distance, and you're going to have to exert some energy and moxie to make it across without making noise. There's guards posted all along the battlement, and there's absolutely a risk of being heard if you make that jump. What do you do?"

Player: (Probably asks if they can mitigate the risk of being heard, if there's some other plan of action that doesn't result in alerting the guards, etc.)

GM: "Based on the situation and your proposed action --- leaping across the chasm --- there doesn't appear to be much room for error. If you're skilled enough, maybe you can do it; otherwise, your proposed action is definitely going to incur some risk."

Player: (Declares they go through with it). 

GM: "Okay, you're triggering an 'Overcome Obstacle' move, using Agility.  Make your roll!"

Result: On a strong hit (i.e., full success), no problem; player is on the other side without calling undue attention. On a weak hit (success with complication), player leaps across but can't do it skillfully enough to avoid the extra trouble of alerting the guards.

How is that meaningfully different than calling for two separate rolls? Is it the illusion that the player "still has control" because they can try to mitigate the problematic outcome by having a separate stealth check? What if the GM secretly attaches a penalty modifier to the roll? Has the GM exerted any less influence over the fiction / reduced the player's agency?

Or is it better for the player and GM to have a very clear view of what's at stake when the dice hit the table, and they agree to let it ride?  


As a side note, one of the most powerful things I discovered in playing DW (and again reading through Ironsworn) is the notion of having clarifying questions/conversations around EXACTLY what is happening in the fiction. What is the player's position in the fiction? What's nominally at risk for them? What's their status relative to those risks? The idea that it's my job as GM to give the player the clearest possible view of their position resonated strongly with me.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> A choice of mechanics is one way to communicate expectations but not the only one (and definitely not the best.)
> 
> 
> This is disingenuous and frankly condescending framing. That the players do not have ability to directly edit the fictional reality doesn't mean they're spectators. @Bedrockgames explained this couple of posts ago better than I could, and more politely than I at this point would bother to.



Nobody is saying that the players are necessarily spectators, you're kind of excluding the middle here. What I would say is that player agency is improved when the game is DESIGNED to make room for it. One of the problems when discussing D&D specifically, and this is exacerbated when someone calls it 'normal', is that D&D didn't start out this way.
D&D started out as purely an almost wargame-esque crawl that involved skilled play ONLY. So, yes, the players had agency only to control their PCs within the limits of what the PCs could do or know. The DM OTOH was absolutely limited to what was on the map, key, and wandering monster table. ANYTHING the DM produced outside of that, or ANY time they fudged a roll or deliberately judged a situation based on their own agenda and not an honestly neutral standpoint, was illegal in that game. Now, DMs still had a lot of leeway, and players really limited agency, but the players DID have that protection! The DM wasn't allowed to sic a wandering monster on them just because he thought they were being putzes, or because his favorite NPC was going to get offed, or whatever. It happened, but all of that was bad DMing and it was pretty well stated, certainly the 'culture' of D&D, including articles in SR/The Dragon, talked about it. 

But then 2e came along and just told the DM to become a 'storyteller' and stop worrying about the rules so much. Meanwhile the players were given nothing, they were expected to simply continue to inhabit OD&D's dungeon crawl aesthetic with no change. The fact that the OD&D aesthetic included "hide the numbers from the players" just made it even worse. You could run 2e by the book and simply utterly make up everything as DM in any way you wanted. Not that this was usual, but the game, and subsequently 3.x and 5e offer no better situation for the players as a guarantee. 

I simply offer that this is a poor situation and we can design games better than that. and more relevant to the OP, playing the way 2e tells a DM to run a game is pretty likely low agency, but clearly we all don't agree on what that means...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> If I, playing a character, conjecture "Isn't Evard's tower around here somewhere" or if I, playing a character, say "I'm looking out for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol", and nothing can flow from that because the GM has unilaterally decided that Rufus is not about or that there is no such tower, then on this occasion my actions don't matter.



Nonsense. Character may still learn the state of the affairs. "No, the tower isn't here," "no Rufus isn't here." Then you have a new state of affairs to base your next decisions on. It is also possible that you learn other information, such as "no Rufus isn't here, and in fact no one has seen him in days. His friends are a bit worried. They say he head been acting strangely." The action to seek information mattered: information was gained. The player just wasn't able to dictate the specific content of that information. 



pemerton said:


> And generalising the point: the only actions that _will_ matter, on an approach of unilateral GM control, will be actions directed towards elements that the GM has introduced. Just like H3 Pyramid of Shadows that I quoted upthread.



In a sense that the player controls their character and the GM controls the setting outside their character. 



pemerton said:


> That is low-player-agency RPGing.



Still no.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I think you haven't fully seen my point, and I'm optimistic that if I make it clearer you might actually agree with me!
> 
> I've bolded a bit of your quote that I agree with but that needs more consideration. In my post that you replied to I said that _Gygax's rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running_. In the sort of game he was running strongholds play one sort of role, and NPC wizard's towers play a different sort of role. Whether or not the latter exist in the fiction is under the purview of the GM. This is because, in the sort of game Gygax was running (as best I can tell from his rulebooks and my knowledge of the historical record), _finding a NPC wizard's tower_, with its promise of lore and spellbooks, is itself an accomplishment. Whereas finding somewhere to built your stronghold is more like a starting point than a finishing point.




I think again you are overstating the case. I am not saying there isn't a kernel of agreement here, there is. But this is a mechanic that predates the discussions about agency, and it is a challenging aspect to nail down because stronghold play is very different from the rest of the game (when you are dealing with strongholds, that effects things like timescale too and there is just a lot being glossed over). I honestly think he is just venturing into difficult territory (strongholds were always a tricky part of the game) and doing his best to provide adjudication advice). It is very easy with Gygax to get too caught up in holding him to task for each thing he said, and assuming that builds a set of clear assumptions that are unchanging over time. But just reading the DMG alone, you get the sense that a lot of what gygax was doing was thinking out loud and evolving in response to feedback. 

It is also important to keep in mind, regardless of what Gygax said, people often played the game in a totally different way than the letter of his words. Norms did emerge. 

I have to admit though I am a little confused by your point about accomplishments. I am not really seeing how that connects here


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> And I don't think there's anything wrong with this approach. It's certainly valid, depending on desired playstyle. I've done much the same thing hundreds of times.
> 
> Having some actual play experience with Dungeon World (and having recently read through Ironsworn, which appears to be a much-improved take on fantasy Powered by the Apocalypse that solves many of the problems I had with DW), it could equally be valid to have the GM frame the check as follows:



{snipping for space; apologies}


innerdude said:


> How is that meaningfully different than calling for two separate rolls? Is it the illusion that the player "still has control" because they can try to mitigate the problematic outcome by having a separate stealth check? What if the GM secretly attaches a penalty modifier to the roll? Has the GM exerted any less influence over the fiction / reduced the player's agency?



It's not much different. The example you give is substantially clearer than anything I remember seeing in either AW or the BitD SRD. At that point it comes to the statistics of the various games, and the fact that PbtA and BitD are built around complications accruing as a result of the players' dice rolls. If (in D&D) the DM doesn't make the DC clear to the player, or if he attaches hidden modifiers, then he's being less transparent with the player than I'd like (though table expectations might exclude direct reference to DC, so maybe not).


innerdude said:


> Or is it better for the player and GM to have a very clear view of what's at stake when the dice hit the table, and they agree to let it ride?



I certainly think that clear stakes are important, the more so as the failure states get more unpleasant.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> I can't say that I really understand this partial success discussion. Partial successes/degrees of success are just a perfectly natural thing and any system should support them to certain extent as they happen in real life all the time. Like in that jumping example _not quite making it and ending up hanging from the edge of the roof instead_ seems like a perfectly possible outcome. Now if these mechanics 'create' completely new fictional elements that might not be even directly related to the thing the character is doing, then I can see it rubbing some people the wrong way. Like if a failed jump check caused new guards to 'spawn' etc.




Well, its partly a side topic, and turns on whether the baseline on the "succeed" side is "success" or "flawed success".  For better or worse, some people don't respond well to the latter.

This has been brought up because at least most of the PbtA games used, essentially, "success with complications" as their default success; you can get more unmixed success with a good enough roll, but the system kind of doesn't want you to most of the time, because the "complications" drive ongoing play.  And I can quite see how people really focused on player agency can (not necessarily will) see this as having an attempt to limit their agency baked right into the rules.

To what extent this is true varies apparently on the particular incarnation of the *World game and of course there's the big unresolveable debate about how many people react positively or negatively to that, but that's why its a subportion of the thread.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This thread is in General. It's not about D&D exclusively, or even in particular. And I note that even your "normal for D&D" appears to exclude 4e D&D.
> 
> The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal



And is also an extreme interpretation of the stances of others, which is of no help to either clarity or dialogue.


pemerton said:


> My impression is that a lot of actual play in the 1970s was far more relaxed about player-introduced content I've got in mind things like the famous "baby balrog" in one of Gygax's campaigns; and even the shift from OD&D being very relaxed about players making up new character types - like balrogs - to Gygax's DMG being sternly against it. And Gygax is still relaxed about the matter in his discussion of stronghold-building (from his DMG, p 93):
> 
> Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, *you inform him that he can do so*.​



Two things to note here: one, this is a specific exception to the otherwise-established baseline where setting parameters are under the purview of the GM; and two (and more important), as per the bit I bolded the GM still has to give permission and retains veto power.  If memory serves, however, once the GM does give permission the player then gains some narrative control over many elements of that hex other than just the stronghold itself, subject to GM veto if abused.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> OD&D has combat resolution mechanics (either Chainmail or the "alternative" combat mechanics), which allow players to do more than just declare the bodily movements their PCs make.




Rather depends on whether the person using that phrase was using it as a substitute for "physical actions".  If so, the combat system can very well be read in that line.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> The debate is whether that agency is warranted.
> 
> My assumption is that as agency increases a point arrives at which said acengy is no longer warranted, and therefore not good.  For me that point arrives when players' agency goes beyond their own characters (and obvious outcomes of their actions) and starts affecting setting elements which are the purview of the GM.
> 
> Example: players being able to create setting elements out of thin air on a successful action declaration = unwarranted agency.
> 
> Agreed here.  Fudging is generally bad; and if the players aren't allowed to do it the GM shouldn't be allowed to either.
> 
> My view is that such a high-level non-granular resolution system mixed with a desire for a binary end-result is where the problem lies.  If all those sub-rolls actually took place, each on a more-or-less binary level, then the macro-result might end up looking like success-with-complication (or fail-forward) but the integrity of each binary success-fail point within that sequence would be maintained.  Example: combat.
> 
> To me the obvious solution is to take the time, break it down, and do the sub-rolls - even if the system tells you not to.



Unwarranted? 'Problem lies'? See, this to me is really loaded language! I would say that any process, action, or situation which removes agency from a person lessens that person's personhood. It makes them subject to another in some way. It is never warranted unless it can be justified by some other good. This is the fundamental tenet upon which the idea of the virtue of human freedom rests! 

Now, we're playing games, and I am kind of sitting here writing this with a light heart. I certainly don't think anyone is being oppressed in playing an RPG, but I don't think I need to justify player agency, I think others need to justify denying it a lot more! 

Nor is something like bundling moves along with checks, IMHO, a 'problem'. I suspect it just defies ancient D&D convention, and that raises the hackles of the defenders of tradition! At the end of the day I have not observed anyone play DW (for instance) and complain about that. What I HAVE seen is a lot of veteran RPGers who have a very hard time wrapping their heads around anything but D&D and its analogs. Deep ingrained ideas of how these games are played have to be surfaced and dispelled. Often the symptom is an unwillingness/inability to actually take hold of the added responsibilities introduced by this kind of play. Players fail to volunteer information, act on bonds, and have difficulty expressing goals beyond responding to the GM's cues. Luckily there is almost always at least one player who gets it (or hasn't played an RPG before and thus lacks this mindset) and they can kind of just take the lead and treat the others a bit like henchmen for a while until they learn to assert themselves. Usually even the most hidebound at least do well with class moves, which usually are pretty direct. Things turn out well, mostly, but it can be an interesting challenge. It is like watching someone regain their power of sight for the first time in years, it takes a while to learn to use it.


----------



## Thomas Shey

innerdude said:


> For example, in some groups I've played with, @hawkeyefan 's example of more guards stepping from the shadows with drawn swords would be decried as a "foul", because the GM should have allowed the players/PCs to make an attempt at _noticing_ those guards first. It's a specific type of group social contract, where the GM is only ever allowed to introduce risk in a fashion such that the players have some ability to mitigate it. If you're coming from that narrow view of play, I could see how introducing complications feels like a GM "cheat code", because old-school dungeon crawling is all about "smart" play allowing the player to eliminate risks.
> 
> Apocalypse World / Blades in the Dark and their respective offspring very much work against the idea that a key goal of play is to eliminate risks.




I'll go as far as to say that I believe the ability to at least _reduce_ risks is expected by the majority of players in most games.  Whether that's an old school view (I don't think so, personally) is something of in the eye of the beholder.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I can see that may be a concern. I don't know how true it is. The players can leverage things in lots of ways. They can determine these points themselves.



To me that almost sounds like a cheat code:  "_Hey, we have problem X here but if we invent and use leverage-point Y we can blow past it at no risk or cost_". And so with one player-spoken sentence the problem Goes Away.

This takes away all the intrigue of determining whether leverage-point Y exists, whether it's accessible to the PCs, and whether they can put it to use...all, it seems, in the interests of allowing the fiction to develop faster.

It's as if the specific design goal is to make the game more appealing to those with short attention spans.


----------



## innerdude

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Nobody is saying that the players are necessarily spectators, you're kind of excluding the middle here. What I would say is that player agency is improved when the game is DESIGNED to make room for it. One of the problems when discussing D&D specifically, and this is exacerbated when someone calls it 'normal', is that D&D didn't start out this way.
> D&D started out as purely an almost wargame-esque crawl that involved skilled play ONLY. So, yes, the players had agency only to control their PCs within the limits of what the PCs could do or know. The DM OTOH was absolutely limited to what was on the map, key, and wandering monster table. ANYTHING the DM produced outside of that, or ANY time they fudged a roll or deliberately judged a situation based on their own agenda and not an honestly neutral standpoint, was illegal in that game. Now, DMs still had a lot of leeway, and players really limited agency, but the players DID have that protection! The DM wasn't allowed to sic a wandering monster on them just because he thought they were being putzes, or because his favorite NPC was going to get offed, or whatever. It happened, but all of that was bad DMing and it was pretty well stated, certainly the 'culture' of D&D, including articles in SR/The Dragon, talked about it.
> 
> But then 2e came along and just told the DM to become a 'storyteller' and stop worrying about the rules so much. Meanwhile the players were given nothing, they were expected to simply continue to inhabit OD&D's dungeon crawl aesthetic with no change. The fact that the OD&D aesthetic included "hide the numbers from the players" just made it even worse. You could run 2e by the book and simply utterly make up everything as DM in any way you wanted. Not that this was usual, but the game, and subsequently 3.x and 5e offer no better situation for the players as a guarantee.
> 
> I simply offer that this is a poor situation and we can design games better than that. and more relevant to the OP, playing the way 2e tells a DM to run a game is pretty likely low agency, but clearly we all don't agree on what that means...




Mostly to clarify for @prabe --- Just so you know, when @pemerton first started talking about a lot of these principles / play style, I bounced off them _hard_. It felt like total anathema to what I knew, what I thought should "work" in RPG play. Especially because he was using them in context of D&D 4, which I positively despised at the time, and didn't think it was worth my while to even consider them.

It took a long time for me to really grok what he was talking about --- how to push play into areas that allowed more player control over the fiction, how it was possible to let those player-generated elements become more central to play, how to frame the fiction to better support it, etc.

At that time, I had only ever played D&D --- some B/X, BECMI, and 3.x. I had zero other frame of reference. I've since abandoned D&D entirely (have literally played 2 sessions total of a d20-based system since 2010) in favor of Savage Worlds, but even Savage Worlds is still very much a "traditional" style action/resolution style RPG. Granted, in my opinion it plays a lot like a fast-and-loose but incredibly fun take on BECMI, but it's still got more in common with D&D as a general task-resolution framework than say, Fate or Apocalypse World.

It wasn't until I really started branching out into other "stuff" that it started to click on what these new-fangled "indie" systems were pushing toward.

One main reason you'll get so many strong responses to your posts is because of what @AbdulAlhazred notes in his quote --- D&D has never, not once, explicitly directed players/GMs to consider techniques like the ones being espoused outside its original breeding ground. There's an information void, where D&D players are often not aware that there's even an alternative point of view to consider, let alone that it might actually produce a gameplay style they'd like better if they gave it a shot.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Aldarc said:


> Feature not a flaw.




Eh.  There are both virtues and problems in rolling multiple axes of resolution into one roll, and which it primarily lands in depends on what your priorities are there.  At the very least if you want the mechanical process to tell you which ones succeeded at and which ones failed and not either lockstep them together or throw it to the definition of an outside party, it complicates how you have to make your resolution roll.  That doesn't mean I think having more than one thing resolved with one roll is an intrinsic evil (separating out "makes the jump" and "isn't injured" seems to me to be perverse and asking for the laws of probability to make everything worse) but doing so isn't an unmixed blessing.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> I think well-GMed Cthulhu is the poster child for enjoyable but low-player-agency RPGing.




Traditional (rather than action-) horror games in general honestly.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In my Burning Wheel game I tell the GM "I'm looking out for Rufus as we ride through the outskirts of Auxol." Then I make a Circles check. This is pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.
> 
> In the same game I tell the GM "Aramina has studied the lore of the Great Masters. She thinks that Evard's tower is somewhere arond here." Then I make a Great Masters-wise check. This is also pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.



It's independent of both you-as-player and you-as-character if Evard's tower is already noted on the map as being in location X.

It's the same as if I-as-real-person find myself in a strange city looking for, say for whatever reason, a Walmart.  I've good reason to suspect there's one around here somewhere, but my act of looking for it doesn't materially change where it is: assuming half-decent perception on my part my act of looking for it is going to succeed solely on the basis of where I happen to be at the time in relation to its location.


pemerton said:


> To me it seems pretty in-character to remember something. As I posted upthread, I have experienced amnesia, for about a week-and-a-half. Having to rely on someone else's second-person narration to learn what it is that you know is not typical. Nor is it terribly immersive.



If the hills are shown on the map then as both player and character I've no real excuse for not knowing they're there.

If that area hasn't been mapped (yet) it's on me as player to ask (*not tell*) the GM whether there's hills there; and if she throws the question back in my lap IMO as GM she's abdicated her responsibility over setting elements, which immediately starts me wondering what other responsibilities she's going to evade as the game/campaign goes on.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> Note however that "_meaningfully impact the fiction_" does not equate to "_impact the fiction in ways that match what the players/PCs want_", though it seems this is an equivalence you often assume. Obviously the players are going to want their impacts on the fiction to fall in line with their desires, and it's on the GM to counter that. Otherwise, all you've got is "We win. Let's go home." which is neither challenging nor exciting nor fun.
> 
> The players/PCs do something.  The GM* then determines, either by mechanics or fiat, what the impacts of that 'something' are.  Seems simple enough to me.
> 
> * and 'GM' here also includes the rules-based game state e.g. the thing which makes an Orc collapse on being taken down to 0 or less hit points.




The problem is, if it doesn't at least show _some_ relationship to the players goals, then in practice their agency doesn't matter; they just get to make a choice and something happens, but it could, for all they can tell, happened if they made a different choice.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> To me that almost sounds like a cheat code:  "_Hey, we have problem X here but if we invent and use leverage-point Y we can blow past it at no risk or cost_". And so with one player-spoken sentence the problem Goes Away.
> 
> This takes away all the intrigue of determining whether leverage-point Y exists, whether it's accessible to the PCs, and whether they can put it to use...all, it seems, in the interests of allowing the fiction to develop faster.
> 
> It's as if the specific design goal is to make the game more appealing to those with short attention spans.




Are you sure you want to play the dozens on people who have a style you dislike quite that strongly?  Because this  post does that pretty strongly.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Grrrr....  As a player the first words out of my mouth would be some version of "Why are we here, how did we get here, and why - if we don't need to be here - didn't we go around?"



AWESOME! This is so cool! And the DW GM's principles are always to love questions, and get the players to answer them too! So my response to
"Why are we here?" will be "I don't know, you tell me!" Now, I might also suggest reference to the PC's bonds as a potential inspiration for that, or at least their backgrounds (which are partly implied in class and race too). The other two questions likewise, their answers will PROBABLY illicit a bunch of world building and help to establish the momentum of the start of game.


Lanefan said:


> 30 seconds into the game and we're already into the realm of co-operative storytelling rather than in-character role-playing.



In all fairness, the players COULD, if they wish, 'look to the GM' At this point the GM's process is to make a soft move. I think it would be a BIT odd for the players to not even ask a question, but DW is fairly robust. A player could also invoke the Spout Lore move, which obligates the GM to tell them something, and on a 10+ the GM is also obligated to make that something 'useful to the characters'. Even with a 7-9 it would at least presumably allow a player to Spout Lore "about the Gnatbite Swamp" and put it on the GM to supply some information. Its a bit of a dodge, but not out of bounds. The GM might then respond with the spiel about the hills to the north, or something else.


Lanefan said:


> Fine if that's what you want but for pity's sake own up to the fact that this is what you're doing.



Well, remember, we're talking about, specifically, the 'start of game' process. The GM is ALLOWED to ask the player's questions at any point, even later in the game, but it is particularly appropriate at the start. Obviously the players can punt to a degree, and they can pretty easily lean on the GM as much as they want. I mean, really, nobody can make someone pick up a tool and use it. The players will find that they are going to pick up some authority along the way, naturally, but it is exceptionally easy to pick one player and make them do most of it. It is also pretty common to have gritty tactical sequences of play that don't call for a lot of deciding what the world looks like. Again, if the PCs run into a 'hole in the map' in that kind of situation, then the GM can simply think about what the players are wanting to do. "Oh, they want to delve deep into dangerous dungeon levels to find some legendary lost treasure... OK, you see a stairway leading down into darkness!"


----------



## Crimson Longinus

So do posters here believe that they have agency in the real life? Just asking to calibrate some agency standards.


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## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Sometimes it just feel that people want to have rules to protect them from bad GMs, but I have hard time imagining that it will ultimately be a satisfying solution for that particular problem.




We can all be certain this is the case because for the 40+ years that TTRPGs have been a thing, poor GMs/GMing and how to fix it has been one of the primary conversation pieces from White Dwarf to Dragon to internet forums to real life!

However, all of the people you are discussing these matters with in this thread are lifelong GMs.  Some of us, myself included, are pretty much exclusively GMs so we're broaching this subject through that lens.  

Personally, what I want out of the games that I run (and I run many different types of games) is to get precisely the experience the participants who will be playing are looking for.  In the last decade the systems I've primarily (with stray exceptions like Ten Candles, My Life With Master, Sorcerer, Beyond the Wall, Masks, Scum and Villainy, Monsterhearts, 5e, The One Ring, 13th Age) run are (starting from most played to least played):

* D&D 4e

* Dungeon World

* Dogs in the Vineyard

* Torchbearer

* Blades in the Dark

* Apocalypse World

* Strike!

* Mouse Guard

* Various Cortex+ (mostly MHRP)

* Moldvay Basic if its low level or RC D&D if its my 30 year gaming friends spare continuing game (and they'll pick one of their 3-4 characters from their PC stable).



On the Venn Diagram of TTRPG attributes, as GM, all of those games above (except for RC) share the following overlap:

* Holistic, intentful design with a focused premise, explicit ethos, and engineering toward executing that precisely and consistently.

* Clear, cogent (even if its a more weighty text like 4e/Torchbearer/Blades), player-facing rules that are all integrated to perpetuate the game's particular play loop.

* Enumerated GM role and constraints, clarity of authority for participants (whether its more distributed or more siloed like in Moldvay Basic), great GMing advice, and clarity of procedures and conversation.



Why do I want this stuff as GM?  Because it lets me offload mental overhead that I *don't *want onto system and players (thereby investing them in the responsibility for the trajectory of play), therefore reducing unwanted stress and allowing me to be mentally fresh and focus my cognitive horsepower on optimizing my creativity and industry for the particular role of the GM in that game (building an interesting, challenging, thematic dungeon in Moldvay is different than in Torchbearer and they're both different than running a 4e Skill Challenge which is different than running a 4e combat which is different than running a Blades Score which is different than running a Dogs escalating conflict).  There is never any confusion on what is happening or what has happened in a session.  And finally, I get to "play to find out what happens" (even in a Moldvay Basic dungeon where I've mapped and keyed everything with high resolution) because players and system are driving play while I'm reacting and countering (which is the inverse of a lot of TTRPG play).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> My impression is that a lot of actual play in the 1970s was far more relaxed about player-introduced content I've got in mind things like the famous "baby balrog" in one of Gygax's campaigns; and even the shift from OD&D being very relaxed about players making up new character types - like balrogs - to Gygax's DMG being sternly against it. And Gygax is still relaxed about the matter in his discussion of stronghold-building (from his DMG, p 93):
> 
> Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that he can do so.​
> The difference between this and the Great Masters-wise check made to establish that Aramina truly recollects the location of Evard's tower is that what Gygax describes is (i) more informal, and (ii) not gated behind a player build decision (ie spending points to develop Great Masters-wise). But there is no difference in terms of whose ideas are establishing the content of the shared fiction. Just like Dungeon World, it is an example of "drawing maps but leaving blank spaces" and then looking to one of the players to fill in those blanks.
> 
> What puzzles me is that no one seems ever to have thought the passage from Gygax worth mentioning, except for me! Whereas something basically the same but made more overt as a feature of playing other systems generates all this debate and discussion about "narrative perspective" or "narrative stance" or "narrative power".
> 
> I'm certainly not Gygax's number-one advocate, but I think that his rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running, although - like @AbdulAlhazred - I don't think he'd come up with a perfect set of tools to solve all the problems.



Yeah. I think the whole 'named levels get strongholds and followers' coupled with 'troupe play' and the fundamental origins of the game stemming from a wargame campaign where players ran countries and built fantasy armies, kind of WAS the answer to high level play. Low level play was envisaged as pretty much entirely 'skilled play' in a 'dungeon crawl' sort of mode (or hex crawl once you got to mid levels). It wasn't really envisaged that the players would regularly run groups of name+ level PCs in established parties as a single group. It was more envisaged that they would be, at best, friendly rivals and movers behind the scenes. Perhaps they would appear now and then to handle a great crisis (G1 for instance) but they would probably represent their own 'factions' and eventually retreat back to their lairs and let the henchmen do the mundane adventuring work.

So, the PCs would become 'movers' with a lot of in game agency, being able to muster armies, sweet talk or bully most NPCs, etc. As a lot of them would be either casters or have caster henchmen and powerful items, they would exhibit lots of plot power and agency. They might even build on the stronghold path to raise themselves to the level of being rulers of entire realms. I don't recall that being called out in WoG ever, but it was certainly a viable path for a high level PC.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> Come on, man, you've participated in way too many of these discussions to state something like this. You know very well that PC desiderata, when in question, are put to a mechanical test. And you also know about the Czege Principle and how your framework would be a clear violation thereof.



Yes.  My point is that when (usually @pemerton but sometimes others) post words to the effect that the _goal of the players is to make meaningful changes to the fiction_, because players naturally are going to want those changes to be beneficial to their PCs it often comes across as saying the goal of the players is to make beneficial-to-them changes only.

An example: our goal is to rescue some people trapped in a mostly-collapsed mine.  I'm playing the Hobbit.  Can we all agree that "_I try to squeeze through the remaining passage with two goals: one, to not bring the rest of it down and two, to tow a rope through by which supplies etc. can be got to those who are trapped._" is a good and valid action declaration?

If yes, there's several possible outcomes one of which on failure is that I bring the rest of the passage down on myself.  Yeah, I've made a material change to the fiction but in any way have I achieved a goal either meta or not?  Hell no!  I've made things worse for the trapped people, killed my character, and generally messed things up - even though technically I've met the meaningful-changes goal italicized above.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter. Who gets to decide what is rolled for, when, and what are the possible outcomes matters quite a bit. But I see that you have adamantly decided to not to understand, so there is really no point in this discussion.




I'm curious why you think "who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter?"  Can you elaborate?  

Do you also believe that player-facing systems and GM-facing systems have no impact on the overall aesthetic of play and the psychology of "participants set at <some degree of> tension (one group is advocating for their PC/group goals within the premise of the system...while the other party's role is to place opposition/obstacles to their goals so skill can be tested and/or story can emerge/PC nature can be revealed)."  Even if you have the most beautiful trusting relationships possible, a referee and a player are purposely going to have tension (though they aren't at cross-purposes, there is, by fundamental nature, tension) because of their respective roles.  The question is how is this tension navigated/mitigated (there are several ways it can be done that don't just offload it onto social contract).


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> So do posters here believe that they have agency in the real life? Just asking to calibrate some agency standards.




Is it going to be manifestly unhelpful to answer "To a degree"?


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> We can all be certain this is the case because for the 40+ years that TTRPGs have been a thing, poor GMs/GMing and how to fix it has been one of the primary conversation pieces from White Dwarf to Dragon to internet forums to real life!
> 
> However, all of the people you are discussing these matters with in this thread are lifelong GMs.  Some of us, myself included, are pretty much exclusively GMs so we're broaching this subject through that lens.




Though I should note that my lifelong GMing has made me, if anything, even _more_ sensitive to failure states at that end of things; I personally think a lot of questionable player behavior can be traced back to scar tissue from encounters with either outright bad GMing or one of us fumbling our roll as it were.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Also, without bothering to quote Manbearcat, I think there's indeed some halfway strong psychological loading on who rolls the dice in a given situation in many cases.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> Traditional (rather than action-) horror games in general honestly.



CoC is the only one I know.

I would add - I don't think that GM-driven, player-participation is the only way to have fun playing a Cthulhu-esque game, though I certainly think it's what CoC itself is best for.

I've run a couple of Cthulhu Dark one-shots over the past few years and it works very well for player-driven no-myth RPGing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> I'm curious why you think "who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter?"  Can you elaborate?



I meant doesn't matter for the outcome. It of course might psychologically matter a bit.



Manbearcat said:


> Do you also believe that player-facing systems and GM-facing systems have no impact on the overall aesthetic of play and the psychology of "participants set at <some degree of> tension (one group is advocating for their PC/group goals within the premise of the system...while the other party's role is to place opposition/obstacles to their goals so skill can be tested and/or story can emerge/PC nature can be revealed)."  Even if you have the most beautiful trusting relationships possible, a referee and a player are purposely going to have tension (though they aren't at cross-purposes, there is, by fundamental nature, tension) because of their respective roles.  The question is how is this tension navigated/mitigated (there are several ways it can be done that don't just offload it onto social contract).



I can't say that I would be sure what you're getting at here... Psychologically rolling the dice makes you feel like 'you're doing something' so in that sense systems which consistently couple the player rolling the dice with their character doing something are probably more engaging and immersive, even though the actual odds would remain the same. D&D's passive AC for example isn't ideal from that perspective.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Except this ignores the issues of things like railroads, linear adventures, GM fudging, etc. These are all obstacles to agency. In a lot of these threads, when people invoke agency, they mean their ability to move and act freely in the setting. Taking that, and saying "well maximum agency only occurs when you have narrative control" I think is almost a form of equivocation to get people to sign onto a play style when it is done in this way.



I think 'agency' where you have no guarantees and are always ASKING for something is at best a lesser sort of agency. In a game where the rules start with "rule 0, the GM can fiat anything." and then follows with a process where the GM is at least assumed, 'normally' as you put it, to narrate all facts about the world, that agency can be no more than 'bodily' in any real respect. 

Yes, of course, the GM can even undermine the player's 'bodily agency' by making the choice of which door you open or which way you walk be utterly meaningless and lead to the same conclusion (and of course lesser degrees and sort of this). The fact that this sort of thing is almost always frowned upon and that the OP actually asked about it specifically in view of wanting to avoid it, says a lot. So I think all we have there is 'common ground' where we all have set an acceptable baseline (and I admit also that most of us have probably bent on this at times for whatever social reasons, or desire to experience certain games or whatever). So, yeah, there are 'degenerate states of little or no agency', but is there a point to even cataloging them, except as a gallery of shame? Not really.


----------



## pemerton

@innerdude, you should try (or at least have a look at) Burning Wheel! It's mechanically _much _heavier than DW (and I don't know Ironwsworn, but given your sketch of play upthread I guess it's heavier than that also). But it absolutely emphasises clarity about the shared fiction, and the stakes; and if the GM doesn't just "say yes" it bundles everything into one check which either succeeds as the player wanted, or fails with the outcome to be narrated by the GM having primary regard to the player's intent for his/her PC.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Is it going to be manifestly unhelpful to answer "To a degree"?



No, not unhelpful. What I was getting at is that games where the players do not have narrative level control during the play* are in a sense like the real life, where we AFAIK have no such control either.

*Though unlike in real life in most RPGs the players have narrative control when making their characters and signing up for the campaign premise. (And a high possibility that their GM is less of a dick.)


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> You could run 2e by the book and simply utterly make up everything as DM in any way you wanted. Not that this was usual



But some of us absolutely have experienced it back in the day!


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> ... it could equally be valid to have the GM frame the check as follows:
> 
> GM: "You can definitely accomplish the jump across the chasm to the other side of the battlement. However, it's a decent distance, and you're going to have to exert some energy and moxie to make it across without making noise. There's guards posted all along the battlement, and there's absolutely a risk of being heard if you make that jump. What do you do?"
> 
> Player: (Probably asks if they can mitigate the risk of being heard, if there's some other plan of action that doesn't result in alerting the guards, etc.)
> 
> GM: "Based on the situation and your proposed action --- leaping across the chasm --- there doesn't appear to be much room for error. If you're skilled enough, maybe you can do it; otherwise, your proposed action is definitely going to incur some risk."
> 
> Player: (Declares they go through with it).
> 
> GM: "Okay, you're triggering an 'Overcome Obstacle' move, using Agility.  Make your roll!"
> 
> Result: On a strong hit (i.e., full success), no problem; player is on the other side without calling undue attention. On a weak hit (success with complication), player leaps across but can't do it skillfully enough to avoid the extra trouble of alerting the guards.
> 
> How is that meaningfully different than calling for two separate rolls?



Significantly, in that with two separate rolls the PC could, for example, completely blow the jump but in falling, fall quietly thus nobody notices anything.   Or on a weak hit, the PC could be left clinging to the edge of the roof having only barely made the diatance but again have been lucky in that this didn't make much noise...yet.

Concatenating it into one roll closes off result options that would otherwise be quite valid.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OD&D has combat resolution mechanics (either Chainmail or the "alternative" combat mechanics), which allow players to do more than just declare the bodily movements their PCs make.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Rather depends on whether the person using that phrase was using it as a substitute for "physical actions".  If so, the combat system can very well be read in that line.
Click to expand...


No, because resolution of player attack declarations determines not just the actions of the character but also the actions of the opponent (eg whether or not they are able to bring their shield to bear to defend against the PC's attack).

Part of the rationale of a system like RuneQuest is precisely to separate out the attack action (roll the attacking character's offensive weapon skill) from the defence action (roll the defending character's weapon parry or dodge skill), thus brining the resolution process more into line with the in-fiction causal processes.

Pulling back to a bigger picture - one of the strange things about this thread (and some of its friends and cousins) is that because there are few or no participants who play high-simulation games like RQ, RM, etc, D&D's combat mechanics get treated as some sort of "player narrative power" baseline even though there is a whole genre of RPGs - the aforementioned RQ, RM etc - which are inspired to a significant extent by hostility to the _failure _of D&D's combat mechanics to pick apart the various causal processes that D&D bundles up into a player's attack and damage rolls even though they depend on choices made by and actions performed by the defender.

I should add - I have _GMed_ hundreds, probably thousands, of hours of RM, and have _played_ it and RQ and similar games a fair bit as well. So someone telling me that the D&D combat mechanics don't involve the player's attack roll determining what it is that the defending Orc does or doesn't do is jut not credible. Because I've played systems that I chose to play _precisely because _they prised apart that thing that D&D gloms together.

Perhaps ironically, Burning Wheel also is much clearer on this than D&D: we don't have to extrapolate what the Orc does from resolution of the player's action declaration but have clear action declarations, resolution of the positioning context, etc.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> D&D started out as purely an almost wargame-esque crawl that involved skilled play ONLY. So, yes, the players had agency only to control their PCs within the limits of what the PCs could do or know. The DM OTOH was absolutely limited to what was on the map, key, and wandering monster table. ANYTHING the DM produced outside of that, or ANY time they fudged a roll or deliberately judged a situation based on their own agenda and not an honestly neutral standpoint, was illegal in that game. Now, DMs still had a lot of leeway, and players really limited agency, but the players DID have that protection! The DM wasn't allowed to sic a wandering monster on them just because he thought they were being putzes, or because his favorite NPC was going to get offed, or whatever. It happened, but all of that was bad DMing and it was pretty well stated, certainly the 'culture' of D&D, including articles in SR/The Dragon, talked about it.



Absolutely.

And it could, without problem, have just stayed there.  But...


AbdulAlhazred said:


> But then 2e came along and just told the DM to become a 'storyteller' and stop worrying about the rules so much. Meanwhile the players were given nothing, they were expected to simply continue to inhabit OD&D's dungeon crawl aesthetic with no change. The fact that the OD&D aesthetic included "hide the numbers from the players" just made it even worse.



And here's the big mistake, pointed out in clear fashion.  3e took it further by pushing a lot of previously-hidden rules to the player side, which didn't help anything and, in part, led to a still-ongoing era of player entitlement.

The game IMO still hasn't recovered from this original 2e mistake and probably - given recent design direction - never will; and that's sad.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think 'agency' where you have no guarantees and are always ASKING for something is at best a lesser sort of agency. In a game where the rules start with "rule 0, the GM can fiat anything." and then follows with a process where the GM is at least assumed, 'normally' as you put it, to narrate all facts about the world, that agency can be no more than 'bodily' in any real respect.
> 
> Yes, of course, the GM can even undermine the player's 'bodily agency' by making the choice of which door you open or which way you walk be utterly meaningless and lead to the same conclusion (and of course lesser degrees and sort of this). The fact that this sort of thing is almost always frowned upon and that the OP actually asked about it specifically in view of wanting to avoid it, says a lot. So I think all we have there is 'common ground' where we all have set an acceptable baseline (and I admit also that most of us have probably bent on this at times for whatever social reasons, or desire to experience certain games or whatever). So, yeah, there are 'degenerate states of little or no agency', but is there a point to even cataloging them, except as a gallery of shame? Not really.




I think you are painting in extremes here. 

Degenerate is not a term I would adopt to describe play styles, art or any form of entertainment. For a host of reasons. 

These sorts of things are not always frowned upon: they are prevalent gaming styles and many of them were dominant in different eras of the game. I remember the 90s, where the GM became the storyteller, and you regularly got GM advice to override the dice to make your story happen (and you say this at the tables in play). During 3E the standard way to make an adventure was around encounter levels, building a series of encounters that were supposed to happen. Not all tables played this way, but it seemed to be the default. And it was this style of play that led me to re-read the older books and look for alternatives until I found something suitable to my taste. Obviously it is easy to oversimplify the history. There is plenty of variety at any given time but these reflect he bulk of what I saw. But my point is these were and are common play styles. There is nothing wrong with them either if people are enjoying themselves. We have seen variations of some of these sentiments in threads here, where priority is given to pacing of encounters, or drama, and that might mean something like fudging a roll (even if it undermines a choice a player made about what attack to do). So I think I disagree with the assumptions in this post. Total freedom to explore the setting isn't the norm. And it probably shouldn't be in every campaign. Maximum freedom to explore means the players can completely reject an adventure the GM prepped and go in some other direction (that could mean exploring someplace else in search of adventure, or it could mean something like trying to build a salt empire in a nearby city------all kinds of possibilities). But most campaigns don't operate that way. Most at least assume there is an adventure the GM planned and all of the freedom we exercise will be within the context of that adventure (and there is nothing wrong with that). Many go further and have more narrow pathways within the adventure (like the encounter based adventures I mentioned). If you do adopt a more open style of play, where the players can do what they want in the setting, that isn't easy. It takes time to learn how to run a game that way. And it certainly isn't the norm (though I am glad to say it does seem to be growing in popularity). But it isn't the only way to play. It isn't the best way. But I would say it is a way that prizes agency. Now you can prize agency, and enjoy this style, but it doesn't mean those preferences will translate into wanting what some here are suggesting (a system or campaign where the players can shape the narrative). That is a different thing. There is nothing wrong with it. It isn't better or worse than the open style I just mentioned, but I don't think a player who enjoys what I am describing would see what you are talking about as giving them more agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think 'agency' where you have no guarantees and are always ASKING for something is at best a lesser sort of agency. In a game where the rules start with "rule 0, the GM can fiat anything." and then follows with a process where the GM is at least assumed, 'normally' as you put it, to narrate all facts about the world, that agency can be no more than 'bodily' in any real respect.




Well obviously I don't see it as a lesser form of agency, and obviously I would disagree with how you frame it. This is a very loaded description of the play style I and others are describing. I think there is just a fundamental difference in what we value in play here (and it doesn't mean those on my side like less freedom in play). Again, this is the problem with wrangling with a term like agency, which has moral connotations to it, in order to advance play style interests. If you want to argue that we should all be engaging in the stye of play where players have more control of the narrative, then I think you should argue for that (rather than doing so through the concept of agency)


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Why do I want this stuff as GM?  Because it lets me offload mental overhead that I *don't *want onto system and players



Interesting, in that both as GM and player I generally want as much of that mental overhead as possible to be left or put into the hands of the GM, so as to allow me (or the players, if I'm GM) to be better able to focus on playing/inhabiting their characters and imagining the situations and scenes they're in.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If the hills are shown on the map then as both player and character I've no real excuse for not knowing they're there.
> 
> If that area hasn't been mapped (yet) it's on me as player to ask (*not tell*) the GM whether there's hills there; and if she throws the question back in my lap IMO as GM she's abdicated her responsibility over setting elements, which immediately starts me wondering what other responsibilities she's going to evade as the game/campaign goes on.



What you say here is an _abdication of responsibility_ is what Gygax presents as the norm in his discussion of stronghold placement.

You're welcome, of course, to play a game that departs from Gygax's principles. But I don't know on what basis you are presenting that as some sort of moral imperative!

I mean, if I am playing Burning Wheel or Dungeon World and the GM unilaterally starts deciding all this stuff without asking questions/looking for suggestions (DW) and without calling for player input via Wises and similar checks (BW) then s/he is breaking the rules of the game and I am going to want to stop playing.

The topic of this thread is, which one involves more player agency? I think the answer is obvious.



Lanefan said:


> It's independent of both you-as-player and you-as-character if Evard's tower is already noted on the map as being in location X.
> 
> It's the same as if I-as-real-person find myself in a strange city looking for, say for whatever reason, a Walmart.  I've good reason to suspect there's one around here somewhere, but my act of looking for it doesn't materially change where it is: assuming half-decent perception on my part my act of looking for it is going to succeed solely on the basis of where I happen to be at the time in relation to its location.



It's not the same as that, because playing a game is not the same as wandering around a strange city.

_In the fiction_, the character is wandering around a place and looking for things. That doesn't make them appear: Evard built his tower some time in the past (relative to the action of my PC and his sidekick).

_In the real world_, it would be independent of me as a player if the GM makes the decision unilaterally. Obviously that would be a sign of me not having agency in respect of that matter. To me that would not be a good thing; hence that's why I tend not to play or GM games in that fashion.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> So do posters here believe that they have agency in the real life? Just asking to calibrate some agency standards.



Focusing on my experience as a RPG player (not GM): I believe I have agency when I play my BW game. I believe I didn't have agency in many of the 2nd ed AD&D games I played back in the day. I've played RM games with agency and also that were railroads. Likewise for BRP-type games. All the White Wolf, Cyberpunk and other 90s-era games I've played have been low-agency.

The only low-agency games I've played that were nevertheless fun for me were CoC one-shots. The fun one-shot Stormbringer, Elric or RQ games were designed a bit like the BW intro adventure The Sword: they had pre-gens designed to interact with the situation to create a moment of crunch, and then the players had agency in the resolution of that crisis.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Focusing on my experience as a RPG player (not GM): I believe I have agency when I play my BW game. I believe I didn't have agency in many of the 2nd ed AD&D games I played back in the day. I've played RM games with agency and also that were railroads. Likewise for BRP-type games. All the White Wolf, Cyberpunk and other 90s-era games I've played have been low-agency.
> 
> The only low-agency games I've played that were nevertheless fun for me were CoC one-shots. The fun one-shot Stormbringer, Elric or RQ games were designed a bit like the BW intro adventure The Sword: they had pre-gens designed to interact with the situation to create a moment of crunch, and then the players had agency in the resolution of that crisis.



That's not what I meant. I didn't mean the games you play, I meant real life you living your real life. How would you rate that level of agency?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Focusing on my experience as a RPG player (not GM): I believe I have agency when I play my BW game. I believe I didn't have agency in many of the 2nd ed AD&D games I played back in the day. I've played RM games with agency and also that were railroads. Likewise for BRP-type games. All the White Wolf, Cyberpunk and other 90s-era games I've played have been low-agency.
> 
> The only low-agency games I've played that were nevertheless fun for me were CoC one-shots. The fun one-shot Stormbringer, Elric or RQ games were designed a bit like the BW intro adventure The Sword: they had pre-gens designed to interact with the situation to create a moment of crunch, and then the players had agency in the resolution of that crisis.



I think @Crimson Longinus was asking about you-in-real-life-in-Australia pemerton rather than pemerton-as-RPG-player.

EDIT - insta-ninajed!  Well played!


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> In the last decade the systems I've primarily (with stray exceptions like Ten Candles, My Life With Master, Sorcerer, Beyond the Wall, Masks, Scum and Villainy, Monsterhearts, 5e, The One Ring, 13th Age) run are



For me that would be:

* Lots of 4e D&D;

* Plenty of Burning Wheel, Classic Traveller, Prince Valiant, MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic;

* Bits-and-pieces of Cthulhu Dark, Wuthering Heights, The Dying Earth and AD&D.

Much of it is documented on these boards as actual play reports.

In that time I've played (as opposed to GMed) 4e, Dungeon World and Burning Wheel.



Manbearcat said:


> Why do I want this stuff as GM?  Because it lets me offload mental overhead that I *don't *want onto system and players (thereby investing them in the responsibility for the trajectory of play), therefore reducing unwanted stress and allowing me to be mentally fresh and focus my cognitive horsepower on optimizing my creativity and industry for the particular role of the GM in that game



This is the opportunity for me to post some ideas I was tossing around in my head while out running earlier this morning.

If you go to a casino and ask the players at the tables _what's the difference between tossing the dice or spinning the wheel and the house just deciding the outcome?_, I think the answer you get will be pretty clear! (Once people get over the weirdness of even asking the question.)

That's one reason for me to favour non-GM-decides systems.

Now another reason: there's an old Avalon Hill tile-based game I play with my kids, called Mystic Wood. It's not super-tight in its design (eg it's very possible for one player to get a run-away success through a bit of good luck), but it takes about half-an-hour to an hour to play and is light-hearted fun. Part of the fun is the surprise of finding out what you meet when a tile is turned over and the denizen card is drawn.

I don't think the game would become more fun if it was altered to introduce a referee to make the decisions about glade-and-denizen placement - either for the players _or_ for the person who gets selected to be the referee.

This is another reason for me to favour non-GM-decides systems.

Non-GM-decides systems allow me as GM, as much as the players, to be surprised and excited by what happens. And they produce a shared fiction experience that is very different from just sharing my ideas with my friends.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> That's not what I meant. I didn't mean the games you play, I meant real life you living your real life. How would you rate that level of agency?



I don't get it. The me who plays games _is _the real life me. It's my major creative outlet outside of my work - and very different. from my work

In my work I exercise a high degree of intellectual agency, and there is certainly a significant degree of creativity, but it's very different from making up fictions. And there's also a lot of low-agency stuff (processing forms, marking students' work, etc).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> My point is that when (usually @pemerton but sometimes others) post words to the effect that the _goal of the players is to make meaningful changes to the fiction_, because players naturally are going to want those changes to be beneficial to their PCs it often comes across as saying the goal of the players is to make beneficial-to-them changes only.
> 
> An example: our goal is to rescue some people trapped in a mostly-collapsed mine.  I'm playing the Hobbit.  Can we all agree that "_I try to squeeze through the remaining passage with two goals: one, to not bring the rest of it down and two, to tow a rope through by which supplies etc. can be got to those who are trapped._" is a good and valid action declaration?
> 
> If yes, there's several possible outcomes one of which on failure is that I bring the rest of the passage down on myself.  Yeah, I've made a material change to the fiction but in any way have I achieved a goal either meta or not?  Hell no!  I've made things worse for the trapped people, killed my character, and generally messed things up - even though technically I've met the meaningful-changes goal italicized above.



I don't know what your point is. As has come out over the past 10 or so pages of this thread, in the discussion of success-with-complications, different systems approach action resolution in different ways. There is nothing particularly striking or complicated about your example, at least that I can see.

In Dungeon World the action you describe sounds like Defy Danger based on DEX. From DW p 62,

✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.​
And of course the default applies for a 6-: "A 6 or lower is trouble" and "The GM says what happens" (p 19).

So in the context you describe, if the result is 10+ the halfling gets through as desired; if the result is 7 to 9 the GM will present some sort of trade off (the first thing I thought of is "a bit of passage looks like it's going to collapse; you can brace it, but you'll have to drop the rope"); if the result is 6 down the GM can go to town.

In Burning Wheel the action you describe would probably be a Speed check against an obstacle set by the GM to reflect the fictional circumstances; if the character has something like Tunnels-wise or Cave-ins-wise or Rescue-wise then they would be able to study the situation to get a sense of it (ie on a successful check adding a bonus die to their main check). If the check succeeds, the hobbit gets through with the rope; if the check fails, then the adverse consequences follow (which may be pre-established if the canonical process is being followed; or may have been left implicit if the GM's sense is that it's clear to everyone at the table). The lowest-hanging fruit I can see would be that the tunnel collapses and the hobbit avoids being crushed only by ending up trapped with those s/he was hoping to rescue.

In Prince Valiant this would play very similarly to BW (with Brawn being the relevant stat, boosted by Agility of the PC has that skill).

In 4e D&D the action would normally be part of a skill challenge to rescue the trapped people. The relevant skill looks like Acrobatics. If successful, the supply line is established and a successful rescue is one step closer. If failed, the GM can impose an immediate consequence (damage would be a default option here) as well as changing the fiction (if the damage is due to a cave-in that tells us how the fiction has changed!); and if the skill challenge fails altogether then it seems pretty bad for the trapped people.

In Cortex+ Heroic it's a bit more complicated and I won't try and spell it all out: but the short version is that the rescuees would be mechanically represented as a People Trapped in a Mostly-Collapsed Mine scene distinction; the action would be taken against the Doom Pool, and would have as its goal to either reduce/eliminate that distinction, or create a Lifeline to the Trapped people asset (there is a lot of plurality in the Cortex+ Heroic resolution framework, and so these details would have to be worked out by players and GM through further conversation); if the action were successful then the goal would be achieved in the fiction, with the concomitant mechanical effect; if the action failed then the GM would be entitled to spend a die from the Doom Pool to create an adverse consequence (eg a Trapped complication on the Hobbit, or physical stress from a cave-in, or maybe turning the Scene Distinction into something more serious like Trapped People Dying from Lack of Air, with an associated timer).

I have no real idea how the action declaration you describe would be resolved in AD&D.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I think @Crimson Longinus was asking about you-in-real-life-in-Australia pemerton rather than pemerton-as-RPG-player.



Those are the same people. When I play RPGs I do so in real life, in Australia.

When I talk about playing Burning Wheel, I'm talking about something that actually happened. I didn't just imagine it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> Because you still need to engage with people's preferences here in the wild whether they're able or willing to engage with their reasons or not.
> 
> This is the issue to me: I GM probably 95% of the time, and have a relatively flexible set of expectations when I don't.  So it doesn't really matter what I feel about this.  It very much matters what my players do, however, and I've seen enough of this to believe this is an area where a fairly strong reaction to some of this exists.  So I get to engage with it whether someone else thinks their preferences here are incoherent or not.



Catching up to the thread, but wanted to comment on this (my preference is to read to the end and then engage).

I really don't need to engage with people's preferences in a discussion about how games work.  Games work how they work regardless of preference.  Preference might be to select a specific approach, but that doesn't, in any way, mean I have to engage the preference if I then talk about how that approach works.  It's fine to like a thing and find a game that does that thing, but when you're entering a discussion about different approaches, sticking to your preference and making that the topic engaged is detrimental to the intent of the discussion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> And most of the people who talk about that are going to be preselected for people who find it a useful design feature, and thus presumably not hostile to it.  I've never suggested that isn't relatively prevalent--in fact I mentioned it clearly is because of the popularity of PbtA games--but you can absolutely have a large populace of X while still having a large populace of hostile-to-X, and this is an area where I don't believe there is any practical way to say the latter is a small populace when there are a very large number of games that don't do it (at least in an obvious way, to address your other argument) so they're already well served.



I imagine that if one wanted get a better idea of the population in question, one could post a poll on the topic....  That would be an excellent way to generate some counter-evidence.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> No, because resolution of player attack declarations determines not just the actions of the character but also the actions of the opponent (eg whether or not they are able to bring their shield to bear to defend against the PC's attack).




Its still, in the broadest sense, a physical action; the fact they interact with another character to resolve the result doesn't change that.  (I also personally think the way OD&D handled defense was so limited that in practice, any amount of skill on the opponent was more embodied in their hit points than anything about the attack roll).



pemerton said:


> Pulling back to a bigger picture - one of the strange things about this thread (and some of its friends and cousins) is that because there are few or no participants who play high-simulation games like RQ, RM, etc, D&D's combat mechanics get treated as some sort of "player narrative power" baseline even though there is a whole genre of RPGs - the aforementioned RQ, RM etc - which are inspired to a significant extent by hostility to the _failure _of D&D's combat mechanics to pick apart the various causal processes that D&D bundles up into a player's attack and damage rolls even though they depend on choices made by and actions performed by the defender.




They are, but as someone who probably has run more RQ and RQ derivatives than anything other than the Hero System over the years, I'm not actually convinced separate defense rolls, at least as RQ handled them, are necessarily the best way to go; they do have the virtue there's a second dice roll present on the part of the defender, but that's only relevant to the degree active engagement with the dice as a defender matters to someone (and to make it clear, it absolutely can, but even in those case I'm not sure two _independent_ rolls for attack and defense are the best way).



pemerton said:


> I should add - I have _GMed_ hundreds, probably thousands, of hours of RM, and have _played_ it and RQ and similar games a fair bit as well. So someone telling me that the D&D combat mechanics don't involve the player's attack roll determining what it is that the defending Orc does or doesn't do is jut not credible. Because I've played systems that I chose to play _precisely because _they prised apart that thing that D&D gloms together.




I think I'd argue that, simply because D&D (at least in the forms commonly seen) have so little of their defense that is actually character rather than gear dependent that its virtually nonexistant.  And no, I don't mean that as a compliment.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> Absolutely.
> 
> And it could, without problem, have just stayed there.  But...
> 
> And here's the big mistake, pointed out in clear fashion.  3e took it further by pushing a lot of previously-hidden rules to the player side, which didn't help anything and, in part, led to a still-ongoing era of player entitlement.
> 
> The game IMO still hasn't recovered from this original 2e mistake and probably - given recent design direction - never will; and that's sad.




Well, largely because a rather large number of people don't consider it a mistake.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Catching up to the thread, but wanted to comment on this (my preference is to read to the end and then engage).




Its an excellent habit and I wish I had the patience for it.  I'd look less like I was spamming hell out of everyone as I respond piecemeal.



Ovinomancer said:


> I really don't need to engage with people's preferences in a discussion about how games work.  Games work how they work regardless of preference.  Preference might be to select a specific approach, but that doesn't, in any way, mean I have to engage the preference if I then talk about how that approach works.  It's fine to like a thing and find a game that does that thing, but when you're entering a discussion about different approaches, sticking to your preference and making that the topic engaged is detrimental to the intent of the discussion.




Whereas except in reference to how people as groups respond to techniques, I find a discussion of approaches hollow, and often, effectively, self-congratulatory.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> I imagine that if one wanted get a better idea of the population in question, one could post a poll on the topic....  That would be an excellent way to generate some counter-evidence.





It only modestly helps because of the preselection of people who even bother to use a board like this, and then those who bother to respond to polls.  Its probably slightly better than those who will engage in extended discussion, but I doubt meaningfully so since the primary gate of "people who bother to use game related fora" is upfront there.  That's not a big population on a whole, and likely skims off whole classes of potential respondents.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> The debate is whether that agency is warranted.




In what way? Generally? Or in a specific game? The answer will very according to the game, and to what's the desired experience, and personal preference, of course. 

But generally, it's probably a good thing to have different games that work in different ways.



Lanefan said:


> My assumption is that as agency increases a point arrives at which said acengy is no longer warranted, and therefore not good. For me that point arrives when players' agency goes beyond their own characters (and obvious outcomes of their actions) and starts affecting setting elements which are the purview of the GM.
> 
> Example: players being able to create setting elements out of thin air on a successful action declaration = unwarranted agency.




That's not really a concrete example. It's kind of a boogeyman, isn't it? 

I don't think that many games allow players to create setting elements out of thin air. Yes, some games allow the players to introduce fictional elements as part of play, but there are rules and/or techniques that are involved.



Lanefan said:


> My view is that such a high-level non-granular resolution system mixed with a desire for a binary end-result is where the problem lies. If all those sub-rolls actually took place, each on a more-or-less binary level, then the macro-result might end up looking like success-with-complication (or fail-forward) but the integrity of each binary success-fail point within that sequence would be maintained. Example: combat.
> 
> To me the obvious solution is to take the time, break it down, and do the sub-rolls - even if the system tells you not to.




I agree with the first paragraph, but not with the second. I think you should always consider what a game is telling you to do and why, and changing that only makes sense if you have a really compelling reason to do so.


----------



## hawkeyefan

innerdude said:


> As a side note, one of the most powerful things I discovered in playing DW (and again reading through Ironsworn) is the notion of having clarifying questions/conversations around EXACTLY what is happening in the fiction. What is the player's position in the fiction? What's nominally at risk for them? What's their status relative to those risks? The idea that it's my job as GM to give the player the clearest possible view of their position resonated strongly with me.




This is a great point, and one that I don't think I focused on enough in all my ramblings in this thread, but which is key to players making informed decisions.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> To me that almost sounds like a cheat code:  "_Hey, we have problem X here but if we invent and use leverage-point Y we can blow past it at no risk or cost_". And so with one player-spoken sentence the problem Goes Away.
> 
> This takes away all the intrigue of determining whether leverage-point Y exists, whether it's accessible to the PCs, and whether they can put it to use...all, it seems, in the interests of allowing the fiction to develop faster.
> 
> It's as if the specific design goal is to make the game more appealing to those with short attention spans.




No. 

It gives the player points of connection to the world. It gives them the ability to help say what kind of story they want the game to be.

To give a specific example so that you don't think I'm some short attention simpleton....tonight I just finished a session in my group's new campaign, which is a super hero game based on the Blades in the Dark rules. The setting is one that I've loosely designed, the details of which we are establishing through play. 

One PC has a background of "Criminal" in that he used to be a criminal before seeing the light and deciding to try and be a hero. The exact details had not yet been established. So in tonight's game, when the team ran afoul of some enhanced street gangs, the player asked if he could use his past as a criminal to shed light on the local gangs. We decided that he was a one time member of one of the gangs, and so he had some basic details at his disposal. 

So he leveraged some backstory to hep with their current situation. Nothing he did was some kind of predetermined thing of mine as the GM. He came up with it, and asked about it, and then we talked it out, and established the details. Now it's a part of his character's backstory.

How do you see this as a cheat code that somehow invalidates any risk or cost? It's simply not the case.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> CoC is the only one I know.
> 
> I would add - I don't think that GM-driven, player-participation is the only way to have fun playing a Cthulhu-esque game, though I certainly think it's what CoC itself is best for.
> 
> I've run a couple of Cthulhu Dark one-shots over the past few years and it works very well for player-driven no-myth RPGing.




I'd say that the new Alien RPG from Free League likely fits the bill. It has Campaign play for more long form, repeated session play, but also has Cinematic play, for short scenarios that are similar to a movie. The Cinematic scenarios I've seen and run remind me of Call of Cthulhu. 

Not yet sure how the Campaign mode would play.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> That's not what I meant. I didn't mean the games you play, I meant real life you living your real life. How would you rate that level of agency?



I would personally rate that level of agency as a red herring discussion that creates more problems than it solves. 



Thomas Shey said:


> I'll go as far as to say that I believe the ability to at least _reduce_ risks is expected by the majority of players in most games.  Whether that's an old school view (I don't think so, personally) is something of in the eye of the beholder.



Ironically, this is where PbtA style games arguably more old school than contemporaneous D&D, which treat combat and encounters as sport rather than war. In older editions of D&D and OSR, you reduce risks through skilled game play. In PbtA style games, you reduce risks through skilled fictional framing. You and your group make your actions clear in the fiction. You describe what you are doing and how. This makes the consequences of full success, complicated success, failure clearer and arguably less as the consequences must flow from the prior fiction established. If you know that your actions can potentially trigger moves, then you try to describe what your character is doing in ways that will result in more advantageous outcomes: e.g., roll with highest stat, create a situation relevant to a playbook ability, etc. 

Edit: Not to mention Blades in the Dark where the fictional position, effect, and risk factors are mechanical functions of game resolution. 



Thomas Shey said:


> Eh.  There are both virtues and problems in rolling multiple axes of resolution into one roll, and which it primarily lands in depends on what your priorities are there.  At the very least if you want the mechanical process to tell you which ones succeeded at and which ones failed and not either lockstep them together or throw it to the definition of an outside party, it complicates how you have to make your resolution roll.  That doesn't mean I think having more than one thing resolved with one roll is an intrinsic evil (separating out "makes the jump" and "isn't injured" seems to me to be perverse and asking for the laws of probability to make everything worse) but doing so isn't an unmixed blessing.



I am not mistaken that it is a "feature" of the game. One's preference regarding that feature is something else entirely, but "feature" is far more neutral and factual of a term to describe this dice resolution process than "fault," so maybe you should save your post for the one who is putting their thumb on the scale with loaded terms like "fault." 

Also would anyone be willing to run @Lanefan through a PbtA game so he actually has play experience when talking about them in the future?


----------



## chaochou

I posted this before, but I'm going to reiterate it again. The question of agency boils down to: Who has created the purpose of my character?

Creating a purpose is not the same as accepting a quest from the GM, nor choosing from a GM provided list. It means what it says - I the player create for myself what my character is up to in this game. Otherwise someone else does.

It's an either / or situation. There's no sliding scale here - either I have created the purpose of my character or I have not.

Resolution systems then support one or other of these two binary options. Both the PbtA moves and the Burning Wheel action resolution (and both advancement systems) are designed to facilitate the GM / MC to generate new challenges as a character sets about the purpose which the player has created.

Misplaced perceptions of how PbtA or Blades or Burning Wheel work (from vocal posters who've actually never played them, it has to be said) simply reveal a baseline failure to understand that everything from those games flows from the starting point of player created objectives. To say they do nothing different from D&D is to misunderstand the entirety of what happens during play in a macro sense. Trying to pick apart the micro is to miss the wood for the trees.

And if an MC tries to create purpose for the characters in BW or PbTA to pursue they will find the mechanics fight them, and fail to facilitate their vision, at every step. The untested rejection of such mechanics is illustrative of a learned desire for GM control, covert or otherwise.

This is in stark contrast to D&D and traditional forms, in which covert GM control is inherent and the purpose of the characters is assumed to be 'whatever the GM creates for them'. Character purpose is created in secret, not by the players but away from them. Some effort may (or may not) be put into co-opting the players into accepting a vague call to action, although most players are trained to do so - and of course, the majority have never played a game which offered the alternative.

I played and ran GM-led games for 20 years. I've been running player-led games for close to 20 years. I'm not averse to different play priorities. I am averse to hearing doublespeak about player agency from posters who have clearly never engaged in it.

One final note - I wish people wouldn't conflate backstory, plot, situation and narration. Those are all completely seperate things. Authority for each of those can be seperated and transferred between rpg participants with no problem. There are a range of techniques to do this.

The fact that traditional games lump them together and call it 'GM-ing' doesn't change the fact that they are distinct and seperate parts of the game and can be moved independently between participants with no harm to consistency, immersion, plausibility, or any of these other frequently repeated (and false) claims.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> Where I run aground is trying to square "success-plus-complication" with "fail-forward", as they seem to me to be basically the same thing under different names; only one is mitigating success (which, all other things being equal, makes the game harder on the players/PCs) while *the other is mitigating failure (which makes the game easier).*



That's not what "fail-forward" is about, nor is "success-plus-complication" synonymous with "fail-forward," but this misconception has been explained to you ad nauseum by now. I'm not sure why this requires 10+ posters regularly correcting you on this through 10+ posts each on the matter in 50+ threads where this has come up. It's like if someone tells you that their name is "Jack," and you keep calling them "Bob." After what point are you being rude by continuing to call them "Bob" after they (and others) correct you that their name is "Jack"? 



> That said, it's one which I roundly ignore in favour of the humour value and occasional in-game chaos (or tragedy!) fumbles can lead to.



The point is that critical fumbles do not necessarily flow from the fiction or more about humor/humiliation. Some GMs try to be "fair" by rolling from a critical fumble table, but this may result in a consequence that is detached or disassociated from the preceding fiction. 



> This is one thing that would bug me: that things are resolved at such a high non-granular level rather than digging in and sorting out the details, both in combat (as shown in the quote) and in exploration.  It strikes me as a design very much geared toward a 'hurry-up' style of play, as if the game expects players (and GMs) to want to rush through any one scenario/adventure/campaign in order to get to the next.
> 
> Not my cup of tea.



It's fair if it's not your cup of tea, but I don't think that it's fair to say that PbtA is particularly concerned with a "hurry-up style of play," but, rather, it's emphasis is on a fiction-first style of play. It's more interested in what's the next state of the fiction. It's not interested in each and every granular swing of the sword. It's interested in how a scene plays out more on a more holistic and fluid level. It's interested in character choice in the fiction, i.e., "what do you do?", rather than the questions of skilled play in a tactical skirmish game. I don't think it's in a rush, but I think it is interested in maintaining forward momentum and pacing. PbtA can go tortoise: slow and steady, but constantly forwards.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> And is also an extreme interpretation of the stances of others, which is of no help to either clarity or dialogue.
> 
> Two things to note here: one, this is a specific exception to the otherwise-established baseline where setting parameters are under the purview of the GM; and two (and more important), as per the bit I bolded the GM still has to give permission and retains veto power.  If memory serves, however, once the GM does give permission the player then gains some narrative control over many elements of that hex other than just the stronghold itself, subject to GM veto if abused.



I'd just like to point out that this is BY FAR not the only such rule (stronghold building). There are many others in 1e, including anything to do with creating magic items, researching new spells, etc. It was certainly expected that players would suggest things like variants of clerics, different deities, races, possibly even classes. ALL of this was on the table in OD&D (which I think covers @pemerton's 'early D&D') and then things got 'tighter' in 1e, but still pretty open-ended on many things. 

At least where I played, it was very common for PCs to end up with a lot of 'customizations'. These were often including stuff that the player wanted and initiated. Most of them were rooted in the narrative, but often it was a matter of "Hey, DM, can I get someone to make me a..." or "train me in...". There were even certain admonitions about things that you could NOT do, like learn how to make 'racial items' unless you were of that race (even then not really). 

The point being, player input to the setting/narrative beyond the PC's actions was expected of 'good players'.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Yes.  My point is that when (usually @pemerton but sometimes others) post words to the effect that the _goal of the players is to make meaningful changes to the fiction_, because players naturally are going to want those changes to be beneficial to their PCs it often comes across as saying the goal of the players is to make beneficial-to-them changes only.
> 
> An example: our goal is to rescue some people trapped in a mostly-collapsed mine.  I'm playing the Hobbit.  Can we all agree that "_I try to squeeze through the remaining passage with two goals: one, to not bring the rest of it down and two, to tow a rope through by which supplies etc. can be got to those who are trapped._" is a good and valid action declaration?
> 
> If yes, there's several possible outcomes one of which on failure is that I bring the rest of the passage down on myself.  Yeah, I've made a material change to the fiction but in any way have I achieved a goal either meta or not?  Hell no!  I've made things worse for the trapped people, killed my character, and generally messed things up - even though technically I've met the meaningful-changes goal italicized above.



This is 'play to see what happens'. Agency might include the ability to specify some of the parameters of this situation, for example that there are trapped miners, or that there is a possible way through. The actual accomplishment of the task, probably including problem-solving and several challenges vs just a single life and death throw of dice, is the 'see what happens' part. If the hobbit fails, well, then eventually he's buried a hero and a statue is erected and his son Hobbit Jr perhaps takes up the torch! 

I don't think players are automatically invested in their PCs goals in the sense of "succeed and not have any risks." When players awaken to dramatic possibilities in the game, they are much more likely to see 'higher goals'. It is a bit like the way the ancient Epicureans saw higher forms of self-accomplishment. Basic primal drive satisfaction was a low bar for them. I feel like basic "my character gets all the lootz!" is a pretty low bar form of RP. Its OK, just like eating fine food is OK, but there are more sophisticated and rewarding forms of play, ultimately. I don't mean everyone needs to go there, but a lot of players are at least willing to explore that sort of thing, particularly if they have played for a while, or have a real creative urge to their play. An ideal game can provide something for each sort, without breaking down. D&D seems to not really cater much to the more sophisticated kinds of "hey lets make a story where our characters..." kind of play. I mentioned the "everyone is doomed" on-shot I ran once. That was high concept play. It is pointless to approach that type of game like murder hobos in the dungeon, it would just be meaningless. Dying was not a negative there, and plans failing was simply a part of the concept, nope, the lifeboat won't save you after all that work to get it fixed, ah well...


----------



## Thomas Shey

Aldarc said:


> I am not mistaken that it is a "feature" of the game. One's preference regarding that feature is something else entirely, but "feature" is far more neutral and factual of a term to describe this dice resolution process than "fault," so maybe you should save your post for the one who is putting their thumb on the scale with loaded terms like "fault."
> 
> Also would anyone be willing to run @Lanefan through a PbtA game so he actually has play experience when talking about them in the future?




Care to point out where I said the world "fault" in the paragraph you quoted?  I said there were virtues and flaws in rolling things together, and I pretty much stand by that (and I think if you believe I'm supporting Lanefan's position here, you're not paying attention).


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is 'play to see what happens'. Agency might include the ability to specify some of the parameters of this situation, for example that there are trapped miners, or that there is a possible way through. The actual accomplishment of the task, probably including problem-solving and several challenges vs just a single life and death throw of dice, is the 'see what happens' part. If the hobbit fails, well, then eventually he's buried a hero and a statue is erected and his son Hobbit Jr perhaps takes up the torch!
> 
> I don't think players are automatically invested in their PCs goals in the sense of "succeed and not have any risks." When players awaken to dramatic possibilities in the game, they are much more likely to see 'higher goals'. It is a bit like the way the ancient Epicureans saw higher forms of self-accomplishment. Basic primal drive satisfaction was a low bar for them. I feel like basic "my character gets all the lootz!" is a pretty low bar form of RP. Its OK, just like eating fine food is OK, but there are more sophisticated and rewarding forms of play, ultimately. I don't mean everyone needs to go there, but a lot of players are at least willing to explore that sort of thing, particularly if they have played for a while, or have a real creative urge to their play. An ideal game can provide something for each sort, without breaking down. D&D seems to not really cater much to the more sophisticated kinds of "hey lets make a story where our characters..." kind of play. I mentioned the "everyone is doomed" on-shot I ran once. That was high concept play. It is pointless to approach that type of game like murder hobos in the dungeon, it would just be meaningless. Dying was not a negative there, and plans failing was simply a part of the concept, nope, the lifeboat won't save you after all that work to get it fixed, ah well...




If you can't see someone else style of play as something other than a lesser approach, I don't think you can have an honest conversation. Believe me there are arguments for why a style like open exploration of a setting is a 'higher form' of RP. But I think all that is just to elevate style preference. The bottom line for most people is what do they enjoy doing at the table. But framing it as a form of awakening (akin to philosophical or religious enlightenment) I think really stretches things. You like drama. That is your preference. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make you a more evolved gamer.


----------



## Aldarc

Thomas Shey said:


> Care to point out where I said the world "fault" in the paragraph you quoted?  I said there were virtues and flaws in rolling things together, and I pretty much stand by that (and I think if you believe I'm supporting Lanefan's position here, you're not paying attention).



The post you were replying to was responding to someone who explicitly referred to it as a "fault."


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## Thomas Shey

Aldarc said:


> The post you were replying to was responding to someone who explicitly referred to it as a "fault."




And?  That has nothing to do with what my response was about.


----------



## Aldarc

Thomas Shey said:


> And?  That has nothing to do with what my response was about.



And it's clearly pointless to continue with this line of back-and-forth.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Well obviously I don't see it as a lesser form of agency, and obviously I would disagree with how you frame it. This is a very loaded description of the play style I and others are describing. I think there is just a fundamental difference in what we value in play here (and it doesn't mean those on my side like less freedom in play). Again, this is the problem with wrangling with a term like agency, which has moral connotations to it, in order to advance play style interests. If you want to argue that we should all be engaging in the stye of play where players have more control of the narrative, then I think you should argue for that (rather than doing so through the concept of agency)



Well, then, I would ask, how could you define 'agency' in a way in which a player who gets to engage in topics of his choice, thematically and plot-wise, is at the same level of agency as one who gets to experience exactly the plot/narrative dictated by the GM? I am at a loss as to how that definition can be formulated.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, then, I would ask, how could you define 'agency' in a way in which a player who gets to engage in topics of his choice, thematically and plot-wise, is at the same level of agency as one who gets to experience exactly the plot/narrative dictated by the GM? I am at a loss as to how that definition can be formulated.




First, you are straw manning. Second, you were going well beyond agency in your post. And you were making a play style argument invoking the language of philosophical and moral enlightenment (players awakening to the dramatic potential). More agency doesn't equal higher level play is my point. In terms of what agency means, I think there is a huge gulf between two sides in defining that term on this thread. But virtually no one is defining agency as being on a railroaded plot by a GM. The problem is, you keep trying to make it about narrative control, rather than the freedom to control your character in the setting. And you keep framing it as if the preference you happen to hold is a higher form of agency and a higher form of play. Some people like adventure paths. Not my preference, but there are things people get to experience in an adventure path that are less likely to come up or harder to achieve in my preferred style of play. There is no best style. Every style has trade offs. And there are some styles that place great value on agency. Not all do. At the end of the day, it isn't even clear how any of this connects to the OP, because it has somehow become about two different play styles fighting over legitimacy through the concept of agency.


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## Bedrockgames

@zarionofarabel, can you reiterate what you meant by Agency in the OP. I feel like it would be more productive to answer the question you had about that? (since really any debate about the meaning of agency and other play styles don't really matter as much as what you had in mind when you used the term originally)


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, then, I would ask, how could you define 'agency' in a way in which a player who gets to engage in topics of his choice, thematically and plot-wise, is at the same level of agency as one who gets to experience exactly the plot/narrative dictated by the GM? I am at a loss as to how that definition can be formulated.



If a player controls the actions of the main character of the story, it is rather weird to frame that as 'experiencing a narrative dictated by the GM.' If I am playing Luke and get to decide whether to join Vader on the Dark Side or not, that is pretty decent agency, even though I had not decided whether Vader was my dad or not. 

I really don't think the sort of linear formulation of agency that you try to present is helpful. By that logic writing fiction about your character without input from anyone else would be the ultimate form of high-agency roleplay.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> If you can't see someone else style of play as something other than a lesser approach, I don't think you can have an honest conversation. Believe me there are arguments for why a style like open exploration of a setting is a 'higher form' of RP. But I think all that is just to elevate style preference. The bottom line for most people is what do they enjoy doing at the table. But framing it as a form of awakening (akin to philosophical or religious enlightenment) I think really stretches things. You like drama. That is your preference. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't make you a more evolved gamer.



I'm not trying to say that one is 'better' than another. Is a fine vintage more sophisticated than jug wine? Yep! You may still be a fan of jug wine. Still, in the hierarchy of different methods of play, some are more like jug wine, some are more like a fine port. That is less of an absolute 'moral' judgment as it is an acknowledgment. There are more things you can do with a more collaborative type of process, and in general you can achieve a majority of what could be achieved in the 'old way'. Believe me, running 4e in a 'narrative format' adequately showed me that fears of somehow limiting or excluding certain aspects of play are pretty overblown. 

So, obviously you can just roll your eyes and call some of us snobs if you want, but it isn't that simple.


----------



## innerdude

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I feel like basic "my character gets all the lootz!" is a pretty low bar form of RP. Its OK, just like eating [fast] food is OK, but there are more sophisticated and rewarding forms of play, ultimately. I don't mean everyone needs to go there, but a lot of players are at least willing to explore that sort of thing, particularly if they have played for a while, or have a real creative urge to their play. An ideal game can provide something for each sort, without breaking down. D&D seems to not really cater much to the more sophisticated kinds of "hey lets make a story where our characters..." kind of play. I mentioned the "everyone is doomed" on-shot I ran once. That was high concept play. It is pointless to approach that type of game like murder hobos in the dungeon, it would just be meaningless. Dying was not a negative there, and plans failing was simply a part of the concept, nope, the lifeboat won't save you after all that work to get it fixed, ah well...







Bedrockgames said:


> First, you are straw manning. Second, you were going well beyond agency in your post. And you were making a play style argument invoking the language of philosophical and moral enlightenment (players awakening to the dramatic potential). More agency doesn't equal higher level play is my point. In terms of what agency means, I think there is a huge gulf between two sides in defining that term on this thread. But virtually no one is defining agency as being on a railroaded plot by a GM. The problem is, you keep trying to make it about narrative control, rather than the freedom to control your character in the setting. And you keep framing it as if the preference you happen to hold is a higher form of agency and a higher form of play. Some people like adventure paths. Not my preference, but there are things people get to experience in an adventure path that are less likely to come up or harder to achieve in my preferred style of play. There is no best style. Every style has trade offs. And there are some styles that place great value on agency. Not all do. At the end of the day, it isn't even clear how any of this connects to the OP, because it has somehow become about two different play styles fighting over legitimacy through the concept of agency.




I completely agree there are trade-offs to every style. I experienced that first hand when I tried GM-ing _Dungeon World_. The most immediate, obvious, and apparent trade-off: tactical combat wasn't a "thing." Like, at all. And trying to make combat more tactical ran completely against the purpose of the system in the first place.

Powered by the Apocalypse is TERRIBLE for "gamist" players who just want tactical challenges to overcome so they can feel the thrill of victory / bask in their power. If you approach a PbtA game with the idea that the goal is to go on a total power trip, you're going to go home not only disappointed, but probably completely disillusioned.

Whereas approaching D&D with same mindset is, while not necessarily preferred or expected, a wholly valid way to experience what the system offers. If you approach D&D as nothing more than an opportunity to ride a level treadmill, collect some "phat lewt" along the way, and occasionally slay the odd dragon or demon that had it coming to them . . . it's still totally viable.

I don't think it's a question of fighting over play style "legitimacy." Any and all play styles are "legitimate," insomuch as there are participants willing to experience them.

I think it's disingenuous, though, to say that the concept of player agency isn't connected to playstyle. In some ways, it's at the uttermost core center of the differences between play styles. Having experienced first-hand the differences between low-agency, medium-agency, and high-agency styles of play, I'm going to advocate for as much possible player agency as the GM is willing to give, every time, all day, every day. In my experience, higher-agency play leads to more fun at the gaming table, almost universally.

*Edit --- And as I mentioned earlier, much of the point of these discussions is to at least point out alternative, higher-agency methodologies/tactics/systems than the assumed "default" mode of play for D&D --- because it's one thing to not use those alternative methodologies because you have a very clear grasp of your preferences of play and why you use them, and you're actively choosing not to use the presented alternatives. (I very much respect @Lanefan in this light; he had a very clearly-defined style of play that works for him). 

It's another thing to never choose those alternative methodologies because you have no idea they exist and could potentially, with the right analysis and effort, dramatically improve your gameplay experiences.





Crimson Longinus said:


> If a player controls the actions of the main character of the story, it is rather weird to frame that as 'experiencing a narrative dictated by the GM.' If I am playing Luke and get to decide whether to join Vader on the Dark Side or not, that is pretty decent agency, even though I had not decided whether Vader was my dad or not.
> 
> I really don't think the sort of linear formulation of agency that you try to present is helpful. By that logic writing fiction about your character without input from anyone else would be the ultimate form of high-agency roleplay.




Sure --- but what if you weren't really interested in exploring the whole "light side" / "dark side" of the Force thing at all? What if you really wanted to explore what it was like to be a smuggler with Han Solo? You show up at blown up Alderaan, and are like, "Nope, screw this save the galaxy from the Empire crap, that's someone else's job. Don't care about that TIE fighter heading towards that small moon, let's get the crap out of here. It sounds way more fun to go off and be a spice runner and try to become a bad-a** crime lord." Oh sure, Ben Kenobi will kvetch about it for a bit and get on your case, but it's not like you're beholden to his every whim.

Oh except there's a problem . . . . the GM has already pre-built this whole "Saga of the Skywalkers" campaign setting, and he's pre-built all these NPCs. I mean, what's the GM supposed to do now with Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar, and Crix Madine, and Wedge Antilles?

Isn't it easier for everyone if we all just play along with Luke deciding to train to be a Jedi? Oh, and that whole plot twist about Vader being your dad, I mean, that's pretty critical to the whole GM plot-line, so we can't change that. I mean, how else is the GM going to get you to go along with things? And yes you really do have to be from Tattooine, there's too much backstory of your character that requires it. Because how else is the GM going to use his pre-prepped sandpeople encounter if Luke isn't from Tatooine? And escaping from the Death Star, I mean, that sounds like a cool encounter set piece, but not really what the player is interested in. So . . . . I guess since the GM's in charge, we do it anyway?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

innerdude said:


> Sure --- but what if you weren't really interested in exploring the whole "light side" / "dark side" of the Force thing at all? What if you really wanted to explore what it was like to be a smuggler with Han Solo? You show up at blown up Alderaan, and are like, "Nope, screw this save the galaxy from the Empire crap, that's someone else's job. Don't care about that TIE fighter heading towards that small moon, let's get the crap out of here. It sounds way more fun to go off and be a spice runner and try to become a bad-a** crime lord." Oh sure, Ben Kenobi will kvetch about it for a bit and get on your case, but it's not like you're beholden to his every whim.
> 
> Oh except there's a problem . . . . the GM has already pre-built this whole "Saga of the Skywalkers" campaign setting, and he's pre-built all these NPCs. I mean, what's the GM supposed to do now with Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar, and Crix Madine, and Wedge Antilles?



You indeed do describe two different approaches her. In the first Luke and Han become spice runners and then the campaign will be about that. And this to happen does not require the players to have narrative level control, as this is simply a logical outcome of the actions their characters took.

Now in the second the GM has a preplanned story they want to do. This is fine too. It just requires that at the sessions zero they got a buy in from the players that this is roughly what the campaign will be about. For some bizarre reason many people here seem to imagine that games without the players having narrative level control will only be of this second type, whilst they can just as easily be of the first type.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> If a player controls the actions of the main character of the story, it is rather weird to frame that as 'experiencing a narrative dictated by the GM.' If I am playing Luke and get to decide whether to join Vader on the Dark Side or not, that is pretty decent agency, even though I had not decided whether Vader was my dad or not.
> 
> I really don't think the sort of linear formulation of agency that you try to present is helpful. By that logic writing fiction about your character without input from anyone else would be the ultimate form of high-agency roleplay.



And yet none of you can answer the question! How can you define "I got to join Vader on the Dark Side" when dictated by the GM as the choice that will be dark or light side as being equally empowered as a situation where the player participated directly in formulating the question at hand? Is the judgment then that 2 choices is just as much agency as potentially unlimited choices? This is the nut of the question and I have been a little puzzled by why it is avoided. I don't know what you mean by a 'linear formulation'. I don't agree with the 'straw man' statement made by @Bedrockgames either, frankly I don't even understand it at all! What 'straw man' am I erecting, what thing am I substituting for some other thing? 

Just answer the question, how is less choice 'more freedom'? IMHO this is a very strange way of thinking and it is all quite straightforward!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm not trying to say that one is 'better' than another. Is a fine vintage more sophisticated than jug wine? Yep! You may still be a fan of jug wine. Still, in the hierarchy of different methods of play, some are more like jug wine, some are more like a fine port. That is less of an absolute 'moral' judgment as it is an acknowledgment. There are more things you can do with a more collaborative type of process, and in general you can achieve a majority of what could be achieved in the 'old way'. Believe me, running 4e in a 'narrative format' adequately showed me that fears of somehow limiting or excluding certain aspects of play are pretty overblown.
> 
> So, obviously you can just roll your eyes and call some of us snobs if you want, but it isn't that simple.



Oh, trust me I do! I am perfectly aware that I often come across as snarky, smug elitist, but what you're doing here is approaching parody. Fine vintage wine indeed!


----------



## Bedrockgames

Playstyles aren't wine


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

innerdude said:


> It's another thing to never choose those alternative methodologies because you have no idea they exist and could potentially, with the right analysis and effort, dramatically improve your gameplay experiences.



I think this is a really KEY point in what I was saying badly. If you have mastery of forms and you choose one and say "This is how I choose to approach this game, because my informed ideas about play lead me to play in this fashion here and now." THAT is surely exercising the greatest level of mastery of the subject! It can be any style of play. There isn't some fundamentally 'better' one, but when one says "well, only this one way can ever be best in all cases" whether for you or for everyone, etc. then you're not exercising or attempting mastery. You're just stuck in the mud! 

This is why I see Picasso as the greatest of all masters of the art of painting. If you look at the ENTIRETY of his work, you can see that he mastered every style. He was the absolute and utter master of his craft and thus each and every element of his mature work is a fully and completely formed aesthetic choice. He might "just paint" and do it simply to enjoy doing it and not even care about the result, but it was always within his power to produce anything that was in his mind's eye, no matter what technique would be required. 

Nobody here will probably ever master any subject to quite that degree, maybe most of us cannot aspire to even master one style of playing an RPG, but certainly we can also acknowledge the traits of great mastery and ability. Right?


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## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And yet none of you can answer the question! How can you define "I got to join Vader on the Dark Side" when dictated by the GM as the choice that will be dark or light side as being equally empowered as a situation where the player participated directly in formulating the question at hand? Is the judgment then that 2 choices is just as much agency as potentially unlimited choices? This is the nut of the question and I have been a little puzzled by why it is avoided. I don't know what you mean by a 'linear formulation'. I don't agree with the 'straw man' statement made by @Bedrockgames either, frankly I don't even understand it at all! What 'straw man' am I erecting, what thing am I substituting for some other thing?
> 
> Just answer the question, how is less choice 'more freedom'? IMHO this is a very strange way of thinking and it is all quite straightforward!



Because there being some constrains make the choice actually matter. Having some external challenges makes overcoming them to matter. If you want ultimate freedom, then why even have the dice, rules or the other players at all? After all, they might disagree with you and place other restraints to your freedom.


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## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> I think it's disingenuous, though, to say that the concept of player agency isn't connected to playstyle. In some ways, it's at the uttermost core center of the differences between play styles. Having experienced first-hand the differences between low-agency, medium-agency, and high-agency styles of play, I'm going to advocate for as much possible player agency as the GM is willing to give, every time, all day, every day. In my experience, higher-agency play leads to more fun at the gaming table, almost universally.




I never said agency isn't connected to play style (in my post I said some play styles will put more priority on agency and that agency in itself isn't necessarily what people are after in some play style---for instance adventure paths are often not as interested in agency as they are in delivering the goods the players have come to expect). You can advocate for more player agency for yourself and I won't object. Where these discussions run into issues is assuming that what is good for your table is good for everyone else's. By the same token, I think there is something disingenuous about how many are rating the 'levels' of agency. Obviously agency is being presented as a good and desirable thing here. It is creating an ought, and it seems to be the object people are fighting over to claim their style is the one people ought to pursue, and not just that but their style is somehow the best, the highest form of agency. I always get a bit skeptical when people start talking that way about their play style. Every play style can be pursued at a high level. I think saying that a dramatically focused style of play for example is higher, just isn't true. I can put just as much work, effort and nuance into exploring and maximizing the depths of play in a game focused on exploration, adventure paths, monster hunts or even murder hobo.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Bedrockgames said:


> @zarionofarabel, can you reiterate what you meant by Agency in the OP. I feel like it would be more productive to answer the question you had about that? (since really any debate about the meaning of agency and other play styles don't really matter as much as what you had in mind when you used the term originally)



I will try!

In essence, I was wondering if I offer my players choices that matter. Choices that are meaningful. Choices that satisfy their desire to alter the narrative in a meaningful way.

I just make it all up as we play. I add elements to the narrative moment by moment and that made me wonder if I was guilty of something I think is called _illusionism_. As in, I instead offer only the illusion of choice because I, well, just make it all up at the table.

I hope that helps!


----------



## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> That's not what "fail-forward" is about, nor is "success-plus-complication" synonymous with "fail-forward,"
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think that it's fair to say that PbtA is particularly concerned with a "hurry-up style of play," but, rather, it's emphasis is on a fiction-first style of play. It's more interested in what's the next state of the fiction. It's not interested in each and every granular swing of the sword. It's interested in how a scene plays out more on a more holistic and fluid level. It's interested in character choice in the fiction, i.e., "what do you do?", rather than the questions of skilled play in a tactical skirmish game. I don't think it's in a rush, but I think it is interested in maintaining forward momentum and pacing. PbtA can go tortoise: slow and steady, but constantly forwards.



Some reflections on the first point:

"Fail forward" is a label for a technique which (as far as I know) was first elaborated by Luke Crane and Ron Edwards. Here it is from the BW rules, Gold edition pp 24-25, 30-32 (and anyone can download this component of that system for free if they want to read about how it works):

Let’s start with the core of the Burning Wheel system. We call it “Intent and Task.” . . .  When declaring an action for a character, you say what you want and how you do it. That’s the intent and the task. . . . By describing how his character will undertake this intent, he defines the task. Clearly stating and linking the task and intent allows player and GM to determine what ability needs to be tested. . . .​​Descriptions of the task are vital. Through them we know which mechanics to apply; acknowledging the intent allows us to properly interpret the results of the test. . . . A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character . . . A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? . . . Once the description of the intent and task has been stated at the table, the ability needed to complete that action is usually pretty obvious. . . .​​[W]hat happens after the dice have come to rest and the successes are counted? If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal—he achieved his intent and completed the task.​​This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test. . . . The most important criteria for passing a test is that play moves in the direction of the success, even if only momentarily. . . .​​When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .​​Failure is not the end of the line, but it is complication that pushes the story in another direction. . . . When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication. . . .​​Try not to present flat negative results . . . Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​​Death should only be the result of failure in the rarest, most dire situations. The GM must present the players with varied, twisted, occult and bizarre ramifications of their decisions. Death is only the last resort. And more often than not, a player will let everyone know when he is prepared to risk his character’s life for success.​​Lastly, the rules for specific subsystems, like fighting, injury and sorcery, will guide you in adjudicating the severity of a failure result.​
One thing that is fairly striking about this is the amount of effort devoted to explaining the action declaration and resolution process. It's very careful and deliberate.

The second thing is central to "fail forward": that adjudication technique (a) depends upon action having both _intent_ and _task_; and (b) focuses upon _intent_. How the GM narrates the _task_ outcome will depend upon the established fiction, the consequence envisaged, perhaps the mood of the table, etc. If my Circles check to come across Rufus had failed (task: _I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol_; intent: _I want to meet with my brother again after many years away_) maybe the GM has me meet no one; maybe I meet a man-at-arms whom Rufus has sent to tell me I'm exiled from Auxol and must leave; maybe the GM decides that I _do_ meet Rufus, but he is charging towards me in full harness with a lance! This last option would have the GM fastening on my implicit intent that the meeting involve friendship or at least communication, rather than hateful conflict.

Some instances of "fail forward" can come close to success with complication - maybe that last possibility for a failed Circles check is in that neighbourhood - but al involve failure of intent.

In Apocalypse World and Dungeon World (and perhaps other PbtA games? those are the two I know), a 7-9 result still takes the PC towards his her goal in her action eg 7-9 on Go Aggro in AW still intimidates the target of the action, although not to the point of completely folding; 7-9 on Defy Danger in DW you are still able to act despite the imminent threat, but it will cost you in some fashion (perhaps you suffer some harm, or lose a piece of gear, or something more particular that follows from the fiction of the situation).

To move to some reflections on the second point: I think that both BW with "fail forward" and AW/DW with the prominence of 7-9 results are concerned to keep the fiction moving at a reasonable clip. There is not meant to be a lot of sitting at the table wondering _what's really going on_ or _where can we find the real action here_? I think it would be a very atypical BW session, for instance, that involved the players having their PCs wandering through a town or city trying to gather information about <whatever> and moving through a series of largely unproductive interactions with largely ignorant or unhelpful NPCs. Mechanically, an attempt to gather information in this way would probably be resolved via appropriate Circles or Wises checks (maybe other social skills, if the framing made it appropriate) but if those checks failed then "fail forward" narration would mean that something more significant or dramatic happened then simply getting brushed off by a surly bartender.

I think one animating idea of these systems is that there's basically no reason why the whole of a RPG session can't be as interesting, engaging and invigorating as its high point. That's not to say that there's not rising action as well as climax; but there doesn't need to be _no action at all_, in RPGing any more than in other fiction media.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

zarionofarabel said:


> I will try!
> 
> In essence, I was wondering if I offer my players choices that matter. Choices that are meaningful. Choices that satisfy their desire to alter the narrative in a meaningful way.
> 
> I just make it all up as we play. I add elements to the narrative moment by moment and that made me wonder if I was guilty of something I think is called _illusionism_. As in, I instead offer only the illusion of choice because I, well, just make it all up at the table.
> 
> I hope that helps!



Don't be afraid of being called illusionist! It is not a bad thing if done sparingly.

Also, I think that your style of highly improvisational gameplay has a potential for rather satisfying player experience agency-wise. It doesn't automatically follow from it, but the potential is there. You kinda make things up as you go along, based on what the characters do, right? You have little reason to direct them into any particular direction as no direction was preplanned anyway. If the characters get interested in some thing that was randomly mentioned, then the story can be about that for a while. This lets the characters push the action into any direction they want and lets them do things they're interested in. And sure, you will need to create some twists and surprises or perhaps illusionise some details so that the world seems coherent and that's perfectly fine.


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## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Don't be afraid of being called illusionist! It is not a bad thing if done sparingly.
> 
> Also, I think that your style of highly improvisational gameplay has a potential for rather satisfying player experience agency-wise. It doesn't automatically follow from it, but the potential is there. You kinda make things up as you go along, based on what the characters do, right? You have little reason to direct them into any particular direction as no direction was preplanned anyway. If the characters get interested in some thing that was randomly mentioned, then the story can be about that for a while. This lets the characters push the action into any direction they want and lets them do things they're interested in. And sure, you will need to create some twists and surprises or perhaps illusionise some details so that the world seems coherent and that's perfectly fine.



Except that by doing what you're saying, here, there's never any Illusionism.  Illusionism requires GM Force -- which is the GM forcing a preferred outcome.  Force becomes Illusionism when you hide the fact you're using Force through various obfuscations.  If, instead, you're just following the player's interests, then there's never a need for Illusionism -- it's only when the GM has a preferred outcome (note outcome, not framing) that Force and Illusionism arrive on the scene.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Except that by doing what you're saying, here, there's never any Illusionism.  Illusionism requires GM Force -- which is the GM forcing a preferred outcome.  Force becomes Illusionism when you hide the fact you're using Force through various obfuscations.  If, instead, you're just following the player's interests, then there's never a need for Illusionism -- it's only when the GM has a preferred outcome (note outcome, not framing) that Force and Illusionism arrive on the scene.



There are many levels of decisions. The GM may use illusionism on micro level decisions to help the players get where they wanted on the macro level. And the definition of illusionsim is not particularly clear; there was a long discussion earlier about the lying informant scenario and under what conditions it would have been illusionsim. I found that rather pointless.


----------



## pemerton

chaochou said:


> I posted this before, but I'm going to reiterate it again. The question of agency boils down to: Who has created the purpose of my character?
> 
> Creating a purpose is not the same as accepting a quest from the GM, nor choosing from a GM provided list. It means what it says - I the player create for myself what my character is up to in this game. Otherwise someone else does.
> 
> It's an either / or situation. There's no sliding scale here - either I have created the purpose of my character or I have not.
> 
> Resolution systems then support one or other of these two binary options.



I have played games in which I (as a player) had created my character purpose, and the GM was not really interested in that. 

Thinking of one particular 2ned ed AD&D campaign, the GM had in mind a different purpose for my character (which was the same as the purpose of all the other characters). It ended up as a trainwreck. It's interesting to unpack a little bit_ why_ and _how_ the trainwreck took place, I think it relates to your comment about establishing various aspects and trajectories of the fiction.



chaochou said:


> I wish people wouldn't conflate backstory, plot, situation and narration. Those are all completely seperate things. Authority for each of those can be seperated and transferred between rpg participants with no problem. There are a range of techniques to do this.
> 
> The fact that traditional games lump them together and call it 'GM-ing' doesn't change the fact that they are distinct and seperate parts of the game and can be moved independently between participants with no harm to consistency, immersion, plausibility, or any of these other frequently repeated (and false) claims.





Crimson Longinus said:


> If a player controls the actions of the main character of the story, it is rather weird to frame that as 'experiencing a narrative dictated by the GM.' If I am playing Luke and get to decide whether to join Vader on the Dark Side or not, that is pretty decent agency, even though I had not decided whether Vader was my dad or not.



A more general or abstract point, which reiterates what I and @AbdulAlhazred have already posted upthread, is this: getting to choose what my PC _attempts_ seems like the baseline for playing a RPG. Without that, I'm just listening to the GM's monologue.

Choosing what my PC attempts is a way of manifesting my choice of my PC's goal. But it's only meaningful in that respect if _success is on the table_. If I declare that my PC joins Darth Vader, but the GM then deploys and manipulates fiction and/or mechanics to make that fail (eg uses alignment-type rules to decide that my character is now an NPC under the GM's control; has Darth undergo a sudden revelation or conversion so that joining him doesn't mean joining the Dark Side; simply declares _sorry, you can't do that_), it turns out that I didn't really have agency at all - I _was not_ able to control my PC's actions in the way that mattered to me, and as a consequence was not meaningfully able to choose my own goal.

The same pattern can emerge if my goal for my PC is to find a spellbook to enhance her mastery of magic. If I declare _I'm looking for the wizard's tower that I believe is around here somewhere_ in circumstances where nothing contrary to that has been established in the shared fiction, but then the GM deploys and manipulates the fiction and/or mechanics to make that fail (eg by fiat declaring, _sorry, there are no towers around here_) then again it turns out that I wasn't really able to control my character's action in the way that mattered to me. Again, my attempt to choose my own goal was thwarted.

In the 2nd ed AD&D game that I mentioned above, the GM's goal for all of us, as a group, was to resolve a complicated prophecy. The prophecy took the form of a series of verses. As a group of players we spent a lot of time and effort trying to interpret those verses, coming up with conjectures about how we (the PCs) and our actions fitted within them.

I think this shows, in a sense, how _little_ can be required to accommodate player agency. Even if, as here, the GM was the primary author of the most salient backstory - ie the prophecy - and of the situations we encountered (many of which were straightforward 2nd ed D&D stuff - humanoid lairs, a lich, etc), it was still possible for the players to exercise agency by making sense of our actions, and our personal goals for our PCs, within the context of that backstory and those situations, by fitting it all into the prophecy.

There are player-agency-oriented RPGs that are intended to work a bit like this. For instance, Prince Valiant assumes a default backstory of Arthurian legend, and by default in that system the GM establishes the situations; but the players are entitled to impose their own goals for their PCs onto those situations (typically those should be knight aspirations, of course!) and the GM rolls with that. Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic also works if the GM presents the situations, but the players choose what they do with them in accordance with their PC milestones (which are that system's formal statement of PC goals).

What went wrong in the AD&D game I played in was that the GM simply _could not let go_. Not only had he set up the backstory, and was he framing the situations: he decided by fiat, in his own mind and without even sharing with us the players, what the prophecy-relevant meaning was of each action that we took. So from our point of view everything was arbitrary and meaningless.

The campaign melted down.



chaochou said:


> Both the PbtA moves and the Burning Wheel action resolution (and both advancement systems) are designed to facilitate the GM / MC to generate new challenges as a character sets about the purpose which the player has created.
> 
> Misplaced perceptions of how PbtA or Blades or Burning Wheel work (from vocal posters who've actually never played them, it has to be said) simply reveal a baseline failure to understand that everything from those games flows from the starting point of player created objectives.



I think this shows that we can't talk about _system_ purely as _mechanics _- we also have to look at _techniques_ of narration of consequence, and the _principles_ that guide the application of those techniques.


----------



## Bedrockgames

zarionofarabel said:


> I will try!
> 
> In essence, I was wondering if I offer my players choices that matter. Choices that are meaningful. Choices that satisfy their desire to alter the narrative in a meaningful way.
> 
> I just make it all up as we play. I add elements to the narrative moment by moment and that made me wonder if I was guilty of something I think is called _illusionism_. As in, I instead offer only the illusion of choice because I, well, just make it all up at the table.
> 
> I hope that helps!




Thanks!

When you say agency, just because this has come up in this thread and we are debating without getting back to how it ties to what you want, do you mean it in terms of the players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting and adventure you are running, or do you extend that to include stuff like what some of the others are talking about, like giving them power to control the narrative itself (i.e. is this agency through their character, or is this agency the player can exert on the world itself). 

I would say, when it comes to agency two things matter here: do the players actually have agency, and do the players sense the agency that they have. I think that can become illusionism (though I do think that itself is a loaded term) if you are improvising and you are not giving serious consideration to the players actions and factoring those into your decisions. Ultimately what needs to happen if you are on the improv side, is you need to make sure you are factoring in their choices. I think a lot of that is going to come down to how you make your decisions about what happens as a GM. Something that might help, which I incorporate into my games, is to be conscious of moments during play where it is clear to you that how the players react to something is going to matter. Ultimately your players know half the answer to this question and you know the other half. Basically if they do something unexpected, do you honestly consider where that will lead to, and honor that, or do you try to steer things back towards what you've come up with on the fly. And when you are improving and responding organically to what the players do, are you really giving consideration to what they decide and saying okay, here is where that would lead to. I realize it can get murky when you are improving. 

Something that helps me, and I probably mentioned this already, is to take a living world approach, where I treat my NPCs as fully fleshed out and independent characters as the PCs. If the PCs do something unexpected my NPCs react to that in  a way that I think fits their personality. This has led to all kinds of interesting chemistry in the game, and it is still highly situational, so fits in with a more improvisational style. We've had characters end up proposing marriage to their nemesis for example, and its led to campaigns going in quite unexpected directions. 

Again I think  this boils down to: do you feel your players have agency in the game and do they feel they have agency in the game.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that many games allow players to create setting elements out of thin air. Yes, some games allow the players to introduce fictional elements as part of play, but there are rules and/or techniques that are involved.



Sure there are.  Look at the example a bit upthread (I think it came from AbdulAlhazrad) regarding the PCs starting the game in the middle of a swamp where within the first minute one of the players has created some hills to the north out of thin air.

And even if it's mechanically bounded, on a successful check the result to me ends up looking exactly the same: something in the setting (a secret door, a wizard's tower, whatever) gets created out of thin air.  When one is looking for setting consistency to base one's play off of, this doesn't give it. 


hawkeyefan said:


> I agree with the first paragraph, but not with the second. I think you should always consider what a game is telling you to do and why, and changing that only makes sense if you have a really compelling reason to do so.



In this case the compelling reason is that using a non-granular form of resolution has far too much potential to a) lead to, for some players, unsatisfactory or incomplete outcomes and b) leave out some end-result outcomes that would otherwise be possible.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> No.
> 
> It gives the player points of connection to the world. It gives them the ability to help say what kind of story they want the game to be.
> 
> To give a specific example so that you don't think I'm some short attention simpleton....tonight I just finished a session in my group's new campaign, which is a super hero game based on the Blades in the Dark rules. The setting is one that I've loosely designed, the details of which we are establishing through play.
> 
> One PC has a background of "Criminal" in that he used to be a criminal before seeing the light and deciding to try and be a hero. The exact details had not yet been established. So in tonight's game, when the team ran afoul of some enhanced street gangs, the player asked if he could use his past as a criminal to shed light on the local gangs. We decided that he was a one time member of one of the gangs, and so he had some basic details at his disposal.
> 
> So he leveraged some backstory to hep with their current situation. Nothing he did was some kind of predetermined thing of mine as the GM. He came up with it, and asked about it, and then we talked it out, and established the details. Now it's a part of his character's backstory.
> 
> How do you see this as a cheat code that somehow invalidates any risk or cost? It's simply not the case.



Though I quite like the way this turned out, and it's far from an egregious example of the type of thing I'm conerned about, what rubs me a bit the wrong way is that only when the PCs ran afoul of the gangs did the player pull out the previously-unseen 'knowledge' card.  Ideally enough details would have been established ahead of time that during play both you and the player could have seamlessly flowed right into his knowledge of the gangs without having to figure it out at the time, because you'd both have a good idea as to how extensive (and-or accurate!) that knowledge was.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Oh, trust me I do! I am perfectly aware that I often come across as snarky, smug elitist, but what you're doing here is approaching parody. Fine vintage wine indeed!




Yeah, I'm kind of having to say "I'm not saying what I'm doing is a higher order of approach but its a higher order approach" in reaction to an accusation of elistism is, well, definitely something.


----------



## Thomas Shey

By the by, I'd agree that fail-forward is not the same thing as success-with-complication.  Its not even really the inverse (which does exist in some systems: mitigated failure).  Its more a formalization of not having failures bring the game to screeching halt by having the failure actually go somewhere rather than stop you in your tracks in one fashion or another.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'd just like to point out that this is BY FAR not the only such rule (stronghold building). There are many others in 1e, including anything to do with creating magic items, researching new spells, etc. It was certainly expected that players would suggest things like variants of clerics, different deities, races, possibly even classes. ALL of this was on the table in OD&D (which I think covers @pemerton's 'early D&D') and then things got 'tighter' in 1e, but still pretty open-ended on many things.



Agreed.  It's something of an extension of this principle that has led us to 40 years of 1e modifications and given us the game we play today.   Players have had input into and-or suggested rules, classes, deities, spells, and so forth; sometimes that input has been adopted wholesale either then or later*, other times it's been rejected flat, and more often it's been adopted in some form or other after considerable discussion and-or modification.  Said discussions almost never happen during play sessions, though: they're what pubs were invented for. 

Note however that the DM always has absolute right of veto over any of this and that this is noted in the books.  Most half-decent DMs won't use that veto unless the player is trying to game the system somehow (e.g. creating an overpowered spell or item or class), but it's there nonetheless and can't be ignored.

* - in my current campaign I've twice had players make excellent suggestions (one a creature, one a spell) that I heard and quietly filed away for later use.  In both cases when the thing in question appeared (and by sheer luck in both cases was first met by a PC of the suggesting player) the player had long since forgotten making the suggestion!


AbdulAlhazred said:


> At least where I played, it was very common for PCs to end up with a lot of 'customizations'. These were often including stuff that the player wanted and initiated. Most of them were rooted in the narrative, but often it was a matter of "Hey, DM, can I get someone to make me a..." or "train me in...". There were even certain admonitions about things that you could NOT do, like learn how to make 'racial items' unless you were of that race (even then not really).
> 
> The point being, player input to the setting/narrative beyond the PC's actions was expected of 'good players'.



I wonder if the differences we're seeing now (and some of the arguments even in this thread) are based on a long-term divergence in the degree of encouragement of said input and of expectations as to its acceptance and-or adoption into the game.  3e-5e D&D, for example, seems in general to have very much moved away from player input on most such things (and from the idea of DM-as-kitbasher as well) in comparison to the 0e-1e ethos; while other games have moved sharply toward player input to the point of making it the underlying framework of play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Sure there are. Look at the example a bit upthread (I think it came from AbdulAlhazrad) regarding the PCs starting the game in the middle of a swamp where within the first minute one of the players has created some hills to the north out of thin air.




Is there some reason there can’t be hills to the north? 

If the GM decides there are hills to the north, is he making them appear out of thin air? 

I imagine we’re kind of taking out of thin air to mean different things. I’m looking at it more as something unlikely or sudden or incongruous. Something out of place.

Hills to the north of a swamp?!?!?! Has the whole world gone mad?



Lanefan said:


> And even if it's mechanically bounded, on a successful check the result to me ends up looking exactly the same: something in the setting (a secret door, a wizard's tower, whatever) gets created out of thin air. When one is looking for setting consistency to base one's play off of, this doesn't give it.




Do you allow survival checks or the like when PCs are in the wilderness? Can they find shelter or water or food sources by making a wilderness or nature skill check? Are they conjuring these things out of thin air? Does the GM need to have this level of detail determined ahead of time?

What about random tables? Aren’t results determined by random tables coming out of thin air? 



Lanefan said:


> In this case the compelling reason is that using a non-granular form of resolution has far too much potential to a) lead to, for some players, unsatisfactory or incomplete outcomes and b) leave out some end-result outcomes that would otherwise be possible.




I agree with you that (a) is possible. Conversely, I think it’s just as likely that dividing actions up into multiple micro-actions would be frustrating for many. It seems this is just a manner of preference. 

But (b) I’m not so sure about. I’m sure we can come up with examples where there are eight rolls with an associated turn, and so there are many possible combinations of outcomes. But I think in most cases, a system that has success, failure, and then some kind of partial success or success with consequence is going to give you the same spread of outcomes.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't think players are automatically invested in their PCs goals in the sense of "succeed and not have any risks."



I do, in that out of a sense of self-preservation the PCs themselves would (one hopes!) naturally tend to gravitate toward the least-risk option(s) when faced with an in-fiction task.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> When players awaken to dramatic possibilities in the game, they are much more likely to see 'higher goals'. It is a bit like the way the ancient Epicureans saw higher forms of self-accomplishment. Basic primal drive satisfaction was a low bar for them. I feel like basic "my character gets all the lootz!" is a pretty low bar form of RP. Its OK, just like eating fine food is OK, but there are more sophisticated and rewarding forms of play, ultimately. I don't mean everyone needs to go there, but a lot of players are at least willing to explore that sort of thing, particularly if they have played for a while, or have a real creative urge to their play. An ideal game can provide something for each sort, without breaking down. D&D seems to not really cater much to the more sophisticated kinds of "hey lets make a story where our characters..." kind of play.



I think it can, but it requires a degree of long-term player buy-in that I'm rather unlikely to ever see (and unless it was a one- or few-session one-off I'd be very unlikely to buy in myself; I'm too gonzo a player for that) 


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mentioned the "everyone is doomed" on-shot I ran once. That was high concept play. It is pointless to approach that type of game like murder hobos in the dungeon, it would just be meaningless. Dying was not a negative there, and plans failing was simply a part of the concept, nope, the lifeboat won't save you after all that work to get it fixed, ah well...



Sounds cool - though I fail to see how it couldn't be played murder-hobo style as in "We're all gonna die, let's just get out there and see how many of 'em we can take with us!"


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Though I quite like the way this turned out, and it's far from an egregious example of the type of thing I'm conerned about, what rubs me a bit the wrong way is that only when the PCs ran afoul of the gangs did the player pull out the previously-unseen 'knowledge' card.  Ideally enough details would have been established ahead of time that during play both you and the player could have seamlessly flowed right into his knowledge of the gangs without having to figure it out at the time, because you'd both have a good idea as to how extensive (and-or accurate!) that knowledge was.




Establishing it during play was fun, though! It wasn’t like we spent an hour agonizing over every day of his life as a gang member. We did the broad strokes. Any details can be decided when desired. 

The benefit to this is that it ties the PC more intimately to the action that’s going on. It gives me as GM more to work with to present the PC with compelling challenges. And now it’s a part of his backstory, which gets fleshed out and now carries forward as we continue to play. 

I think that you’re so used to approaching play a certain way that you kind of imagine the worst way that this approach could possibly turn out. But there are (in the games I’m familiar with, at least) principles that are in place for both the GM and the players. These really help make sure the kind of abuse that you’re worried about doesn’t happen.


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> I do, in that out of a sense of self-preservation the PCs themselves would (one hopes!) naturally tend to gravitate toward the least-risk option(s) when faced with an in-fiction task.




What an odd conception of RPGing! I view the protagonism it affords as encouraging the heroic, where such is defined not only by skill with sword and spell (or whatever genre-appropriate stand ins) but by temerity, risk, and racing headlong into challenge, not "turtling." Of course, some of the aspects of Gygaxian skilled play do encourage the kind of non heroic gameplay you suggest.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> That's not what "fail-forward" is about, nor is "success-plus-complication" synonymous with "fail-forward," but this misconception has been explained to you ad nauseum by now. I'm not sure why this requires 10+ posters regularly correcting you on this through 10+ posts each on the matter in 50+ threads where this has come up. It's like if someone tells you that their name is "Jack," and you keep calling them "Bob." After what point are you being rude by continuing to call them "Bob" after they (and others) correct you that their name is "Jack"?



Success-plus-complication:

Player: "_I try to leap the gap between buildings in hopes my pursuers can't follow_" <roll shows s-with-c result>
GM: "Hmmm - you almost make it but fall a bit short: instead of landing on the building's roof you're dangling from its eaves.  Your pursuers do not attempt the leap"

Fail-forward:

Player: "_I try to leap the gap between buildings in hopes my pursuers can't follow_" <roll shows fail result, GM opts for f-f>
GM: "Hmmm - you almost make it but fall a bit short: instead of landing on the building's roof you're dangling from its eaves.  Your pursuers do not attempt the leap"

Please tell me how in the eyes of either the player or the PC this looks any different at all.


Aldarc said:


> The point is that critical fumbles do not necessarily flow from the fiction or more about humor/humiliation. Some GMs try to be "fair" by rolling from a critical fumble table, but this may result in a consequence that is detached or disassociated from the preceding fiction.



I use a fumble table and yes, sometimes I have to tweak the results to suit the situation (e.g. if the result shows "damage to friend" and there's no allies within reach/range it's always changed to "damage to self" - it even says this on the table).  No big deal. 


Aldarc said:


> It's fair if it's not your cup of tea, but I don't think that it's fair to say that PbtA is particularly concerned with a "hurry-up style of play," but, rather, it's emphasis is on a fiction-first style of play. It's more interested in what's the next state of the fiction. It's not interested in each and every granular swing of the sword. It's interested in how a scene plays out more on a more holistic and fluid level. It's interested in character choice in the fiction, i.e., "what do you do?", rather than the questions of skilled play in a tactical skirmish game. I don't think it's in a rush, but I think it is interested in maintaining forward momentum and pacing. PbtA can go tortoise: slow and steady, but constantly forwards.



OK.  It certainly comes across as being in something of a rush, in that it's painted as eschewing the minutae (which can sometimes be the most interesting parts of the game, and-or can sometimes lead in or point to different directions play can go) in favour of jumping ahead.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Please tell me how in the eyes of either the player or the PC this looks any different at all.




You’ve described success with complication but you’re labeling it as both that and fail forward. But they are distinct things. 

@Thomas Shey posted a pretty succinct description of fail forward just a few posts ago. You should check that out.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> There are many levels of decisions. The GM may use illusionism on micro level decisions to help the players get where they wanted on the macro level. And the definition of illusionsim is not particularly clear; there was a long discussion earlier about the lying informant scenario and under what conditions it would have been illusionsim. I found that rather pointless.



To me, this is like say you can walk across the street but you could also drive to the airport, fly to a different city, then jump a train back, and take a cab from the station to the address across the street -- there's absolutely no need to use Illusionism if you're following along what the players want to do!  Can you?  Sure, I guess, but why are you Forcing your preferred outcomes just to go to where the players want to go?  This line of argument makes no sense to me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Success-plus-complication:
> 
> Player: "_I try to leap the gap between buildings in hopes my pursuers can't follow_" <roll shows s-with-c result>
> GM: "Hmmm - you almost make it but fall a bit short: instead of landing on the building's roof you're dangling from its eaves.  Your pursuers do not attempt the leap"



Good!


Lanefan said:


> Fail-forward:
> 
> 
> Player: "_I try to leap the gap between buildings in hopes my pursuers can't follow_" <roll shows fail result, GM opts for f-f>
> GM: "Hmmm - you almost make it but fall a bit short: instead of landing on the building's roof you're dangling from its eaves.  Your pursuers do not attempt the leap"
> 
> Please tell me how in the eyes of either the player or the PC this looks any different at all.



It doesn't, but it's also not a failure.  A failure would be to deny the intent of the action -- you balk at the edge and one of the guards grabs your arm -- THAT's failure.  The forward part is that you're not fully nicked yet, and you still have things to do.  Even if you are nicked, they don't kill you, you get tossed in the clink, and play continues.  This is what fail forward means -- not that you get what you want but that the failure doesn't create a hard stop in the game.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> What an odd conception of RPGing! I view the protagonism it affords as encouraging the heroic, where such is defined not only by skill with sword and spell (or whatever genre-appropriate stand ins) but by temerity, risk, and racing headlong into challenge, not "turtling." Of course, some of the aspects of Gygaxian skilled play do encourage the kind of non heroic gameplay you suggest.



How - if one is trying to inhabit one's character's mind and think as it thinks - is having a functional sense of self-preservation the least bit odd?

I mean hell, I'm a gonzo enough player to often send my PCs into risks that no sane person would take - and, sadly, my way-higher-than-all-our-other-players death count shows it.  I prefer a high-risk high-reward type of game.

That said, I don't generally play to be heroic, and almost never play characters whose overall goal is to become a hero.  Even as a kid I got bored with the hero always winning; this is why I found Game of Thrones to be so wonderful: other than Sansa and arguably Jon Snow there really are no heroes.  Even the in-theory-good people end up doing evil things at some point.

Any heroism my characters might achieve is in most cases purely a side effect.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

Lanefan said:


> How - if one is trying to inhabit one's character's mind and think as it thinks - is having a functional sense of self-preservation the least bit odd?



Not all players default to actor stance, and not all games encourage actor stance as the default mode of play.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Is there some reason there can’t be hills to the north?
> 
> If the GM decides there are hills to the north, is he making them appear out of thin air?



If that decision is made on the spot, yes; and IMO this is more or less just as bad.

Had the hills to the north been pre-established and had the players been told of their existence during session 0's setting outline (e.g. by being shown a rough map of the area their PCs were in; as unless the PCs are being dropped in from another world they'd in theory already know this stuff) then in-play decisions can be based off that:

"_The map shows there's hills a couple of miles north but the shortest distance to any solid ground appear to be southeast; and there might be an 'island' not far to our west where we could hole up for the night.  Which way we wanna go, guys?_" (all this of course ignoring questions as to how and why these poor sods got here in the first place)


hawkeyefan said:


> Do you allow survival checks or the like when PCs are in the wilderness? Can they find shelter or water or food sources by making a wilderness or nature skill check? Are they conjuring these things out of thin air? Does the GM need to have this level of detail determined ahead of time?



Specific detail, no.  Terrain type, climate, etc. in order to establish what might be available (and therefore the odds of finding anything), yes.


hawkeyefan said:


> I agree with you that (a) is possible. Conversely, I think it’s just as likely that dividing actions up into multiple micro-actions would be frustrating for many. It seems this is just a manner of preference.
> 
> But (b) I’m not so sure about. I’m sure we can come up with examples where there are eight rolls with an associated turn, and so there are many possible combinations of outcomes. But I think in most cases, a system that has success, failure, and then some kind of partial success or success with consequence is going to give you the same spread of outcomes.



This might largely depend on the creativity and imagination of the GM.  Let's say there's a set-up as noted above where someone is leaping from building to building with three discrete goals: cover the distance, land safely, and be quiet about it.  If each of those is treated separately as a binary pass-fail that gives a total of 8 possible outcomes: S-S-S, S-S-F, S-F-S, S-F-F, F-S-S, F-S-F, F-F-S, and F-F-F.

Is the average GM likely to consider or even think of all 8 when adjudicating a blanket roll for the jump?  I know I wouldn't.


----------



## Lanefan

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Not all players default to actor stance, and not all games encourage actor stance as the default mode of play.



Fine, but IMO anything that calls itself a *role-playing* game should and does default to this, in that the main conceit and foundation of the whole thing is that you're playing the role of a character - which is exactly analagous to playing the role of a character when on a stage, only without a pre-written script.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> If that decision is made on the spot, yes; and IMO this is more or less just as bad.
> 
> Had the hills to the north been pre-established and had the players been told of their existence during session 0's setting outline (e.g. by being shown a rough map of the area their PCs were in; as unless the PCs are being dropped in from another world they'd in theory already know this stuff) then in-play decisions can be based off that:
> 
> "_The map shows there's hills a couple of miles north but the shortest distance to any solid ground appear to be southeast; and there might be an 'island' not far to our west where we could hole up for the night.  Which way we wanna go, guys?_" (all this of course ignoring questions as to how and why these poor sods got here in the first place)
> 
> Specific detail, no.  Terrain type, climate, etc. in order to establish what might be available (and therefore the odds of finding anything), yes.
> 
> This might largely depend on the creativity and imagination of the GM.  Let's say there's a set-up as noted above where someone is leaping from building to building with three discrete goals: cover the distance, land safely, and be quiet about it.  If each of those is treated separately as a binary pass-fail that gives a total of 8 possible outcomes: S-S-S, S-S-F, S-F-S, S-F-F, F-S-S, F-S-F, F-F-S, and F-F-F.
> 
> Is the average GM likely to consider or even think of all 8 when adjudicating a blanket roll for the jump?  I know I wouldn't.



Whoa, whoa, whoa.  If I'm starting a game where there's a swamp and hills to the north, I'm going to ask why we're here -- we could have picked the space station instead of this dingy world of boring swamps and hills!

Snark aside, your complaint is that the players didn't get a choice where to start, but this is true in your version as well, just in your version the start is much more detailed and the action starts with putting the question to the players what they want to do with the detail or with an opening plot hook to kickstart the action.  Starting in the swamp is a microcosm of this, not a different thing -- the scale is much reduced and the action more immediate.  Both actually decided before play where play will happen -- in one the players listen to an exposition dump and then choose, in the other they cede the choice of where to start to the GM but gain the ability to be the ones generating the exposition in return.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> If that decision is made on the spot, yes; and IMO this is more or less just as bad.




Why is it bad? 



Lanefan said:


> Had the hills to the north been pre-established and had the players been told of their existence during session 0's setting outline (e.g. by being shown a rough map of the area their PCs were in; as unless the PCs are being dropped in from another world they'd in theory already know this stuff) then in-play decisions can be based off that:




Actually I don’t think anything in this example requires that the GM has determined these things ahead of play. 



Lanefan said:


> Specific detail, no. Terrain type, climate, etc. in order to establish what might be available (and therefore the odds of finding anything), yes.




So an oasis in the desert? Would that be a result that a player could craft from thin air by making a roll? Or would it have to be on the GM’s map already? 

And what if the GM has “Oasis” on his list of Random Desert Encounters? Is that okay? 



Lanefan said:


> This might largely depend on the creativity and imagination of the GM. Let's say there's a set-up as noted above where someone is leaping from building to building with three discrete goals: cover the distance, land safely, and be quiet about it. If each of those is treated separately as a binary pass-fail that gives a total of 8 possible outcomes: S-S-S, S-S-F, S-F-S, S-F-F, F-S-S, F-S-F, F-F-S, and F-F-F.
> 
> Is the average GM likely to consider or even think of all 8 when adjudicating a blanket roll for the jump? I know I wouldn't.




I don’t think most of those matter, really. I don’t think the rolls are being made simultaneously, right? So a F on the first roll pretty much means it’s F on landing safely and quietly, right? 

Any of the mixed results you’ve offered above that may actually apply can be summed up by success with complication. 

There’s simply no need for multiple rolls.


----------



## Thomas Shey

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Not all players default to actor stance, and not all games encourage actor stance as the default mode of play.




That's not even actor.  Its IC.  Actor stance players can still do things hostile to their character's survival, they just do it from within their internal sense of the character, and where they'd end up.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> That's not even actor.  Its IC.  Actor stance players can still do things hostile to their character's survival, they just do it from within their internal sense of the character, and where they'd end up.



So playing in character means never doing things the character would do if it would harm the character?  I struggle to understand a position where you'd say playing in character means you only advocate for the character's interests when doing so is beneficial.  I must not understand, but you're clearly drawing a clear different from inhabiting the character's wants and needs as Actor stance and doing so In Character.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> It only modestly helps because of the preselection of people who even bother to use a board like this, and then those who bother to respond to polls.  Its probably slightly better than those who will engage in extended discussion, but I doubt meaningfully so since the primary gate of "people who bother to use game related fora" is upfront there.  That's not a big population on a whole, and likely skims off whole classes of potential respondents.



Making the perfect the enemy of the good or just better is silly.  The question is one where you've asserted there may be a substantial population who think that success with complication feels like failure.  A poll, even here, would elicit data that would help in that if a substantial number of people respond in agreement, you've made your point.  The only reason to argue against would be concern that such a population wouldn't show up, and, while not conclusive, that would be a mark against.  If you feel strongly about your assertion, surely it's worth the effort -- we'll learn something either way, even without a perfect instrument or perfect participation.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Making the perfect the enemy of the good or just better is silly.




I don't think suggesting the sample location distorts the result too much is demanding perfection.  Its just suggesting that surveys need to screen for things as much as possible or they get distorted results.  You obviously don't think that'd be relevant here and a I do.  If you want to read ulterior motives into that, that's on you.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> So playing in character means never doing things the character would do if it would harm the character?




I suspect Lanefan is assuming people not playing characters with suicidal tendencies, and without that characters will at least somewhat be prone to survival-positive outcomes.  "Never" is a broad term because a lot of things can happen, but it doesn't change the basic premise in that case unless you assume a character with one degree or another of a deathwish.



Ovinomancer said:


> I struggle to understand a position where you'd say playing in character means you only advocate for the character's interests when doing so is beneficial.  I must not understand, but you're clearly drawing a clear different from inhabiting the character's wants and needs as Actor stance and doing so In Character.




An Actor stance player is not immune to doing things for dramatic purposes alone; he may pay a lot of attention to what makes sense for a character but he's not allergic to putting his thumb on the scale to produce a dramatic scene.  A purely IC player doesn't do that, except to the degree it arises naturally from the character's nature.

Basically, it comes down to this situation: A character is presented with three choices, all of which make some degree of sense in-character.  What criterion does the player use to decide?  An IC player will, barring randomness in his own mood, default to the one that seems the most in character.  An Actor player may well chose the one that's most interesting to portray.

(I'm ignoring for the moment Deep-IC or immersive players because that's a rabbithole that can lead to some strange places).


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Is there some reason there can’t be hills to the north?
> 
> If the GM decides there are hills to the north, is he making them appear out of thin air?
> 
> I imagine we’re kind of taking out of thin air to mean different things. I’m looking at it more as something unlikely or sudden or incongruous. Something out of place.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Do you allow survival checks or the like when PCs are in the wilderness? Can they find shelter or water or food sources by making a wilderness or nature skill check? Are they conjuring these things out of thin air? Does the GM need to have this level of detail determined ahead of time?
> 
> What about random tables? Aren’t results determined by random tables coming out of thin air?



Your example of Survival checks is - it seems to me, in this context - the same as my example of Gather Information.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

Thomas Shey said:


> Basically, it comes down to this situation: A character is presented with three choices, all of which make some degree of sense in-character. What criterion does the player use to decide? An IC player will, barring randomness in his own mood, default to the one that seems the most in character. *An Actor player may well chose the one that's most interesting to portray.*



Isn't this more Author Stance than Actor Stance?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> So an oasis in the desert? Would that be a result that a player could craft from thin air by making a roll? Or would it have to be on the GM’s map already?



Ideally it's on the map already.  However, this isn't always practical, so...


hawkeyefan said:


> And what if the GM has “Oasis” on his list of Random Desert Encounters? Is that okay?



...this might come into play; though in truth it's far more likely that instead of stumbling directly on to an oasis they'll have stumbled on to a trail or tracks leading to it, or have seen someone/something going toward it.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think most of those matter, really. I don’t think the rolls are being made simultaneously, right? So a F on the first roll pretty much means it’s F on landing safely and quietly, right?



Not necessarily: even if you fail the jump and fall to the alley you could still - given a bit of good luck - manage to land safely (maybe you'll take a bit of temporary hit point damage or equivalent but you won't pick up any injuries that will immediately impede your speed or gracefulness) and be quiet about it.


hawkeyefan said:


> Any of the mixed results you’ve offered above that may actually apply can be summed up by success with complication.



Yes, they can.  My point is that absent those rolls as idea-prompts most GMs will at best only come up with two or three potential mixed outcomes on the fly, rather than the six that are possible.  I'd rather see them all be in play, and the added rolling puts them there.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> So playing in character means never doing things the character would do if it would harm the character?  I struggle to understand a position where you'd say playing in character means you only advocate for the character's interests when doing so is beneficial.



Yeah, I have to say I don't quite get this one either.   Ideally the player figures out what the character's interests are and then advocates for them, be they beneficial or harmful or (often) a bit of both, be it in the fiction or at the table.

Edit to add: @Thomas Shey 's subsequent post makes his point much clearer.


----------



## Thomas Shey

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Isn't this more Author Stance than Actor Stance?




I'll admit the lines between the two never seemed clear-cut to me, but my understanding always was that an Author stance player would actively change the nature of the character if he thought the result was more interesting; he doesn't feel obliged to stick out his original concept the whole way.  An Actor stance player won't, but as I noted before, will still choose the lesser (but still in character) choice if he thinks its more interesting to portray.

If you think that's a fine line, I always felt that about all the lines separating Director/Author/Actor/IC.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Lanefan said:


> Yeah, I have to say I don't quite get this one either.   Ideally the player figures out what the character's interests are and then advocates for them, be they beneficial or harmful or (often) a bit of both, be it in the fiction or at the table.
> 
> Edit to add: @Thomas Shey 's subsequent post makes his point much clearer.




I was going from your post that you assumed survival instinct as a prior, barring reasons for it to be otherwise.  If I misunderstood, that's on me.


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect Lanefan is assuming people not playing characters with suicidal tendencies, and without that characters will at least somewhat be prone to survival-positive outcomes.  "Never" is a broad term because a lot of things can happen, but it doesn't change the basic premise in that case unless you assume a character with one degree or another of a deathwish.



Yes, this.

I'm also assuming a game type where death and other bad things are things that can and will happen to the unwary, rather than just being empty threats or bluffs, and thus that there's a real in-play reward for reducing the odds of thier occurrence.


Thomas Shey said:


> An Actor stance player is not immune to doing things for dramatic purposes alone; he may pay a lot of attention to what makes sense for a character but he's not allergic to putting his thumb on the scale to produce a dramatic scene.  A purely IC player doesn't do that, except to the degree it arises naturally from the character's nature.
> 
> Basically, it comes down to this situation: A character is presented with three choices, all of which make some degree of sense in-character.  What criterion does the player use to decide?  An IC player will, barring randomness in his own mood, default to the one that seems the most in character.  An Actor player may well chose the one that's most interesting to portray.



Pretty much spot on.  

Sometimes, if the character either is intentionally being played to be largely an entertainer (be it in-the-fiction, at-the-table, or both) then often the best-in-character option and the most-interesting/dramatic option will very often be the same.


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I was going from your post that you assumed survival instinct as a prior, barring reasons for it to be otherwise.  If I misunderstood, that's on me.



No, you got it - your next post made it much clearer.


----------



## pemerton

Some posters are talking about "actor stance players" and "author stance players". To the best of my knowledge the terms _actor stance_ and _author stance _have no well-established meanings outside of their use at The Forge. And as used there, they are not properties or tendencies of players:

Stance is very labile during play, with people shifting among the stances frequently and even without deliberation or reflection.​​Stances do not correspond in any 1:1 way to the GNS modes. Stance is much more ephemeral, for one thing, such that a person enjoying the Gamist elements and decisions of a role-playing experience might shift all about the stances during a session of play. He or she might be Authoring most of the time and Directing occasionally, and then at a key moment slam into Actor stance for a scene. The goal hasn't changed; stance has.​​However, I think it's very reasonable to say that specific stances are more common in some modes/goals of play. Historically, Author stance seems the most common or at least decidedly present at certain points for Gamist and Narrativist play, and Director stance seems to be a rarer add-on in those modes. Actor stance seems the most common for Simulationist play, although a case could be made for Author and Director stance being present during character creation in this mode. These relative proportions of Stance positions during play do apparently correspond well with issues of Premise and GNS. I suggest, however, that it is a given subset of a mode that Stance is facilitating, rather than the whole mode itself. Some forms of Simulationism, for instance, may be best served by Director Stance, as opposed to other forms which are best served by Actor Stance. Similarly, some forms of Narrativism rely on Actor Stance at key moments.​​


Lanefan said:


> Had the hills to the north been pre-established and had the players been told of their existence during session 0's setting outline (e.g. by being shown a rough map of the area their PCs were in; as unless the PCs are being dropped in from another world they'd in theory already know this stuff) then in-play decisions can be based off that:



Rather than a whole lot of "downloading" from the GM in "session zero", @AbdulAlhazred has suggested cutting straight to session one, and using the more immersive technique of having the player of the ranger tell us what s/he knows!

The same outcome: the ranger knows that there are hills, and where they are. More immersion: the player of the ranger doesn't have his/her access to his/her character's knowledge mediated via second-person exposition. More play: instead of wasting time with "session zero" we just start playing the game! @hawkeyefan and @AbdulAlhazred's approach seems like wins all round to me.

The advantages only get magnified as we get to stuff that isn't introduced in "session zero" (eg _is their a hunting lodge in the hills where we can take shelter?_) - because obviously such stuff is going to come up in any halfway decent RPG in pretty short order - and the immersive-disrupting amount of second-person exposition increases.


----------



## pemerton

When I'm playing my Burning Wheel character, my primary thoughts (as my character) are not about safety. They are about glory, and also about protecting Aramina. There's even stuff on my PC sheet that signals this:

*Beliefs*

The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory
I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory
Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol
Aramina will need my protection

*Instincts*

When entering battle, always speak a prayer to the Lord of Battle
If an innocent is threatened, interpose myself
When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning

I'm guessing this might be the sort of thing @darkbard had in mind upthread.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> To me, this is like say you can walk across the street but you could also drive to the airport, fly to a different city, then jump a train back, and take a cab from the station to the address across the street -- there's absolutely no need to use Illusionism if you're following along what the players want to do!  Can you?  Sure, I guess, but why are you Forcing your preferred outcomes just to go to where the players want to go?  This line of argument makes no sense to me.



It has to do with combining going (roughly) along with the direction the actions of the characters dictate with creating an illusion of a consistent world that exists independently them and perhaps even adding some preplanned elements in the mix for more crunchy games.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> OK.  It certainly comes across as being in something of a rush, in that it's painted as eschewing the minutae *(which can sometimes be the most interesting parts of the game, and-or can sometimes lead in or point to different directions play can go)* in favour of jumping ahead.



It may blow your mind to discover that this can all be done in a single roll generating a complicated-success and adhering to basic fiction-first principles.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> When you say agency, just because this has come up in this thread and we are debating without getting back to how it ties to what you want, do you mean it in terms of the players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting and adventure you are running, or do you extend that to include stuff like what some of the others are talking about, like giving them power to control the narrative itself (i.e. is this agency through their character, or is this agency the player can exert on the world itself).



I don't know if you appreciate how loaded this in, in terms of building in assumptions about approach to play, and allocations of authority in play, that are very specific.

For instance, I have talked about action declarations like _I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol_ and _I believe that Evard's tower is around here somewhere - I look out for it_. But I absolutely reject any description of them as _agency the player can exert on the world itself_ which is in some way different from _the players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting through their characters_.

_I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol _is something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Thrugon meet Rufus depends, in part, on something that Rufus does. But that is just the same - if you ask me - as the case where _I attack the Orc with my mace_. Whether or not I hit the Orc depends, in part, on something that the Orc does (eg dodge, or block and turn aside the blow with its shield).

_I believe that Evard's tower is around here somewhere - I look out for it_ also declares something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Aramina's recollection is correct depends, in part, on something that Evard once did - ie build a  tower. But again, most other action declarations also depend, for their success, on things done or not done by other persons and forces in the gameworld.

For reasons that are somewhat opaque to me, you and other posters might want to treat the action declaration about _meeting someone_ differently from the action declaration about _finding a remembered building _from the action declaration about _hitting an Orc with a mace_. I don't see them as different in any underlying structure or significance, and certainly don't think that the language you have used to try and characterise them is apt.

Here's an example of something that I _would _accept counts as a player _exerting agency on the gameworld itself without making a choice through his/her character_: the player declares _The King of Keoland meets an envoy from the Queen of Celene_ (and the player is neither the king nor the envoy nor the Queen nor otherwise connected to this event taking place). That's not an action declaration for a PC.

But no one in this thread has connected that sort of thing to player agency in the context of RPGing.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> When I'm playing my Burning Wheel character, my primary thoughts (as my character) are not about safety. They are about glory, and also about protecting Aramina.



What is your general game-state expectation of survival?  Or in other words, what is the expected lethality of that game as it's being run?

Becuase this makes a massive difference.  

If you-as-player know the game is being run at low (or no) lethality you can have your PC be a lot more gung-ho and risk-takingly heroic than if you know or believe that death awaits around every corner thus making survival and safety goal number one.  And sure you can risk other things than just death, but losing out on those still means you're able to come back and fight another day.  Death, absent affordability and-or availability of revival mechanics, doesn't.

I always assume the game world is out to kill me - and would be rather disappointed if I ever learned it wasn't.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I don't think suggesting the sample location distorts the result too much is demanding perfection.  Its just suggesting that surveys need to screen for things as much as possible or they get distorted results.  You obviously don't think that'd be relevant here and a I do.  If you want to read ulterior motives into that, that's on you.



We aren't writing a paper, we're looking for loose evidence of a trend.  This is exactly making the perfect (paper quality data) the enemy of the good (doing a bit of exploration).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect Lanefan is assuming people not playing characters with suicidal tendencies, and without that characters will at least somewhat be prone to survival-positive outcomes.  "Never" is a broad term because a lot of things can happen, but it doesn't change the basic premise in that case unless you assume a character with one degree or another of a deathwish.



You mean characters that willingly explore dangerous, monster-filled ruins, that fight dragons, that confront eldritch horrors?  This is even before we look at characters that are desperate criminals, or death-before-dishonor types, or even gallant knights on a quest.  The concept that characters in our games aren't routine doing outlandishly dangerous things to focus on a narrow instance and declare that this is the difference is baffling to me.


Thomas Shey said:


> An Actor stance player is not immune to doing things for dramatic purposes alone; he may pay a lot of attention to what makes sense for a character but he's not allergic to putting his thumb on the scale to produce a dramatic scene.  A purely IC player doesn't do that, except to the degree it arises naturally from the character's nature.
> 
> Basically, it comes down to this situation: A character is presented with three choices, all of which make some degree of sense in-character.  What criterion does the player use to decide?  An IC player will, barring randomness in his own mood, default to the one that seems the most in character.  An Actor player may well chose the one that's most interesting to portray.
> 
> (I'm ignoring for the moment Deep-IC or immersive players because that's a rabbithole that can lead to some strange places).



You don't have Actor stance correct and are instead describing a change in stance during play.  Stances are fluid and what you have here is a switch to author or director (depending on details) stance, not staying in Actor stance.  There's no such thing as an Actor stance player, just as there's no such thing as an "In Character" player.  It's a thing you do at times during games.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> What is your general game-state expectation of survival?  Or in other words, what is the expected lethality of that game as it's being run?
> 
> Becuase this makes a massive difference.
> 
> If you-as-player know the game is being run at low (or no) lethality you can have your PC be a lot more gung-ho and risk-takingly heroic than if you know or believe that death awaits around every corner thus making survival and safety goal number one.  And sure you can risk other things than just death, but losing out on those still means you're able to come back and fight another day.  Death, absent affordability and-or availability of revival mechanics, doesn't.
> 
> I always assume the game world is out to kill me - and would be rather disappointed if I ever learned it wasn't.



Not true at all.  In Blades, death is right around every corner -- lethality can come extremely quickly.  Yet, you're playing desperate rogues and gangsters, so that's the territory you inhabit.  This is one where rash, impulsive, and dangerous things are common, even with death a constant companion.


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> That said, I don't generally play to be heroic, and almost never play characters whose overall goal is to become a hero.  Even as a kid I got bored with the hero always winning; this is why I found Game of Thrones to be so wonderful: other than Sansa and arguably Jon Snow there really are no heroes.  Even the in-theory-good people end up doing evil things at some point.




When I offered my brief sketch of heroism, I had in mind the Weird Sisters' urging of Macbeth to "be bloody, bold, and resolute" in order to be master of his own fate (read: agency) in putting down his enemies and consolidating power. Macbeth does, of course, commit atrocities every bit as evil as a GoT character. One of the great themes of that play, of course, is what really controls us: our own decision making, fate, internal psychological function, social pressure, and so on? Agency, in other words, is put to the test.


----------



## Bedrockgames

@pemerton, I was simply trying to ask the OP what they meant exactly with the term agency. I was trying to move beyond the petty style squabbles and understand what it is the OP felt agency meant, so I could help give a response that maximizes that for them. Honestly though I am not even sure I understood the bulk of your post. But I don't think I was being loaded in my questioning at all. I was just trying to find out what the OP wanted


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> But no one in this thread has connected that sort of thing to player agency in the context of RPGing.




There was at least one poster saying (I believe two) the more control players have over narrative or even over things like what appears in the geography of the setting), the more agency they have. One poster even described this as the higher form of agency and the higher form of gameplay. However, I really don't think I understood most of what you said there. Maybe you were invoking terms from a game I don't play or perhaps you were invoking examples in the thread I don't remember that well. But I found your post very difficult to follow


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> _I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol _is something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Thrugon meet Rufus depends, in part, on something that Rufus does. But that is just the same - if you ask me - as the case where _I attack the Orc with my mace_. Whether or not I hit the Orc depends, in part, on something that the Orc does (eg dodge, or block and turn aside the blow with its shield).
> 
> _I believe that Evard's tower is around here somewhere - I look out for it_ also declares something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Aramina's recollection is correct depends, in part, on something that Evard once did - ie build a  tower. But again, most other action declarations also depend, for their success, on things done or not done by other persons and forces in the gameworld.
> 
> For reasons that are somewhat opaque to me, you and other posters might want to treat the action declaration about _meeting someone_ differently from the action declaration about _finding a remembered building _from the action declaration about _hitting an Orc with a mace_. I don't see them as different in any underlying structure or significance, and certainly don't think that the language you have used to try and characterise them is apt.
> 
> Here's an example of something that I _would _accept counts as a player _exerting agency on the gameworld itself without making a choice through his/her character_: the player declares _The King of Keoland meets an envoy from the Queen of Celene_ (and the player is neither the king nor the envoy nor the Queen nor otherwise connected to this event taking place). That's not an action declaration for a PC.
> 
> But no one in this thread has connected that sort of thing to player agency in the context of RPGing.




I am genuinely confused by what you are trying to say here. All I can say is my observation on this thread is some posters seem to be in favor of an approach where the players can make declarations that have an impact on the game world in a way that would normally be reserved for the GM rather than a player (and many seemed to be saying if you weren't doing that it was a lesser form of play); and having this kind of power over the setting/narrative is a form of agency. My point was simply to ask the OP which side's version of agency they were using, so we could stick with whatever the OP had meant by agency. Honestly, I don't particularly care about the term at this point, I was just trying to figure out what the OP meant by it, so we could get back to answering the OPs original question. Maybe I am misunderstanding this post though


----------



## Bedrockgames

In terms of heroic versus non-heroic characters, that is possibly a subject for another thread (maybe someone should start one?) but I will say I lean more toward non-heroic or at least, more shady heroes. Part of that is I have always found villains and bad guys more fun, so I have always been pretty open to 'functional villainous parties" (i.e. evil parties that are not constantly backstabbing each other, and are at least functional among themselves). One of my longest campaigns was for a group of awful PCs who were hell bent on gaining power and prestige in the martial world.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> I don't know if you appreciate how loaded this in, in terms of building in assumptions about approach to play, and allocations of authority in play, that are very specific.





Bedrockgames said:


> All I can say is my observation on this thread is some posters seem to be in favor of an approach where the players can make declarations that have an impact on the game world in a way that would normally be reserved for the GM rather than a player





Bedrockgames said:


> I was trying to move beyond the petty style squabbles



Well, unfortunately you failed in what you were trying to do. Because you expressed your conception of what is "normal" by describing the "atypical" in ways that mischaracterises it, at least from my perspective. That was the point of my post. In the rest of this post I will attempt to explain, again, why I say that.



Bedrockgames said:


> There was at least one poster saying (I believe two) the more control players have over narrative or even over things like what appears in the geography of the setting), the more agency they have.



@AbdulAlhazred gave the example of the GM asking the player of the ranger _what is to the north of the swamp?_ and the player of the ranger answering _hills_.

The examples of action declaration that I gave in my post were ones that I have referred to extensively in this thread: my success on a check (of Circles, an attribute of Burning Wheel PCs) prompted by my action declaration _I keep my eyes open for my brother Rufus as we enter the border of Auxol _meaning that the GM narrates an encounter with Rufus; my success on a check (of Great Masters-wise, a knowledge skill of my Burning Wheel PC's sorcerer sidekick) prompted by my action declaration _Isn't Evard's tower around here somewhere - I'm looking for it_ leading the GM to narrate that Evard's tower is in the area and is come upon my PC and his sidekick.

The examples prompted discussions that you have weighed in to about "players creating things out of thin air" (@Lanefan) and "players exercising narrative power or engaging in narrative perspective/stance" (@Crimson Longinus). I pointed out that Gygax contemplated this sort of thing in his DMG, quoting his discussion of the process of a player's PC establishing a stronghold, and you posted in response to that suggesting that Gygax there was identifying a non-standard or marginal instance of action declaration.

I'm sure it's true that these examples involve the player exercising more control over the content of the fiction than some RPGers are use to. I would also add: given that _control _and _agency_ in this context are near enough to synonyms, it's no great surprise that @AbdulAlhazred has characterised that greater control as greater agency, and that @hawkeyefan has tended to agree.

I am not in this post, nor my previous one to which you posted three responses, expressing a view on what scope of control is good or bad. I am pointing out _how loaded your description of it is_. You characterised these sorts of action declarations as leading to (i) _agency the player can exert on the world itself_ that contrasts with (ii) _agency through their character _that consists in _players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting _(the three italicised phrases in this sentence are direct quotes of you).

My point is that these sorts of action declarations are, in the games in which they occur, precisely instances of _players exercising agency through their characters by making meaningful choices within a setting_. Or to be more concise: they are examples of _a player playing his/her PC_. When (in AbdulAlhazred's example) the GM asks the player of the ranger to answer _what is to the north of the swamp?_ this is not an out-of-game request to a player to draw a map. It is an in-game demand that the player play his/her PC by evincing his/her PC's knowledge. When the player answers, s/he is answering in character. The question is a version of _what do you do_? where the action performed is _recollecting and evincing knowledge._

My further point was that you can't distinguish these sorts of examples of playing the character (recollecting facts about geography or wizard's towers; hoping to meet one's brother) by saying that _they establish facts about the world other than the character_. Because nearly every action declaration, if successful, does that. A declaration _I attack the Orc with my mace_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg it establishes that the orc failed to dodge or to turn aside the blow by blocking with a shield). A declaration (in 3E D&D) that _I use Gather Information skill to learn what's been happening recently in town_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg that there are locals hanging about and gossiping). A declaration that _I forage for food so we don't die of starvation in the wilderness_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg that there is sufficient food available to be eaten by the PC and his/her companions - this example I owe to @hawkeyefan).

You are using a conception of what it is "normal" for a player to be able to influence or not influence, beyond the character, via action declaration - I am guessing that the roll to hit, the survival check, and the gather information check would all fall on the "normal" side of your divide; it's clear that the knowledge check about a wizard's tower, or the answer to the GM's question about the character's geographical knowledge, fall on the "atypical" side of your divide; you haven't (as far as I know) expressed a view about the Circles check or the similar ability that players of yakuza PCs have in AD&D Oriental Adventures.

My point is that you are expressing that conception by drawing a distinction between _playing ones PC _and _directly establishing facts about the gameworld_ that is (from my point of view) utterly untenable and wildly mischaracterises my RPGing experiences. Given that in previous posts in this thread you have been critical of people presenting advocacy for their preferences in the language of neutral description, I thought it appropriate to draw this to your attention.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> What is your general game-state expectation of survival?  Or in other words, what is the expected lethality of that game as it's being run?
> 
> Becuase this makes a massive difference.
> 
> If you-as-player know the game is being run at low (or no) lethality you can have your PC be a lot more gung-ho and risk-takingly heroic than if you know or believe that death awaits around every corner thus making survival and safety goal number one.



I'm not really into this sort of metagaming.

I play my PC by inhabiting him/her; which means internalising as best I can, given I'm an amateur at this sort of thing, my character's self-conception, motivations and aspirations, understanding of his/her capabilities, etc.

This is one reason why my BW PC does not advance in ability as quickly as my GM's character does when he is a player. He has a very good wargamer's eye for making action declaration choice that will generate advancement opportunities. Whereas I'm not very good at that: rather than paying attention to that sort of thing, I do my best to focus on the situation through the "eyes" and emotions of my PC.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Well, unfortunately you failed in what you were trying to do. Because you expressed your conception of what is "normal" by describing the "atypical" in ways that mischaracterises it, at least from my perspective. That was the point of my post. In the rest of this post I will attempt to explain, again, why I say that.
> 
> 
> @AbdulAlhazred gave the example of the GM asking the player of the ranger _what is to the north of the swamp?_ and the player of the ranger answering _hills_.
> 
> The examples of action declaration that I gave in my post were ones that I have referred to extensively in this thread: my success on a check (of Circles, an attribute of Burning Wheel PCs) prompted by my action declaration _I keep my eyes open for my brother Rufus as we enter the border of Auxol _meaning that the GM narrates an encounter with Rufus; my success on a check (of Great Masters-wise, a knowledge skill of my Burning Wheel PC's sorcerer sidekick) prompted by my action declaration _Isn't Evard's tower around here somewhere - I'm looking for it_ leading the GM to narrate that Evard's tower is in the area and is come upon my PC and his sidekick.
> 
> The examples prompted discussions that you have weighed in to about "players creating things out of thin air" (@Lanefan) and "players exercising narrative power or engaging in narrative perspective/stance" (@Crimson Longinus). I pointed out that Gygax contemplated this sort of thing in his DMG, quoting his discussion of the process of a player's PC establishing a stronghold, and you posted in response to that suggesting that Gygax there was identifying a non-standard or marginal instance of action declaration.
> 
> I'm sure it's true that these examples involve the player exercising more control over the content of the fiction than some RPGers are use to. I would also add: given that _control _and _agency_ in this context are near enough to synonyms, it's no great surprise that @AbdulAlhazred has characterised that greater control as greater agency, and that @hawkeyefan has tended to agree.
> 
> I am not in this post, nor my previous one to which you posted three responses, expressing a view on what scope of control is good or bad. I am pointing out _how loaded your description of it is_. You characterised these sorts of action declarations as leading to (i) _agency the player can exert on the world itself_ that contrasts with (ii) _agency through their character _that consists in _players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting _(the three italicised phrases in this sentence are direct quotes of you).
> 
> My point is that these sorts of action declarations are, in the games in which they occur, precisely instances of _players exercising agency through their characters by making meaningful choices within a setting_. Or to be more concise: they are examples of _a player playing his/her PC_. When (in AbdulAlhazred's example) the GM asks the player of the ranger to answer _what is to the north of the swamp?_ this is not an out-of-game request to a player to draw a map. It is an in-game demand that the player play his/her PC by evincing his/her PC's knowledge. When the player answers, s/he is answering in character. The question is a version of _what do you do_? where the action performed is _recollecting and evincing knowledge._
> 
> My further point was that you can't distinguish these sorts of examples of playing the character (recollecting facts about geography or wizard's towers; hoping to meet one's brother) by saying that _they establish facts about the world other than the character_. Because nearly every action declaration, if successful, does that. A declaration _I attack the Orc with my mace_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg it establishes that the orc failed to dodge or to turn aside the blow by blocking with a shield). A declaration (in 3E D&D) that _I use Gather Information skill to learn what's been happening recently in town_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg that there are locals hanging about and gossiping). A declaration that _I forage for food so we don't die of starvation in the wilderness_, if successful, establishes facts about the world other than the character (eg that there is sufficient food available to be eaten by the PC and his/her companions - this example I owe to @hawkeyefan).
> 
> You are using a conception of what it is "normal" for a player to be able to influence or not influence, beyond the character, via action declaration - I am guessing that the roll to hit, the survival check, and the gather information check would all fall on the "normal" side of your divide; it's clear that the knowledge check about a wizard's tower, or the answer to the GM's question about the character's geographical knowledge, fall on the "atypical" side of your divide; you haven't (as far as I know) expressed a view about the Circles check or the similar ability that players of yakuza PCs have in AD&D Oriental Adventures.
> 
> My point is that you are expressing that conception by drawing a distinction between _playing ones PC _and _directly establishing facts about the gameworld_ that is (from my point of view) utterly untenable and wildly mischaracterises my RPGing experiences. Given that in previous posts in this thread you have been critical of people presenting advocacy for their preferences in the language of neutral description, I thought it appropriate to draw this to your attention.




Well the OP liked my post, so I don't think I failed in that respect. I honestly don't understand you at this point Pemerton. Look some of us see play primarily as playing the world through your character, and this is how we've seen the game from when we started back on early editions. And some of us, you for example, seem to have a loser understanding of that. And this is all getting bound up in the question of agency and we are responding to a poster who wanted to know if he was honoring his players sense of agency. In order for me to answer that person's question I really need to know where he resides in terms of these two views of how players engage the game world. And you seem to be saying I need to accept your view of what the norm is for some reason, or need to accept that this distinction some of us see isn't really there. I don't know what to do with that. And I am really not sure what your overall point is. I feel like I have responded as best I can to your points. I think in terms of what Gygax meant, what those kinds of cases imply, we simply disagree, and there probably isn't a way to bridge that. In terms of what we consider the typical style of play through the years, we would also disagree. But the focus I am taking here is trying to address the OPs original concern and avoid these kinds of play style and perspective arguments (which you and I always seem to get bogged down in during play).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> My point is that these sorts of action declarations are, in the games in which they occur, precisely instances of _players exercising agency through their characters by making meaningful choices within a setting_. Or to be more concise: they are examples of _a player playing his/her PC_. When (in AbdulAlhazred's example) the GM asks the player of the ranger to answer _what is to the north of the swamp?_ this is not an out-of-game request to a player to draw a map. It is an in-game demand that the player play his/her PC by evincing his/her PC's knowledge. When the player answers, s/he is answering in character. The question is a version of _what do you do_? where the action performed is _recollecting and evincing knowledge._




This seems really strange to me. I think part of it is I genuinely have trouble with your communication style. I really think we are talking past each other 80 percent of the time. Clearly to a lot of people on this thread, no matter how you justify it, this feels like the player exerting a power normally reserved for the GM, because they are literally shaping the world. Now you can say, they are just 'remembering what is there' in character. That doesn't change that this is a very different way of approach ing things than some of the other posters here have. In these conversations I feel I have been happy to acknowledge your style of play, and acknowledge the things you do differently. But when I and others try to draw distinctions we make it feels like you are saying to us 'you are wrong, there is no such distinction'. I mean I can tell you honestly If I asked my players at my table, "Tell me what is to the north of that swamp', they'd look at me funny, because that simply isn't how we play (and it isn't how we play in most of my games). I am not knocking this style at all. Like I said I really enjoyed Hillfolk, and one of the things it allowed you to do was fabricate setting details in dialogue during scenes (for instance I was playing a tribesmen trying to encourage war and expansion, and I remember inventing a whole group of people we were at war with to the north). I found that extremely immersive. It didn't interrupt my immersion one bit, but I do see the difference between that and a game where the GM decides who, if anyone, is to the north (and such a game seems much more standard to me than one like we had in Hillfolk). I liked that that occurred in the hill folk game,, but I would never then argue something like "but laws was just doing something that was always there in the hobby and no one batted an eye at it". Again, maybe it existed in places like gray areas in forms that didn't leap out at us. But I can say I never saw the stronghold mechanics as being anything like what Laws was talking about.

Also I would not say that you are remembering anything in character in this case. You are inventing, then labeling it remembering. Nothing was actually recalled. If the GM had said to the player character earlier, there are hills to the north. Then the GM asked that player "What was to the north again?" and the player said "Hills". Fair enough, then you are remembering in character. But to me this feels like a post hoc justification for calling it an in character choice. 

That said, I am not saying that has to be counter to immersion or something. I am just saying it is clearly a case of the player having the power to shape a setting detail (and while you could describe that as being in character as remembering, you could just as easily label it the player putting hills there because he wants hills to exist to the north).


----------



## darkbard

Bedrockgames said:


> Well the OP liked my post, so I don't think I failed in that respect.




The OP, I presume each time they return to this website, "likes" _every single post in this thread._ I take that to mean something like "I have read your response and thank you for participating," not agreement with or understanding of every single post.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> The OP, I presume each time they return to this website, "likes" _every single post in this thread._ I take that to mean something like "I have read your response and thank you for participating," not agreement with or understanding of every single post.



Maybe. I will let the op tell me if I am getting what they are saying or not


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> You mean characters that willingly explore dangerous, monster-filled ruins, that fight dragons, that confront eldritch horrors?  This is even before we look at characters that are desperate criminals, or death-before-dishonor types, or even gallant knights on a quest.  The concept that characters in our games aren't routine doing outlandishly dangerous things to focus on a narrow instance and declare that this is the difference is baffling to me.




You'd think, but people still often will play characters that deliberately get into these situation but are extremely cautious how they handle them once they're there.  And of course it makes quite a difference how the game system involved handles things.  There's a big difference in taking chances in Pathfinder 2e and in Mythras to use two examples extremely familiar to me right now.



Ovinomancer said:


> You don't have Actor stance correct and are instead describing a change in stance during play.  Stances are fluid and what you have here is a switch to author or director (depending on details) stance, not staying in Actor stance.  There's no such thing as an Actor stance player, just as there's no such thing as an "In Character" player.  It's a thing you do at times during games.




I use the stances as they originally were described on RGFA, and to the best of my knowledge, I have those quite correct.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> We aren't writing a paper, we're looking for loose evidence of a trend.  This is exactly making the perfect (paper quality data) the enemy of the good (doing a bit of exploration).




And I don't think a survey here would provide any useful data.  You do.  That's as it is.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> Some posters are talking about "actor stance players" and "author stance players". To the best of my knowledge the terms _actor stance_ and _author stance _have no well-established meanings outside of their use at The Forge. And as used there, they are not properties or tendencies of players:




As I note, they predate the Forge; they were first used in any public way back on rec.games.frp.advocacy.  And while they technically aren't intrinsically a description of a player--a player can use one approach one time and another a different time--most players have tendencies, sometimes pretty strong ones they rarely budge from, so referring to someone as, say an "Author stance player" is not inaccurate when that's how they approach play 95% of the time.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Oh snap! Yeah I just thumb the posts cause I appreciate you peeps conversing and all.

To be honest...you all lost me a while ago. 

I was lead to believe that agency was giving the players actual choices that matter.

So, to borrow something I was taught on a different thread...avoid the Quantum Ogre!

So. The players come to a fork in the road. If the players choose the left fork the PCs are supposed to meet an Ogre. If they choose the right fork the PCs are supposed to NOT meet an Ogre.

If the GM has the PCs meet an Ogre no matter which fork they choose that means the players have been DENIED agency.

However the above scenario only works if those things were decided beforehand either by the GM preparing the scenario in advance, or if it is part of a published module.

The problem I have is that I neither use published adventures nor prepare scenarios beforehand. Thus I am unsure if I offer the players real agency.

I hope that helps!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

zarionofarabel said:


> Oh snap! Yeah I just thumb the posts cause I appreciate you peeps conversing and all.
> 
> To be honest...you all lost me a while ago.
> 
> I was lead to believe that agency was giving the players actual choices that matter.
> 
> So, to borrow something I was taught on a different thread...avoid the Quantum Ogre!
> 
> So. The players come to a fork in the road. If the players choose the left fork the PCs are supposed to meet an Ogre. If they choose the right fork the PCs are supposed to NOT meet an Ogre.
> 
> If the GM has the PCs meet and Ogre no matter which fork they choose that means the players have been DENIED agency.
> 
> However the above scenario only works if those things were decided beforehand either by the GM preparing the scenario in advance, or if it is part of a published module.
> 
> The problem I have is that I neither use published adventures nor prepare scenarios beforehand. Thus I am unsure if I offer the players real agency.
> 
> I hope that helps!



Some people get worked up over things like quantum ogres, but that is precisely the sort of situation where it really doesn't matter how exactly the things are done behind the curtains. It is not an informed choice, nor it is an interesting one, and whether the ogre was preplanned in one direction and the players happened to choose it, was quantum placed in either direction they would choose or just made up on the spot will not affect the player experience one bit. Don't worry meaningless small choices like that. It it is bigger things that matter; who to ally with, who to betray, what is the overall goal, do the ends justify the means, who to bang, marry or kill etc.


----------



## Bedrockgames

zarionofarabel said:


> Oh snap! Yeah I just thumb the posts cause I appreciate you peeps conversing and all.
> 
> To be honest...you all lost me a while ago.
> 
> I was lead to believe that agency was giving the players actual choices that matter.
> 
> So, to borrow something I was taught on a different thread...avoid the Quantum Ogre!
> 
> So. The players come to a fork in the road. If the players choose the left fork the PCs are supposed to meet an Ogre. If they choose the right fork the PCs are supposed to NOT meet an Ogre.
> 
> If the GM has the PCs meet an Ogre no matter which fork they choose that means the players have been DENIED agency.
> 
> However the above scenario only works if those things were decided beforehand either by the GM preparing the scenario in advance, or if it is part of a published module.
> 
> The problem I have is that I neither use published adventures nor prepare scenarios beforehand. Thus I am unsure if I offer the players real agency.
> 
> I hope that helps!




you can make the decision at the fork in the road, before the players make their choice.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Some people get worked up over things like quantum ogres, but that is precisely the sort of situation where it really doesn't matter how exactly the things are done behind the curtains. It is not an informed choice, nor it is an interesting one, and whether the ogre was preplanned in one direction and the players happened to choose it, was quantum placed in either direction they would choose or just made up on the spot will not affect the player experience one bit. Don't worry meaningless small choices like that. It it is bigger things that matter; who to ally with, who to betray, what is the overall goal, do the ends justify the means, who to bang, marry or kill etc.




Well as others have said it can matter (are you giving PCs chance to scout out before they chose the path?  Does your system actually have a decent set of mechanics for doing this or is it just an invitation for the scout to find themself all alone against an encounter?), but it doesn't intrinsically.

As you note bigger things tend to both matter more, be more something you can figure out if you engage with, and, honestly, more likely to be obvious if the fix is in.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> ...this might come into play; though in truth it's far more likely that instead of stumbling directly on to an oasis they'll have stumbled on to a trail or tracks leading to it, or have seen someone/something going toward it.




But is this not coming out of thin air, per your previous posts? What are the criteria for something being crafted out of thin air, and something showing up in a way that's not out of thin air? 

The distinction seems to fluctuate.



Lanefan said:


> Not necessarily: even if you fail the jump and fall to the alley you could still - given a bit of good luck - manage to land safely (maybe you'll take a bit of temporary hit point damage or equivalent but you won't pick up any injuries that will immediately impede your speed or gracefulness) and be quiet about it.




I think it's likely a question of what the rules of whatever system we were using would indicate. A fall of significant height usually does damage of some kind in most editions of D&D and many other games. Allowing a player to somehow mitigate that may be possible or it may not. Being quiet seems less likely..."I make sure that when I hit the cobbles, I do so quietly" ....but perhaps mitigating the fall in some way would also lessen the sound? I could see a GM judging that way. I could also see a GM say, "no, you hit the pavement and it sounds like a body hitting the pavement". 




Lanefan said:


> Yes, they can. My point is that absent those rolls as idea-prompts most GMs will at best only come up with two or three potential mixed outcomes on the fly, rather than the six that are possible. I'd rather see them all be in play, and the added rolling puts them there.




I don't think that's really the case...at least not generally. I think having 3 possible outcomes, one of which covers several of the outcomes and possibly more, makes it more flexible and ultimately allows results beyond combinations of the Success or Fail states for the 3 checks you've offered as an example.



Lanefan said:


> If you-as-player know the game is being run at low (or no) lethality you can have your PC be a lot more gung-ho and risk-takingly heroic than if you know or believe that death awaits around every corner thus making survival and safety goal number one. And sure you can risk other things than just death, but losing out on those still means you're able to come back and fight another day. Death, absent affordability and-or availability of revival mechanics, doesn't.




Gah! Meta-gaming!!!!! Run for your lives! 

Honestly, this is one of my major gripes with D&D. The characters are meant to be bold and daring.....they face death down regularly. Yet the game may, depending on edition and approach, reward cautious play. 

Talk about immersion breaking.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> Honestly, this is one of my major gripes with D&D. The characters are meant to be bold and daring.....they face death down regularly. Yet the game may, depending on edition and approach, reward cautious play.
> 
> Talk about immersion breaking.




I should point out with the older editions, there's serious question whether the characters were _meant_ to be bold and daring--that's just how a lot of people played them.

And there's a complicating issue--for some people, if the game systems actually _directly_ rewards that approach, there's a question whether characters are _really_ daring, or are just showing a facade of it.

It depends heavily on how good people are at accepting the trappings rather than the reality of the situation.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Look some of us see play primarily as playing the world through your character



Yes. I'm one of them. Yet you keep telling me I'm not. Is that so hard to grasp?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Clearly to a lot of people on this thread, no matter how you justify it, this feels like the player exerting a power normally reserved for the GM,




I think that this touches on an important part. Yes, in many ways, I think a lot of the conflict in this discussion is based around where power normally resides among participants of the game; with the GM, or with the players. I think @pemerton is simply pointing out how some examples of players wielding narrative control have existed all along. It's not that folks who are advocating for a more traditional, D&Desque mode of play have a problem with the concept.....it's more that they are incredibly selective about where it applies. 

So, no one minds if a PC who is lost in the desert succeeds at a Survival check and then finds an oasis. But if a Survival or Wilderness check is used to determine the terrain north of the swamps, that's somehow problematic?

But why? It seems to me that they're both geographical elements determined by a skill check. Perhaps it's a question of scope? An oasis is a feature of a desert, where as hills may be seen as an entire region unto themselves. But that's pretty flimsy. 

Maybe because the GM can add an oasis to his map easier than hills? This honestly seems to only exist because of the deeply rooted expectation that the GM is the one who draws the map, and the players are therefore limited to what's been pre-determined on the map. 

There's a lot of potential conflict in how all these elements are established and handled.



Bedrockgames said:


> because they are literally shaping the world. Now you can say, they are just 'remembering what is there' in character. That doesn't change that this is a very different way of approach ing things than some of the other posters here have.




Yes, it can be a bit different. Again, I think it's familiar because there are similar game elements where they just accept that that's the way it works (the Survival check, the Gather Information check, etc.), but it can seem different because traditionally, the GM decides. 

And no, the players are not literally shaping the world just as there is not any literal remembering going on.



Bedrockgames said:


> But when I and others try to draw distinctions we make it feels like you are saying to us 'you are wrong, there is no such distinction'. I mean I can tell you honestly If I asked my players at my table, "Tell me what is to the north of that swamp', they'd look at me funny, because that simply isn't how we play (and it isn't how we play in most of my games). I am not knocking this style at all.




But if they are familiar with that style of play, they'd have simply answered you, or made a roll, or done whatever other response is used to determine these things. 

It's the lack of familiarity that causes many to think there is a way it "must be". Should folks not discuss what actually is because some people are not aware of that? I would say no.



Bedrockgames said:


> Like I said I really enjoyed Hillfolk, and one of the things it allowed you to do was fabricate setting details in dialogue during scenes (for instance I was playing a tribesmen trying to encourage war and expansion, and I remember inventing a whole group of people we were at war with to the north). I found that extremely immersive. It didn't interrupt my immersion one bit, but I do see the difference between that and a game where the GM decides who, if anyone, is to the north (and such a game seems much more standard to me than one like we had in Hillfolk).




So would you say that Hillfolk gave players more authority over the fiction? Not better authority, but more? 

Honestly, that's all that the matter of agency is about.



Bedrockgames said:


> Also I would not say that you are remembering anything in character in this case. You are inventing, then labeling it remembering. Nothing was actually recalled. If the GM had said to the player character earlier, there are hills to the north. Then the GM asked that player "What was to the north again?" and the player said "Hills". Fair enough, then you are remembering in character. But to me this feels like a post hoc justification for calling it an in character choice.




Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM. 

What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind? 

If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here? 

In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.

If the player is allowed to say "Being familiar with the area, I know that there are hills to the north, and we can escape the swamps and the lizardmen there" (and I'd expect this declaration to be tied to a check of some kind, or other use of mechanics) isn't this a case of the player having more agency over the fiction?

You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This seems really strange to me. I think part of it is I genuinely have trouble with your communication style. I really think we are talking past each other 80 percent of the time. Clearly to a lot of people on this thread, no matter how you justify it, this feels like the player exerting a power normally reserved for the GM, because they are literally shaping the world.



When I declare that my PC attacks the Orc with my mace, and I succeed, I literally shape the world. It now contains an Orc who failed to dodge or block my attack.

It seems really strange to me that you cannot see that.



Bedrockgames said:


> Now you can say, they are just 'remembering what is there' in character. That doesn't change that this is a very different way of approach ing things than some of the other posters here have.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> when I and others try to draw distinctions we make it feels like you are saying to us 'you are wrong, there is no such distinction'.



I'm sure you see a distinction. What I am responding to, in your posts, is _the way you describe that difference_. You describe that difference as _me not playing my character_. Those are descriptions that I don't accept. They're loaded. They imply that I'm not RPGing by instead engaged in "cooperative storytelling".

Ultimately I don't really care if you describe my RPGing in pejorative ways. I'm not that fragile. But given your posts upthread criticising other posters for, as you saw it, dressing up advocacy as analysis, I though I might point out how you're doing the same thing.

If you now can't avoid doing that yourself, or don't know how to, perhaps that will if nothing else make you more forgiving of those other posters!


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> When I declare that my PC attacks the Orc with my mace, and I succeed, I literally shape the world. It now contains an Orc who failed to dodge or block my attack.
> 
> It seems really strange to me that you cannot see that.




You are just taking an action your character take take in the setting, your influence on the setting is through your character. On the other hand, declaring a hill exists is not being done through your character. I think this difference is pretty clear and obvious


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Ultimately I don't really care if you describe my RPGing in pejorative ways. I'm not that fragile. But given your posts upthread criticising other posters for, as you saw it, dressing up advocacy as analysis, I though I might point out how you're doing the same thing.
> 
> If you now can't avoid doing that yourself, or don't know how to, perhaps that will if nothing else make you more forgiving of those other posters!




I am not saying you aren't playing a character or that you are not roleplaying. I am saying there is a key distinction to be made between shaping the world through the actions and words of your character and shaping the world through the words of the player


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I should point out with the older editions, there's serious question whether the characters were _meant_ to be bold and daring--that's just how a lot of people played them.
> 
> And there's a complicating issue--for some people, if the game systems actually _directly_ rewards that approach, there's a question whether characters are _really_ daring, or are just showing a facade of it.
> 
> It depends heavily on how good people are at accepting the trappings rather than the reality of the situation.




Sure, as I said it can depend on edition and approach to play. 

But I'd say that, inherently, the fiction involves the PCs doing dangerous things, no? They're delving into dungeons or chasing down cultists or fighting dragons and so on. 

For me, nothing is more frustrating than when players get very tentative with their PCs because they're concerned about something that could potentially be risky to them.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that this touches on an important part. Yes, in many ways, I think a lot of the conflict in this discussion is based around where power normally resides among participants of the game; with the GM, or with the players. I think @pemerton is simply pointing out how some examples of players wielding narrative control have existed all along. It's not that folks who are advocating for a more traditional, D&Desque mode of play have a problem with the concept.....it's more that they are incredibly selective about where it applies.
> 
> So, no one minds if a PC who is lost in the desert succeeds at a Survival check and then finds an oasis. But if a Survival or Wilderness check is used to determine the terrain north of the swamps, that's somehow problematic?
> 
> But why? It seems to me that they're both geographical elements determined by a skill check. Perhaps it's a question of scope? An oasis is a feature of a desert, where as hills may be seen as an entire region unto themselves. But that's pretty flimsy.
> 
> Maybe because the GM can add an oasis to his map easier than hills? This honestly seems to only exist because of the deeply rooted expectation that the GM is the one who draws the map, and the players are therefore limited to what's been pre-determined on the map.
> 
> There's a lot of potential conflict in how all these elements are established and handled.
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, it can be a bit different. Again, I think it's familiar because there are similar game elements where they just accept that that's the way it works (the Survival check, the Gather Information check, etc.), but it can seem different because traditionally, the GM decides.
> 
> And no, the players are not literally shaping the world just as there is not any literal remembering going on.
> 
> 
> 
> But if they are familiar with that style of play, they'd have simply answered you, or made a roll, or done whatever other response is used to determine these things.
> 
> It's the lack of familiarity that causes many to think there is a way it "must be". Should folks not discuss what actually is because some people are not aware of that? I would say no.
> 
> 
> 
> So would you say that Hillfolk gave players more authority over the fiction? Not better authority, but more?
> 
> Honestly, that's all that the matter of agency is about.
> 
> 
> 
> Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.
> 
> What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?
> 
> If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?
> 
> In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.
> 
> If the player is allowed to say "Being familiar with the area, I know that there are hills to the north, and we can escape the swamps and the lizardmen there" (and I'd expect this declaration to be tied to a check of some kind, or other use of mechanics) isn't this a case of the player having more agency over the fiction?
> 
> You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.




Because there isn't anything to remember. You haven't experienced that aspect of the region yet, so yes, from the approach I am coming from, the player would ask the GM if there are hills. In real life you don't ask because you are actually remembering. In the example you give, you are not remembering anything. You are inventing and calling it memory


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I would not say that you are remembering anything in character in this case. You are inventing, then labeling it remembering. Nothing was actually recalled. If the GM had said to the player character earlier, there are hills to the north. Then the GM asked that player "What was to the north again?" and the player said "Hills". Fair enough, then you are remembering in character. But to me this feels like a post hoc justification for calling it an in character choice.





hawkeyefan said:


> Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.
> 
> What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?
> 
> If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?
> 
> In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.



Hawkeyefan has really got it right here, in my view.

Asking the GM _what do I remember _and being told some information, and then later on reciting that back is not (in my view and experience) remotely immersive, nor is it anything like _remembering in character_. It's just playing an effective puzzle-solving game.

As I've posted upthread multiple times - but had no response to from any other poster - what it _does _remind me of is the experience of having amnesia. Because - and I am saying this from experience - when you have amnesia then you need someone else to tell you what it is that you know and (should) remember.



hawkeyefan said:


> You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.



This too.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that this touches on an important part. Yes, in many ways, I think a lot of the conflict in this discussion is based around where power normally resides among participants of the game; with the GM, or with the players. I think @pemerton is simply pointing out how some examples of players wielding narrative control have existed all along. It's not that folks who are advocating for a more traditional, D&Desque mode of play have a problem with the concept.....it's more that they are incredibly selective about where it applies.




I get what Pemerton is saying but I have already responded to that line of argument. You can't just project current concepts back onto gaming, taking edge cases and gray areas, and say therefore these are the norm of play. I never said there weren't exceptions or areas of the game where this stuff might lightly intrude. But  a player being able to declare a hill exists isn't lightly intruding (especially when the position seems to be this should be the standard way things are done). I am not saying it is bad, or less fun. But I think it is obvious to most people when we say traditional play, we mean play where the GM has the authority to author this stuff. Now we are simply invoking the term, traditional play, so we have a handy term for what we mean. I am not particularly interested in debating the nature of traditional play. This is the problem with debating posters like you and Pemerton, we enter discussion in good faith and it just feels like a rhetorical word game, where you dissect the language we use in order to take the ground out from under us. It never feels like an honest discussion. And it is always the same group of posters making the same points and fighting about the same style issues. I don't have any issue with your style. I have pointed to games I like that get into hat kind of style. But I can still make distinctions between ways of approaching the game. There is a difference between how I would normally play D&D and how Hillfolk handles things. And saying, well some of those things vaguely existed in D&D's past doesn't make my statement any less true (especially since it was clearly not the norm to run D&D in the style of something like Hillfolk). Maybe Pemerton was doing those things. Like I said many times, things weren't homogenous back then and I encountered all kinds of tables. But there were norms. There were things that would make people do a double take if you proposed them. For example I knew a guy who had a co-GM, and that is how he ran is campaigns. Nothing wrong with it all. His campaigns were great. But it wasn't the norm, and it certainly be something we would have told people before hand so they knew the game was going to be different. And it produced a very different feel in play. Some people loved it, but it wasn't for everyone (because it wasn't the experience they came to expect from the game)


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not saying you aren't playing a character or that you are not roleplaying. I am saying there is a key distinction to be made between shaping the world through the actions and words of your character and shaping the world through the words of the player



These two sentences are in obvious contradiction!



Bedrockgames said:


> You are just taking an action your character take take in the setting, your influence on the setting is through your character. On the other hand, declaring a hill exists is not being done through your character. I think this difference is pretty clear and obvious



What you call "declaring a hill exists" is what I call "remembering that a hill exists". Which is something my character does.

I prefer not to play all my characters as if they suffer from amnesia.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Because there isn't anything to remember. You haven't experienced that aspect of the region yet, so yes, from the approach I am coming from, the player would ask the GM if there are hills. In real life you don't ask because you are actually remembering. In the example you give, you are not remembering anything. You are inventing and calling it memory




Okay.....but if I hit an orc with a mace, me in the real world is actually hitting the orc? 

I think you're making a distinction between a physical action of the character and a mental action of the character. No one is actually swinging a mace, no one is actually remembering. 

Or you're making a distinction between established elements (the orc) and those that have yet to be established (the terrain north of the swamp). This is perhaps a more reasonable distinction, but then we get back to the idea that geographical elements can be established by players through actions taken by characters. So I don't know how strong this argument is. 

It really seems to boil down to "only the GM can establish new elements; players can only interact with what's already been established"; would you say that's right? 

If so, would you then acknowledge that a game that allows a player some manner of establishing new elements is one that has more player agency?


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Hawkeyefan has really got it right here, in my view.
> 
> Asking the GM _what do I remember _and being told some information, and then later on reciting that back is not (in my view and experience) remotely immersive, nor is it anything like _remembering in character_. It's just playing an effective puzzle-solving game.
> 
> As I've posted upthread multiple times - but had no response to from any other poster - what it _does _remind me of is the experience of having amnesia. Because - and I am saying this from experience - when you have amnesia then you need someone else to tell you what it is that you know and (should) remember.
> 
> This too.




Pemerton, you don't have to find it immersive, or enjoyable. I am just pointing out there is a distinction to be made here. 

I get that you had amnesia. Games are not real life. You sometimes ask the GM for information and personally I don't find that all that jarring. If you do, fair enough. But doing so means I am still limited to acting on the world through my character. If your solution tot he problem of being able to access your character's memory of off screen events is you should be able to make memories up and have them be real in the setting, there is nothing wrong with that, but that is you, the player shaping the setting, not your character shaping it. I really don't see how this could be described in any other way. But if you disagree, we just have to move on because we have a fundamental disagreement about what these things mean I guess.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Because there isn't anything to remember. You haven't experienced that aspect of the region yet



But my character has been there, or has heard about it. (I know that Houston is south of St Louis, though I've never been to either.)

I'm playing my character, not playing some sort of puzzle-solving metagame.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, as I said it can depend on edition and approach to play.
> 
> But I'd say that, inherently, the fiction involves the PCs doing dangerous things, no? They're delving into dungeons or chasing down cultists or fighting dragons and so on.
> 
> For me, nothing is more frustrating than when players get very tentative with their PCs because they're concerned about something that could potentially be risky to them.



I think that D&D is specifically designed to support heroic, risk taking attitude (the latter editions in particular.) The hit points work as a safety buffer; unlike in real combat, one lucky hit is not gonna drop you (except at low levels.) And save or die effects have mostly been removed too. If things start to go badly, you usually have several turn to try to rectify the situation or flee. It of course is far from save, but compared to more realistic systems it is pretty safe and more importantly predictable. I think this is a big part of the appeal, whether the players realise this or not.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This is the problem with debating posters like you and Pemerton, we enter discussion in good faith and it just feels like a rhetorical word game, where you dissect the language we use in order to take the ground out from under us. It never feels like an honest discussion.



Are you serious! I've posted multiple times that you are not giving good-faith descriptions of my RPGing, and you double down. I point this out and ask "Are you sure, given how much you complain about the way other posters describe things?" And now you double down again!

You're not the only person here trying to post sincerely. If you can't imagine the difference between playing a character who is an amnesiac and playing a character who remembers the world they inhabit, that's on you, not on me or @hawkeyefan.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay.....but if I hit an orc with a mace, me in the real world is actually hitting the orc?
> 
> I think you're making a distinction between a physical action of the character and a mental action of the character. No one is actually swinging a mace, no one is actually remembering.
> 
> Or you're making a distinction between established elements (the orc) and those that have yet to be established (the terrain north of the swamp). This is perhaps a more reasonable distinction, but then we get back to the idea that geographical elements can be established by players through actions taken by characters. So I don't know how strong this argument is.
> 
> It really seems to boil down to "only the GM can establish new elements; players can only interact with what's already been established"; would you say that's right?
> 
> If so, would you then acknowledge that a game that allows a player some manner of establishing new elements is one that has more player agency?




If you hit an orc with the mace, you the player are not hitting the orc. 

I am making a distinction between exerting power on the setting through your character (whether that be what your character says or does) and exerting power on the setting through your declarations as a player. In real life, I can say "I have a fort on the hill next to my house" all day long, but saying it doesn't make that fort exist. My memory of the fort is only valid if the hill and fort exist. The same in a setting. In a traditional style of play, the player asks the GM "is there a hill there"----the GM is the system for deterimining the objecting reality of the geography. Now you can play a different way. I am not saying playing differently is less fun, less immersive for you, or bad. I am saying if you allow the hill to exist because the player says, even if it is in character, "there are hills to the north", then that is distinct from how many on this thread play the game (and I would argue probably distinct from how most people play----but who knows, maybe that is changing).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I get what Pemerton is saying but I have already responded to that line of argument. You can't just project current concepts back onto gaming, taking edge cases and gray areas, and say therefore these are the norm of play. I never said there weren't exceptions or areas of the game where this stuff might lightly intrude. But  a player being able to declare a hill exists isn't lightly intruding (especially when the position seems to be this should be the standard way things are done). I am not saying it is bad, or less fun. But I think it is obvious to most people when we say traditional play, we mean play where the GM has the authority to author this stuff. Now we are simply invoking the term, traditional play, so we have a handy term for what we mean. I am not particularly interested in debating the nature of traditional play. This is the problem with debating posters like you and Pemerton, we enter discussion in good faith and it just feels like a rhetorical word game, where you dissect the language we use in order to take the ground out from under us. It never feels like an honest discussion. And it is always the same group of posters making the same points and fighting about the same style issues. I don't have any issue with your style. I have pointed to games I like that get into hat kind of style. But I can still make distinctions between ways of approaching the game. There is a difference between how I would normally play D&D and how Hillfolk handles things. And saying, well some of those things vaguely existed in D&D's past doesn't make my statement any less true (especially since it was clearly not the norm to run D&D in the style of something like Hillfolk). Maybe Pemerton was doing those things. Like I said many times, things weren't homogenous back then and I encountered all kinds of tables. But there were norms. There were things that would make people do a double take if you proposed them. For example I knew a guy who had a co-GM, and that is how he ran is campaigns. Nothing wrong with it all. His campaigns were great. But it wasn't the norm, and it certainly be something we would have told people before hand so they knew the game was going to be different. And it produced a very different feel in play. Some people loved it, but it wasn't for everyone (because it wasn't the experience they came to expect from the game)




I have no problem with anyone's style of play. You can play any game however you'd like, and if you're enjoying it, that's awesome. 

I can also enjoy different games for different reasons. I mentioned the Call of Cthulhu games my buddy runs.....very low on player agency, but still a lot of fun. For me, I prefer agency, but it's not always the end all be all. 

I would like for you to keep in mind that I am placing no moral weight on agency as it exists in gaming, at least not beyond my own preference. A game having more agency is not a better game. 

I am simply trying to point out that there are degrees of agency, and the most popular approach to gaming....one I'm perfectly fine with.....has less agency than what other approaches actively work to promote and attain. 

Many won't agree with what I see as a simple fact, and I think it's because that traditional approach is so ingrained that when a game does something else, it's not "normal" or it's "bad" or "leads to inconsistency".


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Are you serious! I've posted multiple times that you are not giving good-faith descriptions of my RPGing, and you double down. I point this out and ask "Are you sure, given how much you complain about the way other posters describe things?" And now you double down again!
> 
> You're not the only person here trying to post sincerely. If you can't imagine the difference between playing a character who is an amnesiac and playing a character who remembers the world they inhabit, that's on you, not on me or @hawkeyefan.




Because you are asking me to agree with you that the sea is orange. We disagree about what these words mean. I am not going to alter my sense of that, because you have a playstyle preference. I think I have been extremely accommodating to your positions Pemerton. But I am not going to say what you are describing is you shaping the world through your character, or say it is a typical traditional mode of play, when I just don't see it being so. Now we can disagree on that. It is no big deal for us to disagree. But I feel like you are just insisting I agree with you


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> If your solution tot he problem of being able to access your character's memory of off screen events is you should be able to make memories up and have them be real in the setting, there is nothing wrong with that, but that is you, the player shaping the setting, not your character shaping it.



Who has said it is my character shaping the setting? When the ranger remembers there are hills to the north, s/he don't create those hills! When Aramina remembers that Evard's tower is around here somewhere, she doesn't create the tower. She's remembering what she's heard about it while studying the lore of the Great Masters.

My point is that that is me _playing my character by declaring actions that my character performs_. In this case, as @hawkeyefan has said, a mental action.

A side-effect of me playing my character this way (and succeeding in the action declaration) is that we now know the world contains some hills. Just as a side effect of me saying _my PC  attacks the Orc with his mace_ might be that we now know the world contains a dead orc.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> You're not the only person here trying to post sincerely. If you can't imagine the difference between playing a character who is an amnesiac and playing a character who remembers the world they inhabit, that's on you, not on me or @hawkeyefan.




I can imagine the difference. I don't think that problem changes what it means to shape the world through your character. I mean there is nothing to remember. It all happened off camera. And now you are saying something is a memory that never happened in the game. I am not saying it is wrong (it is actually a pretty good solution to the problem you are describing). But I am not able to see it as being the same as when I ask the GM for information about the setting. There is a big difference between those two approaches. You seem to think I am making a case for losing yourself in your characters identity or something. That isn't what I am meaning at all by doing things through your character.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Because you are asking me to agree with you that the sea is orange.



So now your justification for wielding the "good faith" beatstick is that anyone who sees things differently is asking you to believe absurdities?


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Who has said it is my character shaping the setting? When the ranger remembers there are hills to the north, s/he don't create those hills! When Aramina remembers that Evard's tower is around here somewhere, she doesn't create the tower. She's remembering what she's heard about it while studying the lore of the Great Masters.




This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills). Doesn't mean there are not good reasons for them being there. But they were created. And the question is who has the power to create details that exist outside the characters? I would say in traditional play that is generally left up the GM.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> So now your justification for wielding the "good faith" beatstick is that anyone who sees things differently is asking you to believe absurdities?




I do think your argument sounds rather absurd. Maybe I am just really stupid or something, but I honestly don't see how you are reaching the conclusion you are reaching here. And it is also terribly pedantic because it is so besides the point of what we've been debating. I honestly am not even sure at this point why we are fighting over these terms. Needless to say, you and I don't agree on what these things mean. We are probably better off just moving on


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> My point is that that is me _playing my character by declaring actions that my character performs_. In this case, as @hawkeyefan has said, a mental action.
> 
> A side-effect of me playing my character this way (and succeeding in the action declaration) is that we now know the world contains some hills. Just as a side effect of me saying _my PC  attacks the Orc with his mace_ might be that we now know the world contains a dead orc.




This is a very weird argument. The orc already was established as existing by the GM. And its death was contingent on a successful attack roll and doing the right amount damage. You didn't create a dead orc. You killed an orc that existed in the setting. The hill exists because you said it does. There is an obvious difference between these two things. If they feel the same to you, that is fine. I can't change that. But they don't feel at all the same to me.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

This is naughty word unreal. A player being able to just invent any memories for their character about the setting and have those memories to be true, is a clear carte blanche to  shape the setting. This is blindingly obvious.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Bedrockgames said:


> This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills). Doesn't mean there are not good reasons for them being there. But they were created. And the question is who has the power to create details that exist outside the characters? I would say in traditional play that is generally left up the GM.



Yep, exactly. Simple as that. And it is utterly mindboggling that this needs even to be stated.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, as I said it can depend on edition and approach to play.
> 
> But I'd say that, inherently, the fiction involves the PCs doing dangerous things, no? They're delving into dungeons or chasing down cultists or fighting dragons and so on.
> 
> For me, nothing is more frustrating than when players get very tentative with their PCs because they're concerned about something that could potentially be risky to them.



There is a fundamental "paradox" in classic dungeoneering D&D play (I use inverted commas to flag exaggerated description for rhetorical purposes).

The tropes are derived from REH's Conan, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, Vance, etc. These are stories of risk-taking larger-than-life characters. In Conan stories fortunes flow through his hand as a matter of almost total indifference (read, or re-read, The Tower of the Elephant or The Jewels of Gwahlur to see what I mean).

But the ethos of actual gameplay is derived from small-unit wargaming, with Advanced Squad Leader as the paradigm example.

I'm sure @AbdulAlhazred can elaborate, both on the "paradox" of tropes vs ethos, and also on what sorts of departures from the default ethos were emerging by the mid-to-late 70s.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> You'd think, but people still often will play characters that deliberately get into these situation but are extremely cautious how they handle them once they're there.  And of course it makes quite a difference how the game system involved handles things.  There's a big difference in taking chances in Pathfinder 2e and in Mythras to use two examples extremely familiar to me right now.



Sure, there's different characters, but your claim was that doing risky things violated IC play, and that IC play is different from Actor stance, so I'm not sure how you think this distinction of there being different kinds of characters relates.


Thomas Shey said:


> I use the stances as they originally were described on RGFA, and to the best of my knowledge, I have those quite correct.



Here's the source, if you're pointing towards RGFA:



> [A] Actor Stance
> The Actor Stance is the one in which the player contemplates
> what she can do to portray her character more effectively to the
> other participants in the game.  That is, you use it when you
> have already fixed what your character is going to do -- and
> your concern is primarily portraying her to others.
> This is different from Author stance because it is not
> concerned with character development -- instead of writing the
> character or trying to think _as_ the character, the player
> consciously trying to portray the character as defined. (i.e.
> "Michael has a weakness for women, so I'll say pick-up lines
> to this NPC.")
> 
> * Audience Stance
> The position from which the player observes, enjoys, and
> evaluates the game or aspects of it as himself, rather than as his
> character.  This is also a meta-game stance, as it refers to the
> player's viewing and interpretation of the game, which may be
> very different from the character's.  This stance is the stance
> from which things like dramatic irony or historical accuracy are
> judged.  It is also the stance adopted whenever the player
> witnesses an in-game event of which his character is utterly
> unaware.
> 
> [C] Author Stance
> The position from which the player evaluates the game with an
> eye towards changing it or affecting its development -- either
> through her character or possibly through the world itself.  The
> player adopts this when consciously writing new parts of her
> character's background, for example.  Usually it is associated
> with the player watching the development of the game, and trying
> to spice it up by throwing in new twists (i.e. "Hey, we've just
> gotten involved with pirates -- why don't I write in that my
> character's ex-girlfriend was killed in a pirate attack!")
> Thus, the player is trying to stay consistent with the
> character as defined, but isn't thinking as the character.
> 
> [D] In-Character Stance (IC) or Immersion Stance
> The view of the game from within the inside of the game world
> and its reality, usually from within the mind of a player
> character living within that reality.  The player is thinking
> as the character -- he doesn't acknowledge Out-of-Character
> (OOC) information and tries to concentrate on what the character
> is experiencing.  In theory, acting In-Character becomes second
> nature -- the player does not look at his character sheet and see
> "Weakness for Women".  Rather, he hears the GM describe a woman
> and reacts by saying a pass at her.
> There are a lot of conflicting claims regarding this stance.
> Everyone agrees that it is difficult to get into.  Once there,
> some people talk about having different emotional responses or
> different personality types (see below).  In general, this is
> said to take much preparation effort to drop into -- making the
> character feel real in your mind.  It also is fragile:
> distractions can drop you out, making you uncertain of what the
> character would "really" do.
> 
> [?] `Deep In-Character Stance'' (`Deep IC'')
> This is a possible deeper version of IC stance, where the
> player begins to "channel" her character and just be that
> person.  In theory, this is likened to certain mask work or
> experiences of spiritual possession -- that is, even though the
> character is not an external entity, the player feels as though
> something else were taking over, and she is unable to control
> what the character is doing in the game.
> *



*
In reading this, I do not see the distinction you made above as choosing actions in Actor stance that are detrimental to the character because it makes for a better story, and, in fact, see In Character Stance as something you use Actor stance with.  These aren't opposed, but flavors of the same thing.  And, frankly, I find the concept of IC stance as presented here as incoherent in anything except a storygame.  I could, perhaps, see an argument that exists in a game like Fiasco, which features free-form scene making between characters with no mechanics or GM, but not in a D&D game with all the mechanics -- unless the GM is utterly winging it and you're just doing a bit of freeform roleplay.  Certainly not the situation in discussion.*


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> The players come to a fork in the road. If the players choose the left fork the PCs are supposed to meet an Ogre. If they choose the right fork the PCs are supposed to NOT meet an Ogre.
> 
> If the GM has the PCs meet an Ogre no matter which fork they choose that means the players have been DENIED agency.
> 
> However the above scenario only works if those things were decided beforehand either by the GM preparing the scenario in advance, or if it is part of a published module.
> 
> The problem I have is that I neither use published adventures nor prepare scenarios beforehand. Thus I am unsure if I offer the players real agency.



Who has narrated _the PCs come to a fork in the road_?

Who stops to ask _Which way do you go? _Why does anyone care about that?

Who has decided that an ogre will be met, and why does anyone care about _that_? Does it matter that it's an ogre and not (say) a medusa?

I'm pretty sure that the posters who are saying you have DENIED your players agency are making the following assumptions about answers: _the GM_ narrated that the PCs come to a fork in the road; _the GM _stops to ask which way the PCs go; _everyone at the table_ is assumed to care about that, because there is an assumption that play is unfolding using "map and key" techniques; that _the GM _has decided that an ogre will be met; that _the players _care about it being an ogre rather than a medusa because that is relevant to tactical decision-making.

Until you unpack those assumptions, work out what is true in your own play at your own table, and think about what techniques you're using and why, you can't work out whether the accusations of DENYING agency are true or false.

EDIT: I'll provide a slightly parallel example from my own play.

The system is Prince Valiant. The PCs are three knights, two of whom lead a holy order that they founded - the Order of St Sigobert - and a third who is somewhat reluctantly travelling with them, mostly at the urging of his wife.

In the episode I'm describing, the PCs were on their way to Constantinople, offering their services as crusaders. In the previous session they had survived an encounter with a skeleton knight in Dacia. Here's the actual play report:



pemerton said:


> The session started with a series of checks to determine how had it was for them to make their way across present-day Romania to arrive at the Black Sea coast. Sir Gerran led them, claiming a bonus die for his trained falcon (who know doubt can not only take down small birds but can also help guide its owner to Constantinople!). As a result of that check and then invididual checks for travel, they arrived at the coast in various degrees of exhaustion and dishevellment: Sir Gerran was in good health, Sir Morgath was tired (-1D to both Brawn and Presence) and Sir Justin, who had been badly wounded in the forest, was utterly spent (reduced to 1D in each of Brawn and Presence).
> 
> At the border of the Empire they made a good impression on the guards, who welcomed them to Rome (Sir Gerran made a successful Oratory check - he has the best Oratory of the group, and it's partly for that reason that he is Marshall of their Order). They were therefore able to board boats to take them to Constantinople. I described the vessels as galleys with "relatively low sides" - which the players correctly took to be an ominous sign - and then called for Brawn checks when some sort of creature emerged from beneath the PCs' vessel and attempted to overturn it.  Sir Morgath and Sir Justin ended up in the water.
> 
> The attacking creature was a "dragon" (a giant crocodile, found in the episode "A Dragon" in the core rulebook).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the dragon was slain by Sir Morgath. An Oratory check by Sir Gerran enabled him to maintain control over the soldiers still on the boat and that had fallen into the water, so only two Huns of the PCs' entourage were lost. The bones of one was recovered so that they could be placed in the reliquary for martyrs of the Order; and Sir Gerran (with successful Hunting + Brawn) was able to harpoon the dragon so that its body could be carried to Constantinople.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When the PCs and their retinue arrived in Constantinople they were welcomed as dragon-slayers.



In this episode of play, there were no "forks in the road". The low-sided galleys flagged to the players that something unhappy and watery was going to happen to them.

Who decided the PCs want to go to Constantinople? _The players_.

Who decided that the PCs had to trek across Dacia/Romania to do this? _The GM_. In the previous session I'd stipulated that their boats had had to make landfall on the Dalmatian coast, due to weather.

Who established that the PCs met a "dragon" in the Black Sea? _The GM_. Did the players have any chance to avoid that through their play? _No_.

Does it matter that it was a "dragon" (giant crocodile) and not (say) a "serpent" (giant sea snake) or "kraken" (giant octopus or squid)? _Not really_. We've already had a conflict with a kraken, though, so I wasn't going to repeat that. And I didn't have anything written up for a serpent. Hence the dragon.

What are the real stakes in this episode of play? They are _can the PCs make a good impression on the Byzantines? _This was determined via action resolution: first the checks to travel, the results of which (ie debuffs to two of the PCs) then fed into the Oratory check at the border, and the conflict with the dragon. Success at these enabled the PCs to arrive at Constantinople on excellent terms.

I don't know what your "quantum ogre" posters would make of all this, but I think it's worth noting how it departs from some of their assumptions. (1) The players, not the GM, are the ones who have decided why their PCs are travelling to Constantinople. (2) There is no hidden map - we're working from shared maps of the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia. (3) There is no action resolution via "map and key". The map is colour - it informs our fiction - but there is no resolution of travel in terms of miles per day, hexes crossed, encounter checks, etc. (4) The encounters with the border, and then with the dragon, are not ends in themselves. They are means to ends. I frame them, as GM, so that we as a table can find out _what sort of impression these British knights are able to make on the Byzantine Empire_. They are not a strategic threat that the players need to somehow negotiate or avoid; and they are not really a tactical threat either - resolution in Prince Valiant is very straightforward and not a tactical mini-game.

I personally regard my Prince Valiant game as very high player agency. I suspect it is much higher in player agency than most of the games run by the "quantum ogre" posters.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> These two sentences are in obvious contradiction!
> 
> What you call "declaring a hill exists" is what I call "remembering that a hill exists". Which is something my character does.
> 
> I prefer not to play all my characters as if they suffer from amnesia.




you can call it that all day, it doesn’t mean I will look at what you are saying and agree


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills).



The dead Orc wouldn't have existed in the game, until the player declared that s/he attacks it with a mace.

All action declaration, if successful, changes or adds to the fiction. That's its point. If I couldn't change or add to the fiction, what would I be doing at the table?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> *In reading this, I do not see the distinction you made above as choosing actions in Actor stance that are detrimental to the character because it makes for a better story, and, in fact, see In Character Stance as something you use Actor stance with.  These aren't opposed, but flavors of the same thing.  And, frankly, I find the concept of IC stance as presented here as incoherent in anything except a storygame.  I could, perhaps, see an argument that exists in a game like Fiasco, which features free-form scene making between characters with no mechanics or GM, but not in a D&D game with all the mechanics -- unless the GM is utterly winging it and you're just doing a bit of freeform roleplay.  Certainly not the situation in discussion.*





Seems pretty coherent to me, but of course what is presented here is some sort of a Platonic ideal of the stance. I think the full immersion stance works best in LARPs. It is trickier with tabletop, but you can do it pretty decently with the right people. It doesn't mean that you literally become unaware of the rules etc, just that your focus is not on them. But it definitely works best with rules light games and rules light sections of more crunchy games. I for example like how D&D has really little rules social situations so that they don't get on the way of IC interaction too much.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> The dead Orc wouldn't have existed in the game, until the player declared that s/he attacks it with a mace.
> 
> All action declaration, if successful, changes or adds to the fiction. That's its point. If I couldn't change or add to the fiction, what would I be doing at the table?




the orc already existed, whether that orc lived or died was dependent on you attacking it and succeeding at doing so (not on you declaring the orc). Your declared action didn’t summon or invent a dead orc that wasn’t there. With the hills your words have shaped the geography of the setting. Again this isn’t rocket science. Maybe I am horrible at explaining, but the difference it very very obvious. I really don’t know why this needs to even be discussed


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This is a very weird argument. The orc already was established as existing by the GM. And its death was contingent on a successful attack roll and doing the right amount damage. You didn't create a dead orc. You killed an orc that existed in the setting. The hill exists because you said it does. There is an obvious difference between these two things. If they feel the same to you, that is fine. I can't change that. But they don't feel at all the same to me.



I will use an actual rather than imagined play example because it is a bit more concrete.

The GM and I are sitting at the table. We are both looking at a map of the Pomarj (a peninsula in the World of Greyhawk). I am playing two characters, one of whom is a sorcerer with Great Masters-wise skill.

So it is already established that the PCs are in a place (i) which has lots of forest and hills (the Pomarj) and (ii) which has sorcerers, some of whom (iii) are Great Masters, and that (iv) my PC knows stuff about those Great Masters.

Playing the sorcerer, I declare what my character recalls about Evard's Tower. A check is made. It succeeds. I recall a fact about a tower that exists in the setting.​
Just as the death of the Orc is gated behind various rolls, so the successful recollection of a fact about Evard's tower is gated behind a check.

The example of the hills is different from this in one respect: there is no check. The GM simply invites the player to say what his/her PC knows and remembers. The analogue in Orc-fighting would be the one that some posters on other threads talk about from time-to-time: instead of resolving a combat via rolls, where it is easy/straightforward and the outcome not in doubt they just ask the players to quickly narrate their success.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is naughty word unreal. A player being able to just invent any memories for their character about the setting and have those memories to be true, is a clear carte blanche to  shape the setting. This is blindingly obvious.



A character being able to just delcare attacks against Orcs and have those attacks kill said Orcs is a clear, carte blanch to shape the setting. Before you know all its Orcs will be dead!

This is blindingly obvious.

It's also called _playing a RPG_. If the players can't change the fiction, what are they doing at the table?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Pemerton, I understand your argument I just don’t agree with the conclusion you have reached. And I have entertained your point as long as I can. We are clearly not going to agree


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> the orc already existed, whether that orc lived or died was dependent on you attacking it and succeeding at doing so (not on you declaring the orc). Your declared action didn’t summon or invent a dead orc that wasn’t there. With the hills your words have shaped the geography of the setting.



The hills already existed, too. If they didn't the character couldn't know about them!

Maybe when you say "the orc already existed" you mean that _everyone at the table already agreed that an Orc was part of the shared fiction_. But that Orc was alive. The action declaration, when it succeeds, changes the shared fiction. Now it contains a dead Orc.

In the geography case, _everyone at the table already agreed that, in the shared fiction, there was some land-form or other north of the swamp_. But the details of that land-form were not specified. The action declaration, when it succeeds, renders the shared fiction more precise. Now everyone knows that the land-form north of the swamp is hills.

This is the best I can do to make sense of what you're saying, and all I can conclude is that you regard it as normal for players to exercise agency in respect of whether or not orcs their PCs are fighting are dead, but don't regard it as normal for players to exercise agency in respect of the details of their PCs memories about the lands which they have lived in and heard stories of.

That's your prerogative. But I would prefer that you describe it in a way that does not _misdescribe _what other RPGers are doing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> A character being able to just delcare attacks against Orcs and have those attacks kill said Orcs is a clear, carte blanch to shape the setting. Before you know all its Orcs will be dead!
> 
> This is blindingly obvious.
> 
> It's also called _playing a RPG_. If the players can't change the fiction, what are they doing at the table?



In the real life you could go around hitting people with maces, and as a result they might die (so don't do that, it's illegal in most places.) In real life you cannot go around thinking hills and having them to appear where you want. Capisce?


----------



## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> In the real life you could go around hitting people with maces, and as a result they might die (so don't do that, it's illegal in most places.) In real life you cannot go around thinking hills and having them to appear where you want. Capisce?



In real life I can remember where some hills are. And they are exactly there. Capisce?


----------



## pemerton

Not far upthread I replied to @zarionofarabel with a post about unpacking assumptions.

And I also replied to @hawkeyefan about some assumptions that inform classic dungeoncrawling.

In very traditional D&D, of the sort Gygax describes in the "sample adventure" in his DMG and of the sort that Moldvay describes in his Basic rules, the dungeon is the focus of play. The PCs have not been there before play starts; they are strangers to the dungeon. And the only knowledge they have of it is provided, in advance of play, by the GM (perhaps using a formalised table of rumours, as in B2 Keep on the Borderlands).

So the question _what does my character remember about this place_ doesn't come up.

When Gygax and Cook/Marsh Expert deal with travel beyond the dungeon, they take as a premise that it will be a "hex crawl" though lands that are unknown to and unexplored by the PCs. Gygax has rules for how maps and guides interact with the chance of being lost; he has no discussion of the situation where _a PC, in virtue of his/her backstory, is already competent to be a guide through the place_.

When you abandon these assumptions, what is to be done? One option is incessant second-person instruction from the GM about what the PCs know and remember.

There are also other options that in my view are obviously superior, both from the point of view of immersive inhabitation of the character, and from the point of view of player agency over the shared fiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> If you hit an orc with the mace, you the player are not hitting the orc.
> 
> I am making a distinction between exerting power on the setting through your character (whether that be what your character says or does) and exerting power on the setting through your declarations as a player. In real life, I can say "I have a fort on the hill next to my house" all day long, but saying it doesn't make that fort exist. My memory of the fort is only valid if the hill and fort exist. The same in a setting. In a traditional style of play, the player asks the GM "is there a hill there"----the GM is the system for deterimining the objecting reality of the geography. Now you can play a different way. I am not saying playing differently is less fun, less immersive for you, or bad. I am saying if you allow the hill to exist because the player says, even if it is in character, "there are hills to the north", then that is distinct from how many on this thread play the game (and I would argue probably distinct from how most people play----but who knows, maybe that is changing).




I think that no matter what we're talking about, it's all through declarations as a player, right? That's all that is actually happening, whether it's the swing of an axe, or remembering a location, or trying to disarm a trap, or finding out the latest rumors.

I think that it's important to keep this in mind.

What you're advocating for is a mode of play where the vast majority of content is introduced by the GM. In this mode of play, what the players can declare is constrained by what has or has not been established, and with any unestablished factor going to the GM. 

This is indeed a popular mode of play. 

I think what's frustrating, is that you constantly site this mode as "normal" and "long established" and so on, which implies that any other approach is abnormal. The fact that you can do this, without seeming to even realize you are doing it, while also appealing to others to not place some objective value on their preferred approach, is a bit tough to take. 

Anyone can play however they like, and there is no wrong way to play. But that doesn't mean every game allows the same amount of agency. There are mechanics and methods that allow for more or less agency. 

Having the GM be the arbiter of almost all the fiction in the game is one method that tends to allow for less player agency. It's okay. This being a descriptor of a game is not the same as saying the game is bad or allows for less fun.



Bedrockgames said:


> This is a very weird argument. The orc already was established as existing by the GM. And its death was contingent on a successful attack roll and doing the right amount damage. You didn't create a dead orc. You killed an orc that existed in the setting. The hill exists because you said it does. There is an obvious difference between these two things. If they feel the same to you, that is fine. I can't change that. But they don't feel at all the same to me.




So the distinction that seems most important to you seems to be the initial introduction of an element to the fiction. Does that seem right? 

The GM should (in most cases) be the source of new fictional details. "There are hills north of the swamp!" The players are then free to go to the hills, or to avoid the hills, as they desire. 

If a game allows the player some means to establish the hills.....what's the problem? 

Can't a game do this? "I make a Wilderness check to see if I know where we are. If it's the Great Swamp, then Lothar knows the Iron Hills are to the north of us....." a successful Wilderness check means the player was right, and the PCs are now in the Great Swamp, and the Iron Hills are to the North. 

This is a different approach than what many are used to, yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be suggested as a valid way to play, and as a method that will very likely increase player agency. 

The whole fictional world doesn't come crashing down if someone besides the GM decides what's on the map.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> So the distinction that seems most important to you seems to be the initial introduction of an element to the fiction. Does that seem right?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The whole fictional world doesn't come crashing down if someone besides the GM decides what's on the map.



I fully agree with the second sentence I've quoted.

I'm going to quibble very slightly over the first. _A dead Orc_ is a different fictional element from _A live Orc_.

Now in the real world there are no Orcs, but there are living things that die. And their are (complex) causal processes that explain the transition from one to the other state.

But when we are talking about the content a fiction, the transition from _live Orc_ to _dead Orc_ is exactly the same process as the transition from _dunno what's to the north of the swamp_ to _there are hills to the north of the swamp_. In both cases, the process is called _authorship_.

With that off my chest, I allow you to resume your excellent posting about authorship in RPGs!


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I fully agree with the second sentence I've quoted.
> 
> I'm going to quibble very slightly over the first. _A dead Orc_ is a different fictional element from _A live Orc_.
> 
> Now in the real world there are no Orcs, but there are living things that die. And their are (complex) causal processes that explain the transition from one to the other state.
> 
> But when we are talking about the content a fiction, the transition from _live Orc_ to _dead Orc_ is exactly the same process as the transition from _dunno what's to the north of the swamp_ to _there are hills to the north of the swamp_. In both cases, the process is called _authorship_.
> 
> With that off my chest, I allow you to resume your excellent posting about authorship in RPGs!




That's fair enough, but you can't make the dead orc unless the GM has already introduced a live one. So in that sense, the players are free to have their characters engage and interact with things the GM has already established. They may be able to build upon something, or destroy something, but only if it's already there.

I think this is the expectation....players can't just decide things are in the fiction without GM approval. Sometimes, some exceptions may happen, but only through the resolution of an action check of some kind, and then only in small ways.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So the distinction that seems most important to you seems to be the initial introduction of an element to the fiction. Does that seem right?




No. Like I have said many times here, the distinction I am making is one way (the "I remember the hill" way), enables the player to generate content in the setting. It is a question of whether the setting is under the purview of the GM, or of the players or a mix of both. I am saying the traditional way is the GM has control of the setting, and the players influence on the setting is through their character (and unless the character has a spell called 'summon hills' the character asserting a memory of hills wouldn't just make them appear). Now I did say there are going to be some gray areas. And there it is largely a question of how easily noticed or hand waved it is. 

part of the problem here is we use entirely different language to talk about games. I never use terms like "the fiction". I find that label blurs setting and plot in a way that makes the distinctions I am making here less obvious.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The GM should (in most cases) be the source of new fictional details. "There are hills north of the swamp!" The players are then free to go to the hills, or to avoid the hills, as they desire.
> 
> If a game allows the player some means to establish the hills.....what's the problem?
> 
> Can't a game do this? "I make a Wilderness check to see if I know where we are. If it's the Great Swamp, then Lothar knows the Iron Hills are to the north of us....." a successful Wilderness check means the player was right, and the PCs are now in the Great Swamp, and the Iron Hills are to the North.
> 
> This is a different approach than what many are used to, yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be suggested as a valid way to play, and as a method that will very likely increase player agency.
> 
> The whole fictional world doesn't come crashing down if someone besides the GM decides what's on the map.




I don't think there is any problem with a game allowing this sort of thing. I specifically called out Hillfolk as a game I like that does just that sort of thing. I have no issue with you wanting this in a game. Where I, and others, are taking exception is inserting that into something like a wilderness check. Obviously if your group is down with a wilderness check being used in that way, fair enough. But if you were to join my table, you wouldn't be allowed to make a wilderness check like that in one of my standard campaigns (and I don't think using wilderness checks that way is the way people usually expect them to be used). 

In the example of the iron hills, if you are introducing the concept of the iron hills to the setting by saying Lothar knows the iron hills are to the north, then that would to me, be both an example of you the player shaping the setting itself, and you using a wilderness roll in a  way that isn't the norm (and I am not saying this pejoratively to label your style or approach 'abnormal', I am saying it isn't what is typically expected or done). 

I have never once said it isn't a valid way to play. I have stated numerous times it is valid and fine, and that I have even played that way myself and enjoyed it. 

Does the whole fictional come crashing down? No, but some players are going to get annoyed if the GM isn't the one making those calls. And for some players it could produce believability and buy in issues. I even said earlier, I ran a session of my normal game where I let the players decide what was on the map. But I did at least recognize it was an exception to how we normally did things, and it did change the feel of play (and it was a one time thing because I wanted the rest of the campaign to feel like our usual sessions). Again this is a playstyle and expectation issue. I am not saying any of them are good or bad. I am saying these are different


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> So the distinction that seems most important to you seems to be the initial introduction of an element to the fiction. Does that seem right?
> 
> The GM should (in most cases) be the source of new fictional details. "There are hills north of the swamp!" The players are then free to go to the hills, or to avoid the hills, as they desire.
> 
> If a game allows the player some means to establish the hills.....what's the problem?
> 
> Can't a game do this? "I make a Wilderness check to see if I know where we are. If it's the Great Swamp, then Lothar knows the Iron Hills are to the north of us....." a successful Wilderness check means the player was right, and the PCs are now in the Great Swamp, and the Iron Hills are to the North.
> 
> This is a different approach than what many are used to, yes, but that doesn't mean it can't be suggested as a valid way to play, and as a method that will very likely increase player agency.
> 
> The whole fictional world doesn't come crashing down if someone besides the GM decides what's on the map.




I don't think that either @Bedrockgames or I have said anything about how thing should be done or what is better way to do these things, aside perhaps some personal preferences. But this discussion has gotten utterly bogged down, because bizarrely @pemerton seems to refuse to accept that any difference even exists! You're fine, you clearly understand what the difference in question is. All I ask that people would respect the fact that some players do not want play in a manner where they're responsible of introducing these setting elements. (Commonly because it weakens the illusion of the setting having an existence independent of them.) You can prefer either style, that's perfectly fine. I have played a lot of GMless freeform RP, and that's decent enough and has its own strengths. In that format the players obviously are jointly in charge of the exterior world as there is no GM. But my personal preference generally is that if a GM is available, to have them fully take charge of the world outside the characters. I am not even anyway fundamentalist about this, I would be perfectly willing to occasionally play a game with a GM where it was handled somewhat differently; though granted, I'd probably be unwilling to GM one myself in that manner.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is indeed a popular mode of play.
> 
> I think what's frustrating, is that you constantly site this mode as "normal" and "long established" and so on, which implies that any other approach is abnormal. The fact that you can do this, without seeming to even realize you are doing it, while also appealing to others to not place some objective value on their preferred approach, is a bit tough to take.
> 
> Anyone can play however they like, and there is no wrong way to play. But that doesn't mean every game allows the same amount of agency. There are mechanics and methods that allow for more or less agency.
> 
> Having the GM be the arbiter of almost all the fiction in the game is one method that tends to allow for less player agency. It's okay. This being a descriptor of a game is not the same as saying the game is bad or allows for less fun.




I can't help it if people are choosing to take umbrage with me saying something to me seems like the normal way people usually play. I think I've gone to great lengths to explain that I don't take issue with any particular playstyle here. And even tried to explain that I have enjoyed the very playstyle in question. 

Yes, but I think your perception of agency changes a lot depending on your perception around things like whether players should shape the setting or not. You see that as an expansion of agency and agency increasing overall. Those who value a more traditional exploration based approach, would not see it as such, because, to them, it is producing a less stable setting to explore and choices are not made against the backdrop of a world that feels objective and external (because they as players can assert things about the setting which would seem to undermine the weight of their choices). Pemerton sees this as mere puzzle solving. And that is fine. I happen to like puzzles, and one reason this style of play appeals to me is the challenge and puzzle solving aspect (though I would say it is much more involved because you have a human GM who is able to react organically to your solutions). But how much agency I perceive here is impacted by things like other players being able to make a wilderness roll and suddenly deciding there are hills to the north. 

Now, maybe you don't see it that way. That is fine. But to me agency is very much about how much freedom I have to explore the setting, not how much freedom I have to control the setting.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Bedrockgames said:


> Yes, but I think your perception of agency changes a lot depending on your perception around things like whether players should shape the setting or not. You see that as an expansion of agency and agency increasing overall. Those who value a more traditional exploration based approach, would not see it as such, because, to them, it is producing a less stable setting to explore and choices are not made against the backdrop of a world that feels objective and external (because they as players can assert things about the setting which would seem to undermine the weight of their choices).



Damn! I already pressed the like button, but I had to quote this too, because it was so well said. I tried to articulate this same though earlier, but I couldn't do it nearly this clearly.


----------



## Morrus

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is naughty word unreal. A player being able to just invent any memories for their character about the setting and have those memories to be true, is a clear carte blanche to  shape the setting. This is blindingly obvious.



Watch your language, please. This is a family site.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> That's fair enough, but you can't make the dead orc unless the GM has already introduced a live one. So in that sense, the players are free to have their characters engage and interact with things the GM has already established. They may be able to build upon something, or destroy something, but only if it's already there.
> 
> I think this is the expectation....players can't just decide things are in the fiction without GM approval. Sometimes, some exceptions may happen, but only through the resolution of an action check of some kind, and then only in small ways.



To continue this discussion (I think it's changed from a quibble!): I agree with you there is a common expectation, but "deciding things are in the fiction" isn't in my view the right description of it (I won't bore you by reiterating why - I know you get it).

The parallel to _there has to be a live orc introduced by the GM before a player can introduce a dead orc_ is _there has to be a swamp in a world with compass point directionality before a player can introduce hills to the north of the swamp. _This is what I was getting at upthread when I talked about me and the GM having a map of the Pomarj in front of us, etc.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Seems pretty coherent to me, but of course what is presented here is some sort of a Platonic ideal of the stance. I think the full immersion stance works best in LARPs. It is trickier with tabletop, but you can do it pretty decently with the right people. It doesn't mean that you literally become unaware of the rules etc, just that your focus is not on them. But it definitely works best with rules light games and rules light sections of more crunchy games. I for example like how D&D has really little rules social situations so that they don't get on the way of IC interaction too much.




I dunno.  Among the immersion-focused folks I've known, some of the actively preferred relatively crunchy games so as to minimize the degree of necessary back-and-forth with the GM they needed.  They just made sure they internalized them enough that operating the game machinery could take place on an entirely different level than the "making basic character decisions" element.


----------



## TwoSix

hawkeyefan said:


> What you're advocating for is a mode of play where the vast majority of content is introduced by the GM. In this mode of play, what the players can declare is constrained by what has or has not been established, and with any unestablished factor going to the GM.
> 
> This is indeed a popular mode of play.
> 
> I think what's frustrating, is that you constantly site this mode as "normal" and "long established" and so on, which implies that any other approach is abnormal. The fact that you can do this, without seeming to even realize you are doing it, while also appealing to others to not place some objective value on their preferred approach, is a bit tough to take.



I don't think it's particularly wrong to assert that "traditional"/map&key/exploration style play is the community understood baseline for play.  And it's certainly long-established.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, there's different characters, but your claim was that doing risky things violated IC play, and that IC play is different from Actor stance, so I'm not sure how you think this distinction of there being different kinds of characters relates.




It relates to certain kinds of risky behavior.  The fact is, characters who do not take certain kinds of caution at least in some game systems simply aren't in that system long, and as such are unlikely to be selected by players who understand the system in the first place, because they'd like, well, their characters to be around for a while.

As a simple example, a Mythras character other than an extreme hyper-skilled one (and maybe even that) who runs into a situation where he's extremely likely to be multi-teamed is, like most RQ derivatives, suicidal.  As such, barring extremely unusual circumstances, no one who's familiar with the system is going to run a character prone to doing that unless they consider them a throwaway.  Its just pointless.  The system actively discourages it too much.



Ovinomancer said:


> Here's the source, if you're pointing towards RGFA:
> 
> 
> *In reading this, I do not see the distinction you made above as choosing actions in Actor stance that are detrimental to the character because it makes for a better story, and, in fact, see In Character Stance as something you use Actor stance with.  These aren't opposed, but flavors of the same thing.  And, frankly, I find the concept of IC stance as presented here as incoherent in anything except a storygame.  I could, perhaps, see an argument that exists in a game like Fiasco, which features free-form scene making between characters with no mechanics or GM, but not in a D&D game with all the mechanics -- unless the GM is utterly winging it and you're just doing a bit of freeform roleplay.  Certainly not the situation in discussion.*




I did not say a better story.  If you go back you will not see the word "story" used at any point there.  I said a more _interesting depiction_. If you don't understand the difference here, and how it relates to what you quoted, I don't know how to respond to you.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Seems pretty coherent to me, but of course what is presented here is some sort of a Platonic ideal of the stance. I think the full immersion stance works best in LARPs. It is trickier with tabletop, but you can do it pretty decently with the right people. It doesn't mean that you literally become unaware of the rules etc, just that your focus is not on them. But it definitely works best with rules light games and rules light sections of more crunchy games. I for example like how D&D has really little rules social situations so that they don't get on the way of IC interaction too much.




Also note that RGFA made a distinction frequently between IC Stance and Immersion (which it sometimes called Deep IC).  There could be some sharp distinctions between the two, especially in how player could or were willing to deal with genre conventions embodied in a setting.


----------



## Manbearcat

Not home but I’m briefly combing through things on my phone and just have a simple response.

The actual design/implementation question at hand is:

“How do we actualize habitation of PC in a shared imagined space that (a) doesn’t really exist and (b) therefore no one can have any actual working memory of it.”

One way is to roll dice and decide both the fiction and the memory of it as an outgrowth of the resolution mechanics (Spout Lore in DW for example).

Another way is for the player to ask the GM, the GM to tell them and for the player to then pantomime the knowing or lack of knowing downstream of the GM’s decision.

Another way still is for the GM to turn the question back on the player and have them inform all of the table’s participants to resolve their present void in the shared imagined space.

I know how I would order those 3 in terms of “effective habitation of PC”. That’s the question people need to resolve and it what help to develop first principles. A lot of people talk about the imposition of metagame in their ability to inhabit a PC. I wonder how people would order “metagame imposition” in those the procedures.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> It is a question of whether the setting is under the purview of the GM, or of the players or a mix of both. I am saying the traditional way is the GM has control of the setting, and the players influence on the setting is through their character (and unless the character has a spell called 'summon hills' the character asserting a memory of hills wouldn't just make them appear).




Your opening sentence is what all this is about. 

Some games work one way, others work another. Yes, the traditional or most common approach is that the vast majority of authority lies with the GM. 

Other games give more authority to the players, while also likely placing limits on the GM’s authority. 

I think perhaps we’re all in agreement on this. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Where I, and others, are taking exception is inserting that into something like a wilderness check. Obviously if your group is down with a wilderness check being used in that way, fair enough. But if you were to join my table, you wouldn't be allowed to make a wilderness check like that in one of my standard campaigns (and I don't think using wilderness checks that way is the way people usually expect them to be used).




This is all game and system dependent. I wouldn’t show up to your 5E D&D game and expect this to be the case. If you were to come to mine, though, you’d see things along these lines from other players.

And if we were playing Blades in the Dark, then you’d be limiting your play by not doing this kind of stuff.



Crimson Longinus said:


> But my personal preference generally is that if a GM is available, to have them fully take charge of the world outside the characters. I am not even anyway fundamentalist about this, I would be perfectly willing to occasionally play a game with a GM where it was handled somewhat differently; though granted, I'd probably be unwilling to GM one myself in that manner.




That’s fine. I do think that largely this conversation revolves around preferences. 

If I were to rephrase what you said above to the below, do you see this is a a fundamental change that no linger means the same thing? 

“But my personal preference generally is that if a GM is available, to reduce player agency and have the GM take charge of the world outside the characters.”



Bedrockgames said:


> Yes, but I think your perception of agency changes a lot depending on your perception around things like whether players should shape the setting or not. You see that as an expansion of agency and agency increasing overall. Those who value a more traditional exploration based approach, would not see it as such, because, to them, it is producing a less stable setting to explore and choices are not made against the backdrop of a world that feels objective and external




I believe that these are both forms of agency. I think perhaps it’s a matter of degree, but they’re both factors of agency.

Hence why a game that allows both is granting the players more agency. 




TwoSix said:


> I don't think it's particularly wrong to assert that "traditional"/map&key/exploration style play is the community understood baseline for play.  And it's certainly long-established.




Yeah, I agree 100%. 

I think sometimes that’s part of the problem. It’s like everyone calls cotton swabs q-tips. D&D is so prevalent, so pervasive, that anything that challenges its approach to RPGing can be met with strong resistance.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Your opening sentence is what all this is about.
> 
> Some games work one way, others work another. Yes, the traditional or most common approach is that the vast majority of authority lies with the GM.
> 
> Other games give more authority to the players, while also likely placing limits on the GM’s authority.
> 
> I think perhaps we’re all in agreement on this.




Yes, we are not in disagreement on that


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is all game and system dependent. I wouldn’t show up to your 5E D&D game and expect this to be the case. If you were to come to mine, though, you’d see things along these lines from other players.
> 
> And if we were playing Blades in the Dark, then you’d be limiting your play by not doing this kind of stuff.



I agree. Again, when I showed up to play hill folk, I played according to the system and the expectations of the group. All I have been responding to is there being push back against there even being a distinction between these things (where the player narrating hills into existence is treated the same as a character swinging a sword to kill an orc). But I have no issue with systems being different in this respect. And I get there are sizable communities that are more focused on one style or the other. 

For the record I don't play 5E. Mostly I play my own games, sometimes I play savage worlds or variations of OD&D (and I am often playing one shots of a variety of systems).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yo
> 
> 
> I believe that these are both forms of agency. I think perhaps it’s a matter of degree, but they’re both factors of agency.
> 
> Hence why a game that allows both is granting the players more agency.



I agree they can both be considered forms of agency. I just am pointing out that giving players the power to shape the setting, won't feel like you are maximizing their agency to everyone.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Hence why a game that allows both is granting the players more agency.




As far as I can tell, this is the only point you and I really disagree on. I think because for the types of players I described, it would be seen as diminishing agency. I would agree that for some people it will increase overall agency. But this is, to me a pretty important way it isn't as simple as agency increasing across the board the more places you give players control. And the way I was using agency, I meant it pretty much as freedom to play my character in the world. If I tell the GM he or she is taking away my agency, I don't mean that they are failing to give me narrative control of the setting, I mean they are doing something like railroading or not really considering the choices the players are making in the game and where those choices ought to lead to.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s fine. I do think that largely this conversation revolves around preferences.
> 
> If I were to rephrase what you said above to the below, do you see this is a a fundamental change that no linger means the same thing?
> 
> “But my personal preference generally is that if a GM is available, to reduce player agency and have the GM take charge of the world outside the characters.”



I don't agree with this, because...



hawkeyefan said:


> I believe that these are both forms of agency. I think perhaps it’s a matter of degree, but they’re both factors of agency.
> 
> Hence why a game that allows both is granting the players more agency.



I don't agree with this. I think...  I'm pretty sure I just don't see agency in the same way than you do. I try to explain. If you get to define both the conditions, and the reaction to those conditions; define both the question and the answer; then, yes, in a sense you have more freedom. But I wouldn't say that you necessarily have more agency. Agency, at least in the context of a game, is making meaningful choices, and I feel that it is the limits that make the choices meaningful. You respond to something external, and this makes your responses meaningful. If anything that limits the player's freedom is seen as reduction of agency, then ultimate agency would be achieved by removing the rules, the dice and the other players as all of those limit the player's freedom. And I'm not sure that this would be a reasonable or useful definition of agency.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Some of this is that there are classes of IC or Deep IC players who consider any real alteration of setting not "within their character" and part of their purview.  This isn't sharp edged because there are some practical questions about what part of the character's definition is dependent on GM design and what part is within the _player's_ (_not _character's) appropriate control.  Whether someone considers it appropriate to define, for example, their character's family and history is one of those idiosyncratic things its hard to point at any strong trends one way or another about.

(There's also people who consider their character's background even being a significant factor in play a distraction and generally anathema, but like the people who think any constraints on what characters are expected to do within a game beyond their coarse mechanical limits is making it "not an RPG", I kind of reserve the right to roll my eyes at them and move on.)


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> It relates to certain kinds of risky behavior.  The fact is, characters who do not take certain kinds of caution at least in some game systems simply aren't in that system long, and as such are unlikely to be selected by players who understand the system in the first place, because they'd like, well, their characters to be around for a while.
> 
> As a simple example, a Mythras character other than an extreme hyper-skilled one (and maybe even that) who runs into a situation where he's extremely likely to be multi-teamed is, like most RQ derivatives, suicidal.  As such, barring extremely unusual circumstances, no one who's familiar with the system is going to run a character prone to doing that unless they consider them a throwaway.  Its just pointless.  The system actively discourages it too much.



Sure, no questions, but this doesn't at all illuminate the difference you've asserted.  That different characters exist, and that players choose characters according to the game their player, is fairly trivial.  The choice is unrelated to the method of portrayal.


Thomas Shey said:


> I did not say a better story.  If you go back you will not see the word "story" used at any point there.  I said a more _interesting depiction_. If you don't understand the difference here, and how it relates to what you quoted, I don't know how to respond to you.



Apologies for the misquote, I trusted my recollection.  I believe my question withstands the correction, though.  In the quote I provided, Actor stance is divorced from the choice of action and is, instead, defined as inhabiting the character and portraying it faithfully with that choice.  IC, on the other hand, is both a decision framework AND the portrayal framework.  And, after the decision is made, I don't see any daylight between doing your best to portray the character with that decision made.  In other words, Actor stance overlays IC stance (again, I find this stance incoherent in conception, but for the sake of argument) indistinguishably, but IC bolts on the decision process as well while Actor stance explicitly doesn't determine how the choice is made.

Frankly, after reading the background on this, I think this framework is trying to do to much with the inspiring though experiment of considering the different inputs into a play or movie.  That was the Author, Director, Actor, and Audience.  It's not a great comparison to RPGs (and, to their credit, this is mentioned explicitly in the discussion) but there was an attempt to move these concepts over and refine them.  The piece you're citing as your point is based entirely on this conversation (also linked from the RPGA website) and it's clear there that there's a lot of disagreement even between the originators.  And, I think this is shown in the bolt-on IC and Deep IC stances, which aim to shore up the weaknesses in their Actor stance taking more from the stage, where actors have little choice over their character's choices but still have to emote them.  In RPGs, a player makes those choices and then portrays them.  How this is done doesn't mesh well with a stance defined as unconnected to the decision process.  IC was added to try to accommodate some of this, but really is just a paean to an ideal rather than a functionally usable term or concept to analyze play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> All I have been responding to is there being push back against there even being a distinction between these things (where the player narrating hills into existence is treated the same as a character swinging a sword to kill an orc).




I took all that more as challenging the common assumptions. @pemerton is being a bit provocative perhaps, but it’s because he has something to say.

There are games that don’t see a distinction between the types of actions you’re talking about. So if that’s the case, then it’s true that there doesn’t _need_ to be such distinctions, and their existense and or use is solely a matter of preference.



Bedrockgames said:


> For the record I don't play 5E. Mostly I play my own games, sometimes I play savage worlds or variations of OD&D (and I am often playing one shots of a variety of systems).




Well this is just me going to 5E as an example. Even I assume things about how prevalent D&D is.



Bedrockgames said:


> I agree they can both be considered forms of agency. I just am pointing out that giving players the power to shape the setting, won't feel like you are maximizing their agency to everyone.




Maximizing may not be the right choice. But a game that has the basic character control level of agency that you’re mentioning....I’m free to have my PC go where and do what I would like him to....and then also adds the ability fore as a player to shape the setting in some way....isn’t that adding to the amount of agency I have as a player?

This is where I get confused because it seems this is where people just don’t want to admit that their chosen game has less agency than another. But why not?

I love Super Mario Brothers. I love Grand Theft Auto. If I love Super Mario Brothers more, that doesn’t make it have the same level of agency as Grand Theft Auto.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I love Super Mario Brothers. I love Grand Theft Auto. If I love Super Mario Brothers more, that doesn’t make it have the same level of agency as Grand Theft Auto.




This is actually a perfect example to illustrate where I and, where I believe, Crimson, are coming from. What about Excite Bike? The agency you describe above is about your ability to do things in the setting. In grand theft auto, it feels like more agency to me because I am not forced to only go left or right, and I can interact with the setting however I like (a game like Shenmue was also great for this sense of having agency in a living world). In excite bike you could customize the track in all sorts of ways. Now that was a lot of fun (I think I preferred designing tracks to playing excite bike) but it didn't give me more agency. More agency would have been the ability to drive off the track or run over people in the stands.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I took all that more as challenging the common assumptions. @pemerton is being a bit provocative perhaps, but it’s because he has something to say.




It is only causing me to not want to listen in that case


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, no questions, but this doesn't at all illuminate the difference you've asserted.  That different characters exist, and that players choose characters according to the game their player, is fairly trivial.  The choice is unrelated to the method of portrayal.




I think at this point you've associated a partial side-comment with something about my point about stances, and they aren't particularly related.  My point regarding that was a default assumption that a character is at least largely motivated to some degree about self-preservation is kind of a reasonable baseline in any game where character death can be anything but an unusual rarity.



Ovinomancer said:


> Apologies for the misquote, I trusted my recollection.  I believe my question withstands the correction, though.  In the quote I provided, Actor stance is divorced from the choice of action and is, instead, defined as inhabiting the character and portraying it faithfully with that choice.  IC, on the other hand, is both a decision framework AND the portrayal framework.  And, after the decision is made, I don't see any daylight between doing your best to portray the character with that decision made.  In other words, Actor stance overlays IC stance (again, I find this stance incoherent in conception, but for the sake of argument) indistinguishably, but IC bolts on the decision process as well while Actor stance explicitly doesn't determine how the choice is made.




Notice my example included three options that are _all faithful._  They are all legitimate responses to an a decision in the context of the character.  My claim is that, barring perturbation by exterior events (or the player just being in an unusual headspace for any reason), an IC Stance player will chose the one that seems _most_ in-character for the character. An Actor Stance character may not, because he's also interested in the effect of his depiction, so within that range he may choose the less in-character (but still within its range one) that seems a more interesting depiction..



Ovinomancer said:


> Frankly, after reading the background on this, I think this framework is trying to do to much with the inspiring though experiment of considering the different inputs into a play or movie.  That was the Author, Director, Actor, and Audience.  It's not a great comparison to RPGs (and, to their credit, this is mentioned explicitly in the discussion) but there was an attempt to move these concepts over and refine them.  The piece you're citing as your point is based entirely on this conversation (also linked from the RPGA website) and it's clear there that there's a lot of disagreement even between the originators.  And, I think this is shown in the bolt-on IC and Deep IC stances, which aim to shore up the weaknesses in their Actor stance taking more from the stage, where actors have little choice over their character's choices but still have to emote them.  In RPGs, a player makes those choices and then portrays them.  How this is done doesn't mesh well with a stance defined as unconnected to the decision process.  IC was added to try to accommodate some of this, but really is just a paean to an ideal rather than a functionally usable term or concept to analyze play.




Eh.  As it was developed in time, I think the distinction I'm making above is perfectly sound.  The IC (and especially Deep IC) proponents were big into the idea that taking outside concerns into consideration was either anathema (the Deep IC ones) or at least undesirable (the IC ones who weren't Deep IC).  Actor doesn't have some of the bigger picture elements that could be in play for Author or Director, but they still have concerns that cannot be described as entirely in-character/in-world in basis (and honestly, Audience always struck _me_ as the odd man out of the bunch, though as I've noted I always thoughts the lines between them were blurry anyway. That doesn't mean I don't think they're a useful framework to talk about where people draw the lines on how they chose to play a character (as was the concept of Token play, which seems to have fallen off the conceptual stage there, but that's what happens when concepts are evolved over a period.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> As far as I can tell, this is the only point you and I really disagree on. I think because for the types of players I described, it would be seen as diminishing agency. I would agree that for some people it will increase overall agency. But this is, to me a pretty important way it isn't as simple as agency increasing across the board the more places you give players control. And the way I was using agency, I meant it pretty much as freedom to play my character in the world. If I tell the GM he or she is taking away my agency, I don't mean that they are failing to give me narrative control of the setting, I mean they are doing something like railroading or not really considering the choices the players are making in the game and where those choices ought to lead to.




Sure, I would agree. A railroad is a way that agency is taken away. But there are also people who are perfectly happy to play in a railroad game. And even those players may have some agency; they may not be able to deviate from the path, but they may be able to decide something like using stealth or diplomacy to bypass a monster, rather than just fighting it. 

It’s a spectrum. 

So then what are the upper limits of that spectrum? What would you say is an example of a high agency game? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't agree with this, because...
> 
> 
> I don't agree with this. I think...  I'm pretty sure I just don't see agency in the same way than you do. I try to explain. If you get to define both the conditions, and the reaction to those conditions; define both the question and the answer; then, yes, in a sense you have more freedom. But I wouldn't say that you necessarily have more agency. Agency, at least in the context of a game, is making meaningful choices, and I feel that it is the limits that make the choices meaningful. You respond to something external, and this makes your responses meaningful. If anything that limits the player's freedom is seen as reduction of agency, then ultimate agency would be achieved by removing the rules, the dice and the other players as all of those limit the player's freedom. And I'm not sure that this would be a reasonable or useful definition of agency.




This is a relevant point. And I think that the kind of extreme authorship by players that you’re talking about shifts the game into (?) or toward (?) something else. Something like Microscope or Fiasco, maybe. 

I’m not saying that there can’t be or shouldn’t be restrictions on player authority. Just that there are degrees, right? 

Just like with the character level agency you guys are talking about is not absolute. There are times when stuff your PC does is not actually up to you, or where the options available to you are limited. 

This is still true with more narrative based elements. 

No one’s advocating for players to be able to craft anything they want whenever they want. 

So let’s say your GM asks you if your group would rather have him run an adventure path, or a more sandbox style game. There will be constraints on agency in each game, likely of different kinds, but still constraints. 

If agency is the ability of the player to determine the course of the fiction, one of those will likely offer more agency than the other. 

Then if you added the ability for players to determine some of the contents of the fiction beyond just what their characters do and say, that’s also more agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I would agree. A railroad is a way that agency is taken away. But there are also people who are perfectly happy to play in a railroad game. And even those players may have some agency; they may not be able to deviate from the path, but they may be able to decide something like using stealth or diplomacy to bypass a monster, rather than just fighting it.
> 
> It’s a spectrum.
> 
> So then what are the upper limits of that spectrum? What would you say is an example of a high agency game?




I agree there are people happy to play railroads and some agency can exist in one. I don't agree that it is a spectrum with railroads on one end and games with mechanics allowing players to shape the setting on the other end (for the reasons I have already stated)


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This is actually a perfect example to illustrate where I and, where I believe, Crimson, are coming from. What about Excite Bike? The agency you describe above is about your ability to do things in the setting. In grand theft auto, it feels like more agency to me because I am not forced to only go left or right, and I can interact with the setting however I like (a game like Shenmue was also great for this sense of having agency in a living world). In excite bike you could customize the track in all sorts of ways. Now that was a lot of fun (I think I preferred designing tracks to playing excite bike) but it didn't give me more agency. More agency would have been the ability to drive off the track or run over people in the stands.




I would argue that is another form of agency because it allows you to engage with the game in another way. 

Now imagine the version of Grand Theft Auto that implements the track creation of Excite Bike and then you have even more choice as a player. 



Bedrockgames said:


> It is only causing me to not want to listen in that case




That’s a shame. He’s got an interesting perspective.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Now imagine the version of Grand Theft Auto that implements the track creation of Excite Bike and then you have even more choice as a player.




I wouldn't say I have more agency though. I would say I have more game options. But my concern with agency is about what I can do in that world. This would especially be the case if the track creation element were done so that it was live during play. If I could change the layout of the city for example as I was driving, I would actually consider that counter to my agency


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't agree with this, because...
> 
> 
> I don't agree with this. I think...  I'm pretty sure I just don't see agency in the same way than you do. I try to explain. If you get to define both the conditions, and the reaction to those conditions; define both the question and the answer; then, yes, in a sense you have more freedom. But I wouldn't say that you necessarily have more agency. Agency, at least in the context of a game, is making meaningful choices, and I feel that it is the limits that make the choices meaningful. You respond to something external, and this makes your responses meaningful. If anything that limits the player's freedom is seen as reduction of agency, then ultimate agency would be achieved by removing the rules, the dice and the other players as all of those limit the player's freedom. And I'm not sure that this would be a reasonable or useful definition of agency.



The thing you're describing in the last paragraph has a name -- the Czege Principle -- which, as simply stated by it's author is, "When one person is the *author* of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."  This is well known in the design circles that the games we're talking about come from, and is avoided.  So, your formulation isn't actually a thing that happens.

What does happen is that the players can narration an action -- something their character does -- and have that tested by the mechanics to see what happens.  This includes things that establish fictional elements at times, but it's fundamentally about not having to ask permission to try the action before doing so.

It's somewhat informative to look at a situation where the players are looking for a macguffin, for whatever reason you wish to imagine.  Through play, they find themselves in a room with a chest.  A player declares their going to open the chest to see if the macguffin is inside.  Here's were we can evaluate whether or not this involved more or less agency by way of approach.  In the traditional sense, the player searching the chest can only ever discover what the GM decides (in their notes or in the moment) is in the chest.  The act of search can discover information, but that information is determined by another player, by fiat. The GM has, at all times, the ultimate authority here, and can decide however they want what is in the chest regardless of the player's action declarations. There is agency here, but it's the agency to choose which parts of of the GM's choices you explore. Let's use my preferred assumption, here and in the next example, that everyone is playing in good faith so that we can avoid any diversions into Force or Illusionism or whatever.  Functionally, the player can only ever discover that which the GM has decided.

In the second method, the GM has as much idea as to what's in the chest as the player, which is to say very little.  The player has stated that they're searching the chest with the intent to find the macguffin.  The GM, in this approach, can agree -- the macguffin is in the chest after all -- and should do so if this isn't a very interesting question.  I think it is, and so the GM should challenge this action by submitting it to the mechanics of the system to determine what is in the chest.  The dice roll, and determine who gets to say what -- if the player succeeds, the macguffin is in the chest and everyone at the table finds out this fact at the same time.  If the player fails, then the macguffin is not in the chest or there's some other bad consequence -- perhaps, the chest is locked tightly with magic, and impossible to open without violence, so they'll have to do something more drastic to get it open which risks what's inside (ie, the GM threatens worse harm and extends the situation). Here, what is at stake is the player's intent, not just their action.   This increases agency because the player now isn't just exploring someone else's ideas, but instead can add their own and see how they turn out.

Now, is the second way a better way to play because it has more agency?  Absolutely not, or, more precisely, each person should answer that for themselves.  My Blades in the Dark game, for instance, has way more agency than my 5e game, but I still run both because, while 5e has lower agency, it does have increased tactical minigames (char-op, combat, exploration, etc.) and I like those, too.  All in all, over the last 2 years, at least 2/3rd of our gaming has been 5e, with Blades grabbing such a large share due to being easier to organize and run during the pandemic.  So, more agency doesn't mean better, but it's hard to argue, without twisting into pretzels, that games that allow players more influence over the course of play don't feature more agency.  They may feature less fun for your table, though, so, by all means, maximize fun!  That's what should be the focus.  Discussion of agency is a way to better understand how your game works and what alternatives exist, that's all.  

And, for what it's worth, I was exactly in your shoes about 5-6 years ago.  Like, I made your arguments to @pemerton, and I thought he was a tad loony, too, what with all the obviously crazy talk about players getting to make things up.  Can't say why, though, but something was said in one of these discussions that made me pause, and then I realized there's a fundamental perspective shift necessary.  If you continue to evaluate these things with the lens of what you already know, you'll always be baffled by it.  If you, instead, start by saying, "okay, let's assume this works, how does it do that," you can make the intuitive leap and see the other side.  You might not like it -- @prabe has made a few steps and is a very worthy discussion partner, but he hasn't liked what he's seen so far, and that's fine -- great even.  I'd be disappointed if everyone agreed with me -- why have an internet without discussion?


----------



## Scott Christian

Bedrockgames said:


> Now, maybe you don't see it that way. That is fine. But to me agency is very much about how much freedom I have to explore the setting, not how much freedom I have to control the setting.



One could say you can control something and explore it. Depends on microcosms. 

There is no actual difference of having a group of players succeed on a roll and telling the GM there are hills to the north, and players succeeding on a roll and telling the GM they find a big enough bush to hide in. One is rarely done in RPG's. The other is done all the time.

But, the former needs some compliance from the GM if they have already established the terrain, drawn the maps, and set up the area with hints and clues, quests and dangers, treasure and NPC's. The latter, I have never seen a DM refuse so long as it is passes the "common sense" test, ie... in the middle of a sandy desert and hiding behind a bunch of oak trees.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I would argue that is another form of agency because it allows you to engage with the game in another way.




I don't see that as being agency. If you add another thing you can do to D&D, like I don't know, players can get XP by winning relay races with one another or something, that allows you to engage the game in another way but it doesn't add any agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I think at this point you've associated a partial side-comment with something about my point about stances, and they aren't particularly related.



Yes, this is what I've been saying for two posts.  Glad we agree


Thomas Shey said:


> My point regarding that was a default assumption that a character is at least largely motivated to some degree about self-preservation is kind of a reasonable baseline in any game where character death can be anything but an unusual rarity.



I think this is a poor default assumption.  The only way that you could consider this a default assumption is if you're also assume a low-agency game where players are often denied sufficient information until they've asked all the right questions or performed the right actions to learn enough that they can overcome the puzzle the GM has posed, usually in form of deadly dungeons.  This kind of play doesn't lend itself to deep characterization overly much.


Thomas Shey said:


> Notice my example included three options that are _all faithful._  They are all legitimate responses to an a decision in the context of the character.  My claim is that, barring perturbation by exterior events (or the player just being in an unusual headspace for any reason), an IC Stance player will chose the one that seems _most_ in-character for the character. An Actor Stance character may not, because he's also interested in the effect of his depiction, so within that range he may choose the less in-character (but still within its range one) that seems a more interesting depiction..



This is imputing more to the Actor stance that what is presented in either the short definition I quoted or the longer discussion that birthed that post.  There, actor stance is about evoking the character to the maximum amount when given a choice for that character.  You've added some choice where the actor changes the character to make a better performance, but that's not evidence by the concepts as presented.  In fact, that appears to be more Director stance -- changing the character to get a better performance outcome -- than actor stance, which is focused on faithfully portraying the character.


Thomas Shey said:


> Eh.  As it was developed in time, I think the distinction I'm making above is perfectly sound.  The IC (and especially Deep IC) proponents were big into the idea that taking outside concerns into consideration was either anathema (the Deep IC ones) or at least undesirable (the IC ones who weren't Deep IC).  Actor doesn't have some of the bigger picture elements that could be in play for Author or Director, but they still have concerns that cannot be described as entirely in-character/in-world in basis (and honestly, Audience always struck _me_ as the odd man out of the bunch, though as I've noted I always thoughts the lines between them were blurry anyway. That doesn't mean I don't think they're a useful framework to talk about where people draw the lines on how they chose to play a character (as was the concept of Token play, which seems to have fallen off the conceptual stage there, but that's what happens when concepts are evolved over a period.)



Again, actor, as discussed even by the author of the definition I posted above, clearly speak to Author stance as portraying the character faithfully when given a choice the character has made.  IC, fraught as it is as a concept, does the same.  There's not much daylight, here.  You seem to be implying a class of outside influences that affect Actor stance but not IC stance, but this seems like an attempt at separation by assertion rather than an development of concepts from actually noted influences.  Actor stance, as a concept, is too polluted by the source metaphor of the stage, and IC is just pure idealization.  And, I say this as someone that goes to lengths to be in character and think as my character does (which has lead to some surprising moments in games).  I disagree that there's some magical position from which play occurs that sets off my acting out my character from someone else acting out their character.  The only functional difference I see between this formulation of Actor stance and IC stance is where and how choices are made:  IC includes decision making while Actor expressly does not.  This absolutely tells me that they've mixed up "stances," such as they are, with decision making approaches.  And, so, we end up with trying to eke out a difference between acting out your character and acting out your character because we want to hang the decision making on one but not the other (because it messes with the stage analogy this all springs from).  It's a distinction without difference.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> The thing you're describing in the last paragraph has a name -- the Czege Principle -- which, as simply stated by it's author is, "When one person is the *author* of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun."  This is well known in the design circles that the games we're talking about come from, and is avoided.  So, your formulation isn't actually a thing that happens.



Good that the concept is recognised. The issue may be avoided for your satisfaction, but necessarily for mine.



Ovinomancer said:


> It's somewhat informative to look at a situation where the players are looking for a macguffin, for whatever reason you wish to imagine.  Through play, they find themselves in a room with a chest.  A player declares their going to open the chest to see if the macguffin is inside.  Here's were we can evaluate whether or not this involved more or less agency by way of approach.  In the traditional sense, the player searching the chest can only ever discover what the GM decides (in their notes or in the moment) is in the chest.  The act of search can discover information, but that information is determined by another player, by fiat. The GM has, at all times, the ultimate authority here, and can decide however they want what is in the chest regardless of the player's action declarations. There is agency here, but it's the agency to choose which parts of of the GM's choices you explore. Let's use my preferred assumption, here and in the next example, that everyone is playing in good faith so that we can avoid any diversions into Force or Illusionism or whatever.  Functionally, the player can only ever discover that which the GM has decided.
> 
> In the second method, the GM has as much idea as to what's in the chest as the player, which is to say very little.  The player has stated that they're searching the chest with the intent to find the macguffin.  The GM, in this approach, can agree -- the macguffin is in the chest after all -- and should do so if this isn't a very interesting question.  I think it is, and so the GM should challenge this action by submitting it to the mechanics of the system to determine what is in the chest.  The dice roll, and determine who gets to say what -- if the player succeeds, the macguffin is in the chest and everyone at the table finds out this fact at the same time.  If the player fails, then the macguffin is not in the chest or there's some other bad consequence -- perhaps, the chest is locked tightly with magic, and impossible to open without violence, so they'll have to do something more drastic to get it open which risks what's inside (ie, the GM threatens worse harm and extends the situation). Here, what is at stake is the player's intent, not just their action.   This increases agency because the player now isn't just exploring someone else's ideas, but instead can add their own and see how they turn out.



You have simply moved the decision from a GM to a randomiser. I don't see how the player's agency is improved at all. Furthermore, the latter would definitely feel to me like I had less agency (albeit it can be argued that this is somewhat illusory.) In the first case I explored clues in objective reality and based on that concluded where the macguffing was. If I would be correct, I would feel accomplished and if not, well, then then I obviously missed some clues or misinterpreted them and I can try to do better. My decisions mattered and I did something real (or at least it appeared so to me. It really doesn't matter what the GM did behind the curtains if I never know it.) In the latter case the reality does not appear real, it is generated by me rolling the dice, there was no correct answer to be found, it was just ad lib and RNG. Perhaps it could make a nice story, but I would feel that my actions really didn't matter.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I'm not really into this sort of metagaming.



Ditto; though it still informs play regardless, be it overtly or covertly.


pemerton said:


> I play my PC by inhabiting him/her; which means internalising as best I can, given I'm an amateur at this sort of thing, my character's self-conception, motivations and aspirations, understanding of his/her capabilities, etc.



Ditto.


pemerton said:


> This is one reason why my BW PC does not advance in ability as quickly as my GM's character does when he is a player. He has a very good wargamer's eye for making action declaration choice that will generate advancement opportunities. Whereas I'm not very good at that: rather than paying attention to that sort of thing, I do my best to focus on the situation through the "eyes" and emotions of my PC.



Nice!


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Gah! Meta-gaming!!!!! Run for your lives!
> 
> Honestly, this is one of my major gripes with D&D. The characters are meant to be bold and daring.....they face death down regularly. Yet the game may, depending on edition and approach, reward cautious play.
> 
> Talk about immersion breaking.



How so?

Adventuring is at its roots a get-rich-or-die-trying proposition.  The PCs are bold and daring in being willing to undertake it at all, but they'd also want to be at least somewhat cautious as to how they go about it in order to reduce the 'die-trying' odds and thus increase those for 'get-rich' - right?  Simple self-preservation and all that.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Scott Christian said:


> One could say you can control something and explore it. Depends on microcosms.
> 
> There is no actual difference of having a group of players succeed on a roll and telling the GM there are hills to the north, and players succeeding on a roll and telling the GM they find a big enough bush to hide in. One is rarely done in RPG's. The other is done all the time.
> 
> But, the former needs some compliance from the GM if they have already established the terrain, drawn the maps, and set up the area with hints and clues, quests and dangers, treasure and NPC's. The latter, I have never seen a DM refuse so long as it is passes the "common sense" test, ie... in the middle of a sandy desert and hiding behind a bunch of oak trees.




1) Exploration: I don' think this is untrue but I do think these produce very different types of play and experiences. Again, in Hillfolk, I was able to invent geography whole cloth in dialogue. There was a genuine sense of discovery in that, which I found immersive. So I am not saying you can't have that sort of feeling with a game or GMing approach where the players can shape setting details. But I do think that is different from one where the details of the world are being created by a source external to yourself.  That kind of exploration, to me, also has a sense of discovery to it, but it feels like a very different form of discovery to me. It also feels more like I am challenging the world, unlocking its secrets. 

2) Hiding behind a bush: I don't know about this one. I think a lot of groups would actually get their cues from the GM on that roll (ask to roll to see if there is anything to hide behind and then the GM tells them what is there on a success). However this is also one of those gray zones I mentioned before. A lot of players are going to naturally assume certain things are present based on what the GM said, so they will just say something like "I look for a bush to hide behind" or even "I hide behind a bush". But that is still entirely in the GMs power to decide if there is in fact a bush. And there is also a very big difference between a hill and a bush. A bush is far easier to hand wave. I wouldn't see the bush as setting a precedent for hills, towers and more. A lot of it I think arises out of efficiency and convenience of communication style than a conscious desire to shape the setting (the player naturally assumes a bush is present and is speaking as if that is so). 

3) Even if the GM hasn't established anything, he or she can always say "there are no bushes here". Some GMs always say yes to those kinds of things. Some don't (for a variety of reasons). But I think the general sense it can help create when the GM stops and thinks about whether or not there ought to be a bush there, is it adds to the sense of a world existing external to your character. 

And agin, I want to be clear here, I am not saying this is the only and best way to play. I am just saying there is this distinction, and particularly when it comes to things like players creating setting details, it really does seem to be the norm for that to either be left to the GM or for player created setting details to be part of  corner aspects of player


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.
> 
> What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?
> 
> If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?
> 
> In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.



That's because in real life you're combining the roles of both player and character and thus their knowledges are always exactly the same.

In the game, however, there's player knowledge and there's character knowledge; and ideally these should always be close to the same as possible.  Which means in this example if the PC's been established as knowing the region then the GM should have told the player ahead of time - at least in broad strokes - what that knowledge consists of.  And a range of hills to the north counts as a pretty broad stroke in my books, meaning that because the character knew about the hills before he was asked, so should have the player.


hawkeyefan said:


> If the player is allowed to say "Being familiar with the area, I know that there are hills to the north, and we can escape the swamps and the lizardmen there" (and I'd expect this declaration to be tied to a check of some kind, or other use of mechanics) isn't this a case of the player having more agency over the fiction?



In a negative sense, yes; if those hills had not previously been established somehow.

There's another conflict in terminology definition starting to rear its head here: does 'fiction' mean story or does 'fiction' mean setting?

For me, I generally support the idea of players having agency over the story as pertains to their PCs.  I want them to proactively do stuff and make me react.  I want them to tell me where they're going and what they'd like to do when they get there.

I do not support the idea of players having agency over the setting, nor over the story where it does not (at the moment) pertain to their PCs: those things are the purview of the GM, and while she's free to delegate this purview to players on occasion (e.g. the 1e stronghold rules, or allowing a player to write up their PC's home village) IMO she should never do so lightly and must always retain an absolute right of veto.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> These two sentences are in obvious contradiction!
> 
> What you call "declaring a hill exists" is what I call "remembering that a hill exists". Which is something my character does.
> 
> I prefer not to play all my characters as if they suffer from amnesia.



There'd be no worry about amnesia if the GM had simply told you-as-player the damn hills were there ahead of time such that your player-knowledge better lined up with that of your PC.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But my character has been there, or has heard about it. (I know that Houston is south of St Louis, though I've never been to either.)
> 
> I'm playing my character, not playing some sort of puzzle-solving metagame.



And I know that Canberra is roughly southeast of Perth, even though about 90% of the diameter of the planet is the closest I've been to either.

How do I know that?  Because I've looked at - wait for it - a map.

Your character's been to these places in the fiction, or heard about them, and this is best represented in the real world by - wait for it - the GM drwaing you a map, which you-as-player can then refer to and - as time goes on and you explore more of the setting - add to.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The dead Orc wouldn't have existed in the game, until the player declared that s/he attacks it with a mace.



Uh - it would have existed as a live Orc, wouldn't it?

There's a difference between changing an established part of the fiction (e.g. making a live Orc dead via application of sword, or causing a room to burn via application of fireball) and bringing something into existence that previously wasn't part of the fiction at all.

Your action declaration is _I swing at the Orc with my sword_. This presupposes you have 'sword' written on your character sheet as a carried item: you can't just have a sword appear from nowhere, nor an Orc to swing it at, just by declaring this action - both Orc and sword must first be established as being present in the fiction. I can't see this as being controversial in any way.

Well, same goes for the hills.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, this is what I've been saying for two posts.  Glad we agree
> 
> I think this is a poor default assumption.  The only way that you could consider this a default assumption is if you're also assume a low-agency game where players are often denied sufficient information until they've asked all the right questions or performed the right actions to learn enough that they can overcome the puzzle the GM has posed, usually in form of deadly dungeons.  This kind of play doesn't lend itself to deep characterization overly much.




I don't see how, honestly.  Whether players have the right information or not, there are plenty of games--I think I'd argue the majority--where simple misadventure can kill the incautious.  There's matters of degree of course, but outside of games with baked in genre conceits against player death (like superhero games), it harder to find mainstream RPGs where death isn't a risk than is.  You can have various metagame tools to mitigate it (various hero point and luck mechanics) but even those are usually dependent on a player taking some care with their character.  For example Savage World Bennies are designed so that you can buffer the risks involved, but its still not a game that rewards not paying some attention to your character's survival.



Ovinomancer said:


> This is imputing more to the Actor stance that what is presented in either the short definition I quoted or the longer discussion that birthed that post.  There, actor stance is about evoking the character to the maximum amount when given a choice for that character.  You've added some choice where the actor changes the character to make a better performance, but that's not evidence by the concepts as presented.  In fact, that appears to be more Director stance -- changing the character to get a better performance outcome -- than actor stance, which is focused on faithfully portraying the character.




No, I did not.  I've twice no pointed out _all the choices are character appropriate_. That all the player is doing is choosing the one most interesting to portray. If you're going to argue with my interpretation, at least respond to what I'm saying, not what you're hearing in your head.

All three choices are faithful to the character.  There is no "change" going on.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Good that the concept is recognised. The issue may be avoided for your satisfaction, but necessarily for mine.



Well, it doesn't happen at all, assuming good faith play, so I'm not sure how much less of it happening could be to your satisfaction.


Crimson Longinus said:


> You have simply moved the decision from a GM to a randomiser. I don't see how the player's agency is improved at all. Furthermore, the latter would definitely feel to me like I had less agency (albeit it can be argued that this is somewhat illusory.) In the first case *I explored clues in objective reality* and based on that concluded where the macguffing was. If I would be correct, I would feel accomplished and if not, well, then then I obviously missed some clues or misinterpreted them and I can try to do better. My decisions mattered and I did something real (or at least it appeared so to me. It really doesn't matter what the GM did behind the curtains if I never know it.) In the latter case the reality does not appear real, it is generated by me rolling the dice, there was no correct answer to be found, it was just ad lib and RNG. Perhaps it could make a nice story, but I would feel that my actions really didn't matter.



The GM in the first example could use a randomizer as well -- this isn't the issue, and I may have occluded things by mentioning mechanics.  The difference is that in the first example the player's agency is entirely limited to finding out what the GM thinks.  Don't get me wrong, this can be hella fun -- there's a few GMs out there I love to be entertained by.  But, if the only thing that can happen revolves entirely around what the GM thinks, then there's a limit on agency here.  Again, this is fine.

In the second example, the player has the ability to see that it's their intent that's at stake -- we find out if what the player wants is true, not the GM.  This is a major shift in what your choices can actually affect in the game, and comes with a concatenate increase in agency.  Now the player's choices are not constrained entirely by what the GM thinks! Mechanics aren't the issue (although they are part of the system that avoid the Czege Principle).  We haven't put anything off to the dice, we've agreed that we're playing around what the players choose to do instead of around what the GM thinks.

This is, as I say, does NOT make one game better than the other.  It's a differentiator that goes into an individual's evaluation.  Why would I not want to play a high agency game?  For one, they make increasingly weighty demands on the player.  If we've agreed that we're playing around what the player thinks, then the player has to do that and takes on a larger share of the burden for the game.  People might not like this, or, they think that it's more fun to explore the GM's thinking than their own contributions.  That's awesome!  Again, looking at games and evaluating agency isn't a final metric of better or worse, it's a data point that goes into your consideration of what you want out of the game (hopefully fun!).  Knowing more data points improves your decision making and understanding.  That's it.

Finally, I've bolded a statement above.  Can you show me where, in objective reality, I can find the listing of the contents of the chest in the example?  Heck, can you tell me where, in objective reality, the chest is?  We're talking about a game of make-believe.  What you're calling "objective reality" is really just whatever the GM imagined.  I think we can agree that the first example works entirely if the GM is running from a published module, or has extensive home-brew notes, or is winging it but maintaining authorial control.  Regardless, it's still what one person imagines.  GMs are not privileged to create "objective reality" over anyone else.  If the GM can imagine it, why can't the player do it instead?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I don't see how, honestly.  Whether players have the right information or not, there are plenty of games--I think I'd argue the majority--where simple misadventure can kill the incautious.  There's matters of degree of course, but outside of games with baked in genre conceits against player death (like superhero games), it harder to find mainstream RPGs where death isn't a risk than is.  You can have various metagame tools to mitigate it (various hero point and luck mechanics) but even those are usually dependent on a player taking some care with their character.  For example Savage World Bennies are designed so that you can buffer the risks involved, but its still not a game that rewards not paying some attention to your character's survival.



A few things, here.

Firstly, simple misadventure is not a thing.  In life we have accidents, but there are no accidents in any RPGs I'm aware of (there could be one that implements a mechanic to check for accidents, I suppose).  Instead RPGs are full of intent -- players choose actions with intent, and, in traditional games, GMs choose outcomes with intent.  Suggesting players should be careful playing characters because accidents could happen is obfuscating what is actually happening in games and the reasons why players choose to play how they do.

And, again, I absolutely reiterate that if a player is playing cautiously to keep their character safe from misadventure, then usually because they've been accustomed to a style of player where the GM is stingy with information until various actions to pry it loose are taken.  Again, I'll grant this is fairly common, but it's a mistake to assign this to a player preference when it's learned behavior.  I had the hardest time deprograming one of my players of this playstyle when I switched to providing information much more freely.  

Secondly, the focus on death as the primary consequence to avoid is a very narrow focus.  The worst things I've ever done to characters and the worst things ever done to mine didn't involve character death at all.  No amount of being careful around the deathtraps is likely to mitigate these kinds of harms because they stem from failure at larger resolution things, not lack of care in the moment.


Thomas Shey said:


> No, I did not.  I've twice no pointed out _all the choices are character appropriate_. That all the player is doing is choosing the one most interesting to portray. If you're going to argue with my interpretation, at least respond to what I'm saying, not what you're hearing in your head.
> 
> All three choices are faithful to the character.  There is no "change" going on.



You're right, I did, apologies.  I did because this, I find, is really hard to grasp.  You're effectively saying that, from the outside, there's zero indication of stance -- I couldn't tell an actor stance portrayal from either of the IC versions because all are faithful representations of the character.  Even internally, I think it would be hard to tell (if not impossible, see my continued disagreement with the foundations of IC stances) the difference -- you're imagining how the character would react to a thing and doing that.  I suppose the counter is that the actor is weighing various choices while the IC is doing it impulsively, but that's just saying that IC is the impulsive version of actor, not actually calling out a serious difference.  I mean, can I tell the difference between being conflicted over how to react to a thing in IC stance and being conflicted over how to react to a thing in actor stance?

These hairs are getting increasingly fine.  Rather than continue to split them, feel free to have the final word on the matter.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Uh - it would have existed as a live Orc, wouldn't it?



We are talking about _establishing a shared fiction_. The change in a fiction from _live Orc to dead Orc_ is no bigger or small; no greater or lesser; than the change from _dunno to what's north of the swamp, but given the swamp's not the edge of the world there must be some landforrms there_ to _what's north of the swamp is some hills_. It's just changing the shared fiction.

RPGing requires filling in details of the fiction, changing details of the fiction, adding to the fiction. That's what it is! (Typically. Sometimes it's a type of small unit wargame. But I haven't done that sort of RPGing for 30+ years, and I don't see it as very common among ENworlders.)

Another example: the PCs enter a town. A player asks _Are there any mules for sale?_ Until that moment the GM has not given this any thought (if you're the GM who always writes up the stables in towns, make it _duck eggs_ or _limestone_ or some other thing that doesn't appear on the key to your map). She can say _yes_. She can say _no_. She can make a roll. In some systems - eg Burning Wheel, Classic Traveller - she can call for a check.

I reckon that the mule example would barely raise an eyebrow at most D&D tables. And if you said, instead of the GM saying _yes _or _no_, we always call for a check unless it makes no sense at all, just like combat, I reckon some people might see that as a quirky option but I don't think it would cause any wild uprisings. It would just be an urban variant on foraging rules using Survival skill.

_Am I right to remember Evard's tower is around here_ is no different. The only reason I can see for the uprising is because (i) it contains a proper name ("Evard") and (ii) people think towers are somehow a bigger deal than mules (or food gathered in the wilderness).



Bedrockgames said:


> Those who value a more traditional exploration based approach, would not see it as such, because, to them, it is producing a less stable setting to explore and choices are not made against the backdrop of a world that feels objective and external (because they as players can assert things about the setting which would seem to undermine the weight of their choices).



I have no idea how it undermines the weight of my choice _to go to Evard's tower_ to first undertake the process of _recollecting the existence and location of Evard's tower_. Rather, the second seems like a precondition of the first.



Crimson Longinus said:


> If you get to define both the conditions, and the reaction to those conditions; define both the question and the answer; then, yes, in a sense you have more freedom. But I wouldn't say that you necessarily have more agency. Agency, at least in the context of a game, is making meaningful choices, and I feel that it is the limits that make the choices meaningful.



You are basically characterising RPGing here as solving puzzles (or perhaps in some context, especially combat ones, as solving optimisation problems), and the _meaningfulness_ consisting in doing that well.

Here are the Beliefs and Instincts with which Aramina commenced play:

Beliefs 
    I'm not going to _finish_ my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!                
    I don't need Thurgon's pity                
    If in doubt, burn it!          

Instincts 
    Never catch the glance or gaze of a stranger                
    Always wear my cloak                
    Always Assess before casting a spell                

Knowing the location of a wizard's tower, which might contain spellbooks, isn't _defining both the conditions and the reaction to those conditions. _It doesn't both ask and answer a question to any greater extent than rolling to hit both asks and answer the question _is the Orc dead yet_.

Knowing the location of a wizard's tower does allow meaningful choices to begin, though. Because we can now find out _what will happen to Aramina in her quest for spellbooks_.



hawkeyefan said:


> I took all that more as challenging the common assumptions. @pemerton is being a bit provocative perhaps, but it’s because he has something to say.
> 
> There are games that don’t see a distinction between the types of actions you’re talking about. So if that’s the case, then it’s true that there doesn’t _need_ to be such distinctions, and their existense and or use is solely a matter of preference.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Maximizing may not be the right choice. But a game that has the basic character control level of agency that you’re mentioning....I’m free to have my PC go where and do what I would like him to....and then also adds the ability fore as a player to shape the setting in some way....isn’t that adding to the amount of agency I have as a player?



The evidence that I am provocative is that some other posters seem provoked. I do my best to be mild-mannered in response to the provocative things they post!

There seems to be an assumption that the _Evard's tower_ action declaration "asks and answers" a question in a way that the _I attack the Orc _action declaration does not. I don't see what that assumption is grounded in, though. Playing Aramina, I want to be in the vicinity of Evard's tower. So I declare an action. Playing Thurgon, I want to be in the vicinity of a dead (rather than live) Orc, so I declare an action. Both express a player's desire for the contents of the shared fiction.

To characterise the difference cannot be done in terms of process, or abstract description of "narrative persepctives" vs <something else?>. I've repeatedly explained how and why these are in-character action declarations.

The difference has to be characterised in terms of _content_. It's OK for players to declare actions which have, as their outcome, _imagined changes to things that are already established as existing in the fiction_, but nothing beyond that. With the exception of Gather Information checks, Survival checks to forage, and the like. But those don't involve proper names and unique locations. As far as I can tell _that_ is what causes so much outrage about the _Evard's tower _example. Proper names and unique locations are - it is supposed - the GM's prerogative.

A coda, by the way: in a framework in which only the GM can establish unique locations and/or proper names, I'm not free to have my PC go where I would like him/her to. If I want him/her to go to a wizard's tower to look for spellbooks, I can't do that if the GM doesn't establish any within my PC's scope of access. Exercising this sort of control over elements of the shared fiction is a pretty common way, in my opinion and experience, of constraining player agency.

Of course, if the GM is prepared to take suggestions then player agency is restored. But now we're back with my _mules_ example above: the difference between taking suggestions, and putting it under a mechanical umbrella, is not nothing but (in my view) hardly warrants the difference between wild uprising and placid acceptance.


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> I don't think it's particularly wrong to assert that "traditional"/map&key/exploration style play is the community understood baseline for play.  And it's certainly long-established.



In this thread I've noted on departure from it that dates from 1977: Classic Traveller Streetwise checks.

AD&D Oriental Adventures had two departures from it in the Yakuza class: a proto-Gather Information mechanic, and a proto-Circles mechanic.

3E made Gather Information mainstream. I think D&D has dropped Circles, though.

It's not a coincidence that we see these departures from map & key resolution in the context of urban scenarios (Streetwise, Gather Information, yakuza having contacts, and the like): the mechanics are attempt to handle the obvious fact that a character who has local knowledge and standing should know stuff and people, and that there are at least two gameplay reasons why all that needs to be knowable independently of GM mediation via second-person narration:

(1) There's too much of it to make GM second-person narration feasible;

(2) GM second-person narration means that, in effect, the GM starts playing solitaire - which is simply not a viable outcome of having a thief/thug/rogue/yakuza-type PC in the game.



Lanefan said:


> And I know that Canberra is roughly southeast of Perth, even though about 90% of the diameter of the planet is the closest I've been to either.
> 
> How do I know that?  Because I've looked at - wait for it - a map.
> 
> Your character's been to these places in the fiction, or heard about them, and this is best represented in the real world by - wait for it - the GM drwaing you a map, which you-as-player can then refer to and - as time goes on and you explore more of the setting - add to.



The idea that, before playing someone who knows the city, or the lands roundabout, or whatever it might be - eg the Grey Mouser, or Aragorn, or any of the Hobbits in the Shire, or Eomer in Rohan - I am going to wait for the GM to tell me everything that my PC does or might know, is just utterly infeasible, for the reasons given.

As I already posted upthread, the map-and-key approach to resolution begins from the assumption that the PCs are strangers to the place in question. It falls apart as soon as that assumption is abandoned.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I agree there are people happy to play railroads and some agency can exist in one. I don't agree that it is a spectrum with railroads on one end and games with mechanics allowing players to shape the setting on the other end (for the reasons I have already stated)




I wasn’t saying that the those are the ends of the spectrum, just that there was a spectrum and that those things likely influence where a particular game may fall on that spectrum. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I don't see that as being agency. If you add another thing you can do to D&D, like I don't know, players can get XP by winning relay races with one another or something, that allows you to engage the game in another way but it doesn't add any agency.




I mean....as a player of Excite Bike you can choose to play the existing tracks, or you can design your own to play. Or your buddy can design one for you to play. 

Aren’t these meaningful choices for a player? In so much as anything is meaningful when playing Excite Bike? 



Bedrockgames said:


> I wouldn't say I have more agency though. I would say I have more game options. But my concern with agency is about what I can do in that world. This would especially be the case if the track creation element were done so that it was live during play. If I could change the layout of the city for example as I was driving, I would actually consider that counter to my agency




Sure, I think that any such creative ability would have to be balanced in some way. Again, I don’t think anyone is saying players should have carte blanche over the fiction. 

To drop the video game analogy, what about mechanics like Hero Points or Fate Points or the like? These are player based resources more so than character resources, and they’re often used to sway the fiction of the game. They’re also a limited resource.


----------



## Campbell

We can talk about techniques until we are blue in the face, but if our principles are not locked in vagaries of technique are meaningless. Are players prepared to play genuine protagonists with compelling dramatic goals like they are driving stolen cars? Are GMs prepared to provide honest adversity? At the end of the day what matters most when it comes a player's ability to make decisions that have an impact on the fiction is a shared commitment that we are playing to find out what happens. Everything else is window dressing.

I would be more than happy to address questions of play techniques once we are on the same page about the goals of play, but until then it is all empty posturing. Either we are committed to following the fiction or we want to guide it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to play a more guided experience, but we should be able to talk about that openly without shame.

These days I am far less interested in playing these word games. I am not super interested in philosophical underpinnings of agency. Taking the conversation there misses the point which is how do we play games where the actions players take for their characters produce meaningful change in the fiction. Let's talk about that.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> How so?
> 
> Adventuring is at its roots a get-rich-or-die-trying proposition.  The PCs are bold and daring in being willing to undertake it at all, but they'd also want to be at least somewhat cautious as to how they go about it in order to reduce the 'die-trying' odds and thus increase those for 'get-rich' - right?  Simple self-preservation and all that.




I prefer bold and daring to mean bold and daring. 

Not bold and daring when there’s little risk and then cautious and timid when there is risk. 

Just a preference, though. 



Lanefan said:


> That's because in real life you're combining the roles of both player and character and thus their knowledges are always exactly the same.




I’m not sure what this means. You sound here like player and character knowledge being in alignment is a bad thing, but then you go on to say they should always be as close to one another as possible.

Is a player in your game free to decide background elements for their character? Can they decide what their character knows in some way? Must all of this flow from the GM? 



Lanefan said:


> In the game, however, there's player knowledge and there's character knowledge;




Wha? My character will be interested to learn all that I know. I’ll make it his top priority! 



Lanefan said:


> and ideally these should always be close to the same as possible.  Which means in this example if the PC's been established as knowing the region then the GM should have told the player ahead of time - at least in broad strokes - what that knowledge consists of.  And a range of hills to the north counts as a pretty broad stroke in my books, meaning that because the character knew about the hills before he was asked, so should have the player.




This seems pretty much impossible. Sure, something like hills being north of the swamp is an individual thing that may or may not be addressed before play in some sense. But there’s simply no way to establish everything a character knows prior to play. Therefore, some of it will have to be established through play. 

Some prefer mechanics in their games that allow for this that goes beyond mere “ask the GM”.



Lanefan said:


> In a negative sense, yes; if those hills had not previously been established somehow.
> There's another conflict in terminology definition starting to rear its head here: does 'fiction' mean story or does 'fiction' mean setting?




A RPG is a conversation where the participants create a shared fiction. I don’t like to use “story” because it kind of implies a set sequence of fictional events. 

Setting is an element of the fiction. 



Lanefan said:


> For me, I generally support the idea of players having agency over the story as pertains to their PCs.  I want them to proactively do stuff and make me react.  I want them to tell me where they're going and what they'd like to do when they get there.




I’m cool with all this, and it’s largely how I approach my games (though not always). 



Lanefan said:


> I do not support the idea of players having agency over the setting, nor over the story where it does not (at the moment) pertain to their PCs: those things are the purview of the GM, and while she's free to delegate this purview to players on occasion (e.g. the 1e stronghold rules, or allowing a player to write up their PC's home village) IMO she should never do so lightly and must always retain an absolute right of veto.




Okay so there’s a few things here that jump out at me. 

First, thank you for acknowledging that this is a level of agency that you don’t allow. 

Second, what story is there that doesn’t involve the PCs? 

Third, setting aside the question of agency, what would be so bad if the player decided there are hills to the north? I mean, if the GM decides there are hills to the north, that’s fine, but if a player does, it’s awful. Why? 

Can’t the PCs go adventuring in the hills either way? What would be disrupted by this?


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> We can talk about techniques until we are blue in the face, but if our principles are not locked in vagaries of technique are meaningless.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would be more than happy to address questions of play techniques once we are on the same page about the goals of play, but until then it is all empty posturing.



Techniques have to be informed by principles if they are to be more than just shibboleths (= empty posturing?).

This is why I think the endurance of "map and key" resolution is in many ways a relic. Because the technique lingers on although the principles that gave it meaning - ie that the GM is locked in, and that the players can "win" by working with the information obtained from having their PCs move through the mapped architecture or terrain - have largely been abandoned.



Campbell said:


> Are players prepared to play genuine protagonists with compelling dramatic goals like they are driving stolen cars? Are GMs prepared to provide honest adversity? At the end of the day what matters most when it comes a player's ability to make decisions that have an impact on the fiction is a shared commitment that we are playing to find out what happens. Everything else is window dressing.
> 
> Either we are committed to following the fiction or we want to guide it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to play a more guided experience, but we should be able to talk about that openly without shame.



You're setting a high bar here!

I don't know if my play measures up. As a player I get close to my characters; as a GM I'm tender-hearted. (Moreso, I think, than my BW GM. He can be pretty brutal!)

In my most recent BW session, the climax was my (ie Thurgon's) meeting with my mother, Xanthippe. In the real life of the session, this followed the ultimately unsuccessful encounter with Rufus. In the fiction, it took place after we had crossed the borders of Auxol and come back to my ancestral home. Here's what happened next:



pemerton said:


> The GM narrated the estate still being worked, but looking somewhat run-down compared to Thurgon's memories of it. An old, bowed woman greeted us - Xanthippe, looking much more than her 61 years. She welcomed Thurgon back, but chided him for having been away. And asked him not to leave again. The GM was getting ready to force a Duel of Wits on the point - ie that Thurgon should not leave again - when I tried a different approach. I'd already made a point of Thurgon having his arms on clear display as he rode through the countryside and the estate; now he raised his mace and shield to the heavens, and called on the Lord of Battle to bring strength back to his mother so that Auxol might be restored to its former greatness. This was a prayer for a Minor Miracle, obstacle 5. Thurgon has Faith 5 and I burned his last point of Persona to take it to 6 dice (the significance of this being that, without 1 Persona, you can't stop the effect of a mortal wound should one be suffered). With 6s being open-ended (ie auto-rolls), the expected success rate is 3/5, so that's 3.6 successes there. And I had a Fate point to reroll one failure, for an overall expected 4-ish successes. Against an obstacle of 5.
> 
> As it turned out, I finished up with 7 successes. So a beam of light shot down from the sky, and Xanthippe straightened up and greeted Thurgon again, but this time with vigour and readiness to restore Auxol. The GM accepted my proposition that this played out Thurgon's Belief that _Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!_ (earning a Persona point). His new Belief is _Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol_. He picked up a second Persona point for Embodiment ("Your roleplay (a performance or a decision) captures the mood of the table and drives the story onward").
> 
> Turning back to Aramina, I decided that this made an impact on her too: up until now she had been cynical and slightly bitter, but now she was genuinely inspired and determined: instead of _never meeting the gaze of a stranger_, her Instinct is to _look strangers in the eyes and Assess_. And rather than _I don't need Thurgon's pity_, her Belief is _Thurgon and I will liberate Auxol_. This earned a Persona point for Mouldbreaker ("If a situation brings your Beliefs, Instincts and Traits into conflict with a decision your PC must make, you play out your inner turmoil as you dramatically play against a Belief in a believable and engaging manner").
> 
> We finished the session there



I don't know what the GM would have done if that check had failed. But I'm glad I didn't have to find out!


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The idea that, before playing someone who knows the city, or the lands roundabout, or whatever it might be - eg the Grey Mouser, or Aragorn, or any of the Hobbits in the Shire, or Eomer in Rohan - I am going to wait for the GM to tell me everything that my PC does or might know, is just utterly infeasible, for the reasons given.



Those all used pre-established settings so much of the GM's work there is already done.  You-as-player might have some reading to do, but that's it.

But even were Middle Earth a homebrew setting, is it infeasible for the GM to provide your Hobbit with a map of the Shire?  Or Eomer with a map of Rohan and surrounds?  Or Aragorn with a map of...well, lots of places? 

Maps can provide a huge amounf of information all at once, and infer a great deal more.


pemerton said:


> As I already posted upthread, the map-and-key approach to resolution begins from the assumption that the PCs are strangers to the place in question.



Only if the players aren't given some info up front such that their PCs' knowledge better agrees with their own.

Before starting my current campaign I made sure I had half-decent maps ready of a) the realm the PCs would be starting in (in some detail), b) maps of surrounding realms and areas, and c) a broad-brush overview map of about half the continent i.e. about as far as a typical educated PC would be likely to know of.

As the campaign's gone on and PCs have expanded their horizons through travel, I've provided maps of the new areas (often because the first thing the PCs do when reaching a new area is try in-character to procure a map somehow).


pemerton said:


> It falls apart as soon as that assumption is abandoned.



At some point I'll be putting this to the test, as is happens: chances are good that the next campaign I start (whenever that may be) will in fact start with the PCs waking up one morning with no idea where they are and no memories other than their own (but not each other's) names.  My idea with this one would be to run a harder-line but much shorter (10 adventures?) story path than I usually do (with player buy-in up front, of course), and eventually as the campaign goes along the reason they were at their starting point and how they got there should become apparent.

And this whole idea came from a suggestion from a non-gamer friend over beers one night!


----------



## Lanefan

Second try on this - computer died halfway through the first try...


hawkeyefan said:


> I prefer bold and daring to mean bold and daring.
> 
> Not bold and daring when there’s little risk and then cautious and timid when there is risk.



In real life some people have dangerous jobs, and could be considered bold and daring just for doing those jobs each day.

That doesn't mean those people aren't going to use every safety mechanism they have in order to reduce their risk, does it?


hawkeyefan said:


> I’m not sure what this means. You sound here like player and character knowledge being in alignment is a bad thing, but then you go on to say they should always be as close to one another as possible.



If I said it's bad I mis-spoke; it's always good.


hawkeyefan said:


> Is a player in your game free to decide background elements for their character?



Much of this - hometown, family make-up, etc. - is done by random roll; not everyone worries about it until-unless their character looks like it's going to last a while.  After this, players are free to string those randomly-generated elements together however they like, subject to veto (which I'd usually only do in cases of abuse or in cases where what the player is doing clashes with something already established).


hawkeyefan said:


> Can they decide what their character knows in some way? Must all of this flow from the GM?



Depends what it is they want the character to know, and the context.  When faced with some sticky problem in the field I don't want someone just deciding they know the answer; but if it's been established ahead of time that the PC has this knowledge then cool - run with it.  If there's doubt, we roll; and if the player doesn't have the info then I'm forced to give it.

All info as regards setting flows from me at some point unless I've given permission otherwise.  If you-as-player want to write up all the details about your home village that otherwise hasn't entered play yet, chances are I'm not gonna stop ya. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Wha? My character will be interested to learn all that I know. I’ll make it his top priority!



The knowledge gap causes problems in either direction.  If the player knows more than the PC (e.g. the old fire-v-trolls debate) then metagame headaches arise.  If the character knows more than the player then the player can't properly role-play the character or make truly informed decisions for it.  Thus, keeping player knowledge of the fiction and character knowledge of the fiction in close alignment is beneficial.  It'll never be perfect, but that doesn't make the attempt worthless.


hawkeyefan said:


> This seems pretty much impossible. Sure, something like hills being north of the swamp is an individual thing that may or may not be addressed before play in some sense. But there’s simply no way to establish everything a character knows prior to play. Therefore, some of it will have to be established through play.



Agreed, though broad-stroke things like the placement of ranges of hills (that are close enough for the PCs to see if they just look that way!) really should be given ahead of time - particularly to the player of the PC who specifically has local knowledge.

Question: would you allow local-knowledge-guy to tell you what monsters live in those hills as well? (in other words, can the players set their own enemies?)


hawkeyefan said:


> Some prefer mechanics in their games that allow for this that goes beyond mere “ask the GM”.



Thing is, once you move from "ask the GM" to "tell the GM" you're into collaborative storytelling - which, as I've said before, is fine as long as it's recognized as such.


hawkeyefan said:


> A RPG is a conversation where the participants create a shared fiction. I don’t like to use “story” because it kind of implies a set sequence of fictional events.



You're always going to end up with a set sequence of fictional events!  It's called the game log. 

As for the participants creating a shared fiction, I see it that one participant is responsible for creating the scenery and backdrop and then all of them including that one are responsible for creating the story (or sequence of events) that happens within it.


hawkeyefan said:


> Okay so there’s a few things here that jump out at me.
> 
> First, thank you for acknowledging that this is a level of agency that you don’t allow.
> 
> Second, what story is there that doesn’t involve the PCs?



Story that happens elsewhere that may or may not affect the PCs either at the time or later; or story that affects a different group of PCs (in a multi-party campaign); or story that led to the situation being what it is now i.e. history.

Hypothetical example using my current setting: I might have a line in my pre-campaign setting notes saying a dormant volcano about 40 miles west of Praetos City is going to erupt on Auril 30 1085.  The campaign starts in mid-1082; I-as-DM have no idea in hell what they'll be doing or where they'll be on Auril 30 1085 or even if the campaign will go that long.  They might be a thousand miles away, in which case the eruption might never affect them at all.  But if for some reason they happen to be wandering around west of Praetos at the time they're in for a world o' trouble.  Is this sort of thing bad campaign design?  I don't think so.

Another actual example from my campaign: a party found a way to access a city that sank beneath the sea 1000 years ago (actually 1082 years; the sinking started the current calendar!), and found sort-of people still living there.  On returning to the surface they presented this means of access (a device called The Way) to the current head of the ruling council of the city whose population is mostly made up of descendents of survivors of the sinking.  Much celebration ensued.  Party moved on to other things.

A year later they return to that city, but unknown to them things haven't been static while they were gone.  The head of that ruling council took advantage of all the euphoria over The Way's discovery to quietly, quickly, and with no small amount of luck bump off all the other council members and declare herself Empress.  She's still pleased with the PCs who brought her The Way, along with their associates, meaning the PCs now find themselves with a friend in the highest of places.  Is this sort of ongoing backstory bad campaign design?  I don't think so.


hawkeyefan said:


> Third, setting aside the question of agency, what would be so bad if the player decided there are hills to the north? I mean, if the GM decides there are hills to the north, that’s fine, but if a player does, it’s awful. Why?



If the GM decides there's hills to the north ahead of time and appropriately works this in to the players' up-front knowledge, it's great.

If either the GM or the players decide on the spot that there's hills to the north yet a PC in-character already knew they were there it's a long way from great.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is why I think the endurance of "map and key" resolution is in many ways a relic. Because the technique lingers on although the principles that gave it meaning - ie that the GM is locked in, and that the players can "win" by working with the information obtained from having their PCs move through the mapped architecture or terrain - have largely been abandoned.



While this might be the case among the cadre of people with whom you play, I disagree that those principles "have largely been abandoned" by the gaming mainstream.


pemerton said:


> You're setting a high bar here!



Glad I'm not the only one who thought this! 

I personally play some of my characters like stolen cars (they're usually the one-hit wonders), while playing others to be the ones who steal the damn car and then sell it for whatever they can get, and - rarely - one or two who might be the cops chasing the car thief down. 

But I try to avoid angst-style drama if I can.  I much prefer either tragedy or comedy.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> 3E made Gather Information mainstream. I think D&D has dropped Circles, though.




I know for me, these kinds of Skills introduced a lot of issues for me as a player when 3E first came out. It wasn't like it was a deal breaker or anything, but skills like gather information, bluff, were aspects of the game I found irritating


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Aren’t these meaningful choices for a player? In so much as anything is meaningful when playing Excite Bike?




Not in terms of agency. They are great options to have available and enhance the game a lot. But they don't enhance my agency during play....they just give me another thing I can do. I just don't see how building an excite bike track, fun as it is, is a matter of my agency


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> *This seems pretty much impossible.* Sure, something like hills being north of the swamp is an individual thing that may or may not be addressed before play in some sense. But there’s simply no way to establish everything a character knows prior to play. Therefore, some of it will have to be established through play.



This is one reason why even why solid chunks of the OSR community kinda rejects the idea that they can be separated. It's also at odds with skilled player play. And it is also one reason why some OSR-inspired games simply dump mental stats like Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma because it again goes against skilled player play.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Well, it doesn't happen at all, assuming good faith play, so I'm not sure how much less of it happening could be to your satisfaction.




Considering that in example you wrote to demonstrate that it doesn't happen, it totally happened, I'm not convinced...



Ovinomancer said:


> The GM in the first example could use a randomizer as well -- this isn't the issue, and I may have occluded things by mentioning mechanics.  The difference is that in the first example the player's agency is entirely limited to finding out what the GM thinks.  Don't get me wrong, this can be hella fun -- there's a few GMs out there I love to be entertained by.  But, if the only thing that can happen revolves entirely around what the GM thinks, then there's a limit on agency here.  Again, this is fine.
> 
> In the second example, the player has the ability to see that it's their intent that's at stake -- we find out if what the player wants is true, not the GM.  This is a major shift in what your choices can actually affect in the game, and comes with a concatenate increase in agency.  Now the player's choices are not constrained entirely by what the GM thinks! Mechanics aren't the issue (although they are part of the system that avoid the Czege Principle).  We haven't put anything off to the dice, we've agreed that we're playing around what the players choose to do instead of around what the GM thinks.
> 
> This is, as I say, does NOT make one game better than the other.  It's a differentiator that goes into an individual's evaluation.  Why would I not want to play a high agency game?  For one, they make increasingly weighty demands on the player.  If we've agreed that we're playing around what the player thinks, then the player has to do that and takes on a larger share of the burden for the game.  People might not like this, or, they think that it's more fun to explore the GM's thinking than their own contributions.  That's awesome!  Again, looking at games and evaluating agency isn't a final metric of better or worse, it's a data point that goes into your consideration of what you want out of the game (hopefully fun!).  Knowing more data points improves your decision making and understanding.  That's it.
> 
> Finally, I've bolded a statement above.  Can you show me where, in objective reality, I can find the listing of the contents of the chest in the example?  Heck, can you tell me where, in objective reality, the chest is?  We're talking about a game of make-believe.  What you're calling "objective reality" is really just whatever the GM imagined.  I think we can agree that the first example works entirely if the GM is running from a published module, or has extensive home-brew notes, or is winging it but maintaining authorial control.  Regardless, it's still what one person imagines.  GMs are not privileged to create "objective reality" over anyone else.  If the GM can imagine it, why can't the player do it instead?



You don't need to explain to me what's happening here. I understand what's happening, I just feel differently than you about the outcome. Of course I understand the reality of the game isn't really real. I said that the distinction is partly illusory, but that illusion of reality matters to some of us great deal. When the players can shape the game reality, the illusion of it being objective shatters. You might not care about that, some people care about it a lot. And pertinent to this discussion, it matters to how they feel about their choices. To me the reality of the game world not feeling objective also means that the choices I make against that reality feel less meaningful.

And this is BTW why this discussion is going nowhere. Some people treat agency as objectively quantifiable thing. It is not. It is the player's ability to make meaningful choices in the game; and what feels meaningful to each individual is subjective, thus agency is subjective. I said like page one of this thread (or thereabouts) that if the players feel that they have enough agency, they have enough agency, and a lot of people protested. But I stand by that. It is the only measure of agency that actually matters.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Considering that in example you wrote to demonstrate that it doesn't happen, it totally happened, I'm not convinced...



Where?  The player didn't create the room the chest was in, nor the chest that might contain the macguffin.  Their intent to find the macguffin in the chest is tested, and most likely involves complication rather than success.  This is not the player inventing everything, it's the player declaring an action and the testing to see what happens when they do.  The problem I think you see is that the player can achieve a goal that isn't written by the GM in some way.  Given the below, this seems very clear.


Crimson Longinus said:


> You don't need to explain to me what's happening here. I understand what's happening, I just feel differently than you about the outcome. Of course I understand the reality of the game isn't really real. I said that the distinction is partly illusory, but that illusion of reality matters to some of us great deal. When the players can shape the game reality, the illusion of it being objective shatters. You might not care about that, some people care about it a lot. And pertinent to this discussion, it matters to how they feel about their choices. To me the reality of the game world not feeling objective also means that the choices I make against that reality feel less meaningful.



So long as we agree that you're fooling yourself into thinking there's a reality here and what's really happening is that the GM is telling you what happens according to their thinking.  And, that's fine, some GM's deliver amazingly entertaining stories.  However, if this is the case -- if your enjoyment rests upon the GM having full narrative control and spinning it out in a way that creates an illusion of a world for you -- then your accepting that your ability to make meaningful choices is entirely constrained by the GM.  If the GM retains the final ability to say no, then you don't have any authority to enforce the meaningfulness of your choices.  This is what is meant by lower agency -- your ability to make meaningful choices is contained within the GM's authority.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And this is BTW why this discussion is going nowhere. Some people treat agency as objectively quantifiable thing. It is not. It is the player's ability to make meaningful choices in the game; and what feels meaningful to each individual is subjective, thus agency is subjective. I said like page one of this thread (or thereabouts) that if the players feel that they have enough agency, they have enough agency, and a lot of people protested. But I stand by that. It is the only measure of agency that actually matters.



I don't see anyone quantifying agency -- where are the measurements?!  Instead, we're looking at things and saying that in this case your ability to make meaningful choices is only when the GM allows it and in the other we're saying that such is not the case.  This isn't an objective quantification, it's a relative comparison without quantification.  It's the same way I can't measure love but can say that there's more love in a family than between despised enemies (barring juxtaposition).

It's absolutely fine to enjoy GM led play -- it is, by far, the dominate form of RPG play by market share, number of players, etc.  There's nothing wrong with it.  What I find distressing is that when confronted with an alternative method that increasing one aspect of play which a player might find enjoyable there's a refusal to accept that different methods have different results.  In the case of agency, there are methods of play that increase it and methods that decrease it (again, assuming good faith play, there are clearly bad faith ways to reduce agency in any system).  This doesn't make one better than the other -- better is a ridiculous concept outside of personal enjoyment.  For instance, you find traditional play better than @pemerton does, but that doesn't make traditional play strictly better.  We should be able to look at our own play and analyze it without rancor or defensiveness.  I run 5e and enjoy it while simultaneously accepting that it's a lower agency game than the PbtA family.  That's not a problem, and I'm not quantifying agency to say this -- I can look and see it's true!  Just like I can say that there's more love between a mother and child than between fans of Highlander and Highlander 2 (I know, fictional example).


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> A few things, here.
> 
> Firstly, simple misadventure is not a thing.  In life we have accidents, but there are no accidents in any RPGs I'm aware of (there could be one that implements a mechanic to check for accidents, I suppose).  Instead RPGs are full of intent -- players choose actions with intent, and, in traditional games, GMs choose outcomes with intent.  Suggesting players should be careful playing characters because accidents could happen is obfuscating what is actually happening in games and the reasons why players choose to play how they do.




You're using "misadventure" significantly more narrowly than I am.  I'm including things where there's obvious danger, but where the expected result is not, in fact, death.

As an example, we have Savage Worlds.  Savage Worlds has a lot of tools for making your character more likely to win a fight or climb a cliff face, and yet more to make it unlikely you'll get killed if it fails to one degree or another.

It also, however, has baked into the rules open ended die results.  As such the attack you expected to deal with can end up connecting even though your defense was such that it was a low incidence event (in fact, required the open-ended dice to happen even to occur) or where the fall from the (unlikely) failed climb roll ends up lethal because the dice that expected to at worst injure you mildly blew up and did so.

Other games may express these other things in other ways--critical hits, fumbled climb rolls or whatever.

As such it pays for players in a large number of games to at least _limit_ the number of such situations because the law of large numbers and probability are not their friends.



Ovinomancer said:


> And, again, I absolutely reiterate that if a player is playing cautiously to keep their character safe from misadventure, then usually because they've been accustomed to a style of player where the GM is stingy with information until various actions to pry it loose are taken.  Again, I'll grant this is fairly common, but it's a mistake to assign this to a player preference when it's learned behavior.  I had the hardest time deprograming one of my players of this playstyle when I switched to providing information much more freely.




I don't think distinguishing between "preference" and "learned behavior" is especially useful in the cases I'm talking about.  In most cases the risks I'm referring to are quite clear to anyone who looks at the situation and the game mechanics.



Ovinomancer said:


> Secondly, the focus on death as the primary consequence to avoid is a very narrow focus.  The worst things I've ever done to characters and the worst things ever done to mine didn't involve character death at all.  No amount of being careful around the deathtraps is likely to mitigate these kinds of harms because they stem from failure at larger resolution things, not lack of care in the moment.




That's all very nice, but in practical terms, most players want to _keep playing their character_. There are exceptions of course (people who like trying out new characters regularly). While even for such players there can be, effectively, "fates worth than death", death still cuts off any further exploration of their character (barring resurrection at least, and that's not much of a thing beyond the D&D-sphere). If your character gets killed because of unnecessary risks, his/her story is done. As such, I think some degree of avoidance there is going to exist as long as someone is playing in a game system where that's a non-trivial risk, and outside of some types of story games and the aforementioned games that actively discourage it, that's a rather large number of games.



Ovinomancer said:


> You're right, I did, apologies.  I did because this, I find, is really hard to grasp.  You're effectively saying that, from the outside, there's zero indication of stance -- I couldn't tell an actor stance portrayal from either of the IC versions because all are faithful representations of the character.




I expect over time you'd notice the difference because of internal preference.  Within those faithful representations of the character, the Actor will tend to more consistently choose certain choices from their performative impact where the IC player won't (and may actively avoid them depending on their own natural tendencies).  You might, indeed, take a while to do so--but then, I've said before that I consider on the spectrum of Author/Actor/IC at least, the lines are very blurry.



Ovinomancer said:


> Even internally, I think it would be hard to tell (if not impossible, see my continued disagreement with the foundations of IC stances) the difference -- you're imagining how the character would react to a thing and doing that.  I suppose the counter is that the actor is weighing various choices while the IC is doing it impulsively, but that's just saying that IC is the impulsive version of actor, not actually calling out a serious difference.  I mean, can I tell the difference between being conflicted over how to react to a thing in IC stance and being conflicted over how to react to a thing in actor stance?




In absolute terms?  No.  Its possible for either to chose the same choice on occasion.  But in tendency, as I said, I think its possible.



Ovinomancer said:


> These hairs are getting increasingly fine.  Rather than continue to split them, feel free to have the final word on the matter.




I believe when it comes to this topic I've indicated I thought they quite were at least four links back in this conversation.  Objecting because of something I've acknowledged early on seems a bit much.


----------



## Aldarc

Ovinomancer said:


> What I find distressing is that when confronted with an alternative method that increasing one aspect of play which a player might find enjoyable there's a refusal to accept that different methods have different results.



Likewise. This, IMHO, is a huge part of the underlying frustration for some of us. 

What's also somewhat silly, IMO, is that a lot of this discussion is incredibly white room and detached from actual experience. To what extent would people know or care about their criticisms of non-traditional games in actual play? A lot of this involves no actual firsthand knowledge or experience with non-traditional play. So for people who have experience with non-traditional games, a number of posters sound kinda ridiculous (much like Satanic Panic Parents talking about D&D) when talking about agency and the like in non-traditional/non-mainstream games. Some people do have experience with non-traditional games, and they may not like it, but I at least respect their actual game experience and knowledge. 

I think that it says a lot about the person when they assume that players would try to break or win the game if they had the sort of agency that exists in these non-traditional games. It either reflects a negative view of players or how they themselves would approach the game. But if that were the case, then why are these games not being broken or won by said player agency? I suspect from my own experience that the amount of "cheating" when it comes to non-traditional games is probably STATISTICALLY LESS than in traditional games. But because it's a problem in traditional games, people assume that it must be a problem in non-traditional ones or take the same form as in traditional games.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Bedrockgames said:


> I know for me, these kinds of Skills introduced a lot of issues for me as a player when 3E first came out. It wasn't like it was a deal breaker or anything, but skills like gather information, bluff, were aspects of the game I found irritating




There's a non-trivial bifurcation in the hobby between people for whom certain sorts of activities are walled of as the player decision/gameplay element, and those for whom it can legitimately be approached (at least in part) with mechanics and in-character traits.  There's not much bridge to cross there because it turns heavily on how much importance one places on certain elements (and, in my overly trite way of sometimes putting it, whether you place more emphasis on the first or second word in "role playing").


----------



## zarionofarabel

So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.

What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?


----------



## Thomas Shey

zarionofarabel said:


> So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.
> 
> What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?




I'd hesitate to answer that, because as several others have said, its pretty clear the definitions of "agency" in this thread vary, sometimes wildly.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Second try on this - computer died halfway through the first try...
> 
> In real life some people have dangerous jobs, and could be considered bold and daring just for doing those jobs each day.
> 
> That doesn't mean those people aren't going to use every safety mechanism they have in order to reduce their risk, does it?




I'm not playing real life. I'm playing a game. 

I'm not saying that PCs should be suicidal. I'm saying I don't enjoy when they become overly cautious. They're brave as could be when the risk is minimal....wading into a horde of orcs because they know they have the HP to spare, but then grinding to a halt because a door in a dungeon may have a trap, and suddenly we're debating for a half hour what to do.

It's something that happens from time to time and which I find incredibly frustrating. It happened in my 5E campaign when I decided to run Tomb of Annihilation. My bold and daring PCs became tentative, overly cautious duds.



Lanefan said:


> If I said it's bad I mis-spoke; it's always good.
> 
> Much of this - hometown, family make-up, etc. - is done by random roll; not everyone worries about it until-unless their character looks like it's going to last a while.  After this, players are free to string those randomly-generated elements together however they like, subject to veto (which I'd usually only do in cases of abuse or in cases where what the player is doing clashes with something already established).




Okay. So this aspect of gaming isn't as important to you and your group. The idea that a player may have a somewhat specific idea for the kind of character they want to play, and the kind of things they may want to see come up in play. That's not something your group worries about. That's fine. 

Other groups do. I know we've discussed this in the past.....you don't want PCs to be the stars of the show, to be "special snowflakes" and for the events of the game to revolve around them. 

I actually think it's essential to play with high agency.



Lanefan said:


> Depends what it is they want the character to know, and the context.  When faced with some sticky problem in the field I don't want someone just deciding they know the answer; but if it's been established ahead of time that the PC has this knowledge then cool - run with it.  If there's doubt, we roll; and if the player doesn't have the info then I'm forced to give it.
> 
> All info as regards setting flows from me at some point unless I've given permission otherwise.  If you-as-player want to write up all the details about your home village that otherwise hasn't entered play yet, chances are I'm not gonna stop ya.




So let's say your PCs run into some nefarious organization......they know that this group is operating in the city, but not exactly what they're up to or why. Do you allow the players any kind of attempt at a knowledge check or similar to see if their character knows anything about the organization? 

If so, and the check succeeds and it's determined that the PC knows something about this group, how is the impact of this (the character suddenly knowing something that they had not previously seemed to know) any different than if another game let's the player decide it through some other mechanic? In both cases, the character did not seem to know something, and then suddenly does! 

It's not really an issue because there was never any reason for it to come up until the relevant thing appears, whether it's a nefarious organization, or hills to the north.




Lanefan said:


> The knowledge gap causes problems in either direction.  If the player knows more than the PC (e.g. the old fire-v-trolls debate) then metagame headaches arise.  If the character knows more than the player then the player can't properly role-play the character or make truly informed decisions for it.  Thus, keeping player knowledge of the fiction and character knowledge of the fiction in close alignment is beneficial.  It'll never be perfect, but that doesn't make the attempt worthless.




These are only headaches if you let them be headaches. 

What the character knows is entirely made up. It can be whatever we like it to be, per the rules and methods of the game. However, to look at it as you're describing it, the character would "know" an unfathomable amount more about their life and their world than the player can possibly imagine. If that prevented us from role-playing or from making informed decisions, then there would be no role-playing. 

In my opinion, it's better to accept this fact and then craft the game with this in mind, rather than trying to craft the game to somehow try and fight that fact.



Lanefan said:


> Agreed, though broad-stroke things like the placement of ranges of hills (that are close enough for the PCs to see if they just look that way!) really should be given ahead of time - particularly to the player of the PC who specifically has local knowledge.
> 
> Question: would you allow local-knowledge-guy to tell you what monsters live in those hills as well? (in other words, can the players set their own enemies?)




That's a good question. I'm thinking of some Powered by the Apocalypse games I know where such an action would have a roll, and then based on the result of the roll, the player can either determine X number of facts about a place, or can force the GM to reveal X number of truths about the place. 

So yes, it's possible that under such a rule system, the player could have a say in what kinds of foes they may face. I don't think I'd limit it to just what the player had determined. 

But then, a the same time, you have to kind of ask yourself why as a GM, when a player literally tells you what he'd like to see happen in the game, you'd decide to do something else. I think this is a big part of the gulf between our views.....



Lanefan said:


> Thing is, once you move from "ask the GM" to "tell the GM" you're into collaborative storytelling - which, as I've said before, is fine as long as it's recognized as such.




If "tell the GM" is collaborative storytelling, then "ask the GM" is solo storytelling by the GM. 

Neither is true, and both are a mis-categorization of the approach.



Lanefan said:


> You're always going to end up with a set sequence of fictional events!  It's called the game log.




End up with, is the key phrase here. You've used "story" to describe things that have yet to happen. This is why I prefer to use fiction. But this just seems to be a matter of preference. 



Lanefan said:


> As for the participants creating a shared fiction, I see it that one participant is responsible for creating the scenery and backdrop and then all of them including that one are responsible for creating the story (or sequence of events) that happens within it.
> 
> Story that happens elsewhere that may or may not affect the PCs either at the time or later; or story that affects a different group of PCs (in a multi-party campaign); or story that led to the situation being what it is now i.e. history.




I think of that more as backstory. It may be relevant....it may be very relevant.....but it's not the story that we are telling when we play. That story is the story of the PCs. 

Much like all the stuff about Sauron and Morgoth and all that Silmarillion stuff is backstory, but Lord of the Rings is the story of Frodo and his journey to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. 

Again, I think this is really just our preferred terms. I see many GMs use the phrase story when they have a very adventure path type game in mind, where A happens and B happens and then C, and so on. It's already set prior to play.



Lanefan said:


> Hypothetical example using my current setting: I might have a line in my pre-campaign setting notes saying a dormant volcano about 40 miles west of Praetos City is going to erupt on Auril 30 1085.  The campaign starts in mid-1082; I-as-DM have no idea in hell what they'll be doing or where they'll be on Auril 30 1085 or even if the campaign will go that long.  They might be a thousand miles away, in which case the eruption might never affect them at all.  But if for some reason they happen to be wandering around west of Praetos at the time they're in for a world o' trouble.  Is this sort of thing bad campaign design?  I don't think so.




Why would you care about this at all ahead of time? Seriously, have it erupt or not in some manner that may be relevant to the PCs. But deciding ahead of time that it will erupt on such and such a date regardless of what meaning it may have for the game.....that's not a story.



Lanefan said:


> Another actual example from my campaign: a party found a way to access a city that sank beneath the sea 1000 years ago (actually 1082 years; the sinking started the current calendar!), and found sort-of people still living there.  On returning to the surface they presented this means of access (a device called The Way) to the current head of the ruling council of the city whose population is mostly made up of descendents of survivors of the sinking.  Much celebration ensued.  Party moved on to other things.
> 
> A year later they return to that city, but unknown to them things haven't been static while they were gone.  The head of that ruling council took advantage of all the euphoria over The Way's discovery to quietly, quickly, and with no small amount of luck bump off all the other council members and declare herself Empress.  She's still pleased with the PCs who brought her The Way, along with their associates, meaning the PCs now find themselves with a friend in the highest of places.  Is this sort of ongoing backstory bad campaign design?  I don't think so.




No, that's fine! When it comes to agency, I think it matters quite a bit how all this stuff comes up and why the GM decides to structure things as he has. None of it is bad, by any means. 

It seems like this is the GM taking existing details of the fiction, and then crafting a situation that may challenge the PCs. That's pretty much what the GM's job should be.



Lanefan said:


> If the GM decides there's hills to the north ahead of time and appropriately works this in to the players' up-front knowledge, it's great.
> 
> If either the GM or the players decide on the spot that there's hills to the north yet a PC in-character already knew they were there it's a long way from great.




You're just repeating what you already said. I know your preference. I'm asking why is it a long way from great?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Aldarc said:


> This is one reason why even why solid chunks of the OSR community kinda rejects the idea that they can be separated. It's also at odds with skilled player play. And it is also one reason why some OSR-inspired games simply dump mental stats like Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma because it again goes against skilled player play.




Yeah, absolutely! 

When play revolves around player skill, having mental stats for characters seems a bit questionable. Really, they were just indicators of bonuses for certain actions or interactions, which were all based on the idea of delving into dungeons. So Charisma was entirely about interactions with henchmen and hirelings, not about trying to lie to a NPC. Your Intelligence score was about bonus spells or bonuses against illusions and so on. 

But when it came time to figuring out how to navigate through the dungeon, the common expectation is that the player would use their own ability to solve problems and come up with ideas. There were, I'm certain, exceptions where even in the early days you had a player say "Torag stands there dumbfounded because his INT is a 6" or similar.

When the focus of the game shifted, these things shifted accordingly.


----------



## chaochou

zarionofarabel said:


> So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.
> 
> What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?




In no particular order I would look at:

Sorcerer, by Adept Press.
Apocalypse World, by Lumpley Games - the original _Powered by the Apocalypse_ game, and still probably the most vibrantly conceived and written. The Veil and Urban Shadows are other quality examples.
Blades in the Dark - a sort of second generation PbtA
Either Burning Wheel or Torchbearer from Burning Wheel HQ


----------



## PsyzhranV2

zarionofarabel said:


> So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.
> 
> What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?



Never mind design principles and techniques; just going by the whole "GM vs player" argument that's been going on for several hundred posts, I feel that by definition, the answer to the above would be "GMless games". Fiasco, Dialect, Dream Askew, The Quiet Year, For the Queen, Beak Feather and Bone, Ironsworn in co-op mode, etc. I'll also mention solo games, such as Thousand Year Old Vampire, as something worth consideration, if just for the experimental value (hey, it didn't win all those Ennies for nothing).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Aldarc said:


> Likewise. This, IMHO, is a huge part of the underlying frustration for some of us.
> 
> What's also somewhat silly, IMO, is that a lot of this discussion is incredibly white room and detached from actual experience. To what extent would people know or care about their criticisms of non-traditional games in actual play? A lot of this involves no actual firsthand knowledge or experience with non-traditional play. So for people who have experience with non-traditional games, a number of posters sound kinda ridiculous (much like Satanic Panic Parents talking about D&D) when talking about agency and the like in non-traditional/non-mainstream games. Some people do have experience with non-traditional games, and they may not like it, but I at least respect their actual game experience and knowledge.
> 
> I think that it says a lot about the person when they assume that players would try to break or win the game if they had the sort of agency that exists in these non-traditional games. It either reflects a negative view of players or how they themselves would approach the game. But if that were the case, then why are these games not being broken or won by said player agency? I suspect from my own experience that the amount of "cheating" when it comes to non-traditional games is probably STATISTICALLY LESS than in traditional games. But because it's a problem in traditional games, people assume that it must be a problem in non-traditional ones or take the same form as in traditional games.




This ties into your point about skilled play. 

That mode of play cultivated the idea that you should angle for any and all advantage in order to overcome the obstacles your character faced. This mindset has kind of carried forward in one form or another through the successive editions. But it doesn't always make sense to have that mindset. For some games, sure.....but if skilled play of the old school dungeon delving sort is not the point of play, the further you move from that mode of play, then always hedging for advantage becomes increasingly pointless.


----------



## hawkeyefan

zarionofarabel said:


> So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.
> 
> What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?




Ha this is a gas on the fire kind of question. 

I'm sure that the answers will vary quite a bit. I have my ideas about what I'd place near the top. But I also know my experience with games isn't really broad enough to give a complete answer. 

I can say, of the games I've recently GMed, that I'd rank it as below, highest player agency to lowest:


Blades in the Dark
D&D 5e
Alien RPG (played in cinematic mode)

Blades is very much an open world for the PCs to explore and interact with as they will, and which is also designed to be specifically about their characters and their crew. 

D&D involves a lot more GM control of the fiction, but my approach attempts to mitigate that a bit, and give more power to the players to determine what happens in play. 

Alien had a very specific scenario that the PCs had to engage with. We even used pre-gen characters with built in motivations.


----------



## Thomas Shey

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Never mind design principles and techniques; just going by the whole "GM vs player" argument that's been going on for several hundred posts, I feel that by definition, the answer to the above would be "GMless games".




Though not one I think I agree with, I think that's an entirely defensible argument.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> Alien RPG (played in cinematic mode)




I've argued earlier in this thread (or perhaps in its twin over on the RPGPub) that traditional horror is all about screwing with a person's sense of agency.  They're virtually at odds.


----------



## GrahamWills

Aldarc said:


> I think that it says a lot about the person when they assume that players would try to break or win the game if they had the sort of agency that exists in these non-traditional games. It either reflects a negative view of players or how they themselves would approach the game. But if that were the case, then why are these games not being broken or won by said player agency? I suspect from my own experience that the amount of "cheating" when it comes to non-traditional games is probably STATISTICALLY LESS than in traditional games. But because it's a problem in traditional games, people assume that it must be a problem in non-traditional ones or take the same form as in traditional games.



This is a great insight, Aldarc. I thought a bit about my experience with different game systems, and yes, it rings true. I then started wandering if the difference was due to difference in players versus the system itself. I'm leaning to the latter, because I play a range of systems including Fate and D&D4E with the same people so have some data points there.

Also, thinking of the way I play, the I play D&D4E I am thinking more about "winning the encounter" than I am when playing Fate. In the latter I feel much more excited when I fail as I'm pretty sure it'll lead to something interesting -- or more precisely, I have enough agency that I can dictate the terms of failure so that it _becomes_ interesting. In D&D4E the consequences of failure in a scene are typically well-defined and not subject to influence -- and also typically boring -- so if I had some method of breaking an encounter -- I have to admit I might be tempted to use it; much more so than in Fate.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Though not one I think I agree with, I think that's an entirely defensible argument.




It certainly is. I tend to think of GMless games as another category of game....and for some of them, the distinction seems obvious. But then you have something like Ironsworn where you can play co-op or solo, and yet it still recognizably functions like a RPG.....and then the distinction becomes far less clear. 



Thomas Shey said:


> I've argued earlier in this thread (or perhaps in its twin over on the RPGPub) that traditional horror is all about screwing with a person's sense of agency.  They're virtually at odds.




That's a good way of looking at it, I think, if we think of agency as empowerment. Horror is absolutely related to not having control......to outside forces having their way with you. A good way to emulate that feeling is to limit what a player can do.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I've argued earlier in this thread (or perhaps in its twin over on the RPGPub) that traditional horror is all about screwing with a person's sense of agency.  They're virtually at odds.



You did make that claim as a follow up to a point that traditional Call of Cthulhu is low agency (and I agree it is).  I'm not seeing the general argument -- in fact, I think it's the system that trad CoC uses that mostly restricts agency.  The Alien RPG, from what I've read (I should buy it, honestly, just don't know when I'd get to play it), uses the Year Zero engine, which definitely runs more towards the play to find out side of the street that any of the traditional systems.  I don't see how horror, as a genre, would necessarily restrict agency.  I've run horror in my Blades game very recently (Duskvol is, after all, the Haunted City).  Zombies that stutter step through space and time, malevolent elemental entities, ghostly possessions, kidnappings of ghosts(!), creepy doomsday cults, and the ever-present oppression of constant night.  This is part of the Blades milieu.  Not every game focuses on these elements, and I didn't intend to, but that's where play went due to player actions.

So, tl;dr, I don't think there's anything endemic to horror that requires attacking agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> You did make that claim as a follow up to a point that traditional Call of Cthulhu is low agency (and I agree it is).  I'm not seeing the general argument -- in fact, I think it's the system that trad CoC uses that mostly restricts agency.  The Alien RPG, from what I've read (I should buy it, honestly, just don't know when I'd get to play it), uses the Year Zero engine, which definitely runs more towards the play to find out side of the street that any of the traditional systems.  I don't see how horror, as a genre, would necessarily restrict agency.  I've run horror in my Blades game very recently (Duskvol is, after all, the Haunted City).  Zombies that stutter step through space and time, malevolent elemental entities, ghostly possessions, kidnappings of ghosts(!), creepy doomsday cults, and the ever-present oppression of constant night.  This is part of the Blades milieu.  Not every game focuses on these elements, and I didn't intend to, but that's where play went due to player actions.
> 
> So, tl;dr, I don't think there's anything endemic to horror that requires attacking agency.




I can see the relation here, as I posted in reply to Thomas above. 

I think that Blades in the Dark is not really a horror game. Yes, it has horror elements for sure, and you can ramp that up or down to have moments of horror in the game. But I don't think it as a game is actively trying to depict a horror story. 

The inevitability of the end, the fact that our efforts ultimately don't matter....that's what horror is about. The guy in the hockey mask is going to get you, the universe is filled with mysteries that don't care about you and will either consume you or drive you mad if you even glimpse them. 

I can see the correlation to removal of agency in that regard, for sure. 

But about the Year Zero engine....I don't think that this rules system itself is about limiting agency. I've played other games that use it (Tales From the Loop being the big one) and it definitely had a more play to find out mentality. 

I don't think that in the case of Alien the restriction of agency is a product of the system so much as the setting, and the mode of play. We were playing in "Cinematic Mode" which is about having a one shot type game where there is a specific scenario, the PCs are expected to take part in it, and when that scenario ends, play is over. We used pre-generated characters with built in motivations that shifted a bit from Act to Act, with three Acts in total. 

There's agency in that the players are free to decide how they go about addressing the scenario, and how much they play to the built in motivation (they're rewarded for using it, but not punished if they ignored it). So it's still a fun and engaging game.....I'd recommend you pick it up if you're at all a fan of the Alien films. And I expect that Campaign play would be much more open and allow for more agency on the part of the players.....but I haven't yet played a Campaign game, so that's just a guess based on what I've read.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> You did make that claim as a follow up to a point that traditional Call of Cthulhu is low agency (and I agree it is).  I'm not seeing the general argument -- in fact, I think it's the system that trad CoC uses that mostly restricts agency.  The Alien RPG, from what I've read (I should buy it, honestly, just don't know when I'd get to play it), uses the Year Zero engine, which definitely runs more towards the play to find out side of the street that any of the traditional systems.  I don't see how horror, as a genre, would necessarily restrict agency.  I've run horror in my Blades game very recently (Duskvol is, after all, the Haunted City).  Zombies that stutter step through space and time, malevolent elemental entities, ghostly possessions, kidnappings of ghosts(!), creepy doomsday cults, and the ever-present oppression of constant night.  This is part of the Blades milieu.  Not every game focuses on these elements, and I didn't intend to, but that's where play went due to player actions.
> 
> So, tl;dr, I don't think there's anything endemic to horror that requires attacking agency.




See Hawkeyefan's post above yours.  I think almost all horror (almost because you have the genre of action-horror, which I think lands in a different space) is  about things beyond your control, possibly beyond even your understanding in some cases, and still trying to find a way to engage with it.  That loss of control (and thus agency) is a big part of what makes horror, horror.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> But about the Year Zero engine....I don't think that this rules system itself is about limiting agency. I've played other games that use it (Tales From the Loop being the big one) and it definitely had a more play to find out mentality.




Yeah.  You can absolutely have dedicated engines that constrain agency in one way or another (the common one being "fear checks" and the like) but you don't have to have a dedicated engine to do that.  It can be done entirely with the limits of the PCs, the traits of the opposition, the constraints of the starting situation, and how things are framed.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that in the case of Alien the restriction of agency is a product of the system so much as the setting, and the mode of play. We were playing in "Cinematic Mode" which is about having a one shot type game where there is a specific scenario, the PCs are expected to take part in it, and when that scenario ends, play is over. We used pre-generated characters with built in motivations that shifted a bit from Act to Act, with three Acts in total.
> 
> There's agency in that the players are free to decide how they go about addressing the scenario, and how much they play to the built in motivation (they're rewarded for using it, but not punished if they ignored it). So it's still a fun and engaging game.....I'd recommend you pick it up if you're at all a fan of the Alien films. And I expect that Campaign play would be much more open and allow for more agency on the part of the players.....but I haven't yet played a Campaign game, so that's just a guess based on what I've read.




Yeah, you don't have to completely rob characters of agency for a horror game--but almost all that are actually trying for a horror effect (rather than some other genre with horror trappings or limited elements) will sharply limit how much that agency actually means when the rubber meets the road.  This is most visible with cosmic horror, but its present even with things as mundane as most slasher-movie opponents.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> See Hawkeyefan's post above yours.  I think almost all horror (almost because you have the genre of action-horror, which I think lands in a different space) is  about things beyond your control, possibly beyond even your understanding in some cases, and still trying to find a way to engage with it.  That loss of control (and thus agency) is a big part of what makes horror, horror.



Fictional elements existing beyond your control doesn't automatically affect agency.  What's affecting agency here is the choice of a conclusion that is hard coded.  This isn't necessary for a horror story, although it's the default for many traditional games.  Many horror stories end with the protagonist surviving or having temporarily escaped or defeated the enemy -- lots of CoC games can end with the players "victorious," although that's not set in stone.

No, I still haven't seen a strong argument that horror requires loss of agency, just that the familiar versions of it do.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I know for me, these kinds of Skills introduced a lot of issues for me as a player when 3E first came out. It wasn't like it was a deal breaker or anything, but skills like gather information, bluff, were aspects of the game I found irritating



Gather Information was introduced way before 3E. It was part of the yakuza class in OA. Likewise Circles (called contacts).

But I don't remember anyone writing letters to the Dragon Magazine Forum back then saying that the sea had turned orange!

(And of course Classic Traveller had a Streetwise skill back in 1977, and as I've already shown upthread it contemplates a higher degree of player agency than OA or 3E. But I've never seen it argued that Classic Traveller was any departure from "tradition".)


----------



## Thomas Shey

You know, Ovinomancer, I've concluded that our conversations are functionally useless; we spend all our time disagreeing about both premise and conclusion, and it means all we're doing is demonstrating "we disagree."  At least in this thread, I think I'm done responding to you.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Of course I understand the reality of the game isn't really real. I said that the distinction is partly illusory, but that illusion of reality matters to some of us great deal. When the players can shape the game reality, the illusion of it being objective shatters. You might not care about that, some people care about it a lot.



You're very cavalier about attributing mental states to other RPGers.

I can tell you that _being able to have memories and knowledge, as a character_ does not shatter any "illusion of reality" when I play a RPG. It reinforces my experience of my PC indeed being Great Maters-wise. It reinforces my sense of my PC not suffering amnesia. It reinforces my sense that my PC, in having resolved that _I'm not going to "finish* my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!_, is rationally oriented towards the world about her, rather than mad or quixotic in her aspirations.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Gather Information was introduced way before 3E. It was part of the yakuza class in OA. Likewise Circles (called contacts).
> 
> But I don't remember anyone writing letters to the Dragon Magazine Forum back then saying that the sea had turned orange!
> 
> (And of course Classic Traveller had a Streetwise skill back in 1977, and as I've already shown upthread it contemplates a higher degree of player agency than OA or 3E. But I've never seen it argued that Classic Traveller was any departure from "tradition".)




Pemerton I know that. I have OA and have run both the 1E and 3E OA. But it wasn't core to the game. Prior to that, you had NWPs, and in the PHB the NWPs tended to be very non-intrusive (for example Etiquette was basically a knowledge skill, it specifically said it didn't replace roleplaying). You seem to be stuck on this idea, that if it existed in some similar form before, then it won't be a problem when it becomes a bigger part of the game. I don't know why you find it so hard to accept other peoples experiences and preferences as being real things. 

Look, here is what I will say about this. When 3E came out, I happily played it.  But something bothered me about it. And I wasn't sure what it was. I just knew the game felt different (and I used to grumble about it at sessions). It wasn't the end of the world, but I just felt less enthusiasm for 3E sessions than I did for our 2E sessions in the 90s. And over time it became clear to me a lot of it was how the skills functioned in the game. And many times it wasn't even how the skills were written in the book, it was how they tended to actually be used at the tables I played at. I played 3E for its entire run, this wasn't a deal breaker for me, it was just me starting to realize I had a style that wasn't necessarily in line with WOTC style D&D. And that became clear to me when I started running 2E Ravenloft campaigns (after a series of 3E ravenloft campaigns) and things instantly felt like they had before. I just found once you took out things like gather information and bluff, players interacted with the setting more and dialogue went back to how we used to speak at the table.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> You're very cavalier about attributing mental states to other RPGers.




Can you please quit it with this. He isn't saying anything about your mental state. He is talking about his own and other players in the game. At this point you just seem to be arguing for the sake of fighting


----------



## Campbell

Having the rules of game be binding on GM exists independently of player side dramatic editing mechanisms. Some indie games have dramatic editing and some do not. Some fairly traditional games like Mutants and Masterminds and Numenera have dramatic editing mechanics. Apocalypse World, Dogs in the Vineyard, and Sorcerer lack any kind of player authority over scene framing while having mechanics with teeth that constrain the GM's narration of events.

I just do not get conflating the two. I personally prefer games where the rules have teeth, but framing remains solely in the GM's purview.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Thomas Shey said:


> There's a non-trivial bifurcation in the hobby between people for whom certain sorts of activities are walled of as the player decision/gameplay element, and those for whom it can legitimately be approached (at least in part) with mechanics and in-character traits.  There's not much bridge to cross there because it turns heavily on how much importance one places on certain elements (and, in my overly trite way of sometimes putting it, whether you place more emphasis on the first or second word in "role playing").




True but I still happily played 3E. I learned a lot about what I didn't like with that edition, but I played it. And I think it is very easy to encounter a frustration in a game, ask what the cause of that frustration is, then build a whole system of thought or a playstyle preference to avoid that cause. And I think that leads to overly extreme attitudes in playstyle (I know because I was locked in a "everything always has to be in character mindset". To Pemerton's point, many mechanics like this did exist earlier in the game to different degrees (and in the hobby in other RPG: and I grew up in a time when you just played lots of different RPGs, even D&D was the one you played most often because of its popularity). Also ones analysis of the 'cause' of frustration can be wrong, or slightly off. And all that can lead to a  throw the baby out with the bathwater approach to play. This is just my way of saying, I think what really matters is whether you like a specific instance of something. I wasn't particularly thrilled with Gather information and other social skills as they tended to be used in 3E. Removing them, largely fixed any issue I had (and being willing to pick up older editions of the game and play those, also fixed this problem). But I think building an idea around avoiding all instances of gather information like mechanics would, and was, misguided. To use an analogy, I wasn't into the powers system in 4E, especially for martial classes. But Barbarians used to be able to rage several times a day, and that didn't bother me. I think a lot of these things when they intrude lightly, won't bother most people. It is only when they become the heart of play that it can impact a playstyle you might be accustomed to (and perhaps a style of play you are not even aware you are engaging in)


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> You know, Ovinomancer, I've concluded that our conversations are functionally useless; we spend all our time disagreeing about both premise and conclusion, and it means all we're doing is demonstrating "we disagree."  At least in this thread, I think I'm done responding to you.



I kinda agree -- you tend to assert a conclusion and then arrange the premise to fit.  Here it's that horror requires loss of agency, and the premise is traditional games where the outcome is a forgone conclusion.  It's begging the question.  Horror does not require the outcome to be forgone.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> To drop the video game analogy, what about mechanics like Hero Points or Fate Points or the like? These are player based resources more so than character resources, and they’re often used to sway the fiction of the game. They’re also a limited resource.




I play games like Savage Worlds which have Bennies. I think the light nature of savage worlds makes these not be such a big deal to me. But overall, I am not super into hero points and fate points. However, I am not even sure it is about in or out of character stuff, I just don't like players spending points to avoid death and things like that. I would much rather the system be built so the death level functions appropriately to the setting or genre without the use of such points. But some people like these things. I don't have a particularly strong view on them as they aren't something I would ever actively complain about at the table.

In terms of agency. I don't know. I don't think they add or take away from it really. They also have a variety of uses so maybe you gave me an example of what you had in mind, I might be able to weigh in better.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> I can see the relation here, as I posted in reply to Thomas above.
> 
> I think that Blades in the Dark is not really a horror game. Yes, it has horror elements for sure, and you can ramp that up or down to have moments of horror in the game. But I don't think it as a game is actively trying to depict a horror story.



I dunno, have you re-read the setting lately, or the GM principle to portray the haunted nature of the city?   Sure, Blades can easily focus on the heist and the action can drown out the horror, but I think trying a cult crew might really explore the horror of the setting.  I certainly think Blades is far more into the horror envelope than, say, Ravenloft.


hawkeyefan said:


> The inevitability of the end, the fact that our efforts ultimately don't matter....that's what horror is about. The guy in the hockey mask is going to get you, the universe is filled with mysteries that don't care about you and will either consume you or drive you mad if you even glimpse them.
> 
> I can see the correlation to removal of agency in that regard, for sure.



And here I'll reiterate my comments to @Thomas Shey -- I think this is only true for the subset of horror that involves forgone conclusions.  I think that agency can be impacted by horror -- really any theme can impact agency -- but I don't think it's required.  I can easily see a horror game played in a play to find out what happens way without a foreclosed outcome.


hawkeyefan said:


> But about the Year Zero engine....I don't think that this rules system itself is about limiting agency. I've played other games that use it (Tales From the Loop being the big one) and it definitely had a more play to find out mentality.
> 
> I don't think that in the case of Alien the restriction of agency is a product of the system so much as the setting, and the mode of play. We were playing in "Cinematic Mode" which is about having a one shot type game where there is a specific scenario, the PCs are expected to take part in it, and when that scenario ends, play is over. We used pre-generated characters with built in motivations that shifted a bit from Act to Act, with three Acts in total.
> 
> There's agency in that the players are free to decide how they go about addressing the scenario, and how much they play to the built in motivation (they're rewarded for using it, but not punished if they ignored it). So it's still a fun and engaging game.....I'd recommend you pick it up if you're at all a fan of the Alien films. And I expect that Campaign play would be much more open and allow for more agency on the part of the players.....but I haven't yet played a Campaign game, so that's just a guess based on what I've read.



Yeah, from what I've seen the Cinematic version does put a number of constraints on the scenario, but I'd have to own the book to evaluate the impacts to agency.  Having a specific scenario, to me, doesn't impact agency -- it's like framing, where the shape of the fiction is formed and then players make meaningful choices.  So long as the outcome isn't defined, and there aren't forced plot points throughout (note that introducing a complication that the PCs can engage isn't a forced plot point), then I don't see much impacting agency here.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> There's a non-trivial bifurcation in the hobby between people for whom certain sorts of activities are walled of as the player decision/gameplay element, and those for whom it can legitimately be approached (at least in part) with mechanics and in-character traits.  There's not much bridge to cross there because it turns heavily on how much importance one places on certain elements (and, in my overly trite way of sometimes putting it, whether you place more emphasis on the first or second word in "role playing").





Aldarc said:


> a lot of this discussion is incredibly white room and detached from actual experience. To what extent would people know or care about their criticisms of non-traditional games in actual play? A lot of this involves no actual firsthand knowledge or experience with non-traditional play. So for people who have experience with non-traditional games, a number of posters sound kinda ridiculous
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think that it says a lot about the person when they assume that players would try to break or win the game if they had the sort of agency that exists in these non-traditional games. It either reflects a negative view of players or how they themselves would approach the game. But if that were the case, then why are these games not being broken or won by said player agency?





hawkeyefan said:


> when it came time to figuring out how to navigate through the dungeon, the common expectation is that the player would use their own ability to solve problems and come up with ideas. There were, I'm certain, exceptions where even in the early days you had a player say "Torag stands there dumbfounded because his INT is a 6" or similar.



"Traditional" often seems to be used to mean _what was regarded as canonical c 1990_ ie when the trends of the 1980s had fully crystallised as _the _dominant way to approach RPGing. It's a superficially descriptive word that gets wielded as a normative weapon.

It's absolutely correct that - in (say) AD&D played in the way Gyagx describes at the end of his PBH - figuring out how to navigate the dungeon was something to be done by the player. But around the same time (copyright date of 1980) we have the Traveller modules Annic Nova and Shadows (which together make up Double Adventure 1), which have elements of the GM narration gated behind PC mental stats. Here's an instance, from p 16 of Shadows:

Beneath the panels are a series of eight pie shaped compartments. . . . Number 3 contains a set of twelve grippies - small clamp-tools of strange form and design. Intelligence of B+ [=11+] will see that they can be used to create foot and hand holds on the knobby cable . . .​
The instance I've just quoted is particularly striking, but there are other examples. Eg, on the same page we have this:

The walls of the chamber are covered with a large array of bar dials . . . Careful search (throw 9+; DM +1 per person with education above 9) will show that the instruments and controls are divided into three basic groups . . .​
Now I don't know what was going through Marc Miller's mind when he wrote these up, but think about the implications:

* If this establishes a norm for RPGing, then - in comparison - a player in a Gygaxian game who _just works things out via his/her own inference from the GM's description_ is adopting "narrative stance" with respect to his/her PC's knowledge and intellectual ability;

* If this is how RPGing is meant to work, _how dependent are the players on the GM telling them what their PCs conceive as possible_?

* If you are going to manage exploration of the setting by the PCs in this sort of way, _where is player agency going to manifest? _(Not in PC build to ensure sufficient INT or EDU - PC build in this system is by random generation.)

I'm in a position to quote these bits of Classic Traveller minutiae because I'm currently running a campaign in the system, and on Sunday just passed ran a session using (an adaptation of) Shadows. This phase of the campaign follows on immediately from our play of (an adaptation of) Annic Nova. I don't know how those modules played out for their original players. To me they seem like they would have been incredibly boring GM narration-fests, but maybe I'm missing something or maybe those at whom they were aimed had quite different tastes from me. Maybe some of those original players ignored the bits I've quoted (and the others like them) and ran them closer to (say) ToH - but I don't know how satisfactory this would have been either: in Shadows, for instance, there only pay-off from "beating" the "dungeon" is to be able to fly your starship away from the place without being blasted by an auto-defence laser.

The effect of this stuff in our game is to reinforce an existing tendency: exploration is very much a means and not an end; and the area of play where player agency manifests itself is not in _discovering architectural and design details about lost alien places_. All that really becomes something much closer to extended scene-framing: setting the stage for the real action of play, which is about relationships to and alliances with other actors who also care about these places, and also about learning and exploiting the psionic potentialities of these places. I don't know how "traditional" or "non-traditional" this is, but it's a natural fall-out of the play of a system and its modules from the late 70s/early 80s.

In our play of Traveller we also take it as a given that a player's action declarations and broader play of a character should, in general terms, conform to that character's INT stat. If the goal of play was to _work things out_ this would be a significant burden on player agency. But as its not, its not.


----------



## pemerton

Double post deleted (my internet has been wonky all morning). But I'll keep @zarionofarabel's Like!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I play games like Savage Worlds which have Bennies. I think the light nature of savage worlds makes these not be such a big deal to me. But overall, I am not super into hero points and fate points. However, I am not even sure it is about in or out of character stuff, I just don't like players spending points to avoid death and things like that. I would much rather the system be built so the death level functions appropriately to the setting or genre without the use of such points. But some people like these things. I don't have a particularly strong view on them as they aren't something I would ever actively complain about at the table.
> 
> In terms of agency. I don't know. I don't think they add or take away from it really. They also have a variety of uses so maybe you gave me an example of what you had in mind, I might be able to weigh in better.




How about spending a Bennie to turn a lethal attack that would kill a PC into just a hit that knocks them out? Some games have elements like that. I'm not really familiar with Savage Worlds, and I know it may vary from version to version, but what about that?

Blades in the Dark has the resistance mechanic. This is where the player can spend some Stress (a limited resource that once is used up takes them out of the action, and thereafter imposes a permanent Trauma on the character) to deny a Consequence from a Failed or Success with Complication result to an action roll. The PC tries to jump from one building to another, and Succeeds with Complication. The GM says "You don't clear the opposite ledge, but you catch it and scramble up. Unfortunately, the guards below notice you." The player can say "Oh no, I can't have them notice us yet....that's no good. i want to resist that." How much stress he must spend to do so is determined by the result of a roll. 

The Player can block the consequence determined by the GM. They have limited means to do so, and the resource they use is also used for other things, so this may be a major decision on their part. 

How would you view that?


----------



## pemerton

Triple post deleted!


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## pemerton

I think quadruple post is a personal best!


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Can you please quit it with this. He isn't saying anything about your mental state. He is talking about his own and other players in the game. At this point you just seem to be arguing for the sake of fighting



Here is what I quoted; I've bolded the bits that indicate the attributions of mental states to other, via contrasting pronouns and unqualified claims: _that illusion of reality matters to *some of us* great deal. *When* the players can shape the game reality, *the illusion of it being objective shatters*. *You* might not care about that, *some people* care about it a lot._


----------



## Thomas Shey

Campbell said:


> I just do not get conflating the two. I personally prefer games where the rules have teeth, but framing remains solely in the GM's purview.




Trad gamers sometimes have a very binary view of the distinction between games they're familiar with and ones they aren't, seeing it as some kind of a big old toggle when its really a whole bunch of little ones (and sometimes, dials).


----------



## Thomas Shey

Bedrockgames said:


> True but I still happily played 3E. I learned a lot about what I didn't like with that edition, but I played it. And I think it is very easy to encounter a frustration in a game, ask what the cause of that frustration is, then build a whole system of thought or a playstyle preference to avoid that cause. And I think that leads to overly extreme attitudes in playstyle (I know because I was locked in a "everything always has to be in character mindset". To Pemerton's point, many mechanics like this did exist earlier in the game to different degrees (and in the hobby in other RPG: and I grew up in a time when you just played lots of different RPGs, even D&D was the one you played most often because of its popularity). Also ones analysis of the 'cause' of frustration can be wrong, or slightly off. And all that can lead to a  throw the baby out with the bathwater approach to play. This is just my way of saying, I think what really matters is whether you like a specific instance of something. I wasn't particularly thrilled with Gather information and other social skills as they tended to be used in 3E. Removing them, largely fixed any issue I had (and being willing to pick up older editions of the game and play those, also fixed this problem). But I think building an idea around avoiding all instances of gather information like mechanics would, and was, misguided. To use an analogy, I wasn't into the powers system in 4E, especially for martial classes. But Barbarians used to be able to rage several times a day, and that didn't bother me. I think a lot of these things when they intrude lightly, won't bother most people. It is only when they become the heart of play that it can impact a playstyle you might be accustomed to (and perhaps a style of play you are not even aware you are engaging in)




All I'm noting is that social skills tend to be one of those areas where you see pretty strong feelings, even if they're much older than some people seem to think (besides Traveller, you had plenty in the various RQ/BRP lines of games and those go back rather a long ways too).  You can sometimes see similar things involving skills that are primarily used as puzzle solvers, among people who consider manual puzzle-solving one of the cores of their game experience, or even perception skills.


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## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> I kinda agree -- you tend to assert a conclusion and then arrange the premise to fit.  Here it's that horror requires loss of agency, and the premise is traditional games where the outcome is a forgone conclusion.  It's begging the question.  Horror does not require the outcome to be forgone.




What I do is present a premise and then say why it applies to the situation at hand.  If you want to see it the other way around, that's on you.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> How about spending a Bennie to turn a lethal attack that would kill a PC into just a hit that knocks them out? Some games have elements like that. I'm not really familiar with Savage Worlds, and I know it may vary from version to version, but what about that?




Its possible but unreliable there.  You can spend a Bennie to do what's called  a "Soak" where you roll a Vigor test to bleed off one or more wounds.  If you aren't horrificially overkilled here (and in the most recent version, that's no longer a thing) you're pretty likely but uncertain to do so (even a PC with a D6 Vigor, which is dead average, has a 75% chance and it just goes up from there).  It'll still leave you injured, but not dying (and not even taken out of the fight).


----------



## Thomas Shey

Bedrockgames said:


> I play games like Savage Worlds which have Bennies. I think the light nature of savage worlds makes these not be such a big deal to me. But overall, I am not super into hero points and fate points. However, I am not even sure it is about in or out of character stuff, I just don't like players spending points to avoid death and things like that. I would much rather the system be built so the death level functions appropriately to the setting or genre without the use of such points. But some people like these things. I don't have a particularly strong view on them as they aren't something I would ever actively complain about at the table.




Often they're a way to have the overall system produce results that seem correct in the "mundane" cases (i.e. with rank and file humans, and even the PCs some of the time) while recognizing that action adventure heroes seem to generally have a thumb on the scale.  Among other functions, they serve some of the properties of level elevating hit points (producing a sense of pacing so the player can see when he's getting near the point where he's genuinely at risk) without baking it into the overall system and producing sometimes ludicrous results.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The Player can block the consequence determined by the GM. They have limited means to do so, and the resource they use is also used for other things, so this may be a major decision on their part.
> 
> How would you view that?




I don't really see that as adding agency. I see it adding survivability. But to me agency has to include the good and bad things that come from your choices. This sort of usage seems like it would mitigate things like making a decision to face a lethal foe on your own. I like having those consequences in play. Again to be clear here, I am not super against these or anything. I just don't see them adding agency and they are not my favorite mechanic in the world to begin with.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't really see that as adding agency. I see it adding survivability. But to me agency has to include the good and bad things that come from your choices. This sort of usage seems like it would mitigate things like making a decision to face a lethal foe on your own. I like having those consequences in play. Again to be clear here, I am not super against these or anything. I just don't see them adding agency and they are not my favorite mechanic in the world to begin with.



Yep. If bad-naughty word-mitigation bennies increase agency, then by the same logic having higher skill bonuses or more hit points would too.


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## Bedrockgames

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yep. If bad-naughty word-mitigation bennies increase agency, then by the same logic having higher skill bonuses or more hit points would too.




I think Hawkeye's argument is it increases agency because the spending of the Benny is a meaningful choice (correct me if I am wrong Hawkeye). I can see where Hawkeye is coming from, it just doesn't register as adding agency for me (to your point about agency being a pretty subjective notion).


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## Lanefan

@pemerton - is there any particular reason why between posts 802 and 808 you've posted the same thing four times?  Computer glitch?


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## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yep. If bad-naughty word-mitigation bennies increase agency, then by the same logic having higher skill bonuses or more hit points would too.




I think if you viewed it from a certain angle, you could argue the do.

Bear with me here.  Often besides making choices meaningless, the other way to defeat agency is to just, well, give someone no choice.  If you're underground, trapped in a cell, and the GM's ensured there's only one way out, and that once you get there, there's only one path that isn't a dead end, you can make any decision you want, but none but one matter.

Similarly, the more your abilities (or lack thereof) constrain your options, the less meaningful agency you have.  So if your character has a lot of different functional ways to address a situation, his meaningful agency is expanded.

I know its not usually what people are talking about when they're addressing agency in these threads, but its hard to see a clear difference in practical terms between "All your theoretical decisions lead you to the same place" and "you really don't have a decision at all."


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I think Hawkeye's argument is it increases agency because the spending of the Benny is a meaningful choice (correct me if I am wrong Hawkeye). I can see where Hawkeye is coming from, it just doesn't register as adding agency for me (to your point about agency being a pretty subjective notion).




Well, it's partly that. But it's more that it's the player that gets to decide. The GM says "this is what happens" and then the player gets to decide "no, actually THIS is what happens". 

I mean, as a player, if my character is facing death in the fiction of the game, and it's me who decides if he lives or dies.....how is that not agency? 

These kinds of mechanics are ones that give the players the ability to more directly steer the fiction beyond just declaring actions for their character.


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> @pemerton - is there any particular reason why between posts 802 and 808 you've posted the same thing four times?  Computer glitch?




I imagine he's just being deliberately provocative again.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, it's partly that. But it's more that it's the player that gets to decide. The GM says "this is what happens" and then the player gets to decide "no, actually THIS is what happens".
> 
> I mean, as a player, if my character is facing death in the fiction of the game, and it's me who decides if he lives or dies.....how is that not agency?
> 
> These kinds of mechanics are ones that give the players the ability to more directly steer the fiction beyond just declaring actions for their character.



It's just a mechanical fidget. Does 'lucky' feat in D&D 5E increase player agency? it's the same thing.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, it's partly that. But it's more that it's the player that gets to decide. The GM says "this is what happens" and then the player gets to decide "no, actually THIS is what happens".
> 
> I mean, as a player, if my character is facing death in the fiction of the game, and it's me who decides if he lives or dies.....how is that not agency?
> 
> These kinds of mechanics are ones that give the players the ability to more directly steer the fiction beyond just declaring actions for their character.




Again, I can see where you are coming from. I think for me though, this isn't agency. This is more like giving you a bit of authorial power (which I would see as different from agency). Agency to me really boils down to agency within the setting.


----------



## innerdude

_That illusion [that the game world exists as an "objective reality"] matters to some of us great deal. When the players can shape the game reality, the illusion of it being objective shatters. You might not care about that, some people care about it a lot._

I don't know which poster @pemerton was quoting here, so I apologize in advance for that.

In response to this quote I would say, "Of course."

Of course it's important for the world to feel "real." To feel as if there's a sense of "concreteness" or "objectivity" to it. One of the reasons I despise "planar hopping" adventures is for this very reason --- they never feel concrete and understandable. I find them tedious to play, because it's never clear as a player what my character would implicitly be aware of, and the GM is nearly always inadequate to fill the gaps.

I also think the above quote smartly recognizes that the "objective reality" of an RPG fiction is just an illusion. The "objective reality" is the sum of the imaginations of those engaged with it. Whatever is true, must be agreed upon to be true.

The question is, who has the formal power to authoritatively state what is true in the fiction?

Traditionally, there are two arbiters of "What is true in our fiction?" --- 1) the GM, and 2) the rules.

But as I've progressed in my journey as an RPG player and GM, I am less and less convinced that it is the GM's sole responsibility to maintain that illusion, and more and more convinced that the players should have as much "fiction state arbitration rights" as possible

I would even go so far as to say I think it a bit presumptuous of a GM to think that (s)he is the only game-participant arbiter. These days I would be highly wary of playing in a group where the GM insisted that they had absolute authority over the full content of the in-game fiction.

*Edit --- Very often in my experience, when a GM insists that they have full control over the setting, play can only go so far before it breaks down entirely . . . unless the group as a whole is willing to go along as unwilling participants in an on-going Abilene paradox experiment.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm not playing real life. I'm playing a game.
> 
> I'm not saying that PCs should be suicidal. I'm saying I don't enjoy when they become overly cautious. They're brave as could be when the risk is minimal....wading into a horde of orcs because they know they have the HP to spare, but then grinding to a halt because a door in a dungeon may have a trap, and suddenly we're debating for a half hour what to do.
> 
> It's something that happens from time to time and which I find incredibly frustrating.



Agreed it can be frustrating.  That said, if it's what the characters would do then so be it - all I can do as DM is sit back, crack open another beer, and wait for them to decide what to do.  If I'm a player, sooner or later my boredom tolerance will be exceeded and my character will do something rash - usually to its own detriment but hey, at least I got things moving. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Okay. So this aspect of gaming isn't as important to you and your group. The idea that a player may have a somewhat specific idea for the kind of character they want to play, and the kind of things they may want to see come up in play. That's not something your group worries about. That's fine.



We do random roll for stat generation, so having too specific of a character idea going in is often self-defeating when the dice don't co-operate.

As for the kind of things they may want to see come up in play: broad-brush stuff - e.g. if I get a vibe that the players are keen on doing some adventuring in an arctic setting for a while, or that they're tired of facing undead and would like to see some variety - are usually pretty easy to accommodate.  But in specific terms e.g. a character wants to sort out some drama within her family (and I've got one player who quite likes this sort of thing), I try to limit this or do it off-session as while it's going on in-session everyone else is more or less sitting there bored.

As a player, some of my characters have rather specific goals but I don't want to waste too much of everyone else's time with them and neither expect nor insist that they come up as part of party play (exception: if I-as-character can talk the party into helping with something tha'ts different, as they always have the option of saying no and if they say yes it's their own choice), and so that stuff gets dealt with off-session or in spare moments.


hawkeyefan said:


> Other groups do. I know we've discussed this in the past.....you don't want PCs to be the stars of the show, to be "special snowflakes" and for the events of the game to revolve around them.



I more want the party as a whole - regardless of who might be in it at the time - to be the star of its show.


hawkeyefan said:


> So let's say your PCs run into some nefarious organization......they know that this group is operating in the city, but not exactly what they're up to or why. Do you allow the players any kind of attempt at a knowledge check or similar to see if their character knows anything about the organization?



Hard to give a firm answer as this would be completely situation-dependent.  How familiar is this city otherwise - have the PCs ever been here before, or is it their home base, etc.?  But if it seems reasonable, then most likely yes.


hawkeyefan said:


> If so, and the check succeeds and it's determined that the PC knows something about this group, how is the impact of this (the character suddenly knowing something that they had not previously seemed to know) any different than if another game let's the player decide it through some other mechanic? In both cases, the character did not seem to know something, and then suddenly does!
> 
> It's not really an issue because there was never any reason for it to come up until the relevant thing appears, whether it's a nefarious organization, or hills to the north.



Agreed and disagreed at the same time.  The bit with the nefarious gang is quite explainable in a bunch of ways: maybe the informed character had reasons for keeping this knowledge to herself; or maybe the gang or its activities is a new development since the PC's last known info; or maybe the gang has only just revealed its existence to anyone....I could come up with ten of these. 

If a character was, say, a Thief or Assassin and was from or based in this city chances are I'd have given its player some broad-base info ahead of time anyway.

The bit with the hills isn't so explainable.  Unless something pretty odd is going on, hills tend to be and stay where they are and thus PCs (and players) would know of their existence unless the PCs were complete strangers to the region.


hawkeyefan said:


> These are only headaches if you let them be headaches.



Where possible - and it's never perfect but one can always try - I don't like metagame considerations to influence in-character play.  Same reasoning that turns me hard away from any sort of Inspiration or Bennie mechanics; and the same reasoning that tells me PCs and NPCs in the game world are the same and should be treated the same by others.

Having player knowledge and character knowledge match, where possible, reduces one avenue where this can occur.


hawkeyefan said:


> What the character knows is entirely made up. It can be whatever we like it to be, per the rules and methods of the game. However, to look at it as you're describing it, the character would "know" an unfathomable amount more about their life and their world than the player can possibly imagine. If that prevented us from role-playing or from making informed decisions, then there would be no role-playing.
> 
> In my opinion, it's better to accept this fact and then craft the game with this in mind, rather than trying to craft the game to somehow try and fight that fact.



My ideal (and if it happens in my lifetime I'll be rather astounded) would be some sort of quasi-VR system, where we could see the players at the table out of one eye and through the eyes of our PC out the other (or by raising and lowering a visor, or similar).  When we spoke in-character it'd be heard - live through the air, not on a speaker - by the other players as our PC voices; there'd be a toggle if we wanted to speak normally OOC.  There'd be ways of controlling our movement within the setting, much like a way-more-sophisticated version of what roll20 has.  In other words, completely immersive on one hand but still live-around-the-table on the other.


hawkeyefan said:


> That's a good question. I'm thinking of some Powered by the Apocalypse games I know where such an action would have a roll, and then based on the result of the roll, the player can either determine X number of facts about a place, or can force the GM to reveal X number of truths about the place.
> 
> So yes, it's possible that under such a rule system, the player could have a say in what kinds of foes they may face. I don't think I'd limit it to just what the player had determined.
> 
> But then, a the same time, you have to kind of ask yourself why as a GM, when a player literally tells you what he'd like to see happen in the game, you'd decide to do something else. I think this is a big part of the gulf between our views.....



And if the player says nothing lives there, which would be the most likely outcome, what then?


hawkeyefan said:


> I think of that more as backstory. It may be relevant....it may be very relevant.....but it's not the story that we are telling when we play. That story is the story of the PCs.
> 
> Much like all the stuff about Sauron and Morgoth and all that Silmarillion stuff is backstory, but Lord of the Rings is the story of Frodo and his journey to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring.



Except without the backstory you really can't have the here-and-now story, or have it make any sense.

And in fact at the same time you're telling the micro-story of the PCs you're also telling part of the overall macro-story.  In this instance what you're telling is the story of the final defeat of Sauron.  And Tolkein shows this in his calendar summary at the end of the third book - he shows how this all fits in to the bigger picture.


hawkeyefan said:


> Why would you care about this at all ahead of time? Seriously, have it erupt or not in some manner that may be relevant to the PCs.



In part because if it does end up erupting under the PCs' feet I can't be accused of hosing them over.  Instead, I can legitimately state the decision to have it erupt then and there was made in complete neutrality, long before the PCs were even rolled up.


hawkeyefan said:


> But deciding ahead of time that it will erupt on such and such a date regardless of what meaning it may have for the game.....that's not a story.



It's part of the backdrop, which may or may not become a relevant part of the story.


hawkeyefan said:


> No, that's fine! When it comes to agency, I think it matters quite a bit how all this stuff comes up and why the GM decides to structure things as he has. None of it is bad, by any means.
> 
> It seems like this is the GM taking existing details of the fiction, and then crafting a situation that may challenge the PCs. That's pretty much what the GM's job should be.



OK, let's try another example - this one very timely as it's currently ongoing in my game:

I'm running S1 Lost Caverns.  Party has been in the field on and off for over half a year dealing with this; and on one of their visits to town it became clear that what they were in theory doing (finding the Necronomicon, the original holy scripture for all Necromancy; I substituted this into the module in place of the Demonomicon as all its useful spells already exist in my game) could have huge ramifications for Necromancers everywhere and the local Necromancers' guild really really really wanted this book!

Unknown to the PCs, word got out.  Other Necromancers' guilds eventually heard about this, took note, and took action.

Party finally finishes the adventure and heads back to town.  They're intercepted before they get there: foreign Necromancers have invaded the city and started a war with the locals over who gets to end up with this book.  Civilians are fleeing, if not already dead as collateral damage.  Buildings are burnt.  Huge rewards have been posted (though no-one's really sure by who) for each known party member.  All of this catches the adventurers quite off guard - they were hoping to get back to town, get rid of this damn book, divide their treasury, get all their lost levels restored (Drelzna had a field day!), and relax for a bit of downtime.  Now they have to sort their way through a war, which is what next session will probably consist of.

I can think of at least one poster here who would say this is bad design because it uses hidden backstory.  Needless to say, I disagree. 


hawkeyefan said:


> You're just repeating what you already said. I know your preference. I'm asking why is it a long way from great?



You risk conflicting visions, for one thing.  For example, using these silly hills again, what if one player wanted hills there while another wanted farmland and a third thought an ocean or very large lake would make sense; meanwhile the GM has to think "what happens if they just go north without asking" and has in mind there's just more swamp that way.

You also risk coming up with something that doesn't make geographical or physical sense.  An obvious example is where someone places hills to the north, someone else places ocean to the south, and during play it becomes relevant that the river has to flow south-to-north (i.e. uphill!) so that other things can make sense. (I've seen maps in published novels do things like this and it bugs the hell out of me)  Distances and therefore travel times are even easier to mess up.

Far simpler, and far more likely to be/remain consistent, if there's just one hand on the helm.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> "Traditional" often seems to be used to mean _what was regarded as canonical c 1990_ ie when the trends of the 1980s had fully crystallised as _the _dominant way to approach RPGing. It's a superficially descriptive word that gets wielded as a normative weapon.



'Traditional' can mean differen things to different people.  To me, for example, 1990 is no more traditional than 2013; you don't hit 'traditional' in my view until you're back into the early '80s.  Yet to a much younger player, 'traditional' might mean 2001-era 3e gaming.


pemerton said:


> ... in Shadows, for instance, there only pay-off from "beating" the "dungeon" is to be able to fly your starship away from the place without being blasted by an auto-defence laser.



Sometimes survival really is the only goal.


----------



## Scott Christian

Bedrockgames said:


> 1) Exploration: I don' think this is untrue but I do think these produce very different types of play and experiences. Again, in Hillfolk, I was able to invent geography whole cloth in dialogue. There was a genuine sense of discovery in that, which I found immersive. So I am not saying you can't have that sort of feeling with a game or GMing approach where the players can shape setting details. But I do think that is different from one where the details of the world are being created by a source external to yourself. That kind of exploration, to me, also has a sense of discovery to it, but it feels like a very different form of discovery to me. It also feels more like I am challenging the world, unlocking its secrets.



I completely agree. 


Bedrockgames said:


> 2) Hiding behind a bush: I don't know about this one. I think a lot of groups would actually get their cues from the GM on that roll (ask to roll to see if there is anything to hide behind and then the GM tells them what is there on a success). However this is also one of those gray zones I mentioned before. A lot of players are going to naturally assume certain things are present based on what the GM said, so they will just say something like "I look for a bush to hide behind" or even "I hide behind a bush". But that is still entirely in the GMs power to decide if there is in fact a bush. And there is also a very big difference between a hill and a bush. A bush is far easier to hand wave. I wouldn't see the bush as setting a precedent for hills, towers and more. A lot of it I think arises out of efficiency and convenience of communication style than a conscious desire to shape the setting (the player naturally assumes a bush is present and is speaking as if that is so).



I was going from the forest example prior. If a PC hears something while walking through the forest, and rolls a stealth check, and says, I find a bush to hide in... I don't know. I have never heard a DM say no to that. I have seen stickler DM's say: "But I said sparse forest, meaning it is clear of underbrush." Then the player says, I find a tree then. Then the DM agrees. But you are correct, the DM could hand wave and say no, but I feel it's unlikely. But, they could definitely do it. 


Bedrockgames said:


> 3) Even if the GM hasn't established anything, he or she can always say "there are no bushes here". Some GMs always say yes to those kinds of things. Some don't (for a variety of reasons). But I think the general sense it can help create when the GM stops and thinks about whether or not there ought to be a bush there, is it adds to the sense of a world existing external to your character.



Agreed. But, the depth of thought about a bush should be passive, no? (And I mean that from genuine curiosity.)

If I am to add a sense of a "world external," then I focus on specifics. I might describe a forest full of black currant bushes. How thick they are. How every time someone steps their boots are being died by the black berries. And how the fermented smell overwhelms the trees in the forest. But a bush, a tree, a flower is just that, no more thought needed. Or am I missing (or misinterpreting) something?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Scott Christian said:


> I completely agree.
> 
> I was going from the forest example prior. If a PC hears something while walking through the forest, and rolls a stealth check, and says, I find a bush to hide in... I don't know. I have never heard a DM say no to that. I have seen stickler DM's say: "But I said sparse forest, meaning it is clear of underbrush." Then the player says, I find a tree then. Then the DM agrees. But you are correct, the DM could hand wave and say no, but I feel it's unlikely. But, they could definitely do it.




Sure, but I think in that case, it is just apparent to everyone that a bush naturally would be present in the forest. So the player isn't really inventing anything. The player is assuming the bush exists and makes the statement (and if the GM has some reason that a bush wouldn't be there, the GM can say there aren't any bushes around, but there are some boulders, logs, etc).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> @pemerton - is there any particular reason why between posts 802 and 808 you've posted the same thing four times?  Computer glitch?



Internet glitch. I've edited out the duplicate (and triplicate, and quadruplicate).


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> I imagine he's just being deliberately provocative again.



Wins thread!


----------



## Bedrockgames

Scott Christian said:


> If I am to add a sense of a "world external," then I focus on specifics. I might describe a forest full of black currant bushes. How thick they are. How every time someone steps their boots are being died by the black berries. And how the fermented smell overwhelms the trees in the forest. But a bush, a tree, a flower is just that, no more thought needed. Or am I missing (or misinterpreting) something?




I am not quite sure what you mean by 'passive'. I think again, this is one of those gray areas, where a GM will often paint in broad strokes and likely everyone at the table assumes a bush is present, including the GM. But I have been in games where the GM said no, there are not any bushes around (or something to that effect). I think every GM has a different method for this. Obviously we are dealing with terrain that is probably not mapped out (it might exist on the map, but it is probably at a level of detail that the GM wouldn't have mapped it out unless there was good reason to do so). My method is I simply tell the players based on what I imagine is there in the scene (usually I have a pretty concrete sense of that). 

I actually don't go into deep detail describing things. I used to do that. Now I just use short, broad descriptions and try not to bore anyone with my words


----------



## Scott Christian

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not quite sure what you mean by 'passive'. I think again, this is one of those gray areas, where a GM will often paint in broad strokes and likely everyone at the table assumes a bush is present, including the GM. But I have been in games where the GM said no, there are not any bushes around (or something to that effect). I think every GM has a different method for this. Obviously we are dealing with terrain that is probably not mapped out (it might exist on the map, but it is probably at a level of detail that the GM wouldn't have mapped it out unless there was good reason to do so). My method is I simply tell the players based on what I imagine is there in the scene (usually I have a pretty concrete sense of that).
> 
> I actually don't go into deep detail describing things. I used to do that. Now I just use short, broad descriptions and try not to bore anyone with my words



Yeah, I hear ya. My rule for adding very detailed setting:

humor
to contrast something of importance (the smell changes from stale t fresh air type of thing)
Time management


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> "Traditional" often seems to be used to mean _what was regarded as canonical c 1990_ ie when the trends of the 1980s had fully crystallised as _the _dominant way to approach RPGing. It's a superficially descriptive word that gets wielded as a normative weapon.




I think you are reading too much into it. And a lot of times it feels like you are taking the words out from under us, which just makes it hard to communicate. We have to use the vocabulary we are familiar with, and this is part of my vocabulary as a gamer. I am not going to create a whole new lexicon because of this kind of objection. That said, it is a pretty lose term I think and I don't think it really is saying anything about the early days of the hobby. I am just using it as a handy descriptor more than anything else. I think it is just one of those terms that cropped up naturally. As more styles popped up, people started saying traditional RPG to refer to a spectrum of styles that are more on the exploration side of the hobby, or that don't have things like narrative mechanics in them. I think it is just a way of distinguishing styles and types of RPGs. I mean if someone tries to sell an rpg to me and markets it as a traditional RPG, I would be surprised if it included apocalypse style Moves or if it divided powers normally reserved for the GM among the players or something. But traditional as a term seems to vary a bit, so others might have different interpretations. In the context of this discussion, I've just been using it to refer to the approach that posters like myself and Crimson have described to contrast it against some of the other approaches to things like agency.


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> So I have to asked because of the amount of examples of different systems being brought up.
> 
> What system (not style) do you think allows the players to have the most agency?



@chaochou's list seems pretty good.

Here's mine:


Burning Wheel (judgement based on a combination of reading and experience)
Prince Valiant (ditto; but there is a caveat - you have to be pretty keen on knight errantry tropes)
Apocalypse World (judgement based on reading alone, much thinking about it, desire to play it)

More qualified:

* Marvel Heroic RP/Cortex+ Heroic (I've played a fair bit of it; it's trickier to GM than the first two above and I suspect than AW, and how that is handled has big implications for player agency)

* I reckon Classic Traveller is not bad for player agency, but I don't think it's ever going to be as visceral as BW or even Prince Valiant.

There are a lot of broadly "process simulation" systems from a broadly similar era - Classic Traveller, RuneQuest, C&S, Rolemaster, Champions/HERO, etc. From the sim perspective they are in many ways rather interchangeable - for instance, I think it's a matter of taste rather than fundamentals whether one prefers to model parry via a roll (RQ), a fixed penalty to the attack (Traveller), or a variable penalty to the attack that reflects the defender's focus on defence vs offence (Rolemaster).

But when it comes to player agency there turn out to be real differences across these systems, which I think can be pretty subtle and sometimes need actual play to bring them to light. For instance, RM's ability for a player to determine _how much is risked for how big a pay-off_ both in melee combat and in spell casting makes it better for player agency and thematic input than RQ (and also helps explain why being an archer in RM is lacklustre in comparison to those other two options).

That said, I don't think any of them - including Traveller, as I said - are going to get into the same terrain as something like BW. That's a pretty intense RPG!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I dunno, have you re-read the setting lately, or the GM principle to portray the haunted nature of the city?   Sure, Blades can easily focus on the heist and the action can drown out the horror, but I think trying a cult crew might really explore the horror of the setting.  I certainly think Blades is far more into the horror envelope than, say, Ravenloft.




Sure, the setting has elements that are typically found in horror stories....ghosts and vampires and the like. I’d probably put it on par with Ravenloft in that sense. It’s kind of gothic. 



Ovinomancer said:


> And here I'll reiterate my comments to @Thomas Shey -- I think this is only true for the subset of horror that involves forgone conclusions.  I think that agency can be impacted by horror -- really any theme can impact agency -- but I don't think it's required.  I can easily see a horror game played in a play to find out what happens way without a foreclosed outcome.




Sure, I think there are probably different ways to portray horror. Different ways to portray different kinds of horror, even. 

I think that sense of the inevitable is what I was talking about. When something seems inevitable, it’s like nothing you do matters. No choice matters.

That’s a feeling that I think can be evoked by limiting player agency. 

But I wouldn’t say it’s required for horror, nor would I say that the actual conclusion needs to be foregone. There’s usually one survivor who gets away from the slasher or who avoids being driven mad by strange forces.



Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, from what I've seen the Cinematic version does put a number of constraints on the scenario, but I'd have to own the book to evaluate the impacts to agency.  Having a specific scenario, to me, doesn't impact agency -- it's like framing, where the shape of the fiction is formed and then players make meaningful choices.  So long as the outcome isn't defined, and there aren't forced plot points throughout (note that introducing a complication that the PCs can engage isn't a forced plot point), then I don't see much impacting agency here.




Having played a couple of them, they felt fairly limited as far as player agency goes. It wasn’t absent, but it wasn’t anything like Blades in the Dark or Apocalypse World. 

The scenario is very focused. The PCs are pregenerated, which you could change of course, but their motivations and relationships are designed around the scenario. The results aren’t necessarily predetermined....but there’s only a couple ways it could go. 

I want to give it a shot on campaign mode with our own PCs and so on. See how different that experience would be. I definitely recommend the game....it’s a lot of fun, and easy to grasp the basics.


----------



## Aldarc

innerdude said:


> I would even go so far as to say I think it a bit presumptuous of a GM to think that (s)he is the only game-participant arbiter. These days I would be highly wary of playing in a group where the GM insisted that they had absolute authority over the full content of the in-game fiction.



This is increasingly a red flag for me as well.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So I appreciate the detailed reply. I think in a lot of ways we agree, and I think that mostly it's just a matter of preference in how we approach gaming. I'm gonna snip it down a bit, because I feel we're drifting away from matters related to agency, and I know we've talked about a lot of this stuff before in one way or another.



Lanefan said:


> Agreed it can be frustrating.  That said, if it's what the characters would do then so be it - all I can do as DM is sit back, crack open another beer, and wait for them to decide what to do.  If I'm a player, sooner or later my boredom tolerance will be exceeded and my character will do something rash - usually to its own detriment but hey, at least I got things moving.




There are times where it can be interesting to watch the players pause and then debate what to do about a situation, how to proceed. But I like when those moments are reserved for kind of major moments. When the decision is not a major one, I want things to move. I don't like those big pauses happening often. 

This can be a product of the system, or parts of it. It can be for other reasons, too, of course.



Lanefan said:


> We do random roll for stat generation, so having too specific of a character idea going in is often self-defeating when the dice don't co-operate.
> 
> As for the kind of things they may want to see come up in play: broad-brush stuff - e.g. if I get a vibe that the players are keen on doing some adventuring in an arctic setting for a while, or that they're tired of facing undead and would like to see some variety - are usually pretty easy to accommodate.  But in specific terms e.g. a character wants to sort out some drama within her family (and I've got one player who quite likes this sort of thing), I try to limit this or do it off-session as while it's going on in-session everyone else is more or less sitting there bored.
> 
> As a player, some of my characters have rather specific goals but I don't want to waste too much of everyone else's time with them and neither expect nor insist that they come up as part of party play (exception: if I-as-character can talk the party into helping with something tha'ts different, as they always have the option of saying no and if they say yes it's their own choice), and so that stuff gets dealt with off-session or in spare moments.
> 
> I more want the party as a whole - regardless of who might be in it at the time - to be the star of its show.




Sure, that's all great. I agree about the group being the focus. But I prefer when each PC also has their own things going on, their own agenda to pursue. Focus can rotate as needed, and I would hope the players are all okay with indulging a little time spent on characters other than theirs now and again. Plus, the characters are usually invested in one another, so getting their help doesn't usually require a lot of convincing. 

I think this ties into a lot of the things that others are mentioning, where the players are able to shape the content of the fiction. It's about their characters.



Lanefan said:


> And if the player says nothing lives there, which would be the most likely outcome, what then?




Why would that be the case? Does the player like to be bored?



Lanefan said:


> Except without the backstory you really can't have the here-and-now story, or have it make any sense.




Sure you can. People do it all the time. 



Lanefan said:


> In part because if it does end up erupting under the PCs' feet I can't be accused of hosing them over.  Instead, I can legitimately state the decision to have it erupt then and there was made in complete neutrality, long before the PCs were even rolled up.




So let me say this....if I'm in your game, and a volcano explodes when our PCs are near it, I'm not gonna buy that this was a neutral decision. Sure, you could show me some notes that say you had predetermined that this thing was gonna blow on August 5 of whatever year.....and then I'm going to point out how you're largely in control of the pace, and the date and of possibly dropping prompts into play to get us to go near the volcano. 

And if the volcano erupts when the party is no where in the area....I'm very likely not to care at all. 

If the whole goal of this is to set up some kind of legitimacy to the idea of neutrality, it just seems odd.



Lanefan said:


> It's part of the backdrop, which may or may not become a relevant part of the story.
> 
> OK, let's try another example - this one very timely as it's currently ongoing in my game:
> 
> I'm running S1 Lost Caverns.  Party has been in the field on and off for over half a year dealing with this; and on one of their visits to town it became clear that what they were in theory doing (finding the Necronomicon, the original holy scripture for all Necromancy; I substituted this into the module in place of the Demonomicon as all its useful spells already exist in my game) could have huge ramifications for Necromancers everywhere and the local Necromancers' guild really really really wanted this book!
> 
> Unknown to the PCs, word got out.  Other Necromancers' guilds eventually heard about this, took note, and took action.
> 
> Party finally finishes the adventure and heads back to town.  They're intercepted before they get there: foreign Necromancers have invaded the city and started a war with the locals over who gets to end up with this book.  Civilians are fleeing, if not already dead as collateral damage.  Buildings are burnt.  Huge rewards have been posted (though no-one's really sure by who) for each known party member.  All of this catches the adventurers quite off guard - they were hoping to get back to town, get rid of this damn book, divide their treasury, get all their lost levels restored (Drelzna had a field day!), and relax for a bit of downtime.  Now they have to sort their way through a war, which is what next session will probably consist of.
> 
> I can think of at least one poster here who would say this is bad design because it uses hidden backstory.  Needless to say, I disagree.




So you have a GM plot you want them to engage with. It's fine. Where is the player agency in this scenario? Probably to decide to go after the book in the first place. Then, most everything else is "the world" responding to what the PCs are doing. 

But really, there is no "world" so it's the DM deciding what happens next. All the stuff about the necromancers and the foreign ones learning of the book (how did that happen? It seems it happened to further the plot, but I imagine it would be described as "the world responding to the PCs' actions) and then attacking the PCs and waging war on the town, and placing bounties on the PCs.....all of that is the GM having a story idea.

It's not bad. It just doesn't appear to have a high level of player agency. It's the GM constructing a story in advance around the PCs. Or at least, that's how it seems.

Backstory is fine. I think the opposition to the use of hidden backstory is more about the GM thwarting player intent because of the preconceived ideas that the GM has about the fiction, but which the player doesn't know. I think that's a different thing than using backstory to help set up current events or to establish a scenario that you'd like the players to engage with. 



Lanefan said:


> You risk conflicting visions, for one thing.  For example, using these silly hills again, what if one player wanted hills there while another wanted farmland and a third thought an ocean or very large lake would make sense; meanwhile the GM has to think "what happens if they just go north without asking" and has in mind there's just more swamp that way.




Why would the GM ask more than one player to confirm what was to the North? Why would more than on player be attempting a check to determine the terrain?



Lanefan said:


> You also risk coming up with something that doesn't make geographical or physical sense.  An obvious example is where someone places hills to the north, someone else places ocean to the south, and during play it becomes relevant that the river has to flow south-to-north (i.e. uphill!) so that other things can make sense. (I've seen maps in published novels do things like this and it bugs the hell out of me)  Distances and therefore travel times are even easier to mess up.
> 
> Far simpler, and far more likely to be/remain consistent, if there's just one hand on the helm.




I mean, if you put a river that flows north to south, how would it later become relevant that it has to flow south to north? And how would this river only be susceptible to this if it was placed at the time of play instead of months before? 

Again, I don't think anyone is saying that all players should be able to at any time determine any and all fictional elements in the setting. There are ways to allow this to work within the constraints of the game. 

There's more than one game. More than one approach. It sometimes seems like you can only see things through the lens of how you play your one game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's just a mechanical fidget. Does 'lucky' feat in D&D 5E increase player agency? it's the same thing.




Not quite the same thing, no, although I think this is a relevant point.

Lucky lets' you try again by rolling another die. Lucky is not something that every player will have, but is instead a Feat that some may choose (if Feats are even allowed.....which is very often up to.......you guessed it, the GM).

Does it increase a player's agency? I don't think it does in the sense that whatever they were attempting was something that may have been achieved without the Lucky reroll if they had rolled high enough in the first place. So, no, I don't think this is really increasing the player's ability to steer the fiction so much as it's taking an existing thing and increasing the chance for success.

But in Blades, the Resistance Roll and Stress is something that every PC has. Every player will do this as part of the game. They will use this to alter the outcome of an action when there are consequences they don't want to accept. It's not an attempt to try again. It's the explicit ability to remove or lessen a consequence from a failed roll or a success with complication result.

Lucky doesn't let you alter the effects of failed roll. If you fail your saving throw, Lucky doesn't allow you to tell the DM, "no, I'm not petrified".

I think there's a significant difference.

A factor that makes the comparison between the two systems more difficult is that with D&D, almost all harm is in the form of Hit Point loss. That doesn't allow for a whole lot of variety in how to mitigate harm.....it all comes down to restoring Hit Points. Saving Throws are the main exception to this, but even a lot of them still rely on Hit Point loss as a consequence. The ones that don't are the ones that inflict a Condition on the PC. You fail a save and now you're Frightened or Charmed or Paralyzed, etc.

Blades allows for a bit more variety of consequence than that, as inflicted by the GM, so having the ability to reject that seems to me to be related to agency, no? Is there something similar in D&D where the GM says "this thing happens" and the player can choose to say "no, actually THIS happens" and the GM must honor it? That's a genuine question.....I can't really think of any off the top of my head. Some abilities or spells may fall into this category, but I'm not able to think of any specifically. Can the player actually take the reins like that in D&D as written?

So I don't think these things are really the same at all, although they may seem similar in nature at first glance.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Not quite the same thing, no, although I think this is a relevant point.
> 
> Lucky lets' you try again by rolling another die. Lucky is not something that every player will have, but is instead a Feat that some may choose (if Feats are even allowed.....which is very often up to.......you guessed it, the GM).
> 
> Does it increase a player's agency? I don't think it does in the sense that whatever they were attempting was something that may have been achieved without the Lucky reroll if they had rolled high enough in the first place. So, no, I don't think this is really increasing the player's ability to steer the fiction so much as it's taking an existing thing and increasing the chance for success.
> 
> But in Blades, the Resistance Roll and Stress is something that every PC has. Every player will do this as part of the game. They will use this to alter the outcome of an action when there are consequences they don't want to accept. It's not an attempt to try again. It's the explicit ability to remove or lessen a consequence from a failed roll or a success with complication result.
> 
> Lucky doesn't let you alter the effects of failed roll. If you fail your saving throw, Lucky doesn't allow you to tell the DM, "no, I'm not petrified".
> 
> I think there's a significant difference.
> 
> A factor that makes the comparison between the two systems more difficult is that with D&D, almost all harm is in the form of Hit Point loss. That doesn't allow for a whole lot of variety in how to mitigate harm.....it all comes down to restoring Hit Points. Saving Throws are the main exception to this, but even a lot of them still rely on Hit Point loss as a consequence. The ones that don't are the ones that inflict a Condition on the PC. You fail a save and now you're Frightened or Charmed or Paralyzed, etc.
> 
> Blades allows for a bit more variety of consequence than that, as inflicted by the GM, so having the ability to reject that seems to me to be related to agency, no? Is there something similar in D&D where the GM says "this thing happens" and the player can choose to say "no, actually THIS happens" and the GM must honor it? That's a genuine question.....I can't really think of any off the top of my head. Some abilities or spells may fall into this category, but I'm not able to think of any specifically. Can the player actually take the reins like that in D&D as written?
> 
> So I don't think these things are really the same at all, although they may seem similar in nature at first glance.



I get what you're saying, though I still feel it is more of a difference of degree rather than of kind. 

But let's talk about such meta pennies, veto points, get out of jail free cards.

Imagine in one game the player makes a series of decisions which ends up landing their character in a bad position and the character dies (or something else unfortunate happens.) In another system the same series of events happen, but in that the player can use some sort of meta penny to prevent the unfortunate outcome. If we understand the agency to be an ability to make meaningful choices, then to me it is far from clear that in the latter scenario the player has more agency. Yes, they can make one more choice, to use the meta penny to prevent the sticky end; but it could well be argued that their ability to do so makes the preceding choices that lead to that situation far less meaningful.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> These days I am far less interested in playing these word games. I am not super interested in philosophical underpinnings of agency. Taking the conversation there misses the point which is how do we play games where the actions players take for their characters produce meaningful change in the fiction. Let's talk about that.




So I wanted to come back to this post. I'd rather take this as a prompt to give an example, to maybe try and cut down on all the back and forth in which we can all get caught up. 

My group played a Blades in the Dark campaign. They were a group of Hawkers, purveyors of illicit goods. What goods? We all discussed it ahead of play, and we decided they were dealing a potent substance dubbed Third Eye. It allowed the user to experience echoes from the Ghost Field. 

So one player chose to play a Spider, which is like a mastermind/schemer type of class. He was an attorney who somehow became disgraced and lost his license to practice law, and so he turned to crime. One of the goals he had was to regain his license to practice law. Through play, it quickly became established that he really didn't want anything to do with the supernatural; he was afraid of ghosts and whenever that kind of stuff came up, he did everything he could to avoid it. 

Another player, who joined a few sessions in, decided to play a Whisper. This is the character type that's basically doing weird stuff with ghosts and magic and so on. The way we set it up was that the crew needed someone who could deal with that stuff, because they were kind of vulnerable to it, and it's kind of unavoidable in the setting. So this character came on board.....and then started using sorcery as a means to everything the crew was trying to do. 

So as we played, there emerged a very clear point of tension within the group; the idea of avoiding the supernatural, and the idea of embracing the supernatural. And that theme was so strong that if I had to look back at that campaign and say what the "story" was about, that conflict would be front and center. 

So one of the main thrusts of the game arose out of no prompting on my part as GM. I certainly took the characters and put their conviction to the test through play, but the tension was entirely of their making. 

If either of them had made a different character, the campaign would have played out in an entirely different way. Almost nothing would have been the same. 

I don't think that this is unique to Blades or any other game; I'm sure that there are similar examples folks can provide from their games (and I hope they do), but the method of character and crew creation, and the method of worldbuilding and prompting the players to describe things and having the flexibility within the setting to define elements in your own way.....all these things really promote that kind of play. It's one of the reasons why I find the game so impressive, and so much fun.


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I get what you're saying, though I still feel it is more of a difference of degree rather than of kind.
> 
> But let's talk about such meta pennies, veto points, get out of jail free cards.
> 
> Imagine in one game the player makes a series of decisions which ends up landing their character in a bad position and the character dies (or something else unfortunate happens.) In another system the same series of events happen, but in that the player can use some sort of meta penny to prevent the unfortunate outcome. If we understand the agency to be an ability to make meaningful choices, then to me it is far from clear that in the latter scenario the player has more agency. Yes, they can make one more choice, to use the meta penny to prevent the sticky end; but it could well be argued that their ability to do so makes the preceding choices that lead to that situation far less meaningful.




That's an interesting angle, for sure.

I think it's about intent and choice at the player level, right? Do I as the player get to choose if my character lives or dies? Will that matter to play? Is this the kind of game that allows for this to be a meaningful choice?

What are the implications of my character dying? How could the game go differently if he dies here? How can the game proceed if he doesn't die? 

Chances are, I'll factor all these thoughts into my decision, and I'll choose what I want to see happen. 

Maybe I want to let my character die here, and then introduce another character. Maybe the group is affected by the loss of a member, and that plays into how things go from there. Maybe the new character I introduce will have a different sort of influence on the group. Maybe a change in class or heritage or similar aspect brings in elements to the game that had not previously been a part of it. 

Maybe I want my character to live. How does this near death experience change him? Does it? Will his standing or position in the group shift at all? Will his outlook or beliefs or drives change? Will that impact the group, and how things go from this point? Is the character now afraid of death? Does that mean his behavior changes, and does that impact the party? Maybe he's traumatized by the event, but somehow thinks he didn't die because he's invincible, and now he rushes headlong into every danger, putting the party at greater risk more often.

If it's up to me as the player to decide if he lives or dies, it would seem I have a good deal of agency over how the fiction proceeds, no? 

Assuming that the game allows for me to influence such things and the GM and other players don't just say "Damn, Tor just got roasted. Make another guy. Maybe a cleric?"


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## Hriston

pemerton said:


> AD&D Oriental Adventures had two departures from ["traditional"/map&key/exploration style play] in the Yakuza class: a proto-Gather Information mechanic, and a proto-Circles mechanic.
> 
> 3E made Gather Information mainstream. I think D&D has dropped Circles, though.



On this topic, 5E has a Gather Information type effort resolving (when put to a check) as a straight Charisma check:
Other Charisma Checks​The DM might call for a Charisma check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:​
Find the best person to talk to for news, rumors, and gossip
Blend into a crowd to get the sense of key topics of conversation
Something like circles also seems to be present in most background features. The Acolyte's "Shelter of the Faithful", for example, states in part, "While near your temple, you can call upon the priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your temple."

The Criminal background's feature is all about this sort of thing:
Feature: Criminal Contact​You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.​
A folk hero can find places to hide, rest, and recuperate among other commoners, a noble can secure audiences with local nobles,  a sage might know of a sage or other learned person or creature from whom to obtain information. etc.

I guess the most striking thing about these features for the question of agency is they have zero mechanics associated with them, so I think they're mostly seen as highly DM-dependent in their usage and reliability. Personally, I would tend to view them as a sort of player fiat ability, but, unfortunately, I don't see players making much use of them at all.


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## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> We can talk about techniques until we are blue in the face, but if our principles are not locked in vagaries of technique are meaningless. Are players prepared to play genuine protagonists with compelling dramatic goals like they are driving stolen cars? Are GMs prepared to provide honest adversity? At the end of the day what matters most when it comes a player's ability to make decisions that have an impact on the fiction is a shared commitment that we are playing to find out what happens. Everything else is window dressing.
> 
> I would be more than happy to address questions of play techniques once we are on the same page about the goals of play, but until then it is all empty posturing. Either we are committed to following the fiction or we want to guide it. There is nothing wrong with wanting to play a more guided experience, but we should be able to talk about that openly without shame.
> 
> These days I am far less interested in playing these word games. I am not super interested in philosophical underpinnings of agency. Taking the conversation there misses the point which is how do we play games where the actions players take for their characters produce meaningful change in the fiction. Let's talk about that.




Going to quote this post (which I agree with) because it relates to what I'm about to throw together.

*Agency is a discrete thing.*

Its not terribly helpful to jumble it up in a collage of several other things such as "immersion/suspension of disbelief", "persistent setting vs (the perception of) Schrodinger's x", and any number of other things.  Agency is the quality that a participant possesses (or not) to move a gamestate from _here _to _there_.  It is about the _trajectory of play_ and who holds sway over it.

A game of American football has referees, football players, football coaches, the elements (if outdoors) and the ruleset itself.  At any given transition from one gamestate to another we can evaluate who was mostly responsible for that transition.  As we evaluate the game's overall "trajectory arc", we can evaluate who was mostly responsible for it.  We can also evaluate if there are moments in play where agency is wrested from the players/coaches because of a either/or/confluence of refereeing or ruleset or elements issues.  Example (I apologize to those of you who aren't terribly familiar with the game):

Its 3rd and 17 (this is converted at about 7-9 % in the modern NFL) and a referee calls a brutal, ticky tack Defensive Holding call that could literally be called about 75 % of the time when a Cornerback is Pressing/Rerouting a Wide Receiver at the Line of Scrimmage.  Defensive Holding comes with an automatic new set of Downs and a 5 yard Penalty. This swing in play is ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS.  If this call is arbitrary (and this absolutely happens in NFL Football), we can trivially say that the competitive integrity of this moment was completely compromised because the agency of the players on the field was wrested from them by bad officiating.  A lot of times, these kinds of bad calls have huge impact on the gamestate and they reverberate throughout the rest of the game.

There is no immersion, no persistent setting.  There is only gamestate, its transition, and the trajectory of play henceforth.  We can evaluate this.

The exact same thing happens in a Moldvay Basic Pawn Stance Dungeon Crawl w/ FighterBob09 and MaggieWizard01 (etc).  We don't have to have anything resembling "immersion" or "habitation of PC" (etc).  We can tropily move through play with people saying silly things in cartoonishly archetypal format based on their character class and everyone having a chuckle while we find out if the players are skilled enough to navigate the dungeon and extract a lot of treasure.  Its still TTRPG play.

Players are Searching for a Secret Door > finding it > Listen > Search for Traps >  in a sequence of play.  There are multiple ways that the Referee could screw this up that wrests agency from the players and compromises the competitive integrity of that sequence (which, like above in the NFL Football example, it will likely have ripple effects because of the positive feedback loop of dungeon crawling):

* Poor description of the situation/scene.

* They could lose track of Turns spent and the relationship to the Wandering Monster "clock" (which could help or harm the delve effort).

* They could forget to assign dice to the Demihuman (1/2 result vs 1) in the Listen pool for the PCs.

* The party Dwarf has a 2 in 6 chance to find the Trap, the GM rolls behind the screen, and gets a 2 but fudges it and tells the player they find no traps because the crawl has been going surgically for the PCs thus far and the Referee wants to introduce some adversity.

None of that has anything to do with PC habitation or immersion or persistent setting/objective backstory.  Its about the impingement or wresting of agency from the players (to the GM) and the impact on the integrity of the crawl due to the Referee's "misplay" (lets call it).

Yes, you or your table may not like _systemitized thing x_ because you feel it negatively impacts your particular mental framework when it comes to playing that game...but smuggling your disposition relative to _systemitized thing x in game y_ doesn't tell us anything about its impact on gamestate movement.

*Finally, characterization/pantomiming is NOT inherently agency*

This seems to be another thing that gets unfortunately pulled into the orbit of discussions on agency.  Characterization does not inherently have anything to do with the movement of a gamestate from _here _to _there_.  Most general games have no characterization/pantomiming and there are plenty of TTRPGs that have little to no characterization/pantomiming - as I captured above w/ Pawn Stance dungeon crawling - or some participants not characterizing/pantomiming at all while others go full tilt.  However, all games have a gamestate, gamestate movement, and how it is moved and who moves it.

A GM merely allowing you to characterize/pantomime your PC as a gamestate-neutral way of differentiating your character from Samantha's is offering you nothing in the way of agency.  Characterize/pantomime your PC however you want, press the accelerator to the floor...it doesn't necessarily have any work to do with respect to gamestate movement and trajectory.

HOWEVER, IF characterization/pantomiming IS relevant to gamestate movement (eg if you pantomime/characterize well x will happen vs y happening - Pictionary and Charades is the non-TTRPG example of this), then there is a question of agency.  HOWEVER (again), if this is a TTRPG, then we have to evaluate what the nature of action resolution is relative to that characterization/pantomiming and where the agency truly lies because lack of codification + GM mediation without any neutral arbiter (fortune resolution - dice/cards etc) having its say means that GM agency is invariably going to be high in such an arrangement.



That is enough for now, but the other thing I'm going to write about in the future is *not all games possess or afford the same kind of agency (eg - thematic/dramatic, tactical, strategic) to players.  *We should be able to talk about each discrete type of agency in a game and how design decisions and refereeing affects each.


----------



## Manbearcat

Hriston said:


> On this topic, 5E has a Gather Information type effort resolving (when put to a check) as a straight Charisma check:
> Other Charisma Checks​The DM might call for a Charisma check when you try to accomplish tasks like the following:​
> Find the best person to talk to for news, rumors, and gossip
> Blend into a crowd to get the sense of key topics of conversation
> Something like circles also seems to be present in most background features. The Acolyte's "Shelter of the Faithful", for example, states in part, "While near your temple, you can call upon the priests for assistance, provided the assistance you ask for is not hazardous and you remain in good standing with your temple."
> 
> The Criminal background's feature is all about this sort of thing:
> Feature: Criminal Contact​You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.​
> A folk hero can find places to hide, rest, and recuperate among other commoners, a noble can secure audiences with local nobles,  a sage might know of a sage or other learned person or creature from whom to obtain information. etc.
> 
> I guess the most striking thing about these features for the question of agency is they have zero mechanics associated with them, so I think they're mostly seen as highly DM-dependent in their usage and reliability. Personally, I would tend to view them as a sort of player fiat ability, but, unfortunately, I don't see players making much use of them at all.




I agree completely about their orthodox interpretation of them must be "player fiat."  In the design trajectory of 5e, PC Background Features and Monster/NPC Legendary and Lair actions were the two pieces of design that I really liked (and I spoke to that back then).


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## Thomas Shey

Liked your post up there, MBC; its particular interesting you brought up Token Stance, which tends to be kind of the redheaded stepchild of play styles, as you can make a perfectly good argument that there's limited, if any, actual roleplaying in it--but it seems odd to write it off entirely since a pretty fair number of people took that approach in the early days of the hobby (and not just in D&D), and I can't but imagine at least a significant number still do.

Part of the thing that confuses the issue in these threads, I think, is that some people come in with the unstated premise that only in-character agency is agency; metagame player agency is something else.  Like most unstated assumptions, that's one of the things that ends up with a lot of people talking past each other.


----------



## innerdude

Lanefan said:


> Agreed it can be frustrating. That said, if it's what the characters would do then so be it - all I can do as DM is sit back, crack open another beer, and wait for them to decide what to do. If I'm a player, sooner or later my boredom tolerance will be exceeded and my character will do something rash - usually to its own detriment but hey, at least I got things moving.




So, this is interesting . . . because this entire "meta" player decision runs entirely contrary to the whole idea of "absolute fidelity to the fiction and characters." If we're treating our characters as "real" within the fiction, no one in within the actual fiction is going to say word one if one of the characters wants to do a thorough examination of options and risks before taking action.

But if that supposed "objective reality" starts to conflict with the metagame reality of players being bored, it's totally okay to rule in favor of the metagame reality of "get the bloody game moving."

So how is this any different than simply letting players "get the bloody game moving" through the actual game mechanics, PC build elements, and action declarations?




Lanefan said:


> As for the kind of things they may want to see come up in play: broad-brush stuff - e.g. if I get a vibe that the players are keen on doing some adventuring in an arctic setting for a while, or that they're tired of facing undead and would like to see some variety - are usually pretty easy to accommodate.  But in specific terms e.g. a character wants to sort out some drama within her family (and I've got one player who quite likes this sort of thing), I try to limit this or do it off-session as while it's going on in-session everyone else is more or less sitting there bored.
> 
> As a player, some of my characters have rather specific goals but I don't want to waste too much of everyone else's time with them and neither expect nor insist that they come up as part of party play (exception: if I-as-character can talk the party into helping with something tha'ts different, as they always have the option of saying no and if they say yes it's their own choice), and so that stuff gets dealt with off-session or in spare moments.




So it's always the duty of the player to subsume what they'd really like to explore, either thematically or in-fiction? Everyone's just supposed go along in an extended Abilene paradox, where no one really gets to enjoy exploring an aspect of the fiction/character that's interesting to them, because the GM's just decided that "well, the objective reality of the game world just doesn't allow for that"?




Lanefan said:


> OK, let's try another example - this one very timely as it's currently ongoing in my game:
> 
> I'm running S1 Lost Caverns.  Party has been in the field on and off for over half a year dealing with this; and on one of their visits to town it became clear that what they were in theory doing (finding the Necronomicon, the original holy scripture for all Necromancy; I substituted this into the module in place of the Demonomicon as all its useful spells already exist in my game) could have huge ramifications for Necromancers everywhere and the local Necromancers' guild really really really wanted this book!
> 
> Unknown to the PCs, word got out.  Other Necromancers' guilds eventually heard about this, took note, and took action.
> 
> Party finally finishes the adventure and heads back to town.  They're intercepted before they get there: foreign Necromancers have invaded the city and started a war with the locals over who gets to end up with this book.  Civilians are fleeing, if not already dead as collateral damage.  Buildings are burnt.  Huge rewards have been posted (though no-one's really sure by who) for each known party member.  All of this catches the adventurers quite off guard - they were hoping to get back to town, get rid of this damn book, divide their treasury, get all their lost levels restored (Drelzna had a field day!), and relax for a bit of downtime.  Now they have to sort their way through a war, which is what next session will probably consist of.
> 
> I can think of at least one poster here who would say this is bad design because it uses hidden backstory.  Needless to say, I disagree.




Well, yes, it's definitely hidden backstory -- in-fiction events, determined by the GM, which occur without input vis-a-vis the players. And sure, it's fun as a GM to occasionally throw out some unforeseen surprise.

But truthfully, in many circumstances, it's an indulgence on the GM's part.

Was the question ever asked, "Will my players enjoy this conflict/obstacle, or would they much rather be experiencing something else?"

Given the choice, would the players rather have proceeded on to something that felt more dramatically interesting and relevant to the stakes of their characters, or their personal interests? And how would they signal such interest to the GM?

The truth is, if the players weren't interested in this particular conflict/obstacle, then it's the GM just being indulgent. There's a million ways to skip past this event if the players weren't really interested in it . . . but it happened anyway by the choice of the GM.

Which is fine --- but hopefully the GM has the awareness on some level that it is, in fact, an indulgence on their part.

Maybe the the GM does it because this set of events is just more fun for him or her--(S)he just wants to play around with a fun set of encounter mechanics or abilities, or a fun NPC they want to toy around with. Maybe the GM is willing to sacrifice the enjoyment of their players to maintain "fidelity to the illusion of objective reality," because "that's totally what would happen in the fiction right now, and I must maintain that illusion."

Regardless of the reason, it's a case of the GM actively prioritizing some other interest above the enjoyment of the players. And if the players are okay with that, great! Some players are totally fine with the knowledge that the GM is going to regularly place other needs/agendas above their own enjoyment of the game. It's been that way since 1974, and will probably be that way in 2074.

And I suppose that there are some players that are willing to sacrifice some of their own dramatic interests in the name of maintaining "fidelity to the illusion of objective reality."

To which I say, "More power to them." I'm just no longer one of those players.

*Edit --- One additional thought: The more I think of it, the concept of "agency" in RPG play ultimately comes down to this question --- how much ability does a player have to actively pursue and engage with ideas/themes/elements of interest within the fictional construct of play, and through what means is that ability derived?


----------



## pemerton

@Hriston, good post.

A much earlier proto-Circles mechanics, but with its own complexities and points of GM-intervention, is henchman recruitment.


----------



## pemerton

@innerdude, good post including observation about metagaming. _Being bored_ is a state the _player _is in, not the PC.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Part of the thing that confuses the issue in these threads, I think, is that some people come in with the unstated premise that only in-character agency is agency; metagame player agency is something else.  Like most unstated assumptions, that's one of the things that ends up with a lot of people talking past each other.



It's not really that. It is merely that for choices to matter there must be some constraints and limiting the players ability to affect the setting to that of their character is one possible constraint. People seem to recognise this in a sense that they accept that the game needs to have rules; that a situation where the players can just freely declare anything and have it be so is not optimal. I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?


----------



## Thomas Shey

innerdude said:


> So how is this any different than simply letting players "get the bloody game moving" through the actual game mechanics, PC build elements, and action declarations?




I may be missing your point entirely, in which case this will seem a nonsensical response, but at least for some of us, a lot of that is a significant part of the "bloody game moving".


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not really that. It is merely that for choices to matter there must be some constraints and limiting the players ability to affect the setting to that of their character is one possible constraint. People seem to recognise this in a sense that they accept that the game needs to have rules; that a situation where the players can just freely declare anything and have it be so is not optimal. I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?




Well, I'll bite at least.  And I can answer it pretty easily in three sentences.

1. Yes, any rules that constrains what a character can declare about his interactions with the world and the results absolutely constrains player agency.

2. _Agency isn't everything_.  Its a good, but like most such things, not an unlimited good.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?




I don’t think that’s generally the case. I mean, the game’s rules are what they are....they allow the level of agency they allow, and hopefully all participants know that going in. There shouldn’t be significant shifts in agency such that it is reduced. 

There may be instances of play where something happens that would reduce or remove the player’s ability to influence the game....let’s say a Charm spell or similar....but again, these rules are baked in and are an assumed part of the game. Players should expect them to happen,  so I don’t know if I’d say that they’re the kind of example you’re looking for. 

I think where we do run into something that could be less predictable and which is part of the game and which can reduce agency is when there’s not a clear process in place, whether as a rule or as a principle or technique. This kind of sliding scale makes it hard for a participant to know their chances and how those chances are determined. The big example here would be things decided by GM fiat, I’d say. 

If we wanted to look at it more as a question of “do games with such rules allow for less player agency” instead of do they reduce agency, then I think it’s easier to answer. Yes, such rules may result in less agency for players than the rules of another game may allow. As to why would we have them, it’ll vary from person to person according to preference, but the general answer is that the rules result in an engaging play experience. 

Constraints on players are an important part of a game. I think what is sometimes overlooked is that constraints on GMing are equally important.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, I'll bite at least.  And I can answer it pretty easily in three sentences.
> 
> 1. Yes, any rules that constrains what a character can declare about his interactions with the world and the results absolutely constrains player agency.
> 
> 2. _Agency isn't everything_.  Its a good, but like most such things, not an unlimited good.



OK. This is consistent, though I'm not sure I agree with such definition of agency. But were I to agree with your definition, then I would definitely agree with your second point.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> If we wanted to look at it more as a question of “do games with such rules allow for less player agency” instead of do they reduce agency, then I think it’s easier to answer.



That's basically what I meant.



hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, such rules may result in less agency for players than the rules of another game may allow. As to why would we have them, it’ll vary from person to person according to preference, but the general answer is that the rules result in an engaging play experience.



And then you also have an answer for why it might be desirable for GM to decide certain things instead of the player. But now you have basically agree that limiting player agency (as you define it) is often needed. So then this is really not about agency, it is about how that limiting happens.



hawkeyefan said:


> Constraints on players are an important part of a game. I think what is sometimes overlooked is that constraints on GMing are equally important.



Perhaps. But you really cannot ignore that the player and the GM ultimately have completely different roles, so you need to approach the constraints completely differently.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> And then you also have an answer for why it might be desirable for GM to decide certain things instead of the player. But now you have basically agree that limiting player agency (as you define it) is often needed. So then this is really not about agency, it is about how that limiting happens.




Yes. I don’t think anyone is advocating for unlimited player agency. I think limits are needed in order to still function as a game.

And I think the matter of how these constraints happen is a big part of the discussion. Many folks in this thread are questioning when and how such limits are placed, which seems largely to be assumed by many to match what’s done in most forms of D&D.

But just because someone says that the constraints on the player don’t need to be exactly as they are in D&D doesn’t mean that they want all such constraints removed.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Perhaps. But you really cannot ignore that the player and the GM ultimately have completely different roles, so you need to approach the constraints completely differently.




I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they have completely different roles. I understand that they are different in ways, of course, but there is also overlap between the two, and the amount of that overlap will depend on the game.

But that minor point aside, yes they have different roles. Each role will have means of guiding the fiction specific to that role. But I don't think that constraint on the GM is “perhaps” needed; it is absolutely needed.

No constraints on the GM would infringe upon the players’ agency, no? Or at the very least, it leaves the game open to it.

And i don’t think we need to approach them completely differently. At times, sure, based on the nature of each role and how they are different, as you mentioned. But something like “respect the results of the dice” seems about as fundamental as you can get, and can be expected by both roles.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes. I don’t think anyone is advocating for unlimited player agency. I think limits are needed in order to still function as a game.



I'm still not sure I agree with the definition of agency=freedom, but let's go with that for now.



hawkeyefan said:


> And I think the matter of how these constraints happen is a big part of the discussion. Many folks in this thread are questioning when and how such limits are placed, which seems largely to be assumed by many to match what’s done in most forms of D&D.
> 
> But just because someone says that the constraints on the player don’t need to be exactly as they are in D&D doesn’t mean that they want all such constraints removed.



Sure. But it really is just a preference thing. Then you really cannot criticise one style because it limits player agency if your own style does too, just in a different way.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they have completely different roles. I understand that they are different in ways, of course, but there is also overlap between the two, and the amount of that overlap will depend on the game.
> 
> But that minor point aside, yes they have different roles. Each role will have means of guiding the fiction specific to that role. But I don't think that constraint on the GM is “perhaps” needed; it is absolutely needed.
> 
> No constraints on the GM would infringe upon the players’ agency, no? Or at the very least, it leaves the game open to it.




In a sense. But those 'constraint's do not need to be anything formal. The GM can be 'constrained' by their desire to make sure that everyone is having good time.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm still not sure I agree with the definition of agency=freedom, but let's go with that for now.




I’m not sure it’s “freedom” either. I’m trying to view it as @Manbearcat and @innerdude ‘s recent posts describe.

How much ability does the player have to change the gamestate.

I think that there must be limits on how they can do so....constraints or rules that determine how they can do so.




Crimson Longinus said:


> Sure. But it really is just a preference thing. Then you really cannot criticise one style because it limits player agency if your own style does too, just in a different way.




Yeah, I think it is a matter of preference. What I mean is how much agency a game allows a player and how much they will enjoy that is a preference. What level of agency a game allows is less a matter of preference, although it’s not totally objective.

As for criticism, we absolutely can criticize how one game constrains players and/or the GM. Why can’t we? It’s like saying I can’t criticize the rules of Starfinder because I like Savage Worlds and it has rules, too.





Crimson Longinus said:


> In a sense. But those 'constraint's do not need to be anything formal. The GM can be 'constrained' by their desire to make sure that everyone is having good time.




When they are not formal is when you wind up in gray areas. Or if they are formal in the sense of being clearly stated in the rules, but are vague in when and how they may be applied, then again things become murky.

To kind of take your mention of the GM constraining themself in order to make sure everyone has fun....I think this is something that happens a lot. Especially with persistent groups. The more you know a GM and their practices and how they’re likely to handle judgments and such, the smaller that gray area gets.

But let’s say you’re starting a new game with a new GM. You’re new to the rules and you’re new to the GM.

Wouldn’t clearly defined rules and play principles help you understand exactly to what extent you can affect the game?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I’m not sure it’s “freedom” either. I’m trying to view it as @Manbearcat and @innerdude ‘s recent posts describe.
> 
> How much ability does the player have to change the gamestate.
> 
> I think that there must be limits on how they can do so....constraints or rules that determine how they can do so.



And some limits are bad and some limits are good... because?



hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, I think it is a matter of preference. What I mean is how much agency a game allows a player and how much they will enjoy that is a preference. What level of agency a game allows is less a matter of preference, although it’s not totally objective.



Again, I think people have been overly focused on the amount of agency rather than the type of it.




hawkeyefan said:


> As for criticism, we absolutely can criticize how one game constrains players and/or the GM. Why can’t we? It’s like saying I can’t criticize the rules of Starfinder because I like Savage Worlds and it has rules, too.



Yes, but if one agrees that limiting agency is necessary, then one must be able to articulate why some specific limitation is bad whilst some other limitation is fine. Saying 'it limits agency' is pointless.




hawkeyefan said:


> When they are not formal is when you wind up in gray areas. Or if they are formal in the sense of being clearly stated in the rules, but are vague in when and how they may be applied, then again things become murky.
> 
> To kind of take your mention of the GM constraining themself in order to make sure everyone has fun....I think this is something that happens a lot. Especially with persistent groups. The more you know a GM and their practices and how they’re likely to handle judgments and such, the smaller that gray area gets.
> 
> But let’s say you’re starting a new game with a new GM. You’re new to the rules and you’re new to the GM.
> 
> Wouldn’t clearly defined rules and play principles help you understand exactly to what extent you can affect the game?



I said ages ago that rules are one way to communicate intent and preferences, but obviously not the only one and and I would strongly argue that definitely not the best.

And frankly, I don't place a high value on rules in an RPG, they should function and stay out of the way. You can run a perfectly decent RPG session without any rules at all, but trying to run one without a GM turns it into something completely different.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> And some limits are bad and some limits are good... because?




Because they fit or don’t fit someone’s preference? 

The good and bad bit is subjective, and I’m not saying what’s good or bad. Not sure why you’d frame your response along those lines.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Again, I think people have been overly focused on the amount of agency rather than the type of it.




Sure, that’s probably part of it. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, but if one agrees that limiting agency is necessary, then one must be able to articulate why some specific limitation is bad whilst some other limitation is fine. Saying 'it limits agency' is pointless.




No, it’s not. 

A GM not allowing players to determine their PC’s backstory limits agency. It’s an area of the fiction on which a player can have input, and possibly shape the fiction of the game. If I’m allowed to say that my PC is secretly the heir to the throne and that he wants to restore his claim....that’s me telling the GM what I’d like to see in play. 

If the GM looks at me and says “No....we’re gonna do Descent Into Avernus, so that backstory isn’t suitable” then he has limited my ability to determine what the game is about, and my character’s place in it. 

Whether or not this is good in that it’s an acceptable way to play or not is up to the individual. Again, this isn’t about “Agency = Good”.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I said ages ago that rules are one way to communicate intent and preferences, but obviously not the only one and and I would strongly argue that definitely not the best.




Okay, what would be other areas? I agree there are others. Principles of play would likely be the big one that leaps to my mind. 

What would you say would be ways to communicate intent and purpose? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> And frankly, I don't place a high value on rules in an RPG, they should function and stay out of the way. You can run a perfectly decent RPG session without any rules at all, but trying to run one without a GM turns it into something completely different.




I would say a RPG session with no rules is as different a thing as one with no GM. Without rules, how is it a game? Sounds like it would just be people having a conversation about pretend things. 

No....rules should not get out of the way. They should promote and inspire and enable play. They’re essential.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> So I appreciate the detailed reply. I think in a lot of ways we agree, and I think that mostly it's just a matter of preference in how we approach gaming. I'm gonna snip it down a bit, because I feel we're drifting away from matters related to agency, and I know we've talked about a lot of this stuff before in one way or another.



Fair enough...these do get rather unwieldy. 


hawkeyefan said:


> There are times where it can be interesting to watch the players pause and then debate what to do about a situation, how to proceed. But I like when those moments are reserved for kind of major moments. When the decision is not a major one, I want things to move. I don't like those big pauses happening often.
> 
> This can be a product of the system, or parts of it. It can be for other reasons, too, of course.



Thing is, as the PCs have no way of knowing whether what they're deciding on is major or trivial it's only fair the players don't either.

Depends on the specific players too.  If you get two or three over-planners in the same game be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting for stuff to happen - or be willing to bring the heat: wandering monsters can be your friend. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, that's all great. I agree about the group being the focus. But I prefer when each PC also has their own things going on, their own agenda to pursue. Focus can rotate as needed, and I would hope the players are all okay with indulging a little time spent on characters other than theirs now and again. Plus, the characters are usually invested in one another, so getting their help doesn't usually require a lot of convincing.



To some extent, I agree.  But when half a session or more goes into one PC's family drama it gets a bit much.   (example: as a player right now one of my PCs is just coming in from the field and has some family stuff to see to before he heads out again - my hope is to resolve it with a few die rolls and the DM telling me how much I have to spend; so as not to bore everyone else with it).


hawkeyefan said:


> I think this ties into a lot of the things that others are mentioning, where the players are able to shape the content of the fiction. It's about their characters.



Perhaps - but about their characters as a party or their characters as individuals, is the question.


hawkeyefan said:


> So let me say this....if I'm in your game, and a volcano explodes when our PCs are near it, I'm not gonna buy that this was a neutral decision. Sure, you could show me some notes that say you had predetermined that this thing was gonna blow on August 5 of whatever year.....and then I'm going to point out how you're largely in control of the pace, and the date and of possibly dropping prompts into play to get us to go near the volcano.



I just as easily could have dropped hints trying to steer you away from it - but when do players listen to DM hints anyway? 


hawkeyefan said:


> And if the volcano erupts when the party is no where in the area....I'm very likely not to care at all.
> 
> If the whole goal of this is to set up some kind of legitimacy to the idea of neutrality, it just seems odd.



It's to also set up the idea that history is happening around the PCs above and beyond their own purviews.


hawkeyefan said:


> So you have a GM plot you want them to engage with. It's fine. Where is the player agency in this scenario? Probably to decide to go after the book in the first place. Then, most everything else is "the world" responding to what the PCs are doing.



The agency this player has right now is immense, though she might not realize it: her PC has what everyone wants, and no matter what she does with it that action is going to change the fiction's course, probably in a big way.


hawkeyefan said:


> But really, there is no "world" so it's the DM deciding what happens next. All the stuff about the necromancers and the foreign ones learning of the book (how did that happen? It seems it happened to further the plot, but I imagine it would be described as "the world responding to the PCs' actions) and then attacking the PCs and waging war on the town, and placing bounties on the PCs.....all of that is the GM having a story idea.
> 
> It's not bad. It just doesn't appear to have a high level of player agency. It's the GM constructing a story in advance around the PCs. Or at least, that's how it seems.



It's kind of a game-world response.  I didn't pre-plan the idea of this Necromancer war in the slightest, but when the party ended up taking over half a year on what I-as-DM initially thought would be maybe a 2-month venture I started thinking about what the ramifications of that delay might be, then rolled some dice and came up with this.


hawkeyefan said:


> Why would the GM ask more than one player to confirm what was to the North? Why would more than on player be attempting a check to determine the terrain?



Can't speak for anyone else, but for me if something's not described by the DM then my own imagination's probably going to fill it in.  Thus if all the DM tells me is that we're in a swamp I'm going to start thinking in my own mind about what's around that swamp.  As we haven't been told we can see any hills in the distance I have to assume there aren't any; so it's forest in one direction, open water in another, and more swamp in a third; and if I-as-player am asked what's out there that's what I'll say.

But when a player drops in that there's hills to the north (that we-as-PCs in theory can bloody well see!) a) my imagined scenario gets upended and b) the GM's powers of scene description get called into serious question.


hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, if you put a river that flows north to south, how would it later become relevant that it has to flow south to north? And how would this river only be susceptible to this if it was placed at the time of play instead of months before?



Not sure if you're understanding what I'm not-very-clearly getting at, so let me try again. 

If one person designs the setting ahead of time there's way more opportunity to find and iron out any inconsistencies.  But if the setting's designed piecemeal at different times by committee as play goes along those inconsistencies could become a big headache.  Example:

During some run of play in a city the flow-direction of the big river running through it becomes important - maybe someone wants to float down the river to escape something and someone needs to author what pre-established parts of town they'll pass through or end up in - and it's determined the river flows south-to-north.

During a different and unrelated run of play (maybe something to do with a swamp!) it's for some reason determined that there's hills to the north and mountains beyond that.

During a third unrelated run of play it's determined there's open ocean not far to the south - maybe someone was looking for a particular herb that only grows along the seashore.

Taken independently there's nothing wrong with any of these.  But put 'em together and now you've got a river trying to flow uphill.  And while you could easily say "Oh, just turn it around and make it flow north-to-south", that would retroactively invalidate the run of play that took place in the city which for me would be a game-wrecker.

Having just one hand on the helm doesn't eliminate the chance of this happening but does greatly reduce it.


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Example:
> 
> During some run of play in a city the flow-direction of the big river running through it becomes important - maybe someone wants to float down the river to escape something and someone needs to author what pre-established parts of town they'll pass through or end up in - and it's determined the river flows south-to-north.
> 
> During a different and unrelated run of play (maybe something to do with a swamp!) it's for some reason determined that there's hills to the north and mountains beyond that.
> 
> During a third unrelated run of play it's determined there's open ocean not far to the south - maybe someone was looking for a particular herb that only grows along the seashore.
> 
> Taken independently there's nothing wrong with any of these.  But put 'em together and now you've got a river trying to flow uphill.  And while you could easily say "Oh, just turn it around and make it flow north-to-south", that would retroactively invalidate the run of play that took place in the city which for me would be a game-wrecker.
> 
> Having just one hand on the helm doesn't eliminate the chance of this happening but does greatly reduce it.




But one of the principles of no myth games that afford player agency in shaping the setting in this way is not to contradict elements already established in play. If the flow of the river has already been established in play to flow south-north as per your example, a player _couldn't_ just establish hills to the north as that _would_ conflict with something already established (the south-north flowing river).

But let's presume that for some reason the geographical details of the world have been forgotten or become confused so that these two elements (south-north river, northern hills) are brought into play. Is this truly irreconcilable in a fantasy game? Might the player's introduction of a "mistake" not just be a happy accident that begs for explanation: a magical reverse waterfall that flows _up_ a cliff's edge or something? Sometimes, @Lanefan, I think you forget that "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Because they fit or don’t fit someone’s preference?
> 
> The good and bad bit is subjective, and I’m not saying what’s good or bad. Not sure why you’d frame your response along those lines.



You might not be, a lot of people certainly strongly implied.


hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, that’s probably part of it.



And this is why I really don't agree with the idea, that agency is so easily quantifiable that any increase of the player decision making power will automatically increase the net agency. I think I explained it well enough with my example about 'get out of jail free card' meta currency. And the truth is everyone actually agrees with this in theory. Everyone agrees that the game has to have some limits and making decisions within these limits is what makes those decisions meaningful, thus producing agency. People just do not agree what those limits should be.



hawkeyefan said:


> No, it’s not.
> 
> A GM not allowing players to determine their PC’s backstory limits agency. It’s an area of the fiction on which a player can have input, and possibly shape the fiction of the game. If I’m allowed to say that my PC is secretly the heir to the throne and that he wants to restore his claim....that’s me telling the GM what I’d like to see in play.
> 
> If the GM looks at me and says “No....we’re gonna do Descent Into Avernus, so that backstory isn’t suitable” then he has limited my ability to determine what the game is about, and my character’s place in it.
> 
> Whether or not this is good in that it’s an acceptable way to play or not is up to the individual. Again, this isn’t about “Agency = Good”.



This is not exactly what I meant, though I am not sure what us knowing that the player's agency was limited gets us. Like so what? What are we using this information for?



hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, what would be other areas? I agree there are others. Principles of play would likely be the big one that leaps to my mind.
> 
> What would you say would be ways to communicate intent and purpose?



Talking.



hawkeyefan said:


> I would say a RPG session with no rules is as different a thing as one with no GM. Without rules, how is it a game? Sounds like it would just be people having a conversation about pretend things.




RPGs are barely games anyway. Imagine a part of a D&D session where the characters are just talking with each other and some NPCs, exploring a city, perhaps shopping. No dice have been rolled. Did it stop being a game? You can just run entire sessions or campaigns like that. Perhaps ask GM asks some rolls and just sets up the odds based how likely in they think the character is to succeed. In practice it doesn't run significantly differently than a game with somewhat more complex rules. Its really good for horror and drama where the focus is more on atmosphere rather than 'winning'. Keeps the focus on the fiction rather than on the rules.



hawkeyefan said:


> No....rules should not get out of the way. They should promote and inspire and enable play. They’re essential.



Nah. I just want to pretend to be an elf or somesuch. I want to do things that would be sensible from the POV of my character and I want things that make sense in the fictional context result from those actions. The rules can help to facilitate that but they're just an imperfect simulation engine.


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> So, this is interesting . . . because this entire "meta" player decision runs entirely contrary to the whole idea of "absolute fidelity to the fiction and characters." If we're treating our characters as "real" within the fiction, no one in within the actual fiction is going to say word one if one of the characters wants to do a thorough examination of options and risks before taking action.
> 
> But if that supposed "objective reality" starts to conflict with the metagame reality of players being bored, it's totally okay to rule in favor of the metagame reality of "get the bloody game moving."



Oh, I agree - I didn't say it was a good thing, did I?   Ideally my boredom level shouldn't have any impact on what my PCs do.  I just don't always live up to ideals...


innerdude said:


> So it's always the duty of the player to subsume what they'd really like to explore, either thematically or in-fiction?



If it bores everyone else, I'd say it is.  I-as-player have no right to expect anyone else to care about my PC trying to find his impoverished sister and set her up with some of the wealth I've acquired through adventuring.  It's something I and the DM can look after off-session, or with just a few dice rolls and an expense notation.  If, however, I was the only player in the game I'd want us to role-play this out in some detail.


innerdude said:


> Everyone's just supposed go along in an extended Abilene paradox, where no one really gets to enjoy exploring an aspect of the fiction/character that's interesting to them, because the GM's just decided that "well, the objective reality of the game world just doesn't allow for that"?



The objective reality of the game world does take precedence over everything.  If it didn't, there'd be no objective reality to be found there.

But assuming the game-world reality allows for those aspects one wants to explore, the question then becomes one of priority: are explorations of aspects and elements of an individual character more important (i.e. more worth spending session-time on) than explorations of aspects of the fiction as a party?  In most cases, out of consideration for the other players at the table, I'd say no.  Further, I'd think that to say yes is just selfish.


innerdude said:


> Well, yes, it's definitely hidden backstory -- in-fiction events, determined by the GM, which occur without input vis-a-vis the players. And sure, it's fun as a GM to occasionally throw out some unforeseen surprise.
> 
> But truthfully, in many circumstances, it's an indulgence on the GM's part.
> 
> Was the question ever asked, "Will my players enjoy this conflict/obstacle, or would they much rather be experiencing something else?"



And can that question ever truly be answered, other than in hindsight?  Ahead of time, all one can do is guess.


innerdude said:


> Given the choice, would the players rather have proceeded on to something that felt more dramatically interesting and relevant to the stakes of their characters, or their personal interests? And how would they signal such interest to the GM?
> 
> The truth is, if the players weren't interested in this particular conflict/obstacle, then it's the GM just being indulgent. There's a million ways to skip past this event if the players weren't really interested in it . . . but it happened anyway by the choice of the GM.
> 
> Which is fine --- but hopefully the GM has the awareness on some level that it is, in fact, an indulgence on their part.



IME most players, if given the choice, would have their PCs avoid all conflicts or obstacles.  Given that, it falls to the GM to make sure they have to go through some regardless.


innerdude said:


> Maybe the the GM does it because this set of events is just more fun for him or her--(S)he just wants to play around with a fun set of encounter mechanics or abilities, or a fun NPC they want to toy around with.



Thing is, if this is the case I'll often outright tell the players this is what I'm doing, either at the time or afterwards.


innerdude said:


> Maybe the GM is willing to sacrifice the enjoyment of their players to maintain "fidelity to the illusion of objective reality," because "that's totally what would happen in the fiction right now, and I must maintain that illusion."



I'm more than willing to make that sacrifice.

My players enjoy having their PCs find lots of treasure.  Does that mean I have to have piles of gold waiting in every cave?  Hells no! 


innerdude said:


> Regardless of the reason, it's a case of the GM actively prioritizing some other interest above the enjoyment of the players. And if the players are okay with that, great! Some players are totally fine with the knowledge that the GM is going to regularly place other needs/agendas above their own enjoyment of the game. It's been that way since 1974, and will probably be that way in 2074.
> 
> And I suppose that there are some players that are willing to sacrifice some of their own dramatic interests in the name of maintaining "fidelity to the illusion of objective reality."



Not so much sacrifice their own dramatic interests as be willing to work them in to whatever the game world provides; and accept that not everything is going to fit in every situation.  As an extreme example, if I-as-player am interested in examining and messing around with how artificial intelligence impacts society I'm not likely to get much out of a medieval-based game world....but if that's what the DM has us in it's on me to accept that, and either put my AI ideas by until a better setting for them comes up or start my own futuristic campaign.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not really that. It is merely that for choices to matter there must be some constraints and limiting the players ability to affect the setting to that of their character is one possible constraint.



Here's one way to limit what the players can do in a RPG: all they do is listen to what the GM tells them is happening, but they elaborate on it a bit with (what @Manberacat, not far upthread, called) characterisation/pantomiming.

Such RPGing actually takes place. I've seen it. I've read posts about it. I've participated in it.

Those limits don't make choices by players matter. They make choices by players, beyond the zone of characterisation/pantomiming, largely irrelevant.

The main "limit" that makes choices matter in a puzzle-solving RPG is that _there is a correct answer to the puzzle_.

The main "limit" that makes choices matter in "play to find out what happens"-type RPGing is that _what happens can't just be ignored_.



Crimson Longinus said:


> People seem to recognise this in a sense that they accept that the game needs to have rules; that a situation where the players can just freely declare anything and have it be so is not optimal. I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?



These questions, in so far as they apply to "play to find out what happens"-type RPGing, have been amply answered upthread.

In games that use "say 'yes' or roll the dice" - eg Burning Wheel - the point of resolution mechanics (ie "rolling the dice") is to find out who gets to say what happens next - player or GM - and to determine the constraints that govern that - will it be the player's desire for what happens to his/her PC that comes true (ie if the GM says "yes", or if a roll is a success) or will it be some sort of adversity for the PC narrated by the GM (ie a roll is a failure).

In PbtA games like Apocalypse World or Dungeon World, the point of resolution mechanics is to find out, at certain key moments, who gets to say what happens next. The system determines what counts as a "key moment" by its list of player-side "moves"  (the slogan is, _if you do it, you do it_; if a group discovers that the systems list of moves doesn't correspond to what they care about in play, then they're playing the wrong game and should find one better suited to their tastes). If a move is triggered then we work out who gets to decided what happens next by rolling the dice - on a 6- result the GM gets to say what happens next, and is allowed to go hard in that respect; on a 10+ the player generally gets quite a bit of say over what happens next or perhaps (eg in AW if Go Aggro is used against a NPC) the GM gets to say but is significant constrained; on a 7-9 maybe the player gets to say but is significantly constrained (eg Seize by Force in AW) or maybe the GM and player get to share it a bit (eg Do Something Under Fire in AW).

In AW, there are very few player-side moves that permit the player to establish what it is that his/her PC knows, sees or recalls. Here's an exception, from the Batlebabe:

*Visions of death:* when you go into battle, roll+weird. On a 10+, name one person who’ll die and one who’ll live. On a 7–9, name one person who’ll die OR one person who’ll live. Don’t name a player’s character; name NPCs only. The MC will make your vision come true, if it’s even remotely possible. On a miss, you foresee your own death, and accordingly take -1 throughout the battle.​
Generally, though, when a player wants to establish what it is that his/her PC knows, sees or recalls this is done via moves that (on a success) oblige the GM to narrate certain things under various sorts of constraints, including (if the player's roll is a success) that the information be relevant or useful (eg Read a Charged Situation; Read a Person; Open Your Mind to the World's Psychic Maelstrom). The GM is also directed by the game rules to _ask provocative questions [of the players] and build on the answers [that they give]_. This (or, rather, it's Dungeon World equivalent) is the principle that @AbdulAlhazred had in mind upthread when envisaging that a player might be asked _what landform is to the north of the swamp?_

Burning Wheel takes a different approach to establishing what it is that his/her PC knows, sees or recalls. The player is typically permitted to put this to the test, via action declaration. Because such actions have a chance of failure, they open up the possibility that what it the PC knows, see or recalls either (i) isn't what the player hoped for, or (ii) isn't going to be as useful as the player had hoped. (Eg _Don't I recall that there are hills to the north of this swamp? OK, test Travel-wise. <Player rolls and fails> Yes, you do; you also recall that the hills are cursed - no one who has entered them has ever left alive!_)

What makes all of this _matter_ is that the fiction _is what it is_. Once established, it's established. If you're not sure about why this would matter, review the play example upthread of Thurgon and Aramina's encounter with Rufus. Or of their subsequent encounter with Xanthippe.



Crimson Longinus said:


> hawkeyefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, such rules may result in less agency for players than the rules of another game may allow. As to why would we have them, it’ll vary from person to person according to preference, but the general answer is that the rules result in an engaging play experience.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And then you also have an answer for why it might be desirable for GM to decide certain things instead of the player. But now you have basically agree that limiting player agency (as you define it) is often needed. So then this is really not about agency, it is about how that limiting happens.
Click to expand...


Your post doesn't follow from the post you've quoted. By "such rules", @hawkeyefan means rule for "things decided by GM fiat," And what is said about such rules is the fairly obvious point that _we would use such rules to produce an engaging play experience_.

It doesn't remotely follow from that _all that matters in RPG design, with respect to player agency, is how such agency is limited_.



Crimson Longinus said:


> The GM can be 'constrained' by their desire to make sure that everyone is having good time.



That's not a constraint. Which your scare quotes acknowledge.

The reason player's choices for their PCs _matter_, in "play to find out what happens"-type RPGing, is that _everyone at the table cares about the fiction _and those choices _help establish what that fiction is_. What distinguishes this from cooperative, round-robin storytelling is that the set-up of the game means that (i) a certain group of participants (ie the players) have an especial stake in one or more protagonists, towards whom they adopt a first-person identification, and that (ii) all the decision-making about what happens next is oriented towards the fate of those protagonists based around what they try and do.

If you are playing RPGs as a type of puzzle-solving game then what makes the player's choices matter is that they can genuinely contribute to solving the puzzle. This generally depends upon the puzzle-maker not being able to change the parameters of the puzzle part-way through the attempt to solve it.

Neither of these approaches to RPGing generates any particular demand that the non-player participant (ie the GM) (a) be able to make up fiction during the course of play as s/he sees fit, nor (b) that there be strong limits on the topics of fiction that the players contribute.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> as the PCs have no way of knowing whether what they're deciding on is major or trivial it's only fair the players don't either.



One way to approach RPGing is to make sure that nothing is ever put at stake that is trivial.

There are various ways this can be achieved. My personal favourite is a variation of "say 'yes'" - I will tell the players that their PCs get the trivial thing they want, or will describe some outcome that resolves the question in front of them. Probably less often, I will step outside of narration of the fiction and just tell the players that it doesn't matter.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Imagine a part of a D&D session where the characters are just talking with each other and some NPCs, exploring a city, perhaps shopping. No dice have been rolled. Did it stop being a game? You can just run entire sessions or campaigns like that.



That does not seem like a very high-player-agency campaign. Nothing is happening.

It sounds like extremely low-stakes round-robin storytelling.

I'm sure it's possible to have quality RPGing that emulates fiction other than melodrama and adventure stories; or even that emulates Andy Warhol's Sleep. But the RPGing I've participated in or observed that involves nothing but PCs talking to NPCs about shopping hasn't been it.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> But one of the principles of no myth games that afford player agency in shaping the setting in this way is not to contradict elements already established in play. If the flow of the river has already been established in play to flow south-north as per your example, a player _couldn't_ just establish hills to the north as that _would_ conflict with something already established (the south-north flowing river).
> 
> But let's presume that for some reason the geographical details of the world have been forgotten or become confused so that these two elements (south-north river, northern hills) are brought into play.



Yeah, it's the forgetting bit that'd worry me, followed by the "Oh, crap" moment sometime later when realization hits.  And it's so easy to do - I mean there's maps in published novels that violate some of these principles and those in theory are done by one person!


darkbard said:


> Is this truly irreconcilable in a fantasy game? Might the player's introduction of a "mistake" not just be a happy accident that begs for explanation: a magical reverse waterfall that flows _up_ a cliff's edge or something?



This could be done now and then, but if overdone the setting would become like Alice's wonderland - cool as hell to read about, perhaps, but nearly impossible to play in.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> No....rules should not get out of the way. They should promote and inspire and enable play. They’re essential.



Ideally rules should be as unobtrusive as possible - like the stereotypical butler, they should always be present but out of the way, and never noticed until needed.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> One way to approach RPGing is to make sure that nothing is ever put at stake that is trivial.
> 
> There are various ways this can be achieved. My personal favourite is a variation of "say 'yes'" - I will tell the players that their PCs get the trivial thing they want, or will describe some outcome that resolves the question in front of them. Probably less often, I will step outside of narration of the fiction and just tell the players that it doesn't matter.



This principle is enshrined at the highest level in my game. There are 2 phases of play, 'challenge', and 'interlude', and every moment of play takes place in one of these 2 phases. No dice are ever touched during an interlude, it is not necessarily entirely trivial (there could be important revelations for instance) but nothing is AT STAKE, no player has committed to any action or cost at that point. Shopping for clothing is a classic example (assuming it isn't tied to some agenda). Your wizard simply buys a robe. If he wants a high quality robe, he spends the resources for that, or he could go cheap. Either way, nothing depends on this choice. It may establish some fiction which is significant later, but it doesn't require adjudication of success or failure. The GM simply says 'yes' here.

Challenges are of course where the issues of the game are brought to a head.


pemerton said:


> That does not seem like a very high-player-agency campaign. Nothing is happening.
> 
> It sounds like extremely low-stakes round-robin storytelling.
> 
> I'm sure it's possible to have quality RPGing that emulates fiction other than melodrama and adventure stories; or even that emulates Andy Warhol's Sleep. But the RPGing I've participated in or observed that involves nothing but PCs talking to NPCs about shopping hasn't been it.



Again, you can have this in an interlude, although I think pacing demands that it not extend overmuch, and the real idea is for whatever happens there to provide the fictional position which can quickly (at the table anyway, it could be years of PCs lives) reach a point of further conflict and thus challenge.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> One way to approach RPGing is to make sure that nothing is ever put at stake that is trivial.



They get to a door.  They don't know what's beyond it, and all attempts to find any traps etc. have come up dry in such a way to leave the PCs still unsure if any are present or not.

The GM knows the door is safe and that there's no real threats right behind it...but the players don't and nor do the PCs.  Which means, the principles of GM neutralilty tell me I should just sit back, shut up, let them decide what to do, and then react to that decision.


pemerton said:


> There are various ways this can be achieved. My personal favourite is a variation of "say 'yes'" - I will tell the players that their PCs get the trivial thing they want, or will describe some outcome that resolves the question in front of them. Probably less often, I will step outside of narration of the fiction and just tell the players that it doesn't matter.



Doesn't doing so kinda chew on their agency?  Aren't they allowed to get hung up on something trivial if that's what they want to do?

In one of the most hilarious sessions I've ever seen, most of the session consisted of trying to persuade a particularly stubborn Dwarf PC to ride in a cart or ride a horse or use any method of transportation faster than his own stubby little legs, as we had a long way to go and limited time.  You-as-DM would have been tearing your hair out (ours was!), but as players we just couldn't stop laughing.  And the increasingly-ridiculous arguments put forth by both the Dwarf's player (to walk) and those of the other PCs (to get in the damn cart) - priceless!

We got nothing done that night, yet 35 years later I still remember that session fondly.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Yeah, it's the forgetting bit that'd worry me, followed by the "Oh, crap" moment sometime later when realization hits.  And it's so easy to do - I mean there's maps in published novels that violate some of these principles and those in theory are done by one person!
> 
> This could be done now and then, but if overdone the setting would become like Alice's wonderland - cool as hell to read about, perhaps, but nearly impossible to play in.



This kind of concern has never really arisen in a significant way in all my years of play/GMing. I mean, there are plenty of rivers in the real world which flow into the hills. The Hudson River is a perfectly good example, and the result is Ausable Canyon. 

Obviously it isn't IMPOSSIBLE to construct something that simply cannot be resolved in a believable way, but you still have the 'magical escape hatch' at that point. If your ability to keep details straight is so poor, AND the players desire to focus on them with laser-like concentration is so great, maybe you are better not being the GM for that group and running a zero-myth type of game, sure. 

But this is not an inherent problem, it is simply an issue of for whom does a given technique work, and which people make a good group for a given type of game.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Obviously it isn't IMPOSSIBLE to construct something that simply cannot be resolved in a believable way, but you still have the 'magical escape hatch' at that point. If your ability to keep details straight is so poor, AND the players desire to focus on them with laser-like concentration is so great ...



I'm that player, which is why keeping those details straight matters to me as GM.  Basically, my mantra is that if I can poke holes in my own details I'm doing it wrong.  And it still happens sometimes, much to my annoyance.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> That does not seem like a very high-player-agency campaign. Nothing is happening.
> 
> It sounds like extremely low-stakes round-robin storytelling.
> 
> I'm sure it's possible to have quality RPGing that emulates fiction other than melodrama and adventure stories; or even that emulates Andy Warhol's Sleep. But the RPGing I've participated in or observed that involves nothing but PCs talking to NPCs about shopping hasn't been it.



'Like that' obviously referred to the manner of conducting the game (i.e. without rules) and not the content (talking and shopping.) It works best for genres that are mostly about talking, investigating, drama and atmosphere, and less about action and combat. It is my preferred method for cthulhuesque games.


----------



## Lanefan

side note:

During all this I think @zarionofarabel must have shattered the ENWorld record for most 'likes' given out in a single thread. 

/side note


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Lanefan said:


> Doesn't doing so kinda chew on their agency?  Aren't they allowed to get hung up on something trivial if that's what they want to do?
> 
> In one of the most hilarious sessions I've ever seen, most of the session consisted of trying to persuade a particularly stubborn Dwarf PC to ride in a cart or ride a horse or use any method of transportation faster than his own stubby little legs, as we had a long way to go and limited time.  You-as-DM would have been tearing your hair out (ours was!), but as players we just couldn't stop laughing.  And the increasingly-ridiculous arguments put forth by both the Dwarf's player (to walk) and those of the other PCs (to get in the damn cart) - priceless!
> 
> We got nothing done that night, yet 35 years later I still remember that session fondly.



And that's one important form of agency. If the players wanted to engage with that sort of activity, then who is the GM to say that it doesn't matter? Obviously it mattered to the players.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Lanefan said:


> side note:
> 
> During all this I think @zarionofarabel must have shattered the ENWorld record for most 'likes' given out in a single thread.
> 
> /side note



You peeps have blown my mind with all this if it makes you feel better. The likes are well earned in my very humbled opinion.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not really that. It is merely that for choices to matter there must be some constraints and limiting the players ability to affect the setting to that of their character is one possible constraint. People seem to recognise this in a sense that they accept that the game needs to have rules; that a situation where the players can just freely declare anything and have it be so is not optimal. I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?




I'm going to try to answer your question here but go a bit further.  Rules do a lot of things:

*CONVEY PLAY PREMISE/PRIORITIES*

Are we testing players' skill in extracting treasure from ruins while that crucible reveals/evolves the nature of their PCs or are we finding out how what gun-toting Paladins will do to uphold the Faith and mete out justice in a fantasy Wild West that never was?

*CONVEY GENRE*

Laser sword wielding ascetics with supernatural powers and swashbuckling space opera or dark fantasy apocalypse Peaky Blinders.

*STRUCTURE PLAY*

TTRPGs aren't free-form so we need to know how conversation is supposed to unfold, what props (if any) and when/how to deploy them, when to consult the dice (or whatever) to find out how the gamestate changes, when to write something down/tick a box etc, how do reward cycles and attrition work and advancement/PC change resolve?

*DELINEATE PARTICIPANT ROLES, GIVE AUTHORITY, AND TAKE IT AWAY*

Why we need different people doing different stuff (playing obstacles/adversity and playing protagonism), how much latitude does each participant have to make a thing happen, when and how does that change during the course of play, what is "the system's say" when the agenda of two (or more) participants collide?



I'm going to start with your first statement but revise it a hair:

_For choices to matter there must be some constraints/limitations on all participants._

If the apex play priority of a game is about testing player's skill at x, then a referee who has no constraints on their authority will create 1 of 4 possible persistent states at the table (or any 2, 3, or 4 simultaneously with enough players):

* Player's choices ACTUALLY don't matter because the GM will use/has used their unbridled authority to manipulate outcomes at their discretion.

* Players exist in a persistent state of insecurity because their choices may (or may not) matter in any given moment, but they can't be sure because the GM has mandate to leverage the offscreen/backstory (that only they are privy to) or ignore/change action resolution results to manipulate outcomes at their discretion.

* Player choices matter because the the players have extended trust to the GM to respect outcomes despite their mandate (whether the GM has authentically earned it by actually respecting outcomes or contrived it by being highly proficient at Illusionism and/or their players aren't perceptive/invested enough to detect it).

* Player choices are irrelevant because the players just want to feel like their choices matter and their skill is tested...so long as the GM is capable of manufacturing that state of being then the player is happy enough to go along with whatever is happening.

Now I'm going to go back to the Moldvay example that I wrote out above.

Moldvay's (pretty much) exclusive play priority is testing tactical (Turn decision-point management in exploration, Round decision-point management in combat, creating and managing class synergies, etc) and strategic (loadout management, long term resource - rest/recharge etc - management, when to parley and when to fight, when to egress from the delve and when to push on, etc) skill.

If that is the apex play priority, then authority by any participant (GM or player), within any of the outlined components of rules that I've outlined above, that disrupts the competitive integrity of play with respect to that priority DOES NOT increase agency.  It reduces it.  

Put another way, if some facet of system/rules isn't distilling skill from ineptness, but rather distorting it and/or making it impossible for the cream to authentically rise to the top, then that facet of system/rules is rendering play fundamentally incoherent.  Agency is decreased because agency is "play-priority context-dependent."


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> They get to a door.  They don't know what's beyond it, and all attempts to find any traps etc. have come up dry in such a way to leave the PCs still unsure if any are present or not.
> 
> The GM knows the door is safe and that there's no real threats right behind it...but the players don't and nor do the PCs.  Which means, the principles of GM neutralilty tell me I should just sit back, shut up, let them decide what to do, and then react to that decision.
> 
> Doesn't doing so kinda chew on their agency?  Aren't they allowed to get hung up on something trivial if that's what they want to do?



If the game is about puzzle-solving then the GM should be letting the players solve the puzzles. Though frankly I think if the game is going to have very much of what you describe here - ie puzzles where the answer is _nothing to see here _- then it may turn out to be a fairly tedious puzzle-solving game. (This manifests in classic dungeoncrawling in the form of _too many empty rooms_.)

But if the players are in fact looking for interesting things, than narrating straight past things with nothing of interest isn't stepping on anyone's agency. If we are playing to find out what happens, then _nothing is happening here_ isn't a state of affairs that demands much dwelling on.



Lanefan said:


> In one of the most hilarious sessions I've ever seen, most of the session consisted of trying to persuade a particularly stubborn Dwarf PC to ride in a cart or ride a horse or use any method of transportation faster than his own stubby little legs, as we had a long way to go and limited time.  You-as-DM would have been tearing your hair out (ours was!), but as players we just couldn't stop laughing.  And the increasingly-ridiculous arguments put forth by both the Dwarf's player (to walk) and those of the other PCs (to get in the damn cart) - priceless!
> 
> We got nothing done that night, yet 35 years later I still remember that session fondly.





Crimson Longinus said:


> And that's one important form of agency. If the players wanted to engage with that sort of activity, then who is the GM to say that it doesn't matter? Obviously it mattered to the players.



This is an example of what @Manbearcat, upthread, described as _characterisation and pantomiming_.

I don't think that is the sort of activity that @zarionofarabel had in mind when asking about player agency in the OP - because the ability to engage in characterisation and pantomiming is completely independent of whether or not the PCs come to a fork in the road, and if they do whether they will meet an ogre down one, the other or either fork.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Thing is, as the PCs have no way of knowing whether what they're deciding on is major or trivial it's only fair the players don't either.
> 
> Depends on the specific players too. If you get two or three over-planners in the same game be prepared to spend a lot of time waiting for stuff to happen - or be willing to bring the heat: wandering monsters can be your friend.




Well if it’s trivial, then I’m not spending time on it. Not significant time anyway.

If you mean something like the PCs are at a door that they think may be trapped and are deciding how to proceed...and you know it’s not trapped (or even if it is, honestly) a simple “okay, let’s go, you opening the door or moving along” should do the trick.

But yeah, if the matter is actually trivial? Why spend any real time on it?



Lanefan said:


> To some extent, I agree. But when half a session or more goes into one PC's family drama it gets a bit much.  (example: as a player right now one of my PCs is just coming in from the field and has some family stuff to see to before he heads out again - my hope is to resolve it with a few die rolls and the DM telling me how much I have to spend; so as not to bore everyone else with it).




So the impression I get from your posts is that your players are bored by anything that has to do with their characters, and have no patience for any events that are personal to another member of the group.

It kind of amazes me.


Lanefan said:


> Perhaps - but about their characters as a party or their characters as individuals, is the question.




Our play tends to be about the group, but plenty of personal stuff comes up for each of the PCs. This doesn't bore the other players anymore than if I as GM presented them with a prompt of some kind.



Lanefan said:


> It's to also set up the idea that history is happening around the PCs above and beyond their own purviews.




Okay, cool. I think that kind of stuff can really help make the world seem like a place that exists independent of the PCs. 

I just don’t think that kind of stuff needs to be determined months in advance. 



Lanefan said:


> The agency this player has right now is immense, though she might not realize it: her PC has what everyone wants, and no matter what she does with it that action is going to change the fiction's course, probably in a big way.




That’s cool. I meant more at the beginning. Like, were they aware of all these factions and the likelihood that they’d be stirring up a bee’s nest with this? If not, when you decided it happened, it sounds like you went pretty far with it before they even learned about it. 



Lanefan said:


> It's kind of a game-world response. I didn't pre-plan the idea of this Necromancer war in the slightest, but when the party ended up taking over half a year on what I-as-DM initially thought would be maybe a 2-month venture I started thinking about what the ramifications of that delay might be, then rolled some dice and came up with this.




Right, this is why I ask. These may be logical reactions to what the PCs have done. But how aware of this logic would the PCs be? 



Lanefan said:


> If one person designs the setting ahead of time there's way more opportunity to find and iron out any inconsistencies.




How can there even be inconsistencies if something is made up in the moment? 



Lanefan said:


> Taken independently there's nothing wrong with any of these. But put 'em together and now you've got a river trying to flow uphill. And while you could easily say "Oh, just turn it around and make it flow north-to-south", that would retroactively invalidate the run of play that took place in the city which for me would be a game-wrecker.




I live near the Hudson River. It flows both ways. Perfectly mundane explanation. 

I’ll admit though that our games tend to not be worried about this kind of stuff. It generally doesn't come up. 



Lanefan said:


> And can that question ever truly be answered, other than in hindsight? Ahead of time, all one can do is guess.




Well, no....you can observe. You can ask. You can listen.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> You might not be, a lot of people certainly strongly implied.




I feel that seemed mostly a misunderstanding rather than anyone implying anything.



Crimson Longinus said:


> And this is why I really don't agree with the idea, that agency is so easily quantifiable that any increase of the player decision making power will automatically increase the net agency. I think I explained it well enough with my example about 'get out of jail free card' meta currency. And the truth is everyone actually agrees with this in theory. Everyone agrees that the game has to have some limits and making decisions within these limits is what makes those decisions meaningful, thus producing agency. People just do not agree what those limits should be.




The limits should serve whatever the purpose of the game is.

If I’m  going to play a cinematic game of the Alien RPG, then I’m not going to give players the agency to wander about the galaxy. I’m going to initiate play with a pretty tightly woven scenario, very likely in a specific location, and they’ll encounter it, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve designed the scenario to be fun and engaging for a session or two.

If I’m going to play something more long form, then I’m going to lean on the players a lot more. I’m going to ask them what they’d like the play to be about. We’ll do this through character creation with each player providing goals for their PC, and possibly shared goals for the group.

I’ll come up with a scene to kick things off, and then where it goes from there is up to them.

Not too long ago, I GMed for my buddy’s nephew and a couple of his friends. It was a one shot, and the friends were new to RPGs. We played 5E D&D. I made it a very short and succinct dungeon crawl. I intentionally kept things focused and moving. There were a few decision points for them, and we really gave those thought, but these were far fewer than what I’d want to do for an experienced group.

When my brother comes in to town, he sometimes wants to play just for old time’s sake, to get together with some old friends and roll some dice. I don’t really worry about agency in those games. They’re brief and the purpose is not to let the players drive the fiction.

It all depends on what the goal of play is. Sometimes, agency isn’t as strong a concern. But in my weekly ongoing game, it very much is.



Crimson Longinus said:


> This is not exactly what I meant, though I am not sure what us knowing that the player's agency was limited gets us. Like so what? What are we using this information for?




You said it was pointless to state that something reduced agency. I gave you an example that would matter to me as a player.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Talking.




Anything more specific in mind?



Crimson Longinus said:


> RPGs are barely games anyway. Imagine a part of a D&D session where the characters are just talking with each other and some NPCs, exploring a city, perhaps shopping. No dice have been rolled. Did it stop being a game? You can just run entire sessions or campaigns like that. Perhaps ask GM asks some rolls and just sets up the odds based how likely in they think the character is to succeed. In practice it doesn't run significantly differently than a game with somewhat more complex rules. Its really good for horror and drama where the focus is more on atmosphere rather than 'winning'. Keeps the focus on the fiction rather than on the rules.




I don’t agree with most of this. You can have scenes where no rules are engaged, but entire sessions is pushing it, and entire campaigns means you’re not even really playing a game anymore. You’re still role-playing, but without rules, it’s not a game.

My games tend not to linger on this kind of stuff for too long. Interaction with NPCs is expected and encouraged, but shopping and that kind of stuff is maintenance that we sum up quickly and then move on. So the NPCs that we try to focus on for interaction tend to be ones where something meaningful may take place.

The hope is that these interactions lead to interesting things, or give context to elements of the fiction.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Nah. I just want to pretend to be an elf or somesuch. I want to do things that would be sensible from the POV of my character and I want things that make sense in the fictional context result from those actions. The rules can help to facilitate that but they're just an imperfect simulation engine.




That’s fine. I don’t think of the rules as an imperfect simulation engine. My preference is that the rules help me do what I want to in the game, and that they’re fitting to it, and that they be engaging mechanically. I’m not exactly sure what it means to pretend to be an elf (meaning I’m dure different people will have ideas about that) but if that’s my goal, then I hope the rules help me do that.



Lanefan said:


> Ideally rules should be as unobtrusive as possible - like the stereotypical butler, they should always be present but out of the way, and never noticed until needed.




Ideally rules should be fun. They should be engaging and should promote play, and add to it. I don’t think that would make then obtrusive.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think of the rules as an imperfect simulation engine. My preference is that the rules help me do what I want to in the game, and that they’re fitting to it, and that they be engaging mechanically.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Ideally rules should be fun. They should be engaging and should promote play, and add to it. I don’t think that would make then obtrusive.



I don't know what the measure of _obtrusive_ is supposed to be.

It's hard to think of a mechanical resolution process in which the rules are more prominent - in the sense of providing the content and the topic and the focus of the conversation - than D&D combat rules: there is generation and discussion of initiative results, to hit rolls, damage rolls, comparison of rolled numbers to other numbers (eg to hit vs AC), adjustments of running tallies (eg hit points lost or regained), etc.

But given that @Lanefan and @Crimson Longinus both appear to enjoy playing D&D, I take it that this is not an example of _obtrusive_ rules.

(D&D combat rules are also not very much of a _simulation engine_. But that's a different point.)

Anyway, the rules of a RPG do the same work as the rules of any other game: they tell the participants what to do and when to do it. This includes telling us when and how to roll dice, and what the consequence is for the game of the result of the roll.

If you game rules tell you to roll dice when you don't want to, then you need better rules! The same if your rules don't tell you what follows from rolling _this_ rather than _that_ on the dice.

EDIT: Here's Vincent Baker again:

*Roleplaying's Fundamental Act​*
Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. . . .

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> Well if it’s trivial, then I’m not spending time on it. Not significant time anyway.
> 
> If you mean something like the PCs are at a door that they think may be trapped and are deciding how to proceed...and you know it’s not trapped (or even if it is, honestly) a simple “okay, let’s go, you opening the door or moving along” should do the trick.
> 
> But yeah, if the matter is actually trivial? Why spend any real time on it?




Or (a) establish a party Caller and (b) set an eggshell timer for decision-points that become session-stalling bottlenecks.  1 minute timer after you've canvassed the situation as the group and the time spent has yielded no forward movement.  If you haven't made a decision by then, the party Caller decides for the group.

I mean, people used to bitch about 4e Turns (and therefore Combat) taking long.  I never experienced the horror stories that people presented (our average 3 PCs Combats averaged about 24-36 minutes with the most intensive ones being around the 50-55 minutes mark) but it can't be worse than the agonized over strategic bottlenecks where 5 minutes turns to 10, which turns to 20 (and so on...all being spent haggling and arguing over a single decision-point)!  How is one THE WORST EVER and the other is A-OK?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Well if it’s trivial, then I’m not spending time on it. Not significant time anyway.
> 
> If you mean something like the PCs are at a door that they think may be trapped and are deciding how to proceed...and you know it’s not trapped (or even if it is, honestly) a simple “okay, let’s go, you opening the door or moving along” should do the trick.
> 
> But yeah, if the matter is actually trivial? Why spend any real time on it?



Because I don't want to end up with a situation where the players game me (and they would; and I'd find it hard to blame them) by waiting for me to move them forward when I know something's trivial and then suddenly taking it more seriously when I let them stew.  Neutrality says every similar situation should be treated in a similar manner; and as they'd quite rightly complain if I rushed them forward every time and thus sometimes got them hurt or killed, the default becomes to let them stew.


hawkeyefan said:


> So the impression I get from your posts is that your players are bored by anything that has to do with their characters, and have no patience for any events that are personal to another member of the group.
> 
> It kind of amazes me.



You're mostly right on the second part but wrong on the first.  We're not usually bored by anything that has to do with our own characters but recognize that others quite likely (and IMO quite reasonably) will be.


hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, cool. I think that kind of stuff can really help make the world seem like a place that exists independent of the PCs.
> 
> I just don’t think that kind of stuff needs to be determined months in advance.



Doing it in advance has another nice benefit: it makes the game a bit more likely to in effect run itself during the session.  The more stuff I can put on autopilot ahead of time the better I like it, as I can then enjoy the moment and wile busy reacting to things that come up in the moment I'm less likely to forget something relevant.


hawkeyefan said:


> That’s cool. I meant more at the beginning. Like, were they aware of all these factions and the likelihood that they’d be stirring up a bee’s nest with this? If not, when you decided it happened, it sounds like you went pretty far with it before they even learned about it.



They weren't aware of any of it...which makes in-game sense given that they were in the field when all of this arose.  And while they knew their goal was in theory to find a particular book they had no real idea what the book did or what its powers were/are (and didn't put much effort into asking) other than the Necromancer PC's own guild was very keen on getting it.  The PCs did know the guild wasn't exactly hiding its eagerness but never gave it any real thought beyond that.

On the meta level, I-as-DM didn't know any of this was coming until when the party were ready to head back to town it occurred to me just how long they'd taken, and I started thinking about what if any ramifications this might have produced.  I used my dice as a guide for whether word had spread (yes) and whether there'd be any reaction from other guilds (again, yes); then for timing and for how rough/violent (ouch!*) this reaction would be.

* - I usually use d% for this sort of thing, and '00' is not anyone's friend. 

So, instead of walking back to a peaceful town they found themselves standing into a storm.  Fortunately, they have all sorts of friends and allies in town as well.  Even more fortunately, on finding the book they stuck it in a Bag of Holding (where it remains still), meaning no-one could scry its location and try to steal it and thus unintentionally saving themselves a world o' scry-buff-teleport trouble during their two-week trip back to town.


hawkeyefan said:


> Right, this is why I ask. These may be logical reactions to what the PCs have done. But how aware of this logic would the PCs be?



Ahead of time, not at all.  Had they been more paranoid and thought things through in that light they may have got to it, but this group just isn't the paranoid sort.

Now, they've been told more than enough to piece together how this all came to happen.  Next session will be when we'll see what they do with that info, and with the book.


hawkeyefan said:


> How can there even be inconsistencies if something is made up in the moment?



Easy: it doesn't match what was made up in another moment.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t agree with most of this. You can have scenes where no rules are engaged, but entire sessions is pushing it, and entire campaigns means you’re not even really playing a game anymore. You’re still role-playing, but without rules, it’s not a game.



Entire campaigns, no.  Entire sessions - IME between adventures there's usually one or two almost-rules-free sessions encompassing downtime activities, treasury division, training (a few rules rear their heads here), and info-gathering and-or debriefing.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't know what the measure of _obtrusive_ is supposed to be.
> 
> It's hard to think of a mechanical resolution process in which the rules are more prominent - in the sense of providing the content and the topic and the focus of the conversation - than D&D combat rules: there is generation and discussion of initiative results, to hit rolls, damage rolls, comparison of rolled numbers to other numbers (eg to hit vs AC), adjustments of running tallies (eg hit points lost or regained), etc.
> 
> But given that @Lanefan and @Crimson Longinus both appear to enjoy playing D&D, I take it that this is not an example of _obtrusive_ rules.



Truth be told there's many times I find the rules in D&D to be obtrusive and interfering.  Over the years I've removed or tempered some of the worst ones, but some - mostly those around combat - can't really be removed without upending the whole system, something I have no real plans to do.


pemerton said:


> (D&D combat rules are also not very much of a _simulation engine_. But that's a different point.)
> 
> Anyway, the rules of a RPG do the same work as the rules of any other game: they tell the participants what to do and when to do it. This includes telling us when and how to roll dice, and what the consequence is for the game of the result of the roll.
> 
> If you game rules tell you to roll dice when you don't want to, then you need better rules!



Situationally dependent, but most of the time this is valid.


pemerton said:


> The same if your rules don't tell you what follows from rolling _this_ rather than _that_ on the dice.
> 
> EDIT: Here's Vincent Baker again:
> 
> ...
> ​So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​



Where I see it as being when the rules _can_ model the game world as a side effect of doing the other things they do, why not let them.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Or (a) establish a party Caller and (b) set an eggshell timer for decision-points that become session-stalling bottlenecks.  1 minute timer after you've canvassed the situation as the group and the time spent has yielded no forward movement.  If you haven't made a decision by then, the party Caller decides for the group.



Around here that would be the highway to hell.  The Caller would make a decision, sure; and then the next hour would be lost in in-character arguing with what the Caller decided, out-of-character arguing over the existence of the Caller role at all, and occasional calls to fire that Caller and vote in a new one.  Or on hearing the Caller's decision someone would immediately do something rash that may or may not be what the Caller just decided, cuing up another series of arguments.

In other words, chances are it'd slow things down more often than it sped 'em up. 


Manbearcat said:


> I mean, people used to bitch about 4e Turns (and therefore Combat) taking long.  I never experienced the horror stories that people presented (our average 3 PCs Combats averaged about 24-36 minutes with the most intensive ones being around the 50-55 minutes mark) but it can't be worse than the agonized over strategic bottlenecks where 5 minutes turns to 10, which turns to 20 (and so on...all being spent haggling and arguing over a single decision-point)!  How is one THE WORST EVER and the other is A-OK?



From the DM side a combat is always more engaging than a drawn-out decision point, as in a combat the DM usually has lots to do.  In either case I've learned to just let it all take however long it's gonna take.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Because I don't want to end up with a situation where the players game me (and they would; and I'd find it hard to blame them) by waiting for me to move them forward when I know something's trivial and then suddenly taking it more seriously when I let them stew.  Neutrality says every similar situation should be treated in a similar manner; and as they'd quite rightly complain if I rushed them forward every time and thus sometimes got them hurt or killed, the default becomes to let them stew.



I don't know how you're envisaging play.

There can't be "moving/rushing forward" in the absence of stopping. You can just narrate stuff, with whatever back-and-forth is appropriate, until something interesting comes up.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> *Yeah, it's the forgetting bit that'd worry me, followed by the "Oh, crap" moment sometime later when realization hits. * And it's so easy to do - I mean there's maps in published novels that violate some of these principles and those in theory are done by one person!
> 
> This could be done now and then, but if overdone the setting would become like Alice's wonderland - cool as hell to read about, perhaps, but nearly impossible to play in.



I know the lockdowns of 2020 have been hard on us all, but are you really out of pen(cil)s and paper at your house to write these things down? But IME, it happens less than you would think because players also like having a consistent world too, and they can use their own brains to help you remember. A group doesn't have to be a solo act.



Lanefan said:


> Ideally rules should be as unobtrusive as possible - like the stereotypical butler, they should always be present but out of the way, and never noticed until needed.



Ideally rules should help facilitate game play in a meaningful way. This seems true no matter what sort of game that I'm playing, whether it's a card game, a board game, a video/computer game, sports, or a tabletop roleplaying game. I do not want to play a game despite the rules, but, rather, because of them. 



Lanefan said:


> Doing it in advance has another nice benefit: it makes the game a bit more likely to in effect run itself during the session.  The more stuff I can put on autopilot ahead of time the better I like it, as I can then enjoy the moment and wile busy reacting to things that come up in the moment I'm less likely to forget something relevant.



But that only reflects your preferences. It certainly doesn't work for everyone.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not really that. It is merely that for choices to matter there must be some constraints and limiting the players ability to affect the setting to that of their character is one possible constraint. People seem to recognise this in a sense that they accept that the game needs to have rules; that a situation where the players can just freely declare anything and have it be so is not optimal. I really want people to answer this: do rules that place limits on how the player can affect the fiction or 'gamestates' reduce the players agency? And if they do, why we have such rules?



This is where we reach the value of the principle which says that no participant in the game should be responsible BOTH for setting the stakes, AND for judging the results of the action. One participant states the intent, narrative action, and what is at stake (maybe not all at the same time) and another participant describes the fictional consequences and adjudges the application of the rules. That isn't always player + GM, there can be various ways of parsing things. The point is, if one participant is running the whole loop, basically framing (or at least resolving) a scene AND determining what comes next, there isn't really a GAME aspect anymore. There is no challenge either, except in some purely notional sense of the character may be described as being challenged, but no tension can result. There is no true interplay of forces.

The goal of a lot of the design of an RPG is around proper allocation to uphold this principle.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Because I don't want to end up with a situation where the players game me (and they would; and I'd find it hard to blame them) by waiting for me to move them forward when I know something's trivial and then suddenly taking it more seriously when I let them stew.  Neutrality says every similar situation should be treated in a similar manner; and as they'd quite rightly complain if I rushed them forward every time and thus sometimes got them hurt or killed, the default becomes to let them stew.




Like I said, though, you can do it regardless of if this door is trapped or not. I mean, it ultimately is a matter of preference, but given how concerned you are with boring the players in other ways, I’d assume sitting around talking about a door would be something you’d like to keep brief.

Even Tolkien handled his door puzzle relatively quickly in the actual narration, though it supposedly took hours in the story.



Lanefan said:


> You're mostly right on the second part but wrong on the first.  We're not usually bored by anything that has to do with our own characters but recognize that others quite likely (and IMO quite reasonably) will be.




But why? What I don’t understand is the immediate assumption that something’s boring just because it has to do with someone else’s character.

Like this necromancer story you have....I imagine the PC who has the book finds this situation compelling in some way. Is everyone else bored with it?

Stories are interesting or boring independent of being connected to one’s character, I’d expect. Do the players really begrudge someone else getting a little more focus as a reason to check out?



Lanefan said:


> Doing it in advance has another nice benefit: it makes the game a bit more likely to in effect run itself during the session.  The more stuff I can put on autopilot ahead of time the better I like it, as I can then enjoy the moment and wile busy reacting to things that come up in the moment I'm less likely to forget something relevant.




Honestly it sounds like a lot more work. The world doesn’t “run itself”. You have to actively track and/or narrate all that stuff. Maybe you have a system in place that makes this relatively easy....Blades in the Dark kind of does that by tracking the progress of different factions’ goals during downtime. The GM can just assume a certain amount of progress, or can make a quick fortune roll and track it according to the result. But even with this in place, they recommend only doing it for factions that have become relevant to play.



Lanefan said:


> They weren't aware of any of it...which makes in-game sense given that they were in the field when all of this arose.  And while they knew their goal was in theory to find a particular book they had no real idea what the book did or what its powers were/are (and didn't put much effort into asking) other than the Necromancer PC's own guild was very keen on getting it.  The PCs did know the guild wasn't exactly hiding its eagerness but never gave it any real thought beyond that.
> 
> On the meta level, I-as-DM didn't know any of this was coming until when the party were ready to head back to town it occurred to me just how long they'd taken, and I started thinking about what if any ramifications this might have produced.  I used my dice as a guide for whether word had spread (yes) and whether there'd be any reaction from other guilds (again, yes); then for timing and for how rough/violent (ouch!*) this reaction would be.
> 
> * - I usually use d% for this sort of thing, and '00' is not anyone's friend.
> 
> So, instead of walking back to a peaceful town they found themselves standing into a storm.  Fortunately, they have all sorts of friends and allies in town as well.  Even more fortunately, on finding the book they stuck it in a Bag of Holding (where it remains still), meaning no-one could scry its location and try to steal it and thus unintentionally saving themselves a world o' scry-buff-teleport trouble during their two-week trip back to town.
> 
> Ahead of time, not at all.  Had they been more paranoid and thought things through in that light they may have got to it, but this group just isn't the paranoid sort.
> 
> Now, they've been told more than enough to piece together how this all came to happen.  Next session will be when we'll see what they do with that info, and with the book.




So a question comes to mind....do you consider the consistency of the fiction to be more important than the players’ enjoyment of the time spent playing?

I know they need not be mutually exclusive, but if it comes down to a choice, which would get priority?



Lanefan said:


> Easy: it doesn't match what was made up in another moment.




I don’t know....do you have like copious notes on all this stuff that you reference during play? So if someone asks “does this river flow North?” do you spend the next 10 minutes flipping through pages to confirm? 

For me, this is a question of the juice not being worth the squeeze.



Lanefan said:


> Entire campaigns, no.  Entire sessions - IME between adventures there's usually one or two almost-rules-free sessions encompassing downtime activities, treasury division, training (a few rules rear their heads here), and info-gathering and-or debriefing.




Yeah...a session of play with no rules seems like something to avoid, in my book. Like I said, scenes like this aren’t bad, but entire sessions just push it too far. I mean, it’s a game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is where we reach the value of the principle which says that no participant in the game should be responsible BOTH for setting the stakes, AND for judging the results of the action. One participant states the intent, narrative action, and what is at stake (maybe not all at the same time) and another participant describes the fictional consequences and adjudges the application of the rules. That isn't always player + GM, there can be various ways of parsing things. The point is, if one participant is running the whole loop, basically framing (or at least resolving) a scene AND determining what comes next, there isn't really a GAME aspect anymore. There is no challenge either, except in some purely notional sense of the character may be described as being challenged, but no tension can result. There is no true interplay of forces.
> 
> The goal of a lot of the design of an RPG is around proper allocation to uphold this principle.



Can challenges and agency exist in the real life? In the real life the universe external to you is not controlled by you. How is this different from a situation where the universe external to your character is controlled by the GM?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I don't know how you're envisaging play.
> 
> There can't be "moving/rushing forward" in the absence of stopping. You can just narrate stuff, with whatever back-and-forth is appropriate, until something interesting comes up.



LONG ago (several years, maybe A FEW years) didn't we have a thread, where the example was something about meeting some dwarves, and then deciding to go on a mission for the dwarves, something something. The upshot was someone, @Lanefan or maybe it was someone else, being convinced that you were railroading the players if you didn't describe every single detail of pretty much everything such that there was a choice to open this or that uninteresting door, etc. even if it had nothing to do with the story and lead noplace anyone had expressed any real interest in.

So, there is your answer. If the agenda is not "resolving the dramatic tension inherent in the PC's conflicts" or something along those lines, then it must basically be "inhabiting someone else's life" and every detail needs to be there. Of course this logic falls apart a bit on closer inspection, because nobody is gaming the choice of which of the row of three privies to frequent, or when to drink some water, or etc. So, clearly, the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist). Other people, who also interestingly cluster in the "GM is the only narrative authority" camp, want to game out more details, although I don't know exactly what it is that the criteria is for what can be elided. 

Maybe this focus on detail is just a way of recovering some form of agency for the players?  I mean, if you spend much of your time deciding if the dwarf rides the pony or not, or what type of soup you ask for at the inn, etc. then clearly the GM is unlikely to impose something. I think, at least in some cases, this is the reason. GMs, at least IME, at this juncture are likely to 'blow things up', that is forcefully refocus at some point onto some less fine-grained agenda (IE while you're eating your soup an army of orcs shows up at the front gates, or something like that). I well recall a GM of bygone days for whom this was a trademark type of move. Honestly it wasn't a bad technique, but it smacks a lot more of scene framing than anything else!

In any case, if you look at things at different scales of granularity, there may be less difference between one style and another, in play, but a LOT of difference in terms of the ultimate trajectory of the game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> But why? What I don’t understand is the immediate assumption that something’s boring just because it has to do with someone else’s character.
> 
> Like this necromancer story you have....I imagine the PC who has the book finds this situation compelling in some way. Is everyone else bored with it?
> 
> Stories are interesting or boring independent of being connected to one’s character, I’d expect. Do the players really begrudge someone else getting a little more focus as a reason to check out?



Well, this is why DW has 'bonds', in part. It provides clear linkages between the agendas of the different PCs. The players develop them, so it is really up to them how any given character's 'stuff' ties in to the rest of the party. This aspect is also pretty commonly present in other games, even 5e, where there are somewhat formalized background elements, or just in the admonitions in a lot of games to tie PC backgrounds together or create some sort of shared story logic to explain why the heck they all keep associating.

OD&D had troupe play instead, there was no permanent character roster, and the makeup of any given group was always more about agendas and which characters were not otherwise occupied at the time (hence Gygax's famous decree that time must be tracked or else!).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Can challenges and agency exist in the real life? In the real life the universe external to you is not controlled by you. How is this different from a situation where the universe external to your character is controlled by the GM?



Well, challenges exist for people in real life, and they DO make choices about what matters to them. I mean, there seems to me to be a huge difference in that real life is simply something that IS, we don't accept it or not accept it. There isn't another real life down the road we can go play in. 

RPGs are clearly very different. I don't have to play in your game if you run it in such a way that I have no input into the various elements making it up beyond telling you how my PC moves his arms legs, and lips. I can go play in @pemerton's game where I can do other things. Since it is a pastime, I would do exactly that, probably. Life isn't a pastime. 

So, yeah, if you want to run a life simulator, then go for it, but I don't think it will be particularly realistic, and I don't see the point. As I said in one of my other posts just now, you won't do this anyway, all you can really argue about is 'level of detail.' Beyond that, even in trad games I see very strong indications of players pushing things to where they want to go, it just isn't formalized. Nobody narrates every second of a PC's life, or every trivial decision they make, so a lot of that is simply left to the player to imagine (or not bother to imagine).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, challenges exist for people in real life, and they DO make choices about what matters to them. I mean, there seems to me to be a huge difference in that real life is simply something that IS, we don't accept it or not accept it. There isn't another real life down the road we can go play in.
> 
> RPGs are clearly very different. I don't have to play in your game if you run it in such a way that I have no input into the various elements making it up beyond telling you how my PC moves his arms legs, and lips. I can go play in @pemerton's game where I can do other things. Since it is a pastime, I would do exactly that, probably. Life isn't a pastime.
> 
> So, yeah, if you want to run a life simulator, then go for it, but I don't think it will be particularly realistic, and I don't see the point. As I said in one of my other posts just now, you won't do this anyway, all you can really argue about is 'level of detail.' Beyond that, even in trad games I see very strong indications of players pushing things to where they want to go, it just isn't formalized. Nobody narrates every second of a PC's life, or every trivial decision they make, so a lot of that is simply left to the player to imagine (or not bother to imagine).



The purpose is not to be particularly realistic, but yes, the purpose is to create an illusion of an alternate reality and an alternate life in it. This doesn't mean it cannot be an interesting and dramatic part of someone's life in and world where weird things happen. The purpose is for the player to use agency in similar(ish) manner than a person in real life would. 

But yes, you definitely should rather play in Pemerton's game than in mine, as your tastes seem to be similar.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> LONG ago (several years, maybe A FEW years) didn't we have a thread, where the example was something about meeting some dwarves, and then deciding to go on a mission for the dwarves, something something. The upshot was someone, @Lanefan or maybe it was someone else, being convinced that you were railroading the players if you didn't describe every single detail of pretty much everything such that there was a choice to open this or that uninteresting door, etc. even if it had nothing to do with the story and lead noplace anyone had expressed any real interest in.
> 
> So, there is your answer. If the agenda is not "resolving the dramatic tension inherent in the PC's conflicts" or something along those lines, then it must basically be "inhabiting someone else's life" and every detail needs to be there. Of course this logic falls apart a bit on closer inspection, because nobody is gaming the choice of which of the row of three privies to frequent, or when to drink some water, or etc. So, clearly, the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist). Other people, who also interestingly cluster in the "GM is the only narrative authority" camp, want to game out more details, although I don't know exactly what it is that the criteria is for what can be elided.
> 
> Maybe this focus on detail is just a way of recovering some form of agency for the players?  I mean, if you spend much of your time deciding if the dwarf rides the pony or not, or what type of soup you ask for at the inn, etc. then clearly the GM is unlikely to impose something. I think, at least in some cases, this is the reason. GMs, at least IME, at this juncture are likely to 'blow things up', that is forcefully refocus at some point onto some less fine-grained agenda (IE while you're eating your soup an army of orcs shows up at the front gates, or something like that). I well recall a GM of bygone days for whom this was a trademark type of move. Honestly it wasn't a bad technique, but it smacks a lot more of scene framing than anything else!
> 
> In any case, if you look at things at different scales of granularity, there may be less difference between one style and another, in play, but a LOT of difference in terms of the ultimate trajectory of the game.



This is an interesting post. How things are framed affects massively the direction of the game and as such is pretty damn relevant to the agency. I really wouldn't bother to describe every doorknob and I occasionally use rather aggressive framing. But I'm not sure that a game where the GM describes pretty much everything and the characters can freely react to that wouldn't be a very high-agency game. Super boring probably though. Is it decent agency if you get to make a lot of boring decisions?


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> OK. This is consistent, though I'm not sure I agree with such definition of agency. But were I to agree with your definition, then I would definitely agree with your second point.




Note my earlier distinction between "player" and "character" agency.  Its important in the context of how I answered.


----------



## Manbearcat

AbdulAlhazred said:


> LONG ago (several years, maybe A FEW years) didn't we have a thread, where the example was something about meeting some dwarves, and then deciding to go on a mission for the dwarves, something something. The upshot was someone, @Lanefan or maybe it was someone else, being convinced that you were railroading the players if you didn't describe every single detail of pretty much everything such that there was a choice to open this or that uninteresting door, etc. even if it had nothing to do with the story and lead noplace anyone had expressed any real interest in.
> 
> So, there is your answer. If the agenda is not "resolving the dramatic tension inherent in the PC's conflicts" or something along those lines, then it must basically be "inhabiting someone else's life" and every detail needs to be there. Of course this logic falls apart a bit on closer inspection, because nobody is gaming the choice of which of the row of three privies to frequent, or when to drink some water, or etc. So, clearly, the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist). Other people, who also interestingly cluster in the "GM is the only narrative authority" camp, want to game out more details, although I don't know exactly what it is that the criteria is for what can be elided.
> 
> Maybe this focus on detail is just a way of recovering some form of agency for the players?  I mean, if you spend much of your time deciding if the dwarf rides the pony or not, or what type of soup you ask for at the inn, etc. then clearly the GM is unlikely to impose something. I think, at least in some cases, this is the reason. GMs, at least IME, at this juncture are likely to 'blow things up', that is forcefully refocus at some point onto some less fine-grained agenda (IE while you're eating your soup an army of orcs shows up at the front gates, or something like that). I well recall a GM of bygone days for whom this was a trademark type of move. Honestly it wasn't a bad technique, but it smacks a lot more of scene framing than anything else!
> 
> In any case, if you look at things at different scales of granularity, there may be less difference between one style and another, in play, but a LOT of difference in terms of the ultimate trajectory of the game.




Here is my theory on this (and you've heard this before):

You've got a group (likely the majority or at least a very large swell) of D&D players (GMs included here) that are cobbling together a huge number of D&D-isms that are often at tension, while simultaneously having left some/a lot of the necessary codified teeth of these D&D-isms behind which give the decisions actual meaning in the greater framework of play.

Constituent parts of this:

1) All doors (used here as a broad stand-in for discovery points or exploration bottlenecks) potentially need to have meaning/purpose because "time is (allegedly) a resource."  HOWEVER, the structure of play has simultaneously removed (a) the tracked and table-facing Exploration Turn as the primary unit of play (replete with all of its attendant management and load-out decisions) and/or (b) there is no "wandering monsters/obstacle clock" and no "required rest cycle" (both of which are integrated with the Exploration Turn structure).

In its place you have (c) a roughly opaque, hand-waved kept time (which is no longer a codified unit of play) but (d) no integrated (and table-facing) pressure ("clocks/rest cycle").  

Because this tech has been excised (or hand-waved to the point of meaninglessness because all of its teeth are gone), something must supplant it...

2)  Cue "high resolution is better than lower resolution/process-sim interests" + "people are better simulators than game engines!"  Supplant the prior design and aesthetic with this new approach.  So we've kept the play-priority at the very top of (1) but removed the structure that actually makes it work and in its place we've anointed "GM as abstract world simulator" + "player buy-in" = roughly the same thing (or better!) as (a) and (b) above. Except its not.  Its not "better" and its definitely not the same thing.  Its entirely different.

3)  Couple (1) and (2) above with the well-known reality that the "delve model" that works so well in Basic comes apart when outside of the dungeon (wilderness and urban environments) and as level creep occurs because the setting/situations and the attendant decision-points have so many more axes + spellcasting power creep begins outright obviating a huge number of obstacles/conflicts = the play loop comes apart entirely.

4)  Now, Dragonlance + 2e + White Wolf metaplot/setting and genre tourism + "immersion/verisimilitude as apex play priority" introduces the "GM as storyteller" agenda to D&D proper.  So now we have D&D players who want to bolt-on an entirely new (and deeply at tension with an existing structure that is already bursting or has burst if you're out of the dungeon/level 5+) play priority and aesthetic.  However, the existing structure and infrastructure doesn't support it at all (and, again, is at tension with it in many plays), so we give the GM more authority/overhead; "GM as abstract world simulator" "GM as metaplot and/or setting/genre tour guide" + "player buy-in" = roughly the same thing (or better!) as (a) and (b) above. Except, again, its not.  Its not "better" and its definitely not the same thing.  Its entirely different.

5)  Trying to juggle legacy play artifacts (which are still wanted) with disparate machinery and play agenda and now we've finally arrived at "Force and Illusionism are required to keep the whole thing together".  The problem with that is Force and Illusionism fundamentally violate the skilled play agenda of (1) above.  

6)  Cue the "rules need to get out of the way" and "system doesn't matter" ethoi.



Roughly put:

* A properly run Moldvay Basic game and a properly run 4e game plays and feels absolutely nothing like one of these games.

* Competing agendas and system that is at tension (at best) with one or more agendas need to be curated and holistically integrated to better serve the players...or stripped down and supplanted by "GM sorts all this stuff out + we buy in" and happily lived with.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Can challenges and agency exist in the real life? In the real life the universe external to you is not controlled by you. How is this different from a situation where the universe external to your character is controlled by the GM?



I don't understand what your point is - nor did I the last time you asked this question.

I expect to have more agency in my leisure pursuits than my work. That's part of what makes them leisure!

To draw a starker comparison: if someone were a filing clerk during the day who wrote short stories in the evening as a form of leisure and release, I would hardly expect that person to ring up her/his boss to get directions on what to put in the stories!

You also seem to be confused about attributions of causality across the real world and the fiction. In the fictional world that the character inhabits, what is the cause of things? The gods? Some more abstract fate? Impersonal, non-teleological processes of the sort that contemporary science describes? That will depend on the details of the RPG and campaign being played.


Only in a game that involves breaking the fourth wall (eg Over the Edge) will the GM of the campaign - who is a person in the real world doing real things - also be an element of the fictional world. I've never myself played a game like that. Thus, in the BW campaign that I play, the immediate cause of Evard's tower being where it was when my characters found it was (I believe) Evard; and the immediate cause of Rufus being where he was when my characters met him was Rufus and the master who directed him to collect wine.

But my understanding of this thread is that it is about _players' agency_, not about how we imagine the agency of the characters that they play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is an interesting post. How things are framed affects massively the direction of the game and as such is pretty damn relevant to the agency. I really wouldn't bother to describe every doorknob and I occasionally use rather aggressive framing. But I'm not sure that a game where the GM describes pretty much everything and the characters can freely react to that wouldn't be a very high-agency game. Super boring probably though. Is it decent agency if you get to make a lot of boring decisions?



My feeling is that the scale of decisions doesn't really bear on the question of agency, much. So I align with @pemerton, and I think @Manbearcat in terms of putting the axis of agency primarily on which areas of game process the players are able to participate. If their input is strictly limited to whatever their characters could do, then that is not agency over the content or direction of play. At best in such a situation the player can indirectly influence the game by way of urging the GM to present certain types of material, and the GM could potentially oblige with a process similar to the old game show where you pick different curtains to see what is behind, and the GM obliges the players by having choices they want be in the mix. 

Frankly, I think players NORMALLY, in a practical sense, except in dysfunctional games, have a significant influence on granularity. However if the GM keeps refocusing on a specific level, either by only hitting certain specific 'interesting' points, or by constantly focusing down on or promoting a focus on minute details, that will tend to undermine that as well. So it requires the whole table to be in cahoots on what is interesting. Not a surprising observation of course! The point being, one or a different level of detail is entirely orthogonal to amount of agency. 

Now, if you want to keep a segregation between 'in character' and other forms of player participation, I could see designing a game where the two processes happen in distinct phases. I don't know of a game which works this way, but they may, and certainly could, exist. I think that goes beyond what we're doing in this thread. Maybe we can have a think about that sometime. I like game design discussions, though most of them usually seem stuck in 1980's notions of game structure!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> Here is my theory on this (and you've heard this before):
> 
> You've got a group (likely the majority or at least a very large swell) of D&D players (GMs included here) that are cobbling together a huge number of D&D-isms that are often at tension, while simultaneously having left some/a lot of the necessary codified teeth of these D&D-isms behind which give the decisions actual meaning in the greater framework of play.
> 
> Constituent parts of this:
> 
> 1) All doors (used here as a broad stand-in for discovery points or exploration bottlenecks) potentially need to have meaning/purpose because "time is (allegedly) a resource."  HOWEVER, the structure of play has simultaneously removed (a) the tracked and table-facing Exploration Turn as the primary unit of play (replete with all of its attendant management and load-out decisions) and/or (b) there is no "wandering monsters/obstacle clock" and no "required rest cycle" (both of which are integrated with the Exploration Turn structure).
> 
> In its place you have (c) a roughly opaque, hand-waved kept time (which is no longer a codified unit of play) but (d) no integrated (and table-facing) pressure ("clocks/rest cycle").
> 
> Because this tech has been excised (or hand-waved to the point of meaninglessness because all of its teeth are gone), something must supplant it...
> 
> 2)  Cue "high resolution is better than lower resolution/process-sim interests" + "people are better simulators than game engines!"  Supplant the prior design and aesthetic with this new approach.  So we've kept the play-priority at the very top of (1) but removed the structure that actually makes it work and in its place we've anointed "GM as abstract world simulator" + "player buy-in" = roughly the same thing (or better!) as (a) and (b) above. Except its not.  Its not "better" and its definitely not the same thing.  Its entirely different.
> 
> 3)  Couple (1) and (2) above with the well-known reality that the "delve model" that works so well in Basic comes apart when outside of the dungeon (wilderness and urban environments) and as level creep occurs because the setting/situations and the attendant decision-points have so many more axes + spellcasting power creep begins outright obviating a huge number of obstacles/conflicts = the play loop comes apart entirely.
> 
> 4)  Now, Dragonlance + 2e + White Wolf metaplot/setting and genre tourism + "immersion/verisimilitude as apex play priority" introduces the "GM as storyteller" agenda to D&D proper.  So now we have D&D players who want to bolt-on an entirely new (and deeply at tension with an existing structure that is already bursting or has burst if you're out of the dungeon/level 5+) play priority and aesthetic.  However, the existing structure and infrastructure doesn't support it at all (and, again, is at tension with it in many plays), so we give the GM more authority/overhead; "GM as abstract world simulator" "GM as metaplot and/or setting/genre tour guide" + "player buy-in" = roughly the same thing (or better!) as (a) and (b) above. Except, again, its not.  Its not "better" and its definitely not the same thing.  Its entirely different.
> 
> 5)  Trying to juggle legacy play artifacts (which are still wanted) with disparate machinery and play agenda and now we've finally arrived at "Force and Illusionism are required to keep the whole thing together".  The problem with that is Force and Illusionism fundamentally violate the skilled play agenda of (1) above.
> 
> 6)  Cue the "rules need to get out of the way" and "system doesn't matter" ethoi.
> 
> 
> 
> Roughly put:
> 
> * A properly run Moldvay Basic game and a properly run 4e game plays and feels absolutely nothing like one of these games.
> 
> * Competing agendas and system that is at tension (at best) with one or more agendas need to be curated and holistically integrated to better serve the players...or stripped down and supplanted by "GM sorts all this stuff out + we buy in" and happily lived with.



Good historical summary. I would only add that hexcrawl, leading to stronghold play, was a vital evolutionary axis which provided some flexibility in terms of what happened as PCs leveled in the original (1e and earlier/some of the Basic line) game, at least as-written. When your game began to sport PCs of level 7+ they would start moving out of the dungeon proper and move across the landscape, hexcrawling. This has a pretty structured process similar to dungeon crawling in 1e (it is just referred to the AH Survival game in OD&D, though there are encounter matrices available). Once these PCs get into stronghold/tower/whatever development then most of their 'calendar time' becomes absorbed and troupe play is supposed to refocus on their lower level henchmen/associates/alternate PCs, with the 'big boys' only reappearing in person for 'special events'. 

The first modules were the G-D-Q series, which are definitely name-level and above. You can see how Gygax approached the problems of expanding character option and the difficulty of maintaining some reasonable form of skilled play. The dungeon simply becomes vast in scale and the opponents highly challenging. Eventually the various scenarios break down into more loosely connected environments, like the Vault of the Drow and its city, where 'anything can happen'. That does take a pretty long time though. Playing through that set of modules is probably a good solid 6 months or more of play! Maybe even years depending on how fast you go.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> LONG ago (several years, maybe A FEW years) didn't we have a thread, where the example was something about meeting some dwarves, and then deciding to go on a mission for the dwarves, something something. The upshot was someone, @Lanefan or maybe it was someone else, being convinced that you were railroading the players if you didn't describe every single detail of pretty much everything such that there was a choice to open this or that uninteresting door, etc. even if it had nothing to do with the story and lead noplace anyone had expressed any real interest in.
> 
> So, there is your answer. If the agenda is not "resolving the dramatic tension inherent in the PC's conflicts" or something along those lines, then it must basically be "inhabiting someone else's life" and every detail needs to be there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist). Other people, who also interestingly cluster in the "GM is the only narrative authority" camp, want to game out more details, although I don't know exactly what it is that the criteria is for what can be elided.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Maybe this focus on detail is just a way of recovering some form of agency for the players? I mean, if you spend much of your time deciding if the dwarf rides the pony or not, or what type of soup you ask for at the inn, etc. then clearly the GM is unlikely to impose something.



All the doors, and alleyways, and the like, ultimately don't seem to recover any agency for the players: if the GM is one narrating all of them, and all of what's behind them (door) or in them (alleyways) then all the players are achieving by engaging with them is obliging the GM to narrate more content.

The pony-riding and soup-asking-for is a different matter: as you say, that doesn't appear to be focused so much on triggering GM narration as on identifying a subject-matter of the fiction that the GM will let the players exert some authority over.

What a nightmare! You could hardly get further in stakes from _Am I right that Evard's tower is about here somewhere?_ than _Tell me about the differences between you leek and your potato soups, my good tavern-keep!_



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Of course this logic falls apart a bit on closer inspection, because nobody is gaming the choice of which of the row of three privies to frequent, or when to drink some water, or etc.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In any case, if you look at things at different scales of granularity, there may be less difference between one style and another, in play, but a LOT of difference in terms of the ultimate trajectory of the game.



On levels of detail, and which to elide: I still think that this is a case of the Gygaxian form enduring past its original function.

The classic dungeon has two characteristics relevant to this particular discussion: (1) it is very sparse/austere in its detail - all its relevant architecture and contents can be spelled out in a workable, human-generated and managed, key; (2) establishes a definite sense of what is _relevant _and what is not.

That second is a function of tradition as much as anything, but the traditions seems to be quickly established and pretty easily teachable. For instance, doors, floor, ceilings are important in terms of their role in entry, egress, traps etc. But generally the _colour_ of these things is not relevant - which we quickly learn from the absence of descriptions of colour of things in the sample dungeons in Gygax's DMG, Moldvay Basic etc.

Likewise we don't need to write down in the key, nor narrate at the table, every crack or lip or uneven finish in a wall: that only matters to finding secret doors or climbing walls, and in both cases can be subsumed into the roll for success.

And if a GM starts narrating the colour of room ceilings, or the cracks in the walls, that's a sign that these _matter_ in a way they typically don't.

Where things start to go haywire is the GM who thinks _one day I might run a dungeon where the ceiling colours matter and so, to avoid meta-gaming, I'm going to narrate the colour of every ceiling from the get-go_. Generalise that to everything else one can _conceive_ of being relevant - cracks in walls, poorly-finished stonework, etc - and we get an absolute nightmare. Take this out of the dungeon and into any realistically inhabited place, and it gets worse - do we really have to key, and then narrate, every bucket, bale of straw, etc in every inn and every peasant hovel?

The same point applies beyond rooms and their contents: in principle every occupant of a dungeon is established in the key and has a place on the map, but how do we handle that for a farmstead, or a village, let alone a town or city?

At which point there seem to be two main ways of going: (1) endless back-and-forth between players and GM which has the superficial appearance of action declaration and resolution but really is just the players triggering narration from the GM (_what's in the room?_ _can we find a person who will help us with such-and-such?_ etc etc); or (2) find a completely different approach to establishing these essentially trivial or background details that become salient only when the players express some interest in them.

There's more than one version of option (2): AW and DW do it differently from Burning Wheel or Classic Traveller, for instance. But what all have in common is that they abandon any pretence to map-and-key resolution.

EDIT: I just read @Manbearcat's post not far upthread. We seem to be on very much the same page.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> My feeling is that the scale of decisions doesn't really bear on the question of agency, much. So I align with @pemerton, and I think @Manbearcat in terms of putting the axis of agency primarily on which areas of game process the players are able to participate. If their input is strictly limited to whatever their characters could do, then that is not agency over the content or direction of play.



This is such a weird thing to say. It is like saying that the actions the main character takes have no influence to the direction of the story. This is obviously not the case.

And what bugs me about this discussion is that people just lump all games where the players do not have formal, rule-backed meta control into one category, whilst in reality that is the vast majority of all games being played. There are massive differences in how agency is handled and manifests within that category. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now, if you want to keep a segregation between 'in character' and other forms of player participation, I could see designing a game where the two processes happen in distinct phases. I don't know of a game which works this way, but they may, and certainly could, exist. I think that goes beyond what we're doing in this thread. Maybe we can have a think about that sometime. I like game design discussions, though most of them usually seem stuck in 1980's notions of game structure!



Isn't this just playing the game traditionally from in-character perspective and then chatting after the game what was cool and interesting and the GM taking that into account for the future? (And I'm stuck to 90's at most, though more likely to noughties!)


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> there seems to me to be a huge difference in that real life is simply something that IS, we don't accept it or not accept it. There isn't another real life down the road we can go play in.
> 
> RPGs are clearly very different. I don't have to play in your game if you run it in such a way that I have no input into the various elements making it up beyond telling you how my PC moves his arms legs, and lips. I can go play in @pemerton's game where I can do other things. Since it is a pastime, I would do exactly that, probably. Life isn't a pastime.





Crimson Longinus said:


> The purpose is not to be particularly realistic, but yes, the purpose is to create an illusion of an alternate reality and an alternate life in it. This doesn't mean it cannot be an interesting and dramatic part of someone's life in and world where weird things happen. The purpose is for the player to use agency in similar(ish) manner than a person in real life would.



Both these posts assume a contrast between _playing RPGs_ and _living real life_ that make no sense to me.

_Playing RPGs is a part of real life_. As AbdulAlhazred says, it's a pastime that real people engage in. The way I exercise agency in RPGing is just the same as I exercise agency in any other activity I engage in: I make choices and act on them. Of course it's less like (say) _digging a hole _and more like (say) _playing backgammon_ or _writing a story_. But just as we can talk about the amount of agency a boardgame player enjoys (contrast, say, _snakes and ladders_ with _chess _played be a skilled player) or a writer enjoys (contrast, say, a writer of advertisement copy, or of boilerplate contracts, with Toni Morrison or Patrick White), so we can talk about the amount of agency a RPG player is able to exercise.

This is an analysis of (one part of) real life; it is not in contrast with it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Both these posts assume a contrast between _playing RPGs_ and _living real life_ that make no sense to me.



I'm not sure I believe you. You can just say that it is a silly comparison if you think so, instead of pretending to not understand what was meant.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not sure I believe you. You can just say that it is a silly comparison if you think so, instead of pretending to not understand what was meant.



Who you believe is your prerogative. But it makes no sense.

Playing a RPG is part of real life. Exercising agency in playing a RPG is like exercising agency in any other part of life - other games, and other writing endeavours, are the obvious points of comparison.

You seem to want to say that _if a player has no agency because the GM decides everything_, that is like real life _because the character's fate is being determined by external forces_. But that's just confused. Incoherent. It's a category error. The character's fate is determined, in the fiction, by whatever happens there. The authorship is undertaken, in the real world, by the GM.

If you want to articulate a conception of RPGing as _puzzle-solving _- in the sense of the players _triggering GM narration_ and _learning what is in the GM's notes_ - then talk about that, without category error.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> You seem to want to say that _if a player has no agency because the GM decides everything_, that is like real life _because the character's fate is being determined by external forces_. But that's just confused. Incoherent. It's a category error. The character's fate is determined, in the fiction, by whatever happens there. The authorship is undertaken, in the real world, by the GM.



People in real life have agency over their lives. They however cannot affect the external world except via their actions. In a game where the player cannot affect the external game world except via the actions of their character, they have the similar sort of agency over the life of their character, than they do have over their own life in reality. This is a perfectly clear concept and seems that everyone else understood it just fine, even though they might not have agreed that aiming for this level of agency is desirable in an RPG.



pemerton said:


> If you want to articulate a conception of RPGing as _puzzle-solving _- in the sense of the players _triggering GM narration_ and _learning what is in the GM's notes_ - then talk about that, without category error.



I really don't know what this fixation with puzzles is.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> People in real life have agency over their lives. They however cannot affect the external world except via their actions. In a game where the player cannot affect the external game world except via the actions of their character, they have the similar sort of agency over the life of their character, than they do have over their own life in reality.




This here is why your comparison is fraught. You make assumptions about what real life is that are not demonstrably supportable and then extend the analogy to a game with finite structures.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> I know the lockdowns of 2020 have been hard on us all, but are you really out of pen(cil)s and paper at your house to write these things down?



If I'm writing, I'm neither talking nor listening - which means if I'm the GM the game would progress very much in a stop-start manner - something would be introduced into the fiction, then there'd be a hard stop while I wrote it down in enough detail to be useful (maybe years) later.


Aldarc said:


> But IME, it happens less than you would think because players also like having a consistent world too, and they can use their own brains to help you remember. A group doesn't have to be a solo act.



In theory this is true, and would be nice.

In practice I find it causes arguments when people's memories disagree over important details.


Aldarc said:


> Ideally rules should help facilitate game play in a meaningful way. This seems true no matter what sort of game that I'm playing, whether it's a card game, a board game, a video/computer game, sports, or a tabletop roleplaying game. I do not want to play a game despite the rules, but, rather, because of them.



In just about all cases other than RPGs I'd agree with you.  But I see RPG rules as different, in that they're both changeable by the participants and are in many cases presented as soft guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules.

Some RPGs (e.g. 3e D&D, PF1) try to lean in to a hard-rule-for-everything approach; and while this might work for purely gamist concerns it rather fights against creativity and imagination, in that it's far too easy both as player and GM to fall into the trap of "If there's not a rule for it, you can't try it".


----------



## Crimson Longinus

darkbard said:


> This here is why your comparison is fraught. You make assumptions about what real life is that are not demonstrably supportable and then extend the analogy to a game with finite structures.



You think that you you have narrative-level meta control of your life in the real life? Or perhaps that you have no agency in the real life? The latter of course if perfectly possible in a sense that free will could be an illusion, but in that case no agency could exist in a game played by individuals lacking free will either, so whole point is moot. The former seems exceedingly unlikely.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Like I said, though, you can do it regardless of if this door is trapped or not. I mean, it ultimately is a matter of preference, but given how concerned you are with boring the players in other ways, I’d assume sitting around talking about a door would be something you’d like to keep brief.



As long as they're talking in-character I'd never want to curtail it.


hawkeyefan said:


> Even Tolkien handled his door puzzle relatively quickly in the actual narration, though it supposedly took hours in the story.



Where had that been part of an RPG where Frodo etc. were all PCs I'd expect all of it to be played out, at least in terms of everyone's ideas and possible solutions and so forth.  This is where play of an RPG differs from reading a book or watching a film; particularly as in an RPG the party in this case would be free to make other choices (e.g. go somewhere else, or abandon the mission, or whatever) absent knowledge of the future, while in the book Tolkein already knows what the future holds and just has to get there.


hawkeyefan said:


> But why? What I don’t understand is the immediate assumption that something’s boring just because it has to do with someone else’s character.
> 
> Like this necromancer story you have....I imagine the PC who has the book finds this situation compelling in some way. Is everyone else bored with it?



In this case I don't have to worry about that, as it's a one-player game! 


hawkeyefan said:


> Stories are interesting or boring independent of being connected to one’s character, I’d expect. Do the players really begrudge someone else getting a little more focus as a reason to check out?



Often yes, IME.

It's not that someone's getting more focus in itself, though, it's what that focus is on.  If a single PC is off scouting for the party and thus all the focus is on her then everyone's cool with it.  But if a single PC is playing out his family drama that has nothing to do with the party, then yeah...it's check-out time. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Honestly it sounds like a lot more work. The world doesn’t “run itself”. You have to actively track and/or narrate all that stuff. Maybe you have a system in place that makes this relatively easy....Blades in the Dark kind of does that by tracking the progress of different factions’ goals during downtime. The GM can just assume a certain amount of progress, or can make a quick fortune roll and track it according to the result. But even with this in place, they recommend only doing it for factions that have become relevant to play.



It's more work up front before the campaign starts, no question there - but (to use one of my favourite phrases) it's work I only have to do once.  The payoff is that it means less work later during actual play.


hawkeyefan said:


> So a question comes to mind....do you consider the consistency of the fiction to be more important than the players’ enjoyment of the time spent playing?
> 
> I know they need not be mutually exclusive, but if it comes down to a choice, which would get priority?



Situationally dependent.  I suppose it comes down to me advocating for consistency of the fiction, the players advocating for their enjoyment, and we meet in the middle somewhere.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know....do you have like copious notes on all this stuff that you reference during play? So if someone asks “does this river flow North?” do you spend the next 10 minutes flipping through pages to confirm?



Most of the time I'd already know which way the river flows.  Most such information comes simply from the map - where is the high ground, where is the low ground, odds are pretty good a river flows from one to the other. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah...a session of play with no rules seems like something to avoid, in my book. Like I said, scenes like this aren’t bad, but entire sessions just push it too far. I mean, it’s a game.



It's a game, yes, and part of that game involves free-form downtime.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> You think that you you have narrative-level meta control of your life in the real life? Or perhaps that you have no agency in the real life?




My point is you compare apples to oranges.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

darkbard said:


> My point is you compare apples to oranges.



Nah. I compare real apples to imaginary apples.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> LONG ago (several years, maybe A FEW years) didn't we have a thread, where the example was something about meeting some dwarves, and then deciding to go on a mission for the dwarves, something something. The upshot was someone, @Lanefan or maybe it was someone else, being convinced that you were railroading the players if you didn't describe every single detail of pretty much everything such that there was a choice to open this or that uninteresting door, etc. even if it had nothing to do with the story and lead noplace anyone had expressed any real interest in.



Doesn't ring a bell, but OK.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, there is your answer. If the agenda is not "resolving the dramatic tension inherent in the PC's conflicts" or something along those lines, then it must basically be "inhabiting someone else's life" and every detail needs to be there. Of course this logic falls apart a bit on closer inspection, because nobody is gaming the choice of which of the row of three privies to frequent, or when to drink some water, or etc. So, clearly, the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist).



Which has several side effects.

First, it still ends up being the GM who decides what, in the fiction, is germane to that agenda.  Sure the players/PCs might be setting that agenda but the GM then decides where it'll play out and how - as in by what means - it'll resolve.  What this does is deprive the players of any micro-agency in how they approach this resolution point, in favour of macro-agency over what it is that's being put in question.

Second, it makes the assumption that the players'/PCs' agendae are locked in and can't/won't be changed or side-tracked by things encountered en route.  This also detracts from agency IMO - perhaps something the GM skips past as boring is a thing the players/PCs would latch onto as highly interesting...or perhaps not, but you've no way of knowing unless you give them the chance.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Maybe this focus on detail is just a way of recovering some form of agency for the players?



As I note just above, it does play into agency.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, if you spend much of your time deciding if the dwarf rides the pony or not, or what type of soup you ask for at the inn, etc. then clearly the GM is unlikely to impose something. I think, at least in some cases, this is the reason. GMs, at least IME, at this juncture are likely to 'blow things up', that is forcefully refocus at some point onto some less fine-grained agenda (IE while you're eating your soup an army of orcs shows up at the front gates, or something like that). I well recall a GM of bygone days for whom this was a trademark type of move. Honestly it wasn't a bad technique, but it smacks a lot more of scene framing than anything else!



Eventually IME the players settle on a general level of detail they're cool with, which can vary even from scene to scene.  The Dwarf-and-cart was one where we-as-players were happy playing it all out (though the DM wasn't!), but I'm pretty sure once we got the damn Dwarf into the cart (I think via a combination of restraining spells and rope, in the end) that the rest of the journey was pretty much handwaved other than occasional checks to see if the Dwarf had escaped his bonds.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> In any case, if you look at things at different scales of granularity, there may be less difference between one style and another, in play, but a LOT of difference in terms of the ultimate trajectory of the game.



Good point.  There's macro-agency (e.g. over the direction of the story. or over setting elements) and micro-agency (e.g. over what gets explored next, or which passage to take).  Some of you seem much more concerned about macro-agency; I'm more interested in micro-agency and whether those decisions are meaningful.

And this ties directly into expected speed or pace of play.  The existence of micro-agency assumes use of a level of detail that makes it relevant.  If those details generally don't exist or are skipped in a desire for a faster-paced game, micro-agency vanishes with them; which means all you're left with is a question of what degree of macro-agency do the players have.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Nah. I compare real apples to imaginary apples.




Here is why I haven't engaged in your "real life agency vs gaming agency" compare/contrast (and why I think its fraught and not apt at all):

1)  In real life, I have an autonomous nervous system (putting to side the Hard Problem in cognitive/neuroscience for a moment).  I am not blind, deaf, dumb, olfactory-impaired et al.  I navigate the world through (a) 1st order perception, (b) my hard-earned cognitive biases that translate things to me without "myself" even knowing it, and (c) my vigilance to filter out my cognitive biases.

In a TTRPGing game with a shared imaginary space, none of (a), (b), or (c) is true as a matter of initial orientation to the fiction and gamestate.  I'm working entirely through a cipher or the lens of a second party (GM).  I'm then having to work through the process of orienting myself to this secondhand perception, sussing out how this cipher/lens has encoded information so I can make it intelligible (to my cognitive framework) and then work through my own (b) and (c) after that process is done.

In no way does this resemble the orientation to agency that a person of full sensory capacity in real life (which is the only type I'm acquainted with as, thankfully, I have all of my senses).

The way I see it, filling in certain details feels (cognitively and emotionally) infinitely more like the orientation to agency that I have in real life because of precisely what I'm talking about above.  Now I can't do this for the entire game (or even most of it) for all the reasons that we spoke of earlier; this is a _*game *_and _creating both setting/situation > decision-point > resolution is no longer playing a game; its authorship._

2)  Let us allow for a moment that our actual lived lives are *agency-deficient* (we live in a simulation and/or our decision-trees are overwhelmingly executed upstream of our frontal cortex coming online; that is to say, our life navigation is overwhelmingly rote programming of which we are not a party to).

Even if that were/is true, that doesn't remotely mean that we would be/are incapable of postulating what an *agency-rich *existence might entail and then engineering a means (in this case, systematizing through a game's machinery) to achieve it.



If you could somehow explain to me how (1) and (2) are wrong-headed, I'll be interested in furthering this corner of the conversation you're pursuing.  As of now, I don't see it.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> People in real life have agency over their lives. They however cannot affect the external world except via their actions. In a game where the player cannot affect the external game world except via the actions of their character, they have the similar sort of agency over the life of their character





darkbard said:


> This here is why your comparison is fraught. You make assumptions about what real life is that are not demonstrably supportable and then extend the analogy to a game with finite structures.



I don't know what darkbard has in mind: but in the real world, I live in a place that is appealing to me, and I associate with people who have common interests with me. And I don't achieve those states of affairs by walking up to "the external world" and hitting _play _on a narration device.

In the real world, word of my deeds travels - via word-of-mouth, via the internet, sometimes via radio or TV - and this brings people into my orbit who are interested in getting to know me, or working with me.

In the real world, I cast votes and answer opinion surveys and sign petitions and write letters to the editor, and all these things shape the actions of actors who - in various ways and for various reasons - care about the opinion of those affected by or concerned with the things they do.

In the real world, given that I participate in a market economy, every purchasing decision I make ultimately influences a producer in his/her production decisions.

In the real world, where tradition and inherited practice continue to be a part of life (dress and language are too obvious examples), every choice I make in respect of these matters shapes the tradition (perhaps confirming it, perhaps challenging or altering it) and this feeds through to the behaviour of others and takes us all the way back to my first paragraph, about the non-contingent connection between the conditions in which I live my life and my interests and preferences.

None of these processes in the real world is remotely comparable to, or resembling of, a GM drawing a map and writing up a key. A RPG in which all I can do, as a player, is trigger the GM to tell me what she has written up - or, if nothing has been written, to ad lib something _as if_ it had been written up - is a type of storytelling practice. It's a more structured version of the kids saying, "Dad, tell us a story about XYZ". This has very little in common with the rest of how I live or experience my life.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I really don't know what this fixation with puzzles is.



The only merit I can see in having the main focus of play be the activity of triggering the GM to tell me his/her notes is that I, as a player, might work something out.

Here's an example of what I have in mind:

A few weeks ago I ran a session like this for my family - one of my daughters wanted to do a murder mystery for her birthday.

I adapted a murder scenario from an old Traveller module, and wrote up some characters (one for each other family member, plus a couple for their entourages, plus a small number of important NPCs whom I played). There was no action resolution in any mechanical sense - the players described what their PCs were doing, and who they were talking to, and I delivered up information as seemed appropriate (eg what they found if they searched a stateroom; what a NPC said if they spoke to him/her; etc).

This is an example of puzzle-solving: the players' goal is to acquire enough information to be able to infer to the hidden bit of my notes (ie whodunnit). It is a different experience from watching an episode of Death in Paradise or The Mentalist, as there is the first-person description element to it. But it doesn't really involve very much more agency.

(One difference from those shows is that they are scripted to try and occlude the audience's access to the relevant information, whereas in our murder mystery I was desperately trying to shovel information out the door. A better comparison might be to reading The Eleventh Hour.)


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat 

1) True, but ultimately it is just a matter of resolution and is a difference of degree at most, not of kind.

2) "I want more agency in a game than in the real life" is a perfectly fine answer. I'm sure that in a sense we all do. In a RPG we usually get to choose our character, and we get to choose on what campaign premises to sign up to.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> On levels of detail, and which to elide: I still think that this is a case of the Gygaxian form enduring past its original function.
> 
> The classic dungeon has two characteristics relevant to this particular discussion: (1) it is very sparse/austere in its detail - all its relevant architecture and contents can be spelled out in a workable, human-generated and managed, key; (2) establishes a definite sense of what is _relevant _and what is not.



To a point.  While the GM knows what's relevant (because the module says so!), the sense of what's relevant and what is not for the players/PCs often only arises after the PCs (try to) interact with any given element.


pemerton said:


> That second is a function of tradition as much as anything, but the traditions seems to be quickly established and pretty easily teachable. For instance, doors, floor, ceilings are important in terms of their role in entry, egress, traps etc. But generally the _colour_ of these things is not relevant - which we quickly learn from the absence of descriptions of colour of things in the sample dungeons in Gygax's DMG, Moldvay Basic etc.



Having just run S1 Lost Caverns, which Gygax wrote (though admittedly a few years after the DMG) I can say there's a fair amount of attention paid to colour of walls-floors-etc. at any point where it differs from bland gray stone.  What you see as an absence of attention might simply be the presence of an assumed default.


pemerton said:


> Likewise we don't need to write down in the key, nor narrate at the table, every crack or lip or uneven finish in a wall: that only matters to finding secret doors or climbing walls, and in both cases can be subsumed into the roll for success.
> 
> And if a GM starts narrating the colour of room ceilings, or the cracks in the walls, that's a sign that these _matter_ in a way they typically don't.
> 
> Where things start to go haywire is the GM who thinks _one day I might run a dungeon where the ceiling colours matter and so, to avoid meta-gaming, I'm going to narrate the colour of every ceiling from the get-go_. Generalise that to everything else one can _conceive_ of being relevant - cracks in walls, poorly-finished stonework, etc - and we get an absolute nightmare. Take this out of the dungeon and into any realistically inhabited place, and it gets worse - do we really have to key, and then narrate, every bucket, bale of straw, etc in every inn and every peasant hovel?



In an ideal situation, yes.  Even better, there'd be a holographic scene presented to fill in all that stuff.

Practicality, however, limits this; and so things that obviously are or might become relevant are narrated while everything else is left for the players to ask about.  Where we differ is in the definition of what might become relevant.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@pemerton I don't understand why you are talking about triggering the GM to reading their notes. I have not advocated for that. Most of the time I don't even have notes.


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> I don't know what darkbard has in mind:




Not specifically, perhaps, but you've intuited the larger point:



> None of these processes in the real world is remotely comparable to, or resembling of, a GM drawing a map and writing up a key.




I think @Crimson Longinus is trying to draw some sort of parallel about our individual philosophies about agency in the real world as shaping our gaming agendas, but I think any such point is tenuous, at best.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> AbdulAlhazred said:
> 
> 
> 
> So, clearly, the argument here is over "Level of Detail", with the more narrative agenda being happy to skip over, or at most summarize, any activity which isn't directly germane to that agenda (IE any doors which lead to uninteresting places are either narrated as "you find nothing interesting here", or simply never mentioned/don't exist).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which has several side effects.
> 
> First, it still ends up being the GM who decides what, in the fiction, is germane to that agenda.  Sure the players/PCs might be setting that agenda but the GM then decides where it'll play out and how - as in by what means - it'll resolve.
Click to expand...


Lanefan, your claim here is simply not true.

Actual play example: in Burning Wheel, my PC's sidekick has the Belief _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse_. That establishes an agenda. Then I delcare an action for her: _I think I recall that Evard's tower is around here_. The resolution of that action will geneate something that is germane to that agenda. As it happens, I succeeded on the check and so what happened was _we came upon Evard's tower_. Had it failed, the rules of the game require the GM to introduce something into the fiction that will challenge the character's Belief while not giving effect to her intent - so maybe we stumble upon Evard's tower but see someone heading off with all the spellbooks in a cart, or maybe we find the tower but it is locked with the books inside, or . . .

Another example: the PCs in my Classic Traveller game are trying to disrupt a bioweapons conspiracy. They are in orbit about the world of Enlil - one hub of the conspiracy - en route to Olyx, where the chief conspirators are based. I roll a starship encounter - there is a patrol cruiser arriving at Enlil. Consistently with my self-imposed agenda, I (i) decide that this vessel contains conspirators, who (ii) have travelled from Olyx, and (iii) broadcast sufficient information to the starport authorities on Enlil that the players are able to infer (i) and (ii).

This followed on from a patron encounter in the previous session, where the encountered patron was determined - by rolling - to be a diplomat, and I had narrated this patron's purpose in approaching and engaging with the PCs to have them assist against the conspiracy by travelling to Olyx.

In other words, _everything that is introduced into the fiction as part of the game engine's devices to propel things forward - _patron encounters, starship encounters, etc - is germane to the players' agenda for their PCs.

And I certainly didn't decide how the PCs' interactions with the conspiracy would resolve!


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Here is why I haven't engaged in your "real life agency vs gaming agency" compare/contrast (and why I think its fraught and not apt at all):
> 
> 1)  In real life, I have an autonomous nervous system (putting to side the Hard Problem in cognitive/neuroscience for a moment).  I am not blind, deaf, dumb, olfactory-impaired et al.  I navigate the world through (a) 1st order perception, (b) my hard-earned cognitive biases that translate things to me without "myself" even knowing it, and (c) my vigilance to filter out my cognitive biases.



In real life you also have an imagination.  This imagination allows you to...


Manbearcat said:


> In a TTRPGing game with a shared imaginary space, none of (a), (b), or (c) is true as a matter of initial orientation to the fiction and gamestate.  I'm working entirely through a cipher or the lens of a second party (GM).  I'm then having to work through the process of orienting myself to this secondhand perception, sussing out how this cipher/lens has encoded information so I can make it intelligible (to my cognitive framework) and then work through my own (b) and (c) after that process is done.



...imagine your PC having all those senses, inputs and cognitions noted above as 1) and then use what you imagine your PC perceiving through those inputs/cognitions to inform what you have that PC do, and why.

Which means [your PC in the fiction vis-a-vis the game world] and [you in real life vis-a-vis the world around you] can thus be seen as at least vague equivalents; and I think* this is what @Crimson Longinus is trying to get at: that because you in the real world can't create hills to the north just by saying they exist, nor should your character in the fiction be able to.

* - CL, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> Not specifically, perhaps, but you've intuited the larger point:
> 
> 
> 
> I think @Crimson Longinus is trying to draw some sort of parallel about our individual philosophies about agency in the real world as shaping our gaming agendas, but I think any such point is tenuous, at best.



Well it strikes me that some form of determinism is obviously true, in the sense that human behaviour, like other animal behaviour, is the consequence of interactions between biochemical processes and external input/stimuli. Whether this is compatible with free will (along GE Moore lines - ie that _free will _simply equals _would have acted otherwise, had I chosen to do so_) I don't have a firm view on, given I haven't read any of that literature for over 20 years.

If we move from metaphysics to sociology, it's clear to me that I - as described in my post upthread - have more agency than (say) a peasant farmer or a factory worker: it's true that the farmer has a degree of immediate control over their economic and social life that I lack (given I live in a mass society), but that immediate control is utterly blunted by the bigger picture inability of a peasant society to control its own conditions of existence. Conversely, the factory worker is part of a society that is able to exercise that sort of control, but s/he is not having much say over it. In that sense, at least, I'm a classic middle class intellectual.

I don't see that any of this has much bearing on the analysis of RPGing, though, for the reasons I and @Manbearcat have posted. RPGing is a leisure activity, like other gaming. Some games involve no agency beyond the choice to participate (eg Snakes and Ladders); others do.  I don't really want my leisure time to be spent hearing what someone else thinks makes for an exciting fiction. I've got ideas of my own I'm keen to pursue!



Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't understand why you are talking about triggering the GM to reading their notes. I have not advocated for that. Most of the time I don't even have notes.



Hence "if nothing has been written, to ad lib something _as if_ it had been written up".

The fiction comes from somewhere. Either the player narrates it, or the GM narrates it. There are various ways to allocate that task, and to set constraints on it. What you are arguing for is _unless the fiction is the player's character performing an action_, the GM narrates it. So all the player can do is say _I do X_ and then trigger the GM to say something in response.

As I said, it's a structured version of _Dad, tell us a story about XYZ_.

I don't know how the combat rules of games like D&D and Runequest fit into your model - I'm guessing that you don't resolve _I attack the Orc with my spear _by just expecting the GM to make something up in response, even though the Orc is (in the fiction) a part of the external world which is outside the character's control and hence, per your account, _fictions about the Orc_ are to be established by the GM and not the player of the character.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Lanefan, your claim here is simply not true.
> 
> Actual play example: in Burning Wheel, my PC's sidekick has the Belief _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse_. That establishes an agenda. Then I delcare an action for her: _I think I recall that Evard's tower is around here_. The resolution of that action will geneate something that is germane to that agenda. As it happens, I succeeded on the check and so what happened was _we came upon Evard's tower_. Had it failed, the rules of the game require the GM to introduce something into the fiction that will challenge the character's Belief while not giving effect to her intent - so maybe we stumble upon Evard's tower but see someone heading off with all the spellbooks in a cart, or maybe we find the tower but it is locked with the books inside, or . . .
> 
> Another example: the PCs in my Classic Traveller game are trying to disrupt a bioweapons conspiracy. They are in orbit about the world of Enlil - one hub of the conspiracy - en route to Olyx, where the chief conspirators are based. I roll a starship encounter - there is a patrol cruiser arriving at Enlil. Consistently with my self-imposed agenda, I (i) decide that this vessel contains conspirators, who (ii) have travelled from Olyx, and (iii) broadcast sufficient information to the starport authorities on Enlil that the players are able to infer (i) and (ii).
> 
> This followed on from a patron encounter in the previous session, where the encountered patron was determined - by rolling - to be a diplomat, and I had narrated this patron's purpose in approaching and engaging with the PCs to have them assist against the conspiracy by travelling to Olyx.
> 
> In other words, _everything that is introduced into the fiction as part of the game engine's devices to propel things forward - _patron encounters, starship encounters, etc - is germane to the players' agenda for their PCs.
> 
> And I certainly didn't decide how the PCs' interactions with the conspiracy would resolve!



Right. So you want to roll dice for things that many GMs are capable of coming up without the rules telling them to. Introducing elements that are related to the characters' motivations, challenge their values etc is pretty basic gamemastering regardless of what rules you are or aren't using. Dice rolling in itself does not really increase anyone's agency. But if it works for you, then that's great.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> In real life you also have an imagination.  This imagination allows you to...
> 
> ...imagine your PC having all those senses, inputs and cognitions noted above as 1) and then use what you imagine your PC perceiving through those inputs/cognitions to inform what you have that PC do, and why.
> 
> Which means [your PC in the fiction vis-a-vis the game world] and [you in real life vis-a-vis the world around you] can thus be seen as at least vague equivalents; and I think* this is what @Crimson Longinus is trying to get at: that because you in the real world can't create hills to the north just by saying they exist, nor should your character in the fiction be able to.
> 
> * - CL, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.



This is all confused.

In @AbdulAlhazred's example, the character is not creating hills to the north. S/he is remembering them. And the player is _imagining_ that s/he is remembering them.

And of course the character in the imagined world is (more-or-less) like me in real life. That's why s/he can remember things.


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> Well it strikes me that some form of determinism is obviously true, in the sense that human behaviour, like other animal behaviour, is the consequence of interactions between biochemical processes and external input/stimuli.




Absolutley; I didn't mean to imply any disregard for determinism in the way you outline it. That said, we're a long way from the Unified Theory of Deterministic Preferences in RPG Aesthetics. 



> I don't see that any of this has much bearing on the analysis of RPGing




That is the greater point, with which I wholeheartedly concur!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> As long as they're talking in-character I'd never want to curtail it.




Oh man. Hours of people talking in character about how to open a door. Like I said....even Tolkien knew to skip to the point. 



Lanefan said:


> Where had that been part of an RPG where Frodo etc. were all PCs I'd expect all of it to be played out, at least in terms of everyone's ideas and possible solutions and so forth.  This is where play of an RPG differs from reading a book or watching a film; particularly as in an RPG the party in this case would be free to make other choices (e.g. go somewhere else, or abandon the mission, or whatever) absent knowledge of the future, while in the book Tolkein already knows what the future holds and just has to get there.




If it takes more than a few minutes to decide what the options are, then I’ll likely try and speed things up a bit, for sure. Not to deny anyone some input, but to keep the game moving. I’d just summarize the established options, and maybe add one of my own or two, depending on the circumstances. 




Lanefan said:


> In this case I don't have to worry about that, as it's a one-player game!
> Often yes, IME.
> 
> It's not that someone's getting more focus in itself, though, it's what that focus is on.  If a single PC is off scouting for the party and thus all the focus is on her then everyone's cool with it.  But if a single PC is playing out his family drama that has nothing to do with the party, then yeah...it's check-out time.




I don’t mean having extended solo scenes between one player and the GM while everyone watches. I mean having an actual adventure of some sort that matters to one or more characters and in which everyone can participate. 

Your necromancy book scenario might be a good example of what I’m talking about if there was more than one PC, although I expect it would have come about on a different way. 



Lanefan said:


> It's more work up front before the campaign starts, no question there - but (to use one of my favourite phrases) it's work I only have to do once.  The payoff is that it means less work later during actual play.




I fear we’re moving further from the topic of agency, but I just don’t see it. I only have to do the work once...when I introduce it into the game. Thereafter, I’ll have to remember it for future reference. 

This description would also seem to apply to your months’ ahead of time determination. 



Lanefan said:


> Situationally dependent.  I suppose it comes down to me advocating for consistency of the fiction, the players advocating for their enjoyment, and we meet in the middle somewhere.




Okay, fair enough. I lean toward always going with the enjoyment of the game, but that’s preference. Thanks for sharing that though, I was curious.  



Lanefan said:


> Most of the time I'd already know which way the river flows.  Most such information comes simply from the map - where is the high ground, where is the low ground, odds are pretty good a river flows from one to the other.
> 
> It's a game, yes, and part of that game involves free-form downtime.




It may. It depends. My 5E downtime isn’s a formal phase of the game or anything, but we tend to handle it in a high level manner, unless there’s a strong reason not to. It’s more like a player declaring a goal, and then we talk about it and decide if it’s something that happens or if a roll of some kind is needed, or what...then we move on.

In Blades in the Dark, Downtime is a formalized phase of play, and has established procedures for any activities the PCs want to pursue. So there are always mechanics involved...but we also tend to roleplay some of these scenes a lot more. This is where I find a lot of the world information and detail that may come up; by asking questions and then building on the answers (this is one of the principles of play offered in the book). 

But even the most robust such scene would not dominate an entire session.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh man. Hours of people talking in character about how to open a door. Like I said....even Tolkien knew to skip to the point.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If it takes more than a few minutes to decide what the options are, then I’ll likely try and speed things up a bit, for sure. Not to deny anyone some input, but to keep the game moving.



Upthread, @chaochou defined _player agency_, for present purposes, as _being able to set and meaningfully pursue the PC's goals_.

@Manbearcat defined it as _being able to change the gamestate_.

Talking in-character about how to open a door - especially if, in fact, the door is a perfectly ordinary door that leads nowhere of any interest to anyone at the table - is not either of those things.

That's not player agency. More like player agony!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is such a weird thing to say. It is like saying that the actions the main character takes have no influence to the direction of the story. This is obviously not the case.
> 
> And what bugs me about this discussion is that people just lump all games where the players do not have formal, rule-backed meta control into one category, whilst in reality that is the vast majority of all games being played. There are massive differences in how agency is handled and manifests within that category.



I don't see how they don't all fall within a type. I mean, you LITERALLY right here defined the category! How can you criticize us for caring about this distinction? I mean, you can certainly have your definition of agency where players have agency by the mere fact that they have PCs in the game and play them. Fine, but can you not at least see that when that is the only thing the players have (at least formally) as a role within the game that there are many things they are excluded from, and that those things are pretty reasonably also considered under the rubric of 'agency'? I think that is a very reasonable position to take. Beyond that, again, we consider this distinction to be the one upon which we make a significant division between RPGs. So it isn't 'just lumping', it is focusing on what matters to us, and the distinction IS meaningful, regardless of what terminology you use.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Isn't this just playing the game traditionally from in-character perspective and then chatting after the game what was cool and interesting and the GM taking that into account for the future? (And I'm stuck to 90's at most, though more likely to noughties!)



Well, I am of the school of thought that games should be explicit about their process and agenda, and their mechanics. I mean, sure, we could play D&D this way, in an informal sense. Lots of people probably do! That is still not quite the same as explicitly playing a game which puts that into 'rules'. I tend to prefer the latter. Maybe, long ago, there was a time when I hadn't conceived of such mechanics (hadn't witnessed them in explicit enough form to realize they could exist, I'm no genius) and just saying "we're playing D&D like so" would have been the pinnacle of what I could think of. That day is long past, so something like 5e doesn't satisfy me anymore. I mean, I can play it, but that is more because I'm kind of easy-going when it comes right down to it, not because it is what I REALLY want from a game.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Upthread, @chaochou defined _player agency_, for present purposes, as _being able to set and meaningfully pursue the PC's goals_.
> 
> @Manbearcat defined it as _being able to change the gamestate_.



Their ability to change the gamestate (in this case, by opening a door) isn't in question.

Might be different if the door was locked and they didn't have a key, but let's for these purposes say they've good reason to believe the door is unlocked (e.g. there is no lock present) and unbarred.


pemerton said:


> Talking in-character about how to open a door - especially if, in fact, the door is a perfectly ordinary door that leads nowhere of any interest to anyone at the table - is not either of those things.



It is, in that they're talking about whether they _want_ to change the gamestate or leave it as it is.  And unless I-as-GM have something come through the door from the other side and force their hand (and, by the by, impinge a bit on their agency), it's entirely their decision to make.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> You think that you you have narrative-level meta control of your life in the real life? Or perhaps that you have no agency in the real life? The latter of course if perfectly possible in a sense that free will could be an illusion, but in that case no agency could exist in a game played by individuals lacking free will either, so whole point is moot. The former seems exceedingly unlikely.



I think the position they (@pemerton anyway) are taking, and which I fundamentally agree with, is that the game doesn't 'exist' in the same sense that real life does. Furthermore, the game IS a part of real life. If we have agency in real life (free will) then whatever rules and process we accept when we do something (play a game) is clearly giving up some, or even all, of that to someone else. Since characters REALLY do not exist, and thus cannot have agency themselves, it is a category error to say that they do, or to compare what they don't have to what we may/may not have in the real world. 

I 'get' what kind of comparison you are trying to make, but it isn't meaningful. I can't have agency as a player because my PC has 'pretend agency' in the game. I can have some agency in that I am allowed, by the game 'rules', to direct the PC's actions in the fiction. However, I do see this as the uttermost minimum of agency that can formally exist in games and still have players that are playing at all (they would otherwise just be an audience). So it is pretty meaningless to talk about how this is a lot of agency. It is rock bottom in that scale.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> If it takes more than a few minutes to decide what the options are, then I’ll likely try and speed things up a bit, for sure. Not to deny anyone some input, but to keep the game moving. I’d just summarize the established options, and maybe add one of my own or two, depending on the circumstances.



Deciding/determining what the options are doesn't usually take long.  Deciding which of those options to pursue can sometimes take ages, depending often on the particular mix of players and-or characters at the time.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t mean having extended solo scenes between one player and the GM while everyone watches. I mean having an actual adventure of some sort that matters to one or more characters and in which everyone can participate.



In which case we're probably talking about different things.  I'm talking about what you refer to as extended solo scenes that may or may not have anything at all to do with adventuring.

An adventure driven by the goals of a single character can be fine; though I've learned the hard way to avoid these as DM because inevitably the key character will die at the first opportunity, leaving the rest of the party doing something (or worse, stuck somewhere*) not of their choosing.

* - the only TPK I've ever DMed was one of these: the adventure was a quest put on one character, the rest of the party came along to help.  They got sent to a demi-plane (I was using a 3e-era module whose name I forget at the moment), and once there the quested character perma-died in the very first combat!  The rest of the crew said screw the mission and just tried to find a way home, but got wiped out in the process.


hawkeyefan said:


> I fear we’re moving further from the topic of agency, but I just don’t see it. I only have to do the work once...when I introduce it into the game.



Cumulatively, I think it's more work: each time you introduce something you have to vet it against all that has gone before to make sure it fits.  When doing it ahead of time all that vetting can be done in one fell swoop.

Probably worth noting that when I'm doing all this I'm designing with intent of a campaign lasting five or ten or fifteen years and trying to come up with something that'll hold up that long.  Were I just designing for a single AP or a short campaign I wouldn't be nearly as fussy with it.


hawkeyefan said:


> It may. It depends. My 5E downtime isn’s a formal phase of the game or anything, but we tend to handle it in a high level manner, unless there’s a strong reason not to. It’s more like a player declaring a goal, and then we talk about it and decide if it’s something that happens or if a roll of some kind is needed, or what...then we move on.



It's not formalized here anything like it is in, say, BitD; but it happens regardless for a number of reasons:

--- treasury valuation and division.  Party treasuries are identified, valued and divided in town, and this process can take several days in-game and sometimes two sessions at the table particularly if a player misses a session and can't do their claiming.
--- training.  This doesn't take long at the table but often takes 7-15 in-game days, plus any travel required.
--- other stuff.  This can include personal matters for a PC e.g. family stuff; catching up on news and developments here and elsewhere; interacting with other parties or characters (in a multi-party game) and maybe switching characters in and out; looking for the next mission if one hasn't already presented itself; characters playing practical jokes on each other, etc.; all on top of the usual wine, (wo)men and song that adventurers seek out during downtime.  Amount of both table time and in-game time these things take is highly variable; sometimes near zero, other times quite a lot.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Good historical summary. I would only add that hexcrawl, leading to stronghold play, was a vital evolutionary axis which provided some flexibility in terms of what happened as PCs leveled in the original (1e and earlier/some of the Basic line) game, at least as-written. When your game began to sport PCs of level 7+ they would start moving out of the dungeon proper and move across the landscape, hexcrawling. This has a pretty structured process similar to dungeon crawling in 1e (it is just referred to the AH Survival game in OD&D, though there are encounter matrices available). Once these PCs get into stronghold/tower/whatever development then most of their 'calendar time' becomes absorbed and troupe play is supposed to refocus on their lower level henchmen/associates/alternate PCs, with the 'big boys' only reappearing in person for 'special events'.




Except, as I've noted before, there's little sign most people playing D&D were doing that even as early as 1975, whatever the theoretical intent.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Which means [your PC in the fiction vis-a-vis the game world] and [you in real life vis-a-vis the world around you] can thus be seen as at least vague equivalents; and I think* this is what @Crimson Longinus is trying to get at: that because you in the real world can't create hills to the north just by saying they exist, nor should your character in the fiction be able to.
> 
> * - CL, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this.



Perhaps, but I don't see how that conclusion follows in any logical way from the premise. You "operating in the real world", you "acting as a player in a game", and "your character", need not be analogous in any particular way. In fact, the argument I've heard is that being a player asked what terrain is to the north doesn't work for you because it divorces you from the character, since you operate in different ways. However, don't ALL the other things that are different between you and your character (in the fiction of the game) do this as well? Why would you not prefer to play yourself in the game? Surely you can identify perfectly with THAT character! But you don't, and you will probably answer that you want to imagine something different. Why can't that different thing include partially authoring the setting? I don't see why only certain things become what 'you ought to be able to do'. I won't argue about preferences of course, but when you say 'nor should your character be able to...' and other similar statements they seem more like prescriptions than preferences.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> If I'm writing, I'm neither talking nor listening - which means if I'm the GM the game would progress very much in a stop-start manner - something would be introduced into the fiction, then there'd be a hard stop while I wrote it down in enough detail to be useful (maybe years) later.



If you're actively listening, then you shouldn't be forgetting. As you are forgetting, then you likely weren't listening to begin with. That said, I don't think the stop would be particularly hard or any harder than players jotting down notes or adjustments on their character sheet. And if PCs are spending two hours talking between themselves about opening doors, then you should have plenty of time to write. 



Lanefan said:


> In theory this is true, and would be nice.
> 
> In practice I find it causes arguments when people's memories disagree over important details.



Just because I don't share your experiences doesn't mean that my experiences should be marginalized to "in theory" idealism. In practice, I find that this is rarely the case. So I suspect you are making a mountain out of a molehill. 



Lanefan said:


> In just about all cases other than RPGs I'd agree with you.  But I see RPG rules as different, *in that they're both changeable by the participants and are in many cases presented as soft guidelines rather than hard-and-fast rules.*
> 
> Some RPGs (e.g. 3e D&D, PF1) try to lean in to a hard-rule-for-everything approach; and while this might work for purely gamist concerns it rather fights against creativity and imagination, in that it's far too easy both as player and GM to fall into the trap of "If there's not a rule for it, you can't try it".



I'm not a fan of explanations that rely on exceptionalism, because they beg to be disproven through evidence, and they often are as exceptionalism is seldom true. This is something, for example, Hasbro discovered when they did research on how people play Monopoly and the house rules people used. How many times when playing Uno with strangers is spent clarifying house rules? Or how about variations of sports, whether on the professional or amateur level? Hard and fast rules are often guidelines when it comes to a number of games. RPGs are not an exception. Stop trying to privilege your hobby.

But I think that you nevertheless miss my meaning. I think that rules and rules interactions should be meaningful. Rules get in the way, for example, every time that you roll the dice in PbtA because it forces a hard move or soft move by the GM or at least a new state of fiction. The rules get in the way when you play BitD because the rules require that the GM establishes the Position and Effect based upon the action of the PCs. But these rules create meaningful and purposeful game play, such that it cultivates a different experience from playing a D&D game of a thieves' guild in a city. 



pemerton said:


> Upthread, @chaochou defined _player agency_, for present purposes, as _being able to set and meaningfully pursue the PC's goals_.
> 
> @Manbearcat defined it as _being able to change the gamestate_.
> 
> Talking in-character about how to open a door - especially if, in fact, the door is a perfectly ordinary door that leads nowhere of any interest to anyone at the table - is not either of those things.
> 
> That's not player agency. More like player agony!



Except in Burning Wheel where I set for my character's agenda as "No door shall remain unopened without first discussing it!"


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't see how they don't all fall within a type. I mean, you LITERALLY right here defined the category! How can you criticize us for caring about this distinction? I mean, you can certainly have your definition of agency where players have agency by the mere fact that they have PCs in the game and play them. Fine, but can you not at least see that when that is the only thing the players have (at least formally) as a role within the game that there are many things they are excluded from, and that those things are pretty reasonably also considered under the rubric of 'agency'? I think that is a very reasonable position to take. Beyond that, again, we consider this distinction to be the one upon which we make a significant division between RPGs. So it isn't 'just lumping', it is focusing on what matters to us, and the distinction IS meaningful, regardless of what terminology you use.



Yes, it is a significant distinction. By fixating on this division you make your contributions irrelevant to overwhelming majority of people who play RPGs. The games where the players have significant mechanically-backed, narrative-level agency are fringe. And yes, pointing out that such games exist is fine, but but if you considering anything besides the players having mechanical narrative meta control not worth discussing, then we really have nothing to discuss regarding agency and you have nothing to discuss with most people playing RPGs. Because most games do not have such mechanics and they're not gonna. 

And I think that by fixating on this one aspect, you ignore other aspects of how agency manifests, which are at least as important and are actually relevant to most games being played. Agency works pretty damn differently in a railroady adventure path, a narrative driven game where the GM improvises the narrative based on character actions and in a sandbox and those are the sort of differences that actually matter to most people. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I am of the school of thought that games should be explicit about their process and agenda, and their mechanics. I mean, sure, we could play D&D this way, in an informal sense. Lots of people probably do! That is still not quite the same as explicitly playing a game which puts that into 'rules'. I tend to prefer the latter. Maybe, long ago, there was a time when I hadn't conceived of such mechanics (hadn't witnessed them in explicit enough form to realize they could exist, I'm no genius) and just saying "we're playing D&D like so" would have been the pinnacle of what I could think of. That day is long past, so something like 5e doesn't satisfy me anymore. I mean, I can play it, but that is more because I'm kind of easy-going when it comes right down to it, not because it is what I REALLY want from a game.



This is art vs engineering thing. You're an engineer, I am an artist. And neither is right or wrong. But I don't want my creative processes limited or defined by codified rules, they hinder me more than help. You obviously feel differently.


----------



## nevin

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, it is a significant distinction. By fixating on this division you make your contributions irrelevant to overwhelming majority of people who play RPGs. The games where the players have significant mechanically-backed, narrative-level agency are fringe. And yes, pointing out that such games exist is fine, but but if you considering anything besides the players having mechanical narrative meta control not worth discussing, then we really have nothing to discuss regarding agency and you have nothing to discuss with most people playing RPGs. Because most games do not have such mechanics and they're not gonna.
> 
> And I think that by fixating on this one aspect, you ignore other aspects of how agency manifests, which are at least as important and are actually relevant to most games being played. Agency works pretty damn differently in a railroady adventure path, a narrative driven game where the GM improvises the narrative based on character actions and in a sandbox and those are the sort of differences that actually matter to most people.
> 
> 
> This is art vs engineering thing. You're an engineer, I am an artist. And neither is right or wrong. But I don't want my creative processes limited or defined by codified rules, they hinder me more than help. You obviously feel differently.



 I think this post is a great illustration of the reason sometimes you get forum posts that never end.  I'm in the too many rules hinder me more than help.   It's just like Government.  You get to a point where the rules are doing thier job almost perfectly but you keep adding stuff because there is an endess supply of people with suggestions and tweaks and one day you wake up and realize all the efficiency has been buried in bloat.   
That's always the problem with a rules heavy game because the rules never stop growing.   Until the company can't move in the system and then they make a new system.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> If we move from metaphysics to sociology, it's clear to me that I - as described in my post upthread - have more agency than (say) a peasant farmer or a factory worker: it's true that the farmer has a degree of immediate control over their economic and social life that I lack (given I live in a mass society), but that immediate control is utterly blunted by the bigger picture inability of a peasant society to control its own conditions of existence. Conversely, the factory worker is part of a society that is able to exercise that sort of control, but s/he is not having much say over it. In that sense, at least, I'm a classic middle class intellectual.



Yes, you tool of the Capitalists!


pemerton said:


> I don't see that any of this has much bearing on the analysis of RPGing, though, for the reasons I and @Manbearcat have posted. RPGing is a leisure activity, like other gaming. Some games involve no agency beyond the choice to participate (eg Snakes and Ladders); others do.  I don't really want my leisure time to be spent hearing what someone else thinks makes for an exciting fiction. I've got ideas of my own I'm keen to pursue!
> 
> Hence "if nothing has been written, to ad lib something _as if_ it had been written up".
> 
> The fiction comes from somewhere. Either the player narrates it, or the GM narrates it. There are various ways to allocate that task, and to set constraints on it. What you are arguing for is _unless the fiction is the player's character performing an action_, the GM narrates it. So all the player can do is say _I do X_ and then trigger the GM to say something in response.
> 
> As I said, it's a structured version of _Dad, tell us a story about XYZ_.
> 
> I don't know how the combat rules of games like D&D and Runequest fit into your model - I'm guessing that you don't resolve _I attack the Orc with my spear _by just expecting the GM to make something up in response, even though the Orc is (in the fiction) a part of the external world which is outside the character's control and hence, per your account, _fictions about the Orc_ are to be established by the GM and not the player of the character.



I think the counterargument has two parts. Combat, and any other analogous subsystem, presents randomized inputs into the system, which some versions of D&D (pre-2e) present as being fairly sacrosanct (I think Gygax would say that the only license a DM has to fudge is if the rules produce a patently absurd result). Later versions famously tell the DM to fudge things, and other non-D&D games of this ilk take various positions, or more generally don't address the topic at all. So, the player has a right to expect that the details of if the orc hits, or of what happens when he climbs the cliff, are dependent on a factor which is out of all the game's participants control, chance. In some of these games the player may be empowered to either completely or partly obviate chance by virtue of some resource or specific 'power' granted to their character. Normally this would be flavored with some genre-appropriate in-game explanation, but again a few games allocate this as a player resource.

Outside of these randomization points, the DM simply dictates everything which happens, except the PC's in-game actions. Anything beyond that will then venture into the territory of 'players deciding game content'. The argument here, and above, being that player input in the form of the PC's actions is 'enough' to shape the narrative however they want, with the exception of whatever happens by chance. Of course, you and I and others disagree with that assertion, or at least it isn't satisfying enough.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> By fixating on this division you make your contributions irrelevant to overwhelming majority of people who play RPGs. The games where the players have significant mechanically-backed, narrative-level agency are fringe. And yes, pointing out that such games exist is fine, but but if you considering anything besides the players having mechanical narrative meta control not worth discussing, then we really have nothing to discuss regarding agency and you have nothing to discuss with most people playing RPGs. Because most games do not have such mechanics and they're not gonna.



So how is conversation any more fruitful if you are not willing to consider anything besides the players having in-character control worth discussing? It comes across as hypocritical, no? Or is it not because argumentum ad populum? But this again reminds me of the argument that only wants to consider heteronormative families worth discussing while ignoring non-traditional families. 



nevin said:


> I think this post is a great illustration of the reason sometimes you get forum posts that never end.  I'm in the too many rules hinder me more than help.



Just so we are clear, when most people here say that they like rules getting in the way, they are not necessarily advocating for rules-heavy games or mechanics-first games. Most PbtA and FitD games, for example, are lighter than 5e D&D. Instead, the idea of rules getting in the way is that the rules force new states of fiction and cultivate the game experience in particular ways. Or from this blog post: 


> The Rules Get In The Way​I’ve used the phrase _intentional design_ before and maybe it’s worth unpacking a bit more. This is the general trend I’m talking about: rules that purposefully create specific play experiences, and not just default to a “players try to beat the GM’s obstacles with a combination of capability and luck” frame. If you’re the sort of GM who prefers to present their story their way, new-school rules feel like they _get in the way_.
> 
> Personally? I love rules that get in the way. Rules can surprise me when I’m facilitating, which is both an exciting creative challenge and alleviates most prep. I’ve never had a good head for prepping with interesting combat or obstacles in mind, so those rules that are “in the way?” I’d rather put my creativity toward things other than balancing fights.
> 
> Intentional design shows up all over the place now and for various reasons: genre emulation, or strong emotional response, or enforcing tempo. Redistributing creative responsibilities in surprising ways. Gosh, even just to de-prioritize violence as the main way to get what we want.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Their ability to change the gamestate (in this case, by opening a door) isn't in question.
> 
> Might be different if the door was locked and they didn't have a key, but let's for these purposes say they've good reason to believe the door is unlocked (e.g. there is no lock present) and unbarred.
> 
> It is, in that they're talking about whether they _want_ to change the gamestate or leave it as it is.  And unless I-as-GM have something come through the door from the other side and force their hand (and, by the by, impinge a bit on their agency), it's entirely their decision to make.



It occurs to me that we have slightly differing notions of 'game state' here. I would say that opening a trivial door, for example, which leads to nothing, and doesn't change the fiction in any real way is, at best, an utterly trivial change. For practical purposes, working from the narrative fictional positioning perspective which is how I normally think of these games, it isn't really a change at all. In, say, 1e AD&D it might accrue some minor significance as some resources and a wandering monster check might take place. Even 2e lacks these processes and its ethos would fairly say "just get on with it." 

So, you see 'agency' here, but I see nothing. Even if the door HAS significance, how it is opened is FAIRLY trivial and doesn't involve any real agency, given that the significance is the same no matter how it happens. Now it becomes part of the 'play to see what happens', and MAYBE it gains some kind of significance via some fiction (IE the warlock agrees to a favor for his patron if the patron provides help, or something like that). Even that last example is weak unless the relationship between patron and PC has significant valence for the player. I would say Tolkien's 'West Gate of Moria' scene doesn't seem like its fiction would support such a reading. It is just an incident, rather tense in the moment and then foreshadowing events to come. Kind of a classic D&D encounter really.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, it is a significant distinction. By fixating on this division you make your contributions irrelevant to overwhelming majority of people who play RPGs. The games where the players have significant mechanically-backed, narrative-level agency are fringe. And yes, pointing out that such games exist is fine, but but if you considering anything besides the players having mechanical narrative meta control not worth discussing, then we really have nothing to discuss regarding agency and you have nothing to discuss with most people playing RPGs. Because most games do not have such mechanics and they're not gonna.




Before I find out if I want to disagree with you on this, do you consider hero points land within this category?


----------



## Thomas Shey

nevin said:


> I think this post is a great illustration of the reason sometimes you get forum posts that never end.  I'm in the too many rules hinder me more than help.   It's just like Government.  You get to a point where the rules are doing thier job almost perfectly but you keep adding stuff because there is an endess supply of people with suggestions and tweaks and one day you wake up and realize all the efficiency has been buried in bloat.
> That's always the problem with a rules heavy game because the rules never stop growing.   Until the company can't move in the system and then they make a new system.




And I'd argue this is an argument that can be made by anyone who wants less rules than other people do.  There's always "rules bloat" claims by somebody unless a game is so light to almost be schematic.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> Except, as I've noted before, there's little sign most people playing D&D were doing that even as early as 1975, whatever the theoretical intent.



I'm not so sure about that... I know it was done fairly commonly in the late 1970's, because I was part of a game club that had 200+ members, and that was exactly how it worked! There was a shared world, various GMs ran adventures and the milieu included a whole level of play that was just people raising armies, fighting wars, etc. Most of the individual adventuring was driving towards that. Higher level PCs adventured to eliminate threats, or to gain treasures that would help them with their empires. Other adventures were mostly involving lesser ranked characters who were either in service to the 'big guys' (former henchmen turned PC usually) or at least they were getting quests from those name level and higher PCs (often, not always).

I suspect it was pretty analogous to the 'Lake Geneva Tactical Game Society' "Great Kingdom" campaign, which is memorialized in Gygax's WoG product from CA 1982.

Now, who can really say what people were doing in CA? That was the land of 'Arduin Grimoire' and they did invent a bunch of different play styles. I've also heard of other significantly 'variant' types of 'D&D' that were played in the 70's in different places. Usually it was some particularly energetic and imaginative DM. Still, even a lot of these included strongholds and armies and such as elements of play. Wilderlands of High Fantasy was certainly set up with that in mind (this was the first commercial game world AFAIK).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, it is a significant distinction. By fixating on this division you make your contributions irrelevant to overwhelming majority of people who play RPGs. The games where the players have significant mechanically-backed, narrative-level agency are fringe. And yes, pointing out that such games exist is fine, but but if you considering anything besides the players having mechanical narrative meta control not worth discussing, then we really have nothing to discuss regarding agency and you have nothing to discuss with most people playing RPGs. Because most games do not have such mechanics and they're not gonna.



Yeah, and I was being accused of being elitist up thread! ROFL! IME, of 35 years of GMing RPGs, a LOT of players are both eager for more than your formula, but a lot of them are utterly ignorant that it can even exist, so don't know to ask for it. In the REAL world the vast majority of people don't even know any RPG exists except D&D. This is not because they wouldn't be interested in, or maybe even happier playing, some other game. It is simply that D&D itself is a niche thing, and other games are niches of niches (how many people know about subgenres of Manga for example, and Manga is an industry that is 10x the size of RPGs). 

Again, in my extensive experience, players EAT UP games that give them narrative tools and authority. This is especially true of people who are new to play, and particularly young people. Older people who have less energy to devote to games and/or have been trained on 'traditional' D&D (either 2e+ 'story teller' or 1e- 'Gygax Style') are a little trickier, they often need a bit of coaching to 'get it' or maybe just don't have the mental bandwidth to spend on doing a lot of agenda setting. It is fine to say that conventional D&D is good for them, I'm not into imposing things, but it doesn't follow IMHO that this makes narratively focused games less desired or popular.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And I think that by fixating on this one aspect, you ignore other aspects of how agency manifests, which are at least as important and are actually relevant to most games being played. Agency works pretty damn differently in a railroady adventure path, a narrative driven game where the GM improvises the narrative based on character actions and in a sandbox and those are the sort of differences that actually matter to most people.



Again, if you don't have agency to declare character actions, it isn't an RPG. What you are describing is 'illusionism' or 'force'. That is a 'railroady adventure path' is a game where the players are just an audience basically, reduced to merely rolling dice when prompted. This is hardly even role playing, though I guess it can be classified as a 'game' in some sense (Chutes and Ladders is generally classified as a game too). In the 'GM improvises the narrative based on character actions' then you are playing basically how we play, just informally!


Crimson Longinus said:


> This is art vs engineering thing. You're an engineer, I am an artist. And neither is right or wrong. But I don't want my creative processes limited or defined by codified rules, they hinder me more than help. You obviously feel differently.



I'm a fairly creative guy. Well, I like to exercise my (admittedly pedestrian) creativity. I don't know if 'engineering' informs my desire for structure in narrative roles. I think a big reason for it is simply because I am better with social interactions which are gated by formalisms. When the rules/process incorporates something, then I am sure to do it, and it happens smoothly. If its informal, then I'm left wondering if I did what I was setting out to do or not. Some people have talked about these mechanics distracting or restricting them, but FOR ME at least they make things much smoother and more automatic! I'm sure I could run a BitD campaign and it would mostly 'just work', but if I tried to do the same game using a 'classic' type of strict role set of rules, it would be MUCH harder to produce the same atmosphere and sort of play/narrative. Impossible really.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> And I'd argue this is an argument that can be made by anyone who wants less rules than other people do.  There's always "rules bloat" claims by somebody unless a game is so light to almost be schematic.



And I would say that anyone claiming too many rules is a problem and then expounding about D&D being an ideal example of a game is very strange! I mean, pretty close to every narrative game out there has 10x less rules than 5e D&D does...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Before I find out if I want to disagree with you on this, do you consider hero points land within this category?



Depends on what exactly they  do. If they just offer rerolls or some minor mechanical bonuses like that then they really aren't narrative-control.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> And I'd argue this is an argument that can be made by anyone who wants less rules than other people do.  There's always "rules bloat" claims by somebody unless a game is so light to almost be schematic.



What counts as 'rules bloat' is pretty much purely subjective. I don't doubt that many rules that feel like 'bloat' to me are useful for other people and similarly some rules that I like feel like 'bloat' to others.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, and I was being accused of being elitist up thread! ROFL! IME, of 35 years of GMing RPGs, a LOT of players are both eager for more than your formula, but a lot of them are utterly ignorant that it can even exist, so don't know to ask for it. In the REAL world the vast majority of people don't even know any RPG exists except D&D. This is not because they wouldn't be interested in, or maybe even happier playing, some other game. It is simply that D&D itself is a niche thing, and other games are niches of niches (how many people know about subgenres of Manga for example, and Manga is an industry that is 10x the size of RPGs).
> 
> Again, in my extensive experience, players EAT UP games that give them narrative tools and authority. This is especially true of people who are new to play, and particularly young people. Older people who have less energy to devote to games and/or have been trained on 'traditional' D&D (either 2e+ 'story teller' or 1e- 'Gygax Style') are a little trickier, they often need a bit of coaching to 'get it' or maybe just don't have the mental bandwidth to spend on doing a lot of agenda setting. It is fine to say that conventional D&D is good for them, I'm not into imposing things, but it doesn't follow IMHO that this makes narratively focused games less desired or popular.



Well then we only need to wait that this new paradigm inevitably takes over! (I mean it certainly could happen, though I'not exactly holding my breath.)

My point was that if people are talking about how to handle things in a game X and your answer is just "game X and all games similar to it are hopeless crap, you should play game Y instead," then it is not super helpful.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Again, if you don't have agency to declare character actions, it isn't an RPG. What you are describing is 'illusionism' or 'force'. That is a 'railroady adventure path' is a game where the players are just an audience basically, reduced to merely rolling dice when prompted. This is hardly even role playing, though I guess it can be classified as a 'game' in some sense (Chutes and Ladders is generally classified as a game too).



That's overtly harsh. Even in such game players have agency, albeit not necessarily very much. There will be strategies, there usually will be several ways to solve problems and of course there is a possibility of failure. Besides, if it feels sufficient to the players, then what's the problem? (Not my preferred approach, but still.)




AbdulAlhazred said:


> In the 'GM improvises the narrative based on character actions' then you are playing basically how we play, just informally!



So you finally agree with me that you can give players agency without the players having access to formal narrative-control mechanics! _Hallelujah, that's what I've been trying to say for the last forty pages!_

Furthermore in reality most games are some sort of combination of the railroady adventure path and full reactive improvisation methods, containing some more rigid elements supplemented by more improvisational content.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm a fairly creative guy. Well, I like to exercise my (admittedly pedestrian) creativity. I don't know if 'engineering' informs my desire for structure in narrative roles. I think a big reason for it is simply because I am better with social interactions which are gated by formalisms. When the rules/process incorporates something, then I am sure to do it, and it happens smoothly. If its informal, then I'm left wondering if I did what I was setting out to do or not. Some people have talked about these mechanics distracting or restricting them, but FOR ME at least they make things much smoother and more automatic! I'm sure I could run a BitD campaign and it would mostly 'just work', but if I tried to do the same game using a 'classic' type of strict role set of rules, it would be MUCH harder to produce the same atmosphere and sort of play/narrative. Impossible really.



I don't doubt that these rules help you, people think differently. I remember when Exalted second edition introduced very detailed social combat mechanics and a lot of people loved that. "Finally a social interaction system with similar rigidity than physical combat!" I despised it. It was anathema to my LARP-influenced freeform handling of social situations. It bogged down my favourite part of the game with a ton of mechanics that interrupted the natural flow of the conversation and forced me to consider mechanics while I just wanted to be acting. But does this mean it was a bad system? No, it doesn't, a lot of other people found it very useful. It just wasn't suitable to my mentality. Same thing here.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't doubt that these rules help you, people think differently. I remember when Exalted second edition introduced very detailed social combat mechanics and a lot of people loved that. "Finally a social interaction system with similar rigidity than physical combat!" I despised it. It was anathema to my *LARP-influenced* freeform handling of social situations. It bogged down my favourite part of the game with a ton of mechanics that interrupted the natural flow of the conversation and forced me to consider mechanics while I just wanted to be acting. But does this mean it was a bad system? No, it doesn't, a lot of other people found it very useful. It just wasn't suitable to my mentality. Same thing here.



I've always wondered how much of the LARP aesthetic and cultural inclinations pervade all of the things we're talking about here:

* "system doesn't matter"

* "rules should get out of the way"

* ROLEplayer vs ROLLplayer demarcation (epithet when its weaponized...which it pretty much always is in my experience)

Are these refrains common among your TTRPG circle?

@Lanefan , your TTRPGing tastes and positions taken are LARP-influenced as well or no?


----------



## prabe

I might come to regret this, but:


Manbearcat said:


> I've always wondered how much of the LARP aesthetic and cultural inclinations pervade all of the things we're talking about here:



I've never LARPed in my life.


Manbearcat said:


> * "system doesn't matter"



I honestly don't think it matters much. I think systems as written end up with differing strengths, and there's much to be said for choosing them based on that, but I think principles matter more, and I think there are strong arguments for using systems the people at the table know.


Manbearcat said:


> * "rules should get out of the way"



I think rules should be quick and easy to grasp (ish). I think it should be fine to color outside the lines (inventing a rule or ignoring one) so long as you stick to whatever principles are at play at a given table.


Manbearcat said:


> * ROLEplayer vs ROLLplayer demarcation (epithet when its weaponized...which it pretty much always is in my experience)



I know of the distinction, but I think it's a spectrum: At one end you have a player whose desires for their character aren't achievable between system and character build, and at the other you have a character with nothing but mechanical advantage and no real "personality" (in D&D, this is likely something like a murderhobo, built to obtain whatever the player thinks of as the win-state).


Manbearcat said:


> Are these refrains common among your TTRPG circle?



Among the people I game with, all I see is the ROLEplayer/ROLLplayer thing, and even then it's not always as negative as you imply--I've seen it used, for instance, to ask (in a text chat) whether people wanted to resolve with dice or not (if there were issues of player-subject comfort or something). I mean, some of the people I TRPG with don't care much about system, but I don't think they're taking a hard stance on whether system matters.


----------



## hawkeyefan

It seems to me that the rules are the means by which players tend to exercise their agency on the game. Absent the rules, what let's them effect change? The most common answer is that the GM lets them do so. And if something I want is ultimately up to another to decide, it's hard to argue that I have a lot of agency in the situation. 

I think that's what it boils down to.

And for clarity, by "rules" I don't just mean mechanics, but also processes and/or techniques of play.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I might come to regret this, but:
> 
> I've never LARPed in my life.
> 
> I honestly don't think it matters much. I think systems as written end up with differing strengths, and there's much to be said for choosing them based on that, but I think principles matter more, and I think there are strong arguments for using systems the people at the table know.
> 
> I think rules should be quick and easy to grasp (ish). I think it should be fine to color outside the lines (inventing a rule or ignoring one) so long as you stick to whatever principles are at play at a given table.
> 
> I know of the distinction, but I think it's a spectrum: At one end you have a player whose desires for their character aren't achievable between system and character build, and at the other you have a character with nothing but mechanical advantage and no real "personality" (in D&D, this is likely something like a murderhobo, built to obtain whatever the player thinks of as the win-state).
> 
> Among the people I game with, all I see is the ROLEplayer/ROLLplayer thing, and even then it's not always as negative as you imply--I've seen it used, for instance, to ask (in a text chat) whether people wanted to resolve with dice or not (if there were issues of player-subject comfort or something). I mean, some of the people I TRPG with don't care much about system, but I don't think they're taking a hard stance on whether system matters.




I'm not sure why you would "come to regret this?"  

Thanks for the answer.  

For clarity, when I refer to "system" I mean every single thing that is in that book, so Principles (or lackthereof) must be included.  Holistic, intentful design is extremely important to me.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> It seems to me that the rules are the means by which players tend to exercise their agency on the game. Absent the rules, what let's them effect change? The most common answer is that the GM lets them do so. And if something I want is ultimately up to another to decide, it's hard to argue that I have a lot of agency in the situation.



If the GM adjudicates the situations well, respecting the agreed upon themes of the game, doing their best to keep the game fun for everybody then you have plenty of agency. And if you don't trust them to do that, why are you playing with them?



hawkeyefan said:


> I think that's what it boils down to.
> 
> And for clarity, by "rules" I don't just mean mechanics, but also processes and/or techniques of play.



I mean if you define 'rules' vaguely enough that we are actually just talking about principles, then sure.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> I'm not sure why you would "come to regret this?"



Because I kinda backed out of this and don't really feel like arguing about it again. Arguing about gaming has a tendency to beat up my ability to enjoy it (and arguing about GMing is likely to work as a block on my ability to do the prep my table and I expect me to have by Wednesday).


Manbearcat said:


> For clarity, when I refer to "system" I mean every single thing that is in that book, so Principles (or lackthereof) must be included.  Holistic, intentful design is extremely important to me.



That's clear and reasonable. I guess I'm willing to take things I like from where I find them, and leave the things I don't like behind.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It occurs to me that we have slightly differing notions of 'game state' here. I would say that opening a trivial door, for example, which leads to nothing, and doesn't change the fiction in any real way is, at best, an utterly trivial change. For practical purposes, working from the narrative fictional positioning perspective which is how I normally think of these games, it isn't really a change at all. In, say, 1e AD&D it might accrue some minor significance as some resources and a wandering monster check might take place. Even 2e lacks these processes and its ethos would fairly say "just get on with it."
> 
> So, you see 'agency' here, but I see nothing. Even if the door HAS significance, how it is opened is FAIRLY trivial and doesn't involve any real agency, given that the significance is the same no matter how it happens.



In the eyes of the GM, yes.  In the eyes of the players/PCs, however, for some reason that door _has_ become significant; and who am I to deny them the opportunity to work themselves into a tizzy over nothing?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Lanefan said:


> In the eyes of the GM, yes.  In the eyes of the players/PCs, however, for some reason that door _has_ become significant; and who am I to deny them the opportunity to work themselves into a tizzy over nothing?



The strength of less-prep dependant and more improvisational style is that when that happen you can make that nothing to actually be something!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> If the GM adjudicates the situations well, respecting the agreed upon themes of the game, doing their best to keep the game fun for everybody then you have plenty of agency.




Not really. Someone could run a pure railroad and respect themes and do their best to keep the game fun for everyone. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> And if you don't trust them to do that, why are you playing with them?




I likely wouldn’t be, but I’m not trying to discuss this solely from my own view. 

Lots of people play in public games or in pick up games over the internet or at conventions...or they play with actual friends who may or may not be the best at playing or GMing. They could be in a game with a new GM, watching them learn the ropes. 

There could be lots of reasons people would be playing with GMs who may not be great at everything. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> I mean if you define 'rules' vaguely enough that we are actually just talking about principles, then sure.




No I mean actual principles put forth in the rule book. They aren’t rules per se, but they clearly lay out what to do and what not to do as a player and a GM. 

You’ve probably heard a lot of them here in this thread; “play to find out” and “say yes or roll the dice” are two of the big ones. I quite like “ask questions and build on the answers” and “hold on lightly”. Those have been really helpful to me.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> If you're actively listening, then you shouldn't be forgetting. As you are forgetting, then you likely weren't listening to begin with.



Listening is one thing.  Remembering is another, particularly after I've then listened to ten more things.


Aldarc said:


> That said, I don't think the stop would be particularly hard or any harder than players jotting down notes or adjustments on their character sheet.



A player tuning out for a moment to write something down doesn't stop the game.  The GM tuning out does.


Aldarc said:


> And if PCs are spending two hours talking between themselves about opening doors, then you should have plenty of time to write.



Yes, when times like that arise I've got time to do whatever the hell I want.   But they don't arise that often...


Aldarc said:


> I'm not a fan of explanations that rely on exceptionalism, because they beg to be disproven through evidence, and they often are as exceptionalism is seldom true. This is something, for example, Hasbro discovered when they did research on how people play Monopoly and the house rules people used. How many times when playing Uno with strangers is spent clarifying house rules? Or how about variations of sports, whether on the professional or amateur level? Hard and fast rules are often guidelines when it comes to a number of games. RPGs are not an exception. Stop trying to privilege your hobby.



Perhaps the only place I've ever encountered the idea of house rules* outside of RPGs is Monopoly, and then it was just one variant.

* - as opposed to where the rules say "choose one of these several options", as any of those options is still within the rules as written.


Aldarc said:


> But I think that you nevertheless miss my meaning. I think that rules and rules interactions should be meaningful. Rules get in the way, for example, every time that you roll the dice in PbtA because it forces a hard move or soft move by the GM or at least a new state of fiction. The rules get in the way when you play BitD because the rules require that the GM establishes the Position and Effect based upon the action of the PCs. But these rules create meaningful and purposeful game play, such that it cultivates a different experience from playing a D&D game of a thieves' guild in a city.



I'm thinking more of rules getting in the way when I-as-player am engaged in role-playing my character arguing with the Baron and the rules pull me out of character to roll some social-interaction dice.  To quote the colour-guy from the Toronto Raptors' TV broadcasts every time a Raptor blocks a shot: "Get that gaaabage outta hee!"


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I would say that anyone claiming too many rules is a problem and then expounding about D&D being an ideal example of a game is very strange! I mean, pretty close to every narrative game out there has 10x less rules than 5e D&D does...



Fair point, though even within D&D there's versions that are significantly more rules-heavy (3e) than others (0e), and any of 1e, 2e or 5e can be made somewhat rules-lighter than written without a whole lot of work (5e even presents options on how to do so).

But yeah, none of 'em would ever qualify as truly "rules-light" ..


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> @Lanefan , your TTRPGing tastes and positions taken are LARP-influenced as well or no?



Not specifically - the only LARP-like thing I've ever done was Braunstein, and that was 30+ years after I started playing D&D.  Oh, and one 'True Dungeon' knock-off at GenCon around the same time.

That said, on thinking about it there's little doubt some influence comes from the (dubiously-successful-at-best!) stage-acting I did for several years in high school.

Edit to add: role-player vs roll-player certainly comes up in our crew, and never in a friendly manner.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm not so sure about that... I know it was done fairly commonly in the late 1970's, because I was part of a game club that had 200+ members, and that was exactly how it worked! There was a shared world, various GMs ran adventures and the milieu included a whole level of play that was just people raising armies, fighting wars, etc. Most of the individual adventuring was driving towards that. Higher level PCs adventured to eliminate threats, or to gain treasures that would help them with their empires. Other adventures were mostly involving lesser ranked characters who were either in service to the 'big guys' (former henchmen turned PC usually) or at least they were getting quests from those name level and higher PCs (often, not always).




And I gamed all up and down the West Coast during the same period, and while people occasionally had homesteads of some kind (a castle, an inn they owned, one of my characters had a ship) management of same was never a big part of it.  Given the spread of that, I'm pretty comfortable saying what I said, unless you want to claim wide areas of California, Oregon and Washington were aberrational (they were in some ways certainly, in that they largely grew out of SF fandom with some wargamers mixed in rather than the inverse you got around Lake Geneva, but I don't think that's the answer by itself).  In addition I was in communication with some scattered groups in other areas (notably around MIT) and the situation was not vastly different with them.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I suspect it was pretty analogous to the 'Lake Geneva Tactical Game Society' "Great Kingdom" campaign, which is memorialized in Gygax's WoG product from CA 1982.
> 
> Now, who can really say what people were doing in CA? That was the land of 'Arduin Grimoire' and they did invent a bunch of different play styles. I've also heard of other significantly 'variant' types of 'D&D' that were played in the 70's in different places. Usually it was some particularly energetic and imaginative DM. Still, even a lot of these included strongholds and armies and such as elements of play. Wilderlands of High Fantasy was certainly set up with that in mind (this was the first commercial game world AFAIK).




_Included_, yes.  Focused on it to the exclusion of dungeon crawling and outdoor adventuring, no.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I would say that anyone claiming too many rules is a problem and then expounding about D&D being an ideal example of a game is very strange! I mean, pretty close to every narrative game out there has 10x less rules than 5e D&D does...




Honestly, even some pretty rules heavy games do unless you don't consider the wide swath of exception based bits rules.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Depends on what exactly they  do. If they just offer rerolls or some minor mechanical bonuses like that then they really aren't narrative-control.




Would you say if they don't do dramatic editing but can do other things like soak damage they aren't?  Because if you draw the line closer than that, I think I've got to argue with you.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> What counts as 'rules bloat' is pretty much purely subjective. I don't doubt that many rules that feel like 'bloat' to me are useful for other people and similarly some rules that I like feel like 'bloat' to others.




That was pretty much my point; the poster I was responding to seem to be privileging his own specific line in the sand.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Not really. Someone could run a pure railroad and respect themes and do their best to keep the game fun for everyone.



But if that would not be fun for you then they wouldn't be doing a very good job!



hawkeyefan said:


> I likely wouldn’t be, but I’m not trying to discuss this solely from my own view.
> 
> Lots of people play in public games or in pick up games over the internet or at conventions...or they play with actual friends who may or may not be the best at playing or GMing. They could be in a game with a new GM, watching them learn the ropes.
> 
> There could be lots of reasons people would be playing with GMs who may not be great at everything.



I don't believe in fixing people problems with rules. Rules matter in a sense that you should choose the ones that suit your tastes and the desired style of the campaign, but there are not rules that will turn a bad GM into a good one.



hawkeyefan said:


> No I mean actual principles put forth in the rule book. They aren’t rules per se, but they clearly lay out what to do and what not to do as a player and a GM.
> 
> You’ve probably heard a lot of them here in this thread; “play to find out” and “say yes or roll the dice” are two of the big ones. I quite like “ask questions and build on the answers” and “hold on lightly”. Those have been really helpful to me.



I like the sound of “ask questions and build on the answers.” If I have some sort of guiding principle as a GM, I guess it would be something like "whatever you do, something interesting will happen." I just made it up though.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> I've always wondered how much of the LARP aesthetic and cultural inclinations pervade all of the things we're talking about here:
> 
> * "system doesn't matter"
> 
> * "rules should get out of the way"
> 
> * ROLEplayer vs ROLLplayer demarcation (epithet when its weaponized...which it pretty much always is in my experience)
> 
> Are these refrains common among your TTRPG circle?
> 
> @Lanefan , your TTRPGing tastes and positions taken are LARP-influenced as well or no?





It doesn't need to be LARP influenced.  There are some branches of OSR which pretty much have identical views.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Would you say if they don't do dramatic editing but can do other things like soak damage they aren't?



Yes, probably.



Thomas Shey said:


> Because if you draw the line closer than that, I think I've got to argue with you.



Well, it not like the distinction is super clear cut. Some things are clearly in the narrative-control territory while others are more borderline.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> In the eyes of the GM, yes.  In the eyes of the players/PCs, however, for some reason that door _has_ become significant; and who am I to deny them the opportunity to work themselves into a tizzy over nothing?



Right, and I think this is another way of stating it, we differ in our definitions of significant. I would call it 'insignificant' if engaging with it doesn't produce some change in the overall state of the character(s) with respect to their needs/wants/etc. I like 'value for time spent' too. So, if someone's shtick is exploring things, then a few basically empty rooms or whatnot is low payoff for the time which might be spent on it. Best summarized "You wander around a few barren rooms, which appear to have once been inhabited briefly by some creature in the distant past. The stonework looks Middle Gravotian."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I would say that anyone claiming too many rules is a problem and then expounding about D&D being an ideal example of a game is very strange! I mean, pretty close to every narrative game out there has 10x less rules than 5e D&D does...



Oh, and this! Who has said that D&D is an ideal example of a game? Because at least I certainly haven't. Not ever in my entire life. The fifth is its best edition and I'd rank it as 'serviceable.'


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> It seems to me that the rules are the means by which players tend to exercise their agency on the game. Absent the rules, what let's them effect change? The most common answer is that the GM lets them do so. And if something I want is ultimately up to another to decide, it's hard to argue that I have a lot of agency in the situation.
> 
> I think that's what it boils down to.
> 
> And for clarity, by "rules" I don't just mean mechanics, but also processes and/or techniques of play.



I think your last line is crucial.

Consider three procedures for establishing the shared fiction - hitherto unestablished - _that there are hills to the north of the swamp_:

* The PCs are in a swamp. One of them is a ranger with a favoured terrain (or similar) ability oriented towards hills. The player of that PC says,_ I hope we can get out of this swamp into some hills_. The GM responds, _Actually, your PC recalls that there are hills to the north of the swamp_.

* The PCs are in a swamp. One of them is a ranger who is local to the area. The GM asks the player of that PC, _What is the land like to the north of the swamp?_ The player - who (for whatever reason) would like the action to move into hills - replies, _There are hills to the north of the swamp!_

* The PCs are in swamp. One of them is a ranger who has an ability like Terrain-wise or Swamp-wise or Local landforms-wise. The player of that PC declares, _I'm pretty sure north of this swamp there are hills_. The ability is tested, the check is a success, and the GM responds, _Yep, you're right to remember that north of the swamp there are hills_.

Only the last involves resolution mechanics. I've described it using some Burning Wheel terminology, but Cortex+ Heroic would work similarly. And I'm sure there are other systems too that have this sort of procedure.

The second is borrowed from @AbdulAlhazred, and is classic Dungeon World/Apocalypse World "ask questions and build on the answers". There is no resolution mechanic in play, but there is a clear process whereby the GM hands authority for establishing the shared fiction over to the player.

The first procedure is a very mild form of the GM taking suggestions. I could be wrong, but I don't think @Crimson Longinus would have any particular issue with it. To me there seem to be two main differences between it and the DW/AW approach:

(1) A difference of principle: the GM isn't expected or obliged to take suggestions, and so the player's role is more tentative and more dependent on the GM's inclinations;

(2) A difference of process: the participants at the table may or may not be able to work out what has happened (ie the GM took a suggestion), but there is no overtness to it.

I tend to think that both (1) and (2) reduce the player agency compared to the DW/AW approach. But the player still had more agency than a circumstance in which the GM does not take suggestions at all.

*****************************

A variant of this that got a lot of discussion during the 4e era was players establishing "wish lists" of magic items for their PCs. I can think of 4 distinct procedures in this neighbourhood:

* The player mentions, in an unstructured/informal way, _It would be cool for my PC to have item XYZ_. The GM notes this, and writes XYZ into his/her notes for some part of the map that the PCs are likely to come to soon.

* The player, in a formal way, presents the GM with a list of items s/he would like his/her PC to have. The GM notes this, and when an appropriate opportunity comes up to narrate a magic item into the fiction, the GM has regard to what's on the list.

* In play, the PCs arrive at a time and place where it would be appropriate to discover or receive a magic item. The GM asks the players, _What would you like it to be_ or some variant of that (eg _What do you see when you open the chest?_) and so the players get to establish the narration at this point.

* In play, the PCs are in a context where it might make sense to discover an item. A player therefore declares, _I'm looking around for item XYZ_. A check is made on an appropriate ability. If it succeeds, the player finds a XYZ.

The fourth of these is how BW or MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic works - in BW I've resolved this as a Scavenging check (both as player calling for the check, and as GM adjudicating it); in Cortex+ Heroic it's been an attempt to create an asset (tested against the Doom Pool). I've also done a version of this once or twice in 4e when obtaining or reforging an item was the outcome of a skill challenge.

The third of these is not an approach I've ever used, but I know that some 4e GMs (and maybe some other D&D GMs) have used it because I've read their posts.

The second is canonical 4e D&D (per the DMG) and is the main procedure I used when GMing that system. A lot of critics of 4e were critical of this procedure.

The first is, again, the weakest form of the GM taking suggestions. As with the parallel approach to _hills being north of the swamp_, I assume that it would not be controversial with @Crimson Longinus.

For my part, once you are accepting that a "good GM" will take suggestions in an informal or implicit or covert way (as per the first procedure in each of my lists), it seems to me that moving down the list is about taste and also about what do you want as part of your system design (eg the bottom approach on each list needs a way of setting difficulties for those tests - both BW and MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic have that, though it's quite different in each).

But I don't see any issue of deep principle - eg about who should be able to exercise what sort of authority over the shared fiction - that is implicated by moving down the list.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Oh, and this! Who has said that D&D is an ideal example of a game? Because at least I certainly haven't. Not ever in my entire life. The fifth is its best edition and I'd rank it as 'serviceable.'



Well, 4e, viewed in a certain light at least, seemed almost brilliant to me. Still, it left much territory where it could have been improved greatly. Lot of us kind of see 5e as the lump of coal we got in our stocking instead of an exploration of that... lol.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> Because I kinda backed out of this and don't really feel like arguing about it again. Arguing about gaming has a tendency to beat up my ability to enjoy it (and arguing about GMing is likely to work as a block on my ability to do the prep my table and I expect me to have by Wednesday).
> 
> That's clear and reasonable. I guess I'm willing to take things I like from where I find them, and leave the things I don't like behind.




Humble, friendly suggestion.

If you don't feel like you're teaching, learning, or otherwise enjoying the exchanges, then something has to change (only you can know what that is - it would be unfortunate if that would mean avoiding our conversations...but if its grief all the way down then that is a reasonable course of action).

But my thought above was just a little anecdote-sniffing/data collection from you guys.  Nothing more.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Humble, friendly suggestion.
> 
> If you don't feel like you're teaching, learning, or otherwise enjoying the exchanges, then something has to change (only you can know what that is - it would be unfortunate if that would mean avoiding our conversations...but if its grief all the way down then that is a reasonable course of action).
> 
> But my thought above was just a little anecdote-sniffing/data collection from you guys.  Nothing more.



I feel I am learning as I read (figuring out why I disagree with someone helps me learn as much as figuring out why I agree with someone) but I often do not feel I am understood (which is as likely to be on my end as anyone else's). It's why I've been monitoring the thread but not chiming in for ... some number of pages.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> It doesn't need to be LARP influenced.  There are some branches of OSR which pretty much have identical views.




Yup, absolutely (and agreed).

I was just curious how pervasive LARP is in all of this (of the approximately 200 TTRPGers I've known in my real life, I would say about 1/5 hold these views and their Venn Diagram has significant overlap with LARPing and OSR sensibilities).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, 4e, viewed in a certain light at least, seemed almost brilliant to me. Still, it left much territory where it could have been improved greatly. Lot of us kind of see 5e as the lump of coal we got in our stocking instead of an exploration of that... lol.



4e was a very well made game with design principles that I do not share.


----------



## Manbearcat

Another question for @Lanefan , @prabe , @Thomas Shey , and @Crimson Longinus (I'm confident I know Thomas' answer, but perhaps not).  5e's orthodox handling of starting Monster/NPC Attitude is "GM Decides."  How do you guys feel about Monster/NPC Reactions as in Moldvay et al?  Do you:


often roll Monster/NPC Reaction
sometimes roll

...and if/when you roll, do you:


consult table and always run with result (therefore having to often post-hoc justify a behavior)
sometimes ignore results you don't think "fit" and frame Monster/NPC Reaction how you feel "fits"
rarely ignore results (etc)


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Another question for @Lanefan , @prabe , @Thomas Shey , and @Crimson Longinus (I'm confident I know Thomas' answer, but perhaps not).  5e's orthodox handling of starting Monster/NPC Attitude is "GM Decides."  How do you guys feel about Monster/NPC Reactions as in Moldvay et al?  Do you:
> 
> 
> often roll Monster/NPC Reaction
> sometimes roll



I never roll for attitude/reaction. I decide when I place the encounter, either in my notes or in a list of potential encounters (which I roll to see what comes up). I might decide to have an encounter with more than one possible starting attitude, in which case I'd work out how to determine that and then do it if/when it came up.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat

There was a reaction table?

( I really do not remember how things were handled in ancient editions of D&D, except that kobolds were dog people instead of dragon people. 
That I kept.)

Unlikely that I would roll. The creature/NPC exists in some specific context and that informs what their attitude is, not the dice. I mean I guess if I'm somehow out of ideas, I might roll for inspiration, but I certainly wouldn't feel beholden to such a roll.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I feel I am learning as I read (figuring out why I disagree with someone helps me learn as much as figuring out why I agree with someone) but I often do not feel I am understood (which is as likely to be on my end as anyone else's). It's why I've been monitoring the thread but not chiming in for ... some number of pages.






Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat
> 
> There was a reaction table?
> 
> ( I really do not remember how things were handled in ancient editions of D&D, except that kobolds were dog people instead of dragon people.
> That I kept.)
> 
> Unlikely that I would roll. The creature/NPC exists in some specific context and that informs what their attitude is, not the dice. I mean I guess if I'm somehow out of ideas, I might roll for inspiration, but I certainly wouldn't feel beholden to such a roll.




Yup.  Moldvay Basic, Expert, RC had a 2d6 table with 5 possibilities.  1e had a Percentile table with 7 possibilities.

Did you play any of these editions or did you start with 2e?

Is it your sense that the Moldvay Basic/Expert/RC and 1e procedure is apt to create situations where NPC responses are incoherent?


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I never roll for attitude/reaction. I decide when I place the encounter, either in my notes or in a list of potential encounters (which I roll to see what comes up). I might decide to have an encounter with more than one possible starting attitude, in which case I'd work out how to determine that and then do it if/when it came up.



Same question I posed above to Crimson Longinus:

Did you play any of these editions or did you start with 2e?

Is it your sense that the Moldvay Basic/Expert/RC and 1e procedure is apt to create situations where NPC responses are incoherent?


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> It doesn't need to be LARP influenced.  There are some branches of OSR which pretty much have identical views.



True, but it's easy to see how LARP could be an influence.  Doesn't mean it's the only one...


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Same question I posed above to Crimson Longinus:
> 
> Did you play any of these editions or did you start with 2e?
> 
> Is it your sense that the Moldvay Basic/Expert/RC and 1e procedure is apt to create situations where NPC responses are incoherent?



I played a very little Basic (which version I couldn't tell you). I played a bunch of 1E, but heavily houseruled. I DMed a little 1E, but not much. I never interacted much with 2E, though I have a few books. I DMed a lot of 3E, and some 3E-adjacent games. I missed 4E entirely (no one I knew played it).

I'd have to look at the systems in question to feel really certain about this answer, but I think I feel that random reactions/attitudes are most-suited to a randomly-generated adventure--something entirely procedural. If something has been placed, I think I think the DM should know its attitude and how it will react. So, yes, I think the results might be incoherent in one sense, but I think that if a table were doing something procedurally generated it would at least be consistent with expectations of play.

Hope that's clear ...


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Another question for @Lanefan , @prabe , @Thomas Shey , and @Crimson Longinus (I'm confident I know Thomas' answer, but perhaps not).  5e's orthodox handling of starting Monster/NPC Attitude is "GM Decides."  How do you guys feel about Monster/NPC Reactions as in Moldvay et al?  Do you:
> 
> 
> often roll Monster/NPC Reaction
> sometimes roll
> 
> ...and if/when you roll, do you:
> 
> 
> consult table and always run with result (therefore having to often post-hoc justify a behavior)
> sometimes ignore results you don't think "fit" and frame Monster/NPC Reaction how you feel "fits"
> rarely ignore results (etc)



I rarely if ever roll, instead trying to take the situation as it stands and having the monsters do what seems natural for them to do (and-or say) at the time.  With some monsters e.g. unintelligent eating machines or most jellies/oozes this is way simpler than with others who are more intelligent and-or more confident in themselves.  So in this I guess I started using "GM Decides" long before 5e ever saw the light of day.

On the rare occasions I do roll it means I'm stuck and seeking guidance from a randomizer...which will either help me or it won't.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> Yup.  Moldvay Basic, Expert, RC had a 2d6 table with 5 possibilities.  1e had a Percentile table with 7 possibilities.
> 
> Did you play any of these editions or did you start with 2e?



I did play the basic. It was the red box with Elmore art and then the expansions. (So that would apparently make it the 1983 version.) But I'm really not gonna remember the details.



Manbearcat said:


> Is it your sense that the Moldvay Basic/Expert/RC and 1e procedure is apt to create situations where NPC responses are incoherent?



I don't think I can properly answer as I don't remember the table at all. But if we are talking about a context independent table for randomly generating a reaction when a creature or NPC is encountered, then I have hard time imagining it _not_ producing rather incoherent results. I guess a really skilled GM could try to create post-hoc justification for each weird reaction, but that really doesn't sound like worth the effort nor can I see it as a working strategy in the long run.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if that would not be fun for you then they wouldn't be doing a very good job!




Well the game may be fun. Agency is typically what I hope for, but depending on what the GM is going for, I may be onboard.

Also, sometimes gaming is a social event for my group....sometimes it’s the sole reason we get together. There’s plenty of BSing going on and so on. On those occasions I’m not always looking for a deep and immersive experience. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't believe in fixing people problems with rules. Rules matter in a sense that you should choose the ones that suit your tastes and the desired style of the campaign, but there are not rules that will turn a bad GM into a good one.




I think such principles can indeed improve the skill of a GM. Not on their own, but they can help. 

I wish I’d become aware of many of them much sooner in my gaming career.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I like the sound of “ask questions and build on the answers.” If I have some sort of guiding principle as a GM, I guess it would be something like "whatever you do, something interesting will happen." I just made it up though.




Well, the gist of that is great, but I feel like it’s a bit too passive(?). Like, how do you make sure something interesting always happens?


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> Another question for @Lanefan , @prabe , @Thomas Shey , and @Crimson Longinus (I'm confident I know Thomas' answer, but perhaps not).  5e's orthodox handling of starting Monster/NPC Attitude is "GM Decides."  How do you guys feel about Monster/NPC Reactions as in Moldvay et al?  Do you:
> 
> 
> often roll Monster/NPC Reaction
> sometimes roll




I rarely rolled back in the day (keeping in mind I, to the degree I did D&D after the OD&D period, hopped almost directly to 3e) because I thought the reaction table was too much of a blunt object.  In later years, I sometimes would do a quick-and-dirty roll in other systems to get sort of an initial "rest state" relative to what I'd normally expect given the nature of the opponent and the situation, but only when it didn't seem pretty clear-cut what it was likely to be (or I hadn't decided in advance that the creature involved was aberrational in some fashion).

(In case I haven't made it clear, I'm not primarily a D&D-sphere GM and have not been for some years.  I ran one 3e campaign when it came out, and since then have played in a 4e and PF2e campaigns, but my last two games run were Mythras and Fragged Empire)>



Manbearcat said:


> ...and if/when you roll, do you:
> 
> 
> consult table and always run with result (therefore having to often post-hoc justify a behavior)
> sometimes ignore results you don't think "fit" and frame Monster/NPC Reaction how you feel "fits"
> rarely ignore results (etc)




If I'm going to roll I'm not going to ignore the result, but I may very well put my thumb on the scale (I.e. apply a modifier to the roll) up-front if I think its warranted.  Its the only thing that makes using such a thing make any sense to me.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, probably.
> 
> 
> Well, it not like the distinction is super clear cut. Some things are clearly in the narrative-control territory while others are more borderline.




That's fair.  I just think you really need to leave that statement to heavy-duty scene editing before it isn't the commoner case these days; I can't think of the last game I've interacted with that didn't have _some_ kind of metacurrency.


----------



## Manbearcat

Alright, thanks for everyone for responding.

If its not clear why I brought this up, I'll unpack it (because its salient to the lead post).

Moldvay Basic was my introduction into the hobby in 1984 (I quickly assimilated a ton of other texts thereafter, but this was the first).  Rather than actually playing, I GMed a game for my cousins (who were 4 years older than me and vets of the game by 3 years or so) at 7 years old using the text's principles, rules, procedures.  It was very elegant, easy to follow, paint-by-number-ey.

It took me awhile to understand the brilliant engineering that went into this tome (the decision-point pressure leading from the Turn structure interfacing with the Wandering Monster and Rest Clock, etc), but one thing that stood out to me right away was "Monster Reaction."

In my gaming career, THIS was the first introduction I had to the "play to find out what happens" ethos.  Before and by 7, your make-believe is completely unstructured.  But here, here is a piece of structure that (a) dictates how the fiction emerges (constraining the GM) while (b) challenging the GM to imagine, within the confines of the dungeon's Theme/Scenario and Setting, how/why this creature is reacting the way it is and then frame the situation/challenge accordingly.

The dungeon Theme/Scenario/Setting is Remove a Curse (someone in the village stole an idol from a sunken temple and it needs to be brought back and replaced in its sanctuary).  The dungeon is stocked with undead.  Wandering Monster roll hits when the PCs double back to the vestibule to find another way in after they've explored the sunken entrance hall and found a swim is necessary to advance.  I get 3 Lizard Men (who are Neutral but are not above capturing and bringing humanoids back to their tribes for a feast) and I, crazy enough, I roll a pair of 6s on Monster Reaction; Enthusiastic Friendship!

What could that possibly mean?  Why would 3 Lizard Men be in the vestibule of a sunken temple and enthusiastically entreat the PCs toward alliance?  What a creative challenge!  This could go any number of ways, but I have to think on my feet, give life to this situation and frame it with vigor.  Who knows what the PCs will do or what happens next?

I hope its clear how this looks just like the lead post's question and the games that we've been talking about above (except in those games, discoveries/challenges like this should hook into one or more of the PCs' thematic portfolios).


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> Yes, when times like that arise I've got time to do whatever the hell I want.   But they don't arise that often...
> 
> Perhaps the only place I've ever encountered the idea of house rules* outside of RPGs is Monopoly, and then it was just one variant.



House rules and treating the rules as guidelines is actually a common practice for board games, IME. 



Thomas Shey said:


> It doesn't need to be LARP influenced.  There are some branches of OSR which pretty much have identical views.



Hmmm... One of my takeaways from the OSR movement as a critical movement was that it involved a collection of people looking back at early roleplay, particularly 0-1e and B/X, with the presumption that the system did matter and how that system cultivated a particular game experience. While there are a number of OSR games that are straight-up retro clones, many also take "system matters" seriously for the purposes of designing non-retroclone games that adhere to OSR principles.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if that would not be fun for you then they wouldn't be doing a very good job!
> 
> 
> I don't believe in fixing people problems with rules. Rules matter in a sense that you should choose the ones that suit your tastes and the desired style of the campaign, but there are not rules that will turn a bad GM into a good one.



This doesn't seem right to me.

I work closely with many students. All aspire to be good writers/thinkers. But many of them just don't know how. I teach them principles. These can address general issues of text structure, such as where and how to use headings (students who are still learning tend to place their headings either too early, so the first paragraph under the heading actually deals with the previous topic, or too late, so that the topic is introduced before we get to the heading), or detailed issues of sentence structure (eg students have a tendency to bury important assertions inside subordinate clauses in long sentences, which makes their key ideas and arguments hard to extract).

These students are bad writers and arguers, in the sense that their writing and arguments need to improve. But _bad writer _is not some sort of essential or inevitable category. By learning and practising in accordance with certain principles, they can (and in my experience they do) get better.

It's not a "people problem". It's a _skills_ and _techniques_ problem.

Likewise for GMing. If a GM is running a railroad, but doesn't want to, how does s/he change? Part of that is _introducing him/her to new principles_. And I don't mean principles of little practical applicability, like _don't railroad! _I mean much more concrete principles like _Here's how you should frame a scene _or _Here's how to avoid the game bogging down in endless retries - Let it Ride!_ or _Here's how to handle failure without your game grinding to a halt - focus on intent moreso than on task_. Etc.

I've learned many principles and techniques from reading good RPGs and good RPG commentary. I've adapted them to the play of games that don't themselves feature them at all (eg Rolemaster) or terribly clearly (1977 Classic Traveller) or as consistently as one might desire (4e D&D).

I've got no reason to think I'm unique or even terribly atypical in this capability.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think such principles can indeed improve the skill of a GM. Not on their own, but they can help.
> 
> I wish I’d become aware of many of them much sooner in my gaming career.



Or in other words, _this_.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@pemerton  if we are talking about 'rules' as in 'principles' instead of 'mechanics' I kinda agree. I'm a teacher too, an art teacher. Mastering techniques, understanding principles etc is important, but ultimately captain Barbossa had the right of it; they're just guidelines. You got to to have your own vision, and you must be able to asses what tools (both literal and figurative) are best for achieving it. For every 'rule' you can come up with a situation where breaking it was the right call. 'How' is important, but 'why' is more important.


----------



## nevin

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, thanks for everyone for responding.
> 
> If its not clear why I brought this up, I'll unpack it (because its salient to the lead post).
> 
> Moldvay Basic was my introduction into the hobby in 1984 (I quickly assimilated a ton of other texts thereafter, but this was the first).  Rather than actually playing, I GMed a game for my cousins (who were 4 years older than me and vets of the game by 3 years or so) at 7 years old using the text's principles, rules, procedures.  It was very elegant, easy to follow, paint-by-number-ey.
> 
> It took me awhile to understand the brilliant engineering that went into this tome (the decision-point pressure leading from the Turn structure interfacing with the Wandering Monster and Rest Clock, etc), but one thing that stood out to me right away was "Monster Reaction."
> 
> In my gaming career, THIS was the first introduction I had to the "play to find out what happens" ethos.  Before and by 7, your make-believe is completely unstructured.  But here, here is a piece of structure that (a) dictates how the fiction emerges (constraining the GM) while (b) challenging the GM to imagine, within the confines of the dungeon's Theme/Scenario and Setting, how/why this creature is reacting the way it is and then frame the situation/challenge accordingly.
> 
> The dungeon Theme/Scenario/Setting is Remove a Curse (someone in the village stole an idol from a sunken temple and it needs to be brought back and replaced in its sanctuary).  The dungeon is stocked with undead.  Wandering Monster roll hits when the PCs double back to the vestibule to find another way in after they've explored the sunken entrance hall and found a swim is necessary to advance.  I get 3 Lizard Men (who are Neutral but are not above capturing and bringing humanoids back to their tribes for a feast) and I, crazy enough, I roll a pair of 6s on Monster Reaction; Enthusiastic Friendship!
> 
> What could that possibly mean?  Why would 3 Lizard Men be in the vestibule of a sunken temple and enthusiastically entreat the PCs toward alliance?  What a creative challenge!  This could go any number of ways, but I have to think on my feet, give life to this situation and frame it with vigor.  Who knows what the PCs will do or what happens next?
> 
> I hope its clear how this looks just like the lead post's question and the games that we've been talking about above (except in those games, discoveries/challenges like this should hook into one or more of the PCs' thematic portfolios).



As they were scoping out the PC's planning the feast  a rare bird (lizard whatever) favored by the spirits gave them a sign that these PC's were blessed by the spirits.


----------



## nevin

pemerton said:


> This doesn't seem right to me.
> 
> I work closely with many students. All aspire to be good writers/thinkers. But many of them just don't know how. I teach them principles. These can address general issues of text structure, such as where and how to use headings (students who are still learning tend to place their headings either too early, so the first paragraph under the heading actually deals with the previous topic, or too late, so that the topic is introduced before we get to the heading), or detailed issues of sentence structure (eg students have a tendency to bury important assertions inside subordinate clauses in long sentences, which makes their key ideas and arguments hard to extract).
> 
> These students are bad writers and arguers, in the sense that their writing and arguments need to improve. But _bad writer _is not some sort of essential or inevitable category. By learning and practising in accordance with certain principles, they can (and in my experience they do) get better.
> 
> It's not a "people problem". It's a _skills_ and _techniques_ problem.
> 
> Likewise for GMing. If a GM is running a railroad, but doesn't want to, how does s/he change? Part of that is _introducing him/her to new principles_. And I don't mean principles of little practical applicability, like _don't railroad! _I mean much more concrete principles like _Here's how you should frame a scene _or _Here's how to avoid the game bogging down in endless retries - Let it Ride!_ or _Here's how to handle failure without your game grinding to a halt - focus on intent moreso than on task_. Etc.
> 
> I've learned many principles and techniques from reading good RPGs and good RPG commentary. I've adapted them to the play of games that don't themselves feature them at all (eg Rolemaster) or terribly clearly (1977 Classic Traveller) or as consistently as one might desire (4e D&D).
> 
> I've got no reason to think I'm unique or even terribly atypical in this capability.
> 
> 
> Or in other words, _this_.



I agree the issue is most DM's never get any real education on how to do it.   Dragon magazine and  others used to fill that void, for awhile the RPGA society was good for teaching stuff like that but Organized play morphed into a weekly dungeon crawl thing that doesn't really require anything but a body to read the captions to the players and adjudicate the dice.   

Hopefully the videos and stuff Available online these days help out players but I think the RPG game companies have always hobbled themselves not having more online resources for DMs


----------



## darkbard

nevin said:


> I agree the issue is most DM's never get any real education on how to do it.   Dragon magazine and  others used to fill that void, for awhile the RPGA society was good for teaching stuff like that but Organized play morphed into a weekly dungeon crawl thing that doesn't really require anything but a body to read the captions to the players and adjudicate the dice.
> 
> Hopefully the videos and stuff Available online these days help out players but I think the RPG game companies have always hobbled themselves not having more online resources for DMs




If only there were _some means_ of diverse GMs exchanging thoughtful, in depth analysis and examples from their own games as a means of facilitating this learning. I dunno, like messageboard forums or something....


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> House rules and treating the rules as guidelines is actually a common practice for board games, IME.
> 
> 
> Hmmm... One of my takeaways from the OSR movement as a critical movement was that it involved a collection of people looking back at early roleplay, particularly 0-1e and B/X, with the presumption that the system did matter and how that system cultivated a particular game experience. While there are a number of OSR games that are straight-up retro clones, many also take "system matters" seriously for the purposes of designing non-retroclone games that adhere to OSR principles.



But nobody seems to be able to agree on what those principles are, and while there are some fairly insightful people who seem to have a handle on what specifically in the system created the game play experience of, say, Holmes Basic (which is a pretty good distillation of the OD&D game play process with some clarifications). However, there are a lot of people who just seem to believe that you have to play virtually exactly the game that Gary developed, and must use a crazy quilt of different dice for everything, and other rather dubious ideas (I mean, maybe the nostalgia factor of these is the point for them, but many times it is confused with some kind of game design concept).

The idea that "system doesn't matter" should, by this late date, be utterly disposed of. Anyone still spouting that, IMHO, lacks critical experience. I mean, I've met some very 'strong' GMs who simply have a 'system' in their heads, and whatever game they run gets mutated into an implementation of their process. FOR THEM it may be 'true', but it is simply the exception which proves the rule. These are people for whom the system is THEM, it just isn't written down. I used to play with a guy like this. No matter what game we played, it turned into a version of his RP experience. Even if it started out as Monopoly. To be honest, a lot of people couldn't stand it, but he always had an enthusiastic group of core players and no problem finding more. But don't ever confuse this with 'normal', he is the least normal person I have ever met! (in a nice way, great person). You or I could not ever reproduce what he does. For US, we have systems which produce the 'structure' of the game, and shape its experience.

In fact, I would like to say, I'm a 'by the book' GM. When I go buy a game I run it exactly as written. I rarely make house rules (I will add homebrew material if its called for). I have found that many people ignore a lot of the details of a specific game, so I may play quite differently from what everyone else THINKS the game is. When I've talked to game designers I usually find that what I'm doing is closer to what they imagined, but not always...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> @pemerton  if we are talking about 'rules' as in 'principles' instead of 'mechanics' I kinda agree. I'm a teacher too, an art teacher. Mastering techniques, understanding principles etc is important, but ultimately captain Barbossa had the right of it; they're just guidelines. You go to to have your own vision, and you must be able to asses what tools (both literal and figurative) are best for achieving it. For every 'rule' you can come up with an situation where where breaking it was the right call. 'How' is important, but 'why' is more important.



Let me illustrate a fairly straightforward example:

There is a principle embodied in 'classic' D&D (OD&D, BASIC et al, 1e AD&D, even 2e mostly) which is NEVER articulated, but which is fundamental to making the model work. That principle is "Players must understand the risk they are taking with their PCs." This principle is implicitly embodied in the structure of the game. Dungeons ALWAYS have 'levels', which are clearly distinct and which present tiered levels of danger (and reward). The wilderness is a clearly designated 'other place' where the risks are more varied (but even here mountains and swamps are no-go areas for lower levels, usually). This is a STRONG convention too! The DM can, SPARINGLY apply the dirty trick of elevators, ramps, etc. which suddenly force the PCs into a riskier mode of play. This trick should not be used too much, and only to raise the stakes a bit (IE a ramp down one level). Even then dwarves can detect this, and anyone with a ball bearing could also do so (in the traditions of classic D&D where player skill is supreme, another foundational principle).

This example shows how principles are both not specifically embodied as rules (they may be explicit however, as in DW) and yet DO form a structural part of the game. The above principle must exist for a classic D&D game, because it is a game of skill, and balancing risk to reward is part of that skill set. Arbitrary danger levels would simply be a meat grinder filled with pointless death. You could run a game like that, but it would mostly be filled with some form of helpless PCs.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Let me illustrate a fairly straightforward example:
> 
> There is a principle embodied in 'classic' D&D (OD&D, BASIC et al, 1e AD&D, even 2e mostly) which is NEVER articulated, but which is fundamental to making the model work. That principle is "Players must understand the risk they are taking with their PCs." This principle is implicitly embodied in the structure of the game. Dungeons ALWAYS have 'levels', which are clearly distinct and which present tiered levels of danger (and reward). The wilderness is a clearly designated 'other place' where the risks are more varied (but even here mountains and swamps are no-go areas for lower levels, usually). This is a STRONG convention too! The DM can, SPARINGLY apply the dirty trick of elevators, ramps, etc. which suddenly force the PCs into a riskier mode of play. This trick should not be used too much, and only to raise the stakes a bit (IE a ramp down one level). Even then dwarves can detect this, and anyone with a ball bearing could also do so (in the traditions of classic D&D where player skill is supreme, another foundational principle).
> 
> This example shows how principles are both not specifically embodied as rules (they may be explicit however, as in DW) and yet DO form a structural part of the game. The above principle must exist for a classic D&D game, because it is a game of skill, and balancing risk to reward is part of that skill set. Arbitrary danger levels would simply be a meat grinder filled with pointless death. You could run a game like that, but it would mostly be filled with some form of helpless PCs.



So here the 'why' is "for the skill of risk balancing risk and reward to matter, the players must understand the risks." Fair enough. But 'how' can easily be changed. There are other ways to give the players the information they need than building unnaturally level-bracketed dungeons. And of course some people might just decide that this 'why' is not even something they care about, and decide to use basic D&D to play a game focused on romance, drama and court intrigue interposed with occasional fights. And it would probably work just fine and they wouldn't be in wrong for doing so.


----------



## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> But nobody seems to be able to agree on what those principles are, and while there are some fairly insightful people who seem to have a handle on what specifically in the system created the game play experience of, say, Holmes Basic (which is a pretty good distillation of the OD&D game play process with some clarifications). However, *there are a lot of people who just seem to believe that you have to play virtually exactly the game that Gary developed, *and must use a crazy quilt of different dice for everything, and other rather dubious ideas (I mean, maybe the nostalgia factor of these is the point for them, but many times it is confused with some kind of game design concept).



Hence my point that you quoted about how there are a number of OSR games that are fairly direct retro-clones.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> So here the 'why' is "for the skill of risk balancing risk and reward to matter, the players must understand the risks." Fair enough. But 'how' can easily be changed. There are other ways to give the players the information they need than building unnaturally level-bracketed dungeons. And of course some people might just decide that this 'why' is not even something they care about, and decide to use basic D&D to play a game focused on romance, drama and court intrigue interposed with occasional fights. And it would probably work just fine and they wouldn't be in wrong for doing so.



Well, OK, you could devise "some other form of D&D" where you telegraph risk/reward in a different way. However, IF YOU DON'T CODIFY THAT, then you run a serious risk of failing to communicate that to other people who play your game. In the case of classic D&D it was codified in the encounter tables (organized by level) and the outdoor encounter tables (organized by terrain type and expected to be customized by 'region' by the DM). This was also tied into the wandering monster mechanic, etc. So it was fairly deeply ingrained in the rest of the process of the game. If you remove it, you better make it very clear to the GM that there still need to be tie-ins between how wandering monsters work and 'risk/reward', however that is determined.

If you are just making up your own stuff, then this is all pretty much up to the DM. Instead of 'dungeon level' there are just maybe different 'named dungeons' (which if you think about it is actually kind of how modules work). But if you're actually writing a game, you have to do this work up front. If you don't, people's games won't work! 

The same is true for playing "romance" instead of D&D. The 'rules' for that game are going to be VERY different! Sure, you can pound the square peg of D&D rules into the round hole of a romance story and simply get 'something'. If it is just some one-shot thing your doing for yourself, that MIGHT work, though you probably will have to make up additional rules that don't exist in D&D. If you were publishing such a game, it would be senseless to make it based on D&D however. D&D isn't going to provide you with any of the needed structure which you have to convey to another person who is going to run the game!

Here's another example of a set of principles embodied into a game system: 4th edition D&D has 'role' and 'power source' as explicit attributes of each class. These embody, in a formalized structure, the niche and theme of a given class. This WORKS. 3.x is FILLED with 'trash classes' that barely work (if at all) and are grossly different from each other in terms of utility, power level, etc. such that many are essentially useless. EVERY SINGLE 4E CLASS WORKS. That is ENTIRELY because the role and power source define for the designers how something should work (A/E/D/U then provided further structure to keep it on track as it levels up). In fact, the very classes which were considered 'poor designs' are the very ones where the designers tried to skirt/subvert those attributes! Even THOSE classes still work (OK Binders are pretty worthless in the sense of being needed thematically, and they're weaker than they should be, but not by enough to be unplayable by any means). 3.5 has entire core classes that are drastically shortchanged (FIGHTERS, you can't get more core than that).


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## PsyzhranV2

Crimson Longinus said:


> @pemerton  if we are talking about 'rules' as in 'principles' instead of 'mechanics' I kinda agree. I'm a teacher too, an art teacher. Mastering techniques, understanding principles etc is important, but ultimately captain Barbossa had the right of it; they're just guidelines. You got to to have your own vision, and you must be able to asses what tools (both literal and figurative) are best for achieving it. For every 'rule' you can come up with a situation where breaking it was the right call. 'How' is important, but 'why' is more important.



I don't want to play in an RPG scene where Dada is the dominant artistic paradigm.

All respect to the historical Dadaists, but I don't think their artistic philosophy is a good match for games design.

Yes, game designers don't have the ability to teleport to peoples' homes and punch GMs that make house rules that get in the way of or even break the RAW game system. No matter how much intentionality and coherence of vision and design the designers put into their works and products, they can't stop people doing what they want at the home table. I can't fault them for trying though. Certainly a better design approach than throwing turds at the wall and seeing which ones stick, leading to a game lacking any thematic and mechanical consistency, constantly fighting with itself at every turn.

Also, I feel that when the topic at hand is comparisons between different game systems, discussions of principles as mechanics is most relevant and most useful approach. The objective of the conversation is to elucidate the different approaches used by different games, see if there is any designer intent behind the rule they've chosen - what they mechanized vs what they left blank, how decisions are resolved, etc. - and assess if the designers succeeded or failed in communicating their intentions.

Invoking GM fiat as the trump card of "system doesn't matter" only serves to obfuscate the argument, as then the conversation loses the foundation of the above. In a discussion about table etiquette and social dynamics, it would berelevant, but when talking about design itself, all it does is make all the participants of the conversation unsure if they are still even talking about the same thing.


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> @pemerton  if we are talking about 'rules' as in 'principles' instead of 'mechanics' I kinda agree. I'm a teacher too, an art teacher. Mastering techniques, understanding principles etc is important, but ultimately captain Barbossa had the right of it; they're just guidelines. You got to to have your own vision, and you must be able to asses what tools (both literal and figurative) are best for achieving it. For every 'rule' you can come up with a situation where breaking it was the right call. 'How' is important, but 'why' is more important.




I get your point about breaking the rules when it comes to art. Escaping those confines can really inspire great work. I think I remember reading that Quentin Taratino took all the "rules" that a writing instructor gave him....a story must be chronological, your protagonists must be admirable, etc.....and then wrote Pulp Fiction in response, breaking each of the rules. George RR Martin was writing a script for a proposed television series, and was told "you can't have too large a cast, you can't have characters with the same first name, you can't have all this unseen history affecting the current events, you can't kill your protagonist early in the story, you can't portray moral ambiguity, etc" and so he decided to write a novel, where he could do all that. 

But I think these kind of "rules" for a creative endeavor are guidelines. They are good to help one learn craft, but eventually they are there to be questioned. The trick with breaking these rules is to justify it by doing something creative. 

But with a game, it's different. Yes, RPGing is a creative endeavor, but it is also a game. It is both things. And the rules of a game are not meant to be broken the same way that rules of writing or art are. Rules in a game give it its structure. Breaking them means you are either undermining the game so that it does not work or you are making it work differently than intended. 

Making the game work differently than intended is perfectly fine if that's what people want to do. Taking D&D and making a romance game, to use your example, is a perfectly fine thing. If you have clearly defined play procedures and mechanics, then it will make such a conversion far easier. If you want to effectively alter a rule, you have to understand what it's doing and why in the first place. 

Like with teaching....I'm sure there are foundational things that you teach first and try to get students to understand before you move on to how to subvert or alter those foundational elements.


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## Campbell

Even in the context of games where players can only influence the fiction by declaring actions for their character (which I personally tend to prefer) I find it extraordinarily important to distinguish between my character's theoretical agency within the fiction and my ability as a player to see that through given the social constraints of the game being played.

From my perspective we are talking about a game we are all playing together (including the GM). I think we all agree to play a particular game together is important. Like we're playing Dungeons and Dragons or Apocalypse World. That should mean something. We should not all be trying to play different games. I do not see this as any different than sitting down to play Risk, Azul, or Battle for Rokugan.  RPGs are not like special in that sense.

I do not mean to come across as being rude here, but it seems like there are a fair number of people in our community who are just not interested in like playing game with other people where we play to find out how it goes. Like the idea that there is a skill to playing and running a specific game that you can like get better at is crucial to my personal enjoyment of all games. Outcomes actually being in doubt even more so. 

I think all this talk about creative vision misses the point that we are all doing this thing together. When you try to control or shape how things go you are like not respecting the integrity of play. Speaking as someone who runs a fair number of games I also do not think the GM is special in this regard. Their creative vision is no more important than the creative vision of anyone else at the table. We are all creating this fiction together. I highly value framing and situation being in the GM's purview, but that authority does not imply a greater stake than the players in the outcome of the fiction.

I believe in a relationship of creative peers, not one where the GM is telling stories or providing an experience. It's a game we all play *together*.


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## Aldarc

Campbell said:


> Speaking as someone who runs a fair number of games I also do not think the GM is special in this regard.



The problem is that a lot of forum discussion and even fan content creation (e.g., YouTube, blogs, etc.) are created by GMs who want to feel special and insist that they are.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> The problem is that a lot of forum discussion and even fan content creation (e.g., YouTube, blogs, etc.) are created by GMs who want to feel special and insist that they are.



Why is that a problem? I mean, I have learned zip from videos. I don't even care about them, and 99% of players have never watched one (probably don't know they exist). Likewise they don't pay attention to blogs or message boards. Even most GMs don't do those things, they read the rules (maybe) and run the game. 

And this is why IMHO a game needs, or is improved by at least, strong explicit principles and agendas which the GM can rely on to work with the provided mechanics and process. If a GM then wants to 'get creative' they can do so in the realm of fiction. Or even in terms of content. Of course if they feel confident enough they can create their own games, but that gets into at least true homebrew. Even there strong principles is only good.


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## nevin

I don't think most forum content is created by GM's who think thier special.  I think most creative people want to talk to other creative people and expand thier creativity.  Thier are plenty of people who've never made a thing or ever run a game that come to these forums and try to have an argument, and they won't be happy till they have it.


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## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, OK, you could devise "some other form of D&D" where you telegraph risk/reward in a different way. However, IF YOU DON'T CODIFY THAT, then you run a serious risk of failing to communicate that to other people who play your game. In the case of classic D&D it was codified in the encounter tables (organized by level) and the outdoor encounter tables (organized by terrain type and expected to be customized by 'region' by the DM). This was also tied into the wandering monster mechanic, etc. So it was fairly deeply ingrained in the rest of the process of the game. If you remove it, you better make it very clear to the GM that there still need to be tie-ins between how wandering monsters work and 'risk/reward', however that is determined.
> 
> If you are just making up your own stuff, then this is all pretty much up to the DM. Instead of 'dungeon level' there are just maybe different 'named dungeons' (which if you think about it is actually kind of how modules work). But if you're actually writing a game, you have to do this work up front. If you don't, people's games won't work!



Do you really think that majority of people who played basic D&D consistently used those charts? Because I seriously doubt it. You seem to be fixated on one very specific goal of play and very specific way of achieving that goal. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> The same is true for playing "romance" instead of D&D. The 'rules' for that game are going to be VERY different! Sure, you can pound the square peg of D&D rules into the round hole of a romance story and simply get 'something'. If it is just some one-shot thing your doing for yourself, that MIGHT work, though you probably will have to make up additional rules that don't exist in D&D.
> If you were publishing such a game, it would be senseless to make it based on D&D however. D&D isn't going to provide you with any of the needed structure which you have to convey to another person who is going to run the game!



I think D&D has pretty much ideal amount of rules for romance. But sure, if you want to sell a romance RPG then you probably want to write some bespoke rules and  convince the potential customers that they actually need your product.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Here's another example of a set of principles embodied into a game system: 4th edition D&D has 'role' and 'power source' as explicit attributes of each class. These embody, in a formalized structure, the niche and theme of a given class. This WORKS. 3.x is FILLED with 'trash classes' that barely work (if at all) and are grossly different from each other in terms of utility, power level, etc. such that many are essentially useless. EVERY SINGLE 4E CLASS WORKS. That is ENTIRELY because the role and power source define for the designers how something should work (A/E/D/U then provided further structure to keep it on track as it levels up). In fact, the very classes which were considered 'poor designs' are the very ones where the designers tried to skirt/subvert those attributes! Even THOSE classes still work (OK Binders are pretty worthless in the sense of being needed thematically, and they're weaker than they should be, but not by enough to be unplayable by any means). 3.5 has entire core classes that are drastically shortchanged (FIGHTERS, you can't get more core than that).



Whether 4e classes 'work' depends entirely on what you want D&D classes to do. 'Fulfil an artificial gamist role' is not high on my list.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Do you really think that majority of people who played basic D&D consistently used those charts? Because I seriously doubt it. You seem to be fixated on one very specific goal of play and very specific way of achieving that goal.



Yes, I do believe they use those charts. In all my days of playing those games we always used those charts, or else developed specific charts which accomplished the same thing. Wandering monsters are a KEY component of classic D&D play. Now, I admit we were less likely to use 'town' encounter charts, although we did use them in cases where the PCs were essentially 'wandering around looking for trouble' or otherwise engaged in something 'dungeon like'. 

The problem with not using wandering monsters is, it actually causes a lot of issues for classic play. The PCs can simply loiter around all they want and thus it is easy to do things like heal and reacquire spells without even leaving the dungeon. This is exactly what these mechanics were meant to do is include these tactics in the risk/reward cycle. 

I mean, maybe you created some alternative, that's fine, but the point still stands. In any case, my greater point was that the principle of "explicit risk/reward" is an unwritten, but clearly extant, principle of classic D&D.


Crimson Longinus said:


> I think D&D has pretty much ideal amount of rules for romance. But sure, if you want to sell a romance RPG then you probably want to write some bespoke rules and  convince the potential customers that they actually need your product.



OK, and how would you use the D&D rules for that? The only parts I can see being of much use is INT will let you read/write/speak different languages, potentially (there are no rules in classic D&D for which ones you have learned however, beyond certain starting choices). Beyond that CHA obviously has some uses. You can use the reaction tables to see if your 'date' decides to stab you with a salad fork or snuggle! haha. Maybe you could make ability checks for other things, STR to impress them with your mighty thews, CON we'll skip my thoughts on that, DEX? WIS, maybe you can make a WIS check to know better than to date half-orcs? Honestly, there isn't a rule in D&D that is really going to help you. You can CALL it 'D&D' if you want, but it is going to be all just made up at the table, or cribbed from some other game. Beyond that you will have to create a process of play, procedures, etc. that work for this type of game.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Whether 4e classes 'work' depends entirely on what you want D&D classes to do. 'Fulfil an artificial gamist role' is not high on my list.



Yeah, nice. I'm thinking this thread is getting a little long in the tooth perhaps at this point. The quality of discourse seems to be going down...


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## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, I do believe they use those charts. In all my days of playing those games we always used those charts, or else developed specific charts which accomplished the same thing. Wandering monsters are a KEY component of classic D&D play. Now, I admit we were less likely to use 'town' encounter charts, although we did use them in cases where the PCs were essentially 'wandering around looking for trouble' or otherwise engaged in something 'dungeon like'.
> 
> The problem with not using wandering monsters is, it actually causes a lot of issues for classic play. The PCs can simply loiter around all they want and thus it is easy to do things like heal and reacquire spells without even leaving the dungeon. This is exactly what these mechanics were meant to do is include these tactics in the risk/reward cycle.
> 
> I mean, maybe you created some alternative, that's fine, but the point still stands. In any case, my greater point was that the principle of "explicit risk/reward" is an unwritten, but clearly extant, principle of classic D&D.



I'm sure you did that. Nothing says 'fun' like a big stack of charts after all!  A lot of other people didn't play like that though, and they did just fine. Like your approach is perfectly valid if one cares about optimal 'dungeon solving' experience or something like that, but that's just one approach. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, and how would you use the D&D rules for that? The only parts I can see being of much use is INT will let you read/write/speak different languages, potentially (there are no rules in classic D&D for which ones you have learned however, beyond certain starting choices). Beyond that CHA obviously has some uses. You can use the reaction tables to see if your 'date' decides to stab you with a salad fork or snuggle! haha. Maybe you could make ability checks for other things, STR to impress them with your mighty thews, CON we'll skip my thoughts on that, DEX? WIS, maybe you can make a WIS check to know better than to date half-orcs? Honestly, there isn't a rule in D&D that is really going to help you. You can CALL it 'D&D' if you want, but it is going to be all just made up at the table, or cribbed from some other game. Beyond that you will have to create a process of play, procedures, etc. that work for this type of game.



Point being that it is not a thing that requires rules and I would feel that any extensive rules would most likely be a detriment. Now if you feel differently and would like to have more rigid mechanical structure to support the play, then that's fine too, but I wouldn't want to play in such a game.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, nice. I'm thinking this thread is getting a little long in the tooth perhaps at this point. The quality of discourse seems to be going down...



If you think so. But the thing you keep missing is that whether some practice, rule or whatever is 'good' depends entirely on what you're actually trying to achieve with it.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm sure you did that. Nothing says 'fun' like a big stack of charts after all!  A lot of other people didn't play like that though, and they did just fine. Like your approach is perfectly valid if one cares about optimal 'dungeon solving' experience or something like that, but that's just one approach.



Not sure what you mean by 'big stack', they're a few pages in the back of the DMG, etc. Never found it onerous. I would also point out that the common complaints about things like '5 minute work days' and such were persistent, and were mostly issues when people ignored this part of the game. So "it worked anyway" is a bit subjective, at best... (and see below, all of this is beside the point).


Crimson Longinus said:


> Point being that it is not a thing that requires rules and I would feel that any extensive rules would most likely be a detriment. Now if you feel differently and would like to have more rigid mechanical structure to support the play, then that's fine too, but I wouldn't want to play in such a game.



Well, there are such games, its a whole genre, though not one that is super interesting to me to play.


Crimson Longinus said:


> If you think so. But the thing you keep missing is that whether some practice, rule or whatever is 'good' depends entirely on what you're actually trying to achieve with it.



That goes without saying, lol. I am giving examples of principles which benefit specific games, and you're busy trying to tell me they are meaningless for some other game. YEAH! No DUH! Do you really believe that I think every game must have a random monster chart? LOL. Anyway, more seriously, principles, just like rules and processes, are all specific to your goals. Every RPG has these, along with theme, genre, etc.


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## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> Point being that it is not a thing that requires rules...



Point being that in order to be a game it does.

Otherwise D&D does romance about as effectively as Trivial Pursuit does air to air combat.


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## Crimson Longinus

chaochou said:


> Point being that in order to be game it does.
> 
> Otherwise D&D does romance about as effectively as Trivial Pursuit does air to air combat.



This is like saying that if you don't have bespoke fear and sanity mechanics you can't play horror in D&D or if you don't have a hilarity score you can't play comedy with it. Now I don't know if anyone has successfully done air combat with Trivial Pursuit, perhaps someone has but it is not common. Playing romance in D&D however is pretty damn common.


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is like saying that if you don't have bespoke fear and sanity mechanics you can't play horror in D&D or if you don't have a hilarity score you can't play comedy with it. Now I don't know if anyone has successfully done air combat with Trivial Pursuit, perhaps someone has but it is not common. Playing romance in D&D however is pretty damn common.




I feel like you may be missing the point about rules; they're what gives everyone the common ground of the game. This works like this, and that works like that. With these in place, participants can reasonably understand their chances for success and so on. They can then make informed decisions about what they'd like to try.

If the game boils down to a player declaring an action for their PC, and then the actual procedure is for the GM to decide if that works or not, then how does a player know their chances? How can they make informed decisions?

Removing the encounter tables from old versions of D&D removed a module of the game around which other modules were designed. They no longer functioned the same as they were intended. Now, I will admit that my group and I often did this in favor of a more cinematic approach to play......but that did render dungeon delving far different than it had been intended to be. 

Now, if you have a GM who is consistent, and makes principled calls of some sort, and you also have players who understand this, the kind of play you're describing may be perfectly fine. But I don't think that means that rules aren't beneficial.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Removing the encounter tables from old versions of D&D removed a module of the game around which other modules were designed. They no longer functioned the same as they were intended. Now, I will admit that my group and I often did this in favor of a more cinematic approach to play......but that did render dungeon delving far different than it had been intended to be.



Right. So you did it differently to suit your tastes and it worked just fine. (Also sounds similar to what we did.)



hawkeyefan said:


> Now, if you have a GM who is consistent, and makes principled calls of some sort, and you also have players who understand this, the kind of play you're describing may be perfectly fine.



So there you go.



hawkeyefan said:


> But I don't think that means that rules aren't beneficial.



Certain amount of rules is indeed beneficial, but you never can have a rule for everything. There is always some grey are, judgements need to be made. This is not a bug, it is a feature. That's why have a human in charge of running the game instead of a stack of spreadsheets. And I strongly feel that for certain things heavy reliance on rules may easily be detrimental. When players are engaged in a heated conversation with an NPCs and are immersing in the situation, trying to break that down into varying debating actions and stopping to calculate conviction scores is not what's needed.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> If the game boils down to a player declaring an action for their PC, and then the actual procedure is for the GM to decide if that works or not, then how does a player know their chances? How can they make informed decisions?




It depends on what you are trying to make a ruling on. I feel a lot is getting left out in this description of the player declaring then the GM making a calling. Often these are more involved exchanges in certain parts of the game. And the GM is expected to make the judgement based on things like logic and what the player is actually saying. One reason to take 'game mechanics' away from this is so what the player is saying or doing is honored (whereas a roll or a simple mechanical procedure might miss some of the subtlety and not be able to 'compete' a result that is as sound as a human thinking through how things out to pan out. This is one frustration I often encountered with social mechanics in some games doing things like undermining what I actually said or stated I did. And sometimes you want to interface with the world or characters directly and you don't want that mediated by a roll. For example a skill like Detect (which I do have in my own games) can be bad to some players and GMs, because it often encourages players not to directly interact with things like clue finding. It depends on how it is implemented of course. I find this is especially the case if you play mystery scenarios, so you, the player, are the one solving them. I want to have the experience of talking to the NPCs, asking them questions, telling the GM I look under the table, etc. Not saying there are not mechanics that can work with this desire, but I have found, for me, the best way for a game to handle these things, when I want those things to be the focus of play, is to not have mechanics or procedures for them. It is just my personal taste. Not everyone is going to feel this way (which is why I include even Detect in my own games)


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## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is like saying that if you don't have bespoke fear and sanity mechanics you can't play horror in D&D or if you don't have a hilarity score you can't play comedy with it. Now I don't know if anyone has successfully done air combat with Trivial Pursuit, perhaps someone has but it is not common. Playing romance in D&D however is pretty damn common.



No it isn't. You can have your characters ROLE PLAY a romance. Since *no rule of D&D whatsoever* will be used in that exercise, it is fair to say that it is not really 'playing D&D' per se. I mean, you can complicate things by presuming that all this happens in the backdrop of some other D&D action, but its character partakes of D&D *as a game* in no way whatsoever. 

This is why @chaochou said you could 'play it with Trivial Pursuit' because both games give you equal support, in every respect, for doing so (well, at least D&D has the concept of a 'character' as a game entity, so I'll grant it is slightly ahead here, but not much). 

The test of this is that the exact same 'romantic narrative' would arise in ANY other RPG (that isn't about romance), regardless of rules, as long as it allocated narrative authority in the same way (or the participants did so anyway). You could do exactly the same by simply sitting at the table making a story with no rules at all (again assuming consistent use of narrative authority).


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## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you did it differently to suit your tastes and it worked just fine. (Also sounds similar to what we did.)




Well, I wouldn’t say it went just fine, exactly. We had fun, which is the main goal of course, so in that sense, yes. 

But our play was largely driven by the GM and their pre-written material, whether published or of their own design. The DM had “final say” and all that. They were very much the “author of the story”. 

Personally, I found that lingering but incomplete elements of 1e that we carried over into our 2e games just created a weird combination for the GM. The idea from 1E of challenging the players combined with the unlimited authority of the role from 2E....well, it did not always make for a fun gaming experience. I didn’t really come to understand this until later on. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> So there you go.




Sure. It worked in the sense that we all still enjoy the hobby after all these years. But if someone was to ask me how to play these days, that’s not how I’d suggest they go about it. 

Our understanding was incomplete, and there were a lot of things we were doing wrong. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> Certain amount of rules is indeed beneficial, but you never can have a rule for everything. There is always some grey are, judgements need to be made. This is not a bug, it is a feature. That's why have a human in charge of running the game instead of a stack of spreadsheets. And I strongly feel that for certain things heavy reliance on rules may easily be detrimental. When players are engaged in a heated conversation with an NPCs and are immersing in the situation, trying to break that down into varying debating actions and stopping to calculate conviction scores is not what's needed.




I don’t think mechanics need to replace role playing, which seems to be your concern here. As I said, rules should be there to enhance and inspire role play. 

In your scenario above, how does the discussion become heated? How is that determined? What does it mean? Can it be changed? If the answer to all of this is ultimately “the GM gets to decide” then that may be fine, but it puts the players’ agency entirely in the GM’s hands.....which says what about their agency?

Now, I agree with you about judgment being needed in almost any game (even GMless games still shift such judgment to the players). What I prefer is that a game has clear instruction to the GM on how to use their judgment and when and where to apply it. Not simply grant them unlimited authority to use their judgment toward some vague notion of “make the game fun”.


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## Thomas Shey

Campbell said:


> Even in the context of games where players can only influence the fiction by declaring actions for their character (which I personally tend to prefer) I find it extraordinarily important to distinguish between my character's theoretical agency within the fiction and my ability as a player to see that through given the social constraints of the game being played.
> 
> From my perspective we are talking about a game we are all playing together (including the GM). I think we all agree to play a particular game together is important. Like we're playing Dungeons and Dragons or Apocalypse World. That should mean something. We should not all be trying to play different games. I do not see this as any different than sitting down to play Risk, Azul, or Battle for Rokugan.  RPGs are not like special in that sense.




I'm not 100% sure I'm getting your point here, so if my comments seem non-sequitors, that's probably a sign I've missed it.  That being said:

The truth is, many people do not actually have the luxury of playing entirely with people who are good at--or even want to--getting on the same page.  There's obviously some practical limitations here--people can end up having play styles and expectations that are diametrically opposite, to the degree where increasing one player's engagement and enjoyment in the game actively diminishes another--but in a lot of groups satisfying people who expect different things out of a game are often considered just part of the gig.  So to some degree in many groups, the agreement to play a specific game doesn't really mean much beyond it being the lowest common denominator everyone can agree to, and if that means there's a certain degree of pulling against the assumed structure of the game, its something the GM and other players simply have to adapt to.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> It depends on what you are trying to make a ruling on. I feel a lot is getting left out in this description of the player declaring then the GM making a calling. Often these are more involved exchanges in certain parts of the game. And the GM is expected to make the judgement based on things like logic and what the player is actually saying. One reason to take 'game mechanics' away from this is so what the player is saying or doing is honored (whereas a roll or a simple mechanical procedure might miss some of the subtlety and not be able to 'compete' a result that is as sound as a human thinking through how things out to pan out. This is one frustration I often encountered with social mechanics in some games doing things like undermining what I actually said or stated I did. And sometimes you want to interface with the world or characters directly and you don't want that mediated by a roll. For example a skill like Detect (which I do have in my own games) can be bad to some players and GMs, because it often encourages players not to directly interact with things like clue finding. It depends on how it is implemented of course. I find this is especially the case if you play mystery scenarios, so you, the player, are the one solving them. I want to have the experience of talking to the NPCs, asking them questions, telling the GM I look under the table, etc. Not saying there are not mechanics that can work with this desire, but I have found, for me, the best way for a game to handle these things, when I want those things to be the focus of play, is to not have mechanics or procedures for them. It is just my personal taste. Not everyone is going to feel this way (which is why I include even Detect in my own games)



I don't think anyone is saying that EVERYTHING is always based on some mechanics at all times, or that things much be based on 'checks' necessarily. It is entirely dependent on the game, the participants, etc. Again though, principles, applied through some sort of process to carry out some agenda, is at the core of it. I would say it is never BAD to articulate those.

So, for instance, if I was running a Dungeon World game and the idea of solving a mystery came up, I have some things I can fall back on, right? Like I know that we're 'playing to see what happens', and we have a general principle of 'fiction first' and the GM 'pushes' things. There is usually not a lot of established story or 'myth' either, although perhaps a GM would be wise to have devised some ideas about who killed Miss Green, where and with which weapon (these ideas should probably be highly provisional though). 

So, this type of game will proceed through the GM looking at what the players are aiming for, and feeding them interesting obstacles in each scene. Success and failure will basically determine how hot/cold they get in terms of a solution, and details can be drawn from the GM's 'map' of the situation. In some cases a player might effectively dictate something (you can kind of do this with judicious use of Spout Lore) or maybe the GM goes and asks a player to supply some fact or other (this is a good reaction to say looking for a clue in a new location). 

Now, DW is certainly not a murder mystery game, and I'm sure other rules sets do it better, but this is certainly a case where the principles of the game won't really work against you in any case of creating a narrative. I think this brings up a point about narrative focus games, their concepts are pretty universal, because they are mostly 'meta-game', and thus don't depend much on a specific fictional context. This is opposed to D&D and other classic games that focus on "mechanics as rules of the world" and mostly ignore the table. D&D's best bet for romance or mystery is to just not pay attention to its rules at all! Most of DW will at least help you, somewhat.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> It depends on what you are trying to make a ruling on. I feel a lot is getting left out in this description of the player declaring then the GM making a calling. Often these are more involved exchanges in certain parts of the game. And the GM is expected to make the judgement based on things like logic and what the player is actually saying.




Sure. Something like a Diplomacy or Persuade check or some similar skill/action may require the GM to consider a lot if factors. Starting attitude, what the PC says/does, what’s previously been established in the fiction, and so on. He uses this info to calculate a DC or target number or whatever. 

None of that needs to replace the roleplaying element. 



Bedrockgames said:


> One reason to take 'game mechanics' away from this is so what the player is saying or doing is honored (whereas a roll or a simple mechanical procedure might miss some of the subtlety and not be able to 'compete' a result that is as sound as a human thinking through how things out to pan out. This is one frustration I often encountered with social mechanics in some games doing things like undermining what I actually said or stated I did. And sometimes you want to interface with the world or characters directly and you don't want that mediated by a roll. For example a skill like Detect (which I do have in my own games) can be bad to some players and GMs, because it often encourages players not to directly interact with things like clue finding. It depends on how it is implemented of course. I find this is especially the case if you play mystery scenarios, so you, the player, are the one solving them. I want to have the experience of talking to the NPCs, asking them questions, telling the GM I look under the table, etc. Not saying there are not mechanics that can work with this desire, but I have found, for me, the best way for a game to handle these things, when I want those things to be the focus of play, is to not have mechanics or procedures for them. It is just my personal taste. Not everyone is going to feel this way (which is why I include even Detect in my own games)




Sure, I think that’s all fine. Again, I don’t think any of this stuff you’ve described is at odds with mechanical rules. I think that it’s more a case of when to call for mechanics to be implemented. 

For some, “we search the room” followed by a roll, with an outcome based on the result of the roll, will work fine. Other games may need the search action broken down into more individual steps; “I search the fireplace while Tom searches the table” etc. 

Even if the GM is going to require a literal description of “I check the bottom drawer of the desk for a false bottom” to find the clue there, that procedure is fine if everyone is on board. I think that method is a bit extreme. 

My point about the rules is that they are how players understand the game...whatever the game may be. If I’m playing Monopoly and I land on Boardwalk, it’s the rules of the game that tell me yes it may cost everytjing I have now, but it’s the most valuable property in the game and it probably won’t still be available if I land on it again. 

If the rules weren’t clear, I wouldn’t be able to draw those conclusions.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure. Something like a Diplomacy or Persuade check or some similar skill/action may require the GM to consider a lot if factors. Starting attitude, what the PC says/does, what’s previously been established in the fiction, and so on. He uses this info to calculate a DC or target number or whatever.
> 
> None of that needs to replace the roleplaying element.




Except that does interfere with it. Because if I am going around asking witnesses to a crime questions and I ask a question that would logically produce a response, and I do so persuasively, it feels weird to leave that in the hands of a random roll (even if the DC is set to fit what I say). Wouldn't it make more sense for the GM to just say to him or herself "how would this character respond to what the PC just said?". This is more likely to be faithful to the PCs words and the personality of the NPC in question. Not saying it is going to be a huge deal to everyone. But personally I find just going with what was said in character, is better. Now I do use Persuade and Command and a variety of skills like that. But I only ask for them, when I, the GM, am uncertain about how an NPC would respond what a PC just said.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't think anyone is saying that EVERYTHING is always based on some mechanics at all times, or that things much be based on 'checks' necessarily. It is entirely dependent on the game, the participants, etc. Again though, principles, applied through some sort of process to carry out some agenda, is at the core of it. I would say it is never BAD to articulate those.
> 
> So, for instance, if I was running a Dungeon World game and the idea of solving a mystery came up, I have some things I can fall back on, right? Like I know that we're 'playing to see what happens', and we have a general principle of 'fiction first' and the GM 'pushes' things. There is usually not a lot of established story or 'myth' either, although perhaps a GM would be wise to have devised some ideas about who killed Miss Green, where and with which weapon (these ideas should probably be highly provisional though).
> 
> So, this type of game will proceed through the GM looking at what the players are aiming for, and feeding them interesting obstacles in each scene. Success and failure will basically determine how hot/cold they get in terms of a solution, and details can be drawn from the GM's 'map' of the situation. In some cases a player might effectively dictate something (you can kind of do this with judicious use of Spout Lore) or maybe the GM goes and asks a player to supply some fact or other (this is a good reaction to say looking for a clue in a new location).
> 
> Now, DW is certainly not a murder mystery game, and I'm sure other rules sets do it better, but this is certainly a case where the principles of the game won't really work against you in any case of creating a narrative. I think this brings up a point about narrative focus games, their concepts are pretty universal, because they are mostly 'meta-game', and thus don't depend much on a specific fictional context. This is opposed to D&D and other classic games that focus on "mechanics as rules of the world" and mostly ignore the table. D&D's best bet for romance or mystery is to just not pay attention to its rules at all! Most of DW will at least help you, somewhat.




But my point is the DW way, as you describe it at least, is the total opposite of what I want from trying to solve a mystery: I want to actually solve a mystery, not having it be something that emerges around my interests as a player. I want there to be a mystery to solve, that is concrete, with details established by the GM, and I want to solve those as if I am there investigating the crime. This is something where some rules may be useful (for example if I have to climb a wall, having a way for me to achieve that mechanically could be handy). But in terms of the actual mystery solving, I want most of that to boil down to what I am choosing to do and how I am analyzing what happens in game. There are two basic ways to approach mystery and investigation: as a simulation of sherlock holmes or with you playing as sherlock holmes. Those are two totally different experiences. I.E. Do I want this to play out like a sherlock holmes story, with events happening that I expect to happen in a sherlock holmes story and the character catching the details and clues that my ace detective character ought to detect according to the stats on his sheet, or do I want to explore the mystery in the first person, find the clues/miss the clues, piece together clues/fail to piece together clues, etc. I want the experience of a mystery to be more in the realm of Data's holodeck excursions into playing sherlock holmes, where he is experiencing the fun of actually finding the clues, talking to the suspects and piecing all the facts together. I think, for me, having mechanics to guide this, often get in the way of that direct feeling of solving the mystery.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> . I think this brings up a point about narrative focus games, their concepts are pretty universal, because they are mostly 'meta-game', and thus don't depend much on a specific fictional context. This is opposed to D&D and other classic games that focus on "mechanics as rules of the world" and mostly ignore the table. D&D's best bet for romance or mystery is to just not pay attention to its rules at all! Most of DW will at least help you, somewhat.




I think very few RPGs are universal like that. Again, my experience with narrative systems is more limited than yours, but the ones I have played, seemed like they would be pretty hard to port into my regular game. They seem pretty focused (which I think is part of their appeal). I could be wrong as I don't play DW and that is likely the one you have in mind. I think this issue though is less about what system is more universal or what system is best for X, than what kinds of rules each of us want for things. And it isn't even a zero sum game really. Some days I want to play Hillfolk, for example (I don't know DW that well, but Hillfolk I like---and I would say that is pretty narrative); some days I prefer a more traditional system.


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## Ovinomancer

I haven't been able to participate much, but I've kept up with the thread.  I think there's a weird shift going on.   There's a lot of perceived persecution for play approaches that isn't present in the thread.  I tried earlier to make the clear statement that player agency is not an automatic good, just a preference that people use to value games and that is a useful consideration when analyzing how we play games.  Being aware of relative agency in games isn't in itself a value statement, but rather should be looked at as a trade-off -- are you sacrificing agency for a purpose, and is that purpose working for you.  If the answer is yes and yes, then concern over the fact your approach has less agency than another than doesn't answer those questions in the affirmative should be excised.

I think it's obvious that if the primary mechanic in your games is that Bob decides what happens, then players have less agency that if the mechanics say you have some chance X that you can decide what happens and otherwise Bob decides.  Whether or not that difference in agency matters to you is absolutely personal.  Perhaps Bob does a great job making decisions on what happens that entertain you.  Perhaps you don't want the pressure of even occasionally deciding what happens (and it's definitely pressure).  Or, maybe, you find you don't like giving Bob the power to decide what happens.  That's fine too.  But it shouldn't be a point of contention that Bob decides results in less agency that any system that shares some decision making with the player.


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Except that does interfere with it. Because if I am going around asking witnesses to a crime questions and I ask a question that would logically produce a response, and I do so persuasively, it feels weird to leave that in the hands of a random roll (even if the DC is set to fit what I say). Wouldn't it make more sense for the GM to just say to him or herself "how would this character respond to what the PC just said?". This is more likely to be faithful to the PCs words and the personality of the NPC in question. Not saying it is going to be a huge deal to everyone.




This sounds like a “say yes, or roll the dice” situation. Seems fine to me. 

I think this approach is only a problem if you say “no”; that’s where it gets sticky. 



Bedrockgames said:


> But personally I find just going with what was said in character, is better. Now I do use Persuade and Command and a variety of skills like that. But I only ask for them, when I, the GM, am uncertain about how an NPC would respond what a PC just said.




Would you follow the same procedure to deny the request? 

I mean, barring some ridiculous extreme...like if the player declares that his fighter pees on the king’s carpet and flips him off while the bard is asking him for assistance....sure, I could see an automatic no. But in normal play, a unilateral no is a pretty severe obstacle to player agency. 

Especially if no other mechanics are used to calculate the situation. No initial reaction roll or anything else of the sort. Instead, the GM crafts the entire scenario and then the player says “I’d like to address it in this way” and the GM says “No, that doesn’t work.” 

It’s hard to see the agency in that scenario.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This sounds like a “say yes, or roll the dice” situation. Seems fine to me.
> 
> I think this approach is only a problem if you say “no”; that’s where it gets sticky.




I am not suggesting say yes or roll the dice. My point about, about only rolling social skills when I am unclear on the reaction for example, is more say yes or no; and roll if you don't know. But most situations are not simple yes or no scenarios anyways. With respect to things like social skills it is largely about knowing what the NPCs motives and personalities are, and applying those to what the player says and trying to create an organic exchange. 

No is just as important as yes though in my opinion here. If you the point is to give the player the experience of solving the mystery say, then their successes only matter if not succeeding is also a possibility.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Would you follow the same procedure to deny the request?
> 
> I mean, barring some ridiculous extreme...like if the player declares that his fighter pees on the king’s carpet and flips him off while the bard is asking him for assistance....sure, I could see an automatic no. But in normal play, a unilateral no is a pretty severe obstacle to player agency.
> 
> Especially if no other mechanics are used to calculate the situation. No initial reaction roll or anything else of the sort. Instead, the GM crafts the entire scenario and then the player says “I’d like to address it in this way” and the GM says “No, that doesn’t work.”
> 
> It’s hard to see the agency in that scenario.




Absolutely. If I feel an NPC would respond negatively to something a player said, then that NPC will respond negatively and there is no need to roll. I only roll when the player says something and I genuinely don't know how the NPC would react. 

I think framing it as yes or no is part of the problem here. These are conversations. Most conversations are not a simple yes and no issue. But lets say the player is going to the king to request something, I don't know he wants a ton of chocolate to feed to a bunch of owl bears that are threatening the city. In my opinion the players agency in that moment is all about what he chooses to say, how he makes his case. And if I don't honor that, by giving it a fair evaluation and having the king respond to what he says both as a logical outcome of what the player stated and as an honest appraisal of the kings motives and goals on my part, I would feel I am not giving the player agency. Agency to me is about what choices the players are able to make in the game and that should include the ability to make bad choices that anger the king or cause the king to refuse a request. I don't feel that I usually need dice or a mechanic to handle that. 

This isn't about the GM simply saying yes this works or no this doesn't. It is about recognizing the value of having a human mind adjudicate something as nuanced and complicated as a conversation. I think that is a pretty good system personally. If that doesn't work for you, that is fine, but try to understand why some of us really love this approach (and it isn't about the GMing doing what he or she wants, or denying the player agency-----it is about empowering the players to interact with the setting fully and in a way that feels organic and real). This is particularly true around things like social rules. It took me a very long time to find a way to use social mechanics that didn't trip up my style of play. And for those interested in this approach (and not everyone is) it definitely works. Because it gets around the problem of the dice undoing what the player said but gives you a tool to use when you don't have a clear sense of how an NPC might respond. 

Now in terms of reaction rolls. I don't mind those. Those are usually based on stats that reflect a character's appearance, charisma, persuasiveness. And, importantly, they don't undermine what the character says. They are also pretty plausible. I think we all have reactions to people we first meet, and all produce reactions, before a word is even spoken.


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## PsyzhranV2

Crimson Longinus said:


> Point being that it is not a thing that requires rules and I would feel that any extensive rules would most likely be a detriment. Now if you feel differently and would like to have more rigid mechanical structure to support the play, then that's fine too, but I wouldn't want to play in such a game.



From where I'm standing, (not just this particular post but the general trend of this conversation), the whole situation looks like somebody offering you a power drill to tighten some screws but you insisting that your rusty screwdriver that barely fits suffices. Or in more extreme cases, it seems you're trying to tighten screws with a hammer.

Where did this idea of combat and exploration being the only things worth mechanizing come about? Why must social interaction be entirely freeform? I understand if you're intentionally shooting for that as a means of stylistic design (namely certain strains of OSR), but as a general rule? Having no adjudication measures for social situations beyond "the GM says so" means that A: those situations lack mechanical weight and impact, and B: players who aren't confident with certain social situations IRL can't participate effectively, just as if a person who didn't know any wilderness survival measures was asked to freeform roleplay an exploration scenario.

If that isn't what the game is about - if much more time is being spent on combat or exploration than social situations, I guess it's an acceptable loss. But that requires the recognition that your game isn't _about _that thing. Yes, the negative space in the D&D rules design does permit the freeform roleplaying of exploring relationships (going back to the current discussion topic), but compare that to Monsterhearts, where the entire game is _about _relationships, and has mechanical support to match. A much weightier and robust experience can be gained from the latter.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> I haven't been able to participate much, but I've kept up with the thread.  I think there's a weird shift going on.   There's a lot of perceived persecution for play approaches that isn't present in the thread.  I tried earlier to make the clear statement that player agency is not an automatic good, just a preference that people use to value games and that is a useful consideration when analyzing how we play games.  Being aware of relative agency in games isn't in itself a value statement, but rather should be looked at as a trade-off -- are you sacrificing agency for a purpose, and is that purpose working for you.  If the answer is yes and yes, then concern over the fact your approach has less agency than another than doesn't answer those questions in the affirmative should be excised.
> 
> I think it's obvious that if the primary mechanic in your games is that Bob decides what happens, then players have less agency that if the mechanics say you have some chance X that you can decide what happens and otherwise Bob decides.  Whether or not that difference in agency matters to you is absolutely personal.  Perhaps Bob does a great job making decisions on what happens that entertain you.  Perhaps you don't want the pressure of even occasionally deciding what happens (and it's definitely pressure).  Or, maybe, you find you don't like giving Bob the power to decide what happens.  That's fine too.  But it shouldn't be a point of contention that Bob decides results in less agency that any system that shares some decision making with the player.




I think it is pretty clear there are value judgments of styles going on around the agency discussion. And to an extent that makes sense as agency is generally thought of as a good thing. People value it. but importantly we are using the term agency differently because, as others have pointed out, agency is somewhat subjective depending on what it is you are interested in exploring in play. It is very easy to say "I am just being objective about this and using the term this way" but that starts to feel a little hollow when term X clearly has a kind of moral value, and the playstyle that you subscribes to just happens to have maximum X according to your argument.


----------



## Bedrockgames

PsyzhranV2 said:


> If that isn't what the game is about - if much more time is being spent on combat or exploration than social situations, I guess it's an acceptable loss. But that requires the recognition that your game isn't _about _that thing. Yes, the negative space in the D&D rules design does permit the freeform roleplaying of exploring relationships (going back to the current discussion topic), but compare that to Monstearhearts, where the entire game is _about _relationships, and has mechanical support to match. A much weightier and robust experience can be gained from the latter.




A lot of this is going to boil down to how you process things, how you like to play the game. For plenty of people, romance and character relationships are more rewarding when they are not mediated by mechanics (because they can have a freeform flow and an organic quality that is based around how the players and the GMs understand those things to work). For plenty of others, having a clear system for that, can be a better choice. I think it is fine both exist. I think it is a little weird not to understand why someone would want or not want one or the other. In some cases it is true people can be stubborn and might be denying themselves a tool that would be useful. But sometimes it is just a tool that works well for how you think, but not for how I think.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Except that does interfere with it. Because if I am going around asking witnesses to a crime questions and I ask a question that would logically produce a response, and I do so persuasively, it feels weird to leave that in the hands of a random roll (even if the DC is set to fit what I say). Wouldn't it make more sense for the GM to just say to him or herself "how would this character respond to what the PC just said?". This is more likely to be faithful to the PCs words and the personality of the NPC in question. Not saying it is going to be a huge deal to everyone. But personally I find just going with what was said in character, is better. Now I do use Persuade and Command and a variety of skills like that. But I only ask for them, when I, the GM, am uncertain about how an NPC would respond what a PC just said.



Right, here we agree, if you use a set of rules/process in which all a 'check' does is generate a success or a failure on the execution of a task, then there is a problem. Either the player is acting the part of Sherlock and deducing an answer to the mystery, or some dice are getting tossed to decide whether or not Sherlock manages to derive the conclusion from the evidence (or even see the evidence, which is actually MORE problematic in some respects). It just doesn't work. Or rather, it would not, I suspect for most people, be all that fun to do with a bunch of checks. Of course it is also almost impossible to do the other way too, because 99% of the time either the player sees right through the mystery and the gig doesn't come off, or they're totally stumped and it still doesn't come off. 

There are other game architectures which may work better for some people. I'd note that mystery games are a pretty niche RP concept, although they have been somewhat successful as party games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> because 99% of the time either the player sees right through the mystery and the gig doesn't come off, or they're totally stumped and it still doesn't come off.




This I disagree with (and my experience on both sides of the screen simply doesn't match this assertion)


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> There are other game architectures which may work better for some people. I'd note that mystery games are a pretty niche RP concept, although they have been somewhat successful as party games.




They can come up in regular campaigns though

I used to have a bunch of my aunt's old book shelf murder mystery games from the 70s


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I think very few RPGs are universal like that. Again, my experience with narrative systems is more limited than yours, but the ones I have played, seemed like they would be pretty hard to port into my regular game. They seem pretty focused (which I think is part of their appeal). I could be wrong as I don't play DW and that is likely the one you have in mind. I think this issue though is less about what system is more universal or what system is best for X, than what kinds of rules each of us want for things. And it isn't even a zero sum game really. Some days I want to play Hillfolk, for example (I don't know DW that well, but Hillfolk I like---and I would say that is pretty narrative); some days I prefer a more traditional system.



Well, Dungeon World is intended to produce a narrativist version of basically OSR. That is it reproduces the genre, and to an extent the tone, of classic D&D. It is really a pretty niche game, in and of itself. 

I think a better model for a really universal sort of narrative focus game is Burning Wheel. It is really a lot more generalized in that it is skill-driven to a great extent, where DW really has just very limited 'playbooks' that the players can draw from.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No is just as important as yes though in my opinion here. If you the point is to give the player the experience of solving the mystery say, then their successes only matter if not succeeding is also a possibility.




I agree it’s about more than just yes or no. There could be degrees between those two ends. And I wouldn’t say that I would never say no. I just am aware that in doing so, I’m limiting the player’s options.

The question is “Is that limitation justified in some way?” The answer will vary.

You mention a mystery, and to me that’s an apt example. I tend to struggle portraying mysteries, because (generally speaking) they have one solution.

So the problem is conceived by the GM and then the only solution is also conceived by the GM. The players’ chance of success largely resides in playing things out as the GM has already determined.

This may absolutely be an engaging play experience. I find Call of Cthulhu games to often fall into this kind of style, and it can be fun. But it certainly leaves far less to the players.

Now, I know you don’t just have mystery stories in mind, but I feel that’s a good demonstration of how saying no in this way can impact play and player agency.



Bedrockgames said:


> Absolutely. If I feel an NPC would respond negatively to something a player said, then that NPC will respond negatively and there is no need to roll. I only roll when the player says something and I genuinely don't know how the NPC would react.




I want to be clear I’m not advocating for boiling every social interaction down to one roll. It’s perfectly fine to play the NPCs in a way that’s appropriate to what’s been established.

What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t enjoy when there are details about the NPC that have not been established in any way and when those factors are what steers play. Because the GM is largely responsible for what I know of this NPC and then is also responsible for the NPC’s behavior and his response to the PCs’ actions.

All of this may be based on how this NPC would behave and may follow that logic perfectly. And yet for me as a player, I’m just bashing my head against this encounter, trying to find the one key that can open things up, and not even knowing what that key may be.

I hope that’s clear.

If there are limited ways to deal with a situation, they need to be signposted or otherwise introduced into the fiction. It’s easy this way to punish players for not finding the “right way” to deal with the NPC or situation.

This is, I believe, what @pemerton refers to as puzzle-solving.



Bedrockgames said:


> I think framing it as yes or no is part of the problem here. These are conversations. Most conversations are not a simple yes and no issue.




Sure, and that’s fair.

But wouldn’t you agree that, as a work of fiction, we can come up with any number of potential ways that things could go? Since we are, through the game, collectively authoring the fiction, it can go however we like? I mean, within what we’d consider acceptable according to genre and tone and so on.

If so, then the players should be just as likely to craft a solution to a problem as the GM, right? And I don’t mean by guessing the solution the GM had in mind.

The player should be able to say THIS is how I want to address this challenge. The GM should be able to then make that idea as logical as any solution can be. 

And since it’s all made up, he can do that. 

The more often you unilaterally say no to them, the less true this is, and the more the players are just the protagonists in the GM’s story.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You mention a mystery, and to me that’s an apt example. I tend to struggle portraying mysteries, because (generally speaking) they have one solution.




This is where I think a lot of people go wrong. Mysteries may have one answer (Colonel Mustard did it in the library with the candlestick) but there ought to be many solutions to figuring out the the mystery (and a GM should be adaptable to approaches he or she had not considered but would work).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This is where I think a lot of people go wrong. Mysteries may have one answer (Colonel Mustard did it in the library with the candlestick) but there ought to be many solutions to figuring out the the mystery (and a GM should be adaptable to approaches he or she had not considered but would work).




Where as I’d say that allowing more than one solution....much like the movie Clue....would be the better approach as it relates to player agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So the problem is conceived by the GM and then the only solution is also conceived by the GM. The players’ chance of success largely resides in playing things out as the GM has already determined.




This is not at all how I would describe it. The GM thinks of a murder that happened and all the people and places involved. figures out the backstory of that murder, what happened during the murder, and so forth. In answering these questions, the GM will come up with an initial list of things like what clues may be found where, but the GM still needs to weigh anything the party proposes against the mystery he or she has established (for example they may ask was there a groundskeeper on the premises that night and might he have heard anything). That is a detail the GM might not have thought of, but will need to decide (and my method for deciding it might be something like, is this the sort of place that would have a grounskeeper and what are the odds he was there at the time of the murder). Or the players may come up with a way to find a clue the GM had never considered, but it could be a method that would certainly reveal something based on what the GM has already established (for instance a GM who hasn't considered something simple like the phone records, and the players get the idea of coming through them). And in terms of solutions it is the same. I once had players surprise me by putting out an APB during  an investigation to bring in their potential suspects. It was an obvious thing, but not something I had considered during my prep. 

Describing this sort of thing as a single problem with a single solution seems very reductive (and a bit of a straw man)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Where as I’d say that allowing more than one solution....much like the movie Clue....would be the better approach as it relates to player agency.




That would take away agency because it makes my attempts to piece together clues rather pointless and not that meaningful. The movie clue doesn't really allow you to solve the mystery because it had like three optional outcomes that were effectively random. A major point of the mystery genre, even if you are just reading a mystery novel, is to solve the mystery as the reader. Clue didn't really allow me to solve the mystery because it never really decided who killed Mr. Body (it decided there were three possibilities and picked on depending on what night you went to the movie)----I realize once it was on video they reworked those into a sequence, but in the theaters, you got one ending. I have nothing against clue, it is a great movie, and I think that was an innovative twist that made the viewing experience a joy. But it isn't how I would structure a mystery adventure if my aim is for the players to be the ones solving the mystery.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t enjoy when there are details about the NPC that have not been established in any way and when those factors are what steers play. Because the GM is largely responsible for what I know of this NPC and then is also responsible for the NPC’s behavior and his response to the PCs’ actions.




That is fine. That is your taste. And it is good if you know what you like. But I can't stand this personally. I like for there to be details about the NPCs, that are real details, that I don't know, but the GM does, and that guide the NPCs behavior and actions. That to me feels like a much more real interaction with a living character. Obviously there shouldn't be a total cloud around these details. I should have ways of discerning some of them (like if the NPC is motivated by the death of his wife, and in conversation that naturally comes up). But I am fine not knowing things about an NPC that my character doesn't know.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> All of this may be based on how this NPC would behave and may follow that logic perfectly. And yet for me as a player, I’m just bashing my head against this encounter, trying to find the one key that can open things up, and not even knowing what that key may be.
> 
> I hope that’s clear.




Again, this is fair if it is your preference. But I will say one of the reasons I think it is so important for GMs to understand their NPCs motivations, relationships and desires, is because it reduces the likelihood of there being one magic thing to say to that character. Also NPCs shouldn't act like living obstacles, they should act like people. Real people rarely, except on forums like this , behave in a way that makes you feel you are smashing your head against the wall to get answers. Obviously this very much depends on the specifics surrounding the adventure and the interaction, but I never go into an encounter with NPCs thinking "they need to say this one thing". I try to be open minded when I run my NPCs and that open-mindedness is aided by knowing what my NPCs want.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, and that’s fair.
> 
> But wouldn’t you agree that, as a work of fiction, we can come up with any number of potential ways that things could go? Since we are, through the game, collectively authoring the fiction, it can go however we like? I mean, within what we’d consider acceptable according to genre and tone and so on.




part of the problem for me may be the language you are using. I don't see this as creating a work of fiction. And I don't think we are collectively telling a story. When I run a wuxia campaign, I am not trying to create a contained wuxia story, with the plot beats, pacing, and drama you expect. I am running a game where the players can do what they want and we don't know what will happen. I will introduce dramatic elements, but it is all character driven. I would call it more genre emulation.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> If so, then the players should be just as likely to craft a solution to a problem as the GM, right? And I don’t mean by guessing the solution the GM had in mind.
> 
> The player should be able to say THIS is how I want to address this challenge. The GM should be able to then make that idea as logical as any solution can be.
> 
> And since it’s all made up, he can do that.
> 
> The more often you unilaterally say no to them, the less true this is, and the more the players are just the protagonists in the GM’s story.




Again I think the way you are framing this just doesn't capture what I think of as an adventure or a campaign, or a mystery. I never see the GM crafting a single problem for the players to solve. I don't usually have a single solution in mind. I usually see multiple ways an adventure can go and keep an open mind while the adventure is running. I am famous with my players for letting them 'beat' the adventure if they come up with an ingenious solution I hadn't thought of in the first ten minutes of play. Provided their idea makes logical sense, and things pan out, I don't care if the session lasts ten minutes or three hours. But generally in my games they are playing in a  concrete setting with concrete NPCs and a world that is external to them. They can't just say there is a sorcerer from India in the teahouse responsible for the murders, because that isn't what happened at the teahouse. But they are free to approach that investigation from any angle they want (and they are equally free to ignore the teahouse completely, go to the nearby village and look for sugar merchants to start a business empire with).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The player should be able to say THIS is how I want to address this challenge. The GM should be able to then make that idea as logical as any solution can be.
> 
> And since it’s all made up, he can do that.
> 
> The more often you unilaterally say no to them, the less true this is, and the more the players are just the protagonists in the GM’s story.




In my games the players can always say how they want to address a challenge. They can't say how that pans out, and they can't invent adventure details. But they can do whatever they want within the setting. 

I definitely don't see myself creating a story for the players. And I don't see the players creating one either. You aren't wrong if that is how you see the game and how you play it, but it just isn't how I tend to think of running an adventure. 

I understand that for you, enjoyment of play comes from contributing creatively to the setting. That is fine. I don't object to that. I even said I had fun doing it the hill folk way (which fit my style because it still felt very much like I was there to me but it also captured the intimate drama that you used to see in tv miniseries like I, Claudius). But for me, in a typical campaign, I rather enjoy the traditional line between players and GM (and I don't see it as being as limiting as you seem to find it).


----------



## Lanefan

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Invoking GM fiat as the trump card of "system doesn't matter" only serves to obfuscate the argument,



Until and unless you arrive at a design where GM fiat by and large *is* the system, or underpins a great swath of it; and while I agree its not a 'system doesn't matter' trump card it is another type of system that's halfway common out there and thus can't really be ignored.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> Until and unless you arrive at a design where GM fiat by and large *is* the system, or underpins a great swath of it; and while I agree its not a 'system doesn't matter' trump card it is another type of system that's halfway common out there and thus can't really be ignored.



Indeed, that system exists: it's called "Mother, May I?"


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> No it isn't. You can have your characters ROLE PLAY a romance. Since *no rule of D&D whatsoever* will be used in that exercise, it is fair to say that it is not really 'playing D&D' per se. I mean, you can complicate things by presuming that all this happens in the backdrop of some other D&D action, but its character partakes of D&D *as a game* in no way whatsoever.
> 
> This is why @chaochou said you could 'play it with Trivial Pursuit' because both games give you equal support, in every respect, for doing so (well, at least D&D has the concept of a 'character' as a game entity, so I'll grant it is slightly ahead here, but not much).
> 
> The test of this is that the exact same 'romantic narrative' would arise in ANY other RPG (that isn't about romance), regardless of rules, as long as it allocated narrative authority in the same way (or the participants did so anyway). You could do exactly the same by simply sitting at the table making a story with no rules at all (again assuming consistent use of narrative authority).



So what? _Role playing_ is kinda integral part of playing a roleplaying game! And that it in many situations doesn't matter terribly much which system you're using, underlines my point that rules are not terribly important.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Where did this idea of combat and exploration being the only things worth mechanizing come about? Why must social interaction be entirely freeform?



It comes mainly from people being able to speak with each other in my living room just fine, but actually physically fighting a dragon there is much harder to arrange!



PsyzhranV2 said:


> If that isn't what the game is about - if much more time is being spent on combat or exploration than social situations, I guess it's an acceptable loss. But that requires the recognition that your game isn't _about _that thing. Yes, the negative space in the D&D rules design does permit the freeform roleplaying of exploring relationships (going back to the current discussion topic), but compare that to Monsterhearts, where the entire game is _about _relationships, and has mechanical support to match. A much weightier and robust experience can be gained from the latter.



Only if you think that the rules enhance that experience. Which I don't.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, I do believe they use those charts. In all my days of playing those games we always used those charts, or else developed specific charts which accomplished the same thing.



Yet another example of the game being played differently in different communities - in our crew* those charts were/are, as far as I know, not used all that often at the best of times and (particularly the 'town' ones) more often not used at all.  Most of the time the DM just wings something if it seems appropriate, with a glaring exception being cases where a module (e.g. JG's Sword of Hope) specifically states when monsters will 'randomly' appear.

* - for sure this is true in my case, and I've a very strong hunch it's true in any local game I've either played in or heard of


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Wandering monsters are a KEY component of classic D&D play. Now, I admit we were less likely to use 'town' encounter charts, although we did use them in cases where the PCs were essentially 'wandering around looking for trouble' or otherwise engaged in something 'dungeon like'.
> 
> The problem with not using wandering monsters is, it actually causes a lot of issues for classic play. The PCs can simply loiter around all they want and thus it is easy to do things like heal and reacquire spells without even leaving the dungeon. This is exactly what these mechanics were meant to do is include these tactics in the risk/reward cycle.



True.  Then again, if an adventure is a closed environment where do the wandering monsters come from?  Never mind that often the listed wandering monsters are the sort of things the 'real' dungeon inhabitants would have long since cleared out.

Though there's situations where wandering monsters make perfect sense, I often find wandering monsters and setting consistency tend to fight each other.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, maybe you created some alternative, that's fine, but the point still stands. In any case, my greater point was that the principle of "explicit risk/reward" is an unwritten, but clearly extant, principle of classic D&D.



Agreed.  Interesting to note, though, that having just run S1 Lost Caverns (which Gygax wrote) I'll say it's a very high risk, very high reward adventure without a wandering monster in sight: he specifically notes there's no wandering monsters in the caverns.

Which is odd, because the module builds in a perfect means of having them appear (room 9, lower caverns, inbound instead of outbound); and so I chucked some in once the party started taking multi-week trips to town and back.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, and how would you use the D&D rules for that? The only parts I can see being of much use is INT will let you read/write/speak different languages, potentially (there are no rules in classic D&D for which ones you have learned however, beyond certain starting choices). Beyond that CHA obviously has some uses. You can use the reaction tables to see if your 'date' decides to stab you with a salad fork or snuggle! haha. Maybe you could make ability checks for other things, STR to impress them with your mighty thews, CON we'll skip my thoughts on that, DEX? WIS, maybe you can make a WIS check to know better than to date half-orcs? Honestly, there isn't a rule in D&D that is really going to help you. You can CALL it 'D&D' if you want, but it is going to be all just made up at the table, or cribbed from some other game. Beyond that you will have to create a process of play, procedures, etc. that work for this type of game.



Or more or less eschew rules in favour of roleplay...?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what? _Role playing_ is kinda integral part of playing a roleplaying game! And that it in many situations doesn't matter terribly much which system you're using, underlines my point that rules are not terribly important.



This appears to be defining roleplaying as acting well enough to convince/entertain Bob.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure. Something like a Diplomacy or Persuade check or some similar skill/action may require the GM to consider a lot if factors. Starting attitude, what the PC says/does, what’s previously been established in the fiction, and so on. He uses this info to calculate a DC or target number or whatever.
> 
> None of that needs to replace the roleplaying element.



Yet it far too often does.

The moment a player thinks the chance of success is better via dice than via roleplay, or the moment a player (or GM, for that matter) doesn't want to spend the time required for the roleplaying element to happen, either that replacement or a table argument is going to happen.

If those mechanics aren't present these issues never arise.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> This appears to be defining roleplaying as acting well enough to convince/entertain Bob.



Certainly you should aim to entertain everyone at the table! And you seem to think that the purpose of social encounters is to 'win' them, which is not the case.


----------



## Lanefan

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Where did this idea of combat and exploration being the only things worth mechanizing come about? Why must social interaction be entirely freeform?



Mostly, I'd guess, because while social interaction can be played out live in person at the table, combat and exploration (almost universally) cannot; and thus must be abstracted somehow.


PsyzhranV2 said:


> Having no adjudication measures for social situations beyond "the GM says so" means that A: those situations lack mechanical weight and impact, and B: players who aren't confident with certain social situations IRL can't participate effectively, just as if a person who didn't know any wilderness survival measures was asked to freeform roleplay an exploration scenario.



A - weight and impact can happen absent mechanics.
B - I see this as their opportunity to learn, and to gain that confidence.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Certainly you should aim to entertain everyone at the table! And you seem to think that the purpose of social encounters is to 'win' them, which is not the case.



Tge first is trivially true.  It's a game played for entertainment, so yes, play should be entertaining to all.

As far as "winning" social encounters, perhaps you just have meaningless social encounters where nothing is at stake, otherwise it would seem that the "win" condition is to get what you want or clise to it, no matter if you're using a formalized mechanic or if it's just  acting well enough to convince Bob.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I want to be clear I’m not advocating for boiling every social interaction down to one roll. It’s perfectly fine to play the NPCs in a way that’s appropriate to what’s been established.
> 
> What I’ve come to realize is that I don’t enjoy when there are details about the NPC that have not been established in any way and when those factors are what steers play. Because the GM is largely responsible for what I know of this NPC and then is also responsible for the NPC’s behavior and his response to the PCs’ actions.
> 
> All of this may be based on how this NPC would behave and may follow that logic perfectly. And yet for me as a player, I’m just bashing my head against this encounter, trying to find the one key that can open things up, and not even knowing what that key may be.
> 
> I hope that’s clear.



Yes it is, but I think you're asking for a degree of player knowledge that exceeds your character knowledge if you expect this info about someone you've never in-game met or heard of.


hawkeyefan said:


> If there are limited ways to deal with a situation, they need to be signposted or otherwise introduced into the fiction. It’s easy this way to punish players for not finding the “right way” to deal with the NPC or situation.
> 
> This is, I believe, what @pemerton refers to as puzzle-solving.



Same as reality: if you meet someone (say, your new boss) for the first time and don't know what makes that person tick there's always a chance you're going to rub that person the wrong way for no reason you can figure.

Both in the game and in reality, the puzzle-solving bit lies in getting to know the person.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> Or more or less eschew rules in favour of roleplay...?



This presents itself as something of a false dichotomy. The quantity of rules does not somehow produce more or less roleplay as if it was a rote factor. If you think, for example, that rules facilitating social encounters somehow curbs thespianism in games like Blades in the Dark, Dogs in the Vineyard, Monster Hearts, etc., then you are sorely mistaken. What matters is how those rules that are present facilitate a particular roleplaying game experience. You clearly of the singular mind that rules can't or don't facilitate roleplay, though hopefully you can at least sympathize (as in understanding the different psychological experiences of other human beings apart from yourself) that not everyone shares that sentiment in regards to roleplaying games. 



Lanefan said:


> Mostly, I'd guess, because while social interaction can be played out live in person at the table, combat and exploration (almost universally) cannot; and thus must be abstracted somehow.



Mostly, I'd guess, it's because the game was originally designed as a tactical skirmish game of dungeon-delving that rewarded skilled play so social mechanics received minimal, tertiary mechanical support. So the social "freeform" is less a design intention and more of an unintended by-product. 



Lanefan said:


> A - weight and impact can happen absent mechanics.
> B - I see this as their opportunity to learn, and to gain that confidence.



C - I refuse to understand or accept the validity of other forms of roleplay.



Ovinomancer said:


> This appears to be defining roleplaying as acting well enough to convince/entertain Bob.



This seems to be the only understanding of roleplaying that they are willing to entertain.  



Crimson Longinus said:


> Certainly you should aim to entertain everyone at the table! And you seem to think that the purpose of social encounters is to 'win' them, which is not the case.



Then why not roleplay your combat and exploration encounters on the basis of entertainment without mechanical support?


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> Indeed, that system exists: it's called "Mother, May I?"



Yep - and it's a fine system for thems as likes it...of which I'd be one, most of the time.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Tge first is trivially true.  It's a game played for entertainment, so yes, play should be entertaining to all.
> 
> As far as "winning" social encounters, perhaps you just have meaningless social encounters where nothing is at stake, otherwise it would seem that the "win" condition is to get what you want or clise to it, no matter if you're using a formalized mechanic or if it's just  acting well enough to convince Bob.



There sometimes might be clear goals, but often not. For people who like playing social situations, the interaction in itself is the point. And this doesn't mean that there is no weight, there can be dramatic reveals, funny moments, emotional scenes, bonding and myriad other things present in good (and bad) interpersonal drama.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> This appears to be defining roleplaying as acting well enough to convince/entertain Bob.



Yep - and I expect Bob to act well enough to convince/entertain me in return.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> There sometimes might be clear goals, but often not. For people who like playing social situations, the interaction in itself is the point. And this doesn't mean that there is no weight, there can be dramatic reveals, funny moments, emotional scenes, bonding and myriad other things present in good (and bad) interpersonal drama.



Do you believe these things are lacking in other system?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Mostly, I'd guess, it's because the game was originally designed as a tactical skirmish game of dungeon-delving that rewarded skilled play so social mechanics received minimal, tertiary mechanical support. So the social "freeform" is less a design intention and more of an unintended by-product.



Sure. So was the penicillin. 


Aldarc said:


> Then why not roleplay your combat and exploration encounters on the basis of entertainment without mechanical support?



That's a perfectly valid way to handle those too, and sometimes I have. However mentally modelling complex physical situations without external framework is far harder than doing so with a simple conversation.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Do you believe these things are lacking in other system?



Not necessarily. Merely that a system is not needed for them. But I certainly have found some systems to interfere with them. Exalted's social combat system certainly was such.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> This presents itself as something of a false dichotomy. The quantity of rules does not somehow produce more or less roleplay as if it was a rote factor. If you think, for example, that rules facilitating social encounters somehow curbs thespianism in games like Blades in the Dark, Dogs in the Vineyard, Monster Hearts, etc., then you are sorely mistaken.



I'm glad to hear that.


Aldarc said:


> What matters is how those rules that are present facilitate a particular roleplaying game experience. You clearly of the singular mind that rules can't or don't facilitate roleplay,



Based on the experience of myself and others who jumped from older systems that had few or no formalized mechanics for social interactions to newer-at-the-time systems (e.g. 3e D&D) that did, and seeing how the amount of roleplay dropped away and how an attitude of "skip all the talking, just roll the damn dice" started to take hold among some players, then yes it's a very easy connection to make.


Aldarc said:


> Mostly, I'd guess, it's because the game was originally designed as a tactical skirmish game of dungeon-delving that rewarded skilled play so social mechanics received minimal, tertiary mechanical support. So the social "freeform" is less a design intention and more of an unintended by-product.



I'm not so sure about that.  Benefit of the doubt says the social stuff got less attention because the designers realized it didn't need much, and that in-character talk at the table would suffice.  Meanwhile combat, which couldn't be acted out live at the table but was seen as a key part of the game, had to be modelled somehow and designing that model took some effort.

Exploration was kinda left to slip between the cracks, but that's another issue again. 


Aldarc said:


> This seems to be the only understanding of roleplaying that they are willing to entertain.



Er...if roleplaying is defined as playing a role - i.e. acting - which is what you're in theory doing at such times as you can match live-at-the-table action to in-game action (almost exclusively limited to social interactions in TTRPGs; some LARPs take it considerably further), then what other understanding can there be?


Aldarc said:


> Then why not roleplay your combat and exploration encounters on the basis of entertainment without mechanical support?



As I just said a post or two back, as they can't be done live at the table combat and exploration need some sort of modelling.  Game mechanics help with this.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would like to say, I'm a 'by the book' GM. When I go buy a game I run it exactly as written. I rarely make house rules (I will add homebrew material if its called for). I have found that many people ignore a lot of the details of a specific game, so I may play quite differently from what everyone else THINKS the game is. When I've talked to game designers I usually find that what I'm doing is closer to what they imagined, but not always...



"House rules", as used among RPGers, covers a wide territory.

In our 4e game, we agreed (under my leadership as GM) that the +1 to damage from Weapon Focus (? is that the right feat name) didn't apply when the weapon was used as an Implement for casting spells. This seemed like an obvious consequence of correlating the rules to the fiction. I think a year or two later the errata caught up with us and agreed. In between there were pages of debate about that feat and "weaplements" which was (in my view) ridiculous given that we're talking about RPG rules and not the tax code.

In our 4e game, the player of the Wizard/Invoker took the Sage of Ages epic destiny. That destiny has a range of abilities that - as written - work only with Arcane powers. We've always ignored that, allowing the abilities to work with all of the PC's abilities, both Arcane and Divine. There was not the least reason not to.

Those are "house rules" - one a precisification, the other an alternation - that don't make any difference to the "system" of how the game is played, but simply brought the rules for the fictional elements, in a game that is heavy on mechanically-specified elements of PC build, into conformity with what we wanted that fiction to be.

Deciding to ignore skill challenges, and treat skill checks in 4e just the same as one does in (say) RuneQuest, would be a completely different sort of house rule. It would be a fundamental change in the resolution process. The closest that we came to something like that was in the context of XP for quests - I would tend to treat quests as implicit in what the players were having their PCs do, rather than require them to be spelled out. In our particular case, that didn't seem to undermine any sense of focus or purposeful orientation in our play.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think these kind of "rules" for a creative endeavor are guidelines. They are good to help one learn craft, but eventually they are there to be questioned. The trick with breaking these rules is to justify it by doing something creative.
> 
> But with a game, it's different. Yes, RPGing is a creative endeavor, but it is also a game. It is both things.



I would add: it's a collective creative endeavour. As per what I quoted from Vincent Baker upthread, a big part of what the rules do is establish _which_ participant gets to create what, when and how.

Breaking those sorts of rules might be just as outrageous in the context of an artistic collective as among a group of RPGers!


----------



## chaochou

Aldarc said:


> Indeed, that system exists: it's called "Mother, May I?"



A system which, definitionally, is completely lacking in player agency. Who knew?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Not necessarily. Merely that a system is not needed for them. But I certainly have found some systems to interfere with them. Exalted's social combat system certainly was such.



But you do have a system.  "In Bob we trust," is absolutely a system.


----------



## pemerton

On romance in RPGs:

Rolemaster has a Seduction skill, and a table to resolve those checks on which will give a modest degree of finality of resolution; and when we played it we also had an Amiability skill (analogous to Prince Valiant's Fellowship skill, though at the time we didn't know Prince Valiant). Romance featured in our games from time-to-time, and these skills were relevant. Other skills for resolving interpersonal interaction, like Lie Detection (RM's equivalent to Insight/Sense Motive) would also come into play. There is no fully robust system for integrating these into a conflict resolution framework, though.

Burning Wheel has a Seduction skill, and unlike RM does have a fully robust conflict resolution framework. But I've not seen that particular sort of social interaction in play. Ditto for The Dying Earth.

Our Prince Valiant game has quite a bit of romance and seduction. All the PCs have become married during the course of play. Relevant skills have included Fellowship (to resolve rivalry between suitors as to who would yield to the other) and Glamourie (to try seduce someone who isn't inititally inclined to be seduced, with Presence used to oppose the check). We've also had the Incite Lust special effect used, once by me as GM on a PC (so that he has an ongoing infatuation with a NPC who is not his wife) and once by a player on a NPC (so that his wife would not just marry him for political ends, but would actually be in love with him and hence continue to govern her lands as he would wish her to in his absence).

Our Classic Traveller game has more romance than I would have anticipated going in, though not a lot. Some of it is largely in the background. Where it's in the foreground we've used the Liaison skill, with the reaction table as the resolution framework.

Our Wuthering Heights one-shot featured romantic and failed seduction. The resolution framework practically guarantees broken hearts and consequences ranging between wistful longing and violent retribution. (We got both.)

I've never done romance using Moldvay Basic or Gygax's AD&D. There is CHA as a stat but no real process for resolving interpersonal interaction - the Reaction Table would have to be adapted to that end, which isn't a huge stretch but is a slightly bigger stretch than Traveller (which is clearer up front about the range of uses of its reaction table). There are questions that would come up on in D&D that don't arise in Traveller, like whether Dispel Charm makes someone fall out of love, whether seduction attempts are to be resolved on the reaction table or via a saving throw (and from memory the Houri class in White Dwarf didn't use either of those but rather it's own subsystem), etc. This is another case where the plethora of subsystems and lack of anything like unification or integration in classic D&D would get in the way.

To the extent that romance is resolved _just_ by everyone at the table talking, I don't see that that would be very satisfying - consensus fiction can be fine in some RPG contexts but doesn't tend to make for drama.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Sure. So was the penicillin.



I don't think this is an equivalent comparison. Penicillin wasn't an unintended by-product of negative space. Penicillin was the result of scientists actively trying to isolate a historically well-recognized antibacterial agent in strands of fungal mold. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> That's a perfectly valid way to handle those too, and sometimes I have. However mentally modelling complex physical situations without external framework is far harder than doing so with a simple conversation.



I don't think it's necessarily harder. It's just we haven't adopted a system where that's the norm. So thinking out of that norm has a hasty habit of proving challenging to those deeply entrenched in it. 



Lanefan said:


> Based on the experience of myself and others who jumped from older systems that had few or no formalized mechanics for social interactions to newer-at-the-time systems (e.g. 3e D&D) that did, and seeing how the amount of roleplay dropped away and how an attitude of "skip all the talking, just roll the damn dice" started to take hold among some players, then yes it's a very easy connection to make.



This perhaps unfairly maligns social skills when part of the larger issue was the 3e skill system as a whole. Worth noting, is that large parts of the Indie Story scene were likewise responses to what they were seeing in the 3e skill system, namely mechanics first. This is one reason why the whole notion of "fiction first" is an important principle in indie games. So the idea that social mechanics = "no roleplay" or "skip all the talking" shows a lack of awareness of the larger body of conversation in the hobby. For game engines like PbtA, Fate, Cortex, FitD, etc., "fiction first" also means that the roleplaying has to come before the roll. This is largely because the roll happens when there are consequences at stake as a result of the fictional framing by the associated characters. 



Lanefan said:


> I'm not so sure about that.  Benefit of the doubt says the social stuff got less attention because the designers realized it didn't need much, and that in-character talk at the table would suffice.  Meanwhile combat, which couldn't be acted out live at the table but was seen as a key part of the game, had to be modelled somehow and designing that model took some effort.



That sounds less like "benefit of the doubt" and more like "confirmation bias" to me, but it's inconsequential. 



Lanefan said:


> Er...if roleplaying is defined as playing a role - i.e. acting - which is what you're in theory doing at such times as you can match live-at-the-table action to in-game action (almost exclusively limited to social interactions in TTRPGs; some LARPs take it considerably further), then what other understanding can there be?



You may be missing the actual thrust of discussion here: i.e., the dependency of fictional resolution and/or new fictional states on convincing/entertaining Bob the GM. Or let's put it another way. It doesn't necessarily matter how well in-character you roleplay or act when social resolution ultimately boils down to convincing Bob. In fact, all the roleplaying and acting, in this case, is nothing more than high quality lipstick on the "Mother-May-I" Pig, because Bob holds all the cards for social scene resolution. But let's not pretend that the system is anything more mechanically meaningful than "In Bob We Trust."


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> To the extent that romance is resolved _just_ by everyone at the table talking, I don't see that that would be very satisfying - consensus fiction can be fine in some RPG contexts but doesn't tend to make for drama.





If you like having social mechanics for resolving romance, that is fine. I certainly understand why some people prefer that. But I promise you, we get plenty of drama, challenge and entertainment when we don't use them for things like Romance. Look, I totally understand the other side of this debate. I also understand I am in something of a minority on this opinion. In most of the groups I was in, the majority of other players didn't mind when games had social mechanics (and we played tons of games that had them, including rolemaster----Vampire also had them, as did many other games). But for me, they just interfere with how I like social interaction in the game to work (particularly around mysteries and similar types of adventures). I also find there is a tendency for them to start to function like buttons for many players (I've seen this in groups where people go from having a conversation with a guard at the gates to saying something like "I use command to have him let us in"). Plenty of people will role-play that after the fact, informed by the role. But I don't enjoy roleplaying to watch people perform what the dice just determined. I want the players words to have impact. With Romance this is even more the case.  And to be clear here, I am not talking about 'acting'. I actually don't like acting out in a thespian style of play. I just like my words to matter when I speak in character. I have players in my games who are great actors, but I am not one of them. I just like when my characters have conversations and they feel real. 

That said, I get people like social skills, and I get not every player at the table is going to be as into these kinds of exchanges. I also get that the ship has largely sailed on this matter (once D&D introduced social skills in 3E as part of the core game, I think that pretty much clinched it for the majority of players----because D&D kind of sets the mainstream experience). So I even include skills for Command, Deception, Empathy and Persuade. That is for more than I would like, but even at my own table, people like having them. What I was able to do was come up with an approach to them that didn't interfere with my style of running social encounters (which is to roll things like command, deception and persuade only when the GM is unclear on how an NPC might react; and to have Empathy rolls simply produce the cues the character sees----i.e. things like visual signs someone is anxious for instance). 

One thing I will say, is for those who have never played an RPG that lacks rules for social interaction and things like clue finding, try it a few times and see if the experience is any different. Personally I find it is more immersive for me without those things. It can be useful to discover if the lack of such rules adds or detracts from your experience of play. I would just note that the trick to running a game without them is to encourage interaction with the setting elements.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I don't think it's necessarily harder. It's just we haven't adopted a system where that's the norm. So thinking out of that norm has a hasty habit of proving challenging to those deeply entrenched in it.




I don't know about this. If a player says I throw a ball over the wall, and it is a high wall, it is very hard for me to gauge whether a character that strong can do so off the top of my head. On the other hand, if a player character accuses an NPC of having an affair with his wife, I can pretty quickly figure out in my head how that is likely to go down with that particular NPC. Maybe I am just less math and physics oriented. On the other hand, I have a lot of experience with combat sports, and I would find it incredibly difficult to handle combat the way I handle social interaction. Certainly if I could it would be great because who wouldn't want to have a game where the player can say exactly what they do and you respond in real time telling them what happens and how the NPC reacts. I think there, contention is more likely to arise (I know how my NPC will react when the player asks him to them his gold, and the players understand that I know that, but do I know if he can block the PC's right cross this specific time? I find that more complicated and think it is useful to have combat mechanics). That said I don't need particularly robust combat mechanics. The lighter the better in my opinion (I don't like combat to take more than 5-10 minutes if possible----2 minutes would be better frankly)


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> if you meet someone (say, your new boss) for the first time and don't know what makes that person tick there's always a chance you're going to rub that person the wrong way for no reason you can figure.
> 
> Both in the game and in reality, the puzzle-solving bit lies in getting to know the person.



In the game context, I prefer to use the mechanical resolution framework to find out if the PC gets what the player wants for him/her; and then establish the appropriate narration.

One reason for this is @hawkeyefan's from upthread: it avoids the frustration of RPGing-as-puzzle-solving.

Another is that I find it more entertaining and enjoyable: rather than deciding in advance what the outcome will be of such-and-such an approach to a NPC will be, we find out in play. It produces a wide range of unexpected consequences.

An example: in our Classic Traveller game the PC von Jerrel seduced the NPC Imperial Navy Commander Lady Askol, ranking officer of the naval base on the world of Novus. This took place during the course of a week of wining-and-dining which another PC (Vincenzo von Hallucida) was financing, so as to allow the PCs more time before an alien starship they were exploring, which had mysteriously appeared in orbit about Novus, was interdicted by the Navy. The actual reduction was resolved via a roll on the Reaction Table, with +1 for von Jerrel's Liaison-1. The player rolled double 6 - in the system a roll of 12 is unmodified and produce a _genuinely and/or strongly friendly result_. As the player narrated it, when von Jerrel and Lady Askol kissed it was the most perfect kiss the latter had experienced, and she swooned in his arms.

Thus she willingly joined him when he invited her to accompany him onto the alien vessel. And then was onboard when it jumped out of the system to another world, where the PCs were trying to locate the remnants of the ancient alien civilisation that had built it. During that exploration, von Jerrel was accused by another NPC - Toru von Taxiwan - of using psionics, which is a serious matter in the Imperium. When Lady Askol asked him whether the accusation was true (which it was), lamenting that if it was true then she would have to send him back to his homeworld of Ashar (this last itself being the result of a roll on the reaction-to-use-of-psionics table, modified by +1 for his Liasion-1 and +2 as a GM-stipulated modifier to reflect her affection for him) he denied it. The previous reaction roll stood (ie the natural 12 signifiying _genuine and/or strong friendship_), and so Lady Askol believed his denial. The upshot is that Lady Askol has declared a provisional "first contact" order in respect of the alien site, thus asserting Imperial authority to displace that of von Taxiwan, and placing von Jerrel in command as Imperial Overseer while she returns to her naval base on Novus to take further steps.

This romance has involved two checks so far: the initial seduction attempt, and the reaction-to-the-use-of-psionics check. But the mechanical outcomes have had ongoing effects. The strongly successful seduction result has underpinned Lady Askol accompanying von Jerrel onto the alien vessel, tolerating being unexpectedly taken to another world in it, and then believing his lie and acting on it. And the result of the psionic reaction roll framed the player's choice to have his PC lie to her, which means we now have a situation where von Jerrel's romance with Lady Askol rests on a fundamental deception.

These events have played out over four sessions. They haven't been the totality of those sessions by any means, although the problem with the psionics was very prominent in the final hour or so of our most recent session. When I read Vincent Baker talking about _playing to find out what happens_, or read Paul Czege saying that he likes to f_rame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player _and to _keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this_, I think that what I've described in this post is an example of just that. I don't think it's as dramatic (either literarily or emotionally) as the sort of play they are aiming for - my group is solidly low-to-middle-brow melodrama at best - but in the process and the logic of play I think it is exactly what they're talking about.

I think the game would be much more boring for both me and the players if I had a description or a script for Lady Askol that dictated, in advance of the actual play and the actual action declarations, what she is like and how she will respond to things. Whatever that had been, I can't envisage how it would have ended up with von Jerrel stringing her along with a lie that had him appointed Imperial Overseer of a potential first contact site!


EDIT:


Lanefan said:


> Benefit of the doubt says the social stuff got less attention because the designers realized it didn't need much, and that in-character talk at the table would suffice.



That's not an accurate description of either Moldvay Basic or AD&D. Both feature a reaction roll table, to be modified by CHA. In the example of play in Moldvay Basic we see the table in use, with the referee applying a contextual modification (but _not _a stipulated outcome) to reflect the impact of the player's action declarations.

What is presented there is not wildly different from how my group does it in Traveller, except we have the benefit of a coherent set of subsystems rather than the hard-to-integrate mish-mash that is Classic D&D. (As I posted upthread it's fine for first impressions but it's not clear how to extend it into something like romance.)


----------



## prabe

Lanefan said:


> Based on the experience of myself and others who jumped from older systems that had few or no formalized mechanics for social interactions to newer-at-the-time systems (e.g. 3e D&D) that did, and seeing how the amount of roleplay dropped away and how an attitude of "skip all the talking, just roll the damn dice" started to take hold among some players, then yes it's a very easy connection to make.



So, I'm not going to argue that your experience is somehow false, but I've found there are at least two advantages to having social skills available for PCs. The first is that if there's a situation where between at the table and in the fiction it's clear that the knowledge-states are wildly different (which I know you hate ... but it's eminently plausible, for example, for the DM to know the PC is lying when the NPC should have no idea) it serves as a way to resolve things relatively fairly. The second is that it lets players without much in the way of social skills play a character who has them, and it doesn't bork the party. A probable third is that if one is playing a character who knows much about the world, that character will have heard of cultures the player hasn't (because this player at least doesn't read world books for setting I'm a player in) and should be capable of not committing some sort of lethal faux pas--and rolling seems at least as fair as DM Fiat.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Exploration was kinda left to slip between the cracks, but that's another issue again.



This is an odd thing to say. Classic D&D is chock-full of exploration-focused sub-systems:

* Map-and-key on the GM side; principles of narration of what the PCs can see/sense on the GM side; mapping practices on the player side;

* Rules for time-keeping by the GM based on a systematic set of rules for equating PC actions taken to "turns" spent, which feed into the wandering monster system;

* Rules around light sources, their durations, their extent of visiblity, etc - this also interacts with the surprise rules;

* In AD&D (not Moldvay Basic and I suspect not OD&D) rules for the noise made by armour and footwear, which interacts with the surprise rules;

* rules for listening at, and opening, doors (including locked doors - in AD&D this also includes gates, portculli and the like).

* rules for finding secret doors, traps and other "tricks" or "specials" that are part of the dungeon environment.


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## pemerton

Combat can be _narrated_ at the table just as seduction can, and just as (say) searching a room can be: _I thrust at the Orc's shoulder_; _I dodge under the dragon's belly so I can stab straight up_; _I wait for the gnoll to rush past me to the magic-user so I can stab it in the rear_; etc.

The reason Classic D&D doesn't use this sort of approach but instead single-figure-per-unit wargame rules is because the game evolved out of a set of wargame rules which had some provision for dealing with single-figure-units.


----------



## pemerton

The idea that it is easy to predict how a given person would respond to a given provocation is in my view not terribly plausible, once the response-provoking behaviour gets beyond something banal like a simple greeting or extended hand in a typical social situation where both participants are familiar with the salient cultural norms.

If it was so easily predictable, then the real world would have fewer fights, less appeals-court litigation - because we would all know in advance how the judges would decide - and more successful diplomacy.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> To the extent that romance is resolved _just_ by everyone at the table talking, I don't see that that would be very satisfying - consensus fiction can be fine in some RPG contexts but doesn't tend to make for drama.



Have you ever been in a LARP?


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> The idea that it is easy to predict how a given person would respond to a given provocation is in my view not terribly plausible, once the response-provoking behaviour gets beyond something banal like a simple greeting or extended hand in a typical social situation where both participants are familiar with the salient cultural norms.
> 
> If it was so easily predictable, then the real world would have fewer fights, less appeals-court litigation - because we would all know in advance how the judges would decide - and more successful diplomacy.




It is much easier to predict how a particular social scenario might go down, than to predict the result of a roulette wheel spin or a predict when whether a drive is going to crash on a given day. Further, the GM has access to information about the NPCs we don't have about people in diplomatic situations. He or she knows the motivations, background, private thoughts of the NPCs and that helps form a basis on adjudicating what a reaction will be. True I can't predict in real life how you pemerton will react if someone asks you to spy on behalf of the British Government. But the more I know about you, the easier that prediction becomes. And you certainly know yourself how you might react (and for all intents and purposes the GM is the NPC). So I just think this is leagues easier for me to run than off the cuff in a free form way, than it would be for me to run a car chase or combat. If this isn't how you approach play or if this isn't your experience, that is fine. But I really don't understand the aggressive dismissal of other peoples experience on this.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Combat can be _narrated_ at the table just as seduction can, and just as (say) searching a room can be: _I thrust at the Orc's shoulder_; _I dodge under the dragon's belly so I can stab straight up_; _I wait for the gnoll to rush past me to the magic-user so I can stab it in the rear_; etc.




Yes but it is harder to for most people to do the former. How do I the GM know your thrust hit the orcs shoulder? In real life I don't know that a punch is going to land or not. But the GM knows what is in the room and where. If the players search a room, it is easy for the GM to report what is there. If it is hard to find, a roll may be called for, but even without a roll that is easily handled by asking "where in the room do you search?" (if they look in the desk and the desk contains Y, they would find Y). I just see a massive difference here in terms of my ability to feel out how the players are interacting with the room versus feeling out whether that punch would land.


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> The idea that it is easy to predict how a given person would respond to a given provocation is in my view not terribly plausible, once the response-provoking behaviour gets beyond something banal like a simple greeting or extended hand in a typical social situation where both participants are familiar with the salient cultural norms.
> 
> If it was so easily predictable, then the real world would have fewer fights, less appeals-court litigation - because we would all know in advance how the judges would decide - and more successful diplomacy.



I think that this idea that one can predict or read behavior also overlooks the difficulties that some people intrinsically have with reading other people and social situations. One reason why one of my players has expressed a dislike of freeform roleplay without mechanics is because they are on the autism spectrum. So social encounters are not always easy or enjoyable for them even though they otherwise enjoy roleplaying in-character. They told me that resolution mechanics can help them "make better sense" of the social situation. I think the idea that this can be overcome with confidence or practice kinda neglects that it can also force players into uncomfortable modes of play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Yet another example of the game being played differently in different communities - in our crew* those charts were/are, as far as I know, not used all that often at the best of times and (particularly the 'town' ones) more often not used at all.  Most of the time the DM just wings something if it seems appropriate, with a glaring exception being cases where a module (e.g. JG's Sword of Hope) specifically states when monsters will 'randomly' appear.
> 
> * - for sure this is true in my case, and I've a very strong hunch it's true in any local game I've either played in or heard of
> 
> True.  Then again, if an adventure is a closed environment where do the wandering monsters come from?  Never mind that often the listed wandering monsters are the sort of things the 'real' dungeon inhabitants would have long since cleared out.
> 
> Though there's situations where wandering monsters make perfect sense, I often find wandering monsters and setting consistency tend to fight each other.
> 
> Agreed.  Interesting to note, though, that having just run S1 Lost Caverns (which Gygax wrote) I'll say it's a very high risk, very high reward adventure without a wandering monster in sight: he specifically notes there's no wandering monsters in the caverns.
> 
> Which is odd, because the module builds in a perfect means of having them appear (room 9, lower caverns, inbound instead of outbound); and so I chucked some in once the party started taking multi-week trips to town and back.
> 
> Or more or less eschew rules in favour of roleplay...?



Of course you can eschew rules and 'just roleplay', and of course you can eschew rules and figure out some sort of substitute for wandering monsters (or just live with the resulting caster supremacy since everyone will play the old "unload the big guns at every encounter and then just rest" game). It is amusing to note that in the 40 years since 1e was published NO set of D&D rules has YET found another way to solve that problem, and 5e is still suffering with it! I do take your point that wandering monsters feels like a sort of hack, but yet, again, since nobody is willing to mess with casters to make them weaker, you can't just say "well, that's not a significant part of the game, just leave it broken!". I mean, you CAN, but it isn't satisfactory to a LOT of people! 

So, really what it all amounts to seems to be that some of us want to play a game which WORKS and provides relevant functionality out of the box. I'm perfectly fine with coloring outside the lines of any given game when people want to do that. If players in a DW game want to spend their 'carouse' move in irrelevant banter or seducing the local townswomen or whatever, that's fine. We don't really need to play with dice or whatever, but we COULD. I mean, 'Carouse' has a check, and one of the possible results is "you get into trouble". Nothing is worse trouble than girls! (sorry ladies, you may read the gender reversed version of this, it is equally true). 

I mean, I can tell stories. I don't need an RPG for that. What @Crimson Longinus is suggesting is perfectly feasible and to an extent happens in every game, but it is not relevant to the point I was making, which was that principles of a game, and its agenda (maybe that falls under principles too, not sure) are an integral part of the game. Just because you can 'do other stuff at the table' doesn't really change that. Likewise with Wandering Monsters. Just because some people, even a lot of people, ignore it and live with the inevitable (and well-known) fallout doesn't undermine the point that wandering monsters are part of a set of rules that support core principles of classic D&D. XP for GP does that too, and this is why its removal from 2e was such a key indicator that 2e is really a whole different non-classic D&D (despite sharing a lot of mechanics with 1e).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I think that this idea that one can predict or read behavior also overlooks the difficulties that some people intrinsically have with reading other people and social situations. One reason why one of my players has expressed a dislike of freeform roleplay without mechanics is because they are on the autism spectrum. So social encounters are not always easy or enjoyable for them even though they otherwise enjoy roleplaying in-character. They told me that resolution mechanics can help them "make better sense" of the social situation. I think the idea that this can be overcome with confidence or practice kinda neglects that it can also force players into uncomfortable modes of play.




free form isn’t a green light to be cruel. But this attitude can also be extremely limiting. One of the best free form RPers, quite possibly, in my group is on the spectrum. If someone does have difficulty and it makes the game hard or not fun for them, I am happy to work with them. But having a system any less likely to produce problems. A person with a learning disability for example could have a harder time with free form RP than with a system involving mechanics


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I think that this idea that one can predict or read behavior also overlooks the difficulties that some people intrinsically have with reading other people and social situations. One reason why one of my players has expressed a dislike of freeform roleplay without mechanics is because they are on the autism spectrum. So social encounters are not always easy or enjoyable for them even though they otherwise enjoy roleplaying in-character. They told me that resolution mechanics can help them "make better sense" of the social situation. I think the idea that this can be overcome with confidence or practice kinda neglects that it can also force players into uncomfortable modes of play.




free form isn’t a green light to be cruel. But this attitude can also be extremely limiting. One of the best free form RPers, quite possibly, in my group is on the spectrum. If someone does have difficulty and it makes the game hard or not fun for them, I am happy to work with them. But having a system any less likely to produce problems. A person with a learning disability for example could have a harder time with free form RP than with a system involving mechanics


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## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Yet it far too often does.
> 
> The moment a player thinks the chance of success is better via dice than via roleplay, or the moment a player (or GM, for that matter) doesn't want to spend the time required for the roleplaying element to happen, either that replacement or a table argument is going to happen.
> 
> If those mechanics aren't present these issues never arise.



But again, ALL of this discussion is predicated on rules that define binary success and failure of the action described by the player.

If the rules instead describe the outcome of the INTENT of what the player is trying to have the PC accomplish, then the problem largely goes away! Instead of 'looking in the gazebo for the clues' and either finding them or not finding them (now what?) the player establishes that his intent is to perform the appropriate investigations in this area in order to achieve a crime solution (or at least advance the investigation). Then they would describe the things that they do, like 'search the gazebo'. If the intent is achieved, then the investigation advances. If the GM and the player want to 'noodle an answer' then we need descriptions of specific clues, and the deciphering and deciding where to go next is then left to the player. 
Failure of intent could indicate finding a red herring, or some entirely other event (being kidnapped, meeting the Femme Fatale, etc.). 

I really am not a genius at this genre, so I would personally go read something like 'Gumshoe' and see how they did it, but this seems like a viable approach that would work with basically the mechanics of most story games to one degree or another.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> "House rules", as used among RPGers, covers a wide territory.
> 
> In our 4e game, we agreed (under my leadership as GM) that the +1 to damage from Weapon Focus (? is that the right feat name) didn't apply when the weapon was used as an Implement for casting spells. This seemed like an obvious consequence of correlating the rules to the fiction. I think a year or two later the errata caught up with us and agreed. In between there were pages of debate about that feat and "weaplements" which was (in my view) ridiculous given that we're talking about RPG rules and not the tax code.
> 
> In our 4e game, the player of the Wizard/Invoker took the Sage of Ages epic destiny. That destiny has a range of abilities that - as written - work only with Arcane powers. We've always ignored that, allowing the abilities to work with all of the PC's abilities, both Arcane and Divine. There was not the least reason not to.
> 
> Those are "house rules" - one a precisification, the other an alternation - that don't make any difference to the "system" of how the game is played, but simply brought the rules for the fictional elements, in a game that is heavy on mechanically-specified elements of PC build, into conformity with what we wanted that fiction to be.
> 
> Deciding to ignore skill challenges, and treat skill checks in 4e just the same as one does in (say) RuneQuest, would be a completely different sort of house rule. It would be a fundamental change in the resolution process. The closest that we came to something like that was in the context of XP for quests - I would tend to treat quests as implicit in what the players were having their PCs do, rather than require them to be spelled out. In our particular case, that didn't seem to undermine any sense of focus or purposeful orientation in our play.



This sounds about right. I think we had a number of similar interpretations. There are a lot of 'flavor rules' in 4e as well, like Swordmages MUST use a sword. Why? We had one that used an Axe, this was perfectly fine. I guess we could have used the sword rules and just described it fictionally as an Axe too, some people did stuff like that. 
We also basically ignored XP entirely. I used it as an encounter budget, but we didn't bother to add it up and use it for leveling. We just leveled up each PC when they reached a dramatically appropriate moment (or sometimes in downtime when the character seemed to be falling behind). I guess we did something like you did with Quests. We never really had to think about explicitly spelling them out, players had solid backstories and a pretty good agenda in most campaigns.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I really am not a genius at this genre, so I would personally go read something like 'Gumshoe' and see how they did it, but this seems like a viable approach that would work with basically the mechanics of most story games to one degree or another.




Gumshoe's big thing is you roll some skills and you don't roll others (there is more to the game than that but that is one of the key elements related to investigative rules). It basically says, and this a simplification, that you don't roll if you have a clue finding skill, you just get the clue (the mystery fun is solving  the puzzle by putting the clues together). It is intended to avoid the problem of what happens if the players miss the clue and that causes the investigation to come crashing to a halt. It is a good system. I ran an investigative murder mystery built around Iron Maiden album covers as the theme. We had a lot of fun. For players where the finding of the clues is the point, it may be less fun. Depends on the group. Laws is generally quite good in my opinion. Even if I prefer a different approach sometimes, I always find his games enjoyable.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> To the extent that romance is resolved _just_ by everyone at the table talking, I don't see that that would be very satisfying - consensus fiction can be fine in some RPG contexts but doesn't tend to make for drama.



And this is a real point, either you violate the Czege Principle, or what, you have to look to the GM to decide everything by fiat? I'm not seeing that as a really satisfactory process... I guess you could assign another player to play the NPC (or maybe this is 'PvP' to start with, it could be). But then in the later case the principle is still violated, and in the former the assigned player doesn't really have any clear motive not to just give the other player whatever they want, outside of sheer perversity! Either way, it doesn't seem like there is a very good set of incentives there. Drama is certainly happenstance at best.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> It is much easier to predict how a particular social scenario might go down, than to predict the result of a roulette wheel spin or a predict when whether a drive is going to crash on a given day. Further, the GM has access to information about the NPCs we don't have about people in diplomatic situations. He or she knows the motivations, background, private thoughts of the NPCs and that helps form a basis on adjudicating what a reaction will be. True I can't predict in real life how you pemerton will react if someone asks you to spy on behalf of the British Government. But the more I know about you, the easier that prediction becomes. And you certainly know yourself how you might react (and for all intents and purposes the GM is the NPC). So I just think this is leagues easier for me to run than off the cuff in a free form way, than it would be for me to run a car chase or combat. If this isn't how you approach play or if this isn't your experience, that is fine. But I really don't understand the aggressive dismissal of other peoples experience on this.



I think the fact that all of human society is built on top of fairly circumscribed roles and rules of behavior belies this. Certainly we are not terribly incapable of predicting the behavior of another individual (or ourselves) within a relatively well-understood context which is covered by these roles and rules. However, having been once or twice thrust into a situation that was not really covered by those, I will tell you that you are going to learn REALLY FAST how little you know about how people may react, or what sort of range of reactions are actually possible! People are complex, fickle, subject to a lot of biases and preconceptions, and not at all easy to predict. As soon as you get into behaviors involving more than one or two people almost all bets are off. I don't want to bring current affairs into a discussion here (rule of behavior) but surely nobody would have predicted what is happening in the world today, or the behavior of many public figures, even a few months ago. 

RPGs generally involve examinations of what people do in UNUSUAL situations. You can certain RP and produce 'something', but anyone who thinks they can RP complex social situations and that the results will be 'true to life' (beyond perhaps being mildly plausible) is probably entirely wrong. Given that (N)PCs are mere fictional characters, all bets are off really! I'm not at all against RP, but even D&D's reaction table is rarely all that implausible!


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what? _Role playing_ is kinda integral part of playing a roleplaying game! And that it in many situations doesn't matter terribly much which system you're using, underlines my point that rules are not terribly important.





I just have to note that unless you define "role playing" really broadly, token play seems to disagree with this assessment, and while perhaps not as common as it used to be, and one time it was relatively common.


----------



## FrogReaver

What many of us like is a playstyle where the only fictional thing we have direct control over is our character.  We then indirectly affect the rest of the fiction via that character.  This is the kind of player agency we prefer.

Those that dislike this traditional RPG playstyle have taken the term player agency and placed upon it a meaning incompatible with this playstyle. It now means direct control over the fiction - not just of your character - and so now they have accomplished describing traditional RPG mechanics as producing less “player agency” - which is most definitely a derogatory descriptor no matter how much they claim it is not.

I say we take back the term player agency so that it refers to what it has always referred to in traditional RPGs. A player’s agency over their character - which many of their touted “agency enhancing mechanics” actually get in the way of.


----------



## Campbell

I think the fact that a fair number of folks have visceral reactions to the social mechanics in games like Monsterhearts or Exalted Second Edition does not suggest that system does not matter. I think it suggests that it matters a phenomenal amount and they prefer their personal encultured systems.

I personally think it is fairly difficult to play out social situations in a way where we give up our social context and power structures at the table and substitute what's going on in the fiction. The right tools can help us embody our characters more fully because they help us feel the weight of our character's social reality. Help us to see Thurgon, Lord of the Iron Tower rather than @pemerton.

As someone who has participated in a fair number of LARPs this an even bigger deal there. Personal relationships often color these dynamics in ways that take away from the experience.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> What many of us like is a playstyle where the only fictional thing we have direct control over is our character.  We then indirectly affect the rest of the fiction via that character.  This is the kind of player agency we prefer.



No one is trying to stop you from having those preferences, and considering the hegemony this approach over gaming, it's not exactly being threatened here. 



FrogReaver said:


> Those that dislike this traditional RPG playstyle have taken the term player agency and placed upon it a meaning incompatible with this playstyle. It now means direct control over the fiction - not just of your character - and so now they have accomplished describing traditional RPG mechanics as producing less “player agency” - which is most definitely a derogatory descriptor no matter how much they claim it is not.
> 
> I say we take back the term player agency so that it refers to what it has always referred to in traditional RPGs. A player’s agency over their character - which many of their touted “agency enhancing mechanics” actually get in the way of.



This seems needlessly hostile, FrogReaver. I don't see what's wrong with simply acknowledging that one prefers a more restricted or particularized form of player agency. Why "go to war" about this issue? It makes you sound like you are scared about the mere existence of other games or preferences, which is absolutely silly.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So a lot of discussion to catch up on. @Bedrockgames I'll try and lump a few comments together in a way that makes sense. 



Bedrockgames said:


> This is not at all how I would describe it. The GM thinks of a murder that happened and all the people and places involved. figures out the backstory of that murder, what happened during the murder, and so forth. In answering these questions, the GM will come up with an initial list of things like what clues may be found where, but the GM still needs to weigh anything the party proposes against the mystery he or she has established (for example they may ask was there a groundskeeper on the premises that night and might he have heard anything). That is a detail the GM might not have thought of, but will need to decide (and my method for deciding it might be something like, is this the sort of place that would have a grounskeeper and what are the odds he was there at the time of the murder). Or the players may come up with a way to find a clue the GM had never considered, but it could be a method that would certainly reveal something based on what the GM has already established (for instance a GM who hasn't considered something simple like the phone records, and the players get the idea of coming through them). And in terms of solutions it is the same. I once had players surprise me by putting out an APB during  an investigation to bring in their potential suspects. It was an obvious thing, but not something I had considered during my prep.
> 
> Describing this sort of thing as a single problem with a single solution seems very reductive (and a bit of a straw man)




I think this is fine if you're allowing that level of player input and not just shutting it down because it doesn't match the acceptable routes you've determined ahead of time. 

Honestly, mysteries are really tricky, I think. In my opinion, it's really hard for the GM to not take a very strong hand in things. Which may be fine.....I've played in mystery type games and had fun.



Bedrockgames said:


> That would take away agency because it makes my attempts to piece together clues rather pointless and not that meaningful. The movie clue doesn't really allow you to solve the mystery because it had like three optional outcomes that were effectively random. A major point of the mystery genre, even if you are just reading a mystery novel, is to solve the mystery as the reader. Clue didn't really allow me to solve the mystery because it never really decided who killed Mr. Body (it decided there were three possibilities and picked on depending on what night you went to the movie)----I realize once it was on video they reworked those into a sequence, but in the theaters, you got one ending. I have nothing against clue, it is a great movie, and I think that was an innovative twist that made the viewing experience a joy. But it isn't how I would structure a mystery adventure if my aim is for the players to be the ones solving the mystery.




The movie clue allows you to craft three different endings (and maybe even more, who knows?) based on the information presented in the movie. There's no reason that if that was a RPG that the players couldn't conceivable come up with one of the proposed solutions. If it's feasible and doesn't conflict what's been established, then why would it not be acceptable? 

Now, I'm not saying that it's wrong to run it with a set culprit in mind. Just that if you do, you lose that flexibility, no?



Bedrockgames said:


> Again I think the way you are framing this just doesn't capture what I think of as an adventure or a campaign, or a mystery. I never see the GM crafting a single problem for the players to solve. I don't usually have a single solution in mind. I usually see multiple ways an adventure can go and keep an open mind while the adventure is running. I am famous with my players for letting them 'beat' the adventure if they come up with an ingenious solution I hadn't thought of in the first ten minutes of play. Provided their idea makes logical sense, and things pan out, I don't care if the session lasts ten minutes or three hours. But generally in my games they are playing in a  concrete setting with concrete NPCs and a world that is external to them. They can't just say there is a sorcerer from India in the teahouse responsible for the murders, because that isn't what happened at the teahouse. But they are free to approach that investigation from any angle they want (and they are equally free to ignore the teahouse completely, go to the nearby village and look for sugar merchants to start a business empire with).




This statement doesn't really jibe with your comment above about lacking a specific answer rendering things pointless and not that meaningful. 

The solution is "the butler did it"; if that's the only end state to the scenario, then that's a limit. Again, this is kind of an inherent problem with a mystery as a scenario. Something that isn't a mystery isn't as locked in to having one solution, and therefore could be open to multiple means of resolution.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> No one is trying to stop you from having those preferences, and considering the hegemony this approach over gaming, it's not exactly being threatened here.



Whether intentional or not the very nature of the chosen language being advocated for to compare and contrast my playstyle with others is doing that very thing.  It is diminishing my chosen style while exalting those other styles I dislike.



Aldarc said:


> This seems needlessly hostile, FrogReaver. I don't see what's wrong with simply acknowledging that one prefers a more restricted or particularized form of player agency. Why "go to war" about this issue? It makes you sound like you are scared about the mere existence of other games or preferences, which is absolutely silly.



This is not an okay comment if you expect to have an actual discussion.  Calling others hostile or scared or wanting to "go to war" is not okay.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> That is fine. That is your taste. And it is good if you know what you like. But I can't stand this personally. I like for there to be details about the NPCs, that are real details, that I don't know, but the GM does, and that guide the NPCs behavior and actions. That to me feels like a much more real interaction with a living character. Obviously there shouldn't be a total cloud around these details. I should have ways of discerning some of them (like if the NPC is motivated by the death of his wife, and in conversation that naturally comes up). But I am fine not knowing things about an NPC that my character doesn't know.




My issue here is not that there may be hidden details of a NPC.....that's fine, in and of itself. My issue is when that is the case, but there is no means for me to learn those details, and then the knowledge of those details would be key to resolution. It's kind of a catch 22, right? 

In my experience, a GM far too often holds fidelity to these pre-established facts as too high of a play priority.



Bedrockgames said:


> Again, this is fair if it is your preference. But I will say one of the reasons I think it is so important for GMs to understand their NPCs motivations, relationships and desires, is because it reduces the likelihood of there being one magic thing to say to that character. Also NPCs shouldn't act like living obstacles, they should act like people. Real people rarely, except on forums like this , behave in a way that makes you feel you are smashing your head against the wall to get answers. Obviously this very much depends on the specifics surrounding the adventure and the interaction, but I never go into an encounter with NPCs thinking "they need to say this one thing". I try to be open minded when I run my NPCs and that open-mindedness is aided by knowing what my NPCs want.




Sure, that's all fine. Again, my dissatisfaction in this area is when this is all left up to the GM and I as a player cannot act on it without the GM basically deciding "okay, that seems like a reasonable approach". If actions such as Intimidation and Persuasion and Diplomacy and Bluffing are in play, then I'd like to be able to use one or all of those in some manner that I as a player can understand.

Because ultimately, the GM's judgment isn't something I can predict. And I know your view is that "well in real life you wouldn't be able to know what another person is thinking" and yes, that's true. But in real life, I'd likely be able to bring a lot more resources to bear other than what a GM tells me. 

The player's understanding of the world relies on what the GM can share. That is, by nature, going to be incomplete. For me, rules and play processes can help bridge that gap. 




Bedrockgames said:


> part of the problem for me may be the language you are using. I don't see this as creating a work of fiction. And I don't think we are collectively telling a story. When I run a wuxia campaign, I am not trying to create a contained wuxia story, with the plot beats, pacing, and drama you expect. I am running a game where the players can do what they want and we don't know what will happen. I will introduce dramatic elements, but it is all character driven. I would call it more genre emulation.




I use the term fiction when talking about this because that's what the player and GM are collectively doing.....they're pretending. The world of the game is a fiction. I don't like to use terms like "the setting" or "the adventure" or "the story" because I feel those terms are actually much less clear. I'm not talking about the craft of storytelling or dramatic needs of story or any of that. The events of the game are collectively a fiction.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I use the term fiction when talking about this because that's what the player and GM are collectively doing.....they're pretending. The world of the game is a fiction. I don't like to use terms like "the setting" or "the adventure" or "the story" because I feel those terms are actually much less clear. I'm not talking about the craft of storytelling or dramatic needs of story or any of that. The events of the game are collectively a fiction.




The problem I have with fiction is people use it to equivocate all the time (it happens regularly in these enworld threads). So I just can't embrace that term in this conversation. It always seems to be used to promote one playstyle (personally I have nothing against the term itself, it is just in the contexts of these discussions)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> My issue here is not that there may be hidden details of a NPC.....that's fine, in and of itself. My issue is when that is the case, but there is no means for me to learn those details, and then the knowledge of those details would be key to resolution. It's kind of a catch 22, right?
> 
> In my experience, a GM far too often holds fidelity to these pre-established facts as too high of a play priority.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure, that's all fine. Again, my dissatisfaction in this area is when this is all left up to the GM and I as a player cannot act on it without the GM basically deciding "okay, that seems like a reasonable approach". If actions such as Intimidation and Persuasion and Diplomacy and Bluffing are in play, then I'd like to be able to use one or all of those in some manner that I as a player can understand.
> 
> Because ultimately, the GM's judgment isn't something I can predict. And I know your view is that "well in real life you wouldn't be able to know what another person is thinking" and yes, that's true. But in real life, I'd likely be able to bring a lot more resources to bear other than what a GM tells me.
> 
> The player's understanding of the world relies on what the GM can share. That is, by nature, going to be incomplete. For me, rules and play processes can help bridge that gap.




This is all fine. But the point is we both want very different things and have much different expectations at that able. I think we have also probably have different attitudes towards games and allowing a person to act as a referee. That is all fine again. I don't begrudge your style. All I can do is mine has worked well for me (and I also have no problem venturing into other styles of play from time to time).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> But for me, in a typical campaign, I rather enjoy the traditional line between players and GM (and I don't see it as being as limiting as you seem to find it).




It's not limiting in enjoyment. It's limiting in player agency. That's all my point is. Is it without player agency? No. Does it have less than a game that give players more ability to influence the direction and outcome of the fiction? Yes. 

And I'll reiterate that is fine. What amount of agency one enjoys is a matter of preference. You seem to think others are making value judgments about agency beyond our preference, but I don't think so. I think it's more that you don't want to acknowledge that your style allows for less agency than other styles may.



Lanefan said:


> Yet it far too often does.
> 
> The moment a player thinks the chance of success is better via dice than via roleplay, or the moment a player (or GM, for that matter) doesn't want to spend the time required for the roleplaying element to happen, either that replacement or a table argument is going to happen.
> 
> If those mechanics aren't present these issues never arise.




How can a player make such a comparison to knw the chance of success is better if they went with the dice or just continued to role play a scene? How is the "required time" for a scene determined? Why would a table argument occur? 

The issues never arising is not at all true......if I was playing in that game, the very lack of established rules or processes would be an issue for me.



Lanefan said:


> Yes it is, but I think you're asking for a degree of player knowledge that exceeds your character knowledge if you expect this info about someone you've never in-game met or heard of.
> 
> Same as reality: if you meet someone (say, your new boss) for the first time and don't know what makes that person tick there's always a chance you're going to rub that person the wrong way for no reason you can figure.
> 
> Both in the game and in reality, the puzzle-solving bit lies in getting to know the person.




No, it's not the same. 

In real life, I don't need someone else to present the information about my new boss to me. There isn't some imperfect filter between me and the real world that I have to reference in order to be able to figure things out.

In real life, my new boss may have every reason to hate me. All logic may say "this guy is awful and should probably be fired"....and yet, maybe I can click with him in some unexpected way. Maybe, despite logic (GM fiat), my boss turns out to like me (a successful Charisma roll).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Whether intentional or not the very nature of the chosen language being advocated for to compare and contrast my playstyle with others is doing that very thing.  It is diminishing my chosen style while exalting those other styles I dislike.
> 
> 
> This is not an okay comment if you expect to have an actual discussion.  Calling others hostile or scared or wanting to "go to war" is not okay.



When you accuse people of redefining terminology and 'seizing control' of something you implicitly declare to be 'yours' in essence (how else can seize control be interpreted) and then call it 'inherently derogatory', you are literally accusing those people of violating some 'right' you have and telling them to shut up, in no uncertain terms.

You may not have INTENDED it that way. We're all just having a friendly conversation here, but it sure was a pretty easy reading. 

While I won't sit here and pretend I don't think that some level of 'narrative tools' and greater player participation in a game at multiple levels is not an advance over early 70's vintage techniques, nobody is claiming you can't play how you want. Nobody is even claiming that those techniques aren't perfectly OK if you want to run the type of game they were designed to run. I won't sit here and be told however that I cannot say that other techniques won't work better for most other types of play simply because you feel sensitive about that. Frankly I am not at all interested in what other people actually do, except in terms of how we discuss our experiences and what that says about the question at hand. Nobody is calling whatever you play badwrongfun.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I think the fact that a fair number of folks have visceral reactions to the social mechanics in games like Monsterhearts or Exalted Second Edition does not suggest that system does not matter. I think it suggests that it matters a phenomenal amount and they prefer their personal encultured systems.



I'd say it's because those mechanics are contradictory to their play ethos.  Agency over their character is the fundamental aspect to many players play ethos.  Social mechanical like the ones in those games you mentioned take away agency over their character and it's exactly what those mechanics are designed to do.  

When you introduce someone to mechanics that don't align with their play ethos you are going to have visceral reactions toward those mechanics.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> It's not limiting in enjoyment. It's limiting in player agency. That's all my point is. Is it without player agency? No. Does it have less than a game that give players more ability to influence the direction and outcome of the fiction? Yes.




We have covered this point numerous times


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> And I'll reiterate that is fine. What amount of agency one enjoys is a matter of preference. You seem to think others are making value judgments about agency beyond our preference, but I don't think so. I think it's more that you don't want to acknowledge that your style allows for less agency than other styles may.




It's less about amount of agency and more about type of agency.  Player agency has traditionally referred to player agency over a character.  It's a relatively new invention that player agency has come to refer to player agency over the fiction.

I'm not saying one type of agency is actually better or worse than the other.  But to talk about player agency without acknowledging this distinction or the fact that many forms of granting the players agency over the fiction actually take away a players agency over their character - well I don't see how this discussion will ever productively progress until those points are acknowledged and considered.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I'd say it's because those mechanics are contradictory to their play ethos.  Agency over their character is the fundamental aspect to many players play ethos.  Social mechanical like the ones in those games you mentioned take away agency over their character and it's exactly what those mechanics are designed to do.
> 
> When you introduce someone to mechanics that don't align with their play ethos you are going to have visceral reactions toward those mechanics.



Agreed, if you have simple mechanics, along the lines of 3.x or 5e's skill checks, which simply produce succeed/fail on the specific material action taken and don't consider intent, then social skills in that context replace players acting out the part of the character and basing success purely on what the GM thinks would happen in that situation with the results of a toss of dice based on some abstract statement of what the character's action is. 

As I said to @Bedrockgames that is a presupposition. It is kind of a pretty classic one that historically stems from the evolution of early 'Gygaxian' play into 2e 'story teller' play. We have all long contended that 2e's model (and thus 3.x and 5e) are incoherent. They lead to these problems. Some people are OK with that, others would rather play in an older model, and some people have adopted newer techniques which focus on intent instead of just the resolution of the action itself.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> It's less about amount of agency and more about type of agency.  Player agency has traditionally referred to player agency over a character.  It's a relatively new invention that player agency has come to refer to player agency over the fiction.
> 
> I'm not saying one type of agency is actually better or worse than the other.  *But to talk about player agency without acknowledging this distinction or the fact that many forms of granting the players agency over the fiction actually take away a players agency over their character* - well I don't see how this discussion will ever productively progress until those points are acknowledged and considered.



I think you need to elaborate on this point, it doesn't seem obvious to a lot of us.


----------



## Campbell

Getting back to the main question for me personally what is most important in a game where I am meant to embody a character is freedom to choose my character's desires and goals with the assurance that if they are reasonable in the fiction I have freedom to pursue them. Freedom of action without freedom to choose my aims is not agency at all to me. It's hallow. I feel respecting a player's ability to engage in protagonism for their character - to set their sights on something and go after it is tantamount. 

This is a big part of the reason why I believe the GM should only prepare situation and not plots. It's a players job to decide what their goals are. It's the GMs job to make that pursuit interesting.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> The idea that it is easy to predict how a given person would respond to a given provocation is in my view not terribly plausible, once the response-provoking behaviour gets beyond something banal like a simple greeting or extended hand in a typical social situation where both participants are familiar with the salient cultural norms.
> 
> If it was so easily predictable, then the real world would have fewer fights, less appeals-court litigation - because we would all know in advance how the judges would decide - and more successful diplomacy.




Absolutely. I think I've said it before in these types of discussions, it seems that "perfectly plausible" ideas are discarded in favor of the GM's idea of what's "most plausible". Which is just not the way things work in the real world.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think you need to elaborate on this point, it doesn't seem obvious to a lot of us.



A mechanic which forces a player/ PC to do X or constricts their choices on what they can do is a mechanic that takes away player agency over their character. 

Most mechanical methods of generating agency over the fiction involve doing the above.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> What many of us like is a playstyle where the only fictional thing we have direct control over is our character.  We then indirectly affect the rest of the fiction via that character.  This is the kind of player agency we prefer.
> 
> Those that dislike this traditional RPG playstyle have taken the term player agency and placed upon it a meaning incompatible with this playstyle. It now means direct control over the fiction - not just of your character - and so now they have accomplished describing traditional RPG mechanics as producing less “player agency” - which is most definitely a derogatory descriptor no matter how much they claim it is not.
> 
> I say we take back the term player agency so that it refers to what it has always referred to in traditional RPGs. A player’s agency over their character - which many of their touted “agency enhancing mechanics” actually get in the way of.




Less agency is not derogatory. It's the same as saying this game has less exploration, or that game has more combat. 

If you take the idea of a game allowing less player agency as an insult, that's on you.



FrogReaver said:


> Whether intentional or not the very nature of the chosen language being advocated for to compare and contrast my playstyle with others is doing that very thing. It is diminishing my chosen style while exalting those other styles I dislike.




So you're allowed to dislike something, and that's okay? But others who dislike something are diminishing it? 

It's all preference. You dislike my style of play.....cool, more power to you. I don't take it as an insult.



FrogReaver said:


> It's less about amount of agency and more about type of agency.  Player agency has traditionally referred to player agency over a character.  It's a relatively new invention that player agency has come to refer to player agency over the fiction.
> 
> I'm not saying one type of agency is actually better or worse than the other.  But to talk about player agency without acknowledging this distinction or the fact that many forms of granting the players agency over the fiction actually take away a players agency over their character - well I don't see how this discussion will ever productively progress until those points are acknowledged and considered.




Sure, it is about the type of agency for sure. I think @Campbell 's most recent post points out the distinction clearly. 

Having control of my PC within the world is pretty much the base level of agency, right? It should pretty much be a default expectation. So if a game has that and then also allows the player to choose their characters purpose in the game, then isn't that more?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> A mechanic which forces a player/ PC to do X or constricts their choices on what they can do is a mechanic that takes away player agency over their character.
> 
> Most mechanical methods of generating agency over the fiction involve doing the above.



I'm not sure I follow you here. Obviously any rule/process/GM ruling/whatever which leads to a player not being able to describe some action, intent, or fiction, is circumscribing the player's 'natural agency' (unlimited ability to do anything at the table). 

I don't see how methods of generating agency over the fiction do that. I mean, given that you are advocating for a style of play in which the player has ABSOLUTELY no authority over the fiction or the adjudication of what follows from an action declaration (it is either dice or the GM doing that) it is hard to see how saying to the player "hey, we're going to grant you the ability to declare your intent (IE a target fictional state) and attain it on a successful check" is reducing agency. This is something a player cannot do in, say, classic D&D. They can do it in, say, Dungeon World.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> the player's 'natural agency' (unlimited ability to do anything at the table).



This is the point of contention. People are rejecting this definition. They don't see agency as the ability to do anything at the table. If so then a game or at a table that forbids me from pouring coke over my GM's head is infringing on my agency. But it is pretty obvious a lot of people just mean what your character is free to do in the setting when they speak of agency. You are talking about narrative power and GM/Player power. Those are very specific concepts. And part of why people are resisting your line of reasoning is it feels like agency is being used to slip those things in as superior or better.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Less agency is not derogatory. It's the same as saying this game has less exploration, or that game has more combat.




No it really isn't. Agency is pretty much seen as a good thing, as a positive thing that is valued in RPGs, literature etc. Exploration is a much more neutral term. Agency is more in line with labels like railroading, immersion or believability. I think it is no accident many of these discussions also revolve around terms like immersion.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> This is the point of contention. People are rejecting this definition. They don't see agency as the ability to do anything at the table. If so then a game or at a table that forbids me from pouring coke over my GM's head is infringing on my agency. But it is pretty obvious a lot of people just mean what your character is free to do in the setting when they speak of agency. You are talking about narrative power and GM/Player power. Those are very specific concepts. And part of why people are resisting your line of reasoning is it feels like agency is being used to slip those things in as superior or better.



OK, but even if you are only talking about what things the player can do that are "in the realm of the character" (in-game) things. Being able to do other things (meta-game) doesn't impinge on that, they are disjoint sets. So I am still not able to follow @FrogReaver's logic from A to B. Nothing I can do meta-game inherently restricts what I can do in game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> Getting back to the main question for me personally what is most important in a game where I am meant to embody a character is freedom to choose my character's desires and goals with the assurance that if they are reasonable in the fiction I have freedom to pursue them. Freedom of action without freedom to choose my aims is not agency at all to me. It's hallow. I feel respecting a player's ability to engage in protagonism for their character - to set their sights on something and go after it is tantamount.
> 
> This is a big part of the reason why I believe the GM should only prepare situation and not plots. It's a players job to decide what their goals are. It's the GMs job to make that pursuit interesting.



Yes, well said. And this sort of agency can perfectly well exist in a 'traditional' RPG format. All it requires is an open world, players with initiative and a GM that is willing to let the 'story' go where the characters take it. Now you of course can do this with players having narrative controlling meta mechanics too, but they're by no means a requirement.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, but even if you are only talking about what things the player can do that are "in the realm of the character" (in-game) things. Being able to do other things (meta-game) doesn't impinge on that, they are disjoint sets. So I am still not able to follow @FrogReaver's logic from A to B. Nothing I can do meta-game inherently restricts what I can do in game.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, but even if you are only talking about what things the player can do that are "in the realm of the character" (in-game) things. Being able to do other things (meta-game) doesn't impinge on that, they are disjoint sets. So I am still not able to follow @FrogReaver's logic from A to B. Nothing I can do meta-game inherently restricts what I can do in game.



It’s really not complicated. Does the meta game mechanic in question allow another player or DM to force my character to do something or not do something.

Most mechanics that enhance fictional agency can be used in the way I described above.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, well said. And this sort of agency can perfectly well exist in a 'traditional' RPG format. All it requires is an open world, players with initiative and a GM that is willing to let the 'story' go where the characters take it. Now you of course can do this with players having narrative controlling meta mechanics too, but they're by no means a requirement.



Right, we just circle back to the question of "why won't it work better if your game has provisions for this?" Obviously some people won't want to play THAT game, but it should work better for people who do.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> The problem I have with fiction is people use it to equivocate all the time (it happens regularly in these enworld threads). So I just can't embrace that term in this conversation. It always seems to be used to promote one playstyle (personally I have nothing against the term itself, it is just in the contexts of these discussions)




I don't think I'm using it to equivocate. I'm using it because I feel it's an accurate description of the result of playing a RPG. I don't mean fiction as in a work of literature or art. My kid lies to me all the time; those are fictions, not War and Peace. 

I feel like it's the most accurate word for what I'm trying to say. Game or setting or world.....all those seem prone to interpretation.



Bedrockgames said:


> This is all fine. But the point is we both want very different things and have much different expectations at that able. I think we have also probably have different attitudes towards games and allowing a person to act as a referee. That is all fine again. I don't begrudge your style. All I can do is mine has worked well for me (and I also have no problem venturing into other styles of play from time to time).




I don't know if I'd go that far, honestly. These days I'm trying to play different games as much as possible, and the goals of play can vary wildly. 

For instance, I just got some new books for Mothership, which is a game that plays in a very traditional sense and is very much old school in its approach. I can't wait to run that for my group.



Bedrockgames said:


> This is the point of contention. People are rejecting this definition. They don't see agency as the ability to do anything at the table. If so then a game or at a table that forbids me from pouring coke over my GM's head is infringing on my agency. But it is pretty obvious a lot of people just mean what your character is free to do in the setting when they speak of agency. You are talking about narrative power and GM/Player power. Those are very specific concepts. And part of why people are resisting your line of reasoning is it feels like agency is being used to slip those things in as superior or better.




I think that this is an interesting example because there is nothing as a player that would lead me to expect that I would be allowed to pour soda over someone's head. That's more an element of being a guest. 

But if we examine things as a player....not the character, but the player.....then I think the kinds of things become more clear. How much ability does the player have to influence the game? I think it was @Manbearcat who compared this to football. There are rules and there are processes that determine how a player can influence the game of football. 

There are rules and processes for a RPG, and they determine how a player can influence a game.



Bedrockgames said:


> No it really isn't. Agency is pretty much seen as a good thing, as a positive thing that is valued in RPGs, literature etc. Exploration is a much more neutral term. Agency is more in line with labels like railroading, immersion or believability. I think it is no accident many of these discussions also revolve around terms like immersion.




I have literally told you that I do not mean it as an insult. I can do no more at this point. You can choose to believe me or not, but then as I said, that is on you.


----------



## Campbell

I do not think of agency primarily in terms of the tools I have available, but if I am able to use the tools available to achieve outcomes not chosen by the GM or other players. I generally prefer the resources I have available to correspond to in character things, but that is immaterial to agency from my perspective.

I have gone around with @FrogReaver on this issue. Their use of agency does not regard playing a linear game where the GM may resort to manipulating the fiction, fudging dice rolls, or social pressure to go along with the adventure as constraining their agency. I regard the power to meaningfully bring about change in your situation as fundamental to agency.


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## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> It’s really not complicated. Does the meta game mechanic in question allow another player or DM to force my character to do something or not do something.
> 
> Most mechanics that enhance fictional agency can be used in the way I described above.



I have not encountered a game which specifically does this. I mean, I don't recall a real admonishment or 'principle' that says "don't do this" in such games which I've played/run, but it GENERALLY seems to be a lot like other 'table etiquette' at the very least (IE don't murder other people's PCs). I mean, there are some specific games where it may come up, and even play a genuine role in the game, but I would think you'd know that going into such a game. 

Anyway, lets think about Dungeon World for a second. The GM frames scenes in that game, and they are intended to be such that they will engage the players and challenge the characters. Now, could a player create a bond for his character that could be satisfied by, say, murdering that other PC? I guess so... Said player might then declare an action with the intent to cause that (although PvP is not really covered by DW's rules). If this is against the wishes of the other player, then something about the game isn't really going right. Not only that, but something very similar is just as possible in D&D, but you wouldn't condemn freedom to run your PC as you wish on that basis, would you? Instead you'd rely on table etiquette, or else everyone would know it was allowed (IE we once played an 'evil campaign' where this was a completely legit action).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, we just circle back to the question of "why won't it work better if your game has provisions for this?" Obviously some people won't want to play THAT game, but it should work better for people who do.



Yes, a game with narrative meta mechanics will work better for people who like having narrative meta mechanics. This seems uncontroversial.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I have literally told you that I do not mean it as an insult. I can do no more at this point. You can choose to believe me or not, but then as I said, that is on you.




I am not saying you are using it as an insult. I am saying it isn't a neutral term at all and there is a reason people are arguing over it. Further it is highly, highly subjective. People here have said countless times that your definition of agency doesn't capture what they are talking about when they are using it. All this amounts to fundamentally making this a playstyle debate around the term agency.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, a game with narrative meta mechanics will work better for people who like having narrative meta mechanics. This seems uncontroversial.




Hmmm.  It seems possible you could have people who like metamechanics in principal, but still don't like the outcomes they produce in some cases.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Thomas Shey said:


> Hmmm.  It seems possible you could have people who like metamechanics in principal, but still don't like the outcomes they produce in some cases.



Sure. That certainly is possible.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, but even if you are only talking about what things the player can do that are "in the realm of the character" (in-game) things. Being able to do other things (meta-game) doesn't impinge on that, they are disjoint sets. So I am still not able to follow @FrogReaver's logic from A to B. Nothing I can do meta-game inherently restricts what I can do in game.




Sure it can, if my agency in character is contingent on me being able to make meaningful choices, any number of metamechanics could undermine that. And this is especially so when you are talking not just about 1 player, but all the players. I am not knocking your style. It is just that if you are prioritizing something like giving players the ability to control 'the fiction' that can easily come into conflict with my agency in the setting that has been established. It doesn't give me concrete ground on which to make my meaningful decisions.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Also, as I said earlier, I think trying to act like what I've called character agency and what I've called player agency the same thing does this kind of discussion a wound.

(And no, I'm not going to get particularly worked up over the fact that some people don't like calling that player agency.)


----------



## FrogReaver

Thomas Shey said:


> Also, as I said earlier, I think trying to act like what I've called character agency and what I've called player agency the same thing does this kind of discussion a wound.
> 
> (And no, I'm not going to get particularly worked up over the fact that some people don't like calling that player agency.)



Tried that distinction before. It amounted to - characters don’t really exist so they don’t actually have any agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that this is an interesting example because there is nothing as a player that would lead me to expect that I would be allowed to pour soda over someone's head. That's more an element of being a guest.
> 
> But if we examine things as a player....not the character, but the player.....then I think the kinds of things become more clear. How much ability does the player have to influence the game? I think it was @Manbearcat who compared this to football. There are rules and there are processes that determine how a player can influence the game of football.
> 
> There are rules and processes for a RPG, and they determine how a player can influence a game.




But this is the whole point whether you emphasize the player or the character, that makes all the difference in the world. That is one of the elements that makes it hard to say agency is objectively enhanced by X style of play. It is very contextual and dependent on what you are playing the game for in the first place.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Characters _don't_ have any agency of their own, but as a shortcut for "agency expressed only through the vehicle of the character" that seems a perfectly fine term too. On the other side, if people have an issue with that idea, that's not my problem, either.


----------



## TwoSix

hawkeyefan said:


> Having control of my PC within the world is pretty much the base level of agency, right? It should pretty much be a default expectation. So if a game has that and then also allows the player to choose their characters purpose in the game, then isn't that more?



This.  I don't know of any RP games where the player isn't assumed to have primary agency over action declarations of their character.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Sure it can, if my agency in character is contingent on me being able to make meaningful choices, any number of metamechanics could undermine that. And this is especially so when you are talking not just about 1 player, but all the players. I am not knocking your style. It is just that if you are prioritizing something like giving players the ability to control 'the fiction' that can easily come into conflict with my agency in the setting that has been established. It doesn't give me concrete ground on which to make my meaningful decisions.



I find this to be a highly theoretical objection, at best. I say this because I have not witnessed a situation like this in an actual game. I mean, yes, 2 players agendas could simply be mutually exclusive, but it is actually pretty HARD to arrange that, unless each player is very specific in what they declare as an agenda/goal, and then they would almost have to arrange for this to be a problem (IE if I claimed my PC must destroy the Book of Eibon and you claimed your PC must own the Book of Eibon). You almost have to contrive something like that. Plus I'm not super convinced this would create an actual problem in play, because the conflict would surely drive a lot of story! 

Again, I think it is quite likely similar problems can arise in games without this sort of mechanics. In fact, the very coherence of action of most D&D parties smacks of being pretty contrived. That actually bothers me a heck of a lot more than questions about who is going to get to build their castle on the hill.


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## Bedrockgames

TwoSix said:


> This.  I don't know of any RP games where the player isn't assumed to have primary agency over action declarations of their character.




It is more about GM style and adventure structures in traditional RPGs. There were no rules against agency in D&D in the 90s, but there sure was a lot of GM advice that led many players to feel they were along for the ride of a story the GM was telling. I think both groups in this debate had a strong reaction to that (which wasn't just something in D&D but pretty prevalent in the hobby in general at the time), probably a strong reaction to some of the things that were present in the early 2000s as well; we just have very different answers to that problem.


----------



## TwoSix

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not saying you are using it as an insult. I am saying it isn't a neutral term at all and there is a reason people are arguing over it. Further it is highly, highly subjective. People here have said countless times that your definition of agency doesn't capture what they are talking about when they are using it. All this amounts to fundamentally making this a playstyle debate around the term agency.



Well, I think that kind of answers the "question of agency", right?  The answer is that it's not a very good term for fostering useful discussions around RPGs!


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Again, I think it is quite likely similar problems can arise in games without this sort of mechanics. In fact, the very coherence of action of most D&D parties smacks of being pretty contrived. That actually bothers me a heck of a lot more than questions about who is going to get to build their castle on the hill.




What bothers you and what bothers others is going to be very different.


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## Bedrockgames

TwoSix said:


> Well, I think that kind of answers the "question of agency", right?  The answer is that it's not a very good term for fostering useful discussions around RPGs!




I think it is as long as people are not actively debating play styles as well. I mean I use it in conversations at my game table, and there it can enhance play because my players can communicate with me if they feel I am giving them agency or not. Conversations like this, especially with myself and the other posters who tend to be present in them, are naturally combative (because we've been having variations of this conversation for years). You have two groups with deeply different play styles, using the same term in different ways. At the end of the day, I think the obvious solution is to say, people are using this term differently in this conversation, and there probably isn't really any way to bridge that gap. It is also not particularly important because all we are doing is arguing over a word. It isn't like I am going to change how I use the word at my table because Hawkeye makes a good point here about it. We all have our gaming vocabulary and that is slow to change.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I find this to be a highly theoretical objection, at best. I say this because I have not witnessed a situation like this in an actual game. I mean, yes, 2 players agendas could simply be mutually exclusive, but it is actually pretty HARD to arrange that, unless each player is very specific in what they declare as an agenda/goal, and then they would almost have to arrange for this to be a problem (IE if I claimed my PC must destroy the Book of Eibon and you claimed your PC must own the Book of Eibon). You almost have to contrive something like that. Plus I'm not super convinced this would create an actual problem in play, because the conflict would surely drive a lot of story!




Both of those goals are perfectly possible for players to declare in a traditional game too. So I don't think that example illuminates the issue (I can decide my character must destroy the book fo Eibon).


----------



## FrogReaver

TwoSix said:


> This.  I don't know of any RP games where the player isn't assumed to have primary agency over action declarations of their character.



What if I told you some games offer other players a greater deal of agency over your character than others?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Absolutely. I think I've said it before in these types of discussions, it seems that "perfectly plausible" ideas are discarded in favor of the GM's idea of what's "most plausible". Which is just not the way things work in the real world.




No one is saying it is perfect simulation of reality. Nor is anyone saying bad calls don't happen. They are saying they believe giving this to a human referee to rule on, is a good system for producing something that feels fairly stable, predictable in terms of whether an idea is plausible or how people will react to things etc. Now some people fundamentally distrust giving a GM that kind of power, have had bad experiences with it, or just have a different temperament. Personally this has never bothered me. I don't expect every GM to rule the way I would. I expect them to rule the way they rule, and is what gives their world, their NPCs, etc a sense of consistency and physics. Again, if this doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. For me this is the  most enjoyable and engaging (and yes, agency enhancing) way to play RPGs. Doesn't mean I won't play other ways. Like I said I enjoyed Hillfolk, and I enjoyed Gumshoe. One of these days I may run some of the games you have mentioned. And I play other games that occasionally get into that territory. But my bread and butter is more traditional for the reasons I've stated. And when it comes to GMs, I am pretty at ease with them managing that sort of thing. If I think something is plausible and suggest it, but they reject it, that is fine by me (in fact that is an essential part of creating a world that feels external and real).


----------



## Campbell

Here's what bothers me about this definitional arguments - we know what each other means. It seems primarily focused on changing the topic of conversation. Like I want to talk about what I mean when I am talking about agency. If I accept the definition provided by @FrogReaver I still want to talk about what I meant earlier. I have find some other language now. I'm not suddenly going to be interested in agency as defined by @FrogReaver. We understand what is meant. I do not understand why we can't just engage with meaning. What are we looking to get out of this conversation?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Here's what bothers me about this definitional arguments - we know what each other means. It seems primarily focused on changing the topic of conversation. Like I want to talk about what I mean when I am talking about agency. If I accept the definition provided by @FrogReaver I still want to talk about what I meant earlier. I have find some other language now. I'm not suddenly going to be interested in agency as defined by @FrogReaver. We understand what is meant. I do not understand why we can't just engage with meaning. What are we looking to get out of this conversation?




This is all basically just a side discussion from the OP, which was about whether he was giving his players agency, and that led to a debate about the meaning of the word. I think anytime a discussion gets bogged down in debates over word definitions, that conversation really isn't going anywhere.


----------



## Campbell

Can we please stop bringing up lack of trust as the reason why people might prefer reflecting social dynamics through game mechanics? Almost everyone in this conversation is a GM. This is not about trust. It's about a subjective aesthetic preference for rules that help players feel the impact of their character's social situation.


----------



## TwoSix

Bedrockgames said:


> It is more about GM style and adventure structures in traditional RPGs. There were no rules against agency in D&D in the 90s, but there sure was a lot of GM advice that led many players to feel they were along for the ride of a story the GM was telling. I think both groups in this debate had a strong reaction to that (which wasn't just something in D&D but pretty prevalent in the hobby in general at the time), probably a strong reaction to some of the things that were present in the early 2000s as well; we just have very different answers to that problem.



I think the real stylistic divide is whether it's assumed the players are there to explore the DM's setting, or is the DM there to facilitate the generation of the story being told by the PCs.  

Basically, most traditional RPGs are sort of like open-world CRPGs (think like Skyrim), except the DM acts to allow the action to be more open-ended because we, as human beings, can generate new content on the fly.  The DM states the environment and surroundings to the PCs, the PCs take actions in response to that environment, and the DM crafts a response based on the environment and any related rolls based on the PC's actions.  That's the obvious path of a dungeon crawl, a story path game (like a module) is essentially an geographically unbounded dungeon crawl, and a sandbox is a story path game with procedurally generated environment changes.

The other, "indie-game" approach is to assume the setting is simply a tool to provide scenery for conflict, and to help the player and DM create appropriate scenes.  There's no real exploration to be done, the players state a set of goals and the DM creates conflicts based around those goals.  The gameplay loop is "state your goal", the DM creates a conflict or hazard, and the subsequent roll decides the next step in the progression.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Here's what bothers me about this definitional arguments - we know what each other means. It seems primarily focused on changing the topic of conversation. Like I want to talk about what I mean when I am talking about agency. If I accept the definition provided by @FrogReaver I still want to talk about what I meant earlier. I have find some other language now. I'm not suddenly going to be interested in agency as defined by @FrogReaver. We understand what is meant. I do not understand why we can't just engage with meaning. What are we looking to get out of this conversation?





Campbell said:


> Here's what bothers me about this definitional arguments - we know what each other means. It seems primarily focused on changing the topic of conversation. Like I want to talk about what I mean when I am talking about agency. If I accept the definition provided by @FrogReaver I still want to talk about what I meant earlier. I have find some other language now. I'm not suddenly going to be interested in agency as defined by @FrogReaver. We understand what is meant. I do not understand why we can't just engage with meaning. What are we looking to get out of this conversation?



This was touched on earlier but agency isn’t a neutral term. When you describe my playstyle as having less agency that’s a derogatory assessment of my playstyle.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Can we please stop bringing up lack of trust as the reason why people might prefer reflecting social dynamics through game mechanics? Almost everyone in this conversation is a GM. This is not about trust. It's about a subjective aesthetic preference for rules that help players feel the impact of their character's social situation.




I didn't say it wasn't but that was a direct response to a poster expressing what seemed like a distrust of GMs consistency ruling on these things. Trust in the GM seems like a big factor in many of these discussions


----------



## TwoSix

Campbell said:


> Here's what bothers me about this definitional arguments - we know what each other means. It seems primarily focused on changing the topic of conversation. Like I want to talk about what I mean when I am talking about agency. If I accept the definition provided by @FrogReaver I still want to talk about what I meant earlier. I have find some other language now. I'm not suddenly going to be interested in agency as defined by @FrogReaver. We understand what is meant. I do not understand why we can't just engage with meaning. What are we looking to get out of this conversation?



Yea, I think examples work much better than trying to argue semantics.  I liked the "hills" example precisely because some people immediately were "No, that doesn't work in my games" and other people were "Sure, that's how my games run."  Then you have a contrast where you can tease out what drives people to that opinion.


----------



## TwoSix

Bedrockgames said:


> I didn't say it wasn't but that was a direct response to a poster expressing what seemed like a distrust of GMs consistency ruling on these things. Trust in the GM seems like a big factor in many of these discussions



No game works well if you don't trust the DM (or the players).  Games with less DM authority assumed to be granted to the DM will ameliorate some issues with a problem DM, just like games with high DM authority run a little better with problem players.  But no game runs great if _any_ of the participants are a problem.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> This was touched on earlier but agency isn’t a neutral term. When you describe my playstyle as having less agency that’s a derogatory assessment of my playstyle.



So? We all have to kowtow to your feelings? Your next move will be to get offended by the alternative term and the one after that and replay the definitional bs to try to shut down the conversation that way. Or you could just, like, deal with it.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Have you ever been in a LARP?



I've never LARPed with foam weapons etc. I've played freedform RPGing with intense social interaction. What made it different from the case I described, and what @Lanefan, @Bedrockgames and (as I understand it) you are describing, are two things:

(1) The social interaction was _between the players_, each of whom had a character to play;
(2) The role of the referee was to move from player (or group of players) to player (or other group) and to whisper, cajole, interject etc so as to help bring it about that everyone was playing his/her PC to the hilt;
(3) The situation at hand demanded that a consensus or final resolution be reached, so that in some ways (of course not all) it was analogous to a game like Diplomacy. Once that position had fallen out of the interpersonal interaction, the referee did not try again to destabilise it. Rather, he narrated its consequences.

This is very different from the GM logically extrapolating how a NPC will respond to a player's advance on behalf of his/her PC.

EDIT having just seen this post:


AbdulAlhazred said:


> And this is a real point, either you violate the Czege Principle, or what, you have to look to the GM to decide everything by fiat? I'm not seeing that as a really satisfactory process... I guess you could assign another player to play the NPC (or maybe this is 'PvP' to start with, it could be). But then in the later case the principle is still violated, and in the former the assigned player doesn't really have any clear motive not to just give the other player whatever they want, outside of sheer perversity! Either way, it doesn't seem like there is a very good set of incentives there. Drama is certainly happenstance at best.



The scenario I described above was in the neighbourhood of your PvP variant. It worked for the reasons I've described, which take it well outside the territory of "GM decides".


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> This was touched on earlier but agency isn’t a neutral term. When you describe my playstyle as having less agency that’s a derogatory assessment of my playstyle.




Is it just the term or like what I'm trying to speak to conceptually?

Do you disagree that you are not as interested as I am in a player's ability to create meaningful change in the situation? I know that I expect to have constraints on my play based on how things turn out when the rules get involved. I like that when my character is Angry in a game like Masks that I have less ability to Pierce the Mask and see what people are really up to. Character agency as you define is just less important to me than it is to you.

I do not mean to be derogatory, but I'm not going to stop thinking about and talking about RPGs in a way that is useful to me. If you have more precise language you think would be more accurate please let me know. Agency over the fiction is a useful evaluative concept to me. You know what I mean by it. I'm not sure why you think speaking on it is derogatory.


----------



## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I have not encountered a game which specifically does this. I mean, I don't recall a real admonishment or 'principle' that says "don't do this" in such games which I've played/run, but it GENERALLY seems to be a lot like other 'table etiquette' at the very least (IE don't murder other people's PCs). I mean, there are some specific games where it may come up, and even play a genuine role in the game, but I would think you'd know that going into such a game.
> 
> Anyway, lets think about Dungeon World for a second. The GM frames scenes in that game, and they are intended to be such that they will engage the players and challenge the characters. Now, could a player create a bond for his character that could be satisfied by, say, murdering that other PC? I guess so... Said player might then declare an action with the intent to cause that (although PvP is not really covered by DW's rules). If this is against the wishes of the other player, then something about the game isn't really going right. Not only that, but something very similar is just as possible in D&D, but you wouldn't condemn freedom to run your PC as you wish on that basis, would you? Instead you'd rely on table etiquette, or else everyone would know it was allowed (IE we once played an 'evil campaign' where this was a completely legit action).



Even if we take Fate, where the GM can invoke Troubles on a PC. Those Troubles are intentionally selected by the player to be lightning rods of story complications for their character. It's like saying, "I want my character to face situations where my 'Manners of a Goat' can pose a problem in the story."



FrogReaver said:


> This was touched on earlier but agency isn’t a neutral term. When you describe my playstyle as having less agency that’s a derogatory assessment of my playstyle.



It's not derogatory. There is no value or moral judgment attached. I don't know how many times people have reiterated ad nauseum that it's not good or bad. Because it's not about "whoever has the most is best". It's simply about understanding differences of player agency between systems. Sometimes less is good if those are your play preferences or if it's suitable for the genre.


----------



## TwoSix

Aldarc said:


> It's not derogatory. There is no value or moral judgment attached. I don't know how many times people have reiterated ad nauseum that it's not good or bad. Because it's not about "whoever has the most is best". It's simply about understanding differences of player agency between systems. Sometimes less is good if those are your play preferences or if it's suitable for the genre.



I'm not sure how to interpret "I don't want any metagame currency, I don't want any say over the setting, I just want to play my character and do nothing else" as not making a specific request for less agency.  Which is fine!  There are plenty of games in which less agency is exactly the goal.  I mean, choosing to play rather than DM in pretty much every game is deliberately eschewing a large amount of agency over the game, and I don't think anyone thinks playing is somehow _less virtuous_ than DMing.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not saying you are using it as an insult. I am saying it isn't a neutral term at all and there is a reason people are arguing over it. Further it is highly, highly subjective.



You may recall that upthread I remarked on your apparently unanalysed and unselfconscious use of words like "normal" and "traditional". You were largely dismissive of my observations about your usage.

That's of course your prerogative, but having done that I now find it curious that you expect other posters to defer to you in their use of terminology that you regard as not "neutral".

Perhaps for you, _neutral _is equivalent to "words Bedrockgames uses", but I hope you appreciate that that won't work for many of your interlocutors.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Both of those goals are perfectly possible for players to declare in a traditional game too. So I don't think that example illuminates the issue (I can decide my character must destroy the book fo Eibon).



Right, but we haven't really got down to the level of what it is that you, or @FrogReaver thinks is somehow going to interfere with your ability to play. I mean, in a game of the type I espouse there would be these two PCs one wants P and one wants !P. Either one can declare actions which have the intent to take a step in the direction of their goal (We will assume these are SMALL steps, lest this be a trivial goal and not worth discussing). Either player can either outright generate, or call for, some fictional element that will advance their fictional position in a direction favorable to either P or !P. Depending on the mechanics of the game, they may actually HURT their position (IE a failure in Dungeon World would probably make achieving your ultimate goal harder, but also more fun).

Some changes in the fiction might lead in the direction of BOTH P and !P (both PCs want to find the Book of Eibon for example). Others might tend to preclude one of these. Somewhere, at the end of the campaign, one or both of the PCs will necessarily fail in a way which is unrecoverable. The other PC's player will likely be responsible for calling down the fiction which produces this state. I just see all this as classic game play. While, in the end, someone's 'agency' will be 'reduced', it doesn't, again, seem like this is problematic.

I'm really hoping someone can come up with an example. Sorry to sound pushy, but lots of things are asserted without proof in this world today.


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Getting back to the main question for me personally what is most important in a game where I am meant to embody a character is freedom to choose my character's desires and goals with the assurance that if they are reasonable in the fiction I have freedom to pursue them. Freedom of action without freedom to choose my aims is not agency at all to me. It's hallow. I feel respecting a player's ability to engage in protagonism for their character - to set their sights on something and go after it is tantamount.
> 
> This is a big part of the reason why I believe the GM should only prepare situation and not plots. It's a players job to decide what their goals are. It's the GMs job to make that pursuit interesting.





Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, well said. And this sort of agency can perfectly well exist in a 'traditional' RPG format. All it requires is an open world, players with initiative and a GM that is willing to let the 'story' go where the characters take it. Now you of course can do this with players having narrative controlling meta mechanics too, but they're by no means a requirement.





Campbell said:


> I do not think of agency primarily in terms of the tools I have available, but if I am able to use the tools available to achieve outcomes not chosen by the GM or other players. I generally prefer the resources I have available to correspond to in character things, but that is immaterial to agency from my perspective.



Campbell's second post here sets out the reasons why, for me, "open world" or "sandbox" play does not necessarily support "this sort of agency".

If my PC's goal is to _find spellbooks _- certainly genre-appropriate in a standard fantasy RPG like D&D or Burning Wheel - and the GM decides that there are no spellbooks in the neighbourhood of my PC, then _I can't achieve outcomes not chosen by the GM_.

If the GM treats my formulation of my PC's goal as a suggestion to include a spellbook in the neighbourhood of my PC, then - as I posted upthread - we are now in a situation where the player is shaping the fiction in ways beyond just describing his/her PC's desires and physical actions. As I posted then, because this is informal and implicit it does not give the player as much agency as more formalised principles, techniques and/or mechanics might. But that doesn't seem to mark any fundamental cleavage about who gets to shape the shared fiction.


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## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> Characters _don't_ have any agency of their own, but as a shortcut for "agency expressed only through the vehicle of the character" that seems a perfectly fine term too.



Upthread I explained how _I recall there is a wizard's tower in this neighbourhood_ or _As I ride through the outskirts of my personal estate I look out for my brother_ are examples of agency expressed only through the vehicle of my character.

But many posters in the thread who seem to have views of RPGing similar to @FrogReaver's didn't accept that point, because the upshot of the _success_ of the action declaration establishes a truth about the shared fiction which was not, in the fiction, caused by the physical actions of the PC.


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## chaochou

Campbell said:


> I do not think of agency primarily in terms of the tools I have available, but if I am able to use the tools available to achieve outcomes not chosen by the GM or other players.



Exactly this - I phrased it earlier in the thread as being the one to create (and continually recreate) the purpose of my own character.


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## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I've never LARPed with foam weapons etc.



Foam weapons are about as required part of LARPs as beholders are of table top RPGs.   



pemerton said:


> I've played freedform RPGing with intense social interaction. What made it different from the case I described, and what @Lanefan, @Bedrockgames and (as I understand it) you are describing, are two things:
> 
> (1) The social interaction was _between the players_, each of whom had a character to play;
> (2) The role of the referee was to move from player (or group of players) to player (or other group) and to whisper, cajole, interject etc so as to help bring it about that everyone was playing his/her PC to the hilt;
> (3) The situation at hand demanded that a consensus or final resolution be reached, so that in some ways (of course not all) it was analogous to a game like Diplomacy. Once that position had fallen out of the interpersonal interaction, the referee did not try again to destabilise it. Rather, he narrated its consequences.
> 
> This is very different from the GM logically extrapolating how a NPC will respond to a player's advance on behalf of his/her PC.
> 
> EDIT having just seen this post:
> 
> The scenario I described above was in the neighbourhood of your PvP variant. It worked for the reasons I've described, which take it well outside the territory of "GM decides".



OK. I get this. in LARPs too majority of the interaction is between the players too, though GMs will generally play 'NPCs' (though that designation doesn't quite mean the same thing.)  The GM played characters tend to be more of catalysts for the drama, vehicles for creating tensions between the player characters, or to move the situation so that the players have to react. And I think that this is a great use of NPCs in table top game too. Some of the best social interaction on RPGs that I've seen has been between the PCs. But ultimately I don't really see how the drama wouldn't work if the some of the participants were NPCs; ultimately they too are characters played in that moment by a human being, that human being just is the GM.


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## Haffrung

TwoSix said:


> I think the real stylistic divide is whether it's assumed the players are there to explore the DM's setting, or is the DM there to facilitate the generation of the story being told by the PCs.
> 
> Basically, most traditional RPGs are sort of like open-world CRPGs (think like Skyrim), except the DM acts to allow the action to be more open-ended because we, as human beings, can generate new content on the fly.  The DM states the environment and surroundings to the PCs, the PCs take actions in response to that environment, and the DM crafts a response based on the environment and any related rolls based on the PC's actions.  That's the obvious path of a dungeon crawl, a story path game (like a module) is essentially an geographically unbounded dungeon crawl, and a sandbox is a story path game with procedurally generated environment changes.




The CRPG analogy is apt. One of the appeals of games like Skyrim is immersion. When people play, they feel like they’re in another world, braving the winds on a snowy ridge, descending a gloomy tunnel, coming across a ruined castle in the moonlight.

That immersion can happen because the world feels concrete. We know the world was created by artists and coders using software. But that knowledge fades away when the artifice is skillful and consistent.

Would that immersion be broken if you were able to manipulate the setting as you played - make the wind on the ridge die down, decide the tunnel led to a treasure vault, make a favourite ally appear in the ruined castle? I think for a great many people it would. Being able to manipulate the world would shatter the illusion that it exists beyond the immediate needs of the game session.


----------



## pemerton

On running mysteries in RPGs.

Upthread I posted this:


pemerton said:


> A few weeks ago I ran a session like this for my family - one of my daughters wanted to do a murder mystery for her birthday.
> 
> I adapted a murder scenario from an old Traveller module, and wrote up some characters (one for each other family member, plus a couple for their entourages, plus a small number of important NPCs whom I played). There was no action resolution in any mechanical sense - the players described what their PCs were doing, and who they were talking to, and I delivered up information as seemed appropriate (eg what they found if they searched a stateroom; what a NPC said if they spoke to him/her; etc).
> 
> This is an example of puzzle-solving: the players' goal is to acquire enough information to be able to infer to the hidden bit of my notes (ie whodunnit). It is a different experience from watching an episode of Death in Paradise or The Mentalist, as there is the first-person description element to it. But it doesn't really involve very much more agency.
> 
> (One difference from those shows is that they are scripted to try and occlude the audience's access to the relevant information, whereas in our murder mystery I was desperately trying to shovel information out the door. A better comparison might be to reading The Eleventh Hour.)



This was a GM-driven experience. The players' contributions were entirely saying where their PCs went (inside a starship where I as GM had already decided what the floorplan was, what - of interest - was in each stateroom, etc) and speaking as their characters.

We didn't use any mechanics. Predominantly physical actions were resolved via description with me saying yes to the task performed _(I return from the Starlight Lounge to my stateroom_; _I look in the cupboard_) and then just describing the upshot (_OK, you're in your room_; _You see that in the cupboard there are two of each set of clothes_).

Talking to NPCs happened by the players speaking to me in character, and me deciding what the NPC said in reply and then saying it. For scene-setting this was fine. When it came to interrogation of a key NPC I felt the weakness of this approach. The NPC in question was part of the conspiracy to murder, but the players hadn't worked this out and I wasn't going to have her just confess (thus defusing the mystery and ending the scenario). I am not a terribly good actor, and so _performing _evasiveness to some appropriate degree was not too easy.

The whole experience was fun enough, but it certainly didn't involve very much player agency! And for me it drew my attention to the limits of _GM decides and narrates_ social interaction.

A very different way to run a mystery is what I've done in two sessions of Cthulhu Dark. In these sessions there was no pre-planned mystery. I worked with the players to establish opening situations and we played those through - using the (very simple) action resolution framework when "saying 'yes'" wasn't appropriate - with new elements being added into the fiction as an outcome of resolution and as I built up new framing. I kept a close eye on pacing, and at the end of each session used my power over framing to bring things to a head.

The stories were unexpected, a bit wacky, and there was plenty that was unexplained - no doubt because human consciousness is too frail to contemplate the truth!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Campbell's second post here sets out the reasons why, for me, "open world" or "sandbox" play does not necessarily support "this sort of agency".
> 
> If my PC's goal is to _find spellbooks _- certainly genre-appropriate in a standard fantasy RPG like D&D or Burning Wheel - and the GM decides that there are no spellbooks in the neighbourhood of my PC, then _I can't achieve outcomes not chosen by the GM_.



Assuming that there are spellbooks in the setting (and if there aren't the GM probably should have told this when you chose your goal!) you can still further your agenda. There are no spellbooks here, so where are they then? Where can you find information on them? How do I get to these places? What sort of measures I can take to increase my chances of securing these spellbooks when I finally find them? And sure, in theory the GM could stonewall you in every step (no one knows anything about spellbooks etc) but that of course would just be terrible GMing. If spellbooks are a known part of the setting, they must exist somewhere, information about them can be found and actions to acquire them can be taken.



pemerton said:


> If the GM treats my formulation of my PC's goal as a suggestion to include a spellbook in the neighbourhood of my PC, then - as I posted upthread - we are now in a situation where the player is shaping the fiction in ways beyond just describing his/her PC's desires and physical actions. As I posted then, because this is informal and implicit it does not give the player as much agency as more formalised principles, techniques and/or mechanics might. But that doesn't seem to mark any fundamental cleavage about who gets to shape the shared fiction.



The strength of the informal method is that it maintains the control of the reality of the game world within the confines of one noggin ensuring greater coherence. Furthermore, it allows most of the benefits of the narrative meta mechanics without the player actually having to bother with such. And as a lot of people find such mechanics at odds with their enjoyment, this is rather significant. It basically lets the player to pretend that the world is objectively and independently existing 'real' place even though that really isn't the case.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Haffrung said:


> The CRPG analogy is apt. One of appeals of games like Skyrim is immersion. When people play, they feel like they’re in another world, braving the winds on a snowy ridge, descending a gloomy tunnel, coming across a ruined castle in the moonlight.
> 
> That immersion can happen because the world feels concrete. We know the world was created by artists and coders using software. But that knowledge fades away when the artifice is skillful and consistent.
> 
> Would that immersion be broken if you were able to manipulate the setting as you played - make the wind on the ridge die down, decide the tunnel led to a treasure vault, make a favourite ally appear in the ruined castle? I think for a great many people it would. Being able to manipulate the world would shatter the illusion that it exists beyond the immediate needs of the game session.



Sure, and that would be covered by the well-known 'Czege Principle', there is no drama when the same participant determines the parameters of conflict and it is about their character. No competently designed game which provides players narrative authority violates that. 

I would go with something like "would immersion be broken if the player can request that a dungeon entrance be hidden somewhere in their region, so they can explore it?" This further assuming that such an element is genre appropriate and not conflicting with some other element of the fiction. As @pemerton's BW example of the tower is structured, this request would probably be in the form of an action by the character (IE recalling old lore, consulting a sage, or even possibly falling into a hole in the ground).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Haffrung said:


> The CRPG analogy is apt. One of appeals of games like Skyrim is immersion. When people play, they feel like they’re in another world, braving the winds on a snowy ridge, descending a gloomy tunnel, coming across a ruined castle in the moonlight.
> 
> That immersion can happen because the world feels concrete. We know the world was created by artists and coders using software. But that knowledge fades away when the artifice is skillful and consistent.
> 
> Would that immersion be broken if you were able to manipulate the setting as you played - make the wind on the ridge die down, decide the tunnel led to a treasure vault, make a favourite ally appear in the ruined castle? I think for a great many people it would. Being able to manipulate the world would shatter the illusion that it exists beyond the immediate needs of the game session.



Yes, this, exactly this, thousand times this!


----------



## TwoSix

Haffrung said:


> The CRPG analogy is apt. One of appeals of games like Skyrim is immersion. When people play, they feel like they’re in another world, braving the winds on a snowy ridge, descending a gloomy tunnel, coming across a ruined castle in the moonlight.
> 
> That immersion can happen because the world feels concrete. We know the world was created by artists and coders using software. But that knowledge fades away when the artifice is skillful and consistent.
> 
> Would that immersion be broken if you were able to manipulate the setting as you played - make the wind on the ridge die down, decide the tunnel led to a treasure vault, make a favourite ally appear in the ruined castle? I think for a great many people it would. Being able to manipulate the world would shatter the illusion that it exists beyond the immediate needs of the game session.



Of course. but by the same token, many players feel their immersion is more aided if they can craft the story to fit the way the story is progressing in their imagination.  I think some people prefer to be immersed in the setting, but others feel it more important to be immersed in the story.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Foam weapons are about as required part of LARPs as beholders are of table top RPGs.
> 
> 
> OK. I get this. in LARPs too majority of the interaction is between the players too, though GMs will generally play 'NPCs' (though that designation doesn't quite mean the same thing.)  *The GM played characters tend to be more of catalysts for the drama, vehicles for creating tensions between the player characters, or to move the situation so that the players have to react.* And I think that this is a great use of NPCs in table top game too. Some of the best social interaction on RPGs that I've seen has been between the PCs. But *ultimately I don't really see how the drama wouldn't work if the some of the participants were NPCs; ultimately they too are characters played in that moment by a human being, that human being just is the GM*.



The first bolded bit is extremely consistent with what I posted.

As for the second bolded bit, it seems to me that the difference is that _no player has to be neutral - each is able to play his/her PC at full throttle._. But if the GM is playing his/her NPC full throttle, how is the player meant to advance in the game?

This is part of what I like about mechanics as a GM: I can play my NPC to full throttle, and the resolution framework will tell me what the parameters are for that.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> The first bolded bit is extremely consistent with what I posted.
> 
> As for the second bolded bit, it seems to me that the difference is that _no player has to be neutral - each is able to play his/her PC at full throttle._. But if the GM is playing his/her NPC full throttle, how is the player meant to advance in the game?
> 
> This is part of what I like about mechanics as a GM: I can play my NPC to full throttle, and the resolution framework will tell me what the parameters are for that.



What is 'full throttle' and what is being advanced and to where?


----------



## pemerton

Haffrung said:


> Would that immersion be broken if you were able to manipulate the setting as you played - make the wind on the ridge die down, decide the tunnel led to a treasure vault, make a favourite ally appear in the ruined castle? I think for a great many people it would. Being able to manipulate the world would shatter the illusion that it exists beyond the immediate needs of the game session.





Crimson Longinus said:


> The strength of the informal method is that it maintains the control of the reality of the game world within the confines of one noggin ensuring greater coherence. Furthermore, it allows most of the benefits of the narrative meta mechanics without the player actually having to bother with such. And as a lot of people find such mechanics at odds with their enjoyment, this is rather significant. It basically lets the player to pretend that the world is objectively and independently existing 'real' place even though that really isn't the case.





TwoSix said:


> by the same token, many players feel their immersion is more aided if they can craft the story to fit the way the story is progressing in their imagination.  I think some people prefer to be immersed in the setting, but others feel it more important to be immersed in the story.



I want to be immersed in my character and his/her situation.

This has a number of aspects to it. I don't want to have to ask someone else to tell me what my memories are. That is immersive only if I am trying to play an amnesiac (I know from the experience of having been an amnesiac). This then feeds into goal-formation for my character: to be immersed in my character, I need to form goals that are rational for my character given what s/he knows about the world s/he is part of; and I can't do that if I have to acquire all that knowledge and understanding by asking someone else.

I want to be able to declare actions that cover the full spectrum of mental and physical activity. And I find it jarring if someone else at the table has superior knowledge to mine as to what my character is thinking or doing (which, again, will be the case if I have to ask the GM all the time).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> But this is the whole point whether you emphasize the player or the character, that makes all the difference in the world. That is one of the elements that makes it hard to say agency is objectively enhanced by X style of play. It is very contextual and dependent on what you are playing the game for in the first place.




Right, I agree with that. I think if we use Character Agency to mean what @Thomas Shey describes below, then sure, I'll accept that as one level of agency. 

But then it becomes a question of whether or not a game that allows or supports Player Agency of the kind I've been discussing somehow doesn't also allow or support Character Agency. 

Do you think that's the case? If so, how?



Thomas Shey said:


> Characters _don't_ have any agency of their own, but as a shortcut for "agency expressed only through the vehicle of the character" that seems a perfectly fine term too. On the other side, if people have an issue with that idea, that's not my problem, either.






Bedrockgames said:


> No one is saying it is perfect simulation of reality. Nor is anyone saying bad calls don't happen. They are saying they believe giving this to a human referee to rule on, is a good system for producing something that feels fairly stable, predictable in terms of whether an idea is plausible or how people will react to things etc. Now some people fundamentally distrust giving a GM that kind of power, have had bad experiences with it, or just have a different temperament. Personally this has never bothered me. I don't expect every GM to rule the way I would. I expect them to rule the way they rule, and is what gives their world, their NPCs, etc a sense of consistency and physics. Again, if this doesn't work for you, it doesn't work for you. For me this is the  most enjoyable and engaging (and yes, agency enhancing) way to play RPGs. Doesn't mean I won't play other ways. Like I said I enjoyed Hillfolk, and I enjoyed Gumshoe. One of these days I may run some of the games you have mentioned. And I play other games that occasionally get into that territory. But my bread and butter is more traditional for the reasons I've stated. And when it comes to GMs, I am pretty at ease with them managing that sort of thing. If I think something is plausible and suggest it, but they reject it, that is fine by me (in fact that is an essential part of creating a world that feels external and real).




My issue is not one of trust with the GM. Nor do I expect a perfect simulation of reality. I prefer to assume a functional form of play. I've played in plenty of games where the GM was the arbiter of all that was not PC and had them go perfectly fine....I know that this form of play can function and be perfectly entertaining.

My point is that many games grant so much authority to the GM that it compromises player agency. If everything is up to the GM.....portraying the world, portraying the NPCs, deciding how difficult or likely something is, and so on....if all of that is up to the GM, it limits the input of the players. 

When faced with a challenge of some kind (crafted by the GM, described by the GM, with a solution decided by the GM) there's little player agency in resolution of that challenge. 

I prefer to take some of that load off of the GM, either by sharing that authority around a bit, or by using processes or mechanics to help. I don't think this means I don't trust the GM to provide what they consider legitimate judgment. It's more that I want the player to have some point of connection in all this. 

I don't think leaving all this to the GM really portrays a world that's external and real.....it's at best producing a world that is real to the GM. As you mentioned earlier, the players may come up with viable solutions or actions that are perfectly plausible and which the GM did not even consider. 

If I'm going to look back at a point of play, I think I'd prefer to say "Wow I didn't even think to try X" rather than "Wow the GM didn't even think to try X". 

It's about me as a player being able to act on the things I want my character to do in a way that does not get filtered entirely through the GM.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> When faced with a challenge of some kind (crafted by the GM, described by the GM, with a solution decided by the GM) there's little player agency in resolution of that challenge.
> 
> I prefer to take some of that load off of the GM, either by sharing that authority around a bit, or by using processes or mechanics to help. I don't think this means I don't trust the GM to provide what they consider legitimate judgment. It's more that I want the player to have some point of connection in all this.
> 
> I don't think leaving all this to the GM really portrays a world that's external and real.....it's at best producing a world that is real to the GM. As you mentioned earlier, the players may come up with viable solutions or actions that are perfectly plausible and which the GM did not even consider.



Yes, players coming with unexpected solutions is the best! And does not require them having narrative meta powers, I really don't understand why you think it would. 

And I agree that GMs shouldn't have the correct answer in mind for challenges that come up in the game (they might have _a correct_ answer though.) They just present the situation and it is up to the players how they react to it.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

TwoSix said:


> Of course. but by the same token, many players feel their immersion is more aided if they can craft the story to fit the way the story is progressing in their imagination.  I think some people prefer to be immersed in the setting, but others feel it more important to be immersed in the story.



You can get both, to an extent. Again, look at @pemerton's BW example(s). The CHARACTER declares an action (Circles Check, Wises Check) and describes their intent (locate a specific NPC in the area, locate a building in the area). Now, we the players know that these elements aren't specifically described as having a location in the world yet, or at least their current state is undefined. We thus know that success, by BW rules, will set the state of the world. The CHARACTER doesn't know this! The character is NOT doing something illogical, out of character. Neither is the player 'out of character' here. 

So, is there actually some lack of immersion in the setting? I mean, even in a classic sandbox the player knows that SOMEONE at SOME POINT created the world, that it is a fiction. Why is it less immersive if the fiction was authored at 8:00PM on Saturday vs 12:00PM the previous Sunday on the GM's day off? 

I mean, sure, if there is a system where you have 'story points' and the player gets to spend them to add an element to a scene, unilaterally, at a certain point, then that might be argued to be more involved. There are now questions of a resource game the PLAYER is playing, etc. I think this would be another discussion, and IME there are few games which work this way. Certainly I can see having different feelings about such a game than about, say, BW or DW. In fact, about as close as any game DOES come to this, is Inspiration in 5e! (technically the player just "gets advantage", but presumably they should also supply fiction to justify it).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, players coming with unexpected solutions is the best! And does not require them having narrative meta powers, I really don't understand why you think it would.




I really don't understand why you think I was talking in any way about "narrative meta powers".


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I really don't understand why you think I was talking in any way about "narrative meta powers".



Because we've been talking about that a lot and I'm tired... But yes, I reread the context and you weren't. Sorry. 

But still, I really don't get how the GM having any sort of control prevents the players coming up with creative solutions. I recognise the problem you describe, and it is due the GM being too enamoured with their one specific solution. It's an attitude issue, not a rule issue.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> This perhaps unfairly maligns social skills when part of the larger issue was the 3e skill system as a whole. Worth noting, is that large parts of the Indie Story scene were likewise responses to what they were seeing in the 3e skill system, namely mechanics first. This is one reason why the whole notion of "fiction first" is an important principle in indie games. So the idea that social mechanics = "no roleplay" or "skip all the talking" shows a lack of awareness of the larger body of conversation in the hobby. For game engines like PbtA, Fate, Cortex, FitD, etc., "fiction first" also means that the roleplaying has to come before the roll.



In theory 3e had the same proviso, as noted in the PHB (and the DMG?).  In practice...well...


Aldarc said:


> This is largely because the roll happens when there are consequences at stake as a result of the fictional framing by the associated characters.



Fair enough.  My point is that the introduction and presence of those mechanics led straight to a "skip to the roll" mentality among a distressingly large subset of players*; and were those same players to find themselves in a fiction-first game that mentality would come with them.

* - and a much smaller but certainly non-zero subset of GMs.


Aldarc said:


> You may be missing the actual thrust of discussion here: i.e., the dependency of fictional resolution and/or new fictional states on convincing/entertaining Bob the GM. Or let's put it another way. It doesn't necessarily matter how well in-character you roleplay or act when social resolution ultimately boils down to convincing Bob. In fact, all the roleplaying and acting, in this case, is nothing more than high quality lipstick on the "Mother-May-I" Pig, because Bob holds all the cards for social scene resolution. But let's not pretend that the system is anything more mechanically meaningful than "In Bob We Trust."



The problems arise, of course, when Bob for whatever reason can't be trusted; and examples of this are legion across this forum and others.

But if Bob can be trusted, what more do you really need?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Because we've been talking about that a lot and I'm tired... But yes, I reread the context and you weren't. Sorry.
> 
> But still, I really don't get how the GM having any sort of control prevents the players coming up with creative solutions. I recognise the problem you describe, and it is due the GM being too enamoured with their one specific solution. It's an attitude issue, not a rule issue.



Well, a classic case is that some GM creates an adventure, and then the players immediately (or at some point) figure out a plausible way to obviate some significant aspect of it, kill the boss, or something like that. This OFTEN results in GM 'damage control' which is simply inventing some, at least to them, plausible argument for why said tactic fails, or using some sort of force to 'rerail' things. They may well allow players choices, within some limited range.

The more subtle point is the one @pemerton makes, which is that the content of play can only engage with whatever the GM thought of, and the process of being a PC is fundamentally one of 'asking the GM questions about what they authored', which is really a lot different from inhabiting the world. Granted that PC actions can change things (though see above for pitfalls). Still, the action is fundamentally localized within the limits of what one person has imagined, for good or ill.

I am of the opinion that "two heads are better than one." There is a more subtle thing that goes on though. If I invent a setting and whatnot, that's focused on "being a setting" and it has a certain internal structure. If a narrative emerges from a dynamic process at the table, then the setting (fiction really) is an outgrowth of that. It is MUCH more likely to be a dynamic fiction with interesting action.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Because we've been talking about that a lot and I'm tired... But yes, I reread the context and you weren't. Sorry.
> 
> But still, I really don't get how the GM having any sort of control prevents the players coming up with creative solutions. I recognise the problem you describe, and it is due the GM being too enamoured with their one specific solution. It's an attitude issue, not a rule issue.




Such narrative tools are only one means of the player influencing the game.

I'm not complaining that the GM has "any sort of control" its more about them having complete control. The GM being enamored of their own solution is one aspect of this, but it can also happen when I GM is open to more than one possible solution. 

Everything about a scenario under that system is subject to one person's take on things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, a classic case is that some GM creates an adventure, and then the players immediately (or at some point) figure out a plausible way to obviate some significant aspect of it, kill the boss, or something like that. This OFTEN results in GM 'damage control' which is simply inventing some, at least to them, plausible argument for why said tactic fails, or using some sort of force to 'rerail' things. They may well allow players choices, within some limited range.




But this is something that is easily fixed, and something I've fixed in my own campaigns. If the players figure out a solution or get lucky in the first ten minutes of play to kill the boss....I let them. I don't do damage control to keep the pace of the game going. It is a game, and games should have unexpected outcomes. If the players legitimately figured out a way to beat that challenge fast, it is good to give it to them.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> In theory 3e had the same proviso, as noted in the PHB (and the DMG?).  In practice...well...



And would you mind telling me how it works in practice for these games you have no actual experience with? 



Lanefan said:


> and were those same players to find themselves in a fiction-first game that mentality would come with them.



Your fears are overblown. 



Lanefan said:


> But if Bob can be trusted, what more do you really need?



Trusting Bob as a King doesn't negate my preference for Bob to be a Prime Minister of a representative democracy with checks and balances.


----------



## Manbearcat

Thomas Shey said:


> Characters _don't_ have any agency of their own, but as a shortcut for "agency expressed only through the vehicle of the character" that seems a perfectly fine term too. On the other side, if people have an issue with that idea, that's not my problem, either.




Haven't caught up on the thread, but I just wanted to comment on this right quick as I'm a believer in the TTRPG community (even if it just a micro-community) developing clear, communicative, technical jargon for complex concepts.

I think I'd be ok with the following as Player Agency and sub-headings of Player Agency:

*PLAYER AGENCY* - _THE CAPACITY FOR A PLAYER TO BOTH DICTATE ANY GIVEN GAMESTATE, DICTATE ITS TRANSITION, AND DICTATE THE OVERALL TRAJECTORY OF PLAY._

*Setting Authority* - _The ability to establish Setting elements (persons, places, things, backstory)._

*Situation Authority* - _The ability to frame some or all initial components a Situation, or the ability to reframe a Situation as play unfolds._

*Character Agency* - _Player Agency excluding any Setting/Situation Authority, expressed exclusively through the vehicle of player character.

 _

I think it needs to be (and hopefully it already is) understood that Gamestates are game/genre-specific and therefore agency is naturally constrained.  Chess doesn't suddenly loose Player Agency because you can't move your Knight outside of its L-shape etc.  The same way you view degenerate action declarations in TTRPGs should be how you view "gamestate-relevant agency;"  "I fly to the moon" might be a relevant action declaration and gamestate move in a Supers game...but not in a Heroic Tier D&D game.

Finally, what CAN'T be done is to have any kind of "immersion/verisimilitude rider" attached to any of the concepts above.  Those are neurological states that are objectively decoupled from the above across any given population.  One person might feel immersively "jarred" by having any Setting Authority, while another might feel "jarred" by having little to none.  It feels like too often people try to smuggle this in and then fight for legitimacy of their feelings (and then legitimize it via appeal to orthodox/majority sales).  This conflation is not only not helpful to distilling and analyzing the nature of concepts, its actively harmful.


----------



## Manbearcat

TwoSix said:


> I think the real stylistic divide is whether it's assumed the players are there to explore the DM's setting, or is the DM there to facilitate the generation of the story being told by the PCs.
> 
> Basically, most traditional RPGs are sort of like open-world CRPGs (think like Skyrim), except the DM acts to allow the action to be more open-ended because we, as human beings, can generate new content on the fly.  The DM states the environment and surroundings to the PCs, the PCs take actions in response to that environment, and the DM crafts a response based on the environment and any related rolls based on the PC's actions.  That's the obvious path of a dungeon crawl, a story path game (like a module) is essentially an geographically unbounded dungeon crawl, and a sandbox is a story path game with procedurally generated environment changes.
> 
> The other, "indie-game" approach is to assume the setting is simply a tool to provide scenery for conflict, and to help the player and DM create appropriate scenes.  There's no real exploration to be done, the players state a set of goals and the DM creates conflicts based around those goals.  The gameplay loop is "state your goal", the DM creates a conflict or hazard, and the subsequent roll decides the next step in the progression.




Broadly agree with the notable exception being Torchbearer!  Torchbearer pretty amazingly integrates the indie treatise of Burning Wheel with Moldvay Basic's aesthetic.


----------



## TwoSix

Manbearcat said:


> Broadly agree with the notable exception being Torchbearer!  Torchbearer pretty amazingly integrates the indie treatise of Burning Wheel with Moldvay Basic's aesthetic.



I think Torchbearer might be the RPG example of horseshoe theory, though. 

I admit to not having looked at Torchbearer too much; does it support/require map&key style play, or is the dungeon exploration vibe more a question of framing?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> But this is something that is easily fixed, and something I've fixed in my own campaigns. If the players figure out a solution or get lucky in the first ten minutes of play to kill the boss....I let them. I don't do damage control to keep the pace of the game going. It is a game, and games should have unexpected outcomes. If the players legitimately figured out a way to beat that challenge fast, it is good to give it to them.



Sure, but it is a really common pitfall, because the GM 'owns' the setting/fiction and thus develops a proprietary relationship with it. Also they are motivated by the fact that everything needs to be prepped. If you just spent the last week writing up the next 3 sessions worth of material, it can be a real bummer to watch it all melt in 10 minutes. NOW you ARE improvising on the fly, but without tools!


----------



## Manbearcat

TwoSix said:


> I think Torchbearer might be the RPG example of horseshoe theory, though.
> 
> I admit to not having looked at Torchbearer too much; does it support/require map&key style play, or is the dungeon exploration vibe more a question of framing?




Its Map & Key functional dungeon crawling where the GM creates the delve by going through TB's specific procedures. However, Twists (Wandering Monster Clock), Light Clock, and the Condition Clock are emergent properties of play (and the pressure points) and dynamically change the delve setting and subsequent situations.

There's an Adventure Phase, Camp Phase, Town Phase, and Winter (a special Town Phase) so, structurally, the game shares a lot with Blades (inspired by Moldvay).  Point(singular) of Light setting.  Characters struggle, change, are slain, or retire.

You've played Darkest Dungeon I suspect?  The creator of that game were 100 % creating a CRPG of Torchbearer.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In the game context, I prefer to use the mechanical resolution framework to find out if the PC gets what the player wants for him/her; and then establish the appropriate narration.
> 
> One reason for this is @hawkeyefan's from upthread: it avoids the frustration of RPGing-as-puzzle-solving.



A frustration I prefer to lean into, to a certian extent, rather than avoid.


pemerton said:


> Another is that I find it more entertaining and enjoyable: rather than deciding in advance what the outcome will be of such-and-such an approach to a NPC will be, we find out in play. It produces a wide range of unexpected consequences.



If the GM is doing her job halfway well, the outcome that results will stem more or less directly from the approach you took, based on what the GM has decided makes that NPC tick.

For example, if the GM (or the module) has pre-determined that a down-to-business approach will be much more effective with the Duke than will small talk and flattery then if your approach involves a lot of flattery and bootlicking you're not likely to get very far.  And even if your PC has no knowledge of these tendencies going in, one or two "Shut up and let's talk turkey" hints from the GM-as-Duke in response to your fawning approach ought to get it across, after which you sink or swim on your own.


pemerton said:


> An example: in our Classic Traveller game the PC von Jerrel seduced the NPC Imperial Navy Commander Lady Askol, ranking officer of the naval base on the world of Novus. This took place during the course of a week of wining-and-dining which another PC (Vincenzo von Hallucida) was financing, so as to allow the PCs more time before an alien starship they were exploring, which had mysteriously appeared in orbit about Novus, was interdicted by the Navy. The actual reduction was resolved via a roll on the Reaction Table, with +1 for von Jerrel's Liaison-1. The player rolled double 6 - in the system a roll of 12 is unmodified and produce a _genuinely and/or strongly friendly result_. As the player narrated it, when von Jerrel and Lady Askol kissed it was the most perfect kiss the latter had experienced, and she swooned in his arms.
> 
> Thus she willingly joined him when he invited her to accompany him onto the alien vessel. And then was onboard when it jumped out of the system to another world, where the PCs were trying to locate the remnants of the ancient alien civilisation that had built it. During that exploration, von Jerrel was accused by another NPC - Toru von Taxiwan - of using psionics, which is a serious matter in the Imperium. When Lady Askol asked him whether the accusation was true (which it was), lamenting that if it was true then she would have to send him back to his homeworld of Ashar (this last itself being the result of a roll on the reaction-to-use-of-psionics table, modified by +1 for his Liasion-1 and +2 as a GM-stipulated modifier to reflect her affection for him) he denied it. The previous reaction roll stood (ie the natural 12 signifiying _genuine and/or strong friendship_), and so Lady Askol believed his denial. The upshot is that Lady Askol has declared a provisional "first contact" order in respect of the alien site, thus asserting Imperial authority to displace that of von Taxiwan, and placing von Jerrel in command as Imperial Overseer while she returns to her naval base on Novus to take further steps.
> 
> This romance has involved two checks so far: the initial seduction attempt, and the reaction-to-the-use-of-psionics check. But the mechanical outcomes have had ongoing effects. The strongly successful seduction result has underpinned Lady Askol accompanying von Jerrel onto the alien vessel, tolerating being unexpectedly taken to another world in it, and then believing his lie and acting on it. And the result of the psionic reaction roll framed the player's choice to have his PC lie to her, which means we now have a situation where von Jerrel's romance with Lady Askol rests on a fundamental deception.
> 
> These events have played out over four sessions. They haven't been the totality of those sessions by any means, although the problem with the psionics was very prominent in the final hour or so of our most recent session. When I read Vincent Baker talking about _playing to find out what happens_, or read Paul Czege saying that he likes to f_rame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player _and to _keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this_, I think that what I've described in this post is an example of just that. I don't think it's as dramatic (either literarily or emotionally) as the sort of play they are aiming for - my group is solidly low-to-middle-brow melodrama at best - but in the process and the logic of play I think it is exactly what they're talking about.
> 
> I think the game would be much more boring for both me and the players if I had a description or a script for Lady Askol that dictated, in advance of the actual play and the actual action declarations, what she is like and how she will respond to things. Whatever that had been, I can't envisage how it would have ended up with von Jerrel stringing her along with a lie that had him appointed Imperial Overseer of a potential first contact site!



What you don't mention here, in a write-up of what at face value sounds like a very cool situation, is how much if any role-play went on before the seduction check happened.  I mean, if a seduction-check mechanic exists I can see many players saying no more than "I try to seduce her and - hey - double-sixes!"; where I (and I kinda suspect you also) would like to see a lot more roleplaying effort put in before that roll can occur.

Once things get going after that I'd also probably have one more check at some point surrounding the deception/lie, either by the player if the game had a specific Deception mechanic or by me-as-GM to see on a sliding scale if and-or how hard Lady Askol fell for it...which means - somewhat surprisingly - mechanically we're on pretty close ground here.


pemerton said:


> That's not an accurate description of either Moldvay Basic or AD&D. Both feature a reaction roll table, to be modified by CHA. In the example of play in Moldvay Basic we see the table in use, with the referee applying a contextual modification (but _not _a stipulated outcome) to reflect the impact of the player's action declarations.



Yes - that's one minor mechanic in a book otherwise filled with combat and exploration mechanics, which backs my assertion that the designers paid only as much heed to social mechanics as they felt they had to.


pemerton said:


> What is presented there is not wildly different from how my group does it in Traveller, except we have the benefit of a coherent set of subsystems rather than the hard-to-integrate mish-mash that is Classic D&D. (As I posted upthread it's fine for first impressions but it's not clear how to extend it into something like romance.)



In today's climate any attempt to codify romance might quickly run aground on other concerns, making the task even harder.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> So, I'm not going to argue that your experience is somehow false, but I've found there are at least two advantages to having social skills available for PCs. The first is that if there's a situation where between at the table and in the fiction it's clear that the knowledge-states are wildly different (which I know you hate ... but it's eminently plausible, for example, for the DM to know the PC is lying when the NPC should have no idea) it serves as a way to resolve things relatively fairly.



It's kind of a fact of life that the knowledge state of the GM and any NPC she plays are almost always going to be vastly different; and as a DM-facing mechanic (formal or not) I can get behind this as a compromise.


prabe said:


> The second is that it lets players without much in the way of social skills play a character who has them, and it doesn't bork the party. A probable third is that if one is playing a character who knows much about the world, that character will have heard of cultures the player hasn't (because this player at least doesn't read world books for setting I'm a player in) and should be capable of not committing some sort of lethal faux pas--and rolling seems at least as fair as DM Fiat.



These last two don't get as much sympathy from me.  Someone with limited social skills playing a character with great social skills might give said player a chance to improve said limited social skills.  As for setting knowledge, I don't use published settings in part because of all the stupid amounts of canon bloat; but the info for my homebrew setting is online and if you-as-player don't read it I'll just assume (most of the time) that your character's knowledge is similarly limited.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> A mechanic which forces a player/ PC to do X or constricts their choices on what they can do is a mechanic that takes away player agency over their character.
> 
> Most mechanical methods of generating agency over the fiction involve doing the above.



I was confused as to what you were referring to until I realized you were talking about D&D.  Of course! You must be talking about the Charm, Dominate, Fear, etc line of spells and abilities!

Right?  Or is there about to be a "but magic" lampshade placed over this?


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Of course you can eschew rules and 'just roleplay', and of course you can eschew rules and figure out some sort of substitute for wandering monsters (or just live with the resulting caster supremacy since everyone will play the old "unload the big guns at every encounter and then just rest" game). It is amusing to note that in the 40 years since 1e was published NO set of D&D rules has YET found another way to solve that problem, and 5e is still suffering with it! I do take your point that wandering monsters feels like a sort of hack, but yet, again, since nobody is willing to mess with casters to make them weaker, you can't just say "well, that's not a significant part of the game, just leave it broken!".



There's many ways to weaken casters such that while even if they can unload their big guns whenever they want, those big guns either a) aren't always 100% reliable or b) carry some risk to friends and allies or c) both.

But - and this has come up in one or two threads in the D&D side recently - the caster-player lobby is both numerous and loud, and thus any attempts to actually weaken or rein in casters get shot down.  So, instead the designers just weaken the spells themselves, which is hella boring.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, really what it all amounts to seems to be that some of us want to play a game which WORKS and provides relevant functionality out of the box. I'm perfectly fine with coloring outside the lines of any given game when people want to do that. If players in a DW game want to spend their 'carouse' move in irrelevant banter or seducing the local townswomen or whatever, that's fine. We don't really need to play with dice or whatever, but we COULD. I mean, 'Carouse' has a check, and one of the possible results is "you get into trouble". Nothing is worse trouble than girls! (sorry ladies, you may read the gender reversed version of this, it is equally true).
> 
> I mean, I can tell stories. I don't need an RPG for that. What @Crimson Longinus is suggesting is perfectly feasible and to an extent happens in every game, but it is not relevant to the point I was making, which was that principles of a game, and its agenda (maybe that falls under principles too, not sure) are an integral part of the game. Just because you can 'do other stuff at the table' doesn't really change that. Likewise with Wandering Monsters. Just because some people, even a lot of people, ignore it and live with the inevitable (and well-known) fallout doesn't undermine the point that wandering monsters are part of a set of rules that support core principles of classic D&D. XP for GP does that too, and this is why its removal from 2e was such a key indicator that 2e is really a whole different non-classic D&D (despite sharing a lot of mechanics with 1e).



Heh - we just saw 2e's removal of xp-for-gp as TSR finally catching up to us, as we'd taken it out in about 1983. 

We've also made a lot of other changes e.g. ditching weapon speed and weapon-vs-armour-type, removing or greatly raising demi-human level limits, allowing greater multi-class options and putting Humans into the same multi-classing mechanics as demi-humans; but I think if you sat in on a few of our sessions you'd still recognize it as largely hewing to the principles of classic D&D.

Or on second thought maybe you wouldn't, and now I'm quite curious whether we've in fact drifted farther than I realize.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Yes - that's one minor mechanic in a book otherwise filled with combat and exploration mechanics, which backs my assertion that the designers paid only as much heed to social mechanics as they felt they had to.



I never thought it was minor really. I mean, this was an area where players could open up a whole other dimension of play. A PC with a high CHA was suddenly like GOD, bribing the orcs, scaring away the kobolds, awing the goblins, making a clever bargain with the Ogres, etc. Heck, we WON B2 with these exact tactics! Honestly, this was the single most important avenue of player input into the game state in classic D&D AFAIK. Combat is highly uncertain and incredibly dangerous. Sneaking around and using clever spells and whatnot can work, too. Just plain knowing the ins and outs of the reaction tables and rolling on in with things stacked in your favor was FAR safer and a more sure bet. 

Plus it always felt very consistent with the whole milieu of D&D, where you constantly have reams of humanoids described as working for some NPC or other. Even if your goal was to remove them from the area and destroy their power, the most effective way is to get them to do the hard parts FOR YOU.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Heh - we just saw 2e's removal of xp-for-gp as TSR finally catching up to us, as we'd taken it out in about 1983.
> 
> We've also made a lot of other changes e.g. ditching weapon speed and weapon-vs-armour-type, removing or greatly raising demi-human level limits, allowing greater multi-class options and putting Humans into the same multi-classing mechanics as demi-humans; but I think if you sat in on a few of our sessions you'd still recognize it as largely hewing to the principles of classic D&D.
> 
> Or on second thought maybe you wouldn't, and now I'm quite curious whether we've in fact drifted farther than I realize.



There's a lot of stuff we ignored too. At some point, after playing for many years, we were dead bored of all the low level dungeon crawly stuff anyway and just sat around and made up adventures about our high level PCs. A lot of it still followed the rules, to an extent (combat, but I don't think we ever used speed factors and such). A lot of it was group story kind of stuff. I don't think we really truly played 2e. We used its class rules and THAC0, and that was about all. I honestly don't think we even really read the core books very carefully. Whenever we went back to low level play we also put the XP, training, and exploration rules of 1e into play.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> How can a player make such a comparison to knw the chance of success is better if they went with the dice or just continued to role play a scene?



Easy.  The player realizes the role-play is on its way to a crash-and-burn and - hoping the GM hasn't noticed yet - wants to roll.


hawkeyefan said:


> How is the "required time" for a scene determined?



It's only determined in retrospect, by how long it takes.

But when there's players (or GMs) who aren't willing to spend that time, there's a problem.


hawkeyefan said:


> Why would a table argument occur?



In a role-play situation that in theory involves the whole party:

Player (usually to another player): "Stop wasting time - just roll!"
Other player: "But this is a cool scene, and I want to play it out!"

Things quickly degenerate from there.

The other one, where it's a single PC in the situation:

Player: "I don't want to go through all this talky stuff - just let me roll."
GM: "If you don't 'go through all this' you're not going to get a chance to roll."

And how is that ever going to end well?


hawkeyefan said:


> No, it's not the same.
> 
> In real life, I don't need someone else to present the information about my new boss to me. There isn't some imperfect filter between me and the real world that I have to reference in order to be able to figure things out.
> 
> In real life, my new boss may have every reason to hate me. *All logic may say "this guy is awful and should probably be fired"*....and yet, maybe I can click with him in some unexpected way. Maybe, despite logic (GM fiat), my boss turns out to like me (a successful Charisma roll).



I've had those bosses; and I earnestly hope I've never been that boss. 

That said, there's some people (and I'm thinking of one ex-boss of mine in particular) where no matter how long you work for them you just never quite get a read on what makes them tick.  Some people are just inscrutable that way.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, but it is a really common pitfall, because the GM 'owns' the setting/fiction and thus develops a proprietary relationship with it. Also they are motivated by the fact that everything needs to be prepped. If you just spent the last week writing up the next 3 sessions worth of material, it can be a real bummer to watch it all melt in 10 minutes. NOW you ARE improvising on the fly, but without tools!




This is why I prep my settings so they can grow around the characters. Once things get in motion, the setting evolves a lot. I don't have any end goal in mind, I just sort of unleash the players onto the setting and see where things go once they start interacting with groups, NPCs, etc.


----------



## Lanefan

TwoSix said:


> This.  I don't know of any RP games where the player isn't assumed to have primary agency over action declarations of their character.



As designed, this is true.

As played, any sort of hard-railroad type of game or campaign or GM is likely to soon enough play merry hell with that agency, as certain action declarations will either end up banned or forced into certain not-necessarily-logical outcomes just to keep the train on the track.

Which means we can't ever assume that basic level of agency always exists.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, but it is a really common pitfall, because the GM 'owns' the setting/fiction and thus develops a proprietary relationship with it. Also they are motivated by the fact that everything needs to be prepped. If you just spent the last week writing up the next 3 sessions worth of material, it can be a real bummer to watch it all melt in 10 minutes. NOW you ARE improvising on the fly, but without tools!




It isn't pure improv. There are principles guiding everything and a lot of it hinges on knowing the motivations of groups, NPCs, etc. I take a living world approach. And I don't really plan out adventures as much as situations and characters. 

One of my frustrations in gaming was the very thing you point to here (particularly at the height of the early 2000s d20 boom. I just felt like I might as well hand in my GM notes to the players, because the mainstream style of play at the time, and the style they wanted, was very much around prepped adventures, that felt pretty linear to me. That is why I went back to the old books, really read the 1st edition DMG, and started messing around with the older modules and material (as well as the older systems). What that did for me was remind me  of some of the things I came to the game for when I first started playing and it helped get me on a path where I was moving away from that frustration and enjoying gaming again. I think the keys for me were emphasizing characters, situations, the concept of the living adventure (this was talked about in the Ravenloft module Feast of Goblyns---which was building off the original Ravenloft adventure concept in that regard), open exploration, dungeon crawls, let the dice fall where they may, etc. Going back to some of those old hex crawls was helpful as well. And experimenting with different approaches to adventure and investigation. My goal was definitely to avoid the problem you are talking about here (because it bugged me probably as much as it bugs you).


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Can we please stop bringing up lack of trust as the reason why people might prefer reflecting social dynamics through game mechanics? Almost everyone in this conversation is a GM. This is not about trust.



I'm not so sure about that.  There's one or two here who over time I've come to wonder if their whole underlying issue is one of trust, as in from the player side being either unable or unwilling to trust any GM, probably due to negative experience(s) in the past.

It can't be ignored.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Easy.  The player realizes the role-play is on its way to a crash-and-burn and - hoping the GM hasn't noticed yet - wants to roll.




That’s all vague. It’ll vary wildly from GM to GM. It may not be consistently applied. And so on.



Lanefan said:


> It's only determined in retrospect, by how long it takes.




This again is all vague.

And that may be a fine way to run a game....but it certainly doesn’t inform the player a whole lot, and it keeps a lot of things clearly in the hands of the GM.



Lanefan said:


> But when there's players (or GMs) who aren't willing to spend that time, there's a problem.
> 
> In a role-play situation that in theory involves the whole party:
> 
> Player (usually to another player): "Stop wasting time - just roll!"
> Other player: "But this is a cool scene, and I want to play it out!"
> 
> Things quickly degenerate from there.
> 
> The other one, where it's a single PC in the situation:
> 
> Player: "I don't want to go through all this talky stuff - just let me roll."
> GM: "If you don't 'go through all this' you're not going to get a chance to roll."
> 
> And how is that ever going to end well?




By adults acting like adults?



Lanefan said:


> I've had those bosses; and I earnestly hope I've never been that boss.
> 
> That said, there's some people (and I'm thinking of one ex-boss of mine in particular) where no matter how long you work for them you just never quite get a read on what makes them tick.  Some people are just inscrutable that way.




One boss like that, huh? But your approach to NPCs would make them all like that, wouldn’t it?

Let me ask you....have you ever surprised yourself? Like, you expect to hate something or someone....but what do you know, you wind up liking them? Have people you know well ever surprised you with their behavior? I would imagine so.

How do you replicate that ability to surprise...to do what’s not most likely or most obvious....with your approach?



Lanefan said:


> As designed, this is true.
> As played, any sort of hard-railroad type of game or campaign or GM is likely to soon enough play merry hell with that agency, as certain action declarations will either end up banned or forced into certain not-necessarily-logical outcomes just to keep the train on the track.
> Which means we can't ever assume that basic level of agency always exists.




I actually think it’s best to talk about games with the expectation that they’re being played as intended, unless someone tells us otherwise.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Bedrockgames said:


> I didn't say it wasn't but that was a direct response to a poster expressing what seemed like a distrust of GMs consistency ruling on these things. Trust in the GM seems like a big factor in many of these discussions




I don't know if that was me, but I'll _absolutely_ admit that I don't think GMs on the whole are good about consistency when they primarily have to go off their own memory.  But then, I've also said before that I'll frankly admit that I don't trust _any_ GM's judgment 100% of the time (including my own) so why should I trust their memory of something that may happen weeks apart?

(I also think when "trust" is used in these kinds of discussions, its usually overloaded; there's a massive difference between trusting someone's intentions and trusting their skills, memory, judgment or execution.)


----------



## Aldarc

Ovinomancer said:


> I was confused as to what you were referring to until I realized you were talking about D&D.  Of course! You must be talking about the Charm, Dominate, Fear, etc line of spells and abilities!
> 
> *Right?  Or is there about to be a "but magic" lampshade placed over this?*



Yeah, I'm getting some strong Warlord discussion flashbacks from this. 



hawkeyefan said:


> By adults acting like adults?



Ridiculous. Why would they ever act like adults? They are roleplaying adults in-character, imagining what it would be like to be fully self-actualized adults who can handle social issues responsibly like others do every day outside of gaming.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> that's one minor mechanic in a book otherwise filled with combat and exploration mechanics, which backs my assertion that the designers paid only as much heed to social mechanics as they felt they had to.



I would hope that any RPG designer only pays as much heed to any mechanic as s/he feels s/he has to!

My point was that the designers clearly _didn't_ think that "in-character talk at the table would suffice" (to quote your earlier post once again) - because they included a very important mechanic, linked to the CHA stat, which determines via that modified roll _how_ the GM is to frame the encounter between PCs and NPCs/monsters. As @AbdulAlhazred said, this is where a whole lot of classic D&D hijinks start from. You don't _have_ to have a MU cast Charm Person or Sleep in order to avoid having to fight everything encountered.



Lanefan said:


> A frustration I prefer to lean into, to a certain extent, rather than avoid.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For example, if the GM (or the module) has pre-determined that a down-to-business approach will be much more effective with the Duke than will small talk and flattery then if your approach involves a lot of flattery and bootlicking you're not likely to get very far.  And even if your PC has no knowledge of these tendencies going in, one or two "Shut up and let's talk turkey" hints from the GM-as-Duke in response to your fawning approach ought to get it across, after which you sink or swim on your own.



This is one half of exactly what I have zero interest in. What is the point of "hints from the GM" to tell the player how to solve the puzzle. Who's playing the game here, the player(s) or the GM solitaire?



Lanefan said:


> If the GM is doing her job halfway well, the outcome that results will stem more or less directly from the approach you took, based on what the GM has decided makes that NPC tick.



And this is the other half: because basically what is happening here is that I'm working through a pre-authored flowchart/decision-tree that is triggered by the players' action declarations.



Lanefan said:


> What you don't mention here, in a write-up of what at face value sounds like a very cool situation, is how much if any role-play went on before the seduction check happened.  I mean, if a seduction-check mechanic exists I can see many players saying no more than "I try to seduce her and - hey - double-sixes!"; where I (and I kinda suspect you also) would like to see a lot more roleplaying effort put in before that roll can occur.



I don't really think of play in terms of "roleplaying effort".

The players' main goal was to continue their exploration of the alien vessel Annic Nova without being interdicted. Here's the extract from the actual play write-up I posted in September:



pemerton said:


> In the last session, the PCs had defeated all the Aliens on board the mysterious starship the Annic Nova
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The Imperial Navy Cutter Modiphius had caught up with their starship (the laboratory research vessel St Christopher), but the wordsmith PCs - Methwit the "diplomat" (ie spy) and Vincenzo von Hallucida, the noble owner of the St Chrisopher who was being patched through from on-board the Annic Nova - were stalling Commander Lady Askol and her aide-de-camp Marine Lt Kadi.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the players decided that more stalling was in order. Their computer programmer on board the Annic Nova, Zeno Doxa, would need a week to have a chance of deciphering the workings of the alien computer. And so Vincenzo proposed that there be further discussions onworld about the strength of his salvage claim over the Annic Nova. He figured that it must be possible to fill a week on a winery tour! With another strong reaction roll Lady Askol agreed to this, and so seven player-controlled characters (Vincenzo and his close friend Leila Lo, the former owner of the St Christopher from whom he won it in a bet; Methwit; the other two noble PCs Sir Glaxon and von Jerrel; and as hangers-on Bobby "the Robber" (handy with an auto-rifle and with Streetwise-1) and Alissa (handy with a cutlass)) and the two NPCs went down to Novus, where for Cr 2,000 per day they had a good time.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The players <snippage> came up with a new plan: the St Christopher refuelled and charged its own jump pod, and then with some jury-rigged cables this power was transferred into the accumulator on the Annic Nova. The St Christopher then returned to Novus and refuelled again. A successful reaction check by von Jerrel's player (he has Liaision-1) ensured that the naval authorities on Novus didn't notice the double refuelling. And as it turned out, this was the beginning of von Jerrel's play to seduce Lady Askol.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Von Jerrel invited Lady Askol on board the Annic Nova to be personally shown around the vessel; and with another successful check he was able to blow off her aide-de-camp, so she was not accompanied by any other Navy personnel. His reaction roll when he went to kiss her was a natural 12 (on 2d6) and so she didn't notice when the jump drive was activated. It was only when he took her up to the astrogation dome that she realised the vessel was in jump space. Another two strong rolls meant that von Jerrel assuaged her initial outrage and was able to continue his seduction ("I thought that you wouldn't want us to be separated!") - but she did continue to insist that, from the point of view of her official duties, it was a kidnapping and not a desertion.



On re-reading that there were more checks than I recalled - distracting people from the second refuelling, blowing off the aide, and persuading Lady Askol that she hadn't really been kidnapped. For each there was a clear intent as well as task, and the amount of narration from the player would be pretty close to what I've described in this post: a bit of first person, a bit of third person. The key thing is establishing the fiction and how it relates to the intent, so that the action declaration can be meaningfully resolved.

Re-reading this play example, it shows how things can go with a series of successful rolls: a plan to steal a ship from under the noses of Imperial Navy ships worked! Obviously there are other ways to run heists (I've never played BitD or Scum and Villainy, but I gather the latter adapts the former for space rogues) but this one played out pretty nicely.

Not to say that things can't be interesting on failures too - von Jerrel's player has had strings of failures for his other characters in earlier sessions - but for me what it shows is the use of mechanics to determine whether intent is realised or not produces sequences of results that are not predicted or dictated by anyone.



Lanefan said:


> Once things get going after that I'd also probably have one more check at some point surrounding the deception/lie, either by the player if the game had a specific Deception mechanic or by me-as-GM to see on a sliding scale if and-or how hard Lady Askol fell for it...which means - somewhat surprisingly - mechanically we're on pretty close ground here.



To me there seemed to be no reason to call for a check. The earlier outcome was still in force; and there were two further reasons.

One was "internal" to the fictional situation: Lady Askol is INT 5, and so not all that sharp. There is no Bluff skill in Classic Traveller - the rules don't discuss it, but I think it's mostly for the GM to adjudicate based on NPC INT. Perhaps with a check on INT. The upshot is that deceiving via the spoken word is not apt to be a significant crunch-point in play - rather it's a step to something else.  If you think of it in terms of AW moves - _if you do it, you do it_ - than there is no *when you tell someone a lie* move. (Forging documents is a different matter: there is a Forgery skill, and it feeds into the rather intricate subsystems for dealing with officials and bureaucracy.) 

The second was "external" to the immediate situation but pretty important at the table: the player (clearly) didn't want Lady Askol to decide that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar. And I didn't want that either! So there was no point in calling for a check that would result in such a possibility. (Whereas the earlier checks did involve interesting alternatives - Lady Askol being accompanied by her aide; or being upset at being kidnapped; or noticing the second refuelling which might have resulted in politics on Novus or space combat in its vicinity.)

And an EDIT TO ADD:


Lanefan said:


> In theory 3e had the same proviso, as noted in the PHB (and the DMG?).  In practice...well...
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My point is that the introduction and presence of those mechanics led straight to a "skip to the roll" mentality among a distressingly large subset of players





Aldarc said:


> And would you mind telling me how it works in practice for these games you have no actual experience with?



The point of social mechanics as I see it, and as I hope my actual play example illustrates, is not to "skip to the roll". It's to allow for the determination of outcomes other than via dictation.

If the mechanics are any good, they will need the player to establish what the fiction and intent is that feeds into the resolution. That can be done via 1st person play or 3rd person narration of one's PC - what matters is that we know _what_ (eg) von Jerrel is hoping to achieve - eg to have Lady Askol not hold it against him that she came on board a jumping vessel without her aide.

The problem with 3E's Diplomacy system as I have heard it described (I have almost no experience with it) are:

(1) It is weak on calling for intent, and is focused more on reframing the starting-point of the situation (eg from Hostile to Friendly) rather than on generating some response by the NPC to the PC's action (like Lady Askol's outrage being assuaged);

(2) It's maths are broken.

Solid maths is important in any system. AW has it baked in. Classic Traveller is not quite as tight as AW, but seems mostly to work.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> *Setting Authority* - _The ability to establish Setting elements (persons, places, things, backstory)._
> 
> *Situation Authority* - _The ability to frame some or all initial components a Situation, or the ability to reframe a Situation as play unfolds._
> 
> *Character Agency* - _Player Agency excluding any Setting/Situation Authority, expressed exclusively through the vehicle of player character._



I find the concept of Character Agency in this scheme to be rather gerrymandered. And in practice a constraint that is often violated - see the discussions upthread about Gather Information, Foraging/Survival, and the like - which seem to bestow Setting Authority but rarely seem to cause much controversy (because no one feels this is very high stakes and it is "logical" that the locals should be gossiping or that there should be berries to find in the foreset; cf the different response to the setting element being the unique tower of a unique wizard). 

I'm also curious where the GM taking suggestions (either formally like item wish lists in 4e D&D, or informally) fits in. That seems like Setting and/or Situation Authority (depending on the content) but is not uncommon, at least in its informal modes, in ostensibly Character Agency-based play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I would hope that any RPG designer only pays as much heed to any mechanic as s/he feels s/he has to!
> 
> My point was that the designers clearly _didn't_ think that "in-character talk at the table would suffice" (to quote your earlier post once again) - because they included a very important mechanic, linked to the CHA stat, which determines via that modified roll _how_ the GM is to frame the encounter between PCs and NPCs/monsters. As @AbdulAlhazred said, this is where a whole lot of classic D&D hijinks start from. You don't _have_ to have a MU cast Charm Person or Sleep in order to avoid having to fight everything encountered.
> (eg) von Jerrel is hoping to achieve - eg to have Lady Askol not hold it against him that she came on board a jumping vessel without her aide.



Here I disagree with you. I think what happened is that there was always a certain 'simulation' bent to D&D rules writing. The game originated as a tabletop wargame. With 2e they arrived at 'story teller GM' but with wargame-derived mechanics. This wasn't a 'design', it was just unanalyzed hackery, exigency piled on top of tradition to create an inchoate and incoherent 'system'. From a marketing perspective it has the clothing of D&D, which makes it quite salable, and of course you can play it. Its not a terrible game or anything, but it isn't 'designed' in any way shape or fashion beyond whatever is left of Gygax's original design.

So, skills are just larded on top in a sort of simulationist reflex. There is no concept of how, when, why, or where they should be used. Go through the modules (especially the OA ones) and you will see what I mean. As RP 'background' signifiers they kind of DO work in OA, your Samurai gets 'Tea Ceremony' and this signifies he's cultured, etc. The other ones, derived from the DSG and WSG, are simply "we like the simulation idea of skills, every other game now has them, so we added a bunch of material to create some for these books, look it fills a lot of pages!" 2e just carried them forward. It is telling that all this happened right after Gary left TSR...

3.0 simply carried on with that. There's no coherent design reason for it. Diplomacy in 3.x is not some coherent chosen design decision that indicates that anyone was thinking about anything! IMHO 3.0 was garbage. It was written by people who didn't understand classic D&D AT ALL. It was a mechanical rationalization of the already incoherent non-design that was 2e. In the course of creating it they broke practically everything that was left of the original design of D&D, and in every case those were bad decisions. 3.5 was needed because 3.0 was a HOT MESS. Half the classes didn't work at all, casters were so OP it was not even funny, and then fundamentally at the core there was simply no workable conceptual process, no principles of design. Thus 3.5 failed as well. 4e was really invented because the designers at WotC THREW UP THEIR HANDS, plainly seeing that what they had was unfixable and was a terrible design for a game! 

Now, what all this shows is that what works for game designers and what works for people just muddling through playing a game are a lot different. Still, in the case of skills people really were never getting their money's worth out of that in anything except 4e, where they have a design purpose and serve it fairly well. 5e is a bit in the middle, clearly Mike understood the problem, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to just improve the 4e approach (IE make a better SC-like system and keep the short skill list). So, now we have a lot of bad choices, but at least the list is fairly bounded. Skills are still kind of a 5th wheel without being tied to core resolution process, but at least they serve the 'RP signifier' purpose and some of them are pretty useful (IE the perception type skills and similar, and the physical skills basically do their job, the social ones are borked of course, but so it goes...). 

My point is, there's no point in discussing what D&D designers intended with skills, there WAS NO INTENT, except in 4e.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I would hope that any RPG designer only pays as much heed to any mechanic as s/he feels s/he has to!
> 
> My point was that the designers clearly _didn't_ think that "in-character talk at the table would suffice" (to quote your earlier post once again) - because they included a very important mechanic, linked to the CHA stat, which determines via that modified roll _how_ the GM is to frame the encounter between PCs and NPCs/monsters. As @AbdulAlhazred said, this is where a whole lot of classic D&D hijinks start from. You don't _have_ to have a MU cast Charm Person or Sleep in order to avoid having to fight everything encountered.
> 
> The point of social mechanics as I see it, and as I hope my actual play example illustrates, is not to "skip to the roll". It's to allow for the determination of outcomes other than via dictation.
> 
> If the mechanics are any good, they will need the player to establish what the fiction and intent is that feeds into the resolution. That can be done via 1st person play or 3rd person narration of one's PC - what matters is that we know _what_ (eg) von Jerrel is hoping to achieve - eg to have Lady Askol not hold it against him that she came on board a jumping vessel without her aide.
> 
> The problem with 3E's Diplomacy system as I have heard it described (I have almost no experience with it) are:
> 
> (1) It is weak on calling for intent, and is focused more on reframing the starting-point of the situation (eg from Hostile to Friendly) rather than on generating some response by the NPC to the PC's action (like Lady Askol's outrage being assuaged);
> 
> (2) It's maths are broken.
> 
> Solid maths is important in any system. AW has it baked in. Classic Traveller is not quite as tight as AW, but seems mostly to work.



I think the 3e Diplomacy system is at least partly harking back to the classic D&D reaction subsystem. It COULD work as a version of that, although it doesn't seem like the PROCESS to use it as such was developed. That is, in 1e AD&D the reaction system is codified right into the encounter resolution process as a distinct step. The option 'parley' is specifically called out and flagged as a thing that players should consider, and if they opt for it they do so at a specific point in the initial phases of an encounter. 3.x doesn't call any of this out, so it is at best nascent.

Classic D&D's reaction system worked, because it wasn't really a skill system, it was more of a 'world generation' system. There were no such things as 'reaction checks'. There was no point where the player called for a reaction role. At best they could ask for 'parley', or there were a few other specific points where it just got invoked (it was a factor in loyalty/morale, and also in hiring NPCs). Its effect was very clear, it generated a stance which the NPC involved would take. Everything from there was pure RP. The DM was expected to have some fictional explanation for whatever the reaction was. Sometimes DMs pre-rolled the check, or set a value for it, so it would be coherent with their existing setting design. That was acceptable too (well, who was going to argue... lol).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Aldarc said:


> Ridiculous. Why would they ever act like adults? They are roleplaying adults in-character, imagining what it would be like to be fully self-actualized adults who can handle social issues responsibly like others do every day outside of gaming.




I mean, I'm not gonna claim that my game doesn't occasionally have a bit of drama at the table, but I'm not gonna blame the rules for that. And any such instances are always best worked out by having a conversation.



pemerton said:


> I find the concept of Character Agency in this scheme to be rather gerrymandered. And in practice a constraint that is often violated - see the discussions upthread about Gather Information, Foraging/Survival, and the like - which seem to bestow Setting Authority but rarely seem to cause much controversy (because no one feels this is very high stakes and it is "logical" that the locals should be gossiping or that there should be berries to find in the foreset; cf the different response to the setting element being the unique tower of a unique wizard).




I think you've hit on it about the logical bit. It's also likely deemed okay because it builds on something already established by the GM, and still gets filtered through the GM's judgment; I don't know if a GM in such a game would not consider it beyond their ability to render a successful roll to forage effectively a failure by evoking the notes. So it might play out like this:

Player: Ranger is going to forage for food so that we don't starve out here. 
GM: Okay, go ahead and roll your Wilderness skill.
Player: Wow, I rolled a 27! 
GM: Very nice! You're able to determine with certainty that there is nothing to forage in this area. The flora is all poisonous, so you know not to eat that! And there is an absence of wildlife that is eerily unsettling. 
Player: But I rolled a 27!?!
GM: Yeah, but there is nothing here to find; it says so in my description of the Desolate Plains. I mean....they're desolate! You were able to determine that the flora would be dangerous, so at least you don't poison yourselves.

Or something similar. Such an action still gets filtered by the GM and his notes or the module or whatever. And although some folks would say "well that's not how the GM should handle it" there are others who would say "well of course....it's the Desolate Plains, and it was determined ahead of time there was nothing safe to eat there." 

And I think that a big part of the problem is that huge variance between results, both of which could be seen as supported by the rules.

Part of this, I think, hinges upon how Actions are viewed. I imagine that the default assumption when a character attempts an Action roll of some kind.....like a Forage check in this example.....most or many folks view the success/fail result to be a result of the character's performance, rather than a property of the fictional world. So if Ranger fails his roll, he has failed to find food. Which seems pretty absurd, except perhaps in the most extreme locations. 

Other folks would see such a failed result and decide that it indicates there is no food to be found. So it's not so much that the Ranger failed at the most basic functions of his class, but rather that there wasn't a way for him to succeed in the fiction. This is more about the Action roll helping to shape the fictional world rather than just the character. And in many cases, I think this is preferable; I know I'd rather think of it as food is impossible to find than that my Ranger is inept.

That distinction can play a big part in this kind of thing, too, which I think can go unnoticed.



pemerton said:


> I'm also curious where the GM taking suggestions (either formally like item wish lists in 4e D&D, or informally) fits in. That seems like Setting and/or Situation Authority (depending on the content) but is not uncommon, at least in its informal modes, in ostensibly Character Agency-based play.




Based on @Manbearcat 's descriptions of the categories, this would seem to fall into Setting Authority. 

But it's the same thing here as I just described above.....it's probably fine because the GM can deny it out of hand. It's a request made by the player, but ultimately it's up to the GM to put the request into play.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, I'm not gonna claim that my game doesn't occasionally have a bit of drama at the table, but I'm not gonna blame the rules for that. And any such instances are always best worked out by having a conversation.




I don't really disagree with you, but I'll just note this hobby (and the world in general) is _full_ of people who are poor at having a conversation about things for any number of reasons (it became clear to me a number of years ago that 90% of game problems came back to that, and if that was easy for everyone they wouldn't come up in the first place). A set of rules isn't going to fix that, but I'm willing to say they can make the problem better or worse (which doesn't mean I agree with any particular rule doing so automatically).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I don't really disagree with you, but I'll just note this hobby (and the world in general) is _full_ of people who are poor at having a conversation about things for any number of reasons (it became clear to me a number of years ago that 90% of game problems came back to that, and if that was easy for everyone they wouldn't come up in the first place). A set of rules isn't going to fix that, but I'm willing to say they can make the problem better or worse (which doesn't mean I agree with any particular rule doing so automatically).



Oh, but they DO! That is one of the great benefits of a set of rules. 6 socially inept geeks can sit down together around a table and simply follow a set of rules, process, and adhere to some principles, and things can go smoothly. If I run a PbtA game, or a PACE game (sort of a diceless Maelstrom basically) then it ALWAYS goes pretty well. I know what to do. Everyone is on the same page, and the process is coherent. 

I mean, D&D is not some sort of disaster either, it has a bunch of rough edges, but it gives you a basic structure to work with. Now, the WW 'Storyteller' stuff, or 2e played 'as written' runs into bigger problems, but most any RPG will get you most of the way there. 

Trying to do unstructured play with the same geeks? They better get along well, else probably things will be sub-optimal. Mostly they just won't know exactly what to do...


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I don't really disagree with you, but I'll just note this hobby (and the world in general) is _full_ of people who are poor at having a conversation about things for any number of reasons (it became clear to me a number of years ago that 90% of game problems came back to that, and if that was easy for everyone they wouldn't come up in the first place). A set of rules isn't going to fix that, but I'm willing to say they can make the problem better or worse (which doesn't mean I agree with any particular rule doing so automatically).




I wouldn't disagree with any of that. It can be hard to have an open conversation for a number of possible reasons.

But that doesn't mean that's not the best way to resolve the issue.

And although rules can indeed cause some issues to come up, or can exacerbate ones that may already exist, for the most part I'd say that rules do the opposite. They set the common ground that all participants should understand going in.

If a rule is causing an issue, sure, the group should consider changing it to make their experience better. I think that makes sense. But I don't think that means the rule shouldn't exist!

Edited to Add: And it seems that I was largely ninja'd by @AbdulAlhazred !


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Oh, but they DO! That is one of the great benefits of a set of rules. 6 socially inept geeks can sit down together around a table and simply follow a set of rules, process, and adhere to some principles, and things can go smoothly. If I run a PbtA game, or a PACE game (sort of a diceless Maelstrom basically) then it ALWAYS goes pretty well. I know what to do. Everyone is on the same page, and the process is coherent.




I'd suggest if you think that, you've been unusually fortunate in your set of encountered players.  The rules are only a corner of the social problems that can crop up in a gaming group, and can only address that corner (and even then you have to deal with everyone agreeing what the rules say, agreeing what they're saying is a good idea, and more).


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> I wouldn't disagree with any of that. It can be hard to have an open conversation for a number of possible reasons.
> 
> But that doesn't mean that's not the best way to resolve the issue.




Absolutely.  But sometimes its also functionally impossible, and the attempt to do so actually exacerbates the extent problems.



hawkeyefan said:


> And although rules can indeed cause some issues to come up, or can exacerbate ones that may already exist, for the most part I'd say that rules do the opposite. They set the common ground that all participants should understand going in.




If you're reading me as saying "Rules Don't Matter", I'm communicating poorly.  As far as I'm concerned they absolutely do.  I just think some things within the gaming contract are outside their reach.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> I was confused as to what you were referring to until I realized you were talking about D&D.  Of course! You must be talking about the Charm, Dominate, Fear, etc line of spells and abilities!
> 
> Right?  Or is there about to be a "but magic" lampshade placed over this?



Those most certainly impact player agency over their character.  Of course not having the option of playing a charmed or dominated character could also be viewed as a lack of agency.  So I think such abilities need included, provided they make sense in the fictional setting. 

So IMO, It boils down to being about how forced altered mental states are best handled in a game while still allowing a player to retain control of the characters Unaltered mental state.

do you view the character as the physical body in the fictional world or as the fictional mind/soul that is animating that character. If your view is the later then domination or charm magic isn’t taking away your agency of the unaltered mind/soul.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I'd suggest if you think that, you've been unusually fortunate in your set of encountered players.  The rules are only a corner of the social problems that can crop up in a gaming group, and can only address that corner (and even then you have to deal with everyone agreeing what the rules say, agreeing what they're saying is a good idea, and more).




This may be true, for sure, but even when it is, the rules create some kind of starting point. If they are clearly delineated, then there's a framework in place to understand and to engage with.

For instance, my group has long dismissed any kind of encumbrance or carrying capacity rules in D&D. We just find them boring bookkeeping.....so we jettisoned them entirely. What we've put in place can't even be quantified, really, beyond being an appeal to common sense.

Now, getting rid of encumbrance/carrying capacity impacts the game in that the tactical element of having some kind of inventory limit causing decisions of how to best fill it is pretty much gone, or at the very least severely impacted. Is that sufficient reason to not get rid of the rule? Which headache is bigger; all that resource and inventory tracking, or the occasional instance where someone has more stuff than they reasonably should? It's up to the group to decide.

Maybe it gets addressed through the rules: "Hey, you found a bag of holding!" Or maybe it needs a discussion outside of the arena of rules.

And as you say, there's more than just the rules to it.....but they are the framework by which we engage the game. This is why I tend to be advocating for the use of rules and/or set procedures in this thread. It makes things more understandable. It establishes how things are "supposed" to go. Doesn't mean they must go that way.....just that this is the default expectation, unless. 

So....encumbrance. We ditched it because we didn't like it. We replaced it with something that is so vague that it not only would be prone to conflict, but it would almost actively promote it. Luckily, inventory was never that big a part of our game that this mattered all that much. Honestly, this kind of worked out okay by total serendipity. We didn't realize the potential impact changing a rule could have, we just did it because no one liked looking up and counting the weight of their items.

But if we were to take a rule in some other area and remove a clearly defined method with a vague one....wow, the impact could have been huge, and likely would have caused all kinds of issues.

(I realize a lot of the above goes well beyond a response to what you posted, but it all seemed connected to the ongoing discussion)



Thomas Shey said:


> Absolutely.  But sometimes its also functionally impossible, and the attempt to do so actually exacerbates the extent problems.




Oh, sure....there will always be instances that go beyond being able to address things reasonably. Always will be exceptions.



Thomas Shey said:


> If you're reading me as saying "Rules Don't Matter", I'm communicating poorly.  As far as I'm concerned they absolutely do.  I just think some things within the gaming contract are outside their reach.




No, I think I understand your point. I'm not saying the rules don't matter because obviously opinions on the rules will vary, and if opinions at the same table conflict, then you may have a problem of some sort. I think that very often the solution to this problem is beyond the rules in that a discussion needs to happen, and then a reasonable solution can be worked out.

If such a discussion isn't possible, then I think how to proceed is a bit tricky, but would need input specific to the situation and the actual participants.


----------



## Campbell

I personally take a very dim view to games trying to solve social problems at the table or casting the GM as a parental figure there to mediate conflicts between players. The conflicts games resolve should be conflicts in the fiction and not ones between players' (including the GM) different creative visions. Without functional creative relationships play is a nonstarter for me personally. A shared purpose is a prerequisite for play.

Especially when it comes to character focused play it's no fun if the other people are not into it.

Circling this back to agency I think in order for play to be meaningful our play needs to meaningfully be constrained by other people's play. This can come purely from fictional positioning, but the right mechanics may enhance it. That shared commitment to seeing where things go is essential.  Walled off gardens where we only selectively choose how our stuff gets affected by play run counter to the essence of my understanding of agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I think you've hit on it about the logical bit. It's also likely deemed okay because it builds on something already established by the GM, and still gets filtered through the GM's judgment; I don't know if a GM in such a game would not consider it beyond their ability to render a successful roll to forage effectively a failure by evoking the notes. So it might play out like this:
> 
> Player: Ranger is going to forage for food so that we don't starve out here.
> GM: Okay, go ahead and roll your Wilderness skill.
> Player: Wow, I rolled a 27!
> GM: Very nice! You're able to determine with certainty that there is nothing to forage in this area. The flora is all poisonous, so you know not to eat that! And there is an absence of wildlife that is eerily unsettling.
> Player: But I rolled a 27!?!
> GM: Yeah, but there is nothing here to find; it says so in my description of the Desolate Plains. I mean....they're desolate! You were able to determine that the flora would be dangerous, so at least you don't poison yourselves.
> 
> Or something similar. Such an action still gets filtered by the GM and his notes or the module or whatever. And although some folks would say "well that's not how the GM should handle it" there are others who would say "well of course....it's the Desolate Plains, and it was determined ahead of time there was nothing safe to eat there."
> 
> And I think that a big part of the problem is that huge variance between results, both of which could be seen as supported by the rules.
> 
> Part of this, I think, hinges upon how Actions are viewed. I imagine that the default assumption when a character attempts an Action roll of some kind.....like a Forage check in this example.....most or many folks view the success/fail result to be a result of the character's performance, rather than a property of the fictional world. So if Ranger fails his roll, he has failed to find food. Which seems pretty absurd, except perhaps in the most extreme locations.
> 
> Other folks would see such a failed result and decide that it indicates there is no food to be found. So it's not so much that the Ranger failed at the most basic functions of his class, but rather that there wasn't a way for him to succeed in the fiction. This is more about the Action roll helping to shape the fictional world rather than just the character. And in many cases, I think this is preferable; I know I'd rather think of it as food is impossible to find than that my Ranger is inept.
> 
> That distinction can play a big part in this kind of thing, too, which I think can go unnoticed.




Yes, I primarily view the roll as the measure of character's performance. (Now, I might occasionally let it flavour the world a bit if I don't have the exact details figured out beforehand, and in D&D this would likely be for the reason you mention: to avoid a supposedly skilled character looking incompetent. That one might feel a need to do so is due the system being extremely swingy; more than I would ideally like. I'd also let characters who are trained in a skill to have certain level of baseline competence at routine tasks.)

And at least with the system like D&D, the roll not creating the actual setting details seems far more coherent to me. Several characters could be foraging at that same place, or same character at different times (but still in same season etc.) Certainly the same location cannot randomly appear different to different characters or at different times depending on what was rolled. 

Now as for your specific example, in my book 27 failing to find _anything_ to eat would require something more than some mundane wasteland. It would require some sort of a supernaturally barren death zone where literally nothing lives or grows. And if the characters had not realised that they had wandered into such, then this roll would certainly be a great way for them to find out, and a perfect example of a situation where it makes sense to allow the roll even though the actual thing the character tries to do has no chance of succeeding. I don't know how this would work in a sort of system that requires setting explicit stakes before the roll can be made...


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> My point is, there's no point in discussing what D&D designers intended with skills, there WAS NO INTENT, except in 4e.



I largely agree with this. I was talking about the design of classic D&D (basically everything up through Moldvay  Basic) which doesn't have skills other than thief ones.

But it does have the Reaction Table. So if you get a lucky roll and/or a CHA bonus, you can meet an ogre and have it be friendly, or at least not attack (_What you people doing in this dungeon?_) without having to use spells. Of course spells can push the situation in the players' favour - but that's their main point in classic D&D. They're rationed "hero points" given an in-fiction rationale.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Classic D&D's reaction system worked, because it wasn't really a skill system, it was more of a 'world generation' system. There were no such things as 'reaction checks'. There was no point where the player called for a reaction role. At best they could ask for 'parley', or there were a few other specific points where it just got invoked (it was a factor in loyalty/morale, and also in hiring NPCs). Its effect was very clear, it generated a stance which the NPC involved would take. Everything from there was pure RP. The DM was expected to have some fictional explanation for whatever the reaction was.



Yes, I think this is broadly consistent with what I posted. Probably the most obvious way to oblige the GM to roll on the table is to initiate a parley, as you say. That can be looked at as a type of action declaration with the prospect of triggering a reframing. The CHA mod helps ensure that that reframing runs the PCs' way.

The role in loyalty and hiring processes also sits on that framing/action declaration interface. This is a point where I think Traveller is just clearer. From Book 3 (1977), p 23:

Reaction throws are made once, upon initial encounter. . . . Reactions are used by the referee and by players as a guide to the probable actions of individuals. They may be used to determine the response of a person to business offers or deals (often Admin or Bribery expertise will be used as a DM in such cases). Reactions govern the reliability and quality of hirelings and employees. Generally, they would re-roll reactions in the face of extremely bad treatment or unusually dangerous tasks.​
Moldvay Basic, by way of contrast, has this (p B24; p B23 has the reaction roll as Step 6 of the Order of Events in One Game Turn):

Some monsters always act in the same way (such a zombies, who always attack). However, the reactions of most monsters are not always the same. The DM can always choose the monster's reactions to fit the dungeon, but if he decides not to do this, a DM may use the reaction table below to determine the monster's reactions . . .​
There is no discussion of re-checks or ad hoc modifications; that is illustrated in the example of play.

The Traveller presentation (I think) more naturally suggests extension to a resolution process. It talks about the initial encounter but goes on to talk about responding to offers (and this is reinforced in the Bribery skill description). It's not as tight as (say) AW's *seduce or manipulate* move. Even the Traveller descriptors on its table are more easily applicable to a wider range of circumstances (beyond encounters in a dungeon).



AbdulAlhazred said:


> there was always a certain 'simulation' bent to D&D rules writing. The game originated as a tabletop wargame. With 2e they arrived at 'story teller GM' but with wargame-derived mechanics. This wasn't a 'design', it was just unanalyzed hackery, exigency piled on top of tradition to create an inchoate and incoherent 'system'.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> skills are just larded on top in a sort of simulationist reflex. There is no concept of how, when, why, or where they should be used.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 3.0 simply carried on with that. There's no coherent design reason for it. Diplomacy in 3.x is not some coherent chosen design decision that indicates that anyone was thinking about anything! IMHO 3.0 was garbage. It was written by people who didn't understand classic D&D AT ALL.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 3.5 was needed because 3.0 was a HOT MESS. Half the classes didn't work at all, casters were so OP it was not even funny, and then fundamentally at the core there was simply no workable conceptual process, no principles of design. Thus 3.5 failed as well. 4e was really invented because the designers at WotC THREW UP THEIR HANDS, plainly seeing that what they had was unfixable and was a terrible design for a game!
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 5e is a bit in the middle, clearly Mike understood the problem, but somehow he couldn't bring himself to just improve the 4e approach (IE make a better SC-like system and keep the short skill list). So, now we have a lot of bad choices, but at least the list is fairly bounded. Skills are still kind of a 5th wheel without being tied to core resolution process, but at least they serve the 'RP signifier' purpose and some of them are pretty useful (IE the perception type skills and similar, and the physical skills basically do their job, the social ones are borked of course, but so it goes...).



I think I agree with this too. I don't have much experience with 3E, and have never tried to analyse it in detail. I do know that the maths for diplomacy is broken, _and_ there seems to be no theory/process for using it that goes anywhere beyond Moldvay's example in his Basic rules of the PCs encountering the hobgoblins.

Part of what makes the Moldvay reaction table work is that the CHA bonus is capped at +2 on a 2d6 roll; and Moldvay's example of play shows a GM adding in an ad hoc +1 for a friendly greeting. Classic Traveller is similar: it's a 2d6 rolls with no in-principle limits on adjustments but in practice unlikely to have anyone with more than +4 from skills. (I would add: the existence of CHA in Moldvay tends to crowd out the room for skill-based mods as well. Traveller doesn't have anything like a CHA ability - skills like Admin and Leadership and Carousing and Liaison fill this space.)

Whereas 3E Diplomacy is set up broadly like a reaction table, with DCs to shift a starting attitude to a better attitude (and a small risk of worsening the attitude as a result), but nothing in the game design that puts a bound on the maths.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the 3e Diplomacy system is at least partly harking back to the classic D&D reaction subsystem. It COULD work as a version of that, although it doesn't seem like the PROCESS to use it as such was developed. That is, in 1e AD&D the reaction system is codified right into the encounter resolution process as a distinct step. The option 'parley' is specifically called out and flagged as a thing that players should consider, and if they opt for it they do so at a specific point in the initial phases of an encounter. 3.x doesn't call any of this out, so it is at best nascent.



Yep. I wrote the paragraph above before adding in your second post (quoted just now).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

I would say there is no reason to make a roll for something which will not decide anything. Success and failure of the 'find food' check are identical, so why roll? Just explain to the highly competent hunter/survivalist that the local area is utterly barren. Anyone who can live off the land cannot possibly fail to note that fact! In a 'classic' RPG where skills just denote success and failure there is no need to roll for auto-fail, or auto-success either.

4e had knowledge checks, which would be where a PC might make a check, but 'this area is utterly barren' seems like it couldn't fail really here either. Perhaps such a check could discern some reason for the condition.

This is where a narrative kind of system like BW or DW comes into play. Here a player can assert an intent. The result might be "the land is barren" (and fair enough, this might already be established) but it could also be "you manage to catch..." which could be the start of a whole other piece of fiction! Of course whatever it is will be edible, but do you REALLY want to eat a talking tortoise?


----------



## pemerton

*Charm and dominate effects*
In the Burning Wheel game I GM, one of the PCs encountered a Dark Naga which cast Force of Will on it.

Here is the spell's effect (Revised Character Burner, p 178):

This spell allows the mage to implant forceful commands into the victim's mind. The words of the mage becomes thoughts - as if the victim had formulated them himself. This is a very powerful spell - the words of the sorcerer are permanently embedded and resonate against the character's personality for the rest of his days.​
The way we handled this, in mechanical terms, was that I required the player to rewrite one of his PC's Belief to reflect the commands of the Naga. We worked out the details together.

To go back to @chaochou and @Campbell's account of agency (_setting the PC's goal_) this is a limit on agency: I as GM had a significant say over what is, by default, a part of the PC build that is sacrosanct to the player.

But it certainly doesn't limit the player's ability to declare actions for his PC. Those action declarations and their resolution still influenced the shared fiction in significant ways.

*Foraging in a desolate wasteland*
If there is nothing to eat, that is part of the framing and should follow naturally from that established fiction. As @AbdulAlhazred has said, there may well be no need to make a check at all.

There's a further question as to whether such a framing is a good one. That's an issue of judgement, and context.

Suppose the ranger PC has a Foraging or Survival ability that is in the realm of human maximum, whether that's read off the mechanical bonus on a PC sheet (as would be the case in, say, Prince Valiant), or off the fiction and mechanics together (as would be the case in, say, 4e or Cortex+ Heroic). This is a person who can find sustenance in the harshest and most difficult circumstances. So is it good GMing to frame the wilderness as literal wasteland? Or is it better to set a difficulty that is appropriately high?

Now if we're in a more gonzo fantasy game, perhaps we're not talking about an earthly desert but some barren layer of the Abyss. But then we may also be talking about a ranger who is a gonzo personality! And as AbdulAlhzard said, the outcome of a successful check might be something pretty gonzo too.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I find the concept of Character Agency in this scheme to be rather gerrymandered. And in practice a constraint that is often violated - see the discussions upthread about Gather Information, Foraging/Survival, and the like - which seem to bestow Setting Authority but rarely seem to cause much controversy (because no one feels this is very high stakes and it is "logical" that the locals should be gossiping or that there should be berries to find in the foreset; cf the different response to the setting element being the unique tower of a unique wizard).
> 
> I'm also curious where the GM taking suggestions (either formally like item wish lists in 4e D&D, or informally) fits in. That seems like Setting and/or Situation Authority (depending on the content) but is not uncommon, at least in its informal modes, in ostensibly Character Agency-based play.




My iteration included the clause _Player Agency excluding any Setting/Situation Authority _precisely because I agree with you that, in the wild, the concept is gerrymandered.  There are *clearly *cases of setting and situation stipulation embedded in RPGs that have either been accepted or hand-waved for expedience, or players being used to their deployment because they've used them unexamined for so long...or they were quietly excised by players.  The same gerrymandering has long occurred, and we've had conversations aplenty on it, with metagame mechanics (and all of our conversations on "dissociated mechanics."

I spelled it out alongside the other two for lexicon purposes to easier examine and discuss these concepts, discuss their application within a design, to achieve some measure of clarity and attempt to prevent such gerrymandering in our conversations.  I'd be glad to make revisions if they don't appropriately apply!

Some thoughts:

* Games that principally include "low resolution setting/backstory", "play to find out", and "ask questions and use the answers" fundamentally invest the players with a measure of both Setting and Situation Authority (the degree to which will vary in each actual instance/session of play, but it will be there). 

* Games that include player-dictated advancement (Quests + robustly thematic Theme/Paragon Path/Epic Destiny and Magic Items in 4e, Cortex+ Milestones et al, Dogs entire character setup and dice allocation, BW and PBtA family of games) fundamentally invest players with Situation Authority.

* Streetwise in 4e vs Gather Information in 3.x have some key differences in terms of their nesting within their own system architecture and ethos:

*STREETWISE *- Player-facing system, codified and transparent conflict resolution, the nature of the abstract conflict resolution framework (genre logic, broad descriptor abilities, principles/GMing techniques, etc) invest players with a not-insignificant-amount of Situation Authority over both initial framing and subsequent framing.

*GATHER INFORMATION* - GM-facing system, GM mandate a la 2e and 5e, granular task resolution + process/causal logic, GM-block-caveat embedded in the ability ("assuming no obvious reason why info would be withheld").

Sum-told, all of the ethos and system architecture surrounding Gather Information in 3.x cleaves toward any given deployment of Gather Information having Setting and (subsequent to a successful GI check) Situation Authority subverted by the GM.  Conversely, all of the ethos and system architecture surrounding Streetwise in 4e makes it approach impervious to GM subversion of Setting and (subsequent) Situation Authority for players.

Disagree?


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s all vague. It’ll vary wildly from GM to GM. It may not be consistently applied. And so on.



Exactly - which is why again it comes down to trusting your GM to get it right most of the time.


hawkeyefan said:


> This again is all vague.
> 
> And that may be a fine way to run a game....but it certainly doesn’t inform the player a whole lot, and it keeps a lot of things clearly in the hands of the GM.



Allowing twhatever time it takes a scene to play out sounds like leaving this aspect in the hands of the players, to me.


hawkeyefan said:


> By adults acting like adults?



Impatient adults, yes, who are only there for the dice-rolling. 


hawkeyefan said:


> One boss like that, huh? But your approach to NPCs would make them all like that, wouldn’t it?
> 
> Let me ask you....have you ever surprised yourself? Like, you expect to hate something or someone....but what do you know, you wind up liking them? Have people you know well ever surprised you with their behavior? I would imagine so.
> 
> How do you replicate that ability to surprise...to do what’s not most likely or most obvious....with your approach?



Through role-play, I suppose.  I've certainly seen and done this in PC-v-PC relationships.


hawkeyefan said:


> I actually think it’s best to talk about games with the expectation that they’re being played as intended, unless someone tells us otherwise.



Things is, played-as-intended isn't always (and maybe isn't often) the same as played-as-played.  Kinda similar to the difference between rules-as-intended (never mind rules-as-written!) and rules-as-played.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I would hope that any RPG designer only pays as much heed to any mechanic as s/he feels s/he has to!
> 
> My point was that the designers clearly _didn't_ think that "in-character talk at the table would suffice" (to quote your earlier post once again) - because they included a very important mechanic, linked to the CHA stat, which determines via that modified roll _how_ the GM is to frame the encounter between PCs and NPCs/monsters.



As a starting point.  From that initial reaction things then develop organically, largely depending on what the PCs try to do and-or how they approach it.


pemerton said:


> This is one half of exactly what I have zero interest in. What is the point of "hints from the GM" to tell the player how to solve the puzzle. Who's playing the game here, the player(s) or the GM solitaire?



OK - first you complain about there being no way to read the NPC's personality and-or motives, and then you complain again when an obvious means of telegraphing them is brought up.  Which half of the road do you want?


pemerton said:


> I don't really think of play in terms of "roleplaying effort".



It is, though, in that a player (usually) has to put more thought and effort into roleplaying a scene than into saying "Just roll the dice".


pemerton said:


> The second was "external" to the immediate situation but pretty important at the table: the player (clearly) didn't want Lady Askol to decide that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar. And I didn't want that either! So there was no point in calling for a check that would result in such a possibility.



Why not?  I mean, if there's a chance that would happen (and there's certainly stakes involved), doesn't internal fiction consistency demand such a check even though the result might not be what anyone wants?

To me, not calling for a check just because there's the potential for an undesirable result hews rather close to fudging a damage roll so as not to kill off a PC that both its player and the GM are fond of.


pemerton said:


> The point of social mechanics as I see it, and as I hope my actual play example illustrates, is not to "skip to the roll".



Agreed in theory.

However, I've seen enough players (and IME at least one GM) who think the point IS to eschew the talky bits and skip to the roll that I've come to concude that this theory isn't reliable enough in the wild to be useful.

The only way these people will roleplay is if there is no roll to skip to. (and I'm not talking about people with limited social skills here)


pemerton said:


> The problem with 3E's Diplomacy system as I have heard it described (I have almost no experience with it) are:
> 
> (1) It is weak on calling for intent, and is focused more on reframing the starting-point of the situation (eg from Hostile to Friendly) rather than on generating some response by the NPC to the PC's action (like Lady Askol's outrage being assuaged);



IME it was used, depending on the situation, for both.


pemerton said:


> (2) It's maths are broken.
> 
> Solid maths is important in any system. AW has it baked in. Classic Traveller is not quite as tight as AW, but seems mostly to work.



Can't speak to that - while I played a fair bit of 3e I generally took a 1e approach to this aspect and left as much of the math in the DM's hands as I could.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I think you've hit on it about the logical bit. It's also likely deemed okay because it builds on something already established by the GM, and still gets filtered through the GM's judgment; I don't know if a GM in such a game would not consider it beyond their ability to render a successful roll to forage effectively a failure by evoking the notes. So it might play out like this:
> 
> Player: Ranger is going to forage for food so that we don't starve out here.
> GM: Okay, go ahead and roll your Wilderness skill.



GM here should have thrown in something - even just a half-sarcastic "Good luck with that" - to indicate that foraging at best would be very difficult and more likely would be wasted time for the Ranger.  Or, instead of calling for the roll she could just say "It's the Desolate Plains, man.  There's nothing out here."


hawkeyefan said:


> Player: Wow, I rolled a 27!
> GM: Very nice! You're able to determine with certainty that there is nothing to forage in this area. The flora is all poisonous, so you know not to eat that! And there is an absence of wildlife that is eerily unsettling.



Having called for the roll and with the player's die producing a stupendous result, the GM here could maybe throw the PC a bone by giving something like "You got lucky - in a sheltered cleft you found one edible plant, just enough for a meal for one person; and it's probably the only one of those plants for many miles around.  Do you really want to uproot it?" (while also mentioning the bits about the poisonous stuff and the lack of wildlife)


hawkeyefan said:


> Player: But I rolled a 27!?!
> GM: Yeah, but there is nothing here to find; it says so in my description of the Desolate Plains. I mean....they're desolate! You were able to determine that the flora would be dangerous, so at least you don't poison yourselves.
> 
> Or something similar. Such an action still gets filtered by the GM and his notes or the module or whatever. And although some folks would say "well that's not how the GM should handle it" there are others who would say "well of course....it's the Desolate Plains, and it was determined ahead of time there was nothing safe to eat there."
> 
> And I think that a big part of the problem is that huge variance between results, both of which could be seen as supported by the rules.
> 
> Part of this, I think, hinges upon how Actions are viewed. I imagine that the default assumption when a character attempts an Action roll of some kind.....like a Forage check in this example.....most or many folks view the success/fail result to be a result of the character's performance, rather than a property of the fictional world. So if Ranger fails his roll, he has failed to find food. Which seems pretty absurd, except perhaps in the most extreme locations.
> 
> Other folks would see such a failed result and decide that it indicates there is no food to be found. So it's not so much that the Ranger failed at the most basic functions of his class, but rather that there wasn't a way for him to succeed in the fiction. This is more about the Action roll helping to shape the fictional world rather than just the character. And in many cases, I think this is preferable; I know I'd rather think of it as food is impossible to find than that my Ranger is inept.
> 
> That distinction can play a big part in this kind of thing, too, which I think can go unnoticed.



Good points.

It also falls under the heading of even if something is impossible in the fiction, players/PCs should still be allowed to try it anyway.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> GM here should have thrown in something - even just a half-sarcastic "Good luck with that" - to indicate that foraging at best would be very difficult and more likely would be wasted time for the Ranger.



Isn't that metagaming? Which you're against?



Lanefan said:


> OK - first you complain about there being no way to read the NPC's personality and-or motives, and then you complain again when an obvious means of telegraphing them is brought up.  Which half of the road do you want?



Neither. That's my whole point.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The second was "external" to the immediate situation but pretty important at the table: the player (clearly) didn't want Lady Askol to decide that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar. And I didn't want that either! So there was no point in calling for a check that would result in such a possibility.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why not?  I mean, if there's a chance that would happen (and there's certainly stakes involved), doesn't internal fiction consistency demand such a check even though the result might not be what anyone wants?
Click to expand...


The check isn't part of the fiction. The check is an event in the real world used to settle the content of the fiction when it is uncertain or the subject of contest at the table.

There is no fictional consistency in Lady Askol believing von Jerrel's lie. That was clearly what the player wanted to have happen. It suited me too! So there was no contest at the table. Hence no need for any sort of check.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Why not? I mean, if there's a chance that would happen (and there's certainly stakes involved), doesn't internal fiction consistency demand such a check even though the result might not be what anyone wants?
> 
> To me, not calling for a check just because there's the potential for an undesirable result hews rather close to fudging a damage roll so as not to kill off a PC that both its player and the GM are fond of.



I don't follow this at all. What do you mean by "there is a chance this might happen"? This is a FICTION, what happens is what the participants in making the fiction SAY happens. While I would agree that a roll in combat is normally agreed upon to be the way to resolve fights, this is not nearly true otherwise. In fact we can demonstrate that by the simplest reductio. You cannot possibly know what all the possibilities in a 'realistic' world would be. No human being could possibly claim to that believably. So there is only that which you choose to put into the fiction (or roll for) and that which you don't (either because of choice or out of sheer ignorance or lack of capacity to imagine it as a possibility). 

So there cannot possibly be any principle "always roll for everything that is possible." It is simply unimplementable, even in a practical "roll for some things" version. Thus to accuse @pemerton of 'fudging' here is really kind of preposterous. His avowed reason for not rolling may be related to where the participants are aiming the narrative, but that is at most just him acknowledging that some option wasn't interesting to anyone at the table. There are probably dozens of other options we could have come up with at that moment that nobody even THOUGHT to dice for. Is the result somehow corrupt because of that? Of course not.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Disagree?



Not in any deep way. Maybe not even in any superficial way.

I think the situation authority that comes with 4e is similar to the "implicit suggestion" authority over setting that comes up when the player of the high-level paladin starts speculating about finding a Holy Avenger and so the GM decides to put one in the next adventure. It's well short of shared control over the details of framing.

I think the differences that you point to between Streetwise in 4e and Gather Information in 3E go to the heart of system architecture:

4e has a clear resolution framework which allows Setting authority as an aspect of that (eg it's taken for granted that the use of Streetwise in a skill challenge might involve the player referring to contacts and local dives and the like which haven't been previously established in the shared fiction; this is reinforced by the Slow Pursuit Streetwise-based skill power);

3E does not, so it presents a skill that only makes sense if we assume some player authority over setting (and if the "no obvious reason" clause is treated as a credibility check) but that in practice, given the lack of clear structure and principle and the likely folding of the "no obvious reason" clause into broader references to "rule zero" (which itself gets used quite differently from how I first read it in the 3E PHB), is apt to be heavily GM gated and manipulated in all sorts of ways.


----------



## Campbell

I am not sure I like distinguishing between agency over setting and agency over situation. In my view setting is subsumed by situation.


----------



## pemerton

*PCs of faith*
I've just come back home from a run. As I was running past a glass building and admiring my middle-aged physique I was moved to reflect on differences and the connections between me and Thurgon, Last Knight of the Iron Tower (my Burning Wheel PC).

Thurgon has the Faithful trait. As a result he has a Faith attribute that has a rating, just the same as his ability scores. Consistent with the rules of the game, he also has a Belief that expresses his Faith: _The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory_.

There are different ways to think about knights of holy orders. My main influences are actual history, where (eg) some Crusaders clearly had strong beliefs about the possibility and reality of providential revelations and happenings; and the film Excalibur, which is my favourite version of the Arthur stories.

Thurgon believes in providence. _The Lord of Battle will lead him to glory _is one expression of that overarching understanding of the world. It would be _hugely disruptive_ to the immersion in the play of this character for all the events that happen in the fiction - like finding tooked-for towers, or meeting looked-for brothers - to be dictated by an external force (eg mere random rolls; dispassionate GM worldbuilding) that has no connection to the inner life, struggles and convictions of the faithful.

This is one way in which I think classic D&D, though it is replete with religious tropes, is very poor at actually capturing some important interpretations and understandings of what those tropes really mean.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Not in any deep way. Maybe not even in any superficial way.
> 
> I think the situation authority that comes with 4e is similar to the "implicit suggestion" authority over setting that comes up when the player of the high-level paladin starts speculating about finding a Holy Avenger and so the GM decides to put one in the next adventure. It's well short of shared control over the details of framing.
> 
> I think the differences that you point to between Streetwise in 4e and Gather Information in 3E go to the heart of system architecture:
> 
> 4e has a clear resolution framework which allows Setting authority as an aspect of that (eg it's taken for granted that the use of Streetwise in a skill challenge might involve the player referring to contacts and local dives and the like which haven't been previously established in the shared fiction; this is reinforced by the Slow Pursuit Streetwise-based skill power);
> 
> 3E does not, so it presents a skill that only makes sense if we assume some player authority over setting (and if the "no obvious reason" clause is treated as a credibility check) but that in practice, given the lack of clear structure and principle and the likely folding of the "no obvious reason" clause into broader references to "rule zero" (which itself gets used quite differently from how I first read it in the 3E PHB), is apt to be heavily GM gated and manipulated in all sorts of ways.



I see 4e through the lens of how we have been playing, in which you really don't do 'checks' outside of 'challenges', and the players specify the intent of their actions when they take a 'move' in a challenge. So, if you used Streetwise (for whatever purpose) you'd be defining what it was supposed to accomplish in terms of changing the state of the fiction. "I want to spread a rumor about Fat Joe that will induce him to come to me for protection." You may also need to clarify what exactly action you are taking in more concrete terms, but maybe not. Anyway, success is going to produce the sort of fiction you asked for, and either you or the GM are going to have to supply whatever the explanation is in order to narrate it (I suppose since in my example a lot of whatever happens is kind of 'offscreen' between NPCs it might not be a great example). 

In any case, there's also the overall goal that is in mind, whatever winning or losing the challenge leads to. This is almost always determined by the players, maybe constrained by fictional position to a degree, but given how we have added "and change the fictional situation by spending..." kinds of rules, that's pretty negotiable.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> This is one way in which I think classic D&D, though it is replete with religious tropes, is very poor at actually capturing some important interpretations and understandings of what those tropes really mean.



It is certainly poor at producing them as actual traits or principles of the world the PC inhabits. I guess the reprise is "well, believe in something that I (the DM) made to be true about the world!" lol. This is kind of a capsule of how the two (to simplify things to two viewpoints) viewpoints are different. One allows for all sorts of these kinds of elaborations, and invites them. This opens up a lot of this 'internalization', but the other doesn't. Heck, BW in this case would be happy to let us posit that the PC inhabits a world WHICH CONFORMS TO his beliefs, because of those beliefs! I guess you could do that in any game, but it is pretty natural in this case.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Not in any deep way. Maybe not even in any superficial way.
> 
> I think the situation authority that comes with 4e is similar to the "implicit suggestion" authority over setting that comes up when the player of the high-level paladin starts speculating about finding a Holy Avenger and so the GM decides to put one in the next adventure. It's well short of shared control over the details of framing.
> 
> I think the differences that you point to between Streetwise in 4e and Gather Information in 3E go to the heart of system architecture:
> 
> 4e has a clear resolution framework which allows Setting authority as an aspect of that (eg it's taken for granted that the use of Streetwise in a skill challenge might involve the player referring to contacts and local dives and the like which haven't been previously established in the shared fiction; this is reinforced by the Slow Pursuit Streetwise-based skill power);
> 
> 3E does not, so it presents a skill that only makes sense if we assume some player authority over setting (and if the "no obvious reason" clause is treated as a credibility check) but that in practice, given the lack of clear structure and principle and the likely folding of the "no obvious reason" clause into broader references to "rule zero" (which itself gets used quite differently from how I first read it in the 3E PHB), is apt to be heavily GM gated and manipulated in all sorts of ways.




That is exactly what I had in mind.  

Going back to your first paragraph, there is definitely that aspect of 4e yielding Situation and/or Setting Authority.  I can think of a few others though (and let me know what you think):

1)  The combination of Quests + baked-in character thematics ensure downstream effects.  If you're a Sohei Themed Monk w/ the Quest "I will recover the Phase Spider Silk Sash of my order and lay low the Yokai who brought ruin to it", the game will entail (a) what you're describing above (a waist item that lets the Monk teleport or phase), (b) a revenge and recovery arc that puts a specific form of supernatural as the antagonism to the PC's protagonism.

2)  The "say yes" genre logic, broad descriptor Skills & Keywords, codified and player-facing nature of 4e ensures the following:

* If the above (1) is true and...

* I'm in a parley w/ a local lord that is hostile to me without cause and...

* We're in a Complexity 2 Skill Challenge and we're at Success 5 and...

* I construe the situation as this Lord is either (a) possessed by a Yokai or (b) an actual Yokai but (c) regardless, involved in the conspiracy against my temple in some way...if I use an Arcana or Religion check (possibly backed by a key-worded power to give me a bonus) to adjure or reveal the possession/guise or if I sufficiently challenge the "Yokai-as-Lord" w/ Intimidate (yielding a success regardless of Arcana/Religion/Intimidate), then...

* The Skill Challenge will come to a close, my intent/goal in the challenge will be realized and now we're dealing with an unmasked Yokai, the shock or exposure of its court (perhaps they knew?), and the unrest that will ensue in this Prefecture as a result.

That is pretty significant Setting Authority and Situation Authority and a 4e GM is encouraged to say yes here (and must oblige the success of the Skill Challenge).



This is the kind of thing that many GMs in this thread (and a huge array of ENWorld GMs outside of it) balked hard at (and that ingratiated 4e to you and I and some others in this thread).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> That is exactly what I had in mind.
> 
> Going back to your first paragraph, there is definitely that aspect of 4e yielding Situation and/or Setting Authority.  I can think of a few others though (and let me know what you think):
> 
> 1)  The combination of Quests + baked-in character thematics ensure downstream effects.  If you're a Sohei Themed Monk w/ the Quest "I will recover the Phase Spider Silk Sash of my order and lay low the Yokai who brought ruin to it", the game will entail (a) what you're describing above (a waist item that lets the Monk teleport or phase), (b) a revenge and recovery arc that puts a specific form of supernatural as the antagonism to the PC's protagonism.
> 
> 2)  The "say yes" genre logic, broad descriptor Skills & Keywords, codified and player-facing nature of 4e ensures the following:
> 
> * If the above (1) is true and...
> 
> * I'm in a parley w/ a local lord that is hostile to me without cause and...
> 
> * We're in a Complexity 2 Skill Challenge and we're at Success 5 and...
> 
> * I construe the situation as this Lord is either (a) possessed by a Yokai or (b) an actual Yokai but (c) regardless, involved in the conspiracy against my temple in some way...if I use an Arcana or Religion check (possibly backed by a key-worded power to give me a bonus) to adjure or reveal the possession/guise or if I sufficiently challenge the "Yokai-as-Lord" w/ Intimidate (yielding a success regardless of Arcana/Religion/Intimidate), then...
> 
> * The Skill Challenge will come to a close, my intent/goal in the challenge will be realized and now we're dealing with an unmasked Yokai, the shock or exposure of its court (perhaps they knew?), and the unrest that will ensue in this Prefecture as a result.
> 
> That is pretty significant Setting Authority and Situation Authority and a 4e GM is encouraged to say yes here (and must oblige the success of the Skill Challenge).
> 
> 
> 
> This is the kind of thing that many GMs in this thread (and a huge array of ENWorld GMs outside of it) balked hard at (and that ingratiated 4e to you and I and some others in this thread).



I really liked the way all the thematics were integrated into your character so easily. You had class, feats, theme, PP, ED, even just power selections could feed into it, not to mention items. This worked pretty well, though (as I have said a few times before) we created a variation on the advancement technique. So PCs would quest for the gear they wanted, and what elements they ended up with would arise out of the story (So, if you were level 10 and there was a narrative situation which suggested a PP, then you'd get that, sort of the "bit by the spider" kind of narrative). Level advancement was just 'yep, you're a paragon now, you must be level 11'.


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> I am not sure I like distinguishing between agency over setting and agency over situation. In my view setting is subsumed by situation.




I'm going to use Flashbacks in Blades to demonstrate my thinking on this (making them discrete things):

* Flashbacks are necessarily ALWAYS Authority over Situation but not Authority over Setting (in any appreciable away):

"I moored a getaway rowboat in the canal below the 2nd story balcony in case things go tit's up (as you're evading pursuit through the Master Bedroom and about to egress through the 2nd story balcony."

* Flashbacks are necessarily ALWAYS Authority over Situation and sometimes Authority over Setting:

"I paid the Bailiff 1 Coin to house Zaltana in Prisoner Handling Room 2 (while she awaits trial) because it has a soldered cover to the sewer system in its floor."

Thoughts?


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> Thurgon believes in providence. _The Lord of Battle will lead him to glory _is one expression of that overarching understanding of the world. It would be _hugely disruptive_ to the immersion in the play of this character for all the events that happen in the fiction - like finding tooked-for towers, or meeting looked-for brothers - to be dictated by an external force (eg mere random rolls; dispassionate GM worldbuilding) that has no connection to the inner life, struggles and convictions of the faithful.




With no offense intended, that's because you're paying attention to the metagame issues yourself.  After all, your historical models were projecting Providence on events that (one has to assume) were primarily dictated by external force.  

But they believed anyway.  That's what made it faith.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> With no offense intended, that's because you're paying attention to the metagame issues yourself.  After all, your historical models were projecting Providence on events that (one has to assume) were primarily dictated by external force.
> 
> But they believed anyway.  That's what made it faith.



How is that relevant? We're talking about an RPG. Sure, one possible scenario could be that a PC has false beliefs.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> How is that relevant? We're talking about an RPG. Sure, one possible scenario could be that a PC has false beliefs.




Does it make their faith less real?  I'd say not.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Isn't that metagaming? Which you're against?



GM saying to the Ranger's player "You're on the Desolate Plains, remember, so your chance of finding anything is slim to none" has the same effect.


pemerton said:


> Neither. That's my whole point.



Well I'm not going to tell you ahead of time what makes the NPC tick if your PC has no way of knowing that info.  And, just like your PC, any relevant NPC is going to have their own personality and motivations in place before you meet it...they're not blank slates waiting for you-the-player to fill them in.  What they are is in-game people who your in-game person has to deal with as they are.


pemerton said:


> The check isn't part of the fiction. The check is an event in the real world used to settle the content of the fiction when it is uncertain or the subject of contest at the table.



Whatever.  You know full well what I mean.


pemerton said:


> There is no fictional consistency in Lady Askol believing von Jerrel's lie. That was clearly what the player wanted to have happen. It suited me too! So there was no contest at the table. Hence no need for any sort of check.



She could have believed it, or she could have not believed it; and it sounds like much would hinge on this.  But instead of invoking mechanics (which you seem quite ready and willing to do most of the rest of the time) you handwaved it to suit yours and the player's desires...which would likely be fine, other than it's exactly the sort of GM force you often argue against.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't follow this at all. What do you mean by "there is a chance this might happen"? This is a FICTION, what happens is what the participants in making the fiction SAY happens.



In collaborative storytelling, yes.  But if you want these decision-making mechanics in the game whenever there's an uncertain result with stakes riding on it (which there certainly were here!) you don't get to pick and choose when to invoke them.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> While I would agree that a roll in combat is normally agreed upon to be the way to resolve fights, this is not nearly true otherwise. In fact we can demonstrate that by the simplest reductio. You cannot possibly know what all the possibilities in a 'realistic' world would be. No human being could possibly claim to that believably. So there is only that which you choose to put into the fiction (or roll for) and that which you don't (either because of choice or out of sheer ignorance or lack of capacity to imagine it as a possibility).



Obviously.  But in real life (sometimes) and in a game setting (more often) it's easy to recognize a significant decision point that has stakes on it.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So there cannot possibly be any principle "always roll for everything that is possible." It is simply unimplementable, even in a practical "roll for some things" version. Thus to accuse @pemerton of 'fudging' here is really kind of preposterous. His avowed reason for not rolling may be related to where the participants are aiming the narrative, but that is at most just him acknowledging that some option wasn't interesting to anyone at the table.



Whether or not a particular option is interesting isn't the point.  The point is whether or not it's valid, regardless of interest level.  And if you're willing to skip the mechanics so as not to let the dice steer you into an uninteresting situation, doesn't that call into question the validity of those mechanics the rest of the time?


AbdulAlhazred said:


> There are probably dozens of other options we could have come up with at that moment that nobody even THOUGHT to dice for. Is the result somehow corrupt because of that? Of course not.



In the example given, it's largely boiled down to a fairly binary question of whether or not someone believes a lie; with the whole direction of the near- and mid-term forthcoming fiction riding on the outcome of that question (i.e. there's significant stakes here).  There's really only two options: she believes it, or she doesn't.

And it was resolved by, in effect, GM fiat.  I'd have no problem with this at all were it not being done by someone who has spent ages in here  arguing against GM fiat in any form......


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> She could have believed it, or she could have not believed it; and it sounds like much would hinge on this.  But instead of invoking mechanics (which you seem quite ready and willing to do most of the rest of the time) you handwaved it to suit yours and the player's desires...which would likely be fine, other than it's exactly the sort of GM force you often argue against.



"Saying 'yes'" isn't GM force. It's not GM force when a player in an AD&D game says _My character wears a red cloak_ and the GM says _OK_.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> That is exactly what I had in mind.
> 
> Going back to your first paragraph, there is definitely that aspect of 4e yielding Situation and/or Setting Authority.  I can think of a few others though (and let me know what you think):
> 
> 1)  The combination of Quests + baked-in character thematics ensure downstream effects.  If you're a Sohei Themed Monk w/ the Quest "I will recover the Phase Spider Silk Sash of my order and lay low the Yokai who brought ruin to it", the game will entail (a) what you're describing above (a waist item that lets the Monk teleport or phase), (b) a revenge and recovery arc that puts a specific form of supernatural as the antagonism to the PC's protagonism.
> 
> 2)  The "say yes" genre logic, broad descriptor Skills & Keywords, codified and player-facing nature of 4e ensures the following:
> 
> * If the above (1) is true and...
> 
> * I'm in a parley w/ a local lord that is hostile to me without cause and...
> 
> * We're in a Complexity 2 Skill Challenge and we're at Success 5 and...
> 
> * I construe the situation as this Lord is either (a) possessed by a Yokai or (b) an actual Yokai but (c) regardless, involved in the conspiracy against my temple in some way...if I use an Arcana or Religion check (possibly backed by a key-worded power to give me a bonus) to adjure or reveal the possession/guise or if I sufficiently challenge the "Yokai-as-Lord" w/ Intimidate (yielding a success regardless of Arcana/Religion/Intimidate), then...
> 
> * The Skill Challenge will come to a close, my intent/goal in the challenge will be realized and now we're dealing with an unmasked Yokai, the shock or exposure of its court (perhaps they knew?), and the unrest that will ensue in this Prefecture as a result.
> 
> That is pretty significant Setting Authority and Situation Authority and a 4e GM is encouraged to say yes here (and must oblige the success of the Skill Challenge).
> 
> 
> 
> This is the kind of thing that many GMs in this thread (and a huge array of ENWorld GMs outside of it) balked hard at (and that ingratiated 4e to you and I and some others in this thread).



I agree with this last paragraph. It was definitely something that didn’t appeal to me. But worth mentioning this kind of gameplay was already present ‘culturally’ by the mid-3E days with things like ‘wishlists’ of magic items (often to help character builds).


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> With no offense intended, that's because you're paying attention to the metagame issues yourself.  After all, your historical models were projecting Providence on events that (one has to assume) were primarily dictated by external force.
> 
> But they believed anyway.  That's what made it faith.



I understand your point. I don't fully agree.

If we accept that our (real) world is the unfolding of external forces, there is no doubt that many people are able to see providential purpose in it.

But in the context of a RPG, it is in my view much harder to see the (imagined) world as _not_ "dictated by an external force (eg mere random rolls; dispassionate GM worldbuilding) that has no connection to the inner life, struggles and convictions of the faithful" if in fact it is. It's not just that, at the meta-level, one is aware of the causal/decision-making process (quite differently from the real world). It's that that process is manifest in the events themselves, which will have the "inner life, struggles and convictions" of _someone else _(ie the GM) evident in them.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Well I'm not going to tell you ahead of time what makes the NPC tick if your PC has no way of knowing that info.  And, just like your PC, any relevant NPC is going to have their own personality and motivations in place before you meet it...they're not blank slates waiting for you-the-player to fill them in.  What they are is in-game people who your in-game person has to deal with as they are.



As I have posted, this is precisely the sort of RPG-as-puzzle solving that holds little interest for me as player or as GM.



Lanefan said:


> She could have believed it, or she could have not believed it; and it sounds like much would hinge on this.  But instead of invoking mechanics (which you seem quite ready and willing to do most of the rest of the time) you handwaved it to suit yours and the player's desires...which would likely be fine, other than it's exactly the sort of GM force you often argue against.





Lanefan said:


> if you want these decision-making mechanics in the game whenever there's an uncertain result with stakes riding on it (which there certainly were here!) you don't get to pick and choose when to invoke them.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Whether or not a particular option is interesting isn't the point.  The point is whether or not it's valid, regardless of interest level.  And *if you're willing to skip the mechanics so as not to let the dice steer you into an uninteresting situation, doesn't that call into question the validity of those mechanics the rest of the time?*
> 
> In the example given, it's largely boiled down to a fairly binary question of whether or not someone believes a lie; with *the whole direction of the near- and mid-term forthcoming fiction riding on the outcome of that question (i.e. there's significant stakes here). * There's really only two options: she believes it, or she doesn't.
> 
> And it was resolved by, in effect, GM fiat.  I'd have no problem with this at all were it not being done by someone who has spent ages in here  arguing against GM fiat in any form......



It's not resolved by GM fiat. It's resolved via GM-player consensus. No player action declaration has been contradicted or blocked from succeeding.

The notion of _validity _that you use isn't one that I use or even fully grasp - as @AbdulAlhazred has said, there are many options that are possible but that might not be put on the table because no one thinks of them.

I have no real idea of what you have in mind with the first bolded bit. All I can do is reiterate the notion of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"; this quote is from p 72 of BW Gold (available for free online; I linked to it upthread):

Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​
Classic Traveller is not a strictly "say 'yes' or roll the dice" system - in many ways it is closer to AW and _moves_. But as I posted upthread there is no *when you tell a lie *move/subsystem in Traveller. So I have to make a call. Is there conflict here to be resolved, such that I need to find a relevant subsystem - the most basic version being a check against a basic attribute, in this case INT?

I decided that there is not. Lady Askola accepted von Jerrel's statement that he is not psionic.

Does she _really _believe it? Does she accept it because she _wants_ to believe it? These are open questions. It may be that they are put to the test, and perhaps answered, by subsequent play.

This relates to the second bolded bit. The fact that the whole direction of the fiction turns on something doesn't mean that that something is at stake. In hi Adventure Burner, Luke Crane gives the example of a player narrating his acrobatic elf walking along the railing of a bridge high over a chasm. And points out that no check is called for, because it's mere colour. There is no conflict. The fact that the fiction would be very different if the elf fell to his death from the bridge doesn't mean that we have to check to see if such a thing happens; any more than we have to check to see whether a PC trips over and sprains an ankle when s/he walks out of the tavern door (though such things are clearly _possible_, and would affect the ensuing fiction).

The effect of what happened in our session is that the player has been able to add new fiction: not only is Lady Askol in love with, or at least infatuated with, von Jerrel - but her attitude towards him, and treatment of him, depends on a lie. By "saying 'yes'" I've allowed the player to ramp up the pressure of the romantic situation. No conflict has been resolved by social agreement; rather, the stakes of possible future conflict have been stepped up. That's part of what a GM does, - or at least part of what I do as a GM - in modulating pacing, situation and the like.

This is not _neutral _refereeing. But Classic Traveller does not tell the referee that s/he has to be neutral. From the 1977 rules:

* Book 2, p 36: "When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances."

* Book 3, p 8: "[T]he referee should always feel free to impose worlds which have been deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised specifically to reward or torment players."

* Book 3, p 19: "The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so."​
Although the Traveller mechanics are in many way rather process-simulation in their form, the referee is not expected to confine him-/herself to administering a "world simulation".


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> In hi Adventure Burner, Luke Crane gives the example of a player narrating his acrobatic elf walking along the railing of a bridge high over a chasm. And points out that no check is called for, because it's mere colour. There is no conflict. The fact that the fiction would be very different if the elf fell to his death from the bridge doesn't mean that we have to check to see if such a thing happens; any more than we have to check to see whether a PC trips over and sprains an ankle when s/he walks out of the tavern door (though such things are clearly _possible_, and would affect the ensuing fiction).



Just want to make sure I'm following your logic here. Is it because in crossing the bridge normally nothing is at stake (one crosses a bridge, just as one departs a tavern, without a roll), so when adding description based on the fiction (acrobatic elves do things like balance all the time) nothing additional is being put at stake? Or is there something else?


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> I understand your point. I don't fully agree.
> 
> If we accept that our (real) world is the unfolding of external forces, there is no doubt that many people are able to see providential purpose in it.
> 
> But in the context of a RPG, it is in my view much harder to see the (imagined) world as _not_ "dictated by an external force (eg mere random rolls; dispassionate GM worldbuilding) that has no connection to the inner life, struggles and convictions of the faithful" if in fact it is. It's not just that, at the meta-level, one is aware of the causal/decision-making process (quite differently from the real world). It's that that process is manifest in the events themselves, which will have the "inner life, struggles and convictions" of _someone else _(ie the GM) evident in them.




While fair, I still think that's a case where its causing a problem because you're not immersed _enough._  Its legitimate to answer that that's difficult, but its still not so much a problem with process as your inability to ignore it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Exactly - which is why again it comes down to trusting your GM to get it right most of the time.




What does "get it right" mean? There is no right answer. Without any kind of rules in play, all of it is dependent on the GM's idea. Which is fine if that's how everyone prefers to play, but it doesn't allow for a high amount of agency. 

Can the player determine the outcome? Can they somehow reach a result that the GM must honor? 

Is the path to success determined by the player or the GM? If I want to intimidate the NPC into acquiescence, or if I want to flatter him, or if I want to bribe him......what paths are open to me as a player? 

It's not a matter of me "trusting" the GM. I trust that just about anyone can imagine a fictional reason for a fictional person's behavior. 




Lanefan said:


> Allowing whatever time it takes a scene to play out sounds like leaving this aspect in the hands of the players, to me.




So the players decide when it's enough?



Lanefan said:


> Impatient adults, yes, who are only there for the dice-rolling.




Yeah, who wants to roll dice to determine what happens? What a stupid idea! 



Lanefan said:


> Through role-play, I suppose.  I've certainly seen and done this in PC-v-PC relationships.




That's not what I'm talking about though. 

Would you agree that in the real world, sometimes people can be surprised by their own reactions to something? They let themselves be convinced by a salesman, or they let a pretty face distract them, or they believe something told to them by someone they know they shouldn't trust? They do something that is not the most sensible or likely response. This actually happens quite often in real life, no?

So if your GMing technique is to imagine all the fictional factors that go into a NPC's thought process, and then to determine the most likely reaction in any given moment.....how do you allow for a less likely result from a NPC? The local lord who seems very unlikely to respond to a threat from a wandering adventurer....how does your game allow for this lord to have ever been intimidated by a PC? 

If the answer is that you consider what the player says from the PCs perspective and decide accordingly, then it's ultimately GM fiat. It's always subject to your opinion. The player does not have any means to determine the result without your approval. 

This is not a matter of trust; I would guess that you'd probably use decent judgment in most cases. It's a matter of preference. I prefer that the situation or problem be crafted by the GM, and that the resolution of that situation or problem be crafted by the players. 

If the GM presents the challenge and has also determined its resolution, then the players aren't free to forge their own path, are they? they're just moving along the paths already determined by the GM.




Lanefan said:


> Things is, played-as-intended isn't always (and maybe isn't often) the same as played-as-played.  Kinda similar to the difference between rules-as-intended (never mind rules-as-written!) and rules-as-played.




Right. But until someone says something like "we don't use encumbrance" I'm gonna assume it's a part of the game, even though I also don't use encumbrance. The starting point for discussion should the what's universal to us all, right? So that's the actual content of the text in question.



Lanefan said:


> GM here should have thrown in something - even just a half-sarcastic "Good luck with that" - to indicate that foraging at best would be very difficult and more likely would be wasted time for the Ranger.  Or, instead of calling for the roll she could just say "It's the Desolate Plains, man.  There's nothing out here."
> 
> Having called for the roll and with the player's die producing a stupendous result, the GM here could maybe throw the PC a bone by giving something like "You got lucky - in a sheltered cleft you found one edible plant, just enough for a meal for one person; and it's probably the only one of those plants for many miles around.  Do you really want to uproot it?" (while also mentioning the bits about the poisonous stuff and the lack of wildlife)




Yeah, I agree that the GM should not even have called for a roll if there was no chance of success. Or they could allow a roll and on a success, honor it. 

There's any number of ways it could have been handled. Some games would have one established process for this, and would follow that process. Some games (I had 3.x/Pathfinder in mind with my example) would have far less consistent processes for play.



Lanefan said:


> Good points.
> 
> It also falls under the heading of even if something is impossible in the fiction, players/PCs should still be allowed to try it anyway.




I don't know if I agree with that. I would think that if something is impossible, then the PC would likely know it, and the GM can simply point that out to them. 

If it's a matter of the impossibility of the task being unknown to the player, that's where I think the problem lies. Either the GM has determined the outcome of something ahead of time, or has failed to present the fiction in a clear way, or something else has likely gone wrong.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> While fair, I still think that's a case where its causing a problem because you're not immersed _enough._  Its legitimate to answer that that's difficult, but its still not so much a problem with process as your inability to ignore it.



I don't agree with this. Part of what permits the real world to be understood providentially is that it presents itself in such richness, with such totality, that each person has the capacity to see a story in it that relates to his/her own convictions and ideals.

When the world is presented essentially as _someone else narrating a story_, already choosing what is salient and what is not, what matters and what doesn't, the situation is very different. I don't think it's possible to immerse into that. The player would have to introduce the additional material via his/her own imagination, at which point s/he is exercising setting or situation authority but in a solitaire rather than shared fiction.

It's worth noting that it doesn't go the other way: the player establishing shared fiction via narration arising from his/her place of immersion doesn't affect the GM's ability to do his/her thing, because the GM isn't expcted to inhabit a character as a player is (Vincent Baker makes this point starkly in AW when he directs the MC to _look through crosshairs _at the NPCs under his/her control),

And if two players collide in respect of the fiction they try to share as it emerges from their immersion, then we can turn to the action resolutio framework.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> Does it make their faith less real?  I'd say not.



Well, lets not get too wrapped up in 'less real'...  

I would say that there is an immediacy if you can say "yes, my belief IS real" or at least define some things that happen/are true in game that relate to it (maybe they have some other explanation, this uncertainty might be useful). Anyway, remember, players don't get authority to just "make my wishes come true", at best they might stipulate things that engage their agenda. The GM will play a key role in determining what exactly it means. It could be that "Yes, indeed Corellon is real, and he's also got a chip on his shoulder for humans, OOPS!"


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> In collaborative storytelling, yes.  But if you want these decision-making mechanics in the game whenever there's an uncertain result with stakes riding on it (which there certainly were here!) you don't get to pick and choose when to invoke them.
> 
> Obviously.  But in real life (sometimes) and in a game setting (more often) it's easy to recognize a significant decision point that has stakes on it.
> 
> Whether or not a particular option is interesting isn't the point.  The point is whether or not it's valid, regardless of interest level.  And if you're willing to skip the mechanics so as not to let the dice steer you into an uninteresting situation, doesn't that call into question the validity of those mechanics the rest of the time?
> 
> In the example given, it's largely boiled down to a fairly binary question of whether or not someone believes a lie; with the whole direction of the near- and mid-term forthcoming fiction riding on the outcome of that question (i.e. there's significant stakes here).  There's really only two options: she believes it, or she doesn't.
> 
> And it was resolved by, in effect, GM fiat.  I'd have no problem with this at all were it not being done by someone who has spent ages in here  arguing against GM fiat in any form......



Well, I would argue that the whole POINT of playing an RPG is to get to interesting situations and avoid boring uninteresting ones. I see this 'GM decision' as being akin to not worrying about some door into an uninteresting empty room. Sure, you can play that sucker out, but why? At some point you'll get back to the interesting stuff (in this case the fictional state will be different). The thing is I don't value any PARTICULAR fictional state. I value what the process is, was it fun? Was it interesting? Did it lead to play which illuminated some dramatic conflict? At some point all paths will presumably lead to that if you follow an agenda and process which leads there. 

So, not dicing for some situation which nobody at the table thinks leads to what they are interested in RPing just seems like basic good practice. I don't even see it as GM fiat, because the player could have just as easily pushed the issue of who believed what. I mean, Traveler is a bit of a loose game in terms of telling you that players can just go ahead and make a check to enact their intent, but I expect that @pemerton wouldn't tell the player to take a hike if he invoked a Diplomacy check or something instead of just letting the situation ride.

I am also of the school of thought that the world is a lot more complex than people give credit for, and our understanding of social situations and personalities is a lot less than what is commonly understood. So I am dubious of anyone's ability to reason out what people might do, or what the probabilities are. I mean, we do some of this every day in real life, but mostly by following very set routine rules that tell us how to act. This works, but in really "out there" situations it is pretty famously impossible to tell what will happen. Perhaps Lady Askol is invested enough in her ideas about her lover that she's NEVER going to doubt until a cluebat hits her full in the face. This is as plausible as any other position we can take. Admittedly, that too is an assumption, your point is not invalid, it is just not somehow set in stone. Reasonable people can tell a few different stories here. Heck, since no check has been made, her belief is not actually something the player can count on. Evil GM Pemerton is perfectly within his rights to decide later that she's faking! (well, I'll let him say if he thinks that would be undermining the accomplishment of an earlier success).

There are a lot of interesting aspects of this kind of 'fiction first, zero-myth, play to see what happens' process. It isn't just "everyone imagine what they want."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Perhaps Lady Askol is invested enough in her ideas about her lover that she's NEVER going to doubt until a cluebat hits her full in the face. This is as plausible as any other position we can take. Admittedly, that too is an assumption, your point is not invalid, it is just not somehow set in stone. Reasonable people can tell a few different stories here. Heck, since no check has been made, her belief is not actually something the player can count on. Evil GM Pemerton is perfectly within his rights to decide later that she's faking!



Isn't this basically exactly the sort of situation that was discussed on the early pages of this thread with the 'GM later decided that the NPC informant was lying' example? Granted, It was so long ago that I have already forgotten what people's opinions on that were...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

darkbard said:


> Just want to make sure I'm following your logic here. Is it because in crossing the bridge normally nothing is at stake (one crosses a bridge, just as one departs a tavern, without a roll), so when adding description based on the fiction (acrobatic elves do things like balance all the time) nothing additional is being put at stake? Or is there something else?



Yeah, I would say it is a case of "nothing interesting happens if the Elf falls." The PC just burns to a crisp, roll up a new one. That doesn't seem like a super interesting development. Now, if the elf is crossing in order to save his lover, then maybe he can fail, fall, catch himself, and now the teetering rock is starting to fall and crush her! Can he somehow redouble his speed and still save her? Is his lack of competence at this task going to haunt him forever? I mean, there are a few possibilities, suddenly it might seem worth rolling.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I understand your point. I don't fully agree.
> 
> If we accept that our (real) world is the unfolding of external forces, there is no doubt that many people are able to see providential purpose in it.
> 
> But in the context of a RPG, it is in my view much harder to see the (imagined) world as _not_ "dictated by an external force (eg mere random rolls; dispassionate GM worldbuilding) that has no connection to the inner life, struggles and convictions of the faithful" if in fact it is. It's not just that, at the meta-level, one is aware of the causal/decision-making process (quite differently from the real world). It's that that process is manifest in the events themselves, which will have the "inner life, struggles and convictions" of _someone else _(ie the GM) evident in them.



I also have to wonder if the following two things are true:

1) Even though (a) you may not be a religious person and (b) you are clearly "piloting the ship" (so to speak), there is a process of seduction, a gravitational capture, when a figure you're working at identifying with is locked in a perceived righteous battle against a world that would make an emotional struggle of belief in providence.  This is something at the very center of Dogs in the Vineyard.

2) For this to be realized, play needs to be distilled of thematically-neutral or irrelevant content because it serves to atrophy or outright sever this seduction (in the same way that some complain about other things doing the same).


When I watch media or read a book that is supposed to capture me, (2) is exactly the pitfall for me.  If thematic momentum and focus is lost because its cut incoherently (in terms of tightness of and or giving expression to dramatic arc) or merely a poorly conceived ("distracted/muddled") screenplay with needless (and by needless I mean "hurtful") tangents and interludes...it_will_lose me.  However, if not (and its brilliantly conceived and cut), I will absolutely be pulled into characters and their tale that I would otherwise have little sympathies with or attachments to.

My guess is, if I were to actually be a player in a TTRPG, my disposition would mirror this.  I wouldn't be surprised if you're the same.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I would say it is a case of "nothing interesting happens if the Elf falls." The PC just burns to a crisp, roll up a new one. That doesn't seem like a super interesting development. Now, if the elf is crossing in order to save his lover, then maybe he can fail, fall, catch himself, and now the teetering rock is starting to fall and crush her! Can he somehow redouble his speed and still save her? Is his lack of competence at this task going to haunt him forever? I mean, there are a few possibilities, suddenly it might seem worth rolling.




I think this just gets at a fundamental divide over what people find fun and interesting. To me it is the sheer randomness of these kinds of deaths sometimes that makes the game exciting. One of my favorite sessions of 1E was one where my 1st level mage was killed in the first encounter by a stirge. To me this was a reminder that it was just a game. Stuff can just happen and be entertaining. It was a fun moment of play.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> "Saying 'yes'" isn't GM force. It's not GM force when a player in an AD&D game says _My character wears a red cloak_ and the GM says _OK_.




@Lanefan , if you don't understand why "saying yes" isn't GM Force by now, I'm not sure this will do any work:

GM Force is the willful subversion of a player's "say-so" with respect to the gamestate (that is the most abridged version I can muster). "Saying yes" cannot subvert a player's "say-so."  It is definitionally acquiescence.  Hence, it can never be Force (regardless of how you feel about the player's "say-so.").


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this. Part of what permits the real world to be understood providentially is that it presents itself in such richness, with such totality, that each person has the capacity to see a story in it that relates to his/her own convictions and ideals.




First, I don't think anyone knows the answer to this kind of speculation. But I am not sure this is true. I've had experiences I would regard as religious, and I don't think it is dependent on richness (i would argue bleakness can drive someone to that experience just as much as richness). Also once you get into things like depth and complexity, and the concept of immersion it gets wonky. I remember going to Disneyland as a kid and being overwhelmed by the richness and complexity of the sea of lights and people. Just being in the presence of that many people was confusing. I couldn't think straight because all I heard was a cacophony of people talking. This made it all to start to feel like a dream rather than reality (to the point that I was pinching myself and questioning if I was really there). So while richness of the world is important and good, I don't know that you can then port that over to a game or literary experience and say that is what makes it work in terms of being immersive. You can often strip the world down to very essential things and that can still resonate with people on an emotional or even spiritual level (and even be immersive). This seems like a questionable starting point to me when trying to figure out what immersion in a game is


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> @Lanefan , if you don't understand why "saying yes" isn't GM Force by now, I'm not sure this will do any work:
> 
> GM Force is the willful subversion of a player's "say-so" with respect to the gamestate (that is the most abridged version I can muster). "Saying yes" cannot subvert a player's "say-so."  It is definitionally acquiescence.  Hence, it can never be Force (regardless of how you feel about the player's "say-so.").



So the GM fudging (either the dice or just mentally) so that the player succeeds in what they're attempting wouldn't be an use of 'GM force'?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Isn't this basically exactly the sort of situation that was discussed on the early pages of this thread with the 'GM later decided that the NPC informant was lying' example? Granted, It was so long ago that I have already forgotten what people's opinions on that were...



Well, yeah, I can see some parallel in that the PLAYER might assume that his PC is sure that the Lady believes him. Does the PLAYER believe that? We don't really know... So, sure, the character might, fictionally, feel betrayed later and duped if it turns out she's playing him, but this is not an entirely implausible narrative either. Yes, the GM could 'retcon' it that way. I don't think I find this INHERENTLY to deny agency. It MIGHT. For example: Later in the game the PC has achieved various successes based on his relationship with Lady Askol. Suddenly this relationship is revealed to be false, through no action declared by the player. I would not call this fair play. However, that could change if, say, there were indications to the contrary. Heck, the PLAYER may be fully cognizant of this betrayal, and the PC is not. You could play a scenario like that, and that would be fine. Even assuming the PC and the Player have the same beliefs, if they now build more on the lie and make it seem even less plausible (further instances of Psionics use that are hard to explain for example) then calling in the player's chips becomes less dubious.

I think, often, there is a lot of grey in these kinds of questions. Retcons don't bother me, inherently. Only if the GM gives the player solid evidence of something and then contradicts it later, then that is dirty pool.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> So the GM fudging (either the dice or just mentally) so that the player succeeds in what they're attempting wouldn't be an use of 'GM force'?




THAT is 100 % GM Force.

What you're talking about here is the following procedure:

* Player declares action.

* GM consults rules and whatever credibility test the game prescribes for the action declaration and determines that a test/contest is required.  Presumably this is 1 of 2 cases; GM rolls in secret (which doesn't happen in the game @pemerton is referring to) or GM doesn't explicitly give the player a success condition for the throw (which, again, doesn't happen in the game @pemerton is referring to).

* Fortune roll ensues > player fails > GM ignores it.

A GM ignoring play procedures in order to erect their vision (even if the player's input was, or at least seemed to be, the impetus) upon play is absolutely Force.

GM has their say.

The Players have their say.

But SYSTEM always has its say too. 

In the game @pemerton is referring to, "say yes or roll the dice" is a fundamental axiom of proper GMing.  There are conditions upon which you "say yes" and upon which you "roll the dice".  If "roll the dice" is required and you ignore the result in order to covertly "say yes" after the result should yield some kind of complication/setback/cost/failure, that is absolutely GM Force.  If you "say yes" because its appropriate per the system, it can't be GM Force.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this just gets at a fundamental divide over what people find fun and interesting. To me it is the sheer randomness of these kinds of deaths sometimes that makes the game exciting. One of my favorite sessions of 1E was one where my 1st level mage was killed in the first encounter by a stirge. To me this was a reminder that it was just a game. Stuff can just happen and be entertaining. It was a fun moment of play.



For a short while, yes. After the Nth random death, then the famous "Bob IV" syndrome sets in. This is exactly what birthed 2e's 'DM is a story teller' thing, in principle at least. It was SUPPOSED to give the DM the license to say "well, that wouldn't be interesting, lets not do that." but when you don't ALSO provide some principle/process/mechanics that let the player have a say in those decisions, then every situation became a potential railroad and nothing happened without 'DM permission'. 

It is the reaction to THAT which lead to things like Maelstrom Storytelling and other early attempts (Everway comes to mind) to codify and process narrative direction. Since play, for any of us, is ABOUT meaningful narrative, being excluded from the process of constructing it is literally like just playing 2e where the DM decides everything, dice are mere set-dressing, and the players don't have any input into significance, dramatic structure, etc. Playing 2e, for me, is kind of like playing a version of chutes and ladders where the DM draws the board as we go. At best he might put a ladder where I want one.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat I am not sure that I see this is a super meaningful distinction. In either instance the GM is granting a success via fiat. In one case it is merely hidden that it was done via fiat, while in another it was done so openly. Now people may have strong opinions about transparency, but I don't see how it matters for it being force or not...


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> For a short while, yes. After the Nth random death, then the famous "Bob IV" syndrome sets in. This is exactly what birthed 2e's 'DM is a story teller' thing, in principle at least.




For you perhaps that is the case. But try to understand, for some of this, this is what actually makes the game fun (the fact that it is a game)


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat I am not sure that I see this is a super meaningful distinction. In either instance the GM is granting a success via fiat. In one case it is merely hidden that it was done via fiat, while in another it was done so openly. Now people may have strong opinions about transparency, but I don't see how it matters for it being force or not...




What you're struggling with is the "System has its say" component of the play loop.  Bluntly:

System says X
+ GM says "go eff yourself System, I want this result"
= Force


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat I am not sure that I see this is a super meaningful distinction. In either instance the GM is granting a success via fiat. In one case it is merely hidden that it was done via fiat, while in another it was done so openly. Now people may have strong opinions about transparency, but I don't see how it matters for it being force or not...



I don't think TRANSPARENCY was the issue. I think 'faithfulness to the agreed-upon process and principles of play' was the issue here. The GM is not playing BW if he ignores the results of checks, regardless of if that turns success into failure or vice versa. 

I think we can square that with @Manbearcat's formulation by stating that what the player ASKED FOR wasn't success, but to 'play to see what happens'. If the 'play' didn't happen (check which was called for being honored) then we're not 'seeing what happens', we're just reviewing what the GM expects/wants to happen.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> What you're struggling with is the "System has its say" component of the play loop.  Bluntly:
> 
> System says X
> + GM says "go eff yourself System, I want this result"
> = Force



But if the GM can choose when to invoke the system in the first place, the distinction is purely academic.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think we can square that with @Manbearcat's formulation by stating that what the player ASKED FOR wasn't success, but to 'play to see what happens'. If the 'play' didn't happen (check which was called for being honored) then we're not 'seeing what happens', we're just reviewing what the GM expects/wants to happen.



OK. That I get.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> But if the GM can choose when to invoke the system in the first place, the distinction is purely academic.




You're exactly right!  Which is basically what I've said in this thread multiple times (and many times in other threads):

Games that don't have GM constraining principles and that, in their stead, give the GM mandate (to do exactly what you're describing) are extremely vulnerable to Force/Illusionism!  And that is typically by design (pun intended).  Force is typically intended to be deployed in those games!

There are also other system-relevant aspects that make a game more or less prone to Force (level of codification, player/table or GM-facing, if the game fundamentally "works" without Force).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> For you perhaps that is the case. But try to understand, for some of this, this is what actually makes the game fun (the fact that it is a game)



Well, I don't disagree that randomization of outcomes can be fun. I've played diceless games where I had fun too, so I won't claim it is a requirement, but certainly it adds a fun element to RPGs. I just think that element is more interestingly applied to narrative process vs some kind of 'world model' type of fiction. 

Fundamentally my thesis is that EVERYONE who plays RPGs in any sort of 'good faith' at all, is playing some sort of narrative construction game, regardless of whether they explicitly and consciously acknowledge that. There are so many possible choices that can be made that in a game with GM authority over all fiction any attempt to decide that certain things "must obviously happen" or are "likely to happen" or any such construct is really simply a decision based fundamentally on where said decider wants the narrative to go. Given the sheer paucity of detail that exists in even the most elaborate setting by comparison to the real world, this is inevitable. Real world happenings are the summation of 1000's or millions of factors, stretching outward from the nexus of the 'proximate event' in both time and space, ramifying endlessly until you could say that the entire state of the universe is involved. 

Yes, we can practically localize things in our everyday lives, but only in a very limited and routine way. We do not really know much about how things got to be how they are, or where they are going from here. We just use some basic heuristics and induction to play the odds. You cannot even do that in most situations faced in RPGs because they are so novel, and they involve such an incompletely devised world. The theoretical ideal is that 'dice take care of that', but this is really only true in a trivial sense. Dice can cover up for the fact that we don't know exactly how slippery or crumbly the rock face is when the rogue climbs it. They cannot produce realistic odds of a plot development happening, because we cannot say that such a development is or is not even possible, except by simply decreeing it so.

Thus, my thesis is, ALL PLAY is fundamentally narrative construction play. I can make this argument from the player side as well. So, really all we can do is make better rules for narrative construction. Anything else is basically addressing what is truly happening at the table as if it was something else. Pretending or misapprehending don't produce the best results. People get sick even if they don't believe in the contagious virus, denial never works. That being said, I don't think people should stop doing what is fun, just that they would find ways to improve their fun if they approached it with wide open eyes during game design.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Thus, my thesis is, ALL PLAY is fundamentally narrative construction play. I can make this argument from the player side as well. So, really all we can do is make better rules for narrative construction. Anything else is basically addressing what is truly happening at the table as if it was something else. Pretending or misapprehending don't produce the best results. People get sick even if they don't believe in the contagious virus, denial never works. That being said, I don't think people should stop doing what is fun, just that they would find ways to improve their fun if they approached it with wide open eyes during game design.




I've seen the same argument from the side of sandbox and playing a living world. I think this kind of argument just sounds like a dismissal of other styles of play. I get that if you want more narrative play, what you are after here makes sense. What I don't get is the idea that everyone really wants that, even if they don't realize it. You are leading with your conclusion. 

I don't think you can compare something as subjective as gameplay to a virus. You are comparing things that can be measured and quantified with things that can't. And in the case of RPGs, it a priori obvious that some people are perfectly content to play without any kind of narrative construction at all. And even if narrative construction is present, that doesn't mean it is a priority at all. 

This argument basically accuses people who don't want view games the same way as you do as being crazy or sick


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, we can practically localize things in our everyday lives, but only in a very limited and routine way. We do not really know much about how things got to be how they are, or where they are going from here. We just use some basic heuristics and induction to play the odds. You cannot even do that in most situations faced in RPGs because they are so novel, and they involve such an incompletely devised world. The theoretical ideal is that 'dice take care of that', but this is really only true in a trivial sense. Dice can cover up for the fact that we don't know exactly how slippery or crumbly the rock face is when the rogue climbs it. They cannot produce realistic odds of a plot development happening, because we cannot say that such a development is or is not even possible, except by simply decreeing it so.




No one is claiming the dice can produce realistic odds or that you need to proceed an accurate simulation of the real world. That games don't accurate simulate reality doesn't mean that they are narrative, anymore than a game like Burger Time is narrative.


----------



## Campbell

The authority provided to the GM in games like Burning Wheel and Apocalypse World is not absolute authority. It is provisional authority. You are given it in specific contexts in pursuit of specific goals.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> First, I don't think anyone knows the answer to this kind of speculation. But I am not sure this is true. I've had experiences I would regard as religious, and I don't think it is dependent on richness (i would argue bleakness can drive someone to that experience just as much as richness). Also once you get into things like depth and complexity, and the concept of immersion it gets wonky. I remember going to Disneyland as a kid and being overwhelmed by the richness and complexity of the sea of lights and people. Just being in the presence of that many people was confusing. I couldn't think straight because all I heard was a cacophony of people talking. This made it all to start to feel like a dream rather than reality (to the point that I was pinching myself and questioning if I was really there). So while richness of the world is important and good, I don't know that you can then port that over to a game or literary experience and say that is what makes it work in terms of being immersive. You can often strip the world down to very essential things and that can still resonate with people on an emotional or even spiritual level (and even be immersive). This seems like a questionable starting point to me when trying to figure out what immersion in a game is




So would your reaction to Disney Land have been the same if instead of being there, you were watching a home video of it? Would that be as immersive as being there and inhabiting that actual space?

For RPGing, the GM is the video, right?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So would your reaction to Disney Land have been the same if instead of being there, you were watching a home video of it? Would that be as immersive as being there and inhabiting that actual space?
> 
> For RPGing, the GM is the video, right?



No, I don’t think this is a good comparison. My point was simply that immersion isn’t necessarily dependent on richness, depth or complexity of details —and even the most immersive experience in real life, can feel unreal if those things are in over abundance. Basically this stuff is extremely subjective and hard to distill into a root cause


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I don’t think this is a good comparison. My point was simply that immersion isn’t necessarily dependent on richness, depth or complexity of details —and even the most immersive experience in real life, can feel unreal if those things are in over abundance. Basically this stuff is extremely subjective and hard to distill into a root cause




I wouldn't disagree with you about most of these observations, I just don't know if they matter all that much to the context.

The richness and depth of the real world was brought up by @pemerton (I believe, anyway, he can correct me if I've misinterpreted) to point out that the richness and depth allow different people to have their own unique perspective. 

If you then place some intermediary between people and the world.....a television or a GM......the that richness and depth is simply not possible, and everything depends on that one point of view.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> "Saying 'yes'" isn't GM force. It's not GM force when a player in an AD&D game says _My character wears a red cloak_ and the GM says _OK_.



My character wearing a red cloak, as opposed to a green one or a white one or no cloak at all, isn't very likely in and of itself to have significant impact on the subsequent fiction.  Saying yes thus has no real future impact or consequences - there's no stakes involved.

The belief/non-belief of the lie in the example clearly will have great impact on what happens next and, probably, ongoing impact for some time after that.  Here there's stakes involved, thus the GM simply saying yes to one outcome while denying the other (or any others) is a use of force.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I've seen the same argument from the side of sandbox and playing a living world. I think this kind of argument just sounds like a dismissal of other styles of play. I get that if you want more narrative play, what you are after here makes sense. What I don't get is the idea that everyone really wants that, even if they don't realize it. You are leading with your conclusion.
> 
> I don't think you can compare something as subjective as gameplay to a virus. You are comparing things that can be measured and quantified with things that can't. And in the case of RPGs, it a priori obvious that some people are perfectly content to play without any kind of narrative construction at all. And even if narrative construction is present, that doesn't mean it is a priority at all.
> 
> This argument basically accuses people who don't want view games the same way as you do as being crazy or sick



Nobody is being accused of being crazy or sick. I think people tend to not see what they have and have not clearly analyzed. They tend to simply dismiss criticisms with statements about what is 'true' or 'obvious'. Or simply say "I don't care how things are, I prefer to act like the world is like X." OK, but you are 'leaving money on the table' in terms of advancing the state of what you do. You can do what you want, and nobody is putting it down. However, when you do this, other people may well have an edge in analyzing what is going on. Personally I think the people who have explored narrative process in RPGs have hit on a more sophisticated analysis and one that produces a better understanding of RPGs in general. 

I don't think there's anything wrong with being able to say "yep, that analysis is inciteful, and in view of it we do X" where 'X' is not what I would do, Pemerton, Manbearcat, etc. would do. I have no reason to judge what people actually do, and they can ignore the analysis, or use it in a way that is different from what we do. It really isn't my business how people play THEIR games. I only discuss what is possible to analyze and conclude ABOUT RPGs, that's all anyone here CAN do. For that matter, when you say "I don't like X" nobody can really say there is something 'wrong' with a preference, we all know that. As with anything else, there are a huge number of reasons for having preferences. Nobody can say why any of us have the ones we do with any real authority


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> No one is claiming the dice can produce realistic odds or that you need to proceed an accurate simulation of the real world. That games don't accurate simulate reality doesn't mean that they are narrative, anymore than a game like Burger Time is narrative.



Well, I constantly hear people say things about how "it is obvious that X is likely to happen." That's a statement of probability at least. It may not even be a statement that "you have to roll/should roll dice here" (but that was stated a bit up thread). Still it smacks of some sort of ability to analyze the situation with some definitiveness. I just posit that our knowledge and judgment are too limited to ever do that in a way that is plausible from a 'verisimilitude' perspective. Instead it can only, at some level, spring from a perspective of 'narrative/dramatic sensibility'. What other place can it come from? I guess a GM could be trying to accomplish who knows what... but I am loathe to even try to imagine all/any of the possibilities! (seduce a player, exemplify a political agenda, whatever). I pretty much assume everyone plays games to have fun. That seems like a safe and fairly generous assumption. The only other font of such conclusions is sheer gamism (IE I explain the world such that the players take decisions which are easier to process in game terms).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> It's not resolved by GM fiat. It's resolved via GM-player consensus. No player action declaration has been contradicted or blocked from succeeding.
> 
> The notion of _validity _that you use isn't one that I use or even fully grasp - as @AbdulAlhazred has said, there are many options that are possible but that might not be put on the table because no one thinks of them.



In many cases this is true, but in the example given the rather binary choice of does she believe the lie or not doesn't offer many other options.


pemerton said:


> I have no real idea of what you have in mind with the first bolded bit. All I can do is reiterate the notion of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"; this quote is from p 72 of BW Gold (available for free online; I linked to it upthread):
> 
> Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character *wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know,* covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.​​Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​



Here, the character wants Lady Askol to believe him and doesn't know if she does or not.  Seems pretty cut and dried. 


pemerton said:


> Classic Traveller is not a strictly "say 'yes' or roll the dice" system - in many ways it is closer to AW and _moves_. But as I posted upthread there is no *when you tell a lie *move/subsystem in Traveller. So I have to make a call. Is there conflict here to be resolved, such that I need to find a relevant subsystem - the most basic version being a check against a basic attribute, in this case INT?
> 
> I decided that there is not. Lady Askola accepted von Jerrel's statement that he is not psionic.
> 
> Does she _really _believe it? Does she accept it because she _wants_ to believe it? These are open questions. It may be that they are put to the test, and perhaps answered, by subsequent play.



Don't get me wrong - I'm not criticizing you-as-GM for making a call and running with it.  What I am doing is trying to - or trying to get you to - square this with all the anti-GM-fiat arguments you've presented over the years.


pemerton said:


> This relates to the second bolded bit. The fact that the whole direction of the fiction turns on something doesn't mean that that something is at stake.



Sure there is - the direction of the fiction IS what's at stake!


pemerton said:


> In hi Adventure Burner, Luke Crane gives the example of a player narrating his acrobatic elf walking along the railing of a bridge high over a chasm. And points out that no check is called for, because it's mere colour. There is no conflict.



Here I'd disagree - I don't care how acrobatic you are, accidents can happen.  You want to walk along the railing of a bridge and put yourself at risk, even if the check is trivially easy to pass there's still going to be one.


pemerton said:


> The fact that the fiction would be very different if the elf fell to his death from the bridge doesn't mean that we have to check to see if such a thing happens; any more than we have to check to see whether a PC trips over and sprains an ankle when s/he walks out of the tavern door (though such things are clearly _possible_, and would affect the ensuing fiction).



Depending how not-sober said PC was when leaving said tavern, I might very well check - maybe not for something as specific as a sprained ankle, but on a more general level of "Does anything bad happen to this drunk PC on its way home?".  Though infrequent, in the past things like this have led to various consequences.


pemerton said:


> The effect of what happened in our session is that the player has been able to add new fiction: not only is Lady Askol in love with, or at least infatuated with, von Jerrel - but her attitude towards him, and treatment of him, depends on a lie. By "saying 'yes'" I've allowed the player to ramp up the pressure of the romantic situation. No conflict has been resolved by social agreement; rather, the stakes of possible future conflict have been stepped up. That's part of what a GM does, - or at least part of what I do as a GM - in modulating pacing, situation and the like.



Got it.  Put another way, you've used GM fiat now to raise the stakes later.


pemerton said:


> This is not _neutral _refereeing. But Classic Traveller does not tell the referee that s/he has to be neutral. From the 1977 rules:
> 
> * Book 2, p 36: "When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances."​​* Book 3, p 8: "[T]he referee should always feel free to impose worlds which have been deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised specifically to reward or torment players."​​* Book 3, p 19: "The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so."​
> Although the Traveller mechanics are in many way rather process-simulation in their form, the referee is not expected to confine him-/herself to administering a "world simulation".



Even all those things can be done neutrally; though the Book 3 p. 8 one sounds a bit - dare I say - railroady.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> I wouldn't disagree with you about most of these observations, I just don't know if they matter all that much to the context.
> 
> The richness and depth of the real world was brought up by @pemerton (I believe, anyway, he can correct me if I've misinterpreted) to point out that the richness and depth allow different people to have their own unique perspective.
> 
> If you then place some intermediary between people and the world.....a television or a GM......the that richness and depth is simply not possible, and everything depends on that one point of view.



Well, I essentially brought it up too in the context of "nobody can possibly know what will happen in a situation in view of all the complexity that would exist in a world." My point was kind of different, which was that we are largely 'flying blind' in terms of any sort of deduction about what would happen in the fictional game world 'realistically'. We can barely make such conclusions about the REAL world, let alone the mere sketch we can describe of the presumed undefined richness of 'Forgotten Realms' or whatever.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Nobody is being accused of being crazy or sick. I think people tend to not see what they have and have not clearly analyzed. They tend to simply dismiss criticisms with statements about what is 'true' or 'obvious'. Or simply say "I don't care how things are, I prefer to act like the world is like X." OK, but you are 'leaving money on the table' in terms of advancing the state of what you do. You can do what you want, and nobody is putting it down. However, when you do this, other people may well have an edge in analyzing what is going on. Personally I think the people who have explored narrative process in RPGs have hit on a more sophisticated analysis and one that produces a better understanding of RPGs in general.




But your analysis is just to assert that narrative construction is inevitable and therefore games should be designed towards narrative construction. That isn't analysis in my view. Especially when people know just form their own experience at the table, what you are saying simply isn't true (even if they have less of a vocabulary with which to express that view)


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I constantly hear people say things about how "it is obvious that X is likely to happen." That's a statement of probability at least. It may not even be a statement that "you have to roll/should roll dice here" (but that was stated a bit up thread). Still it smacks of some sort of ability to analyze the situation with some definitiveness. I just posit that our knowledge and judgment are too limited to ever do that in a way that is plausible from a 'verisimilitude' perspective. Instead it can only, at some level, spring from a perspective of 'narrative/dramatic sensibility'. What other place can it come from? I guess a GM could be trying to accomplish who knows what... but I am loathe to even try to imagine all/any of the possibilities! (seduce a player, exemplify a political agenda, whatever). I pretty much assume everyone plays games to have fun. That seems like a safe and fairly generous assumption. The only other font of such conclusions is sheer gamism (IE I explain the world such that the players take decisions which are easier to process in game terms).



That you cannot asses something perfectly doesn't mean you cannot asses it at all. And sure, there will be a range of plausible outcomes and in some situations what is chosen will depend on what is dramatically appropriate and sometimes the dice might decide. I have no problem with GM using 'what's dramatically appropriate' as the basis of their judgement; that they can do that is one of the big advantages of having a human in charge.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I constantly hear people say things about how "it is obvious that X is likely to happen." That's a statement of probability at least. It may not even be a statement that "you have to roll/should roll dice here" (but that was stated a bit up thread). Still it smacks of some sort of ability to analyze the situation with some definitiveness. I just posit that our knowledge and judgment are too limited to ever do that in a way that is plausible from a 'verisimilitude' perspective. Instead it can only, at some level, spring from a perspective of 'narrative/dramatic sensibility'. What other place can it come from? I guess a GM could be trying to accomplish who knows what... but I am loathe to even try to imagine all/any of the possibilities! (seduce a player, exemplify a political agenda, whatever). I pretty much assume everyone plays games to have fun. That seems like a safe and fairly generous assumption. The only other font of such conclusions is sheer gamism (IE I explain the world such that the players take decisions which are easier to process in game terms).




I totally get the preference of wanting the logic behind a ruling or mechanic to be based on drama or narrative. That is fair. What I don't get here is why you think it is impossible for the GM to determine what happens based on anything else. I mean just because it is not possible for a human GM to simulate reality, that doesn't mean they can't decide things based on what they think would happen (using common sense, world knowledge etc). The question is whether the players find the rulings believable for the purposes of a game. But none of that means the GM is employing narrative or dramatic logic. This is evident by the very problem you identify. Your whole issue is the GM on his or her own is not capable of producing something dramatically satisfying. If the GM were only capable of emptying dramatic logic then surely more campaigns would be dramatically successful. It is the very fact that they are employing other rationales in their rulings that things don't pan out dramatically all the time (and to some players can appear pointless or boring). I am not trying to be pugnacious with you here, but it is really hard for me to take your claims of serious analysis seriously, when the imply that if the GM isn't employing dramatic logic they must be coming form some truly nefarious place (i.e. seducing a player or advancing a political agenda). I don't see how we can have a real conversation about playstyle differences if you can't even acknowledge the existence of things other people experience in games, and the only way you can acknowledge them is by casting them in an extremely dubious light.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> But your analysis is just to assert that narrative construction is inevitable and therefore games should be designed towards narrative construction. That isn't analysis in my view. Especially when people know just form their own experience at the table, what you are saying simply isn't true (even if they have less of a vocabulary with which to express that view)



Not really. I don't think it is really my business, beyond analyzing them, what anyone decides is the right set of considerations to account for in their game design/choice of design. I advocate for people to use all the tools at their disposal to decide that, that's all. What it FEELS LIKE is that there are a lot of people who, INSTEAD OF doing that analysis just say "no, no, I couldn't possibly do things differently, I have to come up with some unassailable reason to confine myself to what I do now." The most reliable form for that to take is just "my preferences are so set that I cannot/will not reexamine them." Followed often by language about what is 'natural', 'normal', 'popular', etc. 

Again, it isn't up to me to decide what people should want to do, not at all. OTOH some of these arguments do seem at least as judgemental as when I state the conclusions of my own analysis, and state that it went beyond where some others have gone with theirs. 

Often I also feel like people armor themselves with these "I have a strong preference" things, and then they are likely to pass on stuff they might actually LIKE.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> What does "get it right" mean? There is no right answer. Without any kind of rules in play, all of it is dependent on the GM's idea. Which is fine if that's how everyone prefers to play, but it doesn't allow for a high amount of agency.
> 
> Can the player determine the outcome? Can they somehow reach a result that the GM must honor?
> 
> Is the path to success determined by the player or the GM? If I want to intimidate the NPC into acquiescence, or if I want to flatter him, or if I want to bribe him......what paths are open to me as a player?



Roleplay, trusting the GM to have the NPC respond in a manner consistent with itself and-or the situation.

The problem with "result that the GM must honour" comes not in the moment - OK, you persuade (or bribe) the archivist to let you access the restricted section, the archivist lets you in and doesn't rat on you while you're in there - but later.  Does the archivist have second thoughts that evening?  Does the archivist notice what papers have been disturbed, realize what specific things you were looking up, and raise a stink?  Or is your success 'forever', thus making the archvist something of a robot?


hawkeyefan said:


> So the players decide when it's enough?



Usually.


hawkeyefan said:


> That's not what I'm talking about though.
> 
> Would you agree that in the real world, sometimes people can be surprised by their own reactions to something? They let themselves be convinced by a salesman, or they let a pretty face distract them, or they believe something told to them by someone they know they shouldn't trust? They do something that is not the most sensible or likely response. This actually happens quite often in real life, no?



Yep.


hawkeyefan said:


> So if your GMing technique is to imagine all the fictional factors that go into a NPC's thought process, and then to determine the most likely reaction in any given moment.....how do you allow for a less likely result from a NPC? The local lord who seems very unlikely to respond to a threat from a wandering adventurer....how does your game allow for this lord to have ever been intimidated by a PC?
> 
> If the answer is that you consider what the player says from the PCs perspective and decide accordingly, then it's ultimately GM fiat. It's always subject to your opinion. The player does not have any means to determine the result without your approval.



Of course not.  The player isn't playing the NPC, I am.

You'd justifiably cry bloody blue murder if it went the other way and I-as-GM were able to use no-save game mechanics* to force your PC's reaction to something, right?  So why shouldn't it work the same both ways?

* - most if not all charm and control effects grant the PC a saving throw; most social mechancics don't.


hawkeyefan said:


> This is not a matter of trust; I would guess that you'd probably use decent judgment in most cases. It's a matter of preference. I prefer that the situation or problem be crafted by the GM, and that the resolution of that situation or problem be crafted by the players.
> 
> If the GM presents the challenge and has also determined its resolution, then the players aren't free to forge their own path, are they? they're just moving along the paths already determined by the GM.



If the situation is so confined as to only present one solution, then yes.  But there's almost never only one solution or resolution.


hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, I agree that the GM should not even have called for a roll if there was no chance of success. Or they could allow a roll and on a success, honor it.
> 
> There's any number of ways it could have been handled. Some games would have one established process for this, and would follow that process. Some games (I had 3.x/Pathfinder in mind with my example) would have far less consistent processes for play.
> 
> I don't know if I agree with that. I would think that if something is impossible, then the PC would likely know it, and the GM can simply point that out to them.



I'm still willing to let them go through the motions.  It's the old "I jump to the moon" thing - sure it's impossible, but if they want to try anyway who am I to stop them?


hawkeyefan said:


> If it's a matter of the impossibility of the task being unknown to the player, that's where I think the problem lies. Either the GM has determined the outcome of something ahead of time, or has failed to present the fiction in a clear way, or something else has likely gone wrong.



In some cases yes, in others there might be quite valid hidden reasons why what seems like a very possible task simply cannot be done.  Sometimes those reasons might become apparent or obvious during the attempt (e.g. splash - the bridge you're trying to cross is an illusion), other times not (the sword will not unsheath unless blood is first rubbed into the scabbard).


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> @Lanefan , if you don't understand why "saying yes" isn't GM Force by now, I'm not sure this will do any work:
> 
> GM Force is the willful subversion of a player's "say-so" with respect to the gamestate (that is the most abridged version I can muster). "Saying yes" cannot subvert a player's "say-so."  It is definitionally acquiescence.  Hence, it can never be Force (regardless of how you feel about the player's "say-so.").



OK, so maybe I'm using the wrong term.  What term should I use for "The GM is forcing a desired outcome to occur" other than railroad (which is a term I'm kinda trying to avoid)?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I totally get the preference of wanting the logic behind a ruling or mechanic to be based on drama or narrative. That is fair. What I don't get here is why you think it is impossible for the GM to determine what happens based on anything else. I mean just because it is not possible for a human GM to simulate reality, that doesn't mean they can't decide things based on what they think would happen (using common sense, world knowledge etc). The question is whether the players find the rulings believable for the purposes of a game. But none of that means the GM is employing narrative or dramatic logic. This is evident by the very problem you identify. Your whole issue is the GM on his or her own is not capable of producing something dramatically satisfying. If the GM were only capable of emptying dramatic logic then surely more campaigns would be dramatically successful. It is the very fact that they are employing other rationales in their rulings that things don't pan out dramatically all the time (and to some players can appear pointless or boring). I am not trying to be pugnacious with you here, but it is really hard for me to take your claims of serious analysis seriously, when the imply that if the GM isn't employing dramatic logic they must be coming form some truly nefarious place (i.e. seducing a player or advancing a political agenda). I don't see how we can have a real conversation about playstyle differences if you can't even acknowledge the existence of things other people experience in games, and the only way you can acknowledge them is by casting them in an extremely dubious light.



Like I said, I don't think they are coming from anywhere except a desire for either gamist convenience/practicality, or narrative considerations. I discount all 'nefarious' motives, and I thought that was pretty clear in what I posted before. I just pointed out these to show that there didn't seem to be any that are very plausible BESIDES those two. 

I think 'plausibility' IS a part of 'dramatic considerations'. I mean, sometimes what is dramatic is implausible, admittedly (and I've heard this as an objection to narrative play too) but in general drama at least demands that there be SOME logic we can use to explain how X flowed out of Y. Maybe that logic is 'magic', or 'luck', now and then, but in most cases it is more a question of some character had a trait which generated a dramatic conflict, which lead to some kind of action which eventually lead to a resolution of the dramatic conflict. In the process we learn something about the nature of the character (IE what the trait is, how that trait could impact someone's life, etc.). There has to be coherence within at least the genre sensibilities of the story in order for that process to play out.

As for "what the GM decides may only depend on plausibility" what else is plausibility for? If not narrative purposes, then what? Again, I think gamist convenience is a legitimate answer (IE I made the tunnel collapse because there's no map of the area beyond it).


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> In the game @pemerton is referring to, "say yes or roll the dice" is a fundamental axiom of proper GMing.  There are conditions upon which you "say yes" and upon which you "roll the dice".  If "roll the dice" is required and you ignore the result in order to covertly "say yes" after the result should yield some kind of complication/setback/cost/failure, that is absolutely GM Force.  If you "say yes" because its appropriate per the system, it can't be GM Force.



However, if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this. Part of what permits the real world to be understood providentially is that it presents itself in such richness, with such totality, that each person has the capacity to see a story in it that relates to his/her own convictions and ideals.
> 
> When the world is presented essentially as _someone else narrating a story_, already choosing what is salient and what is not, what matters and what doesn't, the situation is very different. I don't think it's possible to immerse into that.




Other people's experiences would seem to disagree, since I've seen people discussing immersing under just that circumstances (I can't do heavy immersion face to face at all, so its moot to me).

Edit: To make it clear, I'm not suggesting you're mistaken in your own reactions here; I just think your last sentence overgeneralizes.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> However, if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?



We handle it socially. Just like any other game when someone breaks a rule. "Not cool Dave. You moved an extra space."


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, lets not get too wrapped up in 'less real'...
> 
> I would say that there is an immediacy if you can say "yes, my belief IS real" or at least define some things that happen/are true in game that relate to it (maybe they have some other explanation, this uncertainty might be useful). Anyway, remember, players don't get authority to just "make my wishes come true", at best they might stipulate things that engage their agenda. The GM will play a key role in determining what exactly it means. It could be that "Yes, indeed Corellon is real, and he's also got a chip on his shoulder for humans, OOPS!"




You're missing my point; I don't think roleplaying a person of faith is dependent on the reality of what they believe in.  I don't know if its relevant at all, and kind of think when it is, it shouldn't be.


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I essentially brought it up too in the context of "nobody can possibly know what will happen in a situation in view of all the complexity that would exist in a world." My point was kind of different, which was that we are largely 'flying blind' in terms of any sort of deduction about what would happen in the fictional game world 'realistically'. We can barely make such conclusions about the REAL world, let alone the mere sketch we can describe of the presumed undefined richness of 'Forgotten Realms' or whatever.




Oh absolutely. The range of possibilities is going to tend to be be far greater than what we can come up with. I think that relates to my "plausible outcome" being discarded for "most plausible outcome" comments.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> You're missing my point; I don't think roleplaying a person of faith is dependent on the reality of what they believe in.  I don't know if its relevant at all, and kind of think when it is, it shouldn't be.



OK, it is fair to say that you can RP someone who's faith is FALSE, sure. However, I would assume that will become a salient point! I mean, given that faith is a significant element of the PC, then its likely to factor into the fiction. I would think that this would be something that the player would get a say in, at least potentially. It is hard to say given the wide range of games out there. A game might INTEND to focus on this falsity as an element of the genre/tone or something. Anyway, I think it is fair to say that players have a stake in this.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh absolutely. The range of possibilities is going to tend to be be far greater than what we can come up with. I think that relates to my "plausible outcome" being discarded for "most plausible outcome" comments.



Right, I think there very much are "plausible sounding outcomes" and we cannot say that certain outcomes are 'implausible' either (I guess we can kind of do that in view of the genre, but not for deterministic reasons).


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Often I also feel like people armor themselves with these "I have a strong preference" things, and then they are likely to pass on stuff they might actually LIKE.




While probably true, there's also the "try this fish" phenomenon, where someone has tried various other things and found them unsatisfactory (sometimes actively offputting) enough times that the cost to benefit of doing so _yet again_ because "this time will be different" just isn't there.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, it is fair to say that you can RP someone who's faith is FALSE, sure. However, I would assume that will become a salient point!




I don't.  I also think much more common is whether their faith is indeterminate, as would be the case with a lot of people roleplaying a person of faith in, say, a modern period action or SF game where whether the faith is "true" is not going to be possible to determine any more than anyone can truly do so in the real world.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> While probably true, there's also the "try this fish" phenomenon, where someone has tried various other things and found them unsatisfactory (sometimes actively offputting) enough times that the cost to benefit of doing so _yet again_ because "this time will be different" just isn't there.



Yes, there is something to that also. I can't say much about people here, I don't really know them. My experience "on the ground" is, that is not super common. Or its like someone has tried really badly cooked peas, but if they try my really good peas, the incidence of rejection is quite small. Like, if I get people to sit down and play DW, they don't get up afterwards and say they hated it and go away. Plenty of people won't try, maybe some of those are a different category, there isn't a way to tell, but of the sample I have, the success rate is pretty darn high.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> However, if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?



Well, it is some sort of "not playing according to the rules." I'd say it is a sort of mild force.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, there is something to that also. I can't say much about people here, I don't really know them. My experience "on the ground" is, that is not super common. Or its like someone has tried really badly cooked peas, but if they try my really good peas, the incidence of rejection is quite small. Like, if I get people to sit down and play DW, they don't get up afterwards and say they hated it and go away. Plenty of people won't try, maybe some of those are a different category, there isn't a way to tell, but of the sample I have, the success rate is pretty darn high.




I have to point out that may well be because people who've really actively had enough peas to decide not to try again, well, _don't try_. In other worlds by this point a lot of them are already being screened out, so you're not going to see many of them.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Roleplay, trusting the GM to have the NPC respond in a manner consistent with itself and-or the situation.
> 
> The problem with "result that the GM must honour" comes not in the moment - OK, you persuade (or bribe) the archivist to let you access the restricted section, the archivist lets you in and doesn't rat on you while you're in there - but later.  Does the archivist have second thoughts that evening?  Does the archivist notice what papers have been disturbed, realize what specific things you were looking up, and raise a stink?  Or is your success 'forever', thus making the archvist something of a robot?




But if the GM decides that the archivist never has second thoughts and never betrays the deal they made with the PCs, they're no robotic? 

So it sounds to me like you just don't like authority being taken from the GM. 




Lanefan said:


> Yep.
> 
> Of course not.  The player isn't playing the NPC, I am.
> 
> You'd justifiably cry bloody blue murder if it went the other way and I-as-GM were able to use no-save game mechanics* to force your PC's reaction to something, right?  So why shouldn't it work the same both ways?
> 
> * - most if not all charm and control effects grant the PC a saving throw; most social mechancics don't.




What? I'm not saying the player can just dictate the results and the GM has to honor them. I'm saying the player is free to attempt an action with an intended outcome, and if the dice go his way, then the GM needs to honor the dice. The same way that a player would need to honor the dice if he failed his character's save versus charm. 

So let's say this is about a NPC.....instead of deciding ahead of time that he cannot be bribed because he's incredibly principled, why not let that be determined by the dice? The player has the PC attempt to bribe the NPC and rolls poorly.....oops, turns out you've tried to bribe the wrong guy. Whereas if the roll went well, then turns out the PC was talking to the right guy. 

Why block certain actions automatically? 

Now, if the NPC in question was a specific NPC and his principled nature has been established in the fiction, then I think that's something else, and the GM should then alter the interaction accordingly. In such a case, the players would likely be aware of this, or the GM could remind them, and so they could attempt some other means of getting this guy to cooperate or what have you.




Lanefan said:


> I'm still willing to let them go through the motions.  It's the old "I jump to the moon" thing - sure it's impossible, but if they want to try anyway who am I to stop them?




The GM. 

Meaning, if I was a player in your game, I'd trust you to use your judgment to put a stop to any such wastes of time.



Lanefan said:


> In some cases yes, in others there might be quite valid hidden reasons why what seems like a very possible task simply cannot be done.  Sometimes those reasons might become apparent or obvious during the attempt (e.g. splash - the bridge you're trying to cross is an illusion), other times not (the sword will not unsheath unless blood is first rubbed into the scabbard).




What roll to cross the illusory bridge would be made that would be impossible? The same with the sword; what roll would apply? 

Why are your examples always so bonkers?

Again, I'm not saying that things can't be impossible....obviously, there's the absurd examples of jumping to the moon and the like. But there are reasonable examples, too.....all would be based on the fiction that's been established. If it's not been established, then why allow a roll?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> We handle it socially. Just like any other game when someone breaks a rule. "Not cool Dave. You moved an extra space."




You mean when I flip the table and send everything flying all around the room, that's not acceptable? 

Damn.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I would argue that the whole POINT of playing an RPG is to get to interesting situations and avoid boring uninteresting ones
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So, not dicing for some situation which nobody at the table thinks leads to what they are interested in RPing just seems like basic good practice. I don't even see it as GM fiat, because the player could have just as easily pushed the issue of who believed what. I mean, Traveler is a bit of a loose game in terms of telling you that players can just go ahead and make a check to enact their intent, but I expect that @pemerton wouldn't tell the player to take a hike if he invoked a Diplomacy check or something instead of just letting the situation ride.



Right. If the player had wanted to push it - _But does Lady Askol really believe von Jerrel?_ - then he could have done. But he didn't want to. I didn't want to. No one else at the table wanted to. So we all let the fictional state of affairs transition to one which is now higher stakes: _the relationship between the two of them is built on a lie_.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Perhaps Lady Askol is invested enough in her ideas about her lover that she's NEVER going to doubt until a cluebat hits her full in the face. This is as plausible as any other position we can take. Admittedly, that too is an assumption, your point is not invalid, it is just not somehow set in stone. Reasonable people can tell a few different stories here. Heck, since no check has been made, her belief is not actually something the player can count on. Evil GM Pemerton is perfectly within his rights to decide later that she's faking! (well, I'll let him say if he thinks that would be undermining the accomplishment of an earlier success).
> 
> There are a lot of interesting aspects of this kind of 'fiction first, zero-myth, play to see what happens' process. It isn't just "everyone imagine what they want."



Fully agree with all this. _Precisely because_ there has been no player success here - just the unfolding of the situation as narrated by the player and by me - we don't have a "locked in" outcome about Lady Askol's belief. We know she loves (or at least is deeply infatuated) with von Jerrel. And we know that, in part because of that, her response to learning he is psionic would be deport him back to his homeworld rather than kill him (this is the outcome of the reaction-to-use-of-psionics roll, which was modified by the fact of her infatuation). So I as GM have no unilateral power to change those things.

But the basis for her accepting his lie? That's never been established because it's never been put to the test. That's exactly the sort of thing I had in mind when I posted this upthread:



pemerton said:


> Does she _really _believe it? Does she accept it because she _wants_ to believe it? These are open questions. It may be that they are put to the test, and perhaps answered, by subsequent play.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> I also have to wonder if the following two things are true:
> 
> 1) Even though (a) you may not be a religious person and (b) you are clearly "piloting the ship" (so to speak), there is a process of seduction, a gravitational capture, when a figure you're working at identifying with is locked in a perceived righteous battle against a world that would make an emotional struggle of belief in providence.  This is something at the very center of Dogs in the Vineyard.
> 
> 2) For this to be realized, play needs to be distilled of thematically-neutral or irrelevant content because it serves to atrophy or outright sever this seduction (in the same way that some complain about other things doing the same).
> 
> 
> When I watch media or read a book that is supposed to capture me, (2) is exactly the pitfall for me.  If thematic momentum and focus is lost because its cut incoherently (in terms of tightness of and or giving expression to dramatic arc) or merely a poorly conceived ("distracted/muddled") screenplay with needless (and by needless I mean "hurtful") tangents and interludes...it_will_lose me.  However, if not (and its brilliantly conceived and cut), I will absolutely be pulled into characters and their tale that I would otherwise have little sympathies with or attachments to.
> 
> My guess is, if I were to actually be a player in a TTRPG, my disposition would mirror this.  I wouldn't be surprised if you're the same.



I've never really compared my play of RPGs to my watching of films or reading of novels. I'd have to reflect more on it to say anything very meaningful.

I do know that, as a player, I want to inhabit my character. And I do know that I find "arbitrary" GM intrusions disruptive of that. What counts as "arbitrary" is _very_ context specific - but if the character I'm inhabiting is a religious one, then the sorts of intrusions I've been discussing in the last page or two would be instances.


----------



## pemerton

The discussion a page or three back about "saying 'yes'" and GM force reminds me of a discussion @Campbell and I have had in the past.

There can be differences of technique in the extent to which the GM consciously manages the way the fiction unfolds to sometimes force conflict, and sometimes allow the stakes to build - as I did with von Jerrel's lie to Lady Askol - compared to letting the fiction as structured by rules for "moves" unfold with less curation and hence more "impartial" or purely "emergent" moments of crisis.

Burning Wheel is an instance of the first. I would guess also DitV, though I've never played it. PbtA is the second, and the role of GM prep in preparing Fronts is part of that.

I'm refereeing Traveller in some sort of intermediate state (I hope not too incoherent a state!) between the two approaches.

(And @Campbell if I've misunderstood/misdescribed I'm very happy to be corrected.)

EDITED to add, as I catch up on the thread:


Manbearcat said:


> In the game @pemerton is referring to, "say yes or roll the dice" is a fundamental axiom of proper GMing.  There are conditions upon which you "say yes" and upon which you "roll the dice".  If "roll the dice" is required and you ignore the result in order to covertly "say yes" after the result should yield some kind of complication/setback/cost/failure, that is absolutely GM Force.  If you "say yes" because its appropriate per the system, it can't be GM Force.



The only thing I disagree with here - which I've mentioned already upthread and have gestured at in this post - is that Classic Traveller is a bit less explicit about the referee role than a game like BW or AW. So I'm doing some extrapolation (see my quotes upthread about the stated roll of the referee; and there's more stuff about "just in time" generation of content in a referee-less game which I am adapting to a refereed game) and also some retrofitting of techniques that didn't really have names or concrete instruction books in 1977.

But otherwise your post is 100% right.

FURTHER EDIT in response to reading more back-and-forth:

For me, there is something more fundamental here than _fidelity to established procedures_. As I've said, in Classic Traveller the procedures themselves are not spelled out with the clarity of BW or AW.

What is fundamental is that _the player knows that he narrated his PC lying_ and that _I narrated Lady Askol accepting it_. We both know that no check was made. We both know that the matter hasn't been put to the test. We both know, therefore, that it is up for grabs in the ways @AbdulAlhazred and I have sketched out. (And other ways too, perhaps. No one knows yet where play might go.)

It's different from, eg, the use of a Storyteller Certificate in Prince Valiant which can establish (within certain limits) a NPC mental state that the GM is bound by just like a regular success.

It's different from, eg, the initial checks for seduction which were declared, with the (implicit) stakes of kidnapping an Imperial Navy Commander, and resolved in favour of the player.

Pretending to resolve it in such a fashion and then lying about it would (i) be deceptive, and (ii) would either (a) close of those avenues of play that AbdulAlhazred and I have sketched out or (b) would require more GM deception or flat-out fiat to open them up again. Neither (i), nor (ii)(a), nor (ii)(b) is appealing to me.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think 'plausibility' IS a part of 'dramatic considerations'.




But all you are doing here then is discounting an entire playstyle by forcing 'dramatic consideration' into the definition of it. I can tell you that when I am playing in this manner, the plausibility I am going for isn't a dramatic consideration. If we can't even agree that my style is what I think it is, I don't think there is really any room for discussion. That is why these kinds of hard lines never advance anything (and it is why I have significantly softened my view over the years around this stuff: I realized hard line, playstyle discussions as they happen online are terrible for achieving a functional gaming table)


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't think there's anything wrong with being able to say "yep, that analysis is inciteful, and in view of it we do X" where 'X' is not what I would do, Pemerton, Manbearcat, etc. would do.



That's what I've done! I've read stuff from Ron Edwards, Paul Czege, Vincent Baker etc about how to run these high-drama, emotionally compelling and even emotionally risky games - @Campbell also talks very passionately about this sort of play on these boards and in this thread - and I use those techniques to play adventure-oriented melodrama (Prince Valiant, Classic Traveller, Wuthering Heights, Cthulhu Dark) or sheer gonzo fantasy (4e D&D, MHRP and Cortex+ Heroic).

My goal isn't to particularly emulate or "be like" anyone. I just want to have good experiences. And reading those designers has helped me with that!


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, there is something to that also. I can't say much about people here, I don't really know them. My experience "on the ground" is, that is not super common. Or its like someone has tried really badly cooked peas, but if they try my really good peas, the incidence of rejection is quite small. Like, if I get people to sit down and play DW, they don't get up afterwards and say they hated it and go away. Plenty of people won't try, maybe some of those are a different category, there isn't a way to tell, but of the sample I have, the success rate is pretty darn high.




Wanting people to be at least willing to try a game, is totally reasonable. I have no problem trying a game. And I've had plenty of experiences where I went in thinking I wouldn't like  a game, and ended up enjoying it. But I often think the online discourse around games has been a bigger hurdle than anything to this, because it gets so bogged down in playstyle preferences and we often create explanations for why we think we didn't like a game after the fact, then use those explanations to guide our game selection. The truth is, I can't truly pin down why I didn't like 4E for example. I can try, but fundamentally it just did too much of X, and I am not even really sure what X was. It just wasn't what I enjoyed. The problem is, I thought I knew what X was, and missed out on some good games because of it. So I do get what you are saying. At the same time, you are kind of doing the inverse, by asserting people will like things they have told you they don't like, and by telling them games can only do things X and Y, when they are clearly saying they are enjoying Z. This is the part of your argument I find a bit perplexing. 

But as much as people should be willing to try games, you do need to consider the possibility that someone isn't going to like what you like, and will come away from the game unimpressed. I doesn't bother me if you dislike trad RPGs. That is a fair preference to have. I would hope it is informed by play experience and also not informed by a couple of bone-headed GMs, but it isn't really my business, and it is impossible for me to get into your head and know what your experience of trad RPGs feels like.


----------



## innerdude

So I realize I'm going back a bunch of pages in this thread, but there were some points I wanted to address from one of @Lanefan's responses.




innerdude said:


> So it's always the duty of the player to subsume what they'd really like to explore, either thematically or in-fiction?






Lanefan said:


> I-as-player have no right to expect anyone else to care about my PC trying to find his impoverished sister and set her up with some of the wealth I've acquired through adventuring.  It's something I and the DM can look after off-session, or with just a few dice rolls and an expense notation.  If, however, I was the only player in the game I'd want us to role-play this out in some detail.




I've brought up the notion of the "Abilene paradox" now a few times. I bring it up again, because this seems to fundamentally speak to the core premise of that logical construct.

Your statement seems to imply that the desire of _any _player to pursue a character-driven goal is fundamentally an imposition on the other players, including the GM. By its very nature, it's "impinging upon the fun" of the group.

But suppose, just for a moment, that deep down, all of the players in the group actually _wanted_ the option to pursue character-driven goals? But since no one has talked about it within the group, or consulted with GM on what they want, everyone believes that all of the other players are in the same boat. "Well, I'd really like to pursue Character Goals X and Y, but I guess this isn't really that kind of game . . . . Guess I'll just play along, and maybe I'll just have fun bashing orcs, I guess."

If the focus of play is on things other than "stuff the player cares about in relation to the character and the nature of the fiction," then what else is it focused on? As players, are we just to assume that character-driven goals are always secondary "to the fun"? What if "the fun" is pursuing those goals?

One of the points of the Abilene paradox is that if the current decision path is going to lead to _no one being happy_, then all things being equal, it's better to make a decision that makes at least _one_ of the participants happy. If all of the other participants aren't going to be happy regardless, why not allow for at least one participant to enjoy the process?

Historically, the desire to allow characters to pursue character-driven goals has been significantly reduced/truncated by 1) GM concerns about "playing what I've prepared" / desire to maintain fidelity to a pre-scripted story, 2) a largely specious desire to "maintain the illusion to the fidelity of objective reality" within the fiction, and 3) the simple fact that if the GM is having fun, it negates the core principle of the Abilene paradox --- the GM's ALWAYS having fun running the game, even if none of the other participants are really allowed to pursue character-driven goals, because of 1, 2, and 3.




Lanefan said:


> The objective reality of the game world does take precedence over everything.  If it didn't, there'd be no objective reality to be found there.
> 
> But assuming the game-world reality allows for those aspects one wants to explore, the question then becomes one of priority: are explorations of aspects and elements of an individual character more important (i.e. more worth spending session-time on) than explorations of aspects of the fiction as a party?  In most cases, out of consideration for the other players at the table, I'd say no.  Further, I'd think that to say yes is just selfish.




Sure. So it's better to just deny all players that opportunity, for the "fun of the game"? How does this even make sense? If I'm a player being forced to subsume my character's interests in the face of other agendas/needs, how does it make any difference if I'm subsuming that desire to serve the GM's needs, or the needs of another player to actually explore their character-driven goals? Why not subsume my desires to serve the need of the other players occasionally? In "traditional" D&D play, I'm already subsuming it to the will of the GM, so how is it any different, other than at least one player actually gets to enjoy exploring their character goals?




innerdude said:


> Was the question ever asked, "Will my players enjoy this conflict/obstacle, or would they much rather be experiencing something else?"






Lanefan said:


> And can that question ever truly be answered, other than in hindsight?  Ahead of time, all one can do is guess.




Truly, I don't mean to offend, but this feels radically short-sighted, to the point of obtuseness. "Can that question ever be truly answered, other than by hindsight?"

Yes. By actually looking and asking for a character background. By looking at the type of character the player is running. By watching and observing how the character (through the player's investment) actually examines/explores/interacts with the fiction. There's hundreds of ways to be clued in to this.

Example from a Savage Worlds game I played in (did not GM) last year, based in the Shaintar campaign setting:


I specifically gave my character the background of escaped slave from the northern empire.
I took the "Enemy" hindrance, with a strong, specific dislike for a particular "secret police" organization of that empire (the major force behind the slave trade).
I specifically sought out and fought against multiple slave companies as a prime agenda.
I specifically took magic spells that allowed for information gathering, with the intent of ferreting out slave organizations.

Everything on my character sheet screamed, "I want to go after the evil northern empire and their slave trade."

And instead ended up doing a year-long, oft-tedious "setting tour" of Shaintar.




Lanefan said:


> IME most players, if given the choice, would have their PCs avoid all conflicts or obstacles.  Given that, it falls to the GM to make sure they have to go through some regardless.
> 
> Thing is, if this is the case I'll often outright tell the players this is what I'm doing, either at the time or afterwards.




Not true. Not true at all. If, as a player, I'm going to pursue a character-driven goal, I'm going to assume there will be obstacles relevant to that pursuit. Why on earth would I assume the end state its, "Okay, you win, evil slavers defeated! Now let's go hang out with the Gray Rangers because that's what the GM has prepped!"



innerdude said:


> Regardless of the reason, it's a case of the GM actively prioritizing some other interest above the enjoyment of the players. And if the players are okay with that, great! Some players are totally fine with the knowledge that the GM is going to regularly place other needs/agendas above their own enjoyment of the game. It's been that way since 1974, and will probably be that way in 2074.
> 
> And I suppose that there are some players that are willing to sacrifice some of their own dramatic interests in the name of maintaining "fidelity to the illusion of objective reality."





Lanefan said:


> I'm more than willing to make that sacrifice.
> 
> Not so much sacrifice their own dramatic interests as be willing to work them in to whatever the game world provides; and accept that not everything is going to fit in every situation.  As an extreme example, if I-as-player am interested in examining and messing around with how artificial intelligence impacts society I'm not likely to get much out of a medieval-based game world....but if that's what the DM has us in it's on me to accept that, and either put my AI ideas by until a better setting for them comes up or start my own futuristic campaign.




When you're not even willing to consider the notion that "narrative first" is an acceptable mode of play, it's easy to see why you're not interested in mechanics that increase player agency.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> However, if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?




This is Force and as @Campbell explained, you handle it the same way as you handle anything else when a participant breaks the rules and social contract.

Do you feel that @pemerton 's friend who was GMing the BW game for him ran afoul of the *system directives that Luke Crane* (I'm not asking for the lens of Lanefan's personal gaming ethos) laid out?  If so, maybe you could lay out your evidence for this because I know what Force might look like in Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard (it would be abundantly difficult to pull off without it being grotesquely obvious)...and I'm not seeing it from what was conveyed in the play excerpt.



Just one thought right quick.

The concepts of "Force" should be separate from (lets call it) "Soft-balling."  They are very different things, though each extremely unrewarding in the games that I've been talking about in this thread.

*Soft-balling* - Framing situations with weak adversity/obstacles/antagonism and/or not bringing sufficiently adverse complications to bear when action resolution calls for it.

Soft-balling is absolutely a concern in GMing these types of games.  It can happen due to two things; Simple user-error (incorrect read on the situation, mental fatigue, etc) or just plain weak-kneed GMing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@innerdude great post. PCs having their personal goals is a great thing, and a decent GM obviously should take them into account. And even if you have something else planned, it usually is not terribly difficult to connect some things. And as player I certainly do not mind if some of the time the story focuses on some other character's ambitions. They're presumably a friend or an ally of my character, so why wouldn't I want to help them? Such things make the characters more connected to the world and players more invested to what's going on, so it is purely a good thing.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When the world is presented essentially as someone else narrating a story, already choosing what is salient and what is not, what matters and what doesn't, the situation is very different. I don't think it's possible to immerse into that.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Other people's experiences would seem to disagree, since I've seen people discussing immersing under just that circumstances (I can't do heavy immersion face to face at all, so its moot to me).
> 
> Edit: To make it clear, I'm not suggesting you're mistaken in your own reactions here; I just think your last sentence overgeneralizes.
Click to expand...


Don't worry, your post was clear.

My last sentence was mis-stated in this way: I intended that the impossibility of immersion pertain to playing a certain sort of religious PC. I suspect you still think it overgeneralises even on the intended interpretation. Maybe that's right: my first thought is _are they really playing a PC who sees the world in terms of providential happenings?_, but that's a path that can't be profitably pursued very far in this context.

I do hope  I've succeeded in conveying not only my reaction, but a way of thinking about the immersion process that would mean there's no reason to think my reaction especially unusual.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> But all you are doing here then is discounting an entire playstyle by forcing 'dramatic consideration' into the definition of it. I can tell you that when I am playing in this manner, the plausibility I am going for isn't a dramatic consideration. If we can't even agree that my style is what I think it is, I don't think there is really any room for discussion. That is why these kinds of hard lines never advance anything (and it is why I have significantly softened my view over the years around this stuff: I realized hard line, playstyle discussions as they happen online are terrible for achieving a functional gaming table)




Full disclosure - I haven't read you guys' exchange in full so I may be veering slightly (or wholly) afield of your conversations.

I have had the "either/or dramatic/thematic challenge vs plausibility test" conversation with several people on this board, but I feel like we may have discussed this in the past?  If we have, I've forgotten the meat of the exchange so maybe you'll indulge me it again?

There is definitely daylight between us, so let me just spill the entirety of my thoughts on the subject and you can tell me where we differ in process or in outcome.  My process and outcome:

1)  When I meet a person, hear about a person, or imagine a person, I am extremely vigilant not to rush to judgement.  I find the social trope of "first impressions" to be one of the more embarrassing facets of the modern world.  Its a garbage heuristic that the highly evolved chimps we are had to rely upon for hundreds of thousands of years because every stranger was a potentially lethal threat to the clan or a competitor for precious resources and mental models relied upon immediate utility/functionality rather than actual accuracy.  We should be well past that no (like so many other things), but we clearly are not...so we erroneously use "first impressions" as an abstract stand-in for the ridiculous complexities of any individual we encounter.  

2)  Similarly, even after first impressions I look at people as extraordinarily complex organism.  You meet a 40 year old, you aren't encountering x, y, z.  You're encountering the entirety of the alphabet parameterizing a complex algorithm, each letter with its own coefficient.  The fortune or misfortune of genes.  The fortune or misfortune of being born into a healthy situation or a deeply unhealthy one.  The fortune or misfortune of environment turning on the right genes or wrong genes early on in life.  The fortune or misfortune of opportunity, of prejudice, of meeting the right or wrong peer group, of amplification of your better or worse qualities, of sickness/injury or health, of finding a life partner that fits/supports you (and vice versa), of the role of time and the piling on of each thing and how it intersects with the rest of the collage, of dozens and dozens of other things.

3)  Stemming from (1) and (2) above, when I consider how any individual might act in a given situation, I instantiate it in my mind (perhaps 100 times, perhaps 1000).  The output may look like this:

- x outcome 80 % of the time

- y outcome 15 % of the time

- z outcome 5 % of the time

Now that may be truncating the possible outcomes for a given situation (in some cases in life, it may be more than 3 likely outcomes), but lets go with that for now.  Lets just say, for the sake of argument, that any given person is as consistent and predictable as this model above (I don't agree that people are).  Y or z are minority responses/actions in a situation for this fictional person I have modeled (with insufficient granularity), but if I instantiated this exact exchange/event 20 times, 4 of those times its going to be y or z.  

4)  Stemming from (3), I have the following thoughts/questions:

a)  If the x outcome (80 %) is clearly the most "plausible" response in any given instantiation and "plausibility" is my exclusive credibility test...how am I ever deriving the dynamism inherent to the social animals that we are (and that elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins etc would be)?  Am I choosing x every_single_time?  If not, what am I choosing and how/why?

b)  When it comes to the games I'm speaking about above, the following is the credibility test GMs are expected to follow:

Is it genre appropriate and/or thematically relevant while being plausible (not most, but plausible)?

If yes, use.

if no, go back to the drawing board.

Sometimes that mix might be x, sometimes it might be y, sometimes it might be z.  I like this process for the same reasons that I like Monster Reaction in 1e and Moldvay Basic/RC.  I'm challenged creatively to make this work while I get dynamism in encounters/interactions with other social animals + genre appropriate/thematically relevant content.  



I get the sense that @Lanefan 's own process (because it appears he/she maps his/her own process onto play because he/she doesn't believe system matters and doesn't appear to deviate in what he/she plays and/or how he/she plays it) will pretty much *derive that 80 % over and over and over* and the fact that *this result is thematically neutral/not conflict-charged is a feature (not a bug)* for @Lanefan and his/her group *because when the 15 % or 5 % results manifest in play (which are thematically relevant and conflict charged), it feels..."earned?"  "Realistic?"*  Something like that?  I don't know.  

And I also don't know *how the 15 % or 5 % result manifesting in play is derived (if "most plausible" is the exclusive credibility test)*.  I'd like to hear more on that.  

If this is kindred with you, I'd like to hear more on both of the italicized/bolded things as well (if true).


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> We handle it socially. Just like any other game when someone breaks a rule. "Not cool Dave. You moved an extra space."



This assumes you-as-players even realize it's happened.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> The concepts of "Force" should be separate from (lets call it) "Soft-balling."  They are very different things, though each extremely unrewarding in the games that I've been talking about in this thread.
> 
> *Soft-balling* - Framing situations with weak adversity/obstacles/antagonism and/or not bringing sufficiently adverse complications to bear when action resolution calls for it.
> 
> Soft-balling is absolutely a concern in GMing these types of games.  It can happen due to two things; Simple user-error (incorrect read on the situation, mental fatigue, etc) or just plain weak-kneed GMing.



I've got pretty good intellectual stamina so don't tend to have the first problem. As I've often mentioned in other threads, and have discussed (I think) with @Campbell, I'm rather sentimental and so am prone to being weak-kneed. Probably one reason why my games tend towards melodrama!

I was pretty pleased with myself when I held my nerve and maintained my composure as one of my favourite PCs in our Traveller game - Maximillian "Max Attack" McMillan - was gunned down in a hail of SMG bullets as he tried to escape from the infirmary of an enemy base where several PCs were being held prisoner


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> But if the GM decides that the archivist never has second thoughts and never betrays the deal they made with the PCs, they're no robotic?



Not quite.  I'm saying that after-the-moment options ought to be left open-ended; that while the archivist might have helped you at the time this doesn't proof you against later repercussions.  It doesn't guarantee their occurrence either.


hawkeyefan said:


> What? I'm not saying the player can just dictate the results and the GM has to honor them. I'm saying the player is free to attempt an action with an intended outcome, and if the dice go his way, then the GM needs to honor the dice. The same way that a player would need to honor the dice if he failed his character's save versus charm.



Am I-as-GM even allowed to use Diplomacy or Intimidate (in 3e, say) against a PC?  If no, then why should PCs be allowed to use them against an NPC?

But yes, honouring the dice at the time is fine - it's why we roll them.


hawkeyefan said:


> So let's say this is about a NPC.....instead of deciding ahead of time that he cannot be bribed because he's incredibly principled, why not let that be determined by the dice? The player has the PC attempt to bribe the NPC and rolls poorly.....oops, turns out you've tried to bribe the wrong guy. Whereas if the roll went well, then turns out the PC was talking to the right guy.



In part because I want to make decisions like that ahead of time in order to inform how I'm going to role-play this guy.  Even just pre-determining an alignment gives me a general starting point.


hawkeyefan said:


> Why block certain actions automatically?
> 
> Now, if the NPC in question was a specific NPC and his principled nature has been established in the fiction, then I think that's something else, and the GM should then alter the interaction accordingly.



I'd rather do it in reverse: alter the interaction based on the principles (or lack thereof) of the NPC and let that interaction be what establishes his nature in the shared fiction, absent prior information.


hawkeyefan said:


> The GM.
> 
> Meaning, if I was a player in your game, I'd trust you to use your judgment to put a stop to any such wastes of time.



I'm very much a let-'em-play ref when it comes to that sort of thing, so it'd have to get pretty crazy before I stepped in. 


hawkeyefan said:


> What roll to cross the illusory bridge would be made that would be impossible? The same with the sword; what roll would apply?
> 
> Why are your examples always so bonkers?



For clarity, usually.  I find non-bonkers examples often cause their own sub-arguments.

In the case of the bridge, it'd be some sort of perception check (or equivalent) to notice something fishy before you joined the fish.  In the case of the sword...I don't know, I just couldn't come up with a better bonkers example on the fly.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I've got pretty good intellectual stamina so don't tend to have the first problem. As I've often mentioned in other threads, and have discussed (I think) with @Campbell, I'm rather sentimental and so am prone to being weak-kneed. Probably one reason why my games tend towards melodrama!
> 
> I was pretty pleased with myself when I held my nerve and maintained my composure as one of my favourite PCs in our Traveller game - Maximillian "Max Attack" McMillan - was gunned down in a hail of SMG bullets as he tried to escape from the infirmary of an enemy base where several PCs were being held prisoner




I'm proud of you!  Give that Maximilian what he's got comin' to him!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> OK, so maybe I'm using the wrong term.  What term should I use for "The GM is forcing a desired outcome to occur" other than railroad (which is a term I'm kinda trying to avoid)?



I didn't force a desired outcome to occur. I _allowed_ a desired outcome to occur. Those two verbs - _force_ and _allow_ - are not synonyms. They're actually quite close to antonyms.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton quoting Burning Wheel said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here, the character wants Lady Askol to believe him and doesn't know if she does or not.  Seems pretty cut and dried.
Click to expand...


The PC doesn't need to know whether Lady Askol believes him or not. For all the character knows, as per @AbdulAlhazred's post upthread, Lady Askol _doesn't_ believe him but is going along with him. 

This is a case of the character _wanting something_ - ie for Lady Askol to accept his lie about not having used psionics - but _how do we know he doesn't  have it_? That's what this whole discussion is about. My job, as GM, is to decide whether I want to put that question to the test. I chose not to. The next part of this post will explain why. 



darkbard said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In his Adventure Burner, Luke Crane gives the example of a player narrating his acrobatic elf walking along the railing of a bridge high over a chasm. And points out that no check is called for, because it's mere colour. There is no conflict. The fact that the fiction would be very different if the elf fell to his death from the bridge doesn't mean that we have to check to see if such a thing happens; any more than we have to check to see whether a PC trips over and sprains an ankle when s/he walks out of the tavern door (though such things are clearly _possible_, and would affect the ensuing fiction).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Just want to make sure I'm following your logic here. Is it because in crossing the bridge normally nothing is at stake (one crosses a bridge, just as one departs a tavern, without a roll), so when adding description based on the fiction (acrobatic elves do things like balance all the time) nothing additional is being put at stake? Or is there something else?
Click to expand...


Here's the passage from pp 248-49 of the Adventure Burner (it's also reproduced in the Codex):

The Say Yes rule is difficult to adjudicate, yet it's one of the most vital elements of the system. It grants the GM authority to cut right to the important stuff and skip extraneous or tiresome action.

In a recent campaign, our characters were crossing a narrow span over a chasm. The GM, Pete, described the bridge in vivid detail. One of the players, rich, described his character hopping up to the railing and capering along. Should Pete have called for a [check] for Rich's character to keep his balance? No. Never. Why? Certainly "in real life" there's a chance of falling, but in the story, it just didn't matter. Rich was roleplaying. He was embellishing, interacting with Pete's description. Rich made the scene better.

And what would the [check] have accomplished? He would have succeeded and stayed on the bridge. Success would have kept him at the same point. Or he would have fallen and we would have had to save him. It would have turned out like a false not in a bad action movie. There would have been quick cuts and close ups but nothing really would have happened.

Thus, Pete could Say Yes to this action. Rich wanted his character to look cool crossing the bridge. Great! Move on.

Later, those same characters needed to cross a narrow ledge to gain entry to a lost tomb. Pete described wind whipping along the cliff walls. We wold have to make [checks] to cross and get in. This was a totally legit [check]. The tomb was the goal of a long quest. Would we get in unscathed? Or would this cost us? In this case, it wasn't about us in particular, but about our gear and an NPC friend. If we failed, we'd lost those precious resources!

In another recent game, our previous session ended with Thor's summoner making a pact with a revenant to lead the group across endless plains. At the beginning of the next session, I had to resist every GM impulse. I wanted to call for Orienteering . . . , Survival . . .,  Foraging [checks]. I wanted to dig right into that journey and make it real with dice rolls. But it would have been too much and unnecessary - and breaking the intent of the deal Thor made in the previous session. Thus I simply described the arduous journey and cut right to the good stuff - the group of travellers on the banks of the river that borders the Land of the Dead. Though I did not explicitly Say Yes, the idea is the same.​
The idea is that the acrobatic character (I think I know it's an elf from another reference to the same character elsewhere in the book) is just that: _a capable acrobat_. So in embellishing the scene by narrating his PC's acrobatics, Rich is not introducing anything out of context, or at odds with the established fiction.

And then there's nothing at stake because _no one_ - neither players nor GM - is interested in the question _what if the PCs don't make it across the bridge?_ And if no one's interested in that question, it would be bad GMing to invoke the mechanics in such a way as to pose it!

The Classic Traveller example isn't strictly parallel, but it's in the neighbourhood. It's already established that (i) von Jerrel has swept Lady Askol off her feet, and (ii) that Lady Askol is not terribly bright (INT 5 on a 1 to 15 scale with 7 as typical), so it doesn't strain the fiction for her to accept the lie. And there is nothing at stake here because, _at this point in play_ neither the player nor the GM is interested in the question _what if Lady Askol decides that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar_. That may be an interesting question in the future; likewise it may be interesting, in the future, to explore exactly _why_, and _to what extent_, perhaps even _to what end_, Lady Askol has accepted the lie. But at the moment no one cares to put any of this on the table. So we don't.

There is clearly curation of the fiction here: Luke Crane refers to it as an exercise of GM authority. But there is no _force_, as the GM is simply going along with the player.



Lanefan said:


> the direction of the fiction IS what's at stake!



As I posted already upthread, I am not GMing a "world simulation" game. Nor am I GMing a "self-writing fiction" simulation.

When I (or Luke Crane, or Vincent Baker, or similarly-inclined RPGers and RPG designers) talk about _something being at stake_ they're talking about something that arises out of the interplay between _what the character wants in the fiction_ and _what the participants care about in respect of the fiction_.

In the quote coming up next in this post, you use the notion in exactly that intended sense:



Lanefan said:


> Put another way, you've used GM fiat now to raise the stakes later.



I don't think this is very accurate. It absolutely ignores the crucial role of the player - which is odd in a thread about player agency.

The _player_ has made a choice for his PC - to tell a like to Lady Askol. That gives me two options: (i) put it to the test now; (ii) let the fiction unfold as the player wants, with everyone being able to see that he has thus raised the stakes for later. I chose (ii). If the player really wanted (i), he would have made that point. But he didn't. He went along with my going along with him.



Lanefan said:


> However, if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?





Campbell said:


> We handle it socially. Just like any other game when someone breaks a rule. "Not cool Dave. You moved an extra space."



Right. What Campbell said. If the player really wanted to put the matter of his PC's lie to the test, right now, he would say so. Either literally; or if he feels shy about calling out a GM error, by declaring a follow-up action that unequivocally demonstrates that desire.

As it happens this player isn't shy about calling out GM errors. He also does so from time-to-time by reference to Let it Ride - ie reminding me if I try unilaterally to put something back into question that has already been established in the fiction by way of a player's success in action resolution.

I realise that there seems to be a widespread ethos in the RPGing community that _the GM is always right_ and its improper for players to draw attention to GM errors. But it seems to me that that ethos only makes sense if we assume predominantly GM-driven, high fiat/force, play. Play that begins from the starting point of player agency being desirable, and that deploys techniques and mechanics guided by principles that will help bring such agency about, doesn't need any such ethos.


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> I've brought up the notion of the "Abilene paradox" now a few times. I bring it up again, because this seems to fundamentally speak to the core premise of that logical construct.
> 
> Your statement seems to imply that the desire of _any _player to pursue a character-driven goal is fundamentally an imposition on the other players, including the GM.



OK, I'll go beyond implying it and outright say it: the desires of the individual do not come before the desires of the group.


innerdude said:


> By its very nature, it's "impinging upon the fun" of the group.
> 
> But suppose, just for a moment, that deep down, all of the players in the group actually _wanted_ the option to pursue character-driven goals?



In that case, IMO you've got up to five different individual games trying to go on at once.  Fine if that's what everyone wants, but hardly conducive to party play.


innerdude said:


> But since no one has talked about it within the group, or consulted with GM on what they want, everyone believes that all of the other players are in the same boat. "Well, I'd really like to pursue Character Goals X and Y, but I guess this isn't really that kind of game . . . . Guess I'll just play along, and maybe I'll just have fun bashing orcs, I guess."
> 
> If the focus of play is on things other than "stuff the player cares about in relation to the character and the nature of the fiction," then what else is it focused on? As players, are we just to assume that character-driven goals are always secondary "to the fun"? What if "the fun" is pursuing those goals?
> 
> One of the points of the Abilene paradox is that if the current decision path is going to lead to _no one being happy_, then all things being equal, it's better to make a decision that makes at least _one_ of the participants happy. If all of the other participants aren't going to be happy regardless, why not allow for at least one participant to enjoy the process?



My concern there (and I've seen this in action) is that while the current decision path might be leading to general blase-ness on the part of all, changing that path so as to make one person happy risks turning the general blase-ness of the other four into active dislike or even anger; and I count that as a negative outcome.

And I've fought in the brawls that followed.


innerdude said:


> Historically, the desire to allow characters to pursue character-driven goals has been significantly reduced/truncated by 1) GM concerns about "playing what I've prepared" / desire to maintain fidelity to a pre-scripted story, 2) a largely specious desire to "maintain the illusion to the fidelity of objective reality" within the fiction, and 3) the simple fact that if the GM is having fun, it negates the core principle of the Abilene paradox --- the GM's ALWAYS having fun running the game, even if none of the other participants are really allowed to pursue character-driven goals, because of 1, 2, and 3.



Truth be told, I don't see any of those three reasons as having been relevant IME.  Character-driven play is always going to veer away form what the GM has prepped


innerdude said:


> Sure. So it's better to just deny all players that opportunity, for the "fun of the game"? How does this even make sense? If I'm a player being forced to subsume my character's interests in the face of other agendas/needs, how does it make any difference if I'm subsuming that desire to serve the GM's needs, or the needs of another player to actually explore their character-driven goals? Why not subsume my desires to serve the need of the other players occasionally? In "traditional" D&D play, I'm already subsuming it to the will of the GM, so how is it any different, other than at least one player actually gets to enjoy exploring their character goals?



Time has a lot to do with it.  Dealing with an individual PC's family stuff for half an hour in a session once in a long while - so what.  But if an individual PC's goals lead her on a 6-adventure arc (which here could easily mean a year or more of play) that has little or nothing to do with any other PCs' goals, are the other four players expected to a) play through it all with her and b) even remember what their own goals were when it's all done?

At the very least a GM risks crossing the 'favouritism' line (IMO one of the worst possible of GM sins) if following one PCs' goals is chosen as the focus of play for the next however-long-it-might-take.


innerdude said:


> Truly, I don't mean to offend, but this feels radically short-sighted, to the point of obtuseness. "Can that question ever be truly answered, other than by hindsight?"
> 
> Yes. By actually looking and asking for a character background. By looking at the type of character the player is running. By watching and observing how the character (through the player's investment) actually examines/explores/interacts with the fiction. There's hundreds of ways to be clued in to this.
> 
> Example from a Savage Worlds game I played in (did not GM) last year, based in the Shaintar campaign setting:
> 
> 
> I specifically gave my character the background of escaped slave from the northern empire.
> I took the "Enemy" hindrance, with a strong, specific dislike for a particular "secret police" organization of that empire (the major force behind the slave trade).
> I specifically sought out and fought against multiple slave companies as a prime agenda.
> I specifically took magic spells that allowed for information gathering, with the intent of ferreting out slave organizations.
> 
> Everything on my character sheet screamed, "I want to go after the evil northern empire and their slave trade."
> 
> And instead ended up doing a year-long, oft-tedious "setting tour" of Shaintar.



Were that character in my game and I-as-GM were presented with those at roll-up, I might think of ideas on how to work that in at some point down the road (maybe I'd look to modify the A-series of modules and run 'em once the party got to suitable level, for example) but in full knowledge that I might never have to worry about any of it as a) your odds of that particular character suriving that long are not great and b) even if it did, there's always a chance that in-game events will provide a different or changed series of goals for that PC - and you-as-player - to seize on.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Right. What Campbell said. If the player really wanted to put the matter of his PC's lie to the test, right now, he would say so. Either literally; or if he feels shy about calling out a GM error, by declaring a follow-up action that unequivocally demonstrates that desire.
> 
> As it happens this player isn't shy about calling out GM errors. He also does so from time-to-time by reference to Let it Ride - ie reminding me if I try unilaterally to put something back into question that has already been established in the fiction by way of a player's success in action resolution.
> 
> I realise that there seems to be a widespread ethos in the RPGing community that _the GM is always right_ and its improper for players to draw attention to GM errors. But it seems to me that that ethos only makes sense if we assume predominantly GM-driven, high fiat/force, play. Play that begins from the starting point of player agency being desirable, and that deploys techniques and mechanics guided by principles that will help bring such agency about, doesn't need any such ethos.




After reading this, let me take this opportunity to make an open pronouncement:

I've been running games for 36 years.  36 years doesn't make me immune to mistakes/errors.  I make them.  I'm VERY glad when a player points it out and we correct it.  I don't want to screw up but I REALLY don't want anyone at the table to feel the weight of my screw up hanging over a game session (and I DEFINITELY don't want to reflect on it afterward and realize I screwed up and wasn't able to correct it).

So thank you players out there who (politely and expeditiously) correct your GMs when they screw up.  Keep doing what you're doing.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> This is Force and as @Campbell explained, you handle it the same way as you handle anything else when a participant breaks the rules and social contract.
> 
> Do you feel that @pemerton 's friend who was GMing the BW game for him ran afoul of the *system directives that Luke Crane* (I'm not asking for the lens of Lanefan's personal gaming ethos) laid out?  If so, maybe you could lay out your evidence for this because I know what Force might look like in Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard (it would be abundantly difficult to pull off without it being grotesquely obvious)...and I'm not seeing it from what was conveyed in the play excerpt.



BW game?  I thought we were talking about a Traveller game that pemerton was GM for.


Manbearcat said:


> Just one thought right quick.
> 
> The concepts of "Force" should be separate from (lets call it) "Soft-balling."  They are very different things, though each extremely unrewarding in the games that I've been talking about in this thread.
> 
> *Soft-balling* - Framing situations with weak adversity/obstacles/antagonism and/or not bringing sufficiently adverse complications to bear when action resolution calls for it.
> 
> Soft-balling is absolutely a concern in GMing these types of games.  It can happen due to two things; Simple user-error (incorrect read on the situation, mental fatigue, etc) or just plain weak-kneed GMing.



OK, got it - this makes sense.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Maximillian "Max Attack" McMillan ...



Heh - that'd shorten down pretty close to the name of a party NPC in my current game: McMack.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The problem with "result that the GM must honour" comes not in the moment - OK, you persuade (or bribe) the archivist to let you access the restricted section, the archivist lets you in and doesn't rat on you while you're in there - but later.  Does the archivist have second thoughts that evening?  Does the archivist notice what papers have been disturbed, realize what specific things you were looking up, and raise a stink?  Or is your success 'forever', thus making the archvist something of a robot?



This feels like a rehash of a series of posts about 50 pages upthread.

The default answer is, _if the players declare actions that put the archivist's loyalty to their PCs under pressure_, then one consequence of failure might be for the GM to narrate that something that follows from a betrayal by the archivist.



Lanefan said:


> The player isn't playing the NPC, I am.
> 
> You'd justifiably cry bloody blue murder if it went the other way and I-as-GM were able to use no-save game mechanics* to force your PC's reaction to something, right?  So why shouldn't it work the same both ways?
> 
> * - most if not all charm and control effects grant the PC a saving throw; most social mechancics don't.



Huh?

I've already referred to an actual play example in Burning Wheel where a PC was affected by Force of Will and so the player had to change a Belief to reflect that. The player didn't cry blue murder. He accepted that that was the upshot of a fairly rolled check on my part for the Dark Naga to cast the spell, in a properly framed encounter with the Dark Naga.

I've already referred to another BW actual play example where I pre-empted the GM's desire to get me in a Duel of Wits with my (PC's) mother. I pre-empted by speaking a prayer which freed her from her burdens and weakness.  Had that check failed, then - whatever the other consequences - I would have found myself in that Duel of Wits. Which could have generated an outcome binding on me.

In Classic Traveller the social mechanics are not fully applicable to the PCs, but some are. We've had cases where players have failed  rolls which means that their PCs' morale has broken in combat.

In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP all actions are resolved the same way (there are no subsystems). In our LotR game using this system there are characters with Mind Control 6 who are not necessarily magical, just persuasive. If the PCs end up in conflict with them it's possible that they may end up persuaded, partly or even completely.

In our Prince Valiant game - as I already said upthread - one of the PCs is hopelessly infatuated with a woman who is not his wife. Mechanically that outcome was established because I used the Incite Lust special effect on the PC. Special Effects, whether used by the GM or by the players (in the latter case via Storyteller Certificates) are sheer fiat. There is no mechanical aspect to it. (There are guidelines to GMs on how to ration the allocation of Special Effects to scenarios: these are the closest that system comes to having something like encounter building guidelines.)

But in any event, *even if we were to accept your premise*, the answer is obvious. The player and GM have completely different roles as participants in the RPGing endeavour. This bring with it different authorities, different responsibilities, and (unsurprisingly) different capacities in the control of the bits of the fiction they "own" which can lead to different liabilities for those bits to be affected by the play of other participants.

Apocalypse World makes this super clear in its *seduce or manipulate* move, which (unlike all the examples I gave earlier in this post) is resolved differently depending on whether the character being seduced/manipulated is a PC (ie the outcome implicates a player's decision about his/her character) or a NPC (ie the outcome implicates a GM's control over one of his/her characters).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> This assumes you-as-players even realize it's happened.



But of course the players will realise it's happened!

You asked "if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?" In systems that use "say 'yes' or roll the dice", it is inappropriate to _say yes_ if the action undertaken by the PC (eg telling the lie; capering along the bridge railing) actually _is _important to someone at the table, rather than something with which everyone can simply go along by way of free roleplay and uncontradicted narration.

So if the GM allows something to simply be established via free roleplay and uncontradicted narration, and the player actually wanted it to matter and be put to the test, _the player will know because she'll notice that s/he isn't getting the check that s/he hoped for_.


----------



## pemerton

*Reconciling PC goals with party play*
There are many techniques, formal and informal, to handle this.

D&D traditionally doesn't have any - hence the problem (to paraphrase Ron Edwards) of the player turning up ready-to-go, one with a paladin and the other with an assassin. But D&D is not the only tech out there.

This can be player-side: DW handles this formally via Bonds, In Burning Wheel it can be handled informally via Beliefs; Fate Core uses this sort of thing as part of the PC building process.

It can also be handled GM-side: use the resources you have to hand, given genre and setting and the like, to establish fictional situations that speak to the various PCs. This is how I ran 4e D&D and what I do in Traveller. 4e D&D has the tech to formalise it - player-authored Quests - but I know from experience it works perfectly fine if you do it informally instead.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I didn't force a desired outcome to occur. I _allowed_ a desired outcome to occur. Those two verbs - _force_ and _allow_ - are not synonyms. They're actually quite close to antonyms.



That's like saying there's a big difference between a room with only one exit and a room with ten exits but nine of them are fake and only one of them goes anywhere.

By allowing one outcome to occur (whether desired or not isn't the point here) you also blocked any other possible outcomes from occurring.


pemerton said:


> The PC doesn't need to know whether Lady Askol believes him or not. For all the character knows, as per @AbdulAlhazred's post upthread, Lady Askol _doesn't_ believe him but is going along with him.
> 
> This is a case of the character _wanting something_ - ie for Lady Askol to accept his lie about not having used psionics - but _how do we know he doesn't  have it_? That's what this whole discussion is about. My job, as GM, is to decide whether I want to put that question to the test. I chose not to. The next part of this post will explain why.
> 
> Here's the passage from pp 248-49 of the Adventure Burner (it's also reproduced in the Codex):
> 
> The Say Yes rule is difficult to adjudicate, yet it's one of the most vital elements of the system. It grants the GM authority to cut right to the important stuff and skip extraneous or tiresome action.​​In a recent campaign, our characters were crossing a narrow span over a chasm. The GM, Pete, described the bridge in vivid detail. One of the players, rich, described his character hopping up to the railing and capering along. Should Pete have called for a [check] for Rich's character to keep his balance? No. Never. Why? Certainly "in real life" there's a chance of falling, but in the story, it just didn't matter. Rich was roleplaying. He was embellishing, interacting with Pete's description. Rich made the scene better.​​And what would the [check] have accomplished? He would have succeeded and stayed on the bridge. Success would have kept him at the same point. Or he would have fallen and we would have had to save him. It would have turned out like a false not in a bad action movie. There would have been quick cuts and close ups but nothing really would have happened.​​Thus, Pete could Say Yes to this action. Rich wanted his character to look cool crossing the bridge. Great! Move on.​​Later, those same characters needed to cross a narrow ledge to gain entry to a lost tomb. Pete described wind whipping along the cliff walls. We wold have to make [checks] to cross and get in. This was a totally legit [check]. The tomb was the goal of a long quest. Would we get in unscathed? Or would this cost us? In this case, it wasn't about us in particular, but about our gear and an NPC friend. If we failed, we'd lost those precious resources!​​In another recent game, our previous session ended with Thor's summoner making a pact with a revenant to lead the group across endless plains. At the beginning of the next session, I had to resist every GM impulse. I wanted to call for Orienteering . . . , Survival . . .,  Foraging [checks]. I wanted to dig right into that journey and make it real with dice rolls. But it would have been too much and unnecessary - and breaking the intent of the deal Thor made in the previous session. Thus I simply described the arduous journey and cut right to the good stuff - the group of travellers on the banks of the river that borders the Land of the Dead. Though I did not explicitly Say Yes, the idea is the same.​
> The idea is that the acrobatic character (I think I know it's an elf from another reference to the same character elsewhere in the book) is just that: _a capable acrobat_. So in embellishing the scene by narrating his PC's acrobatics, Rich is not introducing anything out of context, or at odds with the established fiction.
> 
> And then there's nothing at stake because _no one_ - neither players nor GM - is interested in the question _what if the PCs don't make it across the bridge?_ And if no one's interested in that question, it would be bad GMing to invoke the mechanics in such a way as to pose it!



Where conversely I think it would be bad GMing to skip it, and I also see that bridge example as being horrible GMing advice!  Not for the actual example, but because it establishes an ethos of 'let the players get away with stuff' when it doesn't matter and thus to me makes it harder to suddenly have to enforce checks when it does matter.

Consistency in rules application goes a long way toward consistency in setting and thus a solid foundation for the players to base their actions on.


pemerton said:


> The Classic Traveller example isn't strictly parallel, but it's in the neighbourhood. It's already established that (i) von Jerrel has swept Lady Askol off her feet, and (ii) that Lady Askol is not terribly bright (INT 5 on a 1 to 15 scale with 7 as typical), so it doesn't strain the fiction for her to accept the lie. And there is nothing at stake here because, _at this point in play_ neither the player nor the GM is interested in the question _what if Lady Askol decides that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar_. That may be an interesting question in the future; likewise it may be interesting, in the future, to explore exactly _why_, and _to what extent_, perhaps even _to what end_, Lady Askol has accepted the lie. But at the moment no one cares to put any of this on the table. So we don't.
> 
> There is clearly curation of the fiction here: Luke Crane refers to it as an exercise of GM authority. But there is no _force_, as the GM is simply going along with the player.



Or, in other words that mean exactly the same thing, GM fiat.


pemerton said:


> As I posted already upthread, I am not GMing a "world simulation" game. Nor am I GMing a "self-writing fiction" simulation.
> 
> When I (or Luke Crane, or Vincent Baker, or similarly-inclined RPGers and RPG designers) talk about _something being at stake_ they're talking about something that arises out of the interplay between _what the character wants in the fiction_ and _what the participants care about in respect of the fiction_.
> 
> In the quote coming up next in this post, you use the notion in exactly that intended sense:
> 
> I don't think this is very accurate. It absolutely ignores the crucial role of the player - which is odd in a thread about player agency.
> 
> The _player_ has made a choice for his PC - to tell a like to Lady Askol. That gives me two options: (i) put it to the test now; (ii) let the fiction unfold as the player wants, with everyone being able to see that he has thus raised the stakes for later. I chose (ii). If the player really wanted (i), he would have made that point. But he didn't. He went along with my going along with him.



Of course he did!  Players will always go along with the GM when the GM is giving them what they want! 


pemerton said:


> Right. What Campbell said. If the player really wanted to put the matter of his PC's lie to the test, right now, he would say so. Either literally; or if he feels shy about calling out a GM error, by declaring a follow-up action that unequivocally demonstrates that desire.



I'm not sure it's the player's job to determine whether or when the action should be tested.  It's the player's job to declare the action, absolutely, but it then falls to the GM to decide when or if that action needs a test - and in this case I humbly suggest it did, then and there; in order to lay the groundwork for, and set the direction of, the fiction to come next.


pemerton said:


> As it happens this player isn't shy about calling out GM errors. He also does so from time-to-time by reference to Let it Ride - ie reminding me if I try unilaterally to put something back into question that has already been established in the fiction by way of a player's success in action resolution.



That sounds more like a typical player - advocating to keep what he's won. 


pemerton said:


> I realise that there seems to be a widespread ethos in the RPGing community that _the GM is always right_ and its improper for players to draw attention to GM errors.



There may be, but if I blow a call (and hell knows I'm no stranger to blowing calls!) I willingly stand open to correction; and I think my players know this.  All too well. 

Where "The GM is always right" rears its head is when a call could go either way as whatever it's based on (rule, precedent, whatever) is unclear; or - less commonly these days - the situation has simply never arisen before; and someone has to make a decision.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> [...snip...]
> 
> I get the sense that @Lanefan 's own process (because it appears he/she maps his/her own process onto play because he/she doesn't believe system matters and doesn't appear to deviate in what he/she plays and/or how he/she plays it) will pretty much *derive that 80 % over and over and over* and the fact that *this result is thematically neutral/not conflict-charged is a feature (not a bug)* for @Lanefan and his/her group *because when the 15 % or 5 % results manifest in play (which are thematically relevant and conflict charged), it feels..."earned?"  "Realistic?"*  Something like that?  I don't know.
> 
> And I also don't know *how the 15 % or 5 % result manifesting in play is derived (if "most plausible" is the exclusive credibility test)*.  I'd like to hear more on that.
> 
> If this is kindred with you, I'd like to hear more on both of the italicized/bolded things as well (if true).



I hear what you're saying here.  I've said it, or similar, to myself many times over the years regarding that 80% coming up over and over; and if (as in, when!) I catch myself falling into that 80% rut I actively try to get out of it by trying to come up with different alternatives if-when the same situation arises repeatedly.

"Most plausible" isn't the exclusive credibility test; though it's quite reasonable to expect that the most plausible thing is going to happen most of the time it's not going to happen all the time, and nor should it.  I don't, however, see much benefit to pushing the percentage of less-plausible outcomes up too high, as in the long run doing so would stretch believability until it snapped.  So yes, realistic is a concern.

A better exclusive credibility test is "Plausible at all?"; as failing this means the outcome almost certainly won't happen.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But of course the players will realise it's happened!
> 
> You asked "if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?" In systems that use "say 'yes' or roll the dice", it is inappropriate to _say yes_ if the action undertaken by the PC (eg telling the lie; capering along the bridge railing) actually _is _important to someone at the table, rather than something with which everyone can simply go along by way of free roleplay and uncontradicted narration.
> 
> So if the GM allows something to simply be established via free roleplay and uncontradicted narration, and the player actually wanted it to matter and be put to the test, _the player will know because she'll notice that s/he isn't getting the check that s/he hoped for_.



Assuming the player was hoping for a check.

If the player was hoping to get by without a check, however, and no check comes it'd be a very rare player indeed who raised an issue about it. Instead, most players IME would think "Hm - I got away with that one!  Lucky me!" and very carefully say no more about it.  To me the Lady Askar(?) example looks like one of these.

In broader terms beyond just this example: just because a player benefits from a GM error doesn't make it any less of an error.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> By allowing one outcome to occur (whether desired or not isn't the point here) you also blocked any other possible outcomes from occurring.



That appears to be a tautology. It doesn't entail that _allowing_ events equals _forcing _those events.



Lanefan said:


> I also see that bridge example as being horrible GMing advice!  Not for the actual example, but because it establishes an ethos of 'let the players get away with stuff' when it doesn't matter and thus to me makes it harder to suddenly have to enforce checks when it does matter.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Players will always go along with the GM when the GM is giving them what they want!
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm not sure it's the player's job to determine whether or when the action should be tested.  It's the player's job to declare the action, absolutely, but it then falls to the GM to decide when or if that action needs a test



All I can say is that none of this is true in the play I experience.

Players don't "get away with stuff". They understand when things are at stake and when not. They have views about whether they want to bring matters to a check now or let the fiction evolve a bit further first.

What you describe reads like KotD taken as literal rather than parody.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Full disclosure - I haven't read you guys' exchange in full so I may be veering slightly (or wholly) afield of your conversations.
> 
> I have had the "either/or dramatic/thematic challenge vs plausibility test" conversation with several people on this board, but I feel like we may have discussed this in the past?  If we have, I've forgotten the meat of the exchange so maybe you'll indulge me it again?
> 
> There is definitely daylight between us, so let me just spill the entirety of my thoughts on the subject and you can tell me where we differ in process or in outcome.  My process and outcome:
> 
> 1)  When I meet a person, hear about a person, or imagine a person, I am extremely vigilant not to rush to judgement.  I find the social trope of "first impressions" to be one of the more embarrassing facets of the modern world.  Its a garbage heuristic that the highly evolved chimps we are had to rely upon for hundreds of thousands of years because every stranger was a potentially lethal threat to the clan or a competitor for precious resources and mental models relied upon immediate utility/functionality rather than actual accuracy.  We should be well past that no (like so many other things), but we clearly are not...so we erroneously use "first impressions" as an abstract stand-in for the ridiculous complexities of any individual we encounter.
> 
> 2)  Similarly, even after first impressions I look at people as extraordinarily complex organism.  You meet a 40 year old, you aren't encountering x, y, z.  You're encountering the entirety of the alphabet parameterizing a complex algorithm, each letter with its own coefficient.  The fortune or misfortune of genes.  The fortune or misfortune of being born into a healthy situation or a deeply unhealthy one.  The fortune or misfortune of environment turning on the right genes or wrong genes early on in life.  The fortune or misfortune of opportunity, of prejudice, of meeting the right or wrong peer group, of amplification of your better or worse qualities, of sickness/injury or health, of finding a life partner that fits/supports you (and vice versa), of the role of time and the piling on of each thing and how it intersects with the rest of the collage, of dozens and dozens of other things.
> 
> 3)  Stemming from (1) and (2) above, when I consider how any individual might act in a given situation, I instantiate it in my mind (perhaps 100 times, perhaps 1000).  The output may look like this:
> 
> - x outcome 80 % of the time
> 
> - y outcome 15 % of the time
> 
> - z outcome 5 % of the time
> 
> Now that may be truncating the possible outcomes for a given situation (in some cases in life, it may be more than 3 likely outcomes), but lets go with that for now.  Lets just say, for the sake of argument, that any given person is as consistent and predictable as this model above (I don't agree that people are).  Y or z are minority responses/actions in a situation for this fictional person I have modeled (with insufficient granularity), but if I instantiated this exact exchange/event 20 times, 4 of those times its going to be y or z.
> 
> 4)  Stemming from (3), I have the following thoughts/questions:
> 
> a)  If the x outcome (80 %) is clearly the most "plausible" response in any given instantiation and "plausibility" is my exclusive credibility test...how am I ever deriving the dynamism inherent to the social animals that we are (and that elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins etc would be)?  Am I choosing x every_single_time?  If not, what am I choosing and how/why?
> 
> b)  When it comes to the games I'm speaking about above, the following is the credibility test GMs are expected to follow:
> 
> Is it genre appropriate and/or thematically relevant while being plausible (not most, but plausible)?
> 
> If yes, use.
> 
> if no, go back to the drawing board.
> 
> Sometimes that mix might be x, sometimes it might be y, sometimes it might be z.  I like this process for the same reasons that I like Monster Reaction in 1e and Moldvay Basic/RC.  I'm challenged creatively to make this work while I get dynamism in encounters/interactions with other social animals + genre appropriate/thematically relevant content.
> 
> 
> 
> I get the sense that @Lanefan 's own process (because it appears he/she maps his/her own process onto play because he/she doesn't believe system matters and doesn't appear to deviate in what he/she plays and/or how he/she plays it) will pretty much *derive that 80 % over and over and over* and the fact that *this result is thematically neutral/not conflict-charged is a feature (not a bug)* for @Lanefan and his/her group *because when the 15 % or 5 % results manifest in play (which are thematically relevant and conflict charged), it feels..."earned?"  "Realistic?"*  Something like that?  I don't know.
> 
> And I also don't know *how the 15 % or 5 % result manifesting in play is derived (if "most plausible" is the exclusive credibility test)*.  I'd like to hear more on that.
> 
> If this is kindred with you, I'd like to hear more on both of the italicized/bolded things as well (if true).




I am not 100% sure I am understanding everything you say here. I also haven't been following Lanefan's points as closely so I am not sure how close or far apart our thinking is on this front. But reading through this a couple of times, I will say I believe my approach is not this "mathematical".  I run NPCs mostly by feel (which I will address at the end of this response after laying some groundwork about my actual style of play). A lot of these discussions are very theoretical, and cover a wide range of styles.  And in this thread I have been defending a few different styles of play. Presently the style I employ most often is one of two approaches. One I call a drama sandbox. So it isn't that I am averse to drama at all, I am just saying it doesn't have to be the governing priority or rationale behind choices you make as a GM (and it is entirely possible to run a game with no consideration towards drama or narrative). In this Drama and Sandbox approach the GM is trying to maximize player freedom without fetishizing it so much he or she avoids dramatic elements (this is something I was referring to when I talked about how our own rhetoric and gaming style discourse can box us in and make us more 'extreme' in our approach to play. Drama and sandbox was an attempt to escape that and reconcile my desire for an open world that feels real, and a need to have some amount of drama. The other is more of a monster of the week, one shot adventure approach (usually as a series of linked 1-10 one shots)----which usually has a pretty clear premise (you are investigating the disappearance of an official at the Four Seasons Tea House. But within that premise, the players can do what they want. But I have also been defending a style of play that eschews drama entirely and focuses on producing a living world. 

See my description of drama and sandbox below to understand how I approach campaigns, but  in terms of running NPCs...I am not running a series of mental computations when I play them. I am trying to inhabit the NPCs, understand their motives and goals, and basically channel them. I am not an 'actor' as a GM. My delivery is actually really dry. But what I mean is you get to know the character and understand what makes them tick, and when the players do something it starts to become clear to you how this character would act and respond. This isn't intended to simulate a living human being. And to your point about pre-judging people, or making snap judgements about people, in real life I agree. Real human beings are incredibly complex. Still as complex as they are, I can at least mentally wrap my head around the question "What would my dad do in this situation" and come up with an answer that is satisfying to me (it might not be predictive, but it is believable). But I also do treat real life and imaginary life differently. I am not worried about prejudging an NPC because the NPC doesn't actually exists. That said, I do like to understand my NPCs and feel I do a good job of undertstanding things from their point of view. Even my most over the top, evil villains, usually have some other motivation or drive that makes them relatable to the players. 

It would take an extended conversation, a real conversation not one where we are trying to outdo each other rhetorically, to really give you a full take on how I run a game, how I play NPCs, and what my overarching goals are. 

To clarify what Drama and Sandbox means to me, I am pasting a section from one of my rulebooks, which is the advice I have pretty much followed myself for several years now (this is from my wuxia game so everything here is oriented towards the wuxia genre). I am quite sure this is a style of play that will have little appeal to some of the posters in this thread. But  I can say that it is table tested and has worked better for me as a GM than just about any other approach. At the time I wrote this I was running three campaigns which were all quite lengthy (one of them I posted 80+ sessions of on my blog). Because I was running so many regular games, I really had to abandon anything that didn't work at the table even if it was something I was intellectually attached to. This description is just one part of the GM section, so there is a lot more in there about things like fate (which is also an important principle I tend to run games by) and grudges---which were a very important fuel for this type of campaign: 


> ...The players are free to explore as they wish, with no railroading, but the GM should introduce active elements that heighten the tension and create excitement. This can be done in the form of NPCs, events, movements, and additional elements. In a sense, this is a combination of exploration adventure and situational adventures (a term coined by Clash Bowley where you throw in a situation or complication and see how the Player Characters respond).
> 
> Situational adventures introduce complications, NPCs and other interesting elements. They build in response to the player’s reactions. The wuxia genre is filled with situational adventures. Whether it is a respected but ruthless master who has an interest in being one of the player character’s father in-law, or a misguided and reckless Martial Hero eager to impress them and become their disciple, complications tend to present themselves.
> 
> On the other hand, it is important not to go too far here. The purpose is to enhance the exploration aspect of the game with interesting developments. Respect the players’ freedom to explore and use active complications to show them there is a dynamic world at work around them.
> 
> Exploration is a key feature of the game. This obviously involves prepping locations but it requires flexibility and being able to shift gears at key moments....I give the players freedom to explore and try to build off of their choices. If they decide to investigate rumors of ghosts at the Pagoda of Golden Mercies in Kwam Metta, then I am happy to allow that, even if I had something else planned for the session.
> 
> That does not mean everything you had planned evaporates. You have to play it by ear but some elements the characters ignore might still be in play. Never railroad. Never force elements because you want them. If the players avoid the growing fiasco
> with Lady Plum Blossom and the Four Finger Manual to explore Kwam Metta, and it makes sense that Lady Plum Blossom has a continued interest in them, she may come after the party or send disciples to deal with them. Even if she does not, you ought to mentally note (better yet, write down) what occurs regarding Lady Plum Blossom and the manual in case it becomes relevant later in the campaign.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Assuming the player was hoping for a check.
> 
> If the player was hoping to get by without a check, however, and no check comes it'd be a very rare player indeed who raised an issue about it.



But now you're assuming that the GM at one-and-the-same time both _thought a check was important_ and yet _said "yes"_.

You also don't seem to recognise why a player might want to push things to a check - for instance, to establish finality in respect of some matter (eg whether or not Lady Askol believes the lie).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

innerdude said:


> But suppose, just for a moment, that deep down, all of the players in the group actually _wanted_ the option to pursue character-driven goals? But since no one has talked about it within the group, or consulted with GM on what they want, everyone believes that all of the other players are in the same boat. "Well, I'd really like to pursue Character Goals X and Y, but I guess this isn't really that kind of game . . . . Guess I'll just play along, and maybe I'll just have fun bashing orcs, I guess."



I think there's a bunch of variations on this. Like one player (I admit to being the one often) creates a pretty distinct character, with a pretty easily defined and central objective that easily arises (my Tabaxi character is an urchin with no family, he has only a memento from his mother, there's a pretty clear direction here, my previous character wanted to build his own stronghold). Do other players go along with it because they want to, or because they don't want to 'rock the boat'? I mean, how to deal with a party full of agendas is an interesting question. In a game like DW there are some tools. 5e, for example, doesn't really have them.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think there's a bunch of variations on this. Like one player (I admit to being the one often) creates a pretty distinct character, with a pretty easily defined and central objective that easily arises (my Tabaxi character is an urchin with no family, he has only a memento from his mother, there's a pretty clear direction here, my previous character wanted to build his own stronghold). Do other players go along with it because they want to, or because they don't want to 'rock the boat'? I mean, how to deal with a party full of agendas is an interesting question. In a game like DW there are some tools. 5e, for example, doesn't really have them.



Obviously this could rub against your (or anyone's) preferred playstyle, but my approach DMing 5E has been to have several pending story arcs available--some based on things the characters brought in, others based on things they've encountered since we started--and once the party has completed one they can choose another (or sometimes figure a way to work on more than one at the same time). This is made easier by the fact that A) not everyone at the table brought in a goal and B) the players have been entirely willing to solve things one at a time, knowing that their goals are still pending and might still arise as pursuits.

So, it can be an at-the-table solution, and/or it can be a more GM-driven solution. And I agree that neither approach is specifically grounded in the 5E rules. I think it helps to keep in mind that the 5E rules are intended for playing through hardcover adventures, where individual character goals are ... less relevant (and agency, at roughly any of the levels @Manbearcat laid out upthread, IIRC, isn't a consideration).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Not quite.  I'm saying that after-the-moment options ought to be left open-ended; that while the archivist might have helped you at the time this doesn't proof you against later repercussions.  It doesn't guarantee their occurrence either.




We already covered this. Why not let that success stand until something in the fiction calls it into question in some way? 



Lanefan said:


> Am I-as-GM even allowed to use Diplomacy or Intimidate (in 3e, say) against a PC?  If no, then why should PCs be allowed to use them against an NPC?
> 
> But yes, honouring the dice at the time is fine - it's why we roll them.




I don't think that the DM in 3e versions could have NPCs use skills in that manner on the PCs. And while I wouldn't defend the skill system of 3e D&D, I think that there is a fundamental difference between a PC and a NPC. They must be treated differently in many ways. 

Now, beyond that, do I think that things can happen to the PCs during play that impacts their state of mind, and forces some behavioral consequence on them? Sure, it can happen quite often to be honest.



Lanefan said:


> In part because I want to make decisions like that ahead of time in order to inform how I'm going to role-play this guy.  Even just pre-determining an alignment gives me a general starting point.




Predetermining it means you may also be predetermining the ways in which the PCs will likely be interacting with this NPC. And that may be fine. But I think it's worth considering if you can get the same roleplay out of deciding during play. I think it may also matter the context of the NPC; certainly some should be more clearly defined before the PCs interact with them.



Lanefan said:


> I'd rather do it in reverse: alter the interaction based on the principles (or lack thereof) of the NPC and let that interaction be what establishes his nature in the shared fiction, absent prior information.




Sure, my point is just that you can do it another way, and it opens up a different angle of gameplay.


----------



## aramis erak

Crimson Longinus said:


> So do posters here believe that they have agency in the real life? Just asking to calibrate some agency standards.



Yes, I do. More than most PCs in games I've run, but still not as much as I'd like. I can't just circle up a millionaire friend willing to spend money on me....


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> 1)  When I meet a person, hear about a person, or imagine a person, I am extremely vigilant not to rush to judgement.  I find the social trope of "first impressions" to be one of the more embarrassing facets of the modern world.  Its a garbage heuristic that the highly evolved chimps we are had to rely upon for hundreds of thousands of years because every stranger was a potentially lethal threat to the clan or a competitor for precious resources and mental models relied upon immediate utility/functionality rather than actual accuracy.  We should be well past that no (like so many other things), but we clearly are not...so we erroneously use "first impressions" as an abstract stand-in for the ridiculous complexities of any individual we encounter.



Interesting thesis, but I would need data (and the 'evo devo' part, unprovable storytelling but that's just one of my annoyances  ). While it is dangerous to rely too much on 'Googling' for answers to profound questions, you might find the results of a search on "are first impressions accurate" to be interesing how accurate are first impressions at DuckDuckGo and my impression of what came up is "its more complicated than that." (figures). So keep that in mind. In fact this kinda makes sense, since first impressions are probably under very heavy selection pressure. More subtly, honesty is an evolutionarily overall favorable trait. This is why humans have bare faces and visible sclera of the eye, nobody can suppress 'tells' when they try to lie, our emotions come to the surface easily etc. It is advantageous to a specific individual to be able to prevaricate, but for the WHOLE GROUP this is disastrous. It utterly undermines the value of communications and it is unlikely that language would even have arisen under conditions of rampant lying (and getting away with it at least). So all humans prevaricate, and all other humans catch them most of the time. The same is true for other basic human personality traits, we signal them, and others pick them up. This forms the basis for first impressions, which work kinda well (sort of). I agree though, we should treat them with great care, and our social conditioning is a huge problem here. Anyway... just had to say that.


Manbearcat said:


> 2)  Similarly, even after first impressions I look at people as extraordinarily complex organism.  You meet a 40 year old, you aren't encountering x, y, z.  You're encountering the entirety of the alphabet parameterizing a complex algorithm, each letter with its own coefficient.  The fortune or misfortune of genes.  The fortune or misfortune of being born into a healthy situation or a deeply unhealthy one.  The fortune or misfortune of environment turning on the right genes or wrong genes early on in life.  The fortune or misfortune of opportunity, of prejudice, of meeting the right or wrong peer group, of amplification of your better or worse qualities, of sickness/injury or health, of finding a life partner that fits/supports you (and vice versa), of the role of time and the piling on of each thing and how it intersects with the rest of the collage, of dozens and dozens of other things.
> 
> 3)  Stemming from (1) and (2) above, when I consider how any individual might act in a given situation, I instantiate it in my mind (perhaps 100 times, perhaps 1000).  The output may look like this:
> 
> - x outcome 80 % of the time
> 
> - y outcome 15 % of the time
> 
> - z outcome 5 % of the time
> 
> Now that may be truncating the possible outcomes for a given situation (in some cases in life, it may be more than 3 likely outcomes), but lets go with that for now.  Lets just say, for the sake of argument, that any given person is as consistent and predictable as this model above (I don't agree that people are).  Y or z are minority responses/actions in a situation for this fictional person I have modeled (with insufficient granularity), but if I instantiated this exact exchange/event 20 times, 4 of those times its going to be y or z.
> 
> 4)  Stemming from (3), I have the following thoughts/questions:
> 
> a)  If the x outcome (80 %) is clearly the most "plausible" response in any given instantiation and "plausibility" is my exclusive credibility test...how am I ever deriving the dynamism inherent to the social animals that we are (and that elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins etc would be)?  Am I choosing x every_single_time?  If not, what am I choosing and how/why?
> 
> b)  When it comes to the games I'm speaking about above, the following is the credibility test GMs are expected to follow:
> 
> Is it genre appropriate and/or thematically relevant while being plausible (not most, but plausible)?
> 
> If yes, use.
> 
> if no, go back to the drawing board.
> 
> Sometimes that mix might be x, sometimes it might be y, sometimes it might be z.  I like this process for the same reasons that I like Monster Reaction in 1e and Moldvay Basic/RC.  I'm challenged creatively to make this work while I get dynamism in encounters/interactions with other social animals + genre appropriate/thematically relevant content.



My own input here is just to say that I don't think this process can yield much. We know so little about the fictional world. We know little about the detailed social history of this world, of the customs and norms, of the detailed history, or even basic facts like social class and ethnic heritage, of most of the NPCs in it that we cannot even do something equivalent to a first impression, let alone some sort of actual analysis. All that is left is either some very dubious and essentially worthless assessment, like what you are doing, or to JUST MAKE IT UP. I assert that the latter is what people are doing. EVEN if they do the former, they are doing the latter, because the former is basically impossible and is just a proxy for doing the latter unconsciously. I say this for all the same reasons that you say you doubt first impressions, essentially.


Manbearcat said:


> I get the sense that @Lanefan 's own process (because it appears he/she maps his/her own process onto play because he/she doesn't believe system matters and doesn't appear to deviate in what he/she plays and/or how he/she plays it) will pretty much *derive that 80 % over and over and over* and the fact that *this result is thematically neutral/not conflict-charged is a feature (not a bug)* for @Lanefan and his/her group *because when the 15 % or 5 % results manifest in play (which are thematically relevant and conflict charged), it feels..."earned?"  "Realistic?"*  Something like that?  I don't know.
> 
> And I also don't know *how the 15 % or 5 % result manifesting in play is derived (if "most plausible" is the exclusive credibility test)*.  I'd like to hear more on that.
> 
> If this is kindred with you, I'd like to hear more on both of the italicized/bolded things as well (if true).



I think my thesis is simpler. People pick for entirely other reasons, which I like to generously label "dramatic effect", although I admit there are probably potentially many others. I'm quite sure people THINK they are doing some sort of "logical unbiased neutral" thing. IMHO and in my studies of how humans actually think (I mean physically and how the process works) that is literally impossible.


----------



## Bedrockgames

One theme I am seeing is perfection as the enemy of the good. I think it is important to reiterate that for those of us advocating for a more trad approach, we are not arguing for a perfect simulation of people or reality, merely one that we find believable.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

There was earlier some talk about the symmetry of social mechanics vis-à-vis NPCs and the PCs and personally I feel that they don't need to work similarly. I generally feel that mechanics should roughly be same for both, but this is one area where I gladly make the exception. I really do not like using any sort of mechanics that compel the player characters to behave in certain way, force values on them etc, and as player such thing happening to my character is one of my biggest pet peeves. I don't necessarily mind some short term magical things that are basically CC effects, but things that try to tell me how to roleplay my character are a no go. When I GM I don't usually roll social skills against PCs, I just let the NPC's social stats inform how I portray them. An opposed test when a PC tries to detect whether the NPC is lying might be an exception, but even there a success for the NPC doesn't mean that the PC has to believe them, merely that they did not notice obvious signs of lying.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> Don't worry, your post was clear.
> 
> My last sentence was mis-stated in this way: I intended that the impossibility of immersion pertain to playing a certain sort of religious PC. I suspect you still think it overgeneralises even on the intended interpretation. Maybe that's right: my first thought is _are they really playing a PC who sees the world in terms of providential happenings?_, but that's a path that can't be profitably pursued very far in this context.




I can't be but agnostic (no pun intended) on that question; I don't believe in in the situations where channelling has been possible for me I've ever played a strongly religious person, and the two players I'm familiar with who do it most face-to-face are not prone to doing that at all, so any opinion I had would be speculative at best.



pemerton said:


> I do hope  I've succeeded in conveying not only my reaction, but a way of thinking about the immersion process that would mean there's no reason to think my reaction especially unusual.




The problem is that strongly immersive players are, best I can tell, sufficiently uncommon its hard to say whether its unusual or not, since there seems to be a fairly diverse set of things that do and do not work for them.  The sample-size makes it hard to draw good trend-lines.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Manbearcat said:


> After reading this, let me take this opportunity to make an open pronouncement:
> 
> I've been running games for 36 years.  36 years doesn't make me immune to mistakes/errors.  I make them.  I'm VERY glad when a player points it out and we correct it.  I don't want to screw up but I REALLY don't want anyone at the table to feel the weight of my screw up hanging over a game session (and I DEFINITELY don't want to reflect on it afterward and realize I screwed up and wasn't able to correct it).
> 
> So thank you players out there who (politely and expeditiously) correct your GMs when they screw up.  Keep doing what you're doing.




Yeah, I absolutely feel the same.

To make it clear, I've been doing it even longer than you, and one of the things I've tried to shed was any of the lese majesty tendencies I may have absorbed from some of the top-down GM culture that was common at the start of the hobby.  This doesn't mean I'm not still pretty much in the "GM controls the world" school (though the degree to which some people take it strikes me as pretty bloody extreme--if a player doesn't want to fill in his back history himself, I'm willing to try to do something interesting, but if he is I rarely see some great harm in his come up with details about his village, family or even in some cases organizational membership or religion to the degree it doesn't contradict things I've already done or are important for down-the-line reasons), but the flip side of that is I find it really valuable to have my players keep me honest.  I don't feel the need to be playing without the net.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Crimson Longinus said:


> There was earlier some talk about the symmetry of social mechanics vis-à-vis NPCs and the PCs and personally I feel that they don't need to work similarly.




I don't find a need for them to work identically, but if they're completely divorced from each other I find it jarring.  I'm will to have a set of social mechanics that mechanically nudges the PC in the direction it wants to go (provides carrots and sticks) but doesn't take over control, but that pretty much within its framework does take over control or close to it on an NPC, but I tend to find games that put the use of social mechanics completely off the table for PCs over-privileging the latter.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> There was earlier some talk about the symmetry of social mechanics vis-à-vis NPCs and the PCs and personally I feel that they don't need to work similarly. I generally feel that mechanics should roughly be same for both, but this is one area where I gladly make the exception. I really do not like using any sort of mechanics that compel the player characters to behave in certain way, force values on them etc, and as player such thing happening to my character is one of my biggest pet peeves. I don't necessarily mind some short term magical things that are basically CC effects, but things that try to tell me how to roleplay my character are a no go. When I GM I don't usually roll social skills against PCs, I just let the NPC's social stats inform how I portray them. An opposed test when a PC tries to detect whether the NPC is lying might be an exception, but even there a success for the NPC doesn't mean that the PC has to believe them, merely that they did not notice obvious signs of lying.



So no Monster Hearts for you?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> So no Monster Hearts for you?



Probably. I'm not really familiar with it though.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Apocalypse World makes this super clear in its *seduce or manipulate* move, which (unlike all the examples I gave earlier in this post) is resolved differently depending on whether the character being seduced/manipulated is a PC (ie the outcome implicates a player's decision about his/her character) or a NPC (ie the outcome implicates a GM's control over one of his/her characters).



Well, PbtA games make it INCREDIBLY clear. There is no mechanical equivalency between PCs and NPCs WHATSOEVER! In DW, for example, there is no such thing as the GM rolling dice, it literally never happens (I assume AW is the same). The GM simply makes moves. If the GM says "the orc swings his axe at the dwarf!" there isn't a 'to hit roll' or something. Either the dwarf's player declares some action to avoid the blow, "I throw up my shield!" or damage is dealt! In the latter case this becomes a Defy Danger check by the player. NPCs don't have 'moves' (the GM does) and their attributes are all passive traits, or monster moves that represent special abilities that the GM is allowed to inject into the fiction. This last gets close to being an active 'monster action', but it is still invoked only according to the overall process of DW. There is no symmetry between GM and Player, they follow entirely different processes and rules.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Assuming the player was hoping for a check.
> 
> If the player was hoping to get by without a check, however, and no check comes it'd be a very rare player indeed who raised an issue about it. Instead, most players IME would think "Hm - I got away with that one!  Lucky me!" and very carefully say no more about it.  To me the Lady Askar(?) example looks like one of these.
> 
> In broader terms beyond just this example: just because a player benefits from a GM error doesn't make it any less of an error.



See, to me, this post and the one before it, in which you talked about players "getting away with stuff" and that "they always go along with what they want", etc. smacks of an ethos in which the GM is some sort of task master/enforcer. That the players are these little miscreants who just want to have treasure handed to them, and it is the job of the tough guy GM to make it hard for them. 

IMHO this is a way, simplistic perhaps, to interpret Gygaxian skilled play, but it is anathema to, certainly diametrically opposed to, the type of gameplay we are talking about. There are not two sides in these narrative construct/fiction first games! DW's GM agenda literally instructs the GM to be a fan of the PCs and an advocate for the players. They aren't some sort of 'opposed teams'! There is no such thing as players "getting away with it." This is what I would call antiquated thinking, at best. All the participants at the table are generating a fiction (play to see what happens) and all of them have the same goal, interesting and engaging fiction. Because it is an RPG that is going to focus on character and how it interplays with setting, genre, etc. through dramatic conflict. It also has elements of exploration and the other foci that you will see called out by WotC people when they talk about different kinds of players. 

Even in Gygaxian skilled play I would say that a similar ethos is actually in play. The GM never simply pitches the PCs into hopeless situations. There aren't Invisible Stalkers on level 1 in the front corridor that slay everyone who enters, or pit traps filled with lava that do 100 points of damage with no save or chance to detect them. Remember, this was actually called out in the original Tomb of Horrors. The intro to the module literally says "This is unsurvivable, every PC who enters this dungeon will die. Go to the back of the book and run the pregens! Don't use any PC you care about." Given the sheer volume of ways PC spell casters can attack a problem some people DID get to the end of the module, but IME it is pretty rare! Clearly 'normal dungeons' are built so that the PCs are very likely to advance and surive IF THE PLAYER IS GOOD AT PLAYING D&D. The goal is not any sort of verisimilitude or reasonable and believable anything. It is to have a kick ass time beating the, hard but beatable, dungeon.

This is what informs my thesis about how play is really driven. You might have a model of GM vs Player at a superficial level, but at most your trying to make a 'fair test'. What we're doing is a bit different, but the ultimate goal is basically the same, to have a fun tale emerge at the end of the night. Yours might emphasize player puzzle-solving, loosely, and GM as puzzle-giver, and ours emphasizes GM as 'plot complication giver' and involve a more overtly cooperative model of how that works, but we are all ACTUALLY on the same side.

I just find it a lot easier to explicitly think that way, because bringing our thought processes and interests out into the open and putting them on the table is generally a more successful way to get to success reliably. 

I mean, there's no reliable numbers on any of this I'm sure, but I am of the opinion that it is much more likely for a game run in a style like, say, @Manbearcat's to 'hit the mark' than it is for one where some people pick up D&D and try to run it in a classic fashion. That if you went across all the groups that did the latter, most of them achieved limited, or no, success. Most of the groups which tried the former OTOH, I suspect a lot of them succeeded. I think the 'classic D&D way' is just vastly more obvious. It doesn't take much analysis or explaining to get going with. It is successful enough of the time that if you try a few times you'll probably achieve enough satisfaction to keep playing. The other way is unlikely to just come about when random naive people try to play an RPG. Yet if you teach it to people it really does click well.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Obviously this could rub against your (or anyone's) preferred playstyle, but my approach DMing 5E has been to have several pending story arcs available--some based on things the characters brought in, others based on things they've encountered since we started--and once the party has completed one they can choose another (or sometimes figure a way to work on more than one at the same time). This is made easier by the fact that A) not everyone at the table brought in a goal and B) the players have been entirely willing to solve things one at a time, knowing that their goals are still pending and might still arise as pursuits.
> 
> So, it can be an at-the-table solution, and/or it can be a more GM-driven solution. And I agree that neither approach is specifically grounded in the 5E rules. I think it helps to keep in mind that the 5E rules are intended for playing through hardcover adventures, where individual character goals are ... less relevant (and agency, at roughly any of the levels @Manbearcat laid out upthread, IIRC, isn't a consideration).



Yeah, this brings up an interesting, if maybe tangential, point. It is a LOT easier to author material for a 'classic' sort of style of play. You simply print a module which consists of a series of encounters which are thematically linked such that they form basically a story arc. There can be some flexibility in terms of when each bit comes in as well, but in the end the objective is to present all/most of the material and the players are pretty much expected to engage with each piece, or at most skip/avoid a branch here or there. This has a lot of virtues for the adventure writer, its simply to do being the main one. Secondarily it provides maximum value for the purchaser, most of what they have bought will see play and is directly relevant. Of course the downsides are clear as well... 

It does not surprise me at all that, from a business standpoint, WotC is not that interested in publishing a story-driven game where the players are in charge of deciding what direction the fiction takes. That requires something closer to zero-myth play. How do you write a 'module' for that game? I don't even know how you would do that! Over the years I have basically reached a level of 'prep nothing' because I don't see much value in it. I might draw up NPCs, and sketch out 'maps' and 'fronts' essentially that appear to be in the realm of what players are interested in, but I don't see how that would ever be a 'product' really. I guess I could write a setting, or maybe more of a 'genre/milieu guide' or something. It appears to me that vendors of this type of game have hit on 2 strategies: 1) publish a lot of very niche games that are basically one-offs; 2) publish a series of supplements and such that expand on the core milieu by creating additional variations of the original model of game play (this is the V:tM approach, where they added new clans, new types of monsters you can play, etc. over time). A sort of 3rd variations is a 'family of games' which seems to be what we have with PbtA or now BitD. Each game stands alone, but they heavily share DNA. They aren't instances of a 'generic system', though.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Yeah, one of the reasons strongly railroaded adventures are so common is that they're easy to write, and you don't have to take up a lot of space with large chunks of material that will often go unused.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But now you're assuming that the GM at one-and-the-same time both _thought a check was important_ and yet _said "yes"_.



Or didn't realize a check was important and said "yes"; the opposite of calling for a check where none is needed, and a simple enough mistake to make.

But here, yes, I am assuming a situation where the GM realizes a check is likely appropriate but intentionally doesn't give one due to the very real possibility of said check producing a result she (and-or the player) doesn't want.  To me this is pretty much the same as fudging a die roll, only instead of fudging a bad result into good after the roll you're preventing the bad result from ever arising by not rolling in the first place.


pemerton said:


> You also don't seem to recognise why a player might want to push things to a check - for instance, to establish finality in respect of some matter (eg whether or not Lady Askol believes the lie).



I can see the desire to establish finality but as a player, why risk it if you don't have to?  From all appearances you've got the finality anyway without having to chance the roll, so just be quiet and run with it! 

Which brings up another point, I suppose: if the GM says yes (or no) without a check, to me that produces the exact same degree of finality as had dice in fact been rolled.  In your example you say - without a check - that the lie is believed, which in my eyes means I-as-player can proceed just as if I'd rolled a successful check and with the same expectation of finality.

Where we differ, I think - correct me if I'm wrong, is that you view a die roll as locking things in while simply saying yes maybe doesn't; where I see the degree of locked-in-ness as being the same either way; and the discussion then becomes one of just what that degree is both at the time and later.


----------



## darkbard

Bedrockgames said:


> It would take an extended conversation, a real conversation not one *where we are trying to outdo each other rhetorically,* to really give you a full take on how I run a game, how I play NPCs, and what my overarching goals are.




I am unsure why you assume this kind of bad faith posting in these conversations and don't assume instead that contributors who post extensive analysis and examples from their gameplay are having extended, substantive conversations and are not engaging in rhetorical showmanship.

Further, at times, both in this thread and many similar ones over the years you express hostility to analysis, sometimes encouraging others to skip analysis and "do what works for them" or some variant thereof. Which is it? Do you want extensive analysis via conversation or not? If you feel the kind of "real conversation" you seek is impossible in these threads, why do you become a frequent participant in them?

EDIT TO ADD: These are not rhetorical questions. I legitimately don't understand your assumptions and motivations.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that the DM in 3e versions could have NPCs use skills in that manner on the PCs. And while I wouldn't defend the skill system of 3e D&D, I think that there is a fundamental difference between a PC and a NPC. They must be treated differently in many ways.



Where to me there's as far as possible no difference between PCs and NPCs.  They're all equally a part of the game world, and that I'm running some and the players are running some has - or should have - no bearing on how they interact or operate.

Which means that if you can use Intimidate (or any other social roll) on an NPC, so should an NPC be able to use it on your PC with exactly the same degree of effect.  Given that, and given that having it work this way would hammer player agency into the ground, it's a pretty easy call to just strip such mechanics out of the game wherever possible and to oppose them wherever they arise.

Same reason I rarely if ever use reaction rolls.


hawkeyefan said:


> Now, beyond that, do I think that things can happen to the PCs during play that impacts their state of mind, and forces some behavioral consequence on them? Sure, it can happen quite often to be honest.



Sure - charm etc. are (usually) an accepted part of both the game and the setting.  No problem there, and it can work equally both ways.


hawkeyefan said:


> Predetermining it means you may also be predetermining the ways in which the PCs will likely be interacting with this NPC. And that may be fine. But I think it's worth considering if you can get the same roleplay out of deciding during play.



Experience tells me that if-when I try running significant NPCs without much forethought the results tend to either be predictable (as per @Manbearcat 's theories posted above) or quickly become somewhat incoherent and inconsistent.  Neither is ideal. 


hawkeyefan said:


> I think it may also matter the context of the NPC; certainly some should be more clearly defined before the PCs interact with them.



Absolutely.  I don't much care if the gate guard the PCs speak to once ever comes across the same as all the other gate guards the PCs speak to once ever; but I do care that the personality and motivations of the party's patron have a solid pre-built foundation so I can play him consistently from one session to the next and from one year to the next.


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Yeah, one of the reasons strongly railroaded adventures are so common is that they're easy to write,



And they become popular because they're also easy to GM, and in some ways also easy to play.


Thomas Shey said:


> and you don't have to take up a lot of space with large chunks of material that will often go unused.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> See, to me, this post and the one before it, in which you talked about players "getting away with stuff" and that "they always go along with what they want", etc. smacks of an ethos in which the GM is some sort of task master/enforcer. That the players are these little miscreants who just want to have treasure handed to them, and it is the job of the tough guy GM to make it hard for them.



It's the players' job to advocate for their character and in so doing gain what advantage they can, and IMO this advocacy includes pushing the envelope of the rules.

It's the GM's job to push back.  That's why a GM's role is often referred to, in part, as that of referee.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> IMHO this is a way, simplistic perhaps, to interpret Gygaxian skilled play, but it is anathema to, certainly diametrically opposed to, the type of gameplay we are talking about. There are not two sides in these narrative construct/fiction first games! DW's GM agenda literally instructs the GM to be a fan of the PCs and an advocate for the players. They aren't some sort of 'opposed teams'! There is no such thing as players "getting away with it."



This seems conflicted somehow - the GM is supposed to be a fan of the PCs yet at the same time is supposed to go hard-ass on them? (I forget who posted above how 'weak-kneed' GMing doesn't work in those types of games)

I mean, it's one or the other: either you're legitimately-but-fairly trying to screw them over (or kill them) and thus forcing them to fight back or you're not; and IMO doing this well requires a mindset of really being their opposition, not their fan.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is what I would call antiquated thinking, at best. All the participants at the table are generating a fiction (play to see what happens) and all of them have the same goal, interesting and engaging fiction. Because it is an RPG that is going to focus on character and how it interplays with setting, genre, etc. through dramatic conflict. It also has elements of exploration and the other foci that you will see called out by WotC people when they talk about different kinds of players.
> 
> Even in Gygaxian skilled play I would say that a similar ethos is actually in play. The GM never simply pitches the PCs into hopeless situations. There aren't Invisible Stalkers on level 1 in the front corridor that slay everyone who enters, or pit traps filled with lava that do 100 points of damage with no save or chance to detect them.



Depends on the particular campaign and-or GM.  A GM running a true sandbox game might very well have such things in some places, and it's on the PCs to pick their spots and find things they can handle, even if only by trial and error.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Remember, this was actually called out in the original Tomb of Horrors. The intro to the module literally says "This is unsurvivable, every PC who enters this dungeon will die. Go to the back of the book and run the pregens! Don't use any PC you care about." Given the sheer volume of ways PC spell casters can attack a problem some people DID get to the end of the module, but IME it is pretty rare!



Heh - we used the pre-gens.  There's six of them.  Of those, three finished the dungeon and survived, despite (or more like, because of) the DM running bets among our friends as to which room would be our furthest point of advance before the TPK!


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Clearly 'normal dungeons' are built so that the PCs are very likely to advance and surive IF THE PLAYER IS GOOD AT PLAYING D&D. The goal is not any sort of verisimilitude or reasonable and believable anything. It is to have a kick ass time beating the, hard but beatable, dungeon.
> 
> This is what informs my thesis about how play is really driven. You might have a model of GM vs Player at a superficial level, but at most your trying to make a 'fair test'. What we're doing is a bit different, but the ultimate goal is basically the same, to have a fun tale emerge at the end of the night. Yours might emphasize player puzzle-solving, loosely, and GM as puzzle-giver, and ours emphasizes GM as 'plot complication giver' and involve a more overtly cooperative model of how that works, but we are all ACTUALLY on the same side.
> 
> I just find it a lot easier to explicitly think that way, because bringing our thought processes and interests out into the open and putting them on the table is generally a more successful way to get to success reliably.



OK, I get this.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, there's no reliable numbers on any of this I'm sure, but I am of the opinion that it is much more likely for a game run in a style like, say, @Manbearcat's to 'hit the mark' than it is for one where some people pick up D&D and try to run it in a classic fashion. That if you went across all the groups that did the latter, most of them achieved limited, or no, success. Most of the groups which tried the former OTOH, I suspect a lot of them succeeded. I think the 'classic D&D way' is just vastly more obvious. It doesn't take much analysis or explaining to get going with. It is successful enough of the time that if you try a few times you'll probably achieve enough satisfaction to keep playing. The other way is unlikely to just come about when random naive people try to play an RPG. Yet if you teach it to people it really does click well.



Yeah, not buying this.

Over the history of RPGs, chances are that 98+% of all players' first exposure came through D&D.  What this means is that by the time those players get to any other RPG, chances are that most of the "random naive people" have been winnowed out; and many of those players who remain just stick with D&D because it gives them what they want.

Players who look for other RPGs usually have a clear idea of what they want that D&D doesn't give them, thus ensuring a higher success ratio for those games as the participants are both already experienced in RPGing and are more invested in making their new game work in hoopes it can give them what D&D didn't.

In short, comparing success rates isn't really fair on any level.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> I can see the desire to establish finality but as a player, why risk it if you don't have to?  From all appearances you've got the finality anyway without having to chance the roll, so just be quiet and run with it!



Because if you don't ever stake anything, then the game will grind to a halt! If the characters in @pemerton's Traveller campaign simply want to be ordinary boring paper pushing civilians someplace, then sure, they can just go get 9-5 jobs and never ever stake anything on anything. That would be 'realistic' I guess, in some way, but utterly pointless. Remember the joke about "Paper & Pencils" back in the 1e DMG? Why was it funny? Obviously because nobody would ever play such a game!


Lanefan said:


> Which brings up another point, I suppose: if the GM says yes (or no) without a check, to me that produces the exact same degree of finality as had dice in fact been rolled.  In your example you say - without a check - that the lie is believed, which in my eyes means I-as-player can proceed just as if I'd rolled a successful check and with the same expectation of finality.
> 
> Where we differ, I think - correct me if I'm wrong, is that you view a die roll as locking things in while simply saying yes maybe doesn't; where I see the degree of locked-in-ness as being the same either way; and the discussion then becomes one of just what that degree is both at the time and later.



This is because you approach the subject from the perspective of a classic DM. In your mental paradigm NOTHING is ever locked in. If I take some fantastic treasure from the dungeon, you'd feel perfectly willing to have somebody else steal it from me. Heck, maybe even without I ever know such a move is coming or have a chance to prepare! Whereas Pemerton would not do that. He would instead frame a situation where the player has a chance to decide to put up those stakes (maybe by taking on the interests of the infamous thief's guild that is known for stealing heavily guarded treasures). Now, if instead the PC put up NO STAKES and just got this fantastic treasure in the first place (IE no check took place, nothing was risked) then Pemerton might well simply take the thing away again. I would say THAT would be a form of framing a situation where the PC could THEN take risks (IE is it worth taking on these villains to get the thing back). But remember, in this case the treasure was basically dropped in the PC's lap, and the player NEVER EXPRESSED ANY INTEREST IN HAVING IT. So why would they care? The player certainly cannot complain that anything here is a 'railroad'.

It is the same with Lady Askol. She appears to have accepted the lie without anyone declaring an intent or making a check. So, now the PC "has the treasure" but "never paid for it" and if the GM suddenly decrees that she was snowing him down the road, he's got nothing to complain about. There IS no finality, its just an ongoing framed piece of the fictional state. The player can risk his certainty that the lie was believed later on, and THEN the results of tossing the dice will decide this matter, but the form of such a risk taking has yet to be decided, maybe never will be decided in theory.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Where to me there's as far as possible no difference between PCs and NPCs.  They're all equally a part of the game world, and that I'm running some and the players are running some has - or should have - no bearing on how they interact or operate.



I don't accept this. If it was true, then you would be as equally likely to have the action focus on the NPCs, to have them leading parties, or being the 'main characters' in other contexts. Yet I am pretty darn sure you don't. Because there is a fundamental difference between a PC and an NPC. They are not alike at all! Neither in your game nor in mine...


Lanefan said:


> Sure - charm etc. are (usually) an accepted part of both the game and the setting.  No problem there, and it can work equally both ways.



I think we agree that 'charm magic' can be used as an explanation and fictional circumstance WRT both PCs and NPCs. I doubt that they are employed in a really symmetric way in any of our campaigns though. I would bet money that there have been PC wizards in your game who used charm routinely, but that PCs have been subjected to it very rarely, most of them not at all. And that players would see routine symmetrical use as 'overuse' and 'trampling on their agency'.


Lanefan said:


> Experience tells me that if-when I try running significant NPCs without much forethought the results tend to either be predictable (as per @Manbearcat 's theories posted above) or quickly become somewhat incoherent and inconsistent.  Neither is ideal.
> 
> Absolutely.  I don't much care if the gate guard the PCs speak to once ever comes across the same as all the other gate guards the PCs speak to once ever; but I do care that the personality and motivations of the party's patron have a solid pre-built foundation so I can play him consistently from one session to the next and from one year to the next.



I think there is quite a bit of truth to the idea that you cannot easily delve into a PC and explore their character and conflicts without some well-drawn NPCs at times. I guess maybe the other PCs can serve the purpose, depending on the nature of the particular game. However, I expect that there are going to be times when a well-drawn NPC is useful. I don't see a reason not to produce some sketches of NPCs that might be useful. I would be wary of over-prep though, or that some imagined trait of an NPC would turn into an obstacle to some twist of plot. Luckily I think no sketch is going to be so ironclad it can't accommodate some bending.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> It's the players' job to advocate for their character and in so doing gain what advantage they can, and IMO this advocacy includes pushing the envelope of the rules.
> 
> It's the GM's job to push back.  That's why a GM's role is often referred to, in part, as that of referee.



Well, only in certain models of RPG play...


Lanefan said:


> This seems conflicted somehow - the GM is supposed to be a fan of the PCs yet at the same time is supposed to go hard-ass on them? (I forget who posted above how 'weak-kneed' GMing doesn't work in those types of games)
> 
> I mean, it's one or the other: either you're legitimately-but-fairly trying to screw them over (or kill them) and thus forcing them to fight back or you're not; and IMO doing this well requires a mindset of really being their opposition, not their fan.



I think that's too simplistic. You can, in real life, say "gosh, I like that guy, but maybe he needs to go join the Army and get some sense kicked into his head." Right? There's a huge difference between being a 'fan' of someone or something, and "everything should just be milk and honey for this guy." I am a fan of the PCs, but the PCs need to be worth being fans of. It isn't worthy to just get a path lined with gold to whatever you want. Struggling for it, making hard choices, etc. is what makes the character worthy of being rooted for. I mean, in real life we rarely wish hardship on people (certainly not often when we like them). This makes sense, but PCs in a game aren't people. They are tools for exploring a fictional world, etc. Pain, fear, discomfort, difficult dilemmas, whatever are not actually experienced by any real person. There's no reason to "wish a PC well", that isn't part of the GM's job. The dichotomy of choice you present is false, IMHO.


Lanefan said:


> Depends on the particular campaign and-or GM.  A GM running a true sandbox game might very well have such things in some places, and it's on the PCs to pick their spots and find things they can handle, even if only by trial and error.



Not without amply telegraphing that, as the Tomb of Horrors does. Again, this betrays the fundamentally narrative/gamist nature of virtually all play.


Lanefan said:


> Heh - we used the pre-gens.  There's six of them.  Of those, three finished the dungeon and survived, despite (or more like, because of) the DM running bets among our friends as to which room would be our furthest point of advance before the TPK!



My recollection of the final encounter of the module is that the solution required is so utterly arbitrary that I never saw any group get through who didn't clearly have some prior knowledge though (IE they had at least read the FF entry for 'Demi-Lich' and probably most likely read or been told about some part of the actual module).


Lanefan said:


> Yeah, not buying this.
> 
> Over the history of RPGs, chances are that 98+% of all players' first exposure came through D&D.  What this means is that by the time those players get to any other RPG, chances are that most of the "random naive people" have been winnowed out; and many of those players who remain just stick with D&D because it gives them what they want.



Well, I'm not sure about 98%, but I don't think we're disagreeing here.


Lanefan said:


> Players who look for other RPGs usually have a clear idea of what they want that D&D doesn't give them, thus ensuring a higher success ratio for those games as the participants are both already experienced in RPGing and are more invested in making their new game work in hoopes it can give them what D&D didn't.
> 
> In short, comparing success rates isn't really fair on any level.



I'm just saying, if you took a roomful of people that have never played an RPG and gave half of them D&D and half of them Dungeon World, D&D would be 'easier to figure out' in the sense that the referee/opposition role of the classic D&D DM is fairly straightforward to grasp, at a basic level. However, there are really huge pitfalls to doing it WELL. Most DM's will not, and D&D is pretty uneven about telling them to, take up the 'fair arbiter' role and simply present the material. Also good presentation is vital, etc. Most DMs will soon conceive an agenda, begin to steer things, etc. 

The people who try DW may also have some trouble of course, but once you grasp the concept, things flow pretty naturally from that. 

Anyway, I've seen a lot of dysfunctional D&D games, but I haven't really seen that in 'indy' type games much. I've seen players fail to take up the mantle and do it, but you can get those in any RPG.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> We know so little about the fictional world. We know little about the detailed social history of this world, of the customs and norms, of the detailed history, or even basic facts like social class and ethnic heritage, of most of the NPCs in it that we cannot even do something equivalent to a first impression, let alone some sort of actual analysis. All that is left is either some very dubious and essentially worthless assessment, like what you are doing, or to JUST MAKE IT UP. I assert that the latter is what people are doing. EVEN if they do the former, they are doing the latter, because the former is basically impossible and is just a proxy for doing the latter unconsciously.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think my thesis is simpler. People pick for entirely other reasons, which I like to generously label "dramatic effect", although I admit there are probably potentially many others. I'm quite sure people THINK they are doing some sort of "logical unbiased neutral" thing. IMHO and in my studies of how humans actually think (I mean physically and how the process works) that is literally impossible.



I've got no view on what is "unconscious" vs unreflective vs "best effort" in extrapolating NPC behaviour from a one-line to one-page description.

But I have a very strong view, which agrees fully with yours, that this can have _no basis in any human ability to actually predict human behaviour_. It is essentially aesthetic judgment or extrapolation - a judgement about "what fits" or "given this 1 page description, what comes next?" Your remarks about social history, customs, class, ethnicity and the like are all very apt here. You also mention "detaild history" by which I'm guessing you mean personal biography, and we could add to that the nature of personal convictions, quirks, foibles and weaknesses, passions, friendships, etc.

In the real world, George Orwell (_not _his real name) was (1) born to a middle class family, (2) attended an upper class school on a scholarship, (3) fought in Spain with a Trotskyist (para)military unit, and (4) returned to England where he dobbed in Communists (whom he saw as Stalinists, some of whom were ostensibly his friends) to the British Secret Service.

At what point in extrapolating the behaviour of such this person as a NPC would a "logical behaviour" GM make the move from one of my numbered steps to the next? Frankly I think the Classic Traveller Reaction Table, or Gygax's somewhat baroque system for integrating various considerations into the reaction table to produce a randomised loyalty resolution framework, is going to yield results that are as true, or truer, to life, than would one person's "logical extrapolations".


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> I don't find a need for them to work identically, but if they're completely divorced from each other I find it jarring.  I'm will to have a set of social mechanics that mechanically nudges the PC in the direction it wants to go (provides carrots and sticks) but doesn't take over control, but that pretty much within its framework does take over control or close to it on an NPC



Apocalypse World *seduce or manipulate* is like this.

(Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP uses the nudging both ways - influence is a debuff if the declared action is at odds with the complication imposed by the influence attempt.)


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> I am unsure why you assume this kind of bad faith posting in these conversations and don't assume instead that contributors who post extensive analysis and examples from their gameplay are having extended, substantive conversations and are not engaging in rhetorical showmanship.



Just to add to this:

I believe I have more actual play posts on ENworld than any other poster - certainly than any other participant in this thread and its predecessors.

In those threads I talk about how I made decisions, how actions were resolved, who (GM or player) provided what sort of input, etc. Not far upthread in this thread I talked about my tendency to sentimentality and a time when I held my nerve. In my recent Traveller threads - which anyone can get to by following links or using the site's Search function - I have talked about the place of exploration in the game, and how I've handled it in the course of drawing on 1980s modules for material for my current campaign. Anyone who wants to come into one of those threads and open up a discussion about where the players did and didn't have agency is very welcome to do so. (I've posted some initial thoughts of my own in some of those threads.)

None of this is "rhetorical showmanship". It's posting about the play of RPGs.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> I am unsure why you assume this kind of bad faith posting in these conversations and don't assume instead that contributors who post extensive analysis and examples from their gameplay are having extended, substantive conversations and are not engaging in rhetorical showmanship.




This was sent in all directions, and I included myself in that. Online there is a tendency in my experience to get focused on scoring points, in getting the other person to adopt your view, rather than honestly engaging them and exchanging ideas that may be able to enhance the playing of the game on both sides. 



> Further, at times, both in this thread and many similar ones over the years you express hostility to analysis, sometimes encouraging others to skip analysis and "do what works for them" or some variant thereof. Which is it? Do you want extensive analysis via conversation or not? If you feel the kind of "real conversation" you seek is impossible in these threads, why do you become a frequent participant in them?
> 
> EDIT TO ADD: These are not rhetorical questions. I legitimately don't understand your assumptions and motivations.




I am not hostile to analysis. I like analysis. But there are modes of analysis I find frustrating or unconvincing. And I think whatever your analysis the priority is getting that to work at the table in your game. Analysis by poster A may be useful and insightful to posters A B and C, but not do much in terms of improving the game for posters D F and G. I am not saying people need to skip analysis, I am however aware of how powerful good rhetoric and intelligence are online, and aware those two things do not always equal being correct about something. I've adopted enough bad gaming ideas because someone made a convincing argument about them on the internet, to realize that. So while I come to forums for discussion about games, to get analysis and points of view, I am always a little skeptical, and it takes more than a compelling argument by an intelligent person to persuade me. I need to see the results at my own table. And sometimes in these discussions a person has a perfectly reasonable analysis but their fundamental assumptions about play are so different from mine, or their way of using language so different from my own, there isn't much I can do with it. At the end of the day I come to the forum to give my opinion, hear other opinions, share ideas, and see what I can find to use at my own table, and what I can share that will be useful for other peoples tables. Over the years I have grown a little cautious with any gaming ideas that feel like an ideology. And I have a tendency to be a little contrarian. That is just my personality. Hopefully this answers your question.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Just to add to this:
> 
> I believe I have more actual play posts on ENworld than any other poster - certainly than any other participant in this thread and its predecessors.
> 
> In those threads I talk about how I made decisions, how actions were resolved, who (GM or player) provided what sort of input, etc. Not far upthread in this thread I talked about my tendency to sentimentality and a time when I held my nerve. In my recent Traveller threads - which anyone can get to by following links or using the site's Search function - I have talked about the place of exploration in the game, and how I've handled it in the course of drawing on 1980s modules for material for my current campaign. Anyone who wants to come into one of those threads and open up a discussion about where the players did and didn't have agency is very welcome to do so. (I've posted some initial thoughts of my own in some of those threads.)
> 
> None of this is "rhetorical showmanship". It's posting about the play of RPGs.




That is fine pemerton. I do appreciate that you give actual examples and that these ideas are ideas you use at your table (and that shows). But I also have posted extensively about actual play at my table (on my blog, on other forums, and occasionally here). We just have very different ideas about what works for us at the table, we use very different language to talk about games, and a lot of our fundamental assumptions are not the same. We just don't see eye to eye for whatever reason. But just because both of us have extensive actual play experience and post about it, that doesn't mean we must be persuaded by one another's arguments.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> None of this is "rhetorical showmanship". It's posting about the play of RPGs.




My point was people get lost in the rhetoric. And I think on this thread, that is evident (for myself as well as you and others). And I do think you are good at rhetoric and you display that. That is fine. That isn't a bad quality. Sometimes though I find it makes it challenging to converse with you about gaming.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> Apocalypse World *seduce or manipulate* is like this.
> 
> (Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP uses the nudging both ways - influence is a debuff if the declared action is at odds with the complication imposed by the influence attempt.)




The Cortex version is actually my preferred approach.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But now you're assuming that the GM at one-and-the-same time both _thought a check was important_ and yet _said "yes"_.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Or didn't realize a check was important and said "yes"; the opposite of calling for a check where none is needed, and a simple enough mistake to make.
Click to expand...


How is that a simple enough mistake to make? What even is the mistake? If the GM doesn't call for a check because s/he thinks there's nothing at stake, and the player doesn't call for a check because s/he thinks there's nothing at stake, or perhaps doesn't _want_ to stake anything, what has gone wrong? What's the mistake?

If it turns out that the stuff in play starts to escalate, and in the back-and-forth between player(s) and GM it becomes clear that there is some conflict or crisis that is emerging, then at that point checks can be made.

I honestly have no idea what you think the "mistake" is that you're describing. Are you able to give an actual play example, where in a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" game the GM didn't call for a check but it was important and the GM realised that later and it mattered?



Lanefan said:


> I am assuming a situation where the GM realizes a check is likely appropriate but intentionally doesn't give one due to the very real possibility of said check producing a result she (and-or the player) doesn't want.  To me this is pretty much the same as fudging a die roll, only instead of fudging a bad result into good after the roll you're preventing the bad result from ever arising by not rolling in the first place.



What you describe is exactly what happened in my Traveller game. No one was interested in finding out what might happen if Lady Askol didn't accept von Jerrel's lie, and so that issue wasn't put to the test.

The way in which this differs from fudging a dice roll has been explained upthread already:

(1) No dice was rolled;

(2) No system procedure was ignored or lied about - as I've posted multiple times, there is no *when you tell a lie *move/subsystem in Classic Traveller, and in our game we are extrapolating the Reaction rules and also using INT checks whereby I am calling for checks within a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" framework;

(3) As nothing has been staked, and nothing resolved, there is no finality here - just ongoing fiction that can be built on down the track (@AbdulAlhazred has explained this clearly over multiple posts);

(4) The player was a participant in the process and everything was fully transparent to him. This seems a particularly apposite difference in a thread about player agency!




Lanefan said:


> I can see the desire to establish finality but as a player, why risk it if you don't have to?  From all appearances you've got the finality anyway without having to chance the roll, so just be quiet and run with it!



There have been multiple posts explaining why _finality_ matters when "playing to find out" and why, in the episode of von Jerrel's lie to Lady Askol, there is no finality.



Lanefan said:


> Which brings up another point, I suppose: if the GM says yes (or no) without a check, to me that produces the exact same degree of finality as had dice in fact been rolled.



Well if you use a different set of techniques from "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "let it ride", "fail forward" etc then you might get problems. But they're not problems associated with the techniques I'm using.

And if you use a different set of techniques, whereby players can achieve finality without having to put it to the test, then players might not bother to put things to the test. To me that sounds like it might produce insipid play. But anyway that's not an issue for me as I don't use those techniques. I use the ones I've described in this thread.


----------



## darkbard

I appreciate your response here, @Bedrockgames.



Bedrockgames said:


> Online there is a tendency in my experience to get focused on scoring points, in getting the other person to adopt your view, rather than honestly engaging them and exchanging ideas that may be able to enhance the playing of the game on both sides.




Why, though, conflate advocacy with scoring points through rhetoric as if they are identical? Advocacy need not include gamesmanship to function.



> I've adopted enough bad gaming ideas because someone made a convincing argument about them on the internet, to realize that. So while I come to forums for discussion about games, to get analysis and points of view, I am always a little skeptical, and it takes more than a compelling argument by an intelligent person to persuade me. I need to see the results at my own table. And sometimes in these discussions a person has a perfectly reasonable analysis but their fundamental assumptions about play are so different from mine, or their way of using language so different from my own, there isn't much I can do with it.




Sometimes new ideas, new principles and techniques, take a while to bear fruit. If you find an argument convincing but haven't been able to make it work at the table, perhaps you haven't given the shift in principles enough time to take effect in refiguring your play. (Or perhaps they just aren't for you,.that you thought you wanted a particular desideratum in your game but it turns out you don't.)


----------



## Thomas Shey

darkbard said:


> Sometimes new ideas, new principles and techniques, take a while to bear fruit. If you find an argument convincing but haven't been able to make it work at the table, perhaps you haven't given the shift in principles enough time to take effect in refiguring your play. (Or perhaps they just aren't for you,.that you thought you wanted a particular desideratum in your game but it turns out you don't.)




This is one of those things its easy to not acknowledge; you can like an idea conceptually and still discover it absolutely does not work for you; that its foreign enough to your flow and style that it doesn't work for you, even though you like it in principal.  This ended up being absolutely true for me with Fate.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> Sometimes new ideas, new principles and techniques, take a while to bear fruit. If you find an argument convincing but haven't been able to make it work at the table, perhaps you haven't given the shift in principles enough time to take effect in refiguring your play. (Or perhaps they just aren't for you,.that you thought you wanted a particular desideratum in your game but it turns out you don't.)




This is true, and it is why you shouldn't throw such arguments into the trash bin. But it can also mean it is just a good argument but not an accurate, correct, or even just not a universally applicable idea. What I find usually happens is a good argument comes along, and I don't really have a good answer to it, but my gut doesn't jive with it or it feels off somehow. And it often takes weeks or months before I figure out what the flaw in the reasoning behind the argument was. At the end of the day I am happy to hear new arguments, but I also think it is a little dangerous to allow oneself to be easily convinced and redirected by arguments and logic alone. You need to put arguments and ideas continuously in the fire and into practice to test them, before embracing them in my opinion. Particularly if someone is trying to persuade you to adopt a framework for understanding something (in this case RPGs).


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> I appreciate your response here, @Bedrockgames.
> 
> 
> 
> Why, though, conflate advocacy with scoring points through rhetoric as if they are identical? Advocacy need not include gamesmanship to function.




I am not equating them. Advocacy is fine. I have been advocating many positions on this very thread. The issue is taking it to an extreme. Online conversations lend themselves to extremes. And I think you see this on pretty much any forum. It is reasonable for people to come into a thread and promote X style of play, or game Y. But at a certain point it does become point scoring. And you see that in these arguments where people eat at the corners of one another's posts (for instance taking a stray comment and ripping it apart, while ignoring the meat). I think it is particularly the case when people are telling you they are not interested in what you are advocating and you persist in advocating for it (something I am guilty of as much as anyone else in this thread). And you also see this when we lose sight of the original purpose of our advocacy in the first place and just start debating finer and finer details. It is also about intent. It is one thing to advance a position because I think it is true or helpful, but gaming is all about taste. There are very few things to do with RPGs that are universally true and should adopted by all gamers. So I think an important thing to ask yourself is: Are you giving someone something that is genuinely useful for them, or are you just trying to get them to think like you. If you are just trying to get people to think like you as an end unto itself, I would say that is an extreme form of advocacy that isn't really healthy or useful. 

It also burns bridges. There are plenty of things I could probably find helpful that posters like yourself and Pemerton use in your games. But if we are so focused on defeating the other side (and I would argue that that has been the case in much of these discussions), that just causes people to resent you rather than listen to you. 

I will give you an example of what I mean. I have no interest in adopting the forge framework for analyzing RPGs. I also don't have much interest in playing Dungeon World at the moment. I also have a style of play I enjoy and when people make points like that style doesn't really exist, or is always actually doing something I don't think it is doing. All that does is irritate me and not want to listen to the person. So when we went down that whole drama and narrative detour, I found that quite frustrating and the longer it went on, the more I really didn't want to hear what advocates of the view were saying. But I am actually in the market for a good mechanic to hand the players narrative-drama powers in limited ways. There is definitely room for us to discuss playstyles and games in that respect. Perhaps I might not want to run a campaign of DW or AW, but it is possible there is a mechanic in one of those games (or one of the many that have come up that would suit my current problem). Presently I am trying to run a series of two shots based on specific wuxia movies. The game will follow pretty traditional RP conventions with the GM having traditional GM authority. But I want to give the players a tool to take some kind of dramatic control briefly when it feels like the game is not advancing towards a conclusion. Because it is a two shot, with the first session used for picking a movie and players vying for roles, and the second session used for playing the adventure, it is pretty important we hit a dramatic endpoint in that second session somehow. So I want the safety valve there, and I want something that gives the players the ability to direct things a bit in key moments. So I am all ears for a mechanic like that which I can kludge to my existing system (provided it doesn't govern all of play or something and can exist in limited moments of the game).


----------



## pemerton

*Examples of GM agency and player agency*
In my last four Classic Traveller sessions, the PCs travelled from Novus to the ice world Zinion, found the location of an ancient alien site by interacting with a cult, stopped another exploration team beating them to it, allied with them, and have established their temporary control over the site.

Full write-ups are in their own threads.

But here is some of what was GM agency:

* The existence of the Annic Nova with its Aliens onboard, including that it was from 2 billion years in the past.

* The naval contingent on Novus, including Lady Askol.

* The general details of Zinion, including the lack of submersibles.

* All the layout and most of the details of the alien pyramid complex.

* Introducing the NPC team as a complication (starting from a starship encounter roll and then playing on the PCs' relative lack of care about their communications).


Here is some of what was GM responding to evinced player thematic/trope interests:

* The Annic Nova as an alien spaceship.

* The psionic elements that I added into the Annic Nova as written.

* The way the NPC team has been died into the system of noble governance in the Imperium.


Here is an example of the GM responding to implicit player suggestions:

* There being an alien civilisation to be found on Zinion.


Here is pretty straightforward player agency:

* When the player searched for a Psionics Institute and made the required check, although the world of Zinion is too small in population to actually have a branch, they encountered a cult with connections to psionics, which let them get the information they needed.

* In the pyramid complex, being able to use psionics to open doors.

* Seducing Lady Askol and bringing her with them.

* Establishing a (tentative) alliance with the NPC team.


This illustrates why I've described my recent Traveller play as having more exploration and less player agency than (say) Burning Wheel.


----------



## Radaceus

I think the prep-work all depends on whether your running a published module/adventure path, or running a homebrew campaign, the latter taking a little more prep work to get going, but the homebrewed world evolves and parties come and go, time marches on, the world grows and the prep-work lessens.

I find that I improv/ad lib most of my sessions. The players never follow according to plan(s); less so after 30 odd years (almost 40 years!? yikes!!). I keep cliff notes, a story board bullet pointed, random tables (encounters, plot hooks, items, etc), draw up or grift a few maps, mark a few X's on them, and proceed. This is even the case with published modules, because either the PCs have played them, read them, Dm'd them, or a combination of the above. ( i.e. I ran Storm king's thunder in conjunction with Tyranny, and threw curve balls at them continuously as the Cultists caused as much trouble as the Giants, culminating in a new Draco-Giant war...endgame overload!)

I might spend a few days before or after session 0 scoping a rough idea of their journey to end goal, but after that its pretty much all off the cuff, especially encounters.

EDIT:
I failed to comment on player agency.
In my campaigns, the players decisions decide the progression events, and work their goals into the story, and use their backgrounds as much as possible to help solidify their purpose int he campaign


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Where to me there's as far as possible no difference between PCs and NPCs. They're all equally a part of the game world, and that I'm running some and the players are running some has - or should have - no bearing on how they interact or operate.




I don’t think this is remotely true. I don’t see how it _even can _be true, regardless of play style or GMing approach or what game you’re playing. 

The PCs are significantly different from NPCs just by virtue of the fact that the game is about them. They’re the focus of each and every session. Most NPCs will appear once. Some will appear occasionally. Maybe a handful will appear with regularity. The PCs are the ones appearing in every single session. The game doesn’t exist without them. 

If that’s not the case, I’d be really interested in hearing why not. 

To me that’s a clear and fundamental difference that I’d expect would absolutely relate to the level of agency present in a game. If you can’t acknowledge that the characters played by the players are the stars of the show, then yeah, I can see how concerns in agency may arise. 

And also, is you actually view a GM playing a NPC as the equivalent of a player playing a PC....then how is your entire GMing approach not in violation of how you expect your players to play? 

How can you reconcile an approach that considers PCs and NPCs equally important, but expects the participant running the characters to do so with radically different expectations? Like, player knowledge should be limited to what the character knows as much as possible so that the player doesn't give themselves some kind of unfair advantage.....but the GM is expected to easily and perfectly separate character and GM knowledge to always render sound judgment. 

I can’t even see how any of this holds together. 



Lanefan said:


> Which means that if you can use Intimidate (or any other social roll) on an NPC, so should an NPC be able to use it on your PC with exactly the same degree of effect. Given that, and given that having it work this way would hammer player agency into the ground, it's a pretty easy call to just strip such mechanics out of the game wherever possible and to oppose them wherever they arise.
> 
> Same reason I rarely if ever use reaction rolls.




Well, no, that’s not the only way to handle it. Far from it. There are many ways to do so, plenty of examples have been given. Plus, if you simply accept that PCs and NPCs are fundamentally different, then none of this needs to follow.


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## Bedrockgames

I thought I wanted NPCs, Monsters and PCs to function identically until the d20 boom....then any d20 game became a huge time sink in terms of prep for me. It also felt constrictive to making creative choices as a GM. I think it is fine to have them function the same. But it really ought to depend on the kind of game you are working with. There is definitely something to be said for the ease of prep and the creative freedom provided by having NPCs and monsters function in a different way from the PCs (even if that difference is simply that NPCs and monsters don't require as much meticulous building or adherence to the rules that govern PC creation).


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## aramis erak

Thomas Shey said:


> The problem is that strongly immersive players are, best I can tell, sufficiently uncommon its hard to say whether its unusual or not, since there seems to be a fairly diverse set of things that do and do not work for them.  The sample-size makes it hard to draw good trend-lines.



I'd caution on that extrapolation - I've known a number of players who found me not supportive enough of their immersion, and they went looking for a different style of GM. It's one of several criteria upon which differences of preference self-segregate upon.

Not every group goes for deep immersion. Indeed, I've had a group that prefered to play D&D 5E as a tactical minis game with connected fights. (I was so glad they were a 1-shot at the FLGS.)
Not every group goes for minis on maps, nor for theater of the Mind.


----------



## aramis erak

Lanefan said:


> It's the players' job to advocate for their character and in so doing gain what advantage they can, and IMO this advocacy includes pushing the envelope of the rules.
> 
> It's the GM's job to push back.  That's why a GM's role is often referred to, in part, as that of referee.
> 
> This seems conflicted somehow - the GM is supposed to be a fan of the PCs yet at the same time is supposed to go hard-ass on them? (I forget who posted above how 'weak-kneed' GMing doesn't work in those types of games)
> 
> I mean, it's one or the other: either you're legitimately-but-fairly trying to screw them over (or kill them) and thus forcing them to fight back or you're not; and IMO doing this well requires a mindset of really being their opposition, not their fan.
> 
> Depends on the particular campaign and-or GM.  A GM running a true sandbox game might very well have such things in some places, and it's on the PCs to pick their spots and find things they can handle, even if only by trial and error.
> 
> Heh - we used the pre-gens.  There's six of them.  Of those, three finished the dungeon and survived, despite (or more like, because of) the DM running bets among our friends as to which room would be our furthest point of advance before the TPK!
> 
> OK, I get this.
> 
> Yeah, not buying this.
> 
> Over the history of RPGs, chances are that 98+% of all players' first exposure came through D&D.  What this means is that by the time those players get to any other RPG, chances are that most of the "random naive people" have been winnowed out; and many of those players who remain just stick with D&D because it gives them what they want.
> 
> Players who look for other RPGs usually have a clear idea of what they want that D&D doesn't give them, thus ensuring a higher success ratio for those games as the participants are both already experienced in RPGing and are more invested in making their new game work in hoopes it can give them what D&D didn't.
> 
> In short, comparing success rates isn't really fair on any level.



Of the about 30+ new players I introduced to RPGs (of over 400 players I've run for), only 2 were D&D first; one of those was my youngest daughter. The other was a kid who showed up at AL night by coincidence, and decided to try it after I explained what was happening. (2 more AL players had not yet played, but were rules familiar.) Couple years later, he was a regular. As was his mother... who, upon seeing how D&D worked, decided to join the fun.
I've used Star Wars (WEG and FFG), L5R 5e, Tunnels and Trolls, and Traveller (Classic and MegaTraveller) as my go to games. A few were WFRP - in one case, wife of another player.  Two were Pendragon.  One was Twilight 2000 1E. One was Alien. Several have been various trek games.

I'd say your odds are likely off by a few percent. Especially given the number of Germanic countries where DSA and Demon och Dragoner dominated until the late 1990's... due to native language availability. Japan had T&T and Traveller  from fairly early; the few Japanese RPGers I've met started with one of those, not D&D. Again, it's what they had available in.

More recently, there have been several Spanish games written by and for the Spanish speaking world... and they were cheap and available when even the Translations of D&D were not. 

And, given the import duties, combined with degrees in board and RP game design... Brasil is having a renaissance of its own RPGs since the end of 4E D&D... and it's not the only place in South America doing likewise. (I've read that Argentina is a hotbed of RPGing. Ironically, D&D is supposedly popular with the Cartels in Mexico.)

England had a variety of homegrown games, too - Dragon Warriors, Fighting Fantasy, and several others in the early 80's. Many Brits started with non-D&D RPGs. 

At one point, yes, 98%+ ... but that's 30 years ago and beyond... Now, between OSR, local companies, and Pathfinder, it's probably 80%, maybe less, for the worldwide numbers. And dropping, as Sweden's RPG industry is flourishing, and their translations to English, coupled with one of the more interesting licenses (Alien) and a couple lesser known but definitely interesting ones (Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood)... with beginner boxes in both languages and book distribution in multiple channels.

A few small companies have even been able to pay most of their proprietor's bills.

If there is one game worldwide you're likely to find players for anywhere you go, it's D&D. But Paizo, FFG, Modiphius, Cubicle Seven, and Fria Ligan have starter boxes with compelling adventures in exciting licenses that are migrating people from other fandoms into RPGs outside the traditional route.

Be interesting to see who starts with the Dune starter box.


----------



## aramis erak

Thomas Shey said:


> This is one of those things its easy to not acknowledge; you can like an idea conceptually and still discover it absolutely does not work for you; that its foreign enough to your flow and style that it doesn't work for you, even though you like it in principal.  This ended up being absolutely true for me with Fate.



Fate has that effect on many. I like it as a player. I dislike it as a GM... Constant adjudication issues. Too many chances to not see eye to eye on whether an aspect is relevant or not.

(In a very similar way, I like the Houses of the Blooded engine in its Blood and Honor form, despite some of the very same issues, because the GM is almost just  another player. It's not GMless, but it can easily be done so if the players are good with PVP.)


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## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Probably. I'm not really familiar with it though.



It's meant to emulate teen monster melodrama (e.g., Twilight, Teen Wolf, etc.), but also "your changing body, hormones, and you." So you don't get control over what or who turns you on. You may think of your character as 100% Straight, only to find your character turned on in play by someone of the same gender. Or even think of yourself as 100% gay, but find yourself suddenly attracted to someone of the opposite gender. It's meant to capture the irrational and unexpected qualities of our emotions. You may want 100 percent control over what your character thinks and feels, but I think that reflects a control over our thoughts, emotions, and psyche that we humans simply don't naturally have.



Thomas Shey said:


> This is one of those things its easy to not acknowledge; you can like an idea conceptually and still discover it absolutely does not work for you; that its foreign enough to your flow and style that it doesn't work for you, even though you like it in principal.  This ended up being absolutely true for me with Fate.



Whereas Fate works for me as both a GM and player. I've been more a fan of Cortex as of late, but that's not a snub on Fate.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> It's meant to emulate teen monster melodrama (e.g., Twilight, Teen Wolf, etc.), but also "your changing body, hormones, and you." So you don't get control over what or who turns you on. You may think of your character as 100% Straight, only to find your character turned on in play by someone of the same gender. Or even think of yourself as 100% gay, but find yourself suddenly attracted to someone of the opposite gender. It's meant to capture the irrational and unexpected qualities of our emotions. You may want 100 percent control over what your character thinks and feels, but I think that reflects a control over our thoughts, emotions, and psyche that we humans simply don't naturally have.



But then we go back to determinism and free will. Ultimately do we really have any agency? But we like to pretend that we do, both in a game and in the real life.

But I don't think I would like that game. (Not issue with the sexuality aspect per se, my characters rarely would be placed in either extreme end of the Kinsey scale.) I have my mental models of my characters, and sometimes they produce results that might surprise me. But when my mental model says one thing and the system says another that is super jarring and I hate that.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> But then we go back to determinism and free will. Ultimately do we really have any agency? But we like to pretend that we do, both in a game and in the real life.



I would rather say that it goes back to actual science of human cognition and psychology rather than more abstracted philosophic notions of free will, determinism, or agency, as ultimately those psycho-cognitive complexities that constitute the human condition will remain present regardless of our answers on free will.



Crimson Longinus said:


> But I don't think I would like that game. (Not issue with the sexuality aspect per se, my characters rarely would be place in either extreme end of the Kinsey scale.) I have my mental models of my characters, and sometimes they produce results that might surprise me. But when my mental model says one thing and the system says another that is super jarring and I hate that.



And that's what the game is kinda about: a deconstruction of those mental models. What you are describing is your mental self-image saying one thing but then your body/hormones/attractions (i.e., system) saying another, which is precisely the point.

I vaguely recall @pemerton describing something similar with either Prince Valiant or Pendragon in the vein of Arthurian Romance. Are we dealing with a story where Lancelot chooses his attraction to Guinevere and steals her affections away from King Arthur or, rather, are we dealing with a story where Lancelot is forced to deal with those (unwanted) attractions he finds himself harboring?


----------



## Thomas Shey

aramis erak said:


> I'd caution on that extrapolation - I've known a number of players who found me not supportive enough of their immersion, and they went looking for a different style of GM. It's one of several criteria upon which differences of preference self-segregate upon.




Which extrapolation would that be?  That they're rare?  Something can be rare and still show up in clusters.



aramis erak said:


> Not every group goes for deep immersion. Indeed, I've had a group that prefered to play D&D 5E as a tactical minis game with connected fights. (I was so glad they were a 1-shot at the FLGS.)




Token play has always been a thing, even if it gets looked down on by a lot of people.  There was a lot more of it in the early D&D days.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Aldarc said:


> It's meant to emulate teen monster melodrama (e.g., Twilight, Teen Wolf, etc.), but also "your changing body, hormones, and you." So you don't get control over what or who turns you on. You may think of your character as 100% Straight, only to find your character turned on in play by someone of the same gender. Or even think of yourself as 100% gay, but find yourself suddenly attracted to someone of the opposite gender. It's meant to capture the irrational and unexpected qualities of our emotions. You may want 100 percent control over what your character thinks and feels, but I think that reflects a control over our thoughts, emotions, and psyche that we humans simply don't naturally have.




I was very interested to see an attempt to capture that genre, but for any number of reasons its a game that requires the proper mindset for it to work.



Aldarc said:


> Whereas Fate works for me as both a GM and player. I've been more a fan of Cortex as of late, but that's not a snub on Fate.




Fate is absolutely a lot of people's cuppa, and for someone interested in trying for a dramatist game, it seems on the face of it well designed.  I just couldn't make it work for me, for much of the reasons Aramis Erak mentions above.

Ironically, Cortex worked for me better (probably because of the way its always assumed certain traits will apply, just a question of which one) and I find Stress easier to deal with regularly than Conditions, but even there in the long run I think it didn't feel like it had enough engagement from the GM end.


----------



## Campbell

Being a fan of the PC's is not about making their life easy. Quite the opposite. It's about investing in them and caring about them in the same way you would a character from your favorite TV show. It's about wanting to know who they really are when the chips down. It's about embracing the cool things about them and highlighting that. Most importantly it's about playing to find out what the characters will do when faced with hard choices. It's about letting the story of the game be about the player characters and playing to find out what they will do. 

You subject the characters to honest adversity because you are a fan. You want the best for them and care for them, but to do them justice they need to face adversity.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> How is that a simple enough mistake to make? What even is the mistake? If the GM doesn't call for a check because s/he thinks there's nothing at stake, and the player doesn't call for a check because s/he thinks there's nothing at stake, or perhaps doesn't _want_ to stake anything, what has gone wrong? What's the mistake?
> 
> If it turns out that the stuff in play starts to escalate, and in the back-and-forth between player(s) and GM it becomes clear that there is some conflict or crisis that is emerging, then at that point checks can be made.
> 
> I honestly have no idea what you think the "mistake" is that you're describing. Are you able to give an actual play example, where in a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" game the GM didn't call for a check but it was important and the GM realised that later and it mattered?



Remember 'Wrath of Khan'? "Two dimensional thinking, captain!" It is a 'mistake' in classic Gygaxian play to simply let the PCs bypass a 'locked door' (any obstacle). This smacks of going soft on them and letting play progress past some obstacle without testing the players ability against it. In this form of play such a thing is akin to the 'softballing' you describe earlier, and undermines the whole point of that mode of play. 

Later, when play progressed into 'story telling' the process had to evolve. Because there were no longer necessarily specific obstacles on the map to be overcome, instead a structure of "the obvious course of the fiction" had to be imagined. So a sort of mythology grew out of the original GM referee role, that the GM could be a 'fair arbiter' of ANYTHING and that there was some definitive set of possibilities that could be discerned by the perspicacious GM that were "the logical possibilities." These became substitutes for the walls and doors and branches of corridor in the original model. Thus the ethos is that @Lanefan has concluded that you have 'bypassed an obstacle' which he has determined MUST exist within the fiction, and thus you have committed an error of GMing. 

The logic of narrative play is not being applied, at least not consistently. It takes play and a bit of practice and study for people steeped in 'classic' and 'story teller' modes to 'get' the narrative fiction-driven approach. Frankly, there are no real 'right answers' in terms of what MUST be chosen as obstacles in this mode of play. That choice is made simply on aesthetic grounds, and for the sake of interest in exploring particular possibilities. This is not 'skilled play' which demands each challenge be met, nor DM-directed story telling play which demands that a set of narrative options developed exclusively by the GM for her own reasons be presented and treated as obstacles. Playing would dissolve these mismatches of conceptual framework, although I'm guessing that is unlikely to ever happen. More is the pity.


pemerton said:


> What you describe is exactly what happened in my Traveller game. No one was interested in finding out what might happen if Lady Askol didn't accept von Jerrel's lie, and so that issue wasn't put to the test.
> 
> The way in which this differs from fudging a dice roll has been explained upthread already:
> 
> (1) No dice was rolled;
> 
> (2) No system procedure was ignored or lied about - as I've posted multiple times, there is no *when you tell a lie *move/subsystem in Classic Traveller, and in our game we are extrapolating the Reaction rules and also using INT checks whereby I am calling for checks within a "say 'yes' or roll the dice" framework;
> 
> (3) As nothing has been staked, and nothing resolved, there is no finality here - just ongoing fiction that can be built on down the track (@AbdulAlhazred has explained this clearly over multiple posts);
> 
> (4) The player was a participant in the process and everything was fully transparent to him. This seems a particularly apposite difference in a thread about player agency!



And this is of course the point of very highest salience. The game was played in accordance to its principles and all participants explicitly got to have a say in what took place (or in this case didn't take place). There cannot be a question of 'force' or 'illusionism', nor of 'railroading' or 'fudging' since none of these things happened. Everyone agreed on what would (not) follow and at least one player had a chance to weigh in on it and make a check if they'd wished. Since "avoiding an obstacle" is not some sort of 'softballing' or failure of GMing in this type of game, necessarily, there's no abandonment of anyone's role at the table.


pemerton said:


> There have been multiple posts explaining why _finality_ matters when "playing to find out" and why, in the episode of von Jerrel's lie to Lady Askol, there is no finality.
> 
> Well if you use a different set of techniques from "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "let it ride", "fail forward" etc then you might get problems. But they're not problems associated with the techniques I'm using.
> 
> And if you use a different set of techniques, whereby players can achieve finality without having to put it to the test, then players might not bother to put things to the test. To me that sounds like it might produce insipid play. But anyway that's not an issue for me as I don't use those techniques. I use the ones I've described in this thread.



What is germane here is that THIS IS ALL A COHERENT SET OF TECHNIQUES. Despite repeated attempts to debunk it, nobody is going to be able to do so. Its all been proven out over many years of play! I don't understand why every single discussion we have on this topic has to be an endless repetition of futile attempts to deny what is factually so. That narrative play is a functioning and comprehensive set of techniques (generally speaking, admittedly there isn't one single universal approach that exists in all games) cannot be refuted at this point. Why do posters continue to try to do that, instead of moving on to the central topic and sticking to that. There is NO need to have these discussions!


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> Token play has always been a thing, even if it gets looked down on by a lot of people.  There was a lot more of it in the early D&D days.



Agreed.

More than once (many more times than once) I've seen posters on this board saying that they can "roleplay" playing Monopoly. By which they mean, I think, narrate away or tell a story as they move their token around the board.

If this gets to count as roleplaying, it would be roleplaying with almost no player agency.

For my part, I'm inclined to the view that token play (or "pawn stance") doesn't cease to be that simply because the player of the pawn occasionally does some "characterisation and pantomime" (which I think was @Manbearcat's phrase upthread), if that narration and storytelling doesn't actually change the gamestate - the shared fiction - in any significant way.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Agreed.
> 
> More than once (many more times than once) I've seen posters on this board saying that they can "roleplay" playing Monopoly. By which they mean, I think, narrate away or tell a story as they move their token around the board.
> 
> If this gets to count as roleplaying, it would be roleplaying with almost no player agency.
> 
> For my part, I'm inclined to the view that token play (or "pawn stance") doesn't cease to be that simply because the player of the pawn occasionally does some "characterisation and pantomime" (which I think was @Manbearcat's phrase upthread), if that narration and storytelling doesn't actually change the gamestate - the shared fiction - in any significant way.




What about when a player allows their character conception to dictate the course of events rather than some sense of optimal play? 

Do you think that token/pawn play cannot allow for meaningful roleplaying? Or just that it would take the players and GM some work to try and add some of it to play?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It is a 'mistake' in classic Gygaxian play to simply let the PCs bypass a 'locked door' (any obstacle). This smacks of going soft on them and letting play progress past some obstacle without testing the players ability against it. In this form of play such a thing is akin to the 'softballing' you describe earlier, and undermines the whole point of that mode of play.
> 
> Later, when play progressed into 'story telling' the process had to evolve. Because there were no longer necessarily specific obstacles on the map to be overcome, instead a structure of "the obvious course of the fiction" had to be imagined. So a sort of mythology grew out of the original GM referee role, that the GM could be a 'fair arbiter' of ANYTHING and that there was some definitive set of possibilities that could be discerned by the perspicacious GM that were "the logical possibilities." These became substitutes for the walls and doors and branches of corridor in the original model. Thus the ethos is that Lanefan has concluded that you have 'bypassed an obstacle' which he has determined MUST exist within the fiction, and thus you have committed an error of GMing.



Right.

This is why I call it "puzzle-solving" or _learning what is in the GM's notes_ (or in his/her _head_).

And also why it call it _action resolution by reference to secret backstory_ - the GM draws upon unilaterally-determined and hitherto-unrevealed elements of the fiction (ie they are not yet part of any _shared _fiction) in order to determine whether or not an action declaration has a chance to succeed, and if it has a chance to succeed whether that chance is nevertheless less than certain with the consequence that a check is required.

The matter of _uncertainty_ appears to be decided by the GM based on a combination of extrapolation from what s/he is imagining about the fiction, and a sense of not letting the players to "get away" with anything.

When play is unfolding in this way, it is hard to see that players are exercising agency. So if this is the principal mode of play, it seems that the game must be one with pretty low player agency.

There is at least one further practical matter around this. One way that this sort of play can become the _principal mode_ of play is that it requires a lot of time at the table for the players to learn what it is the GM is imagining. To give a concrete example: consider the example from my Traveller game of there being no submersibles available on Zinion. This took a few minutes at the table to establish - the players declared their interest in the possibility and I decided (I think by fiat, having regard to the world profile) that there weren't any. (Maybe I rolled some dice?)

Now the players could have pushed the point by trying to use Streetwise to find an irregular/unauthorised/stolen etc submersible, but didn't. They let my call stand.

But suppose that we had spent many minutes or tens of minutes roleplaying out the PCs' attempt to find an available submersible, in circumstances where I'd already determined that there wasn't one. That would have been tens of minutes of nothing but "characterisation and pantomime". Maybe with an essentially irrelevant brawl or more serious fight inserted as eg the PCs upset someone with overly pointed questions in their hunt for what the GM has already decided can't be found.

That would be low-agency play.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> there are no real 'right answers' in terms of what MUST be chosen as obstacles in this mode of play. That choice is made simply on aesthetic grounds, and for the sake of interest in exploring particular possibilities. This is not 'skilled play' which demands each challenge be met, nor DM-directed story telling play which demands that a set of narrative options developed exclusively by the GM for her own reasons be presented and treated as obstacles.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Since "avoiding an obstacle" is not some sort of 'softballing' or failure of GMing in this type of game, necessarily, there's no abandonment of anyone's role at the table.



Again, fully agreed.

The relevant question is not _did the GM go easy by letting the players circumvent an obstacle_ (an obstacle that exists only in the GM's unilateral conception of the fiction). As a GM I can always come up with more stuff for us to think about as we play, some of which will absolutely put the players to the test!

The relevant question is _did I as GM squib the issue_ and allow everyone at the table to insipidly slide past what really should have been a hard moment. Which connects back to @Manbearcat and I talking about sentimentality and melodrama, and @Campbell just upthread articulating what it means for the GM to be a "fan" of the PCs.

I'm happy to plead guilty to being softer as a GM than (I suspect) @Campbell is! That's probably one thing that makes Prince Valiant appeal to me - melodrama is built into it! And it's why I tend to find BW a bit gut-wrenching, as player but even more as GM because it requires me to be hard!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> And that's what the game is kinda about: a deconstruction of those mental models. What you are describing is your mental self-image saying one thing but then your body/hormones/attractions (i.e., system) saying another, which is precisely the point.



My mental image of my character is not directly the same thing than the character's self image. The latter is only a part of the former.



Aldarc said:


> I vaguely recall @pemerton describing something similar with either Prince Valiant or Pendragon in the vein of Arthurian Romance. Are we dealing with a story where Lancelot chooses his attraction to Guinevere and steals her affections away from King Arthur or, rather, are we dealing with a story where Lancelot is forced to deal with those (unwanted) attractions he finds himself harboring?



And if that works for some people, great. It definitely does not for me. But relating to discussion of agency, a system dictating how the character must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency. The character's feelings and motivations are the very core of the player agency.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> What about when a player allows their character conception to dictate the course of events rather than some sense of optimal play?
> 
> Do you think that token/pawn play cannot allow for meaningful roleplaying? Or just that it would take the players and GM some work to try and add some of it to play?



Your first sentence describes something that goes beyond token/pawn stance. It sounds like actor stance. But if the GM "reins it in" and the player, knowing/anticipating this, moves away from gamestate-affecting actions like _I ride off into the sunset with the rescued prince_ to non-gamestate-affecting ones like _I regale the rescued prince with tales of my love of pinecones_ then I feel we've moved back into a version of token/pawn stance with some set dressing laid over the top of it.

To answer your second sentence/question: ABSOLUTELY! But that's because I think RPGing, in the context of the games we call RPGs, is not about thespianism or characterisation/pantomime but rather is about _the fiction mattering to the resolution of declared actions_. And that can and does happen in pawn stance - eg when the player declares "I'll surf down the frictionless corridor of super-tetanus-spiked pits on the doors I've taken off their hinges" and then everyone debates whether the doors are big enough relative to the pits and how exactly this is going to work. I agree with @Thomas Shey that this is a genuine approach to RPGing which may once even have been predominant.

If you read the convention reports it's clearly the spirit in which teams at tournaments in the 70s approached the Giants adventures, and ToH.

Your third question seems (? I think - correct me if I'm wrong) to trade on a different sense of "roleplaying" closer to the inhabitation and presentation of a character through play. There was absolutely zero of that in the ToH tournament report I've seen. And I think I've conveyed why I think it's pretty insipid when it is just set-dressing over the top of pawn play ("Let me regale you with tales of <stuff that will have zero impact on the actual gamestate>").

When the inhabitation and presentation of the character can meaningfully change the gamestate - ie when there is player agency - then we've arrived at my personally favourite approach to RPGing. But not the only one possible. And probably not the most fun for everyone. I would suck as a participant in the ToH tournament, but I'm sure there were some players there who loved it.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> But relating to discussion of agency, a system dictating how the character must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency. The character's feelings and motivations are the very core of the player agency.



To link this to my post just above, and the one before that that @hawkeyefan replied to: if imagining or even giving voice to those feelings and motivations doesn't actually change the play of the game - if it's just set dressing - than I don't regard it as core to player agency. In that broader context it seems rather peripheral.

A concrete example: I think it would make zero difference to player agency in a standard run at the Giants modules to use as a backstory that the PCs are all Geased and magically compelled, rather than that they are bossed around by a king.

Likewise for Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan: replacing the gas on the lower level with a magical compulsion timer would not affect the agency of the players in any significant way.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> To link this to my post just above, and the one before that that @hawkeyefan replied to: if imagining or even giving voice to those feelings and motivations doesn't actually change the play of the game - if it's just set dressing - than I don't regard it as core to player agency. In that broader context it seems rather peripheral.
> 
> A concrete example: I think it would make zero difference to player agency in a standard run at the Giants modules to use as a backstory that the PCs are all Geased and magically compelled, rather than that they are bossed around by a king.
> 
> Likewise for Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan: replacing the gas on the lower level with a magical compulsion timer would not affect the agency of the players in any significant way.



I don't agree at all. You simply arbitrarily declare some things to be meaningful and some not. The things what you dismissively call 'characterisation and pantomime' are the core of the play to a lot of people, and being in charge of that is the sort of agency they care about. Now you are perfectly free to value other things, but you don't get to decide that agency only means controlling the things you personally care about.


----------



## Rune

zarionofarabel said:


> So I don't prepare plots, or adventures, or stories, or scenes, or anything for the PCs to encounter in advance. What I do is come up with stuff on the fly as the game is being played.
> 
> I do have a world that the PCs adventure in, sometimes a published setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or the Star Wars Universe. Sometimes a homebrew world made up in my imagination based on the players desires and the premise of the campaign as decided in Session Zero.
> 
> Between sessions I do daydream about the Imaginationland that the campaign will take place in. I wander around in it and see the sights. I fly above it and watch as the peeps that inhabit it go about their lives. I think upon what has happened so far in the established narrative and how that has affected the world and it's inhabitants.
> 
> But I don't write anything down, or get stats ready, or prepare encounters for the PCs to take part in. I just imagine stuff between sessions, at times even dwell on aspects of the established narrative to make sure that I have that part of the story that was told at the forefront of my mind for the next session.
> 
> So this has made me wonder about the existence of meaningful player agency within my campaigns. If I do not plan ahead and plot out various choices for the players to make, this surely means they lack agency.
> 
> So my question is whether or not a no prep GM such as myself is actually able to offer my players meaningful choices? Or am I actually only offering them the illusion of choice and thus robbing them of any agency they might have in a campaign that has choices plotted in advance?



Do your villainous NPCs have motivations, agendas and the resources to act on them?

If so, you have stakes. If you can build on those stakes such that the players can get a sense of their progression, you establish relevancy (and urgency).

At that point, yes. The players have meaningful choices in how (or whether) to deal with them. As long as there are consequences, of course. Every decision they make needs to have some sort of consequences.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't agree at all. You simply arbitrarily declare some things to be meaningful and some not. The things what you dismissively call 'characterisation and pantomime' are the core of the play to a lot of people, and being in charge of that is the sort of agency they care about. Now you are perfectly free to value other things, but you don't get to decide that agency only means controlling the things you personally care about.




I don’t think that’s what @pemerton  was saying. I think it’s about those character traits being meaningful to play. 

If my fighter with a haunted past begrudgingly accompanies the party to the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, how is that different from my fighter who’s a happy go lucky scoundrel who’s in it for the coin? 

If essentially all that’s different is that with one character I speak in a glum manner and occasionally make reference to past horrors, and with the other I act upbeat and make jokes....they’re not meaningfully different. 

It may be that this kind of thing is common or that many consider this the extent of roleplaying; that’s fine. It’s just not the kind that @pemerton  enjoys. He wants the character traits to be more than window dressing. To be central to play.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think that’s what @pemerton  was saying. I think it’s about those character traits being meaningful to play.
> 
> If my fighter with a haunted past begrudgingly accompanies the party to the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, how is that different from my fighter who’s a happy go lucky scoundrel who’s in it for the coin?
> 
> If essentially all that’s different is that with one character I speak in a glum manner and occasionally make reference to past horrors, and with the other I act upbeat and make jokes....they’re not meaningfully different.
> 
> It may be that this kind of thing is common or that many consider this the extent of roleplaying; that’s fine. It’s just not the kind that @pemerton  enjoys. He wants the character traits to be more than window dressing. To be central to play.




I at least get the distinction there, though in that case I think it behooves the player to chose character traits that will still keep things within the intended scope of the campaign (as in, are unlikely to make the character, essentially, walk out of the campaign.  Sometimes that will happen unexpectedly, but if it happens frequently I have to conclude either the player, the GM or both are failing to communicate what the campaign is about).

Of course there are people who are super-resistant to the idea of campaign scope, too, but I can only generate so much sympathy for people who want wide open worlds or nothing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think that’s what @pemerton  was saying. I think it’s about those character traits being meaningful to play.



Meaningful to whom?



hawkeyefan said:


> If my fighter with a haunted past begrudgingly accompanies the party to the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, how is that different from my fighter who’s a happy go lucky scoundrel who’s in it for the coin?
> 
> If essentially all that’s different is that with one character I speak in a glum manner and occasionally make reference to past horrors, and with the other I act upbeat and make jokes....they’re not meaningfully different.



They are completely different characters! How on earth is that not meaningful? They will interact with their fellow PCs in different manner, creating a drastically different social situations, evoking different emotions in the players at the table. And of course their differing personalities and motivations would be likely to result different decisions on many occasions. 



hawkeyefan said:


> It may be that this kind of thing is common or that many consider this the extent of roleplaying; that’s fine. It’s just not the kind that @pemerton  enjoys. He wants the character traits to be more than window dressing. To be central to play.



They _are_ central to the play!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Agreed.
> 
> More than once (many more times than once) I've seen posters on this board saying that they can "roleplay" playing Monopoly. By which they mean, I think, narrate away or tell a story as they move their token around the board.
> 
> If this gets to count as roleplaying, it would be roleplaying with almost no player agency.
> 
> For my part, I'm inclined to the view that token play (or "pawn stance") doesn't cease to be that simply because the player of the pawn occasionally does some "characterisation and pantomime" (which I think was @Manbearcat's phrase upthread), if that narration and storytelling doesn't actually change the gamestate - the shared fiction - in any significant way.



I would say that you cannot ever call Monopoly, as-written, an RPG, no matter how much you role play while playing it, because of exactly this, there's no impact of the fiction on the game state. In this sense even a basically 100% 'pawn state' play of D&D is STILL an RPG, because whatever the player describes for fiction at least has some impact on the game state (hopefully, I am hard pressed to believe there's a D&D game that is truly not RP at all). RPGs require a 'closed loop' where mechanics and narration of fictional actions interact and produce narrative and a meaningfully evolving game state.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> What about when a player allows their character conception to dictate the course of events rather than some sense of optimal play?
> 
> Do you think that token/pawn play cannot allow for meaningful roleplaying? Or just that it would take the players and GM some work to try and add some of it to play?



I think the flaw there is that playing in such a way is not really playing the game 'by the rules'. While the rules of zero-sum type competitive games (for example) don't usually explicitly state that the goal is to win and that making optimal moves is a principle of play, that doesn't mean it isn't true. I think you are 'breaking Monopoly' when you, for example, land on a property which makes economic sense to buy (almost any of them at almost any time) and you don't purchase it. That's really just about the only decision point you HAVE in the game, except for when and where to deploy buildings. Playing to some other agenda is a lot like playing D&D and deciding your PC is going to be a barkeep instead of an adventurer.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> My mental image of my character is not directly the same thing than the character's self image. The latter is only a part of the former.
> 
> 
> And if that works for some people, great. It definitely does not for me. But relating to discussion of agency, a system dictating how the character must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency. The character's feelings and motivations are the very core of the player agency.



I think this, again, points out an area where pure 'character stance' play runs into a limitation. In narrative type games the player has a whole other role, so it is quite OK if they 'step out' of the role of being sole authority about what their character does/feels/is, at least potentially. Most RPGs don't do a lot of this, but Monster Hearts, and a few others, have used it as a way to address some specific agenda. Paranoia was an early example of this (though it lacks any narrative mechanics) where the 'Computer' would just arbitrarily 'do things' to your PC and it pretty much didn't matter what choices you made or what the player wanted. Of course that was the whole IDEA of that game, that the characters were utterly helpless pawns.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Meaningful to whom?




To pemerton. 

I would likely prefer play along those lines myself, although I’d likely be open to other approaches as well. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> They are completely different characters! How on earth is that not meaningful? They will interact with their fellow PCs in different manner, creating a drastically different social situations, evoking different emotions in the players at the table. And of course their differing personalities and motivations would be likely to result different decisions on many occasions.




Because what makes them different is unlikely to determine the events of play such that play goes differently. Meaning that play is not about these characters and their traits. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> They _are_ central to the play!




How so? I mean, I’m not saying it can’t matter. And I’m not saying that such character portrayal can’t be entertaining for what it is. 

But I think that, if you look at it with a mind toward the kind of agency for which @pemerton has been advocating, then the difference is clearer, and is consistent. It’s not that he wants to be free to bring these things up during play, it’s that he wants them to be what play is about. 

That’s my understanding of it, anyway. If I’m far off, I’d sure he can correct me.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> To pemerton.
> 
> I would likely prefer play along those lines myself, although I’d likely be open to other approaches as well.



Sure. And agency cannot be defined based on some people's arbitrary preferences.



hawkeyefan said:


> Because what makes them different is unlikely to determine the events of play such that play goes differently. Meaning that play is not about these characters and their traits.



What events? How is your character talking an eliciting an response from another character not an event in the play? How is your character choosing an course of action based on their motivations not an even in the play?



hawkeyefan said:


> How so? I mean, I’m not saying it can’t matter. And I’m not saying that such character portrayal can’t be entertaining for what it is.
> 
> But I think that, if you look at it with a mind toward the kind of agency for which @pemerton has been advocating, then the difference is clearer, and is consistent. It’s not that he wants to be free to bring these things up during play, it’s that he wants them to be what play is about.
> 
> That’s my understanding of it, anyway. If I’m far off, I’d sure he can correct me.



The play is about that without there being some rigid rule about it. It is the people who make the play, not the rules.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I at least get the distinction there, though in that case I think it behooves the player to chose character traits that will still keep things within the intended scope of the campaign (as in, are unlikely to make the character, essentially, walk out of the campaign.  Sometimes that will happen unexpectedly, but if it happens frequently I have to conclude either the player, the GM or both are failing to communicate what the campaign is about).
> 
> Of course there are people who are super-resistant to the idea of campaign scope, too, but I can only generate so much sympathy for people who want wide open worlds or nothing.



Well... If the 'scope' is "we are going to play through the DGQ module series" and what you're saying is that the player shouldn't have the agency to decide that he's going to lead the party through a planar gate to Jotenheim instead of monkey with Drow because of that, then I'd say he's got little agency and his character's traits aren't going to be making much difference. The story arc is already set! As @pemerton stated above, the grumpy fighter and the happy fighter DO EXACTLY THE SAME STUFF, and end up in the same place, etc. I'm not sure I even call that RP, really. I mean, OK, marginally if there are a few minor instances where some action in an encounter goes a bit different, but that's pretty darn light weight in my book! 

We're just saying, we want to play characters who come up with what THEY want to do, or are driven to do things based on their personality/etc. and not "Because this is the module and you're going to run through it." Obviously, though lacking mechanics needed to guarantee it, there's the possibility of such play in D&D. I think it is VERY rare for it to be consistently realized, even by groups with the awareness of the techniques. I take this from experience. While we discuss our 5e games and have player input on what we would like to do next, it is still not equivalent to what would happen if the game was Burning Wheel. The system just doesn't foster it, and there are pieces that are actively missing in play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> To pemerton.
> 
> I would likely prefer play along those lines myself, although I’d likely be open to other approaches as well.
> 
> 
> 
> Because what makes them different is unlikely to determine the events of play such that play goes differently. Meaning that play is not about these characters and their traits.
> 
> 
> 
> How so? I mean, I’m not saying it can’t matter. And I’m not saying that such character portrayal can’t be entertaining for what it is.
> 
> But I think that, if you look at it with a mind toward the kind of agency for which @pemerton has been advocating, then the difference is clearer, and is consistent. It’s not that he wants to be free to bring these things up during play, it’s that he wants them to be what play is about.
> 
> That’s my understanding of it, anyway. If I’m far off, I’d sure he can correct me.



I think you have it right. I created a character to play in our first 5e game a few years ago, and I created a personality and agenda for that character. However, the game was ABOUT what was in various modules and adventures which were presented to us. I DID keep putting the focus on what my character wanted to do (and in all fairness the other players needed to get a turn to do this too, so I can't complain about when they got the spotlight). To an extent that worked, but it REALLY would have worked in a game like BW where I simply would have stipulated circumstances which would have made the action take on my character's dream of building an empire in a direct way. Maybe he would have failed too, or maybe the story would have brought out what the terrible personal costs of doing so were, etc. 

5e simply isn't designed to work this way, and just inhabiting a character who's trait is "he dreams of building his own kingdom" but the action never allows for it, is not really that rewarding. As it turns out, I did make some progress with my character working on his agenda, since the GM of that game is interested in collaborating. Still, without principles to guide the game, like "you can't lose something you already won unless you put it at risk by some choice." it was hard to make the whole story work well from my perspective.


----------



## aramis erak

Thomas Shey said:


> Token play has always been a thing, even if it gets looked down on by a lot of people.  There was a lot more of it in the early D&D days.



It was also flaring up with 4th ed D&D. and a strong subculture even in 3rd.

To be honest, I think it's actually become MORE common over time, because the better selling modules seem to be ones that can support it.



Thomas Shey said:


> Which extrapolation would that be?  That they're rare?  Something can be rare and still show up in clusters.



That it's rare. It's been a consistent subculture every bit as strong as minis-wargame mode, and around since the early days. It's just also a group that walks away from most tables.


----------



## Thomas Shey

aramis erak said:


> It was also flaring up with 4th ed D&D. and a strong subculture even in 3rd.




Honestly, there's always been a pretty good sized group that goes there.  There were whole localized communities in the OD&D days who largely played that way (the CalTech D&D group that ended up developing Warlock, for example).



aramis erak said:


> To be honest, I think it's actually become MORE common over time, because the better selling modules seem to be ones that can support it.




I suspect its just a case of visibility; charop things and so forth made the populace that was partially or wholly oriented toward token play visible in a way they likely wouldn't have been in, say, the 90's.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well... If the 'scope' is "we are going to play through the DGQ module series" and what you're saying is that the player shouldn't have the agency to decide that he's going to lead the party through a planar gate to Jotenheim instead of monkey with Drow because of that, then I'd say he's got little agency and his character's traits aren't going to be making much difference. The story arc is already set! As @pemerton stated above, the grumpy fighter and the happy fighter DO EXACTLY THE SAME STUFF, and end up in the same place, etc. I'm not sure I even call that RP, really. I mean, OK, marginally if there are a few minor instances where some action in an encounter goes a bit different, but that's pretty darn light weight in my book!




I'm thinking more of "We're playing cops in Chicago in an urban fantasy setting" and the player decides at one point he's more sympathetic to Faery and decides he's going to run off and join them.  He's effectively decided that he's going to step outside the scope of the campaign and should be in no way surprised if his character gets mostly ignored after that, unless the GM just feels like, effectively, running one game for him and one for everyone else.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> We're just saying, we want to play characters who come up with what THEY want to do, or are driven to do things based on their personality/etc. and not "Because this is the module and you're going to run through it." Obviously, though lacking mechanics needed to guarantee it, there's the possibility of such play in D&D. I think it is VERY rare for it to be consistently realized, even by groups with the awareness of the techniques. I take this from experience. While we discuss our 5e games and have player input on what we would like to do next, it is still not equivalent to what would happen if the game was Burning Wheel. The system just doesn't foster it, and there are pieces that are actively missing in play.




And I'm just saying that without some limits on that, you have "We have a wide open world game in Setting X" or nothing.  Even in a module series game, you ought to go in with the idea of _trying_ to stay within the scope of the module, or why are you even telling the GM you're going to play there?

I guess what I'm saying is, at the point where someone decides their character's agency is always more important than whatever the game is avowedly about (and makes no effort to build a character where said agency will tend to still keep them within some bounds) that they've pretty much decided only a narrow sort of game is acceptable.  And they ought to at least be really up-front about the range of decisions they feel is appropriate so a GM can go "Shine on you crazy diamond, but do it somewhere else."


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Sure. And agency cannot be defined based on some people's arbitrary preferences.




If you think there’s anything arbitrary about how he defines agency, then I don’t know what to say. He’s explained at length what his view of agency is. 

At this point, you can either recognize that and discuss accordingly, or you can try and force his comments to work for some other definition of agency, and then question the results.

The former seems like it would be best, no? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> What events? How is your character talking an eliciting an response from another character not an event in the play? How is your character choosing an course of action based on their motivations not an even in the play?




These things could be meaningful in some ways, but play does not revolve around them.

My example of the fighters was a simple one. What I meant by it is: would the play of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief go differently if I were to play with one character over the other? And more importantly, would that difference be meaningful?

Let me phrase this another way. When you think of “character driven play” do you mean that the characters are free to decide where they go and what they engage with? Or do you mean that play actually revolves around the characters? 

Does the fiction feature the PCs or is it actually their story? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> The play is about that without there being some rigid rule about it. It is the people who make the play, not the rules.




I haven’t really evoked any rules in this matter. Some games absolutely have rules that promote this play, but I think that I’m just talking about processes and approach at this point.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I at least get the distinction there, though in that case I think it behooves the player to chose character traits that will still keep things within the intended scope of the campaign (as in, are unlikely to make the character, essentially, walk out of the campaign.  Sometimes that will happen unexpectedly, but if it happens frequently I have to conclude either the player, the GM or both are failing to communicate what the campaign is about).
> 
> Of course there are people who are super-resistant to the idea of campaign scope, too, but I can only generate so much sympathy for people who want wide open worlds or nothing.




Sure, I think it’s reasonable to expect some amount of cooperation on or communication about play expectations. It also matters a great deal what game is being played and so on. 

Most forms of D&D and similar games require some amount of preparatory work, and everyone should have that in mind. 

Other games may not require that prep, and so may allow for more freedom on the player side to craft a character with less concern for fitting the GM’s plans.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I think it’s reasonable to expect some amount of cooperation on or communication about play expectations. It also matters a great deal what game is being played and so on.
> 
> Most forms of D&D and similar games require some amount of preparatory work, and everyone should have that in mind.
> 
> Other games may not require that prep, and so may allow for more freedom on the player side to craft a character with less concern for fitting the GM’s plans.




I think prep is only part of it, though.  Even if I had a game that was mostly improvised with extent material, I'm just not always interested in going off on a tangent a player wants to (and that's even assuming he gets everyone else to go along).  I agree that the degree of offswing their interested in pursuing should be presented upfront, though.  I'm just kind of getting the feeling from some responses in this thread that that, well, doesn't matter to some people, or at least takes a lesser priority than pursuing whatever they decide in-play is their gig.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I think prep is only part of it, though.  Even if I had a game that was mostly improvised with extent material, I'm just not always interested in going off on a tangent a player wants to (and that's even assuming he gets everyone else to go along).  I agree that the degree of offswing their interested in pursuing should be presented upfront, though.  I'm just kind of getting the feeling from some responses in this thread that that, well, doesn't matter to some people, or at least takes a lesser priority than pursuing whatever they decide in-play is their gig.




Oh sure. I suppose a tangent is a tangent, where as what I think is being proposed is not a tangent, but the expected content of play. 

But I suppose that should be assumed whichever game or style we’re talking about. If I show up o a game of D&D and the group’s agreed to run AD&D and use the Giants modules, then I’m probably not going to create a character who’s looking for his long lost brother who was taken in by the Scarlet Brotherhood. 

But if I’m playing Dungeon World, then that’s perfectly fine, and if the GM doesn’t bring that into play in some way, then that would suck. 

I think where we (potentially) run into issues is with a game where the goals of play are a little more open, and maybe play expectations aren’t exactly clear. So a game like 5e with a GM running non-published material, and saying it’ll be a sandbox....and then a player creates a highly specific goal for his character only to find that the GM’s already filled the entire sandbox. That kind of thing.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I think prep is only part of it, though.  Even if I had a game that was mostly improvised with extent material, I'm just not always interested in going off on a tangent a player wants to (and that's even assuming he gets everyone else to go along).  I agree that the degree of offswing their interested in pursuing should be presented upfront, though.  I'm just kind of getting the feeling from some responses in this thread that that, well, doesn't matter to some people, or at least takes a lesser priority than pursuing whatever they decide in-play is their gig.



And that's fine, but the point has been that so long as you, as GM, wield the power to shut down those player initiated tangents, you're also reducing player agency.  Which, again, is fine -- there are always tradeoffs.


----------



## Radaceus

Campbell said:


> <snip>  It's about letting the story of the game be about the player characters and playing to find out what they will do. <snip>



This ^^
It's about the story, and driving that narrative.

And on an aside,
regarding NPCs existing and contributing as much as PCs ( @Lanefan 's earlier point), our main DM does just that, his worlds exist with or without us, it annoys me in some ways because I am quite the opposite in my approach, but I do admire his commitment; the fleshing out of his campaign worlds is immaculate. 
Me, I just like to weave a story thread by thread and see where it will go, my PCs are those threads, and for me to project what will happen and plan for it never worked. I was ever ill-prepared, or rather my preparations were nothing to do with where they ended up. Sure one could argue a Gygaxian causality, and roll for what's behind door number 2, but I'm pedantic about story continuity and cohesion. Working with the players, that is, twisting their fates as they take each step, begets the direction of my campaign worlds. What happens outside of their interactions is immaterial, it only exists when they choose to perceive it.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh sure. I suppose a tangent is a tangent, where as what I think is being proposed is not a tangent, but the expected content of play.
> 
> But I suppose that should be assumed whichever game or style we’re talking about. If I show up o a game of D&D and the group’s agreed to run AD&D and use the Giants modules, then I’m probably not going to create a character who’s looking for his long lost brother who was taken in by the Scarlet Brotherhood.
> 
> But if I’m playing Dungeon World, then that’s perfectly fine, and if the GM doesn’t bring that into play in some way, then that would suck.
> 
> I think where we (potentially) run into issues is with a game where the goals of play are a little more open, and maybe play expectations aren’t exactly clear. So a game like 5e with a GM running non-published material, and saying it’ll be a sandbox....and then a player creates a highly specific goal for his character only to find that the GM’s already filled the entire sandbox. That kind of thing.




Yeah, I can see the latter situation.  I've rarely seen that particular combination of setup (theoretically open world but actually packed down tight) but I'm sure it could happen.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> Honestly, there's always been a pretty good sized group that goes there.  There were whole localized communities in the OD&D days who largely played that way (the CalTech D&D group that ended up developing Warlock, for example).
> 
> 
> 
> I suspect its just a case of visibility; charop things and so forth made the populace that was partially or wholly oriented toward token play visible in a way they likely wouldn't have been in, say, the 90's.



I have to object here. Just because you pay attention to things like "charop" and have a strong interest in the mechanics of the game doesn't make your play any less valid RP. I mean, I know some very brilliant role players who exploit the rules like crazy, refer to their characters in the 3rd person constantly, eschew "talking in character" etc. etc. etc. and yet their PCs are quite distinctive characters. In fact some of these are the same people who play brilliantly in narrative type play as well. Understanding and sympathizing with your character and developing it in myriad ways is NOT synonymous with being a play-actor, nor is role play opposed to, IN ANY WAY, building strong mechanical characters. 

I also think 4e was kind of a high point for this. Its mechanical granularity and vast arrays of different options and combinations encouraged people to walk that path. Yet ever single one of those options was both loaded with color, AND easy to reflavor in whatever ways you wanted. I found that 4e encouraged more strong character concepts, and making play actually reflect them, than any other version of D&D in its entire history.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> And that's fine, but the point has been that so long as you, as GM, wield the power to shut down those player initiated tangents, you're also reducing player agency.  Which, again, is fine -- there are always tradeoffs.




That's sort of the thing, though; this seems like a definition of "agency" that requires the campaign to be utterly open-ended so they can insert their desires into it.  If that's what they want, I guess its what they want, but it seems to limit the kinds of campaigns that can be run pretty severely to one flavor or another of open-ended sandbox.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I have to object here. Just because you pay attention to things like "charop" and have a strong interest in the mechanics of the game doesn't make your play any less valid RP. I mean, I know some very brilliant role players who exploit the rules like crazy, refer to their characters in the 3rd person constantly, eschew "talking in character" etc. etc. etc. and yet their PCs are quite distinctive characters. In fact some of these are the same people who play brilliantly in narrative type play as well. Understanding and sympathizing with your character and developing it in myriad ways is NOT synonymous with being a play-actor, nor is role play opposed to, IN ANY WAY, building strong mechanical characters.




First off, I think you're reading my statement of token play as critical of it.  I'm not.  I'd argue an awful lot of RPG play is token play with a small veneer of characterization over it.  As long as its not disruptive I consider that as viable a form as any other.  I'd say I play in that mode myself some times, and like any other stance, all kinds of people use it on occasion mixed with other stances.

The part of char-op I'm referencing is specifically the idea of searching for the "best" way to do a particular general build.  While not limited to token players, it certainly supports them as do games that actually let you do that, because it means that mechanical engagement actually matters.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I also think 4e was kind of a high point for this. Its mechanical granularity and vast arrays of different options and combinations encouraged people to walk that path. Yet ever single one of those options was both loaded with color, AND easy to reflavor in whatever ways you wanted. I found that 4e encouraged more strong character concepts, and making play actually reflect them, than any other version of D&D in its entire history.




I don't think that's unfair, actually, as long as you could get around the way the mechanical bobs worked.


----------



## FrogReaver

So I’ve read through everything I’ve missed. I’m seeing more and more evidence that agency is being defined by the advocates of non-traditional rpgs in such a way that effectively excludes traditional rpgs.

More importantly though, why should I care about agency that allows me as the player to drive the fiction (outside my character)? Why would I even want that kind of agency?  Does having that kind agency take anything away from the experience?

there are 2 common ways to play D&D.  Optimal play and character driven play.  I think most players go in and out of these play styles at various points during the game.

I think the non-traditional systems we are discussing don’t really leave open the option for optimal play - defined as Play where you were careful, made all the right decisions and get rewarded for that. Such systems are better in some respects for character driven play as they can ensure the game is about what is important to the characters. However, there is a cost to that even beyond the lack of optimal play. being able to on the fly introduce fictional elements that aren’t yet there is a much different experience than being “forced” to be limited to just what is in the scene the DM framed - thus allowing one to focus solely on their character and what is there before them.

I don’t think it’s that most people can’t understand how non-traditional playstyles work. It’s that many of us are happy with playing our character in a DM framed scene with a healthy mix of optimal focused play.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> My mental image of my character is not directly the same thing than the character's self image. The latter is only a part of the former.



How would your mental image of your hypothetical Lancelot character being disrupted by the system triggering feelings for Guinevere? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> And if that works for some people, great. It definitely does not for me. But relating to discussion of agency, a system dictating how the character must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency. The character's feelings and motivations are the very core of the player agency.



Is it really more of an imposition on agency than being hit or downed in combat? Something has affected your character without your consent. But to return to Lancelot. Seeing Guinevere triggers romantic, if not lustful, desires in Lancelot. However, how he feels torn and anguished about this new state. And his actions become guided by wrestling with his internal feelings. It would be a dull story indeed if Lancelot had power over both over his adversity as a character and its resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't agree at all. You simply arbitrarily declare some things to be meaningful and some not. The things what you dismissively call 'characterisation and pantomime' are the core of the play to a lot of people, and being in charge of that is the sort of agency they care about. Now you are perfectly free to value other things, but you don't get to decide that agency only means controlling the things you personally care about.



In what RPGing experience do players not have that agency?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would say that you cannot ever call Monopoly, as-written, an RPG, no matter how much you role play while playing it, because of exactly this, there's no impact of the fiction on the game state. In this sense even a basically 100% 'pawn state' play of D&D is STILL an RPG, because whatever the player describes for fiction at least has some impact on the game state (hopefully, I am hard pressed to believe there's a D&D game that is truly not RP at all). RPGs require a 'closed loop' where mechanics and narration of fictional actions interact and produce narrative and a meaningfully evolving game state.



Agreed. I was making the point that, just as speaking in the voice of the Top Hat as you move your token around the Monopoly board doesn't change it from boardgame to RPG, so speaking in a funny voice as you work your way through White Plume Mountain doesn't change pawn/token-stance play into genuinely character-based player decision-making.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think it’s about those character traits being meaningful to play.



Yes. And to elaborate that a bit: making a difference to situation. To plot. To theme.  Not just the merest of colour.



hawkeyefan said:


> If my fighter with a haunted past begrudgingly accompanies the party to the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, how is that different from my fighter who’s a happy go lucky scoundrel who’s in it for the coin?
> 
> If essentially all that’s different is that with one character I speak in a glum manner and occasionally make reference to past horrors, and with the other I act upbeat and make jokes....they’re not meaningfully different.



Right. The merest of colour.



hawkeyefan said:


> It may be that this kind of thing is common or that many consider this the extent of roleplaying; that’s fine. It’s just not the kind that @pemerton  enjoys. He wants the character traits to be more than window dressing. To be central to play.



Yes.



Crimson Longinus said:


> They are completely different characters! How on earth is that not meaningful? They will interact with their fellow PCs in different manner, creating a drastically different social situations, evoking different emotions in the players at the table. And of course their differing personalities and motivations would be likely to result different decisions on many occasions.



That final claim is what is being discussed. I regularly read posts where objection is made to players who make "stupid" decisions because "that's what my character would do".

As to the first point:

(1) Clearly that is _not_ what is meant when the OP asks if "quantum ogres" interfere with player agency. Because even if _everything_ from setting to situation to resolution outcomes is made up by the GM at whim, the players can characterise and pantomime their PCs.

(2) In what RPG experience can players _not_ character and pantomime their PCs? If the answer is, as I think, _none_, then a discussion about whether or not player agency is possible or can be increased would be pretty pointless. If that's the sort of agency you're interested in, then conversation over: all you have to do is sit down at a RPG table and perform your PCs' voice and mannerisms! No matter how strict the railroad, you've got as much of this sort of agency as you could want!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> These things could be meaningful in some ways, but play does not revolve around them.
> 
> My example of the fighters was a simple one. What I meant by it is: would the play of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief go differently if I were to play with one character over the other? And more importantly, would that difference be meaningful?



Meaningful to whom? You're using 'meaningful' like it had was some objective, measurable thing, whilst it is actually a value judgement. This is what I have been saying all along, agency is subjective because what is 'meaningful' is subjective.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> In what RPGing experience do players not have that agency?



In ones where the mechanics (or the GM) imposes on players how their characters should feel. Like this is what started thins tangent, me saying that games that do that reduce the player agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> How would your mental image of your hypothetical Lancelot character being disrupted by the system triggering feelings for Guinevere?



Perhaps in my mental image Lancelot is actually secretly in love with Arthur?



Aldarc said:


> Is it really more of an imposition on agency than being hit or downed in combat?



Yes, absolutely. Descartes can tell you why.



Aldarc said:


> Something has affected your character without your consent. But to return to Lancelot. Seeing Guinevere triggers romantic, if not lustful, desires in Lancelot. However, how he feels torn and anguished about this new state. And his actions become guided by wrestling with his internal feelings. It would be a dull story indeed if Lancelot had power over both over his adversity as a character and its resolution.



This has gotten bizarre. Such a conflict would probably be the driving force of the character, and it is for the player to decide whether they want to play character like that or not. You're seriously trying to argue that the player not being able to decide the desires and motivations of their character is not an imposition on the player agency, whilst earlier it was also argued that player not being able to decide facts about the world external to their character was? 'Agency' truly does not mean anything beyond 'things I like' to you. What a joke.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> That's sort of the thing, though; this seems like a definition of "agency" that requires the campaign to be utterly open-ended so they can insert their desires into it.  If that's what they want, I guess its what they want, but it seems to limit the kinds of campaigns that can be run pretty severely to one flavor or another of open-ended sandbox.



Huh?  This is utterly baffling.  The definition of agency doesn't require anything at all.  This is like saying that the definition of speed requires that everything be a racetrack.  It's a strawman -- you're attacking the definition being used by claiming that it requires maximization, when this is belied even in the very post of mine you quoted (and repeatedly elsewhere in this thread by many).

If we're looking at agency being the ability of the player to direct play via the game, then we can very easily note that a game that has one person as the final authority on all thing has less agency for the other players than a game that constrains that authority and allows for players to direct play in some or many situations.  This doesn't require open-ended sandboxes, where, if we're going with the usual assumptions of a sandbox, is still about exploring the GM's conception of the world but with less direction from the GM.  That's more of a middle position from an AP or 2e-style play than more towards the other end of the scale where players have say on even more facets of play.  But, none of this implies that agency alone indicates anything.  It's a heuristic that can be valuable to evaluation what you may or may not like.  It's also a valuable tool for analyzing games -- what's traded off to be gained with a lack of agency.  

I think it's absolutely clear that agency is important, elsewise there'd be strong argument for rigid railroads.  Rigid railroads can allow for all of the side arguments about acting out characterizations, about attention to and level of detail, about persistence, etc.  And, yet, these aren't being made and a number of posters arguing against the use of agency as a heuristic have said that they don't prefer rigid railroads.  So, clearly, agency of this definition is used as a heuristic by them, they just have a different stopping point from others.

As someone that enjoys GMing both FitD games and 5e, I clearly see that 5e has less agency.  Why, then, might I still enjoy both?  Because agency isn't the only heuristic I use.  5e has less player agency than Blades -- absolutely and without doubt.  But it does have the tactical combat minigame and the charop minigame that is also fun.  I don't run (or play, rarely) 5e in "pawn" stance -- players have a lot of input into what's important and my group all enjoys acting with funny voices and using first person and being advocates for our characters.  But, as has been stated above, you can do all of those things and still do charop and enjoy the tactical challenge of combat.  So, I also run 5e, and it's not an open-end sandbox, because agency doesn't require it nor is it the only consideration.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Perhaps in my mental image Lancelot is actually secretly in love with Arthur?



Perhaps your mental image was mistaken and requires readjusting in response to the changing fiction? Maybe this is part of emergent play? Or playing to find out what happens? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, absolutely. Descartes can tell you why.



Descartes is dead, so maybe you can elucidate on this matter instead. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> This has gotten bizarre. Such a conflict would probably be the driving force of the character, and it is for the player to decide whether they want to play character like that or not. You're seriously trying to argue that the player not being able to decide the desires and motivations of their character is not an imposition on the player agency, whilst earlier it was also argued that player not being able to decide facts about the world external to their character was? *'Agency' truly does not mean anything beyond 'things I like' to you. What a joke.*



Wow. This has gotten needlessly rude. The desires, motivations, and actions of Lancelot are still up for Lancelot's player to decide regardless of the feelings triggered in their character.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> So I’ve read through everything I’ve missed. I’m seeing more and more evidence that agency is being defined by the advocates of non-traditional rpgs in such a way that effectively excludes traditional rpgs.



How so?  There's obviously player agency in traditional rpgs.  The argument isn't present/not present, it's evaluating relative levels of presence.  Blades in the Dark has more agency than any version of D&D.  That's because Blades allows for players to have more control over the direction and content of play via it's design and mechanics.  The GM cannot just veto things. Fundamentally, this is the crux of the choice -- if one person has final authority over a thing, then everyone else has less agency with regard to that thing.  The more things you put under a single authority, the less agency exists elsewhere.  I mean, we've mostly figured this out in the real world, as we dislike autocracies and prefer democracies, right? 


FrogReaver said:


> More importantly though, why should I care about agency that allows me as the player to drive the fiction (outside my character)? Why would I even want that kind of agency?  Does having that kind agency take anything away from the experience?



THIS is the excellent question, and one you must answer for yourself.  Having a heuristic that evaluates agency is helpful to this decision point, though.  Dismissing that heuristic as unimportant because you don't want to say that you prefer less agency (which is perfectly fine) is less so.

Look, I really enjoy playing Gloomhaven.  If you're not familiar, it's a very complex boardgame that's close to the RPG line.  My agency in this game is much less than in D&D (with the possible exception of a rigid railroad game).  Yet, I enjoy it greatly!  Agency isn't the final determination of what's enjoyable, but it's a useful tool to look at how RPGs structure their play and what play you can expect to get out of a given RPG.


FrogReaver said:


> there are 2 common ways to play D&D.  Optimal play and character driven play.  I think most players go in and out of these play styles at various points during the game.



I disagree violently.  But, there's some use to your example because you've arrived, again, at a crux point for why you might choose to play a game with less agency.


FrogReaver said:


> I think the non-traditional systems we are discussing don’t really leave open the option for optimal play - defined as Play where you were careful, made all the right decisions and get rewarded for that. Such systems are better in some respects for character driven play as they can ensure the game is about what is important to the characters. However, there is a cost to that even beyond the lack of optimal play. being able to on the fly introduce fictional elements that aren’t yet there is a much different experience than being “forced” to be limited to just what is in the scene the DM framed - thus allowing one to focus solely on their character and what is there before them.



And, here is where that crux point is.  If you enjoy "optimal" play at all, then you need to evaluate where that play is situated.  And that play is situated in finding the best way through an established puzzle. Who established that puzzle (which can be a trap, a combat, a social encounter, whatever)?  Not the player, or you're smack dab inside a Czege Principle violation, and I'm pretty sure you'd recognize that even if you're not familiar with the concept.  The GM.  And optimal play requires the player to divine, usually through the above mentioned careful play, what the scope and allowed options exist from the GM.  This is lower agency play -- the player is not directing play very much; the play is fully framed by the GM and the GM has final authority over any action the player takes.  Granted, good GMing in this case is to strive to be impartial, but it's still entirely under the GM's authority. 

Now, is this play fun?  Absolutely, it can be!  So, this is, as I said above, a great reason to eschew more agency because the lower agency play delivers exactly what you're looking for.  This is perfectly fine -- agency is not a value judgement any more than dislike hitpoints is.  Both will direct your choice of game to play while not actually saying anything generally about the game other than "this game has a good bit of player agency, so I have an idea of what play looks like," and "this game has hitpoints, so I have an idea of what play will look like."  


FrogReaver said:


> I don’t think it’s that most people can’t understand how non-traditional playstyles work. It’s that many of us are happy with playing our character in a DM framed scene with a healthy mix of optimal focused play.



No, I'm absolutely certain, given these conversations, that there's a lot of misunderstanding about "non-traditional" (look, normative language!) playstyles work.  That doesn't matter especially to this discussion, though.  If you like how you play, awesome.  The problem comes when you mistake an evaluation of a specific heuristic as being insulting to your play.  It's no more insulting to your play than someone saying they dislike hitpoints.  It's an evaluation of what happens during play, not an evaluation of worth or value.  That's added when a given person looks at these things, checks their preferences, and then values things.  @pemerton, for example, appears to strongly value agency when selecting games to play.  I'm less choosy on this axis (I still run/play 5e), but I can both do that and recognize that there's less agency in 5e than in many of the games @pemerton advocates.  Doing so doesn't, at all, mean I'm doing something of less worth when I run 5e than @pemerton does.  That @pemerton would never choose to join my 5e game says nothing about my game -- it only speaks to @pemerton's preferences and the heuristics he uses.  In this case, that would include level of player agency and would, again, not be saying anything about me or 5e, but about @pemerton's preferences.

I mean, if I thought that agency was a value statement, and that 5e has less agency than other games I play, why would I ever play 5e?  This is hurdle that you and others that argue against the definition of player agency have yet to overcome -- how I can think that and still play a game I enthusiastically claim has less agency?


----------



## darkbard

Ovinomancer said:


> [...]
> 
> THIS is the excellent question, and one you must answer for yourself.  Having a heuristic that evaluates agency is helpful to this decision point, though.  Dismissing that heuristic as unimportant because you don't want to say that you prefer less agency (which is perfectly fine) is less so.
> 
> [...]
> 
> And, here is where that crux point is.  If you enjoy "optimal" play at all, then you need to evaluate where that play is situated.  [...]This is perfectly fine -- agency is not a value judgement any more than dislike hitpoints is.  [...]
> 
> No, I'm absolutely certain, given these conversations, that there's a lot of misunderstanding about "non-traditional" (look, normative language!) playstyles work.  That doesn't matter especially to this discussion, though.  If you like how you play, awesome.  The problem comes when you mistake an evaluation of a specific heuristic as being insulting to your play.  It's no more insulting to your play than someone saying they dislike hitpoints.  It's an evaluation of what happens during play, not an evaluation of worth or value.




Pretty much a perfect post, @Ovinomancer!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Perhaps your mental image was mistaken and requires readjusting in response to the changing fiction? Maybe this is part of emergent play? Or playing to find out what happens?



It can. But any system that is telling me that my mental image of my characters inner life is mistaken is definitely seriously limiting my agency.



Aldarc said:


> Descartes is dead, so maybe you can elucidate on this matter instead.



_Cogito, ergo sum, _I think, therefore I am. You are your mind, not your body. A mind without a body would be a person, a body without a mind wouldn't.



Aldarc said:


> Wow. This has gotten needlessly rude. The desires, motivations, and actions of Lancelot are still up for Lancelot's player to decide regardless of the feelings triggered in their character.



Desires are feelings and motivations are based on those. You are perfectly free to like games where the mechanics can affect those, just don't try to disingenuously argue that this is not limiting the player's agency in pretty serious way.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> In ones where the mechanics (or the GM) imposes on players how their characters should feel. Like this is what started thins tangent, me saying that games that do that reduce the player agency.



Do you have any concrete example in mind here, of a RPG which in any systematic way prevents players from characterising and pantomiming their PCs? Are you talking about the one time that player's PC was affected by Otto's Irresistible Dance? Or do you have something more general in mind?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Do you have any concrete example in mind here, of a RPG which in any systematic way prevents players from characterising and pantomiming their PCs? Are you talking about the one time that player's PC was affected by Otto's Irresistible Dance? Or do you have something more general in mind?



We were talking about games that impose feelings, desires etc on characters. I think you yourself referred to some mechanic that altered character's virtue or some such. These are the things the characterisation is based on. I am not merely talking about freedom to express, but the freedom to choose what is being expressed.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I'm thinking more of "We're playing cops in Chicago in an urban fantasy setting" and the player decides at one point he's more sympathetic to Faery and decides he's going to run off and join them.  He's effectively decided that he's going to step outside the scope of the campaign and should be in no way surprised if his character gets mostly ignored after that, unless the GM just feels like, effectively, running one game for him and one for everyone else.



Right, and I would consider that 'more agency', but I think @pemerton was talking more about something closer to my example. Also, we all find that simply giving PCs choices between scenarios invented BY THE GM is pretty constraining and 'low agency'. Now, you didn't really specify who got to come up with the parameters of 'run off and join them'. None of us demands that to be entirely in the hands of the player, it is normally expected she'll be bound by things like genre conventions, established setting, and that the tone and whatnot will be respected. So, assuming Faerie is an established part of 'Fantasy Chicago' or at least in keeping with the parts already established, then I'd think the player is just exercising agency in adding that element to the story, or utilizing it if it already exists. Not all games will provide much room for this. Some are pretty tightly focused on a specific set of elements and adding others isn't really sticking within the realm of the game/genre itself, but at least in 'kitchen sink fantasy' like D&D this is rarely a big concern (tone might be). 

And no, his character should NOT be 'mostly ignored', that's exactly the problem! If the GM's attitude towards players wanting to engage with the game in certain ways is "that's not in MY plan, stop doing it" (passively or actively) then maybe that is a game I'm not going to stick with (pretty surely). I don't expect things to be entirely my way, why is that expected by any participant in the game?


Thomas Shey said:


> And I'm just saying that without some limits on that, you have "We have a wide open world game in Setting X" or nothing.  Even in a module series game, you ought to go in with the idea of _trying_ to stay within the scope of the module, or why are you even telling the GM you're going to play there?



Well, OK. I mean, I don't disagree with you that if someone says "I'm going to run a campaign where the PCs go through B2, A1-4, and then GDQ" then I know what I'm signing up for. That's perfectly OK. But usually its been more like we all agreed to play AD&D and then every time our characters decided to try to go north instead of south somehow we ended up going north anyway (or something like that, you get it) because 'B2' was to the north and by gosh that was the only thing we were going to get to choose to do.


Thomas Shey said:


> I guess what I'm saying is, at the point where someone decides their character's agency is always more important than whatever the game is avowedly about (and makes no effort to build a character where said agency will tend to still keep them within some bounds) that they've pretty much decided only a narrow sort of game is acceptable.  And they ought to at least be really up-front about the range of decisions they feel is appropriate so a GM can go "Shine on you crazy diamond, but do it somewhere else."



I put it at least equally on the GM. If they are going to restrict my input to the game to a small area and expect that we will just play a game that is about whatever they are interested in, that's fine, but count me out, EVERY TIME. I been there, did it for years, not going back! And this is why I want to see narrative front in center in whatever set of rules we use, because in my long and extensive experience of TTRPGs that's the only reliable way to get what I want. Even when people are willing to do something close to that with, say, 5e, it doesn't entirely work out. The rules and play process are just not designed for it and actively undermine it.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> It can. But any system that is telling me that my mental image of my characters inner life is mistaken is definitely seriously limiting my agency.



At the very least it's telling you that the state of the character's fiction and your understanding thereof has changed. But unless I am mistaken, your ability to make action declarations for your character and capacity to roleplay that character remains unchanged. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> _Cogito, ergo sum, _I think, therefore I am. You are your mind, not your body. A mind without a body would be a person, a body without a mind wouldn't.



I thought Cartesian Dualism died in the 1950s with Ryle? What's it doing rearing its ugly head here as if it were still relevant?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I think prep is only part of it, though.  Even if I had a game that was mostly improvised with extent material, I'm just not always interested in going off on a tangent a player wants to (and that's even assuming he gets everyone else to go along).  I agree that the degree of offswing their interested in pursuing should be presented upfront, though.  I'm just kind of getting the feeling from some responses in this thread that that, well, doesn't matter to some people, or at least takes a lesser priority than pursuing whatever they decide in-play is their gig.



I'm just talking about some sort of basic equality. Every time any of us suggests that players should have any formal mechanism of input into what the subject of the game is at the table it is like "ANATHEMA!" I just instantly see that scene at the end of Body Snatchers! Every person at the table is a human being with interests and a creative mind. "I'm just not always interested in..." applies equally to them! Obviously if a WHOLE GROUP is constantly saying to one player "Oh, stop it, we want to go loot Billy Bob's Basement of Horrors" and the other guy wants to chase after the Elf King's Daughter, well, then they will have to figure it out. No rules can really solve that.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> At the very least it's telling you that the state of the character's fiction and your understanding thereof has changed. But unless I am mistaken, your ability to make action declarations for your character and capacity to roleplay that character remains unchanged.



So your play characters so that their portrayal and their decisions are completely disconnected from their feelings and desires? Very strange.



Aldarc said:


> I thought Cartesian Dualism died in the 1950s with Ryle? What's it doing rearing its ugly head here as if it were still relevant?



Hard problem of consciousness remains as one of the biggest problems (or perhaps the biggest) of philosophy.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> We were talking about games that impose feelings, desires etc on characters. I think you yourself referred to some mechanic that altered character's virtue or some such. These are the things the characterisation is based on. I am not merely talking about freedom to express, but the freedom to choose what is being expressed.



What games do you have in mind?

I referred to an effect in Burning Wheel which required a player to rewrite a Belief. That had no effect on how the player characterises and pantomimes his character. So I don't think that is an example.

As I said, I do not know of any RPG which puts limits on the ability of a player to characterise and pantomime his/her PC.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I referred to an effect in Burning Wheel which required a player to rewrite a Belief. That had no effect on how the player characterises and pantomimes his character. So I don't think that is an example.



How? How the character's beliefs do not affect the characterisation and portrayal of the character?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> Yeah, I can see the latter situation.  I've rarely seen that particular combination of setup (theoretically open world but actually packed down tight) but I'm sure it could happen.



What I've seen MOST often is a situation where the GM has some setting, purchased or of their own devising, and they simply resist all urges to incorporate into it any element that is of someone else's devising. I mean, mostly these sorts of GMs will grant you a relative in your backstory, maybe a minor bit of geography (IE some facts about your home village or something). But every other element is coming from them, and if not then some way or other they're absolutely determined to put their stamp on everything, even if it negates whatever the point was for the story. Many of them actively work against any plot workings that 'rocks the boat' of how they've laid out the world in any way. Want to help your sister get her father-in-law appointed head of the Trade Guild? Forget it. Its always explained away as something like "Well, how can you really expect to make a difference, you're just some guy." (some variation of this). "What are the chances you could pull off bold political maneuver X." It is sort of the 'chump' theory of PCs. Its weird too, because OTOH your expected to be some fantastical fighter that can chop up horrible monsters before breakfast, lol. I've never been able to fathom this mentality, but it is pretty prevalent.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> So your play characters so that their portrayal and their decisions are completely disconnected from their feelings and desires? Very strange.



No, I'm saying that I am not opposed to discovering and evolving what those inner feelings and desires of character may be through emerging play and recontextualizing my growing sense of the character, particularly if those desires, values, and the like are mechanically tested through play. Maybe my character in the fiction learns or experiences something surprising about themselves and/or their own passions, and in the process, I learn something new too as their player, and I adjust my roleplay accordingly.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Hard problem of consciousness remains as one of the biggest problems (or perhaps the biggest) of philosophy.



Maybe, but Cartesian mind-body dualism is mostly been discarded on the wayside in favor of more holistic approaches that incorporate cognitive science, biology, medicine, psychology, etc. without viewing the mind and body as dichotomies.



pemerton said:


> What games do you have in mind?
> 
> I referred to an effect in Burning Wheel which required a player to rewrite a Belief. That had no effect on how the player characterises and pantomimes his character. So I don't think that is an example.
> 
> As I said, I do not know of any RPG which puts limits on the ability of a player to characterise and pantomime his/her PC.



Possibly Pendragon or Prince Valiant.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> First off, I think you're reading my statement of token play as critical of it.  I'm not.  I'd argue an awful lot of RPG play is token play with a small veneer of characterization over it.  As long as its not disruptive I consider that as viable a form as any other.  I'd say I play in that mode myself some times, and like any other stance, all kinds of people use it on occasion mixed with other stances.
> 
> The part of char-op I'm referencing is specifically the idea of searching for the "best" way to do a particular general build.  While not limited to token players, it certainly supports them as do games that actually let you do that, because it means that mechanical engagement actually matters.
> 
> I don't think that's unfair, actually, as long as you could get around the way the mechanical bobs worked.



I think I just don't believe I've ever seen what I would personally call 'token play', at least not in the past 25 years or so. This may be just a definitional thing, but if I have a player who says things like "My dwarf does X." I don't really consider that to be non-roleplay. It is 3rd person, for sure, but so is a lot of fiction. I also don't think that players who are in the habit of that are necessarily not inhabiting their character or creating a personality for it. They're just expressing themselves a bit differently. Maybe this is more common in some games than others, I really don't know. 

I think 4e is a little extreme in terms of having a huge number of options which have complex rules interactions. You can certainly play without being 'sub-optimal' while ignoring all but the most basic ones though, so it is pretty tolerable. Our own game, which started out as hacked 4e, has lost a lot of this character, and I like that better myself.


----------



## Thomas Shey

Ovinomancer said:


> Huh?  This is utterly baffling.  The definition of agency doesn't require anything at all.  This is like saying that the definition of speed requires that everything be a racetrack.  It's a strawman -- you're attacking the definition being used by claiming that it requires maximization, when this is belied even in the very post of mine you quoted (and repeatedly elsewhere in this thread by many).




If it requires that the player chase his agenda _no matter what the campaign is actually about_, then I stand by my opinion.  Otherwise, as I said, you need to go in keeping your agenda, whether at start or later, in the context of the game.

As I said, in the police game, _does_ the player expect to be able to leave the police and still play in the campaign? If not, he's obviously constraining his agency to one degree or another, or being very careful to set up the character so its a nonissue (and some people seem to have a problem with that, too). If he does expect to do that, then he's essentially defining every campaign structure into a sandbox.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, and I would consider that 'more agency', but I think @pemerton was talking more about something closer to my example. Also, we all find that simply giving PCs choices between scenarios invented BY THE GM is pretty constraining and 'low agency'. Now, you didn't really specify who got to come up with the parameters of 'run off and join them'. None of us demands that to be entirely in the hands of the player, it is normally expected she'll be bound by things like genre conventions, established setting, and that the tone and whatnot will be respected. So, assuming Faerie is an established part of 'Fantasy Chicago' or at least in keeping with the parts already established, then I'd think the player is just exercising agency in adding that element to the story, or utilizing it if it already exists. Not all games will provide much room for this. Some are pretty tightly focused on a specific set of elements and adding others isn't really sticking within the realm of the game/genre itself, but at least in 'kitchen sink fantasy' like D&D this is rarely a big concern (tone might be).




But that's the gig here; this all seems simply a matter of degree to me.  Now, I accept that degree matters, but if your agency is the most important thing to you, its hard to see how the police game would be acceptable, given that you have to either build a character who will never do a thing to have him leave the police, or accept that character goes out of play when he does (again, operating on the premise that most people are not going to, effectively, run a separate sub-game for him for the rest of the campaign.  I know that's not universally the case but I have no reason to think its common enough to make it as an assumption).



AbdulAlhazred said:


> And no, his character should NOT be 'mostly ignored', that's exactly the problem! If the GM's attitude towards players wanting to engage with the game in certain ways is "that's not in MY plan, stop doing it" (passively or actively) then maybe that is a game I'm not going to stick with (pretty surely). I don't expect things to be entirely my way, why is that expected by any participant in the game?




Because its what the game is about.  Otherwise, we're back to the logical conclusion being that the only really acceptable game type is a sandbox (and I've absolutely seen people outright say that).  If the focus on the game is narrow, and you can't stay within that focus while still getting the degree of agency you find necessary, the proper thing to do is not to play in that game but not act like you should have the right to be in it and expect to drag it off completely sideways with your decisions.  That's even true with a player group as a whole (why did you agree to play a game about X if you were going to make it a game about Y?) and its _particularly_ true for an individual player.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, OK. I mean, I don't disagree with you that if someone says "I'm going to run a campaign where the PCs go through B2, A1-4, and then GDQ" then I know what I'm signing up for. That's perfectly OK. But usually its been more like we all agreed to play AD&D and then every time our characters decided to try to go north instead of south somehow we ended up going north anyway (or something like that, you get it) because 'B2' was to the north and by gosh that was the only thing we were going to get to choose to do.




Well, yes, if the GM is going to run a narrower game, he should absolutely be clear about that, especially if its with a system that normally can be assumed to have a wider scope.  That's a communication breakdown right out the door.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I put it at least equally on the GM. If they are going to restrict my input to the game to a small area and expect that we will just play a game that is about whatever they are interested in, that's fine, but count me out, EVERY TIME. I been there, did it for years, not going back! And this is why I want to see narrative front in center in whatever set of rules we use, because in my long and extensive experience of TTRPGs that's the only reliable way to get what I want. Even when people are willing to do something close to that with, say, 5e, it doesn't entirely work out. The rules and play process are just not designed for it and actively undermine it.




And here's why I say that an overly strong focus on agency over everything also sharply narrows the kinds of campaigns permitted.


----------



## nevin

I've never had a GM refuse to let me play something without a good reason.  Now sometimes I didn't know the good reason till months in to the campaign, because of things our characters didn't know.  GM gives the story.  If player decides to go off on incompatible tangents and get marginized, that's a player issue.  Now I've done that as a player and done a lot of stuff in the shadows, while all the other players kept center spotlight.  But that was because of my actions and I didn't whine about it.   People keep confusing Agency as something that is free of consequences.  You have agency to make decisions, those decisions will have consequences.  If you don't like the consequences, change your behavior or find a new game.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm just talking about some sort of basic equality. Every time any of us suggests that players should have any formal mechanism of input into what the subject of the game is at the table it is like "ANATHEMA!" I just instantly see that scene at the end of Body Snatchers! Every person at the table is a human being with interests and a creative mind. "I'm just not always interested in..." applies equally to them! Obviously if a WHOLE GROUP is constantly saying to one player "Oh, stop it, we want to go loot Billy Bob's Basement of Horrors" and the other guy wants to chase after the Elf King's Daughter, well, then they will have to figure it out. No rules can really solve that.




I'm not sure I get "formal" in this context.  I'm not allergic to a certain degree of player input, but also don't see an intrinsic benefit to mechanically formalizing it.  But then, I'm not sure from what little I've seen of it that I'm particularly interested in the concept expressed as "play to see" either as a player or a GM most of the time (there are exceptions).

On the other hand, I'm hardly with the group in this thread that thinks any player addition to setting or background is an abomination.  I just don't feel any need to have a mechanical tool to let a player do that.  That seems rather different than automatically being able to introduce things in the middle of the story, however (and even there I'm not intrinsically allergic within limits, and am not one of the people who throws up at, for example, using metacurrency to do scene editing).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> No, I'm saying that I am not opposed to discovering and evolving what those inner feelings and desires of character may be through emerging play and recontextualizing my growing sense of the character, particularly if those desires, values, and the like are mechanically tested through play. Maybe my character in the fiction learns or experiences something surprising about themselves and/or their own passions, and in the process, I learn something new too as their player, and I adjust my roleplay accordingly.



That's fine. And that sort of game limits your agency.



Aldarc said:


> Maybe, but Cartesian mind-body dualism is mostly been discarded on the wayside in favor of a more holistic approaches that incorporates cognitive science, biology, medicine, psychology, etc. without viewing the mind and body as dichotomies.



It is really not about Descartes' answers, it is about the question he articulated which still remains unanswered. Also a tad beyond the scope of this tread.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Perhaps in my mental image Lancelot is actually secretly in love with Arthur?
> 
> 
> Yes, absolutely. Descartes can tell you why.
> 
> 
> This has gotten bizarre. Such a conflict would probably be the driving force of the character, and it is for the player to decide whether they want to play character like that or not. You're seriously trying to argue that the player not being able to decide the desires and motivations of their character is not an imposition on the player agency, whilst earlier it was also argued that player not being able to decide facts about the world external to their character was? 'Agency' truly does not mean anything beyond 'things I like' to you. What a joke.



So, it is fine to say that part of the conditions of play is that you are stuck at a locked door and cannot proceed, and the players lack any influence on how to resolve that, but its anathema for a player to be faced with an obstacle/challenge in which his character has unwanted feelings? I don't see what makes one perfectly OK and the other one NOT, except that you guys cannot escape from your little conceptual box where you've already decided that RP is only one certain thing!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Meaningful to whom? You're using 'meaningful' like it had was some objective, measurable thing, whilst it is actually a value judgement. This is what I have been saying all along, agency is subjective because what is 'meaningful' is subjective.




To the participants. In this case, that would be @pemerton since we are talking about his preferences. 

How about an example? Let's say that the PC is a fighter who is looking for his brother, who rumor has it joined some kind of cult and ran off. The fighter wanders the land trying to find a clue to his brother's whereabouts, so he can ultimately find and save him. 

This is central to the character, right? 

Is it central to play? That is the question.* Is the game about what the player wants the game to be about? *

Someone like @Lanefan might say absolutely not. He sees that kind of personal quest as being boring to everyone else at the table, and so it is self indulgent on the part of the player who'd like to see this play out. He specifically does not want this level of player agency in his game. He prefers that whatever agency is allowed is happening at the character level, with the player declaring the actions and decisions he'd like for his character.

To @pemerton, he has specifically cued the GM to what he'd like to see come up in play. For the GM to ignore that and instead just run his prepped material, whether published or of his own design, would be frustrating. He wants play to be about his PC's search for his brother, and the related beliefs and principles that may be called into question by that search.

Does this mean that every single thing that happens in play needs to revolve around the missing brother? No, of course not. But for it to be meaningful (and I'd argue, objectively so), it has to matter more than the PC showing up in a new town, asking around about his brother, and being told "nope, never saw this kid around here" and then roleplaying sadness at the lack of news. 

It has to matter to the unfolding fiction. A series of clues or sightings or rumors leading the PC on in his search, learning more and more until finally the situation boils to a head, and the brother is found, or the cult he joined is confronted, or what have you.

Now, I think a lot of the confusion about this simply comes down to the specific game in question, and what the expectations for that game would reasonably be. Some games are absolutely designed to deliver this experience. Others are not suited for it at all. I think in most cases, people will adjust their expectations according to the game they're playing.

I think where we find conflict is with games that are somewhat suited for it, but for which it is not a necessity. Most versions of D&D would fall into this category, I think. Can it be done in D&D? Sure, to an extent at least. I run a 5E game and it very much revolves around what the players want for their characters. Am I guided in any way by the game to do that? No, not at all, really. The PCs (sometimes) have Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.....but they don't really do much, and the books don't really offer the DM much in the way of their use. It's more just about the player getting a slight perk for actually roleplaying their character. 

Other games have similar character traits that are integral to play.


----------



## Thomas Shey

nevin said:


> I've never had a GM refuse to let me play something without a good reason.  Now sometimes I didn't know the good reason till months in to the campaign, because of things our characters didn't know.  GM gives the story.  If player decides to go off on incompatible tangents and get marginized, that's a player issue.  Now I've done that as a player and done a lot of stuff in the shadows, while all the other players kept center spotlight.  But that was because of my actions and I didn't whine about it.   People keep confusing Agency as something that is free of consequences.  You have agency to make decisions, those decisions will have consequences.  If you don't like the consequences, change your behavior or find a new game.




Well, there's still a point to be had here that's I've brought up; making decisions that effectively walk the character out of the campaign.  As I've noted, if you (the generic "you" here) assume a GM is going to indefinitely run what adds up to a side game that the other players are only peripherally involved in in most cases I think you've made a categorical error.  I've run one or two games where that would have worked (a "people now have superpowers" game where a number of players were only peripherally involved in the main thrust of the campaign, and where often they were playing mostly by email) but in a routine game I'm not interested in taking the time or effort out to do so.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, there's still a point to be had here that's I've brought up; making decisions that effectively walk the character out of the campaign.  As I've noted, if you (the generic "you" here) assume a GM is going to indefinitely run what adds up to a side game that the other players are only peripherally involved in in most cases I think you've made a categorical error.  I've run one or two games where that would have worked (a "people now have superpowers" game where a number of players were only peripherally involved in the main thrust of the campaign, and where often they were playing mostly by email) but in a routine game I'm not interested in taking the time or effort out to do so.




But this all depends on the game and setting in question, doesn't it? Like, if you've established some clear constraints on what the game is to be about....whether these are determined by the setting or by some kind of theme or what have you.....then people should factor that in to their character creation, no? 

If I know I'm playing Five Torches Deep or some other OSR style dungeon delving game, I'm not going to spend a ton of time coming up with a background and specific goals for my character that don't involve raiding dungeons.

If I'm playing Blades in the Dark, I'm goig to absolutely craft a background and personal goals for my PC, all within the expectation that he is a member of a criminal crew on the rise in Doskvol.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, it is fine to say that part of the conditions of play is that you are stuck at a locked door and cannot proceed, and the players lack any influence on how to resolve that, but its anathema for a player to be faced with an obstacle/challenge in which his character has unwanted feelings? I don't see what makes one perfectly OK and the other one NOT, except that you guys cannot escape from your little conceptual box where you've already decided that RP is only one certain thing!



Both of those are fine as long as the players agreed to play that sort of a game. Both restrict the player agency, hopefully for some purpose that all the players feel is worth it.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> We were talking about games that impose feelings, desires etc on characters. I think you yourself referred to some mechanic that altered character's virtue or some such. These are the things the characterisation is based on. I am not merely talking about freedom to express, but the freedom to choose what is being expressed.



What about games which impose the fictional contents of play? WHY is that less of an imposition? See, you're caught in one very tight little box of definitions of what is and is not 'allowed' in RPG play, and you aren't able to escape it. You need to broaden your analysis and allow for additional degrees of freedom in terms of evaluating what is and is not allowed. This is what I meant FAR back in the thread when I talked about a failure to really analyze RPGs and look at it from all sides. I got basically the same reaction then, that suggesting it is better to look outside this narrow box is nothing but insulting to all the people who aren't doing so. 

What you all don't get is, I'm fine with the idea that you can declare a preference after you do that analysis, and that preference can be "I don't want to play Launcelot in Pemerton's game." That's fine, but refusing to even acknowledge that every way in which players inputs are limited are actually limitations that matter and only weighing certain ones in your analysis, THAT is a more limited, and thus inferior form of analysis!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> What about games which impose the fictional contents of play? WHY is that less of an imposition? See, you're caught in one very tight little box of definitions of what is and is not 'allowed' in RPG play, and you aren't able to escape it. You need to broaden your analysis and allow for additional degrees of freedom in terms of evaluating what is and is not allowed. This is what I meant FAR back in the thread when I talked about a failure to really analyze RPGs and look at it from all sides. I got basically the same reaction then, that suggesting it is better to look outside this narrow box is nothing but insulting to all the people who aren't doing so.
> 
> What you all don't get is, I'm fine with the idea that you can declare a preference after you do that analysis, and that preference can be "I don't want to play Launcelot in Pemerton's game." That's fine, but refusing to even acknowledge that every way in which players inputs are limited are actually limitations that matter and only weighing certain ones in your analysis, THAT is a more limited, and thus inferior form of analysis!



I am not the one who is confusing my personal preferences to objective facts here. I have been pretty consistent on my view that agency is subjective and based on value judgements.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> So your play characters so that their portrayal and their decisions are completely disconnected from their feelings and desires? Very strange.



Well, here I kind of agree with you. The feeling described is a hard limitation on character actions and thus portrayal. So is a wall in a dungeon.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Hard problem of consciousness remains as one of the biggest problems (or perhaps the biggest) of philosophy.



Meh, IMHO philosophy has utterly botched it. Now you have these idiots talking about 'existential zombies' and other such BS, its sad. Please leave this stuff to the sciences, we have no problem answering these questions. They are 'hard' in the sense of "taking a lot of work to answer" but we are making steady progress and we WILL answer them in the only way which matters, by creating artificial consciousness, and/or manipulating human consciousness with technology and demonstrating its purely physical basis. Descartes' notions are largely obsolete, though I would accept that 'cogito ergo sum' is a sort of tautological demonstration that consciousness is indeed a 'thing', as if we really needed such a proof...


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> But this all depends on the game and setting in question, doesn't it? Like, if you've established some clear constraints on what the game is to be about....whether these are determined by the setting or by some kind of theme or what have you.....then people should factor that in to their character creation, no?



I'd like to think so, but the hard edge comes down to "Event happens; player decides his character will do X; X effectively removes the character from the game".  Is this unacceptable?  

While I absolutely think the GM should be communicating enough to make it clear where these sorts of borders are, I've gotten the sense from some respondents that the above situation is considered unacceptable, and that's why I've been claiming that there seem like some problems here.



hawkeyefan said:


> If I know I'm playing Five Torches Deep or some other OSR style dungeon delving game, I'm not going to spend a ton of time coming up with a background and specific goals for my character that don't involve raiding dungeons.
> 
> If I'm playing Blades in the Dark, I'm goig to absolutely craft a background and personal goals for my PC, all within the expectation that he is a member of a criminal crew on the rise in Doskvol.




And I've got absolutely no problem with someone who is willing to contextualize their goals and expectations.  If that's what people are talking about, we're talking past each other.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> If it requires that the player chase his agenda _no matter what the campaign is actually about_, then I stand by my opinion.  Otherwise, as I said, you need to go in keeping your agenda, whether at start or later, in the context of the game.
> 
> As I said, in the police game, _does_ the player expect to be able to leave the police and still play in the campaign? If not, he's obviously constraining his agency to one degree or another, or being very careful to set up the character so its a nonissue (and some people seem to have a problem with that, too). If he does expect to do that, then he's essentially defining every campaign structure into a sandbox.



Right, I don't think anyone is really seriously suggesting that there are no limits on what players can introduce into a game. I don't know of any games which provide for arbitrary insertion of any old element, nor any which don't at least point out that character agendas and such should relate somehow in a way which facilitates/allows group play. These are simply necessary considerations related to RPGs, limitations of the medium. Notably Gygax got around some of that by engaging in 'troupe play' where there are a large number of players with large numbers of PCs and an entourage which can act independently. That allowed for a wider latitude. Your PC could be engaged in something totally unrelated to, or opposed to, other PCs, and you'd just play some different PC on Tuesday night, or whatever.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> To the participants. In this case, that would be @pemerton since we are talking about his preferences.
> 
> How about an example? Let's say that the PC is a fighter who is looking for his brother, who rumor has it joined some kind of cult and ran off. The fighter wanders the land trying to find a clue to his brother's whereabouts, so he can ultimately find and save him.
> 
> This is central to the character, right?
> 
> Is it central to play? That is the question.* Is the game about what the player wants the game to be about? *
> 
> Someone like @Lanefan might say absolutely not. He sees that kind of personal quest as being boring to everyone else at the table, and so it is self indulgent on the part of the player who'd like to see this play out. He specifically does not want this level of player agency in his game. He prefers that whatever agency is allowed is happening at the character level, with the player declaring the actions and decisions he'd like for his character.
> 
> To @pemerton, he has specifically cued the GM to what he'd like to see come up in play. For the GM to ignore that and instead just run his prepped material, whether published or of his own design, would be frustrating. He wants play to be about his PC's search for his brother, and the related beliefs and principles that may be called into question by that search.
> 
> Does this mean that every single thing that happens in play needs to revolve around the missing brother? No, of course not. But for it to be meaningful (and I'd argue, objectively so), it has to matter more than the PC showing up in a new town, asking around about his brother, and being told "nope, never saw this kid around here" and then roleplaying sadness at the lack of news.
> 
> It has to matter to the unfolding fiction. A series of clues or sightings or rumors leading the PC on in his search, learning more and more until finally the situation boils to a head, and the brother is found, or the cult he joined is confronted, or what have you.
> 
> Now, I think a lot of the confusion about this simply comes down to the specific game in question, and what the expectations for that game would reasonably be. Some games are absolutely designed to deliver this experience. Others are not suited for it at all. I think in most cases, people will adjust their expectations according to the game they're playing.
> 
> I think where we find conflict is with games that are somewhat suited for it, but for which it is not a necessity. Most versions of D&D would fall into this category, I think. Can it be done in D&D? Sure, to an extent at least. I run a 5E game and it very much revolves around what the players want for their characters. Am I guided in any way by the game to do that? No, not at all, really. The PCs (sometimes) have Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws.....but they don't really do much, and the books don't really offer the DM much in the way of their use. It's more just about the player getting a slight perk for actually roleplaying their character.
> 
> Other games have similar character traits that are integral to play.



We are really talking past each other. I have nothing against the action in the game being related to the motivations of characters. I've been pretty clear that I'm for it. But this tangent was about some people thinking that agency over characters feeling and motivations for some reason doesn't count, and that expressing character's feelings and desires via portraying them are not proper events in the game.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, I don't think anyone is really seriously suggesting that there are no limits on what players can introduce into a game. I don't know of any games which provide for arbitrary insertion of any old element, nor any which don't at least point out that character agendas and such should relate somehow in a way which facilitates/allows group play. These are simply necessary considerations related to RPGs, limitations of the medium. Notably Gygax got around some of that by engaging in 'troupe play' where there are a large number of players with large numbers of PCs and an entourage which can act independently. That allowed for a wider latitude. Your PC could be engaged in something totally unrelated to, or opposed to, other PCs, and you'd just play some different PC on Tuesday night, or whatever.




I'm not going to say anyone outright has said that here, but some people have seemed to dance up to the idea that its an imposition, and as I've mentioned, I've absolutely hit a few people in the past who seemed to think anything but an open-world sandbox was not vastly different than a railroad, so I've been trying to make sure that wasn't where we were going here.  

Once you get past that, you can at least get down to the idea that where the line is drawn is pretty subjective.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> If it requires that the player chase his agenda _no matter what the campaign is actually about_, then I stand by my opinion.  Otherwise, as I said, you need to go in keeping your agenda, whether at start or later, in the context of the game.



I'm sorry, perhaps I'm dense.  What requires this?  I mean, I know the definition, I'm using it, and I absolutely disagree that it requires anything at all.  It seems like you're substituting "MAXIMIZED AGENCY" in and using that as "definition" when no one but you is making this argument. 

As far as saying "what the campaign is actually about" this clearly indicates that your baseline is that the campaign is about something the GM's chosen.  This is arguing from the position that the GM should trump any player input in this regard, which clearly reduces player agency.  Is this a bad thing?  As someone that runs 5e with this very understanding backed into the game, I don't think it's a bad thing.  Someone else might not like it though, and then the fact that 5e has less player agency baked it would inform their decision to play a different game.  No harm in that.


Thomas Shey said:


> As I said, in the police game, _does_ the player expect to be able to leave the police and still play in the campaign? If not, he's obviously constraining his agency to one degree or another, or being very careful to set up the character so its a nonissue (and some people seem to have a problem with that, too). If he does expect to do that, then he's essentially defining every campaign structure into a sandbox.



I don't know what your hypothetical player thinks.  It's pretty obvious, though, that if the player can make that choice they have more agency than if they cannot.  Whether or not that's valuable to you or the player isn't answered by this observation, but instead by your individual preferences.  I absolutely think your asserting that it's either the GM has final authority to nix sidetracks OR it's a sandbox (which, again, is a fraught term) is a false dichotomy.  I mean, Blades in the Dark has more agency than 5e because the players have some abilities to direct play without seeking the GM's approval, but it's still bounded by themes -- you're going to be a criminal in a gang operating in a haunted city.  So, we have a situation where players are locked into the themes of the game and yet still have concrete abilities to direct play without GM approval.  This is more agency that 5e has (5e's core mechanic is GM decides) and yet doesn't require your claim be true.

I think that if you stopped looking for ways to discredit the definition because you don't want to accept that your play has less agency than some other kinds of play, you'd be on a stronger footing.  The real question isn't about how much agency there is -- this is just observational -- it's why you've chosen the level of agency you like and what you get for choosing that.  As, again, a 5e GM I clearly choose to play a game with less agency than other games I like and can run.  I do this because there's a tradeoff in what I get -- 5e allows for other mechanics I like that don't really sit as well with more open agency games and I run a pretty fun game even as benevolent dictator so my friends trust the game will be fun and enjoy playing.  That's it -- I can accept a lower player agency because the trade-off is worth it to me.  Because, and I seem to not be able to say this enough, amount of agency is not a value statement, it's a preference heuristic.  I absolutely won't play or run a 5e railroad, for instance, because sacrificing that much agency does not come with sufficient benefit (in fact, I see no benefit whatsoever, but someone else might).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not the one who is confusing my personal preferences to objective facts here. I have been pretty consistent on my view that agency is subjective and based on value judgements.



Agency is not subjective and based on value judgements.  It's just an observation.  How you value agency is based on your value judgements.

Again, tell me how I can both be an advocate for 5e AND agree it has less agency that other games.  It's not because I'm using subjective definitions of agency or subjective analysis of the amount of authority players have to direct play in the game.  It's because there's less agency and I find that to be just fine.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> That's fine. And that sort of game limits your agency.



YES!  ABSOLUTELY!  You're almost there!

Games limit agency -- they have to, elsewise they're not games.  There has to be some stop, some constraint, to impose meaning to choices, which forms the foundation of agency.  So, ALL games limit agency in some way.

That said, is it not clear that a game that puts all authority over the fiction in the hands of one player has less agency for the other players than a game that shares that authority, even in a limited fashion?  Hence, Monster Hearts has more agency than 5e, but it is not boundless agency.  Why?  Because, in Monster Hearts, the players don't have to get the approval of the GM for some things.  In 5e, they do, because, again, the core mechanic of 5e is GM decides.  Nothing in 5e prevents a benevolent dictator from presenting an awesomely fun game, but it's still an autocracy.


Crimson Longinus said:


> It is really not about Descartes' answers, it is about the question he articulated which still remains unanswered. Also a tad beyond the scope of this tread.



Honestly, this is like saying that the Luminiferous Ether is still a valuable theory despite Einstein.  Descartes' formulation has been overtaken by greater understanding -- there is no evidence of a mind/body dichotomy and much evidence of interdependence.  Still, it is an odd sidetrack to be arguing Descartes in regards to the topic -- it absolutely removes character as a possible point of consideration as there is neither mind nor body to a character except what is imagined.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Agency is not subjective and based on value judgements.



Yes it is. It relies on concept of 'meaningful choices' and what is meaningful is subjective.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> I'd like to think so, but the hard edge comes down to "Event happens; player decides his character will do X; X effectively removes the character from the game".  Is this unacceptable?
> 
> While I absolutely think the GM should be communicating enough to make it clear where these sorts of borders are, I've gotten the sense from some respondents that the above situation is considered unacceptable, and that's why I've been claiming that there seem like some problems here.




I think it depends on the game and the expectations that have been set for play. Certainly, if I have some desire for my PC that will significantly depart from that of the other participants such that we'd essentially be playing two separate games, then yes, I think the GM is free to tell the player that this will remove the PC from play. Like if I'm playing Blades in the Dark and I decide my PC wants out of the criminal life, then I don't expect the game to veer into my PC's desire to open a bakery or what have you. Maybe there's still some way to incorporate that desire....balancing the stability and monotony of running the bakery versus the riches and rush of crime or whatever.....but if it's literally, no I quit and want to run a bakery, then yeah.....the story ends for that PC. 



Thomas Shey said:


> And I've got absolutely no problem with someone who is willing to contextualize their goals and expectations.  If that's what people are talking about, we're talking past each other.




I think the confusion is more a case of Person A is listening to Person B talk about the practices of Game Z, and then imagining those practices in Game Y, and finding that they don't work, or at least don't work with their approach to Game Y.


----------



## Thomas Shey

hawkeyefan said:


> I think the confusion is more a case of Person A is listening to Person B talk about the practices of Game Z, and then imagining those practices in Game Y, and finding that they don't work, or at least don't work with their approach to Game Y.




Possibly so, or generalizing from the practices used in a _particular context_ (a game that has practices that assume certain things about the setting and genre its getting used in) to assuming that's what the person wants generically.

(Of course its always possible that a given person simply wouldn't want to play in a game with more narrow borders in the first place, as AA indicated a couple pages back.  Nothing wrong with that, either).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> We are really talking past each other. I have nothing against the action in the game being related to the motivations of characters. I've been pretty clear that I'm for it. But this tangent was about some people thinking that agency over characters feeling and motivations for some reason doesn't count, and that expressing character's feelings and desires via portraying them are not proper events in the game.




It depends on the nature of what is being talked about. 

If I craft a belief or a goal for my PC, that's me putting that thing out into the game, right? Does it mean that I will absolutely get what I want? Or does it mean that I may struggle with my belief, or that I may fail to reach my goal? 

If a player actively hands the GM something and says "I want my play to revolve around this thing" is it robbing the player's agency for the GM to put that thing at risk? Maybe the GM puts that goal in opposition to another that comes up in play and puts the PCs conviction to the test; which goal is more important to them? 

So.....my PC wants to save his brother. Maybe there's a Belief or an Ideal indicated on the character sheet that says something like "I'll do whatever it takes to find and save my brother." The PC's adventures lead him to a confrontation with a member of the cult that the brother ran off with. The cultist seeks to escape by setting fire to an orphanage. He then runs off. My PC can decide to chase him, or can stop and put out the fire, knowing that the cultist will escape. 

This (admittedly hastily sketched) scenario puts my PC's belief directly into question. Will the PC actually "do anything"? Or are there limits to what he will do, or what he will allow to happen through inaction on his part? This may actually alter my perception of the PC. Maybe I'm surprised to find that yes.....yes indeed he will do whatever it takes, and he runs off from the burning orphanage. Or maybe that's what I had always expected, but through play, I've realized that my PC has a sentimental streak and he stops to save the kids, letting the possible lead on his brother slip through his fingers. 

Whether or not beliefs remain intact, or goals are achieved is something that we find out through play, right? This goes back to the idea of risky play. It's not about controlling every single aspect of a PC.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Both of those are fine as long as the players agreed to play that sort of a game. Both restrict the player agency, hopefully for some purpose that all the players feel is worth it.



OK, I was just using this to point out how there are only certain 'facets' of play (to use an ontology term, roughly equivalent to 'degree of freedom' in engineering) that traditionalists seem to be willing to grant legitimacy to. 

In terms of 'agency' though, I don't think it is really worthwhile to define this way. I think we haven't really talked about that aspect much, or at least not in quite these terms (I'm old, my memory of 40 pages ago is foggy, forgive me if we have). OBVIOUSLY there have to be some constraints on what PCs are fictionally able to do. We call this 'fictional position'. Nothing is wrong with this, and I don't think anyone reasonable doesn't acknowledge that these constraints will be a factor in play. In fact, without such constraints, we are again at Czege Principle violation land, because that implies I as player can pose a conflict and then simply resolve it by waving my magic agency wand! So play in all meaningful RPGs (of which I am aware) requires fictional constraints to exist. These may also be expressed in terms of mechanics and/or process in play. 

So, in D&D generally a wall is a physical barrier to movement. Its existence is traditionally always established by the GM. In narrative play it might be established by the player, but more likely it is still a GM thing, and how to overcome it may be developed by the player. They can only do so in ways which relate to elaborating on the narrative and honoring the constraint. So in BW a PC might be able to "find a secret door" or something like that, although it might cost them resources, time, whatever (I am not much of a BW guy, played Mousegard a few times). Often a PC will simply have no answer for a particular constraint outside of those ordinarily available to anyone 'in game' (IE walk around it). In Prince Valiant a feeling of Lust for Guenevere is apparently also a constraint! Granted it is a less concrete one and navigating it is trickier perhaps, but it has about the same effect on agency as the wall.

In both cases, presumably, agency equates to the player having a say in if the play of the game is focusing on traversing a maze, or in mastering their feelings and whatever. They must have agreed to these constraints in some way by consenting to this form of play. I think the main contention here is simply that narrative games where the player has input into the 'form of play' in a concrete way DURING play provide an explicit path to exercising this agency, and that, from a certain perspective it is really the only agency that ultimately matters, since constraints will always exist. When people misunderstand narrative play as being "free of unwanted constraints" they are misapprehending what it is. Constraints are just as significant as in any other type of play, but their origin and nature are different, and who is responsible for them is different (to an extent, sometimes).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I'm not going to say anyone outright has said that here, but some people have seemed to dance up to the idea that its an imposition, and as I've mentioned, I've absolutely hit a few people in the past who seemed to think anything but an open-world sandbox was not vastly different than a railroad, so I've been trying to make sure that wasn't where we were going here.
> 
> Once you get past that, you can at least get down to the idea that where the line is drawn is pretty subjective.



I agree that different games put that line at different places. Different tables clearly do as well, at least when the game doesn't spell it out pretty clearly. I think if you played 'BitD' you'd find that where things fall is pretty clearly delineated, because the game defines it pretty clearly, same for Dungeon World. I don't think that anyone should be saying that one place to draw it is better or worse than another either. I advocate for analyzing the options though.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Possibly so, or generalizing from the practices used in a _particular context_ (a game that has practices that assume certain things about the setting and genre its getting used in) to assuming that's what the person wants generically.
> 
> (Of course its always possible that a given person simply wouldn't want to play in a game with more narrow borders in the first place, as AA indicated a couple pages back.  Nothing wrong with that, either).




Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of folks in this thread who would not want to play at the tables of other folks in this thread based solely on the approach to play, or the specific game being played. 

Most of these mismatches would be unlikely to happen, I think, and instead are a byproduct of discussing hypotheticals.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of folks in this thread who would not want to play at the tables of other folks in this thread based solely on the approach to play, or the specific game being played.
> 
> Most of these mismatches would be unlikely to happen, I think, and instead are a byproduct of discussing hypotheticals.



I'm weird. I often play in games that don't work the way I want them to, lol. There are just other considerations. There ARE games I'll pass on, partly due to considerations mentioned here, but the more that the game addresses something I find interesting, particularly if I am coming up with a character concept that is highly aligned with that, then do I absolutely need narrative process? It would be better, but it might not outweigh other considerations. I'll definitely play AD&D with my old buddy, the master of railroads, but not because I am excited by that aspect of play. That's just people I would want to socialize with and they are fun to play with, for reasons which may be hard to analyze.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes it is. It relies on concept of 'meaningful choices' and what is meaningful is subjective.



Okay, let's go with this, let's say "meaningful choices" is subjective (not conceding the point, just for argument).  Can we not then say that, even with the subjectiveness of "meaningful choices" that a game that requires GM approval of player choices must necessarily have fewer "meaningful choices" than a game where players can choose at least some things without GM approval, and therefore less agency, regardless of how you choose to subjectively value "meaningful choices?"   Unless you're engaged in bad faith defining that "meaningful choices" has no relation to the words used in the term, this argument falls to the same problem the one that doesn't depend on asserting "meaningful choices" is subjective.  I can look at a situation where I must have permission of a GM, even one that is a benevolent dictator and fair, to realize my choice and say that I have less agency here than if I don't have to have the permission of the GM -- if, say, some fair mechanic was employed.  That's not the only way this can happen, of course, but as an example it illustrates that the argument that agency is subjective fails because I don't need to rely on the part you deem subjective to arrive at the same conclusion.


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> Whether or not beliefs remain intact, or goals are achieved is something that we find out through play, right? This goes back to the idea of risky play. It's not about controlling every single aspect of a PC.



This. It's playing to find out what happens, and sometimes your values, beliefs, and feelings may get squeezed through the ringer as part of play.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> It can. But any system that is telling me that my mental image of my characters inner life is mistaken is definitely seriously limiting my agency.
> 
> 
> _Cogito, ergo sum, _I think, therefore I am. You are your mind, not your body. A mind without a body would be a person, a body without a mind wouldn't.
> 
> 
> Desires are feelings and motivations are based on those. You are perfectly free to like games where the mechanics can affect those, just don't try to disingenuously argue that this is not limiting the player's agency in pretty serious way.



This is what I was trying to hint at with my previous post. That enabling one preferred type of agency actually diminishes another type of agency.

You do not have agency over your characters thoughts and feelings if the game system puts those things at risk.

You do not have agency for optimal play if the game system puts at risk the fictional elements before you.

That is, enabling one type of agency often disabled a different type. This is why I say that these other playstyle don’t actually allow more agency. That just allow different types of agency at the expense of other types.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> This. It's playing to find out what happens, and sometimes your values, beliefs, and feelings may get squeezed through the ringer as part of play.



All rpgs are about playing to find out what happens...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, let's go with this, let's say "meaningful choices" is subjective (not conceding the point, just for argument).  Can we not then say that, even with the subjectiveness of "meaningful choices" that a game that requires GM approval of player choices must necessarily have fewer "meaningful choices" than a game where players can choose at least some things without GM approval, and therefore less agency, regardless of how you choose to subjectively value "meaningful choices?"   Unless you're engaged in bad faith defining that "meaningful choices" has no relation to the words used in the term, this argument falls to the same problem the one that doesn't depend on asserting "meaningful choices" is subjective.  I can look at a situation where I must have permission of a GM, even one that is a benevolent dictator and fair, to realize my choice and say that I have less agency here than if I don't have to have the permission of the GM -- if, say, some fair mechanic was employed.  That's not the only way this can happen, of course, but as an example it illustrates that the argument that agency is subjective fails because I don't need to rely on the part you deem subjective to arrive at the same conclusion.



We cannot automatically say that, because same way than to some weighing the choices against the game mechanics is what gives them the meaning, to others weighing them against the world controlled by the GM gives them the meaning.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> This is what I was trying to hint at with my previous post. That enabling one preferred type of agency actually diminishes another type of agency.



No such thing.  Arguments about types of agency are splitting hairs -- they all reduce to the agency of the participants.


FrogReaver said:


> You do not have agency over your characters thoughts and feelings if the game system puts those things at risk.



Absolutely untrue.  This is like saying that you cannot have agency over your character if your character is put at risk.  It fails at first principles.  Of course I can have agency over a thing that is at risk.


FrogReaver said:


> You do not have agency for optimal play if the game system puts at risk the fictional elements before you.



I'm not following this -- given everything discussed is a fictional element and those are put at risk, this seems like you intend a much more narrow subset of things, but I can't tell what that might be -- or rather, I'm not going to guess.


FrogReaver said:


> That is enabling one type of agency often disabled a different type. This is why I say that these other playstyle don’t actually allow more agency. That just allow different types of agency at the expense of other types.



There is, again, no different types of agency.  There may be different areas you can exercise agency, but that becomes a fraught argument in relation to an imagined fiction.  What I think is happening in this argument is that you're trading agency for other considerations, but then calling those agency.  For example, the granularity of 5e combat doesn't increase my agency over the much less granular combat of Blades, it's just a more fidgety systems.  One I happen to enjoy, immensely, and why I still advocate and play 5e when I have other options.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> All rpgs are about playing to find out what happens...



Nope, this is ignoring the context of that phrase.  "Play to find out what happens," means no one at the table knows what play will be about until it gets there.  What you're implying is that we don't know if this fight against the Quantum Ogre the GM Forced using Illusionism will result in the PCs winning or losing.  At least one player knows what play will be about, here -- the GM.  They are not "playing to find out."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> It depends on the nature of what is being talked about.
> 
> If I craft a belief or a goal for my PC, that's me putting that thing out into the game, right? Does it mean that I will absolutely get what I want? Or does it mean that I may struggle with my belief, or that I may fail to reach my goal?
> 
> If a player actively hands the GM something and says "I want my play to revolve around this thing" is it robbing the player's agency for the GM to put that thing at risk? Maybe the GM puts that goal in opposition to another that comes up in play and puts the PCs conviction to the test; which goal is more important to them?
> 
> So.....my PC wants to save his brother. Maybe there's a Belief or an Ideal indicated on the character sheet that says something like "I'll do whatever it takes to find and save my brother." The PC's adventures lead him to a confrontation with a member of the cult that the brother ran off with. The cultist seeks to escape by setting fire to an orphanage. He then runs off. My PC can decide to chase him, or can stop and put out the fire, knowing that the cultist will escape.
> 
> This (admittedly hastily sketched) scenario puts my PC's belief directly into question. Will the PC actually "do anything"? Or are there limits to what he will do, or what he will allow to happen through inaction on his part? This may actually alter my perception of the PC. Maybe I'm surprised to find that yes.....yes indeed he will do whatever it takes, and he runs off from the burning orphanage. Or maybe that's what I had always expected, but through play, I've realized that my PC has a sentimental streak and he stops to save the kids, letting the possible lead on his brother slip through his fingers.
> 
> Whether or not beliefs remain intact, or goals are achieved is something that we find out through play, right? This goes back to the idea of risky play. It's not about controlling every single aspect of a PC.



This all sounds very cool, and I have nothing against this sort of play. The sort of moral conflicts that challenge the characters values are one of my favourite things. But you know what would ruin this scenario for me? That instead of me, the player, making that fateful choice to have my character either to compromise his beliefs or follow them and become a monster, there was some game mechanic that made that choice for me. That is what I was talking about.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> We cannot automatically say that, because same way than to some weighing the choices against the game mechanics is what gives them the meaning, to others weighing them against the world controlled by the GM gives them the meaning.



And you've arrived at my argument, although I don't think you see it because you're still arguing that the issue is being unable to determine relative levels of agency.  Instead, we can clearly see the agency -- you've even agreed to this here.  What's different is how we then value that agency.  That's absolutely subjective.  The relative levels of agency is observational and valid, but whether or not you care about that is entirely subjective.  This has been a point repeated hammered throughout the thread -- it's perfectly fine to enjoy games with less agency.  Otherwise, I'd never play Gloomhaven or 5e, and yet I relish both.  It's not because my evaluation of the amounts of agency involved is in any way subjective -- it's not, I can explain clearly the differences using the same metrics.  What's different is how much I value those differences, which, in these case, is not much because of the other things these games provide.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> How? How the character's beliefs do not affect the characterisation and portrayal of the character?



Do you know what Beliefs are in Burning Wheel? And how they work?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Do you know what Beliefs are in Burning Wheel? And how they work?



No. But I suspect that they have some sort of a close correlation to the beliefs that the character has...


----------



## Ovinomancer

Look, there's no "gotcha" waiting behind the point that some games have more or less agency than others.  This should be trivially obvious.  The issue here is that, for whatever reason, people are choosing to take a statement about relative agency as insulting or belittling to their choice of game.  This isn't true, though, and as someone that enjoys the same game but can acknowledge the relative difference in agency, it should be obvious that it isn't.

Unless, of course, you think that I just enjoy insulting myself?  I don't, but that's an interesting take.

But, back to the lack of a "gotcha."  The acknowledgement says nothing at all about you or your game.  It can only ever say anything about a person making a choice, and all that is said there is that they prefer a thing or not.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> This all sounds very cool, and I have nothing against this sort of play. The sort of moral conflicts that challenge the characters values are on e of my favourite things. But you know what would ruin this scenario for me? That instead of me, the player, making that fateful choice to have my character either to compromise his beliefs or follow them and become a monster, there was some game mechanic that made that choice for me. That is what I was talking about.



Or to put it another way. There is no agency without choice. If a player cannot choose Something then he has no agency over that something.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Nope, this is ignoring the context of that phrase.  "Play to find out what happens," means no one at the table knows what play will be about until it gets there.  What you're implying is that we don't know if this fight against the Quantum Ogre the GM Forced using Illusionism will result in the PCs winning or losing.  At least one player knows what play will be about, here -- the GM.  They are not "playing to find out."



Yeah. If the table is working through an Adventure Path (or equivalent) more or less everyone has a good idea where the story is going, at least in broad terms. If the GM is improvising based on what the PCs do and has only prepped starting points, that at least seems a lot closer to the ethos implied by "Play to find out."


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> And you've arrived at my argument, although I don't think you see it because you're still arguing that the issue is being unable to determine relative levels of agency.  Instead, we can clearly see the agency -- you've even agreed to this here.  What's different is how we then value that agency.  That's absolutely subjective.  The relative levels of agency is observational and valid, but whether or not you care about that is entirely subjective.  This has been a point repeated hammered throughout the thread -- it's perfectly fine to enjoy games with less agency.  Otherwise, I'd never play Gloomhaven or 5e, and yet I relish both.  It's not because my evaluation of the amounts of agency involved is in any way subjective -- it's not, I can explain clearly the differences using the same metrics.  What's different is how much I value those differences, which, in these case, is not much because of the other things these games provide.



Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.


----------



## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.



Name the games which restrict 'agency over the internal life of the character'. And cite the rules which do so please.

Oh, you don't know any! ROFL.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> Look, there's no "gotcha" waiting behind the point that some games have more or less agency than others.  This should be trivially obvious.  The issue here is that, for whatever reason, people are choosing to take a statement about relative agency as insulting or belittling to their choice of game.  This isn't true, though, and as someone that enjoys the same game but can acknowledge the relative difference in agency, it should be obvious that it isn't.
> 
> Unless, of course, you think that I just enjoy insulting myself?  I don't, but that's an interesting take.
> 
> But, back to the lack of a "gotcha."  The acknowledgement says nothing at all about you or your game.  It can only ever say anything about a person making a choice, and all that is said there is that they prefer a thing or not.



Or... people just don't agree that your assertion is correct??


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Agency is not one clear thing. It is not really about agency vs other things, it is more about agency over different things. I value agency over the internal life of my character highly and agency over the external game world much, much less. Thus to me a game which restricts the former feels like a low agency game, even though it had plenty of the latter. Other people might feel the exact opposite. And how much weigh each person gives to agency over different things is purely subjective.



Again, the idea that there are different types of agency is baseless.  There's only the players making choices.  Subdividing agency into different areas just obfuscates the issue -- having "agency" over your character's "internal life" is not something unique to D&D, it's present in every game discussed.  What you're confusing here is that you have "agency" because the game you play cannot put those things at risk, but this is a flawed vision of agency.  Agency isn't absolute control (although absolute control can defeat agency), it's the ability to make choices that determine the direction of things.  There's no restriction on your agency if the thing you've chosen to put into play (and that's what's happening in the games your claiming to have lower agency) is then put at risk -- this is a choice you've already made, it's not evaluated in isolation.  

This argument is like saying that your character's hitpoints are inviable because you don't want to take damage.  It's clearly nonsense here because it's obvious you've put your character's hitpoints at risk through play.  Same same.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> This all sounds very cool, and I have nothing against this sort of play. The sort of moral conflicts that challenge the characters values are on e of my favourite things. But you know what would ruin this scenario for me? That instead of me, the player, making that fateful choice to have my character either to compromise his beliefs or follow them and become a monster, there was some game mechanic that made that choice for me. That is what I was talking about.




That's perfectly valid not to like it.  

I may have missed the context of whatever example may have been in discussion. 

I don't think that, depending on how it came about, some mechanic made that choice for you (I don't know if that's the case, but assuming it is for this comment) it is necessarily a removal of agency. It depends on how it came about and how the game works. 

But the same way that if I fail my save, I'm gonna run away from the dragon, I don't go into these games expecting absolute and total authority over my PC. 

Very few people actually seem to think that, even if they claim that's how a game should work. They'll say "agency is my ability to decide any and everything for my PC; no one else can decide what they will think or feel or do". And then you say "Well what about Charm Person or Dragon Fear?" and then they will say "Okay, yes, but those are highly specific instances, for which a saving throw is at play. And they're different cause magic." 

This is a bit of a tangent here, but it just kind of occurred to me.....if we look at absolute GM authority of the game world as being potentially undesirable because it's a railroad, I think that having a PC who is never going to actually grow or change to be similarly offputting as a railroad. The world really doesn't get to this guy? Like ever? Only if the player chooses? Where is the risk in this approach to play, other than just the character living or dying?

Isn't that risk what makes something meaningful?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Or... people just don't agree that your assertion is correct??



Which assertion?  That having a GM approve everything is obviously less player agency than if the players have ways to assert things without GM approval?  I haven't seen anyone actually argue this otherwise.  It's just spins off into the weeds with definitional arguments (this doesn't rely on those) or ideas that agency can be subdivided and it's this subdivision that makes the difference.


----------



## prabe

chaochou said:


> Name the games which restrict 'agency over the internal life of the character'. And cite the rules which do so please.
> 
> Oh, you don't know any! ROFL.



As it's been explained here, Monsterhearts has mechanics that allow another player to take control of my character's desires, thereby reducing my agency over my character's internal life. Will that suffice?

ETA: If I understand how @pemerton has described Beliefs in Burning Wheel, those can be changed by mechanics in the game, which would also seem to reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.

And Fate has Consequence-esque results of conflicts, which can replace a character's Aspects, which also would seem to (potentially, depending on the Aspects) reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm weird. I often play in games that don't work the way I want them to, lol. There are just other considerations. There ARE games I'll pass on, partly due to considerations mentioned here, but the more that the game addresses something I find interesting, particularly if I am coming up with a character concept that is highly aligned with that, then do I absolutely need narrative process? It would be better, but it might not outweigh other considerations. I'll definitely play AD&D with my old buddy, the master of railroads, but not because I am excited by that aspect of play. That's just people I would want to socialize with and they are fun to play with, for reasons which may be hard to analyze.




I don't think you're weird. Or at least not because of this!

I think this applies for a lot of people. I'll rarely turn down a chance to play a game with one of my friends GMing. And usually I know them well enough to know what to expect, and so I can enjoy it accordingly. Every now and then something happens where it's less than satisfying. But it's not that big a deal.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, the idea that there are different types of agency is baseless.



It's not. It is how people actually experience these things and is at the core of many of the disagreements here. If your contextual framework do not correspond to actual experience of the players, it is worthless for discussing games.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

chaochou said:


> Name the games which restrict 'agency over the internal life of the character'. And cite the rules which do so please.
> 
> Oh, you don't know any! ROFL.



A lot of games do it to small degree. I mostly experienced it in various White Wolf games, though they tended to me kind of tangential mechanics in those. Still disliked it. Monster Hearts was mentioned as a game that does this frequently and indeed the play focuses on it. I haven't played it so, I don't know how accurate this characterisation is. 

Now I feel a bit stupid for trying to seriously answer to a person ending their post with 'ROFL.'


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> As it's been explained here, Monsterhearts has mechanics that allow another player to take control of my character's desires, thereby reducing my agency over my character's internal life. Will that suffice?
> 
> ETA: If I understand how @pemerton has described Beliefs in Burning Wheel, those can be changed by mechanics in the game, which would also seem to reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.
> 
> And Fate has Consequence-esque results of conflicts, which can replace a character's Aspects, which also would seem to (potentially, depending on the Aspects) reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.




Do these things simply happen in those games? Or are they some kind of fallout due to a choice that was made and didn't work out?

Does the risk of PC death in 5E mean that a PC who takes a risky action that could result in death has no agency? Or is it that risk that instead gives that choice meaning?


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> This is a bit of a tangent here, but it just kind of occurred to me.....if we look at absolute GM authority of the game world as being potentially undesirable because it's a railroad, I think that having a PC who is never going to actually grow or change to be similarly offputting as a railroad. The world really doesn't get to this guy? Like ever? Only if the player chooses? Where is the risk in this approach to play, other than just the character living or dying?
> 
> Isn't that risk what makes something meaningful?



This was an issue I was alluding to in an earlier post: 


Aldarc said:


> It would be a dull story indeed if Lancelot had power over both over his adversity as a character and its resolution.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Do these things simply happen in those games? Or are they some kind of fallout due to a choice that was made and didn't work out?
> 
> Does the risk of PC death in 5E mean that a PC who takes a risky action that could result in death has no agency?



It sure as heck has sounded as though in Monsterhearts another player could choose to pull my character's strings. Since there is no way in hell I will play that game I'll have to leave an answer for that for those as have played it. I figure @pemerton will correct my misapprehensions about Burning Wheel.

In Fate, taking a Consequence (I think that's the term--it's at least the idea, and I don't feel like digging out my Fate books) is IIRC usually the result of a conflict, as a concession to avoid being Taken Out (removed from play, possibly but not necessarily killed); so the player has agency to accept the deal, but after that needs to live with the result--which might be a change to an Aspect important to the player--for ... some time (it's in the rules, I forget, I don't want to dig the books out).

As to which PC has more agency ... A risky action is a risky action, and they both chose to take that (enter the conflict/combat), so the difference in agency comes after the combat. A dead PC (probably) has no agency, but if the PCs don't die, I'd be inclined to say the player in 5E has more agency after the conflict--mainly because of how Compels work in Fate, and any Fate GM worth his salt would want to hammer on that unwanted Aspect mercilessly.


----------



## chaochou

prabe said:


> As it's been explained here, Monsterhearts has mechanics that allow another player to take control of my character's desires, thereby reducing my agency over my character's internal life. Will that suffice?
> 
> ETA: If I understand how @pemerton has described Beliefs in Burning Wheel, those can be changed by mechanics in the game, which would also seem to reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.
> 
> And Fate has Consequence-esque results of conflicts, which can replace a character's Aspects, which also would seem to (potentially, depending on the Aspects) reduce a player's agency over their character's internal life.



No - a rules citation for Monsterhearts please. The exact wording.

And a rules cite for Beliefs please. The exact wording.

And for Fate. The exact wording.

Surely you must know what you're talking about - just go to your bookshelf and pick them up and give me the page numbers...


----------



## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> A lot of games do it to small degree. I mostly experienced it in various White Wolf games, though they tended to me kind of tangential mechanics in those. Still disliked it. Monster Hearts was mentioned as a game that does this frequently and indeed the play focuses on it. I haven't played it so, I don't know how accurate this characterisation is.
> 
> Now I feel a bit stupid for trying to seriously answer to a person ending their post with 'ROFL.'



You mean Monsterhearts you've never played, nor read, and know nothing about.

Any others?


----------



## prabe

chaochou said:


> No - a rules citation for Monsterhearts please. The exact wording.
> 
> And a rules cite for Beliefs please. The exact wording.
> 
> And for Fate. The exact wording.
> 
> Surely you must know what you're talking about - just go to your bookshelf and pick them up and give me the page numbers...



Fate Core, Consequences start on page 162. I especially draw your attention to "extreme consequences" on pate 166, which was the mechanic I was talking about. I believe in the Dresden Files game the example is Harry getting his arm severely burned.

I don't own Monsterhearts or Burning Wheel, and I will leave those who have read or played those games to answer about them.


----------



## Aldarc

chaochou said:


> You mean Monsterhearts you've never played, nor read, and know nothing about.
> 
> Any others?



Sure. Monsterhearts 2 (p.18).



> Turn Someone On
> When you turn someone on, roll with Hot. On a 10 up, gain a String on them and they choose a reaction from below. • On a 7-9, they can either give you a String or choose one of the reactions.
> 
> I give myself to you,
> I promise something I think you want, or
> I get embarrassed and act awkward.
> All kinds of things can Turn Someone On, especially if that person is a teenager. Maybe this is a flirtatious glance, a whispered promise for later, or a goofy smile at
> the right moment. Maybe it’s just something they notice about you as you walk past them in the hall. When you use this move, feel free to take the opportunity to step outside your character, to speak like an author would: describing your character’s pouty lips or moonlit silhouette. Unlike the other basic moves, Turning Someone On can be triggered even if there’s no specific action being taken; your character doesn’t have to intend to Turn Someone On – sometimes, it just happens.
> This move is at the heart of how Monsterhearts understands sexuality, especially teen sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who. Part of your agenda is keeping the story feral, and that means letting your character’s sexuality emerge in all of its confusing and unexpected glory.
> When someone turns your character on, the emotional dynamic between them shifts. If a String is gained, the power dynamic shifts a little bit as well. How you react to that is up to you. What honesty demands is that you acknowledge the shift, imagine what your character might be feeling, and play from there. If Julia turns Monique on, it doesn’t mean Monique has to throw herself at her. Just play out how Monique would naturally respond. Maybe Monique blushes and turns to leave, or maybe she suddenly gets nervous and starts stammering.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> That's perfectly valid not to like it.
> 
> I may have missed the context of whatever example may have been in discussion.
> 
> I don't think that, depending on how it came about, some mechanic made that choice for you (I don't know if that's the case, but assuming it is for this comment) it is necessarily a removal of agency. It depends on how it came about and how the game works.



To me it would feel as a serious removal of agency. 



hawkeyefan said:


> But the same way that if I fail my save, I'm gonna run away from the dragon, I don't go into these games expecting absolute and total authority over my PC.
> 
> Very few people actually seem to think that, even if they claim that's how a game should work. They'll say "agency is my ability to decide any and everything for my PC; no one else can decide what they will think or feel or do". And then you say "Well what about Charm Person or Dragon Fear?" and then they will say "Okay, yes, but those are highly specific instances, for which a saving throw is at play. And they're different cause magic."



I don't really like those magical abilities. But they're pretty rare. And them being magical makes them indeed less bad in a sense that they're effectively an external force. The mechanics that force my character to feel or behave in a certain way feel like mind control to me, and it is less jarring when they are _actual mind control _in the fiction too! But anything that takes away the control of the character from the player should IMHO be used super sparingly.



hawkeyefan said:


> This is a bit of a tangent here, but it just kind of occurred to me.....if we look at absolute GM authority of the game world as being potentially undesirable because it's a railroad, I think that having a PC who is never going to actually grow or change to be similarly offputting as a railroad. The world really doesn't get to this guy? Like ever? Only if the player chooses? Where is the risk in this approach to play, other than just the character living or dying?



Ask the player, it's their character. Sounds super boring to me, but whatever. And if there truly was a player who was not interested portraying their character as real person who is affected by things that happen to them, I have hard time imagining that any mechanics would be much of help. 



hawkeyefan said:


> Isn't that risk what makes something meaningful?



That is one way to make things meaningful, but not the only one. Furthermore, I think you demonstrated in your earlier example an excellent narrative way to represent the risk; create situations which test the characters values. That is the way to do it, no mechanics needed.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> My mental image of my character is not directly the same thing than the character's self image. The latter is only a part of the former.
> 
> 
> And if that works for some people, great. It definitely does not for me. But relating to discussion of agency, a system dictating how the character must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency. The character's feelings and motivations are the very core of the player agency.




A couple things for you to consider that I think your thoughts on might be helpful.  Its about (a) "system dictating how the player must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency" and (b) agency isn't about unbridled autonomy (agency requires a level of constraint, focus, and distillation...eg without walls and obstacles in a dungeon and without the premise of treasure extraction without being slain there is no "meaningful" agency being executed in a Moldvay Basic dungeon crawl...see (2) below):

1)  I believe you wanted to invoke agency in the external world earlier but you were rebuffed or no one engaged.  Now might be a time to do so.  I'm going to put to the side for a moment the present consensus in neuro/cognitive science on when the frontal cortex comes online when executing a decision-tree (which has huge implications on perceived agency).  Our perception of our autonomy over our internal workings does not comport with what is actually happening. The endocrine system has a significant role to play in our execution of our decision-trees.  Emotional or physical damage (a concussion or lesion/tumor on the brain's infrastructure or the feedback loop of despair or some other form of emotional trauma and philosophical fallout).  

What do you think about system architecture simulating these inputs?  

2)  It seems to me that having absolute autonomy over your internal workings is, from first principles, an interesting violation of the Czege Principle in any game that cares at all about _testing your beliefs/ethos, instincts, and nature.  _If you have absolute autonomy over these things...then any "test" is the equivalent of playing at Ouija Board.  Its all theatrics, pantomime, characterization.  Its the illusion of a crucible rather than an actual one.

No?


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> A couple things for you to consider that I think your thoughts on might be helpful.  Its about (a) "system dictating how the player must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency" and (b) agency isn't about unbridled autonomy (agency requires a level of constraint, focus, and distillation...eg without walls and obstacles in a dungeon and without the premise of treasure extraction without being slain there is no "meaningful" agency being executed in a Moldvay Basic dungeon crawl...see (2) below):
> 
> 1)  I believe you wanted to invoke agency in the external world earlier but you were rebuffed or no one engaged.  Now might be a time to do so.  I'm going to put to the side for a moment the present consensus in neuro/cognitive science on when the frontal cortex comes online when executing a decision-tree (which has huge implications on perceived agency).  Our perception of our autonomy over our internal workings does not comport with what is actually happening. The endocrine system has a significant role to play in our execution of our decision-trees.  Emotional or physical damage (a concussion or lesion/tumor on the brain's infrastructure or the feedback loop of despair or some other form of emotional trauma and philosophical fallout).
> 
> What do you think about system architecture simulating these inputs?



I’ll answer for me.  I disagree with current theories. However,  It is irrelevant to a discussion of agency.  It doesn’t matter how things happen in the real world. I don’t play an rpg to emulate real world processes.



Manbearcat said:


> 2)  It seems to me that having absolute autonomy over your internal workings is, from first principles, an interesting violation of the Czege Principle in any game that cares at all about _testing your beliefs/ethos, instincts, and nature.  _If you have absolute autonomy over these things...then any "test" is the equivalent of playing at Ouija Board.  Its all theatrics, pantomime, characterization.  Its the illusion of a crucible rather than an actual one.
> 
> No?



But rpgs don’t have to test those things, at least not directly and definitely not using mechanical resolution.

The question I would use: Is my choice about those things meaningful to how my character plays?  If so then that is a meaningful choice which is at the heart of agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's not. It is how people actually experience these things and is at the core of many of the disagreements here. If your contextual framework do not correspond to actual experience of the players, it is worthless for discussing games.



People also think they experience centrifugal force, but there's no such thing, it's a misinterpretation of inertia and centripetal force.  Same here, thinking there's different types of agency in RPGs is a misinterpretation, usually due to ingrained thought processes, and not actually because there's different types of agency.  There's only one agency -- the player's.  And, I say this because, just a few short years ago, I'd have been on your side of the argument (and was, I believe).  I made similar arguments, but, on reflection, I found them unable to withstand scrutiny.

In specific, you're referring to the agency to determine your character's "inner life."  The issues here are that this is just window dressing -- it doesn't invoke agency.  It doesn't because nothing in the gamestate changes regardless of how hard you imagine your character's inner life.  It's only when you engage the game with an action declaration that agency is invoked, so there's no such thing as agency over your character's "inner life" in this regard.

The second angle of attack you've deployed is that it's a loss of agency to have aspects of your character be placed in question or at risk.  This is fundamentally flawed because of course aspects of your character are placed at risk all the time else you don't even have a game.  Hitpoints are placed at risk.  Equipment is placed at risk (those terrible rust monsters!).  Etc.  The issue here isn't a difference in a kind of agency, but a confusion that beliefs and desires are somehow a different category.  This is the ingrained thought process showing up, because D&D has long established that this is an area that game just doesn't address at all.  It's not that it's a special area, or needs special treatment, but just a choice in design that's now been internalized as an important distinction.  And, it is, in that it's a clear delineation about what the game will be about.  D&D will not be about being unexpected turned on by something else (well, it is, but it's usually lampshaded by "magic"), but instead about your character's physical well-being in dangerous situations.  That's it -- it's not a special kind of agency, it's just a design decision about the themes of the game.  Character emotions are no more sacrosanct than hitpoints.  It's preference that makes the difference here, not a unique subcategory of agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> A couple things for you to consider that I think your thoughts on might be helpful.  Its about (a) "system dictating how the player must feel certainly is a huge imposition on the player agency" and (b) agency isn't about unbridled autonomy (agency requires a level of constraint, focus, and distillation...eg without walls and obstacles in a dungeon and without the premise of treasure extraction without being slain there is no "meaningful" agency being executed in a Moldvay Basic dungeon crawl...see (2) below):
> 
> 1)  I believe you wanted to invoke agency in the external world earlier but you were rebuffed or no one engaged.  Now might be a time to do so.  I'm going to put to the side for a moment the present consensus in neuro/cognitive science on when the frontal cortex comes online when executing a decision-tree (which has huge implications on perceived agency).  Our perception of our autonomy over our internal workings does not comport with what is actually happening. The endocrine system has a significant role to play in our execution of our decision-trees.  Emotional or physical damage (a concussion or lesion/tumor on the brain's infrastructure or the feedback loop of despair or some other form of emotional trauma and philosophical fallout).
> 
> What do you think about system architecture simulating these inputs?



That it is pointless. It is quite likely that everything we do, every feeling, every decision is due a deterministic physical systems (or random physical systems depending on your chosen interpretation of quantum theory) and to take this to logical extent we might as well simulate the character fully with random charts and the player becoming just a spectator. 



Manbearcat said:


> 2)  It seems to me that having absolute autonomy over your internal workings is, from first principles, an interesting violation of the Czege Principle in any game that cares at all about _testing your beliefs/ethos, instincts, and nature.  _If you have absolute autonomy over these things...then any "test" is the equivalent of playing at Ouija Board.  Its all theatrics, pantomime, characterization.  Its the illusion of a crucible rather than an actual one.
> 
> No?



The 'test' can be a narrative one, rather than mechanical one. It happens via interacting with the environment and the other characters.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> It sure as heck has sounded as though in Monsterhearts another player could choose to pull my character's strings. Since there is no way in hell I will play that game I'll have to leave an answer for that for those as have played it. I figure @pemerton will correct my misapprehensions about Burning Wheel.
> 
> In Fate, taking a Consequence (I think that's the term--it's at least the idea, and I don't feel like digging out my Fate books) is IIRC usually the result of a conflict, as a concession to avoid being Taken Out (removed from play, possibly but not necessarily killed); so the player has agency to accept the deal, but after that needs to live with the result--which might be a change to an Aspect important to the player--for ... some time (it's in the rules, I forget, I don't want to dig the books out).
> 
> As to which PC has more agency ... A risky action is a risky action, and they both chose to take that (enter the conflict/combat), so the difference in agency comes after the combat. A dead PC (probably) has no agency, but if the PCs don't die, I'd be inclined to say the player in 5E has more agency after the conflict--mainly because of how Compels work in Fate, and any Fate GM worth his salt would want to hammer on that unwanted Aspect mercilessly.




So I didn't mean for my post to sound as challenging as it may have. I asked because I'm not entirely sure how those rules in those games work. My familiarity with Fate is very minimal. I've played PbtA games, but not Monsterhearts specifically. And Burning Wheel is a game I haven't played ever. My understanding of these games is largely limited to what I hear in these discussions, and my understanding is that generally speaking, there can be consequences that could impact ideas or beliefs and such, but I honestly am not sure exactly how they work.



Aldarc said:


> Sure. Monsterhearts 2 (p.18).




Honestly, I don't know if I see this as being a huge infringement on PC concept or beliefs, as described here. Although, I think perhaps I would need to know more about Strings and what they do to fully comprehend.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> To me it would feel as a serious removal of agency.




I think it depends on the specifics and how it comes about in play.



Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't really like those magical abilities. But they're pretty rare. And them being magical makes them indeed less bad in a sense that they're effectively an external force. The mechanics that force my character to feel or behave in a certain way feel like mind control to me, and it is less jarring when they are _actual mind control _in the fiction too! But anything that takes away the control of the character from the player should IMHO be used super sparingly.




Liking them or not, sparingly or not, they exist. The game that is being put forth as an example of this concept of player agency meaning absolute control of the PC has built in rules that remove or suppress that. 

Now, you don't like it, I get that and I understand why. I'd also likely suggest they be used sparingly, generally speaking, unless loss of control or similar themes were a big part of play. Monsterhearts using this kind of stuff to represent raging hormones is pretty thematic. 

That may mean that game isn't for everyone....and I get that. I'm guessing so did the designers.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Ask the player, it's their character. Sounds super boring to me, but whatever. And if there truly was a player who was not interested portraying their character as real person who is affected by things that happen to them, I have hard time imagining that any mechanics would be much of help.




I mean, from some of the examples here, it absolutely sounds like there are plenty of folks who don't want there to be any risk of someone else telling them something true about their PC. Which is fine. Whether mechanics may help.....I mean, I don't know if that player would like it, but if there were mechanics, then yes, I'd expect it to come into play. 

If such a person tried such a game, they may indeed say "Yeah, I had a feeling this wasn't for me". But it's possible they could say "this is actually a pretty interesting angle." 

Who knows?



Crimson Longinus said:


> That is one way to make things meaningful, but not the only one. Furthermore, I think you demonstrated in your earlier example an excellent narrative way to represent the risk; create situations which test the characters values. That is the way to do it, no mechanics needed.




Sure, but the mechanic was that the belief was stated openly and clearly as part of the character, same as alignment or race or whatever else. Yes, games can do this without any mechanic or character trait....but they would require the player and GM to discuss the matter openly. Then the GM will know to put that belief to the test.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I’ll answer for me.  I disagree with current theories. However,  It is irrelevant to a discussion of agency.  It doesn’t matter how things happen in the real world. I don’t play an rpg to emulate real world processes.
> 
> 
> But rpgs don’t have to test those things, at least not directly and definitely not using mechanical resolution.
> 
> The question I would use: Is my choice about those things meaningful to how my character plays?  If so then that is a meaningful choice which is at the heart of agency.




On the first part, I brought that up because I’m fairly certain CL brought that up early and (a) I believe it was because he was smuggling “immersion as coefficient to agency” into the calculus and (b) it was relevant to my point (2).

On the second part, this is where “meaningful” comes in. I don’t agree that “meaningful” is subjective when it comes to game theory. It can easily be sussed out what it means in any given situation (and it relates to the Czege Principle). It’s not a moral judgement. 

“Meaningful” connotes an actual trial or crucible about a thing staked (which presumably is either THE premise or A significant premise of play). For this we need (a) framing/framework, (b) one or more obstacles/adversity/sources of antagonism, and (c) means (of which we don’t possess autonomy over) to resolve what happens when our guile/guts/will/skill collide with (a) and (b).

I think we can all agree that maps onto dungeon-crawls with its walls and traps and puzzles and monsters and loadout and resolution procedures. From the intersection of this crucible, our decisions are tested and given _meaning (through this crucible we can derive if we are sufficiently skilled or not)._

Why can’t this formula be mapped elsewhere; _through this crucible we can derive if my PC’s brother is a hero or a scoundrel and then how my PC now perceives his brother and/or the nature of heroes ad scoundrels?)_


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> People also think they experience centrifugal force, but there's no such thing, it's a misinterpretation of inertia and centripetal force.  Same here, thinking there's different types of agency in RPGs is a misinterpretation, usually due to ingrained thought processes, and not actually because there's different types of agency.  There's only one agency -- the player's.  And, I say this because, just a few short years ago, I'd have been on your side of the argument (and was, I believe).  I made similar arguments, but, on reflection, I found them unable to withstand scrutiny.



Your attempts to control the language and impose your worldview is not helpful and makes discussion more difficult. (Also inertial forces are useful concepts for discussing physics.)



Ovinomancer said:


> In specific, you're referring to the agency to determine your character's "inner life."  The issues here are that this is just window dressing -- it doesn't invoke agency.  It doesn't because nothing in the gamestate changes regardless of how hard you imagine your character's inner life.  It's only when you engage the game with an action declaration that agency is invoked, so there's no such thing as agency over your character's "inner life" in this regard.



'Gamestate' is here used as another way to arbitrarily divide thing that happen in game to those that matter and those that do, according to the preferences of the speaker, in attempt to represent a subjective judgement as a basis of something objective.



Ovinomancer said:


> The second angle of attack you've deployed is that it's a loss of agency to have aspects of your character be placed in question or at risk.  This is fundamentally flawed because of course aspects of your character are placed at risk all the time else you don't even have a game.  Hitpoints are placed at risk.  Equipment is placed at risk (those terrible rust monsters!).  Etc.  The issue here isn't a difference in a kind of agency, but a confusion that beliefs and desires are somehow a different category.  This is the ingrained thought process showing up, because D&D has long established that this is an area that game just doesn't address at all.  It's not that it's a special area, or needs special treatment, but just a choice in design that's now been internalized as an important distinction.  And, it is, in that it's a clear delineation about what the game will be about.  D&D will not be about being unexpected turned on by something else (well, it is, but it's usually lampshaded by "magic"), but instead about your character's physical well-being in dangerous situations.  That's it -- it's not a special kind of agency, it's just a design decision about the themes of the game.  Character emotions are no more sacrosanct than hitpoints.  It's preference that makes the difference here, not a unique subcategory of agency.



Whether they're 'different types of agency' or 'agency over different types of things' is meaningless semantics. The distinctions are nevertheless experienced, thus they're real.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, but the mechanic was that the belief was stated openly and clearly as part of the character, same as alignment or race or whatever else. Yes, games can do this without any mechanic or character trait....but they would require the player and GM to discuss the matter openly. Then the GM will know to put that belief to the test.



I mean it requires the character to be an actual, well a _character,_ to have personality, values etc and the GM to be aware of what these are. Which to me seems like a pretty standard assumption in any RPG that is not some sort of utterly mindless hack and slash.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> This is what I was trying to hint at with my previous post. That enabling one preferred type of agency actually diminishes another type of agency.
> 
> You do not have agency over your characters thoughts and feelings if the game system puts those things at risk.
> 
> You do not have agency for optimal play if the game system puts at risk the fictional elements before you.
> 
> That is, enabling one type of agency often disabled a different type. This is why I say that these other playstyle don’t actually allow more agency. That just allow different types of agency at the expense of other types.



This feels a bit overblown to me. I mean, I've been playing this type of games for 12 years now, and I have almost never had a case where a character's thoughts were dictated by the result of resolving a check, a GM framing, etc. @pemerton had an example of a charm spell, and of a situation in Prince Valiant where this kind of thing came up. I'm sure we could come up with charms and dominations and whatnot in D&D as well. We're going to run into these in years of play, but they don't form the mainstay of play, of any type. In fact I'd say the Prince Valiant example is pretty significant here, in that it illustrates that this stuff comes up in games WHICH ARE FOCUSED ON IT. The whole subject is very applicable to Arthurian Romance, Le Morte d'Artur is FILLED with characters possessed by lust, or magic, or whatever, its a trope! That trope is far less likely, usually never does, show up in most other games (when would it show up in Traveller for instance, basically never). 

I think that we can thus conclude that it isn't a 'type of agency' which is 'disabling' anything. It is a specific genre element of certain games, and one that you would thus accept as a possibility when playing in that genre. Nor does it remove all ability to play your character, it simply imposes an obstacle, a challenge which the player needs to figure out how to overcome or factor into the character's story somehow. Launcelot can still run around and do knightly things, even if he's lusting after the Queen. The player just has to decide if he'll act on those feelings, or not, and if not he may need to validate that with some mechanics perhaps? I don't know PV well enough to know how that works.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

Aside: I saw the Czege Principle get invoked a few times over the course of the thread, and I just want to say that current designers don't really take it as a given anymore (if it ever was, I don't know). In particular, solo RPGs are growing in popularity, and if I understand the formulation of _"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun" _correctly, those games completely fly in the Czege Principle's face.

Not sure what implications this aside has for the current discussion of agency, vaguely feeling there may be a thread to pull here but not sure what it is.

Supporting quote, with relevant text reposted below:

_"In my opinion, there have been a wealth of amazing solo RPGs that have effectively challenged the Czege Principle. Creative answers have emerged to the question, "how CAN it be fun for a player to introduce and resolve their own opposition?"_


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> That it is pointless. It is quite likely that everything we do, every feeling, every decision is due a deterministic physical systems (or random physical systems depending on your chosen interpretation of quantum theory) and to take this to logical extent we might as well simulate the character fully with random charts and the player becoming just a spectator.
> 
> 
> The 'test' can be a narrative one, rather than mechanical one. It happens via interacting with the environment and the other characters.




On the first paragraph, I need some clarity:

Is it your opinion that if you don't have complete autonomy over a thing/situation then there is no agency erected?  If you're not saying that, but you are saying that _x_ % autonomy is required, then what value (obviously roughly) is _x_?

On your 2nd paragraph, that is precisely why I invoked The Czege Principle and Ouija Board play.  If (a) you get to decide if a thing you care about is tested and (b) the outcome of the test is 100 % volitional, then where is the crucible?  If there is no crucible then there is no test.  There is just moving a planchette across a board and pretending there is some external volitional force at work and the attendant theatrics.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> This all sounds very cool, and I have nothing against this sort of play. The sort of moral conflicts that challenge the characters values are on e of my favourite things. But you know what would ruin this scenario for me? That instead of me, the player, making that fateful choice to have my character either to compromise his beliefs or follow them and become a monster, there was some game mechanic that made that choice for me. That is what I was talking about.



I don't know PV, so I cannot say what the actual mechanic is there, but I can certainly imagine a game where it is decided by the GM, as framing, that "Your character's lust is aroused by the Queen." OK, so you decide you're not going to give in to that, and this is established as a fact by your choice (just like you could go left at a T intersection). That doesn't mean their won't be consequences! "Your heart pines for your love, you can't focus on your sword practice, you take a -1 to all attacks." I mean, maybe that's a bit simplistic, but... It is better even if it is a story thing, "The King invites his greatest knight to the tournament, and when you don't appear the Queen's honor is sullied." etc. At no point is the character FORCED to do something. You might also be able to establish that you have purified your soul and purged yourself of these base feelings through some sort of action declarations which succeed. I don't know, these are things that I can imagine happening in a game of this sort and none of them involve forcing anyone's character to do anything.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I mean it requires the character to be an actual, well a _character,_ to have personality, values etc and the GM to be aware of what these are. Which to me seems like a pretty standard assumption in any RPG that is not some sort of utterly mindless hack and slash.




Well, no. I'm not trying to render judgment on any style of play. My earliest RPG play was Basic D&D followed quickly by AD&D. We made characters, we went into the dungeon to kill monsters and take their stuff. I would not say this was mindless hack and slash because it was incredibly formative for me and many of my friends. It also involved a great deal of problems solving and a pretty strong imagination. 

None of our characters in those games had any overt indications to the DM about what we'd like to see happen in play, or what our characters goals would be, beyond the default assumption of "accrue treasure and magic loot, grow in power and influence". 

The fact that later games have said to give these things to characters, but have to varying degrees actually provided some framework for them is another matter entirely. 

Also, I've played plenty of games where I create a character and play doesn't necessarily revolve around his goals or anything. I don't think that means I'm not playing a character.....it just means the focus of play is elsewhere, most likely some common goal shared by the group. those games are perfectly worthwhile for me and I enjoy them. Would I say that they're high on player agency? Nope.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't know PV, so I cannot say what the actual mechanic is there, but I can certainly imagine a game where it is decided by the GM, as framing, that "Your character's lust is aroused by the Queen."



If one could decide of their own volition whether their character lusts after the queen doesn’t that result in more agency than not being able to make that decision at all?

The choice will have meaningful consequences or at least potentially so.  In other words, framing in circumstances like you indicated above do take away a players agency.


----------



## Manbearcat

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Aside: I saw the Czege Principle get invoked a few times over the course of the thread, and I just want to say that current designers don't really take it as a given anymore (if it ever was, I don't know). In particular, solo RPGs are growing in popularity, and if I understand the formulation of _"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun" _correctly, those games completely fly in the Czege Principle's face.
> 
> Not sure what implications this aside has for the current discussion of agency, vaguely feeling there may be a thread to pull here but not sure what it is.
> 
> Supporting quote, with relevant text reposted below:
> 
> _"In my opinion, there have been a wealth of amazing solo RPGs that have effectively challenged the Czege Principle. Creative answers have emerged to the question, "how CAN it be fun for a player to introduce and resolve their own opposition?"_




Ive seen this before.

Here is what I’ll say on it:

1) I think it’s a little too abstracted and “fun” isn’t remotely concrete enough of a marker.  Where it has use is if you sub out "isn't fun" and sub in "isn't tested and therefore there can be no 'meaningful decisions' because 'meaningful decisions' in games require (a) a premise and (b) extra-volitional opposition."

2)  Authorship means no (b).  However, if there is (b) (again, assuming (a) exists), then we have a test and downstream meaningful decisions that will distill whatever is relevant to the premise (even if the player has input into the initial framing; eg "player-authored kicker in indie games").


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> On the first part, I brought that up because I’m fairly certain CL brought that up early and (a) I believe it was because he was smuggling “immersion as coefficient to agency” into the calculus and (b) it was relevant to my point (2).
> 
> On the second part, this is where “meaningful” comes in. I don’t agree that “meaningful” is subjective when it comes to game theory. It can easily be sussed out what it means in any given situation (and it relates to the Czege Principle). It’s not a moral judgement.
> 
> “Meaningful” connotes an actual trial or crucible about a thing staked (which presumably is either THE premise or A significant premise of play). For this we need (a) framing/framework, (b) one or more obstacles/adversity/sources of antagonism, and (c) means (of which we don’t possess autonomy over) to resolve what happens when our guile/guts/will/skill collide with (a) and (b).
> 
> I think we can all agree that maps onto dungeon-crawls with its walls and traps and puzzles and monsters and loadout and resolution procedures. From the intersection of this crucible, our decisions are tested and given _meaning (through this crucible we can derive if we are sufficiently skilled or not)._
> 
> Why can’t this formula be mapped elsewhere; _through this crucible we can derive if my PC’s brother is a hero or a scoundrel and then how my PC now perceives his brother and/or the nature of heroes ad scoundrels?)_



Seems like a rather narrow definition of meaningful.

Whether it’s objectively meaningful or just meaningful to me, it matters to me how my character plays.  If something is going to force my character to play or think or feel a certain way it is removing from me a meaningful choice, aka agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> On the first paragraph, I need some clarity:
> 
> Is it your opinion that if you don't have complete autonomy over a thing/situation then there is no agency erected?  If you're not saying that, but you are saying that _x_ % autonomy is required, then what value (obviously roughly) is _x_?



I hope I understood you correctly. Of course agency over certain thing can be partial, and if that was a thing you want to have agency over, more is better! Now if we are talking about internal life of the character, as a player, I prefer to have almost complete control. Now some brief, passing 'guiding'* influences might be tolerable, but things that somehow permanently alter my character's values, personality etc without my approval would be a no go.

*By this I mean a situation where the character is briefly affected in some way, and this might make doing some things harder, (or easier) but ultimately I get to decide how I handle it. 



Manbearcat said:


> On your 2nd paragraph, that is precisely why I invoked The Czege Principle and Ouija Board play.  If (a) you get to decide if a thing you care about is tested and (b) the outcome of the test is 100 % volitional, then where is the crucible?  If there is no crucible then there is no test.  There is just moving a planchette across a board and pretending there is some external volitional force at work and the attendant theatrics.



But you don't get to decide when it is tested, as you don't control the world nor do you control the other players, and all these may challenge your values. A crude example: A character has a value X and belief Y. A situation arises where following belief Y would lead them to violate value X. Though of course it is usually far more subtler and more complicated than that. A lot of LARPs run solely on this: characters interacting with other characters that are written to challenge their values and beliefs. (Come to think of it, a lot of reality TV shows choose their contestants based on this same principle...)


----------



## Crimson Longinus

FrogReaver said:


> Seems like a rather narrow definition of meaningful.
> 
> Whether it’s objectively meaningful or just meaningful to me, it matters to me how my character plays.  If something is going to force my character to play or think or feel a certain way it is removing from me a meaningful choice, aka agency.



Yeah, this too. Very succinct.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> But rpgs don’t have to test those things, at least not directly and definitely not using mechanical resolution.
> 
> The question I would use: Is my choice about those things meaningful to how my character plays?  If so then that is a meaningful choice which is at the heart of agency.



The point is, the game cannot be ABOUT those things, unless there is some arrangement wherein the test of them is the function of one participant in the game, and the formulation and motive to resolve/explore them comes from a different participant (Czege Principle). In a 5e game you can say that your character wants to "Avenge his father" and make that a central motivation, but unless you can actually put that to test within the fiction (IE will you let the orphans burn in order to track your father's killer) then it isn't really central. In this example it cannot happen unless either the GM adds this content to play, or the player somehow evokes it via mechanics/process. 

I mean, sure, RPGs don't need to test anything about the character, but then what is the character to the story? It is just a 'game piece', right? I mean this would be very true if all your abilities, AC, HP, etc. didn't matter and combat was decided by a coin toss, or by narrative description. It is equally true about the PC's beliefs and personality. If they are only addressed by narrative description or by happenstance, then they really don't matter. At best they will be minor factors in the game. Only by testing them, and for the same reason we have a combat system mechanics are beneficial here.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> The 'test' can be a narrative one, rather than mechanical one. It happens via interacting with the environment and the other characters.



Why do we have a combat system in D&D? The 'test' can be a narrative one, can it not?


----------



## Campbell

@PsyzhranV2

I think Avery is wrong if we are talking about roleplaying games that are actually like games. Roleplaying games test our ability to position our characters within a shared fiction. For gameplay to exist that needs to have teeth. From OSR play to indie blood operas the Czege principle allows players to take on a character advocacy stance so they can use their skill at fictional positioning to achieve the game's objectives. They become things you can play well.

I really like playing For The Queen, The Quiet Year and Dream Askew. However they really feel more like shared experiences than games to me. There's no real sense of mastery there. 

I personally think they 'we have moved on' narrative is often overused. I mean the OSR community shows there is real value in some wisdom of the past.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Why do we have a combat system in D&D? The 'test' can be a narrative one, can it not?



Sure, it can. I've done that. It is however not how D&D is designed to be run.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

It is possible that Czege principle might be an useful guideline, but I have a feeling that people are taking it _far_ too literally and mechanistically.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> In a 5e game you can say that your character wants to "Avenge his father" and make that a central motivation, but unless you can actually put that to test within the fiction (IE will you let the orphans burn in order to track your father's killer) then it isn't really central. In this example it cannot happen unless either the GM adds this content to play, or the player somehow evokes it via mechanics/process.



Funny you should mention that. In one of the 5E campaigns I'm running, a player decided his character was going to want to avenge his whole family. First information appeared in Session Five. The party killed the thing that killed his family in Session 41. They're now (as of Session 65) working their way up the food chain, working to fix something connected to what killed his family (a greater wrong than that, probably). Yes, that campaign is going exceptionally well, but it's clearly within the range of what 5E can do.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, sure, RPGs don't need to test anything about the character, but then what is the character to the story? It is just a 'game piece', right? I mean this would be very true if all your abilities, AC, HP, etc. didn't matter and combat was decided by a coin toss, or by narrative description. It is equally true about the PC's beliefs and personality. If they are only addressed by narrative description or by happenstance, then they really don't matter. At best they will be minor factors in the game. Only by testing them, and for the same reason we have a combat system mechanics are beneficial here.



I'd be inclined to say the party has been tested, in their various goals and ideals, even without using the relatively weak mechanics in 5E for doing so (and they are weak, and I don't like them). I think the in-story resolutions were more satisfying than if they'd been triggered mechanically--but then, I would, and others will of course have other preferences/tastes.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

PsyzhranV2 said:


> Aside: I saw the Czege Principle get invoked a few times over the course of the thread, and I just want to say that current designers don't really take it as a given anymore (if it ever was, I don't know). In particular, solo RPGs are growing in popularity, and if I understand the formulation of _"When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun" _correctly, those games completely fly in the Czege Principle's face.
> 
> Not sure what implications this aside has for the current discussion of agency, vaguely feeling there may be a thread to pull here but not sure what it is.
> 
> Supporting quote, with relevant text reposted below:
> 
> _"In my opinion, there have been a wealth of amazing solo RPGs that have effectively challenged the Czege Principle. Creative answers have emerged to the question, "how CAN it be fun for a player to introduce and resolve their own opposition?"_



Well, my response to this is that I am not in agreement. That is, any such conclusion based on solo games is taking a very narrow position. I would state that all the solo games I'm aware of generate conflict as a purely mechanical process. So there is a 'game engine' which is responsible for throwing up obstacles, and then the player resolves them. I suppose such a game might also put the player in much more of a 'spectator' role, making it almost like a novel, where the author of the game, or the game engine takes on both roles. Anyway, solo games tend to be VERY niche. Each game has only a very small number of elements and only addresses a very fixed and limited milieu and set of situations. Again, this is more 'novel like' than RPG-like.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Your attempts to control the language and impose your worldview is not helpful and makes discussion more difficult. (Also inertial forces are useful concepts for discussing physics.)



Hey, if you just want to throw out things like "control the language" and not participate, be my guest, but please don't blame me for clearly stating my position, or accuse me of vaguely sinister things like "attempts to control the language."  This looks paranoid.

Also, there's no such thing as inertia forces.  Nor are they useful for discussing physics -- this is how centrifugal force persists.


Crimson Longinus said:


> 'Gamestate' is here used as another way to arbitrarily divide thing that happen in game to those that matter and those that do, according to the preferences of the speaker, in attempt to represent a subjective judgement as a basis of something objective.



I... uh... I'm actually struck momentarily speechless by this claim.  You're saying that what's happening in the game is an arbitrary division from some other, non-game thing, that you want to be part of the game, but not part of the game?  I can't even follow this.  

Gamestate is just shorthand for holistically referring to what's going on in the game.  However hard you imagine what your character is thinking, though, this isn't part of the game until you actualize it in the game.  You may think you're playing the game, but you're just imagining things (literally).  The game doesn't care, nor does anyone else, until and unless you introduce it to the game.  That's the only place where you can then evaluate agency -- does your introduction result in agency for you, the player?  Most of the time, it doesn't.  I mean, talking in funny voices with the other players is hella fun, I love it, but it doesn't do anything agency wise within the game -- it's, in fact, a meta-game of entertaining your friends, which you can do with or without the RPG you're playing.  It's just freeform roleplay, for the most part.  It only impact agency in the game when you provide an action that the game can operate on.  I love acting out characters, but this isn't agency -- the game certainly doesn't allow or disallow it.  Just like the Monopoly discussion earlier -- a funny voice and some characterization does not add agency to Monopoly.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Whether they're 'different types of agency' or 'agency over different types of things' is meaningless semantics. The distinctions are nevertheless experienced, thus they're real.



Good I didn't make that argument, then, huh?


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Why do we have a combat system in D&D? The 'test' can be a narrative one, can it not?




My experience with purely narrative roleplay in my MUSHing days says "Yes."

Now, the question is, how stress-intensive (on a player-and-GM level) that would be in the majority of cases, and my personal suspicion is "Quite a bit."  I'd absolutely not care to be the GM for that.

I also have to note just as a side comment that its very clear that a large number of people are much, much less tolerant of mechanical resolution the farther you get from the avowedly physical sphere.  I understand why that is while not being entirely on-board it (and not entirely not).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> If one could decide of their own volition whether their character lusts after the queen doesn’t that result in more agency than not being able to make that decision at all?
> 
> The choice will have meaningful consequences or at least potentially so.  In other words, framing in circumstances like you indicated above do take away a players agency.



If you get to decide you lust after the Queen, and then choose how to resolve that lust, how is that anything but just the equivalent of saying "there's a sack of gold on the floor." and then "I pick it up." Sure, that is depicting your greediness I guess? I mean, there's nothing wrong with a player deciding to go for something, but then someone else needs to resolve what happens, right? You need a test, maybe you can seduce her, or maybe not! But what if you want to resist the temptation? Your formulation doesn't really allow for any meaningful exploration of that. Your character is no more exploring 'altruism' because he passes up the gold you invented on the floor, than he is if he passes on his lust for the Queen. 

One or the other, the lust or the resolution of the lust, must be handled by another agency, and since there are things at stake we usually commit at least some of that to a roll of the dice (not all games do this of course). I mean, I see nothing wrong with a player just 'doing color' by saying "My character thinks the Queen is hot, he's going to go take a shower." but big wow?


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If you get to decide you lust after the Queen, and then choose how to resolve that lust, how is that anything but just the equivalent of saying "there's a sack of gold on the floor." and then "I pick it up." Sure, that is depicting your greediness I guess? I mean, there's nothing wrong with a player deciding to go for something, but then someone else needs to resolve what happens, right? You need a test, maybe you can seduce her, or maybe not! But what if you want to resist the temptation? Your formulation doesn't really allow for any meaningful exploration of that. Your character is no more exploring 'altruism' because he passes up the gold you invented on the floor, than he is if he passes on his lust for the Queen.
> 
> One or the other, the lust or the resolution of the lust, must be handled by another agency, and since there are things at stake we usually commit at least some of that to a roll of the dice (not all games do this of course). I mean, I see nothing wrong with a player just 'doing color' by saying "My character thinks the Queen is hot, he's going to go take a shower." but big wow?



Pointing out that what I’m suggesting lacks agency of some type doesn’t show what you are suggesting doesn’t lack agency of some other type.

Keep in mind my argument is that there are many types of player agency and many of these are mutually exclusive.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Seems like a rather narrow definition of meaningful.
> 
> Whether it’s objectively meaningful or just meaningful to me, it matters to me how my character plays.  If something is going to force my character to play or think or feel a certain way it is removing from me a meaningful choice, aka agency.



Let's say your have a 5e character, with a background and everything, and a Bond that "family is everything."  During play, the GM puts family at risk (you've indicated this is something important to your character and imparted to the GM that this is a means by which you wish to receive Inspiration).  Does this violate your agency because you now have to decide if "family is everything" is actually right?

This is the kind of thing being discussed -- you've already made the choice that these things are up for grabs, and you absolutely get to decide how you react to them being put to the test.

It would be helpful if you'd stop guessing at what other play entails, especially when you have no practical experience or understanding of it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Pointing out that what I’m suggesting lacks agency of some type doesn’t show what you are suggesting doesn’t lack agency of some other type.
> 
> Keep in mind my argument is that there are many types of player agency and many of these are mutually exclusive.



Name two mutually exclusive forms of player agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Name two mutually exclusive forms of player agency.



What kind of a question is this coming from one who doesn’t even believe there are multiple types of player agency


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Funny you should mention that. In one of the 5E campaigns I'm running, a player decided his character was going to want to avenge his whole family. First information appeared in Session Five. The party killed the thing that killed his family in Session 41. They're now (as of Session 65) working their way up the food chain, working to fix something connected to what killed his family (a greater wrong than that, probably). Yes, that campaign is going exceptionally well, but it's clearly within the range of what 5E can do.
> 
> I'd be inclined to say the party has been tested, in their various goals and ideals, even without using the relatively weak mechanics in 5E for doing so (and they are weak, and I don't like them). I think the in-story resolutions were more satisfying than if they'd been triggered mechanically--but then, I would, and others will of course have other preferences/tastes.



Oh, I don't think it is impossible, or that hard, for a GM and players to 'figure it out', I just don't get why there is so much opposition to mechanics which can be applied to these things. There really are some aspects of this that cannot easily be handled the way you are talking about either. Those would include situations where the PC has some sort of idea or feeling imposed on them (the Launcelot example). You cannot explore that without some kind of process. Again, sufficiently 'woke' game participants could negotiate it, but its like why I asked if combat can be narrated. Sure, it CAN, but it virtually never is, and the reason is it just doesn't produce tension. It is also too hard to be objective about. GMs need the impartiality of the dice to produce that real danger of character death. Its hard to imagine a DM and players just narrating a TPK, right?


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Oh, I don't think it is impossible, or that hard, for a GM and players to 'figure it out', I just don't get why there is so much opposition to mechanics which can be applied to these things. There really are some aspects of this that cannot easily be handled the way you are talking about either. Those would include situations where the PC has some sort of idea or feeling imposed on them (the Launcelot example). You cannot explore that without some kind of process. Again, sufficiently 'woke' game participants could negotiate it, but its like why I asked if combat can be narrated. Sure, it CAN, but it virtually never is, and the reason is it just doesn't produce tension. It is also too hard to be objective about. GMs need the impartiality of the dice to produce that real danger of character death. Its hard to imagine a DM and players just narrating a TPK, right?



I think the answer to your puzzlement is in your post, here, and the broad subject of the thread: I think many players (I'm one) would find the long-term imposition of a mental state--such as Launcelot being unable to resist loving Guinevere, and unable to resist acting on it--on their character to be an unacceptable removal of agency. Some--I'll admit I'm one--maybe find that sort of lack-of-control too reminiscent of their real lives, and play (among other reasons) so they can control something in ways they can't in reality. As you say, it's not difficult to figure out how to put character goals at risk without such impositions.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If you get to decide you lust after the Queen, and then choose how to resolve that lust, how is that anything but just the equivalent of saying "there's a sack of gold on the floor." and then "I pick it up." Sure, that is depicting your greediness I guess? I mean, there's nothing wrong with a player deciding to go for something, but then someone else needs to resolve what happens, right? You need a test, maybe you can seduce her, or maybe not! But what if you want to resist the temptation? Your formulation doesn't really allow for any meaningful exploration of that. Your character is no more exploring 'altruism' because he passes up the gold you invented on the floor, than he is if he passes on his lust for the Queen.
> 
> One or the other, the lust or the resolution of the lust, must be handled by another agency, and since there are things at stake we usually commit at least some of that to a roll of the dice (not all games do this of course). I mean, I see nothing wrong with a player just 'doing color' by saying "My character thinks the Queen is hot, he's going to go take a shower." but big wow?



Seems pretty trivial to depict your character as lusting after the queen but trying to keep himself in check.  

Or to pass altogether given that the king beheads those who look lustfully upon the queen.

in any event I’ve lost agency if I don’t get to make such meaningful character choices.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Hey, if you just want to throw out things like "control the language" and not participate, be my guest, but please don't blame me for clearly stating my position, or accuse me of vaguely sinister things like "attempts to control the language."  This looks paranoid.



You are trying to define terms so that they support your narrative. And it is not helpful. It is helpful for me to be able to say 'I care a lot about agency over the mental states of my character,' most people understand pretty clearly what I mean, this is a sensible use of language.



Ovinomancer said:


> Also, there's no such thing as inertia forces.  Nor are they useful for discussing physics -- this is how centrifugal force persists.



Inertial forces may not be real forces but they're real concepts. In physics that indeed is meaningful distinction, but when we are talking something like games, that that are purely social constructs, that is not. There is no 'real agency' it is not a physical thing, it is just a concept.



Ovinomancer said:


> I... uh... I'm actually struck momentarily speechless by this claim.  You're saying that what's happening in the game is an arbitrary division from some other, non-game thing, that you want to be part of the game, but not part of the game?  I can't even follow this.
> 
> Gamestate is just shorthand for holistically referring to what's going on in the game.  However hard you imagine what your character is thinking, though, this isn't part of the game until you actualize it in the game.  You may think you're playing the game, but you're just imagining things (literally).  The game doesn't care, nor does anyone else, until and unless you introduce it to the game.  That's the only place where you can then evaluate agency -- does your introduction result in agency for you, the player?  Most of the time, it doesn't.  I mean, talking in funny voices with the other players is hella fun, I love it, but it doesn't do anything agency wise within the game -- it's, in fact, a meta-game of entertaining your friends, which you can do with or without the RPG you're playing.  It's just freeform roleplay, for the most part.  It only impact agency in the game when you provide an action that the game can operate on.  I love acting out characters, but this isn't agency -- the game certainly doesn't allow or disallow it.  Just like the Monopoly discussion earlier -- a funny voice and some characterization does not add agency to Monopoly.



Dude, the whole game is just people imagining things! That's like the whole bloody point! The game _doesn't exist_ outside the imagination of the players. That my character is feeling sad is exactly equally valid 'game state' than an imaginary door being locked, and another character saying something to cheer my character up is just as valid alteration of a gamestate than a rogue picking the lock of that door by making a skill check.


----------



## FrogReaver

Maybe I should pose this question. Why would anyone not want to play in a game where they have agency over their characters mental/emotional states?

To me it seems the only reason one wouldn’t want that in a game is it was mutually exclusive with some other kind of agency they preferred more.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> What kind of a question is this coming from one who doesn’t even believe there are multiple types of player agency



If you can't answer, that's okay.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> You are trying to define terms so that they support your narrative. And it is not helpful. It is helpful for me to be able to say 'I care a lot about agency over the mental states of my character,' most people understand pretty clearly what I mean, this is a sensible use of language.



I'm not sure what you mean by defining terms specifically.  I look at what you wrote and clearly read it as "I care about having full authority over the mental states of my character."  This is a fine statement, absolutely nothing wrong with it as a preference, it just doesn't have anything to do with agency because there's nothing at stake to make a choice about -- it's empty calories.  It's also incorrect, in that I'm certain you haven't banned or refuse to play in games that feature Charm, Suggestion, Domination, or other effects/spells which rather forcefully usurp this authority you're referencing.

So, no, it's not about redefining things -- I've been very steady in all my used definitions from the start of this thread, and explained their underpinnings.  It's that you're using agency in ways where you just mean you have final authority, except when you don't but those cases are okay because you're used to them.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Inertial forces may not be real forces but they're real concepts. In physics that indeed is meaningful distinction, but when we are talking something like games, that that are purely social constructs, that is not. There is no 'real agency' it is not a physical thing, it is just a concept.



No, they're not real concepts.  Inertia is a concept.  It's not a force.  There's no concept of inertial force.  Physics doesn't use anything like "inertial forces."  Agency is a concept, but this is a hasty generalization.  Agency existing as a concept does not provide any substance to a different claim.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Dude, the whole game is just people imagining things! That's like the whole bloody point! The game _doesn't exist_ outside the imagination of the players. That my character is feeling sad is exactly equally valid 'game state' than an imaginary door being locked, and another character saying something to cheer my character up is just as valid alteration of a gamestate than a rogue picking the lock of that door by making a skill check.



Let's unpack this.  The game involves imagination, but it isn't imaginary.  There are rules that are not imagined as part of the game, for instance.  If we want to change the game, ie, that game involving those rules, then we have to act within those rules.  You imagining your character is sad has no weight within any RPG without an action involving the rules.  It is a separate thing.  A different game, which is what I said about this being a meta-game where you entertain your friends but don't invoke the game rules.  Now, if you state that your character is sad, and this imposes a gamestate within the rules that other players can interact with with those rules, then we're in agency land, because we're operating on choices that have consequences.  If it's just you and your friend Bob having a sideline pretend game about your character being sad and Bob saying nice things, that's awesome!  I do that all the time -- one of my fondest memories around games was having a 20 minute in character conversation about whether or not another character made a shot while my character was unconscious -- I played my character as not believing it and the other player tried to convince that it happened.  Twenty minutes, in character, hella fun.  And at no point did it involve any agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe I should pose this question. Why would anyone not want to play in a game where they have agency over their characters mental/emotional states?
> 
> To me it seems the only reason one wouldn’t want that in a game is it was mutually exclusive with some other kind of agency they preferred more.



I'd say it would have to be a peculiar thing for me to agree to play such a game.  If this seems to not reconcile with anything I've said here, then you should consider if you have an incorrect understanding of my arguments.  No game I've played lacks this agency, although 5e has less than others and more than some.  I mean, Dominate and such being a thing is kinda a huge sticking point in claiming 5e has more of this than other games.  It has absolute negation of this agency in ways that other games I've played largely lack.  The closest thing in Blades is what happens if you fail a Resist against a hostile ghost manifestation, and which usually ends up as some kind of fear reaction.


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> @PsyzhranV2
> 
> I think Avery is wrong if we are talking about roleplaying games that are actually like games. Roleplaying games test our ability to position our characters within a shared fiction. For gameplay to exist that needs to have teeth. From OSR play to indie blood operas the Czege principle allows players to take on a character advocacy stance so they can use their skill at fictional positioning to achieve the game's objectives. They become things you can play well.
> 
> I really like playing For The Queen, The Quiet Year and Dream Askew. However they really feel more like shared experiences than games to me. There's no real sense of mastery there.
> 
> I personally think they 'we have moved on' narrative is often overused. I mean the OSR community shows there is real value in some wisdom of the past.




Couldn't agree more with this (both the first two paragraphs and the sentiment of the last one).

I think too often people try to bin way too many things into one category.  Ultimately, whatever the original thing was becomes meaningless and impossible to untangle and talk about.  While it certainly doesn't intend to do so, it makes talking about design and actually putting the thing into effect extremely fraught.

Games (a) require gamestates of which the trajectory is both (b) in the balance and (c) up for grabs (d) whereby skillfulness/effort is deployed > tested > mediated by <thing> in order to wrest that trajectory from the machinations of one participant to another.

If that doesn't exist, then "shared experience" or merely "play" is probably the term for what we should be discussing. This is pretty trivially illustrated:

* "Make Believe" is a form of "play" or "shared experience" but its not a "game."

* "Calvinball" is a term we're all familiar with because it is a "would-be game" that has degenerated to "not game" status precisely because none of (b) nor (c) nor (d) above are actually true in practice.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by defining terms specifically.  I look at what you wrote and clearly read it as "I care about having full authority over the mental states of my character."  This is a fine statement, absolutely nothing wrong with it as a preference, it just doesn't have anything to do with agency because there's nothing at stake to make a choice about -- it's empty calories.



I disagree. I don't accept your definition.



Ovinomancer said:


> It's also incorrect, in that I'm certain you haven't banned or refuse to play in games that feature Charm, Suggestion, Domination, or other effects/spells which rather forcefully usurp this authority you're referencing.



That I place a high priority on something doesn't automatically mean that I need to be absolutist about it. Like if I care about eating healthy, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't ever eat snacks. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Let's unpack this.  The game involves imagination, but it isn't imaginary.  There are rules that are not imagined as part of the game, for instance.  If we want to change the game, ie, that game involving those rules, then we have to act within those rules.  You imagining your character is sad has no weight within any RPG without an action involving the rules.  It is a separate thing.  A different game, which is what I said about this being a meta-game where you entertain your friends but don't invoke the game rules.  Now, if you state that your character is sad, and this imposes a gamestate within the rules that other players can interact with with those rules, then we're in agency land, because we're operating on choices that have consequences.  If it's just you and your friend Bob having a sideline pretend game about your character being sad and Bob saying nice things, that's awesome!  I do that all the time -- one of my fondest memories around games was having a 20 minute in character conversation about whether or not another character made a shot while my character was unconscious -- I played my character as not believing it and the other player tried to convince that it happened.  Twenty minutes, in character, hella fun.  And at no point did it involve any agency.



And I do not accept this definition. It is incoherent and it is not useful. In a roleplaying game a lot of things can happen and only some of them interact with rules. The rules are not the game, the game is the whole experience, and that experience only exists in the minds of players. Agency does not mean 'ability to interact with rules,' it means ability to meaningfully affect the events in the game, and this doesn't need to involve any rules. Hell, by your definition railroading does not affect agency as it has nothing to do with rules. And speaking of further bizarre definitions, you define acting in character as meta-game, which is pretty much the exact opposite to what is normally meant by it!

Anyway, I have no further interest to hear about your attempts to reinvent language.


----------



## Campbell

@Crimson Longinus

What you and @FrogReaver are talking about seems more like a sense of ownership than a sense of agency to me. You are talking about feeling that you have complete control of what belongs to you. Agency is about action. Acting on the external world. It's about affecting change in the outside world rather than protecting what you already have.

So I do not think you need specific mechanics to have a sense of agency. What you do need is a shared expectation that everyone at the table is committed to respecting and following the shared fiction over their personal conception of the things they "own".  Those expectations are very much a part of the rules of many games. When we can disregard fictional positioning anytime it is convenient than there is no real agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> @Crimson Longinus
> 
> What you and @FrogReaver are talking about seems more like a sense of ownership than a sense of agency to me. You are talking about feeling that you have complete control of what belongs to you. Agency is about action. Acting on the external world. It's about affecting change in the outside world rather than protecting what you already have.



I don't think you are really wrong, but you are not really right either.  I don't really know how one can have agency over something and not have a sense of ownership of it.  After all player agency implies that it is the player making the decisions and the player facing the consequences of his decisions.  So I would say agency inherently produces a sense of ownership.  In which case, trying to decouple the 2 concepts to the degree that you can criticize me for conflating agency with ownership just doesn't work.



Campbell said:


> So I do not think you need specific mechanics to have a sense of agency. What you do need is a shared expectation that everyone at the table is committed to respecting and following the shared fiction over their personal conception of the things they "own".  Those expectations are very much a part of the rules of many games. When we can disregard fictional positioning anytime it is convenient than there is no real agency.




A single action only has a single agent.  So if another player is exerting agency over something then you are not - at least not at that moment.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I disagree. I don't accept your definition.



Yes, this is clear, however what you're proposing in it's place is not.  Best I can figure it's a combination of retaining the ability to try things, subject to the GM's resolution authority, and to have full control over your character's imagined mental state, ignoring those mechanics that strip this control because you're used to them.  It's not coherent when you have to ignore mechanics.

Further, neither you nor @FrogReaver has yet addressed the fundamental problem with the accusation I'm trying to control the language to win a point -- I both say that 5e has less agency AND advocate for it as a fun game to play.  If my intent was to control the language to win a point, why would I then enthusiastically proclaim that I like 5e?  Because my intent is to analyze play, not score points or claim a "better" game.  If I lack an ulterior motive such as this, why would I use tactics that support such a thing rather than being honest and clear about what's happening in play?


Crimson Longinus said:


> That I place a high priority on something doesn't automatically mean that I need to be absolutist about it. Like if I care about eating healthy, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't ever eat snacks.



This is incoherent because we're not talking about mostly acting healthy, we're defining what it means to act in a healthy manner.  You've moved the goalposts from defining agency to not caring all the time about having agency.  If agency is defined by having total control over your character's "inner life" (ad argumentum), then examples of these effect must reduce that agency.  It's not a matter of having a cheat day, it's an attack against the premise.

That you can be fine with such reductions is a matter of preference, but now you've adopted my core argument while trying to deny it -- reductions in agency aren't an evil, they're just part of a game, and we can like or dislike that reduction like we can any other thing.  If this is the case, we don't need to do the strange definition of things such that you can try to both claim that agency is control over your character's "inner life" but the commonality of game mechanics that thwart this is not important to that agency.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And I do not accept this definition. It is incoherent and it is not useful. In a roleplaying game a lot of things can happen and only some of them interact with rules. The rules are not the game, the game is the whole experience, and that experience only exists in the minds of players. Agency does not mean 'ability to interact with rules,' it means ability to meaningfully affect the events in the game, and this doesn't need to involve any rules. Hell, by your definition railroading does not affect agency as it has nothing to do with rules. And speaking of further bizarre definitions, you define acting in character as meta-game, which is pretty much the exact opposite to what is normally meant by it!



Of course agency doesn't mean ability to interact with the rules.  But agency only can exist where a choice is made and tested.  There's lots of ways to do this, and when we do this, it's important to look at how that test works and who has authority over resolutions.  In that case, if only one person ever has authority over that resolution after the test and it's not the player in question, then we can definitively say that this is less player agency than if the player has at least some authority in resolutions after the test.  This is what I meant by interacting with the game.  You imagining things in your head isn't part of the game until it's brought into test within the game.  And that's where agency lives -- not in your ability to imagine a thing, but whether or not you can place that imagined thing into the shared fiction.  


Crimson Longinus said:


> Anyway, I have no further interest to hear about your attempts to reinvent language.



It's funny you say this, and I address it above -- I have no motive to reinvent language, and you've yet to show that any of the ways I've used words is different from how they're normally used.  You just keep asserting that I'm doing so.  Please do the work.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I think the answer to your puzzlement is in your post, here, and the broad subject of the thread: I think many players (I'm one) would find the long-term imposition of a mental state--such as Launcelot being unable to resist loving Guinevere, and unable to resist acting on it--on their character to be an unacceptable removal of agency. Some--I'll admit I'm one--maybe find that sort of lack-of-control too reminiscent of their real lives, and play (among other reasons) so they can control something in ways they can't in reality. As you say, it's not difficult to figure out how to put character goals at risk without such impositions.



I would say that these types of games are pretty heavily focused on "what do you want to explore?" So, I can't speak to all games and GMs, but IMHO someone imposing things on you at the table which offend you or make you uncomfortable are social table issues. There must surely be many Arthurian tales which can be told where the elements you're uninterested in don't appear. Possibly some genre don't work for you, like there are possibly some I don't find to be to my taste either.

I mean, I've played with people with phobias, and I've certainly played with people who would be uninterested in RPing various social elements of real life (prejudice for example) or stories with elements of personal violence, etc. Those are all things that should be respected at any table, regardless of rules, and if a GM's answer to "don't bring this to the table" is "its part of the genre/story/setting" then that is someone who needs common decency explained to them at length...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Seems pretty trivial to depict your character as lusting after the queen but trying to keep himself in check.
> 
> Or to pass altogether given that the king beheads those who look lustfully upon the queen.
> 
> in any event I’ve lost agency if I don’t get to make such meaningful character choices.



Sure, but there's no tension there. It isn't dramatic. It isn't exploring anything, and it surely isn't anything like how people experience these sorts of feelings in real life. So how can it be satisfying and immersive? I hear all these cries about how players being part of choosing the story is anti-immersive, but here's an example of a whole class of characterizations which really doesn't work in any immersive way without this sort of process. There is no 'gain of agency' when you have to play both sides of the situation. It is no different from saying that dungeons are bad because they have walls and there's a rule that you can't walk through them!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> You are trying to define terms so that they support your narrative. And it is not helpful. It is helpful for me to be able to say 'I care a lot about agency over the mental states of my character,' most people understand pretty clearly what I mean, this is a sensible use of language.
> 
> 
> Inertial forces may not be real forces but they're real concepts. In physics that indeed is meaningful distinction, but when we are talking something like games, that that are purely social constructs, that is not. There is no 'real agency' it is not a physical thing, it is just a concept.
> 
> 
> Dude, the whole game is just people imagining things! That's like the whole bloody point! The game _doesn't exist_ outside the imagination of the players. That my character is feeling sad is exactly equally valid 'game state' than an imaginary door being locked, and another character saying something to cheer my character up is just as valid alteration of a gamestate than a rogue picking the lock of that door by making a skill check.



Yes, these are all game states, but lets examine this 'loss of agency' thing again. Suppose you enter into a dungeon and encounter a wall. This is a game state, right? We both define it as such. This obstacle is attached to a rule "you cannot walk through walls" (probably unstated, but lets call it a 'genre rule'). You can obviously try to argue, exactly analogously to your character mental state argument, that this is an imposition on player agency. But we will both plainly reject this specious argument, won't we? Why is it specious? Because there cannot be agency without the necessity of choice, without some obstacle to choose how to navigate, without some 'terrain' for the characters to operate within, there is no meaning to the term 'agency'. If I say to you "your character is in an infinite void, there is nothing in any direction stretching to infinity" it is plainly obvious that nothing can happen here and 'agency' is a worthless concept! 

You're not 'losing agency' when someone says "You lust after the Queen" you are simply in a different game state! It isn't any different from that dungeon wall. Again, this is where, in the end, I have to entirely bow to @pemerton's argument about agency. Agency as defined as "degrees of freedom of movement within the entirety of the state space of the game fictional state." isn't meaningful. It is only meaningful to talk about agency IN RELATION TO THINGS THE CHARACTER WANTS/NEEDS/DESIRES! Or maybe something closely related to that. I mean, that can be as simple as 'gold coin' (classic D&D). It doesn't have to be.

I'm all with you on what tastes you have and being told you lust after the Queen not being one of them, fine. But in the final analysis, its "can we have a story with the elements we desire in it?" that is all that can be the measure of agency when talking about an imaginary world.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, but there's no tension there. It isn't dramatic. It isn't exploring anything, and it surely isn't anything like how people experience these sorts of feelings in real life.



First, I don’t think it matters how people experience such things in real life.  We aren’t trying to replicate real life IMO.  At best we are trying to replicate our perception of real life and those perceptions can be dramatically different. 

On the dramatic, I think that depends on how much forethought you put into your character. My D&D play often has me not having concluded what my character will do in a situation until right before the moment I have him fictionally do it. Assuming the scene is not trivial that provides a great deal of drama for me.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> So how can it be satisfying and immersive? I hear all these cries about how players being part of choosing the story is anti-immersive, but here's an example of a whole class of characterizations which really doesn't work in any immersive way without this sort of process. There is no 'gain of agency' when you have to play both sides of the situation. It is no different from saying that dungeons are bad because they have walls and there's a rule that you can't walk through



I don’t think I follow this part.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, these are all game states, but lets examine this 'loss of agency' thing again. Suppose you enter into a dungeon and encounter a wall. This is a game state, right? We both define it as such. This obstacle is attached to a rule "you cannot walk through walls" (probably unstated, but lets call it a 'genre rule'). You can obviously try to argue, exactly analogously to your character mental state argument, that this is an imposition on player agency. But we will both plainly reject this specious argument, won't we? Why is it specious? Because there cannot be agency without the necessity of choice, without some obstacle to choose how to navigate, without some 'terrain' for the characters to operate within, there is no meaning to the term 'agency'. If I say to you "your character is in an infinite void, there is nothing in any direction stretching to infinity" it is plainly obvious that nothing can happen here and 'agency' is a worthless concept!
> 
> You're not 'losing agency' when someone says "You lust after the Queen" you are simply in a different game state! It isn't any different from that dungeon wall. Again, this is where, in the end, I have to entirely bow to @pemerton's argument about agency. Agency as defined as "degrees of freedom of movement within the entirety of the state space of the game fictional state." isn't meaningful. It is only meaningful to talk about agency IN RELATION TO THINGS THE CHARACTER WANTS/NEEDS/DESIRES! Or maybe something closely related to that. I mean, that can be as simple as 'gold coin' (classic D&D). It doesn't have to be.
> 
> I'm all with you on what tastes you have and being told you lust after the Queen not being one of them, fine. But in the final analysis, its "can we have a story with the elements we desire in it?" that is all that can be the measure of agency when talking about an imaginary world.



Almost sounds like everything is a game state which makes it a rather meaningless term IMO. 

If everything is a game state then by necessity some game states must reduce agency.

In which case I don’t see how calling it a game state does anything to show that framing a character as  “lusting after the queen” isn’t an agency reducing game state.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Campbell said:


> @Crimson Longinus
> 
> What you and @FrogReaver are talking about seems more like a sense of ownership than a sense of agency to me. You are talking about feeling that you have complete control of what belongs to you. Agency is about action. Acting on the external world. It's about affecting change in the outside world rather than protecting what you already have.
> 
> So I do not think you need specific mechanics to have a sense of agency. What you do need is a shared expectation that everyone at the table is committed to respecting and following the shared fiction over their personal conception of the things they "own".  Those expectations are very much a part of the rules of many games. When we can disregard fictional positioning anytime it is convenient than there is no real agency.



Right, so I think we CAN talk about classifications of agency with respect to specific ELEMENTS of a game. That is, the game is a progression of states (@Manbearcat described this in his last post above). There are 'conditions' which must appertain to a transition from one such state to another. Players can have agency over those transitions by virtue of what fictional statements they can make ("I walk down the corridor and turn left at the T intersection"). They can also have agency with respect to the nature of the following state (maybe in some game a check can be made to see if I 'found a treasure', and if I invoke that and succeed then I have entered the 'found a treasure' state). Usually that kind of agency comes with 'strings attached', which 'drive the story'. Maybe in this hypothetical game failing 'Found a Treasure Check' means 'found a monster' state is entered. This is what we mean by 'staking something', the monster is dangerous, the player staked the character's existence on the check to find a treasure. 

Thus it isn't totally unfair to say that there are "agency with respect to describing/taking an action" and "agency with respect to inventing a new game state". So the difference between 'classic RP', 'story teller RP', and 'narrative RP' involves some differences in the allocation of this to participants. In all forms of RP the players have the first type of agency WRT their PCs, with the caveat that there may be 'special game states' which suspend that, and that the conditions which must be met to transition from one state to another are not to be understood as 'voiding agency' but merely to 'giving it narrative force'. Without these conditions the RPG is not a game, because the 'game' part mostly involves those conditions, the problems that must be overcome by the characters. When we consider the Czege Principle then we find that primary authority over those conditions needs to rest with a party which doesn't face them, so game master (or maybe some rules process, such as in combat in D&D).  The second type of agency is much less constrained, potentially, at least in game design terms. Instead it is constrained by the desired material content, theme, genre, etc which the participants wish to experience. 

It is the second type that we have been mostly debating about here, except for this aside about "mental states", which if you analyze the model above you will see is not really important.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> In which case I don’t see how calling it a game state does anything to show that framing a character as  “lusting after the queen” isn’t an agency reducing game state.



I believe the contention is that if there isn't some mechanical restriction that derives from "lusting after the queen" then it's not really a game state.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I believe the contention is that if there isn't some mechanical restriction that derives from "lusting after the queen" then it's not really a game state.



Possibly different contentions from different posters. That’s definitely not how I read the last post.


----------



## Campbell

prabe said:


> I believe the contention is that if there isn't some mechanical restriction that derives from "lusting after the queen" then it's not really a game state.




I would not say that. I would say if your play is not being constrained it is not really part of the shared fiction. Like if you as a player can just ignore it without anyone else calling you out for it not part of the game state / shared fiction.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> I would not say that. I would say if your play is not being constrained it is not really part of the shared fiction. Like if you as a player can just ignore it without anyone else calling you out for it not part of the game state / shared fiction.



I believe I am reading you as saying that strong table norms/expectations can adequately constrain play in the absence of mechanics? Having seen it happen, I'd agree.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> First, I don’t think it matters how people experience such things in real life.  We aren’t trying to replicate real life IMO.  At best we are trying to replicate our perception of real life and those perceptions can be dramatically different.



I thought verisimilitude was also a core value for those who ascribe to this sort of in-character agency? But here, emulating a human being's psychology is regarded as non-consequential for roleplay. Strange.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> I thought verisimilitude was also a core value for those who ascribe to this sort of in-character agency? But here, emulating a human being's psychology is regarded as non-consequential for roleplay. Strange.



The contention was that doing such does NOT lead to verisimilitude. It depends not on how human psychology actually works (which we are still a long way from fully understanding) but how one perceives it as working.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I believe the contention is that if there isn't some mechanical restriction that derives from "lusting after the queen" then it's not really a game state.



It doesn't have to be 'mechanical', it just has to 'have consequence'. If it doesn't impose some sort of condition on the transition to a new game state, then it doesn't have any salience. It is, at best, color. There's nothing WRONG with color, and I'm not knocking it at all, but color is not the same as substance in the game. It is like saying you can RP Monopoly because you can talk like a real estate tycoon. Yes, it is RP, but it isn't part of the game. It has no salience. Even if the player now explains his further actions on the basis of that color, that's just a preference he has for what his next move is. 

IMHO at least, 'RPG' means the RP part has salience in the G part, it matters. If the Player just says "My character lusts after the Queen, so he leaves court." that's fine, but its color. By the rules of the game he can just come back and forget about it, or just imagine resisting his own impulses. There's no condition here, either a genre rule nor a mechanic, which gives it salience. It attains salience if, for example, the GM rules that when he comes back he has to overcome a 'lust check' or else he's going to lose control! Now something is at stake! There's a condition, an actual thing in the game that makes his choice matter, just like if he ran into a wall, he'd have to choose how to negotiate that, and climbing it might involve some risk.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> The contention was that doing such does NOT lead to verisimilitude. It depends not on how human psychology actually works (which we are still a long way from fully understanding) but how one perceives it as working.



So we are NOT trying to replicate real life per your earlier assertion?


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It doesn't have to be 'mechanical', it just has to 'have consequence'. If it doesn't impose some sort of condition on the transition to a new game state, then it doesn't have any salience. It is, at best, color. There's nothing WRONG with color, and I'm not knocking it at all, but color is not the same as substance in the game. It is like saying you can RP Monopoly because you can talk like a real estate tycoon. Yes, it is RP, but it isn't part of the game. It has no salience. Even if the player now explains his further actions on the basis of that color, that's just a preference he has for what his next move is.
> 
> IMHO at least, 'RPG' means the RP part has salience in the G part, it matters. If the Player just says "My character lusts after the Queen, so he leaves court." that's fine, but its color. By the rules of the game he can just come back and forget about it, or just imagine resisting his own impulses. There's no condition here, either a genre rule nor a mechanic, which gives it salience. It attains salience if, for example, the GM rules that when he comes back he has to overcome a 'lust check' or else he's going to lose control! Now something is at stake! There's a condition, an actual thing in the game that makes his choice matter, just like if he ran into a wall, he'd have to choose how to negotiate that, and climbing it might involve some risk.



Unlike monopoly, details about my character are salient to the game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> The contention was that doing such does NOT lead to verisimilitude. It depends not on how human psychology actually works (which we are still a long way from fully understanding) but how one perceives it as working.



Surely we all agree that we mostly lack complete control over our own mental state, right? I mean, you would have to be 'Spock' to say you completely control your emotions. How can such complete control in the game NOT lead to less verisimilitude by any common reading of that term?


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> So we are NOT trying to replicate real life per your earlier assertion?



I said we aren’t trying to replicate real life.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It doesn't have to be 'mechanical', it just has to 'have consequence'.



You say this, but your example has mechanics attached, and every example I've seen posited that didn't has been called "meaningless" or "color." @Campbell has, I think, suggested that a table's expectations/norms might serve as adequate constraint; do you concur?


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Surely we all agree that we mostly lack complete control over our own mental state, right? I mean, you would have to be 'Spock' to say you completely control your emotions. How can such complete control in the game NOT lead to less verisimilitude by any common reading of that term?



Well, Let’s start by assuming it does and analyzing why.  Because I’m here to tell you that I and many others have no verisimilitude issues with directing the emotions of our characters.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Unlike monopoly, details about my character are salient to the game.



Sure, if they are put to some test. If not they are 'mere color'. When you insist that the player must exclusively control his character's entire mental state, then you exclude all of that from being anything BUT color. It is identical to the RP in Monopoly. Real RP, but not part of the game in any reasonable sense.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, if they are put to some test. If not they are 'mere color'. When you insist that the player must exclusively control his character's entire mental state, then you exclude all of that from being anything BUT color. It is identical to the RP in Monopoly. Real RP, but not part of the game in any reasonable sense.



I keep hearing the term test. What do you mean by it?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> You say this, but your example has mechanics attached, and every example I've seen posited that didn't has been called "meaningless" or "color." @Campbell has, I think, suggested that a table's expectations/norms might serve as adequate constraint; do you concur?



Well, it has to be some sort of part of the 'process', so in some sense I guess there is a 'mechanical' element. It isn't always defined in very specific mechanical terms. For example in PACE your character has two adjectives which describe them, so a character might be "Bold: 4, Funny: 3" (that is the whole character sheet, mechanically). How you interpret these and invoke them in the game, and how they lead to other fictional state are governed by rules/process. This character could perhaps become 'smitten' with an NPC. That would restrict their ability to play on their boldness and funniness in some situations (or maybe enhance it). I guess that is all 'mechanics', but since there is a huge amount of interpretation in terms of what the 'smitten' condition means (and the actual condition itself is just made up, it has no specific rules) I would call that more "genre logic" driven. I don't really think the distinction is too important here.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I
> 
> I mean, I've played with people with phobias, and I've certainly played with people who would be uninterested in RPing various social elements of real life (prejudice for example) or stories with elements of personal violence, etc. Those are all things that should be respected at any table, regardless of rules, and if a GM's answer to "don't bring this to the table" is "its part of the genre/story/setting" then that is someone who needs common decency explained to them at length...




Though you can hit cases where you have to decide at that point "Time to not run (or if everyone else is interested, play in) that campaign"; I suspect you'd have to play at a really surface level not to hit some elements of slavery in game set in even a near-expie of ancient Rome for example (and that'd probably come across as whitewashing it, sooner or later).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

This discussion has gotten super bizarre. People who are purportedly concerned about the player agency think that the player being able to decide the desires and motivations of their character is 'mere colour...' What is this I don't even...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I keep hearing the term test. What do you mean by it?



Well, the 'Lusting After the Queen' example for instance. The character's resolve to not act on the feeling would be tested if he came back to court. He's now going to be directly tempted. The GM would follow his principles, which probably includes bringing these choices to play. So, surely, Launcelot will run smack dab into Guenevere at some fairly fraught point. The player might have a choice to just give in, lets see what story that entails, or maybe he has to make an Honor check or something, a test of honor. If he passes, then he leaps back on his horse and rides off again, or goes to the king and confesses his dilemma, or something. If he fails, then his honor is stained, the Fellowship of the Round Table is broken in spirit, etc. I mean, this is a very 'cut and dried' genre, so its pretty easy to spell out what happens in these different cases. Most games will not be so clear cut. Even in this example Launcelot could then lie to the King, try to usurp the throne, etc. How this 'alternative story' would play out would be the meat of the game. 

Your way the player alone has all the choices of how to play this. There's no test. There isn't an ACTUAL conflict, it is 'color'. It may be used to describe WHY you decided to overthrow Arthur, or whatever, but the logic is not salient to how the game is played. The action can be entirely described in game mechanical terms without ever referring to the character's mental state.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, the 'Lusting After the Queen' example for instance. The character's resolve to not act on the feeling would be tested if he came back to court. He's now going to be directly tempted. The GM would follow his principles, which probably includes bringing these choices to play. So, surely, Launcelot will run smack dab into Guenevere at some fairly fraught point. The player might have a choice to just give in, lets see what story that entails, or maybe he has to make an Honor check or something, a test of honor. If he passes, then he leaps back on his horse and rides off again, or goes to the king and confesses his dilemma, or something. If he fails, then his honor is stained, the Fellowship of the Round Table is broken in spirit, etc. I mean, this is a very 'cut and dried' genre, so its pretty easy to spell out what happens in these different cases. Most games will not be so clear cut. Even in this example Launcelot could then lie to the King, try to usurp the throne, etc. How this 'alternative story' would play out would be the meat of the game.
> 
> Your way the player alone has all the choices of how to play this. There's no test. There isn't an ACTUAL conflict, it is 'color'. It may be used to describe WHY you decided to overthrow Arthur, or whatever, but the logic is not salient to how the game is played. The action can be entirely described in game mechanical terms without ever referring to the character's mental state.




Why isn't being presented with the hot queen and either lusting or not lusting after her not considered a test?


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> This discussion has gotten super bizarre. People who are purportedly concerned about the player agency think that the player being able to decide the desires and motivations of their character is 'mere colour...' What is this I don't even...



It's not bizarre if you refrain from implicitly equivocating on what is meant by "player agency." It's only 'bizarre' if we use your restricted understanding of 'player agency' rather than the sense in which it is understood by these "purported people." But when you refuse to accept any definition of "agency" apart from your own, then it's little wonder that you can't process the actual discussion.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Why isn't being presented with the hot queen and either lusting or not lusting after her not considered a test?



How is it resolved? If it's entirely up to the player, I don't believe your interlocutors would call that a test.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> Though you can hit cases where you have to decide at that point "Time to not run (or if everyone else is interested, play in) that campaign"; I suspect you'd have to play at a really surface level not to hit some elements of slavery in game set in even a near-expie of ancient Rome for example (and that'd probably come across as whitewashing it, sooner or later).



Yeah, well, if you were to depict any milieu based on Medieval Europe in anything like a realistic fashion you'd have to also depict an almost complete lack of gender equality too, amongst other things. The fact is, we don't do that, we just project our modern values back onto the economic and technological conditions of the past and then we can act like modern people with modern problems, but in this pretend world. 

This is a whole other swamp that arises when people start talking about verisimilitude and whatnot, but in the current context it is irrelevant. Suffice it to say that practical play pretty much necessitates this in order to comport ourselves in a way which we find ethically acceptable (speaking for myself at least).


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> How is it resolved? If it's entirely up to the player, I don't believe your interlocutors would call that a test.



Let's say it's entirely up to the player.  Why wouldn't that be called a test?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> How is it resolved? If it's entirely up to the player, I don't believe your interlocutors would call that a test.



Right. Lets say that at the very least it is not considered ideal game play/design practice to both propose a test and adjudicate its solution yourself. This is the nut of the Czege Principle. It also plainly is at odds with some of the ethos of Gygaxian play (you wouldn't have the players design the traps in a dungeon for instance).


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Why?



I'm sure someone else can (and likely will) say that if the player alone is deciding how to resolve [thing] then there's nothing keeping the player from choosing a preferred outcome. I think they don't consider it a test if there's not a chance of an undesired outcome.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right. Lets say that at the very least it is not considered ideal game play/design practice to both propose a test and adjudicate its solution yourself. This is the nut of the Czege Principle. It also plainly is at odds with some of the ethos of Gygaxian play (you wouldn't have the players design the traps in a dungeon for instance).



Well the player didn't propose the test in this case.  The DM did by introducing the hot queen.  But I think you mean, it's not ideal for a player to choose whether the test is passed or failed regardless of who introduced it.  

I'm not convinced that the Czege principle it is universally true - especially not in relation to roleplaying.  So outside citing that principle is there any other reason not to have the player decide whether his character lusts after the queen?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I'm sure someone else can (and likely will) say that if the player alone is deciding how to resolve [thing] then there's nothing keeping the player from choosing a preferred outcome. I think they don't consider it a test if there's not a chance of an undesired outcome.



It certainly doesn't seem like very engaging play. It is less like a game and more like play-acting. That was why I called it 'color' and not salient to the play of the game. Again, I think it is fine RP and not to be disparaged on that basis. I would like to point out that something like Burning Wheel wouldn't inhibit this type of play either. Launcelot could have a "Lusts after the Queen" belief, that could be established at the start of play by the player. 

Of course, in BW such things WILL be tested, that's part of the expected flow of the game, so even if the player doesn't do something on that basis, the GM will surely act on it soon enough! I guess even in that game you could simply have an undocumented 'urge' that your character acts on, it isn't like its against the rules. It would simply be less likely that a scene would arise where it would become possible to act on.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Well the player didn't propose the test in this case.  The DM did by introducing the hot queen.  But I think you mean, it's not ideal for a player to choose whether the test is passed or failed regardless of who introduced it.
> 
> I'm not convinced that the Czege principle it is universally true - especially not in relation to roleplaying.  So outside citing that principle is there any other reason not to have the player decide whether his character lusts after the queen?



I noted that it is basically the same as the Gygaxian principle that the players don't devise the 'traps in the dungeon'. I would say this IS the Czege Principle, but clearly Gygax understood this concept long before Czege came along. I think it is in fact antecedent to D&D, the reason the referee existed in Chainmail was to dissociate the enforcement of the conditions of play from the interests of the players. Boardgames do this by simply having a complete set of rules that govern all game actions.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It certainly doesn't seem like very engaging play. It is less like a game and more like play-acting.



Some would call that roleplay 

So I suppose it depends on if you find roleplay (or at least this kind of roleplay) engaging or if it's just the game you find engaging.




AbdulAlhazred said:


> That was why I called it 'color' and not salient to the play of the game. Again, I think it is fine RP and not to be disparaged on that basis. I would like to point out that something like Burning Wheel wouldn't inhibit this type of play either. Launcelot could have a "Lusts after the Queen" belief, that could be established at the start of play by the player.




If the game is about roleplaying then roleplaying is salient to the game.  You have an odd notion that the game is only about whatever the mechanics dictate.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I noted that it is basically the same as the Gygaxian principle that the players don't devise the 'traps in the dungeon'. I would say this IS the Czege Principle, but clearly Gygax understood this concept long before Czege came along. I think it is in fact antecedent to D&D, the reason the referee existed in Chainmail was to dissociate the enforcement of the conditions of play from the interests of the players. Boardgames do this by simply having a complete set of rules that govern all game actions.




So nothing other than that principle?


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It certainly doesn't seem like very engaging play. It is less like a game and more like play-acting. That was why I called it 'color' and not salient to the play of the game. Again, I think it is fine RP and not to be disparaged on that basis. I would like to point out that something like Burning Wheel wouldn't inhibit this type of play either. Launcelot could have a "Lusts after the Queen" belief, that could be established at the start of play by the player.
> 
> Of course, in BW such things WILL be tested, that's part of the expected flow of the game, so even if the player doesn't do something on that basis, the GM will surely act on it soon enough! I guess even in that game you could simply have an undocumented 'urge' that your character acts on, it isn't like its against the rules. It would simply be less likely that a scene would arise where it would become possible to act on.



Do you see the difference between "established at the start of play by the player" and "imposed (for lack of a better word) on the character during play"? If a player makes something like that as important as Beliefs apparently are in BW, then I think the GM is obligated to treat it like something the player wants to play with. Dropping something like that on someone mid-game ... that's not something they asked for.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, well, if you were to depict any milieu based on Medieval Europe in anything like a realistic fashion you'd have to also depict an almost complete lack of gender equality too, amongst other things. The fact is, we don't do that, we just project our modern values back onto the economic and technological conditions of the past and then we can act like modern people with modern problems, but in this pretend world.




I think the difference is you could end up with something that looked similar to those while clipping out some of the unpleasantness.  Rome without slavery virtually isn't Rome.  Its actually appalling how much of their culture was wrapped around it once you dig down even an inch.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is a whole other swamp that arises when people start talking about verisimilitude and whatnot, but in the current context it is irrelevant. Suffice it to say that practical play pretty much necessitates this in order to comport ourselves in a way which we find ethically acceptable (speaking for myself at least).




I understand (and agree) with the general principal, I just think there are contexts where that isn't a workable solution; you either engage with some of the bad elements of the setting or avoid the setting.  You don't have to embrace them, but you at least have to acknowledge them.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Some would call that roleplay
> 
> So I suppose it depends on if you find roleplay (or at least this kind of roleplay) engaging or if it's just the game you find engaging.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the game is about roleplaying then roleplaying is salient to the game.  You have an odd notion that the game is only about whatever the mechanics dictate.



Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it. Again, the players may then "decide they want to do X" based on something they roleplayed their characters talking about. That's fine, and that might establish some new fiction. It just didn't involve 'game' in any sense. There wasn't any tension. I include these 'interludes' in my own rules, but there they serve exactly this purpose of simply allowing some plot color to be established. Later the GM can use that to frame scenes where risk is taken.

I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Do you see the difference between "established at the start of play by the player" and "imposed (for lack of a better word) on the character during play"? If a player makes something like that as important as Beliefs apparently are in BW, then I think the GM is obligated to treat it like something the player wants to play with. Dropping something like that on someone mid-game ... that's not something they asked for.



Character's aren't unchanging monoliths! Their beliefs can be a legitimate part of the game state. Sure, when a player says his character believes something, then the GM takes that at face value (any issues would be resolved before play I guess). That doesn't make them sacrosanct. Playing to see what happens, and putting those beliefs to the test can mean that they change, or that the PC acquires additional ones. Some can disappear too. I assume in @pemerton's example of the Naga there's probably some 'remove curse' that can be applied... I mean, characters have all sorts of attributes in D&D, and we don't consider any of those sacrosanct. I mean, it would be thought harsh if the GM took away points in attributes, but there are certainly mechanics which do that. Likewise levels (XP, HP), treasure, anything. I don't see the difference here. Just as with anything in a game, it should all be done in accordance with the rules. This is a major reason to have rules, so we can all agree that certain things are 'kosher' in the game, or not.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I think the difference is you could end up with something that looked similar to those while clipping out some of the unpleasantness.  Rome without slavery virtually isn't Rome.  Its actually appalling how much of their culture was wrapped around it once you dig down even an inch.
> 
> 
> 
> I understand (and agree) with the general principal, I just think there are contexts where that isn't a workable solution; you either engage with some of the bad elements of the setting or avoid the setting.  You don't have to embrace them, but you at least have to acknowledge them.



But we don't. If you even gave lip service to Medieval customs about women, property, marriage, etc. then all female characters would be reduced to virtual slavery! They can't own property, they can't make contracts, they cannot travel or take any action outside the home without approval, escort, etc. (I mean, this is a broad section of history, I'm sure there are some variations). Women had SOME rights, but those were mostly meant to protect their families and inheritance, not themselves. 

These factors were deeply woven into the structure of Medieval society, they weren't superficial things. To remove them or ignore them is to utterly change the whole nature of that society. That's fine, we can make up fantasy societies that are different, and I don't have a problem with that, but IMHO it is laughable to invoke some sort of logic of verisimilitude where some element of Medieval Europe is used to justify something in 'Forgotten Realms' when they are so utterly different at a fundamental level (despite some set trappings).


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it. Again, the players may then "decide they want to do X" based on something they roleplayed their characters talking about. That's fine, and that might establish some new fiction. It just didn't involve 'game' in any sense. There wasn't any tension. I include these 'interludes' in my own rules, but there they serve exactly this purpose of simply allowing some plot color to be established. Later the GM can use that to frame scenes where risk is taken.
> 
> I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.



A bit one true wayist IMO - Telling someone they might as well be not playing an rpg at all because their preferences don’t align with yours. That’s not cool.

much more to say on this post but I’ve got a few things I must do first.


----------



## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it. Again, the players may then "decide they want to do X" based on something they roleplayed their characters talking about. That's fine, and that might establish some new fiction. It just didn't involve 'game' in any sense. There wasn't any tension. I include these 'interludes' in my own rules, but there they serve exactly this purpose of simply allowing some plot color to be established. Later the GM can use that to frame scenes where risk is taken.
> 
> I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.



In @Lanefan's game, though, there are rules to the roleplay -- it's the GM decides what happens.  This is a highly ad-hoc and informal ruleset that vests all authority over resolution in one person, so results in low agency play, but it can be a lot of fun with engaged players.

Aside from this, I'm slightly confused as to why the definition of roleplaying has come up -- it has very little to do with player agency.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> But we don't.




As I said, I don't think all situations are parallel here.  You obvious do.  There's no point in further conversation on it.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> A bit one true wayist IMO - Telling someone they might as well be not playing an rpg at all because their preferences don’t align with yours. That’s not cool.
> 
> much more to say on this post but I’ve got a few things I must do first.



Well, I didn't say you "weren't playing an RPG" in a general sense. I am just saying that your RP isn't participating in the G unless they have some connection. You RP to a given point in your story, and then you play a game (combat probably). I think this is a pretty good way to explain '2e era story teller D&D'. Its almost like you have these mechanical mini-games that you play, but they're not really connected together except by what the GM says is happening. Maybe your character's personality/etc is relevant, maybe it isn't. Its hard to call that part 'game'.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> In @Lanefan's game, though, there are rules to the roleplay -- it's the GM decides what happens.  This is a highly ad-hoc and informal ruleset that vests all authority over resolution in one person, so results in low agency play, but it can be a lot of fun with engaged players.
> 
> Aside from this, I'm slightly confused as to why the definition of roleplaying has come up -- it has very little to do with player agency.



It was not me that specifically brought it into the discussion, but it is relevant in that some RPGs are 'holistic', they have a way to incorporate it into the game process, and some don't. D&D is pretty much a prime example of the latter. You can explain your character's actions in terms of RP, but it isn't really necessary. Nor is the GM obliged to acknowledge it, as you point out here. 
I'm not talking about what can or cannot be fun. A lot of things are fun! The question at hand was what was the nature of player agency. If we want to have a thread about what people find fun or not fun, we can have that discussion. I expect it will be light on analysis, because that is a pure matter of opinion and usually not based on some rational thought process.


----------



## aramis erak

Crimson Longinus said:


> Meaningful to whom? You're using 'meaningful' like it had was some objective, measurable thing, whilst it is actually a value judgement. This is what I have been saying all along, agency is subjective because what is 'meaningful' is subjective.



From a player perspective, perhaps.
A GM, however, has enough information to figure it out objectively...
You know whether or not you had two separate options ready, or just one that you quantum responsed.
You know as a GM whether or not you had two (or more) outcomes before the roll, and whether or not the roll actually mattered.
And you know whether or not you gave the players information about the various options that is valid for making informed decisions either on which choice to pick, or whether or not to roll.

Unless the GM goes the extra (burning) mile¹ and states "If you fail you will (insert short version of failure result)"... in which case, while the surprise factor is reduced, the meaingfulness of the rolls, at least, is assured.

And if one goes the apocalytic mile² instead, player agency is (theoretically³) assured unless and until the player either does something that triggers a move, does something asinine (which includes narrating things that violate the setting), or the players as a whole stop generating story motion and/or GM amusement.

It's not like the GM can't use those techniques in more traditional rulesets, either, and put heavy amounts of agency — considerably more, at times, than Gygax would, based upon his Dragon columns — and get some interesting results. In my Elestrial Concordat campaign (using Mongoose Traveller 1E), all sensor rolls were to pick what was there, not to see if anything was in fact out there. This lead to some nifty XD threats in Jumpspace. I won't run Traveller again that way — too much chance for out of genre ideas — but I might in fantasy of some stripe.

Notes:
1: As in Burning Wheel, where the standard for an action is the player is required to state the method _AND_ the intended effect. The GM then offers up a fail condition, if one is interesting, or says "yes." If a fail condition, the GM then sets the difficulty and the player his/her/xer dice pool.
2: As in Apocalypse World, where the GM isn't supposed to actually do direct actions until a move goes wrong... or the story stagnates a bit, or _that guy_ attempts to pull a very out-of-setting or past reasonable capability fast one... Instead, they're supposed to ask questions that help the players drive the story. At least, that's the ideal.
3: we all know that sometimes, reality is less than ideal theoretical results. Especially when humans are involved.


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## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It was not me that specifically brought it into the discussion, but it is relevant in that some RPGs are 'holistic', they have a way to incorporate it into the game process, and some don't. D&D is pretty much a prime example of the latter. You can explain your character's actions in terms of RP, but it isn't really necessary. Nor is the GM obliged to acknowledge it, as you point out here.
> I'm not talking about what can or cannot be fun. A lot of things are fun! The question at hand was what was the nature of player agency. If we want to have a thread about what people find fun or not fun, we can have that discussion. I expect it will be light on analysis, because that is a pure matter of opinion and usually not based on some rational thought process.



Yes, I understand that RP is part of RPGs.  The issue isn't that I fail to understand this, it's that the particular definition of RP is irrelevant to agency -- you can play act, use pawn stance, or anything else and that feeds into the agency question exactly the same.  The only time agency would be involved in how you choose to define roleplay would be if the table disallowed your favored definition, which isn't a player agency issue, but a social agency in the real world issue.  And, even there, it's not a lack, but a question of agency.


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## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it. Again, the players may then "decide they want to do X" based on something they roleplayed their characters talking about. That's fine, and that might establish some new fiction. It just didn't involve 'game' in any sense. There wasn't any tension. I include these 'interludes' in my own rules, but there they serve exactly this purpose of simply allowing some plot color to be established. Later the GM can use that to frame scenes where risk is taken.



I'm sorry, but it is you who is trying to separate the game and roleplaying. It is a roleplaying game, all of it is part of the game, even when no formal rules are involved. It can have no rules beyond 'players decide what characters do, GM decides what happens and describes the world' and it is still a game, a LARP is a game. 

Also that 'the characters talk and decide to do something' is crucial for agency. That is them establishing the direction of the game, you can't get more important act for agency than that. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.



Something is at stake! And that still needs no rules for happen. It is the narrative that creates the stakes, not the rules. 

Now for back to our friend Lancelot. 'I'm love with the queen' is an important driving force for the character, it is part of his central motivations. This sort of character defining driving force is something the player should accept, otherwise the GM, system or whatever, is effectively creating the character for the player (and if players agree to that, then its fine, but they're willingly giving away a part of their agency.) But being able to decide 'this is what my character cares about' is pretty damn central for agency as it is from those core beliefs all the other decisions follow. Lancelot is in love with his best friends wife, and the fate of the nation depends on this friend. But the player does not control Arthur, they do not control Guinevere, they do not control the other NPCs (unless this is the sort of game where player has narrative level powers.) Numerous risks and conflicts arise from this central motivation, and it is for the player to decide how to handle these situations, what choices to make. Relegating these vital choices to some mechanic would rob the player from agency, make them a spectator and is bizarre to think otherwise.


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## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> Possibly Pendragon or Prince Valiant.



Prince Valiant has no personality mechanics of the sort that seem to be in issue.

Is @Crimson Longinus thinking of Pendragon? That's not a game where most play is dictated by a PCs traits or passions.


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## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Prince Valiant has no personality mechanics of the sort that seem to be in issue.
> 
> Is @Crimson Longinus thinking of Pendragon? That's not a game where most play is dictated by a PCs traits or passions.



I'm not thinking about any specific game, it was not my example to begin with.


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## pemerton

nevin said:


> I've never had a GM refuse to let me play something without a good reason.  Now sometimes I didn't know the good reason till months in to the campaign, because of things our characters didn't know.  GM gives the story.  If player decides to go off on incompatible tangents and get marginized, that's a player issue.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> People keep confusing Agency as something that is free of consequences.  You have agency to make decisions, those decisions will have consequences.  If you don't like the consequences, change your behavior or find a new game.



This is a perfectly fine description of GM-driven RPGing in which the players exercise little or no agency.

In the first two sentences we see the GM exercising the bulk of agency over broad questions of setting, theme, trope etc. Eventually the player might be told what and why the GM has made those decisions - the _why_ here being a GM-generated and GM-unilaterally applied aesthetic preference.

_GM gives the story_ is the GM exercising the same degree of agency over the nitty-gritty situation of play.

The stuff about consequences seems to misunderstand how games like AW or BW or Prince Valiant play - they are hardly free of consequences, but those consequences are established by the GM typically as narrations of failure or of further complication having regard to the evinced preferences of the player for the focus/theme/content of play. When consequences are established by the GM having regard mostly to his/her own aesthetic preferences and vision of where "the story" should go then we have GM-driven action resolution.

I think that what @nevin describes here is a pretty common mode of RPGing. I've participated in it. I've witnessed more of it. And I see people - not just  nevin - posting about it all the time.


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## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Descartes' notions are largely obsolete, though I would accept that 'cogito ergo sum' is a sort of tautological demonstration that consciousness is indeed a 'thing', as if we really needed such a proof...



For what it's worth, I think the _cogito _is a bad argument, or rather a failed argument: given that my perceptual access to _the event of thought occurring_ is no different to my perceptual access to _the event of a towel-hanging-on-clothesline-in-garden-type-percept_ there is no particular difference in our knowledge of the "internal" and the "external". And in both cases something more than one perceptual event is needed to warrant the inference to (i) that thought-event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _me_ or (ii) that visual event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _the towel's hanging on a clothesline in the garden_.

(The above argument is not really unique to me. It's work I did a long time ago now influenced very much by AJ Ayer, GE Moore and Bertrand Russell.)


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## TwoSix

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm sorry, but it is you who is trying to separate the game and roleplaying. It is a roleplaying game, all of it is part of the game, even when no formal rules are involved. It can have no rules beyond 'players decide what characters do, GM decides what happens and describes the world' and it is still a game, a LARP is a game.



But there is a distinction.  Acting like your character, doing funny accents, etc., may be roleplaying, it may be roleplaying you're doing during the game, but it's not part of the actual game.  Throwing out plans to the DM and letting the DM decide if they succeed or fail _is_ part of the game, just not one that has a formal mechanic.

Now, if the in-character discussion is basically group strategizing to get to the point where you make a declaration to the DM that they can adjudicate....I'd say that's ultimately part of gameplay, just like negotiating is during a game of Diplomacy.


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## FrogReaver

TwoSix said:


> But there is a distinction.  Acting like your character, doing funny accents, etc., may be roleplaying, it may be roleplaying you're doing during the game, but it's not part of the actual game.  Throwing out plans to the DM and letting the DM decide if they succeed or fail _is_ part of the game, just not one that has a formal mechanic.
> 
> Now, if the in-character discussion is basically group strategizing to get to the point where you make a declaration to the DM that they can adjudicate....I'd say that's ultimately part of gameplay, just like negotiating is during a game of Diplomacy.



“Roleplaying is not actually a part of a role playing game”. I’ve heard it all now!


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## Crimson Longinus

TwoSix said:


> But there is a distinction.  Acting like your character, doing funny accents, etc., may be roleplaying, it may be roleplaying you're doing during the game, but it's not part of the actual game.



Yes it is! It absolutely is! Roleplaying your character in a roleplaying game is most definitely an actual part of a roleplaying game!



TwoSix said:


> Throwing out plans to the DM and letting the DM decide if they succeed or fail _is_ part of the game, just not one that has a formal mechanic.
> 
> Now, if the in-character discussion is basically group strategizing to get to the point where you make a declaration to the DM that they can adjudicate....I'd say that's ultimately part of gameplay, just like negotiating is during a game of Diplomacy.



All of it is part of the game. GM adjudicates what needs to be adjudicated, rules are invoked when they're applicable, all of it is part of the game.


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Let's say that the PC is a fighter who is looking for his brother, who rumor has it joined some kind of cult and ran off. The fighter wanders the land trying to find a clue to his brother's whereabouts, so he can ultimately find and save him.
> 
> This is central to the character, right?
> 
> Is it central to play? That is the question.* Is the game about what the player wants the game to be about? *
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Does this mean that every single thing that happens in play needs to revolve around the missing brother? No, of course not. But for it to be meaningful (and I'd argue, objectively so), it has to matter more than the PC showing up in a new town, asking around about his brother, and being told "nope, never saw this kid around here" and then roleplaying sadness at the lack of news.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Can it be done in D&D? Sure, to an extent at least.



My only extended venture into D&D in the last 20 years has been a 6+ year 4e campaign.

In that game, I introduced a very modest degree of non=D&D tech: at the start of the campaign I asked each player to establish two features of PC background: one _loyalty_, and also a reason why the PC was ready to fight goblins.

Beyond that, I relied on the features of 4e D&D that are able to do bear the load of conveying theme, concern etc. So not too many missing brothers or personal tales of revenge. Rather, a cosmologically-driven struggle over the nature and future of the Raven Queen, the defeat of Orcus, the liberation of the drow from Lolth so they could return to the surface of the earth, etc. 4e's tools are different from (say) BW's, but it has them: choice of race, to some extent choice of class (_paladin_ does better work here than, say, _archer-ranger_), choice of additional non-class elements like paragon path and epic destiny, etc.

In my experience it largely works. The tight structure around how XP are earned, the rate at which treasure is to be parcelled out as a component of PC build etc, all help: looked at at a sufficient level of abstraction they do the same sort of work on the GM side - for pacing, framing opposition, etc - as does the Doom Pool in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic.

Now I think this raises questions about how _replayable_ 4e is - how many times does one want to play variations on what I've just described? Or does one adapt the game to support a wider range of heroic/mythic/gonzo fantasy trope and theme? (That's my very high-level description of what @AbdulAlhazred has done.) But from my point of view, so what? Even if I never touch my 4e stuff again I probably paid less than $1 a day for it to get more than 6 years of great RPGing! Obviously WotC wants infinite replayability to be part of their marketing spiel, but that's a commercial problem for them and has no bearing on either my analysis of, or my play of, RPGs.


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> For what it's worth, I think the _cogito _is a bad argument, or rather a failed argument: given that my perceptual access to _the event of thought occurring_ is no different to my perceptual access to _the event of a towel-hanging-on-clothesline-in-garden-type-percept_ there is no particular difference in our knowledge of the "internal" and the "external". And in both cases something more than one perceptual event is needed to warrant the inference to (i) that thought-event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _me_ or (ii) that visual event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _the towel's hanging on a clothesline in the garden_.
> 
> (The above argument is not really unique to me. It's work I did a long time ago now influenced very much by AJ Ayer, GE Moore and Bertrand Russell.)



Off topic but that’s a very unconvincing argument. The whole point of descartes is that thought requires a thinker or an “I” that is doing the thinking.


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## TwoSix

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes it is! It absolutely is! Roleplaying your character in a roleplaying game is most definitely an actual part of a roleplaying game!



I'm talking about invocation of color, general character thesbianism.  None of that is _required_ for play, although for many people it's de facto required or even the main reason to play.   For many groups, the rules are just there to be a canvas to display their character display onto.  But it's still not part of the _structure_ of the game.  If you can't grasp the difference, I'm not sure what to say.


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## FrogReaver

TwoSix said:


> I'm talking about invocation of color, general character thesbianism.  None of that is _required_ for play, although for many people it's de facto required or even the main reason to play.   For many groups, the rules are just there to be a canvas to display their character display onto.  But it's still not part of the _structure_ of the game.  If you can't grasp the difference, I'm not sure what to say.



I think you are using the wrong words to convey your thoughts.

That a particular brand of role playing isn’t required to play a game doesn’t mean that brand of roleplaying isn’t part of the game in which it’s being used.   I think what you mean is that it isn’t part of the rule set.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> No. But I suspect that they have some sort of a close correlation to the beliefs that the character has...



Beliefs in BW are (broadly speaking) ideals or goals that animate/motivate the PC. Here are the Beliefs for my PC Thurgon and his sidekick Aramina:

Thurgon​The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory​I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory​Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol​Aramina will need my protection​​Aramina​I'm not going to _finish_ my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! - next, some coins!​Thurgon and I will liberate Auxol​If in doubt, burn it!​
Thurgon has 4 Beliefs because he has a Trait, _Sworn to the Order_, that permits an extra order-related Belief ie the one about being a Knight of the Iron Tower. Because Thurgon has the _Faithful_ trait, one of his Beliefs must be about that - the one about the Lord of Battle - and if he ceases to have such a Belief he will also cease to have the Faithful trait.

Beside their connection to particular elements of PC build as just described, Beliefs play two main roles in the game, one GM-facing and one player-facing. On the GM side, they establish the paramaters around which the GM is expected to frame situations. Following from that, they provide the parameters the GM is expected to have regard to in narrating failures and complications.

On the player side, Beliefs are a marker for what to have regard to in declaring actions for your PC. Broadly speaking, when you declare and then play out actions that engage your PCs Beliefs - whether by manifesting it in play, or driving hard towards fulfilling it, or actually fulfilling it, or finding yourself conflicted in relation to it - then you earn what the system calls Artha, which is (broadly) what you might call hero points. Like plot points in MHRP, these can be spent to manipulate dice rolls and hence increase chances of success. It also plays a modest but real role in PC advancement.

Generally a player can change Beliefs at will. The GM is allowed to make the player hold off if it looks like an attempt to squib or dodge an unfolding situation rather than actually confront it.

In the situation I mentioned, the player whose PC suffered the naga's Force of Will had to change one of his PC's Beliefs from whatever it had been (I can't remember) to _I will find Joachim for my master_. Once Joachim was killed, the player changed the Belief - with my concurrence - to _I will bring Joachim's blood to my master_.

This is undoubtedly a limit on the player's agency. I as GM am getting a say over aspects of the game - ie how PC goals/thmes/orientation-to-action are signalled - that normally is reserved to the player. But it does not in anyway limit the player's ability to characterise or portray or "pantomime" is PC. I know, I was there, he was still playing his socially incompetent mad-as-a-cut-snake shamanic snake-handler from the hills!

@prabe: this is also relevant to your post upthread - about the PCs' _internal life_.

The effect of Force of Will on the player's internal life is spelled out in the spell description - I posted it upthread:

This spell allows the mage to implant forceful commands into the victim's mind. The words of the mage becomes thoughts - as if the victim had formulated them himself. This is a very powerful spell - the words of the sorcerer are permanently embedded and resonate against the character's personality for the rest of his days.​
The mechanical effect on play is as I've described in this post: it has no effect on the player's ability to declare actions for his PC, nor on the way he characterises/pantomimes his PC.

*Now, if a player's conception of agency in a RPG is my private imaginings about what my PC is feeling and thinking* then yes, FoW is a burden on that: if you're playing sincerely you have to imagine your PC feeling the forceful commands of the dark naga, and the impulse of hunting first for Joachim and now for his blood.

But two things;

(1) As @AbdulAlhazred has said upthread, this is no different from the GM telling you _you see a dead-end in front of you_. Now, if you're playing sincerely, you have to imagine your PC seeing a wall.

(2) I find it odd that, in playing a RPG, I would treat _my private imaginings _rather than _the content of the shared fiction _as the focus of my desire for agency. Because playing a social game based around a shared fiction is necessarily going to constrain one's private imaginings.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> For what it's worth, I think the _cogito _is a bad argument, or rather a failed argument: given that my perceptual access to _the event of thought occurring_ is no different to my perceptual access to _the event of a towel-hanging-on-clothesline-in-garden-type-percept_ there is no particular difference in our knowledge of the "internal" and the "external". And in both cases something more than one perceptual event is needed to warrant the inference to (i) that thought-event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _me_ or (ii) that visual event is a constituent of an enduring thing called _the towel's hanging on a clothesline in the garden_.
> 
> (The above argument is not really unique to me. It's work I did a long time ago now influenced very much by AJ Ayer, GE Moore and Bertrand Russell.)



Yeah, I think it works in the sense that it validates our own experiental sense of our existence. In my head rings out "cogito ergo sum" and I understand that, while the head, and all other things I apprehend by sensory impression, may not 'exist', that there is some sense in which I have established something, by simply having a thought. I mean, it proves nothing of my nature at all, so to me as a materialist Bayesian rationalist its not even a prior. However, since I feel that the word 'exists' is essentially ontologically empty it does what it can do, tells me I can hear myself think


----------



## TwoSix

FrogReaver said:


> I think you are using the wrong words to convey your thoughts.
> 
> That a particular brand of role playing isn’t required to play a game doesn’t mean that brand of roleplaying isn’t part of the game in which it’s being used.   I think what you mean is that it isn’t part of the rule set.



I don't think I am, no.

The rule set is the game.  Invocation of color doesn't influence the play of the game unless the DM lets the invocation of color sway their adjudication (due to _good roleplaying_).


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> All rpgs are about playing to find out what happens...



This is obviously nonsense.

I've seen posters on this board compare what happened in their play of particular adventure paths: _how did your fight at the end go compared to my groups'?_

That wasn't playing to find out what happened. Two different groups, RPGing in different cities on different sides of a country, ended up in exactly the same spot after many sessions of play, such that they can meaningfully compare how that situation played out in their different games.

That may be good or bad RPGing, but it's _clearly_ not playing to find out what happens.


----------



## TwoSix

pemerton said:


> That may be good or bad RPGing, but it's _clearly_ not playing to find out what happens.



I'd push back on that a little.  I mean, I can play a Final Fantasy game to "find out what happens", and what happens is going to be the same thing that happens to everyone else that plays the same game, but our experience of it will be different.  Discussing an adventure path is much more akin to discussing a movie that's been seen by both.

It's obviously quite different than playing to make something happen, which is closer to what I think the ideal is for player-driven play.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is obviously nonsense.
> 
> I've seen posters on this board compare what happened in their play of particular adventure paths: _how did your fight at the end go compared to my groups'?_
> 
> That wasn't playing to find out what happened. Two different groups, RPGing in different cities on different sides of a country, ended up in exactly the same spot after many sessions of play, such that they can meaningfully compare how that situation played out in their different games.
> 
> That may be good or bad RPGing, but it's _clearly_ not playing to find out what happens.



You think what happened in their games was the same?  Even with the same major plot points and major battles I would bet their games were fairly different. Different things happened. Different characters did different things. Etc.  Playing to find out doesn’t have to be playing to find out the plot. 

and as @TwoSix mentioned above even playing to find out the plot works as long as the players aren’t repeating the same adventure path they’ve already played in.


----------



## FrogReaver

TwoSix said:


> I don't think I am, no.
> 
> The rule set is the game.  Invocation of color doesn't influence the play of the game unless the DM lets the invocation of color sway their adjudication (due to _good roleplaying_).



I guess it depends on what game means. I consider the game to be the thing going on at the table on the night of play.

much like the game of football has rules and then you have football games where different teams play in often very different ways (at least if you are into football nuance) by the same ruleset.

I wouldn’t say any of those teams playstyles aren’t part of the game of football.  Just like I wouldn’t say a particular roleplay style isn’t part of a particular rpg that has actual players sitting around a table playing the game with that style.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

TwoSix said:


> But there is a distinction.  Acting like your character, doing funny accents, etc., may be roleplaying, it may be roleplaying you're doing during the game, but it's not part of the actual game.  Throwing out plans to the DM and letting the DM decide if they succeed or fail _is_ part of the game, just not one that has a formal mechanic.
> 
> Now, if the in-character discussion is basically group strategizing to get to the point where you make a declaration to the DM that they can adjudicate....I'd say that's ultimately part of gameplay, just like negotiating is during a game of Diplomacy.



OK, fair enough, in D&D or in Diplomacy there are no rules or even process really (I think Diplomacy has a time limit on each turn, though it is common to change it) to govern this. Literally anything goes, I can lie, steal, spy on people, etc. in Diplomacy (actual laws and common decency obviously place limits here). The only thing of substance is the game board situation, and my orders for the turn. In fact I recall that in one Origins Diplomacy tournament I was in one of the players slipped fake orders for another player into the other players clipboard and they got turned in. There was a bit of a controversy on the legality of that, since it was impinging on the structure of the game. I think they decided it was a bridge too far, rolled the turn back and accepted the orders the player claimed were genuine. 

Anyway, clearly the GM plays this role in D&D, they can't interfere (mostly) in this roleplay, but what exactly it means substantially is a bit unclear. Where it feels like it merges with play, to me, is exactly where "the rubber meets the road." That is, when a player acts out his character convincing a storekeeper to give him a bargain, then that looks like a part of the game, he saves some gold, which is part of the game state. OTOH it is rare these days for this sort of thing to happen without some dice being rolled. At that point, did the 'play acting' really impact the game? It might impact the other players, and thus their PCs. Still, I find all this to be a bit tenuous. I think it is fine to say, in common parlance, that this is 'part of the game', it is certainly part of the activity of playing. So it is meaningful to the participants. I still see a really useful distinction here though. I also have a desire to make all these things into one whole


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## pemerton

prabe said:


> Do you see the difference between "established at the start of play by the player" and "imposed (for lack of a better word) on the character during play"? If a player makes something like that as important as Beliefs apparently are in BW, then I think the GM is obligated to treat it like something the player wants to play with. Dropping something like that on someone mid-game ... that's not something they asked for.



I don't think you have much familiarity with BW.

For instance, a player is allowed to change his/her PC's Beliefs at will - subject to the GM requiring this to be postponed if the player is just trying to squib and wriggle out of a challenging situation.

This is an expected part of play.

Artha can be earned (via the Mouldbreaker rule) for changing a Belief due to inner conflict:

If a player comes to a point in the story where his Beliefs, Instincts and traits conflict with a decision he must make—a direction in which he must go—and he plays out the inner turmoil, the conflict within his own guts, in a believable and engaging manner, then he earns a persona point.​
(The quote is from BW Gold p 64. I mention again that any participant can download this legally, for free, from the BW website.)

I earned mouldbreaker artha for Aramina in our last BW session:



pemerton said:


> I'd already made a point of Thurgon having his arms on clear display as he rode through the countryside and the estate; now he raised his mace and shield to the heavens, and called on the Lord of Battle to bring strength back to his mother so that Auxol might be restored to its former greatness.
> 
> <snip description of mechanical resolution>
> 
> So a beam of light shot down from the sky, and Xanthippe straightened up and greeted Thurgon again, but this time with vigour and readiness to restore Auxol. The GM accepted my proposition that this played out Thurgon's Belief that _Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!_ (earning a Persona point). His new Belief is _Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol_. He picked up a second Persona point for Embodiment ("Your roleplay (a performance or a decision) captures the mood of the table and drives the story onward").
> 
> Turning back to Aramina, I decided that this made an impact on her too: up until now she had been cynical and slightly bitter, but now she was genuinely inspired and determined: instead of _never meeting the gaze of a stranger_, her Instinct is to _look strangers in the eyes and Assess_. And rather than _I don't need Thurgon's pity_, her Belief is _Thurgon and I will liberate Auxol_. This earned a Persona point for Mouldbreaker ("If a situation brings your Beliefs, Instincts and Traits into conflict with a decision your PC must make, you play out your inner turmoil as you dramatically play against a Belief in a believable and engaging manner").




The PC who is charmed by the Dark Naga might likewise have such a moment of transformation should the play of the game plus the fiction support it. It hasn't happened yet, but it could. (There is no Dispel Charm in Burning Wheel. It's meant to be more like when Maedhros picks up the Silmaril, realises he is tainted by the Oath of Feanor, and hurls himself into a chasm. Or like Gandalf's freeing of Theoden.)



prabe said:


> I believe the contention is that if there isn't some mechanical restriction that derives from "lusting after the queen" then it's not really a game state.





Campbell said:


> I would not say that. I would say if your play is not being constrained it is not really part of the shared fiction. Like if you as a player can just ignore it without anyone else calling you out for it not part of the game state / shared fiction.



So in this case a lot of people seem to be speculating about a game that they haven't played and haven't read - Prince Valiant.

For what it's worth I agree with @Campbell. This is also how PC INT works in our Classic Traveller game.

Here are three extracts from actual play reports of my Prince Valiant game (Sir Gerran, Sir Justin and Sir Morgath are PCs; the rest are NPCs, and Lady Alia is the daughter of the Duke whose castle the PCs have just taken over):



pemerton said:


> Next, warning came that a military force was approaching in the distance. The drawbridge was raised and the gates closed. But Sir Morgath, looking out from the battlements, could see that in front of the soldiers were two women riding hurriedly on ponies. (In the tram on the way to the session I had decided to use the second of the Woman in Distress episodes found in the main rulebook.) There was debate - should the drawbridge be lowered? - but Sir Morgath was against it, as too risky. The women arrived at the edge of the moat across from the drawbridge and called out for help to Sir Gerran, who as Marshall of the order was in command of the gates. Lady Lorette of Lothian explained that she was fleeing from her fiance, Sir Blackpool the Count of Toulouse, to whom she had been betrothed by her father and who had treated her cruelly. Would they not lower the drawbridge?
> 
> Although Prince Valiant is not technically a pulp it is from the same period - the 30s and 40s - and there is a degree of pulp-era stereotyping in Greg Stafford's presentation of women in his scenarios. In this case, Lady Lorette has Presence 4 and Glamourie 5. So as she pleaded to Gerran I rolled her 9 dice vs Gerran's Presence of 3. I allowed Gerran's player two bonus dice (the maximum morale bonus allowed for in the system) as a resolute Marshall defending his castle, so he had 5 dice in total. And rolled better than me! And so he didn't relent.
> 
> Meanwhile Sir Morgath had lowered a rope down the wall of the castle. He called out to the Lady and she leapt into the moat and swam to him, where he took hold of her and carried her up the wall. But the handmaiden accompanying her did not have the strength or courage to jump into the moat. So Morgath slid back down the rope and swang across the moat to rescue her. (At the start of the session I had handed out some fame (the "XP" of the system) that had been earned in the previous session. This had qualified Morgath for a new skill rank, which he had spent on Agility: his player felt he was repeatedly suffering for a lack of physical ability at key moments. It now served him well, as he got 3 successes on his 4 dice.)
> 
> In the scenario as written by Stafford, the Lady has the Incite Lust special effect which she will use against the strongest and most famous male adventurer, provided he is not married. Anticipating possible complications, Morgath - when asked by the Lady who her rescuer was - announced himself as Sir Morgath, husband of Lady Elizabeth of York. But being an unfair GM while also trying to run with the fiction, it seemed only to make sense that Morgath should fall for the Lady as he carried her in his arms into the castle. The player cursed me appropriately, but also had seen it coming. He took the Lady into the keep to ensure her safety.
> 
> Meanwhile the Count - Sir Blackpool - and his men had arrived and approached under a white flag of truce. The players had deciced that they would have Lady Alia explain that there was a new duke, Duke Bryce her brother, and that hence there was no need for relief after all. Suitable Presence rolls persuaded her to do as instructed. The Count was satisfied with this, but had one other request - his fiance had been taken into the castle, and he wanted her returned. Sir Justin tried to direct Sir Blackpool to leave in the name of the Duke, but he retorted that he had not yet sworn fealty to the new duke, and would not do so until his fiance was returned.
> 
> At this point the player of Morgath was laughing, and thinking that the Lady Alia must be feeling the same way. And as the other PCs decided they would fetch the lady from the keep, Sir Morgath decided that safety required sneaking out with her through the secret tunnel - which they did, and then - with a successful Stealth roll despite the 1-die penalty for having a non-stealthy companion - he led them without being noticed to the lighthouse on the coast which he knew to be abandoned, the PCs having beaten up its thug occupants a couple of sessions ago. So when Gerran and Justin searched the keep for the lady they couldn't find her, and hence reported to Sir Blackpool that "Upon my honour, your fiance is not in this castle!"
> 
> <snip account of Sir Gerran and Sir Justin routing the assailants>
> 
> From their vantage point in the lighthouse Morgath and Lady Lorette could see the army of Toulouse retreating, and so they returned to the castle and re-entered through the secret tunnel. Lady Alia was the first to find them upon their return, and she spoke with Sir Morgath to discus the next steps - having already decided that he was more sensible than the Sigobertians.
> 
> They decided that they should present Lady Lorette as the (now widowed) Countess of Toulouse, which she was happy to go along with; and that she should come under the protection of the (newly ascended) Duchess of Bordeaux. Lady Lorette suggested that Sir Morgath should send for a regent from York, so that she could travel with him on his adventures; while Alia took the view that she should stay in the castle to manage it and rule the ducal lands. This suggestion was presented to Sir Gerran and Sir Justin, who agreed subject to two conditions: that the castle should fly the standard of St Sigobert as well as that of the duchy; and that Lady Alia should marry Sir Gerran to cement the alliance of the Duchy and the order. (It had already been established that the order did not require chastity of its members - Sir Justin is married to Violette of Warwick.)
> 
> So the session ended with the wedding being agreed to and preparations having to be made. With discussions of how much crusade might be financed by mortgaging a duchy and a county. And with Sir Morgath's player lamenting that they could have had the company of a battle-maiden [ie Lady Alia] and now have an ingenue (or seductress?) instead. He did have the sense, in character, to make sure that the messengers sent to York to discuss the matter of the regency should also bring him back a token of his wife Elizabeth, which he hopes will help him remain faithful despite his feelings of attraction to Lady Lorette.





pemerton said:


> At the end of that previous session, Morgath had sent to Britain for a token of Elizabeth, so as to try and fortify his resolve.
> 
> <snip the lead-up to the wedding of Sir Gerran and Lady Alia>
> 
> At some point during these various events I had told Sir Morgath's player that a messenger had returned from Britain with news that a token of Elizabeth was to come; and around now I told him that his huntsman Algol, recruited during the wedding festivities for Sir Justin had arrived accompanied by three women - Lady Elizabeth travelling somewhat incognito with two handmaidens. The messenger had told her of Sir Morgath's adventures and feats of derring-do, and she (being "Gullible about knights and noblemen" as per the NPC description in the scenario where she was introduced) had decided to come and join him in his adventures. I took the opportunity to remind Sir Morgath's player of his longing for Lorette (as the description of the Incite Lust special effect says, "This can be a cruel Special Effect to use, especially if the object of lust is unattainable" or, in this case, illicit) but he held firm. I can't now recall whether I insisted on any checks at this point, but one did come up later
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Sir Morgath rode with his huntsman and his wife, while Sir Gerran hunted with his trained falcon that had been a gift given to him by the Duke of York at Sir Morgath's wedding. Lady Lorette - who has Riding and Hunting skill - also joined the hunt, as did Lady Alia. I can't remember all the details of this, but Lady Alia rolled poorly while Sir Gerran rolled OK. And impressed both by his performance in the melee and his hunting prowess, Lady Lorette put the moves on him. I resolved this as his Presence vs her Presence + Glamourie, ruling that if she doubled his total the seduction was total. I can't remember now whether I offered him a bonus die for Alia being also nearby on the hunt; but I don't think Gerran's player took any bonus. Total seduction ensued, and the wedding the next day was a formal rather than exuberant affair.
> 
> (Sir Justin's player noted that he had had an inkling as to what the true "hunt" might be, hence his decision to pray instead.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Sir Gerran had taken some steps to establish a system for the villagers to have their concerns heard at the ducal court, but these had not had time to become imbedded and enculturated in any way. And while their were brothers of St Sigobert - the Bordeaux chapter - there, they would perhaps face hostility from the established church hierarchy. After discussion with the other players, and reflection, he decided that what was really needed was Alia's personal loyalty to him (ie Sir Gerran) and his cause. So he spent his certificate to Incite Lust in her towards Sir Gerran. And so a few days after the wedding, the Lady Alia came to Sir Gerran to explain that her heart had warmed towards him, and that their marriage might be consumated after all.
> 
> She then expressed some desire to travel with Sir Gerran on his quest - she is battle-trained - but he persuaded her to stay and rule. (This was resolved as Sir Gerran's Presence vs difficulty factors that I set, I think using his Oratory at one point - from memory it took two or three attempts to persuade her, calling upon a different consideration each time.)
> 
> So when the PCs and their entourage (enlarged, as I rolled some relatively arbitrary dice to see how many new men, impressed by their chivalry and prowess, had joined their crusading mission) set out for Marseilles via Toulouse, they were confident that they had left the Duchy in as good a state as they could, under the rule of Lady Alia. Although Morgath's player was lamenting that if _he_ had a Storyteller Certificate he would use it to Suppress Lust, so that Sir Morgath would be free of his longing for Lorette. When I suggested that my handling of the situation as referee, and the awarding of certificates, was fair, the player disputed that proposition - "But it is fun", he allowed.
> 
> At Toulouse, Sir Morgath persuaded Lady Lorette that she should stay there, where she was Countess and vassal to Sir Gerran's Duchy and Lady Alia. I think this involved checks, although I can't remember the details - I don't think it was that hard. But I did think that Lorette might seek a parting embrace, or more, from Sir Morgath her rescuer - and called for the same Presence vs Presence + Glamourie as had been rolled during the hunt. Morgath's player rolled 2 successes, while I rolled 3 - so no seduction in the strictest sense, but I did describe a passionate kiss. When Sir Morgath rejoined his entourage, Elizabeth noted his tousled hair but nothing more.





pemerton said:


> Having arrived in Sicily as pirate-quelling heroes, the PCs and their band got a good reception. This included an invitation to dinner by a local dignitary, Sir Ainsel - which was in fact the entry into an episode from The Episode Book, the Feast of Sir Ainsel. Except instead of Sir Ainsel being a rogue who serves an enemy of Camelot (as per the published scenario) he was a rogue in league with the pirates who would happily try and stop crusaders reaching the Holy Land. As per the scenario, he tried to get the PCs drunk (which worked for at least one - the drunk Sir Morgath at one point proclaimed Lorette of Lothian, Lady of Toulouse, as his love, rather than his wife Elizabeth (who was sitting with him at the dining table); I can't now remember about the other knights).
> 
> However, rhe minstrel Twillany remained sober, and when he saw the treacherous host about to strike he threw a dagger at him, rolled very well (from memory seven successes on seven dice) which killed Sir Ainsel outright.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Meanwhile Twillany assured Elizabeth that Morgath's proclamation of love for Lorette was only a ruse designed to gull Sir Ainsel into thinking that he was drunk and harmless.



Sir Morgath's player is obliged to have regard, in his play, to the fact that his PC longs for Lorette. This is why he sends for Elizabeth (to fortify his resistance). This is why it's fair for me to call for a check at their parting. This is why when he sneaks her out of the castle without telling the other PCs he is not in any sense being a "disruptive player" (whatever exactly that might mean). This is why, in free roleplaying, he has his drunk PC proclaim his love.

My view is that those extracts do not support a suggestion that this player is under a burden on his agency any greater than _you come to a dead-end in front of you_. It's part of the shared fiction that he has to engage with, but (as the play reports show) he has a pretty wide scope of action declaration within that constraint.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, fair enough, in D&D or in Diplomacy there are no rules or even process really (I think Diplomacy has a time limit on each turn, though it is common to change it) to govern this. Literally anything goes, I can lie, steal, spy on people, etc. in Diplomacy (actual laws and common decency obviously place limits here). The only thing of substance is the game board situation, and my orders for the turn. In fact I recall that in one Origins Diplomacy tournament I was in one of the players slipped fake orders for another player into the other players clipboard and they got turned in. There was a bit of a controversy on the legality of that, since it was impinging on the structure of the game. I think they decided it was a bridge too far, rolled the turn back and accepted the orders the player claimed were genuine.
> 
> Anyway, clearly the GM plays this role in D&D, they can't interfere (mostly) in this roleplay, but what exactly it means substantially is a bit unclear. Where it feels like it merges with play, to me, is exactly where "the rubber meets the road." That is, when a player acts out his character convincing a storekeeper to give him a bargain, then that looks like a part of the game, he saves some gold, which is part of the game state. OTOH it is rare these days for this sort of thing to happen without some dice being rolled. At that point, did the 'play acting' really impact the game? It might impact the other players, and thus their PCs. Still, I find all this to be a bit tenuous. I think it is fine to say, in common parlance, that this is 'part of the game', it is certainly part of the activity of playing. So it is meaningful to the participants. I still see a really useful distinction here though. I also have a desire to make all these things into one whole



I’ll meet you in the middle. I think There is a distinction but the word game I think is already too overloaded to help capture it.

i think the concepts of homeogenous and heteroegenous may apply more aptly.

some rpgs are heterogenous mix of game mechanics and roleplay. I think your preference is for a more homogenous mixture (assuming one actually exists).


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Off topic but that’s a very unconvincing argument. The whole point of descartes is that thought requires a thinker or an “I” that is doing the thinking.



I know the point. My point is that he's wrong. (For the full argument, see the history of empiricist philosophy from Berkely through Hume through the authors I mentioned.)


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't think you have much familiarity with BW.



You are absolutely correct. What I know of how BW works in play, I know from your descriptions of it. Thanks for explaining this facet of the game.

The same goes for Prince Valiant, of course--both my unfamiliarity with it, and my thanks for explaining it.


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> I'd push back on that a little.  I mean, I can play a Final Fantasy game to "find out what happens", and what happens is going to be the same thing that happens to everyone else that plays the same game, but our experience of it will be different.  Discussing an adventure path is much more akin to discussing a movie that's been seen by both.
> 
> It's obviously quite different than playing to make something happen, which is closer to what I think the ideal is for player-driven play.



Well, in the FF context the game designer isn't finding out what happens.

In a parallel RPG context, the GM isn't finding out what happens.

Of course in a railroad or a puzzle-game the players can play to find out what it is that the GM has already decided! But the slogan _play to find out what happens_ is applying to the GM as well as the players.



FrogReaver said:


> You think what happened in their games was the same?  Even with the same major plot points and major battles I would bet their games were fairly different. Different things happened. Different characters did different things. Etc.  Playing to find out doesn’t have to be playing to find out the plot.



So what are you finding out?

If the plot was the same, then what is the nature of those different things that happened?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I know the point. My point is that he's wrong. (For the full argument, see the history of empiricist philosophy from Berkely through Hume through the authors I mentioned.)



And my point was that you were wrong.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I think you are using the wrong words to convey your thoughts.
> 
> That a particular brand of role playing isn’t required to play a game doesn’t mean that brand of roleplaying isn’t part of the game in which it’s being used.   I think what you mean is that it isn’t part of the rule set.



Well, it is a bit more than that, or maybe it is what that implies. It implies that it may not have any impact on the following game state. That is what Pemerton means when he talks about 'pantomime', I believe. I'm with you however in terms of saying when people "play D&D" they include whatever roleplay happens at the table in that activity. I don't think the words are 'wrong', we just have somewhat different views on how things are called. Its probably something we should just agree we don't need to argue about.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, it is a bit more than that, or maybe it is what that implies. It implies that it may not have any impact on the following game state. That is what Pemerton means when he talks about 'pantomime', I believe. I'm with you however in terms of saying when people "play D&D" they include whatever roleplay happens at the table in that activity. I don't think the words are 'wrong', we just have somewhat different views on how things are called. Its probably something we should just agree we don't need to argue about.



Most of the  things you find inconsequential impact the game state for me.


----------



## Thomas Shey

pemerton said:


> If the plot was the same, then what is the nature of those different things that happened?




I suspect you're defining "the plot" more narrowly than he is.

I'm playing in an adventure path right now.  I'll presumably end up at the endstate identical or very similar to other people who play it.

But along the way I'll interact with different people in different ways, I'll have in-character risks they may not have, I'll have interactions with the other PCs that produce potential changes in their relationships, I'll chose different sorts of advancement choices based on my experiences and more.

I suspect to you most of this is trivial, but to me they're still part of the plot that makes a difference.  That doesn't mean they have to to you, of course.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> And my point was that you were wrong.



Who has taken what Descartes wrote seriously since the 1800s?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> You think what happened in their games was the same?  Even with the same major plot points and major battles I would bet their games were fairly different. Different things happened. Different characters did different things. Etc.  Playing to find out doesn’t have to be playing to find out the plot.
> 
> and as @TwoSix mentioned above even playing to find out the plot works as long as the players aren’t repeating the same adventure path they’ve already played in.



Well.... I think there's a pretty big difference between "Playing to find out how each of a set sequence of combats and encounters goes." vs playing to find out what the cost of my character's determination to build an empire ends up costing him.


----------



## Manbearcat

TwoSix said:


> I'd push back on that a little.  I mean, I can play a Final Fantasy game to "find out what happens", and what happens is going to be the same thing that happens to everyone else that plays the same game, but our experience of it will be different.  Discussing an adventure path is much more akin to discussing a movie that's been seen by both.
> 
> It's obviously quite different than playing to make something happen, which is closer to what I think the ideal is for player-driven play.



Just briefly scanning the thread and don't have time to comment deeply or anything but this recent line of conversation has me doing a triple-take.  

"All roads lead to Rome" is literally the quintessential marker for a railroad.  If this statement and subsequent reality about a number of games across a population of tables has somehow now become controversial...we may as well just quit talking about TTRPGs altogether!  However, in light of this apparent controversy, I think the deep divide on the issues we've discussed in this thread is starting to crystalize (regarding Force and Agency et al).  

I guess the observations/questions I would make/have at this point are the following:

1)  Since Force is merely a microcosm of a Railroad (an individual transition of gamestate from a > b where the GM has compelled the trajectory to b, subverting the possibility of divergence via player input), I guess I now understand the divide on the concept there too.  So my question would be something like this arrangement:

If the ">" in the formulation of "gamestate a > b" has sufficient "gamestate-irrelevant-variables" (conversations had, battle cries, color of cloak worn, a brooding elf vs a merry elf, "Samantha just popped the question to Amy!") such that it superficially looks different from another group's ">", yet, because of the "gamestate-relevant variables" all of these tables end up at gamestate b from gamestate a (which...the only way this could be possible is if the overwhelming volitional force on play is the will of the GM)...then is that not Force?  

2)  I guess the only follow-up questions would be:

a)  "Do people believe the concepts of a Force/Railroad are phenomenon that occurs in TTRPGs?"

b)  "If yes, what in the world is the litmus test (every transition from gamestate a > b has to be a carbon copy for Force and every moment from gamestate a to z has to be a complete carbon copy for a Railroad)?"


----------



## TwoSix

Manbearcat said:


> If the ">" in the formulation of "gamestate a > b" has sufficient "gamestate-irrelevant-variables" (conversations had, battle cries, color of cloak worn, a brooding elf vs a merry elf, "Samantha just popped the question to Amy!") such that it superficially looks different from another group's ">", yet, because of the "gamestate-relevant variables" all of these tables end up at gamestate b from gamestate a (which...the only way this could be possible is if the overwhelming volitional force on play is the will of the GM)...then is that not Force?



I would certainly argue it is Force, but I'm not huge supporter of adventure path play.  I'm just familiar with it.

My quote above with the slight pushback on Pemerton was only because I think the phrase "find out what happens" can be a little confusing to those not familiar with the context of the terminology.   

I'd also say that the idea of a shared experience within the community of using adventure paths must provide some value, otherwise WotC and Paizo wouldn't have been so successful with the module publishing experience.  TTRPG play can simultaneously be a railroad and a positive experience at the table, even if the agency is incredibly limited. 



Manbearcat said:


> a)  "Do people believe the concepts of a Force/Railroad are phenomenon that occurs in TTRPGs?"



I would say it not only occurs, it's the dominant MO of the majority of play tables.  (Not systems, but tables, since D&D style gaming is the large majority of TTRPG play.)


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> And my point was that you were wrong.



Which anti-empiricist philosophers do you have in mind?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> If the ">" in the formulation of "gamestate a > b" has sufficient "gamestate-irrelevant-variables" (conversations had, battle cries, color of cloak worn, a brooding elf vs a merry elf, "Samantha just popped the question to Amy!") such that it superficially looks different from another group's ">", yet, because of the "gamestate-relevant variables" all of these tables end up at gamestate b from gamestate a (which...the only way this could be possible is if the overwhelming volitional force on play is the will of the GM)...then is that not Force?
> 
> 2)  I guess the only follow-up questions would be:
> 
> a)  "Do people believe the concepts of a Force/Railroad are phenomenon that occurs in TTRPGs?"
> 
> b)  "If yes, what in the world is the litmus test (every transition from gamestate a > b has to be a carbon copy for Force and every moment from gamestate a to z has to be a complete carbon copy for a Railroad)?"




I do believe in concept of a force, though don't think it is a bad thing, though it can be used badly, and often is.

But my issue with your formulation is the assumption that there even is a clearly definable game state and then other things that occur in game that are not gamestates. Like 'a brooding elf' is just as much a gamestate than whatever your gamestate A is. Now who cares about the fate of which gamestates is subjective. Perhaps one group of people are really invested in gamestate A, and care a lot whether it is transitioned to B or C, whilst the chitchat that happens while dealing with this is rather inconsequential to them. But to some other group the chitchat might be what they're there for, the question of cheering up the moody elf is the thing they care about, and A to B thing is just inconsequential backdrop to give an excuse for their characters to interact and deal with their interpersonal issues. And a GM can use force to interfere with either, and how much the players care will depend on whether they cared about the decision the force was used upon.


----------



## pemerton

Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect you're defining "the plot" more narrowly than he is.



I don't think so, because @FrogReaver agreed that in an AP game the group is _not_ playing to find out the plot.



Thomas Shey said:


> I'm playing in an adventure path right now.  I'll presumably end up at the endstate identical or very similar to other people who play it.
> 
> But along the way I'll interact with different people in different ways, I'll have in-character risks they may not have, I'll have interactions with the other PCs that produce potential changes in their relationships, I'll chose different sorts of advancement choices based on my experiences and more.
> 
> I suspect to you most of this is trivial, but to me they're still part of the plot that makes a difference.  That doesn't mean they have to to you, of course.



I imagine this is what he is saying. 

Now I assert that, where the game not only includes those things but they are _central_ to determining the nature of the risks confronted by the protagonist, the consequences of their failures as well as their triumphs, etc then the players are exercising agency over a greater and more significant component of the shared fiction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm sorry, but it is you who is trying to separate the game and roleplaying. It is a roleplaying game, all of it is part of the game, even when no formal rules are involved. It can have no rules beyond 'players decide what characters do, GM decides what happens and describes the world' and it is still a game, a LARP is a game.
> 
> Also that 'the characters talk and decide to do something' is crucial for agency. That is them establishing the direction of the game, you can't get more important act for agency than that.



I think this needs unpacking, and I'll do it without defining anything.

Firstly, the claim that players talking and deciding things in character being crucial to agency is immediately defeated by examples of agency being wielded even while in pawn stance -- ie, without any attempt to portray the character.  This isn't terrible interesting to your point though, so let's set this aside and look at cases where players are talking and deciding things in character.

In this case, the discussion between players doesn't really get to agency until they act on that decision -- if you've ever attended a meeting where courses of action are being presented then you'll recognize that what's said in the meeting has only a loose connection to what actually happens (except in rare, special cases).  Just agreeing between players doesn't make a thing so -- it's the actions taken to enact it that really get to agency.  And, here, we're back to the same evaluations -- who's doing the resolving?  If it's just the GM, then no amount of discussing or deciding in character will overcome a GM veto.  There's no agency here at all.  On the other hand, if the GM authorizes the plan, then we can evaluate agency.  Or on the gripping hand, if the system allows players to push the issue without the GM's authorization, then we can also evaluate agency.  The details of what's discussed and decided don't matter until put to action, at which point the agency of the game will show up.  Just talking in character doesn't enable or disable agency.

Now, is it important for other reasons?  Absolutely!  I'd find my RPGs to be rather dull affairs (I'm not a fan of classic player-skill dungeon crawls) without some good characterization!  And I think that making choices that advocate for your character is very important for my enjoyment.  But, doing so doesn't enable agency, so I can't agree that in-character play is critical to agency.  It's critical to my enjoyment, though.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Something is at stake! And that still needs no rules for happen. It is the narrative that creates the stakes, not the rules.
> 
> Now for back to our friend Lancelot. 'I'm love with the queen' is an important driving force for the character, it is part of his central motivations. This sort of character defining driving force is something the player should accept, otherwise the GM, system or whatever, is effectively creating the character for the player (and if players agree to that, then its fine, but they're willingly giving away a part of their agency.) But being able to decide 'this is what my character cares about' is pretty damn central for agency as it is from those core beliefs all the other decisions follow. Lancelot is in love with his best friends wife, and the fate of the nation depends on this friend. But the player does not control Arthur, they do not control Guinevere, they do not control the other NPCs (unless this is the sort of game where player has narrative level powers.) Numerous risks and conflicts arise from this central motivation, and it is for the player to decide how to handle these situations, what choices to make. Relegating these vital choices to some mechanic would rob the player from agency, make them a spectator and is bizarre to think otherwise.



I'm not sure what you're criticizing, here -- it's not anything I'm familiar with.  I 100% agree that the Lancelot character's player doesn't control outside characters, and that the conflict is key to the play, but I don't know what system you're talking about that would offload this to some mechanic and rob the player of agency.

For example, if the player of the Lancelot character find a situation where they can act on their forbidden love for the Queen, but it's in tension with their loyalty to their friend, does the player have agency by just saying they resist and their character resists?  This is a Czege violation -- the player has established both the forbidden love and the loyalty aspects and then also establishes the resolution of the tension between them.  This isn't playing a game, or engaging agency, it's just straight authorship.  It's isn't low or high agency because agency isn't invoked.

Now, you can also have the GM decides aspect here, and the GM can decide how the character reacts.  This is clearly a low agency situation -- the player can only try to persuade the GM to issue a preferred resolution, but has no ability to influence it otherwise.  This gets a bit better if the GM decides a check is in order and the player can then leverage character abilities to improve the odds of success, but, again, what success and failure is will be decided by the GM.  The best that can be hoped for here is a keenly interested GM that will act as benevolent dictator and deliver a fair evaluation/resolution and that you like this.  I find most D&D games live in this space -- the players like how the GM decides things.  Or, don't dislike it.

Alternatively, you can have a situation where the GM can say, "sure, you resist," or they could say, "um, this seems like a good time to see which side of Lancelot wins, let's have a check."  The terms of this are system restricted -- on a success the player gets what they want, on a failure the GM can narrate the failure state.  Note this differs from the above in that the ability to dictate resolution steps is shared -- the player gets to dictate the success, the GM the failures.  The player here has more agency because they can set at least half of the wagered outcomes and the GM cannot gainsay them.

Finally, in an interesting case, the player themselves can ask for a check because they're interested in both a situation where Lancelot resists and one where he doesn't.  This can go to all of the above situations -- player decides all ends of the wager, in which case agency isn't invoked and the check is just an aid to deciding how to author the scene; or, the GM decides, and agency is reduced in favor of elevating GM agency; or the system has a say in how the check will be conducted and the player has more agency by dint of determining some of the resolution space without GM approval.

None of this looks like turning over the character to mechanics.  In any case where agency is invoked (and just dictating outcomes doesn't invoke agency -- it's not no agency, it's not even agency) there's always a mechanic involved, even if that's just GM decides.


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> My quote above with the slight pushback on Pemerton was only because I think the phrase "find out what happens" can be a little confusing to those not familiar with the context of the terminology.



I would add - those whose RPGing experience is confined to play where the GM exercises most of the agency are not familiar with the possibility of a high degree of player agency, such that _the GM_ might also be playing to find out what happens.

As this thread shows, that's not really a _terminological_ issue.



TwoSix said:


> I'd also say that the idea of a shared experience within the community of using adventure paths must provide some value



Sure. More people also play Monopoly than play (say) Diplomacy. That doesn't show the latter has more agency involved.

The reason I prefer backgammon to chess is that it is easier - "lighter" - to play and hence demands just the right amount of effort + thinking from me. That doesn't mean backgammon involves as much agency as chess. I think it clearly doesn't. As is shown by the fact that from time-to-time a weaker player can beat a stronger one. In chess that won't happen - unless the players are pretty evenly matched the stronger will win.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I suspect you're defining "the plot" more narrowly than he is.
> 
> I'm playing in an adventure path right now.  I'll presumably end up at the endstate identical or very similar to other people who play it.
> 
> But along the way I'll interact with different people in different ways, I'll have in-character risks they may not have, I'll have interactions with the other PCs that produce potential changes in their relationships, I'll chose different sorts of advancement choices based on my experiences and more.
> 
> I suspect to you most of this is trivial, but to me they're still part of the plot that makes a difference.  That doesn't mean they have to to you, of course.



And my response to this is it illustrates the degree to which your agency, the scope of that agency, is limited when playing D&D. There is an adventure. Sure, you can color your actions how you wish, and there are undoubtedly going to be variations in how things play out, within the bounds of that adventure! Maybe, if whomever is running it is willing, they may even let you 'go off the rails', but the DM will still dictate where that leads, and could easily route the action back to the main storyline at some point.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And my response to this is it illustrates the degree to which your agency, the scope of that agency, is limited when playing D&D. There is an adventure. Sure, you can color your actions how you wish, and there are undoubtedly going to be variations in how things play out, within the bounds of that adventure! Maybe, if whomever is running it is willing, they may even let you 'go off the rails', but the DM will still dictate where that leads, and could easily route the action back to the main storyline at some point.



I think this description fits D&D best when playing something like an Adventure Path (which might be what you're reacting to). It's possible to play a D&D game where the DM doesn't know where the PCs will go or what they will do. I know, because I'm running two.


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## TwoSix

pemerton said:


> Sure. More people also play Monopoly than play (say) Diplomacy. That doesn't show the latter has more agency involved.



Absolutely.  I think there's a conflation by the Crimson/Frogreaver camp that agency is somehow synonymous with "play experience I prioritize".  A 3 hour deep philosophical conversation between your characters in a tavern exhibits no agency, even if it's the best session of your life and the apotheosis of what you think a RPG session should aspire to.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> I do believe in concept of a force, though don't think it is a bad thing, though it can be used badly, and often is.
> 
> But my issue with your formulation is the assumption that there even is a clearly definable game state and then other things that occur in game that are not gamestates. Like 'a brooding elf' is just as much a gamestate than whatever your gamestate A is. Now who cares about the fate of which gamestates is subjective. Perhaps one group of people are really invested in gamestate A, and care a lot whether it is transitioned to B or C, whilst the chitchat that happens while dealing with this is rather inconsequential to them. But to some other group the chitchat might be what they're there for, the question of cheering up the moody elf is the thing they care about, and A to B thing is just inconsequential backdrop to give an excuse for their characters to interact and deal with their interpersonal issues. And a GM can use force to interfere with either, and how much the players care will depend on whether they cared about the decision the force was used upon.




I don't have time to do a full post, but I think I've uncovered where the daylight is between us.  I'll write up a few play examples later this evening to illustrate things, but for now, what is "gamestate relevant" are things that the gamestate's initial state and its subsequent state are sensitive to.  What does the transition of the gamestate turn on?  If something within the shared fiction of play doesn't intersect with that (eg the color of your cloak doesn't matter to whether or not you suss out whether danger or your objective is down the left path vs the right), then its not gamestate relevant.  That doesn't mean its unimportant to your personal fun of play...it just means its not gamestate relevant.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I think this description fits D&D best when playing something like an Adventure Path (which might be what you're reacting to). It's possible to play a D&D game where the DM doesn't know where the PCs will go or what they will do. I know, because I'm running two.



Sure, and not surprisingly this is a mainstay of many narrative games. Dungeon World for instance directs the GM to create "maps with holes in them" and to "turn the question back on the players." (also to "ask a lot of questions"). This is all often described as 'zero myth' play (zero maybe is a bit extreme, we could say 'low'). It is not at all mentioned in any D&D material that I am aware of (no core books or such). Even 4e doesn't espouse this particularly, although the handling of the PoL "Minimum Viable Setting" does kind of embody something pretty close to DW. Still, 4e never mentions asking the players questions or anything like that.

So, yes, this is a style of play used in D&D, and probably birthed by people at least partly in the course of D&D play. But those people, at least the ones with game designer ambitions, then went off and designed games where it was codified! (probably the closest in D&D-likes is 13th Age).


----------



## Manbearcat

TwoSix said:


> I would certainly argue it is Force, but I'm not huge supporter of adventure path play.  I'm just familiar with it.
> 
> My quote above with the slight pushback on Pemerton was only because I think the phrase "find out what happens" can be a little confusing to those not familiar with the context of the terminology.
> 
> *I'd also say that the idea of a shared experience within the community of using adventure paths must provide some value, otherwise WotC and Paizo wouldn't have been so successful with the module publishing experience.  TTRPG play can simultaneously be a railroad and a positive experience at the table, even if the agency is incredibly limited.*
> 
> 
> I would say it not only occurs, it's the dominant MO of the majority of play tables.  (Not systems, but tables, since D&D style gaming is the large majority of TTRPG play.)




That is pretty much what I figured, but your post was a good one to put my thoughts out there.

One thing on the bolded part of your reply (and this isn't to you, but broadly to the community).  I've spoken about this a few times in this thread, but attempts at focused analysis of TTRPGs on here are always hurt by people (accidentally) smuggling in other aspects of play, conflating them with the concept under discussion and then assuming a value judgement is being made about the thing they've smuggled in or their overall play aesthetic.  The analysis suffers and offense gets taken (leading to a positive feedback loop where daylight between parties grows rather than recedes).

When I talk about "gamestate transition", "play trajectory", "Force", and "agency (as it pertains to those prior 3 things)", I'm not talking about anything else other than those concepts specifically and I'm not making a value judgement on your (generic) or my play.  I'm sure the shared experience of all of these tables running through the same metaplot has value to the people involved and many come away with a sense of enjoyment from their table experience.  But their value/enjoyment derived isn't relevant to gamestate analysis and how the machinery of TTRPG play (theirs and others) functions under the hood.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> I don't have time to do a full post, but I think I've uncovered where the daylight is between us.  I'll write up a few play examples later this evening to illustrate things, but for now, what is "gamestate relevant" are things that the gamestate's initial state and its subsequent state are sensitive to.  What does the transition of the gamestate turn on?  If something within the shared fiction of play doesn't intersect with that (eg the color of your cloak doesn't matter to whether or not you suss out whether danger or your objective is down the left path vs the right), then its not gamestate relevant.  That doesn't mean its unimportant to your personal fun of play...it just means its not gamestate relevant.



I think it is always a bit fuzzy. That is, in theory the color of your cloak COULD matter later on. So, the totality of the fiction is potentially within the realm of game state, but most of it will not ever be acted upon. In fact most of it will soon be forgotten, and even notes taken at the time which fully expound the causal connections between events in the fiction won't mention them. I would say these are only 'weakly coupled' to game state. Heck, hit points could turn out to be weakly coupled to a given game state. The fact that your character got bit by a giant rat for 1 point of damage might be utterly forgettable and trivial. It could lead to your death too, you won't know until later.

I would say that mental state of characters that is unattached to mechanics is, however, ALWAYS weakly coupled, at best. It is usually irrelevant. There isn't any formal mechanism to make it relevant, even in narrative games, unless the player explicitly elevates it to mechanical significance (writes a new Bond in DW or something).


----------



## heretic888

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, and not surprisingly this is a mainstay of many narrative games. Dungeon World for instance directs the GM to create "maps with holes in them" and to "turn the question back on the players." (also to "ask a lot of questions"). This is all often described as 'zero myth' play (zero maybe is a bit extreme, we could say 'low'). It is not at all mentioned in any D&D material that I am aware of (no core books or such). Even 4e doesn't espouse this particularly, although the handling of the PoL "Minimum Viable Setting" does kind of embody something pretty close to DW. Still, 4e never mentions asking the players questions or anything like that.
> 
> So, yes, this is a style of play used in D&D, and probably birthed by people at least partly in the course of D&D play. But those people, at least the ones with game designer ambitions, then went off and designed games where it was codified! (probably the closest in D&D-likes is 13th Age).



Actuallly, techniques for soliciting feedback from players, including asking them pointed questions mid-play, is discussed in 4E's DMG2, pp. 16-19.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I think this needs unpacking, and I'll do it without defining anything.



But you do. Because everything you say here relies on your Newspeak definition of agency.



Ovinomancer said:


> Firstly, the claim that players talking and deciding things in character being crucial to agency is immediately defeated by examples of agency being wielded even while in pawn stance -- ie, without any attempt to portray the character.  This isn't terrible interesting to your point though, so let's set this aside and look at cases where players are talking and deciding things in character.
> 
> In this case, the discussion between players doesn't really get to agency until they act on that decision



Yes it does. They're establishing things about the fiction. Earlier several people claimed that player's agency was limited if they were not allowed to introduce some hills in the fiction. So certainly introducing elements in fiction is use of agency. Everything the characters feel, think or say, is an element in the fiction. And just like the hills, it can affect the behaviour of the other characters too.



Ovinomancer said:


> -- if you've ever attended a meeting where courses of action are being presented then you'll recognize that what's said in the meeting has only a loose connection to what actually happens (except in rare, special cases).



Presumably what happens in a meeting is people talking. Which is a thing that happens. You're trying to slip in here one of your arbitrary imaginary divisions. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Just agreeing between players doesn't make a thing so -- it's the actions taken to enact it that really get to agency.  And, here, we're back to the same evaluations -- who's doing the resolving?  If it's just the GM, then no amount of discussing or deciding in character will overcome a GM veto.  There's no agency here at all.  On the other hand, if the GM authorizes the plan, then we can evaluate agency.  Or on the gripping hand, if the system allows players to push the issue without the GM's authorization, then we can also evaluate agency.  The details of what's discussed and decided don't matter until put to action, at which point the agency of the game will show up.  Just talking in character doesn't enable or disable agency.



So now the ability for the players to do what they want without GM stopping them is them having agency... except if what they wanted to do was to talk, then it wasn't... 



Ovinomancer said:


> Now, is it important for other reasons?  Absolutely!  I'd find my RPGs to be rather dull affairs (I'm not a fan of classic player-skill dungeon crawls) without some good characterization!  And I think that making choices that advocate for your character is very important for my enjoyment.  But, doing so doesn't enable agency, so I can't agree that in-character play is critical to agency.  It's critical to my enjoyment, though.



In-character play is a part of the game, thus making decisions about that is making decisions about the content of the game, thus use of agency.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure what you're criticizing, here -- it's not anything I'm familiar with.  I 100% agree that the Lancelot character's player doesn't control outside characters, and that the conflict is key to the play, but I don't know what system you're talking about that would offload this to some mechanic and rob the player of agency.
> 
> For example, if the player of the Lancelot character find a situation where they can act on their forbidden love for the Queen, but it's in tension with their loyalty to their friend, does the player have agency by just saying they resist and their character resists?



Yes! They absolutely do! If they cannot do that, their agency is seriously limited and it is completely bonkers to claim otherwise!



Ovinomancer said:


> This is a Czege violation -- the player has established both the forbidden love and the loyalty aspects and then also establishes the resolution of the tension between them.  This isn't playing a game, or engaging agency, it's just straight authorship.  It's isn't low or high agency because agency isn't invoked.



Yeah, I'm done with this Czege. It is invoked here like some religious doctrine, and with similar amount of subtlety too. 

And this is not some pass/fail test, it is a choice. And important, character defining choice. The character is basically choosing to sacrifice one thing that is important to them, they cannot have both. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Now, you can also have the GM decides aspect here, and the GM can decide how the character reacts.  This is clearly a low agency situation -- the player can only try to persuade the GM to issue a preferred resolution, but has no ability to influence it otherwise.  This gets a bit better if the GM decides a check is in order and the player can then leverage character abilities to improve the odds of success, but, again, what success and failure is will be decided by the GM.  The best that can be hoped for here is a keenly interested GM that will act as benevolent dictator and deliver a fair evaluation/resolution and that you like this.  I find most D&D games live in this space -- the players like how the GM decides things.  Or, don't dislike it.
> 
> Alternatively, you can have a situation where the GM can say, "sure, you resist," or they could say, "um, this seems like a good time to see which side of Lancelot wins, let's have a check."  The terms of this are system restricted -- on a success the player gets what they want, on a failure the GM can narrate the failure state.  Note this differs from the above in that the ability to dictate resolution steps is shared -- the player gets to dictate the success, the GM the failures.  The player here has more agency because they can set at least half of the wagered outcomes and the GM cannot gainsay them.
> 
> Finally, in an interesting case, the player themselves can ask for a check because they're interested in both a situation where Lancelot resists and one where he doesn't.  This can go to all of the above situations -- player decides all ends of the wager, in which case agency isn't invoked and the check is just an aid to deciding how to author the scene; or, the GM decides, and agency is reduced in favor of elevating GM agency; or the system has a say in how the check will be conducted and the player has more agency by dint of determining some of the resolution space without GM approval.
> 
> None of this looks like turning over the character to mechanics.  In any case where agency is invoked (and just dictating outcomes doesn't invoke agency -- it's not no agency, it's not even agency) there's always a mechanic involved, even if that's just GM decides.




This is truly something. You advocate subjecting important character defining choices for die rolls and think you're advocating for agency!

Very early in this thread I talked about not sweating about agency regarding small choices, whether to go to right or left, etc. I said that it is the big choices that matter, love, loyalty, grand goals. This is that sort of a choice. Now having GM to force such choices is of course a no go, but reducing such to some soulless coin flips is almost as bad. So yeah, I'll stick to my version of agency, which means that the players get to control the crucial decision that define their characters.


----------



## Manbearcat

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think it is always a bit fuzzy. That is, in theory the color of your cloak COULD matter later on. So, the totality of the fiction is potentially within the realm of game state, but most of it will not ever be acted upon. In fact most of it will soon be forgotten, and even notes taken at the time which fully expound the causal connections between events in the fiction won't mention them. I would say these are only 'weakly coupled' to game state. Heck, hit points could turn out to be weakly coupled to a given game state. The fact that your character got bit by a giant rat for 1 point of damage might be utterly forgettable and trivial. It could lead to your death too, you won't know until later.
> 
> I would say that mental state of characters that is unattached to mechanics is, however, ALWAYS weakly coupled, at best. It is usually irrelevant. There isn't any formal mechanism to make it relevant, even in narrative games, unless the player explicitly elevates it to mechanical significance (writes a new Bond in DW or something).




Yup.  But I firmly hold that if you can't suss out what is gamestate relevant at the moment of the decision-point then something has gone wrong in play.   This can either be a system problem, lack of deftness of GMing, or lack of engagement on the players (which is a whole other question of why that is happening).

Its similar to the profound difference in experience of a great novel or movie where a huge reveal happens at some point (like 6th Sense or Memento) that changes the viewers entire orientation.  Just like if the writer/producer/director/editor doesn't deftly seed the narrative with subtle clues, the general experience of the reveal will be either (a) completely unimpactful or (b) an absolute turn-off (if particularly opaque or ham-fisted).  GMs have to similarly deftly handle their conflict framing whether the decision-points are centered around navigating the final stretch of a dangerous labyrinth by the flagging light of 3 remaining torches or the adjuring of a hostile spirit from a host or pulling off an art heist at an auction with a huge security contingent and high society.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

heretic888 said:


> Actuallly, techniques for soliciting feedback from players, including asking them pointed questions mid-play, is discussed in 4E's DMG2, pp. 16-19.



Heh, whenever I dig back into 4e material it surprises me exactly how much 'narrative game' 'stuff' is in there, though always falling just short of mechanical expression.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> I don't have time to do a full post, but I think I've uncovered where the daylight is between us.  I'll write up a few play examples later this evening to illustrate things, but for now, what is "gamestate relevant" are things that the gamestate's initial state and its subsequent state are sensitive to.  What does the transition of the gamestate turn on?  If something within the shared fiction of play doesn't intersect with that (eg the color of your cloak doesn't matter to whether or not you suss out whether danger or your objective is down the left path vs the right), then its not gamestate relevant.  That doesn't mean its unimportant to your personal fun of play...it just means its not gamestate relevant.



I mean, sure, the colour of the cloak is unlikely to affect that particular gamestate, it could affect something else though. And I really fail to see how classifying some things within the game as 'gamestates' and some not isn't ultimately arbitrary. Perhaps my cloak was the favourite colour of the gloomy elf, and by gifting it to him I can cheer him up! So now the 'gamestate' of the elf's glumness has changed, thanks to my blue cloak!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> I mean, sure, the colour of the cloak is unlikely to affect that particular gamestate, it could affect something else though. And I really fail to see how classifying some things within the game as 'gamestates' and some not isn't ultimately arbitrary. Perhaps my cloak was the favourite colour of the gloomy elf, and by gifting it to him I can cheer him up! So now the 'gamestate' of the elf's glumness has changed, thanks to my blue cloak!



And if the elf's glumness doesn't signify anything in the game, it has no salience, then so what? I mean, it could be a fun moment for the players. It is likely to be little remarked nor long remembered. States are just a way of talking about the flow of the situation in the game from one point to the next and the causal connections that are built in the narrative between them. I don't see why people are so up in arms about the assertion that 'strong' state would be created by say writing a Bond between the elf and the dwarf with the yellow cloak, which they can then act on with 'hold' (for example, in DW hold lets you keep a bonus to a check in reserve). This lets the actuality of that friendship come through in a significant way, the elf leaps to the defense of the dwarf, his friend, and knocks aside the deadly snake! How is that not a good thing? I don't get it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And if the elf's glumness doesn't signify anything in the game, it has no salience, then so what?



Signify to whom? 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, it could be a fun moment for the players. It is likely to be little remarked nor long remembered.



That one moment perhaps. But dispositions of characters and their relationships and interactions are probably going to be far more memorable and impact the actual experience of the game far more than +2 bonus to this or that.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> States are just a way of talking about the flow of the situation in the game from one point to the next and the causal connections that are built in the narrative between them.



Yes, that's how I understood it. So logically basically anything in the game is a gamestate.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't see why people are so up in arms about the assertion that 'strong' state would be created by say writing a Bond between the elf and the dwarf with the yellow cloak, which they can then act on with 'hold' (for example, in DW hold lets you keep a bonus to a check in reserve). This lets the actuality of that friendship come through in a significant way, the elf leaps to the defense of the dwarf, his friend, and knocks aside the deadly snake! How is that not a good thing? I don't get it.



I mean sure, you can give it mechanics like that if you want. But the friendship is not the mechanical bonus. The friendship without the bonus will be far more memorable and impactful than the bonus without the friendship. Though of course you can have both.


----------



## Thomas Shey

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And my response to this is it illustrates the degree to which your agency, the scope of that agency, is limited when playing D&D. There is an adventure. Sure, you can color your actions how you wish, and there are undoubtedly going to be variations in how things play out, within the bounds of that adventure! Maybe, if whomever is running it is willing, they may even let you 'go off the rails', but the DM will still dictate where that leads, and could easily route the action back to the main storyline at some point.




I gather you don't believe true sandboxes are a thing?  Or are we back to "if you don't have an ability to directly influence setting elements on a  player level you can have no true agency"?


----------



## Thomas Shey

prabe said:


> I think this description fits D&D best when playing something like an Adventure Path (which might be what you're reacting to). It's possible to play a D&D game where the DM doesn't know where the PCs will go or what they will do. I know, because I'm running two.




Yup.  It requires more work in some ways, less in others, but its been done by people for decades.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> I mean, sure, the colour of the cloak is unlikely to affect that particular gamestate, it could affect something else though. And I really fail to see how classifying some things within the game as 'gamestates' and some not isn't ultimately arbitrary. Perhaps my cloak was the favourite colour of the gloomy elf, and by gifting it to him I can cheer him up! So now the 'gamestate' of the elf's glumness has changed, thanks to my blue cloak!




Alright, to attempt to assuage you of your sense of arbitrariness.

Gamestates are sequences of play characterized by the following features:

1) They address the objective/premise of the game.

2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.

3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.

* Of note, depending upon the TTRPGs, there will be a macro gamestate (Dogs in the Vineyard - mete out justice and uphold the Faith as one of God's Watchdogs) and one or more micro gamestates (take my Dog's coat into Suzanna for mending as an excuse to attempt to romance her so I may marry her and retire) persisting simultaneously.  However, some TTRPGs have an extremely small play loop such that there is only one gamestate that exists (One-shots and games like My Life With Master).

My next post is going to address specifically the meting out justice, Faith-upholding, coat-mending, Suzanna-wooing, retiring (or not).  But does what I wrote above make sense?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> But you do. Because everything you say here relies on your Newspeak definition of agency.



Oddly, it's only you that says this.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes it does. They're establishing things about the fiction. Earlier several people claimed that player's agency was limited if they were not allowed to introduce some hills in the fiction. So certainly introducing elements in fiction is use of agency. Everything the characters feel, think or say, is an element in the fiction. And just like the hills, it can affect the behaviour of the other characters too.



The element introduced is that some characters talked, so, yes, I suppose having the agency to do this is something.  But, you don't actually have this agency -- the GM in your game is allowing it to happen, the players cannot decide this is so themselves and enforce it.  If the GM wished, your discussion could have been interrupted by any manner of things, so it's not really a choice you've made that creates this, it's a choice the GM has made to allow it.  As a player, you do not have the agency to execute a talk.  The actual contents of the talk is about as important as the color of your cloak -- until the GM determines that what you're discussing is important, it is not.

This is what you have when you have a system where the GM has complete authority over the setting and resolutions.  It's not a bad thing -- most GMs are going to not even consider interrupting player discussions in character because they enjoy them as well.  This is just a usual exercise of the agency the GM possesses, though, not an exercise of player agency.  I think that this is what you're confusing -- how a GM usually rules for allowance for the player being able to enact a thing.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Presumably what happens in a meeting is people talking. Which is a thing that happens. You're trying to slip in here one of your arbitrary imaginary divisions.



A thing happening is not sufficient for an exercise of agency.  Again, if you have a choice between right or left, but no nothing about the choice other than it's a or b, and you choose one, you're not actually exercising agency because the choice is empty.  Similarly, a thing happening isn't a sufficient condition for agency.  For example, a player can ask a GM for there to be a friendly barman to ask for a drink at the local pub instead of the usual surly barman.  The GM can acquiesce, and add one.  This isn't an exercise in player agency, though, but an exercise of GM agency. 


Crimson Longinus said:


> So now the ability for the players to do what they want without GM stopping them is them having agency... except if what they wanted to do was to talk, then it wasn't...



If this is the conclusion you reached from that, you've understood the exact opposite of what I said.  What I said was that talking in character doesn't enable or disable agency -- there must be something more.


Crimson Longinus said:


> In-character play is a part of the game, thus making decisions about that is making decisions about the content of the game, thus use of agency.



Of course in-character play _can be_ part of the game.  It doesn't have to be, but it most certainly can be.  And, I 100% agree that the player choosing whether or not to act in character is an exercise of agency -- they don't have to and it can be a meaningful choice.  Just not a meaningful choice for the RPG, and not an exercise of player agency within the game.  Why?  Because acting in-character is not a requirement for the game -- agency exists in the game whether or not you're acting in character.  You can act in character and have the same agency in the game as another player that does not.  No, instead, you're exercising your real world agency to choose to act in character, and the repercussions are in the social interactions with your table, and in the meta-game layer that sits above the game being played.  The role playing in RPG doesn't mean acting in character, it means taking on a role like Fighter or Wizard.  You don't have to act in-character at all to do this.

Again, my preference is definitely for in-character acting.  I enjoy it and prefer it.  I just don't confuse it for player agency.

Once more we find that I'm advocating for the same kinds of play you are, but there's violent disagreement because I note how the game is working and you want what you prefer to be what the discussion is about.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes! They absolutely do! If they cannot do that, their agency is seriously limited and it is completely bonkers to claim otherwise!



Okay, let's be clear, you're saying that if a player cannot first introduce the existence of a trap on a door and then introduce that they've disarmed it that they lack agency?  This is the analogue to the situation being discussed -- the player has introduced a "trap" of having conflicting motivations and then introduced their "disarming" of the "trap" by just saying that they successfully navigated it.  The only difference here is that the trap example is physical and the temptation of Lancelot isn't, but that's a completely false difference in an imagined space.  You're now saying that agency exists when players can invent obstacles and then narrate how they bypass them.  This isn't agency, it's not even engaging agency.  I can't say this is high or low or no agency because it's not even touching the concept -- it's pure authorship.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yeah, I'm done with this Czege. It is invoked here like some religious doctrine, and with similar amount of subtlety too.



It's not a religious doctrine at all -- no one worships it, any more than "don't be a dick" is a religious doctrine.  It's a clear statement that if one person is both the author of an obstacle and also the author of how that obstacle is defeated, there's no game there.  It's referenced because it's an easy shorthand for a trivial truth.  One I find it odd that you're dismissing given how you also dislike the idea of a player being able to introduce hills north of the swamp.  

Here's a clear example you have experience with -- railroads are good examples of a Czege Principle violation.  The GM has authored the obstacles and also the only solution to them.  If you do not follow the GM's solution plan, you get noped until you do.  This is, almost universally, acclaimed to be unfun.  Viola, Czege Principle.  You can't both introduce a problem and then solve it -- it's not that fun.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And this is not some pass/fail test, it is a choice. And important, character defining choice. The character is basically choosing to sacrifice one thing that is important to them, they cannot have both.



No, not in the situation I've presented.  The player isn't abandoning the character's forbidden love of the Queen in favor of loyalty to his friend, they're making a decision as to which they want right now.  Let's say that the player is doing so because it's materially advantageous to do so -- if they don't bed the Queen right now, which will destroy their friendship but satisfy their love of the Queen, then their friend the King will grant them lands and wealth and a new suit of armor that will improve the PC's AC and let them buy that magic sword they've had their eye on.  Besides, they can always go back to the Queen next session if they want.  Nothing is resolved, the player just picks because this session it's better for them this way than that.  This isn't a character defining moment unless the player decides it is, which is, again, them introducing the problem and then deciding how it works out.  

Unless the GM later leans on this somehow, this is the equivalent of picking the color of your cloak -- it's pantomime, not actually making character defining choices.


Crimson Longinus said:


> This is truly something. You advocate subjecting important character defining choices for die rolls and think you're advocating for agency!



I'm sorry, do you not roll dice to see if characters die in combat?  Is that not character defining, in the ultimate way?  Does this mean that there's no agency in combat?

Answers are, of course, Yes, absolutely, and of course there is, in that order.   The presence of dice doesn't remove choice.  The player has chosen these conflicting motivations themselves and put them out in a place where they will be challenged.  We don't allow players to place a troll guarding a treasure and then say they defeat the troll, roll up the treasure, do we?  No, and there's no actual difference between inventing a troll that you then say you defeat than there is to inventing a character dilemma that you then say how you've solved.  These don't involve player agency because they're not part of playing the game -- if they occur, it's just the fun story we tell around the game, particularly the bits that don't matter except to be entertaining.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Very early in this thread I talked about not sweating about agency regarding small choices, whether to go to right or left, etc. I said that it is the big choices that matter, love, loyalty, grand goals. This is that sort of a choice. Now having GM to force such choices is of course a no go, but reducing such to some soulless coin flips is almost as bad. So yeah, I'll stick to my version of agency, which means that the players get to control the crucial decision that define their characters.



I absolutely agree that your version means that players control their characters.  And, this is fine and good.  One of my tenets I stick to when I run 5e (which I believe I've mentioned) is that player authority over their characters is absolute (aside from those Charm effects, of course, but I actually strive to avoid those at most costs).  So, I don't disagree that this is the way that D&D generally plays.  But, if a player has that complete control, then it's not agency at stake when they exercise it.  Agency requires a choice that matters, one that has teeth, one that risks things, and players don't risk when they make these choices with total control.  To be absolutely clear, the player's choice on these things doesn't engage agency because there's no teeth to that choice.  Now, downstream, the player might declare actions in pursuit of that choice, and those can engage agency.  Just like the players can discuss in-character all they want and that doesn't engage agency until they start declaring actions in the game.   You're confusing the ability to choose to do something at the "inside my head" or "play-acting with my friends" level and missing that the discussion isn't about that -- it's about how the game operates.  Those are grafted on top of the game -- they're not necessary for the game to function -- so they can't be exercises of agency in the game by players.  They're actually part of the meta-game level -- the one you play where the reward is to entertain yourself and your friends.

And, if you doubt this, you can absolutely find the passage in the rulebook that says that what you claim is an essential part of the game.  You'll find discussion about how it can be fun to do so, but no rule in the game requires that you do and the game plays just fine without it.  Not a game I'd particularly enjoy, but one that works just fine.  And, my enjoyment and what I like has absolutely no bearing on my analysis of agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Thomas Shey said:


> I gather you don't believe true sandboxes are a thing?  Or are we back to "if you don't have an ability to directly influence setting elements on a  player level you can have no true agency"?



Depends on what you mean by sandbox.  The term, as I understand it, is a prepared play area, usually well detailed, that generally has a predetermined state of being and a default set of events that will unfurl until and unless the players reach the right places for them to be detailed to the players and then the players decide to engage it.  This usually means that the GM has some plots running in the background to create a "living world."  I often hear statements regarding sandboxes that they "don't revolve around the players."  All of this tells me that there's lots of plots being run by the GM that don't even require the attention of the players.

That or things are static until the players get close enough for the render distance to kick in an animate them.

Which do you mean?


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I think this description fits D&D best when playing something like an Adventure Path (which might be what you're reacting to). It's possible to play a D&D game where the DM doesn't know where the PCs will go or what they will do. I know, because I'm running two.



Yes.  That's how most of the games I'm a part of seem to go.  I'm not particularly big on published adventure paths.  Though they can be good to pick apart for potential inspiration.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, to attempt to assuage you of your sense of arbitrariness.
> 
> Gamestates are sequences of play characterized by the following features:
> 
> 1) They address the objective/premise of the game.
> 
> 2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.
> 
> 3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.
> 
> * Of note, depending upon the TTRPGs, there will be a macro gamestate (Dogs in the Vineyard - mete out justice and uphold the Faith as one of God's Watchdogs) and one or more micro gamestates (take my Dog's coat into Suzanna for mending as an excuse to attempt to romance her so I may marry her and retire) persisting simultaneously.  However, some TTRPGs have an extremely small play loop such that there is only one gamestate that exists (One-shots and games like My Life With Master).
> 
> My next post is going to address specifically the meting out justice, Faith-upholding, coat-mending, Suzanna-wooing, retiring (or not).  But does what I wrote above make sense?



This is my problem with most of your definitions:  Gamestates as you define them above almost sound like they were explicitly defined to keep out much of traditional RPG play.  This also applies to numerous other terms you've defined.

It seems to me that you are trying to analyze all RPG play under a set of terms that have created to differentiate non-traditional RPG's from traditional ones and advocate for non-traditional RPG's at least to some degree.  It's no wonder such analysis always fails to capture traditional RPG play adequately.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Yup.  But I firmly hold that if you can't suss out what is gamestate relevant at the moment of the decision-point then something has gone wrong in play.   This can either be a system problem, lack of deftness of GMing, or lack of engagement on the players (which is a whole other question of why that is happening).



I'm a bit suspect of any RPG analysis concept that is only guaranteed to be useful after a campaign has completely ended.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> This is my problem with most of your definitions:  Gamestates as you define them above almost sound like they were explicitly defined to keep out much of traditional RPG play.  This also applies to numerous other terms you've defined.
> 
> It seems to me that you are trying to analyze all RPG play under a set of terms that have created to differentiate non-traditional RPG's from traditional ones and advocate for non-traditional RPG's at least to some degree.  It's no wonder such analysis always fails to capture traditional RPG play adequately.




How do you figure that the description provided doesn’t fit traditional play?  




Manbearcat said:


> 1) They address the objective/premise of the game.




The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.



Manbearcat said:


> 2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.




We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.

Everything is building off of what has come before. 



Manbearcat said:


> 3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.




The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.

How do you see these factors as not applying to traditional play?


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you figure that the description provided doesn’t fit traditional play?



Because that description is being used to tell me that details I find important in traditional play are not important.  You've defined gamestates as "plot only" and much of traditional play is not "plot only"



hawkeyefan said:


> The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.



That is one objective of the game.  Particularly the plot objective.



hawkeyefan said:


> We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.
> 
> Everything is building off of what has come before.



Gamestates don't just revolve around the plot.



hawkeyefan said:


> The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.
> 
> How do you see these factors as not applying to traditional play?



They do.  The quote you are attacking said that "Gamestates are explicitly defined to keep out much of traditional RPG play."  You've only shown that they can be applied to the traditional RPG's plot - which still leaves much of traditional RPG play as being part of no gamestate...


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> This is my problem with most of your definitions:  Gamestates as you define them above almost sound like they were explicitly defined to keep out much of traditional RPG play.  This also applies to numerous other terms you've defined.
> 
> It seems to me that you are trying to analyze all RPG play under a set of terms that have created to differentiate non-traditional RPG's from traditional ones.  It's no wonder such analysis always fails to capture traditional RPG play adequately.




I'm not sure why you think that.  When I was composing that above I was (a) drawing upon multiple philosophical sources as it relates to the technical concept of gamestate and (b) thinking of two disparate games (in terms of premise/objective, play procedures, ethos, and genre) that would both be captured to ensure that each constituent part held up; Moldvay Basic D&D (B/X, RC) and Dogs in the Vineyard.  I also wanted it to (c) capture CRPGs, athletic competitions, and board games.  I feel very confident that it works for all of those games.

If Moldvay Basic D&D doesn't qualify as "traditional RPG play"...I'm not sure what qualifies?  I can do a perfect breakdown of a Moldvay Basic session using the above concepts. 

Again, what I think is happening here is that you're folding in certain aspects (in this case Free Play whereby the gamestate isn't sensitive to whatever happens) of your play that you value precisely because you value them.  Please understand that games like Blades, games like Dogs, even Pawn Stance played Moldvay have "gamestate neutral" Free Play.  It may just be GM talking to the players about play during a session.  It may be players talking to other players (not expressed through their characters) during a session.  Hell, it may be the actual Information Gathering phase of Blades in the Dark where the players are mouthing off at each other in their lair, trying to figure out their next Score, then the go out and seek intel or call in favors or lobby NPCs for jobs.  Sometimes "that dog won't hunt" and they'll pass over one opportunity (or maybe even two in a row) for another Score that interests them (due to higher stakes or particular returns).  There will absolutely be aspects of that Free Play that fundamentally do NOT change the orientation or nature of objects in play as it relates to the premise/objective of the game.  Those constituent parts of the Information Gathering phase of play would be "gamestate-irrelevant."  But any aspect of that phase which *does *fundamentally change the orientation or nature of objects in play (for instance, the choice in Score - _this _one vs that, or you start a Long Term Project that you'll take up during Downtime, PC vs PC dispute settlement, you get in trouble during your Prowling/Studying/Surveying and that will result in some form of Complication that endures that you'll need to handle downstream before it manifests - like a Racing Clock that you have to work against during Downtime phase or it will materialize in the fiction) is 100 % gamestate-relevant.

All of that stuff during the Information Gathering phase of Blades in the Dark that doesn't fundamentally change the orientation or nature of objects in play?  They're fun!  They have value!  But that doesn't change the fact that the gamestate isn't sensitive to them!  Moldvay Basic (which is structured like Blades, as is Torchbearer) is going to have Free Play in the city where the PCs do exactly what Blades PCs do.  Some of that won't be gamestate-relevant.  Same thing.  Its not that it isn't fun or has no value...but the qualities of "fun" and "value" don't make it gamestate-relevant.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Thomas Shey said:


> I gather you don't believe true sandboxes are a thing?  Or are we back to "if you don't have an ability to directly influence setting elements on a  player level you can have no true agency"?



No, I think sandboxes exist, to a degree. I think there's a bit of 'sandbox mythology' out there, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Still, IME most games that profess to be 'sandboxes' still follow a heavy set of conventions that guide where and when different elements of the setting are going to be explored. So, I would still say that in fact you will get a game that is a lot more about characters and less about setting when the game itself provides a process that puts character goals and such front and center. Sandboxes, even assuming the highest grade of "every bit of this was built ahead of time without the slightest consideration of who would play it and how" has some kind of independent backstory and meta-plot that is (definitionally in this case) not at all related to whatever the players are aiming for.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I'm not sure why you think that.  When I was composing that above I was (a) drawing upon multiple philosophical sources as it relates to the technical concept of gamestate and (b) thinking of two disparate games (in terms of premise/objective, play procedures, ethos, and genre) that would both be captured to ensure that each constituent part held up; Moldvay Basic D&D (B/X, RC) and Dogs in the Vineyard.  I also wanted it to (c) capture CRPGs, athletic competitions, and board games.  I feel very confident that it works for all of those games.
> 
> If Moldvay Basic D&D doesn't qualify as "traditional RPG play"...I'm not sure what qualifies?  I can do a perfect breakdown of a Moldvay Basic session using the above concepts.
> 
> Again, what I think is happening here is that you're folding in certain aspects (in this case Free Play whereby the gamestate isn't sensitive to whatever happens) of your play that you value precisely because you value them.  Please understand that games like Blades, games like Dogs, even Pawn Stance played Moldvay have "gamestate neutral" Free Play.  It may just be GM talking to the players about play during a session.  It may be players talking to other players (not expressed through their characters) during a session.  Hell, it may be the actual Information Gathering phase of Blades in the Dark where the players are mouthing off at each other in their lair, trying to figure out their next Score, then the go out and seek intel or call in favors or lobby NPCs for jobs.  Sometimes "that dog won't hunt" and they'll pass over one opportunity (or maybe even two in a row) for another Score that interests them (due to higher stakes or particular returns).  There will absolutely be aspects of that Free Play that fundamentally do NOT change the orientation or nature of objects in play as it relates to the premise/objective of the game.  Those constituent parts of the Information Gathering phase of play would be "gamestate-irrelevant."  But any aspect of that phase which *does *fundamentally change the orientation or nature of objects in play (for instance, the choice in Score - _this _one vs that, or you start a Long Term Project that you'll take up during Downtime, PC vs PC dispute settlement, you get in trouble during your Prowling/Studying/Surveying and that will result in some form of Complication that endures that you'll need to handle downstream before it manifests - like a Racing Clock that you have to work against during Downtime phase or it will materialize in the fiction) is 100 % gamestate-relevant.
> 
> All of that stuff during the Information Gathering phase of Blades in the Dark that doesn't fundamentally change the orientation or nature of objects in play?  They're fun!  They have value!  But that doesn't change the fact that the gamestate isn't sensitive to them!  Moldvay Basic (which is structured like Blades, as is Torchbearer) is going to have Free Play in the city where the PCs do exactly what Blades PCs do.  Some of that won't be gamestate-relevant.  Same thing.  Its not that it isn't fun or has no value...but the qualities of "fun" and "value" don't make it gamestate-relevant.



For RPG's you've defined gamestates as essentially "plot only" because the only objectives and premises you recognize are plot related.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I'm a bit suspect of any RPG analysis concept that is only guaranteed to be useful after a campaign has completely ended.




You misinterpreted what I wrote.

"suss out what is gamestate relevant at the _moment of the decision-point_"

What I said (effectively) if you can't do that (the above), then there is a problem with the play (go back to that post for reference; system, GM, players).  An easy example is branching corridors in a dungeon where one path leads to danger and the other to sanctuary/objective.  This is a decision-point that is supposed to be a meaningful expression of player agency.  The gamestate transition hinges upon it.  If the players don't feel like they are sufficiently equipped to make that decision (eg it seems arbitrary) then there is a fairly high likelihood that the GM has done a poor job telegraphing clues with subtlety and expressing the gamestate-relevant information to them.  Or there is a possibility that the players have just collectively not absorbed it (though significantly less likely).  Or, there may be a system problem.

Now that doesn't mean that a session post-mortem isn't useful.  Reflection is always useful when it comes to a gaming session.  But, if a decision-point isn't meant to be arbitrary, then the conversation at the table should entail (and when it comes to dungeon crawling, the skill in GM framing is giving sufficient information...not too much and not too little...so that the players can play skillfully) the relevant constituent parts required to make an informed decision.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> You misinterpreted what I wrote.
> 
> "suss out what is gamestate relevant at the _moment of the decision-point_"
> 
> What I said (effectively) if you can't do that (the above), then there is a problem with the play (go back to that post for reference; system, GM, players).  An easy example is branching corridors in a dungeon where one path leads to danger and the other to sanctuary/objective.  This is a decision-point that is supposed to be a meaningful expression of player agency.  The gamestate transition hinges upon it.  If the players don't feel like they are sufficiently equipped to make that decision (eg it seems arbitrary) then there is a fairly high likelihood that the GM has done a poor job telegraphing clues with subtlety and expressing the gamestate-relevant information to them.  Or there is a possibility that the players have just collectively not absorbed it (though significantly less likely).  Or, there may be a system problem.
> 
> Now that doesn't mean that a session post-mortem isn't useful.  Reflection is always useful when it comes to a gaming session.  But, if a decision-point isn't meant to be arbitrary, then the conversation at the table should entail (and when it comes to dungeon crawling, the skill in GM framing is giving sufficient information...not too much and not too little...so that the players can play skillfully) the relevant constituent parts required to make an informed decision.



Apologies, I did misread that.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> For RPG's you've defined gamestates as essentially "plot only" because the only objectives and premises you recognize are plot related.




Not "plot", but relevant to objective/premise of the game.  There is no plot in the play loop of Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic (pick delve from menu during Free Play in town > buy equipment and assets or map/retain hirelings > decide loadout > extract as much treasure as possible from ruin > rest and recover > rinse/repeat).  But the model under interrogation works perfectly in depicting that type of play.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Apologies, I did misread that.



No worries.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you figure that the description provided doesn’t fit traditional play?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.
> 
> 
> 
> We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.
> 
> Everything is building off of what has come before.
> 
> 
> 
> The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.
> 
> How do you see these factors as not applying to traditional play?




This is exactly right.

This is a strength of Adventure Paths.  Designers can literally design and engineer the play paradigm such that it is formatted as an expression of sequential gamestates (exactly as you've done here).  And the GM, when reading it, can absorb it exactly that way.

The problem is that this layout (prescripting play as sequential gamestates) simultaneously serves to (a) incentivize GMs to use Force if play doesn't proceed down that designed sequence which (b) fundamentally subverts players' input into play, which, if allowed to propel play authentically, (c) would invariably lead to an emergent sequence of gamestates that diverges from the designer's plan and (d) a different climax and denouement (rather than the phenomena discussed earlier where all of these groups were "somehow" instantiating the exact same climactic battle at the end of the AP!).

This cuts right back to the initiating post and the premise for the thread (and things I've said many many times); "Prep can make slaves of GMs to their pre generated content (be it AP that they've spent money on and time/effort assimilating or their own settings/metaplot/creations) due to the incentive structure alignment."


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Not "plot", but relevant to objective/premise of the game.  There is no plot in the play loop of Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic (pick delve from menu during Free Play in town > buy equipment and assets or map/retain hirelings > decide loadout > extract as much treasure as possible from ruin > rest and recover > rinse/repeat).  But the model under interrogation works perfectly in depicting that type of play.



Plot may not be the fully right word but it works for a number of the games mentioned.  The point I'm making is that your definition causes you to not recognize certain things as valid game states that are.  That's because you've structured your definition of gamestate in such a way that it apriori excludes anything you don't want it to include.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> This cuts right back to the initiating post and the premise for the thread (and things I've said many many times); "Prep can make slaves of GMs to their pre generated content (be it AP that they've spent money on and time/effort assimilating or their own settings/metaplot/creations) due to the incentive structure alignment."



This is why I prep mostly where things are at the start of the session, with most of the rest being things that seem likely to arise during the session (based on the starting point and my knowledge of how the players are playing those characters). If something doesn't get used, it's no big deal.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> States are just a way of talking about the flow of the situation in the game from one point to the next and the causal connections that are built in the narrative between them.



That is precisely what a state is and does.  The problem is mostly around what should qualify as a distinct state.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Plot may not be the fully right word but it works for a number of the games mentioned.  The point I'm making is that your definition causes you to not recognize certain things as valid game states that are.  That's because you've structured your definition of gamestate in such a way that it apriori excludes anything you don't want it to include.




Its not that "I don't want it."  

I'm (and others, as the concept of "gamestates" isn't my own creation) merely trying to ensure the model is consistent with as many game paradigms as possible, internally consistent, and robust.  The model doesn't exclude your play.  It merely excludes aspects of your play (and the play of almost every game as every game will entail some measure of gamestate-irrelevant aspects of play...including posturing and unhelpful arguments over Block/Charge calls in a game of pick-up basketball). Meanwhile, the constellation of games that gets caught in the orbit of the concept is nearly all (including games that are fundamentally not TTRPGs, up to and including a roll on the mat of Brazillian Jiu jitsu).

Conversely, if I alter the concept to include the things that you're trying to include, it (a) becomes so diffuse as to be almost meaningless while (b) it simultaneously excludes an ENORMOUS number of games which are clearly games.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Its not that "I don't want it."
> 
> I'm (and others, as the concept of "gamestates" isn't my own creation)



Whether you created it or simply chose to use someone elses definition that they created is a bit beside the point IMO.




Manbearcat said:


> merely trying to ensure the model is consistent with as many game paradigms as possible, internally consistent, and robust.



Most of the definition you provided includes a bunch of ultimately subjective qualities.  You speak of "fundamentally changed states" as if that's some kind of objective measure.  You speak of premise/objectives but only count certain premises/objectives.  You speak of marching toward the endgame as if the goal of every game is to have an ultimate winning condition. 

There's tons of exclusions there.




Manbearcat said:


> The model doesn't exclude your play.  It merely excludes aspects of your play



A distinction without a difference?



Manbearcat said:


> (and the play of almost every game as every game will entail some measure of gamestate-irrelevant aspects of play...including posturing and unhelpful arguments over Block/Charge calls in a game of pick-up basketball).



Wait - are you posturing that bad referee calls are irrelevant to the game state?



Manbearcat said:


> Meanwhile, the constellation of games that gets caught in the orbit of the concept is nearly all (including games that are fundamentally not TTRPGs, up to and including a roll on the mat of Brazillian Jiu jitsu).



Only parts of TTRPG's do.  Unless it's a TTRPG with mechanics that allows a player to introduce plot elements, in which case - in which case virtually every bit of that game gets included in the definition....  It's almost like that definition was made for that particular style of game.




Manbearcat said:


> Conversely, if I alter the concept to include the things that you're trying to include, it (a) becomes so diffuse as to be almost meaningless while (b) it simultaneously excludes an ENORMOUS number of games which are clearly games.



No.  It just means you have to introduce the concept of meaningful gamestates. 

In the original Final Fantasy 7 there was a part of a game where you could go on a date with another character.  Quite entertaining but totally trivial in relation to anything "important" in the game.  If certain choices were made you would get different reactions from those characters later on.  In computer game design those choices would definitely be referred to as gamestates even though the overall thrust was trivial to the larger issues in the game. 

I think that's part of the disconnect.


----------



## FrogReaver

I'd say things that should be gamestates don't qualify via your definition.  Let's run through the previously mentioned FF7 example.  It actually fails on almost every level of your definition and it's something that pretty clearly should be labeled as a gamestate.



Manbearcat said:


> Alright, to attempt to assuage you of your sense of arbitrariness.
> 
> Gamestates are sequences of play characterized by the following features:
> 
> 1) They address the objective/premise of the game.



In final fantasy 7 original - the date scene and subsequent conversations dependent on certain dialog options didn't address the objective/premise of the game.



Manbearcat said:


> 2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.



In final fantasy 7 original the date scene and subsequent conversations dependent on certain dialog options didn't fundamentally change anything about the game except a few dialog options.



Manbearcat said:


> 3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.



In final fantasy 7 original the date scene and subsequent conversations dependent on certain dialog options didn't help the game march toward the endgame or resolve the objective/premise.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Whether you created it or simply chose to use someone elses definition that they created is a bit beside the point IMO.




Its very relevant because you've made it central in prior posts.  If you're going to accuse me of bad faith in this conversation (accusing someone of construction of a paradigm with willful intent to exclude thing x is a pretty substantial attack on someone's integrity), I'm going to (gently I might add) point out the reality that this concept is independent of me.  



> Most of the definition you provided includes a bunch of ultimately subjective qualities.  You speak of "fundamentally changed states" as if that's some kind of objective measure.  You speak of premise/objectives but only count certain premises/objectives.  You speak of marching toward the endgame as if the goal of every game is to have an ultimate winning condition.




Games have an objective (gather sufficient courage and will to rise up and defeat your master, avenge your brother's death, mete out justice and uphold the Faith, fight for your beliefs, make bargains with dark powers to discover if your ambition or humanity will win out, test your skill in extracting treasure from the dungeon, find and defeat Strahd, save the kingdom from the Red Dragon, boldly attack the city's ladder of power with your gang and see how far you can rise before your daring-do catches up with you, etc).  

On your way to the game's objective, scenes have an objective ("adjure the spirit", "escape the collapsing mine", "seduce the art gallery curator so you can gain intel on the show" etc).  

I've never experienced a game (any game) that is so rudderless that the macro objective cannot be sussed out and that digestible chunks (scenes) on the way to that macro objective aren't possessed of their own objective-based inertia.



> There's tons of exclusions there.




Could you list some of the exclusions you're envisioning here?



> A distinction without a difference?




How does "the model excludes incorporation of the gamestate-neutral aspects of your play but it includes the gamestate-relevant aspects of your play" arrive at "a distinction without a difference?"

If every aspect of your play isn't incorporated into a an analysis framework then the entirety of your play is effectively excluded?  Is that your position (keeping in mind that this is the case for many games, including games I advocate for)?  



> Wait - are you posturing that bad referee calls are irrelevant to the game state?




Again, you misread or misunderstood or perhaps both.

I was (a) citing pick-up basketball (there are no referees...there is a "call your own foul" social contract that invariably turns into shenanigans) and (b) citing the gamestate irrelevant shenanigans (arguing > yelling > possibly people taking their ball and going home or fighting or being passive-aggressive...otherwise just making the entire experience bad) that are exactly an emergent quality of lack of independent referees.



> Only parts of TTRPG's do.  Unless it's a TTRPG with mechanics that allows a player to introduce plot elements, in which case - in which case virtually every bit of that game gets included in the definition....  It's almost like that definition was made for that particular style of game.
> 
> No.  It just means you have to introduce the concept of meaningful gamestates.




With respect, outside of the double attack on my integrity again (see the top of this post), I have no idea what the hell you're talking about here.  Why in the world are you even saying the above.  (a) Its a claim about internal consistency of the analysis framework that doesn't remotely stand up to scrutiny (Moldvay Basic doesn't "allow a player to introduce plot elements", in all my times playing basketball and grappling with someone on the mat...I've never introduced plot elements - at least in the way you're thinking of it) and (b) its completely out of nowhere because it doesn't have to do with our conversation.

You and I have been down this road before where you've gone to a really hostile and aggressive place with no cause from me.  My integrity and vigilance against any personal biases I may have means a lot to me.  I'm a respectful person who tries hard to keep things civil and extend the benefit of the doubt with the people I converse with (especially those I disagree with).  This isn't real life, so push back on here just means getting more animated and needlessly expending words (which I won't do).  I will, however, tune you out (not ignore you...but I'll just tune you out).  So If you want to keep talking to me about these things, then throttle it back.



> In the original Final Fantasy 7 there was a part of a game where you could go on a date with another character.  Quite entertaining but totally trivial in relation to anything "important" in the game.  If certain choices were made you would get different reactions from those characters later on.  In computer game design those choices would definitely be referred to as gamestates even though the overall thrust was trivial to the larger issues in the game.




I don't know the game.  I don't know the game's objective.  I know nothing about FF games (never played any of them).

I don't have the design notes or any information from the designers of the game as it pertains to its design and referencing gamestates.  I'd love to see their gamestate map or something like that if one exists.  Do you have something like this?  A reference?  A citation?  

I'd be very curious as to their reasoning if there was one and, from first principles, I would disagree with them.  But I'd love to know the reason for the inclusion of (as you put it) a "triviality" as a cog in their gamestate map.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Yeah, the discussion here has merely strengthened my opinion and 'gamestates' and thus agency based on them are arbitrary value judgements. Games rarely have clearly defined objectives and even when they do, judging which thing is or isn't related to the objective is pretty damn muddy. Some things might be more related, some might be tangentially related, some may appear not to be related at all but will lead to things that become related. And often objective of game might be something pretty vague like "have an action adventure with an interesting cast of characters." 

And the agency discussion has gotten even grazier. Some people are seriously arguing that having the mechanics make decisions for characters is a higher agency state that the player being able to make those decisions.

This is just so far removed from both common understanding of language, how most RPGs are actually played and the things most players care about that it is just nigh completely useless. People have desperately trying to construct objective frameworks to describe subjective things and are so caught in that process that they have lost track of the thing their model is was supposed to represent in the first place.


----------



## Aldarc

heretic888 said:


> Actuallly, techniques for soliciting feedback from players, including asking them pointed questions mid-play, is discussed in 4E's DMG2, pp. 16-19.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> Heh, whenever I dig back into 4e material it surprises me exactly how much 'narrative game' 'stuff' is in there, though always falling just short of mechanical expression.



The 4e DMG should almost be required reading for game masters.



Ovinomancer said:


> Once more we find that I'm advocating for the same kinds of play you are, but there's violent disagreement because I note how the game is working and you want what you prefer to be what the discussion is about.



There is likely also a desire to maintain the illusion that there is no meta-text or meta-game for roleplaying games. But acknowledging that the player is the principal agent and not the player character risks shattering that illusion. It's Toto pulling back the curtain of the Wizard to reveal a man pulling levers. It's okay (if not expected) to acknowledge this from the GM side of things, but a certain aesthetic requires this sort of illusionism on the part of the player. What I personally find odd, and I suspect you may share a similar sentiment, is that I feel greater liberation in playing these games with this sort of play when I am aware of the processes involved.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yeah, the discussion here has merely strengthened my opinion and 'gamestates' and thus agency based on them are arbitrary value judgements. Games rarely have clearly defined objectives and even when they do, judging which thing is or isn't related to the objective is pretty damn muddy. Some things might be more related, some might be tangentially related, some may appear not to be related at all but will lead to things that become related. And often objective of game might be something pretty vague like "have an action adventure with an interesting cast of characters."



Here's the thing, you've misunderstood the framework pretty badly.  It's expandable and scalable.  It works at the combat round level, and at the campaign level, but if there's no objective at a given level, it's not used.  This should be obvious, but seems to be the primary point of contention -- if there's no campaign goal (yet), then you can't measure gamestate changes towards that goal.  What you can do is measure gamestate changes in the current fiction.  These build on each other (in fact, they're required to) to create the larger structure.  It's actually a measure of Force if a player (usually the GM) is enforcing a gamestate change to serve an objective rather than seeing how that objective is affect through play.

It needs to be understood that this framework applies to all of the games being discussed here -- it's not a tool to describe your games, but a tool to look at all games.  There aren't arbitrary judgements -- each is well considered and can be clearly explained.  You disagreeing doesn't make them arbitrary, it just means you disagree.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And the agency discussion has gotten even grazier. Some people are seriously arguing that having the mechanics make decisions for characters is a higher agency state that the player being able to make those decisions.



You mean like a saving throw to resist a Suggestion or Charm spell?  Or an Insight check to see if a character thinks someone is lying (shudder)?  Or a knowledge check to see what the character knows? At least be consistent.


Crimson Longinus said:


> This is just so far removed from both common understanding of language, how most RPGs are actually played and the things most players care about that it is just nigh completely useless. People have desperately trying to construct objective frameworks to describe subjective things and are so caught in that process that they have lost track of the thing their model is was supposed to represent in the first place.



It's absolutely not, you've just internalized the parts of your own play that do this so they're blind spots.  I did, too.  A few years ago I was making the same arguments you are -- that this is crazy, of course play-acting is an exercise of player agency, etc.  It's like only understanding living in a valley for your whole life -- you can't imagine an ocean because of course everyone has mountains around.


----------



## Campbell

A couple things.

We are talking about games here. Of course we are going to be talking about subjective aesthetic preferences. That does not mean that discussion as useless or analysis unfruitful. It just means we should realize that people come from different places and are going to use language that matches their values.

I care about games as games. As things we can get mastery over and become better at. Skilled play is fundamental to my experience of games. It's why I like games so much. Roleplaying games, video games, board games, card games. You name it. Each game offers a chance to learn a completely new set of skills, new social dynamics, and most importantly new challenges to test my mettle against.

In the tabletop roleplaying game space we do not really have neutral language. The language and trappings of mainstream games priveleges a very specific type of gameplay. It does a poor job of describing and depicting what is going on in most games in the OSR space and various indie spaces. It also tends not to approach games as like games. See how terms like gamist, rules lawyer, and meta gaming get thrown around as slurs in this community.

Other communities have language and trappings that was developed to do what they wanted to do better. The Big Model was mostly built to identify Story Now play so games could be designed that do it well. The Primer to Old School play was designed to show people a way to play old school games that embraces them as tests of skill.

I get that a fair number of people play games without regard to their objectives. This is also a big thing in video games where a big swath of people talk about fun and playing skillfully separately. I think that when games are well designed playing them well is fun. I get that is not what everyone is looking for. I cannot speak for them. I can only speak for myself.

I would like to have a fruitful conversation, but I am not going to adopt language and framing that assumes games should not be discussed as games. If you have no interest in discussing games as something that should have purposeful designs, meaningful instructions, and room for skilled play we probably do not have anything meaningful to discuss. 

I play and run a lot of mainstream games myself. I'm running Scion Second Edition and will probably run Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition soon. I'm not advocating for any particular playstyle. I do not to convince anyone of anything. I would like to have a discussion, but I understand and interface with games in particular ways. I can try to understand where you are coming from, but if you expect me to adopt your framing when I do not agree with it I do not see us having a meaningful conversation.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> This is my problem with most of your definitions:  Gamestates as you define them above almost sound like they were explicitly defined to keep out much of traditional RPG play.  This also applies to numerous other terms you've defined.
> 
> It seems to me that you are trying to analyze all RPG play under a set of terms that have created to differentiate non-traditional RPG's from traditional ones and advocate for non-traditional RPG's at least to some degree.  It's no wonder such analysis always fails to capture traditional RPG play adequately.



I don't believe these terms, and the associated analytical structure, are biased. I think they reveal some things about different methods of designing and playing an RPG that some people aren't comfortable with. 

I started playing D&D in 1975. The people I played D&D with were pretty traditional players. During that time I was part of a game club that had 100's of members and where D&D was played in a VERY traditional manner (pure Gygaxian troupe play, traverse the dungeons with player skill, build a stronghold when you're powerful enough, raise an army, beat the other players in Chainmail battles with miniature armies you painted yourself). I have every respect for, and a thorough understanding of that type of play.

I also played on through the 80's and into the late 90's in games that were mostly much more "2e style GM is a story teller telling his story" style. They varied, some were closer to a sandbox, some were closer to an AP, some were just basically going where the GM wanted to go (I think I've mentioned that GM before). Mostly I enjoyed a lot of these games, ran quite a few of them, wrestled with the problems (which are very much like the discussions we are having here) and have a pretty thorough understanding of how this all works. 

And then, after, not playing much of any RPG for a few years, I bought a copy of 4e when it came out and GMed several 4e campaigns, during which I learned that there were actually solutions to the issues that existed in the previous set of games. Yes, those solutions kind of preclude classic Gygaxian play (maybe not, I hear Torchbearer kind of fuses the two). Yes, they require that the GM give up his high seat as Grand Pubah of the pretend universe. They aren't everyone's cup of tea. However, even if you play other ways, it cannot hurt to at least provisionally adopt the terminology and understand it, and then use it to analyze your play. It really won't hurt, because no analysis is going to automatically ruin your taste for what you like. The greatest risk you run is to find out you can add some technique to your games that makes them better. You really cannot lose, can you?

I think its a non-productive road to go down to cry bias whenever someone's analysis doesn't jibe with your own. You are welcome to introduce your own ways of defining things, and maybe everyone else will get some insight from that too.


----------



## Campbell

Another thing. 

This is a conversation between the people here on this board. The way most people play is irrelevant when it comes to a conversation between us. Bringing it in as a way to dismiss people and their preferences as irrelevant feels like some bull to me.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I'm a bit suspect of any RPG analysis concept that is only guaranteed to be useful after a campaign has completely ended.



How about looking at it this way, lots of things are part of 'the fiction', which I would call fairly synonymous with, at least the non-mechanical part, of the game state (IE facts about the characters and setting that are not established in some rule). Some of those things will never become 'game relevant', some will. The fiction that becomes game relevant does so by impacting some other thing that has mechanics attached to it. If that never happens, then it remains 'covert'. Maybe it will have indirect influence on something else that will be relevant, who knows? You can call it part of the 'state of the game' if you wish, it is just 'weakly coupled' to the rest. Since it hasn't done meaningful work, it could even be retconned, nobody would even know.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ultimately I feel that any analysis of roleplaying games that treats roleplaying as optional aftertought is pretty pointless.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> A couple things.
> 
> We are talking about games here. Of course we are going to be talking about subjective aesthetic preferences. That does not mean that discussion as useless or analysis unfruitful. It just means we should realize that people come from different places and are going to use language that matches their values.
> 
> I care about games as games. As things we can get mastery over and become better at. Skilled play is fundamental to my experience of games. It's why I like games so much. Roleplaying games, video games, board games, card games. You name it. Each game offers a chance to learn a completely new set of skills, new social dynamics, and most importantly new challenges to test my mettle against.
> 
> In the tabletop roleplaying game space we do not really have neutral language. The language and trappings of mainstream games priveleges a very specific type of gameplay. It does a poor job of describing and depicting what is going on in most games in the OSR space and various indie spaces. It also tends not to approach games as like games. See how terms like gamist, rules lawyer, and meta gaming get thrown around as slurs in this community.
> 
> Other communities have language and trappings that was developed to do what they wanted to do better. The Big Model was mostly built to identify Story Now play so games could be designed that do it well. The Primer to Old School play was designed to show people a way to play old school games that embraces them as tests of skill.
> 
> I get that a fair number of people play games without regard to their objectives. This is also a big thing in video games where a big swath of people talk about fun and playing skillfully separately. I think that when games are well designed playing them well is fun. I get that is not what everyone is looking for. I cannot speak for them. I can only speak for myself.
> 
> I would like to have a fruitful conversation, but I am not going to adopt language and framing that assumes games should not be discussed as games. If you have no interest in discussing games as something that should have purposeful designs, meaningful instructions, and room for skilled play we probably do not have anything meaningful to discuss.
> 
> I play and run a lot of mainstream games myself. I'm running Scion Second Edition and will probably run Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition soon. I'm not advocating for any particular playstyle. I do not to convince anyone of anything. I would like to have a discussion, but I understand and interface with games in particular ways. I can try to understand where you are coming from, but if you expect me to adopt your framing when I do not agree with it I do not see us having a meaningful conversation.



I don’t think this was your intention but that expands on my current objections almost perfectly - even though I believe you are coming from a nearly opposite viewpoint.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you figure that the description provided doesn’t fit traditional play?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.
> 
> 
> 
> We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.
> 
> Everything is building off of what has come before.
> 
> 
> 
> The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.
> 
> How do you see these factors as not applying to traditional play?



I think you have perfectly adequately demonstrated that there are specific games which both meet @Manbearcat's criteria AND operate by traditional means. What is unspoken here is what went on at the table. At step 1 how was the objective of the game established, and was there a possibility for it to evolve in different directions depending on what was found in play? Are there no other things that the players could establish or discover that would violate the 2nd principle (everything builds off what came before). Is there any third possibility for the end state of the game, or is it binary? 

In a traditional game the answers to my questions would be, respectively "No, what is to be found in play is fixed, this was established when the GM was handed the module 'Ravenloft'." and "No, nothing else can be found in play, the module defines all the relevant things. Anything else that is introduced is either irrelevant, or you are not playing a traditional module anymore.", and finally "No, the possible endpoints are pre-determined by the structure of the module. There may be some variation (who survives for instance) but the eventual outcomes are already a fixed set of possibilities." 

Clearly none of these three answers would meet the principles of most narrative "indie" type games. So, we must conclude that, while a description of a specific fictional runthrough of Ravenloft can produce narrative that could come from either type of game, the actual PROCESS OF PLAY of a narrative game would be entirely different from a traditional game. This is the central tenet of my own thesis, you can achieve the same end result, theoretically, but you can't achieve the same game experience. I think most of us play for the experience, not some resulting fiction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately I feel that any analysis of roleplaying games that treats roleplaying as optional aftertought is pretty pointless.



Here's the thing -- I agree with this.  We're not analyzing roleplaying games in general, we're looking at a specific aspect of RPGs, namely player agency.  One wouldn't question not looking at roleplaying if we were discussing how combat is resolved in various editions of D&D, and so it's not strange to set roleplaying aside when we look at another facet.  Especially since this set aside is explicitly called out as a different metric that can impact a person's preferences above and beyond that of the focus of the analysis.  This discussion has been like discussing the current water volume in a glass and being told we're just ignoring the water cycle -- what about rain?  Yes, that's important, and related to water, but it's not the focus of the analysis -- it's outside the scope and intent.


----------



## Campbell

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately I feel that any analysis of roleplaying games that treats roleplaying as optional aftertought is pretty pointless.




From my perspective it should not be an afterthought. It should be shared. It should be part of game. Not something separate.

This is why I favor centering play on characters and what they want instead of adventures designed by the GM. If character is not central to play we lack the ability to play with integrity. It becomes this layer over the game instead of being the game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> From my perspective it should not be an afterthought. It should be shared. It should be part of game. Not something separate.
> 
> This is why I favor centering play on characters and what they want instead of adventures designed by the GM. If character is not central to play we lack the ability to play with integrity. It becomes this layer over the game instead of being the game.



Yes, I agree. And that's why I also want the players to be able to decide what their characters want instead of mechanics dictating that to them.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Here's the thing -- I agree with this.  We're not analyzing roleplaying games in general, we're looking at a specific aspect of RPGs, namely player agency.  One wouldn't question not looking at roleplaying if we were discussing how combat is resolved in various editions of D&D, and so it's not strange to set roleplaying aside when we look at another facet.  Especially since this set aside is explicitly called out as a different metric that can impact a person's preferences above and beyond that of the focus of the analysis.  This discussion has been like discussing the current water volume in a glass and being told we're just ignoring the water cycle -- what about rain?  Yes, that's important, and related to water, but it's not the focus of the analysis -- it's outside the scope and intent.



Except you cannot separate these two things and is deluded to think that you can.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> How about looking at it this way, lots of things are part of 'the fiction', which I would call fairly synonymous with, at least the non-mechanical part, of the game state (IE facts about the characters and setting that are not established in some rule). Some of those things will never become 'game relevant', some will. The fiction that becomes game relevant does so by impacting some other thing that has mechanics attached to it. If that never happens, then it remains 'covert'. Maybe it will have indirect influence on something else that will be relevant, who knows? You can call it part of the 'state of the game' if you wish, it is just 'weakly coupled' to the rest. Since it hasn't done meaningful work, it could even be retconned, nobody would even know.



Yep


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't believe these terms, and the associated analytical structure, are biased. I think they reveal some things about different methods of designing and playing an RPG that some people aren't comfortable with.
> 
> I started playing D&D in 1975. The people I played D&D with were pretty traditional players. During that time I was part of a game club that had 100's of members and where D&D was played in a VERY traditional manner (pure Gygaxian troupe play, traverse the dungeons with player skill, build a stronghold when you're powerful enough, raise an army, beat the other players in Chainmail battles with miniature armies you painted yourself). I have every respect for, and a thorough understanding of that type of play.
> 
> I also played on through the 80's and into the late 90's in games that were mostly much more "2e style GM is a story teller telling his story" style. They varied, some were closer to a sandbox, some were closer to an AP, some were just basically going where the GM wanted to go (I think I've mentioned that GM before). Mostly I enjoyed a lot of these games, ran quite a few of them, wrestled with the problems (which are very much like the discussions we are having here) and have a pretty thorough understanding of how this all works.
> 
> And then, after, not playing much of any RPG for a few years, I bought a copy of 4e when it came out and GMed several 4e campaigns, during which I learned that there were actually solutions to the issues that existed in the previous set of games. Yes, those solutions kind of preclude classic Gygaxian play (maybe not, I hear Torchbearer kind of fuses the two). Yes, they require that the GM give up his high seat as Grand Pubah of the pretend universe. They aren't everyone's cup of tea. However, even if you play other ways, it cannot hurt to at least provisionally adopt the terminology and understand it, and then use it to analyze your





AbdulAlhazred said:


> How about looking at it this way, lots of things are part of 'the fiction', which I would call fairly synonymous with, at least the non-mechanical part, of the game state (IE facts about the characters and setting that are not established in some rule). Some of those things will never become 'game relevant', some will. The fiction that becomes game relevant does so by impacting some other thing that has mechanics attached to it. If that never happens, then it remains 'covert'. Maybe it will have indirect influence on something else that will be relevant, who knows? You can call it part of the 'state of the game' if you wish, it is just 'weakly coupled' to the rest. Since it hasn't done meaningful work, it could even be retconned, nobody would even know.



I think this gets into why agency over character thoughts and mental states is so critical to many of us. In the sense you describe above it’s weakly coupled.  But there is a process in play where we determine what our character will do and we base these decisions quite often on our characters thoughts and mental state.  In this sense it’s very highly coupled with everything that our character does in the fiction.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately I feel that any analysis of roleplaying games that treats roleplaying as optional aftertought is pretty pointless.



I think that you are misunderstanding (or possibly misconstruing*) the discussion at hand. An engagement with "in-character roleplaying" is a baseline assumption for the discussion. But others, like @Ovinomancer and @AbdulAlhazred, have also demonstrated the almost banal point that it's not even necessarily required for play, as playing a role may simply involve a pawn stance. And as an overwhelming number of GMs have pointed out in this forum: sometimes people aren't too invested in in-character roleplay and are just there to turn their brains off and have fun kicking down doors and shooting orcs.

I think part of the frustration, at least on our end of things, is that you sound like an American who can't conceptualize any other understanding of personal freedoms apart from an American one that includes a Constitution with the American Bill of Rights. And insisting that because some European country, for example, doesn't have the 1st Amendment that their presses don't have freedoms. Or that if their press has restrictions in one facet that they could therefore not possibly have more freedom than the U.S. press.

* I suspect that you are feeling frustrated that people refuse to accept your more limited framing of player agency, which is why you have increasingly adopted a hostile attitude of "if people don't play ball my way, I'll storm off in a huff and a puff."



Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, I agree. And that's why I also want the players to be able to decide what their characters want instead of mechanics dictating that to them.



By this point, I think we all understand your preferences and position, and likely better than you understand ours.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Except you cannot separate these two things and is deluded to think that you can.



I can, or else you're claiming that old school skilled play is not a thing.  Pawn stance is absolutely a way to play that doesn't involve any of the things you're claiming are essential roleplaying.  Until you overcome this, your argument is grounded in quicksand.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> That is precisely what a state is and does.  The problem is mostly around what should qualify as a distinct state.



I think that, in terms of analyzing basic play and game design methodology that we can consider them to be 'recognizably distinct'. Exactly what that means is going to vary based on the game. In BW, for example, it is perfectly feasible to have an 'abstract dungeon' (I recall a @pemerton example of such involving a Crypt Thing). So, the fact that the PCs are in a specific corridor and facing in a specific direction is simply color in that situation. FATE I believe has 'scene aspects' which are the relevant properties of a specific location. Any other properties of that location aren't relevant and are usually not explicitly defined. So, game state in Moldvay Basic is going to include the PCs exact location in the dungeon and the state of their torch supply. It won't in FATE, necessarily. This also means that in Basic when you traverse the corridor and turn left at the 4-way, the game state has changed. You went 120', a turn went by, the torch burned down, a wandering monster check is due, etc. In FATE such a thing might be mere color, you're still wandering in the Confusing Dark Dungeon Maze. 

So, we say that state has 'teeth', when it is said to have changed it is not just "a clock ticked a few seconds in the game world", it is more like "we would describe the situation of the party a bit differently because now different choices face them." In my pretend FATE example, maybe the state changes when the PCs fail to get out before their torches burn out. Do they invoke rare and expensive magic to get light, or fumble around in the dark? Personality could become important here, the greedy dwarf was too tight-fisted with the equipment budget to buy enough torches. Maybe that factored into the GM's decision to create a "you are in the dark" consequence to the maze navigation failure. 

Basic D&D doesn't really have a way to actualize that, although the dwarf player could RP something similar. Is his greediness a 'state of the game' in Basic? I would say, not really. The lack of torches, and the dwarf's bulging purse, are both parts of the state, but the player is entirely free to depict greediness, or not, at any point in the game. He's under no obligation to be consistent, nor to have any dwarf mental state at all beyond the character's knowledge of what is around him, and maybe his memory of what the dwarf did before. If he never does anything with this idea of the dwarf being greedy then did it even exist? It was just color, not game state. And if the elf player decides his character hates the dwarf because it is greedy, what of it? Again, he might use that to explain some concrete action, but he's free not to ever do so, or to even decide the elf wakes up on Tuesday and decides the dwarf is his best buddy! None of this has 'teeth'. 

Moldvay Basic's process doesn't preclude RP, and it doesn't preclude actualizing that RP in terms of the conditions in the game by means of player's explaining character actions via it. It just doesn't enforce anything. Even after the fact the player may not explain why the dwarf didn't buy torches.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think that, in terms of analyzing basic play and game design methodology that we can consider them to be 'recognizably distinct'. Exactly what that means is going to vary based on the game. In BW, for example, it is perfectly feasible to have an 'abstract dungeon' (I recall a @pemerton example of such involving a Crypt Thing). So, the fact that the PCs are in a specific corridor and facing in a specific direction is simply color in that situation. FATE I believe has 'scene aspects' which are the relevant properties of a specific location. Any other properties of that location aren't relevant and are usually not explicitly defined. So, game state in Moldvay Basic is going to include the PCs exact location in the dungeon and the state of their torch supply. It won't in FATE, necessarily. This also means that in Basic when you traverse the corridor and turn left at the 4-way, the game state has changed. You went 120', a turn went by, the torch burned down, a wandering monster check is due, etc. In FATE such a thing might be mere color, you're still wandering in the Confusing Dark Dungeon Maze.
> 
> So, we say that state has 'teeth', when it is said to have changed it is not just "a clock ticked a few seconds in the game world", it is more like "we would describe the situation of the party a bit differently because now different choices face them." In my pretend FATE example, maybe the state changes when the PCs fail to get out before their torches burn out. Do they invoke rare and expensive magic to get light, or fumble around in the dark? Personality could become important here, the greedy dwarf was too tight-fisted with the equipment budget to buy enough torches. Maybe that factored into the GM's decision to create a "you are in the dark" consequence to the maze navigation failure.
> 
> Basic D&D doesn't really have a way to actualize that, although the dwarf player could RP something similar. Is his greediness a 'state of the game' in Basic? I would say, not really. The lack of torches, and the dwarf's bulging purse, are both parts of the state, but the player is entirely free to depict greediness, or not, at any point in the game. He's under no obligation to be consistent, nor to have any dwarf mental state at all beyond the character's knowledge of what is around him, and maybe his memory of what the dwarf did before. If he never does anything with this idea of the dwarf being greedy then did it even exist? It was just color, not game state. And if the elf player decides his character hates the dwarf because it is greedy, what of it? Again, he might use that to explain some concrete action, but he's free not to ever do so, or to even decide the elf wakes up on Tuesday and decides the dwarf is his best buddy! None of this has 'teeth'.
> 
> Moldvay Basic's process doesn't preclude RP, and it doesn't preclude actualizing that RP in terms of the conditions in the game by means of player's explaining character actions via it. It just doesn't enforce anything. Even after the fact the player may not explain why the dwarf didn't buy torches.




I think you aren’t going far enough down the rabbit hole.

Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say character thoughts and motivations are initially secret and may be revealed through play. Let’s let you play character 1 for the first half of the game and me play character 2 for the first half and then vice versa.

can I really play that same character if I don’t know his thoughts and mental states and what motivates him? I can in some sense but it won’t really be the same character. For most of the table it’s likely to be very obvious that it’s not the same character.

I don’t see how Something so unimportant to gamestate can drive something so noticeable.

or to put it in more gamestate terms. Those variables (motivations and internal thoughts) will lead the table to recognizably distinct game states in almost countless ways.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I can, or else you're claiming that old school skilled play is not a thing.  Pawn stance is absolutely a way to play that doesn't involve any of the things you're claiming are essential roleplaying.  Until you overcome this, your argument is grounded in quicksand.



This is a fallacy. Of course agency can exist without roleplay, as it exist even in games that are not roleplaying games at all. But once the game contains roleplay, it becomes one of the things people can have agency over.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> I don't know the game.  I don't know the game's objective.  I know nothing about FF games (never played any of them).
> 
> I don't have the design notes or any information from the designers of the game as it pertains to its design and referencing gamestates.  I'd love to see their gamestate map or something like that if one exists.  Do you have something like this?  A reference?  A citation?
> 
> I'd be very curious as to their reasoning if there was one and, from first principles, I would disagree with them.  But I'd love to know the reason for the inclusion of (as you put it) a "triviality" as a cog in their gamestate map.



I think this is a 'programmer argument'. In the code that implements FF7 there must necessarily be some variable(s) that record that you did certain things in this 'date', such that different dialogs come up in some other place. In view of the existence of these variables he's insisting this has to be relevant to the 'state' of the game. Well, OK, but the argument defeats itself on relevancy. The dialogs in question have NO impact (his statement) on the further progress of the game. Zero. They are so trivial they don't even qualify as some sort of 'mini-game' on the side or anything like that. This 'state' is pretty much exactly identical to my example of the greedy dwarf, except even less relevant in that the torches never did run out, and there isn't even any chance they ever will!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> I think that you are misunderstanding (or possibly misconstruing*) the discussion at hand. An engagement with "in-character roleplaying" is a baseline assumption for the discussion. But others, like @Ovinomancer and @AbdulAlhazred, have also demonstrated the almost banal point that it's not even necessarily required for play, as playing a role may simply involve a pawn stance. And as an overwhelming number of GMs have pointed out in this forum: sometimes people aren't too invested in in-character roleplay and are just there to turn their brains off and have fun kicking down doors and shooting orcs.
> 
> I think part of the frustration, at least on our end of things, is that you sound like an American who can't conceptualize any other understanding of personal freedoms apart from an American one that includes a Constitution with the American Bill of Rights. And insisting that because some European country, for example, doesn't have the 1st Amendment that their presses don't have freedoms. Or that if their press has restrictions in one facet that they could therefore not possibly have more freedom than the U.S. press.
> 
> * I suspect that you are feeling frustrated that people refuse to accept your more limited framing of player agency, which is why you have increasingly adopted a hostile attitude of "if people don't play ball my way, I'll storm off in a huff and a puff."



Funny. Is this some sort of a projection? It is not me who has super specific and limited definition of agency that contradicts common sense.


Aldarc said:


> By this point, I think we all understand your preferences and position, and likely better than you understand ours.



Quite likely. Coherent positions are easier to understand after all!


----------



## Bedrockgames

Personally, I am fine with the external world being beyond the control of the PCs and their internal world occasionally being subject to things beyond their control. If a character goes mad, and you have madness mechanics in the game, I really don't see an issue with the GM saying "You think this, or you feel this" or even doing things to deliberately mislead the players sense of the reality in the game world. People lose control in real life. If a game wants to emulate something, even something as simple as loss of impulse control, I am fine with that. Even more so if the game is imposing some kind of supernatural or preternatural change on the PC.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think this is a 'programmer argument'. In the code that implements FF7 there must necessarily be some variable(s) that record that you did certain things in this 'date', such that different dialogs come up in some other place. In view of the existence of these variables he's insisting this has to be relevant to the 'state' of the game. Well, OK, but the argument defeats itself on relevancy. The dialogs in question have NO impact (his statement) on the further progress of the game. Zero. They are so trivial they don't even qualify as some sort of 'mini-game' on the side or anything like that. This 'state' is pretty much exactly identical to my example of the greedy dwarf, except even less relevant in that the torches never did run out, and there isn't even any chance they ever will!



But you do agree it’s a gamestate.  Which makes this gamestate example at odds with the definition I was using it to defeat.

it seems to me the problem is that a gamestate is just a state of the game (essentially all information needed to reproduce that game in the state you left playing it).and that to make it more meaningful than that requires either redefining the term or qualifying game states into further sub categories.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Personally, I am fine with the external world being beyond the control of the PCs and their internal world occasionally being subject to things beyond their control. If a character goes mad, and you have madness mechanics in the game, I really don't see an issue with the GM saying "You think this, or you feel this" or even doing things to deliberately mislead the players sense of the reality in the game world. People lose control in real life. If a game wants to emulate something, even something as simple as loss of impulse control, I am fine with that. Even more so if the game is imposing some kind of supernatural or preternatural change on the PC.



I don’t particularly have an issue with a madness mechanic either. Why?  Because there’s a dichotomy between my character as not mad and my character as mad.  Restricting myself to the being the non-mad part of the character seems perfectly reasonable.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately I feel that any analysis of roleplaying games that treats roleplaying as optional aftertought is pretty pointless.



I've never called it an optional afterthought. I've called SOME of it, particularly in certain methods of play, less relevant to the trajectory of the game. I don't see any way to analyze enjoyment or other purely subjective issues. I am not addressing those, can't address them, probably should NOT address them, at least not in anything like this way. All I've addressed is analysis of how we play, of what actually goes on, what is the process, what steps are taken, how, why, when, by whom. That's all. 

I get that I also have observations on WHY and WHAT is being done that some people are not comfortable with. I'm happy to debate those on a factual basis, but just telling me that everything I say is gibberish isn't an effective technique. It won't lead me to say "Oh, I didn't take that into consideration." or whatever it is you would hope to achieve. Again, only facts can really be up for debate.

To the point, RP is a major feature of most RPGs. To an extent it is a necessary feature (IE even if you play Moldvay Basic in 'pawn stance' you still represent yourself in the game with a 'dwarf named Guldor' or something). Beyond that we have a lot of fun with RP, and often the decisions we make in the game that are effectual (salient) are informed by that roleplay, in at least an informal way. Some games make those informal ways formal. Its hard to understand how that would be trivializing RP...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

FrogReaver said:


> I think this gets into why agency over character thoughts and mental states is so critical to many of us. In the sense you describe above it’s weakly coupled.  But there is a process in play where we determine what our character will do and we base these decisions quite often on our characters thoughts and mental state.  In this sense it’s very highly coupled with everything that our character does in the fiction.



Yes, absolutely. And this is the thing I tryly, honestly do not get. We all pretty much agreed that in a high agency game the play centers on the characters, their wishes and desires guide the direction of the game. But to me it is clear that for this to translate to player agency, the player must be able to decide those wishes and desires, and resultantly a situation where they cannot diminishes their agency (though of course it still may ve justified.) It seems super weird to me that people are arguing against this.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, I agree. And that's why I also want the players to be able to decide what their characters want instead of mechanics dictating that to them.



Its not 'dictated by mechanics'. Do you think some random dice roll tossed "Lust for the Queen" into the game? Of course not. This is agreed on as a part of the game through multiple channels. The participants decided to play a genre of game which included that trope. They decided to play with a set of rules which included a mechanism which could compel the PC's actions (or at least impact gamestate resolution in some way, we never clarified the exact mechanisms). The player then selected a type of character and role for that character which would put him in the way of this kind of event. He created some goal/belief/position for that character which would put something in opposition to that (IE that he is loyal to the beautiful Queen's husband, the King). None of this is arbitrary or capricious IN ANY WAY at all.

It would make just as much sense to call the wall of a dungeon arbitrary and capricious because it blocks your character from walking north. You decided to play D&D, go into the dungeon, etc. Now you are complaining about the walls? I am not needing any imagination, nor in any doubt of, how this would be received at the table...


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Funny. Is this some sort of a projection? It is not me who has super specific and limited definition of agency that contradicts common sense.



I'm sorry, but how is "agency over the fiction is at the level of the player" more super specific of a position than "agency over the fiction is at the level of the player in-character (with numerous permissible exceptions)"?



Crimson Longinus said:


> Quite likely. Coherent positions are easier to understand after all!



It's not a factor of any actual coherency of your position and more about possessing a basic familiarity of a prevalent position. Copernicus and Galileo were highly familiar with the geocentric models of the day, not because geocentric models were more coherent than heliocentric models, but simply because they were the prevalent models and explanations of the day.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Its not 'dictated by mechanics'. Do you think some random dice roll tossed "Lust for the Queen" into the game? Of course not. This is agreed on as a part of the game through multiple channels. The participants decided to play a genre of game which included that trope. They decided to play with a set of rules which included a mechanism which could compel the PC's actions (or at least impact gamestate resolution in some way, we never clarified the exact mechanisms). The player then selected a type of character and role for that character which would put him in the way of this kind of event. He created some goal/belief/position for that character which would put something in opposition to that (IE that he is loyal to the beautiful Queen's husband, the King). None of this is arbitrary or capricious IN ANY WAY at all.
> 
> It would make just as much sense to call the wall of a dungeon arbitrary and capricious because it blocks your character from walking north. You decided to play D&D, go into the dungeon, etc. Now you are complaining about the walls? I am not needing any imagination, nor in any doubt of, how this would be received at the table...



Yes, they chose to play that game. Just like people who play games without narrative meta-mechanics that let them alter the fiction to have a secret door in the wall chose to play that way. Yet it didn't stop you from claiming that those games limit the player agency. So which is it?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Yep
> 
> 
> I think this gets into why agency over character thoughts and mental states is so critical to many of us. In the sense you describe above it’s weakly coupled.  But there is a process in play where we determine what our character will do and we base these decisions quite often on our characters thoughts and mental state.  In this sense it’s very highly coupled with everything that our character does in the fiction.



I think you can see from my previous post that I (at least, perhaps I can say 'we') don't consider any of this to be an imposition on my play. First there is no principle that says narrative games include compulsion of PCs actions (some games may, but so does D&D at times). Secondly, even if it did, I am not going into that without my eyes wide open. 

And yes, you are building your 'salient actions' (ones that change things materially in the state of the game where rules and other participants can see it and act on it) based on your ideas of what your character thinks/feels/knows. Nobody is denying that! Nobody is saying that is unimportant. It doesn't seem to bear on agency though, per se. Not unless you believe there is no other agency in RPGs than imagining what your character thinks/feels/knows. I would find that to be a very odd theory!

Thirdly, in those cases where I have some authority in these games beyond what is granted in, say, Moldvay Basic, then I don't really see how that can possibly reduce my agency as a player. It certainly creates opportunities to play in ways that Basic cannot provide. Depending on the game, it might not work for some other things as well (IE Basic is pretty great at 'skilled play' OSR stuff, though I think you could imagine an OSR type game with narrative mechanisms in it). Overall I think it is useful to discuss these games in terms of agency, and I am still not seeing where they are lacking there.


----------



## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Not unless you believe there is no other agency in RPGs than imagining what your character thinks/feels/knows. I would find that to be a very odd theory!



I think you just stumbled on the purest form of "theater of the mind" play right here.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I think you aren’t going far enough down the rabbit hole.
> 
> Let’s do a thought experiment. Let’s say character thoughts and motivations are initially secret and may be revealed through play. Let’s let you play character 1 for the first half of the game and me play character 2 for the first half and then vice versa.
> 
> can I really play that same character if I don’t know his thoughts and mental states and what motivates him? I can in some sense but it won’t really be the same character. For most of the table it’s likely to be very obvious that it’s not the same character.
> 
> I don’t see how Something so unimportant to gamestate can drive something so noticeable.
> 
> or to put it in more gamestate terms. Those variables (motivations and internal thoughts) will lead the table to recognizably distinct game states in almost countless ways.



OK, but if those traits were so 'occult' that I could not distinguish them, then how are they so obvious to everyone else? Either they are obvious or they are not. Sure, when I take over Fred's character I might not end up playing out the adventure exactly how Fred would do it. That doesn't mean that what I do is implausible WRT his character! I mean, maybe I'm a dolt and I really don't 'get' this character, that's possible. Maybe I'm an arse and I decide to play the character in a different way on purpose. Maybe I just play the character in a way that seems consistent with what went before.

Beyond that, I would note, that having a set of actual salient attributes of the PC that help indicate/dictate the key parts of its character CANNOT HURT HERE, can it?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is a fallacy. Of course agency can exist without roleplay, as it exist even in games that are not roleplaying games at all. But once the game contains roleplay, it becomes one of the things people can have agency over.



Let's examine this.  Let's say we have two characters in the same game, Bob the Fighter the Third and Fynn'lan'zz, Keeper of the Golden Leaf, Peerless Warrior of the Seventh Kingdom.  These characters have arrived at a T-intersection.  The GM describes that down one hall, there's the echoing sound of lapping water, as if there's a large underground lake.  Down the other hallway, a chill wind blows, and bits of rime stick to the walls.  

Bob's player checks the character sheet, sees they have a potion of water breathing but not a potion of cold resistance, and says, "Bob goes down the hallway towards the water sounds."  He does this in his normal voice.

Fynn'lan'zz's player says, in a haughty accent, "I recall lovely afternoons at the shore, the sounds of water all around us.  These are some of my best memories of my family, and, as you know, family is everything to me!  I most certainly will be investigating such a nostalgic happenstance.  Tally ho towards the sound of water!"  

Both characters are in the same game.  They've made the same choice.  They done it in different ways -- Bob's player didn't even bother to get close to in-character acting, while Fynn'lan'zz's player made the choice totally in-character.  If, as you say, the option to roleplay exists means there's agency involved in doing so, which player has exercised the most agency in this scene?  Let's assume the GM either cannot choose to gainsay this choice.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> But you do agree it’s a gamestate.  Which makes this gamestate example at odds with the definition I was using it to defeat.
> 
> it seems to me the problem is that a gamestate is just a state of the game (essentially all information needed to reproduce that game in the state you left playing it).and that to make it more meaningful than that requires either redefining the term or qualifying game states into further sub categories.



I think that I would call "One of the girls in the flower shop likes you." a pretty insignificant factor in an actual RPG. It might grow in significance, but in this case we already know that in this FF game, it doesn't. Sure, maybe you get free flowers now and then. That's fine and its fun RP and color. If we get to the end of the campaign and that's all it amounted to, I would not say it ever really became part of the overt state of the game. The GM probably didn't record it someplace. At best it might be a note on the back of your character sheet. Heck, maybe you narrate that after the zombie plague ended you went back and married the flower girl. That's cool! Maybe she formed an explanation you used to describe your RP of your character's determination to win. Its still pretty thin, it isn't actualized in any real sense. 

Again, how would a mechanical set of 'teeth' for this be a bad thing? If it is SO trivial that such would be meaningless, it probably is too trivial in any sort of description of the game to really warrant being seen as significant, right?


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think you have perfectly adequately demonstrated that there are specific games which both meet @Manbearcat's criteria AND operate by traditional means. What is unspoken here is what went on at the table. At step 1 how was the objective of the game established, and was there a possibility for it to evolve in different directions depending on what was found in play? Are there no other things that the players could establish or discover that would violate the 2nd principle (everything builds off what came before). Is there any third possibility for the end state of the game, or is it binary?
> 
> In a traditional game the answers to my questions would be, respectively "No, what is to be found in play is fixed, this was established when the GM was handed the module 'Ravenloft'." and "No, nothing else can be found in play, the module defines all the relevant things. Anything else that is introduced is either irrelevant, or you are not playing a traditional module anymore.", and finally "No, the possible endpoints are pre-determined by the structure of the module. There may be some variation (who survives for instance) but the eventual outcomes are already a fixed set of possibilities."
> 
> Clearly none of these three answers would meet the principles of most narrative "indie" type games. So, we must conclude that, while a description of a specific fictional runthrough of Ravenloft can produce narrative that could come from either type of game, the actual PROCESS OF PLAY of a narrative game would be entirely different from a traditional game. This is the central tenet of my own thesis, you can achieve the same end result, theoretically, but you can't achieve the same game experience. I think most of us play for the experience, not some resulting fiction.




Well I think @Manbearcat 's three criteria do apply to more indie or narrative type games. I agree, it's a matter of process and HOW these things come about, but the fact that there is some kind of 1) goal of play, 2) events built on prior events through play, toward 3) some kind of resolution of the events is pretty universal. I think it applies to just about any game. 

I took his approach of breaking it down this way to put all games on equal ground, and then examine how each actually does go about the process of getting from 1 to 3. In that sense, yes, some of the possibilities will be wildly different.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Let's examine this.  Let's say we have two characters in the same game, Bob the Fighter the Third and Fynn'lan'zz, Keeper of the Golden Leaf, Peerless Warrior of the Seventh Kingdom.  These characters have arrived at a T-intersection.  The GM describes that down one hall, there's the echoing sound of lapping water, as if there's a large underground lake.  Down the other hallway, a chill wind blows, and bits of rime stick to the walls.
> 
> Bob's player checks the character sheet, sees they have a potion of water breathing but not a potion of cold resistance, and says, "Bob goes down the hallway towards the water sounds."  He does this in his normal voice.
> 
> Fynn'lan'zz's player says, in a haughty accent, "I recall lovely afternoons at the shore, the sounds of water all around us.  These are some of my best memories of my family, and, as you know, family is everything to me!  I most certainly will be investigating such a nostalgic happenstance.  Tally ho towards the sound of water!"
> 
> Both characters are in the same game.  They've made the same choice.  They done it in different ways -- Bob's player didn't even bother to get close to in-character acting, while Fynn'lan'zz's player made the choice totally in-character.  If, as you say, the option to roleplay exists means there's agency involved in doing so, which player has exercised the most agency in this scene?  Let's assume the GM either cannot choose to gainsay this choice.



Bob's player used their agency to introduce an event 'Bob moves towards the water' and Fynn'lan'zz's player introduced events 'Fynn'lan'zz moves towards the water' and Fyn'lan'zz reminiscences about their past.' So in a sense Fyn'lan'zz's employed more agency as they used it in more ways and introduced more events in the game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Bob's player used their agency to introduce an event 'Bob moves towards the water' and Fynn'lan'zz's player introduced events 'Fynn'lan'zz moves towards the water' and Fyn'lan'zz reminiscences about their past.' So in a sense Fyn'lan'zz's employed more agency as they used it in more ways and introduced more events in the game.



So, Bob's player used no agency to choose to not do this?  Herein lies the rub.  As far as agency goes, they're exactly the same, because the decision process or ancillary acting doesn't adjust the agency of making the choice, and as far as they go, they cancel out.

So, if in-character roleplay mostly cancels out with not choosing in-character roleplay, we're back to evaluating how the choice to go towards water is resolved -- do the players actually have a say in doing this, or is there another player (the GM) that can veto it?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> So, Bob's player used no agency to choose to not do this?  Herein lies the rub.  As far as agency goes, they're exactly the same, because the decision process or ancillary acting doesn't adjust the agency of making the choice, and as far as they go, they cancel out.
> 
> So, if in-character roleplay mostly cancels out with not choosing in-character roleplay, we're back to evaluating how the choice to go towards water is resolved -- do the players actually have a say in doing this, or is there another player (the GM) that can veto it?



Yes, you can see it that way. So same way that if one of them had chosen that their character stays put, they would have used their agency to do so. It doesn't still change the fact that they're using their agency to have their character to do things, whether it was to go somewhere or reminisce about the past. Why you think that having the character move is a choice, but having the character reminisce isn't?


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> So, Bob's player used no agency to choose to not do this?  Herein lies the rub.  As far as agency goes, they're exactly the same, because the decision process or ancillary acting doesn't adjust the agency of making the choice, and as far as they go, they cancel out.
> 
> 
> So, if in-character roleplay mostly cancels out with not choosing in-character roleplay, we're back to evaluating how the choice to go towards water is resolved -- do the players actually have a say in doing this, or is there another player (the GM) that can veto it?



Seems that criticism applies to any agency discussion.  As long as one has a choice to do or not to do their is agency or at least the potential for agency. 

The question is about what kinds of things can take away agency?  We all agree the DM can ( at least in many games) by either eliminating the choice or eliminating the consequence.  Can’t mechanics do the same thing?

Or is it simply that the player exercised their agency by agreeing to play in a game with such mechanics?  In which case didn’t the player that agreed to play in the DM decides game do the same thing except towards the DM?

What am I missing?


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think you can see from my previous post that I (at least, perhaps I can say 'we') don't consider any of this to be an imposition on my play. First there is no principle that says narrative games include compulsion of PCs actions (some games may, but so does D&D at times). Secondly, even if it did, I am not going into that without my eyes wide open.
> 
> And yes, you are building your 'salient actions' (ones that change things materially in the state of the game where rules and other participants can see it and act on it) based on your ideas of what your character thinks/feels/knows. Nobody is denying that! Nobody is saying that is unimportant. It doesn't seem to bear on agency though, per se. Not unless you believe there is no other agency in RPGs than imagining what your character thinks/feels/knows. I would find that to be a very odd theory!
> 
> Thirdly, in those cases where I have some authority in these games beyond what is granted in, say, Moldvay Basic, then I don't really see how that can possibly reduce my agency as a player. It certainly creates opportunities to play in ways that Basic cannot provide. Depending on the game, it might not work for some other things as well (IE Basic is pretty great at 'skilled play' OSR stuff, though I think you could imagine an OSR type game with narrative mechanisms in it). Overall I think it is useful to discuss these games in terms of agency, and I am still not seeing where they are lacking there.



I think you see it. You explained it fittingly above. You just refuse to call it agency. That’s the rub.  

choosing motivations, thoughts and mental states is an exercise of player agency because these things are choices and are consequential to how the character is played and how the character is played is consequential to how the rpg is played.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Well I think @Manbearcat 's three criteria do apply to more indie or narrative type games. I agree, it's a matter of process and HOW these things come about, but the fact that there is some kind of 1) goal of play, 2) events built on prior events through play, toward 3) some kind of resolution of the events is pretty universal. I think it applies to just about any game.
> 
> I took his approach of breaking it down this way to put all games on equal ground, and then examine how each actually does go about the process of getting from 1 to 3. In that sense, yes, some of the possibilities will be wildly different.



Right, there's a lot that happens in a different way, and is contributed by different participants. Anyway, we don't really disagree, certainly not on much that I can see. I am less extreme in my categorizations that maybe Pemerton, not sure, but I also have more skepticism about people's explanations of how some of these methods of play actually work vs how they are commonly depicted.


----------



## pemerton

When I play five hundred it's with friends. Some are more serious than others. Some like to chat away while we play; others like to focus on the game at hand.

If I was playing in a club (are there 500 clubs? but suppose it's a bridge club) then I'm guessing there's less chit-chat when we play and more serious focus.

But if we talk about player agency in playing cards that chit-chat isn't really part of it.

Different RPG tables have different expectations about how the participants will socially interact, spend time speaking to one another "in character" about this or that.

But three things:

(1) That is *obviously* not what the OP was asking about. Because nothing about GM practices - including so-called "quantum ogres" has any implications for any of this stuff about table chit-chat in or out of character;

(2) All RPGers are able to do this _all the time_ whatever RPG they are playing.;

(3) Sometime the fiction will constraint the permissible in-character chit-chat: if, in the fiction, we're all in a tavern then I can't, in character, ask another PC to admire the beautiful sky directly above us; and if, in the fiction, I'm in love with Guinevere _and_ am an honest paladin then there may be limits on how much I can, in-character, tell the others that I hate her.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, I agree. And that's why I also want the players to be able to decide what their characters want instead of mechanics dictating that to them.



In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?



In the most irrelevant place of all: their own mind.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Personally, I am fine with the external world being beyond the control of the PCs



Are you extending this to combat resolution? Ie are you saying you're fine if the effect of an attack on an Orc, declared by a player for his/her PC, is all beyond the control of the player and is just decided by the GM?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, you can see it that way. So same way that if one of them had chosen that their character stays put, they would have used their agency to do so. It doesn't still change the fact that they're using their agency to have their character to do things, whether it was to go somewhere or reminisce about the past. Why you think that having the character move is a choice, but having the character reminisce isn't?



Sure, let's continue ad argumentum.  The situation you have here is that you claim that there is agency in choosing or not choosing to do in-character role play.  That this choice is largely a wash -- both work equally well.  

We're still, then, back to looking at how the actions are resolved in the game as the prime measure of agency.  How the choice to go towards water works is where we'll find any differences in agency.  Here, we're back to the structures I posted earlier -- either the GM has full authority to determine the resolution of the action (including negating it) or the player has some ability to determine the resolution space, either through a mechanic or the GM not being allowed to negate the action, only test it.  Here, it seems clear that the agency balance still tilts away from GM decides systems, even as you claim that there's still agency in choosing whether or not this happens while you choose to act in-character or don't.

Put simply, even if we accept your premise that the choice to act in-character or not is agency (and I agree it is, just not player agency but rather outside of the game), then we're still looking to the same set of issues to determine whether or not one method involves more agency than another.  Your claim doesn't impact the situation.  Feel free to pose a counter example where you think it does, though.  I played traditional style D&D for decades, and I can't think of any.

And, again, this isn't a value statement.  There's lots of other things the games can do that can matter more to you.  Clearly, I don't have a problem with playing a game I think has less agency than others.  You still haven't addressed this point, by the way -- why would I engage in devious redefinitions to win a point that aims squarely at my own play?


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?



Yeah, I played in the recent 5e Curse of Strahd adventure.  I made a fighter/rogue, solider background.  The character was a quartermaster who always seemed to get into trouble for missing supplies, but wasn't severely punished because said supplies always ended up in his unit's stores.  He had a bond that comrades come first and a trait "If it isn't nailed down..."  The times either of these came into play was just about zero.  I did get to do the "isn't nailed down" in the first scene, where I looted lots of stuff from a house and placed it in a tapestry torn from the wall, but, alas, it was a haunted house so when I exited, none of the stuff came with me.  I mean, that's pretty much definitionally what we're talking about with lack of agency -- I tried to push my character's stated traits, but was nixed by the GM and/or module (which is really the same thing).


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Seems that criticism applies to any agency discussion.  As long as one has a choice to do or not to do their is agency or at least the potential for agency.
> 
> The question is about what kinds of things can take away agency?  We all agree the DM can ( at least in many games) by either eliminating the choice or eliminating the consequence.  Can’t mechanics do the same thing?
> 
> Or is it simply that the player exercised their agency by agreeing to play in a game with such mechanics?  In which case didn’t the player that agreed to play in the DM decides game do the same thing except towards the DM?
> 
> What am I missing?




Do you think that there's a difference between chance and a person deciding?


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, there's a lot that happens in a different way, and is contributed by different participants. Anyway, we don't really disagree, certainly not on much that I can see. I am less extreme in my categorizations that maybe Pemerton, not sure, but I also have more skepticism about people's explanations of how some of these methods of play actually work vs how they are commonly depicted.




Yeah, I think what happened is that @Manbearcat stated a few foundational elements that are true of any game, and I think @FrogReaver took that to be a statement of the only things important to a game? But I don't think that was the point. 

I think the intention was to take that foundation and then show through example how different games go through the process of getting from 1 to 3. And yes, I think we are in agreement about there being very different means depending on system and style or approach.


----------



## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> In the most irrelevant place of all: their own mind.



Right. I've reposted myself, because I'm yet to see any response by @FrogReaver or @Crimson Longinus to it:



pemerton said:


> *Now, if a player's conception of agency in a RPG is my private imaginings about what my PC is feeling and thinking* then yes, FoW is a burden on that: if you're playing sincerely you have to imagine your PC feeling the forceful commands of the dark naga, and the impulse of hunting first for Joachim and now for his blood.
> 
> But two things;
> 
> (1) As @AbdulAlhazred has said upthread, this is no different from the GM telling you _you see a dead-end in front of you_. Now, if you're playing sincerely, you have to imagine your PC seeing a wall.
> 
> (2) I find it odd that, in playing a RPG, I would treat _my private imaginings _rather than _the content of the shared fiction _as the focus of my desire for agency. Because playing a social game based around a shared fiction is necessarily going to constrain one's private imaginings.



I also made much the same point about 8 posts up.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Right. I've reposted myself, because I'm yet to see any response by @FrogReaver or @Crimson Longinus to it:
> 
> I also made much the same point about 8 posts up.



In my case, it was about something that it seems is usually player's choice (Beliefs) not being. Sort like having a character build changed by the GM.

Now, with more explanation and more time on my end thinking about it, I don't see it as being more intrusive than similar elements in other games.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think that there's a difference between chance and a person deciding?



I assume you mean another person deciding. If so then - Not when it comes to agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, let's continue ad argumentum.  The situation you have here is that you claim that there is agency in choosing or not choosing to do in-character role play.  That this choice is largely a wash -- both work equally well.



Work equally well for what? If the purpose was to have an action adventure with an interesting set of fun characters, then I'd argue that roleplaying an unresponsive mute who has no emotion does not work equally well than playing a character who has emotions and expresses them in an interesting manner and quite likely elicits responses from other characters in turn.



Ovinomancer said:


> We're still, then, back to looking at how the actions are resolved in the game as the prime measure of agency.  How the choice to go towards water works is where we'll find any differences in agency.  Here, we're back to the structures I posted earlier -- either the GM has full authority to determine the resolution of the action (including negating it) or the player has some ability to determine the resolution space, either through a mechanic or the GM not being allowed to negate the action, only test it.  Here, it seems clear that the agency balance still tilts away from GM decides systems, even as you claim that there's still agency in choosing whether or not this happens while you choose to act in-character or don't.



Yes, different games place limits on agency in different ways we already know that. Like how some games with personality mechanics place limits on players agency to roleplay their character.



Ovinomancer said:


> Put simply, even if we accept your premise that the choice to act in-character or not is agency



OK...



Ovinomancer said:


> (and I agree it is, just not player agency but rather outside of the game),



What? This is a complete non sequitur.



Ovinomancer said:


> then we're still looking to the same set of issues to determine whether or not one method involves more agency than another.  Your claim doesn't impact the situation.  Feel free to pose a counter example where you think it does, though.  I played traditional style D&D for decades, and I can't think of any.



At this point I don't even know what you think my claim is.



Ovinomancer said:


> And, again, this isn't a value statement.  There's lots of other things the games can do that can matter more to you.  Clearly, I don't have a problem with playing a game I think has less agency than others.  You still haven't addressed this point, by the way -- why would I engage in devious redefinitions to win a point that aims squarely at my own play?



I'm not a mind reader.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Not when it comes to agency.




How do you figure? 

If the outcome of something is left up to dice to determine, whose agency is involved? 

Let's say I want my character to convince some NPC to help my party with a problem. This NPC is someone my PC knows, and so I have a bit of weight to pull, but it's a big ask. I'm putting my PC's relationship with this person at risk by asking for this favor. 

I roll for Persuasion.......

Whose agency is involved here? That of the dice?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, you can see it that way. So same way that if one of them had chosen that their character stays put, they would have used their agency to do so. It doesn't still change the fact that they're using their agency to have their character to do things, whether it was to go somewhere or reminisce about the past. Why you think that having the character move is a choice, but having the character reminisce isn't?



Where does it lead? Is it building up to something? Is it 'propelling the story' in some way? Nobody disagrees that RP like that is good, but calling freedom to talk to yourself in character 'agency' is pretty low bar. It almost seems like the player is actually shaping his character's backstory and mental life to match with the material presented by the GM, so how free IS this agency? 

I mean, this is actually a critical point, which may not have been made well before. If I'm being presented with situations to negotiate, and then I'm going to have a believable, consistent, appropriate characterization of my PC, aren't I almost obliged to shape that to reflect the material to an extent? I mean, perhaps players simply revolt at that often, but in real life we are a product of our environment, not so much the other way around. I think I want that relationship to be different in RP, so I get to really explore what I wish to in the character's inner life, instead of it being at least heavily reliant on someone else's idea of what I should care about.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you figure?
> 
> If the outcome of something is left up to dice to determine, whose agency is involved?
> 
> Let's say I want my character to convince some NPC to help my party with a problem. This NPC is someone my PC knows, and so I have a bit of weight to pull, but it's a big ask. I'm putting my PC's relationship with this person at risk by asking for this favor.
> 
> I roll for Persuasion.......
> 
> Whose agency is involved here? That of the dice?



The player had agency to attempt to try and persuade the NPC.

The dice removed the players and DM’s agency to to decide if the NPC was persuaded.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?



I'm not familiar with it, as I don't really care for railroady adventure paths, but I'd still assume that pretty much all the time when not being mind controlled by vampires (which given the name of the adventure might admittedly be a frequent occurrence.)

The campaign not offering opportunities for the characters to act on their wants is a perfectly valid criticism, no one is denying that.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> The player had agency to attempt to try and persuade the NPC.
> 
> The dice removed the players and DM’s agency to to decide if the NPC was persuaded.




Do you realize how much of RPGing you just said happens with no agency?

Edited to add: More to my original point, I think you are acknowledging that the dice and the GM deciding are at least different, correct?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I think you see it. You explained it fittingly above. You just refuse to call it agency. That’s the rub.
> 
> choosing motivations, thoughts and mental states is an exercise of player agency because these things are choices and are consequential to how the character is played and how the character is played is consequential to how the rpg is played.



I'm totally missing how anything I said established something that I 'refuse to call agency'. The problem I have isn't that what you call agency is 'not agency', although I think your analysis of it is a bit shallow in certain respects, it is just that when I extend it to other things I get told those are off limits. 

And see my previous post. If you have no say in how the world you are RPing in, the narrative of things, is playing out, which material it addresses, what types of situations you face and what character traits they put pressure on, then you are largely leaving one of the primary shaping forces of character completely to the GM. 

I can say my character felt powerless in childhood and wants to build an empire for himself as a reaction to that, but if that desire is never materialized in any way, or only in some passing ways that I can evoke 'in character' then I cannot really develop this theme, can I? So do I have agency WRT my character? Less than I could! Earlier you (or maybe it was @Lanefan or @Bedrockgames or @Crimson Longinus ) asserted that allowing players to assert facts, etc. would somehow compromise agency, but I assert the very opposite is clearly true (both could be I suppose, though I never was clear on exactly why having more options in the game could create less agency).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you realize how much of RPGing you just said happens with no agency?
> 
> Edited to add: More to my original point, I think you are acknowledging that the dice and the GM deciding are at least different, correct?



I think the point is that if some thing is out of the control of the player, it doesn't matter to the agency of the player _where_ that control went. It may of course matter for other purposes. Like if it went to the GM, then the GM 'gained' agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you realize how much of RPGing you just said happens with no agency?
> 
> Edited to add: More to my original point, I think you are acknowledging that the dice and the GM deciding are at least different, correct?



Obviously dice and GM are different - but not in relation to player agency.  So not really sure the value of acknowledging that rather obvious point?

And yes.  Players lack agency over many things in rpgs.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I think this actually might be pretty important and plays into a lot of the disagreements. I think some people think the agency in relative terms, as in player vs. the GM. So if player doesn't control something, but GM doesn't control it either, the player has more agency _relative_ to the GM than in situation where the player didn't control the thing and the GM controlled it, even though in both situations the player's absolute agency is the same.

Does this make any sense?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think the point is that if some thing is out of the control of the player, it doesn't matter to the agency of the player _where_ that control went. It may of course matter for other purposes. Like if it went to the GM, then the GM 'gained' agency.




So if a player has his PC try to jump a ravine, and fails his check and the PC falls and takes falling damage, the player had no agency in the matter? 

Do you think that controlling the outcome is a requirement of agency?



FrogReaver said:


> Obviously dice and GM are different - but not in relation to player agency.  So not really sure the value of acknowledging that rather obvious point?
> 
> And yes.  Players lack agency over many things in rpgs.




I think that they are very different in relation to player agency. If I as a player declare an action for my PC and I know that dice will be involved in the resolution, then I will likely have some kind of information that allows me to determine the chance for success and risk and so on. The dice bring a quantifiable element to it. I have a +3 to my relevant skill, the DC is 12, etc and so forth. This means when I decide to go ahead, I am making an informed decision.

If instead of dice and math, I know that the action will need approval from the GM, then it is far less certain. There may be ways that I can possibly predict the chances....knowing the GM well is a big one. 

I don't think that giving dice some sense of will really sheds any light on the matter.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Are you extending this to combat resolution? Ie are you saying you're fine if the effect of an attack on an Orc, declared by a player for his/her PC, is all beyond the control of the player and is just decided by the GM?




I am talking about setting stuff and about the internal feelings of the character, not about combat. And I am not trying to establish rules for all time with this statement. The whole point of what I said wasn't to reinstigate a debate about how much control players ought to have over the setting or not (you and I have hashed that out about as far as I think we reasonably can). It was to support the idea that there are plenty of good reasons for a player to not be in full control of their characters thoughts and feelings


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> When I play five hundred it's with friends. Some are more serious than others. Some like to chat away while we play; others like to focus on the game at hand.
> 
> If I was playing in a club (are there 500 clubs? but suppose it's a bridge club) then I'm guessing there's less chit-chat when we play and more serious focus.
> 
> But if we talk about player agency in playing cards that chit-chat isn't really part of it.
> 
> Different RPG tables have different expectations about how the participants will socially interact, spend time speaking to one another "in character" about this or that.
> 
> But three things:
> 
> (1) That is *obviously* not what the OP was asking about. Because nothing about GM practices - including so-called "quantum ogres" has any implications for any of this stuff about table chit-chat in or out of character;
> 
> (2) All RPGers are able to do this _all the time_ whatever RPG they are playing.;
> 
> (3) Sometime the fiction will constraint the permissible in-character chit-chat: if, in the fiction, we're all in a tavern then I can't, in character, ask another PC to admire the beautiful sky directly above us; and if, in the fiction, I'm in love with Guinevere _and_ am an honest paladin then there may be limits on how much I can, in-character, tell the others that I hate her.



Sorry, but I really dislike this framing. This is exactly the 'RP as optional afterthought' framing that I meant earlier. The players talking in-character is not some separate thing from the game, it is a a central part of it. It is most likely the way they coordinate all their agendas, so thus important for what will actually happen in the game. And even when it is not about that, it is still just as much part of the game than anything else the characters do.


----------



## aramis erak

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you figure?
> 
> If the outcome of something is left up to dice to determine, whose agency is involved?
> 
> Let's say I want my character to convince some NPC to help my party with a problem. This NPC is someone my PC knows, and so I have a bit of weight to pull, but it's a big ask. I'm putting my PC's relationship with this person at risk by asking for this favor.
> 
> I roll for Persuasion.......
> 
> Whose agency is involved here? That of the dice?



THe dice are a result of a decision point. The agency factor of a die roll is at the following points:
Knowing the difficulty
Knowing one or more possible outcomes of the roll
then, based upon those, deciding to go ahead and roll.

There are several decision points to get to those three.
The GM must have a difficulty in mind
The GM should have an expected game-state change in mind tied to the roll. Often, this is prescribed (esp. in conflict systems), but at many times it is situational.
THe GM may have foreshadowed the roll 
The Player may have requested a roll
the player may have a specific desired outcome, which, if they do, should be conveyed to the GM.

Agency on the roll evolves from having those.
Let's look at a few cases:

A blind, "Hey, roll a d20 and hand me your sheet" isn't a sign of agency... No agency here of the player, except for what was present in character gen.
"Hey, I need you to to roll a notice check, and there's a bad thing going to happen if you fail" Still no agency. 
"Do you want to roll a notice check as you enter?" - implies a thing to notice. Player has some agency - look or don't.
"If you enter, you'll need a notice roll. Bad things if you fail." Fails the realism test, but has more agency.
"now that you've entered, What will find you if you pass the notice check?" much more agency - the player now gets to pick the opponent (within reason.) on a success.
"You have a bad feeling. What is triggering it?" pauses for answer. "If you enter, you'll roll for your ability to avoid being surprised." Still more agency, as now you pick the source of bad feeling and know that if you opt to enter, you'll roll vs surprise. What's not said is that you can choose other than to enter and yet still engage that threat.
Now, if the GM is faithless in handling any of that in the above, player agency is nullified to some degree.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think this actually might be pretty important and plays into a lot of the disagreements. I think some people think the agency in relative terms, as in player vs. the GM. So if player doesn't control something, but GM doesn't control it either, the player has more agency _relative_ to the GM than in situation where the player didn't control the thing and the GM controlled it, even though in both situations the player's absolute agency is the same.
> 
> Does this make any sense?



I understand what you are saying, yes. I don't know about other posters, but I wasn't particularly concerned with 'relative' agency in this way. If I start to think back into what's been said, we talked about how there need to be 'choices' in order for agency to exist, so we might think about, relatively speaking, who really gets to have choices.
Now, if we also add "and their resolution must not rest with their creator" (IE someone must pose the choice to someone else for it to really be a choice) then we get to this interesting question. If the GM only POSES questions, and the players only ever ANSWER questions, who's got the agency here? I mean, the players are exercising it, but if it is only about what the GM posed, then it is "the GM's agency" isn't it?

I mean, I'm the GM, I give you a choice between freezing cold and the lakeshore. You seem to have a meaningful in-character choice here. But if I get to chose what questions to pose, and when to pose them, are you really exercising anything? I mean, the GM seems to 'giveth and taketh away' in this paradigm.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I understand what you are saying, yes. I don't know about other posters, but I wasn't particularly concerned with 'relative' agency in this way. If I start to think back into what's been said, we talked about how there need to be 'choices' in order for agency to exist, so we might think about, relatively speaking, who really gets to have choices.
> Now, if we also add "and their resolution must not rest with their creator" (IE someone must pose the choice to someone else for it to really be a choice) then we get to this interesting question. If the GM only POSES questions, and the players only ever ANSWER questions, who's got the agency here? I mean, the players are exercising it, but if it is only about what the GM posed, then it is "the GM's agency" isn't it?
> 
> I mean, I'm the GM, I give you a choice between freezing cold and the lakeshore. You seem to have a meaningful in-character choice here. But if I get to chose what questions to pose, and when to pose them, are you really exercising anything? I mean, the GM seems to 'giveth and taketh away' in this paradigm.



You have agency over your answers to those questions.

where that fails to me is I know no rpgs that constantly have an either or choice that the dm gives the player. Instead it’s: the scene is this, what do you do?


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> You have agency over your answers to those questions.
> 
> where that fails to me is I know no rpgs that constantly have an either or choice that the dm gives the player. Instead it’s: the scene is this, what do you do?



If you run it as written, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires do so.
The outline of action resolution is roughly this:

Player gets notified it's time to act
player narrates an action that the GM wants rolled.
GM askes them 
What are you hoping to get out of that?
What skill are you using to succeed at getting that

player answers, or backs down and alters narration to avoid the roll-requiring action if they don't back down
GM informs them of effects of failure and either that the roll is opposed or is of a specific difficulty, and if specified, what difficulty.
Player may assemble their dice pool
Player can back down at this point, before rolling, abandoning their desired outcome but not facing the result of failure, either.
Player who hasn't backed down rolls. If the Roll is opposed, the opposing character's player (or the GM) rolls.
the specified result happens, and return to narrative mode or to another player's turn.
Note that Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are slightly different in this process, because players don't always have the option to back down during the GM turn in mouse guard (nor it's TB equivalent). In the Player turn in Mouse Guard, however, it does pretty much do the same thing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> So if a player has his PC try to jump a ravine, and fails his check and the PC falls and takes falling damage, the player had no agency in the matter?



They had agency to take the risk. They had not agency to narrate their character directly succeeding. Which is more agency? Who knows at this point?   



hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think that controlling the outcome is a requirement of agency?



No.


hawkeyefan said:


> I think that they are very different in relation to player agency. If I as a player declare an action for my PC and I know that dice will be involved in the resolution, then I will likely have some kind of information that allows me to determine the chance for success and risk and so on. The dice bring a quantifiable element to it. I have a +3 to my relevant skill, the DC is 12, etc and so forth. This means when I decide to go ahead, I am making an informed decision.
> 
> If instead of dice and math, I know that the action will need approval from the GM, then it is far less certain. There may be ways that I can possibly predict the chances....knowing the GM well is a big one.
> 
> I don't think that giving dice some sense of will really sheds any light on the matter.



They're different but I don't think it can be said clearly which offers more agency from the player's perspective. It depends on the GM, it depends on the system it depends on the situation and it even depends on the player. For example in some situations I feel I have more agency with GM adjudication, as the GM can take account all different nuances of the situation, it will matter how I exactly I describe my character doing things and so forth, whereas with a roll my contribution is just a binary decision of whether to attempt the task or not.


----------



## innerdude

FrogReaver said:


> I think you see it. You explained it fittingly above. You just refuse to call it agency. That’s the rub.
> 
> choosing motivations, thoughts and mental states is an exercise of player agency because these things are choices and are consequential to how the character is played and how the character is played is consequential to how the rpg is played.





I think it's more that the context of choosing thoughts, motivations, and mental states, are only _precursors to enacting agency_, not agency in and of themselves.

_Enacting agency_ takes place when those thoughts, motivations, and mental states are put into the fiction through the character _choosing to act_.

I can see there being some potential confusion, however, around instances where the player says something as if in character that immediately establishes some "truth" about the fiction. 

@AbdulAlhazred, I think, brought up something like this earlier with the elf who spent "many a long weekend dipping in the ocean," or something to that effect.

I'm not sure this qualifies as "agency," per se. Yes, we've established something about the fiction (assuming the players and GM just play along and agree that this newly-spoken "reality" is, in fact, "real"). But I think @AbdulAlhazred's point is that we haven't _meaningfully_ altered the course of play / course of the fiction (we haven't moved play states).

Sure, we've established something "true" within the fiction, but it has nothing to do with the goal of _playing to find out what happens_. It's nice color / texture to the scene and character, but it doesn't have any resonance to the concept of, "What's this game _about_?" 

Is this game a struggle between downtrodden peasants looking to overthrow an oppressive Lord? A conflict between two long-time friends fighting to "get what's theirs" in the criminal underground? A struggle for a group of rag-tag adventurers hoping to make their next big score in a murky dungeon so they can finally enjoy "the good life"? 

My elf character saying, "I used to love going to the beach on weekends" is lovely color, and a good sign from the standpoint of the player engaging with their character---certainly nothing wrong with this, and overall a positive thing. It's just not evidence of player agency with respect to moving the game state. 

Now --- if after saying this, the elf character says (through the mediation of the player), "In fact, you know what --- those times at the ocean are the most important things in the world to me. I'm going to go back and do everything possible to get rid of the pirates and corrupt fishing fleets ruining it." And then starts pursuing that as an agenda --- now we're moving toward game state change.

That said, I think that players can make more strongly-worded, in-character declarations that can move toward state change. Suppose, for example, a player goes on and on about their sworn enemy, the Baron von Evilhoffer, describing in great detail some set of past events or feud between them. _Then_ we start to get nearer to the mark of player agency --- but these are exactly the kinds of things that "traditional" D&D / GMs simply don't care about (literally from @Lanefan's own mouth --- doesn't care, nor have any interest in engaging in this sort of thing). To bring these kinds of more substantial agenda "pieces" into reality within the fiction, generally takes 1) total buy in from the GM and party, 2) a system that mechanically inserts these statements into the reality of the fiction (Dungeon World has dozens of these), or both.


----------



## FrogReaver

aramis erak said:


> If you run it as written, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires do so.
> The outline of action resolution is roughly this:
> 
> Player gets notified it's time to act
> player narrates an action that the GM wants rolled.
> GM askes them
> What are you hoping to get out of that?
> What skill are you using to succeed at getting that
> 
> player answers, or backs down and alters narration to avoid the roll-requiring action if they don't back down
> GM informs them of effects of failure and either that the roll is opposed or is of a specific difficulty, and if specified, what difficulty.
> Player may assemble their dice pool
> Player can back down at this point, before rolling, abandoning their desired outcome but not facing the result of failure, either.
> Player who hasn't backed down rolls. If the Roll is opposed, the opposing character's player (or the GM) rolls.
> the specified result happens, and return to narrative mode or to another player's turn.
> Note that Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are slightly different in this process, because players don't always have the option to back down during the GM turn in mouse guard (nor it's TB equivalent). In the Player turn in Mouse Guard, however, it does pretty much do the same thing.



Step one sounds an awful lot like...
DM: "Player it's your time to act, what do you do?"

So while it doesn't use the same words, i'd say it's basically the same thing.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> They had agency to take the risk. They had not agency to narrate their character directly succeeding. Which is more agency? Who knows at this point?




I'm not following here. I would argue that, succeed or fail, the player had agency in this situation. They decided what their character would do or not do, and then followed the resolution system of the game to determine the outcome. 

It's all one instance, no?



Crimson Longinus said:


> No.




Okay, good.



Crimson Longinus said:


> They're different but I don't think it can be said clearly which offers more agency from the player's perspective. It depends on the GM, it depends on the system it depends on the situation and it even depends on the player. For example in some situations I feel I have more agency with GM adjudication, as the GM can take account all different nuances of the situation, it will matter how I exactly I describe my character doing things and so forth, whereas with a roll my contribution is just a binary decision of whether to attempt the task or not.




Okay, I agree that system and so forth may matter, but that doesn't mean that we cannot say which of two options may have more agency.

Part of the reason for that is because all those additional points of input are subject to the whim of another person. Sure you may phrase something in a way that makes the GM think "interesting, I'll give them a +2 for that", but another GM may say "oof, that was a bad call, I'm gonna give them a -4". 

That lack of consistency means that generally speaking, players will be making decisions that are less informed, and are subjected to the will of the GM in every manner.


----------



## FrogReaver

Let's say person A has 12 apples.
Let's say another person B has 10 apples and 10 oranges.

Person B says: "I have more fruit than you".  Person A replies: "yes but you don't have more fruit that I care about, I don't like oranges".

If agency were fruit this is where our agency discussion would still be after 87 pages...


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Step one sounds an awful lot like...
> DM: "Player it's your time to act, what do you do?"
> 
> So while it doesn't use the same words, i'd say it's basically the same thing.




Yeah it kind of starts the same. How would it proceed in D&D? Can you summarize that the way @aramis erak did for BW?


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah it kind of starts the same. How would it proceed in D&D? Can you summarize that the way @aramis erak did for BW?



Maybe, what does it matter since he posted that specifically as a counterpoint to my claim that i can't think of an rpg that doesn't ask the players "what do you do?"


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> You have agency over your answers to those questions.
> 
> where that fails to me is I know no rpgs that constantly have an either or choice that the dm gives the player. Instead it’s: the scene is this, what do you do?



Is that significant? I mean, first of all, OFTEN the effective choices are binary. You can 'fiddle around', but eventually you go left or go right. Maybe sometimes you effectively turn back. I don't think that, or even other possible choices, really undermines the whole 'state model' of how the game itself goes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

innerdude said:


> I think it's more that the context of choosing thoughts, motivations, and mental states, are only _precursors to enacting agency_, not agency in and of themselves.
> 
> _Enacting agency_ takes place when those thoughts, motivations, and mental states are put into the fiction through the character _choosing to act_.



And even under this interpretation mechanics that limit the players capability to control these mental states must effectively limit their agency as they naturally also limit the actions following from these mental states.



innerdude said:


> I can see there being some potential confusion, however, around instances where the player says something as if in character that immediately establishes some "truth" about the fiction.
> 
> @AbdulAlhazred, I think, brought up something like this earlier with the elf who spent "many a long weekend dipping in the ocean," or something to that effect.
> 
> I'm not sure this qualifies as "agency," per se. Yes, we've established something about the fiction (assuming the players and GM just play along and agree that this newly-spoken "reality" is, in fact, "real"). But I think @AbdulAlhazred's point is that we haven't _meaningfully_ altered the course of play / course of the fiction (we haven't moved play states).



Meaningfully to whom? Why is one change in the fiction a change of a gamestate and another isn't? Sure, I can see that there are tiny additions to the fiction, and bigger ones and huge ones, and this was rather minuscule, but where it the threshold exactly? What is the method of measurement here?



innerdude said:


> Sure, we've established something "true" within the fiction, but it has nothing to do with the goal of _playing to find out what happens_. It's nice color / texture to the scene and character, but it doesn't have any resonance to the concept of, "What's this game _about_?"



Why? What if the game is about the present reminding the characters of their past and the interplay generated by that?



innerdude said:


> Is this game a struggle between downtrodden peasants looking to overthrow an oppressive Lord? A conflict between two long-time friends fighting to "get what's theirs" in the criminal underground? A struggle for a group of rag-tag adventurers hoping to make their next big score in a murky dungeon so they can finally enjoy "the good life"?



I don't know. Can it be all of these things? Who decides what it is about? Do everyone need to agree or can it be about different things to different people as long as the themes and goals remain aligned enough that the characters keep working together?



innerdude said:


> My elf character saying, "I used to love going to the beach on weekends" is lovely color, and a good sign from the standpoint of the player engaging with their character---certainly nothing wrong with this, and overall a positive thing. It's just not evidence of player agency with respect to moving the game state.
> 
> Now --- if after saying this, the elf character says (through the mediation of the player), "In fact, you know what --- those times at the ocean are the most important things in the world to me. I'm going to go back and do everything possible to get rid of the pirates and corrupt fishing fleets ruining it." And then starts pursuing that as an agenda --- now we're moving toward game state change.



Certainly the first was a step towards the second. Even if the second never happens the first establishes a potential for it. And yes, this is exactly how campaign altering things grow from things that some deride as 'pantomime'.



innerdude said:


> That said, I think that players can make more strongly-worded, in-character declarations that can move toward state change. Suppose, for example, a player goes on and on about their sworn enemy, the Baron von Evilhoffer, describing in great detail some set of past events or feud between them. _Then_ we start to get nearer to the mark of player agency --- but these are exactly the kinds of things that "traditional" D&D / GMs simply don't care about (literally from @Lanefan's own mouth --- doesn't care, nor have any interest in engaging in this sort of thing).



D&D is an inanimate thing and as such has no opinion, and a lot of people who play it disagree with Lanafen on this.



innerdude said:


> To bring these kinds of more substantial agenda "pieces" into reality within the fiction, generally takes 1) total buy in from the GM and party, 2) a system that mechanically inserts these statements into the reality of the fiction (Dungeon World has dozens of these), or both.



Pretty much any RPG lets players to set their character's goals. Sure, some GMs let the game follow those goals, but that's an attitude issue not a game issue.


----------



## FrogReaver

aramis erak said:


> THe dice are a result of a decision point. The agency factor of a die roll is at the following points:
> Knowing the difficulty
> Knowing one or more possible outcomes of the roll
> then, based upon those, deciding to go ahead and roll.
> 
> There are several decision points to get to those three.
> The GM must have a difficulty in mind
> The GM should have an expected game-state change in mind tied to the roll. Often, this is prescribed (esp. in conflict systems), but at many times it is situational.
> THe GM may have foreshadowed the roll
> The Player may have requested a roll
> the player may have a specific desired outcome, which, if they do, should be conveyed to the GM.



There's more than that.  There is agency over declaring an attempted action and agency over the outcome of that action.  I'm trying to be specific enough so that I'm not misunderstood when I claim dice take away agency.  It's not the agency to attempt an action they take away, but rather they have removed agency over the outcome itself resulting in less overall agency as such situations get framed in this thread.




aramis erak said:


> Agency on the roll evolves from having those.
> Let's look at a few cases:



I like that you gave examples of different cases and your views on agency in them.  I don't fully agree with all your assessments but I think that's a good way to proceed in this discussion.



aramis erak said:


> A blind, "Hey, roll a d20 and hand me your sheet" isn't a sign of agency... No agency here of the player, except for what was present in character gen.



I think it depends on what triggers the roll and what fiction has been established on the lead up.  Player I'm going to go defeat the dungeon of traps.  DM, upon entering, roll a d20 and hand me your sheet.  *Though perhaps the qualifier of blind removes such situations but I'm not sure that's specifically how you meant "blind".



aramis erak said:


> "Hey, I need you to to roll a notice check, and there's a bad thing going to happen if you fail" Still no agency.



Again , that depends on the leadup.  Would the player have gotten the notice check if he was doing X instead of being on the lookout for danger?  If so he had agency.



aramis erak said:


> "Do you want to roll a notice check as you enter?" - implies a thing to notice. Player has some agency - look or don't.



Again, depending on the leadup, deciding to enter may have been agency or not.  Choosing to make or not make a check might not be agency depending on what the consequences of doing so/not doing so are.  



aramis erak said:


> "If you enter, you'll need a notice roll. Bad things if you fail." Fails the realism test, but has more agency.



Agency on deciding to enter which is coupled with the decision to roll.  This reads as less agency to me.  There's only 1 decision point.



aramis erak said:


> "now that you've entered, What will find you if you pass the notice check?" much more agency - the player now gets to pick the opponent (within reason.) on a success.



Presumably you had agency to enter and you have agency on what you encounter, but no agency on whether to make the check.



aramis erak said:


> "You have a bad feeling. What is triggering it?" pauses for answer. "If you enter, you'll roll for your ability to avoid being surprised." Still more agency, as now you pick the source of bad feeling and know that if you opt to enter, you'll roll vs surprise. What's not said is that you can choose other than to enter and yet still engage that threat.



No agency about having the bad feeling.  Agency about what it is.  Your agency to choose to enter and to make a roll to avoid being surprised are tied to the same decision point.


----------



## Lanefan

I stepped away from this thread for a few days (voluntarily) and now find I'm 20 (!) pages behind, so if someone's aimed any comments at me in the meantime and I miss them, I ask forgiveness in advance. 


hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think this is remotely true. I don’t see how it _even can _be true, regardless of play style or GMing approach or what game you’re playing.
> 
> The PCs are significantly different from NPCs just by virtue of the fact that the game is about them. They’re the focus of each and every session. Most NPCs will appear once. Some will appear occasionally. Maybe a handful will appear with regularity. The PCs are the ones appearing in every single session. The game doesn’t exist without them.



No, but the world does.

If all the PCs drop dead, i.e. your typical TPK, does the whole game world grind to a halt?  Not if the campaign continues with new characters...and as up till now those new characters were in theory NPCs lurking in the background, by extension PCs and NPCs work the same.


hawkeyefan said:


> To me that’s a clear and fundamental difference that I’d expect would absolutely relate to the level of agency present in a game. If you can’t acknowledge that the characters played by the players are the stars of the show, then yeah, I can see how concerns in agency may arise.
> 
> And also, is you actually view a GM playing a NPC as the equivalent of a player playing a PC....then how is your entire GMing approach not in violation of how you expect your players to play?
> 
> How can you reconcile an approach that considers PCs and NPCs equally important, but expects the participant running the characters to do so with radically different expectations? Like, player knowledge should be limited to what the character knows as much as possible so that the player doesn't give themselves some kind of unfair advantage.....but the GM is expected to easily and perfectly separate character and GM knowledge to always render sound judgment.



Yes, and as a GM I freely admit this is a big problem.  However, as it's not all that solvable the best I can do is work around it in good faith and hope for the best. 


hawkeyefan said:


> Well, no, that’s not the only way to handle it. Far from it. There are many ways to do so, plenty of examples have been given. Plus, if you simply accept that PCs and NPCs are fundamentally different, then none of this needs to follow.



If I was willing to blow up the concept of internal consistency then accepting this would be no problem.  However, I'm not willing to blow it up.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Is that significant? I mean, first of all, OFTEN the effective choices are binary. You can 'fiddle around', but eventually you go left or go right. Maybe sometimes you effectively turn back. I don't think that, or even other possible choices, really undermines the whole 'state model' of how the game itself goes.




Yes. It is the single most significant thing about an RPG in my mind. When I first played, that whole "this is where you are: what do you do?" was like an explosion in my brain. The amount of freedom I felt to explore is one I have never experienced in any other medium. I've just never had the experience you are describing of feeling like it is a choice between binary things. I mean, maybe once in a while you are in a situation where there are two doors, but even then, you don't have to go through those doors, and there were all kinds of choices leading up to that moment. If you haven't experienced this, that is fair. Maybe your experience with RPGs and GMs is different from mine. But this is one area where I just can't see the validity of the argument being made because it is so contrary to what I've actually experienced.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

innerdude said:


> That said, I think that players can make more strongly-worded, in-character declarations that can move toward state change. Suppose, for example, a player goes on and on about their sworn enemy, the Baron von Evilhoffer, describing in great detail some set of past events or feud between them. _Then_ we start to get nearer to the mark of player agency --- but these are exactly the kinds of things that "traditional" D&D / GMs simply don't care about (literally from @Lanefan's own mouth --- doesn't care, nor have any interest in engaging in this sort of thing). To bring these kinds of more substantial agenda "pieces" into reality within the fiction, generally takes 1) total buy in from the GM and party, 2) a system that mechanically inserts these statements into the reality of the fiction (Dungeon World has dozens of these), or both.



I'm willing to accept that these sorts of agendas are perfectly possible to enact without mechanical support, it is just that IME getting that to happen is very uneven. I expect if I convinced some of you people that like to play games with these elements in them to GM 5e then our resulting 5e game would have some such moments, and that would probably go fairly smoothly. OTOH I can tell you from experience that MANY veteran GMs who are not philosophically opposed, at all, to this kind of play simply don't know much about it, haven't run games like BW or DW, or even if they have they haven't really internalized the concepts and procedures so as to be able to apply a version of them in a 5e game that lacks mechanical support for it. Especially since there will come points in play where strictly following the normal procedures of 5e will work against it, such that one is likely to either need a small house rule or at least alter standard procedure to some extent. 

So, instead of running 5e, I run my own hack of what started out as 4e and is now its own game (and I'm doing a rewrite now which will TRULY not owe a huge amount to 4e, although it will still have some kinship in certain areas).


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Remember 'Wrath of Khan'? "Two dimensional thinking, captain!" It is a 'mistake' in classic Gygaxian play to simply let the PCs bypass a 'locked door' (any obstacle). This smacks of going soft on them and letting play progress past some obstacle without testing the players ability against it. In this form of play such a thing is akin to the 'softballing' you describe earlier, and undermines the whole point of that mode of play.
> 
> Later, when play progressed into 'story telling' the process had to evolve. Because there were no longer necessarily specific obstacles on the map to be overcome, instead a structure of "the obvious course of the fiction" had to be imagined. So a sort of mythology grew out of the original GM referee role, that the GM could be a 'fair arbiter' of ANYTHING and that there was some definitive set of possibilities that could be discerned by the perspicacious GM that were "the logical possibilities." These became substitutes for the walls and doors and branches of corridor in the original model. Thus the ethos is that @Lanefan has concluded that you have 'bypassed an obstacle' which he has determined MUST exist within the fiction, and thus you have committed an error of GMing.



I haven't determined from afar that the obstacle 'MUST' exist; the GM within that game has by his own admission recognized that it DOES exist.  He then intentionally drew the game past it.  I merely called this out.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> The logic of narrative play is not being applied, at least not consistently. It takes play and a bit of practice and study for people steeped in 'classic' and 'story teller' modes to 'get' the narrative fiction-driven approach. Frankly, there are no real 'right answers' in terms of what MUST be chosen as obstacles in this mode of play. That choice is made simply on aesthetic grounds, and for the sake of interest in exploring particular possibilities.



So, choice of obstacles is made on dramatic grounds rather than realistic grounds.  This works (sometimes) for a movie, though I find it jarring there too when it's too obvious, but blows up much sense of realism in an RPG.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> I think it depends on what triggers the roll and what fiction has been established on the lead up.  Player I'm going to go defeat the dungeon of traps.  DM, upon entering, roll a d20 and hand me your sheet.  *Though perhaps the qualifier of blind removes such situations but I'm not sure that's specifically how you meant "blind".



Blind meaning, in this case, zero explanation to the player of what they're rolling for nor why.
It's about the absolute lowest agency case possible. You don't know what you're rolling, and if the system has expendables under player control, whether or not to use the expendables on it, nor why. Even if the GM has a pair of outcomes, the player has no agency other than what was in character gen.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I feel that perception is not an ideal area to examine agency as it very often is passive or reactive.


----------



## FrogReaver

aramis erak said:


> Blind meaning, in this case, zero explanation to the player of what they're rolling for nor why.
> It's about the absolute lowest agency case possible. You don't know what you're rolling, and if the system has expendables under player control, whether or not to use the expendables on it, nor why. Even if the GM has a pair of outcomes, the player has no agency other than what was in character gen.



You didn’t address how my dungeon of traps fits into that explanation.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> These things could be meaningful in some ways, but play does not revolve around them.
> 
> My example of the fighters was a simple one. What I meant by it is: would the play of Steading of the Hill Giant Chief go differently if I were to play with one character over the other?



For me it sure would.  If I'm playing Lanefan the high-volume kick-in-the-door gonzo guy my experience then and memories later of that module are going to be quite different than if I'm playing Astacoe the quiet practical think-it-all-through-first guy. (both of these are very long-career Fighters of mine who are still active now)

Doesn't matter that in either case we'd be more or less doing the same things (though very likely not in the same manner!) - the characterization differences would make it different enough.  Throw in that each other player at the table might be making a similar choice, and you never know what you're gonna get. 


hawkeyefan said:


> And more importantly, would that difference be meaningful?



To me, again yes as noted just above.


hawkeyefan said:


> Let me phrase this another way. When you think of “character driven play” do you mean that the characters are free to decide where they go and what they engage with?



Yes.


hawkeyefan said:


> Or do you mean that play actually revolves around the characters?



Red herring.  If the characters are deciding where they go and what they engage with (one assumes this is being done via a vaguely consistent in-character decision process) the play is already revolving around them.


hawkeyefan said:


> Does the fiction feature the PCs or is it actually their story?



It's the party's collective story.  Characters within said party often come and go as time passes, but the party continues.

Claiming as a player that my character's story is more important than that of the party is pure selfishness.


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> To bring these kinds of more substantial agenda "pieces" into reality within the fiction, generally takes 1) total buy in from the GM and party, 2) a system that mechanically inserts these statements into the reality of the fiction (Dungeon World has dozens of these), or both.



I think that buy-in is plausibly enough; in fact, I think mechanics to do this can lead to ... cheap (or cheap-feeling) results--something I've seen, myself.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> To the participants. In this case, that would be @pemerton since we are talking about his preferences.
> 
> How about an example? Let's say that the PC is a fighter who is looking for his brother, who rumor has it joined some kind of cult and ran off. The fighter wanders the land trying to find a clue to his brother's whereabouts, so he can ultimately find and save him.
> 
> This is central to the character, right?
> 
> Is it central to play? That is the question.* Is the game about what the player wants the game to be about? *
> 
> Someone like @Lanefan might say absolutely not. He sees that kind of personal quest as being boring to everyone else at the table, and so it is self indulgent on the part of the player who'd like to see this play out.



If the one PC ends up in effect dragging the others around to do this, then yes.

But it'd be fairly trivial for me as GM, on seeing this, to drop occasional clues and hints about the brother, even if done in off-session emails or whatever, if needed; and eventually work in that some adventure where the party goes up against a cult for other reasons also ties into the lost-brother scenario (maybe the brother's one of the defenders the party are up against).

What I don't want to see is a series of sessions get bogged down by this one PC looking for his brother while everyone else does nothing; and IME that's often how these sort of things end up playing out.


hawkeyefan said:


> Does this mean that every single thing that happens in play needs to revolve around the missing brother? No, of course not. But for it to be meaningful (and I'd argue, objectively so), it has to matter more than the PC showing up in a new town, asking around about his brother, and being told "nope, never saw this kid around here" and then roleplaying sadness at the lack of news.
> 
> It has to matter to the unfolding fiction. A series of clues or sightings or rumors leading the PC on in his search, learning more and more until finally the situation boils to a head, and the brother is found, or the cult he joined is confronted, or what have you.



Agreed.  My preference, though, is that this as much as possible happen as a side effect of whatever the party as a whole is doing, if that makes sense.

And if five or six PCs have similarly-personal yet disparate goals, trying to weave them together into something that can be more party-based can be a bear....even more so if any of those goals are in direct conflict with each other.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> In my case, it was about something that it seems is usually player's choice (Beliefs) not being. Sort like having a character build changed by the GM.



This I understand: different games put different components of the fiction under the control (or at least prima facie control) of different participants.

So in a lot of D&D play, for instance, generally I get to decide whether or not my PC holds a prejudice against a particular race (think the classic Orc- or Elf- hating Dwarf); but the GM gets to decide whether or not there is a lantern hanging from the cross-beam of the tavern roof.

But I now invite you to take these next steps:

(1) If some of what a typical D&D GM controls is given over to a greater extent to the players (whether via formal mechanics, or via a much greater reliance and perhaps even systematisation of taking suggestions), then (everything else being equal) that will increase the players' agency in respect of the shared fiction;

(2) If under some circumstances what a typical D&D player controls is given over to a greater extent to the GM (eg as in the Force of Will/dark naga example) that may reduce some player agency but perhaps still leave the player with a net overall greater agency.

(3) On balance, think of (1) and (2) combining so as to (a) reduce (not necessarily eliminate) sharp boundaries between who controls which bits of the fiction, with the result that (b) the fiction is shared not only in the sense that we all imagine it together but that the production of it involves  a more distributed/sharing/cooperative process, while it still being the case that (c) the player and GM roles are quite distinct.

How is 3(c) true given (3)(a) and (b)? Because the distinction consists less in _who controls which bits_ and more in _what are the mechanical process together with broader principles that govern who gets to introduce which bit of content at which point of play._


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> You didn’t address how my dungeon of traps fits into that explanation.



Because my initial reaction is summed up by "Put FrogReaver on the never game with list."

Essentially, unless you're foreshadowing the traps heavily, it's a situation that I'm shocked to find someone seriously considering as fun. 

Traps as occasional spig for color or a dash for spice? Sure.
As the meat of the module? Idiocy.

Traps are the worst possible kind of thing for player agency - they're almost always roll-to-avoid, and as run by most GM's either noticed or not with semi-blind rolls. It turd the dungeon into a push-your-luck experience. Which is precisely what I didn't like about many D&D modules.


----------



## Lanefan

Thomas Shey said:


> Well, there's still a point to be had here that's I've brought up; making decisions that effectively walk the character out of the campaign.



As a player, I've done this numerous times just by following what the character would reasonably do next. 

The departing character may or may not join up again with the party at some future point; in the meantime I just roll up something new and carry on.

As for what the departing character gets up to in the meantime: that's what off-session emails and pubs are for.


----------



## darkbard

aramis erak said:


> It *turd* the dungeon into a push-your-luck experience. Which is precisely what I didn't like about many D&D modules.




Most apt typo EVAR!


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> But I now invite you to take these next steps:
> 
> (1) If some of what a typical D&D GM controls is given over to a greater extent to the players (whether via formal mechanics, or via a much greater reliance and perhaps even systematisation of taking suggestions), then (everything else being equal) that will increase the players' agency in respect of the shared fiction;
> 
> (2) If under some circumstances what a typical D&D player controls is given over to a greater extent to the GM (eg as in the Force of Will/dark naga example) that may reduce some player agency but perhaps still leave the player with a net overall greater agency.
> 
> (3) On balance, think of (1) and (2) combining so as to (a) reduce (not necessarily eliminate) sharp boundaries between who controls which bits of the fiction, with the result that (b) the fiction is shared not only in the sense that we all imagine it together but that the production of it involves a more distributed/sharing/cooperative process, while it still being the case that (c) the player and GM roles are quite distinct.
> 
> How is 3(c) true given (3)(a) and (b)? Because the distinction consists less in _who controls which bits_ and more in _what are the mechanical process together with broader principles that govern who gets to introduce which bit of content at which point of play._



I actually don't disagree (at least not hard) with any of these. I've played (and run) (and read) games that had mechanics for players to control/change the world (normally the GM's realm) and for GMs to control/change characters (normally the players' realm). I do think I'm more willing to consider pure actions/decisions as introducing content than you are, and I know I'm happier as a GM being more responsible for the world than you seem to find ideal at a game table (I find it easier as a GM to keep track of things I've figured out than to keep track of things other people have told me).


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> Step one sounds an awful lot like...
> DM: "Player it's your time to act, what do you do?"
> 
> So while it doesn't use the same words, i'd say it's basically the same thing.



It's not. Usually it's a player to player decision, not the GM's. When the player finally gets to a point that the GM decides needs a roll, or has an idea for an alternate direction, that the GM gives the "Or"... the player does, in BW, always have the option to walk away from both, or to accept the GM's alternate, without rolling.

And, in running BW, there have been a few cases where I gave a fail result that the player found more interesting than their initial declared outcome, and so narrated their failure without bothering to roll for it.

The key of BW is that once a roll process is started, there are several outcomes:
1) player "walks away" from the declared action. The failure result does not apply. Nor does the success.
2) player opts to roll.
2a) Player fails the roll, gets the GM's failure outcome
2b) player passes the roll, gets their stated outcome
3) player opts for failure, gets the GM's stated failure outcome
4) player and GM agree to revise the outcomes and continue.

Every time the player does something the GM thinks needs a roll, the GM is REQUIRED to allow them to walk away from the triggering action.

Example of walk away.
Player: "I pick his pocket while he's sleeping on the bench"
GM: "That's going to require 3 successes"
Player: "Uh, nope. I note something feels odd, and stop before my hand is in his pocket."

Example of negotiation:
P1: "As I'm wandering through the city market, I'm  looking for a swordsman for hire."
GM: "that sounds like a circles roll"
P1: "I was thinking assassin-wise because I need to pay my dues. And find a job."
GM: "Oh, okay. so you expect there to be an assassin in your guild. If you fail, your dues are too late, he's got paper on you."
P1: "can we make him from a different guild? I still want to be able to pay my dues."
GM: scans the table, sees some nods. "Sure. But then it really feels more like circles with a bonus die from your Assassin-wise. Say, 3 Successes"
Note: At this point, the player has several choices: the GM's original on a failed assassin-wise a guild collector, or a circles to get the right assassin, or even to back down, and not pay his dues this scene. Or to see if he can tweak it more...
P1: "Can we make the assignment "alive only?"
GM: "Oh, all right..."
P1: Circles 4, +1 Assassin-wise.
P2: "I'm helping by pointing out the guys the guards are keeping an eye on, using my Guard-wise 4" (hands a die to P1.
P3: "I'm helping by making the correct «check-in» sign, assassin-wise 4" hands a die to P1.

Non-negotiated example:
P1: I'm sneaking into the castle, through the postern gate and into the courtyard, trying to get to the princess' room unnoticed.
GM: Makes a mental note of who would be where, and what the best perception roll is en route. "Opposed roll, 6 dice. Failure will be caught in the sneaking."
P1: rolls dice (But could have chickened out if he'd wanted to.)" "5 successes, 2 of them sixes...
GM rolls. "6 Successes."
P1: "spending artha for the 6's" roll of the two comes up 4 and 6, grabs another for the added 6, gets a 1
P1: "As I enter the princess' room..." 
(Note: the GM doesn't have to say anything - the stakes were clear from the beginning. Success, he's at the princess' room. Fail, he's caught somwhere inside the castle.)

BW presumes narrative-first play, lots of say-yes, and only when things obviously are going to have fails do you go to the dice.  But, once you trigger the process, it's always, "Pursue your idea via dice roll, accept my Idea as GM, or abandon both and do something different"

BW almost doesn't need a GM.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> This I understand: different games put different components of the fiction under the control (or at least prima facie control) of different participants.
> 
> So in a lot of D&D play, for instance, generally I get to decide whether or not my PC holds a prejudice against a particular race (think the classic Orc- or Elf- hating Dwarf); but the GM gets to decide whether or not there is a lantern hanging from the cross-beam of the tavern roof.
> 
> But I now invite you to take these next steps:
> 
> (1) If some of what a typical D&D GM controls is given over to a greater extent to the players (whether via formal mechanics, or via a much greater reliance and perhaps even systematisation of taking suggestions), then (everything else being equal) that will increase the players' agency in respect of the shared fiction;
> 
> (2) If under some circumstances what a typical D&D player controls is given over to a greater extent to the GM (eg as in the Force of Will/dark naga example) that may reduce some player agency but perhaps still leave the player with a net overall greater agency.
> 
> (3) On balance, think of (1) and (2) combining so as to (a) reduce (not necessarily eliminate) sharp boundaries between who controls which bits of the fiction, with the result that (b) the fiction is shared not only in the sense that we all imagine it together but that the production of it involves  a more distributed/sharing/cooperative process, while it still being the case that (c) the player and GM roles are quite distinct.
> 
> How is 3(c) true given (3)(a) and (b)? Because the distinction consists less in _who controls which bits_ and more in _what are the mechanical process together with broader principles that govern who gets to introduce which bit of content at which point of play._



Which reminds me: Houses of the Blooded, the action resolution is a roll for who gets to decide the outcome, and then, all participants who rolled high enough get to (in descending roll order) spend some of their wagers for «Yes, and» or «yes, but» tack-ons. The catch is that everyone with a stake in the action (either in scene, or has underlings in scene, or directly affected by the action) builds a pool... need to roll high to get narrative control, but dice you opt not to roll are your "wagers." Roll needed is 10+, all dice are 6's, typical pools run 4-12 dice... if you get the high roll, you pick the outcome of the triggering effect. If you rolled 10+ and the highest roll, your wagers are 1 statement each; if you rolled 10+ and weren't the highest, 2 wagers are needed per statement. 9-? all wagers lost.

That's about the maximal spread of player agency I can think of.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> For me it sure would. If I'm playing Lanefan the high-volume kick-in-the-door gonzo guy my experience then and memories later of that module are going to be quite different than if I'm playing Astacoe the quiet practical think-it-all-through-first guy. (both of these are very long-career Fighters of mine who are still active now)




I expect the kind of difference you’re talking about wouldn’t meaningfully change the outcome of the game. I’m not saying that playing these characters differently can’t be fun or memorable or have a deep meaning for you personally.

I’m saying that they don’t significantly alter the flow and outcome of the game. It’s still going to play out largely the same because the story is what it is, and the characters are along for the ride. You go on to confirm exactly that.



Lanefan said:


> *Doesn't matter that in either case we'd be more or less doing the same things* (though very likely not in the same manner!) - the characterization differences would make it different enough. Throw in that each other player at the table might be making a similar choice, and you never know what you're gonna get.




Yes, you do. A dead or defeated hill giant chief. And then a trip to the glacial rift for a showdown with the frost giant jarl.

And again, this is not a bad thing. My point is that these shifts in characterization aren’t that big a deal to the game state even if the matter quite a bit to the participants. Sure Lanefan may rush in carelessly and Astacoe may try and gather as much intel as possible, and maybe even attempt a parley of some sort.

But ultimately, such portrayals will most likely have minimal impact on the direction the game takes. The reason is because you aren’t playing Lanefan’s or Astacoe’s story...you’re playing The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.

The part I bolded in your post? It absolutely matters for some RPGs and players.



Lanefan said:


> Red herring. If the characters are deciding where they go and what they engage with (one assumes this is being done via a vaguely consistent in-character decision process) the play is already revolving around them.




Not what I mean. I mean that the events of play can only happen to them. That they can’t be exchanged for an entirely separate and distinct group of characters and have the game proceed largely unchanged.

Think of how “Hamlet” is inherently about Hamlet. You can’t just take Hamlet out and put another dude in there and expect the same story.


Lanefan said:


> It's the party's collective story. Characters within said party often come and go as time passes, but the party continues.
> 
> Claiming as a player that my character's story is more important than that of the party is pure selfishness.




More important? Who said that? There isn't some  main character with a bunch of sidekicks. You rotate things a bit, you work as a group to weave the different stories together. Think about stories that are about groups of people. Think about how those characters had things of their own going on, even if the main focus was about the group as a whole.

There doesn’t need to be anything selfish about it.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> More important? Who said that? There isn't some main character with a bunch of sidekicks. You rotate things a bit, you work as a group to weave the different stories together. Think about stories that are about groups of people. Think about how those characters had things of their own going on, even if the main focus was about the group as a whole.
> 
> There doesn’t need to be anything selfish about it.



This pretty much describes every campaign I've ever run, and many of the campaigns I've played in.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not familiar with it, as I don't really care for railroady adventure paths, but I'd still assume that pretty much all the time when not being mind controlled by vampires (which given the name of the adventure might admittedly be a frequent occurrence.)
> 
> The campaign not offering opportunities for the characters to act on their wants is a perfectly valid criticism, no one is denying that.



I'm not engaging in criticism but analysis.

When I play a CoC one-shot I'm not expecting to get to (i) decide what my PC wants and then (ii) act on that. I'm expecting to be either directly told what my PC wants (via a pre-gen) or to be presented with a scenario which makes it easy to ascribe wants to my PC that will mesh with the scenario (which is something @AbdulAlhazred mentioned a page or two upthread).

The fun of play is in performing my PC - characterisation and pantomime - while the GM describes what happens and narrates my descent into madness.

Now let's consider the Curse of Strahd, accepting for the moment @hawkeyefan's sketch of it upthread:



hawkeyefan said:


> The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.
> 
> We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.



It seems to me that, if a player decides that what his/her PC wants is to charter a company of mercenaries, that is probably not going to happen in this campaign. (See also @Ovinomancer's actual play observation upthread, about his PC background in a Curse of Strahd campaign.)

When we say that this player is free to decide what his/her PC wants, what is the nature of that freedom? S/he can write it down on her PC sheet. She can grumble her way through the campaign, in character, about being trapped by the mists when she should be back on the Sword Coast (or wherever) leading her company of freebooters. But when the push comes to shove of actually playing the module, it seems that that stuff will not really matter. Similar to how the backstory and desires of PCs in the Giants modules don't really matter to most of the play of those adventures.

I don't really see how a RPG could prevent a player from doing that sort of free-characterisation of his/her PC, and so if it is a manifestation of player agency at all it seems to be a component of a baseline.

It could certainly be compatible with playing a total railroad.

Hence why I don't really understand how it addresses the topic of this thread as raised by the OP.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> The player had agency to attempt to try and persuade the NPC.



In what RPG is this not the case? - subject of course to fictional positioning (eg if the PC is dead and awaiting resurrection, is bound-and-gagged, is charmed or geased not to, etc).

That players are able to declare actions for their PCs within the constraints of the relevant fictional positioning is a baseline for RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Sorry, but I really dislike this framing. This is exactly the 'RP as optional afterthought' framing that I meant earlier. The players talking in-character is not some separate thing from the game, it is a a central part of it. It is most likely the way they coordinate all their agendas, so thus important for what will actually happen in the game. And even when it is not about that, it is still just as much part of the game than anything else the characters do.



I reiterate:

But three things:

(1) That is obviously not what the OP was asking about. Because nothing about GM practices - including so-called "quantum ogres" has any implications for any of this stuff about table chit-chat in or out of character;

(2) All RPGers are able to do this all the time whatever RPG they are playing.;

(3) Sometime the fiction will constraint the permissible in-character chit-chat: if, in the fiction, we're all in a tavern then I can't, in character, ask another PC to admire the beautiful sky directly above us; and if, in the fiction, I'm in love with Guinevere and am an honest paladin then there may be limits on how much I can, in-character, tell the others that I hate her.

Do you have any response to (1) through (3)?

Do you agree that "in character RP" is obviously not what the RPG was asking about? Do you agree that is because, in part, there is _no RPG_ in which this cannot happen if the players want it to?

And perhaps most interestingly, do you agree that there is no difference beween roof of the tavern and the love for Guinevere as constraints arising from the fiction on permissible Iin-character RP"?


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> And perhaps most interestingly, do you agree that there is no difference beween roof of the tavern and the love for Guinevere as constraints arising from the fiction on permissible Iin-character RP"?



If the inability to see the night sky matters (maybe there's some sort of astrological thing happening) then the roof of the tavern is a real constraint and it matters; if the inability to control oneself around one's Queen matters, then one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere matters. I would say whether there's a difference between the roof of the tavern and one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere depends on what matters in a given game.

That's ... probably longer than the yes/no answer your question seemed to be looking for.

EDIT: It's also so self-evident as to be practically tautological, so I might have missed your point--sorry if I did.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> where that fails to me is I know no rpgs that constantly have an either or choice that the dm gives the player. Instead it’s: the scene is this, what do you do?



The player answers (for his/her PC): _I do X_.

Concrete example: in one of my recent Traveller sessions the "scene" was closed doors in an ancient alien pyramid complex. The X was _I concentrate on them to use my psionics to open them_. This was from a PC who has a psionic strength rating, but no psionic abilities, and who believed strongly that the pyramid complex was designed to enhance psionic power.

How is this action declaration resolved? According to the module I was drawing on, that action declaration fails. There are only two ways to open the doors - via strength, or via a control panel.

So in effect the player is presented with an A or B or C choice - _open the door using strength, open the door using the control panel, or fail to open the door_. Maybe we can add a couple of extras: blast the door with a plasma gun, or use plastic explosives on it, and it will probably "open".

But what about the attempt to use psionics? This is - in my view - the crunch point for player agency, because this is the point at which we have potentially competing conceptions of the shared fiction. Whose gets to prevail?

This is also why this ongoing debate about dice is super-weird to me. The dice aren't in themselves a source of agency. They're a technique for choosing between competing suggestions as to the content of the shared fiction.

I my Traveller game I set a check and had the player roll. It succeeded, and the door opened and I rolled to see the number of psionic strength points lost. From memory I also imposed a light wound (1D) to reflect the strain/exhaustion.

This established that psionic _are _able to open those doors. If the player had failed, it would have been an open question whether that was because it can't be done, or because the PC wasn't able to do it on this occasion.

Stepping back to the bigger picture, this is very like the discussion about PC desires and goals: that players establish these for their PCs is pretty much a baseline (unless the game uses pregens). Just like saying what the PC tries to do.

Where the discussion about agency becomes interesting - because we now have a way in which different RPGs are different - is when we consider _who gets to decide whether it is feasible to actually take up those goals in play _or _who gets to decide whether it is feasible for that action declaration to succeed_. If the GM is the one making all those decisions then the game is one (i) that I think clearly involves less player agency than if those matters were otherwise, and (ii) that I personally would characterise as a low-agency game. Because, just to reiterate, even in a railroad the player can do things - set goals, and declare actions - that you say mark out the important boundaries of player agency.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> If you run it as written, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires do so.
> The outline of action resolution is roughly this:
> 
> Player gets notified it's time to act
> player narrates an action that the GM wants rolled.
> GM askes them
> What are you hoping to get out of that?
> What skill are you using to succeed at getting that
> 
> player answers, or backs down and alters narration to avoid the roll-requiring action if they don't back down
> GM informs them of effects of failure and either that the roll is opposed or is of a specific difficulty, and if specified, what difficulty.
> Player may assemble their dice pool
> Player can back down at this point, before rolling, abandoning their desired outcome but not facing the result of failure, either.
> Player who hasn't backed down rolls. If the Roll is opposed, the opposing character's player (or the GM) rolls.
> the specified result happens, and return to narrative mode or to another player's turn.
> Note that Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are slightly different in this process, because players don't always have the option to back down during the GM turn in mouse guard (nor it's TB equivalent). In the Player turn in Mouse Guard, however, it does pretty much do the same thing.



According to Luke Crane in the Adventure Burner and Codex, there is no step 7. As he presents it,

1. Player declares action;
2. GM either says 'yes' (if no/low-stakes) or calls for a check - at this point it is too late for the player to back out (Adventure Burner p 247 - "Don't let them weasel out of the test");
3. If its not clear what the intent of the action is, the player clarifies that (perhaps with help from the GM);
4. The GM identifies what abilities/skill(s) are to be tested - if the player disagrees, the two work together to clarify the task being undertaken, exactly how it relates to the intent, and what will be tested;
5. The GM now sets the obstacle and announces the consequence of failure;
6. The player makes the roll (perhaps using available resources to manipulate their dice pool or particular results).

Adventure Burner p 248 reiterates: _Once you've stated your intent and task, once your character is in motion and the obstacle has been presented, you're expected to roll the dice. Even if it's too hard!_

I think the only time a backdown would be OK is if at steps 3 and 4 it becomes clear that the player and the GM had quite different understandings of the PC's fictional positioning.

The flipside of this is set out on p 249, under the heading "Don't Be a Wet Blanket, Mr GM":

Don't call for a test just to see a character fail. . . . Ask yourself, "is anything really at stake here?" . . . If not, just roleplay through it. If [otherwise], negotiate an intent and task and roll some dice!​


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I feel that perception is not an ideal area to examine agency as it very often is passive or reactive.



In my Burning Wheel game, the PC bound to the will of the dark naga was in Joachim's bedchamber just as an assassin cut of Joachim's head.

At this point, and as I mentioned upthread, the player changes his PC's "Force of Will" Belief from _I will find Joachim for my master _to _I will bring Joachim's blood to my master_.

When I asked the player what he (as his PC) wanted to do, he said "I look around for a vessel to catch the blood in!" I framed a Perception check - not very hard, given that it seemed likely that the bedchamber of a convalescing mage might have a ewer or similar vessel in it - and the player rolled. He succeeded, and I told him that he could see a ewer sitting on a table in the room.

The idea that perception is passive or reactive is already taking as a premise that there is a whole category of action declarations where only the GM has agency to determine what happens next.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> If the inability to see the night sky matters (maybe there's some sort of astrological thing happening) then the roof of the tavern is a real constraint and it matters; if the inability to control oneself around one's Queen matters, then one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere matters. I would say whether there's a difference between the roof of the tavern and one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere depends on what matters in a given game.
> 
> That's ... probably longer than the yes/no answer your question seemed to be looking for.
> 
> EDIT: It's also so self-evident as to be practically tautological, so I might have missed your point--sorry if I did.



I don't dissent from your point about why it might matter.

My point, rather, is that - contra at least @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus - a player being limited in deciding what his/her PC feels is no more or less a constraint on how s/he can roleplay that PC than is the GM getting to decide the architecture, the weather, the nature of the planes, etc.

To elaborate further:

If I (playing my character) want to inspect the night sky (eg for an astrological thing) and can't because the GM has established that there is a roof over my head (eg maybe I lost a brawl and got locked up in a windowless dungeon), then that is just as limiting - on action declaration and on free narration of my PC's words and thoughts - as if some game process has established that I love the Queen.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish that I love the Queen - eg in typical D&D the fiction has to involve magic for this to happen.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish I got locked upon in a windowless dungeon - eg in Burning Wheel it's open to me to declare a Dungeons-wise or even Window-wise check (drawing on my in-character recollection that (eg) dungeons in this part often have small window high up to let out the reek) and if it succeeds then my recollection is correct and there is a small window high up in the dungeon wall through which I can see the night sky.


----------



## prabe

That's a sturdy analysis.


pemerton said:


> My point, rather, is that - contra at least @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus - a player being limited in deciding what his/her PC feels is no more or less a constraint on how s/he can roleplay that PC than is the GM getting to decide the architecture, the weather, the nature of the planes, etc.



I think there are some players (I'm one) who would experience hard, permanent, mechanical limitations on what their characters feel as dissonant (please don't bring charm spells and the like into this), to the point of feeling as though they had less agency--no matter what other kinds of agency they were gaining elsewhere in the game's mechanics. I think it's reasonable that my feelings about that ... shape my approach to GMing.


pemerton said:


> In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish that I love the Queen - eg in typical D&D the fiction has to involve magic for this to happen.



I'll agree that there aren't mechanical means for a DM in 5E to make characters feel things (outside the usual charm-spell exceptions), but I've found that a skilled DM can get the _players_ to feel things--and I've found that works just as well, without the dissonance I mentioned above.


pemerton said:


> In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish I got locked upon in a windowless dungeon - eg in Burning Wheel it's open to me to declare a Dungeons-wise or even Window-wise check (drawing on my in-character recollection that (eg) dungeons in this part often have small window high up to let out the reek) and if it succeeds then my recollection is correct and there is a small window high up in the dungeon wall through which I can see the night sky.



I have played games where players could do those sorts of things, and I've run them. I have found that I ended up not liking them as much as a player--mainly because they came with mechanics that imposed emotional/mental states on my character, leading to that dissonance; and some of the victories I achieved by rewriting the world felt ... cheap--or as a GM--my reluctance to generate the dissonance in my players' minds that I find so unpleasant makes me not the right person to GM those games, and I find it easier to keep the world consistent when I only have to remember what I've figured out, not what others have added.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> BW almost doesn't need a GM.



I don't agree with this. The GM has a central role in BW: drawing on his/her conception of "the big picture" (this is BW's version of AW's "think offscreen") to frame situations, establish consequences, manage pacing, etc.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it.



Allow me to disagree: the "decoupled RP" *is* the game, in those moments.

If you wish to define 'the game' as only being those bits where mechanics are involved, that's up to you; but I don't hold with that definition.  To me the game is everything that goes on in-character, whether rules-bound or not, along with the mechanical things the rules make us do at the table.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.



Will they?

I can think of many a time when those 'rules-free' sessions ended up with at least one PC dead (usually courtesy of some cursed treausry item or other).  'Being back next week' is not guaranteed.

That said, yes; sometimes the best (or worst) of these do approach soap opera in a way, with all the attendant affairs of the heart and so forth.  I think it does the game a great discourtesy not to allow these the time to play out.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> In @Lanefan's game, though, there are rules to the roleplay -- it's the GM decides what happens.  This is a highly ad-hoc and informal ruleset that vests all authority over resolution in one person, so results in low agency play, but it can be a lot of fun with engaged players.
> 
> Aside from this, I'm slightly confused as to why the definition of roleplaying has come up -- it has very little to do with player agency.



Someone either said or strongly implied that the characterization and personality of one's character, and things done as a result of that, are either not agency or not enough agency (I forget which); and either that same person or someone else ran with this and got to - the term used was 'play-acting', I think - isn't a valid part of the game, as that person defined 'game'.

Needless to say, this was - and is - being challenged.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, fair enough, in D&D or in Diplomacy there are no rules or even process really (I think Diplomacy has a time limit on each turn, though it is common to change it) to govern this. Literally anything goes, I can lie, steal, spy on people, etc. in Diplomacy (actual laws and common decency obviously place limits here). The only thing of substance is the game board situation, and my orders for the turn. In fact I recall that in one Origins Diplomacy tournament I was in one of the players slipped fake orders for another player into the other players clipboard and they got turned in. There was a bit of a controversy on the legality of that, since it was impinging on the structure of the game. I think they decided it was a bridge too far, rolled the turn back and accepted the orders the player claimed were genuine.



In Diplomacy I'd let that go all day long!  If players aren't careful enough with their orders to a) check them on handing them in and b) keep close watch on them (as in have them physically in hand!) between writing them out and handing them in, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

In a real war, it'd be the same as if enemy spies intercepted orders heading out to the field and replaced them with different.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I would add - those whose RPGing experience is confined to play where the GM exercises most of the agency are not familiar with the possibility of a high degree of player agency, such that _the GM_ might also be playing to find out what happens.



The players find out what happens, the GM finds out how it happens.


pemerton said:


> The reason I prefer backgammon to chess is that it is easier - "lighter" - to play and hence demands just the right amount of effort + thinking from me. That doesn't mean backgammon involves as much agency as chess. I think it clearly doesn't. As is shown by the fact that from time-to-time a weaker player can beat a stronger one. *In chess that won't happen - unless the players are pretty evenly matched the stronger will win.*



'Should', not 'will'.

Ages ago I was in a chess club for a few years.  Wide range of abilities represented; at my best I was maybe halfway-to-2/3 down the totem pole i.e. far from the best there.  But even given that, once in a rare while I could rise up and knock off one of the club heavyweights...an upset about on a par with a National League club knocking off a Premier League side in the FA Cup, to be sure...but my point is that while on paper this shouldn't ever happen in practice it sometimes does.


----------



## Lanefan

TwoSix said:


> Absolutely.  I think there's a conflation by the Crimson/Frogreaver camp that agency is somehow synonymous with "play experience I prioritize".  A 3 hour deep philosophical conversation between your characters in a tavern exhibits no agency,



Sure it does, if agency is defined as the ability to drive play.  The players here are, through their conversation, absolutely driving play: in this case the play is that conversation.  The GM isn't doing a thing!

If the GM were to cut that conversation short the players' agency would be blown to hell in that moment, as where they were driving play that ability to drive it has been arbitrarily curtailed.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Gamestates are sequences of play characterized by the following features:
> 
> 1) They address the objective/premise of the game.
> 
> 2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.
> 
> 3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.
> 
> * Of note, depending upon the TTRPGs, there will be a macro gamestate (Dogs in the Vineyard - mete out justice and uphold the Faith as one of God's Watchdogs) and one or more micro gamestates (take my Dog's coat into Suzanna for mending as an excuse to attempt to romance her so I may marry her and retire) persisting simultaneously.  However, some TTRPGs have an extremely small play loop such that there is only one gamestate that exists (One-shots and games like My Life With Master).
> 
> ...  But does what I wrote above make sense?



Yes for a board game or sports match, but maybe not so much for an RPG.

1. In an RPG, one could argue that there is no real universal objective/premise of the game other than to play one's own character; and that is in theory being addressed at all times during play.
2. Yes, though in an RPG those changed things may be in-character mental rather than in-game physical.
3. While some RPGs may have a defined end-state or game-over condition, many are or can be completely open-ended meaning there's no clear definition of "toward" here.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> According to Luke Crane in the Adventure Burner and Codex, there is no step 7. As he presents it,
> 
> 
> 
> Adventure Burner p 248 reiterates: _Once you've stated your intent and task, once your character is in motion and the obstacle has been presented, you're expected to roll the dice. Even if it's too hard!_
> 
> I think the only time a backdown would be OK is if at steps 3 and 4 it becomes clear that the player and the GM had quite different understandings of the PC's fictional positioning.
> 
> The flipside of this is set out on p 249, under the heading "Don't Be a Wet Blanket, Mr GM":
> 
> Don't call for a test just to see a character fail. . . . Ask yourself, "is anything really at stake here?" . . . If not, just roleplay through it. If [otherwise], negotiate an intent and task and roll some dice!​



1: I never got Adventure burner
2: I'm working from BWR and BE, not BWG, and while I have BWG, I've only read certain parts. The ability to backdown is explicit in BWR core.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this. The GM has a central role in BW: drawing on his/her conception of "the big picture" (this is BW's version of AW's "think offscreen") to frame situations, establish consequences, manage pacing, etc.



You really should read Burning Empires. It establishes just how little the GM is needed in the system - because the GM is little more than the head of the opposition side when you have 4-5 players. It even has GMPCs as GMPCs, and is otherwise the same character mechanics as BWR. (different lifepaths, different races, but the same methods.)


----------



## Crimson Longinus

aramis erak said:


> You really should read Burning Empires. It establishes just how little the GM is needed in the system - because the GM is little more than the head of the opposition side when you have 4-5 players. It even has GMPCs as GMPCs, and is otherwise the same character mechanics as BWR. (different lifepaths, different races, but the same methods.)



I believe this. To me it has constantly seemed that logical end point of the methods @pemerton is advocating is collective storytelling where the dice are used to determine who has the authority to tell the story at the moment. And that is a fine thing if that's what one wants to do. Now one doesn't need to take it that far, and that is a matter of preference, just like it is a matter of preference to not to take it even the point Pemerton is taking it. 

And that's why the concept of different types of agency matter, even though a lot of people do their darnest to fight against it and pretend there is no difference. People experience these differences and have different tastes regarding different categories, and trying to obfuscate this merely makes discussing these things impossible.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> The ability to backdown is explicit in BWR core.



Where? I know it fairly well (better than Gold) and have just been looking through the Spokes. But didn't see the reference to backing down.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> You really should read Burning Empires. It establishes just how little the GM is needed in the system - because the GM is little more than the head of the opposition side when you have 4-5 players. It even has GMPCs as GMPCs, and is otherwise the same character mechanics as BWR. (different lifepaths, different races, but the same methods.)



From Revised pp 75, 268:

It is the GM's role to set obstacles. By presenting obstacles where he sees fit - by calling for tests - he builds the mood of the game. For example, making even simple things difficult can give game an air of oppression and weight. This isn't a bad thing, and sometimes that's the mood necessary for conveying the situation. Setting obstacles low, or only asking for tests at moments of high drama, gives the game a "heroic" and grandiose feel.

The players have some role in setting this mood, but by far it is the GM's job to sculpt, pace and nudge the atmosphere in a certain direction. And not just through beautiful descriptions, but by using the game mechanics to reinforce those descriptions  . . . 

Also, the GM is in a unique position. He can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off on one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. More than any other player, the GM controls the flow and pacing of the game. He has the power to begin and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts. . . .

Most important, the GM is responsible for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. . . . Once play begins, as players choose their path, it is the Gm's job to meaningfully inject resonant ramifications into play.​
My own view and experience is that this account of the GM's role is accurate, and is part of the play of the game. Different methods would be needed to do without the GM - for instance, there'd have to be some sort of allocation or turn-and-turn about for framing situations. And it would have to be determined who gets to say "yes" to an action declaration.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Someone either said or strongly implied that the characterization and personality of one's character, and things done as a result of that, are either not agency or not enough agency (I forget which); and either that same person or someone else ran with this and got to - the term used was 'play-acting', I think - isn't a valid part of the game, as that person defined 'game'.
> 
> Needless to say, this was - and is - being challenged.



In what RPG can that "play-acting" not take place?

It's a baseline.

It's not affected by "quantum ogres".

Do you really think it's relevant to what the OP was asking about?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> In what RPG can that "play-acting" not take place?
> 
> It's a baseline.
> 
> It's not affected by "quantum ogres".
> 
> Do you really think it's relevant to what the OP was asking about?



None of this has been relevant to what OP was asking about at least for fifty pages!_ Now _you're worried about it?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> None of this has been relevant to what OP was asking about at least for fifty pages!_ Now _you're worried about it?



What I've been posting has been relevant to the OP's post, except for the small number of posts about empiricist philosophy of knowledge.

I'm frankly surprised that you, @FrogReaver and @Lanefan assert that a campaign can be a total railroad and yet players have all the agency that is appropriate - ie the ability to characterise their PCs, say stuff in character, and declare actions.

That doesn't seem like a very useful way of approaching the idea of _agency_. And it seems to affirm and even encourage an approach to RPGing where the function of the GM and his/her "plot" is to provide a stage or setting for the players to perform their PCs in ways that are largely detached from that "plot".

In one other active thread (the "last session" thread) we see a GM complaining about the player in Curse of Strahd who won't just go up to the castle and fight Strahd even though everything points in that direction. In another active thread we have the OP of this thread asking about whether or not the GM should allow an Elf into his/her GoT-inspired campaign. To me, these all seem to be manifestations of the approach you are affirming.

It's a long way from the game Gygax created, from the Foreword of Moldvay Basic (which promises something quite different from what his system actually delivers, but that's a separate point for the moment), from Classic Traveller. One of the differences: it's very unclear what the role of mechanics even is in this sort of game!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> What I've been posting has been relevant to the OP's post, except for the small number of posts about empiricist philosophy of knowledge.



You started to push your pet systems from the get go and talk about mechanics that were not relevant to the game OP was using. 



pemerton said:


> I'm frankly surprised that you, @FrogReaver and @Lanefan assert that a campaign can be a total railroad and yet players have all the agency that is appropriate - ie the ability to characterise their PCs, say stuff in character, and declare actions.



No one has said that, what are you even talking about?


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> You started to push your pet systems from the get go and talk about mechanics that were not relevant to the game OP was using.



As nearly everyone does in these forums. Most of the time, however, people don't usually care when people are pushing D&D as their pet system because D&D is often presumed as the norm on this forum. But this thread was also posted in TTRPGs General, where people may be expected to have a greater deal of experience, knowledge, or familiarity with games outside of those norms, so...


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> As nearly everyone does in these forums. Most of the time, however, people don't usually care when people are pushing D&D as their pet system because D&D is often presumed as the norm on this forum. But this thread was also posted in TTRPGs General, where people may be expected to have a greater deal of experience, knowledge, or familiarity with games outside of those norms, so...



With D&D it often is not that people are pushing it, but that it is useful to use as an example as most people have at least some passing familiarity with it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Work equally well for what? If the purpose was to have an action adventure with an interesting set of fun characters, then I'd argue that roleplaying an unresponsive mute who has no emotion does not work equally well than playing a character who has emotions and expresses them in an interesting manner and quite likely elicits responses from other characters in turn.



You've smuggled in what you like instead of looking at agency, here.  Your argument here has nothing to do with the agency to choose a thing and everything to do with what you prefer.  


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, different games place limits on agency in different ways we already know that. Like how some games with personality mechanics place limits on players agency to roleplay their character.



I have no idea what games you're talking about, here.  You keep arguing against an imaginary construct because you have no experience with the games your imagining here, much less the ones you've assumed do this.  Let's look at two instances from my games that "do this."  In my 5e game, a character has a background with Mindflayers and Cranium Rats.  Both have charm/dominate abilities, so in engaging the player's background in the game these effects have come into play, including directing a character to do specific actions and keep them hidden from their friends.  This is an absolute imposition on the player's ability to roleplay their character.  In my Blades game, the closest thing to this that has happened was when a character was indulging their vice (the way you reduce Stress) and ended up overindulging (this is a risk if you recover more Stress than you can hold).  We agreed to roll to see what happened, and it the result was that the character was cut off from their vice purveyor -- they could no longer satisfy their vice with that purveyor, meaning they need to locate another.  As this was an interesting result, I asked the player what their character did to get cut off (this is how the game directs the GM to do such things).  Yes, the player had an required result, but their ability to describe that result was no less than the Charmed character in 5e.  The main difference here is that the player initiated the risk in my Blades game -- the player understood that the indulge action could result in binding negative outcomes on their character and chose the action.  The player in the 5e game had much less choice -- it was my choice as GM to initiate a Charm effect on the character, not the player.  Both involve a mechanical check -- indulge roll versus a saving throw, and the outcomes are somewhat analogous if looked at as a binding resolution that the players have some leeway in how they are presented (although I'd argue the Blades player has more leeway, it's not enough to matter).  So, agency-wise, both game have do the thing you're denouncing here, but in one it was initiated by the player and in the other it was initiated by the GM.

Or, in a simpler form, what your denouncing here is absolutely present in your games as well and they are always initiated when the GM wants. In the games you think you understand (but don't), the GM has very limited ability to initiate these things -- the player initiates and the GM only gets the say when the action fails.  And, then, the results look very similar -- binding outcome but the player has leeway to roleplay with it.


Crimson Longinus said:


> OK...
> 
> 
> What? This is a complete non sequitur.



I find it very strange to be told that a reference to real world agency is a non sequitur by the very poster that introduced it to the thread.  Very strange.


Crimson Longinus said:


> At this point I don't even know what you think my claim is.



Well, this is somewhat true -- it dances all over the place.  At the core, though, it appears that you want the ability to roleplay in-character to be attached strongly to agency, such that if it is present so is player agency.  You further wish to refine this to say that agency is actually defined as being able to role play in-character and not have the game have any say in this role play. 

The problems here are, as oft mentioned, that the game you champion doing this often violates these principles, but these are ignored because you're used to them.  You accuse others of reinventing definitions while gleefully moving goalposts, strawmanning play you don't understand, and engaging in special pleading (by dint of ignoring).  So, yeah, at any given moment it's a bit hard to tell exactly what you're arguing.  


Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not a mind reader.



This is avoiding the issue -- you clearly have no problem accusing me of nefarious motives ("NewSpeak," etc) when they suit you, but when asked how you reconcile those nefarious motives with the fact that I act in ways that belie them, you claim a lack of ability to read minds.  It's a very odd ability you have to be so selective -- it works when you need to accuse others of bad faith, but fails you when called out.

The difference here is that I don't think you're acting in bad faith at all.  I don't think this because I wasn't when I held similar opinions.  It's literally a matter of experience.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> I believe this. To me it has constantly seemed that logical end point of the methods @pemerton is advocating is collective storytelling where the dice are used to determine who has the authority to tell the story at the moment. And that is a fine thing if that's what one wants to do. Now one doesn't need to take it that far, and that is a matter of preference, just like it is a matter of preference to not to take it even the point Pemerton is taking it.



To me story telling games imply agency over outcome.  However, @pemerton's and others gaming philosophy does have a certain principle keeping the players from having agency over outcome - the Czege principle and it's why framing that principle as an absolute whereby one cannot even have a game without it is so important to their conversation.  It's the one thing holding back their framework from being collective storytelling.



Crimson Longinus said:


> And that's why the concept of different types of agency matter, even though a lot of people do their darnest to fight against it and pretend there is no difference. People experience these differences and have different tastes regarding different categories, and trying to obfuscate this merely makes discussing these things impossible.



Yep.  There's always a question of - "agency over what?" 

Setting
Framing
Outcomes
Making checks
Character Actions
Character mental states
Character motivations
Etc.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> What I've been posting has been relevant to the OP's post, except for the small number of posts about empiricist philosophy of knowledge.
> 
> I'm frankly surprised that you, @FrogReaver and @Lanefan assert that a campaign can be a total railroad and yet players have all the agency that is appropriate - ie the ability to characterise their PCs, say stuff in character, and declare actions.



Not all the agency/types of agency important to me.  But the point was that railroads are still not 0 agency games.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> That's a sturdy analysis.
> 
> I think there are some players (I'm one) who would experience hard, permanent, mechanical limitations on what their characters feel as dissonant (please don't bring charm spells and the like into this), to the point of feeling as though they had less agency--no matter what other kinds of agency they were gaining elsewhere in the game's mechanics. I think it's reasonable that my feelings about that ... shape my approach to GMing.
> 
> I'll agree that there aren't mechanical means for a DM in 5E to make characters feel things (outside the usual charm-spell exceptions), but I've found that a skilled DM can get the _players_ to feel things--and I've found that works just as well, without the dissonance I mentioned above.
> 
> I have played games where players could do those sorts of things, and I've run them. I have found that I ended up not liking them as much as a player--mainly because they came with mechanics that imposed emotional/mental states on my character, leading to that dissonance; and some or the victories I achieved by rewriting the world felt ... cheap--or as a GM--my reluctance to generate the dissonance in my players' minds that I find so unpleasant makes me not the right person to GM those games, and I find it easier to keep the world consistent when I only have to remember what I've figured out, not what others have added.



First, thanks for this post.  It's a great example of trying to engage the concepts fairly but finding out that you just prefer a different set.

Second, and this is by no means an encouragement to try again -- just an observation, the way you describe these things really says to me that you had a poor experience with them.  By that, I mean that they were run or presented poorly.  There's absolutely no reason that a game that features more narrative play and that puts at risk things about the character should feel like you're being forced to feel things.  That's poor approach by the GM if it was happening.  Perhaps the specific game was at fault, although I'm not sure.

Third, yes, absolutely, traditional GM-centered games can definitely engage the feels for the players.  I've had those experiences myself.  However, when I look at the times that's happened to me in good GM'd games (and it really only happens in very well GM'd games) I see that it's because that GM engaged the things I've indicated I care about already, or want to care about.  This is the exact same way that other systems are supposed to work, and if you had a different experience -- ie, you were just told that your character cares about this now -- then you had a bad experience and I'm sorry (in general, for all poor RPG experiences for all systems).

Finally, and again, this isn't an encouragement to try again with a better GM.  It's perfectly fine to have gotten a bad taste and not want to spend time or effort to risk just getting that same taste.  I can't eat cherries because of an incident in kindergarten.  It's entirely psychosomatic -- I enjoy cherries, but only when I don't know they're cherries.  Knowing it's a cherry triggers an involuntary gag reflex.  It's weird, but I totally get how a bad experience  -- however that experience came about -- can throw you off trying a thing ever again.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> To me story telling games imply agency over outcome.  However, @pemerton's and others gaming philosophy does have a certain principle keeping the players from having agency over outcome - the Czege principle and it's why framing that principle as an absolute whereby one cannot even have a game without it is so important to their conversation.  It's the one thing holding back their framework from being collective storytelling.



You've 1) violently mischaracterized @pemerton's approach, and anyone else you've decided to lump into that bin.  And 2) shown that you've failed to understand even a simple concept like the Czege principle (which has two requirements, not just the one you mention).  It why discussing things with you is so frustrating -- you make no attempt to understand anything that differs from your initial opinion, and then present just absolutely ignorant strawmen in responses.  And, yes, this strawman demonstrates an ignorance of a very simple concept (the Czege Principle) and also what must be a studied ignorance if you can even attempt to characterize other's play in the way you do here after all these posts.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> You've 1) violently mischaracterized @pemerton's approach, and anyone else you've decided to lump into that bin.  And 2) shown that you've failed to understand even a simple concept like the Czege principle (which has two requirements, not just the one you mention).  It why discussing things with you is so frustrating -- you make no attempt to understand anything that differs from your initial opinion, and then present just absolutely ignorant strawmen in responses.  And, yes, this strawman demonstrates an ignorance of a very simple concept (the Czege Principle) and also what must be a studied ignorance if you can even attempt to characterize other's play in the way you do here after all these posts.




Just interested for clarity here. Is there a landing page for the definitive Czege principle? Looking it up, what I find is "it isn't fun for a single player to control both a character's adversity and the resolution of that adversity". 

And then it goes on to say: 


> There is no single codified version of the Czege Principle. Ron Edwards' post that popularised it worded it as:
> _creating your own adversity and its resolution is boring_
> This was very quickly amended by Josh Roby to:
> _creating and running your own opposition isn't fun_
> Ben Lehman has also worded it as:
> _when one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun_
> Adam Koebel has stated it as:
> _satisfaction drops when the player is the author of their own adversity_


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> And, yes, this strawman demonstrates an ignorance of a very simple concept (the Czege Principle) and also what must be a studied ignorance if you can even attempt to characterize other's play in the way you do here after all these posts.



Guys, people in this thread are coming at the game from vastly different points of view and play experience. If you think someone isn't getting a concept as you are using it, I would just clarify it. Because I can tell you honestly there have been posts here, that I just have had a hard time understanding. A lot of these concepts are things that may be very familiar to some posters but not to others. Generally I appreciate clarifications around concepts that are clear


----------



## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> Just interested for clarity here. Is there a landing page for the definitive Czege principle? Looking it up, what I find is "it isn't fun for a single player to control both a character's adversity and the resolution of that adversity".
> 
> And then it goes on to say:



Those (except the last) are just saying the same thing in different ways.  The last is a slightly different formulation because it doesn't address solving the player created adversity.

However, the claim that there's not single codified version of the Czege Principle is an odd claim in that Czege said what he said, and others have run with it.  This is like saying there's not a single codified version of Einstein's Theory of Relativity because lots of other people have paraphrased it.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> First, thanks for this post.  It's a great example of trying to engage the concepts fairly but finding out that you just prefer a different set.



Thanks for the kind reply. Part of what has made me so frustrated in the past, I think, is that it has sometimes felt to me as though there was an inability/unwillingness to believe that someone could play/read/understand games written around these concepts and ... not prefer them. Which can seem (from the point of view of someone who doesn't prefer them) to be something in the direction of elitist--not saying that's the intent, to be clear.


Ovinomancer said:


> Second, and this is by no means an encouragement to try again -- just an observation, the way you describe these things really says to me that you had a poor experience with them.  By that, I mean that they were run or presented poorly.  There's absolutely no reason that a game that features more narrative play and that puts at risk things about the character should feel like you're being forced to feel things.  That's poor approach by the GM if it was happening.  Perhaps the specific game was at fault, although I'm not sure.



The thing is, in many instances what I'm reacting to are the play examples in the rulebooks. I'll be reading a game book and coming to understand the mechanics, and there'll be a play example (which one can think of as "this is how the game should be played/run") and I'll hear an audible _snap_ when I would completely disengage as a player if a GM did that--if a GM did what the rulebook is telling them to do, essentially.


Ovinomancer said:


> Third, yes, absolutely, traditional GM-centered games can definitely engage the feels for the players.  I've had those experiences myself.  However, when I look at the times that's happened to me in good GM'd games (and it really only happens in very well GM'd games) I see that it's because that GM engaged the things I've indicated I care about already, or want to care about.  This is the exact same way that other systems are supposed to work, and if you had a different experience -- ie, you were just told that your character cares about this now -- then you had a bad experience and I'm sorry (in general, for all poor RPG experiences for all systems).



I'm inclined to think that lots of folks who play TRPGs are shaped as much by bad experiences as by good ones, when it comes to what they want to play--what they think they'll enjoy. I'm working hard as a GM not to be a negative example.


Ovinomancer said:


> Finally, and again, this isn't an encouragement to try again with a better GM.  It's perfectly fine to have gotten a bad taste and not want to spend time or effort to risk just getting that same taste.  I can't eat cherries because of an incident in kindergarten.  It's entirely psychosomatic -- I enjoy cherries, but only when I don't know they're cherries.  Knowing it's a cherry triggers an involuntary gag reflex.  It's weird, but I totally get how a bad experience  -- however that experience came about -- can throw you off trying a thing ever again.



Mine is peppermint. Specifically (and it's a trial this time of year) candy canes.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Those (except the last) are just saying the same thing in different ways.  The last is a slightly different formulation because it doesn't address solving the player created adversity.





Ovinomancer said:


> However, the claim that there's not single codified version of the Czege Principle is an odd claim in that Czege said what he said, and others have run with it.  This is like saying there's not a single codified version of Einstein's Theory of Relativity because lots of other people have paraphrased it.



I don’t know. This was just the first thing I found. Are those paraphrasing accurate in your opinion?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> I feel that perception is not an ideal area to examine agency as it very often is passive or reactive.



Well, the whole concept of 'Perception as a skill' is IMHO problematic. That is, if something is worthwhile to interact with in the story, then gating its appearance on a random check, with the result essentially being a 'change of game state' (IE the narrative goes 'left' or 'right' at this point, figuratively) seems like a very odd idea. I mean, its fine to have an indicator that some characters are 'perceptive' and others are not so perceptive. I can then narrate "As you walk down the corridor, Joe (the perceptive one) spots some odd scrape marks on the floor." Now we have spotlighted this aspect of that character, and that's cool. Joe would also be likely to take an action like "I look for something I can make a torch out of in this area." or "I search for another exit from this room." where success is going to produce the desired result. 

The problem is, how perception is used in say, 5e, seems unrewarding. "Oh, you go down the corridor, sorry you take 10 points of damage because you can't see the trap." Huh, yeah, wow. Even if I get a check, the results of failure aren't really interesting. I mean, the cool part is interacting with, and overcoming, the trap, not just being told you were too much of a dolt to even see it, please bandage yourself. This is also what leads to the dull vanilla sorts of traps I see these days. Its just a toll bridge, you pay to walk here. No skill is involved at all! No interesting story is generated, at all. 

At least in the old old days before thief skills appeared (or at least before they were interpreted like Perception) you looked carefully at everything (it was assumed in the exploration movement rate). There was no such thing as "not finding the trap." You saw SOMETHING. Now, what is it? How does it work? Can I fiddle with it and make it so I'm safe from it? If it was a small mechanical/magical mechanism, THEN 'remove traps' could be engaged to figure it out and disarm it. The exact wording in Greyhawk is: "remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)" So, basically it was just a test of dexterity mixed with some very specific experience with this sort of thing. You couldn't just roll dice to disarm a large mechanical/magical trap, and such things were almost invariably 'puzzles' to at least some degree, requiring reasoning power and several steps in order to overcome. The terminology reflected this, as all types of "puzzle, trick, or trap" were lumped together in terms of their role in the game as challenges.

So, I guess it isn't bad to have "Perceptive" be a trait, and it can have a 'degree of ability' associated with it, call it training or whatnot if you will, but it would be intended to flag how the narrative could proceed, not as a 'gate' that your character had to pass through to get a preset 'reward'.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, the whole concept of 'Perception as a skill' is IMHO problematic. That is, if something is worthwhile to interact with in the story, then gating its appearance on a random check, with the result essentially being a 'change of game state' (IE the narrative goes 'left' or 'right' at this point, figuratively) seems like a very odd idea. I mean, its fine to have an indicator that some characters are 'perceptive' and others are not so perceptive. I can then narrate "As you walk down the corridor, Joe (the perceptive one) spots some odd scrape marks on the floor." Now we have spotlighted this aspect of that character, and that's cool. Joe would also be likely to take an action like "I look for something I can make a torch out of in this area." or "I search for another exit from this room." where success is going to produce the desired result.
> 
> The problem is, how perception is used in say, 5e, seems unrewarding. "Oh, you go down the corridor, sorry you take 10 points of damage because you can't see the trap." Huh, yeah, wow. Even if I get a check, the results of failure aren't really interesting. I mean, the cool part is interacting with, and overcoming, the trap, not just being told you were too much of a dolt to even see it, please bandage yourself. This is also what leads to the dull vanilla sorts of traps I see these days. Its just a toll bridge, you pay to walk here. No skill is involved at all! No interesting story is generated, at all.
> 
> At least in the old old days before thief skills appeared (or at least before they were interpreted like Perception) you looked carefully at everything (it was assumed in the exploration movement rate). There was no such thing as "not finding the trap." You saw SOMETHING. Now, what is it? How does it work? Can I fiddle with it and make it so I'm safe from it? If it was a small mechanical/magical mechanism, THEN 'remove traps' could be engaged to figure it out and disarm it. The exact wording in Greyhawk is: "remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)" So, basically it was just a test of dexterity mixed with some very specific experience with this sort of thing. You couldn't just roll dice to disarm a large mechanical/magical trap, and such things were almost invariably 'puzzles' to at least some degree, requiring reasoning power and several steps in order to overcome. The terminology reflected this, as all types of "puzzle, trick, or trap" were lumped together in terms of their role in the game as challenges.
> 
> So, I guess it isn't bad to have "Perceptive" be a trait, and it can have a 'degree of ability' associated with it, call it training or whatnot if you will, but it would be intended to flag how the narrative could proceed, not as a 'gate' that your character had to pass through to get a preset 'reward'.



While not directly fun, Traps of the style indicated can be very mood inducing.  And while maybe not the best way to arrive at this feeling they can give players a sense that danger is around every corner which often can enhance the experience. They also give players players something that can be particularly interesting to overcome ( though not the you take 10 damage style ones)


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> If the one PC ends up in effect dragging the others around to do this, then yes.
> 
> But it'd be fairly trivial for me as GM, on seeing this, to drop occasional clues and hints about the brother, even if done in off-session emails or whatever, if needed; and eventually work in that some adventure where the party goes up against a cult for other reasons also ties into the lost-brother scenario (maybe the brother's one of the defenders the party are up against).
> 
> What I don't want to see is a series of sessions get bogged down by this one PC looking for his brother while everyone else does nothing; and IME that's often how these sort of things end up playing out.
> 
> Agreed.  My preference, though, is that this as much as possible happen as a side effect of whatever the party as a whole is doing, if that makes sense.
> 
> And if five or six PCs have similarly-personal yet disparate goals, trying to weave them together into something that can be more party-based can be a bear....even more so if any of those goals are in direct conflict with each other.



This just gets into the techniques of this sort of play. So, I agree that I would 'work things in' in terms of possibly framing scenes that relate somehow (maybe not exclusively) to the 'brother plot'. Noting that the PLAYER is probably also able to bring this focus, maybe he makes some 'Streetwise' checks here and there which lets the player to either invent or elicit some information (In Dungeon World it would elicit information most likely for example, in BW the player might specify the information I guess). 

Obviously no one character's specific plot/agenda can dominate all of play in a game that features parties of PCs. Presumably the most satisfactory techniques are A) providing progress on multiple agendas in one scene, B) relating successive scenes to different agendas, C) linking the agendas of different PCs to each other in some way. I'd note that a LOT of 'narrative games' are fairly niche and just basically focus on a fairly narrow set of things, so most action in the game relates to everyone. In a 'Cthulhu Game' most everything would relate to the cosmic horror/mystery which is unfolding and affecting all the PCs. Any specific agendas are somewhat secondary in this kind of milieu and would probably just come up as elements of various scenes. You are searching for your brother, at some point you find his tattered journal. Later his distorted face appears on the surface of the horrible monster, along with all its other victim's visages, yup, monsters suck!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> Because my initial reaction is summed up by "Put FrogReaver on the never game with list."
> 
> Essentially, unless you're foreshadowing the traps heavily, it's a situation that I'm shocked to find someone seriously considering as fun.
> 
> Traps as occasional spig for color or a dash for spice? Sure.
> As the meat of the module? Idiocy.
> 
> Traps are the worst possible kind of thing for player agency - they're almost always roll-to-avoid, and as run by most GM's either noticed or not with semi-blind rolls. It turd the dungeon into a push-your-luck experience. Which is precisely what I didn't like about many D&D modules.



But, as I noted above, it isn't the CONCEPT of "a trap" that is bad. If you watch 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' the opening scenario is a famous trap sequence that is clearly very successful. Each trap serves a clear purpose. The first ones foreshadow, you see a dead guy or two, slain by traps. Next Indiana overcomes a couple of fairly straightforward traps, which serves basically as character building (we see what a daring do whip-wielding guy he is). Finally the 'big trap' springs and escalates the action to a frantic escape! The previous traps now do double duty as suspense heighteners, can Indy and Co avoid them while escaping pell mell from the giant boulder. This is all great stuff.

The typical modern "haha, you failed Perception, take 12 damage from the poison dart and make a save." kind of BS we get today is just utterly lame and sad. So if you fill your dungeon with the former, GREAT! If you fill it with the latter, BOO! Clearly the rules in modern D&D surrounding 'traps' (as a generic term) are flawed... I believe a narrative type of game can handle traps quite well. All the functions I mentioned above are pretty straightforward.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I'm not engaging in criticism but analysis.
> 
> When I play a CoC one-shot I'm not expecting to get to (i) decide what my PC wants and then (ii) act on that. I'm expecting to be either directly told what my PC wants (via a pre-gen) or to be presented with a scenario which makes it easy to ascribe wants to my PC that will mesh with the scenario (which is something @AbdulAlhazred mentioned a page or two upthread).
> 
> The fun of play is in performing my PC - characterisation and pantomime - while the GM describes what happens and narrates my descent into madness.
> 
> Now let's consider the Curse of Strahd, accepting for the moment @hawkeyefan's sketch of it upthread:
> 
> It seems to me that, if a player decides that what his/her PC wants is to charter a company of mercenaries, that is probably not going to happen in this campaign. (See also @Ovinomancer's actual play observation upthread, about his PC background in a Curse of Strahd campaign.)
> 
> When we say that this player is free to decide what his/her PC wants, what is the nature of that freedom? S/he can write it down on her PC sheet. She can grumble her way through the campaign, in character, about being trapped by the mists when she should be back on the Sword Coast (or wherever) leading her company of freebooters. But when the push comes to shove of actually playing the module, it seems that that stuff will not really matter. Similar to how the backstory and desires of PCs in the Giants modules don't really matter to most of the play of those adventures.
> 
> I don't really see how a RPG could prevent a player from doing that sort of free-characterisation of his/her PC, and so if it is a manifestation of player agency at all it seems to be a component of a baseline.
> 
> It could certainly be compatible with playing a total railroad.
> 
> Hence why I don't really understand how it addresses the topic of this thread as raised by the OP.



I THINK maybe I begin to understand the real nut of the objection to any notion of narrative play which might involve the player's being restricted from just "free-form RP" of their character to construct any sort of element they want at any time in the character's head/motivation/decisions.

If you have played for decades in a paradigm where THE ONLY agency is "what is in my character's head and how he moves his arms and legs and speaks." then clearly you want to hold on to that! You're also used to that as the only outlet. The AP or module or whatnot is simply mostly out of your hands. The world belongs to the GM. You're just a tiny cog in a much bigger wheel (Planescape is REALLY EXPLICIT about this at a setting level, but Greyhawk, FR, etc. pretty well embody this too). Short of playing for years and negotiating the weird and kind of broken upper level play of classic D&D, you're not going to achieve anything of really major lasting import in the world.

Now, when you propose that FoW could rewrite a PC belief of a BW character, that was greeted as virtually anathema, and extended to rejecting the whole concept of 'beliefs' as a concrete game element (probably based on the old "hold your cards close to your chest or else the GM will use them against you" thinking). This came about because the idea that you, as a player, could be gaining something from this hasn't been factored into these people's thinking, not in an organic way. They're taking "the GM is going to impose a belief on me." and (maybe unconsciously) applying it to a paradigm of RPG process that doesn't involve any other agency to the player. You're attacking his last bastion of independence, and he's going to die on that battlefield before giving ground. 

I mean, I know, people are going to say, "yeah, but I know about these other types of games, I've dabbled in them, etc." but again, it goes back to my Spock quote "2 dimensional thinking, Captain..."


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I'll agree that there aren't mechanical means for a DM in 5E to make characters feel things (outside the usual charm-spell exceptions), but I've found that a skilled DM can get the _players_ to feel things--and I've found that works just as well, without the dissonance I mentioned above.




I think this is a really interesting point. 

When this happens, and the DM evokes some kind of emotional response from you that hadn't been there a moment before, do you feel like you've lost control of yourself? Do you feel like something has been imposed on you?



prabe said:


> I have played games where players could do those sorts of things, and I've run them. I have found that I ended up not liking them as much as a player--mainly because they came with mechanics that imposed emotional/mental states on my character, leading to that dissonance; and some of the victories I achieved by rewriting the world felt ... cheap--or as a GM--my reluctance to generate the dissonance in my players' minds that I find so unpleasant makes me not the right person to GM those games, and I find it easier to keep the world consistent when I only have to remember what I've figured out, not what others have added.




I can absolutely understand your preference, even if I don't entirely share it. I do think that the times when some kind of emotional state is imposed on a PC are meant to emulate the kind of response you describe above as a player. It's not about mind control so much as evoking a feeling.

Now, I don't want to assign a motive to this, but I would expect that at least a part of this response is about the idea of "no one else controls my PC but me" which seems so ingrained as to be absolutely assumed by many in the discussion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I THINK maybe I begin to understand the real nut of the objection to any notion of narrative play which might involve the player's being restricted from just "free-form RP" of their character to construct any sort of element they want at any time in the character's head/motivation/decisions.
> 
> If you have played for decades in a paradigm where THE ONLY agency is "what is in my character's head and how he moves his arms and legs and speaks." then clearly you want to hold on to that! You're also used to that as the only outlet. The AP or module or whatnot is simply mostly out of your hands. The world belongs to the GM. You're just a tiny cog in a much bigger wheel (Planescape is REALLY EXPLICIT about this at a setting level, but Greyhawk, FR, etc. pretty well embody this too). Short of playing for years and negotiating the weird and kind of broken upper level play of classic D&D, you're not going to achieve anything of really major lasting import in the world.
> 
> Now, when you propose that FoW could rewrite a PC belief of a BW character, that was greeted as virtually anathema, and extended to rejecting the whole concept of 'beliefs' as a concrete game element (probably based on the old "hold your cards close to your chest or else the GM will use them against you" thinking). This came about because the idea that you, as a player, could be gaining something from this hasn't been factored into these people's thinking, not in an organic way. They're taking "the GM is going to impose a belief on me." and (maybe unconsciously) applying it to a paradigm of RPG process that doesn't involve any other agency to the player. You're attacking his last bastion of independence, and he's going to die on that battlefield before giving ground.
> 
> I mean, I know, people are going to say, "yeah, but I know about these other types of games, I've dabbled in them, etc." but again, it goes back to my Spock quote "2 dimensional thinking, Captain..."



This is exactly this.  As a recent(ish) "convert" this is absolutely the issue.  It's a combination of a lack of paradigm shift and last line defense.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Thanks for the kind reply. Part of what has made me so frustrated in the past, I think, is that it has sometimes felt to me as though there was an inability/unwillingness to believe that someone could play/read/understand games written around these concepts and ... not prefer them. Which can seem (from the point of view of someone who doesn't prefer them) to be something in the direction of elitist--not saying that's the intent, to be clear.






prabe said:


> The thing is, in many instances what I'm reacting to are the play examples in the rulebooks. I'll be reading a game book and coming to understand the mechanics, and there'll be a play example (which one can think of as "this is how the game should be played/run") and I'll hear an audible _snap_ when I would completely disengage as a player if a GM did that--if a GM did what the rulebook is telling them to do, essentially.



I think we've discussed this, and it's hard to glean play from examples if you're not already in the mindset.  Honestly, from experience, it's really hard to quickly present all of the things that go into a play experience such that the zeitgeist is grasped.


prabe said:


> I'm inclined to think that lots of folks who play TRPGs are shaped as much by bad experiences as by good ones, when it comes to what they want to play--what they think they'll enjoy. I'm working hard as a GM not to be a negative example.
> 
> Mine is peppermint. Specifically (and it's a trial this time of year) candy canes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, the whole concept of 'Perception as a skill' is IMHO problematic. That is, if something is worthwhile to interact with in the story, then gating its appearance on a random check, with the result essentially being a 'change of game state' (IE the narrative goes 'left' or 'right' at this point, figuratively) seems like a very odd idea. I mean, its fine to have an indicator that some characters are 'perceptive' and others are not so perceptive. I can then narrate "As you walk down the corridor, Joe (the perceptive one) spots some odd scrape marks on the floor." Now we have spotlighted this aspect of that character, and that's cool. Joe would also be likely to take an action like "I look for something I can make a torch out of in this area." or "I search for another exit from this room." where success is going to produce the desired result.
> 
> The problem is, how perception is used in say, 5e, seems unrewarding. "Oh, you go down the corridor, sorry you take 10 points of damage because you can't see the trap." Huh, yeah, wow. Even if I get a check, the results of failure aren't really interesting. I mean, the cool part is interacting with, and overcoming, the trap, not just being told you were too much of a dolt to even see it, please bandage yourself. This is also what leads to the dull vanilla sorts of traps I see these days. Its just a toll bridge, you pay to walk here. No skill is involved at all! No interesting story is generated, at all.
> 
> At least in the old old days before thief skills appeared (or at least before they were interpreted like Perception) you looked carefully at everything (it was assumed in the exploration movement rate). There was no such thing as "not finding the trap." You saw SOMETHING. Now, what is it? How does it work? Can I fiddle with it and make it so I'm safe from it? If it was a small mechanical/magical mechanism, THEN 'remove traps' could be engaged to figure it out and disarm it. The exact wording in Greyhawk is: "remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)" So, basically it was just a test of dexterity mixed with some very specific experience with this sort of thing. You couldn't just roll dice to disarm a large mechanical/magical trap, and such things were almost invariably 'puzzles' to at least some degree, requiring reasoning power and several steps in order to overcome. The terminology reflected this, as all types of "puzzle, trick, or trap" were lumped together in terms of their role in the game as challenges.
> 
> So, I guess it isn't bad to have "Perceptive" be a trait, and it can have a 'degree of ability' associated with it, call it training or whatnot if you will, but it would be intended to flag how the narrative could proceed, not as a 'gate' that your character had to pass through to get a preset 'reward'.



I don't really disagree with this and the old school trap solving is a good example of the sort of situation where GM adjudication might result the player having more agency than just handling the whole thing via a roll.


----------



## Imaro

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, the whole concept of 'Perception as a skill' is IMHO problematic. That is, if something is worthwhile to interact with in the story, then gating its appearance on a random check, with the result essentially being a 'change of game state' (IE the narrative goes 'left' or 'right' at this point, figuratively) seems like a very odd idea. I mean, its fine to have an indicator that some characters are 'perceptive' and others are not so perceptive. I can then narrate "As you walk down the corridor, Joe (the perceptive one) spots some odd scrape marks on the floor." Now we have spotlighted this aspect of that character, and that's cool. Joe would also be likely to take an action like "I look for something I can make a torch out of in this area." or "I search for another exit from this room." where success is going to produce the desired result.




I don't think it's odd at all.  As long as one isn't creating a single point of access to progress around it along with making it uncertain whether any character will actually notice it... it actually serves quite well as a reward for character/build choices.  In D&D 5e your score is your indicator, the only difference I see between what you are stating in your post and what D&D provides is that it's not an off/on indicator but instead an indicator with gradations.  The DM always has the option of deciding no check is necessary or that a characters skill is high enough that there is no uncertainty.  A roll only comes into play if there is uncertainty in whether Joe would notice something... Many like that uncertainty, that feeling of chance affecting the game world, something which an on/off indicator with set results just doesn't provide.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> The problem is, how perception is used in say, 5e, seems unrewarding. "Oh, you go down the corridor, sorry you take 10 points of damage because you can't see the trap." Huh, yeah, wow. Even if I get a check, the results of failure aren't really interesting. I mean, the cool part is interacting with, and overcoming, the trap, not just being told you were too much of a dolt to even see it, please bandage yourself. This is also what leads to the dull vanilla sorts of traps I see these days. Its just a toll bridge, you pay to walk here. No skill is involved at all! No interesting story is generated, at all.





I'm not sure your assumption about how Perception is used with traps in 5e is accurate, at least if one is following the advice and rules in the DMG.  The basic structure of trap interacion as laid out in the DMG is...
1. Detect it (Perception check/Passive Perception/Any action that clearly reveals the traps presence) NOTE: Usually some element of a trap is visible to careful inspection
2. Understand it (through skill check or description)
3. Disarm/Foil it (skill check or improvised actions)

The DMG goes on to discuss different Danger levels of traps (Setback/Dangerous/Deadly) and how to set them. As well as complex traps (They have an initiative, a turn, 1 or more actions and creates a dynamic challenge).

If a DM is choosing not to let characters detect or interact with traps via fiction well they are ignoring the DMG advice and system on traps.  that's a failure of application of the system not a failure in the system itself.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> At least in the old old days before thief skills appeared (or at least before they were interpreted like Perception) you looked carefully at everything (it was assumed in the exploration movement rate). There was no such thing as "not finding the trap." You saw SOMETHING. Now, what is it? How does it work? Can I fiddle with it and make it so I'm safe from it? If it was a small mechanical/magical mechanism, THEN 'remove traps' could be engaged to figure it out and disarm it. The exact wording in Greyhawk is: "remove small trap devices (such as poisoned needles)" So, basically it was just a test of dexterity mixed with some very specific experience with this sort of thing. You couldn't just roll dice to disarm a large mechanical/magical trap, and such things were almost invariably 'puzzles' to at least some degree, requiring reasoning power and several steps in order to overcome. The terminology reflected this, as all types of "puzzle, trick, or trap" were lumped together in terms of their role in the game as challenges.
> 
> So, I guess it isn't bad to have "Perceptive" be a trait, and it can have a 'degree of ability' associated with it, call it training or whatnot if you will, but it would be intended to flag how the narrative could proceed, not as a 'gate' that your character had to pass through to get a preset 'reward'.




I think perhaps you are assuming how traps work as opposed to having actually read the section in the DMG on them in 5e as almost everything you are stating in the above section of your post is a part of discovering and disabling traps in 5e.  Again if a particular DM chooses to ignore the rules and advice well that's on the DM not the rules system.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't really disagree with this and the old school trap solving is a good example of the sort of situation where GM adjudication might result the player having more agency than just handling the whole thing via a roll.



Sorry, but this is utterly confused.  How on Earth can putting the entire decision process into the GM's hands generate more agency than a die roll that the player is aware of, can plan for, and can call for?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this is a really interesting point.
> 
> When this happens, and the DM evokes some kind of emotional response from you that hadn't been there a moment before, do you feel like you've lost control of yourself? Do you feel like something has been imposed on you?



Absolutely not, this sort of thing is the best! But I use this as stepping point to try to better explain my dislike of certain sort of personality mechanics. Can you feel a feeling on command? Some people genuinely can, but I most definitely can't.  The feelings my character feels are result of my mental model of them interacting with the situation and me immersing to that. So if that process produces one feeling but the mechanics say the character should feel something else then that's jarring and I can't immerse to that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I don't think it's odd at all.  As long as one isn't creating a single point of access to progress around it along with making it uncertain whether any character will actually notice it... it actually serves quite well as a reward for character/build choices.  In D&D 5e your score is your indicator, the only difference I see between what you are stating in your post and what D&D provides is that it's not an off/on indicator but instead an indicator with gradations.  The DM always has the option of deciding no check is necessary or that a characters skill is high enough that there is no uncertainty.  A roll only comes into play if there is uncertainty in whether Joe would notice something... Many like that uncertainty, that feeling of chance affecting the game world, something which an on/off indicator with set results just doesn't provide.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm not sure your assumption about how Perception is used with traps in 5e is accurate, at least if one is following the advice and rules in the DMG.  The basic structure of trap interacion as laid out in the DMG is...
> 1. Detect it (Perception check/Passive Perception/Any action that clearly reveals the traps presence) NOTE: Usually some element of a trap is visible to careful inspection
> 2. Understand it (through skill check or description)
> 3. Disarm/Foil it (skill check or improvised actions)
> 
> The DMG goes on to discuss different Danger levels of traps (Setback/Dangerous/Deadly) and how to set them. As well as complex traps (They have an initiative, a turn, 1 or more actions and creates a dynamic challenge).
> 
> If a DM is choosing not to let characters detect or interact with traps via fiction well they are ignoring the DMG advice and system on traps.  that's a failure of application of the system not a failure in the system itself.
> 
> 
> 
> I think perhaps you are assuming how traps work as opposed to having actually read the section in the DMG on them in 5e as almost everything you are stating in the above section of your post is a part of discovering and disabling traps in 5e.  Again if a particular DM chooses to ignore the rules and advice well that's on the DM not the rules system.



I feel you're eliding some very important bits -- in the above, you're assuming that the GM is using their discretion in a specific manner which isn't actually required.  I'll agree it's good GMing, but that doesn't change that when looking at how the game actually functions, all of the above is up to the GM.  The GM determines if there's auto-success, auto-failure, or uncertainty.  If uncertain, the GM calls for the check and sets all particulars for that check.  Once the check is made, the GM has sole authority to narrate the result, and is not actually restricted in doing so except possibly by the social contract at the table.

If you present a play example only from a specific adjudication, then you're missing how else it can work.  And I utterly disagree that a GM choosing to not let characters detect or interact with traps via the fiction is ignoring DMG advice at all -- the game explicitly says all of this is up to the GM's judgement and gives the GM explicit authority to determine that a given course of action fails outright.  Should they do this?  Different question, and here I'll agree with most of what you post -- it's good advice.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Sorry, but this is utterly confused.  How on Earth can putting the entire decision process into the GM's hands generate more agency than a die roll that the player is aware of, can plan for, and can call for?



Because in such situation the every nuance of how you do it can matter, instead of being just binary do you want to roll or not. Social situation are another common example of situations where this matters.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Someone either said or strongly implied that the characterization and personality of one's character, and things done as a result of that, are either not agency or not enough agency (I forget which); and either that same person or someone else ran with this and got to - the term used was 'play-acting', I think - isn't a valid part of the game, as that person defined 'game'.
> 
> Needless to say, this was - and is - being challenged.




How is it being challenged? 

Is there a RPG that you can site that does not allow a player to give characterization and personality to their character? 

I don't think that this was dismissed as meaningless to the experience of the game.....indeed, many people may play solely for this purpose. But is it something that some games allow and some do not? Or is it simply safe to accept this as a baseline of playing a RPG? 

It's not that it isn't a valid part of the game.....it's that it is not a necessary part of the game as it relates to agency. As was stated, if I'm playing in an old school dungeon crawl Gygaxian game, and I never once emote for my character or speak in character or describe my character's emotional state or any of that, I nevertheless have agency to direct my PC through the game, and choose my actions accordingly, treating my PC entirely as a pawn. 

The freedom to craft a personality and to express it is present in every RPG, and so is not a meaningful measure of player agency.


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> I can absolutely understand your preference, even if I don't entirely share it. I do think that the times when some kind of emotional state is imposed on a PC are meant to emulate the kind of response you describe above as a player. It's not about mind control so much as evoking a feeling.
> 
> Now, I don't want to assign a motive to this, but I would expect that at least a part of this response is about the idea of "no one else controls my PC but me" which seems so ingrained as to be absolutely assumed by many in the discussion.



Yeah, I think these emotion/passion mechanics are an extension of the simple idea that your character can be mechanically affected by the fiction, albeit extended to their internal states. The mechanical weight is there so players can't just ignore this emotional state, particularly if there was a conflict of interest between the "emotional state" roleplaying and the "Play to Win" roleplaying decision.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Absolutely not, this sort of thing is the best! But I use this as stepping point to try to better explain my dislike of certain sort of personality mechanics. Can you feel a feeling on command? Some people genuinely can, but I most definitely can't.  The feelings my character feels are result of my mental model of them interacting with the situation and me immersing to that. So if that process produces one feeling but the mechanics say the character should feel something else then that's jarring and I can't immerse to that.



But isn't that acting and roleplaying? This is what actors do when they immerse themselves into a character. Sometimes the fictional situation of the character an actor plays goes in a different way than the actor themselves may feel in that moment, but the skilled actor's job is to embrace the change and adapt their performance accordingly.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Allow me to disagree: the "decoupled RP" *is* the game, in those moments.
> 
> If you wish to define 'the game' as only being those bits where mechanics are involved, that's up to you; but I don't hold with that definition.  To me the game is everything that goes on in-character, whether rules-bound or not, along with the mechanical things the rules make us do at the table.
> 
> Will they?
> 
> I can think of many a time when those 'rules-free' sessions ended up with at least one PC dead (usually courtesy of some cursed treausry item or other).  'Being back next week' is not guaranteed.
> 
> That said, yes; sometimes the best (or worst) of these do approach soap opera in a way, with all the attendant affairs of the heart and so forth.  I think it does the game a great discourtesy not to allow these the time to play out.



I've never heard of any RPG ever played where mechanics weren't involved when PC survival was at stake. I mean, sure, there is the apocryphal "rocks fall on your head, you're dead." but I hardly think you're defending that as a paradigm of play...

And I never said it is impossible or categorically unwelcome to play out whatever you want by RP. My own rules that I use for "D&D-like play" (based loosely on 4e) have 'interlude' as a mode of play. ANYTHING can happen in one that isn't 'conflict germane to the players' without any dice or any other restriction whatsoever, it is just free 'spiel'. If some sort of tension arises in that process I would expect it would virtually have to be about some conflict that someone cares enough about to toss dice over, and then play switches modes to 'challenge'. I guess maybe there's some 'grey area' that might exist? I haven't run into that problem. Its hard to see where the GM wouldn't just let the player decide what color grandma's house is if that's an element of free RP, why choose that as a point of issue? In fact HoML doesn't really have a defined way of resolving such a thing, it is just basically assumed that its an unimportant detail, set dressing. Frankly I'd just go with the "whomever states it first wins" kind of resolution if it ever came up...


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this is a really interesting point.
> 
> When this happens, and the DM evokes some kind of emotional response from you that hadn't been there a moment before, do you feel like you've lost control of yourself? Do you feel like something has been imposed on you?



Honestly, no more than when some piece of narrative art moves me to some feeling or another. Sometimes it feels more manipulative than others, in either case.


hawkeyefan said:


> I can absolutely understand your preference, even if I don't entirely share it. I do think that the times when some kind of emotional state is imposed on a PC are meant to emulate the kind of response you describe above as a player. It's not about mind control so much as evoking a feeling.
> 
> Now, I don't want to assign a motive to this, but I would expect that at least a part of this response is about the idea of "no one else controls my PC but me" which seems so ingrained as to be absolutely assumed by many in the discussion.



I think part of it is that the character is me in the game, and telling me, e.g., you (character) have an uncontrollable passion for Guenevere when I (player) don't generates ... I'll stick with dissonance; and I'll stick with that dissonance feeling like a lack of agency, even if I'm willing to concede that technically (the best kind of correct) it isn't. Hope I'm being clear.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> No one has said that, what are you even talking about?




The idea that characterization is an expression of agency, and yet characterization can happen in a railroad just as simply as it can in any other RPG. 

If adding such characterization is a form of agency, it's not one that means a whole lot if it can happen in a game that would be described as a railroad.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> I feel you're eliding some very important bits -- in the above, you're assuming that the GM is using their discretion in a specific manner which isn't actually required.  I'll agree it's good GMing, but that doesn't change that when looking at how the game actually functions, all of the above is up to the GM.  The GM determines if there's auto-success, auto-failure, or uncertainty.  If uncertain, the GM calls for the check and sets all particulars for that check.  Once the check is made, the GM has sole authority to narrate the result, and is not actually restricted in doing so except possibly by the social contract at the table.



I'm assuming the GM is following the rules and advice in the DMG...which I noted below what you quoted.  I don't think I'm arguing against the DM deciding success, auto-failure or uncertainty.  Of course I don't find that decision point any different then say a game like BitD where you only ask a player to roll if something is at stake otherwise it is an automatic success or failure.   

Once the check is made in a D&D game, and we are assuming a non-disingenuous GM, the result of said would determine success or failure which in itself would restrict the GM's narration. 


Ovinomancer said:


> If you present a play example only from a specific adjudication, then you're missing how else it can work.  And I utterly disagree that a GM choosing to not let characters detect or interact with traps via the fiction is ignoring DMG advice at all -- the game explicitly says all of this is up to the GM's judgement and gives the GM explicit authority to determine that a given course of action fails outright.  Should they do this?  Different question, and here I'll agree with most of what you post -- it's good advice.



It also states what is common and expected (thus advice not law)... so I disagree that a DM is following the *advice* given if she disregards or goes against what is suggested... even if it is within her rights to do so.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> In Diplomacy I'd let that go all day long!  If players aren't careful enough with their orders to a) check them on handing them in and b) keep close watch on them (as in have them physically in hand!) between writing them out and handing them in, I have no sympathy whatsoever.
> 
> In a real war, it'd be the same as if enemy spies intercepted orders heading out to the field and replaced them with different.



Hehe, yeah, I'm with you on that too. I thought it was a slick move. I think the concern was just more about what kind of shenanigans they were willing to have going on during the con than anything else. Some people felt it was 'against the rules' because the rules do talk about players turning in their orders. I think it was more of an 'avoid controversy' decision than a 'what is cool' decision. I still dream of winning the final round as Italy, that would pretty much establish one as the uttermost king of Diplomacy for all time...


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I think we've discussed this, and it's hard to glean play from examples if you're not already in the mindset. Honestly, from experience, it's really hard to quickly present all of the things that go into a play experience such that the zeitgeist is grasped.



I agree we've discussed this. I think it's arguable that the presentation of some of these games is less-than-ideal if the rules (including play examples) don't convey how play works.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> The idea that characterization is an expression of agency, and yet characterization can happen in a railroad just as simply as it can in any other RPG.
> 
> If adding such characterization is a form of agency, it's not one that means a whole lot if it can happen in a game that would be described as a railroad.




You're assuming the only thing that matters is the ending as opposed to the path that leads you there.  In other words even if the campaign's ending is set, the road to it isn't necessarily set in stone and can be changed by something as simple as characterization.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> The freedom to craft a personality and to express it is present in every RPG, and so is not a meaningful measure of player agency.




Doesn't whether the PC's personality and expression change the game state really determine that?  In a game where charming someone vs intimidating someone vs appealing to their intellect are differentiated in how they affect NPC's ones personality and expression could have very meaningful effects on agency and choice.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> With D&D it often is not that people are pushing it, but that it is useful to use as an example as most people have at least some passing familiarity with it.



Sure, but then what I often encounter is dismissal of anything that isn't part of the D&D game process/whatever as "not popular enough to matter", "not normal", "niche", etc. I often base examples on D&D too, but I don't think it is fair to criticize other poster's logic or adherence to topic on the basis that they are talking about 'their pet games'. That knife will cut everyone at the table with equal ease, snicker snack!


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I agree we've discussed this. I think it's arguable that the presentation of some of these games is less-than-ideal if the rules (including play examples) don't convey how play works.



IMHO, most TTRPGs are poorly written and do not necessarily present themselves well. It took me awhile, for example, to "get" Fate. I read it. I was confused about what it was asking me to do, especially since my prior experience was almost entirely D&D and its related family of games. I blamed my misunderstanding on the funny fudge dice, and I walked away from the book for about 4-6 months. Then I came back and looked at it with fresh eyes and read through some people talking about it (e.g., the "Book of Hanz"), the online SRD, and particularly Fate Accelerated. Then it just "clicked" or at least the basic paradigm shift required from my prior experience. It doesn't mean that I had to like it once it "clicked." Part of that, IMO, involved how the rules were written or were presented in the book itself. I think part of the problem is that the book writers are game designers who know how to design better than they know how to cogently communicate their game in writing without being there in person to teach the game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Because in such situation the every nuance of how you do it can matter, instead of being just binary do you want to rol or not. Social situation are another common example of situations where this matters.



Your evaluating both at different points and treating them as the same.  You're evaluating all of the ways you can try to convince the GM to rule for or against you and then comparing that to the fact that the dice will show for or against you.  The outcome is the same set -- it's either for you or against you.  If we look at the process -- who decides -- then we see that the process of you convince Bob is entirely up to the GM's choice -- nothing you do can bind the GM, it's entirely up to them and is binding on the character.  The mechanic, on the other hand, if it's not another D&Dism where it's a decision tool for the GM, does bind the GM at the same time it binds the character.

The other thing you're doing is imagining a complex social interaction between the player and GM that results in a complex result.  You then compare this to a single die roll to resolve the same thing.  This is utterly ignoring that you can use mechanics in a layered way and end up with a complex result as well.  Skill challenges are an excellent example of this, as it, really, an entire session of Blades in the Dark.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> IMHO, most TTRPGs are poorly written and do not necessarily present themselves well. It took me awhile, for example, to "get" Fate. I read it. I was confused about what it was asking me to do, especially since my prior experience was almost entirely D&D and its related family of games.



I ran a Fate campaign for ... something like a year. I liked the system tons, until I didn't. I think I understand the system passing-well; I just don't like it. I'll admit my understanding is ... non-standard, and strongly shaped by my preferences and tastes.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> You're assuming the only thing that matters is the ending as opposed to the path that leads you there.  In other words even if the campaign's ending is set, the road to it isn't necessarily set in stone and can be changed by something as simple as characterization.



This hasn't been ignored -- it's been pointed out.  That you can act out a scene of a play in different ways doesn't meaningfully change the fact that the scene events happen the same way.  This can absolutely matter to how much you enjoy a play (my wife tells a horror story about a Shakespeare scene performed by a high school drama club from an area with a particularly distinct Southern accent, and done poorly on top), but it doesn't touch the agency of the actors involved.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I'm assuming the GM is following the rules and advice in the DMG...which I noted below what you quoted.  I don't think I'm arguing against the DM deciding success, auto-failure or uncertainty.  Of course I don't find that decision point any different then say a game like BitD where you only ask a player to roll if something is at stake otherwise it is an automatic success or failure.
> 
> Once the check is made in a D&D game, and we are assuming a non-disingenuous GM, the result of said would determine success or failure which in itself would restrict the GM's narration.
> 
> It also states what is common and expected (thus advice not law)... so I disagree that a DM is following the *advice* given if she disregards or goes against what is suggested... even if it is within her rights to do so.



Again, I beg to disagree.  As evidence, I'll point to the published adventures, which call for naked perception checks to detect traps in areas.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> To me story telling games imply agency over outcome.  However, @pemerton's and others gaming philosophy does have a certain principle keeping the players from having agency over outcome - the Czege principle and it's why framing that principle as an absolute whereby one cannot even have a game without it is so important to their conversation.  It's the one thing holding back their framework from being collective storytelling.



I don't really see how this follows. There's no element of that principle which talks about players vs GMs. All that is required here for collective storytelling is a split of responsibility between whomever poses a challenge and whomever it is aimed at/resolves it. Those could both be players. PvP for example is perfectly feasible in accordance with Czege. 

I think there are other issues with GM-less games. They can be, and have been, resolved in various ways I guess. I've not really explored this type of play myself, but I'm guessing that what @aramis erak is saying gives us some pointers. We could potentially distribute parts of the BW GM role amongst players, but then that would kind of imply a certain divergence of their aims would be needed! @pemerton also addressed the 'supervenient role' of 'big picture' that would need to be addressed as well. My guess is that GM-less games are mostly restricted to less open-ended types of scenarios where the logic of the situation largely drives overall play and pacing. I could imagine a GM-less Cthulhu game, for example. We already know that in the end the PCs are going mad/getting eaten by shoggoths/becoming haunted by Hounds of Tindalos/etc. I think it would be pretty easy to generate scenarios that could be played through without a GM, and most of the game would revolve around A) which of the mythos tropes you encounter and the fun of describing them, and B) which of the above fates actually catches up with any given character.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> This hasn't been ignored -- it's been pointed out.  That you can act out a scene of a play in different ways doesn't meaningfully change the fact that the scene events happen the same way.  This can absolutely matter to how much you enjoy a play (my wife tells a horror story about a Shakespeare scene performed by a high school drama club from an area with a particularly distinct Southern accent, and done poorly on top), but it doesn't touch the agency of the actors involved.




Again the assumption is that the scene events happen the same way... that's the incorrect assumption. 

 If I play my character as an extremely pious follower of the Moon goddess when interacting with the chieftain of the Moon Tribe Drow and the adventure has it noted that a character who shows reverence for the Moon goddess may be able to convince the chieftain to help him by providing allied warriors while an arrogant one will gain his ire and he will try to hinder him by locking him up... those are two different ways the scene events can take place depending on characterization.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I ran a Fate campaign for ... something like a year. I liked the system tons, until I didn't. I think I understand the system passing-well; I just don't like it. I'll admit my understanding is ... non-standard, and strongly shaped by my preferences and tastes.



The thrust of my post is not convincing you to like Fate. It's about TTRPG writing.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I could imagine a GM-less Cthulhu game, for example. We already know that in the end the PCs are going mad/getting eaten by shoggoths/becoming haunted by Hounds of Tindalos/etc. I think it would be pretty easy to generate scenarios that could be played through without a GM, and most of the game would revolve around A) which of the mythos tropes you encounter and the fun of describing them, and B) which of the above fates actually catches up with any given character.



That sounds alarmingly like Fantasy Flight's "Arkham Horror" and related games (co-op board games), though those have ways for the players to actually win.

Also, I find them less enjoyable the more they try to play like TRPGs (a feeling I also have about Gloomhaven).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Absolutely not, this sort of thing is the best! But I use this as stepping point to try to better explain my dislike of certain sort of personality mechanics. Can you feel a feeling on command? Some people genuinely can, but I most definitely can't.  The feelings my character feels are result of my mental model of them interacting with the situation and me immersing to that. So if that process produces one feeling but the mechanics say the character should feel something else then that's jarring and I can't immerse to that.




So there's a conflict between what you want the character to feel and what the character may actually feel? I don't quite follow how this would break immersion. 

Certainly the character, in the fictional world, would not want to feel fear (let's say), right? They feel it despite not wanting to feel it. Which would by kind of in line with how the player feels, right? 

I mean, ultimately, you as a player like what you like and don't what you don't, so I get it, but I'm just trying to follow your description.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> The thrust of my post is not convincing you to like Fate. It's about TTRPG writing.



Sorry. My point was more than understanding a game and liking it are two different things, and I was talking about Fate because I think I understand it better than games I haven't played.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, I beg to disagree.  As evidence, I'll point to the published adventures, which call for naked perception checks to detect traps in areas.




I don't think you're disagreeing with me.  I think your citing more examples of user error vs system issues...not sure what that proves.  If I can show people running BitD or Fate incorrectly, does that really say anything about those systems?


----------



## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't really see how this follows. There's no element of that principle which talks about players vs GMs. All that is required here for collective storytelling is a split of responsibility between whomever poses a challenge and whomever it is aimed at/resolves it. Those could both be players. PvP for example is perfectly feasible in accordance with Czege.
> 
> I think there are other issues with GM-less games. They can be, and have been, resolved in various ways I guess. I've not really explored this type of play myself, but I'm guessing that what @aramis erak is saying gives us some pointers. We could potentially distribute parts of the BW GM role amongst players, but then that would kind of imply a certain divergence of their aims would be needed! @pemerton also addressed the 'supervenient role' of 'big picture' that would need to be addressed as well. My guess is that GM-less games are mostly restricted to less open-ended types of scenarios where the logic of the situation largely drives overall play and pacing. I could imagine a GM-less Cthulhu game, for example. We already know that in the end the PCs are going mad/getting eaten by shoggoths/becoming haunted by Hounds of Tindalos/etc. I think it would be pretty easy to generate scenarios that could be played through without a GM, and most of the game would revolve around A) which of the mythos tropes you encounter and the fun of describing them, and B) which of the above fates actually catches up with any given character.



If you are curious, the base game of Ironsworn is free on DriveThruRPG. It's essentially a modified PbtA Engine.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Again the assumption is that the scene events happen the same way... that's the incorrect assumption.
> 
> If I play my character as an extremely pious follower of the Moon goddess when interacting with the chieftain of the Moon Tribe Drow and the adventure has it noted that a character who shows reverence for the Moon goddess may be able to convince the chieftain to help him by providing allied warriors while an arrogant one will gain his ire and he will try to hinder him by locking him up... those are two different ways the scene events can take place depending on characterization.



Again, all your doing here is engaging with the prepared text -- you've selected the right trait to trigger a turn to a different page in the book.  Did you do this purposefully?  Not really, it's just the GM providing a blind benefit because it interests the GM or was provided to them via the prepared text.  This isn't a meaningful difference in the trajectory of play, and it most certainly doesn't involve player agency -- it's entirely up to the GM to initiate this or even consider it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I don't think you're disagreeing with me.  I think your citing more examples of user error vs system issues...not sure what that proves.  If I can show people running BitD or Fate incorrectly, does that really say anything about those systems?



You're saying that the officially published adventures are doing it wrong, consistently so?  I mean, while I'm highly sympathetic to that idea, I haven't exactly seen much (if any) criticism that the published adventures aren't following the guidance you're claiming here.  That's a steep hill to climb to claim that the adventures are examples of user error that consistently.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Imaro said:


> You're assuming the only thing that matters is the ending as opposed to the path that leads you there.  In other words even if the campaign's ending is set, the road to it isn't necessarily set in stone and can be changed by something as simple as characterization.




No, not at all! The path matters, for sure. My point in this is that we can look at two games after the fact, one of which is an absolute railroad and the other consisted of the GM abdicating things on the fly and all participants playing to find out what happens. 

In both of those games, the players may be absolutely free to add characterization and a sense of backstory and personality to their characters. Would you agree that this is true?

If so, then isn't it clear that it is not just the construction and expression of a fictional personality for a PC that constitutes player agency? Doesn't it mean that those things (all things, really) have to actually matter to the outcome of play?



Imaro said:


> Doesn't whether the PC's personality and expression change the game state really determine that?  In a game where charming someone vs intimidating someone vs appealing to their intellect are differentiated in how they affect NPC's ones personality and expression could have very meaningful effects on agency and choice.




It's possible, sure. But it is not essential to agency. Meaning, that it can happen without changing the game state, right? 

This is why declaring that the ability for a player to breath life into their PCs through personality and characterization is an indicator of agency is false.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, all your doing here is engaging with the prepared text -- you've selected the right trait to trigger a turn to a different page in the book.  Did you do this purposefully?  Not really, it's just the GM providing a blind benefit because it interests the GM or was provided to them via the prepared text.  This isn't a meaningful difference in the trajectory of play, and it most certainly doesn't involve player agency -- it's entirely up to the GM to initiate this or even consider it.




I'm not constructing an entire scenario here just a quick example so you may need to extrapolate certain things... but yes it would probably be possible to learn the Moon tribe worships... surprise, surprise... the Moon goddess and thus I make the choice to play up my piety.

I made the choice to play my character with those characteristics vs others which had a meaningful effect on play... whether the results are pre-scripted or not shouldn't matter as long as what I did caused a game state change through the choice I made.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> Sorry. My point was more than understanding a game and liking it are two different things, and I was talking about Fate because I think I understand it better than games I haven't played.



No need to apologize. I appreciate your candor in these discussions, and I agree. And sometimes these opinions regarding games can change over time. For example, my own "relationship" with the Cypher System has been somewhat on the decline. I think part of that decline rests in a growing sense that there is a disconnect between how Monte Cook imagines/sells the system and what it actually does well.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> You're saying that the officially published adventures are doing it wrong, consistently so?  I mean, while I'm highly sympathetic to that idea, I haven't exactly seen much (if any) criticism that the published adventures aren't following the guidance you're claiming here.  That's a steep hill to climb to claim that the adventures are examples of user error that consistently.




I'm saying read the DMG.... plain and simple.  I don't run published adventures and yes since the business side is the major concern with published adventures here ease of use, page count, misunderstandings, etc. could easily take precedence over fully utilizing the rules and advice that was published.  Especially if it's not adversely affecting sales.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I'm not constructing an entire scenario here just a quick example so you may need to extrapolate certain things... but yes it would probably be possible to learn the Moon tribe worships... surprise, surprise... the Moon goddess and thus I make the choice to play up my piety.
> 
> I made the choice to play my character with those characteristics vs others which had a meaningful effect on play... whether the results are pre-scripted or not shouldn't matter as long as what I did caused a game state change through the choice I made.



The counter to this is that it's only there because the GM placed it (or is following the text, which is functionally the same thing).  You, as a player, cannot choose to play up your piety and push that so that the game responds -- you can't choose to have something like the Moon tribe be important -- only the GM does this (in any game with such a text).  As such the "path" to the end is still ruled by the same thing -- the GM's desire -- and not the players.  While you can definitely explore the GM's desires in different ways, is that a useful observation in the context of agency?

And, as always, this kind of play can be extremely fun -- I'm not knocking it at all.  We're looking at a specific aspect of play, not a holistic view of play.  The fact that APs can be lots of fun is not disputed, what's under discussion here is looking specific at how much agency you're wielding in this play.  It's not a lot, honestly, and I say this having run and played in APs in the last few years.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> No, not at all! The path matters, for sure. My point in this is that we can look at two games after the fact, one of which is an absolute railroad and the other consisted of the GM abdicating things on the fly and all participants playing to find out what happens.
> 
> In both of those games, the players may be absolutely free to add characterization and a sense of backstory and personality to their characters. Would you agree that this is true?
> 
> If so, then isn't it clear that it is not just the construction and expression of a fictional personality for a PC that constitutes player agency? Doesn't it mean that those things (all things, really) have to actually matter to the outcome of play?



Is someone arguing it is the only form of player agency?  I'm certainly not... but I also believe it can easily be a type  of player agency...



hawkeyefan said:


> It's possible, sure. But it is not essential to agency. Meaning, that it can happen without changing the game state, right?
> 
> This is why declaring that the ability for a player to breath life into their PCs through personality and characterization is an indicator of agency is false.



It is false or true totally dependent upon the game being played, the DM/GM running it and numerous other factors.  That's the problem with blanket statements.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I'm saying read the DMG.... plain and simple.  I don't run published adventures and yes since the business side is the major concern with published adventures here ease of use, page count, misunderstandings, etc. could easily take precedence over fully utilizing the rules and advice that was published.  Especially if it's not adversely affecting sales.



I have read the DMG, multiple times.  I'm a huge participant in threads that recommend following the DMG.  I don't, in fact, disagree with you that play is better if you do it the way you're recommending -- I recommend it as well.  What I'm saying is that you're mistaken that this is as concrete as you suggest -- it's more hinted at in a lot of places.  And, again, as strong evidence that it isn't as concrete as you say, I point to the official products that don't do what you suggest.  That you're don't run APs is really a non sequitur -- so what, I try to avoid them as well.  But, if the company that produces the rules also produces multiple popular products that treat those rules differently from how you understand them AND there's a virtual dearth of complaints about that difference, perhaps your understanding of the concreteness of the DMG's recommendations is flawed.  Not, mind, your recommendations -- these are excellent, and I do find them hinted at in the DMG.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> The counter to this is that it's only there because the GM placed it (or is following the text, which is functionally the same thing).  You, as a player, cannot choose to play up your piety and push that so that the game responds -- you can't choose to have something like the Moon tribe be important -- only the GM does this (in any game with such a text).  As such the "path" to the end is still ruled by the same thing -- the GM's desire -- and not the players.  While you can definitely explore the GM's desires in different ways, is that a useful observation in the context of agency?




But the adventure is responding... again whether pre-scripted or not it is a specific response to my actions.  And my choice is whether I do or don't play that piety up or rather I  go in a different direction with my characterization which may or may not have different results.  As long as there is a reasonable way for me to determine the likely effect my characterization will have beforehand, I would argue that is choice with agency... and if we are using D&D as an example insight would be my go to skill for that.


Ovinomancer said:


> And, as always, this kind of play can be extremely fun -- I'm not knocking it at all.  We're looking at a specific aspect of play, not a holistic view of play.  The fact that APs can be lots of fun is not disputed, what's under discussion here is looking specific at how much agency you're wielding in this play.  It's not a lot, honestly, and I say this having run and played in APs in the last few years.



It seems you are looking at a specific type of agency (non-scripted results perhaps).  I on the other hand accept that agency can exist even if there is pre-determined results for the exertion of said agency. 

EDIT: I am curious when dealing with non-scripted results where the player can narrate success but not failure how does the player measure risk vs reward in order to make a meaningful choice?  Especially if the GM is creating the failure state on the fly...


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Not all the agency/types of agency important to me.  But the point was that railroads are still not 0 agency games.



The assertion isn't 'zero agency', but that they are at the lowest baseline level of player agency that is likely to exist in any RPG, some niche exceptions (Paranoia for example) aside. It seems odd to center the debate on THAT. Everyone grants that players RP their characters and often make decisions based on that RP, and that being able to make decisions which steer the character to a different 'region' of the fiction is a form of player agency. Again, it is pretty much the baseline, and the fact that even the most strictly 'classic' GMs seem to (on paper at least) agree to abhor force, illusionism, and most railroading in principle seems to validate that.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> While not directly fun, Traps of the style indicated can be very mood inducing.  And while maybe not the best way to arrive at this feeling they can give players a sense that danger is around every corner which often can enhance the experience. They also give players players something that can be particularly interesting to overcome ( though not the you take 10 damage style ones)



Yeah, the atmosphere thing is fair. I had a whole LONG thread on traps, years back, and we did come up with that as one function of traps. The 'toll bridge' COULD also be a viable function in a case where it is presented as "quickly escape through this trapped corridor, or go the roundabout way and risk capture." or something like that. 

Still, the way traps are presented, and the 'Theivery' or 'Slight of Hand' or 2e-style 'find & remove traps' work, the fun is precluded unless you ignore how those work. As 5e reads a trap is just a thing that you have to find with Perception, or else set off, and then try to disarm with 'Thieves Tools' or else (I'm not sure what the or else is here). There isn't any rules process for engaging with a trap as a 'puzzle'. It isn't even totally clear that Perception vs Investigation is the correct skill for understanding what they do. I mean, most traps have some fiction associated, and that may suggest a way to bypass them (IE jump over the square containing the plate). 

It is, obviously, one of those things where you can simply ignore some rules and maybe interpret using tools in a certain way and create an 'OSR-like' kind of scenario, but it is definitely not really the default (well, since skills and tools are actually options in 5e it is not clear what the DEFAULT rules for traps even are...).


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> How is it being challenged?
> 
> Is there a RPG that you can site that does not allow a player to give characterization and personality to their character?
> 
> I don't think that this was dismissed as meaningless to the experience of the game.....indeed, many people may play solely for this purpose. But is it something that some games allow and some do not? Or is it simply safe to accept this as a baseline of playing a RPG?




I’ve seen rpgs cited here which give control of my characters beliefs to the dm.  Surely those are examples that limit your ability to give personality and characterization to your character?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I’ve seen rpgs cited here which give control of my characters beliefs to the dm.  Surely those are examples that limit your ability to give personality and characterization to your character?



This is wholly incorrect.  No such RPGs have been cited in this thread that match that description.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I’ve seen rpgs cited here which give control of my characters beliefs to the dm.  Surely those are examples that limit your ability to give personality and characterization to your character?



The games I've seen, there's some mechanical way for the GM to inflict this as damage, because these mental facets of your character (trying really hard to avoid specific game terms) can be staked in tests. This isn't wildly unlike in 5E, the results for failing a Wis save after an hour within a mile (?) of a demon lord, where you can be forced to add a Flaw to your character sheet. The closest I've seen to the kind of thing you're talking about are games that have as part of chargen a requirement that you have mechanical ties to other PCs on your character sheet, and/or a requirement that you have something like the Trouble Aspect later versions of Fate want.

EDIT: Kinda ninja'd by @Ovinomancer


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> But the adventure is responding... again whether pre-scripted or not it is a specific response to my actions.  And my choice is whether I do or don't play that piety up or rather I  go in a different direction with my characterization which may or may not have different results.  As long as there is a reasonable way for me to determine the likely effect my characterization will have beforehand, I would argue that is choice with agency... and if we are using D&D as an example insight would be my go to skill for that.



I find it hard to say that the prescripted event is "responding" to anything -- it was drafted before you even though to make the character.


Imaro said:


> It seems you are looking at a specific type of agency (non-scripted results perhaps).  I on the other hand accept that agency can exist even if there is pre-determined results for the exertion of said agency.



There's only player agency -- there's aren't "types" of player agency.  The only question is "can the player make a meaningful choice?"  Trying to subdivide this into categories of imaginary things the player gets to make choices about is obfuscation of the issue.  Here, you can't make a meaningful choice because, at the time you chose it, there was no information it would be valuable nor was there any way you could make it valuable.  It's only a happy accident that makes it valuable in your example.  Accidental agency is an oxymoron.


Imaro said:


> EDIT: I am curious when dealing with non-scripted results where the player can narrate success but not failure how does the player measure risk vs reward in order to make a meaningful choice?  Especially if the GM is creating the failure state on the fly...



This has been discussed a good bit in this thread -- resources have been linked, discussions, etc.  The way risk and reward are presented has been, often, laid out with detail in this thread.  The way the player measures risk and reward varies from system to system -- it's not universal.  In PbtA games, the move and the character's advancement provides both -- you can see the likelihood of each outcome and understand what each will do.  In Blades, there's a pre-roll negotiation on Position (risk) and Effect (reward) prior to the roll, and the player has total freedom to select actions, so they have control over the likelihood of success with this selection.  The Burning Wheel method was outlined recently in this thread.  Key to all of these is that the GM isn't unbound on failure states -- he's as bound by current fiction and relevance as the players are in narrating success -- you can't just do anything you want.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> The games I've seen, there's some mechanical way for the GM to inflict this as damage, because these mental facets of your character (trying really hard to avoid specific game terms) can be staked in tests. This isn't wildly unlike in 5E, the results for failing a Wis save after an hour within a mile (?) of a demon lord, where you can be forced to add a Flaw to your character sheet. The closest I've seen to the kind of thing you're talking about are games that have as part of chargen a requirement that you have mechanical ties to other PCs on your character sheet, and/or a requirement that you have something like the Trouble Aspect later versions of Fate want.
> 
> EDIT: Kinda ninja'd by @Ovinomancer



I'd argue that having to choose a Trouble is part of agreeing to play the system -- it's not controlled by the GM at all.  I can see disliking having to do so -- if you want heroic fantasy or beer-and-pretzels door kicking, enforceable flaws can be jarring to the concept of play.  I wouldn't recommend playing Blades in the Dark or FATE for either, really, as both look to emulate different genres.  It's kinda like saying don't play Call of Cthulhu if you're looking for Mission Impossible play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't really disagree with this and the old school trap solving is a good example of the sort of situation where GM adjudication might result the player having more agency than just handling the whole thing via a roll.



Well, 'old school' and 'story teller GM' (1e and 2e respectively) both feature an omnipotent GM with players restricted to describing what their PCs want to accomplish. Either of these might work either way, potentially, though 2e is less likely to. In some sense I think that agency isn't that much at issue in the sense that you could 'disarm a trap' in any of these systems regardless, but in terms of spotting one, yeah, OSR/1e grants more agency, since how you describe going down the corridor should tell the GM if you found a trap or not, and this is a relatively informed decision (IE given that traps are pretty prevalent in dungeons).


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I'd argue that having to choose a Trouble is part of agreeing to play the system -- it's not controlled by the GM at all.  I can see disliking having to do so -- if you want heroic fantasy or beer-and-pretzels door kicking, enforceable flaws can be jarring to the concept of play.  I wouldn't recommend playing Blades in the Dark or FATE for either, really, as both look to emulate different genres.  It's kinda like saying don't play Call of Cthulhu if you're looking for Mission Impossible play.



Yeah. It was a reach, and I think you're right about my preference that my TRPGs be heroic clashing with enforceable flaws (though ones with a random chance of mattering don't seem to bother me as much for some reason).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> I don't think it's odd at all.  As long as one isn't creating a single point of access to progress around it along with making it uncertain whether any character will actually notice it... it actually serves quite well as a reward for character/build choices.  In D&D 5e your score is your indicator, the only difference I see between what you are stating in your post and what D&D provides is that it's not an off/on indicator but instead an indicator with gradations.  The DM always has the option of deciding no check is necessary or that a characters skill is high enough that there is no uncertainty.  A roll only comes into play if there is uncertainty in whether Joe would notice something... Many like that uncertainty, that feeling of chance affecting the game world, something which an on/off indicator with set results just doesn't provide.



But now imagine a dungeon full of traps, like Raiders first sequence. Using this technique won't really make that very exciting. Your character progresses through the scene randomly setting off or not setting off the different traps depending on what the check value is to find any given one (he may find all, some, or none). In fact in the scene Indy FINDS every single trap. The process you describe would IMHO just mean you'd take 'X damage' (maybe none if you can see/disarm/avoid all of them) on the way in and out. I guess the 'boulder trap', if it triggers, would still be interesting, the rest less so IMHO.


Imaro said:


> I'm not sure your assumption about how Perception is used with traps in 5e is accurate, at least if one is following the advice and rules in the DMG.  The basic structure of trap interacion as laid out in the DMG is...
> 1. Detect it (Perception check/Passive Perception/Any action that clearly reveals the traps presence) NOTE: Usually some element of a trap is visible to careful inspection
> 2. Understand it (through skill check or description)
> 3. Disarm/Foil it (skill check or improvised actions)
> 
> The DMG goes on to discuss different Danger levels of traps (Setback/Dangerous/Deadly) and how to set them. As well as complex traps (They have an initiative, a turn, 1 or more actions and creates a dynamic challenge).
> 
> If a DM is choosing not to let characters detect or interact with traps via fiction well they are ignoring the DMG advice and system on traps.  that's a failure of application of the system not a failure in the system itself.



I'm not sure how what I described diverges from this. You either detect the trap, or else you will surely set it off, right? I assume a Perception Check is the gate for active searching to be successful. I suppose there is room for the party to devise some specific approaches, assuming the GM uses that option.


Imaro said:


> I think perhaps you are assuming how traps work as opposed to having actually read the section in the DMG on them in 5e as almost everything you are stating in the above section of your post is a part of discovering and disabling traps in 5e.  Again if a particular DM chooses to ignore the rules and advice well that's on the DM not the rules system.



I think the rules CAN BE exactly as I've described. This is not going against them AFAIK. In fact I've been through at least 2 5e modules, and that was exactly how they were handled, a check to determine if you saw the trap, and then if you did you got a check to see if you disarmed it. Even if the character picks a specific action related to the fiction describing the trap, a role was called for.

Part of the problem here is that 'the 5e rules' is not a thing. At least not in this regard. Half of 5e's 'rules' are too vague to say there 'is a process/rule' and a LOT of them are optional, including everything to do with skills and checks! Technically you could run a subset of 5e, just the most core non-optional rules, that would handle it essentially the same as OSR. I'm not exactly sure how a thief would work in that configuration, so I don't know if they would still invoke the skill system or some other mechanism to adjudicate 'thief abilities'. If it is the current system, then at least some of what I described is still accurate (and similar to how many people interpreted F&RT even in AD&D even if that was incorrect strictly speaking). 

So, yeah, maybe, depending on what you call '5e rules' you could be partly correct, but I think my analysis still largely stands and doesn't involve some gross misrepresentation of the game. It certainly DOES represent how a lot of D&D has been played, and how many modules seem to think it is played.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> Sorry, but this is utterly confused.  How on Earth can putting the entire decision process into the GM's hands generate more agency than a die roll that the player is aware of, can plan for, and can call for?



I would answer this by saying that a basic use of 5e, with skills, simply gives the player a couple of chances to roll dice, at most. That is, maybe a perception check, and then maybe an Investigate check to understand what he's looking at, and perhaps a Thieves Tools check to actually disarm. While the GM could certainly give more detail and accept 'ad hoc' solutions additionally, this is the most limited in the sense of the player having license (or at least need) to describe specific courses of action vs fairly generic "I use my skill." 

If the whole process is ENTIRELY gated by fiction and description, at least up to the point where the PC's deftness or highly detailed experience with specific things (small clockwork devices for example) then the player has more freedom to describe what he's doing in detail, react to descriptions of what happens/is found, etc. 

HOWEVER, this again does bear back on the 'level of detail' discussion from earlier. The 'density of agenda' deployed in respect to the trap is obviously greater. This is good in terms of a narrative where we desire 'cool traps' and thus want to focus on that. Should the desire be to go focus on something else, then we would expect equal amounts of agency to accrue to that end instead. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I see your point. Agency has to do with the type of process, not the specific content of a given fiction. Still, it isn't wrong to say that a detailed narrative trap sequence is more empowering to the player WRT that sequence.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In what RPG can that "play-acting" not take place?
> 
> It's a baseline.



Yet we're being told by some that said baseline - which in itself incorporates a decent amount of agency given a competent GM - holds no real agency at all.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> I find it hard to say that the prescripted event is "responding" to anything -- it was drafted before you even though to make the character.



Doesn't matter if you personally find it hard to say...it gives a pre-scripted response to my input.  


Ovinomancer said:


> There's only player agency -- there's aren't "types" of player agency.  The only question is "can the player make a meaningful choice?"  Trying to subdivide this into categories of imaginary things the player gets to make choices about is obfuscation of the issue.  Here, you can't make a meaningful choice because, at the time you chose it, there was no information it would be valuable nor was there any way you could make it valuable.  It's only a happy accident that makes it valuable in your example.  Accidental agency is an oxymoron.



Yes you expressed how you felt about there only being one type of agency earlier in the thread and yet here we are with meaningful choice that can be acted upon and because it has a pre-scripted response dependent upon the action chosen you seem to be claiming it's not "real" agency.  I want to avoid going to internet definitions and yet the actual definition of agency makes no distinction in pre-scripted vs. freeform.  That is wholly a differentiator that you prefer so either you have to accept that pre-scripted results have no bearing on forms of agency or you are by your own admission differentiating types of agency... which is it?

The meaningful choice is to play up (leverage) or not play up (not leverage or leverage something else) the characterization of piety to the Moon goddess.  Its a meaningful choice because it changes the game state and choosing to leverage another aspect of your characters personality or characterization could change it in a different way.  Again I see inklings of preference in your reply.  the fact that you are not aware of whether agency will be available through a choice at some future nebulous time has no bearing on the fact that in the moment we are speaking to in the example above agency and meaningful choice are exhibited through characterization and leveraging of said characteristics in the fictional space.



Ovinomancer said:


> This has been discussed a good bit in this thread -- resources have been linked, discussions, etc.  The way risk and reward are presented has been, often, laid out with detail in this thread.  The way the player measures risk and reward varies from system to system -- it's not universal.  In PbtA games, the move and the character's advancement provides both -- you can see the likelihood of each outcome and understand what each will do.  In Blades, there's a pre-roll negotiation on Position (risk) and Effect (reward) prior to the roll, and the player has total freedom to select actions, so they have control over the likelihood of success with this selection.  The Burning Wheel method was outlined recently in this thread.  Key to all of these is that the GM isn't unbound on failure states -- he's as bound by current fiction and relevance as the players are in narrating success -- you can't just do anything you want.



Let's look at BitD for a moment since I have played it and am familiar with it to a limited degree...  IMO the most important thing is that the GM has final say in whether a die roll is required, setting Position(how risky a players action is to pull off),  Effect (How effective a given action will be to resolve a specific circumstance) and Consequences (The dangers that arise in a specific circumstance).

The player has final say over Which actions are reasonable as a solution to a problem & What actions generated experience for them.

First let me say I don't find this radically different in responsibility assignment from a trad game.  The player decides the action they are taking a in a situation and  the GM is still deciding if a roll needs to be made, how difficult the roll will be to make, how effective the roll will be if it succeeds and what the consequences are for a failed roll.  Are there more gradations than D&D sure but is the general structure on that different not really IMO.  The biggest difference is BitD alklows the player to decide xp generation and it doesn't want you to pre-plan things. Which does garner some confusion in me around your differentiation in agency in something like D&D vs BitD.  The GM is deciding the same things the only difference is whether he has the leeway to make them up on the fly or pre-plan.

All that aside though, if the BitD GM is making this all up on the fly dependent on the roll at the time... how does he telegraph to the players what the consequences of a failed roll will be before they choose to go for it?  Yes there are some restrictions on the GM's choice but they are broad enough that there still could be numerous consequences arising from the same action dependent upon what the player rolls.  Is this what playing to find out means because if so it seems one's ability to make a meaningful choice is reduced since one cannot know the consequences for ones actions until the roll is made.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I'm frankly surprised that you, @FrogReaver and @Lanefan assert that a campaign can be a total railroad and yet players have all the agency that is appropriate - ie the ability to characterise their PCs, say stuff in character, and declare actions.



Even a campaign that's a total railroad still contains that - to use your term - baseline level of agency; and for some players that's enough.

Personally, I greatly prefer a situation where that baseline is augmented by the players-as-PCs also having the agency to decide what to do/where to go within the setting, i.e. fewer or even no rails; but this can vary situationally even within the same campaign.  For example in the game I play in we have four (count 'em!) different parties on the hop; and without much pre-planning on anyone's part all four of them have just come in form the field at the same time and to the same home base*.  So now we, as a great big collective of characters, get to decide who does what next, and in what groups; and as at least a dozen of those characters have individual goals they want to pursue in the meantime I suspect the next several sessions at least are going to consist of what would often be thought of as downtime activity.

* - and if having that many disparate PCs all in one place - some of whom actively dislike each other - ain't a recipe for fireworks, nothing is!


pemerton said:


> That doesn't seem like a very useful way of approaching the idea of _agency_. And it seems to affirm and even encourage an approach to RPGing where the function of the GM and his/her "plot" is to provide a stage or setting for the players to perform their PCs in ways that are largely detached from that "plot".



Either I'm missing something, or you're saying something I agree with: the GM provides the setting and the players then do what they will with it.


pemerton said:


> In one other active thread (the "last session" thread) we see a GM complaining about the player in Curse of Strahd who won't just go up to the castle and fight Strahd even though everything points in that direction. In another active thread we have the OP of this thread asking about whether or not the GM should allow an Elf into his/her GoT-inspired campaign. To me, these all seem to be manifestations of the approach you are affirming.



I'm fine with the first of these - if the PC doesn't want to fight Strahd it's 100% the PC's choice to make; and let the in-game consequences of that decision fall where they may. (I haven't been following that thread so if there's further nuances I'm unaware of such)

As for the second: given that a) without a GM there isn't a game and b) IMO things like "no Elves" are entirely the GM's call to make, I'm largely on the GM's side on that one.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> This just gets into the techniques of this sort of play. So, I agree that I would 'work things in' in terms of possibly framing scenes that relate somehow (maybe not exclusively) to the 'brother plot'. Noting that the PLAYER is probably also able to bring this focus, maybe he makes some 'Streetwise' checks here and there which lets the player to either invent or elicit some information (In Dungeon World it would elicit information most likely for example, in BW the player might specify the information I guess).



OK, so different approaches, same overall result.  Cool.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Obviously no one character's specific plot/agenda can dominate all of play in a game that features parties of PCs. Presumably the most satisfactory techniques are A) providing progress on multiple agendas in one scene, B) relating successive scenes to different agendas, C) linking the agendas of different PCs to each other in some way.



I agree that's the most satisfactory outcome.  It can also be near impossible to pull off, particularly if the PCs' agendae are conflicted.  For example, in the game I play in one of my PCs has had as her goal since forever to either become Empress of [Rome] or die trying.  I somewhat suspect another PC has over time quietly developed the same goal, either for herself or one of her close relatives.  Sooner or later those goals are going to come into direct conflict - we can't both be Empress - and that's gonna be fun. 


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'd note that a LOT of 'narrative games' are fairly niche and just basically focus on a fairly narrow set of things, so most action in the game relates to everyone.



This makes a difference, for sure.  My background is big long sprawling campaigns with lots of PCs (and some players) coming and going and focus on any given aspect also coming and going.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> How is it being challenged?
> 
> Is there a RPG that you can site that does not allow a player to give characterization and personality to their character?



No; and that plays in to my point.


hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that this was dismissed as meaningless to the experience of the game.....indeed, many people may play solely for this purpose. But is it something that some games allow and some do not? Or is it simply safe to accept this as a baseline of playing a RPG?
> 
> It's not that it isn't a valid part of the game.....it's that it is not a necessary part of the game as it relates to agency. As was stated, if I'm playing in an old school dungeon crawl Gygaxian game, and I never once emote for my character or speak in character or describe my character's emotional state or any of that, I nevertheless have agency to direct my PC through the game, and choose my actions accordingly, treating my PC entirely as a pawn.



And in so doing you've abdicated the agency the game gives you (or, more correctly, chosen to ignore it) over your character's personality, mannerisms, etc.  Fine if you want to do so, but to then turn around and say that the agency you're ignoring doesn't really count as agency is a bit rich.

That this level of agency is (for all intents and purposes) universal across RPGs is irrelevant.  It's still agency.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> Again the assumption is that the scene events happen the same way... that's the incorrect assumption.
> 
> If I play my character as an extremely pious follower of the Moon goddess when interacting with the chieftain of the Moon Tribe Drow and the adventure has it noted that a character who shows reverence for the Moon goddess may be able to convince the chieftain to help him by providing allied warriors while an arrogant one will gain his ire and he will try to hinder him by locking him up... those are two different ways the scene events can take place depending on characterization.



But, if the paradigm of play is "run the AP" or "play the GM's prepared scenario and don't diverge too much if possible" (which I think describe MOST D&D play at least up to a point) then how much is really granted here? The player may not know ANY of this, and it is largely upon the GM to prompt for it. So, either its a non-choice, because the player has very little chance of sussing this out from first principles, or the GM is putting up guideposts, and the player is following them. At this point is the player really saying "My character is an insightful and cooperative guy, he shows reverence"? I mean, OK, but what if he's a loud brash barbarian? What if nothing on the character sheet points either way? 

Any old way you slice this, the GM came up with the decision point, and what it would be about, the PC's attitude/sensitivity. If the player is simply coming in blind and playing his character, he doesn't even really have any more agency here than if he came to a T intersection with both directions just leading off into darkness, its a coin-flip. And if the player is faithful to his character concept, then he may have no real agency here at all (that would be like if one branch of the T is flooded and he can't swim). 

Granted, RP might matter, but it might not. If the game is, say Dungeon World, then the player's move is "Discern Realities" and he can then work out what to do based on what fiction is established by that move, plus his character's alignment, bonds, and general personality (which is not defined mechanically in DW). But more subtly, this scenario only arises through a series of interactions in which player intent has already been a part. So meeting drow, the Moon Goddess element, etc. are likely to have been established, or at least some of those details will be called out in the fictional presentation of the results of DR. It is practically guaranteed to be driven by RP in a way that gives the players agency of some sort.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> I don't think you're disagreeing with me.  I think your citing more examples of user error vs system issues...not sure what that proves.  If I can show people running BitD or Fate incorrectly, does that really say anything about those systems?



Yeah, but it is less weighty when these are official adventures published by either WotC or major 3PPs that probably should know how the rules should work. Even if they don't, they are certainly ESTABLISHING how they WILL be used by the vast majority of people playing 5e! Admittedly, I've only played with one group, so I have a limited exposure to different ways to run 5e, but... I would also note that these are old time 3.5 players who still play a lot of 3.5. While I'm not a guru on 3.5 rules either, I do think it was written that way, so that approach tends to carry over and be the default for a lot of tables.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> But, if the paradigm of play is "run the AP" or "play the GM's prepared scenario and don't diverge too much if possible" (which I think describe MOST D&D play at least up to a point) then how much is really granted here?



I've said before (to you? if so, sorry) that I think this paradigm of play is the one D&D 5E is specifically built to deliver (and both versions of Pathfinder, I'd say--though I have no firsthand experience with PF2). I also think it's true that AP-style play is ... pretty nearly a railroad, without much actual agency. The game/s will support other approaches, but the entire table needs to be on board with that (though the GM can definitely lead the way, here).


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> No one has said that, what are you even talking about?



So how does a railroad impinge on a player's agency to characteriser his/her PC, speak in character, and declare actions?

In what RPG can those things _not_ take place?


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I've never heard of any RPG ever played where mechanics weren't involved when PC survival was at stake. I mean, sure, there is the apocryphal "rocks fall on your head, you're dead." but I hardly think you're defending that as a paradigm of play...



There's the occasional cursed item that all you need to do is try it and you keel over dead - no save (Cloak of Poison in 1e is one; I lost a PC to one of these not that long ago).  But yes, I still see it as a rules-free session even if mechanics do arise briefly here and there.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I never said it is impossible or categorically unwelcome to play out whatever you want by RP.



I don't think you did but others have, or have implied it, in one of two opposite ways: 'jump to the scene' (i.e. skip everything between now and that scene), or 'roll the damn dice' (to short-circuit in-character RP usually in social encounters).


AbdulAlhazred said:


> My own rules that I use for "D&D-like play" (based loosely on 4e) have 'interlude' as a mode of play. ANYTHING can happen in one that isn't 'conflict germane to the players' without any dice or any other restriction whatsoever, it is just free 'spiel'. If some sort of tension arises in that process I would expect it would virtually have to be about some conflict that someone cares enough about to toss dice over, and then play switches modes to 'challenge'.



I don;t have anything formalized to near that extent.  Sure, there's often a soft switch to what we call 'rubber time' when parties are in town and it's not too important what gets done in what sequence, but there's no formal 'interlude' or 'challenge' delineators.  I guess the only such would be when we move into or out of combat initiative.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I guess maybe there's some 'grey area' that might exist? I haven't run into that problem. Its hard to see where the GM wouldn't just let the player decide what color grandma's house is if that's an element of free RP, why choose that as a point of issue? In fact HoML doesn't really have a defined way of resolving such a thing, it is just basically assumed that its an unimportant detail, set dressing. Frankly I'd just go with the "whomever states it first wins" kind of resolution if it ever came up...



I'm not thinking so much about what colour to paint Grandma's house (though we did have a sequence not long ago where a prankster PC [three guesses whose!] hatched a rather elaborate plan to paint someone's castle in shocking pink), but more of things that might or might not have later impact e.g. even something as simple as deciding which PCs are going into the field next and what they want to do when they get there.  Completely in character, completely rules-free, completely player-driven, and yet relevant to future play in the campaign.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> To me story telling games imply agency over outcome.  However, @pemerton's and others gaming philosophy does have a certain principle keeping the players from having agency over outcome - the Czege principle and it's why framing that principle as an absolute whereby one cannot even have a game without it is so important to their conversation.  It's the one thing holding back their framework from being collective storytelling.



Who do you think controls outcome in a combat resolved according to the D&D combat rules as set out in AD&D (either edition), Moldvay Basic, 3E (either version), 4e, 5e?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> I'm not constructing an entire scenario here just a quick example so you may need to extrapolate certain things... but yes it would probably be possible to learn the Moon tribe worships... surprise, surprise... the Moon goddess and thus I make the choice to play up my piety.
> 
> I made the choice to play my character with those characteristics vs others which had a meaningful effect on play... whether the results are pre-scripted or not shouldn't matter as long as what I did caused a game state change through the choice I made.



Stated this way it sounds basically like "character build agency". I picked a personality trait and it had a certain defined effect on the scenario in a given situation. While personality is a virtually infinite expanse of 'options' nobody can ever know if one or another of them will ever matter, so it still seems like a pretty basic thing. Like I have this in all RPGs and it may or may not ever matter. If I had a total choice of 5 personality traits (hypothetically) NOTHING would tell me a priori to pick certain ones as being particularly relevant (well, some genre knowledge might). 

You might respond "well the GM, knowing my establishment of the Moon Goddess as my patron engaged with this." and that would be true. To the extent that there are ways (again genre knowledge, or setting knowledge) to establish that this would relate to other possibilities entering or being excluded from consideration, that is moving into real agency territory (IE if I know that the Moon Goddess is the patroness of lovers, maybe I want to explore that) or maybe even just the intensity of the PC's devotion shapes the character's choices. These are things that, assuming the player can count on the GM to engage them, which begin to establish real agency.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> How is it being challenged?
> 
> Is there a RPG that you can site that does not allow a player to give characterization and personality to their character?
> 
> I don't think that this was dismissed as meaningless to the experience of the game.....indeed, many people may play solely for this purpose. But is it something that some games allow and some do not? Or is it simply safe to accept this as a baseline of playing a RPG?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The freedom to craft a personality and to express it is present in every RPG, and so is not a meaningful measure of player agency.



I have asked this question of @FrogReaver, @Crimson Longinus and @Lanefan for about 10+ pages now. As of this post of yours, on p 91, I'm yet to receive an answer.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> No, not at all! The path matters, for sure. My point in this is that we can look at two games after the fact, one of which is an absolute railroad and the other consisted of the GM abdicating things on the fly and all participants playing to find out what happens.



That might be another point of dissonance here: looking at games after the fact vs looking at them in the moment.  It's way easier to be critical after the fact, for one thing, than it is in the moment; but as in-the-moment is what matters right here right now I'd say it's more important.

For my part, if I-as-player feel like I have agency in the moment that's fine; and if it turns out in hindsight later that I didn't have the agency I thought I did at the time then my reaction will vary depending on the situation and on whether I enjoyed the moments as they unfolded.

For example: ages ago I was a player in an excellent series of adventures; our party bashed its way up and down the coast seemingly in a sandbox, following clues (badly!) and occasionally blundering into an adventure.  In hindsight it all turned out to be a complete railroad, but so what?  I had a grand time with it in the moment and learning it was a railroad didn't sully my memories of any of it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Doesn't matter if you personally find it hard to say...it gives a pre-scripted response to my input.
> 
> Yes you expressed how you felt about there only being one type of agency earlier in the thread and yet here we are with meaningful choice that can be acted upon and because it has a pre-scripted response dependent upon the action chosen you seem to be claiming it's not "real" agency.  I want to avoid going to internet definitions and yet the actual definition of agency makes no distinction in pre-scripted vs. freeform.  That is wholly a differentiator that you prefer so either you have to accept that pre-scripted results have no bearing on forms of agency or you are by your own admission differentiating types of agency... which is it?
> 
> The meaningful choice is to play up (leverage) or not play up (not leverage or leverage something else) the characterization of piety to the Moon goddess.  Its a meaningful choice because it changes the game state and choosing to leverage another aspect of your characters personality or characterization could change it in a different way.  Again I see inklings of preference in your reply.  the fact that you are not aware of whether agency will be available through a choice at some future nebulous time has no bearing on the fact that in the moment we are speaking to in the example above agency and meaningful choice are exhibited through characterization and leveraging of said characteristics in the fictional space.



The choice you're describing here is entirely dependent on an offer being made and you having blindly selected an option that plays into the offer.   Your choice is, as you note, to accept the offer or decline it.  How much you "play into your piety" is really, again, obfuscating the issue, because it's not your playing into the piety that counts, it either you passing the pre-scripted wickets or convincing the GM through social interaction to agree with you.  It's entirely gated by the GM -- your say is just to accept or not.

Now, can this make a difference in the entertainment at the table?  Absolutely.  Can entertaining the GM be a pathway to having the GM give you boons in game?  Sure thing!  Is this agency?  Not really, you aren't making choices, you're finding triggers tied to previous blind choices and can accept or decline them (sometimes, usually not, actually, in pre-scripted adventures).

I find it odd, though, that you feel sufficiently able to discuss pre-written adventures on this topic while saying lack of familiarity hinders your ability to talk to other aspects.


Imaro said:


> Let's look at BitD for a moment since I have played it and am familiar with it to a limited degree...  IMO the most important thing is that the GM has final say in whether a die roll is required, setting Position(how risky a players action is to pull off),  Effect (How effective a given action will be to resolve a specific circumstance) and Consequences (The dangers that arise in a specific circumstance).



This is not quite true -- the GM can either say yes or roll the dice.  There's not ability to automatically declare an action a failure (outside of genre violations, but that shouldn't be handled in game), just the ability to call for a check on an action.  And, Position and Effect are negotiable and entirely constrained by the fictional positioning.  The GM is not free to just label everything Desperate/No Effect.

Contrasted to D&D, the GM does have the authority to fiat fail an action declaration.  The GM has full authority to set all particulars of any check they call for without constraint.  They can always add hidden backstory to support anything they've chosen to do.


Imaro said:


> The player has final say over Which actions are reasonable as a solution to a problem & What actions generated experience for them.



A poor treatment, but mostly yes.  The XP triggers are fixed, but the player usually has the authority to decide if one is met or not.  They're really easily answered questions though, so trying to game the XP system is very obvious.  I mean, "*You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas,*" is going to be glaringly obvious if you say yes and take XP and it didn't actually come up.


Imaro said:


> First let me say I don't find this radically different in responsibility assignment from a trad game.  The player decides the action they are taking a in a situation and  the GM is still deciding if a roll needs to be made, how difficult the roll will be to make, how effective the roll will be if it succeeds and what the consequences are for a failed roll.  Are there more gradations than D&D sure but is the general structure on that different not really IMO.  The biggest difference is BitD alklows the player to decide xp generation and it doesn't want you to pre-plan things. Which does garner some confusion in me around your differentiation in agency in something like D&D vs BitD.  The GM is deciding the same things the only difference is whether he has the leeway to make them up on the fly or pre-plan.



The GM doesn't actually decide difficulty, just risk and reward envelopes.  There absolutely aren't more gradiations in D&D, unless you're, strangely, referring to the number of +/-s and the scale of the d20?  That's a weird assertion.  And the general structure is extraordinarily different in process resolution -- if you claim to have played BitD and don't recognize this, I'm not sure what you played but it wasn't done very well.




Imaro said:


> All that aside though, if the BitD GM is making this all up on the fly dependent on the roll at the time... how does he telegraph to the players what the consequences of a failed roll will be before they choose to go for it?  Yes there are some restrictions on the GM's choice but they are broad enough that there still could be numerous consequences arising from the same action dependent upon what the player rolls.  Is this what playing to find out means because if so it seems one's ability to make a meaningful choice is reduced since one cannot know the consequences for ones actions until the roll is made.



Let's examine a recent moment from my game, it even addresses loss of PC control, so others my find it instructional.

The crew was sneaking into an old, rumored to be haunted, abandoned manor house.  They had entered the premises through an old servants tunnel, and emerged in a room full of furniture covered in sheets and cobwebs, jumbled about.  This is just to set the scene, and the whys of the score don't matter to this vignette.  Since none of this was challenging (and covered by the excellent engagement roll), this was just narration -- the scene started when they entered the hallway from the room and saw a dim lamp at the end with a shadowed figure -- clearly a guard -- there.  I described the hall, merely as color, as being wide, with dilapidated chairs and a few broken tables along the walls, which were covered by peeling wallpaper and a few old, dusty portraits.  To enhance the air of 'haunted" I described one portrait of a young woman who eyes seemed to follow the PCs.  As two PCs snuck down the hallway to engage the guard, one PC -- mentioned earlier as the one trying to change their vice -- said they were going to examine the young woman's portrait to see if it would be interesting to those at the University he was trying to woo.  This seemed interesting -- I could have just said yes -- so I asked the player how they were going to do this?  What counts as "interesting" and how do you know?  The player thought a moment, and said that his old friend at the University liked the occult, so he was going to see if the portrait held occult value.  I said, maybe, let's check, what are you doing to find out?  The player looked at their sheet, shrugged, and said, "I guess I Attune and see if I get any feels from it, but I have zero dice in Attune.  Maybe I can ask the Whisper to do it?"  I responded sure, but he's off taking care of the guard right now, do you want to wait?  The player said, no, I'll do it, I'm going to push for 1 die.  I said, okay, the position is controlled (they got a controlled result on the engagment roll, so all initial situations are set to controlled position) and said normal effect (the default, you need a reason to change it).  He rolled, and failed.  I now got to put a consequence in play.  I chose to worsen the position and said that as the player looked at the portrait, the figure suddenly turned their head and looked at the player, and he found it was difficult to look away and there was a feeling of pulling or suction, but not physical.  The player was like, "okay, I guess that answers that question, it's occult, um... I try to pull away."  I said, sure, but hang on, let me check in with the other PCs for a moment while you're staring into the creepy painting.  I did, they succeeded, and we got back to the PC.

The PC tried to pull away from the painting, and declared a wreck action to do to -- using violence to destroy a thing.  He had dice, and since I had worsened the position previously, I set position to Risky (which is normal, you need a reason to change it) and normal effect again.  The PC failed again (honestly, this is a trend in my Blades game, largely because the players seem to enjoy trying actions they have no or one rank in).  Now the picture started glowing, and the young lady turned into a hideous creature.  I told the PC you feel your soul being sucked into the portrait and cannot escape!  I leveled some Harm, which was Resisted.  The other PC noticed this (glowing portrait) and the Whisper (think occultist) trying to intervene and used Attune with their Command ability to try to force the animating spirit in the portrait to flee.  Since their friend was in danger, this was again Risky and Normal.  The Whisper succeeded with complication, and so the portrait entity released the first PC, but in doing so a backlash of psychic energy whipped back at the Whisper and they suffered a Harm.  They elected to not Resist, as it was a level 1 harm, and they like to keep a ready supply of Stress for rolling.  This choice, though, had some unfortunately repercussions later in the Score, and the harm was to their occult abilities and that became very, very relevant again.

Telegraphing in Blades is pretty straightforward -- you follow the fiction.  You also use soft and hard moves, to borrow from PbtA -- if you want to level a consequence that isn't yet in the fiction, you can use a soft move on a failure to introduce a new complication.  Then the players have to act against that, or you pay it off.  If they fail again, you can pay it off.  If you look to my example, the entire issue with the portrait was initiated by the player -- they even determined it was going to be of an occult nature and the attendant risks that can come with that.  Still, since the initial position was controlled (and probably would have been without the engagement roll because there was no established threat in the fiction), the failure here involved such a soft move -- the picture is trying to consume your soul, what do you do?!  It wasn't until the player tried to do something about that and failed that this harm paid off.  So the telegraph was firstly, the player initiating an interaction with a potential occult item _in a haunted manor.  _Then, the telegraphing was that the picture was very dangerous and attacking you, you need to do something to avoid this.  This is how you telegraph in Blades.

Again, if you played Blades and this wasn't obvious, then I'm sorry for your poor experience.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I’ve seen rpgs cited here which give control of my characters beliefs to the dm.  Surely those are examples that limit your ability to give personality and characterization to your character?



No more than anything else.

If my PC is in the tavern and the GM narrates the stew as mouldy and maggot-ridden, I can't narrate my character extolling the peasant virtues of this repast.

As @prabe and I already discussed, if my PC is in a tavern I can't also engage in free roleplay where I point out features of the beautiful night sky to another PC.

Etc.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I've said before (to you? if so, sorry) that I think this paradigm of play is the one D&D 5E is specifically built to deliver (and both versions of Pathfinder, I'd say--though I have no firsthand experience with PF2). I also think it's true that AP-style play is ... pretty nearly a railroad, without much actual agency. The game/s will support other approaches, but the entire table needs to be on board with that (though the GM can definitely lead the way, here).



This is a very clear statement of what I've been saying throughout the thread.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Yet we're being told by some that said baseline - which in itself incorporates a decent amount of agency given a competent GM - holds no real agency at all.



So suppose you agree that it is a baseline - that it is a possibility in every RPG.

Do you have any views on what might be done to increase player agency _beyond_ this baseline?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Who do you think controls outcome in a combat resolved according to the D&D combat rules as set out in AD&D (either edition), Moldvay Basic, 3E (either version), 4e, 5e?



In general - No one.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> So suppose you agree that it is a baseline - that it is a possibility in every RPG.
> 
> Do you have any views on what might be done to increase player agency _beyond_ this baseline?



The rub for me is that some games seem to restrict this “baseline” more or less than others.


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> The choice you're describing here is entirely dependent on an offer being made and you having blindly selected an option that plays into the offer.   Your choice is, as you note, to accept the offer or decline it.  How much you "play into your piety" is really, again, obfuscating the issue, because it's not your playing into the piety that counts, it either you passing the pre-scripted wickets or convincing the GM through social interaction to agree with you.  It's entirely gated by the GM -- your say is just to accept or not.
> 
> Now, can this make a difference in the entertainment at the table?  Absolutely.  Can entertaining the GM be a pathway to having the GM give you boons in game?  Sure thing!  Is this agency?  Not really, you aren't making choices, you're finding triggers tied to previous blind choices and can accept or decline them (sometimes, usually not, actually, in pre-scripted adventures).
> 
> I find it odd, though, that you feel sufficiently able to discuss pre-written adventures on this topic while saying lack of familiarity hinders your ability to talk to other aspects.
> 
> This is not quite true -- the GM can either say yes or roll the dice.  There's not ability to automatically declare an action a failure (outside of genre violations, but that shouldn't be handled in game), just the ability to call for a check on an action.  And, Position and Effect are negotiable and entirely constrained by the fictional positioning.  The GM is not free to just label everything Desperate/No Effect.
> 
> Contrasted to D&D, the GM does have the authority to fiat fail an action declaration.  The GM has full authority to set all particulars of any check they call for without constraint.  They can always add hidden backstory to support anything they've chosen to do.
> 
> A poor treatment, but mostly yes.  The XP triggers are fixed, but the player usually has the authority to decide if one is met or not.  They're really easily answered questions though, so trying to game the XP system is very obvious.  I mean, "*You struggled with issues from your vice or traumas,*" is going to be glaringly obvious if you say yes and take XP and it didn't actually come up.
> 
> The GM doesn't actually decide difficulty, just risk and reward envelopes.  There absolutely aren't more gradiations in D&D, unless you're, strangely, referring to the number of +/-s and the scale of the d20?  That's a weird assertion.  And the general structure is extraordinarily different in process resolution -- if you claim to have played BitD and don't recognize this, I'm not sure what you played but it wasn't done very well.
> 
> 
> 
> Let's examine a recent moment from my game, it even addresses loss of PC control, so others my find it instructional.
> 
> The crew was sneaking into an old, rumored to be haunted, abandoned manor house.  They had entered the premises through an old servants tunnel, and emerged in a room full of furniture covered in sheets and cobwebs, jumbled about.  This is just to set the scene, and the whys of the score don't matter to this vignette.  Since none of this was challenging (and covered by the excellent engagement roll), this was just narration -- the scene started when they entered the hallway from the room and saw a dim lamp at the end with a shadowed figure -- clearly a guard -- there.  I described the hall, merely as color, as being wide, with dilapidated chairs and a few broken tables along the walls, which were covered by peeling wallpaper and a few old, dusty portraits.  To enhance the air of 'haunted" I described one portrait of a young woman who eyes seemed to follow the PCs.  As two PCs snuck down the hallway to engage the guard, one PC -- mentioned earlier as the one trying to change their vice -- said they were going to examine the young woman's portrait to see if it would be interesting to those at the University he was trying to woo.  This seemed interesting -- I could have just said yes -- so I asked the player how they were going to do this?  What counts as "interesting" and how do you know?  The player thought a moment, and said that his old friend at the University liked the occult, so he was going to see if the portrait held occult value.  I said, maybe, let's check, what are you doing to find out?  The player looked at their sheet, shrugged, and said, "I guess I Attune and see if I get any feels from it, but I have zero dice in Attune.  Maybe I can ask the Whisper to do it?"  I responded sure, but he's off taking care of the guard right now, do you want to wait?  The player said, no, I'll do it, I'm going to push for 1 die.  I said, okay, the position is controlled (they got a controlled result on the engagment roll, so all initial situations are set to controlled position) and said normal effect (the default, you need a reason to change it).  He rolled, and failed.  I now got to put a consequence in play.  I chose to worsen the position and said that as the player looked at the portrait, the figure suddenly turned their head and looked at the player, and he found it was difficult to look away and there was a feeling of pulling or suction, but not physical.  The player was like, "okay, I guess that answers that question, it's occult, um... I try to pull away."  I said, sure, but hang on, let me check in with the other PCs for a moment while you're staring into the creepy painting.  I did, they succeeded, and we got back to the PC.
> 
> The PC tried to pull away from the painting, and declared a wreck action to do to -- using violence to destroy a thing.  He had dice, and since I had worsened the position previously, I set position to Risky (which is normal, you need a reason to change it) and normal effect again.  The PC failed again (honestly, this is a trend in my Blades game, largely because the players seem to enjoy trying actions they have no or one rank in).  Now the picture started glowing, and the young lady turned into a hideous creature.  I told the PC you feel your soul being sucked into the portrait and cannot escape!  I leveled some Harm, which was Resisted.  The other PC noticed this (glowing portrait) and the Whisper (think occultist) trying to intervene and used Attune with their Command ability to try to force the animating spirit in the portrait to flee.  Since their friend was in danger, this was again Risky and Normal.  The Whisper succeeded with complication, and so the portrait entity released the first PC, but in doing so a backlash of psychic energy whipped back at the Whisper and they suffered a Harm.  They elected to not Resist, as it was a level 1 harm, and they like to keep a ready supply of Stress for rolling.  This choice, though, had some unfortunately repercussions later in the Score, and the harm was to their occult abilities and that became very, very relevant again.
> 
> Telegraphing in Blades is pretty straightforward -- you follow the fiction.  You also use soft and hard moves, to borrow from PbtA -- if you want to level a consequence that isn't yet in the fiction, you can use a soft move on a failure to introduce a new complication.  Then the players have to act against that, or you pay it off.  If they fail again, you can pay it off.  If you look to my example, the entire issue with the portrait was initiated by the player -- they even determined it was going to be of an occult nature and the attendant risks that can come with that.  Still, since the initial position was controlled (and probably would have been without the engagement roll because there was no established threat in the fiction), the failure here involved such a soft move -- the picture is trying to consume your soul, what do you do?!  It wasn't until the player tried to do something about that and failed that this harm paid off.  So the telegraph was firstly, the player initiating an interaction with a potential occult item _in a haunted manor.  _Then, the telegraphing was that the picture was very dangerous and attacking you, you need to do something to avoid this.  This is how you telegraph in Blades.
> 
> Again, if you played Blades and this wasn't obvious, then I'm sorry for your poor experience.




Wait so you feel in this example that you telegraphed enough that the player could come to the conclusion that the consequences for a failure to examine and appraise that portrait was a magical gotcha trap?  Seriously how was this any different than a magical D&D trap from a failed perception check and then a save to resist/avoid??  You decided a a roll was necessary and the consequences and it doesn't seem like the player had enough meaningful information to determine what would be the consequences if he failed.

EDIT: And let's be real anytime a GM or DM can decide no roll is necessary it is effectively fiat to grant success or failure


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> If my PC is in the tavern and the GM narrates the stew as mouldy and maggot-ridden, I can't narrate my character extolling the peasant virtues of this repast.
> 
> As @prabe and I already discussed, if my PC is in a tavern I can't also engage in free roleplay where I point out features of the beautiful night sky to another PC.



Your character could being sarcastic about the food, or describing the night sky, I suppose, but I'm quibbling, not really disagreeing. (Sorry, @pemerton )


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> No more than anything else.
> 
> If my PC is in the tavern and the GM narrates the stew as mouldy and maggot-ridden, I can't narrate my character extolling the peasant virtues of this repast.
> 
> As @prabe and I already discussed, if my PC is in a tavern I can't also engage in free roleplay where I point out features of the beautiful night sky to another PC.
> 
> Etc.



I agree. Those are limitations placed upon narrative agency.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> The rub for me is that some games seem to restrict this “baseline” more or less than others.



Can you actually name some games that do so?

Maybe with reference to rules, or mechanical systems, or play experience, or similar?


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Your character could being sarcastic about the food, or describing the night sky, I suppose, but I'm quibbling, not really disagreeing. (Sorry, @pemerton )



The quibble is absolutely fine. My response would be - if the GM tells me I'm in love with Guinevere then I can do the same thing. For real-life examples, look at 14 year olds (especially 14 year old boys) in coed schools.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I agree. Those are limitations placed upon narrative agency.



They're limitations on your favoured baseline, because they limit how I can characterise and "roleplay" my character.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> Your character could being sarcastic about the food, or describing the night sky, I suppose, but I'm quibbling, not really disagreeing. (Sorry, @pemerton )



You actually are 100% right in that sense. If what is meant is can my character say these words even if objectively untrue then a player had agency for that.

but while it’s not explicitly stated there’s a “and have it be true” qualifier intended at the end of that example.

in which case its really talking about narrative agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Can you actually name some games that do so?
> 
> Maybe with reference to rules, or mechanical systems, or play experience, or similar?



I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.


----------



## pemerton

Here's another example (which @AbdulAlhazred already posted 20 or 30 pages upthread):

The GM narrates _you come to a dead end._

Now I can't describe the following action for my character (assuming that I'm not ethereal or similar): _I keep walking straight ahead._

Thus the GM's description is a limit on "baseline" agency.

And this sort of thing happens in D&D all the time.

The bigger point is this: "baseline" agency is constrained by the fictional position of the PC; and that fictional position contains both internal and external elements.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.



Which ones? Have you played any of them? The only game I've seen mentioned which strongly controls a PC's beliefs is D&D, in which if the GM says _You come to a dead end _then my PC now believes _I'm at a dead end and so can't keep going forward_.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Here's another example (which @AbdulAlhazred already posted 20 or 30 pages upthread):
> 
> The GM narrates _you come to a dead end._
> 
> Now I can't describe the following action for my character (assuming that I'm not ethereal or similar): _I keep walking straight ahead._
> 
> Thus the GM's description is a limit on "baseline" agency.
> 
> And this sort of thing happens in D&D all the time.
> 
> The bigger point is this: "baseline" agency is constrained by the fictional position of the PC; and that fictional position contains both internal and external elements.



I most certainly can narrate my character walking straight ahead at a dead end.  

I may take some damage. Or maybe I’ll find it’s an illusory wall...


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Which ones? Have you played any of them? The only game I've seen mentioned which strongly controls a PC's beliefs is D&D, in which if the GM says _You come to a dead end _then my PC now believes _I'm at a dead end and so can't keep going forward_.



Why do you keep denying those examples were brought up?


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.



Again, name the games and provide reference to the rules, and your play experiences. No-one else is going to answer for you. Let’s hear your experiences.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> But the adventure is responding... again whether pre-scripted or not it is a specific response to my actions.  And my choice is whether I do or don't play that piety up or rather I  go in a different direction with my characterization which may or may not have different results.  As long as there is a reasonable way for me to determine the likely effect my characterization will have beforehand, I would argue that is choice with agency... and if we are using D&D as an example insight would be my go to skill for that.
> 
> It seems you are looking at a specific type of agency (non-scripted results perhaps).  I on the other hand accept that agency can exist even if there is pre-determined results for the exertion of said agency.
> 
> EDIT: I am curious when dealing with non-scripted results where the player can narrate success but not failure how does the player measure risk vs reward in order to make a meaningful choice?  Especially if the GM is creating the failure state on the fly...



I agree that the player could be having agency in this situation, but you said yourself we cannot tell without details of things like how the possible attitudes towards the Moon Goddess were telegraphed, or what process the GM used to decide to include it. So, at best, the amount of player agency here is essentially 'borrowed from the GM' and not an inherent aspect of the system. It can be said to be inherent to a technique of play. So, we can discuss DMs and their techniques here, but all we can say of games similar to D&D is "they give us nothing by default." Which is all any of us have said...

On the matter of non-scripted results and player defined success. This will vary by game. In BW the consequences are determined before any checks are made, in both directions. The player specifies an intent and a fiction, the GM describes failure. Now @pemerton states you can't back out at this point, but I think what he's really saying is that the stakes should already be clear/negotiated before the formal steps happen. In Dungeon World the principles of play and agenda of the GM pretty well circumscribe things. The GM could respond to a 6- with almost any sort of "hard move" in most cases, which could include serious consequences (damage, even death) but I would say that harsh moves against a PC when the stakes didn't seem to be that high would not be in keeping with those ideas. 

If you think about it, this is not really different from the core unspoken concept in D&D, where a DM who puts a CR10 monster on level 1 of a dungeon that level 1 PCs are sent into is probably doing it wrong (at least if he's not being very careful to telegraph this all to the players so they know how to react, and that they have an 'out').


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Again, name the games and provide reference to the rules, and your play experiences. No-one else is going to answer for you. Let’s hear your experiences.



This isn’t about my experiences. Why try to make this about personally dismissing me?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I have asked this question of @FrogReaver, @Crimson Longinus and @Lanefan for about 10+ pages now. As of this post of yours, on p 91, I'm yet to receive an answer.



It has been answered several times. Various personality mechanics exist in games and some of them force certain responses from character. Monster Hearts was cites as an example of game that focuses on this. I'm pretty sure some White Wolf games have something like this, as that IIRC was when I first came across to this issue. Though unlike you, I am terrible at recalling mechanics of some games I've not played in years, so I really cannot give any specifics. But we all know that such mechanics exist.

But even that is besides the point. Yes, almost all RPGs give the plyers great freedom to set the personality of their character and control how the character expresses themselves. But it's ubiquitousness has nothing to do with whether this form of control is a type of agency; of course it is! In almost all RPGs players can choose to have their characters to engage in combat. Do you think that because it is so universal, choosing to fight and choosing how to do it is not a type of agency?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> They're limitations on your favoured baseline, because they limit how I can characterise and "roleplay" my character.



No they aren’t. Nothing I’ve advocated for has been about me or the character having narrative control over the setting.  

I’ll go one further - while having narrative control over the settting is a type of agency - it has nothing to do with role playing a character.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> This isn’t about my experiences. Why try to make this about personally dismissing me?



Why do you think you’re entitled to any credibility for opinions on games you’ve not read, played or understand?


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Why do you think you’re entitled to any credibility for opinions on games you’ve not read, played or understand?



I’m sorry. Isnt this a discussion about rpg analysis? If so what does having played a particular rpg have to do with analyzing it?


----------



## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> Monster Hearts was cites as an example of game that focuses on this. I'm pretty sure some White Wolf games have something like this, as that IIRC was when I first came across to this issue.



So then, explain from your own play of Monsterhearts how and why you felt different about the agency you had. Your own actual play.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Honestly, no more than when some piece of narrative art moves me to some feeling or another. Sometimes it feels more manipulative than others, in either case.
> 
> I think part of it is that the character is me in the game, and telling me, e.g., you (character) have an uncontrollable passion for Guenevere when I (player) don't generates ... I'll stick with dissonance; and I'll stick with that dissonance feeling like a lack of agency, even if I'm willing to concede that technically (the best kind of correct) it isn't. Hope I'm being clear.





hawkeyefan said:


> So there's a conflict between what you want the character to feel and what the character may actually feel? I don't quite follow how this would break immersion.
> 
> Certainly the character, in the fictional world, would not want to feel fear (let's say), right? They feel it despite not wanting to feel it. Which would by kind of in line with how the player feels, right?
> 
> I mean, ultimately, you as a player like what you like and don't what you don't, so I get it, but I'm just trying to follow your description.



In general I think that part of the skill of GMing is this: when the system requires that you establish and evince the fiction, you should so so in a way that encourages uptake by the players.

Here's an (imagined) example of GM failure, from John Harper's blog:

I've seen people struggle with hard moves in the moment. Like, when the dice miss, the MC stares at it like, "Crap! Now I have to invent something! Better make it dangerous and cool! Uh... some ninja... drop out of the ceiling... with poison knives! Grah!"​
He goes on to offer the following advice:

Don't do that. Instead, when it's time for a hard move, look back at the setup move(s) you made. What was threatened? What was about to happen, before the PC took action? Follow through on that. Bring the effects on screen. Bring the consequences to fruition.​
This is what we might call "following the fiction".

Vincent Baker gives another example and brief discussion here:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players _and_ GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. . . .​​So you're sitting at the table and one player says, "[let's imagine that] an orc jumps out of the underbrush!"​​What has to happen before the group agrees that, indeed, an orc jumps out of the underbrush? . . .​​1. Sometimes, not much at all. The right participant said it, at an appropriate moment, and everybody else just incorporates it smoothly into their imaginary picture of the situation. "An orc! Yikes! Battlestations!" This is how it usually is for participants with high ownership of whatever they're talking about: GMs describing the weather or the noncombat actions of NPCs, players saying what their characters are wearing or thinking.​​2. Sometimes, a little bit more. "Really? An orc?" "Yeppers." "Huh, an orc. Well, okay." Sometimes the suggesting participant has to defend the suggestion: "Really, an orc this far into Elfland?" "Yeah, cuz this thing about her tribe..." "Okay, I guess that makes sense."​​. . .​
This is just as relevant to the GM narrating PC mental states as it is to Orc jumping from the underbrush or ninjas dropping from the ceiling. If the GM's narration doesn't follow from the fiction it will fall flat or generate feelings of dissonance.

(It's deliberate that I'm running together examples of "external" and "internal" GM-narrated fiction. As Baker's example of "this far into Elfland" shows, either can evoke doubts or dissonance.)

Genre is important here.

Classic Traveller has morale rules that apply to PCs just the same as NPCs. So players can find that their PCs break and run in combat without the players having made that choice. This both follows from, and helps reinforce a sense of, sci-fi genre closer to Alien than to Star Wars or even Star Trek.

A rule whereby the GM can dictate that a PC falls in love with Guinevere fits better in a game of knightly romance than in (say) a mid-level D&D game centred on Tomb of Horrors or the Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.

GM framing will also help here - both in itself, and because it is more likely to produce player responses that build up towards buy-in. Here's an actual play report on the use by me as GM of an Incite Lust effect in Prince Valiant play:



pemerton said:


> warning came that a military force was approaching in the distance. The drawbridge was raised and the gates closed. But Sir Morgath, looking out from the battlements, could see that in front of the soldiers were two women riding hurriedly on ponies. (In the tram on the way to the session I had decided to use the second of the Woman in Distress episodes found in the main rulebook.) There was debate - should the drawbridge be lowered? - but Sir Morgath was against it, as too risky. The women arrived at the edge of the moat across from the drawbridge and called out for help to Sir Gerran, who as Marshall of the order was in command of the gates. Lady Lorette of Lothian explained that she was fleeing from her fiance, Sir Blackpool the Count of Toulouse, to whom she had been betrothed by her father and who had treated her cruelly. Would they not lower the drawbridge?
> 
> Although Prince Valiant is not technically a pulp it is from the same period - the 30s and 40s - and there is a degree of pulp-era stereotyping in Greg Stafford's presentation of women in his scenarios. In this case, Lady Lorette has Presence 4 and Glamourie 5. So as she pleaded to Gerran I rolled her 9 dice vs Gerran's Presence of 3. I allowed Gerran's player two bonus dice (the maximum morale bonus allowed for in the system) as a resolute Marshall defending his castle, so he had 5 dice in total. And rolled better than me! And so he didn't relent.
> 
> Meanwhile Sir Morgath had lowered a rope down the wall of the castle. He called out to the Lady and she leapt into the moat and swam to him, where he took hold of her and carried her up the wall. But the handmaiden accompanying her did not have the strength or courage to jump into the moat. So Morgath slid back down the rope and swang across the moat to rescue her. (At the start of the session I had handed out some fame (the "XP" of the system) that had been earned in the previous session. This had qualified Morgath for a new skill rank, which he had spent on Agility: his player felt he was repeatedly suffering for a lack of physical ability at key moments. It now served him well, as he got 3 successes on his 4 dice.)
> 
> In the scenario as written by Stafford, the Lady has the Incite Lust special effect which she will use against the strongest and most famous male adventurer, provided he is not married. Anticipating possible complications, Morgath - when asked by the Lady who her rescuer was - announced himself as Sir Morgath, husband of Lady Elizabeth of York. But being an unfair GM while also trying to run with the fiction, it seemed only to make sense that Morgath should fall for the Lady as he carried her in his arms into the castle. The player cursed me appropriately, but also had seen it coming. He took the Lady into the keep to ensure her safety.



Sir Morgath's infatuation for Lorette flowed from the fiction. He had tried to steel himself, and encourage her to back off, by declaring his married status, but holding her in his arms was too much for him!

As this played out and was experienced at the table, it did not resemble a ninja dropping without explanation from the ceiling, or a random Orc jumping out of the underbrush in Elfland.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Wait so you feel in this example that you telegraphed enough that the player could come to the conclusion that the consequences for a failure to examine and appraise that portrait was a magical gotcha trap?  Seriously how was this any different than a magical D&D trap from a failed perception check and then a save to resist/avoid??  You decided a a roll was necessary and the consequences and it doesn't seem like the player had enough meaningful information to determine what would be the consequences if he failed.
> 
> EDIT: And let's be real anytime a GM or DM can decide no roll is necessary it is effectively fiat to grant success or failure



It was a haunted house.  It was a creepy portrait.  The player CHOSE to make the portrait magical -- I did not.  There was no magical gotach trap here, because there was no gotcha at all -- the player chose to make it magical in the context of a creepy haunter manor home (that belongs to Lord Scurlock, a being that has been alive for perhaps as long as the Emperor, ie at least a thousand years, and is known to be up to serious occult stuff).  The player then CHOSE to interact with the portrait they wanted to be magic in a way that directly puts occult consequences on the table -- ie, Attune.  So, yeah, to get to the part where I narrated that the portrait was doing a bad thing, we have two player choices, a lot of foreshadowing about occult things, and then a failed check which all led up to, not the portrait sucking out his soul, but that this was now on the table.

As for the GM fiat statement -- if the GM can only decide to let player actions stand or negotiate a roll, this is very different from a GM that can say yes, roll, or no.  The authority to deny a thing is the control over the thing.  All are, yes, exercises of GM authority, but that's not a particularly interesting observation.  There's a huge difference in player authorities and agencies between the two models.  Let's not pretend they're the same.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> I’m sorry. Isnt this a discussion about rpg analysis? If so what does having played a particular rpg have to do with analyzing it?



Complete ignorance doesn’t lend itself to analysis.


----------



## prabe

@pemerton I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I wish you hadn't arranged those quotations so it looks as though @hawkeyefan was replying to me, there. I didn't _think_ I was talking about immersion, particularly, but that's actually less of a problem. Sorry.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> This isn’t about my experiences. Why try to make this about personally dismissing me?



Because you're making false and unwarranted claims about systems you seem to know little or nothing about.

For instance, the only person in this thread - as best I recall - who has given an example of play where the notion of Belief came in is me. And I was referring to Burning Wheel, where Beliefs are a technical component of PC build comparable in some ways to Ideals and Bonds in 5e D&D.

If you actually read any of my explanations of how these work in general, and of how I adjudicated the use on a PC of Force of Will in my own game, you didn't post about it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> But isn't that acting and roleplaying? This is what actors do when they immerse themselves into a character. Sometimes the fictional situation of the character an actor plays goes in a different way than the actor themselves may feel in that moment, but the skilled actor's job is to embrace the change and adapt their performance accordingly.



Do you remember the interviews of Emilia Clarke about the last season of GoT? How she was really upset when she go the scripts for the last episodes and how it took her for several days to adjust? Method actors absolutely will have issues if their characters are written in a way that go against their previously internalised mental image. They're professionals and can of course eventually make it to work, but it is unlikely that they have to do it in a moments notice like in a RPG. Also they're under million dollar contracts that highly incentivise them to not to just say 'sod it' and walk away...


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> No; and that plays in to my point.
> 
> And in so doing you've abdicated the agency the game gives you (or, more correctly, chosen to ignore it) over your character's personality, mannerisms, etc.  Fine if you want to do so, but to then turn around and say that the agency you're ignoring doesn't really count as agency is a bit rich.
> 
> That this level of agency is (for all intents and purposes) universal across RPGs is irrelevant.  It's still agency.




Yes, the game you are advocating for has the most base level of agency present in any and all RPGs. 

If we're talking about the level of agency allowed by games or approaches to games, bringing the bare minimum is a bit like saying you're not broke because you have a buck in your bank account. 





Lanefan said:


> That might be another point of dissonance here: looking at games after the fact vs looking at them in the moment.  It's way easier to be critical after the fact, for one thing, than it is in the moment; but as in-the-moment is what matters right here right now I'd say it's more important.
> 
> For my part, if I-as-player feel like I have agency in the moment that's fine; and if it turns out in hindsight later that I didn't have the agency I thought I did at the time then my reaction will vary depending on the situation and on whether I enjoyed the moments as they unfolded.
> 
> For example: ages ago I was a player in an excellent series of adventures; our party bashed its way up and down the coast seemingly in a sandbox, following clues (badly!) and occasionally blundering into an adventure.  In hindsight it all turned out to be a complete railroad, but so what?  I had a grand time with it in the moment and learning it was a railroad didn't sully my memories of any of it.




I would say that examination of play after the fact is a big part of how we improve play. 

The fact that you actually say "it was a complete railroad, but so what?" means that you simply aren't as concerned with agency as others may be. I mean.....it's awesome you enjoyed your game, but clearly it had less agency than many other games would have, and that doesn't bother you....so I'm left wondering what your take on agency is.


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Complete ignorance doesn’t lend itself to analysis.





pemerton said:


> Because you're making false and unwarranted claims about systems you seem to know little or nothing about.
> 
> For instance, the only person in this thread - as best I recall - who has given an example of play where the notion of Belief came in is me. And I was referring to Burning Wheel, where Beliefs are a technical component of PC build comparable in some ways to Ideals and Bonds in 5e D&D.
> 
> If you actually read any of my explanations of how these work in general, and of how I adjudicated the use on a PC of Force of Will in my own game, you didn't post about it.



Glad we are on the same page that it was you who brought up the beliefs example. Now in that beliefs example there was the notion of a player being forced to rewrite his belief. Does that sound familiar?


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> @pemerton I don't disagree with what you're saying, but I wish you hadn't arranged those quotations so it looks as though @hawkeyefan was replying to me, there. I didn't _think_ I was talking about immersion, particularly, but that's actually less of a problem. Sorry.



I thought that the two posts - yours and @hawkeyefan's - addressed a similar point, namely, when can a player "internalise" (for lack of a better word) the fiction the GM is stipulating as shared.

I think this is an important question. I think confining the discussion to PCs' mental states distorts the analysis.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ovinomancer said:


> It was a haunted house.  It was a creepy portrait.  The player CHOSE to make the portrait magical -- I did not.  There was no magical gotach trap here, because there was no gotcha at all -- the player chose to make it magical in the context of a creepy haunter manor home (that belongs to Lord Scurlock, a being that has been alive for perhaps as long as the Emperor, ie at least a thousand years, and is known to be up to serious occult stuff).  The player then CHOSE to interact with the portrait they wanted to be magic in a way that directly puts occult consequences on the table -- ie, Attune.  So, yeah, to get to the part where I narrated that the portrait was doing a bad thing, we have two player choices, a lot of foreshadowing about occult things, and then a failed check which all led up to, not the portrait sucking out his soul, but that this was now on the table.
> 
> As for the GM fiat statement -- if the GM can only decide to let player actions stand or negotiate a roll, this is very different from a GM that can say yes, roll, or no.  The authority to deny a thing is the control over the thing.  All are, yes, exercises of GM authority, but that's not a particularly interesting observation.  There's a huge difference in player authorities and agencies between the two models.  Let's not pretend they're the same.



@Imaro 

Actually, thinking on this a moment more, your reaction is like going to a birthday party featuring cake and ice cream, then being asked what kind of cake you like and what flavor ice cream you like, then exclaiming when served cake and ice cream, "Well, this is a surprise, there's no way I could have seen this coming, it's a total gotcha!"


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> No they aren’t. Nothing I’ve advocated for has been about me or the character having narrative control over the setting.
> 
> I’ll go one further - while having narrative control over the settting is a type of agency - it has nothing to do with role playing a character.



I can't roleplay my character's admiration of the sky visible overhead if the GM has told me my character is under a roof.

It's neither here no there that that doesn't bother you. My point is that it is a limit on the sort of agency you are pointing to - ie the ability portray your character's feelings.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Glad we are on the same page that it was you who brought up the beliefs example. Now in that beliefs example there was the notion of a player being forced to rewrite his belief. Does that sound familiar?



Do you know what a Belief is in Burning Wheel? What role it plays in the game? What effect (if any) it has on the player's characterisation of his/her PC?


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I thought that the two posts - yours and @hawkeyefan's - addressed a similar point, namely, when can a player "internalise" (for lack of a better word) the fiction the GM is stipulating as shared.
> 
> I think this is an important question. I think confining the discussion to PCs' mental states distorts the analysis.



That's reasonable and fair. Getting the players to engage with the fiction is arguably the GM's primary job.


----------



## FrogReaver

chaochou said:


> Complete ignorance doesn’t lend itself to analysis.



You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true.  Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> Doesn't matter if you personally find it hard to say...it gives a pre-scripted response to my input.
> 
> Yes you expressed how you felt about there only being one type of agency earlier in the thread and yet here we are with meaningful choice that can be acted upon and because it has a pre-scripted response dependent upon the action chosen you seem to be claiming it's not "real" agency.  I want to avoid going to internet definitions and yet the actual definition of agency makes no distinction in pre-scripted vs. freeform.  That is wholly a differentiator that you prefer so either you have to accept that pre-scripted results have no bearing on forms of agency or you are by your own admission differentiating types of agency... which is it?
> 
> The meaningful choice is to play up (leverage) or not play up (not leverage or leverage something else) the characterization of piety to the Moon goddess.  Its a meaningful choice because it changes the game state and choosing to leverage another aspect of your characters personality or characterization could change it in a different way.  Again I see inklings of preference in your reply.  the fact that you are not aware of whether agency will be available through a choice at some future nebulous time has no bearing on the fact that in the moment we are speaking to in the example above agency and meaningful choice are exhibited through characterization and leveraging of said characteristics in the fictional space.



OK, so there are two possiblities about my character. Either I have some sort of established notion of 'piety' or other character trait that would lead me to make the move 'Respect the Moon Goddess' or I don't. If I do then it either came about purely by chance WRT this encounter, or it was planned with this eventuality in mind (due to some foreknowledge by the player of what the GM was planning).

So, either I picked the trait and got luck that it was applicable to something - I see no agency here, it is just luck. Or I picked the trait because the GM's story made it useful and I knew that - Again no agency, I'm just responding to queues. Or thirdly I didn't pick it, in which case how my character acts is purely based on what I think will work in this situation. Here I have agency, but I'm just reacting. Sure, I could say "damn the drow, your Goddess rots! and fireball them." That seems like mostly a tactical choice which is explained 'after the fact' by some RP color. I don't see RP being strongly tied to where things go from here, pawn stance would work as well.

Again, this all assumes that the GM's choice of elements here came before anything the player did or expressed. If the player made her character a Moon Goddess worshipper and then used Discern Realities to make something about the drow position useful to her (one of the DR options) and the GM responded with the Moon Goddess thing, NOW I see real high level agency! The player wanted Moon Goddess stuff to matter, and she got it!


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Do you know what a Belief is in Burning Wheel? What role it plays in the game? What effect (if any) it has on the player's characterisation of his/her PC?



Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.


----------



## FrogReaver

delete. Phone jumped back to previous page and thought it was a new quote


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true.  Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?



Actually, you restate it in an absolutely incorrect manner and then go forth.  You haven't dealt fairly with any of the examples given, you just make up what you think they mean and then argue that.  It's blatantly obvious to anyone that knows the games or similar styles of games and only convincing to people who harbor similar opinions and ignorances to yourself.

And, it's perfectly fine to be ignorant of things you haven't had experience with.  It's unflattering if you continue to persist to pretend you do, especially after many posters pointing out your errors.  The old saw about remaining silent is useful here.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I can't roleplay my character's admiration of the sky visible overhead if the GM has told me my character is under a roof.
> 
> It's neither here no there that that doesn't bother you. My point is that it is a limit on the sort of agency you are pointing to - ie the ability portray your character's feelings.



This was addressed in depth like 1 page ago...


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> Actually, thinking on this a moment more, your reaction is like going to a birthday party featuring cake and ice cream, then being asked what kind of cake you like and what flavor ice cream you like, then exclaiming when served cake and ice cream, "Well, this is a surprise, there's no way I could have seen this coming, it's a total gotcha!



Nope it's like checking to see if an ancient sword of alien make found in an illithid lair is magical and because my roll to see if it's magical failed... it's actually sentient and reaches out with magical psychic powers and feeds on my mind...  Yeah I guess being in an illithid lair and it being of alien make COULD foreshadow a failed inspection will lead to being mind drained by a sentient sword.... I guess... if you say so...


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Nope it's like checking to see if an ancient sword of alien make found in an illithid lair is magical and because my roll to see if it's magical failed... it's actually sentient and reaches out with magical psychic powers and feeds on my mind...  Yeah I guess being in an illithid lair and it being of alien make COULD foreshadow a failed inspection will lead to being mind drained by a sentient sword.... I guess...



If you honestly think so, then either I've failed to demonstrate through two posts or you're set on maintaining your initial assumption.  

To use your example, if the player was exploring a Illithid lair and I described an ancient sword of alien make, the way that we'd get from this to where the player was being drained by a sentient sword would be if the setting information had lots of horrible, soul draining, sentient things, especially in Illithid lairs (I mean, you said you'd played Blades before, so clearly you're aware of the setting of a haunted city with lots of horrible demons, devils, ghosts, leviathans, and occult things, right?).  Then, the player would have to say, "I'm interested in figuring out if that sword is magical," knowing that "magical" in this setting is usually bad news.  Then, the player would have to say, "I'm trying to attune to the sword and feel if it's magical by opening myself up to it," again, knowing that magical things can be very bad news.  Then, the player has to fail the check.  At which point, the GM says, "hey, yeah, it is a magical sword, but it's the bad kind, and it kinda wants to drain your soul, like, you know, it somewhat common in this setting of magical swords, what do you do?"  Then, the player has to fail to get away from the sword, and so the magical soul sucking starts.

Again, the gates here are background setting details that indicate occult things are usually very dangerous.  Further background details that you're in a haunted manor that belonged to one of the head creepy guys around.  Then you get a creepy description of a portrait.  The the player CHOOSES to make this interaction about the occult, knowing all of the above.  Then the player CHOOSES to interact in a way that directly puts them in contact with the occult thing in a way that's dangerous (again, known from the action description).  And then, when they fail, the fact it's a bad thing -- foreshadowed heavily already -- is confirmed, which changes the situation from the intent to find a benign occult item to having to deal with a hostile occult item.

Seriously, if you're claiming this looks at all like your strawman of it after it's explained again, I really can't assist you, and think that whatever experience you had with Blades must now be partially your fault -- you clearly haven't accepted any of the paradigms of play necessary to play the game.


----------



## pemerton

Classic Traveller was published in 1977. Characters in that game have a stat called Intelligence. At the beginning of the PC gen process it can range from 2 to 12 (depending on the roll of two dice). By the end of that process it can range from 1 to 15. During play it _may _go up (eg if a PC undergoes high-tech brain enhancement) and also _may_ go down (mostly if a PC fails aging rolls). If it ever reaches zero then the PCs is suffering a health crisis of some sort and may die.

Intelligence is described in the rules (Book 1, p 4): "_Intelligence_ corresponds to IQ".

There is also an Education stat, which corresponds (Book 1, p 4) to "the highest level of schooling attained".

Traveller does not have any general framework for transforming stat values into adjustments in action resolution (in this way it differs from a number of systems, including D&D from 3E onwards, Rolemaster and its cousins like MERP and HARP, RuneQuest and other BRP systems, etc). In given situations the referee may impose a modification that is extrapolated from a stat value.

A player is also expected to roleplay his/her PC - including characterisation, actions declared, etc - in a way that reflects his/her stats.

In our current campaign we have had two PCs  with striking contrasts of INT and EDU - a retired soldier with INT 3 and EDU 9 and a former Imperial Naval officer with INT 2 and EDU 10 and a number of technical skills. In each case the way this PC has been portrayed has been as _not very bright but having excellent knowledge of all the training and procedural manuals_.

My reason for spelling out this example is to make the point that there is a _long_ history in RPGing of expecting players to be prepared to play characters whose mental lives differ from their own.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> All that aside though, if the BitD GM is making this all up on the fly dependent on the roll at the time... how does he telegraph to the players what the consequences of a failed roll will be before they choose to go for it?  Yes there are some restrictions on the GM's choice but they are broad enough that there still could be numerous consequences arising from the same action dependent upon what the player rolls.  Is this what playing to find out means because if so it seems one's ability to make a meaningful choice is reduced since one cannot know the consequences for ones actions until the roll is made.



So, you are pointing out something that is material. That is, if there is no pre-established context, then what do different declarations of consequences actually mean? You could look to a few places for that:
1) Genre - waking up a Shoggoth is BAD, encounting a Fungi From Yuggoth not so bad, encountering a member of the Great Race of Yith probably least risky of the three.
2) Pre-established facts - Lord Shudderstone is to be feared, crossing him is not cool.
3) Agreement - The consequences of this are going to be real bad if you fail (now make up something out of whole cloth).
4) Revelation - That drug you took last week? Its actually mutating your DNA, this is dangerous

The Player could also be allowed to make up the consequences (ask questions in DW could accomplish this quite handily).

Obviously we don't know how bad any of these situations are going to turn out to be IN PRACTICE. That's what we play to find out. Still, you can use these kinds of techniques to create 'hard choices' for players, which is generally what most games are aiming for.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.



Right. So you're just making stuff up. This is why @chaochou and I are finding it hard to take your claims seriously.

I have actually posted, multiple times in this thread, that it _did not_ affect the players portrayal of his PC. And I was there.

If you do a search using the site Search function on "pemerton" as poster and "Force of Will" as keyword you'll be able to find the relevant posts in this thread and read them.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> if the BitD GM is making this all up on the fly dependent on the roll at the time... how does he telegraph to the players what the consequences of a failed roll will be before they choose to go for it?



I have not read the BitD rulebook. I know that the system was, in a general sense, inspired by Apocalypse World. And John Harper has posted many blogs about AW - I linked to one just upthread in which he discusses consequences.

So I'm going to guess that the "telegraphing" in BitD works very much as it does in AW. And AW at least has pages of discussion of principle and illustration of them being used in play to address this point.

The most basic of those principles is that hard moves build on soft moves.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> My reason for spelling out this example is to make the point that there is a _long_ history in RPGing of expecting players to be prepared to play characters whose mental lives differ from their own.



Yes, and? It is basically the point of roleplaying.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, and? It is basically the point of roleplaying.



Well, upthread some posters seemed to be saying that _a GM-established consequence that my PC is in love with the Queen_ was a burden or limitation on roleplaying.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Right. So you're just making stuff up. This is why @chaochou and I are finding it hard to take your claims seriously.
> 
> I have actually posted, multiple times in this thread, that it _did not_ affect the players portrayal of his PC. And I was there.
> 
> If you do a search using the site Search function on "pemerton" as poster and "Force of Will" as keyword you'll be able to find the relevant posts in this thread and read them.



I read it (also glanced the BW rulebook) and I still do not understand how these beliefs wouldn't affect how the PC is portrayed. They seem to be foundational values of the character, so it would be pretty terrible roleplaying if they wouldn't show in the roleplay in any way.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Well, upthread some posters seemed to be saying that _a GM-established consequence that my PC is in love with the Queen_ was a burden or limitation on roleplaying.



Yes it is. And if I chose this as my character's emotional state myself it wouldn't. Like if I choose what my character does I have agency but if the GM chooses what my character does I have way less. Pretty basic, right?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes it is. And if I chose this as my character's emotional state myself it wouldn't. Like if I choose what my character does I have agency but if the GM chooses what my character does I have way less. Pretty basic, right?



In Classic Traveller I don't get to choose my PC's INT or EDU. It is all determined randomly, via initial stat generation and then the "lifepath" system.

That was the point of my post not far upthread, which you seemed to find unremarkable.

Is there a difference between _I (as my PC) am not very bright _and _I (as my PC) am in love with the Queen_ that I'm missing?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> In Classic Traveller I don't get to choose my PC's INT or EDU. It is all determined randomly, via initial stat generation and then the "lifepath" system.



How unfortunate. I definitely wouldn't like that, I hate random character generation. Though it is still not quite the same thing than my issue with the 'impose love' thing, albeit not completely unrelated either.



pemerton said:


> Is there a difference between _I (as my PC) am not very bright _and _I (as my PC) am in love with the Queen_ that I'm missing?



In this specific instance it is how we arrived to that situation and when. 

Presumably the character was randomly generated some time before the game, and I've had plenty of time to form my mental image of that character to make it work in my head (and if I couldn't, I hopefully would have an option to say, 'no, this is not the sort of character I want to play.') But as least as the 'impose love' scenario was originally described, it was happening during the game, and if that is not working for me at that moment, then that's a problem, I don't have several days there to get my mind in the right place. Though what you said earlier about the GM 'selling' the idea applies. It is perfectly possible that the GM could manage to present the situation so that it would not be jarring (though unless they're psychic, far from guaranteed.) But if they could do that, then the mechanic was unnecessary in the first place. 

Furthermore, character creation and actual play are generally treated as separate things. Even if I would accept the lack of agency in character generation and be OK with creating a random character, it doesn't mean I would accept lack of agency over my character in the actual play.


----------



## Campbell

So I think social expectations are often disregarded in our analysis of play where in actual play they are an overwhelming part of play (even if we do not speak on them).  What we can expect from the people we play with and when it is socially acceptable to call someone else out on their own play are fundamental. 

For me personally a big part of what games like Exalted 2e, Masks and Monsterhearts offer is social permission to play out those more emotionally tumultuous scenes. It creates a social currency that would otherwise not be there. Likewise the presence of character specific carrots and sticks in moves like Go Aggro and Seduce or Manipulate in Apocalypse World helps to create a social environment where we can more safely have these tense exchanges between player characters. It gives us permission to act in ways that go against our encultured sense of how tabletop RPGs are played.


----------



## chaochou

FrogReaver said:


> You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true.  Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?



No, you don’t analyze it as if it were true. You gainsay what you are told. Big difference.The moment you are told nothing your empty posturing is revealed.

So again, show us from examples of your own play the claims you are making with regard agency in Monsterhearts or Burning Wheel. Your choice.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> Nope it's like checking to see if an ancient sword of alien make found in an illithid lair is magical and because my roll to see if it's magical failed... it's actually sentient and reaches out with magical psychic powers and feeds on my mind...  Yeah I guess being in an illithid lair and it being of alien make COULD foreshadow a failed inspection will lead to being mind drained by a sentient sword.... I guess... if you say so...



Isn't this all pretty much like a D&D game where the PCs hear there's a ravine filled with monster-infested caves. They go there, and they enter the first cave, and there are, wait for it.... MONSTERS! Not only that, the monsters are at least mildly aggressive and fairly dangerous to the level 1 PCs. Nobody could complain about this, and I think the same is true for this BitD scenario (never played myself, but it sounds pretty genre appropriate, etc.). 

I mean, the BitD example illustrates a lot more than just this, because the B2 example above is stock, the PCs get to choose exactly one main activity, going to the Caves of Chaos and fighting monsters. The type, number, motives, etc. of said monsters, and the treasure they possess is totally defined by the B2 module (or the DM could alter it, then the DM). Nothing in the PCs backstory, personalities, etc. is going to alter that one bit. In the BitD example the player drove the whole thing. It was about what he wanted it to be about (within the limits of genre and fiction).


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I have not read the BitD rulebook. I know that the system was, in a general sense, inspired by Apocalypse World. And John Harper has posted many blogs about AW - I linked to one just upthread in which he discusses consequences.
> 
> So I'm going to guess that the "telegraphing" in BitD works very much as it does in AW. And AW at least has pages of discussion of principle and illustration of them being used in play to address this point.
> 
> The most basic of those principles is that hard moves build on soft moves.




Yes, it's largely the same in Blades, although there aren't soft and hard moves, per se. But you should first establish a threat, and then follow through. So if a PC attempts to skirmish with an enemy, and the player's roll indicates a consequence, then perhaps another foe exits from a nearby room, gun drawn and ready to shoot. Then you say "what do you do?" and the player has to decide how the character is to proceed, knowing that he's at risk of being shot.

Hastily drawn, but I think you get it. The big thing is to follow the fiction. They always say "fiction first" in the actual plays that I watched with Harper teaching the game to the players.


----------



## Imaro

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Isn't this all pretty much like a D&D game where the PCs hear there's a ravine filled with monster-infested caves. They go there, and they enter the first cave, and there are, wait for it.... MONSTERS! Not only that, the monsters are at least mildly aggressive and fairly dangerous to the level 1 PCs. Nobody could complain about this, and I think the same is true for this BitD scenario (never played myself, but it sounds pretty genre appropriate, etc.).
> 
> I mean, the BitD example illustrates a lot more than just this, because the B2 example above is stock, the PCs get to choose exactly one main activity, going to the Caves of Chaos and fighting monsters. The type, number, motives, etc. of said monsters, and the treasure they possess is totally defined by the B2 module (or the DM could alter it, then the DM). Nothing in the PCs backstory, personalities, etc. is going to alter that one bit. In the BitD example the player drove the whole thing. It was about what he wanted it to be about (within the limits of genre and fiction).




Yes... very much like D&D.

Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about.  The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend.   Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially  leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.

Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact.  Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system.  That's my point.  What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires.  The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.


----------



## prabe

Imaro said:


> Yes... very much like D&D.
> 
> Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about.  The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend.   Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially  leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.
> 
> Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact.  Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system.  That's my point.  What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires.  The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.



I'm sure you'll hear from others, here, and I'm a strange one to be defending Blades in the Dark (I actively, strongly dislike it), but the play example you're responding to seems as though the game is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and it's doing it very differently from D&D.

Everything bad that happened to the characters in the play happened because they failed (or got success-with-complication) at declared tasks. Those complications are directly derived from what the PCs said they were looking for and the skills (or whatever they are in Blades) they used.

So, the events of the game are deriving exactly from the characters' actions and intents and the results of the dice. Before checks were made, the portrait was nothing more than creepy-ish set-dressing (meaning no disrespect to the GM). So, the characters aren't getting what they want because they didn't roll well enough (because they didn't choose the right skills, apparently). While the results aren't wildly unlike a D&D trap, the process is almost entirely opposite.

That's probably not going to be very helpful to you. Sorry.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> @Imaro
> 
> Actually, thinking on this a moment more, your reaction is like going to a birthday party featuring cake and ice cream, then being asked what kind of cake you like and what flavor ice cream you like, then exclaiming when served cake and ice cream, "Well, this is a surprise, there's no way I could have seen this coming, it's a total gotcha!"



Im just skimming and don’t have time for more thoughts (I was going to put together a post on Cloaks/Coats and how they might manifest in different systems - Mouse Guard, Dogs in the Vineyard - but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble at this point), but I do want to comment on this.

@Imaro 

Does this exchange you’re having with @Ovinomancer remind you of conversations you and I had in the past on 4e Skill Challenges? The one with the Gorge being a complication of a failed navigation check?

Just like in that old thread, I’m completekg dumbfounded by your reply to Ovinomancer above. His play excerpt is (a) absolutely 100 % in line with coherent Blades playing and GMing in every way, (b) the Complication is very good and appropriate GMing, (c) and how in the world are you coming to the conclusion that the play loop (including the player’s decision-point and subsequent conversation and action declaration) wasn’t informed and sensibly resolved? Everything about this situation screams coherent and inferable from the player’s side! The moment I began reading the excerpt I knew what the complication was going to be! So if there is any charge to be made it’s that the Complication was “too genre cliche! (Which I don’t think it was...but if someone is going to cry foul, that is the side of the continuum to land on...not it’s an unintuitive “gotcha”)”

This is so eerily like out exchange those years ago.


----------



## Imaro

The other thing I find kind of dissonant about BitD is that it claims that players


Manbearcat said:


> Im just skimming and don’t have time for more thoughts (I was going to put together a post on Cloaks/Coats and how they might manifest in different systems - Mouse Guard, Dogs in the Vineyard - but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble at this point), but I do want to comment on this.
> 
> @Imaro
> 
> Does this exchange you’re having with @Ovinomancer remind you of conversations you and I had in the past on 4e Skill Challenges? The one with the Gorge being a complication of a failed navigation check?
> 
> Just like in that old thread, I’m completekg dumbfounded by your reply to Ovinomancer above. His play excerpt is (a) absolutely 100 % in line with coherent Blades playing and GMing in every way, (b) the Complication is very good and appropriate GMing, (c) and how in the world are you coming to the conclusion that the play loop (including the player’s decision-point and subsequent conversation and action declaration) wasn’t informed and sensibly resolved? Everything about this situation screams coherent and inferable from the player’s side! The moment I began reading the excerpt I knew what the complication was going to be! So if there is any charge to be made it’s that the Complication was “too genre cliche! (Which I don’t think it was...but if someone is going to cry foul, that is the side of the continuum to land on...not it’s an unintuitive “gotcha”)”
> 
> This is so eerily like out exchange those years ago.




Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me.  Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???

EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> Yes... very much like D&D.
> 
> Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about.  The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend.   Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially  leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.
> 
> Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact.  Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system.  That's my point.  What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires.  The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.



Well, I think it would be a pretty uninteresting game if you didn't have to take some risks, right? I mean, in B2 there is a very real chance of the PCs dying. I doubt their goal was to go jump in some caves and get turned into stew by some orcs! This is kind of par for the course in RPGs. The PC in BitD wanted to get a painting that was somehow 'spiritual' or something and give it to his friend, which I assume would produce some advantage for him or his crew. Instead he got a bit of damage, and the other PC got some too. That was a bit of bad luck on their part, but note that the first failed check was one where the player KNEW it was hard to succeed, he was doing something he had ZERO ability at. Everything else flowed from his choice to do that.

So, I see this as all entirely fiction driven by an action taken by a PC that was risky in order to get a reward, failing, and then paying a consequence (which seems like it was actually not that big, though my lack of detailed knowledge of BitD makes that a little unclear to me). 

Also my understanding of BitD is that the setting is kind of a 'crapsack world' type of deal. Ultimately the trajectory of the game is vastly likely to lead to the PCs and their crew getting wiped out or perhaps at best 'crash landing' into some not too horrible fate. I don't think you get to become the equivalent of high level D&D characters that don't have to take crap from anyone and live high on the hog. Maybe there is such a potential outcome, I don't know for 100%, but it does not sound that way...


----------



## prabe

Imaro said:


> Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me. Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???
> 
> EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.



So, I haven't ever _played_ Blades, but every single step in that particular downward spiral made sense to me, having read the rules (and talked about with people here). That said, I don't disagree with you that the character exhibited a similar helplessness to a D&D character in a similar situation.


----------



## Imaro

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think it would be a pretty uninteresting game if you didn't have to take some risks, right? I mean, in B2 there is a very real chance of the PCs dying. I doubt their goal was to go jump in some caves and get turned into stew by some orcs! This is kind of par for the course in RPGs. The PC in BitD wanted to get a painting that was somehow 'spiritual' or something and give it to his friend, which I assume would produce some advantage for him or his crew. Instead he got a bit of damage, and the other PC got some too. That was a bit of bad luck on their part, but note that the first failed check was one where the player KNEW it was hard to succeed, he was doing something he had ZERO ability at. Everything else flowed from his choice to do that.
> 
> So, I see this as all entirely fiction driven by an action taken by a PC that was risky in order to get a reward, failing, and then paying a consequence (which seems like it was actually not that big, though my lack of detailed knowledge of BitD makes that a little unclear to me).
> 
> Also my understanding of BitD is that the setting is kind of a 'crapsack world' type of deal. Ultimately the trajectory of the game is vastly likely to lead to the PCs and their crew getting wiped out or perhaps at best 'crash landing' into some not too horrible fate. I don't think you get to become the equivalent of high level D&D characters that don't have to take crap from anyone and live high on the hog. Maybe there is such a potential outcome, I don't know for 100%, but it does not sound that way...




@AbdulAlhazred I have no issues with your analyzation of the game above, In fact it pretty much aligns with how I am reading what happened as well.  My issue is with 2 things specifically, the claim that the outcome for failure was foreshadowed to the point that the player knew his risk vs his reward.  If the player had known the risk was a soul-sucking painting... or even an attack by the painting would he have made the same choice?  I don't know, but if you have no clue what the outcome of failure will be outside of...some bad stuff...does that diminish the meaningfulness of that decision?  Again I don't know but if the GM is making it up on the fly after the roll it kind of feels that way to me.

My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session.  The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung.  PC and party attacked.  I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> The other thing I find kind of dissonant about BitD is that it claims that players
> 
> 
> Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me.  Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???
> 
> EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.



Except in D&D the PCs are, as I was pointing out in my B2 example, engaged with some GM-derived (or module) content. So any trap they ran into was not elicited because of what they wanted to engage in. It might e that it was encountered because they chose the most interesting available content to play with, and it turned out to be trapped. 

I mean, this situation might not have been engaging some big central concern of the character. It sounds like he was kind of just scrounging for stuff, but his goal could as easily have been to find his long lost brother and it would have worked the same....


----------



## Imaro

prabe said:


> So, I haven't ever _played_ Blades, but every single step in that particular downward spiral made sense to me, having read the rules (and talked about with people here). That said, I don't disagree with you that the character exhibited a similar helplessness to a D&D character in a similar situation.




I just want to be clear... I'm not arguing that the steps of play didn't make logical sense.  I'm asking whether the player in that moment had sufficient information to weigh what he would get from delivering the portrait to his friend vs. the consequences he would suffer for failing...to determine if it was magical I guess.  That's my hang up.  Yes a soul sucking painting, is perfectly reasonable in an immortals haunted mansion... but was there enough information given for the player to understand that was a possibility?  Otherwise how is it any different form the D&D traps that were being disparaged earlier in this thread?


----------



## prabe

Imaro said:


> My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session. The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung. PC and party attacked. I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.



I think you're missing that--if I understand correctly--the portrait wasn't magical until the check was made. It wasn't a trap until the player failed the check.


----------



## prabe

Imaro said:


> I just want to be clear... I'm not arguing that the steps of play didn't make logical sense.  I'm asking whether the player in that moment had sufficient information to weigh what he would get from delivering the portrait to his friend vs. the consequences he would suffer for failing...to determine if it was magical I guess.  That's my hang up.  Yes a soul sucking painting, is perfectly reasonable in an immortals haunted mansion... but was there enough information given for the player to understand that was a possibility?  Otherwise how is it any different form the D&D traps that were being disparaged earlier in this thread?



I believe that in Blades, by checking for it to be magical, you are setting up the possibility for it to be cursed/trapped/in any event bad news, and the expectation is that the players are aware of this.


----------



## Imaro

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Except in D&D the PCs are, as I was pointing out in my B2 example, engaged with some GM-derived (or module) content. So any trap they ran into was not elicited because of what they wanted to engage in. It might e that it was encountered because they chose the most interesting available content to play with, and it turned out to be trapped.



Yes but even here they are choosing to engage with it. In both situations there is a choice to engage.  That is agency, especially if we are agreeing that types of agency are either irrelevant or don't exist.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I mean, this situation might not have been engaging some big central concern of the character. It sounds like he was kind of just scrounging for stuff, but his goal could as easily have been to find his long lost brother and it would have worked the same....



But this is just setting goals and even in an adventure path, once the players have agreed to play it they can choose goals for their characters in line with said adventuring path.  Again I'm stumped by what the actual difference is unless we are now positing that in a traditional AP the olayers are being forced to play and engage with things they don't want to... I don't think that's what is being argued.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> The other thing I find kind of dissonant about BitD is that it claims that players
> 
> 
> Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me.  Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???
> 
> EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.



Yeah. 

Are you familiar with the setting tropes and the genre of the game?

The Ghost Field is kind of like the Ethereal Plane; it’s the medium where Ghosts, Specters, etc reside. Ghosts are tortured, angry poltergeist man that freedom the life essence of the living. The PC tried to Attune to the Ghost Field. The possessed painting went Samara on him (this could be Harm or Trauma). No surprise at all. It could have gone one of a few ways but the Complication was overwhelmingly was going to be about a poltergeist manifestation, possession, or feeding on the essence of the Attune-ey.


----------



## Imaro

prabe said:


> I think you're missing that--if I understand correctly--the portrait wasn't magical until the check was made. It wasn't a trap until the player failed the check.



But it was still the GM who decided a roll was possible...


----------



## prabe

Imaro said:


> But it was still the GM who decided a roll was possible...



If I remember right, it was the player who asked for it, and "yes" would have been too easy (or otherwise inappropriate, and in any event the only other option).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> @AbdulAlhazred I have no issues with your analyzation of the game above, In fact it pretty much aligns with how I am reading what happened as well.  My issue is with 2 things specifically, the claim that the outcome for failure was foreshadowed to the point that the player knew his risk vs his reward.  If the player had known the risk was a soul-sucking painting... or even an attack by the painting would he have made the same choice?  I don't know, but if you have no clue what the outcome of failure will be outside of...some bad stuff...does that diminish the meaningfulness of that decision?  Again I don't know but if the GM is making it up on the fly after the roll it kind of feels that way to me.
> 
> My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session.  The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung.  PC and party attacked.  I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.



Well, I think the consequences of messing with a haunted painting were pretty predictable. I agree, I don't know what the EXACT fictional details are likely to be, never having read BitD. Still, it seemed pretty genre appropriate. I am also guessing the mechanical implications of the fallout from that were in line with what might have been gained (again, kind of guessing, but it seems likely).

So, I think the answer to the second question is that the player could have chosen other sorts of actions. He could have looted some stuff from the place, or I dunno, something. He picked his battle. The fiction could very well have emerged from some D&D-esque type of process, but this type of thing emerges EVERY TIME from something like BitD. It is just as likely the D&D result would have been, "nothing of interest here at all, the painting is worth 10gp." That sort of result might happen in BitD also if the player didn't engage any mechanics, but in that case the game is simply not designed to focus on something that uninteresting. Once you start rolling dice in a game like BitD, stuff gonna happen!


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Yeah.
> 
> Are you familiar with the setting tropes and the genre of the game?
> 
> The Ghost Field is kind of like the Ethereal Plane; it’s the medium where Ghosts, Specters, etc reside. Ghosts are tortured, angry poltergeist man that freedom the life essence of the living. The PC tried to Attune to the Ghost Field. The possessed painting went Samara on him (this could be Harm or Trauma). No surprise at all. It could have gone one of a few ways but the Complication was overwhelmingly was going to be about a poltergeist manifestation, possession, or feeding on the essence of the Attune-ey.




I'm familiar with the setting I've played BitD a couple of years ago as a one shot.  You right here have given 3 different possibilities... now let's add to that it could have been guards in the estate that walked in on the character as he was trying to attune to the portrait, perhaps attuning to the portrait momentarily sent a signal for other ghosts out from the estate and they would be arriving in the next scene, perhaps the spirit in the portrait makes the master aware of intruders... or maybe.... well my point is I see a ton of possibilities in that set up and not all of them revolve around poltergeist manifestation, possession or feeding on the essence of the attune-ey.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> So, I haven't ever _played_ Blades, but every single step in that particular downward spiral made sense to me, having read the rules (and talked about with people here). That said, I don't disagree with you that the character exhibited a similar helplessness to a D&D character in a similar situation.




Can you describe what you mean by “helpless” here? Are you talking about mechanically (because there are a host of procedures and player-side resources that can be brought to bear in this situation - both pre and post Complication - to mitigate the fallout)? Are you mate saying that you feel like the PC was working from an information deficit in their decision-point? Something else?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I think you're missing that--if I understand correctly--the portrait wasn't magical until the check was made. It wasn't a trap until the player failed the check.



Yes, sure. But so what? All it means that it really didn't matter which object they poked, once they chose to poke _something_ in a manner that required a roll it meant it could explode on their face. I really don't see this as increase of agency, possibly even the opposite.


----------



## Imaro

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think the consequences of messing with a haunted painting were pretty predictable. I agree, I don't know what the EXACT fictional details are likely to be, never having read BitD. Still, it seemed pretty genre appropriate. I am also guessing the mechanical implications of the fallout from that were in line with what might have been gained (again, kind of guessing, but it seems likely).
> 
> So, I think the answer to the second question is that the player could have chosen other sorts of actions. He could have looted some stuff from the place, or I dunno, something. He picked his battle. The fiction could very well have emerged from some D&D-esque type of process, but this type of thing emerges EVERY TIME from something like BitD. It is just as likely the D&D result would have been, "nothing of interest here at all, the painting is worth 10gp." That sort of result might happen in BitD also if the player didn't engage any mechanics, but in that case the game is simply not designed to focus on something that uninteresting. Once you start rolling dice in a game like BitD, stuff gonna happen!



Well that could also happen if the GM in BitD decides no roll is necessary so again whether it's decided on the fly or pre-planned... it's still a GM/DM call insofar as agency is concerned.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> I'm familiar with the setting I've played BitD a couple of years ago as a one shot.  You right here have given 3 different possibilities... now let's add to that it could have been guards in the estate that walked in on the character as he was trying to attune to the portrait, perhaps attuning to the portrait momentarily sent a signal for other ghosts out from the estate and they would be arriving in the next scene, perhaps the spirit in the portrait makes the master aware of intruders... or maybe.... well my point is I see a ton of possibilities in that set up and not all of them revolve around poltergeist manifestation, possession or feeding on the essence of the attune-ey.



I don’t disagree. There are other possibilities that he could have gone with but from the excerpt, this was best practices GMing.

He “asked questions and used the answers” and “followed the lead of the player.” The player clearly signaled what they wanted out of this conflict. It’s actually a very good example of the “agency intangibles” that exist in a game like Blades (by a GM doing their job per the system’s principles).


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Can you describe what you mean by “helpless” here? Are you talking about mechanically (because there are a host of procedures and player-side resources that can be brought to bear in this situation - both pre and post Complication - to mitigate the fallout)? Are you mate saying that you feel like the PC was working from an information deficit in their decision-point? Something else?



I mean that in the same way the PC in the D&D dungeon can't control what blows up in their face (though they can maybe mitigate the risks with careful play) the PC in the BitD Mansion can't control what blows up in their face (though they can mitigate the risks). I mean, if complications don't accrue, BitD fails to work--they're the "beating heart" of the game, after all; so, the game weights the odds heavily toward ensuring they happen. Eventually someone will roll something other than an uncomplicated success, and BOOM.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think the consequences of messing with a haunted painting were pretty predictable. I agree, I don't know what the EXACT fictional details are likely to be, never having read BitD. Still, it seemed pretty genre appropriate. I am also guessing the mechanical implications of the fallout from that were in line with what might have been gained (again, kind of guessing, but it seems likely).
> 
> So, I think the answer to the second question is that the player could have chosen other sorts of actions. He could have looted some stuff from the place, or I dunno, something. He picked his battle. The fiction could very well have emerged from some D&D-esque type of process, but this type of thing emerges EVERY TIME from something like BitD. It is just as likely the D&D result would have been, "nothing of interest here at all, the painting is worth 10gp." That sort of result might happen in BitD also if the player didn't engage any mechanics, but in that case the game is simply not designed to focus on something that uninteresting. Once you start rolling dice in a game like BitD, stuff gonna happen!



If it happens everything regardless of what the the player chooses is that really agency?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Imaro said:


> But it was still the GM who decided a roll was possible...




Not exactly. The player said he wanted to check the painting, and the player decided to use Attune to do so. As @Manbearcat explained, that’s an inherently dangerous thing to do. So the player would know what kind of possible consequences they’d be facing.

Then, the GM determines Position and Effect, with the Position indicating the severity if any possible consequences. So if it was Controlled, it would be minimal risk, Risky would be a standard level of risk, and Desperate would indicate extreme risk. 

Then the player decides to proceed or not, with all that in mind. They can decide “this is way too dangerous” and back off, or they can follow through. 

How is that not informed?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> @AbdulAlhazred I have no issues with your analyzation of the game above, In fact it pretty much aligns with how I am reading what happened as well.  My issue is with 2 things specifically, the claim that the outcome for failure was foreshadowed to the point that the player knew his risk vs his reward.  If the player had known the risk was a soul-sucking painting... or even an attack by the painting would he have made the same choice?  I don't know, but if you have no clue what the outcome of failure will be outside of...some bad stuff...does that diminish the meaningfulness of that decision?  Again I don't know but if the GM is making it up on the fly after the roll it kind of feels that way to me.
> 
> My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session.  The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung.  PC and party attacked.  I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.



No, this is utterly incorrect, and you've missed some key parts of the explanation.  Not that I didn't explain them -- you failed to attach significance to them because you're operating from the point of view of the play your used to.

In this example, the painting started as mere color -- a descriptive element to reinforce the theme of a haunted, abandoned manor house.  It was the player's interest that made it more, and the player's choices that determined how that fiction would flow.  When the player asked after the painting, I asked what they were interested in.  They wanted something their friend at the University would value, and that friend liked occult things, so only at this point did the painting begin to resolve into something more that color -- it was the player's intent that did this.  Since the player was in the process of trying to switch their vice from gambling (fighting) to obligation (University), this was a major thing for the PC and so requires testing if you're following the game rules and principles.  Had the player stated they were looking for something valuable to pawn, then we'd have gone down that route, and I might have said sure, 2 coins, but it's bulky, you'll have to ditch some equipment, mark 1 slot and you have a 2 coin treasure.  But, no, the player wanted something occult, and they wanted it to be significant enough to move towards their goal of switching vices (had this succeeded, the player could have used it for a few free slices of that particular clock).  THEN the player choose how they were going to tell, and took a very risky action of a 0 dice Attune attempt -- directly reaching out to the ghost field, a dangerous activity in better conditions, to do so.  Why did they do this?  Because this was important to that character and the player enjoys taking risks (Blades is almost like enabling this player!).  So, this entire line was led by the players choices.  Change one of those choices and the result changes, dramatically.

As for different consequences, yes, I could have, but I was bound to honor the intent of the action -- the action the player chose involved the ghost field, so consequences should flow from this.  Further, this was one of the first actions of the score and the Engagement roll had been very successful, so I was bound to not increase risk or consequence without first shifting the position, which is why there was a step between the painting going hostile and the player suffering any consequence.  I think I did explain this poorly -- the player's intent with their action wasn't to flee, but to successfully escape the power of the painting while still maintaining the painting.  They tried to rip it from the wall under the theory this would disrupt the effect if it wasn't grounded into the haunted house's power.  And, had they succeeded, that's exactly what would have happened.  But, they failed, so they didn't rip it from the wall nor did they escape, and Harm was leveled.  Had they just chosen to run and abandon their intent with the painting, that feels to me like a sufficient failure already -- they didn't get what they want, but they're not hurt.

All that said, it is tiring to try to present a play example that illustrates a number of differences from traditional play and have the other side insist that, while they have either no or almost no (a one-shot a few years ago?) experience with the system that they can definitively tell it's just like the games they play.  It's not.  I mean, I run 5e -- we're rotating back to it after the holiday break -- alongside Blades, so maybe, just maybe, I'm in a position to be actually able to note the differences.  It's certainly frustrating to be gainsaid by someone that doesn't even understand the core principle of how Blades play operates on player choices as if they have a better understanding thanks to a one-shot experience a few years ago than I do, who ran it (almost) every week for the last 8 months or so.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> If it happens everything regardless of what the the player chooses is that really agency?



Again you show that you don't understand what's happening.  This is the kind of play espoused by @Lanefan, and others who value sandbox play where PCs aren't special.  It's the exact opposite in games like Blades -- nothing happens unless the players choose.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Well that could also happen if the GM in BitD decides no roll is necessary so again whether it's decided on the fly or pre-planned... it's still a GM/DM call insofar as agency is concerned.




This is not true.  Non of this is arbitrary or GM discretion.  There are conditions that trigger an Action Roll (1 and 3 below are both in play here) specifically and Goals, Actions, and Principles that guide the GM broadly.



> BitD p 163 TRIGGERING THE ACTION ROLL
> 
> 1)  Player character attempts a challenging action that might be dangerous or troublesome.
> 
> 3)  Someone grabs the dice and gets all excited about making a roll.
> 
> (2 isn't relevant here).




Goals, Actions, and Principles in play in this excerpt:



> BitD pages 187-196 RUNNING THE GAME
> 
> Play to find out what happens.
> 
> Bring Doskvol to life.
> 
> Ask Establishing/Provocative/Leading Questions > Provide Opportunities > Follow Their Lead.
> 
> Telegraph Trouble Before It Strikes (then) Follow Through.
> 
> Paint the World with a Haunted Brush.
> 
> Let Everything Flow from the Fiction
> 
> Don't Block.
> 
> Be Curious.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, sure. But so what? All it means that it really didn't matter which object they poked, once they chose to poke _something_ in a manner that required a roll it meant it could explode on their face. I really don't see this as increase of agency, possibly even the opposite.




You've just described the core play loop of Blades in the Dark; "choose to <do something> challenging, dangerous, troublesome, or signal to the GM that you're excited about this potential conflict, roll dice, and see if it "explodes in your face" (or not)."

As to agency (or "even the opposite"), who was following whose lead in @Ovinomancer 's play excerpt?  A sincere appraisal of that question takes "possibly even the opposite" behind the woodshed.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> You've just described the core play loop of Blades in the Dark; "choose to <do something> challenging, dangerous, troublesome, or signal to the GM that you're excited about this potential conflict, roll dice, and see if it "explodes in your face" (or not)."
> 
> As to agency (or "even the opposite"), who was following whose lead in @Ovinomancer 's play excerpt?  A sincere appraisal of that question takes "possibly even the opposite" behind the woodshed.



That being the core play loop of blades in the dark doesn't remove the criticism.  Nor does focusing on who initiated the situation.  There's no doubt there's a choice involved and the choice was the players - what challenging thing will I do?  But choice alone is something I think we all agree is not enough to provide agency.  It must be meaningful choice.  At the end of the day you are speaking about the challenging thing that was chosen as if that choice didn't actually matter.  Maybe there's some way which it does -  in which case I would love to hear that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> This is not true.  Non of this is arbitrary or GM discretion.  There are conditions that trigger an Action Roll (1 and 3 below are both in play here) specifically and Goals, Actions, and Principles that guide the GM broadly.
> 
> 
> 
> Goals, Actions, and Principles in play in this excerpt:



Determining what is challenging can be viewed as a subjective call.  A process that hinges on a subjective call is typically said to be the result of GM discretion.


----------



## FrogReaver

Imaro said:


> My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session.  The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung.  PC and party attacked.  I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.



If I recall the player introduced the painting and his action with the painting in the first place.  Essentially the player had the choice to make the story become about the player and the painting (though there's still a bit of a question over whether that's actually a meaningful enough choice to be called agency.)  But the rest of the interaction, I'm with you that I don't really see any agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Not exactly. The player said he wanted to check the painting, and the player decided to use Attune to do so. As @Manbearcat explained, that’s an inherently dangerous thing to do. So the player would know what kind of possible consequences they’d be facing.
> 
> Then, the GM determines Position and Effect, with the Position indicating the severity if any possible consequences. So if it was Controlled, it would be minimal risk, Risky would be a standard level of risk, and Desperate would indicate extreme risk.
> 
> Then the player decides to proceed or not, with all that in mind. They can decide “this is way too dangerous” and back off, or they can follow through.
> 
> How is that not informed?



I think we can agree that the player didn't know the exact consequence of his action ahead of time.  He may have knew it was dangerous and even had some idea of how severe the consequences would be of failure.  But if that's enough to make an informed decision then it further reinforces the criticism that the actual resulting fiction doesn't matter.  It's essentially window dressing as all that one needs to know about danger is the potential severity of the consequences.

While I'm sure it would be frowned upon, from what I am hearing one could play blades of the dark without ever making up a fictional story simply by invoking the mechanics in mechanical terms.

Player: "I'm going to do a desperate action"
DM: "Your consequence will be severe"
Player: "I rolled failure"
DM: "X happens, from now on Y is the effect"

I'm sure that's a rather simplified version as I'm sure there's some extra mechanics in there I'm not aware of - but it shouldn't be hard to step through the actual mechanics and end up in a similar but state.

I don't believe this would be possible with 5e D&D play as the DM must use the fictional positioning to determine when a roll is required in the first place.  Though I'm open to criticisms of that opinion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> That being the core play loop of blades in the dark doesn't remove the criticism.  Nor does focusing on who initiated the situation.  There's no doubt there's a choice involved and the choice was the players - what challenging thing will I do?  But choice alone is something I think we all agree is not enough to provide agency.  It must be meaningful choice.  At the end of the day you are speaking about the challenging thing that was chosen as if that choice didn't actually matter.  Maybe there's some way which it does -  in which case I would love to hear that.



It is a meaningful choice, because the player determines not just the action, but the success result of the action.  They also get to choose how that action is performed.  This step is different form D&D where the GM determines what the check is.  Here, the player does.  The GM then sets the risk and effect.  Effect is a measure of how much towards the player's intent this action will go --  usually you have standard effect, but you can have lesser effect, and great effect. Rarely you can have no effect (but the player has resources to improve this). These are constrained by the nature of the current fiction and the action you've declared -- the GM is not free to do whatever, and it's obvious if there's Force being used here.  Then the player can choose to bring additional resources to bear to alter the dice rolled, the position and effect, and so forth, usually by paying a cost or accepting more risk (you can improve effect by a step by worsening position by a step).  This entire loop is entirely player driven, and centered on what the player finds important about the scene or score.  The GM only has authorities to choose to call for a check, then set position and effect (subject to player modifications using the abovementioned resources), and any failure results or complications.  Everything else is on the player. 

This looks nothing like D&D play -- I run both, and can absolutely say this.  @hawkeyefan runs both, and he can chime in as well.


FrogReaver said:


> Determining what is challenging can be viewed as a subjective call.  A process that hinges on a subjective call is typically said to be the result of GM discretion.



Of course it's not entirely objective, but that doesn't mean it's arbitrary, either.  What's challenging is what the game is about -- it's usually blindingly obvious when you need a check, and good guidance is that if you're not sure, let it ride until you are.  The goal of the GM is to bring honest adversity to the PC's lives, and it's not hard to see when to do this.  If you're coming from a D&D background, though, it appears hard because you're still evaluating according to the wrong paradigms -- the kinds of things that happen in a Blades game don't look like normal D&D -- there's usually not choices about which way to go at T-intersections, for instance, because that's not something that the players are putting at risk.  That kind of thing is a function of GM driven games.


FrogReaver said:


> If I recall the player introduced the painting and his action with the painting in the first place.  Essentially the player had the choice to make the story become about the player and the painting (though there's still a bit of a question over whether that's actually a meaningful enough choice to be called agency.)  But the rest of the interaction, I'm with you that I don't really see any agency.



Nope.  I mean, it's right there, three times, you could look.   The painting was introduced by the GM as color.  The player did make it important, though.  If you're thinking that having the ability to make a thing important to the play of the game isn't agency, though, then I have no idea what definition of agency you're operating under -- it clearly doesn't value making a choice that is meaningful because choosing what's important to play is straight down the middle of that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I think we can agree that the player didn't know the exact consequence of his action ahead of time.  He may have knew it was dangerous and even had some idea of how severe the consequences would be of failure.  But if that's enough to make an informed decision then it further reinforces the criticism that the actual resulting fiction doesn't matter.  It's essentially window dressing as all that one needs to know about danger is the potential severity of the consequences.
> 
> While I'm sure it would be frowned upon, from what I am hearing one could play blades of the dark without ever making up a fictional story simply by invoking the mechanics in mechanical terms.
> 
> Player: "I'm going to do a desperate action"
> DM: "Your consequence will be severe"
> Player: "I rolled failure"
> DM: "X happens, from now on Y is the effect"
> 
> I'm sure that's a rather simplified version as I'm sure there's some extra mechanics in there I'm not aware of - but it shouldn't be hard to step through the actual mechanics and end up in a similar but state.
> 
> I don't believe this would be possible with 5e D&D play as the DM must use the fictional positioning to determine when a roll is required in the first place.



It's hard, but I've decided to read this in the best light possible -- you are still genuinely confused as to how play operates in Blades and think that the GM just calls for rolls whenever and that the consequences of that roll are arbitrary.  This is entirely wrong.  In Blades, the characters are doing dangerous and risky things _as a norm_. The things they try are obviously not run of the mill, so the fictional positioning is absolutely necessary when calling for a check.  In my example of play that you're referring to (and you either have me on ignore or you're intentionally sub-posting), the check was called for because the player indicated this was that kind of thing -- it was a risky action for a goal that was important to the character.  It followed the established fiction and the intent of the action -- nothing was arbitrary here.  And, so it goes with play.

As for your thumbnail -- you cannot actually boil down play in Blades to this because every check is dependent on the nature of the fiction.  Perhaps this applies to some set of possible actions and resolutions, but this elides every bit of detail that makes the game about the players.  The player declares an action, yes, but unless the fiction presents a reason for this to be dangerous, there's not a roll.  Further, the player doesn't declare the action to be desperate at all -- that's up to the GM reading the fiction and the actions intent.  Instead, the player declares an action to achieve an intent.  Going back to the jumping rogue example from earlier in the thread, just jumping the alley isn't that interesting and would probably not engage a roll -- it's more color if you're just jumping over an alley, so do just narrate it.  Now, if your being pursued by guards and you intent to leap the alleyway to cause the guards to break off, well, then, now there's some interest -- some stakes.  Let's roll!  And the position and effect will be set by the fiction.  The interesting thing here is that these are set according to a clean read of the fiction without consideration for PC abilities or conditions.  The GM's not responsible for remembering that the rogue has a previously twisted ankle, say, and so doesn't consider this when setting P and E.  And setting P and E is up for challenge -- if a player doesn't think that the P and E reflect the situation, they are encouraged to speak up!  Things must adhere to the fiction that is established in play.  Once this is done, the player can use their resources to modify things and improve the outcomes/chances.  They also are responsible for adding anything that might be a problem, like that previously twisted ankle that would reduce effect or cost a die depending on the level of harm.  THEN we roll.  And, if the outcome is a failure, and the GM narrates outcome according to the position agreed to, then the player still has the option to resist that result and get a better one -- if they can afford the Stress.

So, no, except as a particularly bad caricature of a small subset of possible play loops in Blades (and I mean bad as in if you squint it might look like something), your understanding isn't complete.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> It is a meaningful choice, because the player determines not just the action, but the success result of the action.



There's two things going on there.  We can talk about agency in relation to each.  The player determining the action and the player determining the success result of the action.  Determining the success result of the action could result in agency while determining the action results in no agency.  It's all about where meaningful choice exists.




Ovinomancer said:


> They also get to choose how that action is performed.



I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that means they effectively choose which ability score they are using.  If so that's another thing the player has agency over as I would think which ability score you use is meaningful.



Ovinomancer said:


> This step is different form D&D where the GM determines what the check is.  Here, the player does.  The GM then sets the risk and effect.



What does the GM base the risk and effect on?



Ovinomancer said:


> Effect is a measure of how much towards the player's intent this action will go --  usually you have standard effect, but you can have lesser effect, and great effect. Rarely you can have no effect (but the player has resources to improve this). These are constrained by the nature of the current fiction and the action you've declared -- the GM is not free to do whatever, and it's obvious if there's Force being used here.  Then the player can choose to bring additional resources to bear to alter the dice rolled, the position and effect, and so forth, usually by paying a cost or accepting more risk (you can improve effect by a step by worsening position by a step).  This entire loop is entirely player driven, and centered on what the player finds important about the scene or score.  The GM only has authorities to choose to call for a check, then set position and effect (subject to player modifications using the abovementioned resources), and any failure results or complications.  Everything else is on the player.



How is the player's choice of what they find important in the scene meaningful?




Ovinomancer said:


> This looks nothing like D&D play -- I run both, and can absolutely say this.  @hawkeyefan runs both, and he can chime in as well.



If you are saying it looks much different in play, I totally agree.  If you are saying there's never any parallels you can draw between the 2 in relation to agency, I think that's a step too far.



Ovinomancer said:


> Of course it's not entirely objective, but that doesn't mean it's arbitrary, either.  What's challenging is what the game is about -- it's usually blindingly obvious when you need a check, and good guidance is that if you're not sure, let it ride until you are.  The goal of the GM is to bring honest adversity to the PC's lives, and it's not hard to see when to do this.  If you're coming from a D&D background, though, it appears hard because you're still evaluating according to the wrong paradigms -- the kinds of things that happen in a Blades game don't look like normal D&D -- there's usually not choices about which way to go at T-intersections, for instance, because that's not something that the players are putting at risk.  That kind of thing is a function of GM driven games.



Agreed



Ovinomancer said:


> Nope.  I mean, it's right there, three times, you could look.   The painting was introduced by the GM as color.



Okay. 


Ovinomancer said:


> The player did make it important, though.  If you're thinking that having the ability to make a thing important to the play of the game isn't agency, though, then I have no idea what definition of agency you're operating under -- it clearly doesn't value making a choice that is meaningful because choosing what's important to play is straight down the middle of that.



Depends on if it's actually just window dressing or something more.  I think you said earlier that mechanical decisions in the game are driven by the fictional position.  If that's the case I certainly agree an ability to have control over what elements are important in the fiction is a type of agency.  I'm just not so sure it's agency if the fictional elements were to have no bearing on anything else.


----------



## prabe

@FrogReaver 

Advice that you're perfectly free to ignore.

There is an SRD for Blades in the Dark, and it's free to read. IIRC, it's a web interface so you can't download it, but you can read it. I think if you really want to understand the game that's going to be a necessary step.

Heck, if you're interested, you can find Apocalypse World (I think it's an earlier edition) free online, as well, and there's a starter book for Burning Wheel that is also free, to pick games that get talked about in these sort of threads.

I don't particularly care for Blades or AW, but those opinions genuinely arose after reading the games. Conversations like the one you're having with @Ovinomancer (who is frankly being waay more patient than I would probably be) would, I think, go a lot more easily for all concerned if you've at least seen the rules.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> There's two things going on there.  We can talk about agency in relation to each.  The player determining the action and the player determining the success result of the action.  Determining the success result of the action could result in agency while determining the action results in no agency.  It's all about where meaningful choice exists.



This is, again, confused because it shows you don't know how the game works.  The player choosing the action means they can choose how the consequences of the action are structured and also modify the chance of success.  If you decide, for instance, to pilfer the painting by just ripping it from the wall, that's probably a Wreck action, and the consequences are going to be related to that -- causing enough noise to alert nearby guards, destroying the item you're trying to recover, etc.  A Wreck action will not cause the painting to become haunter -- the choice to make the check about Attuning did that.  So, as you should now see, the choice of action used has lots of impact in determining both how the failure consequences will follow and how many dice you might be rolling to start with.


FrogReaver said:


> I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that means they effectively choose which ability score they are using.  If so that's another thing the player has agency over as I would think which ability score you use is meaningful.



Close enough.


FrogReaver said:


> What does the GM base the risk and effect on?



The current fiction and the action/intent stated.  These default to Risky/Standard and there needs to be a reason to move them.  Those reasons are entirely within the fiction of the moment and the action chosen.


FrogReaver said:


> How is the player's choice of what they find important in the scene meaningful?



I'm legit flummoxed, here, and I think it's because you're using some definition of meaningful that I'm not understanding.  I mean, the word important is right there, are important things not meaningful, and, if so, what do you consider meaningful if important things aren't?


FrogReaver said:


> If you are saying it looks much different in play, I totally agree.  If you are saying there's never any parallels you can draw between the 2 in relation to agency, I think that's a step too far.



There are comparisons, sure -- that's been a large focus of the thread.  What you're doing isn't comparing, though, it's trying to say, by fiat, that this thing is like that thing, so no difference, when there is, in fact, a difference.

I run both, there are lots of parallels, just not in the way you're trying to assert, at least so far.  You might get lucky, soon.  Honestly, the paradigms of play -- where they focus, how they operate, what's important to them -- are different, so any parallel you draw is like to be flawed, at best.


FrogReaver said:


> Agreed
> 
> 
> Okay.



Oh, right, I forgot that's not something you do.  I believe you've told me, at least once, that it's my responsibility to repeat things to you rather than yours to go back and look yourself.


FrogReaver said:


> Depends on if it's actually just window dressing or something more.  I think you said earlier that mechanical decisions in the game are driven by the fictional position.  If that's the case I certainly agree an ability to have control over what elements are important in the fiction is a type of agency.  I'm just not so sure it's agency if the fictional elements were to have no bearing on anything else.



Such a strange statement.  Why would you think the fictional elements would have no bearing on anything else?  Blades is the most elegantly and tightly connected game I've seen.  Everything feeds every other part of the game.  Scores feed into the faction game which feed into the next score.  Scores feed into downtime which feeds entanglements which feeds the faction game which feeds the next score.  If a thing is important, then, by definition, it's not independent of everything else.  It's a thing of beauty.

However, unless you want to play the specific genre that Blades evokes, that beautiful design doesn't really help much.  Precisely crafted things are not generally multi-purpose.  This is, in fact, one of the strengths of D&D -- by being so loosely built it has a broader base of use.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> Who do you think controls outcome in a combat resolved according to the D&D combat rules as set out in AD&D (either edition), Moldvay Basic, 3E (either version), 4e, 5e?





FrogReaver said:


> In general - No one.



So how does combat get resolved then?


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> No more than anything else.
> 
> If my PC is in the tavern and the GM narrates the stew as mouldy and maggot-ridden, I can't narrate my character extolling the peasant virtues of this repast.
> 
> As @prabe and I already discussed, if my PC is in a tavern I can't also engage in free roleplay where I point out features of the beautiful night sky to another PC.
> 
> Etc.



Actually, one usually CAN describe the outside sky... you just need to take a seat by the window if you want the other party to be seeing it as you describe it. But even the window isn't needed. Many a drunkard waxes on about things not present in the real world... and not a few sober ones. Just last monday, I was describing the Aurora Borealis as seen in Fairbanks to a bloke from New Zealand, while in a wal-mart. 

As for the stew, how good's the character's deception score? And how hungry is the character? Is the character previously established as picky or an iron stomach type? those definitions are more important that the singular fact that it's molding... on the other hand, that mold is a good foreshadow warning of the food being essentially poisoned.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> No they aren’t. Nothing I’ve advocated for has been about me or the character having narrative control over the setting.
> 
> I’ll go one further - while having narrative control over the settting is a type of agency - it has nothing to do with role playing a character.



Only to a point - past that point, there's no room left to roleplay. Some GM's (generally inexperienced ones) limit to the listed actions and the only real free-to-pick element they allow is for players is their character's name.

Now, I've seen some very tightly railroaded stories where players followed along happily, getting their in-character dialogue and creating mutual entertainment, but not actually being able to define anything that's not in the rules as theirs to define. And I've seen players utterly choke when able to define things for themselves.


----------



## pemerton

Here are three actual play reports (the first I'm quoting from upthread, about BitD; the second is me posting as thurgon on RPG.net, about Burning Wheel; the third is me posting on these boards I think, though I can't find the thread and have taken it from a file on my hard drive - the system is Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy):



Ovinomancer said:


> The crew was sneaking into an old, rumored to be haunted, abandoned manor house.  They had entered the premises through an old servants tunnel, and emerged in a room full of furniture covered in sheets and cobwebs, jumbled about.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the scene started when they entered the hallway from the room and saw a dim lamp at the end with a shadowed figure -- clearly a guard -- there.  I described the hall, merely as color, as being wide, with dilapidated chairs and a few broken tables along the walls, which were covered by peeling wallpaper and a few old, dusty portraits.  To enhance the air of 'haunted" I described one portrait of a young woman who eyes seemed to follow the PCs.  As two PCs snuck down the hallway to engage the guard, one PC -- mentioned earlier as the one trying to change their vice -- said they were going to examine the young woman's portrait to see if it would be interesting to those at the University he was trying to woo.  This seemed interesting -- I could have just said yes -- so I asked the player how they were going to do this?  What counts as "interesting" and how do you know?  The player thought a moment, and said that his old friend at the University liked the occult, so he was going to see if the portrait held occult value.  I said, maybe, let's check, what are you doing to find out?  The player looked at their sheet, shrugged, and said, "I guess I Attune and see if I get any feels from it, but I have zero dice in Attune.  Maybe I can ask the Whisper to do it?"  I responded sure, but he's off taking care of the guard right now, do you want to wait?  The player said, no, I'll do it, I'm going to push for 1 die.  I said, okay, the position is controlled (they got a controlled result on the engagment roll, so all initial situations are set to controlled position) and said normal effect (the default, you need a reason to change it).  He rolled, and failed.  I now got to put a consequence in play.  I chose to worsen the position and said that as the player looked at the portrait, the figure suddenly turned their head and looked at the player, and he found it was difficult to look away and there was a feeling of pulling or suction, but not physical.  The player was like, "okay, I guess that answers that question, it's occult, um... I try to pull away."  I said, sure, but hang on, let me check in with the other PCs for a moment while you're staring into the creepy painting.  I did, they succeeded, and we got back to the PC.
> 
> The PC tried to pull away from the painting, and declared a wreck action to do to -- using violence to destroy a thing.  He had dice, and since I had worsened the position previously, I set position to Risky (which is normal, you need a reason to change it) and normal effect again.  The PC failed again (honestly, this is a trend in my Blades game, largely because the players seem to enjoy trying actions they have no or one rank in).  Now the picture started glowing, and the young lady turned into a hideous creature.  I told the PC you feel your soul being sucked into the portrait and cannot escape!  I leveled some Harm, which was Resisted.  The other PC noticed this (glowing portrait) and the Whisper (think occultist) trying to intervene and used Attune with their Command ability to try to force the animating spirit in the portrait to flee.  Since their friend was in danger, this was again Risky and Normal.  The Whisper succeeded with complication, and so the portrait entity released the first PC, but in doing so a backlash of psychic energy whipped back at the Whisper and they suffered a Harm.  They elected to not Resist, as it was a level 1 harm, and they like to keep a ready supply of Stress for rolling.  This choice, though, had some unfortunately repercussions later in the Score, and the harm was to their occult abilities and that became very, very relevant again.





			
				thurgon said:
			
		

> In our session today we were short a couple of players so played BW instead. As well as the two 5 LP humans, I quickly worked up a 4 LP elf for the 3rd player (a Citadel-born soldier-protector and sword-singer). Writing up beliefs took a little while. The rogue wizard, Jobe, had a relationship with his brother and rival. The ranger-assassin, Halika, had a relationship, also hostile with her mentor, and the player decided that was because it turned out she was being prepared by him to be sacrificed to a demon. It seemed to make sense that the two rival, evil mages should be one and the same, and each player wrote a belief around defeating him: in Jobe's case, preventing his transformation into a Balrog; in Halika's case, to gain revenge.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I had pulled out my old Greyhawk material and told them they were starting in the town of Hardby, half-way between the forest (where the assassin had fled from) and the desert hills (where Jobe had been travelling), and so each came up with a belief around that: _I'm not leaving Hardby without gaining some magical item to use against my brother_ and, for the assassin with starting Resources 0, _I'm not leaving Hardby penniless _.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)
> 
> My memory of the precise sequence of events is hazy, but in the context the peddler was able to insist on proceeding with the sale, demanding 3 drachmas (Ob 1 resource check). As Jobe started haggling a strange woman (Halika) approached him and offered to help him if he would buy her lunch. Between the two of them, the haggling roll was still a failure, and also the subsequent Resources check: so Jobe got his feather but spent his last 3 drachmas, and was taxed down to Resources 0. They did get some more information about the feather from the peddler, however - he bought it from a wild-eyed man with dishevelled beard and hair, who said that it had come from one of the tombs in the Bright Desert.





			
				pemerton said:
			
		

> The PCs started the session separated in a dungeon.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the PCs followed strange piping music down a hitherto-hidden tunnel leading out of the ghouls' secret room to the lair of a Crypt Thing. The berserker attacked but missed. I think the wolf skin-changer tried something - I can't remember what - but with little success. But then the Doom Pool build up to 2d12 and so I was able to spend it to end the scene - in the fiction, the Crypt Thing teleported them all into an empty room on a lower dungeon level. Mechanically, this landed them all with a d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication.
> 
> After taking a rest (ie a Transition scene), they headed out and I described the next scene - a pillared hall with murals, flickering braziers, and a living statue guarding great doors. While the two warriors dispatched the statute, the skinchanger read the mural to try and work out where in the dungeon he was - mechanically, he successfully eliminated his Lost in the Dungeon complication. The swordthane did the same after dispatching the statue, and then helped the berserker also to read the mural/map before the latter then broke down the door. The skinchanger had continue to study the mural/map and had worked out the Path to the Treasure (a d10 or d12 - I can't remember precisely - asset).
> 
> On the other side of the door was the land of the svartalfar: a land of faerie fire, of deadly traps, and with the glint of gold. . . . The skinchanger used his Cunning expertise and his established knowledge of the path to the treasure to bluff Moonstone, the C/F/MU, into taking him to the dark elven treasure vaults - also picking up Milestone-based XP in the process for leaving his allies in a risky situation - and ended up finishing the scene with a huge (d12+) treasure asset. The other PCs finished off the three remaining dark elves, but not before the F/MU brought the stone crashing down, blocking off the tunnels the skinchanger and Moonstone had travelled through.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Although much of the detail of the setting is introduced by me as GM in the course of framing, key elements are introduced by the players, mostly in the form of assets - the tunnels into the ghoul room; the fact that the murals in the pillared hall have a map of the dungeon; and the drow treasure (and my Scene Distinction Glint of Gold was itself a riff on the fact that the skinchanger PC had established a Path to Treasure asset). The framing itself was all spontaneous as needed, although the stat blocks were mostly prepared in advance (I'd written up Ghouls and a Crypt Thing, used the MHRP book for dark elves, and only the Living Statute was written up by me ex tempore).
> 
> But this account should also make it fairly clear why the notion of "illusionism" just has no purchase in this game. Everything's on the surface: the Scene Distinctions, the Doom Pool growing or shrinking (it started the session at 2d6, 1d8, 2d10 and ended at 1d6, 1d8), the assets and complications, the NPCs in a scene, etc. There's nothing even remotely analogous to a fork in the road with the same encounter destined to occur down either path.



These are three different systems, with different principles and techniques governing them. Some examples of these differences:

* Burning Wheel and Cortex+ Heroic are both very scene-based, but I don't know about BitD. (AW is not, but I don't know if BitD differs from it in this respect.)

* Burning Wheel and (I think) BitD both emphasise fictional positioning very heavily, whereas in Cortex+ fictional positioning doesn't normally count in resolution until it is filtered through a mechanical process (like the GM establishing a Scene Distinction or a player establishing an Asset).

* Burning Wheel has a formal framework for players flagging Beliefs, whereas I think BitD doesn't and Cortex+ has Distinctions that are perhaps more like Aspects in Fate, as well as Milestones which are closer to Beliefs but aren't as central to the GM's framing as Beliefs are in BW.​
Despite this, there is a strong overall similarity in how they handle this situation:

* the GM frames a situation which has an object/artefact of interest (the portrait; the feather; the mural);

* a player has his/her PC engage with it because she sees it as something of interest to his/her PC;

* there is a check declared to read it/attune to it/otherwise interpret or make sense of it;

* the resolution of that check establishes, in the fiction, further details of that object/artefact - in the case of the successful check (to read the mural) that all goes the player's way, and in the other two failed cases the GM combine the players' ideas with their own to produce a "fail forward" failure narration.​
I would consider all of these episodes of play as exemplifying a reasonably high degree of player agency in respect of the shared fiction.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> Traveller does not have any general framework for transforming stat values into adjustments in action resolution (in this way it differs from a number of systems, including D&D from 3E onwards, Rolemaster and its cousins like MERP and HARP, RuneQuest and other BRP systems, etc). In given situations the referee may impose a modification that is extrapolated from a stat value.



Note that every other edition does have a standard method; only Classic doesn't. But it has several basic modes in the core and others in early adventures (1-4)
Mode 0: Physicals as hit points; damage is marked against them. Different subeditions of CT have differences on the details...
Mode 1: if att <X, DM-z, if att ≥y , DM+1 or DM+z , DM+ Skill, 8+ succeeds, conditional mods apply. 
Mode 2: 2d for N+, DM+(skill × X) (See Vacc Suit in Bk1 p22; Note the lack of attribute.)
Mode 3: Xd for Attribute or less (not used in the core, but implied in Book zero, and used in a couple adventures.) (Exemplar: Bk3 p37, entry Seismic Quake)
Mode 4: if sum of applied attribute exceeds some threshold, the action succeeds (Twilight's Peak, p25)
Mode 4a: One in Twilight's peak is if the sum of strengths of PC's on the ladder crosses a value, the ladder breaks... (ibid, p26

Many have touted this as a benefit of CT; many others have cited it as CT's biggest problem. 

For those curious...
2300 and Mega use attribute/5 as equivalent to a skill for task purposes (called an asset). Compared to CT, the sigma on skill levels is a little wider in MT, but typical levels are comparable, as the raise in skills per term is proportional to the larger number of non-weapon skills. T:2300 and 2300AD (same game, 2 editions) actually has a bit lower sigma on skill levels, and comparable numbers and levels to CT.
TNE used 1d20 ≤ (att + skill)×(DiffMod). More skills (about 20% more) but about 50% more skill levels
T4 and T5 both are (Difficulty)d6 ≤ (Attribute+Skill) (in T5, skill is broken into Skills and knowledges, but you get to add one skill and one of its knowledges.
Mongoose uses a d20 inspired modifier table and is 2d6+Stat+Skill+DiffMod for 8+...
T20 uses the standard d20 mode, Traveller for Hero uses standard hero, GT and GTIW use standard GURPS modes. 
Cepheus Engine uses the Mongoose model (from the Mongoose SRD).


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> Note that every other edition does have a standard method; only Classic doesn't. But it has several basic modes in the core and others in early adventures (1-4)
> Mode 0: Physicals as hit points; damage is marked against them. Different subeditions of CT have differences on the details...
> Mode 1: if att <X, DM-z, if att ≥y , DM+1 or DM+z , DM+ Skill, 8+ succeeds, conditional mods apply.
> Mode 2: 2d for N+, DM+(skill × X) (See Vacc Suit in Bk1 p22; Note the lack of attribute.)
> Mode 3: Xd for Attribute or less (not used in the core, but implied in Book zero, and used in a couple adventures.) (Exemplar: Bk3 p37, entry Seismic Quake)
> Mode 4: if sum of applied attribute exceeds some threshold, the action succeeds (Twilight's Peak, p25)
> Mode 4a: One in Twilight's peak is if the sum of strengths of PC's on the ladder crosses a value, the ladder breaks... (ibid, p26
> 
> Many have touted this as a benefit of CT; many others have cited it as CT's biggest problem.



Another example of Mode 4 is found in the module Shadows. (STR to force electro-mechanical doors.)

A variant of Mode 3 - maybe it's its own mode - is when the whole of the attribute serves as a DM together with skill expertise levels (see donning a vacc suit during explosive decompression in Book 2; and first draw in Book 1).

I use two further variants of Mode 3 that are extrapolated from (i) the handling of infection in Annic Nova and (ii) Andy Slack's rules for toxins and disease in early White Dwarf: one is 19+ on 3D + attribute; the other is 10+ 2D + half-attribute.

For Vacc Suit under Mode 2, I  step up the throw required by 1 and allow a +1 DM if DEX 6+ and +2 if DEX B+; this is a generalisation of an idea found in Double Adventures 1 and/or 2 (I'd have to dig back through to see which one).

As to the benefit/problem aspect I think we fall on different sides of the position: for me, these different subsystems in Classic Traveller is one of its big strengths.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.



This seems bonkers to me! The whole reason - at the table - that the portrait turned out to be a soul-sucking magical thing was because the player was interested in the question _is it magical_ and then got the occultist "whisper" involved. At every point the GM seems to have been riffing off the players' ideas and contributions.

I don't think that D&D is run very often in this style.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> If it happens everything regardless of what the the player chooses is that really agency?



In a good RPG, whatever the player chooses something interesting will happen!

What is distinctive about (say) BitD as described by @Ovinomancer, compared to GM-driven play, is that those interesting things are based around the players' ideas as much or more than around the GM's ideas. Unlike in (say) BW, this is done via a semi-formalisation of "taking suggestions" rather than a mechanical process that allows the player to directly establish the relevant constraints on the fiction.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> As to the benefit/problem aspect I think we fall on different sides of the position: for me, these different subsystems in Classic Traveller is one of its big strengths.



For me, once I met the DGP task system, most of CT 's skill mechanics went the way of the dodo...  because the task system made it much easier to be consistent, at the cost of being not nearly as tailored.  My preferred edition was, for decades, MegaTraveller.

It's been amusing over the years to see people claim any one of the modes of attribute use in CT as the "one True Way" - but GDW adopted, for a period of about 7 years, the DGP task system as the mechanic for both 2300 and MT. (note that 2300 uses 1d10, while MT and DGP's CT add-on, use 2d6)


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## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> For me, once I met the DGP task system, most of CT 's skill mechanics went the way of the dodo...  because the task system made it much easier to be consistent, at the cost of being not nearly as tailored.  My preferred edition was, for decades, MegaTraveller.
> 
> It's been amusing over the years to see people claim any one of the modes of attribute use in CT as the "one True Way" - but GDW adopted, for a period of about 7 years, the DGP task system as the mechanic for both 2300 and MT. (note that 2300 uses 1d10, while MT and DGP's CT add-on, use 2d6)



I'm not familiar with the DGP task system - but I have a copy of MegaTraveller and its task system. The only thing I like in MegaTraveller, which I have borrowed for my Classic Traveller game, is the Special Duty line on the PC gen tables. With the extra skills from the supplements - which are already there on the Supplement 4 charts and which I've retrofitted into my Book 1 charts (except for Legal, Trade and Gravitics - I just use Admin, Broker and Engineering) this helps give a good number of skills for the PCs.

I wouldn't say that the Classic subsystems are a "One True Way". But for me they're an important part of the Traveller "feel" _and _I think they help shape the implied setting very effectively. Whereas the MegaTraveller resolution framework and skill lists make me want to run back into the arms of Space Master!


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> while having narrative control over the settting is a type of agency - it has nothing to do with role playing a character.



As I posted upthread, I have suffered from amnesia, for real, in hospital, not recognising the youngest member of my family because I'd forgotten she existed.

Generally I don't want to role play amnesiacs. But that is what your approach requires me to do.


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## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Presumably the character was randomly generated some time before the game, and I've had plenty of time to form my mental image of that character to make it work in my head (and if I couldn't, I hopefully would have an option to say, 'no, this is not the sort of character I want to play.')



In my Classic Traveller game the players generated their PCs and then we got right into it.



Crimson Longinus said:


> But as least as the 'impose love' scenario was originally described, it was happening during the game, and if that is not working for me at that moment, then that's a problem, I don't have several days there to get my mind in the right place. Though what you said earlier about the GM 'selling' the idea applies. It is perfectly possible that the GM could manage to present the situation so that it would not be jarring (though unless they're psychic, far from guaranteed.) But if they could do that, then the mechanic was unnecessary in the first place.



This doesn't really seem to bear on the issue of _agency_. Rather, it seems relevant to uptake vs dissonance.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Furthermore, character creation and actual play are generally treated as separate things. Even if I would accept the lack of agency in character generation and be OK with creating a random character, it doesn't mean I would accept lack of agency over my character in the actual play.



A lot of RPGing involves character development, which is something like ongoing PC build. And there are some approaches to character development in which it feeds off actual play - RuneQuest is a famous example.

So I guess I don't really feel the force of this distinction. It seems a little arbitrary.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I'm not familiar with the DGP task system - but I have a copy of MegaTraveller and its task system. The only thing I like in MegaTraveller, which I have borrowed for my Classic Traveller game, is the Special Duty line on the PC gen tables. With the extra skills from the supplements - which are already there on the Supplement 4 charts and which I've retrofitted into my Book 1 charts (except for Legal, Trade and Gravitics - I just use Admin, Broker and Engineering) this helps give a good number of skills for the PCs.
> 
> I wouldn't say that the Classic subsystems are a "One True Way". But for me they're an important part of the Traveller "feel" _and _I think they help shape the implied setting very effectively. Whereas the MegaTraveller resolution framework and skill lists make me want to run back into the arms of Space Master!



The DGP CT task system differs little from the MT one.  MT adds some special cases in the ref's manual, and the research rule  Referee's Companion. But it's still 2d6 + Asset1 and Asset 2, with an asset being any one of (Att/5), Skill level, or computer model, by the book, plus in some adventures, Rank or Terms.

As for the "One True Way" guys, I mean each guy picks one mode, and claims that was Marc's intended method for everything, potentially excepting combat. (Marc maintains that he's always used Xd6 ≤ Att+Skill.)

The advantages of the Task System are consistency and easy choice of resolution method. 5 difficulties (plus auto and no chance) and labels that (after doing the math) seem to fit really well for an assumed Att 5-9 and skill 1.

The disadvantage of it is that the difficulties are wide steps, and that it's not as flexible as the full panoply of approaches buried in CT.

One of the interesting things I've used in MT, and it would work just as well in CT, is letting players apply rank or terms as a skill; this makes up for protocol skills and/or knowledge of service related things other than the core skills. And, like in Burning Wheel, I've happily let players make wises checks to establish facts, a technique Luke was discussing on his boards when I started running BW.


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## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Do you remember the interviews of Emilia Clarke about the last season of GoT? How she was really upset when she go the scripts for the last episodes and how it took her for several days to adjust? Method actors absolutely will have issues if their characters are written in a way that go against their previously internalised mental image. They're professionals and can of course eventually make it to work, but it is unlikely that they have to do it in a moments notice like in a RPG. Also they're under million dollar contracts that highly incentivise them to not to just say 'sod it' and walk away...



Sure, but there is also a difference of medium. How one might play a character will likely differ in a theatrical stage production than in an improv comedy troupe than in a serialized television drama. Likewise, if you are a super serious thespian (top in your class at Julliard and M.A. at the Yale School of Fine Arts) going into a fantasy elf game for kids knowing how certain mechanics will work and operate in play, then your roleplay should likely account for the possibility that these internal states are subject to change in response to dice resolution, and I expect that an accomplished method actor would be able to adapt accordingly. It requires setting your expectations and adapting accordingly.

I also recall a lovely story about Jason Alexander on the set of Seinfeld. He was reading his part in the script for George Costanza, and he found it absolutely incredulous that anyone, let alone George Costanza would realistically do what transpired in that week's script. It was too crazy. "No human being would do this." So he went to head writer Larry David to complain. He said, "Who in their right mind would tell their boss that they quit and then show up to work for several weeks pretending that they never quit?! No one would react like this." Then Larry David replied, "What are you talking about? This is exactly what I did at SNL with Lorne Michaels." That was a watershed moment for Jason Alexander, who had previously been playing George Costanza more like Woody Allen. That's when he realized that his understanding of the character was wrong: George Costanza was Larry David. This was essentially the character correcting the actor.



FrogReaver said:


> Why do you keep denying those examples were brought up?





FrogReaver said:


> I’m sorry. Isnt this a discussion about rpg analysis? If so what does having played a particular rpg have to do with analyzing it?





FrogReaver said:


> You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true.  Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?





FrogReaver said:


> Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.



Analyze it? Excuse me? When people pressed you for citations about any of the mechanics you and @Crimson Longinus were foaming at the mouth about, I felt guilty because I was the one who introduced Monsterhearts into the discussion. So I lobbed you two a slow softball and copy-pasted the "Turn Someone On" Move from Monsterhearts 2. No scratch that. I set up the tee-ball for you to hit at your leisure. You didn't even have to look through these games to make your citations. The bare minimum you and @Crimson Longinus had to do was engage the provided text and maybe use it support your argument.

But would you like to know something that surprises absolutely no who has been discussing this with you? Neither of you engaged the mechanics or wording of the Move that *I* provided for you! A drive-by post 'like' was it! It was there for easy pickings without you having to do any work for it. Yet you didn't demonstrate any actual evidence of having read it. In the 20+ pages since then, you haven't quoted it, mentioned it, or used it to illustrate a single point. Even now, you are struggling to name a possible applicable game when pressed, and even then you can't actually explain how the mechanic works. You are regurgitating hearsay in Satanic Panic fashion. Sorry, but you don't get credit for "analyzing" anything after that. Y'all don't even get an "F" for "Effort." Just a big, fat ZERO.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.

This is like me telling you that I don't like banana and you insisting that I have not properly analysed and understood the recipe of your exquisite banana smoothie and thus I must be wrong. That's really the trend in this thread.


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## Crimson Longinus

It is interacting how with that Blades examples all the subjective calls the GM must make are described to 'be dictated by the fiction' etc by the same people who think that in GM driven game players have no agency if the GM decides things, though of course in such game too the GMs decisions are equally dictated by the fiction present.

Also in the Blades example the player getting to choose the flavour of doodah they poke and the flavour of bad stuff being tangentially affected by that is seen as player being able to direct the fiction yet the same people see characters talking, having emotional reactions etc as inconsequential flavour.


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## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.
> 
> This is like me telling you that I don't like banana and you insisting that I have not properly analysed and understood the recipe of your exquisite banana smoothie and thus I must be wrong. That's really the trend in this thread.



Sword fighting is not complex. The pointy end goes into the other guy. Now I am ready to have a debate about sword-fighting with a practiced fencer and a SCA sword fighter.


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## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> You've just described the core play loop of Blades in the Dark; "choose to <do something> challenging, dangerous, troublesome, or signal to the GM that you're excited about this potential conflict, roll dice, and see if it "explodes in your face" (or not)."
> 
> As to agency (or "even the opposite"), who was following whose lead in @Ovinomancer 's play excerpt?  A sincere appraisal of that question takes "possibly even the opposite" behind the woodshed.



The players agency here is to somewhat affect the fictional flavour of the bad stuff that happens to them.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Sword fighting is not complex. The pointy end goes into the other guy. Now I am ready to have a debate about sword-fighting with a practiced fencer and a SCA sword fighter.



Good example. I don't like when I'm poked with a sword (in real life.) Your position is that I need to study different sword fighting techniques in order to make that statement.


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## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Good example. I don't like when I'm poked with a sword (in real life.) Your position is that I need to study different sword fighting techniques in order to make that statement.



Saying that you don't like being poked by swords is a non sequitur, and I doubt it would be a controversial opinion to have even among sword fighters. The issue is not whether you like being poked or stabbed by swords. @prabe also doesn't like "sword poking," but there is not a problem there. The issue is your ignorance in a conversation you are engaging yourself with that involves discussing sword-fighting techniques and insisting that you understand what's going on.


----------



## chaochou

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is interacting how with that Blades examples...



No, what's interesting about the Blades examples is that all the people who have read, played and understand Blades in the Dark agree with the points made. And all the people who are groping around in the dark trying to guess what the examples mean miss the target, clearly and laughably.

The reason you and other look like complete morons, over and over and over again, is that just because someone cites you a specific mechanic doesn't mean they've cited or explained the complex interactions of play principles and context and authority over gameplay elements which are pre-requisites to understanding the example.

These are implicitly understood by - would you know it - people that have played the game, and completely missed by frothing blowhards playing a tragic and infantile game of playground gainsaying. And that is all you and frogreaver are doing. You're incapable of actual discussion because that requires _knowing something_. So you rely on others providing content for you to gainsay.

Yet again - from your own play experience describe the differences in player agency between Blades in the Dark, Monsterhearts or Burning Wheel with any edition of D&D.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Saying that you don't like being poked by swords is a non sequitur, and I doubt it would be a controversial opinion to have even among sword fighters. The issue is not whether you like being poked or stabbed by swords. @prabe also doesn't like "sword poking," but there is not a problem there. The issue is your ignorance in a conversation you are engaging yourself with that involves discussing sword-fighting techniques and insisting that you understand what's going on.



So what have I misunderstood? Do Monster Hearts mechanics impose a feeling on character that the player is expected to roleplay? Yes or no?

It is perfectly possible that I misunderstand things, and if I do, it is fair to point out specific mistake I may have made. However, this is not what you're doing here.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what have I misunderstood? Do Monster Hearts mechanics impose a feeling on character that the player is expected to roleplay? Yes or no?
> 
> It is perfectly possible that I misunderstand things, and if I do, it is fair to point out specific mistake I may have made. However, this is not what you're doing here.



I'm not here to make your argument for you. I hand fed you once, but you are an adult now. You are more than welcome to read Monsterhearts 2 for yourself and make your own judgment and argument from the text.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> I'm not here to make your argument for you. I hand fed you once, but you are an adult now. You are more than welcome to read Monsterhearts 2 for yourself and make your own judgment and argument from the text.



Right. So you have no actual argument and are just engaging in credentials fallacy.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you have no actual argument and are just engaging in credentials fallacy.



I'm sorry, was asking you to cite and explain how the mechanic works in these games you are arguing against too hard of a task for you in a conversation about these games and mechanics?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> I'm sorry, was asking you to cite and explain how the mechanic works in these games you are arguing against too hard of a task for you in a conversation about these games and mechanics?



I have read it, I am not going to search the quote for you. Was my summation of the effects of the mechanic correct or not? If not. then in which way? If you have an issue with the content of my argument, then present it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

An actual example of somewhat annoying personality mechanic that I have experienced in practice: Exalted virtue mechanic. If you have at least three point in a virtue (in 1 to 5 scale, so moderate) you need to roll it in certain pretty common situations to act in a certain way. For example:

*Characters Must Fail a Valor Roll to: *_Turn down
a duel of honor or a call to single combat. Flee a battle.
Receive an insult without seeking retribution. Turn down
a dare or challenge._

Now you can overcome this by burning willpower point, but those are a precious resource and are used for other things in the game too, most importantly to refuse conditions imposed on you in the game's social combat mechanic (and this is not even getting to any supernatural effects.)

The result is that in dramatic situations the character's actions are often not chosen by the player. The virtue may compel them to act in a certain way, or an NPC can just 'mind control' them via superior social skills. If you don't want this to happen you need to hoard your willpower points (and they're used for other things than just to resist these compulsions) and even then if the situations come up often enough you can just run out. I did not find this mechanic fun and I was hardly alone in this. We ended up seriously house ruling these rules.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Sure, but there is also a difference of medium. How one might play a character will likely differ in a theatrical stage production than in an improv comedy troupe than in a serialized television drama. Likewise, if you are a super serious thespian (top in your class at Julliard and M.A. at the Yale School of Fine Arts) going into a fantasy elf game for kids knowing how certain mechanics will work and operate in play, then your roleplay should likely account for the possibility that these internal states are subject to change in response to dice resolution, and I expect that an accomplished method actor would be able to adapt accordingly. It requires setting your expectations and adapting accordingly.
> 
> I also recall a lovely story about Jason Alexander on the set of Seinfeld. He was reading his part in the script for George Costanza, and it found it absolutely incredulous that anyone, let alone George Costanza would realistically do what transpired in that week's script. It was too crazy. "No human being would do this." So he went to head writer Larry David to complain. He said, "Who in their right mind would tell their boss that they quit and then show up to work for several weeks pretending that they never quit?! No one would react like this." Then Larry David replied, "What are you talking about? This is exactly what I did at SNL with Lorne Michaels." That was a watershed moment for Jason Alexander, who had previously been playing George Costanza more like Woody Allen. That's when he realized that his understanding of the character was wrong: George Costanza was Larry David. This was essentially the character correcting the actor.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Analyze it? Excuse me? When people pressed you for citations about any of the mechanics you and @Crimson Longinus were foaming at the mouth about, I felt guilty because I was the one who introduced Monsterhearts into the discussion. So I lobbed you two a slow softball and copy-pasted the "Turn Someone On" Move from Monsterhearts 2. No scratch that. I set up the tee-ball for you to hit at your leisure. You didn't even have to look through these games to make your citations. The bare minimum you and @Crimson Longinus had to do was engage the provided text and maybe use it support your argument.
> 
> But would you like to know something that surprises absolutely no who has been discussing this with you? Neither of you engaged the mechanics or wording of the Move that *I* provided for you! A drive-by post 'like' was it! It was there for easy pickings without you having to do any work for it. Yet you didn't demonstrate any actual evidence of having read it. In the 20+ pages since then, you haven't quoted it, mentioned it, or used it to illustrate a single point. Even now, you are struggling to name a possible applicable game when pressed, and even then you can't actually explain how the mechanic works. You are regurgitating hearsay in Satanic Panic fashion. Sorry, but you don't get credit for "analyzing" anything after that. Y'all don't even get an "F" for "Effort." Just a big, fat ZERO.



A reference to something doesn’t have to be explicit.  I have referred to mechanics that force my character to do something numerous times. We all know that’s one of the examples of such mechanics. Why feign ignorance of this?


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> A reference to something doesn’t have to be explicit.




Actually, yes it does. Otherwise it's an implication.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> Actually, yes it does. Otherwise it's an implication.



LOL


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.
> 
> This is like me telling you that I don't like banana and you insisting that I have not properly analysed and understood the recipe of your exquisite banana smoothie and thus I must be wrong. That's really the trend in this thread.





pemerton said:


> So how does combat get resolved then?



0.  Roll initiative.
1. wait for your turn.
2. when it is your turn choose an action.
2b. Roll dice as directed in the rules depending on your action.
3. Repeat steps 1-3 until the combat is over. (Typically the enemy dies, retreats, or is captured)


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> @FrogReaver
> 
> Advice that you're perfectly free to ignore.
> 
> There is an SRD for Blades in the Dark, and it's free to read. IIRC, it's a web interface so you can't download it, but you can read it. I think if you really want to understand the game that's going to be a necessary step.
> 
> Heck, if you're interested, you can find Apocalypse World (I think it's an earlier edition) free online, as well, and there's a starter book for Burning Wheel that is also free, to pick games that get talked about in these sort of threads.
> 
> I don't particularly care for Blades or AW, but those opinions genuinely arose after reading the games. Conversations like the one you're having with @Ovinomancer (who is frankly being waay more patient than I would probably be) would, I think, go a lot more easily for all concerned if you've at least seen the rules.



Thank you but it’s not necessary and wouldn’t suffice then anyways. This thread is about analysis of rpgs and rpg play. Examples and mechanics were cited and analysis made. I countered that Analysis with my own using the same mechanics and examples provided.

One doesn’t need to be intimately familiar with the whole game to counter analyze an example and mechanic listed by someone who is.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> It is interacting how with that Blades examples all the subjective calls the GM must make are described to 'be dictated by the fiction' etc by the same people who think that in GM driven game players have no agency if the GM decides things, though of course in such game too the GMs decisions are equally dictated by the fiction present.



So, yeah, there's a pretty big difference here that you've papered over.  In Blades, the fiction is "what has been established in play."  Further, the GM is constrained by what the player wants.  The "subjective" GM decisions present in the play example are really whether or not to call for a check and then how to enact consequences on the failures.

For whether of not to call a check, this is "subjective" (scare quotes intentional) but not arbitrary.  It's subjective only in the fact that it's a judgement call, but one strongly guided by the game's rules and principles.  @Manbearcat posted the relevant rules sections above.  Here, the player was declaring an action that was important to the character -- it was an opportunity to make steps along the hard change in vices.  The rules tell you this is a good point for a check because just saying "yes" robs the import from the action and turns into the GM waffling to make life easy on the characters.  This is NOT what you are supposed to do in Blades -- you are supposed to be a firehose of adversity turned onto the characters.  Why?  Because you're a fan of the characters and want to see them shine!  To look at a different example, we don't watch Die Hard to see John McClain relax comfortably at home, we watch because we're fans of seeing how he overcomes the avalanche of adversity turned upon him.  This is the play that Blades is designed to develop -- there are very few calm moments in Blades.

The second "subjective" thing is the consequences leveled.  And, here, yes, the GM is absolutely using their authority.  There are walls to this though -- the "follow the fiction" restriction means that the consequences have to make sense within the fiction as already established in play.  This is different from 5e in that there are no GM's notes, or established fiction that has yet to be presented in play.  IE, there's no GM note that this painting is a soul-sucking painting anywhere.  Instead, the Blades GM has to either play up an established part of the fiction or something that flows directly from the establish fiction, or make a "soft" move to introduce a new threat but can't pay it off, yet.  The GM is further constrained in consequence by the nature of the action -- the consequence should flow obviously from the action taken.  You Attune the ghost field?  Ghostly problems.  You Wreck something?  It's very noisy, guards come to investigate or you accidentally damage or break it.  Etc, etc.  Actually, Wreck is a good example, because it allows my to point out that characters have special ways to affect these actions with their playbooks (think class).  The Leech in my game chose a playbook option that allows xer (the character is non-binary, the player is a her) to Wreck quietly, so I can't level "it's very noisy" as a consequence when xe Wrecks things.  Finally, the GM is constrained by the agreed to risk, or position, of the action.  I can't level a Harm 3 on a Controlled action, and I can't level a Harm 1 on a Desperate action, for example.  These positions require that the consequences be in line with the danger of the action.

So, yeah, there are judgement calls in Blades.  However, these are pretty tightly constrained by the rules of the game.  Compared to 5e, say, the GM in Blades has many, many fewer places they can exercise authority, and in every one of those cases that authority is constrained in ways that they are not in 5e.  Some of these constraints are generated by the system, others are generated by the players.  The effect of this is that the GM in Blades has _much less_ agency than the GM in D&D.  The players in Blades have more agency because they can do pretty much all of the things players in 5e can do, but now many of those same choices are binding on the GM.  The constraints on players exercising control over their characters is the same as to D&D -- any cases where you might feel this agency is impinged (ad argumentum) I can point to similar cases in 5e, many of which are even more severe.  And, again, in my Blades game, these impingements are things like being confronted with an angry manifestation and having to make a Resist check to not lock up or flee in fear.  That's something that's extremely common in D&D.  And, that's really the only point that's come up in my Blades game.  I suppose that if you're up against some of the more occult horrors, other things might also happen -- a vampire might charm you on a fail, frex -- but this also isn't any different from D&D.

I know that the response to this will be to wave vigorously at the caricature of Monsterhearts, and to be fair, I haven't read the rules but I have read it's concept and I am familiar with the rules it's based on.  I understand how it plays, and yes, the players do choose to have less agency to determine their character's emotional state when they choose to play the game, but this isn't comparable in general to 5e.  The point of the game is to explore your character's untrustworthy feelings as they navigate adolescence as a monster.  This is a fundamentally different focus of play, and the players are given additional tools to enact this that are missing in 5e.  When we say, "you have less agency in this specific area I'm going to argue about," we're running straight into my argument that there are no "types" of player agency and that saying so obfuscates things.  Here, you're trying to claim a victory by narrowing the discussion to a specific point you think you have a good case for (it's iffy, but let's say okay).  However, when you do this, you're completely ignoring the other areas where agency is increase with these additional tools or the constraints placed on the GM, or... etc, etc.  When looking at agency in a game, this is a bad evaluation.  If you're saying what you like, then it's relevant -- but that's an argument about what you like, not an analysis of the game.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Also in the Blades example the player getting to choose the flavour of doodah they poke and the flavour of bad stuff being tangentially affected by that is seen as player being able to direct the fiction yet the same people see characters talking, having emotional reactions etc as inconsequential flavour.



I'm sorry, but the player decided the painting was potentially important to something that was very important to the character -- this isn't flavor.  Further, the kind of consequence was also chosen by the character, and they chose to engage in an area they have little to no ability because it fit their character's agenda, personality, and drives.  They really wanted to repair their relationship with the University and overcome their disgraceful exit from the University that was caused by his gambling problems (all player defined).  So, the player wanted this opportunity to help his character's cause, and knew that a quick route would be to deliver occult items, even though that wasn't his character's forte.  And, he could have waited for the Whisper to do it better (the Whisper is good at the occult), but felt his character wanted to keep this on the down low because he hadn't opened up to the Crew about his disgrace or gambling habits.  This was entirely in-character motivation, very deep, and involved complex motivations.  I didn't expound on this before because the example was to show how foreshadowing works, not an examination of why the players have chosen what they chose.  But, this wasn't flavor or flavour, it was assigning importance to things because the character cared about them.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Thank you but it’s not necessary and wouldn’t suffice then anyways. This thread is about analysis of rpgs and rpg play. Examples and mechanics were cited and analysis made. I countered that Analysis with my own using the same mechanics and examples provided.
> 
> One doesn’t need to be intimately familiar with the whole game to counter analyze an example and mechanic listed by someone who is.



Sure, sure.  Are you familiar with Bell's Theorem?  It stipulates that if a hidden variable is local it is incompatible with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics, it cannot be local.  Can you please analyze this in the context of quantum mechanics versus classical mechanics theory?

No?  Do you need more context to make this make sense?  Maybe more knowledge?  Yes, I agree, it's ridiculous as a concept to state that you can analyze a whole with only one part.  It's even more ridiculous when you're imagining some or all of that part as it relates to the whole and stating you can analyze this.


----------



## Umbran

chaochou said:


> The reason you and other look like complete morons



*Mod Note:*

You're done in this thread.  Treat people better.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> I just want to be clear... I'm not arguing that the steps of play didn't make logical sense.  I'm asking whether the player in that moment had sufficient information to weigh what he would get from delivering the portrait to his friend vs. the consequences he would suffer for failing...to determine if it was magical I guess.  That's my hang up.  Yes a soul sucking painting, is perfectly reasonable in an immortals haunted mansion... but was there enough information given for the player to understand that was a possibility?  Otherwise how is it any different form the D&D traps that were being disparaged earlier in this thread?



Well, I suspect that in BitD the value of things is either mostly narrative, and/or defined in milieu/genre terms. So like you can 'develop a contact' or an 'ally' or something like that and it is a resource that can be invoked as part of the mechanics of the game at a later time with some fiction to validate it. Like later the PC could go back to whomever he gives the painting to and ask for help on something, and that would translate into some kind of benefit in the next 'job'. 

I mean, D&D has this very concrete 'value system' where EVERYTHING is worth 'X gold pieces'. A player can say "well, a 10 gp painting is not worth much, I won't risk anything to get it." OTOH if you don't know what the gp value is, then there's no way to evaluate the risk in D&D. There could be 'narrative value' to something, but that's entirely undefined and can't easily be related to other things. 

Likewise consequences. Classic D&D has no real way to measure that. There could be a poison trap, that's save or die. If there's a monster, the danger posed is hard to know for sure, a 4+4 hit die Ogre is a lot less dangerous than a 4 hit die ghoul, unless you're an elf or a cleric... BitD runs on clocks to a great extent, so that also adds a lot of concrete scaling of costs, ticking a clock is pretty straightforward.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Imaro said:


> Yes but even here they are choosing to engage with it. In both situations there is a choice to engage.  That is agency, especially if we are agreeing that types of agency are either irrelevant or don't exist.
> 
> But this is just setting goals and even in an adventure path, once the players have agreed to play it they can choose goals for their characters in line with said adventuring path.  Again I'm stumped by what the actual difference is unless we are now positing that in a traditional AP the olayers are being forced to play and engage with things they don't want to... I don't think that's what is being argued.



So, I think that there's a question of just how flexible are D&D DMs? They need not have any flexibility really, you're the (hopefully benevolent) dictator of all your table! There's nothing saying you have to give players much freedom to do things, and if you just don't particularly have a taste for something a given player is trying to do, there are a dozen easy ways to quash it, and they're well-supported with rules right out of the book (rule 0 if nothing else). 

Now, obviously there can be fairly basic 'unobtrusive' goals that players can easily adopt for their PCs that will probably 'just work'. "I want to collect weird looking daggers." or whatever. But I've found over the years that AP type play is going to be pretty much about the AP. There's a set sequence, or a small set of possible paths, that can be taken through it. Any significant player agenda is mostly going to be in the way, it isn't adding directly to the main thrust of the game, and thus tends to get minimized. That's just how these things work.

Part of the problem that I see here is that I say "A narrative type game system works like X." and then someone says "Well, I could do X in my D&D game too!" and that's TRUE, but will it actually happen that way? I can guarantee that in a Dungeon World game that the action will center on the PCs as major protagonists doing the things that are written in their alignment, bonds, and the statements made by the players when asked questions by the GM. It is 100% assured! Maybe the DM in a D&D game might maybe accommodate some element of plot to interact with something I wrote on my character sheet, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I will have some idea what the plot is about, assuming their is one, and maybe it will just be some sort of thing hidden away in the DM's notebook and I never even figure out why something happened in game or what the consequences of any random action I take might be. Again, this is all guaranteed in a DW game to consistently put the characters at the center of the story and create a consistent narrative that the players can help to direct, along with deciding what sorts of 'stuff' go into it. 

So, yeah, D&D can do a lot of stuff. But its not really a fair comparison to say "I could do this" in one game and "this IS what will happen" in this other game. They are worlds apart in fact.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Thank you but it’s not necessary and wouldn’t suffice then anyways. This thread is about analysis of rpgs and rpg play. Examples and mechanics were cited and analysis made. I countered that Analysis with my own using the same mechanics and examples provided.
> 
> One doesn’t need to be intimately familiar with the whole game to counter analyze an example and mechanic listed by someone who is.



I disagree. It might be possible to understand a game you read but don't play, or a game you play but don't read, but I don't believe it's possible to understand a game you neither read nor play.

EDIT: And I don't believe it is possible to analyze what you don't understand.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I disagree. It might be possible to understand a game you read but don't play, or a game you play but don't read, but I don't believe it's possible to understand a game you neither read nor play.
> 
> EDIT: And I don't believe it is possible to analyze what you don't understand.



Why do I need to understand the whole game though?

why can’t I just understand the parts being presented by others?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> So, yeah, there's a pretty big difference here that you've papered over.  In Blades, the fiction is "what has been established in play."  Further, the GM is constrained by what the player wants.  The "subjective" GM decisions present in the play example are really whether or not to call for a check and then how to enact consequences on the failures.
> 
> For whether of not to call a check, this is "subjective" (scare quotes intentional) but not arbitrary.  It's subjective only in the fact that it's a judgement call, but one strongly guided by the game's rules and principles.  @Manbearcat posted the relevant rules sections above.  Here, the player was declaring an action that was important to the character -- it was an opportunity to make steps along the hard change in vices.  The rules tell you this is a good point for a check because just saying "yes" robs the import from the action and turns into the GM waffling to make life easy on the characters.  This is NOT what you are supposed to do in Blades -- you are supposed to be a firehose of adversity turned onto the characters.  Why?  Because you're a fan of the characters and want to see them shine!  To look at a different example, we don't watch Die Hard to see John McClain relax comfortably at home, we watch because we're fans of seeing how he overcomes the avalanche of adversity turned upon him.  This is the play that Blades is designed to develop -- there are very few calm moments in Blades.
> 
> The second "subjective" thing is the consequences leveled.  And, here, yes, the GM is absolutely using their authority.  There are walls to this though -- the "follow the fiction" restriction means that the consequences have to make sense within the fiction as already established in play.  This is different from 5e in that there are no GM's notes, or established fiction that has yet to be presented in play.  IE, there's no GM note that this painting is a soul-sucking painting anywhere.  Instead, the Blades GM has to either play up an established part of the fiction or something that flows directly from the establish fiction, or make a "soft" move to introduce a new threat but can't pay it off, yet.  The GM is further constrained in consequence by the nature of the action -- the consequence should flow obviously from the action taken.  You Attune the ghost field?  Ghostly problems.  You Wreck something?  It's very noisy, guards come to investigate or you accidentally damage or break it.  Etc, etc.  Actually, Wreck is a good example, because it allows my to point out that characters have special ways to affect these actions with their playbooks (think class).  The Leech in my game chose a playbook option that allows xer (the character is non-binary, the player is a her) to Wreck quietly, so I can't level "it's very noisy" as a consequence when xe Wrecks things.  Finally, the GM is constrained by the agreed to risk, or position, of the action.  I can't level a Harm 3 on a Controlled action, and I can't level a Harm 1 on a Desperate action, for example.  These positions require that the consequences be in line with the danger of the action.
> 
> So, yeah, there are judgement calls in Blades.  However, these are pretty tightly constrained by the rules of the game.  Compared to 5e, say, the GM in Blades has many, many fewer places they can exercise authority, and in every one of those cases that authority is constrained in ways that they are not in 5e.  Some of these constraints are generated by the system, others are generated by the players.  The effect of this is that the GM in Blades has _much less_ agency than the GM in D&D.  The players in Blades have more agency because they can do pretty much all of the things players in 5e can do, but now many of those same choices are binding on the GM.  The constraints on players exercising control over their characters is the same as to D&D -- any cases where you might feel this agency is impinged (ad argumentum) I can point to similar cases in 5e, many of which are even more severe.  And, again, in my Blades game, these impingements are things like being confronted with an angry manifestation and having to make a Resist check to not lock up or flee in fear.  That's something that's extremely common in D&D.  And, that's really the only point that's come up in my Blades game.  I suppose that if you're up against some of the more occult horrors, other things might also happen -- a vampire might charm you on a fail, frex -- but this also isn't any different from D&D.



The GM here needs to make judgement calls in many of the same situations than in more traditional games, and yes, obviously in Blades they've less freedom and flexibility to do so. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion, I don't feel it is a good thing. And of course in any RPG the GM is in reality constrained by the fiction and the consequences of the actions must logically fit to what was established before. But I have no doubt that the GM in Blades has far less agency than in one D&D. This is the thing you seem to be obsesses about and to what I referred earlier with my post about 'relative agency'. Whether player has more agency, I am not so sure about. In a certain sense they have more narrative agency, they can poke anything to make it important. Then again, this is rather illusory. How much does it really matter whether you poked a painting with a magic skill and it ghostified it and it tried to life-drain you, or whether you poked a door with a physical skill and it spawned a guard that bonked you in the head? How meaningful this is depends on how much value you place on these different flavours. To me this sort of agency seems rather fake. There is no objective reality, there are no mysteries to uncover, there are no right or wrong answers. This is Quantum Ogre, the Game, except you get to influence the skin of the ogre.



Ovinomancer said:


> I know that the response to this will be to wave vigorously at the caricature of Monsterhearts, and to be fair, I haven't read the rules but I have read it's concept and I am familiar with the rules it's based on.  I understand how it plays, and yes, the players do choose to have* less agency* to determine their character's emotional state when they choose to play the game, but this isn't comparable in general to 5e.



Holy crap! After twenty pages I got through!



Ovinomancer said:


> The point of the game is to explore your character's untrustworthy feelings as they navigate adolescence as a monster.  This is a fundamentally different focus of play, and the players are given additional tools to enact this that are missing in 5e.



Obviously. It is a game with completely different purpose. And yes, the players accept those limitations in their agency when they choose to play that game, just like they accept different sort of limitations on their agency when they choose to play D&D.




Ovinomancer said:


> When we say, "you have less agency in this specific area I'm going to argue about," we're running straight into my argument that there are no "types" of player agency and that saying so obfuscates things.



Yes. Your claim that there are no different types of agency obfuscates things.



Ovinomancer said:


> Here, you're trying to claim a victory by narrowing the discussion to a specific point you think you have a good case for (it's iffy, but let's say okay).  However, when you do this, you're completely ignoring the other areas where agency is increase with these additional tools or the constraints placed on the GM, or... etc, etc.  When looking at agency in a game, this is a bad evaluation.  If you're saying what you like, then it's relevant -- but that's an argument about what you like, not an analysis of the game.



Different games offer different types of agency in different quantities. Recognising this is really important for analysing them and even more important for recommending them. Trying to count some ultimate total agency is of questionable value. If a game offers a player little the sort of agency they care about but 'compensates' is by offering a lot of the type of agency they do not care about, it will result the player feeling that they do not have enough agency. And whether the players feel that they have enough agency is ultimately the only agency question that really matters; everything else is just trying to find the best way to get there.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm sorry, but the player decided the painting was potentially important to something that was very important to the character -- this isn't flavor.  Further, the kind of consequence was also chosen by the character, and they chose to engage in an area they have little to no ability because it fit their character's agenda, personality, and drives.  They really wanted to repair their relationship with the University and overcome their disgraceful exit from the University that was caused by his gambling problems (all player defined).  So, the player wanted this opportunity to help his character's cause, and knew that a quick route would be to deliver occult items, even though that wasn't his character's forte.  And, he could have waited for the Whisper to do it better (the Whisper is good at the occult), but felt his character wanted to keep this on the down low because he hadn't opened up to the Crew about his disgrace or gambling habits.  This was entirely in-character motivation, very deep, and involved complex motivations.  I didn't expound on this before because the example was to show how foreshadowing works, not an examination of why the players have chosen what they chose.  But, this wasn't flavor or flavour, it was assigning importance to things because the character cared about them.



Right. Earlier a mocking example of character reminiscing their childhood as a motivation to walk towards the water was used. This is the same thing. And yes, I strongly feel that these sort of things matter, but they matter in any RPG. Drop your bizarre double standard.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Why do I need to understand the whole game though?
> 
> why can’t I just understand the parts being presented by others?



If you're reading a novel, can you understand Chapter Four without reading Chapters One, Two, and Three? And can you really analyze what the author is doing in Chapter Four if you haven't finished the novel?

(Sorry. English major. Starting with a comparison I'm comfortable with. Pick a different field and I'll try another comparison.)


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> I just want to be clear... I'm not arguing that the steps of play didn't make logical sense.  I'm asking whether the player in that moment had sufficient information to weigh what he would get from delivering the portrait to his friend vs. the consequences he would suffer for failing...to determine if it was magical I guess.  That's my hang up.  Yes a soul sucking painting, is perfectly reasonable in an immortals haunted mansion... but was there enough information given for the player to understand that was a possibility?  Otherwise how is it any different form the D&D traps that were being disparaged earlier in this thread?



I missed this, and can absolutely answer.  Yes, the player was keenly aware that this action would further his action to switch vices from gambling (fighting) to obligation (University).  To help, the nature of vices in Blades is a double edged sword -- they can be sources of comfort and sources of conflict.  Vices can be extremely varied -- you might enjoy the finest fashions and so spend your time indulging in them.  During downtime, a PC can indulge their vice and recover Stress.  During scores, if the player chooses to let their vice be a complication, the can make XP.  The GM has no authority to enforce vices -- they're player side only.  In this case, to recap, the PC had overindulged and their vice and a complication was earned.  I offered the player to choose how that went, and they chose to let a roll determine it.  That came up "cut off from your vice purveyor."  The character could no longer go to that purveyor to get their vice.  Purveyors are important because they're the source of the vice and that relationship is important to the character.  Here, the player was able to narrate how that cutting off happened, but this is flavor.  Now the player has a choice -- they need to find a new vice purveyor.  This is a challenge, but a pretty easy one -- the character could find a different gambling den to satisfy their vice which would cost some downtime actions and maybe some coin.  However, the player decided this was "rock bottom" and it was time to find a healthier vice, so he elected to go through the more arduous process of changing their vice.  We reviewed what that would take and set clocks (think progress tracks) for the necessary tasks.

So, in the score, when the player asked about the painting being something they could take to the University, it was absolutely in the context of these tasks and their clocks.  I told the player that, sure, if the took this painting back it would be worth 2 wedges in their clock -- a lesser result -- or more if the check was really good.  Why a lesser result?  Because the action was controlled, and so the risk was low at that point.  This was set, and the player was absolutely in the know about the value of the action.

What I find continuingly interesting is that there's this assumption that things are missing because it satisfies preconceptions.  Usually, these things are holding the example in discussion to a different standard than the play being nominally defended (from what, I'm not sure).  And, yet, these assumptions continually founder because the play they're trying to attack is robust and full and answers these questions easily.  The issue here isn't that this play is better, but rather that you're asking the wrong questions because you fail to grasp the fundamental shift in play.  You're charging headlong at the parts of this play that are the absolute strongest and are directed by the rules of play.  It's a matter of not knowing what you're trying to critique, so your critique is badly grounded.

EDIT:  I fixed my rapid typing problems of confusing their, they're, your, and you're.  Probably still missed one, but there you go.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, I think that there's a question of just how flexible are D&D DMs? They need not have any flexibility really, you're the (hopefully benevolent) dictator of all your table! There's nothing saying you have to give players much freedom to do things, and if you just don't particularly have a taste for something a given player is trying to do, there are a dozen easy ways to quash it, and they're well-supported with rules right out of the book (rule 0 if nothing else).
> 
> Now, obviously there can be fairly basic 'unobtrusive' goals that players can easily adopt for their PCs that will probably 'just work'. "I want to collect weird looking daggers." or whatever. But I've found over the years that AP type play is going to be pretty much about the AP. There's a set sequence, or a small set of possible paths, that can be taken through it. Any significant player agenda is mostly going to be in the way, it isn't adding directly to the main thrust of the game, and thus tends to get minimized. That's just how these things work.
> 
> Part of the problem that I see here is that I say "A narrative type game system works like X." and then someone says "Well, I could do X in my D&D game too!" and that's TRUE, but will it actually happen that way? I can guarantee that in a Dungeon World game that the action will center on the PCs as major protagonists doing the things that are written in their alignment, bonds, and the statements made by the players when asked questions by the GM. It is 100% assured! Maybe the DM in a D&D game might maybe accommodate some element of plot to interact with something I wrote on my character sheet, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I will have some idea what the plot is about, assuming their is one, and maybe it will just be some sort of thing hidden away in the DM's notebook and I never even figure out why something happened in game or what the consequences of any random action I take might be. Again, this is all guaranteed in a DW game to consistently put the characters at the center of the story and create a consistent narrative that the players can help to direct, along with deciding what sorts of 'stuff' go into it.
> 
> So, yeah, D&D can do a lot of stuff. But its not really a fair comparison to say "I could do this" in one game and "this IS what will happen" in this other game. They are worlds apart in fact.



Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.

Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> The GM here needs to make judgement calls in many of the same situations than in more traditional games, and yes, obviously in Blades they've less freedom and flexibility to do so. Whether this is a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion, I don't feel it is a good thing. And of course in any RPG the GM is in reality constrained by the fiction and the consequences of the actions must logically fit to what was established before. But I have no doubt that the GM in Blades has far less agency than in one D&D. This is the thing you seem to be obsesses about and to what I referred earlier with my post about 'relative agency'. Whether player has more agency, I am not so sure about. In a certain sense they have more narrative agency, they can poke anything to make it important. Then again, this is rather illusory. How much does it really matter whether you poked a painting with a magic skill and it ghostified it and it tried to life-drain you, or whether you poked a door with a physical skill and it spawned a guard that bonked you in the head? How meaningful this is depends on how much value you place on these different flavours. To me this sort of agency seems rather fake. There is no objective reality, there are no mysteries to uncover, there are no right or wrong answers. This is Quantum Ogre, the Game, except you get to influence the skin of the ogre.



And D&D is not?  I mean, fundamentally, if you're going to break a game down to this level, it's utterly unfair to say that Blades is Quantum Ogres because people decide things and 5e is not because... people decide things?  The difference here is that you're assigning a value statement to single player prepared material as being good and that unprepped, multiple player input material is bad.  It's a value statement about your preference, where you apply different standards of analysis to validate the underlying preference.  It's entirely circular logic coupled with special pleading -- if you applied the same analysis to 5e, you'd end up with quantum ogres.  As such, this is useless except as a circular reinforcement of your pre-existing biases.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Holy crap! After twenty pages I got through!



No, you didn't, and if you read the rest of that paragraph, you'll see I discard this statement as obfuscation.  I did forget to add the (ad argumentum) to is, so that is my bad.  I was using your concept for the sake of the argument and showing how it fails, not agreeing with you.  I could have worded that better.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Obviously. It is a game with completely different purpose. And yes, the players accept those limitations in their agency when they choose to play that game, just like they accept different sort of limitations on their agency when they choose to play D&D.



Constraints are accepted, yes, but, again, player agency cannot be viewed on subdivisions of play -- this leads to obfuscation of what's going on and only enables flawed arguments that less agency exists in this narrowly defined context so it's the same or worse as the preferred arrangement.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes. Your claim that there are no different types of agency obfuscates things.



"Nuh-uh, you are," is not a flattering mode of argumentation, nor one that convinces anyone except fellow travelers.  If your intent is just to get @FrogReaver to once again like your post, by all means, continue.  If your intent is to engage in discussion, this is a failed approach.  You should consider this.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Different games offer different types of agency in different quantities. Recognising this is really important for analysing them and even more important for recommending them. Trying to count some ultimate total agency is of questionable value. If a game offers a player little the sort of agency they care about but 'compensates' is by offering a lot of the type of agency they do not care about, it will result the player feeling that they do not have enough agency. And whether the players feel that they have enough agency is ultimately the only agency question that really matters; everything else is just trying to find the best way to get there.



No, subdividing agency allows one to make flawed arguments about the game such that they can claim superiority in one capacity by ignoring the effects in others.  For instance, your continued claims that there is player agency in being the sole controller of your character's mental state (outside of allowed exceptions, naturally, special pleading be damned) allows you to claim more agency, despite the fact that this is empty in the broader context because you have no agency to actually enforce this on the rest of the game.  You've claimed agency, and winning agency, in an act that is ultimately irrelevant to the rest of the game -- as shown by me previously that I can get the same level of choice and action in game without acting in-character at all.

This is the trap of subdivided agency.  The games discussed are not separate silos of activity placed next to each other -- they interconnect at multiple points.  Treating agency as something that can be evaluated in distinct silos totally ignores these interconnects and the ability of one to affect another or not.  If I can imagine my character however I want, but can't place that into the game without someone else's permission, then I am not actually exercising much player agency at all, especially since I can imagine my character in any RPG equally well.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. Earlier a mocking example of character reminiscing their childhood as a motivation to walk towards the water was used. This is the same thing. And yes, I strongly feel that these sort of things matter, but they matter in any RPG. Drop your bizarre double standard.



It wasn't mocking.  It was silly, but that's because I have a silly streak, not because I was mocking anyone other than my own strange choices.

And, no, it's not the same thing.  The same thing would be if the player reminisced and then was able to establish that there was water down that passage and that was a true thing.  Here, the GM provided that -- it was entirely decided by the GM.  The player acted onto that, they didn't really choose it, and made choice not based on the player's interests, but instead molding their character to the GM's prompts.  That's not exercising agency, even if it can be fun, because no choice is being made in reminiscing in-character that impacts the gameworld.  The only choice is to go down that passage, and it's based on very little that's agency enabling.  Bob the Fighter made the choice based on things Bob the Fighter could control, at least in part, because Bob the Fighter knew they had a potion of water breathing and this was a way to exert control over a situation involving water.  Fynn just playacted against the GM established fiction and made a choice that was barely better than random.

Now, was Fynn's action more entertaining to the table and the player?  Most likely, but not definitely.  If that's the axis you want to value, then, absolutely, do so -- I usually put weight on this as well, and not a little.  But it doesn't create player agency within the game to do so -- Bob's player has the same agency as Fynn's player, and Bob's player made a choice that enabled future agency via control over options in the fiction while Fynn's player just entertained everyone.  Again, if you like that kind of thing, great and awesome and please go get all of it you can!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> @FrogReaver
> 
> Advice that you're perfectly free to ignore.
> 
> There is an SRD for Blades in the Dark, and it's free to read. IIRC, it's a web interface so you can't download it, but you can read it. I think if you really want to understand the game that's going to be a necessary step.
> 
> Heck, if you're interested, you can find Apocalypse World (I think it's an earlier edition) free online, as well, and there's a starter book for Burning Wheel that is also free, to pick games that get talked about in these sort of threads.
> 
> I don't particularly care for Blades or AW, but those opinions genuinely arose after reading the games. Conversations like the one you're having with @Ovinomancer (who is frankly being waay more patient than I would probably be) would, I think, go a lot more easily for all concerned if you've at least seen the rules.



Yeah, Dungeon World is easy to get too. In some ways it is a good place to start, as it reproduces a LOT of the tropes and milieu of D&D (it is literally intended to be a narrative driven equivalent of BECMI). So you can kind of compare all the things that it does with how they work in D&D (though the similarities in tropes and genre might actually be confusing). It has classes that emulate the core D&D classes, races, alignment, and the action is expected to center around thematic D&D-like dungeon delves and similar sort of fare. Anyway, all the character books for that (as well as many 3rd party ones) are free. I don't know if there's an 'SRD' or similar, but the game is really cheap in PDF form. This guide  is useful as it describes how the game works from a player perspective, as well as explaining how to GM the game.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, Dungeon World is easy to get too. In some ways it is a good place to start, as it reproduces a LOT of the tropes and milieu of D&D (it is literally intended to be a narrative driven equivalent of BECMI).



I've heard that about it, and if I didn't dislike dungeon delves so strongly the game would be more of a temptation for me. ;-)


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I've heard that about it, and if I didn't dislike dungeon delves so strongly the game would be more of a temptation for me. ;-)



What are your preferences?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> An actual example of somewhat annoying personality mechanic that I have experienced in practice: Exalted virtue mechanic. If you have at least three point in a virtue (in 1 to 5 scale, so moderate) you need to roll it in certain pretty common situations to act in a certain way. For example:
> 
> *Characters Must Fail a Valor Roll to: *_Turn down
> a duel of honor or a call to single combat. Flee a battle.
> Receive an insult without seeking retribution. Turn down
> a dare or challenge._
> 
> Now you can overcome this by burning willpower point, but those are a precious resource and are used for other things in the game too, most importantly to refuse conditions imposed on you in the game's social combat mechanic (and this is not even getting to any supernatural effects.)
> 
> The result is that in dramatic situations the character's actions are often not chosen by the player. The virtue may compel them to act in a certain way, or an NPC can just 'mind control' them via superior social skills. If you don't want this to happen you need to hoard your willpower points (and they're used for other things than just to resist these compulsions) and even then if the situations come up often enough you can just run out. I did not find this mechanic fun and I was hardly alone in this. We ended up seriously house ruling these rules.




Thank you for providing an example that we can discuss. You clearly don't like it. Do you think it limits agency? If so, why?

It kind of seems to me like it doesn't, but it's hard to say for sure because I'm not familiar with the system. So a few questions. How is the PCs Valor score determined? Doesn't having a strong sense of Valor mean that you would not turn down a duel or flee a battle? Doesn't that seem perfectly in character? 

And the player also has a resource to avoid being "forced" into these actions?




Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.




That could be one solution. Another could be to use a rules system that doesn't allow for railroad because GM authority is reasonably constrained.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.




It absolutely is due to the system. If the system didn't allow for the railroad, then there couldn't be a railroad.


Crimson Longinus said:


> It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.




So, to save @Aldarc the trouble of posting it again for you, here's the relevant rule from Monsterhearts that is in question. I've bolded what I think is a relevant bit about how to react being up to the player.

_Turn Someone On
When you turn someone on, roll with Hot. On a 10 up, gain a String on them and they choose a reaction from below. • On a 7-9, they can either give you a String or choose one of the reactions.
_

_I give myself to you,_
_I promise something I think you want, or_
_I get embarrassed and act awkward._
_All kinds of things can Turn Someone On, especially if that person is a teenager. Maybe this is a flirtatious glance, a whispered promise for later, or a goofy smile at
the right moment. Maybe it’s just something they notice about you as you walk past them in the hall. When you use this move, feel free to take the opportunity to step outside your character, to speak like an author would: describing your character’s pouty lips or moonlit silhouette. Unlike the other basic moves, Turning Someone On can be triggered even if there’s no specific action being taken; your character doesn’t have to intend to Turn Someone On – sometimes, it just happens.
This move is at the heart of how Monsterhearts understands sexuality, especially teen sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who. Part of your agenda is keeping the story feral, and that means letting your character’s sexuality emerge in all of its confusing and unexpected glory.
When someone turns your character on, the emotional dynamic between them shifts. If a String is gained, the power dynamic shifts a little bit as well. *How you react to that is up to you. What honesty demands is that you acknowledge the shift, imagine what your character might be feeling, and play from there. *If Julia turns Monique on, it doesn’t mean Monique has to throw herself at her. Just play out how Monique would naturally respond. Maybe Monique blushes and turns to leave, or maybe she suddenly gets nervous and starts stammering._ 

The ability of the player to determine the reaction seems pretty in line with what we'd expect in D&D. For example, the DM may tell you that you've been struck for 12 points of damage, but I would think the DM adding "you shriek in pain" as a reaction would likely be seen as overstepping on their part. The player gets to decide how the PC reacts.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> What are your preferences?



In TRPGs generally?

I like characters that are at least willing to be heroes. I despise no-win situations and/or choosing the lesser evil (choosing from competing goods is fine, though). I like adventures that move quickly enough the players don't forget why the characters are where they are and doing what they're doing (it's my experience that dungeoncrawls and hexcrawls in particular can go on for long enough--especially in more-intermittent games--that the players can easily forget or stop caring why the characters are plodding along the road or poking their way through the dungeon). I strongly prefer for the PCs to be able to set their own goals, and achieve them. I enjoy when the world responds to the PCs, because that means the PCs matter.

There might be more ...


----------



## PsyzhranV2

FrogReaver said:


> Thank you but it’s not necessary and wouldn’t suffice then anyways. This thread is about analysis of rpgs and rpg play. Examples and mechanics were cited and analysis made. I countered that Analysis with my own using the same mechanics and examples provided.
> 
> One doesn’t need to be intimately familiar with the whole game to counter analyze an example and mechanic listed by someone who is.





FrogReaver said:


> Why do I need to understand the whole game though?
> 
> why can’t I just understand the parts being presented by others?



It's painfully clear that your understanding is incomplete. Your analysis was garbage, and stained with arrogant and ignorant pretension. Do your research before you flap your gums.

All you're doing with your current approach is constructing a strawman out of the incomplete soundbites that you're being spoonfed. No wonder you keep going in weird tangents about the most basic elements of design philosophy. Would you expect to have any success by employing this argumentative strategy on any other topic?





__





						The Basics | Blades in the Dark RPG
					






					bladesinthedark.com
				




Read the thing.









						Burning Wheel Gold Revised: Hub and Spokes
					

The Burning Wheel Store offers products related to The Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard, Torchbearer, and Dungeon World role playing games. Forged Lord Comics featuring Christopher Moeller's "Iron Empires" products are also available.




					www.burningwheel.com
				




Read this as well.









						Ironsworn - Shawn Tomkin | DriveThruRPG.com
					

Ironsworn -  In the Ironsworn tabletop roleplaying game, you are a hero sworn to undertake perilous quests in the dark fantasy setti




					www.drivethrurpg.com
				




And this.


----------



## PsyzhranV2

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you have no actual argument and are just engaging in credentials fallacy.



It's not our job to do your homework for you. We aren't being paid to teach you.


----------



## FrogReaver

PsyzhranV2 said:


> It's not our job to do your homework for you. We aren't being paid to teach you.



So here’s the flow of what is happening.

A mechanic and play example from a game I’m not very familiar with is presented. Some analysis is done regarding that example and mechanic with the claim that this demonstrates X. I offer my analysis saying it actually demonstrates Y. My analysis is disagreed with but no coherent reason is given. Instead I am told, you don’t have the credentials to talk about this.  The problem there isn’t me or my supposed lack of credentials.  It’s the lack of a coherent rebuttal.


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> My analysis is disagreed with but no coherent reason is given.




Actually, no. You've been given multiple coherent responses but, because you stubbornly refuse to educate yourself about the topics under discussion, you have no means of understanding their coherence.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> So here’s the flow of what is happening.
> 
> A mechanic and play example from a game I’m not very familiar with is presented. Some analysis is done regarding that example and mechanic with the claim that this demonstrates X. I offer my analysis saying it actually demonstrates Y. My analysis is disagreed with but no coherent reason is given. Instead I am told, you don’t have the credentials to talk about this.  The problem there isn’t me or my supposed lack of credentials.  It’s the lack of a coherent rebuttal.



You're not being told you lack the credentials -- there's no credentials anyone here has on this topic.  You're being asked to understand the topic you think you're analyzing.  It's painfully clear you lack this understanding -- the ways you try to "analyze" things make fundamental mistakes that can at least be learned with a few minutes of reading.  Honestly, at this point, if you had read the passages (they aren't long) rather than continued to argue that you don't need to understand a thing to critique it (what a strange claim!), you'd have saved time and effort.  AND, you'd be better equipped to make whatever argument you want in a much more salient way.  As it is, you're spending time defending your ignorance as a virtue.  It looks very foolish.

@prabe doesn't like the kinds of play you're trying to critique, but he at least has made the effort to understand them, and his points are very good and salient.  Yours, sadly, are often so mistaken about fundamental things that they are not even wrong.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> And D&D is not?  I mean, fundamentally, if you're going to break a game down to this level, it's utterly unfair to say that Blades is Quantum Ogres because people decide things and 5e is not because... people decide things?  The difference here is that you're assigning a value statement to single player prepared material as being good and that unprepped, multiple player input material is bad.  It's a value statement about your preference, where you apply different standards of analysis to validate the underlying preference.  It's entirely circular logic coupled with special pleading -- if you applied the same analysis to 5e, you'd end up with quantum ogres.  As such, this is useless except as a circular reinforcement of your pre-existing biases.



I did not make value statement, I just described what's going on. I have no doubt that Blades can be fun and engaging game if the people are invested in the fiction. Even quantum ogres are not inherently a bad thing, reskinned or not.



Ovinomancer said:


> No, you didn't, and if you read the rest of that paragraph, you'll see I discard this statement as obfuscation.  I did forget to add the (ad argumentum) to is, so that is my bad.  I was using your concept for the sake of the argument and showing how it fails, not agreeing with you.  I could have worded that better.
> 
> Constraints are accepted, yes, but, again, player agency cannot be viewed on subdivisions of play -- this leads to obfuscation of what's going on and only enables flawed arguments that less agency exists in this narrowly defined context so it's the same or worse as the preferred arrangement.
> 
> "Nuh-uh, you are," is not a flattering mode of argumentation, nor one that convinces anyone except fellow travelers.  If your intent is just to get @FrogReaver to once again like your post, by all means, continue.  If your intent is to engage in discussion, this is a failed approach.  You should consider this.
> 
> No, subdividing agency allows one to make flawed arguments about the game such that they can claim superiority in one capacity by ignoring the effects in others.  For instance, your continued claims that there is player agency in being the sole controller of your character's mental state (outside of allowed exceptions, naturally, special pleading be damned) allows you to claim more agency, despite the fact that this is empty in the broader context because you have no agency to actually enforce this on the rest of the game.  You've claimed agency, and winning agency, in an act that is ultimately irrelevant to the rest of the game -- as shown by me previously that I can get the same level of choice and action in game without acting in-character at all.
> 
> This is the trap of subdivided agency.  The games discussed are not separate silos of activity placed next to each other -- they interconnect at multiple points.  Treating agency as something that can be evaluated in distinct silos totally ignores these interconnects and the ability of one to affect another or not.  If I can imagine my character however I want, but can't place that into the game without someone else's permission, then I am not actually exercising much player agency at all, especially since I can imagine my character in any RPG equally well.



Yes, different forms of agency can influence each other. That's why I place high value on agency over character's mental states as agency limitations placed on those are usually effectively also agency limitations on actions following from those mental states. In any case, I don't understand why you want to make discussing things and describing games harder. It seems that you're merely interested in ramming through you mental framework that is detached from the actual experience of people playing roleplaying games.



Ovinomancer said:


> It wasn't mocking.  It was silly, but that's because I have a silly streak, not because I was mocking anyone other than my own strange choices.
> 
> And, no, it's not the same thing.  The same thing would be if the player reminisced and then was able to establish that there was water down that passage and that was a true thing.  Here, the GM provided that -- it was entirely decided by the GM.  The player acted onto that, they didn't really choose it, and made choice not based on the player's interests, but instead molding their character to the GM's prompts.  That's not exercising agency, even if it can be fun, because no choice is being made in reminiscing in-character that impacts the gameworld.



Your problem is that you seem to only recognise narrative authority to control the setting as agency. In your Blades example that was present, albeit in a small way.



Ovinomancer said:


> The only choice is to go down that passage, and it's based on very little that's agency enabling.  Bob the Fighter made the choice based on things Bob the Fighter could control, at least in part, because Bob the Fighter knew they had a potion of water breathing and this was a way to exert control over a situation involving water.  Fynn just playacted against the GM established fiction and made a choice that was barely better than random.



Better how? 



Ovinomancer said:


> Now, was Fynn's action more entertaining to the table and the player?  Most likely, but not definitely.  If that's the axis you want to value, then, absolutely, do so -- I usually put weight on this as well, and not a little.  But it doesn't create player agency within the game to do so -- Bob's player has the same agency as Fynn's player, and Bob's player made a choice that enabled future agency via control over options in the fiction while Fynn's player just entertained everyone.  Again, if you like that kind of thing, great and awesome and please go get all of it you can!



Of course it is an use of agency. The player uses their agency to introduce an event 'my character reminisces about their childhood and waxes poetically about it'. Now the fiction has changed, it contains this new element.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> Actually, no. You've been given multiple coherent responses but, because you stubbornly refuse to educate yourself about the topics under discussion, you have no means of understanding their coherence.



So let’s suppose some reason was given that you believe is coherent and I do not.  It’s still an issue solely rooted in a disagreement about terms and analysis. The larger game as a whole had no bearing on that discussion.

Now let’s suppose the objection is due to some additional mechanic that wasn’t introduced in the example or mechanic summarization provided.  If that other mechanic was important to the discussion it’s still not my fault it wasn’t introduced originally.

Like seriously, it’s common knowledge I’ve not played those games. To engage me in a conversation about them is a defacto agreement that you are okay with my lack of knowledge about them. You don’t get to 1000 posts later start demanding I have more knowledge to have this discussion.


----------



## innerdude

FrogReaver said:


> So here’s the flow of what is happening.
> 
> A mechanic and play example from a game I’m not very familiar with is presented. Some analysis is done regarding that example and mechanic with the claim that this demonstrates X. I offer my analysis saying it actually demonstrates Y. My analysis is disagreed with but no coherent reason is given. Instead I am told, you don’t have the credentials to talk about this.  The problem there isn’t me or my supposed lack of credentials.  It’s the lack of a coherent rebuttal.




The problem is that your responses indicate a lack of comprehension of the full context implied by the mechanics being demonstrated.

You're misapprehending significant components of the mechanics in question, because you've either not fully understood the context of what's being presented, or you're purposefully re-aligning the context to fit what you already know, when the game/mechanics in question do not logically follow from your preconceptions.

@PsyzhranV2's suggestion to go read Ironsworn is a good one. Ironsworn is a direct descendant of Dungeon World, but tweaked and tuned using influences from Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Fate, and other things. It moves away from trying to fit into "classic D&D tropes" into a more gritty feel. Having played Dungeon World and read through Ironsworn, my impressions of Ironsworn is that it's a fantastic, improved distillation of what Dungeon World is trying to accomplish. And it's free.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> Note that every other edition does have a standard method; only Classic doesn't. But it has several basic modes in the core and others in early adventures (1-4)
> Mode 0: Physicals as hit points; damage is marked against them. Different subeditions of CT have differences on the details...
> Mode 1: if att <X, DM-z, if att ≥y , DM+1 or DM+z , DM+ Skill, 8+ succeeds, conditional mods apply.
> Mode 2: 2d for N+, DM+(skill × X) (See Vacc Suit in Bk1 p22; Note the lack of attribute.)
> Mode 3: Xd for Attribute or less (not used in the core, but implied in Book zero, and used in a couple adventures.) (Exemplar: Bk3 p37, entry Seismic Quake)
> Mode 4: if sum of applied attribute exceeds some threshold, the action succeeds (Twilight's Peak, p25)
> Mode 4a: One in Twilight's peak is if the sum of strengths of PC's on the ladder crosses a value, the ladder breaks... (ibid, p26
> 
> Many have touted this as a benefit of CT; many others have cited it as CT's biggest problem.
> 
> For those curious...
> 2300 and Mega use attribute/5 as equivalent to a skill for task purposes (called an asset). Compared to CT, the sigma on skill levels is a little wider in MT, but typical levels are comparable, as the raise in skills per term is proportional to the larger number of non-weapon skills. T:2300 and 2300AD (same game, 2 editions) actually has a bit lower sigma on skill levels, and comparable numbers and levels to CT.
> TNE used 1d20 ≤ (att + skill)×(DiffMod). More skills (about 20% more) but about 50% more skill levels
> T4 and T5 both are (Difficulty)d6 ≤ (Attribute+Skill) (in T5, skill is broken into Skills and knowledges, but you get to add one skill and one of its knowledges.
> Mongoose uses a d20 inspired modifier table and is 2d6+Stat+Skill+DiffMod for 8+...
> T20 uses the standard d20 mode, Traveller for Hero uses standard hero, GT and GTIW use standard GURPS modes.
> Cepheus Engine uses the Mongoose model (from the Mongoose SRD).



Of all of them Mongoose really works best, and is in fact identical to the version we invented for ourselves way back in about 1978 or so. T4/5 don't give skills enough weight. Dunno about TNE but it seems like it would have the same issue. Plus I never liked using anything but d6 in Traveller, TRADITION MAN!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Another example of Mode 4 is found in the module Shadows. (STR to force electro-mechanical doors.)
> 
> A variant of Mode 3 - maybe it's its own mode - is when the whole of the attribute serves as a DM together with skill expertise levels (see donning a vacc suit during explosive decompression in Book 2; and first draw in Book 1).
> 
> I use two further variants of Mode 3 that are extrapolated from (i) the handling of infection in Annic Nova and (ii) Andy Slack's rules for toxins and disease in early White Dwarf: one is 19+ on 3D + attribute; the other is 10+ 2D + half-attribute.
> 
> For Vacc Suit under Mode 2, I  step up the throw required by 1 and allow a +1 DM if DEX 6+ and +2 if DEX B+; this is a generalisation of an idea found in Double Adventures 1 and/or 2 (I'd have to dig back through to see which one).
> 
> As to the benefit/problem aspect I think we fall on different sides of the position: for me, these different subsystems in Classic Traveller is one of its big strengths.



Can't say I see a benefit to heterogeneity here. I mean, I have no real opinion on non-player-facing stuff, or what happens during the lifepath process, but in play? Last thing I want to do is be explaining/figuring out/looking up some other dice system. Every one of them outputs a probability of success as a result, and can extrapolate to 'more or less success' fairly easily. Settle on one!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> A lot of RPGing involves character development, which is something like ongoing PC build. And there are some approaches to character development in which it feeds off actual play - RuneQuest is a famous example.
> 
> So I guess I don't really feel the force of this distinction. It seems a little arbitrary.



Agreed, though D&D has generally kept them a bit separate, at least since the later 2e era where you got all the kits and sub-classes and whatever that all got picked pretty much at chargen. 3.x, 4e, 5e, they all seem to segregate it too, though it is an ongoing process. Certainly you can work things such that the two are unified to whatever degree.

One of my goals in HoML was to explicitly unify them. You gain 'boons' via play, in a purely narrative fashion, and the acquisition of each 'major boon' marks the advancement to a new level. So there is technically no such thing as 'character build', though the mechanics are pretty much like other modern D&D's. I guess if somene else ran it they might work it pretty much like 4e, but the way things are laid out it is natural for it to just be an organic process that flows purely from narrative elements.


----------



## innerdude

Quick addendum --- 

For context, my primary, "go to" system is Savage Worlds, but I played BECMI as a teen, and played a significant amount of D&D 3.5 and GM'd Pathfinder 1e in my 20s.

Believe me when I tell you that despite some glaringly obvious mechanical differences, D&D and Savage Worlds are very much cut from the same cloth in terms of playstyle / expected kinds of player and GM engagement. They're both very "traditional," discrete task resolution systems. Mechanics providing added player agency over the content of the fiction (with a few minor exceptions) are largely absent.

At a certain point in the past 5 years, driven by the fact that the stuff @pemerton and @Manbearcat were talking about in these forums sounded completely outlandish and obtuse, I decided I actually wanted to really find out if this whole "narrative-driven" style of play was a real "thing," or just mental vaporware.

So despite never having tried any of it before, I picked up and tried Dungeon World. I bought Burning Wheel Gold and read it. I bought and ran a one-shot of Fate Accelerated. I just recently discovered and read through Ironsworn multiple times. I've read other Powered by the Apocalypse systems (Masks, Scum and Villainy).

I don't claim to be an expert on narrative-driven RPG techniques at all. But I've learned and explored enough to know that it really is a "thing", and that the techniques, when followed, drive play in the directions being described. And that in my experience, the techniques described enhance the enjoyment of play. 

Significantly.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I've heard that about it, and if I didn't dislike dungeon delves so strongly the game would be more of a temptation for me. ;-)




Once again, just quickly skimming so nothing of much quality to say.  Just wanted to address this.

Dungeon World isn't a delve game.  It doesn't do anything like Moldvay Basic (its structure doesn't deliver that sort of play at all...Torchbearer is that game), its merely a love-letter to the broad tropes of D&D (but the foreward of Moldvay Basic, which is nothing like the game, was probably what inspired Koebel and LaTorra).  

Dungeon World is pulp Fantasy Heroic D&D with strong archetypes and snowballing danger and discovery meeting the fellowship and journey quality of LotR (Bonds + Journey mechanics).   It also lends itself toward robust, Big Damn Heroes.  In this way, its very much like a PBtA version of 4e D&D.  

While my Torchbearer games are all Crawls/Camp/Town, I've never had a single dungeon delve featured in all my DW games (though there has been some subterranean and complexes/ruins play); probably 600 and change hours of play?

EDIT - I just read your preferences post.  To be honest, your preferences sound absolutely perfect for Dungeon World.  However, if Blades and AW turn you off as a system, you're probably not going to like DW.


----------



## hawkeyefan

innerdude said:


> Quick addendum ---
> 
> For context, my primary, "go to" system is Savage Worlds, but I played BECMI as a teen, and played a significant amount of D&D 3.5 and GM'd Pathfinder 1e in my 20s.
> 
> Believe me when I tell you that despite some glaringly obvious mechanical differences, D&D and Savage Worlds are very much cut from the same cloth in terms of playstyle / expected kinds of player and GM engagement. They're both very "traditional," discrete task resolution systems. Mechanics providing added player agency over the content of the fiction (with a few minor exceptions) are largely absent.
> 
> At a certain point in the past 5 years, driven by the fact that the stuff @pemerton and @Manbearcat were talking about in these forums sounded completely outlandish and obtuse, I decided I actually wanted to really find out if this whole "narrative-driven" style of play was a real "thing," or just mental vaporware.
> 
> So despite never having tried any of it before, I picked up and tried Dungeon World. I bought Burning Wheel Gold and read it. I bought and ran a one-shot of Fate Accelerated. I just recently discovered and read through Ironsworn multiple times. I've read other Powered by the Apocalypse systems (Masks, Scum and Villainy).
> 
> I don't claim to be an expert on narrative-driven RPG techniques at all. But I've learned and explored enough to know that it really is a "thing", and that the techniques, when followed, drive play in the directions being described. And that in my experience, the techniques described enhance the enjoyment of play.
> 
> Significantly.




I just wanted to add that this description largely fits my experience as well. Until the last few years, and in part spurred by discussion with folks here on these boards, I was pretty much a D&D guy. I play with a persistent group so we've gotten to the point where the game does what we want and what we expect, and we're all very familiar and comfortable with each other. 

And I think that I allowed that fact to influence how I viewed D&D as a system. Any kind of shortcoming or flaw or drawback was largely mitigated for my group by our social understanding and standards. But once I started removing that social factor and looking at the game as it is designed and written, it looked differently. 

I branched out into other games. Just reading at first, but once I started doing that, I started wanting to see how these games would work, and how the experience would differ from D&D. 

And the fact is that they absolutely function differently, and provide a different gaming experience than D&D. Now, whether that difference makes a game better or worse is of course a matter of preference, but its existence is not. 

I still enjoy D&D quite a bit, but I do find games like Blades in the Dark and PbtA games to have a lot more player agency involved.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.
> 
> Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.



OK, but how does a sandbox, for example, alter that calculus? What the action will cover is "things the DM put in the sandbox." Now, the DM could have made a 'candy box' where its all stuff the players asked to be there because that's what they want. Or not. Even in the latter case the DM is in the driver's seat about how things play out. 

Now, in this sandbox the players have the power to decide to go to different localities and engage with what is there. OTOH traditionally they don't know a lot about where things are. Maybe they do have a 'map' though. The players can then agree to go to the evil temple because the dwarf thinks his old buddies might be imprisoned there. Maybe the fighter decides to build a castle near the river. The GM can indulge these to whatever extent, there just aren't any pro forma processes in D&D for how to do that. The players may spend weeks or months just running into bits of the game that are pure DM content.

If there is a (meta) plot then again we just don't know where it stems from. Maybe the players can influence what it is about, maybe not. We just don't know.

None of these are questions in DW. There IS a plot (front) probably a meta-plot (campaign front), and these are built around questions the players answered, or things they expressed interest about. No value judgments here, but these are just really different types of game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I did not make value statement, I just described what's going on. I have no doubt that Blades can be fun and engaging game if the people are invested in the fiction. Even quantum ogres are not inherently a bad thing, reskinned or not.



You sidestepped this argument by focusing on a word.  Your analysis leaves all games as quantum ogres -- an analysis so broad that it renders the same judgement is useless.  The only way you can avoid this is by making the value statement -- that your play avoids the quantum ogres because a single player predetermining and deciding things removes this effect.  This the the argument that you've neatly avoided with a semantics attack.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, different forms of agency can influence each other. That's why I place high value on agency over character's mental states as agency limitations placed on those are usually effectively also agency limitations on actions following from those mental states. In any case, I don't understand why you want to make discussing things and describing games harder. It seems that you're merely interested in ramming through you mental framework that is detached from the actual experience of people playing roleplaying games.



I'm not making it harder, I'm avoid the simple traps that allow you to make the mistake that your ability to freely imagine your character's mental state doesn't, in any way, translate into the game by itself.  Me imagining my character one way doesn't allow me to put that imagining into the game.  If I convince myself that I have agency to imagine, then I have to also convince myself that a lack of agency to do anything with this is okay -- these are severable.  In reality, the only way imagining your character has any weight whatsoever is if you can put that imagining into the game, and that's not part of the subdivision of agency you're claiming.  It literally hides the fact that it's irrelevant without additional authorities.

And, you aren't free -- you're absolutely ignoring the many ways that the game you choose abridges your ability to freely imagine your character's mental state.  At this point, you're just willfully ignoring these as you seem to have completely abandoned even trying to lampshade them.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Your problem is that you seem to only recognise narrative authority to control the setting as agency. In your Blades example that was present, albeit in a small way.



No, this is another subdivision I disagree is useful.  I argue that agency is the ability to direct play in meaningful ways.  Here, the GM has done so in imagining water down a passage and then putting that into play.  Fynn's player has a nice bit of acting about the GM's decision, and then makes a choice that is no more informed than if he imagined his family used to have ski holidays.  This bit of acting by Fynn's player doesn't direct play in any meaningful way -- but it is entertaining.  Bob's player at least considers the options and his ability to deal with them and selects the option that he's most prepared to interact with in ways that can direct play (Bob can choose to breathe underwater, if that's something he wants to do).  This isn't at all ability to direct the setting at all.  No, that part was when I said that the only way that Fynn's acting could translate into agency would be if the acting leads to being able to imprint the fiction such that the acting was realized in play.  That's directing play in a meaningful way.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Better how?



Barely better than random?  He told a story to make a choice rather than roll a die, but, functionally, neither evaluate that choice in any way.  In other words, Fynn's player chose one way and then acted out a story to support the choice.  The story was post hoc the choice, which, while not entirely uniformed, was made arbitrarily.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Of course it is an use of agency. The player uses their agency to introduce an event 'my character reminisces about their childhood and waxes poetically about it'. Now the fiction has changed, it contains this new element.



And if they hadn't, nothing else about the fiction is different.  If Fynn's character just said, "sure, water passage it is," then they've exercised the same choice but didn't act.  The lack of the reminiscence is unremarkable -- except in terms of entertaining the players at the table.  It's introduction changes nothing and only adds some flavor.  If this is the agency you seek -- the ability to add bits of otherwise unimportant flavor -- then it's a poor agency, and the observation that there's low player agency stands.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> So let’s suppose some reason was given that you believe is coherent and I do not.  It’s still an issue solely rooted in a disagreement about terms and analysis. The larger game as a whole had no bearing on that discussion.
> 
> Now let’s suppose the objection is due to some additional mechanic that wasn’t introduced in the example or mechanic summarization provided.  If that other mechanic was important to the discussion it’s still not my fault it wasn’t introduced originally.
> 
> Like seriously, it’s common knowledge I’ve not played those games. To engage me in a conversation about them is a defacto agreement that you are okay with my lack of knowledge about them. You don’t get to 1000 posts later start demanding I have more knowledge to have this discussion.



You are entirely empowered to decide what topics to engage on here. Nobody can fault anyone else for what they are or are not familiar with, nor demand that they read this or read that. They can certainly comment on whether or not a post was made with sufficient knowledge of the topic. I think it is interesting to hear from people with all different perspectives, but nobody is obliged to accept points that don't make sense, or to discuss the topic as if everyone is equally informed. If you want to be equally informed then you will have to do the work, else you won't be. It is really that simple and we didn't invent the rules of the world that make it so.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.
> 
> Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.



I'm the GM for my group, with only rare occasions otherwise.  I don't, and haven't, run a railroad since the early 90's.  I'm not looking at games like Blades in the Dark to stop myself from railroading.  This argument is dead on arrival.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> Once again, just quickly skimming so nothing of much quality to say.  Just wanted to address this.
> 
> Dungeon World isn't a delve game.  It doesn't do anything like Moldvay Basic (its structure doesn't deliver that sort of play at all...Torchbearer is that game), its merely a love-letter to the broad tropes of D&D (but the foreward of Moldvay Basic, which is nothing like the game, was probably what inspired Koebel and LaTorra).
> 
> Dungeon World is pulp Fantasy Heroic D&D with strong archetypes and snowballing danger and discovery meeting the fellowship and journey quality of LotR (Bonds + Journey mechanics).   It also lends itself toward robust, Big Damn Heroes.  In this way, its very much like a PBtA version of 4e D&D.
> 
> While my Torchbearer games are all Crawls/Camp/Town, I've never had a single dungeon delve featured in all my DW games (though there has been some subterranean and complexes/ruins play); probably 600 and change hours of play?
> 
> EDIT - I just read your preferences post.  To be honest, your preferences sound absolutely perfect for Dungeon World.  However, if Blades and AW turn you off as a system, you're probably not going to like DW.



Agreed, what DW gives you is the ELEMENTS that appear in BECMI, with basically the same genre/tropes. In BECMI you deal with torches and wandering monsters and exploration turns, etc. If you do a delve in DW (quite possible IME) it won't be about some resource games and such, that is for sure! Resources exist, but largely to be leverage points for GM pressure. You wouldn't count your torches in DW and calculate when you have to turn back. Instead you'd get hit with a soft move "your torch sputters, it is about to go out." Obviously in DW you need a group that 'wants to delve' to make this stuff happen.

Torchbearer could be fun, though I am personally less interested in that kind of delving at this point. hehe.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Thank you for providing an example that we can discuss. You clearly don't like it. Do you think it limits agency? If so, why?



How not being able to decide how my chracter behaves and acts limits my agency? Should be rather apparent.




hawkeyefan said:


> It kind of seems to me like it doesn't, but it's hard to say for sure because I'm not familiar with the system. So a few questions. How is the PCs Valor score determined?



Is this the point where I according to the forum etiquette am supposed to snap at you that I'm not here to educate you?  

But seriously, I have the books packed somewhere (two copies of most of them in fact) but I haven't opened them in years. This is why I really didn't want to go into specifics, as I simply do not remember the specifics even though it is one of my most played games. It has been too long.

You get to assign points to your virtues, but regardless of how you assign them at least one will end up as three, even on a starting character.



hawkeyefan said:


> Doesn't having a strong sense of Valor mean that you would not turn down a duel or flee a battle? Doesn't that seem perfectly in character?



In certain situations yes. And I would rather trust the players to determine whether this was the sort of situation instead of mechanics making that decision for them. People know how to roleplay their characters without the rules doing it for them. And as written, this virtue would literally force the character to commit a suicide against an overwhelming foe.



hawkeyefan said:


> And the player also has a resource to avoid being "forced" into these actions?



Yes. But it is used for other things and is really valuable. And as it is also main way to overcome conditions imposed on you by social combat. So it might be a choice of being autopiloted by virtues or directed by NPCs. And that was just the mundane stuff. On top of that there is magical mind control and the Solar Exalted (and IIRC other too, but it might be slightly different...) have a curse. They have a 'limit break' track (not a nice thing like in Final Fantasy) that accrues in certain situations and once it gets filled they kinda go mad and lose control completely for a while. And one way to accrue this is to use willpower to resist your main virtue. So it might be a choice between a small lose of control now or larger later. This game really has a lot of mechanics that cause you to lose control of your character one way or another.



hawkeyefan said:


> That could be one solution. Another could be to use a rules system that doesn't allow for railroad because GM authority is reasonably constrained.



You should use whatever system is most fun for you, but but I really don't believe in systems fixing people issues. 



hawkeyefan said:


> It absolutely is due to the system. If the system didn't allow for the railroad, then there couldn't be a railroad.



That the system allows railroading doesn't mean that system results railroading. And if it wouldn't allow railroading, these adventure paths wouldn't exist! (Not a loss for me, but would be for people making them.)



hawkeyefan said:


> So, to save @Aldarc the trouble of posting it again for you, here's the relevant rule from Monsterhearts that is in question. I've bolded what I think is a relevant bit about how to react being up to the player.
> 
> _Turn Someone On
> When you turn someone on, roll with Hot. On a 10 up, gain a String on them and they choose a reaction from below. • On a 7-9, they can either give you a String or choose one of the reactions._
> 
> 
> _I give myself to you,_
> _I promise something I think you want, or_
> _I get embarrassed and act awkward._
> _All kinds of things can Turn Someone On, especially if that person is a teenager. Maybe this is a flirtatious glance, a whispered promise for later, or a goofy smile at
> the right moment. Maybe it’s just something they notice about you as you walk past them in the hall. When you use this move, feel free to take the opportunity to step outside your character, to speak like an author would: describing your character’s pouty lips or moonlit silhouette. Unlike the other basic moves, Turning Someone On can be triggered even if there’s no specific action being taken; your character doesn’t have to intend to Turn Someone On – sometimes, it just happens.
> This move is at the heart of how Monsterhearts understands sexuality, especially teen sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who. Part of your agenda is keeping the story feral, and that means letting your character’s sexuality emerge in all of its confusing and unexpected glory.
> When someone turns your character on, the emotional dynamic between them shifts. If a String is gained, the power dynamic shifts a little bit as well. *How you react to that is up to you. What honesty demands is that you acknowledge the shift, imagine what your character might be feeling, and play from there. *If Julia turns Monique on, it doesn’t mean Monique has to throw herself at her. Just play out how Monique would naturally respond. Maybe Monique blushes and turns to leave, or maybe she suddenly gets nervous and starts stammering._
> 
> The ability of the player to determine the reaction seems pretty in line with what we'd expect in D&D. For example, the DM may tell you that you've been struck for 12 points of damage, but I would think the DM adding "you shriek in pain" as a reaction would likely be seen as overstepping on their part. The player gets to decide how the PC reacts.



First of I don't think that being physically hurt* and being attracted to someone are comparable things. This system definitely tells the player how their character feels and in turn how to roleplay them. Now I fully admit that this system is way subtler that the Exalted one. I'd simply say this is a better made system that gives the player leeway how to interpret things. It still is not the sort of mechanic I like. Furthermore, unlike in Exalted where virtue mechanics and social combat are just one small facet in the game and can easily be amended/overruled/ignored by a sensible GM, my understanding is that Monster Heart is basically built around this kind of mechanic, it is central to the whole game. So in that sense it would be an bigger issue for me. None of this is saying that it is a bad game, I get what they're doing and why. But it is still trading the sort of agency that I care about a lot to get those results, so it is unlikely that I would like this game.

* (That being said, being able to control the physical integrity of your character would be a form of agency. It is not something most games have, but it could in theory exist. In certain types of freeform roleplay it does exist, also in some LARPs)


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm the GM for my group, with only rare occasions otherwise. I don't, and haven't, run a railroad since the early 90's. I'm not looking at games like Blades in the Dark to stop myself from railroading. This argument is dead on arrival.



From the little bit I've read about the ... inspirations for Blades, et al. (and the systems themselves) I don't think it's an unreasonable thought that they were written (or other verbed) in response to bad GMing in other games. I think in some instances they blamed the systems for the bad GMing, which given the GMing advice in some games isn't completely bonkers (though it's probably further than I'd go).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Ovinomancer I am no longer bothering to reply point by point, but:

1) Any game contains different things, different areas. Now as all this a social construct, sometimes the categories may be slightly blurry, none of this is something that is physically existing and objectively measurable. But this doesn't mean they're not useful way to communicate things. Player can have agency over one area while not over other. The agency also almost never is absolute, albeit in theory it could. A player can have, none, a little, some or a lot agency over any given area. From this it inevitably follows that it is coherent to say that different types of agency exist and it can exist in different quantities. Arguing against this is both illogical and counterproductive. 

2) But now we get to a distinction that you make but it doesn't exist, at least not in the way you try to use it. There is not any objective divide between 'just flavour and 'meaningful things' in a roleplaying game. The  fiction exists in the shared imagination of the players and intentionally introducing new elements in this fiction is an act of agency. Now, you can of course say things that like 'that was just flavour' and 'that was really meaningful' but ultimately it is a value judgement, it is not something that can be objectively measured.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So how does combat [in D&D] get resolved then?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 0.  Roll initiative.
> 1. wait for your turn.
> 2. when it is your turn choose an action.
> 2b. Roll dice as directed in the rules depending on your action.
> 3. Repeat steps 1-3 until the combat is over. (Typically the enemy dies, retreats, or is captured)
Click to expand...


Who decides if the action declared at step 2 is successful? Who decides if the enemy dies? Or retreats?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Why do I need to understand the whole game though?
> 
> why can’t I just understand the parts being presented by others?



The odd thing is that you seem to think that you understand what has been presented by others better than they do. For instance, you seem to think that you know better than me what Beliefs are in BW, as a component of character build, and how they work. Although you have no evidence for any of your claims about BW other than what I've told you!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Who decides if the action declared at step 2 is successful? Who decides if the enemy dies? Or retreats?



Is this going somewhere? This particular sub-thread has been going on for so long that I kinda lost the track of what it was about...


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.



No. The argument is that we want games in which the players can contribute to the shared fiction. And that there are very-well established techniques, mechanical frameworks and principles that support that.

Another part of the argument is that there are many RPGers, especially those who are familiar mostly with D&D and its derivatives, who appear to freak out whenever those techniques, frameworks and principles are put forward: I've got in mind in particular responses to such components of 4e D&D as skill challenge resolution, magic item wishlists, player-authored quests and even Come and Get It.

The reasons for that response seem to be pretty consistent: any principle or technique or framework that allows the players to exercise control over the shared fiction necessarily limits the GM's control over it. So skill challenges limit the capacity of the GM to unilaterally establish consequences (especially failures); magic item wishlists limit the capacity of the GM to control the fiction of discoveries as well as the mechanics of PC build; CaGI limits the ability of the GM to unilaterally control the positioning, in combat, of NPCs and monsters.

If people want the GM to be able to exercise that sort of unilateral control well they can knock themselves out. But it makes no sense to assert, at the same time, that it is the player who is engaged in authorship.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> The odd thing is that you seem to think that you understand what has been presented by others better than they do. For instance, you seem to think that you know better than me what Beliefs are in BW, as a component of character build, and how they work. Although you have no evidence for any of your claims about BW other than what I've told you!



I for one still would love for you to explain why you think that Beliefs in BW do not affect how the character is being roleplayed, because even after reading the BW rules my impression is that they absolutely would.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> How not being able to decide how my chracter behaves and acts limits my agency? Should be rather apparent.




I think the questions I posed were about exactly that. I don't think anything is apparent, and that's why I asked.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Is this the point where I according to the forum etiquette am supposed to snap at you that I'm not here to educate you?




I don't think so because I literally asked you about the system since I expect you actually know more about it than I do.

If I had taken your description, made a lot of assumptions about it and then used those assumptions in arguments about the system with you that revealed my ignorance of the system.....then yes, you could point that out.



Crimson Longinus said:


> But seriously, I have the books packed somewhere (two copies of most of them in fact) but I haven't opened them in years. This is why I really didn't want to go into specifics, as I simply do not remember the specifics even though it is one of my most played games. It has been too long.
> 
> You get to assign points to your virtues, but regardless of how you assign them at least one will end up as three, even on a starting character.




So if it is up to the player where to assign these points, then placing them in valor means the player is saying "valor is important to this PC", right? So they can approach play knowing this is going to come up.....that when their valor is questioned in certain ways, they may feel bound to respond in a specific manner, unless they can either succeed at a roll to resist that, or spend a player resource to resist it?

Is that understanding correct?




Crimson Longinus said:


> In certain situations yes. And I would rather trust the players to determine whether this was the sort of situation instead of mechanics making that decision for them. People know how to roleplay their characters without the rules doing it for them. And as written, this virtue would literally force the character to commit a suicide against an overwhelming foe.




Does it literally say that? It sounds to me like there is a check of some kind which may allow a PC to proceed however they wish, and then the player may also be able to use a resource to avoid that, right?

And if someone said that their character was valorous, and we trusted them to roleplay that, and they shrugged off every besmirching of their honor or ran from combat often.....aren't they actually saying that their character is not valorous? Aren't they actually NOT roleplaying?



Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes. But it is used for other things and is really valuable. And as it is also main way to overcome conditions imposed on you by social combat. So it might be a choice of being autopiloted by virtues or directed by NPCs. And that was just the mundane stuff. On top of that there is magical mind control and the Solar Exalted (and IIRC other too, but it might be slightly different...) have a curse. They have a 'limit break' track (not a nice thing like in Final Fantasy) that accrues in certain situations and once it gets filled they kinda go mad and lose control completely for a while. And one way to accrue this is to use willpower to resist your main virtue. So it might be a choice between a small lose of control now or larger later. This game really has a lot of mechanics that cause you to lose control of your character one way or another.




Okay, so these elements are an important part of the game, it sounds like. I can see why this game might not be for everyone, for sure. But it also sounds to me like the players will know these elements going into the play, and will build their character in a way that their virtues or attributes will fit the way they'd like to play their PC, right? And then they have ways of mitigating any unwanted effect?

Again, it's hard to say, but it sounds to me like this game is simply enforcing roleplaying of the kind that seems relevant to the theme and genre. So if a player didn't want their PC to feel compelled to action based on honor, then the player would likely not place points in Valor. Does that sound right?

But I say that knowing that I have an incomplete picture of the game and how it's meant to be played. My initial impression on this is that I'd likely agree with you that this is all a bit too much for my liking.



Crimson Longinus said:


> You should use whatever system is most fun for you, but but I really don't believe in systems fixing people issues.




I don't think in this case it would be so much about fixing as preventing.



Crimson Longinus said:


> That the system allows railroading doesn't mean that system results railroading. And if it wouldn't allow railroading, these adventure paths wouldn't exist! (Not a loss for me, but would be for people making them.)




The system may not cause railroading, yes, but it does nothing to prevent it. That's my point. The system is vulnerable to railroading and force. It puts the onus on the GM to avoid doing these things.



Crimson Longinus said:


> First of I don't think that being physically hurt* and being attracted to someone are comparable things. This system definitely tells the player how their character feels and in turn how to roleplay them.




No. It does not do that, or not all of it. It says they have an emotional response, yes. However, it also says that their reaction is up to the player. It says that they should be honest about it, and roleplay accordingly. But what does that mean? It's up to the player to decide.

There is no difference between physical harm and emotional response in this way. Both are unwanted, both are imposed on the PC from outside forces, but the reaction to them is up to the player to decide.




Crimson Longinus said:


> Now I fully admit that this system is way subtler that the Exalted one. I'd simply say this is a better made system that gives the player leeway how to interpret things. It still is not the sort of mechanic I like. Furthermore, unlike in Exalted where virtue mechanics and social combat are just one small facet in the game and can easily be amended/overruled/ignored by a sensible GM, my understanding is that Monster Heart is basically built around this kind of mechanic, it is central to the whole game. So in that sense it would be an bigger issue for me. None of this is saying that it is a bad game, I get what they're doing and why. But it is still trading the sort of agency that I care about a lot to get those results, so it is unlikely that I would like this game.




I honestly don't know. I haven't played Monsterhearts at all (the genre isn't my cup of tea). I agree with you that what they're going for is very genre-specific and that it fits. I don't know all the details that go into it, so I really can't say if this is all that big a limit on player agency. I don't think you and I agree about that because I don't agree that having consequences imposed on my PC is limiting my agency as a player; it's simply part of the game.

But the rule as described mentions Strings, and I don't understand their role in the game and how they come about. I'd likely need to know about those as well in order to understand the whole thing and evaluate it as a whole.



Crimson Longinus said:


> * (That being said, being able to control the physical integrity of your character would be a form of agency. It is not something most games have, but it could in theory exist. In certain types of freeform roleplay it does exist, also in some LARPs)




Blades in the Dark allows for mitigation of Harm through the use of Armor, and also through a Resistance Roll, which would most likely result in some accumulation of Stress. This is a player resource that can be used in a variety of ways, including reducing Harm as I've described.

It woudl seem to work remarkably similar to the willpower resource from Exalted. Odd that you view one as an increase in agency, but the other not as such.

Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because you've been conditioned to think of physical consequences to your character as being "normal" and a common part of a game, but mental or emotional consequences should be left entirely up to the player?

Or do you think it's something else?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Who decides if the action declared at step 2 is successful? Who decides if the enemy dies? Or retreats?



Misread so edited:  The player whose turn it is determines what action.  In combat mechanics determine whether most actions are successful (a player could attempt something not covered under the combat actions and the DM would have a say in determining success or failure or calling for a roll in that scenario - or in the case of an NPC, the DM chooses the action and mechanics determine if it is successful.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> No. The argument is that we want games in which the players can contribute to the shared fiction. And that there are very-well established techniques, mechanical frameworks and principles that support that.



I think in principle we want that same thing, we just want it done explicitly through the in game character.



pemerton said:


> Another part of the argument is that there are many RPGers, especially those who are familiar mostly with D&D and its derivatives, who appear to freak out whenever those techniques, frameworks and principles are put forward: I've got in mind in particular responses to such components of 4e D&D as skill challenge resolution, magic item wishlists, player-authored quests and even Come and Get It.



Which IMO goes back to the desire to limit a players ability to contribute to the shared fiction to their in game character.  I think we agree that doing this gives the game a different feel and experience?



pemerton said:


> The reasons for that response seem to be pretty consistent: any principle or technique or framework that allows the players to exercise control over the shared fiction necessarily limits the GM's control over it.



I agree with the principle just not that it's the reason for what you are describing.



pemerton said:


> So skill challenges limit the capacity of the GM to unilaterally establish consequences (especially failures); magic item wishlists limit the capacity of the GM to control the fiction of discoveries as well as the mechanics of PC build; CaGI limits the ability of the GM to unilaterally control the positioning, in combat, of NPCs and monsters.



Agreed.  I would just add that just because something is not in the GM's control doesn't mean it's in the player's control either.  A game mechanic may control something.



pemerton said:


> If people want the GM to be able to exercise that sort of unilateral control well they can knock themselves out. But it makes no sense to assert, at the same time, that it is the player who is engaged in authorship.



I would say that a player controlling a player character is engaged in authorship.  They are adding details about their character to the shared fiction.  Of course it's not the same extent of authorship over the shared fiction that a player that can introduce details about other fictional elements has.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> The odd thing is that you seem to think that you understand what has been presented by others better than they do. For instance, you seem to think that you know better than me what Beliefs are in BW, as a component of character build, and how they work. Although you have no evidence for any of your claims about BW other than what I've told you!



Surely you can see how one can disagree with your analysis of what the mechanics and play examples presented mean in relation to agency while fully understanding everything you presented about them?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Surely you can see how one can disagree with your analysis of what the mechanics and play examples presented mean in relation to agency while fully understanding everything you presented about them?



I can absolutely see this, but the fact remains that you have a very poor grasp of the mechanics and play examples and lack anything near full understanding.  This isn't because you disagree, it's because you're just wrong about what's happening.


----------



## FrogReaver

It might be helpful to frame some of these interactions in relation to D&D with house rules.

So let's say there's a D&D game with a house rule that says - upon their character finishing a long rest a player gains 3 points that they can use to add some fictional element to the game (restricted if it will impugne on any of another player's traditional D&D agency.)

This game has all the agency of D&D and additional agency of creating fictional elements.

But more agency alone isn't enough to make a better game despite some agency being required to have a game in the first place.  Instead what makes a better game is if you like the game experience more.

So the more I'm thinking about it, all this talk of what is agency and what isn't doesn't actually seem very useful.  It doesn't actually matter what is more or less agency.  It does matter if it has the kind of agency that creates the game experience I like - but that's about the extent of agency mattering.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> No. The argument is that we want games in which the players can contribute to the shared fiction. And that there are very-well established techniques, mechanical frameworks and principles that support that.
> 
> Another part of the argument is that there are many RPGers, especially those who are familiar mostly with D&D and its derivatives, who appear to freak out whenever those techniques, frameworks and principles are put forward: I've got in mind in particular responses to such components of 4e D&D as skill challenge resolution, magic item wishlists, player-authored quests and even Come and Get It.
> 
> The reasons for that response seem to be pretty consistent: any principle or technique or framework that allows the players to exercise control over the shared fiction necessarily limits the GM's control over it. So skill challenges limit the capacity of the GM to unilaterally establish consequences (especially failures); magic item wishlists limit the capacity of the GM to control the fiction of discoveries as well as the mechanics of PC build; CaGI limits the ability of the GM to unilaterally control the positioning, in combat, of NPCs and monsters.
> 
> If people want the GM to be able to exercise that sort of unilateral control well they can knock themselves out. But it makes no sense to assert, at the same time, that it is the player who is engaged in authorship.



And to the final step, it is makes no sense to assert somehow that the player in a game where the GM asserts control over all of this stuff offers the players the same agency in the game that, say, Dungeon World does. There is no sense to it at all, it is merest sophistry!

As near as I can tell the arguments amount to "I am always free to RP my character however I want" followed by "hypothetically there might be a rule in some narrative style game which impedes this" ergo "D&D has at least as much agency as X." (where X seems to be basically any such game). Not only are all of these facts extremely dubious on their own, but they don't even add up to an argument. Nor does the tactic of trying to split agency up into multiple 'types' and then only discuss one effect of narrative game X and compare whatever the conclusion is (usually incorrectly) with all of D&D anything but a type of category error (actually I'm not sure what the right term for this is, 'gerrymandering' is certainly being misused, but it seems apt). 

The truth is, most modern RPGs provide players with some sort of concrete access to defining fiction, or at the very least constraining its definition in a way which enables them to have an incontrovertible say in what it is. That is a form of input into the game which is not present in D&D and other classic RPGs. Yes, you can role play in any game, but your ability to have it mean anything is strictly limited in classic play because the fiction off of which that RP must be based is not under your control, and it has no influence on the mechanics of the game whatsoever. In fact any 'agency' whatsoever accrued by a player by means of RP in this way, must be 'leant' to the them by the GM! Yes, they can pantomime, but so can I do that in Dungeon World (actually its hard, because if I do the GM better fold it into the fiction or else he's not doing his job). 

This entire topic mystifies me. While I 'get' that people have preferences and whatever, I don't really think this is about preference. It honestly feels more just about a hard feeling. Like if I have another way to play, then I'm threatening the legitimacy of the way D&D works and thus it has to be attacked. Its a sort of base tribalism kind of thing. The preferences should be respected, but the rest of it? I'm reaching the conclusion that there simply weren't good arguments there. There is no 'there' there...


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The truth is, most modern RPGs provide players with some sort of concrete access to defining fiction, or at the very least constraining its definition in a way which enables them to have an incontrovertible say in what it is. That is a form of input into the game which is not present in D&D and other classic RPGs.



It has seemed as though most of the time when someone has said this, they have been referring to nouns. I think the fiction is at least as defined by verbs. Maybe there's some other disconnect?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> It has seemed as though most of the time when someone has said this, they have been referring to nouns. I think the fiction is at least as defined by verbs. Maybe there's some other disconnect?



I'm thinking... 

Lets see... when you say 'nouns' I assume you mean 'in game things that are described as nouns.' I think that's a good bit of what gets incorporated. Lets see if I can think of a 'verb' example instead. I'm not sure I can. There are definitely adjective examples, like "actually its a _flying_ robot sentry..." or something like that. Adverbs seem like pretty much just a syntactic variation of that. I guess maybe you could say something like "the wagon _burns_!" but it seems weak.

Honestly, though, I don't think the 'adding of things' is really the agency at all. It is the "alteration of the fiction in such a way as to create a material change in the position of the characters" which is REALLY where agency resides. That is the beating heart of it. Why do I want to inject hills to the north of the swamp I'm stuck in? Because I want out of the swamp! Or at least a choice of terrain to engage with. Maybe what I really want is to find the ideal spot for my wizard tower, and the middle of a mire is not promising, but a nice rocky hilltop sounds perfect. Maybe I want to acquire the next piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, so I start searching for a secret door which leads to its storage vault (which fiction already establishes must be nearby). 

You can see how this all ping-pongs back and forth, in DW I'm going to probably 'find it' and then the GM is going to reveal that on the other side is... The Chaos Titan! Hey, that baby does loads of damage, he's 40' tall. Have fun!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I think the questions I posed were about exactly that. I don't think anything is apparent, and that's why I asked.



I have hard time seeing how it could not be a form of limiting agency.



hawkeyefan said:


> So if it is up to the player where to assign these points, then placing them in valor means the player is saying "valor is important to this PC", right? So they can approach play knowing this is going to come up.....that when their valor is questioned in certain ways, they may feel bound to respond in a specific manner, unless they can either succeed at a roll to resist that, or spend a player resource to resist it?
> 
> Is that understanding correct?



Well basically. Though the resistance roll is kinda backwards, they need to_ fail_ at the virtue roll in order to not according the virtue. Not that it terribly matters. And of course you most choose at least one virtue to be high, you cannot opt out of this by just having low virtues.



hawkeyefan said:


> Does it literally say that? It sounds to me like there is a check of some kind which may allow a PC to proceed however they wish, and then the player may also be able to use a resource to avoid that, right?



It is a dicepool system, and even one success on the virtue roll causes the compulsion. With three dice this has about 80% chance of happening.  And the problem with using resource to overcome this is easier said than done. You have very limited amount of willpower points.





hawkeyefan said:


> And if someone said that their character was valorous, and we trusted them to roleplay that, and they shrugged off every besmirching of their honor or ran from combat often.....aren't they actually saying that their character is not valorous? Aren't they actually NOT roleplaying?



But why would they do that? It would mean they're roleplaying badly and why would you roleplay badly? And if they indeed did all the time, then the GM could just instruct them to change their virtues, as they didn't obviously actually want to play a valorous person.

The problem with the system written that it is a completely context free compulsion. It doesn't matter what the situation is or how impossible the dare or the challenge. It also relies on rather specific interpretation of valour, coupling things that are not necessary related. A person who is unlikely to retreat from combat and feels honour bound to accept challenges needs not also be a person who accepts any crazy dare or wants to avenge every trivial slight.

And I remind that this part of the system is not supposed to represent anything supernatural, it is just a normal mundane personality mechanic.



hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, so these elements are an important part of the game, it sounds like. I can see why this game might not be for everyone, for sure. But it also sounds to me like the players will know these elements going into the play, and will build their character in a way that their virtues or attributes will fit the way they'd like to play their PC, right? And then they have ways of mitigating any unwanted effect?
> 
> Again, it's hard to say, but it sounds to me like this game is simply enforcing roleplaying of the kind that seems relevant to the theme and genre. So if a player didn't want their PC to feel compelled to action based on honor, then the player would likely not place points in Valor. Does that sound right?



It is a crazy anime/wuxia/mythology/acid trip inspired game about demigodly heroes. It is supposed to be empowering. And sure, the limit break/curse mechanic is thematically important, but that the personality mechanics and the social combat kinda undermine it. Losing control due the curse is kinda big deal... except that you risk losing control all the time anyway. I suspect they just failed at tuning the mechanic. I think thematically the curse/ limit break thing would have worked just fine, if you could always suppress the compulsion from a virtue for free (without using willpower) but doing so would still give you limit break. (Though even that might me more than I like.)



hawkeyefan said:


> But I say that knowing that I have an incomplete picture of the game and how it's meant to be played. My initial impression on this is that I'd likely agree with you that this is all a bit too much for my liking.



Yeah. a GM can mitigate it a lot, but by RAW it is pretty brutal.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think in this case it would be so much about fixing as preventing.



What's the difference?



hawkeyefan said:


> The system may not cause railroading, yes, but it does nothing to prevent it. That's my point. The system is vulnerable to railroading and force. It puts the onus on the GM to avoid doing these things.



Yes. Why is that a problem?



hawkeyefan said:


> No. It does not do that, or not all of it. It says they have an emotional response, yes. However, it also says that their reaction is up to the player. It says that they should be honest about it, and roleplay accordingly. But what does that mean? It's up to the player to decide.



It forces an emotional reaction on you. You have control how to exactly interpret it, but still.



hawkeyefan said:


> There is no difference between physical harm and emotional response in this way. Both are unwanted, both are imposed on the PC from outside forces, but the reaction to them is up to the player to decide.



They're different categories. I get to why this matters in a bit.



hawkeyefan said:


> I honestly don't know. I haven't played Monsterhearts at all (the genre isn't my cup of tea). I agree with you that what they're going for is very genre-specific and that it fits. I don't know all the details that go into it, so I really can't say if this is all that big a limit on player agency. I don't think you and I agree about that because I don't agree that having consequences imposed on my PC is limiting my agency as a player; it's simply part of the game.
> 
> But the rule as described mentions Strings, and I don't understand their role in the game and how they come about. I'd likely need to know about those as well in order to understand the whole thing and evaluate it as a whole.



Yes. We might have exhausted the usefulness of discussing a game neither of us properly understands.



hawkeyefan said:


> Blades in the Dark allows for mitigation of Harm through the use of Armor, and also through a Resistance Roll, which would most likely result in some accumulation of Stress. This is a player resource that can be used in a variety of ways, including reducing Harm as I've described.
> 
> It woudl seem to work remarkably similar to the willpower resource from Exalted. Odd that you view one as an increase in agency, but the other not as such.
> 
> Why do you think that is? Do you think it's because you've been conditioned to think of physical consequences to your character as being "normal" and a common part of a game, but mental or emotional consequences should be left entirely up to you?
> 
> Or do you think it's something else?



You are correct that 'increase' and 'decrease' of agency are relative terms from an assumed baseline. And that baseline is not some objective reality, merely a convention. As I said earlier, there could be (and there are) games where the player has complete agency over the physical integrity of their character; no physical harm can come to the character without the player's explicit approval. Now such games are rare, whilst games where the players have near complete agency over their character's mental faculties are pretty common. And now we get to why I feel you can't treat mental and physical in the same way. You obviously can have a RPG where the players have no agency over the physical integrity of their characters, mechanics or GM can inflict injury on their character, pretty standard. But you could even imagine a RPG where the players have no control over the physical actions of their characters. Quadriplegics sitting in a wheelchair, disembodied minds that cannot affect anything physical. As long as the characters can think and are able to communicate in some way, you can have a game. Rather limited, sure, but such a game could be played. And in effect such games are played pretty often. Ones where the characters just discuss, they have control over their bodies, but aren't really doing anything particularly important with them, just hanging out and talking. But can you imagine a roleplaying game where the players have zero agency over the mental faculties of their characters? Because I can't. It would not be in any way recognisable as an roleplaying game. So in that sense I feel that the player's agency over the character's mental faculties is more fundamental; there must be at least some amount of it for the roleplay to able to happen at all.


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> It might be helpful to frame some of these interactions in relation to D&D with house rules.
> 
> So let's say there's a D&D game with a house rule that says - upon their character finishing a long rest a player gains 3 points that they can use to add some fictional element to the game (restricted if it will impugne on any of another player's traditional D&D agency.)
> 
> This game has all the agency of D&D and additional agency of creating fictional elements.
> 
> _But more agency alone isn't enough to make a *better* game despite some agency being required to have a game in the first place._  Instead what makes a better game is if you like the game experience more.
> 
> So the more I'm thinking about it, all this talk of what is agency and what isn't doesn't actually seem very useful.  It doesn't actually matter what is more or less agency.  It does matter if it has the kind of agency that creates the game experience I like - but that's about the extent of agency mattering.




I've italicized and emphasized another misunderstanding: those who are advocating for "indie games" that allow for greater player agency are not arguing for universally "better" games! We're arguing for games that have greater agency; the fact that many of us like those games because of their greater player agency (ie may consider them "better," in the sense of meeting our aesthetic preferences) is absolutely besides the point.

But as to your subsequent point, "all of this talk" _is_ useful in that those who may be frustrated by a given game's inability to deliver upon their (perhaps as yet unanalyzed) preferences may find a path of exploration that helps them suss out what they might enjoy about TTRPGing and its various possibilities. 

I certainly know from my own experience that I could not achieve the kind of character-oriented play I was interested in, even serving mostly as a GM, until I was exposed to and had my ingrained frameworks challenged by this kind of discussion here.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Why do I want to inject hills to the north of the swamp I'm stuck in? Because I want out of the swamp! Or at least a choice of terrain to engage with. Maybe what I really want is to find the ideal spot for my wizard tower, and the middle of a mire is not promising, but a nice rocky hilltop sounds perfect. Maybe I want to acquire the next piece of the Rod of Seven Parts, so I start searching for a secret door which leads to its storage vault (which fiction already establishes must be nearby).



Sure. I guess I just think it's possible to DM 5E (because that's the version I know best at the moment) to be approximately as player-responsive in extent, if differently in kind as DW (because they really do work differently).

Why did the party choose to fight the mythic death knight in something an awful lot like a cage match?


----------



## prabe

darkbard said:


> I certainly know from my own experience that I could not achieve the kind of character-oriented play I was interested in, even serving mostly as a GM, until I was exposed to and had my ingrained frameworks challenged by this kind of discussion here.



And I have said before that while I don't think I ever want to play Fate at all again ever, I am a better DM in my 5E games for having run Fate for about a year. I think I'm an even better DM for having come to understand _why_ I dislike Fate, Blades, AW, et al.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> So here’s the flow of what is happening.
> 
> A mechanic and play example from a game I’m not very familiar with is presented. Some analysis is done regarding that example and mechanic with the claim that this demonstrates X. I offer my analysis saying it actually demonstrates Y. My analysis is disagreed with but no coherent reason is given. Instead I am told, you don’t have the credentials to talk about this.  The problem there isn’t me or my supposed lack of credentials.  It’s the lack of a coherent rebuttal.





darkbard said:


> Actually, no. You've been given multiple coherent responses but, because you stubbornly refuse to educate yourself about the topics under discussion, you have no means of understanding their coherence.



Further to this: I've posted multiple actual play examples from BW play and Prince Valiant play. And you appear not to have read any of them. You certainly haven't responded to them.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Further to this: I've posted multiple actual play examples from BW play and Prince Valiant play. And you appear not to have read any of them. You certainly haven't responded to them.



You're not directing this at me, but I have a couple questions about BW, if you don't mind. If you don't want to further side-side-sidetrack this thread, we could do it in DMs. It's not exactly mechanical, just questions about expectations, which I don't remember seeing answered specifically in the starter rules.


----------



## zarionofarabel

prabe said:


> You're not directing this at me, but I have a couple questions about BW, if you don't mind. If you don't want to further side-side-sidetrack this thread, we could do it in DMs. It's not exactly mechanical, just questions about expectations, which I don't remember seeing answered specifically in the starter rules.



Start a BW thread!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> Sure. I guess I just think it's possible to DM 5E (because that's the version I know best at the moment) to be approximately as player-responsive in extent, if differently in kind as DW (because they really do work differently).
> 
> Why did the party choose to fight the mythic death knight in something an awful lot like a cage match?



I can't speak for anyone else's abilities but mine. I know that it is at least EASIER to GM such a game when I have a system which simply puts that stuff on the table. I could try to run a 5e game like a DW game, sure, but I'd constantly have to be trying to figure out what to do next to get it to work. 5e doesn't have an equivalent of 'success with complication' either, which is one thing that is pretty commonly used in these games. I guess if I am, again, a very sure hand at this technique I can adjudicate just the right amount of those into play, but DW just tells me when to do that itself. It also allows bonuses (hold etc) that let players mitigate that possibility somewhat. I guess I could add a 'coupon' to 5e that did that, but then what would I tie it to? Now I'm adding mechanics. 

Frankly, while I have written pretty much a complete RPG, there are other people who are probably much better at it, and its a lot less time-consuming to read their material and use it. If I'm already adhering to basically a DW agenda and principles, why use 5e rules?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Can't say I see a benefit to heterogeneity here. I mean, I have no real opinion on non-player-facing stuff, or what happens during the lifepath process, but in play? Last thing I want to do is be explaining/figuring out/looking up some other dice system. Every one of them outputs a probability of success as a result, and can extrapolate to 'more or less success' fairly easily. Settle on one!



I see it as about managing likelihoods. Combat is centred around 8+ but involves multiple checks. Other subsystems involve a single check and distributed odds differently.

Eg once some of the presentation in Book 1 is corrected, we get further things like the basic roll for dealing with officials is 10+, with +5 for Admin-1 and +2 for each additional rank. This helps give even a single skill rank weight in the context of single-roll resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I for one still would love for you to explain why you think that Beliefs in BW do not affect how the character is being roleplayed, because even after reading the BW rules my impression is that they absolutely would.



The player can declare whatever actions s/he wants for his/her PC. The player can characterise/thespianise his/her PC however s/he likes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And to the final step, it is makes no sense to assert somehow that the player in a game where the GM asserts control over all of this stuff offers the players the same agency in the game that, say, Dungeon World does. There is no sense to it at all, it is merest sophistry!
> 
> As near as I can tell the arguments amount to "I am always free to RP my character however I want" followed by "hypothetically there might be a rule in some narrative style game which impedes this" ergo "D&D has at least as much agency as X." (where X seems to be basically any such game). Not only are all of these facts extremely dubious on their own, but they don't even add up to an argument. Nor does the tactic of trying to split agency up into multiple 'types' and then only discuss one effect of narrative game X and compare whatever the conclusion is (usually incorrectly) with all of D&D anything but a type of category error (actually I'm not sure what the right term for this is, 'gerrymandering' is certainly being misused, but it seems apt).
> 
> The truth is, most modern RPGs provide players with some sort of concrete access to defining fiction, or at the very least constraining its definition in a way which enables them to have an incontrovertible say in what it is. That is a form of input into the game which is not present in D&D and other classic RPGs. Yes, you can role play in any game, but your ability to have it mean anything is strictly limited in classic play because the fiction off of which that RP must be based is not under your control, and it has no influence on the mechanics of the game whatsoever. In fact any 'agency' whatsoever accrued by a player by means of RP in this way, must be 'leant' to the them by the GM! Yes, they can pantomime, but so can I do that in Dungeon World (actually its hard, because if I do the GM better fold it into the fiction or else he's not doing his job).
> 
> This entire topic mystifies me. While I 'get' that people have preferences and whatever, I don't really think this is about preference. It honestly feels more just about a hard feeling. Like if I have another way to play, then I'm threatening the legitimacy of the way D&D works and thus it has to be attacked. Its a sort of base tribalism kind of thing. The preferences should be respected, but the rest of it? I'm reaching the conclusion that there simply weren't good arguments there. There is no 'there' there...



It mystifies me too. Here you first decry the attempts to categorise agency in different types, and in next paragraph you clearly use the concept of setting agency to make a distinction between different types of games... 

And it is perfectly possible that if there was some coherent definition of agency it might result certain games where the players have a lot of setting agency ranking pretty highly. But this thread is pretty resistant to any coherent definition. I have been told that games that don't let me decide how my character thinks do not restrict the player agency but games who don't let player spawn hills and towers wherever they want definitely do!

Also accusing me of being motivated by tribal desire to defend  the honour an prestige of _Dungeons & Dragons_ would be hilarious if it wasn't so insulting.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Misread so edited:  The player whose turn it is determines what action.  In combat mechanics determine whether most actions are successful (a player could attempt something not covered under the combat actions and the DM would have a say in determining success or failure or calling for a roll in that scenario - or in the case of an NPC, the DM chooses the action and mechanics determine if it is successful.



When you say "mechanics determine whether most actions are sucessful" do you mean: if the checks succeeds the player gets what s/he wanted; otherwise not?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think in principle we want that same thing, we just want it done explicitly through the in game character.
> 
> 
> Which IMO goes back to the desire to limit a players ability to contribute to the shared fiction to their in game character.  I think we agree that doing this gives the game a different feel and experience?



In the following sense: part of being my character - if s/he is not an amnesiac - is knowing about the world I live in. Hence I want a system that will support that experience. Map-and-key, ask-the-GM approaches are OK for situations where the PCs are strangers in a place (eg a Gygaxian dungeon; a strange plane of existence) but break down under most other circumstances.



FrogReaver said:


> A game mechanic may control something.



I don't agree with this. Game mechanics are abstract rules. They can't self-actualise. In a game, it is the participants who control the play of the game - perhaps by following the rules.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Surely you can see how one can disagree with your analysis of what the mechanics and play examples presented mean in relation to agency while fully understanding everything you presented about them?



Have you read everything I've posted about them? In that case you would know that a BW PC's Beliefs do not place any limit on actions that can be declared nor on the way the PC might be characterised.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> It might be helpful to frame some of these interactions in relation to D&D with house rules.
> 
> So let's say there's a D&D game with a house rule that says - upon their character finishing a long rest a player gains 3 points that they can use to add some fictional element to the game (restricted if it will impugne on any of another player's traditional D&D agency.)
> 
> This game has all the agency of D&D and additional agency of creating fictional elements.



On the face of it, that sounds like a terrible mechanic.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> It has seemed as though most of the time when someone has said this, they have been referring to nouns. I think the fiction is at least as defined by verbs.



Yes. Verbs like _Can I *see* a vessel in which I might catch the decapitated mage's blood?_ This is why I don't agree with the assertion that Perception is essentially passive/reactive. That might be so in some RPGs, but it's not true of RPGs in general.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> The player can declare whatever actions s/he wants for his/her PC. The player can characterise/thespianise his/her PC however s/he likes.



Perhaps true in most technical sense. Completely ignoring the roleplay implications of the beliefs would seem to go strongly against the intended spirit though, it specifically says they're meant to be a source of drama.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> You're not directing this at me, but I have a couple questions about BW, if you don't mind. If you don't want to further side-side-sidetrack this thread, we could do it in DMs. It's not exactly mechanical, just questions about expectations, which I don't remember seeing answered specifically in the starter rules.





zarionofarabel said:


> Start a BW thread!



prabe, if you start a new thread you should "@" me. And mabye also "@" zaroionfarabel.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with this. Game mechanics are abstract rules. They can't self-actualise. In a game, it is the participants who control the play of the game - perhaps by following the rules.



Players control the outcome in Snakes and Ladders?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Perhaps true in most technical sense. Completely ignoring the roleplay implications of the beliefs would seem to go strongly against the intended spirit though, it specifically says they're meant to be a source of drama.



Upthread Frogreaver posted this:



FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's another example (which @AbdulAlhazred already posted 20 or 30 pages upthread):
> 
> The GM narrates you come to a dead end.
> 
> Now I can't describe the following action for my character (assuming that I'm not ethereal or similar): I keep walking straight ahead.
> 
> Thus the GM's description is a limit on "baseline" agency.
> 
> And this sort of thing happens in D&D all the time.
> 
> The bigger point is this: "baseline" agency is constrained by the fictional position of the PC; and that fictional position contains both internal and external elements.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I most certainly can narrate my character walking straight ahead at a dead end.
> 
> I may take some damage. Or maybe I’ll find it’s an illusory wall...
Click to expand...


Beliefs in BW impose no more constraint on action declaration and on characterisation than do dead ends in standard D&D.

On the GM side, Beliefs are intended to guide the framing of situations and the narration of consequences. On the player side, Beliefs provide a context for earning artha whether by playing to them or against them.

The closest thing I can think of in standard D&D is alignment. Which is not all that close. 5e Bonds, Ideals and Flaws seem a bit closer but my understanding is that they are not widely used.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Players control the outcome in Snakes and Ladders?



Players roll the dice and move their tokens. Of course in snakes and ladders there is no fiction in any deep sense - just flavour text written on the board. And there is no action declaration of the sort that is found in RPGs. Do you think D&D combat is like snakes and ladders?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Upthread Frogreaver posted this:
> 
> Beliefs in BW impose no more constraint on action declaration and on characterisation than do dead ends in standard D&D.
> 
> On the GM side, Beliefs are intended to guide the framing of situations and the narration of consequences. On the player side, Beliefs provide a context for earning artha whether by playing to them or against them.
> 
> The closest thing I can think of in standard D&D is alignment. Which is not all that close. 5e Bonds, Ideals and Flaws seem a bit closer but my understanding is that they are not widely used.



Alignments, bonds, ideals and flaws are absolutely intended to inform the roleplaying and by reading the BW rules, it is clear that beliefs are meant to do the same. "There is no rule that says that I have to roleplay my character with a belief 'I guard the prince’s life with my own' to actually caring whether the prince lives or dies" is a total dishonest copout.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> The closest thing I can think of in standard D&D is alignment. Which is not all that close. 5e Bonds, Ideals and Flaws seem a bit closer but my understanding is that they are not widely used.



Bond, Flaws, and Ideals in 5E are a weak, half-hearted afterthought, as the Inspiration mechanic on which they depend. I outright tell the players I DM for not to bother with them unless they want them for themselves as RP aids (which is about all they're good for, IMO).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> Bond, Flaws, and Ideals in 5E are a weak, half-hearted afterthought, as the Inspiration mechanic on which they depend. I outright tell the players I DM for not to bother with them unless they want them for themselves as RP aids (which is about all they're good for, IMO).



This is also true. But they're definitely intended to affect roleplay, that's like the reason they're there.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is also true. But they're definitely intended to affect roleplay, that's like the reason they're there.



This is why system (and its components) matters.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

darkbard said:


> This is why system (and its components) matters.



I'm not sure I follow.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> I'm not sure I follow.



I think (and I hope @darkbard will correct me if I'm wrong) that a weak system isn't likely to accomplish its intent. Bonds, etc., and Inspiration are weak mechanics, so they're unlikely to affect roleplay.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I think (and I hope @darkbard will correct me if I'm wrong) that a weak system isn't likely to accomplish its intent. Bonds, etc., and Inspiration are weak mechanics, so they're unlikely to affect roleplay.



Yes, sure. But such system is not needed. People can roleplay complex nuanced characters just fine without any system.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, sure. But such system is not needed. People can roleplay complex nuanced characters just fine without any system.



I don't disagree, but if you want to build a provide mechanical hooks for roleplay--and it's not unreasonable to want those hooks--the system needs to be sturdy.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Have we now shifted from "directs roleplay" or "controls roleplay" to "affects roleplay?"  Because, if so, I'm very interested in this new lens being pointed at D&D and all the things that happen that affect roleplay.


----------



## darkbard

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, sure. But such system is not needed. People can roleplay complex nuanced characters just fine without any system.




"Needed" is a strong term, but, even so, I'll disagree. System facilitates outcomes, and I prefer systems that work with rather than against (or are agnostic to) the outcomes that interest me (for the sake of this thread: player agency). Give a player only one tool, say, a hammer (in this case, meaning poor system architecture for facilitating player agency, like GM-gated fiat), and pretty soon every problem begins to look like a nail (ie, solicits the same approach: GM approval of salient changes to the gamestate).


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Alignments, bonds, ideals and flaws are absolutely intended to inform the roleplaying and by reading the BW rules, it is clear that beliefs are meant to do the same. "There is no rule that says that I have to roleplay my character with a belief 'I guard the prince’s life with my own' to actually caring whether the prince lives or dies" is a total dishonest copout.



This shows you don't know the game. Do you understand how Mouldbreaker artha is earned?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Upthread Frogreaver posted this:
> 
> Beliefs in BW impose no more constraint on action declaration and on characterisation than do dead ends in standard D&D.
> 
> On the GM side, Beliefs are intended to guide the framing of situations and the narration of consequences. On the player side, Beliefs provide a context for earning artha whether by playing to them or against them.
> 
> The closest thing I can think of in standard D&D is alignment. Which is not all that close. 5e Bonds, Ideals and Flaws seem a bit closer but my understanding is that they are not widely used.



Just so I'm clear, it is perfectly legal and in the Spirit of the game to set your beliefs to be something you always play against?

Also, are your beliefs ever forced to change?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Just so I'm clear, it is perfectly legal and in the Spirit of the game to set your beliefs to be something you always play against?
> 
> Also, are your beliefs ever forced to change?



I already answered the second question upthread: a player can change his/her PC's Beliefs at will. This is an expected component of game play. The GM is entitled to delay a change if s/he takes the view that it is being done to sidestep rather than confront the immediate situation. (BW doesn't use the a contrast between Action and Transition scenes, but if it did then we could say that players generally are not expected to change their PCs' Beliefs during the resolution of an Action scene.)

There are relatively uncommon circumstances in which someone who does not normally control a particular character might get to set one of his/her Beliefs.  There is an Elven song that can have a similar effect: Doom Sayer, intended to emulate (eg) Thingol pronouncing Beren's Doom. And I gave an example upthread - Force of Will. The rules don't themselves say how Force of Will used against a PC should be adjudicated - I chose to treat it as requiring a change of Belief _precisely because_ this does not prevent the player from declaring any action or from characterising his/her PC as s/he likes.

It would be unusual for a player to deliberately choose a Belief just to play against it. It is considered good design to choose Beliefs that are likely, in play, to come into conflict. And it is absolutely considered good play to lean into those conflicts as they start to unfold in play.

In circumstances where a Belief has been foisted on a PC due to (in the fiction) a force or influence outside the character's control and (at the table) someone other than the player of that PC, then playing against it from the start is something the player is entitled to do.

In my game the player who was subject to Force of Will chose to pursue his master's desire for the mage (and then, once the mage was decapitated, switched that - with my concurrence - to a Belief that he would bring the dead mage's blood to his master).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> But why would they do that? It would mean they're roleplaying badly and why would you roleplay badly? And if they indeed did all the time, then the GM could just instruct them to change their virtues, as they didn't obviously actually want to play a valorous person.




I don’t know. You gave the example of a player who chose a valorous character not wanting to do valorous things and you say the system that would enforce that is no good. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> The problem with the system written that it is a completely context free compulsion. It doesn't matter what the situation is or how impossible the dare or the challenge. It also relies on rather specific interpretation of valour, coupling things that are not necessary related. A person who is unlikely to retreat from combat and feels honour bound to accept challenges needs not also be a person who accepts any crazy dare or wants to avenge every trivial slight.




I’m only passingly familiar with the game, and haven’t read it at all. As described here, it sounds like a mess.



Crimson Longinus said:


> And I remind that this part of the system is not supposed to represent anything supernatural, it is just a normal mundane personality mechanic.




Well, if the PCs are demigod like beings, then I don’t know if I’d agree about that. Gods are usually associated with some kind of theme, right? Like they’re the embodiment of war or love or whatever. As such, I can see a system that’s trying to portray that having some mechanics that are meant to bring it to the fore. 

But that’s a guess as to the motive of such mechanics. Their application and how they function is another matter. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes. Why is that a problem?




It’s not a problem, necessarily. But if we’re examining the level of player agency allowed by a game, and one of the games we’re discussing is vulnerable to GM force and railroading, that certainly seems relevant to me.



Crimson Longinus said:


> It forces an emotional reaction on you. You have control how to exactly interpret it, but still.




So what? People have emotional reactions they don’t want all the time. That happens. It’s the same as a combatant being hurt in combat despite not wanting to be hurt. 

This distinction between the mental and the physical is arbitrary. 



Crimson Longinus said:


> But can you imagine a roleplaying game where the players have zero agency over the mental faculties of their characters? Because I can't. It would not be in any way recognisable as an roleplaying game.




It sounds kind of like the earliest RPGs, no? Where players were treating their characters very much like pawns, and it was the skill of the player being tested.

I know that’s not really what you had in mind, but that doesn’t make it less relevant.


----------



## pemerton

I don't really know Exalted. @Campbell does.

But the example of a mechanic where one's PC can be required to act valorously, and there is a cost to buying that off, sounds a bit like Pendragon and maybe also a bit like a compel in Fate. (In Pendragon there's no resource that can be spent to buy off the compel.)

The Dying Earth has a similar mechanic where a PC has a rating in 6 weaknesses (I can't remember the technical label, nor all of them - but gluttony and rakishness are two, and I'm pretty sure greed is probably in there as well). The GM can call for a check, and the player has only a limited budget to spend on re-rolls if the resistance check fails.

Classic Traveller has morale for PCs as well as NPCs, and a fail can't be bought off. Burning Wheel has Steel which is a bit like morale but with the GM having more discretion to call for checks; in BW there is no "buying off" a failure but the players have resources they can spend to manipulate their dice pool so as to enhance the prospect of success.

The general function of this sort of mechanic  - as I see it - is to help bring it about that the PCs' actions conform to the ingame situation as seen through the lens of personality and genre. So CT has morale - there is a somewhat military focus to the setting and the game - but not greed - the game allows players to take a "rational actor" approach towards acquiring riches. You probably wouldn't want morale as a player-side mechanic in a game aimed at providing a Star Wars-like experience.

In most of these systems players can make some build choices that will help either increase their chance of success or mitigate the consequences of failure: CT is an exception because of the random nature of PC gen.

I don't think anyone thinks that when the morale dice tell you that your CT PC is breaking in combat that that is a high moment of player agency. But that doesn't stop the overall play experience being one of high player agency. Most of the time at the table in a CT game is not going to be spent with the PC in the condition of having just failed a morale check.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> But the example of a mechanic where one's PC can be required to act valorously, and there is a cost to buying that off, sounds a bit like Pendragon and maybe also a bit like a compel in Fate. (In Pendragon there's no resource that can be spent to buy off the compel.)



I'd had the thought it seemed vaguely Compel-ish, myself. I can see how it might feel dissonant (my word) or jarring (yours, I think) but it's ... moving some in-play agency into chargen, I guess? Doesn't mean a player is gonna like it (I don't, @Crimson Longinus apparently doesn't) but I guess it's a way to introduce an additional (maybe minor) pain point into chargen.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I'd had the thought it seemed vaguely Compel-ish, myself. I can see how it might feel dissonant (my word) or jarring (yours, I think) but it's ... moving some in-play agency into chargen, I guess? Doesn't mean a player is gonna like it (I don't, @Crimson Longinus apparently doesn't) but I guess it's a way to introduce an additional (maybe minor) pain point into chargen.



I also see it as an attempt to move beyond "rational actor" approaches to play, but without violating the Czege Principle in the way that was discussed upthread - ie the _player _decides whether or not his/her PC is tempted or provoked or whatever and then likewise just _decides_ whether to succumb or resist. So the player can find him-/herself having to play a PC that responded in non-rational ways to the situation about them.

There are other devices that can be used instead. Eg in Apocalypse World if an attempt to Seduce/Manipulate a PC is used then the player gains an incentive (XP) to do what was asked and/or (depending on degree of success) an incentive (debuff) not to act otherwise. This attempts to align the player's rational motivations at the table with the character's irrational response, thus removing or at least reducing the gap I've pointed to between rational and non-rational responses.

Cortex+ Heroic uses a very different resolution mechanic from AW but in these contexts the upshot is similar: a successful influence attempt against a PC imposes a debuff that applies to actions that are contrary to what the influencer desired.

A slightly different point: upthread I think someone (@Crimson Longinus) worried that the Exalted mechanic will force players into suicidal duels and the like. Now I don't know what the GMing principles are in Exalted, nor how it establishes consequences. But in systems that I'm familiar with, like BW, Prince Valiant and Cortex+ Heroic and even Classic Traveller there are a range of system components that will tend to mean that this is not the case.

Perhaps the PC will lose a duel and then be taken prisoner for ransom, but that's the sort of thing that's meant to happen in a game of valorous heroes of great appetite and great passion!


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> There are other devices that can be used instead.



Yeah. Offhand I think I'd prefer a mechanic where Valor at given levels had specific benefits, and failure to act Valorously could cause the player to lose those levels (and their benefits), but it was the player's choice--especially if acting Valorously could enable gaining levels of it.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Yeah. Offhand I think I'd prefer a mechanic where Valor at given levels had specific benefits, and failure to act Valorously could cause the player to lose those levels (and their benefits), but it was the player's choice--especially if acting Valorously could enable gaining levels of it.



I think why the sort of mechanic you describe is less preferred in "narrative"-style games is because it requires the GM to make judgements about the player's play of his/her PC - a bit like AD&D paladins.

It can also tend to produce unhappy feedback loops: the GM frames the player into a situation s/he thinks as demanding valour, the player balks, the GM then imposes the penalty, and now the player is more hesitant to act valorously, etc.

An alternative approach is the one taken by 4e: you only get a finite amount of "stuff"; and the stuff you choose dictates what you're good at; and the incentive to do what you're good at (eg by valorous) is that that's the way you get to deploy your stuff. From my 4e experience I think this doesn't produce as stark a painting of personalities as the Exalted mechanic might tend to.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I think why the sort of mechanic you describe is less preferred in "narrative"-style games is because it requires the GM to make judgements about the player's play of his/her PC - a bit like AD&D paladins.
> 
> It can also tend to produce unhappy feedback loops: the GM frames the player into a situation s/he thinks as demanding valour, the player balks, the GM then imposes the penalty, and now the player is more hesitant to act valorously, etc.
> 
> An alternative approach is the one taken by 4e: you only get a finite amount of "stuff"; and the stuff you choose dictates what you're good at; and the incentive to do what you're good at (eg by valorous) is that that's the way you get to deploy your stuff. From my 4e experience I think this doesn't produce as stark a painting of personalities as the Exalted mechanic might tend to.



Yeah. I was thinking "prefer to the Valor Mechanic in Exalted, as I understand the description."

I also think it might be possible to write it so it was fair--but not necessarily probable--where "fair" avoids those unhappy feedback loops.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, sure.  Are you familiar with Bell's Theorem?  It stipulates that if a hidden variable is local it is incompatible with quantum mechanics, and if it agrees with quantum mechanics, it cannot be local.  Can you please analyze this in the context of quantum mechanics versus classical mechanics theory?



Sure.

Bell's Theorem just means that when someone rings a bell, classical mechanics pours me a beer while quantum mechanics makes a beer appear in front of me out of thin air.

Either way I end up with a beer; and why do I need to care any further than that?


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, I think that there's a question of just how flexible are D&D DMs? They need not have any flexibility really, you're the (hopefully benevolent) dictator of all your table! There's nothing saying you have to give players much freedom to do things, and if you just don't particularly have a taste for something a given player is trying to do, there are a dozen easy ways to quash it, and they're well-supported with rules right out of the book (rule 0 if nothing else).
> 
> Now, obviously there can be fairly basic 'unobtrusive' goals that players can easily adopt for their PCs that will probably 'just work'. "I want to collect weird looking daggers." or whatever. But I've found over the years that AP type play is going to be pretty much about the AP. There's a set sequence, or a small set of possible paths, that can be taken through it. Any significant player agenda is mostly going to be in the way, it isn't adding directly to the main thrust of the game, and thus tends to get minimized. That's just how these things work.



I completely agree as regards AP play, which is why I'm not much of a fan of it unless the AP is merely a chapter built into a larger campaign; because there players have a bit more freedom: they might have other PCs out there to rotate in and out of the AP, and can always abandon the AP and go do other things in the setting should they so desire.

In a campaign that is only the AP, if the players/PCs abandon said AP the game pretty much ends.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> ... Maybe the fighter decides to build a castle near the river. The GM can indulge these to whatever extent, there just aren't any pro forma processes in D&D for how to do that. ...



To be fussy: in the 1e DMG there are some process guidelines as regards castle (stronghold) construction in terms of cost and time.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Who decides if the action declared at step 2 is successful? Who decides if the enemy dies? Or retreats?



If combat mechanics are present those mechanics determine whether the action is successful.

In any system that uses hit points or equivalent (which, I think, covers most of 'em) the gamestate decides if the enemy dies, based on the total numerical amount of damage or harm sustained thus far plus whatever the most recent action did to it.

The GM decides if the enemy retreats, either as a function of role-playing their actions in character or (in some systems) a result of game-induced elements such as morale checks.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> No. The argument is that we want games in which the players can contribute to the shared fiction.



You might want to be a bit more specific with this; as what you specifically mean by "contribute to the shared fiction" and what anyone else might mean by it can (and does) vary widely.

For my part, as a player I feel I've "contributed to the shared fiction" the moment my character opens its mouth and says something; or even the moment I describe my character's looks and appearance when it's first introduced to the other PCs.  And as this is true in absolutely any RPG out there, it thus follows that I-as-player can contribute to the shared fiction regardless of system in use.

What you mean by the phrase, as I know from experience, is something quite different; and while you'll probably dismiss my above-noted contributions as meaningless by your standards, rest assured they are not by mine.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> Bond, Flaws, and Ideals in 5E are a weak, half-hearted afterthought, as the Inspiration mechanic on which they depend. I outright tell the players I DM for not to bother with them unless they want them for themselves as RP aids (which is about all they're good for, IMO).



If something like the whole Bonds-Flaws-Ideals set-up (or equivalent) ends up directing or forcing how one role-plays one's character, isn't it then just the same boxing-in principle as the RAW 1e alignment system only with more bells, louder whistles, and prettier boxes?

If yes, given how many D&D GMs either ditched or watered down* alignment over the years it's rather surprising this would fly.

* - as, incrementally, did D&D itself as each new edition followed the last.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> You might want to be a bit more specific with this; as what you specifically mean by "contribute to the shared fiction" and what anyone else might mean by it can (and does) vary widely.
> 
> For my part, as a player I feel I've "contributed to the shared fiction" the moment my character opens its mouth and says something; or even the moment I describe my character's looks and appearance when it's first introduced to the other PCs.  And as this is true in absolutely any RPG out there, it thus follows that I-as-player can contribute to the shared fiction regardless of system in use.
> 
> What you mean by the phrase, as I know from experience, is something quite different; and while you'll probably dismiss my above-noted contributions as meaningless by your standards, rest assured they are not by mine.




How about if a player contributes to the shared fiction in another way? Let’s say they have an idea for a goal for their PC and maybe it involves a church of some obscure god and an artifact stolen from the PC’s family.

So the player has added an organization to the fiction and possibly a deity and an artifact and some conflict between that organization and the PC’s family. This is also material that can be explored through play; the GM can pick up these threads and weave them into the unfolding fiction.

Now I know you might start twitching at the mere thought of this, but rest assured plenty of games allow this.

So, knowing that such a game would also allow a PC to open its mouth and speak and for the player to describe the PC and give them personality....knowing that it also allows this most basic form of contribution that you choose to celebrate....would you say that this game allows more contribution to the fiction from the player?

If not, why not?


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> From the little bit I've read about the ... inspirations for Blades, et al. (and the systems themselves) I don't think it's an unreasonable thought that they were written (or other verbed) in response to bad GMing in other games. I think in some instances they blamed the systems for the bad GMing, which given the GMing advice in some games isn't completely bonkers (though it's probably further than I'd go).



I think it was more a dissatisfaction with the apportionment of agency -- they disliked having the GM as the primary wielder of agency.  This is born out by a preference for the design that shares it out even in the presence of a GM that uses that authority well.  That this also addresses railroads is more of a bonus than the prime or even secondary design intent.  YMMV.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> I've italicized and emphasized another misunderstanding: those who are advocating for "indie games" that allow for greater player agency are not arguing for universally "better" games! We're arguing for games that have greater agency; the fact that many of us like those games because of their greater player agency (ie may consider them "better," in the sense of meeting our aesthetic preferences) is absolutely besides the point.



No misunderstanding on my part.  You certainly claim that more or less agency doesn't matter, but at the end of the day as you noted here, you believe you like games simply because they have greater agency.  My counterclaim is that even in regards to yourself that it's not actually because of greater agency, it's because you have an aesthetic preference for certain types of agency.  One could imagine a game with even more agency than the ones you like and you could absolutely hate it because it gives you agency over something you aesthetically dislike having agency over.

A rather trivial example of this would be a game granting agency over anything that violates the Crezge principle.  That would certainly be a higher agency game, and so if you were correct then one that likes games because they have more agency should like games that violate that principle and yet they don't.



darkbard said:


> But as to your subsequent point, "all of this talk" _is_ useful in that those who may be frustrated by a given game's inability to deliver upon their (perhaps as yet unanalyzed) preferences may find a path of exploration that helps them suss out what they might enjoy about TTRPGing and its various possibilities.



I would say a talk on types things players can control in different RPG's would do a much better job (and those game's purpose for granting the player control over things things).


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> No misunderstanding on my part.  You certainly claim that more or less agency doesn't matter, but at the end of the day as you noted here, you believe you like games simply because they have greater agency.




This is incoherent. Of course more or less agency matters in analysis of relative amounts of agency! What I stated was that one's preferences regarding such relative amounts is a side issue and should not impede clear analysis (although clearly it can when those who have no experience with such player agency-granting games misunderstand how such games actually function in practice and why that is so!).




> My counterclaim is that even in regards to yourself that it's not actually because of greater agency, it's because you have an aesthetic preference for certain types of agency.  One could imagine a game with even more agency than the ones you like and you could absolutely hate it because it gives you agency over something you aesthetically dislike having agency over.
> 
> A rather trivial example of this would be a game granting agency over anything that violates the Crezge principle.  That would certainly be a higher agency game, and so if you were correct then one that likes games because they have more agency should like games that violate that principle and yet they don't.
> 
> 
> I would say a talk on types things players can control in different RPG's would do a much better job (and those game's purpose for granting the player control over things things).




Perhaps a more precise framing of my own preference is for one in which players and GM are equal contributors to the shared fiction (no hierarchy distinguishing them) with clear system restraints upon when and how each exercises their agency, that the players don't suffer the illusion of agency gated behind GM approval.

You are correct that the kind of shared storytelling game (not really an RPG in the precise sense of the term) that you imagine would probably not meet my criteria for an enjoyable game (where is the drama in setting one's own challenge and its outcome?), but that imagined game is nothing like the kinds of games I play and enjoy.


----------



## Ovinomancer

darkbard said:


> This is incoherent. Of course more or less agency matters in analysis of relative amounts of agency! What I stated was that one's preferences regarding such relative amounts is a side issue and should not impede clear analysis (although clearly it can when those who have no experience with such player agency-granting games misunderstand how such games actually function in practice and why that is so!).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps a more precise framing of my own preference is for one in which players and GM are equal contributors to the shared fiction (no hierarchy distinguishing them) with clear system restraints upon when and how each exercises their agency, that the players don't suffer the illusion of agency gated behind GM approval.
> 
> You are correct that the kind of shared storytelling game (not really an RPG in the precise sense of the term) that you imagine would probably not meet my criteria for an enjoyable game (where is the drama in setting one's own challenge and its outcome?), but that imagined game is nothing like the kinds of games I play and enjoy.



Having met with little success in skewing the analysis to support his conclusion, I believe the current attack is to just try to discredit analysis altogether.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> This shows you don't know the game. Do you understand how Mouldbreaker artha is earned?



Yes. It further supports the idea the beliefs are supposed to affect roleplay.


----------



## prabe

Lanefan said:


> If something like the whole Bonds-Flaws-Ideals set-up (or equivalent) ends up directing or forcing how one role-plays one's character, isn't it then just the same boxing-in principle as the RAW 1e alignment system only with more bells, louder whistles, and prettier boxes?
> 
> If yes, given how many D&D GMs either ditched or watered down* alignment over the years it's rather surprising this would fly.
> 
> * - as, incrementally, did D&D itself as each new edition followed the last.



I agree that D&D has gradually reduced the importance of alignment, in the forms of penalties for players who disagreed with their DMs over what those two words on the character sheet meant. As you might guess from that construction, I don't have a problem with that.

As to Bonds, etc.: I think the intent was to reward players who, e.g., actually played to their Flaw. The biggest problem is that the reward is Advantage, which is ... pretty easy to get (and doesn't stack (and is the primary mechanic for altering difficulty)) so the incentive isn't all that great; the second-biggest problem is that there isn't any mechanical effect for not, e.g., playing to your character's Flaw; the third-biggest problem is that remembering these five things (Bond, Flaw, Ideal, 2x Trait) per character and engaging them adds to the DM's mental overhead more than I found to be worth it (this is a problem I see with Aspects in Fate or Beliefs in BW, at least as far as the need for the GM to remember them--I'm willing to believe that GMs in those systems find they reward the overhead in ways 5E doesn't, and I'm not endeavoring to pick a fight over this).


Ovinomancer said:


> I think it was more a dissatisfaction with the apportionment of agency -- they disliked having the GM as the primary wielder of agency.  This is born out by a preference for the design that shares it out even in the presence of a GM that uses that authority well.  That this also addresses railroads is more of a bonus than the prime or even secondary design intent.  YMMV.



That seems reasonable. As I said, I've only read a little about it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

As for personality mechanics in general, obviously ones which incentivise the character to behave in certain way with some buff/debuff are better and less jarring than ones that outright dictate how the character behaves.

Though I really don't see much point even in such less drastic mechanics. My assumption is that the player has though about the personality of their character and that they know better than any mechanic how to portray it, and they presumably do it because that is fun for them. They don't need any carrots, sticks or training wheels to do it.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> As for personality mechanics on general, obviously ones which incentivise the character to behave in certain way with some buff/debuff are better and less jarring than ones that outright dictate how the character behaves.
> 
> Though I really don't see much point even such less drastic mechanics. My assumption is that the player has though about the personality of their character and that they know better than any mechanic how to portray it, and they presumably do it because that is fun for them. They don't need any carrots, sticks or training wheels to do it.



I think that although these mechanics are often in the hands of players, it's less about the players needing them to roleplay and more about having such things reinforced by the system and GM. In the case of Fate, for example, I've heard people ask/gripe why the character needs Troubles or Fate point mechanics for the player simply roleplaying the character. But when a character has these Aspects and Troubles, the GM is encouraged (if not required for the sake of the Fate point economy) to engage the traits and troubles that the PC wants their character to experience.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes. It further supports the idea the beliefs are supposed to affect roleplay.



Again, if the goalposts have shifted to things that are supposed to merely affect roleplay, we need to revisit the T-intersection example with Bob and Fynn and look at how the GM's description affected Fynn's player's roleplaying.  I mean, it was a concrete thing that engaged roleplaying in a way that had an effect, yes?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, if the goalposts have shifted to things that are supposed to merely affect roleplay, we need to revisit the T-intersection example with Bob and Fynn and look at how the GM's description affected Fynn's player's roleplaying.  I mean, it was a concrete thing that engaged roleplaying in a way that had an effect, yes?



I think you have missed the starting point of this tangent, which is understandable as it was who knows how many pages ago.
I have no problem with BW's belief mechanic informing roleplay, as personality mechanics go, it is pretty good one. The issue only arose in in a situation where external forces could overwrite the character's belief. That would like if in a D&D game some external force changed your alignment (and yes, I know it can happen in some editions, I am not defending D&D, merely making a comparison.) That would obviously be an external force affecting how the character should be roleplayed, even if there were not explicit rules how the alignment/belief must be roleplayed.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think you have missed the starting point of this tangent, which is understandable as it was who knows how many pages ago.
> I have no problem with BW's belief mechanic informing roleplay, as personality mechanics go, it is pretty good one. The issue only arose in in a situation where external forces could overwrite the character's belief. That would like if in a D&D game some external force changed your alignment (and yes, I know it can happen in some editions, I am not defending D&D, merely making a comparison.) That would obviously be an external force affecting how the character should be roleplayed, even if there were not explicit rules how the alignment/belief must be roleplayed.



No, I know where it started, I'm just challenging that this is, in any way, unique.  Once we're looking at outside forces affecting roleplay, the field is wide open to lots of such things, and the concept quickly becomes mud.  I get that you want to limit it to this very narrow and specific example, but that's an exercise of double standards or special pleading -- you can't restrict the new analysis only to the thing you want.  If it's a valid analysis, it can be applied to other things.  And there's nothing very different from a move that changes a belief to a move that creates a fiction situation that influences roleplaying -- both push the player in a direction for their roleplay.  And, those instances are legion.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

The same people who say that the players should be able to set agendas for their characters and should be able to direct the play to focus on those agendas also think that the player being able to control the foundational beliefs of their character is not important...


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> The same people who say that the players should be able to set agendas for their characters and should be able to direct the play to focus on those agendas also think that the player being able to control the foundational beliefs of their character is not important...



This is a bad take.  The player chooses how to react to things, and this is an important aspect of play.  You mistake the claim that your new mode of analysis -- things that impact how you might choose to roleplay -- is useful.  It's, instead, too broad of a brush to be useful, unless, of course, you're just ignoring everything else painted except the point you're trying to make.

I think being able to roleplay my character is important, and I look for this in games I play.  This doesn't, at all, stop me from noting that in games where my actions are gated solely by the GM, I have less agency than in games where I have either ability to force the action to resolution via mechanics or a say in how an action could resolve or both.  The ability to roleplay my character doesn't go to agency unless you can enact such acting into action.  I have this in droves in some other games.  In D&D, I have to get the GM's agreement.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> In D&D, I have to get the GM's agreement.



I promise: This is not a trap.

If a GM pre-establishes agreement (dunno how better to phrase that) does that change where you think agency is?


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I promise: This is not a trap.
> 
> If a GM pre-establishes agreement (dunno how better to phrase that) does that change where you think agency is?



Not worried about traps because I'm pretty comfortable with my understanding.  If you discover something new or incongruent, that gives me an opportunity to re-evaluate.  So, fire away!

In this case, I'm not sure it really changes much.  If this is an agreement about the themes and tropes expected in the game, I think this is just fine provided the explanations are of reasonable completeness.  This is exactly what happens when I run Blades; we all agree to the tropes and themes of the game and carry on.  It's what happens when someone suggests play 5e -- there are a lot of these baked into the system, despite any claims of the malleability of the setting material, the game itself hard codes a lot of this.  So, no, I don't really find an agreement to play a game to be much of a problem because we have to agree to play a game to even look at agency within the game.

What I'm speaking of here is the GM decides core resolution mechanic present in the D&D-alike game set.  Any game that features the ability for the GM to determine, based on their own take of the fiction only, whether or not an action fails (ie, action negation) you have an issue with player agency.  And, again, this might not be a problem!  I think D&D is very clearly an autocracy, with the GM seated on the high chair, but you can have benevolent dictators that are pleasant as well as tin-pot dictators that are not.  If I'm more concerned about being able to put what I want in the game, though, no amount of benevolence from the dictator is going to satisfy that -- it's going to rub wrong, at best.  This is, as best as I can tell, where @pemerton, @Campbell, @Aldarc sit -- they don't care to find out how nice the autocrat is going to be, they want to have a say that's impossible in such systems without GM approval.  I'm less adamant, probably because I'm usually the autocrat in this situation.  I can say that the last time I played 5e, I was rubbed wrong by a good number of things, usually involving GM negation of actions or PC interests.  I even ran across an old text message conversation with one of the other players where this was being discussed and I was very unsure how I felt that my character was still alive because it was a clear use of GM Force.  I mean, I liked my character, but....

So, I hope this addresses your question?  If not, feel free to ask again.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Not worried about traps because I'm pretty comfortable with my understanding.  If you discover something new or incongruent, that gives me an opportunity to re-evaluate.  So, fire away!



I figure it also helps that we're (I think) past arguing, eh?


Ovinomancer said:


> So, I hope this addresses your question?  If not, feel free to ask again.



What I think I was getting at was if the DM only uses their ability to say no as a plausibility check (no, you cannot hit the moon with an arrow from your bow) does that change how much agency the players have? It seems at least to move in the direction of "say yes or roll the dice."

Here, I note that the only time I think I've flat out said "no" in my 5E campaigns was when someone tried to check Wis(Insight) on a near-deity specifically called out as inscrutable.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I figure it also helps that we're (I think) past arguing, eh?
> 
> What I think I was getting at was if the DM only uses their ability to say no as a plausibility check (no, you cannot hit the moon with an arrow from your bow) does that change how much agency the players have? It seems at least to move in the direction of "say yes or roll the dice."
> 
> Here, I note that the only time I think I've flat out said "no" in my 5E campaigns was when someone tried to check Wis(Insight) on a near-deity specifically called out as inscrutable.



Oh, absolutely.  If you're violating the genre expectations, then the action shouldn't be considered.  This should usually be dealt with out-of-game, though, I think.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I figure it also helps that we're (I think) past arguing, eh?
> 
> What I think I was getting at was if the DM only uses their ability to say no as a plausibility check (no, you cannot hit the moon with an arrow from your bow) does that change how much agency the players have? It seems at least to move in the direction of "say yes or roll the dice."
> 
> Here, I note that the only time I think I've flat out said "no" in my 5E campaigns was when someone tried to check Wis(Insight) on a near-deity specifically called out as inscrutable.



Sorry for the second reply, but I don't think your example sunk in the first time I read it.  I would find your specific use to be the exact kind of agency reduction I was talking about.  The GM has used their understanding of the fiction to negate an action that isn't genre inappropriate (I assume (WIS) Insight use isn't).  This isn't really a genre violation, it's a GM's understanding violation.  That the GM's understanding comes from material they've adopted for use doesn't really evade this, because they GM chose that material and the GM is using it as their own.  Effectively, in this moment, there's only the GM's call.

Shoot the moon, though, yeah, that's outside the bounds of a lot of game concepts (not all, though), and if it is a genre violation, then it should be discussed, but not, I think, via in-game mechanics or choices.


----------



## Campbell

prabe said:


> I promise: This is not a trap.
> 
> If a GM pre-establishes agreement (dunno how better to phrase that) does that change where you think agency is?




To me this is what system is - a shared set of expectations that we all agree to. The level of formality does not matter. The shared commitment to a fiction that is emphatically shared, the social permission and expectation that everyone will play with integrity and in a way that is present (instead of built on preconceptions), and the ability to address when we feel like someone else is disregarding fictional positioning are all paramount to me. They do not have to be addressed by formal systems. I have experience playing and running mostly freeform games as well as more formal systems.

I personally have a preference for more formal systems because I like games and I like to play them well. I also really value the experience of feeling the social  context that exists in the fiction in a more meaningful way. Anything that can aid in that process is a boon. As a drama geek I highly value any tools that can help me feel the pressures my character feels. In most mainstream games I often feel the tension between playing optimally and playing with integrity. In games like Masks they are much closer together.

Earlier upthread @prabe mentioned instead going for getting an emotional response directly from the player instead of their character. I personally some very negative experiences with that both in theater (as an actor) and in roleplaying games. For me a certain amount of distance is required to embody (not portray) a character. I need to be able to address the character on its own terms as a person. In order to do that justice I cannot replace my emotions with theirs. I need to be able to be present in their social context as much as possible.

So a lot of my philosophy on this stuff is pretty well represented by this Joaquin Phoenix video


I do not believe in strong preconceptions of who our characters are or the way the world works. I believe in establishing a fiction, seeing where it leads, and being present in the moment. I find that when a game can shake those preconceptions it can lead to more present play where play becomes less performative and more like curious. I find the right system can aid in that process if we let it.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Sorry for the second reply, but I don't think your example sunk in the first time I read it. I would find your specific use to be the exact kind of agency reduction I was talking about. The GM has used their understanding of the fiction to negate an action that isn't genre inappropriate (I assume (WIS) Insight use isn't). This isn't really a genre violation, it's a GM's understanding violation. That the GM's understanding comes from material they've adopted for use doesn't really evade this, because they GM chose that material and the GM is using it as their own. Effectively, in this moment, there's only the GM's call.



Oh, no worries.

I will say in my defense: They knew she was a Fey princess, and they knew she was the Keeper of Secrets.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> Earlier upthread @prabe mentioned instead going for getting an emotional response directly from the player instead of their character. I personally some very negative experiences with that both in theater (as an actor) and in roleplaying games. For me a certain amount of distance is required to embody (not portray) a character. I need to be able to address the character on its own terms as a person. In order to do that justice I cannot replace my emotions with theirs. I need to be able to be present in their social context as much as possible.



I think analyzing/reacting to TRPGs as though they are plays is ... complicated, because the people around the table are simultaneously authors, actors, and audience (I know at least two of those are RPG stances, but that's not what I mean). They're creating, performing, and watching the emergent story which is the result of gameplay. Obviously, your experiences are your experiences, and your preferences are yours as well--I wouldn't say it's always a good idea to pull at the players' emotions: that's certainly a matter of knowing your audience.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> How about if a player contributes to the shared fiction in another way? Let’s say they have an idea for a goal for their PC and maybe it involves a church of some obscure god and an artifact stolen from the PC’s family.
> 
> So the player has added an organization to the fiction and possibly a deity and an artifact and some conflict between that organization and the PC’s family. This is also material that can be explored through play; the GM can pick up these threads and weave them into the unfolding fiction.
> 
> Now I know you might start twitching at the mere thought of this, but rest assured plenty of games allow this.



Sure, I get that; and it's cool to have a player thinking this far ahead.  In a solo game this would flat-out rock.

In a group game, however, if each player independently comes up with a similarly elaborate series of ideas that don't inter-relate with anyone else's ideas* then everyone has more or less stated they want to do their own thing and the GM is left trying to herd cats; even more so if the things a given player wants to do are of limited or no interest to anyone else.

Taken a step further, in a group game where the general expectations are a) more than one PC per player (such that they can be cycled in and out at the player's choice) and-or b) at least a moderate degree of PC lethality the GM is further left not knowing which cats she'll have to herd at any given time.

On top of this, the GM is trying to fit in any ideas she might have (she gets to have ideas too, right?).

This sounds like a powderkeg of a party, ready to split apart at a moment's notice.

That said, if only one or two players have such ideas and the others are willing to simply go with the flow the obvious risk becomes that those one or two players will end up dominating the game, getting all the spotlight time, etc.

Recipe for at-the-table disaster, I'd say. 

* - and if they do inter-relate with other players'/PCs' ideas, chances are very high it's going to appear contrived.


hawkeyefan said:


> So, knowing that such a game would also allow a PC to open its mouth and speak and for the player to describe the PC and give them personality....knowing that it also allows this most basic form of contribution that you choose to celebrate....would you say that this game allows more contribution to the fiction from the player?
> 
> If not, why not?



It allows more contribution to the fiction from the player.  My position is that at some point this becomes more of a bug than a feature.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes. It further supports the idea the beliefs are supposed to affect roleplay.



If the GM tells the players that their PCs are at a dead end, that will _affect _roleplay: as per @FrogReaver's post upthread.

In general, the state of the fiction - both internal and external elements of it - will _affect_ roleplay.

I thought you were talking about _dictating _or_ mandating _or in some fairly strong sense _limiting_ roleplay.

EDIT: Ninja'd by @Ovinomancer.


----------



## Lanefan

prabe said:


> I agree that D&D has gradually reduced the importance of alignment, in the forms of penalties for players who disagreed with their DMs over what those two words on the character sheet meant. As you might guess from that construction, I don't have a problem with that.
> 
> As to Bonds, etc.: I think the intent was to reward players who, e.g., actually played to their Flaw.



So the consequences have gone from a penalty for going outside your box to a reward for staying within it.  Still means that the system is trying to affect your roleplay.


prabe said:


> The biggest problem is that the reward is Advantage, which is ... pretty easy to get (and doesn't stack (and is the primary mechanic for altering difficulty)) so the incentive isn't all that great;



Yeah, one of the things that made me not adopt 5e (which during development I really did have high hopes for) was the massive overuse of the Adv-Disadv mechanic.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> The same people who say that the players should be able to set agendas for their characters and should be able to direct the play to focus on those agendas also think that the player being able to control the foundational beliefs of their character is not important...



See, now you're shifting back from "affects roleplay" to "sets the agenda". Which one are you arguing?

In my BW game, because a PC was ensorcelled by a dark naga that PC took on a Belief about _bringing the mage Joachim (and later, Joachims' blood) to his master_. Who set that agenda? Why was there a dark naga in play at all? Who set _that _agenda?


----------



## Campbell

For those who do not prefer formal systems for psychosocial stuff what would your response be to another player or GM if they wanted to discuss how you have been playing your character or a given NPC? Would you hear them out?


----------



## Campbell

@Lanefan

Most of the time when discussing play where players set their agenda for their individual characters we are assuming a single character per player and no cohesive group of player characters. Instead you simply have relationships between the characters that intersect. There also tends to be less adventuring and more just living exciting lives. That's how Apocalypse World, Sorcerer, and Burning Wheel often work. 

Sometimes in the case of games like Blades in the Dark or Masks there will be shared goals. I am currently running a Scion Second Edition game. In that game our nascent children of the gods are part of a band linked together by fate. In order to build their legend they must do so together. Basically to increase Legend everyone must complete a personal short term deed, a personal long term deed, and a shared group deed. There is no advancing more than one rung above your bandmates so it's in your interest as a player as well as in the fiction to help them pursue their personal goals.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> For those who do not prefer formal systems for psychosocial stuff what would your response be to another player or GM if they wanted to discuss how you have been playing your character or a given NPC? Would you hear them out?



I would.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> This is incoherent. Of course more or less agency matters in analysis of relative amounts of agency!



Of course.  If something so obviously stupid sounding comes out of my mouth it's likely that it's not what I'm saying at all 

What I am saying is that analyzing relative amounts of agency between games is meaningless because more or less agency doesn't make for a better game nor does it tell us anything actually important about how the game plays.

The only reason you care what has more agency or less is that you believe you like games with more agency.  I believe that if you'd engage that part of the conversation (and I think you do below) that you would realize you don't actually prefer more agency.  There's only certain kinds of agency you prefer.




darkbard said:


> What I stated was that one's preferences regarding such relative amounts is a side issue and should not impede clear analysis (although clearly it can when those who have no experience with such player agency-granting games misunderstand how such games actually function in practice and why that is so!).



Analysis serves a purpose though and knowing what has more or less agency serves none.

IMO, you are misconstruing my analysis of such games being different from your analysis of them as meaning I misunderstand how such games function.



darkbard said:


> Perhaps a more precise framing of my own preference is for one in which players and GM are equal contributors to the shared fiction (no hierarchy distinguishing them) with clear system restraints upon when and how each exercises their agency, that the players don't suffer the illusion of agency gated behind GM approval.



I think that's a fair characterization.



darkbard said:


> You are correct that the kind of shared storytelling game (not really an RPG in the precise sense of the term) that you imagine would probably not meet my criteria for an enjoyable game (where is the drama in setting one's own challenge and its outcome?), but that imagined game is nothing like the kinds of games I play and enjoy.



I agree.  But I'm not using it to say you like it, I am using it as an example of a game you dislike that has even more agency than the ones you like - essentially it shows the determining factor of the games you enjoy isn't related to overall amount of agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> If the GM tells the players that their PCs are at a dead end, that will _affect _roleplay: as per @FrogReaver's post upthread.
> 
> In general, the state of the fiction - both internal and external elements of it - will _affect_ roleplay.



I think 2 things.  
1. there's still a scope issue.  Being at a dead end is going to affect my roleplay in one moment or one scene at most.  Your character's beliefs are going to shape your roleplay over the whole campaign.

2.  Whether or not you wish to acknowledge it, there's a difference between the physical and mental that gets brushed aside by you as if there is no difference at all.


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> I disagree. It might be possible to understand a game you read but don't play, or a game you play but don't read, but I don't believe it's possible to understand a game you neither read nor play.
> 
> EDIT: And I don't believe it is possible to analyze what you don't understand.



Oh it's quite possible to analyze something you don't understand. Engineers do it often, scientists daily. In fact, the whole point of science is to analyze what's unknown so as to make it known.

The thing is, while you're right that having neither played nor read a game makes understanding abnormal, it's not an absolute, and whether the understanding is sufficient for the purpose of the analysis is different than the ability to make valid judgements based upon 3rd party data.

For example, I'd lay odds that Pemerton would, based upon my explanation, be able to judge that TNE is unlikely to be a better Traveller game engine for himself than Classic Traveller. And, without reading his mind, all I have to do to make that analysis is see what he's posted in this thread. For that purpose, it's a valid analysis.

But for purposes of discussing whether the Virus should be able to take over a hand computer, he'd not have enough info from this thread to make a valid decision. (I'm also certain he's other data.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> How about if a player contributes to the shared fiction in another way? Let’s say they have an idea for a goal for their PC and maybe it involves a church of some obscure god and an artifact stolen from the PC’s family.
> 
> So the player has added an organization to the fiction and possibly a deity and an artifact and some conflict between that organization and the PC’s family. This is also material that can be explored through play; the GM can pick up these threads and weave them into the unfolding fiction.
> 
> Now I know you might start twitching at the mere thought of this, but rest assured plenty of games allow this.
> 
> So, knowing that such a game would also allow a PC to open its mouth and speak and for the player to describe the PC and give them personality....knowing that it also allows this most basic form of contribution that you choose to celebrate....would you say that this game allows more contribution to the fiction from the player?
> 
> If not, why not?



So, if a player already can contribute _infinite_ contributions to the fiction then allowing said player to contribute 1 more thing to the fiction really isn't _more_ contributions.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Oh it's quite possible to analyze something you don't understand. Engineers do it often, scientists daily. In fact, the whole point of science is to analyze what's unknown so as to make it known.
> 
> The thing is, while you're right that having neither played nor read a game makes understanding abnormal, it's not an absolute, and whether the understanding is sufficient for the purpose of the analysis is different than the ability to make valid judgements based upon 3rd party data.
> 
> For example, I'd lay odds that Pemerton would, based upon my explanation, be able to judge that TNE is unlikely to be a better Traveller game engine for himself than Classic Traveller. And, without reading his mind, all I have to do to make that analysis is see what he's posted in this thread. For that purpose, it's a valid analysis.
> 
> But for purposes of discussing whether the Virus should be able to take over a hand computer, he'd not have enough info from this thread to make a valid decision. (I'm also certain he's other data.



I find this badly framed -- scientists and engineers analyze things the don't understand yet by collecting data on the issue, not taking someone else's word for it and running with that.  Especially if the person whose word they take then tells them that it's wrong.  I might have some inkling of this, as I am an engineer.

As for your opinion on what @pemerton would do, perhaps you're correct, but this isn't really a good analysis of @pemerton's thought process so much as it is a rough guess you've formed from other things.  Humans are wired to detect patterns, so this isn't surprising, but it's also one of the very things the scientific process is supposed to filter out, given enough time and enough dead scientists.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Oh, no worries.
> 
> I will say in my defense: They knew she was a Fey princess, and they knew she was the Keeper of Secrets.



I don't think you need to defend yourself at all -- there's not charge laid.  That sounds like pretty normal play, and you hopefully had lots of fun with it.  That it's a lower agency due to the GM judgement gating of actions doesn't, in any way, evaluate worth on it's own.  Only you, with your own preferences, can take that information and make that call.  I think it's a useful analysis, though, in that we can look at that play and see where differences arise so that we can then assign different value to them.

I mean, I just ran a poll of my group to see what they wanted to do after the holiday break.  I was pretty sure we were headed back to 5e, and indeed that was the vote, so it's definite.  What surprised me is that they voted to change tracks on the campaign and wanted to run through one of the recent published adventures!  So, now I get to pull apart the selected AP (Descent into Avernus) and restructure it so it works with the group, because WotC doesn't write adventures for my group very well at all.  I'm actually looking forward to the challenge -- how do I strip out most of the railroady aspects while keeping the theme?  How can I let the players drive the play instead of going through the adventure wickets?  Etc, etc.  I think, after the recent stint of Blades, there's a desire to turn off a bit and coast through some door kicking with my entertainment on top.  I can do that, even though I'd more prefer not doing the AP.  Compromise -- enough fun all around.  And, even though I will be restructuring the adventure, this is 5e, so I will absolutely be wielding the GM's authority -- benevolently, of course.


----------



## pemerton

On the matter of _analysis_ being discussed between @aramis erak and @Ovinomancer:

Anyone who is well-trained in an intellectual field knows how to push/project their understanding into new fields on the basis of their existing knowledge. Some are better at it than others. People who are good at this are also good at recognising their limits, adjustimg/correcting based on feedback from (i) people who are already experts in the new field or (ii) actual data/experience.

I don't find it to be very common for someone to (i) know a new field only from someone else's account of it, and then (ii) on the basis of that tell the other person they've got it wrong. This seems to suffer from one obvious methodological flaw: it depends on treating the person as a reliable source of information (because they are how one learned about the new field) and yet arguing that they are not a reliable source of information (because they are wrong).

Which is what seems to be happening in this thread.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> On the matter of _analysis_ being discussed between @aramis erak and @Ovinomancer:
> 
> Anyone who is well-trained in an intellectual field knows how to push/project their understanding into new fields on the basis of their existing knowledge. Some are better at it than others. People who are good at this are also good at recognising their limits, adjustimg/correcting based on feedback from (i) people who are already experts in the new field or (ii) actual data/experience.
> 
> I don't find it to be very common for someone to (i) know a new field only from someone else's account of it, and then (ii) on the basis of that tell the other person they've got it wrong. This seems to suffer from one obvious methodological flaw: it depends on treating the person as a reliable source of information (because they are how one learned about the new field) and yet arguing that they are not a reliable source of information (because they are wrong).
> 
> Which is what seems to be happening in this thread.



I didn't "love" this post, because that's not the right feeling, but I wish there was a "strongly endorse" version of like for moments like this.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> On the matter of _analysis_ being discussed between @aramis erak and @Ovinomancer:
> 
> Anyone who is well-trained in an intellectual field knows how to push/project their understanding into new fields on the basis of their existing knowledge. Some are better at it than others. People who are good at this are also good at recognising their limits, adjustimg/correcting based on feedback from (i) people who are already experts in the new field or (ii) actual data/experience.
> 
> I don't find it to be very common for someone to (i) know a new field only from someone else's account of it, and then (ii) on the basis of that tell the other person they've got it wrong. This seems to suffer from one obvious methodological flaw: it depends on treating the person as a reliable source of information (because they are how one learned about the new field) and yet arguing that they are not a reliable source of information (because they are wrong).
> 
> Which is what seems to be happening in this thread.



One can believe your accounts of the mechanics and how the game flows are correct while believing your analysis based on those things is flawed.  There's nothing illogical about that.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Sure, I get that; and it's cool to have a player thinking this far ahead.  In a solo game this would flat-out rock.
> 
> In a group game, however, if each player independently comes up with a similarly elaborate series of ideas that don't inter-relate with anyone else's ideas* then everyone has more or less stated they want to do their own thing and the GM is left trying to herd cats; even more so if the things a given player wants to do are of limited or no interest to anyone else.




All I can say here is that this may be your concern. Perhaps you’ve attempted this and it’s gone as you describe here. If so, then I don’t blame you for feeling that way. 

But please trust me when I say that this style of game actually exists and functions perfectly fine. 

Also, you bring this up a lot....why do you always assume that players won’t care about stories related to other players’ characters? It seems a bit bizarre. 



Lanefan said:


> Taken a step further, in a group game where the general expectations are a) more than one PC per player (such that they can be cycled in and out at the player's choice) and-or b) at least a moderate degree of PC lethality the GM is further left not knowing which cats she'll have to herd at any given time.




Why would you assume multiple PCs and high lethality? 

Honestly, my group crafts their PCs together, even when playing games that don’t require that (some games do). So we talk all this stuff out, splitting the creative burden up and sharing it.



Lanefan said:


> On top of this, the GM is trying to fit in any ideas she might have (she gets to have ideas too, right?).




Depending on the game, sure. My 5E game has a good deal of GM plot stuff. I tend to craft it around the players and what they want to see and their characters’ desires and goals. And the way we approach play gives them a lot of freedom. So I don’t plan too strongly, and I do a lot of improvisation. 

For Blades, all I do is introduce some of the factions as potential antagonists....and then the game and players take it from there.



Lanefan said:


> This sounds like a powderkeg of a party, ready to split apart at a moment's notice.
> 
> That said, if only one or two players have such ideas and the others are willing to simply go with the flow the obvious risk becomes that those one or two players will end up dominating the game, getting all the spotlight time, etc.
> 
> Recipe for at-the-table disaster, I'd say.




You’re wrong. 

Let me ask you....if I were to tell you how your game was likely to fall apart, would you really give that opinion much thought? Should you? 



Lanefan said:


> It allows more contribution to the fiction from the player.




Thank you.



Lanefan said:


> My position is that at some point this becomes more of a bug than a feature.




That’s fine. I’d recommend trying a game like it at some point to actually experience it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> So, if a player already can contribute _infinite_ contributions to the fiction then allowing said player to contribute 1 more thing to the fiction really isn't _more_ contributions.




I don’t know exactly how to respond to this. 

I mean, ignoring the faulty logic that a player can contribute in an infinite capacity, I suppose I’d say that infinity plus one is indeed more than infinity. I guess? 

I mean, it’s pretty absurd, but we can go with that, sure.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t know exactly how to respond to this.
> 
> I mean, ignoring the faulty logic that a player can contribute in an infinite capacity,



You don't think they can?  If they can't then what's their limitation?  Time?  Campaign length?  Something else?



hawkeyefan said:


> I suppose I’d say that infinity plus one is indeed more than infinity. I guess?



Mathematically it isn't.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Infinity plus 1 is still infinity


----------



## darkbard

"Argumentation" in this thread has officially jumped the shark.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I don't find it to be very common for someone to (i) know a new field only from someone else's account of it, and then (ii) on the basis of that tell the other person they've got it wrong. This seems to suffer from one obvious methodological flaw: it depends on treating the person as a reliable source of information (because they are how one learned about the new field) and yet arguing that they are not a reliable source of information (because they are wrong).



I worked in Elementary Ed... it's annoyingly common for wealthy kids to do just that with social studies content. Often parroting political rhetoric to wrong conclusions.

I see some of that in this thread - arguing positions from rhetoric rather than the source material. 

I used you as an example only because it was straightfoward to illustrate the issue: some informed indirect analysis is useful, but only for some questions.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> "Argumentation" in this thread has officially jumped the shark.



Consider the question: Do longer campaigns allow more player agency than shorter campaigns?


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Consider the question: Do longer campaigns allow more player agency than shorter campaigns?




If a system requires/enables Force and a GM's propensity to deploy Force is a function of time...then it nears a virtual certainty that longer campaigns will tend to decrease player agency.


----------



## Manbearcat

aramis erak said:


> I worked in Elementary Ed... it's annoyingly common for wealthy kids to do just that with social studies content. Often parroting political rhetoric to wrong conclusions.
> 
> I see some of that in this thread - arguing positions from rhetoric rather than the source material.
> 
> I used you as an example only because it was straightfoward to illustrate the issue: some informed indirect analysis is useful, but only for some questions.




All models are wrong but some are useful.  People who (a) have a forensic knowledge base within a given field/trade archetype/discipline, (b) significant experiential data to rely upon, (c) and a reasonable measure of awareness of their own cognitive biases and limitations will tend to make extrapolations and inferences that are less error prone (not correct but "correct-er") than those that possess less of (a), (b), (c).


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> You don't think they can?  If they can't then what's their limitation?  Time?  Campaign length?  Something else?




The hills to the north? 



FrogReaver said:


> Mathematically it isn't.




Yes I know. I was being absurd.


----------



## zarionofarabel

FrogReaver said:


> Consider the question: Do longer campaigns allow more player agency than shorter campaigns?



I think narrative momentum would point to yes as the more the players affect the narrative, the more the affected narrative is a result of their agency. Does that even make sense? Well, it does to me! Hahaha!


Manbearcat said:


> If a system requires/enables Force and a GM's propensity to deploy Force is a function of time...then it nears a virtual certainty that longer campaigns will tend to decrease player agency.



How so? If the players have agency, isn't the GM forced more and more to change the events of the world because of the characters actions?


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> I think narrative momentum would point to yes as the more the players affect the narrative, the more the affected narrative is a result of their agency. Does that even make sense? Well, it does to me! Hahaha!
> 
> How so? If the players have agency, isn't the GM forced more and more to change the events of the world because of the characters actions?




"Force" with a capital "F."  Not the innocuous "forced" meaning "required."

You know what a "Railroad" is, yes?  A Railroad is just sufficient instances of "GM Force" such that the trajectory of play has been wrested from the players to the GM (and by the GM).

Force is any moment where an output of play says the gamestate should transition to x or y, but the GM has either overtly or (more common) covertly rigged it/overturned it to transition to gamestate z (subverting the player's or the system's autonomy/input and inserting their own input in their stead).

Hence, if the system either requires Force or enables Force and the GM's propensity to deploy Force is a function of time, then its damn near certain that agency will decrease as campaigns grow in length.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Hence, if the system either requires Force or enables Force and the GM's propensity to deploy Force is a function of time, then its damn near certain that agency will decrease as campaigns grow in length.



You are thinking that incidences of Force accrue? As in, having had less agency in one instance, you continue to have less in future instances even if no Force is applied? I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm not sure I disagree with it, either, and I'm surely not inclined to argue about it.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> You are thinking that incidences of Force accrue? As in, having had less agency in one instance, you continue to have less in future instances even if no Force is applied? I'm not sure I agree with that, but I'm not sure I disagree with it, either, and I'm surely not inclined to argue about it.




Just to be clear, that isn't what I'm saying directly above.  I'm saying "if Force deployment is a function of time, then more instances of Force will be occur in a game that is longer than another game."

Now, to address your point directly above, I would say the following:

1)  A singular instance of Force will have a 1st order effect (_this _thing happened right now rather than _that_).

2)  The significance of that 1st order effect will depend upon both (a) the stakes at the moment of deployment and (b) the downstream effects:

* Sam isn't dead, Cindy and Sam aren't dead, everyone isn't dead.

* We've gained/lost an asset(s)/alliance/enemy (The ranch-hand Timmy I had a d8 Relationship with in Dogs has been killed or turned against me, I lost 1 Coin/4 extra HP/spent 1 Adventuring Gear to make Camp and in DW to recover from the changed situation)

* The immediate situation subsequent to the one we're in becomes more/less dire or changes entirely (instead of being down a PC and having to deal with flagging resources because the fight went several rounds longer and we've still got a lot more dungeon to explore...we're much less tapped).

* Setting changes substantially (or less so) as a result (a Threat in AW is activated/created, our Lair in Blades is gone, etc)

* PC build or ethos or directives change as a result (a Belief in BW, a Bond in DW, Nature had to be tapped in Torchbearer, a Downtime Project has to be initiated in Blades, etc)

* Temporal or spatial changes occur as a result (a journey is now required, we've been ported to _n)_

3)  As one instance of Force turns into a 2nd instance of Force (and so on), the trajectory of play becomes more and more perturbed from what it would have authentically have been if no Force was deployed.  Consequently, agency becomes more wrested from the players to the GM (and upon some fault line, a Railroad emerges which cannot be recovered from).


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> "Argumentation" in this thread has officially jumped the shark.



This thread IS the shark


----------



## zarionofarabel

Manbearcat said:


> Just to be clear, that isn't what I'm saying directly above.  I'm saying "if Force deployment is a function of time, then more instances of Force will be occur in a game that is longer than another game."
> 
> Now, to address your point directly above, I would say the following:
> 
> 1)  A singular instance of Force will have a 1st order effect (_this _thing happened right now rather than _that_).
> 
> 2)  The significance of that 1st order effect will depend upon both (a) the stakes at the moment of deployment and (b) the downstream effects:
> 
> * Sam isn't dead, Cindy and Sam aren't dead, everyone isn't dead.
> 
> * We've gained/lost an asset(s)/alliance/enemy (The ranch-hand Timmy I had a d8 Relationship with in Dogs has been killed or turned against me, I lost 1 Coin/4 extra HP/spent 1 Adventuring Gear to make Camp and in DW to recover from the changed situation)
> 
> * The immediate situation subsequent to the one we're in becomes more/less dire or changes entirely (instead of being down a PC and having to deal with flagging resources because the fight went several rounds longer and we've still got a lot more dungeon to explore...we're much less tapped).
> 
> * Setting changes substantially (or less so) as a result (a Threat in AW is activated/created, our Lair in Blades is gone, etc)
> 
> * PC build or ethos or directives change as a result (a Belief in BW, a Bond in DW, Nature had to be tapped in Torchbearer, a Downtime Project has to be initiated in Blades, etc)
> 
> * Temporal or spatial changes occur as a result (a journey is now required, we've been ported to _n)_
> 
> 3)  As one instance of Force turns into a 2nd instance of Force (and so on), the trajectory of play becomes more and more perturbed from what it would have authentically have been if no Force was deployed.  Consequently, agency becomes more wrested from the players to the GM (and upon some fault line, a Railroad emerges which cannot be recovered from).



Oh bloody hell! Now I'm not sure if I run railroads or not! Stop messing with my head!!!


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Just to be clear, that isn't what I'm saying directly above.  I'm saying "if Force deployment is a function of time, then more instances of Force will be occur in a game that is longer than another game."



That was about what I thought you were saying, and I don't disagree with it.


Manbearcat said:


> As one instance of Force turns into a 2nd instance of Force (and so on), the trajectory of play becomes more and more perturbed from what it would have authentically have been if no Force was deployed.  Consequently, agency becomes more wrested from the players to the GM (and upon some fault line, a Railroad emerges which cannot be recovered from).



While I believe this can happen--the trajectory of play can be perturbed--I don't think it's useless or worthless to consider the amount of agency at a given instance, leaving the total perturbation aside.


----------



## prabe

zarionofarabel said:


> Oh bloody hell! Now I'm not sure if I run railroads or not! Stop messing with my head!!!



As has been said: If you care enough to worry about running railroads, and you don't want to, you're probably doing fine.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> As has been said: If you care enough to worry about running railroads, and you don't want to, you're probably doing fine.



Eh... maybe.  I mean, if you've only ever run D&D then there might be some blind spots where you're running a railroad, but it looks so familiar you can't tell.  I mean, not a hard railroad, but still.  APs are this, but usually not called out as such -- when they are, there's a contingent that decries the appellation.


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> Oh bloody hell! Now I'm not sure if I run railroads or not! Stop messing with my head!!!




Tell me more.  What do you think (a) about what I've written above and (b) how it interacts with your lead post.



prabe said:


> That was about what I thought you were saying, and I don't disagree with it.
> 
> While I believe this can happen--the trajectory of play can be perturbed--I don't think it's useless or worthless to consider the amount of agency at a given instance, leaving the total perturbation aside.




I agree its not useless.  Its very much useful in fact.  But mostly its useful to discern (a) where the fault line lies with your group (some groups, like my primary group, are EXTREMELY sensitive to any deployment of Force) and (b) to do a proper post-mortem of your play to examine its true effects.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Eh... maybe.  I mean, if you've only ever run D&D then there might be some blind spots where you're running a railroad, but it looks so familiar you can't tell.  I mean, not a hard railroad, but still.  APs are this, but usually not called out as such -- when they are, there's a contingent that decries the appellation.



Sure, I suppose it's possible to accidentally run a railroad--though I think not wanting to run one makes it a good deal less likely. I definitely don't think the level of concern about it @zarionofarabel has expressed is at all consistent with running an intentional railroad.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Manbearcat said:


> Tell me more.  What do you think (a) about what I've written above and (b) how it interacts with your lead post.



Well as a total improv GM, every time I add a component to the narrative I am applying Force, right? Simply because there is nothing written in stone before it hits the table. That means every single time I add a component to the narrative I am subtly nudging the narrative in the direction I want it to go. That means the longer the narrative progresses the more and more it becomes what I want it to be and less what the players want unless there is a mechanical way for them to also apply force, right? So if I am using a "traditional" system like D&D I'm a full on railroading machine by, say, session five. So with my particular style I would have to stick with systems that allow the players to Force the narrative in their favor, right?!?!?

Ahhhhh!!! I love/hate this thread!!! It's messing with my head!!!


----------



## zarionofarabel

Ovinomancer said:


> Eh... maybe.  I mean, if you've only ever run D&D then there might be some blind spots where you're running a railroad, but it looks so familiar you can't tell.  I mean, not a hard railroad, but still.  APs are this, but usually not called out as such -- when they are, there's a contingent that decries the appellation.



Not D&D per say, but definitely the "traditional" setup where the GM is in control of the narrative unless they voluntarily allow the players to add things to the narrative. I do love Burning Wheel, but try convincing people to play it. I would love to play more Mouse Guard too, but I believe that MG is a railroad, at least during the GM turn. During the Players turn it's the exact opposite.


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> Well as a total improv GM, every time I add a component to the narrative I am applying Force, right? Simply because there is nothing written in stone before it hits the table. That means every single time I add a component to the narrative I am subtly nudging the narrative in the direction I want it to go. That means the longer the narrative progresses the more and more it becomes what I want it to be and less what the players want unless there is a mechanical way for them to also apply force, right? So if I am using a "traditional" system like D&D I'm a full on railroading machine by, say, session five. So with my particular style I would have to stick with systems that allow the players to Force the narrative in their favor, right?!?!?
> 
> Ahhhhh!!! I love/hate this thread!!! It's messing with my head!!!




Force is not just adding content into the fiction.  If that was Force then literally every instance of play would be Force.

Go back and look at the definition.

Are you subverting a player's (or players') input into the trajectory of play (a decision-point, a declared action, the outcome of action resolution) or the system's authentic procedure results (tracking turns and the mechanics that interface with turns, where the system says you should roll on a table and take the result, where the system says you should roll and there are results x, y, and z... the dice come up z, but you instead choose y, etc) and in their stead are you FORCING your will onto play...remapping it with that new trajectory.


----------



## zarionofarabel

Manbearcat said:


> Force is not just adding content into the fiction.  If that was Force then literally every instance of play would be Force.
> 
> Go back and look at the definition.
> 
> Are you subverting a player's (or players') input into the trajectory of play (a decision-point, a declared action, the outcome of action resolution) or the system's authentic procedure results (tracking turns and the mechanics that interface with turns, where the system says you should roll on a table and take the result, where the system says you should roll and there are results x, y, and z... the dice come up z, but you instead choose y, etc) and in their stead are you FORCING your will onto play...remapping it with that new trajectory.



Oh. No. I stick with what the dice say, no fudging for this GM. I also go with BW's Let It Ride rule in all games I GM.


----------



## Manbearcat

zarionofarabel said:


> Oh. No. I stick with what the dice say, no fudging for this GM. I also go with BW's Let It Ride rule in all games I GM.




If your choices aren't illusory in order to funnel play down a prescripted path, you don't subvert player input to your own will, and you don't subvert the system's input to your own will, then there is no Force or Illusionism.  If that is what you're going for...good news for you!  You're good!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> Are you subverting a player's (or players') input into the trajectory of play (a decision-point, a declared action, the outcome of action resolution) or the system's authentic procedure results (tracking turns and the mechanics that interface with turns, where the system says you should roll on a table and take the result, where the system says you should roll and there are results x, y, and z... the dice come up z, but you instead choose y, etc) and in their stead are you FORCING your will onto play...remapping it with that new trajectory.



I don't think this is that simple. Sure, fudging is a clear use of force, but in a lot of situations things are way more nebulous. Like in improvisational style the players are often making decisions on things which do not have answers other than the ones GM is making up on the spot, and the players' answer is not something that can fully (or even meaningfully) inform the GM's decisions. I think that's the sort of situation @zarionofarabel is worried about.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> For those who do not prefer formal systems for psychosocial stuff what would your response be to another player or GM if they wanted to discuss how you have been playing your character or a given NPC? Would you hear them out?



Don't people discuss this sort of thing all the time anyway? Or do you mean some sort of 'reprimands?'


----------



## Aldarc

Ovinomancer said:


> If I'm more concerned about being able to put what I want in the game, though, no amount of benevolence from the dictator is going to satisfy that -- it's going to rub wrong, at best.  This is, as best as I can tell, where @pemerton, @Campbell, @Aldarc sit -- they don't care to find out how nice the autocrat is going to be, they want to have a say that's impossible in such systems without GM approval.  I'm less adamant, probably because I'm usually the autocrat in this situation.



I'm mainly the GM in games nowadays, or at least before the 2020 lockdowns. I have wanted to play games like Dungeon World, Fate, and Blades in the Dark in the position of a player, but as I was the one who had the most solid grasp of the rules, I often became the person who ran them instead. My experiences as a GM running these games, however, threw me for a loop. Not out of any frustration with players exercising more agency, but, rather, because I found GMing these games quite fun. It was fun watching player input and player-driven play. I found myself more surprised by the game. Even as a GM, player-driven "play to find out what happens" play feels different from GM-curated "play to find out what happens" play.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

So I read Blades in the Dark SRD. Seems like a solid game and the rules support the themes they're going for. The claims of it offering great player agency seem a tad overblown though. When deciding the position, effect, consequence and harm etc the GM has to make similar judgement calls than in most other games. Sure, there are guidelines, but so does every game. Now the GM is more restricted in certain ways, but less so in others. For example detailed combat mechanics of many other games do not rely so much on the GM's judgement than similar situation would in the Blades. And of the GM still frames the scenes which has major impact on the direction of the game. It also seems that information gathering works rather traditionally; the GM provides the information gained. With all the judgement calls the GM has to make in Blades, I have no doubt that a tyrannical GM could railroad the play whilst still following the rules. Now I don't believe that in practice this would usually happen; the GM who respect the spirit of the game and makes sensible calls based on the fiction results this game running just fine. I just feel that GMs who run more traditional games are not judged with similar charitability here.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> So I read Blades in the Dark SRD. Seems like a solid game and the rules support the themes they're going for. The claims of it offering great player agency seem a tad overblown though. When deciding the position, effect, consequence and harm etc the GM has to make similar judgement class than in most other games. Sure, there are guidelines, but so does every game. Now the GM is more restricted in certain ways, but less so in others. For example detailed combat mechanics of many other games do not rely so much on the GM's judgement than similar situation would in the Blades. And of the GM still frames the scenes which has major impact on the direction of the game. It also seems that information gathering works rather traditionally; the GM provides the information gained. With all the judgement calls the GM has to make in Blades, I have no doubt that a tyrannical GM could railroad the play whilst still following the rules. Now I doubt that in practice this would usually happen; the GM who respect the spirit of the game and makes sensible calls based on the fiction results this game running just fine. I just feel that GMs who run more traditional games are not judged with similar charitability here.




Thank you for looking into Blades.

I mentioned upthread that, on the Venn Diagram of GMing, the Information Gathering/Free Play phase of play has some significant amount of overlap with traditional GMing and exploratory play (and that the game’s structure harkens to Moldvay Basic, just like Torchbearer). However, in the key ways that it diverges, it does so emphatically.

I’ve also said that Blades is as “GM Force-proof” as it gets. I can’t even imagine asserting a non detectable moment of GM Force in the game (and I certainly can’t understand why you would because (a) the game doesn’t require Force to work and (b) it will fight you so profoundly if you attempt it because of how transparent and player-facing the game’s processes are). I said that before running it and, being on my 5th game with two separate groups, I’m only more confident of that position now.

So, given that I’m struggling to imagine how a singular instance of Force might manifest, I’m curious what you’re envisioning would happen during play? If you would, for a singular play loop of the 3 phases (Information Gathering/FP, Engagement Roll/Score > Downtime), give me an instance of (i) what arc a GM is trying to ensure manifests and (ii) what a singular instance of Force (GM subverts the input of system/procedure or player and forces their own vision upon play in its stead) in each of the 3 phases would look like to perpetuate that?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat could you perhaps elaborate what you think makes it so force-proof? I am not talking about forcing some specific outcome on any specific test, I'm talking about the overall trajectory of the game, and to me it seems rather obvious that the person who provides information, frames the scenes, sets the odds and decides the consequences has considerable power over it. And sure, if the GM pushes too hard, it becomes noticeable, here probably easier than in some other games. But heavy railroading is always noticeable.*

Oh, and speaking about framing, in that original haunted painting example, if I as a GM would have wanted a player to go investigate whether the painting is magical, I would have described the room in the same way. When you describe things it is pretty easy to get people focus their attention to what you want and even draw the conclusions you want. it is not 100% guaranteed, but especially if you know your players you can do it rather reliably.

*( And if some crazy mentalist genius could do it in manner that it is not noticeable at all, and I as player would feel that I have awesome agency, 
I wouldn't care.)


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat could you perhaps elaborate what you think makes it so force-proof? I am not talking about forcing some specific outcome on any specific test, I'm talking about the overall trajectory of the game, and to me it seems rather obvious that the person who provides information, frames the scenes, sets the odds and decides the consequences has considerable power over it. And sure, if the GM pushes too hard, it becomes noticeable, here probably easier than in some other games. But heavy railroading is always noticeable.*



Deja vu!  I made this exact argument -- like nearly verbatim -- to @pemerton a few years ago.  I went looking for it, but couldn't find it, but I did find the thread where I started to realize I was missing something.  That featured @Manbearcat, @pemerton, and @Campbell patiently explaining it to me.  I think @hawkeyefan was near the same place as me in that thread.  It was another long one, *Judgement Calls vs "railroading"*, from March 2017.  Man, I read me then and see someone that has started to think there may be something outside of the valley, but hasn't yet climbed the mountains to see.

Anyway, remanence aside, this is a very similar argument to what I made.  And, it makes sense, if you don't really synthesis the entire play process (which is hard coming from a D&D mindset!).  The reality is that it's impossible to railroad the game -- it's glaringly obvious and the players can just step all over you.  This is because the players are the ones that determine what the game is about -- they pick the scores, they pick the ways they free play investigations, they pick the actions.  The GM is powerless to even have a say until and unless the players have picked what play will be about.  Sure, the GM might try to use the failure conditions to direct play, but this becomes obvious if they're introducing entirely new elements to the fiction that aren't related to what the player is about.  Same with framing -- if you're dragging in unrelated elements to a score frame, it's blindingly obvious.  There is no subtle way to direct play because your opportunities to do so aren't reliable or often available.  The players really do drive what happens -- the GM is reacting to the players, there's little to no opportunity to direct the players.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Oh, and speaking about framing, in that original haunted painting example, if I as a GM would have wanted a player to go investigate whether the painting is magical, I would have described the room in the same way. When you describe things it is pretty easy to get people focus their attention to what you want and even draw the conclusions you want. it is not 100% guaranteed, but especially if you know your players you can do it rather reliably.
> 
> *( And if some crazy mentalist genius could do it in manner that it is not noticeable at all, and I as player would feel that I have awesome agency,
> I wouldn't care.)



Really?  I mean, my intent was convey "haunted house."  I usually reach for cliches because they do the job very quickly in these cases.  So, peeling wallpaper, dilapidated furniture, odd creaks and groans, the feeling everything is slightly askew, and paintings whose eyes seem to follow you.  This is pretty unoriginal stuff, and I don't see how you can say that this directly players to investigate the paintings.  The only reason the painting was even looked at a second time was because one player decided it was a good opportunity to engage in their personal mission and made it important.  The painting was a detail in the "theme" description.  The entire other half of that scene setting was describing the guard at the end of the hallway with a candle on a table, muttering about how creepy the house was and that he was between the PCs and their goal.  

This is another critical point about how Blades and similar games frame scenes -- there isn't any "empty" framing, which it's just a description of an area or room.  Scenes are about action, so the focus of the scene is the obstacle or threat that's present.  You add flavor to the scene to bring it to life or encourage a larger theme (like a score in a haunted house), but the focus is the obstacle.  So, yeah, this wasn't a description of a hallway where the players then decided which direction they go down the hallway, this was a scene featuring a guard blocking further progress that included a description of the hallway the guard was in and some details to reinforce the larger theme of the score location.


----------



## Ovinomancer

@Crimson Longinus, @pemerton,

I found it!  It was in that thread, many pages later:


Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, come now, you really can't imagine it?  Take your example of the imprisoning of you player.  You said that the consequence for the failed check was that the player couldn't escape on their own.  Fair enough, but you picked that consequence.  You could have easily allowed for the player to escape, but by doing so it would now directly harm something else they cared about.  Say they had a belief about a fellow rogue, and in their attempt to escape, they placed that rogue in danger of their life.  That's a manipulation you could pull by choosing the consequence according to something you want to have happen.
> 
> For further examples, if none of the player beliefs involved demons, but you really like demons and want demons to be a part of the game, you can then have consequences for failures rolled by the players in regard to their beliefs involve demons.  Like when your player investigated the tower for the mace, you chose finding cursed arrows, but you could have had a demon appear, instead.  Bam, you're now influencing the direction of the game with your preferred narratives.  Sure, the players still get their licks in, as they have to engage their beliefs for a roll to occur, but you can frame the outcomes in terms of demons or demon related things.  Soon enough, you'll have players proposing replacement beliefs in terms of demons.  And now you have the game you wanted.
> 
> Can you force the exact outcome you want?  No, not with BW.  But you can most certainly shape the game strongly according to your desires as DM.



I mean, pretty close, right?  Sigh, that was less time ago that I thought.  I really, really thought this!  I do not anymore, because now I've actually run these systems and see exactly how nearly impossible it would be to not be blindingly obvious about it!  I suppose, if I was a highly manipulative mentalist as @Crimson Longinus postulates, I could, but that's super scummy -- I don't want that, nor would I enjoy finding out someone was manipulating me like that, especially over a game.  This would have HUGE fallout, personally.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Ovinomancer then perhaps it would be useful to explain why the arguments you made then do not actually apply?

Like I certainly see how rairoading with Blades is quite a bit harder than in a more GM driven game (though no myth approach is fertile ground for illusionism,) so this will make a GM who want to do that disinclined to run the system in the first place. This has probably a far greater effect than mere absolute limits of the system.

As for framing, it always affects the players' behaviour and it good to be aware of that. Your options are to affect their choices either consciously or subconsciously. Not affecting them at all isn't an option.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> So I read Blades in the Dark SRD. Seems like a solid game and the rules support the themes they're going for. The claims of it offering great player agency seem a tad overblown though. When deciding the position, effect, consequence and harm etc the GM has to make similar judgement calls than in most other games. Sure, there are guidelines, but so does every game. Now the GM is more restricted in certain ways, but less so in others. For example detailed combat mechanics of many other games do not rely so much on the GM's judgement than similar situation would in the Blades. And of the GM still frames the scenes which has major impact on the direction of the game. It also seems that information gathering works rather traditionally; the GM provides the information gained. With all the judgement calls the GM has to make in Blades, I have no doubt that a tyrannical GM could railroad the play whilst still following the rules. Now I don't believe that in practice this would usually happen; the GM who respect the spirit of the game and makes sensible calls based on the fiction results this game running just fine. I just feel that GMs who run more traditional games are not judged with similar charitability here.



It doesn't sound like reading the game changed any of your positions about it.  Could it be that you had enough understanding of it to analyze it all along?


----------



## FrogReaver

zarionofarabel said:


> I think narrative momentum would point to yes as the more the players affect the narrative, the more the affected narrative is a result of their agency. Does that even make sense? Well, it does to me! Hahaha!



I think in some sense you are correct.  As long as players can make meaningful decisions in the game then the longer the campaign goes the more agency they are exercising, such that if the game went on forever, such players would exercise an infinite amount of agency.



Manbearcat said:


> If a system requires/enables Force and a GM's propensity to deploy Force is a function of time...then it nears a virtual certainty that longer campaigns will tend to decrease player agency.



I also think in some sense you are correct.  As long as the GM is using force then the longer the campaign goes the more force he will have exercised, such that if the game went on forever, the GM would exercise an infinite amount of force.  However, I would have to disagree with your final conclusion.  In even the most force heavy games, players have some meaningful decisions they can make, and as noted above, if those games go on long enough as well then that's an infinite amount of agency.

All this leads me to the conclusion that a game where the GM exercises an infinite amount of force also can offer players an infinite amount of agency.  

That is, the amount of force doesn't appreciably affect the amount of agency (assuming agency is being measured as the sum of all individual instances of agency).  So let's drop out of the infinite a moment and start talking finite game lengths using this measurement of agency as I would like to show the results aren't appreciably different.

So in a finite duration game (where players can exert some agency) what are some ways we could increase the total number of instances of player agency?
1.  Increase the duration of the game.
2.  Increase the pace of the game.
3.  *Transform instances of GM force into instances of agency (though this would change the trajectory of the game - which may also change the pacing or duration of the game - which could result in us measuring more or less agency at the end of the game).

What this means is that removing force doesn't necessitate an increase in the total number of instances where a player can exercise agency in a game - and that's true in both infinite and finite duration games.

So I ask is there a better way to measure agency?  I think there is but I don't think many here will particularly like the conclusions my alternative measurement leads to either.  So does anyone else have any recommendations?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> @Crimson Longinus, @pemerton,
> 
> I found it!  It was in that thread, many pages later:
> 
> I mean, pretty close, right?  Sigh, that was less time ago that I thought.  I really, really thought this!  I do not anymore, because now I've actually run these systems and see exactly how nearly impossible it would be to not be blindingly obvious about it!  I suppose, if I was a highly manipulative mentalist as @Crimson Longinus postulates, I could, but that's super scummy -- I don't want that, nor would I enjoy finding out someone was manipulating me like that, especially over a game.  This would have HUGE fallout, personally.




Ha yeah, I imagine that was about when I decided to stop assuming D&D can do everything and decided to look at some of the games people were mentioning that I was not familiar with. I’m pretty sure @Campbell described a character for his Blades game and that made me check that game out. After reading it, I knew something significantly different was going on, but not exactly what. 

I then watched John Harper’s actual play videos and was pretty much blown away. That led me to Powered by the Apocalypse games, and on from there. 

I imagine if I look through that thread there will be a lot of talk on my part about mechanics not being needed and how not everything needs to be so gamey, and the like. 

It’s surprising to me that was only 3 years ago. I have to guess based on the timing that thread is directly responsible for me branching out with my games.


----------



## FrogReaver

For those not as versed in mathematical infinites I think this analogy might help.

There are an infinite amount of numbers.  There are also an infinite amount of odd numbers and an infinite amount of even numbers.  If I remove the infinite amount of even numbers I am still left with the infinite amount of odd numbers.  

(Odd numbers representing player agency and Even numbers representing the force that takes away agency).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer then perhaps it would be useful to explain why the arguments you made then do not actually apply?
> 
> Like I certainly see how rairoading with Blades is quite a bit harder than in a more GM driven game (though no myth approach is fertile ground for illusionism,) so this will make a GM who want to do that disinclined to run the system in the first place. This has probably a far greater effect than mere absolute limits of the system.
> 
> As for framing, it always affects the players' behaviour and it good to be aware of that. Your options are to affect their choices either consciously or subconsciously. Not affecting them at all isn't an option.



No myth is not fertile ground for Illusionism -- it literally prevents it because the GM has no preplanned outcomes they need to Force onto players in a hidden way!  No Myth explicitly means this.

As for why the arguments I made no longer apply, it's simply because your, like I was, are looking at the single moment in play where the GM narrates either scene framing and/or failure states.  However, these things aren't isolated -- they are embedded in the larger context which is player driven, not GM driven.  The mistake made here is keeping the same ideas that the GM has the only authority over the setting and outcomes -- this is no longer true.  Nor is the GM solely responsible for the obstacles faced.  While this appears true, the actual truth is that the when the GM frames an obstacle it's a direct reaction to a player declaration.  If you frame things that aren't part of the player declarations, it's obvious you've done so and a clear violation of the ethos and rules of the game!

One of the other things I see you might have gotten wrong are the guidelines of the game.  If you're still in D&D mode, guidelines are pieces of advice that GM is intended to ignore when they don't suit the GM.  They're literally more suggestions than rules.  This is not so in Blades -- these guidelines are how you are supposed to play the game at all times!  Breaching a guideline intentionally is moving into bad faith play.  These guidelines are actual rules of play.  There's often a good bit of leeway in how you might use them, but you are to keep within them during play, not ignore them when convenient.

As for framing, of course it affects player behavior -- this is trivially obvious.  However, the framing of the portrait in that case was a minor detail -- the focus was entirely on the guard.  That minor detail became important not because I was making it so in describing it, but because a player had a goal that they thought they could turn that detail into.  If it hadn't been described, that player would have looked for something else to do the same thing to because, as we discussed later after the session, they saw an opportunity in raiding Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor house as a chance to lift something that would aid them in their effort to get back into the University's good graces.  If I had described a small statue, that would have been it.  Had I not described something, the player would have asked after something, thus making it relevant and prompting me to narrate that something.  I get that you're trying to say that placing the portrait drove the player to investigate it, so therefore it was the same as a GM driven game where the GM has pre-planned the portrait, but the fundamental difference here is that it was the player that wanted something and so latched onto the flavor description -- there was no plan by me that portraits in the manor were anything at all.  Heck, if the player just wanted to take it for coin, it would have gone in a completely different direction!


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Ha yeah, I imagine that was about when I decided to stop assuming D&D can do everything and decided to look at some of the games people were mentioning that I was not familiar with. I’m pretty sure @Campbell described a character for his Blades game and that made me check that game out. After reading it, I knew something significantly different was going on, but not exactly what.
> 
> I then watched John Harper’s actual play videos and was pretty much blown away. That led me to Powered by the Apocalypse games, and on from there.
> 
> I imagine if I look through that thread there will be a lot of talk on my part about mechanics not being needed and how not everything needs to be so gamey, and the like.
> 
> It’s surprising to me that was only 3 years ago. I have to guess based on the timing that thread is directly responsible for me branching out with my games.



It was for me!  I picked up Blades shortly after that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> It doesn't sound like reading the game changed any of your positions about it.  Could it be that you had enough understanding of it to analyze it all along?



This is a terrible take.  @Crimson Longinus' questions have changed after reading the rules, and we're moving in a new direction in discussion.  Stick your head in the sand if you must, but maybe stop bragging about it?


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I think in some sense you are correct.  As long as players can make meaningful decisions in the game then the longer the campaign goes the more agency they are exercising, such that if the game went on forever, such players would exercise an infinite amount of agency.
> 
> 
> I also think in some sense you are correct.  As long as the GM is using force then the longer the campaign goes the more force he will have exercised, such that if the game went on forever, the GM would exercise an infinite amount of force.  However, I would have to disagree with your final conclusion.  In even the most force heavy games, players have some meaningful decisions they can make, and as noted above, if those games go on long enough as well then that's an infinite amount of agency.
> 
> All this leads me to the conclusion that a game where the GM exercises an infinite amount of force also can offer players an infinite amount of agency.
> 
> That is, the amount of force doesn't appreciably affect the amount of agency (assuming agency is being measured as the sum of all individual instances of agency).  So let's drop out of the infinite a moment and start talking finite game lengths using this measurement of agency as I would like to show the results aren't appreciably different.
> 
> So in a finite duration game (where players can exert some agency) what are some ways we could increase the total number of instances of player agency?
> 1.  Increase the duration of the game.
> 2.  Increase the pace of the game.
> 3.  *Transform instances of GM force into instances of agency (though this would change the trajectory of the game - which may also change the pacing or duration of the game - which could result in us measuring more or less agency at the end of the game).
> 
> What this means is that removing force doesn't necessitate an increase in the total number of instances where a player can exercise agency in a game - and that's true in both infinite and finite duration games.
> 
> So I ask is there a better way to measure agency?  I think there is but I don't think many here will particularly like the conclusions my alternative measurement leads to either.  So does anyone else have any recommendations?




I don't agree that your model is coherent here.

There are two ways to look at things that better model TTRPG play, agency, and GM Force.

Take a deterministic system.

Player agency is the parameters and initial conditions.  They have complete autonomy over the system's output.

Now introduce some entropy into the system.  This entropy is GM Force.  Now introduce more entropy.  And again.



Alternatively, take an American Football game.  A game with ideal conditions (say, a dome), without a crowd, refereed perfectly/accurately will yield the players and coaches inputs (execution, gameplanning, and in-game adjustments is player agency here) as having complete autonomy over the system's output.

Now introduce referee error into the system.  This referee error is GM Force.  Now introduce more referee error.  And again.



There is not a 50/50 split in either of these systems and, as you add more and more entropy or referee error, the parameters/initial conditions/players and coaches inputs become overwhelmed.

Again, in TTRPGs, its not just the 1st order effect of GM Force, its the knock-on effects that serve to amplify the current and downstream deviation from whatever was going to emerge without the Force...and amplify again, creating further deviation...and again...and again.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I don't agree that your model is coherent here.
> 
> There are two ways to look at things that better model TTRPG play, agency, and GM Force.
> 
> Take a deterministic system.
> 
> Player agency is the parameters and initial conditions.  They have complete autonomy over the system's output.
> 
> Now introduce some entropy into the system.  This entropy is GM Force.  Now introduce more entropy.  And again.
> 
> 
> 
> Alternatively, take an American Football game.  A game with ideal conditions (say, a dome), without a crowd, refereed perfectly/accurately will yield the players and coaches inputs (execution, gameplanning, and in-game adjustments is player agency here) as having complete autonomy over the system's output.
> 
> Now introduce referee error into the system.  This referee error is GM Force.  Now introduce more referee error.  And again.
> 
> 
> 
> There is not a 50/50 split in either of these systems and, as you add more and more entropy or referee error, the parameters/initial conditions/players and coaches inputs become overwhelmed.
> 
> Again, in TTRPGs, its not just the 1st order effect of GM Force, its the knock-on effects that serve to amplify the current and downstream deviation from whatever was going to emerge without the Force...and amplify again, creating further deviation...and again...and again.



You seem to be describing a game in which players cannot make meaningful choices at all.  Well I agree, in a system where players are deprived of all agency they will have none no matter how long the game goes on.  But if they have even just a little, then the game going on longer gives them more and more opportunities to exercise it.  I don't know of a single game that doesn't give players some agency.  Even the worst railroads I've seen don't deprive players of all agency. 

You used American football and bad refereeing as an example.  But even in American football the mindset tends to be that you shouldn't have let yourself be put in a situation where a bad call could blow the game.  That mindset is - exercise your agency and be up more next time so that you can prevent such things from mattering.


----------



## darkbard

@Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan: I really hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, which is furthest from my intent, but watching you two break the "mind-forg'd manacles" that limited your perspective in these discussions years ago has been a great pleasure and source of hope for me in these threads, even as occasional a participant as I am. It bears repeating: I don't think it's a coincidence that your *actual play* with game systems beyond D&D made this possible.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> You seem to be describing a game in which players cannot make meaningful choices at all.  Well I agree, in a system where players are deprived of all agency they will have none no matter how long the game goes on.  But if they have even just a little, then the game going on longer gives them more and more opportunities to exercise it.  I don't know of a single game that doesn't give players some agency.  Even the worst railroads I've seen don't deprive players of all agency.
> 
> You used American football and bad refereeing as an example.  But even in American football the mindset tends to be that you shouldn't have let yourself be put in a situation where a bad call could blow the game.  That mindset is - exercise your agency and be up more next time so that you can prevent such things from mattering.




Paragraph 1:

I don't understand how you come to that conclusion?  Without entropy or referee error (Force), literally the only thing is the agency of the the parameters/initial conditions or players and coaches (player agency and meaningful choices).  How in the world are you processing that as no meaningful choices and complete agency deprivation?

Paragraph 2:

You're smuggling in something (the behavioral conditioning/hypnosis required of athletes/coaches to exclusively focus on their internal locus of control) that doesn't have anything to do with the actual inputs and outputs of the system. And I'll let you know (having been an athlete all of my life and at the collegiate level), focus on process, one game/play at a time, focus on "what you can control" is just secular religion.  Its mental preparation to give you your best chance to win.  It in no way is actual honest analysis on what is happening in the system.  Athletes can't afford honest analysis because the moment they start being honest, they realize that referee error and other externalities have ENORMOUS impact on the trajectory of their play/careers...and that is an absolute death spiral of insecurity and despair.  Save the honest analysis for when your career is over.  While you're in it, its religion all the way down.

But we aren't "in it."  We're outsiders performing a thought experiment.  So smuggling in the religion of athletes/coaches is not only not useful...its actively harmful to understanding the actual machinery at play in a Football game.  Anyone who thinks a bad call of Defensive Holding on 3rd and 17 in a one score game in the 3rd quarter isn't an enormous deal "because you don't want to put yourself in the position where referee error can significantly affect the trajectory of play" is either (a) peddling in obfuscation and religion (whether unknowingly or knowingly) or (b) doesn't understand the working parts at play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

darkbard said:


> @Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan: I really hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, which is furthest from my intent, but watching you two break the "mind-forg'd manacles" that limited your perspective in these discussions years ago has been a great pleasure and source of hope for me in these threads, even as occasional a participant as I am. It bears repeating: I don't think it's a coincidence that your *actual play* with game systems beyond D&D made this possible.




No offense taken at all. 

I’m glad that I’ve been involved in these discussions and listened to folks whose opinion didn’t match mine. 

I mean....I’ve actually gotten something from these discussions and they’ve directly improved my enjoyment of the hobby.


----------



## Ovinomancer

darkbard said:


> @Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan: I really hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, which is furthest from my intent, but watching you two break the "mind-forg'd manacles" that limited your perspective in these discussions years ago has been a great pleasure and source of hope for me in these threads, even as occasional a participant as I am. It bears repeating: I don't think it's a coincidence that your *actual play* with game systems beyond D&D made this possible.



No offense taken, but I reserve the right to disagree in the future!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> No myth is not fertile ground for Illusionism -- it literally prevents it because the GM has no preplanned outcomes they need to Force onto players in a hidden way!  No Myth explicitly means this.



But the difference exist only in the GM's head. No one else will know if the consequence they introduced was truly generated on the spot as response to the player's action or whether it was preplanned and they were just waiting for a convenient place to drop it in, and as they frame the scenes they have plenty of opportunity to make it very likely that an appropriate moment arises.



Ovinomancer said:


> As for why the arguments I made no longer apply, it's simply because your, like I was, are looking at the single moment in play where the GM narrates either scene framing and/or failure states.  However, these things aren't isolated -- they are embedded in the larger context which is player driven, not GM driven.  The mistake made here is keeping the same ideas that the GM has the only authority over the setting and outcomes -- this is no longer true.  Nor is the GM solely responsible for the obstacles faced.  While this appears true, the actual truth is that the when the GM frames an obstacle it's a direct reaction to a player declaration.  If you frame things that aren't part of the player declarations, it's obvious you've done so and a clear violation of the ethos and rules of the game!



I am not only looking at single moments, I'm looking at overall trajectory. But perhaps I'm missing something. In your example, who decided it was haunted mansion, who decided the guard was there and what kind of guard they were who decided what was in the room? How did the characters even end up in the room?



Ovinomancer said:


> One of the other things I see you might have gotten wrong are the guidelines of the game.  If you're still in D&D mode, guidelines are pieces of advice that GM is intended to ignore when they don't suit the GM.  They're literally more suggestions than rules.  This is not so in Blades -- these guidelines are how you are supposed to play the game at all times!  Breaching a guideline intentionally is moving into bad faith play.  These guidelines are actual rules of play.  There's often a good bit of leeway in how you might use them, but you are to keep within them during play, not ignore them when convenient.



Yes, but a lot of them are still rather vague and open to interpretation. I did not even find any firm guidelines for which harm level GM should assign. Maybe I'm missing something here, as it seems rather arbitrary.



Ovinomancer said:


> As for framing, of course it affects player behavior -- this is trivially obvious.  However, the framing of the portrait in that case was a minor detail -- the focus was entirely on the guard.  That minor detail became important not because I was making it so in describing it, but because a player had a goal that they thought they could turn that detail into.



I believe that you didn't intend to direct the player, but it wouldn't have necessarily looked any different if you had. This again is a difference that only exist in GM's head, only they know what they intended to do.



Ovinomancer said:


> If it hadn't been described, that player would have looked for something else to do the same thing to because, as we discussed later after the session, they saw an opportunity in raiding Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor house as a chance to lift something that would aid them in their effort to get back into the University's good graces.  If I had described a small statue, that would have been it.  Had I not described something, the player would have asked after something, thus making it relevant and prompting me to narrate that something.  I get that you're trying to say that placing the portrait drove the player to investigate it, so therefore it was the same as a GM driven game where the GM has pre-planned the portrait, but the fundamental difference here is that it was the player that wanted something and so latched onto the flavor description -- there was no plan by me that portraits in the manor were anything at all.  Heck, if the player just wanted to take it for coin, it would have gone in a completely different direction!



The fact that the player could have poked some other object and that would have become important and caused some other, perhaps cosmetically differnt complication is what makes it feel to me that the player agency here is rather illusory. Except not really, because the players know it is an illusion... As a player this would bother me. It would bother me that I am obviously generating the imaginary reality which makes it obviously fake. 
I am sure that a lot of people won't get this complaint, not all people think these things in the same way.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Paragraph 1:
> 
> I don't understand how you come to that conclusion?  Without entropy or referee error (Force), literally the only thing is the agency of the the parameters/initial conditions or players and coaches (player agency and meaningful choices).  How in the world are you processing that as no meaningful choices and complete agency deprivation?



Either the game is so screwed up by ref error that no amount of player/coach agency can change the outcome or it isn't.  If it's not then the players and coaches still have agency.  As long as they still have agency then the longer the game does on the more moments they will have to exercise that agency.

The only way you get to the state you are talking about is if you assume the game is already in an agencyless state.




Manbearcat said:


> Paragraph 2:
> 
> You're smuggling in something (the behavioral conditioning/hypnosis required of athletes/coaches to exclusively focus on their internal locus of control) that doesn't have anything to do with the actual inputs and outputs of the system. And I'll let you know (having been an athlete all of my life and at the collegiate level), focus on process, one game/play at a time, focus on "what you can control" is just secular religion.  Its mental preparation to give you your best chance to win.  It in no way is actual honest analysis on what is happening in the system.  Athletes can't afford honest analysis because the moment they start being honest, they realize that referee error and other externalities have ENORMOUS impact on the trajectory of their play/careers...and that is an absolute death spiral of insecurity and despair.  Save the honest analysis for when your career is over.  While you're in it, its religion all the way down.



It's an acknowledgment that the team had the agency to win the game regardless of some egregious ref calls.  They simply needed to play a little better.  There's no dishonesty there, just a different perspective.

I'll give you an example of a theoretical time when that wouldn't be true.  Suppose a sports team played a perfect game.  That is they made no errors and played to the absolute best of their ability.  Suppose then a ref makes some bad calls and they lose the game.  That is an example of a game they had no agency in.  That's an example of a game where they couldn't say they needed to play just a little better.  But when reviewing this game you can see that the team had no agency because nothing they could have done would have mattered.  But that's pretty much never the case in actual sports games.  I've never seen a game where a team couldn't have played better and overcome whatever the refs throw at them.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I've never seen a game where a team couldn't have played better and overcome whatever the refs throw at them.



Game five of the National League Championship Series, 1997. Livan Hernandez was throwing to a strike zone that at times was literally three feet wide--so, of course the Braves struck out fifteen times against him. Now, he did it against the Braves, so I have no real complaints, but I don't think there was much they could have done with a strike zone that out of whack.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> But the difference exist only in the GM's head. No one else will know if the consequence they introduced was truly generated on the spot as response to the player's action or whether it was preplanned and they were just waiting for a convenient place to drop it in, and as they frame the scenes they have plenty of opportunity to make it very likely that an appropriate moment arises.



This, again, assumes that you're playing in a more D&D style, where the GM anticipates things.  The way that play of Blades so rapidly moves means prep is pretty useless to begin with, and prep that's you try to force into the play becomes obvious because it doesn't fit.  You're still not adapting to the entire play process.  I thought the same way, prior to gaining experience with it -- it's a natural thought if you haven't entirely moved the paradigm.  I'll even say my first few sessions I was still trying to do things like this, but I quickly saw how that just didn't work out and fully adapted to the style.  Now, it's not that I don't want it to be possible and am arguing to protect the game (I don't have much stake at all in this, I'm not stuck defending Blades at all), but rather I have the experience to say that this just doesn't and mostly cannot happen at all.


Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not only looking at single moments, I'm looking at overall trajectory. But perhaps I'm missing something. In your example, who decided it was haunted mansion, who decided the guard was there and what kind of guard they were who decided what was in the room? How did the characters even end up in the room?



The players did.  Or rather, they decided to go after a cult doing creepy things, we did free form roleplay where they investigated where that cult my be by contacting a source in Six Towers (a neighborhood of Duskvol).  From there, it was determined in play that the cult was there and the source knew where they were, but needed payment (the fortune roll was mixed).  So, I decided that the source wanted something stolen from the cult's location in addition to what the PCs wanted to accomplish, to pay for his information.  I then looked over the neighborhood description for Six Towers, saw Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor was a landmark, and pitched it. Here's the lore on the Six Towers neighborhood:


> This formerly prestigious district has faded over the centuries into a pale shadow of what it once was. The eponymous six towers were originally the grand residences of Doskvol’s first noble families. All but two (Bowmore House and Rowan House) have been sold off and converted into cheap apartments or fallen into ruin and abandoned. The district has an empty, haunted feel, with many sprawling old buildings dark without power, broad stone streets cracked and buckled, and the fires of squatters rackling from overgrown lots.



And here's Scurlock's Manor:


> Scurlock Manor. The Scurlock family came to Duskwall centuries ago and was once a great force in the city, before some curse or calamity befell their line. This tumble-down manor house and tangle of vines is all that remains of their original fortune. It’s said that a young nephew or cousin still resides there, but Lord Scurlock himself has moved on to finer abodes.



This is what informed the decision to use a cool landmark from the game -- "Bring Duskvol to life" -- and lean into the haunted nature of the neighborhood and Lord Scurlock's past -- "Paint the world with a haunted brush."  I mean, haunted manors are solidly within scope of the game.  Plus, the cult they were seeking had occupied play for the previous few sessions -- it didn't even exist at first, but the PCs' failures led to the addition of a cult, then the kidnapping by the cult of one PC's ally (a ghost), and then a demon got involved wanting this issue closed (am entanglement roll of "demonic notice" at a time where it fit perfectly), so the crew had a lot of motivation to do this thing.  This entire quest line started with a job to recover some sets of alchemical notes that were driving alchemists mad (a rolled score, when the crew went to one of their contacts for a job).  Everything else snowballed from there, as the system is built to do -- create complex stories from simple inputs and play.

As for who decided, I did, from player input.  They chose to sneak into the manor, and had a great engagement roll, so the opening scene had to be Controlled, which means, usually, a foreshadowed threat rather than a present one.  So, they entered the manor through an old servents tunnel (the player decided "detail" of the engagement), and that let out into a storeroom off of a hallway in the manor (I decided this, from the detail).  Since Blades runs on obstacles, I am required to frame one in the opening scene, and start a new scene when one is played out.  So, I narrated a guard being present and needing to be bypassed, but currently unaware of the crew -- hence a controlled situation completely grown out of many, many inputs, some decided immediately before (the engagement approach and detail and the result of the roll). 

I anticipate that you'll try to point out this could have been planned in advance, but I'll go ahead and counter with asking you to plan something in advance for a Blades mission, and we'll see how well it survives the PCs choosing a score and approach and detail -- that it might theoretically perfectly play out so that pre-planning is even remotely relevant, much less useful, is very long odds.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Yes, but a lot of them are still rather vague and open to interpretation. I did not even find any firm guidelines for which harm level GM should assign. Maybe I'm missing something here, as it seems rather arbitrary.



So, for one, the SRD is very light.  The actual rulebooks spends pages on these, and has examples to illustrate.  Harm is presented in levels -- 1, lesser, 2 moderate, 3 severe, and 4 dead.  These correspond nicely to the positions -- controlled, risky, and desperate.  Dead is reserved for your second severe injury or fictional situations where the effect is very severe and foreshadowed.  Given that the PCs can always choose to Resist, although that may take them out, it's okay to occasionally have such dire threats if it fits the game.  

Again, remember you've read the SRD, which is very basic and covers topics just enough to get by.


Crimson Longinus said:


> I believe that you didn't intend to direct the player, but it wouldn't have necessarily looked any different if you had. This again is a difference that only exist in GM's head, only they know what they intended to do.



Oh, I assure you, it would have looked different.  I would have played up the portrait more, making it more interesting than I did, and I wouldn't have included the guard as the primary point of conflict and interest in the scene.  Had that player not had the motivation they did, it wouldn't even have been remarked on -- I add lots of color to my descriptions, and it's usually just that.  Just because this particular piece of color caught a player's wants doesn't make it anything like what you're trying to claim it could maybe have been.  This is a deep dive into Maybe Lake.


Crimson Longinus said:


> The fact that the player could have poked some other object and that would have become important and caused some other, perhaps cosmetically differnt complication is what makes it feel to me that the player agency here is rather illusory. Except not really, because the players know it is an illusion... As a player this would bother me. It would bother me that I am obviously generating the imaginary reality which makes it obviously fake.
> I am sure that a lot of people won't get this complaint, not all people think these things in the same way.



Sure, that's fine.  I don't think it works out this way -- you find something interesting and it's interesting, you're not checking with the GM to see if it's interesting or not.  But, still, I totally get that you might prefer having someone else make that call so you can feel like you're exploring some reality.  It's all still make-believe, though, so this is definitely a thing of how you're choosing to suspend your disbelief over what's the same thing at the end of the day, just with different people responsible for it.

This does go the agency point, though -- if only the GM has the say, then it should be obvious the players have less say.  That's really the end of the point.  You clearly think you wouldn't like having more of a say, so that's that -- you've got your value statement and it's a good one.  The argument hasn't been about which is better in any way, but how it works.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Game five of the National League Championship Series, 1997. Livan Hernandez was throwing to a strike zone that at times was literally three feet wide--so, of course the Braves struck out fifteen times against him. Now, he did it against the Braves, so I have no real complaints, but I don't think there was much they could have done with a strike zone that out of whack.



I dunno, have you seen Victory?  Sly, Craine, Slydow, and Pele overcome all of the Nazi's advantages and the extremely biased refereeing to not just win the game against all odds, but escape the Nazis anyway!  I mean, if a bunch of actors* can do it, surely professional athletes can!

*and one of the greatest footballers of all time


----------



## darkbard

Ovinomancer said:


> This does go the agency point, though -- if only the GM has the say, then it should be obvious the players have less say.  That's really the end of the point.  You clearly think you wouldn't like having more of a say, so that's that -- you've got your value statement and it's a good one.  *The argument hasn't been about which is better in any way, but how it works.*




Excellent and useful explication throughout your post. I picked this last point out because it has been made so many times in so many ways and yet keeps running up against the specious argument of a roadblock that there exist different kinds of player agency that somehow are separate from the overall totality of player agency. Until y/our interlocutors look beyond their blinders, facilitated by, y'know, actual play of these games, I don't see how else it can be argued to make the case not only apparent but, upon reflection, obvious!


----------



## Campbell

There are a couple of features in Blades that make it much easier to notice when GMs are trying to lean play in a particular direction.

There is no invisible machinery on the GM's side. When they do a thing you know it's the GM deciding to do it. The GM rolls no dice to fudge, has no enemy stats to obfuscate what they are doing, and is beholden to no prep. You know when and when not a GM is exercising their latitude. In many ways they have more latitude, but it is ridiculously transparent.

Gather Information requires a GM to provide useful information that directly answers the question the player poses. This makes it quite trivial to learn real, reliable information to use as the basis for your fictional positioning.

Another feature which makes it pretty difficult is that Blades resolves player intent and makes success incredibly transparent. There are no DCs, TNs, or Obs. You look at the dice and you know. Blades also provides for resistance rolls to overturn consequences. Playing games there is trivial to see.

Games are not mind control. You will never be able to control behavior through system. The best we can do is make as obvious as possible when people are acting in a way that is contrary to our shared expectations.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> There are a couple of features in Blades that make it much easier to notice when GMs are trying to lean play in a particular direction.



Thank you, this is a clear post. And I agree that it is definitely harder such in Blades in many ways.



Campbell said:


> There is no invisible machinery on the GM's side. When they do a thing you know it's the GM deciding to do it. The GM rolls no dice to fudge, has no enemy stats to obfuscate what they are doing, and is beholden to no prep. You know when and when not a GM is exercising their latitude. In many ways they have more latitude, but it is ridiculously transparent.



True. Though I feel that openness of consequences really requires a a lot of GM judgement.



Campbell said:


> Gather Information requires a GM to provide useful information that directly answers the question the player poses. This makes it quite trivial to learn real, reliable information to use as the basis for your fictional positioning.



Sure. But GM still provides the information and that certainly directs things.



Campbell said:


> Another feature which makes it pretty difficult is that Blades resolves player intent and makes success incredibly transparent. There are no DCs, TNs, or Obs. You look at the dice and you know. Blades also provides for resistance rolls to overturn consequences. Playing games there is trivial to see.



The GM sets the position and effect though. So that's them setting the DC.



Campbell said:


> Games are not mind control. You will never be able to control behavior through system. The best we can do is make as obvious as possible when people are acting in a way that is contrary to our shared expectations.



True.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> All I can say here is that this may be your concern. Perhaps you’ve attempted this and it’s gone as you describe here. If so, then I don’t blame you for feeling that way.
> 
> But please trust me when I say that this style of game actually exists and functions perfectly fine.
> 
> Also, you bring this up a lot....why do you always assume that players won’t care about stories related to other players’ characters? It seems a bit bizarre.



Heh - I quite literally just finished playing in a session where this is about to rear its ugly head in a rather big way.

We all have multiple PCs which have until now been split into multiple parties.  All of the parties - yes, all four (!) of 'em - just returned to our collective home base at around the same time: there's now over 40 adventurers there.

Two of my PCs have specific personal agendae they want to follow for the near-mid future that at most peripherially involve anyone else.  Another has a specific agenda shared with two other PCs (this will almost certainly turn into a played adventure before long).  Another player's PC has a specific personal agenda (rescuing some stranded family members) that will ironclad involve an adventure, and she's just started trying to recruit other people to join her*.  Other PCs quite likely have their own agendae of which I-as-player know little to nothing.

Our GM just went into cat-herd mode. 

* - interest might not be high in the immediate, as an adventure we just finished was around doing exactly the same thing: rescuing family members stranded in the Far Realm.


hawkeyefan said:


> Why would you assume multiple PCs and high lethality?



Those things - multiple PCs and in-play lethality (maybe not "high" per se, but moderate) - are things I expect as aspects of any game I'm in either as DM or player.  The lethality because, to quote a player of mine, dungeons without mortailty are dungeons without life.  The multiple PCs part is an aspect of wanting to play in a setting that's deeper and broader than just a single AP, where there's more to it than just the in-play party.


hawkeyefan said:


> Honestly, my group crafts their PCs together, even when playing games that don’t require that (some games do). So we talk all this stuff out, splitting the creative burden up and sharing it.



Where I prefer independent character-making, so people don't feel pressured to play something just to fill a gap in th elineup.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> True. Though I feel that openness of consequences really requires a a lot of GM judgement.



It's important to keep in mind - and @Ovinomancer has already touched on this regarding the lightness of the SRD compared to the book - that one of the most important aspects of play discussed in the BitD book is that it's a conversation involving a negotiation of the fiction between the GM and the players. The GM may have final say, but the play principles push gameplay towards negotiating the fiction with the players through conversation.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> Game five of the National League Championship Series, 1997. Livan Hernandez was throwing to a strike zone that at times was literally three feet wide--so, of course the Braves struck out fifteen times against him. Now, he did it against the Braves, so I have no real complaints, but I don't think there was much they could have done with a strike zone that out of whack.



Baseball is one sport I’ve never had much interest in. But based on the description this would be an example of a game wherein the braves had no agency at all.  Not even a little bit.

which plays right back into my overall point.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aldarc said:


> It's important to keep in mind - and @Ovinomancer has already touched on this regarding the lightness of the SRD compared to the book - that one of the most important aspects of play discussed in the BitD book is that it's a conversation involving a negotiation of the fiction between the GM and the players. The GM may have final say, but the play principles push gameplay towards negotiating the fiction with the players through conversation.



I think this difference really comes down to the kinds of consequences the Blades GM can level -- equipment, position, harm, complication, etc.  The 5e GM also has all of these options, but they gate a bit behind engaging other mechanics (like combat or saving throws) so the through-line is less clear.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Baseball is one sport I’ve never had much interest in. But based on the description this would be an example of a game wherein the braves had no agency at all.  Not even a little bit.



In principle, they had agency when the Marlins were at bat. In practice, Livo and the home plate umpire were going to carry the day, yes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> This, again, assumes that you're playing in a more D&D style, where the GM anticipates things.  The way that play of Blades so rapidly moves means prep is pretty useless to begin with, and prep that's you try to force into the play becomes obvious because it doesn't fit.  You're still not adapting to the entire play process.  I thought the same way, prior to gaining experience with it -- it's a natural thought if you haven't entirely moved the paradigm.  I'll even say my first few sessions I was still trying to do things like this, but I quickly saw how that just didn't work out and fully adapted to the style.  Now, it's not that I don't want it to be possible and am arguing to protect the game (I don't have much stake at all in this, I'm not stuck defending Blades at all), but rather I have the experience to say that this just doesn't and mostly cannot happen at all.



I am not talking about should, I'm talking about could. Things such as 'this thing contains a ghost and tries to souldrain you' are pretty damn easy to place in various differnt places without it feeling forced at all. Furthermore, there is a continuum from 'totally made up on spot,' 'made up on spot but influenced by some vague musings the GM had before' to 'totally preplanned.'



Ovinomancer said:


> The players did.  Or rather, they decided to go after a cult doing creepy things, we did free form roleplay where they investigated where that cult my be by contacting a source in Six Towers (a neighborhood of Duskvol).  From there, it was determined in play that the cult was there and the source knew where they were, but needed payment (the fortune roll was mixed).  So, I decided that the source wanted something stolen from the cult's location in addition to what the PCs wanted to accomplish, to pay for his information.  I then looked over the neighborhood description for Six Towers, saw Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor was a landmark, and pitched it. Here's the lore on the Six Towers neighborhood:
> 
> And here's Scurlock's Manor:
> 
> This is what informed the decision to use a cool landmark from the game -- "Bring Duskvol to life" -- and lean into the haunted nature of the neighborhood and Lord Scurlock's past -- "Paint the world with a haunted brush."  I mean, haunted manors are solidly within scope of the game.  Plus, the cult they were seeking had occupied play for the previous few sessions -- it didn't even exist at first, but the PCs' failures led to the addition of a cult, then the kidnapping by the cult of one PC's ally (a ghost), and then a demon got involved wanting this issue closed (am entanglement roll of "demonic notice" at a time where it fit perfectly), so the crew had a lot of motivation to do this thing.  This entire quest line started with a job to recover some sets of alchemical notes that were driving alchemists mad (a rolled score, when the crew went to one of their contacts for a job).  Everything else snowballed from there, as the system is built to do -- create complex stories from simple inputs and play.



Right. So you found a cursed manor in the setting lore and decided to send the PCs there. This is how Curse of Strahd works too. The players decided to seek information about a thing, but you decided where they have to go to get the thing. 



Ovinomancer said:


> As for who decided, I did, from player input.  They chose to sneak into the manor, and had a great engagement roll, so the opening scene had to be Controlled, which means, usually, a foreshadowed threat rather than a present one.  So, they entered the manor through an old servents tunnel (the player decided "detail" of the engagement), and that let out into a storeroom off of a hallway in the manor (I decided this, from the detail).  Since Blades runs on obstacles, I am required to frame one in the opening scene, and start a new scene when one is played out.  So, I narrated a guard being present and needing to be bypassed, but currently unaware of the crew -- hence a controlled situation completely grown out of many, many inputs, some decided immediately before (the engagement approach and detail and the result of the roll).



And I am sure there are countless differnt framings that could have fit those results. This was one of them and you chose it. And that will affect what the players do.



Ovinomancer said:


> I anticipate that you'll try to point out this could have been planned in advance, but I'll go ahead and counter with asking you to plan something in advance for a Blades mission, and we'll see how well it survives the PCs choosing a score and approach and detail -- that it might theoretically perfectly play out so that pre-planning is even remotely relevant, much less useful, is very long odds.



A lot of this could have indeed be planned in advance. And even when it wasn't, you made a lot of choices that massively impacted the direction of the game. Not that this is bad thing at all, but I feel you're downplaying the amount of influence the GM has here.



Ovinomancer said:


> So, for one, the SRD is very light.  The actual rulebooks spends pages on these, and has examples to illustrate.  Harm is presented in levels -- 1, lesser, 2 moderate, 3 severe, and 4 dead.  These correspond nicely to the positions -- controlled, risky, and desperate.  Dead is reserved for your second severe injury or fictional situations where the effect is very severe and foreshadowed.  Given that the PCs can always choose to Resist, although that may take them out, it's okay to occasionally have such dire threats if it fits the game.



But the Gm decides the position, which is based on the fiction which is based on their framing so...



Ovinomancer said:


> Again, remember you've read the SRD, which is very basic and covers topics just enough to get by.



This certainly may influence my views.



Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, I assure you, it would have looked different.  I would have played up the portrait more, making it more interesting than I did, and I wouldn't have included the guard as the primary point of conflict and interest in the scene.  Had that player not had the motivation they did, it wouldn't even have been remarked on -- I add lots of color to my descriptions, and it's usually just that.  Just because this particular piece of color caught a player's wants doesn't make it anything like what you're trying to claim it could maybe have been.  This is a deep dive into Maybe Lake.



But you knew the character's motivation, so it is even easier. You also know your players and if playing live can read their reactions. I am not saying that you were intentionally guiding them, but that could easily be done. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, that's fine.  I don't think it works out this way -- you find something interesting and it's interesting, you're not checking with the GM to see if it's interesting or not.  But, still, I totally get that you might prefer having someone else make that call so you can feel like you're exploring some reality.  It's all still make-believe, though, so this is definitely a thing of how you're choosing to suspend your disbelief over what's the same thing at the end of the day, just with different people responsible for it.
> 
> This does go the agency point, though -- if only the GM has the say, then it should be obvious the players have less say.  That's really the end of the point.  You clearly think you wouldn't like having more of a say, so that's that -- you've got your value statement and it's a good one.  The argument hasn't been about which is better in any way, but how it works.



Not necessarily so. You can offload a lot of decision points to mechanics and randomisers, so no one has agency over them. I think Blades does that quite a bit. And with these sort of mechanics I have to question how meaningful the decisions ultimately are. There has been a lot of talk about Czege principle (usually not by me.) But if I want to know whether an item is a magical and my act of investigating it makes it so that it is, how is that not violation of that? Would certainly seem rather unsatisfying to me.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> But you knew the character's motivation, so it is even easier. You also know your players and if playing live can read their reactions. I am not saying that you were intentionally guiding them, but that could easily be done.



I would say this would be as likely to lead to anticipating their actions as to trying to guide them. Which may be a tomayto-tomahto situation.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I think this difference really comes down to the kinds of consequences the Blades GM can level -- equipment, position, harm, complication, etc.  The 5e GM also has all of these options, but they gate a bit behind engaging other mechanics (like combat or saving throws) so the through-line is less clear.



But my current feeling is that in most other games 'bad stuff' is actually _more _codified, and the GM has _less_ leeway than in Blades.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I would say this would be as likely to lead to anticipating their actions as to trying to guide them. Which may be a tomayto-tomahto situation.



Yes, the difference is rather blurry.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you found a cursed manor in the setting lore and decided to send the PCs there. This is how Curse of Strahd works too. The players decided to seek information about a thing, but you decided where they have to go to get the thing.




No, this isn’t how Curse of Strahd works. I’ve run both Curse of Strahd and Blades in the Dark, and they are very different. There are some similarities in the genre elements of both, but those aren’t all that meaningful.

In Curse of Strahd, there are a set number of locations. Each has its own events and adventure possibilities, but almost all of them rely on the central threat of Strahd himself.  The PCs are prompted via a tarot-style card reading to go to the different locations around Barovia. Ultimately, they are moving inexorably toward a confrontation with the vampire. They are, in fact, trapped in the land of Barovia until Strahd is slain. This absolutely is the goal of play. 

By contrast, Blades has no set goal. Instead, there are several prompts that allow the players to kind of set the agenda, or at least indicate an agenda to the GM. Once things start, it could go a number of ways. 

So @Ovinomancer had a crew that went to a haunted mansion to tussle with a cult. Sounds similar to PCs in Curse of Strahd. But it’s really not. The PCs could habe instead chosen to be a group of Bravos, muscle for hire busting up potential labor unions at the Docks. Or they could have been Hawkers, selling contraband to the new money in Nightmarket. Or they could have been Assassins hired to hint down members of the Foundation. 

The haunted mansion isn’t certain. It’s something that only comes up in play because the players have decided to follow an agenda that makes sense to lead to a haunted mansion. 

In Curse of Strahd, you can’t just opt out of a trip to the Castle. It’s GOING TO HAPPEN. 

And that’s not a knock on Curse of Strahd. I think it’s the best of the 5E adventures that I’ve read. But the players follow the GM’s lead. 

In Blades, the GM follows the players’ lead.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> No, this isn’t how Curse of Strahd works. I’ve run both Curse of Strahd and Blades in the Dark, and they are very different. There are some similarities in the genre elements of both, but those aren’t all that meaningful.
> 
> In Curse of Strahd, there are a set number of locations. Each has its own events and adventure possibilities, but almost all of them rely on the central threat of Strahd himself.  The PCs are prompted via a tarot-style card reading to go to the different locations around Barovia. Ultimately, they are moving inexorably toward a confrontation with the vampire. They are, in fact, trapped in the land of Barovia until Strahd is slain. This absolutely is the goal of play.
> 
> By contrast, Blades has no set goal. Instead, there are several prompts that allow the players to kind of set the agenda, or at least indicate an agenda to the GM. Once things start, it could go a number of ways.
> 
> So @Ovinomancer had a crew that went to a haunted mansion to tussle with a cult. Sounds similar to PCs in Curse of Strahd. But it’s really not. The PCs could habe instead chosen to be a group of Bravos, muscle for hire busting up potential labor unions at the Docks. Or they could have been Hawkers, selling contraband to the new money in Nightmarket. Or they could have been Assassins hired to hint down members of the Foundation.
> 
> The haunted mansion isn’t certain. It’s something that only comes up in play because the players have decided to follow an agenda that makes sense to lead to a haunted mansion.
> 
> In Curse of Strahd, you can’t just opt out of a trip to the Castle. It’s GOING TO HAPPEN.
> 
> And that’s not a knock on Curse of Strahd. I think it’s the best of the 5E adventures that I’ve read. But the players follow the GM’s lead.
> 
> In Blades, the GM follows the players’ lead.



It was not meant to be an exact comparison of entire play experience. But in that point the GM sent the characters in the haunted mansion. Yes, the PCs had decided to track the cult, but that cult could have been in countless other places, but the GM chose the mansion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> It was not meant to be an exact comparison of entire play experience. But in that point the GM sent the characters in the haunted mansion. Yes, the PCs had decided to track the cult, but that cult could have been in countless other places, but the GM chose the mansion.




He chose a location that made sense for a cult, yes. 

No one is saying that the GM doesn’t have any points of input. What we’re saying is that the GM’s decisions are made largely in response to the players. 

If the players had said they want their PCs to go bust up a Union on the Docks, then no haunted mansion. Instead, it would have been an old barge where dockers meet up.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Alternatively, take an American Football game.  A game with ideal conditions (say, a dome), without a crowd, refereed perfectly/accurately will yield the players and coaches inputs (execution, gameplanning, and in-game adjustments is player agency here) as having complete autonomy over the system's output.
> 
> Now introduce referee error into the system.  This referee error is GM Force.  Now introduce more referee error.  And again.



Keep in mind, though, that referee errors don't always go one way and more often generally end up cancelling out (sometimes driven by the infamous "make-up call" which happens a lot in hockey - a ref makes a bad penalty call, realizes it was a bad call but is committed to it, then looks for any excuse to call a penalty the other way to even it up).

In RPG terms, this would manifest as various instances of GM Force more or less cancelling out, and having the play state thus arrive at much the same point it would have without any GM Force ever having been used.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> He chose a location that made sense for a cult, yes.
> 
> No one is saying that the GM doesn’t have any points of input. What we’re saying is that the GM’s decisions are made largely in response to the players.



Oh c'mon, cult could be anywhere! If the players had themselves looked at the map (or setting info or whatever) and decided to go raid the haunted mansion, _then_  it would have been player driven. Albeit not more so than in any even somewhat sandboxy D&D game.



hawkeyefan said:


> If the players had said they want their PCs to go bust up a Union on the Docks, then no haunted mansion. Instead, it would have been an old barge where dockers meet up.



And this would have been more player driven, as the PCs had directly chosen the location unlike here where they had to seek information about the location and then GM providing the information directing them to the location of GM's choosing.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not talking about should, I'm talking about could. Things such as 'this thing contains a ghost and tries to souldrain you' are pretty damn easy to place in various differnt places without it feeling forced at all. Furthermore, there is a continuum from 'totally made up on spot,' 'made up on spot but influenced by some vague musings the GM had before' to 'totally preplanned.'



I'm now not sure what you're aiming toward.  "Hold on lightly" means don't get locked into an idea such that you push it on the game.  If you have an idea and later it fits, cool, but the issue here isn't Illusionism -- you're not planning to present an outcome regardless of choice.  It's not illusionism, even if you have some ideas and they work out.  Generally, though, I don't bother much with thinking ahead -- the odds it will be useful given how the game plays if very low.  

If your intent is to go "aha, could possibly happen in this game and so it is no different from a game where it happens all the time," well, good luck with that -- you can imagine that it might, and a GM is not playing according to the rules of the game, and that it happened, but I don't think this is remotely the same as the game that does everything short of directing you to use Illusionism.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you found a cursed manor in the setting lore and decided to send the PCs there. This is how Curse of Strahd works too. The players decided to seek information about a thing, but you decided where they have to go to get the thing.



I think you missed a few steps and zeroed in on the least important.  The players were seeking the cult for their own reasons, and told me that they wanted to do this.  The players used their contact in Six Towers, setting up play to be in this area.  Sure, at this point, I had a scene to set, but we're already dealing with creepy cult and a haunted district and the fact that the source sought was one that traded in ghosts, so -- it's not like I just arbitrarily picked a haunted house or wrote down in my notes "the players must go to the haunted house to retrieve a macguffin."  The choice of a haunted house was pretty far down the chain of player choices, and it directly flowed from those choices in theme.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And I am sure there are countless differnt framings that could have fit those results. This was one of them and you chose it. And that will affect what the players do.



Another trivial statement.  In fact, this has been used to argue against some of your earlier claims that things should play out in a certain way.  It's a tad ironic to see it show up when you find it convenient.


Crimson Longinus said:


> A lot of this could have indeed be planned in advance. And even when it wasn't, you made a lot of choices that massively impacted the direction of the game. Not that this is bad thing at all, but I feel you're downplaying the amount of influence the GM has here.



No, it couldn't.  I'm trying to make this clear.  The sessions started with a quick review of what's recently happened, and then it's on the players to pick a score.  I, as GM, get no say in what they decide to do.  I have to go with what they want -- if they want a score to make some coin, well, that's what's what.  We do some free-play, where they get information -- this isn't a question, it's a definite, they get information on whatever they want to do next.  There's maybe some fortune rolls, maybe an action check, but it's pretty straighforward -- I'm not allowed to say "no" or block, by the rules of the game.  So, here, again, I have very little control to determine what's the score is even going to be about!  And, then, once that's done and we're starting the score, the players pick their plan, which are different thematically, and then their detail, and then we have a quick negotiation on modifiers to the engagement roll, and that sets the position for the opening scene of the score.  Again, following the details, I skip to the action and narrate a successful entry according to their plan and detail and start with the first obstacle they have to overcome.  This is the first time I, as GM, really have any authoritative input, and it's tightly constrained by all of the above.  I challenge you to plan for this kind of thing -- it's not possible.


Crimson Longinus said:


> But the Gm decides the position, which is based on the fiction which is based on their framing so...



It's also based on the action.  If I narrate an open courtyard, and the player wants to run across it stealthily, I can say that, sure, that sounds Risky (default unless good reason exists to change it), but can say that the courtyard is big enough that the Effect will be lesser -- you'll get halfway across and we'll see what happens.  The players can challenge this, and say, "wait, you didn't say it was a large courtyard, I thought it was smaller than that," and I should eat this because they're right, I didn't.  I don't get to make things up at the point of setting the position and effect -- it has to already be there to do so.  And, again, the rules are that actions are Risky unless there's a good reason and effect is Normal unless there's a good reason.  Good reasons have to be apparent to everyone at the table.  My usual statement when setting Desperate is, "whoa, that sounds pretty desperate/hardcore/dangerous, I think that sounds Desperate, what do you think?"  Players have almost always agreed with me, because they know what's up and know I'm dealing fairly.


Crimson Longinus said:


> This certainly may influence my views.
> 
> But you knew the character's motivation, so it is even easier. You also know your players and if playing live can read their reactions. I am not saying that you were intentionally guiding them, but that could easily be done.



See, here's the thing, I don't pay attention to that much at all!  It's the player's job to bring the things they care about into the game, not mine as GM.  I shouldn't block, and should offer opportunities, and it's okay if I pluck something out, but really it's not my job to do this.  If they want to bring something up, then it works exactly like my example works -- the player makes it a thing.  I mean, I get that you really want your point to stick, for some reason, I guess so you can say this is the same as D&D, but we're discussing some kind dickish things to do to friends or fellow hobbyists, so maybe can you tone down the half-accusations that I want to manipulate things?  This is shading heavily into bad-faith play, and any argument based on bad-faith play is the problem of bad-faith, not the system or approach.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Not necessarily so. You can offload a lot of decision points to mechanics and randomisers, so no one has agency over them. I think Blades does that quite a bit. And with these sort of mechanics I have to question how meaningful the decisions ultimately are. There has been a lot of talk about Czege principle (usually not by me.) But if I want to know whether an item is a magical and my act of investigating it makes it so that it is, how is that not violation of that? Would certainly seem rather unsatisfying to me.



Okay, sure, let's look at this.  Let's say that we have a situation where the players have declared an action.  We can let the GM decide, in which case the GM has a lot of agency and the players not much, because the GM has the say and the players don't.  We can imagine a situation where the mechanics do all of the deciding -- they must be invoked and live by.  This is the boardgame approach, and neither the GM nor the players have much of a say.  Then we can look at something like Blades, where both the player and the GM has a say on different aspects, and we just let the mechanics decide who has final say on this issue.  Evaluating for player side agency, they have very little with GM decides (mostly just the ability to pose the action); they have very little in the mechanics always system (again, just the ability to pose the action); but they have more agency that either of these in the system where they get a say in how the mechanics work and the mechanic might give them the final say!  They don't have this in any of the other toy examples.  

As for Czege Principle, your example is a violation.  Play in Blades doesn't do this.  If it's not important, it's not a challenge, it just get's yessed.  If it is important, it gets challenged -- the player states an action to determine if this sword is magical.  No one knows if it is or not, we're going to play to find out.  The player's intent and action is determined, the GM sets Position and Effect, and we make a check to see if the player is right -- it is magical how they hoped, or if it is but there's a problem, or if the GM gets to level a consequence.  Here, the player did set the challenge, but not the resolution -- they are not both the author of the conflict and it's resolution, the mechanics and GM step in to assist with the resolution.  Perhaps the player wins, but that's not a violation because the player didn't just narrate the resolution, it was the result of a test.  There was drama involved.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> But my current feeling is that in most other games 'bad stuff' is actually _more _codified, and the GM has _less_ leeway than in Blades.



It's not, though.  The "codification" is really the GM picked before play.  There's no real limit on what the GM can pick before or during play.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Oh c'mon, cult could be anywhere! If the players had themselves looked at the map (or setting info or whatever) and decided to go raid the haunted mansion, _then_  it would have been player driven. Albeit not more so than in any even somewhat sandboxy D&D game.



No, because here the GM has already determined the particulars of that location, and the players are just choosing which aspects of the GM's ideas they're going to explore at this time.  There's no ability for the players to add anything they care about -- it's all up to the GM.  You're confusing the ability to pick which choose-your-own-adventure book to read for agency in that book.

In Blades, I do not direct play at all.  As @hawkeyefan has said, the players pick what's important.  I have inputs, yes, but they're entirely triggered by the players.  Here, they picked a haunted neighborhood, a source that dealt with ghosts, and a mission that involved recovering a kidnapped ally from a creepy cult.  Sure, I could have picked any number of other places, but it's really hard to say that the choice of a haunted, abandoned manor house was, in any way, incongruous with the players' intent or the fiction established.  I certainly had no idea we were going to a haunted manor house at the start of the session.  I have no idea what would happen in our next session.  That's the point -- I, as GM follow the players' lead.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And this would have been more player driven, as the PCs had directly chosen the location unlike here where they had to seek information about the location and then GM providing the information directing them to the location of GM's choosing.



You're misunderstanding the nature of the investigation.  The players tell me they're talking to this source about this topic, and, well, that source knows something about that topic.  Because that's how it works.  You said above I could have picked anything for where the cult was, and that's true in a trivial sense.  Here, though, no matter what lead the players choose to follow it will pan out for information.  Why?  Because getting information isn't the point of Blades in the Dark, the score is, and finding info on a score is what drives the game towards it's point.  So, when they picked a ghost dealer in a haunted neighborhood, they chose a lot of what things were going to be about.  I could have put the cult in a steampunk rave club, but given what the players cared about (save ghost friend, haunted neighborhood, dealing with creepy cultist) that wouldn't have made sense.

Was my choice unoriginal?  Guilty.  Was it cliched?  Also guilty.  I find cliches to be useful quick mood and setting tools so everyone's on the same page very quickly.  I actually spoke to my friend who plays in this game and described this argument to him -- he was taken aback that anyone would suggest that things turned out in any way different from what he (he plays the Whisper who was searching for his ghost friend) expected or wanted.

I mean, right now, in that Blades game, here's some of the things that the Crew is dealing with:

-One of the crew is in jail, serving time, and that's not a nice thing.
-The cult has expanded operations using the madness formula to create seeming zombies from their victims, in reality, this is an alchemically boosted form of possession that has nasty effects.
-One member's ghost friend is missing, presumed kidnapped by the cult.
-One member is trying to change his vice.
-One member is trying to find a way to get revenge on an old slight by a Priestess of the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh.
-One member is trying to build a Hull for the ghost of their dog.
-The Crew is tasked by a Demon to recover the alchemical formula being used by the cult.
-One member has a locked box, known to be an artifact from near or before the apocalypse, and wants to discover it's secrets.
-Every member of the crew has a rival looking to knock them down a rung.
-*There's a gang war in the Crew's neighborhood, and they're caught in it because the winner of the war will take control over the neighborhood, and the Crew will have to pay tribute or go to war themselves.
-The Spirit Wardens are looking for the Crew, due to a number of untimely deaths around the Crew's activities.
-The Dimmer Sisters have allied themselves with the Crew, and have some needs to be met to keep them pleasantly happy.
-One member is developing a contact within the Bluecoats to help deflect heat from their activities.
-*The neighborhood of Dunslow harbors a grudge against the Crew for starting a fire there, and is trying to get them arrested for the deed.
-The Railjacks are angry with the Crew for a heist in their railyards, and may seek to cause mischief for the crew.
-Ulf Ironborne has an issue with the Crew, and his gang is on the lookout for the "traitorous" Skovlander on the Crew.
-The Greycloaks have an issue with the Crew, and are looking for some payback for the humiliations caused to them during the haunter house score (the Greycloaks were hired muscle).

I'm missing a few things here, I'm sure, but this is pretty close to the list of current things the Crew is dealing with.  I've asterisked the ones that were part of initial crew generation.  If you think I'm prepping for that list, please dream on!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> See, here's the thing, I don't pay attention to that much at all!  It's the player's job to bring the things they care about into the game, not mine as GM.  I shouldn't block, and should offer opportunities, and it's okay if I pluck something out, but really it's not my job to do this.  If they want to bring something up, then it works exactly like my example works -- the player makes it a thing.  I mean, I get that you really want your point to stick, for some reason, I guess so you can say this is the same as D&D, but we're discussing some kind dickish things to do to friends or fellow hobbyists, so maybe can you tone down the half-accusations that I want to manipulate things?  This is shading heavily into bad-faith play, and any argument based on bad-faith play is the problem of bad-faith, not the system or approach.



I am not accusing you of doing anything, though I feel you really do not appreciate how much the information the GM provides will impact the direction of play. In your explanation I see multiple points where the GM clearly either influences or has an easy opportunity to influence the outcome. But I do believe that you do not use this to consciously direct the game in any preplanner direction.

And things like reading the player reactions, taking account their character's motivations, carefully nudging the game in certain directions, inserting preplanned cool elements where they naturally fit, drawing players' attention to certain things are not dickish behaviour to me; these are things that a good GM _should _do! Now I understand that this is not within the spirit of the Blades, so that is another reason why I wouldn't be interested in that game.




Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, sure, let's look at this.  Let's say that we have a situation where the players have declared an action.  We can let the GM decide, in which case the GM has a lot of agency and the players not much, because the GM has the say and the players don't.  We can imagine a situation where the mechanics do all of the deciding -- they must be invoked and live by.  This is the boardgame approach, and neither the GM nor the players have much of a say.  Then we can look at something like Blades, where both the player and the GM has a say on different aspects, and we just let the mechanics decide who has final say on this issue.  Evaluating for player side agency, they have very little with GM decides (mostly just the ability to pose the action); they have very little in the mechanics always system (again, just the ability to pose the action); but they have more agency that either of these in the system where they get a say in how the mechanics work and the mechanic might give them the final say!  They don't have this in any of the other toy examples.
> 
> As for Czege Principle, your example is a violation.  Play in Blades doesn't do this.  If it's not important, it's not a challenge, it just get's yessed.  If it is important, it gets challenged -- the player states an action to determine if this sword is magical.  No one knows if it is or not, we're going to play to find out.  The player's intent and action is determined, the GM sets Position and Effect, and we make a check to see if the player is right -- it is magical how they hoped, or if it is but there's a problem, or if the GM gets to level a consequence.  Here, the player did set the challenge, but not the resolution -- they are not both the author of the conflict and it's resolution, the mechanics and GM step in to assist with the resolution.  Perhaps the player wins, but that's not a violation because the player didn't just narrate the resolution, it was the result of a test.  There was drama involved.



The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced. And yeah, I just don't agree with you that evoking an randomiser makes a decision meaningful. In a situation where some sort of objectivish fictional reality exists and the GM can adjudicate the player's actions in good faith against that, the player's actions matter on a completely differnt level. There actually are right or wrong answers. You can study the reality and make informed choices, not just push the RNG machine to produce new reality in the flavour your choosing. It's chess instead of roulette.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Oh c'mon, cult could be anywhere! If the players had themselves looked at the map (or setting info or whatever) and decided to go raid the haunted mansion, _then_  it would have been player driven. Albeit not more so than in any even somewhat sandboxy D&D game.




Curse of Strahd is pretty sandboxy. Tell me how the players set their agenda in that adventure. 

Having run it, I can tell you. They do what the GM has told them to so through narration and NPC prompting and so on. 

In Blades, the only reason they wound up in a haunted mansion is because they were pursuing a goal that would reasonably end up in a haunted mansion. Yes, it could have been elsewhere. This is where the GM steps in and picks a spot based on what makes sense for what’s at stake  and what’s happened in the fiction and what factions may be involved and so on. 

Are you assuming the GM has some kind of agenda to bring the haunted mansion into play and then jumped at the first chance to do so? What might this agenda be? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> And this would have been more player driven, as the PCs had directly chosen the location unlike here where they had to seek information about the location and then GM providing the information directing them to the location of GM's choosing.




Not at all. Again, this is the GM taking their cues and crafting something accordingly.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Curse of Strahd is pretty sandboxy. Tell me how the players set their agenda in that adventure.
> 
> Having run it, I can tell you. They do what the GM has told them to so through narration and NPC prompting and so on.
> 
> In Blades, the only reason they wound up in a haunted mansion is because they were pursuing a goal that would reasonably end up in a haunted mansion. Yes, it could have been elsewhere. This is where the GM steps in and picks a spot based on what makes sense for what’s at stake  and what’s happened in the fiction and what factions may be involved and so on.
> 
> Are you assuming the GM has some kind of agenda to bring the haunted mansion into play and then jumped at the first chance to do so? What might this agenda be?
> 
> 
> 
> Not at all. Again, this is the GM taking their cues and crafting something accordingly.




I haven't played in Curse of Strahd, so no idea of the accuracy of this. But in a proper sandbox, you don't have to go to the haunted mansion. You can say something like we go to town to look for a coffee guild, or we try to see if there are any gangs or bandits operating here we can work it. The GM does decide if those things are present in the setting but the players can pursue what they want (though in a living setting, things will also occasionally come their way)


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not accusing you of doing anything, though I feel you really do not appreciate how much the information the GM provides will impact the direction of play. In your explanation I see multiple points where the GM clearly either influences or has an easy opportunity to influence the outcome. But I do believe that you do not use this to consciously direct the game in any preplanner direction.



Yes, I get you say this.  This is exactly what I thought as well (I provided the quote above).  However, when you play the game, this rapidly becomes obviously incorrect.  You cannot push a Blades game into any preplanned direction without it being blatant.

Does the GM affect play with their choices?  Yes, this is trivially obvious.  The issue isn't that the GM has no influence, it's how much influence does the player have?  And, it's very clear that that influence is very much increased in Blades over 5e.  No one has argued that the GM doesn't have any say -- I missed this was your thrust because it hasn't been argued and seems perfectly clear to me that the GM must have at least some say.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And things like reading the player reactions, taking account their character's motivations, carefully nudging the game in certain directions, inserting preplanned cool elements where they naturally fit, drawing players' attention to certain things are not dickish behaviour to me; these are things that a good GM _should _do! Now I understand that this is not within the spirit of the Blades, so that is another reason why I wouldn't be interested in that game.



And I'm telling you this can't actually happen without being blatant.  I mean, you're imagining a mastermind with heavy manipulation skills just to create this hypothetical!  It's silly.


Crimson Longinus said:


> The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced. And yeah, I just don't agree with you that evoking an randomiser makes a decision meaningful. In a situation where some sort of objectivish fictional reality exists and the GM can adjudicate the player's actions in good faith against that, the player's actions matter on a completely differnt level. There actually are right or wrong answers. You can study the reality and make informed choices, not just push the RNG machine to produce new reality in the flavour your choosing. It's chess instead of roulette.



Then you've misunderstood the idea behind the Czege Principle.  It applies to games like poker as well.  If one player was able to both set the bet and the result of the hand, this wouldn't be much of a game.  That the player of the game can set the bet (which is what the player can do) and then win that bet in a gamble is what makes it a game.  Being able to win what you wanted isn't a problem -- if you think it is we have some serious differences in what makes for games.  It's being able to say, "this is what I want to win," and then say, "and I win it," that is a problem.

The painting wasn't magical because the player examined it.  I'm not sure where you got that.  The painting was of interest because the player examined it.  How that turned out really depended on what the player wanted and if a check was called for.  Look, here's how I thought during that transaction.  The player asked about the painting, and I asked what they were after.  They said they thought it could be something they could take back to their contact at the Uni to buy some forgiveness.  I said, sure, it might be, what do you think they would like?  The player said something occult.  I said, cool, this is the place for it.  How are you going to go about it -- what are you doing?  The player thought they could just take it, and I said, cool, we can establish the value of it to your friend after the score with a fortune roll.  The player thought about that, and decided they wanted to know now instead of just carrying around a potentially worthless painting, so they decided they were going to Attune the ghost field and suss out if the painting had any occult auras or whatever (actually, they first wanted the Whisper to do it, but that was nixed by the player).  So they did, and failed.  I had to deliver a consequence that leaned on the Controlled situation, the nature and intent of the action (Attune to detect auras), and that fit the established fiction of the scene (haunted house).  I did so with a hostile magical portrait.  A successful result could have been a lingering aura of an old, nearly insensate ghost attached to the painting which would be of good value to the PC's Uni contact.

If you think that block of play is the player getting to say both what they want and that they get it, then we're, again, worlds apart on our understanding of the basics of what makes a game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I haven't played in Curse of Strahd, so no idea of the accuracy of this. But in a proper sandbox, you don't have to go to the haunted mansion. You can say something like we go to town to look for a coffee guild, or we try to see if there are any gangs or bandits operating here we can work it. The GM does decide if those things are present in the setting but the players can pursue what they want (though in a living setting, things will also occasionally come their way)




Yeah, it’s not as much a sandbox as like an open hexcrawl or anything. But there are many different areas and they can largely be engaged in any order after the arrival ofthe PCs in the village of Barovia. From there and their fortune reading with Madame Eva, they’re free to pursue whatever goals have been established in any order they’d like. They could even go straight to the Castle, but that would be pretty foolish until they’ve leveled up a bit and armed themselves with some of the magical gear they’ll need.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Then you've misunderstood the idea behind the Czege Principle.  It applies to games like poker as well.  If one player was able to both set the bet and the result of the hand, this wouldn't be much of a game.  That the player of the game can set the bet (which is what the player can do) and then win that bet in a gamble is what makes it a game.  Being able to win what you wanted isn't a problem -- if you think it is we have some serious differences in what makes for games.  It's being able to say, "this is what I want to win," and then say, "and I win it," that is a problem.



This is what I want, then gamble whether you get it is not very interesting decision. 



Ovinomancer said:


> The painting wasn't magical because the player examined it.  I'm not sure where you got that.



Because that is literally what you describe happening here:



Ovinomancer said:


> The player said something occult.  I said, cool, this is the place for it.  How are you going to go about it -- what are you doing?  The player thought they could just take it, and I said, cool, we can establish the value of it to your friend after the score with a fortune roll.  The player thought about that, and decided they wanted to know now instead of just carrying around a potentially worthless painting, so they decided they were going to Attune the ghost field and suss out if the painting had any occult auras or whatever (actually, they first wanted the Whisper to do it, but that was nixed by the player).  So they did, and failed.  I had to deliver a consequence that leaned on the Controlled situation, the nature and intent of the action (Attune to detect auras), and that fit the established fiction of the scene (haunted house).  I did so with a hostile magical portrait.  A successful result could have been a lingering aura of an old, nearly insensate ghost attached to the painting which would be of good value to the PC's Uni contact.






Ovinomancer said:


> If you think that block of play is the player getting to say both what they want and that they get it, then we're, again, worlds apart on our understanding of the basics of what makes a game.



RNG is not interesting. What makes a good game is actually being able to study the situation and make either tactical or dramatic decisions based on that.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is what I want, then gamble whether you get it is not very interesting decision.




I want to attack the orc. I then roll to see if I hit it.

I want to pick the lock. I then roll to see if I do. 

I want to turn the undead. I then roll to see if It works.

I want to scribe the scroll. I then roll to see if I do. 

Yeah.....pretty boring stuff, I’d say.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I want to attack the orc. I then roll to see if I hit it.
> 
> I want to pick the lock. I then roll to see if I do.
> 
> I want to turn the undead. I then roll to see if It works.
> 
> I want to scribe the scroll. I then roll to see if I do.
> 
> Yeah.....pretty boring stuff, I’d say.



For each of those actions what happens on the fail state?  You miss the orc.  You don't pick the lock.  The don't turn the undead.  You don't scribe the scroll.  The fail state is inherently tied to simply not getting the thing you wanted.  Gambling inherently implies that there is a win condition where you come out ahead and a lose condition where you come out behind.  That's not happening in these examples. 

That's quite a bit different than the success state giving you exactly what you wanted and the fail state turning the fictional element into something that is now revealed to be out to harm you as the painting example in blades did.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> For each of those actions what happens on the fail state?  You miss the orc.  You don't pick the lock.  The don't turn the undead.  You don't scribe the scroll.  The fail state is inherently tied to simply not getting the thing you wanted.  Gambling inherently implies that there is a win condition where you come out ahead and a lose condition where you come out behind.  That's not happening in these examples.
> That's quite a bit different than the success state giving you exactly what you wanted and the fail state turning the fictional element into something that is now revealed to be out to harm you as the painting example in blades did.




Not really. The means by which the PC examined the painting...Attuning to the Ghost Field...is an inherently dangerous thing. It’s like letting your mind touch the spirit realm. A similar thing in D&D would be traveling on the Astral Plane. It is dangerous to do so.

So, when the player rolled poorly, the consequences were in line with the nature of the action.

Much like if a fighter doesn’t put the orc down, he’s likely to be attacked by the orc. Or if the rogue fails to pick the lock, his lockpick may break. And so on. None of these consequences would be surprising to the player. 

I’d imagine @Ovinomancer ’s player was not surprised to face that consequence.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is what I want, then gamble whether you get it is not very interesting decision.



I find it curious that you think combat in D&D is not very interesting.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Because that is literally what you describe happening here:



No, I'm describing a process by which the player has placed stakes on the table.  Those stakes are what make the difference, not what they player just wants.  I'm hoping that what the player wants goes to what stakes they set -- here the player chose a very weak action for that character because they made the in-character decision to try to keep their issues with their disgrace from the University and attempts to correct that to themselves.  That the portrait turned out how it did was due to the stakes the player put on the table with the action declaration and the intent.


Crimson Longinus said:


> RNG is not interesting. What makes a good game is actually being able to study the situation and make either tactical or dramatic decisions based on that.



RNG is 100% not interesting.  Please do your best to reconcile this with what I'm saying.

I was happy you'd read the SRD, but it really appears that you didn't try to understand it, you just skimmed it for new ways to use double standards.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Not really. The means by which the PC examined the painting...Attuning to the Ghost Field...is an inherently dangerous thing. It’s like letting your mind touch the spirit realm. A similar thing in D&D would be traveling on the Astral Plane. It is dangerous to do so.
> 
> So, when the player rolled poorly, the consequences were in line with the nature of the action.
> 
> Much like if a fighter doesn’t put the orc down, he’s likely to be attacked by the orc. Or if the rogue fails to pick the lock, his lockpick may break. And so on. None of these consequences would be surprising to the player.
> 
> I’d imagine @Ovinomancer ’s player was not surprised to face that consequence.



Nope, he thought it was awesome.  As I said, Blades may be too tailor made for this player -- they love big risks and bold play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Nope, he thought it was awesome.  As I said, Blades may be too tailor made for this player -- they love big risks and bold play.




Hah that’s great. I’m currently running Galaxies in Peril, a FitD supers game, and one of my players is constantly trying to trade position for effect so that he can take Desperate actions and get some extra XP. 

He’s perpetually in horrendous situations and facing horrible consequences. He loves it.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Not really. The means by which the PC examined the painting...Attuning to the Ghost Field...is an inherently dangerous thing. It’s like letting your mind touch the spirit realm. A similar thing in D&D would be traveling on the Astral Plane. It is dangerous to do so.



You say that but from everything that's being said about the game, the general play loop sounds like it's built upon these same kinds of "gambles" regardless of whether Attuning is used or not.



hawkeyefan said:


> So, when the player rolled poorly, the consequences were in line with the nature of the action.



Yes, but the consequences weren't simply you failed to achieve your goal.

Perhaps it would help if I said, there are plenty of actions in plenty of D&D playstyles that can also be gambles.  Some posters like iserith specifically talk about a playstyle where even skills like a perception check to hear through a door may cause guards to appear on a failure as a complication.  I've never been particularly keen on how that works under his playstyle either.



hawkeyefan said:


> Much like if a fighter doesn’t put the orc down, he’s likely to be attacked by the orc. Or if the rogue fails to pick the lock, his lockpick may break. And so on. None of these consequences would be surprising to the player.



If you are saying a fighter attempts to attack an orc minding his own business then yes the orc will start trying to attack him.  But that's not contingent on whether the attack lands, it's contingent on the orc knowing he's tried to attack him.  So no gamble there.

If you are saying the fighter and orc are already fighting and the fighter just misses, then that miss didn't raise stakes or make the orc more powerful.  The orc didn't suddenly double in size and strength or become soul sucking because the fighter missed.  There's no gamble there.



hawkeyefan said:


> I’d imagine @Ovinomancer ’s player was not surprised to face that consequence.



Whether something is a gamble isn't affected by a player's surprise.

I guess to summarize - the inclusion of chance deciding the outcome isn't enough to make something a gamble.  There must be stakes involved where you win something upon winning and lose something upon losing.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> I was happy you'd read the SRD, but it really appears that you didn't try to understand it, you just skimmed it for new ways to use double standards.



@Crimson Longinus 

Note this response.  Recall me choosing not to read the SRD.  Seems doing so didn't matter in the slightest.  Seen that coming a mile away...


----------



## PsyzhranV2

FrogReaver said:


> @Crimson Longinus
> 
> Note this response.  Recall me choosing not to read the SRD.  Seems doing so didn't matter in the slightest.  Seen that coming a mile away...



God you are being so painfully smug right now


----------



## PsyzhranV2

FrogReaver said:


> Perhaps it would help if I said, there are plenty of actions in plenty of D&D playstyles that can also be gambles. Some posters like iserith specifically talk about a playstyle where even skills like a perception check to hear through a door may cause guards to appear on a failure as a complication. I've never been particularly keen on how that works under his playstyle either.



That's entirely on the GM, last I checked 5e doesn't have codified rules for guards randomly teleporting in Cyberpunk 2077 style.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> @Crimson Longinus
> 
> Note this response.  Recall me choosing not to read the SRD.  Seems doing so didn't matter in the slightest.  Seen that coming a mile away...



Yes, you are correct.  If the outcome of reading the SRD is to level claims where you're holding that game to a different standard than other ones, then there's no point in reading the SRD.  Well done, glad you've spotted it!


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> You say that but from everything that's being said about the game, the general play loop sounds like it's built upon these same kinds of "gambles" regardless of whether Attuning is used or not.



I mean, if you're going to shift goalposts, then okay.  Yes, Blades is built on a feedback loop where actions feed into changes in the fiction.  The action "snowball" is a think that the game intends to do.


FrogReaver said:


> Yes, but the consequences weren't simply you failed to achieve your goal.



Why would they be, this is boring.  Even 5e recommends against this.


FrogReaver said:


> Perhaps it would help if I said, there are plenty of actions in plenty of D&D playstyles that can also be gambles.  Some posters like iserith specifically talk about a playstyle where even skills like a perception check to hear through a door may cause guards to appear on a failure as a complication.  I've never been particularly keen on how that works under his playstyle either.



@iserith has never claimed any such thing.  I mean, it's bad enough when you misrepresent the people in the thread, but reaching out to people not even involved to say they advocate for things they do not?  That's pretty bad.


FrogReaver said:


> If you are saying a fighter attempts to attack an orc minding his own business then yes the orc will start trying to attack him.  But that's not contingent on whether the attack lands, it's contingent on the orc knowing he's tried to attack him.  So no gamble there.
> 
> If you are saying the fighter and orc are already fighting and the fighter just misses, then that miss didn't raise stakes or make the orc more powerful.  The orc didn't suddenly double in size and strength or become soul sucking because the fighter missed.  There's no gamble there.



Again with the strange goalpost shifts.  It's not a gamble if the stakes don't change?  I have some not-gambling I'd like to do with you about some horses.  Don't worry, it's not gambling.


FrogReaver said:


> Whether something is a gamble isn't affected by a player's surprise.



Yes, obviously.  Thank for the banal observation.  The statement you're responding to wasn't, at all, in any way, making anything near the claim that the action wasn't a gamble if the player wasn't surprised.


FrogReaver said:


> I guess to summarize - the inclusion of chance deciding the outcome isn't enough to make something a gamble.  There must be stakes involved where you win something upon winning and lose something upon losing.



Like D&D combat?


----------



## FrogReaver

PsyzhranV2 said:


> God you are being so painfully smug right now



I'd say vindicated


----------



## PsyzhranV2

FrogReaver said:


> I'd say vindicated



Hazarding a guess but I think you might need to schedule a checkup with your optometrist, your eye prescription might be out of date


----------



## Campbell

Here's how Gather Information works in Blades. A player says what they are having their character do and then asks a question directly to the GM. They then make their roll which sets the effect level. Even on a 1-3 the GM is obliged to give them information which answers the question posed. More information on a 4-5 and even more on a 6 or critical. Sometimes this may come with some attached danger, but the player will get real information that directly corresponds to the question asked no matter what.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> You say that but from everything that's being said about the game, the general play loop sounds like it's built upon these same kinds of "gambles" regardless of whether Attuning is used or not.




What do you mean by "gambles"? Generally speaking, the game consists of Actions taken by the PCs. The players roll their dice pools and either succeed, fail, or succeed with a consequence. The consequence is up to the GM, but should suit the situation as established in the fiction. So, falling if trying to jump over an alley, or being stabbed if skirmishing with an enemy, or attracting ghosts when messing about with the ghost field. 

At a descriptive level, this isn't really different from D&D. I tried to fight the orc, and I wound up losing 12 hit points. I tried to pick the lock, and got hit by a dart trap and had to make a poison save. I tried to attune to the ghost field to check out what appeared to be a haunted painting, and I got drained by a ghost.





FrogReaver said:


> Yes, but the consequences weren't simply you failed to achieve your goal.




So what?



FrogReaver said:


> Perhaps it would help if I said, there are plenty of actions in plenty of D&D playstyles that can also be gambles.  Some posters like iserith specifically talk about a playstyle where even skills like a perception check to hear through a door may cause guards to appear on a failure as a complication.  I've never been particularly keen on how that works under his playstyle either.




In Blades, typically an Action roll has risk involved. If so, then the consequences should follow. I could see that if the PCs are infiltrating an enemy stronghold, let's say, and it's been established that it is heavily guarded and that there are regular patrols, then yes, I can see a consequence being the arrival of guards at an inopportune moment. But as I said, they're presence would have to have been established, or else the GM can have a consequence be to telegraph their arrival first, i.e. "you hear voices coming from down the hall; do you want to continue messing with this door or do you want to take cover?" 

Then the stakes have been established, the player can decide how to proceed knowing the likely consequence of a failed roll.



FrogReaver said:


> If you are saying a fighter attempts to attack an orc minding his own business then yes the orc will start trying to attack him.  But that's not contingent on whether the attack lands, it's contingent on the orc knowing he's tried to attack him.  So no gamble there.
> 
> If you are saying the fighter and orc are already fighting and the fighter just misses, then that miss didn't raise stakes or make the orc more powerful.  The orc didn't suddenly double in size and strength or become soul sucking because the fighter missed.  There's no gamble there.




Think about what you're saying here. I never said the orc gained power or any of that....I don't even know what you're trying to get at with that angle. 

But you've said that combat is not a gamble. Think about that.

Now think about it again.



FrogReaver said:


> Whether something is a gamble isn't affected by a player's surprise.




We're in agreement there, at least!



FrogReaver said:


> I guess to summarize - the inclusion of chance deciding the outcome isn't enough to make something a gamble.  There must be stakes involved where you win something upon winning and lose something upon losing.




I think by gamble, you mean risk? I think? Which I think has a certain amount of chance kind of baked in, no? I don't know how you can say something's a gamble if there's no chance involved.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat could you perhaps elaborate what you think makes it so force-proof? I am not talking about forcing some specific outcome on any specific test, I'm talking about the overall trajectory of the game, and to me it seems rather obvious that the person who provides information, frames the scenes, sets the odds and decides the consequences has considerable power over it. And sure, if the GM pushes too hard, it becomes noticeable, here probably easier than in some other games. But heavy railroading is always noticeable.*
> 
> Oh, and speaking about framing, in that original haunted painting example, if I as a GM would have wanted a player to go investigate whether the painting is magical, I would have described the room in the same way. When you describe things it is pretty easy to get people focus their attention to what you want and even draw the conclusions you want. it is not 100% guaranteed, but especially if you know your players you can do it rather reliably.
> 
> *( And if some crazy mentalist genius could do it in manner that it is not noticeable at all, and I as player would feel that I have awesome agency,
> I wouldn't care.)




I have a giant post worked up that will go over all the various factors that someone would use to evaluate how "Force-receptive" or "Force-enabling" or "Force-sensitive" a game might be.  But, given what I've read of all of the exchanges since I saw this, I'm not going to post it yet.  I don't feel like anything constructive will come from me just posting that.  I may post it downstream, but I need you (and anyone else who disagree that this game, and those like it, are extremely adverse to Force) to demonstrate that you have a grasp of this first.  The mis-parsing of information, the siloing of information (rather than integrating it holistically within all the other machinery), and a (really embarrassing to be honest) pronouncements like "I feel vindicated" (when absolutely nothing has been demonstrated) are unbelievably well-poisoning (and I've worked really hard to assume sincerity and good-faith engagement).  They don't look like someone trying to understand so I need a demonstration of understanding (which is why I framed the question that compelled this response the way I did).

So, with that in mind...

If the following is true for the basic action resolution procedures, (a) what are the vectors for Force that you would use as a GM and (b) demonstrate to me how the players wouldn't (c) detect it and foil it:

1) The default arrangement of Action Rolls against/within obstacles, conflicts, and drama in play are premised upon the Risky Position and Standard Effect relationship; "You're acting under duress and taking a chance:  You get what you sought."  This is the standard disposition of a Scoundrel's life in Blades.

2) What is the arrangement of the player to all of this:

*PLAYERS *- Turtling is bad.  Everything is risk and danger.  Embrace that and jump headlong into it.  Don't talk yourself out of fun and you have tons of means at your disposal to defy Consequences and Harm (negotiating Position and Effect and/or trading one for the other, Devil's Bargain, Push Yourself, get or give Assistance, lead or follow a Group Action, get or give Protect(ion), Set Up someone for success or vice versa, Flashbacks, spend Coin or Rep, sacrifice Gear, Resistance Rolls, use Armor, you get to pick the Action Roll).  Build your character through play, act now-plan later, accept deadly harm, show off your character's bad decisions, accept the responsibility as co-author of the ongoing fiction for the reckless life you've all chosen (by playing the game at all).  It a long shot, but if you scrap and scramble hard enough, you may throw off the yoke of oppression and climb the corrupt and brutal city's hierarchy.

*GM *- No one is in charge of the story.  You're just having a conversation and following the rules.  That will lead to one.  Bring the deadly, corrupt, and haunted city to life.  Present it honestly, be a fan of the characters (not a friend and not an enemy...the deck is already stacked against them), be curious and play to find out what happens, and follow the rules.  Ask questions and use the answers.  Think about the dangers inherent in what the scoundrels do.  Risky is default. If success is snowballing, consider Controlled.  If things are escalating out of control, its probably Desperate.  Call the positions as you see them, but be open to revision.  Always feel free to rewind/revise/reconsider as needed until everyone is on the same page.  When assessing Effect, Standard is the default and then Assess Factors (Potency, Scale, Quality/Tier) to move up or down to Great or Limited.  Follow the fiction, follow your principles, follow their lead, follow through with your set up moves, and follow the rules (Position: Effect relationship and any mitigating move a player makes when determining any Consequence when a PC suffers an effect from an enemy/obstacle).

3) *EVERYTHING *is player-facing.  *EVERYTHING*.  All procedures.  All action resolution rolls.  All of the conversation, the clarification, the negotiation, the resource deployment to reorient the danger/risk: reward relationship (which typically involves the players accepting some new risk on a different axis which could be diminishing their stores of resources which could cost them downstream or introducing new potential dangers/enemies/allies) before dice are rolled and after dice are rolled and fallout is tallied up.  All of it is player-facing.



So, given that arrangement (and I'll reiterate my question here):

(a) What are the vectors for Force that you would use as a GM and (b) demonstrate to me how the players wouldn't (c) detect it and foil it?


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Here's how Gather Information works in Blades. A player says what they are having their character do and then asks a question directly to the GM. They then make their roll which sets the effect level. Even on a 1-3 the GM is obliged to give them information which answers the question posed. More information on a 4-5 and even more on a 6 or critical. Sometimes this may come with some attached danger, but the player will get *real information* that directly corresponds to the question asked no matter what.



So even on the worst possible roll (which from this I assume is a 1) the GM isn't allowed to provide outright false information to mislead or confuse or frustrate the player/PC?


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Keep in mind, though, that referee errors don't always go one way and more often generally end up cancelling out (sometimes driven by the infamous "make-up call" which happens a lot in hockey - a ref makes a bad penalty call, realizes it was a bad call but is committed to it, then looks for any excuse to call a penalty the other way to even it up).
> 
> In RPG terms, this would manifest as various instances of GM Force more or less cancelling out, and having the play state thus arrive at much the same point it would have without any GM Force ever having been used.




Couple things on this:

1)  I don't agree with your paragraph 1.  With respect, that is a very unexamined (c'est la vie or "only focus on what you control") approach to evaluating the impact of referee error on (a) the newly perturbed gamestate, (b) the now modified trajectory of play due to that perturbation, and (c) the ultimate result.  It also presupposed and smuggles in (d) a balancing kludge ("the make-up call") that cannot remotely be assumed in any given instance of competition/play.

There are many factors that have to be assessed and evaluated in order to even begin to have an opinion on any given game (and they're all different), let alone games broadly:

* How swingy are the consequences of a singular instance of referee error upon the present gamestate?  In some situations we have advanced metrics that will tell us just how deeply swingy referee error is.  A little known fact in baseball is how PROFOUNDLY swingy (with respect to the gamestate) a singular umpire error is in what some may consider a relatively innocuous situation:

The 1:1 count.

Do you know what the difference is between a 2:1 count and a 1:2 count?  An UNBELIEVABLE .927 OPS vs a .428 OPS. Batting Average more than doubles, On Base Percentage doubles exactly, Slugging Percentage (power numbers) more than doubles.  Baseball is PROFOUNDLY sensitive to referee error here.  And how many 1:1 counts (that will subsequently be 2:1 or 1:2 counts) happen during a 9 inning game?  Yeah.  A ton.

3 referee errors in 1:1 counts alone (forget errors in other counts, forget Safe/Out calls, forget Balk calls, etc) will have huge reverberating effects on play.  And those errors only become enormously compounded with runners on base.  Win Shares hinge hugely on these calls.

And its not just the 1st order effect of these missed calls.  A single 1:1 count can reverberate HUGELY with intangible effects (and not just for this game!)!  Should have been 1:2 vs 2:1?  Well now, there is a big chance that Pitch Count is going to increase for this Pitcher.  If this was going to be the last out of the inning, it could suddenly spiral into 10, 20, even 40 extra pitches!  Suddenly, this pitcher is pulled, unavailable for days, you're exhausting your bullpen early.  That exhaustion in this game will have the knock-on effects of (a) disallowing you to dictate match-ups later in the game and (b) exhaust your staff and render one or more Pitchers unavailable for tomorrows game 2 (or 3)!

There are tons of examples like this in sports (I could go over a giant litany of them in American Football).  Their propensity to reverberate/compound/create new adversity (maybe not even in this game!) that otherwise wouldn't be there is MASSIVELY higher than some idealistic notion of them "cancelling out."   

2)  On your "in RPG terms", you're describing a GM marionetting a gamestate back and forth.  This isn't Force cancelling out (this is before even going through the 1:1 count analogue I did above...which you should do for any TTRPG gamestate...particularly complex, intensive resource-management games like D&D or Blades) and therefore liberating the game from being hugely distorted by GM signal.  Its Force AMPLIFICIATION!  Its INCREASING GM SIGNAL!


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Couple things on this:
> 
> 1)  I don't agree with your paragraph 1.  With respect, that is a very unexamined (c'est la vie or "only focus on what you control") approach to evaluating the impact of referee error on (a) the newly perturbed gamestate, (b) the now modified trajectory of play due to that perturbation, and (c) the ultimate result.  It also presupposed and smuggles in (d) a balancing kludge ("the make-up call") that cannot remotely be assumed in any given instance of competition/play.
> 
> There are many factors that have to be assessed and evaluated in order to even begin to have an opinion on any given game (and they're all different), let alone games broadly:
> 
> * How swingy are the consequences of a singular instance of referee error upon the present gamestate?  In some situations we have advanced metrics that will tell us just how deeply swingy referee error is.  A little known fact in baseball is how PROFOUNDLY swingy (with respect to the gamestate) a singular umpire error is in what some may consider a relatively innocuous situation:
> 
> The 1:1 count.
> 
> Do you know what the difference is between a 2:1 count and a 1:2 count?  An UNBELIEVABLE .927 OPS vs a .428 OPS. Batting Average more than doubles, On Base Percentage doubles exactly, Slugging Percentage (power numbers) more than doubles.  Baseball is PROFOUNDLY sensitive to referee error here.  And how many 1:1 counts (that will subsequently be 2:1 or 1:2 counts) happen during a 9 inning game?  Yeah.  A ton.



Cool! I never knew that about the 2:1 / 1:2 difference - but, in my defense, baseball's not my main sport. 


Manbearcat said:


> 3 referee errors in 1:1 counts alone (forget errors in other counts, forget Safe/Out calls, forget Balk calls, etc) will have huge reverberating effects on play.  And those errors only become enormously compounded with runners on base.  Win Shares hinge hugely on these calls.
> 
> And its not just the 1st order effect of these missed calls.  A single 1:1 count can reverberate HUGELY with intangible effects (and not just for this game!)!  Should have been 1:2 vs 2:1?  Well now, there is a big chance that Pitch Count is going to increase for this Pitcher.  If this was going to be the last out of the inning, it could suddenly spiral into 10, 20, even 40 extra pitches!  Suddenly, this pitcher is pulled, unavailable for days, you're exhausting your bullpen early.  That exhaustion in this game will have the knock-on effects of (a) disallowing you to dictate match-ups later in the game and (b) exhaust your staff and render one or more Pitchers unavailable for tomorrows game 2 (or 3)!



However, and this gets back a bit to my point earlier, if the referee is equally bad both ways (i.e. makes much the same errors at much the same rate regardless of which team is batting) isn't that referee's net influence on the result of that game roughly neutral in the end as he's cancelled out his own influence?


Manbearcat said:


> 2)  On your "in RPG terms", you're describing a GM marionetting a gamestate back and forth.  This isn't Force cancelling out (this is before even going through the 1:1 count analogue I did above...which you should do for any TTRPG gamestate...particularly complex, intensive resource-management games like D&D or Blades) and therefore liberating the game from being hugely distorted by GM signal.  Its Force AMPLIFICIATION!  Its INCREASING GM SIGNAL!



If there's a lever in a central position (analagous to the natural un-forced gamestate) and I push that lever up 10 degrees and leave it there, I've altered its position.  But if I push it up ten degrees and leave it there for five minutes, then push it down 20 degrees (so now it's 10 degrees below level) and leave it there for five minutes, then put it back to level, in the end I haven't changed anything.  It started level, it ended level, and the sum average of its position in the meantime was also level.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced. And yeah, I just don't agree with you that evoking an randomiser makes a decision meaningful.



What's important herein though isn't your preferences for mystery, objective realities, or whatever else, but, rather, that new, dramatically significant game states were created as a result of the player conscientiously choosing to engage their own character's agendas in the fiction knowing full well of the risks that comes with action declarations.



Crimson Longinus said:


> In a situation where some sort of objectivish fictional reality exists and the GM can adjudicate the player's actions in good faith against that, the player's actions matter on a completely differnt level. There actually are right or wrong answers. You can study the reality and make informed choices, not just push the RNG machine to produce new reality in the flavour your choosing.



That is a perfectly fine aesthetic preference. Also, this would seemingly read as an advocation for OSR-style skilled play, but a number of key elements that would facilitate such skilled play have also been pushed against in this thread as "anti-RP" or "gamist."



Crimson Longinus said:


> It's chess instead of roulette.



Unless you're trying to talk to a NPC. Then play goes from chess to "Mother May I?" or a fun game of "Pleez valid8 my akting skillz, Bob!" Can good faith the size of a mustard seed move an NPC? Only when Bob in his infinite goodness wills it. Even in the best of faith, one can't even hope for the Gods of RNG for success.

That said, Blades in the Dark is less roulette and more akin to backgammon, as per @pemerton's apt comparison. There are RNG dice rolls that shape the possibility of outcomes, but also other strategies of play and gambling: e.g., checker movement, hitting/entering, building primes, traps, the gambling cube, etc.

--------------------------
Keep in mind though that these are playing different games. How one approaches or makes an informed decision/choice will vary based upon the rules and mechanics. Even in D&D, a player's "informed decision" will vary between editions or house-ruled editions. An informed choice will vary if we are using a d20 dice resolution or 2d6 or a dice pool, much as how an informed choice will look different between chess, backgammon, and poker due to the different character of the respective games. I don't think that one should regard it as a failure that Blades in the Dark does not operate by the sort of informed choice protocols that you would use for your preferred playstyle of D&D anymore than being upset that I can't apply the same choice protocols for poker to my game of Uno, despite the fact that they are both card games. I would instead recommend considering with an open-mind how a player would navigate Blades in the Dark in play and how the game contextualizes the framework of informed choices/decisions for players in such a game. It won't necessarily be in the same points where you are accustomed to or with the same rationale.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Cool! I never knew that about the 2:1 / 1:2 difference - but, in my defense, baseball's not my main sport.
> 
> However, and this gets back a bit to my point earlier, if the referee is equally bad both ways (i.e. makes much the same errors at much the same rate regardless of which team is batting) isn't that referee's net influence on the result of that game roughly neutral in the end as he's cancelled out his own influence?
> 
> If there's a lever in a central position (analagous to the natural un-forced gamestate) and I push that lever up 10 degrees and leave it there, I've altered its position.  But if I push it up ten degrees and leave it there for five minutes, then push it down 20 degrees (so now it's 10 degrees below level) and leave it there for five minutes, then put it back to level, in the end I haven't changed anything.  It started level, it ended level, and the sum average of its position in the meantime was also level.




The problem with your assessment is two-fold:

1)  You're assuming two things that I have no idea how you can have any confidence in:

a)  The lever (or "make-up call") will consistently be pushed in the opposite direction to balance out (see below) the initial lever pull in the opposite direction.  This is a massive assumption that I don't see how its warranted in sport or TTRPGing.

b)  You're assuming that whoever is pulling the lever (or just by dumb luck) can quantitatively assess the 1st order impacts and downstream impacts of pulling the lever in EXTREMELY complex systems.  This is not just a massive assumption that I don't see how its warranted.  Its a virtual impossibility.  Any "lever-pulling" isn't even going to measure up to "back of the envelope" maths.  Its going to be nonsense.  Even getting 1st order impacts correct is going to be an enormous outlier, let alone 2nd and 3rd order impacts.

Take a look at my example above with the 1:1 count.  

Umpire screws up a 1:1 call and it ends up costing one Starting Pitcher 40 extra pitches + 4 runs + their confidence (trust me...this is a HUGE thing...I was a Starting Pitcher at an extremely high level through the entirety of my career through College) + the bullpen having to be deployed early (which means matchups can't be dictated later and the bullpen will be exhausted for subsequent games).  

Lets just say that Umpire actually realizes they screwed that call up and they're thinking "ya know...I need to make up for this call."  So they put into action their "make up call" later in the game when its mostly decided and in a hugely low leverage situation (let's say its 6-1, bottom of the 8th, no runners on, 2 outs).

Is that a "make-up call?"

2)  You're evaluating agency based on this "theory of gamestate equilibration via make-up calls and/or Force in opposite direction" (see (1) above for why I disagree that this could even be a thing) rather than evaluating agency based on "who is pulling the levers and the potency of said lever pulling!"  I mean, by what you're modeling out above (assuming gamestate equilibration is somehow reliably and magically reached...which it can't), you're explicitly saying that the propenderance of agency in a Force-laden game resides with the GM (which it obviously does) because they're capable of yo-yo-ing the gamestate back and forth via strategic applications of Force in order to assure a nice curve fit of the play prescription!



I'm reading these things Lanefan and I'm staggered to think that you believe that you're making a case here for the preponderance of agency for the gamestate's formulation being under the players' purview!  How!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I want to attack the orc. I then roll to see if I hit it.
> 
> I want to pick the lock. I then roll to see if I do.
> 
> I want to turn the undead. I then roll to see if It works.
> 
> I want to scribe the scroll. I then roll to see if I do.
> 
> Yeah.....pretty boring stuff, I’d say.



It indeed is. The interesting stuff happened before when the player made decisions against objective reality and after when that reality reacted to the action. RNG is not agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I find it curious that you think combat in D&D is not very interesting.



Well, it is not super interesting. But what makes it interesting is not the RNG, it is the tactical decisions which matter as there is objective reality against which they can be made.



Ovinomancer said:


> No, I'm describing a process by which the player has placed stakes on the table.  Those stakes are what make the difference, not what they player just wants.  I'm hoping that what the player wants goes to what stakes they set -- here the player chose a very weak action for that character because they made the in-character decision to try to keep their issues with their disgrace from the University and attempts to correct that to themselves.  That the portrait turned out how it did was due to the stakes the player put on the table with the action declaration and the intent.



The player effectively decides what the item is. They had a backstory motivations yea, they needed a certain sort of item for the university. That was their goal. And they got to decide that the first item they saw would be that item, they could make it so that it was. Sure, there was RNG involved but that's besides the point. They decided their quest (bring item to university) and the solution (this item is that item). That is a clear Czege principle violation. It's like if my quest was to search the Holy Grail and the mechanics allowed me to just grab the firs cup that I came across and RNG it into the Grail.



Ovinomancer said:


> I was happy you'd read the SRD, but it really appears that you didn't try to understand it, you just skimmed it for new ways to use double standards.



To me it seems that you're unable to properly analyse what is actually happening in your own play examples. Who decides what at which point, and which decision lead to what. You're letting the fluff and RNG obfuscate where the decision points actually lie.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> The player effectively decides what the item is. They had a backstory motivations yea, they needed a certain sort of item for the university. That was their goal. And they got to decide that the first item they saw would be that item, they could make it so that it was. Sure, there was RNG involved but that's besides the point. *They decided their quest (bring item to university) and the solution (this item is that item). That is a clear Czege principle violation. I*t's like if my quest was to search the Holy Grail and the mechanics allowed me to just grab the firs cup that I came across and RNG it into the Grail.



Ironically, it's likely that your misunderstanding of the actual process of play here and your declaration that this constitutes a Czege principle violation is the actual violation of the Czege principle.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Ironically, it's likely that your misunderstanding of the actual process of play here and your declaration that this constitutes a Czege principle violation is the actual violation of the Czege principle.



Your sentence doesn't make any sense. It of course it perfectly possible that I am mistaken, but then you actually need to point out where an how.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> So, given that arrangement (and I'll reiterate my question here):
> 
> (a) What are the vectors for Force that you would use as a GM and (b) demonstrate to me how the players wouldn't (c) detect it and foil it?



So, it has occurred to me that a DM in D&D (as usual, thinking 5E because it's the edition living in my brain) has a lot of agency over when things happen, but a lot less agency over what happens--most effects are predetermined, or at least defined in the rules; the DM is just deciding when they happen--while a GM in, say, Blades has effectively no agency over when anything happens--that's entirely up to the dice, so I think there's an argument no one has agency over it--but a lot of agency over what happens (so long as the table is willing to agree it follows from the fiction).

That's only quasi-related to your question, though.

As is this: A DM fudging a die roll because they want the story to go a specific place doesn't seem to be operating from a different motive from a GM in Blades who chooses an outcome because they want the story to go a specific place. Not that anyone has been impugning GM motives much, that I've seen.

If I were going to apply Force in a game of 5E, the obvious place would be the die rolls (or target numbers/DCs) hidden from the players. A less-obvious place might be in enemy/NPC decisions/tactics: a GM can shape things by playing the NPCs/enemies as more or less intelligent than they should be. Perhaps less obvious than that would be something like scenario design, where the PCs have limited options, information, and/or time. Perhaps less obvious than that would be stuff a GM can do with scene-framing, where like a good writer you can center attention on what you want (taking advantage of willing suspension of disbelief).

I've only read the SRD for Blades, but I don't remember seeing much in the way of mechanical constraints on the GM for framing scenes, or choosing outcomes. Those would be the places I would look.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, it is not super interesting. But what makes it interesting is not the RNG, it is the tactical decisions which matter as there is objective reality against which they can be made.



You mean the tactical decisions that don't do anything unless the dice are engaged? And, you're seriously claiming that rolling a clutch 20 is not interesting?

The mistake you're making here is thinking that Blades just works on an RNG.  There's an element of chance to checks, absolutely -- and this is part of every RPG out there, to a greater or lesser degree.  Blades appears to have more checks than, say, a D&D game, but there's some very big structural issues to this.  For one, Blades doesn't bother with low-interest things.  If a check is made, it's because it matters. Secondly, the game is structured so that the majority of play is within the Score portion, where action is frenetic, so lots of risky actions are taken and checks are generated.  There aren't session long RP sessions with no rolls in Blades because that's not the fiction the game is designed to create.  So, the appearance of more reliance on rolls is a bit false, because the game either skims over parts where checks aren't needed or just says yes to them.  It's not that Blades has more dependence on checks, but rather that it focuses play on areas where checks happen.

D&D has a huge number of checks in any combat heavy session -- far more than Blades does in a given session usually happen in a single combat, much less a few.  Four Party members vs four monsters for 3 rounds is usually going to be around 20 individual die rolls, if we're ignoring area of effect... effects.  I'm pretty sure there about that many rolls in my haunted house session -- which was a long and complex score -- and we got a lot more done with those.

So, yeah, trying to pin RNG on Blades is absolutely ignoring how RNG is used even more in D&D.  When you have rolls that are, "I swing, I hit AC 19, I do 14 damage," then you get in a lot more because these take less time but aren't terribly interesting.  In Blades, a roll directly engages everyone at the table because when the dice stop, the situation will absolutely be changed, and not in a 14 fewer hitpoints way.


Crimson Longinus said:


> The player effectively decides what the item is. They had a backstory motivations yea, they needed a certain sort of item for the university. That was their goal. And they got to decide that the first item they saw would be that item, they could make it so that it was. Sure, there was RNG involved but that's besides the point. They decided their quest (bring item to university) and the solution (this item is that item). That is a clear Czege principle violation. It's like if my quest was to search the Holy Grail and the mechanics allowed me to just grab the firs cup that I came across and RNG it into the Grail.



Okay, look, here's where you've gone wrong -- the point of the interaction was NOT to find out if the painting was magical.  That's just a bit of flavor in this context.  Instead, it was to find out if the painting was _useful to the PC's goals_.  It being magical was just the fictional positioning to be useful.  What actually happened in the game was that the painting was NOT useful to the PC's goals.  This cannot be a Czege Principle violation because 1) the player didn't narrate both ends of the deal -- proposed problem and the solution; and 2) the player didn't get the solution they wanted.  You've locked onto being able to say the painting is important because that's one of the big differences between Blades and D&D -- in D&D only the GM has this authority.  But, just because the player was able to say that this thing is important does NOT mean that they got what they wanted from it.  Here, the player absolutely did not get what they wanted -- in fact, they didn't come out of the manor with anything that would help this goal because the resolution to the intent -- can I find something useful to my goal with the University -- was tested and failed and was binding.  The player could just shrug and turn to the next painting down the hall and start this over -- the issue was resovled.


Crimson Longinus said:


> To me it seems that you're unable to properly analyse what is actually happening in your own play examples. Who decides what at which point, and which decision lead to what. You're letting the fluff and RNG obfuscate where the decision points actually lie.



No -- I'll absolutely talk about where Blades has issues.  It's a very narrow genre emulator, so if you don't like the themes, you're out of luck.  It's so tightly integrated across all levels of play that it's challenging to successfully modify. It puts a lot more pressure and weight on the players to drive play -- it is not at all passive for players.  You can get into some failure spirals, which can be pretty brutal -- failure leads to desperate situations where failure has real teeth and can render long term problems (serious wounds take _time _to heal, for example).  It's not everyone's cup of tea -- just ask @prabe.

But those aren't the ones you're bringing up -- you're mired in your very narrow take on how games run and you're trying to fit Blades into the shape you're familiar with.  I quoted myself from three years ago making the same arguments you're making now!  The difference now is that I have actual experience with the games in question, and have that experience with the idea that I'm trying to learn how they work rather than look for ways to support my pre-existing biases.  The other difference is that you seem to be perfectly fine with the double standard, which is something I tend to very much dislike in general, and probably why I started listening -- the only way I could continue to argue after a bit of knowledge would have been to employ the special reasoning.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> You can get into some failure spirals, which can be pretty brutal -- failure leads to desperate situations where failure has real teeth and can render long term problem



The probabilities look to me as though this path is all-but-certain, which is probably part of why it feels to me as though it doesn't really have any agency: The characters can't really accomplish anything.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> So, it has occurred to me that a DM in D&D (as usual, thinking 5E because it's the edition living in my brain) has a lot of agency over when things happen, but a lot less agency over what happens--most effects are predetermined, or at least defined in the rules; the DM is just deciding when they happen--while a GM in, say, Blades has effectively no agency over when anything happens--that's entirely up to the dice, so I think there's an argument no one has agency over it--but a lot of agency over what happens (so long as the table is willing to agree it follows from the fiction).



This is an interesting observation, and but the idea that effects are predetermined kind of elides a few things.  First, most of these are predetermined by the GM themselves, in whatever design they've placed in their notes or whichever set of published materials they've decided to adopt without modification.  The GM still has the agency over these outcomes, it's just displaced from the moment of play.

However, there is one area where things are very locked in -- spells.  These are the refuge of agency in D&D, because the rules dictate that if you cast a spell, XYZ happens.  This is the point and method whereby the players get the most say in the game.  I find this interesting because there's a strong contingent of GMs that dislike the prevalence of magic ability in 5e, and I think that, while not entirely or even necessarily mostly, that this factors into it.  Having lots of players that have spells means that they have a lot more agency over the situation, provided a spell addresses it.


prabe said:


> That's only quasi-related to your question, though.
> 
> As is this: A DM fudging a die roll because they want the story to go a specific place doesn't seem to be operating from a different motive from a GM in Blades who chooses an outcome because they want the story to go a specific place. Not that anyone has been impugning GM motives much, that I've seen.



I absolutely agree these would be analogous.  The difference is that fudging the die roll is hidden, so the GM can do this and keep the Force from the players' awareness.  The Blades GM cannot -- it's pretty obvious this is going on.  I know, the "subtle manipulation" argument, but this presupposes a strong GM agenda, which is anathema to the concept of Blades, and also a very skilled social manipulator to be able to do this covertly in the crucible of Blades play -- where everything is out in the open so manipulation would have to be very subtle.  It's not a strong basis for an argument.  Any GM in 5e making rolls behind the screen can fudge the dice without much effort (it's one reason I roll in the open -- and did prior to learning different approaches), but a GM in Blades attempting to direct play would have to put in a tremendous effort, and I'm not sure what the payoff is?  The GM in 5e presumably, if acting in good faith, is acting to improve the game, at least from their understanding.  This isn't necessary in Blades, for multiple reasons.


prabe said:


> If I were going to apply Force in a game of 5E, the obvious place would be the die rolls (or target numbers/DCs) hidden from the players. A less-obvious place might be in enemy/NPC decisions/tactics: a GM can shape things by playing the NPCs/enemies as more or less intelligent than they should be. Perhaps less obvious than that would be something like scenario design, where the PCs have limited options, information, and/or time. Perhaps less obvious than that would be stuff a GM can do with scene-framing, where like a good writer you can center attention on what you want (taking advantage of willing suspension of disbelief).
> 
> I've only read the SRD for Blades, but I don't remember seeing much in the way of mechanical constraints on the GM for framing scenes, or choosing outcomes. Those would be the places I would look.



The SRD doesn't go in depth into how you're supposed to do these things because it just lists the principles of play with a quick blurb.  There's an entire section on "How to Run the Game" in the rulebook that does provide these things.  It's like how the 3.x or 5e SRDs don't really have a lot of information about how to run the game, while the DMG has a few chapters on the topic (and is worth reading).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You mean the tactical decisions that don't do anything unless the dice are engaged? And, you're seriously claiming that rolling a clutch 20 is not interesting?
> 
> The mistake you're making here is thinking that Blades just works on an RNG.  There's an element of chance to checks, absolutely -- and this is part of every RPG out there, to a greater or lesser degree.  Blades appears to have more checks than, say, a D&D game, but there's some very big structural issues to this.  For one, Blades doesn't bother with low-interest things.  If a check is made, it's because it matters. Secondly, the game is structured so that the majority of play is within the Score portion, where action is frenetic, so lots of risky actions are taken and checks are generated.  There aren't session long RP sessions with no rolls in Blades because that's not the fiction the game is designed to create.  So, the appearance of more reliance on rolls is a bit false, because the game either skims over parts where checks aren't needed or just says yes to them.  It's not that Blades has more dependence on checks, but rather that it focuses play on areas where checks happen.
> 
> D&D has a huge number of checks in any combat heavy session -- far more than Blades does in a given session usually happen in a single combat, much less a few.  Four Party members vs four monsters for 3 rounds is usually going to be around 20 individual die rolls, if we're ignoring area of effect... effects.  I'm pretty sure there about that many rolls in my haunted house session -- which was a long and complex score -- and we got a lot more done with those.
> 
> So, yeah, trying to pin RNG on Blades is absolutely ignoring how RNG is used even more in D&D.  When you have rolls that are, "I swing, I hit AC 19, I do 14 damage," then you get in a lot more because these take less time but aren't terribly interesting.  In Blades, a roll directly engages everyone at the table because when the dice stop, the situation will absolutely be changed, and not in a 14 fewer hitpoints way.



You are absolutely correct that a D&D combat has loads of die rolling, which actually makes the RNG matter_ far less!_ Over the course of combat so many rolls are made that it evens out the odds. So the combat is won or lost by the tactical decisions the players make. That is agency.



Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, look, here's where you've gone wrong -- the point of the interaction was NOT to find out if the painting was magical.  That's just a bit of flavor in this context.  Instead, it was to find out if the painting was _useful to the PC's goals_.  It being magical was just the fictional positioning to be useful.  What actually happened in the game was that the painting was NOT useful to the PC's goals.  This cannot be a Czege Principle violation because 1) the player didn't narrate both ends of the deal -- proposed problem and the solution; and 2) the player didn't get the solution they wanted.  You've locked onto being able to say the painting is important because that's one of the big differences between Blades and D&D -- in D&D only the GM has this authority.  But, just because the player was able to say that this thing is important does NOT mean that they got what they wanted from it.  Here, the player absolutely did not get what they wanted -- in fact, they didn't come out of the manor with anything that would help this goal because the resolution to the intent -- can I find something useful to my goal with the University -- was tested and failed and was binding.  The player could just shrug and turn to the next painting down the hall and start this over -- the issue was resovled.



You think that RNG is an interesting obstacle. The player gets to dictate the first item they see to be an item they need for their 'quest'. Sure, they had bad luck, doesn't mean that the whole quest isn't a super low-agency affair. There are no information to be gained, no interesting decisions to be made. Just latch on the first thing you see and roll the die. Whoop de doo!



Ovinomancer said:


> No -- I'll absolutely talk about where Blades has issues.  It's a very narrow genre emulator, so if you don't like the themes, you're out of luck.  It's so tightly integrated across all levels of play that it's challenging to successfully modify. It puts a lot more pressure and weight on the players to drive play -- it is not at all passive for players.  You can get into some failure spirals, which can be pretty brutal -- failure leads to desperate situations where failure has real teeth and can render long term problems (serious wounds take _time _to heal, for example).  It's not everyone's cup of tea -- just ask @prabe.
> 
> But those aren't the ones you're bringing up -- you're mired in your very narrow take on how games run and you're trying to fit Blades into the shape you're familiar with.  I quoted myself from three years ago making the same arguments you're making now!  The difference now is that I have actual experience with the games in question, and have that experience with the idea that I'm trying to learn how they work rather than look for ways to support my pre-existing biases.  The other difference is that you seem to be perfectly fine with the double standard, which is something I tend to very much dislike in general, and probably why I started listening -- the only way I could continue to argue after a bit of knowledge would have been to employ the special reasoning.



The issue is that you think that getting to roll dice to see whether you get to narrate a bit of the story is agency and I think making (at least somewhat) informed tactical or dramatic decisions is agency. It's like in the Lancelot situation where I though that the player getting to make the dramatic decision was agency and you thought that the player getting to roll the dice to see what their character does was.


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> The probabilities look to me as though this path is all-but-certain, which is probably part of why it feels to me as though it doesn't really have any agency: The characters can't really accomplish anything.



In BitD, the emphasis is place a bit more strongly on the accomplishment of the Crew rather than the accomplishment of the individual characters. Characters may come and go in pursuit of their goals, but hopefully the Crew survives.


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> In BitD, the emphasis is place a bit more strongly on the accomplishment of the Crew rather than the accomplishment of the individual characters. Characters may come and go in pursuit of their goals, but hopefully the Crew survives.



I'd be inclined to say if the characters can't accomplish anything then the Crew can't, either. I mean, without the characters there's no Crew ...


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> The probabilities look to me as though this path is all-but-certain, which is probably part of why it feels to me as though it doesn't really have any agency: The characters can't really accomplish anything.



It's really not.  The players have a lot of weight they can throw at both rolls and the consequences to mitigate this.  This is why I said it sometimes happens -- usually the PCs are robust enough to be able to overcome.

For example, the player picks the action, so if their not picking actions that have reasonable chances of success, they know it -- like the Hound in my example that has a 3 dice Hunt with some nice playbook perks, but 0 dice Attune.  When he picked Attune as an action, he knew what he was in for.  Further, you can Push by burning 2 Stress for an extra die, or accept a devil's bargain for one (essentially agree to a minor consequence for an extra die).  You can get assistance from a teammate for an extra die, and this can stack with the extra die from Pushing or a Devil's Bargain (which don't stack), but this opens the assistant to the consequence.  You can perform a setup action to improve the Effect -- either yourself or a teammate can do this.  Given how the system works, just going from one die to two halves the chance for failure (50% to 25%).  Three dice is a 12.5% chance of failure.  If you get four dice, this is 6.25% -- or nearly the odds you'll roll a 1 on a d20.  So, yeah, players have a lot of weight they can bring to the chances of success.

For improving effect, the can Push for this as well, or use the setup actions, or swap position for effect.  There's lots of ways this can work out.

If they fail, they still have weight to throw -- they can Resist, which automatically succeeds and reduces or negates (for lesser consequences) the impact of the failure.  They can burn equipment, often, to do similar things.  

So, yeah, in practice, players have a lot of weight they can throw at things.  It's when players try to do things they're not particularly good at that the fun really happens.  For some reason, one I cannot explain, my players have all built characters that are bad at the sway/consort/command actions, but they keep on trying to use them!  It's a running joke -- "How do we get out of this scrape -- sneak away, where we have good dice, or fight our way out where we have good dice?  NO!  Let's talk our way out, where we have terrible dice!  I dearly love my players, though -- they entertain the hell out of me.


----------



## Fenris-77

Crimson Longinus said:


> Your sentence doesn't make any sense. It of course it perfectly possible that I am mistaken, but then you actually need to point out where an how.



I don't know about mistaken, but it's a weird example. I can't think of many games where you'd get to simply state *this item is that item. *It's certainly not the case with _Blades_. Czege is about adversity and resolution too, which isn't really part of your example. Where's the adversity and who authored it? Once that's part of the equation you can circle back to Czege.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> So, yeah, in practice, players have a lot of weight they can throw at things. It's when players try to do things they're not particularly good at that the fun really happens. For some reason, one I cannot explain, my players have all built characters that are bad at the sway/consort/command actions, but they keep on trying to use them! It's a running joke -- "How do we get out of this scrape -- sneak away, where we have good dice, or fight our way out where we have good dice? NO! Let's talk our way out, where we have terrible dice! I dearly love my players, though -- they entertain the hell out of me.



Yeah. Players can be a source of amusement when they ... look at things from an angle radically different from the GM.

I think, though that my outlook on the inevitability of the death spiral is correlated to my outlook on partial success/partial failure. All it really takes to get the death spiral started is the right complication on an uncomplicated success--and those are all but inevitable.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> You are absolutely correct that a D&D combat has loads of die rolling, which actually makes the RNG matter_ far less!_ Over the course of combat so many rolls are made that it evens out the odds. So the combat is won or lost by the tactical decisions the players make. That is agency.



You've just contradicted yourself -- if the RNG averages out (which is a false assumption on the prob and stats side for a single combat), then tactics don't really matter as much -- it's really just the average numbers that matter.  Luckily, as I noted, your assumption about the averaging out isn't exactly correct, so tactics can make more of an impact.  And, I fully agree, ability to deploy tactics in D&D is a mark of agency.  The combat sub-system in D&D, with it's tightly codified rules and expectations, is a place that players get to wield more agency because the GM is strongly discouraged from just overriding those rules -- they're usually expected to abide by them.

Odd, then, that you're claiming more agency exists in a tightly codified mechanical ruleset when it comes to D&D, but saying that it does the opposite in other games?  Very odd, indeed!


Crimson Longinus said:


> You think that RNG is an interesting obstacle. The player gets to dictate the first item they see to be an item they need for their 'quest'. Sure, they had bad luck, doesn't mean that the whole quest isn't a super low-agency affair. There are no information to be gained, no interesting decisions to be made. Just latch on the first thing you see and roll the die. Whoop de doo!



I've explained the entire process a few times, now, and if this is your take after that, then I can only assume that you're incapable of understanding or intentionally unwilling to do so.  Given how often you've shifted the goalposts, though -- moving from RNGs, to Czege Principle violations, and now to claiming that being able to push your interests onto the fiction is a mark of low agency, I'm leaning towards the latter.

I mean, you've just said that the player being able to make their PC's goals relevant in the game is low-agency!  What, praytell, is a mark of high agency if it doesn't involve the player making things they care about part of the game?! 


Crimson Longinus said:


> The issue is that you think that getting to roll dice to see whether you get to narrate a bit of the story is agency and I think making (at least somewhat) informed tactical or dramatic decisions is agency. It's like in the Lancelot situation where I though that the player getting to make the dramatic decision was agency and you thought that the player getting to roll the dice to see what their character does was.



No, that's not it at all.  I think that making my interests part of the game is agency.  That I engage the game's mechanics is just a pathway, the important bit for agency is that I can make the game acknowledge what I am interested in.  Contrast this to D&D.  Similar situation, the player wants to see if this painting is worth something towards their PC's goal.  The GM checks their notes and says, "nah."  How is this somehow more agency than in Blades where the GM has to acknowledge this and then uses the system to resolve the question -- "is this painting worth something to the PC's goal?"  I'm utterly baffled by your analysis, largely because of the double standard involved -- you try to pin down the Blades play and claim that having to roll dice removes agency, or the player being able to make the game about things they care about removes agency, but when you look back at your own play you do not apply these things -- you make different arguments that checks don't matter because they average out(!) and that you have agency when you get to playact your asking the GM for their favor in making what you care about part of the game(!).  It's ridiculous the knots you're tying yourself up into -- arguing out of one set of standards on the for side, and a different set of standard on the against side.  And, every time it's pointed out, it's either ignored or you trot out some new form of special pleading that says that doesn't count.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Yeah. Players can be a source of amusement when they ... look at things from an angle radically different from the GM.
> 
> I think, though that my outlook on the inevitability of the death spiral is correlated to my outlook on partial success/partial failure. All it really takes to get the death spiral started is the right complication on an uncomplicated success--and those are all but inevitable.



If the guidelines of play are followed, this doesn't occur -- it really just propels the game forward at it's current pace.  Think of it this way -- the way Blades works is that the GM presents an initial challenge.  If the players just succeed or fail, then that fiction mostly just stops there -- they fail and it gets harder, but stays essentially the same until that challenge is overcome.  The partial success, on the other hand, drives forward by both overcoming that challenge but now adding a new one that needs to be addressed.  The idea is propelling the game, not locking it into a spiral state.  When you get the 4-5, you succeed!  That must be honored.  But, the situation isn't all good.

And, here's where the GM's judgement really comes into play.  The GM can introduce new problems (the "soft" move) to continue to drive the play, or, if it feels like this challenge has had enough time in play, level a consequence that doesn't add new problems (a harm, or equipment loss, or faction game consequence, etc.).  Then the score can move to the next logical challenge (if not yet complete) or finish (if complete).  Is there a lot of GM latitude here?  Absolutely, never going to deny that the GM has latitude (the players have a lot, as well).  This is what really makes or breaks a Blades GM -- paying attention to bringing honest adversity.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> The idea is propelling the game, not locking it into a spiral state.  When you get the 4-5, you succeed!  That must be honored.  But, the situation isn't all good.



Yeah. The situation is in some way worse than it was before you made the check ... As I said to @hawkeyefan I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy.


Ovinomancer said:


> And, here's where the GM's judgement really comes into play.  The GM can introduce new problems (the "soft" move) to continue to drive the play, or, if it feels like this challenge has had enough time in play, level a consequence that doesn't add new problems (a harm, or equipment loss, or faction game consequence, etc.).  Then the score can move to the next logical challenge (if not yet complete) or finish (if complete).  Is there a lot of GM latitude here?  Absolutely, never going to deny that the GM has latitude (the players have a lot, as well).  This is what really makes or breaks a Blades GM -- paying attention to bringing honest adversity.



I think GM judgment and "paying attention to honest adversity" sit at the core of good GMing in any system. I think Blades (and probably PbtA stuff) shift much of that judgment to fiction-in-the-moment (from ... prep, probably). The ability to tell when things need to move on is also a Good Thing, no matter the game.

EDIT: I put a phrase together in a way that was awkward and ugly and I tried to fix it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Yeah. The situation is in some way worse than it was before you made the check ... As I said to @hawkeyefan I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy.



It's also a better than when you made the check.  I get the negative is something hard to swallow for you -- that's fine -- but it does inhibit looking at how it's intended to work as a device to propel the game rather than just layer hurt on players.


prabe said:


> I think GM judgment and "paying attention to honest adversity" sit at the core of good GMing in any system. I think Blades (and probably PbtA stuff) shift much of that judgment to fiction-in-the-moment (from ... prep, probably), and the ability to tell when things need to move on is also a Good Thing.



Yup, one would hope this is true.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> So, it has occurred to me that a DM in D&D (as usual, thinking 5E because it's the edition living in my brain) has a lot of agency over when things happen, but a lot less agency over what happens--most effects are predetermined, or at least defined in the rules; the DM is just deciding when they happen--while a GM in, say, Blades has effectively no agency over when anything happens--that's entirely up to the dice, so I think there's an argument no one has agency over it--but a lot of agency over what happens (so long as the table is willing to agree it follows from the fiction).
> 
> That's only quasi-related to your question, though.
> 
> As is this: A DM fudging a die roll because they want the story to go a specific place doesn't seem to be operating from a different motive from a GM in Blades who chooses an outcome because they want the story to go a specific place. Not that anyone has been impugning GM motives much, that I've seen.
> 
> If I were going to apply Force in a game of 5E, the obvious place would be the die rolls (or target numbers/DCs) hidden from the players. A less-obvious place might be in enemy/NPC decisions/tactics: a GM can shape things by playing the NPCs/enemies as more or less intelligent than they should be. Perhaps less obvious than that would be something like scenario design, where the PCs have limited options, information, and/or time. Perhaps less obvious than that would be stuff a GM can do with scene-framing, where like a good writer you can center attention on what you want (taking advantage of willing suspension of disbelief).
> 
> I've only read the SRD for Blades, but I don't remember seeing much in the way of mechanical constraints on the GM for framing scenes, or choosing outcomes. Those would be the places I would look.




So what you've brought up at the bottom of that is actually one of the historically big issues where Force is applied in D&D and it brings up a question that I want to post to the thread commenters (I will do that at the bottom).  

_D&D has a Spellcaster problem_.  

I'm wondering if the fault-line of the conversation cleaves exactly the same way as the ideological fault-line of the above statement.  I already know several members thoughts on it and, interestingly, it does for those participants, so I wonder if its across the board.

If the play ethos, GMing Principles, capabilities of PCs, and the action resolution mechanics in Blades were ported over to D&D, it wouldn't have a Spellcaster problem.  But it doesn't have this kind of architecture and it does have a Spellcaster problem.

How has D&D (outside of 4e and Moldvay Basic) historically resolved this "Spellcaster problem?"

Force in the exact same way you're potentially imputing to Blades above; at the framing level and at the outcome level. How and why does this manifest in (non 4e) D&D?  As follows:

* GMs has mandate as lead storyteller, adventure writer, rules mediator, spotlight balancer, and "ensure everyone has a good time...er".  Do what it takes to get "the job" done.

* The process for specific types of action resolution is entirely GM facing.  However...spellcasting...is not.  It has the unique privilege of being little packets of "fiction/gamestate fiat".  "Fire and forget authorial control."  Literally.

* How do you deal with this GM/Player Arms Race once Spellcaster power becomes proliferate enough that it can be routinely deployed and potent enough that it gets to routinely reframe or obviate content/conflicts?  Spotlight balancing (which is one of your big directives in D&D GMing) becomes impossible because Spellcaster players co-opt play just by sincerely playing their class (which no one should be castigated for...everyone else gets to play their class to the hilt).  Encounter intuitiveness on the GM's side of things gets thrown off because you may think you've built this interesting climactic fight and the Spellcaster just says "nope."  Intrigue, exploration, journey all get short-circuited because the Spellcaster just says "nope."  All that stuff in the first * becomes nigh impossible.  What's a GM to do?!

* You unilaterally take it away.  You frame a situation with intrinsic Spellcaster blocks or you leverage offscreen/backstory that you have exclusive access to (and often times "leverage" means impromptu make it up in order to execute a block).  Antimagic Zones, Counterspells or NPC Wizards that are perfectly loaded out to counter PC Mages, Wild Magic Fields, Spellbook/component theft, Divination/recon, etc etc, etc.  

* This ham-fisted stuff starts getting sniffed out from miles away in D&D and unless you're playing with passive, Participationist type players, its going to initially illicit eye-rolls > then passive-aggressiveness > then aggressiveness > then walk-out.



So a couple of questions (for everyone):

* Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?  

* If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?

* Try to Steelman my argument against the idea that "framing" and "choosing outcomes" is where you may find Force in Blades GMing.  If you're able, where/what in that group of stuff above puts it at odds with the paradigm of Blades?  If you can't that is fine, I'll fill in the blanks later.  But I think this paradigm above should be pretty instructive.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> This is an interesting observation, and but the idea that effects are predetermined kind of elides a few things. First, most of these are predetermined by the GM themselves, in whatever design they've placed in their notes or whichever set of published materials they've decided to adopt without modification. The GM still has the agency over these outcomes, it's just displaced from the moment of play.
> 
> However, there is one area where things are very locked in -- spells. These are the refuge of agency in D&D, because the rules dictate that if you cast a spell, XYZ happens. This is the point and method whereby the players get the most say in the game. I find this interesting because there's a strong contingent of GMs that dislike the prevalence of magic ability in 5e, and I think that, while not entirely or even necessarily mostly, that this factors into it. Having lots of players that have spells means that they have a lot more agency over the situation, provided a spell addresses it.



Coming back to this for a moment (sorry).

I was very specifically thinking of spells. If I have a few oni wreaking havoc (which I'll totally grant is DM agency, because setting scenarios into motion is the DM's prerogative in D&D) and the PCs engage some of them in combat (because killing the oni is the way they've decided to solve the problem), I as DM have agency over when the oni cast Cone of Cold (and in which direction, and other tactical considerations) but I don't have any agency over what the spell does--and if the players look, they'll know exactly what it does, and I'm OK with that. I'm also not one of those DMs who complains about PCs having too much magic (not that you said I was, to be clear).


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> So a couple of questions (for everyone):
> 
> * Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?
> 
> * If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?
> 
> * Try to Steelman my argument against the idea that "framing" and "choosing outcomes" is where you may find Force in Blades GMing. If you're able, where/what in that group of stuff above puts it at odds with the paradigm of Blades? If you can't that is fine, I'll fill in the blanks later. But I think this paradigm above should be pretty instructive.



I don't think 5E has a spellcaster problem, no. I think there's a good argument that 3-dot-Pathfinder did (does).

I am running two 5E campaigns. One group is 13th level (maybe 14th--what does it say that I can't remember?), the other is 8th. I haven't used any of your "ham-fisted" counters to their spellcasters, yet--with the possible exception of a City Council building that was protected against scrying (which I thought was a reasonable precaution in a D&D world).

I will admit that having only read the SRD for Blades--never the whole book, and never having played it--I am ill-equipped to steelman your argument. I'm probably ill-equipped to do much more than strawman it, to be honest. (Also, I was saying where I'd look, not that I think it's inevitable or probable or anything else as an attack on the system.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> It indeed is. The interesting stuff happened before when the player made decisions against objective reality and after when that reality reacted to the action. RNG is not agency.




No one said it was. But I don’t think you can separate the things you seem to be trying to; desire and risk. The PC wants something. This want is shaped by play, the prior events in the fiction have led to this point.....these things inform the need to hit the orc or disable the trap. 

We understand why the orc needs to die or why the party needs to get through that door. 

Whether or not the PC can succeed is the question. That combination of desire and risk is where the drama comes from, no?



Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, it is not super interesting. But what makes it interesting is not the RNG, it is the tactical decisions which matter as there is objective reality against which they can be made.




How do tactical decisions not take into consideration the odds? I think you are again trying to separate things that must be connected. Any tactical decision in D&D that hasn’t taken into consideration how the dice can go is a pretty poor one, no?


----------



## Fenris-77

If you're making 'tactical decisions' without regard to the chances of success then 'tactical' probably means something very different from what you think it does.

That said, systems where the mechanics produce something different from a 'common sense' level of success is a whole other issue. YMMV with common sense too, it's not a universal metric, just a personal taste metric.


----------



## nevin

No.  I don't think any version has a spellcaster problem.  If Dm is running his game right by the time the spellcaster can "alter reality" the non spell caster players should have magic items that can either do the same or can neutralize the spell caster.  

I think all versions of D&D have a tunnel vision/imagination problem.  Once the game steps up to high level DM has to start having the smart baddies plan for stuff like that.  It requires Imagination and strong familiarity with the spells and what they can do. I know some DM's scream about how teleport and other spells destroy their plots etc.  I've been running games since 1974 and no one has ever short circuited a game by teleporting, resurrecting, or Wishing something.  They may have changed a plotline, caught me by surprise but I promise you, if you talk to anyone who's ever played a high level mage in my games they've never felt like they could, with impunity just kill or blow things up without consequence.   

The DM has to think of the world as an ecosystem.  Mage starts screwing too much with reality Gods give a paladin high SR and send them after the mage. I had a mage once cursed by the god of healing, whose high priest he killed to be forever without any access to any divine healing.   Thieves Guilds, Assasain Guilds don't want the world rocking that's bad for business.  Poisons, assassains,hiring other mages to help deal with the problem. I don't care how powerful you are, if the underword wants you dead you better be scared.  If the gods want you dead you better be scared.  If you cause enough problems kingdoms will band against you.  The children of your dead enemies will find relics and artifacts to use against you.  Power lets you do big things, big things have big consequences.    

I think a lot of GM's try to "simplify" their games. Generally this means they don't do followers, high level fighters don't build keeps, baronies, or kingdoms, rogues don't eventually become masters of their orders etc and the game originally assumed they would.   By the time a Wizard or Cleric can change reality, a rogue can turn the entire underworld on them.  A high level fighter can turn kingdoms against them, and messing with other clerical orders can turn Gods against them.  If you've let your players gain what they should have gained in political connections, power, magic items, favors from gods or other mages or high clerics, they shouldn't feel unable to deal with a high level mages. 

now if you want to run simple dungeon crawls, or low magic games, then  yes high level spellcasters can be a problem.  My suggestion in that  circumstance is don't run high level games, or use a different system.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You've just contradicted yourself -- if the RNG averages out (which is a false assumption on the prob and stats side for a single combat), then tactics don't really matter as much -- it's really just the average numbers that matter.



What? None of this made any sense. Of course the odds don't completely even out, but large number of rolls makes the situation far less swingy. And of course tactics can matter in a situation where there would be zero randomness. You don't think chess is tactical?



Ovinomancer said:


> Luckily, as I noted, your assumption about the averaging out isn't exactly correct, so tactics can make more of an impact.  And, I fully agree, ability to deploy tactics in D&D is a mark of agency.  The combat sub-system in D&D, with it's tightly codified rules and expectations, is a place that players get to wield more agency because the GM is strongly discouraged from just overriding those rules -- they're usually expected to abide by them.
> 
> Odd, then, that you're claiming more agency exists in a tightly codified mechanical ruleset when it comes to D&D, but saying that it does the opposite in other games?  Very odd, indeed!



What makes the action meaningful is not whether the things are codified in the rules, it is the existence of objective base reality against which you can make decisions. Rules are one (and often good) way to communicate such reality, but not the only one.



Ovinomancer said:


> I've explained the entire process a few times, now, and if this is your take after that, then I can only assume that you're incapable of understanding or intentionally unwilling to do so.  Given how often you've shifted the goalposts, though -- moving from RNGs, to Czege Principle violations, and now to claiming that being able to push your interests onto the fiction is a mark of low agency, I'm leaning towards the latter.



At this point I must conclude that you do not understand where the decision points lie in your own game.



Ovinomancer said:


> I mean, you've just said that the player being able to make their PC's goals relevant in the game is low-agency!  What, praytell, is a mark of high agency if it doesn't involve the player making things they care about part of the game?!



What makes it low-agency is the player not being able to gain meaningful information or make meaningful choices regarding that goal, at least according to your definition which discounts flavour. The player could have latched into any item, any time, anywhere, and interrogate it in the same manner than the painting to force the check. The rest is RNG.



Ovinomancer said:


> No, that's not it at all.  I think that making my interests part of the game is agency.  That I engage the game's mechanics is just a pathway, the important bit for agency is that I can make the game acknowledge what I am interested in.  Contrast this to D&D.  Similar situation, the player wants to see if this painting is worth something towards their PC's goal.  The GM checks their notes and says, "nah."



Right. So there actually is some independent reality you can learn about. You actually need to study it more to progress your quest. Meaningful choices can be made.



Ovinomancer said:


> How is this somehow more agency than in Blades where the GM has to acknowledge this and then uses the system to resolve the question -- "is this painting worth something to the PC's goal?"



Because this question is meaningless here. The player forces the answer themselves. They could ask the same question regarding a flower pot, and it wouldn't really matter, it would be just the same. The RNG just obfuscates the fact that this is what's happening.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm utterly baffled by your analysis, largely because of the double standard involved -- you try to pin down the Blades play and claim that having to roll dice removes agency, or the player being able to make the game about things they care about removes agency, but when you look back at your own play you do not apply these things -- you make different arguments that checks don't matter because they average out(!) and that you have agency when you get to playact your asking the GM for their favor in making what you care about part of the game(!).  It's ridiculous the knots you're tying yourself up into -- arguing out of one set of standards on the for side, and a different set of standard on the against side.  And, every time it's pointed out, it's either ignored or you trot out some new form of special pleading that says that doesn't count.



There needs to be some reality against which to make decisions for the decisions to matter. Sure, getting to tell a bit of the story and randomising who gets to do it is a form of agency, and if you like that sort of agency good for you. But it is not really making meaningful choices, except perhaps flavour wise, and this is something you had low regard earlier.


----------



## Fenris-77

Any statement about Blades that contains the phrase "the player forces the result" is fundamentally mistaken. It shows a misunderstanding of the core tenets of the game's play, as well as the mechanics that support it. I would have thought this was trivially obvious, but apparently not.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Fenris-77 said:


> If you're making 'tactical decisions' without regard to the chances of success then 'tactical' probably means something very different from what you think it does.
> 
> That said, systems where the mechanics produce something different from a 'common sense' level of success is a whole other issue. YMMV with common sense too, it's not a universal metric, just a personal taste metric.



You of course have to take the odds into account. A situation where you make several decisions choosing from differnt alternatives and weighing the odds is tactics. A situation where you know the odds and your only decision is to whether to roll or not is a slot machine.


----------



## Campbell

I can understand a preference for playing through prepared scenarios and more traditional sandboxes. I quite like the sort of sandbox play that Sine Nomine games are designed to enable quite well. Let's not fool ourselves though and pretend we are capable of more than we really are as GMs. If players are doing anything that is halfway interested the GM is probably making a fresh judgement call approximately every 12 seconds or so. No one keep an entire world in their head or even in notes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> So what you've brought up at the bottom of that is actually one of the historically big issues where Force is applied in D&D and it brings up a question that I want to post to the thread commenters (I will do that at the bottom).
> 
> _D&D has a Spellcaster problem_.
> 
> I'm wondering if the fault-line of the conversation cleaves exactly the same way as the ideological fault-line of the above statement.  I already know several members thoughts on it and, interestingly, it does for those participants, so I wonder if its across the board.
> 
> If the play ethos, GMing Principles, capabilities of PCs, and the action resolution mechanics in Blades were ported over to D&D, it wouldn't have a Spellcaster problem.  But it doesn't have this kind of architecture and it does have a Spellcaster problem.
> 
> How has D&D (outside of 4e and Moldvay Basic) historically resolved this "Spellcaster problem?"
> 
> Force in the exact same way you're potentially imputing to Blades above; at the framing level and at the outcome level. How and why does this manifest in (non 4e) D&D?  As follows:
> 
> * GMs has mandate as lead storyteller, adventure writer, rules mediator, spotlight balancer, and "ensure everyone has a good time...er".  Do what it takes to get "the job" done.
> 
> * The process for specific types of action resolution is entirely GM facing.  However...spellcasting...is not.  It has the unique privilege of being little packets of "fiction/gamestate fiat".  "Fire and forget authorial control."  Literally.
> 
> * How do you deal with this GM/Player Arms Race once Spellcaster power becomes proliferate enough that it can be routinely deployed and potent enough that it gets to routinely reframe or obviate content/conflicts?  Spotlight balancing (which is one of your big directives in D&D GMing) becomes impossible because Spellcaster players co-opt play just by sincerely playing their class (which no one should be castigated for...everyone else gets to play their class to the hilt).  Encounter intuitiveness on the GM's side of things gets thrown off because you may think you've built this interesting climactic fight and the Spellcaster just says "nope."  Intrigue, exploration, journey all get short-circuited because the Spellcaster just says "nope."  All that stuff in the first * becomes nigh impossible.  What's a GM to do?!
> 
> * You unilaterally take it away.  You frame a situation with intrinsic Spellcaster blocks or you leverage offscreen/backstory that you have exclusive access to (and often times "leverage" means impromptu make it up in order to execute a block).  Antimagic Zones, Counterspells or NPC Wizards that are perfectly loaded out to counter PC Mages, Wild Magic Fields, Spellbook/component theft, Divination/recon, etc etc, etc.
> 
> * This ham-fisted stuff starts getting sniffed out from miles away in D&D and unless you're playing with passive, Participationist type players, its going to initially illicit eye-rolls > then passive-aggressiveness > then aggressiveness > then walk-out.
> 
> 
> 
> So a couple of questions (for everyone):
> 
> * Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?
> 
> * If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?
> 
> * Try to Steelman my argument against the idea that "framing" and "choosing outcomes" is where you may find Force in Blades GMing.  If you're able, where/what in that group of stuff above puts it at odds with the paradigm of Blades?  If you can't that is fine, I'll fill in the blanks later.  But I think this paradigm above should be pretty instructive.



Good questions!

I really don't believe in blocking the PC abilities in that way. Sure, sometimes there might be logical reasons why something doesn't work, but if the GM keeps constantly constructing such to prevent the player from using their character's capabilities, then that's a rather dick move and will be frustrating to the player. My principle is that the players choose the capabilities of their characters for a reason and should be allowed to use them. If the GM thinks some capability would be a problem in the sort of game they want to run, then the right call is just not let the player to choose it in the first place. Granted, systems can be complex, and inexperienced GMs can be caught off guard. I actually went through all the spells in 5e in preparation of my upcoming campaign and simply banned a small number of them. The players get to choose from the rest and everything they choose will be useful.

And yes, I think D&D has a 'caster problem', though definitely 5e less so than 3e. A lot of spells simply let completely sidestep things that would be challenging (and interesting) to less magical characters. And the issue really isn't the existence of powerful reality editing powers. In Exalted (which is one of my favourite games despite my earlier complaints about specific mechanics) all characters are powerful magical superbeings with all sort of crazy powers and it works just fine. (Though perhaps sometimes a tad challenging to GM in the same way that writing good Superman stories is hard.) Having a game where the characters have no reality editing powers works just fine and having a game where they do works just fine. The issue arises when you try to place both types of characters in one game.


----------



## Fenris-77

Crimson Longinus said:


> You of course have to take the odds into account. A situation where you make several decisions choosing from differnt alternatives and weighing the odds is tactics. A situation where you know the odds and your only decision is to whether to roll or not is a slot machine.



The second part is how we make decisions in the first part. I think we take that as given. Are we talking about a game with abundant instances where only one action is possible? Again, that's not _Blades_, which specifically has stated overlap between skills when it comes to accomplishing task X.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I've only read the SRD for Blades, but I don't remember seeing much in the way of mechanical constraints on the GM for framing scenes, or choosing outcomes. Those would be the places I would look




I don’t know if you’ll find a lot of that stuff in the SRD because they’re more guidelines than mechanics. The book itself is chock full of them. 

Framing scenes, at least for a Score, is dependent on three things. The kind of Plan, the Detail, and the Engagement roll. The players actually pick the first two....they choose how they want to go about this score (Assault, Stealth, Deception, Social, Transport, Occult) and then they pick a Detail for that....the point of attack or entry, the manner of the deception. So the players can say “we’re going with Stealth and the detail is the old servants’ entrance to the manor”.

Then the Engagement roll is made. They start with 1 die and additional dice are added or subtracted according to relevant factors (how bold this is, the strength of the target, their weakness/strength against this type of approach, etc). Once the number of dice is agreed upon, the result determines if the PCs are in a Controlled, Risky, or Desperate position. 

The GM then takes all this detail, and frames the scene. Generally speaking he puts them at the first obstacle they’re to face, and the Engagement roll determines how dangerous that obstacle may be. 

So the GM absolutely has input, but it is certainly constrained. 



prabe said:


> Yeah. The situation is in some way worse than it was before you made the check ... As I said to @hawkeyefan I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy.




I know we discussed this earlier in the thread (it seems like months ago now) and I know you have your preferences. However, this is a matter of perception and I hope you are able to get past it. 

It would be like me as a D&D player getting mad that there’s another room with another monster after this one. I mean....that’s the game, right? 

Without the map and key (or similar GM prep or improv) Blades relies on consequences to keep things moving and dynamic. Resisting that is like resisting the map.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> What? None of this made any sense. Of course the odds don't completely even out, but large number of rolls makes the situation far less swingy. And of course tactics can matter in a situation where there would be zero randomness. You don't think chess is tactical?



This, again, ignores that a single roll in D&D combat can cause a major swing -- which can't be "evened out" by further rolls.  And I never said that tactics require randomness, I was pointing out that you can't remove it from this analysis the way you're trying to do without engaging in special pleading.


Crimson Longinus said:


> What makes the action meaningful is not whether the things are codified in the rules, it is the existence of objective base reality against which you can make decisions. Rules are one (and often good) way to communicate such reality, but not the only one.



There is no objective base reality in a make-believe game.  There's only the make-believe you've chosen to treat as objective reality.  This isn't a strong argument for a rational evaluation, though.


Crimson Longinus said:


> At this point I must conclude that you do not understand where the decision points lie in your own game.



Yes, because you, who haven't played it or experienced it at all, have the clarity of vision.  Doesn't this bode ill for your own analysis of your own game, being that direct experience must be discounted for supposition from the outside?  I suppose this means that I can tell you where the decision points in your game are and you lack the ability to refute it with your experience, you must accept my framework and argue from within that.

Yes, please pull the other one, it's got bells on.


Crimson Longinus said:


> What makes it low-agency is the player not being able to gain meaningful information or make meaningful choices regarding that goal, at least according to your definition which discounts flavour. The player could have latched into any item, any time, anywhere, and interrogate it in the same manner than the painting to force the check. The rest is RNG.



Again, you have to either be unable to understand or unwilling to do so, because this has been explored a massive amount.  The player knew exactly what the chance of failure was, the player knew exactly what the level of consequence was, and the player knew exactly what any consequence would center around.  This is like saying to a D&D player that their option to tank the orc and protect the wizard is low-agency because they don't know exactly how much damage the orc could do if it hits them.  It's bonkers.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So there actually is some independent reality you can learn about. You actually need to study it more to progress your quest. Meaningful choices can be made.



This is the same thing in Blades in the Dark.  I mean, you've already mentioned the free-play investigation mode, and everything in Blades is player facing, so there's NO hidden information to miss.  When you, as a player, find out something in Blades, so does everyone else.  This makes it no less "independent" than asking Bob what Bob thinks.

You're confusing your preference -- you like finding out what Bob thinks -- for an effective analysis tool.  It's not, it's just what you're used to.  It's like preferring well-done steak (you monster!) and then arguing that medium-rare is not even steak.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Because this question is meaningless here. The player forces the answer themselves. They could ask the same question regarding a flower pot, and it wouldn't really matter, it would be just the same. The RNG just obfuscates the fact that this is what's happening.



No, it doesn't, because I'm not even talking about the RNG, here.  Yes, if the player decided a flower pot might be important, then yes, it is, and we need to resolve this.  The bit your missing is that this is exactly the same in D&D -- if a player decides a flower pot is important, then we need to resolve if it is.  What you're utterly confusing is that in Blades, that question can't be resolved by the GM saying "no." It must either be a "yes" or we must test it.  In D&D, the GM can say, "no," but could also say yes or test it.  Almost always in D&D, this will be a no, because the GM didn't think the flower pot was important, so it isn't.  The GM is exercising agency, here, the player isn't.  In Blades, though, either it's not very interesting the way the player thinks the flower pot is important, so the GM says, "yes," or it is interesting, and we test it -- because the GM is not allowed to block the players just because the GM has an idea of what should be happening and so prevents anything else.

This is the entire basis of the argument that some games feature more player agency than others -- the ability of the GM to say, "no," is absolutely agency limiting.


Crimson Longinus said:


> There needs to be some reality against which to make decisions for the decisions to matter. Sure, getting to tell a bit of the story and randomising who gets to do it is a form of agency, and if you like that sort of agency good for you. But it is not really making meaningful choices, except perhaps flavour wise, and this is something you had low regard earlier.



There is no "reality" -- it's all make believe.  What you're doing here is reifying the GM's make-believe in your game and then denying this same privilege to other games.  It's a double standard.  The way Blades runs is not a conch-passing story game, and thinking it is only displays your ignorance of broader game theory. It certainly doesn't mean you're right.

You still haven't dealt with the fact that three years ago I was making your arguments -- nearly verbatim.  And, now, after running these games, I'm on the other side of the issue.  I know, the apostate is inviting to just dismiss, but this is an act of dogma, not consideration.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> It would be like me as a D&D player getting mad that there’s another room with another monster after this one. I mean....that’s the game, right?



I think it'd be more like a D&D player getting mad because he didn't kill a monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire. Which might work if it's set up well enough, but that kinda requires prep ...


hawkeyefan said:


> Without the map and key (or similar GM prep or improv) Blades relies on consequences to keep things moving and dynamic. Resisting that is like resisting the map.



I DMed a party through a dungeon-esque series of sessions without drawing a real map--just stuff for when fights arose.

Yeah, I know Blades needs the Consequences to keep things moving--that's why the odds are weighted the way they are. I just don't think that removing them from the GM's control puts them in the players'.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> You've just contradicted yourself -- if the RNG averages out (which is a false assumption on the prob and stats side for a single combat), then tactics don't really matter as much -- it's really just the average numbers that matter.



The premise is true, though leaves out some pertinent information - there's plenty enough rolls taking place in a single combat to cause the results to trend much more toward average even if they don't completely average out. (I estimate about 56 attack and damage rolls for a typical D&D combat encounter)

The conclusion though is so far off I don't know where to begin.  In D&D you have more choices in combat than to simply do damage the same way every single turn.  At any time you can choose to dodge, to disengage, to Dash toward the more threatening enemy, to drink a potion, to healing word an ally, to fireball the enemies, to buff your allies, to action surge, to rage, to use a ranged weapon, to cast grease under the enemy, etc (assuming you are a class which has some of these abilities).

The only way what you said above about RNG averaging out making tactics not matter could possibly make sense is if players had no choices in combat and just had to use their basic attacks each and every turn.  Then and only then would an averaged out RNG essentially guarantee one side wins and the other loses.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> So a couple of questions (for everyone):
> 
> * Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?
> 
> * If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?
> 
> * Try to Steelman my argument against the idea that "framing" and "choosing outcomes" is where you may find Force in Blades GMing. If you're able, where/what in that group of stuff above puts it at odds with the paradigm of Blades? If you can't that is fine, I'll fill in the blanks later. But I think this paradigm above should be pretty instructive.




I think D&D generally has this spellcaster problem, yeah, although it varies pretty significantly by edition. 5E seems a bit less severe. I think it was at its worst in the 3E iterations.

I had a high level campaign with a wizard character run by a very savvy player. Between his spells, the abilities from the archmage prestige class, and his accumulated magical crap, he was ridiculous. 

I mean, I embraced it in ways. It was fun to watch him do his thing. But to meaningfully threaten that character, I had to throw over the top threats at the party. Ones that would largely squash many of the other PCs. 

So you almost start to split things. Here’s the thing the wizard will need to do, and here’s what the other characters will do. Which becomes pretty challenging to make work repeatedly without the other characters starting to feel like they’re sidekicks. 

You also try and have evil wizards and the like prepare against the wizard PC in some ways. Which then becomes a kind of magical arms race. 

To me, it’s a real weak spot in the design because no matter how you handle it, it’s kind of disruptive.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Ovinomancer, you agreeing with me tree years ago and not anymore is about as relevant than someone who was not a Scientologist three years ago agreeing with me then but not any more. Not comparing you to anything, but the argument simply has zero weight so that's why I haven't addressed it.

 As for the rest, I can't be bothered any more...


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I think it'd be more like a D&D player getting mad because he didn't kill a monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire. Which might work if it's set up well enough, but that kinda requires prep ...



Heh, usually this isn't the kind of thing that happens in Blades, but I did have almost this exact thing happen.  The Crew was in a heist where things has moved from stealthy entry to smash and grab.  The other Hound (not the one in the Haunted House, but the one now in jail) declared an action to shoot the lantern that a guard coming up a hallway had in hand.  His intent was to start a fire and take out the guard -- the fire was to be a diversion, and to slow any more guards from coming down the hallway.  He failed.  So, one of the things in Blades is to never narrate failures that make the PCs look incompetent -- things should occur that accepts that the PCs are, in general, competent.  So, I was put in a place where I had to narrate a consequence against this PC's core competence -- shooting things.  This pushed me away from a miss, so I looked at the intent of the action and peverted it.  The shot hit, as intended, and the lamp shattered, as intended, but the result wasn't a small fire, but an explosion that killed the guard but started a major conflagration!  Now the fire wasn't a useful distraction, but a problem for the PCs, as it started racing down the hallway and they still hadn't gotten the safe open in the study at the end.  I started a "fire" clock, 6 ticks, with 2 wedges filled in.  This also gave me a nice way to add a consequence to a partial or failed action -- if it looked like it would spend time, I'd advance the "fire" clock.  If it filled up, the PCs would have to deal with the fire directly!

So, I guess you could characterize this as not kill the monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire.


prabe said:


> I DMed a party through a dungeon-esque series of sessions without drawing a real map--just stuff for when fights arose.
> 
> Yeah, I know Blades needs the Consequences to keep things moving--that's why the odds are weighted the way they are. I just don't think that removing them from the GM's control puts them in the players'.



Consequences are absolutely in the GM's control, with constraints.  This is one of the primary areas of GM agency in Blades.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer, you agreeing with me tree years ago and not anymore is about as relevant than someone who was not a Scientologist three years ago agreeing with me then but not any more. Not comparing you to anything, but the argument simply has zero weight so that's why I haven't addressed it.
> 
> As for the rest, I can't be bothered any more...



Sigh.  Okay.  I mean, if the topic of conversation was about what the cult thinks and what they do, it would appear that the convert might have more information.  If the topic of conversation was about whether or not you liked or wanted to be a cultist, then, sure, it's not relevant.

Are we talking about how Blades in the Dark works, or are we talking about whether or not you like it?


----------



## nevin

hawkeyefan said:


> I think D&D generally has this spellcaster problem, yeah, although it varies pretty significantly by edition. 5E seems a bit less severe. I think it was at its worst in the 3E iterations.
> 
> I had a high level campaign with a wizard character run by a very savvy player. Between his spells, the abilities from the archmage prestige class, and his accumulated magical crap, he was ridiculous.
> 
> I mean, I embraced it in ways. It was fun to watch him do his thing. But to meaningfully threaten that character, I had to throw over the top threats at the party. Ones that would largely squash many of the other PCs.
> 
> So you almost start to split things. Here’s the thing the wizard will need to do, and here’s what the other characters will do. Which becomes pretty challenging to make work repeatedly without the other characters starting to feel like they’re sidekicks.
> 
> You also try and have evil wizards and the like prepare against the wizard PC in some ways. Which then becomes a kind of magical arms race.
> 
> To me, it’s a real weak spot in the design because no matter how you handle it, it’s kind of disruptive.



I can prepare for any mage with, rogues, or clerics, or even smart fighters.  Can they always take the mage if he gets to prepare first.  Of course not that's the mages strength.  When they know what thier facing, and they get to prepare they are at the top of thier game.  But in high level games if your players always know what's coming you've messed up.  Memorizing spells and then being attacked by something you didn't expect is all it takes to turn a mage form near god to nervous wreck hoping to survive the battle.


----------



## Ovinomancer

nevin said:


> I can prepare for any mage with, rogues, or clerics, or even smart fighters.  Can they always take the mage if he gets to prepare first.  Of course not that's the mages strength.  When they know what thier facing, and they get to prepare they are at the top of thier game.  But in high level games if your players always know what's coming you've messed up.  Memorizing spells and then being attacked by something you didn't expect is all it takes to turn a mage form near god to nervous wreck hoping to survive the battle.



The argument was that spellcasting in D&D becomes a problem that requires special preparation to counter, or else it starts to overwrite the game.  You disagree, and then list all the ways you can specially prepare to avoid spellcasting being a problem that overwrites the game.

You see this, right?  It's not a matter of "oh, I can deal with that," it's a question of what it is you have to deal with and why.


----------



## prabe

It seems as though you handled the consequence well. As I said, given foreshadowing or other narrative placement, it could work--even in D&D.


Ovinomancer said:


> Consequences are absolutely in the GM's control, with constraints. This is one of the primary areas of GM agency in Blades.



While what a given Consequence is, is under the GM's control (subject to the constraints you mention), the timing of when a Consequence happens seems to be a good deal less so. That seems to be between the players and the dice. I mean, a GM might (I think reasonably?) have several Consequences in mind at a given time and pick what seems best when the dice allow it.


----------



## nevin

Ovinomancer said:


> The argument was that spellcasting in D&D becomes a problem that requires special preparation to counter, or else it starts to overwrite the game.  You disagree, and then list all the ways you can specially prepare to avoid spellcasting being a problem that overwrites the game.
> 
> You see this, right?  It's not a matter of "oh, I can deal with that," it's a question of what it is you have to deal with and why.



it doesn't overwrite the game.  It's part of the game.  The higher the level the more stuff available to deal with and the more stuff available for DM to use.  Of course it gets harder because you have more things to keep in your head or to plan for.  That's true if you take mages out of the game. If my high level rogue player is meddling in trade between 3 kingdoms with his current guild he's running then I have to deal with all the players in three kingdoms, decide who they are what their resources are and how they act.  

I've played in games with DM's who love rogues so much that the rogue becomes the guy that makes everyone feel useless because they always know everything and nothing can happen without them.  Anytime you as the DM let any player take that spot in the game you have failed to utilize your resources properly.   I'm just disagreeing that it overwrites the game.  I'm saying if it overwrites the game it's because the DM isn't utilizing all the tools properly.  Mages are only disruptive if they always know what they are going to do and who they are going to fight. If they don't know what they are going to fight and you are mixing up things properly at least 50% of thier spells will be useless to them.  there is no other class that I can so effectively screw by throwing a curve ball at them.  I can turn 50% of any mages resources into useless anoying choices just by mixing up the monsters I throw at them.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Sigh.  Okay.  I mean, if the topic of conversation was about what the cult thinks and what they do, it would appear that the convert might have more information.



In some sense he has more information, but he likely is so colored by the bias of being a convert that you really have to take what he says with a grain of salt.



Ovinomancer said:


> If the topic of conversation was about whether or not you liked or wanted to be a cultist, then, sure, it's not relevant.



Not even then.  There's that whole, you have to take what he says with a grain of salt problem.



Ovinomancer said:


> Are we talking about how Blades in the Dark works, or are we talking about whether or not you like it?



Both sides are talking about both things simultaneously.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I think it'd be more like a D&D player getting mad because he didn't kill a monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire. Which might work if it's set up well enough, but that kinda requires prep ...




Two things on this.

First, the comparison is about resisting the fundamental means of momentum in the game. Mounting consequences is to Blades what room/level exploration is to D&D.  Yes, I know you don't run dungeoncrawly type games, but gimme at least a little leeway with my metaphor. I think it would still apply however you ran the game; if you're relying on the fiction to shape the coming events, then what if a player balked at some new element you introduced, that's the kind of resistance I'm talking about. It's about not engaging with the game the way its meant to function. I mostly used the map and key example to avoid making any assumptions about your game and how it runs. 

So, a player who balks at a consequence coming up in Blades is the same as a player balking at another room or another level of the dungeon in classic style D&D. 

Second, to take your example, I think that would work quite well with a little bit of modification. Let's say a PC Scoundrel is skirmishing with some gang member in a manor house. There are other gang members nearby who are a threat, and the rest of his crew is around, too. So the PC attempts a Skirmish to stab the guy and gets a 4, Success with Consequence. He stabs the guy, but as he falls dead he stumbles back and hits a lantern that smashes on the floor and lights the nearby curtains. Now, the house doesn't just become a raging inferno, but there's a consequence that doesn't negate his success, but introduces a new element that needs to be dealt with. As I said, this isn't a raging inferno yet....but it probably needs to be dealt with before it gets worse, or, if the PCs are perfectly happy with the place burning down, then it puts a clock in place for them to do what they're there to do and the GTFO. 

I mean, this scene seems straight out of genre fiction of all kinds.



prabe said:


> I DMed a party through a dungeon-esque series of sessions without drawing a real map--just stuff for when fights arose.
> 
> Yeah, I know Blades needs the Consequences to keep things moving--that's why the odds are weighted the way they are. I just don't think that removing them from the GM's control puts them in the players'.




Removing the odds from the GM's control, do you mean? I'm not quite sure I'm following.

I think that removing GM ability to simply overrule anything, and to specifically constrain how they can frame scenes and so on, is a big part of player agency, no? The more authority that the GM has in this arena, the less the players have, right? Yes, there are still other factors at play, dice result being the big one, but I think that's what enables the agency. The math is all transparent to the player. They understand the odds and likely the consequences (or their severity, at least) and then can make an informed decision to proceed or not. 

I think that agency largely has to belong to either the GM or the players, such that reducing it for one increases it for the other.


----------



## hawkeyefan

nevin said:


> I can prepare for any mage with, rogues, or clerics, or even smart fighters.  Can they always take the mage if he gets to prepare first.  Of course not that's the mages strength.  When they know what thier facing, and they get to prepare they are at the top of thier game.  But in high level games if your players always know what's coming you've messed up.  Memorizing spells and then being attacked by something you didn't expect is all it takes to turn a mage form near god to nervous wreck hoping to survive the battle.




Yeah, I'm not lamenting not being able to deal with a wizard character. As you've pointed out, the GM has essentially unlimited resources to throw at him. I get that I can send a terror of terrasques at them (yes, multiple tarrasques are known as a terror....it's canon) or even deities and the like. 

My problem is that this all kind of disrupts the game in some way. Either the other players are overshadowed, or I'm subverting all the accomplishments and choices that the player has made for his character.....and so on.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I knew that a poster called @hawkeyefan would understand the issues with having people with reality bending powers and mundanes in the same party!


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> It seems as though you handled the consequence well. As I said, given foreshadowing or other narrative placement, it could work--even in D&D.
> 
> While what a given Consequence is, is under the GM's control (subject to the constraints you mention), the timing of when a Consequence happens seems to be a good deal less so. That seems to be between the players and the dice. I mean, a GM might (I think reasonably?) have several Consequences in mind at a given time and pick what seems best when the dice allow it.



The only control over timing the GM has is the authority to call for a check, within constraints.  The generates the possibility of a consequence.  As for having some on stock, sure, you could, but they really need to be generic because the game will rapidly outpace your planning, possibly on the first check.  I've found it far my useful to remind myself of the kinds of consequence I can deliver rather than any specifics: harm, lost opportunity, less effect, worse position, equipment, etc.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I knew that a poster called @hawkeyefan would understand the issues with having people with reality bending powers and mundanes in the same party!



You've missed it, it's not the presence of reality bending powers, it's a system that doesn't handle that well without effort and an imbalance of distribution that's the issue.  Frex, it's not really an issue if everyone's a high level mage and the GM takes a reaction stance to play.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Two things on this.
> 
> First, the comparison is about resisting the fundamental means of momentum in the game. Mounting consequences is to Blades what room/level exploration is to D&D.  Yes, I know you don't run dungeoncrawly type games, but gimme at least a little leeway with my metaphor. I think it would still apply however you ran the game; if you're relying on the fiction to shape the coming events, then what if a player balked at some new element you introduced, that's the kind of resistance I'm talking about. It's about not engaging with the game the way its meant to function. I mostly used the map and key example to avoid making any assumptions about your game and how it runs.



Yeah. I get the metaphor--honest, and sorry. I was as much tweaking myself for putting a party into a dungeon as anything else (similar to how I think ratiocination-type mystery is not a genre that works in TRPGs, and I ad-libbed myself into needing to run one). I just think Consequences drive the game in a different way than how prep (or a map) does. I suppose it's plausible that my dislike for dungeoncrawls in D&D connects to my dislike for Consequences in Blades (I wanna play the game different?).


hawkeyefan said:


> Second, to take your example, I think that would work quite well with a little bit of modification. Let's say a PC Scoundrel is skirmishing with some gang member in a manor house. There are other gang members nearby who are a threat, and the rest of his crew is around, too. So the PC attempts a Skirmish to stab the guy and gets a 4, Success with Consequence. He stabs the guy, but as he falls dead he stumbles back and hits a lantern that smashes on the floor and lights the nearby curtains. Now, the house doesn't just become a raging inferno, but there's a consequence that doesn't negate his success, but introduces a new element that needs to be dealt with. As I said, this isn't a raging inferno yet....but it probably needs to be dealt with before it gets worse, or, if the PCs are perfectly happy with the place burning down, then it puts a clock in place for them to do what they're there to do and the GTFO.
> 
> I mean, this scene seems straight out of genre fiction of all kinds.



Oh, it would absolutely work. It'd probably be easier to make work in Blades, because that sort of thing is perfect for a Consequence. In D&D you'd need some sort of environmental thing going on and you'd need some sort of clock the players could see and ... bleah.


hawkeyefan said:


> Removing the odds from the GM's control, do you mean? I'm not quite sure I'm following.
> 
> I think that removing GM ability to simply overrule anything, and to specifically constrain how they can frame scenes and so on, is a big part of player agency, no? The more authority that the GM has in this arena, the less the players have, right? Yes, there are still other factors at play, dice result being the big one, but I think that's what enables the agency. The math is all transparent to the player. They understand the odds and likely the consequences (or their severity, at least) and then can make an informed decision to proceed or not.





hawkeyefan said:


> I think that moving control of event-timing from the GM to the dice removes some I think that agency largely has to belong to either the GM or the players, such that reducing it for one increases it for the other.



I think that removing event-timing from the GM's control to the dice is removing some amount of agency from the table overall. I don't see that the players gain as much control as the GM loses, so the agency ... vanishes?

I mean, any game has a certain amount of agency, I think, and what agency a game has is distributed differently from game to game. I don't think it's necessarily true that removing agency from one person at the table automatically means other people at the table get it. This is a thought I've been turning over in my head the past day or two, and I don't think it's fully-formed. Maybe it needs more time, maybe it needs another thinker.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> You've missed it, it's not the presence of reality bending powers, it's a system that doesn't handle that well without effort and an imbalance of distribution that's the issue.  Frex, it's not really an issue if everyone's a high level mage and the GM takes a reaction stance to play.



If everyone is a high level mage then it is a _not_ a party which mixes mundanes and people with reality bending powers... And yes, the reality bending powers are not inherently an issue. I explained this in my non-joke post earlier.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> Yeah. I get the metaphor--honest, and sorry. I was as much tweaking myself for putting a party into a dungeon as anything else (similar to how I think ratiocination-type mystery is not a genre that works in TRPGs, and I ad-libbed myself into needing to run one). I just think Consequences drive the game in a different way than how prep (or a map) does. I suppose it's plausible that my dislike for dungeoncrawls in D&D connects to my dislike for Consequences in Blades (I wanna play the game different?).
> 
> Oh, it would absolutely work. It'd probably be easier to make work in Blades, because that sort of thing is perfect for a Consequence. In D&D you'd need some sort of environmental thing going on and you'd need some sort of clock the players could see and ... bleah.
> 
> 
> I think that removing event-timing from the GM's control to the dice is removing some amount of agency from the table overall. I don't see that the players gain as much control as the GM loses, so the agency ... vanishes?
> 
> I mean, any game has a certain amount of agency, I think, and what agency a game has is distributed differently from game to game. I don't think it's necessarily true that removing agency from one person at the table automatically means other people at the table get it. This is a thought I've been turning over in my head the past day or two, and I don't think it's fully-formed. Maybe it needs more time, maybe it needs another thinker.



Do players have event timing in D&D?  I'd say absolutely not -- this is solely the realm of the GM.  So, yes, I agree, there is a loss of agency when you move that to a place of less control -- the GM has less agency.  Perhaps overall agency, GM+players, decreases -- I'm hard pressed to be able to make that argument either way -- it's close, at least.  But, the question in this thread is about player agency, and it's clear that this approach does enable player agency more, because while they don't have control over event timing, so to speak, they have a lot more input on exactly what and how that event will resolve and the GM cannot block or say no.

It, to me, is a very simple point.  If the GM cannot say no, and is bound by the result, then the player has more agency than in a case where the GM can say no and is not bound.  Clearly, though, the GM has less agency in the latter.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> The only control over timing the GM has is the authority to call for a check, within constraints.  The generates the possibility of a consequence.  As for having some on stock, sure, you could, but they really need to be generic because the game will rapidly outpace your planning, possibly on the first check.  I've found it far my useful to remind myself of the kinds of consequence I can deliver rather than any specifics: harm, lost opportunity, less effect, worse position, equipment, etc.



I find that players in my D&D campaigns outpace my planning, if I do much more than lay down various situations and starting points. I can often guess what they'll go after, but rarely their methods.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> If everyone is a high level mage then it is a _not_ a party which mixes mundanes and people with reality bending powers... And yes, the reality bending powers are not inherently an issue. I explained this in my non-joke post earlier.



The "reality bending powers" you mention are just enforced agency -- the system says what will happen and overrules the GM, or, more to the point, if the GM overrules the system here, it's obvious.  There's nothing special about it being flavored as magic.

And, again, there's no "reality" in a make-believe game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I find that players in my D&D campaigns outpace my planning, if I do much more than lay down various situations and starting points. I can often guess what they'll go after, but rarely their methods.



Exactly.  The difference really is that in D&D, you can shuffle your prep to new places and use it, thereby employing some Illusionism (again, I've said this isn't an automatic bad, that 5e essentially requires it in how it's structured).  In Blades, doing this is against the rules of the game, and will be obvious that it's been done.

It's not a claim that one does it better.  The use of Illusionism in D&D can absolutely lead to very entertaining play.  If, however, you care about these things, then no amount of entertaining play will get rid of the bad taste, just like no amount of encouragement will overcome your bad taste for some of the mechanics under discussion.  Same same.  It's your preferences that assigns value to the analysis, not that the analysis carries an implicit value statement.  I will absolutely use Illusionism in my 5e game -- the system barely works without it.  This is mostly because the game requires so much prep to create the kind of "balanced" play it advertises, and having to do encounter design on the fly is hard.  4e made this much easier, but still had a good bit of work involved.  It's just a D&Dism.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Do players have event timing in D&D?  I'd say absolutely not -- this is solely the realm of the GM.  So, yes, I agree, there is a loss of agency when you move that to a place of less control -- the GM has less agency.  Perhaps overall agency, GM+players, decreases -- I'm hard pressed to be able to make that argument either way -- it's close, at least.  But, the question in this thread is about player agency, and it's clear that this approach does enable player agency more, because while they don't have control over event timing, so to speak, they have a lot more input on exactly what and how that event will resolve and the GM cannot block or say no.
> 
> It, to me, is a very simple point.  If the GM cannot say no, and is bound by the result, then the player has more agency than in a case where the GM can say no and is not bound.  Clearly, though, the GM has less agency in the latter.



I think my thinking is that the GM has absolutely zero control when a Consequence will come up, and neither do the players, which means no one really has agency over it. That doesn't mean the player doesn't have a greater share of the agency that exists.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Exactly. The difference really is that in D&D, you can shuffle your prep to new places and use it, thereby employing some Illusionism (again, I've said this isn't an automatic bad, that 5e essentially requires it in how it's structured). In Blades, doing this is against the rules of the game, and will be obvious that it's been done.



If re-skining is Illusionism, I've done that. If putting something aside and using it if/when it made sense is Illusionism, I've done that. If moving something the PCs tried to avoid to in front of them is Illusionism (and that's the core of what it is, AFAIK) then I haven't done that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I think my thinking is that the GM has absolutely zero control when a Consequence will come up, and neither do the players, which means no one really has agency over it. That doesn't mean the player doesn't have a greater share of the agency that exists.



I'd quibble, but that's because the options, to me, are "never comes up (the GM doesn't call for a roll" or "might come up (the GM calls for a roll)."  I've left the any precise value of "might" off because it doesn't really matter to the point.  If can have choice between "never" and "might", then choosing "might" exercises some agency over the event coming up -- it's a choice that clearly matters.

Is this less choice that "will," absolutely!  Still, it is some control.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> If re-skining is Illusionism, I've done that. If putting something aside and using it if/when it made sense is Illusionism, I've done that. If moving something the PCs tried to avoid to in front of them is Illusionism (and that's the core of what it is, AFAIK) then I haven't done that.



Re-skinning isn't Illusionism.  There's no choice that invalidated because you've reskinned some monsters.

I could be poor play, though, if you're only reskinning to avoid a PC ability triggers on a type or kind of creature.  That's a corner case, though, and should be apparent if it comes up.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> The problem with your assessment is two-fold:
> 
> 1)  You're assuming two things that I have no idea how you can have any confidence in:
> 
> a)  The lever (or "make-up call") will consistently be pushed in the opposite direction to balance out (see below) the initial lever pull in the opposite direction.  This is a massive assumption that I don't see how its warranted in sport or TTRPGing.



I'm not saying it always will balance out, I'm simply saying that it can.


Manbearcat said:


> b)  You're assuming that whoever is pulling the lever (or just by dumb luck) can quantitatively assess the 1st order impacts and downstream impacts of pulling the lever in EXTREMELY complex systems.  This is not just a massive assumption that I don't see how its warranted.  Its a virtual impossibility.  Any "lever-pulling" isn't even going to measure up to "back of the envelope" maths.  Its going to be nonsense.  Even getting 1st order impacts correct is going to be an enormous outlier, let alone 2nd and 3rd order impacts.
> 
> Take a look at my example above with the 1:1 count.
> 
> Umpire screws up a 1:1 call and it ends up costing one Starting Pitcher 40 extra pitches + 4 runs + their confidence (trust me...this is a HUGE thing...I was a Starting Pitcher at an extremely high level through the entirety of my career through College) + the bullpen having to be deployed early (which means matchups can't be dictated later and the bullpen will be exhausted for subsequent games).
> 
> Lets just say that Umpire actually realizes they screwed that call up and they're thinking "ya know...I need to make up for this call."  So they put into action their "make up call" later in the game when its mostly decided and in a hugely low leverage situation (let's say its 6-1, bottom of the 8th, no runners on, 2 outs).
> 
> Is that a "make-up call?"



No.  The make-up call comes on the next batter, when a borderline (or maybe not-so-borderline!) 1:1 pitch gets called a strike instead of a ball.


Manbearcat said:


> 2)  You're evaluating agency based on this "theory of gamestate equilibration via make-up calls and/or Force in opposite direction" (see (1) above for why I disagree that this could even be a thing) rather than evaluating agency based on "who is pulling the levers and the potency of said lever pulling!"  I mean, by what you're modeling out above (assuming gamestate equilibration is somehow reliably and magically reached...which it can't), you're explicitly saying that the propenderance of agency in a Force-laden game resides with the GM (which it obviously does) because they're capable of yo-yo-ing the gamestate back and forth via strategic applications of Force in order to assure a nice curve fit of the play prescription!



What I'm trying to get at - not very clearly, it seems - is that there's going to be times when a GM is able to cancel out her use of Force by using more Force, to the end result that play winds up roughly where it would have been had no Force been used at all.  Won't work every time, of course.


Manbearcat said:


> I'm reading these things Lanefan and I'm staggered to think that you believe that you're making a case here for the preponderance of agency for the gamestate's formulation being under the players' purview!  How!



Er...huh?

Either I'm missing something, or you've lost me here.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I don't think that infinitely long American football analogy has made any sense for several pages...


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> In BitD, the emphasis is place a bit more strongly on the accomplishment of the Crew rather than the accomplishment of the individual characters. Characters may come and go in pursuit of their goals, but hopefully the Crew survives.



This is how I approach D&D - that the accomplishments (and thus the story) of the party are more important than those of the individual characters - and yet I regularly catch hell for it from certain posters here....


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> So a couple of questions (for everyone):
> 
> * Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?



As written, more or less yes. (and why exclude 4e here?)


Manbearcat said:


> * If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?



Those you've noted, rarely; and more for variety's sake than to specifically hose casters. (a null-magic zone that knocks out magic items hoses warriors every bit as much as casters!)

On a more overall level I've done a few things to rein in casters a bit - casting generally takes time and is easily interrupted, many spells require an aiming roll (you don't get to place it exactly where you want), wild magic is a risk if something goes wrong, you can't cast while in melee, that sort of thing.


----------



## Campbell

So I have believed for a very long that GM facing mechanics often provide basically the perfect cover fire for illusionism. They provide an heir of legitimacy to proceedings that makes it much more difficult to tell when the GM is trying to push play in a particular direction. 

They are also somewhat necessary for the sort of clever gamist play of OSR games as well as more modern faire like PF2.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I had a high level campaign with a wizard character run by a very savvy player. Between his spells, the abilities from the archmage prestige class, and his accumulated magical crap, he was ridiculous.
> 
> I mean, I embraced it in ways. It was fun to watch him do his thing. But to meaningfully threaten that character, I had to throw over the top threats at the party. Ones that would largely squash many of the other PCs.



Oddly enough, I find almost the exact opposite in my/our games: to meaningfully threaten the high-end fighters often means squashing the spindly casters like bugs. (I really notice this as a player - I play a lot of spindly casters these days - but I also notice it as a DM)


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I mean, any game has a certain amount of agency, I think, and what agency a game has is distributed differently from game to game. I don't think it's necessarily true that removing agency from one person at the table automatically means other people at the table get it. This is a thought I've been turning over in my head the past day or two, and I don't think it's fully-formed. Maybe it needs more time, maybe it needs another thinker.




It’s interesting, for sure, and I don’t think I’m certain on it either. But I think there’s a relationship there, for sure. Is it a one for one transfer? I don’t know about that. 

But...let’s say that you take some agency from the players...where does it go if not to the GM? And vice versa?


----------



## Fenris-77

Generally speaking, the division of authority starts with a model like D&D and from there you move down the spectrum with different bits of authority devolving to the players in different systems. Authority doesn't generally move the other way round. I mean the spectrum goes both ways, but historically speaking what we've seen is a steady movement toward devolving more authority on the players, which does indeed come from the GMs slice of the authority pie, which isn't a bad thing, or a good thing, just a thing.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> It’s interesting, for sure, and I don’t think I’m certain on it either. But I think there’s a relationship there, for sure. Is it a one for one transfer? I don’t know about that.
> 
> But...let’s say that you take some agency from the players...where does it go if not to the GM? And vice versa?



Well ... possibly there's just less agency overall. I'm willing to suppose it's possible for games to have differing amounts of agency. I'm willing to find out that's not so.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

So I was reading the old thread @Ovinomancer referred to and in that I found exchanges between @Manbearcat and @Nagol about Dungeon World. Nagol seemed to be very familiar with the game, and made similar observation than I did regarding Blades in the Dark (these game are related, right?) That due the open endedness of the consequences it is susceptible to GM force. So whilst I don't particularly want to continue to argue to which extent this is case or not, as I have no practical experience of the system, I nevertheless feel somewhat vindicated that a person who seems to have extensive experience thinks this too.


----------



## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> Generally speaking, the division of authority starts with a model like D&D and from there you move down the spectrum with different bits of authority devolving to the players in different systems. Authority doesn't generally move the other way round. I mean the spectrum goes both ways, but historically speaking what we've seen is a steady movement toward devolving more authority on the players, which does indeed come from the GMs slice of the authority pie, which isn't a bad thing, or a good thing, just a thing.



Yeah. Older D&D (along with things like CoC maybe) would definitely seem to have as much agency centered on the GM as seems plausible for a TRPG, and agency has definitely moved toward the players as TRPG design has evolved.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> It’s interesting, for sure, and I don’t think I’m certain on it either. But I think there’s a relationship there, for sure. Is it a one for one transfer? I don’t know about that.
> 
> But...let’s say that you take some agency from the players...where does it go if not to the GM? And vice versa?



The system takes it.  Look at boardgames, where you're only allowed agency as a player within the confines of the system.  A game like CandyLand has no agency except to choose to play it.  A game like Pandemic has a lot more agency, but less than an RPG, for sure.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> So I was reading the old thread @Ovinomancer referred to and in that I found exchanges between @Manbearcat and @Nagol about Dungeon World. Nagol seemed to be very familiar with the game, and made similar observation than I did regarding Blades in the Dark (these game are related, right?) That due the open endedness of the consequences it is susceptible to GM force. So whilst I don't particularly want to continue to argue to which extent this is case or not, as I have no practical experience of the system, I nevertheless feel somewhat vindicated that a person who seems to have extensive experience thinks this too.



Link, please, because I frankly don't trust your gloss.  Not that I think you dishonest, far from it, but rather that you've already shown a resistance to nuance on these topics.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> Well ... possibly there's just less agency overall. I'm willing to suppose it's possible for games to have differing amounts of agency. I'm willing to find out that's not so.



Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.



You and @Ovinomancer managed to get to what I was struggling to get into words.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.



There's a difference between agreeing to play in a thematic game and the agency you can wield within it.  The first is a necessary entry into looking at a game -- you have to play it.  I don't think there's a larger agency to choosing to play Blades in the Dark, with its tight theme, than whatever Bob has prepared.  At least as a player.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Link, please, because I frankly don't trust your gloss.  Not that I think you dishonest, far from it, but rather that you've already shown a resistance to nuance on these topics.




It's literally in the there you quoted earlier:








						Judgement calls vs "railroading"
					

Here's my slight contention with your example: In Burning Wheel all our interests are focused on contesting the veracity of player character beliefs at all times and following the fiction where it leads. When the GM presents the consequences for a failed roll they should do so with an eye...




					www.enworld.org


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> There's a difference between agreeing to play in a thematic game and the agency you can wield within it.  The first is a necessary entry into looking at a game -- you have to play it.  I don't think there's a larger agency to choosing to play Blades in the Dark, with its tight theme, than whatever Bob has prepared.  At least as a player.



Well, this depends again how we define agency. If Bob is running a open sandbox where your character can do a lot of differnt things then it is in certain ways more agency than just being able to be a criminal in Blades. And it's just not that. In a very thematically tight game the theme may in effect limit the participants in genre appropriate moves and outcomes. And this is not criticism, I like thematically focused games.


----------



## Fenris-77

The decision to play game A, or not, has nothing to do with player agency. In Blades, playing a criminal is part of what you signed up for, its not reducing anyone's agency for that to be the case. Player agency doesn't begin with "do whatever the hell you want regardless of game, genre or anything else" and somehow go downhill form there.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Fenris-77 said:


> The decision to play game A, or not, has nothing to do with player agency. In Blades, playing a criminal is part of what you signed up for, its not reducing anyone's agency for that to be the case. Player agency doesn't begin with "do whatever the hell you want regardless of game, genre or anything else" and somehow go downhill form there.



Makes sense. So similarly when a person signs up to play D&D their agency is not reduced by the GM deciding certain things as that is part of that game.


----------



## innerdude

Crimson Longinus said:


> What makes the action meaningful is not whether the things are codified in the rules, it is the existence of objective base reality against which you can make decisions. Rules are one (and often good) way to communicate such reality, but not the only one.




This is such an odd statement.

So the only meaningful actions a player (through their character) can take are ones that directly interface with the illusion of "objective" in-fiction reality?

Any action that directly addresses a character's in-game concerns/agenda are made null and void if they aren't first parsed through whatever "illusory fictional objective reality" filters (read: GM say-so) are deemed necessary?




Crimson Longinus said:


> There needs to be some reality against which to make decisions for the decisions to matter. Sure, getting to tell a bit of the story and randomising who gets to do it is a form of agency, and if you like that sort of agency good for you. But it is not really making meaningful choices, except perhaps flavour wise, and this is something you had low regard earlier.




1) Permission to tell a bit of the story, 2) deciding who gets to tell it, and 3) deciding whether it's true (or not) are ultimately the only "meaningful choices" that matter in RPG play. 

Every single RPG rule ever constructed exists to determine one of these three things. Period. Rules literally serve no other function.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> So I was reading the old thread @Ovinomancer referred to and in that I found exchanges between @Manbearcat and @Nagol about Dungeon World. Nagol seemed to be very familiar with the game, and made similar observation than I did regarding Blades in the Dark (these game are related, right?) That due the open endedness of the consequences it is susceptible to GM force. So whilst I don't particularly want to continue to argue to which extent this is case or not, as I have no practical experience of the system, I nevertheless feel somewhat vindicated that a person who seems to have extensive experience thinks this too.




The conversation with @Nagol was about "soft-balling" (I brought this precise point upthread if you recall) and not classical Force.  

It was the fact that the 6- (which is a failure and mark xp) result in _World _games will have occasions where a Soft Move is more appropriate than a Hard Move.  Navigating this will rely on all of the principles and directives of the game.

For instance, it is an extremely rare occasion where a Hard Move makes sense for a Spout Lore in Dungeon World.  There are some occasions where a Soft Move makes more sense on other moves that come up 6- (when the arrangement of the fiction doesn't have any imminent/present threats to deploy to immediately invoke a Hard Move and nothing makes sense from a strict follow the fiction principle).  However, if you've already telegraphed something prior with a Soft Move, then its appropriate to follow through on that and invoke a Hard Move.  

For instance:

A Wizard is in a summoning chamber of a Warlock.  There are glyphs scribed in chalk on both the floor and the wall; the former forming a circle and the latter in the shape of a door.  As the Wizard approaches to inspect the wall's "door glyphs" you describe them subtly pulsing with a soft red glow, incomprehensible whispers in a tongue long forgotten to the ages accompanying it.  Visions of violence and torcher assail the Wizard as he draws nearer.  

The Wizard pulls out his Bags of Books (+1 to Spout Lore per use) to consult his collected knowledge on summoning glyphs, languages, and the words used to turn them on and permanently shut them off.  On a Success, the GM tells Wizard player something interesting and useful.  On a 7-9, the GM tells the Wizard player only something interesting; its on them to make it useful.  

Despite a +2 Int and the +1 for the BoB, the Wizard gets only a 6.  The Wizard marks 1 xp.  The GM activates the portal (a Hard Move) and an Abyssal horror skulks through the gateway (because of the setup - Soft Move - above).  Without the appropriate fictional circumstances and the setup framing, the GM should deploy a Soft Move.  Same thing goes for anything without immediate obvious physical fallout.  Its basically tantamount to Controlled Positioning in Forged in the Dark games.

This is easily the most difficult and nuanced part of _World _games, one that later iterations and the Forged in the Dark games (Blades) have cleaned up pretty much entirely (Blades Position and Effect does all the heavy lifting for this as mentioned above).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> The conversation with @Nagol was about "soft-balling" (I brought this precise point upthread if you recall) and not classical Force.
> 
> It was the fact that the 6- (which is a failure and mark xp) result in _World _games will have occasions where a Soft Move is more appropriate than a Hard Move.  Navigating this will rely on all of the principles and directives of the game.
> 
> For instance, it is an extremely rare occasion where a Hard Move makes sense for a Spout Lore in Dungeon World.  There are some occasions where a Soft Move makes more sense on other moves that come up 6- (when the arrangement of the fiction doesn't have any imminent/present threats to deploy to immediately invoke a Hard Move and nothing makes sense from a strict follow the fiction principle).  However, if you've already telegraphed something prior with a Soft Move, then its appropriate to follow through on that and invoke a Hard Move.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> A Wizard is in a summoning chamber of a Warlock.  There are glyphs scribed in chalk on both the floor and the wall; the former forming a circle and the latter in the shape of a door.  As the Wizard approaches to inspect the wall's "door glyphs" you describe them subtly pulsing with a soft red glow, incomprehensible whispers in a tongue long forgotten to the ages accompanying it.  Visions of violence and torcher assail the Wizard as he draws nearer.
> 
> The Wizard pulls out his Bags of Books (+1 to Spout Lore per use) to consult his collected knowledge on summoning glyphs, languages, and the words used to turn them on and permanently shut them off.  On a Success, the GM tells Wizard player something interesting and useful.  On a 7-9, the GM tells the Wizard player only something interesting; its on them to make it useful.
> 
> Despite a +2 Int and the +1 for the BoB, the Wizard gets only a 6.  The Wizard marks 1 xp.  The GM activates the portal (a Hard Move) and an Abyssal horror skulks through the gateway (because of the setup - Soft Move - above).  Without the appropriate fictional circumstances and the setup framing, the GM should deploy a Soft Move.  Same thing goes for anything without immediate obvious physical fallout.  Its basically tantamount to Controlled Positioning in Forged in the Dark games.
> 
> This is easily the most difficult and nuanced part of _World _games, one that later iterations and the Forged in the Dark games (Blades) have cleaned up pretty much entirely (Blades Position and Effect does all the heavy lifting for this as mentioned above).



Yeah, this is what I was coming back to say.  I wouldn't have ruled as you did in that scene, but I see how you got there, and the difference is a matter of individual taste.


----------



## Fenris-77

Crimson Longinus said:


> Makes sense. So similarly when a person signs up to play D&D their agency is not reduced by the GM deciding certain things as that is part of that game.



No. What character types might be available isn't a matter of agency whatsoever. If you think it is then when you say 'agency' you means something other than what the other people in this thread mean.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, this depends again how we define agency. If Bob is running a open sandbox where your character can do a lot of differnt things then it is in certain ways more agency than just being able to be a criminal in Blades. And it's just not that. In a very thematically tight game the theme may in effect limit the participants in genre appropriate moves and outcomes. And this is not criticism, I like thematically focused games.



I'll actually partially agree with this.  If you're in a game where you could possibly do more things, then there's a possible increase in agency over one that's thematically limited.  This is looking a how genre expectations engages player agency.  However, we're still up against the problem of whether or not you have to seek GM approval to do the thing, and this is a much harder limit on player agency than menu choices.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Makes sense. So similarly when a person signs up to play D&D their agency is not reduced by the GM deciding certain things as that is part of that game.



Depends, and your vague wording looks like you trying to smuggle in other things.  I'll agree that signing up to Bob's Campaign and it's attendant themes doesn't limit your player agency in the game, per se.  How the system Bob is running apportions agency certainly does.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think 2 things.
> 1. there's still a scope issue.  Being at a dead end is going to affect my roleplay in one moment or one scene at most.  Your character's beliefs are going to shape your roleplay over the whole campaign.



The third sentence is not true if by "beliefs" you mean Beliefs as a system component of Burning Wheel.

This is why I have expressed doubt that you have actually read closely what I have posted about that system.



FrogReaver said:


> 2.  Whether or not you wish to acknowledge it, there's a difference between the physical and mental that gets brushed aside by you as if there is no difference at all.



_From the point of view of agency over the shared fiction_, what is the difference? They are both components of the shared fiction. _That my PC sees a dead end in front of her_ affects my roleplay of my PC just as any other mental state does. A game in which all (or most) of my PCs' knowledge of the world s/he lives in comes from the GM narrating stuff too me is a game in which most of my PC's mental states are established by the GM by way of second-person narration.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I mean, not a hard railroad, but still.  APs are this, but usually not called out as such -- when they are, there's a contingent that decries the appellation.



I can report from experience that your final clause is true!


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I can report from experience that your final clause is true!



I am not inclined to doubt you, but I find that ... distressing. Maybe a little depressing. It's one thing to defend 5E and/or 3-dot-Pathfinder from ... assertions the games are always railroads, but I don't see how you can look at an AP and not get that it's a railroad; I doubly don't get how you can play or run one and not get it.


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> Well as a total improv GM, every time I add a component to the narrative I am applying Force, right? Simply because there is nothing written in stone before it hits the table. That means every single time I add a component to the narrative I am subtly nudging the narrative in the direction I want it to go.



I think this is hard to assess in the abstract.

When you add new components to the shared fiction, in what context are you doing it? Are you using that to resolve action declarations in ways that override the mechanical framework? That looks like force - and I don't think it takes too much of it to turn the game into a railroad.

Are you doing it when the system tells you it's your job to do so - eg a new scene needs to be framed? a failure consequence needs to be narrated? And when you do so, whose suggestions and ideas are you being influenced by?

I think a GM who repeatedly frames scenes and establishes failures without regard to player-evinced concerns is pushing towards force/railroad territory. I think a GM who establishes failure consequences by having regard to those concerns (eg in BW style) and who frames scenes having regard to what the players say or show that they want is probably not running a railroad.

I think there's an interesting noun/verb contrast here. For instance, in BW play generally speaking the players tend to provide the nouns - via their Wises-checks, their relationships and Circles checks, the entities and events named in their Beliefs, etc. But the GM has a lot of responsibility for providing the verbs - if a check fails, then one of those nouns should be put in jeopardy in some fashion; a well-framed scene will put one of those nouns at stake; etc.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I am not inclined to doubt you, but I find that ... distressing. Maybe a little depressing. It's one thing to defend 5E and/or 3-dot-Pathfinder from ... assertions the games are always railroads, but I don't see how you can look at an AP and not get that it's a railroad; I doubly don't get how you can play or run one and not get it.



It's happened, here, in this thread!  The charge was laid, and the counter was that you get to make choices on how you move from A to B, so it wasn't a railroad.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> It's happened, here, in this thread!  The charge was laid, and the counter was that you get to make choices on how you move from A to B, so it wasn't a railroad.



Yeah. I'd either forgotten that or blocked it. If you must do A, B, and C--in that order--before you do D, it doesn't matter much if at all how many roads are between them.


----------



## zarionofarabel

See, and I am one of the weird ones that thinks if the end of an adventure (and the scenes between beginning and end) is already predetermined then the adventure is a railroad. But I do realize that many people believe otherwise. Oh well, to each their own I guess.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Like in improvisational style the players are often making decisions on things which do not have answers other than the ones GM is making up on the spot, and the players' answer is not something that can fully (or even meaningfully) inform the GM's decisions.



This is what mechanics are for.

And also just talking to one another.

In my Prince Valiant game, when the PCs are travelling from A to B we all look at the map together, be that the map of Britain on the inside cover of my Pendragon book, or a map of Cyprus that we Googled up, or whatever. And when I narrate that _you come to a forest_ or _as you pass through some badlands_ or whatever, we'll look at the map and work out where those events are happening.

This is close to the opposite of map-and-key play: there is no secret map behind the GM's screen. There is no tracking of miles-per-day travelled and rations and the like. There just the loose narration of time passed before the interesting event is introduced.

Suppose time actually mattered: eg suppose that one of the PCs had to get from A to B before an enemy army arrives at B to lay siege. Then a difficulty would be set - maybe an opposed check, maybe versus a fixed difficulty extrapolated from the fictional situation - and resolved via rolling for Brawn plus any appropriate skill (eg Riding if racing on horseback, Agility if running, etc).

In this sort of game the GM is quite unlikely just to _decide_ that the PC can't get from A to B in time. That's not the sort of improvisation that "no myth" RPGing relies upon.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> For those not as versed in mathematical infinites I think this analogy might help.
> 
> There are an infinite amount of numbers.  There are also an infinite amount of odd numbers and an infinite amount of even numbers.  If I remove the infinite amount of even numbers I am still left with the infinite amount of odd numbers.
> 
> (Odd numbers representing player agency and Even numbers representing the force that takes away agency).



I don't understand the relevance of this. Given that every RPGer is a human, and all humans are mortal, every RPGer will only engage in a finite number of moments or episodes of RPGing. Only a finite amount of authorship will take place.

It's not strictly zero-sum between GM and players, because collaboration among humans doesn't work quite like that. But every moment in which fiction is introduced by a unilateral decision of the GM is a moment that the players were not exercising agency.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> The GM rolls no dice to fudge, has no enemy stats to obfuscate what they are doing, and is beholden to no prep.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Another feature which makes it pretty difficult is that Blades resolves player intent and makes success incredibly transparent. There are no DCs, TNs, or Obs. You look at the dice and you know. Blades also provides for resistance rolls to overturn consequences. Playing games there is trivial to see.



I think the issue of setting difficulties (or not, in systems that don't use them) is very interesting. And also how this interacts with building NPCs (where that is a part of the game).

In 4e D&D it's pretty transparent in virtue of the DC-by-level chart, and the design of PC-build-elements is fairly baroque in parts precisely to maintain a solid mathematical interaction with those DCs. (There are a few areas of breakage - I will nominate Sage of Ages epic destiny as one - but not that many that I have encountered.) There are also very solid rules to govern NPC/monster building.

In Prince Valiant setting DCs is easy because they generally range from 1 (easy) to 4 (pretty hard) but opposed checks are a bigger deal because those depend on NPC stats, and that requires GM good faith and fidelity to genre, prior NPCs encountered, etc. Some of the episodes in the Episodes Book (not Greg Stafford's original rulebook) in my view suffer from some overdone/gerrymandered NPC builds. I've had to correct some of these for my own play.

Classic Traveller has transparent NPC build - just follow the lifepath rules like the players had to - but setting other DCs can be quite opaque. I do my best to explain my reasoning to my players but I don't know if they always follow it. What does help a bit here is the relative transparency of a PC "stat block" which means that, basically, PCs are good at what you would expect them to be given what it says on their tin! So you don't get weirdnesses that can happen in more convoluted PC build frameworks (like one time in a 2nd ed AD&D game where my 1st level cleric was a better combatant than the 1st level fighter - the player of the fighter got a bit of a shock).

Burning Wheel uses both set difficulties and opposed checks, like Prince Valiant. It needs NPC stats to make some of this work, like Prince Valiant and also Traveller. And like Traveller, the setting of difficulties by the GM is meant to be one way that the GM makes the world "come alive" to the players. The Classic Traveller rulebook advises the referee to keep notes to help ensure consistency in this respect. BW doesn't give such specific advice, but the rulebooks list many more particular difficulties than are found in Traveller, so maybe those lists are in part a substitute for GM notes.

Anyway, I think this range of approaches and the various principles that should govern them are a bit under-discussed.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I don't understand the relevance of this. Given that every RPGer is a human, and all humans are mortal, every RPGer will only engage in a finite number of moments or episodes of RPGing. Only a finite amount of authorship will take place.



It was being used as an introduction to a few important concepts.  It's not so much relevant how we get to these concepts as what the concepts the thought experiment about infinite duration games brought to light.
1.  How should we measure agency?
2.  What does more agency actually look like?
3.  Is a game with alot of force necessarily a game without alot of agency?



pemerton said:


> It's not strictly zero-sum between GM and players, because collaboration among humans doesn't work quite like that. But every moment in which fiction is introduced by a unilateral decision of the GM is a moment that the players were not exercising agency.



But we have established that a lack of agency in a moment or even many moments doesn't mean that there are necessarily less moments that the players have agency.  As you say above, it's not a 0 sum.

While you verbally acknowledge it's not 0 sum, It sounds like you are basing your conclusions on the premise that agency in a game is a 0 sum scenario.  Your thoughts come out as if they are contingent on agency being 0 sum, such that there is only so much of it and if the player is deprived of any that means the game has overall less agency.  But as you just mentioned - it's not a zero-sum between the GM and players.  If it's not 0 sum then pointing to a moment and saying - see the player has less agency here doesn't actually mean that game produced less overall moments of player agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> No. What character types might be available isn't a matter of agency whatsoever. If you think it is then when you say 'agency' you means something other than what the other people in this thread mean.



You disagreed.  Could you elaborate on why you are disagreeing?  What do you see being different in those scenarios?


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's literally in the there you quoted earlier:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Judgement calls vs "railroading"
> 
> 
> Here's my slight contention with your example: In Burning Wheel all our interests are focused on contesting the veracity of player character beliefs at all times and following the fiction where it leads. When the GM presents the consequences for a failed roll they should do so with an eye...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.enworld.org



I found the below quote from that thread very interesting...



pemerton said:


> Well, in the sort of game I run it's my job to frame the PCs into situations where the various aspirations of the PCs intersect.



I cannot understand how this is not force?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am not accusing you of doing anything, though I feel you really do not appreciate how much the information the GM provides will impact the direction of play. In your explanation I see multiple points where the GM clearly either influences or has an easy opportunity to influence the outcome. But I do believe that you do not use this to consciously direct the game in any preplanner direction.
> 
> And things like reading the player reactions, taking account their character's motivations, carefully nudging the game in certain directions, inserting preplanned cool elements where they naturally fit, drawing players' attention to certain things are not dickish behaviour to me; these are things that a good GM _should _do! Now I understand that this is not within the spirit of the Blades, so that is another reason why I wouldn't be interested in that game.



I have never GMed Blades in the Dark. Nor have I read the rules. My knowledge of it is based on (i) others posting about it, and (ii) its resemblance in certain respects to Apocalypse World and Dungeon World.

That said, I am pretty confident that a GM of BitD is expected to have regard to the motivations that players establish for their PCs. I think @Ovinomancer was doing that in the actual play report he posted (about the haunted house and the painting). But the GM is not expected to nudge the game in certain direction, and doesn't really have the resources to do so. I'm not sure about preplanned cool elements - there is a pre-established setting (Duskvol) and so I imagine that does at least suggest some cool elements. But I don't think they're meant to be secret from the players.

Most importantly, in the context of a discussion of participant agency in RPGing, I don't think the GM is entitled to declare that a declared action fails by reference to the GM's unilateral conception of the fictional situation. If the GM isn't going to say "yes" then I think the action has to get put to the test (which is what we see in @Ovinomancer's game: the PC attunes to the painting to try to work out if/how it is enchanted).



Crimson Longinus said:


> The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced





Crimson Longinus said:


> What makes a good game is actually being able to study the situation and make either tactical or dramatic decisions based on that.





Crimson Longinus said:


> What makes the action meaningful is not whether the things are codified in the rules, it is the existence of objective base reality against which you can make decisions. Rules are one (and often good) way to communicate such reality, but not the only one.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What makes it low-agency is the player not being able to gain meaningful information or make meaningful choices regarding that goal, at least according to your definition which discounts flavour. The player could have latched into any item, any time, anywhere, and interrogate it in the same manner than the painting to force the check. The rest is RNG.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Right. So there actually is some independent reality you can learn about. You actually need to study it more to progress your quest. Meaningful choices can be made.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There needs to be some reality against which to make decisions for the decisions to matter. Sure, getting to tell a bit of the story and randomising who gets to do it is a form of agency, and if you like that sort of agency good for you. But it is not really making meaningful choices, except perhaps flavour wise, and this is something you had low regard earlier.



What all this suggests to me is that (i) you are not very interested in character-driven or character-focused RPGing, and (ii) you much prefer what I call "RPGing as puzzle-solving" or "RPGing as learning what is in the GM's notes".

What establishes the meaningfulness of the choice made by the player in Ovinomancer's game is that _the PC, as played by the character, is prepared to take a risk to find a magical item that will improve his relationship with the university_. We now learn something about this character, his drives, and what he thinks is worth taking a chance on. That is (broadly speaking) theme. The fact that it involves soul-sucking is probably closer to trope than theme, thought that's not a bright-line boundary and I'd of course be happy to hear what Ovinomancer thinks about that.

The idea that _choosing to stake your soul on finding something to improve your standing with the university _is not meaningful and is mere flavour is - to me - a very strange one. I wasn't in Ovinomancer's game but to me that sounds like part of a cool situation leading to interesting stuff down the track. In my BW game where I'm a player, my PC Thurgon is prepared to stake his life to defend his honour, and to restore (what he sees as) the honour of his family and their estate. This is why encountering his brother Rufus as he did, and why his failure to rouse Rufus to action, mattered. It's not _mere flavour_ - that's the game!

The point of the random number generation in BitD (and AW, and BW, and - I would say - 4e D&D) is not to deliver theme. That's built-in and guaranteed by the rules for PC gen, for establishing the consequences of action declarations, and for framing scenes. The point of the dice is to manage pacing and related story dynamics. In a good story the protagonists get what they want some of the time, and they fail some of the time. Sometimes the chances they take pay off; sometimes those chances are overreach and redound upon them. In these RPGs, that is determined by the dice rolls. Part of the skill of designing these games is to make sure the maths works to produce reliable peaks and troughs of success and failure and complication. (We can also distinguish the games along those lines: 4e D&D produces more success than failure and so - especially when this combines with its tropes - tends towards the gonzo; whereas BW produces a pretty high rate of failure for a RPG and this is part of what makes it a demanding experience on the participants - players because their PCs are suffering and GMs because they're obliged to drive home those failures.)

There is nothing in my BW game, or in Ovinomancer's BitD game, that is remotely comparable to the GM having prepared a haunted house mystery where the job of the players is to manoeuvre their PCs, via "I walk towards the . . ." or "I closely inspect the . . ." action declarations, into fictional circumstances where the GM then tells them pre-authored fiction which the players gradually piece together to solve the mystery.

I did post upthread about a recent scenario I ran that was exactly as I've just described:


pemerton said:


> A few weeks ago I ran a session like this for my family - one of my daughters wanted to do a murder mystery for her birthday.
> 
> I adapted a murder scenario from an old Traveller module, and wrote up some characters (one for each other family member, plus a couple for their entourages, plus a small number of important NPCs whom I played). There was no action resolution in any mechanical sense - the players described what their PCs were doing, and who they were talking to, and I delivered up information as seemed appropriate (eg what they found if they searched a stateroom; what a NPC said if they spoke to him/her; etc).
> 
> This is an example of puzzle-solving: the players' goal is to acquire enough information to be able to infer to the hidden bit of my notes (ie whodunnit). It is a different experience from watching an episode of Death in Paradise or The Mentalist, as there is the first-person description element to it. But it doesn't really involve very much more agency.
> 
> (One difference from those shows is that they are scripted to try and occlude the audience's access to the relevant information, whereas in our murder mystery I was desperately trying to shovel information out the door. A better comparison might be to reading The Eleventh Hour.)



That was fun enough, but involved very little player agency in respect of the shared fiction. It was more interactive than solving a crossword puzzle or solving The Eleventh Hour, but at its core was not a radically different intellectual exercise.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Generally speaking, the division of authority starts with a model like D&D and from there you move down the spectrum with different bits of authority devolving to the players in different systems. Authority doesn't generally move the other way round. I mean the spectrum goes both ways, but historically speaking what we've seen is a steady movement toward devolving more authority on the players, which does indeed come from the GMs slice of the authority pie, which isn't a bad thing, or a good thing, just a thing.



I want to disagree with this. Early RPG rule texts expressly or impliedly conferred more authority on players than became the norm in 80s and many 90s texts.

In another thread earlier this year (haven't tracked it down, sorry, but can if you like) I posted an illustration of this from the evolution of the rules for Traveller: one edition of the 1981 version expressly confers authority on the GM to use illusionistic techniques to drive "the story"; whereas in the 1977 edition the referee's power to drive "the story" is expressed in terms of choosing to impose encounters (ie what today one might call _scene-framing_). But there is nothing in the 1977 version to suggest that the GM will exercise unilateral power to decide _outcomes_.

My own explanation for this trend is that early RPGs were more explicitly modelled on wargames, and as there was a move towards "story" as a desideratum of play there was no real understanding of how this might be done except via GM control over the shared fiction. There was also a tendency for the mechanics to lag - so the 80s and 90s see many games whose mechanics are fairly close to classic D&D (map-and-key resolution, rules for interpersonal combat and interacting closely with architecture, etc) even though the ostensible goals of play are very different. GM agency is the device these systems use to bridge from their mechanics to their goals.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> The conversation with @Nagol was about "soft-balling" (I brought this precise point upthread if you recall) and not classical Force.



Right. I went back to reread the post and had exactly the same thought.

In the spirit of thread recursion, maybe now is the time for me to reiterate that I am a sentimental GM who finds it hard to narrate hard consequences. But I wouldn't really call that _railroading_!


----------



## pemerton

zarionofarabel said:


> See, and I am one of the weird ones that thinks if the end of an adventure (and the scenes between beginning and end) is already predetermined then the adventure is a railroad. But I do realize that many people believe otherwise. Oh well, to each their own I guess.



I agree. I also think that The Alexandrian's "node based design" is also about railroading. The fact that it goes A, B, C, D rather than A, C, B, D due to player choice doesn't change the fact that all the situations were largely predetermined.

Some of the old Fighting Fantasy books also had elements of node based design, in the sense that they could handle the difference between getting to B before C or getting to C before B. But clearly the reader/player of one of those books is not exercising very much agency over the content of the shared fiction. It's a puzzle-solving experience.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I found the below quote from that thread very interesting...
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, in the sort of game I run it's my job to frame the PCs into situations where the various aspirations of the PCs intersect.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I cannot understand how this is not force?
Click to expand...


Because it doesn't undermine or change the outcomes of action declarations? Because it builds on player-signalled priorities for the game and their PCs (and so is a form of "taking suggestions)? Probably other reasons too, but they're the first I thought of.

_GM force_ is not a synonym for _GM authorship_.

As @Manbearcat uses the term - and I believe he's the one who brought the term into this thread - it's about the GM perturbing the (ostensible) method the system uses for turning participant inputs into shared fiction.

For my part, when I think of _GM force _I think of the GM making unilateral decisions about the fiction that have the effect of either blocking or altering what would otherwise be player contributions mediated via the action resolution mechanics.

Now there is a style of RPGing where what I have just described is essential: in classic D&D play the GM has to prepare the map and the key in advance, and has to refer to them to resolve exploration-oriented action declarations. The goal of the players is - quite literally - to recreate the GM's map and the GM's key by declaring exploration-oriented actions for their PCs which will prompt the GM to share his/her notes with them.

As I have already posted in this thread, I think that the style of RPGing just described breaks down as soon as the fiction becomes rich enough that the players can't use straightforward exploration-oriented action declarations to recover the fundamentals of the fictional situation from the GM. Any "living, breathing world" will cause this issue: eg it's not feasible to learn every escape route assassins might have taken in a city, or to learn of every person willing to lend money to the improvident mayor, or to learn where every source of magical shapechanging in the duchy, simply by using exploration-oriented action declarations of the sort that are so fundamental to classic D&D.

Given that I neither GM nor play in classic dungeon RPGs, and that every game I've run or played in since about 1986 has been of the "living, breathing world" variety, I'm not that concerned with the principled "force" of classic dungeoneering. My concern is with the impact that GM force has in the sort of games that I've GMed and played in over the past 35 years. And that impact is to reduce, and in some cases even eliminate, player agency over the shared fiction.

Framing a situation - _you see a passer-by fall to the street, and what must be the assassin escaping across the rooftops_ or _the mayor asks you to lend her money_ or _OK, so you're going to the wizard's academy to try and speak to an expert in shapechanging?_ - isn't force. It doesn't unilaterally establish a particular outcome in the fiction outside of the action resolution procedure. It's creating the context for actions to be declared.


----------



## FrogReaver

A proposed new agency framework:

A.  Agency is having the ability to affect the outcome of something via your choices and skill.
1.  Thus, agency is always in relation to something.
2.  Since agency is about the ability to affect the outcome then you either you have agency over something or you don't because you can either affect the outcome or not.  It's a binary state.
3.  One can have agency over any number of things.
4.  More agency is thus having the ability to affect the outcome of more things via your choices and skill.  
5.  Losing agency over one thing may entail that one later gains agency over any number of other things.  Thus, making predictions over what will be more or less agency essentially futile because what appears to be less agency now may end up being more agency later.  The best we can do is count the number of things one has agency over at the varying end states.  This can be summarized by saying agency is not 0 sum.
6.  Then there is also the element of pace.  How often is there a decision point where you can exercise your agency over something?  Or over a particular something?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Because it doesn't undermine or change the outcomes of action declarations? Because it builds on player-signalled priorities for the game and their PCs (and so is a form of "taking suggestions)? Probably other reasons too, but they're the first I thought of.
> 
> _GM force_ is not a synonym for _GM authorship_.
> 
> As @Manbearcat uses the term - and I believe he's the one who brought the term into this thread - it's about the GM perturbing the (ostensible) method the system uses for turning participant inputs into shared fiction.
> 
> For my part, when I think of _GM force _I think of the GM making unilateral decisions about the fiction that have the effect of either blocking or altering what would otherwise be player contributions mediated via the action resolution mechanics.




That would seem to suggest that classic railroading isn't an exercise of GM force.  That is a DM framing a scene such that there is only one reasonable path to go down isn't using force because it's just GM authorship and because nothing he's doing is undermining or changing the outcomes of player declared actions.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> That would seem to suggest that classic railroading isn't an exercise of GM force.  That is a DM framing a scene such that there is only one reasonable path to go down isn't using force because it's just GM authorship and because nothing he's doing is undermining or changing the outcomes of player declared actions.



What do you mean by "only on reasonable path to go down"? That is probably going to be the result of secret beliefs about the fiction that the GM then uses to shut down certain action declarations - ie it is not just framing.


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> This is such an odd statement.
> 
> So the only meaningful actions a player (through their character) can take are ones that directly interface with the illusion of "objective" in-fiction reality?



This is also an odd statement, though; in that if the players (through their characters) aren't interfacing with in-fiction reality then what on earth are they interfacing with?


innerdude said:


> Any action that directly addresses a character's in-game concerns/agenda are made null and void if they aren't first parsed through whatever "illusory fictional objective reality" filters (read: GM say-so) are deemed necessary?



This doesn't quite parse.

If you're saying that characters' actions are by default constrained by in-fiction reality, that seems both obvious and non-controversial.

If you're not saying that then you'll have to elaborate a bit.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> This is how I approach D&D - that the accomplishments (and thus the story) of the party are more important than those of the individual characters - and yet I regularly catch hell for it from certain posters here....



I suspect, however, that players are not advised in your games to play their characters like stolen cars.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I have never GMed Blades in the Dark. Nor have I read the rules. My knowledge of it is based on (i) others posting about it, and (ii) its resemblance in certain respects to Apocalypse World and Dungeon World.
> 
> That said, I am pretty confident that a GM of BitD is expected to have regard to the motivations that players establish for their PCs. I think @Ovinomancer was doing that in the actual play report he posted (about the haunted house and the painting). But the GM is not expected to nudge the game in certain direction, and doesn't really have the resources to do so. I'm not sure about preplanned cool elements - there is a pre-established setting (Duskvol) and so I imagine that does at least suggest some cool elements. But I don't think they're meant to be secret from the players.
> 
> Most importantly, in the context of a discussion of participant agency in RPGing, I don't think the GM is entitled to declare that a declared action fails by reference to the GM's unilateral conception of the fictional situation. If the GM isn't going to say "yes" then I think the action has to get put to the test (which is what we see in @Ovinomancer's game: the PC attunes to the painting to try to work out if/how it is enchanted).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What all this suggests to me is that (i) you are not very interested in character-driven or character-focused RPGing, and (ii) you much prefer what I call "RPGing as puzzle-solving" or "RPGing as learning what is in the GM's notes".
> 
> What establishes the meaningfulness of the choice made by the player in Ovinomancer's game is that _the PC, as played by the character, is prepared to take a risk to find a magical item that will improve his relationship with the university_. We now learn something about this character, his drives, and what he thinks is worth taking a chance on. That is (broadly speaking) theme. The fact that it involves soul-sucking is probably closer to trope than theme, thought that's not a bright-line boundary and I'd of course be happy to hear what Ovinomancer thinks about that.
> 
> The idea that _choosing to stake your soul on finding something to improve your standing with the university _is not meaningful and is mere flavour is - to me - a very strange one. I wasn't in Ovinomancer's game but to me that sounds like part of a cool situation leading to interesting stuff down the track. In my BW game where I'm a player, my PC Thurgon is prepared to stake his life to defend his honour, and to restore (what he sees as) the honour of his family and their estate. This is why encountering his brother Rufus as he did, and why his failure to rouse Rufus to action, mattered. It's not _mere flavour_ - that's the game!
> 
> The point of the random number generation in BitD (and AW, and BW, and - I would say - 4e D&D) is not to deliver theme. That's built-in and guaranteed by the rules for PC gen, for establishing the consequences of action declarations, and for framing scenes. The point of the dice is to manage pacing and related story dynamics. In a good story the protagonists get what they want some of the time, and they fail some of the time. Sometimes the chances they take pay off; sometimes those chances are overreach and redound upon them. In these RPGs, that is determined by the dice rolls. Part of the skill of designing these games is to make sure the maths works to produce reliable peaks and troughs of success and failure and complication. (We can also distinguish the games along those lines: 4e D&D produces more success than failure and so - especially when this combines with its tropes - tends towards the gonzo; whereas BW produces a pretty high rate of failure for a RPG and this is part of what makes it a demanding experience on the participants - players because their PCs are suffering and GMs because they're obliged to drive home those failures.)



The character's backstory and how it related to the motivations is good stuff. I definitely encourage that and as a GM that sort of thing will most definitely inform my decision making, albeit not in some formulaic manner. What renders this cool and well thought-out player authored motivation significantly less meaningful, is that the player has the ability to author solution to their quest any moment they want. And sure, they need to roll dice and may fail, but that's still ultimately what's happening here.



pemerton said:


> There is nothing in my BW game, or in Ovinomancer's BitD game, that is remotely comparable to the GM having prepared a haunted house mystery where the job of the players is to manoeuvre their PCs, via "I walk towards the . . ." or "I closely inspect the . . ." action declarations, into fictional circumstances where the GM then tells them pre-authored fiction which the players gradually piece together to solve the mystery.
> 
> I did post upthread about a recent scenario I ran that was exactly as I've just described:
> 
> That was fun enough, but involved very little player agency in respect of the shared fiction. It was more interactive than solving a crossword puzzle or solving The Eleventh Hour, but at its core was not a radically different intellectual exercise.



And to me it sounds that your murder mystery would have pretty decent amount of agency, though of course being a limited situation with singular focus it is not near the highest possible amount. But the player's actions matter here, they can actually deduce things. There is not even dice, so all that matters is their real skills. What would render all that pointless, if the players would be able to accuse one person, use their master detective attribute, and if they rolled well enough that person would be the guilty one. Sure, that would be a type of agency, but having that sort of agency would render actual detective work and decisions related to that pointless. So yea, this is exactly how having one type of agency lessens another type of agency, and ultimately it is about what type you prefer having. That is literally what this whole thread is about: people being unable to recognise this.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Framing a situation - _you see a passer-by fall to the street, and what must be the assassin escaping across the rooftops_ or _the mayor asks you to lend her money_ or _OK, so you're going to the wizard's academy to try and speak to an expert in shapechanging?_ - isn't force. It doesn't unilaterally establish a particular outcome in the fiction outside of the action resolution procedure. It's creating the context for actions to be declared.



I'm not looking for an argument this morning (my time), but I'm noticing there's a difference between us--especially also thinking about your post just upthread about running a mystery scenario for your family.

I've said (and I maintain) that I'm not a big fan of ratiocination-type mysteries in TRPGs, for a few reasons, but I don't think that setting up a relatively traditional mystery (who killed the merchant?) is more than framing the fiction, while you seem to consider it on the lines of a railroad if the players can't decide, e.g., who killed the merchant, as opposed to figuring it out (or not figuring it out, or being wrong).

I guess you would think that the solution to the mystery (who killed the merchant?) would best not be decided by the GM, at least not beforehand (maybe as the result of an action resolution the gave them that responsibility)?


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> The character's backstory and how it related to the motivations is good stuff. I definitely encourage that and as a GM that sort of thing will most definitely inform my decision making, albeit not in some 'if this, then always this' fashion. What renders this cool and well thought-out player authored motivation significantly less meaningful, is that the player has the ability to *author *solution to their quest any moment they want. And sure, they need to roll dice and may fail, but that's still ultimately what's happening here.




Going to use this post to discuss Framing and Consequences and try to put together a post that will help you understand why the bold word here is a category error and why there was no violation of The Czege Principle.

The word you should be using is *propose*.  Author means fiat.  You're stipulating a thing without resistance or recourse to dispute it.  That is NOT what is happening in this case.  The player is making a proposition and we're going to the dice to find out if (a) that proposition turns out to be a solution to his problem or (b) something else.

In one of my recent Blades games I had a similar situation to @Ovinomancer so I'm going to lay out the gist of it and show you how *propose does not equal author*.

Here though is the formula for agency:

Dictate what the game is about = *player agency*
Specific proposal + GMing ethos to follow their lead and play to find out = *player agency*
All the player-facing tech = *player agency*
Engagement Roll procedures =* player agency*
The deep suite of resources that the players can bring to bear to turn this *proposition into reality* = *player agency*

Now just to be clear (as you're about to see below)* all of that player agency does not equal success.*



Tier 2 Crew w/ a Whisper.

In order to amplify his power and to get them out of a huge predicament, the Whisper made a bargain with a powerful poltergeist (a member of the Reconciled, Magnitude 3, so 1 higher than the Crew).  Unfortunately, the possession (its not constant control because of the Whisper's resistance to the supernatural, but it manifests and in not-great ways at not-great times) is wrecking the Crew's life and slowly taking the Whisper (every week of possession you take Trauma...4 Trauma and you're toast).  The Whisper had a contingency sorted out when he made the deal; a Longterm Project to perform a self-exorcism.  Unfortunately, the Downtime Project rolls just aren't going well and the Clock isn't filling fast enough.  

So the Crew decides that they're going to go with a Linked Plan (a Split-Score):

*STEALTH *- Break into the Duskvol Academy's basement (where the Whisper went to school) where a Reconciled (a Tier 3 group of ancient spirits that don't lose their faculties to the ravages of time) Spirit Well is secretly located (the recon for this was performed during Information Gathering/Free Play), secure the powerful arcane energy (that sustains the Reconciled) from the well, then...

*OCCULT *- Exorcise the Whisper once they have the powerful arcane energy from the Spirit Well.

During the Stealth portion of the mission, the Crew is in the Basement.  While everyone is is doing the heavy work of excavating the Spirit Well, the Whisper is perusing the forbidden occult books and artifacts in the Academy's basement. He's looking for a Ouija Board to help him uncover the Truename of the spirit for the coming exorcism.  Of course he finds it.  This should help him in the upcoming exorcism; giving them an extra die on the Engagement roll for the Occult Score and +1 Effect the first time he uses it in the Score (which is going to be a Tug-of-War Clock...if the PCs win, the exorcism is complete...if the Spirit wins, the possession persists and the PC takes another Trauma).

The Ouija Board is a powerful conduit to the Ghost Field, so interacting with it is extremely dangerous.  However, the Whisper has his Spiritbane Charm in his mission Loadout so it helps ward him a bit.  We're doing Racing Clocks here and starting with Controlled Position due to the Charm.  If the Whisper fills his Clock first, he gets the benefits above.  If the Ouija Board Clock fills first, then the Reconciled Spirit becomes aware of his attempt to find its Truename and will be enraged and bulwarked against the exorcism; -1 die to the Engagement Roll.  This will happen along any Stress that is incurred along the way of the interaction.



So, I won't go over every Action Roll here, but the gist of it was this:

1)  The Whisper attained a Pyrrhic Victory with the Ouija Board.  Yes, it won its Racing Clock battle and attained the Truename of the Reconciled (thus giving it the benefits depicted above and avoiding the -1 Engagement Roll), but it incurred enough Stress in 2 Resistance Rolls to put him in a really bad spot for the upcoming exorcism.

2)  Due to all the Stress that the Whisper was dealing with (if you incur enough Stress you (a) incur Trauma and (b) are knocked out of the scene) now because of that Pyrrhic Victory, he only had 2 Stress Boxes left.  So he couldn't Push himself or use the elaborate Flashback he had planned for the exorcism.  Ultimately, this very likely ended up being the difference as they lost the Tug-of-War Clock for the Occult-exorcism phase of the Linked Scores.  

Because of that, the Whisper earned another Trauma and then later earned the final level of Trauma because the Downtime Project Clock couldn't clear the possession in time.



So the Whisper and the Crew has all kinds of agency to all 3 of (a) dictate what the fiction was about (on both the macro and the micro), (b) propose changes to the fiction, (c) draw upon their significant resources to make that proposal actionable.

They just ultimately failed because that is what happens (as everyone knows) in games.  Failure is always on the table.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> The character's backstory and how it related to the motivations is good stuff. I definitely encourage that and as a GM that sort of thing will most definitely inform my decision making, albeit not in some formulaic manner. What renders this cool and well thought-out player authored motivation significantly less meaningful, is that the player has the ability to author solution to their quest any moment they want. And sure, they need to roll dice and may fail, but that's still ultimately what's happening here.



Ah, I see.  Let's look at your claim that the player can declare anything anytime as a solution and how this is missing some key parts of the puzzle.

Firstly, players are bound by the same genre expectations that the GM is.  This means you can't declare that you're trying to find a ray gun in the Duke's toilet when in a typical fantasy setting.  It's a genre violation.  So, not anything can be a solution -- some violate genre.  In this case, though, Duskvol is a haunted city, so there's not much genre problems with the example.

Secondly, the players are bound by the same "flow from the fiction" expectations that the GM is.  They can't just introduce things that don't align with the fiction without conflict.  Players actually have more leeway in this regard in Blades, especially with the Flashback move, but it's still a thing.  This does pertain to the situation.  If the score was in a normal, lived in manor house, declaring that a painting might be occult is much less in-tune with the fiction that one in the abandoned, haunted manor of a powerful occult family.  So, where the fiction takes place is important.

How would this be reflected in the fiction?  The GM's Effect determination.  If a thing seems very unlikely or out of tune, then the GM should be setting effect to Lesser or even None.  This is a fair move by the GM because the player has ways to alter the Effect by spending resources.  So, if the player in the example did try to make a painting in a normal, unhaunted manor house an occult relic for his goals, then I, as GM, could easily say that this doesn't seem very likely, but you can try -- the effect will be Lesser.  Or, if the home is owned by someone that abhors the occult, then I could say No Effect.  The player is welcome to push or trade position to force the issue, but that's running some serious risks and will only bump up the effect by a step.

Finally, let's look at the "solution" space.  Here, the task to change vices is a multi-clock effort, meaning you have multiple, complex tasks you have to accomplish that are very unlikely to be done in one go.  Here, I worked with the player, and we established what getting back into the graces of the University would look like.  The first clock -- 6 tick -- was to show that the PC could be valuable, and the second clock -- also 6 tick -- was to show that they were reliable and weren't going to slip back into their gambling habits again.  What do clocks mean, though?  They're a representation of a complex problem that can't easily be solved in one go.  The PC usually engages these clocks as Downtime Activites -- which you've read about -- and can advance them some every time, depending on the result of a roll.  The purpose of these clocks is to enact a cost (using Downtime) and a delay of gratification.  The special bit about these clocks is that they set back by two ticks every time the player would use their old vice (which he didn't have a purveyor for, but that's a simpler task).  So, at this point, the player was on the first clock, having spent 1 Downtime action to have a few ticks (I don't remember offhand, but it was not more than half-full).  This leads to the example.

In the example of play, the player is trying to use an action in the Score to improve the clock.  This is neat, as it puts the score into risk, which can have it's own entertaining fallouts.  So, here we look again at the Effect space -- a normal effect success translates into 2 ticks (lesser 1, greater 3, critical 5).  So, _at best,_ the player understood that finding this painting, constrained by the genre and fiction considerations above, would only result in some movement towards a complex goal.  This isn't a solution, it's a step in that direction, and it comes with risk.  And, in this case, that risk caught up.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And to me it sounds that your murder mystery would have pretty decent amount of agency, though of course being a limited situation with singular focus it is not near the highest possible amount. But the player's actions matter here, they can actually deduce things. There is not even dice, so all that matters is their real skills. What would render all that pointless, if the players would be able to accuse one person, use their master detective attribute, and if they rolled well enough that person would be the guilty one. Sure, that would be a type of agency, but having that sort of agency would render actual detective work and decisions related to that pointless. So yea, this is exactly how having one type of agency lessens another type of agency, and ultimately it is about what type you prefer having. That is literally what this whole thread is about: people being unable to recognise this.



They kinda don't, though.  The only things you can do in a murder mystery of this type are discover what the GM has planned.  Sure, you have myraid ways to go about this, but this is like saying you can go to lots of different Chic-fil-a's  to get a chicken sandwich -- the end result is the same.


----------



## Fenris-77

@pemerton - I was identifying a general trend, from the D&D of the early 80s to the present. I dont disagree with your reading of some late 70s properties, but I also dont think it really changes the teleos of the trend much either.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> As written, more or less yes. (and why exclude 4e here?)
> 
> Those you've noted, rarely; and more for variety's sake than to specifically hose casters. (a null-magic zone that knocks out magic items hoses warriors every bit as much as casters!)
> 
> On a more overall level I've done a few things to rein in casters a bit - casting generally takes time and is easily interrupted, many spells require an aiming roll (you don't get to place it exactly where you want), wild magic is a risk if something goes wrong, you can't cast while in melee, that sort of thing.




Don't particularly want to turn this into a 4e thread and I'm somewhat surprised you're asking this because we've had this discussion many times before (and I'm certain you've been in them).  But to refresh your memory (and anyone else who might care why 4e doesn't have the Spellcaster problem):

* All Classes are on the same, unified resource schedule scheme (AEDU).  Character resources no longer have power discrepancy and refresh discrepancy that the game must be awkwardly balanced around (which introduces all of the other things like Magical Arms/Races, Rock/Paper/Scissors, and Calvinball GMing to block spellcasters).

* The most powerful Spells in classic D&D are siloed to Rituals.  Rituals are (a) costly, (b) everyone has access to them, (c) they aren't usable in combat except very specific situations, and (d) they're almost exclusively a tool for either (i) reframing and/or transitioning scenes (as 4e is a scene-based game) or (ii) to invoke the fictional positioning necessary to allow for a Skill Challenge (to open up a scene that would otherwise be presently unavailable to the players).

* Everyone can get access to the Skill Arcana.

* The game is fully scene-based and Noncombat Conflict Resolution is the organized like Clocks in World/Forged in the Dark games or the Conflict mechanics of Mouse Guard et al.  The Skill Challenge is a scene with an inherent dramatic arc and discrete gamestate moments that follows pretty much the exact same indie GMing ethos that is being espoused in this thread; play to find out, say yes or roll the dice, follow the fiction, follow the players lead (and react), genre logic, change the situation (after each moment of action resolution), and fail forward.  The framework, the maths, and the GMing ethos means that Martial answers to gamestate problems are just as potent and reliable as Arcane/Divine/Primal answeres to gamestate problems.

+++++++++++++

The Martial and Arcane/Divine/Primal divide is no longer about extreme discrepancy in resource scheduling, potency, and breadth of answers to gamestate problems.  Its now about how mythology and archetype manifest through play and the mechanical and thematic nuance of how a Paladin defends/commands/endures through valiance and divine intercession while a Fighter does it through incredible martial prowess, control of the melee, implacable grit and nerves of steel...meanwhile the Wizard still puppeteers enemies (whether in combat or parley), mows down fodder en masse, dons arcane disguise, and spies on enemies while not being present.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> What do you mean by "only on reasonable path to go down"? That is probably going to be the result of secret beliefs about the fiction that the GM then uses to shut down certain action declarations - ie it is not just framing.



Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations?  I think it can.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations?  I think it can.



Absolutely, but it doesn't help your point.  Framing says where the action is and what it involves, at least to start.  If I say, "Okay, you go to the Wal-Mart to see if you can find a PS5, but it's pretty crowded -- you're definitely going to have competition!  What do you do?" And the player says, "I'm going to find a Blue Light Special - if we can't get a PS5, maybe there's a good deal."  The problem here, if you've past the age wicket and Americana checks, is that Blue Light Specials are in K-mart, not Wal-Mart.  Silly example, but absolutely framing restricts available action declarations -- things have to at least pertain to the fiction established, yeah?

However, outside that established fictional boundary, framing doesn't restrict the action.  The same action as above would work for a Roll-Back special, and really the GM should just run with it because it's a semantic point.

And I've just revealed that I've shopped at Wal-Mart enough (and K-Mart, once upon a time) that I know these things.  I'm okay with that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Going to use this post to discuss Framing and Consequences and try to put together a post that will help you understand why the bold word here is a category error and why there was no violation of The Czege Principle.
> 
> The word you should be using is *propose*.  Author means fiat.  You're stipulating a thing without resistance or recourse to dispute it.  That is NOT what is happening in this case.  The player is making a proposition and we're going to the dice to find out if (a) that proposition turns out to be a solution to his problem or (b) something else.




Basic play loop:
Step 1: Player proposes some fiction.
Step 2: RNG is successful.
Step 3: Player's proposal becomes fiction.

Regardless of what came before, the moment step 3 gets here the player has authored the fiction.  All the RNG is doing in step 2 is picking whether the player got to be the author this time around.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Ah, I see.  Let's look at your claim that the player can declare anything anytime as a solution and how this is missing some key parts of the puzzle.
> 
> Firstly, players are bound by the same genre expectations that the GM is.  This means you can't declare that you're trying to find a ray gun in the Duke's toilet when in a typical fantasy setting.  It's a genre violation.  So, not anything can be a solution -- some violate genre.  In this case, though, Duskvol is a haunted city, so there's not much genre problems with the example.
> 
> Secondly, the players are bound by the same "flow from the fiction" expectations that the GM is.  They can't just introduce things that don't align with the fiction without conflict.  Players actually have more leeway in this regard in Blades, especially with the Flashback move, but it's still a thing.  This does pertain to the situation.  If the score was in a normal, lived in manor house, declaring that a painting might be occult is much less in-tune with the fiction that one in the abandoned, haunted manor of a powerful occult family.  So, where the fiction takes place is important.
> 
> How would this be reflected in the fiction?  The GM's Effect determination.  If a thing seems very unlikely or out of tune, then the GM should be setting effect to Lesser or even None.  This is a fair move by the GM because the player has ways to alter the Effect by spending resources.  So, if the player in the example did try to make a painting in a normal, unhaunted manor house an occult relic for his goals, then I, as GM, could easily say that this doesn't seem very likely, but you can try -- the effect will be Lesser.  Or, if the home is owned by someone that abhors the occult, then I could say No Effect.  The player is welcome to push or trade position to force the issue, but that's running some serious risks and will only bump up the effect by a step.
> 
> Finally, let's look at the "solution" space.  Here, the task to change vices is a multi-clock effort, meaning you have multiple, complex tasks you have to accomplish that are very unlikely to be done in one go.  Here, I worked with the player, and we established what getting back into the graces of the University would look like.  The first clock -- 6 tick -- was to show that the PC could be valuable, and the second clock -- also 6 tick -- was to show that they were reliable and weren't going to slip back into their gambling habits again.  What do clocks mean, though?  They're a representation of a complex problem that can't easily be solved in one go.  The PC usually engages these clocks as Downtime Activites -- which you've read about -- and can advance them some every time, depending on the result of a roll.  The purpose of these clocks is to enact a cost (using Downtime) and a delay of gratification.  The special bit about these clocks is that they set back by two ticks every time the player would use their old vice (which he didn't have a purveyor for, but that's a simpler task).  So, at this point, the player was on the first clock, having spent 1 Downtime action to have a few ticks (I don't remember offhand, but it was not more than half-full).  This leads to the example.
> 
> In the example of play, the player is trying to use an action in the Score to improve the clock.  This is neat, as it puts the score into risk, which can have it's own entertaining fallouts.  So, here we look again at the Effect space -- a normal effect success translates into 2 ticks (lesser 1, greater 3, critical 5).  So, _at best,_ the player understood that finding this painting, constrained by the genre and fiction considerations above, would only result in some movement towards a complex goal.  This isn't a solution, it's a step in that direction, and it comes with risk.  And, in this case, that risk caught up.



Right. So now you're advocating the GM to affect the outcomes and limit the effect of players' actions based on their subjective understanding of what's appropriate. Cool.


Ovinomancer said:


> They kinda don't, though.  The only things you can do in a murder mystery of this type are discover what the GM has planned.  Sure, you have myraid ways to go about this, but this is like saying you can go to lots of different Chic-fil-a's  to get a chicken sandwich -- the end result is the same.



Well, the murderer could react to what the characters do and attempt to cover their tracks or be a serial killer so it will matter how fast they're caught. The characters could also find out who the killer is, but decide that they were justified and destroy the evidence or even frame someone else. And even if it was really simple and static affair, I'd still feel that I've more agency in a situation where there is some real mystery I can uncover using my little grey cells, instead of just making up some naughty word and rolling the dice to see whether it sticks.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Basic play loop:
> Step 1: Player proposes some fiction.
> Step 2: RNG is successful.
> Step 3: Player's proposal becomes fiction.
> 
> Regardless of what came before, the moment step 3 gets here the player has authored the fiction.  All the RNG is doing in step 2 is picking whether the player got to be the author this time around.



In my experience of playing CRPGs/games that feature dice/card games (from Hold 'em to MtG), "RNG" is invoked when the player-base feels that the "input > output" maths aren't elegant/functional, are arbitrarily swingy, and therefore drown out the signal of skill/deft play.

I think in some games, the epithet of "RNG" is warranted.  But I'm certain that is not a prominent feature of the games being invoked in this thread (even 5e with Advantage/Disadvantage...which is trivially still the swingiest game of all the games discussed in this thread).

Each game's basic play loop is going to be subtly different.  And in that process, whatever Fortune Resolution mechanic (roll 1d20 + modifier vs target number, gather and roll dice pool and take best vs spread of possible results, etc) is involved in the game will have its variability muted to whatever degree.

For Blades:

Step 1:  Player proposes fiction and states goal.
Step 2:  Say yes?  No?  Roll the dice.
Step 3:  Player chooses Action Rating.
Step 4:  Discuss Position and Effect based on circumstances and Factors.
Step 5:  Trade Position for Effect and vice versa?
Step 6:  Discuss possible fallout/Consequences.
Step 7:  Set Up?  Push?  Assistance?  Teamwork?  Group Action?  Devil's Bargain?  Flashback? 
Step 8:  From Step 3 and Step 7 gather dice pool.  Roll and consult results relative to Position and Effect.
Step 9:  Less than 6?  Consequence?
Step 10:  Anyone Protect(ing) PC from Consequence?  Resistance Roll to mitigate Consequence?
Step 11:  Mark Stress/Harm/Heat/Coin/Trauma/Clock Ticks/Rep.
Step 12:  Reframe situation according to gains and consequences and with respect to the gamestate of the Score.

Repeat.



Unsurprisingly, 4e Skill Challenges have a huge amount of overlap with the above.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So now you're advocating the GM to affect the outcomes and limit the effect of players' actions based on their subjective understanding of what's appropriate. Cool.



Yes, there's some give an take.  I see where you're going here, and you're missing that the GM isn't blocking, they're challenging.  This is very different from saying no based on your subjective understanding of the fiction.  Plus, everything is entirely player facing -- there's no notes or thoughts that haven't yet to show up but go into the evaluations.

No one's ever claimed the GM doesn't have input, they've claimed that input is player facing and tightly constrained.  You're building a strawman.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, the murderer could react to what the characters do and attempt to cover their tracks or be a serial killer so it will matter how fast they're caught.



And the GM determines this, which the players have to solve.


Crimson Longinus said:


> The characters could also find out who the killer is, but decide that they were justified and destroy the evidence or even frame someone else.



Pursuant to the GM agreeing this is possible.


Crimson Longinus said:


> And even if it was really simple and static affair, I'd still feel that I've more agency in a situation where there is some real mystery I can uncover using my little grey cells, instead of just making up some naughty word and rolling the dice to see whether it sticks.



Yes, we've determined that you prefer to solve the puzzle, but that isn't agency.  You using your ability to solve the GM's puzzle, according to the information the GM parcels out, going through the wickets the GM designs, and with the approval of the GM doesn't look much like agency, although it can be hella fun.  

Lesser agency is not a bad thing.  I will be leaning heavily into the agency restrictions that come with running 5e when I start back up next year with, of all things, an published adventure path.  I clearly don't have a problem with this -- I plan to run a very fun game and entertain everyone.  It will just have less agency than my recent Blades game.  It's no big.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I'm not looking for an argument this morning (my time), but I'm noticing there's a difference between us--especially also thinking about your post just upthread about running a mystery scenario for your family.
> 
> I've said (and I maintain) that I'm not a big fan of ratiocination-type mysteries in TRPGs, for a few reasons, but I don't think that setting up a relatively traditional mystery (who killed the merchant?) is more than framing the fiction, while you seem to consider it on the lines of a railroad if the players can't decide, e.g., who killed the merchant, as opposed to figuring it out (or not figuring it out, or being wrong).
> 
> I guess you would think that the solution to the mystery (who killed the merchant?) would best not be decided by the GM, at least not beforehand (maybe as the result of an action resolution the gave them that responsibility)?



One connotation of the word _railroading_ is that there will be multiple pre-determined scenes. In the murder mystery I described that's not quite the case, although it's fairly close to that: there's the inspection of the staterooms, the interviews with the handful of salient NPCs, etc. But unlike (say) the famous Dragonlance modules there's no story development. The situation is essentially static and the players "poke" at it with their PCs and extract information from the GM.

So (i) it lacks the motion or dynamism that might be connoted by _railroad_, and (ii) it doesn't really involve a "living, breathing world" and so in some ways is closer to classic map-and-key exploration (in my game I achieved this result by setting it on one level of a starship in jump space - so no one getting on or off - with only a handful of characters, more than half of whom were played by the players).

The whole thing was a big puzzle, and so in that sense it's all about GM agency. As I think I posted upthread, there was one point where the GM agency really came to the fore: when the PCs interviewed one of the conspirators. We were no using any mechanics, and so I just had to play her responses - but I am not an actor, and the players made it clear that they weren't sure what to make of the way I portrayed her: was it _my _bad acting, or was I portraying _her _bad acting/lying, or something else? That moment of play certainly involved deliberate GM manipulation of the situation in this sense: for reasons entirely to do with pacing and satisfactory resolution, I wanted to keep this NPC a viable suspect but not to have her crack under pressure.

Whether that counts as _railroading _isn't something I want to die in a ditch over. But in a game experience with overall low player agency, that was probably the moment at which it was lowest.

****************************************

On the bigger picture about mysteries: to me it depends in part on what the point of play is. The episode I've just described was one where the players came into it knowing it would be a murder mystery, because that's what my daughter wanted.

In my Prince Valiant game I ran the Episode from the Episode Book called the Blue Cloak. This has a mystery to it, in the sense that one of the NPCs turns out to be a ghost. Here's the actual play write-up (the three PCs are Sir Gerran, Sir Justin and Sir Morgath):



pemerton said:


> As they were getting close to Warwick, and travelling in the dark still looking for a place sheltered enough to camp without a tent, they came across a weary old man in a blue cloak. (The scenario in the Episode Book is called The Blue Cloak.) A merchant, he had been set upon by bandits who had taken his mule and his goods. He knew the game trail they had travelled down, and asked the PCs to help him. Being noble knights, of course they agreed to do so! As they travelled through the woods and down the trail, he asked about their families - learning that one was the son-in-law of the Duke of York ("What an honour to be aided by such a noble knight"), and that the other was returning to Warwick to woo the Lady Violette - and told them of his own daughter and son-in-law living in Warwick. Then, as they could hear the lusty singing of the bandits at their camp, he asked the PCs to go on without him as he was too weary to continue. The PCs were a little suspicious (as were their players) but opposed checks of his fellowship vs their Presences (even with bonus dice for suspicion) confirmed his sincerity.
> 
> The PCs approached the camp, and Sir Gerran drew his sword and called on the bandits to surrender. Their leader - wearing a very similar blue cloak to that of the merchant - was cowed, as was one other, but the third threw a clay bottle at Sir Gerran (to no effect) and then charged him sword drawn (and gaining a bonus die for knowing the lie of the land in the darkness), only to be knocked almost senseless with a single blow, resulting in his surrender also ("When I insulted you, it was the wine talking!").
> 
> The wise woman and old man, who had been waiting up the trail with the merchant, then arrived at the camp to say that the merchant had (literally) disappeared! Which caused some confusion, but they decided to sleep on it. The next morning, in the daylight, they could see that the brooch holding the bandit leader's cloak closed was identical to that which the merchant had worn. Sir Justin suggested he no doubt had multiples of his favourite cloak and fitting, but Sir Morgath had a different idea - "When you left the merchant you robbed, was he dead?" His presence roll was a poor one, and the bandits answers that the merchant fell from his mule and hit his head and died, and that they had buried him and had intended to place a cross on his grave first thing in the morning. Sir Morgath doubted this - "You didn't give him a proper burial - his ghost came to us last night!" - and I allowed a second presence check with a bonus but it still failed, and the bandits simply muttered protestations of innocence under their breaths.
> 
> Sir Justin received a vision from St Sigobert, and by plunging his dagger into the ground at the head of the grave was able to sanctify the ground. A cross was then placed there, and the group returned to Warwick with their bandit prisoners and returned the merchant's goods to his daughter.



In this episode of play, there is first an extended period of framing and free back-and-forth narration: meeting the merchant, agreeing to help him, coming upon the lustily-singing bandits.

Then there is an action declaration - Presence vs Fellowship (in Apocalypse World this might be _*read a person*_ or _*read a charged situation*_) - which does not produce any additional insight into the mystery: the framing remains essentially unchanged.

Then there is some more framing - the bandits and the cloak - and action declarations, to cow and beat down the bandits. These succeed.

Then there is yet more framing, established via narration from two NPCs (the old man and the wise woman) - the merchant has disappeared, it's morning, not only is there a duplicate cloak but it has a duplicate broach.

This finally leads to more action declaration: the bandits are interrogated but don't confess, there is the vision - I don't remember now whether there was a check of some sort, or if it was free GM narration, but my best guess would be that it was some sort of Presence check - and then the sanctification of the ground (that was probably "say 'yes'" following a check for the vision).

The return to Warwick is freely-narrated denouement.

By looking at the action declarations we can see what was the point of play: defeating the bandits and trying to get them to confess, and sanctifying their hasty burial of the merchant. There are no exploration-oriented action declarations aimed at solving the mystery. All the information needed to solve the mystery is provided in the framing exposition.

How might the situation have resolved differently, had some of the checks been different? The bandits might have confessed and been taken on as servants by the PCs. The ground might not have been sanctified and so a haunting of the PCs could have continued or perhaps their conversion of the wise woman from paganism (which had happened earlier in the same session) might have been undone. What is at stake is not _the mystery as such_ but these relationships between the PCs, the NPCs, their faith, etc.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> to me it sounds that your murder mystery would have pretty decent amount of agency, though of course being a limited situation with singular focus it is not near the highest possible amount. But the player's actions matter here, they can actually deduce things. There is not even dice, so all that matters is their real skills. What would render all that pointless, if the players would be able to accuse one person, use their master detective attribute, and if they rolled well enough that person would be the guilty one. Sure, that would be a type of agency, but having that sort of agency would render actual detective work and decisions related to that pointless. So yea, this is exactly how having one type of agency lessens another type of agency, and ultimately it is about what type you prefer having. That is literally what this whole thread is about: people being unable to recognise this.



I've been talking about puzzle-solving from pretty much the beginning of the thread. And I believe am the only person to actually post an example of actual play of that sort of game. So I wouldn't agree that this is something that has not been recognised.

What's at issue is whether it involves player agency. As I've posted, it uses much the same skill set as solving a crossword or the book The Eleventh Hour. (I don't know about the US, but in Australia the recruitment notices for our domestic spy service literally suggest being good at solving crosswords as one of the indicators of aptitude to join ASIO.)

In a RPG, this sort of puzzle-solving ability can be deployed by the players in a pure railroad. There are choose-your-own-adventure and Fighting Fantasy books that use this sort of ability. It is not any sort of agency in respect of the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations?  I think it can.



Well of course you're free to use the word _framing _however you like.

But in the way I'm using it, which I believe is fairly standard in the context of describing scene framing in RPGing, "framing" is just that: establishing some fiction which provides a context for further action declaration.

On its own that clearly _cannot _give rise to a railroad. I can't conceive of a framed situation that only permits one reasonable action declaration.

To get a railroad you have to also build in as-yet-unrevealed elements of the fiction that will lead to certain actions being unsuccessful.

Here's a simple example: the GM tells the players _you're set upon by a band of marauding Orcs_.

At the barest minimum the players can choose to have their PCs fight, or surrender. Surrendering is an unreasonable option only if the GM has already decided - unilaterally - that these Orcs grant no quarter. Fighting is an unreasonable option only if the GM has already decided - unilaterallly - that these Orcs cannot be defeated in combat by the PCs.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, there's some give an take.  I see where you're going here, and you're missing that the GM isn't blocking, they're challenging.  This is very different from saying no based on your subjective understanding of the fiction.  Plus, everything is entirely player facing -- there's no notes or thoughts that haven't yet to show up but go into the evaluations.
> 
> No one's ever claimed the GM doesn't have input, they've claimed that input is player facing and tightly constrained.  You're building a strawman.



The thing is it is all a difference of degree, not of kind. The GM saying 'no' or just stacking the deck against certain thing are both variations of the same thing, the former just is more obvious. And of course in any RPG, there are situations where someone has to say 'no' be it the GM or other players collectively going 'no silly.' Some things simply are impossible/too stupid/genre inappropriate. And again, of course in any RPG the GM is there to challenge the players, and not just lord over them with their 'unlimited GM authority.' I really don't think it is me who is building strawmen here.



Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, we've determined that you prefer to solve the puzzle, but that isn't agency.  You using your ability to solve the GM's puzzle, according to the information the GM parcels out, going through the wickets the GM designs, and with the approval of the GM doesn't look much like agency, although it can be hella fun.
> 
> Lesser agency is not a bad thing.  I will be leaning heavily into the agency restrictions that come with running 5e when I start back up next year with, of all things, an published adventure path.  I clearly don't have a problem with this -- I plan to run a very fun game and entertain everyone.  It will just have less agency than my recent Blades game.  It's no big.



Well, I am not going to agree that actually solving a mystery is a lesser agency state than getting to roll the dice to see whether you get to invent a solution to a mystery.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Going to use this post to discuss Framing and Consequences and try to put together a post that will help you understand why the bold word here is a category error and why there was no violation of The Czege Principle.
> 
> The word you should be using is *propose*.  Author means fiat.  You're stipulating a thing without resistance or recourse to dispute it.  That is NOT what is happening in this case.  The player is making a proposition and we're going to the dice to find out if (a) that proposition turns out to be a solution to his problem or (b) something else.





FrogReaver said:


> Basic play loop:
> Step 1: Player proposes some fiction.
> Step 2: RNG is successful.
> Step 3: Player's proposal becomes fiction.
> 
> Regardless of what came before, the moment step 3 gets here the player has authored the fiction.  All the RNG is doing in step 2 is picking whether the player got to be the author this time around.



That's not a very good account of the basic play loop of a player-agency-supporting RPG, because it assumes what is false, namely, that checks always succeed.

Here's a better account (it's more generic than @Manbearcat's because not particular to any single mechanical framework):

Step 0: GM frames situation
Step 1: Player declares action for his/her PC - this is a proposal for a change/addition to the fiction as it pertains to the protagonist PC
Step 2a: Either everyone at the table goes along with the player, in which case we're back at Step 0 with the framing further developed, or someone - typically the GM but maybe another player - calls for a check.
Step 2b: Whether by express GM explanation at this point (or perhaps explanation from another player if they are the one who forced the check), or whether it is implicit in the fiction as established so far, there is a sense of what will happen if the check fails.
Step 2c: The check is resolved using the appropriate mechanical process.
Step 3: Depending on the way the resolution panned out, the fiction changes in one of the following ways: the fiction contains the player's proposal; the fiction contains the player's proposal plus some of what had been flagged as a consequence of failure; the fiction contains only the consequence of failure. Whatever the nature of the change, we're now back at Step 0.

This is consistent with [urlk=[URL]http://www.lumpley.com/hardcore.html]Vincent[/URL] Baker's observation[/url] that I've already quoted once or twice in this thread:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​
Different mechanical systems produce different versions of Step 3 (ie how do different resolution systems lead to that range of possibilities being actualised in game play?). They also produce different sorts of pacing and dynamics (ie how often do the protagonists succeed at all, or completely?)

What they have in common, in these sorts of RPGs, is that they allow player proposals to become part of the fiction without any capacity for the GM to "block" that by relying on hitherto-unrevealed, unilaterally-established components of the fiction.

And to relate this to the Czege Principle: the player is not both posing the challenge and authoring the solution. The GM contribute to framing (see Step 0) and another participant has established the adversity (see Step 2). The player is not just free-narrating his/her way through the fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I am not going to agree that actually solving a mystery is a lesser agency state than getting to roll the dice to see whether you get to invent a solution to a mystery.



Do you have an example of a RPG that works like that?

What is the action declaration you are envisaging? What resolution process?

I think you're just making this stuff up.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> I've been talking about puzzle-solving from pretty much the beginning of the thread. And I believe am the only person to actually post an example of actual play of that sort of game. So I wouldn't agree that this is something that has not been recognised.
> 
> What's at issue is whether it involves player agency. As I've posted, it uses much the same skill set as solving a crossword or the book The Eleventh Hour. (I don't know about the US, but in Australia the recruitment notices for our domestic spy service literally suggest being good at solving crosswords as one of the indicators of aptitude to join ASIO.)
> 
> In a RPG, this sort of puzzle-solving ability can be deployed by the players in a pure railroad. There are choose-your-own-adventure and Fighting Fantasy books that use this sort of ability. It is not any sort of agency in respect of the shared fiction.




Well, I think that even solving crosswords involves agency, although in super limited degree. But your choices matter in a sense that if you make wrong ones you fail to solve the bloody thing. But I really don't think a good mystery RPG is comparable. Yes, there might effectively be one 'correct answer' in the end, but there is so much more. As they say, it is the journey that matters, not the destination. There are simply so many differnt ways one can arrive to a conclusion, so many differnt ways that the characters can attempt to gain information. And if the GM has the starting situation clearly designed, they can reasonably adjudicate anything the players might come up. I was in a murder mystery LARP a while ago, and... well, it was not a crossword. I wish I could recall things with sufficient to clarity to describe how it went down, but I simply cannot, there was so many moving bits interacting with each other. Everybody had their own skeletons in their closets, a lot of clues, misunderstandings, screaming, personal drama, pressure to solve the thing before the victim's mafioso father arrives and kills us all. I certainly wouldn't describe it as linear, predictable or as a low agency affair.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Do you have an example of a RPG that works like that?
> 
> What is the action declaration you are envisaging? What resolution process?
> 
> I think you're just making this stuff up.



The painting example was that. The player needed the thing for their backstory, and by asking whether a random thing they latched on could be the thing they needed they got to roll a check on whether it was.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> The thing is it is all a difference of degree, not of kind. The GM saying 'no' or just stacking the deck against certain thing are both variations of the same thing, the former just is more obvious. And of course in any RPG, there are situations where someone has to say 'no' be it the GM or other players collectively going 'no silly.' Some things simply are impossible/too stupid/genre inappropriate. And again, of course in any RPG the GM is there to challenge the players, and not just lord over them with their 'unlimited GM authority.' I really don't think it is me who is building strawmen here.



I'm at a loss, honestly, that you can say that the GM setting an Effect without saying no is the same as saying no.  The only way you could think this is if you utterly ignored the way that the Blades player can overcome an Effect setting and instead substituted your understanding of  D&D where the GM's call on this is absolute.  Which is kinda funny, in a way.

And, no, I'm not at all assuming bad faith on a D&D GM.  What I do know is that if they don't think there's a use to the portrait, they don't just charge a cost to see what it's worth to the PC, they say no.  This is good play in that paradigm.  It is also reducing the player's agency.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Well, I am not going to agree that actually solving a mystery is a lesser agency state than getting to roll the dice to see whether you get to invent a solution to a mystery.



I wouldn't either -- and, as I've said so many times this thread, maybe you should consider that because I agree with you, here.  Your shallow understanding of the Blades play loop is leading you to create strawmen.  That and you need to win the argument that your game has as much agency as a different game, when that's not a thing to be worried about.  It's like pointing out that Blades doesn't have and d20s -- the question is why and how that works, not that not having a d20 makes it a poorer game.

EDIT:  my grammar seems to be suffering more than usual, today.  I blame the cold meds.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm at a loss, honestly, that you can say that the GM setting an Effect without saying no is the same as saying no.



Both are ways for the GM to push things towards their desired outcome.



Ovinomancer said:


> The only way you could think this is if you utterly ignored the way that the Blades player can overcome an Effect setting and instead substituted your understanding of  D&D where the GM's call on this is absolute.  Which is kinda funny, in a way.
> 
> And, no, I'm not at all assuming bad faith on a D&D GM.  What I do know is that if they don't think there's a use to the portrait, they don't just charge a cost to see what it's worth to the PC, they say no.  This is good play in that paradigm.  It is also reducing the player's agency.



You just seem going back and worth with this. When I said that in Blades the player can just insert their desired solution when they want and roll for it, you countered that with 'no they can't because GM can do this and that.' And if the GM can do that, then the GM can push the game in their desired direction. And if they can't my first observation stands. So which is it?



Ovinomancer said:


> I wouldn't either -- and, as I've said so many times this thread, maybe you should consider that because I agree with you, here.  Your shallow understanding of the Blades play loop is leading you to create strawmen.  That and you need to win the argument that your game has as much agency as a different game, when that's not a thing to be worried about.  It's like pointing out that Blades doesn't have and d20s -- the question is why and how that works, not that not having a d20 makes it a poorer game.
> 
> EDIT:  my grammar seems to be suffering more than usual, today.  I blame the cold meds.




Ultimately you don't seem to get that, having narrative power over the setting reduces the ability to be surprised, to explore and make meaningful decisions against that setting. That's not a bad thing in itself and there are various differnt ways this can be balanced, but it is always a trade off. Now if agency just mean 'authority to decide a thing' then yes, Blades probably would have more player agency than more traditional games. But if agency means 'ability to make meaningful choices' then I am not at all sure that it does.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Both are ways for the GM to push things towards their desired outcome.



What outcome do I desire in noting that a spontaneous player ask doesn't fit the current fiction well enough to get a normal effect?  You're spinning, here, ignoring things to make a claim that is unsupported by the evidence.  For one, I cannot anticipate that a player would make the ask when framing the situation that the players chose for the score (location).  Second, I can't block or prevent, all I can do is increase the cost and there only if it fits the open fictional situation at the table.  In other words, everything I'm make my decision on is known to the table and should be obvious to all.  How this lets me push things to a desired outcome (which I can't even guess what it will be at this point because I don't have the action to tell what could happen on a success or failure) is beyond me.


Crimson Longinus said:


> You just seem going back and worth with this. When I said that in Blades the player can just insert their desired solution when they want and roll for it, you countered that with 'no they can't because GM can do this and that.' And if the GM can do that, then the GM can push the game in their desired direction. And if they can't my first observation stands. So which is it?



That's not what I said at all.  I said that they have to fit the genre, and fit the fiction.  If it doesn't fit the genre, the table will say no, and we need to have an out-of-game discussion about this -- does the player not want to play within the genre, is there a misunderstanding, is there passive-aggressive stuff that needs to stop right now?  If it doesn't fit the fiction, then the cost goes up to try it.  Then there's a check.  And then, the "solution" is likely just a step in the direction of a solution rather than the end itself.  I mean, you did read what I wrote, yes?

And, the dichotomy you're presenting is false.  The player can't just whistle up a solution to any problem and roll some dice and get it AND the GM can't easily or secretly direct play.  The easily part means it would require a sustained effort by someone gifted in manipulation to do so, because they'd have to engage social engineering approaches -- the game's not going to help them.  This is bad behavior outside the game, so it's ridiculous to pin it on the system.  The secretly part is the one that most impossible -- everything in the game is in the open and accessible to all.  If you can't convince the players to ask for it for you (the manipulation part), then it's going to be obvious what's happening.  Just like it's obvious when a player asks for something unsupported by the fiction, it's obvious when a GM starts narrating outcomes similarly.

The worst manipulation the GM can do is soft-pedal things.  They can let off the adversity hose and say "yes" more often, or not pay off threatened consequences on a failure.  But this isn't driving an outcome so much as it is just trying to be nice to players.  You still can't get a preferred outcome over time, you're just letting the PCs off easy when you shouldn't.  And, to be fair, this is a hard part of GMing a game like Blades -- you have to keep pouring it on if it's the result.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately you don't seem to get that, having narrative power over the setting reduces the ability to be surprised, to explore and make meaningful decisions against that setting. That's not a bad thing in itself and there are various differnt ways this can be balanced, but it is always a trade off. Now if agency just mean 'authority to decide a thing' then yes, Blades probably would have more player agency than more traditional games. But if agency means 'ability to make meaningful choices' then I am not at all sure that it does.



LOL, I thought this, too, but I have more surprising in my Blades game than in my D&D games -- because the surprises are surprises to everyone at the table, not just to the players.  You're wildly incorrect.  And, no, agency doesn't mean authority, although they are related.  Having authority over a thing may come with agency, but only if it matters to the game.  Having authority to choose to act in-character, for instance, is authority, but not player agency.  It's agency in the real world, but not in the game.  This is because it doesn't impact the gamestate at all, just your fellow players at the table, in the social space.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Ovinomancer it just sounds like the person who can justify their naughty word the best will get their way. So instead of convincing the GM or trying to work within the fictional reality you need to convince your fellow players that the random item you chose is genre appropriately something that could potentially interest the university (not a hard thing to do as the need was so unspecific.) And yes, this is intentionally uncharitable in the same way as you describe GM directed games. 

Oh, and your definition of 'gamestate' still remains incoherent and arbitrary. 'Elf is sad' and 'door is locked' are both equally valid 'gamestates'.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer it just sounds like the person who can justify their naughty word the best will get their way. So instead of convincing the GM or trying to work within the fictional reality you need to convince your fellow players that the random item you chose is genre appropriately something that could potentially interest the university (not a hard thing to do as the need was so unspecific.) And yes, this is intentionally uncharitable in the same way as you describe GM directed games.
> 
> Oh, and your definition of 'gamestate' still remains incoherent and arbitrary. 'Elf is sad' and 'door is locked' are both equally valid 'gamestates'.



I don't know what you're imagining, but it doesn't look like anything I've been talking about.  You're imagining bad faith -- that a player wants to manipulate or abuse the game is some way.  This is saying that dealing with jerks is the system's problem, and that's just silly.  If the player wants to abuse the game, this is a problem in any system.  In fact, the behavior you're citing here is only one you are pointing out because the default response in a D&D game is for the GM to use the system to handle it -- by saying no.  You're citing the GM's authority to curtail agency as a primary way to deal with jerk players trying to manipulate the system in some way.  A system, by the way, that makes this amazingly obvious to all of the other players rather than leave it up to the GM to nope.

As for gamestate, I agree 100% that "Elf is sad," and, "door is locked," are both equally valid gamestates.  I invite you, once again, to reconcile this with whatever you imagine I think.  I'll provide a hint:  "elf is sad," requires exactly as much in-character action as "door is locked" -- which is to say none.  You do, in D&D, usually have the agency to declare your elf is sad, but in-character acting is orthogonal to this, not an enabler.


----------



## hawkeyefan

I’d love to see some examples of play that are from some of the systems that folks are saying have high agency. I can post plenty of examples from my 5E game, but I’d like to see others. 

Instead of endlessly attacking examples of other games in an attempt to prove they don’t have as much agency as their proponents are saying, post some of your own play examples to highlight how your chosen games do promote agency for the players. And I mean actual examples of play, detailed as some of the others that have been shared here. Please no hypotheticals. 

I invite @Crimson Longinus and @FrogReaver to be the first to share, please.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I’d love to see some examples of play that are from some of the systems that folks are saying have high agency. I can post plenty of examples from my 5E game, but I’d like to see others.
> 
> Instead of endlessly attacking examples of other games in an attempt to prove they don’t have as much agency as their proponents are saying, post some of your own play examples to highlight how your chosen games do promote agency for the players. And I mean actual examples of play, detailed as some of the others that have been shared here. Please no hypotheticals.
> 
> I invite @Crimson Longinus and @FrogReaver to be the first to share, please.



I invite anyone interested to pull anything from either of the two campaigns in my sig, if you want to talk about those. Those notes are my wife's--she's a player in both campaigns--and she records what happens more than the mechanics involved, so some might find them unsuited to the need.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I invite anyone interested to pull anything from either of the two campaigns in my sig, if you want to talk about those. Those notes are my wife's--she's a player in both campaigns--and she records what happens more than the mechanics involved, so some might find them unsuited to the need.



Yeah, unfortunately it's presented as a journal -- no play interactions are noted.  It's not really useful to analyze for moments of agency.

And this is true of any game memorialized this way -- a similar journal about my Blades game would be as opaque to the topic of discussion, although probably an interesting read.  I have a burgeoning novelist in my group -- a few books in the self-published community -- but, sadly, she doesn't choose to take such notes, preferring to just play.  She takes notes for herself, but not to formalize like this.  Actually, you know what, I've never seen her notes, so maybe she does?


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, unfortunately it's presented as a journal -- no play interactions are noted.  It's not really useful to analyze for moments of agency.



Agreed. Focused differently, so differently detailed. Not great for analyzing agency; superb for helping the DM remain consistent.

Also, it amuses me how a page and a half of prep turns into 9 pages of in-play notes.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Ultimately you don't seem to get that, having narrative power over the setting reduces the ability to be surprised, to explore and make meaningful decisions against that setting.



This is an empirical conjecture. As someone who has relevant experience, I can report that it is false.

Here are two examples, both from my BW game: I was surprised by what Thurgon and Aramina found in Evard's tower (letters suggesting that Evard was Thurgon's grandfather; crates of low-grade metal components (rods, bolts, screws etc) in the basement); and was surprised to see the terrible state Rufus was in when Thurgon and Aramina encountered him in Auxol.



Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer it just sounds like the person who can justify their naughty word the best will get their way. So instead of convincing the GM or trying to work within the fictional reality you need to convince your fellow players that the random item you chose is genre appropriately something that could potentially interest the university (not a hard thing to do as the need was so unspecific.)



This doesn't seem like a very accurate description of play. There's no "convincing fellow players" - there's just declaring actions for your PC. You seem to look at action declaration through the lens of _should the GM allow this? _or _is it just bullshitting?_ A lens of worries about <something, I'm not 100% sure> and hence the need for these GM-enforced constraints. @Lanefan seems to look through a similar lens.

Once the focus of play moves from _solving the GM's mystery_ to _seeing how these characters develop - what choices do they make, and what happens to them?_ then all those worries can be let go.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I invite anyone interested to pull anything from either of the two campaigns in my sig, if you want to talk about those. Those notes are my wife's--she's a player in both campaigns--and she records what happens more than the mechanics involved, so some might find them unsuited to the need.



I posted this in a thread earlier this year, in response to your post:



pemerton said:


> I read the first page closely and skimmed the next five. It doesn't record anything about the procedures of play, so I can't tell for sure. What follows is conjecture based on your accounts upthread of how you approach RPGs.
> 
> My understanding from the list of Dramatis Personae is that the GM was playing the child Turlk and that a player was playing the character Joybell. I therefore conjecture that the player decided what questions Joybell asked Turlk, and that the GM made all the decisions about what Turlk said in response.
> 
> Two phrases stood out in particular on that first page: _we can’t glean from that where they’re from_ and _we have no way of knowing where their village was_. My guess, reinforced by your reply to @Ovinomancer, would be that this ignorance of the relevant elements of the fiction resulted from the GM making unilateral decisions about what Turlk knew and was able to convey.
> 
> If my guesses are correct then yes, this looks like RPGing-as-puzzle-solving, and I would say that the GM had almost all the agency in respect of the content of the shared fiction.
> 
> This impression is reinforced by a quick look at p 2, where another character who appears to be a NPC controlled by the GM - Jorly - provides information about the Cracked Shield tribe. This then appears to shape the next sequence of play - "We headed off to the Cracked Shields".
> 
> Reading on: while it's not clear, I gather that the GM made all the decisions about the compound and the elder called Rask. And decided to provide the players with information about The Masks. The sense of play involving solving puzzles is reinforced by this bit at the bottom of p 4: "We recognized those as Vicious Mockery and Toll the Dead -- which means psychic and necrotic damage. That confirms what Barnett told us about necrotic damage being good against them"
> 
> Then, very similar to @Lanefan's hypothetical upthread, we have a description of a street which I assume was all decided by the GM. Thus it would be the GM who established that the street has no place "at all helpful for Fiona and Orryk hanging out for a couple of hours and observing the place."
> 
> On page 6 we are told about "one of the most important conversations of Joybell’s life". This all appears to be driven by the GM - eg the idea of "vendetta" which I gather is the crux of it seems to come from a NPC being played unilaterally by the GM.
> 
> I didn't read the remaining 10 pages. The consistency of what appeared to be going on in the first 6 pages suggests that they are representative enough.



To me it seems that most of the fiction and trajectory of play is coming from the GM.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> To me it seems that most of the fiction and trajectory of play is coming from the GM.



As you put it earlier: This is not, at this point, something I want to die in a ditch over; I did, however, make the offer, so here goes (from I hope a much less angry place than I was in a few months ago):

I agree that the setting and the NPCs come from the DM.

I disagree that the trajectory comes from the DM. Everything arose from decisions the PCs made, right to their being in Pelsoreen. I might have mentioned earlier: They were kinda at loose ends, and found out an allied NPC where they were knew of teleportation circles and was willing to move them around; the players asked if they could go to Pelsoreen--which was not on my list of places they could go, but which it made no sense to be unavailable.

I should probably get my notes--though I don't expect you make a lot of distinction between "DM decides beforehand" and "DM decides on the spot" (I expect the "DM decides" part is what matters to you).

I think that some of what you describe in your earlier post as "RPG-ing as puzzle-solving" was the DM providing information to the players. I specifically remember wanting to make sure the PCs knew about the Masked Ones' weaknesses before encountering them. I occurs to me that when you say that, you usually mean the DM is the puzzle, not that there's a literal puzzle in the fiction.

I had placed the Cracked Shields in Pelsoreen--they're in my notes. OTOH, they came up because the PCs asked Jorly about them; had the PCs not asked, I would have put them in a pocket--either for some future thing in Pelsoreen or to use elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure I don't believe the DM figuring a small child wouldn't be able to place his village on a map, and really having a pretty naive outlook in general removes player agency. It seems as though you think a player should have been able to roll to see whether Turlk knew geography? That doesn't seem right, and I have a feeling I'm misunderstanding something and therefore violently misstating your meaning--apologies, if so.

The temple of The Joyful had been established as existing the previous session (I think). The info-dump the PCs got about the orcs ... yeah, that was DM stuff.

Deciding Rask (leader of the Cracked Shields) didn't like the Masked Ones--DM decision; likewise, what comes up later about members of the tribe having a vendetta against the Masked Ones. The decision to recruit the Cracked Shields to fight the Masked Ones, though--that was the players, all the way.

Oh--the Masked Ones themselves: When Joybell's player decided her village had been wiped out, I asked her to describe the ones who did the wiping as Masked Ones; she could have said no--it was just an idea I had that was actually about stuff that showed up later when the PCs went and destroyed the Masked Ones' Forge.

I'm pretty sure the decision to go to Black Irnod was on the PCs; I controlled him as an NPC, I'll grant. I expect that since that was freely roleplayed, you probably don't think the PCs had any particular agency, there.

The bit where party members tried to do stealthy/sneaky/con-artist things in the House of Masks: There were actual mechanics involved, there (let's not turn this into a discussion of Stealth in 5E, eh?). It just happened that the hive-mind things had all sorts of advantages (as well as Advantage) on Perception checks. It occurs to me that this might be an instance you don't object to the DM narrating events, since the PCs didn't win that particular contest?

The fight between the party (with help from the Cracked Shields) against the Masked Ones was a D&D 5E fight. I expect you think such fights have a given amount of agency, and that this one is no different.

If I've misstated your positions somewhere above, I plead ignorance; I intend no offense.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I’d love to see some examples of play that are from some of the systems that folks are saying have high agency. I can post plenty of examples from my 5E game, but I’d like to see others.
> 
> Instead of endlessly attacking examples of other games in an attempt to prove they don’t have as much agency as their proponents are saying, post some of your own play examples to highlight how your chosen games do promote agency for the players. And I mean actual examples of play, detailed as some of the others that have been shared here. Please no hypotheticals.
> 
> I invite @Crimson Longinus and @FrogReaver to be the first to share, please.



I assume everyone is somewhat familiar with at least some flavor of D&D, so I'm not really sure how posting D&D play examples helps anything.  What do you hope this exercise adds to this discussion?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I assume everyone is somewhat familiar with at least some flavor of D&D, so I'm not really sure how posting D&D play examples helps anything.  What do you hope this exercise adds to this discussion?




A few things, I suppose, though I don’t think any examples must be from D&D. Any game that you think is similar in approach to D&D would do.

Sharing such actual play examples will show how agency is distributed in the game and how its processes are handled. It’ll give us something concrete to discuss instead of the hypotheticals that are offered in these discussions. Hypotheticals can be useful from time to time (I’ve offered plenty myself in this thread) but I think actual play examples are what’s needed, given the analysis that we seem to be looking for. 

Also, as you pointed out, most of us are at least somewhat familiar with D&D and the approach that most of its versions use. That’d likely be good for the discussion. 

Additionally, I just think it’d be a useful exercise. To actually sit down and think about your own play and scrutinize it as you have others’, and see if it’s actually working the way you intend it to work and the way you describe it here. 

And finally, the level of detail from actual play that has been offered by several posters here has been engaging. It would be good to have more of that, with some different kinds of games in mind.


----------



## Lanefan

Aldarc said:


> I suspect, however, that players are not advised in your games to play their characters like stolen cars.



Most of the time such advice simply isn't necessary; lack of balls-nuts gonzo is rarely a problem here.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Don't particularly want to turn this into a 4e thread and I'm somewhat surprised you're asking this because we've had this discussion many times before (and I'm certain you've been in them).



If this discussion's been had recently, I'm pretty sure I stayed out of it.  If you're talking about discussions from 10+ years ago when 4e was new, I've - perhaps mercifully - forgotten them. 


Manbearcat said:


> But to refresh your memory (and anyone else who might care why 4e doesn't have the Spellcaster problem):
> 
> * All Classes are on the same, unified resource schedule scheme (AEDU).  Character resources no longer have power discrepancy and refresh discrepancy that the game must be awkwardly balanced around (which introduces all of the other things like Magical Arms/Races, Rock/Paper/Scissors, and Calvinball GMing to block spellcasters).
> 
> * The most powerful Spells in classic D&D are siloed to Rituals.  Rituals are (a) costly, (b) everyone has access to them, (c) they aren't usable in combat except very specific situations, and (d) they're almost exclusively a tool for either (i) reframing and/or transitioning scenes (as 4e is a scene-based game) or (ii) to invoke the fictional positioning necessary to allow for a Skill Challenge (to open up a scene that would otherwise be presently unavailable to the players).
> 
> * Everyone can get access to the Skill Arcana.
> 
> * The game is fully scene-based and Noncombat Conflict Resolution is the organized like Clocks in World/Forged in the Dark games or the Conflict mechanics of Mouse Guard et al.  The Skill Challenge is a scene with an inherent dramatic arc and discrete gamestate moments that follows pretty much the exact same indie GMing ethos that is being espoused in this thread; play to find out, say yes or roll the dice, follow the fiction, follow the players lead (and react), genre logic, change the situation (after each moment of action resolution), and fail forward.  The framework, the maths, and the GMing ethos means that Martial answers to gamestate problems are just as potent and reliable as Arcane/Divine/Primal answeres to gamestate problems.



Now you're reminding me of all the factors what turned me away from 4e!


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> The player can't just whistle up a solution to any problem and roll some dice and get it



Perhaps not; but these various posts often read as though the player can whistle up a solution to any problem and then roll some dice and *try* to get it.

And if the dice come out good, the player does get it; and I think this might be what @FrogReaver is talking about...?


Ovinomancer said:


> The worst manipulation the GM can do is soft-pedal things.  They can let off the adversity hose and say "yes" more often, or not pay off threatened consequences on a failure.  But this isn't driving an outcome so much as it is just trying to be nice to players.  You still can't get a preferred outcome over time, you're just letting the PCs off easy when you shouldn't.  And, to be fair, this is a hard part of GMing a game like Blades -- you have to keep pouring it on if it's the result.



Does Blades support a GM killing off PCs?  'Cause if so, there's a limit to how hard you can pour it on unless you're after a TPK... 

I can see how this would be a tricky balancing act, and probably take some trial-and-error to get right.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, unfortunately it's presented as a journal -- no play interactions are noted.  It's not really useful to analyze for moments of agency.



Yeah, I rarely make note of game mechanical stuff in my game logs unless it's spectacular, and then only as a side note e.g. one entry from years ago where a low-level Elf (with 75% sleep resistance) was getting hit by repeated sleep spells:



			
				Decast Game Log said:
			
		

> A magic-user twice puts all to sleep except Althaire (_who made her resistance rolls by 3% and then 2%, with failure on either meaning end of Party_) who kills him off.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This doesn't seem like a very accurate description of play. There's no "convincing fellow players" - there's just declaring actions for your PC.



Given that it seems other players, as well as the GM, can call for a check then you need to convince your fellow players, along with the GM, that there isn't a need for one; in order to be 100% sure of getting your way. 


pemerton said:


> You seem to look at action declaration through the lens of _should the GM allow this? _or _is it just bullshitting?_ A lens of worries about <something, I'm not 100% sure> and hence the need for these GM-enforced constraints. @Lanefan seems to look through a similar lens.
> 
> Once the focus of play moves from _solving the GM's mystery_ to _seeing how these characters develop - what choices do they make, and what happens to them?_ then all those worries can be let go.



Let go, or merely replaced by different worries?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Perhaps not; but these various posts often read as though the player can whistle up a solution to any problem and then roll some dice and *try* to get it.
> 
> And if the dice come out good, the player does get it; and I think this might be what @FrogReaver is talking about...?



There's a difference between leveraging the fiction and just whistling things up.


> Does Blades support a GM killing off PCs?  'Cause if so, there's a limit to how hard you can pour it on unless you're after a TPK...



The concept of a TPK is part of D&D style play.  Could it happen that all PCs die in a score?  Surr, but that is astronomically unlikely given how things play out.  Besides, death is rarely the worst thing that can happen.


> I can see how this would be a tricky balancing act, and probably take some trial-and-error to get right.



I don't "balance" anything.  There's no "right" amount of softballing.  My job is to be the firehose of advesity, and the game works at its best when I am.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> In my experience of playing CRPGs/games that feature dice/card games (from Hold 'em to MtG), "RNG" is invoked when the player-base feels that the "input > output" maths aren't elegant/functional, are arbitrarily swingy, and therefore drown out the signal of skill/deft play.
> 
> I think in some games, the epithet of "RNG" is warranted.  But I'm certain that is not a prominent feature of the games being invoked in this thread (even 5e with Advantage/Disadvantage...which is trivially still the swingiest game of all the games discussed in this thread).



What I have seen in computer games is a loud vocal minority of players advocating for the removal of the RNG from games they like on the basis that the RNG takes away from skilled play which is pretty similar to your description above.

But still, a random number generator (RNG) is an actual thing.  Labeling something that is a random number generator as an RNG isn't an epithet against it.  It's literally just an identification of what it is.  A dice is an RNG.

And I will add, focusing on me calling it an RNG as if that was somehow meant derogatory (despite my known preference for D&D and all the RNG used in D&D games) really misses the point of what that post was about - and it was a very important point.  Does gating authorship behind a mechanic that relies on chance (RNG) mean that it's no longer authorship?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

FrogReaver said:


> But still, a random number generator (RNG) is an actual thing.  Labeling something that is a random number generator as an RNG isn't an epithet against it.  It's literally just an identification of what it is.  A dice is an RNG.



Yes. And that's how I meant it. It was a description.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Each game's basic play loop is going to be subtly different.  And in that process, whatever Fortune Resolution mechanic (roll 1d20 + modifier vs target number, gather and roll dice pool and take best vs spread of possible results, etc) is involved in the game will have its variability muted to whatever degree.
> 
> For Blades:
> 
> Step 1:  Player proposes fiction and states goal.
> Step 2:  Say yes?  No?  Roll the dice.
> Step 3:  Player chooses Action Rating.
> Step 4:  Discuss Position and Effect based on circumstances and Factors.
> Step 5:  Trade Position for Effect and vice versa?
> Step 6:  Discuss possible fallout/Consequences.
> Step 7:  Set Up?  Push?  Assistance?  Teamwork?  Group Action?  Devil's Bargain?  Flashback?
> Step 8:  From Step 3 and Step 7 gather dice pool.  Roll and consult results relative to Position and Effect.
> Step 9:  Less than 6?  Consequence?
> Step 10:  Anyone Protect(ing) PC from Consequence?  Resistance Roll to mitigate Consequence?
> Step 11:  Mark Stress/Harm/Heat/Coin/Trauma/Clock Ticks/Rep.
> Step 12:  Reframe situation according to gains and consequences and with respect to the gamestate of the Score.
> 
> Repeat.
> 
> 
> 
> Unsurprisingly, 4e Skill Challenges have a huge amount of overlap with the above.



Surely you can see my step 1 and 2 is essentially the same as your step 1 and 2 - the only difference being I chose the play loop branch where the dice were rolled and came up as a success because that's the particular part of the play loop I wanted to examine.

My step 3 is also essentially the same as your step 12.  For the purposes of examining authorship on a successful role my play loop is alot more concise and to the point.  Maybe a more accurate description of what I provided is a play loop branch as opposed to the full play loop as I'm just looking at the branch of the loop where the RNG shows success.   I'm not saying your full play loop isn't useful to have - it is, but it doesn't contradict what I posted, it's just far more detailed.  Some might say overly detailed for the point I was bringing up.  

That point being - authorship that's gated behind an RNG is still authorship when the RNG shows success.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Does Blades support a GM killing off PCs? 'Cause if so, there's a limit to how hard you can pour it on unless you're after a TPK...




If lethality is the only drawback that a GM can come up with, then this may be true. But Blades allows for many and various consequences beyond just the threat of death.

But yes, PCs can die or otherwise be removed from play permanently. The first way is for the PC to be hit with Level 4 Harm, which is lethal. However, the player can resist this and reduce the harm to Level 3, at the potential cost of some Stress. Level 3 still largely removes the PC from the action, and is likely to linger a while, but it’s not lethal. 

But, if a PC accumulates 9 Stress, then they are also out of the action for this score, and they take a Trauma. This is a permanent tag that marks them in some way (for example Haunted, Unbalanced, Paranoid). Traumas actually offer additional ways for PCs to earn XP by the player invoking them to complicate things for themselves or the crew, so they’re not all bad, but once you’ve accumulated 4 Traumas, your PC simply cannot continue and either dies or retires or goes mad or whatever seems appropriate. 




Lanefan said:


> Given that it seems other players, as well as the GM, can call for a check then you need to convince your fellow players, along with the GM, that there isn't a need for one; in order to be 100% sure of getting your way.




But this take plays to the point that declaring an action is seeking approval. @pemerton ’s point was that once you stop looking at it this way, it becomes obvious that there’s nothing to worry about. Your response is to insist there’s no other way to look at it.



Lanefan said:


> Let go, or merely replaced by different worries?




Given how you seem to view the ideas of games other than yours as tales of bigfoot in the wild....like, you’ve heard of them but until such a game shows up in your yard and eats your dog, you simply refuse to accept that they’re real....I’m sure you will indeed continue to craft imaginary worries about them.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> That's not a very good account of the basic play loop of a player-agency-supporting RPG, because it assumes what is false, namely, that checks always succeed.



From my side it feels like needless quibbling and obfuscating of an otherwise good point I made over my error in saying "play loop" as opposed to "play loop branch".

Maybe you will address the actual point being made instead of complaining about the precision of language used to make the point?

The point being, when the RNG shows a player success and the fiction matches exactly what the player proposed, how is that not authorship?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Surely you can see my step 1 and 2 is essentially the same as your step 1 and 2 - the only difference being I chose the play loop branch where the dice were rolled and came up as a success because that's the particular part of the play loop I wanted to examine.
> 
> My step 3 is also essentially the same as your step 12.  For the purposes of examining authorship on a successful role my play loop is alot more concise and to the point.  Maybe a more accurate description of what I provided is a play loop branch as opposed to the full play loop as I'm just looking at the branch of the loop where the RNG shows success.   I'm not saying your full play loop isn't useful to have - it is, but it doesn't contradict what I posted, it's just far more detailed.  Some might say overly detailed for the point I was bringing up.
> 
> That point being - authorship that's gated behind an RNG is still authorship when the RNG shows success.




So your argument against how the Blades play loop allows for several points of player input beyond just the roll of the dice is to ignore all those steps and then declare it same as the play loop you described?

It’s like if I told my wife that my pile of flour with a runny egg on top is the same as the cake she baked....as long as she doesn’t worry about the baking soda, milk, vanilla, baking powder, salt, and milk. They’re exactly the same!!


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> So your argument against how the Blades play loop allows for several points of player input beyond just the roll of the dice is to ignore all those steps and then declare it same as the play loop you described?



In the context of player authorship of the fiction none of that matters.  So yes.



hawkeyefan said:


> It’s like if I told my wife that my pile of flour with a runny egg on top is the same as the cake she baked....as long as she doesn’t worry about the baking soda, milk, vanilla, baking powder, salt, and milk. They’re exactly the same!!



Context is king.  You are ignoring the context of my discussion and inserting your own incorrect assumptions into it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> In the context of player authorship of the fiction none of that matters.  So yes.
> 
> 
> Context is king.  You are ignoring the context of my discussion and inserting your own incorrect assumptions into it.




I’m not. I’m bringing @Manbearcat ’s original point back into the discussion. The one he made about how whatever fortune mechanic is in place will be muted by the steps in the play loop. So all those additional steps he included are the way that happens, and are why the cry of RNG isn’t really that relevant. 

All those points help mitigate the outcome being one that is purely luck. Every system has them. Blades appears to have more than other games.

If your point is that moat games include some element of chance represented by dice or some similar method, yes, this is clearly true. 

If there is some further reason for you describing a play loop....an incomplete description of one as you’ve pointed out....then please help me understand.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I’m not. I’m bringing @Manbearcat ’s original point back into the discussion. The one he made about how whatever fortune mechanic is in place will be muted by the steps in the play loop. So all those additional steps he included are the way that happens, and are why the cry of RNG isn’t really that relevant.



It's not a cry of RNG.  I have no idea how that's what you took away from my posts, but that part doesn't really matter.  You are clearly misunderstanding me.  So let me try to help.  I don't care how the player succeeded.  Whether he rolled and came up success or he rolled and it was a failure and he spent some meta currency to change the roll to a success.  It doesn't matter how the result came to be a success.  Now those things may matter in relation to agency, but for authorship it doesn't and what I've been discussing in these posts is authorship.



hawkeyefan said:


> All those points help mitigate the outcome being one that is purely luck. Every system has them. Blades appears to have more than other games.



Good.  But it doesn't make any difference if the system is pure luck or not.  I'm not arguing that the system is "bad" because your "fate" is in the hands of chance.  I'm arguing that it's player authorship when a success occurs and so going through all the ways a player could succeed really isn't necessary.


hawkeyefan said:


> If your point is that moat games include some element of chance represented by dice or some similar method, yes, this is clearly true.



That's not my point.  I agree it clearly is true but it's not my point.


hawkeyefan said:


> If there is some further reason for you describing a play loop....an incomplete description of one as you’ve pointed out....then please help me understand.



I tried above.  If there's anything I can answer for you that will aid your understanding then please ask.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ha, oh, man, I'm reading through Descent into Avernus, and I'm only at the first "encounter" of the module, after the party gets dragooned by a guard captain, Zodge, into doing a task.  The adventure literally says that Zodge has the authority to draft adventurers in times of need, and can _have them executed_ if the refuse, but prefers to have the do his bidding.  So, after the dragooning and the charging of a mission, you get this as the second paragraph of the next section about the mission:


> Zodge has spies who keep him informed on the characters’ progress. If the characters don’t visit Elfsong Tavern within forty-eight hours of receiving their orders, Zodge sends a squad of six Flaming Fist *veterans *and one *flameskull *to escort the characters to the tavern, kill anyone who refuses to go, and report back to him. If the characters destroy or escape this squad, Zodge mobilizes two more squads to hunt them down.



I mean, _wow_.  I have lots of work to do.

How the hell are the players supposed to be remoted interested in following the plot if they're forced on pain of death to comply with it to start?!?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> It's not a cry of RNG.  I have no idea how that's what you took away from my posts, but that part doesn't really matter.  You are clearly misunderstanding me.  So let me try to help.  I don't care how the player succeeded.  Whether he rolled and came up success or he rolled and it was a failure and he spent some meta currency to change the roll to a success.  It doesn't matter how the result came to be a success.  Now those things may matter in relation to agency, but for authorship it doesn't and what I've been discussing in these posts is authorship.
> 
> 
> Good.  But it doesn't make any difference if the system is pure luck or not.  I'm not arguing that the system is "bad" because your "fate" is in the hands of chance.  I'm arguing that it's player authorship when a success occurs and so going through all the ways a player could succeed really isn't necessary.
> 
> That's not my point.  I agree it clearly is true but it's not my point.
> 
> I tried above.  If there's anything I can answer for you that will aid your understanding then please ask.



Okay, let's accept this ad argumendum -- it is player authorship when a success occurs in Blades.  It is GM authorship when a success or failure occurs in D&D -- it literally says this in the rulebook.  So, on the thread topic of player agency, which actually supports player agency -- the one where they have a chance (however gained) to author the outcome, or the one where the GM always has that authority?


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Ha, oh, man, I'm reading through Descent into Avernus, and I'm only at the first "encounter" of the module, after the party gets dragooned by a guard captain, Zodge, into doing a task.  The adventure literally says that Zodge has the authority to draft adventurers in times of need, and can _have them executed_ if the refuse, but prefers to have the do his bidding.  So, after the dragooning and the charging of a mission, you get this as the second paragraph of the next section about the mission:
> 
> I mean, _wow_.  I have lots of work to do.
> 
> How the hell are the players supposed to be remoted interested in following the plot if they're forced on pain of death to comply with it to start?!?



First, this is (part of) why I don't run APs.

Second, there are some "remixes" online that might give you ideas.

Third, good luck!


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> First, this is (part of) why I don't run APs.
> 
> Second, there are some "remixes" online that might give you ideas.
> 
> Third, good luck!



 Yeah, I'll look at those for ideas, but will probably have to remix the entire start once I get the PCs, their backstories, and their BIFTs.  I leveled only one requirement for the PCs -- they had to have ties to Baldur's Gate or Elturel that would cause them to want to try to save them from Hell.  

For those watching -- this is me-as-GM causing a reduction in agency associated with the theme of the game.  It's paired with the reduction in agency from choosing D&D and then the Forgotten Realms, both of which set constraints on the concepts that can be played.  This is not a bad thing at all.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I'm arguing that it's player authorship when a success occurs and so going through all the ways a player could succeed really isn't necessary.




If we’re talking about agency, then it absolutely is necessary. I don’t see how you can just dismiss that. Without the context of agency, what does it help to say “when a player succeeds, they get what they want”? 

Nor am I certain that’s even true. There is of course the idea that some games allow a GM total authority to modify or overrule any result, but even aside from that, I think the GM can potentially have a lot of input on what a success actually means.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> For those watching -- this is me-as-GM causing a reduction in agency associated with the theme of the game. It's paired with the reduction in agency from choosing D&D and then the Forgotten Realms, both of which set constraints on the concepts that can be played. This is not a bad thing at all.



I'd be inclined to say that knowing y'all are going to be doing D&D, and then *doing D&D*, is kinda a good thing. Play the game (and setting) you've chosen to play, I guess.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Ha, oh, man, I'm reading through Descent into Avernus, and I'm only at the first "encounter" of the module, after the party gets dragooned by a guard captain, Zodge, into doing a task.  The adventure literally says that Zodge has the authority to draft adventurers in times of need, and can _have them executed_ if the refuse, but prefers to have the do his bidding.  So, after the dragooning and the charging of a mission, you get this as the second paragraph of the next section about the mission:
> 
> I mean, _wow_.  I have lots of work to do.
> 
> How the hell are the players supposed to be remoted interested in following the plot if they're forced on pain of death to comply with it to start?!?




That can be really tough. I’ve included 4 of the WotC published 5E adventures in my campaign, to varying degrees of success. 

We started with Lost Mines of Phandelver. This is a solid adventure, with a pretty open approach. It was our intro to 5E, so it worked suitably. The fact that a lot of what happened there became fundamental to our campaign really worked out. 

Then Princes of the Apocalypse was next. It’s a decent book and is pretty modular, so it’s easy to lift and repurpose things. We haven’t gotten all the way through; the end of that adventure is pretty huge in scope, so I’ve put that off until later on. Not sure we’ll go with it as presented, but until then, the elemental cults remain in play, with the elemental princes a looming threat. 

Then we did Curse of Strahd. I incorporated a lot of backstory into this one, so it had some significant additions. Even with that extra material, the thrust of the adventure was still to confront Strahd, free the souls of Barovia, and escape back to the Prime Material. 

Then I thought it’d be fun to do an old school dungeon crawl, so I ran Tomb of Annihilation. Acererak and Chult already figured prominently in our campaign so it was easy to add in the Death Curse and motivate the PCs to get involved. Where things went wrong was in the delving aspect. I just think that as editions have moved on, my players’ preferences have just moved away from that style of play. So it went poorly until I stopped worrying about the skilled play delving style approach and focused on other elements. 

Some things are just easier to drop in than others. With Descent into Avernus  I think you’ve wisely required the PCs to care about Baldur’s Gate. It’d probably help to run a couple of prelim adventures and establish some NPCs and connections through play and THEN go with the inciting event of the book. But yeah, as presented, it’s a pretty hamfisted attempt to force the PCs into action.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I'd be inclined to say that knowing y'all are going to be doing D&D, and then *doing D&D*, is kinda a good thing. Play the game (and setting) you've chosen to play, I guess.



Exactamundo!


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> That can be really tough. I’ve included 4 of the WotC published 5E adventures in my campaign, to varying degrees of success.
> 
> We started with Lost Mines of Phandelver. This is a solid adventure, with a pretty open approach. It was our intro to 5E, so it worked suitably. The fact that a lot of what happened there became fundamental to our campaign really worked out.
> 
> Then Princes of the Apocalypse was next. It’s a decent book and is pretty modular, so it’s easy to lift and repurpose things. We haven’t gotten all the way through; the end of that adventure is pretty huge in scope, so I’ve put that off until later on. Not sure we’ll go with it as presented, but until then, the elemental cults remain in play, with the elemental princes a looming threat.
> 
> Then we did Curse of Strahd. I incorporated a lot of backstory into this one, so it had some significant additions. Even with that extra material, the thrust of the adventure was still to confront Strahd, free the souls of Barovia, and escape back to the Prime Material.
> 
> Then I thought it’d be fun to do an old school dungeon crawl, so I ran Tomb of Annihilation. Acererak and Chult already figured prominently in our campaign so it was easy to add in the Death Curse and motivate the PCs to get involved. Where things went wrong was in the delving aspect. I just think that as editions have moved on, my players’ preferences have just moved away from that style of play. So it went poorly until I stopped worrying about the skilled play delving style approach and focused on other elements.
> 
> Some things are just easier to drop in than others. With Descent into Avernus  I think you’ve wisely required the PCs to care about Baldur’s Gate. It’d probably help to run a couple of prelim adventures and establish some NPCs and connections through play and THEN go with the inciting event of the book. But yeah, as presented, it’s a pretty hamfisted attempt to force the PCs into action.



Yep, feel you.  I'm not sure playing up BG really works without significant downstream alterations, though -- the game just keeps the idea that you're trying to save BG, but it doesn't really feature anything else about it after the opening.  I'm rapidly passing my comfort level with spoilers in a non-spoiler thread, so I'll leave it at that.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> If we’re talking about agency, then it absolutely is necessary. I don’t see how you can just dismiss that.



Maybe because I'm not talking about agency and haven't really been for 4 pages now?



hawkeyefan said:


> Without the context of agency, what does it help to say “when a player succeeds, they get what they want”?



I've went back to my page 117 and gotten the 2 posts that really started this tangent.  Hopefully they help provide you some context and show the stakes around what is actually being discussed (why it ultimately matters).



hawkeyefan said:


> Nor am I certain that’s even true. There is of course the idea that some games allow a GM total authority to modify or overrule any result, but even aside from that,



One of the biggest complaints brought up by proponents of non traditional style games is that the GM in a D&D game has total authority to modify results, etc.  If you are saying that possibility is actually present in many of these games then I kind of feel like I'm being sold a bunch of lies about them.  But as you said, that's certainly aside from the current discussion.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think the GM can potentially have a lot of input on what a success actually means.



I'm curious as to how you think he can?  In the games I've been discussing, I've been told that if the player gets true success then he gets exactly what he wanted.  I'm not seeing where that leaves room for DM input on what a success actually means?



The quotes that started this tangent:


Crimson Longinus said:


> The character's backstory and how it related to the motivations is good stuff. I definitely encourage that and as a GM that sort of thing will most definitely inform my decision making, albeit not in some formulaic manner. What renders this cool and well thought-out player authored motivation significantly less meaningful, is that the player has the ability to author solution to their quest any moment they want. And sure, they need to roll dice and may fail, but that's still ultimately what's happening here.






Manbearcat said:


> Going to use this post to discuss Framing and Consequences and try to put together a post that will help you understand why the bold word here is a category error and why there was no violation of The Czege Principle.
> 
> The word you should be using is *propose*.  Author means fiat.  You're stipulating a thing without resistance or recourse to dispute it.  That is NOT what is happening in this case.  The player is making a proposition and we're going to the dice to find out if (a) that proposition turns out to be a solution to his problem or (b) something else.



Manbearcat here realized the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems and it's why he refused to call it authorship.  My posts since then have been about showing that it is actually authorship - because if it is then this criticism still stands.


----------



## FrogReaver

I kind of think there's too many games being discussed all at once and too many generalities being used about them.  It's to the point that it feels like I can't say one thing I've been told about a game without being told some other game doesn't work like this. 

I really propose we break apart these kind of a megathread into various threads
Analyzing D&D
Analyzing Bitd
Etc.

I think this would enhance the discussion alot.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Manbearcat here realized the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems and it's why he refused to call it authorship.  My posts since then have been about showing that it is actually authorship - because if it is then this criticism still stands.




Are you serious with this?

This is what you think is happening here?

You think you've caught me in some FROGREAVER GAMBIT LOGIC TRAP OMG and my response is an intellectually dishonest one intended to obfuscate because (as you put it upthread) "you've been vindicated?"

Is that seriously what you think happened in that exchange? 

I need to know before I respond.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Are you serious with this?
> 
> This is what you think is happening here?
> 
> You think you've caught me in some FROGREAVER GAMBIT LOGIC TRAP OMG and my response is an intellectually dishonest one intended to obfuscate because (as you put it upthread) "you've been vindicated?"
> 
> Is that seriously what you think happened in that exchange?
> 
> I need to know before I respond.



It would help me answer you if you could hone in on what about my post is not true.



> Manbearcat here realized the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems



Do you not realize the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems?



> and it's why he refused to call it authorship.



Is this the part you object to?



> My posts since then have been about showing that it is actually authorship -



I can tell you with certainty this is true



> because if it is then this criticism still stands.



Is this not true?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe because I'm not talking about agency and haven't really been for 4 pages now?
> 
> 
> I've went back to my page 117 and gotten the 2 posts that really started this tangent.  Hopefully they help provide you some context and show the stakes around what is actually being discussed (why it ultimately matters).
> 
> 
> One of the biggest complaints brought up by proponents of non traditional style games is that the GM in a D&D game has total authority to modify results, etc.  If you are saying that possibility is actually present in many of these games then I kind of feel like I'm being sold a bunch of lies about them.  But as you said, that's certainly aside from the current discussion.
> 
> 
> I'm curious as to how you think he can?  In the games I've been discussing, I've been told that if the player gets true success then he gets exactly what he wanted.  I'm not seeing where that leaves room for DM input on what a success actually means?
> 
> 
> 
> The quotes that started this tangent:
> 
> 
> 
> Manbearcat here realized the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems and it's why he refused to call it authorship.  My posts since then have been about showing that it is actually authorship - because if it is then this criticism still stands.



Because "authorship" as a term means having the authority to place whatever you want within the fiction, like an author does.  This doesn't really describe the play loop at all, and looking only at cases where a player has succeeded and moves toward their intended goal is a narrow look.  Using "authorship" in this context does not illuminate anything, unless your intent is to play word games and sneak in a switch later on.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> It would help me answer you if you could hone in on what about my post is not true.
> 
> 
> Do you not realize the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems?



Ah, here's that switch I was talking about.  This isn't a question of asking what the problem of having a player achieve movement towards their intended goal in the fiction on a success, but a different position where the authorship is standing in for a broader ability to unilaterally author outcomes.

But, some games actually do this (not any under current discussion), and work quite well for their stated purposes.  So, curiously, what do you imagine the consequences are?  I've got 10 doughnuts to the dollar that it's mired in a specific play approach.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> It would help me answer you if you could hone in on what about my post is not true.
> 
> 
> Do you not realize the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems?
> 
> 
> Is this the part you object to?
> 
> 
> I can tell you with certainty this is true
> 
> 
> Is this not true?




Ok, that is exactly what I thought.  I wish you would just come out and call me a "dishonest, ideologically-entrenched douche" rather than implying it and then bouncing the ball back in my court as you've done in the lead sentence above. 

Alright.

1)  I brought up "RNG as epithet" because in the gaming community (not software development or wherever you're trying to draw jargon from), its pretty much exclusively used as an exasperated exclamation when someone feels that an aspect of a game (deep deck + draw mechanics, or a large and swingy dice game) highlights the noise of the RNG aspect sufficiently to damage the game's ability to distill the signal of skilled play. 

Whether you meant it in the clinical RNG bent of software development (or whatever) and therefore just meant it as a descriptor (rather than the neutral "fortune resolution" as I've always used it and most everyone else has), is besides the point for why I included it. 

I included it because its extremely important in a conversation about agency (maybe not to you or your point...but it absolutely is important as a fundamental aspect of the conversation).

Now, moving on from that.

2)  It was unclear to me what your hypothesis was until that last thing you posted where (a) you appear to think you have read my mind and (b) your brutally incorrect inference that I was being intellectually dishonest has led you profoundly astray.

Because you haven't explicitly said it yet but you've hinted at it significantly above, I'm assuming what you're attempting to demonstrate is the following formulation:

* The Czege Principle states that authorship of your own success at defeating an obstacle isn't fun.

* "Isn't fun" here can be subbed out for "yields a meaningless decision" which can then be extrapolated to "authorship means no agency has been expressed."

I now think that is what you're trying to do.

Unfortunately, this is a complete non-sequitur.  It is a fundamental misunderstanding and subsequent  misappropriation of the axiom (which I'm sure someone has already told you along the way but I haven't read a lot of the thread lately).

The reason why I included all those extra steps in the Play Loop?  ITS BECAUSE THEY'RE FUNDAMENTAL TO THE FORMULATION OF ALL OF THIS:

1)  The Czege Principle is about NO INTERMEDIARY BETWEEN <OBSTACLE> - <MOVE> - <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>.  It is about AUTHORSHIP VIA FIAT.

For instance:

GM THINKING:  "This damn Spellcaster <OBSTACLE> is going to wreck my perfectly planned mystery/encounter/metaplot.  I know!  I'll leverage my exclusive access to the offscreen and unestablished backstory to erect this block! <MOVE>"

GM IN PLAY:  "You cast your Scry/Teleport/Fly/Charm spell and nothing happens.  It must be an Anti-Magic Field! <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>"

This is the Czege Principle at work.

LITTLE KID PLAYING:  "I'm Indiana Jones!  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH! Oh no, a Pit Trap! <OBSTACLE>  "Oh look!  A chandelier <makes whip crack noise> <MOVE>  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH <pantomimes swinging across and landing on the other side>!<OBSTACLE DEFEATED>

This is the Czege Principle at work.

THIS is why proposal (and then consult the intervening procedures to determine if this proposal is actionable) is the correct word.  NOT AUTHORSHIP.

The Czege Principle is about skilled play (and agency being an attendant feature of that).  This dovetails precisely with my point about RNG above.  "RNG" (the epithet) is a thing because it reduces the distillation of Skill Play.  Coming up with an obstacle and making a move by fiat to defeat it "is not fun" because it is THE COMPLETE ABSENCE OF SKILLED PLAY.

EDIT - Ninja'd by @Ovinomancer :  "unilaterally author outcome" is another way to put it.  This is why "proposal > consult intervening procedure to determine if it is actionable" is the correct formulation.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I'm curious as to how you think he can? In the games I've been discussing, I've been told that if the player gets true success then he gets exactly what he wanted. I'm not seeing where that leaves room for DM input on what a success actually means?




I was talking about D&D. I don’t know if the player gets to decide what exactly happens when they achieve a success. They very well may, but I think the system leaves a lot of room for interpretation to step in such that different DMs will handle it different ways.

For example, in an actual game I played in, we were routinely prompted to make perception checks. We weren’t always told why, just that the roll was needed. Then, after the roll, the DM told us qhat we noticed.

Where does player authorship or player agency come into this? 



Crimson Longinus said:


> What renders this cool and well thought-out player authored motivation significantly less meaningful, is that the player has the ability to author solution to their quest any moment they want.




This quote that your argument relies upon shows a misunderstanding of the situation. You’ve picked up this error and run with it. 




FrogReaver said:


> Manbearcat here realized the consequences of having a player be able to author the solution to their problems and it's why he refused to call it authorship. My posts since then have been about showing that it is actually authorship - because if it is then this criticism still stands.




If you think that what @Manbearcat  is doing here is some kind of semantics game, you’re sorely mistaken. He has clearly made a distinction for authorship being one that is decided by fiat. Meaning no roll is needed, no approval from the other participants, etc. Authorship is where the player says “X is true” and so it is.

You’ve discarded the distinction he’s made (authorship is by fiat), and replaced it with your own (success however obtained is authorship) and now you’re arguing against your own mistake. 

If you sincerely thibk there’s no difference between a player declaring something is true and a player attempting an action to determine if something is true, then you need to make a compelling argument on why. You can’t just say there’s no distinction and then pat yourself on the back.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> For example, in an actual game I played in, we were routinely prompted to make perception checks. We weren’t always told why, just that the roll was needed. Then, after the roll, the DM told us qhat we noticed.
> 
> Where does player authorship or player agency come into this?




Here is what I think some people would say to this (this is not my answer - speaking of # 2 below - and I think it would be an interesting conversation to have).

In the D&D community (probably somewhere around The Wilderness Handbook and the huge advent of metaplot and/or setting tourism as a growing D&D cultural touchstone), two things happened (and then a third after it became clear that it made for problematic play):

1)  GM gating "information dumps" (of the Perception/Insight variety) around passive checks that have no attendant in-game decision-points.

2)  The point of agency in these "downstream information dumps" is alleged to be at the *PC build stage* (select x Primary Skill or y Secondary Skill or put z # Skill Points into this Skill).

3)  HOWEVER, some/most of these "information dumps" were important to convey to the PCs.  Its borderline imperative that they get these pieces of information (Robin Laws speaks about this and attempts to address this at the system level) to solve the mystery or be immersed in the political intrigue of the court et al.  So the GM tells the player to "roll dice" without giving them any target number so they can basically deploy Illusionism (*ALL THAT AGENCY YOU HAD AT THE BUILD STAGE MATTERS GUY!*) and give them the "information dump" regardless of the roll and regardless of the player's expression of agency at the build stage (which means, of course, that the alleged "build stage agency" doesn't exist in practice).


3.x became the pinnacle of "agency as an expression of build" in D&D.  What do you (and anyone else) think about that formulation?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> 3.x became the pinnacle of "agency as an expression of build" in D&D. What do you (and anyone else) think about that formulation?




I think that summary is spot on. 

The 3.x era was probably the most important for my group, and I think that had a lot of impact on us. We started playing together in the 2e days, but when 3e came out, it became our go to game. I think that it also had a lot of new and interesting elements, and streamlined a lot of the areas we would have considered problematic prior to that (THACO, saving throws, etc). 

But with the GM as storyteller mode still pretty firmly entrenched, and the introduction of very codified skills such as Perception, Sense Motive, and Knowledge what often happened is that huge portions of very important information was gated behind skill checks. And if a skill check was not successful, then things either ground to a halt, or else the GM resorted to illusionism and simply gave the info needed. 

It’s very like putting all the end content of a dungeon behind one secret door and not leaving any other means to get there. It took me a lot longer than I’d like to admit to realize this. And then to recognize how pervasive it was. 

These elements have impacted my approach when I run 5e in a lot of ways. And I think that because these were issues I’d already discovered and worked toward resolving with prior editions, I kind of ignored the fact that they’re still present in 5e.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Considering that my original sentence specifically mentioned the authorship in the situation being conditional on the die roll, getting hung up on whether it is 'proposing' or 'authoring' is indeed semantics.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> Ok, that is exactly what I thought.  I wish you would just come out and call me a "dishonest, ideologically-entrenched douche" rather than implying it and then bouncing the ball back in my court as you've done in the lead sentence above.
> 
> Alright.
> 
> 1)  I brought up "RNG as epithet" because in the gaming community (not software development or wherever you're trying to draw jargon from), its pretty much exclusively used as an exasperated exclamation when someone feels that an aspect of a game (deep deck + draw mechanics, or a large and swingy dice game) highlights the noise of the RNG aspect sufficiently to damage the game's ability to distill the signal of skilled play.
> 
> Whether you meant it in the clinical RNG bent of software development (or whatever) and therefore just meant it as a descriptor (rather than the neutral "fortune resolution" as I've always used it and most everyone else has), is besides the point for why I included it.
> 
> I included it because its extremely important in a conversation about agency (maybe not to you or your point...but it absolutely is important as a fundamental aspect of the conversation).
> 
> Now, moving on from that.
> 
> 2)  It was unclear to me what your hypothesis was until that last thing you posted where (a) you appear to think you have read my mind and (b) your brutally incorrect inference that I was being intellectually dishonest has led you profoundly astray.
> 
> Because you haven't explicitly said it yet but you've hinted at it significantly above, I'm assuming what you're attempting to demonstrate is the following formulation:
> 
> * The Czege Principle states that authorship of your own success at defeating an obstacle isn't fun.
> 
> * "Isn't fun" here can be subbed out for "yields a meaningless decision" which can then be extrapolated to "authorship means no agency has been expressed."
> 
> I now think that is what you're trying to do.
> 
> Unfortunately, this is a complete non-sequitur.  It is a fundamental misunderstanding and subsequent  misappropriation of the axiom (which I'm sure someone has already told you along the way but I haven't read a lot of the thread lately).
> 
> The reason why I included all those extra steps in the Play Loop?  ITS BECAUSE THEY'RE FUNDAMENTAL TO THE FORMULATION OF ALL OF THIS:
> 
> 1)  The Czege Principle is about NO INTERMEDIARY BETWEEN <OBSTACLE> - <MOVE> - <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>.  It is about AUTHORSHIP VIA FIAT.
> 
> For instance:
> 
> *GM THINKING:  "This damn Spellcaster <OBSTACLE> is going to wreck my perfectly planned mystery/encounter/metaplot.  I know!  I'll leverage my exclusive access to the offscreen and unestablished backstory to erect this block! <MOVE>"
> 
> GM IN PLAY:  "You cast your Scry/Teleport/Fly/Charm spell and nothing happens.  It must be an Anti-Magic Field! <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>"*
> 
> This is the Czege Principle at work.
> 
> LITTLE KID PLAYING:  "I'm Indiana Jones!  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH! Oh no, a Pit Trap! <OBSTACLE>  "Oh look!  A chandelier <makes whip crack noise> <MOVE>  DUN DUH DUNT DUUUUH <pantomimes swinging across and landing on the other side>!<OBSTACLE DEFEATED>
> 
> This is the Czege Principle at work.
> 
> THIS is why proposal (and then consult the intervening procedures to determine if this proposal is actionable) is the correct word.  NOT AUTHORSHIP.
> 
> The Czege Principle is about skilled play (and agency being an attendant feature of that).  This dovetails precisely with my point about RNG above.  "RNG" (the epithet) is a thing because it reduces the distillation of Skill Play.  Coming up with an obstacle and making a move by fiat to defeat it "is not fun" because it is THE COMPLETE ABSENCE OF SKILLED PLAY.
> 
> EDIT - Ninja'd by @Ovinomancer :  "unilaterally author outcome" is another way to put it.  This is why "proposal > consult intervening procedure to determine if it is actionable" is the correct formulation.



Quibble.  The bolded is not a Czege Principle violation, it's a demonstration of GM Force.  The GM didn't create the obstacle, the player did with their character build and choices of actions.  The GM just Forces the action to fail for <reasons>.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Considering that my original sentence specifically mentioned the authorship in the situation being conditional on the die roll, getting hung up on whether it is 'proposing' or 'authoring' is indeed semantics.




Is it? Or is it a meaningful difference that you’re not grasping even if you mentioned it?

Do you think that Authorship being by player fiat as mentioned by @Manbearcat really is no different than Authorship as any success as mentioned by @FrogReaver ? 

If so, how do you propose that the difference is semantic?


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> 3.x became the pinnacle of "agency as an expression of build" in D&D. What do you (and anyone else) think about that formulation?



Like @hawkeyefan I'm inclined to agree, with the caveat that I never played 4E (and I'm not intentionally critiquing 4E by pointing that out).

The "gating" you mention is why in the 5E games I run, information relevant to long-term goals/situations will eventually be available--any rolls I ask for just determine costs/time (such as library research).


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Ok, that is exactly what I thought.  I wish you would just come out and call me a "dishonest, ideologically-entrenched douche" rather than implying it and then bouncing the ball back in my court as you've done in the lead sentence above.



I do not believe you to be dishonest or a douche.  Ideologically-entrenched is a good descriptor - though it's one that also seems to flow both ways.  That's been implied of me more time in this thread than I can count.




Manbearcat said:


> Alright.
> 
> 1)  I brought up "RNG as epithet" because in the gaming community (not software development or wherever you're trying to draw jargon from), its pretty much exclusively used as an exasperated exclamation when someone feels that an aspect of a game (deep deck + draw mechanics, or a large and swingy dice game) highlights the noise of the RNG aspect sufficiently to damage the game's ability to distill the signal of skilled play.



I am part of the gaming community as well.  My experience there isn't the same as yours.

That said I'll give one example of something similar to what you are saying.  There was a battletech game in development some years ago.  They were good about discussing development decisions with the community and one particular one got a loud vocal minority of players quite upset.  They were going to implement a cone of fire instead of pinpoint accuracy.  They made much the same argument - that such a mechanic would impede skilled play and tried to use that to push the game in a direction they preferred.  But they were wrong.  One can become skilled at cone of fire play.  The larger more silent majority made this counter argument and ended up winning out.

In action RPG's that function on a loot system (Diablo 2 for example) with very low drop rates of the best items sometimes you will see RNGesus invoked.  This isn't an assertion about distilling skilled play, its about the game offering extremely low chances to find particular items.

It's more my experience that the typical gamer understands that when there's chance involved in a game it's a result of an RNG.



Manbearcat said:


> Whether you meant it in the clinical RNG bent of software development (or whatever) and therefore just meant it as a descriptor (rather than the neutral "fortune resolution" as I've always used it and most everyone else has), is besides the point for why I included it.



I'm not sure the difference in a neutral "fortune resolution" and RNG as used in game development.  Those appear to me to be mostly interchangeable terms.



Manbearcat said:


> I included it because its extremely important in a conversation about agency (maybe not to you or your point...but it absolutely is important as a fundamental aspect of the conversation).



I'm not saying it isn't, but how so?







Manbearcat said:


> 2)  It was unclear to me what your hypothesis was until that last thing you posted where (a) you appear to think you have read my mind and (b) your brutally incorrect inference that I was being intellectually dishonest has led you profoundly astray.



I do not believe you were being intellectually dishonest though.  I believe that your understanding of the consequences is preventing you from really considering the possibility that you are wrong about this one thing - as the consequences of being wrong here are quite large.  




Manbearcat said:


> Because you haven't explicitly said it yet but you've hinted at it significantly above, I'm assuming what you're attempting to demonstrate is the following formulation:
> 
> * The Czege Principle states that authorship of your own success at defeating an obstacle isn't fun.



Close enough.  I actually don't agree that it explicitly violates Czege, just something fairly close to it.



Manbearcat said:


> * "Isn't fun" here can be subbed out for "yields a meaningless decision" which can then be extrapolated to "authorship means no agency has been expressed."
> 
> I now think that is what you're trying to do.
> 
> Unfortunately, this is a complete non-sequitur.  It is a fundamental misunderstanding and subsequent  misappropriation of the axiom (which I'm sure someone has already told you along the way but I haven't read a lot of the thread lately).
> 
> The reason why I included all those extra steps in the Play Loop?  ITS BECAUSE THEY'RE FUNDAMENTAL TO THE FORMULATION OF ALL OF THIS:
> 
> 1)  The Czege Principle is about NO INTERMEDIARY BETWEEN <OBSTACLE> - <MOVE> - <OBSTACLE DEFEATED>.  It is about AUTHORSHIP VIA FIAT.



I don't see anything but fiat in the player's attempt to author the fiction via proposal.  Perhaps you mean something more particular by FIAT than that?



Manbearcat said:


> THIS is why proposal (and then consult the intervening procedures to determine if this proposal is actionable) is the correct word.  NOT AUTHORSHIP.



I would counter that if one cannot call a player authoring the fiction as authorship that we likely have bigger problems.

I mean the fiction does have to have an author correct?  If not then how did it come into being?  Surely you wouldn't call the RNG the author of the fiction?  So who is the author of the fiction in the scenario where the players proposal becomes the shared fiction via a successful roll?




Manbearcat said:


> The Czege Principle is about skilled play (and agency being an attendant feature of that).  This dovetails precisely with my point about RNG above.  "RNG" (the epithet) is a thing because it reduces the distillation of Skill Play.  Coming up with an obstacle and making a move by fiat to defeat it "is not fun" because it is THE COMPLETE ABSENCE OF SKILLED PLAY.



What of coming up with an obstacle and saying i'll bypass it if I roll X or better on this die?


----------



## Lanefan

One question regarding RNGs: are you lot saying that high randomization increases agency, decreases agency, or has no (or neutral) effect?

Regarding authorship: every bit of the emergent story is ultimately authored by someone, and that 'someone' isn't often the game system itself.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> One question regarding RNGs: are you lot saying that high randomization increases agency, decreases agency, or has no (or neutral) effect?
> 
> Regarding authorship: every bit of the emergent story is ultimately authored by someone, and that 'someone' isn't often the game system itself.



Thank you for the concise summary!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Is it? Or is it a meaningful difference that you’re not grasping even if you mentioned it?
> 
> Do you think that Authorship being by player fiat as mentioned by @Manbearcat really is no different than Authorship as any success as mentioned by @FrogReaver ?
> 
> If so, how do you propose that the difference is semantic?



Difference between 'proposing' or 'conditionally authoring' is indeed semantics. @FrogReaver and @Manbearcat can handle their argument themselves, I kinda lost the track of that. But my main point was that if the mechanics allow you to state things about the fictional reality and roll to see whether it sticks, then that becomes the main way of solving problems. Instead of finding clues to figure out who was the murderer, you invent clues and roll the dice to see if your invention applies. Both are perfectly fine ways to play and produce a differnt experience, but I cannot accept that the latter is somehow clearly higher agency method than the former.


----------



## Campbell

I think RNG is fairly neutral in terms of agency. I think currency based systems do provide more agency, but are less exciting in play. Most of the benefit is in transparent systems so players can assess the risks they are taking.

I think agency does need to be balanced with concerns of keeping things exciting and requiring a level of skill to achieve that agency. I'm also a bit of a dirty gamist.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> Quibble.  The bolded is not a Czege Principle violation, it's a demonstration of GM Force.  The GM didn't create the obstacle, the player did with their character build and choices of actions.  The GM just Forces the action to fail for <reasons>.




Now this could be an interesting side-conversation!

I absolutely agree that its covert Force.  However, I think from first principles its also an interesting formulation of the Czege Principle for the following reasons (you tell me where you disagree):

1)  In the Skilled Play priority of D&D (such that it persists and in whatever incarnation it persists in any given game), the GM, while being the referee, is still a player.

2)  The game the GM is playing is "martial your resources to fairly provide obstacles to the players such that their decision-points are continuously meaningful in that they provide agency to distill Skilled Play from Unskilled Play."

HOWEVER...when that same GM suddenly smuggles in their own Storytelling Priority (be it an AP they've invested in or their own metaplot), suddenly, you have a different arrangement (that becomes EXTREMELY at tension with the Skilled Play Priority above).  Now you have:

3)  The protagonist/antagonist relationship suddenly becomes inverted.  The dramatic impetus for play suddenly becomes the realization of the metaplot or AP's arc.

4)  Who might be an obstacle to that?  Why the Spellcaster of course (the GM would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that pesky high level Caster!)!

5)  The Skill (or fun) part of this would be somehow (a) having the metaplot manifest (3) while (b) maintaining the integrity of (2) above!

So, put it all together and the GM has an obstacle (the PC spellcaster) to their goals (the metaplot's realization while maintaining the integrity of the crucible of Skilled Play).  Instead of deftly handling the situation (if that can even be a thing given the ridiculous power of Spellcasters) in such a way that both the metaplot's realization and the integrity of the Skilled Play crucible are intact (eg let the intermediary of the game's resolution mechanics/procedures dictate the outcome and honor that)...they short-shrift the Skilled Play Priority while ensuring the Metaplot Realization Priority by unilateral fiat (initiating a block via their priveleged access to unestablished backstory/offscreen).


----------



## Campbell

So I do think that framing can be Force if you frame situations with obvious answers that compel players to a particular sort of action. Framing should present players with a dilemma. Not goals.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> Like @hawkeyefan I'm inclined to agree, with the caveat that I never played 4E (and I'm not intentionally critiquing 4E by pointing that out).
> 
> The "gating" you mention is why in the 5E games I run, information relevant to long-term goals/situations will eventually be available--any rolls I ask for just determine costs/time (such as library research).



4e was unique in that Noncombat Conflict Resolution (the Skill Challenge) featured exclusively active checks by players.  If you're in a Parley, Undertaking a Perilous Journey, Escaping the Collapsing Mine/Volcano/Lair, Rooftop Chase, Sneaking into the Court Mage's Chambers, Exorcising the Demon from the Paladin King (etc), its all scene-based conflict resolution like Fate (you're familiar with that I think?) or Mouse Guard or Clocks in World or Forged in the Dark games.

There are no Passive Perception or Insight checks there.  The players make moves and the GM reacts.

In combat, a Passive Perception or Passive Insight check has teeth (its not gatekeeping for an information dump).  Some negative condition will trigger and put you at a disadvantage if you're not up to the task (eg a Lurker sneaking up on you, someone from the crowd joining the fray and attacking you, a trap/hazard activating when you enter the area).


----------



## innerdude

prabe said:


> I'm pretty sure I don't believe the DM figuring a small child wouldn't be able to place his village on a map, and really having a pretty naive outlook in general removes player agency. *It seems as though you think a player should have been able to roll to see whether Turlk knew geography? That doesn't seem right,* and I have a feeling I'm misunderstanding something and therefore violently misstating your meaning--apologies, if so.




I highlighted the bold sentence, because this is the _absolute heart _of everything we've been talking about for 121+ pages of conversation. 

Upon reflection, you identified a potential instinct, or approach to play, that you ultimately rejected. 

The question is, why did you reject it? 

What need did you fulfill by rejecting the proposal that, "Yes, maybe Turlk really does know the geography"? 

From what I can gather, it was rejected through some notion of, "Well, it doesn't feel plausible, so even though I'm presenting this village as a place of interest, the 'objective reality' of Turlk being a kid who doesn't know geography forces me to make it harder for the PCs to actually travel to said village." 

Which is fine---just understand the trade-off going on here.

Saying, "Yes, Turlk really does know geography, and he can point it out to you on a map," now gives the players more ability to push their in-game agendas through their characters.

They've expressed interest in the village---why set up barriers to that interest?

Why not just say "Yes!"? Was there anything _really_ at stake in the fiction? Was there any momentous happening riding on whether the players could just get that knowledge from Turlk, instead of being forced to go through some other information gathering rigmarole to actually find out where said village is?

If the players really were expressing interest about the village in question, why block the players from exploring it? Why "bait the hook" by presenting this potential village as place of interest, but then immediately block access to said village, because "Turlk doesn't really know geography"?

The point of games like PbtA, BitD, Burning Wheel, etc., is to push GM's in the direction of just saying "Yes"---and then backing it up with mechanics that allow the players to keep pushing the agenda.

And yes, when you first start trying stuff like this out, it does feel uncomfortable. Until you suddenly realize that player engagement increases when they can just start getting to the stuff that matters to them, instead of playing shell games with the GM about "who actually knows where the village is".




Lanefan said:


> This is also an odd statement, though; in that if the players (through their characters) aren't interfacing with in-fiction reality then what on earth are they interfacing with?




I didn't explain this well at all, but I think the example @prabe shared and my response above is going in the thought train I had in mind. You're right, players can only interface with the in-fiction reality _as it is presented to them_.

What I was trying to get at is, so much of in-fiction reality is controlled by the framing.

Either through or intentionality, negligence, or lack of foresight, it's incredibly easy for GMs in "traditional" RPG play to frame scenes such that any potential opportunities for the players to act in ways that speak to the concerns of the PCs are instantly blocked---and there is no mechanical recourse.

"Turlk is a kid, he doesn't understand geography" was the in-fiction reality as presented in @prabe's game. If that's the in-fiction reality my PC is framed into, then sure, that's all I have to work with. And in D&D 3, it doesn't matter if I feel there's something at stake in finding that village; no amount of "Gather Information", "Perception," or "Intimidation" checks are going to get that information out of Turlk. The mechanics, along with the GM techniques/presentation/assumptions of gameplay coded into D&D 3 provide no interaction points for me, as a player, to get information from Turlk if I feel there's something important at stake in getting that information.

Thus, if I can't mechanically get the information _now_, due to the framing of the scene, my only other courses of "agency" are: 

Make new action declarations to find someone who actually DOES know where the village is. But now I'm wasting precious real time at the table to do that. When you only play 8 hours a month, every second counts. Is this potentially more "realistic" in terms of the "in-game fiction"? Eh, maybe. But now not only am I not getting to pursue something of interest, I'm being forcibly required by the GM to _waste real game time_ _until I do get to pursue it_. And I'm sorry, that stopped being fun sometime around 2006 for me. 
Enact some form of social engineering to "Game the GM" / play "mother may I" so I can get what I actually want.

Whereas, in Ironsworn, a "Gather Information" move looks like this: 




> GATHER INFORMATION
> When you search an area, ask questions, conduct an investigation, or follow a track, roll +wits. If you act within a community or ask questions of a person with whom you share a bond, add +1.
> On a strong hit, you discover something helpful and specific. The path you must follow or action you must take to make progress is made clear. Envision what you learn (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +2 momentum.
> On a weak hit, the information complicates your quest or introduces a new danger. Envision what you discover (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +1 momentum.
> On a miss, your investigation unearths a dire threat or reveals an unwelcome truth that undermines your quest. Pay the Price.




So tell me, which option allows the player more agency?



One final observation --- Over the past 3 years, I have consciously attempted to implement "Say yes or roll the dice" as a core principle while GM-ing Savage Worlds, but it's _hard_. Because there's no systematized backing of that principle in the game mechanics. It's still too easy to catch myself thinking, "Well, that wouldn't be immediately apparent to the character," or, "I can't just share that with the players NOW." I have to constantly check against my own instincts---"Well, are you sure you can't share that? Does this play into what the players are looking for?"

And having experience with GM-ing D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e, I know the same would be true for those systems.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> One question regarding RNGs: are you lot saying that high randomization increases agency, decreases agency, or has no (or neutral) effect?




I would say that the larger the scope of the randomization, the harder to predict the outcome, right? A d6 will yield far less results when combined with a static number like a stat or skill check or what have you than would a d20.

So the ability to understand the odds is the same in either case, but the ability to predict the likely outcome is greater with the smaller spread. 



Lanefan said:


> Regarding authorship: every bit of the emergent story is ultimately authored by someone, and that 'someone' isn't often the game system itself.




Let’s try not to get too hung up on the word “Author”, right? Instead look at the two things that are being discussed.

If you do that, the system would certainly seem to have an impact here, no? 

In D&D, when I declare that my fighter is going to attack the orc, have I authored the outcome? It simply happens? Do I have the ability to author the fiction in such a way? 

No, of course not. A roll is required to see if my attempt is successful. 

To make both of these things an instance of Authorship is to make them indistinct, and clearly that’s not the case. 

Or, if you think it is, then please explain why.


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> I highlighted the bold sentence, because this is the _absolute heart _of everything we've been talking about for 121+ pages of conversation.
> 
> Upon reflection, you identified a potential instinct, or approach to play, that you ultimately rejected.
> 
> The question is, why did you reject it?



That's bone-simple. Turlk isn't their character.


innerdude said:


> What need did you fulfill by rejecting the proposal that, "Yes, maybe Turlk really does know the geography"?



As  you guess later, a need for plausibility and verisimilitude. More specifically, my own suspension of disbelief.

And a small helping of not wanting to decide where on the continent he was from.


innerdude said:


> Which is fine---just understand the trade-off going on here.
> 
> Saying, "Yes, Turlk really does know geography, and he can point it out to you on a map," now gives the players more ability to push their in-game agendas through their characters.



Or, it serves as a distraction and makes more work for me, as the DM, because the expectation at the table is that if Turlk knows enough geography to know where on the continent he's from, I can narrate that.


innerdude said:


> Why not just say "Yes!"? Was there anything _really_ at stake in the fiction? Was there any momentous happening riding on whether the players could just get that knowledge from Turlk, instead of being forced to go through some other information gathering rigmarole to actually find out where said village is?



If there was nothing at stake, why say yes? The logic holds just as well, I think.

Also, I see absolutely zero gain in having him know where he's from, because the PCs can't get there in any reasonable time. At this point in the campaign, they only have access to stuff like teleportation if some NPC casts it.



innerdude said:


> If the players really were expressing interest about the village in question, why block the players from exploring it? Why "bait the hook" by presenting this potential village as place of interest, but then immediately block access to said village, because "Turlk doesn't really know geography"?



I'm not sure they really were expressing interest, other than looking for a way to solve the problem of "what do we do with the orphaned orcs?" There wasn't any bait-and-switch; there was "these orphaned orcs have to come from *somewhere*."


innerdude said:


> The point of games like PbtA, BitD, Burning Wheel, etc., is to push GM's in the direction of just saying "Yes"---and then backing it up with mechanics that allow the players to keep pushing the agenda.
> 
> And yes, when you first start trying stuff like this out, it does feel uncomfortable. Until you suddenly realize that player engagement increases when they can just start getting to the stuff that matters to them, instead of playing shell games with the GM about "who actually knows where the village is".



I believe my players are at least as engaged as they want to be, thanks, and I don't bait-and-switch or play shell games with them, either.

And considering that my response to reading AW and the Blades SRD was to realize I would *disengage from any character I played*, I am at best skeptical that those games universally work as-advertised in that regard. The Hub and Spokes thing isn't really complete enough for me to have any sense of how I'd react to it, but BW seems less as though it was intentionally designed to put me off TRPGs than AW or Blades.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> But my main point was that if the mechanics allow you to state things about the fictional reality and roll to see whether it sticks, then that becomes the main way of solving problems.




Isn’t this the fundamental way that RPGs work?  



Crimson Longinus said:


> Instead of finding clues to figure out who was the murderer, you invent clues and roll the dice to see if your invention applies. Both are perfectly fine ways to play and produce a differnt experience, but I cannot accept that the latter is somehow clearly higher agency method than the former.




I mean, it seems pretty definitionally so. But I don’t know if whodunnit style mysteries are really the best example for either approach.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Isn’t this the fundamental way that RPGs work?



No.  In D&D play you roll when something is uncertain.  The best way to solve a problem is to put yourself in a situation where the outcome will not be uncertain.  



hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, it seems pretty definitionally so.



How so?


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> In D&D, when I declare that my fighter is going to attack the orc, have I authored the outcome? It simply happens? Do I have the ability to author the fiction in such a way?



Well, whether you have hit or missed, you in fact attacked the orc.  So I'd say that's a clear example of authoring.  You don't even have to wait on the die result to know this.

I would say we could explore an example of  D&D player saying, I hit the orc.  But D&D players don't typically talk like that.  They will nearly universally use the word attack and not hit.  I think it's safe to presume that's because they know beforehand the things they can author without being gated by whatever check is going to be called for.



hawkeyefan said:


> To make both of these things an instance of Authorship is to make them indistinct, and clearly that’s not the case.
> 
> Or, if you think it is, then please explain why.



They aren't the same but for a different reason than you suggest.  The D&D player in this example had full authority to author that he attacked the orc.  There was no die roll needed for that to happen in the shared fiction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> No.  In D&D play you roll when something is uncertain.  The best way to solve a problem is to put yourself in a situation where the outcome will not be uncertain.



No.  In D&D play you roll when *the GM thinks* something is uncertain.  The best was to solve a problem is to put yourself in a situation where *the GM doesn't think* the outcome will be uncertain.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> Now this could be an interesting side-conversation!
> 
> I absolutely agree that its covert Force.  However, I think from first principles its also an interesting formulation of the Czege Principle for the following reasons (you tell me where you disagree):
> 
> 1)  In the Skilled Play priority of D&D (such that it persists and in whatever incarnation it persists in any given game), the GM, while being the referee, is still a player.
> 
> 2)  The game the GM is playing is "martial your resources to fairly provide obstacles to the players such that their decision-points are continuously meaningful in that they provide agency to distill Skilled Play from Unskilled Play."
> 
> HOWEVER...when that same GM suddenly smuggles in their own Storytelling Priority (be it an AP they've invested in or their own metaplot), suddenly, you have a different arrangement (that becomes EXTREMELY at tension with the Skilled Play Priority above).  Now you have:
> 
> 3)  The protagonist/antagonist relationship suddenly becomes inverted.  The dramatic impetus for play suddenly becomes the realization of the metaplot or AP's arc.
> 
> 4)  Who might be an obstacle to that?  Why the Spellcaster of course (the GM would have gotten away with it if it weren't for that pesky high level Caster!)!
> 
> 5)  The Skill (or fun) part of this would be somehow (a) having the metaplot manifest (3) while (b) maintaining the integrity of (2) above!
> 
> So, put it all together and the GM has an obstacle (the PC spellcaster) to their goals (the metaplot's realization while maintaining the integrity of the crucible of Skilled Play).  Instead of deftly handling the situation (if that can even be a thing given the ridiculous power of Spellcasters) in such a way that both the metaplot's realization and the integrity of the Skilled Play crucible are intact (eg let the intermediary of the game's resolution mechanics/procedures dictate the outcome and honor that)...they short-shrift the Skilled Play Priority while ensuring the Metaplot Realization Priority by unilateral fiat (initiating a block via their priveleged access to unestablished backstory/offscreen).



Yes to all of this, but it's still not a Czege Principle violation.  While the GM has a hand in their own problem, they are not the author of it in the way I read the Czege Principle.  I see how you get there, but it's a little too fuzzy for me to say that having an upstream hand in creating a problem is the same things as authoring a problem and it's solution.  To me, this is just GM Force.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> No.  In D&D play you roll when something is uncertain.  The best way to solve a problem is to put yourself in a situation where the outcome will not be uncertain.




I think that's likely true in most games. The roll is for something uncertain. Do you have any examples of games that call for rolls for things that are uncertain? 

With that in mind, how does the following quote from @Crimson Longinus not apply to most RPGs?


Crimson Longinus said:


> But my main point was that if the mechanics allow you to state things about the fictional reality and roll to see whether it sticks, then that becomes the main way of solving problems.




The mechanics of most RPGs allow you to state things about the fictional reality and then roll to see if they stick. 

The primary distinction in the Blades exampled compared to similar things in D&D is simply that the possibility that there was something supernatural about the painting originated with the player rather than the GM.  

That's really it. You guys don't like it....which is fine. But that's Player Agency....that's the player having the ability to introduce elements to the fiction through action declaration.



FrogReaver said:


> How so?




By giving the player the ability to direct the fiction rather than relying on things that have already been established by the GM, but which are unknown to the players unless they perform the right actions at the right time. The GM was prompted by the player rather than the other way around.

Though again, I don't think that a whodunnit is good example for either approach.



FrogReaver said:


> Well, whether you have hit or missed, you in fact attacked the orc.  So I'd say that's a clear example of authoring.  You don't even have to wait on the die result to know this.




Nor does the player in the Blades game need to wait on the die result to know he's attempting to Attune to the painting. 




FrogReaver said:


> I would say we could explore an example of  D&D player saying, I hit the orc.  But D&D players don't typically talk like that.  They will nearly universally use the word attack and not hit.  I think it's safe to presume that's because they know beforehand the things they can author without being gated by whatever check is going to be called for.




Again, this is no different than the Blades game. The player didn't declare success. He declared an attempt. The dice were what determined success or failure.

You're not pointing out how these things are different.



FrogReaver said:


> They aren't the same but for a different reason than you suggest.  The D&D player in this example had full authority to author that he attacked the orc.  There was no die roll needed for that to happen in the shared fiction.




Again, no distinction.

The two things in question as it related to Authorship......one suggestion is that Authorship is done by Fiat. This is what @Manbearcat suggested.

You said that any success at all is Authorship. Now it seems that you're going back on that, because you're saying that the player is free to Author that his PC attacks the orc. But doesn't he also Author that he hits the orc? Is the Player only able to Author the attempt? Or do the also Author the success as you said earlier?

What if he misses? Did he Author that he missed? 

I don't think you're making a coherent case.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Does everyone know the board game Cluedo (Clue to Americans)? It is not a roleplaying game (albeit much more fun when everyone roleplays their characters,) but I try to make an analogy. (Which always goes well...) Imagine that instead of using the normal rules for gathering evidence, on their turn the player could name one suspect, weapon or room they search a clue about. It they rolled well enough, they would gain a clue about that specific thing. Once they had collected one of each category, they could make a final accusation with that combination (Colonel Mustard, in the dining room, with a knife) and if they rolled well enough that combination would be the correct one and they would win. Would this version have more player agency than the normal version? And yes, I know the first objection will be that it is completely differnt because it has no GM, but the standard version's secret envelope containing the correct solution is here analogous to the GM's 'secret backstory' based on which they do their best to judge things fairly. (I also understand that this is not at analogous to all GM directed games, but a certain subsection of them.)


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> I didn't explain this well at all, but I think the example @prabe shared and my response above is going in the thought train I had in mind. You're right, players can only interface with the in-fiction reality _as it is presented to them_.
> 
> What I was trying to get at is, so much of in-fiction reality is controlled by the framing.
> 
> Either through or intentionality, negligence, or lack of foresight, it's incredibly easy for GMs in "traditional" RPG play to frame scenes such that any potential opportunities for the players to act in ways that speak to the concerns of the PCs are instantly blocked---and there is no mechanical recourse.



Which, if such blockage makes sense in the fiction, is fine.  They have to find a plan B.


innerdude said:


> "Turlk is a kid, he doesn't understand geography" was the in-fiction reality as presented in @prabe's game. If that's the in-fiction reality my PC is framed into, then sure, that's all I have to work with. And in D&D 3, it doesn't matter if I feel there's something at stake in finding that village; no amount of "Gather Information", "Perception," or "Intimidation" checks are going to get that information out of Turlk. The mechanics, along with the GM techniques/presentation/assumptions of gameplay coded into D&D 3 provide no interaction points for me, as a player, to get information from Turlk if I feel there's something important at stake in getting that information.
> 
> Thus, if I can't mechanically get the information _now_, due to the framing of the scene, my only other courses of "agency" are:
> 
> Make new action declarations to find someone who actually DOES know where the village is. But now I'm wasting precious real time at the table to do that. When you only play 8 hours a month, every second counts. Is this potentially more "realistic" in terms of the "in-game fiction"? Eh, maybe. But now not only am I not getting to pursue something of interest, I'm being forcibly required by the GM to _waste real game time_ _until I do get to pursue it_. And I'm sorry, that stopped being fun sometime around 2006 for me.
> Enact some form of social engineering to "Game the GM" / play "mother may I" so I can get what I actually want.



I'm not that precious about table time.  I've got the rest of my life to play this out, and as I don't plan on dying anytime soon that might mean hundreds if not thousands of sessions yet remain.

Not that I'm saying all those sessions needs be spent trying to find a village; but if we don't get to the village this session, we'll get there next session, or the session after; whenever.

So if the kid doesn't know about geography then so be it, we have to find someone else.  Could be as simple as asking the kid to take us to (his?) parents.....

Same principle as a clause I had to put into my '_Speak With Dead_' write-up after some attempted abuses: "the dead corpse can't tell you something the live corpse didn't know".


innerdude said:


> Whereas, in Ironsworn, a "Gather Information" move looks like this:
> 
> GATHER INFORMATION
> When you search an area, ask questions, conduct an investigation, or follow a track, roll +wits. If you act within a community or ask questions of a person with whom you share a bond, add +1.
> On a strong hit, you discover something helpful and specific. The path you must follow or action you must take to make progress is made clear. Envision what you learn (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +2 momentum.
> On a weak hit, the information complicates your quest or introduces a new danger. Envision what you discover (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +1 momentum.
> On a miss, your investigation unearths a dire threat or reveals an unwelcome truth that undermines your quest. Pay the Price.
> 
> So tell me, which option allows the player more agency?



That bit of Ironsworn rules has the same issue as other bits of game rules that have been quoted: where and how can the GM outright lie to the PCs, or mislead them, on a badly-failed check?

How this reads to me, in short:
Stong hit: get useful/helpful true info.
Weak hit: get true info with a complication.
Miss: get true info that isn't welcome, or comes with a serious threat.

I don't see "get false or misleading info" in there anywhere.  I also don't see "get no info at all", which could be another rather obvious fail result.


innerdude said:


> One final observation --- Over the past 3 years, I have consciously attempted to implement "Say yes or roll the dice" as a core principle while GM-ing Savage Worlds, but it's _hard_. Because there's no systematized backing of that principle in the game mechanics. It's still too easy to catch myself thinking, "Well, that wouldn't be immediately apparent to the character," or, "I can't just share that with the players NOW." I have to constantly check against my own instincts---"Well, are you sure you can't share that? Does this play into what the players are looking for?"



If whatever it is is not available for the PC to know, then the PC doesn't and can't know it.

I'll say yes when the fiction justifies it; I'll say no when the fiction justifies it, and dice get rolled the rest of the time.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> The mechanics of most RPGs allow you to state things about the fictional reality and then roll to see if they stick.



What in D&D does a player state about the fictional reality that they then roll to see if it sticks?  The player in D&D simply doesn't propose fictional reality - other than his characters actions.  He does author his PC's actions (attempted), whereas the DM typically authors the outcomes of those actions.  Contrast that to the much talked about painting example where the player authored the PC as attempting to attune to the painting and also what would be the outcome if they were successful.






hawkeyefan said:


> The primary distinction in the Blades exampled compared to similar things in D&D is simply that the possibility that there was something supernatural about the painting originated with the player rather than the GM.



The painting example was more explicit than that.  It wasn't simply about whether it was supernatural.  It was about whether it would be usable to solve a particular goal.




hawkeyefan said:


> That's really it. You guys don't like it....which is fine. But that's Player Agency....that's the player having the ability to introduce elements to the fiction through action declaration.



We all agree that's a form of player agency.  If anyone ever argued it wasn't it's been over a hundred pages since it happened.

Some of the questions around that are:
Does having that type of player agency actually mean you have more overall agency?
Is having that type of player agency a universally good thing?
Does having that type of player agency prevent you from having another type of player agency?
Does that kind of player agency violate the Czege principle or any of it's cousins.
Etc.



hawkeyefan said:


> By giving the player the ability to direct the fiction rather than relying on things that have already been established by the GM, but which are unknown to the players unless they perform the right actions at the right time. The GM was prompted by the player rather than the other way around.



Sure




hawkeyefan said:


> Nor does the player in the Blades game need to wait on the die result to know he's attempting to Attune to the painting.




Sure, but the player in Blades did more than fictionally attempt to attune to the painting.  If all that was happening in that game was that fictional attempt to attune then I'd be in full agreement with you.  But in Blades the player also set up what the success state would look like. 

In D&D the player authors their action and the DM authors the outcome regardless of success or failure.
In whatever game had the painting example the player authors their action and also authors the outcomes if it's a true success.

You are conflating the ability to author the action with the ability to author the outcome.





hawkeyefan said:


> Again, this is no different than the Blades game. The player didn't declare success. He declared an attempt. The dice were what determined success or failure.



The person that is authoring the outcome is different. 




hawkeyefan said:


> You're not pointing out how these things are different.



Or are you just ignoring when I do?



hawkeyefan said:


> Again, no distinction.
> 
> The two things in question as it related to Authorship......one suggestion is that Authorship is done by Fiat. This is what @Manbearcat suggested.



Define Fiat then, because everyone of these authorship examples looks like it is fiat to me.



hawkeyefan said:


> You said that any success at all is Authorship. Now it seems that you're going back on that, because you're saying that the player is free to Author that his PC attacks the orc.



In D&D the DM is the author of a success.  The PC authors the action attempt.  If there is a success the DM authors the success.  You've played D&D before.  How is this not obvious to you?

In the game with the painting that we have been discussing, the DM wasn't the author on a success as the player explicitly stated what he wanted on a success.





hawkeyefan said:


> But doesn't he also Author that he hits the orc? Is the Player only able to Author the attempt? Or do the also Author the success as you said earlier?



No.  In D&D The DM does the authoring of the outcome.




hawkeyefan said:


> What if he misses? Did he Author that he missed?
> 
> I don't think you're making a coherent case.



And I don't think your objection is at all coherent.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Let’s try not to get too hung up on the word “Author”, right? Instead look at the two things that are being discussed.
> 
> If you do that, the system would certainly seem to have an impact here, no?
> 
> In D&D, when I declare that my fighter is going to attack the orc, have I authored the outcome? It simply happens? Do I have the ability to author the fiction in such a way?
> 
> No, of course not. A roll is required to see if my attempt is successful.
> 
> To make both of these things an instance of Authorship is to make them indistinct, and clearly that’s not the case.
> 
> Or, if you think it is, then please explain why.



You author the attempt by declaring "I attack the Orc".  This is then amended by the die roll into one of "I hit the Orc" or "My attack fails and I miss".  Here, you-as-player are still authoring, only what you author is informed by the die roll(s).

One could argue, I suppose, that you-as-player authored the attempt and the dice/system authored the result; but if one supposes that the system cannot in itself author anything then authorship of the result has to fall to either the player or the GM; and as the GM's not involved here the player becomes the default.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> You author the attempt by declaring "I attack the Orc".  This is then amended by the die roll into one of "I hit the Orc" or "My attack fails and I miss".  Here, you-as-player are still authoring, only what you author is informed by the die roll(s).
> 
> One could argue, I suppose, that you-as-player authored the attempt and the dice/system authored the result; but if one supposes that the system cannot in itself author anything then authorship of the result has to fall to either the player or the GM; and as the GM's not involved here the player becomes the default.




I can imagine a case where the ORC is a high level NPC and the players attack on it is successful but is narrated as the ORC NPC deflects the blow but gains considerable respect for the warrior able to fight this well.  That's not everyone's flavor of D&D though.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> The mechanics of most RPGs allow you to state things about the fictional reality {---} and then roll to see if they stick.



I inserted the '{---}' to show where a missing clause needs to go; that clause being "regarding your character" or similar, in which case yes it does apply to most RPGs.

In far fewer RPGs can one state things about the fictional reality remote from your character (e.g. the widget is hidden in this chest) and then roll to see if it sticks.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> That point being - authorship that's gated behind an RNG is still authorship when the RNG shows success.



I'm not sure what you think follows from this point.

I can say what I think follows from it: RPGing, at least in the context of a "living, breathing world" involves collectively establishing a fiction. We can also call that _authorship_. The game is set up so that there are competing visions of the fiction - that's a fundamental part of the design. One role of random number generation is to manage these competing visions.

Roughly speaking, the players have the job of portraying and advocating for their PCs - so through their action declarations they are pushing to author fiction that runs in favour of their PCs. (Be that _defeating the attacking Orc_, or _finding Evard's tower_, or whatever else the PCs might be hoping to achieve.)

The GM's role is to establish fiction - by presenting situations in which the PCs find themselves - in which achieving those goals is not guaranteed. In the fiction this manifests itself as obstacles or challenges - eg _the Orc is defending itself_ or _the location of Evard's tower is not common knowledge_. Sometimes the obstacles are implicit, sometimes they are expressly called out and made a big deal of.

Because of the obstacles/challenges, there is a plausible fiction in which the PCs don't get what they want. In which their declared actions fail.

How do we decide which vision of the fiction becomes the "true", shared one? That's what the mechanics are for. Sometimes those mechanics are _fiat_ mechanics: in Prince Valiant, for example, the GM may have access to special effects which allow the imposition of a consequence onto a PC without the player having a chance to prevent it - this is how, in my game, Sir Morgath became infatuated with Lady Lorette of Lothian and Toulouse. Players may also have access to fiat mechanics: many traditional D&D spells take this form, and in Prince Valiant players can gain access to special effects via Storyteller Certificates: this is how the player of Sir Gerran brought it about that Sir Gerran's wife, whom he married for political reasons, fell in love with him; and this is how Sir Morgath was able to defeat Sir Lionheart, "the greatest knight in Britain" (perhaps exaggerated, but far the superior of Sir Morgath) in a joust.

But more often the mechanics involve random number generation. Depending on the details of the system, the output may be that the player gets to author in accordance with the declared action; or that the player gets partial but not full authorship; perhaps the GM may also get some partial authorship (eg "success with a complication"); in some cases, like a 6- result in AW, the GM gets full authorship ("make as hard and direct a move as you like").

As I think I already mentioned upthread, different mechanics - with their varying probabilities, and their varying allocations of full or partial authorship to participants - help determine not only whose vision for the fiction is realised and to what degree, but other things like pacing, the dynamics of success vs failure, etc.

I take it that you don't think that random number generation is a good way to manage these matters - ie whose vision becomes part of the fiction, pacing and "story" dynamics, and the like. Do you have a preferred method?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Does everyone know the board game Cluedo (Clue to Americans)? It is not a roleplaying game (albeit much more fun when everyone roleplays their characters,) but I try to make an analogy. (Which always goes well...) Imagine that instead of using the normal rules for gathering evidence, on their turn the player could name one suspect, weapon or room they search a clue about. It they rolled well enough, they would gain a clue about that specific thing. Once they had collected one of each category, they could make a final accusation with that combination (Colonel Mustard, in the dining room, with a knife) and if they rolled well enough that combination would be the correct one and they would win. Would this version have more player agency than the normal version? And yes, I know the first objection will be that it is completely differnt because it has no GM, but the standard version's secret envelope containing the correct solution is here analogous to the GM's 'secret backstory' based on which they do their best to judge things fairly. (I also understand that this is not at analogous to all GM directed games, but a certain subsection of them.)




I don’t think the major difference is the lack of a GM. I think the major difference is that Clue is a competitive game and all participants have the same ability to determine the outcome of the game. 

RPGs are not typically competitive. And the distinction between GM and player means that very often, they don’t have the same ability to determine the outcome of the game.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> my main point was that if the mechanics allow you to state things about the fictional reality and roll to see whether it sticks, then that becomes the main way of solving problems. Instead of finding clues to figure out who was the murderer, you invent clues and roll the dice to see if your invention applies. Both are perfectly fine ways to play and produce a differnt experience, but I cannot accept that the latter is somehow clearly higher agency method than the former.



This takes as a premise that the goal of play is to learn what is written in the GM's notes. It presupposes either literal map-and-key techniques, or else an approach that is modelled on map-and-key but extends that to other exploration-oriented action declarations (eg _We go to the library and see what we can learn about such-and-such_, with the resolution being that the GM then tells the players what is in his/her notes about information that can be found in the library).

When I play Burning Wheel I am not playing to learn what is written in the GM's notes. I am playing to find out what happens to my PC - in Thurgon's case, will he be able to liberate Auxol and rebuild the Iron Tower and realise the will of the Lord of Battle? Will he fail in some way? Will he _change_ - eg reconcile himself to Auxol's new status, or even lose his faith?

The fact that the play of the game is about these things is, already and in itself, a manifestation of player agency. (As @chaochou pointed out way upthread.)

The "problems" that have to be solved can be anything from finding someone to help us cross the river, to fighting a demon, to ensuring that Aramina has a restful sleep after she collapsed as a result of trying to cast spells. The way to solve these problems is to declare actions. In the first case, I kept a look out for other members or former members of my order, and (in system terms, because my Circles check was a success) we met an ex-knight of the Iron Tower who carried us over the river on his raft. In the second case, I fought the demon (in system terms, I scripted and resolved various attack and defence actions, and also relied heavily on my armour) until it withdrew from battle, I think because the time of its summoning was coming to an end; as a result I earned an infamous reputation in the Hells as an implacable demon foe (in system terms, this was a consequence determined by the GM). In the third case, I foraged for food and herbs but in the course of cooking them inadvertently set Evard's tower alight - at least we didn't eat the bad food!, as I threw the contents of the skillet onto the fire in an attempt to extinguish it (failed untrained foraging check followed by failed cooking check followed by failed die-of-fate roll to see if the skillet contents put out the fire).

These action declarations were framed and resolved by reference to the system rules. I suspect the only ones that involved "notes" of any sort were those against the demon, because in Burning Wheel combat resolution is affected by the stats of the character being fought as well as the PC's stats, and so the GM must have had stats for the demon written up. The others were all resolved using the rules for setting obstacles for action declarations. Despite the absence of GM notes, there is simply no resemblance between this actual play experience and your descriptions of "stat[ing] things about the fictional reality and roll[ing] to see whether it sticks" or "invent[ing] clues and roll[ing] the dice to see if your invention applies".


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> What in D&D does a player state about the fictional reality that they then roll to see if it sticks? The player in D&D simply doesn't propose fictional reality - other than his characters actions. He does author his PC's actions (attempted), whereas the DM typically authors the outcomes of those actions. Contrast that to the much talked about painting example where the player authored the PC as attempting to attune to the painting and also what would be the outcome if they were successful.




I think that even in D&D, many actions that are declared have an expected outcome. Some are vague as hell and cause all kinds of issues, but many are straightforward. By that I mean that *when a player declares an action, they have a success state in mind*.

Would you agree with the bolded bit? Do we need examples?

If you don't agree, why not?



FrogReaver said:


> The painting example was more explicit than that. It wasn't simply about whether it was supernatural. It was about whether it would be usable to solve a particular goal.




The goal was to smooth things over with the university. The plan was to do so by bringing them something supernatural.



FrogReaver said:


> You are conflating the ability to author the action with the ability to author the outcome.




Earlier, you said that success of any kind meant that the player had authored it. That’s what I’ve been responding to.



FrogReaver said:


> In D&D the player authors their action and the DM authors the outcome regardless of success or failure.




Okay, if this is the stance you’re settling on, then we can discuss this, sure.

So let’s look at the basic process in D&D as I understand your take per the quoted post. Let’s assume this is for an action where there is uncertainty, and so the dice are needed.

1- The player declares an action.
2-The dice determine success or failure.
3- The DM then determines and declares the outcome of either success or failure.

Do you think this applies to all player declared actions?

Do you think that in many cases, a player may absolutely have a success state in mind at 1? And if so, would you say that the DM is free to deviate from that expected outcome at 3?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> The mechanics of most RPGs allow you to state things about the fictional reality and then roll to see if they stick.
> 
> The primary distinction in the Blades exampled compared to similar things in D&D is simply that the possibility that there was something supernatural about the painting originated with the player rather than the GM.
> 
> That's really it. You guys don't like it....which is fine. But that's Player Agency....that's the player having the ability to introduce elements to the fiction through action declaration.



Over multiple posts over multiple threads over multiple years I have said exactly what you say here - from the point of view of _the mechanics or basic structure of game play_ there is no difference between:


I attack the Orc, hoping to defeat it in combat;
I search the wall, hoping to find a secret door;
I attune to the painting, because if it's magical I want to gift it to the university
As we enter the territory of Auxol, I keep my eyes open for my brother Rufus who still lives here.

All involve the player (i) saying what it is that his/her PC is doing, and (ii) saying what they hope will result from it. Because that result is an event in the fiction - _the Orc is defeated_; _a secret door is found_; _the paining is discovered to be magical_; _we encounter Rufus_ - it follows (inevitably, I think) that if the player's hope is realised the fiction is changed ("authored") in a fashion that s/he wants.

Sometimes, in some systems and some contexts, the GM has already decided that the event is not going to be part of the fiction. So regardless of what the player rolls on the attack dice, the GM narrates the Orc as undefeated; regardless of what the player rolls on the searching die, the GM tells the player that no secret door is found; regardless of what the player rolls on the attunement die, the GM narrates that the painting is not magical; regardless of what the player rolls on the Streetwise or Circles or Gather Information or whatever dice, the GM tells the player that the PCs do no come across Rufus.

There are very few RPGs in which the combat rules are presented as permitting the GM to _just decide _that an Orc is not defeated in combat, and so GM decisions about this sort of thing normally get discussed under the label of "fudging". But the structure of resolution and decision-making is no different in the other cases than in the "combat fudging" case.

Likewise, the idea that players will take "unearned victories" in the non-combat cases has no more merit than it does in relation to the combat case. They are all just action declarations that, if successful, introduce new events into the fiction which are the ones the player is hoping for.

The idea that a game will "fall apart" if the PCs are able to discover secret doors that the GM didn't decide on in advance is no different from the idea that a game will "fall apart" if the PCs are able to defeat Orcs that the GM didn't decide on in advance. If one takes either idea seriously, the implication is that the only games that won't fall apart are railroads.

And on the Czege-principle side-issue: in each case it the framing of the situation as including the Orc, the wall, the painting, or the arrival at Auxol is the result either of _past action resolution_ or of _GM stipulation_. So the idea that the player is both author of the problem and author of the solution is shown to be false in virtue of that fact alone.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> I inserted the '{---}' to show where a missing clause needs to go; that clause being "regarding your character" or similar, in which case yes it does apply to most RPGs.





Lanefan said:


> In far fewer RPGs can one state things about the fictional reality remote from your character (e.g. the widget is hidden in this chest) and then roll to see if it sticks.




So the issue for you is one of where an idea in the fictional world originates; is that a fair assessment? You think that is the purview of the GM and not the players, except under very specific circumstances. 

Do I have that right?


----------



## pemerton

Is a D&D GM at liberty, in determining the result of a declared action _I attack the Orc_, to disregard the result of the player's rolls plus modifiers, to disregard his/her prior notes about the Orc's AC and hit points, and to just decide what happens?

As my previous post probably makes clear, my view is that such a claim is highly controversial. The rulebooks strongly imply the opposite, by setting out (i) a process for resolving combat which at no point mentions such a role for the GM, and (ii) containing page after page of monsters and NPCs listed with ACs and hit points with no suggestion that that information is not to be treated in the way the combat rules suggest it should be.

Hence why discussions of such GM practices take place under labels like "fudging". Ie they are departures from the stated and implied rules of the game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

These seems like an incredibly specious argument to me


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Is a D&D GM at liberty, in determining the result of a declared action _I attack the Orc_, to disregard the result of the player's rolls plus modifiers, to disregard his/her prior notes about the Orc's AC and hit points, and to just decide what happens?



I don't think this is all that unusual (or particularly inappropriate) in instances where the party is definitely going to kill something, just from how the math works, to wrap up a combat in a hurry. That's not the same thing, though.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I don't think this is all that unusual (or particularly inappropriate) in instances where the party is definitely going to kill something, just from how the math works, to wrap up a combat in a hurry. That's not the same thing, though.



I agree. It's a version of "saying 'yes'". I was envisaging the scenario I'd mentioned in my post just upthread of the one you quoted, were "the GM has already decided that the event is not going to be part of the fiction [and s]o regardless of what the player rolls on the attack dice, the GM narrates the Orc as undefeated".

Now I think there's a further question as to whether "saying 'yes" is a good technique, or can be turned into a good technique, in a game where resource management is meant to be an important part of play. But that's a bit different from the current focus of the discussion.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I agree. It's a version of "saying 'yes'". I was envisaging the scenario I'd mentioned in my post just upthread of the one you quoted, were "the GM has already decided that the event is not going to be part of the fiction [and s]o regardless of what the player rolls on the attack dice, the GM narrates the Orc as undefeated".
> 
> Now I think there's a further question as to whether "saying 'yes" is a good technique, or can be turned into a good technique, in a game where resource management is meant to be an important part of play. But that's a bit different from the current focus of the discussion.



Sorry: I was kinda skimming--a 5E session ran like an hour and a half long and I wasn't entirely out of GMing mode. And my brain is probably a bit cooked.

The only thing I have to say about your comparison with combat is that I think it's a purer/fairer analogy in systems that have single-check combat, if that makes sense. I'm pretty sure I know at least the rough shape of what you're getting at otherwise, and I think the painting is the closest direct analogy, as (presumably) the existence of the painting and the orc have been established in the fiction, whereas the possible secret door and the Rufus' location haven't. But this isn't a hill I particularly want to fight over tonight.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that even in D&D, many actions that are declared have an expected outcome. Some are vague as hell and cause all kinds of issues, but many are straightforward. By that I mean that *when a player declares an action, they have a success state in mind*.
> 
> Would you agree with the bolded bit? Do we need examples?
> 
> If you don't agree, why not?



I agree.



hawkeyefan said:


> Earlier, you said that success of any kind meant that the player had authored it. That’s what I’ve been responding to.



That was in relation to a game where the player was proposing what the fiction would be upon a success.  Context!  (And I probably could have been more explicit and nuanced in my initial formulation as well).




hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, if this is the stance you’re settling on, then we can discuss this, sure.
> 
> So let’s look at the basic process in D&D as I understand your take per the quoted post. Let’s assume this is for an action where there is uncertainty, and so the dice are needed.
> 
> 1- The player declares an action.
> 2-The dice determine success or failure.
> 3- The DM then determines and declares the outcome of either success or failure.



Sounds good so far.



hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think this applies to all player declared actions?



From a practical standpoint that's hard to say with any real certainty.  D&D just isn't that strict about such things and many groups play differently with their own unique variations on the game.

That said, I cannot think of an action to which it wouldn't apply, at least by my understanding of the rules.



hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think that in many cases, a player may absolutely have a success state in mind at 1?



Yes



hawkeyefan said:


> And if so, would you say that the DM is free to deviate from that expected outcome at 3?



What does being free to do a thing even mean?  I'm really not trying to be difficult with this, but it kinda feels like we are heading for the whole "In America one isn't free to yell fire in a crowded theatre" with the other responding "well they are technically free to do it but there will be consequences".

I assume you mean to ask, does doing that violate any rules within the game.  If that's what you mean, I can't think of any.  But if you are asking, will doing so be consequence free - well that's going to depend on the social contract and player expectations - I did mention there was a great deal of variation in D&D play from table to table right?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Is a D&D GM at liberty, in determining the result of a declared action _I attack the Orc_, to disregard the result of the player's rolls plus modifiers, to disregard his/her prior notes about the Orc's AC and hit points, and to just decide what happens?
> 
> As my previous post probably makes clear, my view is that such a claim is highly controversial. The rulebooks strongly imply the opposite, by setting out (i) a process for resolving combat which at no point mentions such a role for the GM, and (ii) containing page after page of monsters and NPCs listed with ACs and hit points with no suggestion that that information is not to be treated in the way the combat rules suggest it should be.
> 
> Hence why discussions of such GM practices take place under labels like "fudging". Ie they are departures from the stated and implied rules of the game.



I'm not sure why the focus on D&D combat rules.  We all know and acknowledge that D&D combat isn't typically ran the same as the rest of the D&D game.

D&D uses a much more detailed combat system than it does for anything non-combat related.  That high level of detail and stakes associated with combat does tend to set up player expectations that combat should follow the system with as little deviation as possible.

Essentially - "given combat isn't like the rest of the game, why does any of this matter"?


----------



## FrogReaver

I see alot of talk about what can a D&D DM do.  The rules allow them to do nearly anything (combat being more up to interpretation).  The real question that should be asked when the DM is so empowered isn't what can they do, it's what should/shouldn't they do?

The #1 thing they should do is to make the game fun, engaging and entertaining for their players and for themselves.  This is why you see so many playstyles in D&D - because at the end of the day, if your players are happy with whatever you are doing that's all that ultimately matters and 5e D&D actively encourages that mindset.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I see alot of talk about what can a D&D DM do.  The rules allow them to do nearly anything (combat being more up to interpretation).  The real question that should be asked when the DM is so empowered isn't what can they do, it's what should/shouldn't they do?



Do you think this has any bearing on the question of how much agency the players enjoy?



FrogReaver said:


> I'm not sure why the focus on D&D combat rules.  We all know and acknowledge that D&D combat isn't typically ran the same as the rest of the D&D game.
> 
> D&D uses a much more detailed combat system than it does for anything non-combat related.  That high level of detail and stakes associated with combat does tend to set up player expectations that combat should follow the system with as little deviation as possible.
> 
> Essentially - "given combat isn't like the rest of the game, why does any of this matter"?



Imagine how you would respond to someone who told you either of the following:

(1) A D&D player has no more agency in combat resolution than if the GM was allowed to just make up the results of declared attacks;

(2) A game in which combat is resolved by rules will fall apart due to inconsistent fiction and the players getting out of control and just making up outcomes and then dicing for them.

Then imagine how a RPG in which the rules govern action resolution outside combat in a way that broadly resembles the constraints of D&D combat. Someone who was familiar with such RPGs would have the same sorts of responses to (1) and (2) in respect of it.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I'm not sure why the focus on D&D combat rules.  We all know and acknowledge that D&D combat isn't typically ran the same as the rest of the D&D game.
> 
> D&D uses a much more detailed combat system than it does for anything non-combat related.  That high level of detail and stakes associated with combat does tend to set up player expectations that combat should follow the system with as little deviation as possible.
> 
> Essentially - "given combat isn't like the rest of the game, why does any of this matter"?




I think the division over combat and non-combat, and why you need so many combat rules in a game like D&D, but you don't necessarily need as many non-combat, is it is pretty easy to resolve a lot of non-combat with less bickering over the results than combat. Combat can easily devolve into "bang bang, I shot you dead" and "No, I shot you first" without clear rules. It is easier, I think for a lot of people, to hash out non-combat stuff without rules, because it is a simple matter of saying something like "I look under the table to see what is there", and the GM simply reporting what is there, or asking the guard a question about who came to visit the prisoner, and the GM simply needs to base the response on things like who visited, what the guard knows, what the guard is willing to share, what might persuade the guard, and what the player actually said to the guard that might impact his response. I realize in some groups that non-combat part of the game can also devolve into 'bang bang, your dead"/"No, I shot you first". But it doesn't for a lot of people, and even for those who it does, the stakes of combat are generally lower (non-combat might be very important to an adventure, but it doesn't as often result in dead characters the way combat does). Also it is worth pointing out that the complexity of combat in D&D does vary from edition to edition.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I agree.




Okay, cool. 



FrogReaver said:


> That was in relation to a game where the player was proposing what the fiction would be upon a success.  Context!  (And I probably could have been more explicit and nuanced in my initial formulation as well).




That didn’t seem to be the case at all, but if so, then okay I’ll proceed with that in mind. 

So then given that you agree above that a D&D player will have an outcome in mind for their declared action, how is that different from the Blades player? 



FrogReaver said:


> Sounds good so far.
> 
> 
> From a practical standpoint that's hard to say with any real certainty.  D&D just isn't that strict about such things and many groups play differently with their own unique variations on the game.
> 
> That said, I cannot think of an action to which it wouldn't apply, at least by my understanding of the rules.




I’d say that lack of a clear process is likely part of the problem. I mean, in many ways the ability to take D&D and then make it work how you want is a feature. But when there are vagaries left in the rules that’s something different, and is a bug for sure. 



FrogReaver said:


> Yes
> 
> 
> What does being free to do a thing even mean?  I'm really not trying to be difficult with this, but it kinda feels like we are heading for the whole "In America one isn't free to yell fire in a crowded theatre" with the other responding "well they are technically free to do it but there will be consequences".
> 
> I assume you mean to ask, does doing that violate any rules within the game.  If that's what you mean, I can't think of any.  But if you are asking, will doing so be consequence free - well that's going to depend on the social contract and player expectations - I did mention there was a great deal of variation in D&D play from table to table right?




Well no, it’s not a “yelling fire in a theater” situation. That is most definitely illegal. 

I’m asking if the DM is free, either within the rules or within the social contract of the gaming group, to take a successful action declaration, and make it so that the success is something other than what the player expected.

The player declared that their Rogue was going to attempt to disarm the trap. 

The player declared that their Fighter was going to attempt to attack the orc. 

The player declared that their Bard was going to attempt to Persuade the baron to provide the party with horses. 

In each of these cases, the player has an outcome in mind. Wouldn’t success result in that desired outcome? Or may the DM alter the outcome?

 If the DM may alter the outcome, then would you agree that this reduces a player’s agency?

If the DM cannot alter the outcome, then are we back to the player declaring both action and intended outcome? Doesn’t this render the (3) in my previous post as not applicable on a success?





FrogReaver said:


> I'm not sure why the focus on D&D combat rules.  We all know and acknowledge that D&D combat isn't typically ran the same as the rest of the D&D game.
> 
> D&D uses a much more detailed combat system than it does for anything non-combat related.  That high level of detail and stakes associated with combat does tend to set up player expectations that combat should follow the system with as little deviation as possible.
> 
> Essentially - "given combat isn't like the rest of the game, why does any of this matter"?




Because combat is where a player in D&D has the most agency. The rules are (mostly) clear, interpretation is minimal, and the dice are involved quite a bit. The DM is mostly bound to the results of the dice, and generally speaking if he decides to alter thee outcome, it’s seen as a bad thing. Combat is also the one area of D&D where nearly everyone will agree, anything can happen. The result is not a foregone conclusion. 

Imagine if the DM was not discouraged from simply negating an action in combat. He could just alter any result as desired, usually to match some preconceived idea he has about the fiction. What would this do to player agency?

Imagine if the social and exploration pillars of D&D had similar structure to combat. The DM would follow established processes, the players would declare actions, the dice would determine success or failure, and the DM would honor those results. The DM would not be steering things toward their idea of how the fiction should go. What would this do to player agency?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Do you think this has any bearing on the question of how much agency the players enjoy?



It has everything to do with how much agency the players have.  A player's agency isn't impacted by what a DM can do, it's only impacted by what the DM does.  

I think what you are talking about is more - "how much player agency does the game guarantee?"  If that's what you are saying then I agree.  D&D doesn't guarantee very much to the players.  



pemerton said:


> Imagine how you would respond to someone who told you either of the following:
> 
> (1) A D&D player has no more agency in combat resolution than if the GM was allowed to just make up the results of declared attacks;



I would say - did the GM "make up" results of declared attacks?  The answer to that is nearly always going to be a no.  I guess that's why I asked about why we are focusing on combat, the one area in D&D where the GM is least likely to actually do anything that would actually take away player agency over anything.



pemerton said:


> (2) A game in which combat is resolved by rules will fall apart due to inconsistent fiction and the players getting out of control and just making up outcomes and then dicing for them.



That doesn't make any sense to me so I'd ask them to elaborate.



pemerton said:


> Then imagine how a RPG in which the rules govern action resolution outside combat in a way that broadly resembles the constraints of D&D combat. Someone who was familiar with such RPGs would have the same sorts of responses to (1) and (2) in respect of it.



Okay.... but is this relevant at all?  The closest I've seen to 1) is my argument that less agency in a given moment can lead to more agency and even that's really not close to the same thing.  I've never seen anything at all resembling 2).  No one here is saying that your game doesn't work or will fall apart.  

So really, what relevance do you see in this?


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Well no, it’s not a “yelling fire in a theater” situation. That is most definitely illegal.



Sorry, totally off topic, but this quote actually comes from one of the worst SCOTUS rulings on free speech (Schneck v US) -- where they ruled to uphold convictions for sedition for WW1 draft protestors for handing out flyers against the draft.  The argument that quote presents was thoroughly overturned by Brandenburg v Ohio (and this is the seminal free speech case for modern law).  It's not actually illegal to (falsely) shout fire in a crowded theater.

I find Popehat (aka Ken White) to be particularly eloquent on the matter, if anyone wishes further reading.

Apologies, and I now return you to the argument about elf games.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I think the division over combat and non-combat, and why you need so many combat rules in a game like D&D, but you don't necessarily need as many non-combat, is it is pretty easy to resolve a lot of non-combat with less bickering over the results than combat. Combat can easily devolve into "bang bang, I shot you dead" and "No, I shot you first" without clear rules. It is easier, I think for a lot of people, to hash out non-combat stuff without rules, because it is a simple matter of saying something like "I look under the table to see what is there", and the GM simply reporting what is there, or asking the guard a question about who came to visit the prisoner, and the GM simply needs to base the response on things like who visited, what the guard knows, what the guard is willing to share, what might persuade the guard, and what the player actually said to the guard that might impact his response. I realize in some groups that non-combat part of the game can also devolve into 'bang bang, your dead"/"No, I shot you first". But it doesn't for a lot of people, and even for those who it does, the stakes of combat are generally lower (non-combat might be very important to an adventure, but it doesn't as often result in dead characters the way combat does). Also it is worth pointing out that the complexity of combat in D&D does vary from edition to edition.




I think broadly speaking if you are using the rules of the game as a means to settle disputes between players you have already lost. If we cannot come to consensus about stuff in the fiction we probably should not be playing together. I think game rules should be layered on top. They should add something to the experience.


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> Because combat is where a player in D&D has the most agency.



I don't think it's a coincidence that combat in D&D has drifted towards "combat as sport."


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, cool.
> 
> 
> 
> That didn’t seem to be the case at all, but if so, then okay I’ll proceed with that in mind.



That's fair.



hawkeyefan said:


> So then given that you agree above that a D&D player will have an outcome in mind for their declared action, how is that different from the Blades player?



At the step of having an outcome in mind, not particularly much.

But going beyond that just a little will reveal many differences.  In blades the desired outcome is stated up front and if success occurs it's mandated that the player get his desired outcome.  Neither of those are necessarily true in the case of D&D - though by far the most likely result in D&D is that the player gets his desired outcome.  




hawkeyefan said:


> Well no, it’s not a “yelling fire in a theater” situation. That is most definitely illegal.



Doing something against the rules of the game can also be described with "illegal".  "That's an illegal move".




hawkeyefan said:


> I’m asking if the DM is free, either within the rules or within the social contract of the gaming group, to take a successful action declaration, and make it so that the success is something other than what the player expected.



I answered both of those in my original post.
The rules - technically yes (by my understanding)
The social contract - that depends



hawkeyefan said:


> The player declared that their Rogue was going to attempt to disarm the trap.
> 
> The player declared that their Fighter was going to attempt to attack the orc.
> 
> The player declared that their Bard was going to attempt to Persuade the baron to provide the party with horses.
> 
> In each of these cases, the player has an outcome in mind. Wouldn’t success result in that desired outcome? Or may the DM alter the outcome?



By the rules yes (others may disagree with my reading of the rules).  By the social contract, it depends.  In practice, most of those things will have the obviously desired outcome (or something approaching it)

I think it's worth mentioning that in D&D the DM determines if the roll is even called for in the first place.  He is well within his rights to determine success or failure with no roll at all.  So there's very little reason he would ever want to turn a success into a failure and the like.  The system sets him up so he doesn't need to do that.  

Now could a successful trap disarm look a little different than the player had in mind.  Yes!  The player has in mind the trap will be fully disabled.  The DM may decide it makes more sense that disarming this particular trap means you can at most temporarily disable it so that you can bypass it.

Or could a successful persuade check for horses for the whole party mean that the party gains 2 horses instead of 5?  Yes!  





hawkeyefan said:


> If the DM may alter the outcome, then would you agree that this reduces a player’s agency?



No.  It's not what he may or can do.  It's what he does do.




hawkeyefan said:


> If the DM cannot alter the outcome, then are we back to the player declaring both action and intended outcome? Doesn’t this render the (3) in my previous post as not applicable on a success?



As noted again and again.  That's not really the way D&D works by rules.  The rules do not guarantee a player his desired outcome on a success.  He does often get it.  But other good results sometimes will be substituted.  I gave 2 examples of that above.  I don't think it's in the Spirit of the game to have a success turn into a failure and so whether there's rules against it or not, you don't really see DM's going, you passed your disarm trap check, roll a dex save because you disarmed the trap by setting it off with you on top of it.  That kind of thing just doesn't happen.



hawkeyefan said:


> Imagine if the DM was not discouraged from simply negating an action in combat. He could just alter any result as desired, usually to match some preconceived idea he has about the fiction. What would this do to player agency?



Can he?  Most certainly.  If not by rule then by the knowledge that the players don't have enough information to spot him doing it.  If he did negate that one action most likely nothing would change in respect to the agency over the combat challenge.  Taking away one combat action is unlikely to take away the party's ability to overcome the combat challenge.  Much like a single bad call most often doesn't decide the outcome of a sports match.




hawkeyefan said:


> Imagine if the social and exploration pillars of D&D had similar structure to combat. The DM would follow established processes, the players would declare actions, the dice would determine success or failure, and the DM would honor those results. The DM would not be steering things toward their idea of how the fiction should go. What would this do to player agency?



In terms of amount when compared to the typical D&D game, nothing.


----------



## Campbell

Most of time when I see a disconnect between what a player intends to achieve it involves a player trying to gain some information or applying leverage to an NPC. These are particularly troublesome areas because "plots" often revolve on keeping players in the dark or scripted NPC behavior. It's these arenas that often have the most impact on a player's ability to enact meaningful changes in the fiction that send play on a trajectory that was not planned by the GM.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Most of time when I see a disconnect between what a player intends to achieve it involves a player trying to gain some information or applying leverage to an NPC.



What I see in relation to that most often is that there's no chance to get exactly what the player wants but there is a chance to get something related to what the player wants.  In this case the DM determines the stated action is close enough for these other things and if determining they are uncertain he calls for a roll and on a success provides something that is good but not exactly what the player wanted.




Campbell said:


> These are particularly troublesome areas because "plots" often revolve on keeping players in the dark or scripted NPC behavior. It's these arenas that often have the most impact on a player's ability to enact meaningful changes in the fiction that send play on a trajectory that was not planned by the GM.



This seems to be going back to the notion that if the players have no knowledge or imperfect knowledge of something that they cannot meaningfully change it.  I think they can!  Enacting meaningful change doesn't require player knowledge, it requires PC action. 

But you don't actually mean that the players cannot meaningfully change the fiction.  What you mean is more like the players cannot purposefully control some specific part of the fiction.  And I agree, I mean how could they have any say there when they lack the knowledge required to do so?

All this does is bring us full circle back around to, does lacking agency over one thing or one type of thing mean you have less agency overall.  My answer to that is no.  Agency is not a 0 sum.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> All this does is bring us full circle back around to, does lacking agency over one thing or one type of thing mean you have less agency overall. My answer to that is no. Agency is not a 0 sum.



I don't think I disagree with you that lacking agency over one thing in Game Alfa, relative to Game Bravo, means you lave less total agency in Game Alfa than in Game Bravo. I think it's probable, though, that a given game or moment has a fixed amount of agency available, so if one person loses agency, it seems likely that someone (something?) will gain it. So, if you would normally have agency over something in that moment/game, and you lose it, you do have less agency in that instance--I guess I'm saying that agency is probably a zero-sum thing at any given moment (or in any given game). Some games might have more or less variability in the amount of agency available; we know the agency available is distributed differently in different games.


----------



## Campbell

@FrogReaver 

Please do not tell me what I mean.

I am specifically addressing that in the face of limited transparency when it comes to social situations and information gathering it can become damn near impossible to tell if the GM is playing with integrity. It's these areas of the fiction where illusionism finds its nesting ground. If the GM is not meaningfully constrained by fictional positioning either socially or mechanically how can we say that players have the power to enact meaningful change in the shared fiction? They can plead before the GM/DM, but a medieval peasant does not have agency over their own life because they can petition their lord to enact change for them.

Also operating in information environments means it is much easier to enact change. To shape your environment.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> But going beyond that just a little will reveal many differences.  In blades the desired outcome is stated up front and if success occurs it's mandated that the player get his desired outcome.  Neither of those are necessarily true in the case of D&D - though by far the most likely result in D&D is that the player gets his desired outcome.




I don’t know if there are “many” differences. It seems to just boil down to the fact that the Blades player is stating an expected outcome, and that he can achieve that outcome without the chance of being denied by the GM. 

Seriously, the only difference here is that you’re saying the outcome may be altered in D&D. 



FrogReaver said:


> By the rules yes (others may disagree with my reading of the rules).  By the social contract, it depends.  In practice, most of those things will have the obviously desired outcome (or something approaching it)




So, in your opinion, what would be a reasonable example of a DM altering the success state? How would this come about? Preferably, describe something that actually happened rather than offer a hypothetical.



FrogReaver said:


> I think it's worth mentioning that in D&D the DM determines if the roll is even called for in the first place.  He is well within his rights to determine success or failure with no roll at all.  So there's very little reason he would ever want to turn a success into a failure and the like.  The system sets him up so he doesn't need to do that.




Really? I would say the system sets him up so that he may absolutely do it. 



FrogReaver said:


> No.  It's not what he may or can do.  It's what he does do.




So how do you figure this? Why should the system give him the ability to do things that he shouldn’t do?

Can you elaborate? 



FrogReaver said:


> Can he?  Most certainly.  If not by rule then by the knowledge that the players don't have enough information to spot him doing it.  If he did negate that one action most likely nothing would change in respect to the agency over the combat challenge.  Taking away one combat action is unlikely to take away the party's ability to overcome the combat challenge.




Then what is the purpose of taking one away? 

Also, I would say I’ve seen often enough where a combat shifts significantly on the result of one roll. 



FrogReaver said:


> In terms of amount when compared to the typical D&D game, nothing.




You really don’t think that a player having more ability in the social sphere of the game would be an increase in agency? Why not?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> So, in your opinion, what would be a reasonable example of a DM altering the success state? How would this come about? Preferably, describe something that actually happened rather than offer a hypothetical.



I think most common situation would be when there is something that the player doesn't know about the situation that prevents the thing from succeeding in the manner envisioned by the player. I think trying to find food in the necrotic death zone was used as an example of such earlier in this thread, though that was rather extreme case of it. When attacking the orc, perhaps the orc is actually an illusion, and instead of harming an orc (because it doesn't exist) a hit reveals the illusion as character's sword passes harmlessly through it (this or something very similar certainly has happened in many a game, probably in yours too.)



hawkeyefan said:


> So how do you figure this? Why should the system give him the ability to do things that he shouldn’t do?
> 
> Can you elaborate?



Good question.

In this thread a lot of different GMing principles have been bandied about. I think many of them are laudable and applying them most of the time might indeed be a good idea. Most of the time. Roleplaying is such a complex affair, that that I am personally very sceptical of axiomatic principles  that should _always_ be followed (beyond always making sure that the players are not actually traumatised and other such real life safety concerns and good manners.) A thing can be a good idea 99% of the time, but that 1% will happen and then you need to 'break the rules.' I don't feel that unliving block of text such as game rules document can sufficiently capture the nuance needed for such decision making and take into account every possible situation. I feel that it is best if an actual human being makes that call. As a GM I want to have the power to make such calls, and as a player I trust my GM to use their power wisely.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think broadly speaking if you are using the rules of the game as a means to settle disputes between players you have already lost. If we cannot come to consensus about stuff in the fiction we probably should not be playing together. I think game rules should be layered on top. They should add something to the experience.




Then if playing a consensus based combat system works for you, by all means, I suggest going with a system like that. But I don't see the purpose of RPGs as building consensus about stuff in the fiction. At the end of the day this is a game, and it is one with uncertain outcomes of actions (that is part of the excitement. Combat is an area where having rules is handy because that is a spot you are likely to see much more divergent interpretations of what should be the outcome (should my sword have hit? why this time but not last time? etc). My overall point though is combat is a part of the game, it definitely feels like I need to rules. On the other hand, I don't need rules for non-combat stuff as much (some spots I like it, but many spots I think the game works better without rules).

And to be clear I wasn't saying we are using the rules to settle disputes between the players. Something about that framing actually bothers me quite a bit. I think it is pretty clear that wasn't the sort of scenario I was painting with what I said.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> @FrogReaver
> 
> Please do not tell me what I mean.



I was trying to be nice by assuming you weren't saying something so trivially incorrect.  But I have no problems doing this your way.

What the heck makes you think that PC actions aren't enough to enact meaningful change in the fiction?



Campbell said:


> It's these areas of the fiction where illusionism finds its nesting ground. If the GM is not meaningfully constrained by fictional positioning either socially or mechanically how can we say that players have the power to enact meaningful change in the shared fiction?



Because we can watch their PC's actions causing meaningful change in the shared fiction.



Campbell said:


> They can plead before the GM/DM, but a medieval peasant does not have agency over their own life because they can petition their lord to enact change for them.



That's a strange definition of agency.  If the peasant acted and his actions resulted in his life being spared then he most certainly had agency.  Heck, if there was even a chance his actions would have spared him, it's still agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> @FrogReaver
> 
> Please do not tell me what I mean.
> 
> I am specifically addressing that in the face of limited transparency when it comes to social situations and information gathering it can become damn near impossible to tell if the GM is playing with integrity. It's these areas of the fiction where illusionism finds its nesting ground. If the GM is not meaningfully constrained by fictional positioning either socially or mechanically how can we say that players have the power to enact meaningful change in the shared fiction? They can plead before the GM/DM, but a medieval peasant does not have agency over their own life because they can petition their lord to enact change for them.
> 
> Also operating in information environments means it is much easier to enact change. To shape your environment.




Because if the GM isn't engaging in illusionism, then their choices can be meaningful. It is really that simple. This is one of the reasons why it is important for the Gm to cultivate trust with players and to demonstrate. If you are running a high agency sandbox with living NPCs for example, then the players are not going to have full access to information the GM may have about those NPCs. But the GM is either honestly engaging what the PCs choose to do or not, honestly considering the PCs words and actions or not. Obviously a GM can use that lack of transparency around say NPC motivations, to indulge in illusionism, but most GMs I meet who play this way are simply not doing that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think most common situation would be when there is something that the player doesn't know about the situation that prevents the thing from succeeding in the manner envisioned by the player. I think trying to find food in the necrotic death zone was used as an example of such earlier in this thread, though that was rather extreme case of it. When attacking the orc, perhaps the orc is actually an illusion, and instead of harming an orc (because it doesn't exist) a hit reveals the illusion as character's sword passes harmlessly through it (this or something very similar certainly has happened in many a game, probably in yours too.)
> 
> 
> Good question.
> 
> In this thread a lot of different GMing principles have been bandied about. I think many of them are laudable and applying them most of the time might indeed be a good idea. Most of the time. Roleplaying is such a complex affair, that that I am personally very sceptical of axiomatic principles  that should _always_ be followed (beyond always making sure that the players are not actually traumatised and other such real life safety concerns and good manners.) A thing can be a good idea 99% of the time, but that 1% will happen and then you need to 'break the rules.' I don't feel that unliving block of text such as game rules document can sufficiently capture the nuance needed for such decision making and take into account every possible situation. I feel that it is best if an actual human being makes that call. As a GM I want to have the power to make such calls, and as a player I trust my GM to use their power wisely.



@hawkeyefan

I'm going to go with this answer.  It's better said than I would have been able to do.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> They can plead before the GM/DM, but a medieval peasant does not have agency over their own life because they can petition their lord to enact change for them.




I think this attitude around GM power is at the heart of so many of these disputes. Needless to say, I would not frame traditional GM authority as players being peasants to a lord. This is a game. The point of GM authority isn't to enable the GM tyrannizing the players or holding some kind of power over their lives, it is so you can have a person positioned to do what no computer, board game, or system can do: adapt to what the players are trying to do so they can explore a living, breathing world. The Gm is meant to be a referee of an elf game, not a feudal lord.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this attitude around GM power is at the heart of so many of these disputes. Needless to say, I would not frame traditional GM authority as players being peasants to a lord. This is a game. The point of GM authority isn't to enable the GM tyrannizing the players or holding some kind of power over their lives, it is so you can have a person positioned to do what no computer, board game, or system can do: adapt to what the players are trying to do so they can explore a living, breathing world. The Gm is meant to be a referee of an elf game, not a feudal lord.




I just fundamentally disagree that *players *have as much influence over the end result as in more transparent games. That's the point of gamist play - you need to find the right levers to gain that information. You need to be clever in order to navigate the obstacles placed in front of you. When this is done in a more transparent way it can be a ton of fun.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I just fundamentally disagree that *players *have as much influence over the end result as in more transparent games.



Then let's explore that.

What does more influence over the end result look like?  What does less influence over the end result look like?  

Or put another way - How do we measure influence over the end result?  Can we all even agree on how that is to be done?



Campbell said:


> That's the point of gamist play - you need to find the right levers to gain that information. You need to be clever in order to navigate the obstacles placed in front of you. When this is done in a more transparent way it can be a ton of fun.



I've no real idea what any of this means.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> I don't feel that unliving block of text such as game rules document can sufficiently capture the nuance needed for such decision making and take into account every possible situation. I feel that it is best if an actual human being makes that call. As a GM I want to have the power to make such calls, and as a player I trust my GM to use their power wisely.




Do you have any actual examples you can share? 

The general example you gave of the illusory orc is interesting, but not exactly the most meaningful example; meaning that the target of the attack is still removed as a result of the successful attack. 

Do you have any other examples?



FrogReaver said:


> That's a strange definition of agency. If the peasant acted and his actions resulted in his life being spared then he most certainly had agency. Heck, if there was even a chance his actions would have spared him, it's still agency.




Having the option to beg isn’t exactly the best example of agency, is it?


----------



## aramis erak

Manbearcat said:


> All models are wrong but some are useful.  People who (a) have a forensic knowledge base within a given field/trade archetype/discipline, (b) significant experiential data to rely upon, (c) and a reasonable measure of awareness of their own cognitive biases and limitations will tend to make extrapolations and inferences that are less error prone (not correct but "correct-er") than those that possess less of (a), (b), (c).



Ah, the old "science is bogus" argument. A reduction to the absurd...

Every model is incomplete, but wrong isn't true of most.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> At the end of the day this is a game, and it is one with uncertain outcomes of actions (that is part of the excitement. Combat is an area where having rules is handy because that is a spot you are likely to see much more divergent interpretations of what should be the outcome (should my sword have hit? why this time but not last time? etc). My overall point though is combat is a part of the game, it definitely feels like I need to rules. On the other hand, I don't need rules for non-combat stuff as much (some spots I like it, but many spots I think the game works better without rules).




So do you think that the additional rules for combat help facilitate agency? That the structure gives the players some ability to influence things and a sense of the odds they have for doing so? Is the GM also generally constrained to allow actions in combat, and bound to honor the results? 

Do players in D&D and similarly structured games approach combat with a better sense of how things will go than they do other areas of the game, 

Do you think that it’s solely trust in the GM that gives them such a feeling? Or do you think that having defined rules and processes helps?

I’d love to hear what you and others have to say.


----------



## Manbearcat

aramis erak said:


> Ah, the old "science is bogus" argument. A reduction to the absurd...
> 
> Every model is incomplete, but wrong isn't true of most.



Uh.  No actually!  And given that myself and my partner are scientists that would be doubly odd!

"All models are wrong but some (most if you'd like) are useful" is a straight-forward statement:  "In proportion to parameterization being incorrect (and there is always going to be mis-parameterization...even if just due to degree but not due to lack of understanding the phenomena), the model is going to diverge from observations at some point...but that doesn't make them cease to be useful."


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So do you think that the additional rules for combat help facilitate agency? That the structure gives the players some ability to influence things and a sense of the odds they have for doing so? Is the GM also generally constrained to allow actions in combat, and bound to honor the results?
> 
> Do players in D&D and similarly structured games approach combat with a better sense of how things will go than they do other areas of the game,
> 
> Do you think that it’s solely trust in the GM that gives them such a feeling? Or do you think that having defined rules and processes helps?
> 
> I’d love to hear what you and others have to say.




I think combat rules don't really add or take away agency. I would have to think about it some more. But I suspect different types of players will feel differently about how much having combat rules enhances or detracts from agency. 

What I will say is I think combat is one area where it is really necessary to place constraints on the GM, while I think it isn't in other parts of the game. As a GM I wouldn't want to have to decide if Hector's gladius stabs the minotaur or not, I would want dice to determine that for me. However I have no problem having to decide if Hector's clever insult infuriates the minotaur. 

Keep in mind though, in D&D, traditionally, the GM still has final say. The 1E DMG, I am pretty sure, specifically allows for fudging of results behind the screen. Fudging is a dirty word because it gets abused, but there are places with any mechanics for the GM to step in if the result is just boneheaded for some reason (it is the human element to correct the machine). Personally, I take a slightly different approach to fudging (I let the players know why and when I am fudging and I almost never do it----and it is almost always because the mechanics have gone off the rails in some significant way).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Merry Christmas to all argumentative nerds!


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Having the option to beg isn’t exactly the best example of agency, is it?



The man begging for his life acted and it influenced events such that the outcome he desired was arrived at.  That's agency.  (What's cool is that it could even be agency if he failed at his begging attempt).

Someone else having final say over whether you live or die doesn't mean you have no agency over that situation.  Having the capability to influence the one with the decision making power over your life is having agency over your life.

You seem to be making the incorrect assumption that having agency requires the ability to guarantee the thing comes out the way you want.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think it's worth mentioning that in D&D the DM determines if the roll is even called for in the first place.  He is well within his rights to determine success or failure with no roll at all.



Is this true of combat resolution in D&D?

Is it true of a declaration _I try and climb the wall_? Eg is the GM just allowed to say, _Sorry, you can't find any handholds_?



Crimson Longinus said:


> I think most common situation would be when there is something that the player doesn't know about the situation that prevents the thing from succeeding in the manner envisioned by the player.



This is exactly what I have described upthread as the GM relying on unilateral decisions about the fiction to make the determination that a player's action declaration fails.

When this is happening, I don't see how it can be said that the player is exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction. It's inherent to the very situation that the GM is deciding unilaterally!

This can very easily bleed into the sort of circumstance that @Campbell has described not far upthread - where so little of the relevant fiction is known to the players that the GM's unilateral control over it turns into flat-out decision-making about the trajectory of play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> The man begging for his life acted and it influenced events such that the outcome he desired was arrived at. That's agency. (What's cool is that it could even be agency if he failed at his begging attempt).




Interesting. At what point would you say someone actually does lose their agency?


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Is it true of a declaration _I try and climb the wall_? Eg is the GM just allowed to say, _Sorry, you can't find any handholds_?




I have had this exact example come up. My group had a member who has since moved, but who would occasionally GM. He was a very old-school-minded DM. His games would always start strong, but would slowly devolve into the kind of DM as antagonist that you hear about a lot. 

He would design encounters that relied on removing PC abilities all the time. I had a rogue and wanted to climb past some trap type situation he’d concocted. I guess he hadn’t accounted for that because at that point is when he decided to describe the incredibly smooth walls. 

He did that kind of stuff a lot. To quote you from much earlier in the thread, it was the absolute pits.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Sorry, I meant to reply to this bit as well, but something went wrong with the multi-quote. 



FrogReaver said:


> You seem to be making the incorrect assumption that having agency requires the ability to guarantee the thing comes out the way you want.




No I don’t think I am. A peasant who has to beg for his life would likely be someone for whom who we’d say outside forces determined much of his life, wouldn’t you agree? 

If a player’s ability to affect the direction of the fiction in a RPG is subject to the approval of another, then they lack agency.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Is it true of a declaration _I try and climb the wall_? Eg is the GM just allowed to say, _Sorry, you can't find any handholds_?



Per the 5E rules, yes. I'm not saying it's *great*, but it's the rules.

I've only flat said "no" once, that I remember. I personally treat that authority/responsibility as a plausibility check. "You're trying to climb an ice wall without tools/magic? Um ... no." Presuming the ice wall is established in fiction, of course.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Per the 5E rules, yes. I'm not saying it's *great*, but it's the rules.
> 
> I've only flat said "no" once, that I remember. I personally treat that authority/responsibility as a plausibility check. "You're trying to climb an ice wall without tools/magic? Um ... no." Presuming the ice wall is established in fiction, of course.



I think the issue of credibility checking is very important and interesting. It can also be something of a litmus test - is it approached via table consensus, or unilateral GM ruling?

(It's also a genre thing - compare Traveller to 4e D&D, for instance.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I think combat rules don't really add or take away agency. I would have to think about it some more. But I suspect different types of players will feel differently about how much having combat rules enhances or detracts from agency.




What do you think your players would say if you told them combat was simply going to be narrated? You’ll establish initiative and then players will declare action in order, but instead of rolling dice, the GM decides each outcome turn by turn.

Do you think they’d balk at that? Do you think their trust in the GM would be sufficient to play this way?



Bedrockgames said:


> What I will say is I think combat is one area where it is really necessary to place constraints on the GM, while I think it isn't in other parts of the game. As a GM I wouldn't want to have to decide if Hector's gladius stabs the minotaur or not, I would want dice to determine that for me. However I have no problem having to decide if Hector's clever insult infuriates the minotaur.




Why not? What distinctions make you feel this way? 



Bedrockgames said:


> Keep in mind though, in D&D, traditionally, the GM still has final say.




Oh I’m well aware.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I think the issue of credibility checking is very important and interesting. It can also be something of a litmus test - is it approached via table consensus, or unilateral GM ruling?
> 
> (It's also a genre thing - compare Traveller to 4e D&D, for instance.)



When I'm GMing (which these days is 5E) and there's a question of plausibility, I'll specifically call it out, say what I think, try to see if there's any difference of opinion around the table, make sure the ruling and the reasons for it are at least clear-ish.

I guess what I'm saying is, I wouldn't just say "there are no handholds" under anything but a circumstance where it made no sense at all to me that there'd be handholds (such as a vertical ice wall) and I'd make it clear to the player why, and I'd be willing to talk about it around the table. And, as I said, it would have to have been a vertical ice wall before the player said they wanted to climb it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Per the 5E rules, yes. I'm not saying it's *great*, but it's the rules.
> 
> I've only flat said "no" once, that I remember. I personally treat that authority/responsibility as a plausibility check. "You're trying to climb an ice wall without tools/magic? Um ... no." Presuming the ice wall is established in fiction, of course.




This kind of thing seems reasonable. I generally don’t like to say no if it can be avoided, but in D&D I do have that option. I think I’d likely still set a DC and let the player roll, though.

But I don’t mind when things established in the fiction are obstacles to PC strengths. I think that’s a reasonable way to challenge the PCs. 

What I don’t like is when that kind of stuff happens routinely and with no real fictional support. Like, “oh we’re going to the ice caverns? Probably won’t be climbing much” makes sense, but “oh this trap is easily defeated by someone climbing.....so of course the room has walls that are supernaturally smooth” is annoying. 

I think fictional positioning is key to a lot of this.


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> A proposed new agency framework:
> 
> A.  Agency is having the ability to affect the outcome of something via your choices and skill.
> 1.  Thus, agency is always in relation to something.
> 2.  Since agency is about the ability to affect the outcome then you either you have agency over something or you don't because you can either affect the outcome or not.  It's a binary state.



False dichotomy fallacy. One can affect the outcome in a range of levels, since many situations can have multiple outcomes each, and most have qualitative result differences.
THe rest of your analysis is thus based upon the false premise.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Interesting. At what point would you say someone actually does lose their agency?



"Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

 -- Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit Hole", by Lewis Carroll.


----------



## aramis erak

Manbearcat said:


> Uh.  No actually!  And given that myself and my partner are scientists that would be doubly odd!
> 
> "All models are wrong but some (most if you'd like) are useful" is a straight-forward statement:  "In proportion to parameterization being incorrect (and there is always going to be mis-parameterization...even if just due to degree but not due to lack of understanding the phenomena), the model is going to diverge from observations at some point...but that doesn't make them cease to be useful."



It is far better to say incomplete for omissions and unknowables, because some are genuinely _wrong!!!_ 
As in, deceptively designed, or based upon non-facts. Further, your phrasing is the one the local flat earthers cling to to discredit science, hence my reaction to it.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What do you think your players would say if you told them combat was simply going to be narrated? You’ll establish initiative and then players will declare action in order, but instead of rolling dice, the GM decides each outcome turn by turn.
> 
> Do you think they’d balk at that? Do you think their trust in the GM would be sufficient to play this way?




I think both they and myself would be uncomfortable with no mechanics for combat. Not due to a lack of trust, but because combat isn't like gauging a social reaction, or the solving of a puzzle. I am comfortable adjudicating those things, but not comfortable adjudicating combat without some kind of system


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Why not? What distinctions make you feel this way?




That isn't an easy thing to assess. And I am not sure how useful assessing it is to be honest. Just off the top of my head, there is a difference between violent, physical action, and social ones. But there are probably lots of other reasons behind why these two feel very different to me in play. All I can tell you is I find it very easy to adjudicate social interactions, puzzles, exploration without mechanics (sometimes I like having mechanics for some of those things, but it never feels completely necessary). With combat it is totally different. At the end of the day, again, we can try to provide you with explanations for why these things just land differently with us. But I don't know how useful that is to be honest. I think one can fall into the same trap that occurs when you try to identify what you it is you don't like about a particular game or edition. I've done that, and it has led me astray many times. Because that kind of insight isn't easy to come by. It is very easy to misidentify the cause, or to miss an important nuance. But the important thing, really is the end result. So any distinctions I can provide are provisionary and not as important as the fact that I just know from playing that I am comfortable having no mechanics for one, but not comfortable having no mechanics for the other (on either side of the GM screen).


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Is this true of combat resolution in D&D?



That's not a simple question to answer.

Generally speaking when a mechanical process for combat is outlined in the book that is the process followed.  So when a player attacks an enemy, they roll an attack roll, the DM (or sometimes players) compare the AC to the resulting roll with modifiers and on a success they hit and damage is rolled.  As we have noted here there is some difference in opinion about whether the normal part of the D&D playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty actually can ever apply by rule to combat situations.  I would say it technically does, but I'm sure others have rather strong opinions that it doesn't.  But in practice that's mostly a distinction without a difference as a dang good reason would be needed to alter that part of combat resolutoin, as whether or not the rules might allow such things, it's generally an expectation of the players that combat will be resolved by the mechanics in the rules (or potentially houserules given out ahead of time). 

That said, not all potential actions in combat in D&D are codified - just the most common.  When a player attempts to do something creative in combat then the DM does lean back into the general purpose playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty and will proceed to some kind of check to resolve the uncertainty in the event that's what he has determined. 




pemerton said:


> Is it true of a declaration _I try and climb the wall_? Eg is the GM just allowed to say, _Sorry, you can't find any handholds_?



Yes.




pemerton said:


> This is exactly what I have described upthread as the GM relying on unilateral decisions about the fiction to make the determination that a player's action declaration fails.



I disagree.  I think the example about climbing a wall with no handholds is more akin to framing the scene, which I think we all agree is okay for the DM to do unilaterally.




pemerton said:


> When this is happening, I don't see how it can be said that the player is exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction. It's inherent to the very situation that the GM is deciding unilaterally!



The PC's and their actions are part of the shared fiction.  So long as the player has agency over their PC's actions then they have agency over the shared fiction.  Maybe what you mean is that the players don't have agency over all the shared fiction?  But I don't think that really correctly summarizes your position either.




pemerton said:


> This can very easily bleed into the sort of circumstance that @Campbell has described not far upthread - where so little of the relevant fiction is known to the players that the GM's unilateral control over it turns into flat-out decision-making about the trajectory of play.



In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more.  Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions.  The DM is responsible for the setting, the NPC's, and the framing of scenes.  He has agency over all those things.  That said, I've never played in a D&D game where I felt like I had no say over the trajectory of play.  My characters actions have always been the very mechanism that have allowed me to affect the trajectory of play (and sometimes some out of game input).


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that even in D&D, many actions that are declared have an expected outcome. Some are vague as hell and cause all kinds of issues, but many are straightforward. By that I mean that *when a player declares an action, they have a success state in mind*.



Most of the time.

Sometimes they might declare an action with a failure state in mind, i.e. where any outcome - including the status quo - will do other than this bad one I've thought of!

Also, just because a player has a success state in mind (or even says it outright as part of the declaration) doesn't always mean that's the only possible success state*; and - and here's the bit that's key for me - doesn't always entitle the player/PC to that success state even if the roll would say otherwise**.

* - many things are binary, with but one success state and one fail state: a combat roll is the most obvious of these.  But in non-binary situations e.g. many social interactions, the player might talk to the Duke in hopes of uncovering duplicity within the court and (if-when mechanics are invoked) roll really well; there's no duplicity to be found but the PC comes away with a new patron and a friend in high places.  Success, but not what was expected or sought.
** - this arises if-when the player asks for too much as a success state.  I mean, I don't care if your d20 roll adds up to 95, a random declaration of "I check the wardrobe to see if it holds the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords" ain't getting a "yes" out of me.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> So the issue for you is one of where an idea in the fictional world originates; is that a fair assessment? You think that is the purview of the GM and not the players, except under very specific circumstances.



Setting is the purview of the GM.  Therefore, any setting-based idea comes from or through the GM unless the GM has proactively delegated this purview to a player (e.g. the 1e DMG guidance re a Fighter building a stronghold; or e.g. the GM delegating a player to write up the home village of that player's PC).

Character, by contrast, is the purview of the player.  Absent control mechanics, the GM (or anyone else) can't tell me how to play my character.


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> The man begging for his life acted and it influenced events such that the outcome he desired was arrived at.  That's agency.  (What's cool is that it could even be agency if he failed at his begging attempt).
> 
> Someone else having final say over whether you live or die doesn't mean you have no agency over that situation.  Having the capability to influence the one with the decision making power over your life is having agency over your life.
> 
> You seem to be making the incorrect assumption that having agency requires the ability to guarantee the thing comes out the way you want.



I'm reminded of a quote from someone I once knew in student politics:

"The point of lobbying isn't to get what you want, it's to not get what you don't want."

Replace 'lobbying' with 'agency', perhaps?


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more.  Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions.  The DM is responsible for the setting, the NPC's, and the framing of scenes.  He has agency over all those things.  That said, I've never played in a D&D game where I felt like I had no say over the trajectory of play.  My characters actions have always been the very mechanism that have allowed me to affect the trajectory of play (and sometimes some out of game input).



It's a small measure you choose to limit yourself to. 

I've known several players who dislike having narrative authority. I, as a GM, dislike such players' style. I prefer players who can, as GD did 3 weeks ago, when I tossed in the wrong Senator... and he ran with it, defining the relationship with one well phrased, "Hello, Uncle Bob..." 

I often throw such hooks and see which way the player spins it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> This kind of thing seems reasonable. I generally don’t like to say no if it can be avoided, but in D&D I do have that option. I think I’d likely still set a DC and let the player roll, though.
> 
> But I don’t mind when things established in the fiction are obstacles to PC strengths. I think that’s a reasonable way to challenge the PCs.
> 
> What I don’t like is when that kind of stuff happens routinely and with no real fictional support. Like, “oh we’re going to the ice caverns? Probably won’t be climbing much” makes sense, but “oh this trap is easily defeated by someone climbing.....so of course the room has walls that are supernaturally smooth” is annoying.
> 
> I think fictional positioning is key to a lot of this.



Yes. I like systems to be somewhat simulationistic in a sense that there is clear(ish) and consistent(ish) connection with a mechanic and a thing that exists in the fiction. So if at one time certain thing was represented by a certain rule then another time similar thing will be represented with a similar rule. This makes it easy to adjudicate what rule representation what fictional entity should have, so it is not just me arbitrary assigning rules for things each time without a rhyme or reason. And once you have this consistent framework and it is at least somewhat intuitive your players will start to understand it too. If a thing was assigned a DC 20 one time then a similar thing cannot just be impossible next time. And yes, the GM controls the framing, but if sheer obsidian walls always just happen to be around when it would be convenient to block the PC's attempts to climb then that will be noticeable in the same manner than many ways of GM trying to use force in Blades would.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> it would have to have been a vertical ice wall before the player said they wanted to climb it.



How is _this_ established?


----------



## Manbearcat

I brought up this excerpt of me GMing 5e (I stood in for a GM now and again when he couldn't make his promised session to his boys and their friends for whatever reason) 3 years ago in another thread to examine play (I think it was actually to examine the relative agency/power of an endgame Wizard - Diviner specifically - vs Fighter and Rogue).

I'm going to do the same thing here but compare the agency of 5e play and GMing vs 4e and Scum and Villainy (Forged in the Dark Star Wars - Gang vs Gang vs Empire - hack).  I'm focusing only on the bolded part of play.



> Below is the 5e play excerpt:
> 
> Alright, so here was the last session I GMed in 5e. Of note:
> 
> 1) This was an Epic Tier Aliens Invasion scenario with actual Far Realm "Grays", War of the Worlds type bio-constructs (like pilotable golems, but made of organics), and their mother ship. However, instead of harvesting bio-material, they were harvesting time, slowly turning back the clock of this prime material plane.
> 
> 2) I didn't GM the preceding session or the climax of this session. The abstract that the GM gave me for the preceding session had it featuring 2-3 encounters. The climax of the session included the showdown with The Harvester; the alien entity that consumes the time that this world has accrued and assimilates it into its own consciousness, increasing its own god-like insight and knowledge. Again, I didn't GM it.
> 
> Here is how the gamestate was changed as play progressed until the session ended. Of note:
> 
> 1) All enemies had Magic Resistance so Advantage on saving throws against the Wizard.
> 
> 2) The Time Reaper - machine in the belly of the ship - caused local distortion that gave the PCs Disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws.
> 
> 3) The Wizard had cast Foresight on the Fighter (their primary damage source) to offset Time Reaper.
> 
> *Gamestate 1:
> 
> The 3 PCs are on the ground below the mother ship, having just defeated the initial welcoming party, which included single-man "hoverpods" Two hoverpods were intact after the encounter.
> 
> The Rogue fails one of the two rolls for his Disadvantage on his Investigation check (DC 20, Reliable Talent would apply, but wasn't sufficient to hit the mark as just Proficient, not Expert). The Diviner offsets it with the 1st of his 3 Portents and, due to the Wizard, the Rogue mans a hoverpod.
> 
> The Wizard fails his +11 Arcana at Disadvantage to start a hoverpod for the Fighter. So he just uplevels his Fly spell to 4th and the two of them fly up to the mothership.*
> 
> Gamestate 2:
> 
> The PCs are attacked by the ship's defenses; a large number of small flying aberrations from the Far Realm.
> 
> The Rogue uses the flight (with Hover), HPs, and multi-attack of the hoverpod to engage them (which the Wizard enabled).
> 
> The Fighter has Fly and Foresight and wrecks them (thanks to the Wizard).
> 
> The Wizard (Warcaster, Resilient, and + Int for other two feats) uses Mirror Image and mobility (to ensure that Concentration isn't an issue for he and the Fighters' Fly), and Grease (his typical Spell Mastery spells) to effectively death spell several of the flyers (prone and they didn't have hover).
> 
> The Fighter uses his bow while the Rogue uses the hoverpods multi-attack and they win the day.
> 
> Gamestate 3:
> 
> Puzzle challenge to open the hatch. PC build neutral.
> 
> Gamestate 4:
> 
> The welcoming party. Mass Suggestion reduces the HUGE enemy force by 1/3. Forcecage cuts them by another 1/3. The rest are obliterated by the Rogue and Fighter.
> 
> They leave one alive to interrogate to attempt to locate The Time Reaper. They don't speak the same language (the Wizard doesn't want to burn a 3rd level for Tongues when he can...see below). The Fighter tried to pantomime what they were looking for and threaten the creature, but his Intimidate failed as he rolled really low (a 3 I think).
> 
> Gamestate 5:
> 
> Wizard casts Locate Object. This saved them 4 random encounter rolls during exploration so, while they ended up having an encounter on the way there (a defense system - equivalent of a Trap - that the Rogue was able to successfully deal with), it saved them another resource-depleting encounter (obviously no Long Rests, but Short Rests were fine) on this ship.
> 
> Gamestate 6:
> 
> The Time Reaper and the General. A parlay begins with the ship's commander and engineer. Tongues + Geas + 2nd use of Divine Portent to deal with the Magic Resistance and he's charmed. Fighter fails to destroy the arcane machine via Athletics and a nasty Time Warp AoE attack ensues on the PCs. Rogue with Disadvantage fails to destroy it via Expertise Thievery, but the Diviner turns his low roll into a 13 with his final use of Divine Portent and The Time Reaper is destroyed. Now, no Disadvantage for the Rogue and Wizard and the Fighter's Foresight equals Advantage.
> 
> Due to the charmed commander, they (a) get some relevant mechanical info for the combat to come with The Harvester, (b) enable a Short Rest, (c) they don't have to use their resources to fight him, (d) they avoid multiple further potential random encounters with a Take Me to Your Leader scene transition.
> 
> That is where the session ended. I didn't GM the climax.




5e GMs have huge latitude here and that latitude has a significant impact on the perceived agency (by the players) and the real agency (upon post-mortem).  They both matter significantly.  Some things in relation to this:

*5E D&D*

* GM has latitude here to either (a) leverage secret backstory/offscreen in order to say "No" or (b) makeup secret backstory/offscreen on the spot in order to say "No" if they believe vetoing this move by the players would make for a better story and more fun/compelling gameplay (their own fun is a consideration here as well).  They can do this for any/all of:


You can't hack/rig/interface with the hoverpods.
Portent doesn't work here because the time distortion effects (or something else).
The mothership has antimagic contingencies (or something else) so the Fly spell doesn't work.

* GM has latitude here to set the DC (the DC setting parameters are enormously vague - I started a HUGE thread on this exact thing 4 years ago but the forum wipe at it).  Its some combination of genre and causal process logic, which on any given occasion will depend upon the GM in question.  It gets murkier as things head toward the endgame (things like hacking/rigging/interfacing with alien/Far Realm tech?). 

* The GM doesn't have to to give the DC to the players and in certain cases is advised not to (this one would likely be a case where the majority of 5e GM wouldn't give the players the DC even if they would in other cases).

* The GM decides if a Skill applies, not the player(s).

* The GM doesn't even have to let the players roll their own Attribute/Skill Check here.  They can (and are encouraged to a degree) roll the player's Attribute/Skill check behind their GM Screen to keep the results and the realities of the "alien tech" mysterious. 

* Group Check or are each of these discrete things?  GM decides.

* What happens upon failure?  There are no procedures/principles, its just "meaningful consequences."  Could be a simple binary "it works/it doesn't."  It could be that the tech starts or immediately engages a self-destruct sequence or countermeasures.  Who knows?



*4E D&D*

4e procedures and mechanics would handle this entirely differently and the play would look extremely different:

* 4e would handle the "Getting into the Mothership" as its own discrete scene/encounter.  The above gamestate would be the beginning framing (after the combat scene/encounter).

* There is very specific guidance on the Complexity of a Skill Challenge.  Its not an arbitrary decision.  Level of the noncombat scene/encounter is a little different, but the significant majority of them are "of-level" of the PCs.  Only on certain occasions are noncombat scenes "up-leveled" (and then only 1 or 2 levels).  So this would almost surely be a Complexity 2, Level + 0 Skill Challenge.  All of the interfacing tech would be player-facing:


6 Successes before 3 Failures to achieve "Win Condition or Loss Condition."
5 Medium DCs (DC 27 for level 23 PCs) and 1 High DC (37) must be passed.  The 2 Secondary Skills are DC 20.
1 Advantage usable (players can negate a failure or "down-level" a DC).

GMing a Skill Challenge is run by a specific (indie) ethos:


Say "yes or roll the dice."
Dynamically change the situation after every moment of action resolution.
The scene should yield a dramatic arc.
Players make all rolls and everything is out in the open.
Fail Forward.

So what would this play loop look like in 4e?

1 - GM frames the scene and describes the obstacle/adversary.

2 - Players declare goal/intent, action, and that the Rogue is leading a Group Check (he has Dungeoneering which is Far Realm Lore - which almost every Rogue would have and certainly at this point - and is using his Dungeoneers Guidance 6th level Utility - this is one of the best 6th level Encounter Utility Power for Rogues in the game so many would have this - if either the Fighter or the Wizard fails...turning their failure into a Success).

3 - The Fighter and the Wizard roll their Skills based on their actions (and again, this is a "say yes" system so if its even remotely feasible, that is the Skill they are using).  The Wizard might go with magic (Arcana) or Far Realm Lore (Dungeoneering) and the Fighter might go with "the computer has a built-in translator and I can talk to it directly so I'm imposing my will upon it" (Intimidate) or "I'm studying the manual's pictorial representation of these humanoids initiating take-off and following the procedures" (Perception) or "the controls look straight-forward enough but they require extreme physical coordination to use and strength to control the stick" (Athletics).

4 - If 1/2 succeed, its a success and the gamestate changes to a positive trajectory for the PCs (the hoverpods start up, they have the controls, and now they have them as an asset for the conflict).  Agency to affect that gamestate positively is already seriously tilted in the PC's favor due to the procedures above and the Rogue player deploying Dungeoneer's Guidance.

So its almost surely 1/6 Success and 0/3 Failures and up to the mother-ship we go with the PCs having a pair of Vehicles and using the "Monster Math on a Business Card" for them and giving them a couple of Encounter Powers (probably an Attack and a Utility).

If they fail, its 1/3 Failures and now we have to dynamically change the situation adversely (either create a new obstacle or escalate an existing one). 

Rinse/repeat.



*SCUM AND VILLAINY (FORGED IN THE DARK)*

The Loop for Scum and Villainy is exactly as Blades as I mentioned above and very similar to 4e except for idiosyncratic mechanical architecture.  I wrote the entire loop out upthread so not going to copy/paste it again here (just refer back to that).

* A Clock of some variety would likely be deployed here (maybe a discrete Danger Clock to get into the ship before the aliens realize what has happened and send reinforcements/a patrol or a Mission Clock for the whole thing depending upon the context of the situation).

* The Scoundrel has been around the block so he uses a Setup move via Hack (interfaces with the alien tech to bring up the system's interface to understand its controls) to improve the Position or Effect (Scoundrel player's choie) of the Mystic and the Muscle.  He generates Gambits (community dice pool that can be used on Action Rolls) like crazy and causes the Crew to start with one so he negotiates Desperate Position so he can use Daredevil (which gives him +1d if he wants it instead of mark 1 xp).  He'll also generate a Gambit because of the Desperate Position due to Never Tell Me the Odds.  So he has a huge dice pool (maybe 5-6 dice) to get at least a 4/5 and he'll probably get a 6.  He can always Resist if he gets a Complication.

* The Muscle uses Helm to pilot the vehicle.

* They Mystic Attunes (to the Way) to interface directly with the AI of the hoverpod.



Anyone who is looking at the above (and again, go back to my Blades play loop for reference for Scum and Villainy):

* Is it not readily apparent all of the vectors for Force that 5e GMing/play entails whereas 4e and Forged in the Dark games (in this case Scum and Villainy) do not?

* Having a lot of vectors for Force means, bare minimum, the PERCEPTION of potentially being beholden to externalities (even if they are benevolent such as the GMing believing "this will make for a better story or a more fun time!"...which they have mandate to do) is significant in a game like 5e. 

* However, having a lot of vectors for Force also means, as a function of time, its considerably more likely that, on an instance to instance basis, Force becomes increasingly likely to either (a) have been deployed or (b) be deployed.

Now...

How does the above fundamentals of play (the ethos, the procedures, the player-facedness, the action resolution and PC build tools) present in the above play examples not _*relatively decrease the agency of a 5e player and relatively increase the 5e GM with respect to the trajectory of play*_?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more.



This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.



FrogReaver said:


> Generally speaking when a mechanical process for combat is outlined in the book that is the process followed.  So when a player attacks an enemy, they roll an attack roll, the DM (or sometimes players) compare the AC to the resulting roll with modifiers and on a success they hit and damage is rolled.  As we have noted here there is some difference in opinion about whether the normal part of the D&D playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty actually can ever apply by rule to combat situations.  I would say it technically does, but I'm sure others have rather strong opinions that it doesn't.  But in practice that's mostly a distinction without a difference as a dang good reason would be needed to alter that part of combat resolutoin, as whether or not the rules might allow such things, it's generally an expectation of the players that combat will be resolved by the mechanics in the rules (or potentially houserules given out ahead of time).



This appears to be an exception from your previous statement.



FrogReaver said:


> The PC's and their actions are part of the shared fiction.  So long as the player has agency over their PC's actions then they have agency over the shared fiction.  Maybe what you mean is that the players don't have agency over all the shared fiction?  But I don't think that really correctly summarizes your position either.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions.



As well as _some_ or _all_ there are apposite words like _much_.

There is also the question of _what description of the action does the player control_? I attack the Orc? I kill the Orc? I look for such-and-such? I find such-and-such? I walk down the corridor? I fall down the pit? I meet the lady? I fall for the lady?

And who controls those other descriptions?



FrogReaver said:


> I think the example about climbing a wall with no handholds is more akin to framing the scene, which I think we all agree is okay for the DM to do unilaterally.



Do we? I don't, not when I'm playing (say) Burning Wheel, where scenes are intended to be set so as to speak to a PC's Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.

I've also posted upthread more generally about taking suggestions. @chaochou and @Campbell have also posted about different approaches to framing scenes which have different consequences for play agency.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.




I really don't think this position holds a lot of water. There is clearly an idea that you play your character and are not in control of the setting in the way the GM is in the 1E DMG and in OD&D. You've taken a few edge cases, in areas of the game that were quite specialized (like castle building). But to take that and then apply it to the game generally, I think is faulty logic. In fact, they seem to be exceptions to the overall rule of you playing just your character (and I also think your reading of some of these rules is a bit anachronistic any possibly wrong-----I would need to comb over my 1E DMG again to see for sure, which I am not going to do as I would much rather read In Those Dark Places today than prove a point online). But this just isn't resonating with me. It is like when people pointed to Barbarian rage to show that daily martial powers were cool in earlier D&D: these were exceptions and the issue of taking an edge case and making it a much bigger part of the game, is it totally changes how the game feels (just like taking a particular reading of a few edge cases can totally change what Gygax meant). I don't think anyone would seriously argue that Gygax meant D&D to be a game that gave narrative control to players. Again, that is anachronistic of course, because narrative control hadn't crystalized as a concept. But it seems way outside the playstyle and GMing advice of the man.


----------



## Campbell

Here's what I expect when I play early D&D and what I strive to do when I run it : I expect the DM to play with integrity. I expect that success will be determined by the strength of our fictional positioning and our dice rolls when it comes to it. I expect that anything that impacts our chance of success will be meaningfully knowable. I expect the DM will not be guided by outcomes when they make judgement calls. I expect that clever play will win the day.

The tools available to me come from my character, but I expect to be able to leverage them to change the fiction.  I expect that my decisions and skilled use of fictional positioning will have an impact on what I do and do not achieve. I expect that if I made different decisions it would lead to a different result.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> How is _this_ established?



That's a fair question, and I was thinking some about how it likely happens at your table (connected to how plausibility checking likely happens at your table). I realize I'm probably wrong in ways subtle and not, but I'm guessing plausibility checking happens around the table, as in anyone is allowed (doesn't feel like the right word) to call out anyone else for attempting something implausible; I'm also guessing it doesn't happen much (it doesn't happen much at my table, either--I suspect we both have good, good-faith players at our tables). I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?

In my games, the sheer ice wall would be established as part of framing the scene. So, it's the GM's decision, but it's in the GM's role of adventure-writer/designer, not ... a decision made when the PC decides to try to climb the wall. I get ... prickly when my sense of fair-play gets violated, and deciding the wall is sheer ice when a PC decides to try to climb it would ... grate.


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## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?



At which point I would have to wonder on what basis the original difficulty of the check was assigned as it obviously couldn't have been based on the the suitability of the wall for climbing as that information didn't exist before the check was made...


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.



My 4e never worked the way you claim yours did 



pemerton said:


> This appears to be an exception from your previous statement.



How so?



pemerton said:


> There is also the question of _what description of the action does the player control_? I attack the Orc? I kill the Orc?



Seems obvious?



pemerton said:


> Do we? I don't, not when I'm playing (say) Burning Wheel, where scenes are intended to be set so as to speak to a PC's Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.



Having a constraint on the decision doesn't mean it's not a unilateral decision.  



pemerton said:


> I've also posted upthread more generally about taking suggestions. @chaochou and @Campbell have also posted about different approaches to framing scenes which have different consequences for play agency.



But the question isn't can it be done some other way.  The question is whether it's acceptable for framing to be unilateral.  That's a point you've carefully curated your responses to avoid answering.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> At which point I would have to wonder on what basis the original difficulty of the check was assigned as it obviously couldn't have been based on the the suitability of the wall for climbing as that information didn't exist before the check was made...



I think in games where the GM doesn't have authority to set difficulties, it would be reasonable.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> In my games, the sheer ice wall would be established as part of framing the scene. So, it's the GM's decision, but it's in the GM's role of adventure-writer/designer, not ... a decision made when the PC decides to try to climb the wall. I get ... prickly when my sense of fair-play gets violated, and deciding the wall is sheer ice when a PC decides to try to climb it would ... grate.



In my games the exact nature of the wall's climbability doesn't tend to come up unless the player shows an interest in climbing the wall.  It would get rather old having to narrate the climbability of every wall I ever introduce into the game.  I suspect your game functions in much that same way.  You primarily elaborate on details the players express an interest in.  In which case the wall's details only get narrated when the player express an interest in interacting with it.  It's simply a method of framing.

What I personally would object to is not if the DM framed a wall as a solid sheet of ice after I expressed an interest in interacting with it, but if he framed every wall ever encountered that I expressed an interest in climbing as unclimbable.  The issue there for me isn't agency, but immersion.  Doing such would instantly break my immersion.  *Now if we were in an ice filled cavern then I'd again be fine with every wall encountered being unclimbable, at least without special gear to do so.  Why the difference?  Because the issue with framing unclimbable walls isn't about agency for me, it's about immersion.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> In my games the exact nature of the wall's climbability doesn't tend to come up unless the player shows an interest in climbing the wall.  It would get rather old having to narrate the climbability of every wall I ever introduce into the game.  I suspect your game functions in much that same way.  You primarily elaborate on details the players express an interest in.  In which case the wall's details only get narrated when the player express an interest in interacting with it.  It's simply a method of framing.
> 
> What I personally would object to is not if the DM framed a wall as a solid sheet of ice after I expressed an interest in interacting with it, but if he framed every wall ever encountered that I expressed an interest in climbing as unclimbable.  The issue there for me isn't agency, but immersion.  Doing such would instantly break my immersion.  *Now if we were in an ice filled cavern then I'd again be fine with every wall encountered being unclimbable, at least without special gear to do so.  Why the difference?  Because the issue isn't about agency for me, it's about immersion.



There's maybe a little daylight between us, but not much. I think that if for whatever reason someone is thinking about climbing *down* the wall, it's only fair to describe it as sheer ice with no handholds before they commit to the attempt, because the failure state there is falling (whereas the failure state of failing to climb up from the bottom is remaining at the bottom). I suspect that's how you'd run it, too.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I think in games where the GM doesn't have authority to set difficulties, it would be reasonable.



Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area are pretty common.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> There's maybe a little daylight between us, but not much. I think that if for whatever reason someone is thinking about climbing *down* the wall, it's only fair to describe it as sheer ice with no handholds before they commit to the attempt, because the failure state there is falling (whereas the failure state of failing to climb up from the bottom is remaining at the bottom). I suspect that's how you'd run it, too.



Oh I 100% agree.  When a player says I do X and I've not yet established an important detail then he always has the opportunity to change the action.  It's only after I've established that important detail and he says - I'm still trying to climb down the wall - well at that point I'm either ruling auto failure or setting a very high DC.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area.



Is there any real difference in setting an impossibly high DC and just ruling auto failure?


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> I think both they and myself would be uncomfortable with no mechanics for combat. Not due to a lack of trust, but because combat isn't like gauging a social reaction, or the solving of a puzzle. I am comfortable adjudicating those things, but not comfortable adjudicating combat without some kind of system



It's not just that.  If combat had no mechanics and was simply always narrated by the DM I personally would find it rather dull.  I imagine I'm not alone there. 

It's almost like the objections against having DM decides mechanics is centered around the idea that the DM always decides without any mechanics.  But that's not how D&D is typically played even in non-combat situations.  In non-combat there are times when the DM decides success with no mechanics and there are times when success is decided with mechanics.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Is there any real difference in setting an impossibly high DC and just ruling auto failure?



If you set a DC, you're saying it's possible, even if the DC is egregiously high. If you say it's not possible, it's not possible. In practice, it only matters if the party has resources they can burn and if they feel the task is important enough to burn them. You probably knew this.


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Is there any real difference in setting an impossibly high DC and just ruling auto failure?



Yes: if you have a rule to the effect of "20 always succeeds" there can be a rather big difference.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> Yes: if you have a rule to the effect of "20 always succeeds" there can be a rather big difference.



That would be a system where the dm cannot set the dc impossibly high


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> There's maybe a little daylight between us, but not much. I think that if for whatever reason someone is thinking about climbing *down* the wall, it's only fair to describe it as sheer ice with no handholds before they commit to the attempt, because the failure state there is falling (whereas the failure state of failing to climb up from the bottom is remaining at the bottom). I suspect that's how you'd run it, too.



The failure states for failing can be fall from halfway, fall from top, break off a bit of the surface and land under it... or stay at the bottom. isde range there.


----------



## prabe

aramis erak said:


> The failure states for failing can be fall from halfway, fall from top, break off a bit of the surface and land under it... or stay at the bottom. isde range there.



True, but if I'm saying "no" (the way I can in 5E) I'm not going to have the PC fall while trying to climb up. If I'm saying "no" for climbing down, the outcome is a fall the complete height--that's why I give the player a chance to back out of the attempt.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I really don't think this position holds a lot of water. There is clearly an idea that you play your character and are not in control of the setting in the way the GM is in the 1E DMG and in OD&D. You've taken a few edge cases, in areas of the game that were quite specialized (like castle building). But to take that and then apply it to the game generally, I think is faulty logic.



In D&D combat, as presented by Gygax and Moldvay, the player is not just in control of his/her PC ("I attack the Orc"). The player is also - via the combat resolution rules - directly able to contribute to the fiction containing a dead/defeated Orc.

Similarly, the player is able to not just declare "I search for secret doors" but also - via the various resolution options presented - is able to bring it about that _if a secret door is noted on the map and/or in the key_, then the PC is able to find it.

Whether you want to describe this as being "in control of the setting" is up to you. My point is that it is clearly control over more than just the PC - it includes (as mediated by the resolution mechanics) over the Orc, and over the status of the door as discovered or not.

The same thing is true of opening stuck doors, hearing noise beyond doors, etc. For instance, there is _nothing_ in Gygax or Moldvay's presentation that suggests that the GM can _just decide_ that a certain ogre on the other side of a door goes unheard by the PCs regardless of the results of a hear noise check. (Contrast 2nd ed AD&D, which does suggest exactly this possibility.)



Campbell said:


> Here's what I expect when I play early D&D and what I strive to do when I run it : I expect the DM to play with integrity. I expect that success will be determined by the strength of our fictional positioning and our dice rolls when it comes to it. I expect that anything that impacts our chance of success will be meaningfully knowable. I expect the DM will not be guided by outcomes when they make judgement calls. I expect that clever play will win the day.
> 
> The tools available to me come from my character, but I expect to be able to leverage them to change the fiction.  I expect that my decisions and skilled use of fictional positioning will have an impact on what I do and do not achieve. I expect that if I made different decisions it would lead to a different result.



This is exactly what I'm talking about, with respect to classic (Gygax/Moldvay-type) D&D.

2nd ed AD&D is obviously different.

4e D&D is also different, but in a different way from 2nd ed AD&D.


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> True, but if I'm saying "no" (the way I can in 5E) I'm not going to have the PC fall while trying to climb up. If I'm saying "no" for climbing down, the outcome is a fall the complete height--that's why I give the player a chance to back out of the attempt.



But that's actually the failure state many games suggest. 
Probably also the most realistic, too


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> In D&D combat, as presented by Gygax and Moldvay, the player is not just in control of his/her PC ("I attack the Orc"). The player is also - via the combat resolution rules - directly able to contribute to the fiction containing a dead/defeated Orc.
> 
> Similarly, the player is able to not just declare "I search for secret doors" but also - via the various resolution options presented - is able to bring it about that _if a secret door is noted on the map and/or in the key_, then the PC is able to find it.
> 
> Whether you want to describe this as being "in control of the setting" is up to you. My point is that it is clearly control over more than just the PC - it includes (as mediated by the resolution mechanics) over the Orc, and over the status of the door as discovered or not.




This is not a persuasive argument, and it honestly seems like a deeply flawed one as well. These points have all been addressed multiple times, from just about every conceivable angle. There appears to be some kind of equivocation going on in your use of contributing to/creating the fiction. I mean if taking something that already exists in the setting, an orc the GM has introduced, and defeating it in combat, is the player having narrative power, well I guess narrative power is a pretty meaningless concept in that case, because it pretty much always arises, in every game ever. But you are using that to build an argument for something much greater (the players having far more control of the setting than the they normally do). 

First, the players didn't introduce a dead orc. An orc was introduced by the GM, then it was killed by the player _acting through their character's attacks. _That isn't narrating a dead orc, that isn't contributing a dead orc to the fiction. That is successfully attacking and killing the orc through the powers the pc has in the world. Describing this as narrative power, ignores the logical series of steps and succesful actions that have to occur in the setting in order for that to happen. The secret door is the same: it already existed. The player merely discovers it through an abilty that reflects the character's senses of such things. That isn't the character bringing it about. And again, if all you mean by contributing to the fiction is using a character's abilities to achieve things in the setting, no one here would disagree with you. But you are making a much bigger point and this appears to be serving as a point of equivocation or blurring. Because what the other side objecting to, isn't players finding a secret door using their characters abilities. The thing the other side objects to, or considers not an element of what they mean by agency, is the player being able to invoke things into the setting like events, like mountains, like doors that were never really there in the first place, by a means outside their character's actual powers in the setting. There is something seriously wrong and specious about this argument. I may be missing some fine detail here or there, or not fully analyzing the problem but I think it is very clear that dead orc assertion is a hugely flawed one.


----------



## aramis erak

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area are pretty common.



As long as the player has artha of the right type (Fate, IIRC), it is possible to hit any TN. Just insanely unlike to hit anything more than 4 over skill.



FrogReaver said:


> Is there any real difference in setting an impossibly high DC and just ruling auto failure?



Yes, in many games. A DC higher than max total on an ability check for the character is a "You cannot pass, but someone else might.". If it's within a point or two in 5E, a bardic inspiration puts it reach. Or a suitable tool.

Let's say a 2d20 GM sets a difficulty of 12, and the player has the relevant rnage of 11 & 3 (base and focus), to succeed, needs 5d20 to roll ≤3 each + at least one trait that helps. Each trait after that is one die allowed to be ≤11. Or you can suck up some help, and an additional die each.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> That's a fair question, and I was thinking some about how it likely happens at your table (connected to how plausibility checking likely happens at your table). I realize I'm probably wrong in ways subtle and not, but I'm guessing plausibility checking happens around the table, as in anyone is allowed (doesn't feel like the right word) to call out anyone else for attempting something implausible; I'm also guessing it doesn't happen much (it doesn't happen much at my table, either--I suspect we both have good, good-faith players at our tables). I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?
> 
> In my games, the sheer ice wall would be established as part of framing the scene. So, it's the GM's decision, but it's in the GM's role of adventure-writer/designer, not ... a decision made when the PC decides to try to climb the wall. I get ... prickly when my sense of fair-play gets violated, and deciding the wall is sheer ice when a PC decides to try to climb it would ... grate.





Crimson Longinus said:


> At which point I would have to wonder on what basis the original difficulty of the check was assigned as it obviously couldn't have been based on the the suitability of the wall for climbing as that information didn't exist before the check was made...



My understanding is that, in the real world, people sometimes climb up ice walls.

Moreso in adventure fiction.

That there is an ice wall is something that I would typically envisage as a matter of framing. The obstacle would then follow from that, via the rules. Eg in Burning Wheel the Climbing skill says that climbing a 90-degree ice wall without equipment is Ob 7 (which is a pretty high obstacle). If the check is attempted and failed, one possible narration (depending on context, trajectory etc) would be that the wall is sheer and hence has no handholds. Whether the narration of failure would feed through to setting a difficulty for another character's attempt would (again) depend on context.

In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP the resolution would be completely different. Sheer Ice Wall might be a scene distinction established via the GM as part of framing. Assuming that the players want to establish, as the resolution of the scene, that their PCs are no longer impeded by that wall, then they would have to declare actions to overcome that distinction. Normally those would be resolved against the Doom Pool, including the distinction as a bonus die. Traits like Climbing (a power) or Acrobatics (a skill) might be part of a player's pool. Depending on how the resolution unfolds, we might find that the PCs easily scale the wall; or alternatively that they make it but with frostbitten fingers (ie physical stress) or even that the ice collapses on them, burying them (if the GM wins the opposed checks and establishes a D12 or D12+ scene complication Buried in Ice).

Off the top of my head, I can't think of a circumstance in which it would be important to frame an ice wall as literally unscalable.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Having a constraint on the decision doesn't mean it's not a unilateral decision.



If the constraint flows from choices made by others, then actually it does.



FrogReaver said:


> The question is whether it's acceptable for framing to be unilateral.



Acceptable to whom? To you, apparently yes. In fact - from your posts - you seem to think this is the best approach to RPGing.

Personally I tend to find it makes for a poor RPGing experience. There are exceptions to that - I've mentioned CoC oneshots upthread; and the murder mystery that I refereed recently.

But generally I prefer that framing be done having regard to player input or evinced player concerns. The details of that depend on the particular system and techniques being used. In a system like Burning Wheel the framing should be tightly connected to PC Beliefs, Instincts and Traits. In Prince Valiant the initial framing is more likely to have a fairly generic knight-errant flavour, but which enables the players to quickly push things in directions that reflect and express their concerns for their PCs.

I have seen it advocated on these boards (eg by @Lanefan but not only him) that a GM should prepare adventure/scenario material without regard to which PCs it is for. That would be an example of unilateral framing. That is an approach to GMing that I have not used since about 1984.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Yep. AFAIK Burning Wheel isn't like that though. And it has super steep DC curve and compared to D&D it is far easier for the tasks to be simply mathematically impossible, so setting the DC matters far more. I'd imagine that situations where a task that is pretty easy for a skilled character is literally impossible for one that is not skilled in the area are pretty common.



As @aramis erak has said, there are no "mathematically impossible" tasks in Burning Wheel. A single fate point spent after the roll will open-end 6s.

In Cortex+ Heroic there are no mathematically impossible tasks either, because every check is opposed and its always possible for the opposed roll to be low, even zero if all the dice come up 1s and hence have to be set aside.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> My understanding is that, in the real world, people sometimes climb up ice walls.



Yes. Highly-skilled people, with specialized tools.


pemerton said:


> Off the top of my head, I can't think of a circumstance in which it would be important to frame an ice wall as literally unscalable.



I think I was specific about "without tools or magic." With the right kind of either, it's not unscalable.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This is not a persuasive argument, and it honestly seems like a deeply flawed one as well. These points have all been addressed multiple times, from just about every conceivable angle. There appears to be some kind of equivocation going on in your use of contributing to/creating the fiction. *I mean if taking something that already exists in the setting, an orc the GM has introduced, and defeating it in combat, is the player having narrative power, well I guess narrative power is a pretty meaningless concept in that case, because it pretty much always arises, in every game ever.*



Yes. That is my point.

The fact that you and @FrogReaver differentiate between the "narrative power" to bring it about that Orcs are dead and the "narrative power" to bring it about that walls have secret doors is a fact about your aesthetic preferences. But it doesn't tell us anything about what is involved in _creating a shared fiction_ - because changing a fiction to have the Orc in it be dead is no different an act from changing a fiction to have the wall in it contain a secret door.



Bedrockgames said:


> But you are using that to build an argument for something much greater (the players having far more control of the setting than the they normally do).



By "normal" you mean _as you play D&D?_

I've already pointed out that what you describe as not "normal" was contemplated in Classic Traveller in 1977. In precisely the circumstances one would expect, that is, when map-and-key resolution becomes impossible (ie Streetwise checks).



Bedrockgames said:


> First, the players didn't introduce a dead orc. An orc was introduced by the GM, then it was killed by the player _acting through their character's attacks. _That isn't narrating a dead orc, that isn't contributing a dead orc to the fiction.



Yes it is. The fiction contains a live Orc. The player declares an action. The action resolves successfully. Now the fiction contains a dead Orc. That is a change in the fiction, produced by the resolution of the player's declared action.

Of course, in the fiction, a _killing _took place. But in the real world, what took place is what I have just described - the resolution of a declared action which leads to everyone agreeing that the fiction has changed, so as to include a dead Orc where previously it contained a live Orc.




Bedrockgames said:


> That is successfully attacking and killing the orc through the powers the pc has in the world. Describing this as narrative power, ignores the logical series of steps and succesful actions that have to occur in the setting in order for that to happen.



Presumably the "narrative power" is a power a _player _has in the real world, not a power a PC has in an imagined world. Your sentence here seems to confuse those two things.

In the fiction, the PC kills the Orc by (let's say) running it through with a sword.

In the real world, the player gets everyone at the table to agree that the fiction contains a dead Orc by declaring an action and then successfully resolving it via whatever method the system dictates (eg in D&D this is the attack roll compared to AC and then the damage roll compared to the Orc's hit point tally).



Bedrockgames said:


> The secret door is the same: it already existed. The player merely discovers it through an abilty that reflects the character's senses of such things. That isn't the character bringing it about.



The player doesn't discover a secret door. S/he is sitting at a table in someone's living room (or gaming den or whatever). 

The PC discovers a secret door. There are different ways this component of the fiction might be settled on. One method - favoured by many D&D players - is for the GM to have already decided what the fiction is going to be, and then the player declaring an exploration-type action (eg _I tap on the walls to see if they are hollow_ or _I search for signs of secret doors like movable torch sconces _or similar) and if that action resolves successfully (maybe the GM says "yes" because s/he is satisfied that the described action would reveal the fictional detail; maybe the GM calls for a check) then the GM informs the player of the upshot of that earlier decision about the fiction.

Another method - standard for Cortex+ Heroic and Burning Wheel; quite feasible in 4e D&D - is for the player to declare an action and for that to be resolved just the same as the _I attack an Orc action_. If the action succeeds, now we have a fiction in which the PC discovers a secret door.



Bedrockgames said:


> And again, if all you mean by contributing to the fiction is using a character's abilities to achieve things in the setting, no one here would disagree with you. But you are making a much bigger point and this appears to be serving as a point of equivocation or blurring. Because what the other side objecting to, isn't players finding a secret door using their characters abilities. The thing the other side objects to, or considers not an element of what they mean by agency, is the player being able to invoke things into the setting like events, like mountains, like doors that were never really there in the first place, by a means outside their character's actual powers in the setting.



_Never really there in the first place_ just means _not made up unilaterally by the GM_.

No one thinks that, in the fiction of my Burning Wheel game, Evard's tower was brought into existence by Aramin's recollection of it. No one in the fiction thinks that. I trust that no one in the real world thinks that either - that would show a significant failure to understand the story being told (eg it is a story about Aramina recollecting the tales she has heard of the Great Masters).

This is just like in any other fiction - eg no one thinks that the planet Hoth didn't exist when Luke blew up the first Death Star, although when the first Star Wars movie was released no one had dreamed up the planet Hoth yet.

Fiction is authored. That authorship takes place in the real world, at definite times, through definite processes. The secret door is not _more _"real" because the GM first thinks of it rather than a player; or because the GM thinks of it yesterday rather than today.



Bedrockgames said:


> There is something seriously wrong and specious about this argument. I may be missing some fine detail here or there, or not fully analyzing the problem but I think it is very clear that dead orc assertion is a hugely flawed one.



The only flaw here is that you seem unable to disentangle your preferences about distribution of authorship or "narrative" power in RPGing from a general analysis of what authorship actually involves.

That apparent inability is most obviously manifest in your repeated description of things that happen in the fiction as if they happen in the real world, and things that happen in the real world as if they happen in the fiction. Which I actually find quite odd.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Yes. That is my point.
> 
> The fact that you and @FrogReaver differentiate between the "narrative power" to bring it about that Orcs are dead and the "narrative power" to bring it about that walls have secret doors is a fact about your aesthetic preferences. But it doesn't tell us anything about what is involved in _creating a shared fiction_ - because changing a fiction to have the Orc in it be dead is no different an act from changing a fiction to have the wall in it contain a secret door.




In both these cases, the orc and the secret door exist. The player in the case of the orc, kills it with an action. The player in the case of the door, finds it through an action. Those are both different from the player declaring there is a dead orc present, or declaring there is a door present.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> That isn't an easy thing to assess. And I am not sure how useful assessing it is to be honest. Just off the top of my head, there is a difference between violent, physical action, and social ones. But there are probably lots of other reasons behind why these two feel very different to me in play. All I can tell you is I find it very easy to adjudicate social interactions, puzzles, exploration without mechanics (sometimes I like having mechanics for some of those things, but it never feels completely necessary). With combat it is totally different. At the end of the day, again, we can try to provide you with explanations for why these things just land differently with us. But I don't know how useful that is to be honest. I think one can fall into the same trap that occurs when you try to identify what you it is you don't like about a particular game or edition. I've done that, and it has led me astray many times. Because that kind of insight isn't easy to come by. It is very easy to misidentify the cause, or to miss an important nuance. But the important thing, really is the end result. So any distinctions I can provide are provisionary and not as important as the fact that I just know from playing that I am comfortable having no mechanics for one, but not comfortable having no mechanics for the other (on either side of the GM screen).




I think it’s absolutely fine to have the preference you have. I’d likely  even understand some reasons you might have offered.

But, without knowing any, all I can comment on is that I think perhaps you should give some consideration to this difference. If player agency matters to you, set aside the fictional differences of combat and social actions and instead look at them as player actions. 

Don’t you think that player agency is at its highest when the players can direct the outcome through the game’s mechanics? When they know “if I attempt action X, I likely have these odds to succeed, and if I do, I will achieve Y”? 

Seriously....just consider this idea and how it may relate to agency.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> By "normal" you mean _as you play D&D?_
> 
> I've already pointed out that what you describe as not "normal" was contemplated in Classic Traveller in 1977. In precisely the circumstances one would expect, that is, when map-and-key resolution becomes impossible (ie Streetwise checks).



We've covered this ground before. And this is was largely a throw away word in the sentence (I could have just as easily have said 'as they often do', as they' typically do'). I simply meant, the way people have traditionally, and typically played the game. Now that can change. What it is normal changes with time. Maybe in ten years, the norm will be players having greater narrative control. I don't think it is yet the norm. 

Something existing in a game in 1977, doesn't mean it was the norm. Again, we've had this discussion already. I have said, people often simplify the history of RPGs, and that there was plenty of variety. But that doesn't mean it was typical in the 70s and 80s, for the players to wield narrative control.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Yes it is. The fiction contains a live Orc. The player declares an action. The action resolves successfully. Now the fiction contains a dead Orc. That is a change in the fiction, produced by the resolution of the player's declared action.
> 
> Of course, in the fiction, a _killing _took place. But in the real world, what took place is what I have just described - the resolution of a declared action which leads to everyone agreeing that the fiction has changed, so as to include a dead Orc where previously it contained a live Orc.




You are simply wrong here. The player isn't narrating anything. The player is taking an action. The player doesn't say "I kill the orc". The player says "I swing my sword" then rolls, then the GM tells them to roll for damage if they hit and then the GM tells them what the outcome of that hit is. Again, this is a really bizarre argument. The player isn't exerting control outside their character on the setting, they are acting through their character within the setting. This distinction is pretty clear I think. I just find this argument incredibly specious.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> In both these cases, the orc and the secret door exist. The player in the case of the orc, kills it with an action. The player in the case of the door, finds it through an action. Those are both different from the player declaring there is a dead orc present, or declaring there is a door present.



Here are two (short) stories:

(1)
Morgan Ironwolf came upon an Orc. They fought. Morgan killed the Orc with her sword.

(2)
Morgan Ironwolf came to a wall. She searched it, thinking that there might be a hidden way through it. She found a secret opening in the wall.​
Each story has an initial situation, a moment of rising action, and then a resolution. There is no difference in narrative structure. There is no difference in the manner by which or degree to which each sentence follows from the previous. Neither is more or less contrived than the other.

Thought of as a RPG, each begins with some framing, then contains an action declaration, and then contains a resolution of that action in which the protagonist has succeeded.

I understand that you prefer the resolution process in (2) to be different from that in (1). But there is no explanation of that preference which turns upon a difference of narrative structure or "narrative power". Because it identical in each.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Presumably the "narrative power" is a power a _player _has in the real world, not a power a PC has in an imagined world. Your sentence here seems to confuse those two things.
> 
> In the fiction, the PC kills the Orc by (let's say) running it through with a sword.
> 
> In the real world, the player gets everyone at the table to agree that the fiction contains a dead Orc by declaring an action and then successfully resolving it via whatever method the system dictates (eg in D&D this is the attack roll compared to AC and then the damage roll compared to the Orc's hit point tally).




That isn't narrative power. That is power over your character's actions. The player is merely deciding to attack the orc or not, not negotiating whether the game contains a dead orc. The orc happens to die as a result of the actions the player character has taken. This is a bad argument. Period. I don't know what else I can tell you, except you keep repeating something that is failing to persuade me and the people you are trying to persuade.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Here are two (short) stories:
> 
> (1)​Morgan Ironwolf came upon an Orc. They fought. Morgan killed the Orc with her sword.​​(2)​Morgan Ironwolf came to a wall. She searched it, thinking that there might be a hidden way through it. She found a secret opening in the wall.​
> Each story has an initial situation, a moment of rising action, and then a resolution. There is no difference in narrative structure. There is no difference in the manner by which or degree to which each sentence follows from the previous. Neither is more or less contrived than the other.
> 
> Thought of as a RPG, each begins with some framing, then contains an action declaration, and then contains a resolution of that action in which the protagonist has succeeded.
> 
> I understand that you prefer the resolution process in (2) to be different from that in (1). But there is no explanation of that preference which turns upon a difference of narrative structure or "narrative power". Because it identical in each.




I am not following you at all here. I think you are misunderstanding what I am arguing.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> You are simply wrong here. The player isn't narrating anything. The player is taking an action. The player doesn't say "I kill the orc". The player says "I swing my sword" then rolls, then the GM tells them to roll for damage if they hit and then the GM tells them what the outcome of that hit is.





Bedrockgames said:


> That isn't narrative power. That is power over your character's actions. The player is merely deciding to attack the orc or not, not negotiating whether the game contains a dead orc.



The player declares an action. It is resolved. Now the fiction contains a dead Orc.

In the other case, the player declares an action ("I search for a secret door"). It is resolved. Now the fiction contains a secret door discovered by the PC.

The structure is identical. I don't care whether you classify either or neither as a case of "negotiating" or a case of "narrative power". Those are your phrases, not mine.

The point is that there is no difference in process. The difference is about _subject matter_: you are happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _is this Orc dead or alive?_ but you are not happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _does this wall contain a secret door?_


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not following you at all here. I think you are misunderstanding what I am arguing.



I am not having any trouble following you. You are confusing a difference of subject matter for a difference of process.

EDITed to elaborate:

You and @FrogReaver seem to be asserting that _because there is a difference of narrative/authorship process in the Orc case and the secret door case_, this justifies different resolution methods - roughly, _roll the dice_ vs _GM decides_.

My point is that _there is no difference of narrative/authorship process_. I have illustrated this several times, most elegantly with my two short stories about Morgan Ironwolf.

Hence there is no "natural" or "normal" difference of resolution methods.

What is different is _topic_ or _subject matter_: eg Orcs being killed vs secret doors being discovered. And you want these different subject matters to have different resolution methods.

Where does that preference have its origins? As far as I can tell, in wargaming, where some subject matters (say, terrain) are dealt with via map-and-key, while others (say, does this army retreat under fire) are dealt with via rolling dice.

If a RPG is not a wargame, nor about architectural puzzle-solving, then what reason is there to adhere to that preference?


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Don’t you think that player agency is at its highest when the players can direct the outcome through the game’s mechanics? When they know “if I attempt action X, I likely have these odds to succeed, and if I do, I will achieve Y”?




No, I don't think this is the case. That isn't agency, that is playing the odds. Agency is about not being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM. What you are describing is more like system mastery. That is a sort of power in the game. But it isn't what I think of when I think agency.


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> The point is that there is no difference in process. The difference is about _subject matter_: you are happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _is this Orc dead or alive?_ but you are not happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _does this wall contain a secret door?_



I believe there are some people who see the processes as answering slightly different questions: _Can I kill this orc?_ in the one case and _Can I find a secret door in this wall?_ in the other. In the former, your actions can determine whether you can kill the orc; in the latter, your actions cannot determine whether there is a secret door--failure to find it doesn't answer that question.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Seriously....just consider this idea and how it may relate to agency.




I have. I have been considering your position. But it takes a lot to persuade people. You haven't adopted my worldview just because of an online conversation (and Permerton certainly hasn't). I don't think we are going to see many people changing their minds. What I will say, is I do think, I at least understand why you play the way you do, why you have your preferences, and I have no objection to them. Nor do I think they can't be perfectly satisfying preferences. However on the other side it does feel like our preferences are constantly being undermined by linguistic arguments, to the point that their very existence seems in question.


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## Fenris-77

@pemerton - I think the issue at hand is that both the orc and door were already present in the fiction, one alive and the other undiscovered, and the players have changed the _state_ of those things in the fiction but not narrated their presence or absence. That is actually quite different from, say, being able to narrate the presence of a convenient balcony because you rolled really well to jump out of the Duke's window when he discovered you with his wife (as is the case in a game like Houses of the Blooded). To be specific I mean a balcony that was not in any of the GMs plans, maps, or notes, and that only exists because of successes on a die roll allowing the player narrate it into existence.

At least I'm pretty sure that's the sticking point here.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I don't think this is the case. That isn't agency, that is playing the odds. Agency is about not being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM. What you are describing is more like system mastery. That is a sort of power in the game. But it isn't what I think of when I think agency.






Bedrockgames said:


> No, I don't think this is the case. That isn't agency, that is playing the odds. Agency is about not being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM. What you are describing is more like system mastery. That is a sort of power in the game. But it isn't what I think of when I think agency.




Don’t you think that being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM is more likely when the player doesn’t have the kind of info I’m talking about? 

Do you think that players are more likely to be concerned about being railroaded in combat or outside of it?


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## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> @pemerton - I think the issue at hand is that both the orc and door were already present in the fiction, one alive and the other undiscovered, and the players have changed the _state_ of those things in the fiction but not narrated their presence or absence. That is actually quite different from, say, being able to narrate the presence of a convenient balcony because you rolled really well to jump out of the Duke's window when he discovered you with his wife (as is the case in a game like Houses of the Blooded). To be specific I mean a balcony that was not in any of the GMs plans, maps, or notes, and that only exists because of successes on a die roll allowing the player narrate it into existence.
> 
> At least I'm pretty sure that's the sticking point here.



Got it in one!


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## pemerton

prabe said:


> I believe there are some people who see the processes as answering slightly different questions: _Can I kill this orc?_ in the one case and _Can I find a secret door in this wall?_ in the other. *In the former, your actions can determine whether you can kill the orc*; in the latter, your actions cannot determine whether there is a secret door--failure to find it doesn't answer that question.



I've bolded a bit. That claim is not true if the Orc is undefeatable (like the unscalable ice wall). It is true if establishing the modal properties of the Orc is treated as up for grabs among the game participants.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> The point is that there is no difference in process. The difference is about _subject matter_: you are happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _is this Orc dead or alive?_ but you are not happy for players to declare actions the resolution of which settles the question _does this wall contain a secret door?_




I have not ever taken the position against having the ability to search for secret doors. The only thing I have asserted is that there is a difference between combat and non-combat parts of the game, that combat requires mechanics for the game to function, non-combat doesn't (but that doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't have some mechanics-----just I can comfortable resolve non-combat aspects of play without mechanics, but not comfortable resolve combat without them). There have been a lot of different arguments about a few different things getting thrown around here, and I have responded to a number of them. But I think my points in response to arguments A and B are beginning to get blurred with my points to arguments C and D. That or I am just growing very weary of this thread and losing sight of my points (which is possible----we are 127 pages into agency and really haven't made any progress)


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Don’t you think that being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM is more likely when the player doesn’t have the kind of info I’m talking about?



No, I think railroading is more common when the GM likes to railroad.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think that players are more likely to be concerned about being railroaded in combat or outside of it?




I think railroading is generally a topic for outside combat. Though you can certainly railroad things like encounters (i.e. these three encounters will happen tonight). But railroading can happen in combat too. For example if you give an NPC plot immunity like the puppet maker in the Ravenloft module the Created had (where he literally can't die no matter what the Players do for plot reasons) that would be railroading in combat. But most times, I think railroading is about "this adventure is going to happen whether you choose the path to it or not".


----------



## darkbard

Bedrockgames said:


> However on the other side it does feel like our preferences are constantly being undermined by linguistic arguments, to the point that their very existence seems in question.




How do you seriously hold to this position when you yourself repeatedly use normative language when discussing your own long-ingrained habits of roleplaying? You represent your "side" as being a longstanding tradition from which @pemerton and other advocates for player-facing gaming deviate, and yet you feel so aggrieved by our discussions on an online forum that you must defend your preferred gaming modality's honor from our "besmirchments"?!? I mean, really?


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I've bolded a bit. That claim is not true if the Orc is undefeatable (like the unscalable ice wall). It is true if establishing the modal properties of the Orc is treated as up for grabs among the game participants.



I agree. If the GM can determine that a wall is unscalable, then the GM can determine that a given orc is unkillable. The latter case is seems likely to be a GM (or adventure designer) acting in bad faith; the former might be, depending on the situation (remember: I said "without magic or proper equipment"). I don't think a GM determining if and where any secret doors are is likely to be acting in that kind of bad faith.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Most of the time.
> 
> Sometimes they might declare an action with a failure state in mind, i.e. where any outcome - including the status quo - will do other than this bad one I've thought of!
> 
> Also, just because a player has a success state in mind (or even says it outright as part of the declaration) doesn't always mean that's the only possible success state*; and - and here's the bit that's key for me - doesn't always entitle the player/PC to that success state even if the roll would say otherwise**.




When would you allow for a roll, set a DC or Target Number, see that it is a success per the dice, and then deny that success? 

When has this come about in a game? Do you have any specific examples?

I’m honestly struggling to understand this one. Many folks are saying that the GM can change the nature of a success, but the one example given so far has been pretty light.

Have you actually done this in play? If so, what did you do and why did you change things? 



Lanefan said:


> Setting is the purview of the GM.  Therefore, any setting-based idea comes from or through the GM unless the GM has proactively delegated this purview to a player (e.g. the 1e DMG guidance re a Fighter building a stronghold; or e.g. the GM delegating a player to write up the home village of that player's PC).
> Character, by contrast, is the purview of the player.  Absent control mechanics, the GM (or anyone else) can't tell me how to play my character.




In what game? There are plenty of games where neither of these ideas is entirely true.


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## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> How do you seriously hold to this position when you yourself repeatedly use normative language when discussing your own long-ingrained habits of roleplaying? You represent your "side" as being a longstanding tradition from which @pemerton and other advocates for player-facing gaming deviate, and yet you feel so aggrieved by our discussions on an online forum that you must defend your preferred gaming modality's honor from our "besmirchments"?!? I mean, really?




Again, I am not using normal or traditional as attacks on your style. Describing non-narrative modes of play as traditional or old school is a convenient use of language (most people know what you mean when you say traditional rpg). With the word normal, like I said, I could just have easily have said 'typical'. I don't think it is a judgement at all to say "this is how people normally play the game". That norm can change over time, or I could be wrong about the norm, but there is likely a norm to speak of. That doesn't make other approaches wrong. My prefered style of play for example is not the norm (the norm quite honestly, in terms of adventure structures, appears to still be something more like adventure paths----though I could be wrong on that as I am not really playing D&D these days, so I am not that up to date on the mainstream of the hobby as I used to be). For instance, one norm right now is using social skills, and often rolling them as the primary way of determining what happens socially. Players and GMs expect social skills, GMs are expected to honor the results of social skill rolls. I much prefer to weight things on what the player characters say and do, and if social skills are used at all, it is to simply help the GM figure out what happens when the outcome of those things isn't immediately obvious. Here my style of play is outside the norm I believe. It doesn't bother me to describe social skills as a normal part of RPGs now (and I don't see such a statement as one declaring my preference around them as abnormal).


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> @pemerton - I think the issue at hand is that both the orc and door were already present in the fiction, one alive and the other undiscovered, and the players have changed the _state_ of those things in the fiction but not narrated their presence or absence. That is actually quite different from, say, being able to narrate the presence of a convenient balcony because you rolled really well to jump out of the Duke's window when he discovered you with his wife (as is the case in a game like Houses of the Blooded). To be specific I mean a balcony that was not in any of the GMs plans, maps, or notes, and that only exists because of successes on a die roll allowing the player narrate it into existence.
> 
> At least I'm pretty sure that's the sticking point here.



In the fiction the Orc is there, alive and kicking. The player wants a different fiction, where its dead. The game contains a process for transitioning from one to the other fiction: it involves establishing an in-fiction process (ie _I attack the Orc with my sword_) and using a real-world resolution method (rolling dice).

In the fiction the wall is there, blocking the PC's way with no evident ways through. The player wants a different fiction, where the wall contains a way through that is (obviously) not currently evident. A game like Burning Wheel or Cortex+ Heroic contains a process for transitioning from one to the other fiction: it involves establishing an in-fiction process (ie _I search the wall for secret doors_) and using a real-world resolution method (rolling dice).

If a table wants to introduce a rule that _no door can become part of the shared fiction unless the GM has already written unilaterally into his/her prior secret version of the fiction_ that's obviously their prerogative. The same thing could be done with the killing of an Orc, too (see eg the Dragonlance modules which use a method at least a bit like this).

Why would one introduce such a rule? Maybe because one enjoys puzzle-solving? Maybe other reasons, though they're not being clearly articulated in this thread.

My point is simply that _killings of Orcs_ and _discoveries of doors_ are not different in this respect. And various posters seem to be confusing _metaphysical differences in the real world _(eg obvious differences between how living things move from life to death and how architecture is created and explored) with _differences of how fiction is written_ (in the case of fiction, the process of narrating _Morgan Ironwolf kills the Orc_ is identical to the process of narrating _Morgan Ironwolf found a secret door in the wall _- as illustrated in my two short stories upthread).


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## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> and other advocates for player-facing gaming deviate, and yet you feel so aggrieved by our discussions on an online forum that you must defend your preferred gaming modality's honor from our "besmirchments"?!? I mean, really?




Not sure why you are putting 'besmirchments' in quotes as I never used that word. I wouldn't say I am aggrieved or that I am defending the honor of a playstyle. I am a tad annoyed by some of the arguments I've seen (for sure not all----I have had a very easy time communicating with Hawkeyefan, even though we disagree on a a lot).


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> combat requires mechanics for the game to function, non-combat doesn't



This claim isn't true, though. Combat can be free-narrated like anything else!


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I think railroading is more common when the GM likes to railroad.






Bedrockgames said:


> I think railroading is generally a topic for outside combat.




Where there are fewer mechanics for players to rely upon and instead they have to guess at the GM’s judgment? And where the GM can simply declare things are “impossible” or similar in a way that he can’t get away with in combat? Not without being called on it if the players are aware? 

You don’t think that these things may be connected even though you think railroading is more of a concern outside of combat?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Don’t you think that being railroaded or having choices constrained by the GM is more likely when the player doesn’t have the kind of info I’m talking about?
> 
> Do you think that players are more likely to be concerned about being railroaded in combat or outside of it?



Just to give an example of what I mean: builds. Optimized builds are great for allowing a player to realize a character concept in play (I want to be a great thrower of knives). I don't think that is agency though. I see agency as more focused on the character. This is more about the authorship. So I am drawing a distinction there.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> Why would one introduce such a rule? Maybe because one enjoys puzzle-solving? Maybe other reasons, though they're not being clearly articulated in this thread.



Maybe because they feel more as though the characters are operating in something consistent with an objective reality, as a way to judge plausibility or determine courses of action? I think that's at the root of my own preferences. I think that's why some of the successes my characters have had in games where I the player could determine facts of the game-world seem so cheap as I remember them.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Where there are fewer mechanics for players to rely upon and instead they have to guess at the GM’s judgment? And where the GM can simply declare things are “impossible” or similar in a way that he can’t get away with in combat? Not without being called on it if the players are aware?
> 
> You don’t think that these things may be connected even though you think railroading is more of a concern outside of combat?




No, because those very mechanics can undermine the actual choices the players make through their characters. 

Yes, there are bad GMs who simply declare things as impossible because. But that isn't what a GM should strive to do. What I am saying is, when a GM does their job right, the players have agency (and I think more agency than they would have if you give them GM powers, or mechanics to make sure the GM is playing fair). Also this isn't a simple game of guessing what the GM will judge. I get some people don't like this style, and dismiss it as mother may I or magic tea party. But again, when it is functioning as it should, you are making choices that feel like they have a logical outcome in the setting. 

The solution to railroading isn't to give players more powers. I can solve all railroading by giving every player character an endless wish spell. That is a very crude solution. The real solution is for GMs to not railroad. 

Again, I think a lot of this does boil to the level of trust people are comfortable giving to a GM.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Where there are fewer mechanics for players to rely upon and instead they have to guess at the GM’s judgment?




Can you give a concrete example of what you mean here ?


----------



## Fenris-77

@pemerton - the difference is between the player finding a secret door that was already there (GM planning etc), and rolling well enough that the player gets to decide themselves that yes, there is indeed a secret door in that wall.

If you don't think there's a difference between those two in terms of agency then we'll have to agree to disagree.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to give an example of what I mean: builds. Optimized builds are great for allowing a player to realize a character concept in play (I want to be a great thrower of knives). I don't think that is agency though. I see agency as more focused on the character. This is more about the authorship. So I am drawing a distinction there.




I think that character building is related to agency in the sense that if I wanted my PC to be a great thrower of knives, then I likely know what abilities or skills I should be choosing, and that those choices will matter. 

I think I know what you mean about that not necessarily being about character, but it may be. Think of duelists or outlaws like Billy the Kid for whom that stuff was (at least in popular fiction) of utmost importance. 

So if I want to be the fastest gun in the west, I know what I need to do as a player. There are tons of rules that would likely inform my choices, and which would then come up in play, and I can interact with those rules in ways that I understand. 

What if I want to be the smoothest talker in the west? Well....I hope I’m a smooth talker in real life, because otherwise I’m gonna be guessing a lot at what the GM has in mind.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that character building is related to agency in the sense that if I wanted my PC to be a great thrower of knives, then I likely know what abilities or skills I should be choosing, and that those choices will matter.
> 
> I think I know what you mean about that not necessarily being about character, but it may be. Think of duelists or outlaws like Billy the Kid for whom that stuff was (at least in popular fiction) of utmost importance.
> 
> So if I want to be the fastest gun in the west, I know what I need to do as a player. There are tons of rules that would likely inform my choices, and which would then come up in play, and I can interact with those rules in ways that I understand.
> 
> What if I want to be the smoothest talker in the west? Well....I hope I’m a smooth talker in real life, because otherwise I’m gonna be guessing a lot at what the GM has in mind.




My point is you wanting to be the fastest gun in the west, isn't about agency, it is about you wanting to author a character who is the fastest gun in the west. Agency, it I think, is more about the character being able to make meaningful choices (i.e. not be railroaded) in the game. 

In terms of smooth talker, I think this is actually a very complicated area of play. It is also one where I have been talking separately about my own personal preference in terms of what I like, and what it means for agency. Whether having a smooth talker skill, or having the player simply roleplay being a smooth talker adds agency is going to vary a lot. On the one hand, giving me a skill, means I can consistently perform as a smooth talker through the mechanics. On the other hand, if I, the player, realize this would be a good argument to convince Hawkeye's character about my character's views on agency, and I make that good argument, but then I roll a smooth talk skill and fail horribly.....I think that would be giving me less agency. 

When it comes to skills like "smooth talker", I get my preference is a little outside the box. The point I have tried to make here, just in terms of my preference, not in terms of agency, is that I really prefer play where the words the players speak in character matter more than their skill roll. And I like for players to interact with the setting and the NPCs as directly as possible. On the other hand, I also understand that these kinds of skills, for the time being, are the norm. So the solution I have come to, both in terms of my own game design, but also in terms of how I run games with social skills, is for the players words to always matter. If the players talk to a guard and ask a question, I respond based on what they said. But if I have some doubt (or feel that their characters exceptional social talents, or weak social talents, should weight the outcome, I will call for a roll). My general rule of thumb is when I have doubt about the outcome, I ask for a social skill roll (and players don't ask to make social skill rolls).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that character building is related to agency in the sense that if I wanted my PC to be a great thrower of knives, then I likely know what abilities or skills I should be choosing, and that those choices will matter.



Also, observation about builds. They are great, if you have a group of players who know how to make them to get the characters they want. A game of 3E for instance, where builds can really vary in terms of power, it could be interesting with that kind of group. But if you have a mixed group, that includes people who aren't good at builds, or who don't like builds, they are going to struggle to make characters that do what they want compared to other players in the group. So, if we do consider this a form of agency, and I don't, but lets just say for the sake of argument this aspect of play is, then I think you could say the mechanics and the requirement of system mastery can actually reduce agency at times. It is sort of the opposite problem that you have with my social skill preference (where players who are not smooth talkers themselves could struggle to play a smooth talker).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No, because those very mechanics can undermine the actual choices the players make through their characters.




How so? 



Bedrockgames said:


> Yes, there are bad GMs who simply declare things as impossible because. But that isn't what a GM should strive to do. What I am saying is, when a GM does their job right, the players have agency (and I think more agency than they would have if you give them GM powers, or mechanics to make sure the GM is playing fair).




I don’t think the players having GM powers is necessary. I think that’s just one means toward agency. 

What does a “GM doing their job right” mean? I mean, if the rules don’t work to prevent railroading, and there are few or no GMing principles to guide a GM, then how do they know they’re doing things right? 



Bedrockgames said:


> Also this isn't a simple game of guessing what the GM will judge. I get some people don't like this style, and dismiss it as mother may I or magic tea party. But again, when it is functioning as it should, you are making choices that feel like they have a logical outcome in the setting.




To the GM. They feel like they have a logical outcome to the GM. And if the players agree, then things are okay. I think this is largely how my experience with 5E has been. My players and I know each other well. 

But that doesn't mean that sometimes someone doesnmt disagree about what is a logical outcome. Or that there can’t be more than one logical outcome, which I think is the bigger deal. Most actions or events, prior to their resolution, would appear to allow for any number of outcomes.

What then? 

If it’s “GM decides”, that’s a perfectly valid choice for play. It makes sense in the role of GM as referee to allow them to make judgment calls. I understand that decision.

But it absolutely takes that agency from the players. Whatever logical outcome they had in mind, which may be equally or perhaps even more plausible, *matters not*. 



Bedrockgames said:


> The solution to railroading isn't to give players more powers. I can solve all railroading by giving every player character an endless wish spell. That is a very crude solution. The real solution is for GMs to not railroad.
> 
> Again, I think a lot of this does boil to the level of trust people are comfortable giving to a GM.




No it’s not trust. I agree that can be a part of it....and honestly I think trusting the other participants is a hugely important thing. But if we’re going to say that there’s one thing that can be done to end railroading, saying “don’t railroad” does nothing. 

If we were going to do one thing, I’d say changing the rules to make railroading less certain/expected/likely/possible would be the best thing. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Can you give a concrete example of what you mean here ?




I think I may just have done that with the “fastest gun in the west/ smoothest talker in the west” post. I was typing that up as you posted this.

I’m sure I can come up with more if you want another example.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> You represent your "side" as being a longstanding tradition from which @pemerton and other advocates for player-facing gaming deviate, and yet you feel so aggrieved by our discussions on an online forum that you must defend your preferred gaming modality's honor from our "besmirchments"?!? I mean, really?




Just another point about this. The point of using the term traditional is both convenience of language and descriptive. It isn't to place it in a hallowed tradition that can't be changed. In fact, I actually dislike the language of "traditional" because I think it makes the style play sound stuffy or rigid. But it is an easy way to distinguish between more progressive styles of play. I think where we get in trouble is equating these terms with their political counterparts (i.e. progressive heavy metal isn't about healthcare reform, and traditional heavy metal isn't about family values----they are terms describing how the medium is approached. I would think both you and Pemerton would think of your styles, and the designs you prefer as being on the more innovative or progressive side of things (which would put them in a less traditional box I would think).


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I agree. If the GM can determine that a wall is unscalable, then the GM can determine that a given orc is unkillable. The latter case is seems likely to be a GM (or adventure designer) acting in bad faith; the former might be, depending on the situation (remember: I said "without magic or proper equipment"). I don't think a GM determining if and where any secret doors are is likely to be acting in that kind of bad faith.



What counts as good or bad faith depends (doesn't it?) on prior commitments and understandings.

If I sit down to play the Dragonlance modules, then presumably it's agreed that Kitiara can't be killed by a few lucky bowshots (to get the damage high enough let's suppose they're from an Unearthed Arcana bow specialist at point blank range) early in the module series.

If I sit down to play a standard game of Burning Wheel, then the GM deciding that there are no secret doors and thus not allowing the action to be resolved in the normal way _is_ acting in bad faith.

I don't see Orcs, ice walls or secret doors as being a priori different as far as unilateral GM decision-making is concerned.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I think railroading is more common when the GM likes to railroad.




I posted a pretty big 5e play excerpt here and examined it under 5e and what it would look like under 4e and Scum and Villainy (a Forged in the Dark system).

Could you take a look at that and respond with respect to "a GM liking to railroad (deploy Force sufficiently)" vs "enabling/allowing a GM to railroad (deploy Force sufficiently)."  That post should show how many vectors there are for deploying Force that persists in 5e vs the other two systems.  The differential is massive.  

You don't think *latitude vs constraint* has a role to play?  

You don't think *mandate vs verboten* has a role to play?  

You don't think *opaque vs transparent* has a role to play?  

You don't think *unsystemitized (Rulings not Rules) vs codified* has a role to play?  

You don't think *GM-facing vs player-facing* has a role to play?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> How so?



See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and all my moves here seem really well chosen, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> @pemerton - the difference is between the player finding a secret door that was already there (GM planning etc), and rolling well enough that the player gets to decide themselves that yes, there is indeed a secret door in that wall.
> 
> If you don't think there's a difference between those two in terms of agency then we'll have to agree to disagree.



There is a difference between RPGing-as-puzzle-solving and RPGing-as-story-now.

But the idea that there is something inherent to a story about a protagonist finding a secret door that therefore means RPGing _must_ or _ought to_ or even _naturally will_ handle that differently from a story about a protagonists killing an Orc - that is the idea that I reject.

Also, I reiterate that _the player does not find a secret door_. The player sits at a table in a living room, participating in a story about an imaginary character finding a secret door. In the puzzle-solving approach, the player _learns that the GM has decided that the fiction includes a secret door_. That's why another description of RPGing-as-puzzle-solving is RPGing-as-learning-what-is-in-the-GM's-notes.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and* all my moves here seem really well chosen*, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.



Who decides the bolded thing. The player? The GM? The other players?

Slightly related: did Cicero ever lose an argument? Did he ever lose an argument even though his moves seemed really well chosen?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What does a “GM doing their job right” mean? I mean, if the rules don’t work to prevent railroading, and there are few or no GMing principles to guide a GM, then how do they know they’re doing things right?




That is a long topic, but I don't think having rules to stop railroading is the way to go, especially if they undercut the powers GMs wield that make RPGs so unique. Good adventure structures are the solution in my opinion. I don't have time to get into that now, but I do have a lot of thoughts on what makes a good adventure structure. I think it is very easy to know when you are railroading. And it is very easy to avoid railroading. You have an adventure in mind, the haunted castle on forest hill. But the players, after hearing a rumor about the castle, decide they want to go south to see if they can gather men to help them rob a bank. If you are doing things to push them back to the castle, you are railroading. If you are rolling honestly considering what they want to do in the south, and coming up with things like NPCs they might recruit, you are not railroading. I don't think avoiding railroads is all that hard. But I think it happens because many GMs are affraid to run stuff they haven't prepared for in advance. This is where something like a living world becomes useful.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> No it’s not trust. I agree that can be a part of it....and honestly I think trusting the other participants is a hugely important thing. But if we’re going to say that there’s one thing that can be done to end railroading, saying “don’t railroad” does nothing.




Sure it is. You have a problem: picking your nose. You stop picking your nose, the problem is done. My point is railroading is as easy to see as the problem of nose picking. It is also a habit, which you break by not engaging in it.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> What counts as good or bad faith depends (doesn't it?) on prior commitments and understandings.



Yes. I think some understandings are baked into the games, and others are baked into people's preferences regarding games and/or playstyles. I think it's plausible you and I don't have radically different ideas about good faith play/GMing, though we have, I suspect, markedly different preferences as regard playstyle and systems. I'm pretty sure neither of us is entirely wrong;


pemerton said:


> If I sit down to play the Dragonlance modules, then presumably it's agreed that Kitiara can't be killed by a few lucky bowshots (to get the damage high enough let's suppose they're from an Unearthed Arcana bow specialist at point blank range) early in the module series.



Aren't the Dragonlance modules a pretty notorious railroad? I've never played them (or, for that matter, read the books) but it's my impression that the modules are pretty specifically about giving players a chance to experience the books as a D&D campaign. Given my feelings about books and TRPG play being very different types and experiences of fiction, that seems like a very, very bad idea.

That said, I agree that killing one of the main characters of the books, early in a campaign through those modules, would almost certainly be against the players' expectations (and probably the DM's, too).


pemerton said:


> If I sit down to play a standard game of Burning Wheel, then the GM deciding that there are no secret doors and thus not allowing the action to be resolved in the normal way _is_ acting in bad faith.



That is consistent with your descriptions of play. You mentioned early that plausibility-checking in TRPGs is interesting, and I agree; how is it handled in BW--who, if anyone, could say it was implausible for there to be a secret door in that wall? Also, if the GM ended up narrating (IIRC, because the player failed at the action-resolution check) I believe their options would include "there's not a secret door" as well as "there's a secret door and  you can't open it" or "there's a secret door and it leads to something even worse," yes?


pemerton said:


> I don't see Orcs, ice walls or secret doors as being a priori different as far as unilateral GM decision-making is concerned.



I think there's a case for all three being in the realm of fiction-framing. Which, in D&D, means they're placed by the DM, yes.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Just another point about this. The point of using the term traditional is both convenience of language and descriptive.




I would be willing to accept that your use of “traditional” is not meant as a slight or as an appeal to what’s normal, and is instead just your way of saying “the most common”, if you’re willing to accept that stating a game has less player agency is not a value statement. 



Bedrockgames said:


> See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and all my moves here seem really well chosen, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.




I think this is relevant, but it still doesn’t seem to reduce agency. Here, you seem to be placing a high value on the arguments/words chosen by the player to influence the outcome in the game?  

But why? Wouldn’t Cicero make a compelling argument? Couldn't he do so and still leave his target unswayed? A poor roll here need not mean that Cicero stuttered and babbled like a buffoon. It simply means his opposition was unconvinced. 

I don’t see how this reduces the player’s agency if mechanics are involved. They know the odds and can decide to make the attempt, and then the dice decide.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see Orcs, ice walls or secret doors as being a priori different as far as unilateral GM decision-making is concerned.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think there's a case for all three being in the realm of fiction-framing. Which, in D&D, means they're placed by the DM, yes.
Click to expand...


I think the following would be relatively atypical framings:

You come to a wall. It has no secret doors in it. (Cf You come to a wall. It seems to have no doors or other ways through it.)

You come to an ice wall. It's unscalable. (Cf You come to an ice wall. It looks smooth, practically impossible to climb.)



prabe said:


> Aren't the Dragonlance modules a pretty notorious railroad?



I believe so. That doesn't make the bad faith.



prabe said:


> You mentioned early that plausibility-checking in TRPGs is interesting, and I agree; how is it handled in BW--who, if anyone, could say it was implausible for there to be a secret door in that wall? Also, if the GM ended up narrating (IIRC, because the player failed at the action-resolution check) I believe their options would include "there's not a secret door" as well as "there's a secret door and  you can't open it" or "there's a secret door and it leads to something even worse," yes?



An absence of a secret door would be a possible although perhaps boring narration of failure.

It's very hard to think, out of context, of a circumstance where a secret door would be ruled out on credibility grounds. Nearly any wall might have a secret way through it - and if the wall is interesting enough for a player to actually care about searching it, that probably reinforces the possibility of there being a secret way.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> But why? Wouldn’t Cicero make a compelling argument? Couldn't he do so and still leave his target unswayed? A poor roll here need not mean that Cicero stuttered and babbled like a buffoon. It simply means his opposition was unconvinced.




Madness!  No one has ever made a compelling (or even devastating or undefeatable) argument and failed to convince their opposition!  Doesn't happen!

This is important as a point that we have in the entirety of this thread and it dovetails with conversation upthread:

1)  In Social (or Journey or Escape or Chase) (etc) conflicts, resolution mechanics aren't just deciding _was Cicero's argument robust and compelling?  _They're deciding _was Cicero's opposition *compelled*!  _

2)  There are all kinds of reasons why an argument that 100 % of the time should compel an audience fails to move them.  This is the significant (throw in a few more significants here) norm when two parties are inclined to not be moved off of their position!

So how is it (a) _*not arbitrary*_ and (b) somehow *simulating what is most likely* when the GM determines (via fiat unconstrained by any intermediaries; resolution mechanics, or some kind of fortune roll, high resolution principles integrated holistically with the rest of the system) that Cicero's opposition is moved *this time in this situation *vs *all the abundant times they (or those just like them) were unmoved in that situation.*

I tried to get @Lanefan to discuss this upthread and we had an exchange.  But it wasn't particularly satisfactory to me (that is, to say, I decided by fiat that I was unmoved by his/her argument that he/she surely thought was robust and compelling)!


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I think the following would be relatively atypical framings:
> 
> You come to a wall. It has no secret doors in it. (Cf You come to a wall. It seems to have no doors or other ways through it.)
> 
> You come to an ice wall. It's unscalable. (Cf You come to an ice wall. It looks smooth, practically impossible to climb.)



Those would be, though the first would be narrated as a wall, I don't know that a DM would flat out say "there aren't any secret doors"; most, in my experience, would simply narrate, repeatedly, "you don't find any secret doors." Yes, that's annoying; in something like 100 sessions between two 5E campaigns, I think I've placed exactly one secret door. The second would be narrated as a sheer vertical wall of ice, and I wouldn't let anyone roll to climb it if they didn't have suitable magic or tools--if I were at the top of my game, I'd probably say something to that effect in my description of it.


pemerton said:


> An absence of a secret door would be a possible although perhaps boring narration of failure.



Yeah. I figure that's probably the least-interesting result.


pemerton said:


> It's very hard to think, out of context, of a circumstance where a secret door would be ruled out on credibility grounds. Nearly any wall might have a secret way through it - and if the wall is interesting enough for a player to actually care about searching it, that probably reinforces the possibility of there being a secret way.



I thought about it for a minute or two and couldn't think of a situation where it would be implausible for a secret door to be in a given wall, either. Personally, I think the secret door is likely to be in the least-interesting wall, not the most-interesting one, but that's nothing to do with TRPGs.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> There is a difference between RPGing-as-puzzle-solving and RPGing-as-story-now.
> 
> *But the idea that there is something inherent to a story about a protagonist finding a secret door that therefore means RPGing must or ought to or even naturally will handle that differently from a story about a protagonists killing an Orc* - that is the idea that I reject.
> 
> Also, I reiterate that _the player does not find a secret door_. The player sits at a table in a living room, participating in a story about an imaginary character finding a secret door. In the puzzle-solving approach, the player _learns that the GM has decided that the fiction includes a secret door_. That's why another description of RPGing-as-puzzle-solving is RPGing-as-learning-what-is-in-the-GM's-notes.



Re the bolded text, I suggested that they were similar, not, different, so I'm not sure what your objection is. I did provide two examples of each that illustrated different levels of agency, but I did not suggest that they were fundamentally different examples.

In the second secret door example it is indeed the player that decided, which is why it's significantly different in terms of agency from the first. It's like the player deciding that there is an Orc there in the first place rather than simply declaring a PC action affecting an existing orc and resolving it via the mechanics and process appropriate to the given game. The term _existing_ there indexes the presence of the 'thing' in advance of player declaration, i.e. in some way established by the GM or adventure text (and then through the GM into the diegetic frame).

Agency is about who decides, something I don't really see in your last handful of replies. I may have missed something upstream though.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I agree. If the GM can determine that a wall is unscalable, then the GM can determine that a given orc is unkillable. The latter case is seems likely to be a GM (or adventure designer) acting in bad faith; the former might be, depending on the situation (remember: I said "without magic or proper equipment"). I don't think a GM determining if and where any secret doors are is likely to be acting in that kind of bad faith.




Do you think it would be "bad faith" for a GM to decide that, via Free (unmediated) Roleplay, the PC's opposition is entirely unmoved by their robust and compelling argument when its the profound majority for entrenched opposition to be unmoved by a devastating argument?

It seems to me that the GM that decides (by fiat after Free Roleplay) the Jarl is no longer going to raid the nearby steadings or the King is going to open his gates to the abundance of war refugees or the Pirate Queen is going to relinquish her hostages or the Senate is going to decrease taxes on the underclass while increasing it on the bourgeoise or the Oracle is going to admit her visions are bought by a member of the Elders is almost surely choosing the 1 % outcome (if that...but we can just call it the EXTREME MINORITY OUTCOME if you'd like) regardless of the rhetorical and rationale power of the NPC's interlocutor (the PC)!  But then they'll cite fidelity to *simulation/causal logic as the precipitating factor in their decision!  *It seems to me* something else is happening!*


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I would be willing to accept that your use of “traditional” is not meant as a slight or as an appeal to what’s normal, and is instead just your way of saying “the most common”, if you’re willing to accept that stating a game has less player agency is not a value statement.




I think though I have a pretty neutral attitude towards 'traditional' and 'normal', as evidenced by my personal dislike of the term 'traditional' (but my willingness to apply to my style, and by my admission that my whole approach to social skills is outside the norm (so I don't think 'normal' applies to how I play the game at all, just one aspect of my approach fits into the norm). Agency on the other hand, I value, as do you I believe. And I think most of those involved in this discussion understand its value, which is why it is being argued over.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Do you think it would be "bad faith" for a GM to decide that, via Free (unmediated) Roleplay, the PC's opposition is entirely unmoved by their robust and compelling argument when its the profound majority for entrenched opposition to be unmoved by a devastating argument?



Ummmm ... maybe? It depends?

Somewhat more seriously, I think it's possible for a GM to have guidance in prep to help them make that decision--maybe it just so happens the PCs are trying to argue the NPC into the one thing they won't do. I'll admit it's not high-agency in the sense of the players being able to control the fiction, but it's plausibly fair. It's fairer if there was some way for the PCs to learn that.


Manbearcat said:


> It seems to me that the GM that decides (by fiat after Free Roleplay) the Jarl is no longer going to raid the nearby steadings or the King is going to open his gates to the abundance of war refugees or the Pirate Queen is going to relinquish her hostages or the Senate is going to decrease taxes on the underclass while increasing it on the bourgeoise or the Oracle is going to admit her visions are bought by a member of the Elders is almost surely choosing the 1 % outcome (if that...but we can just call it the EXTREME MINORITY OUTCOME if you'd like) regardless of the rhetorical and rationale power of the NPC's interlocutor (the PC)!  But then they'll cite fidelity to *simulation/causal logic as the precipitating factor in their decision!  *It seems to me* something else is happening!*



Those certainly seem as though there's something consistent with Force at work.


----------



## Manbearcat

Jumping off from my last two posts, I think its incredibly unrealistic and bears no fidelity to a reasonable simulation of our existence for anyone in this thread who disagrees with me to not acquiesce to my compelling and devastating arguments against their positions!  

As such, its clear to me that their judgement cannot be trusted to decide via fiat and Free Roleplay whether or not position-entrenched NPCs in their games should be swayed by compelling and devastating arguments against PCs!

Because realism and fidelity to simulation!


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this is relevant, but it still doesn’t seem to reduce agency. Here, you seem to be placing a high value on the arguments/words chosen by the player to influence the outcome in the game?
> 
> But why? Wouldn’t Cicero make a compelling argument? Couldn't he do so and still leave his target unswayed? A poor roll here need not mean that Cicero stuttered and babbled like a buffoon. It simply means his opposition was unconvinced.
> 
> I don’t see how this reduces the player’s agency if mechanics are involved. They know the odds and can decide to make the attempt, and then the dice decide.




Because agency is about being able to make meaningful choices. My words and political strategies are meaningful choices I am making in play to advance my goals. Isn't more agency enhancing to put power to my actual choices rather than shift them to a mechanic. Now this does require that the GM adjudicate my choices. Which, I would argue, is the very essence of what makes an RPG. It is that on the spot ability of a human hearing what you are trying to do, and then logically applying that to the world. Keep in mind, I may be doing very specific things, like inviting senators to feasts, with the aim of doing  putting them in a compromising position, which I can exploit to force them to ally with me. And I may be saying very specific things, as Cicero did, in my speech. Now it is true, people may be unmoved by what I say, and my attempts to put senators in positions where I can essentially blackmail them into voting my way could backfire or simply not work. But if you have a mechanic in place for managing those things, all those specific choices I have made (which are an expression of my agency) have no meaning if a simple die roll can undo them. In fact the only real agency I have is at character creation when I take the relevant social skills, between sessions when I upgrade them. The only other meaningful choice I might have is to use or not use them. Granted some systems might give more weight to things I say and do, and factor those into the mechanic. But that just helps prove my point that for there to be real agency, what I say and do, need to actually matter because those kinds of things in an RPG are all about making meaningful choices. And they are also FUN. There is tremendous fun to be had if you are in a political intrigue campaign like I describe, to actually engage in political intrigue.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> Ummmm ... maybe? It depends?
> 
> Somewhat more seriously, I think it's possible for a GM to have guidance in prep to help them make that decision--maybe it just so happens the PCs are trying to argue the NPC into the one thing they won't do. I'll admit it's not high-agency in the sense of the players being able to control the fiction, but it's plausibly fair. It's fairer if there was some way for the PCs to learn that.
> 
> Those certainly seem as though there's something consistent with Force at work.




I don't think I communicated my point clearly (maybe see my silly post directly above?).

If the greatest of rhetoricians and logicians fail to move their opposition at an extreme rate (lets say they convince their interlocuters at a 1/25 rate or 4 % of the time)...why should a game featuring "GM decides/fiat" and Free Roleplay as social resolution yield something nearing a 60-80 % hit rate (or greater) for 'Face PCs (and, more specifically, the players playing them)?"

That doesn't seem like "fidelity to simulation or causal logic" as a guiding principle for GMing!


----------



## Campbell

I personally find the traditional label mildly annoying because most of the games that get included very much represented a break from tradition. Speaking as an OSR fan the GM techniques and playstyle of Vampire as outlined in it's text is pretty far removed from B/X. As is modern D&D.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> I don't think I communicated my point clearly (maybe see my silly post directly above?).
> 
> If the greatest of rhetoricians and logicians fail to move their opposition at an extreme rate (lets say they convince their interlocuters at a 1/25 rate or 4 % of the time)...why should a game featuring "GM decides/fiat" and Free Roleplay as social resolution yield something nearing a 60-80 % hit rate (or greater) for 'Face PCs (and, more specifically, the players playing them)?"
> 
> That doesn't seem like "fidelity to simulation or causal logic" as a guiding principle for GMing!




Most people here are not looking for a simulation of reality. They just want it to be believable enough for a game, and for the GM to be as consistent, fair and logical as they can be. That means if I try to bribe Otto with a Banana and the GM knows Otto loves bananas, it could work. It is ultimately a judgment call of course. But the effect of having the same mind render judgements in a single campaign tends to produce something that feels real and external in my experience. Now if this doesn't work for you it is fine. But this is definitely a viable and fun way to play the game.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> I don't think I communicated my point clearly (maybe see my silly post directly above?).
> 
> If the greatest of rhetoricians and logicians fail to move their opposition at an extreme rate (lets say they convince their interlocuters at a 1/25 rate or 4 % of the time)...why should a game featuring "GM decides/fiat" and Free Roleplay as social resolution yield something nearing a 60-80 % hit rate (or greater) for 'Face PCs (and, more specifically, the players playing them)?"
> 
> That doesn't seem like "fidelity to simulation or causal logic" as a guiding principle for GMing!



I think you did; I think I (mis) interpreted you to be complaining about GMs saying "no" by fiat after free roleplay. If you're complaining about them saying "yes" by fiat after free roleplay, then I guess you can reverse my thoughts to defend the GMs who say "yes."

I guess my thinking is that most people need a specific reason to want to be unhelpful. If the PCs are asking for something easy and/or painless, I don't think most people are likely to say "no." But I don't think that's exactly what you're complaining about.


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> Yes. I think some understandings are baked into the games, and others are baked into people's preferences regarding games and/or playstyles. I think it's plausible you and I don't have radically different ideas about good faith play/GMing, though we have, I suspect, markedly different preferences as regard playstyle and systems. I'm pretty sure neither of us is entirely wrong;
> 
> Aren't the Dragonlance modules a pretty notorious railroad? I've never played them (or, for that matter, read the books) but it's my impression that the modules are pretty specifically about giving players a chance to experience the books as a D&D campaign. Given my feelings about books and TRPG play being very different types and experiences of fiction, that seems like a very, very bad idea.



I've run the first third of the classics edition... in DL5A... and while it's a railroad, it's an enjoyable one that can be seen more like a braided stream than a single pair of tracks, and some notes on more likely plot-changes.

It's less of a railroad than, say, Horde of the Dragon Queen.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I personally find the traditional label mildly annoying because most of the games that get included very much represented a break from tradition. Speaking as an OSR fan the GM techniques and playstyle of Vampire as outlined in it's text is pretty far removed from B/X. As is modern D&D.




But the answer to that is in your post: old school. Traditional can refer to a lot of things. But mostly I see it referring to rpgs that have traditional mechanics. Of course, it is more complicated than simple narratives of the history provide (just one more reason to be skeptical of 'narrative power'! ), but I think people generally just know what you mean. To refer to things like B/X the term old school is pretty clear I think.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> It's like the player deciding that there is an Orc there in the first place rather than simply declaring a PC action affecting an existing orc and resolving it via the mechanics and process appropriate to the given game. The term _existing_ there indexes the presence of the 'thing' in advance of player declaration, i.e. in some way established by the GM or adventure text (and then through the GM into the diegetic frame).



The Orc is part of the framing. So is the wall. The death of the Orc is a change in the fiction as framed. So is the finding of the secret door.

From the point of view of _changing fiction_, there is no difference. Hence my two short stories, which in their narrative structure are basically identical:

(1)
Morgan Ironwolf came upon an Orc. They fought. Morgan killed the Orc with her sword.

(2)
Morgan Ironwolf came to a wall. She searched it, thinking that there might be a hidden way through it. She found a secret opening in the wall.


----------



## Fenris-77

I already agreed the door and orc were similar, so why the repetition of your examples? I'm talking about something else entirely. I'm talking about the _genesis_ of the orc or the door, the agency to add either orc or door to the fiction in the first place. Most detractors of narrative games would probably use the term _narrative control._


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> Most people here are not looking for a simulation of reality. They just want it to be believable enough for a game, and for the GM to be as consistent, fair and logical as they can be. That means if I try to bribe Otto with a Banana and the GM knows Otto loves bananas, it could work. It is ultimately a judgment call of course. But the effect of having the same mind render judgements in a single campaign tends to produce something that feels real and external in my experience. Now if this doesn't work for you it is fine. But this is definitely a viable and fun way to play the game.




Your last sentence doesn't need to be in your above paragraph.  Of course it a viable and fun way to play a game.  I'm not interrogating "viable and fun."

When we have these conversations about social conflict, people (who disagree with me) cite some arrangement of the following:

1)  More capable rhetoricians/logicians should have a considerably better chance of moving opposition off of their position (when in reality its so remote to move entrenched people off of their position that the difference between below average > average > brilliant in terms of rendering and presenting argument is a fraction of the deciding factor in the "to move or not to move" equation).  If that isn't some kind of appeal to fidelity to causal logic coupling, then I don't know what to call it.

2)  Its fun, meaningful for play, and broadly rewarding (a) for players to formulate and present compelling argument via Free Roleplay and (b) for GMs to adjudicate if their NPCs would be moved/unmoved.

I don't know how much of (1) is a part of your position, but you can't tell me that its anything approaching 0 for you (given your own words throughout the years) even if its considerably lower than (2).  

And I can't fathom you coming to the conclusion that (1) isn't a significant part of many/most of the participants in these threads over the years who agree with your overall position.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t see how this reduces the player’s agency if mechanics are involved. They know the odds and can decide to make the attempt, and then the dice decide.




They are not reduced simply because mechanics are involved. I am saying they can be. For the reasons I've stated in these examples. And for some things you just need a mechanics to determine what happens. Fair enough. But I don't really consider that agency if my in character choices have less impact than my out of character choices. Or if my choices are all simply out of character choices, like which mechanics to invoke. And where needed the concept of rulings can often be a much more elegant solution than a concrete rule. We've talked a lot about combat but in a style of play where rulings are important, the players are often not simply choosing between swinging a sword at the orc and not swinging one. The player may say, well I want to spit water in the face of the orc before I swing to distract him, and a GM making a ruling could simply rule to assign a penalty to the orc's AC, or perhaps make the orc roll a save or attribute to avoid a penalty or worse outcome on a successful attack. 

And again, the reason mechanics with social skills and similar things can be a problem is because of the gap that can arise between what the player says and does in character and what the result of their roll is (to the point that what they say and do in character, may not matter at all, it might just be narrative dressing).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Your last sentence doesn't need to be in your above paragraph.  Of course it a viable and fun way to play a game.  I'm not interrogating "viable and fun."




lol. I quite like including that sentence thank you very much


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Your last sentence doesn't need to be in your above paragraph.  Of course it a viable and fun way to play a game.  I'm not interrogating "viable and fun."
> 
> When we have these conversations about social conflict, people (who disagree with me) cite some arrangement of the following:
> 
> 1)  More capable rhetoricians/logicians should have a considerably better chance of moving opposition off of their position (when in reality its so remote to move entrenched people off of their position that the difference between below average > average > brilliant in terms of rendering and presenting argument is a fraction of the deciding factor in the "to move or not to move" equation).  If that isn't some kind of appeal to fidelity to causal logic coupling, then I don't know what to call it.
> 
> 2)  Its fun, meaningful for play, and broadly rewarding (a) for players to formulate and present compelling argument via Free Roleplay and (b) for GMs to adjudicate if their NPCs would be moved/unmoved.
> 
> I don't know how much of (1) is a part of your position, but you can't tell me that its anything approaching 0 for you (given your own words throughout the years) even if its considerably lower than (2).
> 
> And I can't fathom you coming to the conclusion that (1) isn't a significant part of many/most of the participants in these threads over the years who agree with your overall position.




I would defnitely not sign off on 1 as you have phrased it. And I think I have been very, very clear about this in many of our conversations here. I keep seeing a 'its impossible to simulate reality" straw man in these discussions, and I am quite clearly not coming at this from that level of realism at all (I pretty consistently use the term believability or believable for that very reason, and I have been using it for years). 

Not saying things in there may not apply, but your phrasing is not what I am looking for. I want the things my character says and does to matter. I want to feel like if I make a compelling argument, it has more weight than if I make a bad one. And I think most of the time, with most GMs, this is how I feel. It isn't about the person in the group who is an actual lawyer, making the most lawyerly argument and therefore convincing the NPCs or the senate in the game. Again, it is a game. This isn't a serious attempt to simulate reality, it is an attempt to emulate a believable world or genre. And when I invoke logic, I am referring to the GM's judgment being logical, not on the players making logical arguments through their characters (logic doesn't always work, sometimes what works is appealing to what a person wants, rather than appealing to their sense of reason). What I want is for the GM to seriously ask him or herself things like "How would Josephus respond to what Brendan just said to him, based on what Joesphus wants and knows?" when evaluating what I am doing.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I think you did; I think I (mis) interpreted you to be complaining about GMs saying "no" by fiat after free roleplay. If you're complaining about them saying "yes" by fiat after free roleplay, then I guess you can reverse my thoughts to defend the GMs who say "yes."
> 
> I guess my thinking is that most people need a specific reason to want to be unhelpful. If the PCs are asking for something easy and/or painless, I don't think most people are likely to say "no." But I don't think that's exactly what you're complaining about.




3 things:

1)  I was indeed talking about "saying yes" in Free Roleplay.

2)  I'm specifically talking about "PCs asking for something hard and/or painful" which is pretty much every meaningful social conflict in a TTRPG.  In those situations, the "hit rate" for Face PCs (and the players playing them) is absurd to the point of being more in line with "Down the Rabbit-hole Wonderland" than anything resembling fidelity to a reality featuring position-entrenched opposing parties.  

We get all kinds of complaints from certain D&D conversation participants about martial PCs being able to jump chasms or hold their breath or cleave stone or compel enemies toward reckless challenge or cow Kings with force of will (or other genre logic-infused touchstones for martial characters) because it fails to resemble fidelity to a simulation of x (even if x is a High Fantasy reality).  However, it seems to me that the hit rate for Face NPCs in Free Roleplay should yield similar incredulity and jar immersion!

Am I crazy?  

(Anyone who disagrees with me should not be trusted to run NPCs by the way)


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> lol. I quite like including that sentence thank you very much




I'm sure you like it.

Why do you need to include it when we're analyzing play.  It doesn't help me understand your position.  It seems to me its just a rhetorical RE-framing device to remind everybody (again) that you feel your playstyle is under attack and appealing to that grievance.  If its not that...what is it?  

I want to focus on analyzing the impacts of play not your (or anyone else's) feelings.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> And I can't fathom you coming to the conclusion that (1) isn't a significant part of many/most of the participants in these threads over the years who agree with your overall position.




I think you and I have very different ways of thinking and of approaching RPGs (which isn't a bad thing at all). Looking at your post above about NPCs for example, you seem to take a much more 'engineer'-minded approach. I don't take that approach at all. I am not factoring in things like what is the real life 'hit rate' for a social interaction. I am thinking of it in terms of what do I know about what his NPC wants, and this NPCs personality, and how would that shape their reaction to the PCs words (and honestly this really is much more intuitive than step by step----you try to feel the NPCs headspace and how they react). All I can say is I have very satisfactory campaigns on both sides of the screen using this approach. Is it an accurate simulation of social interaction in the real world? Doesn't matter to me. Does it feel life-like and believable to me? Yes. That is what matters.


----------



## Campbell

So I think that both economists and gamers greatly overestimate the degree to which human beings are rational actors.

I think if your aim is skilled play of the fiction not having meaningful social mechanisms makes a certain degree of sense. After all you want to reward a player's ability to build up evidence and make a compelling case. In my experience it's not a good model for the way like actual human beings behave. We are convinced to do many things we do not want to initially do. Seldom by a compelling argument. It also tends to make for fiction that resembles Star Trek far more than The Last Kingdom or Vikings.

I think if you want a game where characters have rich emotional lives that are somewhat removed from the rich emotional lives of their players (hence not LARP style drama) having some sort of mechanism to reinforce that is usually a good thing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> I'm sure you like it.
> 
> Why do you need to include it when we're analyzing play.  It doesn't help me understand your position.  It seems to me its just a rhetorical RE-framing device to remind everybody (again) that you feel your playstyle is under attack and appealing to that grievance.  If its not that...what is it?
> 
> I want to focus on analyzing the impacts of play not your (or anyone else's) feelings.




I am being polite. I put it there because I think your analysis is actually an attack on the playstyle.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> 1)  I was indeed talking about "saying yes" in Free Roleplay.



I'm glad I caught it the second time. ;-)


Manbearcat said:


> 2)  I'm specifically talking about "PCs asking for something hard and/or painful" which is pretty much every meaningful social conflict in a TTRPG.  In those situations, the "hit rate" for Face PCs (and the players playing them) is absurd to the point of being more in line with "Down the Rabbit-hole Wonderland" than anything resembling fidelity to a reality featuring position-entrenched opposing parties.



I don't radically disagree. I don't think I've exactly been arguing against you on social skills--I have a pretty strong preference for systems to have them. And while I'm not thrilled about running social conflict like combat (the rhythm is different, and I find narration of the equivalents to dodges, parries, blows to be difficult) I'm not opposed to there being a system to determine success/failure other than "seems legit."

On the other hand, if a game allows people who want to be good at fighting to be REALLY GOOD AT FIGHTING then it seems fair to allow people who want to be good at talking people into things to be REALLY GOOD AT TALKING PEOPLE INTO THINGS.


Manbearcat said:


> We get all kinds of complaints from certain D&D conversation participants about martial PCs being able to jump chasms or hold their breath or cleave stone or compel enemies toward reckless challenge or cow Kings with force of will (or other genre logic-infused touchstones for martial characters) because it fails to resemble fidelity to a simulation of x (even if x is a High Fantasy reality).  However, it seems to me that the hit rate for Face NPCs in Free Roleplay should yield similar incredulity and jar immersion!



I believe I have heard of the Guy at the Gym Fallacy. It sounds as though you're talking about things from 4E that people might have objected to on immersion grounds; my objection would be more "if I wanted to play a spellcaster, I would." As to Face PCs' hit rates ... see my second paragraph.


Manbearcat said:


> Am I crazy?



I don't think you're crazy. At least not about this. I think there may be differences in tastes and preferences, but that's different.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> It seems to me its just a rhetorical RE-framing device to remind everybody (again) that you feel your playstyle is under attack and appealing to that grievance.  If its not that...what is it?




I don't understand why this keeps getting brought up. i do think the playstyle is being attacked by people, but I don't think I am invoking a sense of grievance to persuade. What I am doing is trying to point out that the playstyle works in practice which is ultimately what matters here.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> I would defnitely not sign off on 1 as you have phrased it. And I think I have been very, very clear about this in many of our conversations here. I keep seeing a 'its impossible to simulate reality" straw man in these discussions, and I am quite clearly not coming at this from that level of realism at all (I pretty consistently use the term believability or believable for that very reason, and I have been using it for years).
> 
> Not saying things in there may not apply, but your phrasing is not what I am looking for. I want the things my character says and does to matter. I want to feel like if I make a compelling argument, it has more weight than if I make a bad one. And I think most of the time, with most GMs, this is how I feel. It isn't about the person in the group who is an actual lawyer, making the most lawyerly argument and therefore convincing the NPCs or the senate in the game. Again, it is a game. This isn't a serious attempt to simulate reality, it is an attempt to emulate a believable world or genre. And when I invoke logic, I am referring to the GM's judgment being logical, not on the players making logical arguments through their characters (logic doesn't always work, sometimes what works is appealing to what a person wants, rather than appealing to their sense of reason). What I want is for the GM to seriously ask him or herself things like "How would Josephus respond to what Brendan just said to him, based on what Joesphus wants and knows?" when evaluating what I am doing.




BRG.  This is truly frustrating.

I've been accused of semantics in this thread (when I 100 % WAS NOT playing rhetorical semantic games...nor would I ever...they're an obnoxious waste of time).  

Above, I don't know how to look at your first paragraph (pertaining to my 1).

How is "believable to BRG" meaningfully different from "fidelity to BRG's model of a reasonable simulation of x (parley/argumentation between opposing parties in this case)."  I have no clue why you're dyng on this hill.

If you would like, just sub "believable to BRG" anytime I say anything like fidelity to a simulation of x or causal logic constrained/coupled or whatever.  It doesn't matter.  You find it a reasonable approximation to thing x, therefore good for play and your immersion.

What I'm asking is "why do you find it believable?"  It is clearly UNbelievable.  If you (BRG) as a Face PC via Free Roleplay in your games are moving position-entrenched NPCs off of their positions at anything resembling the rate that you invariably are...well, the only thing its approximating is _*genre *_and *wieldy for a TTRPG*.  Those are both fantastic things! But they're not _*believable *_in any (even the most ridiculously lose) interpretation of the word!


----------



## Fenris-77

I do think that games can profitably include mechanics for social interaction that would allow a less social and talk-y player to play a socially adept character. Burning Wheel's duel of wits is a good example.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I've been accused of semantics in this thread (when I 100 % WAS NOT playing rhetorical semantic games...nor would I ever...they're an obnoxious waste of time).
> 
> Above, I don't know how to look at your first paragraph (pertaining to my 1).
> 
> How is "believable to BRG" meaningfully different from "fidelity to BRG's model of a reasonable simulation of x (parley/argumentation between opposing parties in this case)."  I have no clue why you're dyng on this hill.
> 
> If you would like, just sub "believable to BRG" anytime I say anything like fidelity to a simulation of x or causal logic constrained/coupled or whatever.  It doesn't matter.  You find it a reasonable approximation to thing x, therefore good for play and your immersion.
> 
> What I'm asking is "why do you find it believable?"  It is clearly UNbelievable.  If you (BRG) as a Face PC via Free Roleplay in your games are moving position-entrenched NPCs off of their positions at anything resembling the rate that you invariably are...well, the only thing its approximating is _*genre *_and *wieldy for a TTRPG*.  Those are both fantastic things! But they're not _*believable *_in any (even the most ridiculously lose) interpretation of the word!



Do players in your games really have at best a 1 in 20 chance of persuading anyone?

If not why aren’t you striving for a more believable game?


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> I'm glad I caught it the second time. ;-)
> 
> I don't radically disagree. I don't think I've exactly been arguing against you on social skills--I have a pretty strong preference for systems to have them. And while I'm not thrilled about running social conflict like combat (the rhythm is different, and I find narration of the equivalents to dodges, parries, blows to be difficult) I'm not opposed to there being a system to determine success/failure other than "seems legit."
> 
> On the other hand, if a game allows people who want to be good at fighting to be REALLY GOOD AT FIGHTING then it seems fair to allow people who want to be good at talking people into things to be REALLY GOOD AT TALKING PEOPLE INTO THINGS.
> 
> I believe I have heard of the Guy at the Gym Fallacy. It sounds as though you're talking about things from 4E that people might have objected to on immersion grounds; my objection would be more "if I wanted to play a spellcaster, I would." As to Face PCs' hit rates ... see my second paragraph.
> 
> I don't think you're crazy. At least not about this. I think there may be differences in tastes and preferences, but that's different.




So, on (2), would it be fair to say that you agree with me that the completely unbelievable (reality-defying...incredulous...whatever you want to call it) "Hit Rate" by Face PCs in TTRPG social conflicts is underwritten by g_*enre logic*_ and *what is expeditious/wieldy to attain functional/enjoyable TTRPG play*?


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Do players in your games really have at best a 1 in 20 chance of persuading anyone?
> 
> If not why aren’t you striving for a more believable game?




Of course not.   I'm not the one (nor would I ever) advocating/championing *opposing party argument/parley fidelity* or _*believability/coherency per our experiential (in our lives) derived model of parley *_or whatever you want to call it.

I don't see how anyone ever reading my words on these boards would think I am.

The games I run are undergirded by genre logic, thematic potency and coherency, dramatic impetus, and what is required to make a TTRPG work.

So I don't give a crap about Face NPCs securing parley victory at an Alice in Wonderland rate.  Not only don't flinch, it NEEDS to happen for functional, thematically coherent, dramatically fortified TTRPG play.

But I simultaneously don't flinch at martial PCs doing all of the "unbelievable" things I mentioned above (I mean...they can wade into mortal, melee combat against Ancient Red Dragons and somehow survive and slay the beast) right alongside those "unbelievable" Face PCs!  Not only don't flinch, it NEEDS to happen for functional, thematically coherent, dramatically fortified TTRPG play.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Of course not.   I'm not the one (nor would I ever) advocating/championing *opposing party argument/parley fidelity* or _*believability/coherency per our experiential (in our lives) derived model of parley *_or whatever you want to call it.
> 
> I don't see how anyone ever reading my words on these boards would think I am.
> 
> The games I run are undergirded by genre logic, thematic potency and coherency, dramatic impetus, and what is required to make a TTRPG work.
> 
> So I don't give a crap about Face NPCs securing parley victory at an Alice in Wonderland rate.  Not only don't flinch, it NEEDS to happen for functional, thematically coherent, dramatically fortified TTRPG play.
> 
> But I simultaneously don't flinch at martial PCs doing all of the "unbelievable" things I mentioned above (I mean...they can wade into mortal, melee combat against Ancient Red Dragons and somehow survive and slay the beast) right alongside those "unbelievable" Face PCs!  Not only don't flinch, it NEEDS to happen for functional, thematically coherent, dramatically fortified TTRPG play.



Good.  So Couldn’t this be as simple an issue as you and others disagreeing about what is appropriate genre logic?


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> I am being polite. I put it there because I think your analysis is actually an attack on the playstyle.




Thank you for coming out and saying this.  That is exactly what I was getting at and every time I cite "hostility to analysis" this is what I'm getting at.  You perceive that I'm hostile to your playstyle and the words I put on the internet are bad for you and your playstyle.  Therefore you need to defend your playstyle from my hostile analysis (the impetus for your responses).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> BRG.  This is truly frustrating.
> 
> I've been accused of semantics in this thread (when I 100 % WAS NOT playing rhetorical semantic games...nor would I ever...they're an obnoxious waste of time).
> 
> Above, I don't know how to look at your first paragraph (pertaining to my 1).
> 
> How is "believable to BRG" meaningfully different from "fidelity to BRG's model of a reasonable simulation of x (parley/argumentation between opposing parties in this case)."  I have no clue why you're dyng on this hill.
> 
> If you would like, just sub "believable to BRG" anytime I say anything like fidelity to a simulation of x or causal logic constrained/coupled or whatever.  It doesn't matter.  You find it a reasonable approximation to thing x, therefore good for play and your immersion.
> 
> What I'm asking is "why do you find it believable?"  It is clearly UNbelievable.  If you (BRG) as a Face PC via Free Roleplay in your games are moving position-entrenched NPCs off of their positions at anything resembling the rate that you invariably are...well, the only thing its approximating is _*genre *_and *wieldy for a TTRPG*.  Those are both fantastic things! But they're not _*believable *_in any (even the most ridiculously lose) interpretation of the word!






I really don't know what to tell you, except that the frustration is mutual. I think we just have very different ways of approaching. You keep trying to force me into this real world simulation box and I keep telling you that isn't what I am aiming for at all. I am aiming for something much lighter, which I call believability. Which is stuff like is the world internally consistent, are the NPCs responding logically what the players are saying (NOT are they responding with the success rate of real world people having conversations: honestly I am not even sure what that looks like or means to be honest). Basically believability is believable enough for the purposes of a game. Again, you are approaching this with an engineer mindset. I am not. I don't think that difference can be bridged by any amount of analysis or communication at this point (we've interacted a lot and you seem to have a lot of difficulty understanding my point of view). 

The basic difference in meaning is believable to me isn't about me coming up with a working model of how people interact in the real world with numerical hit rates. I am not trying to achieve a simulation of when you have firmly entrenched people presented with strong arguments, they capitulate X percent of the time in real life (I seriously don't even know where that information would be obtained from). All I am trying to figure out when I run an NPC, is whether what the player said would move them, persuade them, prompt them to act in a certain way. And it is all very intuitive. And the aim is to produce a world that feels believable (which as I have said does not mean feels realistic).


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Good.  So Couldn’t this be as simple an issue as you and others disagreeing about what is appropriate genre logic?




What is "this" in the above sentence.  We've discussed tons and tons and tons of things here.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Thank you for coming out and saying this.  That is exactly what I was getting at and every time I cite "hostility to analysis" this is what I'm getting at.  You perceive that I'm hostile to your playstyle and the words I put on the internet are bad for you and your playstyle.  Therefore you need to defend your playstyle from my hostile analysis (the impetus for your responses).




I think honestly we probably are better off not interacting Manbearcat. I haven't seen anything useful or productive come from our exchanges. My honest opinion is your analysis is hostile to the playstyle. Am I hostile to all analysis? No. But I also am not going to just think the way you do because you say something in a post and believe it is logical or convincing.


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> I think honestly we probably are better off not interacting Manbearcat. I haven't seen anything useful or productive come from our exchanges. My honest opinion is your analysis is hostile to the playstyle. Am I hostile to all analysis? No. But I also am not going to just think the way you do because you say something in a post and believe it is logical or convincing.




To be clear, you've just confirmed what I wrote above.  That is all I was looking for.

And hokey doke.  No interacting.  Take care.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> To be clear, you've just confirmed what I wrote above.  That is all I was looking for.




I don't know that it did manbearcat. I really think you fundamentally don't understand my position on these things (which again, why I don't think continuing to engage is useful)


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> What is "this" in the above sentence.  We've discussed tons and tons and tons of things here.



The issue of others disliking the inclusion of  the kinds of martial abilities you mentioned.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I personally find the traditional label mildly annoying because most of the games that get included very much represented a break from tradition. Speaking as an OSR fan the GM techniques and playstyle of Vampire as outlined in it's text is pretty far removed from B/X. As is modern D&D.



What is a better shorthand term for such games?

I’m not particularly tied to traditional but I don’t know a better differentiating descriptor.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> What is a better shorthand term for such games?



I suspect they are advocating for a more granular approach to the definitional work rather than simply a different term.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Sure it is. You have a problem: picking your nose. You stop picking your nose, the problem is done. My point is railroading is as easy to see as the problem of nose picking. It is also a habit, which you break by not engaging in it.




Oh I think railroading is far harder to spot than nosepicking. I also think it’s a pretty poor comparison.

Railroading isn’t something that is actively discouraged. In fact, it is at times promoted as the standard by which the entire hobby functions. 

Now, I think most of us here have enough experience to have a sense of what railroading is and how to avoid it. I expect the definition of what constitutes a railroad would be the big point of contention.

But if you think that having processes and rules in place to prevent railroading is a bad idea, or that doing so must in some other way handcuff a GM, then I don’t think we’ll agree.



Bedrockgames said:


> Because agency is about being able to make meaningful choices. My words and political strategies are meaningful choices I am making in play to advance my goals. Isn't more agency enhancing to put power to my actual choices rather than shift them to a mechanic. Now this does require that the GM adjudicate my choices. Which, I would argue, is the very essence of what makes an RPG. It is that on the spot ability of a human hearing what you are trying to do, and then logically applying that to the world. Keep in mind, I may be doing very specific things, like inviting senators to feasts, with the aim of doing  putting them in a compromising position, which I can exploit to force them to ally with me. And I may be saying very specific things, as Cicero did, in my speech. Now it is true, people may be unmoved by what I say, and my attempts to put senators in positions where I can essentially blackmail them into voting my way could backfire or simply not work. But if you have a mechanic in place for managing those things, all those specific choices I have made (which are an expression of my agency) have no meaning if a simple die roll can undo them. In fact the only real agency I have is at character creation when I take the relevant social skills, between sessions when I upgrade them. The only other meaningful choice I might have is to use or not use them. Granted some systems might give more weight to things I say and do, and factor those into the mechanic. But that just helps prove my point that for there to be real agency, what I say and do, need to actually matter because those kinds of things in an RPG are all about making meaningful choices. And they are also FUN. There is tremendous fun to be had if you are in a political intrigue campaign like I describe, to actually engage in political intrigue.




Yes, I absolutely agree. I love that kind of stuff. I prefer for there to be rules on how to go about it. And I don’t just mean “say my argument, then have the GM determine a DC, and make the roll”. I prefer that the mechanics of all this be as robust and engaging as the scenario you describe. The bribery and the invitations and the politicking....I want all of that to matter in some way I can understand so that I know the game and can then make meaningful and informed decisions.

Imagine baseball where the umpire didn’t call balls or strikes. He tracks them, but none of it is known to the players. How are they supposed to approach the game? 

This is where “GM Decides” puts us. 

Now, I know you’ll say “oh it’s about trust” but that’s not it. I may trust that the umpire has called each pitch exactly as he sees them. I just may not agree with his opinion. 



Bedrockgames said:


> And again, the reason mechanics with social skills and similar things can be a problem is because of the gap that can arise between what the player says and does in character and what the result of their roll is (to the point that what they say and do in character, may not matter at all, it might just be narrative dressing).




It can matter if you like. “Wow that’s a really compelling argument....roll with advantage.” And so on.

When a 12th level fighter rolls a 4 on his attack and misses the fire giant, do you assume he’s tripped over his shoelaces and fallen on his face? Probably not. So again, why can’t a compelling argument, eloquently worded, still fail to sway anyone? 

I think that if the player takes the time to really lay it on and does a good job, there’s nothing wrong with giving them a bonus of some kind, as per my example above. 

I think this need to vet the attempts speaks to an underlying need to steer things. Whether it’s to preserve some idea about a NPC or other story element, or to keep some secret from the players that will matter later, or any other number of things.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I suspect they are advocating for a more granular approach to the definitional work rather than simply a different term.



Something Seems off to me to attempt to use an “argument of offense” to force a different definitional framework instead of just replacing the offensive term.  I can’t quite put my finger on what is off about that though.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this need to vet the attempts speaks to an underlying need to steer things. Whether it’s to preserve some idea about a NPC or other story element, or to keep some secret from the players that will matter later, or any other number of things.



Quite the contrary. For me it is about honoring what the player actually says and does. I have no interest in preserving a story element or steering things. I just want to keep point of view during play (players shouldn’t know what White Bearded Sage’s motives are, because those are in his head, not their heads). But that sort of thing isn’t hidden in order to help me drive the players in some direction or something. And, importantly, that info may be obtainable from people who know white bearded sage. My priority is being honest in the NPCs reaction. If players find some powerful organization for example and propose a temp alliance to help kill a spirited beast, even if that basically means the adventure is an instant win for them, because the6 have hundreds of high ranked men helping them, I will let that happen in a heart beat if I think their proposal would meet with a positive response (for example say one of the PCs pledged something big, like offering to marry the daughter of their leader, after learning from someone that the sect leader is desperate to marry her).


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Something Seems off to me to attempt to use an “argument of offense” to force a different definitional framework instead of just replacing the offensive term.  I can’t quite put my finger on what is off about that though.



The example was off for me, as I wouldn't quite describe Vampire TM as a 'traditional' RPG. For me, that's more like OSR stuff, Classic Traveller, yadda yadda.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that if the player takes the time to really lay it on and does a good job, there’s nothing wrong with giving them a bonus of some kind, as per my example above.
> 
> .




Why not just let them succeed at persuading in this case. What does the roll even add?


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> Why not just let them succeed at persuading in this case. What does the roll even add?



It allows players who aren't good at 'laying it on' to play the same kind of character, and it also takes the results out of the judgement of the GM and places them in the even hands of Fate. It also nips in the bud that age old issue of 'that guy' who takes CHA as his dump stat and then proceeds to own the social phase anyway because the player is a charming fellow. 

I'm not advocating for over-rolling mind you, I'd only call for a roll when the task has consequences.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> You keep trying to force me into this real world simulation box and I keep telling you that isn't what I am aiming for at all. I am aiming for something much lighter, which I call believability. Which is stuff like is the world internally consistent, are the NPCs responding logically what the players are saying (NOT are they responding with the success rate of real world people having conversations: honestly I am not even sure what that looks like or means to be honest). Basically believability is believable enough for the purposes of a game. Again, you are approaching this with an engineer mindset. I am not.




Just to maybe step in and hopefully clarify, neither of you seem to be approaching this from an “engineer’s mindset”. Your appeal to believability sounded like some kind of simulationist angle, so I think that’s how @Manbearcat took it. 

If you’re not concerned with fidelity to some kind of simulationism such that the “to hit for faces” in real life isn’t a concern, than that’s fine. 

But then I think the question becomes what makes your logic preferable over a player’s? 

So you go through your thought process for a NPC and you’ve calculated what you think is a plausible response. Let’s say the player does as well. They have an idea on what’s plausible.

What makes your idea somehow more plausible, or is it simply selected by default as the GM’s choice?

And either way, doesn’t this mean that the GM is steering things? “Faithfully” as it may be.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> What is a better shorthand term for such games?
> 
> I’m not particularly tied to traditional but I don’t know a better differentiating descriptor.




I use mainstream game in my own commentary.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Why not just let them succeed at persuading in this case. What does the roll even add?




That depends on what’s at stake and a lot of other factors. But I think that is a reasonable response, sure.

Edited to add: Sorry, I somehow lost the second paragraph I’d typed.

The roll adds tension. If the outcome is uncertain, calling for a roll brings that uncertainty to the table in a tangible way.


----------



## Campbell

Generally I view the role of dice as a means for heightening the narrative tension of the moment. If the game has a resolution system with actual teeth to it going to the dice creates this moment where we all get to be audience members for a little bit and see how things go. It's a big part of the magic of roleplaying games to me. Also it's less the dice, but what they imply if the system has actual teeth.

I agree that DM decides with ritualized dice rolls does not really add anything to DM decides.

I personally am also not a huge fan of going to the dice to resolve friendly negotiations where everyone is negotiating from a position of good faith. I think talking it out at the table does a good job of modeling building real life consensus. There's no real tension in such exchanges. I like to go to the dice for those moments where an NPC might catch you in a lie or you are showing a willingness to commit violence. Those moments should feel tense.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> The issue of others disliking the inclusion of  the kinds of martial abilities you mentioned.




No, its not that simple.

(a) "Believability" undergirding play in case (i) in one game while (b) genre logic (that strains the credulity of case (i) persisting in the same milieu) undergirds play in the same game in case (ii) isn't a place I take refuge when it comes to games.  If I'm examining one thing for "believability" I'm examining all things for internal consistency.  Or I'm examining none (which is where I pretty much always sit).  

Games are games.  I play/run them as games and I take my cues from the designers in terms of "what is the point of play" and "how does the embedded genre logic/tropes facilitate" the playing of that game.

My Torchbearer games are brutal, dark fantasy featuring very mundane martial PCs that can't do those things and Face PCs that fail at massively higher rate than D&D Face PCs.  

My Scum and Villainy (Star Wars Space Opera meets Peaky Blinders or GTA) game features suave Face PCs with high hit rate in parleys but non-Force, martial PCs look like Star Wars characters (or us).

My 4e and Dungeon World games feature thematically robust PCs and mythical tropes (that scale with the Tiers of play) from martial heroes to spellcasters and from chasm jumpers to primordial convincers.

My Dogs in the Vineyard games feature very mundane, gun-toting Paladin characters and if there is a supernatural element (Sin manifesting as actual demonic influence) will vary from game to game (so anointing someone's head with Sacred Earth during an exorcism or blessing a marriage in a ritual may or may not manifest as a supernatural event). And "just talking" escalates to "fists/knives" or "guns" pretty routinely depending on if its a "relatively" frivolous domestic dispute (a family's child set fire to the stables and he needs to indenture them to the owner/proprietor for a season to work it off) or something more ominous "cattle rustlers have taken up residence in a house of ill-repute."

My Blades games feature mundane, martial PCs with heist genre logic/tropes where the supernatural is an accepted part of being held hostage in a world that has undergone a ghostly apocalypse.

My Mouse Guard games feature action-adventure heroic mice that do what swashbuckling + medieval heroes can do but no more as they deliver the mail, settle disputes, guide travelers, trailblaze new routes between settlements, and secure their villages and lives against the predators of the forest.  Outside of actualized anthropomorphism, its a mundane game that lives off of the prior tropes.

All of these games feature conflict mechanics, PC build tools, action resolution + binding GMing principles/procedures and very explicit (and distinct) play priorities that dictate results and all of them opt-in heavily toward "playability."  In none of these cases is "Free Roleplay + adjudicate by believability" what undergirds outcomes with respect to parleying, journeying, trailblazing, mail-delivering, undead turning, argument de-escalation-ing, cliff-climbing, chasm-leaping, lightning pillar repairing, ship piloting, Wookie-calming, dispute settlement-ing, (non)lethal combat-ing, chases-ing, exorcisms-ing, ing-ing, etc.

Genre logic is good not just because its fun and creates form...but because its useful/functional and coherent as a game stabilizer/perpetuator (and it doesn't play nice when it manifests as a double standard as one character archetype becomes preternaturally competent in their shtick, which happens to be a huge site of conflict for play, yet grounds another character archetype in their shtick, which happens to be a huge site of conflict for play).


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> I already agreed the door and orc were similar, so why the repetition of your examples? I'm talking about something else entirely. I'm talking about the _genesis_ of the orc or the door, the agency to add either orc or door to the fiction in the first place. Most detractors of narrative games would probably use the term _narrative control._



But my point is this: writing a story about _an orc that gets killed_ is no different from writing a story about _a wall that turns out to have a secret way through it._

You keep mentioning the door. My point is that the wall is established fiction (part of the framing), and embellishing that established fiction by adding a secret way through it (which has been discovered in virtue of a search) is no different from embellishing the established fiction of the Orc by adding that now its dead (because killed in virtue of an attack).

There authorship, and hence authorial agency, involved in either case is the same. Each embellishes an established fictional situation by adding something to it that changes the state/nature/details of an established element (_wall_ in one case, _Orc_ in the other).

Neither involves any greater or lesser narrative control. The difference is purely one of subject matter.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I want the things my character says and does to matter.



Is there a RPG you're familiar with which (i) has social resolution mechanics and (ii) where this isn't the case?

The only I can think of is 3E D&D, but I don't know that system all that well and so I may be wrong.

In Apocalypse World and Dungeon World and Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant and Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP and Classic Traveller - just to mention systems I'm familiar with that have social conflict resolution mechanics - what the character says and does matters a great deal.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> players shouldn’t know what White Bearded Sage’s motives are, because those are in his head, not their heads



This is strange. I interact with many people every day. And quite often I know what their motivations are, even though their motivations are not in my head. This is one aspect of being a social animal.



Bedrockgames said:


> My priority is being honest in the NPCs reaction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I will let that happen in a heart beat if I think their proposal would meet with a positive response



Who does not want to be honest to the NPCs?

I guess the question is, _how does someone decide if a proposal would meet with a positive response_? And _how do the players learn this_? Especially if you take the view that they shouldn't know NPCs' motivations.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, I absolutely agree. I love that kind of stuff. I prefer for there to be rules on how to go about it. And I don’t just mean “say my argument, then have the GM determine a DC, and make the roll”. I prefer that the mechanics of all this be as robust and engaging as the scenario you describe. The bribery and the invitations and the politicking....I want all of that to matter in some way I can understand so that I know the game and can then make meaningful and informed decisions.
> 
> Imagine baseball where the umpire didn’t call balls or strikes. He tracks them, but none of it is known to the players. How are they supposed to approach the game?
> 
> This is where “GM Decides” puts us.
> 
> Now, I know you’ll say “oh it’s about trust” but that’s not it. I may trust that the umpire has called each pitch exactly as he sees them. I just may not agree with his opinion.
> 
> 
> 
> It can matter if you like. “Wow that’s a really compelling argument....roll with advantage.” And so on.
> 
> When a 12th level fighter rolls a 4 on his attack and misses the fire giant, do you assume he’s tripped over his shoelaces and fallen on his face? Probably not. So again, why can’t a compelling argument, eloquently worded, still fail to sway anyone?
> 
> I think that if the player takes the time to really lay it on and does a good job, there’s nothing wrong with giving them a bonus of some kind, as per my example above.
> 
> I think this need to vet the attempts speaks to an underlying need to steer things. Whether it’s to preserve some idea about a NPC or other story element, or to keep some secret from the players that will matter later, or any other number of things.




Exactly.

A Social Score in Blades as a Tug-of-War Clock with 4-6 faces depending upon how complex the opposing views/situation is with (i) an Engagement Roll (based on play/what is said) and (ii) subsequent Position and Effect negotiated at the table based on what the evolving situation and what the player says/does as inputs.  They're (a) still rolling dice but (b) what they say/do matters (to both the emerging fiction and as an input to action resolution + subsequent outgrowth and gamestate evolver).


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Why not just let them succeed at persuading in this case. What does the roll even add?



The possibility of failure. Much like the rolls in combat, even if the player describes an amazing offensive manouevre.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> But my point is this: writing a story about _an orc that gets killed_ is no different from writing a story about _a wall that turns out to have a secret way through it._
> 
> You keep mentioning the door. My point is that the wall is established fiction (part of the framing), and embellishing that established fiction by adding a secret way through it (which has been discovered in virtue of a search) is no different from embellishing the established fiction of the Orc by adding that now its dead (because killed in virtue of an attack).
> 
> There authorship, and hence authorial agency, involved in either case is the same. Each embellishes an established fictional situation by adding something to it that changes the state/nature/details of an established element (_wall_ in one case, _Orc_ in the other).
> 
> Neither involves any greater or lesser narrative control. The difference is purely one of subject matter.



_Weeeelll_, in a thread entitled A Question of Agency, I would submit that who does the narrating of the diegetic frame might be a topic of some importance. Flame wars have been had over this particular bit of real estate and differences here are pretty key in how many people in the hobby classify different RPG systems. So there's that.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I personally am also not a huge fan of going to the dice to resolve friendly negotiations where everyone is negotiating from a position of good faith. I think talking it out at the table does a good job of modeling building real life consensus. There's no real tension in such exchanges. I like to go to the dice for those moments where an NPC might catch you in a lie or you are showing a willingness to commit violence. Those moments should feel tense.



The most recent sessions I have played have been Classic Traveller. Classic Traveller has a system for determining the (generally hostile) response of NPCs to the witnessed use of psionics.

The point of making a check in this case is to determine the "cost" or consequence to the players of their psionics-using choices. It's a social variant on a "spell failure" roll which is a part of many fantasy RPGs.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> _Weeeelll_, in a thread entitled A Question of Agency, I would submit that who does the narrating of the diegetic frame might be a topic of some importance. Flame wars have been had over this particular bit of real estate and differences here are pretty key in how many people in the hobby classify different RPG systems. So there's that.



The secret door is no more part of the "diegetic frame" than is the death of the Orc. It's discovery is a point of resolution following the rising action of the search; just as the death of the Orc is a point of resolution that follows the rising action of the fight.

Sometimes a fiction will prefigure that moment of resolution by showing us the door (Chekov's door?). Likewise we might foreshadow the death of the Orc by seeing another Orc defeated a certain way, or by seeing this particular Orc in a fight. But RPGs - for obvious reasons that follow from the way the fiction is generated - tend not to require foreshadowing or prefiguring as a necessary precursor to a particular resolution.


----------



## Fenris-77

You keep replying to my posts and I continue to have trouble connecting your replies to anything I've said. I'm not saying the problem there is you, btw.

Edit: I think we may be working with some different definitions of what the diegetic frame is too. I'm using in it to refer to the "internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter" which is to say mostly the same way the term is used in cinema, and also in most RPG theory I've read. Where are we getting our wires crossed here? Because both the orc and the door fit my definition.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> You keep replying to my posts and I continue to have trouble connecting your replies to anything I've said. I'm not saying the problem there is you, btw.
> 
> Edit: I think we may be working with some different definitions of what the diegetic frame is too. I'm using in it to refer to the "internal world created by the story that the characters themselves experience and encounter" which is to say mostly the same way the term is used in cinema, and also in most RPG theory I've read. Where are we getting our wires crossed here? Because both the orc and the door fit my definition.



I'm failing to make sense of how you're characterising the "frame" or the "world". The door is part of it. So is the Orc's death. I don't think cinema theory mandates that the world be defined in terms of things rather than events rather than states of affairs.

EDIT: My point being that _the fiction _- whether that is a composite of things and/or events and/or states of affairs and/or processes - has to be authored. Elements that make up the composite get introduced. In the context of a shared fiction that power will be distributed. It is - I assert - not possible to distinguish between _the power to introduce a death of an Orc _and _the power to introduce discovery of a way through a wall_ in terms of authorial process. Reference to diegetic frames or internal worlds will not change that. (And the authorship obviously happens in the real world, not in the imagined world.)

The difference can only be explained in terms of subject matter/topic.

FURTHER EDIT: I agree that some people are happy to let the player be able to make decisions that oblige the whole table to accept that the Orc is dead, but want decisions that oblige the whole table to accept that the wall has a secret way through it to be under the purview of the GM.

My point is that those decisions aren't different in terms of "narrative power" or authorial/storytelling logic.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Don’t you think that player agency is at its highest when the players can direct the outcome through the game’s mechanics? When they know “if I attempt action X, I likely have these odds to succeed, and if I do, I will achieve Y”?



Only to the point that the same might apply in real life.

Amnd in real life there's countless examples where one simply doesn't know a) the odds of success, and-or b) what success or failure might in fact look like in the end.  I prefer this be reflected in the game where it makes sense to do so, to indicate the character's similar lack of knowledge.


----------



## Lanefan

Bedrockgames said:


> But railroading can happen in combat too. For example if you give an NPC plot immunity like the puppet maker in the Ravenloft module the Created had (where he literally can't die no matter what the Players do for plot reasons) that would be railroading in combat.



Not sure I 100% agree here; it depends on why the plot immunity is being given.  If it's because the NPC can die but is supposed to die at some specific point or time later, then yes that's a railroad all day long.  But if it's because the NPC is there "just because" and can't die ever, then I don't think it's railroading at all.

As an example: in an adventure I'm about to run there's a scene where the party (if they get there) enter a dining room and are served a "meal" by semi-ghostly wait staff who are simply going through the motions.  There's no food.  But should the PCs try to harm the wait staff they're wasting their time: each has infinite hit points and fully regenerates at the end of any round.  They will never attack, and cannot be dispelled, turned, or otherwise prevented from going about their duties.

The point of them is that the PCs are supposed to not bother trying to kill them (and-or to waste some resources if they do) - it's just a somewhat-whimsical set-piece where the imaginary characters themselves get served an imaginary meal before carrying on with the adventure.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> How do you seriously hold to this position when you yourself repeatedly use normative language when discussing your own long-ingrained habits of roleplaying? You represent your "side" as being a longstanding tradition



I don't think this is in question: the great majority of tables have played in a vaguely-similar style at any given time* all the way along, mostly because one system has for most of the time (late 2e-era and about half of the 4e-era being exceptions) greatly dominated the market.  Thus yes, saying that a general style of play is/was normal for some time or other is valid.

* - though there's been some minor bends in the road that majority style has taken over the long run e.g. the difference between the majority of pre-Dragonlance 1e-era play and the majority of 2e-era play.


darkbard said:


> from which @pemerton and other advocates for player-facing gaming deviate, and yet you feel so aggrieved by our discussions on an online forum that you must defend your preferred gaming modality's honor from our "besmirchments"?!? I mean, really?



I'm not too concerned about besmirchments - hell, I can give as good as I take on that front if it comes to that! 

But I do get frustrated by so often seeing corner case rules being pulled from older games and held up as examples of how the game was played overall; or niche games from some era or other (including now) being held up as an example of how the majority of tables played at that time.  It seems very...well, lawyer-ly, for lack of a better term; and it grates.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> When would you allow for a roll, set a DC or Target Number, see that it is a success per the dice, and then deny that success?



An example would be cases where the player's hoped-for success condition is impossible for reasons beyond the player's control or knowledge (in other words, exactly what pemerton doesn't like!) .

An example might be something as simple as trying to persuade (or maneuver) the Emperor to go for a walk in the sunny garden.  Unknown to the characters (or players) the Emperor is in fact a Vampire thus going out in the sun would be a bad idea.  But as DM I can't just deny the attempt without arousing undue out-of-character suspicion, so I let 'em roll (and secretly hope the roll fails, to get me off the hook!).

But let's say the roll succeeds handily.  The Emperor still ain't going out in that garden, so I have to deny that success either by having the Emperor act in a manner that might give his secret away or by having him in-character try to deflect by granting the PCs something else they might like e.g. "Alas, I cannot walk with you this day but for such a kind and unexpected offer please accept my invitation to remain at court until the Highsun Ball at the end of next month".  Then if the players/PCs get suspicious we can take it from there.

This is another reason I dislike social situations being decided mechanically: I'd rather rely on my own roleplaying ability to - as the Emperor - talk my way out of going for that walk, and if I mess it up and the players/PCs get suspicious, that means the Emperor messed it up too.


hawkeyefan said:


> When has this come about in a game? Do you have any specific examples?



If I allowed more player-side rolling it would come up every time they rolled success on searching for a secret door in a place where none was to be found.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> I tried to get @Lanefan to discuss this upthread and we had an exchange.  But it wasn't particularly satisfactory to me (that is, to say, I decided by fiat that I was unmoved by his/her argument that he/she surely thought was robust and compelling)!



Fair enough; I've made some fiat-based decisions along the way in here as well. 

And it's 'he', though I can see why there'd be confusion as I play - and thus reference here - so many female characters.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> 2)  I'm specifically talking about "PCs asking for something hard and/or painful" which is pretty much every meaningful social conflict in a TTRPG.  In those situations, the "hit rate" for Face PCs (and the players playing them) is absurd to the point of being more in line with "Down the Rabbit-hole Wonderland" than anything resembling fidelity to a reality featuring position-entrenched opposing parties.



Agreed.  In my own defense the "hit rate" is generally quite low in my games if the PCs just talk to someone, but much higher if they act in that someone's interests and that someone finds out about it.

Try to talk the King into going into hiding to thwart an assassination attempt?  Good luck with that, he's likely to run you out of his court.

Save the King by busting up said assassination attempt?  You're his friend for life.

An old campaign of mine had, in a much more detailed and long-winded manner, pretty much just this sequence take place: the PCs learned there'd be an attempt against the King, but when they tried to warn him and get him to hide he told them - rather bluntly - to shove off before he threw them in jail.  So they made arrangements to try and bust up the attempt when it occurred, and after many complications were ultimately successful.  The King learned of this.  Lavish rewards all round!


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> But then I think the question becomes what makes your logic preferable over a player’s?
> 
> So you go through your thought process for a NPC and you’ve calculated what you think is a plausible response. Let’s say the player does as well. They have an idea on what’s plausible.
> 
> What makes your idea somehow more plausible, or is it simply selected by default as the GM’s choice?
> 
> And either way, doesn’t this mean that the GM is steering things? “Faithfully” as it may be.



This is IMHO one of the most aggravating things as a player in such social encounters. 



Campbell said:


> So I think that both economists and gamers greatly overestimate the degree to which human beings are rational actors.
> 
> I think if your aim is skilled play of the fiction not having meaningful social mechanisms makes a certain degree of sense. After all you want to reward a player's ability to build up evidence and make a compelling case. In my experience it's not a good model for the way like actual human beings behave. We are convinced to do many things we do not want to initially do. Seldom by a compelling argument. It also tends to make for fiction that resembles Star Trek far more than The Last Kingdom or Vikings.
> 
> I think if you want a game where characters have rich emotional lives that are somewhat removed from the rich emotional lives of their players (hence not LARP style drama) having some sort of mechanism to reinforce that is usually a good thing.



I suspect this attitude may come, in part, out of Gygaxian libertarianism. The Gygaxian approach to game agency, rational actors, "the invisible hand" of the GM, and meaningful decision-making that is prevalent in D&D's make-up seems to have vaguely libertarian underpinnings.* But being able to elucidate with any erudition the extent to which that hypothesis holds true is another matter. 

* Possibly even accumulating gold as the currency for XP, randomly generated characters, etc.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh I think railroading is far harder to spot than nosepicking. I also think it’s a pretty poor comparison.
> 
> Railroading isn’t something that is actively discouraged. In fact, it is at times promoted as the standard by which the entire hobby functions.
> 
> Now, I think most of us here have enough experience to have a sense of what railroading is and how to avoid it. I expect the definition of what constitutes a railroad would be the big point of contention.
> 
> But if you think that having processes and rules in place to prevent railroading is a bad idea, or that doing so must in some other way handcuff a GM, then I don’t think we’ll agree.



Truth be told, anti-railroading rules would handcuff a GM; because sometimes a bit of railroading can be a good thing.

Like many other things, however, it needs to be used in great moderation and (usually) with a light touch*.

* - that said, sometimes the hamfisted approach can also work well: "You leave town intending to head for the coast; but about an hour out of town _blip!_ your surroundings suddenly change: where before you were in open farmland you're now in a dark foreboding forest.  What do you do?".  Some of the best adventures I've ever played in have started this way.


hawkeyefan said:


> Now, I know you’ll say “oh it’s about trust” but that’s not it. I may trust that the umpire has called each pitch exactly as he sees them. I just may not agree with his opinion.



FYI in the Majors they're going to robotic umpires either this season or next to get around just this problem.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So you go through your thought process for a NPC and you’ve calculated what you think is a plausible response. Let’s say the player does as well. They have an idea on what’s plausible.
> 
> What makes your idea somehow more plausible, or is it simply selected by default as the GM’s choice?
> 
> And either way, doesn’t this mean that the GM is steering things? “Faithfully” as it may be.




Both could be plausible. The point is simply the GM is supposed to be aiming for plausibility here. And because the GM is the one with the power to decide, that is where things go. If the player wants to run a campaign, I am more than happy to cede to their sense of the plausible. Ideally though, the GM is achieving the goal of plausibility and it isn't creating any issues. But this style does require that you make allowances for some differences and not fight over GM rulings (obviously if the GM does something quite boneheaded, it is worth discussing----but generally in groups i play with, we like to maintain flow of play, so any criticism would be reserved for after the game). 

I don't think the GM is steering things. That term suggests the GM is guiding towards a particular outcome or storyline. But I am describing a GM who is much more reactive to what the PCs do, than a GM trying to guide things along a path or steer the course of the campaign.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> It allows players who aren't good at 'laying it on' to play the same kind of character, and it also takes the results out of the judgement of the GM and places them in the even hands of Fate. It also nips in the bud that age old issue of 'that guy' who takes CHA as his dump stat and then proceeds to own the social phase anyway because the player is a charming fellow.
> 
> I'm not advocating for over-rolling mind you, I'd only call for a roll when the task has consequences.




I agree that one downside of my approach is player skill becomes more relevant so players with a weaker ability to make compelling arguments, might have a harder time. But the same can be said for players who are weak at battefield tactics or weak at puzzle solving. Now if part of your enjoyment of the game comes from the challenge, and overcoming the challenge (i.e. solving the puzzle, or finding a clever way to persuade the consul to your point), then having those situations boil down to a roll rather than what you choose to do or so, just doesn't feel as satisfying. 

That said, you can do things to help the player who isn't good at laying it on (I tend to give an A for effort in these cases). Also you can weight stats into your decision and you can call for a roll when it a character with a really high or low skill makes such an effort and you feel the need to factor in that high level or low level of skill (I don't like social skills, but I do use them because people expect them, and this is largely my approach: I only roll when there is some doubt in my mind about what the reaction would be, or when I feel the character's skill needs to have some weight)

Still though, I don't think people appreciate just how much skill rolls for social interaction take away from the game for folks who are largely their to engage in direct social interaction with NPCs, solve puzzles directly, etc. This was a noticeable issue for me as social skills became more prevalent in the hobby (and in particular, since it was usually the game played the most that I was in, when 3rd edition D&D made them part of the core game). For me this change had a pretty immediate impact on my enjoyment of play and that impact was fixed the moment I ran earlier editions of the game. 

There is also a flow issue with these kinds of skills. i really don't like taking time to roll and resolve mechanics when I am engaged in the RP part of play. Now if it is just a simple roll against a target number, fair, that isn't too too much. But there are much more involved social systems (like social combat in some games) and those drive me nuts just from a flow perspective. 

All that said, I don't expect everyone to take my view. I have said my preference appears to be out of the norm, and that I do include social skills in the games I make because even most of my own players expect them in some way. I just have a very particular way of using them to preserve my style (which has taken me a while to figure out how to work).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> . It also nips in the bud that age old issue of 'that guy' who takes CHA as his dump stat and then proceeds to own the social phase anyway because the player is a charming fellow.




This doesn't bother me quite as much. Ideally people are playing their character, but if they just play themselves, I am fine with that too. I will say, in earlier versions of D&D at least, CHR will still be a factor though with reaction rolls (but that is more about a person's disposition at the start of the encounter). In the case of a player who uses lots of charming language but has a low CHR, I tend to read that as something like them looking like Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds if he were well spoken.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Just to maybe step in and hopefully clarify, neither of you seem to be approaching this from an “engineer’s mindset”. Your appeal to believability sounded like some kind of simulationist angle, so I think that’s how @Manbearcat took it.




That is because your side's use of the term simulationist doesn't jive with the way we play the game. This is one of the major reasons people on my side reject GNS theory for example. I have tried to explain I am not running a realistic simulation of reality. 

I do think Manbearcat's approach to my way of handling NPCs was very engineer-like. I get that may not be how he plays at the table. But his insistence that to do it my way, I'd need to be figuring out the actual level of 'hits' in real life social situations and using a formula to replicate that....that struck me as very 'engineer-like'.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The roll adds tension. If the outcome is uncertain, calling for a roll brings that uncertainty to the table in a tangible way.




Sure, but that tension isn't necessarily connected to what the player is saying (I could add tension with all kinds of mechanics outside the actual events of play----I could create a whole mini-game to increase the tension). But I want to focus on the actual exchange (and there is usually plenty of tension there: often something as simple as the GM pausing before giving an answer will produce it).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Just to be clear @Manbearcat, I love genre RPGs and I like having worlds that follow genre physics. I think there are different ways of producing genre physics (some games will make sure certain plot elements always arise for example, others are more focused on letting you explore the world that say Bruce Lee inhabited in Enter the Dragon, but they are not necessarily guaranteeing you get to be Bruce Lee. But I use genre logic all the time in my campaigns. I run plenty of wuxia campaigns for instance and many genre conventions are factored into my judgements. Still if you are consistent about it, that continues to create the sense of a believable world (albeit a believable world of wuxia rather than our mundane reality).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I suspect this attitude may come, in part, out of Gygaxian libertarianism. The Gygaxian approach to game agency, rational actors, "the invisible hand" of the GM, and meaningful decision-making that is prevalent in D&D's make-up seems to have vaguely libertarian underpinnings.* But being able to elucidate with any erudition the extent to which that hypothesis holds true is another matter.




I don't really buy this. I think this is a very questionable idea. I understand for a lot of people now, the mechanics of a game are somehow inseparable from political belief, but as a person who didn't share most of Gygax's politics, I've never found the game to be in conflict with my own: because these are rules for play in a fake world, not rules meant to be taken out into the real world and applied. By the same token, allowing for an uneven power structure between players and the GM in a game, doesn't mean you would want that kind of uneven power structure in real life. Also, if the game and it’s mechanics truly reflected a libertarian worldview, there would likely be extreme distrust of GM authority, wouldn’t there? i just think this kind of thinking breaks down once you get past a superficial reading of the game


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to be clear @Manbearcat, I love genre RPGs and I like having worlds that follow genre physics. I think there are different ways of producing genre physics (some games will make sure certain plot elements always arise for example, others are more focused on letting you explore the world that say Bruce Lee inhabited in Enter the Dragon, but they are not necessarily guaranteeing you get to be Bruce Lee. But I use genre logic all the time in my campaigns. I run plenty of wuxia campaigns for instance and many genre conventions are factored into my judgements. Still if you are consistent about it, that continues to create the sense of a believable world (albeit a believable world of wuxia rather than our mundane reality).



I’d say genre logic is actually a main component that drives believability.

I think that when people talk about believable in relation to the real world they really mean believable in respect to the genre logic. It’s just that in this instance for them the real world and genre logic are in alignment.

it’s why the refrain against certain mechanics is:  if I wanted to play a supers game I would do so.  They dont view the abilities in question as genre appropriate which detracts from their believability.


----------



## darkbard

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to be clear @Manbearcat, I love genre RPGs and I like having worlds that follow genre physics.




@Bedrockgames, _you_ suggested that exchanges between you and @Manbearcat be closed down, to which he agreed, and now here (and a few posts earlier when you indirectly address him), you seem unable to stop yourself from jumping in with one (or two) last word(s). Do you not see why it becomes frustrating interacting with you?

I add that this mirrors your claims of not being opposed to (much) analysis with subsequent repeated posts decrying the ills of analysis (see our earlier exchanges on this subject).


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> I add that this mirrors your claims of not being opposed to (much) analysis with subsequent repeated posts decrying the ills of analysis (see our earlier exchanges on this subject).



Maybe he is just opposed to bad analysis that frames his playstyle in a very negative light?  Afterall, one can complain about bad analysis without being opposed to analysis.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I agree that one downside of my approach is player skill becomes more relevant so players with a weaker ability to make compelling arguments, might have a harder time. But the same can be said for players who are weak at battefield tactics or weak at puzzle solving. Now if part of your enjoyment of the game comes from the challenge, and overcoming the challenge (i.e. solving the puzzle, or finding a clever way to persuade the consul to your point), then having those situations boil down to a roll rather than what you choose to do or so, just doesn't feel as satisfying.
> 
> That said, you can do things to help the player who isn't good at laying it on (I tend to give an A for effort in these cases). Also you can weight stats into your decision and you can call for a roll when it a character with a really high or low skill makes such an effort and you feel the need to factor in that high level or low level of skill (I don't like social skills, but I do use them because people expect them, and this is largely my approach: I only roll when there is some doubt in my mind about what the reaction would be, or when I feel the character's skill needs to have some weight)
> 
> Still though, I don't think people appreciate just how much skill rolls for social interaction take away from the game for folks who are largely their to engage in direct social interaction with NPCs, solve puzzles directly, etc. This was a noticeable issue for me as social skills became more prevalent in the hobby (and in particular, since it was usually the game played the most that I was in, when 3rd edition D&D made them part of the core game). For me this change had a pretty immediate impact on my enjoyment of play and that impact was fixed the moment I ran earlier editions of the game.
> 
> There is also a flow issue with these kinds of skills. i really don't like taking time to roll and resolve mechanics when I am engaged in the RP part of play. Now if it is just a simple roll against a target number, fair, that isn't too too much. But there are much more involved social systems (like social combat in some games) and those drive me nuts just from a flow perspective.
> 
> All that said, I don't expect everyone to take my view. I have said my preference appears to be out of the norm, and that I do include social skills in the games I make because even most of my own players expect them in some way. I just have a very particular way of using them to preserve my style (which has taken me a while to figure out how to work).



Don't get me wrong, I agree with pretty much everything you have to say here. I was just laying out the reasons in favour of using the roll. My GMing style involves rolling the fewest dice possible, so in the case where a suave player does a nifty bit of roleplaying I will often just nod and say yes rather than calling for a roll. However, in a game where someone less suave wants to play the Face I will lean more heavily into the roll and succeed method to help scaffold their lack of innate people skills. In both cases my goal is to be a fan of the characters.

As far as rolling dice and the flow goes, I don't find it's an issue for me any more than it is in combat. When the stakes get high enough I am going to get the player to roll some dice no matter what the RP looks like because, IMO, that's the game.


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe he is just opposed to bad analysis that frames his playstyle in a very negative light?  Afterall, one can complain about bad analysis without being opposed to analysis.




How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Only to the point that the same might apply in real life.
> 
> Amnd in real life there's countless examples where one simply doesn't know a) the odds of success, and-or b) what success or failure might in fact look like in the end.  I prefer this be reflected in the game where it makes sense to do so, to indicate the character's similar lack of knowledge.




In real there would be any number of other ways for people to examine their surroundings and the people with whom they interact and then draw those kinds of conclusions.

In a RPG all of that is subject to GM narration. So, throw the players a bone and share the numbers with them. Make them feel like their characters are capable.



Lanefan said:


> An example would be cases where the player's hoped-for success condition is impossible for reasons beyond the player's control or knowledge (in other words, exactly what pemerton doesn't like!) .
> 
> An example might be something as simple as trying to persuade (or maneuver) the Emperor to go for a walk in the sunny garden.  Unknown to the characters (or players) the Emperor is in fact a Vampire thus going out in the sun would be a bad idea.  But as DM I can't just deny the attempt without arousing undue out-of-character suspicion, so I let 'em roll (and secretly hope the roll fails, to get me off the hook!).
> 
> But let's say the roll succeeds handily.  The Emperor still ain't going out in that garden, so I have to deny that success either by having the Emperor act in a manner that might give his secret away or by having him in-character try to deflect by granting the PCs something else they might like e.g. "Alas, I cannot walk with you this day but for such a kind and unexpected offer please accept my invitation to remain at court until the Highsun Ball at the end of next month".  Then if the players/PCs get suspicious we can take it from there.




Just prior to posting this you asked that people not use edge cases as examples. Then you come up with this scenario as a hypothetical.

Do you have any actual examples that have come up in play where you’ve taken a success and negated it or else replaced it with some other form of success?



Lanefan said:


> If I allowed more player-side rolling it would come up every time they rolled success on searching for a secret door in a place where none was to be found.




So do you want to give any actual examples or do you just intend to dodge the question?




Lanefan said:


> Truth be told, anti-railroading rules would handcuff a GM; because sometimes a bit of railroading can be a good thing.




I can’t even.



Lanefan said:


> Like many other things, however, it needs to be used in great moderation and (usually) with a light touch*.
> 
> * - that said, sometimes the hamfisted approach can also work well: "You leave town intending to head for the coast; but about an hour out of town _blip!_ your surroundings suddenly change: where before you were in open farmland you're now in a dark foreboding forest.  What do you do?".  Some of the best adventures I've ever played in have started this way.




Some of what you describe here may be more about framing a situation....setting up a scene to present some kind of challenge to the PCs. I don’t think that’s always the same as railroading, although it can be, depending on circumstances.



Lanefan said:


> FYI in the Majors they're going to robotic umpires either this season or next to get around just this problem.




Huh, so they’re going to switch to a neutral system that can provide reasonably predictable and consistent results?!?! 

Poppycock!


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> @Bedrockgames, _you_ suggested that exchanges between you and @Manbearcat be closed down, to which he agreed, and now here (and a few posts earlier when you indirectly address him), you seem unable to stop yourself from jumping in with one (or two) last word(s). Do you not see why it becomes frustrating interacting with you?
> 
> I add that this mirrors your claims of not being opposed to (much) analysis with subsequent repeated posts decrying the ills of analysis (see our earlier exchanges on this subject).




Well, it was a parting remark, and not a negative one. Just a point of clarification based on something I saw he posted (and I didn't quote him, but just mentioned him by name instead). Also, whether he and I interact is between him and me. I think both of us are free to change our minds if we do see some positive exchanges arising (I've had experiences like that with posters, where I stop interacting, then interact after the tone shifts).

I don't know what to tell you about my views on analysis. I feel I have been clear about them. What can I say, I was interested in philosophy growing up and in logic, and in rhetoric, and while I see value in all three, I also understand one can be mislead by specious argumentation, adopt bad ideas by failing to catch a critical flaw in an argument's premise, etc. You can like analysis, but realize it has limits, and that it has things to be cautious about. And especially when it comes to games, you can also realize the limits of these kinds of conversations but still enjoy them and find beneficial things in them. It is just that what ultimately matters is table play---you can have the greatest playstyle argument or analysis in the world, wrapped in a perfectly pretty bow, but if it doesn't work in play, there is a problem. My points about analysis and online conversations isn't that they are all bad. They can be very good. They have helped me overcome issues around railroading for example in my own games. But online especially, they often lead to very extreme views (in a gaming sense, not in a political sense), where we avoid things we might like because we have a slightly imperfect model of gaming in our minds (one that may work great for conversation, and possibly even work for 80% of table play, but has areas where it falters in live play. One point I have been trying to make, that I think hasn't been noticed by everyone is one of the traps I fell into was in discussions around emersion and sandbox, I built up these rules and principles of gaming in my head (based on discussion and analysis) that were good for a lot of things but were too rigid in actual play. I also cut myself off from enjoying the very types of games folks like Pemerton are advocating. This is why it is was a revelation to me when I played Hillfolk and found it extremely immersive. I had great arguments, sound, battle tested arguments, for why it shouldn't be immersive, but that logic broke down in actual play because, while my arguments may have been sound, there were clearly either flaws I didn't see in the premises somewhere. The internet is very good at spreading valid arguments with flawed premises, and this was the point I was trying to make about the negatives of analysis. By all means engage in analysis, but when someone makes a valid argument about players creating dead orcs in the fiction when they swing a sword, that is when I pause and say, okay, even if I can't pinpoint it, clearly this argument has a problem because something in my bones is telling me this isn't true.

Another point is analysis of games is extremely hard to do. I've explained why in prior posts, regarding things like not liking an edition, identifying the suspected mechanical reason, but then wrongly extrapolating that reason to a general principle. And the reverse happens too (well you were fine with Barbarian rage but now daily martial powers bother you?)----again these things are often about the volume, the focus, the specifics, etc. and that very regularly gets overlooked in these discussions. I can ask you to tell me why you don't like chocolate ice cream (and perhaps you do like chocolate ice cream so just insert whatever flavor you dislike). You may be able to provide some subjective analysis of why. But I think there is a good chance those might just be initial impressions, not anything fundamental to your taste. And even if you hit on something, that might be largely dependent on context. So me saying well, you said you don't like the richness of chocolate flavor, but in this other post you declared your love for salmon, and that has a rich, omega fatty taste. Which is it sir?! Do you like richness in your food or do you not??!!!!??  ----note there is a lot wrong here: richness is very subjective, I am possibly equivocating on richness when I talk about fish because richness applies to a wide variety of flavor components, and obviously the richness of chocolate is different from the richness of salmon.


----------



## Campbell

I am not going for @Manbearcat here.

Personally I find that players who are exclusively interested primarily in exploration focused play have a hard time with analyzing what's happening at the actual table between the actual players. They tend to give causal powers to things that have no causal powers. I have also noticed a tendency to filter everything through a exploration focused mindset. Like not being able to contemplate why a mechanic is _needed _or desired if it does not directly feed into the only play agenda they care about.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Both could be plausible. The point is simply the GM is supposed to be aiming for plausibility here. And because the GM is the one with the power to decide, that is where things go.




This is an argument against player agency right here. The GM has the power to decide. 

You must see that, right?



Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think the GM is steering things. That term suggests the GM is guiding towards a particular outcome or storyline. But I am describing a GM who is much more reactive to what the PCs do, than a GM trying to guide things along a path or steer the course of the campaign.




The GM absolutely is steering things. It may not be their goal, or their primary reason for making the decision they make, but it is in fact them steering the game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> That is because your side's use of the term simulationist doesn't jive with the way we play the game. This is one of the major reasons people on my side reject GNS theory for example. I have tried to explain I am not running a realistic simulation of reality.
> 
> I do think Manbearcat's approach to my way of handling NPCs was very engineer-like. I get that may not be how he plays at the table. But his insistence that to do it my way, I'd need to be figuring out the actual level of 'hits' in real life social situations and using a formula to replicate that....that struck me as very 'engineer-like'.




No, it’s that your appeal to “believability” sounded like simulationism. 

That you’ve now clarified that to mean what’s internally consistent with the game world and what fits the NPC has made it clearer.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?




There is a lot of " I am just analyzing' while crapping on playstyle X going on. I think that is a lot of peoples sense, and I think that sense is accurate. But more than that, it is just clear to us that the analysis being used isn't capturing our style. So maybe it is not guided by a desire to attack the style, but there is defintiely a kind of failure to understand how the style actually operates in practice. I think it feels a lot like someone coming from without imposing meaning on what we are doing, and then getting upset when we don't agree with them (and the answer is well I am analyzing so what I am saying is true).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Sure, but that tension isn't necessarily connected to what the player is saying (I could add tension with all kinds of mechanics outside the actual events of play----I could create a whole mini-game to increase the tension). But I want to focus on the actual exchange (and there is usually plenty of tension there: often something as simple as the GM pausing before giving an answer will produce it).




These elements are not absent from the games I play where all of this is also handled with clear processes and game mechanics.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> So I think that both economists and gamers greatly overestimate the degree to which human beings are rational actors.
> 
> I think if your aim is skilled play of the fiction not having meaningful social mechanisms makes a certain degree of sense. After all you want to reward a player's ability to build up evidence and make a compelling case. In my experience it's not a good model for the way like actual human beings behave. We are convinced to do many things we do not want to initially do. Seldom by a compelling argument. It also tends to make for fiction that resembles Star Trek far more than The Last Kingdom or Vikings.
> 
> I think if you want a game where characters have rich emotional lives that are somewhat removed from the rich emotional lives of their players (hence not LARP style drama) having some sort of mechanism to reinforce that is usually a good thing.



You might be factually correct. But...

I think highly immersive LARP is the gold standard of roleplaying, I want social situations on my tabletop game to be like that, and more they are the better! So introducing mechanics that make it less like that would be insane, and I literally cannot understand why anyone would want to do that. I mean I intellectually understand that people have differnt tastes, but this is a position to which I cannot relate at all.

I also love Star Trek.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is an argument against player agency right here. The GM has the power to decide.
> 
> You must see that, right?




I have already covered this. If the GM is just deciding regardless of what the PC says, sure, but if the GM is trying to have the NPC react and the world react, in an honest way to the choices the player is making in terms of actions and words, then that power is being used to enhance agency (and a random die roll, if it takes away from the choices of actions and words, is being detrimental to agency)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> These elements are not absent from the games I play where all of this is also handled with clear processes and game mechanics.




Perhaps for you they aren't. For me, it takes great effort to have such mechanics not interfere with those things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The GM absolutely is steering things. It may not be their goal, or their primary reason for making the decision they make, but it is in fact them steering the game.




No the players are. This is the whole point. When the GM is acting as an honest arbiter and referee of the world, the fact that you have a human mind reacting to what the players say they want to do, is giving power to the players. Again, maybe this bugs you, maybe you don't trust most GMs to do this well, I don't know. But from my experience of play, this is the thing that makes RPGs so liberating: I can literally try everything and the GM has to react. Sometimes the GM will draw on a mechanic to help aid the decision (sometimes you do need randomness or a procedure), but the point is a GM can contemplate and respond in a way no computer, system or board game can. And this was instantly clear to me the moment I sat down to play the first time, and all those boring dice, pens, paper, magically disappeared as I felt like I was really present in a fictional world. To me that is the height of agency: the sense that you are making real decisions and having real impact with those choices.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?




It never seems to matter what valued thing we are talking about. But it always seems when the, for lack of a good label, the immersionists say something like "sandbox play maximizes freedom", the narrative crowd here comes in and tries to assert that their style maximizes freedom. I think it is obvious this has long been a playstyle debate. What is frustrating is I feel like you guys don't see how your analysis always just happens to result in these things always placing your playstyle at the top of the discussion.

And this is even more infuriating at times, because a lot of us have expressed interest and curiosity about narrative style (I even asked the forum several pages back for a good narrative mechanic I could insert into my own game, and I got crickets on that). Your analysis is just driving people away from the thing you are advocating.

Also, a lot of the appeals to 'analysis' just come off a lot of times as 'agree with me because I think I am right'. I keep seeing the word analysis used here, and in some cases it appears there is a genuine effort to analyze. In others it feels like people feel they have arrived at an enlightened truth and have trouble seeing anything outside their own perspective.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe he is just opposed to bad analysis that frames his playstyle in a very negative light?  Afterall, one can complain about bad analysis without being opposed to analysis.




This is definitely part of it. And I think it is hard to read these threads and not see this attitude present in the analysis.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> When would you allow for a roll, set a DC or Target Number, see that it is a success per the dice, and then deny that success?
> 
> When has this come about in a game? Do you have any specific examples?
> 
> I’m honestly struggling to understand this one. Many folks are saying that the GM can change the nature of a success, but the one example given so far has been pretty light.
> 
> Have you actually done this in play? If so, what did you do and why did you change things?
> 
> 
> 
> In what game? There are plenty of games where neither of these ideas is entirely true.



I have a story.  We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game).  I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin.  Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5.  While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked.  The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed.  In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.

So, I ran this past the GM, showing the chart, and got the nod that we could try this.  I RP'd presenting the possibility to the Captain (another player), and prepared the effort -- we wouldn't be able to chase for long, but we could possibly keep the raider on sensors.  The confrontation went as we expected (our ship was slightly more powerful in combat, if slower), and the raider broke off at Warp 5.  The captain ordered the chase, I rolled the check the GM and I had discussed, and succeeded!  And... the engines immediately broke down and we had to limp to dock.

I didn't play another session.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> EDIT: My point being that _the fiction _- whether that is a composite of things and/or events and/or states of affairs and/or processes - has to be authored.



I agree.  Fiction must be authored.  I don't think that's a very controversial point.



pemerton said:


> Elements that make up the composite get introduced. In the context of a shared fiction that power will be distributed. It is - I assert - not possible to distinguish between _the power to introduce a death of an Orc _and _the power to introduce discovery of a way through a wall_ in terms of authorial process.



In D&D the "authorial process" for an Orc dying follows combat rules and for a secret door to be discovered follows the general playloop of the game.  I have no issue with the D&D "authorial process" for either of those events.  And while that process may differ in some respects, it's also very similar in many.

That said, the framing you do here isn't the same as you did earlier.  You aren't saying anything in this subquote that I particularly have an issue with but you did earlier when you were comparing the D&D authorship process to your style of games authorship process.




pemerton said:


> (And the authorship obviously happens in the real world, not in the imagined world.)



I think that's a true statement in one sense but I don't think it really goes far enough.  If I'm a player and my in fiction characters action results in a dead orc that's quite a bit different than myself outside the fiction dictating that X is part of the fiction.  You do agree there is some kind of a difference there right? 



pemerton said:


> The difference can only be explained in terms of subject matter/topic.
> 
> FURTHER EDIT: I agree that some people are happy to let the player be able to make decisions that oblige the whole table to accept that the Orc is dead, but want decisions that oblige the whole table to accept that the wall has a secret way through it to be under the purview of the GM.



The player never declares the Orc is dead.  That's the GM.  That's why I would say the GM and not the player authors the dead orc.  He may be doing it by mechanics that depending on certain player actions and mechanical success outcomes - but at the end of the day the GM in D&D establishes in the fiction that the orc is dead.

This also seems to me to be a very similar process to how secret doors are found in many D&D campaigns.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ovinomancer said:


> I have a story.  We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game).  I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin.  Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5.  While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked.  The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed.  In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.
> 
> So, I ran this past the GM, showing the chart, and got the nod that we could try this.  I RP'd presenting the possibility to the Captain (another player), and prepared the effort -- we wouldn't be able to chase for long, but we could possibly keep the raider on sensors.  The confrontation went as we expected (our ship was slightly more powerful in combat, if slower), and the raider broke off at Warp 5.  The captain ordered the chase, I rolled the check the GM and I had discussed, and succeeded!  And... the engines immediately broke down and we had to limp to dock.
> 
> I didn't play another session.



Replying to myself, because I recalled some more.  At the time, I lived with the GM of this game (for about 4 months -- it was not at all going to work for more reasons than this).  I recall having asked him what the hell that was about the next day, and being told that the GM had thought up a new, cool thing to have happen before we could locate the raiders base, so he had to stop the chase attempt so that could happen.  That was the point I realized I wasn't going to be able to play with this guy as a GM.  I moved out shortly after that (for unrelated reasons), so it wasn't much of a problem.


----------



## FrogReaver

darkbard said:


> How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle,



If you don't want to come across as attacking a playstyle then you need to make a much better case that your preferred games have more agency than my preferred games than you actually are.  We all highly value agency.  Being told your preferred game has less of something you highly value than some other game is offensive.  It's even more offensive when the offensive thing is believed to be untrue and an unfair characterization of your playstyle and believed to be based on shallow and self-serving analysis.  Now, offensive things can sometimes be true.  If they are true then the way to lessen the offense is to make what will be perceived as a strong and fair case for why it is true.



darkbard said:


> no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?



No one wishes that they were being attacked.  I mean seriosuly?


----------



## Campbell

@Bedrockgames 

This is my bookshelf






Not included here, but among my favorite games I would include:

1. Stars Without Number
2. Worlds Without Number
3. Old School Essentials 
4. Godbound 
5. Wolves of God
6. Mothership 
7. Mork Borg

I understand and have an unironic love for sandbox gaming. I also love Story Now games like Dogs in the Vineyard, Sorcerer, and Apocalypse World. 

I also have the feels for a number of mainstream games. I'm running Scion Second Edition today. I'm also playing in a Vampire game right now. I love Exalted Third Edition and Pathfinder Second Edition more than I have a right to. I am playing in a 5e game that has lasted for 3 years now.

This really is not about what game or style is better. I genuinely believe players have more ability to reach the outcome they wish to see in games like Apocalype World, Blades in the Dark, and Sorcerer than games like V5, D&D 5e, and Dark Heresy. That's not a good thing or a bad thing. Its just a thing.

I do think there is more autonomy in a sandbox game like Worlds Without Number than a game like Blades or Monsterhearts.

From my perspective this was not really a playstyle debate until you made it one.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> Replying to myself, because I recalled some more.  At the time, I lived with the GM of this game (for about 4 months -- it was not at all going to work for more reasons than this).  I recall having asked him what the hell that was about the next day, and being told that the GM had thought up a new, cool thing to have happen before we could locate the raiders base, so he had to stop the chase attempt so that could happen.  That was the point I realized I wasn't going to be able to play with this guy as a GM.  I moved out shortly after that (for unrelated reasons), so it wasn't much of a problem.




But you were obviously afforded the ability to declare actions from your PC's perspective within the shared imagined space.  It doesn't matter if the GM erected a block in order to impose content they unilaterally thought was going to be cool/fun. Hence, this is character-driven play.

The only way it would be GM-driven play is if you said "I'm going to attempt to rig the warp-drive to redline it to temporarily achieve the necessary 1.21 Jiggawatts for Warp 5" and the GM said "The droid you've been working with for a decade rolls into the Engineering Bay to assist you.  It looks at you with cute, blinkey Wall-E eyes.  Roll a Wisdom Save to avoid being momentarily smitten."


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> If you don't want to come across as attacking a playstyle then you need to make a much better case that your preferred games have more agency than my preferred games than you actually are.  We all highly value agency.  *Being told your preferred game has less of something you highly value than some other game is offensive.*  It's even more offensive when the offensive thing is believed to be untrue and an unfair characterization of your playstyle and believed to be based on shallow and self-serving analysis.  Now, offensive things can sometimes be true.  If they are true then the way to lessen the offense is to make what will be perceived as a strong and fair case for why it is true.
> 
> 
> No one wishes that they were being attacked.  I mean seriosuly?



Only because you are conscientiously choosing to take offense from a neutral comparison of player agency in gameplay types. You may value "space" in your automobile, but don't work yourself up in a fit of self-inflicted offense when you are told the innocuous statement that your coupe has less space than a station wagon. Particularly when others are telling you repeatedly that if the coupe suits your needs and preferences, then that's great and you should keep using coupes rather than station wagons. But you are not under attack from this. No one is or has been. Many people in this thread who are comparing "space" have also indicated an enjoyment of coupes.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> This really is not about what game or style is better. I genuinely believe players have more ability *to reach the outcome they wish to see* in games like Apocalype World, Blades in the Dark, and Sorcerer than games like V5, D&D 5e, and Dark Heresy. That's not a good thing or a bad thing. Its just a thing.



If that's agency then it would seem pure story telling games would have even more player agency than any of the RPG's we are talking about.  Maybe you think they do?  

If that's agency by your definition I'm fine with that, but can we at least agree that traditionally in RPG's player agency has been used to refer to player character's actions actually mattering in the fiction?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> So maybe it is not guided by a desire to attack the style, but there is defintiely a kind of failure to understand how the style actually operates in practice. I think it feels a lot like someone coming from without imposing meaning on what we are doing, and then getting upset when we don't agree with them (and the answer is well I am analyzing so what I am saying is true).




The game I have the most experience with is D&D. Over the past five years, D&D 5E has made up the significant majority of my gaming. 

I absolutely am not coming from without. I understand what 5E does and I’ve made some very strong attempts to understand why. Very often, these discussions have helped with that considerably. 

My 5E game likely allows for more player agency in relation to the fiction and the direction of play therein than a typical 5E campaign using one of the published adventures does. I make some pretty strong attempts to make sure that’s the case. 

But that doesn’t mean that my 5E game allows as much player agency as my Blades in the Dark game. They are simply designed differently and function differently, and Blades actively seeks to put the agency in the hands of the players, while 5E largely puts in in the hands of he GM. 

I am not putting down my 5E game. I love my 5E campaign. 



Bedrockgames said:


> No the players are. This is the whole point. When the GM is acting as an honest arbiter and referee of the world, the fact that you have a human mind reacting to what the players say they want to do, is giving power to the players.




I don’t think this is accurate. If the players are attempting X, and he GM considers everything in the fiction and then says Y happens, that is not giving power to the players. 

It is giving power to the GM. You even described it as such a few posts ago. 

Giving power to the players would mean that the GM either agrees that X happens (by saying “yes” as you mentioned earlier) or else letting the dice decide through the understood mechanics of the game, and then letting those results stand.


Bedrockgames said:


> Again, maybe this bugs you, maybe you don't trust most GMs to do this well, I don't know. But from my experience of play, this is the thing that makes RPGs so liberating: I can literally try everything and the GM has to react. Sometimes the GM will draw on a mechanic to help aid the decision (sometimes you do need randomness or a procedure), but the point is a GM can contemplate and respond in a way no computer, system or board game can. And this was instantly clear to me the moment I sat down to play the first time, and all those boring dice, pens, paper, magically disappeared as I felt like I was really present in a fictional world. To me that is the height of agency: the sense that you are making real decisions and having real impact with those choices.




I don’t see how what you’ve described is “liberating” to the players. I can see how it may be enjoyable. I may play in such a game and have a great time. 

I repeat, it is not a matter of trust. I go back to the idea of opposing plausibles....I as the GM have an idea of how the NPC will react to the PCs’ request. You as the player have an equally plausible idea about how the NPC will react. 

If these competing plausibles are considered, and the answer is to go with the GM simply because that is their role in the game, that’s not enabling player agency. It may be a perfectly fine and acceptable way to play the game....as I said, I understand the idea of “GM as referee”.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> This really is not about what game or style is better. I genuinely believe players have more ability to reach the outcome they wish to see in games like Apocalype World, Blades in the Dark, and Sorcerer than games like V5, D&D 5e, and Dark Heresy. That's not a good thing or a bad thing. Its just a thing.
> 
> I do think there is more autonomy in a sandbox game like Worlds Without Number than a game like Blades or Monsterhearts.
> 
> From my perspective this was not really a playstyle debate until you made it one.




Most of my responses have not been to your posts. I have primarily been reacting to other poster's when I've said these things. I would actually be hard pressed to summarize what your position is on the thread, as we just haven't engaged enough. But I do not believe I made this a playstyle debate, it has been one from very early on in this thread (and in most threads like this), and I am far from the only poster to believe this to be so. 

But what you say here does get at the heart of much of the disagreement. I think most people on my side, when they talk about agency (and agency gets discussed in many rpg forums online), our use of the word is almost synonymous with autonomy. The way the posters on the other side of the debate are using agency is more how you frame it, the "ability to reach the outcome they wish to see in the game". Sure, if agency is about the player's desire to achieve a certain outcome, fair enough. We've been pretty consistent in saying it is about being able to play your character without being railroaded, and to make meaningful choices.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Only because you are conscientiously choosing to take offense from a neutral comparison of player agency in gameplay types. You may value "space" in your automobile, but don't work yourself up in a fit of self-inflicted offense when you are told the innocuous statement that your coupe has less space than a station wagon. Particularly when others are telling you repeatedly that if the coupe suits your needs and preferences, then that's great and you should keep using coupes rather than station wagons. But you are not under attack from this. No one is or has been. Many people in this thread who are comparing "space" have also indicated an enjoyment of coupes.




Some people are using the term neutrally, some are not, and that is the problem on that front. The other issue in this discussion is the two sides seem to define agency very differently.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The game I have the most experience with is D&D. Over the past five years, D&D 5E has made up the significant majority of my gaming.
> 
> I absolutely am not coming from without. I understand what 5E does and I’ve made some very strong attempts to understand why. Very often, these discussions have helped with that considerably.




Couple of things. I don't play 5E, and I don't play much D&D anymore. So this isn't about 5E or D&D when I say 'coming from without". This is about more sandbox, living adventure, situational adventure, world emulation style play, when I say "coming from without".


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I have a story.  We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game).  I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin.  Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5.  While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked.  The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed.  In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.
> 
> So, I ran this past the GM, showing the chart, and got the nod that we could try this.  I RP'd presenting the possibility to the Captain (another player), and prepared the effort -- we wouldn't be able to chase for long, but we could possibly keep the raider on sensors.  The confrontation went as we expected (our ship was slightly more powerful in combat, if slower), and the raider broke off at Warp 5.  The captain ordered the chase, I rolled the check the GM and I had discussed, and succeeded!  And... the engines immediately broke down and we had to limp to dock.
> 
> I didn't play another session.



This is really funny, because apart the GM being terrible, what you're doing here is what I want to see to happen in a session. I know the chart you're referring to. The players are engaging the fictional reality, treating it like it was real and making plans based on this. This is great stuff and should be rewarded and encouraged. The GM wasn't doing their job properly.

(Also, warp five? What sort of a garbage hauler were you flying?)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> My 5E game likely allows for more player agency in relation to the fiction and the direction of play therein than a typical 5E campaign using one of the published adventures does. I make some pretty strong attempts to make sure that’s the case.
> 
> But that doesn’t mean that my 5E game allows as much player agency as my Blades in the Dark game. They are simply designed differently and function differently, and Blades actively seeks to put the agency in the hands of the players, while 5E largely puts in in the hands of he GM.




But we seem to have a very different concept of agency. My understanding is the crowd saying Blades in the Dark, which by the way, I have not played, so I am only going by your descriptions of it (and to be clear, I am interested in trying Blades in the Dark at some point), is that Blades in the Dark increases agency because it gives players more narrative control over in game outcomes (it is possible I am confusing this with another game that came up, so if so, I apologize). That is fair if you like that. Having more control over narrative outcomes definitely is an innovation in gaming that provides an experience not had in games that don't provide it. But I wouldn't label that agency. Like some of the other posters on my side, when we've encountered those kinds of mechanics, they actually seem to upset out sense of agency. Now I don't want to oversimplify because a lot depends on context and specifics. And not having played blades in the dark, maybe there is something special about the way it is implemented that I would see in play. But speaking general, when we talk about agency, we are thinking of your ability to play the character without being railroaded. And in everyday speech at my game table when I hear a player talk about having agency that is what they mean. If we are using definitions that are different, then surely we are never going to make any headway. But I think the problem is there are two kinds of agency being discussed here.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think this is accurate. If the players are attempting X, and he GM considers everything in the fiction and then says Y happens, that is not giving power to the players.
> 
> It is giving power to the GM. You even described it as such a few posts ago.
> 
> Giving power to the players would mean that the GM either agrees that X happens (by saying “yes” as you mentioned earlier) or else letting the dice decide through the understood mechanics of the game, and then letting those results stand.




We are getting hung up on language and terms and not really seeing what one another are saying. I am talking about power in terms of agency in the setting, not in terms of raw mechanical power over the game outcome. You won't consider it power, unless the player has unchecked ability to narrate what happens. That isn't the kind of power I am talking about at all, and not the kind of power I am very interested in as a player. I want the power to try anything in the setting and I want a human referee to help mediate that. That is what is empowering to me in the game. It is giving the players the power of agency in the setting. Would giving the player narrative control be an increase in total power overall? I suppose. Though it would take away from the setting agency I am talking about. So I don't think it is as simple as the more narrative tools you give to players the more power in total they have. But in the end, this isn't the sort of power that I feel enhances my sense of agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> But we seem to have a very different concept of agency. My understanding is the crowd saying Blades in the Dark, which by the way, I have not played, so I am only going by your descriptions of it (and to be clear, I am interested in trying Blades in the Dark at some point), is that Blades in the Dark increases agency because it gives players more narrative control over in game outcomes (it is possible I am confusing this with another game that came up, so if so, I apologize). That is fair if you like that. Having more control over narrative outcomes definitely is an innovation in gaming that provides an experience not had in games that don't provide it. But I wouldn't label that agency. Like some of the other posters on my side, when we've encountered those kinds of mechanics, they actually seem to upset out sense of agency. Now I don't want to oversimplify because a lot depends on context and specifics. And not having played blades in the dark, maybe there is something special about the way it is implemented that I would see in play. But speaking general, when we talk about agency, we are thinking of your ability to play the character without being railroaded. And in everyday speech at my game table when I hear a player talk about having agency that is what they mean. If we are using definitions that are different, then surely we are never going to make any headway. But I think the problem is there are two kinds of agency being discussed here.



It seems to me that it would be a fair assessment to say that games which provide more control over narrative outcomes guarantee a certain amount railroad prevention (our kind of agency) that a game without such mechanics cannot guarantee.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t see how what you’ve described is “liberating” to the players. I can see how it may be enjoyable. I may play in such a game and have a great time.
> 
> I repeat, it is not a matter of trust. I go back to the idea of opposing plausibles....I as the GM have an idea of how the NPC will react to the PCs’ request. You as the player have an equally plausible idea about how the NPC will react.
> 
> If these competing plausibles are considered, and the answer is to go with the GM simply because that is their role in the game, that’s not enabling player agency. It may be a perfectly fine and acceptable way to play the game....as I said, I understand the idea of “GM as referee”.




Because this is freedom to explore. For that to happen, you need to create an objective sense of the world outside yourself, and you can't do that if you are also wielding GM power (this is one of the reasons I used to find those RPG choose your own adventure books so unfulfilling). This is liberating in the sense that road trip is liberating. The liberation I am talking about is the freedom you feel when you are presented with an environment and people and the GM says "What do you do?" and you feel that you have just as much freedom to explore this fictional world as you do the real one (not saying they are the actual same level of freedom, just that it feels like it). That to me, is very much more liberation as a player, than if I am given the power to decide the outcome of my choices through narrative tools or through dice mechanics.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Because this is freedom to explore. For that to happen, you need to create an objective sense of the world outside yourself, and you can't do that if you are also wielding GM power (this is one of the reasons I used to find those RPG choose your own adventure books so unfulfilling). This is liberating in the sense that road trip is liberating. The liberation I am talking about is the freedom you feel when you are presented with an environment and people and the GM says "What do you do?" and you feel that you have just as much freedom to explore this fictional world as you do the real one (not saying they are the actual same level of freedom, just that it feels like it). That to me, is very much more liberation as a player, than if I am given the power to decide the outcome of my choices through narrative tools or through dice mechanics.



 "It is not fun to simultaneously explore the fictional world and create the fictional world (or parts of it)"

That's the Czege cousin I've been trying to put words to!


----------



## Fenris-77

To digress just a little, if we want to talk about agency in D&D I think it's far more a product of the GM and their style than of the mechanics. It is very possible to run D&D or it's OSR cousins in ways that are reminiscent of PbtA in their player facing-ness and the presence of nuggets of narrative control.  The main difference between D&D and PbtA, for example, IMO is that the player facing part is hard coded into the PbtA (or FitD) system instead of being something the GM does or doesn't do. I bring this up for a couple of reasons. 

First, my D&D campaigns are far closer to PbtA then they are the old school DM-as-God approach, so playstyle obviously matters. Second I think it's important to separate something I might call 'standard' play style from 'possible' playstyles when analyzing mechanics. The way I happen to run D&D adjacent games is pretty non-standard, and I therefore shouldn't conflate analysis of 'standard' practices, or practices as written, for an attack on my personal gaming style. Everyone's personal style has some deviations from the norm.

I would also suggest, in reference to the @FrogReaver post above mine, that it can indeed be a ton of fun to both explore _and_ create details for a setting at the same time. Provided of course that that is what you wanted to do in the first place. Some people don't want the burden of creation and are going find games that thrust that responsibility upon them less than ideal.


----------



## Manbearcat

Anyone want to interact with this:



Manbearcat said:


> I brought up this excerpt of me GMing 5e (I stood in for a GM now and again when he couldn't make his promised session to his boys and their friends for whatever reason) 3 years ago in another thread to examine play (I think it was actually to examine the relative agency/power of an endgame Wizard - Diviner specifically - vs Fighter and Rogue).
> 
> I'm going to do the same thing here but compare the agency of 5e play and GMing vs 4e and Scum and Villainy (Forged in the Dark Star Wars - Gang vs Gang vs Empire - hack).  I'm focusing only on the bolded part of play.
> 
> 
> 
> 5e GMs have huge latitude here and that latitude has a significant impact on the perceived agency (by the players) and the real agency (upon post-mortem).  They both matter significantly.  Some things in relation to this:
> 
> *5E D&D*
> 
> * GM has latitude here to either (a) leverage secret backstory/offscreen in order to say "No" or (b) makeup secret backstory/offscreen on the spot in order to say "No" if they believe vetoing this move by the players would make for a better story and more fun/compelling gameplay (their own fun is a consideration here as well).  They can do this for any/all of:
> 
> 
> You can't hack/rig/interface with the hoverpods.
> Portent doesn't work here because the time distortion effects (or something else).
> The mothership has antimagic contingencies (or something else) so the Fly spell doesn't work.
> 
> * GM has latitude here to set the DC (the DC setting parameters are enormously vague - I started a HUGE thread on this exact thing 4 years ago but the forum wipe at it).  Its some combination of genre and causal process logic, which on any given occasion will depend upon the GM in question.  It gets murkier as things head toward the endgame (things like hacking/rigging/interfacing with alien/Far Realm tech?).
> 
> * The GM doesn't have to to give the DC to the players and in certain cases is advised not to (this one would likely be a case where the majority of 5e GM wouldn't give the players the DC even if they would in other cases).
> 
> * The GM decides if a Skill applies, not the player(s).
> 
> * The GM doesn't even have to let the players roll their own Attribute/Skill Check here.  They can (and are encouraged to a degree) roll the player's Attribute/Skill check behind their GM Screen to keep the results and the realities of the "alien tech" mysterious.
> 
> * Group Check or are each of these discrete things?  GM decides.
> 
> * What happens upon failure?  There are no procedures/principles, its just "meaningful consequences."  Could be a simple binary "it works/it doesn't."  It could be that the tech starts or immediately engages a self-destruct sequence or countermeasures.  Who knows?
> 
> 
> 
> *4E D&D*
> 
> 4e procedures and mechanics would handle this entirely differently and the play would look extremely different:
> 
> * 4e would handle the "Getting into the Mothership" as its own discrete scene/encounter.  The above gamestate would be the beginning framing (after the combat scene/encounter).
> 
> * There is very specific guidance on the Complexity of a Skill Challenge.  Its not an arbitrary decision.  Level of the noncombat scene/encounter is a little different, but the significant majority of them are "of-level" of the PCs.  Only on certain occasions are noncombat scenes "up-leveled" (and then only 1 or 2 levels).  So this would almost surely be a Complexity 2, Level + 0 Skill Challenge.  All of the interfacing tech would be player-facing:
> 
> 
> 6 Successes before 3 Failures to achieve "Win Condition or Loss Condition."
> 5 Medium DCs (DC 27 for level 23 PCs) and 1 High DC (37) must be passed.  The 2 Secondary Skills are DC 20.
> 1 Advantage usable (players can negate a failure or "down-level" a DC).
> 
> GMing a Skill Challenge is run by a specific (indie) ethos:
> 
> 
> Say "yes or roll the dice."
> Dynamically change the situation after every moment of action resolution.
> The scene should yield a dramatic arc.
> Players make all rolls and everything is out in the open.
> Fail Forward.
> 
> So what would this play loop look like in 4e?
> 
> 1 - GM frames the scene and describes the obstacle/adversary.
> 
> 2 - Players declare goal/intent, action, and that the Rogue is leading a Group Check (he has Dungeoneering which is Far Realm Lore - which almost every Rogue would have and certainly at this point - and is using his Dungeoneers Guidance 6th level Utility - this is one of the best 6th level Encounter Utility Power for Rogues in the game so many would have this - if either the Fighter or the Wizard fails...turning their failure into a Success).
> 
> 3 - The Fighter and the Wizard roll their Skills based on their actions (and again, this is a "say yes" system so if its even remotely feasible, that is the Skill they are using).  The Wizard might go with magic (Arcana) or Far Realm Lore (Dungeoneering) and the Fighter might go with "the computer has a built-in translator and I can talk to it directly so I'm imposing my will upon it" (Intimidate) or "I'm studying the manual's pictorial representation of these humanoids initiating take-off and following the procedures" (Perception) or "the controls look straight-forward enough but they require extreme physical coordination to use and strength to control the stick" (Athletics).
> 
> 4 - If 1/2 succeed, its a success and the gamestate changes to a positive trajectory for the PCs (the hoverpods start up, they have the controls, and now they have them as an asset for the conflict).  Agency to affect that gamestate positively is already seriously tilted in the PC's favor due to the procedures above and the Rogue player deploying Dungeoneer's Guidance.
> 
> So its almost surely 1/6 Success and 0/3 Failures and up to the mother-ship we go with the PCs having a pair of Vehicles and using the "Monster Math on a Business Card" for them and giving them a couple of Encounter Powers (probably an Attack and a Utility).
> 
> If they fail, its 1/3 Failures and now we have to dynamically change the situation adversely (either create a new obstacle or escalate an existing one).
> 
> Rinse/repeat.
> 
> 
> 
> *SCUM AND VILLAINY (FORGED IN THE DARK)*
> 
> The Loop for Scum and Villainy is exactly as Blades as I mentioned above and very similar to 4e except for idiosyncratic mechanical architecture.  I wrote the entire loop out upthread so not going to copy/paste it again here (just refer back to that).
> 
> * A Clock of some variety would likely be deployed here (maybe a discrete Danger Clock to get into the ship before the aliens realize what has happened and send reinforcements/a patrol or a Mission Clock for the whole thing depending upon the context of the situation).
> 
> * The Scoundrel has been around the block so he uses a Setup move via Hack (interfaces with the alien tech to bring up the system's interface to understand its controls) to improve the Position or Effect (Scoundrel player's choie) of the Mystic and the Muscle.  He generates Gambits (community dice pool that can be used on Action Rolls) like crazy and causes the Crew to start with one so he negotiates Desperate Position so he can use Daredevil (which gives him +1d if he wants it instead of mark 1 xp).  He'll also generate a Gambit because of the Desperate Position due to Never Tell Me the Odds.  So he has a huge dice pool (maybe 5-6 dice) to get at least a 4/5 and he'll probably get a 6.  He can always Resist if he gets a Complication.
> 
> * The Muscle uses Helm to pilot the vehicle.
> 
> * They Mystic Attunes (to the Way) to interface directly with the AI of the hoverpod.
> 
> 
> 
> Anyone who is looking at the above (and again, go back to my Blades play loop for reference for Scum and Villainy):
> 
> * Is it not readily apparent all of the vectors for Force that 5e GMing/play entails whereas 4e and Forged in the Dark games (in this case Scum and Villainy) do not?
> 
> * Having a lot of vectors for Force means, bare minimum, the PERCEPTION of potentially being beholden to externalities (even if they are benevolent such as the GMing believing "this will make for a better story or a more fun time!"...which they have mandate to do) is significant in a game like 5e.
> 
> * However, having a lot of vectors for Force also means, as a function of time, its considerably more likely that, on an instance to instance basis, Force becomes increasingly likely to either (a) have been deployed or (b) be deployed.
> 
> Now...
> 
> How does the above fundamentals of play (the ethos, the procedures, the player-facedness, the action resolution and PC build tools) present in the above play examples not _*relatively decrease the agency of a 5e player and relatively increase the 5e GM with respect to the trajectory of play*_?




Or this:



Manbearcat said:


> I posted a pretty big 5e play excerpt here and examined it under 5e and what it would look like under 4e and Scum and Villainy (a Forged in the Dark system).
> 
> Could you take a look at that and respond with respect to "a GM liking to railroad (deploy Force sufficiently)" vs "enabling/allowing a GM to railroad (deploy Force sufficiently)."  That post should show how many vectors there are for deploying Force that persists in 5e vs the other two systems.  The differential is massive.
> 
> You don't think *latitude vs constraint* has a role to play?
> 
> You don't think *mandate vs verboten* has a role to play?
> 
> You don't think *opaque vs transparent* has a role to play?
> 
> You don't think *unsystemitized (Rulings not Rules) vs codified* has a role to play?
> 
> You don't think *GM-facing vs player-facing* has a role to play?




That is a LOT of beefy content to interact with in a thread about analysis that should be clarifying to differences/disagreements.

As of yet, its complete crickets.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> To digress just a little, if we want to talk about agency in D&D I think it's far more a product of the GM and their style than of the mechanics. It is very possible to run D&D or it's OSR cousins in ways that are reminiscent of PbtA in their player facing-ness and the presence of nuggets of narrative control.  The main difference between D&D and PbtA, for example, IMO is that the player facing part is hard coded into the PbtA (or FitD) system instead of being something the GM does or doesn't do. I bring this up for a couple of reasons.



Totally agreed.



Fenris-77 said:


> First, my D&D campaigns are far closer to PbtA then they are the old school DM-as-God approach, so playstyle obviously matters. Second I think it's important to separate something I might call 'standard' play style from 'possible' playstyles when analyzing mechanics. The way I happen to run D&D adjacent games is pretty non-standard, and I therefore shouldn't conflate analysis of 'standard' practices, or practices as written, for an attack on my personal gaming style. Everyone's personal style has some deviations from the norm.



Yep.  D&D is a big tent.  There are some elements to playstyles that are more normative for the game than others.  But yes, D&D is very open to interpretation and houseruling and those are features that have served it very well IMO.



Fenris-77 said:


> I would also suggest, in reference to the @FrogReaver post above mine, that it can indeed be a ton of fun to both explore _and_ create details for a setting at the same time. Provided of course that that is what you wanted to do in the first place. Some people don't want the burden of creation and are going find games that thrust that responsibility upon them less than ideal.



I think you have something different in mind either by exploring or creating details than I do.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Anyone want to interact with this:
> 
> 
> 
> Or this:
> 
> 
> 
> That is a LOT of beefy content to interact with in a thread about analysis that should be clarifying to differences/disagreements.
> 
> As of yet, its complete crickets.



If someone does they will.

I can't count the number of my posts that haven't been interacted with.  I'd say it's par for the course.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> "It is not fun to simultaneously explore the fictional world and create the fictional world (or parts of it)"
> 
> That's the Czege cousin I've been trying to put words to!




The "Frog Doctrine"?


----------



## Fenris-77

@Manbearcat - I completely agree with your analysis of 5E vs the other two. It's a big reason I've faded 5E in favor of Black Hack 2E and Vagabonds of Dyfed, both of which, among other things, make all the roles player facing and transparent. I personally don't dip into GM force much at all when I run 5E, but I find the cognitive load a lot higher just keeping on point to avoid doing so, as the system is set up to make that _really _easy. That comes back to my point above about 'standard' play versus the range in individual variants. The fact that _my_ game doesn't look like the example doesn't mean that example isn't a standard example of play.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> I would also suggest, in reference to the @FrogReaver post above mine, that it can indeed be a ton of fun to both explore _and_ create details for a setting at the same time. Provided of course that that is what you wanted to do in the first place. Some people don't want the burden of creation and are going find games that thrust that responsibility upon them less than ideal.




I don't doubt this can be fun. In fact, I found it very fun in Hillfolk when me or another player, in the course of dialogue said something like "but I heard rumors that the skull keepers of the plains have moved south closer and closer to our lands", thus inventing something in the setting. That was a lot of fun. I think the point Frog Reaver and I are making, is when your aim is the kind of exploration we are talking about, wielding that kind of power makes it feel more like I am contributing to the setting than exploring it. There may be a more precise way to phrase this, but the point is these are just different experiences. Both fun, both I have found immersive. But I found them different. And if I am in the mood for A, I would not want B.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> I think you have something different in mind either by exploring or creating details than I do.



Lets explore that then, shall we? I was talking about the sort of game where a player might be asked to describe a faction he's associated with, rather than being handed a paragraph by the DM. Or a player being asked to describe the interior of a tavern. Both are pretty standard examples of PbtA type play that I do a lot in my D&D games. What kind of details were you talking about?


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I would also suggest, in reference to the @FrogReaver post above mine, that it can indeed be a ton of fun to both explore _and_ create details for a setting at the same time. Provided of course that that is what you wanted to do in the first place. *Some people don't want the burden of creation and are going find games that thrust that responsibility upon them less than ideal.*




I don't think that it's they simply prefer less responsibility.  It's that not having such an ability is necessary for them to achieve the level of fun they want to achieve in exploring the setting.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Lets explore that then, shall we? I was talking about the sort of game where a player might be asked to describe a faction he's associated with, rather than being handed a paragraph by the DM. Or a player being asked to describe the interior of a tavern. Both are pretty standard examples of PbtA type play that I do a lot in my D&D games. What kind of details were you talking about?




I don't think there is anything wrong with this, and I do something like this from time to time, with things like family (not always, but sometimes, and I can always overide something that conflicts with the setting). But my impulse would be to not label this exploration. But let's say you see it as exploration and I say, fair enough, this is exploration, as is the GM creating a world before the game in a way. There is definitely a very real distinction between a player creating a detail for a faction in the world, and a player exploring that faction without having said creative control. 

Also while I think most games feature elements of this here and there, I think where it becomes significant is the volume and regularity with which it appears. I might not bat an eye in a traditional exploration RPG where the Gm says to me  "tell me about your family in Blue River Valley", basically giving me the freedom to add my family to the setting and create them how I want. But I would bat an eye if we are exploring a dungeon and the GM says something like "tell me about the room you have just entered" (and gives me power to author that room)


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> If someone does they will.
> 
> I can't count the number of my posts that haven't been interacted with.  I'd say it's par for the course.




Write out a personal play excerpt that details precisely what happened under the hood (not a purple prose "story hour"...an actual post-mortem).  

Then reflect on it with respect to the concepts and conversations we've been having here.

Then invite others to evaluate your play and your post-mortem with focused questions.

I will 100 % engage with that (as there is nothing more useful to these conversations).


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I don't think that it's they simply prefer less responsibility.  It's that not having such an ability is necessary for them to achieve the level of fun they want to achieve in exploring the setting.




I would agree with this. As a player, that doesn't feel like a big burden to me. I think the issue is mainly one of if I am exploring, I typically want that sense of a n external world, and it is harder for me to achieve that if I am designing the world alongside the GM. That said, I do think this does work the otherway around. I am a pretty lazy GM at times, and one of the reasons I love high autonomy games is it allows the players to just run loose in a setting, reducing the amount of prep I need to do and reducing the stress of needing a clear 'adventure'. One of the things I find attractive about the games you guys are describing is it seems to take off some of that load from the GM, so I feel like they would be easier low prep sessions. That impression could be wrong of course, as I discovered Hillfolk had quite a bit of pre-game prep (but it was communal in nature and not the same as a solitary GM laboring away for a week before play)


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Lets explore that then, shall we? I was talking about the sort of game where a player might be asked to describe a faction he's associated with, rather than being handed a paragraph by the DM. Or a player being asked to describe the interior of a tavern. Both are pretty standard examples of PbtA type play that I do a lot in my D&D games. What kind of details were you talking about?




Sure.  I have no problem at all as a player giving the DM a few bullet points and a name to describe a faction if asked.  That degree of creating something in the setting poses an insignificantly minor limitation on all the things in the setting I can have fun exploring.  It's when the creation is more substantial or more often that it starts getting in the way.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Write out a personal play excerpt that details precisely what happened under the hood (not a purple prose "story hour"...an actual post-mortem).
> 
> Then reflect on it with respect to the concepts and conversations we've been having here.
> 
> Then invite others to evaluate your play and your post-mortem with focused questions.
> 
> I will 100 % engage with that (as there is nothing more useful to these conversations).



Don't tell me what to do!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> Anyone want to interact with this:
> 
> 
> 
> Or this:
> 
> 
> 
> That is a LOT of beefy content to interact with in a thread about analysis that should be clarifying to differences/disagreements.
> 
> As of yet, its complete crickets.



About your alien invasion example, I think you might be a bit exaggerating the difference between 5e and 4e. Antimagic fields and other fictional elements that cause penalties or prevent actions could exists in either. I have to note that the element that caused disadvantage to basically all rolls seemed to be designed to punish non-caster (or it does, whether the GM intended that or not) as many spell effects just work without a roll and thus are unaffected. Not sure how relevant that is for agency, except that it might have caused some frustration in the players as their sensible-seeming attempts kept failing due this effect.

My main observation was how you described 5e method of assigning DCs and such as 'arbitrary' compared to clear level appropriate guidelines of 4e. It is funny, because I would describe them as completely opposite manner. In 5e the DC actually represent something concrete, they're reflection of the fictional reality, whereas in 4e they're just arbitrary and do not represent anything concrete beyond being sufficiently challenging to the players (I think they tried to walk back that in some of the later material.) 

Now, considering that you were running a scenario written by someone else, containing a lot of atypical elements, I can understand how it might feel 'arbitrary' in that context. What is the proper DC (or even skill) for operating alien hoverboard in D&D? Who the hell knows, there normally even aren't alien hoverboard in D&D! But with a GM who has a good mental picture of the setting, consistent(ish) approach for assigning DCs and players who are familiar with this it is not arbitrary. The same task will have the same DC regardless of the level of the character attempting it.

As for the second quote, I am not quite sure what your point was there.  If it was to point out that in 5e there are many differnt way in which the GM could apply force if they so chose, then that is not in dispute.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Sure.  I have no problem at all as a player giving the DM a few bullet points and a name to describe a faction if asked.  That degree of creating something in the setting poses an insignificantly minor limitation on all the things in the setting I can have fun exploring.  It's when the creation is more substantial or more often that it starts getting in the way.



Like much of this discussion it's a sliding scale, and we all have a comfy spot on it. I tend to keep this sort of thing to people, places, and factions that the character in question has some sort of connection to and I lean into a lot more in session zero and early in the game than I do later on. That, I find, tends to encourage interaction with the setting rather than discouraging it, YMMV of course. The mysteries need to be mysteries or they aren't fun to explore, that is certainly true.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Fenris-77 said:


> Lets explore that then, shall we? I was talking about the sort of game where a player might be asked to describe a faction he's associated with, rather than being handed a paragraph by the DM. Or a player being asked to describe the interior of a tavern. Both are pretty standard examples of PbtA type play that I do a lot in my D&D games. What kind of details were you talking about?



Interestingly even though the latter is much more trivial, I'd find it far more jarring. The former is basically a character backstory, the latter is a thing the character is experiencing right now. If I was asked to describe the faction at the moment we're meeting them, that probably would be similarly jarring though.

I was playing in a Runequest... Heroquest? Well, in a campaign set in Glorantha couple of years ago, and before we played we communally created our tribe; choose their beliefs, assets, allies, enemies, surrounding geography etc. It was fun, it was fine. I think it made everybody more invested in the tribe. But once the play began it run 'traditionally'.

A lot of this depends on timing. As a player, I generally don't want to be authoring the reality that I am supposed to be experiencing at the same time. I can do it just fine, I do it in GMless freeform RP all the time, but I prefer the GM to do it in situations where they're around. It will be genuine exploration then and it feels that I am actually making decisions against some objective reality instead of just making stuff up.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Don't tell me what to do!




I feel...like...this might be a kind of a pun...joooooke?  Like a microcosm of the agency dispute tee hee?

Or...is this serious?



Crimson Longinus said:


> About your alien invasion example, I think you might be a bit exaggerating the difference between 5e and 4e. Antimagic fields and other fictional elements that cause penalties or prevent actions could exists in either. I have to note that the element that caused disadvantage to basically all rolls seemed to be designed to punish non-caster (or it does, whether the GM intended that or not) as many spell effects just work without a roll and thus are unaffected. Not sure how relevant that is for agency, except that it might have caused some frustration in the players as their sensible-seeming attempts kept failing due this effect.
> 
> My main observation was how you described 5e method of assigning DCs and such as 'arbitrary' compared to clear level appropriate guidelines of 4e. It is funny, because I would describe them as completely opposite manner. In 5e the DC actually represent something concrete, they're reflection of the fictional reality, whereas in 4e they're just arbitrary and do not represent anything concrete beyond being sufficiently challenging to the players (I think they tried to walk back that in some of the later material.)
> 
> Now, considering that you were running a scenario written by someone else, containing a lot of atypical elements, I can understand how it might feel 'arbitrary' in that context. What is the proper DC (or even skill) for operating alien hoverboard in D&D? Who the hell knows, there normally even aren't alien hoverboard in D&D! But with a GM who has a good mental picture of the setting, consistent(ish) approach for assigning DCs and players who are familiar with this it is not arbitrary. The same task will have the same DC regardless of the level of the character attempting it.
> 
> As for the second quote, I am not quite sure what your point was there.  If it was to point out that in 5e there are many differnt way in which the GM could apply force if they so chose, then that is not in dispute.




Alright, good deal.  Something to engage with.

I don't have time to respond now, but I'll review in full and respond tonight.


----------



## Campbell

I still do not consider the obsession some folks have with narrative control vis a vis this topic. Narrative tools may be utilized to achieve agency over the shared fiction, but are certainly not required. What I think is required is the ability to oblige other players to accept valid contributions to the fiction. Like if I have the fictional positioning so that it would be credible for me to kill the orc, I skillfully make use of it by saying I stab him in the back with my sword while he is engaged with another player's character, and the mechanics say that should die then the orc should die. Just being able to attempt it  or suggest it is not enough. There needs to be something binding there - either socially or mechanically. I do not care which.

The two games I consider the most agency rich - Apocalypse World and Sorcerer - lack any sort of narrative tools that players can choose to call on. Several games I consider less agency rich have them in spades.

In the interest of transparency I will admit I have pretty much zero interest personally in exploration for it's own sake. I value sandbox gaming pretty much because of the layered strategy involved.  Here's my Gamer Motivation Profile if it helps.









						My Gamer Motivation Profile: Action-Oriented, Proficient, Relaxed, Social, Deeply Immersed, and Creative
					

Want to know your profile? Take the survey!




					apps.quanticfoundry.com


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## Campbell

On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.


----------



## Fenris-77

Campbell said:


> On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.



WWJHD is pretty much a byword for me. The tavern in my example upstream, in my game, would only be used for a tavern that the player or players we regulars at and which hadn't been seen in play yet. At that point its really just some cool improv between GM and player, playing _yes and..._ until it's cool. I wouldn't ask a player to describe a tavern their character had never been in.


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## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> I still do not consider the obsession some folks have with narrative control vis a vis this topic. Narrative tools may be utilized to achieve agency over the shared fiction, but are certainly not required. What I think is required is the ability to oblige other players to accept valid contributions to the fiction. Like if I have the fictional positioning so that it would be credible for me to kill the orc, I skillfully make use of it by saying I stab him in the back with my sword while he is engaged with another player, and the mechanics say that should die then the orc should die. Just being able to attempt it  or suggest it is not enough. There needs to be something binding there - either socially or mechanically. I do not care which.



That's fair and in practice some form of such social binding tends to always be in effect. The rules may give the GM freedom to decide the things how they wish, but if the players feel that the GM is not using that power fairly or wisely, the GM will soon have no players.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> In the interest of transparency I will admit I have pretty much zero interest personally in exploration for it's own sake. I value sandbox gaming pretty much because of the layered strategy involved.



Interesting, in that the perspective of very much enjoying (to use your phrase) exploration for its own sake leads me to also value sandbox gaming.

In a true sandbox you can explore as much as you like; and that exploration then informs the strategies and approaches you end up taking to the various challenges (i.e. adventures or adventure hooks) you've discovered while exploring.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> So, on (2), would it be fair to say that you agree with me that the completely unbelievable (reality-defying...incredulous...whatever you want to call it) "Hit Rate" by Face PCs in TTRPG social conflicts is underwritten by g_*enre logic*_ and *what is expeditious/wieldy to attain functional/enjoyable TTRPG play*?



If I understand you correctly to say that Face PCs succeed roughly as often as Marital PCs so they are roughly as pleasant to play (or roughly as likely to work as well), then I agree. If I further understand you to be saying this is good (or at least not bad) I agree with that, too.


Manbearcat said:


> But I simultaneously don't flinch at martial PCs doing all of the "unbelievable" things I mentioned above (I mean...they can wade into mortal, melee combat against Ancient Red Dragons and somehow survive and slay the beast) right alongside those "unbelievable" Face PCs! Not only don't flinch, it NEEDS to happen for functional, thematically coherent, dramatically fortified TTRPG play.



Looking at this, it seems we agree. I want the guy with the sword to be able to do unbelievable things. I want the guy with the silver tongue to be able to do unbelievable things.


Ovinomancer said:


> I have a story.  We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game).  I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin.  Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5.  While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked.  The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed.  In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.
> 
> So, I ran this past the GM, showing the chart, and got the nod that we could try this.  I RP'd presenting the possibility to the Captain (another player), and prepared the effort -- we wouldn't be able to chase for long, but we could possibly keep the raider on sensors.  The confrontation went as we expected (our ship was slightly more powerful in combat, if slower), and the raider broke off at Warp 5.  The captain ordered the chase, I rolled the check the GM and I had discussed, and succeeded!  And... the engines immediately broke down and we had to limp to dock.
> 
> I didn't play another session.



I wouldn't have, either. From this and your later, further post, he doesn't seem like someone I would have enjoyed playing with.


Fenris-77 said:


> @Manbearcat - I completely agree with your analysis of 5E vs the other two. It's a big reason I've faded 5E in favor of Black Hack 2E and Vagabonds of Dyfed, both of which, among other things, make all the roles player facing and transparent. I personally don't dip into GM force much at all when I run 5E, but I find the cognitive load a lot higher just keeping on point to avoid doing so, as the system is set up to make that _really _easy. That comes back to my point above about 'standard' play versus the range in individual variants. The fact that _my_ game doesn't look like the example doesn't mean that example isn't a standard example of play.



I'm wondering what you find about 5E that makes it so hard to run without Force, if we're using the same understanding of it (where the GM changes the outcomes after they're determined). It can be very obvious to frame the fiction so there aren't a lot of options for the PCs, but I'm not sure that's Force as I understand it.

I think I'm another 5E DM whose game looks very far from the "standard 5E game." At least, from inside 5E--it's plausible someone from a different perspective wouldn't see them as very different.


Campbell said:


> On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.



Seems as though anything the PCs wouldn't have lived experience with is the GM's to describe? I can live with that, both as a player and a GM.


----------



## Fenris-77

prabe said:


> I'm wondering what you find about 5E that makes it so hard to run without Force, if we're using the same understanding of it (where the GM changes the outcomes after they're determined). It can be very obvious to frame the fiction so there aren't a lot of options for the PCs, but I'm not sure that's Force as I understand it.
> 
> I think I'm another 5E DM whose game looks very far from the "standard 5E game." At least, from inside 5E--it's plausible someone from a different perspective wouldn't see them as very different.



Hard? That's not the word I'd use, I'd probably go with exhausting. The thing with D&D is that the GM gets all the Force cards and is encouraged to use 'em. In the hustle and bustle of a good session it can be very easy to lose sight of the correct rationale for GM decision making and end up slathering on some force just to get some breathing room, or to counterbalance some devious player plan that threatens to upend the apple cart. It won't happen all the time of course, but it happens. The kind of focus I'm good at, and the kind I'm not, dictate that it will happen to me at least occasionally. With a different mechanical environment, PbtA specifically, it never happens. YMMV.


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## Campbell

@prabe 

I'm also firmly in the camp of the GM retaining authority over scene framing. I just think there are times when it makes sense to cede some of that authority in a principled way.


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## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> Hard? That's not the word I'd use, I'd probably go with exhausting. The thing with D&D is that the GM gets all the Force cards and is encouraged to use 'em. In the hustle and bustle of a good session it can be very easy to lose sight of the correct rationale for GM decision making and end up slathering on some force just to get some breathing room, or to counterbalance some devious player plan that threatens to upend the apple cart. It won't happen all the time of course, it happens. The kind of focus I'm good at, and the kind I'm not, dictate that it will happen to me at least occasionally. With a different mechanical environment, PbtA specifically, it never happens. YMMV.



Fair enough. Your phrase "increased cognitive load" implied more difficulty. I can definitely see (and I agree) that different brains/minds will find different things to work well/easily. I can also see how having a lot of balls in the air might make it harder to keep from applying Force, if the game's systems were interacting with your mind in such a way as to make applying Force easy.

I find running 5E to be the opposite of exhausting, to be honest, but that's in the horses-for-courses basket.


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Couple of things. I don't play 5E, and I don't play much D&D anymore. So this isn't about 5E or D&D when I say 'coming from without". This is about more sandbox, living adventure, situational adventure, world emulation style play, when I say "coming from without".




Right. My point is that I’m not trying to guess at what kind of play you’re talking about. I very much understand it.



Bedrockgames said:


> But we seem to have a very different concept of agency. My understanding is the crowd saying Blades in the Dark, which by the way, I have not played, so I am only going by your descriptions of it (and to be clear, I am interested in trying Blades in the Dark at some point), is that Blades in the Dark increases agency because it gives players more narrative control over in game outcomes (it is possible I am confusing this with another game that came up, so if so, I apologize).




I think it’s more than that. The game does give some narrative control in some ways, but it’s more about the way the game functions and how much it puts in front of the player. All dice are rolled by the players. Players get to choose the relevant Action that they’ll roll. They state the goal of the action. The GM then sets Position and Effect, but the players are encouraged to offer their input. The players have a lot of resources they can bring to bear on an action; they can Push for an extra die or for Effect, they can get an Assist from a teammate, they can accept a Devil’s Bargain.

The GM doesn’t wield power to unilaterally declare a failure. Their focus is more on crafting consequences; establishing risks and inflicting consequences.

Even just the content of a session. In my game this week, there was nothing that was set prior to the session. We had some possible ideas of what the crew may do based on prior events. The players decided that they needed to make some coin so that they could improve their crew’s standing. So we quickly established some possible means for high paying scores. This put them at odds with a new faction, one if high standing. They wound up making a good amount of coin, but now they’ve annoyed a powerful faction. One I hadn’t previously introduced and only came into the mix because they needed a lucrative target.

All this is to say that any narrative power held by the players is in addition to these things.



Bedrockgames said:


> That is fair if you like that. Having more control over narrative outcomes definitely is an innovation in gaming that provides an experience not had in games that don't provide it. But I wouldn't label that agency. Like some of the other posters on my side, when we've encountered those kinds of mechanics, they actually seem to upset out sense of agency. Now I don't want to oversimplify because a lot depends on context and specifics. And not having played blades in the dark, maybe there is something special about the way it is implemented that I would see in play. But speaking general, when we talk about agency, we are thinking of your ability to play the character without being railroaded.




I think any attempt to railroad things in Blades would be obvious to the participants. This is why I’m of the opinion that it contains all the agency if the kind you’re describing (autonomy as @Campbell phrased it) and then also the kind I’ve been describing.

You should try it out some time. I think a lot of it is easier to grasp once you see it in play.



Bedrockgames said:


> But I think the problem is there are two kinds of agency being discussed here. Though it would take away from the setting agency I am talking about.




I don’t think that it does so in any meaningful way.


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?



@FrogReaver liked this post:



Lanefan said:


> Truth be told, anti-railroading rules would handcuff a GM; because sometimes a bit of railroading can be a good thing.



Yet FrogReaver also seems to want to assert that a GM-driven game is not a burden on player agency.

I don't see how those two positions are to be reconciled.


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> @FrogReaver liked this post:




I did not.  I just went back to double check and make sure it wasn't done in error.  No likes from me.


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think there is anything wrong with this, and I do something like this from time to time, with things like family (not always, but sometimes, and I can always overide something that conflicts with the setting)




Of course! Those pesky players may introduce an idea that conflicts with the things you haven’t predetermined!



Bedrockgames said:


> But I would bat an eye if we are exploring a dungeon and the GM says something like "tell me about the room you have just entered" (and gives me power to author that room)




I would, too. What game does this?



FrogReaver said:


> It's when the creation is more substantial or more often that it starts getting in the way.




How do you propose this? Like, what mechanic from what rules system do you have in mind here?


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you propose this? Like, what mechanic from what rules system do you have in mind here?



Why?  It feels like this is ground that's been covered numerous times.  Every time an example provided of other play has evoked that feeling I've mentioned it.  You were part of at least some of those discussions.  Why do I need to either relist those examples or come up with a brand new one?


----------



## Fenris-77

The game I had in mind was _Houses of the Blooded_. That system rolls a pool of d6s to beat a target of 10 (always 10). A player can elect to _wager_ some of that die pool, which means he does not add them to his roll to beat the target, but instead, on a success, is allowed to narrate extra details (_effects_) into his success. Here's a short example from the rules:

_One free Effect for beating the risk, plus one bonus effect for each wager. He can now use his additional effect
for… well, additional effects. Here’s how he uses them.
1 Effect (free for rolling 10 or higher): “I fall short of reaching the other side.”
2 Effect: “And, I land on a balcony.”
3 Effect: “And, the balcony opens to Lady Beatrix’s bedroom.”
4 Effect: “And, she offers me ‘safe passage’.”_

There's another example where the player narrates finding another person in the room he's hiding in and via wagers gets to decide that it's an assassin, that he recognizes her, and what house she's from. Anyway, you get the idea.


----------



## Fenris-77

Sorry, I should have added to the above that the d6 pool and target of 10 doesn't actually determine success, it determines _privilege_, which means it determines who narrates the outcome of the risk (the action). 10 or higher it's the player and less than 10 it's the GM. Players are free to narrate a failure for themselves, or whatever, so long as it makes sense in the context of the scene.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> "It is not fun to simultaneously explore the fictional world and create the fictional world (or parts of it)"



That may be true. I don't do much exploration-oriented RPGing.

As I have often pointed out, what "exploration" means in this context is _learning what is in the GM's notes_. A result of this is that much of the shared fiction is established by the GM, via said notes.

The amount of player agency over the shared fiction is (I think obviously) going to be less in this sort of RPGing then in RPGing in which the shared fiction is established as the outcome of action resolution.



FrogReaver said:


> In D&D the "authorial process" for an Orc dying follows combat rules and for a secret door to be discovered follows the general playloop of the game.  I have no issue with the D&D "authorial process" for either of those events.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You aren't saying anything in this subquote that I particularly have an issue with but you did earlier when you were comparing the D&D authorship process to your style of games authorship process.



Here is the difference between fighting and exploration in D&D. In the typical D&D process, a player can declare actions which result in _death of an Orc_ becoming part of a fiction without that need for that to be part of the GM's notes. (There are some exceptions - see eg the discussion upthread of the DL modules as exceptions.)

In the typical D&D process, a player can declare actions which result in _discovery of a secret way through a wall_ becoming part of a fiction only if the GM has already written that secret way into his/her notes.

This difference of RPGing processes does not map onto anything different in the _authorial process_ of adding a dead Orc, or a discovered secret way, into a fiction. Both are exercises of "narrative power" that build on the established fiction (of their being an aggressive Orc; of their being a way-blocking wall).



FrogReaver said:


> If I'm a player and my in fiction characters action results in a dead orc that's quite a bit different than myself outside the fiction dictating that X is part of the fiction.  You do agree there is some kind of a difference there right?



I don't understand what you are saying, or what contrast you are drawing.

Generally, in a RPG the player's character will only do things in the fiction if, in the real world, the player does stuff. So eg you, a player in the real world, declare "I attack the Orc", and then roll some dice, and someone - typically the GM - performs some look-ups and changes hp tallies etc, and then we all agree that the fiction contains a dead Orc where previously it contained a live one.

To me, this seems to be an example of Campbell's point:



Campbell said:


> I find that players who are exclusively interested primarily in exploration focused play have a hard time with analyzing what's happening at the actual table between the actual players. They tend to give causal powers to things that have no causal powers.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.



This is why I have consistently emphasised that, in BW, a Wises check is about a character's recollections.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I did not.  I just went back to double check and make sure it wasn't done in error.  No likes from me.



Here's the screenshot:


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Here's the screenshot:
> 
> View attachment 130568



I thought you had meant I liked darkbard's quote.  My apologies.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Why?  It feels like this is ground that's been covered numerous times.  Every time an example provided of other play has evoked that feeling I've mentioned it.  You were part of at least some of those discussions.  Why do I need to either relist those examples or come up with a brand new one?




Because I don’t think that you’ve established such an example. I do believe that a couple have been offered in the thread, but since you expressed this concern that player based narrative mechanics start getting in the way, I would expect that you’d have firsthand knowledge of them. 

So I invite you to share so that I may better understand your concerns and so that they don’t appear baseless.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Why?  It feels like this is ground that's been covered numerous times.  Every time an example provided of other play has evoked that feeling I've mentioned it.  You were part of at least some of those discussions.  Why do I need to either relist those examples or come up with a brand new one?





hawkeyefan said:


> Because I don’t think that you’ve established such an example. I do believe that a couple have been offered in the thread, but since you expressed this concern that player based narrative mechanics start getting in the way, I would expect that you’d have firsthand knowledge of them.
> 
> So I invite you to share so that I may better understand your concerns and so that they don’t appear baseless.



@FrogReaver - I believe that @hawkeyefan is asking for an example of your own play because to date you seem to be talking only about _feelings evoked in you by others' examples of actual play_.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Of course! Those pesky players may introduce an idea that conflicts with the things you haven’t predetermined!




This isn't about players being pesky or the GM predetermining things. It is about allowing a world that is external to the players. It is something I can appreciate on both sides of the screen. It is also very much a 'heres the world: now smash it' approach. If I was worried about pesky players, I wouldn't encourage them to have so much autonomy


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I would, too. What game does this?




It was just a random example of something I think I would find annoying based on some of the narrative control options I have seen people suggest. Maybe I am misunderstanding the extent of the mechanics people had in mind (could have sworn some folks were arguing that allowing players to narrate that sort of thing enhances agency: but possible I am wrong)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Right. My point is that I’m not trying to guess at what kind of play you’re talking about. I very much understand it.




Have you played my style? (seriously asking). And do you know what my style is? The reason I said I don't play 5E is it doesn't seem particularly connected to my style of play (but haven't played it enough to know)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Even just the content of a session. In my game this week, there was nothing that was set prior to the session. We had some possible ideas of what the crew may do based on prior events. The players decided that they needed to make some coin so that they could improve their crew’s standing. So we quickly established some possible means for high paying scores. This put them at odds with a new faction, one if high standing. They wound up making a good amount of coin, but now they’ve annoyed a powerful faction. One I hadn’t previously introduced and only came into the mix because they needed a lucrative target.




Just to be clear, nothing is set prior to session in my games either. In that there isn't an adventure planned. There is setting material, but the whole way i like to play is just to unleash the players on the setting and see what they try to do.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> Maybe I am misunderstanding the extent of the mechanics people had in mind (could have sworn some folks were arguing that allowing players to narrate that sort of thing enhances agency: but possible I am wrong)



I think I said something to that effect. See my example upstream for the mechanics I has in mind when I said that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is really funny, because apart the GM being terrible, what you're doing here is what I want to see to happen in a session. I know the chart you're referring to. The players are engaging the fictional reality, treating it like it was real and making plans based on this. This is great stuff and should be rewarded and encouraged. The GM wasn't doing their job properly.
> 
> (Also, warp five? What sort of a garbage hauler were you flying?)



It's what I want to be happening in the scenario as well.  Again, I challenge you to reconcile this with everything else I'm saying -- I would love a player to do this in my game.  This kind of action is exactly the kind of thing I love to see in any game I ran.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This isn't about players being pesky or the GM predetermining things. It is about allowing a world that is external to the players. It is something I can appreciate on both sides of the screen. It is also very much a 'heres the world: now smash it' approach. If I was worried about pesky players, I wouldn't encourage them to have so much autonomy




I was just being cheeky because many of the things you say or the way you say them....like overriding player input....sound like the antithesis of player agency. 


Bedrockgames said:


> It was just a random example of something I think I would find annoying based on some of the narrative control options I have seen people suggest. Maybe I am misunderstanding the extent of the mechanics people had in mind (could have sworn some folks were arguing that allowing players to narrate that sort of thing enhances agency: but possible I am wrong)




Maybe? I don’t think that most such mechanics are so extreme. Like, if you’re playing a dungeon delving style of game, a player being able to author a room just seems over the top. 

A recent example in my Blades game was that one of the crew members was a professor at the university, and he came up with a former colleague who’s an expert in forgotten religions and the like; they needed some help with gathering some information to help them deal with a score. 

I don’t think that pushes too far into what you’d likely co sider egregious, though I could be wrong.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Have you played my style? (seriously asking). And do you know what my style is? The reason I said I don't play 5E is it doesn't seem particularly connected to my style of play (but haven't played it enough to know)




I probably shouldn’t have stated that so certainly because I don’t know if you’ve stated the game you play, or that you’ve really described it in any detail, beyond the terms “traditional” and “sandbox”.

But I’m certainly familiar with those terms, and so I expect I have played and run games that are likely very similar. 

However, if you wanted to offer more details, that’d likely be helpful to the discussion. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Just to be clear, nothing is set prior to session in my games either. In that there isn't an adventure planned. There is setting material, but the whole way i like to play is just to unleash the players on the setting and see what they try to do.




Cool. How does that work? Like, are there physical or geographic boundaries in the setting? Does your game use NPC stats that need to be set before play? Maps and minis or theater of the mind?

Because the description “there is setting material, but the whole way I like to play is just to unleash the players on the setting and see what they try to do” sounds like my Blades game. 

I expect there are some differences, though, and I wonder what they might be.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Maybe? I don’t think that most such mechanics are so extreme. Like, if you’re playing a dungeon delving style of game, a player being able to author a room just seems over the top.



Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it gets 'over the top.'


----------



## Aldarc

prabe said:


> I'm wondering what you find about 5E that makes it so hard to run without Force, if we're using the same understanding of it (where the GM changes the outcomes after they're determined). It can be very obvious to frame the fiction so there aren't a lot of options for the PCs, but I'm not sure that's Force as I understand it.
> 
> I think I'm another 5E DM whose game looks very far from the "standard 5E game." At least, from inside 5E--it's plausible someone from a different perspective wouldn't see them as very different.
> 
> Seems as though anything the PCs wouldn't have lived experience with is the GM's to describe? I can live with that, both as a player and a GM.



Even if one chooses to exercise disciplined and restrained play principles when running D&D 5e, I think that GM force is still both presumed as part of keeping the game slogging forward and, in some cases, downright encouraged per the rules (e.g. GM fudging on the presumption of the "best interests of the players' fun"). Note how heated threads can be when it comes to the matter of whether (1) fudging is acceptable, (2) fudging constitutes cheating, and/or (3) fudging is permissible by the rules as a power afforded to the GM. GM Force often is flexed under the pretentions of the GM authorizing the "greater good" of the game. (GM Chorus [chanting]: "the greater good.")

Other games either present the GM with less opportunities or ability to do so as part of the play process or are guided by more focused play principles. Simply having "GM doesn't roll" or "GM rolls in front of the players" as a baked-in part of the system takes away opportunities for GM force.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it get 'over the top.'



"Does it follow/expand the pre-existing fiction?" Also, have you considered the possibility here of discussing this in good faith with the player and/or group? If it seems (subjectively) far-fetched based on the fiction, then it's likely that the fiction will be negotiated between relevant participants. I'm not sure why these matters are treated as if negotiation, conversation, and discussion are absent (or even irrelevant) parts of a social game about the various players framing and engaging an emerging fiction.

That said, I have a similar story in regards to the secret door of a tower with a game in Fate. The players wanted to gain entrance into the manor of the prince to stop an assassination from a political rival. The players, however, were not permitted entrance by the guards due to a "compel" on one of the character's high concepts (to paraphrase): "Disgraced Bodyguard of Prince X". However, that same player later spent a Fate point to declare a story detail based on their high concept. Because they were the bodyguard of the prince, the player reasoned that their character likely knew hidden entrances and escape routes for ushering the prince to safety. So I framed the stakes of the fiction again, establishing that there are guards stationed around the main building of the manor. The player proposed that there was a secret entrance to a tunnel that connected the garden to the kitchen inside for funneling nobility to safety. This seemed reasonable, and so it was added to the fiction. I still requested that the player roll either Notice or Investigate (can't remember which) to find the entrance since there were potential interesting negative consequences that could come from that: e.g., urgency of time, stationed guards, changes to the tunnel since their last time using it, etc. This tunnel came up several other times in play and it remained a consistent part of the fiction.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> About your alien invasion example, I think you might be a bit exaggerating the difference between 5e and 4e. Antimagic fields and other fictional elements that cause penalties or prevent actions could exists in either. I have to note that the element that caused disadvantage to basically all rolls seemed to be designed to punish non-caster (or it does, whether the GM intended that or not) as many spell effects just work without a roll and thus are unaffected. Not sure how relevant that is for agency, except that it might have caused some frustration in the players as their sensible-seeming attempts kept failing due this effect.
> 
> My main observation was how you described 5e method of assigning DCs and such as 'arbitrary' compared to clear level appropriate guidelines of 4e. It is funny, because I would describe them as completely opposite manner. In 5e the DC actually represent something concrete, they're reflection of the fictional reality, whereas in 4e they're just arbitrary and do not represent anything concrete beyond being sufficiently challenging to the players (I think they tried to walk back that in some of the later material.)
> 
> Now, considering that you were running a scenario written by someone else, containing a lot of atypical elements, I can understand how it might feel 'arbitrary' in that context. What is the proper DC (or even skill) for operating alien hoverboard in D&D? Who the hell knows, there normally even aren't alien hoverboard in D&D! But with a GM who has a good mental picture of the setting, consistent(ish) approach for assigning DCs and players who are familiar with this it is not arbitrary. The same task will have the same DC regardless of the level of the character attempting it.




Alright, lots of stuff.

Going to start with some misconceptions that you have of 4e (I'm presuming you haven't read it or run it?):

1)  There is no such thing as the classic Antimagic Field in 4e.  Its not in the DMG, DMG2, or any of the Dungeon Magazine articles.  Its not a Ritual in any of the PHBs.  Its not in any of the sourcebooks.  Also (and these are lost to us now) I'm very confident that this was specifically called out in the design articles and was a HUGE point of contention for certain GMs (that like using Antimagic Fields and such) 13 years ago or so.  I'm fairly certain it was called out as "not fun" (in the same way that Sneak Attack/Backstab/Criticals not working on Constructs and Undead and Elementals is "not fun"...a separate article) so the game was designed with intent to not have them.  The game is balanced such that all characters recharge their abilities the same and all characters are on the same power curve.  There was (again) a huge point of contention for some fans.  Some thoughts:

a)  Even if you wanted to erect some kind of classic Antimagic Field, the game would seriously fight you (not just in your own hacking, but also in the corner cases that would come up in said hacking - do Constructs, Elementals, Undead come apart...which Monster Powers are affected, and in actualizing it in play...the impacts of a Wizard having only the MBA of a dagger and the RBA of a Crossbow on the Combat Encounter maths and on the duration-dragging of combat would be SEVERE) because of the Keyword tech and the way the game is structured.

b)  There are EXTREMELY limited 4e iterations of the classic Antimagic Field and they are cordoned off to the Traps/Hazards section.  These are very specific and codified things (like all of 4e).  The Entropic Collapse Hazard for instance.  Any creature carrying a magic item or using an Arcana Keyword Power (a "Spell" in 4e) has an Attack vs Will.  Its a very (relative to classic Antimagic Fields) small Area of Effect and it doesn't shut down magic like in days of yore.  It does level-equivalent damage and dazes (save ends).  And, because it is a Hazard, it has an Experience Point value (based on its details, which includes the size of its Close Burst 5 Attack) that gets folded into the Combat Encounter Budget (which is a very codified thing).

So yeah...I can feel you thinking/saying aloud "TTRPGs are art, not engineering and this is why I hate/didn't play 4e."
There are no classic Antimagic Fields in 4e.  And that is a product of intentful design, not a happy accident or omission.

2)  You have the same confusion over 4e DCs as many others who didn't play it or were smuggling in the system engineering/architecture from other systems (D&D of yore perhaps).  We had many, many conversations on these boards regarding subjective vs objective DCs, with many who hated or didn't understand 4e framing things this way.  Here is the reality of 4e's DC system:

a)  It works exactly as many indie games do.  Port the philosophy of PBtA or FitD games directly over to 4e where, from first principles, the core mechanic is there to challenge THESE PCs and scale with them.  Everything is about the framing.  For instance:

In Dungeon World the core mechanic is always 2d6+ x vs 6- (failure and mark xp), 7-9 (success with cost/complication), 10+ (success).  These numbers don't change, but the PCs do.  What changes are "the conflicts, and their attendant obstacles, that you will be framing the PCs into."  THIS will scale with the PCs in the exact same way that monsters scale in the story of D&D that the PCs go through (you fight goblins > orcs > trolls > giants > dragons).  For noncombat obstacles it might be parleying with bandits/pirates > town elders > the king or his archmage > an angel/devil or dealing with a  trapped oak door with town guards > an aware door that animates the entire room > dispelling an open portal to the Far Realm, with horrific aberrations undulating into this world, that a mad Sorcerer has conjured to end the world.

Exact same thing happens with 4e.  The DCs scale with the PCs.  Oak doors w/ town guards still exist (as does the Heroic Tier DCs that you used for the scene many moons ago)...but you aren't going to be dealing with that conflict at Epic Tier when you're dealing with mad Sorcerers, Far Realm horrors, and open gates to the insanity therein.  If, for whatever odd reason (and by "odd reason" I mean "GMing error"), your Epic Tier PCs are dealing with the mundane conflict of a town...you just "say yes" to action declarations.  You don't need to "roll the dice" (consult the resolution mechanics).  Fighter pulls the door off the hinges and threatens the guards?  The door is off the hinges and the guards are cowed.  Done.

4e DCs and PC Skill #s are all about genre framing, genre logic, and testing the PC archetypes within that genre milieu.



On 5e and the game above:

1)  As you noted, not my game so I couldn't tell you the reason why the GM constructed things the way they did.  My guess is, however, that (a) he was mapping the effects that he has in his head for the scenario onto 5e's mechanical architecture and (b) he wanted to make things very difficult for the players.

One thing you missed in the play excerpt is that the Wizard suffered significantly as everything had Magic Resistance (so Advantage against his spells).  So pretty much every dice roll and action declaration for all the PCs suffered.  By no means did running this session feel like it was unfair in particular to any of the particular classes there (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard).  They all felt pretty equally boned. 

2)  I mentioned the 5e DC 30 (?) thread that I put together a long time ago.  Many, many 5e GMs were involved in this. There was no consensus on anything.  Answers in terms of DC setting about everything under the sun in were all over the map (which I expected going in...it was more or less a Rorschach Test for the system and the people running it).  In fact, if anything, that thread showed just how profoundly disparate across tables the handling of even seemingly mundane or innocuous things were (jumping high, jumping long, enduring x, etc); both input/procedures for DC setting and the actual output (the DCs themselves) of those procedures.  The reason for this (and what I was trying to get at in that thread) is that 5e's GMing ethos is informed by some combination of (a) Rulings Not Rules (its up to the individual GMs) while (b) simultaneously trying to thread the (ever evasive) needle of Genre Logic Married to Naturalistic Simulation.

The arithmetic of (a) + (b) creates WIDLY different handling from various GMs on an action declaration to action declaration and obstacle to obstacle basis.  That (b) is particularly fraught (which was what I was trying to disentangle in that thread).  That is your "art."  And because it is "art", its extraordinarily difficult to not lead to contention and a sense of arbitrariness...PARTICULARLY as play moves up toward the Epic Tier of 5e.  I mean this is where the Far Realm conflicts  or Modron/Planescape conflicts come into play.  Due to genre, there will invariably be biology infused alien tech here ("tech" meaning infrastructure, gadgets, means that the civilization deploys).  Forgetting those kinds of things for a moment, even dealing with the deranged machinations of Demons or the detached cosmical power of Primordials or Elder Spirits (and all of the crazy environments they inhabit) is completely non-intuitive. 

Somehow, that (ever evasive) needle-threading of Genre Logic Married to Naturalistic Simulation must occur...and it must be actualized in a way that is coherent and functional sufficient to facilitate the actual playing of a TTRPG (meaning players need to be able to infer or intuit DCs within a pretty narrow window and then make informed action declarations for their PCs accordingly...or the whole agency thing goes tits-up).



On your last statement:



> As for the second quote, I am not quite sure what your point was there.  If it was to point out that in 5e there are many different way in which the GM could apply force if they so chose, then that is not in dispute.




That is precisely the conclusion that I was building toward!  So we're on the same page!

So, to be clear, you do in fact believe that the below aspects of system/GMing are indeed vectors for Force and as you move toward the left, you're introducing more and greater prospects for Force (or outright ensuring the manifestation of Force during play):

*latitude vs constraint

mandate vs verboten

opaque vs transparent

unsystemitized (Rulings not Rules) vs codified

GM-facing vs player-facing*


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Cool. How does that work? Like, are there physical or geographic boundaries in the setting? Does your game use NPC stats that need to be set before play? Maps and minis or theater of the mind?
> 
> Because the description “there is setting material, but the whole way I like to play is just to unleash the players on the setting and see what they try to do” sounds like my Blades game.
> 
> I expect there are some differences, though, and I wonder what they might be.




So it is traditional, in that as GM, I establish much of the setting material before hand: geography, key locations, towns, sects, NPCs, religions, etc. I've been running a lot of wuxia so my main setting is a fantasy Chinese analog modeled roughly after the Song Dynasty period (but it includes more supernatural elements and horror elements than is common in most wuxia). The players make their characterrs (they can do what they want, but are encouraged to be members of a sect or at least a martial arts lineage----you do get the occasional "but I learned it on my own on a mountain somewhere" guy and that is fine too. Then I ask the group why the party is together. They wouldn't do anything like create setting details, but like I said before, reasonable stuff about family and goals is fine (that gray area I mentioned before). Usually this is phrase like "Can I be the son of a sect leader who is looking to avenge his enemy". This can get more specific  of course. But typically they ask so I can recommend a good sect that fits what they are looking for, and if the thing they want doesn't exist we might hash it out if it feels okay for the setting.

Once the party is together I usually choose a starting point (or they do----they might say "Can we start in Daolu to get into the local tournament"---Daolu is a city famous for having tournaments in the setting. But once they are there I let them do whatever they want. So one group I had started in a frontier region called the Banyan, where they basically tried to make their way up in the Jianghu.  I didn't really plan anything in advance, they would just go around looking for named people to beat to enhance their reputation. Then they would look for rumors or information on places to find manuals and riches (this was a group focused on building up their power in the martial world). Eventually they decided to go to an Inn, called the Ogre Gate Inn, which is my version of the Dragon Gate inn. Beneath the inn was a complex with a powerful cursed creature. I don't recall all the details but after what I thought would be just a stop at an inn or a dungeon delve, they took over the inn and made it their base of operations (this, took a number of sessions), and worked with the creature below, coming to an arrangement.A lot happened in this campaign. I believe this eventually led them into conflict with imperial forces as they were in a border region, but would have to review my notes to see the details. I believe they ended up forming a bunch of alliances, sorting out an arrangement with the emperor and officially relocating their sect at the top of a mesa where they officially formed their own sect, which one of the players became the chief of. Once this happened, the campaign became more political, and the players began setting goals like finding a suitable marriage wife or husband so they could have children. This sect became a kind of focus for two or three campaigns that was multi-generational. I should say, there was plenty of dungeon delving between (often players would want something themselves or they would want to get the aid of an NPC, and to obtain it, find out what that person wanted or desired (and this would lead them to old temples, tombs, etc). But there was also a bit of sect conflict (sometimes conflicts they started, sometimes begun by other sects or as an outgrowth of their sect's activities).

Sometimes campaigns will begin with more of a premise though. I ran one inside the empire where the players would be criminals and part of an organization called the 87 Killers. So I told them before hand, I want you all to be people trying to join this group. To get into the group they did have to go on an initial mission to prove themselves, that was assigned by Lady 87. But after that, with an exception here or there if she needed something, they were basically operating like gangsters taking their own initiative to make riches and send tribute to Lady 87. The more they helped the 87 killers, the more they earned, they higher they rose through the ranks (though it did get a bit intrigue heavy, as there are a finite number of ranked positions and you basically need people to die to advance). At the set up, one of the players wanted to be married to the daughter of Lady 87, which I allowed (especially since it came with some serious downsides). The others wanted to be two brothers who were the sons of an apothecary (so we had them be the sons of an apothecary and his wife in a nearby village). They pretty much went around coming up with heists, finding goods to sell on the black market, etc. Eventually they had a spat with a rival group, an escort agency that was on the side of the law, and this led to a low grade sect conflict. I did introduce some dramatic elements of my own.

I usually call my style drama and sandbox, which is total freedom to explore but I am not affraid to throw in stuff for drama here and there (and the players can react however they want to it). I also use what I call the twenty year backstory in my campaigns---something modeled after stuff you see in Jin Yong novels and in a lot of other wuxia. Basically I had set up a backstory where there were a number of heroes twenty years ago in the region who fought against the empire but were betrayed Pei Mei style (complete with a burning temple). A nun from that temple, Saffron Tigress, like many others, went into hiding, and assumed a false identity marrying a local apothecary who used to work as a smuggler for the rebels (this was the mother and father of the two players). The players learned about this after they had formed a network with a local criminal named Iron God Meng, who bought shipments of a drug they were smuggling. Iron God Meng was a former disciple of Saffron Tigress (whom he thought was dead) and he explained some of the backstory to the party after his connecting to the party led to a meeting with her. I don't often do the secret PC past thing, but in wuxia campaigns it is more of a genre trope, so I am fine with it occasionally.

The reason for this long description of the backstory and events, is because when the party found out, they decided to abandoned their criminal ways and fight the empire. This wasn't where I 'wanted' the campaign to go. I wanted a criminal empire campaign. I had done the backstory mainly just to give them some drama and maybe add a little internal conflict. So the campaign completely changed direction once they decided to go the other way.

For me, as long as the PCs are doing something, I don't really care what they do.

Hope this answers the question. Know I have an atrocious memory and many of these things happened a while ago, so it is very possible I got details wrong or blended details together that were separate things (there are some actual play sessions of the Lady Eighty Seven campaign on my podcast, and the other campaign, I kept a log of on my blog).

I should add, this all sometimes requires that I invent things on the fly too. My general approach is to rely on established material in the setting and work logically from there. But if players ask "Is there a blind merchant in the town", for something that random, I usually quickly arrive at an answer or leave it to a random die roll, and if the answer is 'there is'. I take a moment to quickly decide key details about him and write those down----like to keep a notebook for this sort of thing. It might be mundane or it could be more involved with adventure potential. But mostly I focus on what the character wants, who they are connected to, etc.

Couple of other things: my games are pretty informal in my opinion. I also get lazy and handwavy sometimes. So I will sometimes shift how I do things for expediency for example. I also don't mind explaining my behind the screen rationale from time to time (just so the players get a sense of how I think about this stuff----don't do it all the time, but I have problem with that kind of transparency periodically). 

EDIT: also, one important thing I should mention, while I have my ideas about what makes a good campaign and adventure structure, I am a big believer in focusing on what actually works at the table. That means responding to the types of players you have. In one of those campaigns I had a couple of players who loved setting agendas for their characters and going after them in terms of building up power and wealth, but I had two other players who were more into going on quests and facing supernatural forces, as well as things like seeking insight from supernatural entities. So while I didn't let them generate this content, I did make sure such content was present in the setting for them to go after from time to time. So we ended up with a campaign that was a balance between those two things, and we were not affraid to split the party when the group wanted to explore different thing. That campaign log eventually became podcasts of the sessions, this is the last one I have up (not sure how many sessions we had after this one): DISPOSABLE DISCIPLES SESSION 81


----------



## Bedrockgames

Also I should mention: drama and sandbox is basically a way for me to fix an over-correction I made style wise. I found that I was so afraid of railroads, linear adventures, and the GM imposing a story on the party, I was making the game too much about the players just going around exploring, and not adding enough dramatic elements on my own as the GM. This was a way for me to remedy throwing out the baby with the bathwater (and this is one of the reasons I keep saying here that I think online discussions and analysis can be useful, but you have to be wary of it, if the ideas you construct from them become rigid or start negatively impacting play at the table). Posted an expert on drama and sandbox at some point in this thread I believe.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> @FrogReaver - I believe that @hawkeyefan is asking for an example of your own play because to date you seem to be talking only about _feelings evoked in you by others' examples of actual play_.



I think he knows good and well that I haven't played your kind of games.  I don't think @hawkeyefan would ask for something he knows I can't provide.


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I do believe that a couple have been offered in the thread, but since you expressed this concern that player based narrative mechanics start getting in the way, I would expect that you’d have firsthand knowledge of them.



You've been involved in the parts of the conversation where I've plainly stated I don't play those kinds of games.  So I'm going to chalk it up as you forgetting.  This has been a very long discussion afterall.

Heck, you even agree with my assessment on this despite my lack of first hand experience as evidenced by your expressed agreement with that very notion in your recent posts with @Bedrockgames.  I think you even mentioned that examples of this were given by others in one of your recent posts.

EDIT: Wanted to add.  I am a bit sensitive to bringing up lack of firsthand knowledge, as others have attempted to use that fallacy to shut down my thoughts and opinions on the subject.  So while I think you are reasonable and rational and wouldn't do that, it did kind of come across that way to me initially.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Also @hawkeyefan i do theatre of the mind (hate using miniatures). Most of my games are conducted online these days (and hate online miniature platforms even more than real ones)


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## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.



You know, if that's all that narrative style games were described as giving players narrative control over I don't think you'd find nearly as many people objecting to them.  I certainly wouldn't be.

That said I think there's one other part to narrative style games that actually doesn't have anything to do with the player gaining control over some part of the narrative that's also a big part of the objection to such games.  Most narrative games I see mentioned also add mechanics about PC's emotional states/mental states/beliefs/etc.  But the more I think about it, those style of mechanics actually are orthogonal to narrative playstyle.  I mean, I can easily imagine a game with the narrative elements you restricted the player to in your above example without these type of mechanics.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it gets 'over the top.'




Sure, what people will like is pretty subjective, of course. 

I don’t think that being able to author what’s in the next room of a dungeon is the same as the other examples, though, because it’s the players setting up their own challenge. Depending on how it’s resolved, that would likely be problematic. If by “the room thing” you mean @Fenris-77 ’s example, I donmt think it fits because he’s not describing a situation where the player is authoring an obstacle. His example is the player narrating the resolution of an obstacle. 

And to revisit the painting example of @Ovinomancer ’s; the painting wasn’t the “exact thing” wanted by the university. It was a possible thing; I don’t think there was any one exact thing mentioned. It was an idea that was prompted by the GM’s narration; the player thought “wow this painting sounds like it might have some arcane crap going on.....if so, maybe I can give it to the university to smooth things over with them; they love this kind of thing.”

Also, and more importantly, that was a kind of secondary concern. The crew was in the mansion for other reasons. The player did this whole attempt to Attune to the painting knowing that it would actually complicate their main goal. To me, a player deciding that their character would do something risky because of their drives/beliefs is great. Blades does this really well, and I think that the painting scenario is a good example.


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## Fenris-77

A PC can actually author an obstacle in HotB. In the second example I gave, to add some detail, the PC enters a dark room and asks the GM is there anyone in here? The PC rolls essentially a perception check plus wagers and the result is him getting to add the assassin and details. HotB is a pretty singular example though.


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, what people will like is pretty subjective, of course.
> 
> I don’t think that being able to author what’s in the next room of a dungeon is the same as the other examples, though, because it’s the players setting up their own challenge.



That's progress!

I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference.  Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?

What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?

What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?


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## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat

I have played a lot of 4e, and GMed it a bit. And I don't hate it. It was certainly better than incoherent messes that were the previous editions. But it has certain design assumptions that rub me the wrong way and I was hardly alone in that. (Though I think a lot of that could have been at least somewhat alleviated with a differnt presentation.)

Forget the antimanic field. I have never used an antimanic field and I don't remember ever encountering one in any edition. (Though it probably has happened. It seems that I am far worse at remembering details of games that took place a long time ago than many other people here.) But in any edition the GM can introduce elements that screw the characters over. You seem to think that it is 5e's fault that the mechanics allow super unfun 'disadvantage to everything and everything has magic resistance' to exist. That's just silly. Every edition also allows infinite tarrasques to exist, doesn't mean it is the game's fault if the GM does this. A lot of your talk about the GM force seems to relate to similar idea too: that the game should stop the GM from doing the things you don't want the GM to do or that you don't want to do as a GM. Well, it's not the system's job to do that, this is a people issue.

As for DCs and such, I'm not gonna unpack my dusty 4e books. My recollection was that the initial presentation was really muddy, and certainly lead to many people assuming that the DCs should literally scale instead of just the opposition scaling which then lead to the DCs scaling. Introduction of things like minions, which meant that a literal same creature could have differnt rules depending of the level of the PC it was fighting reinforced this image. I think the tried to clarify it in some later books. And regardless of how you do it, too much 'level appropriateness' is a bad idea. It leads to the situation that happens in MMOs: the numbers get bigger, but nothing really changes. At least in theory I really like the 5e bounded accuracy concept, which actually keeps the low level enemies relevant longer (without awkward hacks like the minions) and lets you actually feel that you're getting more powerful.

As for subjectiveness of DCs, I'd love if there was more concrete example in 5e to set the baseline more solidly. You of course cannot cover all situations, but once you have a good amount of examples the rest gets easier to extrapolate consistently. However, ultimately it doesn't matter whether you, me and @Lanefan  would all assign a different DC to a task X, all that matters is that the DC assignment remains consistent within one campaign. I really think this is important, and some GMs overlook this and just assign DCs randomly; that's a bad practice; you need to have a consistent framework. And of course one could intentionally use different frameworks for differnt campaigns to promote differnt genre. If I wanted a rather down to earth, gritty campaign, I would probably assign crazy acrobatic stunts higher DCs than if I was aiming for more anime/wuxia inspired feel.


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## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> That's progress!
> 
> I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference.  Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?
> 
> What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?
> 
> What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?




Not sure by what you mean by narrative games, but I am fan of Narrativist or Story Now games. Games that are fundamentally about characters' personal struggles and that have something to say about human relationships. Examples include Sorcerer, Burning Wheel, Torchbearer, Dream Askew, Voidheart Symphony, Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, Cartel, Masks, The Veil and Monsterhearts. 

I am also a fan of more mainstream games that cover similar spaces. Examples include Vampire - The Masquerade Fifth Edition, Vampire - The Requiem Second Edition, Demon - The Descent, Changeling - The Lost Second Edition, Werewolf - The Forsaken Second Edition, Exalted Third Edition, Scion Second Edition, and Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition.

Of these games that I like playing/running for more character focused faire only Scion has dramatic editing. Exalted and Burning Wheel allow players to define setting details through knowledge checks. Demon The Descent features reality altering abilities, but that's in the fiction. It's what rogue angels of the God Machine do.

The rest pretty much lack any sort of ability to change the fiction except through actions declared by the player for their PC.

They all pretty much feature binding rules that interact on the psychosocial landscape. Most of the conflicts in these games center on deeply personal stuff so I find it helps give those conflicts weight if we have mechanisms that can help the players experience what their characters are going through.


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## hawkeyefan

@Bedrockgames thanks for the detailed response. I think I am familiar with this kind of open sandbox approach that you’ve described.

I have a few questions in the interest of discussion.

For the Ogre Gate Inn campaign, how did you handle when things shifted to a generational approach? Like, how were brides/husbands found and courted, and so on?

For the 87 Killers campaign, do you think having a strong central theme helped focus the players? Like that core idea gave them the framework to craft goals and desires and so on? Was it an obstacle for any player?

Finally, with the 20 year history campaign with Saffron Tigress etc, do you think that your introduction of this secret heroine of an older era being discovered is what caused the shift in the campaign? What was your intention or expectation of introducing this element? Do you think it’s that surprising that the players would take this story idea and run with it?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> You've been involved in the parts of the conversation where I've plainly stated I don't play those kinds of games.  So I'm going to chalk it up as you forgetting.  This has been a very long discussion afterall.
> 
> Heck, you even agree with my assessment on this despite my lack of first hand experience as evidenced by your expressed agreement with that very notion in your recent posts with @Bedrockgames.  I think you even mentioned that examples of this were given by others in one of your recent posts.
> 
> EDIT: Wanted to add.  I am a bit sensitive to bringing up lack of firsthand knowledge, as others have attempted to use that fallacy to shut down my thoughts and opinions on the subject.  So while I think you are reasonable and rational and wouldn't do that, it did kind of come across that way to me initially.



When you make proclamations about how play you don't do works, there's a reasonable ask for you to show your work.  You've repeated insisted that your opinions are well founded, and yet anyone with actual experience sees they're foundationless bloviating.  If you're going to continue to insist on saying how other games work then it's very reasonable to call you out on this and ask for an example -- since you think you can accurately present play you should be able to form an example, yes?  One would imagine that you have no interest in learning or understanding anything about the topic.

I mean, the reverse to your approach would be to say that D&D is nothing more than a Mother-May-I game, where participants are granted the leeway to pantomime whatever fits with the GM's direction of the game.  That the players are little more than actors, following the script and direction of the GM in play.  I, however, have actually played D&D, and know this is a bad example -- it's a caricature full of hyperbole and a bit of outright misrepresentation of the game; it's a description of a degenerate version of play.  So, I don't.  But, you have no problem doing this exact thing -- caricature and hyperbole of degenerate play of other games-- because you lack any actual understanding or experience of those game.  The real difference is that I also once thought the things you thought (not that I didn't need knowledge, that part's unique to you), but I actually went and learned something rather than yell into the wind.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> A PC can actually author an obstacle in HotB.



PC or player?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I think he knows good and well that I haven't played your kind of games.  I don't think @hawkeyefan would ask for something he knows I can't provide.




I had a feeling that may be the case, but I wasn’t sure.




FrogReaver said:


> Heck, you even agree with my assessment on this despite my lack of first hand experience as evidenced by your expressed agreement with that very notion in your recent posts with @Bedrockgames.  I think you even mentioned that examples of this were given by others in one of your recent posts.




What do you mean here? That examples of rules were offered? 



FrogReaver said:


> EDIT: Wanted to add.  I am a bit sensitive to bringing up lack of firsthand knowledge, as others have attempted to use that fallacy to shut down my thoughts and opinions on the subject.  So while I think you are reasonable and rational and wouldn't do that, it did kind of come across that way to me initially.




What fallacy? I’m not going to try and shut you down from having whatever opinion you’d like. However, I do think that lack of experience can absolutely play a factor in one’s understanding of a topic. 

I’m not going to assume that you or I understand Burning Wheel as much as @pemerton does, for example. I’ve read some of it, but not thoroughly. Why would I assume I know as much about that game as him?

Doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion about the game. But when it comes to how it works and what its strengths and weaknesses may be, I’d expect him to have a better handle on it. 



FrogReaver said:


> That's progress!
> 
> I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference.  Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?




It’s not something I have had a ton of familiarity with. I’ve certainly played games where players will put forth things that they want for their characters to struggle with and for the GM to bring forth in the game. But that’s a bit different. 

To actually intro an obstacle, like the assassin in @Fenris-77 ‘s example from Houses of the Blooded, is something I have much less experience with. I’m sure it could be intetesting, but I expect how it is resolved would be the big question, as well as how it’s introduced and so on. 



FrogReaver said:


> What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?




Sure, I think this is the common way RPGs work. 



FrogReaver said:


> What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?




I’m open to this idea, for sure. It comes up in Blades in the Dark when players are free to add details as part of Action declaration, but that’s pretty minor. It can certainly come up in a Flashback, which gives the players a lot of leeway to bring things into the fiction, but there are costs and they do need to fit with what’s already been established. 

For example, in my first Blades in the Dark campaign, the PCs were infiltrating a property that belonged to a rival faction. Things went pretty poorly for them with some low rolls, and ultimately they were confronted by a group of four armed guards. The player of the Slide (a Face-type character) called for a Flashback. The night before the score, he spent some time in a tavern where guards for this faction were known to hang out. He spent a Coin to persuade some guards to help them out, with the promise of no blowback. I advised him this Flashback would cost 2 Stress, which he happily paid.

Even with the Coin, this required a roll. The player said it was going to be a Sway roll, which makes sense.  I set the Position/Effect at Desperate/Standard; I figured even with the Coin, the Slide was putting the crew in a potentially vulnerable position. These guys could simply take the coin and promise to help and then turn on them in the moment. Or worse, they could alert the whole place and have everyone ready to pounce on the PCs. 

So a lot was riding on this roll. The Slide player decided to push to add an extra die to his Sway pool, for a total of 3 dice. This brought the total cost of this Flashback up to 4 Stress and 1 Coin, which is significant.

He rolls....double 6s for a critical.

So the guards don’t just ignore them and let them go about their business, they say to let them know if they can be of any help in the future. They have no love for their boss (a labor boss who squeezes all he can from his workers and destroys any attempt to unionize).

So the player of the Slide no only narrated the crew out of a threat with their Flashback, but due to the crit also made a contact for potential use in the future.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> PC or player?



Sorry, player, via the task resolution mechanics. PC would be weird.


----------



## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> Sorry, player, via the task resolution mechanics. PC would be weird.



Well, sometimes PCs do create problems for themselves, but that's not really what we're talking about here. ;-)


----------



## pemerton

A repeated thing in this thread:

Posters who seem to have little or not experience with Burning Wheel or comparable systems insist on a _contrast_ between the following two moments of resolution:

(1) GM announces, _You come upon an angry Orc_, player declares _I attack the Orc_, then the combat mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that the Orc is killed;​
(2) GM announces, _You come upon a wall blocking your way_, player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, then the exploration mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that a secret way through the wall is discovered.​
The contrast is drawn in terms of (2) involving the player _authoring _a secret door or exercising "narrative power" whereas (1) is said not to involve the player authoring the death of an Orc or invoking "narrative power" in respect of that state of affairs.

But no actual explanation is given of the difference. And I think that comes down to the fact that these posters (eg @FrogReaver) have not actually played Burning Wheel or Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP or similar systems.

The lack of experience manifests itself in the fact that those posters appear not to distinguish between (for instance) the following two sorts of resolution process:

(A) The player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, the GM sets a difficulty using the appropriate system framework for doing so, the dice are rolled, and - if the player succeeds - the upshot is that a secret way through the wall is discovered;​
(B) The player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, then plays a token or fate point or similar limited-use authorial-fiat resource, and the upshot is that the a secret way through the wall is discovered.​
There also seems to be a continuing failure to distinguish the following process, which is not a _resolution_ process at all but a type of framing process:

(C) The player, without declaring any action for his/her PC, says _I think it would be cool if there was a secret way through the wall_, then plays a token or fate point or similar limited-use authorial-fiat resource, and the upshot is that the shared fiction includes there being a secret way through the wall.​
@FrogReaver, which system(s) does Burning Wheel use? Which system(s) does MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic use? Which system(s) does Fate Core use? Which system(s) does Dungeon World use?


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> A repeated thing in this thread:
> 
> Posters who seem to have little or not experience with Burning Wheel or comparable systems insist on a _contrast_ between the following two moments of resolution:
> 
> (1) GM announces, _You come upon an angry Orc_, player declares _I attack the Orc_, then the combat mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that the Orc is killed;​
> (2) GM announces, _You come upon a wall blocking your way_, player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, then the exploration mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that a secret way through the wall is discovered.​
> <snip>



I see a possible place of disconnect.  Let me expand these for "mainstream" games (ie, D&D-sphere games):

1a) the GM has notes that say the orc is killable.
1b) the GM has notes that say the orc is unkillable.

2a) the GM has notes that say a secret door is findable
2b) the GM has notes that say a secret door is unfindable.

These are the cases for "mainstream" games.  I think the disconnect is that 1a is an implicit default judgement and not thought about as an explicit decision by the GM.  This is further reinforced by the rarity of 1b -- most GMs do not consider rendering the orc unkillable because it violates their understanding of the game's social contract.  However, 2 is the reverse:  2b is the implicit default assumption and it's 2a that's the exception.  As such, when someone introduces 1c or 2c -- let the system decide -- then there's a massive disconnect because the assumed positions of 1 and 2 are inverse of each other and therefore cannot be the same.  The reality is that there's only an assumption of what the default state is, and also the assumption that a default state must exist.

I might, just might, be speaking from experience.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> @Bedrockgames thanks for the detailed response. I think I am familiar with this kind of open sandbox approach that you’ve described.
> 
> I have a few questions in the interest of discussion.
> 
> For the Ogre Gate Inn campaign, how did you handle when things shifted to a generational approach? Like, how were brides/husbands found and courted, and so on?



We basically kept playing the same way. Brides and Grooms were handled in specific circumstances, so it varied. Generally these were also political alliances. One character married the daughter of another sect leader for example. And there was a courtship as I recall. Romance is a big part of the campaigns. It helps give characters roots to the setting. 



> For the 87 Killers campaign, do you think having a strong central theme helped focus the players? Like that core idea gave them the framework to craft goals and desires and so on? Was it an obstacle for any player?




I think it was an attractive focus for players. The moment I said wuxia meets Goodfellas, they were all on board. I don't what that says about focus generally (most of my campaigns start less focused and become more focused as they develop). I don't remember this one being an issue for any player. 



> Finally, with the 20 year history campaign with Saffron Tigress etc, do you think that your introduction of this secret heroine of an older era being discovered is what caused the shift in the campaign? What was your intention or expectation of introducing this element? Do you think it’s that surprising that the players would take this story idea and run with it?




It has been a while so I would honestly need to review the session recordings to really remember this one and answer it accurately. I think it was part of it, but I seem to remember it was much more than this one thing that prompted them to shift (the 20 year backstory was one of doom: Saffron Tigress gave up because they had handily lost, so I am pretty sure more than just an emotional reason was required by the players to pick up where she left off. As far as intentions go, I think my intention was to introduce drama, a big reveal, in line with something out of a wuxia story. I don't think it is surprising, and again I would have to check my recordings to really remember my reaction at the time. I should say too, this is about as far as I take introducing a story element, and this one in particular was pretty hefty for me (normally the drama I introduce is less cataclysmic). But like I said, part of what I was trying to overcome here, was a fear of drama that was causing my campaigns to miss something (I think the fear was understandable as I was trying to avoid the types of railroads and "GM as storyteller" that we've mentioned. But I also realized, once in a while, a bit of this can add flavor and fun.


----------



## Fenris-77

If you are suggesting that I'm mistaken about what a resolution process is vis a vis HotB @pemerton you would be incorrect. I'm not sure you meant me though.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> The rest pretty much lack any sort of ability to change the fiction except through actions declared by the player for their PC.



First, I appreciate the examples.

Your comment here puts me at a total loss.  One of the biggest arguments for why some games have more agency has been because they give the player control of the fiction beyond actions declared for their PC's.  And yet here you tell me that's nearly non-existent in the types of games that are being brought up as having more agency.  Help me make some sense of that.

Like, why is anyone even talking about game features that give players control of the fiction outside their character?




Campbell said:


> They all pretty much feature binding rules that interact on the psychosocial landscape. Most of the conflicts in these games center on deeply personal stuff so I find it helps give those conflicts weight if we have mechanisms that can help the players experience what their characters are going through.



Interesting.  In relation to this agency thread - I don't see how binding rules that interact on the psychosocial landscape would be a recipe for more agency?


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I see a possible place of disconnect.  Let me expand these for "mainstream" games (ie, D&D-sphere games):
> 
> 1a) the GM has notes that say the orc is killable.
> 1b) the GM has notes that say the orc is unkillable.
> 
> 2a) the GM has notes that say a secret door is findable
> 2b) the GM has notes that say a secret door is unfindable.
> 
> These are the cases for "mainstream" games.  I think the disconnect is that 1a is an implicit default judgement and not thought about as an explicit decision by the GM.  This is further reinforced by the rarity of 1b -- most GMs do not consider rendering the orc unkillable because it violates their understanding of the game's social contract.  However, 2 is the reverse:  2b is the implicit default assumption and it's 2a that's the exception.  As such, when someone introduces 1c or 2c -- let the system decide -- then there's a massive disconnect because the assumed positions of 1 and 2 are inverse of each other and therefore cannot be the same.  The reality is that there's only an assumption of what the default state is, and also the assumption that a default state must exist.



I think this is right about D&D and its cousins (not only d20-ish games and many OSR-ish games but systems like Rolemaster, RuneQuest etc).

Once you break it as you have done, then I hope that both the resemblances (in authorial process/"narrative power") and the differences (in resolution and/or framing procedures) that I pointed to in my post should be clear.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> If you are suggesting that I'm mistaken about what a resolution process is vis a vis HotB @pemerton you would be incorrect. I'm not sure you meant me though.



No. I don't know HotB except through your posts. If you want to elaborate it using my taxonomy (if it's a helpful one) that would be great.

But I think you know how the game you're playing works!


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Your comment here puts me at a total loss.  One of the biggest arguments for why some games have more agency has been because they give the player control of the fiction beyond actions declared for their PC's.  And yet here you tell me that's nearly non-existent in the types of games that are being brought up as having more agency.  Help me make some sense of that.
> 
> Like, why is anyone even talking about game features that give players control of the fiction outside their character?



I suggest that you reread the actual play examples from Prince Valiant and Burning Wheel, plus my post not far upthread.

Also, here are two salient moves from Dungeon World:

Spout Lore
When you *consult your accumulated knowledge about something*, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful. The GM might ask you “How do you know this?” Tell them the truth, now.

Discern Realities
When you *closely study a situation or person*, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1.
Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.
• What happened here recently?
• What is about to happen?
• What should I be on the lookout for?
• What here is useful or valuable to me?
• Who’s really in control here?
• What here is not what it appears to be?​
Notice how these action declarations, if successful, _oblige_ the GM to establish some fiction that satisfies certain constraints. Eg on a 10+ result for Spouting Lore, the GM has to tell you something interesting and useful. Perhaps the GM tells you that in your study of architecture you learned that there is a secret way into this place.

When you ask one of the Discern Realities questions, the GM is _obliged_ to provide an answer. Perhaps the useful thing, when you've come to a dead end, is the secret way through the wall.

The GM, in providing these answers, is _not_ expected to be using map-and-key processes. S/he is expected to make stuff up having reference to his/her prep, which in DW doesn't take the form of map-and-key but rather mostly takes the form of establishing certain sources of adversity ("fronts"). S/he is also expected to make the stuff up having regard to the principle and agenda that govern the GM's role. These include _asking questions_ and acting on the answers - so eg the GM is quite entitled to ask _What would be useful_ and then base his/her narration on the answer provided by the player.

That's why, upthread, I have characterised the role of the GM in Dungeon World and Apocalypse World (which is broadly similar in this respect) as including _taking suggestions_.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> First, I appreciate the examples.
> 
> Your comment here puts me at a total loss.  One of the biggest arguments for why some games have more agency has been because they give the player control of the fiction beyond actions declared for their PC's.  And yet here you tell me that's nearly non-existent in the types of games that are being brought up as having more agency.  Help me make some sense of that.
> 
> Like, why is anyone even talking about game features that give players control of the fiction outside their character?



The player has more agency because they cannot be negated or blocked by the GM in their action.  The system will say who's right about this situation.  Ergo, anything that the player tries that meets the genre and fiction smell test can succeed.

This has been explained before.


FrogReaver said:


> Interesting.  In relation to this agency thread - I don't see how binding rules that interact on the psychosocial landscape would be a recipe for more agency?



You mean like _Dominate Person,_ _Charm Person_, _Suggestion_, various fey, vampires....


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> First, I appreciate the examples.
> 
> Your comment here puts me at a total loss.  One of the biggest arguments for why some games have more agency has been because they give the player control of the fiction beyond actions declared for their PC's.  And yet here you tell me that's nearly non-existent in the types of games that are being brought up as having more agency.  Help me make some sense of that.
> 
> Like, why is anyone even talking about game features that give players control of the fiction outside their character?



In my experience it's partly a misunderstanding of Fate Points, partly a difference between task and challenge resolution, and partly a difference in how precious people are over settings.

Fate Points in general cover a lot of abstracts that would be covered in a World of Darkness game by Willpower and whatever the meta-currency of choice in that game was (blood points, quintessence, etc.) This leads people to claim they can do almost anything - which is true _but only when given the right aspects to invoke. _And the aspects are either part of the character or part of the pre-established fiction in the setting.

Task and challenge resolution is a similar situation. In D&D or a task based game a character sheet will have an Athletics of +10 and the rules will use that to say how far someone can jump. In Fate a character may have an Athletics of +4/Great and the rules will say what level of obstacle they can overcome or advantage they can create using that athletics skill. But they do it through interacting with the fiction; you might overcome an obstacle by climbing it - or knocking it down. Can't find a secret door? With a roll of +8 you might be able to kool-aid-man through the wall anyway. (This is probably something that will involve aspects, stunts, and fate points but is more often coming as a player side idea than it would be in D&D)

Then there's how precious a certain type of GM is over the setting. First there are meta-skills. Fate has a Contacts skill by default (so, I think does the World of Darkness). Most GMs I've played with let characters with networks of contacts (whether a contacts skill is in the game or not) go at least some way to defining their contacts. Some DMs hate this because it's players creating the NPCs thus giving them control over the fiction. Others ... that's how they did things anyway.

Finally there's character creation - and the recent kitchen sink threads. Most of the games under discussion are pretty permissive in what the players can create in chargen, even inventing unique things about their character, and inventing cultures. This, as the recent threads showed, is entirely unacceptable to some DMs who think that that's giving the player control of the fiction when the thing starts and they should have it all but entirely expected by others as background even if it wouldn't be in play. Meanwhile Apocalypse World goes to the other extreme and says the MC is _not _to come up with anything before session zero and that the entire setting is a collaboration. But when the game actually starts after character creation the players act entirely through their characters. But one of my AW games has taken me by surprise when someone opted to play their Gunlugger as a triple-uzi wielding uplifted chimpanzee. Which certainly wasn't what I was expecting.


FrogReaver said:


> Interesting.  In relation to this agency thread - I don't see how binding rules that interact on the psychosocial landscape would be a recipe for more agency?



If it's the type of rules I'm thinking of it's because (i) they have been chosen by the player rather than the GM and (ii) they let the character some things that are harmful to the character without being anti-social enough to sabotage the entire party's chances of success.

If a D&D character decides to get drunk just before a battle because their character is an alcoholic then they take a drunkenness debuff. This is bad for them and for the entire party and there's no good reason at all to do it. So D&D characters are social drinkers but almost always sober when they need to be. They aren't alcoholics, they just go carousing when they have the money and time. Anything else is just anti-social and sabotages everyone at the table.

If a GURPS character chooses to be an alcoholic then they need to roll to resist binge drinking when in the presence of alcohol but get bonus character points. A GURPS alcoholic generally behaves as if they are on a 12 step program and will not be seen inside a bar. Which ... works. But it's not an alcoholic.

A Fate character on the other hand does have rules - but the rules were chosen by the player. A Fate character who's an alcoholic can be compelled (or even request a compel from the GM); the compel will always be something bad, such as the condition drunkenness or waking up the wrong side of town in just their boxers but they get paid a Fate point for it - or they can spend a fate point and refuse. And Fate points are powerful. This means that the night before a big battle you're likely to find a Fate alcoholic asking for "jusht one more drink/fate point. I can _hic_ handle it" and you may even see them drinking from a hip flask in the lull in a battle for "courage"/fate points. This is something that is likely to get your character into trouble both short and long term - but because you got the Fate Points for it it's not an anti-social move that sabotages the whole team.

So you are free to play an alcoholic without being a team sabotaging jerk because there are rules constraining your character that you have chosen.


----------



## Campbell

@FrogReaver 

There is no unified front here. We are all talking about different games which are played in different ways. The games I am mostly talking about are primarily concerned with character advocacy where a player's perspective is firmly grounded on achieving their character's desires and are responsible for playing a credible protagonist. Some games that @permerton and others are talking about such as Fate and Cortex Heroic are games I personally consider story advocacy games in that the table is mindful of the narrative they are creating together and work together to weave a tale together. Some consider this controversial. 

On Agency in Character Advocacy Story Now games

I am personally not concerned with maximizing agency. I am looking for games that naturally produce emergent narratives that contain fraught personal struggles. For that to work there need to be meaningful consequences in the same way that in adventure gaming your character can be physically hurt, subjected to all manner of nasty spell effects, and face death and injury. If psychosocial conflicts are going to be central rather than secondary to play having mechanics with actual teeth helps a great deal.
We're talking about agency rather than autonomy here. Being able to advocate for my character and achieve their goals often depends on the ability to oblige someone else to be constrained by my play. The price I pay is to also be obliged to change the way I play based on their play. If we are to have agency over the fiction in a socially equitable way we must accept other players' right to agency as well.
The social environment at the table between players should be considered in any analysis. In the absence of mechanics that impact the psychosocial environment our characters find themselves in we fall back on encultured expectations of player behavior. Tabletop roleplaying games have common cultural expectations that in the absence of being modified by the game we are playing tend to limit our autonomy. Frenzy in Vampire, Emotional Conditions in Masks, and other psychosocial mechanics provide permission to play in ways that are not normally socially acceptable in an adventure gaming environment. 
This will not be a big deal to you I expect, but they help to resolve the tension between playing well and playing with integrity. In adventure gaming there is often a whole host of conflicts between playing your character as if they were a person and achieving the objectives of the game. This creates a whole bunch of conflicts between players with different objectives at the table. We blame players for acting according to the incentives the game places in front of them instead of seeking to resolve this tension through game design. When I play Masks playing well pretty much means engaging with the stuff my character would engage with anyway. When playing D&D I am in a constant of tension if I care at all about who my character is and what they want.


----------



## Campbell

I want to address something tangential here. 

Prior to being exposed to Stars Without Number I was deeply intimidated and put off by sandbox gaming. I mean I was into OSR style dungeon crawls, but the way people talked about "true sandboxes" and world building as if these places were real made the actual process of play invisible to me. I had no idea how to go about it either from either side of the screen.

Enter Kevin Crawford's detailed instructions that addressed the play process from a practical level, provided me with a whole host of tools, and like accepted that GMs are like human beings who can never be fully prepared or contain entire worlds in their heads. He made the process seem attainable and demystified it. Without his grounded depiction of the process I would have missed out on some very good gaming.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> The games I am mostly talking about are primarily concerned with character advocacy where a player's perspective is firmly grounded on achieving their character's desires and are responsible for playing a credible protagonist. Some games that @permerton and others are talking about such as Fate and Cortex Heroic are games I personally consider story advocacy games in that the table is mindful of the narrative they are creating together and work together to weave a tale together.



I don't think this is true of Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP. I think it's a character advocacy system. (For the players. The GM has to think at the story level, and probably moreso than (say) Burning Wheel.)

I can't comment on Fate as I've never played or GMed it. Though I agree that, on reading, it seems to have story advocacy elements to it.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> A repeated thing in this thread:
> 
> Posters who seem to have little or not experience with Burning Wheel or comparable systems insist on a _contrast_ between the following two moments of resolution:
> 
> (1) GM announces, _You come upon an angry Orc_, player declares _I attack the Orc_, then the combat mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that the Orc is killed;​
> (2) GM announces, _You come upon a wall blocking your way_, player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, then the exploration mechanics are engaged, and the upshot is that a secret way through the wall is discovered.​
> The contrast is drawn in terms of (2) involving the player _authoring _a secret door or exercising "narrative power" whereas (1) is said not to involve the player authoring the death of an Orc or invoking "narrative power" in respect of that state of affairs.



Part of it is a question of what can reasonably be assumed in the fiction given the info provided.

When we're told of an angry Orc, a vast majority of the time we can reasonably assume a) it's alive and b) it can be killed.  If it turns out to be not alive i.e. undead, or an illusion, that's an unusual exception that will become apparent fairly soon; and if it turns out to be unkillable that's an extremely rare exception.  Thus, as we already pretty much know the Orc is there and can be killed, using a combination of mechanics and fiction to (try to) turn that live Orc into a dead Orc isn't a big stretch, and no assumptions are challenged.

On meeting a dead-end wall, however, we cannot assume to anywhere near the same extent that there is a secret way through.  In fact, the assumption would normally be that there isn't one until and unless proven otherwise; which means the mechanics are being used to challenge this assumption rather than simply follow up on it as with the Orc.


pemerton said:


> But no actual explanation is given of the difference. And I think that comes down to the fact that these posters (eg @FrogReaver) have not actually played Burning Wheel or Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP or similar systems.
> 
> The lack of experience manifests itself in the fact that those posters appear not to distinguish between (for instance) the following two sorts of resolution process:
> 
> (A) The player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, the GM sets a difficulty using the appropriate system framework for doing so, the dice are rolled, and - if the player succeeds - the upshot is that a secret way through the wall is discovered;​
> (B) The player declares _I search the wall for a secret way through_, then plays a token or fate point or similar limited-use authorial-fiat resource, and the upshot is that the a secret way through the wall is discovered.​
> There also seems to be a continuing failure to distinguish the following process, which is not a _resolution_ process at all but a type of framing process:
> 
> (C) The player, without declaring any action for his/her PC, says _I think it would be cool if there was a secret way through the wall_, then plays a token or fate point or similar limited-use authorial-fiat resource, and the upshot is that the shared fiction includes there being a secret way through the wall.​



I can distinguish between them quite well: A does not use meta-game resources (the referred-to tokens or fate points) where B and C do.

And that's all I need to know to determine which I will consider playing and which I will walk away from.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> This will not be a big deal to you I expect, but they help to resolve the tension between playing well and playing with integrity. In adventure gaming there is often a whole host of conflicts between playing your character as if they were a person and achieving the objectives of the game.



A very good point; and on the question put I fall greatly on the side of "play your character as if it was a person".


Campbell said:


> This creates a whole bunch of conflicts between players with different objectives at the table.



Exactly; and this is something I've alluded to upthread in various ways usually involving the phrase "herding cats". 


Campbell said:


> We blame players for acting according to the incentives the game places in front of them instead of seeking to resolve this tension through game design. When I play Masks playing well pretty much means engaging with the stuff my character would engage with anyway. When playing D&D I am in a constant of tension if I care at all about who my character is and what they want.



Depends what you're after, I suppose; and on how good a cat-herd the GM turns out to be (some are very good at it!).

Me, I want to play my character as if it was a person in a solid, believable, consistent setting - which I rely on the GM to provide - and be able to follow its interests and (with no guarantee of achieving them) goals; but I'm not very interested in angst-ridden drama and-or journeys of in-character introspection and personal discovery.

Put another way, I guess I'd rather look outwards from my character than inwards into it.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Ovinomancer said:


> The player has more agency because they cannot be negated or blocked by the GM in their action.  The system will say who's right about this situation.  Ergo, anything that the player tries that meets the genre and fiction smell test can succeed.
> 
> This has been explained before.



I'm curious which are these games where player action _cannot _be negated by the GM. The GM in almost any game always has more mooks and can give the bosses unlimited hp and special moves.

But the expectation is that the GM _will not _negate the player action without an exceptionally good reason. The player says what they are doing and frequently picks up the dice, moving straight into the shared fiction rather than having to go through GM negotiation first. The rules for e.g. throwing a tapestry over someone's head in Fate are clear ("Create an advantage" possibly invoking a scene aspect and probably using athletics) and in D&D they are not. 

So in Fate the player moves as freely from their character to the fiction when pulling a rug from under the feet of the bad guys unless the GM intervenes ("the rug's been glued down/simply tears") as they do in D&D when swinging a sword and making an attack roll unless the DM intervenes ("your sword passes straight through the illusion/bounces off the forcefield"). And in both cases this is expected to denote exceptional circumstances. 

This is more empowering for the players because they have a clearer understanding of the capabilities of their character and because they can just do these stunts rather than haggling and slowing things down for everyone. Whether it's more empowering for the GM depends on that GM - some find it less makework, others get less of a power trip or more of a headache.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Lanefan said:


> Me, I want to play my character as if it was a person in a solid, believable, consistent setting - which I rely on the GM to provide - and be able to follow its interests and (with no guarantee of achieving them) goals; but I'm not very interested in angst-ridden drama and-or journeys of in-character introspection and personal discovery.
> 
> Put another way, I guess I'd rather look outwards from my character than inwards into it.



Me, I want to play my character as if it was a person in a solid, believable setting. I find that relying entirely on the GM (whether myself or someone else) almost inevitably ends up with a setting that is _too _consistent to be believable because humans are complicated (as elves and orcs should be). I also want my character to be able to act as freely and confidently in the world as I could act in this real one - and my character has lived in that fictional world for years. 

What this means in practice is that there are lots of details that the GM hasn't described but will be there. If my character's a flamboyant sort and comes into a room and throws their hat onto a hat-stand I don't want to be told "actually hat stands aren't a thing in this culture" or even "this room doesn't have a hatstand" or "it's right by your hand and you look like a clot" and as GM the only way I would tell anyone that is if there were a pre-established taboo against hats or the hatstand had already been established.

Put another way, I guess I'd rather look outwards from my character, able to act as they would with that level of fluidity, than at it top down mediated by the GM


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> This is more empowering for the players because they have a clearer understanding of the capabilities of their character and because they can just do these stunts rather than haggling and slowing things down for everyone. Whether it's more empowering for the GM depends on that GM - some find it less makework, others get less of a power trip or more of a headache.




Sometimes I like games that have more crunch or more elaboration on these kinds of tactical choices. But I will say, one reason I enjoy going to to the stripped down, real OD&D style retroclone material, is because so much of it brings back that early experience I had playing where the player could propose just about anything, and exactly because there wasn't a clear mechanic for it in every case, the GM had to come up with a way that fit that exact suggestion as best as possible on the spot (which is where I think the whole human referee being more adaptable than a system feels more empowering to me as a player at times). Again, I don't have anything against systems that include things like creating an advantage. Lots of games have those kinds of tools. And I have myself, shifted back and forth over the years in terms of preference for more robust systems to more stripped down systems. As I get older though, I really find myself sticking more and more with stripped down, have only the rules you absolutely need to play, and leave everything else to rulings by the GM (which isn't simple fiat of yes you can or no you can't, but usually the GM figuring out the most suitable method to adjudicate on the spot-----which could be give me a Dexterity roll followed by an attack, could be an automatic bonus to the attack, etc). It just lets you interact very directly with the environment sometimes when you choices are not constrained by those kinds of rules. Yes having create an advantage can be empowering in that it gives you a clear lever, but it also does mean, that is the lever you are going to use. A lot of nuanced and different actions can get folded into that one thing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Enter Kevin Crawford's detailed instructions that addressed the play process from a practical level, provided me with a whole host of tools, and like accepted that GMs are like human beings who can never be fully prepared or contain entire worlds in their heads. He made the process seem attainable and demystified it. Without his grounded depiction of the process I would have missed out on some very good gaming.



I just want to agree with the praise for this book. Stars without Numbers has one of the best GM sections on this topic


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> Sometimes I like games that have more crunch or more elaboration on these kinds of tactical choices. But I will say, one reason I enjoy going to to the stripped down, real OD&D style retroclone material, is because so much of it brings back that early experience I had playing where the player could propose just about anything, and exactly because there wasn't a clear mechanic for it in every case, the GM had to come up with a way that fit that exact suggestion as best as possible on the spot (which is where I think the whole human referee being more adaptable than a system feels more empowering to me as a player at times). Again, I don't have anything against systems that include things like creating an advantage. Lots of games have those kinds of tools. And I have myself, shifted back and forth over the years in terms of preference for more robust systems to more stripped down systems. As I get older though, I really find myself sticking more and more with stripped down, have only the rules you absolutely need to play, and leave everything else to rulings by the GM (which isn't simple fiat of yes you can or no you can't, but usually the GM figuring out the most suitable method to adjudicate on the spot-----which could be give me a Dexterity roll followed by an attack, could be an automatic bonus to the attack, etc). It just lets you interact very directly with the environment sometimes when you choices are not constrained by those kinds of rules. Yes having create an advantage can be empowering in that it gives you a clear lever, but it also does mean, that is the lever you are going to use. A lot of nuanced and different actions can get folded into that one thing.




I do not mean to pick on you here. I just want to illustrate a point.

A significant number of people basically talk about games as if every game was structured and organized along an OSR to Pathfinder First Edition sort of range of unstructured play to long list of exception based rules that obviate the need for GM judgement. That in order for game mechanics to have teeth they must obviate the need for any GM judgement and come in large unwieldy books. A lot of the games I enjoy playing/running do not exist on that spectrum.

Let's look at Apocalypse World. It's a compact little game compared to any version of D&D except maybe into the Odd or The Blackhack. From the perspective of a player playing a PC all the urles you will ever need to reference are contained on your double sided character sheet/play book and a double sided basic move sheet. It builds GM judgement directly into the machinery of play. Almost every rule in the game asks the GM to make a directed judgement call. Still it builds constraints on the GM by directing their energy in certain directions.

Here's what that looks like:


			http://apocalypse-world.com/AW-basicplaybooks-legal.pdf
		


Many of the games I have talked about in this thread have substantially lower footprints than even B/X (which I love dearly). Sorcerer is probably the thinnest game in terms of stuff players need to know to play it I have ever seen. Another good example of a game that has some mechanical teeth while having an extremely small footprint is Lasers and Feelings. The entire game fits on a single page with some fairly large text.

Not trying to make a persuasive case for how games should be structured. Just interjecting that games can be structured in innumerable ways.


----------



## Campbell

Neonchameleon said:


> I'm curious which are these games where player action _cannot _be negated by the GM. The GM in almost any game always has more mooks and can give the bosses unlimited hp and special moves.
> 
> But the expectation is that the GM _will not _negate the player action without an exceptionally good reason. The player says what they are doing and frequently picks up the dice, moving straight into the shared fiction rather than having to go through GM negotiation first. The rules for e.g. throwing a tapestry over someone's head in Fate are clear ("Create an advantage" possibly invoking a scene aspect and probably using athletics) and in D&D they are not.
> 
> So in Fate the player moves as freely from their character to the fiction when pulling a rug from under the feet of the bad guys unless the GM intervenes ("the rug's been glued down/simply tears") as they do in D&D when swinging a sword and making an attack roll unless the DM intervenes ("your sword passes straight through the illusion/bounces off the forcefield"). And in both cases this is expected to denote exceptional circumstances.
> 
> This is more empowering for the players because they have a clearer understanding of the capabilities of their character and because they can just do these stunts rather than haggling and slowing things down for everyone. Whether it's more empowering for the GM depends on that GM - some find it less makework, others get less of a power trip or more of a headache.




The unconstrained GM with infinite dragons is not really a feature of all RPG play. Often times they are constrained by prep. In Apocalypse World and Burning Wheel they are instructed to frame scenes or make GM moves in very particular ways. When running Apocalypse World for insistence you are instructed to always say what your prep demands, always say what honesty demands, and always say what the rules demand. If playing according to the text you really do not get to say when and when not to invoke the rules of the game. It does give the GM quite a bit of latitude within those confines, but infinite dragons is not part of the deal.


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> I can distinguish between them quite well: A does not use meta-game resources (the referred-to tokens or fate points) where B and C do.
> 
> And that's all I need to know to determine which I will consider playing and which I will walk away from.



Though I understand your preferences - you have reiterated them often enough in our past discussions - I will add that player meta-currencies are not anywhere as diametrically opposed to in-character roleplay as you often set them out to be. The more experience my friends and I have accumulated with running/playing such roleplaying games has only reified this point.


----------



## Campbell

Aldarc said:


> Though I understand your preferences - you have reiterated them often enough in our past discussions - I will add that player meta-currencies are not anywhere as diametrically opposed to in-character roleplay as you often set them out to be. The more experience my friends and I have accumulated with running/playing such roleplaying games has only reified this point.




For me personally a lot depends on the structure of the currency. Currencies that correspond to something that has meaning in the fiction like Stress in Blades, Team in Masks, or Strings in Monsterhearts feel much better to me than Plot Points, Artha, or Fate Points.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I do not mean to pick on you here. I just want to illustrate a point.
> 
> A significant number of people basically talk about games as if every game was structured and organized along an OSR to Pathfinder First Edition sort of range of unstructured play to long list of exception based rules that obviate the need for GM judgement. That in order for game mechanics to have teeth they must obviate the need for any GM judgement and come in large unwieldy books. A lot of the games I enjoy playing/running do not exist on that spectrum.




I understand this. But because of the kind of rule that was mentioned, it seemed reasonable to give my shifting views on this topic (OD&D and Moldvay was actually what I had in mind in terms of D&D). But I get this isn't strictly about volume, or rules light to rules heavy, that you can have a light system that just is focused on particular areas (I mentioned essoterorists which is a bit like that: creates a wonderful amount of space around creating monsters and threats: by not actually filling in a lot of the spaces a more traditional rpg would).


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I had a feeling that may be the case, but I wasn’t sure.



No problem.




hawkeyefan said:


> What do you mean here? That examples of rules were offered?



That you either references or provided game examples that fit the description of what you were asking me to provide - albeit in a post to another person.



hawkeyefan said:


> What fallacy? I’m not going to try and shut you down from having whatever opinion you’d like. However, I do think that lack of experience can absolutely play a factor in one’s understanding of a topic.



I was saying you were not doing that, but that others have tried a few times throughout this thread.  

Of course experience can absolutely play a factor in one's understanding of a topic.  Do you really think anyone doesn't believe this?  It's just more experience about a topic doesn't mean ones analysis is correct.  



hawkeyefan said:


> I’m not going to assume that you or I understand Burning Wheel as much as @pemerton does, for example. I’ve read some of it, but not thoroughly. Why would I assume I know as much about that game as him?



The pure mechanics and the playloops of those games I completely defer to them on - that's what knowing more about the game really means.  But the analysis of what those mechanics and playloops mean in relation to agency isn't something that experience with a game is going to aid one with (provided that those with knowledge of the game are forthcoming in the relevant details that would enable one to analyze the game).  



hawkeyefan said:


> It’s not something I have had a ton of familiarity with. I’ve certainly played games where players will put forth things that they want for their characters to struggle with and for the GM to bring forth in the game. But that’s a bit different.



I agree that's quite a bit different than authoring your own obstacle.  It's still authoring and still related to what obstacles you will face, but it's more like authoring a constraint for obstacles than obstacles themselves.



hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I think this is the common way RPGs work.



There's a difference between overcoming an obstacle in character and _authoring the removal of the obstacle_.

You seem to be using those two terms synonymously and they mean something quite different.  For example D&D has plenty of the first and nearly none of the later.



hawkeyefan said:


> I’m open to this idea, for sure. It comes up in Blades in the Dark when players are free to add details as part of Action declaration, but that’s pretty minor. It can certainly come up in a Flashback, which gives the players a lot of leeway to bring things into the fiction, but there are costs and they do need to fit with what’s already been established.
> 
> For example, in my first Blades in the Dark campaign, the PCs were infiltrating a property that belonged to a rival faction. Things went pretty poorly for them with some low rolls, and ultimately they were confronted by a group of four armed guards. The player of the Slide (a Face-type character) called for a Flashback. The night before the score, he spent some time in a tavern where guards for this faction were known to hang out. He spent a Coin to persuade some guards to help them out, with the promise of no blowback. I advised him this Flashback would cost 2 Stress, which he happily paid.
> 
> Even with the Coin, this required a roll. The player said it was going to be a Sway roll, which makes sense.  I set the Position/Effect at Desperate/Standard; I figured even with the Coin, the Slide was putting the crew in a potentially vulnerable position. These guys could simply take the coin and promise to help and then turn on them in the moment. Or worse, they could alert the whole place and have everyone ready to pounce on the PCs.
> 
> So a lot was riding on this roll. The Slide player decided to push to add an extra die to his Sway pool, for a total of 3 dice. This brought the total cost of this Flashback up to 4 Stress and 1 Coin, which is significant.
> 
> He rolls....double 6s for a critical.
> 
> So the guards don’t just ignore them and let them go about their business, they say to let them know if they can be of any help in the future. They have no love for their boss (a labor boss who squeezes all he can from his workers and destroys any attempt to unionize).
> 
> So the player of the Slide no only narrated the crew out of a threat with their Flashback, but due to the crit also made a contact for potential use in the future.



I'd say that's a good example of what I was referring to.  The player invoked a meta mechanic in order to change or attempt to change the difficulty of the current fictional obstacle.  

I'm not sure I would say what the player did there was authorship though - at least not directly.  Invoking the meta mechanic led to a mini roleplay session where some actual character actions invoked more mechanics that resulted in the _DM authoring?_ that the guards would help them.

Which does lead me to believe that I'm focused on authorship when it's not so much about who ultimately authors what is happening, but it's more about whether a metagame mechanic was invoked that ultimately led to that authoring of the fiction to make things better for the player.


----------



## Aldarc

Campbell said:


> For me personally a lot depends on the structure of the currency. Currencies that correspond to something that has meaning in the fiction like Stress in Blades, Team in Masks, or Strings in Monsterhearts feel much better to me than Plot Points, Artha, or Fate Points.



Obviously those things you listed have the benefit of being tied to the setting/genre of the games, whereas Fate can't exactly proclaim that Fate Points correspond to something as concrete or meaningful in the fiction as the games you listed since the fiction/genre/setting in question will vary fairly substantially between Fate games. Fate is less a game and more a toolkit after all. If we were using Fate to play Wheel of Time, for example, then Fate points would likely represent Ta'veren luck/karma that draws complications and fortune to them. 

But IME that still is not necessarily as diametrically opposed to immersive in-character roleplay as often gets imagined.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Campbell said:


> For me personally a lot depends on the structure of the currency. Currencies that correspond to something that has meaning in the fiction like Stress in Blades, Team in Masks, or Strings in Monsterhearts feel much better to me than Plot Points, Artha, or Fate Points.



In the case of Fate if you're playing a character in Fate you absolutely _can _use Fate Points as e.g. willpower if you set your character up that way. It takes only a little finessing of your aspects and deciding how to invoke.


FrogReaver said:


> There's a difference between overcoming an obstacle in character and _authoring the removal of the obstacle_.
> 
> You seem to be using those two terms synonymously and they mean something quite different.  For example D&D has plenty of the first and nearly none of the later.



I'd be interested in an actual play example of authoring the removal of an obstacle - if I've understand what you mean I can't think of any time I've seen it happen if you grant flashback scenes (which only normally come up in heist games) as being examples of overcoming an obstacle; they are IME textbook examples of mini roleplay sessions.

I forget who it was that commented that it's generally a bad idea to have the person responsible for creating an obstacle to be also responsible for overcoming it.


----------



## Fenris-77

I can't think of an example for the "authoring out of existence" thing. The games in question tend to have a hard rule that additional facts can't overwrite the existing fiction. Authoting things into existence, sure, but not the other way round.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> I can't think of an example for the "authoring out of existence" thing. The games in question tend to have a hard rule that additional facts can't overwrite the existing fiction. Authoting things into existence, sure, but not the other way round.



If you think of the "mainstream" mindset where the GM has prep notes, then the above action is possibly removing things from the GM's picture of the fiction, if not the fiction established at the table.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Neonchameleon said:


> I'm curious which are these games where player action _cannot _be negated by the GM. The GM in almost any game always has more mooks and can give the bosses unlimited hp and special moves.



None, and no games prevents a player from playing against the rules, either.  If you consider games where the participants are following the rules in good faith, then D&D still allows for this, while a game like Blades in the Dark absolutely does not.  Blades tightly constrains the GM's framing authority to be within the scope of the score the players have decided, and the GM must frame within the initial engagement roll scope and then from there on out only within the scope of the action resolution and it's position markers.  I can't just pour more mooks into a room, or even add unlimited mooks in one go, because these things are constrained.


Neonchameleon said:


> But the expectation is that the GM _will not _negate the player action without an exceptionally good reason. The player says what they are doing and frequently picks up the dice, moving straight into the shared fiction rather than having to go through GM negotiation first. The rules for e.g. throwing a tapestry over someone's head in Fate are clear ("Create an advantage" possibly invoking a scene aspect and probably using athletics) and in D&D they are not.



The trick to this is that the only person evaluating the "exceptionally good reason" is the GM, at least in "mainstream" games like 5e (and other D&D games) or Pathfinder 1e.  What the GM considers a good reason may not meet anyone else's thinking at the table.  There was a fairly recent thread about the Burgomaster of Vallaki where this happened.  In games that allow for GM negation of action, it actually happens quite often, for as poor a reason as a misalignment of understanding of the current fiction.  And, in those cases, it's the GM's vision that wins every time. 


Neonchameleon said:


> So in Fate the player moves as freely from their character to the fiction when pulling a rug from under the feet of the bad guys unless the GM intervenes ("the rug's been glued down/simply tears") as they do in D&D when swinging a sword and making an attack roll unless the DM intervenes ("your sword passes straight through the illusion/bounces off the forcefield"). And in both cases this is expected to denote exceptional circumstances.
> 
> This is more empowering for the players because they have a clearer understanding of the capabilities of their character and because they can just do these stunts rather than haggling and slowing things down for everyone. Whether it's more empowering for the GM depends on that GM - some find it less makework, others get less of a power trip or more of a headache.



Mostly agree.


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> If you think of the "mainstream" mindset where the GM has prep notes, then the above action is possibly removing things from the GM's picture of the fiction, if not the fiction established at the table.



Yeah, thats fair. It also really not what I mean when I say 'fiction' or indeed 'authoring', but I think we all knew that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I can't think of an example for the "authoring out of existence" thing. The games in question tend to have a hard rule that additional facts can't overwrite the existing fiction. Authoting things into existence, sure, but not the other way round.



Authoring the removal of an obstacle doesn't mean you are erasing from the fiction already existing fiction.  It means you are adding something to the fiction so that whatever was previously an obstacle isn't any longer.  You are the only one framing that as "authoring out of existence".


----------



## Fenris-77

Thats different, sure. I might have used 'overcome' there to be clear, but I'm splitting hairs. We're on the same page then.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> No problem.
> 
> That you either references or provided game examples that fit the description of what you were asking me to provide - albeit in a post to another person.




Yes, some have been offered. I feel many of them are operating on an incomplete understanding of the rules, and so are flawed. I wanted to know how you came up with the concerns you have.....if you had experience, or if you were basing your concern on the posts of others. It sounds like the latter?



FrogReaver said:


> I was saying you were not doing that, but that others have tried a few times throughout this thread.
> 
> Of course experience can absolutely play a factor in one's understanding of a topic.  Do you really think anyone doesn't believe this?  It's just more experience about a topic doesn't mean ones analysis is correct.





Not always, perhaps. But generally speaking, I'm gonna go with the person who's familiar with the topic to the one who is not. 

I know next to nothing about Fate, for instance. I have the free rules, but have not had time to read them through, only taken a cursory glance here and there. Most of my knowledge, therefore, comes from people posting here. I would never put forth any kind of definitive statement about Fate or its rules, or how they function or what experience they're designed to deliver. Especially when discussing the game with someone who is familiar with it. 

If I am in a conversation with someone who knows Fate, the way I'd engage with them would be to ask questions and try and improve my understanding. Not assume that I have a better understanding of the game than they do.

So, it's not that I think anyone doesn't believe that experience is a factor in understanding, but perhaps it's that they post as if it is not a relevant factor? Perhaps there are other factors at play that override their knowledge of that? I don't know why, exactly, but it's certainly happening at times.




FrogReaver said:


> The pure mechanics and the playloops of those games I completely defer to them on - that's what knowing more about the game really means.  But the analysis of what those mechanics and playloops mean in relation to agency isn't something that experience with a game is going to aid one with (provided that those with knowledge of the game are forthcoming in the relevant details that would enable one to analyze the game).




Well I don't think that anyone is attempting to hide anything. I just think that anyone lacking first hand experience is relying instead on second hand experience, and so something is lost no matter what. When I described the Flashback in my BitD example, I had to revise things several times, and I'm sure it's still not a complete picture for someone who's not already familiar with the game. 

Anyone who is familiar will read my summary, and understand immediately what I'm talking about. Anyone who is not, may wind up filling in those unintentional blank spots with their own assumptions.



FrogReaver said:


> There's a difference between overcoming an obstacle in character and _authoring the removal of the obstacle_.
> 
> You seem to be using those two terms synonymously and they mean something quite different.  For example D&D has plenty of the first and nearly none of the later.




To me, they seem largely the same in the form of declaring an action for my character. That's the primary way that a player interacts with the fiction, though there are exceptions (and more than I'm aware of, I'm sure). When a player declares an attack or an action or a spell or what have you.....aren't they attempting to author the removal of the obstacle?

What's the distinction you're making? 




FrogReaver said:


> I'd say that's a good example of what I was referring to.  The player invoked a meta mechanic in order to change or attempt to change the difficulty of the current fictional obstacle.




I don't know if I like the term meta-mechanic for this. Do you mean Stress or the Flashback itself? The Stress is pretty tied to the character, and is very much like HP or Ki or any number of other PC resources. What I mean here is that it's not entirely removed from the fiction. When a PC has a lot of stress, they're aware of it. It's not a resource entirely in the hands of the player, which is what would make it a meta-mechanic. At least, that's my take on it.

The Flashback may fall into that category, but honestly that's just a question of structure. All it's doing is placing an action in the past and then letting it play out in the present. It's not significantly different in the way it functions to any other Action roll. So again, I don't know what would categorize this as meta. 

But that's a quibble, I suppose.



FrogReaver said:


> I'm not sure I would say what the player did there was authorship though - at least not directly.  Invoking the meta mechanic led to a mini roleplay session where some actual character actions invoked more mechanics that resulted in the _DM authoring?_ that the guards would help them.




How is it a case of the GM authoring the guards helping? The player literally described the scene and then rolled the dice which is what determined success. The GM merely determined the cost, the risk involved, and what the bonus for the critical result meant. 



FrogReaver said:


> Which does lead me to believe that I'm focused on authorship when it's not so much about who ultimately authors what is happening, but it's more about whether a metagame mechanic was invoked that ultimately led to that authoring of the fiction to make things better for the player.




By authorship, do you mean approval? Like, who approves for this to happen? Or do you mean who describes what happens? I think this is likely where our confusion is....I'm not sure of the term and how you're using it. If you've already described how you are using the term, then I either missed it or have forgotten.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, thats fair. It also really not what I mean when I say 'fiction' or indeed 'authoring', but I think we all knew that.



You really want to put it out there, in _this_ thread, that everyone knew what you were talking about?  Hokay.


----------



## Manbearcat

Neonchameleon said:


> In the case of Fate if you're playing a character in Fate you absolutely _can _use Fate Points as e.g. willpower if you set your character up that way. It takes only a little finessing of your aspects and deciding how to invoke.
> 
> I'd be interested in an actual play example of authoring the removal of an obstacle - if I've understand what you mean I can't think of any time I've seen it happen if you grant flashback scenes (which only normally come up in heist games) as being examples of overcoming an obstacle; they are IME textbook examples of mini roleplay sessions.
> 
> I forget who it was that commented that it's generally a bad idea to have the person responsible for creating an obstacle to be also responsible for overcoming it.






Fenris-77 said:


> I can't think of an example for the "authoring out of existence" thing. The games in question tend to have a hard rule that additional facts can't overwrite the existing fiction. Authoting things into existence, sure, but not the other way round.




Well, after much effort to achieve distinguishing clarity, hopefully we're finally at consensus (though I'm very skeptical of that) that these two things are NOT the same:

PROPOSAL OF GAMESTATE/FICTION CHANGE + INVOKE ACTION RESOLUTION MECHANICS = GAMESTATE/FICTION CHANGE WHERE OBSTACLE IS NOW DEFEATED

*DOES NOT EQUAL (NOT IN PRINCIPLE, NOT IN PLAY PROCEDURE, AND NOT IN PLAY AESTHETIC)*

AUTHORING NEW GAMESTATE/FICTION CHANGE BY FIAT WHERE OBSTACLE IS NOW DEFEATED.

I (and others) put in a lot of words to establish that these things are not equal but I don't think we've achieved consensus that they're not equal.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, some have been offered. I feel many of them are operating on an incomplete understanding of the rules, and so are flawed. I wanted to know how you came up with the concerns you have.....if you had experience, or if you were basing your concern on the posts of others. It sounds like the latter?



Correct.



hawkeyefan said:


> Not always, perhaps. But generally speaking, I'm gonna go with the person who's familiar with the topic to the one who is not.



If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.



hawkeyefan said:


> I know next to nothing about Fate, for instance. I have the free rules, but have not had time to read them through, only taken a cursory glance here and there. Most of my knowledge, therefore, comes from people posting here. I would never put forth any kind of definitive statement about Fate or its rules, or how they function or what experience they're designed to deliver. Especially when discussing the game with someone who is familiar with it.



I would, but only by referring back to what those that are familiar with the game have said about it on those fronts.  What has happened a few times is two people familiar with the game actually disagreed about certain aspects of it.  This has happened most often on the D&D side, but also with some non-D&D/non-traditional games (i really want a better term there).



hawkeyefan said:


> If I am in a conversation with someone who knows Fate, the way I'd engage with them would be to ask questions and try and improve my understanding. Not assume that I have a better understanding of the game than they do.



Same here.  I think you are trying to conflate better understanding of the game with more correct analysis of the game and that's where I object. 



hawkeyefan said:


> So, it's not that I think anyone doesn't believe that experience is a factor in understanding, but perhaps it's that they post as if it is not a relevant factor? Perhaps there are other factors at play that override their knowledge of that? I don't know why, exactly, but it's certainly happening at times.



I don't think it is happening at all.  Do you have any examples of anyone telling someone they are incorrect about how their game is played?  I'd love to see what's making you think someone is doing this.  My gut reaction is that you are conflating analysis with telling someone they are incorrect about how a game is played.



hawkeyefan said:


> Well I don't think that anyone is attempting to hide anything. I just think that anyone lacking first hand experience is relying instead on second hand experience, and so something is lost no matter what. When I described the Flashback in my BitD example, I had to revise things several times, and I'm sure it's still not a complete picture for someone who's not already familiar with the game.



That's fair.  Here's the thing though.  If you are familiar with how a game works and I have some incorrect assumption because as you note here - sometimes gaps can be filled in with incorrect assumptions - then it's typically going to be very apparent to you (being the one that knows the game from experience) and you will be able to easily step in and correct the misunderstanding so long as it applies to actual game mechanics or game play loops etc.

What I would say is happening is that those wanting to correct misunderstandings about how their games work aren't trying to correct misunderstandings about mechanics or play loops but are rather presenting their own analysis as if it's in the same category as a mechanic or play loop.


----------



## FrogReaver

Note: I separated your quote over two posts as the first half was about something that's only tangential and probably isn't going to be very worthwhile to really dig into.  This part though I think will be really beneficial.



hawkeyefan said:


> Anyone who is familiar will read my summary, and understand immediately what I'm talking about. Anyone who is not, may wind up filling in those unintentional blank spots with their own assumptions.



I thought you did an excellent job explaining the flashback mechanic. 



hawkeyefan said:


> To me, they seem largely the same in the form of declaring an action for my character. That's the primary way that a player interacts with the fiction, though there are exceptions (and more than I'm aware of, I'm sure). When a player declares an attack or an action or a spell or what have you.....aren't they attempting to author the removal of the obstacle?



It depends on how you want to define authoring.  It's certainly not how I'm meaning it right now.  If one wants to call in fiction character actions an attempt to author I won't fault you for it.  I think I've used authoring that way earlier in this conversation as well. 

But when I'm contrasting the difference of in character action resolution and authoring, I'm certainly not talking about 2 equivalent things.  If you want to say that the difference is types of authoring as opposed to authoring vs not, then I'm fine with that.  As long as some distinction is given.




hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know if I like the term meta-mechanic for this. Do you mean Stress or the Flashback itself?



The Flashback itself.  I should have probably been more specific on that.



hawkeyefan said:


> The Stress is pretty tied to the character, and is very much like HP or Ki or any number of other PC resources. What I mean here is that it's not entirely removed from the fiction. When a PC has a lot of stress, they're aware of it. It's not a resource entirely in the hands of the player, which is what would make it a meta-mechanic. At least, that's my take on it.



The name Stress certainly has different connotations that would make it easy to assume things about it that weren't true. 

I am curious on what it's supposed to represent in the fiction though?  Is it some kind of magical energy?  Something else?  Possibly abstract like D&D hp and can be one of many things at any given time?




hawkeyefan said:


> The Flashback may fall into that category, but honestly that's just a question of structure. All it's doing is placing an action in the past and then letting it play out in the present. It's not significantly different in the way it functions to any other Action roll. So again, I don't know what would categorize this as meta.



I'd describe the player's ability to shift the narrative in the game back to some past event so that some help may be had with the present obstacle as a very metagame thing to do. 



hawkeyefan said:


> How is it a case of the GM authoring the guards helping? The player literally described the scene and then rolled the dice which is what determined success. The GM merely determined the cost, the risk involved, and what the bonus for the critical result meant.



There's a bit of a process going on there right?

1.  Player describes the scene
2.  Stakes are set
3.  Success/Failure is determined via a die roll
4.  On a success the GM establishes new fiction in accordance with the player's desires.  On a crit the GM establishes something additionally good for the player.

The question about authorship is who came up with the fiction and who established the fiction.  And actually, that may make the term author/ship a bit misleading - as normally an author comes up with and establishes the fiction all as part of the same process.



hawkeyefan said:


> By authorship, do you mean approval? Like, who approves for this to happen? Or do you mean who describes what happens? I think this is likely where our confusion is....I'm not sure of the term and how you're using it. If you've already described how you are using the term, then I either missed it or have forgotten.



Both?  I think both aspects are important to authorship.  Who comes up with the fiction.  Who establishes the fiction.  In which case maybe it's better to say the player and DM co-author?


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> You really want to put it out there, in _this_ thread, that everyone knew what you were talking about?  Hokay.



I was trying to be generous.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Correct.
> 
> 
> If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.
> 
> 
> I would, but only by referring back to what those that are familiar with the game have said about it on those fronts.  What has happened a few times is two people familiar with the game actually disagreed about certain aspects of it.  This has happened most often on the D&D side, but also with some non-D&D/non-traditional games (i really want a better term there).
> 
> 
> Same here.  I think you are trying to conflate better understanding of the game with more correct analysis of the game and that's where I object.
> 
> 
> I don't think it is happening at all.  Do you have any examples of anyone telling someone they are incorrect about how their game is played?  I'd love to see what's making you think someone is doing this.  My gut reaction is that you are conflating analysis with telling someone they are incorrect about how a game is played.
> 
> 
> That's fair.  Here's the thing though.  If you are familiar with how a game works and I have some incorrect assumption because as you note here - sometimes gaps can be filled in with incorrect assumptions - then it's typically going to be very apparent to you (being the one that knows the game from experience) and you will be able to easily step in and correct the misunderstanding so long as it applies to actual game mechanics or game play loops etc.
> 
> What I would say is happening is that those wanting to correct misunderstandings about how their games work aren't trying to correct misunderstandings about mechanics or play loops but are rather presenting their own analysis as if it's in the same category as a mechanic or play loop.




I just want to reply to this as one rather than go point for point because I think I can sum it up. 

I'm not going to go back and look for examples of when folks have acted as if they know more about the game....or that their analysis is more accurate.....because I think it's better to move on. If it happens going forward, I'll try and point it out, and maybe that will help us resolve that issue. 

That being said, if I'm talking about a game, I generally assume people are not familiar with it unless they state otherwise. The likely exception to this is DD, but even then, there are so many editions and retroclones and branches of it that it's silly to assume anyone's on the same page. 

So when I explain games, I know that my explanation is imperfect. It's a byproduct of this being a kind of casual interface that I mostly do on my phone to pass the time a bit here and there. I applaud those who have typed up deep and meaningful analysis in this thread and in others. I realize that my posts pale in comparison. 

It's not always easy to pick up when someone has misinterpreted or when I've explained things poorly. Sometimes it is. Sometimes I'll see it easier when other posters are talking past each other, but I'll miss it when it's me. 

So I ask questions. When someone tells me "this is what I meant" or "I'm using this word this way" I generally try to acknowledge that rather than argue the definition. Yes, I think common terminology would help in these matters...and I think certain ones make sense to try and pin down (like, agency in the case of this thread given its central to the discussion) but I know that's not something that's always gonna happen, so I'd rather get to the discussion rather than argue definitions. 

I think there's some really interesting posts being made, and really interesting examples being put forth. I'd love for the conversation to be about those rather than disagreement on the exact definition of a term.


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> Authoring the removal of an obstacle doesn't mean you are erasing from the fiction already existing fiction.  It means you are adding something to the fiction so that whatever was previously an obstacle isn't any longer.  You are the only one framing that as "authoring out of existence".



So when in a D&D session a few weeks back I bought some magical rations that were ever-refilling and the DM told us the next session we might be running low on food so I pointed out I'd bought supplies (in part because I expected something like that) I was authoring the removal of an obstacle? If that's what you mean by it then fine. It's also what approximately a quarter of the D&D spell list is designed for.

If so, fair enough. I just don't see why this is an issue.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Note: I separated your quote over two posts as the first half was about something that's only tangential and probably isn't going to be very worthwhile to really dig into.  This part though I think will be really beneficial.
> 
> 
> I thought you did an excellent job explaining the flashback mechanic.




You should have seen the first draft. I jumped over steps that I take for granted due to familiarity.



FrogReaver said:


> It depends on how you want to define authoring.  It's certainly not how I'm meaning it right now.  If one wants to call in fiction character actions an attempt to author I won't fault you for it.  I think I've used authoring that way earlier in this conversation as well.
> 
> But when I'm contrasting the difference of in character action resolution and authoring, I'm certainly not talking about 2 equivalent things.  If you want to say that the difference is types of authoring as opposed to authoring vs not, then I'm fine with that.  As long as some distinction is given.




Okay, but how are you meaning it? As @Manbearcat has offered, with authoring being something done by fiat? 





FrogReaver said:


> The Flashback itself.  I should have probably been more specific on that.




That's okay. I realize it's an odd game element, but it seems very much a part of the game. Meaning it happens and the players are aware of it, it's just a question of the chronology. What makes you say it's meta? 

And to clarify, when I hear meta, I generally feel it's a reference to something outside the game, or at the very least, outside the fiction.



FrogReaver said:


> The name Stress certainly has different connotations that would make it easy to assume things about it that weren't true.
> 
> I am curious on what it's supposed to represent in the fiction though?  Is it some kind of magical energy?  Something else?  Possibly abstract like D&D hp and can be one of many things at any given time?




It's not magical energy and it's not HP, but its exact nature is a bit malleable. It's really some kind of mix of effort and will. You accumulate Stress by activatin abilities or by Pushing to increase your chances for success or severity of success. When you accumulate a certain amount, you are out of the action in some way (exhausted, frightened, unconscious, etc.). You also obtain a Trauma, a permanent tag that is a negative character trait (haunted, paranoid, reckless, cold, etc.). 

If you accumulate Stress but don't take a Trauma, then it stays with you. You'll be less likely to be effective on your next Score. So you need to reduce your Stress by indulging your vice. Each PC in Blades has a vice. They indulge it, and then roll some dice and then reduce the amount of stress they have. If they reduce too much, meaning more than they've accumulated, then they over-indulge and there's a negative consequence. 

It's a mechanic that's woven into many elements of the game, and is one that the PCs are likely very aware of, although they may not always refer to it by name.



FrogReaver said:


> I'd describe the player's ability to shift the narrative in the game back to some past event so that some help may be had with the present obstacle as a very metagame thing to do.
> 
> There's a bit of a process going on there right?
> 
> 1.  Player describes the scene
> 2.  Stakes are set
> 3.  Success/Failure is determined via a die roll
> 4.  On a success the GM establishes new fiction in accordance with the player's desires.  On a crit the GM establishes something additionally good for the player.
> 
> The question about authorship is who came up with the fiction and who established the fiction.  And actually, that may make the term author/ship a bit misleading - as normally an author comes up with and establishes the fiction all as part of the same process.




Well, the player came up with the fiction. The GM just set the difficulty and determined the cost. No one did anything by fiat, so I don't think this use of Authoring matches Manbearcat's. 

What's the difference between "who came up with the fiction" and "who established the fiction"? These seem identical to me. I don't think that your Number 4 is quite right; the player came up with the result of the "guards help the PCs". All I did as GM was to give it a couple of specific details for flavor, and then add the boon of the critical.



FrogReaver said:


> Both?  I think both aspects are important to authorship.  Who comes up with the fiction.  Who establishes the fiction.  In which case maybe it's better to say the player and DM co-author?




I think that this idea of cocreating the fiction together is something that Blades does very well. I think it's a big part of why it's been brought up as allowing so much agency. 

Like that Flashback.....meta or not, I'm not worried about that label for now.....doesn't that rule give the players a lot of power over the fiction?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Part of it is a question of what can reasonably be assumed in the fiction given the info provided.
> 
> When we're told of an angry Orc, a vast majority of the time we can reasonably assume a) it's alive and b) it can be killed.  If it turns out to be not alive i.e. undead, or an illusion, that's an unusual exception that will become apparent fairly soon; and if it turns out to be unkillable that's an extremely rare exception.  Thus, as we already pretty much know the Orc is there and can be killed, using a combination of mechanics and fiction to (try to) turn that live Orc into a dead Orc isn't a big stretch, and no assumptions are challenged.
> 
> On meeting a dead-end wall, however, we cannot assume to anywhere near the same extent that there is a secret way through.  In fact, the assumption would normally be that there isn't one until and unless proven otherwise; which means the mechanics are being used to challenge this assumption rather than simply follow up on it as with the Orc.



Where are these assumptions stated? Where have they been laid down?

I am familiar with the works of three classic fantasy authors: JRRT (LotR and The Hobbit); REH (his Conan and Kull stories); and LeGuin (the Earthsea trilogy). JRRT's work is replete with secret ways - they are a major plot point in The Hobbit and figure in LotR both in the Moria sequence and the Cirith Ungol sequence (which are the only sequences where way-blocking walls figure in the story). Conan frequently encounters secret ways through blocking walls. (I haven't gone back through all the stories - at the moment I'm thinking of the one in Shadows of Zamboula.) The only blocking walls I recall in the Earthsea stories are in the Tombs of Atuan, where there are secret ways which Ged discovers with the help of Tenar.

It seems to me that, _if a wall is worth caring about at all_, the prospect of a secret way through it does not challenge any assumptions I would make.



Lanefan said:


> I can distinguish between them quite well: A does not use meta-game resources (the referred-to tokens or fate points) where B and C do.
> 
> And that's all I need to know to determine which I will consider playing and which I will walk away from.



Yet in this very same post you are objecting to A.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> For me personally a lot depends on the structure of the currency. Currencies that correspond to something that has meaning in the fiction like Stress in Blades, Team in Masks, or Strings in Monsterhearts feel much better to me than Plot Points, Artha, or Fate Points.



My view is that Artha use corresponds to _trying hard_.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> The pure mechanics and the playloops of those games I completely defer to them on - that's what knowing more about the game really means.  But the analysis of what those mechanics and playloops mean in relation to agency isn't something that experience with a game is going to aid one with (provided that those with knowledge of the game are forthcoming in the relevant details that would enable one to analyze the game).



This assertion is contentious.



FrogReaver said:


> There's a difference between overcoming an obstacle in character and _authoring the removal of the obstacle_.



What's the difference? What would be an example of the second rather than the first?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> Prior to being exposed to Stars Without Number I was deeply intimidated and put off by sandbox gaming. I mean I was into OSR style dungeon crawls, but the way people talked about "true sandboxes" and world building as if these places were real made the actual process of play invisible to me. I had no idea how to go about it either from either side of the screen.



Thanks for mentioning this, I'm reading it now. Brilliant stuff. I wonder if anyone has made similar charts for the fantasy genre?


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Thanks for mentioning this, I'm reading it now. Brilliant stuff. I wonder if anyone has made similar charts for the fantasy genre?



In A Wicked Age uses "Oracles" to establish the starting situation. They are very evocative.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Thanks for mentioning this, I'm reading it now. Brilliant stuff. I wonder if anyone has made similar charts for the fantasy genre?




The Kickstarter for the fantasy version Worlds Without Number just closed in early December. It's by Kevin Crawford, as well, and should be coming in 2021.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> The Kickstarter for the fantasy version Worlds Without Number just closed in early December. It's by Kevin Crawford, as well, and should be coming in 2021.




Really loving what I'm seeing from the beta. Strong Tanith Lee vibes.

There's also Wolves of God, a game about Saxon Warbands carving out a space for themselves in the Seven Kingdoms era.
Godbound is a game where players play nascent demigods carving their legends.

All three games are built on top of the Stars Without Number system with alterations to match the settings. Really excellent material.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> @FrogReaver
> 
> There is no unified front here. We are all talking about different games which are played in different ways. The games I am mostly talking about are primarily concerned with character advocacy where a player's perspective is firmly grounded on achieving their character's desires and are responsible for playing a credible protagonist. Some games that @permerton and others are talking about such as Fate and Cortex Heroic are games I personally consider story advocacy games in that the table is mindful of the narrative they are creating together and work together to weave a tale together. Some consider this controversial.



That's fair.  I think there's definitely a difference in those kinds of games.  I've definitely been operating from the perspective the games being brought up all were intended to be examples of what you refer to as story advocacy games.



Campbell said:


> On Agency in Character Advocacy Story Now games
> 
> I am personally not concerned with maximizing agency. I am looking for games that naturally produce emergent narratives that contain fraught personal struggles.



That helps.



Campbell said:


> For that to work there need to be meaningful consequences in the same way that in adventure gaming your character can be physically hurt, subjected to all manner of nasty spell effects, and face death and injury. If psychosocial conflicts are going to be central rather than secondary to play having mechanics with actual teeth helps a great deal.



I agree.



Campbell said:


> We're talking about agency rather than autonomy here. Being able to advocate for my character and achieve their goals often depends on the ability to oblige someone else to be constrained by my play. The price I pay is to also be obliged to change the way I play based on their play. If we are to have agency over the fiction in a socially equitable way we must accept other players' right to agency as well.



I think I agree here.  It summarizes my position that such mechanics do cost one type of agency, but as you bring up here, that sacrifice buys another kind of agency.



Campbell said:


> The social environment at the table between players should be considered in any analysis. In the absence of mechanics that impact the psychosocial environment our characters find themselves in we fall back on encultured expectations of player behavior. Tabletop roleplaying games have common cultural expectations that in the absence of being modified by the game we are playing tend to limit our autonomy. Frenzy in Vampire, Emotional Conditions in Masks, and other psychosocial mechanics provide permission to play in ways that are not normally socially acceptable in an adventure gaming environment.



I think I agree here as well.  I can even see how this would feel quite empowering.



Campbell said:


> This will not be a big deal to you I expect, but they help to resolve the tension between playing well and playing with integrity. In adventure gaming there is often a whole host of conflicts between playing your character as if they were a person and achieving the objectives of the game. This creates a whole bunch of conflicts between players with different objectives at the table. We blame players for acting according to the incentives the game places in front of them instead of seeking to resolve this tension through game design. When I play Masks playing well pretty much means engaging with the stuff my character would engage with anyway. When playing D&D I am in a constant of tension if I care at all about who my character is and what they want.



I agree with the assessment as well, or at least most of it.  I mean consider the tension when what you term playing with integrity and playing toward the parties objectives comes into conflict when playing an alcoholic.  "A mechanic I had no control over made my PC hungover for this mission."  It alleviates the player from the responsibility that having their character act out a flaw might be detrimental to the party.  Except let's delve into this a little deeper.

(Of course there's also the "I choose to have my character be hungover which is bad but I get metacurrency to compensate and so that essentially balances out so having my character do this bad thing didn't actually screw over the party".)

I'm going to focus on the first style of mechanic for the rest of this post.  The first only works when players are forced to pick some relatively equal impact flaw compared to the other players.  Otherwise a player can just pick no flaw or very minor flaw and perform better than the other players PC's.  Essentially leading to the same kind of problem - you screw over the team if you pick a bad flaw and so social pressure to not pick bad flaws.  This shows that the solution isn't actually the mechanic, but the constraint on character design that only includes characters that have flaws that have nearly the same impact.  A game like D&D could accomplish the same thing by constraining you to making a character that always acts in the best interests of the party or that are all as equally flawed with the social expectation being that the flaws need to be played to when they arise.


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> I'm going to focus on the first style of mechanic for the rest of this post.  The first only works when players are forced to pick some relatively equal impact flaw compared to the other players.  Otherwise a player can just pick no flaw or very minor flaw and perform better than the other players PC's.  Essentially leading to the same kind of problem - you screw over the team if you pick a bad flaw and so social pressure to not pick bad flaws.  This shows that the solution isn't actually the mechanic, but the constraint on character design that only includes characters that have flaws that have nearly the same impact.  A game like D&D could accomplish the same thing by constraining you to making a character that always acts in the best interests of the party or that are all as equally flawed with the social expectation being that the flaws need to be played to when they arise.



Well, yeah. Which is why literally no game I can think of does it this way. Almost every game I can think of where you are expected to pick flaws in advance (as opposed to as the result of a failed sanity check) and the flaws do not provide some sort of meta-mechanic as compensation uses some sort of point-buy system in which some flaws are worth more points than others. So they don't design flaws "that have the same impact". The closest to an exception I can think about is Pathfinder 1e with the entirely optional drawbacks system from Ultimate Campaign where each drawback is worth a single trait.

It's like the authoring out a problem issue. "This would be a bad way to do things" isn't much of an argument when just about no game that intends to do the things you are talking about does things the way you are proposing to be a bad way.


----------



## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> I have a story.  We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game).  I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin.  Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5.  While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked.  The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed.  In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.



Given the time frame, there were only two trek RPGs in print: FASA's STRPG and TFG's Prime Directive; PD doesn't cover ships at all until the GURPS versions post 1996. FASA had pretty robust ship rules. The warp chart you mention first appears in the ST:TNG Tech Manual, IIRC, and isn't in the STRPG rules (I just checked, to be certain, and it's neither in cores, nor in the TNG products that cost FASA their Trek license), so there was some home-brewing happening.

The GM's "solution" to the "I'm not prepped" was a bit of a jerk move.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Ovinomancer said:


> None, and no games prevents a player from playing against the rules, either.  If you consider games where the participants are following the rules in good faith, then D&D still allows for this, while a game like Blades in the Dark absolutely does not.  Blades tightly constrains the GM's framing authority to be within the scope of the score the players have decided, and the GM must frame within the initial engagement roll scope and then from there on out only within the scope of the action resolution and it's position markers.  I can't just pour more mooks into a room, or even add unlimited mooks in one go, because these things are constrained.



I've run Blades. And the GM's scope isn't _that _tight until the players are rocking stats of 3s and 4s. If the GM wants to make something almost impossible they can pull the tier rules. If the GM wants more mooks they just need one roll of a 1-3 on the dice to announce reinforcements.

Of course a GM who's acting in good faith shouldn't and I hope wouldn't do this. But the tools actually exist to do it.


Ovinomancer said:


> The trick to this is that the only person evaluating the "exceptionally good reason" is the GM, at least in "mainstream" games like 5e (and other D&D games) or Pathfinder 1e.  What the GM considers a good reason may not meet anyone else's thinking at the table.  There was a fairly recent thread about the Burgomaster of Vallaki where this happened.  In games that allow for GM negation of action, it actually happens quite often, for as poor a reason as a misalignment of understanding of the current fiction.  And, in those cases, it's the GM's vision that wins every time.



In games that allow GM negation _with GMs who actively want to negate and think their vision should dominate _then it can happen quite often. And for as poor a reason as misalignment of understanding. A better strategy is to double check you are on the same page


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.



The problem is that most discursive logic is not necessarily about "better logic" or what actually is the "most logical" as a lot of our sense of logic is also informed and guided by our own biases, preconceptions, and past experiences. This is to say, you likely find the people who tend to be most convincing and logical likely also are supporting your own preconceived notions and viewpoints. This is how appeals to "logic" can be quite (unintentionally) self-deceptive. This is also why people also appeal to possessing the additional perspective of firsthand experience with playing/running game systems, because logic on its own doesn't cut it. 

This assertion is also at odds with a number of your own points in this debate about how you claimed that certain arguments people made were not consistent with your own experiences playing your game (system/style/mode) of choice. It's also why even if you believe someone provides "the most logical analysis" but others who have firsthand knowledge of the various respective game systems don't find it persuasive at all. This is pretty telling about the importance of actual experience, knowledge, and familiarity for these "logical" analyses of games. Logic on its own without experience or evidence, particularly for discussions involving the cultivated experience of game systems and mechanics seems mostly detached from reality, likely for the self-serving purposes of reinforcing preconceptions and biases or to "win" debates rather than to come to an actual good faith understanding.


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> If you don't want to come across as attacking a playstyle then you need to make a much better case that your preferred games have more agency than my preferred games than you actually are.  We all highly value agency.  Being told your preferred game has less of something you highly value than some other game is offensive.  It's even more offensive when the offensive thing is believed to be untrue and an unfair characterization of your playstyle and believed to be based on shallow and self-serving analysis.



So if you value speed in cars being told that another car is faster than yours or that F1 cars or Indy 500 cars are faster than stock cars is offensive?

Me, if I value something and someone else tells me that something else does it better my reaction isn't "that's offensive" it's "that's interesting. How does it do that?" This comes twice over when the people saying that are familiar with both sides of the argument - and almost everyone posting on ENWorld (a D&D forum) also plays D&D so they are familiar with both approaches. This isn't "Fans of game A vs fans of game B" - it's "fans of _both _coming down very consistently on the side of B doing this specific thing better". 

Which doesn't say what D&D does better (IME long term campaigns - in part because the players are less empowered so the campaign doesn't spiral off in completely unexpected directions).

I also could comment on the accusations of "shallow and self-serving analysis" when I've recently replied to one about how not all social disadvantages have the same drawback and how there have been comments about "authoring something out of existence". However I prefer to assume good faith.


FrogReaver said:


> Now, offensive things can sometimes be true.  If they are true then the way to lessen the offense is to make what will be perceived as a strong and fair case for why it is true.



And "a is better than b at x" is not in and of itself offensive. Even if it isn't true then you start by assuming good faith on the other side. It can become offensive when it's objectively untrue and a point refuted a thousand times or it's deliberately being used to exclude. None of that applies here.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> So if you value speed in cars being told that another car is faster than yours or that F1 cars or Indy 500 cars are faster than stock cars is offensive?




Speed of a vehicle can be objectively measured and has no moral value. Concepts like freedom or agency do have moral value (that is why so much moral language gets invoked in these kinds of discussions) and they can't be objectively measured in the way that a physical thing like speed can. Also let's keep in mind how these arguments usually arise, someone says I like style A because style a gives me the most X, and the other side says, actually style B gives maximum X. And it happens so often, it doesn't feel like objective analysis. It feels like these arguments are really just used to push playstyle. There is a real "I suppose if you aren't interested in X, you could just play A" kind of thing (where X is presented as a highly attractive and desirable quality). When people debate that over playstyle issues tempers will flair, especially when people start accusing one another of ignorance, failure to understand, or a lack of experience of exposure (in ways I would describe as judgmental and condescending). Now I think offensive is a strong word to use here. And I think in some places we'd have good discussions. But there is a reason people get a bit peeved in this kind of thread


----------



## aramis erak

Fenris-77 said:


> A PC can actually author an obstacle in HotB. In the second example I gave, to add some detail, the PC enters a dark room and asks the GM is there anyone in here? The PC rolls essentially a perception check plus wagers and the result is him getting to add the assassin and details. HotB is a pretty singular example though.



The only practical difference in practice in HotB (and B&H) between GM and Players is the GM is allowed to bring in new characters without a roll and gets to hand out Style/Honor. Players can, with a roll, narrate things about just introduced NPCs that completely reverse the GM's intent for them. PVP is intentionally allowed.
It made for some fun emergent fiction, but it also lead to such inanities as the Jolly Green 6-Jo-tall Oni as an ally. (Hint for would be B&H or HotB GM's: if you're introducing them as an enemy, define their opposition first, so that players can't define them as an old ally.)


Ovinomancer said:


> I see a possible place of disconnect.  Let me expand these for "mainstream" games (ie, D&D-sphere games):
> 
> 1a) the GM has notes that say the orc is killable.
> 1b) the GM has notes that say the orc is unkillable.
> 
> 2a) the GM has notes that say a secret door is findable
> 2b) the GM has notes that say a secret door is unfindable.
> 
> These are the cases for "mainstream" games.  I think the disconnect is that 1a is an implicit default judgement and not thought about as an explicit decision by the GM.  This is further reinforced by the rarity of 1b -- most GMs do not consider rendering the orc unkillable because it violates their understanding of the game's social contract.  However, 2 is the reverse:  2b is the implicit default assumption and it's 2a that's the exception.  As such, when someone introduces 1c or 2c -- let the system decide -- then there's a massive disconnect because the assumed positions of 1 and 2 are inverse of each other and therefore cannot be the same.  The reality is that there's only an assumption of what the default state is, and also the assumption that a default state must exist.
> 
> I might, just might, be speaking from experience.



There's really no practical difference between 1a and 2a except the skill used, likewise 1b and 2b.  if the GM has a map and notes, those are established in the fiction as revealed, but are established in the GM's game-state simply by inclusion, and the players see the game state mostly through their character sheet and the GM's narration, unless the GM is a terrain monger.


pemerton said:


> No. I don't know HotB except through your posts. If you want to elaborate it using my taxonomy (if it's a helpful one) that would be great.
> 
> But I think you know how the game you're playing works!



I'll second his statements about HotB; I've read it, and played the other game in the engine, _Blood and Honor_. It's mechanics are mostly about who controls the success/failure, and lots of «Yes, and» & «Yes, but», which, while limited to the scene, are explicitly not limited to the initial question rolled, provided they stay near the ongoing changes to game state and fiction state of play. The GM's not even the arbiter of "out of bounds" - that's the table as a whole.
It's the highest advocacy game I've ever run. With the right people, it's really nifty. With the wrong ones (ones who don't respect other players' mental health and/or persons, nor their fun), it's the most miserable experience. Note that 7th Sea 2E is a walked back version of the mechanics.


pemerton said:


> I don't think this is true of Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP. I think it's a character advocacy system. (For the players. The GM has to think at the story level, and probably moreso than (say) Burning Wheel.)
> 
> I can't comment on Fate as I've never played or GMed it. Though I agree that, on reading, it seems to have story advocacy elements to it.



Fate makes a show of being "story-first" but fails to really support that all that well. At least, the mechanics as written are merely rules-light mostly-traditional with the ability to describe most mechanical elements as aspects, and fate points to create limits on abuse of the aspects. Not unlike 2d20, especially in the more recent versions.


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.



I'm not. Logic on its own outside the realm of pure mathematics) is nothing more than mental masturbation. I'm going with the person whose analysis is both logic driven _and ties to the observable facts_. If you get any incorrect facts into your logic then you can end up just about anywhere (Bertrand Russell notoriously proved that if 1+1=1 then he was the Pope).


FrogReaver said:


> Same here.  I think you are trying to conflate better understanding of the game with more correct analysis of the game and that's where I object.



I'd say that gaining a better understanding of the game should almost always lead to a better analysis in your own head.


FrogReaver said:


> I don't think it is happening at all.  Do you have any examples of anyone telling someone they are incorrect about how their game is played?  I'd love to see what's making you think someone is doing this.  My gut reaction is that you are conflating analysis with telling someone they are incorrect about how a game is played.



The problem here is that I'm pretty sure that you personally have introduced at least two to my certain knowledge incorrect analytical cases, one of which you've wanted to talk about at length and people have been asking you about. That one is your "authoring challenges out of existence". Unless you mean by way of a disintegration spell or equivalent I can not think of a game where you get to do this. When something is in the fiction _it is in the fiction_. Retcons are not something you get to do. Now you can go round it, subvert it, or be one step ahead so it's non-serious (as my example of buying magical endless rations showed). But you can't just say "that challenge was never there" except in the event of a complete screw-up and you are trying to bring that game back on track. 

An example would be if you were to introduce spider-monsters crawling all over someone and they were to hit the X-card because they had a debilitating fear of spiders rather than a normal one and were literally shaking and hyperventilating you might well replace the spiders with some other threat.


FrogReaver said:


> I thought you did an excellent job explaining the flashback mechanic.
> 
> 
> It depends on how you want to define authoring.  It's certainly not how I'm meaning it right now.  If one wants to call in fiction character actions an attempt to author I won't fault you for it.  I think I've used authoring that way earlier in this conversation as well.
> 
> But when I'm contrasting the difference of in character action resolution and authoring, I'm certainly not talking about 2 equivalent things.  If you want to say that the difference is types of authoring as opposed to authoring vs not, then I'm fine with that.  As long as some distinction is given.
> ...
> I'd describe the player's ability to shift the narrative in the game back to some past event so that some help may be had with the present obstacle as a very metagame thing to do.



The thing about the flashback mechanic is that it is very heavily a genre convention and is about as appropriate to other genres as wizards getting to cast fireballs is appropriate to most genres. The only two and a half games I can think of with it (Leverage and Blades in the Dark with the half being some Fate settings) are very explicitly heist games. And if you watch almost any heist movie or series (such as Ocean's X or Leverage, the latter of which was licensed for the game) then you frequently see flashback scenes where the flashback explains what was really going on and how although our characters appear to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle instead that's just how they want to look to the bad guy.

The flashback mechanic is in some ways meta because it's doing things out of chronological order for the characters. But it's doing things in exactly the same order you'd see it if you watched a show or a movie of what the characters did. Is it authoring? In the same way that casting disintegrate (or even fly) to eliminate problems is, yes. But it's entirely expected for the genre and if I want to play a heist game that doesn't take ridiculous amounts of time in planning it's the best way to do it.


FrogReaver said:


> The name Stress certainly has different connotations that would make it easy to assume things about it that weren't true.
> 
> I am curious on what it's supposed to represent in the fiction though?  Is it some kind of magical energy?  Something else?  Possibly abstract like D&D hp and can be one of many things at any given time?



Abstract - and it's also effectively your mental and emotional hit points. Run out of stress points and you're out for the rest of the heist and you take a trauma long term. 


FrogReaver said:


> There's a bit of a process going on there right?
> 
> 1.  Player describes the scene
> 2.  Stakes are set
> 3.  Success/Failure is determined via a die roll
> 4.  On a success the GM establishes new fiction in accordance with the player's desires.  On a crit the GM establishes something additionally good for the player.



Is now the time to open the can of worms about how the most likely outcome in some of these modern games is success-with-consequences. Which gives the GM a lot more control while at the same time meaning that player actions are more closely connected to the world?


----------



## aramis erak

Neonchameleon said:


> Is now the time to open the can of worms about how the most likely outcome in some of these modern games is success-with-consequences. Which gives the GM a lot more control while at the same time meaning that player actions are more closely connected to the world?



given the level of implication-of-badwrongfun as a continuous subtext in this thread? Probably not. 

But, what the hell... most of the time, in my experience, success with complication is best handled by group suggestion rather than GM fiat, because it is too common, so more brains on it is better.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> Speed of a vehicle can be objectively measured and has no moral value.



I disagree that speed has no moral value. As for measuring it objectively, I can legitimately say that for most of the journeys I take walking is faster than taking the plane and no amount of "but planes fly at 200mph" will make that incorrect.


Bedrockgames said:


> Also let's keep in mind how these arguments usually arise, someone says I like style A because style a gives me the most X, and the other side says, actually style B gives maximum X. And it happens so often, it doesn't feel like objective analysis.



And then, if the discussion is going anywhere the next question is "How does your style give maximum X?"

And as in this case we have all the people on side B showing _how _the player can have more agency with things like flashback mechanics or the effectiveness of things like the Fate approach or the GURPS approach or the D&D approach relating to playing a drunken character.

From side A we get back either attempts to understand, misrepresentations (and sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart), appeals to _different _values (such as "no metagaming") which are in and of themselves productive because they show a moral hierarchy, or frequently _crickets_.

One of my crickets examples on the subject of agency is asking people to explain how D&D 4e is any less empowering than e.g. 5e for the GM. I can give an obvious way where it's more empowering (a functional CR system with effects based monster creation makes improvising far easier) but no one has ever given me a direct answer to how 5e is more empowering for the DM other than that it's simpler to remember how to set the DCs if you don't have one tiny table that's on the DM screen to hand.


Bedrockgames said:


> It feels like these arguments are really just used to push playstyle.



And this, to me, feels like One True Way-ism. I run games including Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, _and _D&D (4e, 5e, and Rules Cyclopaedia). Each of them provides different things and player agency is not a D&D strength. But player agency isn't the only value_._ Some people like modern indie RPGs, some people like old school sandboxes, and some people like adventure paths. And each have things to offer - but in terms of player agency I've ranked them from high to low. 

In terms of expected longevity the rankings would be very different and the last Apocalypse World campaign I ran became a glorious player-driven trainwreck in just six sessions, complete with a satisfying and unplanned narrative arc for each of the PCs. That was quick by the standards of Apocalypse World - but I don't expect a campaign to last more than a dozen sessions. Is campaign longevity a value? I'd say yes. So is the accomplishment from conquering a sandbox and more agency would lower the challenge.

The biggest pushing of playstyles I see here is from people who think that their playstyle is The One True Way. And that although they claim (rightly) their playstyle allows for more player agency than adventure paths with pre-written plot do they really object to any suggestion that there's even more player agency possible.

And in my experience the people actually interested in player agency are very interested in what different games can do to maximise it, and in the trade-offs that come with it. I know if you tell me that a style gives greater player agency it's a selling point - but there's a reason that compacts and pickups are more popular than sports cars even if how fast your car goes is a selling point.


----------



## Neonchameleon

aramis erak said:


> given the level of implication-of-badwrongfun as a continuous subtext in this thread? Probably not.
> 
> But, what the hell... most of the time, in my experience, success with complication is best handled by group suggestion rather than GM fiat, because it is too common, so more brains on it is better.



A key thing about success with complications is whether the game was designed around it. Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both are - and a common feature of both games that makes them different from D&D is that the GM never picks up the dice. Instead things happen round the PCs (no need to roll for NPC on NPC action). Also there are normally a list of suggested (abstract with the GM making them concrete) options for failure; a fail is always a hard move picked by the GM. Is it fiat if picking from a list and it only happens in response to a failed roll or the players being utter twits and "giving you a golden opportunity"?


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> The thing about the flashback mechanic is that it is very heavily a genre convention and is about as appropriate to other genres as wizards getting to cast fireballs is appropriate to most genres. The only two and a half games I can think of with it (Leverage and Blades in the Dark with the half being some Fate settings) are very explicitly heist games. And if you watch almost any heist movie or series (such as Ocean's X or Leverage, the latter of which was licensed for the game) then you frequently see flashback scenes where the flashback explains what was really going on and how although our characters appear to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle instead that's just how they want to look to the bad guy.
> 
> The flashback mechanic is in some ways meta because it's doing things out of chronological order for the characters. But it's doing things in exactly the same order you'd see it if you watched a show or a movie of what the characters did. Is it authoring? In the same way that casting disintegrate (or even fly) to eliminate problems is, yes. But it's entirely expected for the genre and if I want to play a heist game that doesn't take ridiculous amounts of time in planning it's the best way to do it.



Flashbacks, in the sense of whole scenes recounting how a certain plan was made or a certain contingency anticipated, are - I agree - a heist movie thing.

But here is a weaker/looser sense of "flashback", in the sense of an appeal to past character experiences to explain something that occurs in the "present" of gameplay:

Gygax's DMG, p 20 This ability assumes that the language is, in fact, one which the thief has encountered sometime in the past. Ancient and strange languages (those you, as DM, have previously designated as such) are always totally unreadable. (Gygax's DMG, p 20)​
The move from this mechanic - where a failure seems potentially to imply something about what the PC _doesn't_ or _can't _remember - to a Wises check in Burning Wheel - where a failure might have a similar implication, and where a failure success establishes something that the character does remember - is not a massive one.

There is the caveat about languages deemed by the GM as unreadable. It reminds me of the caveat on the Apocalypse World move *open your brain* (AW p 88):

When you *open your brain to the world’s psychic maelstrom*, roll+weird. On a hit, the MC will tell you something new and interesting about the current situation, and might ask you a question or two; answer them. On a 10+, the MC will give you good detail. On a 7–9, the MC will give you an impression. If you already know all there is to know, the MC will tell you that.​
On p 204, Vincent Baker adds the following commentary/advice: 'The “you already know all there is to know” clause is there, but I’ve never used it and I hope you never do too.' In other words, there is an issue here of GMing ethos/agenda. Gygax's advice is oriented towards the possibility that the GM will have "secrets" from the players, or puzzles that the players can't gain answers to by deploying ordinary abilities (eg an ancient and strange language will need magic rather than just a thief or assassin to read it). Whereas Baker's advice is oriented towards "playing to find out" and the idea of the fiction "snowballing" as the players declare their PCs' actions.

I think it's fairly obvious that Gygax's ethos is oriented towards the GM maintaining a high degree of agency in respect of the shared fiction, whereas Baker's ethos is oriented towards letting the players take much of the lead in this respect.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> I disagree that speed has no moral value. As for measuring it objectively, I can legitimately say that for most of the journeys I take walking is faster than taking the plane and no amount of "but planes fly at 200mph" will make that incorrect.




Speed might be desireable, but it doesn't have the moral value that a concept like autonomy, agency or freedom has. When people talk about agency in literature, it is almost always in moral terms. When we talk about freedom or autonomy in society it is in moral terms. 

And speed can definitely be measured objectively. Just because different modes of transportation have other factors to consider beyond speed alone, when deciding which is optimal for a particular journey, doesn't mean speed can't be objective, or that objective speed measurements are somehow meaningless. It is a lot harder though to objectively measure something like freedom in a game.


----------



## Neonchameleon

pemerton said:


> I think it's fairly obvious that Gygax's ethos is oriented towards the GM maintaining a high degree of agency in respect of the shared fiction, whereas Baker's ethos is oriented towards letting the players take much of the lead in this respect.



I'd add to this that it is not a zero sum game. In Apocalypse World every failed skill check is a hard move - which pulls the GM into tweaking things and controlling things much more than in D&D.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> And as in this case we have all the people on side B showing _how _the player can have more agency with things like flashback mechanics or the effectiveness of things like the Fate approach or the GURPS approach or the D&D approach relating to playing a drunken character.
> 
> From side A we get back either attempts to understand, misrepresentations (and sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart), appeals to _different _values (such as "no metagaming") which are in and of themselves productive because they show a moral hierarchy, or frequently _crickets_.




No, both sides are making cases for their position. They are not doing a good job of persuading each other, but that doesn't mean both sides are not making arguments, some arguments are good, but not sound though. Asserting that you've demonstrated your position with examples, therefore people should agree, isn't how people work. I will say many of the arguments on your side are compelling. But many are also specious in my opinion (and I am sure the same goes for my side). But it is so easy in these discussions to have flawed premises, to equivocate (there has been a lot of this in my opinion) and to wrangle over highly subjective concepts. This is not the kind of discussion that can easily be distilled into cold logic and yield a result like "Game A produces maximum Z".

I don't mind having disagreements. I don't mind someone telling me they think I am wrong about something (I think like most people, I realize I can be wrong about stuff). I do mind some of the ways people on the other side have made their point (especially when it basically sounds like they are saying me, or others taking the position I am taking are stupid). People don't like being called idiots. Most of us have explained very clearly we don't play a lot of the games you do, and rely on your reports of those games to give our responses (and most of us have also declared an interest in trying such games; and we've pointed to some games in that orbit we've tried and liked). 

The other issue is jargon. Your side of the debate uses a lot of jargon, that my side of the debate simply doesn't use and has very little understanding of. We might be familiar with them, because we've had to look them up following conversations like this one. But we haven't internalized them the way you do. So this jargon often produces misunderstandings, but it also sometimes comes across, and in some cases I do think this is what its purpose is, as just being a way to make the other side capitulate a point (you see this all the time in arguments where people use some specialized language, and it has an intimidating effect, or makes the speaker sound more informed and thoughtful than they really are). 

I get that your side has a model of analysis it uses. That is find. But this model, and penchant for analysis, is routinely invoked to suggest you guys are saying something that is therefore objectively true and can't be disagreed with (and to disagree is to be illogical or non-analytical. No, we just don't live by the same model of understanding RPGs as you do. This is why, for example, I have never adopted some of the language you (like calling stuff that happens in the setting, 'the fiction').


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> Speed might be desireable, but it doesn't have the moral value that a concept like autonomy, agency or freedom has. When people talk about agency in literature, it is almost always in moral terms. When we talk about freedom or autonomy in society it is in moral terms.



I'm trying to avoid responding to this with a real world 2020 political example. So I'll respond with a real world 1860 example. One of the justifications behind slavery was freedom for people to do what they chose with their property. "Freedom" has never been an unquestioned good free from checks and balances.


Bedrockgames said:


> And speed can definitely be measured objectively. Just because different modes of transportation have other factors to consider beyond speed alone, when deciding which is optimal for a particular journey, doesn't mean speed can't be objective, or that objective speed measurements are somehow meaningless. It is a lot harder though to objectively measure something like freedom in a game.



An absolute player freedom scale is impossible. But you can say A > B if A can do everything that B can and then some other things.

Plenty of text has been spent showing how in some of these games the players have more freedom than in a D&D sandbox. However so far as I can tell there is not one single sentence showing that players are freer in a D&D sandbox than they are in a game of Apocalypse World. If you think you can do this I'd be delighted to see how. Because _literally nothing _has been brought forward as a possibility here that I have seen. (I'll admit I've probably missed about 50 pages in this thread and if it was in there I apologise).

And on the latest post I don't think that there's been a lot more jargon brought by one side than the other. On the contrary I'd say that my side has a clear and detailed understanding of your side's games (and, for that matter, play and run some of them) and the same is not remotely true of your side. It's not one side bringing more jargon, it's a huge knowledge gap.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I think it's fairly obvious that Gygax's ethos is oriented towards the GM maintaining a high degree of agency in respect of the shared fiction, whereas Baker's ethos is oriented towards letting the players take much of the lead in this respect.




Gygax certainly believed in giving the GM authority in the game as a referee. But I would say that isn't the same as agency. And I don't think Gygax was viewing it as something where the players lost agency just because the GM had said authority. It isn't a finite resource being divided. Again though, it depends on the view you take of agency. If you view agency as your ability to control the setting, then sure. But like others here, we are viewing agency as the freedom to explore the world and make meaningful choices in that world. Different points of view.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> I'm trying to avoid responding to this with a real world 2020 political example. So I'll respond with a real world 1860 example. One of the justifications behind slavery was freedom for people to do what they chose with their property. "Freedom" has never been an unquestioned good free from checks and balances.




That is still moral language (and that it is a morally flawed argument because uses the idea of freedom to take freedom away from someone). But in your example both sides see freedom as good and are vying for it. Possibly the main reason we detest slavery is it is considered a near total loss of freedom. 

Without getting into real world politics though, I think it is fair to say that freedom is something many people value as a concept and as an ideal, and that it is not a morally neutral idea.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Plenty of text has been spent showing how in some of these games the players have more freedom than in a D&D sandbox. However so far as I can tell there is not one single sentence showing that players are freer in a D&D sandbox than they are in a game of Apocalypse World. If you think you can do this I'd be delighted to see how. Because _literally nothing _has been brought forward as a possibility here that I have seen. (I'll admit I've probably missed about 50 pages in this thread and if it was in there I apologise).




No there are plenty of sentences on both sides showing more agency in each. We are just not persuading each other. Look, I am not going to sit here and discount all the posts on the other side. Some great posts have been made. Doesn't mean I agree with them, but I recognize a strong argument when I see it. But great posts have been made on this side as well. Plenty of people have explained why there is more freedom in a sandbox. You might not find those arguments persuasive because you take a different view, but those arguments have been made, and they have been made well.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> .
> 
> And on the latest post I don't think that there's been a lot more jargon brought by one side than the other. On the contrary I'd say that my side has a clear and detailed understanding of your side's games (and, for that matter, play and run some of them) and the same is not remotely true of your side. It's not one side bringing more jargon, it's a huge knowledge gap.




On point one: no, your side has been using lots of jargon. Not everyone has. But there is a lot more jargon on your side of the debate by any measure. On the second point, I am not so sure. I think some people understand it. It is clear a number don't. It is also clear most don't have the same response to it, or come at it from a slightly different angle (or required an 'aha' moment to grasp it at some point). For example one poster suggested they liked the sandbox style, but then elaborated that they came to it for very different reasons (so it was clear we were coming to these from very different perspectives).


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> If you view agency as your ability to control the setting, then sure. But like others here, we are viewing agency as the freedom to explore the world and make meaningful choices in that world. Different points of view.



And if you view it as this then there is _still _in my experience a far greater ability to explore and make meaningful choices in an off the cuff Apocalypse World setting than literally any D&D sandbox I have ever played in, no matter how much work the DM put in.

When it comes to making meaningful choices Apocalypse World leaves D&D so far in the dust it's not even funny. Every roll contains multiple meaningful choices; what you do, how you do it, and frequently with how much risk. Meanwhile a (non-4e) D&D martial character in combat is frequently short of them; their attacks are roughly the same and disengaging to run away is a bad choice so you swing at the target in reach (a just about meaningful choice) and automatically make a damage roll.

As for exploring the setting, the professions of D&D characters are all different types of adventurer. Apocalypse World gives you social connections to the town you find yourself in and collections of NPCs while the PCs have different power relations with them (rather than being outsiders) so you again explore frequently in much more detail.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> And this, to me, feels like One True Way-ism.




It isn't


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> I'd add to this that it is not a zero sum game. In Apocalypse World every failed skill check is a hard move - which pulls the GM into tweaking things and controlling things much more than in D&D.



I agree that it's not strictly zero sum. I posted a bit more about that upthread.

I don't agree that AW hard moves, or similar approaches to failure narration in a system like Burning Wheel, pull the GM into "tweaking" or "controlling" more than in D&D. Perhaps this is true in respect of immediate consequences in the fiction - for instance, a failed attempt to get information from a NPC is probably more likely to lead to them throwing a punch in AW, compared to just stonewalling in D&D. (Even that might depend on what if any reaction roll table - if any - is being used in the D&D game.) But I think the fact that the GM is responding to a situation that has been driven by the player, and that the GM does not have notes establishing a default of "status quo" ("there are no status quos in Apocalypse World"), helps maintain a higher degree of player agency over the shared fiction and its trajectory.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> And if you view it as this then there is _still _in my experience a far greater ability to explore and make meaningful choices in an off the cuff Apocalypse World setting than literally any D&D sandbox I have ever played in, no matter how much work the DM put in.




But my point is this is just your subjective experience. I don't have enough experience with Dungeon World to weigh in on its level of agency. I can say, much of what people who play it here have described about it, doesn't seem like it would provide more agency than a well run sandbox to me, but like I've been saying all thread, what matters is what works at the table, not arguments on a thread. So I would be totally open to the idea that the kind of agency I am talking about is present in AW (I am just not seeing it based on your descriptions of the game). And I should say, the amount of agency I feel in a sandbox is enormously high, so my bar would be pretty high on that front. I used to say immersion wasn't possible with narrative mechanics that allow the players to establish setting details, then I played Hillfolk and had to admit I was incredibly immersed. And like I said before, there are plenty of people who are open minded and curious about these games and willing to try them. But that doesn't mean we will have the same experience of them that you do (just like not everyone is going have the same experience with a sandbox). People think differently and react to systems differently.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> If you view agency as your ability to control the setting, then sure. But like others here, we are viewing agency as the freedom to explore the world and make meaningful choices in that world. Different points of view.



I think I've been crystal clear for the whole thread that I am referring to _agency over the shared fiction_. If the shared fiction consists to a significant extent of _the content of the GM's notes _then I don't think the players have a high degree of agency over it. Their primary function becomes _taking exploration-type actions that prompt the GM to reveal some of that content in his/her notes_. A really clear example of this sort of thing is a traditional CoC module.

The more the activity of play moves away from those exploration-type, prompting actions towards actions that realise player-generated agendas, the greater (in all likelihood) the player agency over the shared fiction. Suppose that player-generated agenda requires a secret way through a particular wall: if this now turns back into a _learn what the GM has decided about secret ways through this wall_ then play is returning to a lower player agency mode. A system like Burning Wheel, and in a different way Dungeon World, is intended (in part) to avoid such a return.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> When it comes to making meaningful choices Apocalypse World leaves D&D so far in the dust it's not even funny. Every roll contains multiple meaningful choices; what you do, how you do it, and frequently with how much risk. Meanwhile a (non-4e) D&D martial character in combat is frequently short of them; their attacks are roughly the same and disengaging to run away is a bad choice so you swing at the target in reach (a just about meaningful choice) and automatically make a damage roll.




But how you view this boils down a fundamental difference in our core assumption of play ( I think). Don't get me wrong, some games I like having lots of martial options. Heck I made a wuxia game with literally hundreds of kung fu techniques in it. But, I don't see all those kung fu techniques adding more agency. And to be clear, I understand what apocalypse world is doing, isn't buidling more crunch into combat, just using this as an example of having more choices in combat. If I want 100 percent maximum agency, in my opinion, the best way would be to have as few mechanics as possible, and to just let the player say what they try to do based on their character, and have the GM figure out on the fly what that does and how to resolve it mechanically (a ruling). Again, I haven't played apocalypse world, so I can't weigh in on its approach specifically. But I do think there is a big divide here over the role that GM rulings play (which is a crucial concept in sandbox, and a lot broader and more involved than in other styles of play IMO----there are pages and pages of blog entries and discussion on rulings alone).


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> But how you view this boils down a fundamental difference in our core assumption of play ( I think). Don't get me wrong, some games I like having lots of martial options. Heck I made a wuxia game with literally hundreds of kung fu techniques in it. But, I don't see all those kung fu techniques adding more agency.



There are, to me, a handful of things that enable and encourage agency in combat - and you're right that crescent kick vs spin kick isn't on the list however fun it is to decide. Off the top of my head they include:

Risk vs reward - do you take seemingly unnecessary risks in combat to get things done faster?
Risk self vs risk allies - do you let allies get hurt to keep yourself safe and on the back line or do you even jump in the way of attacks for them?
Environment, terrain, and situational factors - what makes _this_ fight different from any other and how can you use it?
How does the fight end? Is there any other way than death? And what do you do after?
Apocalypse World has every attack hitting the risk vs reward point because there are two basic attacks, one much higher risk than the other but also more likely to kill than the other. And even when the attack is made you probably have another risk vs reward choice as part of the resolution. It also has quite a bit to say about the other three points. oD&D has a lot on point 2 thanks to the hireling rules - but many Apocalypse World playbooks also have gangs.


Bedrockgames said:


> If I want 100 percent maximum agency, in my opinion, the best way would be to have as few mechanics as possible, and to just let the player say what they try to do based on their character, and have the GM figure out on the fly what that does and how to resolve it mechanically (a ruling).



To me this isn't actually great agency because the player can't really move with confidence without knowing the GM intimately. I want enough structure that I don't have to ask the odds of success - and knowing them means that I understand the world much better. There is however a difference between the common sandbox pattern of a character basically being Isikai'd into a strange world to explore the sandbox and someone who grew up there.

Interestingly Apocalypse World is built on the _rhythm_ of freeform RP. In freeform there are times you'd naturally hand over narration to either the GM or the other players because there's something that needs resolving - and the rules are designed to slot in at those moments so as to cause minimal disruption. (Vincent Baker's wife, Meguey Baker, is a freeform RPer by background and one of his goals in any design is to make her want to reach for the dice rather than have them imposed on her). It also has a lot of rulings (one for every failed roll) but very solid guidelines for them.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> To me this isn't actually great agency because the player can't really move with confidence without knowing the GM intimately. I want enough structure that I don't have to ask the odds of success - and knowing them means that I understand the world much better. There is however a difference between the common sandbox pattern of a character basically being Isikai'd into a strange world to explore the sandbox and someone who grew up there.




But can you understand that not everyone has this issue, that some of us see the human mind as the greatest enabler of the kind of agency you are talking about (at least for us----I get these are subjective, human interactions, and for some people a human referee might be a hindrance to that, without clear mechanisms for giving players more clarity for something). But for some of us, it is the ability of the GM to react to a player's declared actions with rulings, and even with fiat, that makes the possibilities feel infinite, that makes it feel like we have agency in the world, etc.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Interestingly Apocalypse World is built on the _rhythm_ of freeform RP. In freeform there are times you'd naturally hand over narration to either the GM or the other players because there's something that needs resolving - and the rules are designed to slot in at those moments so as to cause minimal disruption. (Vincent Baker's wife, Meguey Baker, is a freeform RPer by background and one of his goals in any design is to make her want to reach for the dice rather than have them imposed on her). It also has a lot of rulings (one for every failed roll) but very solid guidelines for them.




This about freeform narration. This is about the player says they want to do A then B, so that the opponent gets crushed by Y as they strike (some kind of involved and specific combat action, that is still within the fair parameters of action in a given moment), and the GM, because there is a vacuum around the rules on the declared action, customizes a way of managing it in that moment. The negative casting of this, is the GM may be wrong, the GM may come up with a bad solution. My experience is it is usually better when the GM is able to tailor these rulings to specific requests. Personally I am more concerned that the GM come up with a procedure for that moment. I am not worried about the probabilty consistency against simliar situations later on or something (as long as the ruling seemd fair and good at the time, which it usually does with most GMs I game with).


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> But can you understand that not everyone has this issue, that some of us see the human mind as the greatest enabler of the kind of agency you are talking about



The issue here isn't the human _mind. _It's the human _voice_. Which is pretty low bandwidth. If I just wanted human minds to be involved I'd give up on rules entirely and play freeform. Having the structure of rules enables us to use our minds to transcend more of the practical limitations.


Bedrockgames said:


> But for some of us, it is the ability of the GM to react to a player's declared actions with rulings, and even with fiat, that makes the possibilities feel infinite, that makes it feel like we have agency in the world, etc.



Indeed. Also for some of us it's the safety ropes that enable us to decide that climbing cliffsides is something other than suicidal, that makes us want to do it. But that doesn't mean that the safety rope actually being used means that things are going well.

Which means simultaneously I want the GM to be _able to _make rulings - but to do it _as little as practical and to do it unobtrusively_. The Apocalypse World rhythm helps it be unobtrusive.


----------



## Maxperson

Bedrockgames said:


> *No there are plenty of sentences on both sides showing more agency in each.* We are just not persuading each other. Look, I am not going to sit here and discount all the posts on the other side. Some great posts have been made. Doesn't mean I agree with them, but I recognize a strong argument when I see it. But great posts have been made on this side as well. Plenty of people have explained why there is more freedom in a sandbox. You might not find those arguments persuasive because you take a different view, but those arguments have been made, and they have been made well.



In my opinion that's because there isn't more agency in either one.  They are completely different playstyles.  It's apples and oranges.  Rather than more agency in one style or the other, it's that they have different agency.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> This about freeform narration. This is about the player says they want to do A then B, so that the opponent gets crushed by Y as they strike (some kind of involved and specific combat action, that is still within the fair parameters of action in a given moment), and the GM, because there is a vacuum around the rules on the declared action, customizes a way of managing it in that moment.



Except there is very seldom a complete vacuum in Apocalypse World. It has the rhythm not the lawlessness of freeform. And even when there is a vacuum there are decent guidelines (and fall back on "do what honesty demands").

There is a lot of MC ruling (such as on every failed roll because it's a 'Hard Move') but this is not _at all_ the same as having to break into my visualisation and understanding to ask the GM "What happens if I try this" - I know what if I succeed and what the odds are.  And because I've handed over the narration it's not some berk at the top of the wall saying "you can't go any further until we've reset the ropes" just while I'm stretching for a new handhold. It's me waiting somewhere I can sit down and take a drink of water. It may take as long (it probably won't - AW is pretty slick) but it's a much nicer place to rest.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> The issue here isn't the human _mind. _It's the human _voice_. Which is pretty low bandwidth. If I just wanted human minds to be involved I'd give up on rules entirely and play freeform. Having the structure of rules enables us to use our minds to transcend more of the practical limitations.



I am not sure what you mean by voice here. But my point is simply can you understand that not everyone sees this or experiences this the same way as you, when it comes to GM power in an RPG. That for some of us, it is much more liberating to have the GM wield authority to make rulings freely


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Except there is very seldom a complete vacuum in Apocalypse World.




Again, haven't played it to comment enough on it specifically, but is this maybe part of the divide? I am not 100% sure what you mean by no vacuum. But if I am specifically saying the thing I like, and find most freeing, is the space created by a vacuum in the rules, and you say AW has no such vacuum, it would seem reasonable that someone with my stated preference would find that aspect of AW less freeing (or at least your description of it is creating an impression that I would)


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not sure what you mean by voice here. But my point is simply can you understand that not everyone sees this or experiences this the same way as you, when it comes to GM power in an RPG. That for some of us, it is much more liberating to have the GM wield authority to make rulings freely



By "voice" I mean your literal voice. When you open your mouth, air passes over your larynx, and by modulating it that transforms into words.

And it is low bandwidth, period. I do not talk as fast as I read. And I do not read as fast as I think. I believe that this is true for almost every literate adult.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> it's not some berk at the top of the wall saying "you can't go any further until we've reset the ropes" just while I'm stretching for a new handhold. It's me waiting somewhere I can sit down and take a drink of water.




This is not how I experience what I am talking about


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> By "voice" I mean your literal voice. When you open your mouth, air passes over your larynx, and by modulating it that transforms into words.
> 
> And it is low bandwidth, period. I do not talk as fast as I read. And I do not read as fast as I think. I believe that this is true for almost every literate adult.




I am not understanding your point in raising voice then


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, haven't played it to comment enough on it specifically, but is this maybe part of the divide? I am not 100% sure what you mean by no vacuum. But if I am specifically saying the thing I like, and find most freeing, is the space created by a vacuum in the rules, and you say AW has no such vacuum, it would seem reasonable that someone with my stated preference would find that aspect of AW less freeing (or at least your description of it is creating an impression that I would)



And here's where I'm getting confused.

If you find the game most freeing where there are no rules _why bother playing D&D at all and not just going freeform_. Freeform does have some major advantages. What does having the rules provide you?

It provides me with scaffolding so I don't have to stop and ask the DM everything, and it provides me structure. And it influences the tone.


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> By "voice" I mean your literal voice. When you open your mouth, air passes over your larynx, and by modulating it that transforms into words.
> 
> And it is low bandwidth, period. I do not talk as fast as I read. And I do not read as fast as I think. I believe that this is true for almost every literate adult.



It may not be as fast, but if I can imagine it, I can generally speak it.  It's rare that I'm at a loss for words.  I don't think voice is nearly as limited as you are making it out to be.


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> And here's where I'm getting confused.
> 
> If you find the game most freeing where there are no rules _why bother playing D&D at all and not just going freeform_. Freeform does have some major advantages. What does having the rules provide you?
> 
> It provides me with scaffolding so I don't have to stop and ask the DM everything, and it provides me structure. And it influences the tone.



Because there is merit to limitation.  Look at D&D and most other games.  They all set limits and those limits define much of the game.  You can only be one race.  You start with one class and sometimes you can't switch or add new ones.  Hit points and the like limit the damage you can take.  Limitations are a good thing, but like anything else, if taken to an extreme become bad.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not understanding your point in raising voice then



You don't find time to be important? Let's try and put it in terms I think you'll understand.

Immersion is, to me, flow within the gameworld. And I keep it in part by having an understanding of the world and being able to act on that. Every time I stop focusing on the world and have to interact with the structures _it breaks my immersion_. And asking the GM takes longer than checking my character sheet. I am sufficiently numerate (I accept not everyone is) that I can keep track especially of a streamlined character sheet like the Apocalypse World one. Any back and forth about what I can do and how likely it is with the GM that I can do such and such a thing chips away at my immersion while doing it - and the longer it takes the more damaging.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Maxperson said:


> It may not be as fast, but if I can imagine it, I can generally speak it.  It's rare that I'm at a loss for words.  I don't think voice is nearly as limited as you are making it out to be.



How long does it take?

The particular part that gets me is the odds of success. When I do something in the real world I generally have a pretty good idea of how likely it is to work. Which means it's part of what I want from a ruling - but things like that take time.

Time is important for flow and thus immersion.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Maxperson said:


> Because there is merit to limitation.  Look at D&D and most other games.  They all set limits and those limits define much of the game.  You can only be one race.  You start with one class and sometimes you can't switch or add new ones.  Hit points and the like limit the damage you can take.  Limitations are a good thing, but like anything else, if taken to an extreme become bad.



And why do you think freeform games can't have limits?


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> How long does it take?



Unless the person is a very slow talker, it doesn't really matter in my opinion.  These games are open ended, so we will get there and have a grand time.


Neonchameleon said:


> The particular part that gets me is the odds of success. When I do something in the real world I generally have a pretty good idea of how likely it is to work. Which means it's part of what I want from a ruling - but things like that take time.
> 
> Time is important for flow and thus immersion.



I suppose that would be system dependent.  In D&D it takes me very little time to set a DC after a player describes to me what he wants his PC to do.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> And here's where I'm getting confused.
> 
> If you find the game most freeing where there are no rules _why bother playing D&D at all and not just going freeform_. Freeform does have some major advantages. What does having the rules provide you?




I don't play D&D much these days. If I do, it tends to be things like the ODD and Moldvay. Mostly I play other games (including the ones I make).  

But to answer the question, because I find having no rules, not to be fun. I don't want freeform. I want space for rulings. You've been talking a lot about combat so in combat, I find, more and more, I just enjoy having as simple a system as possible, that enables the kinds of rulings I am talking about (I basically want rules, but rules that don't get in the way of the player being able to say what they want to try, and the GM being able to respond with either a handy rule in the book or formulating a ruling (and I think the more a game leans on rulings in terms of what rules it actually puts in the book, the more I enjoy the game lately).


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> And why do you think freeform games can't have limits?



I'm sure that they can, but those limits will be rules.  You cannot have "no rules" and "game limits" in the same game.  The level of rules impacts the amount of freedom you have.  The more rules you have, the less freedom you have.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Immersion is, to me, flow within the gameworld. And I keep it in part by having an understanding of the world and being able to act on that. Every time I stop focusing on the world and have to interact with the structures _it breaks my immersion_. And asking the GM takes longer than checking my character sheet. I am sufficiently numerate (I accept not everyone is) that I can keep track especially of a streamlined character sheet like the Apocalypse World one. Any back and forth about what I can do and how likely it is with the GM that I can do such and such a thing chips away at my immersion while doing it - and the longer it takes the more damaging.




Okay. Yes, I don't actually mind having a back and forth with the GM if we are hashing out things. I do mind time in terms of how long a rule takes to deploy (so anything that becomes a mini-game, I tend to get bored with quickly). But any amount of back and forth usually feels pretty seamless to me


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> The particular part that gets me is the odds of success. When I do something in the real world I generally have a pretty good idea of how likely it is to work. Which means it's part of what I want from a ruling - but things like that take time.




I very rarely know my actual probabilty of success in the real world. All I have is a gut instinct, which is sometimes wrong. Also, if the GM is making reasonable rulings, it is usually not that hard to gauge in my experience (especially once you've been in a few sessions with the same GM). Not saying this isn't an issue for you. If it is, obviously play what game works for you. Just for me this is pretty much a non-issue.


----------



## Maxperson

Neonchameleon said:


> You don't find time to be important? Let's try and put it in terms I think you'll understand.
> 
> Immersion is, to me, flow within the gameworld. And I keep it in part by having an understanding of the world and being able to act on that. Every time I stop focusing on the world and have to interact with the structures _it breaks my immersion_. And asking the GM takes longer than checking my character sheet. I am sufficiently numerate (I accept not everyone is) that I can keep track especially of a streamlined character sheet like the Apocalypse World one. Any back and forth about what I can do and how likely it is with the GM that I can do such and such a thing chips away at my immersion while doing it - and the longer it takes the more damaging.





Bedrockgames said:


> Okay. Yes, I don't actually mind having a back and forth with the GM if we are hashing out things. I do mind time in terms of how long a rule takes to deploy (so anything that becomes a mini-game, I tend to get bored with quickly). But any amount of back and forth usually feels pretty seamless to me



I think this again goes to different playstyles and how the agency isn't necessarily greater or lesser, but different.  We're all different people with different capabilities and desires.  What seems limiting or freeing to one person may not be for another.


----------



## FrogReaver

On GM decisions by fiat:

I see examples of GM's in other systems making a ruling and I'm told that it's not fiat because there's some general principle written in the rules pages that is guiding that decision.  Okay that's fair, but if all it takes is some kind of guiding principle or reason to make something not be fiat, then I'd have to say that in the great history of RPG's very few if any DM decisions have ever been made by fiat as defined this way.  Whether explicit to the system or not, GM's tend to have guiding principles and reasons for their decisions.


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> So when in a D&D session a few weeks back I bought some magical rations that were ever-refilling and the DM told us the next session we might be running low on food so I pointed out I'd bought supplies (in part because I expected something like that) I was authoring the removal of an obstacle? If that's what you mean by it then fine. It's also what approximately a quarter of the D&D spell list is designed for.
> 
> If so, fair enough. I just don't see why this is an issue.



That's not at all an example of what I mean by authoring the removal of an obstacle.  In your example above there's more than one reason it doesn't fit.

1.  It was simply a reminder to the DM that something had occurred in the fiction which should have prevented the obstacle he was trying to place.  
2.  This is not an example of removing an avoiding one in the first place.
3.  This was accomplished via in-fiction, in-character play.

Any one of those things would have made it not be an example of what I'm talking about.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Maxperson said:


> In my opinion that's because there isn't more agency in either one.  They are completely different playstyles.  It's apples and oranges.  Rather than more agency in one style or the other, it's that they have different agency.



Good luck with that argument! I mean it is obviously true, but I've been saying it for over hundred pages now with no success.


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> Well, yeah. Which is why literally no game I can think of does it this way. Almost every game I can think of where you are expected to pick flaws in advance



Well then, it's a good thing I was talking about picking flaws at char gen and made that clear in my post.  Why are you acting like I didn't?




Neonchameleon said:


> It's like the authoring out a problem issue. "This would be a bad way to do things" isn't much of an argument when just about no game that intends to do the things you are talking about does things the way you are proposing to be a bad way.



You've demonstrated you don't even know what I mean by authoring out a problem, so how can you say anything about whether any games actually employ that technique or not?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This assertion is contentious.



I dislike replying with just questions but you didn't leave me much to go on.

Howso?  Which part?


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> I've run Blades. And the GM's scope isn't _that _tight until the players are rocking stats of 3s and 4s. If the GM wants to make something almost impossible they can pull the tier rules. If the GM wants more mooks they just need one roll of a 1-3 on the dice to announce reinforcements.
> 
> Of course a GM who's acting in good faith shouldn't and I hope wouldn't do this. But the tools actually exist to do it.



@hawkeyefan 

This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.  Now imagine if I had taken one of those descriptions to heart, then anyone discussing with me that had played and disagreed with that posters description would also disagree with most analysis I'm doing on that basis.  

Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play.  I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Time is important for flow and thus immersion.




This is an issue where I have seriously relaxed my thinking the more I have focused on what works at the table for me (versus positions I staked out in online conversations). Sometimes while defending a concept like sandbox or immersion, I've staked out principles, and even if these principles seemed to be about right in a lot of cases, often times they weren't, because they were a crude explanation for what was actually making me tick (I know I have made numerous points like this throughout the thread, but repeating them here since, given the size of the thread, you likely didn't see them unless you were combing finely over every post). Sometimes these were sound principles but they missed some subtle nuance (like I don't like X, actually turned out to be I don't like a lot of X, or I don't like X when I notice X--------and sometimes there was an actual mistaken causal link because of the presence of X). I value immersion, but I realized immersion isn't this thing that has to be constant and unbroken for me. I would take somewhat unreasonable positions to defend the principles of immersion I laid out. And this impacted my table play because I stopped doing things that were in principle supposed to ruin immersion, but in practice fun and part of the game. Not saying this at all what is going on with you, just emphasizing this to explain why I keep going back to play at the table, being wary of game analysis (even my own at times). 

Another place I saw this, and again something I've mentioned countless times on this thread, Is with Hillfolk. Where in principle I didn't think I would like it on immersive grounds (because players could narrate things into existence, and because it had a lot of meta mechanics for the drama). But in practice it felt like that same moment when I first played D&D and a spark went off in my brain because I was so immersed in the world (except in this case I was immersed in a world that felt like one of those old made for TV miniseries in the 70s and 80s).


----------



## Manbearcat

Going through life without being able to tightly predict the odds of success of almost any action I take is completely alien to me.

I'm 43.  I spent all of my life in athletics, martial arts, and in the sciences and having dealt with numerical and spatial relationships constantly.  I don't know what the background is of folks who feel like its "not immersive or counterintuitive to have a deep understanding of their prospects for any action", but it has to be profoundly different than my own.

I can think of more than 5 dozen physical things, from running to climbing to swimming to grappling to ball sports to workout metrics (ranging from the specific to the general), that I can predict with an extremely low margin of error (even things where there are variables that I can't know); within 5 %.  When it comes to approximating distances/spatial relationships or time passed within a relatively short interval (say 2 hours) I'm very precise.

And (as I wrote upthread), when it comes to conversation/argument, I'm very confident, no matter how persuasive and informed I am on a subject, I can move a position-entrenched person off of their position less than 5 % of the time!

So I go into almost every physical endeavor (whether its me against static obstacle or me against another party) knowing what my prospects are within a very small margin of error.  Likewise, if I go into a parley/conversation with another committed party (who has something they are unwilling to give up), I know I have very little chance to get them to give it up!  

What sort of margin of error do some of you guys think you're working with when you try to predict your prospects in any given arena?


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> The problem is that most discursive logic is not necessarily about "better logic" or what actually is the "most logical" as a lot of our sense of logic is also informed and guided by our own biases, preconceptions, and past experiences. This is to say, you likely find the people who tend to be most convincing and logical likely also are supporting your own preconceived notions and viewpoints. This is how appeals to "logic" can be quite (unintentionally) self-deceptive. This is also why people also appeal to possessing the additional perspective of firsthand experience with playing/running game systems, because logic on its own doesn't cut it.



They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.  Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?



Aldarc said:


> This assertion is also at odds with a number of your own points in this debate about how you claimed that certain arguments people made were not consistent with your own experiences playing your game (system/style/mode) of choice.



I disagree.  It's a long thread so I'm not going to ask you to dig up any of those examples, but if you see one going forward then point it out so that I at least have a chance to defend myself from your attack that I'm being inconsistent.



Aldarc said:


> likely for the self-serving purposes of reinforcing preconceptions and biases or to "win" debates rather than to come to an actual good faith understanding.



You don't get to insinuate that I am acting in bad faith.  That's not cool.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> @hawkeyefan
> 
> This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.  Now imagine if I had taken one of those descriptions to heart, then anyone discussing with me that had played and disagreed with that posters description would also disagree with most analysis I'm doing on that basis.
> 
> Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play.  I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.




I'm skimming the thread and I briefly saw that statement by @Neonchameleon and I just knew that it was going to create fallout of this exact variety (you posting these words 100 %) because the statement (at face value) is completely anathema to running a Blades game with integrity and by the rules and muddies the water that I (and others) have tried to clarify in this prolonged conversation.

I'm assuming what he's saying here (and you'll have to clarify @Neonchameleon ) that "the game tech exists in Blades to completely and obviously play without integrity and pull obvious nonsense like "HEY GUYS, I KNOW YOU'RE DOING A DECEPTION SCORE AT ULF IRONBORN'S (TIER 1) GAMBLING DEN (eg an elaborate dealing from the bottom of the deck/signalling heist with 3 members of the Crew secretly playing cards collectively against 3 individual member's of Ulf's Crew) AND THE POSITION OF YOUR ACTION ROLL IS ONLY RISKY BUT OMG A 1-3 (!)...RIGHT BEFORE YOU WIN AND GET THE COIN FROM YOUR SCORE, THE SPIRIT WARDENS (TIER 4) EXPLODE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR AND EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL AS THEY TRY TO CONTAIN A ROGUE SPIRIT LIKE THE GHOSTBUSTERS DESTROYING THE HOTEL AS THEY TRY TO CAPTURE SLIMER!"

That doesn't follow the rules for Position Complication handling and it defies the GMing Goals, Actions, and Principles Six Ways to Sunday...basically the integrity of the game is ruined. That doesn't even amount to farce.  Its basically a suicide mission by the GM to destroy their game.

Even throttling that back on several different axes, its going to be bloody obvious if the GM either (a) doesn't know what they're doing or (b) isn't playing with integrity.  There is no version of even the most modest form of "rocks fall, you die" in Blades.  Its too tightly structured, too player-facing, the rules are too intuitive, and the difference between poor GMing/good GMing and best practices/worst practices are far too blatant.

So, I'm pretty confident that @Neonchameleon just meant that the action resolution mechanics (utterly by themselves...removed from the holistic synthesis with the rest of the game) allow for incompetent play/GMing and GMing without integrity (regardless how obvious it will be that its incompetent and without integrity).  Yes, any game with a death wish can degenerate to Calvinball.  "Because humans."  That is not a very bold thesis!


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> So if you value speed in cars being told that another car is faster than yours or that F1 cars or Indy 500 cars are faster than stock cars is offensive?



Is your point that everything I value must be valued equally, such that if I value agency then it must be to the same degree and similar way that I value car speed?  If not, then what does cars and their speed matter?

Or is it just that value isn't a sufficient word to describe what's going on?




Neonchameleon said:


> Me, if I value something and someone else tells me that something else does it better my reaction isn't "that's offensive" it's "that's interesting. How does it do that?"



I would say the offensive part is the implied:
"you say you like agency, well this game has more, so you should try it as you should like it more, and if you don't I guess that means you didn't really value agency that much to begin with"



Neonchameleon said:


> This comes twice over when the people saying that are familiar with both sides of the argument - and almost everyone posting on ENWorld (a D&D forum) also plays D&D so they are familiar with both approaches. This isn't "Fans of game A vs fans of game B" - it's "fans of _both _coming down very consistently on the side of B doing this specific thing better".



I don't think so.  Have you heard @pemerton talk about D&D?



Neonchameleon said:


> And "a is better than b at x" is not in and of itself offensive.



I think it depends on what a and b are.  



Neonchameleon said:


> Even if it isn't true then you start by assuming good faith on the other side.



I do.  If I wasn't assuming good faith I wouldn't be discussing this.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.



If you want to make such sort of "not cool" insinuations, then one could thereby insinuate from the above statement that you make an appeal to logic so you can sidestep actual evidence or experience and attempt to wrestle authority that way. In the case of discussing the play of games, then it seems that firsthand experience of playing said games would be relevant.

One would hope, for example, that someone reviewing a video game has experience playing it, and that the opinion of someone who has played the video game would be more relevant and meaningful for discussing what gameplay is like than a smooth-talker with a half-baked opinion who hasn't.



FrogReaver said:


> Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?



Honestly? Yes, though I personally doubt you would have the exact same opinions. That rudimentary knowledge would at least give you better grounding and foundation for your argument than not. Imagine if the situation was reversed. Would you be appealing to "whoever makes the most logical argument," if you knew that your opposition had no actual experience running/playing D&D? I have difficulties imagining that this would be the case. The lack of experience would likely be your main point of criticism. How could they know how play operates for either GM agency or player agency in D&D if they didn't have any experience with the game under their belt? It would likely seem absurd to you, like a baseless argument.

Consider, for example in this very thread, how @prabe has stated that they played Fate for a year and they found the game not to their liking, which is perfectly fine. But shared first-hand knowledge of gameplay in Fate means that having a good faith conversation with prabe about Fate does not require arguing too many basic points about how the game works, and they can point to particular issues that they experienced. @aramis erak likewise has firsthand experience with Fate. If we discussed it, we may not agree on everything, but we likely could respect the fact that we both have experience running/playing Fate, and we would know that our opinions are informed by said experiences.



FrogReaver said:


> I disagree.  It's a long thread so I'm not going to ask you to dig up any of those examples, but if you see one going forward then point it out so that I at least have a chance to defend myself from your attack that I'm being inconsistent.



My goal is not to attack any inconsistency on your part, but, rather, to raise the point that I believe you underestimate the importance that your personal game experience factors into what you deem as "logical analysis" and how analysis at odds with actual experience often falls flat.



FrogReaver said:


> You don't get to insinuate that I am acting in bad faith.  That's not cool.



But somehow it's cool to insinuate that your opponents in this discussion are just appealing to firsthand experience so they can gain for authority over the topic?

Look, my point is not to insinuate bad faith on your part. My point here is that logic without evidence or experience regarding these games results in logic detached from reality, and this can be a dark area IME for bad faith arguments. Logic is not somehow the end all be all "good" of internet discussion that some people fetishize it as. I don't think that humans are fully rational. Much like Hume, I increasingly think that humans are ultimately biological creatures guided by their passions who use logic as window-dressing. But an important step for discussion often involves recognizing that our logic is not somehow impervious to the influence of our passions, experiences, and biases. Experience plays an important role for almost all discussions in these threads.


----------



## Bedrockgames

On the while predicting things in life @Manbearcat (and responding because you raise an interesting point): for me all I have is a vague sense. My background is in martial arts, boxing, music, my formal education in history and philosophy. Not a strong math person. I could not give you a numerical probability for anything I do. Vague odds maybe. But especially with something like martial arts or boxing, I think those situations are far too fluid and unpredictable to give concrete percentages on my chance of landing a specific punch (might be able to guess my rough odds against someone based on size, experience, etc; but that still is hard to be sure of). Needless to say, I think we view the world very differently despite sharing some things in common


----------



## Manbearcat

Bedrockgames said:


> On the while predicting things in life @Manbearcat (and responding because you raise an interesting point): for me all I have is a vague sense. My background is in martial arts, boxing, music, my formal education in history and philosophy. Not a strong math person. I could not give you a numerical probability for anything I do. Vague odds maybe. But especially with something like martial arts or boxing, I think those situations are far too fluid and unpredictable to give concrete percentages on my chance of landing a specific punch (might be able to guess my rough odds against someone based on size, experience, etc; but that still is hard to be sure of). Needless to say, I think we view the world very differently despite sharing some things in common



Let me give you a few examples that you can apply to your own experience.

I'm a 5'11", 185 lb fit male with a lot of wrestling history and a Brown Belt in BJJ, so I'm extremely heavy-hipped.  My top game, half-guard, and underhook/overhook will control the overwhelming % of humans on this planet.  Consequently, if I'm grappling with a Blue Belt who doesn't have a VERRRRRRRY specific type of physical makeup + a Choke game that is well above their level (there are a very few number of people like this...but they are unbelievably remote), any given 10 minute session is going to lead to me both (a) controlling the action for the duration and (b) virtually never getting tapped.  The other party is going to be controlled, under duress and in danger of getting tapped via Choke or Kimura for the duration of the 10 minutes.

I can estimate that any 10 minute session with a Blue Belt (or below) will follow a very specific map 95+ % of the time.  

If I'm rolling Action Resolution for any given "move" in that interval I know with extreme certainty the % chance that it will be successful based on a few specific contextual parameters.  If you ask me to roll Conflict Resolution to abstract that session, it should be around 95 % success rate.

That is what I'm talking about.

When you've spared with people (after watching them move before hand and feeling them out for the first 30 seconds or so), don't you have a very strong idea of how the sparring session will go/watch you can get away with (eg, your Check Left Hook counter won't work off of their Jab because they immediately feint away from it after a Jab)?


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> Any one of those things would have made it not be an example of what I'm talking about.



OK.

Which is why I'm challenging you to come up with a real world example of a player authoring out a problem. Because, so far as you have explained it _I can not think of one single game in which this happens._ You are, so far as I can tell, talking about a strawman when you talk about a player authoring out a problem.

So I am once again challenging you to show an example that would be legitimate in an RPG of your choice.  Because right now your objection here appears to be you inventing something something that does not happen then using this thing entirely invented by you as an objection to games where this is not legal.


FrogReaver said:


> Well then, it's a good thing I was talking about picking flaws at char gen and made that clear in my post.  Why are you acting like I didn't?



I'm not. I'm clarifying things to make sure that you are either talking about games that are either extremely obscure or are complete strawmen. Literally every game I can think of with disadvantages you pick at chargen that give you the benefit at chargen rather than in play that has them built into rather than tacked onto the game has a form of point buy where disadvantages can have variable prices. There may be a few where there's random chargen - and rolling a bad disadvantage is a problem in the same way rolling a bad stat is, but for these that's also part of the expected game.

So once again you were inventing a problem that may exist in your head but does not exist in real world RPGs.


FrogReaver said:


> You've demonstrated you don't even know what I mean by authoring out a problem, so how can you say anything about whether any games actually employ that technique or not?



On the contrary. I was clarifying what you meant. Making sure that it wasn't what _might_ be an awkward way of expressing something that might appear in the real world.


FrogReaver said:


> This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.



This is a misunderstanding.

We both agree on how Blades is intended to be played. What we're disagreeing on is whether something is actively against the rules or just pretty obviously bad practice but something that can be done in theory.


FrogReaver said:


> Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play.  I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.



But we weren't saying that. I wasn't saying "this is how I play" or "this is how it should be played" but "This is not technically against the rules".


FrogReaver said:


> Is your point that everything I value must be valued equally, such that if I value agency then it must be to the same degree and similar way that I value car speed?  If not, then what does cars and their speed matter?



I'm not sure where on earth this came from. I'm pointing out that you can value things _and this is not a moral judgement_. And that there are legitimate reasons for picking things that do not have the highest results on what you value.


FrogReaver said:


> I would say the offensive part is the implied:
> "you say you like agency, well this game has more, so you should try it as you should like it more, and if you don't I guess that means you didn't really value agency that much to begin with"



Replace "agency" with "speed".

"You say you like fast cars. You should try this one if you ever get a chance. I think you'll like it more because it's faster." This is not an offensive statement.

It may possibly be offensive to say "Rather than actually look at the track performance you're just going to claim that that hatchback of yours _must _be at least as fast. I'm pretty sure that at this point it's not speed you are interested in." but so is "lalalala no it isn't! Mine's the fastest around! Yours can't possibly be faster!" or even "They're all equally fast! No matter whether they do different things in different ways they must be as fast as each other!"

And if the problem is either the "moral weight" behind the word agency or the idea that other games might have more player agency than theirs then those people should never again say that their game offers more agency than an adventure path because they are wilfully giving offence when they say this.


FrogReaver said:


> I don't think so.  Have you heard @pemerton talk about D&D?



Given the amount of D&D and especially 4e I know he's run I would be confident calling him a fan. It might be that 4e's the only edition he's actually a fan of.


FrogReaver said:


> I think it depends on what a and b are.



And "properties in a game" is among the less offensive ones.


FrogReaver said:


> They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.  Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?



I think that if you claimed to have played those games and came back with your same exact opinions that it would be proof positive that you either had not actually played those games or you had gone in to those games determined to force your way of looking at them onto those games rather than with an open mind. Because they do not work the way your objections claim they do.


FrogReaver said:


> I do.  If I wasn't assuming good faith I wouldn't be discussing this.



I'm doing my best to assume good faith from you - but there reaches a point and you're pretty close to it where good faith _does not matter._ I'll stick to the good games that exist in the real world and we talk about and play in the real world, not the ones that you are talking about that so far as I can tell do not actually exist.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Look, my point is not to insinuate bad faith on your part.



It may not be your point, but in trying to make your point you did.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> It may not be your point, but in trying to make your point you did.



This seems like the least pressing issue to take away from my post, particularly after my clarification on that matter.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Manbearcat said:


> I'm assuming what he's saying here (and you'll have to clarify @Neonchameleon ) that "the game tech exists in Blades to completely and obviously play without integrity and pull obvious nonsense like "HEY GUYS, I KNOW YOU'RE DOING A DECEPTION SCORE AT ULF IRONBORN'S (TIER 1) GAMBLING DEN (eg an elaborate dealing from the bottom of the deck/signalling heist with 3 members of the Crew secretly playing cards collectively against 3 individual member's of Ulf's Crew) AND THE POSITION OF YOUR ACTION ROLL IS ONLY RISKY BUT OMG A 1-3 (!)...RIGHT BEFORE YOU WIN AND GET THE COIN FROM YOUR SCORE, THE SPIRIT WARDENS (TIER 4) EXPLODE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR AND EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL AS THEY TRY TO CONTAIN A ROGUE SPIRIT LIKE THE GHOSTBUSTERS DESTROYING THE HOTEL AS THEY TRY TO CAPTURE SLIMER!"
> 
> That doesn't follow the rules for Position Complication handling and it defies the GMing Goals, Actions, and Principles Six Ways to Sunday...basically the integrity of the game is ruined. That doesn't even amount to farce.  Its basically a suicide mission by the GM to destroy their game.
> 
> 
> Even throttling that back on several different axes, its going to be bloody obvious if the GM either (a) doesn't know what they're doing or (b) isn't playing with integrity.  There is no version of even the most modest form of "rocks fall, you die" in Blades.  Its too tightly structured, too player-facing, the rules are too intuitive, and the difference between poor GMing/good GMing and best practices/worst practices are far too blatant.
> 
> So, I'm pretty confident that @Neonchameleon just meant that the action resolution mechanics (utterly by themselves...removed from the holistic synthesis with the rest of the game) allow for incompetent play/GMing and GMing without integrity (regardless how obvious it will be that its incompetent and without integrity).  Yes, any game with a death wish can degenerate to Calvinball.  "Because humans."  That is not a very bold thesis!



To clarify I meant something only slightly more modest than that. That a GM _can_ ditch the goals and principles because these are not hardcoded rules. And then sticking with the actions they can get something only a little less extreme than this outcome.

However they emphatically should not do this and they _should _stick with the game's goals and principles. So pretty close. The GM can drop the tarrasque on a low level party in almost any game - and they should not do it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> OK.
> 
> Which is why I'm challenging you to come up with a real world example of a player authoring out a problem. Because, so far as you have explained it _I can not think of one single game in which this happens._ You are, so far as I can tell, talking about a strawman when you talk about a player authoring out a problem.



So me asking a question about a playstyle suddenly becomes - inventing a strawman?  You realize that's how this whole tangent of a discussion began right?



Neonchameleon said:


> I'm not. I'm clarifying things to make sure that you are either talking about games that are either extremely obscure or are complete strawmen. Literally every game I can think of with disadvantages you pick at chargen that give you the benefit at chargen rather than in play that has them built into rather than tacked onto the game has a form of point buy where disadvantages can have variable prices. There may be a few where there's random chargen - and rolling a bad disadvantage is a problem in the same way rolling a bad stat is, but for these that's also part of the expected game.



The post I quoted was not what you describe here.  You made an assumption about what I was saying that was demonstrably false in the very quote of mine you were replying to.  You went on to use that assumption and make further points off it.  Maybe you made a mistake there.  I'm not saying you did it on purpose.  But don't come back later and act like that was about clarification.



Neonchameleon said:


> This is a misunderstanding.
> 
> We both agree on how Blades is intended to be played. What we're disagreeing on is whether something is actively against the rules or just pretty obviously bad practice but something that can be done in theory.



Which still makes it a perfect example for what I was talking about.



Neonchameleon said:


> But we weren't saying that. I wasn't saying "this is how I play" or "this is how it should be played" but "This is not technically against the rules".



You say that like it's somehow relevant to the point I was making to hawkeyefan when it doesn't really matter if it's just a disagreement about whether something is technically against the rules or not.

Anyways, I question the value of continuing with you on this topic.  So don't expect much more interaction from me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> But my point is this is just your subjective experience. I don't have enough experience with Dungeon World to weigh in on its level of agency. I can say, much of what people who play it here have described about it, doesn't seem like it would provide more agency than a well run sandbox to me, but like I've been saying all thread, what matters is what works at the table, not arguments on a thread. So I would be totally open to the idea that the kind of agency I am talking about is present in AW (I am just not seeing it based on your descriptions of the game). And I should say, the amount of agency I feel in a sandbox is enormously high, so my bar would be pretty high on that front.* I used to say immersion wasn't possible with narrative mechanics that allow the players to establish setting details, then I played Hillfolk and had to admit I was incredibly immersed.* And like I said before, there are plenty of people who are open minded and curious about these games and willing to try them. But that doesn't mean we will have the same experience of them that you do (just like not everyone is going have the same experience with a sandbox). People think differently and react to systems differently.




So here you provide an example of you having a preconception about how a game plays....and then after actually playing it, that preconception is gone. 

I just think that this is incredibly relevant, so I wanted to highlight it.



FrogReaver said:


> On GM decisions by fiat:
> 
> I see examples of GM's in other systems making a ruling and I'm told that it's not fiat because there's some general principle written in the rules pages that is guiding that decision.  Okay that's fair, but if all it takes is some kind of guiding principle or reason to make something not be fiat, then I'd have to say that in the great history of RPG's very few if any DM decisions have ever been made by fiat as defined this way.  Whether explicit to the system or not, GM's tend to have guiding principles and reasons for their decisions.




So this brings to mind two questions for me. 

What are the principles that are stated in order to guide a DM in D&D? Pick whatever edition you like; what are the principles that a DM should keep in mind? 

What are the principles that guide your GMing? Again, pick any game you like and list some of the ideas that guide your GMing in that game.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> This seems like the least pressing issue to take away from my post, particularly after my clarification on that matter.



I didn't think so?

I thought it was just about the only thing that hasn't been hashed and rehashed to death.  I agree on some level with many of the general points you made.  A good portion of the problem is framing the situation solely from your perspective and thus framing the situation such that those points can be used against me.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> Okay. Yes, I don't actually mind having a back and forth with the GM if we are hashing out things. I do mind time in terms of how long a rule takes to deploy (so anything that becomes a mini-game, I tend to get bored with quickly). But any amount of back and forth usually feels pretty seamless to me





Bedrockgames said:


> [Immersion] is an issue where I have seriously relaxed my thinking the more I have focused on what works at the table for me (versus positions I staked out in online conversations). Sometimes while defending a concept like sandbox or immersion, I've staked out principles, and even if these principles seemed to be about right in a lot of cases, often times they weren't, because they were a crude explanation for what was actually making me tick (I know I have made numerous points like this throughout the thread, but repeating them here since, given the size of the thread, you likely didn't see them unless you were combing finely over every post).



To me, from my experience, immersion is pretty simple. It's when you've mastered the rules and the setting to the point it doesn't get in the way and instead helps you see things. Different rules click with different people at different rates (I know I have a strong head for math and systems and interactions - which means that AD&D is almost impossible for me as everything is a damn different subsystem but lots of simpler games and even some seemingly more complex ones just flow; I know that others find AD&D immersive because their brains are wired differently).

The worst thing for immersion is IME having to look things up in the rulebook. Having to ask the GM is nowhere near as bad because it's not almost purely abstract but it's far, far worse than knowing because I understand the world and rules. For you it might be less of a barrier; this is largely personal about what clicks with you


Bedrockgames said:


> Another place I saw this, and again something I've mentioned countless times on this thread, Is with Hillfolk. Where in principle I didn't think I would like it on immersive grounds (because players could narrate things into existence, and because it had a lot of meta mechanics for the drama). But in practice it felt like that same moment when I first played D&D and a spark went off in my brain because I was so immersed in the world (except in this case I was immersed in a world that felt like one of those old made for TV miniseries in the 70s and 80s).



Glad you enjoyed  I don't honestly think specifically immersive mechanics exist. There are anti-immersive ones and in general too many rules and things that take too long to resolve are anti-immersive for _anyone. _But a lot is down to both what clicks with you and what you have learned until you can use it without thinking. It's always hard jumping to a new perspective and I'm glad you could.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> @hawkeyefan
> 
> This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.  Now imagine if I had taken one of those descriptions to heart, then anyone discussing with me that had played and disagreed with that posters description would also disagree with most analysis I'm doing on that basis.




I don't think it's a disagreement so much as them saying slightly different things. @Neonchameleon is describing something that a GM in Blades can do simply by following the rules alone, and ignoring the principles that should guide a GM when they're running the game.

If you abide by the principles, then this kind of thing wouldn't happen in play.

EDITED TO ADD: I see that almost immediately after I read the quoted post, @Neonchameleon and @Manbearcat pretty much stated the exact same thing. That'll teach me for posting without catching all the way up!



FrogReaver said:


> Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play.  I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.




Well you could read the book and find out for yourself.



FrogReaver said:


> They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.  Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?




I think the idea that you would remain unchanged after actually reading these games or taking part in playing them speaks volumes, no? Your mind is made up to the point where nothing will change it.

It's like if I claimed that if I was addicted to something, I'd simply stop using it. I mean, I've never been addicted, but I know what it means and I understand it in many ways, and I've had people describe it to me. But if I ever found myself addicted, I'd just quit cold turkey.

Perhaps this is not what you mean, but I want to just point it out so that maybe you can consider it. This is where it kind of seems like you're claiming clearer understanding of the games in question despite not actually being directly familiar with them. You already know and nothing will change your mind!

Again, maybe it's not your intent, I just wanted to point out how it comes across.


----------



## Neonchameleon

FrogReaver said:


> So me asking a question about a playstyle suddenly becomes - inventing a strawman?  You realize that's how this whole tangent of a discussion began right?



But you _don't _ask questions about playstyles so far as I can tell. If you'd done so you'd have asked something like "How do games with character disadvantages cope with some being more debilitating than others?" Instead you make statements about playstyles like that and like "a player authoring the removal of a problem". 

And when I asked a question of your example to clarify that it wasn't something that actually happens in practice you, I think, use this to claim "You've demonstrated you don't even know what I mean by authoring out a problem" (and when people don't understand terms that you introduced in general that's on your failure to communicate)

And you also say "They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic." Where you openly accept that you don't have experience in the topic but think that that shouldn't stop your pontifications being equal to everyone else's.


FrogReaver said:


> Anyways, I question the value of continuing with you on this topic.  So don't expect much more interaction from me.



I however have never questioned the value of correcting misinformation for bystanders.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Neonchameleon said:


> To clarify I meant something only slightly more modest than that. That a GM _can_ ditch the goals and principles because these are not hardcoded rules. And then sticking with the actions they can get something only a little less extreme than this outcome.
> 
> However they emphatically should not do this and they _should _stick with the game's goals and principles. So pretty close. The GM can drop the tarrasque on a low level party in almost any game - and they should not do it.



I disagree (unsurprisingly) that the goals and principles of Blades are not the rules.  There is no indication these can be ignored, or that they are optional.  That, to me, says they are not free to ignore.  And, as you note, ignoring them is clearly bad faith play -- the game breaks if these are not followed.  That says 'required' to me.

Contrast this to the DMG advice in 5e, which does explicitly say most of it is just a recommendation.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> So here you provide an example of you having a preconception about how a game plays....and then after actually playing it, that preconception is gone.
> 
> I just think that this is incredibly relevant, so I wanted to highlight it.



I don't disagree that happens.  But similar things can happen even if they've played the game.  "your experience is clouded because you had a bad GM" or "you weren't actually playing the game by the rules" or etc.

But my question there is, why even bring that up in a discussion with someone you know hasn't played a particular game?  What's the purpose?  Is it to coax them into playing it?  Is it to minimize their opinions?  Something else?

Maybe you are focused more on the "this can happen" and I'm focused more on the "why is this being brought up?"



hawkeyefan said:


> So this brings to mind two questions for me.
> 
> What are the principles that are stated in order to guide a DM in D&D? Pick whatever edition you like; what are the principles that a DM should keep in mind?
> 
> What are the principles that guide your GMing? Again, pick any game you like and list some of the ideas that guide your GMing in that game.



D&D seeks to remain open to many playstyles and styles of DMing and so it gives fairly limited guidance about principles and such IMO.  But as was established earlier, it's not just the rules in the game but also the unwritten social rules that the group playing the game has erected.  I mean, are you just arguing that such guiding principles must be in the official rules and can't come either socially or internally from the GM?


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> I don't disagree that happens.  But similar things can happen even if they've played the game.  "your experience is clouded because you had a bad GM" or "you weren't actually playing the game by the rules" or etc.



This is definitely true, which is why I find it helpful to read a diversity of opinions from knowledgeable people who have run the game. Typically IME a consensus forms around the game. In the case of many games nowadays, we also have the privilege that many creators will run their games on YouTube or Twitch as marketing tools to advertise or demo their game.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> I disagree (unsurprisingly) that the goals and principles of Blades are not the rules.  There is no indication these can be ignored, or that they are optional.  That, to me, says they are not free to ignore.  And, as you note, ignoring them is clearly bad faith play -- the game breaks if these are not followed.  That says 'required' to me.
> 
> Contrast this to the DMG advice in 5e, which does explicitly say most of it is just a recommendation.



So I think what matters here is if a player generally has the social capital to bring up those principles and say for insistence "When you did that thing I think you were not really being a fan of my character" with the expectation that a fruitful conversation could be had. In my experience it's pretty typical to have these sorts of conversations at Apocalypse World tables and Blades in the Dark tables. Outside of more hippy leaning OSR tables I have never been in a situation where a player would feel comfortable bringing up "This part of the DMG says to prioritize this thing in play. Could you do that more?". Maybe I have just been in the wrong D&D groups, but that level of shared expectation and ability to critique one another has never been a part of it.


----------



## Campbell

I think having enumerated principles is important. Usually if a game does not have them I will type out a list to keep in front of me while we play. First it provides a set of shared expectations that can be called on when we are providing feedback to each other. Second it helps the GM run the game in a more disciplined manner. Having that list in front of you can help you stick to your principles even when you do not want to in the moment.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> So I think what matters here is if a player generally has the social capital to bring up those principles and say for insistence "When you did that thing I think you were not really being a fan of my character" with the expectation that a fruitful conversation could be had. In my experience it's pretty typical to have these sorts of conversations at Apocalypse World tables and Blades in the Dark tables. Outside of more hippy leaning OSR tables I have never been in a situation where a player would feel comfortable bringing up "This part of the DMG says to prioritize this thing in play. Could you do that more?". Maybe I have just been in the wrong D&D groups, but that level of shared expectation and ability to critique one another has never been a part of it.



In my experience it is pretty common for GMs to ask for feedback and discuss with their players about what worked, what did not, what they would like to see more etc. Granted, this pretty much always happens after the session; someone calling out the GM in the middle of the game would be pretty unusual, unless it was some abundantly clear rule mistake or something like that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Neonchameleon said:


> But you _don't _ask questions about playstyles so far as I can tell.



See below.


FrogReaver said:


> That's progress!
> 
> I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference.  Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?
> 
> What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?
> 
> What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I don't disagree that happens.  But similar things can happen even if they've played the game.  "your experience is clouded because you had a bad GM" or "you weren't actually playing the game by the rules" or etc.




Sure, that kind of thing can happen. Absolutely. I think that's part of why we have these discussions, to get a variety of opinions on the topic. To analyze what may be going right or wrong in any example of play.



FrogReaver said:


> But my question there is, why even bring that up in a discussion with someone you know hasn't played a particular game?  What's the purpose?  Is it to coax them into playing it?  Is it to minimize their opinions?  Something else?




To get a kind of foundation for understanding? Either for me or for them? 




FrogReaver said:


> Maybe you are focused more on the "this can happen" and I'm focused more on the "why is this being brought up?"




Maybe that speaks to your own motives for bringing things up? I don't know....I can't help you with that.

I can explain that the reason I pointed out an example of firsthand experience being the most relevant kind of experience is because that's what we've been talking about. That's my stance. So I provided an example that supported that.

Do I think @Bedrockgames 's opinion of Hillfolk prior to playing it was invalid? No. Do I think it was less informed than someone who has played the game? Yes. 



FrogReaver said:


> D&D seeks to remain open to many playstyles and styles of DMing and so it gives fairly limited guidance about principles and such IMO.  But as was established earlier, it's not just the rules in the game but also the unwritten social rules that the group playing the game has erected.  I mean, are you just arguing that such guiding principles must be in the official rules and can't come either socially or internally from the GM?




I wasn't arguing anything with the bit you quoted here. I was asking some questions. 

So I think that your comment here about the "unwritten social rules" is pretty relevant. I think that D&D and many games like it leave a lot of that stuff up to the specific participants. They use a lot of vague language and constantly remind the reader that "this is all just suggestion, you should do whatever works". And this is something that has both pros and cons. 

I do think that having principles of that kind clearly stated is a good idea. It's not a necessity, but it's a good idea. A lot of modern games do it, and it serves to make those unwritten social rules actually written. It gives the participants in the game common ground to discuss things. It gives them a foundation for having discussions about the game. 

This is why most GMs of a game that has these.....Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark.....are likely proceeding in a very similar manner in how they GM the game. Contrast that with D&D, where even within the same edition, you will get wildly varying accounts of how the game is played, and even in how it is "meant" to be played. 

And for the most part, this is all a bit of a tangent, but as it relates to the agency of the player, I think knowing the rules of the game and how they're being applied and when is going to be a strong indicator that player agency is a consideration.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> See below.





FrogReaver said:


> That's progress!
> 
> I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference.  Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?
> 
> What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?
> 
> What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?




So when you posted this, I think I was pretty clear that I didn't know what you meant. I think others have asked for clarification, as well, and if you've actually provided an example or explanation of what you mean, then it was not obvious, or was missed. I know I didn't see it.

What does "the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?" actually mean?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Manbearcat said:


> Let me give you a few examples that you can apply to your own experience.
> 
> I'm a 5'11", 185 lb fit male with a lot of wrestling history and a Brown Belt in BJJ, so I'm extremely heavy-hipped.  My top game, half-guard, and underhook/overhook will control the overwhelming % of humans on this planet.  Consequently, if I'm grappling with a Blue Belt who doesn't have a VERRRRRRRY specific type of physical makeup + a Choke game that is well above their level (there are a very few number of people like this...but they are unbelievably remote), any given 10 minute session is going to lead to me both (a) controlling the action for the duration and (b) virtually never getting tapped.  The other party is going to be controlled, under duress and in danger of getting tapped via Choke or Kimura for the duration of the 10 minutes.
> 
> I can estimate that any 10 minute session with a Blue Belt (or below) will follow a very specific map 95+ % of the time.
> 
> If I'm rolling Action Resolution for any given "move" in that interval I know with extreme certainty the % chance that it will be successful based on a few specific contextual parameters.  If you ask me to roll Conflict Resolution to abstract that session, it should be around 95 % success rate.
> 
> That is what I'm talking about.
> 
> When you've spared with people (after watching them move before hand and feeling them out for the first 30 seconds or so), don't you have a very strong idea of how the sparring session will go/watch you can get away with (eg, your Check Left Hook counter won't work off of their Jab because they immediately feint away from it after a Jab)?




I see a lot of similarities and a lot of differences that may shape how we see the world. My background is mainly in striking: taekwondo, muay thai, sanshou, boxing and some Judo. I trained at a couple of MMA gyms and even took BJJ at them, but despite taking the classes, BJJ was always too much like learning math for me (not a knock against the style, as it is highly effective, just I never seemed to absorb it that well and afterwards my brain was exhausted, like I had been doing algebra or learning a new language). So I may or may not be able to grok the example you gave as BJJ is a style, I don't really have a firm handle on. I am also much smaller than you (I am 5'7" and when I competed was at 145----presently around 160). I do think strikers and grapplers tend to see the world a little differently and have slightly different personalities. 

The example you give is pretty specific to BJJ, so it is possible I won't understand how that transfers to something like boxing. First difference between us is I would probably never estimate my success rate in martial arts at 95%. And if I did provide that kind of number, it wouldn't really mean anything (it isn't like I am formulating it off anything more than instinct, experience and what I see in the other person).

When I spar with people (or should say sparred, as I haven't been to the gym since Covid), I never get a 95% degree of certainty about anything. I do get a sense of "I could probably take this person", "This person could probably take me", etc. But people are surprising, and with striking especially I can't predict how a match is going to until it happens (I can see weaknesses, and I can formulate a plan, but I can't know how it goes till it starts because I don't know what it will feel like to get hit by them yet, I don't how good their defenses really are against me specifically----I can watch them spar someone else, but that isn't the same as me sparring them). I will say, what you seem to be suggesting is that weight+strength+personal style+experience are all good measures of your overall chances, and if you are solid in all of those and the other person isn't, sure you probably are going to win. It would have to be a very extreme case though for me to say 95% (like if someone is just walking in, and not very athletic looking, and much smaller than me: keep in mind boxing gyms generally pair you with people within your weight category----and if there is a weight disparity there are usually specific instructions to follow so the other person doesn't get hurt). And my understanding is in BJJ this might be even more easy to measure because you generally are not advancing to the next belt unless you can soundly defeat belts in the the rank you presently occupy (it is a good system in my opinion, but correct me if I am wrong about that).

But most cases are going to be much more gray than that 95%. I can think of a handful of times I thought something was in the bag for me or the other person. And again, even then, there is always a punchers chance. Most of the time, I really don't have a good idea till things start, how good someone really is. And I just generally have found it unwise to go in with a high level of certainty about an opponent.

Also, what you are describing to me is what I would call 'sizing someone up'. In striking usually I look at size, muscle mass, how they carry themselves, the size of their wrists and hands (and if I see them practice I might try to watch their movements). In a game, I wouldn't be sizing up foes unless I specifcally asked to. So this kind of 'how much of a threat is this enemy', would likely arise as me asking the GM if I can look at the threat and try to assess how much of a threat it poses. I would understand, especially if the GM made a secret roll for say some kind of Detect or Perception ability, that I might be wrong about that.

I also, despite all this, am definitely not walking around in campaign with probabilities of actions and characters in my head that, if they are violated, will somehow rip me out of the game. Even if I size someone up like above, if it goes a different way, that isn't going to trouble me. If something screams "This is not believable!!!!" then sure, like most people, I react to that. but I have always been more comfortable with things like dice pools because they can cloud probabilities, which feels more realistic to me than say a d100 system (I like plenty of d100 games, just the whole precise probability that I know doesn't feel like the world feels to me) . Also my sense of how things ought to be in this world, are going to be very different from a game or movie (and each of those is going to vary depending on the style or genre).

All I can say is in play, playing the way I do, my sense of believability is rarely ever disrupted (and even when it is, its never enough to make me angry, or want to stop playing). Ultimately if what you are after is a game that emulates clearly the probabilities of real life (which I am not), even then you are either going to have a system that handles it, or a person, and both can result in bone headed things. I've played plenty of bad systems that didn't work out probabilities well. But what bothers me usually isn't "I should have at least an 80 percent chance of jumping a gap that large", it is usually more to do with the system just making getting successes hard unnecessarily (actually one of the reasons I am not too keen on 3E any more is I felt you ended up with too many characters that failed at things too often: generally I do like systems that lean more on success). But again, I think this has a lot less to do with probabilities and more to do with getting annoyed that we have to spend 20 minutes fighting because every other attack fails.

Hope that answers your question, really trying to give a thorough and honest answer. But this is actually a pretty involved topic


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> The worst thing for immersion is IME having to look things up in the rulebook. Having to ask the GM is nowhere near as bad because it's not almost purely abstract but it's far, far worse than knowing because I understand the world and rules. For you it might be less of a barrier; this is largely personal about what clicks with you




I tend to share this view which is why I gravitate towards lighter games most of the time, systems that fade into the background and don't require frequent look up. But if I am crazing something very specific I will often be willing to put in the extra effort at mastery (in which case, once you have system mastery, the end result is much the same). With martial arts games, I experimented with a lot, and I came to the conclusion that sometimes I need a ton of kung fu abilities to replicate the feel of a good kung fu or wuxia movie/book. But sometimes I need something much lighter. It is a trade off though.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Glad you enjoyed  I don't honestly think specifically immersive mechanics exist. There are anti-immersive ones and in general too many rules and things that take too long to resolve are anti-immersive for _anyone. _But a lot is down to both what clicks with you and what you have learned until you can use it without thinking. It's always hard jumping to a new perspective and I'm glad you could.




I think what made it immersive was how central it made dialogue in shaping things. It might be that I was not playing by the book (as someone else was organizing the game; though I have the book and am actually reading through it now). But when we played it, I felt like I was there, speaking in character. If I mentioned something that created something new in the setting, it worked, it wasn't the problem I thought it might be. Now it did achieve things differently. It wouldn't be how I would want to run a game about exploring a dungeon or wilderness. Because part of the appeal there is 'solving' the puzzle, and finding things in a world or place you don't have knowledge of. But if I wanted to run something that felt like I, Claudius, or even Babylon 5, I think Hillfolk would be an excellent game.


----------



## Aldarc

Aldarc said:


> This is definitely true, which is why I find it helpful to read a diversity of opinions from knowledgeable people who have run the game. Typically IME a consensus forms around the game. In the case of many games nowadays, we also have the privilege that many creators will run their games on YouTube or Twitch as marketing tools to advertise or demo their game.



As an addendum to this statement, you (@FrogReaver) may find it helpful to watch videos of John Harper running Blades in the Dark on his YouTube channel, which hawkeyefan has mentioned before. That might help you understand the game better. I believe that some reflect the pre-release playtest form, but @hawkeyefan likely could point to some of the videos that helped him most. 

Though I will say that watching and playing (IME) are two separate experiences, and you sometimes can't see what's entirely at work with how Blades operates until you are in the player or GM seat yourself.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Do I think @Bedrockgames 's opinion of Hillfolk prior to playing it was invalid? No. Do I think it was less informed than someone who has played the game? Yes.




I definitely agree that someone who played it has a more informed opinion. but I do think where people sometimes go wrong is assuming that having played it, they know how it would land with me in terms of things like immersion (because those are very individual reactions). It just happens that I played it and loved it, and it didn't upset immersion one bit (to the point I realized I had to rethink some of my notions about immersion itself). 

But importantly the thing that made me want to try it was a friend suggested it, and he made it welcoming (it wasn't part of some playstyle debate). It was more like, here is a game I think you might enjoy. And if I didn't like it, he wouldn't have spent hours trying to convince me that I was missing out, he just would have moved on.


----------



## innerdude

Neonchameleon said:


> Immersion is, to me, flow within the gameworld. And I keep it in part by having an understanding of the world and being able to act on that. Every time I stop focusing on the world and have to interact with the structures _it breaks my immersion_. And asking the GM takes longer than checking my character sheet. I am sufficiently numerate (I accept not everyone is) that I can keep track especially of a streamlined character sheet like the Apocalypse World one. Any back and forth about what I can do and how likely it is with the GM that I can do such and such a thing chips away at my immersion while doing it - and the longer it takes the more damaging.




Interestingly, I think this hearkens to something @FrogReaver was trying to get at earlier, which is that there's an important quality, or sensibility, that is derived from having a notion of "what the world is like" as a player. I believe his point was that rules systems that strongly correlate to "how my character interacts with the illusion of objective reality" are an aid to giving players more agency, because the players feel more "grounded" in the fiction.

And I don't necessarily think he's wrong. Most of the best roleplaying campaigns I've been involved with have stemmed from those campaigns having this sensibility, or quality of "understanding the world." And yes, there is a greater degree of freedom involved when the player is more firmly grounded in the established illusion that underpins the fictional reality.

One of the reasons I've stuck with Savage Worlds for as long as I have is that it's very easy for players to "grok" how the Savage Worlds rules interface with the fictional underpinnings. They are able to quickly grasp how their character "fits" into the world, how their character's skills and attributes point to the "fictional face" that they put on inside the world. Savage Worlds makes it very easy to intuit when a character makes an action declaration how the resulting mechanical process will translate into the in-fiction output.

But now having had some experience with more player-facing systems, I'm firmly of the opinion that this is significantly more related to the players' ability to correctly place themselves within their own fictional positions than it is with the rules themselves.

I've mentioned previously that this principle is one of the reasons that I strongly dislike gameplay that focuses on planar / ethereal / abyssal worlds. As a player I can never firmly grasp the underpinnings, and so I feel caught --- I have no notion of what's an "optimal" or even "allowed" character action declaration. And when this happens, I very much feel trapped, railroaded, and lacking in agency. It's basically, "Whelp, guess I'll just wait for the GM to narrate/introduce something actionable, but until then, bleh."

I think @FrogReaver's issue is that he believes that this sensibility or quality of play is damaged or diminished by games that allow for more player-facing control of the fiction. That somehow, when a player is allowed to introduce fictional elements, that it takes away from the player's ability to apprehend the fictional underpinnings, because we've somehow unmoored the fiction in a way that makes it less understandable---and as a consequence, some player agency is removed. Reality has become "unmoored" in some fashion, and the attached element of the fiction is no longer reliably viewable as an avenue for player action, thus reducing agency.

And without having ever tried systems like Dungeon World or Fate, I could completely see how that would seem like a valid concern---because it's one I shared. I couldn't wrap my head around how this wouldn't be problematic.

Now having had some experience with it, I've learned that the things @Ovinomancer , @hawkeyefan , @pemerton, and @Manbearcat are saying are correct.

The fictional underpinnings and player agency are not lessened, because 1) the group has agreed to let the fictional framing direct and constrain action declarations in appropriate ways, 2) the rules constrain GMs to stay within the bounds of principled play, and 3) the rules direct and push the players to frame their characters and the obstacles they face in ways that are appropriate to the character.

Basically, I learned that in Dungeon World, Items 1 and 3 in the previous paragraph can correctly substitute for Savage World's task resolution system, _as long as players are all on the same page about how to correctly frame their characters in the appropriate context._

The main issue our group had with Dungeon World---and the reason we abandoned it after 6 or 7 sessions---is that there was one particular player who had an extremely hard time with this principle. He _wanted_ the more prescriptive, "these are the explicit things my character can do" rules of Savage Worlds.

Another note --- One of @FrogReaver's other objections has been the idea that players can simply handwave/"author" away obstacles as they see fit.

In my experience, this is largely not the case. Once obstacles are introduced into the fiction, the players (through their characters) are obligated to deal with those obstacles through principled play (action declarations and their attendant resolutions).

What this does, however, is place a large burden on the GM _to only introduce obstacles that are relevant, directive, and appropriate to the concerns at hand_.

This was one of the points I made earlier regarding @Lanefan's introduction of the undead death cult on his players. In Dungeon World, obstacles that are not germane to the goals/directives of the players (as expressed through their characters), should only be introduced sparingly, if at all.

If an obstacle is "handwaved"/authored away (or allowed to be by a player), it's because the GM recognizes that the presented obstacle is not germane to the goals of play.

As a GM, it requires a very, very different mindset. It requires a significant amount of a GM "unlearning what you have learned," to quote our favorite green muppet Jedi master.

Does it mean there's no wiggle room to allow for tangents, red herrings, and the occasional trivial encounter? No, not necessarily. But the basic context of Dungeon World will push _hard_ against such things, and as so many have said, much like Blades in the Dark, it will be very, very obvious to everyone at the table what the GM is doing.


----------



## innerdude

Realize I already wrote one essay-length post today, but I had a few additional thoughts.

One, I want to recognize that despite my disagreement with @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus on what they see as untenable components of player-facing systems, I don't want to discount that their objections are coming from a real place.

In a socially constructed activity like roleplaying, there is a significant element of risk any time a GM considers upsetting the status quo. Despite my desire to branch out from more "traditional", GM-facing, task-resolution systems, that's not to say that there isn't value in what such systems provide.

There's absolutely a core substance, or space, or experience derived from D&D and its progeny, offshoots, and alternatives that has provided sustained value to participants for close to 50 years.

That's not trivial. It is, in fact, remarkable in the extreme.

I think the purpose of having conversations like this one is to give all of us ideas, considerations, components, techniques, and systems of thought that will increase our ability to achieve consistent excellence of play and high satisfaction within our hobby.

This is also not trivial (even though our games contain seemingly trivial elements like elves, gnomes, and dragons).


Two, I've been thinking tremendously about how much _result_ follows _intent_ when it comes to how much player agency to allow/disallow.

The _why_ behind systems like PbtA, Burning Wheel, BitD, Fate, etc., is extremely important. A tremendous amount of effort, thought, and design rationale has been explicitly "baked in" to those systems, because they are designed from a specific intent.

I think much of the tenor of conversation around these systems stems from how much that intent is personally valued.

If the intent is to provide a different experience from "classic" D&D, then conversations will naturally revolve around processes that are perceived weaknesses or flaws in "classic" D&D.


Three, the idea has come up over and over that there's different "kinds" of player agency at stake when a game is in action. And I don't know that it's ever fully been addressed whether this is a "thing" or not.

Earlier, @Manbearcat broke down player agency into subsets: Setting, Situation, and Character.

As that was 50+ pages of posts ago, I don't know that I fully explored this.

The problem as I see it, is that the notion of whether there's different "kinds" of agency is related to the interplay between subsets. Meaning, does an increase in player agency in one subset have the ability to decrease agency in another? And if so, does the increase in one subset increase the overall level of agency relative to the whole, even if agency is diminished in another subset---or is it zero-sum?

Furthermore, have we fully identified the ways that players can actually _express_, or _activate_ agency in play?

As I see it, there's a few ways for a player to activate agency: 


Direct authorship ("I declare this to be true about the fiction, without any consultation to systematic rules framework").
Rules-mediated authorship ("I'm spending metacurrency X, which by rule means I can now declare the following thing(s) to be true in the fiction"). 
Character generation/advancement ("Because my character has these skills, this background, and these traits and flaws, it must naturally follow that the following things are true in the fiction").
Action declaration ("My character chooses to perform action X. If he/she succeeds at his/her intent, then the following thing(s) in the fiction must be true"). (Naturally, action declarations will largely be mediated through rules conventions to determine the "truthiness" or "falsiness" of the declaration.)

Are there additional ways to activate player agency?

*Edit --- added Rules-mediated Authorship.


----------



## Campbell

Among people who have not played Blades or Apocalypse World these player strategies for avoiding playing the game basically seem like a pretty big deal. A lot of that comes from being used to the way incentives and play loops reinforce a certain set of player behaviors in mainstream games. It seems obvious that would continue.

First just like GM behavior when a player is playing against the best practices its pretty damn obvious and easy to call out. More importantly the game just does not reward playing it safe in the same way. I have seen this play out multiple times in multiple games. The game will kick you in the teeth if you try to play it safe and avoid conflict. You will get no experience, not succeed, and generally have a poor time. To make your way up in the criminal underworld people have to know who you are and what you have done. You get experience for overcoming obstacles yes, but also for dealing with your vices, traumas and internal conflicts. Same goes for your crew for the most part.

The bigger piece here is that the game rewards you for boldness. Not for playing it safe. You have to put your safety on line, try to desperate things, and use your stress if you want to succeed. It's fundamentally a game about pushing your luck.


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> Are there additional ways to activate player agency?



I don't know if you consider this to be included, but it seems possible for a player to have agency ("I declare this to be true") in ways that are defined by the rules, but don't necessarily derive from declaring action/s. Using Fate Points to add a detail to a scene comes to mind, as does a similar use for Hero Points in Mutants and Masterminds 2E.


----------



## innerdude

prabe said:


> I don't know if you consider this to be included, but it seems possible for a player to have agency ("I declare this to be true") in ways that are defined by the rules, but don't necessarily derive from declaring action/s. Using Fate Points to add a detail to a scene comes to mind, as does a similar use for Hero Points in Mutants and Masterminds 2E.




Hmmm, you might be right. I might label it something like, "Rules-mediated Authorship." As you say, it's not free-form authorship, but it's not a player exercising an action declaration through their character.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Aldarc said:


> As an addendum to this statement, you (@FrogReaver) may find it helpful to watch videos of John Harper running Blades in the Dark on his YouTube channel, which hawkeyefan has mentioned before. That might help you understand the game better. I believe that some reflect the pre-release playtest form, but @hawkeyefan likely could point to some of the videos that helped him most.
> 
> Though I will say that watching and playing (IME) are two separate experiences, and you sometimes can't see what's entirely at work with how Blades operates until you are in the player or GM seat yourself.




I'm reasonably sure these may have already been posted, but no harm in doing it again.

Here is the earliest series run by John Harper, and the rules are still in a state of flux, so sometimes things change a bit as the series progresses.


Here is another series GMed by the designer, John Harper, after the core book has been completed. I don't think this one is quite as much fun as the first, but it's still solid (I say this as someone who is really picky about live streams...I watch a handful that I think are great, and can't be bothered with the rest) and one of the best things about it is that the rules are set, and all the players are learning them as they play. So it's probably the better one to watch if someone wanted to understand the game.


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> Hmmm, you might be right. I might label it something like, "Rules-mediated Authorship." As you say, it's not free-form authorship, but it's not a player exercising an action declaration through their character.



Maybe something like "negotiated authorship?" Something free-form (or at least not controlled/mediated by rules) but negotiated around the table? I'm thinking specifically of something like a player writing up a backstory* and needing for there to be a city in Place X, or for some other fact of the world to reflect their backstory. IME, those sorts of things are negotiated between the GM and the player; I think the relevant bit is that it's not just that player (and it could be negotiated between players with the GM mostly uninvolved, I suppose). It seems as though it's vaguely related to your mention of character-generation, but it seems less rules-oriented than what I think you're talking about.

*I realize there are people who don't like this, or who don't like using "backstory" to describe this. The word seems to me to fit, but if someone wants to use a different word, I'm willing to listen.


----------



## innerdude

@prabe --- I see where you're going with that.

I think to be considered what would nominally be viewed as a tabletop roleplaying game as we know it, there's always an element of human mediation.

A game of collaborative fiction with zero mediation either by rule or human intervention essentially moves into "Pass the Conch" territory.

And really, if you think about it, the creation and use of rules for a roleplaying game are ultimately a shorthand way of communicating a contractual agreement between players as to how certain declarations about the fiction _should be mediated. _

For RPG play, the need for human mediation is omnipresent. The exercise of player agency requires it in all cases.

*Edit --- The more I think about it, the more I can see why systems like PbtA and Burning Wheel put into writing the ways in which the GM is constrained.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> So when you posted this, I think I was pretty clear that I didn't know what you meant. I think others have asked for clarification, as well, and if you've actually provided an example or explanation of what you mean, then it was not obvious, or was missed. I know I didn't see it.
> 
> What does "the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?" actually mean?



Maybe it will be clearer by example than by definition.  Let's say you come to a raging river and want to cross it safely.  A player that's able to add (or do something that adds) the existence of a nearby bridge across the river to the fiction would be authoring the removal of the obstacle.

While it's not quite as fitting for the genre of Blades, I could see something similar to the described Blades flashback mechanic being used to do exactly this.  Player: I have a flashback of scouting this river for crossing a few days before we came to it.  DM: you crit on your exploration roll to find a safe path across the river.  It's an abandoned bridge that no one is watching just up the river from where you are.


----------



## innerdude

FrogReaver said:


> Let's say you come to a raging river and want to cross it safely.  A player that's able to add (or do something that adds) the existence of a nearby bridge across the river to the fiction would be authoring the removal of the obstacle.
> 
> While it's not quite as fitting for the genre of Blades, I could see something similar to the described Blades flashback mechanic being used to do exactly this.  Player: I have a flashback of scouting this river for crossing a few days before we came to it.  DM: you crit on your exploration roll to find a safe path across the river.  It's an abandoned bridge that no one is watching just up the river from where you are.




So you've described almost exactly what would happen in Ironsworn using a *Gather Information *check:



> GATHER INFORMATION
> When you search an area, ask questions, conduct an investigation, or follow a track, roll +wits. If you act within a community or ask questions of a person with whom you share a bond, add +1.
> On a strong hit, you discover something helpful and specific. The path you must follow or action you must take to make progress is made clear. Envision what you learn (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +2 momentum.
> On a weak hit, the information complicates your quest or introduces a new danger. Envision what you discover (Ask the Oracle if unsure), and take +1 momentum.
> On a miss, your investigation unearths a dire threat or reveals an unwelcome truth that undermines your quest. Pay the Price.





The point here is again, the intent. The intent of playing Ironsworn isn't to just to "explore what's out there." It's to test and try your character, to see if your character is strong enough, resilient enough, and resourceful enough to fulfill his/her "Iron vows"---the things that drive your character forward.

On a strong hit, it would be entirely reasonable to "author" a bridge. On a weak hit, you might discover the bridge---but it's crumbling to dust in front of your very eyes and treacherous to cross.

Or there might be some other hazard associated with it --- you know, like a troll living underneath, nursery-rhyme style.  


But again, the question is---what is driving the action? Is preventing the party from crossing the river _really_ all that important? What is at stake? Is it more important for the parties to move on from this river, so they can start engaging again with the stuff that's driving their character motivations and Iron vows?

If the answer is "yes," then move on! You've got your strong hit, the pathway (bridge over the river) becomes clear, and you move on to what's driving the character forward. You don't diddle around with, "Oh, well, there's not a bridge, and there's nowhere to ford the river here, so . . . . yeah, guess you're stuck?" Why make the player jump through more hoops just to get across the river?

It's about the intent and principles involved.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe it will be clearer by example than by definition.  Let's say you come to a raging river and want to cross it safely.  A player that's able to add (or do something that adds) the existence of a nearby bridge across the river to the fiction would be authoring the removal of the obstacle.
> 
> While it's not quite as fitting for the genre of Blades, I could see something similar to the described Blades flashback mechanic being used to do exactly this.  Player: I have a flashback of scouting this river for crossing a few days before we came to it.  DM: you crit on your exploration roll to find a safe path across the river.  It's an abandoned bridge that no one is watching just up the river from where you are.




Okay, thanks for clarifying. 

I think some Powered by the Apocalypse games have some moves that work like that. If you roll high enough, you may be able to find something that can help you, such as a previously unknown bridge.

Do you think that’s all that different from things like using Survival to find food, or Nature to find a poison remedy, por Gather Info to learn about a thieves’ guild in the area? 

To me, this still resembles declaring an action. Whether it’s as part of a Flashback (where the action takes place in the past but we learn its outcome in the present) or if it involves a player resource like a Fate Point or not, it still seems like a player declaring an action for their character, or something very much like it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, thanks for clarifying.
> 
> I think some Powered by the Apocalypse games have some moves that work like that. If you roll high enough, you may be able to find something that can help you, such as a previously unknown bridge.
> 
> Do you think that’s all that different from things like using Survival to find food, or Nature to find a poison remedy, por Gather Info to learn about a thieves’ guild in the area?
> 
> To me, this still resembles declaring an action. Whether it’s as part of a Flashback (where the action takes place in the past but we learn its outcome in the present) or if it involves a player resource like a Fate Point or not, it still seems like a player declaring an action for their character, or something very much like it.



They don't really work like this, though, because the framing of the example is incomplete to the point that you can't engage these mechanics at all.  The example has presented a D&D style challenge -- that there's a river you have to cross and you, as a player, need to declare actions to explore the GM's thoughts about how you can pass the river.  This is a GM framed challenge entirely independent of the player, and is, in fact, just a puzzle.  If you divorce the framing so that you're posing a D&D style typical play problem, and then only looking at part of the AW solution space for a move, then there's absolutely going to be a disconnect and a strange appearance!

The real answer to the example @FrogReaver has posed is, "What?  What's the river doing there, how does it follow from the last resolution or pose a problem that addresses the characters' directly?  What is at risk when the player declares the move? How does this address the character in any way?"  You can't even get to looking at the solution space of a success meaning there's a nearby bridge without the rest of the game coming alongside.  And that part of the game is utterly missing from the example, which, again, is posing a D&D normal obstacle, which is normally solved via D&D normal resolution processes (ultimately the GM decides).

Frankly, this goes straight to the problem of lack of experience.  This wasn't posed as a question that @FrogReaver was curious to have answered, but as a problem he's presented as an argument against.  That it took, what, 10 posts about and around the topic to even get to the point he's posed an actual example of the problem he's been talking about just reinforces the issue that he has an unwillingness and lack of genuine curiosity to learn about these games.  It's not really a lack of experience that's the issue, it's the willful avoidance and denial that such experience is helpful to understanding.


----------



## Ovinomancer

@FrogReaver ,

To expand on the above, framing is absolutely key.  Framing in the games like AW, DW, BitD, and BW are such that they immediately put pressure on the characters or something the characters care about.  Your river example puts no immediate pressure on the characters, nothing is put into risk or at stake by the river, and that makes it just a simple bit of flavor in the context of the way these games play.  So, it would be perfectly fine if the players generate some fiction to bypass it because it wasn't doing anything else and it's just flavor.

A river blocking the way when you're being closely pursued by dangerous enemies, though, that's interesting!  And, indeed, the result could be just as you say -- a move by the player, on a success, might indeed bypass the river as an obstacle, but it won't bypass the players being pursued, so it hasn't actually resolved the issue, just one obstacle along the way.  And, there's also a lot at stake here -- a failure or complication could have serious outcomes!  This is the kind of play that occurs -- the important bit isn't the river, but being chased.  And, if you take an action that could lose the pursuit, then you'd see that this kind of action looks very much like the kinds of successful actions to a similar situation in D&D -- a hide or stealth or false trail or....  So, the argument that you can just author a solution to an obstacle ignores that this kind of thing also happens in "mainstream" games.  The real difference is if it's the GM establishing all of the fiction of the outcomes or if the players get a say.

Another difference in framing is how these games build each next scene.  Obstacles in D&D tend to be independent -- the existence of orcs in the next room is largely independent of the locked door to that room.  Each is established by the GM as an obstacle, and the players are using their skill and character abilities to navigate the obstacles.  Sure, the available resources the characters have is continuously dwindling, but the obstacles are largely independent of each other outside of this.  In Story Now, though, there's no such thing as an independent obstacle -- each one in the chain is entirely dependent on the way the previous ones resolved.  So, to get to the river example, it really need that larger context to be understood inside the Story Now games' frameworks.  The river as an independent obstacle doesn't make any sense and can't be successfully analyzed because it would never happen.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> On GM decisions by fiat:
> 
> I see examples of GM's in other systems making a ruling and I'm told that it's not fiat because there's some general principle written in the rules pages that is guiding that decision.  Okay that's fair, but if all it takes is some kind of guiding principle or reason to make something not be fiat, then I'd have to say that in the great history of RPG's very few if any DM decisions have ever been made by fiat as defined this way.  Whether explicit to the system or not, GM's tend to have guiding principles and reasons for their decisions.



I think some actual play examples that illustrate your point would be helpful.



FrogReaver said:


> That's not at all an example of what I mean by authoring the removal of an obstacle.  In your example above there's more than one reason it doesn't fit.
> 
> 1.  It was simply a reminder to the DM that something had occurred in the fiction which should have prevented the obstacle he was trying to place.
> 2.  This is not an example of removing an avoiding one in the first place.
> 3.  This was accomplished via in-fiction, in-character play.
> 
> Any one of those things would have made it not be an example of what I'm talking about.



Can you provide an illustration, then, of what you _are_ talking about?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I dislike replying with just questions but you didn't leave me much to go on.
> 
> Howso?  Which part?



You said:


FrogReaver said:


> The pure mechanics and the playloops of those games I completely defer to them on - that's what knowing more about the game really means.  *But the analysis of what those mechanics and playloops mean in relation to agency isn't something that experience with a game is going to aid one with *(provided that those with knowledge of the game are forthcoming in the relevant details that would enable one to analyze the game).



The assertion that I've bolded is contentious.

I think that if you have not read the rules text of a game, and have not played it, and have not played other games that are similar to it or that it is inspired by, then your analysis would necessarily have to be very tentative and very broad-brush. Experience with playing a game is absolutely the best way to understand how it supports player agency.



FrogReaver said:


> @hawkeyefan
> 
> This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.  Now imagine if I had taken one of those descriptions to heart, then anyone discussing with me that had played and disagreed with that posters description would also disagree with most analysis I'm doing on that basis.
> 
> Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play.  I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.



When @Manbearcat makes posts about American football, a sport/game about which I know almost nothing, I don't try to second-guess him. When someone else from the US disagrees with him about his analysis, I stand back. It's a conversation I have nothing to contribute to.

You may have noticed that @Campbell and I disagree on the degree to which Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP is story vs character advocacy. I'm fairly confident in my view - it is based on my experience (which I think, perhaps wrongly) is more than Campbell's. Maybe Campbell has played the system with a group that is more influenced by Fate than me - no one in my group has ever played Fate and I suspect I'm the only one in our group who's even heard of it. In any event, I would expect someone who's never played the system or who's never even read the rules for it to hold off from intervening and telling @Campbell which of us is correct.

I just played a session of Classic Traveller today. At one stage the question came up about how the PCs' group in our game resembled a "traditional" or "typical" Traveller table. My comment was that the typical Traveller table existed in the late 70s/early 80s and I don't really know what it looked like. (In our game the PCs' group is currently close to 20 individuals.) My GMing of Traveller is influenced by my own reading of the 1977 rules, plus my knowledge of Apocalypse World and the fact that the Traveller rules lend themselves to being read as PbtA-style "moves" ie *when you do such-and-such*, make such-and-such a roll. In today's session "moves snowballed" in a fashion adversely to the PCs, so that an attempt by one key PC with another PC offsider to steal the NPC rivals' air/raft and infiltrate the alien ruins ended up with the key PC taken prisoner by the rivals while the offsider changed sides.

Is that typical of how Traveller was played c 1980? I have no real idea, though I suspect probably not. Is it the way most contemporary Traveller posters play the game? Probably not. Is it a way that Traveller can be played? Absolutely. When I talk about player agency in Classic Traveller, I'm talking about my own game and experiences.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Going through life without being able to tightly predict the odds of success of almost any action I take is completely alien to me.
> 
> I'm 43.  I spent all of my life in athletics, martial arts, and in the sciences and having dealt with numerical and spatial relationships constantly.  I don't know what the background is of folks who feel like its "not immersive or counterintuitive to have a deep understanding of their prospects for any action", but it has to be profoundly different than my own.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What sort of margin of error do some of you guys think you're working with when you try to predict your prospects in any given arena?



I'm reasonably good at estimating my prospects of success in jogging/running and jumping.

I'm very good at estimating my prospects of success in reading and writing. I can budget the amount of time I need to read a paper sufficiently to discuss it with its author, and given that amount of time to estimate how confidently I can make remarks about that paper, very finely (down to the minute; and very nuanced in respect of comments). If I wasn't able to do this, I couldn't do my job.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.  Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?



What is interesting is whether your opinions would stay the same. It seems unlikely that they would.


----------



## Campbell

@pemerton

My personal experience with Cortex + Heroic is fairly limited. I have played and run short runs of Marvel Heroic Roleplay using the event books (about 6 sessions each). I did once run a longer term game using the Smallville Roleplaying Game (Cortex+ Drama) set in the X-Men Universe, but that is a phenomenally different game.


----------



## Aldarc

Campbell said:


> @pemerton
> 
> My personal experience with Cortex + Heroic is fairly limited. I have played and run short runs of Marvel Heroic Roleplay using the event books (about 6 sessions each). I did once run a longer term game using the Smallville Roleplaying Game (Cortex+ Drama) set in the X-Men Universe, but that is a phenomenally different game.



Cortex Prime has basically put both of these games in the same umbrella system.



hawkeyefan said:


> I'm reasonably sure these may have already been posted, but no harm in doing it again.
> 
> Here is the earliest series run by John Harper, and the rules are still in a state of flux, so sometimes things change a bit as the series progresses.



Thank you. I'm sure @FrogReaver will find this informative to watch.


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> Interestingly, I think this hearkens to something @FrogReaver was trying to get at earlier, which is that there's an important quality, or sensibility, that is derived from having a notion of "what the world is like" as a player. I believe his point was that rules systems that strongly correlate to "how my character interacts with the illusion of objective reality" are an aid to giving players more agency, because the players feel more "grounded" in the fiction.
> 
> And I don't necessarily think he's wrong. Most of the best roleplaying campaigns I've been involved with have stemmed from those campaigns having this sensibility, or quality of "understanding the world." And yes, there is a greater degree of freedom involved when the player is more firmly grounded in the established illusion that underpins the fictional reality.



This isn't all that far adrift of my own position - sums it up pretty well, in fact. 

Looking at some earlier posts about different types of agency, one thought occurred to me:

@pemerton is always talking about having agency *over* the shared fiction; where you're helping build the stage as well as acting on it.

I think when some of us including me talk about agency we're referring to agency *within* the shared fiction; where you're acting on a stage someone else has built.


innerdude said:


> This was one of the points I made earlier regarding @Lanefan's introduction of the undead death cult on his players.



Er...I have to plead not guilty on this one, y'r honour.  I think that was someone else's death cult.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Have you heard @pemerton talk about D&D?



I believe I have more D&D actual play posts on these boards than almost any other user.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I agree that it's not strictly zero sum. I posted a bit more about that upthread.
> 
> I don't agree that AW hard moves, or similar approaches to failure narration in a system like Burning Wheel, pull the GM into "tweaking" or "controlling" more than in D&D.



That's been my experience, as well, with BW, BE, and Sentinel Comics... especially with the duel of wits requirement for stakes to be agreed to in BW (I found it; I had, at Luke's suggestion, expanded the scope on that particular rules element. It's still present in DoW in Gold.)

I'll note, tho', that the Sentinel Comics rules  do allow a lot of GM force to be applied, in ways not like how AW is written. (It's a genre appropriate level of force.)

And to explicate my comment about group vs GM for success with complication - listening to the players is often far better than GM only, _no matter the rule system_, when using success with complication. Why? More independent views give the GM more creative options than just his/her/xer own ideas. It's just as true in _D&D_ as it is in _Blood and Honor, Fate, _or _Cosmic Patrol_. It's served me well since I started moving more towards complicated success instead of outright failure.


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> Another note --- One of @FrogReaver's other objections has been the idea that players can simply handwave/"author" away obstacles as they see fit.
> 
> In my experience, this is largely not the case. Once obstacles are introduced into the fiction, the players (through their characters) are obligated to deal with those obstacles through principled play (action declarations and their attendant resolutions).
> 
> What this does, however, is place a large burden on the GM _to only introduce obstacles that are relevant, directive, and appropriate to the concerns at hand_.
> 
> This was one of the points I made earlier regarding @Lanefan's introduction of the undead death cult on his players. In Dungeon World, obstacles that are not germane to the goals/directives of the players (as expressed through their characters), should only be introduced sparingly, if at all.
> 
> If an obstacle is "handwaved"/authored away (or allowed to be by a player), it's because the GM recognizes that the presented obstacle is not germane to the goals of play.



All of this seems right to me.

I still don't know what this "authored away" thing is.

Making a (series of) check(s) to resolve a fight takes a certain amount of time at the table, and may or may not consume player resources. Making a check, or series of checks, to recollect something useful takes a certain amount of time at the table, and may or may not consume player resources. I'm still not seeing what the ostensible difference is supposed to be, other than the (self-evident) fact that recollecting something estabilshes a setting element in the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Among people who have not played Blades or Apocalypse World these player strategies for avoiding playing the game basically seem like a pretty big deal. A lot of that comes from being used to the way incentives and play loops reinforce a certain set of player behaviors in mainstream games.



Turtling or "safe" play is something I'm not really interested in. It makes play drag, particularly in systems that have a reasonable rate of failures.

In our Traveller session today the key PC and offsider PC were trying to steal the NPC rivals' air/raft to enter the alien pyramid complex. The world they're on is very cold, and so vacc suits are required. Neither character has vacc suit skill, and both players failed the roll required to manoeuvre safely in vacc suits. I narrated this that they had arrived at the rivals' pinnace (where their air/raft was parked), were having trouble regulating the oxygen and temperature aspects of their vacc suits, and basically had to run back to their own base or open the pinnace airlock.

The player of the offsider opted for the second option. Which precipitated further mayhem as the NPCs came to find out who was infiltrating their vessel.

There is no XP or advancement system in Traveller to encourage action over safety, so this outcome was more the result of the personality of the player feeding into the established dispositions of the PC in question. But there are aspects of the system that help here. For instance, there are subsystems (eg social resolution), elements of character build (especially Social Standing including some characters being nobles), and aspects of the setting that flow from this, which make "fail forward" narration feasible. So taking a risk, and failing, doesn't mean "game over".

I think this "freedom to fail" which is different from "freedom to lose" is an important component of player agency in non-gamist RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> As I see it, there's a few ways for a player to activate agency:
> 
> 
> Direct authorship ("I declare this to be true about the fiction, without any consultation to systematic rules framework").
> Rules-mediated authorship ("I'm spending metacurrency X, which by rule means I can now declare the following thing(s) to be true in the fiction").
> Character generation/advancement ("Because my character has these skills, this background, and these traits and flaws, it must naturally follow that the following things are true in the fiction").
> Action declaration ("My character chooses to perform action X. If he/she succeeds at his/her intent, then the following thing(s) in the fiction must be true"). (Naturally, action declarations will largely be mediated through rules conventions to determine the "truthiness" or "falsiness" of the declaration.)
> 
> Are there additional ways to activate player agency?



I've posted about some of these upthread. (But got little traction.)

I think a key issue is whether the player "authorship"/"narrative power" is an action declaration of some sort, or is direct stipulation like a GM writing something in his/her notes. Your "rules-mediated authorship" straddles both possibilities: eg in Prince Valiant a storyteller certificate allows player fiat, but is still about an action that the player's character takes.

An important form of player agency is the ability to make meaningful suggestions to which the GM has to have regard. This can take all sorts of forms - eg Beliefs in Burning Wheel; or responding to the GM's questions in a PbtA game.

Another form of player agency, which is very important in AW and DW, is being able to oblige the GM to introduce a fictional element that will speak to the player's concern/interests (eg "Who here is in charge?" or "What here is not what it seems?"). This is very different from exploration-oriented actions in D&D or similar systems that oblige the GM to read from his/her notes but don't require that what the GM tells the player have any particular connection to the interests/concerns of a player or of his/her PC.



innerdude said:


> And really, if you think about it, the creation and use of rules for a roleplaying game are ultimately a shorthand way of communicating a contractual agreement between players as to how certain declarations about the fiction _should be mediated. _



Upthread I've quoted Vincent Baker a couple of times:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. In order for any thing to be true in game, all the participants in the game (players and GMs, if you've even got such things) have to understand and assent to it. When you're roleplaying, what you're doing is a) suggesting things that might be true in the game and then b) negotiating with the other participants to determine whether they're actually true or not. . . .

So look, you! Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe it will be clearer by example than by definition.  Let's say you come to a raging river and want to cross it safely.  A player that's able to add (or do something that adds) the existence of a nearby bridge across the river to the fiction would be authoring the removal of the obstacle.





hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think that’s all that different from things like using Survival to find food, or Nature to find a poison remedy, por Gather Info to learn about a thieves’ guild in the area?
> 
> To me, this still resembles declaring an action.



_I look for a bridge_ absolutely is declaring an action.

In my Burning Wheel game, when we needed to travel along and across the river Thurgon found a former member of his order, who took us across on his raft.

Here's the bigger issue as I see it: from the point of view of gameplay, what is the difference between (i) player A building a character with strong Swimming skill, or Boatwrighting skill, and then resolving the process of getting across the river by swimming or by building a raft Talisman-style; and (ii) player B building a character with strong Circles, multiple Affiliations and Reputations to boost Circles, and then resolving the process of meeting a friend or former comrade who will carry the characters over the river on his raft?

These are different characters, who will have different stories, but the basic structure of play is the same: character build supports action declaration which - if successful - allows the river to be crossed.

What is the ostensible problem here?


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> My personal experience with Cortex + Heroic is fairly limited. I have played and run short runs of Marvel Heroic Roleplay using the event books (about 6 sessions each). I did once run a longer term game using the Smallville Roleplaying Game (Cortex+ Drama) set in the X-Men Universe, but that is a phenomenally different game.





Aldarc said:


> Cortex Prime has basically put both of these games in the same umbrella system.



I don't have Cortex Prime - the closest I've got is the Hacker's Guide, but with that I haven't read the Smallville or Leverage bits very closely.

@Campbell, I think you're right that the MHRP Events books push things closer to story advocacy because of the need to keep on track - frankly I think there's a huge tension (which I assume is the result of commercially-driven compromise) between the event framework of MHRP and its resolution system. So when we've played MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic I've used the events books for particular scenes or scene elements that seemed apposite (eg appearing before Congress, and Titanium Man attacks) and I've used characters, but I've never used an event structure.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> @pemerton is always talking about having agency *over* the shared fiction; where you're helping build the stage as well as acting on it.
> 
> I think when some of us including me talk about agency we're referring to agency *within* the shared fiction; where you're acting on a stage someone else has built.



Two things:

(1) If we're comparing RPG players to _actors_, who is providing the script and the direction?

(2) The shared fiction consists of more than setting. _That an orc dies _is as much a part of a shared fiction as _that an orc exists _or _that a secret door exists_.


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> Realize I already wrote one essay-length post today, but I had a few additional thoughts.
> 
> One, I want to recognize that despite my disagreement with @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus on what they see as untenable components of player-facing systems, I don't want to discount that their objections are coming from a real place.
> 
> In a socially constructed activity like roleplaying, there is a significant element of risk any time a GM considers upsetting the status quo. Despite my desire to branch out from more "traditional", GM-facing, task-resolution systems, that's not to say that there isn't value in what such systems provide.
> 
> There's absolutely a core substance, or space, or experience derived from D&D and its progeny, offshoots, and alternatives that has provided sustained value to participants for close to 50 years.
> 
> That's not trivial. It is, in fact, remarkable in the extreme.
> 
> I think the purpose of having conversations like this one is to give all of us ideas, considerations, components, techniques, and systems of thought that will increase our ability to achieve consistent excellence of play and high satisfaction within our hobby.
> 
> This is also not trivial (even though our games contain seemingly trivial elements like elves, gnomes, and dragons).
> 
> 
> Two, I've been thinking tremendously about how much _result_ follows _intent_ when it comes to how much player agency to allow/disallow.
> 
> The _why_ behind systems like PbtA, Burning Wheel, BitD, Fate, etc., is extremely important. A tremendous amount of effort, thought, and design rationale has been explicitly "baked in" to those systems, because they are designed from a specific intent.
> 
> I think much of the tenor of conversation around these systems stems from how much that intent is personally valued.
> 
> If the intent is to provide a different experience from "classic" D&D, then conversations will naturally revolve around processes that are perceived weaknesses or flaws in "classic" D&D.
> 
> 
> Three, the idea has come up over and over that there's different "kinds" of player agency at stake when a game is in action. And I don't know that it's ever fully been addressed whether this is a "thing" or not.
> 
> Earlier, @Manbearcat broke down player agency into subsets: Setting, Situation, and Character.
> 
> As that was 50+ pages of posts ago, I don't know that I fully explored this.
> 
> The problem as I see it, is that the notion of whether there's different "kinds" of agency is related to the interplay between subsets. Meaning, does an increase in player agency in one subset have the ability to decrease agency in another? And if so, does the increase in one subset increase the overall level of agency relative to the whole, even if agency is diminished in another subset---or is it zero-sum?
> 
> Furthermore, have we fully identified the ways that players can actually _express_, or _activate_ agency in play?
> 
> As I see it, there's a few ways for a player to activate agency:
> 
> 
> Direct authorship ("I declare this to be true about the fiction, without any consultation to systematic rules framework").
> Rules-mediated authorship ("I'm spending metacurrency X, which by rule means I can now declare the following thing(s) to be true in the fiction").
> Character generation/advancement ("Because my character has these skills, this background, and these traits and flaws, it must naturally follow that the following things are true in the fiction").
> Action declaration ("My character chooses to perform action X. If he/she succeeds at his/her intent, then the following thing(s) in the fiction must be true"). (Naturally, action declarations will largely be mediated through rules conventions to determine the "truthiness" or "falsiness" of the declaration.)
> 
> Are there additional ways to activate player agency?
> 
> *Edit --- added Rules-mediated Authorship.




I want to clarify and expound on my post and hopefully it starts some functional conversation.

As of right now, I think many of the people I typically agree with on these issues has at least SOME level of disagreement with me on this so it would be especially interesting if those folks who typically agree with me, but disagree with me here, would critique what I write below:

*AGENCY VECTOR AND TYPE*

So I wrote above about Character Agency, Situation Agency, Setting Agency.  These are vectors for player agency, not types (more on that below).  On any given Venn Diagram featuring these 3, there will be some overlap, but the majority of the space of each is discrete with no overlap.  To unpack that further:

*Character Agency* - The PC is _here_.  The time is _now_.  The relationship of relevant objects (including the PC themselves) within the gamestate are _thus_.  Without changing any of _here_, _now_, and _thus _for any given action declaration_, _make a move where either/or/both _here _and _thus _are changed (_now _will fundamentally change because time will have moved forward after the action declaration).

*Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_.  Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).

*Setting Agency* - The ability to make a move that interfaces with/leverages the offscreen whereby some new aspect of the shared imagined space (setting) becomes established/fleshed-out (in a way that doesn't violate what has been already established through play).  This could be something relevant and interesting...or it could just be interesting with the prospect of becoming relevant later.

Now, onto *AGENCY TYPE*:

*Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.

*Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.

*Protagonist Agency* - The ability to have resolving a PC's dramatic needs be either the outright premise of play or primarily propel the trajectory/arc of play.



I don't see any other vectors or types.  If anyone sees a different one, critique away.  FYI - I don't see how "emotions, feelings, or immersion" are "agency" here.  All of those things will be the experience created by the unique characteristics of a person's cognitive landscape/framework connecting + the systematized aspects of games (what is the premise of play, what kind of conflicts, what kind of fallout and how is that actualized).

I'm running long here so I need to wrap this up.

One thing I find interesting in examining the matrix above is the *Martial vs Spellcaster in D&D* divide.  Look at how much of all of the above the classic D&D Spellcaster interfaces with vs the Martial character:

* They have tons of agency through their Character because its impossible not too.  HOWEVER, they can subvert the ability of NPCs to express agency via their spells.

* They have tons of ability to dramatically alter or reframe Situation via their spells.

* They have a unique ability to express agency through Setting within their spells, which grows as levels accrue (becoming somewhat rote at 10+ in high level Spells/Rituals).

* Their Tactical Agency is profound.  They can fundamentally alter or reframe any given combat or noncombat encounter with a singular spell (god help us if they deploy more than one).

* Their Strategic Agency is without equal.  They can dictate when/where and even if/what...becoming a triviality as levels pile on.

* Because of all of the above, they get to dictate (a) what the game is about and (b) the trajectory through which that "what is this about" manifests more than any other character.  The only way this doesn't turn out is f (c) they give up this capability of their own volition or (d) the GM assumes an adversarial arms race against the Spellcaster...leveraging the offscreen/secret backstory in order to block their ability to put into affect (a) and (b).

(D) particularly becomes a thing when the GM is trying to impose their own metaplot or keep a game on the AP's rails.



Thoughts?

EDIT - One thing I've tried to examine often (and this dovetails precisely with "The Spellcaster Issue" cited above) is when one or more vectors/types of agency clash with a play priority and what gives way.  I find, far too often, that what gives way is Protagonist Agency (if it was even present to begin with).  THIS sort of agency loss is a non-starter for a lot of people expressing distaste with certain "GM moves" in this thread.


----------



## innerdude

After looking over it for a minute, I think the defined *Agency Types* are solid.

In terms of the *Vectors*, I'm actually having a hard time seeing how *Character Agency* isn't actually subsumed into either *Situation* or *Setting*. 

Thinking about D&D 3.5 / PF1, for example, a character's build would fall under the other two vectors. 

If we're talking about core stats (bonuses, BAB), that's only relevant to *Situation* ("Because my fighter has an 18 STR, a +6 BAB, and is wielding a longsword, he is able to make an attack move that can cause harm to the ogre") and *Setting* ("He's obviously a large, powerful individual who will be viewed by inhabitants of the fiction thusly").

If we're talking about background / personality / traits / bonds / flaws / appearance, that's all *Setting*. 

What is it in particular you're thinking about in therms of *Character* as a vector?


----------



## innerdude

Lanefan said:


> Er...I have to plead not guilty on this one, y'r honour.  I think that was someone else's death cult.




Man, you people and your death cults. So hard to keep track of them all. 

I mean, why do I have to be the one to know the difference between the evil death cult of Tightened Sphincters and the devilish death cult of Stolen Toilet Paper?


----------



## prabe

innerdude said:


> After looking over it for a minute, I think the defined *Agency Types* are solid.
> 
> In terms of the *Vectors*, I'm actually having a hard time seeing how *Character Agency* isn't actually subsumed into either *Situation* or *Setting*.
> 
> Thinking about D&D 3.5 / PF1, for example, a character's build would fall under the other two vectors.
> 
> If we're talking about core stats (bonuses, BAB), that's only relevant to *Situation* ("Because my fighter has an 18 STR, a +6 BAB, and is wielding a longsword, he is able to make an attack move that can cause harm to the ogre") and *Setting* ("He's obviously a large, powerful individual who will be viewed by inhabitants of the fiction thusly").
> 
> If we're talking about background / personality / traits / bonds / flaws / appearance, that's all *Setting*.
> 
> What is it in particular you're thinking about in therms of *Character* as a vector?



Not speaking for @Manbearcat here, but I think it needs separation out because of the Protagonist thing. I mean, I can see how a character's dramatic needs might be divorced from Situation or Setting (or, at least, the connections might be at best tenuous) but it seems as though it must be connected to Character Agency.

I was going to say something about Protagonist Agency being more difficult to navigate, the more players you have. I have five PCs in one group I'm DMing, and six in the other, and it's hard to make a narrative fit more than one or two goals at a time. In practice, this means that some characters aren't pursuing their own goals, now; in principle, though, any character's goal could be next.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I want to clarify and expound on my post and hopefully it starts some functional conversation.
> 
> As of right now, I think many of the people I typically agree with on these issues has at least SOME level of disagreement with me on this so it would be especially interesting if those folks who typically agree with me, but disagree with me here, would critique what I write below:
> 
> *AGENCY VECTOR AND TYPE*
> 
> So I wrote above about Character Agency, Situation Agency, Setting Agency.  These are vectors for player agency, not types (more on that below).  On any given Venn Diagram featuring these 3, there will be some overlap, but the majority of the space of each is discrete with no overlap.  To unpack that further:
> 
> *Character Agency* - The PC is _here_.  The time is _now_.  The relationship of relevant objects (including the PC themselves) within the gamestate are _thus_.  Without changing any of _here_, _now_, and _thus _for any given action declaration_, _make a move where either/or/both _here _and _thus _are changed (_now _will fundamentally change because time will have moved forward after the action declaration).
> 
> *Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_.  Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).
> 
> *Setting Agency* - The ability to make a move that interfaces with/leverages the offscreen whereby some new aspect of the shared imagined space (setting) becomes established/fleshed-out (in a way that doesn't violate what has been already established through play).  This could be something relevant and interesting...or it could just be interesting with the prospect of becoming relevant later.
> 
> Now, onto *AGENCY TYPE*:
> 
> *Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.
> 
> *Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.
> 
> *Protagonist Agency* - The ability to have resolving a PC's dramatic needs be either the outright premise of play or primarily propel the trajectory/arc of play.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see any other vectors or types.  If anyone sees a different one, critique away.  FYI - I don't see how "emotions, feelings, or immersion" are "agency" here.  All of those things will be the experience created by the unique characteristics of a person's cognitive landscape/framework connecting + the systematized aspects of games (what is the premise of play, what kind of conflicts, what kind of fallout and how is that actualized).
> 
> I'm running long here so I need to wrap this up.
> 
> One thing I find interesting in examining the matrix above is the *Martial vs Spellcaster in D&D* divide.  Look at how much of all of the above the classic D&D Spellcaster interfaces with vs the Martial character:
> 
> * They have tons of agency through their Character because its impossible not too.  HOWEVER, they can subvert the ability of NPCs to express agency via their spells.
> 
> * They have tons of ability to dramatically alter or reframe Situation via their spells.
> 
> * They have a unique ability to express agency through Setting within their spells, which grows as levels accrue (becoming somewhat rote at 10+ in high level Spells/Rituals).
> 
> * Their Tactical Agency is profound.  They can fundamentally alter or reframe any given combat or noncombat encounter with a singular spell (god help us if they deploy more than one).
> 
> * Their Strategic Agency is without equal.  They can dictate when/where and even if/what...becoming a triviality as levels pile on.
> 
> * Because of all of the above, they get to dictate (a) what the game is about and (b) the trajectory through which that "what is this about" manifests more than any other character.  The only way this doesn't turn out is f (c) they give up this capability of their own volition or (d) the GM assumes an adversarial arms race against the Spellcaster...leveraging the offscreen/secret backstory in order to block their ability to put into affect (a) and (b).
> 
> (D) particularly becomes a thing when the GM is trying to impose their own metaplot or keep a game on the AP's rails.
> 
> 
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> EDIT - One thing I've tried to examine often (and this dovetails precisely with "The Spellcaster Issue" cited above) is when one or more vectors/types of agency clash with a play priority and what gives way.  I find, far too often, that what gives way is Protagonist Agency (if it was even present to begin with).  THIS sort of agency loss is a non-starter for a lot of people expressing distaste with certain "GM moves" in this thread.



I would say there is a another agency vector to mention.  It doesn't come up in any game that I'm aware, but the agency to alter established fiction at least needs mentioned IMO.  Think, retcon.


----------



## darkbard

Manbearcat said:


> Now, onto *AGENCY TYPE*:
> 
> *Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.
> 
> *Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.
> 
> *Protagonist Agency* - The ability to have resolving a PC's dramatic needs be either the outright premise of play or primarily propel the trajectory/arc of play.



One of the reasons I've been reluctant to frame agency in terms of types is that I see your tactical and strategic agencies as means of achieving protagonist agency. That is, that protagonist agency is a metagame concern (what system do we play, what are its governing principles, and how does the game distribute agency among participants) and that tactical and strategic agency are the system's architecture, the gears and levers of actually playing the game. But I'll need to think about this some more.


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> That's been my experience, as well, with BW, BE, and Sentinel Comics... especially with the duel of wits requirement for stakes to be agreed to in BW (I found it; I had, at Luke's suggestion, expanded the scope on that particular rules element. It's still present in DoW in Gold.)
> 
> I'll note, tho', that the Sentinel Comics rules  do allow a lot of GM force to be applied, in ways not like how AW is written. (It's a genre appropriate level of force.)
> 
> And to explicate my comment about group vs GM for success with complication - listening to the players is often far better than GM only, _no matter the rule system_, when using success with complication. Why? More independent views give the GM more creative options than just his/her/xer own ideas. It's just as true in _D&D_ as it is in _Blood and Honor, Fate, _or _Cosmic Patrol_. It's served me well since I started moving more towards complicated success instead of outright failure.



The only issue with this is that it moves the players from character advocacy into story advocacy.  If this isn't a concern, then no problem.  I like both, but prefer them separate, kinda like how I enjoy a salad but don't want any veggies on my burgers.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> I want to clarify and expound on my post and hopefully it starts some functional conversation.
> 
> As of right now, I think many of the people I typically agree with on these issues has at least SOME level of disagreement with me on this so it would be especially interesting if those folks who typically agree with me, but disagree with me here, would critique what I write below:
> 
> *AGENCY VECTOR AND TYPE*
> 
> So I wrote above about Character Agency, Situation Agency, Setting Agency.  These are vectors for player agency, not types (more on that below).  On any given Venn Diagram featuring these 3, there will be some overlap, but the majority of the space of each is discrete with no overlap.  To unpack that further:
> 
> *Character Agency* - The PC is _here_.  The time is _now_.  The relationship of relevant objects (including the PC themselves) within the gamestate are _thus_.  Without changing any of _here_, _now_, and _thus _for any given action declaration_, _make a move where either/or/both _here _and _thus _are changed (_now _will fundamentally change because time will have moved forward after the action declaration).
> 
> *Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_.  Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).
> 
> *Setting Agency* - The ability to make a move that interfaces with/leverages the offscreen whereby some new aspect of the shared imagined space (setting) becomes established/fleshed-out (in a way that doesn't violate what has been already established through play).  This could be something relevant and interesting...or it could just be interesting with the prospect of becoming relevant later.
> 
> Now, onto *AGENCY TYPE*:
> 
> *Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.
> 
> *Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.
> 
> *Protagonist Agency* - The ability to have resolving a PC's dramatic needs be either the outright premise of play or primarily propel the trajectory/arc of play.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see any other vectors or types.  If anyone sees a different one, critique away.  FYI - I don't see how "emotions, feelings, or immersion" are "agency" here.  All of those things will be the experience created by the unique characteristics of a person's cognitive landscape/framework connecting + the systematized aspects of games (what is the premise of play, what kind of conflicts, what kind of fallout and how is that actualized).
> 
> I'm running long here so I need to wrap this up.
> 
> One thing I find interesting in examining the matrix above is the *Martial vs Spellcaster in D&D* divide.  Look at how much of all of the above the classic D&D Spellcaster interfaces with vs the Martial character:
> 
> * They have tons of agency through their Character because its impossible not too.  HOWEVER, they can subvert the ability of NPCs to express agency via their spells.
> 
> * They have tons of ability to dramatically alter or reframe Situation via their spells.
> 
> * They have a unique ability to express agency through Setting within their spells, which grows as levels accrue (becoming somewhat rote at 10+ in high level Spells/Rituals).
> 
> * Their Tactical Agency is profound.  They can fundamentally alter or reframe any given combat or noncombat encounter with a singular spell (god help us if they deploy more than one).
> 
> * Their Strategic Agency is without equal.  They can dictate when/where and even if/what...becoming a triviality as levels pile on.
> 
> * Because of all of the above, they get to dictate (a) what the game is about and (b) the trajectory through which that "what is this about" manifests more than any other character.  The only way this doesn't turn out is f (c) they give up this capability of their own volition or (d) the GM assumes an adversarial arms race against the Spellcaster...leveraging the offscreen/secret backstory in order to block their ability to put into affect (a) and (b).
> 
> (D) particularly becomes a thing when the GM is trying to impose their own metaplot or keep a game on the AP's rails.
> 
> 
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> EDIT - One thing I've tried to examine often (and this dovetails precisely with "The Spellcaster Issue" cited above) is when one or more vectors/types of agency clash with a play priority and what gives way.  I find, far too often, that what gives way is Protagonist Agency (if it was even present to begin with).  THIS sort of agency loss is a non-starter for a lot of people expressing distaste with certain "GM moves" in this thread.



I dislike trying to separate agency into different types, because I think it obfuscates the issue, which is, to me, who can say no.  If someone else can unilaterally say no, then I do not have agency.  To have agency, though, more needs to be present that just the lack of negation, namely places where decisions matter to the game.

The first set of buckets you've listed doesn't really illuminate these points, because no game really separates play into these categories and then define who has what say where.  That it works to show that a wizard in D&D has more agency than a fighter isn't because of the framework you've built, but because the magic system in D&D has more places where the GM cannot or is limited in how they say no.  As such, the framework doesn't do a good job of answering the questions of who has agency in which bucket because agency isn't assigned by the bucket, but by access to the magic system.  By this I mean that the separation of agency doesn't clarify where the wizard has more agency because the wizard doesn't actually have agency by these buckets, but rather has access to a system that occasionally provides agency _in _these buckets.  The buckets don't really define where agency is available, the tool of magic does.

Secondly, your second framework is a bit of a mishmash.  As others have noted, the protagonist bucket is very blurry with the other two -- can I have protagonist agency and not have tactical or strategic agency?  I don't really see how.  I also don't see how I could have strategic agency without tactical agency.  This division is messy and unclear and far to interdependent to really call out the nature of either.  I can see how I can have tactical agency but not strategy agency (I can operate in a combat how I want, but the outcome of the module is fixed).  So, maybe a reframing that shows that you need a to have b, and a and b to have c, etc.  I'm still not sure this is very illuminating, but perhaps.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I dislike trying to separate agency into different types, because I think it obfuscates the issue, which is, to me, who can say no. If someone else can unilaterally say no, then I do not have agency.



I am glad you finally said it so plainly, though it was apparent that this is was basically where you were coming from. I have to say that to me this definition is blatantly absurd.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am glad you finally said it so plainly, though it was apparent that this is was basically where you were coming from. I have to say that to me this definition is blatantly absurd.



and if I’m not mistaken this isn’t even one he uses consistently. For example, consider mechanics that force my character to like another.  I can’t say no to that so no agency under this definition. And yet that mechanic is spoken of as providing greater agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am glad you finally said it so plainly, though it was apparent that this is was basically where you were coming from. I have to say that to me this definition is blatantly absurd.



I would like to hear an example of a place you have agency where another person can unilaterally negate it.


FrogReaver said:


> and if I’m not mistaken this isn’t even one he uses consistently. For example, consider mechanics that force my character to like another.  I can’t say no to that so no agency under this definition. And yet that mechanic is spoken of as providing greater agency.



Nope, because I've been absolutely clear that this is a place where you would not have agency.  Have I not pointed out things like Charm, Suggestion, and Dominate routinely as examples of where this happens in D&D?  I'm not doing this because I don't think these things remove agency, but to show that your stance that such things in other games show less agency than in D&D is false -- they exist in both places.

This is, of course, accepting ad arguendo that this is a thing that routinely happens in other games.  It does in some, but not in others.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> I am glad you finally said it so plainly, though it was apparent that this is was basically where you were coming from. I have to say that to me this definition is blatantly absurd.



To actually expand on this rather than just the request for an example that disproves it above, my point is that someone else being able to negate your decision removes agency.  Lack of such a negation does not show agency, though.  As such, it's not a complete definition, but rather a statement of where something doesn't exist.  To put it in math terms, I can absolutely say that having a negative number is outside the set of all positive integers, but not having a negative number doesn't mean you're in the set of all positive integers -- one-half isn't sufficient.  However, being negative is absolutely enough to say that it's not in the set of all positive numbers without the need to look at any else.

Likewise, if someone else can negate unilaterally, I don't have agency.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> I would like to hear an example of a place you have agency where another person can unilaterally negate it.



The proposition is so absurd that it is hard to address. It is like saying that if the head of state has a veto power then the prime minister or the parliament has no agency.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Likewise, if someone else can negate unilaterally, I don't have agency.



So ... I'm not looking to argue, here, but when would you say the ability to negate removes agency? Does the fact the GM can say "no" to any given action the players propose mean (to you) that the players never have agency? Even if the GM approximately never says "no"? I think it's obvious that some games will vary more in this regard from table to table than others will.


----------



## Manbearcat

innerdude said:


> In terms of the *Vectors*, I'm actually having a hard time seeing how *Character Agency* isn't actually subsumed into either *Situation* or *Setting*.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What is it in particular you're thinking about in therms of *Character* as a vector?






FrogReaver said:


> I would say there is a another agency vector to mention.  It doesn't come up in any game that I'm aware, but the agency to alter established fiction at least needs mentioned IMO.  Think, retcon.




Going to answer both of these in one post.

Take *Flashbacks *in Blades or *Immediate Interrupts* in D&D 4e.

Flashbacks and Immediate Interrupts ("retcons" in this case) will (a) ALWAYS being agency expressed via the Situation vector, (b) SOMETIMES be expressed via the Setting vector, (c) but NEVER expressed via the Character vector because of the violation of the _now _proviso.

The player, through the character, is proposing an alteration to the Situation (we're not actually in dire straights because I've stashed some guns in the laundry chute or this spell doesn't hit us because I erected this arcane barrier just in time) and maybe the Setting (its a double-cross because I greased the palm of this NPC or the people in the marketplace are my agents so a riot will break out to get these agents of the Court Mage off our tail).  But this is always expressed as an alteration to the present course of the gamestate/fiction via the deployment of these player-facing mechanics.

And again, I'm not going to (and its not appropriate to) smuggle in an "immersion rider" to this.  Some folks find this jarring.  Others (like myself) not only don't find it jarring, they find it immersion-enhancing.  But its still always Situation and sometimes Setting as a vector for agency because its always a proposed amendment to the temporal continuity of play (the _now _proviso).  I think that's important (and others clearly do), so I think something distinguishes these things are important (while not smuggling BUT IMMERSION into it).


----------



## Campbell

prabe said:


> So ... I'm not looking to argue, here, but when would you say the ability to negate removes agency? Does the fact the GM can say "no" to any given action the players propose mean (to you) that the players never have agency? Even if the GM approximately never says "no"? I think it's obvious that some games will vary more in this regard from table to table than others will.




From my perspective if not constrained at least by social expectations that they will play with integrity absolutely there is no meaningful agency to be had. From my perspective if manipulation of setting to achieve certain outcomes or picking and choosing when to apply the rules when not guided by something exceptional in the fiction, or fudging dice rolls is ever an option then it is always an option. By choosing not to do these things in a given moment of play you are still making an active decision as a GM. You have all the influence. The players have none except through you.

It pretty much ruins the integrity of the whole thing for me personally.


----------



## Manbearcat

darkbard said:


> One of the reasons I've been reluctant to frame agency in terms of types is that I see your tactical and strategic agencies as means of achieving protagonist agency. That is, that protagonist agency is a metagame concern (what system do we play, what are its governing principles, and how does the game distribute agency among participants) and that tactical and strategic agency are the system's architecture, the gears and levers of actually playing the game. But I'll need to think about this some more.




The reason I separate them is this:

A Step On Up game like Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic doesn't have any Protagonist Agency.  There is no dramatic need to address so it can't be the play premise.  The actual play premise is about Tactical and Strategic agency exclusively.  So at every moment of play, the agency a player possesses within those decision-points, and the skill with which they execute them, are the exclusive locus of agency in the game.  

My Life With Master is almost the exact inverse.  Its basically full bore Protagonist Agency where the game is 100 % about the Player Characters' dramatic need but their exercising of Tactical and Strategic agency is profoundly muted (this is intentful design) by comparison to most games (certainly not close to as muted to the degree that a "descent Into madness" theatrics and pantomime railroad of a Cthulu is however...but the chips are deeply stacked against any one of the Master's Minions and against them collectively).

@Ovinomancer , thanks for posting.  Don't have time to dig into your post, but I'll take a look at it tonight and respond.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> *Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_.  Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).







Manbearcat said:


> Going to answer both of these in one post.
> 
> Take *Flashbacks *in Blades or *Immediate Interrupts* in D&D 4e.
> 
> Flashbacks and Immediate Interrupts ("retcons" in this case) will (a) ALWAYS being agency expressed via the Situation vector, (b) SOMETIMES be expressed via the Setting vector, (c) but NEVER expressed via the Character vector because of the violation of the _now _proviso.



But I said I wasn't talking about flashbacks.  The whole, I can't think of any game that uses a retcon included those that use flashback mechanics.



Manbearcat said:


> The player, through the character, is proposing an alteration to the Situation (we're not actually in dire straights because I've stashed some guns in the laundry chute or this spell doesn't hit us because I erected this arcane barrier just in time) and maybe the Setting (its a double-cross because I greased the palm of this NPC or the people in the marketplace are my agents so a riot will break out to get these agents of the Court Mage off our tail).  But this is always expressed as an alteration to the present course of the gamestate/fiction via the deployment of these player-facing mechanics.



That's not the kind of thing I meant and I wouldn't call any of those things retcons.  A retcon would be where something was established as having happened in the fiction only to be revealed later that it didn't actually happen.  Often it will be portrayed that what was just established as happening was actually due to a dream or some kind of altered mental state.

Such a mechanic doesn't impact certain qualities of x, it removes x, y and z pretty much entirely.




Manbearcat said:


> And again, I'm not going to (and its not appropriate to) smuggle in an "immersion rider" to this.  Some folks find this jarring.  Others (like myself) not only don't find it jarring, they find it immersion-enhancing.  But its still always Situation and sometimes Setting as a vector for agency because its always a proposed amendment to the temporal continuity of play (the _now _proviso).  I think that's important (and others clearly do), so I think something distinguishes these things are important (while not smuggling BUT IMMERSION into it).



I'm not talking immersion.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> But I said I wasn't talking about flashbacks.  The whole, I can't think of any game that uses a retcon included those that use flashback mechanics.
> 
> 
> That's not the kind of thing I meant and I wouldn't call any of those things retcons.  A retcon would be where something was established as having happened in the fiction only to be revealed later that it didn't actually happen.  Often it will be portrayed that what was just established as happening was actually due to a dream or some kind of altered mental state.




Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.

I know you're not talking about immersion.  That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).


----------



## Fenris-77

Story games generally treat established fact as inviolate. The retcon isn't a mechanic I can think of any examples for. Maybe someone else can.


----------



## Campbell

So I think given the shared nature of the fiction once something has been established and we all agree to it then changing it also requires agreement from the group. Usually retcons are part of a group conversation in my experience.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.
> 
> I know you're not talking about immersion.  That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).



I can think of one or three that seem to fit the description, but I don't think they're what @FrogReaver has in mind.

First is GM Fiat, in games that allow for it. It's not really an action resolution thing, but it's frequently technically allowed (did it myself this past Wed, when I described that an NPC had a leg brace and this wasn't a change, just something I hadn't figured out yet previous session). Second is that being Taken Out in Fate can involve *looking like* certain death, but it doesn't need to be, and it's always possible to narrate it as not having been so certain as it looked (roughly the way Doyle kept Holmes alive). Third is a character feature (stunt? forget what they're called) in Spirit of the Century that specifically allows you as a player to insert your character into a scene by "unmasking" an unnamed NPC in the scene (third mook from the left) as having been your character the whole time.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.
> 
> I know you're not talking about immersion.  That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).



I cannot think of that style of mechanic ever being implemented in any games I have heard about.  

as I said it’s rare to no -existent In the wild as of this moment but it is something that if it did crop up wouldn’t fit your framework.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> So I think given the shared nature of the fiction once something has been established and we all agree to it then changing it also requires agreement from the group. Usually retcons are part of a group conversation in my experience.



The change in an NPC's description that I did in one of my campaigns worked out this way. The players asked to be certain it wasn't something that had changed in the fiction, and I assured them the NPC had had a leg brace when they met last, and this wasn't something their characters were perceiving as a difference, just a detail I'd worked out between sessions (with some apologies from me for the confusion).


----------



## Fenris-77

None of that really sounds like a retcon. Mostly it sounds like adding new detail, or massaging current curcumstamce.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> So I think given the shared nature of the fiction once something has been established and we all agree to it then changing it also requires agreement from the group. Usually retcons are part of a group conversation in my experience.



Yes. They usually are more of that nature. But anything like that could in any future game have mechanics put to it.

then we could have discussions around, I prefer retcons to not have rules. With another saying “I prefer them when they have rules” and another saying having the ability to retcon with mechanics provides more agency and another saying retconing without mechanics produces more agency. Etc.


----------



## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> None of that really sounds like a retcon. Mostly it sounds like adding new detail, or massaging current curcumstamce.



Yeah. Maybe something by GM Fiat could work like a retcon, but I agree that my examples don't need to change existing fiction.


----------



## Fenris-77

prabe said:


> Yeah. Maybe something by GM Fiat could work like a retcon, but I agree that my examples don't need to change existing fiction.



Changing the existing fiction is a very edge case IMO. Even the most story of story games generally don't do it. I'm actually struggling to figure out why we're even talking about it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Changing the existing fiction is a very edge case IMO. Even the most story of story games generally don't do it. I'm actually struggling to figure out why we're even talking about it.



because someone asked if there were any other vectors or types of agency.

I personally think being comprehensive in the framework will add much needed texture to this discussion.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> because someone asked if there were any other vectors or types of agency.
> 
> I personally think being comprehensive in the framework will add much needed texture to this discussion.



Honestly, I can't think of an example of this, so its place in the discussion is kinda tenuous. Given an example thought, sure.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

FrogReaver said:


> because someone asked if there were any other vectors or types of agency.



Presumably that meant vectors that actually appear in games, not ones that can theoretically be imagined.

Anyway, retcons are super jarring, they might sometimes be needed, but no sane game designer would ever write a game that relies on them as an intentional feature.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Honestly, I can't think of an example of this, so its place in the discussion is kinda tenuous. Given an example thought, sure.



Why not just say you are right Frogreaver?

I mean it’s not something I expected to spend much time on. It’s something I said from post #1 that I could t think of any games using such a mechanic. You seem to be agreeing that it’s a thing and different than the other agency vectors... 

So why aren’t you just agreeing?


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> Presumably that meant vectors that actually appear in games, not ones that can theoretically be imagined.
> 
> Anyway, retcons are super jarring, they might sometimes be needed, but no sane game designer would ever write a game that relies on them as an intentional feature.



I presumed it best to take them at their word. I’ve been scolded for assuming something contrary to what someone said 1 too many times this thread.

Considering all the things I find jarring in games these days I suppose that means most game designers aren’t sane


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Why not just say you are right Frogreaver?
> 
> I mean it’s not something I expected to spend much time on. It’s something I said from post #1 that I could t think of any games using such a mechanic. You seem to be agreeing that it’s a thing and different than the other agency vectors...
> 
> So why aren’t you just agreeing?



Agree with what? That it's a specious example that doesn't add much to the discussion? Sure. I'll give you that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Agree with what? That it's a specious example that doesn't add much to the discussion? Sure. I'll give you that.



It’s not even an example. It’s a type/vector.


----------



## Lanefan

@Manbearcat - though I might not 100% agree with your Agency Types breakdown, it's not bad; and props for putting the thought and effort into it. 


innerdude said:


> After looking over it for a minute, I think the defined *Agency Types* are solid.
> 
> In terms of the *Vectors*, I'm actually having a hard time seeing how *Character Agency* isn't actually subsumed into either *Situation* or *Setting*.
> 
> Thinking about D&D 3.5 / PF1, for example, a character's build would fall under the other two vectors.
> 
> If we're talking about core stats (bonuses, BAB), that's only relevant to *Situation* ("Because my fighter has an 18 STR, a +6 BAB, and is wielding a longsword, he is able to make an attack move that can cause harm to the ogre") and *Setting* ("He's obviously a large, powerful individual who will be viewed by inhabitants of the fiction thusly").
> 
> If we're talking about background / personality / traits / bonds / flaws / appearance, that's all *Setting*.
> 
> What is it in particular you're thinking about in therms of *Character* as a vector?



My take on it is *Character Agency* refers to the simple notion of, within genre (setting) and established fiction (situation), the ability to declare actions and-or roleplay your character in the moment without fear of veto or arbitrary denial.  Of the various types this is the one most here-and-now at the table during play and requires the presence of both Situation and Setting (regardless who controls these); *Situation* is a bit more macro, covering as it does the framing around the character; and *Setting* even more so as it represents the backdrop onto which that framing is put.

Is that vaguely right?


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I dislike trying to separate agency into different types, because I think it obfuscates the issue, which is, to me, who can say no.  If someone else can unilaterally say no, then I do not have agency.  To have agency, though, more needs to be present that just the lack of negation, namely places where decisions matter to the game.
> 
> The first set of buckets you've listed doesn't really illuminate these points, because no game really separates play into these categories and then define who has what say where.  That it works to show that a wizard in D&D has more agency than a fighter isn't because of the framework you've built, but because the magic system in D&D has more places where the GM cannot or is limited in how they say no.  As such, the framework doesn't do a good job of answering the questions of who has agency in which bucket because agency isn't assigned by the bucket, but by access to the magic system.  By this I mean that the separation of agency doesn't clarify where the wizard has more agency because the wizard doesn't actually have agency by these buckets, but rather has access to a system that occasionally provides agency _in _these buckets.  The buckets don't really define where agency is available, the tool of magic does.



I think here you might be talking about agency within the fiction - the typical wizard clearly has more options than the typical fighter in terms of what it can do, and how, and when; but on a macro or meta scale the player of each - one would think - would have approximately equal agency (at whatever level that table/system is using) over the situation, the setting, and the direction taken by the characters.

What we're discussing, I think, revolves more around variances in "whatever level that table/system is using", and what levels are acceptable to and-or expected by which people.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> It’s not even an example. It’s a type/vector.



Well yeah, but if it doesn't exist in an actual game, or get used in actual practice, who cares?


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.
> 
> I know you're not talking about immersion.  That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).



I think what @FrogReaver is going after are things like dream sequences, where play rolls on as usual for a while until the PCs wake up in the morning and realize everything they just did was a dream.  They didn't use those charges in their wands, they didn't take all that hit-point damage, they didn't die (but might wake up screaming if they dreamed they did!) - that sort of thing.

Here the retcon, of course, is that none of it happened; and the question is whether this violates player agency.

I've run scenes and even one or two entire adventures like this a few times, usually without lasting consequence to the PCs other than a) they remember anything they learned in the dream as it was so vivid, and b) they keep any experience points they earned in it as experience is largely built on memory.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Lanefan said:


> I think what @FrogReaver is going after are things like dream sequences, where play rolls on as usual for a while until the PCs wake up in the morning and realize everything they just did was a dream.  They didn't use those charges in their wands, they didn't take all that hit-point damage, they didn't die (but might wake up screaming if they dreamed they did!) - that sort of thing.
> 
> Here the retcon, of course, is that none of it happened; and the question is whether this violates player agency.
> 
> I've run scenes and even one or two entire adventures like this a few times, usually without lasting consequence to the PCs other than a) they remember anything they learned in the dream as it was so vivid, and b) they keep any experience points they earned in it as experience is largely built on memory.





Spoiler


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> I think what @FrogReaver is going after are things like dream sequences, where play rolls on as usual for a while until the PCs wake up in the morning and realize everything they just did was a dream.  They didn't use those charges in their wands, they didn't take all that hit-point damage, they didn't die (but might wake up screaming if they dreamed they did!) - that sort of thing.
> 
> Here the retcon, of course, is that none of it happened; and the question is whether this violates player agency.
> 
> I've run scenes and even one or two entire adventures like this a few times, usually without lasting consequence to the PCs other than a) they remember anything they learned in the dream as it was so vivid, and b) they keep any experience points they earned in it as experience is largely built on memory.




I personally would consider that a really big deal. Like Texas big. I probably would never trust the integrity of the game ever again. I might continue playing if there were other compelling reasons, but would not put much mental energy and emotional investment into play after that.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> I would consider that a really big deal. I probably would never trust the integrity of the game ever again.



I know of a DM who wanted to run Tomb of Horrors, and was explicit that it was going to be a dream sequence and that the characters would not actually be at risk. In that instance, it wasn't a retcon, though, more like a prior agreement. While dropping "it was all a dream" might be a cheap move without warning, I wouldn't object to it as something agreed around the table.


----------



## Campbell

prabe said:


> I know of a DM who wanted to run Tomb of Horrors, and was explicit that it was going to be a dream sequence and that the characters would not actually be at risk. In that instance, it wasn't a retcon, though, more like a prior agreement. While dropping "it was all a dream" might be a cheap move without warning, I wouldn't object to it as something agreed around the table.




If I as a player knew ahead of time that's fine. It's the pulling the rug out from underneath that I broadly object to. I also think if we are going to have dream sequences they should have an impact that lasts beyond in some way. I'm not a fan of filler content in any way.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I personally would consider that a really big deal. Like Texas big. I probably would never trust the integrity of the game ever again. I might continue playing if there were other compelling reasons, but would not put much mental energy and emotional investment into play after that.



Thing is, sooner or later it's almost bound to happen in my game, as entering a dream dungeon then or later is a possible wild magic effect. 

Edit to add: the downstream impact is what they learn: I've used these dream dungeons as exposition platforms more than once.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> The proposition is so absurd that it is hard to address. It is like saying that if the head of state has a veto power then the prime minister or the parliament has no agency.



They wouldn't, which is why there's usually a different way to go that doesn't involve the veto -- like a veto override or a vote of no-confidence.  If one person can say no, there's no agency for anyone else there.  Now, the apparatus of state is usually operating on multiple fronts, and veto only covers one, so the precise statement is that if the head of state can veto without available recourse, then parliament has no agency on that matter.  Bringing the matter up to a veto, in the complex world of politics, obviously carries some agency in other areas, but, yeah, that bill ain't passing.

I'm really struggling to see how this is a controversial statement.  I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy and I consider things, but the very concept of agency is absolutely anathema to someone else being able to gainsay you unilaterally and without recourse.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> So ... I'm not looking to argue, here, but when would you say the ability to negate removes agency? Does the fact the GM can say "no" to any given action the players propose mean (to you) that the players never have agency? Even if the GM approximately never says "no"? I think it's obvious that some games will vary more in this regard from table to table than others will.



In an absolute sense, yes.  In reality, it's much more complex because the absolute rarely holds.   There are the real world social rules and friendships and such that can result in a GM not actually being able to negate a given action, so agency can exist.  However, in any case where the GM can use the power of no, then agency doesn't exist -- you're asking permission, not doing on your own.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> They wouldn't, which is why there's usually a different way to go that doesn't involve the veto -- like a veto override or a vote of no-confidence.  If one person can say no, there's no agency for anyone else there.  Now, the apparatus of state is usually operating on multiple fronts, and veto only covers one, so the precise statement is that if the head of state can veto without available recourse, then parliament has no agency on that matter.  Bringing the matter up to a veto, in the complex world of politics, obviously carries some agency in other areas, but, yeah, that bill ain't passing.



In many countries heads of states rarely, if ever, use their veto power.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm really struggling to see how this is a controversial statement.  I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy and I consider things, but the very concept of agency is absolutely anathema to someone else being able to gainsay you unilaterally and without recourse.



Because it only matters if they do. It doesn't matter if they could, but don't.

The idea that agency doesn't only require that no one overrules you, but also that no one even in theory could is simply absurd and utterly useless definition of agency.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> In many countries heads of states rarely, if ever, use their veto power.



And?  I'm not intimately familiar with all the Parliamentary governments, but in the US, the Congress has no ability to pass a law -- this is the President's authority and agency.  Similarly, the President has no ability to propose a law -- this is the Congress' authority and agency.  The President's veto, used or not, means Congress has no agency to pass a law.

Now, in reality, Congress has a check on this and can force a law over a veto with the proper actions, so Congress does retain some agency here, but that's because they have a way to overcome a no.


Crimson Longinus said:


> Because it only matters if they do. It doesn't matter if they could, but don't.



So, if you have to ask to do a thing, you have agency to do it if you're given permission?  Because, if I have the authority to say no, and don't, then what has happened is that I have given permission.  I can't see a form of agency that requires seeking permission to be extant.


Crimson Longinus said:


> The idea that agency doesn't only require that no one overrules you, but also that no one even in theory could is simply absurd and utterly useless definition of agency.



It's the fundamental block.  In my reply to @prabe I noted that actual situations in a social setting are far more complex and an on paper authority to say no may not translate into an actual ability to say no.  However, in any situation where no can be deployed unilaterally by another, you lack agency in that situation -- you must seek permission to play.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> They wouldn't, which is why there's usually a different way to go that doesn't involve the veto -- like a veto override or a vote of no-confidence.  If one person can say no, there's no agency for anyone else there.  Now, the apparatus of state is usually operating on multiple fronts, and veto only covers one, so the precise statement is that if the head of state can veto without available recourse, then parliament has no agency on that matter.  Bringing the matter up to a veto, in the complex world of politics, obviously carries some agency in other areas, but, yeah, that bill ain't passing.
> 
> I'm really struggling to see how this is a controversial statement.  I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy and I consider things, but the very concept of agency is absolutely anathema to someone else being able to gainsay you unilaterally and without recourse.




I don't think we will ever resolve this divide, but we are not talking about agency as it pertains to sociology. We are talking about agency as it pertains to RPGs and it came to RPGs by literature, and there I think it is much closer to this idea of acting freely in the world the story takes place. It is broad concept so it has a lot of uses. But I don't think it is just a synonym for power or authority. It is about being the character being able to make meaningful choices.


----------



## FrogReaver

Lanefan said:


> I think what @FrogReaver is going after are things like dream sequences, where play rolls on as usual for a while until the PCs wake up in the morning and realize everything they just did was a dream.  They didn't use those charges in their wands, they didn't take all that hit-point damage, they didn't die (but might wake up screaming if they dreamed they did!) - that sort of thing.
> 
> Here the retcon, of course, is that none of it happened; and the question is whether this violates player agency.
> 
> I've run scenes and even one or two entire adventures like this a few times, usually without lasting consequence to the PCs other than a) they remember anything they learned in the dream as it was so vivid, and b) they keep any experience points they earned in it as experience is largely built on memory.



It's not just if it violates player agency, thought that is a good question.  The question is also whether giving the players the ability to turn something established into a dream state that didn't actually happen is fundamentally a different kind of ability (in relation to agency vector/type) than anything else we are talking about.

Judging by how hated the idea of a player being granted access to such a mechanic is on both sides of this discussion I'd say it's at least worth mentioning, even if we don't delve deep into exploring it.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Ovinomancer 

Your contribution needing to go through a review process doesn't mean that you didn't exercise agency in creating that contribution. Without you there wouldn't even be a thing for the final arbiter to approve.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer
> 
> Your contribution needing to go through a review process doesn't mean that you didn't exercise agency in creating that contribution. Without you there wouldn't even be a thing for the final arbiter to approve.



I'm mostly with you but there's a couple of things.

1.  We really need to be specific about the the thing we are saying someone has agency over.  I think alot of nuance gets lost when we aren't specific here.  If he's talking about agency to make Proposition 1 become law and you are talking about agency to write proposition 1 then you are just talking past each other.  The bigger point and it's what you are trying to bring out I think, is that you cannot have proposition 1 without the lawmakers exercising their agency to write proposition 1 and Ovinomancer is trying to bring out that you can't have it without the prime minister exercising his agency to not veto proposition 1.

2.  Which is why I think the concept of co-agency is actually important.  There are instances where it takes more than one exercising their agency for something to happen.  I think what may be happening in our RPG agency discussion is each respective side assigning full responsibility for a thing coming into being to either the player or DM when both are actually responsible in many of the systems we are analyzing.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> From my perspective if not constrained at least by social expectations that they will play with integrity absolutely there is no meaningful agency to be had. From my perspective if manipulation of setting to achieve certain outcomes or picking and choosing when to apply the rules when not guided by something exceptional in the fiction, or fudging dice rolls is ever an option then it is always an option. By choosing not to do these things in a given moment of play you are still making an active decision as a GM. You have all the influence. The players have none except through you.
> 
> It pretty much ruins the integrity of the whole thing for me personally.



First, I can understand that the mere possibility of a thing happening could cause the whole game to feel like it lacks integrity.  I think someone earlier noted something like: it's actually our views on whether the important parts of the game have "integrity" that makes us experience agency.  I agree with that.  One cannot feel something relating to the game lacks integrity without feeling a lack of agency.

I think that same reason applies to me and my dislike for other styles.  While for you, integrity is about the ensuring the game is played fairly.  For me I view examples of unfair play as being so rare and often when done by the DM to be done for good reasons that it doesn't cause the game to feel lack it lacks integrity even if such things are possible or come up from time to time.  What does cause the game to feel like it lacks integrity for me is a few things.  Mechanics that function by making unrelated bad thing happen on a poor roll make situation/setting feel like it lacks integrity.  Mechanics that give players power of the situation or setting outside their character - (_this probably needs to be more precisely formulated_) also cause that same lack of integrity for me. 

Why do those things cause a feeling of lack of integrity for me?  I think it's that I relate them back to the real world.  I don't have the agency in the real world to just change details about whatever situation/setting I find myself in without actually acting in the world.  Nor does the world function by causing "unrelated" bad things to happen when I fail at a thing.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> First is GM Fiat, in games that allow for it. It's not really an action resolution thing, but it's frequently technically allowed (did it myself this past Wed, when I described that an NPC had a leg brace and this wasn't a change, just something I hadn't figured out yet previous session).




Did you really arbitrarily give the guy a leg brace or was there maybe some reason behind it?


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Did you really arbitrarily give the guy a leg brace or was there maybe some reason behind it?



I needed him to have a reason to have retired from adventuring. I've made it clear that in-fiction, sometimes things are beyond healing magic.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> (2) The shared fiction consists of more than setting. _That an orc dies _is as much a part of a shared fiction as _that an orc exists _or _that a secret door exists_.



I don't agree with you on alot, but I agree here.  Anything in the established fiction is part of the shared fiction.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I needed him to have a reason to have retired from adventuring. I've made it clear that in-fiction, sometimes things are beyond healing magic.



Sounds like a very good reason to add the leg brace to him.  I'd say that's not fiat at all.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Sounds like a very good reason to add the leg brace to him.  I'd say that's not fiat at all.



I hadn't described him as having one previous session, so there was something of a retcon going on--and there's an argument to be made that descriptions of NPCs and other details are GM Fiat, but it's not one I think I entirely agree with, and it's certainly not a hill I want to die on.


----------



## generic

Crimson Longinus said:


> Presumably that meant vectors that actually appear in games, not ones that can theoretically be imagined.
> 
> Anyway, retcons are super jarring, they might sometimes be needed, but no sane game designer would ever write a game that relies on them as an intentional feature.



Speak for yourself!  I'd love to write a system wherein no player agency is ever permanent, and the whims of the Gods dictate the very nature of past events, and the actions which the players took or did not take.

Then again, I'm not entirely sane, so that much can be given.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> _I look for a bridge_ absolutely is declaring an action.



Yes it is.

But the looking for a bridge isn't the part of the process/subloop that I'm objecting to.  It's 1) Doing it outside the present so that the present is affected and 2) the player calling for a "flashback" to begin with.




pemerton said:


> In my Burning Wheel game, when we needed to travel along and across the river Thurgon found a former member of his order, who took us across on his raft.
> 
> Here's the bigger issue as I see it: from the point of view of gameplay, what is the difference between (i) player A building a character with strong Swimming skill, or Boatwrighting skill, and then resolving the process of getting across the river by swimming or by building a raft Talisman-style; and (ii) player B building a character with strong Circles, multiple Affiliations and Reputations to boost Circles, and then resolving the process of meeting a friend or former comrade who will carry the characters over the river on his raft?



If by gameplay, you mean can a sheer mechanical process handle both of those elements.  Then yes!  But those elements are different and it's those differences that are where the issue lies.  Swimming simply requires your character and the element of the river that has already been established.  Raftbuilding leaves the question open of whether you can find materials.  But even finding the materials provided that your in an environment suitable for materials to exists and then to build the raft.  In both cases it's a test against your characters capabilities.  But then we come to the last example where you cause the party to meet a friend or former comrade.  There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades and so a mechanic that basically allows this very thing breaks the normal flow.  

Normal flow being:  current fiction -> character action -> mechanic resolves -> updated fiction

The flow here being: current fiction -> invoke mechanic -> updated fiction (including adding the NPC's, the characters action/interaction with them and the outcome of that interaction including any complications)

For me this violates game integrity of the game by having the mechanics drive what's happening instead of the character actions driving that.  I mean, what action did the character take to cause the meeting with a friend or comrade to happen?


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades and so a mechanic that basically allows this very thing breaks the normal flow.



Any game that has a trait that enables players to establish their characters' contacts in places--roughly any supers game, lots of modern and SF games, Spirit of the Century (I Know a Guy). From the other direction, anything that allows a player to establish their character has a reputation (Spirit of the Century calls it "Do You Know Who I Am?") works to establish your character as a known personage in the game world.


----------



## generic

I think many of the disagreements about the narrative dissonance of ret-conning come from the perspective that a player's past actions dictate agency.  This is, of course, something one can agree with.  There's also the perspective that making a decision in _the moment_ defines agency, and that ret-conning which is subsequent does not render null any agency which the player may have once had.  However, in real life, it seems fairly reasonable to say, pragmatically, that you don't have agency in a world where what you did _in the past_ has no relation to the action which you took in the past, et cetera.

As for the argument that a game mechanic can't drive a story, I'm inclined to agree that the point of a role-playing game is to _allow the player to play their role_, not to make the player a vessel for chance, but, as prabe mentioned, a game mechanic does not inherently violate the conventions of the simulation.  I'm likely rambling, as I always do, so, I'll try to make the point a bit more concise.

If you invoke a mechanic to drive the fiction, it isn't necessarily a lack of agency, because the player chose the mechanic.  If the Game Master/Adjudicator chooses this "reputation" mechanic, et cetera, player agency is negated.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> Any game that has a trait that enables players to establish their characters' contacts in places--roughly any supers game, lots of modern and SF games, Spirit of the Century (I Know a Guy). From the other direction, anything that allows a player to establish their character has a reputation (Spirit of the Century calls it "Do You Know Who I Am?") works to establish your character as a known personage in the game world.



You mean there's some game ability I can add to my character sheet that let's me have a character where that is true of.  That to is a mechanic that is giving the player abilities and not the character.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> I think many of the disagreements about the narrative dissonance of ret-conning come from the perspective that a player's past actions dictate agency.  This is, of course, something one can agree with.  There's also the perspective that making a decision in _the moment_ defines agency, and that ret-conning which is subsequent does not render null any agency which the player may have once had.  However, in real life, it seems fairly reasonable to say, pragmatically, that you don't have agency in a world where what you did _in the past_ has no relation to the action which you took in the past, et cetera.
> 
> As for the argument that a game mechanic can't drive a story, I'm inclined to agree that the point of a role-playing game is to _allow the player to play their role_, not to make the player a vessel for chance, but, as prabe mentioned, a game mechanic does not inherently violate the conventions of the simulation.  I'm likely rambling, as I always do, so, I'll try to make the point a bit more concise.



I agree with alot of what you are saying here.



Aebir-Toril said:


> If you invoke a mechanic to drive the fiction, it isn't necessarily a lack of agency, because the player chose the mechanic.  If the Game Master/Adjudicator chooses this "reputation" mechanic, et cetera, player agency is negated.



It depends on if you view integrity of the game/gameworld as integral to having agency and then whether you view the inclusion of mechanics that drive the fiction as taking away the integrity of the game/gameworld.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> You mean there's some game ability I can add to my character sheet that let's me have a character where that is true of.  That to is a mechanic that is giving the player abilities and not the character.



I would say that at least a reputation mechanic is entirely about the character. Your character walks into a room and people there know who he is. Whether it's Spirit of the Century's "Do You Know Who I Am?" or something more mundane like Champions' Reputation (roll to see if the person you're interacting with has heard of you), it doesn't impose anything on the game-world as far as moving NPCs around or deciding your character has met them, etc. Contacts mechanics are ... different. As @Aebir-Toril says, they might be part of the conventions of whatever genre you're simulating: I'd argue that it's easier to decide your character has been to This City before in a modern game than in something that at least looks medieval.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> It depends on if you view integrity of the game/gameworld as integral to having agency and then whether you view the inclusion of mechanics that drive the fiction as taking away the integrity of the game/gameworld.



Fair point, but the player's actions are limited by the conventions of the rules as much as they are the conventions of the world, and expanded by both.  Grappling in 5th edition D&D is awkward, while grabbing someone in the real world isn't as hard nor as useless as the 5e equivalent.

Similarly, the integrity of the gameworld can't be said to exist without a few gamey mechanics along the way, it's defined by its limitations and conventions.

I tend to play the game in a more game-centric sense, where the introduction of a mechanic which affects the narrative is no more alien a concept than a quest or a madness trait which the player has chosen in exchange for benefits.  As long as the player has agency, the gameworld is secure, because, well, it's a game, played by people.  I don't really care if the characters have agency, to be honest, as long as the players have chosen any limitations on their agency, and none have been imposed by me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Ovinomancer
> 
> Your contribution needing to go through a review process doesn't mean that you didn't exercise agency in creating that contribution. Without you there wouldn't even be a thing for the final arbiter to approve.



You've swapped the goalposts, here.  I'm talking about doing Thing A.  You're talking about proposing Thing A to someone else with the authority to allow to deny.  You've dressed this up in "review process" but it's still a shift in what we're talking about.  You can propose whatever you like, and, sure, that's some kind of agency in the sense that no one can stop you (presumably).  But that agency to propose Thing A doesn't translate into doing Thing A. 

We're talking about doing Thing A.  As I've already allowed, you have some kind of social agency, in real life, to play act your character however you want.  This isn't required by the game, though, so doesn't translate into agency _in the game_.  The ability to do a thing that isn't necessary to the game can't be said to be part of the game.  It's also present in all games, in equal measure, so it's a wash in considerations of agency.  The agency in the game is the ability to do things in the game, that are required by the game.  These are character actions, and here, looking at the fact that the GM can negate those actions unilaterally, usually by reference to secret fiction, is a removal of agency from the player.  This is usually ameliorated by the conventions that the secret fiction is fixed and/or fair and discoverable through actions that will not be negated.  This equates to solving a puzzle, and you have some agency here, but it's by those conventions which constrain when the GM can unilaterally negate actions into places where your skill as a player hasn't measured up to the challenge.

So, yeah, there's agency in games where the core mechanic is GM decides.  I would not play 5e if this were not true.  Agency is present in these conventions that restrain the GM's authority, and are usually unspoken, social contracts that revolve around an also unspoken concept of "fair play."  These conventions get breached all the time, though, but rarely enough that they hold in place, or in ways that a particular group has become accustomed to and so incorporated into the unspoken concept of fair play.  You see this a lot in the 5e forums, where differences in the understanding of this unspoken concept of fair play between groups clash in discussions on use of Force and fudging.   You see it here, where you're bringing along your unspoken social concepts that your table plays by and using those instead of the bare rules to judge the presence of agency.  Fundamentally, though, I cannot exercise agency over a thing if someone else must grant permission for it to happen.  The confusion I see from you on this is that exact unspoken contract, where you know that a GM is actually constrained by the social conventions of your table (and most tables) so as to not fully have this authority in all cases.  This isn't a feature of the rules, or your ability to play-act, but of the social nature of how we do things as people.  And, recognizing that the game has moved that there, and what exactly that unspoken agreement entails, can improve your game because you know can go to the right place to tweak things that may be bothering you.  I see this misunderstanding all the time in the forums as well, where well-meaning GMs are trying to introduce house-rules to constrain behavior that's enabled by the social contracts in place and so end up frustrated when the game mechanic fixes don't address the problem.

I've put this last bit into practice, by having open discussions of how I will GM in any given game, what I will be held to and what goals I'm trying to seek.  I expect players to do the same.  This has made, so far, every single game I've played doing this more engaging and free, as players know exactly how I will interact with their play.  And, if I don't, they can call me on it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Fair point, but the player's actions are limited by the conventions of the rules as much as they are the conventions of the world, and expanded by both.  Grappling in 5th edition D&D is awkward, while grabbing someone in the real world isn't as hard nor as useless as the 5e equivalent.
> 
> Similarly, the integrity of the gameworld can't be said to exist without a few gamey mechanics along the way, it's defined by its limitations and conventions.
> 
> I tend to play the game in a more game-centric sense, where the introduction of a mechanic which affects the narrative is no more alien a concept than a quest or a madness trait which the player has chosen in exchange for benefits.  As long as the player has agency, the gameworld is secure, because, well, it's a game, played by people.  I don't really care if the characters have agency, to be honest, as long as the players have chosen any limitations on their agency, and none have been imposed by me.



I'm not saying the gameworld having integrity is an objective thing.  I would say it's not.  It's for each player to determine if the gameworld has integrity.


----------



## generic

Ovinomancer said:


> So, yeah, there's agency in games where the core mechanic is GM decides.  I would not play 5e if this were not true.  Agency is present in these conventions that restrain the GM's authority, and are usually unspoken, social contracts that revolve around an also unspoken concept of "fair play."



Precisely.  

Often, the discussion becomes so semantic and exaggerated in its stupidity and insistence on terminology that we forget that the social contract of a game implies that players have entered into an agreement wherein the conventions of the game are as gamey as need be, character agency aside.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> I'm not saying the gameworld having integrity is an objective thing.  I would say it's not.  It's for each player to determine if the gameworld has integrity.



Again, not really my problem.  If the player dislikes the function of their character's story motivation, they don't have to choose mechanical options which affect story.  I am never, at my table, going to restrict player choice, and character motivation limitations are self-imposed.  As to whether the game world has "integrity", I do not care, it is a game.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Again, not really my problem.  If the player dislikes the function of their character's story motivation, they don't have to choose mechanical options which affect story.  I am never, at my table, going to restrict player choice, and character motivation limitations are self-imposed.  As to whether the game world has "integrity", I do not care, it is a game.



If gameworld integrity is needed for player agency and you care about not taking away players agency then how can you say you don't care about integrity?


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> If gameworld integrity is needed for player agency and you care about not taking away players agency then how can you say you don't care about integrity?



Gameworld integrity is a loaded term, but consider this.

If I play a game wherein my character's choice freedoms are limited by my choice of traits, the game world does not have much integrity at all. The nature of choice is driven largely by externals chosen by the player. I can still use my agency, due to my preexisting choices, and the linear nature of events (I don't ret-con). It's not a complete retention of game integrity, but it's more than enough to see play.

As for what I do in practice, I rarely use systems of character separation from player decisions, so, it does not often get invoked. "Game Master decides" is a contract which my players have entered into, but I do not violate the player's choice over the character's actions.

Stated simply, the players have agreed to a convention where the characters do not always have agency, or where the world holds integrity, but we have fun in the game environment nonetheless.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Precisely.
> 
> Often, the discussion becomes so semantic and exaggerated in its stupidity and insistence on terminology that we forget that the social contract of a game implies that players have entered into an agreement wherein the conventions of the game are as gamey as need be, character agency aside.



I often find that it's the presence of assumed social contracts that detracts from the ability to actually look at how a game functions, because the value judgements from the social contract are imported into the game.  So, yeah, not disagreeing but it's a double-edged sword.  To me, how a game functions is one thing, and how a game functions once you've overlaid a table's social convention is another thing entirely.  Since I have zero visibility into other people's social conventions at their table, I can only speak to the game as it is presented by it's rules and ancillary materials.  

So, a given game of 5e may feature quite a lot of agency due to the social conventions of the table constraining the GM more than the rules of the game do.  As the rules present, though, there's a lot of work for those conventions to do to get there.  I know, I've done that work.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> If gameworld integrity is needed for player agency and you care about not taking away players agency then how can you say you don't care about integrity?



Additionally, I believe that I stated more than once that game world "integrity" is not necessary for player agency, in my view, it often is not, especially because the term is fluid.


----------



## Ovinomancer

"Gameworld integrity" sounds like a smuggling compartment for "how I like my games to work."


----------



## generic

Ovinomancer said:


> "Gameworld integrity" sounds like a smuggling compartment for "how I like my games to work."



Stop him! He's discovered that the ludonarrative dissonance of my non-linear delineation of temporalities is external to his!

Superfluous verbiage intentional.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> "Gameworld integrity" sounds like a smuggling compartment for "how I like my games to work."



Take it up with the one who first used the term here.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Take it up with the one who first used the term here.



That doesn't excuse using a loaded term...

Common sense dictates that you think about what a term means before dying on a hill for its virtues.

In my view, of course.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> That doesn't excuse using a loaded term...



What does?



Aebir-Toril said:


> Common sense dictates that you think about what a term means before dying on a hill for its virtues.
> 
> In my view, of course.



It's not cool to insinuate others lack common sense.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> What does?
> 
> 
> It's not cool to insinuate others lack common sense.



Apologies, I didn't mean to insinuate anything.

As for "what does?", all I can reply is that you seemed to respond to Ovinomancer's objection to your usage of game world integrity by saying, in essence "I didn't say it first, it's not my fault", which doesn't excuse the methods which your argued, and saying "take it up with the one who first used it here" is akin to quoting a false source in your argument, and then telling your professor to "take it up with E.E. Cummings".

Trust me, speaking from experience (not real, of course), that doesn't work.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Apologies, I didn't mean to insinuate anything.
> 
> As for "what does?", all I can reply is that you seemed to respond to Ovinomancer's objection to your usage of game world integrity by saying, in essence "I didn't say it first, it's not my fault", which doesn't excuse the methods which your argued, and saying "take it up with the one who first used it here" is akin to quoting a false source in your argument, and then telling your professor to "take it up with E.E. Cummings".
> 
> Trust me, speaking from experience (not real, of course), that doesn't work.



LOL.  I don't think it's remotely in the same ballpark as that example.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> LOL.  I don't think it's remotely in the same ballpark as that example.



Exactly, I meant to say that in sort of a joking manner, but it doesn't often translate well through text.  Let's chalk it up to a friendly misunderstanding.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I would say that at least a reputation mechanic is entirely about the character.




I'm undecided about where reputation mechanics fall.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Exactly, I meant to say that in sort of a joking manner, but it doesn't often translate well through text.  Let's chalk it up to a friendly misunderstanding.



The example was funny enough on it's own.  It lightened it up so much that no offense was taken at all from it even with the thought that it was a serious comparison.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> As I've already allowed, you have some kind of social agency, in real life, to play act your character however you want.  This isn't required by the game, though, so doesn't translate into agency _in the game_.  The ability to do a thing that isn't necessary to the game can't be said to be part of the game.  It's also present in all games, in equal measure, so it's a wash in considerations of agency.



I disagree, for several reasons.

First, you don't have equal agency across all tables to "play act" what you want how you want.  Look no further than the recent thread re playing characters not of one's own gender; or any thread regarding allowance of evil characters; or anywhere someone denigrates doing something "because it's what the character would do" even though following the character wherever it leads you is the purest form of RP.

These kind of arbitrary limitations IMO hammer player agency far harder than most of what's been discussed in here.

Second, to blanket-declare that role-play isn't required by the game and-or isn't necessary to the game is in error; in that some systems (e.g. 1e D&D and some LARPs) actively reward "good roleplaying" (in 1e this is done via added XP, and faster/cheaper training at level-up).

Third, to say that role-playing isn't necessary in a role-playing game is...well, let's just say it's a bit much. 

That said, in the grand scheme of how various systems are written and intended this type of agency is probably more or less a wash, yes.  But that it's a wash is no reason to discount RP-agency from consideration here; if for no other reason than not every table plays their system as written or intended and some tables/GMs in fact do deny RP agency on a regular basis.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I'm undecided about where reputation mechanics fall.



On the level of making a build-level choice, they don't bother me at all. They don't re-write the past the way Contacts do. You pay points for your character to be famous, or you receive points because your character is infamous.

If there's some sort of track that endeavors to place incentives in the way of role-playing, or serve a function akin to alignment, that might be different.


----------



## Lanefan

Wow - 3000 posts in here, and I hit #3K.  Can't recall ever seeing another thread this long, other than that silly one in Geek Talk that's now on page 6-hundred-and-something.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> I disagree, for several reasons.
> 
> First, you don't have equal agency across all tables to "play act" what you want how you want.  Look no further than the recent thread re playing characters not of one's own gender; or any thread regarding allowance of evil characters; or anywhere someone denigrates doing something "because it's what the character would do" even though following the character wherever it leads you is the purest form of RP.
> 
> These kind of arbitrary limitations IMO hammer player agency far harder than most of what's been discussed in here.



These are not restrictions _of the game_.  When discussing player agency, we're talking about how the game the player is playing enables or disables agency.  These things you're talking about are social contract issues.  I believe I just mentioned the problem of social contracts infiltrating understanding of how games work, and this is another excellent example.


Lanefan said:


> Second, to blanket-declare that role-play isn't required by the game and-or isn't necessary to the game is in error; in that some systems (e.g. 1e D&D and some LARPs) actively reward "good roleplaying" (in 1e this is done via added XP, and faster/cheaper training at level-up).



Play-acting.  Roleplaying doesn't require play-acting.  And, play-acting is not necessary to any RPG.  It definitely something I'd encourage anyone to do because it's fun and it adds to the experience, but the mechanics and systems of these games operate just fine without any play-acting.

Let's not do the confuse roleplaying with play-acting at that table.  I'm roleplaying just by playing Bob the Fighter -- I've taken on the role of that character and will, to different degrees in different games, engage the game in the guise of that role.  Me using a funny voice or 1st person doesn't really engage any mechanics of the games. 

Caveat:  It may engage the aspect of a game where the goal is to convince the GM, through entertaining them, to allow your character to do something.  Come to think of it, this is a common thread for those arguing that play-acting is essential to RPGs.


Lanefan said:


> Third, to say that role-playing isn't necessary in a role-playing game is...well, let's just say it's a bit much.



I agree, 100%, see above about the difference between roleplaying and play-acting.  Or rather, that play-acting is just one way to roleplay.


Lanefan said:


> That said, in the grand scheme of how various systems are written and intended this type of agency is probably more or less a wash, yes.  But that it's a wash is no reason to discount RP-agency from consideration here; if for no other reason than not every table plays their system as written or intended and some tables/GMs in fact do deny RP agency on a regular basis.



There's no such thing as a game feature that enables or disables players from being able to play-act their characters.  It's orthogonal to the issues discussed.  Any agency involved in play-acting is outside the game, not inside it; ie, it's a function of what's acceptable at your table.


----------



## generic

As Ovinomancer said, the general assumption when discussing these issues is that the player or Game Master will engage in a form of directly characterized play-acting, actually _acting_ as their character would, and, although the rules of Dungeons and Dragons in particular do emphasize this, role-playing need not take the form of play-acting. At many tables, including my own, players may just want to engage with a surface level form of role-playing, a-la a video game RPG. Immersion is secondary to fun.

Of course, all tables function differently, and, accordingly, you cannot make any judgement which is based on "the norm".  Instead, I'd point to the rule-set, which does not mandate play-acting.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> They wouldn't, which is why there's usually a different way to go that doesn't involve the veto -- like a veto override or a vote of no-confidence.  If one person can say no, there's no agency for anyone else there.  Now, the apparatus of state is usually operating on multiple fronts, and veto only covers one, so the precise statement is that if the head of state can veto without available recourse, then parliament has no agency on that matter.  Bringing the matter up to a veto, in the complex world of politics, obviously carries some agency in other areas, but, yeah, that bill ain't passing.
> 
> I'm really struggling to see how this is a controversial statement.  I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy and I consider things, but the very concept of agency is absolutely anathema to someone else being able to gainsay you unilaterally and without recourse.



I think the comparison between gameplay and the legislative process is not very helpful. (And I realise you didn't introduce it. But I think it may have led you a little astray.)

Upthread, @Campbell has (multiple times) mentioned social pressure/understanding. In politics the use of veto powers - be that the literal veto a president can exercise in the US system, or something like the guillotine in a Westminster-type power - is subject to all sorts of constraints that professional politicians are incredibly good at intuiting, that political journalists spend their careers reporting on, and that political scientists try to theorise. At the extreme limits this is the stuff of constitutional crises and even of coups. (Think of the fairly recent debates, now moot given the prorogation fiasco followed by the recent Brexit deal and so I believe not in violation of board rules, about whether the UK government could legitimately advise Her Majesty not to assent to a Bill that had duly passed both houses but that the government did not support. It would make no sense to say that Parliament enjoyed no agency although in some sense the government enjoyed this veto option - which ultimately it didn't exercise, for obvious reasons to do with constitutional tradition.)

When we are talking about RPGing, the veto power we typically have in mind is _the GM's_, and there are nothing like these formally and informally institutionally-generated pressures. In games that contemplate GM veto (eg some approaches to D&D) there is typically a social norm that requires other participants to go along with it, to not muster pressure against the GM not to do it, etc. It's nothing like the political case.

To get something even remotely comparable to the political case, I think we'd need to be talking about a GM in a club game (ie played among those who are, in some meaningful way, strangers to one another) where there are multiple candidate GMs and where participants are able to generate feedback that helps determine who GMs in the future. Even then it would depend on other features of the club norms - I've seen club groups that _nevertheless_ work under a very strong GM-is-always-right ethos.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> These are not restrictions _of the game_.  When discussing player agency, we're talking about how the game the player is playing enables or disables agency.  These things you're talking about are social contract issues.  I believe I just mentioned the problem of social contracts infiltrating understanding of how games work, and this is another excellent example.



Social contract issues are, however, part of the game no matter what table you're sitting at; and even if they're not written down in the published rules some GMs write some of the social contract out as house rules.

I'm looking at agency as viewed and experienced by the end user - the player at the table - which must perforce include all these factors.  What the written rules say is only a part of that end-user experience.


Ovinomancer said:


> Play-acting.  Roleplaying doesn't require play-acting.  And, play-acting is not necessary to any RPG.  It definitely something I'd encourage anyone to do because it's fun and it adds to the experience, but the mechanics and systems of these games operate just fine without any play-acting.
> 
> Let's not do the confuse roleplaying with play-acting at that table.  I'm roleplaying just by playing Bob the Fighter -- I've taken on the role of that character and will, to different degrees in different games, engage the game in the guise of that role.  Me using a funny voice or 1st person doesn't really engage any mechanics of the games.



The moment you-as-player say something* because Bob-as-character says* it, you're role-playing.  Until and unless this happens, I'd debate whether you're in fact role-playing or merely game-playing on a par with Risk or Stratego.

Playing a role means taking on a persona, usually not your own.

* - or, in very rare cases, physically do something in-character (usually around riddle or puzzle solving).


Ovinomancer said:


> Caveat:  It may engage the aspect of a game where the goal is to convince the GM, through entertaining them, to allow your character to do something.  Come to think of it, this is a common thread for those arguing that play-acting is essential to RPGs.



Well I hope I'm entertaining people, otherwise what the bleep am I doing there? 


Ovinomancer said:


> There's no such thing as a game feature that enables or disables players from being able to play-act their characters.  It's orthogonal to the issues discussed.  Any agency involved in play-acting is outside the game, not inside it; ie, it's a function of what's acceptable at your table.



What's acceptable at your table is still a part of the game you are, in the end, playing.  I think attempting to divorce these things is what's clouding the issue - you're trying to talk about only the rules-as-written and I (and maybe others) are trying to talk about the game-as-played.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think we will ever resolve this divide, but we are not talking about agency as it pertains to sociology. We are talking about agency as it pertains to RPGs and it came to RPGs by literature, and there I think it is much closer to this idea of acting freely in the world the story takes place.



The concept of agency comes into RPGing from thinking about _gaming_, not _literature_. Protagonists in fiction enjoy (or fail to enjoy) imagined agency - eg we can ask to what extent the victim of tragedy was really in control of his/her fate? But in the context of RPGing, we are (or, at least, I am) talking about the real agency of real people participating in a joint endeavour.


----------



## generic

Lanefan said:


> What's acceptable at your table is still a part of the game you are, in the end, playing.  I think attempting to divorce these things is what's clouding the issue - you're trying to talk about only the rules-as-written and I (and maybe others) are trying to talk about the game-as-played.



It's somewhat difficult to make an absolute argument on the basis of something so inherently subjective as "how the game is played".

You can generalize, yes, but I won't be able to take an argument with no basis in fact or cited knowledge very seriously.

Then again, I'm just being overly-pedantic about D&D's system of player agency online, so, at the end of the day, I don't think any disagreement is going to lead to profound issues in the hobby, lol.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Mechanics that function by making unrelated bad thing happen on a poor roll make situation/setting feel like it lacks integrity.  Mechanics that give players power of the situation or setting outside their character - (_this probably needs to be more precisely formulated_) also cause that same lack of integrity for me.



(1) What do you mean by _unrelated_? Unrelated to what? I am going to repost John Harper here, on narrating hard moves in AW:


*When you make a regular MC move*, all three:
1. It follows logically from the fiction.
2. It gives the player an opportunity to react.
3. It sets you up for a future harder move.

This means, say what happens but stop before the effect, then ask "What do you do?"

_- He swings the chainsaw right at your head. What do you do?

You sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there, about to notice you any second now. What do you do?
She stares at you coldly. 'Leave me alone,' she says. What do you do?
_

*When you make a hard MC move*, both:
1. It follows logically from the fiction.
2. It's irrevocable.

This means, say what happens, including the effect, then ask "What do you do?"

_- The chainsaw bites into your face, spraying chunks of bloody flesh all over the room. 3-harm and make the harm move!

Plover sees you and starts yelling like mad. Intruder!
Don't come back here again.' She slams the door in your face and you hear the locks click home.
_

See how that works? The regular move sets up the hard move. The hard move follows through on the threat established by the regular move.​
(2) _Memories and other recollections_ are not things outside a character. Yet you appear to object to systems that permit players - via whatever resolution process - to establish their PCs' memories and recollections.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Sounds like a very good reason to add the leg brace to him.  I'd say that's not fiat at all.



How is it not fiat? I don't think @prabe had to roll on a _random NPC prosthetics table_ or anything similar in order to be able to make this true in the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades



This claim isn't true. _Being friendly_ is one such trait - it means one has more former comrades out there. _Being well-known_ is another one. _Being part of an organisation that gives rise to comradeship _is a third.

In BW, the first is established via the derivation of Circles from Will. (The closest BW has to D&D's CHA stat.) The second is established via Reputation mechanics, and the third via Affiliation mechanics.



FrogReaver said:


> what action did the character take to cause the meeting with a friend or comrade to happen?



He kept a lookout for them, in a place where they might be around (ie in the neighbourhood of the old border forts along the river).



FrogReaver said:


> Normal flow being: current fiction -> character action -> mechanic resolves -> updated fiction
> 
> The flow here being: current fiction -> invoke mechanic -> updated fiction (including adding the NPC's, the characters action/interaction with them and the outcome of that interaction including any complications)



The existence of these former comrades is already established at the very start of the campaign: Thurgon has a Reptuation (Last Knight of the Iron Tower) and multiple relevant Affiliations (including with the Order of the Iron Tower) which establish the existence of these NPCs. More generally, it is established that Thurgon has been alive for nearly 30 years, in that time serving as a page and a squire and a knight of his order, and hence has met many people. (Other Affiliations include with the nobility and with his family; he has since also acquired an infamous reputation in Hell, as an intransigent demon foe.)

So the flow is: current fiction, which includes the fact that Thurgon has former comrades and also that he is in the neighbourhood of the old border forts -> character action (ie keep an eye out for former comrades) -> mechanic resolves -> update fiction (ie Thurgon and Aramina meet Friedrich, a former member of Thurgon's order).

The first example of a mechanic I can think of that resembles this is the Streetwise mechanic in Classic Traveller (1977). There is the Yakuza's contact mechanic in original Oriental Adventures, though it works on a rationing basis (so many contacts per level) rather than on a check basis.

The attempt over 30 years later to paint this sort of mechanic as deviant in some fashion, and as not involving action resolution that flows from the established fiction, is not plausible.


----------



## pemerton

A further comment about mechanics that relate PCs to NPCs: they allow for RPGing that resembles genre fiction.

Super heroes frequently bump into people whom they know.

Han Solo is able to identify that he is in Lando's neighbourhood (but it backfires - a classic failed Circles check!). Luke is able to find Ben in the hills of Tatooine, and then later is able to arrive on Dagobah and encounter Yoda.

When the hobbits are abroad they encounter Strider, and then Glorfindel.

"A chance meeting", as they say in Middle Earth, is a recurrent feature of the stories that RPGs ostensibly emulate. GM fiat is one way to bring these about - that means that the GM is dictating the direction of the story.

Mechanics can put some of this into the hands of the player ("player agency") and also enable the GM to play to find out.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> These are not restrictions _of the game_. When discussing player agency, we're talking about how the game the player is playing enables or disables agency. These things you're talking about are social contract issues. I believe I just mentioned the problem of social contracts infiltrating understanding of how games work, and this is another excellent example.



The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.


----------



## generic

Crimson Longinus said:


> The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.



I believe everyone in the thread is cognizant of this, but there can be no discussion without a few defined parameters as to what constitutes the "standard", or, at least, the minimum social contract required for proper enjoyment of the game.

Evidently, the game does not exist independently of a social contract.

However, is there a better way to discuss these topics of contention without cleaving to the RAW?  Is there a method of statistics which could show the common standard, or, I suspect, is this one of the times when having some good, old-fashioned common sense might do us all some good.


----------



## generic

Crimson Longinus said:


> The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.



Dispensing with the absurd verbiage, I agree, but where can we draw the line and the definition of the standard social contract?


----------



## pemerton

Here's the yakuza_ contacts_ ability (OA, p 27):

Another resource of the yakuza is his _contacts_. Contacts are NPCs who can provide the yakuza with specialized information and aid. They will not join him on adventures, but wiII buy stolen goods. provide a secure hide-out. carry messages, and provide information Contacts never do anything that might put them in peril, although they may risk their reputations. They remain cooperative with the yakuza and silent about his activities (and their involvement) so long as they are fairly treated, not threatened, and not implicated in anything. A yakuza character receives one contact for every two experience levels. The contacts are not named or defined by the DM or by a table. Instead, when the player wants his character to use a contact, he decides the name and position of the contact and tells the DM. The DM decides whether the contact is appropriate for the character. The contact cannot be more than four experience levels above the yakuza, and the yakuza character must have had some plausible reason for meeting the contact in the past. If the DM rules the contact is acceptable, information about the contact is noted on the yakuza character's sheet. One available contact of the yakuza has been used. Thereafter the contact can be used again by the yakuza as needed. (The DM may want to note information about the contact and create a fitting personality.) The player is responsible for keeping track of the names of his character's contacts.

Some examples of acceptable contacts include the gate keeper of a ward, a ship captain, a minor samurai in the Service of a daimyo. a district
magistrate, or a wealthy merchant. Basically, the DM must rely on his judgement when determining whether a contact is acceptable.​
I first read this ability in mid-1985, at which point I was familiar with B/X, AD&D and Classic Traveller. It didn't think I actually saw it in play (the PCs I remember from our early OA games were samurai, bushi and kensai (sic)) but as best I recall it didn't generate any particular reaction in me. I don't remember seeing any discussion of it in Dragon magazine as a point of possible controversy. It's hard for me to recollect any details decades later, but it probably seemed like a reasonable development of the thief ability to speak Thieves' Cant, and of the ability of thieves and assassins to attract gangs of followers at higher levels. I remember a series of articles about thieves in Dragon 115 (1986) which talked about guilds and the like - I don't recall how much player involvement they anticipated, but it all reinforced a sense that thieves could be played as characters who were embedded in their local community and situation, rather than strangers to it.

I don't recall anything developing a similar idea in relation to paladins, or wizards and their academies, but obviously such ideas aren't absurd and would fit fairly naturally into the AD&D of that era.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Dispensing with the absurd verbiage, I agree, but where can we draw the line and the definition of the standard social contract?



Maybe there isn’t one?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> How is it not fiat? I don't think @prabe had to roll on a _random NPC prosthetics table_ or anything similar in order to be able to make this true in the shared fiction.



Because a lack of a roll is not enough to make something be fiat.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I think the comparison between gameplay and the legislative process is not very helpful. (And I realise you didn't introduce it. But I think it may have led you a little astray.)
> 
> Upthread, @Campbell has (multiple times) mentioned social pressure/understanding. In politics the use of veto powers - be that the literal veto a president can exercise in the US system, or something like the guillotine in a Westminster-type power - is subject to all sorts of constraints that professional politicians are incredibly good at intuiting, that political journalists spend their careers reporting on, and that political scientists try to theorise. At the extreme limits this is the stuff of constitutional crises and even of coups. (Think of the fairly recent debates, now moot given the prorogation fiasco followed by the recent Brexit deal and so I believe not in violation of board rules, about whether the UK government could legitimately advise Her Majesty not to assent to a Bill that had duly passed both houses but that the government did not support. It would make no sense to say that Parliament enjoyed no agency although in some sense the government enjoyed this veto option - which ultimately it didn't exercise, for obvious reasons to do with constitutional tradition.)
> 
> When we are talking about RPGing, the veto power we typically have in mind is _the GM's_, and there are nothing like these formally and informally institutionally-generated pressures. In games that contemplate GM veto (eg some approaches to D&D) there is typically a social norm that requires other participants to go along with it, to not muster pressure against the GM not to do it, etc. It's nothing like the political case.
> 
> To get something even remotely comparable to the political case, I think we'd need to be talking about a GM in a club game (ie played among those who are, in some meaningful way, strangers to one another) where there are multiple candidate GMs and where participants are able to generate feedback that helps determine who GMs in the future. Even then it would depend on other features of the club norms - I've seen club groups that _nevertheless_ work under a very strong GM-is-always-right ethos.



Well, I explicitly mentioned political pressures on the use of the veto in government, so... As for the game table, the difference is really a matter of scale -- both revolve around the political negotiations and assumptions of the table and where it sits.  You've pretty much made the same case for government and for the table, I think that the only real difference is that you've assumed the government is operating in a certain way and have allowed tables to reflect a broader range of possible outcomes.  Let's not forget there are a number of nominally democratic states in the world where one person is actually in charge regardless of what the paper says.  I don't think the comparisons are as far off as you think, if you allow for the full range of governments to be considered.  It's all politics.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Social contract issues are, however, part of the game no matter what table you're sitting at; and even if they're not written down in the published rules some GMs write some of the social contract out as house rules.



No, not really.  Your social contract is part of your game.  My social contract is part of my game.  These are separate things.  You cannot impute your social contract to the game as a whole, and should not.


Lanefan said:


> I'm looking at agency as viewed and experienced by the end user - the player at the table - which must perforce include all these factors.  What the written rules say is only a part of that end-user experience.



I am as well.  And, if I can play-act, but the GM gets to unilaterally say what happens when I do, then I don't have agency in that situation.  If your game is "convince Bob", then Bob has agency, you don't.


Lanefan said:


> The moment you-as-player say something* because Bob-as-character says* it, you're role-playing.



Yes.


Lanefan said:


> Until and unless this happens, I'd debate whether you're in fact role-playing or merely game-playing on a par with Risk or Stratego.



One-true-wayism isn't something I'm going to consider.  Roleplaying is a much broader category of behaviors that what you prefer.


Lanefan said:


> Playing a role means taking on a persona, usually not your own.



No, it means, literally, taking on a role.  If I take on the role of Bob the fighter in the game, then Bob the fighter is my avatar there.  I don't have to play-act or take on a persona for this to be true.


Lanefan said:


> * - or, in very rare cases, physically do something in-character (usually around riddle or puzzle solving).



This is never required.


Lanefan said:


> Well I hope I'm entertaining people, otherwise what the bleep am I doing there?



This I agree with 100%.


Lanefan said:


> What's acceptable at your table is still a part of the game you are, in the end, playing.  I think attempting to divorce these things is what's clouding the issue - you're trying to talk about only the rules-as-written and I (and maybe others) are trying to talk about the game-as-played.



But it's not part of the game you're playing, or the game I buy off the shelf.  The moment we look at a game as only the custom version we create at a table, that's the moment there's no point in discussing it.


----------



## hawkeyefan

I think it would help a lot if people were able to make a distinction between the game as presented and the game as they play it. Assuming that your specific approach and house rules and social contract is somehow evident to all seems to be part of the challenge in discussion. Especially when we're talking about a game like D&D where, depending on edition, you can have wildly different interpretations of how the game is "supposed" to be played. 

There is the game as written, and then the game as played. What's written is what is common to us all, and so that should be all that is assumed in discussion. Any social contract changes or actual rules changes or shifts in approach or process need to be explained. These are great.....I think actual examples of these and why people do them would really help the discussion....but they need to be explained. 

In other words, I don't think that it helps to just say "Well that's not how it works at my table" without explaining how it works at your table. 

I know that a big part of all this for me was when I really stepped back from 5E D&D and looked at it as written and as designed, rather than as my group and I played it. When I did that, I realized how many issues there were with the design which were kind of resolved through the way my group and I play. If we played it as written, my group would likely find the system to be very flawed in some areas (for us and what we want; this will vary by group, of course). 

So, unless you want to share what game you're talking about and how your social contract or house rules have changed it for you, then I think we're gonna keep running into this problem.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I think it would help a lot if people were able to make a distinction between the game as presented and the game as they play it. Assuming that your specific approach and house rules and social contract is somehow evident to all seems to be part of the challenge in discussion. Especially when we're talking about a game like D&D where, depending on edition, you can have wildly different interpretations of how the game is "supposed" to be played.
> 
> There is the game as written, and then the game as played. What's written is what is common to us all, and so that should be all that is assumed in discussion. Any social contract changes or actual rules changes or shifts in approach or process need to be explained. These are great.....I think actual examples of these and why people do them would really help the discussion....but they need to be explained.
> 
> In other words, I don't think that it helps to just say "Well that's not how it works at my table" without explaining how it works at your table.
> 
> I know that a big part of all this for me was when I really stepped back from 5E D&D and looked at it as written and as designed, rather than as my group and I played it. When I did that, I realized how many issues there were with the design which were kind of resolved through the way my group and I play. If we played it as written, my group would likely find the system to be very flawed in some areas (for us and what we want; this will vary by group, of course).
> 
> So, unless you want to share what game you're talking about and how your social contract or house rules have changed it for you, then I think we're gonna keep running into this problem.



The problem is that the most popular game isn’t presented any particular way. It’s a whole lot of “here’s some ideas but do what’s best for your table”


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> The problem is that the most popular game isn’t presented any particular way. It’s a whole lot of “here’s some ideas but do what’s best for your table”




If by that you mean D&D 5E, I don’t think that’s exactly right. Yes, there are areas which are very much left up to interpretation. There are other areas that allow some interpretation, but have a general process. 

Then there are other areas which are clearly defined in the book, but which many groups seem to simply ignore in favor of their own interpretation. 

I think it’s important for anyone who is playing the game and wants to analyze their play to know the difference from one to the other. 

Overall, I get your point and I agree; D&D 5E is imprecise in its rules, which I think was intentional. But for the purposes of discussion, this is only made worse when folks don’t realize what’s their personal approach, what's in the actual books, what they’ve ported over from previous editions, and so on.

So when it comes to 5E (any game, really) all that I can talk about is the rules as written and the rules as played by my group. Knowing the difference is important to discussion and so is being able to explain the difference to others.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> If by that you mean D&D 5E, I don’t think that’s exactly right. Yes, there are areas which are very much left up to interpretation. There are other areas that allow some interpretation, but have a general process.
> 
> Then there are other areas which are clearly defined in the book, but which many groups seem to simply ignore in favor of their own interpretation.
> 
> I think it’s important for anyone who is playing the game and wants to analyze their play to know the difference from one to the other.
> 
> Overall, I get your point and I agree; D&D 5E is imprecise in its rules, which I think was intentional. But for the purposes of discussion, this is only made worse when folks don’t realize what’s their personal approach, what's in the actual books, what they’ve ported over from previous editions, and so on.
> 
> So when it comes to 5E (any game, really) all that I can talk about is the rules as written and the rules as played by my group. Knowing the difference is important to discussion and so is being able to explain the difference to others.



I would tend to agree. I would add that much of what’s being focused on as “5e play” seems more focused on what is possible to happen in 5e than what actually does at many tables. (I dare not speak for all or even most tables as that’s a can of worms best left unopened). This principle may be true in the opposite direction as well. When examples are given of blades play its really not said if the example is typical or of something rare that might arise.  I think that makes a world of difference as people can often overlook mild doses of things they generally don’t like much. And doubly so when it serves a greater purpose as it often does in such games.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> I dislike trying to separate agency into different types, because I think it obfuscates the issue, which is, to me, who can say no.  If someone else can unilaterally say no, then I do not have agency.  To have agency, though, more needs to be present that just the lack of negation, namely places where decisions matter to the game.
> 
> The first set of buckets you've listed doesn't really illuminate these points, because no game really separates play into these categories and then define who has what say where.  That it works to show that a wizard in D&D has more agency than a fighter isn't because of the framework you've built, but because the magic system in D&D has more places where the GM cannot or is limited in how they say no.  As such, the framework doesn't do a good job of answering the questions of who has agency in which bucket because agency isn't assigned by the bucket, but by access to the magic system.  By this I mean that the separation of agency doesn't clarify where the wizard has more agency because the wizard doesn't actually have agency by these buckets, but rather has access to a system that occasionally provides agency _in _these buckets.  The buckets don't really define where agency is available, the tool of magic does.
> 
> Secondly, your second framework is a bit of a mishmash.  As others have noted, the protagonist bucket is very blurry with the other two -- can I have protagonist agency and not have tactical or strategic agency?  I don't really see how.  I also don't see how I could have strategic agency without tactical agency.  This division is messy and unclear and far to interdependent to really call out the nature of either.  I can see how I can have tactical agency but not strategy agency (I can operate in a combat how I want, but the outcome of the module is fixed).  So, maybe a reframing that shows that you need a to have b, and a and b to have c, etc.  I'm still not sure this is very illuminating, but perhaps.




Alright, so here is what I'm trying to accomplish with this:

1)  Develop a matrix by which all TTRPGs can have every moment of player agency qualitatively expressed:

a)  Medium/vector of expression.

b)  Type of expression.

2)  Through this matrix evaluate design impetus and architecture, play priorities, and GMing principles.

3)  From/through all of the above, analyze instances of play with respect to these things.

What I am *not *trying to do:

4)  Capture significant redundancy (if there is too much Venn Diagram overlap, then a broader classification that both concepts can orbit around should be used), extreme corner cases, or hypotheticals.



I don't want to go discuss (b) too much right now because I want to focus on (a) (I already gave some thoughts on (b) upthread, but I'll go into it further later).  Right now, I want to deliberate on (a) and how it interacts with (4):

_*Is Character "significant redundancy" in relation to Situation and Setting? *_ 

After much more thought, I'm still unsure.   My initial arrangement of thoughts for the medium/vector classifications was centered around the following questions:

* Given any subset of relationship of objects within a gamestate (and the attendant constraint on action declarations due to fictional positioning that a character might be dealing with), what are the limits (both breadth and potency) of reach in terms of action declarations that a player might make through their character?  

* With respect to Setting and Situation, do those limits substantially differ from PC to PC and from game to game such that Character is a sufficiently distinguishing medium/vector?

Some thoughts:

* It is mostly true that mundane characters (whether it be Fighters in D&D or their analogues in other games) are severely restricted by fictional positioning, and therefore their player's action declarations are similarly restricted:

What is the reach/range of my weapon?  Is this obstacle bridgeable by way of physical interaction (whether its talking or moving) such that new action declarations might open up?  How can I restrict my adversary by manipulating their relationship with objects within the gamestate?

HOWEVER...

Fighters and Battlebabes in Dungeon World and Apocalypse World can extend their reach beyond the immediate fictional positioning restraints of their character to interact directly with the situation to impose change via Through Death's Eyes and Visions of Death (make a move that will create "death by fiat").  Further, 4e Fighters can do similarly with Come and Get It.  FitD Flashbacks enable this as well (suspension of present constraints on fictional positioning to propose a change at the Situation level).

There are plenty of other examples of this in games.

Are the distinguishing components of these moves (and the way they distinguish, say, a Moldvay Basic Fighter froma  4e Fighter or an AW Battlebabe) sufficient to require Character as a medium/vector separate from Situation?

I'm putting that to jury for thoughts.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, so here is what I'm trying to accomplish with this:
> 
> 1)  Develop a matrix by which all TTRPGs can have every moment of player agency qualitatively expressed:
> 
> a)  Medium/vector of expression.
> 
> b)  Type of expression.
> 
> 2)  Through this matrix evaluate design impetus and architecture, play priorities, and GMing principles.
> 
> 3)  From/through all of the above, analyze instances of play with respect to these things.
> 
> What I am *not *trying to do:
> 
> 4)  Capture significant redundancy (if there is too much Venn Diagram overlap, then a broader classification that both concepts can orbit around should be used), extreme corner cases, or hypotheticals.
> 
> 
> 
> I don't want to go discuss (b) too much right now because I want to focus on (a) (I already gave some thoughts on (b) upthread, but I'll go into it further later).  Right now, I want to deliberate on (a) and how it interacts with (4):
> 
> _*Is Character "significant redundancy" in relation to Situation and Setting? *_
> 
> After much more thought, I'm still unsure.   My initial arrangement of thoughts for the medium/vector classifications was centered around the following questions:
> 
> * Given any subset of relationship of objects within a gamestate (and the attendant constraint on action declarations due to fictional positioning that a character might be dealing with), what are the limits (both breadth and potency) of reach in terms of action declarations that a player might make through their character?
> 
> * With respect to Setting and Situation, do those limits substantially differ from PC to PC and from game to game such that Character is a sufficiently distinguishing medium/vector?
> 
> Some thoughts:
> 
> * It is mostly true that mundane characters (whether it be Fighters in D&D or their analogues in other games) are severely restricted by fictional positioning, and therefore their player's action declarations are similarly restricted:
> 
> What is the reach/range of my weapon?  Is this obstacle bridgeable by way of physical interaction (whether its talking or moving) such that new action declarations might open up?  How can I restrict my adversary by manipulating their relationship with objects within the gamestate?
> 
> HOWEVER...
> 
> Fighters and Battlebabes in Dungeon World and Apocalypse World can extend their reach beyond the immediate fictional positioning restraints of their character to interact directly with the situation to impose change via Through Death's Eyes and Visions of Death (make a move that will create "death by fiat").  Further, 4e Fighters can do similarly with Come and Get It.  FitD Flashbacks enable this as well (suspension of present constraints on fictional positioning to propose a change at the Situation level).
> 
> There are plenty of other examples of this in games.
> 
> Are the distinguishing components of these moves (and the way they distinguish, say, a Moldvay Basic Fighter froma  4e Fighter or an AW Battlebabe) sufficient to require Character as a medium/vector separate from Situation?
> 
> I'm putting that to jury for thoughts.



I think you do a disservice to my side if you don’t separate that out. It’s been one of the most reoccurring points this whole thread.

Now whether it’s a separate category or a subcategory I’m not as sure on.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I would tend to agree. I would add that much of what’s being focused on as “5e play” seems more focused on what is possible to happen in 5e than what actually does at many tables. (I dare not speak for all or even most tables as that’s a can of worms best left unopened). This principle may be true in the opposite direction as well. When examples are given of blades play its really not said if the example is typical or of something rare that might arise.  I think that makes a world of difference as people can often overlook mild doses of things they generally don’t like much. And doubly so when it serves a greater purpose as it often does in such games.




This is likely somewhat true. The main difference, I think, is that Blades in the Dark has very specifically stated GM Goals, GM Principles, and GM Best Practices. In a very tangible sense, you could say that there is one way to run Blades in the Dark, and that would be according to those Goals, Principles, and Best Practices. 

With D&D 5E, you have rules that are often vaguely worded, and advice on how to apply the rules and run the game that is mere suggestion. 

One creates a clearer picture than the other, and so is much easier to discuss. But yes, even with the Goals, Principles, and Best Practices laid out clearly, there will still be room for interpretation.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> *Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.
> 
> *Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.




So I've been meaning to respond to your post for a while, because I appreciate the time and thought that went into it. But first, I have a question.

For the two Agency Types above, the distinction appears to only be "impact in the fiction now" versus "impact in the fiction later on"; is that right? If so, what are the reasons you made this distinction?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> With D&D 5E, you have rules that are often vaguely worded, and advice on how to apply the rules and run the game that is mere suggestion.




But my sense is this is because D&D is trying to accommodate a broader range of GM styles and playstyles, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem 5E was trying to solve was bringing together a fractured fanbase around the new edition


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> But my sense is this is because D&D is trying to accommodate a broader range of GM styles and playstyles, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem 5E was trying to solve was bringing together a fractured fanbase around the new edition




Yes. I didn't say that it was a bad thing overall, or that there weren't strong reasons for this decision.

I said that it makes discussion difficult because even if we ignore social contract elements and house rules and such, people can still be approaching discussion from totally different starting points, based on their interpretations of the rules as written. 

For example, do the 5E D&D core books say that once a DM assigns a DC to an Ability Check, that he actually shares the DC with the player? I'm not sure that they do (however, I could certainly be wrong). So you may have some groups that think the player should always know the DC before making the roll, some groups that think they never should, and some groups that think they should some of the time, with some vague wording in the books about using "what works for your group".

There are pros and cons to the "rulings not rules" mindset that guided the designers of 5E, and a consistent starting point for discussion would appear to be one of the cons.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> For example, do the 5E D&D core books say that once a DM assigns a DC to an Ability Check, that he actually shares the DC with the player? I'm not sure that they do (however, I could certainly be wrong). So you may have some groups that think the player should always know the DC before making the roll, some groups that think they never should, and some groups that think they should some of the time, with some vague wording in the books about using "what works for your group".




I don't know about this one as I don't play 5E. But what this would seem to allow is for both groups who think the DM should share DCs with players, and for groups who think the DM should not not share them, to play the game. It does seem like a playstyle dividing line, so I can see the utility of leaving it open to discussion. If they weigh in one way or the other, a down side is they are essentially picking a playstyle as well. It may seem like a little thing, but these kinds of playstyle differences were some of the reasons people were leaving D&D to go to other games or earlier editions/retroclones. The problem would be when you have disagreement among players. I personally have never found this to be a big issue, but others might. Generally my groups have let the GM decide on those kinds of house rules decisions for a given campaign, and if players object for any reason that is certainly up for discussion (though I don't think we get as contentious about that stuff as I've seen people in the thread here get).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't know about this one as I don't play 5E. But what this would seem to allow is for both groups who think the DM should share DCs with players, and for groups who think the DM should not not share them, to play the game. It does seem like a playstyle dividing line, so I can see the utility of leaving it open to discussion. If they weigh in one way or the other, a down side is they are essentially picking a playstyle as well. It may seem like a little thing, but these kinds of playstyle differences were some of the reasons people were leaving D&D to go to other games or earlier editions/retroclones. The problem would be when you have disagreement among players. I personally have never found this to be a big issue, but others might. Generally my groups have let the GM decide on those kinds of house rules decisions for a given campaign, and if players object for any reason that is certainly up for discussion (though I don't think we get as contentious about that stuff as I've seen people in the thread here get).




Yes, the versatility of allowing for more than one approach would be a pro. However, that same pro makes discussion difficult because all participants may have a different starting point for discussion. That's the con I'm talking about. 

I'm not challenging the merit of this design decision in how it supports different play styles. I'm saying that approach makes discussion difficult. There's no default starting point.

Other games may not have this appeal to multiple approaches, or if so, may handle it another way. So to use the same kind of example, when a GM in Blades in the Dark establishes Position and Effect (largely the equivalent of DC in D&D) they always clearly state what those are and why, and the players are allowed to negotiate for a change if they feel it's warranted. There is a set process that can be assumed as the default because the book clearly describes this. 

Anyone deviating from this process is clearly doing things differently than the book describes.

The same goes for most PbtA games because the numbers needed for success never change; 7-9 for a hit and 10 for a strong hit. Again, this gives a much easier starting point for discussion than if those numbers were able to shift per the rules, or if the rules were unclear on how those numbers may shift and whether they should be shared with the players.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> But my sense is this is because D&D is trying to accommodate a broader range of GM styles and playstyles, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem 5E was trying to solve was bringing together a fractured fanbase around the new edition




This is going to be a contentious post, but it is my genuine perspective.

I do not think 5e is really that accommodating to a broad range of playstyles. I think it is phenomenally well designed for the highly specific way the vast majority of groups I have encountered in the wild play which is following a GM driven plot while engaging in characterization. There might be subplots weaved in, but the focus is on an adventure/story crafted by the GM. It pays some lip service to sandbox play, but is not really crafted with it in mind.

Either as an exercise in skilled play or more character driven protagonist play I find it wholly inadequate.

I have enjoyed it for what it offers. I have played in a 5e game that has lasted for almost 3 years now. I even ran a short game of it, but am not capable of the sort of GMing it expects.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> This is going to be a contentious post, but it is my genuine perspective.
> 
> I do not think 5e is really that accommodating to a broad range of playstyles. I think it is phenomenally well designed for the highly specific way the vast majority of groups I have encountered in the wild play which is following a GM driven plot while engaging in characterization. There might be subplots weaved in, but the focus is on an adventure/story crafted by the GM. It pays some lip service to sandbox play, but is not really crafted with it in mind.
> 
> Either as an exercise in skilled play or more character driven protagonist play I find it wholly inadequate.
> 
> I have enjoyed it for what it offers. I have played in a 5e game that has lasted for almost 3 years now. I even ran a short game of it, but am not capable of the sort of GMing it expects.




I would have argued with you about this earlier on in the life of 5E. 

And although I do think you can kind of push (or maybe "violently shove" is a more accurate term) it towards a different style, its design is very much as you say, with a kind of adventure path mindset assumed. 

I try to run it with as much player input as possible. I've even adopted elements from other games to try and help with that. But in its bones, it's very much a plot based game, I think, and so even the strongest attempts to go a different route are faced with some serious obstacles.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't think @prabe had to roll on a _random NPC prosthetics table_ or anything similar in order to be able to make this true in the shared fiction.



I did not. I did (as I said ) need to make it clear to the players that the character had always had a leg brace, so this was a retcon (because the DM changed his mind) not that the character had suddenly put on a leg brace.

Random NPC Prosthetics Table ... Sounds like Rolemaster to me. ;-)


pemerton said:


> Yet you appear to object to systems that permit players - via whatever resolution process - to establish their PCs' memories and recollections.



Speaking only for myself, I have problems as a player with using memories and recollections to change the fiction (such as putting a Contact in town, or placing a landmark nearby) if and when they raise questions along the lines of "Why didn't we go to the Contact sooner?" or "If the landmark is so close, and so tied to our goals, why didn't we go there instead of here?" Plausibly this connects to my preferences for a more GM-authored world, though it at least feels as though it's looking at that preference from a different direction.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> I do not think 5e is really that accommodating to a broad range of playstyles. I think it is phenomenally well designed for the highly specific way the vast majority of groups I have encountered in the wild play which is following a GM driven plot while engaging in characterization. There might be subplots weaved in, but the focus is on an adventure/story crafted by the GM. It pays some lip service to sandbox play, but is not really crafted with it in mind.





hawkeyefan said:


> And although I do think you can kind of push (or maybe "violently shove" is a more accurate term) it towards a different style, its design is very much as you say, with a kind of adventure path mindset assumed.



I believe @hawkeyefan has it about right. 5E is built pretty much from the ground up for AP-style play, but you can run it for different preferences, if you're willing to work at it a little. I don't really prep things as plots--for a given session, I prep where things are and I prep for a few things that seem particularly likely to happen (sometimes for what will happen if the PCs do nothing). I have a few things as vague over-arching ideas, but they're not set in stone or anything. I try to run things based on goals the PCs have set for themselves--some of those take a while, and might feel from the outside like an AP.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> _Memories and other recollections_ are not things outside a character. Yet you appear to object to systems that permit players - via whatever resolution process - to establish their PCs' memories and recollections.



Memories might be internal to the character but the things that the memories are about are not. Please stop this obfuscation.


----------



## Campbell

prabe said:


> I believe @hawkeyefan has it about right. 5E is built pretty much from the ground up for AP-style play, but you can run it for different preferences, if you're willing to work at it a little. I don't really prep things as plots--for a given session, I prep where things are and I prep for a few things that seem particularly likely to happen (sometimes for what will happen if the PCs do nothing). I have a few things as vague over-arching ideas, but they're not set in stone or anything. I try to run things based on goals the PCs have set for themselves--some of those take a while, and might feel from the outside like an AP.




I think you can definitely move 5e more towards a group based adventure oriented sandbox. I have several games I would put above it on that list, but with a decent amount of effort it can work.

When it comes to more protagonist oriented play it has things actively going against it. First of all characters in most iterations of D&D feel like space aliens to me. They have barest of connections to their environment. Backgrounds are a plus here, but are firmly in the past. Characters are unmoored. Secondly characters are entirely too specialized in 5e. Outside the confines of a group characters are not very capable of making their way through their environments. 

That's not really criticism from my perspective though. The game is damned good at what it does. So much that it's fairly resistant outside of that area of strength,

I actually have the opposite opinion of PF2. It's terrible at adventure paths. It's pretty strong at providing a skilled play environment and it's more broadly capable characters can excel in games that drift more towards active protagonism. It's not good for GM plots in my opinion even if it's what they have been trying to sell.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Crimson Longinus said:


> Memories might be internal to the character but the things that the memories are about are not. Please stop this obfuscation.



Right!  The player is doing something outside of the character by establishing some fiction, but the character is perfectly situated in the fiction.  This is an argument that the player should not have these abilities to establish any fiction -- that this is only the GM's purview.  Arguing that this is somehow meta to the character, though, is odd, because from the point of view of the character (if such a thing could be said to exist), there's no weird here at all.

In other words, let's drop the obfuscation that this is about keeping the character situated firmly in the fictional world and recognize that it's really about who has agency over the fiction where.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> When it comes to more protagonist oriented play it has things actively going against it. First of all characters in most iterations of D&D feel like space aliens to me. They have barest of connections to their environment. Backgrounds are a plus here, but are firmly in the past. Characters are unmoored.



What, how, why? What would you need to moor them?



Campbell said:


> Secondly characters are entirely too specialized in 5e. Outside the confines of a group characters are not very capable of making their way through their environments.



Certainly bounded accuracy does the opposite? Even though you're not specialised in some skill, you still have decent chances of success in more routine tasks.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> Right!  The player is doing something outside of the character by establishing some fiction, but the character is perfectly situated in the fiction.  This is an argument that the player should not have these abilities to establish any fiction -- that this is only the GM's purview.  Arguing that this is somehow meta to the character, though, is odd, because from the point of view of the character (if such a thing could be said to exist), there's no weird here at all.
> 
> In other words, let's drop the obfuscation that this is about keeping the character situated firmly in the fictional world and recognize that it's really about who has agency over the fiction where.




I think there's a different view of character creation and what a character is going on here.

The perspective where it feels more immersive to be able to call friends and contacts sees the character as more than the physical body, but also as a person with relationships and ties to the world. That acting comfortably in that environment means calling on those ties.

It also somewhat based on the idea that creating a whole person is a more active process. It is not complete before play starts, but is something that happens on regular intervals. The act of playing a character is actively creating the character.

This conception is also somewhat at odds with the fun of play being exploration of a GM's prepared material.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I think you do a disservice to my side if you don’t separate that out. It’s been one of the most reoccurring points this whole thread.
> 
> Now whether it’s a separate category or a subcategory I’m not as sure on.




<inclusion because lack thereof is a> "Disservice to <x/y> side" is a partisan position.  What I'm looking for is a testable, empirical claim with supporting evidence.  I think I may be in the ballpark of being able to make that case, but I'm not certain (hence putting it out there in the wild for others to support or push back against it).

If you encountered someone who either (a) had never played TTRPGs or (b) was trying to design a new TTRPG and you had to make a firm delineation where Character is an exclusive Medium/Vector for agency (capable of sufficiently separate from Situation and Setting to warrant its own classification)...what would you say to them?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> I think you can definitely move 5e more towards a group based adventure oriented sandbox. I have several games I would put above it on that list, but with a decent amount of effort it can work.
> 
> When it comes to more protagonist oriented play it has things actively going against it. First of all characters in most iterations of D&D feel like space aliens to me. They have barest of connections to their environment. Backgrounds are a plus here, but are firmly in the past. Characters are unmoored. Secondly characters are entirely too specialized in 5e. Outside the confines of a group characters are not very capable of making their way through their environments.
> 
> That's not really criticism from my perspective though. The game is damned good at what it does. So much that it's fairly resistant outside of that area of strength,




Yeah, the main thing with trying to shift the game toward more player directed play is to somehow come up with existing connections and goals that give the PCs a sense of place in the world. The Background does this a tiny bit, and the Bond can potentially add a bit more, but these are like bare minimums. 

For me, our 5E game started off with the adventure from the Starter Set, and when everyone said they liked the game, we continued, so that became a big part of things. The town of Phandalin and the people there became foundational to everything that followed. They started a trading company and sought to expand, and that's been a main theme all throughout. 

We also folded in a lot of existing lore from our previous campaigns, going back to our earliest days as a group together, which was at the time that 2E first appeared. So there was blatant nostalgia going on in that sense, but it hooked them and motivated the players and their characters in interesting ways.

There is still a central threat, or Big Bad, that they're working against, so that's a pretty classic GM driven element, but when and how they engage with that is largely up to them. 

A lot of this is loose. I don't have formalized mechanics. Honestly, most of it is just a longstanding group whose members are familiar with each other and who trust each other playing the game the way they want. It's a case of the social contract overriding the game and allowing things to be this way. This is what blinded me to a lot of the flaws of 5E and I expect is why many people think that the game "supports" more than one style of play. 

I don't think most people would think that an example of "supporting a playstyle" would be to "actively ignore almost all the advice in the books and many of the rules and expectations".



Campbell said:


> I actually have the opposite opinion of PF2. It's terrible at adventure paths. It's pretty strong at providing a skilled play environment and it's more broadly capable characters can excel in games that drift more towards active protagonism. It's not good for GM plots in my opinion even if it's what they have been trying to sell.




I grew to dislike Pathfinder 1 so much that I have no desire to try Pathfinder 2. I'm surprised to hear that it leans more toward skilled play though, and away from Adventure Path style play. Why do you think this?



Crimson Longinus said:


> What, how, why? What would you need to moor them?




Because people tend to be moored? Most folks have connections and relationships and goals and so on. Having game elements that emulate that can help. Yes, this can be done without rules.....but it can also not be done. As I said above the "Bond" bit from 5E is pretty weak. Other games require a far stronger connection to be offered, and usually give it more weight through mechanics connected to it. Certainly more than "if you play your character like the Bond you've chosen matters, you get an inspiration die".

When a game specifically tells you to do something, it's usually an indication that thing is an important part of the experience. The same way that XP is a strong indicator of what a game is actually about. These things being mere suggestions rather than specifically stated requirements shows that there are not essential.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> <inclusion because lack thereof is a> "Disservice to <x/y> side" is a partisan position.  What I'm looking for is a testable, empirical claim with supporting evidence.  I think I may be in the ballpark of being able to make that case, but I'm not certain (hence putting it out there in the wild for others to support or push back against it).
> 
> If you encountered someone who either (a) had never played TTRPGs or (b) was trying to design a new TTRPG and you had to make a firm delineation where Character is an exclusive Medium/Vector for agency (capable of sufficiently separate from Situation and Setting to warrant its own classification)...what would you say to them?



I’d just point out that some games give you agency over just the character and others the character and the setting.  That to me is enough to make the concept be worth differentiating.  Especially when coupled with the fact that my side swears that this vector is perhaps the most important for differentiating the games they prefer from the others.

In the worst case that makes character agency a subset of setting agency.  So let's assume that's the case.  Being a strict subset of setting agency vector doesn't preclude items in the character agency subset and non-character agency subset from being behaving and even being valued differently in analysis.  At this point though - I'd suggest you would drop setting agency and talk about setting based character vector and setting based non-character vectors.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> *Character Agency* - The PC is _here_. The time is _now_. The relationship of relevant objects (including the PC themselves) within the gamestate are _thus_. Without changing any of _here_, _now_, and _thus _for any given action declaration_, _make a move where either/or/both _here _and _thus _are changed (_now _will fundamentally change because time will have moved forward after the action declaration).
> 
> *Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_. Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).






Manbearcat said:


> Fighters and Battlebabes in Dungeon World and Apocalypse World can extend their reach beyond the immediate fictional positioning restraints of their character to interact directly with the situation to impose change via Through Death's Eyes and Visions of Death (make a move that will create "death by fiat"). Further, 4e Fighters can do similarly with Come and Get It. FitD Flashbacks enable this as well (suspension of present constraints on fictional positioning to propose a change at the Situation level).
> 
> There are plenty of other examples of this in games.
> 
> Are the distinguishing components of these moves (and the way they distinguish, say, a Moldvay Basic Fighter froma 4e Fighter or an AW Battlebabe) sufficient to require Character as a medium/vector separate from Situation?
> 
> I'm putting that to jury for thought




I'm trying to come up with an example that fits your Character Agency above, but not your Situation Agency, and vice versa....but I'm struggling to do so. 

My 4E experience is limited, but I'm thinking of Come and Get It since you mentioned it, and it seems to be an example of both. Likewise, a Cutter calling for a Flashback in Blades would seem to fit both, depending on the details.

I'm not sure if I'm just not looking at it correctly, or if that means that there isn't much reason for the distinction?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> Because people tend to be moored? Most folks have connections and relationships and goals and so on. Having game elements that emulate that can help. Yes, this can be done without rules.....but it can also not be done. As I said above the "Bond" bit from 5E is pretty weak. Other games require a far stronger connection to be offered, and usually give it more weight through mechanics connected to it. Certainly more than "if you play your character like the Bond you've chosen matters, you get an inspiration die".



The claim was that 5e works against the character's being moored, it does not. If you want a camping where the characters have a lot of established connection in the setting and will create more, you can do that just fine. This is again wanting to have rules for stuff that needs no rules. A lot of this thread is about people wanting the games to have rules that_ force_ them to be played in certain way, instead of just people _choosing _to play games in that way.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> <inclusion because lack thereof is a> "Disservice to <x/y> side" is a partisan position.  What I'm looking for is a testable, empirical claim with supporting evidence.  I think I may be in the ballpark of being able to make that case, but I'm not certain (hence putting it out there in the wild for others to support or push back against it).



It doesn't work that way. These are all just social constructs. If a lot of people perceive there to be a meaningful difference then a classification that recognises that difference is useful to have.



Manbearcat said:


> If you encountered someone who either (a) had never played TTRPGs or (b) was trying to design a new TTRPG and you had to make a firm delineation where Character is an exclusive Medium/Vector for agency (capable of sufficiently separate from Situation and Setting to warrant its own classification)...what would you say to them?




Not that explaining the difference between character and setting agency is difficult, assuming that the listener is not actively hostile to the idea of drawing that distinction in the first place. I saw recently this article about the difference between roleplaying and storytelling games linked on RPG.net, I think it is pretty relevant to the a lot of the discussion that has been going on here:
Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> The claim was that 5e works against the character's being moored, it does not. If you want a camping where the characters have a lot of established connection in the setting and will create more, you can do that just fine. This is again wanting to have rules for stuff that needs no rules. A lot of this thread is about people wanting the games to have rules that_ force_ them to be played in certain way, instead of just people _choosing _to play games in that way.



I mean murderhoboism is a thing and I'd say that's typically how 5e looks when the characters are extremely unmoored.  In practice most characters aren't murder hobo's but they aren't very moored either.  

I think saying "5e works against mooring" and "5e doesn't do anything for mooring" is essentially the same thing.  The reason for why is the same, there's no rules or guidelines to enforce this.  It's just there's a different default starting point.  It's more like you are looking at the front end of the elephant and him the rear and both trying to describe an elephant with just that vantage point.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm trying to come up with an example that fits your Character Agency above, but not your Situation Agency, and vice versa....but I'm struggling to do so.
> 
> My 4E experience is limited, but I'm thinking of Come and Get It since you mentioned it, and it seems to be an example of both. Likewise, a Cutter calling for a Flashback in Blades would seem to fit both, depending on the details.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'm just not looking at it correctly, or if that means that there isn't much reason for the distinction?



Your blades flashback mechanic fits situation agency but not character agency.  The "time is now" portion excludes it from being character agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> The claim was that 5e works against the character's being moored, it does not. If you want a camping where the characters have a lot of established connection in the setting and will create more, you can do that just fine. This is again wanting to have rules for stuff that needs no rules.




I'm sure @Campbell can clarify himself, and much more succinctly, but I think it's the idea that the absence of these things from the game make it clear that they are not essential. They don't need to be present. If something doesn't need to be present, how important can you really claim that it to be?

Yes, you can add these elements. I described my 5E game where we did exactly that. But the system does NOTHING to support this. It works only because my players and I make it work. I would also say that some of the rules get in the way.

This is why I mentioned how having actual rules or attributes of your PC that are required and giving those some weight speaks to their importance. Just as the award system of a game will tell you a lot about what it's about, so do other rules. 

The fact that all you get in 5E as written for actually role-playing your Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws is an Inspiration die (most likely to be used in combat) and not XP is very telling, isn't it?



Crimson Longinus said:


> A lot of this thread is about people wanting the games to have rules that_ force_ them to be played in certain way, instead of just people _choosing _to play games in that way.




I would rephrase that a bit. It's not about forcing a certain kind of play....it's about actively promoting it. Saying "this game is about X".


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Your blades flashback mechanic fits situation agency but not character agency.  The "time is now" portion excludes it from being character agency.




Good catch, thank you! I knew there was something I was missing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm sure @Campbell can clarify himself, and much more succinctly, but I think it's the idea that the absence of these things from the game make it clear that they are not essential. They don't need to be present. If something doesn't need to be present, how important can you really claim that it to be?
> 
> Yes, you can add these elements. I described my 5E game where we did exactly that. But the system does NOTHING to support this. It works only because my players and I make it work.



Right. So you didn't need rules for it. 



hawkeyefan said:


> I would also say that some of the rules get in the way.



How?



hawkeyefan said:


> This is why I mentioned how having actual rules or attributes of your PC that are required and giving those some weight speaks to their importance. Just as the award system of a game will tell you a lot about what it's about, so do other rules.
> 
> The fact that all you get in 5E as written for actually role-playing your Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws is an Inspiration die (most likely to be used in combat) and not XP is very telling, isn't it?



The people are ones who decide what's important. If it is important to you then it is important in the game. (There are also guidelines for awarding XP for non-combat encounters, not that I would bother with XP at all.)



hawkeyefan said:


> I would rephrase that a bit. It's not about forcing a certain kind of play....it's about actively promoting it. Saying "this game is about X".



Why you _need_ the game book to say that? Why can't the GM and the players decide that the game is about that?


----------



## Campbell

So I think as long as we are putting things in generalizing buckets that apply universally and saying this needs rules or this does not need rules we are not going to get to the interesting part of the conversation. We need zero rules at all (including no formal divisions of authority) to roleplay. We literally can just do it. I know because that's what I did before I played D&D. I also ran a session entirely freeform in our mecha game while we were working on transitioning from one game system to another.

We might desire some things to be part of the formal rules of a game. We might even want that to change from game to game. What's interesting to me is the impact of those formal systems as well as the culture of play surrounding a game which is just as important to me personally.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> So I've been meaning to respond to your post for a while, because I appreciate the time and thought that went into it. But first, I have a question.
> 
> For the two Agency Types above, the distinction appears to only be "impact in the fiction now" versus "impact in the fiction later on"; is that right? If so, what are the reasons you made this distinction?




Let me deconstruct my thinking here:

*PROTAGONIST AGENCY* - To be a/the protagonist, you (a) must have a dramatic need and (b) the game feature the resolution of this as its ballast and pivot point.  This actual type of agency is almost surely the primary point of contention in this thread (and threads we've had in the past).  A game can be entirely devoid of Protagonist Agency or it can be entirely focused on it or somewhere in between.

I brought up Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic earlier.  There is no dramatic need there upon which the game rests and turns upon.  The game is devoid of Protagonist Agency.

What about AP or metaplot play or setting tourism or Strahd-games?  There may be Protagonist Agency there, but its not experienced by the players.  It is expressed by the GM through Situation and Setting, for the players to experience and facilitate, but its not the Player-Character-centered.  It could be the resolution of Strahd's dramatic need that the game rests and turns upon or something similar.  It could be the unraveling of the thematically-neutral (the reference point being the PCs) mystery.

So those two types of games do not feature *Protagonist Agency* for the players.

Contrast with My Life With Master where Tactical and Strategic Agency are limited, but Protagonist Agency is extreme. Contrast again with Dogs in the Vineyard where the hierarchy is huge Protagonist Agency, significant Tactical Agency, somewhat muted (but still present Strategic Agency).  Contrast still with Blades in the Dark (and Torchbearer to a lesser degree because Strategic Agency is somewhat more potent than Tactical in that game) where all 3 of those Agencies are massive with the game not just being each of Tactical and Strategic-rich, but the two are brilliantly integrated with layers of decision-points and feedback loops that impact each other (you need THIS Action Roll but the cost to the Score could be x with the risk/reward to your long term capacity to do z also being in play).  Most games aren't like Blades though.  On that note...

*TACTICAL AGENCY* - The feedback loop and downstream implications of this decision-point (and any attendant resource deployment) are muted.  The apex priority (if there is any competition with other priorities) is to succeed in this scene/conflict.  The fallout of this scene is overwhelmingly about the evolution of the fiction and less about (if at all) the implications of long term resource attrition or the (mechanical) imposition on character and/or downstream decision-points.  

Games that feature this type of agency have (a) robust PC capability at the scene level, (b) recharge rates that coincide with scene/conflict as the primary locus of play, and (c) often mechanical architecture that push back against multi-scene attrition of PC resources.  

D&D 4e, Mouse Guard, and Dogs in the Vineyard are good examples of this.  These games are certainly not devoid of Strategic Agency, but the structure of play, resource recharge rates, and the robust PCs place Tactical Agency as paramount and rarely at tension with the strategic play (if its even a consideration).

*STRATEGIC AGENCY* - From Tactical Agency, I'm confident you (and others) can derive Strategic Agency.  From that, you can also surmise games/playbooks/PCs that feature Strategic Agency is an/the apex priority of play.



And again, its not that you can't have all 3 of these be play priorities in a single game.  Its just that (a) outside of the most brilliantly conceived and actualized games (like Blades) there is not going to be an equilibrium of any 2 or 3 of these types of agency.  Furthermore (and VERY relevant to the topic), (b) if there is not equilibrium AND Protagonist Agency is alleged to be a play priority...then there is tension.  And (c) if there is tension then a hierarchy will naturally emerge.   And (d) if a hierarchy naturally emerges, then you can (and often will) have entirely incoherent play or play that is lacking integrity if the game is alleged to be premised upon Protagonist Agency.

THIS is where Force emerges.

The GM says you have Tactical Agency, you have Strategic Agency, and the game rests upon and is propelled by your Protagonist Agency...but oops!  Your "meaningful decision (and its attendant fallout/downstream effects" of one of these agency types has/will subvert past or subsequent decision-points related to these other agency types.  OR the GM is only feigning giving you one of these.  Perhaps you don't actually have Protagonist Agency...its just a GM deploying sleight of hand and later you'll find out the game rested upon/was propelled by something else!  The metaplot/secret backstory/GM NPC has the Protagonist Agency and your Tactical Agency that you just expressed will wrest control of that from the GM...so they subvert your Tactical Agency!  Or perhaps your an overpowered Wizard and your ability to control the game is making it "no fun (TM)" for one or more of the other players or the GM themselves so they subordinate your overwhelming Strategic Agency by initiating a block or a series of blocks!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> So I think as long as we are putting things in generalizing buckets that apply universally and saying this needs rules or this does not need rules we are not going to get to the interesting part of the conversation. We need zero rules at all (including no formal divisions of authority) to roleplay. We literally can just do it. I know because that's what I did before I played D&D. I also ran a session entirely freeform in our mecha game while we were working on transitioning from one game system to another.
> 
> We might desire some things to be part of the formal rules of a game. We might even want that to change from game to game. What's interesting to me is the impact of those formal systems as well as the culture of play surrounding a game which is just as important to me personally.



Right. And perhaps it is because for a long time I've played tabletop RPGs in an environment where most of the participants are also LARPers, that the idea that the game is 'about' the stuff it has most rules for seems utterly bonkers to me. Like sure, if the game has rules for something, then that something can probably reasonably be expected to be featured in some extent, because, otherwise, why bother having those rules? But I just strongly feel that there is a lot of stuff that only doesn't need a lot of rules to handle, but is actively negatively affected by mechanising it. Your mileage will most definitely vary.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So you didn't need rules for it.




We don't _need_ rules for anything. We don't need 70 pages of spells, but 5E's got em.



Crimson Longinus said:


> How?




The XP system being solely about defeating monsters is a big one. The minimalistic approach to skills and non-combat challenges. The lack of robust social mechanics.



Crimson Longinus said:


> The people are ones who decide what's important. If it is important to you then it is important in the game. (There are also guidelines for awarding XP for non-combat encounters, not that I would bother with XP at all.)




Well here is where this connects to what I said a few posts ago about being able to look at the game as it is presented, and then being able to look at how it is played, and being able to tell the difference.

So the guidelines you're citing are anemic. I'd go so far as to say that's being generous. All they say is "you can aware XP for non-combat challenges; you can use the combat encounter system as a guide on how to do so" or "use milestone XP". 

But.... I agree with you about XP as it works in 5E. We jettisoned that crap immediately, and we basically use a milestone system. The fact that this works for my group in our game is fine. 

But as presented.....well, what does it say to you if a whole subsystem of the rules is one you just discard in favor of something else?

As for what's important in the game.....sure, the participants have a say in that. I am not saying that the only important thing in the game is what it rewards. But it is a huge indicator to the participants what the game will be about. 1e was XP for GP....so accumulating gold was what it was about. 5e is XP for killing.....so killing is what it's about.



Crimson Longinus said:


> Why you _need_ the game book to say that? Why can't the GM and the players decide that the game is about that?




Why do you need it not to? 

Imagine a new GM with new players who doesn't have years of experience among them. They're supposed to intuit the kind of knowledge it's taken most of us years and years to accumulate? How are they to decide what the game is about? By looking at examples, most likely.

The books don't guide them well in this manner. The books don't always make it clear that "this is how to handle this" or "railroading is this, and it's a bad idea".


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> He kept a lookout for them, in a place where they might be around (ie in the neighbourhood of the old border forts along the river).
> 
> The existence of these former comrades is already established at the very start of the campaign: Thurgon has a Reptuation (Last Knight of the Iron Tower) and multiple relevant Affiliations (including with the Order of the Iron Tower) which establish the existence of these NPCs. More generally, it is established that Thurgon has been alive for nearly 30 years, in that time serving as a page and a squire and a knight of his order, and hence has met many people. (Other Affiliations include with the nobility and with his family; he has since also acquired an infamous reputation in Hell, as an intransigent demon foe.)
> 
> So the flow is: current fiction, which includes the fact that Thurgon has former comrades and also that he is in the neighbourhood of the old border forts -> character action (ie keep an eye out for former comrades) -> mechanic resolves -> update fiction (ie Thurgon and Aramina meet Friedrich, a former member of Thurgon's order).



Up to now I'm not sure how clearly (or if at all) you noted that the existence of the former comrades was already pre-established.  Given that, that he meets one now in a place where one might reasonably be found makes perfect sense, no matter what mechanics were used to arrive at that narration.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> One-true-wayism isn't something I'm going to consider.  Roleplaying is a much broader category of behaviors that what you prefer.
> 
> No, it means, literally, taking on a role.  If I take on the role of Bob the fighter in the game, then Bob the fighter is my avatar there.  I don't have to play-act or take on a persona for this to be true.



The little dog is my token (or avatar) in Monopoly but that doesn't mean I'm role-playing it.

What you're suggesting is that you can play a role without in fact playing the role, which seems rather odd.

Put another way, without doing at least something to portray your character the character is no more than a token on a game board.  Just like the little dog.


Ovinomancer said:


> But it's not part of the game you're playing, or the game I buy off the shelf.  The moment we look at a game as only the custom version we create at a table, that's the moment there's no point in discussing it.



Au contraire, mon ami.  That's exactly when it becomes worth discussing: differences in table ideas.

If we all played the same game and all played it RAW it'd get pretty boring around here, as there'd be little worth discussing at all.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> some systems (e.g. 1e D&D and some LARPs) actively reward "good roleplaying" (in 1e this is done via added XP, and faster/cheaper training at level-up).



What rule do you have in mind in AD&D?

The PHB says the following (p 106):

clerics' major aims are to use their spell abilities to aid during any given encounter, fighters aim to engage in combat, magic-users aim to cast spells, thieves aim to make gain by stealth, and monks aim to use their unusual talents to come to successful ends. If characters gain treasure by pursuit of their major aims, then they are generally entitled to a full share of earned experience points awarded by the DM.​
The closest the DMG comes to a follow-up is in the rules for training (p 86):


The gaining of sufficient experience points is necessary to indicate that a character is _eligible_ to gain a level of experience, but the
actual award is a matter for you, the DM, to decide.

Consider the natural functions of each class of character. Consider also the professed alignment of each character. Briefly assess the performance of each character after an adventure. Did he or she perform basically in the character of his or her class? Were his or her actions in keeping with his or her professed alignment? Mentally classify the overall performance as:

E - Excellent, few deviations from norm = 1
S- Superior, deviations minimal but noted =2
F - Foir performance, more norm than deviations =3
P- Poor showing with aberrant behavior =4​
Clerics who refuse to help and heal or do not remain faithful to their deity, fighters who hang bock from combat or attempt to steal, or fail to boldly lead, magic-users who seek to engage in melee or ignore magic items they could employ in crucial situations, thieves who boldly engage in frontal attacks or refrain from acquisition of an extra bit of treasure when the opportunity presents itself, "cautious" characters who do not pull their own weight - these are all clear examples of a POOR rating.​
Finally, back in the PHB we have this (p 18) which reinforces the earlier-quoted passage plus the DMG remark about the "natural functions" of each character class:

Character class refers to the profession of the player character. The approach you wish to take to the game, how you believe you can most successfully meet the challenges which it poses, and which role you desire to play are dictated by character class (or multi-class). _Clerics_ principally function as supportive, although they have some offensive spell power and are able to use armor and weapons effectively. _Druids_ are a sub-class of cleric who operate much as do other clerics, but they are less able in combat and more effective in wilderness situations. _Fighters_ generally seek to engage in hand-to-hand combat, for they have more hit points and better weaponry in general than do other classes. _Paladins_ are fighters who are lawful good (see *ALIGNMENT*). At higher levels they gain limited clerical powers as well. _Rangers_ are another sub-class of fighter. They are quite powerful in combat, and at upper levels gain druidic and magic spell usage of a limited sort. _Magic-users_ cannot expect to do well in hand-to-hand combat, but they have a great number of magic spells of offensive, defensive, and informational nature. They use magic almost exclusively to solve problems posed by the game. _Illusionists_ are a sub-class of magic-user,
and they are different primarily because of the kinds of spells they use. _Thieves_ use cunning, nimbleness, and stealth. _Assassins_, a sub-class of thief, are quiet killers of evil nature. _Monks_ are aesthetic disciples of bodily training and combat with bare hands.​
Nothing here suggests that _thespianism_ or play-acting or characterisation or "play-acting" is part of the basis for awarding XPs. The "roles" that are played are spelled out as functional roles, based primarily around class abilities and "natural functions" and (in the DMG) reinforced by alignment considerations.

This is consistent with what @Ovinomancer has been posting.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I think it would help a lot if people were able to make a distinction between the game as presented and the game as they play it. Assuming that your specific approach and house rules and social contract is somehow evident to all seems to be part of the challenge in discussion. Especially when we're talking about a game like D&D where, depending on edition, you can have wildly different interpretations of how the game is "supposed" to be played.
> 
> There is the game as written, and then the game as played. What's written is what is common to us all, and so that should be all that is assumed in discussion. Any social contract changes or actual rules changes or shifts in approach or process need to be explained. These are great.....I think actual examples of these and why people do them would really help the discussion....but they need to be explained.



For me to provide those explanations would take another thread as long as this one, as the game I run and play is an almost-completely-homebrew kitbash that started with the 1e chassis and has since had 40+ years of refinements, tweaks, experiments, deletions, additions, and general screwery to get to where it is today*.




* - where it is today is somewhat open to debate: last reports put it somewhere near Blandford Forum, Dorset; but it might have moved since then.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> The problem is that the most popular game isn’t presented any particular way. It’s a whole lot of “here’s some ideas but do what’s best for your table”



Which edition are you talking about? AD&D (either edition) is definitely presented in a particular way (different for each edition; I've just quoted some of the key bits of the 1st ed presentation).

4e is presented a particular way: between about 2008 and about 2011 (? or thereabouts) there were endless threads in which those who didn't like that presentation complained about it.

I can't comment on 5e beyond the Basic PDF and SRD. My own view is that these are slightly incoherent in their presentation, because the basic play loop and also the section on ability/skill checks suggests one approach to deploying the action resolution mechanics, whereas there are other lengthy sections - the class descriptions, the spell descriptions, the combat rules, the exploration rules - which suggest a different approach.

EDIT: As I read on, I've seen @Campbell and @hawkeyefan making posts that are relevant to this - strong GM control over plot and a focus on players as providing characterisation helps obviate the incoherencies I've pointed to, because when the game is played in that fashion then the resolution mechanics don't need to bear the sort of weight that would make these incoherencies really stand out.

Conversely, I can say that in running Classic Traveller without GM-driven plot some of the weaknesses in its resolution framework (as I've often posted, the onworld exploration rules being the most egregious) very clearly come to the fore.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I have problems as a player with using memories and recollections to change the fiction (such as putting a Contact in town, or placing a landmark nearby) if and when they raise questions along the lines of "Why didn't we go to the Contact sooner?" or "If the landmark is so close, and so tied to our goals, why didn't we go there instead of here?" Plausibly this connects to my preferences for a more GM-authored world, though it at least feels as though it's looking at that preference from a different direction.



But do you think this comes up very often (at all?) in systems that use these mechanics?


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Secondly characters are entirely too specialized in 5e. Outside the confines of a group characters are not very capable of making their way through their environments.



I see that as a feature rather than a bug, in that it promotes group interdependence and discourages one-man bands.

It's the same line of thinking that leads me to rather harshly penalize multi-classing in my own game and not be a fan of it in other games/systems.  By this I mean if it's there, if there's an advantage to be had I'll use it; but I'd be happier if it wasn't there as an option.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Memories might be internal to the character but the things that the memories are about are not. Please stop this obfuscation.



Moving the muscles of one's sword arm might be internal to the character, but the sword is not, its failure to shatter or be blown away by a strong wind gust is not, the Orc is not, the Orc's failure to parry is not, etc.

All declared actions implicate phenomena that are external to the PC.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I actually have the opposite opinion of PF2. It's terrible at adventure paths. It's pretty strong at providing a skilled play environment and it's more broadly capable characters can excel in games that drift more towards active protagonism. It's not good for GM plots in my opinion even if it's what they have been trying to sell.



Sounds a little bit like MHRP!


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> If you encountered someone who [...] had never played TTRPGs [...] and you had to make a firm delineation where Character is an exclusive Medium/Vector for agency (capable of sufficiently separate from Situation and Setting to warrant its own classification)...what would you say to them?



I'd say we're both severely overthinking it, pour us both a beer, and get on with rolling up the player's first character.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> What, how, why? What would you need to moor them?



Memories? Relationships? All the things you're objecting to in a RPG?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Moving the muscles of one's sword arm might be internal to the character, but the sword is not, its failure to shatter or be blown away by a strong wind gust is not, the Orc is not, the Orc's failure to parry is not, etc.
> 
> All declared actions implicate phenomena that are external to the PC.



The causal relationship is completely differnt.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Memories? Relationships? All the things you're objecting to in a RPG?



I am not objecting either.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> The causal relationship is completely differnt.



Yep.  Additionally "One doesn't go, we are in some random location trying to cross this river so I am going to look for one of my friends because doing so will let me have a chance encounter here and get some help".

The result of the "looking for your friends" action in the fiction just doesn't follow as something that would occur in the fiction due to your character "looking for your friends".


----------



## Campbell

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. And perhaps it is because for a long time I've played tabletop RPGs in an environment where most of the participants are also LARPers, that the idea that the game is 'about' the stuff it has most rules for seems utterly bonkers to me. Like sure, if the game has rules for something, then that something can probably reasonably be expected to be featured in some extent, because, otherwise, why bother having those rules? But I just strongly feel that there is a lot of stuff that only doesn't need a lot of rules to handle, but is actively negatively affected by mechanising it. Your mileage will most definitely vary.




I also play with a fair number of LARPers, really enjoy Nordic LARPs, Buffer LARPs, and even a fair number of Parlor LARPs. My Scion group are all really invested in the LARP scene. I have also seen this group adjust player behavior to system incentives in different games. Our six month mecha game actually went through 3 systems before it found its footing in a custom design.

I think one massive difference between us is the degree to which you look at roleplaying games as like games. To me the fun of games is that we subordinate our personal interests and take on the interests of the game. This gives us a sense of shared purpose and we get to experience things we would not get to otherwise. For me this is particularly true of roleplaying games in particular where we take on the roles of characters with vastly different psychological experiences. Teen Monsters, Supernaturally Empowered Demigods Driven By Powerful Emotions, samurai trained from birth to hold their emotions in despite deep longing, scoundrels living on the edge of society.

I love the theater, but I also have a deep love of games in general. Board Games. Social Deception Games. Card Games. Video Games. I love learning new games, experiencing new things, and getting the chance to get better at them. I also tend to be extremely sensitive to the behavior incentivized by a particular game. Trying to focus on my character's concerns when there is adventure in front of us in D&D cuts against my gamesmanship. Everyone has different levels of sensitivity here of course.

My suspicion is that your group has a very strong social reward structure that overcomes most of the incentivized behaviors of the game. I have played in a number of groups with a similar dynamic. My last Vampire group was like that. In my experience is still nothing like having everything align with a group that really buys into the purpose of the game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> For me to provide those explanations would take another thread as long as this one, as the game I run and play is an almost-completely-homebrew kitbash that started with the 1e chassis and has since had 40+ years of refinements, tweaks, experiments, deletions, additions, and general screwery to get to where it is today*.





Lanefan said:


> * - where it is today is somewhat open to debate: last reports put it somewhere near Blandford Forum, Dorset; but it might have moved since then.




Right, this is kind of what I mean. Obviously no one here will understand your game without you explaining how it works. So in these discussions, the onus is on you to do that, if you want people to understand. 

So in a thread like this, it’d really help if you explain why you hold the opinions you do based on your actual game. Like, with examples that help support the ideas. Something along the lines of “well we felt initiative was too time consuming as presented, so we did x”. 

You don’t need to post it all at once. Just when it comes up, offer examples.


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## Hriston

Crimson Longinus said:


> The causal relationship is completely differnt.



Just to butt in here, the causal relationship is identical in both cases: action declaration -> mechanical resolution -> change in the fiction.


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## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> The claim was that 5e works against the character's being moored, it does not. If you want a camping where the characters have a lot of established connection in the setting and will create more, you can do that just fine. This is again wanting to have rules for stuff that needs no rules.





hawkeyefan said:


> I'm sure @Campbell can clarify himself, and much more succinctly, but I think it's the idea that the absence of these things from the game make it clear that they are not essential. They don't need to be present. If something doesn't need to be present, how important can you really claim that it to be?
> 
> Yes, you can add these elements. I described my 5E game where we did exactly that. But the system does NOTHING to support this. It works only because my players and I make it work. I would also say that some of the rules get in the way.



I would add: in 5e, what is the chance that my character encounters, or is able to meet, someone s/he knows? What is the likelihood that such a person is friendly?

I've described, upthread, Thurgon's encounter with Rufus in Burning Wheel. How could this happen in 5e other than via sheer GM narration?


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Up to now I'm not sure how clearly (or if at all) you noted that the existence of the former comrades was already pre-established.  Given that, that he meets one now in a place where one might reasonably be found makes perfect sense, no matter what mechanics were used to arrive at that narration.



I've repeatedly posted that Thurgon is a member of a holy order, the Last Knight of the Iron Tower, who is travelling through land familiar to him and (in my most recent session) returning to his ancestral estate. This implies that he has former comrades whom he might meet.

Under what conditions would you consider that a paladin would _not_ have former comrades?


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## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I would add: in 5e, what is the chance that my character encounters, or is able to meet, someone s/he knows? What is the likelihood that such a person is friendly?
> 
> I've described, upthread, Thurgon's encounter with Rufus in Burning Wheel. How could this happen in 5e other than via sheer GM narration?




I think that, as written, perhaps if it had something to do with the PC’s chosen background. Moat backgrounds come with a benefit of some kind. For example, the Folk Hero can expect reasonable shelter to be provided to him and his companions by common folk. Other backgrounds have similar perks. 

The PC’s chosen Bond may be another area this could come up. Let’s say that the PC is the member of a knightly order, and his Bond is to uphold the ideals of the order of the lion or some such. When he meets members of that order, I’d expect that to be considered. 

All that said, it’s still highly subject to the GM’s approval. 

5E Overall requires cooperation between the GM and players for any of this stuff to matter. There are no rules in the game that give a player the ability to declare that kind of stuff.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Yep.  Additionally "One doesn't go, we are in some random location trying to cross this river so I am going to look for one of my friends because doing so will let me have a chance encounter here and get some help".
> 
> The result of the "looking for your friends" action in the fiction just doesn't follow as something that would occur in the fiction due to your character "looking for your friends".



Why is the location random? In a GM-driven game it might be; in a player-driven game probably not - there's probably a reason for being there.

I've already posted, multiple times, that in my BW game the characters were not in "some random location".


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## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> The causal relationship is completely differnt.



No it's not - as @Hriston has explained already.

_In the fiction_ there is a different causal relationship between _tower => my memory of it _and _my muscular motion with my sword => death of Orc_. But I'm not talking about imagined causal processes; I'm talking about the play of a RPG. I was responding to a post by @FrogReaver which referred to "Mechanics that give players power of the situation or setting outside their character". Combat mechanics give players power over situation or setting outside their characters - eg the power to have the situation or setting include dead Orcs.

In both the fight case and the memory case, the process is exactly as @Hriston has said, which is also exactly as I have posted upthread: there is an established fictional context, then an action declaration, then resolution of that, which results in new/changed fiction.


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## FrogReaver

Hriston said:


> Just to butt in here, the causal relationship is identical in both cases: action declaration -> mechanical resolution -> change in the fiction.



I think it would help to show it this way:
1.  My level 1 fighter swings my mundane sword at the Orc
2.  Mechanical Resolution "successful"
3.  A meteor falls from the sky and kills the orc.

If you want to call that a causal relationship of the sword swing causing a meteor to fall feel free.  But that's missing the rather important point that swinging swords don't actually cause meteors to fall from the sky (which is why we say there is no causal link).

*Note this is the same mechanical framework present in the "I look for friends" -> mechanical resolution "successful" -> "your friends are here"


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that, as written, perhaps if it had something to do with the PC’s chosen background. Moat backgrounds come with a benefit of some kind. For example, the Folk Hero can expect reasonable shelter to be provided to him and his companions by common folk. Other backgrounds have similar perks.
> 
> The PC’s chosen Bond may be another area this could come up. Let’s say that the PC is the member of a knightly order, and his Bond is to uphold the ideals of the order of the lion or some such. When he meets members of that order, I’d expect that to be considered.
> 
> All that said, it’s still highly subject to the GM’s approval.
> 
> 5E Overall requires cooperation between the GM and players for any of this stuff to matter. There are no rules in the game that give a player the ability to declare that kind of stuff.



Does the _background_ or _bond_ approach allow for the possibility of Rufus being cowed and sullen and ultimately unwilling to help despite attempts to shame and bully him?


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think it would help to show it this way:
> 1.  My level 1 fighter swings my mundane sword at the Orc
> 2.  Mechanical Resolution "successful"
> 3.  A meteor falls from the sky and kills the orc.
> 
> If you want to call that a causal relationship of the sword swing causing a meteor to fall feel free.  But that's missing the rather important point that swinging swords don't actually cause meteors to fall from the sky.
> 
> *Note this is the same mechanical framework present in the "I look for friends" -> mechanical resolution "successful" -> "your friends are here"



Until you disentangle _actual causal processes in the real world_, and _imagined causal processes in the fiction_, what you post here makes no sense.

For instance, your (1) is a purely imagined event in the shared fiction. Whereas your (2) is an actual event in the real world. Obviously (1) and (2) cannot be part of the same causal process.


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Until you disentangle _actual causal processes in the real world_, and _imagined causal processes in the fiction_, what you post here makes no sense.
> 
> For instance, your (1) is a purely imagined event in the shared fiction. Whereas your (2) is an actual event in the real world. Obviously (1) and (2) cannot be part of the same causal process.



It's not just the real world.  In the fiction your character would never say that his looking for his friends caused them to be at the place he needed them.  In the fiction there is no causal link between your character looking for friends and them showing up just when and where he needs them.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> It's not just the real world.  In the fiction your character would never say that his looking for his friends caused them to be at the place he needed them.  In the fiction there is no causal link between your character looking for friends and them showing up just when and where he needs them.



Who thinks that, in the fiction, the character thinks that _looking for his friend made the friend turn up_?

Putting to one side the actions of providence, that would be as silly as thinking that _recollecting a tower caused the tower to exist_.

But what does any of this have to do with action resolution processes? Which are sequences of events that occur in the real world.


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Who thinks that, in the fiction, the character thinks that _looking for his friend made the friend turn up_?



No one, which only strengthens my point.



pemerton said:


> But what does any of this have to do with action resolution processes? Which are sequences of events that occur in the real world.



I would say that they are entangled to such a degree that this isn't really the case.

"I look for friends"
"I swing my sword at the orc"

These are fictional actions of the character that prompt a real world dice roll that prompts a fictional change.


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## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> No one, which only strengthens my point.
> 
> 
> I would say that they are entangled to such a degree that this isn't really the case.
> 
> "I look for friends"
> "I swing my sword at the orc"
> 
> These are fictional actions of the character that prompt a real world dice roll that prompts a fictional change.



I think you are speaking to an aesthetic preference that dice rolls only resolve an uncertainty in how well a character performs an action. In games like Burning Wheel and Blades in the Dark the roll does not resolve how well you did. It tells us what happens.

You have an aesthetic preference for the GM at least feigning certainty about where the ally might be in this moment. They might not be certain of what is happening offscreen, but you do not want them to use the roll to decide that.

For what it is worth my preferred way  to handle this in character focused games is for the GM to just be permissive instead. Unless there is a well established reason for a player not to be able to meet with an ally I think they should be able to. Just frame a scene around it. I believe in rewarding engagement with the setting. It's what I want to see.

I mean in sandbox games there might be other concerns (they might have other stuff they are doing), but I still believe in leaning into those ties.


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## FrogReaver

Maybe this will help.

A real world mechanical resolution can be used to cause the fiction to change in any way conceivable.  That is the kind of causality @pemerton is talking about.  This is a trivially true point.  I think everyone agrees with it.

But I'm talking about something different.  I want my characters fictional actions to cause fictional changes.  I find it horrendous roleplaying that a game would expect a player to have his character "look for friends" when fictionally it's not going to be the cause of anything.  Like why would my character ever do that?  The answer is he wouldn't.  Having your character "look for friends" isn't roleplaying IMO, it's just a smoke and mirrors trick to make invoking the mechanic sound like it's driven by playing your character.


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## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe this will help.
> 
> A real world mechanical resolution can be used to cause the fiction to change in any way conceivable.  That is the kind of causality @pemerton is talking about.  This is a trivially true point.  I think everyone agrees with it.
> 
> But I'm talking about something different.  I want my characters fictional actions to cause fictional changes.  I find it horrendous roleplaying that a game would expect a player to have his character "look for friends" when fictionally it's not going to be the cause of anything.  Like why would my character ever do that?  The answer is he wouldn't.  Having your character "look for friends" isn't roleplaying IMO, it's just a smoke and mirrors trick to make invoking the mechanic sound like it's driven by playing your character.




Maybe I'm not understanding, but of course the action would have more specificity. Vertigan the Bold would not look for friends. He would seek the aid of Solace, his brother in arms who can usually be found near his keep on the edge of the Forest of Lost Hope.


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> But do you think this comes up very often (at all?) in systems that use these mechanics?



With Contacts? I guess it might seem to work at cross purposes with keeping what happens in a game consistent with what has happened. If it comes up a lot, I can see it starting to strain credulity for some players.

And the thought skitters across my mind every time your Evard's Tower example comes up: If going to Evard's Tower is so important to your character, why didn't you go there instead of the town?

This is my brain, and I'm not critiquing y'all's play, or BW. I'm just saying that my brain (at least sometimes) interprets things like this as contradicting what has gone before (or at least tending toward inconsistency).


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## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Maybe I'm not understanding, but of course the action would have more specificity. Vertigan the Bold would not look for friends. He would seek the aid of Solace, his brother in arms who can usually be found near his keep on the edge of the Forest of Lost Hope.



Okay, but how does more specificity tie back into my objection?  What part of my objection is that an answer to?  I'm not following.


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## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Okay, but how does more specificity tie back into my objection?  What part of my objection is that an answer to?  I'm not following.



I guess I'm look for clarity here. Is it seeking allies that you are objecting to? Is it that the dice roll resolves uncertainty as to what happens rather than how well the character did? 

If it is the second I can understand that aesthetic preference, but it does not change that the real world process is the same as far as what the player is doing in meat space. I'm personally not a huge fan of intent based conflict resolution myself, but I think it's important to be able to have a more precise discussion here. My personal objections are pretty different though.

So an important thing to consider is that Burning Wheel is played out on very zoomed out level.  Let It Ride means that a single roll often encapsulates what would be the result of entire adventures in D&D in a single roll.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I think you are speaking to an aesthetic preference that dice rolls only resolve an uncertainty in how well a character performs an action. In games like Burning Wheel and Blades in the Dark the roll does not resolve how well you did. It tells us what happens.



It's a preference sure.  But I think it does it a disservice to dismiss it as "just being a preference".  It's important to note why it is my preference.  One of the biggest issues here is that the action is being described as if it's a PC action.  PC actions should be the fictional cause of something happening in the fiction or else as I noted, it doesn't really make sense for your PC to engage in them.

Now if you want to talk about mechanics that aren't the result of PC actions, that might make for a good discussion.  But I think we established that most of the games we are discussing are played via the PC's doing things.  So maybe that wouldn't be all that meaningful a discussion.



Campbell said:


> You have an aesthetic preference for the GM at least feigning certainty about where the ally might be in this moment. They might not be certain of what is happening offscreen, but you do not want them to use the roll to decide that.



Not precisely.  I don't mind whatever process the DM wants to go through to generate certainty about where an ally might be - so long as it doesn't hinge on me having my character do something that doesn't make fictional sense to do.  If he wants to roll a d20 and randomly generate it.  If he just wants to say, he's nearby by fiat or his more in depth knowledge of the setting and the NPC in question.  All of that is fine.



Campbell said:


> For what it is worth my preferred way  to handle this in character focused games is for the GM to just be permissive instead. Unless there is a well established reason for a player not to be able to meet with an ally I think they should be able to. Just frame a scene around it. I believe in rewarding engagement with the setting. It's what I want to see.



I have no problem with that either.




Campbell said:


> I mean in sandbox games there might be other concerns (they might have other stuff they are doing), but I still believe in leaning into those ties.



No problem there either.


----------



## Hriston

FrogReaver said:


> I think it would help to show it this way:
> 1.  My level 1 fighter swings my mundane sword at the Orc
> 2.  Mechanical Resolution "successful"
> 3.  A meteor falls from the sky and kills the orc.
> 
> If you want to call that a causal relationship of the sword swing causing a meteor to fall feel free.  But that's missing the rather important point that swinging swords don't actually cause meteors to fall from the sky (which is why we say there is no causal link).
> 
> *Note this is the same mechanical framework present in the "I look for friends" -> mechanical resolution "successful" -> "your friends are here"



I'm not sure how meteors became part of this, but I don't think the causal process _I look for my friends => I find my friends _is that far fetched. A common result of looking for something is often finding it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I guess I'm look for clarity here. Is it seeking allies that you are objecting to?



Not really.  More the how that's done.



Campbell said:


> Is it that the dice roll resolves uncertainty as to what happens rather than how well the character did?



No.  I firmly believe in dice to resolve uncertainty.  Even in RNG aiding the DM or Player when they are torn between two suitable actions.  Heck maybe the DM even asks the player to roll to make that a bit more engaging.  All that's fine.



Campbell said:


> So an important thing to consider is that Burning Wheel is played out on very zoomed out level.  Let It Ride means that a single roll often encapsulates what would be the result of entire adventures in D&D in a single roll.



That adds quite a bit more context.  If we are on that level then I doubt I would have any real issues.  I was thinking the mechanic we were discussing was from blades.  Maybe I'm getting my wires crossed.


----------



## FrogReaver

Hriston said:


> I'm not sure how meteors became part of this, but I don't think the causal process _I look for my friends => I find my friends _is that far fetched. A common result of looking for something is often finding it.



The context was in relation to chance meetings with your friends.  I figured someone would eventually chime in and say something to this effect.  If you are going to your friend to find him then I have no issue.  If your "looking for friends" causes a roll that results in a chance encounter with them.  That's the where the issue is.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> The little dog is my token (or avatar) in Monopoly but that doesn't mean I'm role-playing it.



Of course not.  In Monopoly, you're playing the role of a real-estate mogul in a game trying to show how bad capitalism, not the little dog.

In other words, bad choice, because Monopoly does have you assume a role.  Try Sorry!  No role there.


Lanefan said:


> What you're suggesting is that you can play a role without in fact playing the role, which seems rather odd.



That's not what I'm saying.  I'm saying I can play a role without play-acting it.  I gave a clear play example earlier in the thread between Bob the Fighter and Fynn' the Many-Titled.  Bob's player never once used first person or even related Bob's thoughts in any way.  He certainly didn't use a funny voice or play-act as Bob.  And, yet, he was roleplaying Bob the Fighter as much as Fynn's player.  You don't have to play-act to roleplay.


Lanefan said:


> Put another way, without doing at least something to portray your character the character is no more than a token on a game board.  Just like the little dog.



There's a huge lattitude in "portray you character" that doesn't reach play-acting at all, which is my entire point.  I don't have to express the character in acting to role play the character.  And there's a range of this between a Monopoly pawn and a thespian.


Lanefan said:


> Au contraire, mon ami.  That's exactly when it becomes worth discussing: differences in table ideas.



I disagree, because at that point you're not disentangling the table differences from the game.  You're here telling my I'm not even roleplaying if I don't meet your minimum threshold of play-acting at the table.  This isn't even required by the rules of the game, but you're insisting that it is because the word "roleplaying" is involved, and you're adamant about your personal definition of what qualifies.  The DMGs disagree with you, because they explicitly don't require these things, even though most of the give some lip service to the various ways it can work.


Lanefan said:


> If we all played the same game and all played it RAW it'd get pretty boring around here, as there'd be little worth discussing at all.



Totally agree, but when I'm talking about how 5e works, it can't be with the assumptions at your table.  It shouldn't be with the assumptions at mine.  It should only be about how the rules work, until and unless I'm explicitly talking about how my table has changed or added to those.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I want my characters fictional actions to cause fictional changes.  I find it horrendous roleplaying that a game would expect a player to have his character "look for friends" when fictionally it's not going to be the cause of anything.  Like why would my character ever do that?  The answer is he wouldn't.  Having your character "look for friends" isn't roleplaying IMO, it's just a smoke and mirrors trick to make invoking the mechanic sound like it's driven by playing your character.



Why would a character not look out for former comrades? Or upon returning to his ancestral estate, why would a character not look out for family members?

When I am travelling through the world I look out for people I know in places I might meet them. Why would fictional characters be different?



prabe said:


> And the thought skitters across my mind every time your Evard's Tower example comes up: If going to Evard's Tower is so important to your character, why didn't you go there instead of the town?



I don't follow. In the BW game where I'm a player we have never visited a town. The action started on the south bank of the Jewel river, travelling among the old border forts and ruined homesteads. Aramina remembered the location of Evard's tower. We found it across the river.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't follow. In the BW game where I'm a player we have never visited a town. The action started on the south bank of the Jewel river, travelling among the old border forts and ruined homesteads. Aramina remembered the location of Evard's tower. We found it across the river.



Apologies: You don't follow it because my understanding of the situation was defective. I apparently conflated it with some other play example (not necessarily one of yours) that involved at least being in a town, if not arriving at one. Perhaps you can understand why it would bang off my consistency preferences given my misunderstanding.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Apologies: You don't follow it because my understanding of the situation was defective. I apparently conflated it with some other play example (not necessarily one of yours) that involved at least being in a town, if not arriving at one. Perhaps you can understand why it would bang off my consistency preferences given my misunderstanding.



Understood.

You may be thinking of the BW game that I GM. In that game I narrated a sorcerer's tower, in the town the PCs were in, early on. I did this because one of the PCs had the Instinct _If I fall, cast Falconskin_ and also had an Affiliation with a sorcerous cabal as well as a reputation as a minor illusionist. The top of a wizard's tower seemed a good place to fall from, though in the end I don't think that in itself quite happened.

I remember at the end of that session the player of that PC expressing his pleasure that in virtue of the PC he had built, I as GM had narrated the setting as containing such relevant things as a sorcerer's tower. I would consider this an actual play example of a player exercising agency in virtue of making suggestions to the GM which the ethos of the game obliged the GM to have regard to.


----------



## pemerton

Further on chance meetings: in LotR Gandalf tells the Council of Elrond how he was found by Radagast the Brown carrying a message to him from Saruman.

In BW that again could be the result of a Circles check. It could be a failed check: hence the message is a trap. Alternatively, it could be successful, and the subsequent conflict between Gandalf and Saruman could be the result of failed social checks. As with many RPGs, BW can have multiple mechanical and play paths to much the same fiction.

In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP, a player can spend a plot point (a modestly-limited player-side resource) to establish a Resource, which must be connected to a Specialty (roughly, a skill) and reflects the PC's access to useful stuff and useful people. In our Vikings Cortex+ game, when the PCs were negotiating in the steading of the Giant Chieftain, the player whose PC had Social Expert spent a point to (in the fiction) have his PC establish a rapport with a giant shaman who agreed with the PCs' arguments, and (at the table) to establish a d6 Giant Shaman Resource. He was able to add the bonus die to his pool, which meant that - in the fiction - the PC was able to persuade the Giant Chieftain.

That sort of thing hasn't happened yet in our LotR Cortex+ game, but in that game Gandalf's player could spend a point to establish a Resource based on his Lore or Arcana Mastery, which might be something like News from the White Council or even a chance meeting with Radagast the Brown. These would be rated at d8 (for Mastery rather than Expert) and could be added by the player to appropriate pools.

This is one way in which the play of Cortex+ Heroic can be a bit more "meta" than the play of (say) Burning Wheel. Spending the point to create the Resource doesn't depend on framing and resolving an action declaration by reference to the current fictional situation. It can be a bit more abstracted than that. (Cortex+ Heroic also has the action declaration pathway, but in mechanical terms that creates an Asset rather than a Resource, which is a different component of the dice pool.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Does the _background_ or _bond_ approach allow for the possibility of Rufus being cowed and sullen and ultimately unwilling to help despite attempts to shame and bully him?




Nope. By the book, the background just gives you a slight social perk that’s more general than specific. The Bond can earn you Inspiration if you roleplay its importance to your character, which you can turn in at any time to have Advantage on a roll. 

They’re meager as written.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Nope. By the book, the background just gives you a slight social perk that’s more general than specific. The Bond can earn you Inspiration if you roleplay its importance to your character, which you can turn in at any time to have Advantage on a roll.
> 
> They’re meager as written.



That fits with my impression.


----------



## aramis erak

Neonchameleon said:


> A key thing about success with complications is whether the game was designed around it. Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both are - and a common feature of both games that makes them different from D&D is that the GM never picks up the dice. Instead things happen round the PCs (no need to roll for NPC on NPC action). Also there are normally a list of suggested (abstract with the GM making them concrete) options for failure; a fail is always a hard move picked by the GM. Is it fiat if picking from a list and it only happens in response to a failed roll or the players being utter twits and "giving you a golden opportunity"?



That the GM Never Touches the dice is irrelevant to the frequency of complications; it's really a strawman. Plus, player facing has been an option in 3.x and 4.x ... and Success with Cost is in 5th. 

Also note: D&D 3.x has, in both DMG versions, provisions for player facing rolls. (3.5 DMG p. 25). It doesn't have complicated success as an option in rules, but a DM minded to do so can do so easily enough. 
D&D 5E has Success with Cost as a variant in DMG 242. 
D&D 4E has skill challenges set to player facing only for balance reasons (DMG 74)

There's nothing _inherently nor mathematically _different mechanically with player facing  only vs mixed vs GM facing only rolls... It's a MacGuffin you've been slinging about blindly, looking for a problem to solve with it. The difference is in play flow, not in outcomes; just remember when to flip the sign.

Likewise success with cost - it was hinted at in the 3.x DMG. And it's implied in 4.0 as well.

You've conflated it with the GM not having turns - that is the distinction you're blindly trying to beat people with, but have failed to elucidate. And that is a big difference, but is utterly irrelevant to AW as written. (Watching the Burning Wheel crowd tear into the theory with someone asking for help with the conceptuals is priceless - and you've not grasped what is different well enough to make it clear to others. That difference is that NPCs in most AWE/PBTA don't get turns per se unless a player fails a roll, when the GM gets to throw a hard move. But the most common successes are, for starting characters, success with complication, and the GM is expected to use that as a soft move for the NPCs... 

But in all these cases, it's still better to have more ideas than get used.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I don't have Cortex Prime - the closest I've got is the Hacker's Guide, but with that I haven't read the Smallville or Leverage bits very closely.



Prime is essentially Hacker's Guide v2.


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## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> The only issue with this is that it moves the players from character advocacy into story advocacy.  If this isn't a concern, then no problem.  I like both, but prefer them separate, kinda like how I enjoy a salad but don't want any veggies on my burgers.



'struth there...
I measure my own GMing in terms of how many informed choices am I giving my players, rather than directly measuring agency, because (in no small irony) when I open up the agency too far, the players can wind up at a total loss for where to go and how to kick things off. 

That's where Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel are outstanding - the need to have BITS in BW, and BIGs Mouse Guard helps spur that.  When you're forced to build BW style beliefs, you've prioritized elements you want framed.

My wife dislikes BW, but is happy with MG... She doesn't flourish in Marvel Heroic, either, but had few issues with Firefly. She has issues in T&T, where I use the implied and exampled but not in the blackletter rules stupid PC tricks, because she seldom has good ideas for them unless I use support mechanics.

To exemplify the support mechanics...
Taking 1 extra share of damage is a Level 2 SR on a suitable attribute by description of how; 2 extra shares is Level 4, 3 is level 6, and so on.
Doing directed damage  (identical to missile damage in effect) to one target with spite (rather than spreading it out) SR 1 on Luck. Doing directed damage with melee weapon, SR (dice)... noting that in 5.x and later, weapons all do 2d6 or more...
Isolating yourself and a target from the larger melee: SR based upon ratio of Hostiles to Friendlies in the fight.
3:1 against is SR 6;  2:1 is SR 4, 1:1 is SR 2, 1:2 (ie, 2:1 your favor) is SR1, and better than that, SR 0. Usually I use speed as the basis for that save.

Now, some other players come up with all kinds of off the wall stuff....
EG:  "I want to time my attack to coincide with Steph's _Take that you Fool!_ so that they can't see it." 
"How many dice you want to add to damage?" 
"Double," said he.
"That's 5 extra... SR 4, Luck."

Many players who read T&T don't grasp that that kind of "wild idea and an off the cuff save to implement it" is actually core to Ken St. Andre's intent. In exactly the same way the super simple combat in 3:16 or Mouse Guard is.


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## aramis erak

Fenris-77 said:


> Honestly, I can't think of an example of this, so its place in the discussion is kinda tenuous. Given an example thought, sure.



Extant Story alteration vectors (IE: retcons) are actually used in a couple of games. Including FFG Star Wars. 

the best example is the "I need a _whoziwatzit_. Flip a destiny, so I have it." Likewise, similar in 2d20 games.
Cortex Plus and Prime also allow for it as a form of asset. Those are minor, but altering extant narrative is a valid approach in all of those, as well as in HotBlooded and B&H.

Plus lots of "he couldn't have found it" type talents.  It's usually kept to minor stuff, like sneaking a weapon past a guard, or stealing it back from the stash right after entry.


----------



## prabe

aramis erak said:


> Plus lots of "he couldn't have found it" type talents.  It's usually kept to minor stuff, like sneaking a weapon past a guard, or stealing it back from the stash right after entry.



What comes to mind in this vein is taking an Aspect in Fate like "My Father's Gun" which, IIRC, ensures you can always have access to it. Same-same, I think.


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## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> This claim isn't true. _Being friendly_ is one such trait - it means one has more former comrades out there. _Being well-known_ is another one. _Being part of an organisation that gives rise to comradeship _is a third.
> 
> In BW, the first is established via the derivation of Circles from Will. (The closest BW has to D&D's CHA stat.) The second is established via Reputation mechanics, and the third via Affiliation mechanics.
> 
> 
> He kept a lookout for them, in a place where they might be around (ie in the neighbourhood of the old border forts along the river).
> 
> The existence of these former comrades is already established at the very start of the campaign: Thurgon has a Reptuation (Last Knight of the Iron Tower) and multiple relevant Affiliations (including with the Order of the Iron Tower) which establish the existence of these NPCs. More generally, it is established that Thurgon has been alive for nearly 30 years, in that time serving as a page and a squire and a knight of his order, and hence has met many people. (Other Affiliations include with the nobility and with his family; he has since also acquired an infamous reputation in Hell, as an intransigent demon foe.)



Plus one can use wises to know of someone in the local organization. If the GM is on the generous side, that provides a bonus (1 or 2 dice) on a following circles check.


hawkeyefan said:


> I'm trying to come up with an example that fits your Character Agency above, but not your Situation Agency, and vice versa....but I'm struggling to do so.
> 
> My 4E experience is limited, but I'm thinking of Come and Get It since you mentioned it, and it seems to be an example of both. Likewise, a Cutter calling for a Flashback in Blades would seem to fit both, depending on the details.
> 
> I'm not sure if I'm just not looking at it correctly, or if that means that there isn't much reason for the distinction?



I can demonstrate the difference:
Character agency without situation agency is "The player controls what the character attempts, not what the character does." This is the fundamental but seldom spoken truth of many playstyles. In fact, unless the game has success with cost and no fundamental failure, that's the limit of direct player agency over the character.

Situation agency is often inobvious - If  a player declares, "When I get to the temple, I meet with the abbot" and the GM lets them, that's situational agency.
Contrariwise, If the GM says, "Roll a Circles Check or he's not in" that's a limited situational agency. You're where you wanted to be, but not with whom.
If he says, "Roll a circles to track him down since he left before you got there" that's also limited in that you're not with him, but are where you narrated.
Both are gated with that circles check, too, requiring
If he instead says, "You get jumped by evil cultists on the way," that implies no situational agency.
If he says, "Make an Opposed Lustful vs Chaste, on lustful, you get distracted by the prostitutes for the evening" that's a gated situational agency built upon character creation and successful rolls.


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## aramis erak

prabe said:


> What comes to mind in this vein is taking an Aspect in Fate like "My Father's Gun" which, IIRC, ensures you can always have access to it. Same-same, I think.



Yup. Or Luke, having been disarmed by the Wampa, spends a destiny for it to be where he can telekinesis it back to his hand.
Or luke spending a triumph on his perception roll to see where it fell.

As with BW, FFG star wars has multiple mechanical methods of doing what we see on film: Luke looks around, sees his lightsaber, then barely makes the roll to TK it before the wampa gets back for the Luke Lunch Special...


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## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> The only issue with this is that it moves the players from character advocacy into story advocacy.  If this isn't a concern, then no problem.  I like both, but prefer them separate, kinda like how I enjoy a salad but don't want any veggies on my burgers.



I don't mind players exercising reasonable situation agency. It saves me having to parse their intent...

Player Agency is required to some degree to have a role in the story...
Player Agency requires limits to be a game and to be useful.

Player agency over character capabilities and nature is almost always limited. Otherwise, you get Callahans¹ on LSD.
Player agency over character attempts is vital in RPGs where the characters are personally owned, but it need not be unlimited.
Most games do not grant ungated player agency over outcomes - that's what rolls/cards/point-spends/budgets are for.

Player agency over situations is highly variable in value. 
If it's limited to starting situations, it can get buy in. That's a default mode for many Fate games.
If it's active with rolls, as in BW with Circles and with location-based  wises rolls, it's useful but can step on others' toes.
If, like Burning Empires, it's a budgeted resource, it's powerful for getting what the player wants done attempted... and since BE, like BW, is fail-forward complicated-successes in many cases....

Burning Empires has a scene budge system...
Building Scenes a player frames for his character, and at their discretion, others, and up to 3 actions requiring rolls. (those actions are big-sweep things, like marshalling your troops for a battle, or installing backscatter radar scanners on the castle.)
Color scenes are in character monologue or description. It can set up for providing help but cannot itself do anything requiring a roll.
Interstitials (poor name, IMO) is a scene with two or more characters interacting. No rolls allowed.
Conflict Scenes: use Duel of Wits, I Corner Him and Stab Him With My Knife, or Battle sequences.

Each session, each player gets 1 color, 1 interstitial, and either a building or a conflict scene.
The GM gets 1 color per figure of note on the opposition not played by a player, as many interstitials, and as many building scenes, but may swap 1 (and only 1) builder for a conflict scene.

Each scene is framed by its owner, with some caveats:

If you're doing a color scene, you may invite others to be present, but they have to agree. Other scenes, you may invite, or may force them.
If you want to force someone, that's a circles roll. They get to oppose it. And one Circles roll doesn't actually count against the rolls limit.
The table can override the framing if it's way out of line...
You cannot force a conflict. 



> _Burning Empires, page 292:_
> *When to Roll: Vincent’s Admonition*
> I’m going to paraphrase a friend here. I call this Vincent’s Admonition. In his game, Dogs in the Vineyard, Vincent Baker articulates a convention of Burning Empires so well that I’d rather use his words than my own. He says: “Every moment of play, roll dice or say ‘yes.’”
> What he’s saying in that brilliantly succinct statement is: If it’s not a conflict—if it’s not important to the character’s Beliefs, traits, relationships, etc.—then agree with each other about how cool it is, but move on. It’s color or an interstitial. Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying, but as soon as your character wants something—needs something—that he doesn’t have, that someone else has, jump into the conflict and roll the dice.
> Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Empires game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.
> *I Won’t Fight You*
> If a player finds himself heading toward a conflict he doesn’t want to be in, he has three options. He may either escalate the conflict and change the nature of it, accept the intent of what the other player wanted or walk away. If he walks away, he may have escaped trouble, but his scene is over: no more discussion, argument or debate.
> *There’s No Conflict*
> If during the course of a scene a player wants something, but there is no conflict—no risk—say, “Yes, sure, of course,” and move on. Keep moving until there is a risk or a conflict—until the player says “I want this” and you have to say, “No,” or, “Only if you accept this!” Then it’s time to move to the dice.



Note also: Anything that affects another's abilities or status requires a roll.

The combination makes for a lot of agency - but it also makes the game harder to play, because you cannot force a conflict. Nor even force someone to be set up for a conflict.


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## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> Extant Story alteration vectors (IE: retcons) are actually used in a couple of games.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Cortex Plus and Prime also allow for it as a form of asset. Those are minor, but altering extant narrative is a valid approach in all of those, as well as in HotBlooded and B&H.



I see those aspects of Cortex+ as closer to flashbacks than to retcons - it establishes that the PC did something in the past to get ready for the current situation.


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## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> *AGENCY VECTOR AND TYPE*
> 
> So I wrote above about Character Agency, Situation Agency, Setting Agency.  These are vectors for player agency, not types (more on that below).  On any given Venn Diagram featuring these 3, there will be some overlap, but the majority of the space of each is discrete with no overlap.  To unpack that further:
> 
> *Character Agency* - The PC is _here_.  The time is _now_.  The relationship of relevant objects (including the PC themselves) within the gamestate are _thus_.  Without changing any of _here_, _now_, and _thus _for any given action declaration_, _make a move where either/or/both _here _and _thus _are changed (_now _will fundamentally change because time will have moved forward after the action declaration).
> 
> *Situation Agency* - The immediate conflict is _x_, the corresponding stakes are _y_, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are _z_.  Make a move that affects either/or/both _y_ or _z_, which will in turn impact certain qualities of _x_ (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).
> 
> *Setting Agency* - The ability to make a move that interfaces with/leverages the offscreen whereby some new aspect of the shared imagined space (setting) becomes established/fleshed-out (in a way that doesn't violate what has been already established through play).  This could be something relevant and interesting...or it could just be interesting with the prospect of becoming relevant later.
> 
> Now, onto *AGENCY TYPE*:
> 
> *Tactical Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects/goals/stakes within the immediate gamestate.
> 
> *Strategic Agency* - The ability to make a move that affects, both in degree and in kind, the relationship of objects within the setting such that downstream decision-points and gamestates are likely significantly altered.
> 
> *Protagonist Agency* - The ability to have resolving a PC's dramatic needs be either the outright premise of play or primarily propel the trajectory/arc of play.



There are overlaps between *character* and *setting *agency: this has been my point about _recollection _being an action declaration like any other. Likewise _read a charges situation_ and similar PbtA moves are character agency but meet your criteria for setting agency.

*Character* agency can also overlap with *situation* agency: eg a taunting ability, or its reverse a calming/diplomacy ability, can change what is at stake in a social encounter.

I'm not sure if you agree with this or not.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I see those aspects of Cortex+ as closer to flashbacks than to retcons - it establishes that the PC did something in the past to get ready for the current situation.



Either way, they're still revising the established story with details out of the flow of the character's PoV.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> _In the fiction_ there is a different causal relationship between _tower => my memory of it _and _my muscular motion with my sword => death of Orc_. But I'm not talking about imagined causal processes;



But I am. And in games made out of imaginary stuff it matters.


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## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Who thinks that, in the fiction, the character thinks that _looking for his friend made the friend turn up_?
> 
> Putting to one side the actions of providence, that would be as silly as thinking that _recollecting a tower caused the tower to exist_.



Right. So that's the difference. In fiction the character hitting the orc actually caused the orc to die.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Not that explaining the difference between character and setting agency is difficult, assuming that the listener is not actively hostile to the idea of drawing that distinction in the first place. I saw recently this article about the difference between roleplaying and storytelling games linked on RPG.net, I think it is pretty relevant to the a lot of the discussion that has been going on here:
> Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games






FrogReaver said:


> I’d just point out that some games give you agency over just the character and others the character and the setting.  That to me is enough to make the concept be worth differentiating.  Especially when coupled with the fact that my side swears that this vector is perhaps the most important for differentiating the games they prefer from the others.
> 
> In the worst case that makes character agency a subset of setting agency.  So let's assume that's the case.  Being a strict subset of setting agency vector doesn't preclude items in the character agency subset and non-character agency subset from being behaving and even being valued differently in analysis.  At this point though - I'd suggest you would drop setting agency and talk about setting based character vector and setting based non-character vectors.






pemerton said:


> There are overlaps between *character* and *setting *agency: this has been my point about _recollection _being an action declaration like any other. Likewise _read a charges situation_ and similar PbtA moves are character agency but meet your criteria for setting agency.
> 
> *Character* agency can also overlap with *situation* agency: eg a taunting ability, or its reverse a calming/diplomacy ability, can change what is at stake in a social encounter.
> 
> I'm not sure if you agree with this or not.




QUICK ASIDE to address Crimson Longinus.

You've linked a post to the Alexandrian which accepts as foundational building block for subsequent analysis that his Dissociated Mechanics essay is (a) useful and (b) correct.  You're not going to get much purchase here with that.  The overwhelming number of participants here engaged in an ENORMOUS discussion on it long ago and almost all of them came to the conclusion that it is neither correct nor useful (in fact, its very much the opposite).  I can't relitigate the entirety of the argument/thread at this point (it was 1000s and 1000s of posts), but the crux (from my recollection) was that it had enormous holes in evaluating the very nature of Roleplaying games (it would nonsensically cast 4e and Moldvay Basic "board games" - which was really the point of the initial iteration of the essay - and wouldn't recognize Pawn Stance play as TTRPGing) and it misunderstood certain aspects/deployments of authority distribution as being inexorably caught in the event horizon of "story advocacy"...therefore incapable of being "protagonism" (aggressively advocating for the dramatic need of a constituent part, a Character, of "the <possible> story") rather than recognizing the possible state of independence of the two (while, yes, acknowledging the likely interdependence) despite a given configuration of distributed authority.

Its initial iteration was an extremely controversial partisan hit-piece by someone who didn't understand games they clearly weren't familiar with/didn't like/took offense at, which I think was cleaned up later.  Regardless, it certainly wasn't convincing then as a piece of independent analysis and therefore any work that depends upon it as a foundational piece will be compromised.

Cue Forest Gump (That is all I have to say about that).



I'm going to try to do some further explanation here which I hope will clarify how I'm intending to use each of these concepts in developing this matrix.

As a reminder (and Frogreaver addresses this in his 2nd paragraph above), I'm still unsure if there is sufficient utility and independence in separating Character (as a unique object within the gamestate separate from all of the other objects - which would be Setting) from Setting when it comes to (a) formulating a matrix to discuss agency when analyzing play and (b) formulating a matrix to derive agency when conceiving > executing the intentful design of a TTRPG.  More on this below.

First...

*THINK OF CHARACTER, SITUATION, AND SETTING AS GAME PIECES*

Lets start here.  This is ultimately what I was trying to get at with "vector" (or medium).  Protagonism, Tactical, and Strategic are not game pieces. They are what manifests through the game pieces. 

Yes, Situation will have dimensional parameters (the independence and interdependence of Goal/Intent < > Stakes) that can't be plotted as x, y, z coordinates.  But for the sake of this effort, leverage those big brains of yours (everyone) to either (a) ignore that or (b) conceive of the possibility of plotting it if you must.

So...

* A Character is a Game Piece (through which a table participant will express/channel Protagonism-based, Tactical-based, Strategic-based agency).

* Any given Situation is a Game Piece (" above).

* The Setting is a Game Piece (" above).

This is where its going to get a little meta. 

If we had sufficient vantage and could instantiate any game into infinity, we would see Character and Setting being in a state of Superposition, encapsulating every_single_concievable configuration of their collision (which would be a manifestation of initiating/inciting Situations and all possible downstream Situations similarly in a state of Superposition).

Take any one of those instantiations.  Those are your 3 Game Pieces.

There will be ample interdependence between the 3 Game Pieces but is there sufficient independence between each 3 such that it is useful (or even required) to make them discrete when developing a matrix for analyzing play and designing games.  I'm inclined to say "yes" but I could be talked out of it with sufficiently persuasive argument.

So...to *Character as Game Piece.  *Again, immersion or habitation need to be set aside here for this analysis.  "The sensory and (de)moralizing experience of remembering" and "the sensory and (de)moralizing experience of recognizing relations and having relationships" is relevant to the holistic experience of play.  But we have to excise that to honestly engage in this analysis.

So I have this Character.  They're _here, now_, in this space along with other objects (Setting).  Now there is a problem where I want something (through my Character) but the relationship of objects (including my Character) in this space conspires to deny me it (my ability to make this what play is about is Protagonist Agency...my ability to advocate for that desire will manifest in Tactical or Strategic Agency).  This is Situation.

I do agree that on the Venn Diagram of those 3 Game Pieces ("vectors" or the medium through which a participant at the table will give rise to their Protagonism, Tactical, or Strategic agency), there will be some "conceptual bleed" and overlap (I mentioned a few upthread, but the Mark aspect of a 4e Fighter's Combat Challenge has some meaningful differences from the Immediate Interrupt aspect of their OA which has meaningful differences from the initial, and best imo, iteration of Come and Get It).  There is interdependence (but there are discrete things as well).

Lets contrast "Read a Sitch (or Discern Realities in DW)" in AW from a Passive Perception check in 5e.



> *READ A SITCH*
> When you read a charged situation, roll+sharp. On a hit, you can
> ask the MC questions. Whenever you act on one of the MC’s answers,
> take +1. On a 10+, ask 3. On a 7–9, ask 1:
> • Where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
> • Which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
> • Which enemy is the biggest threat?
> • What should I be on the lookout for?
> • What’s my enemy’s true position?
> • Who’s in control here?
> On a miss, ask 1 anyway, but be prepared for the worst.
> Reading a situation can mean carefully checking things out,




My initial orientation here is through the Character Game Piece.  I'm _here _and _now _in _relation to all of these objects in this space_ and I'm _in a situation_.

I roll dice. 

Any result of 7+ and my Game Piece is now either/or/both Situation or Setting (because of the structure of the move, the agenda of play, and the ethos that binds/informs GMing).  Through this I'm expressing one or more of Protagonism, Tactical, Strategic agency by generating/directing/focusing content (and/or ensuring other content doesn't manifest).

On a 6-, I'm actually _still _expressing some agency through Situation or Setting...but it can_only_be_Protagonism Agency; I can, at least in part, dictate that play further interacts with the resolution my PC's dramatic need (because the prospects for erecting a move-based gambit have been wrested from me due to the fortune results and action resolution procedures).

My habitation or sensory experience can (and for those, like myself, who love AW) be entirely unchanged.  But what is happening at the game vantage level is what it is.

Contrast with a 5e GM saying "what is your Passive Perception/Insight (?)" when you've unknowingly entered a provocative place or encountered a potentially volatile NPC and giving you an information dump.

Contrast with a 5e player saying "I go to the balcony and look to the northern night sky where the arresting BOOM came from" and the GM saying "Roll Perception."

EDIT - This may look superficially like The Forge's Pawn, Actor, and Director Stance makeup.  But, unlike that essay, I'm not attributing a cognitive relationship.  Its literally a question of "when looking down at the Game Board, which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"  There is fundamentally no need for a cognitive shift (eg from Actor to Director) when "Reading a Sitch" in AW above vs what happens in 5e.  You can inhabit both Actor and Director simultaneously, one or the other, or neither (Pawn).  Some players may claim that they are incapable of habitation/immersion with one or the other (and others may claim amplification of habitation/immersion)...but that is entirely beside the point to "which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> But I am. And in games made out of imaginary stuff it matters.





Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So that's the difference. In fiction the character hitting the orc actually caused the orc to die.



What's your point?

In the fiction remembering where a tower is doesn't bring the tower into being. This is the case whether it's my PC remembering where the tower is, or a NPC telling my PC where the tower is based on his/her memory.

That all seems obvious.

But there is no difference _in the real world_ between the authorship process whereby I, as a participant in the game, establish the fictional element _the Orc is dead, killed by me (ie my PC) _and the authorship process whereby I, as a participant in the game, establish the fictional element _the tower is known by me (ie my PC) to be at such-and-such a location_. Both are acts of authorship. Both are mediated via action declarations for my character - one about engaging in a feat of combat, the other about engaging in a feat of memory.

You and @FrogReaver are arguing for a subject matter constraint - something like _the player of a RPG should not be able to establish any fictional element which is not causally downstream of his/her PC's actions_ - but seem to want to assert that it's a process constraint.

You also don't seem to apply your subject matter constraint consistently - as per @hawkeyefan's repeated example of the foraging check, you seem happy to allow it to be violated where the fictional element is relatively trivial generica (eg that there are rabbits to catch in the woods) but get worked up about it when the fictional element has a proper name (like _Evard's tower _or _my brother Rufus_) or is specific or unique in some similar fashion (like a bridge across a river).

It seems a very particular aesthetic preference. Ron Edwards gives a good account of some (I think not all) of its features here (written early in 2003):

In Simulationist play, _cause_ is the key, the imagined cosmos in action. . . .

*Resolution mechanics*, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about the cause of _what_ . . . Two games may be equally Simulationist even if one concerns coping with childhood trauma and the other concerns blasting villains with lightning bolts. What makes them Simulationist is the strict adherence to in-game (i.e. pre-established) cause for the outcomes that occur during play. . . .

The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be linear in time. He swings: on target or not? The other guy dodges or parries: well or badly? The weapon contacts the unit of armor + body: how hard? The armor stops some of it: how much? The remaining impact hits tissue: how deeply? With what psychological (stunning, pain) effects? With what continuing effects? All of this is settled in order, on this guy's "go," and the next guy's "go" is simply waiting its turn, in time. . . .​
I say "not all" because this still leaves open _who among the participants _gets to set up the situation (including such matters as the location of Evard's tower or of Rufus) which is then resolved linearly in time.

In the same essay Edwards describes the role of the GM in a significant amount of RPGing:

I also recommend examining Theme carefully. In this game, it's present and accounted for already, before play. The process of prep-play-enjoy works by putting "what you want" in, then having "what you want" come out, with the hope that the System's application doesn't change anything along the way. . . .

[T]he more common character creation methods . . . almost always the relatively clumsy "GM approval" proviso. . . 

Dice-based resolutions sometimes represent much noise and effort about not much effect, i.e., random factors tend not to deviate from expected results very much. Some games display a small range of possible Effect (i.e. damage rarely harms an opponent very much at a time), slight metagame adjustments to minimize extreme results, or a lot of offered strategies for the GM to soften or redirect the effects that occur. . . .

[W]hen it's done badly, resolutions are rife with breakpoints and GM-fiat punts . . .

The key for these games is GM authority over the story's content and integrity at all points, including managing the input by players. Even system results are judged appropriate or not by the GM; "fudging" Fortune outcomes is overtly granted as a GM right.

The Golden Rule of White Wolf games is a covert way to say the same thing: ignore any rule that interferes with fun. No one, I presume, thinks that any player may invoke the Golden Rule at any time; what it's really saying is that the GM may ignore any rule (or any player who invokes it) that ruins his or her idea of what should happen.​
Approaching RPGing in this way _will_ answer the question of who gets to set up the situation which is then resolved linearly in time. It will also produce a game that resembles pretty closely @hawkeyefan's and @Ovinomancer's characterisations of 5e D&D (though Edwards is perhaps a little blunter in his account than they have been). I think it's obvious that in a game approached in this fashion player agency is less than one in which players have ongoing influence (directly via mechanics, or by giving suggestions to which the GM is obliged to have regard) over _theme_, _situation_, _effect and outcome_, and more generally "_what should happen"._


----------



## pemerton

For anyone interested, here is one epic "dissociated mechanics" thread.

The notion is silly, and adds nothing useful and some confusion to Ron Edwards' discussion of framing and resolution that predates it by half a decade:

Step On Up is actually quite similar, in social and interactive terms, to Story Now. Gamist and Narrativist play often share the following things:​
Common use of player Author Stance (Pawn or non-Pawn) to set up the arena for conflict. This isn't an issue of whether Author (or any) Stance is employed at all, but rather when and for what.
Fortune-in-the-middle during resolution, to whatever degree - the point is that Exploration as such can be deferred, rather than established at every point during play in a linear fashion.
More generally, Exploration overall is negotiated in a casual fashion through ongoing dialogue, using system for input (which may be constraining), rather than explicitly delivered by system per se.
The notion is doubly silly because (as Gyagx noted in his DMG, and as 4e D&D embraced) hit points and saving throws in D&D are obviously FitM resolution systems.

So is the following subsystem from Classic Traveller, a game that superficially adheres strictly to "simulationist" imperatives for the correlation of at-the-table and in-the-fiction linearity (Book 1, 1977, p 16):

A basic throw of 10+ to avoid dangerous situation applies whenever any non- ordinary maneuver is attempted by an individual while wearing a vacc suit (such as running, jumping, hiding, jumping untethered from one ship to another, etc).​DM: +4 per level of expertise.​
When such an incident occurs, it may be remedied by any character with vacc suit expertise (including the character in danger himself) on a throw of 7+.​DM: +2 per level of expertise. No expertise DM: −4.​
This is FitM because only when the initial check is failed do we then "go back" and establish the precise fictional details of what has given rise to the dangerous situation. (I posted an example upthread from my Traveller session earlier this week - the check was failed by the players of both PCs, and I narrated that they were having trouble managing their oxygen and temperature regulation functions and would either have to run back to their base or open the airlock of their rivals' vessel that they were trying to sneak into.)

If even Traveller can't avoid FitM, then there's little hope of avoiding it in any workable resolution system. Which means either everything becomes GM fiat, or players are allowed to engage in mechanical resolution which constrains and obliges particular GM narrations. Whether that's _what is happening with our vacc suit system?s_ or _is there terrain around here that my vacc suit pipes will get snagged on?_ or @hawkeyefan's foraging or my PC meeting up with his brother becomes an issue of topic/subject matter, not of fundamental gameplay process.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> You also don't seem to apply your subject matter constraint consistently - as per @hawkeyefan's repeated example of the foraging check, you seem happy to allow it to be violated where the fictional element is relatively trivial generica (eg that there are rabbits to catch in the woods) but get worked up about it when the fictional element has a proper name (like _Evard's tower _or _my brother Rufus_) or is specific or unique in some similar fashion (like a bridge across a river).




Let's talk about foraging.  Foraging preserves that in-fiction causal relationship.  I go out and actively start looking for food which causes me to find food.  I could even say in the fiction my foraging caused me to find food.

But you already are in agreement that a character "looking for friends" couldn't say in the fiction that my looking for friends caused me to find friends.  That's the difference, and why I am not being inconsistent.

Now the reason I've described this "I look for friends action" as smoke and mirrors is because there is a way of looking for friends where you actually go out to the places you think they might be and eventually find them.  In that case the character could say "looking for friends" caused me to find friends.  That's not how you described your game handling that action though.  You specifically called it at for establishing chance encounters.  It's easy to convolute the 2 notions about "looking for friends" in such discussions and likely was intended by the game designers to obfuscate what is really going on with that action.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> It seems a very particular aesthetic preference. Ron Edwards gives a good account of some (I think not all) of its features here (written early in 2003):
> 
> In Simulationist play, _cause_ is the key, the imagined cosmos in action. . . .​​*Resolution mechanics*, in Simulationist design, boil down to asking about the cause of _what_ . . . Two games may be equally Simulationist even if one concerns coping with childhood trauma and the other concerns blasting villains with lightning bolts. What makes them Simulationist is the strict adherence to in-game (i.e. pre-established) cause for the outcomes that occur during play. . . .​​The causal sequence of task resolution in Simulationist play must be linear in time. He swings: on target or not? The other guy dodges or parries: well or badly? The weapon contacts the unit of armor + body: how hard? The armor stops some of it: how much? The remaining impact hits tissue: how deeply? With what psychological (stunning, pain) effects? With what continuing effects? All of this is settled in order, on this guy's "go," and the next guy's "go" is simply waiting its turn, in time. . . .​
> I say "not all" because this still leaves open _who among the participants _gets to set up the situation (including such matters as the location of Evard's tower or of Rufus) which is then resolved linearly in time.



You use quite a different definition of simulationist than I do.  I would never describe my games as trying to simulate anything.  I guess if you want to get really technical you could describe almost all RPG's as trying to simulate a fictional world with linear causality.  I don't think that strengthens the case for calling my style simulationist anymore than it would strengthen my case for calling your style simulationist (as despite this one example most of your games heavily feature linear causality just as well as mine).


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> You use quite a different definition of simulationist than I do.  I would never describe my games as trying to simulate anything.  I guess if you want to get really technical you could describe almost all RPG's as trying to simulate a fictional world with linear causality.  I don't think that strengthens the case for calling my style simulationist anymore than it would strengthen my case for calling your style simulationist.




As defined in those essays Simulationism or Right To Dream is simply an aesthetic preference rooted most strongly in exploration rather than protagonism/theme (Narrativism or Story Now) or skilled play (Gamism or Step On Up). I personally prefer the epitaphs to the labels here. It's also not perfect. These creative agendas are not the only possible ones. Still it's better than what existed before where everyone basically assumed you could only design and play RPGs in pretty much one way.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> As defined in those essays Simulationism or Right To Dream is simply an aesthetic preference rooted most strongly in exploration rather than protagonism/theme (Narrativism or Story Now) or skilled play (Gamism or Step On Up). I personally prefer the epitaphs to the labels here. It's also not perfect. These creative agendas are not the only possible ones. Still it's better than what existed before where everyone basically assumed you could only design and play RPGs in pretty much one way.



I mean if the usefulness is to bring out other ways to play RPG's then I'm sure it worked well.

But IMO It's a pretty poor definition for comparative/analysis purposes.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> You and @FrogReaver are arguing for a subject matter constraint - something like _the player of a RPG should not be able to establish any fictional element which is not causally downstream of his/her PC's actions_ - but seem to want to assert that it's a process constraint.



There is no 'should'. but merely a recognition that whether they can or cannot is a significant difference. I really do not understand why you so badly want to make discussing RPGs more difficult.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I mean if the usefulness is to bring out other ways to play RPG's then I'm sure it worked well.
> 
> But IMO It's a pretty poor definition for comparative/analysis purposes.




I have never found GNS useful


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> Right. So that's the difference. In fiction the character hitting the orc actually caused the orc to die.




This is not “the difference.”

There is no “the fiction” the way you’re representing it (as in a persistent objective reality with its own volition). We are it’s volition. We give it shape and trajectory through our imaginings/mental overhead, our conversation, and our deference to/application of system (where it applies).

There is no volitional causal chain that applies to melee exchanges that doesn’t equally apply to “looking for (and perhaps finding) friends.”

And from the vantage of actual characters within the shared imagined space, it’s all the same. Look for friends where you might (or even perhaps expect to) find them and do or do not. Feint/wrongfoot an Orc into raising his shield or exposing his flank and slide your Short Sword between his ribs...or not.

Being able to inhabit (or not) the cognitive workspace to viscerally experience what the character is experiencing in either case is a personal thing (not an artifact of system or procedure). Because some people can inhabit that cognitive workspace regardless of how the content is generated.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> This is not “the difference.”
> 
> There is no “the fiction” the way you’re representing it (as in a persistent objective reality with its own volition). We are it’s volition. We give it shape and trajectory through our imaginings/mental overhead, our conversation, and our deference to/application of system (where it applies).
> 
> There is no volitional causal chain that applies to melee exchanges that doesn’t equally apply to “looking for (and perhaps finding) friends.”
> 
> And from the vantage of actual characters within the shared imagined space, it’s all the same. Look for friends where you might (or even perhaps expect to) find them and do or do not. Feint/wrongfoot an Orc into raising his shield or exposing his flank and slide your Short Sword between his ribs...or not.
> 
> Being able to inhabit (or not) the cognitive workspace to viscerally experience what the character is experiencing in either case is a personal thing (not an artifact of system or procedure). Because some people can inhabit that cognitive workspace regardless of how the content is generated.



I’ve explained the difference about 10 times. Here you are just proclaiming there isn’t a difference without addressing where I’m pointing to the difference.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I have never found GNS useful




Really? Even as a starting point for discussion? 

I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions, but I wouldn’t discard it as a piece of analysis.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I’ve explained the difference about 10 times. Here you are just proclaiming there isn’t a difference without addressing where I’m pointing to the difference.




No I know what you’re saying and what you’ve said. It’s just confused.

The answer to why I say it’s confused is in the post you’ve directly quoted here.

You’re giving volitional force to a thing (“fiction”) that fundamentally has no such thing. We invest it with life and then we feel however we do about that investment.

Because it’s necessary for you to have a certain arrangement of content generation in order for you to feel a certain way about it is not an objective fact about “the causal relationships within the fiction.” Because there is no such thing as that.

Now, zoom it out and look at it as a game (not “a fiction”) and look at the content generation procedures necessary to test skill or protagonism (not necessary to “feel like you’re inhabiting a fiction with internally consistent causal relationships”), then it’s a different conversation.


----------



## Hriston

FrogReaver said:


> The context was in relation to chance meetings with your friends.  I figured someone would eventually chime in and say something to this effect.  If you are going to your friend to find him then I have no issue.  If your "looking for friends" causes a roll that results in a chance encounter with them.  That's the where the issue is.



I don't understand this objection. I'm not familiar with The Burning Wheel, but presumably a Circles check in that system corresponds in some way to an attempt by the PC to make him/herself open to such an encounter, putting out the proper signals and feelers or sending messages to the appropriate people, for example. Also presumably, if you already knew where your friend was, there would be no need to "go looking" for them. Assuming you're familiar with 5E, a long way up-thread I posted that such an attempt could be resolved in that system with a Charisma check.


----------



## FrogReaver

Hriston said:


> I don't understand this objection. I'm not familiar with The Burning Wheel, but presumably a Circles check in that system corresponds in some way to an attempt by the PC to make him/herself open to such an encounter, putting out the proper signals and feelers or sending messages to the appropriate people, for example. Also presumably, if you already knew where your friend was, there would be no need to "go looking" for them. Assuming you're familiar with 5E, a long way up-thread I posted that such an attempt could be resolved in that system with a Charisma check.



None of that describes a chance encounter which is what the advocate of that system described it as doing.  Now if he's mistaken that's fine, but my objection is having such a mechanic produce chance encounters.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Manbearcat all of the subject matter of the player agency is imaginary. I don't understand why you're hung up on this particular distinction. 

Anyway, whilst I do not agree with all points of Alexandrian's analysis, I find it be far more useful than yours, as it actually endeavours to engage with how people experience and perceive these differnt games.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> None of that describes a chance encounter which is what the advocate of that system described it as doing.  Now if he's mistaken that's fine, but my objection is having such a mechanic produce chance encounters.



The fiction has no temporality.  A game mechanic which linearly affects a non-causative, 'past' in the fiction can function as a ret-con whenever you need it to.

The system isn't a chance encounter, it's a literal changing of the preexisting fiction. 

But, in this case, it doesn't matter, the fiction has no temporality, and, therefore, no causatives, we just see it that way.


----------



## Hriston

FrogReaver said:


> None of that describes a chance encounter which is what the advocate of that system described it as doing.  Now if he's mistaken that's fine, but my objection is having such a mechanic produce chance encounters.



Well, it is by chance that a person fitting the description of one you would like to meet just so happens to be coming along when you meet them. I don't see this as being any different from there happening to be food in the environment to be found on a successful foraging check.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> No I know what you’re saying and what you’ve said. It’s just confused.
> 
> The answer to why I say it’s confused is in the post you’ve directly quoted here.
> 
> You’re giving volitional force to a thing (“fiction”) that fundamentally has no such thing. We invest it with life and then we feel however we do about that investment.



I don't know what you mean by giving volitional force to a thing.  But the 2nd part isn't what my issue is.




Manbearcat said:


> Because it’s necessary for you to have a certain arrangement of content generation in order for you to feel a certain way about it is not an objective fact about “the causal relationships within the fiction.” Because there is no such thing as that.



Characters fictional actions either cause something to happen in the fiction or they don't.

There are 3 cases.
1.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character could say "my action caused this" and have it be true within the fiction.
2.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character would say "my action did not cause this" and have it be true within the fiction.
3.  Characters action did not cause something to happen in the fiction in any way.

There is a clear difference between 1 and 2 and it's not simply about preference.



Manbearcat said:


> Now, zoom it out and look at it as a game (not “a fiction”) and look at the content generation procedures necessary to test skill or protagonism (not necessary to “feel like you’re inhabiting a fiction with internally consistent causal relationships”), then it’s a different conversation.



But this all circles back to roleplay and agency.  I don't expect you to buy this right off but consider the argument below:
Character actions that cause something to happen in the fiction but that the character could say in the fiction "my action did not cause this" hamper role playing (because characters do things for a reason and this takes away the reason they would ever perform that action).  Then the final A->B:  if roleplay is being hampered then my agency to roleplay is being hampered (which should be fairly obvious IMO).


----------



## FrogReaver

Hriston said:


> Well, it is by chance that a person fitting the description of one you would like to meet just so happens to be coming along when you meet them. I don't see this as being any different from there happening to be food in the environment to be found on a successful foraging check.



WIth the person you've authored him as coming to you.  With the foraging/food you are authoring you are going to it...


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> None of that describes a chance encounter which is what the advocate of that system described it as doing.  Now if he's mistaken that's fine, but my objection is having such a mechanic produce chance encounters.




Do you think your objection is because in the example offered of the chance encounter, it’s the player rather than the character who is making the request? 

And if so, do you think this preference speaks about player agency in any way?


----------



## generic

The fiction doesn't function like the real world.

If the player makes a check to forage, or to find a contact, the game system offers a chance for them to change the fiction that the character exists in.

If the player chooses to roll for useful contacts, and rolls high, those contacts are ret-conned in for their character.  I see no problem with this.  The fiction has no causality, and absolutely no temporal integrity.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> WIth the person you've authored him as coming to you.  With the foraging/food you are authoring you are going to it...



False, you are authoring in the existence of food/a person.  The food didn't 'exist' before you made a check for it.


----------



## Campbell

I believe that analysis of play firmly in meat space - the things the human beings are doing around the table. I think the perspective we take on during that act of play (and techniques for the feeling of it all being real) are also important, but they should not be confused for the actual processes occurring in real life.

Justin Alexander's analysis might be fruitful for explaining the feelings that some people have about certain games. It has nothing to do with actual play processes and procedures. It also is so rooted in a very particular set of play priorities that it's entirely useless to people who do not share those priorities.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> False, you are authoring in the existence of food/a person.  The food didn't 'exist' before you made a check for it.



The food existed before my check.  It's just a matter of if I was able to locate it.


----------



## prabe

Aebir-Toril said:


> If the player chooses to roll for useful contacts, and rolls high, those contacts are ret-conned in for their character. I see no problem with this. The fiction has no causality, and absolutely no temporal integrity.



I think there are some people who have issues with this. For instance, I get your point, but if I'm navigating the fiction, I prefer for it to remain as consistent as possible, for my own suspension of disbelief: If a specific NPC has been in one place, there needs to be reason/explanation for them to be in a different one, now. That's a matter of taste and preference, though; I don't think I'm saying you're wrong, exactly--just limning a difference.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> I believe that analysis of play firmly in meat space - the things the human beings are doing around the table. I think the perspective we take on during that act of play (and techniques for the feeling of it all being real) are also important, but they should not be confused for the actual processes occurring in real life.



I have hard time seeing what purpose does analysing a decision process while completely ignoring the subject matter of the decision process would serve. Perhaps it has some use, but it seems to be so far detached from anything practical that I really can't be bothered with it.



Campbell said:


> Justin Alexander's analysis might be fruitful for explaining the feelings that some people have about certain games. It has nothing to do with actual play processes and procedures. It also is so rooted in a very particular set of play priorities that it's entirely useless to people who do not share those priorities.



Any analysis is only useful for those who are interested in the things being analysed.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Do you think your objection is because in the example offered of the chance encounter, it’s the player rather than the character who is making the request?



Nope.  I started down that path of objection but was assured the character was making an action in the fiction that caused the friend to show up.  So that's certainly not what I'm objecting to.



hawkeyefan said:


> And if so, do you think this preference speaks about player agency in any way?



I do think this circles back into being about player agency.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> The food existed before my check.  It's just a matter of if I was able to locate it.



No, the food has never existed, the very introduction of the foraging check is what creates it.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> No, the food has never existed, the very introduction of the foraging check is what creates it.



Your fictional worlds function quite strangely.  In mine, my character foraging for food doesn't create any food.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Your fictional worlds function quite strangely.  In mine, my character foraging for food doesn't create any food.



Until you rolled for a foraging check, was there food?


----------



## prabe

Aebir-Toril said:


> Until you rolled for a foraging check, was there food?



My answer: "Not as far as my character knew."


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Until you rolled for a foraging check, was there food?



Depends on what the check showed.

See the more complete answer below:
Though I think instead of a one liner this can go a bit deeper.  In my games if there is no food that can be found then we wouldn't even roll the check.  If the check is allowed then there is food there and it's just a matter of finding it.  So I guess the more correct answer is: if there was a check allowed then there is food...


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> QUICK ASIDE to address Crimson Longinus.
> 
> You've linked a post to the Alexandrian which accepts as foundational building block for subsequent analysis that his Dissociated Mechanics essay is (a) useful and (b) correct.  You're not going to get much purchase here with that.  The overwhelming number of participants here engaged in an ENORMOUS discussion on it long ago and almost all of them came to the conclusion that it is neither correct nor useful (in fact, its very much the opposite).  I can't relitigate the entirety of the argument/thread at this point (it was 1000s and 1000s of posts), but the crux (from my recollection) was that it had enormous holes in evaluating the very nature of Roleplaying games (it would nonsensically cast 4e and Moldvay Basic "board games" - which was really the point of the initial iteration of the essay - and wouldn't recognize Pawn Stance play as TTRPGing) and it misunderstood certain aspects/deployments of authority distribution as being inexorably caught in the event horizon of "story advocacy"...therefore incapable of being "protagonism" (aggressively advocating for the dramatic need of a constituent part, a Character, of "the <possible> story") rather than recognizing the possible state of independence of the two (while, yes, acknowledging the likely interdependence) despite a given configuration of distributed authority.
> 
> Its initial iteration was an extremely controversial partisan hit-piece by someone who didn't understand games they clearly weren't familiar with/didn't like/took offense at, which I think was cleaned up later.  Regardless, it certainly wasn't convincing then as a piece of independent analysis and therefore any work that depends upon it as a foundational piece will be compromised.
> 
> Cue Forest Gump (That is all I have to say about that).
> 
> 
> 
> I'm going to try to do some further explanation here which I hope will clarify how I'm intending to use each of these concepts in developing this matrix.
> 
> As a reminder (and Frogreaver addresses this in his 2nd paragraph above), I'm still unsure if there is sufficient utility and independence in separating Character (as a unique object within the gamestate separate from all of the other objects - which would be Setting) from Setting when it comes to (a) formulating a matrix to discuss agency when analyzing play and (b) formulating a matrix to derive agency when conceiving > executing the intentful design of a TTRPG.  More on this below.
> 
> First...
> 
> *THINK OF CHARACTER, SITUATION, AND SETTING AS GAME PIECES*
> 
> Lets start here.  This is ultimately what I was trying to get at with "vector" (or medium).  Protagonism, Tactical, and Strategic are not game pieces. They are what manifests through the game pieces.
> 
> Yes, Situation will have dimensional parameters (the independence and interdependence of Goal/Intent < > Stakes) that can't be plotted as x, y, z coordinates.  But for the sake of this effort, leverage those big brains of yours (everyone) to either (a) ignore that or (b) conceive of the possibility of plotting it if you must.
> 
> So...
> 
> * A Character is a Game Piece (through which a table participant will express/channel Protagonism-based, Tactical-based, Strategic-based agency).
> 
> * Any given Situation is a Game Piece (" above).
> 
> * The Setting is a Game Piece (" above).
> 
> This is where its going to get a little meta.
> 
> If we had sufficient vantage and could instantiate any game into infinity, we would see Character and Setting being in a state of Superposition, encapsulating every_single_concievable configuration of their collision (which would be a manifestation of initiating/inciting Situations and all possible downstream Situations similarly in a state of Superposition).
> 
> Take any one of those instantiations.  Those are your 3 Game Pieces.
> 
> There will be ample interdependence between the 3 Game Pieces but is there sufficient independence between each 3 such that it is useful (or even required) to make them discrete when developing a matrix for analyzing play and designing games.  I'm inclined to say "yes" but I could be talked out of it with sufficiently persuasive argument.
> 
> So...to *Character as Game Piece.  *Again, immersion or habitation need to be set aside here for this analysis.  "The sensory and (de)moralizing experience of remembering" and "the sensory and (de)moralizing experience of recognizing relations and having relationships" is relevant to the holistic experience of play.  But we have to excise that to honestly engage in this analysis.
> 
> So I have this Character.  They're _here, now_, in this space along with other objects (Setting).  Now there is a problem where I want something (through my Character) but the relationship of objects (including my Character) in this space conspires to deny me it (my ability to make this what play is about is Protagonist Agency...my ability to advocate for that desire will manifest in Tactical or Strategic Agency).  This is Situation.
> 
> I do agree that on the Venn Diagram of those 3 Game Pieces ("vectors" or the medium through which a participant at the table will give rise to their Protagonism, Tactical, or Strategic agency), there will be some "conceptual bleed" and overlap (I mentioned a few upthread, but the Mark aspect of a 4e Fighter's Combat Challenge has some meaningful differences from the Immediate Interrupt aspect of their OA which has meaningful differences from the initial, and best imo, iteration of Come and Get It).  There is interdependence (but there are discrete things as well).
> 
> Lets contrast "Read a Sitch (or Discern Realities in DW)" in AW from a Passive Perception check in 5e.
> 
> 
> 
> My initial orientation here is through the Character Game Piece.  I'm _here _and _now _in _relation to all of these objects in this space_ and I'm _in a situation_.
> 
> I roll dice.
> 
> Any result of 7+ and my Game Piece is now either/or/both Situation or Setting (because of the structure of the move, the agenda of play, and the ethos that binds/informs GMing).  Through this I'm expressing one or more of Protagonism, Tactical, Strategic agency by generating/directing/focusing content (and/or ensuring other content doesn't manifest).
> 
> On a 6-, I'm actually _still _expressing some agency through Situation or Setting...but it can_only_be_Protagonism Agency; I can, at least in part, dictate that play further interacts with the resolution my PC's dramatic need (because the prospects for erecting a move-based gambit have been wrested from me due to the fortune results and action resolution procedures).
> 
> My habitation or sensory experience can (and for those, like myself, who love AW) be entirely unchanged.  But what is happening at the game vantage level is what it is.
> 
> Contrast with a 5e GM saying "what is your Passive Perception/Insight (?)" when you've unknowingly entered a provocative place or encountered a potentially volatile NPC and giving you an information dump.
> 
> Contrast with a 5e player saying "I go to the balcony and look to the northern night sky where the arresting BOOM came from" and the GM saying "Roll Perception."
> 
> EDIT - This may look superficially like The Forge's Pawn, Actor, and Director Stance makeup.  But, unlike that essay, I'm not attributing a cognitive relationship.  Its literally a question of "when looking down at the Game Board, which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"  There is fundamentally no need for a cognitive shift (eg from Actor to Director) when "Reading a Sitch" in AW above vs what happens in 5e.  You can inhabit both Actor and Director simultaneously, one or the other, or neither (Pawn).  Some players may claim that they are incapable of habitation/immersion with one or the other (and others may claim amplification of habitation/immersion)...but that is entirely beside the point to "which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"



Okay, I think I see what you're saying, here, and that's when an obstacle is presented (however) that the player can move his Character to deal with it (I swing my sword at the orc!), or the Situation (the orc doesn't notice Bob crouched behind him and trips over him when he steps back!), or the Setting.  To be honest, I'm not sure how Setting works here -- what does this entail that isn't in the Situation?  To me, it would have to be those things that are the base genre assumptions, or perhaps already established fiction, but we've talked about the retcon and the lack of games that actually instantiate this. 

I'm not sure I really agree with this, because there's so much overlap.  There's almost never a Situation move that doesn't also move the Character.  And, as I said, I don't follow what a Setting move would even entail that doesn't require a Situation move.  This is why I argue that there's no real use in trying to establish different categories of agency -- at the end of the day all of this boils down to the simple question "was I able to make a meaningful choice and enforce it's consequences?"  I've got a bit more to say on this formulation of agency, but I'll save it for the end.  Your framework here looks like it's trying to split hairs to develop another partially useful framework that ultimately results in more arguments than clarity (sorry for the frankness). 

To touch on your Protagonism, Tactical, and Strategic ideas, I still find these not coherent with each other.  Protagonism talks to why you do a thing -- who does it serve?  But both Tactical and Strategic point to when or how long a consequence of a choice operates.  "I stab the orc" is pretty tactical -- it's now, solving an immediate problem.  The Strategic problem would be more "what am I doing to eliminate the orc menace from X village?"  It's a long term consequence that shapes multiple scenes or sessions of play.  But, any student of war will tell you that Strategy is Tactics writ large, so this is a scales difference rather than a kind difference -- they're the same thing at different scales.  Protagonism, though is different beast altogether -- it's not concerned with scale, but about what motivates play or what play is about, and saying that I'm going to make play about my character.  This doesn't contrast at all with Tactical or Strategic, but is orthogonal to them.  Having orthogonal categories is not a useful way to organize analysis.  Also, there's a lack of a counterpoint to Protagonism -- what am I doing when I'm not engaged in Protagonism play?  So, yeah, not at all feeling this breakdown, just on the merits of it alone and disregarding my issues with the idea that the breakdown into categories is useful.

--

So, the formulation of agency I put above, which was "was I able to make a meaningful choice and enforce it's consequences," is meaningfully different from the concept of agency in real life.  The function difference is that real life enforces the consequences, while it's us that choose to enforce the consequences in the fictional world of play.  Nothing else will do so.  I think this difference is a key issue in a lot of the side discussions in this thread, where there are arguments about how those consequences should be enforced.  Particularly, the arguments put forth that consequence enforcement should be as close to real life as possible (ie, the ones talking about finding friends when you look for them being out-of-bounds for what a character could do).  These arguments fundamentally miss that there's no way to emulate the real life enforcement of consequence in a game -- there's only what the players do to enforce these.  The real issue is the privileging of one player with the role to make these determinations rather than sharing it out, at least in certain circumstances.  I think that this is also part of the impetus for the framework you're trying to build above.  I don't think it's very helpful, though, because it also is hiding the fact that it is us, as players, that are enforcing consequences.  I think there's a lot of merit in discussing how that's divided among players, but not in subdividing  agency because that is, at best, a far downstream consideration when looking at agency.

EDIT -- although it appears that some of the point I'm making in this last paragraph has come up in the thread while I was replying.  Good.


----------



## Campbell

What's the process by which the GM determines the food is there? Do they base on a check? Do they check against their notes? Do they think about if it should be there (make a judgement call)? Do they think about if it makes the game better? Do they have story or plot considerations? What's the real world process?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aebir-Toril said:


> Until you rolled for a foraging check, was there food?



NAN.  Which is your point, and the one being missed.  The food didn't exist because no one thought about it, and so the fiction didn't contain it.  When the foraging check was made, it forced people to think of it, and the natural assumption is that there is likely foragable food in a forest, so this natural conclusion is mistaken for the food always having existed to be found.  It's a failure to recognize the cognitive paths that are working.

The case with finding a helpful friend is exactly the same, the only difference is that now there's a conflict between people as to whether or not the friend is a natural assumption in this case.  Some note that it's just like the above case, so the natural assumption is really pointless, but others are fixed in the idea that whole NPC is a much bigger thing than a rabbit in a forest, so that shouldn't exist unless Bob the GM thinks it should.  No one has a problem if Bob agrees such an NPC is nearby, it's just the idea that a player can charge the fiction in a way that doesn't require Bob to agree.  Since Bob is the arbiter of natural assumptions about the setting, this must be a different thing!  It is, however, not at all different, but represents a cognitive blindspot or play preference.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> What's the process by which the GM determines the food is there? Do they base on a check?



That's up to them.  Sometimes they may roll a dice to decide.  Most base it primarily on the environment you are in with the additional layer of whether their notes reveal anything of significance about your specific location in relation to the foraging.

So if you are in the forest in the summer you find food.  If you are in the middle of a barren wasteland you don't (or maybe it's just an exceptionally high check to do so depending on the level of barrenness the DM has in mind).

Now if you are in the forest in summertime and your near something magical causing no food to be around (typcially determined by notes, but possibly via some randomization method).



Campbell said:


> Do they check against their notes? Do they think about if it should be there (make a judgement call)? Do they think about if it makes the game better? Do they have story or plot considerations? What's the real world process?



All of that is up to them.  I mentioned above about a fairly typical resolution process.


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> I have hard time seeing what purpose does analysing a decision process while completely ignoring the subject matter of the decision process would serve. Perhaps it has some use, but it seems to be so far detached from anything practical that I really can't be bothered with it.



I think I agree.  There is no objectiveness to be had by subjectively excluding parts of the conversation.

It gets pretty old when I'm asked what's different between 2 things and I say and then I'm told that's a difference but because some want to limit to discussion to being about mechanical processes that such a difference doesn't matter.  It's such an arbitrary limitation on the discussion that I'm amazed every time it comes up.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> I think I agree.  There is no objectiveness to be had by subjectively excluding parts of the conversation.
> 
> It gets pretty old when I'm asked what's different between 2 things and I say and then I'm told that's a difference but because some want to limit to discussion to being about mechanical processes that such a difference doesn't matter.  It's such an arbitrary limitation on the discussion that I'm amazed every time it comes up.




Not saying that what the rolls resolve does not matter. Upthread you chastise for calling it a mere preference, but like games are all about subjective aesthetic preferences. I'm just saying the player's process is the same. You are just seeing how the sausage gets made on the GM's side of the screen.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Really? Even as a starting point for discussion?
> 
> I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions, but I wouldn’t discard it as a piece of analysis.




I have had this discussion a lot here, so it isn't really worth getting into much. But I just don't it gives me any insight I can use at the table, and I don't feel, for my style of play, any of its thoughts on things like simulation reflect what I see in live play. I also dislike how it uses jargon. I did try to delve into it many years ago. But it just wasn't for me in terms of the content and what I wanted.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Justin Alexander's analysis might be fruitful for explaining the feelings that some people have about certain games. It has nothing to do with actual play processes and procedures. It also is so rooted in a very particular set of play priorities that it's entirely useless to people who do not share those priorities.




All I can say is, with Justin Alexander, there was tons of stuff on his blog page I could actually use in play at a game. Sometimes I could take an idea there in its entirety, sometimes I took parts (taking what I liked, ignoring what I didn't). He has a lot of interesting game ideas, and they definitely arise from actual table play. It might not be rooted in the same kind of analysis that some people here like, but that isn't the only way to think or talk about games.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Not saying that what the rolls resolve does not matter. Upthread you chastise for calling it a mere preference, but like games are all about subjective aesthetic preferences. I'm just saying the player's process is the same. You are just seeing how the sausage gets made on the GM's side of the screen.



I mean, if the same process is making 2 different things, I'm not so sure that focusing on the process is really all that important.


----------



## Hriston

FrogReaver said:


> WIth the person you've authored him as coming to you.  With the foraging/food you are authoring you are going to it...



Those are both possible descriptions of the result of a success, but not the only ones. 

It seems that you would prefer the result of a successful foraging check to be “You find a bush full of berries,” but not “as you wait in your blind, a stag steps into your sights.” Do I have that about right?


----------



## FrogReaver

Hriston said:


> Those are both possible descriptions of the result of a success, but not the only ones.
> 
> It seems that you would prefer the result of a successful foraging check to be “You find a bush full of berries,” but not “as you wait in your blind, a stag steps into your sights.” Do I have that about right?



No where near.


----------



## Campbell

Justin Alexander does say lots of useful things in other places. He's just not very good about talking about play processes he has little direct experience with. In fact a lot of his articles are useful because he drops pretense and talks about the practical process of play instead of the idealized stuff we see here that assumes GMs are capable of impossible things.

These are very good articles:









						Don’t Prep Plots
					

If you're GMing a roleplaying game, you should never prep a plot.Everyone's tastes are different. These matters are subjective. What works for one person won't necessarily work for another. Yada




					thealexandrian.net
				











						Game Structures – Addendum: System Matters
					

"Most of the campaigns I've really enjoyed have been in systems I didn't like.""A great GM can take any RPG and run a good game.""I just want a system that gets out of the way when I'm playi




					thealexandrian.net
				




The latter article actually offers targeted analysis that points to why structured play is important and why a fair share of people who play in very typical ways underestimate the impact of system.

That does not absolve the fact that the previously linked article was an effort at erasure of non-conforming games. Sometimes people say some useful stuff and other not so useful things.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> That does not absolve the fact that the previously linked article was an effort at erasure of non-conforming games. Sometimes people say some useful stuff and other not so useful things.



I think the distinction he was making in that article was a perfectly coherent one, but I definitely would have not called the two categories 'roleplaying games' and 'storytelling games'. Saying that something is _not a real roleplaying game_ just is not an argument that will be perceived as neutral.


----------



## Campbell

I am not going to defend the veracity of the big model, but there is tons of useful stuff in the essays. The discussion of kickers and bangs utterly changed the way I ran games back in the day. It's full throated defense of looking at roleplaying games as games at a time when we really needed it helped me to embrace D&D again. It was my experience in the indie spaces that cultivated an interest in OSR play.

More than that the actual Forge forum provided a wealth of useful actual play techniques in a number of spaces. Ron's threads about his RuneQuest and Champions games along with some Sorcerer Actual Play experience formed the basis of my present NPC constellation prep techniques.  Keys and the way they made you think about your relationships with other characters was also fairly game changing for me personally.

My time at the Forge and Story Games got me to embrace games as games. While I do think Ron and others had some interesting things to say about Right To Dream the project was about other ways to play. I can see it not being useful to running those games, but I think at least understanding the ways other people play should be useful at least for discussion purposes.


----------



## Campbell

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think the distinction he was making in that article was a perfectly coherent one, but I definitely would have not called the two categories 'roleplaying games' and 'storytelling games'. Saying that something is _not a real roleplaying game_ just is not an argument that will be perceived as neutral.




I think there is useful work and research on what immerses us. I think where Alexander lands on what corresponds to our experiences of being immersed and what does not is extremely flawed. I might see more value if the analysis would have pointed to the subjective nature of what is associative instead of making wild claims about particular games not providing an immersive experience.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> The food existed before my check.  It's just a matter of if I was able to locate it.



The person existed before your check, it's just a matter of realizing they were there.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> The person existed before your check, it's just a matter of realizing they were there.



Not the same thing.


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Not the same thing.



Explain why.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> Explain why.



Food, game animals, etc all exist as part of the fictional world whether they are enumerated or not.  They are part of the meidieval fantasy setting.  If one goes looking for food then one goes to where the food/game are (the forest in this case), they then spend time searching for them, or actively go set up a hunting blind in an opportune location.  Either way the person's skill impacts whether they can find and bring home food/game and whether they can do it in a timely manner.

I'll go out on a limb and say that a fictional friend also already exists in the setting even if he's not been enumerated.  The difference is that having him show up at your location for a chance encounter doesn't involve you really doing anything.  I mean there's not anything in the fiction you are actually doing that's causing that to happen.  There is with foraging.

Now if it's not a chance encounter.  Say you were sending letters or other communications and that caused your friend to come help you... well that's another matter entirely.  As I said, I'm focused on the chance encounter aspect of "look for friends" - and the objection isn't about randomness there, it's about the lack of a coherent fictional action.  I mean, if the mechanic dropped the pretense of being an in fiction action I wouldn't be making this objection to it.  But it is and I've been assured that "looking for your friend" is a fictional action a character can take, even in the context of a chance friend encounter (despite no one having a clue what such an action actually looks like).


----------



## generic

FrogReaver said:


> Food, game animals, etc all exist as part of the fictional world whether they are enumerated or not.  They are part of the meidieval fantasy setting.  If one goes looking for food then one goes to where the food/game are (the forest in this case), they then spend time searching for them, or actively go set up a hunting blind in an opportune location.  Either way the person's skill impacts whether they can find and bring home food/game and whether they can do it in a timely manner.
> 
> I'll go out on a limb and say that a fictional friend also already exists in the setting even if he's not been enumerated.  The difference is that having him show up at your location for a chance encounter doesn't involve you really doing anything.  I mean there's not anything in the fiction you are doing that's causing that to happen.  There is with foraging.
> 
> Now if it's not a chance encounter.  Say you were sending letters or other communications and that caused your friend to come help you... well that's another matter entirely.  As I said, I'm focused on the chance encounter aspect of find your friend - and the objection isn't about randomness there, it's about the lack of a coherent fictional action.  I mean, if the mechanical dropped the pretense of being an in fiction action I wouldn't be making this objection to it.  But it is and I've been assured that "looking for your friend" is a fictional action a character can take, even in the context of a chance friend encounter.



I suppose it rests on how much you actually cling to a notion of integrity in your gaming.  A check to find someone in a crowd, which, on a success, retroactively makes that person exist there, might not seem very realistic, but it's as plausible within the fiction as finding food from nowhere.

Let's say that the check retroactively makes you do something, in the past, like writing letters to said friend.

It's a very non-linear method of check resolution, but it's equally as valid in certain games as foraging.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aebir-Toril said:


> I suppose it rests on how much you actually cling to a notion of integrity in your gaming.  A check to find someone in a crowd, which, on a success, retroactively makes that person exist there, might not seem very realistic, but it's as plausible within the fiction as finding food from nowhere.



Let's talk about a check to find someone in a crowd.

Is this structured as a character action?
Is that action something that is able to be fictionally described?
Is there plausibility that the person you were looking for was always there and the check was just to see if you would perceive him?

The answers to these kinds of questions are what makes foraging and certain instances of finding someone in a crowd and certain instances of looking for someone and finding them all be okay, while other instances like a chance encounter have different answers to these questions.

It's really not that hard to see the difference when you stop trying force all these things to be the same.




Aebir-Toril said:


> Let's say that the check retroactively makes you do something, in the past, like writing letters to said friend.



That would alleviate the current objection.  There might be a different one to be had there.




Aebir-Toril said:


> It's a very non-linear method of check resolution, but it's equally as valid in certain games as foraging.



At least you are calling in non-linear.  I'm not saying these aren't valid game mechanics - games have them so of course they are valid game mechanics.  The question I'm asking is how do non-linear mechanics affect roleplay and agency?  I think they can have an affect on it.  Do you?


----------



## FrogReaver

Another thought:
Making a pie and making a casserole are mechanically the same process.
1.  Gather ingredients
2.  Follow recipe
3.  Enjoy pie/casserole

"So how can you say you like pies but not casseroles - it's the same mechanical process!"

Because the mechanical process being the same, especially at the high level, doesn't mean everything about the processes are the same, and especially not the end results.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Another thought:
> Making a pie and making a casserole are mechanically the same process.
> 1.  Gather ingredients
> 2.  Follow recipe
> 3.  Enjoy pie/casserole
> 
> "So how can you say you like pies but not casseroles - it's the same mechanical process!"
> 
> Because the mechanical process being the same, especially at the high level, doesn't mean everything about the processes are the same, and especially not the end results.



I never objected to the idea that there were substantial differences in process. I just disagreed as to what they were and how they manifest themselves. I think the players' part is almost identical, but the role the system and GM play is remarkably different. 

In my estimation those differences have a strong impact on play.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Let's talk about foraging.  Foraging preserves that in-fiction causal relationship.  I go out and actively start looking for food which causes me to find food.  I could even say in the fiction my foraging caused me to find food.



This is no different from _remembering where a tower is_, which leads me to finding the tower; or _looking out for my brother_, which leads me to notice him.

But _looking for for food_ doesn't make there be rabbits around. Sometimes someone who is expert at looking for food nevertheless fails to find it simply because the rabbits are all somewhere else.

In this respect _rabbits_ are no different from _Evard's tower_ or _Rufus_.



FrogReaver said:


> there is a way of looking for friends where you actually go out to the places you think they might be and eventually find them.  In that case the character could say "looking for friends" caused me to find friends.  That's not how you described your game handling that action though.  You specifically called it at for establishing chance encounters.



I actually used the phrase "chance meeting" - that phrase is borrowed from JRRT and of course is gently ironic, because in the world of JRRT's writing _nothing_ happens literally by chance. More than any other fantasy writing I'm aware of (including Dune and Star Wars), JRRT presents a world in which providence is at work.

As I have posted repeatedly upthread, Thurgon and Aramina met Friedrich _on the river in the area of the old border forts_. And met Rufus upon crossing the border into _Auxol, Thurgon's ancestral estate_.

Overall your approach to setting - at least as evinced by your posts - seems to rest on two assumptions that are fairly common to a lot of D&D play but are typically not true of BW or AW games: (1) that the protagonists are strangers to the place in which the action is taking place; and (2) that generica like rabbits are no big deal and can be narrated or presupposed freely by all participants (perhaps subject to some overarching GM veto power), whereas _towers_ and _bridges_ and _brothers_ which are a big deal are the exclusive province of the GM.

To put the same point another way: you are happy for the player, without any prompting from the GM, to imagine the GM-narrated forest as containing rabbits and herbs and roots and berries and so on - which the player than takes for granted in declaring his/her PC's foraging check; but you object to the player, without any prompting from the GM, imagining the GM-narrated fantasy world as containing _Evard's tower_ or imagining the GM-narrated river as containing _a bridge that crosses it._

@Lanefan seems to use some sort of appeal to likelihoods to explain the contrast in preferences. I don't know if you think of it the same way: to me, as I've indicated in my posts, the contrast seems to be between no-big-deal generica and individuated/unique/specific things. As I've already posted, it's an aesthetic preference based on topic/subject matter.



FrogReaver said:


> You use quite a different definition of simulationist than I do.



I quoted Ron Edwards, and used the word as he does.



FrogReaver said:


> I guess if you want to get really technical you could describe almost all RPG's as trying to simulate a fictional world with linear causality.



What Edwards is focusing on is a mapping of the causal process of resolution onto the authorship of the imagined causal processes of the fiction.

That is not a feature of all RPGing or all RPGs. For instance, a check made to establish _what it is that a PC recollects_ has the same real-world causal structure as a check made to establish _whether a PC defeats an Orc in combat_. But the causal processes in the fiction are different in each case. Hence there is no mapping of the sort I described in the previous paragraph. Hence games which feature both sorts of checks are not simulationist in Edwards' sense.

(A footnote: D&D combat is not simulationist in Edwards' sense either, because the individual processes used to determine whether a PC defeats an Orc - to hit rolls, changing hp tallies, etc - don't map onto any imagined causal process. Often there in fact is no fiction that correlates to those checks - the game participants just make the rolls and do the maths - or if there is fiction it is established post-hoc (eg the GM looks at the change in the Orc's hp total and then narrates something about barely blocking a forceful blow with its shield). This sort of thing was discussed at great length in the "dissociated mechanics" thread I linked to upthread.)


----------



## pemerton

Hriston said:


> I don't understand this objection. I'm not familiar with The Burning Wheel, but presumably a Circles check in that system corresponds in some way to an attempt by the PC to make him/herself open to such an encounter, putting out the proper signals and feelers or sending messages to the appropriate people, for example. Also presumably, if you already knew where your friend was, there would be no need to "go looking" for them. Assuming you're familiar with 5E, a long way up-thread I posted that such an attempt could be resolved in that system with a Charisma check.



_Circles_, in BW, is described thus (here is the link to download Hub and Spokes of Gold for free; I'm quoting p 21):

*Circles*
Who does the character know from his days as an apprentice? Can he call on his former gang mates for help? Such questions are answered using the Circles ability. It’s a measure of the character’s social influence, and its scope is shaped by the character’s lifepaths.​
So it definitely covers what you say - making oneself open to an encounter - and also putting out feelers etc. It can also determine eg whether someone comes to rescue you as you're about to be executed - but that would be a more difficult check (roughly speaking, the more improbable the location and the more immediate the encounter, the higher the obstacle).

As I and @aramis erak have posted, Circles is based on Will (the nearest analogue in BW character building to D&D's CHA) and is augmented by Affiliations, Reputations (these are both elements of PC build) and also successful Wises check (made to ascertain the current lie of the land, hear rumours of where others are, etc).


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Manbearcat all of the subject matter of the player agency is imaginary.



This isn't correct. _The fact that everyone agrees that their shared fiction contains a dead Orc_, or_ Evard's tower_, or_ this meeting with Rufus_, is a real thing in the real world.

Imagined causal processes are just that - imagined. Fiction does not itself exert any causal power, given that it isn't real.

But people are real, their mental states are real, and their consensus (or lack thereof) in the context of a joint endeavour is a real thing.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is no different from _remembering where a tower is_, which leads me to finding the tower; or _looking out for my brother_, which leads me to notice him.



Yes it is.  The reasons have even been covered about 10x now.



pemerton said:


> But _looking for for food_ doesn't make there be rabbits around.



Correct



pemerton said:


> Sometimes someone who is expert at looking for food nevertheless fails to find it simply because the rabbits are all somewhere else.



Depends on how zoomed in you want to get.  When a character forages in say 5e, it's typically being done in a large expanse of wilderness.  Because 5e as written doesn't have rolls occur unless there is uncertainty, then the only way a player rolls is if the DM determines there's a chance he could forage something to eat which would imply that some source of food is in his vicinity.  If there's no source of food in his vicinity (or no source he would be capable of discovering) then he doesn't even get a roll.  So by the time there is a roll in 5e it's already defacto established that food is in the vicinity.  (*As always with D&D some playstyles vary and some DM's will call for some rolls even if there is no uncertainty).  




pemerton said:


> Overall your approach to setting - at least as evinced by your posts - seems to rest on two assumptions that are fairly common to a lot of D&D play but are typically not true of BW or AW games: (1) that the protagonists are strangers to the place in which the action is taking place; and (2) that generica like rabbits are no big deal and can be narrated or presupposed freely by all participants (perhaps subject to some overarching GM veto power), whereas _towers_ and _bridges_ and _brothers_ which are a big deal are the exclusive province of the GM.



Neither of those is true for my approach.  It's almost like you so much want to stuff me into a particular box that you don't actually listen to what I'm saying.



pemerton said:


> To put the same point another way: you are happy for the player, without any prompting from the GM, to imagine the GM-narrated forest as containing rabbits and herbs and roots and berries and so on - which the player than takes for granted in declaring his/her PC's foraging check;



With the caveat that the DM could say, well actually this forest is desolate and barren.  Are you sure you would try to forage in such a place?  (Ideally this detail would come up before player action declarations - but DM's can forget to mention important details at times or the player could have been distracted when they DM gave that detail).

But yes, part of medieval fantasy is that a typical forest will have food you can forage.  So yes, it's perfectly acceptable for players to imagine that in the absence of any further description about the forest.  



pemerton said:


> but you object to the player, without any prompting from the GM, imagining the GM-narrated fantasy world as containing _Evard's tower_ or imagining the GM-narrated river as containing _a bridge that crosses it._



Yes.  Evard's tower is a very specific fantasy element.  A river having a bridge is pretty hit and miss.  So quite different things.




pemerton said:


> That is not a feature of all RPGing or all RPGs. For instance, a check made to establish _what it is that a PC recollects_ has the same real-world causal structure as a check made to establish _whether a PC defeats an Orc in combat_. But the causal processes in the fiction are different in each case. Hence there is no mapping of the sort I described in the previous paragraph. Hence games which feature both sorts of checks are not simulationist in Edwards' sense.



Would have saved us alot of time if you would have led with this 



pemerton said:


> (A footnote: D&D combat is not simulationist in Edwards' sense either, because the individual processes used to determine whether a PC defeats an Orc - to hit rolls, changing hp tallies, etc - don't map onto any imagined causal process. Often there in fact is no fiction that correlates to those checks - the game participants just make the rolls and do the maths - or if there is fiction it is established post-hoc (eg the GM looks at the change in the Orc's hp total and then narrates something about barely blocking a forceful blow with its shield). This sort of thing was discussed at great length in the "dissociated mechanics" thread I linked to upthread.)



I don't have problems with dissociated mechanics like hp, etc.  So I don't think it's the dissociative part that's my problem.


----------



## darkbard

FrogReaver said:


> Because 5e as written doesn't have rolls occur unless there is uncertainty, then the only way a player rolls is if the DM determines there's a chance he could forage something to eat which would imply that some source of food is in his vicinity.  If there's no source of food in his vicinity (or no source he would be capable of discovering) then he doesn't even get a roll.  So by the time there is a roll in 5e it's already defacto established that food is in the vicinity.  (*As always with D&D some playstyles vary and some DM's will call for some rolls even if there is no uncertainty).




Remind me again of your argument for _player_ agency.


----------



## aramis erak

Hriston said:


> I'm not familiar with The Burning Wheel, but presumably a Circles check in that system corresponds in some way to an attempt by the PC to make him/herself open to such an encounter, putting out the proper signals and feelers or sending messages to the appropriate people, for example.



Technically, throughout the Burning series of games, the Circles Check more than that.
One of the options in the list of modifiers is wanting him here "right here, right now"... I once had a player do that for a random adventurer named Yeet Myee... just to provide a different target for the monster. But it got enmity clause... his family had sent him to hire the PCs, and now thinks the PCs are responsible for his demise....


----------



## aramis erak

FrogReaver said:


> Your fictional worlds function quite strangely.  In mine, my character foraging for food doesn't create any food.



In the game state, the food is created when the check succeeds. 
In the story state, the food can be presumed to have existed prior to being found.
The two are different, but in the game state, the PC goes from the uncertain "i have no food but might get some" to either "I got some food" or "I didn't get some food." And presumably the game state advances to a point where the lack of food matters either way.


----------



## Campbell

What I have been calling the (shared) fiction and what has at times been called the shared imagined space consists only of what has been established on screen. It has no independent existence until we establish what is true and not true within it. This is important it helps to talk about how this gets established through play in a variety of different sorts of roleplaying games. 

While making the setting feel real to the players is important  it is in fact always under construction. We are building it as we play in it even if only the GM is actively building it.

One of the things that makes talking about RPGs challenging is that they thrive in the space where we think of characters and places that are offscreen having an independent existence, but they are animated entirely through human effort. We have to acknowledge that if we are to speak to what is really happening when we play. This is monumentally important when we talk about GM techniques because the GM cannot afford to act under such illusions.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> What I have been calling the (shared) fiction and what has at times been called the shared imagined space consists only of what has been established on screen. It has no independent existence until we establish what is true and not true within it. This is important it helps to talk about how this gets established through play in a variety of different sorts of roleplaying games.
> 
> While making the setting feel real to the players is important  it is in fact always under construction. We are building it as we play in it even if only the GM is actively building it.
> 
> One of the things that makes talking about RPGs challenging is that they thrive in the space where we think of characters and places that are offscreen having an independent existence, but they are animated entirely through human effort. We have to acknowledge that if we are to speak to what is really happening when we play. This is monumentally important when we talk about GM techniques because the GM cannot afford to act under such illusions.




I think this is missing how others approach the game. Obviously none of this stuff is real, but to say it only exists the moment it is introduced in play or 'on screen', is simply not the case in a number of playstyles. For one, you often create material between games, with the expecation that that material is pretty much set (certainly you can make changes to it on the fly for a variety of reasons, but I think when most GMs create a setting map, even if the players haven't been to the north, they treat the desert they put there as set, and as existing, even if the players never encounter it). Further the whole concept of living adventure and the world in motion, is the idea that the GM is considering what the NPCs are doing when they are not on screen. Some of us even track this stuff (I have blog entries on how to track NPC movements to create a real sense of objective NPCs moving around independently and just as restrained by speed considerations as the party). Again, none of this is real, but the point is the GM in a living adventure or in a world in motion, is expected to treat those things as being the same level of real as the stuff that happens 'on screen'.


----------



## Bedrockgames

aramis erak said:


> In the game state, the food is created when the check succeeds.
> In the story state, the food can be presumed to have existed prior to being found.




Can you please define game state and story state


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this is missing how others approach the game. Obviously none of this stuff is real, but to say it only exists the moment it is introduced in play or 'on screen', is simply not the case in a number of playstyles. For one, you often create material between games, with the expecation that that material is pretty much set (certainly you can make changes to it on the fly for a variety of reasons, but I think when most GMs create a setting map, even if the players haven't been to the north, they treat the desert they put there as set, and as existing, even if the players never encounter it). Further the whole concept of living adventure and the world in motion, is the idea that the GM is considering what the NPCs are doing when they are not on screen. Some of us even track this stuff (I have blog entries on how to track NPC movements to create a real sense of objective NPCs moving around independently and just as restrained by speed considerations as the party). Again, none of this is real, but the point is the GM in a living adventure or in a world in motion, is expected to treat those things as being the same level of real as the stuff that happens 'on screen'.




There are all sorts of ways that something can be established in the shared fiction. One of those ways is by the GM referencing prepared material, thinking offscreen, and making judgement calls based on what they think is likely to be true. The world does not suddenly really become in motion because of that. The GM is still animating it.  I have played and run plenty of games like this. It's good stuff,

I'm trying to talk about the real world process. Not how we think about it in the act of play. This is why the way Kevin Crawford and Justin Alexander talk about scenario design so powerful. They speak to the real world process.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I'm trying to talk about the real world process.




But the point of contention I keep talking about is how the real world processes and the fictional processes and elements exist in relation to one another.

When I say the problem and differences include the fictional part and you say "but that's not what I want to talk about" - that's not helpful.

In fact, I even question the wisdom of trying to focus solely on a high level zoomed out view of only the mechanical processes in relation to the real world.  Issues being:
1.  You are too zoomed out.  Even dissimilar mechanical processes can sound the same when you zoom out enough.
2.  The relationship of such processes to the fictional world also matters.  You aren't viewing the process from all perspectives.  You are only focused on the real world perspective and not the fictional one.
3.  Even very similar mechanical processes with different ingredients can yield to very different products,  (ex: producing Coke vs producing Sprite) - no matter how similar the mechanical processes involved are the end result is different



Campbell said:


> Not how we think about it in the act of play.



But what could be more important than this?


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> But the point of contention I keep talking about is how the real world processes and the fictional processes and elements exist in relation to one another.
> 
> When I say the problem and differences include the fictional part and you say "but that's not what I want to talk about" - that's not helpful.
> 
> In fact, I even question the wisdom of trying to focus solely on a high level zoomed out view of only the mechanical processes in relation to the real world.  Issues being:
> 1.  You are too zoomed out.  Even dissimilar mechanical processes can sound the same when you zoom out enough or don't take all perspectives of them into account.
> 2.  The relationship of such processes to the fictional world also matters
> 
> 
> But what could be more important than this?




Of course it matters. It matter a great deal, but we cannot have this conversation if we do not consider the real world causes of things. In particular I do not know how to have this conversation in a way that looks at different play priorities through the prism of outlook centered solely in your particular play sensibilities. 

I do not even really know how to talk about sandbox gaming in that way. No one I know who provides guidance that I find useful for sandbox gaming talks about characters and events as if they have real world animus. They talk about techniques that provide that feeling to the other players, but they focus on the details of how to do that.

All this living breathing world talk initially put me off sandbox gaming because it provides no insight into how to do the damn thing.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Of course it matters.



Well that's a start.



Campbell said:


> It matter a great deal, but we cannot have this conversation if we do not consider the real world causes of things.



I agree.  Those are important.  I'm not saying don't talk about those.  I'm just saying also include this other stuff - especially when I'm asked what the difference in 2 things are and the difference lies in the other stuff.



Campbell said:


> In particular I do not know how to have this conversation in a way that looks at different play priorities through the prism of outlook centered solely in your particular play sensibilities.



I'm not asking for that.  I am just saying that to do right by analysis you also should be noting the differences in what is happening in the fiction as well.  Surely we can classify these things based on the real world perspective and also the fictional perspective and create a matrix of the various possibilities that will allow us to map a given example to a spot on that matrix.  Then we can talk about what areas certain mechanics and certain games focus on and even talk about any areas that seem to limit agency.

That's analysis.  Why are you fighting so hard to exclude that from being analyzed?  Why have you written this off as being solely about preference?



Campbell said:


> I do not even really know how to talk about sandbox gaming in that way. No one I know who provides guidance that I find useful for sandbox gaming talks about characters and events as if they have real world animus. They talk about techniques that provide that feeling to the other players, but they focus on the details of how to do that.
> 
> All this living breathing world talk initially put me off sandbox gaming because it provides no insight into how to do the damn thing.



I'm not a huge fan of sandbox play.  However, in terms of sandbox play - I think both how you accomplish a "living breathing world" and why those techniques work to accomplish a "living breathing world" are both equally important.


----------



## Bedrockgames

But @Campbell understand many people have the opposite reaction as you. Living adventure, where you treat the NPCs as living breathing characters, like PCs, is what made this more open style of play click for me. The way I understand it and approach it is very much thinking about my NPCs as Alive in the setting. Which means, I ask myself what a given NPC is doing while the players go to location X, even to the point of trackkng the NPCs movement. There are other procedures and mechanics that I use, and we can talk about those. But to me the approach doesn’t make sense if I am not treating the world as living and in motion.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> But @Campbell understand many people have the opposite reaction as you. Living adventure, where you treat the NPCs as living breathing characters, like PCs, is what made this more open style of play click for me. The way I understand it and approach it is very much thinking about my NPCs as Alive in the setting. Which means, I ask myself what a given NPC is doing while the players go to location X, even to the point of trackkng the NPCs movement. There are other procedures and mechanics that I use, and we can talk about those. But to me the approach doesn’t make sense if I am not treating the world as living and in motion.



Not entirely related by 3000+ posts in it doesn't matter anymore 

I think the living breathing world concept, goal and methods work great even in more linear adventures.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Can you please define game state and story state




He’s saying that the reason that the food appears at the game level is because the player made a roll and it succeeded.

Then, in the fiction, or the story, we justify the appearance of food accordingly. Food was “there all along” or “the ranger was able to hunt some rabbits” or whatever. 

No fictional element actually exists prior to being introduced. It may intend to be introduced, but until it is actually introduced, it can be changed.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> He’s saying that the reason that the food appears at the game level is because the player made a roll and it succeeded.
> 
> Then, in the fiction, or the story, we justify the appearance of food accordingly. Food was “there all along” or “the ranger was able to hunt some rabbits” or whatever.
> 
> No fictional element actually exists prior to being introduced. It may intend to be introduced, but until it is actually introduced, it can be changed.



Yeah, I don't get the arguments that there's a functional difference between declaring you're looking for food, succeeding at a check, and finding food and saying you're looking for an ally, making the check, and finding the ally.  Both are supported in the fiction -- the food is in a forest not otherwise hostile to the presence of food, and the ally is in an area established to be likely to contain such old allies and that is not hostile to their presence.  Literally the only difference in play here is presumption of who has what say.  Even then, it works no matter the presumption -- if GM Bob thinks there's food in the forest to find, then GM Bob can think there's allies in the area to find.  It's an entirely specious argument that relies on an assumption that food in the forest is an easier ask than finding an ally.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> He’s saying that the reason that the food appears at the game level is because the player made a roll and it succeeded.



I think you mean story level there?  At the game level the only food that exists are the snacks your friend brought 



hawkeyefan said:


> Then, in the fiction, or the story, we justify the appearance of food accordingly.



But that isn't what's happening.  I'm in a forest with no otherwise special qualities.  The presence of food is included in the presence of the forest.  The introduction of the forest is enough to also establish in the shared fiction the existence of food in it.



hawkeyefan said:


> No fictional element actually exists prior to being introduced.



Maybe.  I'm not fully willing to commit to that notion.  I think it may just depend on what perspective you are looking at it from.



hawkeyefan said:


> It may intend to be introduced, but until it is actually introduced, it can be changed.



Even after it's been introduced it can be changed via adding important additional details that were initially left off entirely or the magnitude of certain effects not nearly emphasized enough.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, I don't get the arguments that there's a functional difference between declaring you're looking for food, succeeding at a check, and finding food and saying you're looking for an ally, making the check, and finding the ally.  Both are supported in the fiction -- the food is in a forest not otherwise hostile to the presence of food, and the ally is in an area established to be likely to contain such old allies and that is not hostile to their presence.  Literally the only difference in play here is presumption of who has what say.  Even then, it works no matter the presumption -- if GM Bob thinks there's food in the forest to find, then GM Bob can think there's allies in the area to find.  It's an entirely specious argument that relies on an assumption that food in the forest is an easier ask than finding an ally.




The only distinction I can see being made is that, in the case of a chance encounter or an instance of providence, as seen in genre fiction, the character may not actually be looking for the ally. It would seem that the player is hoping for aid. 

But with the attempt to forage, both the character and the player are seeking the same thing.

Why this distinction may matter, especially to the topic of player agency, is entirely unclear other than that someone may not prefer that kind of dissociated mechanic. And preference is fine insofar as what one likes in a game....but in this case, it seems a restraint on player agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> The only distinction I can see being made is that, in the case of a chance encounter or an instance of providence, as seen in genre fiction, the character may not actually be looking for the ally. It would seem that the player is hoping for aid.



That was my first interpretation as well.  But then I was assured that in fact the character was looking for the ally in the fiction and that it wasn't just a player hoping for aid.  If that assessment is wrong (and it may very well be as I am trying to take ya'll at face value when you say something works a certain way without very much scrutiny) then it would fall back to what you describe here.

I don't believe my objection you are looking at would apply to the scenario above.  Though possibly a different one could.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I think you mean story level there?  At the game level the only food that exists are the snacks your friend brought




No, I meant game level. The fictional food is introduced to the fiction of the game because a player said his character looked for it and then rolled well enough.



FrogReaver said:


> But that isn't what's happening.  I'm in a forest with no otherwise special qualities.  The presence of food is included in the presence of the forest.  The introduction of the forest is enough to also establish in the shared fiction the existence of food in it.




Who’s in a forest? 

The introduction of the forest does not introduce the food. It introduces the possibility of food. 



FrogReaver said:


> Maybe.  I'm not fully willing to commit to that notion.  I think it may just depend on what perspective you are looking at it from.




No, I think we can say that until an element is actually introduced to the fiction, it doesn’t yet exist in the fiction. It can be altered or changed or discarded freely, and there would be no change. 

Essentially, fiction simply does not work the way the real world does. It may be something a GM tries to emulate, but that doesn’t change the way fiction works.



FrogReaver said:


> Even after it's been introduced it can be changed via adding important additional details that were initially left off entirely or the magnitude of certain effects not nearly emphasized enough.




Yes. So?


----------



## Campbell

Here's why the concept of a shared fiction that is separate from a GM's conception of the setting is important to me : the stuff that has been established in the shared fiction has been accepted as true. It has teeth. It is binding.

Even if a GM treats what is in their prep as true it is not true for the whole group until it is revealed as true because it is not binding. The GM can simply change it on a whim. They might choose not to. It's true in the same way.


----------



## Campbell

More detailed analysis will follow soon, but I wanted to address something. When I talk about subjective aesthetic preferences or judgements in connection to game design I am not waffling. Playing a game is a subjective aesthetic experience. Our aesthetic preferences here are everything. There are these valuable sacred things. It's not mere preference. It's everything.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> No, I meant game level. The fictional food is introduced to the fiction of the game because a player said his character looked for it and then rolled well enough.



Isn't the game real and played in the real world?  Isn't the fictional food being introduced to the fiction and not the game?

Or is this just a bad case of "game" referring to far to many different things?



hawkeyefan said:


> Who’s in a forest?



Is that an OWL joke 

The fictional PC's.



hawkeyefan said:


> The introduction of the forest does not introduce the food. It introduces the possibility of food.



HUH?  The forest has food in it whether the characters find it or not.  The survival (forage) check doesn't determine whether there is food around, it determines whether the character finds said food.  (I realize this is different in some games)



hawkeyefan said:


> No, I think we can say that until an element is actually introduced to the fiction, it doesn’t yet exist in the fiction. It can be altered or changed or discarded freely, and there would be no change.



Repeating yourself doesn't make your argument better.



hawkeyefan said:


> Essentially, fiction simply does not work the way the real world does. It may be something a GM tries to emulate, but that doesn’t change the way fiction works.



Depends on your perspective.  A fictional earth that's exactly the same as ours very much functions exactly as the real world does from the fictional perspective.



hawkeyefan said:


> Yes. So?



You said until it's introduced it can be changed, implying that it cannot be changed after it's introduced.  I was showing that it could be.  Not particularly relevant other than to say you were incorrect on that one.  A bit pedantic on my part perhaps.  Then again including that part initially was probably a bit pedantic on your part as well.


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> Even if a GM treats what is in their prep as true it is not true for the whole group until it is revealed as true because it is not binding. The GM can simply change it on a whim. They might choose not to. It's true in the same way.



A minor quibble: I think what's in the GM's prep is as binding and true as the GM thinks it is. One GM might feel more constrained by stuff that hasn't appeared at the table than another.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Here's why the concept of a shared fiction that is separate from a GM's conception of the setting is important to me : the stuff that has been established in the shared fiction has been accepted as true. It has teeth. It is binding.



I mean changing a forest to a desolate and empty forest where you can smell death and decay is altering the shared fiction as they conjure 2 different fictional images.  This kind of stuff is not uncommon in D&D campaigns where a DM accidently left out some important detail until the moment it's importance rears it's head.  

Maybe that isn't altering established fiction to you because it's technically still a forest - but to me a forest and a desolate and empty forest where I can smell death and decay aren't the same things.

Otherwise I get where you are coming from.



Campbell said:


> Even if a GM treats what is in their prep as true it is not true for the whole group until it is revealed as true because it is not binding.



If binding means it's in a state it will not be changed then I'd say that very much depends on the DM.  



Campbell said:


> The GM can simply change it on a whim. They might choose not to. It's true in the same way.



IMO.  Could and would are two different things.  If they can but would never do so I'd say it's established and has teeth and won't be changed.

That said, I know very few DM's or DM advice given that would say never change something that the players are not yet aware of.  So I think you have a valid concern and point, but not all the way to the universal qualifier level.


----------



## Fenris-77

So I see we've moved on to Schrodinger's Food. Excellent. Let me just pop some popcorn and the stick the cat in a box...


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> My time at the Forge and Story Games got me to embrace games as games. While I do think Ron and others had some interesting things to say about Right To Dream the project was about other ways to play. I can see it not being useful to running those games, but I think at least understanding the ways other people play should be useful at least for discussion purposes.



I GMed Rolemaster for nearly 20 years. I first read The Right to Dream essay in 2004, and I finished GMing my 2nd long-running RM campaign at the end of 2008.

Edwards' essay had a huge influence on how I understood and approached my RM GMing. My 1st long-running campaign (1990-97) came to an unsatisfactory end with the PCs having level in the mid-20s, in part because I wasn't able to handle the interacting demands of setting, situation and rules-mandated PC abilities. As a group we made some rules changes for our second big campaign (1998-2008) but I think that reading Edwards and thinking seriously about the way the system worked at the table was also a big part of how I was able to bring that second campaign to a fruitful conclusion. (I even used an endgame narration approach that I learned from reading Paul Czege's Nicotine Girls.)

In my view anyone who wants to do serious purist-for-system RPGing needs to read that essay.


----------



## Campbell

When I talk about something being binding or having teeth in the context of RPG play I am speaking to the social environment rather than personal constraints people place upon themselves. I mean it in the sense of  _(of an agreement or promise) involving an obligation that cannot be broken. *"business agreements are intended to be legally binding"*_

Something that has been established as true in the *shared* fiction has been accepted as true by the group and we are socially bound to treat it as true. It becomes something we can all depend on.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Here's why the concept of a shared fiction that is separate from a GM's conception of the setting is important to me : the stuff that has been established in the shared fiction has been accepted as true. It has teeth. It is binding.
> 
> Even if a GM treats what is in their prep as true it is not true for the whole group until it is revealed as true because it is not binding. The GM can simply change it on a whim. They might choose not to. It's true in the same way.



Would you accept, as an exception to your second paragraph, the notes, maps and keys prepared by a GM for running a "skilled play" dungeon crawl?


----------



## pemerton

I've caught up on this thread and have written a series of replies in this long post.



Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, I don't get the arguments that there's a functional difference between declaring you're looking for food, succeeding at a check, and finding food and saying you're looking for an ally, making the check, and finding the ally.  Both are supported in the fiction -- the food is in a forest not otherwise hostile to the presence of food, and the ally is in an area established to be likely to contain such old allies and that is not hostile to their presence.  Literally the only difference in play here is presumption of who has what say.  Even then, it works no matter the presumption -- if GM Bob thinks there's food in the forest to find, then GM Bob can think there's allies in the area to find.  It's an entirely specious argument that relies on an assumption that food in the forest is an easier ask than finding an ally.



Right. I think I've made this exact post multiple times now! So has @hawkeyefan.



FrogReaver said:


> Characters fictional actions either cause something to happen in the fiction or they don't.
> 
> There are 3 cases.
> 1.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character could say "my action caused this" and have it be true within the fiction.
> 2.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character would say "my action did not cause this" and have it be true within the fiction.
> 3.  Characters action did not cause something to happen in the fiction in any way.
> 
> There is a clear difference between 1 and 2 and it's not simply about preference.



It's about _topic_ or _subject-matter_. Which I have posted many times now.

Your (1) is a story about a person doing something. Your (3) is a story about a person being aware of something they didn't cause. I don't understand what your (2) is supposed to be because you assert both (i) that the character causes something to happen _and_ (ii) that the character can truly deny that the character caused that thing to happen. It seems contradictory or incoherent, except perhaps in a very 4th-wall breaking scenario like some approaches to Over the Edge.



FrogReaver said:


> Character actions that cause something to happen in the fiction but that the character could say in the fiction "my action did not cause this" hamper role playing



There are no such actions. At least not in any RPG I've ever played. (Again, I flag Over the Edge as - appropriately - a possible edge case here, but I've never played it.)

***********************************



FrogReaver said:


> WIth the person you've authored him as coming to you.  With the foraging/food you are authoring you are going to it...



What if my Foraging action is to set snares, which rabbits then come to? I've never seen a D&D rulebook (or any other RPG rulebook) that suggests that _setting snares _should be resolved differently from _foraging for berries_.

(I'm reading through the thread as I'm writing this omnibus post. And so I see that @Hriston has made the same point as I just made now.)



FrogReaver said:


> *The food existed before my check.*  It's just a matter of if I was able to locate it.



Evard's tower existed before Aramina remembered it. If it hadn't, she couldn't have learned about it and hence remembered it!

Rufus was on his way to collect wine before Thurgon and Aramina encountered him. That was how they were able to meet him when and where they did!

Also, the *bolded* sentence in your post is confused. Because _the existence of the food_ is an imaginary state of affairs. It is an element of the shared fiction. Whereas _the check_ is not part of the shared fiction. It's a real thing that happens in the real world. So is the introduction into the shared fiction of the element _food exists and has been foraged by the PC_. And that element was not introduced into the shared fiction until _after _the check is made. Introducing that element into the shared fiction is part of the process of resolving the declared action.

This point can be driven home by considering the possible options the GM has in narrating a _failed_ check to find food. S/he could say "It seems to be a good place to find rabbits, but there just aren't any about today." Or s/he could say "You snare a rabbit, but as you try to take it out it slips out of your hands and runs injured into the bushes." Or if s/he wants to do some foreshadowing, s/he could say "When you return to your snare, you see that something has already eaten the rabbit you caught. Judging by the frenzied tearing of the rabbit skin, whatever took your rabbit seems big and fierce."

Each of these establishes something about what happened in the past relative to the temporal location of the PC at the moment s/he has the narrated experience. But, obviously enough, in the real world none of them will be narrated at a time earlier than when it is narrated!



prabe said:


> If a specific NPC has been in one place, there needs to be reason/explanation for them to be in a different one, now. That's a matter of taste and preference, though; I don't think I'm saying you're wrong, exactly--just limning a difference.



On Monday I was in the eastern suburbs. Once or twice in the intervening days I've been in the city. Today I was at the supermarket. I spent Christmas Day at my mother-in-law's place. Etc.

In the first few chapters of LotR we learn about Gandalf having been in The Shire and in Gondor (reading the Scroll of Isildur). Later we learn that around the same time as is covered in those chapters he was at Isengard, at Bree, at Weathertop, and some other places too.

I believe that I am the only person so far in this thread to give actual play examples of either BW's Circles being used, or of a MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic specialty being used to generate a contact.

In the latter case, the PCs were in the steading of a Giant Chieftain and the NPC with whom a rapport was established was a Giant Shaman who took a similar view of the portents as did the PCs.

In the former case, Thurgon and Aramina met Friedrich (twice) as he poled his raft along the river; and met Rufus as he was driving his wagon near the outskirts of his estate, going to collect wine.

So I don't really understand what you are responding to in @Aebir-Toril's post. The fiction has no _causality_ and no _temporal integrity_ independent of what is narrated. Gandalf was not plucked from _somewhere else_ by JRRT to be at the Shire for Bilbo's party. He is exactly where JRRT has written him to be.

My rolling of a Circles check which then establishes that, in the fiction, Thurgon and Aramina encounter Friedrich so he can help them travel downriver does not pluck Friedrich from his "real" location. He has no "real" location. He's a component of a story. It has been established that, some days ago, he was poling his raft upstream. Now it is established that, some days after that, he is poling back downstream. Why? I don't think I know - as best I recall Thurgon didn't ask and so the GM didn't tell, although now that my mind turns to it maybe there was some discussion of him having followed the path of a band of Orcs. But in any event, as far as the behaviour of river rafters goes, it doesn't seem all that idiosyncratic.

***************************



FrogReaver said:


> Food, game animals, etc all exist as part of the fictional world whether they are enumerated or not.  They are part of the meidieval fantasy setting.  If one goes looking for food then one goes to where the food/game are (the forest in this case), they then spend time searching for them, or actively go set up a hunting blind in an opportune location.  Either way the person's skill impacts whether they can find and bring home food/game and whether they can do it in a timely manner.
> 
> I'll go out on a limb and say that a fictional friend also already exists in the setting even if he's not been enumerated.  The difference is that having him show up at your location for a chance encounter doesn't involve you really doing anything.  I mean there's not anything in the fiction you are actually doing that's causing that to happen.  There is with foraging.
> 
> Now if it's not a chance encounter.  Say you were sending letters or other communications and that caused your friend to come help you... well that's another matter entirely.  As I said, I'm focused on the chance encounter aspect of "look for friends" - and the objection isn't about randomness there, it's about the lack of a coherent fictional action.  I mean, if the mechanic dropped the pretense of being an in fiction action I wouldn't be making this objection to it.  But it is and I've been assured that "looking for your friend" is a fictional action a character can take, even in the context of a chance friend encounter (despite no one having a clue what such an action actually looks like).





FrogReaver said:


> When a character forages in say 5e, it's typically being done in a large expanse of wilderness.  Because 5e as written doesn't have rolls occur unless there is uncertainty, then the only way a player rolls is if the DM determines there's a chance he could forage something to eat which would imply that some source of food is in his vicinity.  If there's no source of food in his vicinity (or no source he would be capable of discovering) then he doesn't even get a roll.  So by the time there is a roll in 5e it's already defacto established that food is in the vicinity.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the DM could say, well actually this forest is desolate and barren.  Are you sure you would try to forage in such a place?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But yes, part of medieval fantasy is that a typical forest will have food you can forage.  So yes, it's perfectly acceptable for players to imagine that in the absence of any further description about the forest.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Evard's tower is a very specific fantasy element.  A river having a bridge is pretty hit and miss.  So quite different things.



You objected to my characterisation of your position as "that generica like rabbits are no big deal and can be narrated or presupposed freely by all participants (perhaps subject to some overarching GM veto power), whereas _towers_ and _bridges_ and _brothers_ which are a big deal are the exclusive province of the GM" and yet that's almost exactly what you say in the above two quotes.

And on the matter of actions performed by characters:

_Remembering stories of Evard's tower_ is a definite action. It's not that easy to describe - the best account I know of memory remains William James's Principles of Psychology. But as someone who has had amnesia, I can tell you that you'll know if you can't do it!

_Looking out for one's friend in the hope of coming across them_ is also a real state of affairs. Frodo is in that state, vis-a-vis Gandalf, for many of the chapters in the first Book of LotR. At various times in my life I have walked through school yards and university grounds and office buildings and city streets in that state.



FrogReaver said:


> I was assured that in fact the character was looking for the ally in the fiction and that it wasn't just a player hoping for aid.



Characters can also hope. They have inner lives. The mental states they form - recollections, hopes, looking out for things - are as much part of their fields of action as swinging swords.

It's true that typical D&D play pays almost no attention to these elements of the character, but that's just an idiosyncratic feature of such play.

************************************



FrogReaver said:


> Another thought:
> Making a pie and making a casserole are mechanically the same process.
> 1.  Gather ingredients
> 2.  Follow recipe
> 3.  Enjoy pie/casserole
> 
> "So how can you say you like pies but not casseroles - it's the same mechanical process!"
> 
> Because the mechanical process being the same, especially at the high level, doesn't mean everything about the processes are the same, and especially not the end results.



I'm not puzzled as to what you do and don't like. Your preferences don't seem particularly unique.

But if someone said the reason they like pie but not casserole is because one is produced via cooking but the other is not, I would be curious. (Cf if someone explained that's why they like mangoes and not casserole.)



FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That is not a feature of all RPGing or all RPGs. For instance, a check made to establish _what it is that a PC recollects_ has the same real-world causal structure as a check made to establish _whether a PC defeats an Orc in combat_. But the causal processes in the fiction are different in each case. Hence there is no mapping of the sort I described in the previous paragraph. Hence games which feature both sorts of checks are not simulationist in Edwards' sense.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Would have saved us alot of time if you would have led with this
Click to expand...


I am very confident that if I had led with an explanation that referenced Ron Edwards you would have rejected it. Especially given that you "liked" this post:



Bedrockgames said:


> I have never found GNS useful




******************************



FrogReaver said:


> But the point of contention I keep talking about is how the real world processes and the fictional processes and elements exist in relation to one another.
> 
> When I say the problem and differences include the fictional part and you say "but that's not what I want to talk about" - that's not helpful.
> 
> In fact, I even question the wisdom of trying to focus solely on a high level zoomed out view of only the mechanical processes in relation to the real world.  Issues being:
> 1.  You are too zoomed out.  Even dissimilar mechanical processes can sound the same when you zoom out enough.
> 2.  *The relationship of such processes to the fictional world also matters.*  You aren't viewing the process from all perspectives.  You are only focused on the real world perspective and not the fictional one.
> 3.  Even very similar mechanical processes with different ingredients can yield to very different products,  (ex: producing Coke vs producing Sprite) - no matter how similar the mechanical processes involved are the end result is different



So far as far as I can tell the only person who has successfully articulated the bolded relationship, in this thread, is me. Not doing my own original work, mind you, but drawing on an 18-year old and very well known essay by Ron Edwards.

I'll restate the relationship: it is _a mapping of the causal process of resolution onto the authorship of the imagined causal processes of the fiction_. Of the RPGs I know, the one that comes closest to instantiating this relationship is RuneQuest. As I've said, D&D doesn't because combat resolution doesn't conform to it. Neither does foraging, in D&D or probably in most RQ games - the causal process of resolving a foraging check will very often establish shared fiction about the state of the forest etc which does not correspond to the imagined causal process of the character looking for berries and setting snares for rabbits.

The more that the fiction is authored in advance, the more moments of resolution can attain this state. This is why games like RQ, Rolemaster and the like have all sorts of shorthand notation for marking up areas of wilderness in the GM's key, to then feed into foraging checks to minimise the amount of fortune-in-the-middle resolution required. (The only version of D&D I know that tries to approximate this is the Wilderness Survival Guide for late 1st ed AD&D.)

When we come to the topic of _participant agency_, whoever gets to do that pre-authoring is clearly exercising a great deal of it. There is nothing about the mapping relationship that _requires _it to be the GM who does that pre-authoring, but in practice that seems to be the norm. It is certainly what you are advocating for.

********************

*TL,DR:*


FrogReaver said:


> I'm in a forest with no otherwise special qualities.  The presence of food is included in the presence of the forest.  The introduction of the forest is enough to also establish in the shared fiction the existence of food in it.



Thurgon is travelling through the land of Greyhawk, on the border of Ulek and the Pomarj, along the old border forts and ruined homesteads. The introduction of those things is enough to establish the presence of wizard's towers, and of former knights of the Order of the Iron Tower now living as itinerants or hermits.

I wouldn't be interested in playing a FRPG where the participants took a different view. That would seem like a very boring game.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> Would you accept, as an exception to your second paragraph, the notes, maps and keys prepared by a GM for running a "skilled play" dungeon crawl?



As a fan of that style I would say that the GM is constrained by their notes, but it is not part of the shared fiction until established in play.

A big part of skilled play is finding a way to safely bring what is in the GM's prep into the shared fiction.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> So I don't really understand what you are responding to in @Aebir-Toril's post. The fiction has no _causality_ and no _temporal integrity_ independent of what is narrated. Gandalf was not plucked from _somewhere else_ by JRRT to be at the Shire for Bilbo's party. He is exactly where JRRT has written him to be.



I think I was getting at the idea that if an NPC is established in the fiction as being at one specific place (as in, a city) then if that NPC is going to show up at a different specific place (as in, another city, more than a hundred miles away) there needs to be thought as to why and how that NPC got there. I mean, around the table it's because of action-resolution mechanics, but things need to make some amount of narrative sense, as well.

As I said to @Aebir-Toril I think if I'm navigating in a fiction, I'm going to have a preference for it having a degree of self-consistency; I'm going to want effects to (at least usually) have a discernible cause, and I'm going to want actions to have reasonably predictable effects; I'm going to want to be able to use the past to understand the present, and the present to (kinda) predict the future. This might mean I want the fiction to have internal causalities, and more temporal integrity than you seem to think necessary.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> As a fan of that style I would say that the GM is constrained by their notes, but it is not part of the shared fiction until established in play.
> 
> A big part of skilled play is finding a way to safely bring what is in the GM's prep into the shared fiction.



So there is some sort of "intermediate" state between _part of the shared fiction _and _able to change on a whim_.

I'm not personally a big fan of that style, in the sense that I suck at it both as player and GM, but I believe I'm reasonably familiar with it. I would say that the GM's notes enter that state _after play starts_.

There are (as always) interesting corner cases. In practice, the GM probably prepares the first level first and fleshes out later levels later. How free is the GM in doing this latter task? Eg is it fair game, _after _a detection spell has been used, to introduce a lower level room that would have been within the scope of the spell? Is it enough to note that the room is lead-lined and so wouldn't have been covered by the spell even though within range?

I imagine the OSR community has useful discussions about this. In the old materials I think it's surprisingly hard to find good, clear-headed discussion of what is fair for the GM and what is not. Gygax's own discussion of it is so heavily grounded in the idiosyncrasies of his own game that it can be hard to generalise his advice.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Isn't the game real and played in the real world?  Isn't the fictional food being introduced to the fiction and not the game?
> 
> Or is this just a bad case of "game" referring to far to many different things?




No, it’s a case of you misunderstanding.

The game is what the players are playing, right? And that game consists of establishing a shared fiction, right? This is done through players declaring actions for their characters in the game, and through the GM establishing scenes and building on what the players put forth.

So when someone makes a post that says the reason that something happens at the game level it means they are talking about functions of the game. Rolling dice to decide an outcome would be one of those things.

At the story level....meaning the reason something happens according to the characters in the fiction, the reason is entirely different.

The reasons for these things do not need to....and very often won’t...match.


FrogReaver said:


> Is that an OWL joke
> 
> The fictional PC's.




You said “I’m in a forest” so I wasn’t sure if you meant your PC, or something else. We’re talkkng about the game and the fiction as two different things, related, yes, but distinct. It helps if you post as if you get that and don’t talk about yourself as if you are a PC in a forest.



FrogReaver said:


> HUH?  The forest has food in it whether the characters find it or not.  The survival (forage) check doesn't determine whether there is food around, it determines whether the character finds said food.  (I realize this is different in some games)




If the check fails, it determines that they don’t find food, yes. Whether that’s because of lack of skill or lack of the presence of food is undetermined.



FrogReaver said:


> Repeating yourself doesn't make your argument better.




I’m not looking to improve my stance. I’m repeating it because you expressed doubt about what is clearly true.



FrogReaver said:


> Depends on your perspective.  A fictional earth that's exactly the same as ours very much functions exactly as the real world does from the fictional perspective.




A fictional Earth doesn’t function.



FrogReaver said:


> You said until it's introduced it can be changed, implying that it cannot be changed after it's introduced.  I was showing that it could be.  Not particularly relevant other than to say you were incorrect on that one.  A bit pedantic on my part perhaps.  Then again including that part initially was probably a bit pedantic on your part as well.




No, I didn’t imply that. You inferred it.

My point about how it can be changed or discarded prior to being introduced was to explain why something that has yet to be established doesn't yet exist in the fiction of the game. It is not yet binding, as @Campbell is saying. 

That fact matters to what I was saying. The fact that an element of the fiction, once introduced, can be changed does not matter to what I was saying.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> As I said to @Aebir-Toril I think if I'm navigating in a fiction, I'm going to have a preference for it having a degree of self-consistency; I'm going to want effects to (at least usually) have a discernible cause, and I'm going to want actions to have reasonably predictable effects; I'm going to want to be able to use the past to understand the present, and the present to (kinda) predict the future. This might mean I want the fiction to have internal causalities, and more temporal integrity than you seem to think necessary.



I believe that outside of deliberately surreal approaches to RPGing - eg Toon, perhaps Paranoia, some approaches to Over the Edge, maybe some approaches to Cthulhu Dreamlands - these preferences seem pretty ubiquitous.

I think you are misunderstanding what @Aebir-Toril means by "internal causality" and "temporal integrity". In the world, as a general rule and putting to one side the sorts of events that mostly happen in particle accelerators, an event cannot precede its cause. If a thing is in one place, it cannot also be in another. And where I or anybody/anything else is _today_ is an effect of causes that took place _yesterday_.

Fiction is not the same. JRRT can - and did - write a story about a Hobbit from the Shire before he had decided on the history of the Shire. It's true that, _in the story,_ the shire has a history. But until JRRT actually wrote it, that history did not exist as a piece of fiction. No one in the real world knew what it was. Presumably Bilbo and his friends knew at least some of it, but given that their imaginary knowledge had never actually been imagined or written down by anyone, it did not exist as a piece of fiction any more than did the history that I am supposing they had knowledge of.

A similar point: presumably Sherlock Holmes is wearing socks when he solves the mystery of the Hound of the Baskervilles. But does anyone _in the real world_ know what colour those socks were? I believe that Conan Doyle never wrote that down (if I'm wrong, then let's instead make it the exact number of stitches in the waistband of his trousers). It is not an established piece of fiction, _and yet _the absence of any discussion of Holmes' blisters or sore feet certainly allows us to infer that he was wearing some sort of hosiery.

It is in _this sense_ that a work of fiction does not exhibit causality or temporal integrity in the way that the real world does. We can create new elements, and elide others, without having to be concerned that we haven't written down all the prior, in-fiction causes and necessary conditions of the events that we narrate. If it were otherwise, then no one could tell a story without starting at _the very beginning_. Yet almost no stories so begin.



prabe said:


> I think I was getting at the idea that if an NPC is established in the fiction as being at one specific place (as in, a city) then if that NPC is going to show up at a different specific place (as in, another city, more than a hundred miles away) there needs to be thought as to why and how that NPC got there. I mean, around the table it's because of action-resolution mechanics, but things need to make some amount of narrative sense, as well.



This just seems to be a restatement, for this special case, of the general principle that prior established fiction constrains new fiction.

I understand that this principle is important to you. But again, I don't think you are very unusual or unique in that regard.

From your repeated insistence on this principle which seems to me quite uncontroversial, plus some of your remarks about your GMing of Fate, I infer that you have found yourself in a RPGing situation where either you felt yourself obliged to flout this principle, or other participants were flouting this principle. If I'm correct, that sounds like it would have been an unsatisfactory experience. In fact it sounds a bit dysfunctional.

But that's not a problem I've ever had. Nor can I ever recall having been concerned that there was a risk of such a problem. Upthread some posters have said that they don't see mechanics as a solution to GM trust issues. I would say, here, that I don't see constraining player agency (by eg having no Circles or contacts mechanics) as a very satisfactory solution to a more fundamental problem of some participants not caring about the integrity of the shared fiction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> HUH?  The forest has food in it whether the characters find it or not.  The survival (forage) check doesn't determine whether there is food around, it determines whether the character finds said food.  (I realize this is different in some games)



I'll try this one last time with this snipped quote:  the ally Thurgon found exists whether Thurgon found him or not.  The existence was established by dint of the character's build choices, and the location of play.  The play was in an area where there were likely to be allies for Thurgon to find, just like a forest is a likely place to find food.  The rest is largely the same -- the character was successful in finding food/allies.  Mechanically, the question of "do you find food/allies" is the same -- both are established as likely in the area, and within the possibility of the character finding them.  The check determines if the character finds the food/ally or not.  It's really that simple.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I think you are misunderstanding what @Aebir-Toril means by "internal causality" and "temporal integrity". In the world, as a general rule and putting to one side the sorts of events that mostly happen in particle accelerators, an event cannot precede its cause. If a thing is in one place, it cannot also be in another. And where I or anybody/anything else is _today_ is an effect of causes that took place _yesterday_.
> 
> Fiction is not the same. JRRT can - and did - write a story about a Hobbit from the Shire before he had decided on the history of the Shire. It's true that, _in the story,_ the shire has a history. But until JRRT actually wrote it, that history did not exist as a piece of fiction. No one in the real world knew what it was. Presumably Bilbo and his friends knew at least some of it, but given that their imaginary knowledge had never actually been imagined or written down by anyone, it did not exist as a piece of fiction any more than did the history that I am supposing they had knowledge of.



I think (and I think I've said) that comparing TRPG play to authored fiction--which I mean to include media like TV and film, as well as novels and short stories--is ... unhelpful. The players around the table are simultaneously creating the fiction and experiencing it. Writing fiction, at least for me, is not an experience particularly like reading it. Playing a TRPG is ... kinda both and neither, IME, with a strong whiff of gestalt from all the minds around the table, almost like playing in a band.

Regarding the Shire, I suspect it has a history because Tolkien wrote a story about a Hobbit from it, looking at it from outside that story. So, the causality in the real world might be kinda backward to whatever fictional causality might exist. As in, in the fiction, the hobbits are thus because the Shire is like so; in the real world, the Shire is written to be like so because it would make the hobbits thus. I'm worried I'm being unclear here.


pemerton said:


> A similar point: presumably Sherlock Holmes is wearing socks when he solves the mystery of the Hound of the Baskervilles. But does anyone _in the real world_ know what colour those socks were? I believe that Conan Doyle never wrote that down (if I'm wrong, then let's instead make it the exact number of stitches in the waistband of his trousers). It is not an established piece of fiction, _and yet _the absence of any discussion of Holmes' blisters or sore feet certainly allows us to infer that he was wearing some sort of hosiery.



Sure. It's like almost no one narrates restroom trips in fiction. There are things that are presumed to happen or exist that aren't considered to be worth talking about (or might be considered unmentionable).


pemerton said:


> It is in _this sense_ that a work of fiction does not exhibit causality or temporal integrity in the way that the real world does. We can create new elements, and elide others, without having to be concerned that we haven't written down all the prior, in-fiction causes and necessary conditions of the events that we narrate. If it were otherwise, then no one could tell a story without starting at _the very beginning_. Yet almost no stories so begin.



Yes. Beginnings, like endings, are in many ways arbitrary. You can never go back so far that you can't go back further. This is part of why techniques like flashbacks and in medias res exist in fiction, though they're not really congruent to how we experience the real world.


pemerton said:


> This just seems to be a restatement, for this special case, of the general principle that prior established fiction constrains new fiction.
> 
> I understand that this principle is important to you. But again, I don't think you are very unusual or unique in that regard.



Yeah. I might be unusual in how important it is to me, but I agree I'm probably not unique or an outlier.


pemerton said:


> From your repeated insistence on this principle which seems to me quite uncontroversial, plus some of your remarks about your GMing of Fate, I infer that you have found yourself in a RPGing situation where either you felt yourself obliged to flout this principle, or other participants were flouting this principle. If I'm correct, that sounds like it would have been an unsatisfactory experience. In fact it sounds a bit dysfunctional.



I think many of us with strong preferences about TRPG play--and especially GMing--have had our preferences shaped by some sort of bad experience/s.


pemerton said:


> But that's not a problem I've ever had. Nor can I ever recall having been concerned that there was a risk of such a problem. Upthread some posters have said that they don't see mechanics as a solution to GM trust issues. I would say, here, that I don't see constraining player agency (by eg having no Circles or contacts mechanics) as a very satisfactory solution to a more fundamental problem of some participants not caring about the integrity of the shared fiction.



I agree that game mechanics aren't going to help if the participants don't care about the integrity of the shared fiction, and/or the mutual enjoyment of everyone around the table. I think there's perhaps a reciprocal that if all the participants care about integrity of the shared fiction and mutual enjoyment, then they might be able to make any old set of mechanics work.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> This may look superficially like The Forge's Pawn, Actor, and Director Stance makeup.  But, unlike that essay, I'm not attributing a cognitive relationship.  Its literally a question of "when looking down at the Game Board, which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"  There is fundamentally no need for a cognitive shift (eg from Actor to Director) when "Reading a Sitch" in AW above vs what happens in 5e.  You can inhabit both Actor and Director simultaneously, one or the other, or neither (Pawn).  Some players may claim that they are incapable of habitation/immersion with one or the other (and others may claim amplification of habitation/immersion)...but that is entirely beside the point to "which Game Piece do you pick up to do this thing?"



On this, I think we agree.

A lot of discussion of _stance_ approaches it as if stance were a psychological (or, as you say, cognitive) state. But clearly its not: it's possible to engage in director-stance play (eg by making a Wises check or Circles check in BW) without entering any psychological state different from any other time when one says what one's PC is doing.

Stance is, rather, a type of "logical" relationship or "authorial" relationship between player and shared fiction. It's not possible to simultaneously be in Actor and Author stance, simply because as defined they are contraries, but it's quite possible to be in Actor and Director stance (as you say) and probably also Author and Director stance.

You might remember my example of the paladin who was turned into a toad and then turned back, by the Raven Queen, as my example of simultaneous Actor and Director stance from the epic "dissociated mechanics" thread.



Manbearcat said:


> *THINK OF CHARACTER, SITUATION, AND SETTING AS GAME PIECES*
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So I have this Character.  They're _here, now_, in this space along with other objects (Setting).  Now there is a problem where I want something (through my Character) but the relationship of objects (including my Character) in this space conspires to deny me it (my ability to make this what play is about is Protagonist Agency...my ability to advocate for that desire will manifest in Tactical or Strategic Agency).  This is Situation.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Lets contrast "Read a Sitch (or Discern Realities in DW)" in AW from a Passive Perception check in 5e.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My initial orientation here is through the Character Game Piece.  I'm _here _and _now _in _relation to all of these objects in this space_ and I'm _in a situation_.
> 
> I roll dice.
> 
> Any result of 7+ and my Game Piece is now either/or/both Situation or Setting (because of the structure of the move, the agenda of play, and the ethos that binds/informs GMing).  Through this I'm expressing one or more of Protagonism, Tactical, Strategic agency by generating/directing/focusing content (and/or ensuring other content doesn't manifest).



I've cut out the discussion of AW failure, and also of 5e - I'm not sure where exactly you want that latter example to go.

If I succeed at _reading a charged situation_, then - as a player - I am able to oblige the GM to narrate some new fiction. As you say, that will enrich/develop the setting, the situation, or perhaps both. (I'm not sure if that can be the case for any single question, but I might get 3 of them!)

I certainly think that is a type of participant - in this case, _player_ - agency. As I've already posted, I see it as being a certain cleverly-structured form of _making suggestions to the GM which the GM is not free to disregard._ My use of the concept "making/taking suggestions" comes from this post by Ron Edwards:


 I'll expand those authorities I talked about into a list, with a key addition and with the order changed for greater clarity:

*Content authority *- over what we're calling back-story, e.g. whether Sam is a KGB mole, or which NPC is boinking whom

*Plot authority *- over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters

*Situational authority* - over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player

*Narrational authority* - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize . . .

 I'm suggesting that you look at it from the _total_ opposite viewpoint - that these four things are separate, they will always be separate . . .

Do they have causal relationships among one another? Of course. The easiest version is top-down reductionist: because content is consulted, a plot authority decision is made, and then a situational authority decision/presentation must be made, and finally narrational authority must be exercised. I assume that for you, this is the most easy and familiar construction, and you're used to conducting them (or at least constructing them, idealistically speaking) as a single causal sequence in this order, with one person in charge - it's a "thing," perhaps _the_ thing you call GMing.

As a side note, other causal relationships exist, putting the authorities into a different order (to preserve the top-to-bottom causation, for clarity). For example, you can reverse them entirely, and remarkably it is very easy, although it's harder to _catch_ oneself doing it because memory typically rewrites the act into the more familiar sequence I described above. We'll have to work on this idea later, because, for instance, Kickers and Bangs in Sorcerer rearrange the sequence far more drastically, putting situational authority at the top/starting position. Please don't get distracted by this paragraph. It's intended to be a distant signpost to future discussion.

*The real point, not the side-point, is that any one of these authorities can be shared across the individuals playing without violating the other authorities.* . . .

Well, let's look at this [ie another poster's bad RPG experience] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well.

It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the SIS [ie shared imaginary space, or shared fiction] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.​
It seems to me that, if the GM is _obliged _to take suggestions, then even though the GM has formal authority over (say) situation, the players clearly have a great deal of agency. Edwards also gets at this in an earlier post in the same thread:

GM: "All right, you guys see the lamps of Apple Town up ahead. You've arrived."

Player: "I spend a Story Token. My uncle lives here! We go to his cottage."

In games with such mechanics (or, in fact, games without such mechanics but in which such suggestions are welcome _as _suggestions), the GM pretty much has to be ready for some footwork, once in a while. If his prep, for instance, includes the assumption that no one in this town knows any of the PCs, well, he might have to think a bit.

But on the other hand, and presuming that the group is fully aware of these mechanics or these suggestions, it's really not as prep-destroying as you might think. The GM might have been wondering how the hell to get these guys into the conflicts of the town, and the uncle will be a much better entry into an informational scene than the random encounter with a talkative pickpocket the GM had been planning. Or maybe he can make the big villain of the scenario into the uncle! Perfectly fine and more fun to GM, frankly.​
The shift from _suggestions being welcome_ to _being obliged to have regard to suggestions_ is real, but in many ways I think a matter of degree.

Now to return to your post - whether I would agree that being able to make suggestions in this way counts as _manipulating the situation and/or setting as a game piece_ I'm not sure. What payoff am I getting from going along with you here?


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> Regarding the Shire, I suspect it has a history because Tolkien wrote a story about a Hobbit from it, looking at it from outside that story. So, the causality in the real world might be kinda backward to whatever fictional causality might exist. As in, in the fiction, the hobbits are thus because the Shire is like so; in the real world, the Shire is written to be like so because it would make the hobbits thus. I'm worried I'm being unclear here.



Not very unclear, I don't think. I also think you're more-or-less restating @Aebir-Toril's point about the lack of causality/temporal integrity in fiction vis-a-vis the real world.

I was going to finish with that, but will add something.

Taken in itself, Aebir-Toril's point is pretty self-evident, even trite. The reason it is nevertheless worth stating is because, among RPGers, there is a tendency to treat the fiction as if _it itself _exercises causal power, or as if the narration of it is constrained by an inner causal or temporal logic (which would be a _much much _tighter constraint than internal consistency).

You can see that happening in this thread, eg when @FrogReaver confuses _the player performing a check that establishes (inter alia) that a tower was built in the imagined past_ with _the character performs an action of recollecting said tower and thereby causes (in the fiction) the tower to exist._ And for the avoidance of doubt, here is the post I have in mind:



FrogReaver said:


> Characters fictional actions either cause something to happen in the fiction or they don't.
> 
> There are 3 cases.
> 1.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character could say "my action caused this" and have it be true within the fiction.
> 2.  Characters action is the cause of something that happens in the fiction such that the character would say "my action did not cause this" and have it be true within the fiction.
> 3.  Characters action did not cause something to happen in the fiction in any way.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Character actions that cause something to happen in the fiction but that the character could say in the fiction "my action did not cause this" hamper role playing (because characters do things for a reason and this takes away the reason they would ever perform that action).



FrogReaver's second case does not exist, and it can only be presented as if it did because of treating _an action in the real world whereby a player causing a fiction to be authored/established_ and _an action performed by an imaginary character that produces an imagined causal change in the character's imagined world _as if they are the same, or at least in causal interaction with one another.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> You can see that happening in this thread, eg when @FrogReaver confuses _the player performing a check that establishes (inter alia) that a tower was built in the imagined past_ with _the character performs an action of recollecting said tower and thereby causes (in the fiction) the tower to exist._ And for the avoidance of doubt, here is the post I have in mind:



Here you go again making stuff up about my positions.    



pemerton said:


> FrogReaver's second case does not exist, and it can only be presented as if it did because of treating _an action in the real world whereby a player causing a fiction to be authored/established_ and _an action performed by an imaginary character that produces an imagined causal change in the character's imagined world _as if they are the same, or at least in causal interaction with one another.



The second case is literally what we have been talking about the last 5 pages...

The one where your characters "look for friends" action has no causal relationship inside the fiction with the chance encounter the out of fiction mechanic caused to happen.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I am very confident that if I had led with an explanation that referenced Ron Edwards you would have rejected it. Especially given that you "liked" this post:



I imply you had a good paragraph that I mostly agreed with and your response is that you believe I would just reject it.  WOW!  With this I don't see a point in continuing.  You've placed me in a box and assigned to me positions, beliefs, and even actions that don't apply to such a degree that even when I tell you something I actually think or believe that you no longer believe me.  No productive discussion is going to come of that.  And heck, the icing on the cake is that you think I'd reject something out of hand because Ron Edwards (or anyone) said it... just wow!


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Here you go again making stuff up about my positions.
> 
> 
> The second case is literally what we have been talking about the last 5 pages...
> 
> The one where your characters "look for friends" action has no causal relationship inside the fiction with the chance encounter the out of fiction mechanic caused to happen.



_Nothing that takes place in the fiction_ can have a causal relationship to anything in the real world.

And vice versa.

There is no _character action that is the cause of something in the fiction which the character could truly say "I did not cause". _(This is your category 2.)

In the fiction, the character hopes and looks out for his former comrade. And meets him.

At the table, the player - me - declares an action for his PC (namely, _I hope and look out for a former comrade to help us_). I make the Circles check. It succeeds. In the fiction, Thurgon and Aramina meet Friedrich.

It's pretty straightforward: an event in the real world (action declaration) leads via social processes to another event in the real world (a check) which leads via cognitive processes (reading the dice, looking up the rules etc) to everyone at the table agreeing that _in the fiction, Thurgon and Aramina meet Friedich_.

The causal processes involved are no different from when Thurgon fought some Orcs: an event in the real world (action declaration) leads via social processes to another event in the real world (a check) which leads via cognitive processes (reading the dice, looking up the rules etc) to everyone at the table agreeing that _in the fiction, Thurgon fought off an Orc_.

You prefer an additional constraint: that there be a fairly type mapping between the resolution processes in the real world and the imagined causal processes in the fiction. This is not a causal constraint (as per my previous two paragraphs, in each case the causation is the same). It is a topic/subject-matter constraint about what sort of fiction you are willing to have determined via a process where a player declares an action and then makes a check.

I'm pretty confident that no one in this thread is confused about your preference. I think most participants in this thread have read Edwards' essay that I linked to upthread, and he describes your preferences perfectly clearly. (I quoted the relevant passages a few pages upthread.)

The reason that you are getting the pushback you are is because you want to insist that your aesthetic preference tracks or correlates to a causal process; and to insist that RPGing that doesn't conform to your aesthetic preference is a hindrance on roleplay. Neither of those claims is true.



FrogReaver said:


> I imply you had a good paragraph that I mostly agreed with and your response is that you believe I would just reject it.  WOW!  With this I don't see a point in continuing.  You've placed me in a box and assigned to me positions, beliefs, and even actions that don't apply to such a degree that even when I tell you something I actually think or believe that you no longer believe me.  No productive discussion is going to come of that.  And heck, the icing on the cake is that you think I'd reject something out of hand because Ron Edwards (or anyone) said it... just wow!



No one is forcing you to post in this thread. But have you noticed that _no one _in this thread has posted that your preferences are a burden on RPGing. Whereas, as I mentioned already in this post, a few pages upthread you posted this:



FrogReaver said:


> Character actions that cause something to happen in the fiction but that the character could say in the fiction "my action did not cause this" hamper role playing (because characters do things for a reason and this takes away the reason they would ever perform that action).  Then the final A->B:  if roleplay is being hampered then my agency to roleplay is being hampered (which should be fairly obvious IMO).



Now as I've posted there are no _character actions thqt cause soemthing to happen in the fiction but that the character cold say in the fiction "my action did not cause this". _But you _intend_ this description to cover Wises checks and Circles checks as I have described them from my BW play. Which is to say, you intend to tell me that RPGing _is hampering my roleplaying_. In part, because _my characters have no reasons for the actions they perform_.

Not only is that a false description of my actual play - Thurgon had a reason to hope to meet and look out for an ally, namely, _because he wanted help to cross the river and find Evard's tower_; and Aramina had a reason to remember that Evard's tower was in the vicinity, namely, that she wanted to loot it of spellbooks - but it is a direct attack upon my RPGing.

I've posted multiple times how this play of Thurgon and Aramina follows exactly the same resolution process as fighting an Orc - declare action, frame check, resolve check and establish resultant fiction. But because the fictional subject matter is not one that you would prefer to establish in that way - you would prefer that all such things be established in advance by the GM rather than as outcomes of an action resolution process - you are insisting that it hampers RPGing and coming up with bad arguments as to why.


----------



## Lanefan

Aebir-Toril said:


> I suppose it rests on how much you actually cling to a notion of integrity in your gaming.



Without integrity, what's the point?


Aebir-Toril said:


> A check to find someone in a crowd, which, on a success, retroactively makes that person exist there, might not seem very realistic, but it's as plausible within the fiction as finding food from nowhere.
> 
> Let's say that the check retroactively makes you do something, in the past, like writing letters to said friend.
> 
> It's a very non-linear method of check resolution, but it's equally as valid in certain games as foraging.



Truth be told, I'm largely on board with the idea of a random roll of some sort that results in your PC happening to bump into an old friend, largely because stuff like that happens in real life on a sururpsingly common (if unpredictable) basis.  In itself, this doesn't threaten integrity.

I fall off the bandwagon, though, at the point where the randomness extends into making you do something in the past, particularly if that something is otherwise out of character.  By this I mean if you've already set your PC up as a consistent letter-writer then the thought of having exchanged letters now and then in the past with this particular old friend you've bumped into is quite plausible.  But if you haven't, then plausibility (and thus integrity) comes under threat.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But _looking for for food_ doesn't make there be rabbits around. Sometimes someone who is expert at looking for food nevertheless fails to find it simply because the rabbits are all somewhere else.
> 
> In this respect _rabbits_ are no different from _Evard's tower_...



Why does this bring to mind a surreal image of a tower growing little legs and fleeing over the hill in order to avoid the hunter seeking it?


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> In the game state, the food is created when the check succeeds.
> In the story state, the food can be presumed to have existed prior to being found.



This raises an interesting point: which comes first and-or takes precedence, the game state or the story state?

Put another way, does the game state always determine the resulting story state, or does the story state always determine the resulting game state, or is it a bit of both?

In this particular example, I'd say the story state (i.e. there's food to be found here) determines the game state (successful finding of food).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The game is what the players are playing, right? And that game consists of establishing a shared fiction, right? This is done through players declaring actions for their characters in the game, and through the GM establishing scenes and building on what the players put forth.



This isn't how many of us conceive of play. Shared fiction isn't a term I've ever been able to embrace. It just seems loaded and feels like it is part of the problem in a discussion like this one (moving things towards a specific way of thinking about setting and play). And scenes are not how everyone things of play either. I never think of what is going on as a 'scene'. I have done so for certain play groups or when playing certain games (like Essoterrorists for example). But generally speaking, scenes are not how I think of a play (and you can see the difference in how people who use that language in this thread approach play, versus those who don't).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> _Nothing that takes place in the fiction_ can have a causal relationship to anything in the real world.



Bob's character kills Joe's character in the fiction.  This causes Joe to throw a d6 at Bob in the real world.

Next session: Mary's character pays for Joe's character's raise from death.  This causes Joe to buy Mary a beer later that week in the Real World*.

Fiction ==> real world causality seems pretty cut and dried from here. 

* - if that's not already a name for a gamers-themed pub somewhere it bloody well should be!


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> The introduction of the forest does not introduce the food. It introduces the possibility of food.



Much like how finding a painting in a haunted house may not mean that the painting is supernatural, but it introduces the possibility.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Much like how finding a painting in a haunted house may not mean that the painting is supernatural, but it introduces the possibility.




The possibility existed before it was found. There is a reality that exists in the game outside what the players are hearing from the GM. And once found, that painting is either supernatural or it isn't. It doesn't become supernatural the moment its nature was revealed to the party (unless the GM is ad libbing everything). The idea that everything is fuzzy and in flux until the players see it or encounter it, to me runs very counter to how a typical sandbox and living world GM would think of things in the setting. Much of the point is to create a sense of a real concrete world outside the player characters. And a key way of doing that is trying to be consistent with these kinds of details. Now the parts can move around (an NPC doesn't have to be in the same room waiting for the party to get there: this is actually one of the main examples used in "Living Adventure" discussions: the NPCs are alive and move around with their own goals, like PCs). But the point is the GM is meant to take things like NPC motives and goals, very seriously when deciding what that NPC is doing, and where it is (not simply decide arbitrarily that the NPC is in location Z because that is convenient for some other goal----like having a plot or something)


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Bob's character kills Joe's character in the fiction.  This causes Joe to throw a d6 at Bob in the real world.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Fiction ==> real world causality seems pretty cut and dried from here.



The fiction doesn't cause Joe to throw a die at Bob. Bob's action in the real world - ie his act of _changing the shared fiction so that Joe's character is dead_ - is what makes Bob angry.

Imaginary things don't exercise real causal power. To a significant extent that's what makes them imaginary!


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> There is a reality that exists in the game outside what the players are hearing from the GM.



Where does this reality exist?

The City of Greyhawk has a wall about it. That wall is made, at least in part, of stones. How many stones are in this wall? Where do I look to learn this "fact" about this particular "reality"? I don't believe that Gyagx or anyone else has ever told us what they think the answer is.


----------



## Fenris-77

Outside of what is established in play there is no 'reality' in the game. It simply doesn't exist. Essentially the whole shebang is stuffed inside Schrodinger's box, waiting to be observed. There's more likely and less likely, sure, especially in a bought setting like Greyhawk, but none of it exists somehow outside of what has happened at the table, not in any kind of determined state.


----------



## Bedrockgames

> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> Outside of what is established in play there is no 'reality' in the game. It simply doesn't exist. Essentially the whole shebang is stuffed inside Schrodinger's box, waiting to be observed. There's more likely and less likely, sure, especially in a bought setting like Greyhawk, but none of it exists somehow outside of what has happened at the table, not in any kind of determined state.
Click to expand...


no one is saying it is real. Even the things that happen in play have no true reality. what is being said is that it has the same level of reality as what is established in play if the GM has already made a firm choice (whether or not that has yet been shared it is known to exist in the setting).

EDIT: The above quote is @Fenris-77, not Lanefan. For whatever reason the formatting is not allowing me to adjust it


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> The City of Greyhawk has a wall about it. That wall is made, at least in part, of stones. How many stones are in this wall? Where do I look to learn this "fact" about this particular "reality"? I don't believe that Gyagx or anyone else has ever told us what they think the answer is.



Dear lord


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Where does this reality exist?



In the mind of the GM, in the notes of the GM, and in the logic that the GM uses to extrapolate details and determine accidental qualities of the things in the setting. If I decide Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut Street on Monday, and the players ask me who lives at 23 chestnut street on Thursday, his existence there wasn't fluid prior to them asking.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> There are all sorts of ways that something can be established in the shared fiction. One of those ways is by the GM referencing prepared material, thinking offscreen, and making judgement calls based on what they think is likely to be true. The world does not suddenly really become in motion because of that. The GM is still animating it.  I have played and run plenty of games like this. It's good stuff,




I don't think we disagree a whole lot. But what I will say is I think there are different procedures and methods for determining this stuff, and some are more grounded in setting down objective details than others. But the aim of the GM is to fold all those things into the living world, and to treat them as live forces. For example a random encounter doesn't exist until you roll it, that is for certain. But when I roll a random encounter I do try to give it a sound reason for being there. And if that encounter result is an existing NPC, then I look to that NPCs motivations, etc. But this is different from a sect that I've established in my notes as existing in Flower Bridge Village, at Red Lotus Manor. That exists in my mind and in my notes before the players go there or ask about it. I may get some clarity about the sect once the players arrive for sure. I don't want to paint an overly rigid image of what is going on just to fend off some of the more extreme edge cases being used in this discussion. And that is important, the interaction with the players cause me to think more clearly about the place. But those details aside, Red Lotus Sect existed, in the way things can exist in a game world (not actual real world existence) well before it was set in play. Sometimes I have a technique I employ where I write things down so they are set right before the players go there. For example if the players go into town looking for a fish monger, I make a quick mental map of whether that is reasonable (is there a water source with plentiful fish), then I decide if the there is a fish monger, who he is, some key details like his wife is cheating on him with the proprietor of the Fragrant Word Teahouse, etc. I do that because I want that stuff set in order to create the impression of a real world and to force myself to have fidelity to that world. It is true these details are being made up, but whether they are being made up two weeks before or two seconds before, it is coming into being in the setting prior to the players experiencing it directly. Now that won't happen in every case. you can't forsee everything, and you can't rigidly run a game just to adhere to a concept. But I do find these kinds of techniques and this approach generally quite useful because it does all help contribute to the sense of a world the players are exlporing, rather than one being created by their actions.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> no one is saying it is real. Even the things that happen in play have no true reality. what is being said is that it has the same level of reality as what is established in play if the GM has already made a firm choice (whether or not that has yet been shared it is known to exist in the setting).



Sure, GM decisions behind the screen can firm things up,  but only for him, and only partially. That is not, IMO, the same level of reality at all. It could be of course, and sometimes it even is, but not always, and I'd say even mostly not. I think there's a sticky can of worms looming about 'firm decisions' but that doesn't really change my point. One of the reasons I brought this up is that its one good way to examine agency. Stuff done both before hand and behind the screen is being produced de novo and not in response to play. That's not a bad thing or a good thing, just a thing.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Do you guys understand that you're arguing over which parts of the imaginary reality are real?


----------



## Fenris-77

Crimson Longinus said:


> Do you guys understand that you're arguing over which parts of the imaginary reality are real?



Hah. Not really. Call it as really real as the parts of the fiction that is established at the table during play. So yeah, I guess, for a given value of real. You could use the word established if you preferred.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think we disagree a whole lot. But what I will say is I think there are different procedures and methods for determining this stuff, and some are more grounded in setting down objective details than others. But the aim of the GM is to fold all those things into the living world, and to treat them as live forces. For example a random encounter doesn't exist until you roll it, that is for certain. But when I roll a random encounter I do try to give it a sound reason for being there. And if that encounter result is an existing NPC, then I look to that NPCs motivations, etc. But this is different from a sect that I've established in my notes as existing in Flower Bridge Village, at Red Lotus Manor. That exists in my mind and in my notes before the players go there or ask about it. I may get some clarity about the sect once the players arrive for sure. I don't want to paint an overly rigid image of what is going on just to fend off some of the more extreme edge cases being used in this discussion. And that is important, the interaction with the players cause me to think more clearly about the place. But those details aside, Red Lotus Sect existed, in the way things can exist in a game world (not actual real world existence) well before it was set in play. Sometimes I have a technique I employ where I write things down so they are set right before the players go there. For example if the players go into town looking for a fish monger, I make a quick mental map of whether that is reasonable (is there a water source with plentiful fish), then I decide if the there is a fish monger, who he is, some key details like his wife is cheating on him with the proprietor of the Fragrant Word Teahouse, etc. I do that because I want that stuff set in order to create the impression of a real world and to force myself to have fidelity to that world. It is true these details are being made up, but whether they are being made up two weeks before or two seconds before, it is coming into being in the setting prior to the players experiencing it directly. Now that won't happen in every case. you can't forsee everything, and you can't rigidly run a game just to adhere to a concept. But I do find these kinds of techniques and this approach generally quite useful because it does all help contribute to the sense of a world the players are exlporing, rather than one being created by their actions.




I have used some similar techniques and will continue to do so when I run Stars Without Number, Godbound, and Wolves of God. I am just mindful of my part in it. That I am working to make these things feel real. There's no shame in that. When I act I try to embody a character as fully as possible, but am mindful that the acting process is one of creation.

I can see how adopting that mindset might be helpful while running or playing a game in your specific set of play priorities. It's not going to be very useful when it comes to comparative analysis because it locks discussion only to that specific set of play priorities. If that is the only way you will engage there's no hope of understanding Burning Wheel, Moldvay B/X, Dogs in the Vineyard, or innumerable other games. Even players who might approach the same games you play differently.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> On this, I think we agree.
> 
> A lot of discussion of _stance_ approaches it as if stance were a psychological (or, as you say, cognitive) state. But clearly its not: it's possible to engage in director-stance play (eg by making a Wises check or Circles check in BW) without entering any psychological state different from any other time when one says what one's PC is doing.
> 
> Stance is, rather, a type of "logical" relationship or "authorial" relationship between player and shared fiction. It's not possible to simultaneously be in Actor and Author stance, simply because as defined they are contraries, but it's quite possible to be in Actor and Director stance (as you say) and probably also Author and Director stance.
> 
> You might remember my example of the paladin who was turned into a toad and then turned back, by the Raven Queen, as my example of simultaneous Actor and Director stance from the epic "dissociated mechanics" thread.
> 
> 
> I've cut out the discussion of AW failure, and also of 5e - I'm not sure where exactly you want that latter example to go.
> 
> If I succeed at _reading a charged situation_, then - as a player - I am able to oblige the GM to narrate some new fiction. As you say, that will enrich/develop the setting, the situation, or perhaps both. (I'm not sure if that can be the case for any single question, but I might get 3 of them!)
> 
> I certainly think that is a type of participant - in this case, _player_ - agency. As I've already posted, I see it as being a certain cleverly-structured form of _making suggestions to the GM which the GM is not free to disregard._ My use of the concept "making/taking suggestions" comes from this post by Ron Edwards:
> 
> ​I'll expand those authorities I talked about into a list, with a key addition and with the order changed for greater clarity:​​*Content authority *- over what we're calling back-story, e.g. whether Sam is a KGB mole, or which NPC is boinking whom​​*Plot authority *- over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters​​*Situational authority* - over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player​​*Narrational authority* - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize . . .​​I'm suggesting that you look at it from the _total_ opposite viewpoint - that these four things are separate, they will always be separate . . .​​Do they have causal relationships among one another? Of course. The easiest version is top-down reductionist: because content is consulted, a plot authority decision is made, and then a situational authority decision/presentation must be made, and finally narrational authority must be exercised. I assume that for you, this is the most easy and familiar construction, and you're used to conducting them (or at least constructing them, idealistically speaking) as a single causal sequence in this order, with one person in charge - it's a "thing," perhaps _the_ thing you call GMing.​​As a side note, other causal relationships exist, putting the authorities into a different order (to preserve the top-to-bottom causation, for clarity). For example, you can reverse them entirely, and remarkably it is very easy, although it's harder to _catch_ oneself doing it because memory typically rewrites the act into the more familiar sequence I described above. We'll have to work on this idea later, because, for instance, Kickers and Bangs in Sorcerer rearrange the sequence far more drastically, putting situational authority at the top/starting position. Please don't get distracted by this paragraph. It's intended to be a distant signpost to future discussion.​​*The real point, not the side-point, is that any one of these authorities can be shared across the individuals playing without violating the other authorities.* . . .​​Well, let's look at this [ie another poster's bad RPG experience] again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well.​​It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the SIS [ie shared imaginary space, or shared fiction] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.​​
> It seems to me that, if the GM is _obliged _to take suggestions, then even though the GM has formal authority over (say) situation, the players clearly have a great deal of agency. Edwards also gets at this in an earlier post in the same thread:
> 
> GM: "All right, you guys see the lamps of Apple Town up ahead. You've arrived."​​Player: "I spend a Story Token. My uncle lives here! We go to his cottage."​​In games with such mechanics (or, in fact, games without such mechanics but in which such suggestions are welcome _as _suggestions), the GM pretty much has to be ready for some footwork, once in a while. If his prep, for instance, includes the assumption that no one in this town knows any of the PCs, well, he might have to think a bit.​​But on the other hand, and presuming that the group is fully aware of these mechanics or these suggestions, it's really not as prep-destroying as you might think. The GM might have been wondering how the hell to get these guys into the conflicts of the town, and the uncle will be a much better entry into an informational scene than the random encounter with a talkative pickpocket the GM had been planning. Or maybe he can make the big villain of the scenario into the uncle! Perfectly fine and more fun to GM, frankly.​​
> The shift from _suggestions being welcome_ to _being obliged to have regard to suggestions_ is real, but in many ways I think a matter of degree.
> 
> Now to return to your post - whether I would agree that being able to make suggestions in this way counts as _manipulating the situation and/or setting as a game piece_ I'm not sure. *What payoff am I getting from going along with you here?*




Unfortunately, I'm a bit pressed for time so I'm not able to answer all of the questions/counters that you and @Ovinomancer have.  I don't want to short-shrift them though so I'm going to put together a meaty post tonight or tomorrow or the next day when I have more time to read in full, digest, and formulate my thoughts (because I'm working my own way through them in real time).

To answer your last question (that I've bolded) and then propose a quick example though.  Hopefully:

* A means for people to understand (a) how *Protagonist Agency* is made manifest (at the system level and at the play level), (b) how it can manifest DESPITE having *considerably less* actual Tactical or Strategic Agency that a player might enjoy in another game while not enjoying much, if any, Protagonist Agency (contrast My Life With Master with many forms of D&D 5e), and (b) why some games/play produces it and why some other games/play doesn't produce it.

I feel like a lot of the problem of these conversations is that Protagonist Agency just gets folded into other two and then ASSUMED that if you have x amount of Tactical or Strategic agency, then its inevitable that you have x amount of Protagonist Agency.  This is fundamentally *not true* and I'm hoping that a matrix serves to make this clear.

* I want to clarify (for others but also myself) when, at the actual game machinery/interface level, Character and Setting are just *conceptually *discrete things...but *not actually* discrete things.  When is it not possible to "pick up the Character Piece" without simultaneously "picking up the Setting Piece".

It appears that in these conversations we've had over the years that some believe that its possible for "on the Venn Diagram of the Vector/Piece/Medium" that (at the actual GAME LEVEL) a player can nearly always just exclusively pick up the Character Piece and make a move without picking up Situation or Setting pieces.

I'm confident that isn't true so I'm trying to build a matrix to (a) show when this is true and when this is not true and (b) therefore show that exclusively picking up the Character Piece is artifice, self-deception, illusion in the course of any given segment of play.  I'm presently thinking this is likely only possible to maintain this persistently in very specific low level, highly structured Dungeon Crawls (eg Moldvay Basic) when you're playing a Fighter or a Dwarf...but I'm not certain.

* I want to discretize Tactical and Strategic Agency and how this system/design actuates this in play.  Yes, there will invariably be interdependence, but there are enough degrees of freedom at the design level that games like 4e D&D, Mouse Guard, and Dogs in the Vineyard (both predominantly Tactical games) are (a) meaningfully different than games that feature both (either in equilibrium like Blades in the Dark, elegant crawl games like Torchbearer, or wildly out of equilibrium at any given time like 1e/2e/3.x D&D) and (b) how this manifests at the design level of Classes/Playbooks (eg why is the Classic D&D Spellcaster so much more powerful than the D&D Fighter).

* I think this matrix (or something similar) will have explanatory power of how to design games (Torchbearer and Blades in the Dark) which have all 3 of Protagonist, Tactical, and Strategic Agency and none of these things ever become at tension during play.  When the design around these 3 things is not robust (but it aims and/or alleges to be) and the play becomes unwieldy, it gives rise to Force manifesting in play as a participant (typically a GM) arrests 1 or 2 of those so that the third can be prioritized and survive that "contact with the enemy."  This paradigm shows that there is an actual apex priority in play and that, when push comes to shove (because system hasn't been able to maintain equilibrium and its offloaded on the GM to juggle this), it will win out (because the GM expresses their authority to make it so...typically with sleight of hand/illusion to keep up the pretense that all 3 of these things are actually still in equilibrium...when they're absolutely not).

This, in my opinion, is a HUGE issue with D&D and it hasn't been forensically broken out as to how/why this happens.  The Forge tried to tackle this with its "incoherency" model, but that didn't do enough work (or at least the right kind) with most people but it *absolutely is a real thing* and understanding it would be very good.



Alright, a move in play to take apart.  I think the Dungeon World Spout Lore move shares a lot in common with a Blades in the Dark Flashbacks, so I want to discuss that move.

*Dungeon World - Spout Lore*

Vonn's Player Action Declaration - "We've been on the run from this Orc Horde for two days straight.  We have to get out of this valley!  I don't know about you guys but my Fighter Vonn is exhausted.  I've got 2 Debilities (one of them Strength!), I'm at half HPs, I've got 1 Ration Left and 0 Adventuring Gear left!  And my Scale Armor is damaged so I'm at 1 Armor instead of 2!

Vonn turns to the Elven Arcane Duelist.  

Triellia, your people lived in these mountains before the Orc Horde crashed over them like a tidal wave breaking a shore. You must have heard of a a secret way out!

Triella's Player Action Declaration - "When we fought and lost to these orcs there must have been an Alamo with a secret tunnel or a portal or a chimney to climb to the top of the mountains so the noncombatants could escape.  Elves always have contingencies!

Rolls Spout Lore with +1 due to Warfare.  

Now if this player gets a 7-9, they're going to get something *interesting...its on them to make it useful. * If they get a 10+, its going to be something *both interesting and useful.*  Given the games ethos, structure, and the principles that bind and inform the GM's response, a 7+ response is likely going to come from either (a) the GM using this exact prior conversation/speculation by the players (use the answers) as an input or (b) they'll ask further questions (and use the answers).  So the player is going to pick up the Setting Game Piece here.  If they get a 10+, it will bind the GM to give them something useful as well as interesting, which, combined with ask questions and use the answers, will have the player picking up the Situation Game Piece here.

Interestingly, on a 6-, the constellation of ethos, structure, and principles that inform the GM's response will ALSO have had the player "pick up the Situation Game Piece by proxy (at least...its possible that new Setting may be generated and established as well here)" because their situation will change adversely with the context of prior play!  

Obviously they will have picked up their Character Game Piece in order to make the move.  So some formulation of Character + Situation or Character + Setting or Character + Situation + Setting will 100 % emerge as a play byproduct (even on a failure!).

Flashbacks are similar.

Thoughts?


----------



## Campbell

As someone who does value a sense of things feeling tangible within the game one of the hardest lessons for me personally to come to grasp with as a GM is that I have limited cognitive threshold. I can only contain so many things in my head at the same time. Given that I lack infinite cognitive capacity and cannot hold an entire city in my head and notes much less a world I need to decide which elements to focus on mentally and in my prep. Many GMs make the decision to focus on physical space and moving through it while not focusing much on characters as like people. I take the opposite approach. I tend to elide space in the interests of focusing my mental attention on the characters closest to the players' characters (emotionally close that is).

My NPC constellation approach to prep for character focused games is born from that - acknowledging my own limitations. I think when it comes to game design and technique discussions that we are able to acknowledge our cognitive limits. We cannot find the best way to utilize that cognitive threshold until we really know that we have limits.

Speaking as someone who has acting experience even trying to contemplate a single person's lived experience that is different from my own is mind boggling. Like there is so much of my own lived experience that I do not remember or have suppressed. Doing that for millions of souls is absolutely impossible. So I have learned to pare down and focus my efforts on creating basic profiles I can use to frame scenes with the players and really focus on what an NPC wants right now.


----------



## FrogReaver

On shared fiction and establishing details I think the very word shared precludes anything that's not been shared with the players from being established in the shared fiction.   But let's really take a look at what shared fiction is and how it comes into being.

1.  I would say in a game each player has their own fiction that they are imagining.  There's a process to establish what major and important details are the same amongst them.  That's the shared fiction.  The minor and trivial details work differently.  I will discuss them later.  I think the key take away is that the players each have their own individual fictions even when they are basing them on the shared details that we call the shared fiction.

2.  The question then arises, what are the various processes to establish something in the shared fiction?
The one process I want to focus on is the one where the DM maintains a separate fictional space that's separate from the shared fiction and reveals details from that fictional space as the PC's encounter them.  The PC's actions form a feedback loop into that separate fictional space that affect change there which then gets revealed to they players as the encounter those elements and so on.

In this particular area, the fiction does exist as fiction apart from the players.  It preexists their shared fiction.  So while it's not yet established as shared fiction, it's still the fiction that their shared fiction is based upon.

3.  The question arises, since the above is just about the important details, what happens with all the minor/trivial details.  There's various ways of handling them but I want to focus on one and the implications of it.  In a game where the players don't have full knowledge of all the fiction that exists they cannot add a minor or trivial detail to the fiction on their own as they can't ever be certain that such a detail is actually trivial or minor.

Note: I think they may very well add trivial and minor details in their individual own fictions but pushing these details into the realm of the shared fiction can cause problems in a game using this style of shared fiction generation.

Also Note: this isn't the only process for generating shared fiction and so the conclusions for what works for this shared fiction generating method don't necessarily apply to others.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This isn't how many of us conceive of play. Shared fiction isn't a term I've ever been able to embrace. It just seems loaded and feels like it is part of the problem in a discussion like this one (moving things towards a specific way of thinking about setting and play). And scenes are not how everyone things of play either. I never think of what is going on as a 'scene'. I have done so for certain play groups or when playing certain games (like Essoterrorists for example). But generally speaking, scenes are not how I think of a play (and you can see the difference in how people who use that language in this thread approach play, versus those who don't).




I’d rather not argue the terms used. If the game doesn’t produce a shared fiction for you, then I’m confused, but go ahead and pick a term that works for you. 

And if your game doesn’t involve the GM saying things like “You find yourselves in a tavern....” or “The rain has left the road to Shang Lo a muddy mess, and by the time you arrive, you’re soaked and tired and filthy....” then again, I’d be confused. This is all I mean by “scene”. Again, insert your own term and then let’s talk. 



Bedrockgames said:


> The possibility existed before it was found. There is a reality that exists in the game outside what the players are hearing from the GM. And once found, that painting is either supernatural or it isn't. It doesn't become supernatural the moment its nature was revealed to the party (unless the GM is ad libbing everything).




But that’s exactly what happened in play. The painting didn’t exist until the GM described it. Then it didn’t become important until the player decided to examine it further. 

And it’s not solely that the GM is ad libbing. It’s also that the player is initiating something. 

In other words, the fiction is not solely what is established by the GM and discovered by the players. 



Bedrockgames said:


> The idea that everything is fuzzy and in flux until the players see it or encounter it, to me runs very counter to how a typical sandbox and living world GM would think of things in the setting. Much of the point is to create a sense of a real concrete world outside the player characters. And a key way of doing that is trying to be consistent with these kinds of details. Now the parts can move around (an NPC doesn't have to be in the same room waiting for the party to get there: this is actually one of the main examples used in "Living Adventure" discussions: the NPCs are alive and move around with their own goals, like PCs). But the point is the GM is meant to take things like NPC motives and goals, very seriously when deciding what that NPC is doing, and where it is (not simply decide arbitrarily that the NPC is in location Z because that is convenient for some other goal----like having a plot or something)




These are fine as principles to guide your play. But they don’t apply to all styles. In your attempt to make sure that your approach is included, you’re trying to discard descriptions that fit all play in favor of one that fits only your own. 

There is no game fiction prior to being introduced to the game. Prior to that, it exists only as a possibility. 



Bedrockgames said:


> In the mind of the GM, in the notes of the GM, and in the logic that the GM uses to extrapolate details and determine accidental qualities of the things in the setting. If I decide Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut Street on Monday, and the players ask me who lives at 23 chestnut street on Thursday, his existence there wasn't fluid prior to them asking.




What if you change your mind on Wednesday and you decide that It’s not Rupert who lives there but Mortimer the Troll? Then you proceed to play on Thursday where this gets established through play. 

Is there some kind of paradox? Who lives at 23 Chestnut? What is true in the shared fiction or fictional world?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> On shared fiction and establishing details I think the very word shared precludes anything that's not been shared with the players from being established in the shared fiction.   But let's really take a look at what shared fiction is and how it comes into being.
> 
> 1.  I would say in a game each player has their own fiction that they are imagining.  There's a process to establish what major and important details are the same amongst them.  That's the shared fiction.  The minor and trivial details work differently.  I will discuss them later.  I think the key take away is that the players each have their own individual fictions even when they are basing them on the shared details that we call the shared fiction.
> 
> 2.  The question then arises, what are the various processes to establish something in the shared fiction?
> The one process I want to focus on is the one where the DM maintains a separate fictional space that's separate from the shared fiction and reveals details from that fictional space as the PC's encounter them.  The PC's actions form a feedback loop into that separate fictional space that affect change there which then gets revealed to the players as the encounter those elements and so on.
> 
> In this particular area, the fiction does exist as fiction apart from the players.  It preexists their shared fiction.  So while it's not yet established as shared fiction, it's still the fiction that their shared fiction is based upon.
> 
> 3.  The question arises, since the above is just about the important details, what happens with all the minor/trivial details.  There's various ways of handling them but I want to focus on one and the implications of it.  In a game where the players don't have full knowledge of all the fiction that exists they cannot add a minor or trivial detail to the fiction on their own as they can't ever be certain that such a detail is actually trivial or minor.
> 
> Note: I think they may very well add trivial and minor details in their individual own fictions but pushing these details into the realm of the shared fiction can cause problems in a game using this style of shared fiction generation.
> 
> Also Note: this isn't the only process for generating shared fiction and so the conclusions for what works for this shared fiction generating method don't necessarily apply to others.



Sure.  But, again, looking at this from the perspective of player agency, how can you make this argument and also say that the players do not have less agency in the game?  If the GM's fiction is the authoritative one, then the GM has that agency and the players do not.  If the players can contest that, somehow, then they gain some agency.  Even allowing for the argument that the players can exert some agency by convincing the GM, either though entertainment or compelling argument, is it not obvious that this is a lesser agency than if the players can exert changes to the shared fiction without having to convince the GM?

This has been the point in this argument the entire time.  As @Campbell, and I, and @Hawkeye have continually made the argument, this fact doesn't mean the game is lesser or not fun -- we all play in this regime for some of the games we dearly love.  It's just a feature of this approach to gaming, and is offset by non-agency consideration that make it a worthwhile trade-off.


----------



## Campbell

I expect the following might be slightly contentious. A fundamental part of the understanding of a shared fiction is that nothing is true until all the players at the table have accepted it as true. That even the GM is susceptible to a basic credibility test. In D&D the DM is given broad authority to establish what is true in the fiction, but this may be overridden at the table on the social level.

I have personally seen this at the table in our D&D game.

DM : This is true.
Player: What about X? How about Y?
DM: naughty word. Actually this is true.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> 2. The question then arises, what are the various processes to establish something in the shared fiction?
> The one process I want to focus on is the one where the DM maintains a separate fictional space that's separate from the shared fiction and reveals details from that fictional space as the PC's encounter them. The PC's actions form a feedback loop into that separate fictional space that affect change there which then gets revealed to they players as the encounter those elements and so on.
> 
> In this particular area, the fiction does exist as fiction apart from the players. It preexists their shared fiction. So while it's not yet established as shared fiction, it's still the fiction that their shared fiction is based upon.




What you’re describing here is a process where the GM decides and then the players discover these decisions through play.

This is what @pemerton describes as “playing to find out what the GM has in his notes”, which is usually a description that sees some hard pushback. The only distinction you’re making is that the GM is free to change his notes based on what the players do. 

But you are right it is indeed one way that the shared fiction can be established.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure.  But, again, looking at this from the perspective of player agency, how can you make this argument and also say that the players do not have less agency in the game?



Because the game isn't the sum total of establishing shared fiction about the setting and it's non-player inhabitants.



Ovinomancer said:


> If the GM's fiction is the authoritative one, then the GM has that agency and the players do not.



It's not that the simple.  As I said, there is a feedback loop where the PC's doing things alters the GM's separate fictional space.  The existence of that feedback loop does give players some agency via their PC's actions.



Ovinomancer said:


> If the players can contest that, somehow, then they gain some agency.  Even allowing for the argument that the players can exert some agency by convincing the GM, either though entertainment or compelling argument, is it not obvious that this is a lesser agency than if the players can exert changes to the shared fiction without having to convince the GM?



You are trying to look at a particular area and extrapolate that less agency in this area means less agency in the whole game.  It should be obvious that such a statement isn't necessarily true and needs proven.  It goes back to the whole focus on 0 sum games much earlier in this thread.

Heck, it also brings up the questions of how do we actually measure quantity of agency - which I'll note that no one saying game X has more agency has ever actually provided a method or agreed to mine.

It also brings up the question of whether measuring quantity of total agency is actually meaningful - or is it the particular kinds of agency and quantities of each kind that is meaningful.



Ovinomancer said:


> This has been the point in this argument the entire time.  As @Campbell, and I, and @Hawkeye have continually made the argument, this fact doesn't mean the game is lesser or not fun -- we all play in this regime for some of the games we dearly love.  It's just a feature of this approach to gaming, and is offset by non-agency consideration that make it a worthwhile trade-off.



You may be right.  I don't think either of us have conclusively proven our cases.  But I think it's alot more complicated than you are trying to make it out to be - especially given some of the basic questions being left unanswered and the roadblocks that have been erected toward even attempting to think about the problem in terms of types/vectors of agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I expect the following might be slightly contentious. A fundamental part of the understanding of a shared fiction is that nothing is true until all the players at the table have accepted it as true. That even the GM is susceptible to a basic credibility test. In D&D the DM is given broad authority to establish what is true in the fiction, but this may be overridden at the table on the social level.
> 
> I have personally seen this at the table in our D&D game.
> 
> DM : This is true.
> Player: What about X? How about Y?
> DM: naughty word. Actually this is true.



I suspect most have seen something similar at D&D games.

I don't think an exception disproves the rule.  If anything an exception here or there would help prove the rule.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> I suspect most have seen something similar at D&D games.
> 
> I don't think an exception disproves the rule.  If anything an exception here or there would help prove the rule.




So I think any framework for understanding RPG play needs to be capable of describing play not an in idealized state, but also when things go pear shaped or adjustments need to be made in the midst of play. Not saying the framework I use to understand this stuff is the best one, but I think for purposes of analysis talking about what does happen instead of what should happen will tend to be more fruitful.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure.  But, again, looking at this from the perspective of player agency, how can you make this argument and also say that the players do not have less agency in the game?  If the GM's fiction is the authoritative one, then the GM has that agency and the players do not.  If the players can contest that, somehow, then they gain some agency.  Even allowing for the argument that the players can exert some agency by convincing the GM, either though entertainment or compelling argument, is it not obvious that this is a lesser agency than if the players can exert changes to the shared fiction without having to convince the GM?
> 
> This has been the point in this argument the entire time.  As @Campbell, and I, and @Hawkeye have continually made the argument, this fact doesn't mean the game is lesser or not fun -- we all play in this regime for some of the games we dearly love.  It's just a feature of this approach to gaming, and is offset by non-agency consideration that make it a worthwhile trade-off.



The GM's preestablished fiction does not diminish the player agency in the same way than in Cluedo the preestablished correct clue combination doesn't diminish the player agency; in fact those things being set independently of the players is what enables a certain sort of agency.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> So I think any framework for understanding RPG play needs to be capable of describing play not an in idealized state, but also when things go pear shaped or adjustments need to be made in the midst of play. Not saying the framework I use to understand this stuff is the best one, but I think for purposes of analysis talking about what does happen instead of what should happen will tend to be more fruitful.



But I was talking about a specific technique of play to illustrate that there exists RPG play that your framework failed to handle...


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> The GM's preestablished fiction does not diminish the player agency in the same way than in Cluedo the preestablished correct clue combination doesn't diminish the player agency; in fact those things being set independently of the players is what enables a certain sort of agency.




In Cluedo, there is a predetermined outcome. Would you say the same for a RPG?


----------



## innerdude

Bedrockgames said:


> There is a reality that exists in the game outside what the players are hearing from the GM.




This here, this thing---this is the point that everyone in favor of player-centered agency is trying to explicate, which is that this basic notion is false. The game reality DOES NOT EXIST outside the gameworld at all. There is no "absolute reality" to the game world. It only exists as a shared mind-space.

The notional existence of that mind-space is wholly fluid. The only contention/contingencies in play is at what moment, under what circumstances, does one or more participants get to shape the reality of the imagined world. 




Bedrockgames said:


> And once found, that painting is either supernatural or it isn't. It doesn't become supernatural the moment its nature was revealed to the party (unless the GM is ad libbing everything). The idea that everything is fuzzy and in flux until the players see it or encounter it, to me runs very counter to how a typical sandbox and living world GM would think of things in the setting.




Clearly the thought of allowing things to be "fuzzy", up and until the moment something is introduced into the fiction, feels "wrong" to you. That somehow it will break/destroy the ability to continue enjoying principled play.

If it is of paramount importance to your gameplay that the illusory fictional reality remain the sole property of the GM-as-player, that's fine. Just understand that's highly unlikely, barring exceptional circumstance and radically superior GM skill, to lead to a playstyle where the players through their characters are going to be able to exercise broad protagonist-level agency.

I think too that you seem to conflate a "living sandbox" as being equivalent to protagonist-centered, high-agency game. I think you're misconstruing this, though I don't think you're doing it maliciously or acting out of bad faith. 

The reason things are intentionally left "fuzzy" in the gameworld in high-agency play is that _it's the only technique under which high-agency play can exist in the first place_.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

hawkeyefan said:


> In Cluedo, there is a predetermined outcome. Would you say the same for a RPG?



In Cluedo it is not predetermined who catches the killer or even that they will get caught at all (though usually they do.) But of course a RPG has infinitely more possibilities than a rigidly codified board game.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> In Cluedo it is not predetermined who catches the killer or even that they will get caught at all (though usually they do.) But of course a RPG has infinitely more possibilities than a rigidly codified board game.




But it is predetermined that the game will revolve around a murder, that the players will take on the role of the investigators in the game, and more importantly that who did it, with what weapon, and where has already been determined. And that the game ends when one player has correctly declared these three facts. 

The goal of a RPG is nowhere near as determined as this. I expect that would be one of the key features most folks would cite for a RPG. Every game can be very different.

So I don’t think that comparing player agency from game to game is going to offer much.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I have used some similar techniques and will continue to do so when I run Stars Without Number, Godbound, and Wolves of God. I am just mindful of my part in it. That I am working to make these things feel real. There's no shame in that. When I act I try to embody a character as fully as possible, but am mindful that the acting process is one of creation.
> 
> I can see how adopting that mindset might be helpful while running or playing a game in your specific set of play priorities. It's not going to be very useful when it comes to comparative analysis because it locks discussion only to that specific set of play priorities. If that is the only way you will engage there's no hope of understanding Burning Wheel, Moldvay B/X, Dogs in the Vineyard, or innumerable other games. Even players who might approach the same games you play differently.




You are not understanding what I am saying. I think I have been pretty clear that what I mean is GM created content can be just as real as content that has been presented to the group and become part of the game (and much of this hinges on WHEN the act of creation occurs, and what kind of thinking feeds into the creation. 

It isn't the only way I will engage or play. I have mentioned other types of games I am happy to engage (like Hillfolk, and I have said several times I've not only played Moldvay but took inspiration from it in design). Frankly though, Moldvay sits pretty comfortably with this style. I was an exploration heavy adventure using Moldvay not too long ago. My point is your side does not understand what we mean when we talk about this style.


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> This here, this thing---this is the point that everyone in favor of player-centered agency is trying to explicate, which is that this basic notion is false. The game reality DOES NOT EXIST outside the gameworld at all. There is no "absolute reality" to the game world. It only exists as a shared mind-space.




Again, no one is saying it is literally real. We are saying a dungeon map in the GMs notebook can be as real as content that has entered what you call "The shared mindspace". Due to the nature of the GMs role in the game, content that only exists in the GMs mind can be thought of as being as real as the material that the players have already encountered in the game.

edit: my point by the way isn’t that you can’t do it the way you are doing, with focus on the ‘shared mind space’. My point is what I am talking about is viable, works the way I am saying it does, and creates a world just as real as that shared mind space. These are two approaches both viable. The difference is: I am not poking holes in your approach and putting you on the defensive, which, believe me: is just as possible to do to your style and your mode of analysis as mine


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, no one is saying it is literally real. We are saying a dungeon map in the GMs notebook can be as real as content that has entered what you call "The shared mindspace". Due to the nature of the GMs role in the game, content that only exists in the GMs mind can be thought of as being as real as the material that the players have already encountered in the game.




So then what about when a GM changes the occupant of 23 Chestnut from Rupert the Elf to Mortimer the Troll? One thing is in the notes, but the GM changes their mind and it’s another thing that makes it into play. 

Are these equally “real” in the fiction?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So then what about when a GM changes the occupant of 23 Chestnut from Rupert the Elf to Mortimer the Troll? One thing is in the notes, but the GM changes their mind and it’s another thing that makes it into play.
> 
> Are these equally “real” in the fiction?




no, which is why under the style I am discussing, the GM wouldn’t make that change. And not making the change is crucial in this instance. It is like if the GM has a map and there is a keep to the north and haunted mansion to the south. If the GM sticks to the map he made, when the players go north, that choice matters because it takes place in a real setting with objective geography. If the GM has the haunted mansion whether they go north or south, then the GM is running a setting that is less real than the kind I am talking about


----------



## Bedrockgames

@innerdude i never used the word protagonist. That is other people’s language, not language I would use to describe anything I do


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> The reason things are intentionally left "fuzzy" in the gameworld in high-agency play is that _it's the only technique under which high-agency play can exist in the first place_.




according to you. You are asserting this, but half the posters here reject this assertion


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is what @pemerton describes as “playing to find out what the GM has in his notes”, which is usually a description that sees some hard pushback. The only distinction you’re making is that the GM is free to change his notes based on what the players do.




And positions like this, are why this clearly isn’t just an objective analysis on your side’s part: it is a playstyle debate framed as analysis (as it always is in these discussions). This kind description is dismissive of the style and fails to understand what it is really about


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> no, which is why under the style I am discussing, the GM wouldn’t make that change. And not making the change is crucial in this instance. It is like if the GM has a map and there is a keep to the north and haunted mansion to the south. If the GM sticks to the map he made, when the players go north, that choice matters because it takes place in a real setting with objective geography.* If the GM has the haunted mansion whether they go north or south*, then the GM is running a setting that is less real than the kind I am talking about



There's a lot of talk about sides in this thread, which is, to my mind, unfortunate. The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading. So we really have two issues here. First, the unfounded notion that there are two clear sides to this 'argument', which there are not, and also that there seems to be a tendency to _reductio ad absurdum_ in the characterization of competing or contrary viewpoints. Neither notion is helpful to the overall dialogue.

I'm not blaming you specifically Bedrock, yours is just the current example.


----------



## innerdude

One more thing I felt I should add ---

I was the original poster of the thread 7 or 8 years ago praising the Dissociative Mechanics essay. 

At the time it spoke to something I thought I was experiencing in relation to 4e. 

And to a degree, I think there is some merit to the basic concept. But I also discovered in analyzing my own play that it didn't account for what I was doing with Savage Worlds. Why was I so upset about healing surges and "Come and Get It", but was totally okay with using bennies and "soak rolls", when soak rolls are identical to healing surges,  only in reverse?

I do think there can be some value in considering whether mechanics are "associative" to a character's fictional framing, but I've also discovered since then that Story Now / high agency play doesn't break down "principled" rpg play like I thought it would. 

To the contrary, I've found that letting go of the notions of GM controlled backstory and hard-and-fast rules around "the fiction must exist independently from player concerns" freed me to pursue new and exciting styles of play that I never would have considered viable in 2013, let alone preferred.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> no, which is why under the style I am discussing, the GM wouldn’t make that change. And not making the change is crucial in this instance. It is like if the GM has a map and there is a keep to the north and haunted mansion to the south. If the GM sticks to the map he made, when the players go north, that choice matters because it takes place in a real setting with objective geography. If the GM has the haunted mansion whether they go north or south, then the GM is running a setting that is less real than the kind I am talking about




Then I think the only conclusion is that you prefer a GM directed style. If everything is already predetermined and cannot change, then I would propose that your players’ agency is much more limited than you realize. 

This is not a bad thing, in and of itself. GM directed play can be fun and engaging. I also won’t miscategorize it as a railroad, because I don’t think they’re the same thing at all. The players are exploring the fictional world you’ve created. 

What may be bad is that you seem to have some blindspots about your approach. Or at least, you seem to based on how you’ve described it here. 



Bedrockgames said:


> And positions like this, are why this clearly isn’t just an objective analysis on your side’s part: it is a playstyle debate framed as analysis (as it always is in these discussions). This kind description is dismissive of the style and fails to understand what it is really about




It is not. You have just described your game as consisting of fiction that’s largely determined ahead of time by the GM. You’ve even shot down the idea that a GM could make a change before committing to the fiction as some kind of aberrant method. The players then direct their characters to interact with the GM’s world as they see fit. They are playing to find out what the GM has already determined. For some reason, you see this as player agency, and when you describe it in words that you deem friendly enough, it’s good, but when others use words that are not as flattering, it’s an attack on the style. Even though you’re saying the same thing. 

Further, I’d say your assertion that your predetermined approach creates a world that’s “more real” than the one others build through different kinds of play is exactly the kind of value judgment you’re complaining that others are making.  

I’d also point out that your example is pretty flawed as it depicts illusionism, which says that you’re either attempting to paint the “other side” negatively or else you’ve failed to understand the style being proposed by them.

I play 5E and a good deal of that game revolves around ideas I have in my head/notes. It doesn’t make my 5E game less enjoyable than my Blades game. I enjoy both for a variety of reasons. But Blades allows for more player agency. The fiction is entirely about the characters the players have chosen to play such that if a different group of players and/or characters were to be involved, the fiction would be entirely different.


----------



## Lanefan

Bedrockgames said:


> no one is saying it is real. Even the things that happen in play have no true reality. what is being said is that it has the same level of reality as what is established in play if the GM has already made a firm choice (whether or not that has yet been shared it is known to exist in the setting).



FYI the quote you attribute to me wasn't mine.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> What if you change your mind on Wednesday and you decide that It’s not Rupert who lives there but Mortimer the Troll? Then you proceed to play on Thursday where this gets established through play.
> 
> Is there some kind of paradox? Who lives at 23 Chestnut? What is true in the shared fiction or fictional world?



Easy.

Monday: Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut.
Tuesday: Mortimer the Troll eats Rupert the Elf, loots his keys, and moves into his house.
Wednesday: Mortimer the Troll lives at 23 Chestnut.
Thursday: the PCs try to exact revenge on Rupert's behalf.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> What you’re describing here is a process where the GM decides and then the players discover these decisions through play.
> 
> This is what @pemerton describes as “playing to find out what the GM has in his notes”, which is usually a description that sees some hard pushback.



Mostly because of the condescending/dismissive tone it carries.  Taken on its own, pemerton's description is more or less correct.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Easy.
> 
> Monday: Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut.
> Tuesday: Mortimer the Troll eats Rupert the Elf, loots his keys, and moves into his house.
> Wednesday: Mortimer the Troll lives at 23 Chestnut.
> Thursday: the PCs try to exact revenge on Rupert's behalf.




This totally avoids the question. 

Have you never as a GM had an idea ready to introduce and then, for whatever reason, changed your mind and gone with something else? 

I’ve done this even in games like D&D and Call of Cthulhu which are kind of prep oriented. Thinking about it now, it would almost have to be in a game like that.  

So, assuming you’ve done this, is what you had originally planned in any way “real” in the fiction?



Lanefan said:


> Mostly because of the condescending/dismissive tone it carries.  Taken on its own, pemerton's description is more or less correct.




I don’t think it’s meant as condescending so much as it’s clearly a style of play he doesn’t enjoy, and so it’s presented with no positivity. 

But either way, I think it’d help if people stopped pearl clutching at any perceived slight on their preferred style.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> There's a lot of talk about sides in this thread, which is, to my mind, unfortunate.



I don't know if everyone does this - but I use the term "other side" as short hand.  Nothing more and nothing less.  It just doesn't carry any negative connation to me.  I do think it's worth mentioning that even those on the "same side" of this issue aren't identical in their thoughts and opinions on every part of it - which may be what you are really getting at.



Fenris-77 said:


> The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading.



You are probably right about most not accepting that.  I would.  It's a matter of degree for me.  A short stretch of railroad or illusionary railroad that speeds up the process for getting the players to an interesting situation.  I'm all for.  I actually think such techniques when used sparingly can enhance the amount of agency players have when measured against real-time.  Or said another way, taking away agency now can lead to more agency later.



Fenris-77 said:


> So we really have two issues here. First, the unfounded notion that there are two clear sides to this 'argument', which there are not, and also that there seems to be a tendency to _reductio ad absurdum_ in the characterization of competing or contrary viewpoints. Neither notion is helpful to the overall dialogue.



IMO having sides doesn't mean everyone on each side has the same viewpoints on everything related to the discussion.  It simply is saying there is a major issue that people lean one way or another on.  

I really think you are reading more into that phrase than what is ever intended.


----------



## Fenris-77

Nah, I know I'm not. I was characterizing the whole thread, not just the one post. Too much _us and them_ is complicating things. People, rightly or wrongly, felt attacked and started drawing lines in the sand.


----------



## FrogReaver

innerdude said:


> This here, this thing---this is the point that everyone in favor of player-centered agency is trying to explicate, which is that this basic notion is false. The game reality DOES NOT EXIST outside the gameworld at all. There is no "absolute reality" to the game world. It only exists as a shared mind-space.



You know, you've got me thinking.  I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.  

I think there is only the fiction.  I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles.  By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Nah, I know I'm not. I was characterizing the whole thread, not just the one post. Too much _us and them_ is complicating things. People, rightly or wrongly, felt attacked and started drawing lines in the sand.



Maybe.  I would disagree though.  I think it's easy to blame the notion of sides as the problem instead of the discussion techniques and rhetoric deployed by some on those sides, which is where 90% of discussions break down IMO.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> You know, you've got me thinking.  I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.
> 
> I think there is only the fiction.  I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles.  By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.




Okay....so what is “the fiction” as you’d define it for this discussion?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Then I think the only conclusion is that you prefer a GM directed style. If everything is already predetermined and cannot change, then I would propose that your players’ agency is much more limited than you realize.




This isn't a fair characterization of what I have said at all: and no my players have a great deal of agency. Agency is one of my goals.

Also, the point of my post was to show that things in the setting can have existence and reality prior to becoming what you describe as 'the shared fiction'. I wasn't defining a playstyle, I was describing an aspect of the playstyle.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> You know, you've got me thinking.  I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.
> 
> I think there is only the fiction.  I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles.  By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.




This times 1,000


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading.




I understand that. I wasn't suggesting that people were taking that position as a style of gaming to promote. But I was using it to illustrate a point about the difference between things that exist and have reality before 'the shared fiction' arises and things that don't.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Lanefan said:


> FYI the quote you attribute to me wasn't mine.




I appologize. I tried to fix it, but there is something wonky going on with the code I think (even if I erase the quotes entirely, then create a neutral quote box, then pop Fenris' post into that neutral box, for some reason it still puts your name on the quote. I am adding a note to the message


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What may be bad is that you seem to have some blindspots about your approach. Or at least, you seem to based on how you’ve described it here.




I really do not believe I am the one with the blindspot here


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You’ve even shot down the idea that a GM could make a change before committing to the fiction as some kind of aberrant method.




I never suggested changing things was aberrant. Re-read my post. You are not understanding what I am saying at all


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You’ve even shot down the idea that a GM could make a change before committing to the fiction as some kind of aberrant method. The players then direct their characters to interact with the GM’s world as they see fit. They are playing to find out what the GM has already determined.




Again this isn't an accurate description of the style. The players are themselves not generating setting content, that is for sure, but through their characters they are impacting the setting. And having a somewhat concrete setting is one of the things that allows them to change it. That does not mean things are not introduced on the fly, or that random procedures are not invoked to determine content. Those things are present too. But my point was, many of the important details of the setting, are there before the players interact with them. And the only reason I made that point, was to demonstrate that in this style, things can be real in the setting, before they become part of the 'shared fiction'. 

And this is not simply a matter of playing to find out what the GM has determined. The GM may know what sects are in the setting, what NPCs are in those sect, what towns are where (and many of the shops in those towns), where the imperial borders are, what the imperial customs are, etc. _But the GM doesn't know what is going to happen_. This goes back to posts like the Alexandrian linked article, "Don't prep plots". Events, adventures and situations arise as the players explore, interact with and contribute to the world through their characters.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I play 5E and a good deal of that game revolves around ideas I have in my head/notes. It doesn’t make my 5E game less enjoyable than my Blades game. I enjoy both for a variety of reasons. But Blades allows for more player agency. The fiction is entirely about the characters the players have chosen to play such that if a different group of players and/or characters were to be involved, the fiction would be entirely different.




The problem Hawkeye isn't that you have a more objective assesment of agency between our styles, it is that we both prioritize agency and define agency differently. I can see how blades provides the kind of agency you are talking about. I don't see how it would provide the kind I am talking about. I feel like I understand and acknowledge that. But you aren't doing the same with me. And I think that lack of reciprocity is a big issue in these discussions. You do not control or own the term "agency". 

Also, in my campaigns, if I have a different group of players, what happens is totally different as well. I have to playtest content and run much of the same setting/campaign book material. It always ends up being about different things. They take place in the same location, but a location can be home to infinite stories.


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> One more thing I felt I should add ---
> 
> I was the original poster of the thread 7 or 8 years ago praising the Dissociative Mechanics essay.
> 
> At the time it spoke to something I thought I was experiencing in relation to 4e.
> 
> And to a degree, I think there is some merit to the basic concept. But I also discovered in analyzing my own play that it didn't account for what I was doing with Savage Worlds. Why was I so upset about healing surges and "Come and Get It", but was totally okay with using bennies and "soak rolls", when soak rolls are identical to healing surges,  only in reverse?
> 
> I do think there can be some value in considering whether mechanics are "associative" to a character's fictional framing, but I've also discovered since then that Story Now / high agency play doesn't break down "principled" rpg play like I thought it would.
> 
> To the contrary, I've found that letting go of the notions of GM controlled backstory and hard-and-fast rules around "the fiction must exist independently from player concerns" freed me to pursue new and exciting styles of play that I never would have considered viable in 2013, let alone preferred.




I understand this perspective (I had a very similar progression in my view on things like dissociative mechanics: it hit on something that made sense, but there was more naunce invovled and it is really hard to pin down preferences to one concept like that). 

I have also said, I will happily play a game like Hillfolk (which puts a lot of power in the hands of players to shape the setting through dialogue). And earlier I explained how I run what I call Drama and Sandbox. I am not averse to this kind of game. But I like sandboxes, and I like living world campaigns and just like the people on the otherside rightfully question our grasp of their prefered style and games, I can see they do not understand my preferred style and game either.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> But either way, I think it’d help if people stopped pearl clutching at any perceived slight on their preferred style.




I am not pearl clutching, but it does get annoying being told by posters in this thread, what are playstyle is, what it is capable of, etc, and to have it done in dismissive ways, then be told, this is just an objective analysis of playstyles and their is no agenda being advanced. Posts like that one suggest otherwise to me.


----------



## aramis erak

hawkeyefan said:


> There is no game fiction prior to being introduced to the game. Prior to that, it exists only as a possibility.



That varies by group and game system. If you're playing in a published setting, the setting exists in the minds of players and GM - usually not congruent views across players, either.


Campbell said:


> I expect the following might be slightly contentious. A fundamental part of the understanding of a shared fiction is that nothing is true until all the players at the table have accepted it as true.



This is NOT congruent with my experience. 

Players often have to give in to the GM's view; unless and until the group disintegrates,  the only person who's view matters is the GM.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This isn't a fair characterization of what I have said at all: and no my players have a great deal of agency. Agency is one of my goals.




From what you’ve described, it sounds like they have the base amount I’d expect in most RPGs.

My assessment could be wrong, though. It’s hard to judge based on how you post. You shared some examples of your games, but they were largely just descriptions of what happened in the fiction. They didn't discuss process or mechanics or how these events came to be.


Bedrockgames said:


> Also, the point of my post was to show that things in the setting can have existence and reality prior to becoming what you describe as 'the shared fiction'. I wasn't defining a playstyle, I was describing an aspect of the playstyle.




Yeah, I disagree with this. I mean, they may exist in the sense that they are ideas. But as far as being part of the game, no, they are not part of the game’s fiction until introduced on some way. 

I understand why you prefer this method. The appeal is not lost on me, nor is it something I’m unfamiliar with. Where I disagree is that it makes a fictional world”more real” or that it gives more agency to the players. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I really do not believe I am the one with the blindspot here




As I said, that may not be the case. It could just be the way your posts come across. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I never suggested changing things was aberrant. Re-read my post. You are not understanding what I am saying at all




You said that not changing details prior to introducing them is crucial to this approach and it’s why a GM using this style would not do so.



Bedrockgames said:


> Again this isn't an accurate description of the style. The players are themselves not generating setting content, that is for sure, but through their characters they are impacting the setting. And having a somewhat concrete setting is one of the things that allows them to change it. That does not mean things are not introduced on the fly, or that random procedures are not invoked to determine content. Those things are present too. But my point was, many of the important details of the setting, are there before the players interact with them. And the only reason I made that point, was to demonstrate that in this style, things can be real in the setting, before they become part of the 'shared fiction'.




Okay....so you have an idea for a villain. You have a feeling based on where this guy is and what he’s up to that he’ll be a significant antagonist for the PCs. You’ve given him stats and skme traits to bring him to life. He exists in your mind as a clear idea. 

You introduce him in the game. In the same session, for whatever reason, you need to introduce a shop owner, so you make one up on the fly and intro her on the spot.

Is one of these more “real” than the other? 



Bedrockgames said:


> And this is not simply a matter of playing to find out what the GM has determined. The GM may know what sects are in the setting, what NPCs are in those sect, what towns are where (and many of the shops in those towns), where the imperial borders are, what the imperial customs are, etc. _But the GM doesn't know what is going to happen_. This goes back to posts like the Alexandrian linked article, "Don't prep plots". Events, adventures and situations arise as the players explore, interact with and contribute to the world through their characters.




I didn’t say you prepped plots. 

It just seems that, as you’ve described it, most decision points for the fiction belong to the GM. Sure the players can go to this city or that area, but what they run into will always be what the GM wants it to be. How those elements respond to the PCs will be up to the GM. How social interactions will go is up to the GM, with perhaps some influence based on the player’s choice of description. And so on. 

Where are the players’ points of input? Character generation? Deciding where their characters go? And what they do? Anything else? 

It sounds very GM directed. And although maybe you’re taking that as an insult, I promise you I don’t mean it as such. It’s a perfectly valid way to play RPGs. I play some that way myself. Hell, it’d be silly for all games to play the same way.


----------



## Fenris-77

aramis erak said:


> That varies by group and game system. If you're playing in a published setting, the setting exists in the minds of players and GM - usually not congruent views across players, either.
> 
> This is NOT congruent with my experience.
> 
> Players often have to give in to the GM's view; unless and until the group disintegrates,  the only person who's view matters is the GM.



And the second bit there is really not congruent with my experiences. You know what that tells us? That our personal preferences and experience only get us so far when it comes to discussing the nuts and bolts of RPGs. 

As for the first part, I think your position actually backstops the post you are replying to rather than somehow disproving it. There is no_ established_ fiction other than what happens at the table. Lots of potential fictions, lots of ideas and notions and thoughts, but nothing 'real' in terms of the game. This tends to be very true of published settings where a group of players have variable exposure to and facility with the setting books, as you say. When you take into account that the most capable 'lorekeepers' might not be the GM at that table you can easily see how the setting might be rattling around in one or more heads at the table but never even get close to becoming 'established' fiction at the table. Just to be clear, when I say 'established' I mean fictional details that are acted upon by and matter to the decision-making process of the players (which in my definition includes the GM).

I am not suggesting that additional detail isn't useful to the individual that possesses it, even if it isn't used, but that's very different from what I'm talking about, and to me is more in line with having seen a movie that helps that individual picture something described at the table.


----------



## hawkeyefan

aramis erak said:


> That varies by group and game system. If you're playing in a published setting, the setting exists in the minds of players and GM - usually not congruent views across players, either.




Sure, published settings already exist as ideas. But the but about congruency is, I think, why the term “shared fiction” is so important in this discussion. And that is brought into existence through play. 



aramis erak said:


> This is NOT congruent with my experience.
> 
> Players often have to give in to the GM's view; unless and until the group disintegrates,  the only person who's view matters is the GM.




I disagree here, although I’m not sure if you’re asserting the above or only pointing out that this is often asserted by some folks. 

I think @Campbell included a bit about the GM introducing something, then the players asked some questions, and then the GM revised what he had introduced. An example of players “vetting” the GM’s ideas, which is something that does happen, although far less than a GM vetting the players’ contributions.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> From what you’ve described, it sounds like they have the base amount I’d expect in most RPGs.
> 
> My assessment could be wrong, though. It’s hard to judge based on how you post. You shared some examples of your games, but they were largely just descriptions of what happened in the fiction. They didn't discuss process or mechanics or how these events came to be.




If we have a different definition of agency, which we do, then this point is going to be hard for us to reach agreement on.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, I disagree with this. I mean, they may exist in the sense that they are ideas. But as far as being part of the game, no, they are not part of the game’s fiction until introduced on some way.
> 
> I understand why you prefer this method. The appeal is not lost on me, nor is it something I’m unfamiliar with. Where I disagree is that it makes a fictional world”more real” or that it gives more agency to the players.



The whole reason we are making this distinction of realness is to show that something is established in the setting, and the players have agency to explore it. I fail to see how something that is established in the 'shared fiction' is less real than something the GM has pinned down in the setting as existing, which if the players find it, they will discover, and if they don't, they will not. This is important because it means the choices the players make around this discovery matter. I am not saying this is the only way to do things. But I am saying, you guys keep defining things in a way that defines our style out of the agency conversation. And since agency is a priority of our style, I think fighting over the meaning of real and existing in the game, is important here. The game isn't just what everyone at the table agrees is going on in the setting. The game is stuff the players don't see or know about. Even something random, like an encounter table, exists as potential in the game. But stuff the GM has definitively hammered out and placed: that exists in the game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> .
> 
> I understand why you prefer this method. The appeal is not lost on me, nor is it something I’m unfamiliar with. Where I disagree is that it makes a fictional world”more real” or that it gives more agency to the players.




Because the definitions of agency and real you are using, reflect the style you are advocating. I mean you've placed the very idea of realness in a game around the idea of shared fiction, and you've essentially adopted the sociology definition of agency, rather than the literary one, because that also fits the notion of maximizing player power outside the setting. Now, if you experience more agency in that style of play, I think that is fine, and if the kind of agency you value is agency that effectively just equals overall mechanical and narrative power, or some other combination of things, that is fair too. I just don't think your view of this is as objective as you think.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You said that not changing details prior to introducing them is crucial to this approach and it’s why a GM using this style would not do so.




I am pretty sure I said something to the effect of "in that instance". I wasn't saying this is the only thing going on. And importantly I was talking about 'that style', which I hope you will appreciate may not be my own style. I was being cautious in my language for a reason. And again, my point was to show how a style like this one, using a method like that, produces something just as real as the 'shared fiction', even if it is off screen. I also tried to clarify what I meant as the subject went on, and tried to talk more precisely about it. Look at everythign I was saying about how I would run such a game. Pinning down details is important, and if I have a detail pinned down (like there is a master named Vengeful Swan who lives in the northern peak, I wouldn't suddenly change it to Head-Taking God, because I wanted a more ferocious foe for the party as they didn't have that many encounters, nor would I change it to Meek Archer because the party was already worn down by encounters). But it is called sandbox and living adventure/world in motion for a reason, it isn't just about the stuff you have on the page, those things are animate. And there are going to be times when the players go somewhere you haven't prepped. Now again, in interest of making player choices matter, the moment something new arises or the moment the players go somewhere unplanned for, I do try to get as many concrete details down and set them, just so I am not inventing things in response to their choices (i want choices like going left or right, or being kind or cruel in a given social encounter, to matter). I've also spoken about the use of things like random tables. There is a lot more.  And sometimes you invent things on the spot, for a variety of reasons. You aren't always pinning things down. When I do that, I like make decisions based on existing things in the setting and on logic. This is one of the reasons why I am so interested in things like trade goods in my settings, it helps inform many of my on the fly choices.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You introduce him in the game. In the same session, for whatever reason, you need to introduce a shop owner, so you make one up on the fly and intro her on the spot.
> 
> Is one of these more “real” than the other?




See my fishmonger example. 

I would say mostly not. They are roughly as real because I also put effort into the characters I make on the fly and I establish important details about them in my notebook quickly (so the players are interacting with a concrete character). But prior to introduction, the villain is more real. He is there, in the setting, doing things. He has more concrete information in the game (stats, background,etc). He has a place. And that does matter in terms of things like player choices. 

One of the chief things I've tried to develop as a skill running these kinds of games, is giving on the fly creations as much of that as I can. But these two kinds of characters are still different.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> In the mind of the GM, in the notes of the GM, and in the logic that the GM uses to extrapolate details and determine accidental qualities of the things in the setting. If I decide Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut Street on Monday, and the players ask me who lives at 23 chestnut street on Thursday, his existence there wasn't fluid prior to them asking.





Bedrockgames said:


> the aim of the GM is to fold all those things into the living world, and to treat them as live forces. For example a random encounter doesn't exist until you roll it, that is for certain. But when I roll a random encounter I do try to give it a sound reason for being there. And if that encounter result is an existing NPC, then I look to that NPCs motivations, etc. But this is different from a sect that I've established in my notes as existing in Flower Bridge Village, at Red Lotus Manor. That exists in my mind and in my notes before the players go there or ask about it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if the players go into town looking for a fish monger, I make a quick mental map of whether that is reasonable (is there a water source with plentiful fish), then I decide if the there is a fish monger, who he is, some key details like his wife is cheating on him with the proprietor of the Fragrant Word Teahouse, etc. I do that because I want that stuff set in order to create the impression of a real world and to force myself to have fidelity to that world. It is true these details are being made up, but whether they are being made up two weeks before or two seconds before, it is coming into being in the setting prior to the players experiencing it directly.





FrogReaver said:


> The question then arises, what are the various processes to establish something in the shared fiction?
> The one process I want to focus on is the one where the DM maintains a separate fictional space that's separate from the shared fiction and reveals details from that fictional space as the PC's encounter them.  The PC's actions form a feedback loop into that separate fictional space that affect change there which then gets revealed to they players as the encounter those elements and so on.
> 
> In this particular area, the fiction does exist as fiction apart from the players.  It preexists their shared fiction.  So while it's not yet established as shared fiction, it's still the fiction that their shared fiction is based upon.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In a game where the players don't have full knowledge of all the fiction that exists they cannot add a minor or trivial detail to the fiction on their own as they can't ever be certain that such a detail is actually trivial or minor.
> 
> Note: I think they may very well add trivial and minor details in their individual own fictions but pushing these details into the realm of the shared fiction can cause problems in a game using this style of shared fiction generation.



I think that everyone posting in this thread is very familiar with the approach to RPGing described in these posts. It is pretty canonical for D&D since the early-to-mid-80s; for RQ and RM as I have always encountered them (other than some of my own RM play); and I suspect is very typical for play of GURPS, HERO, Star Wars, and a lot of Traveller. And that's just to name some games I thought of now.

As @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer have posted, it seems odd to describe this approach in which the GM has all this authorial power, _and yet_ to deny that this authorial power has implications or establishes limits on player agency. I mean, two such limits have already come out at length in this thread: I as a player can't have a character recollect the location of Evard's tower unless the GM has already written that into his/her fiction; and I as a player can't have my PC's hope to meet his brother have any chance of coming true unless the GM decides to stage the encounter.

As @hawkeyefan has noted, it also seems odd to describe a process of play in which a significant part of the player-side experience is declaring exploration-type actions that trigger the GM to reveal his/her hitherto private/secret fiction, and yet to react so strongly to the description of that as _RPGing-to-find-out-what-is-in-the-GM's-notes_. I mean, yes, sometimes those notes are written up in loving detail and sometimes they're being elucidated or even made up as things go along, but the basic idea is the same.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> under the style I am discussing, the GM wouldn’t make that change.



When does the GM's work go from being _draft_ to being _finished_?


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> This kind description is dismissive of the style and fails to understand what it is really about



Why is it dismissive? Re-read your posts and @FrogReaver's post. It's a literal summary of what you both describe!


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> It just seems that, as you’ve described it, most decision points for the fiction belong to the GM. Sure the players can go to this city or that area, *but what they run into will always be what the GM wants it to be*. How those elements respond to the PCs will be up to the GM. How social interactions will go is up to the GM, with perhaps some influence based on the player’s choice of description. And so on.




The bolded isn't true. This is why lots of GMs use encounter tables for example. My cities usually have multiple level encounter tables, including specific NPCs who live in the city, as well as specific gangs and sects. The way I work it is the players make Survival rolls going from different areas of the city, and if they fail, I would roll on one of the tables. The result is usually not something that I want in that moment. It is just what I get, and I try to get it to make sense. But the players also have the power to go looking for people, to make a point of moving through the city cautiously, or to hire guards to make sure they are not accosted by people. I think my major issue with how you describe the style I am descrbing to you, is you describe it very reductively.

Also, how social interactions go, to my mind here, is very much in the hands of the players. Yes the GM is running the NPCs (the way PCs are run by players), but you are not just picking NPC reactions you want, you are supposed to be giving honest consideration to what the players say, do, etc. That matters. The way you describe it, it just sounds like the GM decrees the NPCs reactions. Anyone who has had an involved RP exchange in a game, knows it isn't a simple matter of fiat. It is a much more subtle, involved process. Again, here you just seem to be minimizing how much impact you have on this as a player. Obviously all that impact is through your character in this style, but that is still substantial (and to my mind feels more like having agency in the real world).

Even when setting elements are merely declared by the GM, it is not simply what the GM wants. It is usually what the GM believes ought to be there (and that could vary by style, as there is more than one approach). That is a very important distinction. When you say it is just what the GM wants to be there. It produces a very different kind of game, where everything is a product of the GM's will. But a GM who is making those kinds of choices in service to something like a living world, a living adventure or the drama sandbox I mentioned earlier, isn't simply advancing his will.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> It just seems that, as you’ve described it, most decision points for the fiction belong to the GM. Sure the players can go to this city or that area, but what they run into will always be what the GM wants it to be. How those elements respond to the PCs will be up to the GM. How social interactions will go is up to the GM, with perhaps some influence based on the player’s choice of description. And so on.




Just to take this one in isolation: this is an example of why terms like the fiction are a problem. But to answer as clearly: the GM controls the setting. The players have no control of the setting outside their character. So obviously anything that enters the setting is through the GM (though like I said, it isn't simply what the GM wants, there are plenty of tools, procedures, etc to help this process). But what happens is very much dependent on the players. The players decide what they do, where they go, and in this style they pretty much have free reign to go wherever they want. Like I said in my earlier example, if the party decides to start beating people up and stealing their money, that is where the campaign goes. Exactly how that players out will be a combination of player choice, the GM choice, luck of rolls, and concrete things like PC abilities (for instance a character with a particularly good non-lethal attack, is going to have a leg up in this particular endeavor). This is the kind of game where you very much are encouraging players to surprise you, and to work with those surprises. If the players decide they want to start a cult, that is what is going to happen. It is just the setting stuff (how the world reacts to that kind of choice, what challenges emerge) is in the hands of the GM. But there is responsibility there. You are not just unleashing your ego on the players.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> When does the GM's work go from being _draft_ to being _finished_?




When the GM decides 'this is set'


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Why is it dismissive? Re-read your posts and @FrogReaver's post. It's a literal summary of what you both describe!




No, you are just describing part of what we are talking about, and framing it in a way that makes it sound less than thrilling.


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## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> There's a lot of talk about sides in this thread, which is, to my mind, unfortunate.



I agree. Are @Campbell and I on the same side? Campbell doesn't care too much for scene-based RPGs, but I run a number of them (BW, Prince Valiant, Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP) and like them a lot. Campbell does sandboxing and players 5e D&D - neither is true of me. (I've GMed "sandbox" Rolemaster 25 to 30 years ago, but not with any great felicity.)

Which side is @prabe on? Prabe and I approach RPGing pretty differently but I don't feel our exchanges in this thread are very confrontational or sit on different "sides".

The notion of "sides" is trying to establish or impute conflict where there is none.



Bedrockgames said:


> If the GM has the haunted mansion whether they go north or south, then the GM is running a setting that is less real than the kind I am talking about





Fenris-77 said:


> The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading.



I had two responses to this exchange.

(1) @Bedrockgames and @FrogReaver both complain about others' terminology, their use of "agency", etc - yet here tries to own the notion of _reality_. Using it to mean _authored in advance by the GM_. Which implies that any "no myth" game per se lacks _reality_ in its setting.

What is that meant to mean, given that we're all talking about imaginary things? Is it meant to tell us something about Bedrockgames's preferences and feelings? I think we're already well aware of those, from this and other threads. Is it meant to tell us how he _thinks_ he would feel playing Burning Wheel? Is it meant to be a criticism of players of "no myth" games? My reading is some mixture of all three.

(2) Why does it matter whether the PCs go north or south? @Campbell not far upthread posted "Many GMs make the decision to focus on physical space and moving through it while not focusing much on characters as like people. I take the opposite approach."

In my Classic Traveller game, when the PCs travel on-world, I almost never care whether they're going north or south (contrast: whether they're going towards or away from a world's equator).

In our Prince Valiant game, we track the location of the PCs on maps of Britain and greater Europe, but I don't think it's ever mattered which compass direction they headed independently of some description like _We go back to the beach_ or _We set sail for Cyprus_.

In a Prince Valiant session a little over a year ago, the PCs encountered the Bone Laird - the undead remains of an ancient Celtic ruler of a part of what today we would call Romania - while travelling from the Dalmation coast to Constantinople. I did not have the location of the Bone Laird marked on any map. The players had declared that they were undertaking the trip. I narrated them passing through a forest - hardly unexpected in that time (c 8th century CE) and place - and being confronted by the Bone Laird.

This was a straightforward exercise of GM authority over situation and scene-framing.

It is not _remotely_ part of the point of RPGing in the world of Prince Valiant to see if - through cleverness or luck - your PCs can avoid encountering the Bone Laird. So whether the Bone Laird is in the north or the south of the forest is completely immaterial.

If you want to see how the players exercised their agency in that episode, you can read the link above.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> As @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer have posted, it seems odd to describe this approach in which the GM has all this authorial power, _and yet_ to deny that this authorial power has implications or establishes limits on player agency. I mean, two such limits have already come out at length in this thread: I as a player can't have a character recollect the location of Evard's tower unless the GM has already written that into his/her fiction; and I as a player can't have my PC's hope to meet his brother have any chance of coming true unless the GM decides to stage the encounter.




I don't think your memory argument is a very good one. You aren't really remembering anything. If something had happened in the game, and you remembered the location of the tower, sure. But just asserting your know the location, and calling that a memory, number one, it just isn't a memory. But number two, it isn't agency. But we've had that debate many times. 

On the brother, I think agency is choosing to search for your brother, which you would be free to do in the kind of game I run. I don't think being guaranteed that you find said brother is agency, nor do I think you being able to set the terms of a successful search is agency, that is simply giving you 'authorial power'. What I will say is, the GM ought to seriously consider all your efforts to find the brother. It shouldn't be a matter of just arbitrarily making decisions. And there should be some mechanics invoked towards that.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Mostly because of the condescending/dismissive tone it carries.  Taken on its own, pemerton's description is more or less correct.



Why is it condescending or dismissive?

Whereas I assume that your many references over the years to "Schroedinger's ogre" and the like are neither.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> As @hawkeyefan has noted, it also seems odd to describe a process of play in which a significant part of the player-side experience is declaring exploration-type actions that trigger the GM to reveal his/her hitherto private/secret fiction, and yet to react so strongly to the description of that as _RPGing-to-find-out-what-is-in-the-GM's-notes_. I mean, yes, sometimes those notes are written up in loving detail and sometimes they're being elucidated or even made up as things go along, but the basic idea is the same.




Because it is two halves: sandbox and world in motion, sandbox and living adventure, sandbox and drama. In all these styles, we are saying there is this whole other aspect to it, and your description of it focuses entirely on one element: the notebook


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> The players are themselves not generating setting content, that is for sure, but through their characters they are impacting the setting. And having a somewhat concrete setting is one of the things that allows them to change it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And this is not simply a matter of playing to find out what the GM has determined. The GM may know what sects are in the setting, what NPCs are in those sect, what towns are where (and many of the shops in those towns), where the imperial borders are, what the imperial customs are, etc. _But the GM doesn't know what is going to happen_.



What rules and processes govern those changes?

What is the nature of the GM's ignorance? Eg is the procedure "GM decides" but s/he hasn't decided yet? Or does the GM prepare if/then chains and statements of disposition for various NPCs and organisations but doesn't know yet which ones the players, via their PCs, will poke at?

These are not rhetorical questions. Presumably they have answers, and different answers might produce different play experiences?


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> The whole reason we are making this distinction of realness is to show that something is established in the setting, and *the players have agency to explore it*.



The bolded part of your post is metaphor.

I have explored Rome - walked around the city, admired the Pantheon, been struck by the size of the Colosseum, etc.

But I have never explored the Pomarj. I can't, because it doesn't exist - or, if you prefer, it exists only in imagination.

What I have done is ask the GM questions like _where are we on the map? _and then we've opened up an online map of Greyhawk and zoomed in on the Ulek/Pomarj border area and looked at the various forts and steadings marked there. And we've agreed that these are the old border forts once garrisoned by the Order of the Iron Tower.

And then the GM has said things like _As you and Aramina wander through the border area, you come across abandoned homestead and signs of flight_.

Etc.

Of course you're under no obligation to literally describe how the play of your game unfolds at the table. But if you stick only to metaphors like _the player's explore the setting_ that will make conversation about your play more difficult than it probably needs to be.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> you've essentially adopted the sociology definition of agency, rather than the literary one



What is the literary definition of agency you refer to?


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I think that everyone posting in this thread is very familiar with the approach to RPGing described in these posts. It is pretty canonical for D&D since the early-to-mid-80s; for RQ and RM as I have always encountered them (other than some of my own RM play); and I suspect is very typical for play of GURPS, HERO, Star Wars, and a lot of Traveller. And that's just to name some games I thought of now.




Well, yes, a lot of it comes out of the OSR, which was us going back to earlier games, editions and adventure structures. And I started gaming in '86 so much of my early experience was around styles that embraced letting the dice fall where they may, a GM creating a place for players to explore, and not worrying about having something like a overarching plot or story (it was more lets see what the group does today and lets see what happens to them). But it is new too. It is definitely through a lens of the present. And the effort is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater, find what is useful. But there are other aspects to it, and a lot of people arrived here by very different paths (this is why I keep hammering "living adventure" which is a concept that I first encountered when I was running Ravenloft in the early 90s and used Feast of Goblyns). That gave me a very different sense of the game than say people who use a term like world in motion. We are in a similar space but there is a difference. 

There is a lot more to the style, a lot more to what I like, and a lot more in general, but these conversations tend to get very binary and very locked in around the points people are making. 

I think both sides in this discussion had a strong reaction to some of the railroading and the Gm as story teller that was heavy in the 90s, and some of us also had a reaction to things like the rigid linear adventure structures in the 3E DMG. And we all went into the forest to find a solution to this problem (and there may have been other problems in the mix or different problems). One sides solution was things like the tools you guys are talking about (and these tools make sense, and they do solve the problem). Our solution was to go back and see where things might have gone off the rails, then find a way to bridge that to our current games and approaches. I settled on a few different approaches based on that which work for me: Sandbox-living adventure, Sandbox+drama, monster-of-week/monster hunt, situational character driven adventures, etc. Basically I took the things that had stuff which worked for me: the van richten books, Call of Cthulhu, the 1E DMG, the Isle of Dread, OD&D, the HARN setting, 100 Bushels of Rye, Feast of Goblyns, etc. 

But I must reiterate, this isn't my only way of approaching games. The groups I belonged to growing up played all kinds of RPGs, and the groups I am in now, are the same. What I am describing is what kind of games I like to run most. But one of my favorite games is the old Hong Kong Action Theatre!, which as a concept is quite different from what I am talking about (but lots of fun). I also used to love the game OG, and TORG with the Drama deck. And like I've said many times, I really quite like Hillfolk. One of the default games in my group is Savage Worlds, which is a game I am always happy to play (and the person in our group who usually runs it, does so in a very different style from the GM approach I am describing above).


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> No, you are just describing part of what we are talking about, and framing it in a way that makes it sound less than thrilling.



It's not my job to explain why your play is thrilling to you. That's on you.

I just finished reading the HPL story "Rats in the Walls". There are many reasons I could give why it's not a great work of literature, but I wasn't _bored _by reading it. And reading it was, literally, _learning what HPL wrote_.

One of my favourite films is Ashes of Time. I don't know if I would describe it as _thrilling_ but it is certainly _moving_ and also _engrossing_ and also, in some ways, _puzzling_. And when I watch that film, which I have done many times both at the cinema and via my DVD copy of the Redux edition, I am literally _viewing and listening to what was filmed and recorded_.

If you think that learning what someone else wrote or filmed is not thrilling, that's on you. The point of my previous two paragraphs is that there are whole modes of art predicated on the opposite view. And that's before we even get to "lesser" genre forms like Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure which _are _intended to be thrilling and which involve learning what the author has written.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> It's not my job to explain why your play is thrilling to you. That's on you.
> 
> I just finished reading the HPL story "Rats in the Walls". There are many reasons I could give why it's not a great work of literature, but I wasn't _bored _by reading it. And reading it was, literally, _learning what HPL wrote_.
> 
> One of my favourite films is Ashes of Time. I don't know if I would describe it as _thrilling_ but it is certainly _moving_ and also _engrossing_ and also, in some ways, _puzzling_. And when I watch that film, which I have done many times both at the cinema and via my DVD copy of the Redux edition, I am literally _viewing and listening to what was filmed and recorded_.
> 
> If you think that learning what someone else wrote or filmed is not thrilling, that's on you. The point of my previous two paragraphs is that there are whole modes of art predicated on the opposite view. And that's before we even get to "lesser" genre forms like Fighting Fantasy and Choose Your Own Adventure which _are _intended to be thrilling and which involve learning what the author has written.




First, I agree that ashes of time is an interesting film (I think of it as a movie that makes you feel drunk or in some kind of altered state, while being moving like you describe). You may know this already, but if you want it to be less puzzling (still puzzling but less so) the key is Legend of Condor Heroes. He is basically remixing the characters from that story into Ashes of Time (the main character in Ashes of Time, Ouyang Feng, is the villain from LoCH). 

No, learning something isn't dull. But yes, learning what is in the GM notes is dull gaming. I think most people would see this as such. When I was fed up with the 3E approach to running games (which I found quite linear, and structured around planned encounters), my remark was always "I might as well just show the players my notes and be done with the session". The whole point of sandbox and living adventure to me, was to escape from that sense that the players were just learning what I had on the page (and I think I succeeded).


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> What is the literary definition of agency you refer to?



Doesn't really matter -- players aren't literary objects.  This is talking about how characters in fiction display agency, and is confused because the only writer is actually employing agency.  Rather, the literary terms is talking about the appearance of a character to make meaningful decisions.  It's somewhat useful in talking about how to write characters, but utterly pointless in a discussion of RPGs, where players are making choices, not characters.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think your memory argument is a very good one. You aren't really remembering anything. If something had happened in the game, and you remembered the location of the tower, sure. But just asserting your know the location, and calling that a memory, number one, it just isn't a memory. But number two, it isn't agency.



I the player am not remembering anything. _My character is_.

I'm not sure why you say it's not agency. I'm also not sure whether your "it" refers to memory or authorship, but both are forms of agency. _Being able to recall things is an exercise of agency_. I have had the experience of losing it. So do those who suffer from dementia.

Writing things is also an exercise of agency.



Bedrockgames said:


> On the brother, I think agency is choosing to search for your brother, which you would be free to do in the kind of game I run. I don't think being guaranteed that you find said brother is agency, nor do I think you being able to set the terms of a successful search is agency, that is simply giving you 'authorial power'.



I don't know what you see as the difference between _agency_ and _power_. In this context they seem to be more-or-less synonymous.

You also seem to count _finding one's brother _which is introduced into the fiction as the result of resolving a check as _authorship_, whereas you don't similarly classify _defeating an Orc in combat_ which is introduced into the fiction as the result of resolving a check. I don't see what property the first possesses but the second lacks such that the first but not the second is _authorship_. Both contribute to the content of a fiction.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Doesn't really matter -- players aren't literary objects.  This is talking about how characters in fiction display agency, and is confused because the only writer is actually employing agency.  Rather, the literary terms is talking about the appearance of a character to make meaningful decisions.  It's somewhat useful in talking about how to write characters, but utterly pointless in a discussion of RPGs, where players are making choices, not characters.



It is important because that is where the term is borrowed from, and that shapes how a lot of people are using it here. And while I agree that RPGs and literature are different, and you don't want to confuse mediums, the literary useage has viable meaning in an RPG, and one that connects to the agency in sandbox one side is discussing (and this is the language people who run sandboxes frequently use, and when they use it, they don't take agency to mean authorial power).


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Doesn't really matter -- players aren't literary objects.  This is talking about how characters in fiction display agency, and is confused because the only writer is actually employing agency.  Rather, the literary terms is talking about the appearance of a character to make meaningful decisions.  It's somewhat useful in talking about how to write characters, but utterly pointless in a discussion of RPGs, where players are making choices, not characters.



If that's what's meant then I already posted about that somewhere upthread.

We can discuss whether characters in a RPG exercise agency (like REH's Conan most of the time, though cf Hour of the Dragon) or don't (like Gollum and perhaps even, to some extent, Frodo). But that sort of exercise in literary criticism seems to have no relevance to this thread. Which I think is what you have said too.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I the player am not remembering anything. _My character is_.




But your character, and the memory don't really exist.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Because it is two halves: sandbox and world in motion, sandbox and living adventure, sandbox and drama. In all these styles, we are saying there is this whole other aspect to it, and your description of it focuses entirely on one element: the notebook



Suppose you're correct. Then the apposite word for my description would be _incomplete_. Not _condescending_. Nor _dismissive_.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure why you say it's not agency. I'm also not sure whether your "it" refers to memory or authorship, but both are forms of agency. _Being able to recall things is an exercise of agency_. I have had the experience of losing it. So do those who suffer from dementia.




I would say you are mixing two things: you are either inventing a memory or recollecting a memory. Recollecting something isn't agency in an RPG, at least not the way I am using the term. That is entirely internal. If you are inventing a memory, that is authorial power, but in an RPG I wouldn't consider that agency. Now if you used that memory toward some action in the setting, I might call it agency (for example you remembered your father's bagel recipe and begin the first step towards becoming the bagel king of Constantinople). 

I too have had the experience of losing memory. And in the sociological sense, sure it might be agency. But not in any sense relevant to RPGs in my opinion. Also there is a huge difference between a real memory and one you made up for a game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I don't know what you see as the difference between _agency_ and _power_. In this context they seem to be more-or-less synonymous.




I wouldn't say they are at all. If they were there wouldn't be any disagreement. But we have two different definitions of agency, both in use by a large number of gamers.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> You also seem to count _finding one's brother _which is introduced into the fiction as the result of resolving a check as _authorship_, whereas you don't similarly classify _defeating an Orc in combat_ which is introduced into the fiction as the result of resolving a check. I don't see what property the first possesses but the second lacks such that the first but not the second is _authorship_. Both contribute to the content of a fiction.




We have been over this dead orc a dozen or so times, and I've tried to make clear, I don't consider it a compelling argument. 

The orc has been introduced, and therefore you can try to kill it with your attack. You are not setting the stakes of that action though. Your action is an attack. The dice, the GM and the combat procedure determine if that results in a miss, loss of HP, death, etc. The brother could be anywhere in the world, perhaps even dead, or for all we know, on a demiplane somewhere. But the problem is really more in how you are presenting these examples than in a major difference between them. Your ability to find your brother through a check is going to be limited by the reality of where he is or is not. Again, like the orc, you are loading the outcome into your check. You don't get to say "I roll to kill the orc" and if you succeed on your attack that automatically means the orc dies just because that is how you phrased it. By the same token, if you say "I make a gather information roll to find my brother", that doesn't mean on a success you find your brother. It means the GM gives you what information might be available about your brother in the area where you made the check. You can't just take what is in effect a sensory skill for the setting, and use it to author stuff through clever phrasing of the roll.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Suppose you're correct. Then the apposite word for my description would be _incomplete_. Not _condescending_. Nor _dismissive_.




Again, I think your description is both incomplete and unflattering


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> But your character, and the memory don't really exist.



Nothing in RPGing really exists. My BW game is not special in this respect.

If you ask the GM, _Does my character remember anything about Evard's tower_, and the GM then tells you information about Evard (from his/her notes, or reading from the module, or making it up on the spot, or whatever other method of GM-content-transmission you prefer), it's still not a real memory. And the character still doesn't exist. And neither does the tower.

The contrast is between _processes of establishing, as components of the fiction,_ (i) _that Evard's tower exists_, and (ii) _that my PC remembers where it is_.

Neither process will give rise to a real tower or a real memory about it in the head of a real person. (Unless you count the GM remembering what s/he wrote in his/her notes. But that is certainly not something the _player _experiences.) One process involves the player being told something by the GM. The other does not.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Recollecting something isn't agency in an RPG, at least not the way I am using the term. That is entirely internal.



Why are _internal features of the player characters_ not relevant to agency? Even if one uses the literary notion, they're hugely important - central to analysing the agency of the protagonist in a drama is making sense of his/her internal life.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Why are _internal features of the player characters_ not relevant to agency? Even if one uses the literary notion, they're hugely important - central to analysing the agency of the protagonist in a drama is making sense of his/her internal life.



let me be clear, fake, made up memories generating setting content are not important to agency: but the GM telling you how your character feels, very likely would be an infringement on agency.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> You don't get to say "I roll to kill the orc" and if you succeed on your attack that automatically means the orc dies just because that is how you phrased it.



Which RPG are you talking about?

In Burning Wheel a player can do what you say can't be done. It's also a possibility in Prince Valiant (though more often it would be used for unhorsing rather than killing). It's also a possibility in 4e if the Orc is statted as a minion. And whether the Orc is statted as a minion is not necessarily just the GM's decision. In my 4e GMing I've adjudicated skill checks which have as their outcome the "minionisation" of a NPC. And I'd be surprised if I'm unique in that respect.



Bedrockgames said:


> The orc has been introduced, and therefore you can try to kill it with your attack.



This doesn't seem relevant to the question I asked. There is no real Orc. There is no real attack. There are words spoken and dice rolled and numbers tracked and more words spoken. How is it not _authorship_?



Bedrockgames said:


> Your ability to find your brother through a check is going to be limited by the reality of where he is or is not. Again, like the orc, you are loading the outcome into your check.



This goes back to the question of _what "reality" of where he is or not? _Given that you reject the notion that such "reality" might be established as the outcome of action resolution, I assume you mean _what the GM has written down_ or _what the GM has decided_ or maybe _what the GM determines by a roll on the random NPC location table_.

Those all seem to be processes of establishing a fiction (which, in this context, = authorship). In the case of the brother, you want it to be authored by the GM unilaterally rather than via an action resolution process. Whereas in the case of the Orc you are happy to go the other way (but there's no reason in principle why the GM couldn't just decide that the Orc parries the attack, or that the GM couldn't roll on a _random NPC defensive manoeuvre table _and get the result that the Orc parries the blow and disarms the PC).

Nothing you are pointing to about your preferences for different processes of authorship explains why _the player's ability to bring it about, via game play, that the fiction contains a dead Orc_ is not a process of authorship. What else would it be?


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> fake, made up memories generating setting content are not important to agency



Where did you learn this? In the same place that you learned that _fake, made-up descriptions of reading a fishmongers secret notes to his mistress _are_ important to agency?_

The whole game consists of fake, made-up things. I don't know why you think yours matter more than mine.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Where did you learn this? In the same place that you learned that _fake, made-up descriptions of reading a fishmongers secret notes to his mistress _are_ important to agency?_
> 
> The whole game consists of fake, made-up things. I don't know why you think yours matter more than mine.



I'm confused as to why he's denying that the character is real whilst simultaneously insisting on using literary agency.  That's utterly incoherent.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm confused as to why he's denying that the character is real whilst simultaneously insisting on using literary agency.  That's utterly incoherent.




Literary characters are not real either, yet their agency is still something you can talk about. But my point was the literary term informs the RPG term. I was just pointing out that the term being used by one side basically is pulled from sociology, while the other seems to be taking it more from literature. It is just a matter of is agency about what your character can do in the setting or is it about what the player can do. I don't think my position is incoherent at all. You might disagree with it, or you might misunderstand it, but it is a coherent point of view.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> It is just a matter of is agency about what your character can do in the setting or is it about what the player can do.



If the GM has decided, "off screen", that the PC's brother has died, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet up with this brother.

Less dramatically, if the GM has decided that the PC's brother has travelled far away, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet his brother on the borders of their ancestral estate.

Those are precisely the sort of GM decisions you are advocating for. As the previous two paragraphs show, they clearly shape what it is that the character can do in the setting. (Which I think was also @hawkeyefan's point not too far upthread.)

So even in your preferred sense of _agency_ they appear to limit it.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> If the GM has decided, "off screen", that the PC's brother has died, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet up with this brother.
> 
> Less dramatically, if the GM has decided that the PC's brother has travelled far away, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet his brother on the borders of their ancestral estate.
> 
> Those are precisely the sort of GM decisions you are advocating for. As the previous two paragraphs show, they clearly shape what it is that the character can do in the setting. (Which I think was also @hawkeyefan's point not too far upthread.)
> 
> So even in your preferred sense of _agency_ they appear to limit it.




But they don't limit your agency in the setting. They limit what outcomes your agency can achieve. Lots of things do. The GM is going to make lots of calls about details in the setting. For example the Gm might decide the printing pres hasn't been invented yet. That is a detail of the setting. That doesn't reduce agency just because you, the player, can't start a printing press company in the setting. Any setting with any kind of definition is going to place limits on what can be achieved, not on agency itself. But agency is about your freedom to move and act within that setting. It is about how much the GM is obstructing or enabling free will. A GM who decides the brother died, isn't impacting your free will. I get that for you agency is about being able to say "I want this to happen in the game" and for there to be a reliable way to make that happen, but that isn't what we mean when are talking about agency (and again agency is a really important concept in the style of play I am talking about, and when people use it, they definitely are not talking about the type of agency you appear to be discussing).


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## pemerton

I thought I would see what Wikipedia has to say. Its entry on Agency (sociology) opens with this:

In social science, *agency* is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. By contrast, structure are those factors of influence (such as social class, religion, gender, ethnicity, ability, customs, etc.) that determine or limit an agent and their decisions.​
That is consistent with how I teach theoretical sociology. It has no real connection to this thread - no one here is talking about _agency vs structure_, or related matters like _Weber vs Marx_. The discussion is about the much more common-sense notion of _how much the player is able to influence the play of the game_. And given that the crux of the games being discussed - ie RPGing - is shared imagining, the discussion is particularly focused on _how much the player is able to contribute to and shape that shared imagining_.

That entry has a number of "see also" links, but neither it nor any of them seem to deal with literature.

There is an entry on Character (arts), which opens "In fiction, a *character* (sometimes known as a *fictional character*) is a person or other being in a narrative". That seems common sensical enough. But there is no occurrence in that entry of the word "agency". At the end of the opening paragraphs we are told "The relation between characters and the action of the story shifts historically, often miming shifts in society and its ideas about human individuality, self-determination, and the social order." Later on there is a discussion of Aristotle's distinction between _qualities_ and _actions_.

I don't think there are that many RPGs that try to say anything meaningful about the relationship between human individuality and the social order. HeroWars/Quest played in Glorantha might be one. In Classic Traveller characters have a Social Standing stat, and in our game that can be a factor in influence checks, including when they have been used to solve disputes among the players, I guess that says something, though it's not super-profound. The original Oriental Adventures tried to make something similar a part of the game, although the execution falls a bit short of the ambition.

When I think of RPGs that try to tackle the issue of qualities vs actions, the first that comes to mind is Burning Wheel, in part because qualities (Beliefs, Instinct, Traits) can all be changed, and changes in Traits are governed by the Trait Vote which is meant to have regard to actions performed. Likewise actions performed which resolve certain Beliefs are one major trigger for writing new ones.

I don't think D&D has ever tried to tackle either of these issues: with the exception (noted above) of OA, it conveys no sense of social order beyond a bit of set dressing; and there are almost no cases where the qualities of PCs are connected to actions (falling from paladinhood is the only - notorious - exception that comes to mind).

So I'm still at a bit of a loss as to how literary notions of agency bear upon RPGing in general.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the GM has decided, "off screen", that the PC's brother has died, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet up with this brother.
> 
> Less dramatically, if the GM has decided that the PC's brother has travelled far away, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet his brother on the borders of their ancestral estate.
> 
> Those are precisely the sort of GM decisions you are advocating for. As the previous two paragraphs show, they clearly shape what it is that the character can do in the setting. (Which I think was also @hawkeyefan's point not too far upthread.)
> 
> So even in your preferred sense of _agency_ they appear to limit it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But they don't limit your agency in the setting. They limit what outcomes your agency can achieve. Lots of things do.
Click to expand...


There is a vast literature on the nature of _action - _I drew on some of it in a thread I started about 18 months ago.

If both _I look for my brother_ and _I find my brother_ are true, then they are both descriptions of the same action. There are not two separate things that take place, first the looking and then the finding, any more than is the case when I win and run a race, or when I sit and pass an exam - _my_ _winning of the race _and _my_ _running of the race_ are the same thing, just differently described; likewise _my sitting of the exam_ and _my passing of it_.



Bedrockgames said:


> The GM is going to make lots of calls about details in the setting. For example the Gm might decide the printing pres hasn't been invented yet. That is a detail of the setting. That doesn't reduce agency just because you, the player, can't start a printing press company in the setting. Any setting with any kind of definition is going to place limits on what can be achieved, not on agency itself



How does this relate to your "literary" notion of agency? Eg if there is no printing press invented, then it's not just that my PC can't start a printing endeavour; s/he can't even try to.



Bedrockgames said:


> But agency is about your freedom to move and act within that setting. It is about how much the GM is obstructing or enabling free will. A GM who decides the brother died, isn't impacting your free will. I get that for you agency is about being able to say "I want this to happen in the game" and for there to be a reliable way to make that happen, but that isn't what we mean when are talking about agency (and again agency is a really important concept in the style of play I am talking about, and when people use it, they definitely are not talking about the type of agency you appear to be discussing).



We are now back in the notion of _agency equals being able to declare actions for one's character_. In what RPGing do you think this doesn't exist? Can you please give examples of RPGs where the player _does not _have the freedom to say (eg) "I look for my brother"?


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> How does this relate to your "literary" notion of agency? Eg if there is no printing press invented, then it's not just that my PC can't start a printing endeavour; s/he can't even try to.




I just said it was informed by that definition. The defintion people on my side are using is your ability to do things within a given setting. 

But if you are seriously making this argument, I find it a little extreme. I mean, basically by this logic only settings that have and allow everything maximize agency. That is wish fulfillment, not agency in my view. 

In the case of the printing press, yes, you can't try to start a printing press company if printing presses don't exist. But that doesn't impact your ability to do things in the setting. One of the setting conceits is: no printing press. But within a setting with no printing presses, you could still try to start a scriptorium or engage in a similar venture. But not being able to do something because a device hasn't been invented, doesn't strike me as interfering with agency.


----------



## pemerton

Here are two examples, one from actual play and the other from actual film.

*A player establishing truths about the fictional setting which are not just truths about bodily motions performed by his PC:* In my 4e D&D campaign that ran to 30th level (and that has been on hiatus for 3 or 4 years now due to one player's unavailability in that time), there was one PC with a significant access to rituals and a strong Arcana skill: the invoker/wizard. There was another character who had limited access to rituals and a modest Arcana skill: the sorcerer.

Quite often the player of the invoker/wizard would tell the table, speaking as/for his character, how magic worked in the (imagined) world of our game, and what sorts of actions would or wouldn't make sense and would or wouldn't be possible. Sometimes he would to do this as part o framing his own action declarations, or in preparation for framing them. Sometimes he would do this to inform or even correct the player of the sorcerer.

The invoker/wizard PC had a feat that gave a bonus to checks involving rituals. As written by the designers, I think the word "rituals" was meant to encompass the formal game elements falling under that label. But the player of the invoker/wizard - ie the same guy who would set out his theories of how magic worked - would decide if any given check he was making that was related to his PC's manipulation of magic counted as a ritual, or not, and would apply the bonus accordingly.

This caused no problems in 7 years of gameplay. I don't recall any particular time when there was disagreement - eg by the player of the sorcerer - but if there was we must have resolved it pretty straightforwardly, given I can't remember it.

I consider what I have just described to be a manifestation of player agency. I am also very confident that it supported rather than hampered the player's inhabitation of his PC (given that he was playing a PC who, by the end of the campaign, had an Arcana bonus that would rival most gods' let alone any mortal's). My own view is that the gameworld would _not _have felt more "real" to that player if, instead of him playing as I have described, I as GM provided all that information about what was possible using magic via second person narration.

*A film with a "chance meeting":* In the film A Knight's Tale, Heath Ledger's character William Thatcher is jousting in disguise as a noble knight. He is found out, barred from jousting, and put in the stocks.

Prior to this, at a joust fairly early in the film, he has met and befriended Prince Edward. When he is in the stocks, Prince Edward turns up and announces to all assembled that his personal genealogists have looked into William's ancestry and while he seems to be of humble origins in fact he has noble ancestry. This lie from an important friend means that William is released from the stocks and able to joust again.

What RPGs have the capacity to produce a scene like this other than by sheer GM fiat? I can think of two that can do so easily: Burning Wheel, using the Circles mechanic; and HeroWars/Quest, using a check made on a relationship.

In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP that sort of social connection could (in various ways) contribute to a dice pool used to reduce or eliminate an In the Stocks complication, but I don't think it would be straightforward to have it play out in the particular way it does in the film (ie the Prince telling a lie that changes the character's status and thereby achieves his freedom). Prince Valiant has the concept of a Rescue episode, but these are GM initiated, not player initiated. It also has an Escape Bonds special effect which a player could trigger by spending a Storyteller Certificate, but the closest that gets is that a tool might be smuggled to the player. It doesn't allow the player to stipulate that a particular NPC turns up. (Once the GM has decided that the NPC turns up, Prince Valiant does have a system - a Presence check - that could determine that the NPC tells the lie to help the character.)

If there are RPGs that could handle this other than via GM decision-making that I'm missing, I'm very happy to be corrected.

Now, is a RPGing experience going to be better if such a scene happens in virtue of GM decision-making rather than player action declaration? To me it doesn't seem so. Is a RPG system better if it doesn't permit such episodes to occur? Again, to me it doesn't seem so.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> But if you are seriously making this argument, I find it a little extreme. I mean, basically *by this logic only settings that have and allow everything maximize agency*. That is wish fulfillment, not agency in my view.
> 
> In the case of the printing press, yes, you can't try to start a printing press company if printing presses don't exist. But that doesn't impact your ability to do things in the setting. One of the setting conceits is: no printing press.



Here is the alternative to your bolded assertion: the setting conceits - genre, tropes, etc - are settled consensually. Which is to say, are themselves a result of the exercise of agency by all participants.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> We are now back in the notion of _agency equals being able to declare actions for one's character_. In what RPGing do you think this doesn't exist? Can you please give examples of RPGs where the player _does not _have the freedom to say (eg) "I look for my brother"?




You keep framing things a certain way, and I really don't agree with your framing or paraphrasing of me at all. It isn't just about being able to declare actions, it is about being able to have freedom in the setting. Most RPGs don't rule against agency, but countless adventure structures and playstyles do go against agency. My whole point earlier was the reason I went back to a lot of the older content and searched for new adventure structures is because the ones that were prevalent at the time, to me, felt like they were hampering agency. So this is largely about playstyles, not systems (though certainly many games have guidelines that run counter to agency). For me maximizing agency isn't about finding the right system. I don't need rules that encourage agency. I just need systems that don't interfere with it. While few RPGs would stop you from looking for your brother, plenty of GMs, who are focused on say having a particular adventure set up or who want to keep on you the path your on, might not take such an attempt seriously should you try it.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Here is the alternative to your bolded assertion: the setting conceits - genre, tropes, etc - are settled consensually. Which is to say, are themselves a result of the exercise of agency by all participants.




Again, that isn't what I am talking about when I say agency. Now if you like that, fair enough. But it has zero connection to what people on my side of this discussion mean when they say agency. For me, I get no greater sense of agency by participating in the setting design and setting genre physics. Doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy it. I just don't think it is agency to me.


----------



## FrogReaver

I think going back to the roots, agency came up for RPG's first in the context of railroading.  People at this early time were talking about agency and railroading and didn't care at all about whether the player could control any other part of the fiction (or control it in any other way).  They were simply concerned with the player being able to control the character and for that to have the possibility of causing important changes in the fictional world.  When they used the word agency that's what they were referring to.  When I talk about agency that's what I tend to mean as well.

With this definition, something that takes away player control of their character is a removal of agency.  The only time this is deemed acceptable is when the character itself is also experiencing a lack of agency.  The reason for this is because it preserves character advocacy (a separate play goal).

With this definition, the player having control of non-character details isn't agency as it's not the player's control of the character that is causing the important changes in the fictional world.

I think it's okay in the present to talk about other types of agency.  However, there's always the question of whether the techniques being used to add a different type of agency to a game are also impacting the historical type of agency described above.  I think the techniques that we see being pushed back on the most are the techniques that do actually impact this kind of agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think going back to the roots, agency came up for RPG's first in the context of railroading.  People at this early time were talking about agency and railroading and didn't care at all about whether the player could control any other part of the fiction (or control of it in any other way).  They were simply concerned with the player being able to control the character and for that to have the possibility causing important changes in the fictional world.  When they used the word agency that's what they were referring to.  When I talk about agency that's what I tend to mean as well.
> 
> With this definition something that takes away player control is a removal of agency.  The only time this is deemed acceptable is when the character itself is also experiencing a lack of agency.  The reason for this is because it preserves character advocacy (a separate play goal).
> 
> With this definition the player having control of non-character details isn't agency as it's not the player's control of the character that is causing the important changes in the fictional world.
> 
> I think it's okay in the present to call out other types of agency.  However, there's always the question of whether the techniques being used to add a different type of agency to a game are also impacting the historical type of agency described above.  I think the techniques that we see being pushed back on the most are the techniques that do actually impact this kind of agency.




Which is why I think the kind of rhetoric people engage in matters in these threads.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Which is why I think the kind of rhetoric people engage in matters in these threads.



Yea.  Heck, even if we all shared the same terminology there's some pretty gaping holes when it comes to adaquately explaining everything happening in words.  Like I just reread my definition above and it misses out on some important nuance that someone could use to hammer that definition on if they wanted to do that instead of understand where I'm coming from.

Consider: I can have control of my character and have his actions cause important changes in the fiction and it still be an illusionary railroad.  Easy to miss that as the conversation hasn't focused on illusionary railroads for quite some time.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Yea.  Heck, even if we all shared the same terminology there's some pretty gaping holes when it comes to adaquately explaining everything happening in words.  Like I just reread my definition above and it misses out on some important nuance that someone could use to hammer that definition on if they wanted to do that instead of understand where I'm coming from.
> 
> Consider: I can have control of my character and have his actions cause important changes in the fiction and it still be an illusionary railroad.  Easy to miss that as the conversation hasn't focused on illusionary railroads for quite some time.



This has actually been a recurring point against your arguments, you've just missed it.  So long as the GM controls the narration of both success and failure, the player is losing agency.  They may retain some, but it's difficult to detect against manipulation like Illusionism.  Compared to a player that can enforce half of the resolution space, meaning they can assert what can happen on a success, this is most likely a lower agency position.  There's a weird space where the GM is allowing the players to define all success states in mainstream play, but this is difficult to do given how games like 5e structure play and require a level of necessary prep.  What typically happens is that even a good GM trying hard to allow players to define the success state still temper this against the needs of the game and their own consideration of what should/could happen.  This reduces agency.

And, as has been said so many times but ignored, this reduction in agency comes with trade-offs.  The one that I get is that the game is more curated for a specific experience and often players enjoy the exploration of someone else's concepts.  This isn't available in games that expect players to be more active in directing the game.  For me, these games do different things, and scratch different itches, and so I'll keep playing both -- but it's pretty darned obvious that in a mainstream game, like 5e or Pathfinder 1e, that the GM has most of the agency in the game.  I mean, you're posting this stuff pretty strongly in the GM Authority thread over in the D&D forum, but here you're making an argument that players have as much agency in a game where the GM wields maximum authority over the game as in a game where the GM is restrained from negating player declared actions.  It's very, very odd.

And, again, there's no trap here, no gotcha, there's no thing waiting to be sprung if anyone decides that maybe there is less agency in a mainstream, GM with maximum authority game.  Because, there are trade-offs and player agency isn't a moral or value statement until you are using your own preferences to select your game.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> You keep framing things a certain way, and I really don't agree with your framing or paraphrasing of me at all. It isn't just about being able to declare actions, it is about being able to have freedom in the setting. Most RPGs don't rule against agency, but countless adventure structures and playstyles do go against agency. My whole point earlier was the reason I went back to a lot of the older content and searched for new adventure structures is because the ones that were prevalent at the time, to me, felt like they were hampering agency.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> While few RPGs would stop you from looking for your brother, plenty of GMs, who are focused on say having a particular adventure set up or who want to keep on you the path your on, might not take such an attempt seriously should you try it.



Are you able to provide actual examples, rather than high-level description? As far as I can tell from your descriptions, you are contrasting your preferred approach with super-railroady AP-style play. Is that what you are meaning to convey?

Also, I'd be interested to know what you mean by _taking such an attempt seriously_. I've posted multiple times in this thread about the GM _taking suggestions_. Do you mean that, or something else?

What happens if the GM on day 1, writing his/her secret notes, decides that the brother is dead, and then in a session a week later on day 8 the player decides to have his/her PC look for his/her brother. Does it count as _taking that seriously _if the GM goes on to adjudicate (let's say) 3 hours of play where the upshot of that is that the player learns what the GM had already decided and had already known, namely, that the brother is dead?


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I think going back to the roots, agency came up for RPG's first in the context of railroading.  People at this early time were talking about agency and railroading and didn't care at all about whether the player could control any other part of the fiction (or control it in any other way).  They were simply concerned with the player being able to control the character and for that to have the possibility of causing important changes in the fictional world.  When they used the word agency that's what they were referring to.  When I talk about agency that's what I tend to mean as well.



Which "people" are you referring to here? Which "early time"?

I've quoted Ron Edwards writing nearly 20 years ago. His concerns, and his way of talking about them, are near enough to identical to those being expressed in this thread by me, @Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan. And there is less but still a high degree of overlap with @Campbell.

So I infer that Ron Edwards is not one of your "people" and 2003 is not your "early time". But I remain curious about who, and when, you have in mind.

I also think that your repeated return to "controlling the character" is a red herring. The DL modules are rather notorious for railroading, but none of that depends on the players losing control of their characters. It's all done by the GM manipulation of other elements of the fiction.

The start of the 3E module Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is a mega-railroad, and most of the module continues in similar vein. But again none of that depends on the players losing control of their characters. It's rest on sheer social pressure/assumptions that the players will exercise that control in the "right" way.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> What typically happens is that even a good GM trying hard to allow players to define the success state still temper this against the needs of the game and their own consideration of what should/could happen.  This reduces agency.
> 
> And, as has been said so many times but ignored, this reduction in agency comes with trade-offs.  The one that I get is that the game is more curated for a specific experience and often players enjoy the exploration of someone else's concepts.



I've kept in the first quoted sentence just to provide a bit of context for the second, which is what I want to pick up.

The demand for RPGing that involves someone else's concepts is, as far as I can tell, _huge_ (at least as a component of total demand for RPGing). The idea of "shared experience" across tables, which seems a very big deal for many RPGers, practically depends upon it.


----------



## pemerton

Two more observations:

(1) 
In my BW game, giving effect to the Force of Will spell in mechanical terms by mandating a change of Belief was my own ruling. But last week I looked through the Revised version of Gold, which I acquired in 2019 (ie well after the episode of play I've been describing) and saw that it has added the following to the spell description:

The sorcerer may rewrite one Belief [of the victim of the spell]. That Belief may not be changed without use of another Force of Will spell.​
Now I don't entirely agree with that second sentence - eg the write sort of prayer, or even a non-"magical" revelatory moment, might do the trick. But I was pleased to see the first sentence because it confirmed that my reading of the game system corresponds with the designers'.


(2)
Classic Traveller has a patron encounter system - if a player has his/her PC hang out for a week in the right sort of place (eg the lounge of the Travellerss Aid Society) then on a 5+ on 1D6 (or 4+ if the PC has Carousing-1+) a patron will be encountered.

This isn't quite the same as having Prince Edward turn up and lie about your ancestry to free you from the stocks. but it does put a certain aspect of setting and situation outside the sole control of the referee.

And that was back in 1977.


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## zarionofarabel

Is it bad that I am amused by how many times someone posts "You can't do X in a RPG!" and then someone else responds with "Burning Wheel does that!"


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## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> *I don't think my position is incoherent at all.* You might disagree with it, or you might misunderstand it, but it is a coherent point of view.



Neither do flat-earthers. Sorry if that makes you feel slighted, but it's true. People rarely, _if ever_, believe that they hold incoherent positions. It's psychologically perturbing and discomforting to do so. Everyone has "incoherent" positions that frequently masquerade themselves publicly as coherent ones. Simply declaring that your position is coherent doesn't mean that the position passes the test of coherency. Plus, it hardly seems like it would be in a position to be so easily misunderstood by critics when you also position your preferences and views with loaded terms like "traditional" and "majority," as most are people here are incredibly well-versed with traditional styles of play that form the bulk of games out there. However, just because a playstyle is "traditional" does not mean that it is "coherent."



Ovinomancer said:


> And, again, there's no trap here, no gotcha, there's no thing waiting to be sprung if anyone decides that maybe there is less agency in a mainstream, GM with maximum authority game.  Because, there are trade-offs and player agency isn't a moral or value statement until you are using your own preferences to select your game.



Here's the thing: what does @FrogReaver, @Crimson Longinus, or even @Bedrockgames stand to possibly "lose" when it comes to their own games from agreeing that either you, @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @Fenris-77, @Hriston, or whoever else may be right when it comes to the player agency? How would their own, respective games be impacted (or threatened) in anyway if they agreed that their preferred games may have less player agency than other games on the market? There couldn't possibly be such opposition to this all if there were no stakes to this debate, right?

It's not as if the rest of us have stopped playing D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, OSR, or other more mainstream games with enjoyment as a result of our respective viewpoints. I personally find it baffling but I love playing different games. Because much like card or board games, I hold the uncontroversial opinion that different TTRPGs do different things well. And when it comes to TTRPGs, you learn a lot about your own preferences, play styles, or even how to improve your "art" as a player or GM through playing other games or even exploring other modes of play with the same game.


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## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> This totally avoids the question.



Of course it does; it was supposed to be a joke... 


hawkeyefan said:


> Have you never as a GM had an idea ready to introduce and then, for whatever reason, changed your mind and gone with something else?
> 
> I’ve done this even in games like D&D and Call of Cthulhu which are kind of prep oriented. Thinking about it now, it would almost have to be in a game like that.
> 
> So, assuming you’ve done this, is what you had originally planned in any way “real” in the fiction?



Once something becomes known by any player it's pretty much locked in.  Example: I'm committed to the geography in the parts of my world that I've mapped, even though I've come to be mildly annoyed by some of it, because those maps are now player-facing.

And yes, there's lots of blank-looking space on the maps.  Some of it I have ideas for (and-or it's already filled in with things the players/PCs have yet to encounter), and some of it is truly 'blank' and open for future use or development.


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## Lanefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Also, in my campaigns, if I have a different group of players, what happens is totally different as well. I have to playtest content and run much of the same setting/campaign book material. It always ends up being about different things. They take place in the same location, but a location can be home to infinite stories.



side note

To me this is a sign of a well-designed adventure or module, if it plays out much differently when you run different groups of players through it.

/side note


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Why is it condescending or dismissive?
> 
> Whereas I assume that your many references over the years to "Schroedinger's ogre" and the like are neither.



Though I understand the reasoning behind it, Schroedinger's ogre isn't mine: someone else came up with that one.

That said, I may have now and then referred to the idea of a fully no-myth [can't really call it a setting, but] setting as being Schroedinger's world.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Neither do flat-earthers. Sorry if that makes you feel slighted, but it's true. People rarely, _if ever_, believe that they hold incoherent positions. It's psychologically perturbing and discomforting to do so. Everyone has "incoherent" positions that frequently masquerade themselves publicly as coherent ones. Simply declaring that your position is coherent doesn't mean that the position passes the test of coherency. Plus, it hardly seems like it would be in a position to be so easily misunderstood by critics when you also position your preferences and views with loaded terms like "traditional" and "majority," as most are people here are incredibly well-versed with traditional styles of play that form the bulk of games out there. However, just because a playstyle is "traditional" does not mean that it is "coherent."




And you are not a psychiatrist vetting my mind for incoherence. Sorry but the arrogance in this post is really annoying. And this attitude is a real problem for me. The degree to which you are certain about your ideas in gaming, to the point that you compare a person to a flat-earther, which is just a scientifically wrong opinion, for taking a view on a subject as subjective as gaming style, which here is largely pivoting on peoples use of obscure terminology, just bothers me. I don't mind having a disagreement over playstyle. I do mind being told my view is incoherent when it isn't, and when I have been happy to explain it. What I keep getting is people restating my position in ways I don't find accurate.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Here's the thing: what does @FrogReaver, @Crimson Longinus, or even @Bedrockgames stand to possibly "lose" when it comes to their own games from agreeing that either you, @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @Fenris-77, @Hriston, or whoever else may be right when it comes to the player agency? How would their own, respective games be impacted (or threatened) in anyway if they agreed that their preferred games may have less player agency than other games on the market? There couldn't possibly be such opposition to this all if there were no stakes to this debate, right?




Because your conclusion about agency paints a very misleading picture of what our games are about, and about what agency means to people. My experience matches frogreavers, which is most people in the hobby have been using the definition of agency we are using (because it arose in response to railroading as a problem). Now you are taking a term which has that meaning, then introducing a new meaning, which I think is a misleading bit of rhetoric (it is also the think your side does in just about every since one of these threads to paint your style as having the most X when X is a priority or highly valued concept). It is also a form of equivocation (which is also incredibly common in these discussions).


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> It's not as if the rest of us have stopped playing D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, OSR, or other more mainstream games with enjoyment as a result of our respective viewpoints. I personally find it baffling but I love playing different games. Because much like card or board games, I hold the uncontroversial opinion that different TTRPGs do different things well. And when it comes to TTRPGs, you learn a lot about your own preferences, play styles, or even how to improve your "art" as a player or GM through playing other games or even exploring other modes of play with the same game.




No one here is expressing any issues with the games you like to play, and plenty of us have pointed to games that occupy similar space that we also really like. In fact many of us have expressed curiosity about your games (which gets diminished a bit because of the way you guys often dismiss our ideas). Further I have stated a number of times i don't play mainstream games or D&D. This is about a style of play to me, not about a system or what the majority of the hobby is doing.


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## Bedrockgames

zarionofarabel said:


> Is it bad that I am amused by how many times someone posts "You can't do X in a RPG!" and then someone else responds with "Burning Wheel does that!"




The only thing is, this isn't what is usually being said actually. It a miscommunication. For example there was an instance where I said something like that about one of Pemerton's points, becuase when he first made it, it was in relation to D&D and about what D&D did (he was trying to suggest that the kind of mechanic found in burning wheel has long been present in D&D early in the discussion). So when he raised the same example, I assumed he was doing so in reference to D&D. I think the other side of the debate likes to paint us as narrowminded, or only having experience of the game through D&D. Now most of us don't play Burning Wheel, but we have and do play other games, and some of us don't even play D&D that much at all.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If the GM has decided, "off screen", that the PC's brother has died, then one thing the character _cannot _do in the setting is to meet up with this brother.



Or...perhaps he can, given a little out-of-box thinking followed by some spell power from either yourself-as-PC or someone else.

In D&D, a _Commune_ spell could tell you which plane or land of the dead your brother's spirit wound up in, then a _Planeshift_ spell could get you there (assuming it's a plane whose environment won't kill you on the spot), followed by some combination of scry-teleport or divination spells or sheer dumb luck to find and meet your brother's spirit.

I've seen this done in play.  The spirit being sought was that of one of my PCs.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Are you able to provide actual examples, rather than high-level description? As far as I can tell from your descriptions, you are contrasting your preferred approach with super-railroady AP-style play. Is that what you are meaning to convey?




I provided a number of examples, and linked to session and campaign entries on my blog multiple times. I have been pretty consistently contrasting my style with things like GM as storyteller (the approach you saw a lot of in the 90s), plot centered play, play centered around scenes (for instance games like Gumshoe, which I like), adventure paths, 3E style encounter structured adventures, but also any form of railroad (an adventure path is an adventure structure but only becomes a railroad if the players are prevented from not engaging it, or deviating from it).


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Also, I'd be interested to know what you mean by _taking such an attempt seriously_. I've posted multiple times in this thread about the GM _taking suggestions_. Do you mean that, or something else?




I simply mean, when the players say they want to try to do X, truly thinking about that request in a serious way (not simply rushing to a judgment on it, not blocking it because it is convenient for what you had planned, etc).


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> What happens if the GM on day 1, writing his/her secret notes, decides that the brother is dead, and then in a session a week later on day 8 the player decides to have his/her PC look for his/her brother. Does it count as _taking that seriously _if the GM goes on to adjudicate (let's say) 3 hours of play where the upshot of that is that the player learns what the GM had already decided and had already known, namely, that the brother is dead?




Yes it is. Taking it seriously isn't about seriously considering changing the setting details (at least not in the style of play I am describing). If the brother is dead, then he is dead. You have established that. What I am talking about is seriously considering whatever actions within that setting the players seek to take. This can extend to things undetermined in the setting, but the answer is ideally based on some criteria other than, this is what I want to happen (there should be a rationale for it). 

Look, I've explained this style to you many times. I feel like you probably already understand what I am saying, and I am always a little skeptical when you ask questions. And I have explained how I do things to you. I am answering your question, but if this question is just a set up to attack my approach, I am not going to answer the next post.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> There is a vast literature on the nature of _action - _I drew on some of it in a thread I started about 18 months ago.
> 
> If both _I look for my brother_ and _I find my brother_ are true, then they are both descriptions of the same action. There are not two separate things that take place, first the looking and then the finding, any more than is the case when I win and run a race, or when I sit and pass an exam - _my_ _winning of the race _and _my_ _running of the race_ are the same thing, just differently described; likewise _my sitting of the exam_ and _my passing of it_.



There's a missing temporal component here.  _My winning of the race_ presupposes and builds in an earlier action _my running of the race_.  Ditto for the exam example: it's mighty hard to pass an exam without first sitting it.

The brother example is a bit different: _I find my brother_ does not necessarily come with a built-in _I look for my brother_ in that you may have found him by sheer chance without looking for him at all.


pemerton said:


> How does this relate to your "literary" notion of agency? Eg if there is no printing press invented, then it's not just that my PC can't start a printing endeavour; s/he can't even try to.



Heh - yes she can!  

The only new spell I've ever had one of my-as-player PCs research and invent in a game was to do just this: _Pagey's Pages_ (a.k.a. _Manywrite_) copies the mundane writing on one page or sheet on to numerous other blank pages.  Not much use for printing books but great for copying maps, handbills, wanted posters, leaflets, etc.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> This has actually been a recurring point against your arguments, you've just missed it.  So long as the GM controls the narration of both success and failure, the player is losing agency.  They may retain some, but it's difficult to detect against manipulation like Illusionism.  Compared to a player that can enforce half of the resolution space, meaning they can assert what can happen on a success, this is most likely a lower agency position.  There's a weird space where the GM is allowing the players to define all success states in mainstream play, but this is difficult to do given how games like 5e structure play and require a level of necessary prep.  What typically happens is that even a good GM trying hard to allow players to define the success state still temper this against the needs of the game and their own consideration of what should/could happen.  This reduces agency.




We are not missing it. We understand that, if we use your definition of agency, this is the case. But we are using a different definition of agency (which I think Frogreaver made a good point about being designed in response to railroading). The issue isn't a failure of one side to understand the other's argument


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> .  Because, there are trade-offs and player agency isn't a moral or value statement until you are using your own preferences to select your game.




Yes it is. Agency is very much a morally loaded term. When people on my said they were interested in trying to increase agency due to adventure structures they were encountering, it was because they were bothered by them. We felt anger towards the constraints, and while it is just a game and no one is suggesting this translates into real life issues, it is fundamentally about giving players freedom (and freedom isn't a morally neutral concept). Further your side has clearly painted this conversation in moral terms when it has discussed the way our side approaches GMing. And even if it isn't given moral value, agency is a valued term, and it is taken as a value statement to say this game gives agency and this one doesn't. And not to beat a dead horse, but the reason people who like this style are taking issue is because our style grew up around the idea of enhancing agency. It is an important aim of the style. But your response is to insist on a defintion of agency we don't even use, in order to force us to agree with you that your approach offers the most agency (and then you keep turning around and saying 'but we're just coldly analyzing, there is nothing wrong with your style of play'). I don't see cold analysis, I see analysis that is geared towards the conclusions you've already reached about styles and games.


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## Bedrockgames

Lanefan said:


> side note
> 
> To me this is a sign of a well-designed adventure or module, if it plays out much differently when you run different groups of players through it.
> 
> /side note




Me too. This is largely what I was talking about when I said I was fed up with the adventure structures that were prevalent in the early d20 boom, and felt like I could just hand my players my notes, because it wasn't really meant to turn out that different from group to group. When I sit down to play, I want to have no idea what will happen and where things will go. So I want any module or setting material to be built to provide that kind of play


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## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Neither do flat-earthers. Sorry if that makes you feel slighted, but it's true.




I want everyone to take a moment to appreciate the irony of this comment by an internet expert who is telling @Bedrockgames, an actual RPG publisher, how RPGs work.


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## Bedrockgames

Crimson Longinus said:


> I want everyone to take a moment to appreciate the irony of this comment by an internet expert who is telling @Bedrockgames, an actual RPG publisher, how RPGs work.




Just to be clear, I am an indie publisher with a very niche audience (you can't throw a cat without hitting an indie designer these days ). It isn't like I've put out something that everyone here has heard of. I don't think publishing stuff should protect me from criticism at all (I have never claimed to be the smartest guy in the room on this topic). I just think comparing anyone in the thread to a flat-earther for taking a playstyle position, or for not using a term like agency in the same way, is an unfair characterization.


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## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> I want everyone to take a moment to appreciate the irony of this comment by an internet expert who is telling @Bedrockgames, an actual RPG publisher, how RPGs work.



Can you either explain how this qualifies as irony or how am I doing what you are accusing me of doing in the post you are quoting? Or are you showing your true colors by choosing to make baseless personal attacks? Based on our mostly positive interactions in other threads, I would hope that you would be better than that.


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## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> We are not missing it. We understand that, if we use your definition of agency, this is the case. But we are using a different definition of agency (which I think Frogreaver made a good point about being designed in response to railroading). The issue isn't a failure of one side to understand the other's argument




What's the solution then? How can I talk about the things I want to talk about on these boards?

I mean I have been upfront about exactly what I meant from the beginning. I have tried to reframe the conversation innumerable times. I keep getting told that instead of speaking to a player's ability to enact meaningful change in the (shared) fiction that I must instead talk about their freedom to explore. I keep being told that talking about games as games is denigrating your playstyle when I have no intention to.

I'm expressing my genuine perspective in the best way I know how here. There is no equivocation here. Feel free to tell me how you think I am misguided or offer a different perspective. I will listen. Please do not question my integrity.


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## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Can you either explain how this qualifies as irony or how am I doing what you are accusing me of doing in the post you are quoting? Or are you showing your true colors by choosing to make baseless personal attacks? Based on our mostly positive interactions in other threads, I would hope that you would be better than that.



I was not the one who brought the flat-earther comparison. Perhaps we could just agree that throwing such around is not terribly constructive?


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## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to be clear, I am an indie publisher with a very niche audience (you can't throw a cat without hitting an indie designer these days ). It isn't like I've put out something that everyone here has heard of. I don't think publishing stuff should protect me from criticism at all (I have never claimed to be the smartest guy in the room on this topic). I just think comparing anyone in the thread to a flat-earther for taking a playstyle position, or for not using a term like agency in the same way, is an unfair characterization.



It is not that your position is comparable to a flat-earther. The point is to illustrate that even flat-earthers, a position we can (hopefully) mutually agree is absurd, think they have coherent positions.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> What's the solution then? How can I talk about the things I want to talk about on these boards?
> 
> I mean I have been upfront about exactly what I meant from the beginning. I have tried to reframe the conversation innumerable times. I keep getting told that instead of speaking to a player's ability to enact meaningful change in the (shared) fiction that I must instead talk about their freedom to explore. I keep being told that talking about games as games is denigrating your playstyle when I have no intention to.
> 
> I'm expressing my genuine perspective in the best way I know how here. There is no equivocation here. Feel free to tell me how you think I am misguided or offer a different perspective. I will listen. Please do not question my integrity.




To be clear, even though we have disagreed, you were not someone who leapt to mind when I invoked equivocation. But this type of thread is a recurring one, often with the same posters, and equivocation on a valued concept, in order to advocate for a playstyle does seem to be a thing that happens often. We can both talk, but we need to at least understand we are coming at this with different concepts of agency.


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## Crimson Longinus

I have agency in Cluedo, I have agency in Once Upon a Time, I have agency in Warhammer 40K. Very differnt kinds of agency. RPGs combine all these in differnt amounts. If I could just narrate who the killer is (or have a die roll to determine whether I could) in Cluedo, then the sort of agency the game aims to produce would be ruined. An independent objective(ish) reality has to exist for certain kind of decisions to be meaningful. At the same time I recognise that having that sort of fixed reality that I cannot alter as a player limits my agency to narrate things, and sometimes that might be undesirable. This doesn't seem terribly complicated to me, most of the thread just seem to have devolved into pointless semantics and trying to present value judgements as objective analysis.


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## Fenris-77

zarionofarabel said:


> Is it bad that I am amused by how many times someone posts "You can't do X in a RPG!" and then someone else responds with "Burning Wheel does that!"



Burning Wheel does a lot of stuff other RPGs dont. I love the game, but it's really crunchy. I've only played a couple of times but I steal ideas from it pretty liberally.


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## Fenris-77

A basic divide here is the agency inherent in playstyle, which seems to be what Bedrock is focussed on, and agency inherent in resolution mechanics,  which is what some other people are talking about. Frankly I think both are important if the project is to delineate what agency means and looks like in practice.


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## Manbearcat

Alright, going to try to talk about some of these things with some specificity.  I wrote in my last response to @pemerton why I think it may be a worthwhile endeavor to develop this kind of matrix.  I also addressed some of the first paragraph below, so I'm just going to refer back to that and do a bit more on that end.

I'm absolutely able of being moved off of the development of such a matrix if it doesn't enhance the ability to achieve the things I wrote in that last post to pemerton.  I'm not there yet though (and I'm working through these things in real time).



Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, I think I see what you're saying, here, and that's when an obstacle is presented (however) that the player can move his Character to deal with it (I swing my sword at the orc!), or the Situation (the orc doesn't notice Bob crouched behind him and trips over him when he steps back!), or the Setting.  To be honest, I'm not sure how Setting works here -- what does this entail that isn't in the Situation?  To me, it would have to be those things that are the base genre assumptions, or perhaps already established fiction, but we've talked about the retcon and the lack of games that actually instantiate this.
> 
> I'm not sure I really agree with this, because there's so much overlap.  There's almost never a Situation move that doesn't also move the Character.  And, as I said, I don't follow what a Setting move would even entail that doesn't require a Situation move.  This is why I argue that there's no real use in trying to establish different categories of agency -- at the end of the day all of this boils down to the simple question "was I able to make a meaningful choice and enforce it's consequences?"  I've got a bit more to say on this formulation of agency, but I'll save it for the end.  Your framework here looks like it's trying to split hairs to develop another partially useful framework that ultimately results in more arguments than clarity (sorry for the frankness).




Alright, to start, I'm going to link back to the Spout Lore breakdown.  That works through some of the above so you can comment on that if you'd like.

As far as "is it possible to not pick up the Character Game Piece (and again, this includes the _here _and _now _provisos) when you pick up the Situation or Setting Game Piece", I would say (a) its not terribly common and (b) some cases for it will be more tenuous than others.

Here are a few cases that I'm confident in.

* FitD *Flashbacks *always violate the _now _proviso and often violate the _here _proviso of Character.  So those are always grabbing the Situation Game Piece and sometimes grabbing the Setting Game Piece (more on that below).

* *Khan of Khans* (Barbarian move in DW) - _Your hirelings always accept the gratuitous fulfillment of one of your appetites as payment.  _That is a PC build move that, once taken, forevermore changes the Setting. And, because of it, there will be Situation ramifications.  It is sort of like the GM asking a question and using the answer; "Does your porter Duvalle relish your destroying of the King's minstrel's lyre when he serenaded the throne room with a song of his master's conquests (Pure Destruction or Power over Others as Appetites)...or is he still going to need that Coin you owe him?"

* *Plan of Action* (Dashing Hero move in DW) - 4e has a move just like this.  There is always a rope, chandelier, window, cart, easily spooked-herd of livestock, tapestry to be cut, rug to be pulled, ale soaked floor, bannister (any fitting piece of terrain or environmental hazard) whenever it would be handy for you to have one in a situation.  This is clearly picking up the Situation Game Piece.

* *Faction Clocks for Gangs at War after Crew Has Initiated it via Deception (or other) Score* - So, the Score itself would involve all the manipulation of Game Pieces relative to its handling.  But, after its been set in motion (unless the PCs commit to a Score or a Downtime Activity to help one side or the other...or both...keeping them perpetually At War has big advantage), the actual Fortune Rolls to resolve the Faction Clocks for the war as it unfolds will just be the Setting Game Piece.

* *A Lover in Every Port in DW* - You tell the table if there is an old flame in this new town...then we roll to find out if they're helpful/complicated/harmful.  This is grabbing the Setting and Situation Game Pieces.

Then there is the next layer where the manifestation of the move is less strongly through Character (but its there) and much more strongly directly with Setting or Situation (or both).  Things like *The initial part of the first iteration of Come and Get It in 4e* (Your enemies respond to your exhortations/feints without fail), *Through Death's Eyes in DW and Visions of Death in AW *(are you channeling Death...are you dictating to Death to decide who lives and who dies?), *Thief's Escape Route/Connections in DW, Circles in BW/TB, Streetwise and Secrets of the City (and the like) in 4e - *Is there a way out of this difficult situation and are you capable of taking it (and at what cost), do you have available friends/allies capable of changing the situation?

There are plenty more, but those are the ones that come to mind as good expressions of the idea.  There is enough meaningful difference between these things (in terms of Character, Setting, Situation) that when designing them or discussing them, the reality of the player's orientation to them and relative potency of those differences are important to delineate (qualitatively).

Thoughts (anyone)?



> To touch on your Protagonism, Tactical, and Strategic ideas, I still find these not coherent with each other.  Protagonism talks to why you do a thing -- who does it serve?  But both Tactical and Strategic point to when or how long a consequence of a choice operates.  "I stab the orc" is pretty tactical -- it's now, solving an immediate problem.  The Strategic problem would be more "what am I doing to eliminate the orc menace from X village?"  It's a long term consequence that shapes multiple scenes or sessions of play.  But, any student of war will tell you that Strategy is Tactics writ large, so this is a scales difference rather than a kind difference -- they're the same thing at different scales.  *Protagonism, though is different beast altogether -- it's not concerned with scale, but about what motivates play or what play is about, and saying that I'm going to make play about my character. * This doesn't contrast at all with Tactical or Strategic, but is orthogonal to them.  Having orthogonal categories is not a useful way to organize analysis.  Also, there's a lack of a counterpoint to Protagonism -- what am I doing when I'm not engaged in Protagonism play?  So, yeah, not at all feeling this breakdown, just on the merits of it alone and disregarding my issues with the idea that the breakdown into categories is useful.




Starting with the bolded.  This is hugely important.  I want to make it clear that in both bins, these things are intended to (a) share aspects of nature (be kindred in a meaningful way...and have overlap on a Venn Diagram), (b) have some level of situational interdependence that you can evaluate (for its presence and potency), but (c) when that interdependence isn't present, be evaluate what degrees of freedom are involved and what they mean for design and play.

That (a) through (c) isn't an accident.  That was intentional. 

I responded to @pemerton above about my aims with this.  One of the BIG ones is exactly what you're talking about above in the bold.

The independence of Protagonism and Tactical and/or Strategic Agency is a real thing.  And I'd like us to recognize it and discuss it.  FURTHER, I'd like to discuss the other thing I wrote in that response to pemerton.  I'm just going to c/p it:

When the design around these 3 (P, T, S Agency) is not robust (but it aims and/or alleges to be) and the play becomes unwieldy, it gives rise to Force manifesting in play as a participant (typically a GM) arrests 1 or 2 of those so that the third can be prioritized and survive that "contact with the enemy." This paradigm shows that there is an actual apex priority in play and that, when push comes to shove (because system hasn't been able to maintain equilibrium and its offloaded on the GM to juggle this), it will win out (because the GM expresses their authority to make it so...typically with sleight of hand/illusion to keep up the pretense that all 3 of these things are actually still in equilibrium...when they're absolutely not).

This, in my opinion, is a HUGE issue with D&D and it hasn't been forensically broken out as to how/why this happens. The Forge tried to tackle this with its "incoherency" model, but that didn't do enough work (or at least the right kind) with most people but it *absolutely is a real thing* and understanding it would be very good.

Take the following two game realities:

1)  *5e Adventure Path*:

* Players have whole swaths of Tactical and Strategic Agency.

* Players have absolute zero Protagonist Agency (the game is not formulated around addressing the PCs' dramatic needs...its entirely about the metaplot's or setting's dramatic need - which may be an NPC's dramatic need; eg Strahd).

* When the players Tactical and/or Strategic Agency would negatively impact the script for addressing the metaplot's/setting's dramatic need...it is arrested entirely by the GM (via covert Force - Illusionism). 

All told?

No Protagonist Agency for the Players + the apex priority of play is the Protagonist Agency of the metaplot/setting (because when that makes "contact with the enemy" - the Players' Tactical and/or Strategic Agency - one survives...one is subordinated).

2)  *My Life With Master* (if you're not familiar, think of it as a game of Cthulu where (a) the game is actually about the PC's dramatic need and (b) instead of just characterizing your PC's descent into madness, you actually have an extremely small, but persistent, profile of Tactical and Strategic Agency that will actually affect the end state of the game).

* Players have total Protagonist Agency.

* The footprint of Players' Tactical and Strategic Agency is miniscule (particularly compared to every moment of 5e where GM Force isn't deployed)...BUT...it is never subverted by GM Force.


There are vast differences between (1) and (2) above.  Then you get to Blades in the Dark and Torchbearer where all 3 are in extraordinary equilibrium and "play priority warfare (where someone has to exert Force)" never manifests.  That is, as much as anything, why I think a matrix like this is helpful.

Or, even if a codified matrix doesn't develop, a better, more clear means to talk about these things.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> It is not that your position is comparable to a flat-earther. The point is to illustrate that even flat-earthers, a position we can (hopefully) mutually agree is absurd, think they have coherent positions.



But is my position really the one analogous to the flat earther's... or is it yours?


----------



## hawkeyefan

@Manbearcat I just want to say that I appreciate your thoughtful posts and your attempt to find some kind of common ground amidst the noise. I plan on responding, but can’t spend as much time on it as I think it deserves now. A bit ironically, I’ll likely be able to do so tomorrow at work.


----------



## aramis erak

*¡¡¡Fiction state does NOT begin with play!!!*
As a GM, my fiction state begins when I find out what the group intends as to setting options, sometimes before. The game itself has a chunk of fiction as well, and that is also part of my pre-game fiction state.
Hopefully, that of the players overlaps mine enough that things don't go horribly wrong. I've never had a game where there wasn't at least one case per 8 hours of play of a miscommunication. Fundamentally, that's because *each person has their own fiction state; there is no "shared" one, only the ideal of sufficient overlap between the 2-14 players and I.*

Likewise, *as a player, my fiction state begins with character generation, not with play.* The same seems to be true for my wife, my kids, the 20-somethings in my Alaska group, and the teens in my corvallis group. Each of us has some view of the character _before interactions with the GM and game state._. And, if the game is one they know, or uses a setting they know, there's also the carried forward knowledge of the setting that may or may not exist in my view of the setting. Fundamentally, these views always gets changed in play. But not always for the worse. It's even more true when characters are point-built - without the concept, build is much less effective. And for games with pure random, play is to find out who this stack of numbers describes... but the  fictive state begins before session unless session follows CGen immediately.

Even when playing to find out who those random numbers are, there are presuppositions that are part of the fiction state motivating that player to make the in-character and character as pawn choices for that character.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> But is my position really the one analogous to the flat earther's... or is it yours?



Please read what you quoted before asking things like this and maybe consider retracting your "laugh" for Crimson's non-existent point about iron lest people think that you too are supportive of his baseless personal attacks.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> What's the solution then? How can I talk about the things I want to talk about on these boards?



Acknowledge that agency has different meanings to people early on in the discussion and explain the meaning you are using.  Talk away about it after that.



Campbell said:


> I mean I have been upfront about exactly what I meant from the beginning. I have tried to reframe the conversation innumerable times.



I'll put it this way - I have NOT put you on ignore 



Campbell said:


> I keep getting told that instead of speaking to a player's ability to enact meaningful change in the (shared) fiction that I must instead talk about their freedom to explore.



See below.



Campbell said:


> I keep being told that talking about games as games is denigrating your playstyle when I have no intention to.



Do you think we aren't talking about games as games?  Or is that just another particular piece of jargon?

*By the way I don't believe you intend to denigrate a playstyle.



Campbell said:


> I'm expressing my genuine perspective in the best way I know how here. There is no equivocation here. Feel free to tell me how you think I am misguided or offer a different perspective. I will listen. Please do not question my integrity.



Please don't question ours either.

I don't think it's been you doing what I'm describing below, but since the thread started I've been repeatedly told:
1.  I can't talk about different types of agency (because there aren't different types)
2.  I can't talk about a difference between generating a chance encounter with a friend and attacking an orc resulting in his death. (because there's no difference there)
3.  I can't talk about my definition of agency (because it's not what someone else wants to talk about)

The point is that since the start of the thread talking about what we mean by agency has been shut down and when we finally say this is what we mean and this is what we are trying to talk about, the response becomes that this prevents you from talking about what you want to talk about.  I mean if you think us talking about our kind of agency is somehow preventing you talking about yours then I would really love to know how the heck I'm supposed to talk about what I want to talk about.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Please read what you quoted before asking things like this and maybe consider retracting your "laugh" for Crimson's non-existent point about iron lest people think that you too are supportive of his baseless personal attacks.



I'm sorry, but I think when you start comparing people to flat earthers you lose the right to get offended by things like that joke.  Besides, I don't see you asking those that liked that post about flat earthers to go retract their likes lest I think they are supportive of that baseless personal attack.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Acknowledge that agency has different meanings to people early on in the discussion and explain the meaning you are using.  Talk away about it after that.
> 
> 
> I'll put it this way - I have NOT put you on ignore
> 
> 
> See below.
> 
> 
> Do you think we aren't talking about games as games?  Or is that just another particular piece of jargon?
> 
> 
> 
> Please don't question ours either.
> 
> I don't think it's been you doing what I'm describing below, but since the thread started I've been repeatedly told:
> 1.  I can't talk about different types of agency (because there aren't different types)
> 2.  I can't talk about a difference between generating a chance encounter with a friend and attacking an orc resulting in his death. (because there's no difference there)
> 3.  I can't talk about my definition of agency (because it's not what someone else wants to talk about)
> 
> The point is that since the start of the thread talking about what we mean by agency has been shut down and when we finally say this is what we mean and this is what we are trying to talk about, the response becomes that this prevents you from talking about what you want to talk about.  I mean if you think us talking about our kind of agency is somehow preventing you talking about yours then I would really love to know how the heck I'm supposed to talk about what I want to talk about.




And importantly: this is how we've always talked about agency. It is like I walked into a conversation using what I think is the common use of a word like railroad, but am told no we are using railroad to mean anytime the players can't design the adventure collectively and stat NPCs with the GM (and what is more, the common use I am accustomed to is apparently wrong now for some reason).


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> I'm sorry, but I think *when you start comparing people to flat earthers *you lose the right to get offended by things like that joke.  Besides, I don't see you asking those that liked that post about flat earthers to go retract their likes lest I think they are supportive of that baseless personal attack.



Except I didn't. An illustration that even flat-earthers think they have coherent positions does not equate to me comparing Bedrockgames's position to a flat-earther's. I even made it a point to say that "everyone" has incoherent positions that they believe are coherent. It's part of the human condition. I'm not sure how that point escaped you. As I have asked you to read what you quoted before, I assume that you most have glossed over that point.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Except I didn't. An illustration that even flat-earthers think they have coherent positions does not equate to me comparing Bedrockgames's position to a flat-earther's. I even made it a point to say that "everyone" has incoherent positions that they believe are coherent. It's part of the human condition. I'm not sure how that point escaped you. As I have asked you to read what you quoted before, I assume that you most have glossed over that point.




Either way, you are not the arbiter of my coherence.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Except I didn't. An illustration that even flat-earthers think they have coherent positions does not equate to me comparing Bedrockgames's position to a flat-earther's. I even made it a point to say that "everyone" has incoherent positions that they believe are coherent. It's part of the human condition. I'm not sure how that point escaped you. As I have asked you to read what you quoted before, I assume that you most have glossed over that point.




I can only infer what you intended, but invoking a concept like flat earthers is like invoking anything inflammatory. What you said to me sounds, "just as flat earthers think they have a coherent position, and do not, you think you have a coherent position and do not". If I say to you "Just as Stalin implemented a flawed economic-political model, you are implementing a flawed RPG model" (note, I AM NOT SAYING THAT), it would be hard to escape the thought that I might have just compared you to Stalin.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Either way, you are not the arbiter of my coherence.



I never claimed that I was. Only pointing out the almost banal point that your belief in the coherence of your argument is not necessarily true because you believe it is. The coherence of people's positions on gaming have been put to the test numerous times in various threads, and sometimes as evidenced by people in this thread, those positions can change.



Bedrockgames said:


> And importantly: this is how we've always talked about agency. It is like I walked into a conversation using what I think is the common use of a word like railroad, but am told no we are using railroad to mean anytime the players can't design the adventure collectively and stat NPCs with the GM (and what is more, the common use I am accustomed to is apparently wrong now for some reason).



As a point of contention, "How we always talked about X before" doesn't mean it's the most accurate way or even the best way to talk about a subject. As a point of illustration, how we discuss gender, sex, and sexuality has also changed from "common usage" over the past century as our understanding of the human condition has changed from the so-called "traditional" or "common" viewpoints. Scientists and scholars in a variety of fields have challenged the "common" understandings of these things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I never claimed that I was. Only pointing out the almost banal point that your belief in the coherence of your argument is not necessarily true because you believe it is. The coherence of people's positions on gaming have been put to the test numerous times in various threads, and sometimes as evidenced by people in this thread, those positions can change.



It feels a lot like you are asserting things, then claiming not to assert them. The bottom line is I believe I was holding a coherent position, and you appeared to be accusing me of being incoherent. If you are going to make that kind of claim, I am going to push back.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Except I didn't. An illustration that even flat-earthers think they have coherent positions does not equate to me comparing Bedrockgames's position to a flat-earther's.




Bedrock: "I don't think my positions are incoherent at all"
Aldarc: "Neither do flat earthers"

That's a comparison between Bedrock and flat earthers. 



Aldarc said:


> I even made it a point to say that "everyone" has incoherent positions that they believe are coherent.



Which is a terrible point to direct at anyone as it can just as easily apply to you and your positions.  And you did direct it at Bedrock.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> The coherence of people's positions on gaming have been put to the test numerous times in various threads, and sometimes as evidenced by people in this thread, those positions can change.



This at least gets at something. Yes this is one of my criticisms of the kind of discussion that happens around games on forums. It isn't that people are incoherent, it is that, in a long conversation, it is often difficult to defend positions and you often say things that fail to capture what you mean, that miss a flawed assumption in someone's argument, etc. This is why I am also quite skeptical of models arrived at through forum discussions. I would argue is what often happens is, due to the nature of online debate, and text based debate, people stake out positions they feel they must to defend against a point they haven't really been able to analyze fully. That happens. Doesn't mean the point was sound (there are a lot of flawed, good sounding, but specious arguments, in these threads). Doesn't mean the person is being incoherent (they are just dealing with the difficulty of fending off what is essentially having their ideas put on trial by hostile posters

All that said: I think I have been about as clear and consistent as one can be, while also reflecting a real position on actual table play (and not purely operating at the theoretical level, where reality doesn't fracture a carefully constructed model).

And just to make a point about this: I could easily go through your posts, and others (not Pemerton's because I will say he is at least pretty consistent in his use of logic across threads, but then my understanding is he basically studies arguments for a living), and find points of inconsistency or lack of clarity, then hold them up and ask you to defend your 'obvious incoherency'. I don't think that inquisitorial approach is helpful at all.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> Literary characters are not real either, yet their agency is still something you can talk about. But my point was the literary term informs the RPG term. I was just pointing out that the term being used by one side basically is pulled from sociology, while the other seems to be taking it more from literature. It is just a matter of is agency about what your character can do in the setting or is it about what the player can do. I don't think my position is incoherent at all. You might disagree with it, or you might misunderstand it, but it is a coherent point of view.



The only way you can talk about literary agency is to treat the characters and the fiction as real and look at it that way.  There's really only one form of agency, literary agency is a device by which you reify the fiction so as to evaluate it in terms of agency.  It's a trick.  And, it's absolutely incoherent to promote evaluation of literary agency and then, to argue against a point of literary agency (the character recalls some fact and acts upon it) you switch to treating the fiction as fiction.  It's special pleading, where a thing is this way except when it's not, and the only way to tell which is which is if it agrees with your conclusion or not.

So, yes, it's coherent if we're using post hoc justification for evaluations.  It's just that post hoc justifications are, themselves, incoherent.  And note that I'm using incoherent as in "inconsistent with itself" and not random mumblings that cannot be understood.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> The only way you can talk about literary agency is to treat the characters and the fiction as real and look at it that way.  There's really only one form of agency, literary agency is a device by which you reify the fiction so as to evaluate it in terms of agency.  It's a trick.  And, it's absolutely incoherent to promote evaluation of literary agency and then, to argue against a point of literary agency (the character recalls some fact and acts upon it) you switch to treating the fiction as fiction.  It's special pleading, where a thing is this way except when it's not, and the only way to tell which is which is if it agrees with your conclusion or not.
> 
> So, yes, it's coherent if we're using post hoc justification for evaluations.  It's just that post hoc justifications are, themselves, incoherent.  And note that I'm using incoherent as in "inconsistent with itself" and not random mumblings that cannot be understood.




First, no, you can talk about the characters having agency while also understanding they are not real. You can say, for the purposes of agency, I am going to think of them as real. Which is fine. But that is also what i am doing with the setting and keep getting push back from your side (for the purposes of character agency, we are going to treat this setting like it is real). 

No it isn't incoherent at all. Not if you understand what I am saying. I am trying to describe how I think the term came to be adopted by most RPGers. I agree with Frogreaver, it was a response to railroading, and the literary term agency was adopted, but obviously adapted to the roleplaying conversation. It wasn't an 1-1 import of the term, and I wasn't ever saying it was. And when I made that statement I was just trying to make sense of the split in use here. One side is using agency to mean power in the game (including your power to narrative things and impact play through mechanics). The other is using it to mean your ability to freely act in the setting through your characters. I think the latter feels like it comes more from the literary useage (and my memory is that is where it was coming from when I started seeing it).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> The only way



This is what a lot of your side's position in this discussion sounds like to me


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> I never claimed that I was. Only pointing out the almost banal point that your belief in the coherence of your argument is not necessarily true because you believe it is. The coherence of people's positions on gaming have been put to the test numerous times in various threads, and sometimes as evidenced by people in this thread, those positions can change.



Obvious things are obvious.  We could all be wrong.  We could all hold incoherent positions.  So what?



Aldarc said:


> As a point of contention, "How we always talked about X before" doesn't mean it's the most accurate way or even the best way to talk about a subject.



Sure.



Aldarc said:


> As a point of illustration, how we discuss gender, sex, and sexuality has also changed from "common usage" over the past century as our understanding of the human condition has changed from the so-called "traditional" or "common" viewpoints. Scientists and scholars in a variety of fields have challenged the "common" understandings of these things.



I think it's bad form to use examples that cannot be freely discussed on this forum.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> As a point of contention, "How we always talked about X before" doesn't mean it's the most accurate way or even the best way to talk about a subject. As a point of illustration, how we discuss gender, sex, and sexuality has also changed from "common usage" over the past century as our understanding of the human condition has changed from the so-called "traditional" or "common" viewpoints. Scientists and scholars in a variety of fields have challenged the "common" understandings of these things.




You are not a scientist of RPGs though. You are assuming you are like the experts in your example. And you are not. Nor am I. We are just gamers having a conversation and running up against a linguistic tactic. You have to convince people to adopt the language you are using with agency and half the posters here are rejecting your useage because that isn't what they understand the term to mean.


----------



## Campbell

My understanding of player agency comes from video game discussions. It's the way I have always seen it discussed in meat space. Of course I play almost entirely with Millennial and younger gamers who are avid video game players.

Here's an example: Player Agency: How Game Design Affects Narrative


----------



## Bedrockgames

Also agency isn't an idea like the shape of the earth or like human sexuality. Those are things experts can study and develop objective experiments to test. This more like a coined term to identify something in an activity. There is a constructed quality to it, and its meaning is going to reflect how most people in the hobby are using it.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> My understanding of player agency comes from video game discussions. It's the way I have always seen it discussed in meat space. Of course I play almost entirely with Millennial and younger gamers who are avid video game players.
> 
> Here's an example: Player Agency: How Game Design Affects Narrative




That is fair, but we are not talking about video games


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Of course I play almost entirely with Millennial and younger gamers who are avid video game players.
> 
> Here's an example: Player Agency: How Game Design Affects Narrative




My groups generally range in age from early 20s to late 50s


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> It feels a lot like you are asserting things, then claiming not to assert them. The bottom line is I believe I was holding a coherent position, and you appeared to be accusing me of being incoherent. If you are going to make that kind of claim, I am going to push back.



Then push back. Debate my assertion that I made. But belief in having a coherent position does not equate to having a coherent position. The position requires being put to the rigor of testing. At which point your position may turn out to be coherent or it may not. But asserting that your position is coherent is contentious. If you disagree with this assertion, then go for it.



FrogReaver said:


> Which is a terrible point to direct at anyone as it can just as easily apply to you and your positions.  And you did direct it at Bedrock.



And it certainly has been applied to me and my positions. Others with similar viewpoints have likewise been accused of having incoherent views of agency. 



FrogReaver said:


> Obvious things are obvious.  We could all be wrong.  We could all hold incoherent positions.  So what?



Then put the coherency of your position to the test with an open-mind.



Bedrockgames said:


> This is what a lot of your side's position in this discussion sounds like to me



The pot calling the kettle black, no?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> My understanding of player agency comes from video game discussions. It's the way I have always seen it discussed in meat space. Of course I play almost entirely with Millennial and younger gamers who are avid video game players.
> 
> Here's an example: Player Agency: How Game Design Affects Narrative



That's a pretty good essay.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> You are not a scientist of RPGs though. You are assuming you are like the experts in your example. And you are not. Nor am I. We are just gamers having a conversation and running up against a linguistic tactic. You have to convince people to adopt the language you are using with agency and half the posters here are rejecting your useage because that isn't what they understand the term to mean.



I think you are using a bit stronger language than I would.  I'm okay using my definition or their definition and talking from there.  I think you are as well.  My biggest contention isn't what gets labeled as agency, but rather anytime I try to take their framework and place the kind of agency I want to talk about inside of it, I hit road block after road block in trying to talk to them about that kind of agency in their language.


----------



## Aldarc

Campbell said:


> My understanding of player agency comes from video game discussions. It's the way I have always seen it discussed in meat space. Of course I play almost entirely with Millennial and younger gamers who are avid video game players.
> 
> Here's an example: Player Agency: How Game Design Affects Narrative



Video games seem like a better point of comparison regarding agency than literature due to its interactive nature. Telltale or even BioWare games definitely have the illusion of choice. Players cannot set their own agendas or choices as one would in, for example, Minecraft or even Skyrim.


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> A basic divide here is the agency inherent in playstyle, which seems to be what Bedrock is focused on, and agency inherent in resolution mechanics,  which is what some other people are talking about. Frankly I think both are important if the project is to delineate what agency means and looks like in practice.




If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:

*THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX* 

* Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.

The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.

For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."  

*BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*

* Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.  Although the Setting's Factions and the Setting itself has Protagonist Agency, the Players Protagonist Agency doesn't become diffuse.  It just means that every moment of play will involve some collision of the Crew's dramatic needs with other Factions/Setting and, thus, play will orbit around the Crew's dramatic needs. There won't be "Side Quests" that are "PC dramatic need-neutral."

The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).



Both Sandboxes.

Different approaches to dramatic needs (and therefore Protagonist Agency).

This is a HUGE pivot point of this conversation.  One side is saying that (to take this exact example) that the Blades Sandbox approach invests the Players with more Protagonist Agency.  The other side is either (a) disputing this differential in Protagonist Agency (for reasons that aren't clear to me...but I would definitely say that there is just some fundamental disagreement/misunderstanding of these concepts/paradigms that are stifling clarity and consensus) OR (b) the other side is saying that a Sandbox (or play in general) that orbits entirely around Player Protagonist Agency is not desirable for them.

To me (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.

Further, I'd say that another HUGE pivot point of this conversation is a player "Grabbing Situation Piece or Setting Piece".

One side says that a more prolific ability for player to grab those pieces means (a) more breadth (at least) of Tactical and/or Strategic Agency and (through this) (b) an amplification of ability to positively resolve Protagonist Agency (because you can advocate harder and better for your dramatic need...your dramatic need doesn't become more relevant because its at optimum relevance already...but your ability to have your advocation for it result in positive affirmation becomes more potent).

The other side (a) disagrees with this (one reason is because of a misappropriation and misapplication of The Czege Principle...which the intent is to substantiate the claim "Tactical or Strategic Agency is subordinated by the Schrodinger's Painting") or (b) doesn't feel this is desirable.

To me (again), (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.



Ironically (BRG would disagree with this I'm sure), this gets us right back to The Right to Dream essay on The Forge.  (b) in both of the above (x is not desirable) is precisely because it makes those people feel like it negatively impacts their play priority of experiencing this particular variety of Sandbox play.  And if it does negatively impact their experience, that is 100 % defensible!  But just say that!

@hawkeyefan , you bet and sounds good!


----------



## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> This is what a lot of your side's position in this discussion sounds like to me



You've intentionally taken that out of context and painted is as if I'm proposing a One True Way, when I've been explicit that I both enjoy and support multiple approaches to gaming.  If you cannot quote me without engaging in bad faith, please stop quoting me.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> The pot calling the kettle black, no?




I don't believe so


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Then push back. Debate my assertion that I made. But belief in having a coherent position does not equate to having a coherent position. The position requires being put to the rigor of testing. At which point your position may turn out to be coherent or it may not. But asserting that your position is coherent is contentious. If you disagree with this assertion, then go for it.



Your assertion is that you think his position isn't coherent.  The counter to that is "i think my position is coherent".  Where else do you really go from there?  If there's some specific detail you think is incoherent then state what that is and i'm sure it will be addressed or already has been addressed.



Aldarc said:


> And it certainly has been applied to me and my positions. Others with similar viewpoints have likewise been accused of having incoherent views of agency.



With the specific parts that were felt to be incoherent provided by those expressing that view.  Please do the same for us.



Aldarc said:


> Then put the coherency of your position to the test with an open-mind.



We have been.  Why haven't you?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> You've intentionally taken that out of context and painted is as if I'm proposing a One True Way, when I've been explicit that I both enjoy and support multiple approaches to gaming.  If you cannot quote me without engaging in bad faith, please stop quoting me.



Perhaps I misunderstood you: you appeared to be saying there is only one way to talk about literary agency. My point was I see a lot of this kind if language coming from your side. I wasn't referencing one true way in gaming when I quoted you.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.
> 
> The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."
> 
> *BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.  Although the Setting's Factions and the Setting itself has Protagonist Agency, the Players Protagonist Agency doesn't become diffuse.  It just means that every moment of play will involve some collision of the Crew's dramatic needs with other Factions/Setting and, thus, play will orbit around the Crew's dramatic needs. There won't be "Side Quests" that are "PC dramatic need-neutral."
> 
> The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).
> 
> 
> 
> Both Sandboxes.
> 
> Different approaches to dramatic needs (and therefore Protagonist Agency).
> 
> This is a HUGE pivot point of this conversation.  One side is saying that (to take this exact example) that the Blades Sandbox approach invests the Players with more Protagonist Agency.  The other side is either (a) disputing this differential in Protagonist Agency (for reasons that aren't clear to me...but I would definitely say that there is just some fundamental disagreement/misunderstanding of these concepts/paradigms that are stifling clarity and consensus) OR (b) the other side is saying that a Sandbox (or play in general) that orbits entirely around Player Protagonist Agency is not desirable for them.
> 
> To me (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> Further, I'd say that another HUGE pivot point of this conversation is a player "Grabbing Situation Piece or Setting Piece".
> 
> One side says that a more prolific ability for player to grab those pieces means (a) more breadth (at least) of Tactical and/or Strategic Agency and (through this) (b) an amplification of ability to positively resolve Protagonist Agency (because you can advocate harder and better for your dramatic need...your dramatic need doesn't become more relevant because its at optimum relevance already...but your ability to have your advocation for it result in positive affirmation becomes more potent).
> 
> The other side (a) disagrees with this (one reason is because of a misappropriation and misapplication of The Czege Principle...which the intent is to substantiate the claim "Tactical or Strategic Agency is subordinated by the Schrodinger's Painting") or (b) doesn't feel this is desirable.
> 
> To me (again), (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> 
> 
> Ironically (BRG would disagree with this I'm sure), this gets us right back to The Right to Dream essay on The Forge.  (b) in both of the above (x is not desirable) is precisely because it makes those people feel like it negatively impacts their play priority of experiencing this particular variety of Sandbox play.  And if it does negatively impact their experience, that is 100 % defensible!  But just say that!
> 
> @hawkeyefan , you bet and sounds good!



There's a piece i want to respond to but can you elaborate more on what you mean by protagonist agency.  Is it like the agency to place your character in drama filled positions?


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> You are not a scientist of RPGs though. You are assuming you are like the experts in your example. And you are not. Nor am I. We are just gamers having a conversation and running up against a linguistic tactic. You have to convince people to adopt the language you are using with agency and half the posters here are rejecting your useage because that isn't what they understand the term to mean.



I was not aware that I said I was a scientist or assuming that I was the expert. That's your own assertion. Not mine. My assertion is that the coherence of your position remains contentious regardless of how coherent you believe it to be. 



FrogReaver said:


> Your assertion is that you think his position isn't coherent.



You are already wrong. My assertion is that self belief is not the arbiter of coherency. As to where one goes from there, the solution seems obvious: debate the merits of the position itself. But simply declaring your position as being coherent isn't exactly a foolproof assertion. 



FrogReaver said:


> Why haven't you?



Probably because you're too busy asking me bad faith loaded questions.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think you are using a bit stronger language than I would.  I'm okay using my definition or their definition and talking from there.  I think you are as well.  My biggest contention isn't what gets labeled as agency, but rather anytime I try to take their framework and place the kind of agency I want to talk about inside of it, I hit road block after road block in trying to talk to them about that kind of agency in their language.




I have no problem with two terms either. What I have a problem with is presenting a more obscure useage, as if it is the norm (or using it to equivocate), and with being told my useage is flat wrong or doesn't apply. This is also like the third or fourth thread where a term very common to sandbox play, feels like it has been co-opted by in order to make an argument like "Burning Wheel does it better". So I am trying to take things stated here in an even handed fashion, but it isn't easy because there is a history of discussion that has always gone a certain way


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I was not aware that I said I was a scientist or assuming that I was the expert. That's your own assertion. Not mine. My assertion is that the coherence of your position remains contentious regardless of how coherent you believe it to be.



Then why bring up the experts and the shifting meaning of terms in relation to agency at all?

I have defended the coherence of my position. I am not going to engage you on that topic any further.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I have no problem with two terms either. What I have a problem with is presenting a more obscure useage, as if it is the norm (or using it to equivocate), and with being told my useage is flat wrong or doesn't apply. This is also like the third or fourth thread where a term very common to sandbox play, feels like it has been co-opted by in order to make an argument like "Burning Wheel does it better". So I am trying to take things stated here in an even handed fashion, but it isn't easy because there is a history of discussion that has always gone a certain way




Please consider the possibility that nothing nefarious is going on. That people are using the best language they know to describe their perspectives. That when we value different things in the play of roleplaying games we might similar language in different ways in a manner that reflects what we value.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> First, no, you can talk about the characters having agency while also understanding they are not real.



Sure, which is an incoherency -- you have tea and no tea at the same time.  Only, this isn't the zen you think it is.  It's why the concept of literary agency is incoherent -- it's an appearance of agency, not actual agency, just like fiction is an appearance of reality, not reality.  If we're going to talk about actual agency, the kind wielded in play, then any discussion of literary agency is incoherent, because that applies to reifying non-existent things but we're talking about real agency wielded by real people.


Bedrockgames said:


> You can say, for the purposes of agency, I am going to think of them as real. Which is fine. But that is also what i am doing with the setting and keep getting push back from your side (for the purposes of character agency, we are going to treat this setting like it is real).



Yes, because we're not treating any of it as real because we aren't using literary agency.  We're talking about actual agency, by real players, over the fictional aspects of the game which have the reality of being expressed in the group.  The events aren't real, but the expression is.  And that's what we're saying we have agency over -- the expression.  You're still trying to argue that the character has agency, which requires thinking of that character and setting as real to evaluate, but we are not.  


Bedrockgames said:


> No it isn't incoherent at all. Not if you understand what I am saying. I am trying to describe how I think the term came to be adopted by most RPGers. I agree with Frogreaver, it was a response to railroading, and the literary term agency was adopted, but obviously adapted to the roleplaying conversation. It wasn't an 1-1 import of the term, and I wasn't ever saying it was. And when I made that statement I was just trying to make sense of the split in use here.



Agency is not a literary term.  Literary agency is a reificaiton of the fiction so that it can be evaluated in the lens of agency.  This idea you're proposing that there's a difference in how the term is used is false -- it's used in the exact same manner.  The only difference is that literary agency requires that reification.  And, if that term is unfamiliar, reify means to treat an abstract concept as real and concrete.  To evaluate a character's agency within a fictional setting and situation, we need to treat these things as real and then look to see if agency applies to the reified fiction.  There's not different meanings to agency, there's different conceptual spaces -- one in real life and one where we treat unreal things as if they are real life.  


Bedrockgames said:


> One side is using agency to mean power in the game (including your power to narrative things and impact play through mechanics). The other is using it to mean your ability to freely act in the setting through your characters. I think the latter feels like it comes more from the literary useage (and my memory is that is where it was coming from when I started seeing it).



And this is a second incoherency -- these things are not opposed.  There's no less free acting in the setting through your character in any actual play example given in this thread where the player is also using the power to either narrate a thing or impact play through mechanics.  These are not competing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> You are already wrong. My assertion is that self belief is not the arbiter of coherency. As to where one goes from there, the solution seems obvious: debate the merits of the position itself. But simply declaring your position as being coherent isn't exactly a foolproof assertion.



Here is the real issue Aldarc: I don't take your judgement of coherency seriously enough to feel like it warrants more than a single post. It basically felt like more like an ad hom from you than an actual argument that I was being incoherent.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Please consider the possibility that nothing nefarious is going on. That people are using the best language they know to describe their perspectives. That when we value different things in the play of roleplaying games we might similar language in different ways in a manner that reflects what we value.




I have. And I think there are posters who are not doing this. But I have also been in enough of these threads to see the pattern and be wary (because I've been down the road of honestly answering questions only to discover they were traps for example). There are a handful of posters who do this, and it is known, and I am not going to pretend they aren't doing that. I think I've made clear though, I have not had this impression of you. 

Also, wouldn't say nefarious. I would use a much weaker word than that. We are only talking about games, so the stakes are pretty low.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, which is an incoherency -- you have tea and no tea at the same time




....


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> There's a piece i want to respond to but can you elaborate more on what you mean by protagonist agency.  Is it like the agency to place your character in drama filled positions?




Its the ability to (a) have an explicit Dramatic Need, (b) have play (macro) orbit around that Dramatic Need, and then (c) have your Tactical and Strategic decision-point menu and their attendant fallout (micro) pivot around your advocation for your Dramatic Need.

Dramatic Need is not a meta-concept.  Its not "to have fun with friends" or "to tell a compelling story" or "to get xp, treasure/gold, and levels" or "to win."

Its literally to address and resolve a character premise like "my brother is my hero...I want to be just like him."  So play would challenge these concepts.  "Is he your hero...really?"  "Do you actually want to be like him or just think you do?"  "CAN you be like him?"


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, which is an incoherency -- you have tea and no tea at the same time.  Only, this isn't the zen you think it is.  It's why the concept of literary agency is incoherent -- it's an appearance of agency, not actual agency, just like fiction is an appearance of reality, not reality.  If we're going to talk about actual agency, the kind wielded in play, then any discussion of literary agency is incoherent, because that applies to reifying non-existent things but we're talking about real agency wielded by real people.




Again, all you are trying to do here is insist we adopt your language. The term agency isn't incoherent at all as we are using it. It refers to a player's ability to move freely in the setting through their character. That is consistent and clear. You are playing word games to say it isn't


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> It's why the concept of literary agency is incoherent



I think this is a pretty contested assertion. But I will leave it to the literary professors to tackle as it isn't my area at all


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> You are already wrong. My assertion is that self belief is not the arbiter of coherency. As to where one goes from there, the solution seems obvious: debate the merits of the position itself. But simply declaring your position as being coherent isn't exactly a foolproof assertion.



So I was wrong, it was actually Ovinomancer that stated his position was incoherent.  Bedrock then said he thought it was coherent.  Then you jumped in, but instead directing your comment toward both of them (since it does equally apply), you directed it entirely toward bedrock, which had the effect of coming across as an agreement with Ovinomancer since you weren't equally spending your time pointing out that he could be mistaken.

Moral of the story, be careful when you jump mid discussion to criticize one person with a comment that also equally applies to the other.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Then why bring up the experts and the shifting meaning of terms in relation to agency at all?



I thought that was apparent: to illustrate the simple point that common usage is not necessarily correct, accurate, or unassailable usage. It does not necessarily mean that any side has the experts or scientists - as much as hobby TTRPGs could - but that the common/conventional usage of such terms has been challenged by others. However, in the case of my example (i.e., gender, sex, and sexuality), it was done by gender/sexuality experts and scientists (as well as activists).



Bedrockgames said:


> I am not going to engage you on that topic any further.



Until the next time.



Campbell said:


> Please consider the possibility that nothing nefarious is going on. That people are using the best language they know to describe their perspectives. That when we value different things in the play of roleplaying games we might similar language in different ways in a manner that reflects what we value.



And that maybe the examples being used, such as Burning Wheel or Blades in the Dark, help elucidate those perspectives through play experience rather than simply being about people trying to push their pet games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Until the next time.



No, I am putting a lot of users on ignore after this thread. I think the venom has gotten much worse this time around


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> That is fair, but we are not talking about video games




So I was reading through your replies to my posts and I’ve decided not to respond post for post because it’s not going to get us anywhere. I figured I’d rather maybe share examples of actual play and discuss those. 

Before I’ve had a chance to come up with anything, I saw the post above. It’s your reply to someone linking to a very relevant article to the topic at hand. 

And you don’t comment on it in any way. You dismiss it because it’s about video games. 

So instead of responding to any of the replies you made to me, I’m asking what about that article do you think was irrelevant to the discussion of player agency in TTRPGs? 

I’d rather hear what you have to say about that article than watch you and others trade barbs.


----------



## Bedrockgames

@Ovinomancer, at this point, all I really have the energy to say to all that is: we disagree fundamentally on pretty much everything you said


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So instead of responding to any of the replies you made to me, I’m asking what about that article do you think was irrelevant to the discussion of player agency in TTRPGs?
> 
> I’d rather hear what you have to say about that article than watch you and others trade barbs.




I didn't read the article (and I am not going to because I don't do that as a general rule in these discussions, otherwise I'd spend most of my day reading articles). My point was simply that if he is coming at this from the perspective of the term as it is used in video games, then that might be part of the problem. Now if video games happen to use agency to mean things you can do in the setting through your character, obviously I wouldn't object. But I don't play video games, so I don't really have any interest in exploring what agency means in them.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I’d rather hear what you have to say about that article than watch you and others trade barbs.




If people don't throw barbs at me, I won't trade them. But if someone throws a barb, I respond with one.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Here is the real issue Aldarc: I don't take your judgement of coherency seriously enough to feel like it warrants more than a single post. *It basically felt like more like an ad hom from you* than an actual argument that I was being incoherent.



That's fine if you don't take it seriously, but it was not an ad hominem just because you distrust me. I definitely would not have pointed out that everyone does this if that were the case.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> Alright, going to try to talk about some of these things with some specificity.  I wrote in my last response to @pemerton why I think it may be a worthwhile endeavor to develop this kind of matrix.  I also addressed some of the first paragraph below, so I'm just going to refer back to that and do a bit more on that end.
> 
> I'm absolutely able of being moved off of the development of such a matrix if it doesn't enhance the ability to achieve the things I wrote in that last post to pemerton.  I'm not there yet though (and I'm working through these things in real time).
> 
> 
> 
> Alright, to start, I'm going to link back to the Spout Lore breakdown.  That works through some of the above so you can comment on that if you'd like.
> 
> As far as "is it possible to not pick up the Character Game Piece (and again, this includes the _here _and _now _provisos) when you pick up the Situation or Setting Game Piece", I would say (a) its not terribly common and (b) some cases for it will be more tenuous than others.
> 
> Here are a few cases that I'm confident in.
> 
> * FitD *Flashbacks *always violate the _now _proviso and often violate the _here _proviso of Character.  So those are always grabbing the Situation Game Piece and sometimes grabbing the Setting Game Piece (more on that below).
> 
> * *Khan of Khans* (Barbarian move in DW) - _Your hirelings always accept the gratuitous fulfillment of one of your appetites as payment.  _That is a PC build move that, once taken, forevermore changes the Setting. And, because of it, there will be Situation ramifications.  It is sort of like the GM asking a question and using the answer; "Does your porter Duvalle relish your destroying of the King's minstrel's lyre when he serenaded the throne room with a song of his master's conquests (Pure Destruction or Power over Others as Appetites)...or is he still going to need that Coin you owe him?"
> 
> * *Plan of Action* (Dashing Hero move in DW) - 4e has a move just like this.  There is always a rope, chandelier, window, cart, easily spooked-herd of livestock, tapestry to be cut, rug to be pulled, ale soaked floor, bannister (any fitting piece of terrain or environmental hazard) whenever it would be handy for you to have one in a situation.  This is clearly picking up the Situation Game Piece.
> 
> * *Faction Clocks for Gangs at War after Crew Has Initiated it via Deception (or other) Score* - So, the Score itself would involve all the manipulation of Game Pieces relative to its handling.  But, after its been set in motion (unless the PCs commit to a Score or a Downtime Activity to help one side or the other...or both...keeping them perpetually At War has big advantage), the actual Fortune Rolls to resolve the Faction Clocks for the war as it unfolds will just be the Setting Game Piece.
> 
> * *A Lover in Every Port in DW* - You tell the table if there is an old flame in this new town...then we roll to find out if they're helpful/complicated/harmful.  This is grabbing the Setting and Situation Game Pieces.
> 
> Then there is the next layer where the manifestation of the move is less strongly through Character (but its there) and much more strongly directly with Setting or Situation (or both).  Things like *The initial part of the first iteration of Come and Get It in 4e* (Your enemies respond to your exhortations/feints without fail), *Through Death's Eyes in DW and Visions of Death in AW *(are you channeling Death...are you dictating to Death to decide who lives and who dies?), *Thief's Escape Route/Connections in DW, Circles in BW/TB, Streetwise and Secrets of the City (and the like) in 4e - *Is there a way out of this difficult situation and are you capable of taking it (and at what cost), do you have available friends/allies capable of changing the situation?
> 
> There are plenty more, but those are the ones that come to mind as good expressions of the idea.  There is enough meaningful difference between these things (in terms of Character, Setting, Situation) that when designing them or discussing them, the reality of the player's orientation to them and relative potency of those differences are important to delineate (qualitatively).
> 
> Thoughts (anyone)?



This seems to have missed my complaint -- that the very fact that I cannot pick up situation or setting without also picking up character (at least in the vast majority of cases) says to me that these are arbitrary categorizations of play.  They do not have independence, and cannot be evaluated independently.  The best we can do is treat these like an equalizer on a stereo -- I might be able to say that I put Characterization at +1, Situation at -1, and Setting at -2, but this is, again, not very useful because it doesn't have a baseline comparison, it's a subjective evaluation.  At least the stereo actually defines +0, and the steps are actual measurements.  This approach just adds another layer of mysticism and jargon to an already challenging discussion.

Which is why I argue there's no subdivisions of agency.  You can evaluate a given situation for more or less agency than another one without inventing categories such as these.


Manbearcat said:


> Starting with the bolded.  This is hugely important.  I want to make it clear that in both bins, these things are intended to (a) share aspects of nature (be kindred in a meaningful way...and have overlap on a Venn Diagram), (b) have some level of situational interdependence that you can evaluate (for its presence and potency), but (c) when that interdependence isn't present, be evaluate what degrees of freedom are involved and what they mean for design and play.
> 
> That (a) through (c) isn't an accident.  That was intentional.
> 
> I responded to @pemerton above about my aims with this.  One of the BIG ones is exactly what you're talking about above in the bold.
> 
> The independence of Protagonism and Tactical and/or Strategic Agency is a real thing.  And I'd like us to recognize it and discuss it.  FURTHER, I'd like to discuss the other thing I wrote in that response to pemerton.  I'm just going to c/p it:
> 
> When the design around these 3 (P, T, S Agency) is not robust (but it aims and/or alleges to be) and the play becomes unwieldy, it gives rise to Force manifesting in play as a participant (typically a GM) arrests 1 or 2 of those so that the third can be prioritized and survive that "contact with the enemy." This paradigm shows that there is an actual apex priority in play and that, when push comes to shove (because system hasn't been able to maintain equilibrium and its offloaded on the GM to juggle this), it will win out (because the GM expresses their authority to make it so...typically with sleight of hand/illusion to keep up the pretense that all 3 of these things are actually still in equilibrium...when they're absolutely not).
> 
> This, in my opinion, is a HUGE issue with D&D and it hasn't been forensically broken out as to how/why this happens. The Forge tried to tackle this with its "incoherency" model, but that didn't do enough work (or at least the right kind) with most people but it *absolutely is a real thing* and understanding it would be very good.
> 
> Take the following two game realities:
> 
> 1)  *5e Adventure Path*:
> 
> * Players have whole swaths of Tactical and Strategic Agency.
> 
> * Players have absolute zero Protagonist Agency (the game is not formulated around addressing the PCs' dramatic needs...its entirely about the metaplot's or setting's dramatic need - which may be an NPC's dramatic need; eg Strahd).
> 
> * When the players Tactical and/or Strategic Agency would negatively impact the script for addressing the metaplot's/setting's dramatic need...it is arrested entirely by the GM (via covert Force - Illusionism).
> 
> All told?
> 
> No Protagonist Agency for the Players + the apex priority of play is the Protagonist Agency of the metaplot/setting (because when that makes "contact with the enemy" - the Players' Tactical and/or Strategic Agency - one survives...one is subordinated).
> 
> 2)  *My Life With Master* (if you're not familiar, think of it as a game of Cthulu where (a) the game is actually about the PC's dramatic need and (b) instead of just characterizing your PC's descent into madness, you actually have an extremely small, but persistent, profile of Tactical and Strategic Agency that will actually affect the end state of the game).
> 
> * Players have total Protagonist Agency.
> 
> * The footprint of Players' Tactical and Strategic Agency is miniscule (particularly compared to every moment of 5e where GM Force isn't deployed)...BUT...it is never subverted by GM Force.
> 
> 
> There are vast differences between (1) and (2) above.  Then you get to Blades in the Dark and Torchbearer where all 3 are in extraordinary equilibrium and "play priority warfare (where someone has to exert Force)" never manifests.  That is, as much as anything, why I think a matrix like this is helpful.
> 
> Or, even if a codified matrix doesn't develop, a better, more clear means to talk about these things.



So, again, Venn diagrams are not always useful.  One that features Men and Telephone Poles might have overlap in the area of Tall, for instance, but this is only useful in a very narrow categorization.  Just saying that there's overlap on a Venn diagram doesn't show usefulness.  Or, to put it another way, all models are wrong, some are useful.  Saying you have a model doesn't show usefulness.

And, the overlap you're showing between Protagonism and Tactics/Strategy is one that is orthogonal -- the overlap can vary depending on what we're looking at because Protagonism isn't related to Tactics/Strategy in any way -- I can have zero Protagonism (no overlap at all) or maximal Protagonism (complete overlap) for Tactics or Strategy.  Venn diagrams work to show where there's a commonality, and a diagram where one factor can vary independently of the others doesn't show commonality.  So, again, I'm making the argument that the categories aren't coherent with each other at a structural level, without even touching on usefulness.

To touch on usefulness, you've again created an arbitrary division -- the lines between what's tactical and strategic are crazy blurry -- that doesn't really establish a clear way to tell one instance of agency from another except by subjective equalizer sliders, which are again unmoored from any measurements are are more feelings of how a thing works.  And, since we're right back to looking at a situation of agency in a way where we can't make objective statements, but rather can, at best, point to where there's a large enough difference to discern, I'm not sure what these categories add to the discussion.  It also lends (false) credence to the idea that combat in 5e AP play, which is high on the Tactical slider, offsets the high Protagonism slider in My Life with Master.  However, the fact that 5e AP play is high in Tactical play ignores that it's the system that does this, not the play -- 5e features a strong combat resolution sub-game that enables Tactical decision making in combat, if not anywhere else.  My Life with Master has no combat resolution sub-game, just the common resolution game that's used throughout.  Is it then useful to look at play like 5e AP play that could enable Protagonism and Strategy, but doesn't and say that since it has high Tactical play, it's agency level is similar to a game that doesn't have the ability to engage the same kinds of Tactical play, but features agency throughout?  This is the problem, to me, of binning agency -- it leads to bad comparisons because the arbitrary nature of the bins encourages evaluations of play that are localized and narrow that are then used at a wider level.  5e features a lot of tactical agency in combat, but combats have low strategic agency and no protagonism agency, so overall agency is low.  My Life with Master is focused on enabling high levels of agency throughout play, but has no tactical sub-game and so rates low in this area, which appears to show that these games are closer in player agency than actual play would indicate.

All that said, I think it is useful to note that games like 5e, through their design, create space where agency exists that other games do not (like in combat).  However, I think that this needs to be evaluated holistically rather than narrowly, because it's important to note that while 5e does create this space in combats for agency to exist (and it does), this is still within the framework of the GM largely determining when combats occur and what the outcome of them are -- maybe not in hitpoints or dead enemies, but certainly in narrative.   And this evaluation is missing from your P/T/S framework because it's looking a narrower categories and have no way of summing to a holistic conclusion.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> That when we value different things in the play of roleplaying games we might similar language in different ways in a manner that reflects what we value.



This I get and I also agree with. But my problem, and I believe Frogreaver's problem as well, is our use of agency is not being taken seriously at all (in fact it is being labeled incoherent)


----------



## darkbard

Bedrockgames said:


> I think this is a pretty contested assertion. But I will leave it to the literary professors to tackle as it isn't my area at all



Well, as an English professor, I assert that your use of agency seems incoherent from my perspective, and, further, that most professional discussions of agency in literary studies these days make frequent use of crossdisciplinary concepts and terms from sociology, philosophy, etc.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I am putting a lot of users on ignore after this thread. I think the venom has gotten much worse this time around



Well, your habit of quoting out of context and then misrepresenting the quote certainly doesn't assist this issue.   You make a habit of accusing the other cookware of color.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> So I was wrong, it was actually Ovinomancer that stated his position was incoherent.  Bedrock then said he thought it was coherent.  Then you jumped in, but instead directing your comment toward both of them (since it does equally apply), you directed it entirely toward bedrock, which had the effect of coming across as an agreement with Ovinomancer since you weren't equally spending your time pointing out that he could be mistaken.
> 
> Moral of the story, be careful when you jump mid discussion to criticize one person with a comment that also equally applies to the other.



If you're going to refer to me, please tag me, as otherwise it appears that you're trying to talk about me behind my back.  I'm quite certain this isn't your intent, but since appearances are of great value to you, I'm sure you'll agree on this.


----------



## Bedrockgames

darkbard said:


> Well, as an English professor, I assert that your use of agency seems incoherent from my perspective, and, further, that most professional discussions of agency in literary studies these days make frequent use of crossdisciplinary concepts and terms from sociology, philosophy, etc.




Fair enough, if that is how it is used in literary studies. But my point is about how people have been using it to describe sandbox play. I don't find that use incoherent. Perhaps your playstyle preferences are impacting your objectivity as a professor?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I didn't read the article (and I am not going to because I don't do that as a general rule in these discussions, otherwise I'd spend most of my day reading articles). My point was simply that if he is coming at this from the perspective of the term as it is used in video games, then that might be part of the problem. Now if video games happen to use agency to mean things you can do in the setting through your character, obviously I wouldn't object. But I don't play video games, so I don't really have any interest in exploring what agency means in them.




I mean, it’s a pretty quick read. And for someone who is citing literature so much as being relevant to the topic, I’m surprised to see you be so resistant to a comparison to another medium. Especially one which, involving games, is actually very close to that of TTRPGs. 

I mean....let’s discuss something, right? We’ve let the discussion devolve into talking about talking. 

@Campbell , who I think you’ll agree, has been very clear, concise, and thoughtful in his approach to this conversation, has offered a relevant topic. And you don’t even engage at all. 

What about the following post from @Manbearcat ? It builds on prior posts, but I think you can still pick up on the major points and comment. What do you think about what he says? 



Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.
> 
> The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."
> 
> *BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.  Although the Setting's Factions and the Setting itself has Protagonist Agency, the Players Protagonist Agency doesn't become diffuse.  It just means that every moment of play will involve some collision of the Crew's dramatic needs with other Factions/Setting and, thus, play will orbit around the Crew's dramatic needs. There won't be "Side Quests" that are "PC dramatic need-neutral."
> 
> The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).
> 
> 
> 
> Both Sandboxes.
> 
> Different approaches to dramatic needs (and therefore Protagonist Agency).
> 
> This is a HUGE pivot point of this conversation.  One side is saying that (to take this exact example) that the Blades Sandbox approach invests the Players with more Protagonist Agency.  The other side is either (a) disputing this differential in Protagonist Agency (for reasons that aren't clear to me...but I would definitely say that there is just some fundamental disagreement/misunderstanding of these concepts/paradigms that are stifling clarity and consensus) OR (b) the other side is saying that a Sandbox (or play in general) that orbits entirely around Player Protagonist Agency is not desirable for them.
> 
> To me (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> Further, I'd say that another HUGE pivot point of this conversation is a player "Grabbing Situation Piece or Setting Piece".
> 
> One side says that a more prolific ability for player to grab those pieces means (a) more breadth (at least) of Tactical and/or Strategic Agency and (through this) (b) an amplification of ability to positively resolve Protagonist Agency (because you can advocate harder and better for your dramatic need...your dramatic need doesn't become more relevant because its at optimum relevance already...but your ability to have your advocation for it result in positive affirmation becomes more potent).
> 
> The other side (a) disagrees with this (one reason is because of a misappropriation and misapplication of The Czege Principle...which the intent is to substantiate the claim "Tactical or Strategic Agency is subordinated by the Schrodinger's Painting") or (b) doesn't feel this is desirable.
> 
> To me (again), (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> 
> 
> Ironically (BRG would disagree with this I'm sure), this gets us right back to The Right to Dream essay on The Forge.  (b) in both of the above (x is not desirable) is precisely because it makes those people feel like it negatively impacts their play priority of experiencing this particular variety of Sandbox play.  And if it does negatively impact their experience, that is 100 % defensible!  But just say that!
> 
> @hawkeyefan , you bet and sounds good!


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, it’s a pretty quick read. And for someone who is citing literature so much as being relevant to the topic, I’m surprised to see you be so resistant to a comparison to another medium. Especially one which, involving games, is actually very close to that of TTRPGs.




I just don't, as a general principle, go down that rabbit hole in internet discussions. Occasionally I will, if someone introduces a concept or idea I think is worth spending time on. But I spend enough time discussing things online, I specifically put this limit on myself because in the past it was taking up too much of time and I wanted to be more efficient with internet use.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> @Campbell , who I think you’ll agree, has been very clear, concise, and thoughtful in his approach to this conversation, has offered a relevant topic. And you don’t even engage at all.



I have no issue with how Campbell has been interacting with me on this thread. And my statement wasn't intended as a dismissal of his notion. If he or you want to discuss the video game useage, feel free to paraphrase it and I will weigh in if that is informing where he is coming from.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What about the following post from @Manbearcat ? It builds on prior posts, but I think you can still pick up on the major points and comment. What do you think about what he says?




I am no longer reading Manbearcat's posts. But just looking at it, I think he doesn't understand what we are talking about with sandbox (hard to say though because I find his use of language incredibly confusing)


----------



## Bedrockgames

Also folks, if you use the laugh button to ridicule one of my posts, I will definitely be putting you on ignore


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> Its the ability to (a) have an explicit Dramatic Need, (b) have play (macro) orbit around that Dramatic Need, and then (c) have your Tactical and Strategic decision-point menu and their attendant fallout (micro) pivot around your advocation for your Dramatic Need.
> 
> Dramatic Need is not a meta-concept.  Its not "to have fun with friends" or "to tell a compelling story" or "to get xp, treasure/gold, and levels" or "to win."
> 
> Its literally to address and resolve a character premise like "my brother is my hero...I want to be just like him."  So play would challenge these concepts.  "Is he your hero...really?"  "Do you actually want to be like him or just think you do?"  "CAN you be like him?"






Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.



Agreed.



Manbearcat said:


> The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."



Agreed



Manbearcat said:


> *BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.  Although the Setting's Factions and the Setting itself has Protagonist Agency, the Players Protagonist Agency doesn't become diffuse.  It just means that every moment of play will involve some collision of the Crew's dramatic needs with other Factions/Setting and, thus, play will orbit around the Crew's dramatic needs. There won't be "Side Quests" that are "PC dramatic need-neutral."



Agreed



Manbearcat said:


> The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).



I disagree.  It's not so much that you are wrong in anything said here but I think you are omitting to much.

It is correct that "grabbing" the situation and setting piece in that example isn't present in Classic D&D Sandbox.  But that it's not present in D&D is not actually the reason anyone is objecting to being able to do those things.




Manbearcat said:


> Both Sandboxes.
> 
> Different approaches to dramatic needs (and therefore Protagonist Agency).



Agreed



Manbearcat said:


> This is a HUGE pivot point of this conversation.  One side is saying that (to take this exact example) that the Blades Sandbox approach invests the Players with more Protagonist Agency.



Agreed.



Manbearcat said:


> The other side is either (a) disputing this differential in Protagonist Agency (for reasons that aren't clear to me...but I would definitely say that there is just some fundamental disagreement/misunderstanding of these concepts/paradigms that are stifling clarity and consensus)



I don't dispute that Blades gives what you call Protagonist agency to players while that kind of agency is virtually absent from a classic D&D game.



Manbearcat said:


> OR (b) the other side is saying that a Sandbox (or play in general) that orbits entirely around Player Protagonist Agency is not desirable for them.



Yes, it isn't desirable to us but it's not simply that it's not desirable.  That's not the argument we are making.  We are saying that the techniques used to add protagonist agency removes some of the kind of agency we really care about. 



Manbearcat said:


> To me (a) is not defensible,



Using your definition of protagonist agency I 100% agree.



Manbearcat said:


> but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> Further, I'd say that another HUGE pivot point of this conversation is a player "Grabbing Situation Piece or Setting Piece".
> 
> One side says that a more prolific ability for player to grab those pieces means (a) more breadth (at least) of Tactical and/or Strategic Agency and (through this) (b) an amplification of ability to positively resolve Protagonist Agency (because you can advocate harder and better for your dramatic need...your dramatic need doesn't become more relevant because its at optimum relevance already...but your ability to have your advocation for it result in positive affirmation becomes more potent).



I think I disagree here. 
a)  Being able to grab those setting/situation pieces means you have new vectors that you can use to apply tactical/strategical/protagonist agency.  Maybe that's all you mean by more breadth, but I'm not willing to commit to the more breadth description just yet.

b)  I think you have protagonist agency because you have access to the setting and situation vectors.  I don't think you can really have this kind of agency without this.  I think you are making the rest needlessly complicated.

*This leads me to believe that tactical and strategic agency are the only types of agency you have listed and that protagonist agency is neither a type nor vector by your definitions but rather something else.  Possibly area would describe it well.  In which case perhaps there are other areas where the strategic and tactical types can be applied to the character vector.



Manbearcat said:


> The other side (a) disagrees with this (one reason is because of a misappropriation and misapplication of The Czege Principle...which the intent is to substantiate the claim "Tactical or Strategic Agency is subordinated by the Schrodinger's Painting") or (b) doesn't feel this is desirable.



I disagree with this. 



Manbearcat said:


> To me (again), (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> 
> 
> Ironically (BRG would disagree with this I'm sure), this gets us right back to The Right to Dream essay on The Forge.  (b) in both of the above (x is not desirable) is precisely because it makes those people feel like it negatively impacts their play priority of experiencing this particular variety of Sandbox play.  And if it does negatively impact their experience, that is 100 % defensible!  But just say that!
> 
> @hawkeyefan , you bet and sounds good!



And thus I would disagree with this conclusion as well.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I have no issue with how Campbell has been interacting with me on this thread. And my statement wasn't intended as a dismissal of his notion. If he or you want to discuss the video game useage, feel free to paraphrase it and I will weigh in if that is informing where he is coming from.




Okay. I was trying to give you something more relevant to the topic to focus on and perhaps offer an opinion. I figured you’d want to get out of this back and forth squabbling, something I can get caught up in myself and which i’d like to move on from. 

If not, then okay. Enjoy.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay. I was trying to give you something more relevant to the topic to focus on and perhaps offer an opinion. I figured you’d want to get out of this back and forth squabbling, something I can get caught up in myself and which i’d like to move on from.
> 
> If not, then okay. Enjoy.




Fair enough, I just took a look at the article. My sense, and again I don't play video games, and haven't touched on since about 2010 (and was pretty out of the loop at that point already). So I am not getting the examples he uses (which could impact my analysis). My sense is the writer in this article is talking about something very different from what I am talking about. His definition of agency is: _The player's ability to impact the story through the game design or gameplay._

I think the use of the term story isn't how I would frame it, but I also understand some people simply use story to mean "stuff that happens in the game". However reading the article he seems to be talking about stories that are imbedded in play (with plot points and everything), and his use of agency appears to be the players ability to make meaningful choices within that story. I may be misunderstanding, but to me it doesn't sound like he is talking about open world play. Correct me if I am wrong there. I could be. But my whole approach to character agency is to not plan stories at all. This is why I don't focus on events for example, but the characters trying to make events happen. Once you do that, it is easier to preserve agency. Anything people might describe as 'story' in my campaigns, unfolds organically, through interaction between NPCs and PCs. It isn't planned


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Fair enough, if that is how it is used in literary studies. But my point is about how people have been using it to describe sandbox play. I don't find that use incoherent.



What sort of sandbox play? Sandboxes come in a wide variety of shapes and types. In terms of video games, Minecraft, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto, and The Sims are all games variously ascribed as being sandbox games. However there is quite a difference between them in terms of how the players can express agency in these games or pursue agendas. There are likewise differences between how much pressure they can exert on their respective fictive worlds.



Bedrockgames said:


> I just don't, as a general principle, go down that rabbit hole in internet discussions. Occasionally I will, if someone introduces a concept or idea I think is worth spending time on. But I spend enough time discussing things online, I specifically put this limit on myself because in the past it was taking up too much of time and I wanted to be more efficient with internet use.



Then let's take a step back from the idea of reading the article. How much experience do you have with video games, particularly RPGs?



Bedrockgames said:


> Also folks, if you use the laugh button to ridicule one of my posts, I will definitely be putting you on ignore



In general, it's also helpful to report these as this goes against the spirit of the laugh emoticon for this forum.

Edit: Just now saw your above reply regarding video games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

I am talking largely about the kind of sandbox play you see in OSR and OSR adjacent groups (in that one post, not every use of sandbox by me has been so narrow: clarifying this to avoid future accusations of 'incoherence')


----------



## Bedrockgames

I have very little experience with video games today. I grew up on stuff like Kings Quest and played games like Resident Evil in the 90s. The last RPG video game I played was Zelda on the game cube until a brief week of trying WoW at someone's insistence (it wasn't for me though, so it didn't go past a week). There isn't really much I can say positive or negative about video games to be honest


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I am talking largely about the kind of sandbox play you see in OSR and OSR adjacent groups (in that one post, not every use of sandbox by me has been so narrow: clarifying this to avoid future accusations of 'incoherence')



Just out of curiosity, how old school is your ideal hex crawl? I can never quite bring myself to do entirely keyed hexes, it's so much bloody work, so I temporize with extensive random tables. I ask because keyed hexes would be the ultimate expression of player agency in a sandbox environment (that I can think of anyway).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, it’s a pretty quick read. And for someone who is citing literature so much as being relevant to the topic, I’m surprised to see you be so resistant to a comparison to another medium. Especially one which, involving games, is actually very close to that of TTRPGs.




To be clear here I wasn't citing literature as hugely relevant to the topic. I was just saying I think that is where people in the hobby borrowed it from. My original phrasing I think was the use of agency as a concept in RPGs seemed informed by the literary meaning.


----------



## Campbell

They use "story" in the article, but I think the point translates pretty well into changing your environment whatever that is. I personally have never been a fan of the use "story" or "the story" to describe in type of game although the fantasy of being there and part of these dramatic events is something I value.

The idea that agency is achieved through gameplay is something I consider fundamental to OSR sandboxes as I play and run them. The idea that as you play a game the player achieves more skill and gains more mastery over their environment is a crucial part of play. So I think scenario design is an often overlooked part of agency here. For me navigating the environment in that sort of play should require cleverness and be fundamentally fair. What I mean by fair is that actions should not be blocked by things that players have no chance to learn. The text of Moldvay B/X is a damn near perfect distillation of these concepts in action.

For me a core part of any game is the pursuit of mastery. There are objectives and reward systems that provide a positive feedback loop to let you know when you are playing the game well. XP for gold is one of the best designed reward mechanisms ever designed in my opinion because it drives you to take action, but leaves what actions entirely in the players' hands.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I am talking largely about the kind of sandbox play you see in OSR and OSR adjacent groups (in that one post, not every use of sandbox by me has been so narrow: clarifying this to avoid future accusations of 'incoherence')



Okay, but my point here, again through the illustration with video game examples, is that sandbox play describes a fairly wide assortment of games and play styles. You have also reminded me on a number of occasions that OSR play tends to be quite diverse, which from what I can tell also applies to sandbox play.



Bedrockgames said:


> To be clear here I wasn't citing literature as hugely relevant to the topic. I was just saying I think that is where people in the hobby borrowed it from. My original phrasing I think was the use of agency as a concept in RPGs seemed informed by the literary meaning.



Maybe it is informed by the literary meaning, but I'm not sure if it's the more applicable one. My understanding of literary theory, and @darkbard is free to correct me if I am wrong, but the characters are regarded as "real" for the purposes of supporting the enterprise of literary criticism because otherwise it's difficult to talk about the characters as being anything more than the "programming" of letters on a page. Agency is largely projected on to the characters for this purpose. 

I do think that video game player agency is more applicable to discussion as it does often involve cultivated interactive experiences where players control a designated player character.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Just out of curiosity, how old school is your ideal hex crawl? I can never quite bring myself to do entirely keyed hexes, it's so much bloody work, so I temporize with extensive random tables. I ask because keyed hexes would be the ultimate expression of player agency in a sandbox environment (that I can think of anyway).




I like to engage in old school hex crawls from time to time (because I find fun and value in it), but I would say, mostly I use hexes to measure distance rather than to crawl. And I take a light hand with hexes (though it does depend on the setting and genre). Presently I run mostly wuxia campaigns. Also most of my campaigns take place in areas that are civilized, maybe with a frontier, but a known frontier. So mostly the players are doing things like saying they want to go north to the City of Dee (and they tell me what path they are planning based on their knowledge of the map). Then generally each Hex (depends on the scale) would be a Survival Check to see if anything happens. And I would use random encounters (but those tend to be keyed to local elements (for instance if there is a sect that operates in that area, they would be on the table-----and sometimes I have an entry on a table like 'pick something in that hex'). But these kinds of games are often more about the people and organizations living in the setting, than about clearing out hexes. But these wuxia campaigns are often blends of many things (there are dungeons in them, but also sect wars, grudges-----these are a huge part of my encounter table set up---romance, etc). I think some people see the maps to my settings and assume the setting is arranged like Isle of Dread (because of the hexes and the way terrain is rendered). But the drama and sandbox thing is pretty seriously baked into the setting material.

If you really want a sense of how I run this stuff, you can download Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate for free at Drive thru, and just read the GM section. It is a bit out of date (five years old at this point, and I've certainly refined some of my thoughts, but it gets a lot of what I talk about here----and in a less extreme way because I am not contrasting against an alternative style of play in the book----which is one of my frustrations when I engage in these threads (I find myself staking positions and losing sight of actual play).


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Okay, but my point here, again through the illustration with video game examples, is that sandbox play describes a fairly wide assortment of games and play styles. You have also reminded me on a number of occasions that OSR play tends to be quite diverse, which from what I can tell also applies to sandbox play.
> 
> 
> Maybe it is informed by the literary meaning, but I'm not sure if it's the more applicable one. My understanding of literary theory, and @darkbard is free to correct me if I am wrong, but the characters are regarded as "real" for the purposes of supporting the enterprise of literary criticism because otherwise it's difficult to talk about the characters as being anything more than the "programming" of letters on a page. Agency is largely projected on to the characters for this purpose.
> 
> I do think that video game player agency is more applicable to discussion as it does often involve cultivated interactive experiences where players control a designated player character.



You’ve just described what we’ve been doing and heavily chastised for.  Talking about the characters as if they are real for the purposes of play criticism.

when I do that here I’m repeatedly told the characters aren’t real.  You can’t do that. Etc.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> The idea that agency is achieved through gameplay is something I consider fundamental to OSR sandboxes as I play and run them. The idea that as you play a game the player achieves more skill and gains more mastery over their environment is a crucial part of play. So I think scenario design is an often overlooked part of agency here. For me navigating the environment in that sort of play should require cleverness and be fundamentally fair. What I mean by fair is that actions should not be blocked by things that players have no chance to learn. The text of Moldvay B/X is a damn near perfect distillation of these concepts in action.




I have played Moldvay more than I've combed through the GM section. Can you clarify which portion of the red set you are talking about so I can review it?


----------



## Campbell

A common example of autonomy without agency that we often see in video games are these big elaborate dialog trees made to make so you feel you are speaking for your character and your words make an impact. However these trees in some games almost always lead to the same narrative result.  I have experienced the tabletop version of this many times. It's pretty common for some GMs to let you basically tilt at windmills for a little bit before they do what they were going to do anyway.

Another fairly common thing is freedom to go anywhere, but the narrative only moves forward when you do the right thing at the right place. Some folks will argue until they are blue in the face that the tabletop equivalent of this is not railraiding. I say it really does not matter what you call it sure as hell is not high agency play.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> For me a core part of any game is the pursuit of mastery. There are objectives and reward systems that provide a positive feedback loop to let you know when you are playing the game well. XP for gold is one of the best designed reward mechanisms ever designed in my opinion because it drives you to take action, but leaves what actions entirely in the players' hands.




I agree on the XP. It is one of the reasons I give XP for finding manuals in wuxia campaigns (since finding them is something you see a lot of in the genre).


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> A common example of autonomy without agency that we often see in video games are these big elaborate dialog trees made to make so you feel you are speaking for your character and your words make an impact. However these trees in some games almost always lead to the same narrative result.  I have experienced the tabletop version of this many times. It's pretty common for some GMs to let you basically tilt at windmills for a little bit before they do what they were going to do anyway.
> 
> Another fairly common thing is freedom to go anywhere, but the narrative only moves forward when you do the right thing at the right place. Some folks will argue until they are blue in the face that the tabletop equivalent of this is not railraiding. I say it really does not matter what you call it sure as hell is not high agency play.



Many dialog options do have an impact in those games. Will they likely change the whole plot. Not in most games. But sometimes they effect the ending. Sometimes they affect what characters live and die. Sometimes they effect fairly significant things in the game.

other than that I’m pretty much on the same page.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I like to engage in old school hex crawls from time to time (because I find fun and value in it), but I would say, mostly I use hexes to measure distance rather than to crawl. And I take a light hand with hexes (though it does depend on the setting and genre). Presently I run mostly wuxia campaigns. Also most of my campaigns take place in areas that are civilized, maybe with a frontier, but a known frontier. So mostly the players are doing things like saying they want to go north to the City of Dee (and they tell me what path they are planning based on their knowledge of the map). Then generally each Hex (depends on the scale) would be a Survival Check to see if anything happens. And I would use random encounters (but those tend to be keyed to local elements (for instance if there is a sect that operates in that area, they would be on the table-----and sometimes I have an entry on a table like 'pick something in that hex'). But these kinds of games are often more about the people and organizations living in the setting, than about clearing out hexes. But these wuxia campaigns are often blends of many things (there are dungeons in them, but also sect wars, grudges-----these are a huge part of my encounter table set up---romance, etc). I think some people see the maps to my settings and assume the setting is arranged like Isle of Dread (because of the hexes and the way terrain is rendered). But the drama and sandbox thing is pretty seriously baked into the setting material.
> 
> If you really want a sense of how I run this stuff, you can download Wandering Heroes of Ogre Gate for free at Drive thru, and just read the GM section. It is a bit out of date (five years old at this point, and I've certainly refined some of my thoughts, but it gets a lot of what I talk about here----and in a less extreme way because I am not contrasting against an alternative style of play in the book----which is one of my frustrations when I engage in these threads (I find myself staking positions and losing sight of actual play).



Cool, you and I have similar tastes there. That's also a very useful benchmark for reading some of your other posts. I tend to write my encounter tables such that there is a just a roll every hex, rather than a Survival check or some such, but I build a wide range of stuff into the tables to account for that. I also tend to build my tables around what's happening rather than what's there, if that makes any sense, much like you often focusing on factions and people more than the very traditional approach to hex construction.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I have played Moldvay more than I've combed through the GM section. Can you clarify which portion of the red set you are talking about so I can review it?




It's pretty sparse, but highly compelling. The instructions on dungeon in particular do an excellent job on describing how to put fair challenges together.

This text on B60 is very important.



> "Everything is balanced."
> 
> The DM should try to maintain the "balance of play". The treasures should be balanced by the dangers. Some groups prefer adventures where advancement between levels is swift. In such a case, since the treasures are generally greater, the monsters should be "tougher". Other groups prefer adventures where character development is more important, and advancement is slower. If the monsters are too tough, and if the parties are reduced by many deaths, then few characters will ever reach higher levels. (The DM should keep in mind that further supplements will detail character levels up to the 36th. It should be very difficult for a character to attain this level, but it should not be impossible).




Not a huge fan of Gygax's instruction in First Edition DMG, but his commentary on player skill in the PHB is also highly instructive. Recent games that do a very good job of explaining and promoting skilled play include Into The Odd, Electric Bastionland, Mothership, and The Nightmares Underneath.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> A common example of autonomy without agency that we often see in video games are these big elaborate dialog trees made to make so you feel you are speaking for your character and your words make an impact. However these trees in some games almost always lead to the same narrative result.  I have experienced the tabletop version of this many times. It's pretty common for some GMs to let you basically tilt at windmills for a little bit before they do what they were going to do anyway.




And to me, especially in the kind of game I am talking about, that would be bad GMing. The whole point is to not focus on the outcome you want as the GM (in fact the more you can move away from 'wanting' outcomes, as a GM, the better in my opinion), but rather react to what the PC says. I have had a ton of situations where the players said something and a situation that looked like it would come to some big confrontation between the party and an NPC, turned into something very different. Usually when I run an NPC, I just have this gut sense of what they are reasonable about and what they are unreasonable about, and I think that is typically fairly easy for players to start to figure out through interacting with them or knowing the situation before hand.


----------



## darkbard

For what it's worth, I don't think it's useful here to rely upon definitions of agency as used narrowly in other disciplines. TTRPGing is its own endeavor, radically different, in my opinion, from the endeavor of enjoying (or analyzing) literature and so on. One of the great distinguishing factors in playing an RPG as opposed to reading a book is the agency given the player over the reader. That may be a rather trite observation, but once I figured that out I appreciated less and less RPGing as setting tourism and largely GM-facing systems and principles in favor of no myth, player-facing gaming.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> It's pretty sparse, but highly compelling. The instructions on dungeon in particular do an excellent job on describing how to put fair challenges together.
> 
> This text on B60 is very important.
> 
> 
> 
> Not a huge fan of Gygax's instruction in First Edition DMG, but his commentary on player skill in the PHB is also highly instructive. Recent games that do a very good job of explaining and promoting skilled play include Into The Odd, Electric Bastionland, Mothership, and The Nightmares Underneath.




I agree with a lot of the advice in that section (though that bit on B60 is one piece that doesn't really fit how I approach it: nothing wrong with the advice, I am just not very into that kind of balance). 

Another place we might disagree is Gygax. I don't use or agree with every ounce of advice, but going back to that book really helped me crack a problem I had in gaming. It is also one of the most engaging books in the hobby I've read (I would also put some of the Van Richten books up there, Laws books (just like the way he writes), and Moldvay. The look, feel and the prose of Moldvay is something I discovered about two years ago----I grew up on the other red boxed set), and it really had an impact


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> It's pretty sparse, but highly compelling. The instructions on dungeon in particular do an excellent job on describing how to put fair challenges together.




I quite like how lean it is. The minimal approach was something I liked a lot about it.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I may have now and then referred to the idea of a fully no-myth [can't really call it a setting, but] setting as being Schroedinger's world.



And you take that to be neither condescending nor dismissive?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> You’ve just described what we’ve been doing and heavily chastised for.  Talking about the characters as if they are real for the purposes of play criticism.
> 
> when I do that here I’m repeatedly told the characters aren’t real.  You can’t do that. Etc.



@Aldarc is criticizing doing this, as you have to pretend the characters are real to even be able to project (note the word) agency onto them.  It's a tool for analyzing the feel of a text, not agency.  IE, does it feel like the character you're reading about is making choices because that character sure as heck isn't actually making any choices.  This is the exact reason I keep saying that "character" agency doesn't exist -- you have to reify the fiction to even get to a place where you can pretend it does.  Player agency is the only agency in games, because only players (regardless of role) can make choices.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Also, I'd be interested to know what you mean by _taking such an attempt seriously_. I've posted multiple times in this thread about the GM _taking suggestions_. Do you mean that, or something else?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I simply mean, when the players say they want to try to do X, truly thinking about that request in a serious way (not simply rushing to a judgment on it, not blocking it because it is convenient for what you had planned, etc).
Click to expand...




Bedrockgames said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What happens if the GM on day 1, writing his/her secret notes, decides that the brother is dead, and then in a session a week later on day 8 the player decides to have his/her PC look for his/her brother. Does it count as _taking that seriously _if the GM goes on to adjudicate (let's say) 3 hours of play where the upshot of that is that the player learns what the GM had already decided and had already known, namely, that the brother is dead?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes it is. Taking it seriously isn't about seriously considering changing the setting details (at least not in the style of play I am describing). If the brother is dead, then he is dead. You have established that. What I am talking about is seriously considering whatever actions within that setting the players seek to take. This can extend to things undetermined in the setting, but the answer is ideally based on some criteria other than, this is what I want to happen (there should be a rationale for it).
Click to expand...


What you describe here is, for me, an absolute nightmare. The GM knows in advance that my PC can't succeed in what I am having my PC attempt to do, but allows things to go on for 3 hours at the table. What an exercise in futility!

I would consider this to be a high-degree railroad. Absolutely devoid of player agency, because the outcome was utterly foregone.



Bedrockgames said:


> Look, I've explained this style to you many times. I feel like you probably already understand what I am saying, and I am always a little skeptical when you ask questions. And I have explained how I do things to you. I am answering your question, but if this question is just a set up to attack my approach, I am not going to answer the next post.



I am asking you questions because I want to be clear about what you are saying. You can answer or not answer - that's your prerogative. In other posts you repeatedly assert that you are misunderstood, but now you assert that you probably are understood, so I'm not really clear what your own thoughts are about your reasons for posting.

In any event, in the posts that I've quoted above you provide a clear answer. I believe I've provided an equally clear response. You may reply to my response, or not. That's also your prerogative.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> And you take that to be neither condescending nor dismissive?



I have called such approach 'quantum world' and I don't think it is dismissive. I think all GMs use things being in 'quantum superposition', i.e. undefined to some extent, most just don't do it with the entire setting. Usually when I defend the idea I get called 'dishonest illusionst' and other such nice things...


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> First, no, you can talk about the characters having agency while also understanding they are not real. You can say, for the purposes of agency, I am going to think of them as real. Which is fine. But that is also what i am doing with the setting and keep getting push back from your side (for the purposes of character agency, we are going to treat this setting like it is real).



So why, then, the sneering upthread about "fake memories".

If you are allowed to treat your setting as "real", why am I not allowed to treat my characters memories - which are a (small) part of the setting - as "real"?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> A common example of autonomy without agency that we often see in video games are these big elaborate dialog trees made to make so you feel you are speaking for your character and your words make an impact. However these trees in some games almost always lead to the same narrative result.  I have experienced the tabletop version of this many times. It's pretty common for some GMs to let you basically tilt at windmills for a little bit before they do what they were going to do anyway.
> 
> Another fairly common thing is freedom to go anywhere, but the narrative only moves forward when you do the right thing at the right place. Some folks will argue until they are blue in the face that the tabletop equivalent of this is not railraiding. I say it really does not matter what you call it sure as hell is not high agency play.



Yeah, both things happen in RPGs, and I'd consider them bad GMing practices. The latter was called 'pixel bitching' at some point, though I wish we had a less offensive term for it...


----------



## Fenris-77

Crimson Longinus said:


> I have called such approach 'quantum world' and I don't think it is dismissive. I think all GMs use things being in 'quantum superposition', i.e. undefined to some extent, most just don't do it with the entire setting. Usually when I defend the idea I get called 'dishonest illusionst' and other such nice things...



Those people can walk backward through a field of rubber sex toys. The very idea that _everything_ can be decided on first, or that _everything_ should emerge during play is arrant nonsense. Both types of play are an exercise in moderation. The prepper is going to have quantum in their prep, and the emerger is going to have at least some fronts and whatnot done.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> @Aldarc is criticizing doing this, as you have to pretend the characters are real to even be able to project (note the word) agency onto them.  It's a tool for analyzing the feel of a text, not agency.  IE, does it feel like the character you're reading about is making choices because that character sure as heck isn't actually making any choices.  This is the exact reason I keep saying that "character" agency doesn't exist -- you have to reify the fiction to even get to a place where you can pretend it does.  Player agency is the only agency in games, because only players (regardless of role) can make choices.



No. He described that very technique as being used in literary agency.  All I’m doing is pointing out I get criticized for applying that same technique to rpgs.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> You’ve just described what we’ve been doing and heavily chastised for.  Talking about the characters as if they are real for the purposes of play criticism.
> 
> when I do that here I’m repeatedly told the characters aren’t real.  You can’t do that. Etc.



What you have been told is that imaginary things don't exert causal force on the real world.

What @Aldarc is saying is that, in literary criticism, we sometimes "pretend" or speak as if the characters are real and then discuss _what they do and did and how much agency they had_. So, for example, we say things like "Conan is typically the master of his own fate, whereas Gollum's whole raison d'etre lay outside his own knowledge and control."

We could talk about a story generated through RPG play the same way too, although to be honest I don't think much RPGing - and none of mine! - produces stories which will support very much of this sort of analysis. As stories they tend to be pretty much in the B-zone.

But talking about the story generated through RPG play tells us nothing about the play procedures or play experiences. Which is what this thread, starting with the OP, has been about.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> No. He described that very technique as being used in literary agency.  All I’m doing is pointing out I get criticized for applying that same technique to rpgs.



Yes, he did, and in a way that shows it's a, if you'll excuse the pun, fictional thing.  Literary agency doesn't examine agency at all, it examines the _appearance _of agency at best.


----------



## darkbard

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, he did, and in a way that shows it's a, if you'll excuse the pun, fictional thing.  Literary agency doesn't examine agency at all, it examines the _appearance _of agency at best.



I would agree with you entirely if, say, all literary study involved fictional characters in fictional texts. But what can one say of examinations of agency in Emerson's "Fate" or William James's _Principles of Psychology_, both of which have served as the locus of inquiry re agency and other, sometimes related topics in my own work?

This is but one reason why applying a narrow application of a term from one discipline to another seems obfuscating rather than enlightening to me.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Usually when I run an NPC, I just have this gut sense of what they are reasonable about and what they are unreasonable about, and I think that is typically fairly easy for players to start to figure out through interacting with them or knowing the situation before hand.



Upthread I have described this as _RPGing-as-puzzle-solving_: the players declare actions for the PCs which elicit information from the GM, and they piece this information together to get a clearer picture of what the GM is imagining.

I do not regard it as involving a very high degree of player agency, because it makes the GM's pre-established conception of the fiction the focus of play.

My last few sessions of Traveller play have resembled this to a degree. (I posted about the second-last one quite a way upthread but I don't think anyone replied to that post.) Though the object of exploration has been an alien building rather than a NPC. In our most recent session I tried a few different techniques to try to shift things away from a GM-focus to a player-focus - those techniques included providing some more clarifying fiction of my own to try to round out "the mystery" and give the players all the information they seemed to want about it; narrating some instigating events (attacks by aliens which were also Aliens); and meta-level goading/poking - and those worked to some extent. I think we may also be starting to hit some limits of Classic Traveller as a system, but I'm not sure and I'm not sure yet if I can quite articulate what I have in mind. It's to do with the lack of player-accessible mechanics to engage the "big picture" - eg what are the Imperial navy doing "off-screen" - in a game that invites an escalation over the course of play to make that "big picture" of growing importance to the PCs.

A contrast in this particular respect would be 4e D&D, which has a resolution framework - skill challenges - that scales up nicely as the PCs move from Heroic to Epic tier.



Campbell said:


> The idea that agency is achieved through gameplay is something I consider fundamental to OSR sandboxes as I play and run them. The idea that as you play a game the player achieves more skill and gains more mastery over their environment is a crucial part of play. So I think scenario design is an often overlooked part of agency here. For me navigating the environment in that sort of play should require cleverness and be fundamentally fair. What I mean by fair is that actions should not be blocked by things that players have no chance to learn. The text of Moldvay B/X is a damn near perfect distillation of these concepts in action.



This is a slightly different point to the above but also connects to "puzzle solving" and "big picture".

As you know, I have a view that once the fictional scope of the action expands beyond the fairly sparse dungeon context, your constraint _that actions should not be blocked by things that players have no chance to learn_ becomes harder to honour. I'm curious if you agree. And if you do, how does Stars Without Number handle this problem? (Or does it not, or perhaps not need to?)


----------



## Ovinomancer

darkbard said:


> I would agree with you entirely if, say, all literary study involved fictional characters in fictional texts. But what can one say of examinations of agency in Emerson's "Fate" or William James's _Principles of Psychology_, both of which have served as the locus of inquiry re agency and other, sometimes related topics in my own work?
> 
> This is but one reason why applying a narrow application of a term from one discipline to another seems obfuscating rather than enlightening to me.



Sure, but those concern agency because they're in part or in whole explorations of the concept of agency -- we're not imputing agency to the characters.  But, literature is a many-wondered thing -- any statement about it must perforce be a generalization.  So, yes, I award you technically correct, which is, as everyone knows, the best kind of correct.

Disclosure, I haven't read _Principles_, but I have read "Fate."  I'm also thrilled that these are punctuated properly -- it's so uncommon that I find myself failing at it due to lack of practice.


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> what can one say of examinations of agency in Emerson's "Fate" or William James's _Principles of Psychology_, both of which have served as the locus of inquiry re agency and other, sometimes related topics in my own work?



Are you familiar with AJ Ayer's work on James? (Especially _The Origins of Pragamatism_.)

A long time ago that was one important focus of my MA.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Which RPG are you talking about?
> 
> In Burning Wheel a player can do what you say can't be done. It's also a possibility in Prince Valiant (though more often it would be used for unhorsing rather than killing). It's also a possibility in 4e if the Orc is statted as a minion. And whether the Orc is statted as a minion is not necessarily just the GM's decision. In my 4e GMing I've adjudicated skill checks which have as their outcome the "minionisation" of a NPC. And I'd be surprised if I'm unique in that respect.
> 
> 
> This doesn't seem relevant to the question I asked. There is no real Orc. There is no real attack. There are words spoken and dice rolled and numbers tracked and more words spoken. How is it not _authorship_?
> 
> 
> This goes back to the question of _what "reality" of where he is or not? _Given that you reject the notion that such "reality" might be established as the outcome of action resolution, I assume you mean _what the GM has written down_ or _what the GM has decided_ or maybe _what the GM determines by a roll on the random NPC location table_.
> 
> Those all seem to be processes of establishing a fiction (which, in this context, = authorship). In the case of the brother, you want it to be authored by the GM unilaterally rather than via an action resolution process. Whereas in the case of the Orc you are happy to go the other way (but there's no reason in principle why the GM couldn't just decide that the Orc parries the attack, or that the GM couldn't roll on a _random NPC defensive manoeuvre table _and get the result that the Orc parries the blow and disarms the PC).
> 
> Nothing you are pointing to about your preferences for different processes of authorship explains why _the player's ability to bring it about, via game play, that the fiction contains a dead Orc_ is not a process of authorship. What else would it be?



I hate to say it, but the clear and obvious conclusion is "Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson didn't do it that way, so you are wrong." is pretty much the answer. There is no LOGICAL reprise to your statement, it is clearly true. Sometime in 1973 (roughly) Dave Arneson drew a box around what was allocated as DM and player jobs within 'Blackmoor' and that became 'gospel'. You can break yourself against this brick wall for the rest of your born days, and you will get nowhere. 

Actually, I'm amazed to see this thread A) is still active, and B) the discussion hasn't progressed the slightest bit in the last couple weeks since I last read it. I'm sure we have much better things to do. I have a nice set of ideas for a rewrite of HoML, sort of "PbtA meets 4e, with peanut butter filling." Lets turn our attention to something productive instead of re-arguing age-old debates that never change anyone's mind... lol.


----------



## Fenris-77

@AbdulAlhazred - you should check out _Vagabonds of Dyfed_, its an OSR adjacent game with a PbtA engine. It might not be exactly what you're imagining but it be a place to start. IDK about the peanut butter filling though, other than that there should be some.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> @AbdulAlhazred - you should check out _Vagabonds of Dyfed_, its an OSR adjacent game with a PbtA engine. It might not be exactly what you're imagining but it be a place to start. IDK about the peanut butter filling though, other than that there should be some.



Yeah, there are a lot of interesting games out there. I will give it a check. I was just reading the free version of Ironsworn. It has some interesting stuff in it. If you haven't checked it out, it is 'NQPbtA' but clearly a bit of a spin on PbtA with a bit of BitD thrown in for good measure. Also interesting because it supports GM-less and Solo play.


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> Are you familiar with AJ Ayer's work on James? (Especially _The Origins of Pragamatism_.)
> 
> A long time ago that was one important focus of my MA.



Alas, by reputation and occasional citation only. It's a helluva broad field!


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I would consider this to be a high-degree railroad. Absolutely devoid of player agency, because the outcome was utterly foregone.




And I think here we bump into a fundamental issue over our uses of language. This isnt' at all what I would recognize as a railroad. The GM deciding something about a detail in the setting, even something related to your character, or what you might be interested in, isn't railroading. Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants. This is by no means a perfect definition (it has been a long weekend), but it is much closer to my conception of the term railroad, than you saying you are being railroaded because the GM has decided your characters brother is dead. Now that decision could be made in a railoady way: for example you guys are on a quest for your brother and the GM doesn't want that, so he makes him dead. That wouldn't be a good reason in my mind to decide if a relative is dead (I do think when it comes to player character relatives, GMs should be very careful in how they use them). 

But I can't say I've ever heard anyone call a GM having power over that setting element as features of a railroad. And this is part of why I find conversations with you frustrating. It seems like many of the things which are defining features of the more open sandbox style (agency, avoiding railroads, a believable world, etc), are you things you very consistently shift the language on to not only make defining features of approaches and games you prefer (like Burning Wheel). But also you treat it as a zero sum game and deduct that proportion of each one from the sandbox style. Perhaps you don't mean anything by it. Perhaps this is just how you really feel about the terms. Perhaps you are stuck in legal mind mode, because it is related to your profession and that is just how you make points. I don't know. But this is the aspect of engaging with you I find quite difficult to wrangle with at times.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> As you know, I have a view that once the fictional scope of the action expands beyond the fairly sparse dungeon context, your constraint _that actions should not be blocked by things that players have no chance to learn_ becomes harder to honour. I'm curious if you agree. And if you do, how does Stars Without Number handle this problem? (Or does it not, or perhaps not need to?)




I do think it becomes more difficult. I would say that for bigger picture stuff I'm probably somewhat more guided by Apocalypse World style techniques in Stars Without Number. I tend to fail back on them in the absence of more concrete guidance. Stars is pretty much B/X + Classic Traveller so it leaves a lot of blanks for the GM to fill in. XP is also goal based so I generally have a good idea of what players want to do.

I find it somewhat easier to handle if I focus on personalities and factions. SWN has a fairly rich faction framework (for which it is credited for in Blades).

I would say the way I run larger sandboxes is somewhat a synthesis of Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, Blades, Kevin Crawford's instructions, and Moldvay. So probably not what some what some would call true sandboxes.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I do think it becomes more difficult. I would say that for bigger picture stuff I'm probably somewhat more guided by Apocalypse World style techniques in Stars Without Number.



I would say that this is what I am trying to do in Traveller. I'm not sure how successful it is being at the moment - I will probably know in a session or two!

(Btw, does Stars Without Number have FTL communication independent of starship travel? In Classic Traveller all FTL messages have to be carried by starship - which puts a limit on the ways in which I can_ announce future badness_. If the future badness is the Imperial Navy turning up, it requires a bit of contrivance to have that take the form of _news of their pending arrival_ rather than just _their arrival_.)


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> Alas, by reputation and occasional citation only. It's a helluva broad field!



Yes, and no longer my field. But the "phenomenlogical" (if I can use that word) treatment of memory-as-a-mode-of-perception-of-components-of-self is something that I continue to find very interesting.

I think my background in late 19th century and 20th century empiricist-informed anti-Cartesian approaches to perception and to metaphysics (eg _Language, Truth and Logic _and later work by Ayer; Russell's neutral monism; related ideas coming out of the Vienna Circle; etc) is part of what informs my scepticism about a strong internal/external divide in RPG narration.

I've also noticed over the last 10 or so pages of this thread multiple posters rejecting the idea of a shared fiction. I think this somewhat solipsistic approach is at odds with arguments for _publicity _found (in various forms) in GE Moore, AJ Ayer, Otto Neurath and (most famously, though in my own view not most powerfully) in Wittgenstein. And beyond the "classical" thinkers found in Dummett and Putnam.

As the previous paragraph implies, I don't find the arguments against shared fiction very persuasive.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> And I think here we bump into a fundamental issue over our uses of language. This isnt' at all what I would recognize as a railroad.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> But I can't say I've ever heard anyone call a GM having power over that setting element as features of a railroad.



I don't think the issue is linguistic. I don't think you're puzzled by my view. You just don't share it.

Not all disagreements are about the meanings of terms.

As a general rule, a _railroad_ in the RPG context is an episode of play, or if your prefer a game/campaign, where the GM exercises undue/undesired control over the possible outcomes. As you put it,



Bedrockgames said:


> Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants.




My threshold for _thwarting_ and probably also my view of what counts as a _choice made in the setting_ is just different from yours.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I would say that this is what I am trying to do in Traveller. I'm not sure how successful it is being at the moment - I will probably know in a session or two!
> 
> (Btw, does Stars Without Number have FTL communication independent of starship travel? In Classic Traveller all FTL messages have to be carried by starship - which puts a limit on the ways in which I can_ announce future badness_. If the future badness is the Imperial Navy turning up, it requires a bit of contrivance to have that take the form of _news of their pending arrival_ rather than just _their arrival_.)




There are short range FTL comms (within the same system), but no interstellar comms.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> There are short range FTL comms (within the same system), but no interstellar comms.



So how do you do interstellar transmission of bad news without the whole fleet turning up? I narrated an X-Boat transmission - I now have to go back over my starmaps and ship specs and try to construct a version of events that makes sense of that.

(eXpress-boats are Jump 4, whereas my armada is capped around Jump 2 and mabye slower for refuelling reasons, so I think I can make it work but it will take a bit of calculating to figure it all out.)


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> Yes, and no longer my field. But the "phenomenlogical" (if I can use that word) treatment of memory-as-a-mode-of-perception-of-components-of-self is something that I continue to find very interesting.
> 
> I think my background in late 19th century and 20th century empiricist-informed anti-Cartesian approaches to perception and to metaphysics (eg _Language, Truth and Logic _and later work by Ayer; Russell's neutral monism; related ideas coming out of the Vienna Circle; etc) is part of what informs my scepticism about a strong internal/external divide in RPG narration.
> 
> I've also noticed over the last 10 or so pages of this thread multiple posters rejecting the idea of a shared fiction. I think this somewhat solipsistic approach is at odds with arguments for _publicity _found (in various forms) in GE Moore, AJ Ayer, Otto Neurath and (most famously, though in my own view not most powerfully) in Wittgenstein. And beyond the "classical" thinkers found in Dummett and Putnam.
> 
> As the previous paragraph implies, I don't find the arguments against shared fiction very persuasive.




Yes, I  find issues of interiority/exteriority _interesting_ (in the etymological sense or inter + esse, ie being between). My research focus, though, is less rooted in the philosophical tradition than the implications for the literary tradition of Anglo-American nature writing.

Our shared academic interests and (often) similar perspectives on desiderata in gaming bring me back to @Bedrockgames's earlier statement (an ad hominem directed at my professionalism?) that I chose to ignore. Rather than saying that my gaming interests skew my professional objectivity, I would say, of course, all of us carry aesthetic preferences that skew our judgments, but in this case perhaps it's that my interests and experiences in thinking and analysis (I guess that's shorthand for being a professor?) inform my gaming preferences rather than Bedrockgames's hypothesis.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> So how do you do interstellar transmission of bad news without the whole fleet turning up? I narrated an X-Boat transmission - I now have to go back over my starmaps and ship specs and try to construct a version of events that makes sense of that.
> 
> (eXpress-boats are Jump 4, whereas my armada is capped around Jump 2 and mabye slower for refuelling reasons, so I think I can make it work but it will take a bit of calculating to figure it all out.)




A ship needs to arrive first and relay it to the system's FTL comms.

Spike drill jumps in SWN are not super reliable. They require access to rutters (jump maps) and you may not always make your jumps successfully (even on a battle ship). Ships with access to secret routes can also make jumps other ships cannot. You can also cut jump times by trimming the course increases the risk of mishaps.

Also Stars lacks anything like the Imperium. It's a bit more lawless usually. You might deal with hegemonies and federations, but it's far more wild west than Traveller.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Fair enough, I just took a look at the article. My sense, and again I don't play video games, and haven't touched on since about 2010 (and was pretty out of the loop at that point already). So I am not getting the examples he uses (which could impact my analysis). My sense is the writer in this article is talking about something very different from what I am talking about. His definition of agency is: _The player's ability to impact the story through the game design or gameplay._




Yes, I thought it was interesting to see someone examining a similar medium have a similar conclusion. 

I know that you may not agree with that assessment, though. Which is fine.

It does make me wonder if....even though you may not play them anymore...if you think of video game worlds as real in the same sense as RPG worlds. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I think the use of the term story isn't how I would frame it, but I also understand some people simply use story to mean "stuff that happens in the game". However reading the article he seems to be talking about stories that are imbedded in play (with plot points and everything), and his use of agency appears to be the players ability to make meaningful choices within that story. I may be misunderstanding, but to me it doesn't sound like he is talking about open world play. Correct me if I am wrong there. I could be.




I don’t think you’re wrong. I think he’s using story as like a record of the end result of play. Which given the nature of video games, is probably more required. Even when games or open world, there tends to be expected routes.

I fond that this tends to be true of RPGs, too, though hopefully not as necessary, and ideally fairly infrequently. 



Bedrockgames said:


> But my whole approach to character agency is to not plan stories at all.




I do want to point out here that you’re describing character agency. Which isn’t really a thing. I think this is a big part of the ongoing frustration in the discussion. 

I think someone earlier in the thread used character autonomy which seems to suit. 

I point this out because agency has to happen at the player level. As such, it has to be related to the things a player can or cannot do.


Bedrockgames said:


> And I think here we bump into a fundamental issue over our uses of language. This isnt' at all what I would recognize as a railroad. The GM deciding something about a detail in the setting, even something related to your character, or what you might be interested in, isn't railroading. Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants.




So if a player says “My character is searching for his brother” and the GM decides that the brother is dead....how is that not thwarting what the player wants? 

Maybe there’s a valid reason for the GM to do this, but I’m struggling to think of it. 

One other thing I want to add...if this is an application of the term railroading that you’ve never encountered before, that may be fine....but I find the request to allow multiple definitions of agency but to only allow one for railroading to be a bit odd. 

So let’s not get caught up on the label. You’re using a word the way it makes sense for you; allow others the same courtesy, yes? 

Do you think that if a player said they wanted their PC to be searching for his brother, that a GM may be justified in declaring that the brother is dead? 

How would you handle this as a GM? A character searching for their brother/father/teacher/whoever is a pretty common trope in all kinds of genre fiction. Has this come up for you? How have you handled it?


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> A ship needs to arrive first and relay it to the system's FTL comms.
> 
> Spike drill jumps in SWN are not super reliable. They require access to rutters (jump maps) and you may not always make your jumps successfully (even on a battle ship). Ships with access to secret routes can also make jumps other ships cannot. You can also cut jump times by trimming the course increases the risk of mishaps.
> 
> Also Stars lacks anything like the Imperium. It's a bit more lawless usually. You might deal with hegemonies and federations, but it's far more wild west than Traveller.



Stars without number is a great game.


----------



## aramis erak

Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.
> 
> The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."
> 
> *BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.  Although the Setting's Factions and the Setting itself has Protagonist Agency, the Players Protagonist Agency doesn't become diffuse.  It just means that every moment of play will involve some collision of the Crew's dramatic needs with other Factions/Setting and, thus, play will orbit around the Crew's dramatic needs. There won't be "Side Quests" that are "PC dramatic need-neutral."
> 
> The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).
> 
> 
> 
> Both Sandboxes.



Uh, No, that first one isn't properly a sandbox. At least not in the way it's been used in wargaming and RPG theory. Why? Because "quest" is not appropriate for sandbox. In a proper sandbox, there is no quest to be main nor side quest. There are things happening in the foreground, which players experience, and possibly things happening "off-screen" (for lack of a better term), which may or may not be immediately visible to players. There may be jobs to do, if one looks for them, but any quest cannot be side, because it's what is driving the interaction, and is set entirely by the player(s)

In a proper sandbox, the only thing special about PCs in setting is that, when none of them are in play, time stops for the sandbox. Unless, of course, the GM has established otherwise. (I had a campaign that, in between the 2-3 session annual adventures, time passed at the same rate as the real world, as an example.)

A well done sandbox is like a montessori method classroom: interesting things to do, and which ones you do is your choice, within the limits of available seating. Always more things than you can get to, so that even if one works ahead, there is always something left to do.

The moment the GM gets into setting quests for players, they've exited the sandbox mode into open world quest mode. It's different. It's a different flavor of agency as well, because once you start into side vs main quests, you get into story trumping the sandbox.


----------



## Lanefan

Another fine and interesting analysis from MBC.

Just one question: what do you mean by "Rowboat World"?


Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.  In case (b) (where some or all of the PCs do have some kind of explicit dramatic need that play attempts to resolve), it is diffuse because (i) there are a huge number of dramatic needs within the sandbox and (ii) those must all be given expression through the GM such that (iii) there will be many, many moments of play that entirely unrelated to/not framed around resolving PC dramatic need.  (i-iii) are necessary in concert so the dreaded "Rowboat World" doesn't materialize through play.
> 
> The "Side Quest" is the classical manifestation of this.  Through the confluence of an accretion of "Sandbox Dramatic Needs" + "Side Quests (where resolution of those Setting Dramatic Needs are the focal point around which play orbits)" = "Rowboat World" is kept at bay.
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So if a player says “My character is searching for his brother” and the GM decides that the brother is dead....how is that not thwarting what the player wants?




I will get to the rest of this later (short on time), but to quickly answer this, look at my phrasing, I didn't say railroads were thwarting what the player wanted (you may want to be a 20th level wizard at the start of the game, I don't think anyone would make a serious argument that denying a player that would be railroading. I said railroading was thwarting their choices in the setting. The choice in the setting was to look for the brother. That choice wasn't thwarted at all. In fact it was honored, and the brother just happened to be dead (when you have a world in motion, where the GM generates the setting content, this sort of thing can happen).

Also, the first part of your answer glosses over a massive divide between us: we have a different definition of agency in RPGs.


----------



## Manbearcat

aramis erak said:


> Uh, No, that first one isn't properly a sandbox. At least not in the way it's been used in wargaming and RPG theory. Why? Because "quest" is not appropriate for sandbox. In a proper sandbox, there is no quest to be main nor side quest. There are things happening in the foreground, which players experience, and possibly things happening "off-screen" (for lack of a better term), which may or may not be immediately visible to players. There may be *jobs to do*, if one looks for them, but any quest cannot be side, because it's what is driving the interaction, and is set entirely by the player(s)
> 
> In a proper sandbox, the only thing special about PCs in setting is that, when none of them are in play, time stops for the sandbox. Unless, of course, the GM has established otherwise. (I had a campaign that, in between the 2-3 session annual adventures, time passed at the same rate as the real world, as an example.)
> 
> A well done sandbox is like a montessori method classroom: *interesting things to do*, and which ones you do is your choice, within the limits of available seating. Always more *things than you can get to*, so that even if one works ahead, there is always *something left to do*.
> 
> The moment the GM gets into setting quests for players, they've exited the sandbox mode into open world quest mode. It's different. It's a different flavor of agency as well, because once you start into side vs main quests, you get into story trumping the sandbox.




"Side Quests (both the adjective and the noun)" is just (pretty widely used in my opinion) parlance in TTRPG and CRPGs used to depict the phenomena.

Operationally speaking, you and I are talking about exactly the same thing.

See everything I bolded in your text above.  Any place you see "Side Quest" just sub:


"jobs to do"
"interesting things to do"
"things you can get into"
"something left to do"

Its all the same stuff.  It just needs to not orbit around PC dramatic needs (because it has its own, PC-neutral, dramatic needs through which the GM gives it volitional force within the Sandbox).


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Another fine and interesting analysis from MBC.
> 
> Just one question: what do you mean by "Rowboat World"?




Thank you Lanefan.

Its vast but shallow with a lot of uninteresting and not particularly compelling stuff to do!

@FrogReaver and @Ovinomancer , I'll respond to your posts tonight or tomorrow.


----------



## aramis erak

Bedrockgames said:


> And I think here we bump into a fundamental issue over our uses of language. This isnt' at all what I would recognize as a railroad. The GM deciding something about a detail in the setting, even something related to your character, or what you might be interested in, isn't railroading. Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants. This is by no means a perfect definition (it has been a long weekend), but it is much closer to my conception of the term railroad, than you saying you are being railroaded because the GM has decided your characters brother is dead.



It's certainly not a good definition, it's not consonant with what I've seen from Dave Arneson.

Understand: The classic dungeon itself is a form of railroad, as it limits one to several paths. You have rails with switches - so a multi-path railroad. For example, the dungeon in chapter 3 of Hoard of the Dragon queen essentially has two directions after the entry fight: the left path (easy), and the right path (hard, inobvious, and takes you directly to the dungeon boss). If you go left path, you hit the traps, instead. Engaging with the dungeon is "Pick a or b" ...

If one has a horn of blasting, one can make a third option, but it's a low-level dungeon so the PCs shouldn't have the needed spells nor magic items to go off-rails.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I will get to the rest of this later (short on time), but to quickly answer this, look at my phrasing, I didn't say railroads were thwarting what the player wanted (you may want to be a 20th level wizard at the start of the game, I don't think anyone would make a serious argument that denying a player that would be railroading. I said railroading was thwarting their choices in the setting. The choice in the setting was to look for the brother. That choice wasn't thwarted at all. In fact it was honored, and the brother just happened to be dead (when you have a world in motion, where the GM generates the setting content, this sort of thing can happen).
> 
> Also, the first part of your answer glosses over a massive divide between us: we have a different definition of agency in RPGs.




That’s some semantic footwork, I’d say. 

It’s the GM saying “Oh your character wants to find his brother? Okay cool.” Then playing a three hour session to reveal at the end the brother is dead. 

It’s lousy, whatever other label you’d like to use.


----------



## aramis erak

Manbearcat said:


> "Side Quests (both the adjective and the noun)" is just (pretty widely used in my opinion) parlance in TTRPG and CRPGs used to depict the phenomena.
> 
> Operationally speaking, you and I are talking about exactly the same thing.
> 
> See everything I bolded in your text above.  Any place you see "Side Quest" just sub:
> 
> 
> "jobs to do"
> "interesting things to do"
> "things you can get into"
> "something left to do"
> 
> Its all the same stuff.  It just needs to not orbit around PC dramatic needs (because it has its own, PC-neutral, dramatic needs through which the GM gives it volitional force within the Sandbox).



You're not getting it, clearly.

The term «quest» itself is a VERY loaded term, and such substitution is pretty much coming across as intentional obfuscation. It's not a commonly used term in the theory works I've read.

And, in practice, few people actually run real sandbox games on the TT. Many who claim to actually aren't doing so, because they have an agenda as a GM. If, at any point, the GM has to hint that, "The story is over here, guys" that's not a proper sandbox.

A large part of that is conflation with videogames, where quests are there in a supposedly  open world that isn't actually an open world, but is instead quest-gated by need of certain items to get into specific regions. 

The definitions of open world and sandbox differ significantly between the two media. Zelda games are said to be "open world" - but they are not. Large portions are locked behind needed items. That's a feature that few TT RPGs have, but many GM's try to impose.

When you get to the TTRPG, if an area requires having done X, Y or Z to have anything interesting happen, it's no longer a sandbox, it's just a wall-less dungeon.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s some semantic footwork, I’d say.
> 
> It’s the GM saying “Oh your character wants to find his brother? Okay cool.” Then playing a three hour session to reveal at the end the brother is dead.
> 
> It’s lousy, whatever other label you’d like to use.




Certainly you might find it lousy, that is very much a matter of preference. But why is it lousy m, and how is it a railroad? In a sandbox that is worked in motion, when you go to look for someone, their current condition and status often changes. I am not saying the Guzman ought to always have the character in question dead,but being dead is certainly a viable possibility. To be as a player, the thing that makes that search interesting is I don’t know what condition my brother is in, and what has become of him. If I went on a search abc discovered he had died, that would be an interesting revelation to me.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> "Side Quests (both the adjective and the noun)" is just (pretty widely used in my opinion) parlance in TTRPG and CRPGs used to depict the phenomena.
> 
> Operationally speaking, you and I are talking about exactly the same thing.
> 
> See everything I bolded in your text above.  Any place you see "Side Quest" just sub:
> 
> 
> "jobs to do"
> "interesting things to do"
> "things you can get into"
> "something left to do"
> 
> Its all the same stuff.  It just needs to not orbit around PC dramatic needs (because it has its own, PC-neutral, dramatic needs through which the GM gives it volitional force within the Sandbox).



I'm not quite sure if you're suggesting the things on this list are good things, or bad things, or just...things.

For my own part, as a DM all of those are good things in that their existence means there's still some life in the campaign; as it'll die when there's nothing left to do.

Also, IME occasionally something that starts out as a simple side quest takes on a life of its own (often because the players assign far greater importance to it than it really has, and-or end up becoming engaged in it for other reasons) and ends up becoming a major focus of the campaign for a while.

=================

Another (!) variable that I might as well chuck in here, just to add to the fun: desired types and amounts of player agency are going to vary, even within the same system, based on the type and length of campaign you're trying to design and-or run.

Consider the difference between:


designing a campaign and-or setting around a particular set of PCs and their goals/motives (and, by extension, a particular and unchanging set of players) with the intent of ending said campaign once those specific things have been dealt with
designing a campaign and-or setting without foreknowledge of what PCs will be played in it at any given time, or how long those PCs might individually survive, or how much player turnover the campaign will see as it goes along; all with the intent of the campaign - if things work out well - potentially never ending.*

One would think that in coming up with the former one would want to allow a far greater degree of @pemerton-style player agency than in the latter.  

Of the former: Benefit: way less or even near-zero up-front prep to do.  Drawback: an intentionally-closed-ended campaign.
Of the latter: Drawback: way more up-front prep to do.  Benefit: it's work that in theory only has to be done once and it'll last for ages.

I approach all of this from the latter perspective: characters come and go; sometimes players come and go; yet the campaign rolls on regardless.  What this means is that the underlying setting IMO needs to be robust enough to backdrop all this and to withstand what a (potentially wide) variety of people are going to try to do to it.

* - there's also a third type - designing a campaign intended to be a single hard-rail adventure path and that's it - which can be ignored for these purposes.


----------



## Manbearcat

aramis erak said:


> You're not getting it, clearly.
> 
> The term «quest» itself is a VERY loaded term, and such substitution is pretty much coming across as intentional obfuscation. It's not a commonly used term in the theory works I've read.
> 
> And, in practice, few people actually run real sandbox games on the TT. Many who claim to actually aren't doing so, because they have an agenda as a GM. If, at any point, the GM has to hint that, "The story is over here, guys" that's not a proper sandbox.
> 
> A large part of that is conflation with videogames, where quests are there in a supposedly  open world that isn't actually an open world, but is instead quest-gated by need of certain items to get into specific regions.
> 
> The definitions of open world and sandbox differ significantly between the two media. Zelda games are said to be "open world" - but they are not. Large portions are locked behind needed items. That's a feature that few TT RPGs have, but many GM's try to impose.
> 
> When you get to the TTRPG, if an area requires having done X, Y or Z to have anything interesting happen, it's no longer a sandbox, it's just a wall-less dungeon.




No.  I'm getting it.

For some reason you're wanting to stick with "Quest" here (as if I care about the term), then escalate things to "coming across as intentional obfuscation", and then die on this hill.

I_do_not_care about the term.  That should be clear from my response.

Get rid of Quest.  Nuke the whole damn site from orbit if you'd like so you're sure.

I'm not invested in "Side Quest" as the parlance that so many use (I used it because so many others use it so I figured it was sufficiently informative and wasn't this hugely contentious language that apparently it is for you).  I'm not invested in it as technical jargon (which it clearly is not).  I'm CERTAINLY NOT invested in it for "intentional obfuscation."

So, let this stand as me formally disavowing "Side Quest", sufficiently genuflecting, and bending the m-fing knee to whatever term you (or anyone else wants to use).

Do_not_care.

What I care about is that the sandbox contains "stuff to do" that is "energized by dramatic needs detached from the PCs."


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Certainly you might find it lousy, that is very much a matter of preference. But why is it lousy m, and how is it a railroad? In a sandbox that is worked in motion, when you go to look for someone, their current condition and status often changes. I am not saying the Guzman ought to always have the character in question dead,but being dead is certainly a viable possibility. To be as a player, the thing that makes that search interesting is I don’t know what condition my brother is in, and what has become of him. If I went on a search abc discovered he had died, that would be an interesting revelation to me.




I think it’s lousy because it’s ignoring what the player has flat out said they’d like to see in play. It’s taking that idea and scrapping it in favor of what the GM wants. 

I’d also say it’s railroading in that it takes the players idea and unilaterally forces one outcome onto it.

“Oh you wanted to play Kwai Chang Caine? Hmmmm.....maybe next campaign!”


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I would say that this is what I am trying to do in Traveller. I'm not sure how successful it is being at the moment - I will probably know in a session or two!
> 
> (Btw, does Stars Without Number have FTL communication independent of starship travel? In Classic Traveller all FTL messages have to be carried by starship - which puts a limit on the ways in which I can_ announce future badness_. If the future badness is the Imperial Navy turning up, it requires a bit of contrivance to have that take the form of _news of their pending arrival_ rather than just _their arrival_.)



Eh, they show up in System A on their way to you in System B. Someone will see them drop out of hyperspace and start refueling. If that someone is sitting at jump radius in a scout (or one of the 100 ton Jump 6 courier ships), you could get news a good bit before they showed up. Worst case they'll have to drop down from 100 diameters (about 15 million km for Jupiter), scoop and process fuel (I forget the exact times required for all this, but it is certainly time-consuming) and then torch back out to jump distance again. I'd think you would get a solid day's warning, although there may be enemy scouts which show up sooner. 

Also, I would think that, generally speaking, military tactics would indicate SOME degree of caution. Fleet Brevet Admiral Von Kramnitz MIGHT not want to blind jump right on top of where he expects you are. He might even want to wait 2 weeks, send in a scout, get it back again, and THEN pick a spot. There's plenty of reasons to believe you might have some time to breath. Also, Traveler never tried to explain the possibilities of predicting exactly where someone jumped to, is it possible to determine exactly/approximately/not at all based on, say, the exact trajectory and such of the vessel that jumped? If not, then pursuit is more like hunting a needle in a haystack. Any given system is HUGE and probably filled with localities containing fuel. So, it kind of depends on the details and the creativity of the PCs and how much the Referee thinks things through.

I would think that, yes, it is possible to be surprised of course. OTOH if you are keeping an eye out for someone come looking for you, chances are it is going to be either obvious, or a cat-and-mouse game. Obviously if your party is unwilling to budge from a spot that is already located, well that is their choice, they'll most likely end up with said Brevet Admiral right smack on top of them real soon now...


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> Consider the difference between:
> 
> 
> designing a campaign and-or setting around a particular set of PCs and their goals/motives (and, by extension, a particular and unchanging set of players) with the intent of ending said campaign once those specific things have been dealt with
> designing a campaign and-or setting without foreknowledge of what PCs will be played in it at any given time, or how long those PCs might individually survive, or how much player turnover the campaign will see as it goes along; all with the intent of the campaign - if things work out well - potentially never ending.*




I think these two factors likely play a big role in how one would approach play, for sure. Certainly they would influence any prep that may be considered.

I don’t know if I agree with all your benefits and drawbacks conclusions, but I think you’re right that this is a big factor. Possibly also determined by the chosen rules system.


----------



## Bedrockgames

aramis erak said:


> You're not getting it, clearly.
> 
> The term «quest» itself is a VERY loaded term, and such substitution is pretty much coming across as intentional obfuscation. It's not a commonly used term in the theory works I've read.
> 
> And, in practice, few people actually run real sandbox games on the TT. Many who claim to actually aren't doing so, because they have an agenda as a GM. If, at any point, the GM has to hint that, "The story is over here, guys" that's not a proper sandbox.
> 
> A large part of that is conflation with videogames, where quests are there in a supposedly  open world that isn't actually an open world, but is instead quest-gated by need of certain items to get into specific regions.
> 
> The definitions of open world and sandbox differ significantly between the two media. Zelda games are said to be "open world" - but they are not. Large portions are locked behind needed items. That's a feature that few TT RPGs have, but many GM's try to impose.
> 
> When you get to the TTRPG, if an area requires having done X, Y or Z to have anything interesting happen, it's no longer a sandbox, it's just a wall-less dungeon.




I


hawkeyefan said:


> I think it’s lousy because it’s ignoring what the player has flat out said they’d like to see in play. It’s taking that idea and scrapping it in favor of what the GM wants.
> 
> I’d also say it’s railroading in that it takes the players idea and unilaterally forces one outcome onto it.
> 
> “Oh you wanted to play Kwai Chang Caine? Hmmmm.....maybe next campaign!”




Again maybe in your style of play, the player is expected to express what they would like to see happen in terms of adventure and the GM is meant to fulfill that request. That isn’t how a lot of people play nor is it what they want. In the style I am talking about, the player doesn’t get that level of control over the setting, the player gets to control their character. And it works for that playstyle. This is simply preference. I remember when wishlists became a big thing during 3E I couldn’t stand it as a player, because for me it went against the notion of exploring and discovering things in the setting. 

Again on railroading I don’t think it is reasonable to define railroading as the GM not giving players the outcomes they want. That doesn’t reflect how the term is used by most people and it seem terribly useful to me. Railroading is more along the lines of pushing the players to go on the adventure to find the brother, and to make it hard to deviate from that path. They call it a railroad because it’s on tracks. But the GM is expected to control things like the life status of npcs, and the condition of the dungeon once you reach it. The GM making decisions about these things, isn’t railroading just because they are outcomes you didn’t want


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> You're not getting it, clearly.
> 
> The term «quest» itself is a VERY loaded term, and such substitution is pretty much coming across as intentional obfuscation. It's not a commonly used term in the theory works I've read.
> 
> And, in practice, few people actually run real sandbox games on the TT. Many who claim to actually aren't doing so, because they have an agenda as a GM. If, at any point, the GM has to hint that, "The story is over here, guys" that's not a proper sandbox.
> 
> A large part of that is conflation with videogames, where quests are there in a supposedly  open world that isn't actually an open world, but is instead quest-gated by need of certain items to get into specific regions.
> 
> The definitions of open world and sandbox differ significantly between the two media. Zelda games are said to be "open world" - but they are not. Large portions are locked behind needed items. That's a feature that few TT RPGs have, but many GM's try to impose.
> 
> When you get to the TTRPG, if an area requires having done X, Y or Z to have anything interesting happen, it's no longer a sandbox, it's just a wall-less dungeon.



I'm a 'bit' confused about what your definition of 'sandbox' is then...

A sandbox, to use the term in its purest meaning, is a setting in which some number of different 'engageable resources' exist, but in which the structure of the game doesn't apply ANY force whatsoever in terms of pushing the players to choose which ones to interact with. However, hints can be given, maps, information, rumors, etc. These are simply forms of intelligence which the party can gather, or which might fall into their hands over time in order to reveal the existing/location of these resources. This is the ideal of course. The players simply choose from the 'smorgasbord' of options, or perhaps simply blunder around the landscape hoping to fall into something. 

However, there is no sense in which player agendas cannot or will not produce 'quests', they most certainly will! Players will evolve intentions, maybe as basic as "find the fabled Vorpal Sword of Snikersnak" and then go looking for it. Clearly this would arise after some sort of information is provided by the GM as to the possibility of success. The actual impetus however is coming from a player.

OTOH there are certainly sandboxes with meta-plot as well. They are simply 'time varying maps' in essence. However, because of the inevitable progression of the plot they will generate impetus which often doesn't originate in the players. These would be more like the 'side quests' @Manbearcat is talking about. Often meta-plot is also set in motion, sort of like a 'landslide' by whatever the PCs did. They attack the orcs, the orcs declare war, the PCs must find the tomb of Sir Snikersnak if they are going to avoid getting the town destroyed (and its inhabitants are keen to see them hang for that). This is all likely fare in what originates as even the most pure sandbox.

The point is, there is often stuff the PCs cannot do, must do, should do, etc. even in a pure sandbox. While it is possible to simply ignore all such possibilities, I would call the result exactly what MBC terms "Rowboat World" a very shallow but extensive environment in which all that exists are some challenges to find and solve. Nothing ever changes, nothing progresses, there's no real 'meaning' to anything beyond its tactical significance, etc.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I
> 
> 
> Again maybe in your style of play, the player is expected to express what they would like to see happen in terms of adventure and the GM is meant to fulfill that request. That isn’t how a lot of people play nor is it what they want. In the style I am talking about, the player doesn’t get that level of control over the setting, the player gets to control their character. And it works for that playstyle. This is simply preference. I remember when wishlists became a big thing during 3E I couldn’t stand it as a player, because for me it went against the notion of exploring and discovering things in the setting.
> 
> Again on railroading I don’t think it is reasonable to define railroading as the GM not giving players the outcomes they want. That doesn’t reflect how the term is used by most people and it seem terribly useful to me. Railroading is more along the lines of pushing the players to go on the adventure to find the brother, and to make it hard to deviate from that path. They call it a railroad because it’s on tracks. But the GM is expected to control things like the life status of npcs, and the condition of the dungeon once you reach it. The GM making decisions about these things, isn’t railroading just because they are outcomes you didn’t want



I agree, PCs not getting their desired outcomes is not 'railroading' per se. However I would like to say that there needs to be logic attached to the actions of the PC, and perhaps to the outcome of checks, which leads to any given resolution of one of their goals. If the resolution is simply "sorry, it just happened this way" that doesn't feel satisfactory to me (whatever term you want to use for it). 

If, OTOH, the PC simply fell short, then maybe Von Bad Guy pig stuck his hostage brother and then escaped. Maybe this was all the result of some characteristic or action/goal of the PC in the first place (he picked a fight with Von Bad Guy because he believes in the rights of the peasants of Pleasant Valley to live unmolested). Maybe this leads to a new goal, etc. This is all great stuff! Simply dead-ending something with "well, your brother died 3 years ago, it was all futile from the beginning" doesn't seem like good stuff. Maybe it could be turned into simply a step moving towards a greater goal/character transformation if its done right, but just on the face of it, it is dull.

Of course that's where we seem to always differ. I see no point to dull pointless stuff in an RPG. Leave it for real life! lol.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Again maybe in your style of play, the player is expected to express what they would like to see happen in terms of adventure and the GM is meant to fulfill that request. That isn’t how a lot of people play nor is it what they want. In the style I am talking about, the player doesn’t get that level of control over the setting, the player gets to control their character. And it works for that playstyle. This is simply preference. I remember when wishlists became a big thing during 3E I couldn’t stand it as a player, because for me it went against the notion of exploring and discovering things in the setting.




I don’t think play style has anything to do with it to be honest. It’s a dick move. Explain to me how in any playstyle this isn’t a dick move on the part of the GM.

Also, this is why I asked you how you’d handle it. It’d give us something a little more specific to discuss. Maybe you’d not even allow it as a PC goal? Maybe you’d handle it some other way? 

As for your style and the player not getting that level of control (?!? control, really? Offering a goal for a PC is control over the setting? That’s not somethjing they get to decide for their character? Oh, they can go ahead and decide that....but then the GM is just gonna trample it?!?! ) over the setting....that’s denying the player that agency. 

Finally, I don’t care one bit how most people play or what most people want in their game. Nor do I think you’re qualified to make that determination. Nor do I think it’s relevant at all. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Again on railroading I don’t think it is reasonable to define railroading as the GM not giving players the outcomes they want. That doesn’t reflect how the term is used by most people and it seem terribly useful to me. Railroading is more along the lines of pushing the players to go on the adventure to find the brother, and to make it hard to deviate from that path. They call it a railroad because it’s on tracks. But the GM is expected to control things like the life status of npcs, and the condition of the dungeon once you reach it. The GM making decisions about these things, isn’t railroading just because they are outcomes you didn’t want




Well hey, there’s more than one type of agency, but there can only be one kind of railroading. Got it. 

What we’re talking about is not an example of the GM not giving a player the outcome he wants. It’s about him denying the entire journey that the player has said he’d like to take. 

I’m gonna run with my “Kung Fu” example. Looking for his brother is very far from the only thing that Caine did in the series. He had tons of adventures. But it was his main drive. 

If at the end of the first episode he found out his brother was dead, then his entire story changes. It is no longer about a man searching for his brother and having adventures along the way. 

If the player offers that up as his PC’s concept, and the GM just thwarts that....I mean this is pretty antithetical to player agency.

Or no.....because the players are free to have their characters choose between going north to the temple of the wind, or west to the school of the flying fists?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think play style has anything to do with it to be honest. It’s a dick move. Explain to me how in any playstyle this isn’t a dick move on the part of the GM.




It really isn't a dick move. And I don't know how I can prove an opinion about play to you. All I can say is at many of the games I play at, it would be entirely reasonable for the GM to decide the players brother is dead. The GM could decide just about anything about the brother. Discovering what the case is, that is part of the fun. I definitely wouldn't regard this as being a dick move on the part of the GM. Again, I think the issue is you are accustomed to a style of play where players get more say in shaping the kind of campaign, the content of the adventures, etc. If that is an expectation of play at your table, and it is violated, fair enough. But I am talking about tables where this isn't an expectation (and it definitely isn't an expectation at every table).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Also, this is why I asked you how you’d handle it. It’d give us something a little more specific to discuss. Maybe you’d not even allow it as a PC goal? Maybe you’d handle it some other way?




I think I missed that. Clarify the situation you want to know how I would respond to, and I will tell you (but there is a good chance, my handling is going to come down on a very different side of gaming than you)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> As for your style and the player not getting that level of control (?!? control, really? Offering a goal for a PC is control over the setting? That’s not somethjing they get to decide for their character? Oh, they can go ahead and decide that....but then the GM is just gonna trample it?!?! ) over the setting....that’s denying the player that agency.
> 
> Finally, I don’t care one bit how most people play or what most people want in their game. Nor do I think you’re qualified to make that determination. Nor do I think it’s relevant at all.




When your goal is also getting into details like the whereabouts, status, etc of NPCs, then yes, it is a thing that is beyond your control in the kind of sandbox I would run. Finding your brother can be your goal. But that doesn't mean you get to decide if he is alive, dead, homeless, running a country somewhere. I mean on some family stuff, I think there is a gray area. But if you are essentially planning an event in the campaign, not that isn't something players typically do in my sandboxes (and this is a common enough style of play).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What we’re talking about is not an example of the GM not giving a player the outcome he wants. It’s about him denying the entire journey that the player has said he’d like to take.
> 
> I’m gonna run with my “Kung Fu” example. Looking for his brother is very far from the only thing that Caine did in the series. He had tons of adventures. But it was his main drive.




Sanbox play isn't usually built around a premise like that. If we were running a monster of the week or adventure of the week campaign (which I do run between sandboxes) and we hashed out an idea that the framework of those adventures was you were looking for your long lost brother, that would be reasonable. But again, in a sandbox game, the decision to go look for your brother, doesn't guarantee what you will find, and it doesn't guarantee you will get a series of adventures along the way. That just isn't the nature of a sandbox game. Maybe you don't like sandbox. That is fine. But I've run enough of them, to know they work, to know this isn't a problem for plenty of groups.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Or no.....because the players are free to have their characters choose between going north to the temple of the wind, or west to the school of the flying fists?




I don't understand your sudden hostility. This isn't what my campaigns are like at all. It isn't a choice between choosing cardinal directions, and having a series of adventures built around finding your brother. In a sandbox campaign, you can have long, ongoing drama of all kinds, but it usually arises organically, with very unpredictable results, as players interact with the setting and NPCs.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Again on railroading I don’t think it is reasonable to define railroading as the GM not giving players the outcomes they want.



This is not what I said. I don't think it's what @hawkeyefan said either.

I referred to an "exercise in futility" because the GM already knows what is going to happen.

It is possible for the PC's desire to find his/her brother to fail, perhaps to fail because the brother is dead, without the GM deciding that in advance. For instance, there could be a soft move in response to a failed check - _You hear that your brother was in the parts, getting ready to cross swords with notoriously ruthless swordfighter so-and-so, etc_ - and then a further failed check that triggers a hard move - _When you get to the fighting ground it's all over. They tell you the fight happened yesterday. There's a child hanging around - she offers to take you to your brother's gravestone for a grote and a bowl of warm meal._

I've used PbtA terminology - soft move, hard move - but the same sort of thing could be done in other systems too (eg Burning Wheel).


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I agree, PCs not getting their desired outcomes is not 'railroading' per se. However I would like to say that there needs to be logic attached to the actions of the PC, and perhaps to the outcome of checks, which leads to any given resolution of one of their goals. If the resolution is simply "sorry, it just happened this way" that doesn't feel satisfactory to me (whatever term you want to use for it).
> 
> If, OTOH, the PC simply fell short, then maybe Von Bad Guy pig stuck his hostage brother and then escaped. Maybe this was all the result of some characteristic or action/goal of the PC in the first place (he picked a fight with Von Bad Guy because he believes in the rights of the peasants of Pleasant Valley to live unmolested). Maybe this leads to a new goal, etc. This is all great stuff! Simply dead-ending something with "well, your brother died 3 years ago, it was all futile from the beginning" doesn't seem like good stuff. Maybe it could be turned into simply a step moving towards a greater goal/character transformation if its done right, but just on the face of it, it is dull.
> 
> Of course that's where we seem to always differ. I see no point to dull pointless stuff in an RPG. Leave it for real life! lol.




The issue is the action of the player is looking for the lost brother. Whether he succeeds at that or not, is a separate question from whether the brother is alive, living it up somewhere, or asleep in a gutter. Those are questions I would expect the GM to answer, independent of the PCs success in finding him. I would also expect the search to be the product of more than say a single roll of a skill. Again this is dependent on the campaign. I am talking about sandbox, living world adventures. In that style, it is entirely expected that the GM has purview over the brother's status. Going in search of him, and finding a grave somewhere, wouldn't be a problem for most people in this kind of game. On the hand, if I was playing in a savage worlds campaign, where we usually expect to have more input into where are characters are going, it might be a problem for the GM to decide the brother is dead if the party was expecting to go on a series of Kung Fu like adventures.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> If the player offers that up as his PC’s concept, and the GM just thwarts that....I mean this is pretty antithetical to player agency.




Again, you can set up a concept, but in sandbox, you don't set up outcomes (and going on a series of adventures to find your lost brother, or simply finding your  lost brother, are both outcomes). As an example of what I am talking about, we had a character in one of my campaigns who wanted to be a great scholar official. It turned out, in the course of play, it was quite the challenge to pass imperial exams and achieve such heights, and he ended up being more of a unemployed, unranked, scholar. Again, in these kinds of campaigns, the players can't really load the outcome into the character concept (and the player understood that, when he set that as his concept, he understood the goal itself might be unobtainable). I feel that in this case, his agency was about him being allowed to pursue that course in the campaign. He attended the exams when they were offered (which is not all the time in the setting). But failing the exams is a real possibility (and fail them he did). And even if he did get through the exam system, he would still have to contend with wrangling for a post, and obtaining promotions to desired posts. None of that is a guarantee in a sandbox setting. It doesn't mean I am going to block him from that path deliberately. But the expectation is I try to fairly handle the challenges as he climbs his way up that ranking system. 

Still his character had amassed a number of scholarly skills. So he could still function as an independent scholar in the setting


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Finally, I don’t care one bit how most people play or what most people want in their game. Nor do I think you’re qualified to make that determination. Nor do I think it’s relevant at all.




I said 'a lot of people', not 'most people'. I was just making the point that a lot of people are perfectly happy playing this way. That, I do think, is relevant.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This is not what I said. I don't think it's what @hawkeyefan said either.
> 
> I referred to an "exercise in futility" because the GM already knows what is going to happen.
> 
> It is possible for the PC's desire to find his/her brother to fail, perhaps to fail because the brother is dead, without the GM deciding that in advance. For instance, there could be a soft move in response to a failed check - _You hear that your brother was in the parts, getting ready to cross swords with notoriously ruthless swordfighter so-and-so, etc_ - and then a further failed check that triggers a hard move - _When you get to the fighting ground it's all over. They tell you the fight happened yesterday. There's a child hanging around - she offers to take you to your brother's gravestone for a grote and a bowl of warm meal._
> 
> I've used PbtA terminology - soft move, hard move - but the same sort of thing could be done in other systems too (eg Burning Wheel).




Well, in a style like this, there are lots of things the GM knows in advance. He doesn't know what is going to happen though. He just knows that the brother is dead. Maybe when the player gets their he tries to resurrect him. Or maybe the player character goes on a murderous rampage after. There are all kinds of places that could lead, that the GM does not know. But you are right he knows that a successful search for the brother would yield knowledge of his death. 

By your description of the PbtA approach, it sounds like the setting detail (the brother being alive or dead) is being baked into the player setting that as a goal for the relevant check. If that is how things are done in PbtA, that is fine. People are happy who play those games. My point is, in a sandbox, framing this way, is setting up the outcome, and something you wouldn't do. In most sandbox games a player saying he or she wants to look for their brother isn't going to be distilled into one roll or action. It would like be a number of efforts at tracking down rumors, clues, etc. And there would simply be no assurance that he is alive at the end of that (nor would most people in a sandbox consider an outcome where he is dead as futile (if anything they might be suspicious that it sounds overly dramatic, especially if it involves any of the details you mention above, but I like drama in my sandbox). Also this is just one possible outcome. What makes it exciting is it is an unknown on the player side. One possibility is he is dead. Another possibility is he is alive and waiting there to meet his brother again. Another is he is alive but filled with resentment towards his brother. Or we could even take a page from Death Duel and have him find a coffin upon ending his search, only to later discover his brother faked his own death and has been living wretched existence as nameless wanderer later on. There are all kinds of potential outcomes to "I go look for my long lost brother" in a sandbox. But as a player in that kind of campaign, I don't expect to shape the outcome. I get in other styles of play, and in some RPGs, the expectation is different, and that is fair (and maybe there is an OSR adjacent sandbox style that does that as a lot of the PbtA fans seem to be interested in Old School stuff recently). All those styles are fine by me. But what I am describing is the more OSR rooted, sandbox and living world approach. In this, I really do think the brothers status as alive or dead, would be something that players would expect the GM to decide, and they wouldn't see that decision as infringing on their agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Sanbox play isn't usually built around a premise like that. If we were running a monster of the week or adventure of the week campaign (which I do run between sandboxes) and we hashed out an idea that the framework of those adventures was you were looking for your long lost brother, that would be reasonable. But again, in a sandbox game, the decision to go look for your brother, doesn't guarantee what you will find, and it doesn't guarantee you will get a series of adventures along the way. That just isn't the nature of a sandbox game. Maybe you don't like sandbox. That is fine. But I've run enough of them, to know they work, to know this isn't a problem for plenty of groups.




I would argue that a sandbox....or just about any RPG, really....is going to consist of a series of adventures. I mean this in the normal context and not one specific to RPGs. Like, Caine had many adventures as he wandered the old west looking for his brother. 

I expect that the PCs in your games, sandboxy as they may be, are still engaging in events and happenings that can be called “adventures”. Certainly your descriptions of sone of your campaigns sounded like things out of adventure fiction. 

And to be clear, what I’m saying is a dick move is for the GM to agree about the brother and then immediately do away with it.

Now, if you want to answer the question I asked....how would you handle this if a player came to you and presented this idea....with “I’d tell him that’s not something that’ll fit this game; maybe some other game in the future” then I’d say that’s perfectly fine.  Not all games should be the same, and not all will include everything that other games do.  

Like player agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't understand your sudden hostility. This isn't what my campaigns are like at all. It isn't a choice between choosing cardinal directions, and having a series of adventures built around finding your brother. In a sandbox campaign, you can have long, ongoing drama of all kinds, but it usually arises organically, with very unpredictable results, as players interact with the setting and NPCs.




Well, ongoing drama of all kinds except looking for lost brothers. 

I am absolutely comfortable with sandbox play. I do it all the time. I just also like my players to be involved in what the game is about and where it goes. these things aren’t mutually exclusive.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> The issue is the action of the player is looking for the lost brother. Whether he succeeds at that or not, is a separate question from whether the brother is alive, living it up somewhere, or asleep in a gutter. Those are questions I would expect the GM to answer, independent of the PCs success in finding him.




Okay, so how does the GM decide? If it was your game, how would you decide? 

You’d look at relevant details like what the brother was up to and who he was involved with and what else might be going on in the area, and then make a judgment call about what makes the most sense, right? 



Bedrockgames said:


> I would also expect the search to be the product of more than say a single roll of a skill.




Who wouldn’t?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I feel that in this case, his agency was about him being allowed to pursue that course in the campaign.




Yes. He wanted to be a scholar. It’s not about success or failure being predetermined. It’s that this was his goal and you found out what happened through play. 

What if you simply told the player “Sorry, your character doesn’t become a scholar” at the end of session 1 (or whenever he made this goal known)?

What if you said “a character’s status as a scholar is up to the GM”?  Or what if there simply were no rules in place to support that kind of character goal? 



Bedrockgames said:


> It doesn't mean I am going to block him from that path deliberately.




Except with the dead brother that’s exactly what you’d be doing. 



Bedrockgames said:


> In this, I really do think the brothers status as alive or dead, would be something that players would expect the GM to decide, and they wouldn't see that decision as infringing on their agency.




I know plenty of players who would not expect the GM to decide something so significant as that. There’s several engaging with you right now.

I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.



Pretty major quibble.  The player is finding out what happens to the PC's brother through play regardless of whether the DM decides or whether some mechanical RNG process establishes that detail or even whether the players all get a vote about whether the brother is alive or dead - majority wins.  Almost no matter how the brother is determined to be alive or dead the player is playing to find out.

Literally the only time the player wouldn't be playing to find out is if the player gets to state, my brother is alive.  The player isn't playing to find out then, he's dictating by fiat.  But even then play goes on and players go on to finding out about other details.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, ongoing drama of all kinds except looking for lost brothers.
> 
> I am absolutely comfortable with sandbox play. I do it all the time. I just also like my players to be involved in what the game is about and where it goes. these things aren’t mutually exclusive.



And that is fine: you can run a sandbox however you like. But there is also nothing wrong with running it the way I am taking about


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I know plenty of players who would not expect the GM to decide something so significant as that. There’s several engaging with you right now.
> 
> I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.



there is nothing wrong wrong with this preference, but it isn’t the preference I bring to mort of my sandboxes


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Who wouldn’t?



I don’t know but some of the ways I see Pemerton talk about these kinds of checks, it looked like there might be an approach on the table in this conversation that does that (which I could be wrong about, but that was my reasoning for saying that)


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is not what I said. I don't think it's what @hawkeyefan said either.
> 
> I referred to an "exercise in futility" because the GM already knows what is going to happen.



In the style of play being discussed, The GM doesn't know the player will find their brother whether alive or dead.  So it's not a fair classification to say the GM knows what is going to happen.  




pemerton said:


> It is possible for the PC's desire to find his/her brother to fail, perhaps to fail because the brother is dead, without the GM deciding that in advance. For instance, there could be a soft move in response to a failed check - _You hear that your brother was in the parts, getting ready to cross swords with notoriously ruthless swordfighter so-and-so, etc_ - and then a further failed check that triggers a hard move - _When you get to the fighting ground it's all over. They tell you the fight happened yesterday. There's a child hanging around - she offers to take you to your brother's gravestone for a grote and a bowl of warm meal._
> 
> I've used PbtA terminology - soft move, hard move - but the same sort of thing could be done in other systems too (eg Burning Wheel).



We aren't saying that cannot be done.  All that's being said is that these techniques have consequences in addition to whatever pros you see in them.


----------



## Campbell

I do not view the example as railroading. I do not regard it as high agency play in the context of the goal the character is pursuing, but do you.

I will say that personally I might enjoy playing in that kind of game, but would absolutely not invest in my character on an emotional level. In the Vampire game I am a player in my recently turned Vampire is still married and absolutely loves his wife. If she randomly decided to divorce him or something happened to her where as a player I had no chance to intervene I would check out of treating my character as a person.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I would argue that a sandbox....or just about any RPG, really....is going to consist of a series of adventures. I mean this in the normal context and not one specific to RPGs. Like, Caine had many adventures as he wandered the old west looking for his brother.
> 
> I expect that the PCs in your games, sandboxy as they may be, are still engaging in events and happenings that can be called “adventures”. Certainly your descriptions of sone of your campaigns sounded like things out of adventure fiction.
> 
> And to be clear, what I’m saying is a dick move is for the GM to agree about the brother and then immediately do away with it.
> 
> Now, if you want to answer the question I asked....how would you handle this if a player came to you and presented this idea....with “I’d tell him that’s not something that’ll fit this game; maybe some other game in the future” then I’d say that’s perfectly fine.  Not all games should be the same, and not all will include everything that other games do.
> 
> Like player agency.




again we simply disagree on agency 

if I understand the request, and at this point I may have lost sight of it, I would say the player can certainly try to look for huu it s brother. I would go over who his brother might be in the setting and we could figure out where and what he was doing when he went misding. But from there I would, if it was a new player who didn’t know the group, explain the brother could be living dead, or in any number of predicaments, and that it wouldn’t necessarily be a focus of the campaign (it might become that through organic play, but it wouldn’t be certain to be). I think I am generally pretty good at setting expectations. Now obviously if I have 6 players with your kind of preferences, I would adapt my style to theirs or just have someone else GM. But in groups that are down with this style (and that hasn’t been a problem finding at all) I wouldn’t have to go that


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.



To be clear: you finding out what happened would be done through play. Just whether he is alive or dead, that would be determined by the GM (i.e. The GM would know the brothers status while you look, but you would not know until you found that information)


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I do not view the example as railroading. I do not regard it as high agency play in the context of the goal the character is pursuing, but do you.
> 
> I will say that personally I might enjoy playing in that kind of game, but would absolutely not invest in my character on an emotional level. In the Vampire game I am a player in my recently turned Vampire is still married and absolutely loves his wife. If she randomly decided to divorce him or something happened to her where as a player I had no chance to intervene I would check out of treating my character as a person.



Personally I tend not to have anything happen close family NPC's of the characters, and it's because some I know some players have a serious adverse reaction to it.  But it's technically a possibility in true sandbox play.  I view it as there are endless possibilities, why pick the one that may adversely affect the players investment in their character.  But I would argue it's technically allowed in sandbox play and if it won't impact your player's investment then there's no longer an issue with having it happen.


----------



## Fenris-77

Finding your lost brother is a cool character drive, but it's going to be a huge pain in the butt in a lot of games if the player wants it to be front and center all the time. That drive is actually easier when cooperative setting building is going on because there's a chance to braid that idea right in, rather than trying to shoehorn it in because some swanky hipster wasn't happy with "blood and gold" as a primary character drive. If we assume that A) the player isn't going to be a suppurating sore about this and that B) the GM sees some reasonable way to fit it in, then it could be fine. My experience is heavily salted with players who want a drive like this in a game where the pitch is sailing across the uncharted ocean to explore new lands. _Oh yeah, _sure_, your brother is going to hanging out under a palm tree, no sweat bro... why don't you just pencil in crippling agoraphobia as a flaw while you're at it? _It's all about engaging in good faith on both sides.


----------



## Campbell

Fenris-77 said:


> Finding your lost brother is a cool character drive, but it's going to be a huge pain in the butt in a lot of games if the player wants it to be front and center all the time. That drive is actually easier when cooperative setting building is going on because there's a chance to braid that idea right in, rather than trying to shoehorn it in because some swanky hipster wasn't happy with "blood and gold" as a primary character drive. If we assume that A) the player isn't going to be a suppurating sore about this and that B) the GM sees some reasonable way to fit it in, then it could be fine. My experience is heavily salted with players who want a drive like this in a game where the pitch is sailing across the uncharted ocean to explore new lands. _Oh yeah, _sure_, your brother is going to hanging out under a palm tree, no sweat bro... why don't you just pencil in crippling agoraphobia as a flaw while you're at it? _It's all about engaging in good faith on both sides.




I think generally you should be very careful about mixing up techniques that serve different play priorities. Creating characters you really care about with meaningful dramatic needs and placing them into a cruel sandbox is a recipe for emotional bleed in the wrong way in my experience.


----------



## pemerton

@Manbearcat, I'm starting to work through your epic posts. I won't respond to everything because of (i) time and/or (ii) nothing useful to say.



Manbearcat said:


> I want to clarify (for others but also myself) when, at the actual game machinery/interface level, Character and Setting are just *conceptually *discrete things...but *not actually* discrete things.  When is it not possible to "pick up the Character Piece" without simultaneously "picking up the Setting Piece".
> 
> It appears that in these conversations we've had over the years that some believe that its possible for "on the Venn Diagram of the Vector/Piece/Medium" that (at the actual GAME LEVEL) a player can nearly always just exclusively pick up the Character Piece and make a move without picking up Situation or Setting pieces.
> 
> I'm confident that isn't true



On this we're agreed. I think I push this harder then you do. It's what my example of the defeated/dead Orc has been about: the player declares an action (_I attack the Orc_) and the outcome is a change in the fiction that goes beyond the character - ie now the Orc is dead.

Off the top of my head, the only exceptions I can think of are what I have called, upthread, _exploration-type actions_ that don't produce any change in the fiction beyond perhaps the mental states of the PCs, but only prompt the GM to share information with the players (so that what was a _private_ or _secret_ or _unilateral_ fiction becomes shared).

I would add that there is a classic flash-point here: the player declares the action wanting nothing more than information from the GM; but the GM adjudicates it in a way that also changes the fiction beyond the PCs' mental states. The best-known example is the _look for traps_ action that the GM adjudicates as _triggering_ the trap, but there can also be other forms of this - eg the player has the PC "hang out" (in a bar or whatever) to gain information/rumours and the GM responds with a substantive move (eg thugs turn up at the PCs' hotel room).



Manbearcat said:


> As far as "is it possible to not pick up the Character Game Piece (and again, this includes the _here _and _now _provisos) when you pick up the Situation or Setting Game Piece", I would say (a) its not terribly common and (b) some cases for it will be more tenuous than others.
> 
> Here are a few cases that I'm confident in.
> 
> * FitD *Flashbacks *always violate the _now _proviso and often violate the _here _proviso of Character.  So those are always grabbing the Situation Game Piece and sometimes grabbing the Setting Game Piece (more on that below).
> 
> <snip further examples>
> 
> Thoughts (anyone)?



No dissent in relation to any of the snipped examples. I'm not fully persuaded by the [i[flashback[/i] example, though maybe I don't know the system well enough. I think that narrating something the character did _in the past_ can still count as manipulating the character in the shared fiction.

I was going to add: suppose that via a flashback you can bring it about that your valet left the useful widge at such-and-such a place, that _would_ be a clear example. But now I want to canvass the possibility that valets, gangs, henchmen etc are in a sense "extensions" of the character. If so, that also picks up some of the snipped examples (eg maybe Khan of Khans, maybe also though perhaps less so Lover in Every Port). Given the discussions in this thread about Circles etc I think this question of where the PC boundary lies can be quite interesting. In my Classic Traveller game, too, there are characters who are listed on the PC sheets, are - in D&D terms - something like henchmen, and who in play move very fluidly between PC status (players narrating what they do) and NPC status (me as GM narrating what they do).



Manbearcat said:


> I want to discretize Tactical and Strategic Agency and how this system/design actuates this in play.  Yes, there will invariably be interdependence, but there are enough degrees of freedom at the design level that games like 4e D&D, Mouse Guard, and Dogs in the Vineyard (both predominantly Tactical games) are (a) meaningfully different than games that feature both (either in equilibrium like Blades in the Dark, elegant crawl games like Torchbearer, or wildly out of equilibrium at any given time like 1e/2e/3.x D&D)



I agree that (i) the tactical/strategic boundary is blurred and (ii) it is real. 4e has almost no strategic aspect to it - which is part of what makes it great! 



Manbearcat said:


> Alright, a move in play to take apart.  I think the Dungeon World Spout Lore move shares a lot in common with a Blades in the Dark Flashbacks, so I want to discuss that move.



My thought here is that you are treating _GM is obliged to take suggestions seriously_ as a manifestation of player agency. I don't object to that; I just think it's worth calling out as a distinctive technique which (to the best of my knowledge) reaches its high point of realisation in PbtA games.



Manbearcat said:


> If I were to evaluate exactly what is happening here based on the matrix (no matter how fallible) I've devised, it would look like this:
> 
> *THE IYLLIC D&D SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency for players is either (a) non-existent or (b) its relatively diffuse.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For these games (like the one BRG seems to be representing), diffuse Protagonist Agency (which means both in total and for any given unit of play, PC Protagonist Agency is diminished or non-existent because resolution of Setting Dramatic Need is the apex play priority) is "a feature, not a bug."
> 
> *BLADES IN THE DARK SANDBOX*
> 
> * Protagonist Agency is central to every unit of play and the entirety of play in total.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The skirmish over, let's call it, "Haunted Painting Incident" is a perfect example of this realized in play.  Its also a perfect example of a player "grabbing The Situation Piece (and possibly grabbing the Setting Piece depending upon how the action resolution mechanics/fiction resolves)" in a way that isn't present in the Classic D&D Sandbox (again, hence the "scandal" over this).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This is a HUGE pivot point of this conversation.  One side is saying that (to take this exact example) that the Blades Sandbox approach invests the Players with more Protagonist Agency.  The other side is either (a) disputing this differential in Protagonist Agency (for reasons that aren't clear to me <snippage> OR (b) the other side is saying that a Sandbox (or play in general) that orbits entirely around Player Protagonist Agency is not desirable for them.
> 
> To me (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> Further, I'd say that another HUGE pivot point of this conversation is a player "Grabbing Situation Piece or Setting Piece".
> 
> One side says that a more prolific ability for player to grab those pieces means (a) more breadth (at least) of Tactical and/or Strategic Agency and (through this) (b) an amplification of ability to positively resolve Protagonist Agency (because you can advocate harder and better for your dramatic need...your dramatic need doesn't become more relevant because its at optimum relevance already...but your ability to have your advocation for it result in positive affirmation becomes more potent).
> 
> The other side (a) disagrees with this (one reason is because of a misappropriation and misapplication of The Czege Principle...which the intent is to substantiate the claim "Tactical or Strategic Agency is subordinated by the Schrodinger's Painting") or (b) doesn't feel this is desirable.
> 
> To me (again), (a) is not defensible, but (b) is 100 % defensible.
> 
> <snip
> 
> (b) in both of the above (x is not desirable) is precisely because it makes those people feel like it negatively impacts their play priority of experiencing this particular variety of Sandbox play.  And if it does negatively impact their experience, that is 100 % defensible!  But just say that!



All I would add to this is that the "profilicness" (maybe _proliferation_) of player agency over situation and setting is constrained, in part, through topic or subject-matter based constraints: like if the GM has already announced that a bit of the setting exists, then players can work on that; but otherwise they can't. And if the work the players do can be correlated pretty directly to work their characters do, then it's OK; but otherwise it's suspect.



Manbearcat said:


> The independence of Protagonism and Tactical and/or Strategic Agency is a real thing.  And I'd like us to recognize it and discuss it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Take the following two game realities:
> 
> 1)  *5e Adventure Path*:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> No Protagonist Agency for the Players + the apex priority of play is the Protagonist Agency of the metaplot/setting (because when that makes "contact with the enemy" - the Players' Tactical and/or Strategic Agency - one survives...one is subordinated).
> 
> 2)  *My Life With Master* (if you're not familiar, think of it as a game of Cthulu where (a) the game is actually about the PC's dramatic need and (b) instead of just characterizing your PC's descent into madness, you actually have an extremely small, but persistent, profile of Tactical and Strategic Agency that will actually affect the end state of the game).
> 
> * Players have total Protagonist Agency.
> 
> * The footprint of Players' Tactical and Strategic Agency is miniscule (particularly compared to every moment of 5e where GM Force isn't deployed)...BUT...it is never subverted by GM Force.
> 
> There are vast differences between (1) and (2) above.  Then you get to Blades in the Dark and Torchbearer where all 3 are in extraordinary equilibrium and "play priority warfare (where someone has to exert Force)" never manifests.  That is, as much as anything, why I think a matrix like this is helpful.



This is interesting. Using your matrix/schema, 4e D&D, Burning Wheel and Prince Valiant all tend to downplay strategic agency (ie the GM is in charge of scene-framing) in order to allow tactical agency and protagonist agency to co-exist. Of the three systems, BW puts the biggest pressure on this because it does have some long-term stuff (recovery of injury, recovery of resources, training) - unsurprisingly, you would probably say, this is the bit which in the Adventure Burner/Codex discussion has the highest degree of _GM, sort it out in a fair way!_

Prince Valiant is at completely the other end from BW (to the extent that the two systems probably illustrate two ends of a continuum within the _high tactical, high protagonist, low strategic agency_ cluster of RPG designs) - even injury and healing, which is sacrosanct in so many RPGs, is almost entirely at the GM's discretion. And of course I've already described upthread how irrelevant map-and-key resolution of travel is in this system.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, you can set up a concept, but in sandbox, you don't set up outcomes (and going on a series of adventures to find your lost brother, or simply finding your  lost brother, are both outcomes).



_Not finding one's brother because he's dead _is clearly an outcome. And you are saying that in your style of sandbox the GM is free to set up that outcome.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> By your description of the PbtA approach, it sounds like the setting detail (the brother being alive or dead) is being baked into the player setting that as a goal for the relevant check.



Not really. That might be how it works in BW, but wouldn't have to be. In PbtA checks don't have "goals" - PbtA is not _intent and task_ resolution in the way that (say) Burning Wheel or MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic is.



Bedrockgames said:


> My point is, in a sandbox, framing this way, is setting up the outcome, and something you wouldn't do.



I don't understand what you mean by "framing it this way". What's the _it_, and what's the _way_. I simply suggested some failure narrations that would be fair game in PbtA-type resolution that might result in the brother not being found because he's dead. But that outcome wouldn't be "set up" because if the checks at issue _succeeded_ than the GM would not be in a position to make those moves.



Bedrockgames said:


> In most sandbox games a player saying he or she wants to look for their brother isn't going to be distilled into one roll or action.



Nor is it likely to be in PbtA play. It might be in Burning Wheel play, depending on the context.



Bedrockgames said:


> What makes it exciting is it is an unknown on the player side. One possibility is he is dead. Another possibility is he is alive and waiting there to meet his brother again. Another is he is alive but filled with resentment towards his brother.



All these things are true in most RPGs, I would hope. They are certainly true in Burning Wheel - as you can see from the actual play account I've given.



Bedrockgames said:


> There are all kinds of potential outcomes to "I go look for my long lost brother" in a sandbox. But as a player in that kind of campaign, I don't expect to shape the outcome.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I really do think the brothers status as alive or dead, would be something that players would expect the GM to decide, and they wouldn't see that decision as infringing on their agency.



I would say that, in the context, "shaping" is a synonym for _agency_. It is _making or doing something_. I believe you that you would not expect this sort of agency when you play in your preferred sort of sandbox. I can equally tell you that the absence of such agency would be one reason for me not to play in, or GM, such a game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> The issue is the action of the player is looking for the lost brother. Whether he succeeds at that or not, is a separate question from whether the brother is alive, living it up somewhere, or asleep in a gutter. Those are questions I would expect the GM to answer, independent of the PCs success in finding him. I would also expect the search to be the product of more than say a single roll of a skill. Again this is dependent on the campaign. I am talking about sandbox, living world adventures. In that style, it is entirely expected that the GM has purview over the brother's status. Going in search of him, and finding a grave somewhere, wouldn't be a problem for most people in this kind of game. On the hand, if I was playing in a savage worlds campaign, where we usually expect to have more input into where are characters are going, it might be a problem for the GM to decide the brother is dead if the party was expecting to go on a series of Kung Fu like adventures.



As I said before, I can't entirely judge "the brother is dead" in a vacuum. There are probably numerous ways this could come about which would be perfectly solid. I think @pemerton is expressing the same sentiment when he talks about hard and soft moves. 

I WOULD say that, if the premise advanced by the player is that his PC is on a quest to save his brother, and the GM's response to that is to lead up to a scene where it has all just been worthless from day one, and the GM's response to that is "well, I set it up that way at the start, you don't have control over (fake) reality." My next response would probably be to ask who wants to take over GMing at this table... 

Again, not drawing any conclusions, but flat out denial of the validity of a player's agenda simply on the basis of "I'm the DM and I get to decide." That is the DM being a dick, period.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> And that is fine: you can run a sandbox however you like. But there is also nothing wrong with running it the way I am taking about





Bedrockgames said:


> there is nothing wrong wrong with this preference, but it isn’t the preference I bring to mort of my sandboxes





FrogReaver said:


> We aren't saying that cannot be done.  All that's being said is that these techniques have consequences in addition to whatever pros you see in them.



All this normative language! Who is saying things are wrong? Where does the power come from for anyone to say what others can or can't do i RPGing?

Anyway, the main _consequence_ I've seen pointed to is a burden on immersion/characterisation and a "hampering" of roleplaying. I know from lived experience that those consequences are mythical. Are there any others I've missed?


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> In the Vampire game I am a player in my recently turned Vampire is still married and absolutely loves his wife. If she randomly decided to divorce him or something happened to her where as a player I had no chance to intervene I would check out of treating my character as a person.





FrogReaver said:


> Personally I tend not to have anything happen close family NPC's of the characters, and it's because some I know some players have a serious adverse reaction to it.  But it's technically a possibility in true sandbox play.  I view it as there are endless possibilities, why pick the one that may adversely affect the players investment in their character.



I think I quoted some of this actual play report upthread. I'll repost it here:



pemerton said:


> The characters continued on, and soon arrived at Auxol,. The GM narrated the estate still being worked, but looking somewhat run-down compared to Thrugon's memories of it. An old, bowed woman greeted us - Xanthippe, looking much more than her 61 years. She welcomed Thurgon back, but chided him for having been away. And asked him not to leave again. The GM was getting ready to force a Duel of Wits on the point - ie that Thurgon should not leave again - when I tried a different approach. I'd already made a point of Thurgon having his arms on clear display as he rode through the countryside and the estate; now he raised his mace and shield to the heavens, and called on the Lord of Battle to bring strength back to his mother so that Auxol might be restored to its former greatness. This was a prayer for a Minor Miracle, obstacle 5. Thurgon has Faith 5 and I burned his last point of Persona to take it to 6 dice (the significance of this being that, without 1 Persona, you can't stop the effect of a mortal wound should one be suffered). With 6s being open-ended (ie auto-rolls), the expected success rate is 3/5, so that's 3.6 successes there. And I had a Fate point to reroll one failure, for an overall expected 4-ish successes. Against an obstacle of 5.
> 
> As it turned out, I finished up with 7 successes. So a beam of light shot down from the sky, and Xanthippe straightened up and greeted Thurgon again, but this time with vigour and readiness to restore Auxol. The GM accepted my proposition that this played out Thurgon's Belief that _Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!_ (earning a Persona point). His new Belief is _Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol_. He picked up a second Persona point for Embodiment ("Your roleplay (a performance or a decision) captures the mood of the table and drives the story onward").
> 
> Turning back to Aramina, I decided that this made an impact on her too: up until now she had been cynical and slightly bitter, but now she was genuinely inspired and determined: instead of _never meeting the gaze of a stranger_, her Instinct is to _look strangers in the eyes and Assess_. And rather than _I don't need Thurgon's pity_, her Belief is _Thurgon and I will liberate Auxol_. This earned a Persona point for Mouldbreaker ("If a situation brings your Beliefs, Instincts and Traits into conflict with a decision your PC must make, you play out your inner turmoil as you dramatically play against a Belief in a believable and engaging manner").



This, for me, is the sort of thing I am looking for in RPGing.

Here are things that would make it suck: my character can't encounter Xanthippe; the GM _just decides_ that Xanthippe joins Thurgon's cause. The GM _just decides_ that Thurgon can't persuade Xanthippe either by word or by prayer. The GM objects to my narration of Aramina's response because he doesn't think it is what she would logically do.

The game system (Burning Wheel) has systems in place to mean that those suckitude-causing events can be avoided: Relationships as a component of PC build (Xanthippe is in Thurgon's list of relationships); Duel of Wits; Faith checks; player freedom to decide how a character under their control is affected (in terms of Beliefs and Instincts) by the events they experience.

Insofar as I am being told that these elements of BW are not compatible with a "true sandbox", this reinforces my lack of enthusiasm for "true sandbox" play.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Eh, they show up in System A on their way to you in System B. Someone will see them drop out of hyperspace and start refueling. If that someone is sitting at jump radius in a scout (or one of the 100 ton Jump 6 courier ships), you could get news a good bit before they showed up. Worst case they'll have to drop down from 100 diameters (about 15 million km for Jupiter), scoop and process fuel (I forget the exact times required for all this, but it is certainly time-consuming) and then torch back out to jump distance again. I'd think you would get a solid day's warning, although there may be enemy scouts which show up sooner.



There are a few complications.

(1) The PCs are spread over two worlds Jump 3 apart, and in each case have multiple teams (on world and in orbit).

(2) The PCs are in the vicinity of a "galactic rift". The world closest to it is underdeveloped and not a source of information. The world jump-3 away from the rift is the one where they are getting intelligence, from the Navy Commander who has returned to her base there.

(3) The PCs crossed the rift via misjump when fleeing a naval armada and making a jump with a dodgy drive and (I think) unrefined fuel. That armada is the one looking for them (it's an anti-psionics thing).

(4) It's already been established that some news of their flight crossed the rift and reached worlds in their current neighbourhood some weeks ago, which was weeks (months? I'd need to check my notes) after their misjump.

(5) It's also been established that while the Commander was further riftward with the PCs, an X-Boat alerted her base to the pending arrival of the armada.

I need to plot out something that (i) is consistent with the above and (ii) makes a modicum of sense and (iii) doesn't require me to do too much more starmap work.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would think that, generally speaking, military tactics would indicate SOME degree of caution. Fleet Brevet Admiral Von Kramnitz MIGHT not want to blind jump right on top of where he expects you are. He might even want to wait 2 weeks, send in a scout, get it back again, and THEN pick a spot. There's plenty of reasons to believe you might have some time to breath. Also, Traveler never tried to explain the possibilities of predicting exactly where someone jumped to, is it possible to determine exactly/approximately/not at all based on, say, the exact trajectory and such of the vessel that jumped? If not, then pursuit is more like hunting a needle in a haystack.



The issue of jump arrival point is not canvassed in any detail in any book I've read. I take the view that it can be somewhat random. It followI s - and have told the players as much - that when you jump you need to be stationary (unless happy to take the risk) because your arrival is somewhat random and it would be awkward not to be able to decelerate in time to avoid that asteroid or small moon or whatever  . . .

My armada has only a limited jump distance _and_ relies on a tanker to supply refined fuel which itself has only a limited jump distance, so before I get to the issue of where it arrives, I want to work out a plausible account of _when_ that fits with what I've already established.


----------



## innerdude

Bedrockgames said:


> The GM deciding something about a detail in the setting, even something related to your character, or what you might be interested in, isn't railroading. Railroading is when the choices you make in the setting are being thwarted, so you are railroaded towards some adventure or outcome the GM wants.




See, this is where I get confused, because this is a contradiction.

How does the GM unilaterally making this decision---_the brother of Player X's character is already dead_---not, by its very instantiation, thwart any and all possible choices Player X might make that relate to the player's desire to explore the relationship between the character and the character's brother?

Any and all choices Player X makes to explore that component of the fiction are now diversionary at best, and meaningless wastes of time at worst. It's indicative of a mindset and decision-making process by the GM to basically say, "There's no story here, stop looking for it."

@pemerton noted the exact same thing:



pemerton said:


> _Not finding one's brother because he's dead _is clearly an outcome. And you are saying that in your style of sandbox the GM is free to set up that outcome.




How is this not an instant negation of player agency with respect to protagonism? The player has clearly expressed a desire to explore a dramatic need / protagonistic drive, and the GM has unilaterally altered / created a fictional state in opposition to that expression.

This falls in line with @pemerton's post that probed the notion of "shared fiction." I liked his explanation that the descriptor of "shared" can only be applied to the fictional state in RPG play _after _it had some other descriptor. Until such point as it is brought forward to the group, the fiction exists as a "secret" or "unilateral" fiction controlled by some other participant (in nearly all cases the GM). If the fiction is not "shared," then it is necessarily something else.

From what I gather, for those in favor of "sandbox" play, secretly declaring the brother dead unilaterally is wholly acceptable, because the player still has the freedom to direct their character's actions such that the GM may eventually reveal this secret---thus changing this predetermined fictional descriptor from "unilateral" to "shared."

So even though this unilateral decision denies the player the capacity to meaningfully interact with their desired protagonistic goal---before the player declares a single action related to its pursuit---the GM has not meaningfully reduced "agency," because the player has the freedom to direct play in such a way that will eventually reveal this information.

Am I reading this right?


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> _Not finding one's brother because he's dead _is clearly an outcome. And you are saying that in your style of sandbox the GM is free to set up that outcome.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> Again, not drawing any conclusions, but flat out denial of the validity of a player's agenda simply on the basis of "I'm the DM and I get to decide." That is the DM being a dick, period.



This. The GM deciding that the brother is already dead seems like the GM is forcing a predetermined outcome of play on the player. So yeah, it's a dick move.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I think these two factors likely play a big role in how one would approach play, for sure. Certainly they would influence any prep that may be considered.
> 
> I don’t know if I agree with all your benefits and drawbacks conclusions, but I think you’re right that this is a big factor. Possibly also determined by the chosen rules system.



Rules system would play a part, yes.  My example assumed the same rules system for both options, to try and highlight the differences elsewhere.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> I don’t think play style has anything to do with it to be honest. It’s a dick move. Explain to me how in any playstyle this isn’t a dick move on the part of the GM.



I must be missing something here - how is disliking magic item wish lists a dick move?

Or does the dick-move part lie in not fulfilling the player's adventure request?  If done maliciously, I could see the dick part of it, but if the DM has set up a string of desert-based adventures and a player asks for something in the arctic, the player at best is going to have to wait.  Even more so, perhaps, if other players have asked for undersea, jungle, and mountain adventuring after the desert bit is done.

That said, switching up the environment now and then is always a good idea.  Desert, arctic, swamp, underground, mountain, jungle, maritime, forest - it's nice to vary it up some.  My problem always lies in how to do this without either a) giving the PCs easy access to fast long-range travel or b) blipping them somewhere by fiat or c) having them spend potentially months of in-game time trudging from one place to another.

The reason c) is a problem for me is that if a party decides to spend months in transit I pretty much have to put them on hold while we play out what the other active parties in the game world get up to during that time.


----------



## Lanefan

Bedrockgames said:


> The issue is the action of the player is looking for the lost brother. Whether he succeeds at that or not, is a separate question from whether the brother is alive, living it up somewhere, or asleep in a gutter. Those are questions I would expect the GM to answer, independent of the PCs success in finding him. I would also expect the search to be the product of more than say a single roll of a skill. Again this is dependent on the campaign. I am talking about sandbox, living world adventures. In that style, it is entirely expected that the GM has purview over the brother's status.



With, of course, one rare but not unheard-of exception: that the brother is in fact another PC, run by either the same player or another.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> It is possible for the PC's desire to find his/her brother to fail, perhaps to fail because the brother is dead, without the GM deciding that in advance. For instance, there could be a soft move in response to a failed check - _You hear that your brother was in the parts, getting ready to cross swords with notoriously ruthless swordfighter so-and-so, etc_ - and then a further failed check that triggers a hard move - _When you get to the fighting ground it's all over. They tell you the fight happened yesterday. There's a child hanging around - she offers to take you to your brother's gravestone for a grote and a bowl of warm meal._



Personally I would feel far more frustrated if my character's brother dying was a result of a fumble on 'find brother' check. I think this has been a trend in these discussions. Some people seem to be far more engaged with dice rolls than I am.

In any case, If one feels that the brother being dead is a pointless cul-de-sac, making the quest to find him a waste of time, then it will be that whether the outcome was decided by a GM or produced by RNG. But of course it doesn't need to be that in either case. It would just be a turning point; it will open up all new directions. Who killed the brother an why? Will the character now seek revenge? Will they find out new details about their brother that will force them to evaluate their past relationship?


----------



## Aldarc

Lanefan said:


> With, of course, one rare but not unheard-of exception: that the brother is in fact another PC, run by either the same player or another.



Though another interesting bit would be to have the PC find the brother, die heroically while saving them, and then the player picks up with playing the brother.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Again, not drawing any conclusions, but flat out denial of the validity of a player's agenda simply on the basis of "I'm the DM and I get to decide." That is the DM being a dick, period.




Again, in this mode of play, the player simply isn't assumed to be able to set an agenda that extensive into the setting. You can certainly have the agenda of wanting to find your brother, but what is going on with your brother is under the purview of the GM. Obviously in a game where that isn't a case, it might be a dick move if the player is expected to have that sort of agenda. Why people can't even entertain the thought of this, and see how for lots of people operating under this style of play, it isn't at all a dick move, I really can't understand.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, in this mode of play, the player simply isn't assumed to be able to set an agenda that extensive into the setting. You can certainly have the agenda of wanting to find your brother, but what is going on with your brother is under the purview of the GM. Obviously in a game where that isn't a case, it might be a dick move if the player is expected to have that sort of agenda. Why people can't even entertain the thought of this, and see how for lots of people operating under this style of play, it isn't at all a dick move, I really can't understand.



Of course, but we have already established that some players prefer lower agency games where everything but player actions are part of the GM catering service.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Crimson Longinus said:


> In any case, If one feels that the brother being dead is a pointless cul-de-sac, making the quest to find him a waste of time, then it will be that whether the outcome was decided by a GM or produced by RNG. But of course it doesn't need to be that in either case. It would just be a turning point; it will open up all new directions. Who killed the brother an why? Will the character now seek revenge? Will they find out new details about their brother that will force them to evaluate their past relationship?




Exactly all these things. And like I said many times, the brother being dead is just one possible outcome (and it is a possibility the player is totally aware of when setting out on this kind of search). I have had long lost relatives in my campaigns. I am sure some of them have died off screen. But most don't. I take adjudicating family members of PCs very seriously because they can easily devolve into pawns that help the GM advance his or her own agenda, or just used to annoy players all the time. But I do try to give those characters their own agency (and again, yes I am using a different definition of agency from the other folks here). In one case, in fact, one of the sessions I linked to, one of the players had re-united with  his long lost father and brother, and, if I recall correctly, was trying to help re-establish their old sect. The father was a great guy, and treated the player character well, but the player character was engaged in some shady business, and the brother, was a bit of a self righteous jerk. The player had to deal with dynamic while trying to rebuild his sect. I think he and the brother may have eventually become enemies, but I can't recall without going back to the logs as it was at least 2 or 3 years ago. None of this was stuff the player was allowed to order like off a menu. This was all stuff he knew full well I would create behind the scenes and he would discover what the case was as he searched for them, found them, and if they were alive (which he didn't know if they were), interacted with them. This doesn't strike me as controversial at all.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Lanefan said:


> I must be missing something here - how is disliking magic item wish lists a dick move?



Maybe I missed something, I though he was saying that not fullfilling the player's desire to reunite with his missing brother was a dick move, by deciding the brother is dead. If its about wishlists, all I can say is, no amount of debate will get me to stop hating those


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## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> See, this is where I get confused, because this is a contradiction.
> 
> How does the GM unilaterally making this decision---_the brother of Player X's character is already dead_---not, by its very instantiation, thwart any and all possible choices Player X might make that relate to the player's desire to explore the relationship between the character and the character's brother?




Because in a game like this, getting that specific about the types of outcomes that unfold in play for things that have yet to happen (i.e. finding your brother and having a relationship with him) is not considered a reasonable choice. The choices that matter for agency in this style (and this is pretty universal among sandbox gamers) is the choices you make within the setting. Choosing to look for your lost brother is such a choice. And if the GM suddenly thwarts all your efforts to find him, then that would be a kind of railroad or a violation of agency. However it is perfectly reasonable for the GM, who is in control of the setting, to decide that your brother, who is part of the setting, is dead. Once you find your brother, then you can choose how to respond to the situation find. It would be really strange in this kind of game for the player to be able to set goals that get into controlling the setting, and then get mad because some setting element didn't end up being what he or she wanted. Again, you don't have to like this approach. It might not be for you. But i don't think it is all that hard to appreciate what is going on, what kinds of agency is on the table, and how within that style of play, you are making important choices in the setting.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I WOULD say that, if the premise advanced by the player is that his PC is on a quest to save his brother, and the GM's response to that is to lead up to a scene where it has all just been worthless from day one, and the GM's response to that is "well, I set it up that way at the start, you don't have control over (fake) reality." My next response would probably be to ask who wants to take over GMing at this table...




In my group, this wouldn't be considered worthless. The player decided to go look for his brother. The GM made a decision about what is going on with the brother (he is dead). The player discovered his brother died (and can react however he wants to that). In my group, and in groups I've played with that take this approach, no player is going to get angry. And no GM is going to respond to like that if there does happen to be a problem (but everyone at the table understands, the Player has zero control over setting). Were a player to suggest what you do here, I think we'd all want you out of the group (we don't engage in that kind of contentiousness over something so minor).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think generally you should be very careful about mixing up techniques that serve different play priorities. Creating characters you really care about with meaningful dramatic needs and placing them into a cruel sandbox is a recipe for emotional bleed in the wrong way in my experience.




This. A sandbox doesn't care about dramatic arcs. Drama can arise (i've mentioned drama and sandbox) but no one has plot immunity (not PCs, not NPCS) and in a sandbox, the gm has full setting control. Those conditions shouldn't make the outcome I am talking about a surprise to anyone.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> However it is perfectly reasonable for the GM, who is in control of the setting, to decide that your brother, who is part of the setting, is dead.



I think that this assumption of what constitutes the "reasonable" exercise of GM power over the setting forms the core problem. You (and the amorphous, faceless blob that constitutes "lots of gamers") clearly find it reasonable. But there are a number of people, including sandbox gamers and their playstyles - which you clearly discount by declaring your approach as "universal" - would find this a clear violation of the player's protagonism and agency as well as a "dick move." Perhaps it would helpful for discussion if you didn't declare approaches that share your biases as being "universally" held. 

Additionally, my character is a part of the setting too. Does this mean that the GM can unilaterally declare my character dead too?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I think that this assumption of what constitutes the "reasonable" exercise of GM power over the setting forms the core problem. You (and the amorphous, faceless blob that constitutes "lots of gamers") clearly find it reasonable. But there are a number of people, including sandbox gamers and their playstyles - which you clearly discount by declaring your approach as "universal" - would find this a clear violation of the player's protagonism and agency as well as a "dick move." Perhaps it would helpful for discussion if you didn't declare approaches that share your biases as being "universally" held.
> 
> Additionally, my character is a part of the setting too. Does this mean that the GM can unilaterally declare my character dead too?




Where have I stated this is a unversal thing? I have clearly told people, this is just one approach, but it is a really common one among sandbox gamers. Believe me, if this thread were involving a high volume of OSR sandbox gamers, you'd be getting tons and tons of push back on the brother. I am sure they would also have other differing opinions, because sandbox isn't a monochrome style of play. But this expectaiton that the GM would govern the state of the brother, I think in your typical sandbox, that would be the norm.

Again, I haven't said anything about this being universal. I acknowledged that in the style of play one poster was talking about, it might be a dick move (I even said in my savage worlds campaigns, which tend to include more things like character arcs the player negotiates with the GM) it would be a dick move. But the response I got was, regardless of playstyle, it is a dick move. My point has been in this kind of a sandbox, this would normally not be regarded as a violation of agency or as a dick move. And I am quite certain I am correct about that. Seriously, if you won't even allow us to accurately describe our own playstyle, then who is really engaging in one true wayism here? I've made plenty of room for other approaches in this style and I understand there are modes of play where the player would rightfully expect to be able to set that agenda. But the kind of sandbox I am talking about, isn't one of them. But I've said, you could run a sandbox that way if you wanted to. There are PbtA players who are getting into OSR stuff now, and I could see that. I don't have an issue with it. But that existing, doesn't somehow make it a problem for people to continue to run games where the GM has control over the fate of the brother.

To answer your last question, generally, the GM can't just declare a PC dead. That would violate agency, unless some action in the game demanded a ruling of death (for example, you do something that logically in all cases would result in you dying, but there isn't a mechanic in the game for that thing (say get buried alive for days and there is suffocation mechanic in the system). Still I think most GMs wouldn't just decide that but still take the 'there is always a chance' approach from the Moldvay book that @Campbell mentioned. So in most cases that sort of thing would fall under a ruling. and most likely be a series of checks or other kind of die roll. But your agency, in this kind of sandbox, doesn't extend to your brother.

EDIT: Also I really don't think it is at all unreasonable to assert this is the common way sandbox gets approached. I mean I've been running sandbox and involved in sandbox focused communities online for ages. I do get you find differences among them, and I could totally see there being some who might take more of the cain approach. But it would certainly be an outlier. Doesn't mean its wrong. You can do it. But I think it is fair to talk about what the typical sandbox looks like without this kind of hostile, angry reaction.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Of course, but we have already established that some players prefer lower agency games where everything but player actions are part of the GM catering service.




No, we've established there are two ways agency is being handled in this thread. Folks on your side, simply keep asserting your view on agency is right, and failing to acknowledge our approach is a totally viable way to see and use agency. But you keep turning it into a zero sum game (which it isn't).


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> See, this is where I get confused, because this is a contradiction.
> 
> How does the GM unilaterally making this decision---_the brother of Player X's character is already dead_---not, by its very instantiation, thwart any and all possible choices Player X might make that relate to the player's desire to explore the relationship between the character and the character's brother?
> 
> Any and all choices Player X makes to explore that component of the fiction are now diversionary at best, and meaningless wastes of time at worst. It's indicative of a mindset and decision-making process by the GM to basically say, "There's no story here, stop looking for it."
> 
> @pemerton noted the exact same thing:
> 
> 
> 
> How is this not an instant negation of player agency with respect to protagonism? The player has clearly expressed a desire to explore a dramatic need / protagonistic drive, and the GM has unilaterally altered / created a fictional state in opposition to that expression.
> 
> This falls in line with @pemerton's post that probed the notion of "shared fiction." I liked his explanation that the descriptor of "shared" can only be applied to the fictional state in RPG play _after _it had some other descriptor. Until such point as it is brought forward to the group, the fiction exists as a "secret" or "unilateral" fiction controlled by some other participant (in nearly all cases the GM). If the fiction is not "shared," then it is necessarily something else.
> 
> From what I gather, for those in favor of "sandbox" play, secretly declaring the brother dead unilaterally is wholly acceptable, because the player still has the freedom to direct their character's actions such that the GM may eventually reveal this secret---thus changing this predetermined fictional descriptor from "unilateral" to "shared."
> 
> So even though this unilateral decision denies the player the capacity to meaningfully interact with their desired protagonistic goal---before the player declares a single action related to its pursuit---the GM has not meaningfully reduced "agency," because the player has the freedom to direct play in such a way that will eventually reveal this information.
> 
> Am I reading this right?




Just to address what Pemerton said: he is equivocating on the word outcome. It is an outcome of something. Just like me posting this message is an outcome of something. But it isn't an outcome of the player searching for the brother. The brother didn't die as a result of the search. The brother, presumably, had other causes of death. That the dead brother was found was the outcome of the search.


----------



## Campbell

So the use of normative language can often be seen as an attempt to show that a given way to play is more legitimate because more people do it or it is somehow connected to some antecedent in a vaguely religious sort of way. In my opinion it should be enough to say "this is how my game works". How other people play is immaterial.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> So the use of normative language can often be seen as an attempt to show that a given way to play is more legitimate because more people do it or it is somehow connected to some antecedent in a vaguely religious sort of way. In my opinion it should be enough to say "this is how my game works". How other people play is immaterial.



I think you read to much into it. I think it helps to point out something isn’t an isolated playstyle.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I would say that, in the context, "shaping" is a synonym for _agency_. It is _making or doing something_. I believe you that you would not expect this sort of agency when you play in your preferred sort of sandbox. I can equally tell you that the absence of such agency would be one reason for me not to play in, or GM, such a game.




No, it isn't a synonym for agency here. At least someone in this style of play wouldn't see that as such. If you regard it as such, that is fair, but that isn't how I would see it here. And yes, you probably wouldn't be happy in this style of game. I certainly wouldn't try to sell you on such a campaign. At the same time I do think there is value in playing different styles on their own terms. I don't much like adventure paths, but I play one happily if that is what a group wants to do (and I won't actively resist it or complain). It can be helpful to experience what people are after. When I ran Esoterrorists, because it was coming at things from much more of a scene-focused approach than I ever take in my games, I consulted with my friend who likes those sorts of styles, to make sure I was running the game and prepping it as it was intended (and not inserting my own style into it-------down the road obviously I might do that, but I wanted to experience the game on its own terms). I think this also applies to styles. If someone told me they were going to run a sandbox using burning wheel, and in the style you have been describing, I would play it according to their style and I wouldn't complain, nor would I sit in judgement of it. I would want to understand it (and I wouldn't try to be gaining that understanding, only to judge it later----I would want a clear, objective sense of the style, so I can understand what people who enjoy it are looking for in play).


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to address what Pemerton said: he is equivocating on the word outcome. It is an outcome of something. Just like me posting this message is an outcome of something. But it isn't an outcome of the player searching for the brother. The brother didn't die as a result of the search. The brother, presumably, had other causes of death. That the dead brother was found was the outcome of the search.




I will let @pemerton speak for himself, but in my view that's not equivocating. Obviously it was the player who brought in the fiction of them searching for their brother. The brother did not exist prior to that. He's saying that in the context of this brother he wants the outcome of what happens to be determined by gameplay decisions he has made I think. This is based on a more expansive view of character than you probably hold - where a character is more than the physical body, but also the things they value, people they care for, and relationships they have. At least in a game where I care about my character as a person that's how I would probably explain my feelings.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> So the use of normative language can often be seen as an attempt to show that a given way to play is more legitimate because more people do it or it is somehow connected to some antecedent in a vaguely religious sort of way. In my opinion it should be enough to say "this is how my game works". How other people play is immaterial.




Except we are talking about different areas of the gaming community. There is an OSR and sandbox community. And yes that varies. But I think you can speak generally. Normally I would be only focused on my own style. But when you have a whole thread of posters attacking you because you think a GM deciding the brother is dead would be okay in a sandbox, it is relevant to share your view on what the norm among sandbox players seems to be. Now I could be wrong about that norm. It is always possible to be wrong. But I don't think I am, and I think at the very least, this is a style you see frequently among sandbox players, if not most of the time. That doesn't make it more right as a sandbox. But it does mean, people familiar with sandbox wouldn't be as shocked or surprised by my assertion as the posters here are (and again, I think that is relevant).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I will let @pemerton speak for himself, but in my view that's not equivocating. Obviously it was the player who brought in the fiction of them searching for their brother. The brother did not exist prior to that. He's saying that in the context of this brother he wants the outcome of what happens to be determined by gameplay decisions he has made I think. This is based on a more expansive view of character than you probably hold - where a character is more than the physical body, but also the things they value, people they care for, and relationships they have. At least in a game where I care about my character as a person that's how I would probably explain my feelings.




But in the style I am describing, which I feel he was extending his logic to, this would be an equivocation. That is my point. If he plays in a style where player goals and outcomes are that linked, fair enough. But in the kind of sandbox I am talking about, that outcome is an independent thing (unless the search itself directly results in his death, like they land a plane on his head in their search for him)

And by the way this is a consistent and key point of disagreement between us. So I think it is worthy of mention on those grounds too


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> *Where have I stated this is a unversal thing?* I have clearly told people, this is just one approach, but it is a really common one among sandbox gamers. Believe me, if this thread were involving a high volume of OSR sandbox gamers, you'd be getting tons and tons of push back on the brother. I am sure they would also have other differing opinions, because sandbox isn't a monochrome style of play. But this expectaiton that the GM would govern the state of the brother, I think in your typical sandbox, that would be the norm.



Okay, it seemed as if you were asserting here that your overall discussion in terms of the dead brother issue was universally held by sandbox gamers:


Bedrockgames said:


> Because in a game like this, getting that specific about the types of outcomes that unfold in play for things that have yet to happen (i.e. finding your brother and having a relationship with him) is not considered a reasonable choice. The choices that matter for agency in this style *(and this is pretty universal among sandbox gamers) *is the choices you make within the setting. Choosing to look for your lost brother is such a choice. And if the GM suddenly thwarts all your efforts to find him, then that would be a kind of railroad or a violation of agency.



So you are then talking strictly about in-setting choices from the perspective of the character?

Also, keep in mind, it does seem that for some people that the GM unilaterally declaring the brother as dead in advance would be the GM thwarting the efforts of the PC to find their brother. It comes across as a story railroad where the GM has declared that it would be more interesting for the PC if the brother was dead. So the story is less emergent as the GM has ascribed a fixed outcome or result of the search. But that predetermined outcome may very well be psychologically unrewarding or hostile for the player who controls that character.



Bedrockgames said:


> No, we've established there are two ways agency is being handled in this thread. Folks on your side, simply keep asserting your view on agency is right, and failing to acknowledge our approach is a totally viable way to see and use agency. But you keep turning it into a zero sum game (which it isn't).



I wouldn't call it establishing anything. I would call it entertaining two separate definitions of agency so we can even hold a conversation, not to mention having to deal with only one definition of railroad.



Bedrockgames said:


> Seriously, if you won't even allow us to accurately describe our own playstyle, then who is really engaging in one true wayism here?



You're welcome to accurately describe your own playstyle, but that doesn't absolve it from external judgment. Certainly no more than other playstyles have been repeatedly judged and commented upon. So maybe you can please put down the veiled accusations of "one true wayism" and hold a conversation without resorting to these sort of rhetorical tricks. There's really no need for that.



Bedrockgames said:


> But that existing, doesn't somehow make it a problem for people to continue to run games where the GM has control over the fate of the brother.



I still don't think that is always true even in your style of sandbox gaming as you make it out to be. I still think that there would be people who would have a problem with it if they encountered this, potentially myself included. I am not discounting here that there would be players and GMs who are fine with this, but let's not pretend that every player would be happy with this sort of forced outcome of their play agenda for their character.



Bedrockgames said:


> But I think it is fair to talk about what the typical sandbox looks like without this kind of hostile, angry reaction.



I think it's unfair to describe any pushback as a "hostile, angry reaction".



Bedrockgames said:


> Except we are talking about different areas of the gaming community. There is an OSR and sandbox community. And yes that varies. But I think you can speak generally. Normally I would be only focused on my own style. But when you have *a whole thread of posters attacking you *because you think a GM deciding the brother is dead would be okay in a sandbox, it is relevant to share your view on what the norm among sandbox players seems to be. Now I could be wrong about that norm. It is always possible to be wrong. But I don't think I am, and I think at the very least, this is a style you see frequently among sandbox players, if not most of the time. That doesn't make it more right as a sandbox. But it does mean, people familiar with sandbox wouldn't be as shocked or surprised by my assertion as the posters here are (and again, I think that is relevant).



And maybe stop using overly charged language like this too? Thanks.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> So the use of normative language can often be seen as an attempt to show that a given way to play is more legitimate because more people do it or it is somehow connected to some antecedent in a vaguely religious sort of way. In my opinion it should be enough to say "this is how my game works". How other people play is immaterial.




Just to add one other thing here. I think it can matter in other ways. For example, I might really not like adventure paths, and that is a fine preference to have, but a ton of people like them. And it would be odd of me not to acknowledge or understand the sheer volume of players who find satisfaction in adventure path approaches. By the same token, there are clearly lots of players and GMs here who find satisfaction in styles where they exert more control over setting elements pertaining to their character arcs. Acknowledging those as the norm within their segment of the gaming community, is just being polite in my opinion. Same with acknowledging that what I am talking about is a pretty typical thing seen in sandbox play. Now that doesn't mean people can't deviate from that. This isn't a normative moral judgments. It is just a statement of what the trends are, what the overall population is in to. I mean I could use normative language about top 40 radio, by saying heavy distorted guitar isn't really a typical feature of top 40 radio. That is ackowledging a reality of top 40 radio. it isn't giving it moral legitimacy, but it does mean you shouldn't be surprised when songs with heavy distorted guitar don't get into the top 40 (and I love songs with distorted guitar). This would be like me taking my sandbox approach and acting surprised when I run a game with Pemerton, Aldarc and Innerdude. It would be especially annoying to them, I am sure, if I did so using PbtA or Burning Wheel (which I am assuming I might even have to bend rules to achieve). From the segment of the hobby they come from, that is a style norm I am violating. I have been told pretty conclusively they would consider it a dick move. I am not going to venture into that area of the hobby and just say "well this is how I run things, and I don't care how many of you don't like it".


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I will let @pemerton speak for himself, but in my view that's not equivocating. Obviously it was the player who brought in the fiction of them searching for their brother. The brother did not exist prior to that. He's saying that in the context of this brother he wants the outcome of what happens to be determined by gameplay decisions he has made I think.



I respect his preference.  can that preference be set aside a moment to discuss what agency means to those that use this sandbox playstyle?



Campbell said:


> This is based on a more expansive view of character than you probably hold - where a character is more than the physical body, but also the things they value, people they care for, and relationships they have. At least in a game where I care about my character as a person that's how I would probably explain my feelings.



That’s an interesting notion and probably a much larger portion of the divide than its being given credit for.

I’m sure that leads to something like a thought of: PCs with no consistent and established connections to the world and it’s inhabitants aren’t fully fleshed out characters.


----------



## nevin

The whole brother is dead conversation confuses me.  If I play in a game, I make my character work out the history and then I go from there. How its the brother is dead any different than the brother is a pirate, the brother has joined a church, or the brother is actively running from you the person that is looking for him, such a terrible thing. Story arcs end, change and new things take their place.  If I get to arbitrarily tell the DM what story arcs they can and can't do that seems like a very boring game, I want to be surprised even if that means it's not always good.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Okay, it seemed as if you were asserting here that your overall discussion in terms of the dead brother issue was universally held by sandbox gamers:




No I was saying it is a commonly held one. I did ask the sandbox players I know about my definition of agency though, and to a person, they said it means exactly what I am saying. Not a scientific poll, but it is definitely not outrageous among the people I know in that community to assert it


----------



## prabe

Aldarc said:


> This. The GM deciding that the brother is already dead seems like the GM is forcing a predetermined outcome of play on the player. So yeah, it's a dick move.



I think it's only a dick move if the table's expectations are that there's a chance to find the brother alive. Probably connects to differences in goals: "Find [person]" as opposed to "find out what happened to [person]." Also connects to when this person is mentioned: Player provides connected person in backstory is different than player decides mid-campaign that connected person exists. As @Fenris-77  says, too, good faith on the player's part matters. As  GM, I am highly reluctant to fridge PC's families and loved ones, so the characters who have family and/or friends in various states of narrative indeterminacy aren't likely to just find out those people are dead; OTOH, i have a player whose character had backstory details that started to appear on the horizon, and when I asked him if he had any ideas or preferences, he said, "Surprise me."


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> So you are then talking strictly about in-setting choices from the perspective of the character?




More like from the player's perspective within the setting, which is limited by their character. It is a minor distinction, but an important one, because there is this idea of player skill mattering that many sandbox players adhere to (where it isn't considered super important for instance to pretend to be your character, you are just limited in the setting the same way they are----you are experiencing the setting from their POV, but you don't have to feign a lack of real world knowledge). Again this is something of a split I see among sandbox players. Not everyone takes this approach. But it is common enough, that I wouldn't ignore it in this discussion.


----------



## Aldarc

Maybe it would be a better approach, @Bedrockgames, rather than saying that the GM deciding the brother was dead would be okay with "lots of people" or "guys I know" to talk about why it's okay for you personally in your preferred playstyle to declare that the brother was dead since you are the one invested in this particular playstyle preference. 



Bedrockgames said:


> This would be like me taking my sandbox approach and acting surprised when I run a game with Pemerton, Aldarc and Innerdude. It would be especially annoying to them, I am sure, if I did so using PbtA or Burning Wheel (which I am assuming I might even have to bend rules to achieve). From the segment of the hobby they come from, that is a style norm I am violating.



Innerdude's game of choice is Savage Worlds. Pemerton runs a gamut of games, including Classic Traveller. It's not as if we are all coming from fringe games or communities.


----------



## FrogReaver

I’m about to commit the cardinal sin of rpg discussions. So forgive me in advance.  It’s very relevant though and I think our avoidance of this topic is clouding this agency discussion. 

when a player is determining a piece of the setting is he roleplaying in that moment?  He surely is advocating for his character - but is that roleplaying?

that isn’t to say he isn’t roleplaying in other moments but is he roleplaying in that particular moment?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I think it's unfair to describe any pushback as a "hostile, angry reaction".
> 
> 
> And maybe stop using overly charged language like this too? Thanks.




All I can say is, if you want me to interpret your posts as non-hostile, make a point of not  sounding hostile. Maybe you are not intending that to be the vibe of your posts. But I am finding your posts and the posts of others to be aggressive, hostile and attacking. Tone isn't well conveyed by text, so there is always that. But communication is a two way street


----------



## Bedrockgames

prabe said:


> I think it's only a dick move if the table's expectations are that there's a chance to find the brother alive.




Which is a statement I agree with. I hope I've been clear that if there is this expectation at the table, and the GM violates that expectation, it is going to result in conflict.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> You're welcome to accurately describe your own playstyle, but that doesn't absolve it from external judgment. Certainly no more than other playstyles have been repeatedly judged and commented upon. So maybe you can please put down the veiled accusations of "one true wayism" and hold a conversation without resorting to these sort of rhetorical tricks. There's really no need for that.




Well, I am not the one discounting a whole style of play here. I am acknowledging the styles of the other posters, acknowledging their use of agency in their style. I am the one being told my style is a problem. Sure no one is free from criticism. But there is also an issue in these conversations when people just tear down your style, especially when they do so in a way that seems to ignore how huge swaths of gamers play the game. Literally every sandbox player I have asked has told me, the GM saying the brother is dead, is totally fine, not a problem. So if you do want to sit in judgment of a playstyle, I think it is odd to do so as you ignore the widespread sensibilities of those who engage that style.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I still don't think that is always true even in your style of sandbox gaming as you make it out to be. I still think that there would be people who would have a problem with it if they encountered this, potentially myself included. I am not discounting here that there would be players and GMs who are fine with this, but let's not pretend that every player would be happy with this sort of forced outcome of their play agenda for their character.




I didn't say it is always true. But it does seem to be mostly true in my experience. Again, this is a part of the hobby I am pretty familiar with. I am pretty confident in my assessment of it. And yes it is a generalization. I have said many times, there can and will be exceptions (and people are always free to run sandboxes however they want, no one can stop you). But the vast majority of players would not have an issue in this style. And literally no one I have asked about this has said this would be an issue. And reviewing my own campaigns, these kinds of decisions have never led to problems in a sandbox (in savage worlds, the way we run it, it might, but not in a sandbox). Also, even when I do have players that like games like burning wheel, or PbtA (and I do): they are not fanatics, just like I am not a sandbox fanatic. We can bend to the style of play being offered. I think the dick move isn't the gm making an acceptable decision within a given style of play, it is a person coming to a group and demanding their agenda be catered to. I am always willing to adapt to a group's sensibilities. I think that is important. And I don't go to games to argue with people over style. I play with people who are 'chill'. If people start demanding things or getting angry, I seriously do not want them there. If you can be chill, you can play with us. That is pretty much my only rule.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I’m about to commit the cardinal sin of rpg discussions. So forgive me in advance.  It’s very relevant though and I think our avoidance of this topic is clouding this agency discussion.
> 
> when a player is determining a piece of the setting is he roleplaying in that moment?  He surely is advocating for his character - but is that roleplaying?
> 
> that isn’t to say he isn’t roleplaying in other moments but is he roleplaying in that particular moment?



I think it depends. If the table is doing something like what's in Fate Core and Dresden Files, where the table builds at least the starting setting as part of Session 0, before chargen, then absolutely not--it's worldbuilding. In a situation like the example @pemerton uses, where his character was in a place looking for a thing and (after resolving an action check) it was there, I'm inclined to say that's roleplaying. If the player is using a blank space in the world to make something suitable for their character to emerge from, I think that's more like chargen, though it has at least a whiff of worldbuilding to it.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> More like from the player's perspective within the setting, which is limited by their character. It is a minor distinction, but an important one, because there is this idea of player skill mattering that many sandbox players adhere to (where it isn't considered super important for instance to pretend to be your character, you are just limited in the setting the same way they are----you are experiencing the setting from their POV, but you don't have to feign a lack of real world knowledge). Again this is something of a split I see among sandbox players. Not everyone takes this approach. But it is common enough, that I wouldn't ignore it in this discussion.



Sure, but keep in mind that this play mode you describe of skilled play is not necessarily at odds or conflict with the style of PC protagonism that has also been described where the PC would be free to pursue their own agendas, such as finding their brother, as part of sandbox play. 



Bedrockgames said:


> All I can say is, if you want me to interpret your posts as non-hostile, make a point of not  sounding hostile. Maybe you are not intending that to be the vibe of your posts. But I am finding your posts and the posts of others to be aggressive, hostile and attacking. Tone isn't well conveyed by text, so there is always that. But communication is a two way street



Maybe a little good faith then before launching accusations. As @Campbell said, please consider that there's nothing nefarious going on here. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Well, I am not the one discounting a whole style of play here. I am acknowledging the styles of the other posters, acknowledging their use of agency in their style. I am the one being told my style is a problem. Sure no one is free from criticism. But there is also an issue in these conversations when people just tear down your style, especially when they do so in a way that seems to ignore how huge swaths of gamers play the game. *Literally every sandbox player I have asked has told me, the GM saying the brother is dead, is totally fine, not a problem. *So if you do want to sit in judgment of a playstyle, I think it is odd to do so as you ignore the widespread sensibilities of those who engage that style.





Bedrockgames said:


> But the vast majority of players would not have an issue in this style. *And literally no one I have asked about this has said this would be an issue. *And reviewing my own campaigns, these kinds of decisions have never led to problems in a sandbox (in savage worlds, the way we run it, it might, but not in a sandbox).



Sure, and I asked my whole family, a marching band, and a pet adoption agency, and my girlfriend Alberta who lives in Canada, and they all said it would be a dick move. Could we please stop making unverifiable strawpoll arguments like this? It's not IMHO helping move discussion forward or bettering your case. What helps is understanding your perspective on the matter rather than how many people would be okay with it. 



Bedrockgames said:


> *I think the dick move isn't the gm making an acceptable decision within a given style of play, it is a person coming to a group and demanding their agenda be catered to. *I am always willing to adapt to a group's sensibilities. I think that is important. And I don't go to games to argue with people over style. I play with people who are 'chill'. If people start demanding things or getting angry, I seriously do not want them there. If you can be chill, you can play with us. That is pretty much my only rule.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I think it depends. If the table is doing something like what's in Fate Core and Dresden Files, where the table builds at least the starting setting as part of Session 0, before chargen, then absolutely not--it's worldbuilding. In a situation like the example @pemerton uses, where his character was in a place looking for a thing and (after resolving an action check) it was there, I'm inclined to say that's roleplaying. If the player is using a blank space in the world to make something suitable for their character to emerge from, I think that's more like chargen, though it has at least a whiff of worldbuilding to it.



I think I would separate that out more than you have. The character action itself was roleplaying but the mechanical process that determines the outcome (or whatever other outcome generation technique is used) I don’t think going through that process is roleplaying.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> Sure, but keep in mind that this play mode you describe of skilled play is not necessarily at odds or conflict with the style of PC protagonism that has also been described where the PC would be free to pursue their own agendas, such as finding their brother, as part of sandbox play.
> 
> 
> Maybe a little good faith then before launching accusations. As @Campbell said, please consider that there's nothing nefarious going on here.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure, and I asked my whole family, a marching band, and a pet adoption agency, and my girlfriend Alberta who lives in Canada, and they all said it would be a dick move. Could we please stop making unverifiable strawpoll arguments like this? It's not IMHO helping move discussion forward or bettering your case. What helps is understanding your perspective on the matter rather than how many people would be okay with it.
> 
> 
> View attachment 130899



It’s this kind of post that comes across overly aggressive and hostile. Just FYI


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I think I would separate that out more than you have. The character action itself was roleplaying but the mechanical process that determines the outcome (or whatever other outcome generation technique is used) I don’t think going through that process is roleplaying.



While I can see your point, it seems as though you're saying that any time an action is resolved mechanically (dice, cards, whatever) there is no roleplaying. I wouldn't go as far as you seem to be going. I think at least sometimes resolution can be included in roleplaying.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> While I can see your point, it seems as though you're saying that any time an action is resolved mechanically (dice, cards, whatever) there is no roleplaying. I wouldn't go as far as you seem to be going. I think at least sometimes resolution can be included in roleplaying.



Just that the moment of throwing the dice or resolving the action isn’t roleplaying.  There’s still roleplaying at the action step.

can you give me an example where resolution should be included in roleplaying?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Sure, and I asked my whole family, a marching band, and a pet adoption agency, and my girlfriend Alberta who lives in Canada, and they all said it would be a dick move. Could we please stop making unverifiable strawpoll arguments like this? It's not IMHO helping move discussion forward or bettering your case. What helps is understanding your perspective on the matter rather than how many people would be okay with it.




I think this kind of information is relevant, sorry. My play style doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And it wasn’t a straw man. I legitimately wanted to ask people who play sandbox ‘am I crazy in my assertions about agency and the brother here’ because I am getting so much pushback in this thread.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> *I think this kind of information is relevant, sorry. *My play style doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And it wasn’t a straw man. I legitimately wanted to ask people who play sandbox ‘am I crazy in my assertions about agency and the brother here’ because I am getting so much pushback in this thread.



And I don't, sorry. So what good does telling me this do me?


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Just that the moment of throwing the dice or resolving the action isn’t roleplaying.  There’s still roleplaying at the action step.
> 
> can you give me an example where resolution should be included in roleplaying?



I think, in the oft-cited examples from BW, that roleplaying would be impossible without the resolutions (We found the tower; I found my brother). I think that in any system that boils down to "The GM Decides" where the GM is convinced/persuaded by roleplaying (along the lines of what I understand @pemerton to mean by "free narration") that the resolution is directly derived from the roleplaying. I think that in any system or instance where the odds of resolution are affected by what has been roleplayed, roleplaying and resolution are intertwined.


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> And I don't, sorry. So what good does telling me this do me?



EDIT:

sometimes it’s better to just ignore such things than get sucked into them.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> View attachment 130899




If you are going to post this kind of response, you really shouldn’t be surprised if I take your posts as hostile. If you want to engage what I actually said, I am happy to respond. I don’t consider this serious engagement. Especially when the humor doesn’t counter at all with what I am describing. If you come into a group where everyone but you is onboard with the style, and get bent out of shape when their approach doesn’t fit your agenda: you are the problem. You are principal skinner in that moment. The Simpsons meme is making the the point I am making. Perhaps you posted it to agree with me, but doesn’t seem like it


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> And I don't, sorry. So what good does telling me this do me?



Then I guess ignoring my post was your best option because continue to find this kind of information relevant


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> If you are going to post this kind of response, you really shouldn’t be surprised if I take your posts as hostile. If you want to engage what I actually said, I am happy to respond. I don’t consider this serious engagement. Especially when the humor doesn’t counter at all with what I am describing. If you come into a group where everyone but you is onboard with the style, and get bent out of shape when their approach doesn’t fit your agenda: you are the problem. You are principal skinner in that moment. The Simpsons meme is making the the point I am making. Perhaps you posted it to agree with me, but doesn’t seem like it



The hostility already seemed present in what you posted, as it came across as you trying to throw the problem at hand back at the player and blaming them as the real problem. I hope you can sympathize with how someone could easily read that underlying sentiment from your post.



Bedrockgames said:


> I think this kind of information is relevant, sorry. My play style doesn’t exist in a vacuum. *And it wasn’t a straw man.* I legitimately wanted to ask people who play sandbox ‘am I crazy in my assertions about agency and the brother here’ because I am getting so much pushback in this thread.



I said "straw poll."


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I think, in the oft-cited examples from BW, that roleplaying would be impossible without the resolutions (We found the tower; I found my brother). I think that in any system that boils down to "The GM Decides" where the GM is convinced/persuaded by roleplaying (along the lines of what I understand @pemerton to mean my "free narration") that the resolution is directly derived from the roleplaying. I think that in any system or instance where the odds of resolution are affected by what has been roleplayed, roleplaying and resolution are intertwined.



Maybe the disconnect is that I’m including dm decides here. When the dm decides the player isn’t roleplaying.

I do agree that you can’t have roleplay without having resolutions. But I don’t see how that makes those resolutions into roleplaying.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe the disconnect is that I’m including dm decides here. When the dm decides the player isn’t roleplaying.
> 
> I do agree that you can’t have roleplay without having resolutions. But I don’t see how that makes those resolutions into roleplaying.



Frequently when the GM decides, the GM is roleplaying. Leaving combat aside (along with the whole argument over whether combat is roleplaying) I think it's difficult shading to impossible to have resolutions without roleplaying, if one defines roleplaying as at least in part "making decisions for/as the character." I decide to use [library] to acquire information about [thing]. I try to use my underworld contacts to locate [person].


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I said "straw poll."



fair enough. I still think it is relevant. I mean it is a good faith action if I assert this is a norm in the community I am talking about, and people push back, for me to ask the community in question if it’s the case. It isn’t the same as a formal poll, obviously


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> And that is fine: you can run a sandbox however you like. But there is also nothing wrong with running it the way I am taking about




No one said there was anything wrong with running your game the way you want. 

My objection was to a specific example that was offered, and your response.  That example is one I would say is a problem, for the reasons already stated. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Again, in this mode of play, the player simply isn't assumed to be able to set an agenda that extensive into the setting. You can certainly have the agenda of wanting to find your brother, but what is going on with your brother is under the purview of the GM. Obviously in a game where that isn't a case, it might be a dick move if the player is expected to have that sort of agenda. Why people can't even entertain the thought of this, and see how for lots of people operating under this style of play, it isn't at all a dick move, I really can't understand.




It's not that I can't entertain the thought of it. I absolutely can. I've played in plenty of those kinds of games. They're perfectly fine.

What I can't do is reconcile your idea that your described game offers a high degree of player agency when the idea of an agenda crafted by a player for his character either (a) shouldn't even be proposed, or (b) is left to the GM to simply negate out of hand if he decides that's what he'd like to do. 

The play of your game seems to be to unleash the PCs into the world and watch them interact with elements you've crafted. They're free to do whatever they like, and to interact with the elements of the fiction however they like, and so on. That is fine.....I largely run my D&D game like this. The PCs do things, and the world reacts, and then the PCs react to that, and so on. It's fun and engaging and my group enjoys it.

Again, I don't think that running a game that has a heavy GM hand in such matters is a bad thing. If anything is bad, it would be to even allow the player to think that any agenda they had in mind at the start of play mattered at all. Just say up front "I know you wanted your PC to be searching for his brother, but I'm not really going to focus on pre-established goals like that. This game is about you using your character to explore the world I've crafted and to see what happens."



Bedrockgames said:


> This. A sandbox doesn't care about dramatic arcs. Drama can arise (i've mentioned drama and sandbox) but no one has plot immunity (not PCs, not NPCS) and in a sandbox, *the gm has full setting control.* Those conditions shouldn't make the outcome I am talking about a surprise to anyone.




So this is partly the issue. You say that the GM has full setting control, but then you won't acknowledge that games that allow players some input on setting offer more agency. Instead, you shift to your take on agency and claim it offers an exchange of some sort. But I don't think that's the case. 

To revisit your wannabe scholar character.....it seems you were okay with this goal because it fit with what you already had in mind, or already had a structure to deal with. And the outcome of how this would play out for the character was left to determine in play. I assume that they had a chance to actually succeed? Maybe I shouldn't.....was that the case?



Bedrockgames said:


> Just to add one other thing here. I think it can matter in other ways. For example, I might really not like adventure paths, and that is a fine preference to have, but a ton of people like them. And it would be odd of me not to acknowledge or understand the sheer volume of players who find satisfaction in adventure path approaches.




Do you think that your chosen style offers more agency than an adventure path? Do you think you are attacking people who enjoy adventure paths if you say so? I've played in adventure paths. They can be perfectly fun. It's not exactly my preferred mode of play, but I also know what to expect when someone says "I'm going to run Horde of the Dragon Queen, want to play?" It's not going to be a high agency game.




Bedrockgames said:


> Well, I am not the one discounting a whole style of play here. I am acknowledging the styles of the other posters, acknowledging their use of agency in their style. I am the one being told my style is a problem. Sure no one is free from criticism. But there is also an issue in these conversations when people just tear down your style, especially when they do so in a way that seems to ignore how huge swaths of gamers play the game. Literally every sandbox player I have asked has told me, the GM saying the brother is dead, is totally fine, not a problem. So if you do want to sit in judgment of a playstyle, I think it is odd to do so as you ignore the widespread sensibilities of those who engage that style.




Saying that your style doesn't offer as much player agency as another is not discounting the whole style of play. No style of play is a problem, excepting if the participants are not satisfied with it for some reason. A pure railroad may be fine for years for many players, or for a session or two for others. We all typically describe railroading as bad.....but for some folks, it may be just fine.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> The hostility already seemed present in what you posted, as it came across as you trying to throw the problem at hand back at the player and blaming them as the real problem. I hope you can sympathize with how someone could easily read that underlying sentiment from your post.



I wasn’t trying to be hostile, I was explaining my tables expectations. Disagreeing is fine, good natured disputes happen and can be fun. Busting chops is fine. But we are there to game and have a good time. Displays of anger, that are disruptive to the vibe or to the flow of the game are not something we are going to entertain: especially if it is one player disrupting the game because they are trying to impose their agenda on a room where it simply doesn’t fit. Generally if we have more involved discussions where people strongly disagree, that is handled after the session. But you got to adapt to the room, otherwise it would just gone off as rude behavior to us


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> Frequently when the GM decides, the GM is roleplaying. Leaving combat aside (along with the whole argument over whether combat is roleplaying) I think it's difficult shading to impossible to have resolutions without roleplaying, if one defines roleplaying as at least in part "making decisions for/as the character." I decide to use [library] to acquire information about [thing]. I try to use my underworld contacts to locate [person].



Okay. The GM can roleplay in action resolution especially when that involves an NPC instead of an environment.

but im really focused on the player side of things. Is there an example of a player roleplaying during action resolution?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Again @hawkeyefan we are at an impasse because we have differing definitions of agency. And literally every person who plays sandbox that I know has said they share my definition and they have never even encountered yours. I am not saying yours isn’t in use but I think it isn’t that hard to see what kind of agency I am talking about and how the GM deciding that detail wouldn’t go against it.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> No one said there was anything wrong with running your game the way you want.
> 
> My objection was to a specific example that was offered, and your response.  That example is one I would say is a problem, for the reasons already stated.
> 
> 
> 
> It's not that I can't entertain the thought of it. I absolutely can. I've played in plenty of those kinds of games. They're perfectly fine.
> 
> What I can't do is reconcile your idea that your described game offers a high degree of player agency when the idea of an agenda crafted by a player for his character either (a) shouldn't even be proposed, or (b) is left to the GM to simply negate out of hand if he decides that's what he'd like to do.
> 
> The play of your game seems to be to unleash the PCs into the world and watch them interact with elements you've crafted. They're free to do whatever they like, and to interact with the elements of the fiction however they like, and so on. That is fine.....I largely run my D&D game like this. The PCs do things, and the world reacts, and then the PCs react to that, and so on. It's fun and engaging and my group enjoys it.
> 
> Again, I don't think that running a game that has a heavy GM hand in such matters is a bad thing. If anything is bad, it would be to even allow the player to think that any agenda they had in mind at the start of play mattered at all. Just say up front "I know you wanted your PC to be searching for his brother, but I'm not really going to focus on pre-established goals like that. This game is about you using your character to explore the world I've crafted and to see what happens."
> 
> 
> 
> So this is partly the issue. You say that the GM has full setting control, but then you won't acknowledge that games that allow players some input on setting offer more agency. Instead, you shift to your take on agency and claim it offers an exchange of some sort. But I don't think that's the case.
> 
> To revisit your wannabe scholar character.....it seems you were okay with this goal because it fit with what you already had in mind, or already had a structure to deal with. And the outcome of how this would play out for the character was left to determine in play. I assume that they had a chance to actually succeed? Maybe I shouldn't.....was that the case?
> 
> 
> 
> Do you think that your chosen style offers more agency than an adventure path? Do you think you are attacking people who enjoy adventure paths if you say so? I've played in adventure paths. They can be perfectly fun. It's not exactly my preferred mode of play, but I also know what to expect when someone says "I'm going to run Horde of the Dragon Queen, want to play?" It's not going to be a high agency game.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Saying that your style doesn't offer as much player agency as another is not discounting the whole style of play. No style of play is a problem, excepting if the participants are not satisfied with it for some reason. A pure railroad may be fine for years for many players, or for a session or two for others. We all typically describe railroading as bad.....but for some folks, it may be just fine.



Are you using his definition of player agency or your own?


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Okay. The GM can roleplay in action resolution especially when that involves an NPC instead of an environment.
> 
> but im really focused on the player side of things. Is there an example of a player roleplaying during action resolution?



If the PC is attempting to deceive or persuade or intimidate an NPC and it's roleplayed instead of rolled, I think that's your example. Of course, I don't think I separate action-resolution from roleplaying so strictly as you do: I don't think a player ceases roleplaying the instant they pick up dice.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> Finding your lost brother is a cool character drive, but it's going to be a huge pain in the butt in a lot of games if the player wants it to be front and center all the time. That drive is actually easier when cooperative setting building is going on because there's a chance to braid that idea right in, rather than trying to shoehorn it in because some swanky hipster wasn't happy with "blood and gold" as a primary character drive. If we assume that A) the player isn't going to be a suppurating sore about this and that B) the GM sees some reasonable way to fit it in, then it could be fine. My experience is heavily salted with players who want a drive like this in a game where the pitch is sailing across the uncharted ocean to explore new lands. _Oh yeah, _sure_, your brother is going to hanging out under a palm tree, no sweat bro... why don't you just pencil in crippling agoraphobia as a flaw while you're at it? _It's all about engaging in good faith on both sides.




Yes, I agree with this. The player and GM need to be on the same page. In the initial example, the player offered the idea of the brother, and the GM said sure, and then decided the brother was dead, and this was cited as the "GM seriously considering the player's request". 

I'd expect that this would be handled better in an actual example rather than a hypothetical.



Campbell said:


> I think generally you should be very careful about mixing up techniques that serve different play priorities. Creating characters you really care about with meaningful dramatic needs and placing them into a cruel sandbox is a recipe for emotional bleed in the wrong way in my experience.




Yes, absolutely. I agree with both of you. Better to simply address this up front and make sure everyone proceeds on the same page.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> To revisit your wannabe scholar character.....it seems you were okay with this goal because it fit with what you already had in mind, or already had a structure to deal with. And the outcome of how this would play out for the character was left to determine in play. I assume that they had a chance to actually succeed? Maybe I shouldn't.....was that the case?
> 
> 
> 
> Do you think that your chosen style offers more agency than an adventure path? Do you think you are attacking people who enjoy adventure paths if you say so? I've played in adventure paths. They can be perfectly fun. It's not exactly my preferred mode of play, but I also know what to expect when someone says "I'm going to run Horde of the Dragon Queen, want to play?" It's not going to be a high agency game.




look again at the example. He didn’t realize his goal. He failed at the exams. He was free to pursue trying to become  a scholar official because those exist in the setting. But he wasn’t free to set the outcome. He failed. Also this is different from the brother example. The degrees the player wants exist in the setting. The player is free to seek those degrees. He has no control over what kind of post he is assigned should he get the degree. The player saying he wants to search for his list brother and explore their broken relationship is like a player saying he wants to take the imperial exams and explore the challenge of being a county magistrate on the frontier: that last but us a part of the hand the GM controls via the player’s superiors in the setting and the customs atriums advancement


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> If the PC is attempting to deceive or persuade or intimidate an NPC and it's roleplayed instead of rolled, I think that's your example. Of course, I don't think I separate action-resolution from roleplaying so strictly as you do: I don't think a player ceases roleplaying the instant they pick up dice.



That’s fair. So for you roleplaying is more of a state than a discrete act.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> That’s fair. So for you roleplaying is more of a state than a discrete act.



That seems accurate. If you see combat as a facet of roleplaying, the player doesn't stop acting as the character if they miss an attack--and even less if an opponent resists/saves against something like a spell (trying to be somewhat system-agnostic).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> I must be missing something here - how is disliking magic item wish lists a dick move?
> 
> Or does the dick-move part lie in not fulfilling the player's adventure request?  If done maliciously, I could see the dick part of it, but if the DM has set up a string of desert-based adventures and a player asks for something in the arctic, the player at best is going to have to wait.  Even more so, perhaps, if other players have asked for undersea, jungle, and mountain adventuring after the desert bit is done.




Not talking about magic item wishlists, so I'm not sure where you got that. If you're taking what I'm saying and applying it in that area, then all I have to say is that wishlists like that should be considered, for sure. 

It's more about the concept of the PC searching for his brother being considered and added to play, to simply be negated or seriously altered by GM fiat. Not over time, not in response to player actions, just out of hand decided.


----------



## FrogReaver

I think it’s worth noting that in sandbox play there’s often a good bit of dice deciding things behind the scenes because the DM views the competing goals of the factions as pretty uncertain regarding which will come out on top in any event.

Which is to say, the players brother dying was likely not decided without some randomness involved.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> fair enough. I still think it is relevant. I mean it is a good faith action if I assert this is a norm in the community I am talking about, and people push back, for me to ask the community in question if it’s the case. It isn’t the same as a formal poll, obviously



I understand that your play does not exist in a vacuum. I hear your frustration about the pushback you are receiving, and I do believe that you are making these assertions in good faith. My issue with these straw poll declarations is it lacks substance as part of an argument. You find it relevant and convincing, but you aren't trying to debate or converse this with yourself, but with us. If I literally asked all the like-minded individuals or my community of peeps about an issue pertaining to our common interests, I would likely get a bunch of similar replies that confirmed our gaming approaches. There is a lot of potential confirmation bias at play here. It does not feel like a meaningful assertion to make, and it does little to further the topic of conversation further towards a mutual understanding. It seems to be a weakly constructed argumentum ad populum, and I do trust that you have thought through your play preferences or understandings enough that it has more substantial argumentative underpinnings than that.



hawkeyefan said:


> It's more about the concept of the PC searching for his brother being considered and added to play, to simply be negated or seriously altered by GM fiat. Not over time, not in response to player actions, just out of hand decided.



What if the brother's fate was determined via rolling on a random table? (And presumably the player likewise knew beforehand that such mechanics were being used.)


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## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think it’s worth noting that in sandbox play there’s often a good bit of dice deciding things behind the scenes because the DM views the competing goals of the factions as pretty uncertain regarding which will come out on top in any event.
> 
> Which is to say, the players brother dying was likely not decided without some randomness involved.




This is a good point. They also often rely on other procedures. I have a whole system I devised for sect wars (this is the original version of it, but I have made a more streamlined version for something I am working on now: WAR OF SWARMING BEGGARS CHAPTER ONE: RUNNING THE ADVENTURE). Definitely when there is doubt over outcomes, I like having handy procedures. I do also think the GM can just decide if he or she thinks outcomes of screen are obvious. But I prefer to roll for that sort of thing because I think that is more fair.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> I think it’s worth noting that in sandbox play there’s often a good bit of dice deciding things behind the scenes because the DM views the competing goals of the factions as pretty uncertain regarding which will come out on top in any event.
> 
> Which is to say, the players brother dying was likely not decided without some randomness involved.



I asked something similarly just now. I suspect the issue has more to do with the GM's fiat to make unilateral setting declarations removed from mechanical play procedures.


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## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I think you read to much into it. I think it helps to point out something isn’t an isolated playstyle.




Are any of the playstyles we're discussing isolated? Are any not popular enough that we need some kind of anecdotal support that others share this opinion? I mean, it's a given.




FrogReaver said:


> Are you using his definition of player agency or your own?




Both.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> It's more about the concept of the PC searching for his brother being considered and added to play, to simply be negated or seriously altered by GM fiat. Not over time, not in response to player actions, just out of hand decided.




The point people are making is, in a sandbox, the GM deciding the brother is dead, wouldn't be an act of negation. The player was always free to search for that, but he or she was never free to determine the brother's status. And the concept is the GM would determine that early on most likely. Or he may decide something more nuanced like the brother is in peril on an island somewhere (I don't know perhaps he got shipwrecked on the isle of dread) and there is a weekly chance of him dying (which the GM would probably eyeball and set: or he may roll based on the brother's level which is what I would do). It may even be a more elaborate arrangement where the brother is potentially taking damage as they search). Either way, the state of the brother is up to the GM, and I think the thing that adds agency and excitement to this is the external unknown. If the players arrive and discover had they got their a week earlier, the brother would still be alive, that is interesting to me, and it gives me the sense that my choices did matter (because maybe the week delay was the product of a choice we made and in hindsight was a bad one).


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I think it’s worth noting that in sandbox play there’s often a good bit of dice deciding things behind the scenes because the DM views the competing goals of the factions as pretty uncertain regarding which will come out on top in any event.
> 
> Which is to say, the players brother dying was likely not decided without some randomness involved.




Except that wasn't what was said. it was a lot of "In this style, the setting is the purview of the GM" and similar talk. 



Aldarc said:


> What if the brother's fate was determined via rolling on a random table? (And presumably the player likewise knew beforehand that such mechanics were being used.)




If this was the expectation prior to play, then I'd probably craft a man with no name type character and the matter of the brother would be moot. Just murderhobo my way around the setting and grab loot and whatever else was the thrust of play absent PC specific goals. 

If instead, the idea of my PC specific goal was to be seriously considered, I'd expect it to involve more than a dice roll.....although I suppose that depending on how things went, if that's what it boiled down to, I'd accept it, sure. Certainly seems better than the GM simply deciding his fate.


----------



## prabe

Bedrockgames said:


> I do also think the GM can just decide if he or she thinks outcomes of screen are obvious. But I prefer to roll for that sort of thing because I think that is more fair.



The thing about randomly determining the results--especially if it's for something not explicitly in the rules or adventure--is that the GM is determining the probabilities and (apparently) using whatever randomized process, without necessarily taking into account what the PC is doing. That's not far removed from the GM just deciding.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> The thing about randomly determining the results--especially if it's for something not explicitly in the rules or adventure--is that the GM is determining the probabilities and (apparently) using whatever randomized process, without necessarily taking into account what the PC is doing. That's not far removed from the GM just deciding.




Here's a table that can be used!

Roll d100 and consult the table below:
1- 95: Brother is Dead
96- 99: Brother has vanished forever and cannot be found
100: Brother is alive

The GM can now reference his table and wash his hands of the matter!


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, I agree with this. The player and GM need to be on the same page. In the initial example, the player offered the idea of the brother, and the GM said sure, and then decided the brother was dead, and this was cited as the "GM seriously considering the player's request".
> 
> I'd expect that this would be handled better in an actual example rather than a hypothetical.




I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: in a sandbox, the player is only able to say he wants to search for his brother. It wouldn't be considered reasonable to say I want to have a campaign where I search for my brother and then explore our shattered relationship or something. Once the player says I am going to search for my brother, then the GM needs to seriously consider what happened to the brother. I don't know the details here. He may decide the brother is a live in port town somewhere, he may decide he is dead, he may decide he is dying and has thirty days to live, there are countless possibilities. But settling on any one of them just wouldn't be considered not taking the request seriously in a sandbox. It would be. I think you are looking at this from the perspective of another style of play, which is fine. And in that style of play, this wouldn't be considered a fair consideration (because the player has an expectation that they are able to set out some of the things that are going to be explored with the brother). I get that. I play in a savage worlds group where we do that often. Someone might say I want to look for my father who abandoned us when we were young and have a kind of "girl named sue" relationship with him. We'd all be fine with that, and if I was running the game, and said "Sure thing". Then at the very start of the game handed the player a letter saying his father died of lung cancer, that would be a crappy move I think (honestly though I can't imagine players in my group getting angry if I did that, I think they would see it as an attempt at humor, and roll with it, but it would certainly deviate from the spirit of play and what the player was fairly expecting, so it wouldn't be a good GM judgement). But that isn't the kind of play I am talking about in a sandbox. You typically are not doing that kind of thing in a  sandbox. It is almost always, whatever is going on with your brother, that is for the GM to decide. You only have control of what your character does. It is a valid style of play. And agency is considered to be your freedom to explore the setting through your character. That has been the standard understanding of agency in this context. It isn't even controversial I think. I am genuinely surprised to encounter the view I am encountering in this thread.


----------



## Bedrockgames

prabe said:


> The thing about randomly determining the results--especially if it's for something not explicitly in the rules or adventure--is that the GM is determining the probabilities and (apparently) using whatever randomized process, without necessarily taking into account what the PC is doing. That's not far removed from the GM just deciding.




I agree. If I use random procedures, I always factor in what the players are doing. Especially in a sandbox, that is important. If the players start a hempseed oil venture, and get into extreme specifics about their shipments, and take all kinds of extra precautions and put resources towards ensuring the safety of their shipments, whatever random roll I make, if I need to make one, to determine how many of their hempseed oils reach their destinations, ought to factor that in as something like a bonus at the very least.

The reason I use methods like this for offscreen stuff, is if the players do something like send an assassin after a major enemy, I would find the outcome difficult to determine fairly through fiat (unless I was given a ton of specifics by them and had a lot of specifics to work with). Ideally I could run the encounter and roll everything. but that would slow the game down a lot for something off screen. So I would simplify and probably have it be a dice pool rolled against the enemy's dice pool (or devise some method I think fairly captures the probabilities). Then roll the outcome. I think deciding to assassinate an opponent is fair in a game like this, so I'd want to have a fair method for reaching a conclusion about it. And this is actually a point in the game, where even if I don't show them the roll result (because it is happening away from their characters and they wouldn't know the outcome when it happens), I would probably explain my method to them for clarity


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> The thing about randomly determining the results--especially if it's for something not explicitly in the rules or adventure--is that the GM is determining the probabilities and (apparently) using whatever randomized process, without necessarily taking into account what the PC is doing. That's not far removed from the GM just deciding.



I’m not seeing how that’s different than the DM setting the dc of any other activity in the game?

mans if the PCs are doing something relevant to the outcome that is being taken into account.


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## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> The point people are making is, in a sandbox, the GM deciding the brother is dead, wouldn't be an act of negation.



None of your skilled play as a player will matter or make a difference for pursuing your agenda in this game: your brother is already dead as a result of my invisible hand. 

At the very least, it does seem to violate the principle of emergent play and the aversion to GM story authoring that is often quite prevalent in OSR circles. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Either way, the state of the brother is up to the GM, and I think the thing that adds agency and excitement to this is the external unknown. If the players arrive and discover had they got their a week earlier, the brother would still be alive, that is interesting to me, and it gives me the sense that my choices did matter (because maybe the week delay was the product of a choice we made and in hindsight was a bad one).



I think that speaks (again) to the much earlier conversation regarding the _illusion_ of player agency/protagonism. 



prabe said:


> The thing about randomly determining the results--especially if it's for something not explicitly in the rules or adventure--is that the GM is determining the probabilities and (apparently) using whatever randomized process, without necessarily taking into account what the PC is doing. That's not far removed from the GM just deciding.



Also a good point, but this is where I would expect that the GM and player be on the same page about play procedures.


----------



## Campbell

Here's my perspective : Anytime I am engaged in a conversation with anyone I want to have a conversation with them about their specific experiences and perspective. Anyone who is not a part of the conversation is irrelevant up until the point the decide to speak up. It's also not particularly my job to advocate for anyone else's perspective. If they want to offer it they can and I will do my best to engage with and understand their perspective.

I'm not even really here to advocate for my perspective although I will freely offer it. I just want to have interesting conversations. At the end of the day I only really give a damn about how the other people play with feel about this stuff. That's the only time there are any real stakes involved. I'm not here to be an ambassador or engage in a debate. That's boring to me.

I am not a huge fan of normative language because in my experience it usually acts a shield wall against foreign perspectives. Often on these boards I see people get shut down and told their perspective is irrelevant because they play games in unusual or the games they like to play are niche so their perspective isn't worth engaging. It feels real bad being shut down like that. 

I care about what @Bedrockgames has to say. Not what other people who are not in conversation have to say.


----------



## innerdude

FrogReaver said:


> Are you using his definition of player agency or your own?




Well, Bedrock's definition clearly doesn't include, "The capacity for players to advocate for their character's dramatic needs and have the system and group social contract support that intention, without unilateral imposition on that drive by the GM."

So, sure, if you exclude that proviso, then BRG's games have as much player agency as every RPG game, ever. 


And just to be perfectly clear --- I am NOT attacking BRG's playstyle. Hell, I've run multiple campaigns with the intent to run exactly the kind of campaign he's describing---a largely player-driven (as much as possible within the constraints of a "traditional" system, in my case Savage Worlds) "idyllic sandbox."

And having attempted to do that, in my experience it's very hard to consistently frame situations that remain player focused without some additional systematic backing.

And it takes a lot of effort on the part of the GM, and a desire on the part of the GM to nearly fully avoid inserting their own agenda into the mix. Without that level of effort from the GM---especially when using a "traditional" system---it's entirely too easy for "idyllic sandbox" play to devolve into "setting tourism." 

And as a player, I am flat-out DONE with setting tourism.

One of the core drives I've had in exploring new avenues for increased player agency is the experience I had 2 years ago in a friend's Savage Worlds campaign, where he ran the game largely as a "tourist setting" for Shaintar. By the end I was pushing against the restraints on agency so hard, it was like I could practically feel the straitjacket.


So what am I really trying to say? I think what I'm saying is that I both appreciate what Bedrockgames is trying to do, while also fully recognizing that there's a blind spot in his preferred playstyle that isn't addressed through any of the "conventional" sandbox techniques he's holding to.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Again @hawkeyefan we are at an impasse because we have differing definitions of agency. And literally every person who plays sandbox that I know has said they share my definition and they have never even encountered yours. I am not saying yours isn’t in use but I think it isn’t that hard to see what kind of agency I am talking about and how the GM deciding that detail wouldn’t go against it.




It's not hard to see, no. I understand. And I hope it's clear that I have no problem with that approach. The issue I had a concern with was the example of allowing the PC to have a personal goal and then just shooting it down.





Bedrockgames said:


> look again at the example. He didn’t realize his goal. He failed at the exams. He was free to pursue trying to become  a scholar official because those exist in the setting. But he wasn’t free to set the outcome. He failed. Also this is different from the brother example. The degrees the player wants exist in the setting. The player is free to seek those degrees. He has no control over what kind of post he is assigned should he get the degree. The player saying he wants to search for his list brother and explore their broken relationship is like a player saying he wants to take the imperial exams and explore the challenge of being a county magistrate on the frontier: that last but us a part of the hand the GM controls via the player’s superiors in the setting and the customs atriums advancement




I know he failed. My point was that he was free to pursue it. Compared to the brother being declared dead at the end of the first session, that seems a lot of ability for the player to pursue what they want. 

I'm not saying that the goal MUST be realized. But that it be considered and that play be about that goal. 

When I ask if there was a chance for the scholar to succeed, I only ask because I think that has a huge impact on his agency. Was the player aware that this was an impossible goal he's set for his character? Or was there actually a chance that he could succeed, and he somehow fell short through play? 

I think this is key. I'd really like to hear your answer to this.



Bedrockgames said:


> The point people are making is, in a sandbox, the GM deciding the brother is dead, wouldn't be an act of negation. The player was always free to search for that, but he or she was never free to determine the brother's status. And the concept is the GM would determine that early on most likely. Or he may decide something more nuanced like the brother is in peril on an island somewhere (I don't know perhaps he got shipwrecked on the isle of dread) and there is a weekly chance of him dying (which the GM would probably eyeball and set: or he may roll based on the brother's level which is what I would do). It may even be a more elaborate arrangement where the brother is potentially taking damage as they search). Either way, the state of the brother is up to the GM, and I think the thing that adds agency and excitement to this is the external unknown. If the players arrive and discover had they got their a week earlier, the brother would still be alive, that is interesting to me, and it gives me the sense that my choices did matter (because maybe the week delay was the product of a choice we made and in hindsight was a bad one).




All of these are far more considered then your initial statement that declaring the brother dead at the end of the first session was the "GM seriously considering a player request". 

Here' s the initial exchange below for reference.



Bedrockgames said:


> I simply mean, when the players say they want to try to do X, truly thinking about that request in a serious way (not simply rushing to a judgment on it, not blocking it because it is convenient for what you had planned, etc).






pemerton said:


> Also, I'd be interested to know what you mean by _taking such an attempt seriously_. I've posted multiple times in this thread about the GM _taking suggestions_. Do you mean that, or something else?
> 
> What happens if the GM on day 1, writing his/her secret notes, decides that the brother is dead, and then in a session a week later on day 8 the player decides to have his/her PC look for his/her brother. Does it count as _taking that seriously _if the GM goes on to adjudicate (let's say) 3 hours of play where the upshot of that is that the player learns what the GM had already decided and had already known, namely, that the brother is dead?






Bedrockgames said:


> Yes it is. Taking it seriously isn't about seriously considering changing the setting details (at least not in the style of play I am describing). If the brother is dead, then he is dead. You have established that. What I am talking about is seriously considering whatever actions within that setting the players seek to take. This can extend to things undetermined in the setting, but the answer is ideally based on some criteria other than, this is what I want to happen (there should be a rationale for it).


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Here's my perspective : Anytime I am engaged in a conversation with anyone I want to have a conversation with them about their specific experiences and perspective. Anyone who is not a part of the conversation is irrelevant up until the point the decide to speak up. It's also not particularly my job to advocate for anyone else's perspective. If they want to offer it they can and I will do my best to engage with and understand their perspective.
> 
> I'm not even really here to advocate for my perspective although I will freely offer it. I just want to have interesting conversations. At the end of the day I only really give a damn about how the other people play with feel about this stuff. That's the only time there are any real stakes involved. I'm not here to be an ambassador or engage in a debate. That's boring to me.
> 
> I am not a huge fan of normative language because in my experience it usually acts a shield wall against foreign perspectives. Often on these boards I see people get shut down and told their perspective is irrelevant because they play games in unusual or the games they like to play are niche so their perspective isn't worth engaging. It feels real bad being shut down like that.
> 
> I care about what @Bedrockgames has to say. Not what other people who are not in conversation have to say.



Then why make a big deal about him bringing that up instead of just ignoring it?


----------



## FrogReaver

innerdude said:


> Well, Bedrock's definition clearly doesn't include, "The capacity for players to advocate for their character's dramatic needs and have the system and group social contract support that intention, without unilateral imposition on that drive by the GM."
> 
> So, sure, if you exclude that proviso, then BRG's games have as much player agency as every RPG game, ever.



this last parts not true though.  Having control over your character is only part of what is required for agency. There’s also the part where you can cause important things to change in the setting.

a traditional railroad allows players control over their character but removes their ability to cause important things to change.

since traditional railroads exist then not all games have this kind of agency.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Then why make a big deal about him bringing that up instead of just ignoring it?




Just offering my perspective on things here. I would like us to get to the point where we can have a more productive discussion, but I'm not entirely sure it is possible. I would like to get to the place where we can just talk about our personal experiences and stuff. Like how discussion was on Story Games instead of the debate club / definition wars that are happening in this thread.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So this is partly the issue. You say that the GM has full setting control, but then you won't acknowledge that games that allow players some input on setting offer more agency. Instead, you shift to your take on agency and claim it offers an exchange of some sort. But I don't think that's the case.
> 
> To revisit your wannabe scholar character.....it seems you were okay with this goal because it fit with what you already had in mind, or already had a structure to deal with. And the outcome of how this would play out for the character was left to determine in play. I assume that they had a chance to actually succeed? Maybe I shouldn't.....was that the case?




Because I don't think that is what agency is in an RPG. I just don't find being given narrative control, or the ability to set the play agenda as a form of agency. I've played games that allow it. I mentioned hill folk and had lots of fun generating off camera setting content through dialogue. It was highly immersive. I didn't feel it gave me agency though, because I guess it gelt like a 'cheat' in that respect. It felt like I was given narrative power, and for what the game was doing that narrative power was cool and fun. I am presently reading the Hillfolk rulebook and hoping to one day do either a straight up I Claudius Campaign with it, or run my roman game using it. I am not knocking this style at all. It just legitimately doesn't strike me as agency, and it isn't how I've used agency for all the years I've used and encountered the word in RPG gaming. 

To be clear on the scholar front, I responded in another post, but want to address it again here. In the setting I was running there was an imperial exam system based on the Song Dynasty and I was using my own game which has rules for advancing through the exams. Now I could have done rulings instead (asking for various checks), but I liked having concrete methods and I am pasting them below so you can see what I am talking about. But note, there would also be clear rules for the player conduction search. There are skills in the game that can be used to search and find clues, there are rules for traveling by ship etc. The brothers aliveness or deadness though would not be determined by any of those methods. That is a separate issue under the purview of the GM. 




> THE IMPERIAL EXAMS
> 
> Not only are scholar-officials still an important part of the Empire, outside the Empire exam systems for official positions are also common. The Imperial Exams are the primary method for gaining entrance into the civil and military services. Merchants cannot take any of the exams.
> 
> Exams are conducted in permanent Exam Compounds, square structures with thousands of individual cell-like rooms for candidates. Exam Compounds have a single gate for an entrance, with no back exit, and examinees are expected to stay at least three days in their respective testing room during the examination period. Upon entering the compound they are searched for contraband (cheating materials) at the first gate, and then searched again before being assigned their room. Searches are thorough because inspectors are rewarded financially for each item of contraband they find (effectively they have a Detect Skill of 2d10).
> 
> Exam Compounds are known to be haunted by those who failed the exams or died while taking them. Students seeking to pass the exams must not only contend with the exams themselves, the harsh conditions of the cells, but also with the very real possibility of being tormented or challenged by ghosts.
> 
> Below are general exams for degrees in Letters or Military Service. However there are also more specialized exams following similar systems for degrees in Law, History, Classics, and so forth. Exams are changed each time they are given, and administered by the highest available official. They involve repeating large sections of texts from memory, summarizing passages from important classic works and writing lengthy solutions to a number of difficult political or military problems. Some tests involve commentary or performance of additional skills like archery or calligraphy.
> 
> CHEATING
> Characters who manage to bring cheating materials into the Exam Compound should be permitted to roll twice, rather than once for each testing subject. Anyone caught cheating is usually prohibited from taking the exams for the rest of their life.
> 
> ZHAN DAO RURAL ADMINISTRATIVE EXAMS
> This is the lowest exam in the Empire and allows one to teach or serve as temple administrators in the provinces. Passing the rural exam means entry into the Shi class at its lowest ranks. It also makes one eligible to enroll in state run academies.
> 
> The exams are held every autumn. While characters are not tested on their ability to read or write, it goes without saying that literacy in the relevant language is a base requirement to take the exams. To pass characters must succeed on all the following skills (with one chance for each):
> 
> Classics (any one) TN 5
> Talent (Calligraphy) TN 5
> Ritual (one Rite) TN 5
> History (any one era) TN 5
> 
> ZHAN DAO URBAN ADMINISTRATIVE EXAMS
> This enables one to serve minor official posts, but its main function is passing it qualifies one for the Capital Exams. These are held every two years in autumn and to pass, characters must succeed on the following Skills (specific questions on the exams are chosen by official conducting the test):
> 
> Classics (Sayings of Kong Zhi, Rites of Wan Mei, or the Book of Laws) TN 6
> Talent (Calligraphy) TN 6
> Talent (Poetry) TN 5
> Ritual (one Rite) TN 7
> History (Era of the Righteous Emperor and Era of the Glorious Emperor) TN 6
> Religion (Dehua) TN 5
> 
> ZHAN DAO AND HAI’AN CAPITAL EXAMS
> These exams are for entrance into central government posts in the capital and the palace (overseen by the emperor or king himself).  Merchants, criminals, priests, monks and artisans are all prohibited from taking the Capital Exams. Those who pass earn the title Jinshi and a degree.
> 
> Exams are held once every three years in autumn. And require the following:
> Classics (Sayings of Kong Zhi or the Book of Laws) TN 8
> Classics (Glorious Histories or the 26 Stratagems of Jiang Laozi): TN 8
> Talent (Calligraphy) TN 7
> Talent (Poetry) TN 7
> Talent (Feng Shui) TN 5
> Ritual (one Rite) TN 9
> History (Era of 100 Pieces, Era of the Dutiful State, Era of the Great Emperor) TN 7
> Religion (Dehua and Yen-Li) TN 6
> 
> MILITARY EXAMS
> There are also military exams for appointment to high military posts. However military positions can easily be gained through sponsorship. To pass characters must succeed on the following skills:
> 
> Classics (26 Stratagems of Jiang Laozi) TN 5
> Talent (Calligraphy) TN 5
> Ritual (one Rite) TN 5
> Small Ranged TN 5
> Any Melee TN 5


----------



## Aldarc

I trust that @Bedrockgames has smart things to say about their own gaming preferences and can elucidate arguments to support it that do not require repeated appeals to anecdotal evidence. And moving past including such things to meatier substantial arguments would be more beneficial for us all.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: in a sandbox, the player is only able to say he wants to search for his brother. It wouldn't be considered reasonable to say I want to have a campaign where I search for my brother and then explore our shattered relationship or something. Once the player says I am going to search for my brother, then the GM needs to seriously consider what happened to the brother. I don't know the details here. He may decide the brother is a live in port town somewhere, he may decide he is dead, he may decide he is dying and has thirty days to live, there are countless possibilities. But settling on any one of them just wouldn't be considered not taking the request seriously in a sandbox. It would be. I think you are looking at this from the perspective of another style of play, which is fine.




No, I'm really not. I am simply looking at it as a question of agency. I realize that this may be a broader take on agency than what you've proposed. But to me, if we're talking about players having agency, it means influencing the game.

This is a case of the player attempting to influence the game. If the GM simply denies it as was described in the initial example, then yes, I would absolutely say agency is being denied. 

If the GM considers the request and incorporates it into play (it doesn't need to be the main focus of everything, just another thing that's present), then I don't have any problem with the way it ultimately turns out. I would expect and hope that it would be based on the events of play and player choice, and as long as that was the case, then i think the GM has helped facilitate agency in this regard. 

If the GM instead says to the player "this kind of personal goal isn't likely going to be the kind of thing we'll focus on; I just want you to be aware so that you're not disappointed" then I think that's a great thing. Is it denying agency? I don't think so because it's explaining something that isn't going to be a possibility.

The issue would be to treat the idea as a possibility, and then essentially make it an impossibility.



Bedrockgames said:


> And in that style of play, this wouldn't be considered a fair consideration (because the player has an expectation that they are able to set out some of the things that are going to be explored with the brother). I get that. I play in a savage worlds group where we do that often. Someone might say I want to look for my father who abandoned us when we were young and have a kind of "girl named sue" relationship with him. We'd all be fine with that, and if I was running the game, and said "Sure thing". Then at the very start of the game handed the player a letter saying his father died of lung cancer, that would be a crappy move I think (honestly though I can't imagine players in my group getting angry if I did that, I think they would see it as an attempt at humor, and roll with it, but it would certainly deviate from the spirit of play and what the player was fairly expecting, so it wouldn't be a good GM judgement).




This is all I've been saying.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Just offering my perspective on things here. I would like us to get to the point where we can have a more productive discussion, but I'm not entirely sure it is possible. I would like to get to the place where we can just talk about our personal experiences and stuff. Like how discussion was on Story Games instead of the debate club / definition wars that are happening in this thread.



Understanding and recognizing that we tend to mean different things by the same word seems to be the starting point for any productive discussion.

Until all/most of the participants acknowledge the two different ways agency is used are both valid ways of using the word this discussion isn’t going to go beyond why we can’t use a word to mean what we are accustomed to having it mean.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> It's not hard to see, no. I understand. And I hope it's clear that I have no problem with that approach. The issue I had a concern with was the example of allowing the PC to have a personal goal and then just shooting it down.




But the goal, as phrased, isn't a viable one. In a sandbox, you can't set that kind of goal and have the expectation the GM will let that outcome unfold


----------



## Campbell

Here's something to consider : Do different sorts of fiction offer different amounts of agency. Like to me it's patently obvious that when I'm playing Exalted where a starting character can start as a world class swordsman, have substantial connections in the setting, and may even have an army, and substantial divine blessings they have considerably more ability to enact their will upon the setting than a game where I play a fairly weak conscript who has little autonomy in the fiction. For purposes of this discussion assume similar GMing techniques apply.


----------



## Aldarc

I found a great essay (i.e., not just a press article) about player agency in video games. It speaks to a number of the issues we are presently discussing: What is Player Agency?  

For those interested, I recommend giving it a read. It also includes further linked articles and papers that people may find of interest.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Here's my perspective : Anytime I am engaged in a conversation with anyone I want to have a conversation with them about their specific experiences and perspective. Anyone who is not a part of the conversation is irrelevant up until the point the decide to speak up. It's also not particularly my job to advocate for anyone else's perspective. If they want to offer it they can and I will do my best to engage with and understand their perspective.
> 
> I'm not even really here to advocate for my perspective although I will freely offer it. I just want to have interesting conversations. At the end of the day I only really give a damn about how the other people play with feel about this stuff. That's the only time there are any real stakes involved. I'm not here to be an ambassador or engage in a debate. That's boring to me.
> 
> I am not a huge fan of normative language because in my experience it usually acts a shield wall against foreign perspectives. Often on these boards I see people get shut down and told their perspective is irrelevant because they play games in unusual or the games they like to play are niche so their perspective isn't worth engaging. It feels real bad being shut down like that.
> 
> I care about what @Bedrockgames has to say. Not what other people who are not in conversation have to say.




I think we have to be able to draw of our experience though and report that in these discussions (and the opinions of players in our circles and people in our communities are going to matter: they can even be an important reality check for the poster in question, me). 

Also I am not saying the niche perspectives are not worth engaging. My own style is niche, it isn't the norm. But within that niche, there is a norm of play. That norm doesn't create an ought, we are all free to move away from it for any reason, and there is no problem with doing so. But understanding that norm is important because it does inform how terms like agency get used in the broader community, and it does inform the assumptions some of us have going into this discussion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Because I don't think that is what agency is in an RPG.




Okay, so you reject my idea of agency and railroading. But you're the one whose ideas are being attacked? 

I hope you realize how this might be frustrating. 





Bedrockgames said:


> I just don't find being given narrative control, or the ability to set the play agenda as a form of agency. I've played games that allow it. I mentioned hill folk and had lots of fun generating off camera setting content through dialogue. It was highly immersive. I didn't feel it gave me agency though, because I guess it gelt like a 'cheat' in that respect. It felt like I was given narrative power, and for what the game was doing that narrative power was cool and fun. I am presently reading the Hillfolk rulebook and hoping to one day do either a straight up I Claudius Campaign with it, or run my roman game using it. I am not knocking this style at all. It just legitimately doesn't strike me as agency, and it isn't how I've used agency for all the years I've used and encountered the word in RPG gaming.




I'm not talking about narrative power so much as the player being able to introduce some goals or ideas to the fiction....especially ones connected to his character. "I'd like my character to found a school" or "I want to build a keep" or "I want to unify the shattered lands". These don't seem like narrative power so much as a player giving the GM a cue as to what they'd like to see come up in play. 

The GM is free to not allow these things to manifest. But then I don't see how you can claim that this supports player agency. It's paradoxical just from a definitional standpoint.



Bedrockgames said:


> To be clear on the scholar front, I responded in another post, but want to address it again here. In the setting I was running there was an imperial exam system based on the Song Dynasty and I was using my own game which has rules for advancing through the exams. Now I could have done rulings instead (asking for various checks), but I liked having concrete methods and I am pasting them below so you can see what I am talking about. But note, there would also be clear rules for the player conduction search. There are skills in the game that can be used to search and find clues, there are rules for traveling by ship etc. The brothers aliveness or deadness though would not be determined by any of those methods. That is a separate issue under the purview of the GM.




So you're saying yes? The character could have succeeded?



FrogReaver said:


> Understanding and recognizing that we tend to mean different things by the same word seems to be the starting point for any productive discussion.
> 
> Until all/most of the participants acknowledge the two different ways agency is used are both valid ways of using the word this discussion isn’t going to go beyond why we can’t use a word to mean what we are accustomed to having it mean.




Interesting. Please see the post I quoted above.



Bedrockgames said:


> But the goal, as phrased, isn't a viable one. In a sandbox, you can't set that kind of goal and have the expectation the GM will let that outcome unfold




Not the outcome. Just the idea. Just the journey. That there are ways to see this come up......like there were for the player whose character wanted to be a scholar. He ultimately failed, but there was a way for him to pursue that agenda. 

If all your scholar tests were impassable because you had some setting idea you wanted to preserve about how difficult it is to become a scholar, would you say that this impacted the player's agency? Would you have let the player know this? Or would you let him think it's possible, and then just watch as the character strove for it despite the fact that the conclusion was foregone?


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Here's something to consider : Do different sorts of fiction offer different amounts of agency. Like to me it's patently obvious that when I'm playing Exalted where a starting character can start as a world class swordsman, have substantial connections in the setting, and may even have an army, and substantial divine blessings they have considerably more ability to enact their will upon the setting than a game where I play a fairly weak conscript who has little autonomy in the fiction. For purposes of this discussion assume similar GMing techniques apply.



In my personal definition of agency that’s power. 

absolutely no power does translate into a lack of agency.

but one of the most important agency determiners is the question: can you cause important things to change?  And you can cause important things to change with no real power.

the way you have set up the conscripts situation he doesn’t sound like he has much agency.  But add a few details and that assessment could change.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@hawkeyefan but certainly 'your brother is dead' is a valid outcome of a journey of finding said brother? (And not automatically a dramatically unsatisfying one.)


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> I think we have to be able to draw of our experience though and report that in these discussions (and the opinions of players in our circles and people in our communities are going to matter: they can even be an important reality check for the poster in question, me).
> 
> Also I am not saying the niche perspectives are not worth engaging. My own style is niche, it isn't the norm. But within that niche, there is a norm of play. That norm doesn't create an ought, we are all free to move away from it for any reason, and there is no problem with doing so. But understanding that norm is important because it does inform how terms like agency get used in the broader community, and it does inform the assumptions some of us have going into this discussion.



It strikes me that if you had asked those in your circles and the answer had been total disagreement with you and agreement that the other definition is what they use that their inclusion in this discussion would have been welcomed with open arms. Can anyone say that’s wrong?


----------



## prabe

Campbell said:


> Here's something to consider : Do different sorts of fiction offer different amounts of agency. Like to me it's patently obvious that when I'm playing Exalted where a starting character can start as a world class swordsman, have substantial connections in the setting, and may even have an army, and substantial divine blessings they have considerably more ability to enact their will upon the setting than a game where I play a fairly weak conscript who has little autonomy in the fiction. For purposes of this discussion assume similar GMing techniques apply.



If the two characters are somehow in the same setting, I agree.

If one can somehow GM radically different settings (and probably stories) with the same techniques, that might not be the case. How much a given character can affect their setting is among other things going to depend on the capabilities of whatever opposition there is. How much a given character can affect their story is going to depend on the extent a given game/setting allows them to set their own goals. I don't know Exalted specifically, but my impression of White Wolf's games in general (based on not tons of play) was that there was frequently opposition more than capable of interfering with a given character (or party) and the published adventures and other supplements really, _really_ didn't allow for the characters to set their own goals (which, to be fair, is a problem with published adventures in general). That impression could have been mostly shaped by the table (note the singular) and should not be taken as impugning the games or those who play them.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> I’m not seeing how that’s different than the DM setting the dc of any other activity in the game?
> 
> mans if the PCs are doing something relevant to the outcome that is being taken into account.



In some ways it's not all that different, but if it's something happening offscreen it seems as though it's hard to say the players can reasonably expect to affect the outcome much--which isn't a dig at the approach/style at all: different tastes and table expectations and all-a-that.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> In some ways it's not all that different, but if it's something happening offscreen it seems as though it's hard to say the players can reasonably expect to affect the outcome much--which isn't a dig at the approach/style at all: different tastes and table expectations and all-a-that.



Players help faction X achieve goal x.  Faction X then gets into conflict with faction Y over z that is offscreen.  Often that faction X was able to achieve a goal they wouldn’t have achieved is factored in to the “DC” to resolve that factions conflict.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> Here's something to consider : Do different sorts of fiction offer different amounts of agency. Like to me it's patently obvious that when I'm playing Exalted where a starting character can start as a world class swordsman, have substantial connections in the setting, and may even have an army, and substantial divine blessings they have considerably more ability to enact their will upon the setting than a game where I play a fairly weak conscript who has little autonomy in the fiction. For purposes of this discussion assume similar GMing techniques apply.



Good question. In a certain sense yes, but then again it also depends on the scope of the game. Like if the game just focuses on the fate of one village or the personal relationships of a bunch of people over a summer in a country mansion, then being able to affect those things is what matters.

But I think the Exalted games I've ran tended to have higher player agency than my D&D games, as the characters simply had more ways to affect the setting (though high level D&D character tend to gain similar power.) I think Exalted and typical D&D have kind of similar scope in a sense that in both there tends to be a big open world with a ton of powerful magical creatures and beings, but in Exalted you start at much higher in the pecking order. I think my Dragon-Blooded campaign had pretty high level of player agency, higher than my Celestial Exalt campaign or the D&D 4e/Fate (yes, it was converted to Fate at some point!) game I was playing in where the characters became gods.

And yes, the Dragon-Blooded had less magical mojo than the Celestial exalts, but they had political power and freedom to move around in the setting. That definitely helped the players to express their agency, but I think what actually contributed even more was the lack of overarching 'main plot.' There was not some colossal 'the fate of the world depends on you' type of main story in that campaign, that I find is pretty common in games with powerful characters (both my Celestial exalted game and the D&D/Fate game I was playing in had such.) That is something that I've actually grown quite tired of (it is overused in other media too) as it warps everything to be about that one thing and actually massively limits what the characters can plausibly do. (Sorry, I kinda wandered past your original question...)


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> Players help faction X achieve goal x.  Faction X then gets into conflict with faction Y over z that is offscreen.  Often that faction X was able to achieve a goal they wouldn’t have achieved is factored in to the “DC” to resolve that factions conflict.



I'm pretty sure @Bedrockgames was talking about determining the results procedurally, without as much player input as you seem to be implying. I'm willing to be corrected, though.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm not talking about narrative power so much as the player being able to introduce some goals or ideas to the fiction....especially ones connected to his character. "I'd like my character to found a school" or "I want to build a keep" or "I want to unify the shattered lands". These don't seem like narrative power so much as a player giving the GM a cue as to what they'd like to see come up in play.
> 
> The GM is free to not allow these things to manifest. But then I don't see how you can claim that this supports player agency. It's paradoxical just from a definitional standpoint.




Because you are setting outcomes with those goals. In a sandbox, you don't get to set the outcome. You can have your goal being to establish a school. How it pans out will be a combination of what you legitimately achieve in the setting through your character, randomness, and the GM. The GM in a sandbox isn't going to unilaterally stifle that goal, but he is in charge of things like whether keeps actually exist in the setting, and whether kinds of opportunities you might find in the setting for starting a school. You are free to train in martial arts, develop and find your techniques, then try to find students to form a school around (and I think in most of my sandboxes, that would have a pretty good chance of resulting in you starting a school, provided you weren't puking all over yourself the whole time or something). But I get the sense you are coming at this more from a perspective of 'here is the drama I want to explore in the campaign', and that simply isn't how sandboxes tend to work in terms of agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, so you reject my idea of agency and railroading. But you're the one whose ideas are being attacked?
> 
> I hope you realize how this might be frustrating.




Well it seems that my idea of agency is being rejected so I don't know what to say. I am basically trying to take the same position Frogreaver takes here: there are clearly multiple views on agency in this thread (though I would maintain the one I am expressing is the view I have pretty much the only use I have encountered around the term in RPGs---and I do think that is important). But I get there can be other conceptions of agency


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> Just offering my perspective on things here. I would like us to get to the point where we can have a more productive discussion, but I'm not entirely sure it is possible. I would like to get to the place where we can just talk about our personal experiences and stuff. Like how discussion was on Story Games instead of the debate club / definition wars that are happening in this thread.




I agree. I'll be moving on, I think we've all beat that dead horse enough. 



Campbell said:


> Here's something to consider : Do different sorts of fiction offer different amounts of agency. Like to me it's patently obvious that when I'm playing Exalted where a starting character can start as a world class swordsman, have substantial connections in the setting, and may even have an army, and substantial divine blessings they have considerably more ability to enact their will upon the setting than a game where I play a fairly weak conscript who has little autonomy in the fiction. For purposes of this discussion assume similar GMing techniques apply.




That's an interesting question. I feel like it depends on the game in question, to an extent. 

Like, when we sit down at the table, are we all agreeing to play these demigod characters or conscripts, or will it be some mix? I know you said GMing techniques would be the same, but what about the expectations of what a character will be and will be able to do? 

Generally speaking, I can see how the demigod character has resources that the player can use to open up avenues of play that would not exist for the conscript, and therefore the player of the conscript. But I'd also expect that these are choices involving the players and that they are free to choose what kind of character to play if more than one was available.

But I also think it's just a heightened scale, right? Is the demigod constrained by higher powers and such similar to what the conscript may be by more mundane or immediate means? 

It probably boils down to how it's GMed. And if we're assuming principled GMing applied to both characters, then I'd likely say that there is still the same amount of agency going on.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Crimson Longinus said:


> @hawkeyefan but certainly 'your brother is dead' is a valid outcome of a journey of finding said brother? (And not automatically a dramatically unsatisfying one.)




Yes, absolutely. Compare it to the character who tried but failed to become a scholar in Bedrock's other game. I have plenty of examples from my own games where the thrust of play was about some personal goal and the PC ultimately didn't realize their goal, or didn't realize it in the way they had hoped to. 

For me, agency is what allows the player to examine that idea and to play to find out what the result is, and to put the resolution of it in the player's hands.



Bedrockgames said:


> Because you are setting outcomes with those goals. In a sandbox, you don't get to set the outcome.




A goal is an outcome of a sort, no? It's the preferred outcome. Also, I don't think that saying "My PC is looking for his brother" is setting an outcome, is it? I mean, sure, maybe we can assume he'd like to find him safe and sound or whatever, but I expect that if that was hastily narrated it would be just as dissatisfying as "He's dead".

But let me clarify this and then I think we can both move on.....I'm not asking for the result to be predetermined. Not by the GM and not by the player either. I think agency means that I can set goals for my PC and the realization of those goals, or the failure to do so, is largely up to me. Not in a "player decides" or narrative power way.....but that my character has the means to carry it out and that the result is determined through play. 

Can I find my brother? Can I become an imperial scholar? Can I achieve? Shouldn't it be up to me? Again, not from some narrative power to say "Yup, my wish is granted" but rather that it's the character who actually achieves....it's the player who actually achieves. 

GM deciding by fiat can totally undermine that.




Bedrockgames said:


> Well it seems that my idea of agency is being rejected so I don't know what to say. I am basically trying to take the same position Frogreaver takes here: there are clearly multiple views on agency in this thread (though I would maintain the one I am expressing is the view I have pretty much the only use I have encountered around the term in RPGs---and I do think that is important). But I get there can be other conceptions of agency




As you said, we have different takes on agency. It's well established, and we've exhausted any possible avenues of discussion I'd say.


----------



## Manbearcat

Anyone who feels like they run a "True Sandbox", I'm curious in what ways their system is differentiated from the Expert Set and Dungeon World (Perilous Wilds in particular) in terms of wilderness travel.  

*WILDERNESS PLAY LOOP* 

The Expert Set's wilderness play loop tries to just scale up Moldvay Basic's play loop up from "The Exploration Turn" to "The Day's Travel."  Its neither particularly satisfying nor wieldy.  Frame situation in 6 mile hex > PCs use established marching order and pick direction/course for 1 day's worth travel > check for Lost > check for Wandering Monsters and go to Encounter procedures if it hits > End Travel (Camp/Keep Watch and Rest).  There are a lot of things that are fuzzy and not terribly well integrated...leaving the GM to sort it out/balance (except for things like Foraging...you cannot Forage, there is hard cap on rations for your trek...but its left to the GM what the fallout for ration spoilation/loss and attendant exposure would be and how that would manifest mechanically).

_Dungeon World_ (and _Perilous Wilds _specifically) mechanizes this loop with _Undertake a Perilous Journey_.  Its a million times better than the Expert Loop in every way possible (framing being infinitely better integrated in subsequent decision-points, decision-points are "meatier" and more consequential, the action in a day is many times more dynamic with more interesting fallout.  Consult where you are on the map and where you want to go > Confirm course to get there and how far you can get in a day > Pick Scout, Navigator, Quartermaster and make Scout Ahead move > Resolve any related Dangers or Discoveries encountered along the way > Make Navigator move > Resolve any related Dangers or Discoveries > Either/both of these moves can snowball into other problems > Make Camp Move = QM makes Manage Provisions Move and resolve Rations and any soft/hard move + one person on watch rolls +nothing for night event > if Danger resolve Stay Sharp move and then resolve Danger.

Unlike Expert, you can make a move where you spend a day attempting to Forage/Hunt (assuming all of the related risk and possibly profiting).

The Dungeon World approach is very different in several ways.  It integrates a lot of gamestate/fiction-relevant decision-points + resource pressures (Encumbrance/Coin + Rations and exposure fallout along several axes - HP, Debilities, loss of/threat to Rest/Gear/Spells/Hirelings or Companions, hard Complications on fictional positioning - "you can't see/walk/use your left arm").

1)  How do your games handle the wilderness play loop (time, space, movement, source(s) of pressure, encumbrance, resources)?

2)  How does it make decision-points meaningful:


with inferable immediate and possible downstream impacts (gamestate changes and their attendant fiction)
with interesting and dynamic tactical/strategic overhead
when and how are PCs threatened/pressured and how does that manifest mechanically?

3)  Do you feel all of this is well-integrated such that your wilderness play loops result in a reliably satisfying, thematically-coherent experience?  If not, where do you feel the problems lie?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, absolutely. Compare it to the character who tried but failed to become a scholar in Bedrock's other game. I have plenty of examples from my own games where the thrust of play was about some personal goal and the PC ultimately didn't realize their goal, or didn't realize it in the way they had hoped to.





All I can say is this is how it is likely to arise in a sandbox. The player says I am going to start looking for my long lost brother, we are going to head to Dee to see if the Holy Killers can help me find where he might be. At this point, presumably it is the first this idea was introduced, the GM if he hasn't says okay and manages the trip to Dee (rolling for encounters, asking what route the players take if that is relevant, etc), then, if he hasn't done so yet in the campaign, starts thinking and deciding things like where the brother was, what he was doing, what he achieved, what his goals were, what developments occurred, if he is still alive. The player is totally free to make this search. But the GM should know, I would expect him to know, at that point if the brother is alive or dead (and the player will learn that outcome when he naturally gets that information in the setting). So say he decides the brother is dead. The Holy Killers might say he went to the Kushen Basin to see Vaagu (or if they have the information, they may tell him right there, he went to Vaagu and was killed by the Kushen. This could be a relatively short info gathering thing in Dee, or it could be a longer venture into the Kushen basin. Depends on what the Holy Killers know (and without looking up my entry on the holy killers, I can't say what their capabilities in that regard might be off the top of my head)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, absolutely. Compare it to the character who tried but failed to become a scholar in Bedrock's other game. I have plenty of examples from my own games where the thrust of play was about some personal goal and the PC ultimately didn't realize their goal, or didn't realize it in the way they had hoped to.




Just to be clear, this wasn't the thrust of the campaign. It was simply something that occurred over the course of the campaign amid many other things


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Well, in a style like this, there are lots of things the GM knows in advance. He doesn't know what is going to happen though. He just knows that the brother is dead. Maybe when the player gets their he tries to resurrect him. Or maybe the player character goes on a murderous rampage after. There are all kinds of places that could lead, that the GM does not know. But you are right he knows that a successful search for the brother would yield knowledge of his death.
> 
> By your description of the PbtA approach, it sounds like the setting detail (the brother being alive or dead) is being baked into the player setting that as a goal for the relevant check. If that is how things are done in PbtA, that is fine. People are happy who play those games. My point is, in a sandbox, framing this way, is setting up the outcome, and something you wouldn't do. In most sandbox games a player saying he or she wants to look for their brother isn't going to be distilled into one roll or action. It would like be a number of efforts at tracking down rumors, clues, etc. And there would simply be no assurance that he is alive at the end of that (nor would most people in a sandbox consider an outcome where he is dead as futile (if anything they might be suspicious that it sounds overly dramatic, especially if it involves any of the details you mention above, but I like drama in my sandbox). Also this is just one possible outcome. What makes it exciting is it is an unknown on the player side. One possibility is he is dead. Another possibility is he is alive and waiting there to meet his brother again. Another is he is alive but filled with resentment towards his brother. Or we could even take a page from Death Duel and have him find a coffin upon ending his search, only to later discover his brother faked his own death and has been living wretched existence as nameless wanderer later on. There are all kinds of potential outcomes to "I go look for my long lost brother" in a sandbox. But as a player in that kind of campaign, I don't expect to shape the outcome. I get in other styles of play, and in some RPGs, the expectation is different, and that is fair (and maybe there is an OSR adjacent sandbox style that does that as a lot of the PbtA fans seem to be interested in Old School stuff recently). All those styles are fine by me. But what I am describing is the more OSR rooted, sandbox and living world approach. In this, I really do think the brothers status as alive or dead, would be something that players would expect the GM to decide, and they wouldn't see that decision as infringing on their agency.



In PbtA (and other similar systems) players get to set goals, yes. The goals must be coherent with existing established fiction, genre, etc., although there isn't really a specific process for other game participants to reject what they consider inappropriate/contradictory (presumably this would rely on table etiquette and such, but I have never seen it be a big issue in play). In PbtA SPECIFICALLY, the actual player inputs are fairly indirect, players don't really get to simply say "such and such is so." Going by Dungeon World, which I know far better than the others, there are something like the following avenues for player setting input:
1. GM questions - the GM is directed to 'ask questions' as a general technique of play, but especially at the start of a new campaign. This is fairly loose, but it implies that the players will inject certain fiction into the game at this point; IE if a player asks where his PC might come from, the GM would turn the question back to the player to answer, so the player might thus establish the existence of a 'Steading' within the setting. 
2. Bonds - players write bonds for their PCs, both at the start of the game and on an ongoing basis. These establish relationships, which could in turn establish fiction to an extent, though these bonds are rarely over one sentence in length, and usually declarative.
3. Spout Lore - this move causes the GM to tell the player something his PC knows on a given topic. The GM may be constrained to make this information 'useful' and 'relevant to the situation' on a 10+. Creative use of this move can constrain the GM pretty heavily, but GMs can also respond to the PC's move with a move of their own! So it tends to be a pretty limited avenue for player injection of lore.
4. Discern Realities - Like Spout Lore this can be used cleverly by players to, at least, induce the GM to elaborate on a given location. Again the GM can respond with a move.
5. General Fiction - PbtA games in general are 'fiction first'. While players don't have license to simply invent any old thing, they can develop fiction by means of action declarations. For example a player might state that he is attempting to "Push the Orc off the slippery rock." and thus establish the rock's slipperiness, or perhaps even establish what the floor is made of. The GM might counter this kind of thing with something like a Reveal an Unpleasant Truth, move "Oh, that rock wasn't as slippery as you thought!" although this would normally be in response to a 6- on whatever the check was to do the pushing it could simply be a response to something that seems out of line in terms of the existing fiction.

Notice that none of these absolutely gives a Player carte blanche to establish fiction, at least not without the active cooperation of the GM. The GM's agenda and principles of play do, however, indicate that the GM needs to give the players a good bit of leeway.

I would note that, in other respects, DW has some 'sandbox like' features, in that the GM establishes 'fronts' (major elements of meta-plot). These would include 'dangers' and also 'omens' which certainly can work in a very 'sandbox like' way. That is they can simply be things which lie in wait for players to interact with them, and hints as to these things existence, which is pretty stock sandbox fare. While the GM is supposed to have 'holes' in her maps in order to accommodate players development of fiction, said maps could well be pretty extensive too. So, the approach to the established fiction will dictate the style of play to an extent. 

DW, at least, is less about the players getting to establish facts about the world as it is about directing play into paths which engage with fiction that is related to what the players would like their characters to experience. So, for example, the "your brother is dead" thing probably wouldn't happen in DW because the GM is a 'fan of the players' and his job is to keep giving them material where they can both shine, and get into deeper trouble than they are already in. Thus killing off an avenue of development in those directions would usually be contrary to the GM's defined agenda. Of course it might still come out in play as an outcome, but in that case the action would move on to a more interesting/challenging/dangerous stage (IE maybe you now have to travel to the land of the dead to get your brother back!).


----------



## Fenris-77

I use _Into the Wyrd and Wild_ as the base for my OSR Wilderness rules. It uses a roles and camp loop that is broadly similar to the DW one, and puts resource management front and center by calling for regular consumption connected to a light but effective exhaustion mechanic, which I have looped into a bespoke rest mechanic generally. I'm using it in a system that has *Usage Dice* to track consumables, rather than counting individual portions, but it would work fine with either. I'm still ironing out the kinks, but on the whole I'm quite happy with it.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> I must be missing something here - how is disliking magic item wish lists a dick move?
> 
> Or does the dick-move part lie in not fulfilling the player's adventure request?  If done maliciously, I could see the dick part of it, but if the DM has set up a string of desert-based adventures and a player asks for something in the arctic, the player at best is going to have to wait.  Even more so, perhaps, if other players have asked for undersea, jungle, and mountain adventuring after the desert bit is done.
> 
> That said, switching up the environment now and then is always a good idea.  Desert, arctic, swamp, underground, mountain, jungle, maritime, forest - it's nice to vary it up some.  My problem always lies in how to do this without either a) giving the PCs easy access to fast long-range travel or b) blipping them somewhere by fiat or c) having them spend potentially months of in-game time trudging from one place to another.
> 
> The reason c) is a problem for me is that if a party decides to spend months in transit I pretty much have to put them on hold while we play out what the other active parties in the game world get up to during that time.



I think there's an element here of just basic "how do we agree on the milieu?" If the game is a fairly limited magic kind of D&D setting (IE lower/mid-level D&D) then establishing the action in the desert probably precludes the other options from coming up, or at least constrains their appearance. If a player is complaining, after it was thoroughly established and agreed, on the desert being the primary location, that his Arctic Barbarian PC wants to 'head north' and the heck with other threads of the story, then something has gone amiss. Some of the things you mention might be possible fixes, but I would avoid the problem at the start, if possible.

I don't think your c) is actually a problem. Gygax discussed this in 1e DMG, and that seemed cogent. That is, such a trek can be played out at once and then simply represents the time commitment for those characters. If there's some obvious point of intersection with other PCs that must be played out, then perhaps those PCs also need to be advanced to the point in time in question. Of course this is all very much considering a fairly rigid Gygaxian Troupe Play kind of situation. IME few games are run that way nowadays. Even if there might be some limited form of it in one of my games, it would be pretty limited, and problems aren't likely to arise. Obviously in your case the players may find at some point they want/need to go run other characters for a while, but that is the price of playing in that style.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, in this mode of play, the player simply isn't assumed to be able to set an agenda that extensive into the setting. You can certainly have the agenda of wanting to find your brother, but what is going on with your brother is under the purview of the GM. Obviously in a game where that isn't a case, it might be a dick move if the player is expected to have that sort of agenda. Why people can't even entertain the thought of this, and see how for lots of people operating under this style of play, it isn't at all a dick move, I really can't understand.



I don't see how this is a useful response to my statement. How is it not a 'dick move' for the GM to state, after however many sessions of searching, that all you found was your brother's parched bones and he was dead 10 years? The GM has complete freedom to NOT DO THAT, so what would motivate that behavior? By what theory of play would it be a better move than something more interesting? It simply doesn't hold water. Even in the most old-school forms of play this is really not good DMing. Again, there's simply no reason for it, except a) a GM so utterly rigid in their conceptions that they can't slightly adjust some piece of lore that might imply this result (or just add some additional confounding factor to change its outcome) or b) a GM who is actively interested in quashing even the smallest show of initiative and independence on the part of a player. Neither of these are redeeming features of a DM...


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Except we are talking about different areas of the gaming community. There is an OSR and sandbox community. And yes that varies. But I think you can speak generally. Normally I would be only focused on my own style. But when you have a whole thread of posters attacking you because you think a GM deciding the brother is dead would be okay in a sandbox, it is relevant to share your view on what the norm among sandbox players seems to be. Now I could be wrong about that norm. It is always possible to be wrong. But I don't think I am, and I think at the very least, this is a style you see frequently among sandbox players, if not most of the time. That doesn't make it more right as a sandbox. But it does mean, people familiar with sandbox wouldn't be as shocked or surprised by my assertion as the posters here are (and again, I think that is relevant).



Well... 
My answer is, I don't think even YOU actually believe it would be the norm, if you think about it objectively for a few minutes. 

What I'm saying is, you probably wouldn't declare the brother pointlessly dead. I think you demonstrate a very significant amount of experience and understanding of how people want games to play out, and if this was literally happening on your table, you would be very unlikely to just present the situation as a dead end like this. I think you'd come up with something, just like you'd probably come up with something if the PCs decided to just head west off the edge of your sandbox map, right? It is really basically the same sort of thing, you would not (most likely) erect a 10 mile high wooden barrier at the west edge of your map! 

So is it really the norm for anyone to play that way? (well, sure, it is probably for someone somewhere, but IMHO they have a short career as a GM ahead of them).


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well...
> My answer is, I don't think even YOU actually believe it would be the norm, if you think about it objectively for a few minutes.
> 
> What I'm saying is, you probably wouldn't declare the brother pointlessly dead. I think you demonstrate a very significant amount of experience and understanding of how people want games to play out, and if this was literally happening on your table, you would be very unlikely to just present the situation as a dead end like this. I think you'd come up with something, just like you'd probably come up with something if the PCs decided to just head west off the edge of your sandbox map, right? It is really basically the same sort of thing, you would not (most likely) erect a 10 mile high wooden barrier at the west edge of your map!
> 
> So is it really the norm for anyone to play that way? (well, sure, it is probably for someone somewhere, but IMHO they have a short career as a GM ahead of them).




I really don't know how much more clear I can be: I wouldn't see making the brother a dead end in this case. I would follow the reaction that I gave in my earlier post about the Kushen Basin (see my response just a couple of posts ago). No one is saying it can't go anywhere. I am just saying in this playstyle it would be considered unreasonable for the player to demand that he get to have some kind of drama with brother down the live. The brother is an NPC just like any other, and while he could go searching for him, in an effort to create a sense of a real world, the GM is going to come to some decisions about what has happened to the brother since they last saw one another. And the possibility that he died is one such thing (now the player is free to investigate that death, go get revenge, spend months erecting a moment....whatever the player wants to do. This is really is not all that unusual, nor is it unreasonable, and it doesn't put a dead end in the campaign. To me it sounds like what is going on, is there is an expectation of exploring a certain character arc. Like I said, if this were my savage worlds group, I would totally do that. But for the sandbox, that just isn't how it would be done.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't see how this is a useful response to my statement. How is it not a 'dick move' for the GM to state, after however many sessions of searching, that all you found was your brother's parched bones and he was dead 10 years? The GM has complete freedom to NOT DO THAT, so what would motivate that behavior? By what theory of play would it be a better move than something more interesting? It simply doesn't hold water. Even in the most old-school forms of play this is really not good DMing. Again, there's simply no reason for it, except a) a GM so utterly rigid in their conceptions that they can't slightly adjust some piece of lore that might imply this result (or just add some additional confounding factor to change its outcome) or b) a GM who is actively interested in quashing even the smallest show of initiative and independence on the part of a player. Neither of these are redeeming features of a DM...




I am sorry but we just disagree. I don't see why this is such a difficult thing for people to get. I literally just got off the phone with a player of mine and asked him if finding his brother's corpse in the kushen basin (in the scenario described) would be an issue for him, he said no. And one of his reasons was it gives him a sense of a real world, with real events going on outside his character if things that can happen to anyone, can also happen to his brother. He also said it would give him something new to focus on. This is pretty much the reaction I would expect from most of my sandbox players. 

Again, I am not saying this would be the outcome everytime. But it is a possible outcome, and there is nothing about it that doesn't hold water. Play with some old school groups and you will see this. I really don't see why this is so hard to believe. I mean, if you don't want to belive me fine. There are all kinds of ways to have fun playing the game and this is just one. 

Also the GM is quashing anything. The player went in search of his brother and the GM honored that by figuring out what happened to the brother, where he is, etc. If this happened to me, I wouldn't feel quashed at all. I would just start looking into what happened, and how my brother died.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> I am sorry but we just disagree. I don't see why this is such a difficult thing for people to get. I literally just got off the phone with a player of mine and asked him if finding his brother's corpse in the kushen basin (in the scenario described) would be an issue for him, he said no. And one of his reasons was it gives him a sense of a real world, with real events going on outside his character if things that can happen to anyone, can also happen to his brother. He also said it would give him something new to focus on. This is pretty much the reaction I would expect from most of my sandbox players.
> 
> Again, I am not saying this would be the outcome everytime. But it is a possible outcome, and there is nothing about it that doesn't hold water. Play with some old school groups and you will see this. I really don't see why this is so hard to believe. I mean, if you don't want to belive me fine. There are all kinds of ways to have fun playing the game and this is just one.
> 
> Also the GM is quashing anything. The player went in search of his brother and the GM honored that by figuring out what happened to the brother, where he is, etc. If this happened to me, I wouldn't feel quashed at all. I would just start looking into what happened, and how my brother died.



To me, the question ultimately comes back to, why did the player agree to play in a campaign using a playstyle that allows for the possibility of their brother being dead with them having no say in the matter?  If the player agreed to that then the DM isn't doing anything bad for playing by the rules the player agreed to.


----------



## FrogReaver

Anyways, getting back to agency.  I think it might be fair to say that what I mean by agency is a subset of agency as defined by the other sides terms.  Anyone want to take a crack at defining what Bedrock and I mean by agency using your terms?


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think you demonstrate a very significant amount of experience and understanding of how people want games to play out,




The issue is in a sandbox you are very much playing to discover the world and discover what happens. It would be counter to the style of play for the players say the campaign needs to be about finding the brother, with the baked in assumption that the brother ought to be a live. You can certainly have more focused sandboxes, but even those are tricky given the spirit of sandbox (for example I am working on a campaign book that focuses on the criminals in a prefecture of the empire. Some groups have been more than happy to play there, and remain criminals. One group went off and became heroes due to a dramatic development. But some just decided to go off map and do other things. If you are really playing an open sandbox, living world type game, things are going to go in unexpected directions, developments that in another campaign might look like a storyline, could suddenly stop due to a host of factors (character death, bad rolls, GM decisions about what an NPC does, etc). And for clarity I do call my campaigns Drama and Sandbox, but even in those, the player wouldn't be expected to set an expectation like the one with the brother.  

If I declared him dead, would he be pointlessly dead? I don't think so. Things happen in a setting, that doesn't make them pointless. Now that I am thinking about it and not simply reacting to the example that was offered, I would say it is actually probably more dramatic than finding him alive. I wouldn't expect a player to just shrug his shoulders at that discovery, turn around and go home.


----------



## hawkeyefan

I believe that character autonomy was offered earlier in the thread. It seems accurate to me.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> All I can say is this is how it is likely to arise in a sandbox.



It's what is likely to arise in _your_ sandbox games. You have repeated many times that there are different varieties of sandbox games out there, but then you fallback to generalized language that makes it sound like your preferences or tendencies are universal ones for running sandboxes. But that's clearly not the case. There are people in this thread who likewise run sandbox games who have been pushing back against what you have been saying or how you run them. So maybe not act like it's universal or one true way to run a sandbox. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I am sorry but we just disagree. I don't see why this is such a difficult thing for people to get. I literally just got off the phone with a player of mine and asked him if finding his brother's corpse in the kushen basin (in the scenario described) would be an issue for him, he said no. And one of his reasons was it gives him a sense of a real world, with real events going on outside his character if things that can happen to anyone, can also happen to his brother. He also said it would give him something new to focus on. This is pretty much the reaction I would expect from most of my sandbox players.



We get it. I think by this point we are super gosh darn aware that there are people out there for whom this wouldn't be a problem, like your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate, especially when you repeatedly use normative language like "norm" and "traditional." Give us a little more credit here and stop treating us as idiots who don't get your point just because we may not agree with it. 



Bedrockgames said:


> I really don't see why this is so hard to believe. I mean, if you don't want to belive me fine. There are all kinds of ways to have fun playing the game and this is just one.



You are framing this as a matter of whether we believe you or not. I don't think that's the appropriate framing here for the pushback your are receiving. 



Bedrockgames said:


> Also the GM is quashing anything. The player went in search of his brother and the GM honored that by figuring out what happened to the brother, where he is, etc. If this happened to me, I wouldn't feel quashed at all. I would just start looking into what happened, and how my brother died.



Okay? But everyone obviously does not share your sentiments, and those people would like you to understand why it invalidates their sense of play. Capeesh?


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> To me, the question ultimately comes back to, why did the player agree to play in a campaign using a playstyle that allows for the possibility of their brother being dead with them having no say in the matter?  If the player agreed to that then the DM isn't doing anything bad for playing by the rules the player agreed to.




This is it exactly. I have said in response to peoples posts that I play other ways too. I mentioned the savage worlds games, which often are more open to entertaining a character arc a player has expressed (and that seems to fit okay with savage worlds in general for some reason). But if we are playing  a sandbox, which is what I am offering in this case, it would be odd for a player to walk in with this expectation (and as a general rule, while I do think of myself as flexible to the players at the table, if you have just one player who wants something, and the rest are there to engage sandbox on  its own terms, you would have to weigh the pros of catering to that one player with the con of it taking away from the sandbox experience the other players are after). My sense, is in a functional group, the odd person out is usually willing to adapt. If it is a major problem we can certainly talk about it. I am not going to be a jerk to another human over a game. But it may be I have to draw a line in the sand in a respectful way if the request seems disruptive.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> It's what is likely to arise in _your_ sandbox games. You have repeated many times that there are different varieties of sandbox games out there, but then you fallback to generalized language that makes it sound like your preferences or tendencies are universal ones for running sandboxes. But that's clearly not the case. There are people in this thread who likewise run sandbox games who have been pushing back against what you have been saying or how you run them. So maybe not act like it's universal or one true way to run a sandbox.



I am trying to describe the general sandbox sensibilities as accurately as I can. I am not going to describe it less accurately because there are people on the thread who play sandbox but don't match what I see generally in the OSR sandbox community. That said, there are plenty of types of sandboxes. But so fair, with the exception of the people who agree with me in this thread, many of the posters favoring sandboxes seem to be coming from a much different perspective (which is one that may have its own norms, but I can't really speak to, as I am not deep into the PbtA community).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> We get it. I think by this point we are super gosh darn aware that there are people out there for whom this wouldn't be a problem, like your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate, especially when you repeatedly use normative language like "norm" and "traditional." Give us a little more credit here and stop treating us as idiots who don't get your point just because we may not agree with it.




Then I don't understand why there is constant argument over my posts. I am really not getting the reaction here. And I am not treating anyone like idiots. I am going to great lengths to explain my position, including linking to and quoting large sections of text from games I have written so people can understand the point of view I am trying to convey (and the latter is something I generally don't like doing in contentious threads, so I am trying to show good faith by transparently sharing gaming material).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> You are framing this as a matter of whether we believe you or not. I don't think that's the appropriate framing here for the pushback your are receiving.




I was literally responding to a poster who said he doesn't believe me. Not only that, he said he doesn't believe that I believe what I am saying. How else am I suppose to frame it?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Okay? But everyone obviously does not share your sentiments, and those people would like you to understand why it invalidates their sense of play. Capeesh?




How is what I do at my table and how I conceive of agency invalidating what they do (especially when I have said repeatedly, if you want to do that, by all means do so----I even told Pemerton I don't think he'd enjoy the kinds of games I am playing). Read through my posts again, you will see I am acknowledging other ways to play. All I am doing is saying in a sandbox, having the brother die would be totally valid and wouldn't be a violation of agency. That is all. In a PbtA game run by permerton, that might be a violation of agency. In which case, don't do that in a PbtA game run by permerton. Play how you want. Heck I've even said there are games where I would do exactly what Pemerton is advocating (like the Savage Worlds campaign). My points are strictly about a style of sandbox that is trying to maximize the sense of agency I am discussing.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Anyways, getting back to agency.  I think it might be fair to say that what I mean by agency is a subset of agency as defined by the other sides terms.  Anyone want to take a crack at defining what Bedrock and I mean by agency using your terms?




Call it sandbox agency


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> It's what is likely to arise in _your_ sandbox games. You have repeated many times that there are different varieties of sandbox games out there, but then you fallback to generalized language that makes it sound like your preferences or tendencies are universal ones for running sandboxes. But that's clearly not the case. There are people in this thread who likewise run sandbox games who have been pushing back against what you have been saying or how you run them. So maybe not act like it's universal or one true way to run a sandbox.



It's weird that's the sense you get from his comments.  Because I find he's been very clear that there are other ways of running sandboxes out there.  



Aldarc said:


> We get it. I think by this point we are super gosh darn aware that there are people out there for whom this wouldn't be a problem, like your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate, especially when you repeatedly use normative language like "norm" and "traditional." Give us a little more credit here and stop treating us as idiots who don't get your point just because we may not agree with it.



Which part specifically do you disagree with?  That sandboxes can run that way?  That running them that way doesn't make one a dick or bad DM?  That in his communities that is the norm for running a sandbox?  I'd love to know.  



Aldarc said:


> You are framing this as a matter of whether we believe you or not. I don't think that's the appropriate framing here for the pushback your are receiving.



From my perspective, He's telling you that some sandbox games are ran this way and you are essentially saying, "i disagree because I don't like that way of running them".



Aldarc said:


> Okay? But everyone obviously does not share your sentiments, and those people would like you to understand why it invalidates their sense of play. Capeesh?



Can I use this line when I'm trying to explain why the kind of agency you care about invalidates the kind I care about?


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Call it sandbox agency



I think your definition of agency goes beyond sandboxes to some degree.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> How is what I do at my table and how I conceive of agency invalidating what they do (especially when I have said repeatedly, if you want to do that, by all means do so----I even told Pemerton I don't think he'd enjoy the kinds of games I am playing). Read through my posts again, you will see I am acknowledging other ways to play. All I am doing is saying in a sandbox, having the brother die would be totally valid and wouldn't be a violation of agency. That is all. In a PbtA game run by permerton, that might be a violation of agency. In which case, don't do that in a PbtA game run by permerton. Play how you want. Heck I've even said there are games where I would do exactly what Pemerton is advocating (like the Savage Worlds campaign). My points are strictly about a style of sandbox that is trying to maximize the sense of agency I am discussing.



I think some of the issue is that Pbta and other games may be considered a style of sandbox by them, where you probably wouldn't consider them sandboxes at all.  I understand you to be talking about traditional (no one ever did come up with a better term) living world style sandboxes.  

I think you made fairly clear you were going to use your language and terms to describe things - so if you don't define their games as sandboxes then referring to your games as sandboxes and there's as not sandboxes makes sense.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I believe that character autonomy was offered earlier in the thread. It seems accurate to me.



But Autonomy has nothing to do with being able to change important things in the fiction...

So I think your autonomy only covers part of what we mean by agency.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think some of the issue is that Pbta and other games may be considered a style of sandbox by them, where you probably wouldn't consider them sandboxes at all.  I understand you to be talking about traditional (no one ever did come up with a better term) living world style sandboxes.
> 
> I think you made fairly clear you were going to use your language and terms to describe things - so if you don't define their games as sandboxes then referring to your games as sandboxes and there's as not sandboxes makes sense.




Not at all. I am happy to expand the meaning of sandbox. I did it myself with Drama+Sandbox. I think sandboxes often get a reputation for being hard to run, and not everyone's cup of tea. So any effort to expand interest, is cool. If people have a variant approach that still feels sandboxy but works for gamers for whom pure sandboxes haven't been great fun, I say go for it and call it a sandbox. I would definitely say make distinctions though because without them these labels become meaningful and fall into disuse. So call it what you want (A Sandbox World, or a World Sandbox, new school sandbox, philosophical sandbox, protagonist sandbox, or whatever language detones the area of the hobby you feel you belong to). But when I've been saying sandbox on its own, I've generally meant a traditional sandbox.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think some of the issue is that Pbta and other games may be considered a style of sandbox by them, where you probably wouldn't consider them sandboxes at all.  I understand you to be talking about traditional (no one ever did come up with a better term) living world style sandboxes.




I started noticing PbTA players taking an interest in OSR style gaming a few years ago talking to people at Story-games.com (I posted there when it was active). I thought that was cool. I sometimes disagreed with posters about what OSR stuff meant, because we were coming from different paths and points of view. But I think it is great for people to have open engagement over styles. One of the reasons I used to post there in fact, was because I got push back, and sometimes push back is helpful if your ideas are being formed in a room of people who all agree with you. I will say though, I did notice people at that site had wildly different ideas from me about what the OSR meant, or what some of its principles meant or were.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Not at all. I am happy to expand the meaning of sandbox. I did it myself with Drama+Sandbox. I think sandboxes often get a reputation for being hard to run, and not everyone's cup of tea. So any effort to expand interest, is cool. If people have a variant approach that still feels sandboxy but works for gamers for whom pure sandboxes haven't been great fun, I say go for it and call it a sandbox. I would definitely say make distinctions though because without them these labels become meaningful and fall into disuse. So call it what you want (A Sandbox World, or a World Sandbox, new school sandbox, philosophical sandbox, protagonist sandbox, or whatever language detones the area of the hobby you feel you belong to).



Yea, that's what I thought was your position and should clarify things.




Bedrockgames said:


> But when I've been saying sandbox on its own, I've generally meant a traditional sandbox.



I think this is where the contention was primarily coming from.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think your definition of agency goes beyond sandboxes to some degree.




Probably. I am a little reluctant to weigh in on this one. I don't like adding jargon as a rule, but I get the need for a distinction within the context of this discussion. I do agree with you that autonomy would not be the term. I think you need to retain agency in the label. Probably just qualify each sides version of agency with a modifier that fits.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to address what Pemerton said: he is equivocating on the word outcome. It is an outcome of something. Just like me posting this message is an outcome of something. But it isn't an outcome of the player searching for the brother. The brother didn't die as a result of the search. The brother, presumably, had other causes of death. That the dead brother was found was the outcome of the search.



No one is suggesting that the brother would die as a result of being searched for (unless, say, we're playing an espionage game where that sort of thing can happen).

But consider the following imagined sequence of events:

Player to GM in the context of a "true sandbox" game: _I search for my brother_.

<play takes place, actions are declared, it all gets to a point where the player has declared an action that prompts the following from the GM>

GM to player (relating information from notes): _Your brother is dead_.

<player comes home, talks to housemate - who is not a participant in the game - about today's session>

Housemate: _What was the outcome of your search for your brother?_

Player: _He's dead_.​
That's the sense in which I am using the word _outcome_. That outcome was authored in advance by the GM.



Campbell said:


> I will let @pemerton speak for himself, but in my view that's not equivocating. Obviously it was the player who brought in the fiction of them searching for their brother. The brother did not exist prior to that. He's saying that in the context of this brother he wants the outcome of what happens to be determined by gameplay decisions he has made I think. This is based on a more expansive view of character than you probably hold - where a character is more than the physical body, but also the things they value, people they care for, and relationships they have.



All this is true.

But also I am referring to _the outcome of what the player has his/her PC undertake, namely, the search for the brother_. There are two options: either the PC doesn't find/learn about his brother; or the PC learns that his brother is dead. There is no prospect of the PC learning that his brother is alive. That is the sense in which the outcome has been established in advance. It's not an "equivocation" on the use of outcome. It's a perfectly normal use of the English word.



Bedrockgames said:


> I do think there is value in playing different styles on their own terms. I don't much like adventure paths, but I play one happily if that is what a group wants to do (and I won't actively resist it or complain). It can be helpful to experience what people are after.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If someone told me they were going to run a sandbox using burning wheel, and in the style you have been describing, I would play it according to their style and I wouldn't complain, nor would I sit in judgement of it.



I'm not sure what you think I'm complaining about or judging. I am expressing my preferences.

I'm also not sure why you think I'm ignorant of what you're describing. I've participated in the sort of game you described. As a GM, though, play fairly quickly drifted towards something I (and I imagine the players) preferred more. Though it was tricky because of the system being used (Rolemaster) and my lack of knowledge of the full range of suitable techniques.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> I think this is where the contention was primarily coming from.



That could be. I don't know what else to say. I can try to use terms like pure sandbox, my sandboxes, or traditional sandbox (though the latter seems to get a lot of push back for being 'normative'---which I really don't get). I can try to be more precise. But you and others may have noticed, I am not the most precise speaker in the world. And especially with a gaming term I use all the time, I tend to be casual and expect people to know what I mean by context.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> To me, the question ultimately comes back to, why did the player agree to play in a campaign using a playstyle that allows for the possibility of their brother being dead with them having no say in the matter?  If the player agreed to that then the DM isn't doing anything bad for playing by the rules the player agreed to.



If the player didn't want a dead brother, they shouldn't have dressed like that?


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> But Autonomy has nothing to do with being able to change important things in the fiction...
> 
> So I think your autonomy only covers part of what we mean by agency.




Would Old School Agency and New School Agency work?


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Probably. I am a little reluctant to weigh in on this one. I don't like adding jargon as a rule, but I get the need for a distinction within the context of this discussion. I do agree with you that autonomy would not be the term. I think you need to retain agency in the label. Probably just qualify each sides version of agency with a modifier that fits.



Well my notion is that their definition is more of an expansion instead of a totally separate thing.  I think our definition is definitely still agency in their language (despite some claims otherwise), but I'm curious to hear how they would talk about it as such using their language and terms instead of mine.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> If the player didn't want a dead brother, they shouldn't have dressed like that?




Are we really making this comparison?


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> If the player didn't want a dead brother, they shouldn't have dressed like that?



Rape jokes aren't cool.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> when a player is determining a piece of the setting is he roleplaying in that moment?  He surely is advocating for his character - but is that roleplaying?



It depends what the process looks like. Upthread I've discussed a variety of ways that a setting element can be determined. They are not all the same.

If a player spends a chit or token so as to be permitted to point to a bit of map and say _That's where Evard's tower is_, I don't think that is playing the character.

When I say _Don't I remember Evard's tower is around here?_ - thereby triggering a check on Great Masters-wise - that is playing my character.

When a player in the BW game I GM said _I look around - it's a mage's bedroom so there should be a vessel to catch the blood in _that was playing his character (both stating his physical action and associated mental state).

Here's an example of 4e D&D play that I posted way back in @innerdude's epic "dissociated mechanics" thread, and in some other 4e threads around that time, that caused a bit of a flurry:

The PCs were fighting some NPC hexers. One of the hexers used his Baleful Polymorph power on the PC paladin of the Raven Queen. This had duration "until end of the caster's next turn". For the next cycle of initiative, there were the inevitable jibes from the other players about not slipping on the slimy frog, etc. Then, at the appropriate point in the initiative cycle, I described the frog turning back into a paladin, just as the rules required me to.

The paladin's turn then came up, and the player, in character, made some rude remark to the NPC hexer. The hexer replied to the effect of "I'm not scared of you or your mistress - after all, I just turned you into a frog." The player, in character, replied "And my mistress turned me back" - the obvious implication being that his mistress, and him as her vessel, are more powerful than the hexer's petty magic.​
That player's play - actually the same player as the one whose PC looked for the blood-catching vessel - was all done thinking in character. The player at all times was speaking as his character, thinking as his character, giving voice to his character's convictions of the Raven Queen's divine power. (It's also worth noting that the 4e mechanics did not contradict him: the mechanics leave it completely open why, within the fiction, the Baleful Polymorph ends when it does. In the example I've given, we see the player filling in that fictional space via in-character roleplay, thereby reinforcing rather than forfeiting immersion.)


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I'm also not sure why you think I'm ignorant of what you're describing. I've participated in the sort of game you described. As a GM, though, play fairly quickly drifted towards something I (and I imagine the players) preferred more. Though it was tricky because of the system being used (Rolemaster) and my lack of knowledge of the full range of suitable techniques.




If you or anyone else is interested in the techniques, I would highly recommend Robert Conley's sandbox guide on his blog: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox

It was made in 2009 I believe, so it is probably dated in that I imagine Rob might have slightly different views that could be found on more recent blog entries. But that is a good starting point (and his Majestic Wilderlands material is quite good too for it). He is a sandbox GM who I know, and who I have gamed with, and I quite respect his approach (I do thing somewhat differently but a lot of my ideas were shaped by his).


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Rape jokes aren't cool.



I agree.  Again, though, I challenge you to reconcile this.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> I agree.  Again, though, I challenge you to reconcile this.



To my understanding, doing so would be against the forum rules


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I think, in the oft-cited examples from BW, that roleplaying would be impossible without the resolutions (We found the tower; I found my brother). I think that in any system that boils down to "The GM Decides" where the GM is convinced/persuaded by roleplaying (along the lines of what I understand @pemerton to mean by "free narration") that the resolution is directly derived from the roleplaying. I think that in any system or instance where the odds of resolution are affected by what has been roleplayed, roleplaying and resolution are intertwined.



I don't think I fully follow what you are saying here in the context of your discussion with @FrogReaver, but to the extent that I do follow I think I agree.

I don't really understand what FrogReaver's point about dice is. The use of dice is, generally, to establish what is happening in the fiction when that isn't just being settled via consensus or deferral.

Here are some examples of deferral and of consensus that I think are fairly typical in FRPGing:

A player typically doesn't have to dice for their PC to be wearing a brown rather than a green tunic, because the rest of the table defers to the player. The GM typically doesn't have to dice for the tavern to have a man rather than a woman serving the drinks, because the rest of the table defers to the GM; and nor does the player typically have to roll dice to establish that _my PC sits down at a table near the door_. Typically no one has to dice to establish the players' marching order or watch order for their PCs, because with a bit of back-and-forth between everyone at the table something is established which everyone agrees to and agrees makes sense in the fiction given the relevant traits of the PCs (eg settling on a marching order might require having regard to PC heights; settling on a watch order might require having regard to how long the spell-users need to sleep to rememorise their spells or regain their spell points).​
Here are a couple of examples where I think it is fairly typical, in FRPGing, to look to the dice:

The GM narrates an attacking Orc. The player of the archer responds _I shoot it with an arrow_. I think it's typical in FRPGing to call on dice to help determine what happens next.​​The GM narrates a burst of fire from a triggered magical trap. A player responds _I take cover behind my shield_. I think it's typical in FRPGing to call on dice - in D&D it would often be a saving throw - to help determine what happens next.​
The use of dice in resolution doesn't seem, to me, to have any bearing on whether we are _roleplaying _or not. Saying _I wear a brown tunic _or _I sit down at a table near the door_ isn't any more roleplaying than _I shoot the Orc with an arrow_ or _I take cover from the blast behind my shield _just because no one will call for the dice to be rolled in order to accept the statement as true in the shared fiction.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> If you or anyone else is interested in the techniques, I would highly recommend Robert Conley's sandbox guide on his blog: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox
> 
> It was made in 2009 I believe, so it is probably dated in that I imagine Rob might have slightly different views that could be found on more recent blog entries. But that is a good starting point (and his Majestic Wilderlands material is quite good too for it). He is a sandbox GM who I know, and who I have gamed with, and I quite respect his approach (I do thing somewhat differently but a lot of my ideas were shaped by his).



My eyesight is not what it used to be but I can’t seem to find the part in Rob’s sandbox write-ups where it instructs the GM to kill a PC’a lost brother that they declared they are looking for.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I am the one being told my style is a problem.



Who has told you this?

Certainly not me. I've said I don't want to play it.

You've said you don't want to play "linear adventures" of the 3E-era style. Are you intending by that to say that RPGing in that way is a problem? That there is something wrong with others doing it?


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> I don't think I fully follow what you are saying here in the context of your discussion with @FrogReaver, but to the extent that I do follow I think I agree.



It started as a discussion about the boundary between roleplaying and worldbuilding (when done by a player, not a GM), and it evolved into a discussion about the difference between roleplaying and action-resolution. I think it's easy-ish to point at examples where a player is clearly worldbuilding, not roleplaying; and think it's easy-ish to point examples where a player is clearly roleplaying, not worldbuilding; I think the boundaries between roleplaying and action-resolution are much blurrier, and it's possible roleplaying entirely contains action-resolution (not something I've put thoughts about into words before, that I know of).


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> look again at the example. He didn’t realize his goal. He failed at the exams.





Bedrockgames said:


> He attended the exams when they were offered (which is not all the time in the setting). But failing the exams is a real possibility (and fail them he did).



How was it determined that the character failed the exams?


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: in a sandbox, the player is only able to say he wants to search for his brother.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Once the player says I am going to search for my brother, then the GM needs to seriously consider what happened to the brother.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> whatever is going on with your brother, that is for the GM to decide. You only have control of what your character does.



And I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: you are describing a game in which the player has less agency than I prefer in the RPGing that I participate in (whether as player or as GM).



Bedrockgames said:


> It is a valid style of play.



Again with the normative language! I don't even know what this means. What style of RPGing do you think is "invalid"?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> this last parts not true though.  Having control over your character is only part of what is required for agency. There’s also the part where you can cause important things to change in the setting.



But presumably there's a definition of "agency", favoured by players of APs and similar hard railroads, according to which there is no expectation that players can declare actions whose resolution might require the GM to rethink significant elements of the setting.

And by the lights of _that_ definition, a hard railroad maximises player agency. We can even imagine what the player of such a game might say - "I mean, it's not as if _the GM_ is the one declaring actions for the PCs in our game!"


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> To me, the question ultimately comes back to, why did the player agree to play in a campaign using a playstyle that allows for the possibility of their brother being dead with them having no say in the matter?



Well, I wouldn't. But for some reason me saying that is said to be an attack upon others' playstyles.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> Would Old School Agency and New School Agency work?



No. Classic Traveller is a RPG from 1977 that expressly contemplates, right there in the text of its little black books, the sort of player agency that I enjoy in RPGing and that you and @FrogReaver are saying is not part of a "true sandbox".

@AbdulAlhazred was playing club D&D in the mid-70s and - as I understand his posts - does not think that the conception of player agency that you and FrogReaver advocate would have been universally accepted back then.

I don't think it's "old school" at all. I think one version of it solidified in the 1980s, but I think the version that you two are advocating also has a certain "retro" dimension to it. It's not actual "old school", it's a type of re-recreated "old school" that didn't predominate back in the day.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> If you or anyone else is interested in the techniques



I didn't mean a lack of sandbox techniques. Rolemaster books are replete with those. I meant techniques for increasing player agency.


----------



## Umbran

Ovinomancer said:


> If the player didn't want a dead brother, they shouldn't have dressed like that?



*Mod Note:*

Did you really think likening this to real-world rape was going to work out for you?  Because, it did not.  At all.  The analogy belittles real-world trauma, and should be beneath you.

Don't do that again.  Thanks.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> I agree.  Again, though, I challenge you to reconcile this.



These are no where near the same thing at all


----------



## pemerton

I'll finish my run of posts with a story from life:

In the late 1990s I introduced a friend and housemate of mine to RPGing. He had some vague familiarity with it as a hobby, but had never participated. He joined our second long-running RM campaign at its start.

From the start he took for granted that it was the job of the players, as participants in the game, to contribute content to the shared fiction - especially content relevant to their characters (eg family, backstory, goals, etc).

This player is also the GM of the BW game in which I am a player. That is the only GMing he has ever done.

I think if I showed him @Bedrockgames version of what is "normal" or "typical" in RPGing he would be surprised.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> How was it determined that the character failed the exams?




I posted a section from my book on Imperial Exams (a few pages back now I think, but it includes a quoted section on the exams and the tests for them), there is a whole procedure laid out which I used (it basically boils down to attending the relevant exams when they are offered then passing all the skill checks on the list (which isn't easy). That said, that is just the method I opted for and included in my game. I wanted that part of the setting to have mechanical heft. But by this style, a GM could have done that with rulings instead of having a pre-laid out system. The big issue with the exams is the time between them. If you could take them every day, it would be easy enough, but they are an event organized by the empire, and they take them pretty seriously as they are how you gain entry into the imperial bureaucracy. So I've actually had a number of players set out to become great scholar officials and fail (but then this was pretty common with the actual exams they were based on, so it fits for me).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Again with the normative language! I don't even know what this means. What style of RPGing do you think is "invalid"?




All I mean is there is nothing wrong with my style. I am not suggesting others are doing anything wrong in their gaming (and I think I've made that clear)


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> And I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: you are describing a game in which the player has less agency than I prefer in the RPGing that I participate in (whether as player or as GM).




And the problem is we have a fundamental disagreement over what agency means, and therefore this point is one we just don't agree on (I think the approach I am suggesting offers more agency than yours----we can agree to disagree on that, I don't see an issue with us having different views here)


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> My eyesight is not what it used to be but I can’t seem to find the part in Rob’s sandbox write-ups where it instructs the GM to kill a PC’a lost brother that they declared they are looking for.




That wasn't the point of linking to Rob's page. I linked because Pemerton mentioned not knowing all the available procedures when he tried it in the past, so I thought it would be helpful to give people a link to a quality blog entry on sandbox.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I think if I showed him @Bedrockgames version of what is "normal" or "typical" in RPGing he would be surprised.




He might be. For the most part I was saying what I find typical in the sandbox crowd (though I do think the agency definition I am using has much more currency than the one you guys are using, but that is just my sense).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I didn't mean a lack of sandbox techniques. Rolemaster books are replete with those. I meant techniques for increasing player agency.



Sorry I misunderstood what you meant


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I don't think it's "old school" at all. I think one version of it solidified in the 1980s, but I think the version that you two are advocating also has a certain "retro" dimension to it. It's not actual "old school", it's a type of re-recreated "old school" that didn't predominate back in the day.




I actually do agree with this. When I say old school and OSR, I am talking about the post 2000 look back at old school. I started in 86 and I remember there being all kinds of variety at tables (though also a lot of what you see in the OSR movement was certainly present). But a table could vary a lot based on the game they played, the edition of the game, the style developed locally (every place seemed to play quite different). I am in no way saying what I am talking about reflects how people played D&D across the US in its early days. What I can do is talk about what I encountered when I first sat down to play in 86, and a lot of what I am trying to recapture here is the freedom I experienced with that kind of sandboxy open world (though again I don't think it was quite so rigid as it comes off in some of these discussions-----but certainly for me the spark of that experience did all come to focus on playing my character in a world operated by the GM). I do hope I've made this clear across my posts. On many occasions I have said clearly, I think people over simplify the history a lot. And your view of gaming often depended on what you were into at a given moment.


----------



## innerdude

Bedrockgames said:


> [In a sandbox], it is almost always, whatever is going on with [insert any element of the fiction introduced by the player], that is for the GM to decide. You only have control of what your character does. It is a valid style of play. And agency is considered to be your freedom to explore the setting through your character. That has been the standard understanding of agency in this context. It isn't even controversial I think. I am genuinely surprised to encounter the view I am encountering in this thread.




Well of course it's _valid_. Who's questioning the _validity_ of that playstyle? 

I'd be willing to wager that nearly everyone who frequents ENWorld has participated, in one fashion or another, in a campaign of the kind you have described. I've GM'd three different Savage Worlds campaigns using roughly the same basic social contract / GM principles you've outlined.

But to insist that this playstyle contains the farthest possible boundaries of available player agency is objectively incorrect. There are many systems/styles/techniques that offer more player agency than what is being offered in this style.

Look, if the tradeoffs for increasing player agency don't sit right within your style/techniques, or just aren't worth it to you, that's totally cool.

Maybe increasing player agency makes it too risky that your group's belief in the illusion of objective reality will be broken. Hasn't been my experience, but you're the one assessing the risk. Maybe increasing player agency makes it so that significant amounts of time, plot, and setting will focus on elements personal to the player's characters, and it's too risky in your mind that it'll turn off players in your group, because they won't be getting enough spotlight time. Maybe increasing player agency makes it so that you have to change your GM prep in ways that are too time-consuming, uncomfortable, or un-fun to you, up to and including changing systems---and you simply don't want to make those changes.

All perfectly valid reasons to continue doing what you're doing.

But how is it even controversial to say that Burning Wheel and Powered by the Apocalypse offer greater player agency than the style of play you're describing?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Apologies to all, my intent was not to compare anything to rape, but to make a reference the victim blaming.  I could have been less blunt.

That said, @FrogReaver, why did you think it a useful argument to suggest blaming the player, especially in a "they should know better" way?


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> But to insist that this playstyle contains the farthest possible boundaries of available player agency is objectively incorrect. There are many systems/styles/techniques that offer more player agency than what is being offered in this style.



The problem is we are using totally different definitions of agency. Until this thread, I don't think I ever encountered your useage of agency at all. In all my years of seeing it in discussions online and at the table it has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting. And it just isn't something where I am going to adopt a whole new useage of the term simlply because I encounter a circle of posters on a forum who use it that way. I will happily engage you and discuss differences, but you just keep insisting that I have to accept your view of how much agency is present in the kinds of games you run versus mine (and you assert it is objective when clearly there is a lot of subjective stuff going on in interpretation and analysis).


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I will let @pemerton speak for himself, but in my view that's not equivocating. Obviously it was the player who brought in the fiction of them searching for their brother. The brother did not exist prior to that.



Which, tangentially, in itself strikes me as a bit odd; in that IME one of the very basics of sorting out a character's background and history would be determining what immediate family it has, where and-or when they were last seen, and their last-known status (e.g. alive, dead, elected to office, etc.).


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Which, tangentially, in itself strikes me as a bit odd; in that IME one of the very basics of sorting out a character's background and history would be determining what immediate family it has, where and-or when they were last seen, and their last-known status (e.g. alive, dead, elected to office, etc.).



This makes a great deal of sense for some playstyles, but overly determined elements such as these work against Playing to Find Out.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> @AbdulAlhazred was playing club D&D in the mid-70s and - as I understand his posts - does not think that the conception of player agency that you and FrogReaver advocate would have been universally accepted back then.




I have never suggested that. I don't think I even encountered the term till after 2000. I am talking about how it is used among gamers generally, among sandbox players and the OSR. Not about how it may have been used in the 70s. I do talk to and listen to people from that era who gamed. But I think me and @AbdulAlhazred probably have very different views of gaming based on his posts (whereas with some of the other OGs I've talked to I find I am much more on the same page with).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> No. Classic Traveller is a RPG from 1977 that expressly contemplates, right there in the text of its little black books, the sort of player agency that I enjoy in RPGing and that you and @FrogReaver are saying is not part of a "true sandbox".




What terms should we use then? What would be acceptable to you as a term, that also doesn't distort what we are trying to say? I feel like we are really trying to accomodate here and be flexible. This isn't about saying one thing isn't a true style of play. But I think any objective person who looks at the trends in sandbox play would definitely say our definition is much more in line with how sandbox gamers talk about agency. That doesn't mean there can't be other ways, there hasn't been other ways. But I mean just for the purposes of clarity in virtually every conversation I am in in gaming period, except this one, people immediately get what I am talking about with these terms. It just seems to me what you want is for us to concede that your definition of agency is the right one, and the style of play you are talking about it maximizes agency the most.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Not talking about magic item wishlists, so I'm not sure where you got that. If you're taking what I'm saying and applying it in that area, then all I have to say is that wishlists like that should be considered, for sure.
> 
> It's more about the concept of the PC searching for his brother being considered and added to play, to simply be negated or seriously altered by GM fiat. Not over time, not in response to player actions, just out of hand decided.



OK.  Player searches for his brother.  To give herself some idea of exactly what the PC is up against in this search, GM rolls some dice to determine what's become of said brother since last seen by the PC.

GM determines: brother is living the high life as the most successful merchant in Praetos City, and that he and his high-ranking-politician wife have just had a daughter.  Dick move?

GM determines: brother died as a commoner in a fire near the Praetos docks two years ago and, as no immediate family could be found, his meagre assets were revoked to the Crown.  Dick move?


----------



## innerdude

I also want to comment that I do realize that I have probably been guilty of actively promoting the idea that adding more player agency is a simple formula to making RPG play "better." 

And would say that in general, this has held true for me. Greater player agency = players that are more engaged, feel more connected to the fiction and their contributions to it, and are more likely to participate positively, and feel a sense of ownership in creating good vibes for the group at large.

However, all of this is obviously "up to a point." The point isn't just to allow maximum player agency (though I'd advocate for it as much as possible)---it's to create a compelling, enjoyable gaming experience. There are dozens of other components that go into the formula of creating a compelling, enjoyable experience. 

Greater player agency isn't a "one size fits all" solution for better gaming. Just like adding "greater realism" to RPG play isn't the end-all, be-all of better gameplay either.

And to a certain extent, the real point of deep diving into player agency in the first place is to get ourselves as GMs to _look outside of ourselves_. To look at what we're doing, and ask hard questions of ourselves. 

Are we really doing the best we can? Are we really giving our players the best experience possible? Could we change things that would improve our sessions week-to-week, month-to-month?

I've found that increasing player agency overall has, in most cases, a net positive effect on RPG play. But my attitude as a GM toward learning, improving, and getting better are more important than any single technique.


----------



## Campbell

Here's how I think about and talk about agency. Not only when it comes to games, but also in regards to real life.

It's almost always in regards to a particular objectivity. The agency required to achieve political change or agency over my personal earnings. I think agency requires autonomy, power, and information. You need all three in some amount to have any, but can have more or less overall agency depending on the amount of each you have. You need the autonomy to move freely and choose both your ends and your means. You also need the power to bring about change in your environment. Finally you need information so you can make informed choices about how to leverage your power.

In an old school sandbox like Moldvay you start with almost unlimited autonomy. You can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. What you have very little of is power and information. The entire point of the game is to utilize your autonomy in order to gain more power and information so you can have meaningful agency to achieve your goals. In the real world power often comes with less autonomy, but games are not life so as you progress in level you mostly become more powerful and gather more information while retaining your autonomy. It takes skilled play to gain agency.

I will admit that in most of the character focused games I run players generally have less autonomy, but far more power than starting D&D character (and generally a lot more social influence than most D&D characters of any level) and a lot more access to information to make informed decisions. Like a common fictional conceit is that players might play generals, merchants, etc. People that are connected, but have less freedom of movement. Also characters tend to lives with responsibilities they must juggle against their aims. Agency is not something you are expected to earn in the same way. You can gain more through good play, but not much. 

While these contrasts all generally apply to the shape of the fiction I'm talking mostly about players here. So like in an old school sandbox information is centered around the player pretty often like knowledge of monsters, traps, etc. In Apocalypse World we use a lot of telegraphing before we punch the player in the metaphorical face.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think there's an element here of just basic "how do we agree on the milieu?" If the game is a fairly limited magic kind of D&D setting (IE lower/mid-level D&D) then establishing the action in the desert probably precludes the other options from coming up, or at least constrains their appearance. If a player is complaining, after it was thoroughly established and agreed, on the desert being the primary location, that his Arctic Barbarian PC wants to 'head north' and the heck with other threads of the story, then something has gone amiss. Some of the things you mention might be possible fixes, but I would avoid the problem at the start, if possible.



Fair point.

I'm thinking more of situations where players - regardless of what PC(s) they might happen to be playing at the time - just want a change of scenery.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't think your c) is actually a problem. Gygax discussed this in 1e DMG, and that seemed cogent. That is, such a trek can be played out at once and then simply represents the time commitment for those characters. If there's some obvious point of intersection with other PCs that must be played out, then perhaps those PCs also need to be advanced to the point in time in question.



Exactly.  My point is that, assuming those being-advanced-in-time PCs want to do any adventuring and that the expectation is that said adventuring will be played out as usual, advancing those other PCs can take months or even years of real time - by which time the players might have forgotten why their original PCs were going north in the first place! 


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Of course this is all very much considering a fairly rigid Gygaxian Troupe Play kind of situation. IME few games are run that way nowadays.



That's a pity.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Even if there might be some limited form of it in one of my games, it would be pretty limited, and problems aren't likely to arise. Obviously in your case the players may find at some point they want/need to go run other characters for a while, but that is the price of playing in that style.



Beleive me, one of the hardest things about running a multi-party world is trying to keep everyone more or less up to date in game time and not let one group get too far ahead or behind the other(s).


----------



## Fenris-77

One reasonable conception of agency I've read divides it into three types, ranked lowest to highest (amount of agency). Here's a quick and dirty precis:

*Agency Level 1: The freedom to deal with the situation.* This is the _an ogre jumps out of the birthday cake, what do you do? _level of agency. Very common, and seldom quashed except by railroad tycoons.

*Agency Level 2: The freedom to choose the situation.* This is the level where players have the ability to choose their own route through an adventure. Whether that's multiple paths to pick from, or the freedom to creatively think of other approaches on the spot. Summed up, this is free exploration.

*Agency Level 3: The freedom to choose the goal.* This is sandbox agency, where the goals of play are player decided. They can do whatever they want. Rescue the princess, wash their hair, or go into business selling trinkets crafted by needy Goblin orphans. 

What's interesting about this is that I see people talking about sandboxes and both levels 2 and 3 as the 'definitional agency' of that playstyle. I'm not suggesting that's wrong, only that different styles of sandbox involve different versions and complexions of the latter two. Most RPGs are pretty heavy on level 1 no matter what system or style. I wouldn't say this is by any means the last word in how to construe agency, but I do find it a helpful model.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> *Agency Level 3: The freedom to choose the goal.* This is sandbox agency, where the goals of play are player decided. They can do whatever they want. Rescue the princess, wash their hair, or go into business selling trinkets crafted by needy Goblin orphans




I think your levels are an interesting take on it, but would there be one more? Or maybe a bit different?  

Level 3 says free to do whatever.....but what if the GM doean’t put a princess to be saved anywhere? Can a player offer up such a detail?


----------



## Lanefan

Fenris-77 said:


> One reasonable conception of agency I've read divides it into three types, ranked lowest to highest (amount of agency). Here's a quick and dirty precis:
> 
> *Agency Level 1: The freedom to deal with the situation.* This is the _an ogre jumps out of the birthday cake, what do you do? _level of agency. Very common, and seldom quashed except by railroad tycoons.
> 
> *Agency Level 2: The freedom to choose the situation.* This is the level where players have the ability to choose their own route through an adventure. Whether that's multiple paths to pick from, or the freedom to creatively think of other approaches on the spot. Summed up, this is free exploration.
> 
> *Agency Level 3: The freedom to choose the goal.* This is sandbox agency, where the goals of play are player decided. They can do whatever they want. Rescue the princess, wash their hair, or go into business selling trinkets crafted by needy Goblin orphans.
> 
> What's interesting about this is that I see people talking about sandboxes and both levels 2 and 3 as the 'definitional agency' of that playstyle.



What's not so interesting is when people talk about the sum total of these as being the baseline level of agency to be expected in any RPG, and that the only agency that matters is that which goes beyond this sum.

I'd add one more to the above list, however:

*Agency level 0: The freedom to characterize your character. * This means the agency - within genre, system, and social constraints - to play your character as you like both in action and in voice. Most RPGs provide this agency in theory; many individual tables impinge on it in practice.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I think your levels are an interesting take on it, but would there be one more? Or maybe a bit different?
> 
> Level 3 says free to do whatever.....but what if the GM doean’t put a princess to be saved anywhere? Can a player offer up such a detail?



I'd think of the "agency types" as more sliders or gauges than switches. So, maybe the ability to choose from goals you know about is X amount of level 3, and the ability to create a goal is Y amount?


----------



## Fenris-77

Yeah, when I picture this it's a series of sliding scales with a lot of nuance. Different mechanics and different playstyles will slide the game various ways on all three axis. It's not about example X _being_ one or the other, but rather about how example X _might affect play_ at one or more of the levels. That's my take anyway.

@hawkeyefan - I would put player proffered goals in tier 3 for sure. Playing to find out in general works at all three levels, but is especially strong in working that tier 3 generally, which is why I think it's so divisive, not everyone wants that level of choice

@Lanefan - frankly, I don't think that's agency at all, at least the way the tiers look at it. I'd call that more a function of the social contract at the table. Let me rephrase, it *is* agency of a sort for sure, but not agency that's normally hindered or fostered by the system or the mechanics. That said, many games do have something to say about playing your character, so I don't think it throws a wrench in the works to add it to the list even given my initial definitional uncertainty.


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> I use _Into the Wyrd and Wild_ as the base for my OSR Wilderness rules. It uses a roles and camp loop that is broadly similar to the DW one, and puts resource management front and center by calling for regular consumption connected to a light but effective exhaustion mechanic, which I have looped into a bespoke rest mechanic generally. I'm using it in a system that has *Usage Dice* to track consumables, rather than counting individual portions, but it would work fine with either. I'm still ironing out the kinks, but on the whole I'm quite happy with it.




Thanks for this Fenris.  I'm going to give you a quick example of the DW (PW) loop above in action.  If you would, map this onto your system.  How would this manifest in ItW&W and what would the implications on agency be (relative to how they're made manifest in DW)?

*Consult where you are on the map and where you want to go > Confirm course to get there and how far you can get in a day:*


At the nearly abandoned, haunted, river village of Dorhollow.
To Eldenbright's Grotto (a cave in a sunken garden where a PC's uncle plays his harp even in death).
2 day shortcut through the Wyvern-infested, treacherous hike up and over Skyreach or 4 day trek under the looming Redwoods of a mercurial grove whose name is lost to time (because no one will enter it).  The former.

*Pick Scout, Navigator, Quartermaster* 

* Thistle the Halfling Druid, Caedius the Elven Arcane Duelist, Astrafel the Elven Bard

*Make Scout Ahead move and resolve any related Dangers or Discoveries encountered along the way*

* Thistle Shapeshifts, spends 1 Hold on Mountain Ram (his home), skips ahead easily.  2d6+Wis = 10 result.  Choose 2.  Player chooses:

- You discern a beneficial aspect of the terrain—shortcut, shelter, or tactical advantage (describe it).  _At the top of the ridge is a partially ruined watchtower.  Should give us good shelter for the night._

- You make a Discovery (ask the GM).  _Wyvern nest under an overhang.  Mama and the hatchlings sleeping.  Some poor traveling scholar recently lost their life feeding them.  Pack in tatters w/ Coin and Bag of Books strewn about.  Take a closer look?

Tempting, but not today._

*Make Navigator move and Resolve any related Dangers or Discoveries *

- 2d6+Int = 6-.  Caedius player marks xp and GM hard move.

- _Huge Stone Giant unmelds from cliff face they're climbing and grasps the two of them in a crushing clinch.  Takes them back to his lair to sip Stone Adder poison (petrification - Spout Lore) to let the Mountain Spirit determine if they're worthy of traversing these hallow grounds.  

Bard uses their racial to learn something relevant about this place's history, uses Charming and Open to get the Stone Giant to give her leverage in Parley.  Social Conflict Clock defeated by the two Elves and the Stone Giant lets them free after a small tithe to the Mountain Spirit. _

*Make Camp Move = QM makes Manage Provisions Move and resolve Rations and any soft/hard move + one person on watch rolls +nothing for night event > if Danger resolve Stay Sharp move and then resolve Danger.*

- Bard Manage Provisions 2d6+Wis = 7-9.  The party consumes the expected amount of rations (1 per person
except Druid who doesn't have to eat or drink and GM soft move.  _The climb and journey was exhausting and the food is so tasty!  1 extra Ration consumed by Caedius!

- _Roll 2d6+nothing (with take +1 due to Druid's scouting and elements can't be a soft move) = 7-9. GM chooses 1.  One party member of the GM’s choice suffers a restless night.  _Caedius suffers a restless night haunted by a terrible song of discordant chords and inscrutable melody (Eldenbright is his uncle).  He heals on 1/4 max HP from rest.  Everyone else heals 1/2 max HP.

_

That is what a day's Journey play loop looks like.  How would that manifest/work out in ItW&W?


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> One reasonable conception of agency I've read divides it into three types, ranked lowest to highest (amount of agency). Here's a quick and dirty precis:
> 
> *Agency Level 1: The freedom to deal with the situation.* This is the _an ogre jumps out of the birthday cake, what do you do? _level of agency. Very common, and seldom quashed except by railroad tycoons.
> 
> *Agency Level 2: The freedom to choose the situation.* This is the level where players have the ability to choose their own route through an adventure. Whether that's multiple paths to pick from, or the freedom to creatively think of other approaches on the spot. Summed up, this is free exploration.
> 
> *Agency Level 3: The freedom to choose the goal.* This is sandbox agency, where the goals of play are player decided. They can do whatever they want. Rescue the princess, wash their hair, or go into business selling trinkets crafted by needy Goblin orphans.
> 
> What's interesting about this is that I see people talking about sandboxes and both levels 2 and 3 as the 'definitional agency' of that playstyle. I'm not suggesting that's wrong, only that different styles of sandbox involve different versions and complexions of the latter two. Most RPGs are pretty heavy on level 1 no matter what system or style. I wouldn't say this is by any means the last word in how to construe agency, but I do find it a helpful model.



I get where you are coming from and the framework is very closely aligned to how I view things.  I don't like the term level there as I think players really establish what kind of hierarchy toward those types based on what they prefer and/or see as being less common.

Not to speak for people, but the impression I get from many is that "more agency" translates best to "more types of agency".  Which is why I imagine that those explaining to me that my playstyle doesn't give players the agency to modify and introduce setting elements during play seems like such an important point.  If you measure agency by the number of types present then showing me that my style doesn't contain all the types yours does is primae facie proof that my style has less agency.  And if that's the measurement we are using for agency I would fully agree with that. 

But no where has anyone defined what it actually means to have more agency.  It's just a vague notion instead of even an attempt at a concrete definition.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I posted a section from my book on Imperial Exams (a few pages back now I think, but it includes a quoted section on the exams and the tests for them), there is a whole procedure laid out which I used (it basically boils down to attending the relevant exams when they are offered then passing all the skill checks on the list (which isn't easy).



Would it have made a difference to the play experience if, instead of test/skill checks, the GM just decided the exams were too hard and the PC failed?



Bedrockgames said:


> What terms should we use then? What would be acceptable to you as a term, that also doesn't distort what we are trying to say?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think any objective person who looks at the trends in sandbox play would definitely say our definition is much more in line with how sandbox gamers talk about agency.



For reasons of your own you have rejected the phrase "sandbox agency".

Given that I am not confused by anything you've posted, it doesn't really affect me what term you use. But for the reasons I've stated I think calling it "old school" agency would be misleading. I mean, I could call my sort of gaming "old school skill-testing" if I wanted to, but I would expect others to object that that's a rather misleading description of it.



Bedrockgames said:


> It just seems to me what you want is for us to concede that your definition of agency is the right one, and the style of play you are talking about it maximizes agency the most.



Once again the normative language. I still don't get it.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> I'd think of the "agency types" as more sliders or gauges than switches. So, maybe the ability to choose from goals you know about is X amount of level 3, and the ability to create a goal is Y amount?



That's my view as well.  There are many types of agency.  The difference is that you are viewing each type of agency as having it's own independent axis that we can slide up and down.  It's not been shown that each type of agency is actually independent (at least based on the current methods of producing them), which leaves open the idea that increasing some types of agency can decrease others because they aren't actually independent.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> In an old school sandbox like Moldvay you start with almost unlimited autonomy. You can pretty much go anywhere and do anything.



Maybe I've misunderstood something, but to me this doesn't seem right.

Moldvay tells us that play starts at the dungeon entrance. B2 Keep on the Borderlands - the module that shipped with my copy of Moldvay Basic - actually deviates from that expectation, but it's not true that in B2 the players can have their PCs go anywhere and do anything.

In a Moldvay Basic game I think the whole thing will fall apart if the players don't have their PCs enter the dungeon the GM has prepared for them.


----------



## prabe

FrogReaver said:


> That's my view as well.  There are many types of agency.  The difference is that you are viewing each type of agency as having it's own independent axis that we can slide up and down.  It's not been shown that each type of agency is actually independent (at least based on the current methods of producing them), which leaves open the idea that increasing some types of agency can decrease others because they aren't actually independent.



Thinking of them as sliders/gauges/axes doesn't necessarily mean they're independent. It's possible they're deeply interrelated.


----------



## Fenris-77

Well, ItW&W, as a supplement, is more focused on smaller wilderness areas, with the stated goal being nifty 'wilderness dungeons'. This is predicated on the presence of paths of various sizes sorts and difficulties. Travel at the 6 mile hex level is about the initial binary of follow the path or not, and it goes from there. Staying on the path means encounter rolls with bespoke tables and eventual arrival at .... wherever the path leads. Leaving the path means navigation tests and a roll (not easy) with failure meaning a roll on the becoming lost table, which tells you how long and where you end up. Lets call IWW (a shorter acronym) a system for regional level travel, or something between one and a handful of adjacent 6 mile hexes. The construction of these wilderness dungeons is a randomized system that scatters adventure nodes of different sizes and sorts over a hex and then connects them with various types paths.

For the perilous journey kind of travel you're talking about I'd probably use something more or less like the DW journey rules from Perilous Wilds. Navigations rolls, roles for different party members, but streamlined for OSR play and with a heavy emphasis on resource management (food and light are the gas in my adventure engine). I have a bunch of random tables that cover what DW would call discoveries, usually arranged by region and terrain type, so it's more than just wandering monsters.

In both cases, I'd use the IWW camp loop. IWW focuses on water, food, and shelter as the core needs. The party roles 3d6, one for each need, with successes on a 4+ and appropriate skills granting advantage on the roll. 3 successes means everyone is fine, and less successes add one or more levels of exhaustion to one or more party members who can consume resources to mitigate the exhaustion. Six levels of exhaustion kills you, so there's some bite to the rules. The encounter rules I use have some resource consumption built into them and I also have resource consumption baked into my rules for resting during the day. The goal there is to thread food and light resource management as deep into the day-to-day as I can so it seems less like an occasional mini-game and more like a fact of life.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I’m about to commit the cardinal sin of rpg discussions. So forgive me in advance.  It’s very relevant though and I think our avoidance of this topic is clouding this agency discussion.
> 
> when a player is determining a piece of the setting is he roleplaying in that moment?  He surely is advocating for his character - but is that roleplaying?
> 
> that isn’t to say he isn’t roleplaying in other moments but is he roleplaying in that particular moment?



If you look at @pemerton's Burning Wheel play example, with 'remembering the tower is nearby', can you call that anything EXCEPT RP? What else would it be? Obviously this might not be true of every example of player PC advocacy. It may not be true of every example of other sorts of play either, depending on your definition of RP...


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> Maybe I've misunderstood something, but to me this doesn't seem right.
> 
> Moldvay tells us that play starts at the dungeon entrance. B2 Keep on the Borderlands - the module that shipped with my copy of Moldvay Basic - actually deviates from that expectation, but it's not true that in B2 the players can have their PCs go anywhere and do anything.
> 
> In a Moldvay Basic game I think the whole thing will fall apart if the players don't have their PCs enter the dungeon the GM has prepared for them.



The Moldvay adventure design process (which I just read about half an hour ago, coincidentally), calls for the map to start with the base village (or town etc) and the dungeon to be placed first, somewhat centrally, and the rest of the map built around that. B2 fits that pattern like a glove.

That said, old school sandboxes aren't by definition places of unlimited autonomy either. They might feel like that if the GM is enough of a masochist to richly detail every single hex for leagues around, but that's not how Moldvay would describe the process. Unless by autonomy you mean the ability to wander from hex to hex dealing with whatever the random encounter tables vomits into your path.


----------



## Fenris-77

prabe said:


> Thinking of them as sliders/gauges/axes doesn't necessarily mean they're independent. It's possible they're deeply interrelated.



This is precisely the way I'd describe things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> For reasons of your own you have rejected the phrase "sandbox agency".




I proposed that. Frogreaver said it encompasses more than sandbox so I said fair enough. My preference is for plain english, without jargon, and for language to reflect general use. But here I am just trying to figure out a way to navigate the conversation


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Would it have made a difference to the play experience if, instead of test/skill checks, the GM just decided the exams were too hard and the PC failed?




Yes, that wouldn't be a situation where I would say the GM ought to just declare he failed. And by the same token, the individual steps of the search for the brother, I wouldn't advocate the GM simply declaring he fails to find further clues that lead to him.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> I proposed that. Frogreaver said it encompasses more than sandbox so I said fair enough. My preference is for plain english, without jargon, and for language to reflect general use. But here I am just trying to figure out a way to navigate the conversation



I think it does encompass more than just sandbox, but I'm not personally opposed to using that term as jargon in this conversation so that we are all on the same page.  I think in future discussions we would want a more plain english term though that encompassed it all.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If you look at @pemerton's Burning Wheel play example, with 'remembering the tower is nearby', can you call that anything EXCEPT RP? What else would it be? Obviously this might not be true of every example of player PC advocacy. It may not be true of every example of other sorts of play either, depending on your definition of RP...



Yes.  "Remembering the tower is nearby" Has a number of discrete steps.  I would say some of those specific steps are obviously not roleplay and therefore my original statement stands, that at the moment the player is determining the location of the tower, that moment is not roleplay.


----------



## darkbard

Fenris-77 said:


> In both cases, I'd use the IWW camp loop. IWW focuses on water, food, and shelter as the core needs. The party roles 3d6, one for each need, with successes on a 4+ and appropriate skills granting advantage on the roll. 3 successes means everyone is fine, and less successes add one or more levels of exhaustion to one or more party members who can consume resources to mitigate the exhaustion. Six levels of exhaustion kills you, so there's some bite to the rules. The encounter rules I use have some resource consumption built into them and I also have resource consumption baked into my rules for resting during the day. The goal there is to thread food and light resource management as deep into the day-to-day as I can so it seems less like an occasional mini-game and more like a fact of life.




Sounds like a good starting place for a Dark Sun game--before really ramping up the pressure!


----------



## Fenris-77

darkbard said:


> Sounds like a good starting place for a Dark Sun game--before really ramping up the pressure!



Hmm. You know I hadn't thought of that, but hell yeah. I'd rather run Dark Sun in a OSR system than some sort of bastard child 5E treatment anyway.


----------



## Lanefan

Fenris-77 said:


> @Lanefan - frankly, I don't think that's agency at all, at least the way the tiers look at it. I'd call that more a function of the social contract at the table. Let me rephrase, it *is* agency of a sort for sure, but not agency that's normally hindered or fostered by the system or the mechanics. That said, many games do have something to say about playing your character, so I don't think it throws a wrench in the works to add it to the list even given my initial definitional uncertainty.



An easy example of a system-level impingement on that agency: 1e D&D's alignment rules.

A table-level impingement would be ruling against playing evil PCs, or PCs not of your own gender.


----------



## Fenris-77

Lanefan said:


> An easy example of a system-level impingement on that agency: 1e D&D's alignment rules.
> 
> A table-level impingement would be ruling against playing evil PCs, or PCs not of your own gender.



Both fair, but I still think this is somewhat different beast than the kind of agency I posted about upstream, which is more specifically agency realized through the avatar at the table, rather than agency over that avatar. To put that another way, agency over the decisions made by the avatar at various levels rather than agency over decisions about the avatar itself. 

I'm not preferencing one or the other here, just trying to get granular about some of the different ways we talk about agency. FWIW I think that agency over the avatar itself is a very viable discussion topic.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Both fair, but I still think this is somewhat different beast than the kind of agency I posted about upstream, which is more specifically agency realized through the avatar at the table, rather than agency over that avatar. To put that another way, agency over the decisions made by the avatar at various levels rather than agency over decisions about the avatar itself.
> 
> I'm not preferencing one or the other here, just trying to get granular about some of the different ways we talk about agency. FWIW I think that agency over the avatar itself is a very viable discussion topic.



I think agency over personality details blur the line between agency over the avatar and agency realized through the avatar during play as the avatars personality details do tend to impact your agency to have a character act certain ways in play.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> I think agency over personality details blur the line between agency over the avatar and agency realized through the avatar during play as the avatars personality details do tend to impact your agency to have a character act certain ways in play.



Hmm, I don't see it. Perhaps if the personality details weren't completely authored by the player I might agree. In a case where the player wrote the character, I wouldn't count it an impact on agency for them to play that character the way they decided it should be played. I'd agree that playing a character in good faith will influence the decision making in play, of course, but I don't that this bleeds over into the discussion of agency as I construed it above. Maybe you could call it a self-limiting of agency maybe? 

I do agree that this liminal space you describe is one that will cause some hiccups in the discussion though, for sure. Different games treat avatar details differently and fold them into the overall systems and processes differently, so in a specific example you might have to untangle a bit of gordian knot to able to see what's what clearly.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Hmm, I don't see it. Perhaps if the personality details weren't completely authored by the player I might agree. In a case where the player wrote the character, I wouldn't count it an impact on agency for them to play that character the way they decided it should be played. I'd agree that playing a character in good faith will influence the decision making in play, of course, but I don't that this bleeds over into the discussion of agency as I construed it above. Maybe you could call it a self-limiting of agency maybe?



I think that might be because they get grouped in with the social contract part.  Players have agreed to play a game with X limitations on characters.  Even if maybe they would have more preferred to play a game without that limitation they agreed to do so.  I think self-limiting agency is a good name for this.  

I suppose if a player felt he had no choice but to play under that limitation even if he didn't really want to then maybe it's a lack of agency, but I'm not really sure what if anything could actually cause this.  Perhaps some kind of emotional or psychological phenomenon?  I mean there's always the proverbial "gun to the head" but that's pretty far removed from what we are trying to talk about.



Fenris-77 said:


> I do agree that this liminal space you describe is one that will cause some hiccups in the discussion though, for sure. Different games treat avatar details differently and fold them into the overall systems and processes differently, so in a specific example you might have to untangle a bit of gordian knot to able to see what's what clearly.



I think non-evil PC's were a good example.  That certainly impacts the kinds of things you are able to do in the world even during play.  But I think you are right that it is typically a self limiting decision at the start of the campaign on the players part to play that way. 

Though it strikes me that almost any agency criticism could be headed off that very way.  The player agreed to this and therefore it's okay that this restricts him during the game?  IMO it also seems to apply to the sandbox and dead brother example quite well.


----------



## Fenris-77

I think it's important not to explain everything away by saying the players agreed to X, yeah. Mostly because while players do agree to the pitch, and build characters, they aren't necessarily privy to how the GM does business, nor are they necessarily conversant enough in the mechanics in question to know exactly what the stakes are. That's completely ok in most cases of course, that level of understanding isn't even remotely necessary to play and enjoy an RPG. It is, however, the root of comments at the table like _what do you mean I can't do that?_ which is exactly the sort of thing we're talking about.

I think there's a difference between the active agency that you get in authoring a character, and the ability to make decisions in range X about that character, versus the output in terms of agency when you power that avatar up and start having it do things. Upstream I was talking about the second kind, and then @Lanefan mentioned the former. I think it's possible to keep those two ideas separate and discrete in terms of explanatory power.


----------



## Aldarc

Here is a relevant sub-section in the "What is Player Agency?" essay I linked earlier: 


> *What exactly is player agency?*
> 
> Some may think that player agency is just about interactivity. But that would be cutting the definition too short. Many things can be interactive. Games however provide players with a level of interactivity and choice that has much larger ramifications. This degree of choice is agency and is built on both a philosophical and sociological framework.
> 
> Player agency is about giving players the interactivity to affect and change the game world. Though agency, players have power to influence and change what is happening in the game. It provides them control (or at least of sense of it) of what will happen next.
> 
> This means that players should be given the ability to make decisions in the game. But these decisions shouldn’t be trivial – at least from the player’s perceptive. It isn’t just about choosing a particular skin or a hat for a player’s avatar. Instead, it’s about making sure that your players can make meaningful decisions in the game.
> 
> Games of course provide this amount of agency in different forms and degrees. Games also share a lot in common with stories and narratives. As such, some applications of narratives that have game-like elements like branching stories or “choose your own adventure” provide the player with agency in order to determine the outcome of the story.
> 
> That means in both narratives and games, players provide influence, power, and control  over what they want to do; what they want to accomplish; and perhaps most of all what is FUN to do in the game. Because of this, player agency is much more than just simple interactivity. Player agency is instead about providing players with the ability to shape their own experience.
> 
> That power to shape their own experience provides players with the satisfaction of implementing their will inside the magic circle of the game. Through this will, they wield, influence, and implement what can be accomplished inside of the game.
> 
> Sometimes that amount of agency affects tactical and strategic choices in games. This is especially true for orthogames where separate and unequal outcomes of a game condition (i.e. the winning condition) are necessary to bring play to a close. However, for other idiomatic games (such as role-playing games) those choices could be much less focused on those game changing outcomes. Instead, they could be more aesthetic. Specifically in how players choose how their avatar looks and is represented in the world.
> 
> No matter how agency is implemented or defined in games, it does provide one specific purpose. Agency is part of the core elements of what makes a game a game. Providing a player with the options and structure to make those meaningful decisions is the first step that a designer takes in curating the player experience.



Notice that this piece makes a distinction between agency and rote setting/game interactivity. Agency is also presented as being at the level of the player rather than simply the player character in the setting. It also discusses how agency involves the power and influence over what they want to do and accomplish, not even necessarily for the purposes of their character's fiction, but for their own sense of fun and game involvement.


----------



## innerdude

Bedrockgames said:


> The problem is we are using totally different definitions of agency. Until this thread, I don't think I ever encountered your useage of agency at all. In all my years of seeing it in discussions online and at the table it has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting. And it just isn't something where I am going to adopt a whole new useage of the term simlply because I encounter a circle of posters on a forum who use it that way. I will happily engage you and discuss differences, but you just keep insisting that I have to accept your view of how much agency is present in the kinds of games you run versus mine (and you assert it is objective when clearly there is a lot of subjective stuff going on in interpretation and analysis).




Upon further reflection, I find that I am not fully willing to cede that your definition is somehow the assumed "writ large" for the hobby.

My first exposure to RPGs was BECMI in 1985. I skipped most of the '90s, then continued my "adult" grounding in RPG play with D&D 3.5 in the early 2000s.

In all my years of play and study of RPGs, I've never once come across your definition of "agency" as some set-in-stone, founding principle. In truth, I don't know that I'd ever fully formulated a complete picture/definition of what I'd consider player agency until I sat down and began working through this thread.  Though I had some ideas beforehand of what could constitute agency, it has become abundantly and comprehensibly clear that the concept of player agency extends well beyond the definition provided in your quote.

If your definition of "agency" ever was held in primacy by the RPG vox populi, I imagine it was during some period in the '90s---which would be no surprise, given the general zeitgeist of RPG play was dominated by D&D 2e and Vampire/White Wolf. I've never played an actual White Wolf system (though I've watched other people do it), but it's my general impression that in some White Wolf circles, a GM not allowing a player to actually, you know, _play their character_ might have been a "thing" back then. Between GM force and the massively heavy handed White Wolf metaplot (from what I've gathered), there might have been real concerns that a player might be forced by the GM to even avoid playing their character a certain way much of the time. So I suppose for its time, your definition at least identified some part of the problem.

Newtonian physics still has a place in our understanding of the world. But it's been enhanced, supplanted, and overlaid with significantly more material since Sir Isaac Newton got bonked on the head with an apple.

To say that the inner workings of RPG theory, play, and mindspace have radically evolved since 1995 would be an understatement. If your definition of agency worked back in the '90s, it doesn't work anymore.


----------



## Aldarc

I also think that our own hobby's understanding of player agency has naturally expanded as a result of video games, a significantly larger media industry, which attracts greater designer, scholarly, and player-side analysis about their games. So it is little surprise that the video games industry has developed a more articulate sense of player agency or even design principles. There are obviously differences of medium between video games and TTRPGs, but there is also more overlap between them (or even board games) than with say film or literature.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> The Moldvay adventure design process (which I just read about half an hour ago, coincidentally), calls for the map to start with the base village (or town etc) and the dungeon to be placed first, somewhat centrally, and the rest of the map built around that. B2 fits that pattern like a glove.



Which page?

I've just been reading my copy. Here are some extracts:

Page B3:​This rule booklet deals mostly with adventures in a dungeon . . .​​It is the DM's job to prepare the setting for each adventure before the game begins. This setting is called a *dungeon* . . . The dungeon is carefully mapped on paper . . . Each game session is called an *adventure*. . . . An adventure begins when the party enters a dungeon, and ends when the party has left the dungeon and divided up treasure. . . . At the start of the game, the palyers enter the dungeon . . .​​Page B15​When the players have rolled up their characters and bought their equipment, the DM will describe the background of the adventure. This might include information about the place the charactrs start from, the names of any NPC companions or retainers they will have, and some rumours abot the dungeon the party is going to explore.​​[The rest of this chapter (Part 4: The Adventure) discusses resolving movement and exploration in dungeons; and then talks about awarding XP.]​​Page B51:​Before playes can take their characters on adventures into dungeons, the DM must either craeat a dungeon or draw its map, or beome familiar with one of TSR's dungeon modules. . . . This section [ie Part 8: Dungeon Master Information] gives a step-by-step guide to creating a dungeon.​​[The rest of the chapter then goes on to discuss how to build a dungeon (eg heading B. Decide on a Setting discusses how "it is useful to have a _general_ idea of what it will look like" eg castle, tower, temple, etc.]​
This is what I had in mind. Where is the reference to villages?


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> Which page?
> 
> I've just been reading my copy. Here are some extracts:
> 
> Page B3:​This rule booklet deals mostly with adventures in a dungeon . . .​​It is the DM's job to prepare the setting for each adventure before the game begins. This setting is called a *dungeon* . . . The dungeon is carefully mapped on paper . . . Each game session is called an *adventure*. . . . An adventure begins when the party enters a dungeon, and ends when the party has left the dungeon and divided up treasure. . . . At the start of the game, the palyers enter the dungeon . . .​​Page B15​When the players have rolled up their characters and bought their equipment, the DM will describe the background of the adventure. This might include information about the place the charactrs start from, the names of any NPC companions or retainers they will have, and some rumours abot the dungeon the party is going to explore.​​[The rest of this chapter (Part 4: The Adventure) discusses resolving movement and exploration in dungeons; and then talks about awarding XP.]​​Page B51:​Before playes can take their characters on adventures into dungeons, the DM must either craeat a dungeon or draw its map, or beome familiar with one of TSR's dungeon modules. . . . This section [ie Part 8: Dungeon Master Information] gives a step-by-step guide to creating a dungeon.​​[The rest of the chapter then goes on to discuss how to build a dungeon (eg heading B. Decide on a Setting discusses how "it is useful to have a _general_ idea of what it will look like" eg castle, tower, temple, etc.]​
> This is what I had in mind. Where is the reference to villages?



I had to go back and look, it's actually in the Expert Booklet on X54, which makes it Cook and Marsh, not Moldvay mea culpa.

_C. PLACE THE DUNGEON AND THE BASE TOWN.
Up to now, most characters have been adventuring in a dungeon
that was assumed to be near a town. Both of these should now be
placed on the map. The town is likely to be near a waterway or
trade route, while the dungeon is usually in a deserted or desolate
area. The dungeon should not be too close to the town (or the
town would probably be overrun by the dungeon's monsters) but
should not be more than a day's journey away. If the town and
dungeon are placed near the center of a small scale map, the
players will be able to explore in all directions._


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> All I mean is there is nothing wrong with my style. I am not suggesting others are doing anything wrong in their gaming (and I think I've made that clear)



But that's not what you are saying. What you are saying is "My style is the best at X" which is _at best _a statement that needs to be proved - and can be disproved by counter example.

If you think that the implication that not having the best agency (or anything else) is in any way an insult or of itself makes other gaming styles wrong then you shouldn't be trying to claim your way of playing has the best X because when you do you are saying that literally everyone else is wrong. And you do not have a leg to stand on when your own feelings get hurt because it's pointed out that you are not at some theoretical maximum here and others can give more. It's you saying "Any other than the best is wrong" rather than "This is a valuable factor in a complex situation."

If only the style of play that is best at X is right then I can guarantee that your style isn't it _no matter what that style is_. Humans are complex and "best at X" normally ends up being a paperclip maximiser. 


Bedrockgames said:


> What terms should we use then?



If you want to talk about something as used by the OSR community try using "OSR" rather than "Old School"? Otherwise you will get people like @pemerton legitimately pointing out old school sources. Meanwhile OSR refers to a specific approach.


Bedrockgames said:


> The problem is we are using totally different definitions of agency. Until this thread, I don't think I ever encountered your useage of agency at all. In all my years of seeing it in discussions online and at the table it has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting.



And to me classic Old School sandboxes have therefore and by that definition always seemed to me to have less agency than games run more like Fate where my characters are much more able to influence the setting. Classic sandboxes keep me detached from the setting and restrict my agency because my character does not move anywhere near so freely.

A good example would be the Fate roll to Create An Advantage using Contacts. In character this is the character finding who they need to in the town or city - but this means that the player gets to endow traits about that contact rather than pick from the half dozen or so pre-prepared contacts. My character can move freely in their area of expertise precisely because the setting is malleable and they are part of that setting. Play I expect from a predefined rigid sandbox (and yes I am calling sandboxes rigid here even if a whole lot less rigid than metaplot heavy games and adventure paths) would restrict my character in ways that meant they were less a part of the setting.


----------



## Bedrockgames

innerdude said:


> Upon further reflection, I find that I am not fully willing to cede that your definition is somehow the assumed "writ large" for the hobby.
> 
> My first exposure to RPGs was BECMI in 1985. I skipped most of the '90s, then continued my "adult" grounding in RPG play with D&D 3.5 in the early 2000s.
> 
> In all my years of play and study of RPGs, I've never once come across your definition of "agency" as some set-in-stone, founding principle. In truth, I don't know that I'd ever fully formulated a complete picture/definition of what I'd consider player agency until I sat down and began working through this thread.  Though I had some ideas beforehand of what could constitute agency, it has become abundantly and comprehensibly clear that the concept of player agency extends well beyond the definition provided in your quote.
> 
> If your definition of "agency" ever was held in primacy by the RPG vox populi, I imagine it was during some period in the '90s---which would be no surprise, given the general zeitgeist of RPG play was dominated by D&D 2e and Vampire/White Wolf. I've never played an actual White Wolf system (though I've watched other people do it), but it's my general impression that in some White Wolf circles, a GM not allowing a player to actually, you know, _play their character_ might have been a "thing" back then. Between GM force and the massively heavy handed White Wolf metaplot (from what I've gathered), there might have been real concerns that a player might be forced by the GM to even avoid playing their character a certain way much of the time. So I suppose for its time, your definition at least identified some part of the problem.
> 
> Newtonian physics still has a place in our understanding of the world. But it's been enhanced, supplanted, and overlaid with significantly more material since Sir Isaac Newton got bonked on the head with an apple.
> 
> To say that the inner workings of RPG theory, play, and mindspace have radically evolved since 1995 would be an understatement. If your definition of agency worked back in the '90s, it doesn't work anymore.




You don't have to cede anything but neither do I. This is the defintiion I have encountered consistently since 2000. But at this point, the discussion is not going anywhere. I am perfectly content for us to agree to disagree on agency. If there is some other topic we can explore that is fine. But it isn't the end of the world for two sides to reach an impasse in a discussion.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> But that's not what you are saying. What you are saying is "My style is the best at X" which is _at best _a statement that needs to be proved - and can be disproved by counter example.



I wouldn't even go that far. What I am saying is my style places high value on agency, and is structured around avoiding railroads. And that I understand agency to mean, for me and for most people i've met in the hobby, to be having freedom to act and make meaningful choices in the setting as your character. Personally, I think it is a great style for achieving this, possibly the best. That is about the extent of my claim. But I do think this conversation is at an impasse. And I am sorry, but a circle of posters asserting a definition of a term that I simply don't encounter in the hobby, is not going to get me to change my mind about it


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> You don't have to cede anything but neither do I. This is the defintiion I have encountered consistently since 2000. But at this point, the discussion is not going anywhere. I am perfectly content for us to agree to disagree on agency. If there is some other topic we can explore that is fine. But it isn't the end of the world for two sides to reach an impasse in a discussion.



Except now that you have encountered other definitions or understandings of player agency, so hopefully you will stop claiming in the future that your understanding is the only one you have encountered consistently.* Others in your circles may even find the other understanding more intuitive or informative if exposed to it, particularly if given the opportunity to think through a fair treatment of the idea. Having awareness of such wider discussions of player agency outside of your circles will certainly help prevent insular group think that regards your understanding as the One True Way.**

* I'm not sure how you have not encountered this consistently at least when it comes to this community, since I recall such discussions from @pemerton, @Manbearcat, @Campbell, and others for _at least _5 years now on this forum. 

** Before any smart guy says anything: it's not clever to suggest that this could be directed at us as the critical difference is that we are repeatedly exposed to and reminded of "traditional" and "hegemonic" understandings already and we do know what forms the bulk of gaming expectations regarding GM authority, player agency, etc. as many of us come from such backgrounds and still play such games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Except now that you have encountered other definitions or understandings of player agency, so hopefully you will stop claiming in the future that your understanding is the only one you have encountered consistently.*




Sure, but it is a definition I've only seen used by a handful of people (who come from a specific style and adhere to a much more theory focused approach to play and design than I do).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Having awareness of such wider discussions of player agency outside of your circles will certainly help prevent insular group think that regards your understanding as the One True Way.**




Again, my reading of the thread is different here. I think I was showing a lot of openness about different approaches. And I think my definition was flexible in this thread for those approaches. Nor is my view insular, it is based on playing with a wide range of players, from all over the world. But I do think the definition I am using is the one with the most currency.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Sure, but it is a definition I've only seen used by a handful of people (who come from a specific style and adhere to a much more theory focused approach to play and design than I do).



Would you be able to represent this other definition fairly?



Bedrockgames said:


> Again, my reading of the thread is different here. I think I was showing a lot of openness about different approaches. And I think my definition was flexible in this thread for those approaches. Nor is my view insular, it is based on playing with a wide range of players, from all over the world. *But I do think the definition I am using is the one with the most currency.*



Certainly not when compared to views of player agency in the video game industry. I agree with @innerdude that your definition kinda feels outdated.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Having awareness of such wider discussions of player agency outside of your circles will certainly help prevent insular group think that regards your understanding as the One True Way.**




One of the reasons I post in threads like this, one of the reasons I posted at story-games.com, is I like getting pushback. But that doesn't mean I am going to agree with people just because they are pushing back in numbers. I like getting their points of view, but I will almost always take the arguments of people who seem to be seriously engaging me more serious than those who just seem to be bent on either attacking or winning. I really don't think one true wayism is a problem for me (as I have expressed an interest in a variety of games and styles in this thread, including games that fall into the style the other side is advocating for). And when I have said to posters on this thread, I am actually interested in X type of mechanic, something narrative and cinematic for this specific thing I am doing; any suggestions? I get crickets. This is also why I was willing to share my campaign info and post sections I've written on this style (I was trying to get a more genuine exchange of ideas and move past our disagreement over a word).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> A good example would be the Fate roll to Create An Advantage using Contacts. In character this is the character finding who they need to in the town or city - but this means that the player gets to endow traits about that contact rather than pick from the half dozen or so pre-prepared contacts. My character can move freely in their area of expertise precisely because the setting is malleable and they are part of that setting. Play I expect from a predefined rigid sandbox (and yes I am calling sandboxes rigid here even if a whole lot less rigid than metaplot heavy games and adventure paths) would restrict my character in ways that meant they were less a part of the setting.




I am not telling you you should play sandboxes, classic, OSR or otherwise. Nor am I saying you need to find the most agency in them. All I am saying is, my sense of this term is it cropped up around discussions about railroads, and that is how it entered my vocabulary. You and pemerton are defining it more around the player's power in the setting (and a few people around the characters). I am not particularly interested in jargon or terms as they've been hashed out here, I am always more interested in what words seem to mean among the broadest number of people. It could be I am wrong on that, that I only have a narrow view of the hobby. But I genuinely don't think so in this case (which again, shouldn't make us mortal enemies or anything, it just means, I have a very different sense than you of what this word means in the wider hobby). If fate achieves what you want in terms of agency, more power to you. I am not interested in convincing people to play games they are not going to like. So you won't hear me saying to you, after you've made your preference clear to me: but you will get MORE agency if you play sandbox. I get it, you mean something different than I do by agency, and that is totally fine (and even if you and I shared a definition, but you just didn't experience more agency in a sandbox like the ones I run, then I wouldn't push it). I am not out to win converts here


----------



## Aldarc

Also, *RPG Heroes Podcast: Ep. 11 - Sandboxing in RPGs ft. John Harper*

It's about an hour of everyone's time. John Harper is introduced around the 8 minute mark, if you wanted to skip the background info on sandboxes.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> All I am saying is, my sense of this term is it cropped up around discussions about railroads, and that is how it entered my vocabulary. You and pemerton are defining it more around the player's power in the setting (and a few people around the characters). I am not particularly interested in jargon or terms as they've been hashed out here, I am always more interested in what words seem to mean among the broadest number of people.



But I am literally using your definition of the term that "_[player agency] has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting._" And then I am taking that as a baseline and showing where there is more agency available than in a sandbox by using Fate as an example.

I'm not inventing jargon. I'm taking the term as you have defined it and showing why sandboxes are lacking in agency compared to other playstyles. If you don't like the jargon then stop using it. But it is under your own definition that sandboxes are not king of the hill.


Bedrockgames said:


> So you won't hear me saying to you, after you've made your preference clear to me: but you will get MORE agency if you play sandbox.



*By your own definition of agency this is false and I have shown why and how other games give more agency. *Just repeating your statement that there is more agency available in a sandbox simply doesn't work when by your own definition of agency there are games with more agency available, like Fate or Apocalypse World. I've yet to see you offer any counter-argument or even try to fix your definition.

I'm not inventing jargon. I'm using your jargon and following through on the consequences. Which means that either the definition you have given of agency is inaccurate and misleading or that there are games that offer more agency than sandboxes. From my own play experience it is the latter that is true. A "Play to find out what happens" game done well offers more agency (or at the very least more concentrated agency) than even a sandbox that has been done well where your characters are essentially an outside force. Both, however, offer far more agency than an adventure path.


----------



## Fenris-77

@Neonchameleon - what definition of agency are you rolling with here? I'm just trying to piece together the gist of your reply to Bedrock above...


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> But that's not what you are saying. What you are saying is "My style is the best at X" which is _at best _a statement that needs to be proved - and can be disproved by counter example.
> 
> If you think that the implication that not having the best agency (or anything else) is in any way an insult or of itself makes other gaming styles wrong then you shouldn't be trying to claim your way of playing has the best X because when you do you are saying that literally everyone else is wrong. And you do not have a leg to stand on when your own feelings get hurt because it's pointed out that you are not at some theoretical maximum here and others can give more. It's you saying "Any other than the best is wrong" rather than "This is a valuable factor in a complex situation."
> 
> If only the style of play that is best at X is right then I can guarantee that your style isn't it _no matter what that style is_. Humans are complex and "best at X" normally ends up being a paperclip maximiser.
> 
> If you want to talk about something as used by the OSR community try using "OSR" rather than "Old School"? Otherwise you will get people like @pemerton legitimately pointing out old school sources. Meanwhile OSR refers to a specific approach.
> 
> And to me classic Old School sandboxes have therefore and by that definition always seemed to me to have less agency than games run more like Fate where my characters are much more able to influence the setting. Classic sandboxes keep me detached from the setting and restrict my agency because my character does not move anywhere near so freely.
> 
> A good example would be the Fate roll to Create An Advantage using Contacts. In character this is the character finding who they need to in the town or city - but this means that the player gets to endow traits about that contact rather than pick from the half dozen or so pre-prepared contacts. My character can move freely in their area of expertise precisely because the setting is malleable and they are part of that setting. Play I expect from a predefined rigid sandbox (and yes I am calling sandboxes rigid here even if a whole lot less rigid than metaplot heavy games and adventure paths) would restrict my character in ways that meant they were less a part of the setting.





Neonchameleon said:


> But I am literally using your definition of the term that "_[player agency] has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting._" And then I am taking that as a baseline and showing where there is more agency available than in a sandbox by using Fate as an example.
> 
> I'm not inventing jargon. I'm taking the term as you have defined it and showing why sandboxes are lacking in agency compared to other playstyles. If you don't like the jargon then stop using it. But it is under your own definition that sandboxes are not king of the hill.
> 
> *By your own definition of agency this is false and I have shown why and how other games give more agency. *Just repeating your statement that there is more agency available in a sandbox simply doesn't work when by your own definition of agency there are games with more agency available, like Fate or Apocalypse World. I've yet to see you offer any counter-argument or even try to fix your definition.
> 
> I'm not inventing jargon. I'm using your jargon and following through on the consequences. Which means that either the definition you have given of agency is inaccurate and misleading or that there are games that offer more agency than sandboxes. From my own play experience it is the latter that is true. A "Play to find out what happens" game done well offers more agency (or at the very least more concentrated agency) than even a sandbox that has been done well where your characters are essentially an outside force. Both, however, offer far more agency than an adventure path.



Sorry, I don’t agree. And as I said, we are at an impasse (not trying to ignore your argument but I have responded to variants for it all over this thread (which is a pretty long thread).


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I wouldn't even go that far. What I am saying is my style places high value on agency, and is structured around avoiding railroads. And that I understand agency to mean, for me and for most people i've met in the hobby, to be having freedom to act and make meaningful choices in the setting as your character. Personally, I think it is a great style for achieving this, possibly the best. That is about the extent of my claim. But I do think this conversation is at an impasse. And I am sorry, but a circle of posters asserting a definition of a term that I simply don't encounter in the hobby, is not going to get me to change my mind about it




I think largely what we are seeing is a pretty strong difference of opinion in what makes a choice meaningful.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think largely what we are seeing is a pretty strong difference of opinion in what makes a choice meaningful.



probably; and that is fair.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Fenris-77 said:


> @Neonchameleon - what definition of agency are you rolling with here? I'm just trying to piece together the gist of your reply to Bedrock above...



The one Bedrock provided and that I quoted.


----------



## Fenris-77

The problem here is that one poster wants to talk about resolution mechanics and the other talking (primarily) about playstyle. Both have an enormous impact on agency, but there's still some apples and oranges going on here. What I find at least a little bit amusing is that a truly open sandbox and play to find out are leveraging very similar levels and types of agency, just differently.


----------



## Fenris-77

Neonchameleon said:


> The one Bedrock provided and that I quoted.



Mmm, yeah, no offense, I'm not digging for it in a thread this long. Also, you directly compared it to your own definition where setting control is the measure of agency, so you also have your own definition working.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Campbell said:


> I think largely what we are seeing is a pretty strong difference of opinion in what makes a choice meaningful.



I think a part of it is that we're seeing a strong difference in either what someone should be able to do in a world they live in or what makes character creation meaningful.

To me Bedrockgames' version of agency being maximised in a sandbox is viable if and only if you are playing either yourself or another ousider isikai'd into this setting without a pre-existing knowledge of the world or the people in it outside the PCs.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Fenris-77 said:


> Mmm, yeah, no offense, I'm not digging for it in a thread this long. Also, you directly compared it to your own definition where setting control is the measure of agency, so you also have your own definition working.



Mmm, yeah, no offence, but I quoted it in the literal post before you asked me that question.


Neonchameleon said:


> But I am literally using your definition of the term that "_[player agency] has always meant, your ability to move freely through your character in the setting._" And then I am taking that as a baseline and showing where there is more agency available than in a sandbox by using Fate as an example.



The quoted and linked part wasn't my definition. It was Bedrockgames'


----------



## Fenris-77

Neonchameleon said:


> Mmm, yeah, no offence, but I quoted it in the literal post before you asked me that question.
> 
> The quoted and linked part wasn't my definition. It was Bedrockgames'



Well don't I feel silly.  I thought there was a previous definition. I'll admit, I'm not quite sure what the phrase _the ability to move freely through your character in the setting_ actually means. If I had to guess it would be something like _the ability of your character to move freely through the setting_ but even that I find an unsatisfyingly vague account of agency. I might not be parsing it right though, who knows


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Also, *RPG Heroes Podcast: Ep. 11 - Sandboxing in RPGs ft. John Harper*
> 
> It's about an hour of everyone's time. John Harper is introduced around the 8 minute mark, if you wanted to skip the background info on sandboxes.




I will listen, but just worth pointing out that the person who wrote Blades in the Dark (and to be not knocking that game at all, as it is on my list of games to pick up), is probably going to have a very different take on sandbox than people in the OSR and where I am coming from.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> * I'm not sure how you have not encountered this consistently at least when it comes to this community, since I recall such discussions from @pemerton, @Manbearcat, @Campbell, and others for _at least _5 years now on this forum.




It is possible this subject has been touched on before among us (as I am often in threads with these posters). I know we've talked about similar ideas at the very least. But the differing definition over agency is only becoming clear to me in this thread (I will admit it often takes encounter something several times with me before it really sinks in, I just don't absorb information quickly and I tend to forget new information unless I reinforce it).


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I will listen, but just worth pointing out that the person who wrote Blades in the Dark (and to be not knocking that game at all, as it is on my list of games to pick up), is probably going to have a very different take on sandbox than people in the OSR and where I am coming from.



Probably not, surprisingly. The idea of sandbox play is pretty constant, despite the issues we've seen in this thread, and Harper's _World of Dungeons_ is a keen rules-light OSR game, so he's obviously dialed in to the zeitgeist.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I will listen, but just worth pointing out that the person who wrote Blades in the Dark (and to be not knocking that game at all, as it is on my list of games to pick up), is probably going to have a very different take on sandbox than people in the OSR and where I am coming from.



You say that, but there is a lot more overlap in communities than you are giving credit. Steven Lumpkin, one of the co-authors to the influentially oft-cited _Principia Apocrypha: Principles of Old School RPGs, or, A New OSR Primer _and a big fan of West Marches campaigns is a major fan of Blades in the Dark and Band of Blades. John Harper also wrote an even more OSR inspired version of Dungeon World that tried to imagine the precursor OD&D form of the game: i.e., World of Dungeons. You'll likely find that there are a lot of people in the various "story/narrative" community that also have their feet dipped in the OSR communities as well.

Edit: @Fenris-77 beat me by seconds to the punch.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> You say that, but there is a lot more overlap in communities than you are giving credit. Steven Lumpkin, one of the co-authors to the influentially oft-cited _Principia Apocrypha: Principles of Old School RPGs, or, A New OSR Primer _and a big fan of West Marches campaigns is a major fan of Blades in the Dark and Band of Blades. John Harper also wrote an even more OSR inspired version of Dungeon World that tried to imagine the precursor OD&D form of the game: i.e., World of Dungeons. You'll likely find that there are a lot of people in the various "story/narrative" community that also have their feet dipped in the OSR communities as well.
> 
> Edit: @Fenris-77 beat me by seconds to the punch.




I am aware of this. Like I said I used to post at Story-games.com and saw a lot of people genuinely interested in the OSR and in things like ODD. But they did often have a different take (which isn't bad). My point was simply that may be the case here. I have listened yet, so it is possible I am wrong


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Probably not, surprisingly. The idea of sandbox play is pretty constant, despite the issues we've seen in this thread, and Harper's _World of Dungeons_ is a keen rules-light OSR game, so he's obviously dialed in to the zeitgeist.




I will check this one out. I need to pick up Blades in the Dark anyways

Edit: Fenris do you know where to buy this one: I am not seeing it on Amazon for some reason


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I will check this one out. I need to pick up Blades in the Dark anyways
> 
> Edit: Fenris do you know where to buy this one: I am not seeing it on Amazon for some reason



It's free on his itch.io page.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> It's free on his itch.io page.




Thanks


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I will check this one out. I need to pick up Blades in the Dark anyways
> 
> Edit: Fenris do you know where to buy this one: I am not seeing it on Amazon for some reason



The good news is it's free. There is no bad news.


----------



## Fenris-77

Aldarc and I, trading Ninja's like champs. I hope someone is recording this epic duel.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> It's free on his itch.io page.




There are three pages. Do I need more to run this, or is that all you need ?


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> There are three pages. Do I need more to run this, or is that all you need ?



That's the whole game. It's not really fantasy BitD though, it's a super light OSR game with a wee PbtA engine.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> I think largely what we are seeing is a pretty strong difference of opinion in what makes a choice meaningful.



This is what I've been saying from the page one. It is highly subjective and the thing that actually matters is if the players feel that they have sufficient agency. If they do, great, if they don't, a convoluted theoretical model showing that they actually have plenty of agency isn't gonna help one bit.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Bedrockgames said:


> There are three pages. Do I need more to run this, or is that all you need ?



Here's where I'm going to disagree with @Aldarc and @Fenris-77 ; that's all the rules you need, but being able to run it freely requires knowing a bit about PBTA (and a bit about OSR) design assumptions and it's taking from both. If you've already run a Powered by the Apocalypse game it's all you need (and contains absolutely all the rules) but it gets to be so short by not making explicit common design assumptions.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> This is what I've been saying from the page one. It is highly subjective and the thing that actually matters is if the players feel that they have sufficient agency. If they do, great, if they don't, a convoluted theoretical model showing that they actually have plenty of agency isn't gonna help one bit.



Agreed, especially the last sentence. I'm pretty clear that the combination of mechanically-mandated complicated success (as in, the probabilities at least seem to make it the most-common outcome) and really narrow story premises of Pbta and FitD games would make me feel practically straitjacketed as a player, no matter how well someone could demonstrate to me that as a player I would have at least as much agency as in a well-run game of 5E.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Neonchameleon said:


> Here's where I'm going to disagree with @Aldarc and @Fenris-77 ; that's all the rules you need, but being able to run it freely requires knowing a bit about PBTA (and a bit about OSR) design assumptions and it's taking from both. If you've already run a Powered by the Apocalypse game it's all you need (and contains absolutely all the rules) but it gets to be so short by not making explicit common design assumptions.



Is there an easy PbtA book that could serve as a base for this?


----------



## Fenris-77

Player agency does not equal player enjoyment. However, just because someone enjoys X game experience doesn't mean they get to say _it has oodles of agency_ when it actually doesn't and what they actually mean is _I like that style a lot and don't care about agency._


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> Is there an easy PbtA book that could serve as a base for this?




I think the best game as primer is Apocalypse World, but what's most important is understanding the GM move cycle. I like to think of it like sparring. You threaten or provide opportunities and then you respond based on the actions players take. 

This series of articles is probably the best explanation I have seen.


----------



## Manbearcat

If people want this thread to go anywhere, give it focus and start posting actual play excerpts.

I tried to do this twice; (i) developing an agency matrix and (ii) examination of the play loop of a day’s journey through the wilderness in Sandbox Gaming.

The first effort found little purchase so I’m probably done with it.

The second should have more purchase (it’s much less entangled) but has yet to have much. I posted the idea:

1) Describe the play loop of a day’s wilderness journey in your Sandbox Game. I did that.

2) Post an actual play excerpt (not story hour...how all facets of the machinery of play resolved and changed states from “set out” to “make camp”). I did that.

This is the best way I know to actually have these conversations. Zoom in on something > play excerpt > collectively analyze.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> Is there an easy PbtA book that could serve as a base for this?



There's a good article on the basics here, with some links to games and further how-tos. There is also a fan-made Dungeon World SRD that will get you rolling.


----------



## Campbell

Fenris-77 said:


> Player agency does not equal player enjoyment. However, just because someone enjoys X game experience doesn't mean they get to say _it has oodles of agency_ when it actually doesn't and what they actually mean is _I like that style a lot and don't care about agency._




I would actually argue that when it comes to games you want neither too little or too much. If you have too little agency there is no real game because you cannot make a meaningful impact on your environment, It's tilting at windmills. Too much and there is no game because there is no challenge. Part of the design of any good game is leaving you wanting more influence than you have and providing the tools to get it.


----------



## Fenris-77

@Manbearcat - did you have any thoughts on that three tiered model of agency I posted upstream, as far as how it maps onto yours? I feel like I may have missed your matrix post(s) too, this thread has moved pretty quickly for a thread that hasn't really gone very far recently.


----------



## Fenris-77

Campbell said:


> I would actually argue that when it comes to games you want neither too little or too much. If you have too little agency there is no real game because you cannot make a meaningful impact on your environment, It's tilting at windmills. Too much and there is no game because there is no challenge. Part of the design of any good game is leaving you wanting more influence than you have and providing the tools to get it.



Sure, I'd agree that for a lot of folks there's a sweet spot in the middle. That's not really what I meant though. I'd also completely disagree that high agency means low challenge. PbtA is high agency, true open sandboxes are high agency, and neither are cake walk games. I think maybe you have the upper limit of your agency detector set too high.


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> @Manbearcat - did you have any thoughts on that three tiered model of agency I posted upstream, as far as how it maps onto yours? I feel like I may have missed your matrix post(s) too, this thread has moved pretty quickly for a thread that hasn't really gone very far recently.




Im formulating my thoughts (which will be clarifying questions). So I’ll have a response up soon!


----------



## Campbell

Fenris-77 said:


> Sure, I'd agree that for a lot of folks there's a sweet spot in the middle. That's not really what I meant though. I'd also completely disagree that high agency means low challenge. PbtA is high agency, true open sandboxes are high agency, and neither are cake walk games. I think maybe you have the upper limit of your agency detector set too high.




I guess would respond with games do not have agency - players have agency within a game.

I have actually experienced this feeling of acquiring too much influence over the game's environment quite often in both tabletop games and video games. It generally happens over the course of play. 

The most recent example was in a Monster of the Week game where I played The Spooky that eventually switched over to The Divine (a changeling who ascended into Fey royalty). I eventually gained way too much ability to understand what was going on. The mysteries eventually become rote because my toolset was too strong compared to the tools the GM had to challenge us.

A similar thing happened within the context of an Exalted Second Edition game I was a player in. I eventually acquired too many perfect counters on my Zenith Caste martial artist that nothing could really happen to my character in any part of the game I could not counter. 

The classic video game example is leveling too much because you do all the side quests and then the game becomes way too easy.


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> I think largely what we are seeing is a pretty strong difference of opinion in what makes a choice meaningful.



I think that’s part of it.

But I’m also confident that we’re seeing:

1) A difference of opinion on what makes a choice _palatable_.  Total legitimate in isolation, but not when it unknowingly gets folded into _meaningful.  _This has happened and it make extracting the _palatable _and confronting only the _meaningful _much more difficult.  Or, worse still, some will say that its _impossible to extract palatable from meaningful._  That couldn't be more of a non-starter.

2) And there are also some who feel (theoretically, but not empirically) that a certain menu/archetype of choices made possible for players will or should render the play priority of _testing skill_ anathema or impossible to coherently achieve.  I would like to see this empirically demonstrated.

3) And there are others still that feel that a certain menu of choices that _empowers content creation that imposes on singular authority (GM) over setting will invariably render setting incoherent_ (which has x, y, z downstream effects).  Again, theoretical, not empirical.

4) And I wonder if there is some level of _choices are only meaningful if Protagonist Agency is being flexed_.  I'm not sure if this is a thing, but, if it is, I don't agree and its empirically not true (because Pawn Stance Skilled Play disproves this).


Those 4 are why I feel its important to develop some kind of clarifying matrix that discretizes (while simultaneously understanding interdependence) the mediums by which players express agency, the types of agency they will express, and the impact on play of any given configuration.


----------



## estar

Aldarc said:


> My eyesight is not what it used to be but I can’t seem to find the part in Rob’s sandbox write-ups where it instructs the GM to kill a PC’a lost brother that they declared they are looking for.



I apologize if it been mentioned before but in sandbox campaign context is everything. I went back a few pages reading the debate on the PC's lost brother and the result I couldn't weigh in because I don't see the context. I don't know what the PC circumstances, I don't know the Brother's circumstances, nor do I know anything about the setting. Until the specifics of circumstances are outlined one can't judge whether situation was a fair ruling by the referee or not.

The general principle I operate by (and stated in my blog Bat in the Attic). Is that I set the table so to speak in terms of the setting. While I may not have everything described my assumption and what I relay to my players is that the setting has a life of it own. It existed prior the campaign and it will continue to exist after the campaign. The PCs in essence are pebbles dropped into the pond of the setting and their ripples interact with other ripples that I defined.

The campaign starts with the initial drop with the PCs having some idea of their place within the setting. After that first session and every session afterwards I will then see what the PCs do or not do and adjust the circumstances of NPCs accordingly. I rinse and repeat this throughout the life of the campaign. If I run another campaign in the same setting, I tend to stick to the same setting for the same genre, then the results of the campaign becomes part of the background of the next. 

As for the situation of the lost brother, it speaks to the part where I adjust the circumstances of the NPCs as a result of what the PC do or not do.

Typically for something specific like that I look to the players provide the information that sets up much of the lost brother's circumstances. Based on that information, I will look at several situation that are plausible and interesting. If several have equal weight I will randomly choose one. Judicious use of random table it is good way to force yourself out of one's bias occasionally. 

I strongly people trying to run sandbox campaign to assemble a decent set of the random tables that reflect the range of stuff the setting has. 

Note I said plausible. The new circumstances needs to follow out the consequences of the reaction to the old circumstances. While there is a probable outcomes most times there is a range of possible outcome and this is where the creativity of the sandbox referee shines. You don't have to always go for the probable choice is the other possible choices are plausible. (mmm a lot of Ps there). So I recommend going for the option that is interesting to the campaign but still make senses in light of the circumstances. And occasionally do a random outcome roll to keep yourself honest. 

But not all circumstances have multiple outcomes. Sometime the probable outcome is so overwhelming that it is the only choice. In the context of this discussion that means the lost brother dies despite it being a major part of the PC's drive and motivation.

Having said that let's keep several things in mind.

One common issue I see with people running campaign is simplistic outcome. That there only possible and probable outcome to the PCs choices. Having lived a few decades now, and with the experience playing MMORPGs with multi-players and more important playing and running LARP events. It is rare that situations are that simplistic.

Of course without experience it hard to think of all the possibilities which why assembling a good set of random table is a great help to the novice. Not only they generated varied result, they express in a compact form the range of possible results. 

The reason situations are into simplistic is something I call situational awareness. Usually it used in the context of combat but here I including social situations. People are aware of their surrounding and who there and sometimes who not there. A sandbox referee needs to learn how to incorporate this situational awareness into their descriptions of locales and NPCs. As it usually result in multiple and unexpected paths out of the situation.  What I do is visualize the circumstances as if I was standing there as a witness. Then I pare out the details to those that are relevant and manageable.

Circling back to the lost brother, which is why in order to weigh in on the lost brother I need to understand the specific circumstances. I will also add that without the possibility of failure, sandbox campaign lose a lot. 

Last people forget that as a referee that they need to a coach especially for a detailed or new setting they created. Players are not going to get all the detail right off. So you need to don the coach hat and teach them what their character would know about the setting. 

Hope this helps with the discussion.


----------



## Fenris-77

Campbell said:


> I guess would respond with games do not have agency - players have agency within a game.
> 
> I have actually experienced this feeling of acquiring too much influence over the game's environment quite often in both tabletop games and video games. It generally happens over the course of play.
> 
> The most recent example was in a Monster of the Week game where I played The Spooky that eventually switched over to The Divine (a changeling who ascended into Fey royalty). I eventually gained way too much ability to understand what was going on. The mysteries eventually become rote because my toolset was too strong compared to the tools the GM had to challenge us.
> 
> A similar thing happened within the context of an Exalted Second Edition game I was a player in. I eventually acquired too many perfect counters on my Zenith Caste martial artist that nothing could really happen to my character in any part of the game I could not counter.
> 
> The classic video game example is leveling too much because you do all the side quests and then the game becomes way too easy.



Both examples make sense, but both are also cases of over-powered characters, correct? Lots of games can have that problem. This conversation is sticky enough without having to account for power gaming (on purpose or not). Also I;d agree that systems don't have agency, but they do allow, foster, or restrain player agency in a multitude of ways. Stating _systems have agency_  like you're quoting my position is pretty uncharitable way to interpret anything I've posted in the last bunch of pages. I'm not offended, just bemused.


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, ItW&W, as a supplement, is more focused on smaller wilderness areas, with the stated goal being nifty 'wilderness dungeons'. This is predicated on the *(1) presence of paths of various sizes sorts and difficulties*. Travel at the 6 mile hex level is about the initial binary of follow the path or not, and it goes from there. Staying on the path means encounter rolls with bespoke tables and eventual arrival at .... wherever the path leads. (*2) Leaving the path means navigation tests and a roll (not easy) with failure meaning a roll on the becoming lost table, which tells you how long and where you end up. *Lets call IWW (a shorter acronym) a system for regional level travel, or something between one and a handful of adjacent 6 mile hexes. The construction of these wilderness dungeons is a randomized system that scatters adventure nodes of different sizes and sorts over a hex and then connects them with various types paths.
> 
> For the perilous journey kind of travel you're talking about I'd probably use something more or less like the DW journey rules from Perilous Wilds. Navigations rolls, roles for different party members, but streamlined for OSR play and with a heavy emphasis on resource management (food and light are the gas in my adventure engine). I have a bunch of random tables that cover what DW would call discoveries, usually arranged by region and terrain type, so it's more than just wandering monsters.
> 
> In both cases, I'd use the IWW camp loop. *(2) IWW focuses on water, food, and shelter as the core needs. The party roles 3d6, one for each need, with successes on a 4+ and appropriate skills granting advantage on the roll. 3 successes means everyone is fine, and less successes add one or more levels of exhaustion to one or more party members who can consume resources to mitigate the exhaustion. Six levels of exhaustion kills you, so there's some bite to the rules.* The encounter rules I use have some resource consumption built into them and I also have resource consumption baked into my rules for resting during the day. The goal there is to thread food and light resource management as deep into the day-to-day as I can so it seems less like an occasional mini-game and more like a fact of life.




I enumerated and bolded some things above.  Questions/thoughts:

1)  So branching paths with different inputs into the decision-point (distance, danger, obstacle type, etc) yes?  

a)  Is there a high resolution map (you mention classic 6 mile hexes so I would think yes) where all of this is heavily prepped before hand?  

b)  Or is this a low res map (with 6 miles just for reference) with some dangers/terrain type and then a table that can quickly resolve the creation of each branch (this is how Torchbearer works); roll for distance > then danger > then obstacle types?

2)  Can you (a) give me a quick example of this happening because of acute pressure on food/water and/or fleeing exposure to shelter (and what would be the positive feedback loop that would lead to this...I know how it manifests in Torchbearer and I wonder how much overlap there is?), (b) what the action declaration > action resolution > fallout loop would look like.  (c) Please make "become lost" as part of the fallout and then depict how a character might die as a result.

Thanks in advance.


----------



## estar

Manbearcat said:


> Those 4 are why I feel its important to develop some kind of clarifying matrix that discretizes (while simultaneously understanding interdependence) the mediums by which players express agency, the types of agency they will express, and the impact on play of any given configuration.



Or one could visualize the setting as a form of virtual reality brought to life by the referee. The players are free do anything their characters could do within the setting. The referee is judged by the players in a sense on how well this happen. Does it feel like a place that could exist given it premise. Do results make sense given the choices?


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> 1) A difference of opinion on what makes a choice _palatable_.  Total legitimate in isolation, but not when it unknowingly gets folded into _meaningful.  _This has happened and it make extracting the _palatable _and confronting only the _meaningful _much more difficult.  Or, worse still, some will say that its _impossible to extract palatable from meaningful._  That couldn't be more of a non-starter.



This seems likely to be true. While I wouldn't deny that choosing between multiple undesirable outcomes could be meaningful, I'd find it an unpalatable choice to be forced to make as recreation; which seems to indicate they're at least sometimes separable.


Manbearcat said:


> 2) And there are also some who feel (theoretically, but not empirically) that a certain menu/archetype of choices made possible for players will or should render the play priority of _testing skill_ anathema or impossible to coherently achieve.  I would like to see this empirically demonstrated.



I don't think I have a particularly relevant opinion on this.


Manbearcat said:


> 3) And there are others still that feel that a certain menu of choices that _empowers content creation that imposes on singular authority (GM) over setting will invariably render setting incoherent_ (which has x, y, z downstream effects).  Again, theoretical, not empirical.



I found that sharing worldbuilding (before and/or during a campaign) made it harder for me to run the setting with a degree of consistency that I'm happy with. I have expressed this as, roughly, "the setting I was running felt incoherent to me." I found when I was playing (not running) a game wherein the players could change elements of the setting (at will, by spending currency/tokens) that the setting eventually felt kinda incoherent to me as a player, but there were other issues with that campaign and that was not my largest problem with it.

I'm specifically not saying that my experiences are universal, or even the norm.


Manbearcat said:


> 4) And I wonder if there is some level of _choices are only meaningful if Protagonist Agency is being flexed_.  I'm not sure if this is a thing, but, if it is, I don't agree and its empirically not true (because Pawn Stance Skilled Play disproves this).



As with 2, I don't think I have a particularly relevant opinion here.


Manbearcat said:


> Those 4 are why I feel its important to develop some kind of clarifying matrix that discretizes (while simultaneously understanding interdependence) the mediums by which players express agency, the types of agency they will express, and the impact on play of any given configuration.



The possible downside of this approach is that it seems possible shading to likely that none of these types of agency is purely binary, so rather than something like tic-tac-toe you'd be playing something like n-dimensional chess. Not that you should be discouraged, just that "matrix" (as I understand it) might not be the shape of the data here.


----------



## Manbearcat

estar said:


> Or one could visualize the setting as a form of virtual reality brought to life by the referee. The players are free do anything their characters could do within the setting. The referee is judged by the players in a sense on how well this happen. Does it feel like a place that could exist given it premise. *Do results make sense given the choices?*




For "meaningful", this is _necessary but not sufficient_ for a lot of gamers.

Where one falls in this fault line is only the starting point of our conversation.  

What "not sufficient" entails is what this thread has been about.  Understanding the architecture of that and the pretty profound nuance of that is a bold undertaking.  But it is absolutely worthwhile.


----------



## FrogReaver

Deadly diseases are a part of our world.  Brothers die all the time to disease or random violence in such a way that we cannot intervene.

In the real world we don’t lack agency because we can’t control these things, we have agency despite our lack of control over them. Because, even though we have no control over such things, we do have meaningful choices about how we respond to them.

That’s what real world agency looks like.

*Note - this is pretty much identical to the sandbox conception of agency.


----------



## Aldarc

FrogReaver said:


> Deadly diseases are a part of our world.  Brothers die all the time to disease or random violence in such a way that we cannot intervene.



GM: Hey, Jack. Your character dies of a cardiac arrest while sitting on the toilet and there was no way for you to reach medical aid in time. Sorry. But that's just real life and rolling on my random chart. I hope you enjoyed your agency in the game.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> GM: Hey, Jack. Your character dies of a cardiac arrest while sitting on the toilet and there was no way for you to reach medical aid in time. Sorry. But that's just real life and rolling on my random chart. I hope you enjoyed your agency in the game.



Rolemaster probably had a chart for that.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> Rolemaster probably had a chart for that.



No idea. Never read it. Never played it.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> This seems likely to be true. While I wouldn't deny that choosing between multiple undesirable outcomes could be meaningful, I'd find it an unpalatable choice to be forced to make as recreation; which seems to indicate they're at least sometimes separable.
> 
> I don't think I have a particularly relevant opinion on this.
> 
> I found that sharing worldbuilding (before and/or during a campaign) made it harder for me to run the setting with a degree of consistency that I'm happy with. I have expressed this as, roughly, "the setting I was running felt incoherent to me." I found when I was playing (not running)
> 
> a game wherein the players could change elements of the setting (at will, by spending currency/tokens) that the setting eventually felt kinda incoherent to me as a player, but there were other issues with that campaign and that was not my largest problem with it.
> 
> I'm specifically not saying that my experiences are universal, or even the norm.
> 
> As with 2, I don't think I have a particularly relevant opinion here.
> 
> The possible downside of this approach is that it seems possible shading to likely that none of these types of agency is purely binary, so rather than something like tic-tac-toe you'd be playing something like n-dimensional chess. Not that you should be discouraged, just that "matrix" (as I understand it) might not be the shape of the data here.




Just so we're clear, I look forward to your contributions in these threads.  I see the name "prabe" and I think "this is someone I often disagree with on the particulars but I need to read this post."

All the stuff you've written (before the last paragraph) is pretty much where I put you at.  Some, @Lanefan in particular (though there have been plenty of others over the years), feel that setting incoherency inevitability (or at least "unpalatable drift") under such a play paradigm is an empirically provable claim.  

On the bottom paragraph:

I tried to make my thoughts as clear as I could on the matrix first principles and development.  As I wrote upthread, the idea is (a) not that there is no interdependence or bleed (its in fact, accepted a priori) but rather (b) there are, in fact, degrees of freedom.  (c) Sussing both (a) and (b) out is extremely helpful.  Further, (d) understanding that Protagonist Agency is (i) a HUGE part of this yet (ii) it is not necessary for play to achieve the requisite agency necessary to resolve the game's play priority (eg Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic dungeoneering is exhibit A...which was actually my very first collision with "YOUR RPGING SUCKS" in my life when WW/VtM players and LARPers would accuse myself and my friends of shallow NOT RPGING play).  Finally, (e) understanding how some of these mediums and forms of agency (Character, Setting, Situation, Tactical, Strategic, Protagonism) can collide to create at-tension (or worse) play priorities at any given moment of play is EXTREMELY helpful because it will help TTRPG participants resolve those tensions in ways that don't require one play priority being utterly subordinated to another (typically by way of GM Force).


----------



## FrogReaver

Aldarc said:


> GM: Hey, Jack. Your character dies of a cardiac arrest while sitting on the toilet and there was no way for you to reach medical aid in time. Sorry. But that's just real life and rolling on my random chart. I hope you enjoyed your agency in the game.



not sure your point?


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Deadly diseases are a part of our world.  Brothers die all the time to disease or random violence in such a way that we cannot intervene.




Very true


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> On the bottom paragraph:



I think you've been quite clear about what you're trying to do. I'm just a non-mathy person seeing the problems I would almost certainly have trying to work something like that out in the kind of detail you're talking about.


----------



## Fenris-77

Manbearcat said:


> I enumerated and bolded some things above.  Questions/thoughts:
> 
> 1)  So branching paths with different inputs into the decision-point (distance, danger, obstacle type, etc) yes?
> 
> a)  Is there a high resolution map (you mention classic 6 mile hexes so I would think yes) where all of this is heavily prepped before hand?
> 
> b)  Or is this a low res map (with 6 miles just for reference) with some dangers/terrain type and then a table that can quickly resolve the creation of each branch (this is how Torchbearer works); roll for distance > then danger > then obstacle types?
> 
> 2)  Can you (a) give me a quick example of this happening because of acute pressure on food/water and/or fleeing exposure to shelter (and what would be the positive feedback loop that would lead to this...I know how it manifests in Torchbearer and I wonder how much overlap there is?), (b) what the action declaration > action resolution > fallout loop would look like.  (c) Please make "become lost" as part of the fallout and then depict how a character might die as a result.
> 
> Thanks in advance.



1a) Yes, exactly, and those choices are made pretty manifest in actual play (i.e. its not a surprise). I guess its a high res map, with a 6 mile hex set about 6 x 1 mile hexes wide (four fit comfortably on some big hex 8x11 hex paper I use). It's not_ super_ preppy though, it's a die drop system, and some of the smaller stuff could easily just be done on the fly. The system does it all prior though, so not like TB, more like classic dungeon design. The finished map looks like a flow chart, not a Dyson Logos production.

I do have enough random tables built into my game that I can quite easily run that on the fly entirely if I have to. My encounter process looks more like a discovery generator than it does a wandering monster table. It ranges from signs of life, to props and hazards, to actual monsters, with some conditions and resource management in for good measure.

Let me see if I can sketch the feedback loop for you. Food first:
1) Encumbrance is finite, so the players can only carry so much food and light (water isn't an issue except in deserts and whatnot). PCs can carry their STR in items total, and one ration at a d6 Usage takes up a slot (that has an average of 5 uses before it runs out).

2) That Usage Die is rolled once on a short rest, twice on a long rest (standard overnight) and three times on a full rest (a whole day). The latter two use the camp mechanics, so there is some chance to avoid those rolls (3d6 with each success on a 4+ obviating a roll)

If you have no rations you accrue exhaustion every rest that you go without, so minimum 1/day.  Six levels of exhaustion is fatal. There is also a result on the random encounter charts that forces a rations roll (adventuring is hard work). The math on rations is that each one lasts _roughly_ 2 days. 

3) The party can _Become Lost_ any time they stray from a marked trail or path, which would include larger scale exploration. They roll a d6 and have to get a 6 or better. There are three mods for this. A map or nav gear gives +1, a local guide gives +2, and a navigation or survival skill grants advantage. The amount of time the party spends lost depends on the reputation of the area (how civilized it is) and ranges from 1d6 hours to 3d6 days. After that time the party regains its bearings in a random location of the GMs choice. Every day spent lost requires 3 ration rolls per PC.

This is almost always a player choice, they have to leave the trail, but encounters can be a mitigating factor. This is an old school game, so encounter balance is a fairy tale. Running away is a necessary survival skill. 

In practical terms there is no loop early in an adventure. The PCs have lots of food and probably at least a map, if not a trail. However, food can disappear fast on a bad day, and exhaustion can pile up quickly, so there's a point at which the party will have to pay careful attention to their travel decisions based on remaining food supplies. This requires an understanding of the math and system. It's simple enough in practice though.

To tie that directly to action declaration would happen at the macro level I suppose. Every travel day is a choice about do we push on or do we turn back, and there's a tangible point where there's real risk involved. The real risk is exhaustion of course. Not only does that accrue via running out of food, but it also accrues via HP depletion, and requires a Full Rest to clear (24 hours, which chews rations), and also comes with a random disadvantage for each level (cumulative). 

Light is a different kind of issue. There is no darkvision in Black Hack, and no permanent, or even long duration light spell, so you absolutely _must_ have light sources for dungeon exploration. When underground you roll a depletion die (Ud6) every turn for your light sources, so a single torch lasts somewhere between half an hour and two hours. There are panic rules for being caught in the dark, so running away, passing out, pissing yourself, that sort of thing. The level of danger is lower unless the party really pushed their luck exploring a larger underground complex. Running out of light deep underground is bad news. So, again, it's a risk vs reward call on the part of the party pretty much continuously. How much farther can we explore before we _have_ to turn back?


----------



## FrogReaver

If agency is about having the ability to affect change in the world exactly the way you want to then I’d say agency in this definition is just a synonym for power.


----------



## Campbell

From my perspective a significant part of what makes games so great is that we have substantially more agency in a well designed game than in real life. In games our fortunes are much more significantly correlated with the choices we make than in real life as well as a much stronger feedback loop between action and consequence.

This is what makes games such great learning tools. They provide great environments to learn new skills.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> If agency is about having the ability to affect change in the world exactly the way you want to then I’d say agency in this definition is just a synonym for power.



IDK, I think that _choice_ might be the better word. Even a newb-y 0 level git has all the choices in an open sandbox. Unless you're using 'power' to mean 'ability to'? Help a brother out here....


----------



## Manbearcat

The fact that humans in real life cannot sufficiently intervene in the death of a loved to save them from disease (trust me...I know all about this, I've lost many loved ones to disease, including a life/outlook altering, 22 month, gruesome battle with Glioblastoma) is not particularly apt to a discussion on TTRPG agency.

The two are not the same things at all.  

If I was interested in actualizing a satisfying TTRPG experience about "trying to save a loved one from brain cancer", it wouldn't be what felt like the GM Force-fest that is endured in real life (despite setting all of my will and finances and mind against the inevitability that was coming).  And it wouldn't remotely be of the kind of granularity of "if I swab her drying mouth with a moist swab because her salivary glands have failed, will that moralize her enough to die tonight so she doesn't have to endure another 3 weeks of this (and other horrors)."

I'm not being macabre here.  I'm dead serious.  A satisfying roleplaying game about being a caregiver/priest or merely someone who doesn't want to give up on a loved one will not include the sort of fiat/inexorable "Rocks fall, you die", lack of agency despite all efforts, reality of life that sometimes shapes these kinds of things.  It would include the very real prospect of healing, it would abstract the unnecessary, and it would systemitize in a way that creates an integrated feedback loop where the emotions experienced and mental fortitude erected actually impact the physical fortitude of both the afflicted and the caregivers.

Leaving all of that up for exposition + theatrical amplification + GM decides sounds like the most horrible experience I could imagine (and yes, it maps pretty damn well to my real life experience!)!

My Life With Master would actually be the TTRPG template I would use for this.  Its actually perfect.


----------



## FrogReaver

In a sandbox, much like real life, there’s not anything important that happens (that I’m aware of) that I cannot make a meaningful choice about.

I find out my brother is dead. There’s numerous meaningful choices I can make.

Im stuck in prison with no apparent escape. There’s numerous meaningful choices I can make.

if agency is about having the ability to make meaningful choices, then lack of control over a thing does not equate to a lack of agency. It’s only a lack of power.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> The fact that humans in real life cannot sufficiently intervene in the death of a loved to save them from disease (trust me...I know all about this, I've lost many loved ones to disease, including a life/outlook altering, 22 month, gruesome battle with Glioblastoma) is not particularly apt to a discussion on TTRPG agency.
> 
> The two are not the same things at all.
> 
> If I was interested in actualizing a satisfying TTRPG experience about "trying to save a loved one from brain cancer", it wouldn't be what felt like the GM Force-fest that is endured in real life (despite setting all of my will and finances and mind against the inevitability that was coming).  And it wouldn't remotely be of the kind of granularity of "if I swab her drying mouth with a moist swab because her salivary glands have failed, will that moralize her enough to die tonight so she doesn't have to endure another 3 weeks of this (and other horrors)."
> 
> I'm not being macabre here.  I'm dead serious.  A satisfying roleplaying game about being a caregiver/priest or merely someone who doesn't want to give up on a loved one will not include the sort of fiat/inexorable "Rocks fall, you die", lack of agency despite all efforts, reality of life that sometimes shapes these kinds of things.  It would include the very real prospect of healing, it would abstract the unnecessary, and it would systemitize in a way that creates an integrated feedback loop where the emotions experienced and mental fortitude erected actually impact the physical fortitude of both the afflicted and the caregivers.
> 
> Leaving all of that up for exposition + theatrical amplification + GM decides sounds like the most horrible experience I could imagine (and yes, it maps pretty damn well to my real life experience!)!
> 
> My Life With Master would actually be the TTRPG template I would use for this.  Its actually perfect.



As someone who's been through the experience of watching the long, slow, inevitable cancer death three times with loved ones (mother in my teens, GF's mother in my twenties, father-in-law a couple years ago) I can think of roughly nothing I want to roleplay less. It's brutal and heartbreaking, and depression lurks for me around any given corner, anyway.


----------



## Manbearcat

prabe said:


> As someone who's been through the experience of watching the long, slow, inevitable cancer death three times with loved ones (mother in my teens, GF's mother in my twenties, father-in-law a couple years ago) I can think of roughly nothing I want to roleplay less. It's brutal and heartbreaking, and depression lurks for me around any given corner, anyway.




Interestingly, if systematized well, I think it would help me (and surely others with my cognitive framework) with some emotional healing.  The philosophical fallout is not going to be undone by such a game.  But I truly wonder if (again, done right) it might help with some emotional damage that people who endure these things suffer from.

Sort of like a "Many Worlds Instantiation Where Your Loved One Didn't Die (and horribly)."  Doesn't sound terrible.


----------



## FrogReaver

prabe said:


> As someone who's been through the experience of watching the long, slow, inevitable cancer death three times with loved ones (mother in my teens, GF's mother in my twenties, father-in-law a couple years ago) I can think of roughly nothing I want to roleplay less. It's brutal and heartbreaking, and depression lurks for me around any given corner, anyway.



Which is a very good argument for why having things happen to PC relatives that they can’t intervene is not necessarily the best idea.

But that’s not really the focus of my point. I’m not saying this is okay because it happens in the real world. I’m saying that such bad things happen to your relatives and friends isn’t typically viewed as a lack of agency on your part.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> IDK, I think that _choice_ might be the better word. Even a newb-y 0 level git has all the choices in an open sandbox. Unless you're using 'power' to mean 'ability to'? Help a brother out here....



Choice to affect a particular change implies the same thing. If you have the choice then you have the power to implement it.


----------



## prabe

Manbearcat said:


> Interestingly, if systematized well, I think it would help me (and surely others with my cognitive framework) with some emotional healing.  The philosophical fallout is not going to be undone by such a game.  But I truly wonder if (again, done right) it might help with some emotional damage that people who endure these things suffer from.
> 
> Sort of like a "Many Worlds Instantiation Where Your Loved One Didn't Die (and horribly)."  Doesn't sound terrible.



I have no doubt that some people--as you say, with certain cognitive framework/s--might find such a game helpful. It ... doesn't seem to me to be helpful for how my brain is wired--I think it's probable I would have some sort of chronic depression in any event, because genetics, and the idea of roleplaying to quasi-relive the experience seems like anhedonia on the hoof.

I've found something like solace in fiction, when things get bleached and blighted and dark. _The Hollow Man_ by Dan Simmons is very much on the lines of your coda. If fiction helps, I highly recommend it.


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> 1a) Yes, exactly, and those choices are made pretty manifest in actual play (i.e. its not a surprise). I guess its a high res map, with a 6 mile hex set about 6 x 1 mile hexes wide (four fit comfortably on some big hex 8x11 hex paper I use). It's not_ super_ preppy though, it's a die drop system, and some of the smaller stuff could easily just be done on the fly. The system does it all prior though, so not like TB, more like classic dungeon design. The finished map looks like a flow chart, not a Dyson Logos production.
> 
> I do have enough random tables built into my game that I can quite easily run that on the fly entirely if I have to. My encounter process looks more like a discovery generator than it does a wandering monster table. It ranges from signs of life, to props and hazards, to actual monsters, with some conditions and resource management in for good measure.
> 
> Let me see if I can sketch the feedback loop for you. Food first:
> 1) Encumbrance is finite, so the players can only carry so much food and light (water isn't an issue except in deserts and whatnot). PCs can carry their STR in items total, and one ration at a d6 Usage takes up a slot (that has an average of 5 uses before it runs out).
> 
> 2) That Usage Die is rolled once on a short rest, twice on a long rest (standard overnight) and three times on a full rest (a whole day). The latter two use the camp mechanics, so there is some chance to avoid those rolls (3d6 with each success on a 4+ obviating a roll)
> 
> If you have no rations you accrue exhaustion every rest that you go without, so minimum 1/day.  Six levels of exhaustion is fatal. There is also a result on the random encounter charts that forces a rations roll (adventuring is hard work). The math on rations is that each one lasts _roughly_ 2 days.
> 
> 3) The party can _Become Lost_ any time they stray from a marked trail or path, which would include larger scale exploration. They roll a d6 and have to get a 6 or better. There are three mods for this. A map or nav gear gives +1, a local guide gives +2, and a navigation or survival skill grants advantage. The amount of time the party spends lost depends on the reputation of the area (how civilized it is) and ranges from 1d6 hours to 3d6 days. After that time the party regains its bearings in a random location of the GMs choice. Every day spent lost requires 3 ration rolls per PC.
> 
> This is almost always a player choice, they have to leave the trail, but encounters can be a mitigating factor. This is an old school game, so encounter balance is a fairy tale. Running away is a necessary survival skill.
> 
> In practical terms there is no loop early in an adventure. The PCs have lots of food and probably at least a map, if not a trail. However, food can disappear fast on a bad day, and exhaustion can pile up quickly, so there's a point at which the party will have to pay careful attention to their travel decisions based on remaining food supplies. This requires an understanding of the math and system. It's simple enough in practice though.
> 
> To tie that directly to action declaration would happen at the macro level I suppose. Every travel day is a choice about do we push on or do we turn back, and there's a tangible point where there's real risk involved. The real risk is exhaustion of course. Not only does that accrue via running out of food, but it also accrues via HP depletion, and requires a Full Rest to clear (24 hours, which chews rations), and also comes with a random disadvantage for each level (cumulative).
> 
> Light is a different kind of issue. There is no darkvision in Black Hack, and no permanent, or even long duration light spell, so you absolutely _must_ have light sources for dungeon exploration. When underground you roll a depletion die (Ud6) every turn for your light sources, so a single torch lasts somewhere between half an hour and two hours. There are panic rules for being caught in the dark, so running away, passing out, pissing yourself, that sort of thing. The level of danger is lower unless the party really pushed their luck exploring a larger underground complex. Running out of light deep underground is bad news. So, again, it's a risk vs reward call on the part of the party pretty much continuously. How much farther can we explore before we _have_ to turn back?




Thanks for that.  Questions:

1)  Every item is 1 Load and Strength score = Load?  How does this work out in play, do you think?  Punishing enough?  Decision-point-ey with respect to treasure enough?  How do Porters/Pack Mules work?

2)  What is the Coin: Supplies economy like?  Too forgiving?  Punishing enough?

3)  What is the Exhaustion Level Refresh Rate?

4)  HP Threshold for Level of Exhaustion?

5)  Exhaustion Level able to be accrued within the Panic rules (if not 1st order than 2nd order)?

6)  How can Rations and Light Complications be made manifest (eg "you got x result on action resolution or y came up on encounter table...A colony of bats explodes from a chimney and moves all around you in the tightening passage...the flame gutters...do you protect it and accept and risk burns or bites - roll Light to see if it survives and save against fire/bats...or do you hit the deck and let it go out to save yourself...or something else?").


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Choice to affect a particular change implies the same thing. If you have the choice then you have the power to implement it.



But not to succeed, or even have a chance. Sure, go fight the dragon at first level.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> But not to succeed, or even have a chance. Sure, go fight the dragon at first level.



If you can’t succeed then you have no choice to affect a change.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> If you can’t succeed then you have no choice to affect a change.



You have the choice to enter the dragons lair or not.  Goals matter too, of ypu were teying to draw the dragon off, for example, that might be achievable. More importantly, if you back up a few steps, you have the choice of goals,  one of which was the dragon.  At least in some games you have that. Not so much in more linear games.


----------



## estar

Manbearcat said:


> For "meaningful", this is _necessary but not sufficient_ for a lot of gamers.
> 
> Where one falls in this fault line is only the starting point of our conversation.
> 
> What "not sufficient" entails is what this thread has been about.  Understanding the architecture of that and the pretty profound nuance of that is a bold undertaking.  But it is absolutely worthwhile.



I try not to guess at what people find interesting or not, what they find meaningful. Instead I start with a setting, ask what the player what they find interesting about it or just a common what they want to do. Give a couple of possibilities and once they settled on a choice proceed with character creation, outlining the initial situation, and detailing the locales.
Not unlike a tour guide asking their group what kind of places they would like to visit then working with to plan out the initial itinerary. Then adjusting that itinerary through the trip until they come home. 

But unlike a real world trip the virtue of using pen, paper, dice, and imagination, the direction of the campaign can radically be altered if it turns out to be something uninteresting.

But all of this is tempered with the fact that choices have consequences. That at the end of the day, the wrong choice will leave to undesired or negative consequences. That chance is part of the equation. My job as referee in regard to this aspect is to ensure the players have and understand all the information their character's would have. If a series of bad choices leads to not getting to the lost brother in time. Then that how it plays out. In my experience it is rare that a single choice result in a consequence of that magnitude. Usually a result many bad choices along the way.


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> If agency is about having the ability to affect change in the world exactly the way you want to then I’d say agency in this definition is just a synonym for power.



Not just power. Power is a component though.

In order for that power to be useful you also require the autonomy to direct it and the information to know where to direct it. All three are required, but may be present in different quantities.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> You have the choice to enter the dragons lair or not.  Goals matter too, of ypu were teying to draw the dragon off, for example, that might be achievable. More importantly, if you back up a few steps, you have the choice of goals,  one of which was the dragon.  At least in some games you have that. Not so much in more linear games.



Trying to draw the dragon off is just something the level 1 character might succeed at.  He has the ability to affect that particular change.

But killing the dragon he does not have the ability to affect that change. (Please take this at face value as we can endlessly invent and add circumstances to any statement to disprove it).

the way many in this thread would answer this is that a higher level character who could kill the dragon has more agency. He has the power to accomplish more and having power directly feeds into their conception of agency.

I’m saying this isn’t right. Agency is being presented a situation with a dragon and making a meaningful choice. If you are level 1 that choice may be luring it off. That choice may be to hide for now and return to kill it when you are stronger. That choice might be to talk to it and offer yourself to it (you worship dragons after all).

In any event all of these choices affect change which is a good chunk of what agency is all about.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> Not just power. Power is a component though.
> 
> In order for that power to be useful you also require the autonomy to direct it and the information to know where to direct it. All three are required, but may be present in different quantities.



Agreed (that is what is required under your definition of agency). And my point is that you can have agency in a particular situation even when you don’t have the power to do the thing you really want to do. There are nearly always other meaningful choices you can make.


----------



## Fenris-77

Manbearcat said:


> Thanks for that.  Questions:
> 
> 1)  Every item is 1 Load and Strength score = Load?  How does this work out in play, do you think?  Punishing enough?  Decision-point-ey with respect to treasure enough?  How do Porters/Pack Mules work?
> 
> 2)  What is the Coin: Supplies economy like?  Too forgiving?  Punishing enough?
> 
> 3)  What is the Exhaustion Level Refresh Rate?
> 
> 4)  HP Threshold for Level of Exhaustion?
> 
> 5)  Exhaustion Level able to be accrued within the Panic rules (if not 1st order than 2nd order)?
> 
> 6)  How can Rations and Light Complications be made manifest (eg "you got x result on action resolution or y came up on encounter table...A colony of bats explodes from a chimney and moves all around you in the tightening passage...the flame gutters...do you protect it and accept and risk burns or bites - roll Light to see if it survives and save against fire/bats...or do you hit the deck and let it go out to save yourself...or something else?").



1) Stuff that's like bracelet sized or smaller can be stored 8 to a pouch, which takes up one slot. Generally I think it's appropriately punishing. BH runs on a 3d6 stat gen model, so a _lot_ of characters are going to be in the 8-12 range. Even a wizard has half of that filled just with his staff, spell book and other starting kit. It's tough to really load out on rations to short circuit the play loop. A porter or pack mule carries 12 items, which is cool, and neither are particularly expensive, but both suffer from morale and are squishy, so if you loaf them out with rations and count on it you could be in a serious pickle when they flee midway through a tough fight, or as the result of a fear mechanic roll. That should also give an idea about the treasure decision point, which really isn't about how much treasure can we all carry if we empty our packs. You can go double on STR slots at the cost of being encumbered and moving at half speed, but again, very risk-reward.

2) Coin is pretty forgiving as far as individual costs go, but the importance or rations and the cost of repairing the better armours balances that out IMO. There's no purchasing of magic items, so the only real choice with hordes of coin would, I guess, be the domain route. I haven't played this rules set far enough to have had to worry about that.

3) Exhaustion heals at best, in the wild, at the rate of one level per full day of rest. If you get to town it completely wipes after the first night under a civilized roof. There are some environmental things that could help, locations mostly, that could be found as part of exploration. Finding one would change the decision making process a lot.

4) HP and exhaustion aren't connected by a HP threshold other than going down to 0 and then being revived often results in a level of exhaustion.

5) Second order, 1 result on a d6 takes the character out of action, which might result in a level of exhaustion on revival.

6) Light would be made manifest, in my game, like any other adjudication. I call for a roll, and in this case, would narrate a failure (roll of 1-2) either as guttering or the bats, or just poof it's out if they bellied out the Usage Die. This could be complicated if it happen to coincide with a creature encounter, which it could (not by fiat, but by roll).

Drop the Torch rules, as in TB, are not part of the BH, but I'm going to write them into my hack, because most characters have something combat related they need both hands for. This would also be narrated, of course. That's also why you can hire Torchbearer retainers (just hope the git doesn't flee on you, although I would allow a test to rally them).


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> I had to go back and look, it's actually in the Expert Booklet on X54, which makes it Cook and Marsh, not Moldvay mea culpa.



That's what I thought.

The reason I draw the distinction is because I'm influenced by Luke Crane's critique of Cook/Marsh Expert vis-a-vis Moldvay Basic. (It used to be on a Google blog site but isn't available any more as far as I know.)


----------



## Fenris-77

I think Moldvay superior in general as well, but I have no issues with the Expert rules in this particular instance.


----------



## Manbearcat

estar said:


> I try not to guess at what people find interesting or not, what they find meaningful. Instead I start with a setting, ask what the player what they find interesting about it or just a common what they want to do. Give a couple of possibilities and once they settled on a choice proceed with character creation, outlining the initial situation, and detailing the locales.
> Not unlike a tour guide asking their group what kind of places they would like to visit then working with to plan out the initial itinerary. Then adjusting that itinerary through the trip until they come home.
> 
> But unlike a real world trip the virtue of using pen, paper, dice, and imagination, the direction of the campaign can radically be altered if it turns out to be something uninteresting.
> 
> But all of this is tempered with the fact that choices have consequences. That at the end of the day, the wrong choice will leave to undesired or negative consequences. That chance is part of the equation. My job as referee in regard to this aspect is to ensure the players have and understand all the information their character's would have. If a series of bad choices leads to not getting to the lost brother in time. Then that how it plays out. In my experience it is rare that a single choice result in a consequence of that magnitude. Usually a result many bad choices along the way.




No I read you.

I know exactly what you're talking about. 

I coined (I believe at least...I don't ever recollect seeing it before that) the term "*Setting Tourism*" (as one of the key aspects of this type of play) a long time ago for precisely the reasons you're outlining above (even using the analogy).

Couple questions:

1)  Why do you not try to suss out "what is interesting" (that is, what is the premise and what are the themes and genre tropes of play) prior to play and have table time focus on that?  Many games are systemitized precisely around this idea in order to deliver a consistently rewarding experience with respect to "what is interesting."  My Life With Master is very different than Moldvay Basic D&D is very different from Dogs in the Vineyard is very different than Blades in the Dark is very different than Torchbearer is very different from D&D 4e is very different from Apocalypse World precisely because "what is interesting" is a foundational question that is asked and answered before starting.

What do you think you gain and what do you think you lose by not preemptively asking this?

2)  Do you have a play excerpt in mind that you could share where your own play led to "the brother died (or some derivation of that theme)?"  Not like a "story hour" but actually sharing with us what went on under the hood ("Brother Alive Beginning State" > action declarations > action resolution > GM evolution of fiction/gamestate change > rinse repeat until "Brother Dead End State").  

That would be helpful.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> Rolemaster probably had a chart for that.





Aldarc said:


> No idea. Never read it. Never played it.



I played it as my primary game for nearly 20 years.

Luckily I'm posting in a thread where no one's game or style is framed as "invalid" or "wrong".


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Deadly diseases are a part of our world.  Brothers die all the time to disease or random violence in such a way that we cannot intervene.
> 
> In the real world we don’t lack agency because we can’t control these things, we have agency despite our lack of control over them. Because, even though we have no control over such things, we do have meaningful choices about how we respond to them.
> 
> That’s what real world agency looks like.





FrogReaver said:


> I’m not saying this is okay because it happens in the real world. I’m saying that such bad things happen to your relatives and friends isn’t typically viewed as a lack of agency on your part.



In the real world, people are subject to forces/processes that they can't control.

Imagined worlds don't "unfold" according to their own causal processes. Because they're imagined. They have to be authored.

So the analogue of _forces that people can't control_ becomes _decisions made by another participant in establishing the imagined world_. In the context of the sandboxes being discussed, that is the GM.

I don't really see how reiterating this point about your preferred allocation of authorial power is meant to persuade me (or anyone else) that players have more of it and GMs less.

What you seem to be doing is arguing why players in such games should be satisfied with having less authorial power than the GM: because the GM is the analogue in their game experience of forces/processes they can't control in the rest of their life experience.

I also still don't understand why this doesn't apply to combat resolution.

(I mean, I know the _historical_ explanation: most RPGs' approach to combat is influenced by D&D which was in this respect derived from wargaming, and the whole point of wargaming is that the referee doesn't just decide what happens. But I don't understand how this approach is reconciled with the notion that the imagined world should be established by GM decision-making as an analogue for the impersonal processes that shape so much of the real world.)


----------



## aramis erak

Bedrockgames said:


> This. A sandbox doesn't care about dramatic arcs. Drama can arise (i've mentioned drama and sandbox) but no one has plot immunity (not PCs, not NPCS) and in a sandbox,



You're fine to here


Bedrockgames said:


> the gm has full setting control.



The properly run sandbox has some amount of PC influence that precludes full setting control, because of the agreed upon rules systems, and the simple factor that, in a sandbox, player actions matter.

At a minimum, a proper sandbox is responsive to player actions. Ful GM setting control is axiomatically constrained by having to react to players. If the players can't impact it, it's no better than EverCrack or WoW: openworld quests with no setting impact.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> In the real world, people are subject to forces/processes that they can't control.
> 
> Imagined worlds don't "unfold" according to their own causal processes. Because they're imagined. They have to be authored.
> 
> So the analogue of _forces that people can't control_ becomes _decisions made by another participant in establishing the imagined world_. In the context of the sandboxes being discussed, that is the GM.



We don't disagree here.



pemerton said:


> I don't really see how reiterating this point about your preferred allocation of authorial power is meant to persuade me (or anyone else) that players have more of it and GMs less.



But that's not my point.  I'm not saying you should prefer this method of authorial content generation because it's more realistic.  In fact my point isn't about authorial content generation at all.  My point is about agency and the real world factors in because I'm using agency in the real world to compare your conception of agency to.  And guess what?  There is a noticable difference.  Agency in the real world doesn't require you to have power over a particular thing whereas agency in your conception does.  Take a dragon.  You say the person that has no chance of killing the dragon has less agency than the one that can.  But agency isn't about you achieving your goals, agency is about you having meaningful decisions.  And even when faced with an unkillable dragon you have meaningful choices.  Do I run?  Do I hide?  Do I bargain?  Do I lure it away?  Do I help others get away from it?  Etc.  All are meaningful decisions in relation to the dragon situation and it's that capacity for making meaningful decisions that is agency. 

And this is why I keep coming back to the idea, that 1 additional meaningful choice doesn't actually imply more agency, because agency isn't how many different meaningful choices you have the option of choosing between in a particular situation, it's whether you can make any meaningful choices in a situation.



pemerton said:


> What you seem to be doing is arguing why players in such games should be satisfied with having less authorial power than the GM: because the GM is the analogue in their game experience of forces/processes they can't control in the rest of their life experience.



That's not my argument at all.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> I asked something similarly just now. I suspect the issue has more to do with the GM's fiat to make unilateral setting declarations removed from mechanical play procedures.



I can't really keep up with all the posts, but I just wanted to say that randomness isn't a 'fix', and it isn't about the 'GM fiat' so much as it is about the whole concept of what the agenda is. I play an RPG so that I can participate in an interesting story which is about characters that I RP (and their associates, etc.) not about narrating the outcomes of dice rolls. I have no problem with dice as a way injecting some suspense into the game and avoiding utterly predictable outcomes. So, in some sense I don't have this huge problem with randomness factoring into the 'find the brother scenario', but if the end result is simply determined by some single random toss of the dice which is utterly unrelated to anything taking place in the narrative, that is just IMHO bad storytelling. Why is that interesting? It is 100% about the dice! Give me a scenario where my character can take some huge risk and roll some dice and maybe it impacts the outcome, that's dramatic, but some DM just rolling "sorry your brother died 3 years ago, the dice say so." doesn't really cut it. That was 8th grade sort of level of play... I want something more sophisticated that delivers the goods better.


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> I think, in the oft-cited examples from BW, that roleplaying would be impossible without the resolutions (We found the tower; I found my brother). I think that in any system that boils down to "The GM Decides" where the GM is convinced/persuaded by roleplaying (along the lines of what I understand @pemerton to mean by "free narration") that the resolution is directly derived from the roleplaying. I think that in any system or instance where the odds of resolution are affected by what has been roleplayed, roleplaying and resolution are intertwined.



Technically, if it affects anything on a character sheet, in BW, it requires a roll. Likewise, if it requires a PC believe or disbelieve something, it also requires a roll. That's a quirk of BW/BE/MG because it's part of how Luke Crane has solved the problem of the charismatic player with the non-charismatic character using player abilities to dominate the story. *Burning Wheel has a specific mechanical limit on RP power over the game.* It's unusual in doing to the way it does. It's not unique, but it is rare. Vincent Baker has similar mechanics in _some _of his games...


----------



## estar

Manbearcat said:


> I'm not being macabre here.  I'm dead serious.  A satisfying roleplaying game about being a caregiver/priest or merely someone who doesn't want to give up on a loved one will not include the sort of fiat/inexorable "Rocks fall, you die", lack of agency despite all efforts, reality of life that sometimes shapes these kinds of things.  It would include the very real prospect of healing, it would abstract the unnecessary, and it would systemitize in a way that creates an integrated feedback loop where the emotions experienced and mental fortitude erected actually impact the physical fortitude of both the afflicted and the caregivers.



First off if I read your post correctly, sorry for your loss. As for the resolution to your example, I am uninterested as a player or referee in wish fulfillment. I am interested in the experience as a player, I am interested in creating an interesting experience for my players to adventure in. By experience I creating a place with people with personalities, locales with details, and sometime natural events.

For example my Scourge of the Demon Wolf is about a village and a region that suffered horrific attacks by packs of wolves lead by a demon possessed alpha wolf. Thrown in there is a conclave of mage, a village of medieval peasant with local clergy, a group of outlaws, and a band of wandering beggars.

It is a situation with no specific resolution. If the player don't deal with the situation, then the pack will grow and all the groups mentioned above will be slaughtered. In the absence of the PC's presence this is the course of events that will play out. It plays out that way because the demon wolf is not only gained control of the wolves in the immediate region but incorporated packs from surrounding regions. It cunning and intelligent enough to allow its combined pack to survive and grow.

The only group capable of dealing with this on their own are the mages and they are off in their own world doing their own thing and by the time they are aware of what going on it will be too late to save the other groups and possibly themselves or at least their conclave.

This sounds all predetermined but it not, it only what could happen if the PCs were not there. Starting with the initial incident, the PC enter the region and find themselves in the midst of the situation. I run the playtest of adventure for over 14 different group. Luckily there were patterns  to be found among what the different groups did to deal with the situation. So that gave me more to write out than just the descriptions of the situation, characters, and locale.

But even with those patterns groups continued to surprise me at how they resolved the situation. The last group I playtested the adventure even managed to resolve it without dealing with medieval village. While all the groups managed to resolve the situation successfully, a handful had major difficulties in doing so. Suffered frustration, character deaths and other negative consequences. A small number of other groups sailed through the adventure. Most had ups and downs as they dealt with the NPCs and the situation.







Manbearcat said:


> Leaving all of that up for exposition + theatrical amplification + GM decides sounds like the most horrible experience I could imagine (and yes, it maps pretty damn well to my real life experience!)!






Manbearcat said:


> I coined (I believe at least...I don't ever recollect seeing it before that) the term "*Setting Tourism*" (as one of the key aspects of this type of play) a long time ago for precisely the reasons you're outlining above (even using the analogy).



What I do is little more than being a tour guide. 


Manbearcat said:


> Couple questions:
> 
> 1)  Why do you not try to suss out "what is interesting" (that is, what is the premise and what are the themes and genre tropes of play) prior to play and have table time focus on that?



Because themes and tropes arise of human experience. Rather than artificially and arbitrarily (even as a group decision) incorporate them I recreate the situations that give birth to them. 

And the core of it I figured out decades ago back in the 80s when I was known as the referee who let players trash his setting. 

Being able to have a lasting impact on the setting coupled with the knowledge that I will use what the players did in this campaign as the part of the background of the next campaign. As well as not caring what the players consider to be a lasting impact. Back when I younger the players invariably choose to become kings and princes. Now that I referee a broader age range it tends to be more varied. One ended with one PC getting a promotion in the Overlord's secret police and the other a blacksmith franchise. Another ended with a inn being built.

The more the nuts and bolts of what I do, but that basic gist. In short I weave campaigns in which the players can exercise their vital powers as their characters along lines of excellence in a situation affording them scope. I don't promise success only that I will be fair.



Manbearcat said:


> Many games are systemitized precisely around this idea in order to deliver a consistently rewarding experience with respect to "what is interesting."  My Life With Master is very different than Moldvay Basic D&D is very different from Dogs in the Vineyard is very different than Blades in the Dark is very different than Torchbearer is very different from D&D 4e is very different from Apocalypse World precisely because "what is interesting" is a foundational question that is asked and answered before starting.




My view that rules are a detail to used as an aide to adjudicate something specific the players do as their character. Rules can be abstract at a high level like realm management or they can be narrowly focused as to resolving knocking a chalice out of the hand of a lich while fighting a muddy hillside in a thunderstorm. Either way I pick the rules that fit me and my group's interest and tolerance.

I played and ran LARP events so I don't find rules governing role-playing particularly useful or desirable except as a form of shorthand description. 



Manbearcat said:


> What do you think you gain and what do you think you lose by not preemptively asking this?



What I ask is "What are you interested in playing?" Usually it starts out with a broad genre.
Then I ask what you think of a,b,c,d, or e that fits with the above.
Then I narrow it down from there. 

From that I create locales, and character that centered around that situation. For example if the players say "We all want to make City-Guards and try that for a campaign." I will then create the details of the City Guards, some aides for myself, some details I share with the players, and some details I keep for myself. Each players has their own background and know their place at the start of the campaign. Then play commence and we proceed from there. Since players are part of the organization a lot of the campaign is about fulfilling duties and following orders. But the character and those they interact with have lives and the complication is what leads to various adventures.



Manbearcat said:


> 2)  Do you have a play excerpt in mind that you could share where your own play led to "the brother died (or some derivation of that theme)?"  Not like a "story hour" but actually sharing with us what went on under the hood ("Brother Alive Beginning State" > action declarations > action resolution > GM evolution of fiction/gamestate change > rinse repeat until "Brother Dead End State").
> 
> That would be helpful.



I ran a campaign using GURPS with two PCs. They played criminals, members of the Thieves Guild in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. Basically just brutes. One thing led to another a couple of session in and they wound up killing the local gang leader when they were not supposed to. When the Guild Lieutenant came around looking for them, they killed him too.  At this point they decided what the hell and started working up the guild hierarchy one by one. Executed their plans quite well and more importantly they caught the guild in a way that left them flat-footed for a while. 

Finally they done enough that the guildmaster decided to call a truce and invite them in as lords of the thieves guild. The players did a lot of things right but what they didn't do is build up a following. I roleplayed the negotiations and was able to convince the players that they had a deal and meet with the guild leadership to formalize their place. They walked into his chamber and were killed. 

It was pretty much as brief and brutal as you imagined. Now I know players through the decades who would have not taken that well. But for these two players, when the final confrontation ensued they knew how they were played and that they walked into a trap. And death was the only outcome.

Why was death the only outcome, because the player killed somebody who was important to the guildmaster. Done it a way that there no coming back for the NPC.

Some would be critical of this. Say that as a referee I should have handled that confrontation differently. All I can say that the players had ample opportunities to choose different courses of action that would have led to a different outcomes. There was tipping point where they figured (wrongly in hindsight) to go for it all and they came up short. Mostly because to the end they were lone wolf operators for the most part.

Finally it not a miracle thing I do as a referee. I had several players over the decade just not come back in the midst of the campaign because it was going in a direction that didn't interest them. For these players (and this doesn't include the players with personal problems) the fundamental problem is not them or me or the other players. It is that by necessity the broad direction of what the players do is by consensus. Sometime that consensus otherwise free any particular agenda is boring or uninteresting to an individual. So why should they use their hobby time to do something boring?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> In my personal definition of agency that’s power.
> 
> absolutely no power does translate into a lack of agency.
> 
> but one of the most important agency determiners is the question: can you cause important things to change?  And you can cause important things to change with no real power.
> 
> the way you have set up the conscripts situation he doesn’t sound like he has much agency.  But add a few details and that assessment could change.



Now, this is kind of interesting in terms of contrasting with my own position. I see it as a bit paradoxical that NOT having the choice to play a 'powerless' (in some sense) character grants you MORE agency. That doesn't seem right to me...

This is one of several reasons I don't really get behind @Bedrockgames definition of agency, nor subscribe to the theory that there are 'different kinds' of agency in any fundamental sense. Couple this with the already long-since made refutation of the idea of 'character effectiveness' as agency when the GM still reserves ALL power over the fiction at the table. Players in this theory are like subjects in some pre-Democracy European Kingdom, they are mere subjects. If they exercise some freedom it is either simply a grant of the power of the Sovereign (GM), or an act of rebellion! 

So, given that oddity, I would have to say that no, playing a more powerful character is irrelevant. It is control over the concerns and agenda of the game as it relates to the player's part in it which can only constitute true agency, just like only equal participation in the Sovereignty (IE Democracy) is the only way to be truly free (or by being the king/DM). As another poster (Aldarc? Hawkeyefan?) mentioned, this doesn't require the power of direct authorship, it can be PbtA-like "requirement to focus on the player's concerns as an agenda" but it needs to put the player in a 'sovereign' position, even if their role is smaller (IE the President of the US obviously wields the sovereignty of a nation, but doesn't own it).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Crimson Longinus said:


> @hawkeyefan but certainly 'your brother is dead' is a valid outcome of a journey of finding said brother? (And not automatically a dramatically unsatisfying one.)



Agreed! In fact the player cannot (Czege Principal) be the one to dictate the resolution, as that spoils the process. They are simply entitled to the allocation of a certain quantity of 'dramatic energy' to their quest. The result should be dramatic, in doubt, and lead to character exposition, usually all driven by some sort of struggle/dilemma introduced into the situation, often by the GM (and possibly guided by dice, etc.). It is OK, if in the final analysis, after all the story has reached its culmination, that some failed check results in "the brother is dead." Hopefully that will lead on into even more interesting territory, but I guess it could come at the end of an arc and just end, if other things are 'on the burner' that can provide the needed 'dramatic energy' from there on.


----------



## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Players in this theory are like subjects in some pre-Democracy European Kingdom, they are mere subjects. If they exercise some freedom it is either simply a grant of the power of the Sovereign (GM), or an act of rebellion!



Tabletop roleplaying doesn't work if the referee is not a fair arbiter. 

Keep in mind that the first tabletop roleplaying campaign out there Blackmoor didn't have a setup where the referee was running the "opposition". There were players playing the good guys and players playing the bad the guy. While Dave Arneson was running some NPCs, he mostly adjudicating between two opposing group of players. Later he did run the Blackmoor Dungeon where he handled the monster. But even then there were players who were involved like Sir Fang the Vampire Lord.

I am describing this bit of history to illustrate that the referee being a fair arbiter lies at the heart of tabletop roleplaying. WIthout it none of it work.

It now about having power. It about the fact that a major reason why tabletop roleplaying works is the players only know what their character knows. 

Nor is dispersing the decision making about the setting, it locales, creatures and characters is a magic bullet for making a campaign better. Instead of relying on one guy getting it right, now you have to rely on the group getting it right. It can work, but small group dynamic ensures that there will be as many negative outcomes as there with a single human referee although they will be different.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I really don't know how much more clear I can be: I wouldn't see making the brother a dead end in this case. I would follow the reaction that I gave in my earlier post about the Kushen Basin (see my response just a couple of posts ago). No one is saying it can't go anywhere. I am just saying in this playstyle it would be considered unreasonable for the player to demand that he get to have some kind of drama with brother down the live. The brother is an NPC just like any other, and while he could go searching for him, in an effort to create a sense of a real world, the GM is going to come to some decisions about what has happened to the brother since they last saw one another. And the possibility that he died is one such thing (now the player is free to investigate that death, go get revenge, spend months erecting a moment....whatever the player wants to do. This is really is not all that unusual, nor is it unreasonable, and it doesn't put a dead end in the campaign. To me it sounds like what is going on, is there is an expectation of exploring a certain character arc. Like I said, if this were my savage worlds group, I would totally do that. But for the sandbox, that just isn't how it would be done.



And, I think, not to be antagonistic, that this is why people like @pemerton would probably say that play in which the GM is always in this absolute final authority role and has all possible agendas in their hands to advance or deny, that this is not play with player agency, it is, at its fundamental essence, a sort of dictatorship where anything anyone at the table can do is really simply a grant of permission from the GM. We can then start splitting hairs about what are some restricted areas where tradition and typical norms of play generally mitigate this a bit, but that just brings us to our fundamental objection with your definition of 'agency', it is imagining that these norms are ALL THERE IS, but plainly they are not...


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And, I think, not to be antagonistic, that this is why people like @pemerton would probably say that play in which the GM is always in this absolute final authority role and has all possible agendas in their hands to advance or deny, that this is not play with player agency, it is, at its fundamental essence, a sort of dictatorship where anything anyone at the table can do is really simply a grant of permission from the GM. We can then start splitting hairs about what are some restricted areas where tradition and typical norms of play generally mitigate this a bit, but that just brings us to our fundamental objection with your definition of 'agency', it is imagining that these norms are ALL THERE IS, but plainly they are not...




Just to reiterate Estar's point, you can't be a dictator and have a functioning group. You have to earn the trust of your players and that means being fair, and not abusing the authority to go on a power trip. You are there to facilitate the game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Couple this with the already long-since made refutation of the idea of 'character effectiveness' as agency when the GM still reserves ALL power over the fiction at the table. Players in this theory are like subjects in some pre-Democracy European Kingdom, they are mere subjects. If they exercise some freedom it is either simply a grant of the power of the Sovereign (GM), or an act of rebellion!




I don't think viewing this as a power struggle or comparing the game to real world political systems is all that useful.


----------



## aramis erak

Campbell said:


> Here's how I think about and talk about agency. Not only when it comes to games, but also in regards to real life.
> 
> It's almost always in regards to a particular objectivity. The agency required to achieve political change or agency over my personal earnings. I think agency requires autonomy, power, and information. You need all three in some amount to have any, but can have more or less overall agency depending on the amount of each you have. You need the autonomy to move freely and choose both your ends and your means. You also need the power to bring about change in your environment. Finally you need information so you can make informed choices about how to leverage your power.
> 
> In an old school sandbox like Moldvay you start with almost unlimited autonomy. You can pretty much go anywhere and do anything. What you have very little of is power and information. The entire point of the game is to utilize your autonomy in order to gain more power and information so you can have meaningful agency to achieve your goals. In the real world power often comes with less autonomy, but games are not life so as you progress in level you mostly become more powerful and gather more information while retaining your autonomy. It takes skilled play to gain agency.
> 
> I will admit that in most of the character focused games I run players generally have less autonomy, but far more power than starting D&D character (and generally a lot more social influence than most D&D characters of any level) and a lot more access to information to make informed decisions. Like a common fictional conceit is that players might play generals, merchants, etc. People that are connected, but have less freedom of movement. Also characters tend to lives with responsibilities they must juggle against their aims. Agency is not something you are expected to earn in the same way. You can gain more through good play, but not much.
> 
> While these contrasts all generally apply to the shape of the fiction I'm talking mostly about players here. So like in an old school sandbox information is centered around the player pretty often like knowledge of monsters, traps, etc. In Apocalypse World we use a lot of telegraphing before we punch the player in the metaphorical face.



A good analysis, as far as it goes....

The point of rules being ot limit options sufficiently to enable meaningful interactions. Excess agency doesn't lead to more play, but to a lack of direction to move in. The point of session 0 is likewise to set limits on story so as to productively produce interesting-to-the-players situations.

One of the things covered in an MAEd program is how to elicit maximum creativity from children - and it is proven that maximum creativity is attained with clear directives and a framework to work within. So, not, "how was your summer?" but, "What cool thing did you do this summer?" The first gets 1-liners. The second gets kidergardeners trying to write essays... in stickfigure drawings, with the few words they can spell...

RPGs are much the same... a framework makes creativity easier. 
For some, the level of maximum creativity is more constrained, and they need a clear combination of rules and setting to be comfortable being creative - sometimes down to the level of minis wargame with connections. For others, it's just a casual agreement to genre and trusting others to not overwrite one's contributions, with a provision controlling who gets to narrate when.

Agency without framework lacks meaning. Framework without agency is literature, theater, movies, television...

An interesting literary corpus has a character that, if played in a game, would have _too much_ agency - Q only works because the medium has no true agency, and the authors have chosen to limit the characters choices by Q's warped morality - Q isn't lacking in a moral code - he's clearly got one, and it's the only thing that keeps him testing humanity. We know Q is one of at least 5 Q in the continuum... the level of agency each would have is comparable to a GM's... and 4 GM's with no limits is almost unplayable.

A party of 4 members of the Q continuum are limited only in their morality and the Continuum's ethical standards. (Noting that Q {DeLancie} is clearly borderline on continuum ethics... as we see in several episodes. Q{Bernsen} points this out explicitly in one episode.)

The highest level of agency I've encountered in play is not quite Q-level - Wick's HotBlooded engine, in the form of _Blood and Honor_, which is samurai. It sets just enough framework to enable story control to be meaningful...

Story requires conflict - many stories are conflict in the form of combat. It's an easy method - one that is also mechanically interesting in most rulesets.

Too much agency makes conflict meaningless, because one can just narrate it away with a handwave if one has sufficient allowed agency. 

So, *Agency isn't the ultimate parameter*: it has to be a resource used in appropriate levels. It's part of a package that makes the game.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now, this is kind of interesting in terms of contrasting with my own position. I see it as a bit paradoxical that NOT having the choice to play a 'powerless' (in some sense) character grants you MORE agency. That doesn't seem right to me...



It's not right.  Agency is about meaningful choices.  If playing a completely powerless character is meaningful to you then choosing to do so, that's agency.  Agency isn't about being able to make every choice you want to make, it's about being able to make some meaningful choice.

What you call a paradox doesn't seem like one to me.  It seems as obvious as can be that in play you would lack agency playing the powerless character even if you had agency in choosing to play that character.  

(Of course I'm not sure the notion of a truly powerless character actually exists - which is likely a whole other can of worms)




AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is one of several reasons I don't really get behind @Bedrockgames definition of agency, nor subscribe to the theory that there are 'different kinds' of agency in any fundamental sense. Couple this with the already long-since made refutation of the idea of 'character effectiveness' as agency when the GM still reserves ALL power over the fiction at the table. Players in this theory are like subjects in some pre-Democracy European Kingdom, they are mere subjects. If they exercise some freedom it is either simply a grant of the power of the Sovereign (GM), or an act of rebellion!



Even in total Monarchies and Dictatorships people make meaningful choices and thus they have agency.  Being a subject to a King doesn't take away your agency.  You still have meaningful choices to make.


----------



## aramis erak

Crimson Longinus said:


> Rolemaster probably had a chart for that.



Not in any edition I've seen (2 of them)


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to reiterate Estar's point, you can't be a dictator and have a functioning group. You have to earn the trust of your players and that means being fair, and not abusing the authority to go on a power trip. You are there to facilitate the game.



Isn't this just advocating for "Enlightened Despotism" by another name?


----------



## FrogReaver

Would anyone here say a player of checkers has less agency than a player of chess?


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## Fenris-77

And we've circled back around to Houses of the Blooded (well, its engine anyway), which is what dragged me into this thread in the first place. Excellent.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Aldarc said:


> Isn't this just advocating for "Enlightened Despotism" by another name?



It's a game, mate. No one is there against their will, the whole analogy is pointless.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> Isn't this just advocating for "Enlightened Despotism" by another name?




No. And again, I think comparing what is essentially a referee to a despot fails to understand what a despot is and what a referee is


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## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Even in total Monarchies and Dictatorships people make meaningful choices and thus they have agency.  Being a subject to a King doesn't take away your agency.  You still have meaningful choices to make.




I just don't t think the monarch comparison is useful. It is a role in a game. And anyone in the room can assume that a role and offer to run a campaign (I have been in many groups with rotating GMs----personally I prefer this because I think it helps avoid GM burnout, exposes everyone to different GM styles, and its always good to move from player role to GM role and not just stick to one IMO). It also requires that people agree to let you be the GM, and people are free to walk away from the game at any time, or to object to things you say or do. It isn't oppression to be a player in a game where the GM has traditional GM authority. If you don't like it that is fine. But it is an odd way to persuade people to play other kinds of games. It would be like me trying to say a more spread out approach is communism or something (to be clear I don't think that at all). I wouldn't invoke something that powerful to win at a debate about games.


----------



## Aldarc

Crimson Longinus said:


> It's a game, mate. No one is there against their will, the whole analogy is pointless.



The peasants can leave the country if they wish. 



Bedrockgames said:


> No. And again, I think comparing what is essentially a referee to a despot fails to understand what a despot is and what a referee is



I disagree.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> The peasants can leave the country if they wish.
> 
> 
> I disagree.




Well if you  just think we are basically being tyrants, I don't see how this conversation is going to go anywhere good


----------



## prabe

aramis erak said:


> Technically, if it affects anything on a character sheet, in BW, it requires a roll. Likewise, if it requires a PC believe or disbelieve something, it also requires a roll. That's a quirk of BW/BE/MG because it's part of how Luke Crane has solved the problem of the charismatic player with the non-charismatic character using player abilities to dominate the story. *Burning Wheel has a specific mechanical limit on RP power over the game.* It's unusual in doing to the way it does. It's not unique, but it is rare. Vincent Baker has similar mechanics in _some _of his games...



Yeah. I've skimmed the Hub and Spokes, once. I don't claim any real knowledge of Burning Wheel or its systems. It seems to be coming from a specific angle with a specific point of view and specific goals, and I suspect I'd either need to play it or read more. At a minimum, it seems to operate at a different scale than I'm used to (which isn't intended as a negative).


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## Fenris-77

Comparing a traditional GM level of authority to a dictator doesn't seem helpful either to our ongoing topic, no.


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## Campbell

@Bedrockgames

I just have no real idea how to square the circle here. I just do not see on a fundamental level how the activity you are talking is a game subject to any analysis based on game design principles. This is not meant to be an accusation. It's so far removed from my experience of gameplay (in the general sense) I have no real idea how to bridge the gap. It's also worlds apart from my understanding of Finch's Primer, Moldvay B/X, or the Principia Apocrypha. It's even fairly removed from the instructions in Stars Without Number.

Maybe I am missing something here, but it does not seem like there is any real objective to your play or meaningful feedback loops. Please tell me if I am wrong.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I just don't t think the monarch comparison is useful. It is a role in a game. And anyone in the room can assume that a role and offer to run a campaign (I have been in many groups with rotating GMs----personally I prefer this because I think it helps avoid GM burnout, exposes everyone to different GM styles, and its always good to move from player role to GM role and not just stick to one IMO). It also requires that people agree to let you be the GM, and people are free to walk away from the game at any time, or to object to things you say or do. It isn't oppression to be a player in a game where the GM has traditional GM authority. If you don't like it that is fine. But it is an odd way to persuade people to play other kinds of games. It would be like me trying to say a more spread out approach is communism or something (to be clear I don't think that at all). I wouldn't invoke something that powerful to win at a debate about games.



This clarification helps as earlier someone compared the GM's role and player agency in terms of peasants under a monarch or dictator.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> @Bedrockgames
> 
> I just have no real idea how to square the circle here. I just do not see on a fundamental level how the activity you are talking is a game subject to any analysis based on game design principles. This is not meant to be an accusation. It's so far removed from my experience of gameplay (in the general sense) I have no real idea how to bridge the gap. It's also worlds apart from my understanding of Finch's Primer, Moldvay B/X, or the Principia Apocrypha. It's even fairly removed from the instructions in Stars Without Number.
> 
> Maybe I am missing something here, but it does not seem like there is any real objective to your play or meaningful feedback loops. Please tell me if I am wrong.





I don't' know what to tell you. I think Rob got a lot of what I was trying to get at. I enjoy Moldvay, I like Stars without Numbers, but those are are not the end all be all either in terms of conceptions of play (though I do think Stars without Numbers has a great GM section). There may be a fundamental communication issue. I would never use language like feedback loop in talking about the kind of play I do (not saying feedback loops are absent, the language here seems kind of alien to me). To me the point is to bring worlds and genres to life, to give players a sense of being there, and to give them a sense of being autonomous in the setting, not railroaded by what the GM wants. What this leads to, I think, is the ability to have characters who live out meaningful lives in the setting (and not in a simulationist sense, perhaps more in the sense of an ongoing television series, that can span generations). I think it is an approach that might draw from genres but often feels more like history or a saga. When I was running my very long wuxia campaigns for example (at the moment I am running shorter ones due to what I am working on) I was very much thinking of things like the Condor Heroes trilogy, where you start with one set of characters, and then move to the next generation, then the next, in a world that is changing but also retains many of the same pillars (it is set against the Mongolian Invasion of China and deals with the martial heroes and sects working with and fighting against that invasion). So my focus was a campaign where you had this evolving martial landscape 

That said I do work with design principles in mind. But I don't think they are the sort of design principles that would have much currency with many of the posters here. I am not much of an RPG theorist. My focus is always on what works at the table.


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## Fenris-77

You don't have to be an RPG theorist to run a game, however, a lot of that material is really helpful when it comes to looking under the hood and comparing X to Y, a project which requires a certain amount of lingo in order to create a common frame of reference.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So I think the appeal for actual examples we can talk about is a good idea, because all of the hypothetical discussion is just going in circles. 

I'm curious what folks who prefer for players to not have any kind of narrative influence think of something like the claim maps from Blades in the Dark. Below I've copied one such map from page 101 of the book, the claims for a crew of Assassins.

To put it in context, Blades is very much a sandbox. The below claim map is in no way a limitation on what players can have their characters do. It is meant as options that are always available if the players would like to pursue them. Generally speaking, claims are meant to be seized from other factions in the city by following the paths on the map below. So you start at the lair then you could take Turf to the right, then move on to Informants or Cover Operation from there. However, the players can ignore the paths and jump right to a claim of their choosing, but if they do so, the GM is encouraged to make the seizing of that claim that much more difficult or involved.

What I like about this is it gives players a foundation of what they can always try to do if nothing else presents itself. Since the GM and the players can all possibly be coming up with ideas for Scores, this is a good fall back if either no one has any ideas, or nothing is pressing, or if the players decide they'd like the benefit that a claim offers. Each claim comes with some perk that bolsters the strength of the crew. Each type of crew has its own claim map, but you also have the option to seize claims on other crew maps, but again, the GM is encouraged to make such a job difficult and/or involved. 

The claims tend to be pretty thematic, but there's a good amount of overlap from crew to crew. The specific details of the claim are left up to the GM to decide, but again, he is encouraged to shape these claims around the elements of the game that the players are already interested in or involved with, if it makes sense to do so. So, if the Assassins have been making more noise than they'd like, and have attracted unwanted attention, then the players can decide to try and seize the Hagfish Farm claim, which would alleviate a lot of that Heat and attention, and allow them to dispose of bodies. So the GM looks at the factions that have been involved in play, and chooses one that would make sense to own the Hagfish Farm, and possibly offer some interesting fallout based on what's already been established in play. Then the players could proceed with a Score or perhaps a series of Scores to seize the Hagfish Farm claim from that faction.

The benefit of this approach seem to me to be that you have the freedom of a sandbox and the characters being able to go anywhere and do anything, but you have the flexibility of details to make these comings and goings have more meaning. You can kind of hook the personal goals and connections of the characters into these claims.  The setting is sketched rather than drawn in detail, so you can add and alter and adapt as you go. 

The claim map also seems to me to be a game element that gives the players agency in that they have this structure that is in place that they can choose to engage with or not, and which binds the GM. They can say "we want to seize turf" and the GM then should frame some potential Scores about grabbing some turf. They also can serve as short term goals. And of course, as with just about anything in Blades, they can offer new avenues for the fiction to go, new points of input to bring other factions into play, or to challenge the crew in new ways. There's always a response to anything the crew does. 

I'm curious what others have to say about this aspect of the game, and how it impacts (or doesn't impact) player agency. 
Here's the example:


----------



## aramis erak

Fenris-77 said:


> IDK, I think that _choice_ might be the better word. Even a newb-y 0 level git has all the choices in an open sandbox. Unless you're using 'power' to mean 'ability to'? Help a brother out here....



Not all - some choices are precluded by the sandbox being set up.
he/she/they/xem cannot choose to catch a jet if the setting doesn't include them. 
Nor to go to places not set up in the sandbox.

A sandbox is, of need, a structure for players to act within, react to, and be reacted to by.


----------



## Campbell

I'm not speaking RPG theory, but like the general stuff that applies to all games that you would learn in a game Design 101 course at a university. Stuff that applies to Poker, Warhammer 40K, Dungeons and Dragons, board games, et al.

What I mean by feedback loop are the indications that you are either playing a game poorly or well. Indications of your skill at the game so you can make adjustments in order to play the game better. A tighter feedback loop just means it is easier to see what the consequences of what your decisions as a player are.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I'm not speaking RPG theory, but like the general stuff that applies to all games that you would learn in a game Design 101 course at a university. Stuff that applies to Poker, Warhammer 40K, Dungeons and Dragons, board games, et al.
> 
> What I mean by feedback loop are the indications that you are either playing a game poorly or well. Indications of your skill at the game so you can make adjusts in order to play the game better. A tighter feedback loop just means it is easier to see what the consequences of what your decisions as a player are.



IMO. That’s not the only kind of feedback loop.

I don’t see sandboxes having much of that kind of feedback.

I do see a feedback loop in them though where players make choices toward some typically immediate goal.  Their choices impact what’s going on offscreen. They later learn of this.  This shapes their future choices and so on.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> No. Classic Traveller is a RPG from 1977 that expressly contemplates, right there in the text of its little black books, the sort of player agency that I enjoy in RPGing and that you and @FrogReaver are saying is not part of a "true sandbox".
> 
> @AbdulAlhazred was playing club D&D in the mid-70s and - as I understand his posts - does not think that the conception of player agency that you and FrogReaver advocate would have been universally accepted back then.
> 
> I don't think it's "old school" at all. I think one version of it solidified in the 1980s, but I think the version that you two are advocating also has a certain "retro" dimension to it. It's not actual "old school", it's a type of re-recreated "old school" that didn't predominate back in the day.



Well, I think it probably did 'predominate', and I'd even venture to say it was pretty much expected play in D&D, but there were games like Traveler (which was the 2nd most prevalent RPG at that time AFAIK) where it was at least LESS so. There were also other games C. the early 80's which didn't seem to contemplate an authoritarian GM who was the source of all fiction, though often these concepts were not well-articulated in games of that era. Still, I recall that Gangster! (very narrow focus of play, obviously) was rather like that. In fact its resolution systems were primitive, but in a lot of ways it was a story game, or could be played that way. In fact Boot Hill has some of the same sort of vibe, being so niche that every genre-relevant activity any player would engage in is practically on the table, and what else is there to do after the first 3 shootouts EXCEPT 'character agenda'? 

Toon I think is the prize of this era, as basically the whole game is just "do whacky stuff" and your character is just expected to be some sort of crazy invention that breaks the whole game as much as possible. Things like "I relentlessly pursue my love interest (or carrots for that matter)" is clearly the prime modus of the whole game. Adventures, as such being meaningless (PCs cannot die, and the milieu is a sort of timeless 'neverland' where nothing that happens really 'sticks'). 

Still, the awareness of different paradigms for an RPG was pretty nascent at the time, since the whole concept of an RPG itself was just barely standing up out of its primal origins in Kriege Spiel at the time.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> @Bedrockgames
> 
> I just have no real idea how to square the circle here. I just do not see on a fundamental level how the activity you are talking is a game subject to any analysis based on game design principles. This is not meant to be an accusation. It's so far removed from my experience of gameplay (in the general sense) I have no real idea how to bridge the gap. It's also worlds apart from my understanding of Finch's Primer, Moldvay B/X, or the Principia Apocrypha. It's even fairly removed from the instructions in Stars Without Number.
> 
> Maybe I am missing something here, but it does not seem like there is any real objective to your play or meaningful feedback loops. Please tell me if I am wrong.




I will say, sometimes people are just operating from very different conceptions and play backgrounds. I have talked with Estar a number of times about RPGs and RPG design and we seem to communicate well enough about it (and our approaches are not identical). There are communities I am in, where I have no trouble conveying what I am talking about. I may not be expressing my ideas well here. I can send you a couple of PDFs I've done if you want and you can skim through the GM material, and determine if what I have to say makes sense or is unintelligible to you. If you are genuinely curious, more than happy to do that. I definitely wouldn't say I have a unified theory of RPGs that I operate by. And my aims often shift from book to book. For example one of my games is set up as a wuxia dramatic sandbox, while the game that followed is Chinese Horror-Investigation, with a monster-of-the week approach (and not a sandbox game). Right now I am running a bunch of wuxia one shots, each divided into two sessions and each adventure based on a single wuxia film (where the players bid to be one of the characters in the film). After that I am going to resume play testing my wuxia crime campaign, which is all about the players rising up through the ranks of a criminal organization. 

Here is an adventure I ran for Halloween recently to give you an idea of how I approach things, when not operating in a strict sandbox: 

HEAD OF THE TEAHOUSE

Also here is a game I ran online with Estar, my friend Adam, Deathblade and Elliot. It is more focused on a dungeon crawl, but might give you an idea of how I tend to run games:


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So I think the appeal for actual examples we can talk about is a good idea, because all of the hypothetical discussion is just going in circles.
> 
> I'm curious what folks who prefer for players to not have any kind of narrative influence think of something like the claim maps from Blades in the Dark. Below I've copied one such map from page 101 of the book, the claims for a crew of Assassins.
> 
> To put it in context, Blades is very much a sandbox. The below claim map is in no way a limitation on what players can have their characters do. It is meant as options that are always available if the players would like to pursue them. Generally speaking, claims are meant to be seized from other factions in the city by following the paths on the map below. So you start at the lair then you could take Turf to the right, then move on to Informants or Cover Operation from there. However, the players can ignore the paths and jump right to a claim of their choosing, but if they do so, the GM is encouraged to make the seizing of that claim that much more difficult or involved.
> 
> What I like about this is it gives players a foundation of what they can always try to do if nothing else presents itself. Since the GM and the players can all possibly be coming up with ideas for Scores, this is a good fall back if either no one has any ideas, or nothing is pressing, or if the players decide they'd like the benefit that a claim offers. Each claim comes with some perk that bolsters the strength of the crew. Each type of crew has its own claim map, but you also have the option to seize claims on other crew maps, but again, the GM is encouraged to make such a job difficult and/or involved.
> 
> The claims tend to be pretty thematic, but there's a good amount of overlap from crew to crew. The specific details of the claim are left up to the GM to decide, but again, he is encouraged to shape these claims around the elements of the game that the players are already interested in or involved with, if it makes sense to do so. So, if the Assassins have been making more noise than they'd like, and have attracted unwanted attention, then the players can decide to try and seize the Hagfish Farm claim, which would alleviate a lot of that Heat and attention, and allow them to dispose of bodies. So the GM looks at the factions that have been involved in play, and chooses one that would make sense to own the Hagfish Farm, and possibly offer some interesting fallout based on what's already been established in play. Then the players could proceed with a Score or perhaps a series of Scores to seize the Hagfish Farm claim from that faction.
> 
> The benefit of this approach seem to me to be that you have the freedom of a sandbox and the characters being able to go anywhere and do anything, but you have the flexibility of details to make these comings and goings have more meaning. You can kind of hook the personal goals and connections of the characters into these claims.  The setting is sketched rather than drawn in detail, so you can add and alter and adapt as you go.
> 
> The claim map also seems to me to be a game element that gives the players agency in that they have this structure that is in place that they can choose to engage with or not, and which binds the GM. They can say "we want to seize turf" and the GM then should frame some potential Scores about grabbing some turf. They also can serve as short term goals. And of course, as with just about anything in Blades, they can offer new avenues for the fiction to go, new points of input to bring other factions into play, or to challenge the crew in new ways. There's always a response to anything the crew does.
> 
> I'm curious what others have to say about this aspect of the game, and how it impacts (or doesn't impact) player agency.
> Here's the example:
> 
> View attachment 130987




This is very good. I like this more specific example and bend in the discussion. I am having a somewhat hard time understanding how this looks in practice, not because its bad, or looks unappealing, or your communication style, but I find with stuff like this, until I play it in person, it doesn't really sink in what is going on exactly. However I think I kind of get what it is. Is this like a map of potential pathways to take turf? Personally i don't see anything wrong with a tool like this. Is there a point in this mapping procedure where the players would exert powers they wound't have in the kind of game I've been discussing? (just want to understand where you think mechanics might be potentially irksome for us).

Over the years I have run a lot of what I call Boxer From Shantung campaigns (which is a movie about a guy who rises up in a city's kung fu criminal underworld, to become major crime boss himself). And I've used different methods for getting there. Sometimes I use models like this one I think. But what I've found is in my crime campaigns my players tend to prefer things being very specific (so I usually map out each organization with its key members, stats for all its henchmen, and explanation of its territory). In some campaigns this has gotten quite granular (i.e. the House of Loma has an extortion racket that includes the following businesses, and is engaged in the following smuggling operations, etc). The players would then deal with these things concretely in the setting. I've found when I try to overlay an absract system on that, it has met with resistance (I have found the same thing when I've tried to build sect building tools or crime committing tools and tables------it may just be my players but they often sidestep these measures by just getting more specific). Maybe that isn't a possibility here. I am not sure I understand it enough to know (and again I haven't read Blades int he Dark, but one reason it is on my list is to see how it manages this kind of thing as it is something I deal with a lot in my campaigns and I will take any tools and tweak any tools I can that work).


----------



## Fenris-77

aramis erak said:


> Not all - some choices are precluded by the sandbox being set up.
> he/she/they/xem cannot choose to catch a jet if the setting doesn't include them.
> Nor to go to places not set up in the sandbox.
> 
> A sandbox is, of need, a structure for players to act within, react to, and be reacted to by.



Notice I said in the sandbox? The above is what I meant.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> but like the general stuff that applies to all games that you would learn in a game Design 101 course at a university.




This might be part of the issue, I have never taken such a course, nor had much interest


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> This might be part of the issue, I have never taken such a course, nor had much interest



Me neither, but there is a lot of great stuff available on teh interwebs. That's only helpful if you find that sort of thing interesting though. I happen to enjoy reading scholarly articles about RPG design, but that's certainly not everyone's cup of chai.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Me neither, but there is a lot of great stuff available on teh interwebs. That's only helpful if you find that sort of thing interesting though. I happen to enjoy reading scholarly articles about RPG design, but that's certainly not everyone's cup of chai.




Oh, in that case, I have read plenty of game material online, read many GM advice sections from RPG books, and watched a lot of youtube. But from that I take what works at my table and ignore what doesn't. I am not very into the scholarly stuff (I'll read scholarly articles on history and things like that, but scholarly gaming articles don't usually hold my interest long enough for me to get through it---oddly enough I've found the same with scholarly martial arts articles)


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I have never suggested that. I don't think I even encountered the term till after 2000. I am talking about how it is used among gamers generally, among sandbox players and the OSR. Not about how it may have been used in the 70s. I do talk to and listen to people from that era who gamed. But I think me and @AbdulAlhazred probably have very different views of gaming based on his posts (whereas with some of the other OGs I've talked to I find I am much more on the same page with).



Right, I am not really sure when I first heard the term 'sandbox'. It may have been quite far back, or maybe not so much. I have the impression we used it in the 90's, but its tricky to really say for sure. I think terms like 'OSR' are a bit more recent coinage, but I didn't really engage with online RPG community much before about 2008, so I could be wrong there. My impression is it was a 'thing' around the time 4e was released. 

In any case, aside from the period 1974 to about 1978, during which time modules and canned settings were largely unavailable, I think 'module based play' (essentially APs or at least 'adventures') were vastly the most common form of play. Starting with Blackmoor's 'Temple of the Frog' it became more and more common to have some sort of dungeon. Holmes Basic came with a module (variously B1 or B2 IIRC) or else a set of 'geomorphs' and 'monster and treasure assortment', which included some tables that basically let you generate a random dungeon. I would say that, by the time G3 was published and the D series was being released, it was probably vastly more common to just run modules than anything else. These are pretty hardcoded, there's a bunch of rooms, you push through in a fairly linear fashion, etc. 

I guess what I'm saying is, Gygax certainly outlined all the elements of a sandbox in the 1e DMG in '79, but they were always effectively a pretty rare form of play, post 1977 or so. Before that most everything was 'map and key' which is really just a way of saying 'sandbox'. Even so, Arduin Grimoire kind of hints that it was never universal, even uncommon/non-existent in some place.


----------



## aramis erak

estar said:


> Tabletop roleplaying doesn't work if the referee is not a fair arbiter.



Sorry, but that doesn't even begin to pass the sniff-test.

Roleplay can work just fine when the GM is unfair. It's not so great if the GM's skewed against players having successes, but an unfair GM can be a lot of fun for a while, if they're tilted in the player's favor.

There are even games where the question is not "Do you succeed?" but "what does it cost you to succeed?" Or even, "How do you pull it For example, Cosmic Patrol - except for fights, there's no risk of failure, just risk of complications. It's _playing to find out _*how*, not _playing to find out *if*._ And the referee is not only not fair, but is always a player as well - GMing rotates every scene, and the adventures are a series of linked situations. You're just playing to tell the story of how they get through situation A to trigger the cutscene to situation B.

It parallels watching a typical action or detective show: you know the cast will accomplish the mission... but how? That's what we watch to see.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> OK.  Player searches for his brother.  To give herself some idea of exactly what the PC is up against in this search, GM rolls some dice to determine what's become of said brother since last seen by the PC.
> 
> GM determines: brother is living the high life as the most successful merchant in Praetos City, and that he and his high-ranking-politician wife have just had a daughter.  Dick move?
> 
> GM determines: brother died as a commoner in a fire near the Praetos docks two years ago and, as no immediate family could be found, his meagre assets were revoked to the Crown.  Dick move?



It really isn't the specific disposition of the brother which is the issue. It is more the idea that a) a player generated agenda like this is merely a side-show from the real business of delving the GM's dungeon (or whatever) b) that the disposition is simply handled without any regard to anything the player might indicate is interesting, or the character's actions/nature might point towards. Yes, the character could be 'living in Praetos City' but then why? There's certainly a family dynamic to explore, at least. The brother might be up to no good. Perhaps he hears of the search for him and sows red herrings far and wide. I mean, a lot more can happen, and would be INTERESTING to happen than "you show up at the city and find your brother." (dead or alive for that matter).

I just don't understand the deliberate disregard, and even contempt for, the idea that a player has something valuable to contribute behind describing how his character moves around and acts.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I guess what I'm saying is, Gygax certainly outlined all the elements of a sandbox in the 1e DMG in '79, but they were always effectively a pretty rare form of play, post 1977 or so. Before that most everything was 'map and key' which is really just a way of saying 'sandbox'. Even so, Arduin Grimoire kind of hints that it was never universal, even uncommon/non-existent in some place.




This sort of matches why the 1E DMG was so useful to me around 2003 or so. I was just not enjoying the style of play the was prevent at the time. And the 1DMG, which I had read in the past, but not deeply, was something I picked up cheap on amazon. I remember reading that, and re-reading my knights of the dinner table and thinking this is more what I want. I wouldn't say my style is what you see in the 1E dmg, just something about those two things: Knights of the Dinner Table and the stuff Gary was talking about in the 1E DMG reminded me what I enjoyed when I first started playing, and reminded me it can still very much be a game, and that part of the fun is not knowing how things will unfold, and allowing the players to kind of trash the scenery and see what happens (the latter was more the knights of the dinner table thing. And obviously Knights of the Dinner Table is parody with a dysfunctional group, but I think because the focus was on players who are just there to play around in the setting, some wanting to amass power, some wanting to forge relationships, and some just wanting to kill orcs, there was something in that, that I wasn't getting. And so for me those two things were helpful starting points to get me thinking differently about play at the table.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Yes.  "Remembering the tower is nearby" Has a number of discrete steps.  I would say some of those specific steps are obviously not roleplay and therefore my original statement stands, that at the moment the player is determining the location of the tower, that moment is not roleplay.



OK, I don't have an argument with that really. I would point out that this obviously means that many points in virtually all RPGs are non-RP moments (a majority of any combat probably, any sort of check in games that have them, etc.).


----------



## aramis erak

prabe said:


> Yeah. I've skimmed the Hub and Spokes, once. I don't claim any real knowledge of Burning Wheel or its systems. It seems to be coming from a specific angle with a specific point of view and specific goals, and I suspect I'd either need to play it or read more. At a minimum, it seems to operate at a different scale than I'm used to (which isn't intended as a negative).



I think truer words about Burning Wheel are rarely written.

Luke Crane built BW on a series of several principles:

Players can keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge
Players need to play the character, not themselves in the character's world.
Players need to communicate clearly what they want the story to revolve around
GM's need to make hard-hitting consequences, and inform the player before the roll
Players and GM's cooperate to have a hard-hitting kick-ass story
The prime rule of play, GM or player, is "Don't be a dick!"
Keep the player agendae in the forefront
build opposition in view....
Characters advance by doing, including failing at things.
If failure isn't interesting, just say yes.
If failure is interesting, set the stakes and...
... go to the dice!
So it does a bunch of things that play to those principles.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I'm not saying you should prefer this method of authorial content generation because it's more realistic.  In fact my point isn't about authorial content generation at all.  My point is about agency and the real world factors in because I'm using agency in the real world to compare your conception of agency to.  And guess what?  There is a noticable difference.  Agency in the real world doesn't require you to have power over a particular thing whereas agency in your conception does.  Take a dragon.  You say the person that has no chance of killing the dragon has less agency than the one that can.  But agency isn't about you achieving your goals, agency is about you having meaningful decisions.  And even when faced with an unkillable dragon you have meaningful choices.  Do I run?  Do I hide?  Do I bargain?  Do I lure it away?  Do I help others get away from it?  Etc.  All are meaningful decisions in relation to the dragon situation and it's that capacity for making meaningful decisions that is agency.



You are framing _meaningful choices_ in the dimension that @Manbearcat calls _tactical_ (running, hiding, bargaining, luring away). Perhaps with a little bit of bleed into the _strategic_ (depending what exactly is involved in _helping others get away from the dragon_).

Now in my experience of D&D play many of those choices are not actually meaningful, because the resolution is purely GM-decides, and so the real action is not _imagining and responding to the fictional circumstance_ but rather _trying to intuit what the GM has in mind as the solution to the problem_. This is because D&D has traditionally had a fairly narrow suite of action resolution tools. (4e being an obvious exception, though even 4e might struggle with your dragon scenario if the PCs are low-level and the dragon is not.) For instance, in AD&D there is no mechanic for resolving _I hide from the dragon _(the only hide mechanic in AD&D is thieves' hide-in-shadows ability, and dragons automatically defeat that ability at least within a certain radius), and there is no very robust mechanic for resolving I run from the dragon. _Bargaining_ and _luring away_ go straight to GM decides.

There are other systems that have more robust resolution tools. But that doesn't address the point, which I think @AbdulAlhazred has most recently made in this thread: _why am I engaged with this dragon at all?_ This is the dimension that @Manbearcat calls _protagonistic_. If there is some dramatic or thematic explanation for that, then the question of "meaningfulness" is answered at that point without needing to elucidate tactical possibilities. Whereas if the answer is nothing more than _because that's what the GM decided today's fiction would be about_, then we're back in the situation where it is the GM who is deciding what matters.



FrogReaver said:


> 1 additional meaningful choice doesn't actually imply more agency, because agency isn't how many different meaningful choices you have the option of choosing between in a particular situation, it's whether you can make any meaningful choices in a situation.



Most serious academic discussions of autonomy and choice tend to take the view that autonomy depends upon a _sufficient_ range of (potentially) valuable choices. What counts as _sufficient_ is context dependent, obviously, but here's an example that I think most scholars would say _does not_ permit genuine autonomy or choice: _Do as I say or I will kill you!_, from a person who does have you in their power and so can kill you if you don't do as they say.

But in any event, I don't think anyone in this thread is claiming to have identified _one additional choice_ that will move a RPG from a situation of _no player agency_ to _some player agency_. In my case I've talked about _degrees_ of agency ("high" or "low"). And I think I've made it pretty clear what my basis is for making those judgements of degree.

Going back to your dragon example, a game could be something that even you would recognise as a railroad and yet permit at least some of the sorts of tactical choices you point to in relation to the dragon (eg hiding vs luring or distracting vs running away). Would that make it a high-agency RPG experience? Not in my view.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It really isn't the specific disposition of the brother which is the issue. It is more the idea that a) a player generated agenda like this is merely a side-show from the real business of delving the GM's dungeon (or whatever) b) that the disposition is simply handled without any regard to anything the player might indicate is interesting, or the character's actions/nature might point towards. Yes, the character could be 'living in Praetos City' but then why? There's certainly a family dynamic to explore, at least. The brother might be up to no good. Perhaps he hears of the search for him and sows red herrings far and wide. I mean, a lot more can happen, and would be INTERESTING to happen than "you show up at the city and find your brother." (dead or alive for that matter).
> 
> I just don't understand the deliberate disregard, and even contempt for, the idea that a player has something valuable to contribute behind describing how his character moves around and acts.



I mean consider someone coming into your game and trying to do things outside the agreed upon playstyle and calling you a dick when you said no.

IMO It's only a dick move if the player justifiably expects to be able to do that kind of thing.  That's not a justified expectation in every style.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, I don't have an argument with that really. I would point out that this obviously means that many points in virtually all RPGs are non-RP moments (a majority of any combat probably, any sort of check in games that have them, etc.).



Yep.  That's the conclusion I had arrived at as well.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Yep.  That's the conclusion I had arrived at as well.



So, it's not an RPG, it's an RP/G.  Whenever you're doing the game part, you're not doing the roleplaying part.  This is, again, just arguing that roleplaying is play acting only.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Deadly diseases are a part of our world.  Brothers die all the time to disease or random violence in such a way that we cannot intervene.
> 
> In the real world we don’t lack agency because we can’t control these things, we have agency despite our lack of control over them. Because, even though we have no control over such things, we do have meaningful choices about how we respond to them.
> 
> That’s what real world agency looks like.
> 
> *Note - this is pretty much identical to the sandbox conception of agency.



I expect there are a LOT of philosophers out there rolling in their graves or gnashing their teeth at this! lol. You cannot even prove that free will exists AT ALL (and believe me, every single attempt to do so has been demonstrated to be circular reasoning of some sort). Maybe there are ways out of that, and maybe not, I won't pass judgment, but my point is you are in fraught territory here, and your analogy doesn't really carry water.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> So, it's not an RPG, it's an RP/G.  Whenever you're doing the game part, you're not doing the roleplaying part.  This is, again, just arguing that roleplaying is play acting only.



That seems to follow logically, if you accept the premise that resolution isn't roleplay.

FWIW, I don't think the player determining where the tower was resolution. The resolution gave the player that ... right? privilege? I'm willing to grant that the player looking at the local map and saying, "The Tower is _here_" is plausibly not roleplaying, but that's the only part of that I can see an argument about (and I'm not making it, to be clear).


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I expect there are a LOT of philosophers out there rolling in their graves or gnashing their teeth at this! lol. You cannot even prove that free will exists AT ALL (and believe me, every single attempt to do so has been demonstrated to be circular reasoning of some sort). Maybe there are ways out of that, and maybe not, I won't pass judgment, but my point is you are in fraught territory here, and your analogy doesn't really carry water.



Doesn't have to be "proven".  The definitions used here are certainly not "proven".  You can agree that's the common conception of agency in the real world though?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Doesn't have to be "proven".  The definitions used here are certainly not "proven".  You can agree that's the common conception of agency in the real world though?



Fundamentally, though, what you're saying is that you have the agency to choose how you react to something you have no control over, which is, well, uninteresting.  You always have this.  I don't see how this establishes anything that illuminates the topic, unless you're trying to claim that having the agency to choose how you react to a thing is comparable to having the agency to choose how to react to a thing AND the agency to influence or choose the thing in the first place.

This is, ultimately, the crux of the argument that some games have more agency than others -- if I have agency in being able to select an outcome -- not the power to declare by fiat, but the ability to influence it -- then I have more agency than a game were I can only choose how to react to a thing.  Specifically, if the GM unilaterally declares the brother dead, I have agency to choose how to react to this.  However, if I have the agency to have a say in the outcome, and it goes against me, I retain this exact same agency -- I've lost nothing and gained the agency to have at least contested the idea of my character's brother being dead.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I expect there are a LOT of philosophers out there rolling in their graves or gnashing their teeth at this! lol. You cannot even prove that free will exists AT ALL (and believe me, every single attempt to do so has been demonstrated to be circular reasoning of some sort). Maybe there are ways out of that, and maybe not, I won't pass judgment, but my point is you are in fraught territory here, and your analogy doesn't really carry water.




I didn't see him making the assertion that free will was proven. Maybe I missed something in his post that pointed you towards this. It looked more like a general statement about how we think of having agency in real life. But just to take this point, if one were to conclude free will and agency are the same thing, and that free will can't be known to exist in real life, can it ever be known to exist in a game? And if one takes it a step further and rejects free will existing in real life, surely it can't exist in a game either (since games would be being played by people who don't have free will themselves).

I think what he is trying to say though is, the existence of events outside our control doesn't mean we lack agency, we still get to react and grow. I mean if my brother dies, and it is beyond my control, there are still many things that stem from that which are entirely in my control. And if my brother dies from an illness, and there is nothing I can do to stop it, I wouldn't see his death as meaning I lack agency or free will. I think in life there are events we can control and events we can't. A game should have both in my opinion

EDIT: Also just to weigh in on free will, obviously a contentious issue and people should read the arguments for and against, and form their own conclusions. Personally I find the arguments in favor of free will more compelling, but that is just my opinion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I just don't understand the deliberate disregard, and even contempt for, the idea that a player has something valuable to contribute behind describing how his character moves around and acts.




I honestly think it mostly has to do with the expected division of responsibility. It’s simply what the predominant game has conditioned people to expect. 

When I suggested reducing or limiting GM power, a common counterpoint was that I didn’t trust the GM.

But I feel like that trust needs to go both ways. Do folks who want to keep most responsibility with the GM not trust the players? It kind of seems so....they always assume players will use any and all power they have to reduce risk and overcome obstacles with no challenge. 

This seems to me an artifact of one mode of play that gets applied across many modes. 

I mean, one would think that responsibility and power being distributed a little more would promote trust because there’d be less ability to actually abuse the power, as well as less need to do so and less desire.


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## Fenris-77

Great googly moogly. The_ last_ thing this thread needs is a dose of actual arguments about free will. Try and contain yourselves gentlemen.


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## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Tabletop roleplaying doesn't work if the referee is not a fair arbiter.
> 
> Keep in mind that the first tabletop roleplaying campaign out there Blackmoor didn't have a setup where the referee was running the "opposition". There were players playing the good guys and players playing the bad the guy. While Dave Arneson was running some NPCs, he mostly adjudicating between two opposing group of players. Later he did run the Blackmoor Dungeon where he handled the monster. But even then there were players who were involved like Sir Fang the Vampire Lord.
> 
> I am describing this bit of history to illustrate that the referee being a fair arbiter lies at the heart of tabletop roleplaying. WIthout it none of it work.
> 
> It now about having power. It about the fact that a major reason why tabletop roleplaying works is the players only know what their character knows.
> 
> Nor is dispersing the decision making about the setting, it locales, creatures and characters is a magic bullet for making a campaign better. Instead of relying on one guy getting it right, now you have to rely on the group getting it right. It can work, but small group dynamic ensures that there will be as many negative outcomes as there with a single human referee although they will be different.



I think you betray a very 'classical' notion of how RPGs work. This would have been quite fairly considered the consensus view, with perhaps only a very few dissenters, in something like 1980. 

If you read Dungeon World, for example, nothing like 'fair arbiter' exists as a role. Nor is there a notion of 'secrets hidden from the players' (there may be things the GM has in mind that he will reveal later, IF doing so follows from the principles of play). 

I don't disagree that giving players authorial power is no panacea. However, pretty much all modern 'narratively focused games' provide pretty strict regulation in that area. Again DW handily illustrates this, as it actually doesn't outright grant this authority to the players. Instead it provides pathways by which they can exercise it, and principles of play which govern the GM's process by which these pathways are actualized. There's no specific point in a PbtA game where the GM is told "the player is in charge of authoring content here" except in very circumscribed ways. Usually the GM is just told that he has to talk about a certain thing, explain a specific thing/subject/situation, etc. What I mean is, 'authorial chaos' would be a legitimate critique, but in practice it doesn't really arise due to game design techniques.

While your description of Blackmoor may be correct (I really have never read a detailed description of how it was played), oppositional play like that is a huge rarity in RPGs. It is more a feature of Free Kriegsspiel which fed into the 'Braunsteins' which inspired Dave's development of Blackmoor. I'd point out that this mode doesn't really work well unless you can either guarantee that both 'teams' are engaged in every session, or you develop a troupe play methodology. That may in fact be one reason that the LBBs were used that way a lot, by Gary Gygax for instance. Again, I don't know, but his early games sound like they at least featured competitive play, if not outright teams fighting it out with each other. Troupe play mostly died pretty early on, and I can frankly say I never witnessed oppositional play at all, and I started playing in about 1975. My point is, yes, a referee would be needed there, but not so much in modern play.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Just to reiterate Estar's point, you can't be a dictator and have a functioning group. You have to earn the trust of your players and that means being fair, and not abusing the authority to go on a power trip. You are there to facilitate the game.



I beg to differ. By all accounts Gary was exactly a dictator. 1e AD&D is festooned with places where he declares this outright, admonishing rule with an iron fist. HOWEVER I am sure he was also pretty flexible in terms of 'grants of license' within specific narrow limits. We already discussed his "let the player map out the castle location" statement in 1e DMG for example. I think he did this a lot, and also often added elements to the game via brainstorming with his inner circle (remember, they were WRITING the game, so necessarily there had to be a process for generating new material like this). Still, he was well-known for being dictatorial when it suited him, and his games were fantastically successful by all accounts.

I also played with such a GM for many many years. He would absolutely never yield control of deciding anything of consequence in his campaign to any player or the action of any character. Yet he was, and probably is though we don't get to talk anymore, enormously successful as a GM. This kind of GMing is pretty common. When it is pushed too far, it usually fails, unless the GM in question has a huge amount of innate talent and creativity (such that spectating on their doings is worth the price of admission). 

Finally, I think I made the same point, you cannot take it too far. There are conventions and such, but I still liken this to a Sovereign and subjects model. Yeah, there was that pesky Magna Carta, and now and then Parliament kicked the King's ass, but the King's word was still pretty much law. That's exactly the situation here, and generations of people did not see that as freedom, or they never would have rebelled again and again.  Democracy seems like a better solution overall...


----------



## Lanefan

estar said:


> The PCs in essence are pebbles dropped into the pond of the setting and their ripples interact with other ripples that I defined.



*Thank you!* for so neatly explaining in one sentence what I've spent ages trying to say and have yet to say it well!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Even in total Monarchies and Dictatorships people make meaningful choices and thus they have agency.  Being a subject to a King doesn't take away your agency.  You still have meaningful choices to make.



And I would note that the various thinkers who developed the liberal agenda upon which the Democratic movement was built really don't agree. In fact what are now today called 'liberals' generally don't agree. Not to delve too much into politics, but the argument that a lack of national health insurance makes people 'free' would be a classic argument, where liberals will respond 'yeah, free to die.' I'm not convinced I want that kind of 'freedom' or that it has much meaning.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> *Thank you!* for so neatly explaining in one sentence what I've spent ages trying to say and have yet to say it well!



You know this also completely explains lots of games, including many that don't look like yours at all, right?  It's so vague that it doesn't have much explanatory power at all -- it could sound like anyone's game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Well if you  just think we are basically being tyrants, I don't see how this conversation is going to go anywhere good



I definitely do not mean the analogy in a pejorative sense. I mean it simply in the sense of describing the agency at a table in a 'classic' RPG. Rule 0, you're utterly in charge. Yes, it is a game, and being dictator of your dinner table is not some morally reprehensible thing. Especially not if you provide good entertainment value! Still, there is a sense in which players may be more stifled than you may imagine.


----------



## Ovinomancer

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I definitely do not mean the analogy in a pejorative sense. I mean it simply in the sense of describing the agency at a table in a 'classic' RPG. Rule 0, you're utterly in charge. Yes, it is a game, and being dictator of your dinner table is not some morally reprehensible thing. Especially not if you provide good entertainment value! Still, there is a sense in which players may be more stifled than you may imagine.



Earlier (and often) in the thread I referenced the benevolent dictator -- life can be very good under one, but some will still chafe at it.  D&D mostly runs this way, normally, as do other "mainstream" games.  It's the model where there is a Rule Zero in place.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> And I would note that the various thinkers who developed the liberal agenda upon which the Democratic movement was built really don't agree. In fact what are now today called 'liberals' generally don't agree. Not to delve too much into politics, but the argument that a lack of national health insurance makes people 'free' would be a classic argument, where liberals will respond 'yeah, free to die.' I'm not convinced I want that kind of 'freedom' or that it has much meaning.



Please keep the damn politics out of it.


----------



## FrogReaver

@zarionofarabel

I'm really curious why you have been liking everything someone has posted in this thread?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> @zarionofarabel
> 
> I'm really curious why you have been liking everything someone has posted in this thread?



They've answered that already.


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> You know this also completely explains lots of games, including many that don't look like yours at all, right?  It's so vague that it doesn't have much explanatory power at all -- it could sound like anyone's game.



Well the ripples are the choices, mine and the players. The wave interference are the consequences of those choice. Then on top of that new pebbles are thrown in by myself and the players creating new patterns on the "surface" of the setting. A major difference between my approach and the other being described  is that I don't have a preconceived notion of where the pebbles may fall. 

On my side it starts out with the description of the NPC characters, their motivations, and their plans. The NPCs plans get updated after every session to reflect what the player do or don't. That is in essence the interference patterns eluded to in my analogy. Because I don't control the what the player decide, things often and do take off in unexpected direction.

I ran 14 groups as part of the formal playtest of my Scourge of the Demon Wolf sandbox adventure. Plus the initial time using 3.X, then another time using GURPS, and three times with D&D 5e, and once heavily modified for Adventures in Middle Earth. All started with the same initial circumstances, one of them dealt with it the same way and had very different experiences. One group antagonized the village priest, another turn them into allay. Most groups kept the wandering beggars safe from the wolves and the angry villager who blame them for the current issue. One managed to unite the two group to stand against the Demon Wolf pack and led them to victory when they attacked.

The process is straight forward. Jettison one's preconceived notions, set the stage, see what the PCs do, and react in accordance to how the NPCs personalities and details are defined. After the session update the setting and its characters. Rinse and repeat throughout the life of the campaign following where the players go until it reaches a stopping point.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Is this like a map of potential pathways to take turf? Personally i don't see anything wrong with a tool like this. Is there a point in this mapping procedure where the players would exert powers they wound't have in the kind of game I've been discussing?




Yes, that’s exactly what it is. And although there are pathways, it is possible to not stick to the paths, but it’s recommended when the crew does this that the GM make seizing the claim harder or more involved. 

As for what I thought might be questionable to you about this, there are two things, I think. First, the players are immediately aware of this map as soon as they pick a crew; it’s actually right on their crew sheet. None of it must be discovered or learned through play, although the specifics may need to be. 

Which leads me to the second point; each of the claims is presented very loosely from a fictional standpoint, but each has a specifically defined mechanical advantage. What is “Turf” exactly? What is a “Vice Den”? Sure, we have ideas, but the specific details are not yet set, and likely would not become so until the claim comes up as a possible point of interest. 

It’s also very possible for the players to initiate a lot of this, possibly including some of the details for a claim. 

For instance, the crew may have a need for more turf (turf is just territory that makes it easier for your crew to advance to a higher tier, which improves your gear and standing and so on). The crew may also be tussling with a specific gang, the Red Sashes, let’s say. So they may propose something like “We need some more turf if we’re gonna move up a tier, so we gotta grab some turf, but we don’t want to make any new enemies, so let’s grab something from the Red Sashes. They have to have some kind of turf in the area, right?”

Then the GM would likely add some details to round it out, and then that would be the next Score for the crew. 

Now, this may also come from the GM, too. It doesn’t have to just come from the players. The GM may even let the players propose one idea, and then add another. So he may respond to the above with “Yes, the Red Sashes control the waterfront along the canal between Song Street and Bell Street. They have street kids who sling spark there. It’s a central location with access to a few nearby districts, so it’s a profitable spot. As such, it’s well defended. But...if you’re interested in seizing some turf, the area called Underbridge is similar to the waterfront , but it’s closer to you, and less well guarded. But, it’s run by the Crows....so you’d have an easier time taking that, but then you’d be pissing off a whole other gang. What do you want to do?”

So these details are not at all set ahead of play. And the players can initiate some of their goals and possibly even details about those goals. But I think the example here still shows how a GM can take that and then craft a meaningful choice out of it. 

What do you think about that? 



Bedrockgames said:


> I am not sure I understand it enough to know (and again I haven't read Blades int he Dark, but one reason it is on my list is to see how it manages this kind of thing as it is something I deal with a lot in my campaigns and I will take any tools and tweak any tools I can that work).




It handles it very differently than you describe, honestly. Like the book is an exceptional example of a sandbox. It gives you all these different elements...districts, factions, institutions, cultures....but it lets you place them in the sandbox where you’d like. It let’s you pick and choose which are interesting to you and which you’ll use in play. And this is true of the players as well as the GM.

The players will pick their crew type and the district where they lair and also the district where they operate (these may be the same or may be different). These decisions start to feed into others which starts to naturally suggest certain factions and so on.

But the things don’t become specific until they need to be. The GM does not determine every holding of each gang and how many men they have and so on. Each of the main factions gets a half page entry that briefly describes them, lists a few members and a couple traits for each, and offers a couple of assets, and some general goals. 

Do you think that the lack of specificity would be an obstacle to sandbox play? And I mean like a significant obstacle, not just something the group would balk at because it’s unfamiliar?


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> Well the ripples are the choices, mine and the players. The wave interference are the consequences of those choice. Then on top of that new pebbles are thrown in by myself and the players creating new patterns on the "surface" of the setting. A major difference between my approach and the other being described  is that I don't have a preconceived notion of where the pebbles may fall.



Which other?  This is a strange response to my point that the ripples example is vague to the point of being nearly universal.


estar said:


> On my side it starts out with the description of the NPC characters, their motivations, and their plans. The NPCs plans get updated after every session to reflect what the player do or don't. That is in essence the interference patterns eluded to in my analogy. Because I don't control the what the player decide, things often and do take off in unexpected direction.
> 
> I ran 14 groups as part of the formal playtest of my Scourge of the Demon Wolf sandbox adventure. Plus the initial time using 3.X, then another time using GURPS, and three times with D&D 5e, and once heavily modified for Adventures in Middle Earth. All started with the same initial circumstances, one of them dealt with it the same way and had very different experiences. One group antagonized the village priest, another turn them into allay. Most groups kept the wandering beggars safe from the wolves and the angry villager who blame them for the current issue. One managed to unite the two group to stand against the Demon Wolf pack and led them to victory when they attacked.
> 
> The process is straight forward. Jettison one's preconceived notions, set the stage, see what the PCs do, and react in accordance to how the NPCs personalities and details are defined. After the session update the setting and its characters. Rinse and repeat throughout the life of the campaign following where the players go until it reaches a stopping point.



I'm not sure what you're lecturing me on.  I mean, this last paragraph is pretty much exactly how Powered by the Apocalypse games, or Burning Wheel, or Forged in the Dark games work, and these don't feature the prep that you've explained is part of your approach.  Which gets back to my statement that your explanations should sound like many games, because they're so vague as to not be particularly descriptive on any one.

The interest would be a play procedure -- what's your game loop?  In my homebrew 5e game set in Sigil, for instance, I tend towards preps locations -- NPCs, monsters, layout, traps, etc., -- and then let the players deploy skill to navigate this.  In between such set pieces, I run more freeform, using modified skill challenges that let players set their own agendas and follow along, so lots of ripples.  In my Blades in the Dark game, it's all ripples, all the way down.  I don't prep anything and entirely follow the players' leads.  There's a loose setting, some strong themes, and some thumbnails of factions and that's about it for pre-game fictional setup.  After that, it's entirely on the players, and yet that play looks nothing at all like a prepped sandbox.  Alternatively, I'm getting ready to run a 5e AP -- Descent into Avernus -- and this is a pretty strong railroad that I'm doing extensive deconstruction of to remove the more railroady bits, but there's still lots of room for ripples in the adventure as it opens in the middle to a semi-sandbox in Avernus.  So...

Let's look at an example, a toy one used in this thread -- if a player wanted to search for their long lost brother, how would you engage this move by the player?  For me, in 5e, I would ask questions of the player about the brother -- how did you leave it, what was he like, what problem caused him to lose touch?  And then I would follow up on those answers, likely starting one of my modified skill challenges to start the PCs on the path to locating the brother, and those largely follow PC direction and play a lot like a narrative game.  In Blades, I would ask the same questions, and likely set up some clocks to describe the kinds of things that need to be done to find the brother, then play would address those clocks either in downtime or as scores (preferably both).  

Either way, there's zero doubt that the player could establish this dramatic need in the game.  Heck, in the Avernus game, I have one PC that's looking to find a way to remove a family curse and revolves around a devil in Hell, and a second that accidentally damned someone to Hell with their magic and is seeking to make that right.  Both of these are not at all part of that printed adventure, but they're going to be a part of the game, and not as a sidequest -- these are going to be wrapped into the mainline somehow.

How would you do it?  Could the players establish these kinds of things as dramatic needs without blocking, and what kind of play would entail from that if allowed?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, that’s exactly what it is. And although there are pathways, it is possible to not stick to the paths, but it’s recommended when the crew does this that the GM make seizing the claim harde
> 
> Do you think that the lack of specificity would be an obstacle to sandbox play? And I mean like a significant obstacle, not just something the group would balk at because it’s unfamiliar?




I would honestly have to play it to see, but I think for my players it would certainly be an issue. I've often tried to bring in more abstract procedures for this sort of thing and the rejection level for them is quite high. I designed a whole sect building system, and it worked in theory, and worked if it remained at an abstract, background level, but the players pretty consistently wanted to get into specifics and that is what made it break down for me. I am not sure though if this would do that or not. Also, some of it might be workable as a way of buffering specifics if I understand because it gives material bonuses for controlling different elements of a faction? So if I read you correctly, one way I could use something like that is allow my players to play things out as they do (say they go into a quarter of the city where an enemy gang operates and take over a couple of workshops they control, if I can identify what that means on the map you showed me, I could note that and it would provide them with some kind of ongoing advantage or resource. Again though, the problem is the specificity. My players are the types who will take over a workshop, and then start utilizing it pretty finely in the game 

I think a proper way to put it might be they are setting first before mechanics type players. Where any mechanics are just meant to reflect the setting material and the characters who inhabit it. And they often don't find the mechanics themselves engaging (it is more about having mechanics that just don't get in the way, or do what they need for what they want to do in the setting). 

But again, a little hard to say without trying it and absorbing the information through play. There is a lot in your post I read, but I couldn't translate into a visualization of actual play (just due to lack of playing it myself). 

But I will say, even if it turns out it isn't portable into my game, I would still like to play the game on its own terms so I understand it. And I am sure I would be able to find some inspiration from it for helping me solve this criminal underworld puzzle (it is something I've never quite cracked or settled on).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The players will pick their crew type and the district where they lair and also the district where they operate (these may be the same or may be different). These decisions start to feed into others which starts to naturally suggest certain factions and so on.
> 
> But the things don’t become specific until they need to be. The GM does not determine every holding of each gang and how many men they have and so on. Each of the main factions gets a half page entry that briefly describes them, lists a few members and a couple traits for each, and offers a couple of assets, and some general goals.




This may or may not be an issue. I certainly don't need all the specifics spelled out in a setting (as long as I can extrapolate from an entry). Even with all my sects their entries give general information and there would be a lot of stuff that could be filled in more detail later by a GM (though many specifics like headquarters, maps of headquarters, areas of operation are laid out). Can you describe what 'become specific until they need to be' looks like just so I make sure I get this aspect.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I don't think the player determining where the tower was resolution. The resolution gave the player that ... right? privilege? I'm willing to grant that the player looking at the local map and saying, "The Tower is _here_" is plausibly not roleplaying, but that's the only part of that I can see an argument about (and I'm not making it, to be clear).



There seems to be some confusion over how the Wises check worked, so I'll reiterate it, with some context.

Here's the context - from p 269 of Revised (the text is the same in Gold, p 552), setting out "the sacred and most holy role of the players" (emphasis original):

Use the mechanics! Players are _expected_ to call for a Duel of Wits or a Circles test or to demand the Range and Cover rules in a shooting match with a Dark Elf assassin. Don't wait for the GM to invoke a rule - invoke the damn thing yourself and get the story moving! . . . If the story doesn't interest you, _it's your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself._​
It's in this spirit that I, playing Aramina, and having regard to her Belief which I had previously authored - _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!_ - that I said, as Aramina, something like _Isn't Evard's tower around here_. I don't now recall exactly what the GM's response was, but I think I was the one to point to Aramina's Great Masters-wise 2.

So the GM set the difficulty for the check (probably Ob 2, I'm guessing, because I think I succeeded without needing to spend any artha; and Ob 2 is the difficulty for knowing "an interesting fact" beyond common knowledge but without any details, which I think is what this would be, at least on a generous reading).

I then rolled the dice, and got my two successes (1 in 4 chance) and thus confirmed that Aramina's recollection was correct.

To my mind, this is clearly action resolution. The action in question is _remembering something_. As I've posted many times upthread, it follows exactly the same procedure as any other action declaration, including _I attack the Orc with my mace_. There was nothing "out of character" about it that would be any different from declaring and resolving the attack. (Eg rolling the dice is not something the character does, in either case. If someone thinks that rolling the dice "emulates" the PC swinging the mace, well equally in this case it emulates Aramina making the effort to remember something she learned while studying as a mage.) There was no pointing at a map, because that would certainly be "details". As I've also posted, we found the tower by getting help from Thurgon's former comrade Friedrich.


----------



## pemerton

To add to these posts about referees being fair: the role of a referee in a wargame is not wildly different from the role of a referee in a football game. The referee applies the rules and, when necessary, arbitrates between the two sides.

The idea that the role of a GM in a sandbox resembles this is not really plausible. For a start, there are no sides. Next, to the extent that the players experience "opposition" it is being provided by the GM.

This also drives home how different a sandbox of the sort @estar or @Bedrockgames is describing is from a Moldvay-style dungeon. In a Moldvay-style dungeon there is no opposition or antagonism: the dungeon is primarily a _puzzle_, and the monsters are threats that are encountered in the course of exploring it. The GM has to adjudicate them fairly - in some ways it's a more sophisticated version of a boardgame, and part of what makes it more sophisticated is that the players can make "moves" that engage the fiction. In this sort of play, the GM comes close to being a referee - designing the dungeon is a bit like preparing the field of battle for a wargame, and adjudicating the fiction can be done (hopefully; ideally) fairly and dispassionately.

But in a "living, breathing" world things are completely different. Designing such a world is not at all like preparing the field of battle, except in the most metaphorical sense. Deciding things like _whether a given NPC is alive or dead_ and _what a given faction will do in response to encroachments on its turf_ is not like adjudicating the fiction in the way a Moldvay GM has to.

Classic Traveller is interesting here, because it consistently uses the term "referee" to describe the GM, but the role is nothing like a wargame or dungeon-adjudicating referee.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> There seems to be some confusion over how the Wises check worked, so I'll reiterate it, with some context.
> 
> {snip}
> 
> To my mind, this is clearly action resolution. The action in question is _remembering something_. As I've posted many times upthread, it follows exactly the same procedure as any other action declaration, including _I attack the Orc with my mace_. There was nothing "out of character" about it that would be any different from declaring and resolving the attack. (Eg rolling the dice is not something the character does, in either case. If someone thinks that rolling the dice "emulates" the PC swinging the mace, well equally in this case it emulates Aramina making the effort to remember something she learned while studying as a mage.) There was no pointing at a map, because that would certainly be "details". As I've also posted, we found the tower by getting help from Thurgon's former comrade Friedrich.



I agree. Clearly action resolution, and at least reflecting roleplay if not part of it. I keep getting BW confused with games I've played/run where the established facts (such as the Tower nearby) came after the check was resolved. That's on me; apologies.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> The PCs in essence are pebbles dropped into the pond of the setting and their ripples interact with other ripples that I defined.





Lanefan said:


> *Thank you!* for so neatly explaining in one sentence what I've spent ages trying to say and have yet to say it well!



Here is how the metaphor breaks down:

In an actual pond, the interaction of ripples is (i) literal, and (ii) takes place in accordance with physical laws that are quite impersonal.

In the metaphorical pond of the sandbox, there are no literal interactions of ripples. The GM looks at his/her pre-authored ripples, looks at the players' ripples, and _decides what the interaction looks like_.


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I agree. Clearly action resolution, and at least reflecting roleplay if not part of it. I keep getting BW confused with games I've played/run where the established facts (such as the Tower nearby) came after the check was resolved. That's on me; apologies.



As I posted in your BW thread, I think the "order of operations" here is important in permitting character-focused and genuinely _character-_driven play. It contrasts with other approaches, like shared narration/framing, or like dicing to win a "chit"/token that confers authorial power abstracted from the character's own position in the fiction.

Prince Valiant storyteller certificates sit in an interesting place in this respect. At some table I suspect they could be used as mere chits. At our table they are used in the context of action declaration - but instead of rolling the dice the player "cashes in" a certificate.


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> The interest would be a play procedure -- what's your game loop?




I describe the circumstances of the characters and it starts with the initial circumstances after character creation.
The players describe to me what they do. 
I then describe the results often by using the mechanics of the system used for the campaign.
I then describe the new circumstances
Rinse and repeat until the session or campaign ends.
But a picture is worth a thousand words. Warning it not edited it is  raw footage.

As for something written send me a PM and I will comp you a copy of a Scourge of the Demon Wolf. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Let's look at an example, a toy one used in this thread -- if a player wanted to search for their long lost brother, how would you engage this move by the player?



Depends on what been described about the lost brother. I can think of possibilities but in this case, it is the player's call to describe the brother, and his life before he got lost. It part of the player's background and as long it consistent with the setting, I am good with it. Based on that I will come up with how the brother got lost and work it into the campaign. The player can choose to follow the leads or not. If the player is smart, diligent, and has a little luck (you just can't be rolling ones all the time) then it is likely it will be resolved successfully. 



Ovinomancer said:


> For me, in 5e, I would ask questions of the player about the brother -- how did you leave it, what was he like, what problem caused him to lose touch?  And then I would follow up on those answers, likely starting one of my modified skill challenges to start the PCs on the path to locating the brother, and those largely follow PC direction and play a lot like a narrative game.  In Blades, I would ask the same questions, and likely set up some clocks to describe the kinds of things that need to be done to find the brother, then play would address those clocks either in downtime or as scores (preferably both).



I handle most of it through first person roleplaying combined with the use of the dice and the system when needed to resolve things when the result are uncertain. For example combat. 



Ovinomancer said:


> How would you do it?  Could the players establish these kinds of things as dramatic needs without blocking, and what kind of play would entail from that if allowed?



My view is that because we are all human there is a limit to how detailed we can get. So in practice there is room for expansion about a character's background. As long as it not inconsistent with what been established I don't have an issue with a new family member or new detail being created and added to the background of the campaign. Once added I handle it like any other background element the players are interested in. I make sure to work it into as part of the life of the setting* as something the players to explore or learn out. However often it becomes an active goal of the players in which case they do what they think they ought to do as if they actually in the setting of the campaign. If they are novices, I will coach them until they are comfortable about choosing what to do.

*Think of it as color commentary coupled with random encounters.


----------



## estar

pemerton said:


> In the metaphorical pond of the sandbox, there are no literal interactions of ripples. The GM looks at his/her pre-authored ripples, looks at the players' ripples, and _decides what the interaction looks like_.



In a way but not how you are thinking about it. What I do is establish the premise of setting which acts as check on what I can choose later. Every time something happens there is a range of results. If I think a possible result is the most interesting to the players I will pick that. If I think there are equally interesting possible results I will randomly roll between them and go with that. This acts as a check against bias. Sometimes only one result is plausible so I go with that. However I am kept in check by the fact there only a few possible result from any choice made by the players.

The rule I follow is that given the premise of the setting I will follow the consequences regardless of how I think ought it to be.  I been called out from time to time for making a call that the players found implausible. And they are sometimes right. In which case I make a new ruling and that how it proceeds. 

So it not fiat. The rules are defined by description of the setting, characters, and creatures.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> In a way but not how you are thinking about it. What I do is establish the premise of setting which acts as check on what I can choose later.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The rule I follow is that given the premise of the setting I will follow the consequences regardless of how I think ought it to be.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So it not fiat. The rules are defined by description of the setting, characters, and creatures.



I don't know what contrast you are drawing between "following the rules" and "how you think it ought to be". Presumably the rules tell you how it ought to be?

In any event, at this level of generality I think my Classic Traveller game comes close to fitting your description. But it is not a pebbles-in-the-pond game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> I describe the circumstances of the characters and it starts with the initial circumstances after character creation.
> The players describe to me what they do.
> I then describe the results often by using the mechanics of the system used for the campaign.
> I then describe the new circumstances
> Rinse and repeat until the session or campaign ends.
> But a picture is worth a thousand words. Warning it not edited it is  raw footage.
> 
> As for something written send me a PM and I will comp you a copy of a Scourge of the Demon Wolf.
> 
> 
> Depends on what been described about the lost brother. I can think of possibilities but in this case, it is the player's call to describe the brother, and his life before he got lost. It part of the player's background and as long it consistent with the setting, I am good with it. Based on that I will come up with how the brother got lost and work it into the campaign. The player can choose to follow the leads or not. If the player is smart, diligent, and has a little luck (you just can't be rolling ones all the time) then it is likely it will be resolved successfully.
> 
> 
> I handle most of it through first person roleplaying combined with the use of the dice and the system when needed to resolve things when the result are uncertain. For example combat.
> 
> 
> My view is that because we are all human there is a limit to how detailed we can get. So in practice there is room for expansion about a character's background. As long as it not inconsistent with what been established I don't have an issue with a new family member or new detail being created and added to the background of the campaign. Once added I handle it like any other background element the players are interested in. I make sure to work it into as part of the life of the setting* as something the players to explore or learn out. However often it becomes an active goal of the players in which case they do what they think they ought to do as if they actually in the setting of the campaign. If they are novices, I will coach them until they are comfortable about choosing what to do.
> 
> *Think of it as color commentary coupled with random encounters.



I watched your play for a bit, and there's a strong aspect of the players asking the GM questions to determine what the GM thinks the situation is.  That's very fine -- I tend to run a lot of my 5e this way -- but it's not exactly what you're describing.  You have very firm constraints on the available ripples the players can create, and you have rocks in the pond that will react with ripples pretty strongly without being moved by them.  This is, again, very typical mainstream play, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.  Functionally, though, your play loop is better characterized by the players declaring actions to find out what the GM's notes or thinking is.  They can learn things this way that they can then leverage, largely in ways the GM intends but occasionally surprising, and the GM will decide how that turns out.  This is, again, a perfectly good way to play (one I leverage, although to a lesser extent, when I run 5e) but it's not quite the expansive field your presenting.  It's much more expansive than, say, an adventure path, where a plot is intended to be executed, but it's much less expansive in options that other games or approaches can muster.  And, again, that's fine -- it's not a race.


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> In a way but not how you are thinking about it. What I do is establish the premise of setting which acts as check on what I can choose later. Every time something happens there is a range of results. If I think a possible result is the most interesting to the players I will pick that. If I think there are equally interesting possible results I will randomly roll between them and go with that. This acts as a check against bias. Sometimes only one result is plausible so I go with that. However I am kept in check by the fact there only a few possible result from any choice made by the players.
> 
> The rule I follow is that given the premise of the setting I will follow the consequences regardless of how I think ought it to be.  I been called out from time to time for making a call that the players found implausible. And they are sometimes right. In which case I make a new ruling and that how it proceeds.
> 
> So it not fiat. The rules are defined by description of the setting, characters, and creatures.



Yeah, I disagree with a large chunk of this.  Only a few possible outcomes from a player action really only occurs when the situation is so pre-decided by the GM that this constrains action outcomes.

Your opening scene in your video would be handled very differently in other games -- they'd set a scene and a point of conflict, and then follow player actions, either saying yes to them or testing them with the mechanics.  On a success, the player gets their intent, or at least moves toward it for more complex interactions.  On a failure, the GM changes the fiction in a way negative to the players (lots of discussion on how GM moves are constrained or promoted, but a general statement here works).  The difference is that the GM isn't evaluating the plausibility or possibility of action resolutions except at the genre appropriate level.  This is the part with GM bias seeps in, even to well intentioned play.  And, this isn't a bad thing at all -- it's very natural, and often a goal of the kind of play you're promoting!  GM curation of play is a strong selling point for many, especially with good GMs.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> There seems to be some confusion over how the Wises check worked, so I'll reiterate it, with some context.
> 
> Here's the context - from p 269 of Revised (the text is the same in Gold, p 552), setting out "the sacred and most holy role of the players" (emphasis original):
> 
> Use the mechanics! Players are _expected_ to call for a Duel of Wits or a Circles test or to demand the Range and Cover rules in a shooting match with a Dark Elf assassin. Don't wait for the GM to invoke a rule - invoke the damn thing yourself and get the story moving! . . . If the story doesn't interest you, _it's your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself._​



Sounds fine so far.



pemerton said:


> It's in this spirit that I, playing Aramina, and having regard to her Belief which I had previously authored - _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!_ - that I said, as Aramina, something like _Isn't Evard's tower around here_. I don't now recall exactly what the GM's response was, but I think I was the one to point to Aramina's Great Masters-wise 2.
> 
> So the GM set the difficulty for the check (probably Ob 2, I'm guessing, because I think I succeeded without needing to spend any artha; and Ob 2 is the difficulty for knowing "an interesting fact" beyond common knowledge but without any details, which I think is what this would be, at least on a generous reading).
> 
> I then rolled the dice, and got my two successes (1 in 4 chance) and thus confirmed that Aramina's recollection was correct.



I am very curious on one thing.  Are there any restrictions on the kinds of things you can author into the fiction via remembering?

Can you remember you are the actually the king of the gods just assuming human appearance?
Can you remember the King of the World owes you a favor that you want to call in now?



pemerton said:


> To my mind, this is clearly action resolution. The action in question is _remembering something_. As I've posted many times upthread, it follows exactly the same procedure as any other action declaration, including _I attack the Orc with my mace_. There was nothing "out of character" about it that would be any different from declaring and resolving the attack. (Eg rolling the dice is not something the character does, in either case. If someone thinks that rolling the dice "emulates" the PC swinging the mace, well equally in this case it emulates Aramina making the effort to remember something she learned while studying as a mage.) There was no pointing at a map, because that would certainly be "details". As I've also posted, we found the tower by getting help from Thurgon's former comrade Friedrich.




The most damaging thing about memory mechanics of the kind you describe is that they really can be used to add any detail to the world unless the game places arbitrary restrictions on the kinds of things that are possible to remember with them.  And if any detail can be added then pretty much anything already established can altered to such a degree that it isn't really the same thing anymore.  So this mechanic typically does get restricted in the types of fiction it can affect, even though it's exactly the same procedure to resolve any memory detail.  To turn your argument back on you a bit, why are you okay with some things being rememerable and others not?  It is after all the same exact procedure that produces both?  Maybe this will help you understand how we answer the question you so often pose to us.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> So if I read you correctly, one way I could use something like that is allow my players to play things out as they do (say they go into a quarter of the city where an enemy gang operates and take over a couple of workshops they control, if I can identify what that means on the map you showed me, I could note that and it would provide them with some kind of ongoing advantage or resource.




Yeah, you got it. So a claim like Vice Den may be a number of things....a gambling hall, a brothel, a drug den....but it grants the advantage it grants mechanically. You can kind of “drape” the setting over that structure, so that your Vice Den becomes the “Crooked Post” a black lotus parlor owned by the Lampblack gang.

Now, this doesn’t mean that the setting details you’ve assigned to the Vice Den are just window dressing. They can be if that’s what everyone wants. But from what I’ve seen, taking a claim like that usually leads to all manner of new material to draw from. if your players really wanted to delve into operating the Crooked Post, you can incorporate that in for sure.





Bedrockgames said:


> Again though, the problem is the specificity. My players are the types who will take over a workshop, and then start utilizing it pretty finely in the game




Claims that are taken by the crew can be targeted by rivals. Your crew will become subject to Entanglements (these are post Score consequences the crew faces and are based on how much Heat the crew has) and those Entanglements will often involve associates of the crew.

Maybe the manager of the Crooked Post gets picked up by the Bluecoats and they question him. Does he talk? Does the crew get rid of him? Maybe the barman owes money to Ulf Ironborn and gets roughed up by Ulf’s men. Does the crew let them get away with that or do they teach Ulf a lesson?

It’s all a springboard for more play, more story, more action.



Bedrockgames said:


> But again, a little hard to say without trying it and absorbing the information through play. There is a lot in your post I read, but I couldn't translate into a visualization of actual play (just due to lack of playing it myself).




I get that. It was a game that I didn’t immediately get entirely, too, and I was looking at the actual rules, not an incomplete second hand description.

All I’ll add is that the Claim map is only one piece of the game. There are several, and they all interact with one another in meaningful ways. When something happens on a Score, it may trickle over into Downtime as an Entanglement, and then the Entanglement leads to another Score. So once you get going, the game’s play structure generates ideas and conflict.

It’s very tightly designed.


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> Functionally, though, your play loop is better characterized by the players declaring actions to find out what the GM's notes or thinking is.



@Bedrockgames Did you think that you had to guess what my notes were or how I thought about the situation? @Ovinomancer He played in my session.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I mean consider someone coming into your game and trying to do things outside the agreed upon playstyle and calling you a dick when you said no.
> 
> IMO It's only a dick move if the player justifiably expects to be able to do that kind of thing.  That's not a justified expectation in every style.



But I'm not talking about anyone violating genre conventions for example, or trying to contradict already played-for and thus established fiction. I would not consider those things 'within bounds', generally speaking. All games have those sorts of limits, even if they are often implicit. Although I would point out that in many 'player skill' type D&D games having your PC try to make gunpowder is perfectly kosher (and the DM making it always fail is also, of course). So, even genre or player vs character knowledge aren't always considered sacrosanct by all.

Nor do I understand why 'find my brother' would be somehow inappropriate. It is find for PCs to 'quest after treasure', or 'go looking for a dragon to rob', or something like that. I'm afraid I do not see 'quest after my lost relative' as being outside your play style. At least not in any obvious way. You may not like the implication that the DM should consider catering to players interests, but there it is.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This may or may not be an issue. I certainly don't need all the specifics spelled out in a setting (as long as I can extrapolate from an entry). Even with all my sects their entries give general information and there would be a lot of stuff that could be filled in more detail later by a GM (though many specifics like headquarters, maps of headquarters, areas of operation are laid out). Can you describe what 'become specific until they need to be' looks like just so I make sure I get this aspect.




Yeah...you kind of touch on it near the beginning of your post with extrapolation. The book provides enough detail to give you a good sense of the Faction, and then you can build the rest from there.

So let’s use a gang headquarters as an example. Most gangs’ HQ are loosely described in the book; the Red Sashes run a sword fighting school, the Crows have a kind of crooked tower in the middle of their district. Most are even less detailed.

So if your crew ran afoul of the Billhooks, a really vicious gang who favors hatchets and polearms, you’d know that their HQ is a butcher shop, and that they also own a stockyard and slaughterhouse. But where in the city are these locations? How big are they? How well defended? All that is for the GM and players to determine. You don’t need to know where the Billhooks’ Butcher Shop is until someone asks, or until the action of the game points you there. 

It’s perfectly fine if you’ve introduced the Billhooks to the game as rivals of the PC crew and you’ve already got an idea to place their butcher shop HQ in the Docks. It’s also fine if a player suggests it for some reason. Maybe they want the Billhooks to have some personal meaning to their PC, and so they suggest that the Billhooks are notorious in the district the PC grew up in, Charhollow. However it makes sense to determine these details is fine. 

Ultimately, many of the details are not yet set. This is by design so that the GM and players are free to kind of build their own city. 

I think that bit of flexibility also opens up a lot of potential for the players to make suggestions about the details, which I think helps invest them in the place. That may not work for your group, though, and it’s not necessary although it’s heavily and frequently recommended in the book.


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> I watched your play for a bit, and there's a strong aspect of the players asking the GM questions to determine what the GM thinks the situation is.  That's very fine -- I tend to run a lot of my 5e this way -- but it's not exactly what you're describing.  You have very firm constraints on the available ripples the players can create, and you have rocks in the pond that will react with ripples pretty strongly without being moved by them.



I encourage players to ask question about the locale, creatures, and characters they are dealing with because my description are not always complete enough for them to have the information to make a decision. So they ask.  With this particular session it was run as a one shot with several players who have not experience my Majestic Wilderlands setting before. So at the beginning there were a lot of questions and coaching get everybody up to speed on the situation and to the point where had a enough information to go on (and have fun).

Because it was a one-shot the inciting incident, the Bishop's Court, was contrived. A compromise given the circumstances of the session.  The player were given a job to do that led them to the site of the adventure. Everything that occurred after they encountered the young couple in the road and fought the bandit was up to the players. When I first ran the adventure as part of a campaign, it was the encounter with the young couple and the bandit fight that was inciting incident. 

Also this session was unique for me that it was run theater of the mind. Which I usually don't do. Instead I use maps, miniatures, and battlemaps a lot to minimize the questions. But that doesn't mean question are not asked. Usually they more precise and detailed about the immediate surrounding or character they are dealing.

And again it not because the player need to guess what is in my mind. It is because descriptions both verbal and using props are incomplete and thus the players may not have everything they ought to know as their character. I am only human and can't always guess correctly at what they think is important.

Last novices to my games often don't get right away that I am prepared to answer questions they might have. I rarely give answers that amount "just because". That if they want to details, I am willing to provide them. But on average I use my experience refereeing to make it easier by highlighting thing I found players found important in the past. It made easier with this adventure because that was my fifth run through.



Ovinomancer said:


> This is, again, very typical mainstream play, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.  Functionally, though, your play loop is better characterized by the players declaring actions to find out what the GM's notes or thinking is.



If you played in one of my session I am afraid you will be disappointed if you try to figure what may notes or thinking is. I generally turn the question it around and ask what it is you want to do or are looking for. Then go from there. 



Ovinomancer said:


> They can learn things this way that they can then leverage, largely in ways the GM intends but occasionally surprising, and the GM will decide how that turns out.  This is, again, a perfectly good way to play (one I leverage, although to a lesser extent, when I run 5e) but it's not quite the expansive field your presenting.  It's much more expansive than, say, an adventure path, where a plot is intended to be executed, but it's much less expansive in options that other games or approaches can muster.  And, again, that's fine -- it's not a race.



I am afraid we will have to disagree on how the expansive the two approaches are. My approach allows any player to do what their character are capable of within the setting of the campaign. Whether it is the Majestic Wilderlands, The Third Imperium, Star Trek, etc. I try to create a pen & paper virtual reality that can be explored as the player wishes constrained only by the fact is with a small group of other players with their own interest. True a player can't say "I flap my arms and fly" without a reason arising from how the setting works. But as a person existing a world there is a hell of lot of things they can do as long as they break free of thinking that there are things they ought to be doing. Like trying to guess how I think about a situation when what matters is what they think about it and that they have the information about what there.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I am very curious on one thing.  Are there any restrictions on the kinds of things you can author into the fiction via remembering?
> 
> Can you remember you are the actually the king of the gods just assuming human appearance?
> Can you remember the King of the World owes you a favor that you want to call in now?
> 
> The most damaging thing about memory mechanics of the kind you describe is that they really can be used to add any detail to the world unless the game places arbitrary restrictions on the kinds of things that are possible to remember with them.  And if any detail can be added then pretty much anything already established can altered to such a degree that it isn't really the same thing anymore.  So this mechanic typically does get restricted in the types of fiction it can affect, even though it's exactly the same procedure to resolve any memory detail.  To turn your argument back on you a bit, why are you okay with some things being rememerable and others not?  It is after all the same exact procedure that produces both?  Maybe this will help you understand how we answer the question you so often pose to us.



(1) Why would the sorts of limit you posit be _arbitrary_ if there function is to avoid _the most damaging thing_?

(2) In the second of the two long-running RM campaigns I've mentioned upthread, one of the PCs was a fox who had taken on human form. Partway through the campaign, the PC remembered/discovered that he had really been a heavenly animal lord, exiled to earth. There are no mechanics for this sort of thing in RM, so it was resolved via player-GM negotiation. This didn't have any mechanical impact but did change the backstory quite a bit, in interesting ways.

The player presented this initially in the form of an in-game letter written by "Dying abbot dude, Temple for earnest desire for enlightenment, Yoa Maru branch" (this was the place where the fox-spirit had first gone when he took on human sentience, and the person who had cared for him):

Returning to full self awareness as an mature sophont a few scant months ago with only dim memories of his life or even existance before that (but retaining significant language skills, suggesting perhaps a scholar or poet in some previous existance) Hideyo seems to be the spirit of a wild fox reborn in a human (looking) body, allegedly by force of will. This theory under which this soul moved directly from animal state to the sometime thoughtful, sometime savage entity we know now has both strengths and weaknessed, and is probably not all true or all false. In support of this theory his physical aptitudes seem very similat to those one might expect from a creature whose animal spirit still remembers being both a killer and a thief. The skills for flight and hiding, but no distance stamina combined with a keenly developed sense for murder and ambush are very reminiscent of the wild fox. His self confessed cowrdice and fondness for stealth are likewise convincing aspects of an animal in human form.​​On the other hand there are aspects of his development and behaviour which suggest this cannot be the whole story. As mentioned previously his language skills are well developed, moreso in the spirit tounge as spoken in the courts of the fae princes, but not spoken by ordinary foxes. His rapidly emerging chi powers, while not entirely at ods with the animan side of his nature are surprisingly well developed, and the social/influencing abilities seem to have few parallels in the animal kindom (but would be very usful in the torrid atmosphere of the spirit court. He has a rudimentary grasp of chi based buddhist healing medicince, allegedly gained at a monastry (perhaps where is slight undertanding of his own place in the cosmos was learned?) but once again this implies a significant ammount of time spent in man shape amonst men. Even more intriguing is this individuals essentially undeveloped ability to channel power from (presumably fox ancestor?) spirits. Is this some inherited trait, that he has been granted by his ancestors by virtue of his unusual heritage, or something learned in a phase of his existance of which he currently has no memory.​​Added to this is the evidence of his endeniable (if somewhat unpricipled) social proficiency. Hideyo seems skilled at all forms of discourse and influence, displaying a familiarity with discussion, debate, argument and abuse which would seem entirely unnatual to have sprung forth fully​developed from the chi of the spirit of a solitary animal with no particularly well developed language. Both this aptitude for influencing people and his lack of compuntion in using such methods on innocent novices once again suggest to me that this creature spent some considerable time amongst a sophisticated court.​​In conclusion, I belive the spirit known as Hideyo was at some time a functionary in one of the spirit courts (most likely an assasin in the​court of the Vulpine Pince). It seems clear that immediately before his current incaration he was living as a wild animal in the woods hereabouts, and slowly recovered his more human memories. Equally clearly sometime before that he was trained as a healer by those of the buddhist persuasion. Whether this was, as he believed, a short number of years previously between his initial birth as a natural fox and his current life is unclear. It is possible he was not born as a natural fox at all, but was raised in the spirit court and banished to live as a beast for some some crime or convenience. It may also be that his recallection is correct, and he did in fact raise himself on the wheel by sheer force on will, and then took a post in some palace or other, only to fall away to animal state again, either as a punisment as speculated above, or simply internally after some great shock or trauma. Nothing can be certain about this except there is more to this one than a simple spirit who honestly learned to be man shaped and lived in a forest and a temple, that just doisn't make any sense. Note also that none of these speculations explain his minor but unignorable ability to channel.​​I fear I will be unable to investigate this phenomena further myself, my time grows near. Should Hideyo discover (in your mind) the truth about himself, and should he be (in your mind) a friend of our temple at that time, please show him this treatise, and forgive an old man's vanity in hoping he was at least close to the truth.​
I don't know if this text ever came to light in play, but the ideas in it certainly were developed through play - mostly back-and-forth between player and GM in scene-framing and some consequence-narration.

Rolemaster ultimately is probably not the best system to handle this sort of thing, but we did OK. It certainly didn't break things in any way.

(3) In BW being King of the Gods would be a trait. So if it's not on your PC sheet then it's already established that you're not King of the Gods, or at least not evidently such. There are rules for adding traits, but they require a table vote and a good-faith vote is expected to be grounded in the shared fiction. So a revelation that a PC is really King of the Gods is not impossible but can't be done in quite the way you suggest.

(4) In BW being owed favours is reflected primarily via Circles and to a lesser extent Resources checks. There is also a Relationships mechanic. It's possible to have King of the World as a relationship, but that would be quite expensive in character building and otherwise would have to be built up via play. (A certain number of successful Circles check in relation to the same individual permits adding that person as a Relationship.)

(5) Upthread I think it was @hawkeyefan who queried why, if we are expected to trust GMs with this stuff, we can't also be expected to trust players. Your examples seem to be intended as illustrations of game-breaking bad faith that is not grounded in the shared fiction. Which takes me back to my (1): I don't see why rules approaches that are intended to ensure that the game doesn't break, and to maximise the capacity of the game to reward good-faith, fiction-following play, should be described as _arbitrary_.


EDIT:
When you say _the most damaging thing_, what is your evidence for there being any such thing? Play experience? I don't think so. Others' play reports of difficulties they've had GMing Burning Wheel (or games with similar mechanics, eg MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic)? I haven't encountered these myself. Or is it just speculation on your part?


----------



## Lanefan

aramis erak said:


> Roleplay can work just fine when the GM is unfair. It's not so great if the GM's skewed against players having successes, but an unfair GM can be a lot of fun *for a while*, if they're tilted in the player's favor.



I bolded the key bit; as after that while has passed, what then?

The early-days form of what you advocate for here was ye olde Monty Haul DM, and to the same result: great fun for a while, until the game collapsed under its own weight long before it otherwise might have.


aramis erak said:


> It parallels watching a typical action or detective show: you know the cast will accomplish the mission... but how? That's what we watch to see.



What you watch to see, maybe.  To me that's the most boring bit - that the heroes or good guys will always win in the end.


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## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> It really isn't the specific disposition of the brother which is the issue. It is more the idea that a) a player generated agenda like this is merely a side-show from the real business of delving the GM's dungeon (or whatever) b) that the disposition is simply handled without any regard to anything the player might indicate is interesting, or the character's actions/nature might point towards. Yes, the character could be 'living in Praetos City' but then why? There's certainly a family dynamic to explore, at least. The brother might be up to no good. Perhaps he hears of the search for him and sows red herrings far and wide. I mean, a lot more can happen, and would be INTERESTING to happen than "you show up at the city and find your brother." (dead or alive for that matter).



I think you missed my point completely in several ways.

First, in the post you quoted I was trying to winnow out the difference, if any, in the perceived 'dick move' level if the fate of the brother was positive rather than negative.  If I got any bites on that I haven't seen them yet, I'm responding to posts as I read them.

Second, I need to know the brother's current state/status/location first so I can determine what the PC might be up against (or not) in his search, and what steps might be required and-or what steps will be of some use, might be of some use, or won't help at all in the search.  Finding a high-and-mighty merchant, for example, is likely to be far easier than finding a two-years-dead commoner.  Asking around in Praetos is more likely to produce results if the brother is actually in Praetos than if he's been the last three years in Spieadeia, 300 miles to the south.  Etc.

I neither said nor implied that the player's search would be resolved player-side by one roll or a tossed-off remark.  Hell, if the player wants I can drag it out for ages.  

What is done quickly is the initial DM-side determination of where the brother is and what he might be doing there.


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## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> You know this also completely explains lots of games, including many that don't look like yours at all, right?  It's so vague that it doesn't have much explanatory power at all -- it could sound like anyone's game.



Pebbles dropped into a harbour and having the ripples go where they may still leaves the water in control.  The pebbles, in the end, are just pebbles.

Some other games in a similar analogy appear to have the pebble never sink; or the ripples go only in controlled directions; but in truth the analogy rather fails here.


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## Bedrockgames

estar said:


> @Bedrockgames Did you think that you had to guess what my notes were or how I thought about the situation? @Ovinomancer He played in my session.




No. I had the sense that we could pretty much do anything, but like you said, this was a streamed session and a one shot, so we were adhering to the scenario and trying to make the best use of time. But I felt I could have tried to go anywhere, do anything, etc. And I think describing that as guessing what it is in the GM's notes (a description of this style that has arisen earlier in this thread, and a description I reject), doesn't at all capture the sense of freedom we were feeling at the table


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Ultimately, many of the details are not yet set. This is by design so that the GM and players are free to kind of build their own city.




This is probably the aspect that would go over least well. The players would definitely expect me to have a city developed, and even if there were details of it they were probing that I had invented yet, they would expect those details to come from me (since i know all the basic details of the city enough that I can extrapolate what ought to be in a given area, and whom). That said, where they choose to explore, is definitely going to help detemine what get's shaped in the session. It is just they wouldn't want to be calling the shots on the details in any way unless it was something their characters were making (for example we had a group take over a section of buildings in town and convert them into a headquarters, so through the efforts of their characters, the effectively added someting to the map. Also I would have as many details pinned down about groups in the city as possible (so a city map is likely to have the headquarters of gangs and sects marked------though there have been time I have left that kind of detail fuzzy for a given group----but normally that is hammered out)


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## Fenris-77

One method of cooperative setting building that might work for you, I can't remember where I read it, it to couch the player input in terms of rumours, stories and legends, in other words stuff they've heard about. You give them some locations, factions and whatnot, with some basic info, and your players come up with some stuff, but that stuff isn't fact, so the mystery of the setting is maintained while still getting the players dialed into the setting. If that stuff indexes ideas and themes they are interested in you still get all that juicy hook bait too. Anyway, it might work for you.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, I disagree with a large chunk of this.  Only a few possible outcomes from a player action really only occurs when the situation is so pre-decided by the GM that this constrains action outcomes.



This isn't my experience at all with this. Not only can the players literally do whatever they want within what situation is presented, their actions and their choices created new situations that the GM then has the setting responds to. Unless the GM and players can only think of three possibilities at a time (and sorry simply insn't my experience on either side of the screen here), this simply isn't the case. I could really care less if others agree or not to be honest, I know what my own experience of play is. But I am a bit forceful on this point because this was the thing that struck me like thunder the first time I sat down to play an RPG: it was a level of freedom and immersion I had never experienced before in any other medium (movie, book, video game, etc). And it was due to the power of the GM saying "What do you want to do" and the fact that my answer could be anything I thought of within the limits of my character.


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## estar

pemerton said:


> I don't know what contrast you are drawing between "following the rules" and "how you think it ought to be". Presumably the rules tell you how it ought to be?



The rules don't tell you what happens when the PCs kills the knight's son in  barroom brawl. The description of the knight character will lay out the range of possibilities for his reaction and the resources at his disposal. In addition the details of his culture and society will define other means he has at his disposal. 


pemerton said:


> In any event, at this level of generality I think my Classic Traveller game comes close to fitting your description. But it is not a pebbles-in-the-pond game.



I run Traveller the exact same way I run my Majestic Wilderlands. The players are free to do anything that is possible for their character to do. Because some editions like Classic Traveller have little in the way of character advancement it become doubly important because "advancement" is about getting ahead in the campaign's setting (Third Imperium or something else).


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## pemerton

I want to contrast two approaches to how a GM frames a situation. One is the worked play example from the Apocalypse World rulebook; the other is my actual play of Prince Valiant, that I've already mentioned upthread.

*Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)*​


Spoiler



[The example begins with Marie the Brainer causing some trouble among Plover and his friends by kinda-inadvertently hurting Isle]​​“Sweet. Plover thinks she’s just leaning her head on his shoulder, but she’s bleeding out her ears and eventually he’ll notice his shirt sticking to his shoulder from her blood. Do you stick around?” I’m *telling possible consequences and asking*.​“[Heck] no.”​“Where do you go?”​“I go home, I guess.”​“So you’re home an hour later?” See me setting up my future move! I’m *thinking offscreen*: how long is it going to take Plover to get a crew together?​“Hold on, it was only 1-harm—”​“I know. She’ll be okay. It’s Plover who’s the biggest threat.”​This is *what honesty demands* [because of a prior _read a situation_ result which established Plover as the biggest threat]. “Are you home an hour later or where?”​“[Damn]. Yes, home.”​“Having tea?” *Ask questions like crazy!*​“No tea. Pacing. I have my gun and my pain grenade and the door’s triple-locked. I wish Roark were here."​​Here’s my big plan, by the way. Isle’s listed in the cast for a threat called Isle’s family, which is a brute: family (naturally enough). Its impulse, accordingly, is to *close ranks and protect their own*. What’s most fun is that I’m acting on that impulse but I’m using Plover, Church Head and Whackoff — members of Keeler’s gang! — as Isle’s family’s weapon. It’s just like when Keeler uses them to go aggro or seize by force, only I’m the one doing it.​​If Keeler lets me, that is. Keeler thinks about *imposing her will upon her gang* to stop them, her player thinks about it too. She twists her mouth around, thinking about it.​​Finally, instead, “knock yourself out,” she says.​​Marie’s player: “damn it, Keeler.”​​“So, Marie: at home, pacing, armed, locked in, yeah? They arrive suddenly at your door with a solid kick, your whole door rattles. You hear Whackoff’s voice: ‘she’s expecting us I guess.’” I’m *announcing future badness*.​​[From here, the situation escalates into a fight between Marie and Plover et al. Marie ends up winning by using her weird powers.]​



What I've quoted is about one page of a nearly seven page play example. It's the transition from the first scene in that example - the initial situation where Isle gets hurt - to the second scene, the attack by Plover and crew on Marie in her house. I would say it's the high point of GM agency in that example of play.

What exactly does the GM do with that agency?

The GM prompts Marie's player - _where do you go?_ - and confirms that she's home. The GM exercises his (Vincent's) own initiative in using another PC's gang members as the antagonists in the next scene. This is an example of interweaving the stories and interests of multiple PCs; the other player - Keeler's player - could have intervened in relation to this, but chooses not to. And the GM operates under certain constraints beyond this one that arises from sticking his fingers on Keeler's player's stuff: he has to stick to the established fiction (_that Plover is the biggest threat_); he has to think offscreen (_does Plover have enough time to get a crew together?_); and he has to follow his prep in relation to Isle's family, the brute family with the impulse to _close ranks and protect its own_.

Notes are referenced - the GM's notes about Isle's family; and also "public" notes about Keeler's gang membership. But there is no map-and-key involved, nor any random tables. The understanding of time and place is real, but loose. Did Plover et al walk to Marie's house, or drive there in a dune buggy with a mounted machine gun? We don't know, and nor does Vincent though maybe he's thought about it. Or maybe he hasn't, yet.

*My actual play example (link **here**)*​


Spoiler



Our last two sessions of Prince Valiant have seen the PCs trying to make their way from France to the Holy Land. . . .​​The second of these two sessions - which we played on Sunday - began with the decision to liquidate all assets (incuding the captured pirate ship) on the grounds that the PCs didn't have the resources to maintain a chapter house of their order in Sicily.​​They then set sail again.​​Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople.​​This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object.​​The core rulebook has three scenarios that involve fighting Huns, and I used the first of them: the PCs and their band (by this point 13 mounted men-at-arms plus the three knight PCs, and 42 footmen) were crossing through fairly rough and mountainous country when they were set upon by a band of 50-odd Huns. . . . The way the scenario is written it assume resolution via single combat, but this was clearly going to be a mass combat, and I improvised stats for the Hun leader (making sure he was weaker than the notorious Hun leader who figures in the third of these Hun-fighting scenarios). I had also decided (via extrapolation from the scenario set-up) that there were 20-odd huns in an ambushing flanking manouevre . . . .​​[The PCs forces are victorious, with some effective leadership by the PC knights.]​​Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability.​​I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.​​I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that. . . .​
The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.").​​The published scenario doesn't say anything about this, so I had to make something up: as Twillany and Rhan were riding along the path deeper into the forest, Twillany's horse almost stumbled on something unexpected underfoot. Inspection revealed it to be a great tree stump that had been cut close to the ground, levelled and smoothed, and engraved with a sigil very like one that Twillany had noticed on the Bone Laird's cloak as the two women had ridden past him. It seemed to be a mysteriously preserved wooden dais of an ancient house or stronghold - and looking about it there were still visible signs of posts and postholes of a steading wall. . . .​​The resolution here was unfolding fairly quickly . . . the upshot was that Twillany's player decided that the curse couldn't be lifted simply by working on the dais - the Bone Laird would have to be brought back there to confront it . . . Twillany and Rhan therefore returned to where they had left the Bone Laird, his warriors and the other PCs. . . .

Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - "a Celtic saint" as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order . . .​​[The encounter ended with Algol going back to the PCs' main force and returning with the reliquary, and the PCs persuading  the Bone Laird that he and his men would find rest and release from their geas if they acknowledged God and St Sigobert and had their bones placed in the reliquary. The Bone Laird beheaded his men, and then Sir Morgath - a PC - beheaded the Bone Laird with the Bone Laird's own enchanted blade.]​



I've edited my actual play report to try to bring out the moments of high GM agency. Like Vincent Baker's example, there is the asking of questions - in this case to establish _who _(the PCs and their hunters) rather than _where_ (Marie's house). There was no map-and-key used - the only map was an ordinary map of Europe which we all looked at together.

There were notes used, in the form of the two episodes (the Huns and the Rattling Forest); these informed framing, and yielded NPC stats, but did not inform resolution beyond that. In the Rattling Forest episode certain key elements - that the NPC spirits were ancient Celts, and that there was an anchor of the curse - were established by the players.

When I compare this actual play example to the AW one, the main difference I see is _less thinking offscreen_. The idea of the ghosts as ancient Celts comes from the _players_ thinking offscreen rather than the GM, and it doesn't generate significant constraints - what it does do is produce material that is relevant to downstream action declaration and resolution.

I don't think either of these examples fits the definition of "true sandbox". They both show "interactions of ripples" - but the method for determining what those interactions look like is quite different from the method of _GM extrapolation from pre-prepared fiction_.


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## Fenris-77

Yeah, PbtA games generally aren't "true sandboxes" the way, for example, the OSR would define it. The amount of prep necessary for a true sandbox is antithetical to the "play to find out" ethos.

My personal GMing style for OSR lies somewhere between the true sandbox and the PbtA approach. I do fronts and sketches of locations and faces, and then start firming things up in response to the decisions the players make in play.


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## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> I encourage players to ask question about the locale, creatures, and characters they are dealing with because my description are not always complete enough for them to have the information to make a decision. So they ask.  With this particular session it was run as a one shot with several players who have not experience my Majestic Wilderlands setting before. So at the beginning there were a lot of questions and coaching get everybody up to speed on the situation and to the point where had a enough information to go on (and have fun).
> 
> Because it was a one-shot the inciting incident, the Bishop's Court, was contrived. A compromise given the circumstances of the session.  The player were given a job to do that led them to the site of the adventure. Everything that occurred after they encountered the young couple in the road and fought the bandit was up to the players. When I first ran the adventure as part of a campaign, it was the encounter with the young couple and the bandit fight that was inciting incident.
> 
> Also this session was unique for me that it was run theater of the mind. Which I usually don't do. Instead I use maps, miniatures, and battlemaps a lot to minimize the questions. But that doesn't mean question are not asked. Usually they more precise and detailed about the immediate surrounding or character they are dealing.
> 
> And again it not because the player need to guess what is in my mind. It is because descriptions both verbal and using props are incomplete and thus the players may not have everything they ought to know as their character. I am only human and can't always guess correctly at what they think is important.
> 
> Last novices to my games often don't get right away that I am prepared to answer questions they might have. I rarely give answers that amount "just because". That if they want to details, I am willing to provide them. But on average I use my experience refereeing to make it easier by highlighting thing I found players found important in the past. It made easier with this adventure because that was my fifth run through.
> 
> 
> If you played in one of my session I am afraid you will be disappointed if you try to figure what may notes or thinking is. I generally turn the question it around and ask what it is you want to do or are looking for. Then go from there.
> 
> 
> I am afraid we will have to disagree on how the expansive the two approaches are. My approach allows any player to do what their character are capable of within the setting of the campaign. Whether it is the Majestic Wilderlands, The Third Imperium, Star Trek, etc. I try to create a pen & paper virtual reality that can be explored as the player wishes constrained only by the fact is with a small group of other players with their own interest. True a player can't say "I flap my arms and fly" without a reason arising from how the setting works. But as a person existing a world there is a hell of lot of things they can do as long as they break free of thinking that there are things they ought to be doing. Like trying to guess how I think about a situation when what matters is what they think about it and that they have the information about what there.



I get where you're coming from, and I'm not criticizing your play -- it looks like a stellar example of that approach (and likely a great deal of fun for the players).   I'm trying, instead, to bring you up to speed on where the discussion is, because you're in a place where you seem to think that your play needs to be explained when almost everyone here has experience with it.  What you appear to be lacking is experience in other approaches, which are what is leading to my analysis of your play above.  This analysis is not looking for something wrong -- there is nothing wrong -- but instead putting it in the context of the larger whole of approaches.  And, yes, when this is done your game is very much about finding out what is in the GM's note.  I 100% believe you that you do not prep plots -- these are not the notes I'm talking about -- but you do finely detail the setting.  The NPCs have pre-determined attitudes and goals, the locations are keyed, and, I'm assuming, some things are afoot that will happen in a scripted way if no one intervenes.  All of this is largely the intent and point of the sandbox approach, with some differences in the exact nature of how they are accomplished (usually small differences and focusing on how things are prepped/presented).  Ultimately, though, this approach using the GM as the primary mechanic for resolution -- what does the GM think is appropriate in these cases.  This usually gets tagged with "fair" and "impartial" and so forth, but as @pemerton posted above, this is largely spin.  Not leveling any accusation of bad faith -- I'm 100% positive there's a lot of good faith here -- but that the reality is that it's a person choosing things according to their conception of the fiction, so "fair" and "impartial" are really just one person's opinion -- it may not be shared at the table.

What happens, though, is that, like with most hobby endeavors, you find that you form a group of like-minded people to play with.  This means that the "fair" and "impartial" and even the general approach to games is shared among people with like minds and like tastes.  And that leads into a kind of narrowing of vision -- where it's very difficult to tell what's a social agreement part of the game and what's actually the game.  These things blur.  And, it's difficult to step out of this, even when you're aware of it.  You, and this is no negative criticism, seem to have found people that you enjoy gaming with and a style that you enjoy playing it.  This is the entire point, and I'm happy.  However, you also seem to have a lack of awareness of other approaches, and this means that you're not really evaluating your game in a broad scope of how things can work, but instead only in comparison with nearby styles -- styles that are still, largely, similar to you own.  This is what gives rise to your claims that the players have lots of options to choose from because they do compares to a similar game that has a prepped and planned plot.  Both games feature the GM as the setting and the GM as the core resolution method (ie, the GM decides is the core mechanic -- the GM decides what happens, or the GM decides to engage which mechanic -- the players do not do this).  The difference is whether or not the GM has a planned plot arc that the players are intended to engage in.  So, rightly, in this comparison your statement are true.  However, if we look to a larger field of styles, the similarities between your approach and, say, a published adventure path are stronger than the similarities between your approach and a game where the players really do drive the action (look to Blades in the Dark as a key example).

That's my point -- not to say you're doing it wrong (if you're having fun you're 100% doing it right!), but to point out that you placement and assumption of freedom isn't as strong as you think it is, if you just broaden the scope of your comparisons.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> This usually gets tagged with "fair" and "impartial" and so forth, but as @pemerton posted above, this is largely spin.  Not leveling any accusation of bad faith -- I'm 100% positive there's a lot of good faith here -- but that the reality is that it's a person choosing things according to their conception of the fiction, so "fair" and "impartial" are really just one person's opinion -- it may not be shared at the table.




You have the ideal of fairness, and there is subjectivity there, but I think there is a difference between a GM striving for it, and one who doesn't (and I mean genuinely striving for it, which my experience with a GM like Rob is you can sense it at the table). There is also a difference between a GM who succeeds more at achieving that state at the table than one who doesn't (there are GMs who are consistently regarded as more fair than others). Further, having done plenty of competitive sports, even in the sports arena, fairness is often disputed because everyone is investing emotions in outcomes, seeing the event from slightly different points of view, etc. Just because that fairness is not going to be universally agreed upon, is hard to achieve, and perhaps an impossible goal to attain in its 'platonic form', it is still a horizon you can move towards, and again, there is a difference between a referee who strives to be fair in sports and one who simply calls things based on who he wants to win. So a GM, in my view can be more fair, or less fair in a given moment, and when people throw up this argument about how its just 'spin', I just don't think that matches what I have seen through the years. Or at the very least, it dismisses a concept that does actually matter, based on it being more complicated than this GM is fair and that one isn't.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> I get where you're coming from, and I'm not criticizing your play -- it looks like a stellar example of that approach (and likely a great deal of fun for the players).   I'm trying, instead, to bring you up to speed on where the discussion is, because you're in a place where you seem to think that your play needs to be explained when almost everyone here has experience with it.  What you appear to be lacking is experience in other approaches, which are what is leading to my analysis of your play above.  This analysis is not looking for something wrong -- there is nothing wrong -- but instead putting it in the context of the larger whole of approaches.  And, yes, when this is done your game is very much about finding out what is in the GM's note.  I 100% believe you that you do not prep plots -- these are not the notes I'm talking about -- but you do finely detail the setting.  The NPCs have pre-determined attitudes and goals, the locations are keyed, and, I'm assuming, some things are afoot that will happen in a scripted way if no one intervenes.  All of this is largely the intent and point of the sandbox approach, with some differences in the exact nature of how they are accomplished (usually small differences and focusing on how things are prepped/presented).  Ultimately, though, this approach using the GM as the primary mechanic for resolution -- what does the GM think is appropriate in these cases.  This usually gets tagged with "fair" and "impartial" and so forth, but as @pemerton posted above, this is largely spin.  Not leveling any accusation of bad faith -- I'm 100% positive there's a lot of good faith here -- but that the reality is that it's a person choosing things according to their conception of the fiction, so "fair" and "impartial" are really just one person's opinion -- it may not be shared at the table.




But plenty of us have been in this conversation from the beginning and don't agree with your pronouncements about what the objective reality at the table is.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> Both games feature the GM as the setting and the GM as the core resolution method (ie, the GM decides is the core mechanic -- the GM decides what happens, or the GM decides to engage which mechanic -- the players do not do this).  The difference is whether or not the GM has a planned plot arc that the players are intended to engage in.  So, rightly, in this comparison your statement are true.  However, if we look to a larger field of styles, the similarities between your approach and, say, a published adventure path are stronger than the similarities between your approach and a game where the players really do drive the action (look to Blades in the Dark as a key example).




No one is disagreeing that these approaches are different. I mentioned playing HIllfolk, and that couldn't be more different than the kind of game that Rob was running. I think we are disagreeing on what that difference means. I also think within the context of games where GMs are the ref, you can't get much more different than an adventure path and the kind of game Rob runs. In fact, structural issues aside, the end result of a game like Hillfolk and a game like Rob's, is a lot closer in my opinion  than the end result of an adventure. In both Hillfolk and in Rob's game, even if there is a starting point, we have no idea where that will lead by the end of the night, the end of the adventure or deep into the campaign (Hillfolk is specifically designed for long term campaign play so it is actually a good game to compare to the kind of campaign Rob runs for this purposes, as his tend to be long term campaigns). Contrast that with an adventure path, where there is a clear outline of what will happen that evening. There is a situational element to Robs games and my games people are missing here, and I think both of us would reject terms like scripted. Yes you are occasionally going to have events in a living world that are meant to unfold like real events (a kingdom going to war, a plague, etc) but neither I nor Rob, in any conversation we've had together or in any game, have dealt with scripted storylines within the setting. Characters and NPCs may have plans, they may want things, but seems to be the starting point more than a narrative thread of events. Even if I do have something planned, like The 87 Killers and the Celestial Plume Masters get into a conflict over the Celestial Plume trade inside Lady 87's territory, I am not going to plan that out as a series of beats. I will know Lady 87's overall strategy, the Celestial Plume's overall strategy, but because there are so many gray areas, I would abstract the conflict into a series of check to see who is gaining territory and losing men, etc. I get that you are saying this is something the GM has generated, I just think scripted is entirely the wrong word for it, and highly misleading one. And in this conversation that is often my objection, the language and terms frame the discussion in a way that I just don't often agree with.


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## Fenris-77

@Bedrockgames  He's not saying you script plots, in fact he said the opposite. What he is saying is that your style lies closer on the spectrum to a scripted adventure path than it does a play to find approach like you get in a PbtA style game. That analysis is based, IMO, on the existence of GM prep. I suppose that's fair to a point, but personally, from an agency standpoint, I think you game lies closer to PbtA than it does adventure paths. That's probably because I'm reading your examples and style a little differently than @Ovinomancer is.


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## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> What happens, though, is that, like with most hobby endeavors, you find that you form a group of like-minded people to play with.




This, I think, misses what is going on (at least in most of my games). Definitely there needs to be some kind of agreement at the table (which is just as true for the kinds of games you are talking about: believe me if you have a staunch anti-story game player at your table, you are going to have problems if GM powers are being distributed among the players in any way). But my games are made up of people who like and play radically different games. We are just reasonable people with one another, and we are good at accepting the concept or conceit of a game and playing it on its own terms. I've mentioned countless times the other games I have played. They haven't been Burning Wheel or Blades in the Dark (though I am literally just waiting for a few more points of credit in my Drivethru account to buy the print and PDF of the book for BitD). But like I said, I have played Hillfolk, I have run essoterrorists, I have Fiasco, etc. All my questions to people about elements of the games that have come up here have been sincere and I haven't attempted to cast them in any kind of negative light (yet I have seen our styles compared to things like dictatorships, or guessing what the GM has in his notes-----neither of those are particularly charitable in my opinion). One GM in our group focuses a lot more on character arcs and drama between characters, and playing those stories out. That isn't how I run games, but I am happy to be in his games and play the way he likes to run them (and its fun). He could easily have run something like the long lost brother scenario Pemerton mentioned, and that wouldn't have been an issue at all. But if he were to play in my sandbox, he wouldn't object to the long lost brother situation yielding a dead brother. I think this has a lot more to do with how people behave in general and at the table. I have never been a sore loser, and the only type of player who has ever bothered me, on either end of the screen, is the sore loser (people who complain because they don't get their way in a game or something bad happens to their character). That doesn't mean there can't be reasonable disagreements over outcomes, but I find good faith, goes a long way towards bridging style gaps. And I find being mature in the face of not getting everything you want out of a game goes a long way too. So I wouldn't say I try to form groups of like minded people. I do try to avoid playing with people who respond to style differences or disagreements in ways I find unreasonable or immature (and honestly I haven't met too many people like in decades of gaming). And I think that can be a problem in either direction


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## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> (yet I have seen our styles compared to things like dictatorships, or guessing what the GM has in his notes-----neither of those are particularly charitable in my opinion).



It was compared to "Enlightened Despotism" or occasionally "Benevolent Despotism," as in the 18th century political philosophy regarding absolute monarchs who pursued reforms inspired by the Enlightenment. "Enlightened Despotism" is the field-appropriate term. "Despot" in this sense is not a "tyrant" or "dictator," which shows a misunderstanding of what I was saying and possibly a lack of historical awareness, which is fine.


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## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> @Bedrockgames  He's not saying you script plots, in fact he said the opposite. What he is saying is that your style lies closer on the spectrum to a scripted adventure path than it does a play to find approach like you get in a PbtA style game. That analysis is based, IMO, on the existence of GM prep. I suppose that's fair to a point, but personally, from an agency standpoint, I think you game lies closer to PbtA than it does adventure paths. That's probably because I'm reading your examples and style a little differently than @Ovinomancer is.




I am objecting to the term scripted, and I am agreeing with your point here: these are not scripted adventures. Keep in mind, both videos we posted were not organically coming out of a typically campaign. The one I was running, was a location in a campaign book I wanted to playtest live as I was developing the basic ideas for it (so it was a dungeon scenario------which in the normal campaign is just a location that could come into play in a variety of ways). When I sit down to prep between sessions there really isn't a sense of 'this is the adventure the players are going on'. The game is too fluid and I am reacting too much to the things the players are doing. It is more like, okay here is what Lady 87 will be planning to do, here is how the Seven Demons respond to players killing twenty of their men, here is where the emperor moved his stash of heart boxes after the players broke into the statue of the bold king, etc. The players may have ongoing conflicts, but those are not adventures. Any 'adventures' are usually things the players just decide they want to do (for example that location I was running with Rob, Elliot, Adam and Deathblade, could arise if players decided they wanted to steal the Passionless Heart Manual----but even then that could play out so many different ways. It would only really come off as a dungeon adventure if they broke in and explored the place to steal it. But they might walk up to the front door and introduce themselves to the leader of the Four Uglies, and have some other plan, that doesn't involve any kind of dungeon exploration at all (because it is living complex that is a sect headquarters).


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## Fenris-77

Like I said, no one is using the phrase scripted to describe your game. That would be obviously incorrect.


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## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> @Bedrockgames  He's not saying you script plots, in fact he said the opposite. What he is saying is that your style lies closer on the spectrum to a scripted adventure path than it does a play to find approach like you get in a PbtA style game. That analysis is based, IMO, on the existence of GM prep. I suppose that's fair to a point, but personally, from an agency standpoint, I think you game lies closer to PbtA than it does adventure paths. That's probably because I'm reading your examples and style a little differently than @Ovinomancer is.



My analysis hinges on the core resolution mechanic.  In either a scripted plot or in the sandbox approach described, that core resolution mechanic is "GM decides."  This puts a hard upper limit on player agency -- outside of action declaration, presumably most character build, and presumably combat, agency is largess by the GM.  I'm fully cognizant that a lot of these work really well under a benevolent GM, but from a broader analytical standpoint, it's not a useful approach to delineate analysis by how this or that specific GM uses the established frameworks, but rather looking at the frameworks themselves.  As such, there is a very similar amount of player agency in plotted and unplotted GM decides games.  I fully grant that there is less in a plotted one, because there, at least, the GM will be constraining action declarations more tightly.

Contrasted to a game where there is no GM decides mechanic, but where the GM is tightly constrained on where and how they can do things, we're into games where the players do possess more agency by a clear and obvious margin -- there are many fewer places where the GM can impose their view by fiat.

NONE of this evaluates whether or not a game is fun or the participants enjoy it.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> It was compared to "Enlightened Despotism" or occasionally "Benevolent Despotism," as in the 18th century political philosophy regarding absolute monarchs who pursued reforms inspired by the Enlightenment. "Enlightened Despotism" is the field-appropriate term. "Despot" in this sense is not a "tyrant" or "dictator," which shows a misunderstanding of what I was saying and possibly a lack of historical awareness, which is fine.




All of those were used as comparisons. There was also a comparison to players as peasants in these games. The enlightened despot was raised after I objected to dictator saying something like the GMs position was dependent on securing the players trust (can't recall my exact phrasing). And when Enlightened Despot was raised, I objected to that too, for obvious reasons that I shouldn't have to explain


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> This is probably the aspect that would go over least well. The players would definitely expect me to have a city developed, and even if there were details of it they were probing that I had invented yet, they would expect those details to come from me (since i know all the basic details of the city enough that I can extrapolate what ought to be in a given area, and whom). That said, where they choose to explore, is definitely going to help detemine what get's shaped in the session. It is just they wouldn't want to be calling the shots on the details in any way unless it was something their characters were making (for example we had a group take over a section of buildings in town and convert them into a headquarters, so through the efforts of their characters, the effectively added someting to the map. Also I would have as many details pinned down about groups in the city as possible (so a city map is likely to have the headquarters of gangs and sects marked------though there have been time I have left that kind of detail fuzzy for a given group----but normally that is hammered out)




I think Blades would run just fine with the GM determining all those setting details if the players chose not to offer any suggestions. There's certainly nothing that requires players to contribute to that kind of thing. That probably does come up more in some of the more PC centered elements. 

One of the guiding principles is for the GM to ask questions of the players about their characters. So if you have a Whisper PC (the kind of wizard or spellcaster class of the setting) and that character uses their ability to Attune to the Ghost Field (the setting's spirit realm which exists alongside the material world) the GM should ask the player what that looks like, and how it works. The mechanics are clear, but the specifics are up to the group to decide. 

And I've found that starting point for player input is often a nice first step toward more, and that players become more willing to contribute ideas for the setting in broader ways. That smaller PC centric stuff works as an example of how that kind of input can work, and that it doesn't cause the whole setting to come crashing down. This is just another way in which I think this game promotes agency on the part of the players.


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## Ovinomancer

Bedrockgames said:


> You have the ideal of fairness, and there is subjectivity there, but I think there is a difference between a GM striving for it, and one who doesn't (and I mean genuinely striving for it, which my experience with a GM like Rob is you can sense it at the table). There is also a difference between a GM who succeeds more at achieving that state at the table than one who doesn't (there are GMs who are consistently regarded as more fair than others). Further, having done plenty of competitive sports, even in the sports arena, fairness is often disputed because everyone is investing emotions in outcomes, seeing the event from slightly different points of view, etc. Just because that fairness is not going to be universally agreed upon, is hard to achieve, and perhaps an impossible goal to attain in its 'platonic form', it is still a horizon you can move towards, and again, there is a difference between a referee who strives to be fair in sports and one who simply calls things based on who he wants to win. So a GM, in my view can be more fair, or less fair in a given moment, and when people throw up this argument about how its just 'spin', I just don't think that matches what I have seen through the years. Or at the very least, it dismisses a concept that does actually matter, based on it being more complicated than this GM is fair and that one isn't.



Okay, but this isn't really addressing the point I was making at all.  I already said that I'm 100% certain that good faith and effort is involved.  That's given, and I understand how that effort can make a game more fun.  However, that effort is leveraging a system where the core mechanic is that the GM decides.  One person has the say.  Regardless of how well or poorly (and I believe well applies to the games in question), the regime is such that the agency belongs to the GM, not the players.  Again, this is fine and dandy -- it is how these systems are designed to run, and they clearly deliver fun in this regard, even with less effort than is demonstrated here -- elsewise why would it be the system of the most popular, by more than a country mile, system in the hobby?  This part is undisputed -- it's a fun and valid way to run.


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## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> All of those were used as comparisons. There was also a comparison to players as peasants in these games. The enlightened despot was raised after I objected to dictator saying something like the GMs position was dependent on securing the players trust (can't recall my exact phrasing). And when Enlightened Despot was raised, I objected to that too, for obvious reasons that I shouldn't have to explain



It’s amazing how often the context of a discussion is left out and your post treated as if it’s the first one in the sequence on the matter. Quite frustrating.


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## Ovinomancer

Aldarc said:


> It was compared to "Enlightened Despotism" or occasionally "Benevolent Despotism," as in the 18th century political philosophy regarding absolute monarchs who pursued reforms inspired by the Enlightenment. "Enlightened Despotism" is the field-appropriate term. "Despot" in this sense is not a "tyrant" or "dictator," which shows a misunderstanding of what I was saying and possibly a lack of historical awareness, which is fine.



I did use the term dictator, but I used it as Benevolent Dictator.  I think that dictator, given the definitions of the words, is exactly what I meant.  I see benevolent despot as an oxymoron?  There seems to be a lot of connotations mixed up into the denotations.

Perhaps affable autocrat?


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## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> It’s amazing how often the context of a discussion is left out and your post treated as if it’s the first one in the sequence on the matter. Quite frustrating.



Ah, the other cookware has been covered in soot by the fire.  Well spotted!


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## Aldarc

Ovinomancer said:


> I did use the term dictator, but I used it as Benevolent Dictator.  I think that dictator, given the definitions of the words, is exactly what I meant.  I see benevolent despot as an oxymoron?  There seems to be a lot of connotations mixed up into the denotations.
> 
> Perhaps affable autocrat?



Perhaps, but Enlightened Despotism or Enlightened Absolutism are the terms typically most associated with the rulership of monarchs like Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, and Emperor Joseph II. It does seem to describe how many "traditional" GMs have described their benevolent, caretaker roles or even relationship to their players. Maybe not in this thread, where the goal seems to be pretending that players have absolute freedom under their reigns, but it does come up considerably in other threads about other topics, wherein one can see the gloves come off about players who threaten that authority.


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## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I did use the term dictator, but I used it as Benevolent Dictator.  I think that dictator, given the definitions of the words, is exactly what I meant.  I see benevolent despot as an oxymoron?  There seems to be a lot of connotations mixed up into the denotations.
> 
> Perhaps affable autocrat?



I think it's possible (and reasonable) for a GM who operates under principled constraints (I'll grant self-imposed) and is responsive to the players to feel as though being described as a dictator or despot is incorrect, because it isn't consistent with their experience. In reality, social pressures and table norms (in addition to the self-imposed constraints I mentioned) go a long way toward making the table a lot less ... autocratic than y'all's descriptions seem to imply.


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## FrogReaver

@Ovinomancer  A GM deciding something about the setting or NPC reactions to player actions isn’t removing player agency any more than a GM calling for a roll to determine those things does.

Your process:
Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to set DC of check (possible adjustments after) -> player rolls and outcome is determined.

Our process:
Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to either (a), (b) or (c)

(a): dm determined fiction would result in success
(b): dm determined fiction would result in failure
(c): dm determines fictional result is uncertain in which case the fiction is used to set the dc and the player rolls and outcome is determined.

there is a process to how resolution works. It’s not simply fiat.  It’s also nearly identical to your process.


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## Bedrockgames

prabe said:


> I think it's possible (and reasonable) for a GM who operates under principled constraints (I'll grant self-imposed) and is responsive to the players to feel as though being described as a dictator or despot is incorrect, because it isn't consistent with their experience. In reality, social pressures and table norms (in addition to the self-imposed constraints I mentioned) go a long way toward making the table a lot less ... autocratic than y'all's descriptions seem to imply.




And this is what the whole fairness thing is getting at


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## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> And this is what the whole fairness thing is getting at




I think there is a world of difference between the disciplined application of a specific set of principles and kind of trying to be fair. Not making any judgements on where anyone in particular sits by the way.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think there is a world of difference between the disciplined application of a specific set of principles and kind of trying to be fair. Not making any judgements on where anyone in particular sits by the way.




I don't think what Rob and I are doing is "just kind of trying to be fair". There are deep discussions about this kind of GMing approach and we've participated in those, and there definitely are principles you can see he is laying out (and some that are unspoken).


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## FrogReaver

My takeaway is that y’all have decided that a GM using the fiction to make a decision about success or failure is not following a process.

While a GM for your games where the GM uses the fiction to make a decision about the DC of a check is somehow following a process.

Anyone want to explain the difference there in relation to “following a process”?


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## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> My takeaway is that y’all have decided that a GM using the fiction to make a decision about success or failure is not following a process.
> 
> While a GM for your games where the GM uses the fiction to make a decision about the DC of a check is somehow following a process.
> 
> Anyone want to explain the difference there in relation to “following a process”?




Also, a lot of what I have been saying about my own decisions is they follow rulings, or even established procedures. I linked to a bunch of them. There are just times where I don't need to make a check because I know what the causal effect would be (this might include portions of conversation between an NPC and PC, where the PC proposes something, and I have a handle on how the NPC views the PC and what the NPC would think of the proposal). Plenty of dice get rolled in these games 

Also I think people missed something very important Rob said: if he makes a controversial decision, he will undo that decision if the table objects. And I know I have gotten causal things wrong and undone them (for example I have told a player some element was present in a situation, and I realized it should not have been, so out of fairness to the player, I explain I was incorrect and we can rework what happened. I am not particularly precious about that stuff. Neither of us are the kinds of Gm's who have trouble pulling back the veil. I don't believe in using a GM screen for example. Right now I play entirely online, but in my live games all my dice rolls are out in the open. The only things I make secret rolls for are when you need a partition between player and character knowledge (for instance if a player makes a Divination check, it just doesn't work in the system I run if the player knows the result, so would roll that secretly----but it is one of a maybe two or three things that get handled that way).


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> You have the ideal of fairness, and there is subjectivity there, but I think there is a difference between a GM striving for it, and one who doesn't (and I mean genuinely striving for it, which my experience with a GM like Rob is you can sense it at the table). There is also a difference between a GM who succeeds more at achieving that state at the table than one who doesn't (there are GMs who are consistently regarded as more fair than others). Further, having done plenty of competitive sports, even in the sports arena, fairness is often disputed because everyone is investing emotions in outcomes, seeing the event from slightly different points of view, etc. Just because that fairness is not going to be universally agreed upon, is hard to achieve, and perhaps an impossible goal to attain in its 'platonic form', it is still a horizon you can move towards, and again, there is a difference between a referee who strives to be fair in sports and one who simply calls things based on who he wants to win. So a GM, in my view can be more fair, or less fair in a given moment, and when people throw up this argument about how its just 'spin', I just don't think that matches what I have seen through the years. Or at the very least, it dismisses a concept that does actually matter, based on it being more complicated than this GM is fair and that one isn't.




Not that I think anything you say above is wrong, but I just want to use it as a starting point to ask a question.

When is a referee needed? 

Generally speaking, a referee is needed as a neutral third party to help manage interactions between two other parties. Does that seem right? 

When it comes to RPGs, we generally use the term referee to mean "arbiter of rules" or something along those lines. I think those things are a bit distinct though, no? 

There aren't two parties at the table.

If we view it that way, do we need to consider the idea of fairness in the same way as we would a competitive sport or activity that involved two opposing groups? 

In other words, doesn't the idea of fairness mean something else entirely for RPGs than for sports?



prabe said:


> I think it's possible (and reasonable) for a GM who operates under principled constraints (I'll grant self-imposed) and is responsive to the players to feel as though being described as a dictator or despot is incorrect, because it isn't consistent with their experience. In reality, social pressures and table norms (in addition to the self-imposed constraints I mentioned) go a long way toward making the table a lot less ... autocratic than y'all's descriptions seem to imply.




I think any analogy may be useful. The dictator thing is an exaggeration, or a description of how the role of GM can be taken to an extreme that would become problematic. 

By the same token, @FrogReaver has been asking if players, when given some amount of ability to influence the narrative through memories of PCs supported by their skill choices, can somehow narrate that they remember being friends with the king or with a god so that they can simply imagine whatever they want into being. This is also an analogy, one that paints the player as some kind of scheming cheater who doesn't actually enjoy challenge and who wants to worm their way out of any obstacle. 

I mean, when I get to actually play instead of run a game, I don't want things to just go easy for my PC. Do other people hold this view? Would anyone out there want to simply narrate away their PC's problems? I highly doubt it. So any conclusions that rely on that idea should just go away, same as any conclusions that rely on a GM who totally abuses his power.

Now, each of these analogies may be taken too far, but I wouldn't say that they're entirely without merit. Each makes, or at least attempts to make, a valid point. 

GMs with significant authority can misuse that authority. I won't even go so far as to describe it as "abuse" because I think abuse implies knowingly doing so, and then becomes a problem that needs to be addressed in another way. Simply misusing authority is something that doesn't require any kind of bad faith.....it's simply using the authority given in a way that is less than ideal. I think this is very true, and this is something that even the most principled GM in the world will do at times. I think it happens quite often without any awareness on the part of the GM.

Players can also misuse their authority. I mean, we all have heard enough examples of "power gaming" and so on. However, players very often start with so little authority that it's when they do misuse it, it tends not to be a big deal. It also tends to be noticed more readily than when a GM does it. It's much easier to spot someone who barely has any authority start to flex that authority beyond the established acceptable amount. I don't think player misuse of authority tends to be as damaging to a game as GM misuse.

And again, a lot of this is a relic of thinking of these roles as being very distinct. If the lines blur a bit, then they become less oppositional and more collaborative, and then once you've done that, the very idea of misusing authority kind of falls away. The idea of fairness shifts.


----------



## Aldarc

It's worth pointing out again that no one is accusing you @Bedrockgames or @estar of being a bad person, a bad/unfair GM, a bad player, or having badwrong game preferences. @Ovinomancer, for example, has gone to great and admirable lengths to repeatedly reaffirm that your games are a valid and fun playstyle, as well as being one that he partakes in as well for his own enjoyment. The point is simply to highlight some salient places in the various games' mechanical or GM-player power structure where the player's agency is more restricted than what are found in other games.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Not that I think anything you say above is wrong, but I just want to use it as a starting point to ask a question.
> 
> When is a referee needed?
> 
> Generally speaking, a referee is needed as a neutral third party to help manage interactions between two other parties. Does that seem right?
> 
> When it comes to RPGs, we generally use the term referee to mean "arbiter of rules" or something along those lines. I think those things are a bit distinct though, no?
> 
> There aren't two parties at the table.
> 
> If we view it that way, do we need to consider the idea of fairness in the same way as we would a competitive sport or activity that involved two opposing groups?
> 
> In other words, doesn't the idea of fairness mean something else entirely for RPGs than for sports?




I think referee is simply one of the more handy terms we draw on. I personally use facilitator when I talk about the GM's role in the game. But I do think there is a referee-like thing going on. In that the GM is the arbiter of the rules and the arbiter of the setting. Also a referee is there to enforce the rules of play in sports and to interpret them. That is similar to what a GM does. Johnny tries to use a fireball to make a cat, and the Ref says, no that isn't what fireball does according to the letter and spirit of the rules. But Johnny asks if he can use fireball to light some candles (without damaging anything), a GM might say, that isn't in the letter of the rules, but it follows the spirit of them, so I will allow it. I think that is a kind of refereeing. The big difference is the referee is also more involved in the action. And I think the GM has duties that go well beyond that of a referee in a sport.

I think a lot of the principles that drive fair referee decision, would drive fair GMing decisions. But yes, it is a different activity. And even between sports, what constitutes fair is going to vary depending on the specifics of the rules. That doesn't mean we can't develop, or that we haven't developed, a sense of what makes a fair referee. A lot of the conversations on threads I have been in with Estar have been about what makes a gamemaster fair.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I think it's possible (and reasonable) for a GM who operates under principled constraints (I'll grant self-imposed) and is responsive to the players to feel as though being described as a dictator or despot is incorrect, because it isn't consistent with their experience. In reality, social pressures and table norms (in addition to the self-imposed constraints I mentioned) go a long way toward making the table a lot less ... autocratic than y'all's descriptions seem to imply.



Totally, but, again, I cannot analyze the general case based on specific idiosyncratic relationships at a given table, but I can analyze the framework those relationships act upon.  And, here, it's entirely up to those relationships because the system grants all of that agency to the GM over the players.  Using this as the starting point, then we can actually talk about ways in which this can be altered through specifically tailored agreements at the table.  

For example, when I run 5e I do not blink a moment at the fact that the system and system expectations are that I, as GM, decide things.  I decide if a given action declaration succeeds, fails, or is uncertain.  If uncertain, I decide which mechanic will be used and the particulars (DC, ability, dis/ad, etc) that shall be applied.  When resolution, I decide the details of the resolution entirely.  This is the framework under which the game places the GM and the players.  Now, that said, I can talk specifically about what I do with this.  Ultimately, I have some written agendas that are player facing and constrain me -- the players can call me out if I violate these.  However, the nature of the system means that I have lots and lots of ways to deploy Force, and do so covertly, so that it can be difficult to tell I'm violating those agendas.  This is due to the system structure.  I take steps to avoid this (announced DCs, roll in the open, explicit stakes), but the nature of the system, and the fact that it strongly privileges GM agency over player agency, is just a fact of play.  And, all of that said, I run a pretty mean 5e game.

Which is cool!  I'm sure you run a good game, too, you seem very much aware of what you're doing and focused on ways you enjoy playing!  And, I think a lot of that is because you've taken in these ideas I'm talking about, recognized how they work, and tailored your approach.  Prior to this, did you do as good a job achieving what you wanted in your game?


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I think referee is simply one of the more handy terms we draw on. I personally use facilitator when I talk about the GM's role in the game. But I do think there is a referee-like thing going on. In that the GM is the arbiter of the rules and the arbiter of the setting. Also a referee is there to enforce the rules of play in sports and to interpret them. That is similar to what a GM does. Johnny tries to use a fireball to make a cat, and the Ref says, no that isn't what fireball does according to the letter and spirit of the rules. But Johnny asks if he can use fireball to light some candles (without damaging anything), a GM might say, that isn't in the letter of the rules, but it follows the spirit of them, so I will allow it. I think that is a kind of refereeing. The big difference is the referee is also more involved in the action. And I think the GM has duties that go well beyond that of a referee in a sport.
> 
> I think a lot of the principles that drive fair referee decision, would drive fair GMing decisions. But yes, it is a different activity. And even between sports, what constitutes fair is going to vary depending on the specifics of the rules. That doesn't mean we can't develop, or that we haven't developed, a sense of what makes a fair referee. A lot of the conversations on threads I have been in with Estar have been about what makes a gamemaster fair.



I recall you have also said that if the language of terms causes more problems than it's worth, then there may be an issue with using such loaded terms. I would argue that this would be the case for "referee." I think that it reflects an older, if not outdated, understanding of the GM's role in such games, coming from a time in its infancy when D&D and roleplaying games were still being sussed out and distinguished from wargames. While a GM and a referee may both arbitrate rules, a referee may still not be the best or even all that handy of a term to describe the process. DCC, for example, uses the term "judge" to describe the role. Apocalypse World uses "Master of Ceremonies (MC)" to describe this role. The "moderator" of an organizational committee would likewise be familiar with the by-laws and interpret them for facilitating meetings.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Which is cool! I'm sure you run a good game, too, you seem very much aware of what you're doing and focused on ways you enjoy playing! And, I think a lot of that is because you've taken in these ideas I'm talking about, recognized how they work, and tailored your approach. Prior to this, did you do as good a job achieving what you wanted in your game?



I think I was running good games before I started conversing here. I'm pretty sure I had at least started my second campaign by then, and the first campaign was already going well--it looks to me as though the party in the first campaign had just taken the Forge (where the Masked Ones were made) when I started the second campaign. To the extent I'm a better DM now than then, some of it is almost certainly from conscious consideration of these ideas--even in games I've rejected--but some of seems also to be a matter of getting better at a practiced skill. I'm a good deal less analytical when I think about previous sessions, than it seems many of the posters here (as in, this thread) are--but that's plausibly from the same part of my personality that never really thought about theory when I was writing fiction, or never really thought about music theory when I was playing in bands (or, now, when I'm messing around in my MIDI space). I think the time for thinking about gaming processes and preferences is before the need arises, not when, so as not to disrupt the actual gaming; the thinking about things might change a response in-game, but it's not at what I experience as a conscious level.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> @Ovinomancer  A GM deciding something about the setting or NPC reactions to player actions isn’t removing player agency any more than a GM calling for a roll to determine those things does.



Well, yes, there is.  If the GM is unilaterally deciding something, the player has no agency in that decision.  If the GM calls for a check, then we need to evaluate the check mechanisms to see if agency is present.  Usually, some agency is present in a check, especially if assuming good faith play, but how much is a pointed question.

If the GM sets the stakes, the outcome space, and specifies the particulars of the check (ie, 5e style), then there's little player agency involved.  This can be mitigated if the GM negotiates stakes, or has gifted formally the authority to determine skill application (thus engaging build choices) in the rolls, or some other things.  These are the formal changes I've made to my 5e game -- I call for the check, yes, but I negotiate the resolution space prior to the roll so the player has the necessary information to understand the ramifications of their action and can choose otherwise, and I only select the ability tested -- the player has authority to apply any relevant proficiency they think works.  These are formal -- in that there's a table rules document that establishes this, and it's discussed and made clear often.  They aren't against the rules, but they are in addition to them.

Contrast this to a game like Blades in the Dark.  Yes, the GM can call for a check, but the player gets to set the success resolution space without regard to the GM.  The GM does have some ability to limit that space with the Effect, but has to have clear justification for doing so.  And, then, the player has many resources to bring to bear to adjust that limitation, possibly removing it entirely.  The GM has authority over the failure resolution space only.  What check is made is also entirely up to the player -- the GM has no ability to gainsay how the player chooses to address the situation.  This leaves the player with quite a lot of agency -- with clear information on stakes, ability to control part of the resolution space, and the ability to directly control the test used.  Not to mention the many player-side resources that can mitigate failures or alter these points of control.

So, no, it's totally incorrect to say that a GM unilaterally deciding something is the same amount of agency for the player as the GM calling for a check.  


FrogReaver said:


> Your process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to set DC of check (possible adjustments after) -> player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> Our process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to either (a), (b) or (c)
> 
> (a): dm determined fiction would result in success
> (b): dm determined fiction would result in failure
> (c): dm determines fictional result is uncertain in which case the fiction is used to set the dc and the player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> there is a process to how resolution works. It’s not simply fiat.  It’s also nearly identical to your process.



This is pretty similar to how I run 5e, yes, because that's the way that system's rules say to play.  I add a lot of negotiation and limitations to this --  clear stakes, roll in the open, and player picks proficiency -- and these are formalized, so, in my game, there's more agency than in a game running strictly by the rules.  This is the thing I've talked about recently, though -- when analyzing a game, you go by the rules, not what someone does at a specific table.  That conversation is for how you address the baseline, and you've neatly incapsulated the 5e playloop here.  I advocate for this playloop in the 5e forums, so it would be very strange for me not to do so here.

However, this doesn't describe the play loop in PbtA or FitD games.  Superficially, (b) doesn't exist, and (c) operates very differently.  So, there's a difference, as I note above, in how these resolution systems enable or disable agency when the mechanics are used.  It's not at all the same thing as GM fiat when the mechanics are engaged, or, more precisely, it depends on how the system says the GM can deploy the mechanics.  In 5e, it's still GM decides, all the way down.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I think I was running good games before I started conversing here. I'm pretty sure I had at least started my second campaign by then, and the first campaign was already going well--it looks to me as though the party in the first campaign had just taken the Forge (where the Masked Ones were made) when I started the second campaign. To the extent I'm a better DM now than then, some of it is almost certainly from conscious consideration of these ideas--even in games I've rejected--but some of seems also to be a matter of getting better at a practiced skill. I'm a good deal less analytical when I think about previous sessions, than it seems many of the posters here (as in, this thread) are--but that's plausibly from the same part of my personality that never really thought about theory when I was writing fiction, or never really thought about music theory when I was playing in bands (or, now, when I'm messing around in my MIDI space). I think the time for thinking about gaming processes and preferences is before the need arises, not when, so as not to disrupt the actual gaming; the thinking about things might change a response in-game, but it's not at what I experience as a conscious level.



Yes, I didn't mean to imply you didn't do a good job before, but rather that consideration caused improvement in how feel about your play.

And, yes, I agree, the time to analyze is not during play, but before, so you can establish strong principles to guide your play to the place you enjoy it best.  Hopefully you have fellow players that agree, of course!


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aldarc said:


> I recall you have also said that if the language of terms causes more problems than it's worth, then there may be an issue with using such loaded terms. I would argue that this would be the case for "referee." I think that it reflects an older, if not outdated, understanding of the GM's role in such games, coming from a time in its infancy when D&D and roleplaying games were still being sussed out and distinguished from wargames. While a GM and a referee may both arbitrate rules, a referee may still not be the best or even all that handy of a term to describe the process. DCC, for example, uses the term "judge" to describe the role. Apocalypse World uses "Master of Ceremonies (MC)" to describe this role. The "moderator" of an organizational committee would likewise be familiar with the by-laws and interpret them for facilitating meetings.



Yeah, "referee" is not a good term for what a GM (by any title) does, for the reasons you and @hawkeyefan have detailed.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> My takeaway is that y’all have decided that a GM using the fiction to make a decision about success or failure is not following a process.




What's the process?



FrogReaver said:


> While a GM for your games where the GM uses the fiction to make a decision about the DC of a check is somehow following a process.




That depends on the game, doesn't it?

In Apocalypse World and most of its PbtA branches, there is no DC. The numbers to fail or succeed are static; roll 2d6, on a 6 or less you miss, 7 to 9 is a hit, and 10+ is a strong hit.

For Blades in the Dark, the GM sets the position based on the situation or fictional positioning. There are 3 commonly used positions: Controlled, Risky, or Desperate. So if your PC is going to stab somebody it might be Controlled if you've successfully sneaked up on them, or Risky if you're facing off in a gang fight, or Desperate if his buddy has a hold of your arm. That kind of thing. Usually it's pretty obvious what position to use, and when it's not, the default is Risky. But even then, open negotiation by the players is actively encouraged. That encouragement is explicitly stated.




FrogReaver said:


> Anyone want to explain the difference there in relation to “following a process”?




Looking at those two games as examples, I would say that the differences with PbtA are significant. There's no judgment really needed on the part of the GM as far as establishing what's needed for a success; the numbers are set. The player knows their chances to succeed.

For Blades, there is GM judgment needed, but it's all very transparent and is also explicitly negotiable. The Position is established before the player has to commit to a roll, so they know what their chances are, and how much risk is involved. The three positions make sense, and the limit in number allows for more consistency in interpretation and application.

For a game like 5E, the DCs range from 10 to 30 or more. That's far more than 3 buckets when compared to Blades. The DC is also based on situation/fictional positioning, so that is similar. But that larger scale leaves a lot more wiggle room for inconsistencies. Then there's the question of if the DC is even shared with the PC. Hell, sometimes a GM in a game like 5E will ask the player to make a roll and not even tell them what for! The game leaves the question of how player facing all this is up to the GM. The players may be totally in the dark about any or all of it.

Haven't we all seen examples along the lines of the below?

GM: Hey, Mike, give me a roll for Gor.
Mike: Oh boy....what kind of roll?
GM: Don't worry about that for now....just a d20. 
Mike: Okay....ugh, now I'm nervous. Something's going on. (Rolls a d20) I got a 17! 
GM: Okay, cool. 
Mike: What happens? Do I notice something? 
GM: Nothing as far as you can tell. What do you want to do? 

I've seen that kind of thing all the time.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> My takeaway is that y’all have decided that a GM using the fiction to make a decision about success or failure is not following a process.



Your takeaway is incorrect.  The idea is that by following this process, the GM is exercising agency and the player is not.

I follow this exact process when I run 5e so it would be incredibly strange to say that I think I'm not following a process.


FrogReaver said:


> While a GM for your games where the GM uses the fiction to make a decision about the DC of a check is somehow following a process.



When I run 5e, absolutely.  When I run Blades, kinda.  I set the position by the current fiction, but that's not at all analogous to the DC, but rather a framing of the risks -- it indicates the severity of consequences if the action is failed.  The "DC" is entirely up to the player, by dint of what action they choose to undertake.  This is because success thresholds are fixed and the player gets to choose how many dice are applied by their choice of action.

Both have the GM using judgement of the fiction to set, though, so this isn't the point of contention you think it is.  That exists further downstream.


FrogReaver said:


> Anyone want to explain the difference there in relation to “following a process”?



They're different processes.  I mean, didn't you bring up earlier the difference between following a recipe for a casserole and following a recipe for a pie?  Different processes have different inputs and outcomes.  Just having a process isn't a point of similarity.


----------



## estar

Aldarc said:


> It's worth pointing out again that no one is accusing you @Bedrockgames or @estar of being a bad person, a bad/unfair GM, a bad player, or having badwrong game preferences. @Ovinomancer, for example, has gone to great and admirable lengths to repeatedly reaffirm that your games are a valid and fun playstyle, as well as being one that he partakes in as well for his own enjoyment. The point is simply to highlight some salient places in the various games' mechanical or GM-player power structure where the player's agency is more restricted than what are found in other games.



Well putting aside the whole "no this is what really happening with you" vibe of the responses, it all good. 

I did notice something about your phrasing about the issue that may clarify the disagreement



Aldarc said:


> where the *player's agency* is more restricted than what are found in other games.




We been talking about games that require a small group of individuals to play. In traditional tabletop there a referee and the players.
It seem that the way you put it and not looking back at the other posts like @Ovinomancer that we are not talking about the same thing.

I focus on "players as their character" agency. My points only make sense if you realize that players in my campaigns can only do what their character can do, know what their character.

You and other are talking about the agency of people participating in a small group activity. In traditional tabletop campaigns these are very different roles with different responsibilities.

Now I been playing tabletop for over 40 years. I tried just about every type of RPG out there multiple times. I played the first glimmers of what many games try to do like Whismy. Played Fate, played Blades in the Dark. 

My opinion while fun they don't try to do the same thing as traditional tabletop campaigns. At least mine. Over the past two decades a class of games have arose that resolves around collaborative storytelling using a system of rules. In these games to be collaborative, the responsibilities are allocated different. What the participants can do by the system is allocated different. While this can be picked apart in general my experience with the games I played within this class that the overall theme is all the participants are allocated some or all of the creative responsibilities that were consider part of the responsibilities of a referee in a traditional campaign. The nuances of this ability is found in the specific system being used whether it Fate, PbtA, or BitD.

So by that definition you, @Ovinomancer, and other are correct. 

But not relevant to what I do. I focus on techniques that increase the agency of the player while under the limits of what their character know and can do. If you were join one of my campaigns, I would now say to you. Will you have fun being limited only to what your character can do within the setting and what your character knows about the setting? 

The basic challenge of my campaign since I was 15 years old how far can you go in the setting as your character. Giving them carte blanche to "trash" my setting in the pursuit of glory or whatever goal they set for themselves. One player in a early campaign goal was set up a secret cable of evil wizards. Another liked being the long-lost heir of a throne on a quest to win his father's throne back from the usurpers. All of this was started with "OK here your character, here where you start, how you go about this." 

Back then I thought more of it as a really flexible and expansive wargaming scenario. Then morphed to a focus on roleplaying and immersion by the late 80s. And finally over the 90s, after realizing that people playing a version of themselves with the abilities of their character worked out just as well, focused more on bringing the setting to life in a way that player had a wealth of choices to pursue. To the present day where I realized what defines my campaigns was how the setting was described not the system I used. That if the system conflicted with how the setting was described, I altered the system to conform not the other way around which is the common case.

But I still held on to earlier goal (except I wasn't so anal about the immersion part any more). So player still get to try to "trash" my setting in a way they find fun.

*So what about player agency in general*
I will be straight with you. After trying them, I dislike fate (but not fudge), I dislike PbtA games, I intensely dislike Blades in the Dark. The basic issue I have is that their distinctive mechanics are a distraction from what I do as a player (I immerse myself in my character) and are overly fussy for what I do as a referee. 

To expand the latter, I don't need a set of rules to have a player create stuff for my campaign. If somebody has a suggestion we talk about it and if it sound good we incorporate it. Like I said earlier, even after four decades my description of the Majestic Wilderlands is incomplete. There room for more and player pitch in material both for the setting and their character all the time. If it sounds good but sound implausible for the current campaign, then I will throw into the next campaign I run in the setting. 

For those who know me, know that I have a strong passion for creating content to be shared under an open license. Among friends I am even more liberal and had friends reuse material from campaigns all the time. Mostly it just a specific detail they like something it more expansive.

While I am the referee, outside of the session, I am just one friend among a group. Everybody opinion is considered and incorporated about the setting and rules of campaigns I run as it is in Fate, Blades in the Dark, etc. It governed by the rules of good sportmanship, good manners, and by not being a dick about it. I consider it more flexible because as long as we have the time or interest, anything happen. 

For example in the 90s, we were bullshitting about my campaigns with them. We are talking about Ars Magica and other RPGs of the time. "One goes hey Rob what would be like to live as a magic-user in the Wilderlands". I said mmmm, well we got X, Y, and Z but we don't really know do we? Everything thought it was a good idea to run a GURPS campaign where everybody played a mage that is a member of the Order of Thoth. From that the background of magic expanded enormously for my setting.

Then we did the Thieves Guild
Then the City Guard
Where everybody was nobody living in a neighborhood in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord to see what life was like for regular folks.
Hint: They drop blankets on a vampire, douse it with holy water and proceed to blanket beat it as a mob with furniture, clubs, pots, and pans.

When I start a campaign with my oldest players who are familiar with the setting they invariably pick where the campaign will start because it some place or aspect of society they haven't experienced before. I am running a D&D 5e campaign centered around the City-State of Lenap because one of the players was so taken with how corrupt I portrayed the city in the previous campaign so wanted to play a campaign set in that region.

So player agency as defined by you and other in this thread exists in my campaigns. Just not executed in the same way as it is with Fate and similar system. And I would argue that approach is far more flexible because it not bound by a system where ability to change or create things is rationed or follows a formal procedure.

Hope that clarifies why continue to disagree about some of the points being made, and why I do the things I do.


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> Well putting aside the whole "no this is what really happening with you" vibe of the responses, it all good.
> 
> I did notice something about your phrasing about the issue that may clarify the disagreement
> 
> 
> 
> We been talking about games that require a small group of individuals to play. In traditional tabletop there a referee and the players.
> It seem that the way you put it and not looking back at the other posts like @Ovinomancer that we are not talking about the same thing.
> 
> I focus on "players as their character" agency. My points only make sense if you realize that players in my campaigns can only do what their character can do, know what their character.
> 
> You and other are talking about the agency of people participating in a small group activity. In traditional tabletop campaigns these are very different roles with different responsibilities.
> 
> Now I been playing tabletop for over 40 years. I tried just about every type of RPG out there multiple times. I played the first glimmers of what many games try to do like Whismy. Played Fate, played Blades in the Dark.
> 
> My opinion while fun they don't try to do the same thing as traditional tabletop campaigns. At least mine. Over the past two decades a class of games have arose that resolves around collaborative storytelling using a system of rules. In these games to be collaborative, the responsibilities are allocated different. What the participants can do by the system is allocated different. While this can be picked apart in general my experience with the games I played within this class that the overall theme is all the participants are allocated some or all of the creative responsibilities that were consider part of the responsibilities of a referee in a traditional campaign. The nuances of this ability is found in the specific system being used whether it Fate, PbtA, or BitD.
> 
> So by that definition you, @Ovinomancer, and other are correct.
> 
> But not relevant to what I do. I focus on techniques that increase the agency of the player while under the limits of what their character know and can do. If you were join one of my campaigns, I would now say to you. Will you have fun being limited only to what your character can do within the setting and what your character knows about the setting?
> 
> The basic challenge of my campaign since I was 15 years old how far can you go in the setting as your character. Giving them carte blanche to "trash" my setting in the pursuit of glory or whatever goal they set for themselves. One player in a early campaign goal was set up a secret cable of evil wizards. Another liked being the long-lost heir of a throne on a quest to win his father's throne back from the usurpers. All of this was started with "OK here your character, here where you start, how you go about this."
> 
> Back then I thought more of it as a really flexible and expansive wargaming scenario. Then morphed to a focus on roleplaying and immersion by the late 80s. And finally over the 90s, after realizing that people playing a version of themselves with the abilities of their character worked out just as well, focused more on bringing the setting to life in a way that player had a wealth of choices to pursue. To the present day where I realized what defines my campaigns was how the setting was described not the system I used. That if the system conflicted with how the setting was described, I altered the system to conform not the other way around which is the common case.
> 
> But I still held on to earlier goal (except I wasn't so anal about the immersion part any more). So player still get to try to "trash" my setting in a way they find fun.
> 
> *So what about player agency in general*
> I will be straight with you. After trying them, I dislike fate (but not fudge), I dislike PbtA games, I intensely dislike Blades in the Dark. The basic issue I have is that their distinctive mechanics are a distraction from what I do as a player (I immerse myself in my character) and are overly fussy for what I do as a referee.
> 
> To expand the latter, I don't need a set of rules to have a player create stuff for my campaign. If somebody has a suggestion we talk about it and if it sound good we incorporate it. Like I said earlier, even after four decades my description of the Majestic Wilderlands is incomplete. There room for more and player pitch in material both for the setting and their character all the time. If it sounds good but sound implausible for the current campaign, then I will throw into the next campaign I run in the setting.
> 
> For those who know me, know that I have a strong passion for creating content to be shared under an open license. Among friends I am even more liberal and had friends reuse material from campaigns all the time. Mostly it just a specific detail they like something it more expansive.
> 
> While I am the referee, outside of the session, I am just one friend among a group. Everybody opinion is considered and incorporated about the setting and rules of campaigns I run as it is in Fate, Blades in the Dark, etc. It governed by the rules of good sportmanship, good manners, and by not being a dick about it. I consider it more flexible because as long as we have the time or interest, anything happen.
> 
> For example in the 90s, we were bullshitting about my campaigns with them. We are talking about Ars Magica and other RPGs of the time. "One goes hey Rob what would be like to live as a magic-user in the Wilderlands". I said mmmm, well we got X, Y, and Z but we don't really know do we? Everything thought it was a good idea to run a GURPS campaign where everybody played a mage that is a member of the Order of Thoth. From that the background of magic expanded enormously for my setting.
> 
> Then we did the Thieves Guild
> Then the City Guard
> Where everybody was nobody living in a neighborhood in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord to see what life was like for regular folks.
> Hint: They drop blankets on a vampire, douse it with holy water and proceed to blanket beat it as a mob with furniture, clubs, pots, and pans.
> 
> When I start a campaign with my oldest players who are familiar with the setting they invariably pick where the campaign will start because it some place or aspect of society they haven't experienced before. I am running a D&D 5e campaign centered around the City-State of Lenap because one of the players was so taken with how corrupt I portrayed the city in the previous campaign so wanted to play a campaign set in that region.
> 
> So player agency as defined by you and other in this thread exists in my campaigns. Just not executed in the same way as it is with Fate and similar system. And I would argue that approach is far more flexible because it not bound by a system where ability to change or create things is rationed or follows a formal procedure.
> 
> Hope that clarifies why continue to disagree about some of the points being made, and why I do the things I do.



I submit that it is very relevant.  You've closed off agency by restricting the discussion, when, in reality, you are doing something social with a small group of people.  By dint of reducing the scope, you've eliminated entire kinds of RPGs from discussion -- ones that do not so limit the scope.  As a point of reference, yours is only valid within a subset of games.  The other evaluates all games.  However, agency, in and of itself, isn't not a good -- it's a point of reference only, and how it is valued is related to many other things and personal preference.  More or less agency isn't a value statement, it's an observation that, with other things, can allow an individual to deploy their preferences more accurately and make their own value statement.  For example, I play and enjoy 5e, so for me acknowledging it has less agency than other games I might play is not indicative of my valuing of the game.  I don't really like FATE, but it has more agency than 5e, so that more agency is not really indicative of my valuing of that game, either.

The point of my responses to you wasn't to tell you how to think, but to bring you up to speed on the position of the discussion in the thread.  So long as you continued with explaining how you use agency, there was going to be no progress unless you were contrasting that to the way it's being used in the thread.  I'm glad we've reached that understanding, and I think you're game sounds like a serious labor of love that's well enjoyed by those that participate.  

That said, the kind of agency you're describing is pretty much the baseline for an RPG -- the ability to play-act your character or declare actions for your character is the default position.  It's present most everywhere, and where it isn't, it's exceedingly obvious -- you don't have to search for the difference.  It is limiting, though, in that the player can only ever express their character within the confines of the GM's chosen setting constraints.  However, games are designed intentionally with such limits so that they can do other things -- it would be silly to propose a game where you deal with the mortality of man but you can create potions of youth easily.  So, limits have great functions in games.  Noting a limit isn't a criticism of that game, it's observational only.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Your takeaway is incorrect.  The idea is that by following this process, the GM is exercising agency and the player is not.
> 
> I follow this exact process when I run 5e so it would be incredibly strange to say that I think I'm not following a process.
> 
> When I run 5e, absolutely.  When I run Blades, kinda.  I set the position by the current fiction, but that's not at all analogous to the DC, but rather a framing of the risks -- it indicates the severity of consequences if the action is failed.  The "DC" is entirely up to the player, by dint of what action they choose to undertake.  This is because success thresholds are fixed and the player gets to choose how many dice are applied by their choice of action.
> 
> Both have the GM using judgement of the fiction to set, though, so this isn't the point of contention you think it is.  That exists further downstream.
> 
> They're different processes.  I mean, didn't you bring up earlier the difference between following a recipe for a casserole and following a recipe for a pie?  Different processes have different inputs and outcomes.  Just having a process isn't a point of similarity.



You seemed to have been saying that 5e dming was fiat because it didn’t follow a process.

if that’s not the case then what makes you consider 5e dming to be fiat?


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> It is limiting, though, in that the player can only ever express their character within the confines of the GM's chosen setting constraints.  However, games are designed intentionally with such limits so that they can do other things -- it would be silly to propose a game where you deal with the mortality of man but you can create potions of youth easily.  So, limits have great functions in games.  Noting a limit isn't a criticism of that game, it's observational only.



This criticism applies to every RPG ever made?


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I recall you have also said that if the language of terms causes more problems than it's worth, then there may be an issue with using such loaded terms. I would argue that this would be the case for "referee." I think that it reflects an older, if not outdated, understanding of the GM's role in such games, coming from a time in its infancy when D&D and roleplaying games were still being sussed out and distinguished from wargames. While a GM and a referee may both arbitrate rules, a referee may still not be the best or even all that handy of a term to describe the process. DCC, for example, uses the term "judge" to describe the role. Apocalypse World uses "Master of Ceremonies (MC)" to describe this role. The "moderator" of an organizational committee would likewise be familiar with the by-laws and interpret them for facilitating meetings.




That isn't exactly what I said. But I am not sure what I said applies in this case, as neither I, Estar or Frogreaver are trying to tell you to use the term referee or imbue it with any kind of meaning that would nullify your use of the term agency (My issue with a lot of the language getting thrown around was the language seemed selected for its rhetorical power in the discussion). Here I think the use of referee is clarifying what Estar means. I don't actually use the term referee that much. In fact, I usually just say game master. And if people ask about what I think the role of the GM is, I would say a facilitator (and that isn't prescriptive, that is simply how I view my role as GM-----there are other ways to view it). When Estar invokes Referee, I immediately get a sense of what he means. I understand he is emphasizing things like the importance of making fair, impartial rulings, and I also understand he is referencing a more old school conception of the role (which is important if you want to understand what Estar is going for). 

That said I have no objection to other titles being used. I think that is a longstanding thing in RPGs. In D&D it is Dungeon Master. The generic term is Gamemaster. But games, for flavor and philosophy pick other labels. Master of Ceremonies seems fine to me if that fits the focus of GMing a game like that. 

I think where use of language gets bad is when you tell Estar, he can't use referee because its different from a sports referee, or if I tell you, you can't use Master of Ceremonies because that is a whole other kind of thing than RPGs. I think we all get that these are both involved because they point to something, and they are even a little playful and flavorful, to help get you in the right mind space for what you are about to be doing.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I think referee is simply one of the more handy terms we draw on. I personally use facilitator when I talk about the GM's role in the game. But I do think there is a referee-like thing going on. In that the GM is the arbiter of the rules and the arbiter of the setting. Also a referee is there to enforce the rules of play in sports and to interpret them. That is similar to what a GM does. Johnny tries to use a fireball to make a cat, and the Ref says, no that isn't what fireball does according to the letter and spirit of the rules. But Johnny asks if he can use fireball to light some candles (without damaging anything), a GM might say, that isn't in the letter of the rules, but it follows the spirit of them, so I will allow it. I think that is a kind of refereeing. The big difference is the referee is also more involved in the action. And I think the GM has duties that go well beyond that of a referee in a sport.
> 
> I think a lot of the principles that drive fair referee decision, would drive fair GMing decisions. But yes, it is a different activity. And even between sports, what constitutes fair is going to vary depending on the specifics of the rules. That doesn't mean we can't develop, or that we haven't developed, a sense of what makes a fair referee. A lot of the conversations on threads I have been in with Estar have been about what makes a gamemaster fair.




Oh I have no problem with the term as a reference to the role of the GM that involves interpreting the rules. I get its use, and I'd probably use it for ease of reference in conversation.

But I think the more important question here is "What does 'fair' mean for a RPG?" and "How is what's fair different for a RPG when compared to sports or other activities?"

So to kind of put that in context.....yes, an umpire in baseball calls balls and strikes for batters on the same team, and we'd hope that his judgment is applied consistently from batter to batter. But more importantly, more crucially, he's also calling balls and strikes for the opposing team's batters. This is where being fair truly matters. 

Removing the opposition from the situation, and that really shifts the idea of "fair", doesn't it? 

What does it mean to be fair to participants in an activity who are all on the same team? Does being fair stop meaning the same thing as being consistent, and instead mean offering each participant the means to succeed? Does it become "unfair" to lean toward an individual player's strengths to give them a chance to succeed? If so, unfair to whom?


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, I didn't mean to imply you didn't do a good job before, but rather that consideration caused improvement in how feel about your play.
> 
> And, yes, I agree, the time to analyze is not during play, but before, so you can establish strong principles to guide your play to the place you enjoy it best.  Hopefully you have fellow players that agree, of course!



No worries. "Did you do as good a job?" (paraphrasing) isn't the same question as "Did you do a good job?" and I didn't take you to be saying I wasn't dong a good job. I was, I guess, more along the lines of talking about the baseline against which any improvement would have to be measured.


----------



## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> That isn't exactly what I said. But I am not sure what I said applies in this case, as neither I, Estar or Frogreaver are trying to tell you to use the term referee or imbue it with any kind of meaning that would nullify your use of the term agency (My issue with a lot of the language getting thrown around was the language seemed selected for its rhetorical power in the discussion). Here I think the use of referee is clarifying what Estar means. I don't actually use the term referee that much. In fact, I usually just say game master. And if people ask about what I think the role of the GM is, I would say a facilitator (and that isn't prescriptive, that is simply how I view my role as GM-----there are other ways to view it). When Estar invokes Referee, I immediately get a sense of what he means. I understand he is emphasizing things like the importance of making fair, impartial rulings, and I also understand he is referencing a more old school conception of the role (which is important if you want to understand what Estar is going for).
> 
> That said I have no objection to other titles being used. I think that is a longstanding thing in RPGs. In D&D it is Dungeon Master. The generic term is Gamemaster. But games, for flavor and philosophy pick other labels. Master of Ceremonies seems fine to me if that fits the focus of GMing a game like that.
> 
> I think where use of language gets bad is when you tell Estar, he can't use referee because its different from a sports referee, or if I tell you, you can't use Master of Ceremonies because that is a whole other kind of thing than RPGs. I think we all get that these are both involved because they point to something, and they are even a little playful and flavorful, to help get you in the right mind space for what you are about to be doing.



*Just a side note.  This kind of thing has happened repeatedly in this discussion with various terms and concepts.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I recall you have also said that if the language of terms causes more problems than it's worth, then there may be an issue with using such loaded terms. I would argue that this would be the case for "referee.




I do want to clarify this point. I said a variety of things a long these lines and I am not sure which specific instance you are pointing to (it does matter a little here I think). But generally I think what I was talking about was the heavy use of jargon, and words that force a result in an  argument. I don't object to PbtA players adopting their own language to describe what they are doing. it think where it gets a lot more thorny is when that  language is exported to other games and styles, and we are told we are doing something that we simply don't think we are doing. I was also talking about the creation  of new terms in the course of this conversation. First, I am generally resistant to that idea unless a new term is truly needed (because you end up with pockets of communities speaking their own language about RPGs and I just think that is not terribly conducive to good communication). Second, I think you have be very careful when you have two sides vying for control of a term like agency and they are trying to draw distinctions around two potential uses of that term. I think a lot of times, we just think we are saying the truth, and we don't realize how much we are trying to advance an agenda or to simply 'win' the conversation and a place where things can go south is in the coining of terms if those are poisoned by that motivation. 

Here though, Estar is just using a term that has a long history of use in the hobby and generally points to exactly what he is saying it is (it is a handy way to communicate about the GM role he is conceiving of). But it isn't something he is saying you must adopt


----------



## Fenris-77

The jargon you've seen in this thread isn't even_ remotely_ a case of PbtA players making up words to describe what they're doing. There's an established enough body of research and writing into RPGs that a vocabulary has developed to talk about the moving parts. You might not be familiar with that vocabulary, which is fine, but tossing it aside as something someone made up in order to be gatekeep-y betrays some significant misapprehension on your part.


----------



## FrogReaver

I think it's worth pointing out that I and many others wouldn't actually talk about agency to do something.  For example we would never talk about agency to kill a dragon.  Instead our conception of Agency begins with the fictional situation.  You are level 1 and there's a dragon attack the town you are in.  Agency is then about whether you have meaningful choices in that situation.  If so then you have agency.  Does a level 20 character have a more expansive list of choices he can choose between?  Yes!  But having a more expansive set of meaningful choices to choose between isn't having more agency.

This is why it's only considered railroading when there is a total lack of meaningful choices over a situation.

That's the issue I have with the alternate definition of agency.  It's a hodge podge idea of some combination of agency and autonomy and power.  If you insist on calling what you are talking about agency then that's fine.  I can accept there being 2 contradictory definitions of a thing.  But please note that when you start saying game A has less agency than game B that you aren't talking about the same thing as most of the rest of us.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, when I get to actually play instead of run a game, I don't want things to just go easy for my PC. Do other people hold this view? Would anyone out there want to simply narrate away their PC's problems? I highly doubt it. So any conclusions that rely on that idea should just go away, same as any conclusions that rely on a GM who totally abuses his power.



I think that players who are used to having to fight the GM for everything, when presented with a game situation where they have more ... agency (mechanical or social--I'm talking about practical agency, here, not theoretical) might overreach in the direction of making things easy for their PCs, but that's not a matter of their being abusive, IMO. It's plausible that a given GM or player more used to a more top-down gaming structure might not see it that way, and might lean harder into giving the players less agency--I think some of this shows up when you see a GM (presumably on the inexperienced side) talking about the players "ignoring my plot" or similar; or, more likely, after the event in question, that GM takes to railroading harder to get their precious plot (purchased or self-written) into the game. Clearly this is not what @estar and @Bedrockgames are doing or talking about in the games they run.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> The jargon you've seen in this thread isn't even_ remotely_ a case of PbtA players making up words to describe what they're doing. There's an established enough body of research and writing into RPGs that a vocabulary has developed to talk about the moving parts. You might not be familiar with that vocabulary, which is fine, but tossing it aside as something someone made up in order to be gatekeep-y betrays some significant misapprehension on your part.



You 5 or 6 are the only handful that I've ever seen define it the way you are.  I'm sure there's more but I think that's the experience with most of us.  

And it's not that we are rejecting what you call agency as being the correct definition because we aren't thinking through implications, it's really that you are describing something totally different than what we've ever used or heard the term used for.  At best that makes 2 different definitions of agency and if that's the case the issue is the lack of acknowledgement on your side of that.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Oh I have no problem with the term as a reference to the role of the GM that involves interpreting the rules. I get its use, and I'd probably use it for ease of reference in conversation.
> 
> But I think the more important question here is "What does 'fair' mean for a RPG?" and "How is what's fair different for a RPG when compared to sports or other activities?"
> 
> So to kind of put that in context.....yes, an umpire in baseball calls balls and strikes for batters on the same team, and we'd hope that his judgment is applied consistently from batter to batter. But more importantly, more crucially, he's also calling balls and strikes for the opposing team's batters. This is where being fair truly matters.
> 
> Removing the opposition from the situation, and that really shifts the idea of "fair", doesn't it?
> 
> What does it mean to be fair to participants in an activity who are all on the same team? Does being fair stop meaning the same thing as being consistent, and instead mean offering each participant the means to succeed? Does it become "unfair" to lean toward an individual player's strengths to give them a chance to succeed? If so, unfair to whom?




I think people are going to have different answers here, and that this is more of an ongoing conversation in each style within the hobby. Ultimately I find, when I talk with Estar, a lot of what he says about fairness resonates. But there is a lot here. 

For me, first and foremost is fair application of the rules. I shouldn't give apply the rules differently to Steve than I do to John. And I think I would add to that, you should apply the rules fairly to the monsters and the NPCs too (this may just be my own take, I can't say I am speaking for others on this one). To me that is important because that gets at the fairness of the players expectations of things like strategic choices, tactics, etc. I think fairness also extends to what the players try to do: if a player wants to start a cult to a new deity of coffee, and has some methods for persuading people to follow, the GM ought to hear those out and try to adjudicate that scenario as fairly to the player as possible (and unfair adjudication here would be something like, the GM simply not wanting to deal with a coffee cult at the moment, so he makes it never materialize or barely materialize). A fair GM will take that goal seriously. Now maybe starting a coffee cult in that setting, at that moment, with the players present resources, is a bit boneheaded and won't work. But I think a fair GM will also give the player a sense why such efforts are not working, so it is clear it isn't just an arbitrary decision. Fairness is giving players the win, even when it is inconvenient to the campaign, the adventure, what the GM wants, if the players legitimate get a win. Fairness is also how you treat people at the table, and I do think that can extend to situations like having a player who simply isn't good at one aspect of play but wants to engage it (here is where I usually give people an A for effort, or I rely on things like Skill rolls to help balance that stuff our). I do think this one is a delicate situation because if you shift something like that for a player who is having a hard time, a player who isn't may feel like they are having to work harder for their success. But just as an example, Elliot in both those games is one of the most eloquent players in the group, and a great actor when it comes to playing his character. I am not, but I can string sentences together and make a compelling case for things. If I were a GM handing me and elliot in the same situation, I would focus more on what I (the player in the example) is saying, and more on Elliot's performance probably to get a sense of how convincing each one is being (because obviously there is a massive disparity in acting talent there). So I think as long as the player is bringing something to the table, in those cases, it is pretty manageable and neither one feels shortchanged.


----------



## Bedrockgames

prabe said:


> I think that players who are used to having to fight the GM for everything, when presented with a game situation where they have more ... agency (mechanical or social--I'm talking about practical agency, here, not theoretical) might overreach in the direction of making things easy for their PCs, but that's not a matter of their being abusive, IMO. It's plausible that a given GM or player more used to a more top-down gaming structure might not see it that way, and might lean harder into giving the players less agency--I think some of this shows up when you see a GM (presumably on the inexperienced side) talking about the players "ignoring my plot" or similar; or, more likely, after the event in question, that GM takes to railroading harder to get their precious plot (purchased or self-written) into the game. Clearly this is not what @estar and @Bedrockgames are doing or talking about in the games they run.




I look at this as a spectrum, and a given GM just kind of reflects the 'harsh realities' of the setting to the degree they are harsh. I have players who like the challenge the setting can present to them. So I do make an effort to adhere to what I call 'the evolving martial landscape'. This is rather specific to wuxia, but in a wuxia campaign, your 'rise' is very much linked to your martial prowess. And what techniques you know, what techniques you develop, what combinations you come up with, will matter in terms of your ability to defeat people and impose your will on the setting. I think every GM handles this challenge differently, I tend to take a peaks and valleys approach, where if the players are weak, no one is particularly threatened by them or concerned with defeating their martial style. As they rise up, and gain more power, and get increasingly effective, or if they are just well built from the start, which can happen, they pose a greater threat, which is going to cause NPCs and sects to be more likely to form alliances against them, and it is also going to cause people to try to devise counters against their techniques (so they may see more responses to their arsenal emerging over time). I don't know if this addresses your post suffiencitly @hawkeyefan but your post prompted these thoughts.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think Blades would run just fine with the GM determining all those setting details if the players chose not to offer any suggestions. There's certainly nothing that requires players to contribute to that kind of thing. That probably does come up more in some of the more PC centered elements.
> 
> One of the guiding principles is for the GM to ask questions of the players about their characters. So if you have a Whisper PC (the kind of wizard or spellcaster class of the setting) and that character uses their ability to Attune to the Ghost Field (the setting's spirit realm which exists alongside the material world) the GM should ask the player what that looks like, and how it works. The mechanics are clear, but the specifics are up to the group to decide.
> 
> And I've found that starting point for player input is often a nice first step toward more, and that players become more willing to contribute ideas for the setting in broader ways. That smaller PC centric stuff works as an example of how that kind of input can work, and that it doesn't cause the whole setting to come crashing down. This is just another way in which I think this game promotes agency on the part of the players.




I really appreciate these responses on Blades in the Dark. This is the quite helpful. Hopefully I will get to check it out sometime this month


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> You 5 or 6 are the only handful that I've ever seen define it the way you are.  I'm sure there's more but I think that's the experience with most of us.
> 
> And it's not that we are rejecting what you call agency as being the correct definition because we aren't thinking through implications, it's really that you are describing something totally different than what we've ever used or heard the term used for.  At best that makes 2 different definitions of agency and if that's the case the issue is the lack of acknowledgement on your side of that.



The difficulty always lies in connecting the way I talk with what someone else is saying. I've tried pretty hard in this thread to keep the jargon to a minimum. It becomes an issue when you use it and just kind of expect everyone else to know precisely what you mean, which we can see in this thread isn't how that works at all.  

One of the reasons @Manbearcat and I were talking about an agency matrix was to help unpack the idea little, to look at the different ways agency appears in RPGs and is either fostered or constrained, whether it be by convention, mechanics, or something else. Something we could all look at and say _oh yeah that there, that's what I meant when I said agency_. For me at least it has nothing to do with my definition versus someone else's, I don't care to dicker over definitions like that, it's about trying to figure out how we can all talk about the same thing without kicking each other in the nuts over perceived sleights.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> I honestly think it mostly has to do with the expected division of responsibility. It’s simply what the predominant game has conditioned people to expect.
> 
> When I suggested reducing or limiting GM power, a common counterpoint was that I didn’t trust the GM.
> 
> But I feel like that trust needs to go both ways. Do folks who want to keep most responsibility with the GM not trust the players? It kind of seems so....they always assume players will use any and all power they have to reduce risk and overcome obstacles with no challenge.
> 
> This seems to me an artifact of one mode of play that gets applied across many modes.
> 
> I mean, one would think that responsibility and power being distributed a little more would promote trust because there’d be less ability to actually abuse the power, as well as less need to do so and less desire.



Right, and 'contempt' is probably a bit harsh of me, but there is certainly a strong conceptual bias towards not just rejecting the proposition that other modes of play simply add something to the game, but even an insistence on redefining terminology and related analytical tools in such a way as to produce a specific result. I hate to say that this hugely reminds me of a lot which is going on in the outside world now. I don't think drawing such a parallel is necessarily wise, but OTOH it seems like a similar sort of human cognitive/social process is involved! People can build world views with almost arbitrary relation to 'how things are'. Anyway, there are also points made on each side which are useful/valid and can add to the discussion, at least up to a point. 

I think my response to @Manbearcat's call for play experience is to kind of wonder if maybe we could build a kind of 'decision tree framework' that would elucidate some of the different process choices, preferences, desired outcomes, and thus techniques and elements which would harmonize with those desires. Do we know enough to do something like that? Would it be valuable? I can envisage a kind of 'road map' that would narrow choices down to general techniques, and then even further to specific implementations. A further layer would then be to establish what agendas, principles, and overall game 'decision loops' might best support specific combinations (and identify what appear to be incoherent combinations, and maybe highlight how they could be rationalized). 

I guess that would amount to a handbook on RPG design in the end, lol.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> The difficulty always lies in connecting the way I talk with what someone else is saying. I've tried pretty hard in this thread to keep the jargon to a minimum. It becomes an issue when you use it and just kind of expect everyone else to know precisely what you mean, which we can see in this thread isn't how that works at all.
> 
> One of the reasons @Manbearcat and I were talking about an agency matrix was to help unpack the idea little, to look at the different ways agency appears in RPGs and is either fostered or constrained, whether it be by convention, mechanics, or something else. Something we could all look at and say _oh yeah that there, that's what I meant when I said agency_. For me at least it has nothing to do with my definition versus someone else's, I don't care to dicker over definitions like that, it's about trying to figure out how we can all talk about the same thing without kicking each other in the nuts over perceived sleights.



lol. 

I was on board with the matrix idea as it will help me talk about my games in your terminology better.

But even then I think the real culprit is two totally incompatible definitions of agency and so holding up your definition as the definition is nearly always going to be perceived as a slight.


----------



## Fenris-77

I don't think the two definitions are mutually incompatible really, just coming from very different angles and directions, which makes them hard to reconcile. The lack of shared vocabulary has also complicated things.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> The jargon you've seen in this thread isn't even_ remotely_ a case of PbtA players making up words to describe what they're doing. There's an established enough body of research and writing into RPGs that a vocabulary has developed to talk about the moving parts. You might not be familiar with that vocabulary, which is fine, but tossing it aside as something someone made up in order to be gatekeep-y betrays some significant misapprehension on your part.




And I am not tossing it aside, and I am not saying it was invented by PbtA players. And I am less versed in it than you are (I am not steeped in things like GNS theory, though I am familiar with them for example). But consider also what it feels like to have a highly specialized vocabulary (that comes with many playstyle assumptions of its own) imposed on you in a conversation like this.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I think that players who are used to having to fight the GM for everything, when presented with a game situation where they have more ... agency (mechanical or social--I'm talking about practical agency, here, not theoretical) might overreach in the direction of making things easy for their PCs, but that's not a matter of their being abusive, IMO. It's plausible that a given GM or player more used to a more top-down gaming structure might not see it that way, and might lean harder into giving the players less agency--I think some of this shows up when you see a GM (presumably on the inexperienced side) talking about the players "ignoring my plot" or similar; or, more likely, after the event in question, that GM takes to railroading harder to get their precious plot (purchased or self-written) into the game. Clearly this is not what @estar and @Bedrockgames are doing or talking about in the games they run.




Yes, I think you're close to my thinking on this.

I get the sandbox approach those guys are describing, and I agree, there's not a script or anything like that. I do agree that this grants more agency than let's say something like adventure path play. 

But I think these are degrees, right? So is there another degree? Does that degree involve players having some authority typically held for the GM? If so, how and why? 

And I think a major area you're touching upon is why we may see the trends in the first place, and why we may see resistance to any questioning of those trends. Yes, players who have limited agency may leap wildly at any possible opening to express their agency. And this may cause issues because they don't yet know how to handle that responsibility. You don't give a kid who just got his learner's permit the keys to an 18 wheeler with 12 gears and say "bring her back in one piece, you hear?"


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> I submit that it is very relevant.  You've closed off agency by restricting the discussion, when, in reality, you are doing something social with a small group of people.



Really? That how my point is going to be dismissed? Because I choose to deal with the issue being raised in this thread by having the group talk about and more importantly establishing an atmosphere where everybody feel comfortable pitching in.



Ovinomancer said:


> By dint of reducing the scope, you've eliminated entire kinds of RPGs from discussion -- ones that do not so limit the scope.




Definitions and philosophy aside let's talk specifics.  In your mind what I or any other participant are able to do that my take doesn't offer? What agency they have? 

For example under my approach, 

Player A: "Hey wouldn't be cool to have a campaign where everybody is part of a temple?" 
Me: "Yeah that sound cool. Everybody good with that"
Group: "Yeah that sound fun."
Me (to Player A): "Do you have any ideas on what kind of religion the temple is part of?"
Player A (and Group): Have a discussion about which religion I have in my setting would be fun to roleplay. Settles on the Goddess of Justice.
Me (to Group): "OK here the material I have currently on Delaquain. It a bit thin in these area especially on temple life. If you have any ideas this a good time pitch them."
Player A and C: "We have some idea, we will work on it over the week and get with the group to see if it works out."
Me and the Group: "Sounds good"

Following that we hash out those details and then the players generates characters and their background. I answer any questions they may have. I in turn will generate the specifics of life around the temple incorporating the details the player come up with along with my own ideas. Then after the backgrounds are done, I incorporate those details. 

Then the next session we start playing and I describe the initial circumstance and we go from there using the process I described in earlier 
posts on this thread. Incorporating feedback from the players and the group along the way.

The "product" of doing things this way is some background on the setting, background on main locale the temple, background on the religion, and each of the character background which will have elements involving temple and religion and elements that involve the larger setting. 

Contrast this with an example of the other approaches you talk about. If it helps it doesn't have to involve character centered around a temple. 






Ovinomancer said:


> However, agency, in and of itself, isn't not a good -- it's a point of reference only, and how it is valued is related to many other things and personal preference.  More or less agency isn't a value statement, it's an observation that, with other things, can allow an individual to deploy their preferences more accurately and make their own value statement.  For example, I play and enjoy 5e, so for me acknowledging it has less agency than other games I might play is not indicative of my valuing of the game.  I don't really like FATE, but it has more agency than 5e, so that more agency is not really indicative of my valuing of that game, either.



If I wasn't clear I get that. The issue I have is that traditional roleplaying have less agency when it comes to actual play. That the point I am disputing. To be clear, my contention both have it, it achieved in different ways. That the way the games you mentioned handle work better for a sizeable segment of our hobby. Enough that it now it own niche. That both are subject to the vagaries of small group dynamics. To points like "fairness", "impartiality", "sportsmanship", etc are equal important to both. Finally that system can't fix this.

But to resolve this debate we are at the point where we need to talk specifics. What people do in actual situations. Then we look at their behavior and see how it work with my thesis or yours. 



Ovinomancer said:


> That said, the kind of agency you're describing is pretty much the baseline for an RPG -- the ability to play-act your character or declare actions for your character is the default position.  It's present most everywhere, and where it isn't, it's exceedingly obvious -- you don't have to search for the difference.



I disagree that my approach is the baseline. I get a lot of pushback on many of my points on sandbox play from traditional roleplayers. The baseline is the use of the tournament style adventure. It gotten better but the general expectation still appears to be that it is polite to stick to the adventure that the referee has chosen. Time and time again, I have to tell players do what your character would do, don't worry about what I have prepared. Sounds like I am not the only one that needs to get up to speed.



Ovinomancer said:


> It is limiting, though, in that the player can only ever express their character within the confines of the GM's chosen setting constraints.



Is real life is limiting because we are bounded by the laws of physics? Yet people seemly achieve many things despite that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I don't think the two definitions are mutually incompatible really, just coming from very different angles and directions, which makes them hard to reconcile. The lack of shared vocabulary has also complicated things.



That’s where I started at as well. But the more a critically think about what I mean and have heard meant by agency it’s looking more and more to be incompatible.

there’s a notion in your agency of the ability to do X and that by not having that ability you lack agency over X. That’s not even a valid premise in my agency.  My Agency is about having meaningful choices in a situation.


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## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> And I am not tossing it aside, and I am not saying it was invented by PbtA players. And I am less versed in it than you are (I am not steeped in things like GNS theory, though I am familiar with them for example). But consider also what it feels like to have a highly specialized vocabulary (that comes with many playstyle assumptions of its own) imposed on you in a conversation like this.



Me? GNS?! You take that back!    Seriously, I'm the last guy to impose jargon, I'm just using the most precise words I have for the thing I'm talking about. I can't speak for anyone else of course. My goal in this thread was to try and get everyone on the same page and sharing at least a provisional definition or framework for the thing we are all here to discuss. That has proven ... difficult. It's still a worthwhile goal though.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> That’s where I started at as well. But the more a critically think about what I mean and have heard meant by agency it’s looking more and more to be incompatible.
> 
> there’s a notion in your agency of the ability to do X and that by not having that ability you lack agency over X. That’s not even a valid premise in my agency.  My Agency is about having meaningful choices in a situation.



The phrase 'meaningful choices' is _exactly_ where I'd start a definition of agency from. My post from way upstream was precisely that, 3 levels or types of meaningful choice potentially possessed by a player.


----------



## Campbell

I have watched a fair amount of each play example. If I'm going to be honest I see roleplaying, but I am not seeing any signs of a game here. The videos and much of the discussion seem pretty similar to what Lewis Pulsipher called the California School in the pages of White Dwarf. There's some lazy engagement with mechanics and mechanical terms, but to me that isn't enough to like make it a game. In games players have objectives and get rewarded for pursuing. I'm not seeing anything that would allow me to evaluate player skill or direct connections between player decisions and like what happens. I get that you are like considering them in how things play out, but the events of play feel pretty disconnected from player action to me.

This is not me bagging on it by the way. I have done a lot of forum RP and Parlor LARPs. In the mecha game I run for some of my friends we did a session that was structured freeform although there was a more direct relationship between what the players did and what happened in the fiction there.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> The phrase 'meaningful choices' is _exactly_ where I'd start a definition of agency from. My post from way upstream was precisely that, 3 levels or types of meaningful choice potentially possessed a player.



Yes it was but there’s still the notion that not having the ability to do things via 1 of those levels means you lack that level of agency.

or as I phrased above: not having the ability to do X means to you a lack agency over X is the notion present in your definition that isn’t present in mine.

I don’t lack agency because I’m level 1 and can’t kill the dragon. I have other meaningful choices I can make.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Well the ripples are the choices, mine and the players. The wave interference are the consequences of those choice. Then on top of that new pebbles are thrown in by myself and the players creating new patterns on the "surface" of the setting. A major difference between my approach and the other being described  is that I don't have a preconceived notion of where the pebbles may fall.
> 
> On my side it starts out with the description of the NPC characters, their motivations, and their plans. The NPCs plans get updated after every session to reflect what the player do or don't. That is in essence the interference patterns eluded to in my analogy. Because I don't control the what the player decide, things often and do take off in unexpected direction.
> 
> I ran 14 groups as part of the formal playtest of my Scourge of the Demon Wolf sandbox adventure. Plus the initial time using 3.X, then another time using GURPS, and three times with D&D 5e, and once heavily modified for Adventures in Middle Earth. All started with the same initial circumstances, one of them dealt with it the same way and had very different experiences. One group antagonized the village priest, another turn them into allay. Most groups kept the wandering beggars safe from the wolves and the angry villager who blame them for the current issue. One managed to unite the two group to stand against the Demon Wolf pack and led them to victory when they attacked.
> 
> The process is straight forward. Jettison one's preconceived notions, set the stage, see what the PCs do, and react in accordance to how the NPCs personalities and details are defined. After the session update the setting and its characters. Rinse and repeat throughout the life of the campaign following where the players go until it reaches a stopping point.



I espouse a point of view, OTOH, in which the entire "pond analogy" is inapt. I don't believe you can find a "surface of the pond" upon which ripples can exist. It is all just made up, and even the most detailed game world is so many orders of magnitude short of being defined enough to say what the implications of anything are, that GMs have virtually total freedom. You may be able to create an illusion of 'ripples on the pond' at some level of fidelity or other, but the actual process which is going on in the real world is that the GM is applying some sort of mental process within her head/on paper/with dice/whatever which produces a response to a player's inputs (in fiction or mechanical, or authorial) which embodies their process/principles/agenda in some way. By convention these include constraints on genre appropriateness, some degree of respect for player autonomy WRT their character, etc. although there is no firm set which are always inviolable. 

Notice that this description is equally applicable to all modes of play, it isn't describing any one specific agenda. All RPG play embodies this 'pretending'. We, somehow, come up with a narrative and mechanical consequences for what transpires, and we (almost always) try to do so in a way which we can pretend is an amalgam of 'laws of the game world', 'circumstance', and possibly 'character free will'. 

So, it is reasonable to talk about generating an 'impression' or 'illusion' of 'ripples on a pond', or some other pattern, but I often see people reasoning as if this analogy really literally applies to their game worlds, but it does not.


----------



## Campbell

So as a player of games for a choice to be considered meaningful in the scope of gameplay it should relate back to what I am trying to achieve as a player. It might be provided by the game or provided by the player. It's also not about quantity here, but quality. A choice that has more of an impact on whether I achieve my goals is more meaningful than a bunch of choices which barely impact my ability to achieve my objectives.


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## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, I think you're close to my thinking on this.
> 
> I get the sandbox approach those guys are describing, and I agree, there's not a script or anything like that. I do agree that this grants more agency than let's say something like adventure path play.



I agree. I wouldn't describe my own campaigns as sandboxes, but there are points where the party can choose from numerous (in some cases innumerable) options. Heck, my Saturday campaign is kinda at a point like that, and they're high enough level that I'm probably going to ask them what they're thinking of doing, so I can be ready for it (or at least think about it before it happens).


hawkeyefan said:


> But I think these are degrees, right? So is there another degree? Does that degree involve players having some authority typically held for the GM? If so, how and why?



I definitely think it's possible for a game to be written so some GM-ish authority devolves to the players. I think it's possible for a game to constrain its GM tightly enough that it feels as though that's happening, even though it's not exactly (I think this is what PbtA games do, but I'm far from an expert and I'm more than willing to acknowledge error if need be). There are games that specifically call for the players to be involved from the start of the campaign in setting-building (Dresden Files and Fate Core come to mind). I think it's possible for a given GM to recognize that running a more collaborative-built world doesn't work as well in their brain (it me) without it meaning that the games or the GM are bad.

Why? Because creative people are drawn to TRPGs, and it's a waste not to use all the creativity at a given table. Just because I didn't like the collaboratively built setting I ended up running (not to mention the process took my table way, way longer than advertised) doesn't mean I don't like the idea. It's why--though I've griped a little here and there about an instance of getting 11,000 words of backstory--I have blank spaces in my world and I explicitly ask for how people's characters came to be where they are at the start of the campaign; and, I specifically grab things from those backstories and use them to set up stories in the campaigns and tie the characters to the setting and the campaigns.


hawkeyefan said:


> And I think a major area you're touching upon is why we may see the trends in the first place, and why we may see resistance to any questioning of those trends. Yes, players who have limited agency may leap wildly at any possible opening to express their agency. And this may cause issues because they don't yet know how to handle that responsibility. You don't give a kid who just got his learner's permit the keys to an 18 wheeler with 12 gears and say "bring her back in one piece, you hear?"



Yeah. The guy who gave me 11,000 words of backstory has since acknowledged that he went at least a little overboard--as an example.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Yes it was but there’s still the notion that not having the ability to do things via 1 of those levels means you lack that level of agency.
> 
> or as I phrased above: not having the ability to do X means to you a lack agency over X is the notion present in your definition that isn’t present in mine.
> 
> I don’t lack agency because I’m level 1 and can’t kill the dragon. I have other meaningful choices I can make.



I didn't suggest that in order to show a lack of agency, but rather to highlight the agency present in even an extreme example.  On the one hand the ability to even make that (terrible) choice is actually agency, something you wouldn't see in something like an adventure path because the Dragon wouldn't have been presented. On the other is the range of other meaningful choice available in that situation even if you can't actually kill the dragon.

I wouldn't discuss agency in terms of _agency over_ at all, but rather just _agency to. _


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I didn't suggest that in order to show a lack of agency, but rather to highlight the agency present in even an extreme example.  On the one hand the ability to even make that (terrible) choice is actually agency, something you wouldn't see in something like an adventure path because the Dragon wouldn't have been presented. On the other is the range of other meaningful choice available in that situation even if you can't actually kill the dragon.
> 
> I wouldn't discuss agency in terms of _agency over_ at all, but rather just _agency to. _



I’m sure to you there’s some vast difference between over and to but without more elaboration It sounds more like you are just quibbling semantics.

I’m making an important distinction that is part of your definition but isn’t mine. Do you understand the distinction i am making?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, that’s exactly what it is. And although there are pathways, it is possible to not stick to the paths, but it’s recommended when the crew does this that the GM make seizing the claim harder or more involved.
> 
> As for what I thought might be questionable to you about this, there are two things, I think. First, the players are immediately aware of this map as soon as they pick a crew; it’s actually right on their crew sheet. None of it must be discovered or learned through play, although the specifics may need to be.
> 
> Which leads me to the second point; each of the claims is presented very loosely from a fictional standpoint, but each has a specifically defined mechanical advantage. What is “Turf” exactly? What is a “Vice Den”? Sure, we have ideas, but the specific details are not yet set, and likely would not become so until the claim comes up as a possible point of interest.
> 
> It’s also very possible for the players to initiate a lot of this, possibly including some of the details for a claim.
> 
> For instance, the crew may have a need for more turf (turf is just territory that makes it easier for your crew to advance to a higher tier, which improves your gear and standing and so on). The crew may also be tussling with a specific gang, the Red Sashes, let’s say. So they may propose something like “We need some more turf if we’re gonna move up a tier, so we gotta grab some turf, but we don’t want to make any new enemies, so let’s grab something from the Red Sashes. They have to have some kind of turf in the area, right?”
> 
> Then the GM would likely add some details to round it out, and then that would be the next Score for the crew.
> 
> Now, this may also come from the GM, too. It doesn’t have to just come from the players. The GM may even let the players propose one idea, and then add another. So he may respond to the above with “Yes, the Red Sashes control the waterfront along the canal between Song Street and Bell Street. They have street kids who sling spark there. It’s a central location with access to a few nearby districts, so it’s a profitable spot. As such, it’s well defended. But...if you’re interested in seizing some turf, the area called Underbridge is similar to the waterfront , but it’s closer to you, and less well guarded. But, it’s run by the Crows....so you’d have an easier time taking that, but then you’d be pissing off a whole other gang. What do you want to do?”
> 
> So these details are not at all set ahead of play. And the players can initiate some of their goals and possibly even details about those goals. But I think the example here still shows how a GM can take that and then craft a meaningful choice out of it.
> 
> What do you think about that?
> 
> 
> 
> It handles it very differently than you describe, honestly. Like the book is an exceptional example of a sandbox. It gives you all these different elements...districts, factions, institutions, cultures....but it lets you place them in the sandbox where you’d like. It let’s you pick and choose which are interesting to you and which you’ll use in play. And this is true of the players as well as the GM.
> 
> The players will pick their crew type and the district where they lair and also the district where they operate (these may be the same or may be different). These decisions start to feed into others which starts to naturally suggest certain factions and so on.
> 
> But the things don’t become specific until they need to be. The GM does not determine every holding of each gang and how many men they have and so on. Each of the main factions gets a half page entry that briefly describes them, lists a few members and a couple traits for each, and offers a couple of assets, and some general goals.
> 
> Do you think that the lack of specificity would be an obstacle to sandbox play? And I mean like a significant obstacle, not just something the group would balk at because it’s unfamiliar?



I might analogize this all a bit to a hexcrawl. There is a basic high level map of a 'wilderness area' and then the PCs move around in it, expending resources in different ways and choosing directions to go in (possibly informed by rumors, maps, clues, etc.) which satisfies their needs/goals. As they move across this landscape lower level details are filled in as-needed. Usually in a true sandbox there will be a few well-established 'lairs' or 'locations' where play shifts to a 'dungeon mode' of tactical exploration. I wouldn't try to draw too many parallels though. Classic hexcrawl/sandbox play virtually never involves any player input into what exists on the map. It is all either 'keyed' or randomly generated, or perhaps in a few cases extrapolated by the GM from previous events and findings.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> I’m sure to you there’s some vast difference between over and to but without more elaboration It sounds more like you are just quibbling semantics.
> 
> I’m making an important distinction that is part of your definition but isn’t mine. Do you understand the distinction i am making?



This =  _not having the ability to do X means to you a lack agency over X_ hasn't ever been a part of my definition of agency. If you think otherwise then we have some crossed wires somewhere.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> This =  _not having the ability to do X means to you a lack agency over X_ hasn't ever been a part of my definition of agency. If you think otherwise then we have some crossed wires somewhere.



So you wouldn’t say a player that lacks the ability to kill a dragon, lacks agency over/to kill a dragon?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I think people are going to have different answers here, and that this is more of an ongoing conversation in each style within the hobby. Ultimately I find, when I talk with Estar, a lot of what he says about fairness resonates. But there is a lot here.
> 
> For me, first and foremost is fair application of the rules. I shouldn't give apply the rules differently to Steve than I do to John. And I think I would add to that, you should apply the rules fairly to the monsters and the NPCs too (this may just be my own take, I can't say I am speaking for others on this one). To me that is important because that gets at the fairness of the players expectations of things like strategic choices, tactics, etc. I think fairness also extends to what the players try to do: if a player wants to start a cult to a new deity of coffee, and has some methods for persuading people to follow, the GM ought to hear those out and try to adjudicate that scenario as fairly to the player as possible (and unfair adjudication here would be something like, the GM simply not wanting to deal with a coffee cult at the moment, so he makes it never materialize or barely materialize). A fair GM will take that goal seriously. Now maybe starting a coffee cult in that setting, at that moment, with the players present resources, is a bit boneheaded and won't work. But I think a fair GM will also give the player a sense why such efforts are not working, so it is clear it isn't just an arbitrary decision. Fairness is giving players the win, even when it is inconvenient to the campaign, the adventure, what the GM wants, if the players legitimate get a win. Fairness is also how you treat people at the table, and I do think that can extend to situations like having a player who simply isn't good at one aspect of play but wants to engage it (here is where I usually give people an A for effort, or I rely on things like Skill rolls to help balance that stuff our). I do think this one is a delicate situation because if you shift something like that for a player who is having a hard time, a player who isn't may feel like they are having to work harder for their success. But just as an example, Elliot in both those games is one of the most eloquent players in the group, and a great actor when it comes to playing his character. I am not, but I can string sentences together and make a compelling case for things. If I were a GM handing me and elliot in the same situation, I would focus more on what I (the player in the example) is saying, and more on Elliot's performance probably to get a sense of how convincing each one is being (because obviously there is a massive disparity in acting talent there). So I think as long as the player is bringing something to the table, in those cases, it is pretty manageable and neither one feels shortchanged.




Sure, I can see all of that. I wouldn't ever say that the concept of fairness is entirely different for a RPG, just that it would be different in some ways. Certainly you want all participants to feel that they're all being treated similarly.

I think I would still look at participants individually and craft my approach accordingly, but I don't think it needs to be limited to that personal level, and let's be honest, even the most hardcase view of "GM as neutral and fair" is going to allow for at least a little of this. Gygax may have cackled with glee at ripping up the character sheet of some grognard who tried to take down Acererak, but he'd likely not be quite so gleeful toward a 10 year old who only just started playing.

But beyond that personal angle, there are the game elements. Classes or playbooks, races, archetypes, backgrounds....all that stuff. In most cases a game is going to include characters who have different features like these, and I think those give a GM the ability to think of those characters and treat them differently. I think we all have an idea that playing a caster is going to be different from playing a skilled rogue type.

Is it necessary to treat these characters fairly? In some cases yes. If each of them are shootnig a bow at a troll, then the troll should have the same AC and HP and so on.

But what about in the fiction that we craft or introduce as the GM? Is what's challenging going to be the same to each character? Do we tailor things with the character in mind? If I have just the wizard, isn't a trap filled dungeon kind of douchey? And if I have a rogue, isn't having nothing but magical obstacles kind of a pain? Now, a party may have both of these, and so that's great...but then we're starting to look at them as a team, and then the idea of what's fair is being applied to them collectively.

How much do we tailor the challenges to the specific characters present? Both individually, and as a group? Does that matter when it comes to how much agency we tend to think the players have?


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> So you wouldn’t say a player that lacks the ability to kill a dragon, lacks agency over/to kill a dragon?



Agency is about the ability to decide to try and go kill the dragon. Agency would also be in having choice about how to approach the the dragons lair, and in being able to enact whatever plan you came up with to best the beast.  The ability to actually succeed, however, is something else. I think the confusion probably stems from the very idea of _agency over,_ which I wouldn't use on purpose, but I may have given you the wrong impression about at some point, or we've gotten confused some other way.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I look at this as a spectrum, and a given GM just kind of reflects the 'harsh realities' of the setting to the degree they are harsh. I have players who like the challenge the setting can present to them. So I do make an effort to adhere to what I call 'the evolving martial landscape'. This is rather specific to wuxia, but in a wuxia campaign, your 'rise' is very much linked to your martial prowess. And what techniques you know, what techniques you develop, what combinations you come up with, will matter in terms of your ability to defeat people and impose your will on the setting. I think every GM handles this challenge differently, I tend to take a peaks and valleys approach, where if the players are weak, no one is particularly threatened by them or concerned with defeating their martial style. As they rise up, and gain more power, and get increasingly effective, or if they are just well built from the start, which can happen, they pose a greater threat, which is going to cause NPCs and sects to be more likely to form alliances against them, and it is also going to cause people to try to devise counters against their techniques (so they may see more responses to their arsenal emerging over time). I don't know if this addresses your post suffiencitly @hawkeyefan but your post prompted these thoughts.




I think this is an interesting element. Again, I'll lean on Blades in the Dark as a way of talking about it.

In Blades, this progression of the characters as a group is formalized in several ways. First and most obviously, they pick a specific type of crew to be, and they have a crew sheet for their team that works very much like a character sheet. It has abilities they get to select as they gain crew XP and advance. The crew also has a Tier, and this is kind of a ranking within the setting. So a Tier 0 gang is one that most people won't have heard of, and other gangs and factions likely are indifferent toward. It also gives a sense of the quality of their gear and their lair and so on. 

So, a crew can gain XP, and then gain new abilities or new lair features, or underlings that work for them. They can also move up in Tier. The process for this is to gain Rep (which they gain with each Score they pull off). When they gain enough Rep, they can spend it to move up a Tier. So their standing improves overall, they can start to afford better gear, their underlings are more capable.....all that kind of stuff. It also means that other Factions, likely higher ranking Factions with more power and influence, may start to take notice of the crew. There's a very formal player facing element to it all, it can be measured and tracked, and the players can work toward those goals clearly. 

Do you think this would fit in your kind of game?


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Agency is about the ability to decide to try and go kill the dragon. Agency would also be in having choice about how to approach the the dragons lair, and in being able to enact whatever plan you came up with to best the beast.  The ability to actually succeed, however, is something else. I think the confusion probably stems from the very idea of _agency over,_ which I wouldn't use on purpose, but I may have given you the wrong impression about at some point, or we've gotten confused some other way.



To me the meaningful part would rule that out (other than under extraordinary circumstances).  I don’t view suicide by dragon as a meaningful choice (at least without additional context that could make it so).

also, nothing I’m talking about is the ability to succeed.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I would honestly have to play it to see, but I think for my players it would certainly be an issue. I've often tried to bring in more abstract procedures for this sort of thing and the rejection level for them is quite high. I designed a whole sect building system, and it worked in theory, and worked if it remained at an abstract, background level, but the players pretty consistently wanted to get into specifics and that is what made it break down for me. I am not sure though if this would do that or not. Also, some of it might be workable as a way of buffering specifics if I understand because it gives material bonuses for controlling different elements of a faction? So if I read you correctly, one way I could use something like that is allow my players to play things out as they do (say they go into a quarter of the city where an enemy gang operates and take over a couple of workshops they control, if I can identify what that means on the map you showed me, I could note that and it would provide them with some kind of ongoing advantage or resource. Again though, the problem is the specificity. My players are the types who will take over a workshop, and then start utilizing it pretty finely in the game
> 
> I think a proper way to put it might be they are setting first before mechanics type players. Where any mechanics are just meant to reflect the setting material and the characters who inhabit it. And they often don't find the mechanics themselves engaging (it is more about having mechanics that just don't get in the way, or do what they need for what they want to do in the setting).
> 
> But again, a little hard to say without trying it and absorbing the information through play. There is a lot in your post I read, but I couldn't translate into a visualization of actual play (just due to lack of playing it myself).
> 
> But I will say, even if it turns out it isn't portable into my game, I would still like to play the game on its own terms so I understand it. And I am sure I would be able to find some inspiration from it for helping me solve this criminal underworld puzzle (it is something I've never quite cracked or settled on).



I think, with BitD specifically, that it is a game which largely eschews highly concrete structure, even in 'tactical' play. So, your PC's inventory is at least somewhat abstract, for example. You could technically pull almost anything out of your pocket, following some sort of mechanical process (I'm no expert on the details). The same thing applies to things like 'turf' and whatnot. The bonuses your crew might get from those MIGHT actually be described in specific terms, when they become relevant to the fiction. Otherwise they remain relatively abstract, the players know certain benefits can accrue to them, and maybe they are even defined a bit more clearly in various ways (I'm not sure, I know there is 'downtime', 'vices', 'patrons(?)' etc.). 

So, clearly there is a bit of an 'impedance mismatch' there, your players expect a concrete mechanistic 'rules as physics' sort of approach. The process outlined above however is disconnected from that. IME it is hard to bridge the gap. In the 90's I tried to make a really thorough sort of sandbox (it had a strong meta-plot, so maybe some purists would balk at this description) which had a lot of this sort of abstraction, and tried to 'map' it back into concrete terms. It didn't turn out to be a very viable approach. Players simply have their own agendas and unless you either constantly rework things, or use a lot of force, the whole structure simply won't hang together. It also ends up being very obtuse. The players rarely can figure out exactly what is connected to what, etc. This feeds back to my observations of 'game reality' not really existing to any appreciable degree. It turns out players were simply inventing all sorts of reasons why things happened in their minds, which they took to be both canonical and totally reasonable. In the meantime I'd simply started from different assumptions, of which an almost limitless range exist. 

Now, maybe someone else can make this work, but my realization, particularly when I started running 4e, was that simply granting the players the authority to 'be right' in their assumptions and not trying to nail much of anything down worked a VAST amount better. It was 100x less work for me, and the player's engagement with and feeling of identifying with the world and seeing it as working in a comprehensible way, increased a LOT. So the 4e game ran as basically a reprise/follow on to the supposed events of the 90's 2e campaign, and it was a lot more successful and fun. That game ran for a few years, although it kind of bogged down a few years ago. Maybe I should revive it


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> To me the meaningful part would rule that out (other than under extraordinary circumstances).  I don’t view suicide by dragon as a meaningful choice (at least without additional context that could make it so).
> 
> also, nothing I’m talking about is the ability to succeed.



The ability to make that choice, assuming it was important to the character somehow, is the important part. As for success, you were the one that pointed toward _lacks the ability to kill_ as a measure of agency (or a lack of agency more precisely). I wouldn't say that phrase has anything to do with agency.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I agree. I wouldn't describe my own campaigns as sandboxes, but there are points where the party can choose from numerous (in some cases innumerable) options. Heck, my Saturday campaign is kinda at a point like that, and they're high enough level that I'm probably going to ask them what they're thinking of doing, so I can be ready for it (or at least think about it before it happens).
> 
> I definitely think it's possible for a game to be written so some GM-ish authority devolves to the players. I think it's possible for a game to constrain its GM tightly enough that it feels as though that's happening, even though it's not exactly (I think this is what PbtA games do, but I'm far from an expert and I'm more than willing to acknowledge error if need be). There are games that specifically call for the players to be involved from the start of the campaign in setting-building (Dresden Files and Fate Core come to mind). I think it's possible for a given GM to recognize that running a more collaborative-built world doesn't work as well in their brain (it me) without it meaning that the games or the GM are bad.




Right. I know that ultimately, all of this stuff we're talking about comes down to a matter of preference. I think some of the difficulty is in confusion about definitions and the like and the impact that has on discussion, but I think if we just try to move past that, we can start to have a bit of a discussion again (the collective we of the thread I mean, not specifically you and I).

I think explaining actual processes helps to shed light on things. Lacking those, descriptions of the fiction don't really offer much. Many games could produce identical fictional results....I think the matter is how they are produced. I do think there is definite value in looking at these examples and then reflecting on our own play to see how they contrast.



prabe said:


> Why? Because creative people are drawn to TRPGs, and it's a waste not to use all the creativity at a given table. Just because I didn't like the collaboratively built setting I ended up running (not to mention the process took my table way, way longer than advertised) doesn't mean I don't like the idea. It's why--though I've griped a little here and there about an instance of getting 11,000 words of backstory--I have blank spaces in my world and I explicitly ask for how people's characters came to be where they are at the start of the campaign; and, I specifically grab things from those backstories and use them to set up stories in the campaigns and tie the characters to the setting and the campaigns.
> 
> Yeah. The guy who gave me 11,000 words of backstory has since acknowledged that he went at least a little overboard--as an example.




Right! To tie this back to my driving analogy.....the kid just brought the truck back with a missing bumper, a broken headlight, a dent in the door, and a flat tire. How likely is the GM to hand him the keys again? 

This is why I think examples of degenerate playing and GMing don't help. At best, they may highlight a possible weak point in a system, but generally speaking they seem to be more about trying to "win" the discussion.

To kind of put that in perspective, I'm far less worried about a tyrant GM who stomps all over any decision I make and who openly shoves my PC back on the path of his plot and brags about his authority to do so......I'm far more concerned with the GM who is thoughtful and has a method, but who doesn't realize that certain decisions he makes are undermining my decisions as a player.

I'm not afraid of that because it's worse.....but just because it's more common, it's harder to spot with a lot of games, and very often the GM doesn't even know they're doing it themselves.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Here is how the metaphor breaks down:
> 
> In an actual pond, the interaction of ripples is (i) literal, and (ii) takes place in accordance with physical laws that are quite impersonal.
> 
> In the metaphorical pond of the sandbox, there are no literal interactions of ripples. The GM looks at his/her pre-authored ripples, looks at the players' ripples, and _decides what the interaction looks like_.



As usual, you say in 20 words or so what it takes me 3 paragraphs to say.


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## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Right. I know that ultimately, all of this stuff we're talking about comes down to a matter of preference. I think some of the difficulty is in confusion about definitions and the like and the impact that has on discussion, but I think if we just try to move past that, we can start to have a bit of a discussion again (the collective we of the thread I mean, not specifically you and I).
> 
> I think explaining actual processes helps to shed light on things. Lacking those, descriptions of the fiction don't really offer much. Many games could produce identical fictional results....I think the matter is how they are produced. I do think there is definite value in looking at these examples and then reflecting on our own play to see how they contrast.



I agree that talking about processes helps some, but I think that principles matter at least as much from a GMing standpoint as game mechanics. I know there are some in this thread who prefer to consider games as they are published--so the principles of play in, e.g., BitD, don't apply to D&D, even if a given DM is importing things. @Ovinomancer said elsewhere, IIRC, that he runs D&D 5E with much more of the mechanical bits player-facing (announced DC, public rolls, maybe other things) but when he talks about D&D 5E, _the game_, he's talking about what's in the books. That's fine, when one is talking about what's in the books; but I think it's fair to think of it as incomplete if someone who runs 5E is looking for ways to increase player engagement (since I think one can grab tricks or principles from other games and apply them to 5E to great effect).


hawkeyefan said:


> This is why I think examples of degenerate playing and GMing don't help. At best, they may highlight a possible weak point in a system, but generally speaking they seem to be more about trying to "win" the discussion.



I can see this. Of course, I'm not sure many of the instances of bad GMing I've seen discussed have been exactly degenerate--there have been systems published that seemed almost intended to generate what many would describe as "bad GMing" if played according to what was in the books.


hawkeyefan said:


> To kind of put that in perspective, I'm far less worried about a tyrant GM who stomps all over any decision I make and who openly shoves my PC back on the path of his plot and brags about his authority to do so......I'm far more concerned with the GM who is thoughtful and has a method, but who doesn't realize that certain decisions he makes are undermining my decisions as a player.
> 
> I'm not afraid of that because it's worse.....but just because it's more common, it's harder to spot with a lot of games, and very often the GM doesn't even know they're doing it themselves.



Yeah. I think intentionally bad (abusive) GMs are ... less common than some people seem to think, but more common than I think most people would prefer. I think unintentionally bad GMs are much more common, and led astray by the games they're running (or by games they've run, and now they're applying those lessons to other games).


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> As usual, you say in 20 words or so what it takes me 3 paragraphs to say.




but this argument has come up again and again, and the point my side makes is of course it isn't an actual pond. But the purpose is for the GM to emulate causality as best he or she can, within the confines of the genre of course (I expect different degrees of it in Silence of the Lambs than I do in Porky's). But no one here is claiming to be running a 1-1 simuailtion of reality (in fact, over the course of these discussions, we've made that point countries times). No analogy or metaphor is going to hold up to that level of scrutiny because it is just a comparison for aiding understanding of a point.


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## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> This is why I think examples of degenerate playing and GMing don't help. At best, they may highlight a possible weak point in a system, but generally speaking they seem to be more about trying to "win" the discussion.
> 
> To kind of put that in perspective, I'm far less worried about a tyrant GM who stomps all over any decision I make and who openly shoves my PC back on the path of his plot and brags about his authority to do so......I'm far more concerned with the GM who is thoughtful and has a method, but who doesn't realize that certain decisions he makes are undermining my decisions as a player.
> 
> I'm not afraid of that because it's worse.....but just because it's more common, it's harder to spot with a lot of games, and very often the GM doesn't even know they're doing it themselves.




I pretty much agree. Most of my concerns when it comes to agency are about GMs who have the best of intentions, but do things that cut against making play consequential in order to make it more "fun". Often by failing to follow through on consequences that should fundamentally shake up the course of play, success when it makes no sense, moving things around in the setting to negate disruptive consequences, spotlight balancing, etc. Often my concerns are about GMs being shirking away from meaningful failure.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I pretty much agree. Most of my concerns when it comes to agency are about GMs who have the best of intentions, but do things that cut against making play consequential in order to make it more "fun". Often by failing to follow through on consequences that should fundamentally shake up the course of play, success when it makes no sense, moving things around in the setting to negate disruptive consequences, spotlight balancing, etc. Often my concerns are about GMs being shirking away from meaningful failure.




I am checking out of this discussion if we are going to start talking about things like "degenerate play'


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## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I might analogize this all a bit to a hexcrawl. There is a basic high level map of a 'wilderness area' and then the PCs move around in it, expending resources in different ways and choosing directions to go in (possibly informed by rumors, maps, clues, etc.) which satisfies their needs/goals. As they move across this landscape lower level details are filled in as-needed. Usually in a true sandbox there will be a few well-established 'lairs' or 'locations' where play shifts to a 'dungeon mode' of tactical exploration. I wouldn't try to draw too many parallels though. Classic hexcrawl/sandbox play virtually never involves any player input into what exists on the map. It is all either 'keyed' or randomly generated, or perhaps in a few cases extrapolated by the GM from previous events and findings.




Yeah, absolutely! 

The similarities aren't accidental, right? The claim map is just a hexcrawl or a dungeon map. It works the same way in some ways, and then differently in others. 

The key differences seem to be:

the locations are not tied to a fictional geography
each has a goal that is not hidden from the players
the obstacle that needs to be overcome to take the claim is not set beforehand

It's based on more narrative needs, and can be crafted specifically in response to events in the fiction and the desires or interests of the players.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> I watched your play for a bit, and there's a strong aspect of the players asking the GM questions to determine what the GM thinks the situation is.  That's very fine -- I tend to run a lot of my 5e this way -- but it's not exactly what you're describing.  You have very firm constraints on the available ripples the players can create, and you have rocks in the pond that will react with ripples pretty strongly without being moved by them.  This is, again, very typical mainstream play, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.  Functionally, though, your play loop is better characterized by the players declaring actions to find out what the GM's notes or thinking is.  They can learn things this way that they can then leverage, largely in ways the GM intends but occasionally surprising, and the GM will decide how that turns out.  This is, again, a perfectly good way to play (one I leverage, although to a lesser extent, when I run 5e) but it's not quite the expansive field your presenting.  It's much more expansive than, say, an adventure path, where a plot is intended to be executed, but it's much less expansive in options that other games or approaches can muster.  And, again, that's fine -- it's not a race.



My impression is that @estar has a less fully developed, or less fully articulated, conception of GM agenda and principles. That is, I'm contrasting it with Dungeon World, where the game literally says (paraphrased a bit) "GM, you are a fan of the players, make them shine." Then it expounds techniques which do this. One of those is 'fiction first', which can be understood to include a lot of the constraints estar mentioned, that is the action draws from the fiction, and must follow consistently in concert with player's understanding of 'how the world works'. Another principle is always to 'up the ante' on the PCs. This is intended to help make them 'more awesome' but also to force them to move forward in the fiction at all times in some sense. 

So, in his game, the GM is kind of playing a sort of 'zookeeper' role, where there is an element of curating the setting and interactions of the PCs with it, but without the hard constraints outlined above (you are literally playing DW wrong if you violate the GM's agenda/principles although they not stated specifically like 'rules' per se). This is understandable, his style is organically grown out of the early Gygaxian D&D game structure, and actually seems to me to largely comply with the admonitions of 2e, vis-a-vis generating story structure (IE that the leading role here is in the hands of the GM, but that they should incorporate some direction informally from the players). I think, if you interpret 2e a certain way, you COULD see it as moving in a trajectory that could lead to DW, it is just not nearly there yet. However, IME most 2e play becomes pretty authoritarian at times, it is hard to escape from the lack of mechanical support for character advocacy and directly connecting players to generating story elements. So GMs tend to fall back onto rulings that simply push things in a direction they feel comfortable with/anticipated/or like. 

I think the gist of most of this thread is wrestling with that in the context of the thread starter. What dimensions of play process describe games with more or less player autonomy?


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## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> but this argument has come up again and again, and the point my side makes is of course it isn't an actual pond. But the purpose is for the GM to emulate causality as best he or she can, within the confines of the genre of course (I expect different degrees of it in Silence of the Lambs than I do in Porky's). But no one here is claiming to be running a 1-1 simulation of reality (in fact, over the course of these discussions, we've made that point countries times). No analogy or metaphor is going to hold up to that level of scrutiny because it is just a comparison for aiding understanding of a point.




For me personally it makes it much easier to have a conversation in these terms (doing your best to reflect casualty) then speaking in terms as if this stuff had an independent animus. As someone who puts a lot of work in to make this stuff go in sandboxes games I actually think acknowledging that effort and talking about the techniques that enable it make it easier to achieve reliably. You do a lot to make the setting feel like a real place. I would certainly want to take credit for that blood, sweat, and tears.


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## Aldarc

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't really like FATE, but it has more agency than 5e, so that more agency is not really indicative of my valuing of that game, either.



Some of my players prefer a variety of games other than Fate, and we also played D&D for a time. We even played a sandbox game of D&D 5e. When I ran Fate several times for them, my players recognized, identified, and responded to the fact that they had more player agency in Fate than in D&D. The same was true when I ran Dungeon World. 



Bedrockgames said:


> But consider also what it feels like to have a highly specialized vocabulary (that comes with many playstyle assumptions of its own) imposed on you in a conversation like this.



I don't know about you, but for me it sounds like an opportunity to listen and learn. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I might analogize this all a bit to a hexcrawl. There is a basic high level map of a 'wilderness area' and then the PCs move around in it, expending resources in different ways and choosing directions to go in (possibly informed by rumors, maps, clues, etc.) which satisfies their needs/goals. As they move across this landscape lower level details are filled in as-needed. Usually in a true sandbox there will be a few well-established 'lairs' or 'locations' where play shifts to a 'dungeon mode' of tactical exploration. I wouldn't try to draw too many parallels though. Classic hexcrawl/sandbox play virtually never involves any player input into what exists on the map. It is all either 'keyed' or randomly generated, or perhaps in a few cases extrapolated by the GM from previous events and findings.



This is one thing that I like about Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures. At the very least, the village is designed via player committee as part of the character creation process. I can't recall if this is also applied to the wilderness around the village, but I would love to see something like this expanded for greater sandbox play.


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## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> The ability to make that choice, assuming it was important to the character somehow, is the important part.



This here is the difference I've been trying to get at.  You consider being able to make "that" particular choice to be agency.  My conception of agency has nothing to do with "that" particular choice.  Only that you can make some meaningful choice in "that" particular situation.




Fenris-77 said:


> As for success, you were the one that pointed toward _lacks the ability to kill_ as a measure of agency (or a lack of agency more precisely). I wouldn't say that phrase has anything to do with agency.



Seems you are taking that quite differently than I meant it.  I had no concept of controlling success when I was talking about that.  I would elaborate more but I don't want this to be the focus.


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## Fenris-77

Aldarc said:


> This is one thing that I like about Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures. At the very least, the village is designed via player committee as part of the character creation process. I can't recall if this is also applied to the wilderness around the village, but I would love to see something like this expanded for greater sandbox play.



Either in the core book or perhaps Further Afield, the process is one where the players do add detail to rhe surroundings, but at the level of rumour, folklore and myth, which the GM then actualizes. Thanks btw, I was trying to remember where I read that earlier.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> I don't know about you, but for me it sounds like an opportunity to listen and learn.



I will listen, but someone using a specialized vocabulary, particularly the way such vocabularies often get wielded here, does not mean they can teach me something. If see value in what they are saying, when I understand it, sure, I might learn something. But sometimes all the vocabulary does is make communication harder, or even create the impression that someone is talking more sense than they are. There are definitely places and disciplines where specialized vocabulary is required and/or useful. But there are also times when it is counter productive in my view. In a hobby like this one, I find that kind of jargon not terribly helpful. I also think walking around with that kind of model and that kind of jargon can distort your perception of the world rather than clarify it if the model is flawed.


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## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> This here is the difference I've been trying to get at.  You consider being able to make "that" particular choice to be agency.  My conception of agency has nothing to do with "that" particular choice.  Only that you can make some meaningful choice in "that" particular situation.
> 
> 
> 
> Seems you are taking that quite differently than I meant it.  I had no concept of controlling success when I was talking about that.  I would elaborate more but I don't want this to be the focus.



Frankly, Im not sure what youre driving at either.    Lets set aside that particular choice. The specific choice isn't important at all to my definition anyway, it could be any choice so long that its meaningful somehow for the player/character making it.


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## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I will listen, but someone using a specialized vocabulary, particularly the way such vocabularies often get wielded here, does not mean they can teach me something. If see value in what they are saying, when I understand it, sure, I might learn something. But sometimes all the vocabulary does is make communication harder, or even create the impression that someone is talking more sense than they are. There are definitely places and disciplines where specialized vocabulary is required and/or useful. But there are also times when it is counter productive in my view. In a hobby like this one, I find that kind of jargon not terribly helpful. I also think walking around with that kind of model and that kind of jargon can distort your perception of the world rather than clarify it if the model is flawed.




My response would be that you are already utilizing a specialized vocabulary to talk about RPGs. It's just a different one that makes a number of assumptions about what play looks like that you have probably internalized. It's also one I feel does an inadequate job of describing play as it happens at the table, particularly outside of a couple sets of highly specific play priorities.

The framework I'm using is by no means perfect. It absolutely was designed mostly to express and design games with a new set of specific play priorities. It does try to account for your priorities, but describing them was not a significant goal of the project. It did also do a decent job of rediscovering challenge centered play.

We really do not have any comprehensive sort of language to talk about these things. Traditional or mainstream RPG vocabulary is highly specialized. OSR vocabulary is also highly specialized. So are the Forge and post Forge intellectual frameworks some of us are highly steeped in.

We can probably talk about games in the general sense although my instincts point to a significant chunk of RPG players mostly not being interested in playing them as games.


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I am checking out of this discussion if we are going to start talking about things like "degenerate play'




I see you're responding to @Campbell here, but I don't see he commented on degenerate play. He did respond to a post of mine where I mentioned it, so I want to clarify.

I mentioned it not as a description of a play style but as an example of bad faith play. I mentioned it in the context of not using an example of bad faith play or bad faith GMing as an example to make a point against a style.

To provide an example of each that has come up in this thread fairly recently, the GM as tyrant and the player who has his character recall that he's friends with God so he can have anything he wants.

These examples are not about a style or agency or anything we've really been talking about. They're hyperbolic examples used to paint an oppositional view in as negative a light as possible.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> My response would be that you are already utilizing a specialized vocabulary to talk about RPGs. It's just a different one that makes a number of assumptions about what play looks like that you have probably internalized. It's also one I feel does an inadequate job of describing play as it happens at the table, particularly outside of a couple sets of highly specific play priorities.




I have to get to work on some reading (RPG related) so if this response if my response to your response is slow to come, that is the reason (not ignoring you). I think this is something where we just have several underlying disagreements that will be hard to bridge. But first I would say, you are right we already do have a specialized language in the hobby. Much of that arise organically from the need to address concepts that are unique to the hobby. Some of it, IMO, is frankly more confusing than it is clarifying, but it also is what it is at this point. However I see that as all the more reason to restrain ourselves from constantly coining new language if we don't have to (and it may be there are places where it is needed). Personally I find when I encounter posters who communicate like many of the ones on this thread do (and to be clear, you usually speak in very plain terms, and I don't recall you employing heavy amounts of jargon, so I haven't had much issue communicating with you), I have a very hard time understanding them, even if the terms are explained to me (simply because I haven't internalized the meanings of those terms as much). Another issue is when I examine the terms themselves, or go to a model like GNS to learn more, I find I have a lot of issues with the core assumptions of the model the language comes from.





> The framework I'm using is by no means perfect. It absolutely was designed mostly to express and design games with a new set of specific play priorities. It does try to account for your priorities, but describing them was not a significant goal of the project. It did also do a decent job of rediscovering challenge centered play.




this is just my opinion, but it is one formed from years of communicating with people in your camp of the hobby: I don't feel your frame work does a good of accounting for my priorities (in fact I don't even know that an idea like priorities is useful here to be totally honest). I see people telling me what it is they think I am doing, and I don't doubt that is what they believe I am doing, but it doesn't match my experience. And I don't think you and the others are as objective in this pursuit as you think. I used to be a freelance stringer, and I think I understand concepts like objectively analyzing and reporting. And one of the things that leaps out to me is your use of language describing my style. Just look at lines like "There's some lazy engagement with mechanics". That isn't objective. That is the kind of sentence that seems like an objective reporting of what you see but clearly inserts your opinion and the conclusion you want the reader to reach. And this isn't to attack you. You are actually one of the more objective posters. But it is the kind of language that is present in many of the responses. To be clear here, I have no issue with you disliking, disagreeing with, or seeing my style and thinking something is going on that I don't think. But everyone here seems so _certain_. To me, that level of certainty is usually evidence of bias. It isn't what I expect from someone who is engaged in real objectivity. I think the objective person understands they can be wrong. And if your response is, well Bedrock, you too are certain of your views: the answer is no I am not. I am constantly questioning my own views, which is why I asked for outside opinions on my definition of agency. Because maybe I was wrong all these years about how my segment of the hobby defined that term. What I am is very, very cautious about adopting models, ideologies and conclusions simply because someone is persuasive. I have seen a lot of bad ideas take root, because someone on a forum made a convincing case for something.





> We really do not have any comprehensive sort of language to talk about these things. Traditional or mainstream RPG vocabulary is highly specialized. OSR vocabulary is also highly specialized. So are the Forge and post Forge intellectual frameworks some of us are highly steeped in.




One of the things I like about the OSR is it hasn't really embraced an explosion of jargon. There are a major terms that matter, and often there is more than one word for it. What is usually important is the concept more than the language I think. But within the OSR, within the side of the hobby that I am from (and I honestly am not sure the best way to characterize that) my view has always been we should be very slow to build new language (and what language emerges should be honest and organic). Sometimes you have to come up with a term to convey an idea. That is fine. I don't have a big issue with individual writers describing their style in such a way. What I think becomes a problem is parts of the hobby having such specialized langauge, that they are impossible to understand. And I can tell you honestly there are posters here who, because of the jargon they use, I find almost indecipherable. 


> We can probably talk about games in the general sense although my instincts point to a significant chunk of RPG players mostly not being interested in playing them as games.




I am not sure exactly what this means, but it seems like an interesting point so would you mind clarifying this one ?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I see you're responding to @Campbell here, but I don't see he commented on degenerate play. He did respond to a post of mine where I mentioned it, so I want to clarify.
> 
> I mentioned it not as a description of a play style but as an example of bad faith play. I mentioned it in the context of not using an example of bad faith play or bad faith GMing as an example to make a point against a style.
> 
> To provide an example of each that has come up in this thread fairly recently, the GM as tyrant and the player who has his character recall that he's friends with God so he can have anything he wants.
> 
> These examples are not about a style or agency or anything we've really been talking about. They're hyperbolic examples used to paint an oppositional view in as negative a light as possible.




I understand. I am not trying to to attack you or campbell. I just don't want to see the conversation to get into discussion of degenerate play


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Frankly, Im not sure what youre driving at either.    Lets set aside that particular choice.



The very notion of a particular choice is the difference...



Fenris-77 said:


> The specific choice isn't important at all to my definition anyway,



I don't claim it is the specific choice you picked that matters, only that you you would view being restricted from making that specific choice as  a reduction of agency.

That's not the case in my definition.  Being restricted from certain choices doesn't reduce agency as long as their are other meaningful choices you could choose instead.



Fenris-77 said:


> it could be any choice so long that its meaningful somehow for the player/character making it.



Agreed, but as stated above, that's not what I'm driving at when I bring up the idea of a particular choice mattering in your definition of agency.

I could be wrong about your definition. If I am feel free to correct me.


----------



## Campbell

Quick Clarification : I meant lazy in the sense of lazy evaluation of a function. Meaning delayed until absolutely necessary. I meant no particular judgment in that. As contrasted with active engagement where picking up the dice and engaging with the game's mechanics is an exciting part of play.

I do not aim for objectivity in discussions. I aim for precision. I strive for everyone to know exactly what I mean. We're talking about something incredibly subjective. I could not be objective about it if I tried so I just try to share my perspective as precisely as possible so we can get to the interesting parts of the discussion. I leave it to you to provide for your perspective.

I am software engineer with a business degree working in the medical billing industry. I live and breathe in complex sets of specialized vocabulary. Some of it quite opinionated and do not mind engaging in a robust discussion of opinions.

What I personally eschew is debate and rhetoric. I do not think interesting conversations come from attempting to convince people of things, particular in a debate club format where winning the debate overtakes any sense of intellectual curiosity. 

If you think I am mischaracterizing how you play please tell me how. 

When I speak about mainstream or traditional play I am not speaking directly to the way you play or even fairly common GM authority structures. Rather my sense of the generalized play culture which I might be wrong about. I find providing an unfiltered perspective often leads to more honest and possibly interesting conversations then not sharing my personal feelings.


----------



## Aldarc

Fenris-77 said:


> Either in the core book or perhaps Further Afield, the process is one where the players do add detail to rhe surroundings, but at the level of rumour, folklore and myth, which the GM then actualizes. Thanks btw, I was trying to remember where I read that earlier.



Thanks. It's a setting and character creation process that I would like to see ported to other games. It's almost surprising to me that it hasn't. IME, it gives the players both a nice starting sense of place as well as personal investment in the setting. It's also easy for players to create kickers or play agendas from that as well.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Quick Clarification : I meant lazy in the sense of lazy evaluation of a function. Meaning delayed until absolutely necessary. I meant no particular judgment in that. As contrasted with active engagement where picking up the dice and engaging with the game's mechanics is an exciting part of play.




This terminology is not neutral at all is the problem. Just in a vacuum if you have  choice between 'lazy evaluation' and 'active engagement' you always pick active engagement. One is an attractive descriptor, the other is an unattractive one.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> Quick Clarification : I meant lazy in the sense of lazy evaluation of a function. Meaning delayed until absolutely necessary. I meant no particular judgment in that. As contrasted with active engagement where picking up the dice and engaging with the game's mechanics is an exciting part of play.




If I understand you, here is how I would describe our style: setting and action focused. We being with the flavor, the setting details, and the mechanics are in service to that. The mechanics themselves don't need to be fun or interesting on their own (in fact, if mechanics are a mini-game themselves, we often dislike them). We do like mechanics though. We are looking for smooth, streamlined, easy to deploy mechanics that reflect what is happening in the game and don't interfere with it.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> One of the things I like about the OSR is it hasn't really embraced an explosion of jargon. There are a major terms that matter, and often there is more than one word for it. What is usually important is the concept more than the language I think. But within the OSR, within the side of the hobby that I am from (and I honestly am not sure the best way to characterize that) my view has always been we should be very slow to build new language (and what language emerges should be honest and organic). Sometimes you have to come up with a term to convey an idea. That is fine. I don't have a big issue with individual writers describing their style in such a way.



All the best, but there may be some confirmation bias and emotional investment in OSR at play here, so the amount of OSR jargon out there may actually be something of a personal blind spot. Happens. I think that there's a bit more OSR jargon than you perhaps realize, which is something I only noticed once I got into reading more OSR material for myself. I also notice it on social media platforms like Twitter and Discord watching discussions between OSR vets and newcomers. 



Bedrockgames said:


> What I think becomes a problem is parts of the hobby having such specialized langauge, that they are impossible to understand. And I can tell you honestly there are posters here who, because of the jargon they use, I find almost indecipherable.



It's clearly cipherable or otherwise people who were once opposed to this jargon and way of thinking would not be using it now in this thread and advocating for such an understanding.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> If I understand you, here is how I would describe our style: setting and action focused. We being with the flavor, the setting details, and the mechanics are in service to that. The mechanics themselves don't need to be fun or interesting on their own (in fact, if mechanics are a mini-game themselves, we often dislike them). We do like mechanics though. We are looking for smooth, streamlined, easy to deploy mechanics that reflect what is happening in the game and don't interfere with it.



So basically Dungeon World? That description feels exceptionally generic and could well describe a great number of games outside of your preferences.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> So basically Dungeon World? That description feels exceptionally generic and could well describe a great number of games outside of your preferences.




I am just trying to put more objective language to this statement:  "lazy evaluation of a function. Meaning delayed until absolutely necessary. I meant no particular judgment in that. As contrasted with active engagement where picking up the dice and engaging with the game's mechanics is an exciting part of play."


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> If I understand you, here is how I would describe our style: setting and action focused. We being with the flavor, the setting details, and the mechanics are in service to that. The mechanics themselves don't need to be fun or interesting on their own (in fact, if mechanics are a mini-game themselves, we often dislike them). We do like mechanics though. We are looking for smooth, streamlined, easy to deploy mechanics that reflect what is happening in the game and don't interfere with it.




I do not view this as a neutral frame either and that is a good thing! I get to know what you think and have a conversation with you we would otherwise not get to have. There's no miscommunication. We both know exactly what each other means. This is what I want in discussions. We say things. We do not agree with each other. We hash stuff out and try to come to some shared understanding. If we cannot we walk away.

"Neutral" framing is the stuff of debates where I try to take the emotion out of the conversation to score points. That's dreadful. I still have opinions and feelings either way. I should not mischaracterize what you say or be disrespectful to you, but if I am not an honest broker of my perspective then I am doing you a disservice.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I am software engineer with a business degree working in the medical billing industry. I live and breathe in complex sets of specialized vocabulary. Some of it quite opinionated and do not mind engaging in a robust discussion of opinions.




This definitely does possibly explain some of our differences. I may simply not have much interest in the kind of exploration and approach you would have with games. My background is in history and philosophy, music, writing, things like that. My campaigns feel more like history than like stories. I know almost nothing about computers and software


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I do not view this as a neutral frame either and that is a good thing! I get to know what you think and have a conversation with you we would otherwise not get to have. There's no miscommunication. We both know exactly what each other means. This is what I want in discussions. We say things. We do not agree with each other. We hash stuff out and try to come to some shared understanding. If we cannot we walk away.
> 
> "Neutral" framing is the stuff of debates where I try to take the emotion out of the conversation to score points. That's dreadful. I still have opinions and feelings either way. I should not mischaracterize what you say or be disrespectful to you, but if I am not an honest broker of my perspective then I am doing you a disservice.



It may have been someone else. But I could have swore that earlier in the convo the got quite aggravated at the way your position was framed by others.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I am just trying to put more objective language to this statement:  "lazy evaluation of a function. Meaning delayed until absolutely necessary. I meant no particular judgment in that. As contrasted with active engagement where picking up the dice and engaging with the game's mechanics is an exciting part of play."



If I may, it seems more accurate to say that you are using more positively framed language rather than "more objective language," which is a dubious claim to be sure. 

Also, again if I may, I would add and emphasize the interaction with "skilled play" in your prior statement. That is, the idea that skilled play through fictional positioning has the potential of bypassing the dice or other mechanics.


----------



## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> My impression is that @estar has a less fully developed, or less fully articulated, conception of GM agenda and principles.



I don't know how to make it clearer, I am a referee who allows his players to "trash" his setting. That they are free to pursue any goal within the setting as their character that they find interesting regardless of what I had prepared or had conceived. The only limit is what their character can or can't do within the setting given what been described about the character. For example what a 3 Strength is capable of compared to a 18 strength.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> If I may, it seems more accurate to say that you are using more positively framed language rather than "more objective language," which is a dubious claim to be sure.
> 
> Also, again if I may, I would add and emphasize the interaction with "skilled play" in your prior statement. That is, the idea that skilled play through fictional positioning has the potential of bypassing the dice or other mechanics.




Fair enough. But my point is if you are framing one approach positively, one negatively, it is a little hard to take your analysis as objective (and many people on this thread do just that when they talk about their assessment of our playstyle: I am not attacking your playstyle, I am just analyzing it). My point is a lot of the language here is indicative of bias. Again one approach is described as lazy, oe as active engagement. That isn't a sound foundation for understanding what makes these styles different. It is a short step from there to 'one style is wrong and one is right" because nobody is going to want to be part of a style that gets fixed with a negative tag like lazy (but most active engagement sounds pretty nice)


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> Really? That how my point is going to be dismissed? Because I choose to deal with the issue being raised in this thread by having the group talk about and more importantly establishing an atmosphere where everybody feel comfortable pitching in.



Um, I specifically talked to why I disagreed, which is not dismissal, it's engagement.  I'm sorry if you feel attacked, that's not at all my intent.  I'm being 100% honest when I say that you appear to run a fun game for your players that they seem to enjoy (seem only standing in for the fact that I don't know them or you, and can only judge from appearances).  And, to me, that's the only goal of a game -- did you have fun?

This thread, though, is talking about how games work, and doing so in a way that's broader than any one specific game, although we're using examples to showcase differences.  Your providing of your play was fantastic -- thank you very much!  It's a great way to look at how your approach functions within the discussion of agency.  It's a pretty straightforward approach -- a tweaked version of an approach that's been around for awhile -- and you clearly love it and enjoy it, so it's absolutely the right approach for you and your table.  It's a lower agency that some other games, and higher than others.  This thread is about looking at relative agency, the sidelines about definitions aside -- those are mostly trying to establish a framework where the definition of agency means that games people play cannot be said to have less agency that other games, an objective I don't understand at all.  And I don't understand it because I love playing games that I can say, without reservation, feature less agency than other games.  I also enjoy games that feature more than others.  It's not a value statement.


estar said:


> Definitions and philosophy aside let's talk specifics.  In your mind what I or any other participant are able to do that my take doesn't offer? What agency they have?
> 
> For example under my approach,
> 
> Player A: "Hey wouldn't be cool to have a campaign where everybody is part of a temple?"
> Me: "Yeah that sound cool. Everybody good with that"
> Group: "Yeah that sound fun."
> Me (to Player A): "Do you have any ideas on what kind of religion the temple is part of?"
> Player A (and Group): Have a discussion about which religion I have in my setting would be fun to roleplay. Settles on the Goddess of Justice.
> Me (to Group): "OK here the material I have currently on Delaquain. It a bit thin in these area especially on temple life. If you have any ideas this a good time pitch them."
> Player A and C: "We have some idea, we will work on it over the week and get with the group to see if it works out."
> Me and the Group: "Sounds good"
> 
> Following that we hash out those details and then the players generates characters and their background. I answer any questions they may have. I in turn will generate the specifics of life around the temple incorporating the details the player come up with along with my own ideas. Then after the backgrounds are done, I incorporate those details.
> 
> Then the next session we start playing and I describe the initial circumstance and we go from there using the process I described in earlier
> posts on this thread. Incorporating feedback from the players and the group along the way.
> 
> The "product" of doing things this way is some background on the setting, background on main locale the temple, background on the religion, and each of the character background which will have elements involving temple and religion and elements that involve the larger setting.
> 
> Contrast this with an example of the other approaches you talk about. If it helps it doesn't have to involve character centered around a temple.



And, that looks grand for the approach you're taking, but you're talking about letting players choose parts of the setting prior to play, or at specific points in play where such is allowed.  After this, though, it's your evaluation of this.  A game like Blades in the Dark is fundamentally a different beast.  To give a quick example, the main part of the over-arching play loop is the Score.  The Score is the part of the game where the players' characters engage in a heist or similar style operation. The players select the target of the Score -- whoever they want, although usually this serves a purpose, and the goal of the score.  They then select an approach -- Stealth, Assault, Con, Smuggle, etc -- that best describes the general way they want the score to be done.  Then they pick a detail -- each approach has a required detail.  For example, Stealth has the required detail of point of entry -- where do you sneak in?  Okay, so, NONE of this is up to the GM.  The GM cannot refute or say no to any of this, including the detail of entry -- the players literally get to state a fact about the target of the score that is true.  What the GM does get to do is run through this and discuss it with the players to determine if the plan is simple or complicated, if it targets a strength or weakness of the target, and if the Crew has anything that aids their approach.  These all earn or lose dice from the Engagement roll, which is a special role that determines how the Score starts -- a good roll might have the PCs be well into the Score before encountering trouble, a poor one has issues cropping up immediately.

This is a lot of agency for the players that's almost completely unmediated by the GM.  The playloop in the Score also has a lot going on for the PCs, and I've described this recently since you've been in the thread in response to @FrogReaver.  This is, I'm almost positive, nothing like your play approach.  There's a lack of specificity until needed for instance.

Another good example in Blades is the use of the Flashback mechanic, where players can pause the action and engage in a pre-scene where they set up something that will be useful in the current moment.  This costs some resource, but also doesn't look like your play and offers quite a bit of agency over a situation.


estar said:


> If I wasn't clear I get that. The issue I have is that traditional roleplaying have less agency when it comes to actual play. That the point I am disputing. To be clear, my contention both have it, it achieved in different ways. That the way the games you mentioned handle work better for a sizeable segment of our hobby. Enough that it now it own niche. That both are subject to the vagaries of small group dynamics. To points like "fairness", "impartiality", "sportsmanship", etc are equal important to both. Finally that system can't fix this.



System absolutely can address this, and fairness, impartiality, and sportsmanship are utterly unnecessary.  I'm not any of those when I run Blades -- I cannot be, because I'm 1) supposed to be a fan of the PCs and 2) I'm suppose to drench them in adversity.  These aren't competing either!  We're a fan of John McClane in Die Hard, but we certainly don't want to watch him have a relaxing evening without terrorists.  Instead, we're a fan because we love watching how he deals with the adversity of being trapped in a tower with terrorists, and how he succeeds!  This is the kind of "being a fan" and "adversity" that I'm talking about, and it has nothing to do with "fairness" at all.

Now, when I run 5e, I definitely consider these things, because that system is built on these concepts and works that way.  

System most definitely matters.  Claiming otherwise shows a lack of experience outside of a narrow set of systems.


estar said:


> But to resolve this debate we are at the point where we need to talk specifics. What people do in actual situations. Then we look at their behavior and see how it work with my thesis or yours.



And that's what I'm doing.


estar said:


> I disagree that my approach is the baseline. I get a lot of pushback on many of my points on sandbox play from traditional roleplayers. The baseline is the use of the tournament style adventure. It gotten better but the general expectation still appears to be that it is polite to stick to the adventure that the referee has chosen. Time and time again, I have to tell players do what your character would do, don't worry about what I have prepared. Sounds like I am not the only one that needs to get up to speed.



Oh, my, I haven't ever met anyone that thinks that tournament modules are a baseline for anything other than tournament modules.  Those are aimed at eliciting a very specific type of play -- asynchronous competitive play.  I don't know any tables that look for this as a baseline for home play at all.  I'm afraid that we've been exposed to violently different sets of players.


estar said:


> Is real life is limiting because we are bounded by the laws of physics? Yet people seemly achieve many things despite that.



Yes, it is, but there are no laws of physics in the game, only the GM's ideas about laws of physics.  Comparing real life to games is silly.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> You have the ideal of fairness, and there is subjectivity there, but I think there is a difference between a GM striving for it, and one who doesn't (and I mean genuinely striving for it, which my experience with a GM like Rob is you can sense it at the table). There is also a difference between a GM who succeeds more at achieving that state at the table than one who doesn't (there are GMs who are consistently regarded as more fair than others). Further, having done plenty of competitive sports, even in the sports arena, fairness is often disputed because everyone is investing emotions in outcomes, seeing the event from slightly different points of view, etc. Just because that fairness is not going to be universally agreed upon, is hard to achieve, and perhaps an impossible goal to attain in its 'platonic form', it is still a horizon you can move towards, and again, there is a difference between a referee who strives to be fair in sports and one who simply calls things based on who he wants to win. So a GM, in my view can be more fair, or less fair in a given moment, and when people throw up this argument about how its just 'spin', I just don't think that matches what I have seen through the years. Or at the very least, it dismisses a concept that does actually matter, based on it being more complicated than this GM is fair and that one isn't.



I have an interesting question: What is 'fairness'? I mean, how do we define fairness in an RPG? Is it even really a meaningful kind of thing to define? Not that I dispute that people have some sort of notion, just how can we possibly define it? Let me elaborate a bit (sorry, I know I'm a tedious guy, lol).

We can clearly measure fairness in competitive refereed games, the measure is simple. The referee uniformly applies the same rules and rulings to each competitor and team (if relevant). A football referee consistently calls out of bounds in a repeatable way on every player, calls goals, etc. all in accordance with the rules. If judgment is required, IE was that a foul; then they generally apply their judgment in a consistent way, such that every participant is consistently called when other objective observers would agree (mostly) with the ruling.

Now, in an RPG, there is (generally speaking) no opposition. There aren't two teams to consistently favor evenly and objectively. So that is one observation. Maybe we can then fall back here on judging the participants consistently, even though they are not opponents. That seems like a reasonable measure to me. I think we can put this part to bed, at least provisionally. Some people might observe that the GM runs the 'bad guys', and insist that fairness include judging their actions consistently. This part gets a bit odd, and I think I will touch on it again later.

The real stumbling point, IMHO, comes when we analyze fairness in more detail. It requires a thing who's fairness is to be judged, AND a criteria upon which that judgment will be made. In some cases RPGs certainly can provide these things. The 'thing to be judged' must logically consist of some fictional and/or mechanical 'circumstance' within the game. That is 'something happens', and we judge it. It also requires a criteria for that judgement. In the sports game analogy that is the rules of the game (and possibly things like what is 'sportsmanlike behavior' which aren't fully spelled out). In the case of an RPG, what is this criteria? There are a few cases:

1. It is a matter of rules - clearly if there are mechanics then they should be applied consistently, or at least applied consistent with the principles of play (which might supersede rules in the narrow sense, as in how D&D allows a DM to throw out 'nonsense results' in classic D&D). 

2. It is a matter of fiction - this is the other branch in my taxonomy of circumstances to be judged. It is here that classic notions start to run into problems. We have only principles, but are they enough? In fact this begins to illustrate the main reason why classic Gygaxian D&D had any rules at all, because fictional parameters have no objective reality, and even their subjective reality is only as clearly articulated as the DM has bothered to write up, and as clearly understood as the players conception of it. So what basis do we have here for fairness? 

I'll go even further, even category 1 isn't really objective, because the whole objectivity of the rules is based on fiction and subjective factors in the first place! So I don't even think we can form this ontology to begin with. For example, In Dungeon World it is stated that a 'surprise attack' against an unprepared opponent isn't even something that the rules adjudicate, it is simply fiction and in the basic case said opponent is simply slain. This is highly subjective, even though it is a 'rule'. Clearly it might be considered fair in some cases, and not in others, at least by some players. So rules really depend on fiction. I'd note that games like 3.x and 4e tried to mitigate this in combat to a degree with VERY complete rules, battle maps, etc., but the problem still exists to an extent.

Can we simply rely on 'principles of play' to always tell us what is fair and unfair? That might work, but many games don't articulate these, and they are rarely made explicit at the table. So, in a lot of cases we might go back and 'forensically' analyze some circumstance and decide if it was adjudged fair or not, but given the dependence on fiction and judgment of fiction, it is doubtful this will end very many cases of dispute (maybe where someone was confused about something). 

So, I come back to the question, what would you all consider fairness to be, and how can one adjudge styles of play on its basis when it is such a slippery concept?


----------



## Aldarc

@Bedrockgames, is my addendum to your earlier statement regarding skilled play accurate to your sensibilities? That might be more productive for our purposes.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I have an interesting question: What is 'fairness'? I mean, how do we define fairness in an RPG? Is it even really a meaningful kind of thing to define? Not that I dispute that people have some sort of notion, just how can we possibly define it? Let me elaborate a bit (sorry, I know I'm a tedious guy, lol).
> 
> We can clearly measure fairness in competitive refereed games, the measure is simple. The referee uniformly applies the same rules and rulings to each competitor and team (if relevant). A football referee consistently calls out of bounds in a repeatable way on every player, calls goals, etc. all in accordance with the rules. If judgment is required, IE was that a foul; then they generally apply their judgment in a consistent way, such that every participant is consistently called when other objective observers would agree (mostly) with the ruling.
> 
> Now, in an RPG, there is (generally speaking) no opposition. There aren't two teams to consistently favor evenly and objectively. So that is one observation. Maybe we can then fall back here on judging the participants consistently, even though they are not opponents. That seems like a reasonable measure to me. I think we can put this part to bed, at least provisionally. Some people might observe that the GM runs the 'bad guys', and insist that fairness include judging their actions consistently. This part gets a bit odd, and I think I will touch on it again later.
> 
> The real stumbling point, IMHO, comes when we analyze fairness in more detail. It requires a thing who's fairness is to be judged, AND a criteria upon which that judgment will be made. In some cases RPGs certainly can provide these things. The 'thing to be judged' must logically consist of some fictional and/or mechanical 'circumstance' within the game. That is 'something happens', and we judge it. It also requires a criteria for that judgement. In the sports game analogy that is the rules of the game (and possibly things like what is 'sportsmanlike behavior' which aren't fully spelled out). In the case of an RPG, what is this criteria? There are a few cases:
> 
> 1. It is a matter of rules - clearly if there are mechanics then they should be applied consistently, or at least applied consistent with the principles of play (which might supersede rules in the narrow sense, as in how D&D allows a DM to throw out 'nonsense results' in classic D&D).
> 
> 2. It is a matter of fiction - this is the other branch in my taxonomy of circumstances to be judged. It is here that classic notions start to run into problems. We have only principles, but are they enough? In fact this begins to illustrate the main reason why classic Gygaxian D&D had any rules at all, because fictional parameters have no objective reality, and even their subjective reality is only as clearly articulated as the DM has bothered to write up, and as clearly understood as the players conception of it. So what basis do we have here for fairness?
> 
> I'll go even further, even category 1 isn't really objective, because the whole objectivity of the rules is based on fiction and subjective factors in the first place! So I don't even think we can form this ontology to begin with. For example, In Dungeon World it is stated that a 'surprise attack' against an unprepared opponent isn't even something that the rules adjudicate, it is simply fiction and in the basic case said opponent is simply slain. This is highly subjective, even though it is a 'rule'. Clearly it might be considered fair in some cases, and not in others, at least by some players. So rules really depend on fiction. I'd note that games like 3.x and 4e tried to mitigate this in combat to a degree with VERY complete rules, battle maps, etc., but the problem still exists to an extent.
> 
> Can we simply rely on 'principles of play' to always tell us what is fair and unfair? That might work, but many games don't articulate these, and they are rarely made explicit at the table. So, in a lot of cases we might go back and 'forensically' analyze some circumstance and decide if it was adjudged fair or not, but given the dependence on fiction and judgment of fiction, it is doubtful this will end very many cases of dispute (maybe where someone was confused about something).
> 
> So, I come back to the question, what would you all consider fairness to be, and how can one adjudge styles of play on its basis when it is such a slippery concept?



Sounds like you have an issue with the concept of fairness in general and not just in rpgs. Virtually everything you bring up about fairness applies to fairness in any setting.


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Hell, sometimes a GM in a game like 5E will ask the player to make a roll and not even tell them what for! The game leaves the question of how player facing all this is up to the GM. The players may be totally in the dark about any or all of it.
> 
> Haven't we all seen examples along the lines of the below?
> 
> GM: Hey, Mike, give me a roll for Gor.
> Mike: Oh boy....what kind of roll?
> GM: Don't worry about that for now....just a d20.
> Mike: Okay....ugh, now I'm nervous. Something's going on. (Rolls a d20) I got a 17!
> GM: Okay, cool.
> Mike: What happens? Do I notice something?
> GM: Nothing as far as you can tell. What do you want to do?
> 
> I've seen that kind of thing all the time.



I do this kind of thing all the time, for one of two reasons:

--- it's a false roll, to help disguise real rolls.  Whether there's something to be nervous about or not, Mike's "now I'm nervous" reaction above is exactly what I want. 
--- there's something going on that the PC, and by extension player, is as yet unaware of; and on a poor roll (which 17 would be: in my game lower is better for things like knowledge or perception) I want to keep it that way.

I make no apologies for this.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> Perhaps, but Enlightened Despotism or Enlightened Absolutism are the terms typically most associated with the rulership of monarchs like Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, and Emperor Joseph II. It does seem to describe how many "traditional" GMs have described their benevolent, caretaker roles or even relationship to their players. Maybe not in this thread, where the goal seems to be pretending that players have absolute freedom under their reigns, but it does come up considerably in other threads about other topics, wherein one can see the gloves come off about players who threaten that authority.



I've only meant it in the sense of the impression that I get that anything which implies that the GM's position is less than that of unlimited authority within the game, and usually 'source of all knowledge and circumstance' is cast negatively. There are various theories and approaches to this deprecation, but it is extraordinarily consistent. You can virtually hard classify people in a thread like this by whether they will accept ANY notion of de jure grant of authority to players beyond "move my characters limbs, lips, and declare what checks he makes." Granting that there are a few people whom I have seen switch sides of the fence when they play certain games, or there was @Ovinomancer who's totally changed his opinions, it is a pretty stark divide.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I have an interesting question: What is 'fairness'? I mean, how do we define fairness in an RPG? Is it even really a meaningful kind of thing to define? Not that I dispute that people have some sort of notion, just how can we possibly define it? Let me elaborate a bit (sorry, I know I'm a tedious guy, lol).
> 
> We can clearly measure fairness in competitive refereed games, the measure is simple. The referee uniformly applies the same rules and rulings to each competitor and team (if relevant). A football referee consistently calls out of bounds in a repeatable way on every player, calls goals, etc. all in accordance with the rules. If judgment is required, IE was that a foul; then they generally apply their judgment in a consistent way, such that every participant is consistently called when other objective observers would agree (mostly) with the ruling.
> 
> Now, in an RPG, there is (generally speaking) no opposition. There aren't two teams to consistently favor evenly and objectively. So that is one observation. Maybe we can then fall back here on judging the participants consistently, even though they are not opponents. That seems like a reasonable measure to me. I think we can put this part to bed, at least provisionally. Some people might observe that the GM runs the 'bad guys', and insist that fairness include judging their actions consistently. This part gets a bit odd, and I think I will touch on it again later.
> 
> The real stumbling point, IMHO, comes when we analyze fairness in more detail. It requires a thing who's fairness is to be judged, AND a criteria upon which that judgment will be made. In some cases RPGs certainly can provide these things. The 'thing to be judged' must logically consist of some fictional and/or mechanical 'circumstance' within the game. That is 'something happens', and we judge it. It also requires a criteria for that judgement. In the sports game analogy that is the rules of the game (and possibly things like what is 'sportsmanlike behavior' which aren't fully spelled out). In the case of an RPG, what is this criteria? There are a few cases:
> 
> 1. It is a matter of rules - clearly if there are mechanics then they should be applied consistently, or at least applied consistent with the principles of play (which might supersede rules in the narrow sense, as in how D&D allows a DM to throw out 'nonsense results' in classic D&D).
> 
> 2. It is a matter of fiction - this is the other branch in my taxonomy of circumstances to be judged. It is here that classic notions start to run into problems. We have only principles, but are they enough? In fact this begins to illustrate the main reason why classic Gygaxian D&D had any rules at all, because fictional parameters have no objective reality, and even their subjective reality is only as clearly articulated as the DM has bothered to write up, and as clearly understood as the players conception of it. So what basis do we have here for fairness?
> 
> I'll go even further, even category 1 isn't really objective, because the whole objectivity of the rules is based on fiction and subjective factors in the first place! So I don't even think we can form this ontology to begin with. For example, In Dungeon World it is stated that a 'surprise attack' against an unprepared opponent isn't even something that the rules adjudicate, it is simply fiction and in the basic case said opponent is simply slain. This is highly subjective, even though it is a 'rule'. Clearly it might be considered fair in some cases, and not in others, at least by some players. So rules really depend on fiction. I'd note that games like 3.x and 4e tried to mitigate this in combat to a degree with VERY complete rules, battle maps, etc., but the problem still exists to an extent.
> 
> Can we simply rely on 'principles of play' to always tell us what is fair and unfair? That might work, but many games don't articulate these, and they are rarely made explicit at the table. So, in a lot of cases we might go back and 'forensically' analyze some circumstance and decide if it was adjudged fair or not, but given the dependence on fiction and judgment of fiction, it is doubtful this will end very many cases of dispute (maybe where someone was confused about something).
> 
> So, I come back to the question, what would you all consider fairness to be, and how can one adjudge styles of play on its basis when it is such a slippery concept?




I am sorry but we just have a fundamental disagreement here. And I think I explained my position clearly in my response that you quoted. If that isn't sufficient for you, it isn't sufficient for you. But even in sports, the concept of fairness is murky and contested, and people can dissect it until you get the sense that is isn't possible to achieve (especially if they hold up a ideal of it that is unattainable). There are things that a ref cannot see and sense, referees are humans not computers, and the language of rules in sports can be quite imprecise. I don't think the fact that sports often are about two competing sides, makes it all that much easier to adjudicate fairly. I completed in plenty of martial arts tournaments, and each of those had three judges scoring, and a ref, and the judges rarely had the same scores. Refs made calls that people disputed all the time. But, there were more fair and less fair referees.

In terms of what fairness means for RPGs, you will never come to a universally agreed upon set of principles. Ever. Just look at the differences of opinions in this thread alone. What you will have are different criteria set up by different styles and groups (it is like having different leagues, where we agree on different rulesets and different criteria for implementing those rules).

And many events that have referees and judges, are not as 'objective' as a sport like football. There are poetry contests, there are debate societies, there are art and music competitions with judges. This idea of being a fair arbiter of something exists in a lot of places, and the fact that there is no perfectly fair arbiter, doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for being fair arbiters. To toss up your hands and say 'its useless, we must simply constrain it through system', seems weird to me. Sure if you want to take a systems approach to encouraging fair arbitration in games, go for it. But that isn't for everyone or every group. And for people who don't rely on systems, well they are going to want tools and discussion on how to be a fair arbiter.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> @Bedrockgames, is my addendum to your earlier statement regarding skilled play accurate to your sensibilities? That might be more productive for our purposes.




I'd need to think about that statement to be honest


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I'd need to think about that statement to be honest



Fair. Please take your time. You have mentioned how skilled play informs your games several times in this thread. My own impression from at least OSR is that "skilled play" likely does impact when and how the mechanics come into play, though what skilled play looks like in such a game may require further clarification.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> So as a player of games for a choice to be considered meaningful in the scope of gameplay it should relate back to what I am trying to achieve as a player. It might be provided by the game or provided by the player. It's also not about quantity here, but quality. A choice that has more of an impact on whether I achieve my goals is more meaningful than a bunch of choices which barely impact my ability to achieve my objectives.



Thing is, this presupposes you have goals and-or objectives on a bigger scale than simply_ play in the moment and deal with the here-and-now, e.g. kill this Orc before it kills me, and let the future take care of itself_.

Not all players (and not even all GMs!) share this approach.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Thing is, this presupposes you have goals and-or objectives on a bigger scale than simply_ play in the moment and deal with the here-and-now, e.g. kill this Orc before it kills me, and let the future take care of itself_.
> 
> Not all players (and not even all GMs!) share this approach.




Then I do not think it is really useful to talk about that activity as a game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> @Ovinomancer  A GM deciding something about the setting or NPC reactions to player actions isn’t removing player agency any more than a GM calling for a roll to determine those things does.
> 
> Your process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to set DC of check (possible adjustments after) -> player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> Our process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to either (a), (b) or (c)
> 
> (a): dm determined fiction would result in success
> (b): dm determined fiction would result in failure
> (c): dm determines fictional result is uncertain in which case the fiction is used to set the dc and the player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> there is a process to how resolution works. It’s not simply fiat.  It’s also nearly identical to your process.



I think the key difference really lies in the principles and agenda of the GM. When a GM is @Ovinomancer's 'enlightened despot' they are operating on a set of principles in which the GM fundamentally sets the agenda (possibly indulging the players), directs all options by way of determining all the fiction (again indulgence being possible) and plays to whatever ends they see fit. 

In a game like Dungeon World all of this is spelled out, hardcoded within the rules of the game. The agenda and principles explicitly, and in this type of game basically invariably (or why play one), describe this agenda as centered around player-originated concerns. 

So, in an idealized classical sandbox, for example, presumably the players agree to play the game to start with, so there's some (unspecified) level of agreement on genre/setting/tone/format. Beyond that everything goes through the GM, who may (or not) determine the starting position based on player interest/input, decide more or less what PCs backgrounds and other attributes might be, etc. (again there is some presumed acquiescence, maybe the GM even solicits input, but this is again unspecified). From there all action takes place against a setting and fiction which is always narrated and dictated by the GM in all cases, aside from PC actions. The principles and objectives by which the fiction evolves are, again, all unspoken. At best we can presume they aim to be fun.

In the idealized Dungeon World game, the participants sit down for session zero with a blank slate. DW assumes a certain genre/milieu (basically a D&D-type world) but beyond that it is clean sheet. The players write up PCs, ask questions, answer GM questions, generate bonds, etc. The GM follows an explicit set of principles in which the starting scene is going to be "in the middle of the action", that it will be consistent with the fiction established before the scene is played out, and that the other principles of play will be followed, which all direct the GM to focus on the PCs and frame scenes which put them on the spot and give them a chance to be awesome, engaging with elements derived substantially from player responses to questions, hints, descriptions, etc. After the first session the GM will then go back, create a map with holes in it, and at least a single adventure front (some sort of threatening force/circumstance which is pitted against the PC's established interests). Again according to the principles of engaging the player's indicated interests, etc.

This is the difference between narrative play and any other sort. All the other sorts, AFAIK, that we have discussed, don't include this kind of defined agenda and principles. They all share the characteristic of a Game Master as the central determining factor in play. To put this in thread context, in a narrative play game the players are 'in the drivers seat' and the GM is fundamentally serving up what they need. 

Maybe the best analogy is the school cafeteria. Classic D&D is kinda like that, if its pizza day, well, you get pizza. You can skip lunch, maybe you can get a hot dog instead, but there's a menu that is on offer.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Then I do not think it is really useful to talk about that activity as a game.



Why on earth not?

Playing in the moment without thought for or of anything bigger is every bit as much playing the game as is going in with long-term plans for your character's story and-or dramatic arc.

I've run PCs in the past who were just like this: all they cared about was the immediate here-and-now.  Put opponents in front of me to chop down, give me my share of the loot afterwards so I can go fill myself with ale, and who cares about anything else.  Other people can do the planning; and if nobody does then we'll just wander around until something bothers us, and go from there.

How is this not a game?  Further, how is this not roleplaying?


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Why on earth not?
> 
> Playing in the moment without thought for or of anything bigger is every bit as much playing the game as is going in with long-term plans for your character's story and-or dramatic arc.
> 
> I've run PCs in the past who were just like this: all they cared about was the immediate here-and-now.  Put opponents in front of me to chop down, give me my share of the loot afterwards so I can go fill myself with ale, and who cares about anything else.  Other people can do the planning; and if nobody does then we'll just wander around until something bothers us, and go from there.
> 
> How is this not a game?  Further, how is this not roleplaying?




It's definitely roleplaying.

What makes a game a game in my estimation is that games have objectives and conflict or obstacles to overcome. Games can be played more or less skillfully. Like I can say based on your play you played Apocalypse World well. I can also say you made a poor showing of it when you played D&D. Same for Burning Wheel. Same for Poker. Same for chess.

I should clarify that I am talking about the player here and getting treasure or making moves in Apocalypse World is just as valid as a character's long term plans here. Ideally the more character and player are in simpatico the better, but it's not like required.


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> The very notion of a particular choice is the difference...
> 
> 
> I don't claim it is the specific choice you picked that matters, only that you you would view being restricted from making that specific choice as  a reduction of agency.
> 
> That's not the case in my definition.  Being restricted from certain choices doesn't reduce agency as long as their are other meaningful choices you could choose instead.
> 
> 
> Agreed, but as stated above, that's not what I'm driving at when I bring up the idea of a particular choice mattering in your definition of agency.
> 
> I could be wrong about your definition. If I am feel free to correct me.



I am confused. As far as I can tell we are complete agreement about this. I don't think I'm going to spend any more time trying to convince you that we aren't arguing here. We good.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> I do this kind of thing all the time, for one of two reasons:
> 
> --- it's a false roll, to help disguise real rolls.  Whether there's something to be nervous about or not, Mike's "now I'm nervous" reaction above is exactly what I want.
> --- there's something going on that the PC, and by extension player, is as yet unaware of; and on a poor roll (which 17 would be: in my game lower is better for things like knowledge or perception) I want to keep it that way.
> 
> I make no apologies for this.




Nor should you! It’s perfectly fine to play that way. 

I was speaking about that kind of thing through the lens of player agency and how different games establish that through the way checks are made, and the way GM judgment is involved in those checks. 

And this example was of a game that isn’t as concerned about agency. Or at least, is not worried about it as a part of this process.


----------



## Ovinomancer

With regards to agency, we can make a comparison that should ring pretty true by using popular video games.  Look at Minecraft.  The very concept of the game is that there are few limits on what the player can do in the game.  There's very little "game" there, really, in that goals are entirely player set.  There is an end, kinda-sorta, but it's not required to fully enjoy the game nor does the game finish when you reach it (in fact, a lot of the game exists past the "end").  Minecraft is high agency for video games.

Contrast this with Doom Eternal.  You're on rails -- you will do the story in the order it is presented.  You will follow the hallways.  You will fight these creatures.   You will accomplish these tasks to progress.  Etc.  You have a lot of leeway on tactics -- the specific hows you kill monsters -- but very little other agency.  Doom Eternal is a low-agency game.

Which is more fun to play?


----------



## Fenris-77

hawkeyefan said:


> Nor should you! It’s perfectly fine to play that way.
> 
> I was speaking about that kind of thing through the lens of player agency and how different games establish that through the way checks are made, and the way GM judgment is involved in those checks.
> 
> And this example was of a game that isn’t as concerned about agency. Or at least, is not worried about it as a part of this process.



I think the need for secret rolls, and thus for fake secret rolls is a very interesting topic vis a vis agency in general.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> @Ovinomancer  A GM deciding something about the setting or NPC reactions to player actions isn’t removing player agency any more than a GM calling for a roll to determine those things does.



I don't believe anyone but you has used the verb _remove_. Because of course one can't remove what another doesn't have. The phrase I would use, which I believe is pretty consistent with @Ovinomancer's posts, is _permits less agency than other approaches might_.



FrogReaver said:


> My takeaway is that y’all have decided that a GM using the fiction to make a decision about success or failure is not following a process.



Given that both @Ovinomancer and I have described it as a resolution technique, I'm not sure where this is coming from.



FrogReaver said:


> Your process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to set DC of check (possible adjustments after) -> player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> Our process:
> Character Acts -> DM uses fiction to either (a), (b) or (c)
> 
> (a): dm determined fiction would result in success
> (b): dm determined fiction would result in failure
> (c): dm determines fictional result is uncertain in which case the fiction is used to set the dc and the player rolls and outcome is determined.
> 
> there is a process to how resolution works. It’s not simply fiat.  It’s also nearly identical to your process.



But the processes are not nearly identical. Yours includes steps (a) and (b) which are unilateral exercises of GM authority. Which is the entire basis for the suggestion that adopting a different process may permit more player agency!


----------



## Campbell

I am currently a player in friend's Vampire game that utilizes a hacked setting and ruleset. One of the really cool things about from my perspective is that it really plays around with player agency.

Players actually begin play as mortals. The game I am in started as something of a spy thriller. My character at that point was an Israeli venture capitalist with ties to Mossad. So a good deal of power and influence in the mortal world. As mortals we had a lot of autonomy to pursue goals, but were somewhat lacking power compared to the conspiracy we faced. Now that we are Vampires our movements are much more restricted. Just maintaining appearances requires a good amount of blood. We have additional social responsibilities.

Right now we are in process of shopping our characters around the clans (in our hack joining a clan is a joint decision between the vampire and clan). In order to get the power associated with that bloodline we need to make commitments that bind us. Right now Ariel (my character) still very much is trying to maintain his mortal life and achieve the things he was never able to while he was alive, but he has all these new responsibilities and he has his beast.

So we do a form of negotiated play between players and GM when it comes to interacting with the Beast and Frenzy which comes pretty often in our games. _Here's what your beast wants _is a common refrain.

A big focus of the design is the relationship between power and freedom to act. Humanity loss is also a negotiated thing. As you lose humanity you acquire Stains which are negotiated behavior strictures. There's also this relationship with Disciplines, Blood Potency, and Generation which is setup specifically to encourage Diablerie (drinking another vampire to death destroying their soul in the process) which has severe social repercussions and can result in a fairly potent addiction.

Less agency does not always have to be negative. Sometimes constraints can actually make decisions more meaningful.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> You 5 or 6 are the only handful that I've ever seen define it the way you are.  I'm sure there's more but I think that's the experience with most of us.



It's probably also news to you that at least one person in the world - namely, me - thinks that The Alexandrian's essay on "node-based design", which he _thinks _is advice on how to avoid railroading, is in fact a recipe for running a railroad.

What can I say - there is more in heaven and earth than is dreamed of in your, perhaps in anyone's, philosophy!

EDIT: OK, there is something more I can say: you complain repeatedly about other posters using vocabulary in ways you don't agree with, but you also want to police my use of the phrase _player agency_. What's up with that?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think my response to @Manbearcat's call for play experience is to kind of wonder if maybe we could build a kind of 'decision tree framework' that would elucidate some of the different process choices, preferences, desired outcomes, and thus techniques and elements



I posted, about seven (?) pages upthread, a comparison/contrast of two instances of play: an imagined one from the AW rulebook, and an actual one from my Prince Valiant campaign.

Any thoughts?

That also applies to @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames, @estar.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I am confused. As far as I can tell we are complete agreement about this. I don't think I'm going to spend any more time trying to convince you that we aren't arguing here. We good.



It appears I have mistaken your position then.  I am truly sorry.


----------



## Fenris-77

If we're going to read play excerpts, we should probably be reading with a purpose, something beyond simple compare and contrast. @pemerton , is there a particular mechanic or decision loop you wanted people to look at, or issues of agency in any particular light?

The post in question is here


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> It appears I have mistaken your position then.  I am truly sorry.



Well, don't be too sorry, apparently I did the same thing to you.    I'm putting it down to the thread having sooooo many moving parts.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, don't be too sorry, apparently I did the same thing to you.    I'm putting it down to the thread having sooooo many moving parts.



I'm not crazy though?  There are some on this thread that I actually have a difference of opinion with on that?


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> I'm not crazy though?  There are some on this thread that I actually have a difference of opinion with on that?



I don't think so actually (although I could be wrong). There were a lot of examples flying around and I think we just got our brains tangled. It happens.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think the key difference really lies in the principles and agenda of the GM. When a GM is @Ovinomancer's 'enlightened despot' they are operating on a set of principles in which the GM fundamentally sets the agenda (possibly indulging the players), directs all options by way of determining all the fiction (again indulgence being possible) and plays to whatever ends they see fit.



This doesn't describe sandbox play at all.  

In sandbox play, the GM frames the world, places in the world, factions and NPC's in it.  In sandbox play the players set their agenda.  They have complete autonomy to do what they want and to interact with what they want as long as it's done via their character.  Nothing they do is by way of DM permission either.  In sandbox play it's the player's unalienable right to be able to set their own agenda.  



AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, in an idealized classical sandbox, for example, presumably the players agree to play the game to start with, so there's some (unspecified) level of agreement on genre/setting/tone/format.



Agreed


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Beyond that everything goes through the GM, who may (or not) determine the starting position based on player interest/input, decide more or less what PCs backgrounds and other attributes might be, etc. (again there is some presumed acquiescence, maybe the GM even solicits input, but this is again unspecified). From there all action takes place against a setting and fiction which is always narrated and dictated by the GM in all cases, aside from PC actions.   The principles and objectives by which the fiction evolves are, again, all unspoken. At best we can presume they aim to be fun.



Sounds correct, though there are important details you are missing.  The GM's job in sandbox play is twofold.
1.  He sets the stage that the characters act upon.
2.  He continually updates the stage by reacting to the players input into the setting via their characters actions.  This part is much more principled than it's being made out to be by you.  At the very least NPC beliefs and personalities are considered as a plausibility test for any potential actions.  The DM is responsible for picking one of the plausible reactions and adding it to the setting.  This updates the stage and the players are able to react to that change.
3.  The above describes a static sandbox.  In a living world sandbox, the above is true, but additional NPC factions make their actions that result in the stage being updated as well.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> The principles and objectives by which the fiction evolves are, again, all unspoken. At best we can presume they aim to be fun.



So what?



AbdulAlhazred said:


> This is the difference between narrative play and any other sort. All the other sorts, AFAIK, that we have discussed, don't include this kind of defined agenda and principles.



Sure.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> They all share the characteristic of a Game Master as the central determining factor in play. To put this in thread context, in a narrative play game the players are 'in the drivers seat' and the GM is fundamentally serving up what they need.



That same driver's seat description makes sense of a sandbox as well.  Players determine what is important to them and take actions via their characters in the fiction in order to obtain the things they want.  They are in the driver's seat and the DM is reacting to what they do.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Maybe the best analogy is the school cafeteria. Classic D&D is kinda like that, if its pizza day, well, you get pizza. You can skip lunch, maybe you can get a hot dog instead, but there's a menu that is on offer.



That's not how sandboxes work.  Players don't have a menu of adventures.  They have a world that they interact with.  If you are wanting to call the world the menu and all the things in the world the menu items, there's nothing stopping you - but that's pretty shaky ground IMO.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I'm not crazy though?  There are some on this thread that I actually have a difference of opinion with on that?



I'm fairly certain so, but merely because I see two possible ways you can make that argument -- one is trivially true, and the other I disagree with.

If you mean something like being able to pick your flavor of ice cream for dessert, but strawberry is off the menu, then, sure, trivially true.

If, instead, you mean that you cannot pick any dessert, but you're welcome to go dig ditches instead, then, no, there's disagreement.


----------



## FrogReaver

I will say this on sandboxes. I tend to hate sandboxy video games.  Those really feel to me like a small menu of items that they serve up on request where the choices feel pretty inconsequential.

a well run tabletop sandbox is nothing like this though.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> but this argument has come up again and again, and the point my side makes is of course it isn't an actual pond. But the purpose is for the GM to emulate causality as best he or she can



And the point I make in response is that it can't be true _both_ that the GM is making those decisions _and_ that the GM is not the agent responsible for those decisions and what they mean for the fiction. And if the GM is the responsible agent, it basically follows that the player is not.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> This doesn't describe sandbox play at all.
> 
> In sandbox play, the GM frames the world, places in the world, factions and NPC's in it.  In sandbox play the players set their agenda.  They have complete autonomy to do what they want and to interact with what they want as long as it's done via their character.  Nothing they do is by way of DM permission either.  In sandbox play it's the player's unalienable right to be able to set their own agenda.



Of course it's done with GM permission.  The GM is presenting the fiction, according to how the GM thinks it should be, and most of it is secret until you make a move to find out.  If done "fairly", which is I believe the term, then the secret fiction is held as immutable even when it hasn't been introduced yet, so you can easily make action declarations that fail due to the GM's conception of this secret fiction.

Further, actions have to meet with the GM's approval of what's possible in a given situation.  For most physical actions, this isn't doesn't usually cause much conflict because those are usually stopped by details that are described in scene setting.  However, you can easily see this phenomenon in social interactions with NPCs that have predetermined responses to certain stimuli.  We both participated in the Valaki thread about the Burgomaster, so this shouldn't be something you don't have an example of.


FrogReaver said:


> Agreed
> 
> Sounds correct, though there are important details you are missing.  The GM's job in sandbox play is twofold.
> 1.  He sets the stage that the characters act upon.
> 2.  He continually updates the stage by reacting to the players input into the setting via their characters actions.  This part is much more principled than it's being made out to be by you.  At the very least NPC beliefs and personalities are considered as a plausibility test for any potential actions.  The DM is responsible for picking one of the plausible reactions and adding it to the setting.  This updates the stage and the players are able to react to that change.
> 3.  The above describes a static sandbox.  In a living world sandbox, the above is true, but additional NPC factions make their actions that result in the stage being updated as well.



Your 2) is an assumption -- there's no requirement to be especially principled.  Further, there's no set of requirement that this comes from to define a sandbox.  Much like your 3) implies very different sandboxes, largely where 2) doesn't particularly hold when character actions impinge on the GM's idea of what the NPC actions should conclude.


FrogReaver said:


> So what?



Unspoken objective are unclear objectives.


FrogReaver said:


> Sure.
> 
> 
> That same driver's seat description makes sense of a sandbox as well.  Players determine what is important to them and take actions via their characters in the fiction in order to obtain the things they want.  They are in the driver's seat and the DM is reacting to what they do.



It really doesn't -- this is an assumption based on lack of experience.  I've played in a highly detailed and well run sandbox campaign -- it was an amazing amount of fun and the GM did a fantastic job.  We played in that world for 3 years, multiple sessions a week, many hours a session.  It was really what I cut my gaming teeth on.  And, it's nothing at all like what happens in a Story Now game as far as agency goes.

AND THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE THING!

The games aim to do different things.  I think this is a key issue in these discussion -- there's an assumption that any given game is attempting to do the same thing.  They are not.  Just like Minecraft and Doom don't try to do the same thing.  This is why differences like relative player agency isn't a value statement -- it needs to be set into context.  Sandbox gaming is great, it's loads of fun, and, run well, it's near the top of "mainstream" play experiences, in my opinion.  However, it has less agency that pretty much any game based on Story Now approaches.  So what?  They're different games, so being different is fine.


FrogReaver said:


> That's not how sandboxes work.  Players don't have a menu of adventures.  They have a world that they interact with.  If you are wanting to call the world the menu and all the things in the world the menu items, there's nothing stopping you - but that's pretty shaky ground IMO.



A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures.  A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons.  This is exactly a menu of adventures.  There's no one true sandbox.  Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> I will say this on sandboxes. I tend to hate sandboxy video games.  Those really feel to me like a small menu of items that they serve up on request where the choices feel pretty inconsequential.
> 
> a well run tabletop sandbox is nothing like this though.



It is, though, just more granular.

Try the Long Dark.  Every choice in that game is consequential.  It's a masterpiece of design.  Survival modes are total sandboxes, and play is enjoyable because of the weight of every choice.  Do I wear my good gloves out hunting today, and risk being attacked by wolves and having them torn when I can't repair them, or do I wear my cheap ones, and risk frostbite if I stay out too long?  Do I carry one of my precious few marine flares to ward off the wolves?  Do I try to fight a wolf by spending ammo, or using my hatchet (very dangerous)?  Can I stretch my rations, because I really need the carry weight to bring back more firewood, but it's a long way to fresh wood?  Do I risk getting wet by falling through thin ice because this shortcut will take 15 minutes off my journey, and that's precious time out of the cold?

Yeah, Long Dark is a marvel of a game of so many small but massively consequential choices, and there's no point where you get enough stuff that the game gets easy -- the cold is brutal.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> We are looking for smooth, streamlined, easy to deploy mechanics that reflect what is happening in the game and don't interfere with it.



Do you have any experience of RPGs or RPGing which was looking for something different in its mechanics?



Campbell said:


> For me personally it makes it much easier to have a conversation in these terms (doing your best to reflect casualty) then speaking in terms as if this stuff had an independent animus. As someone who puts a lot of work in to make this stuff go in sandboxes games I actually think acknowledging that effort and talking about the techniques that enable it make it easier to achieve reliably. You do a lot to make the setting feel like a real place. I would certainly want to take credit for that blood, sweat, and tears.



How do you think this differs from Vincent Baker _thinking offscreen _about whether Plover has enough time to get a crew together to attack Marie at her house? Not a rhetorical question - I'm curious.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> If we're going to read play excerpts, we should probably be reading with a purpose, something beyond simple compare and contrast. @pemerton , is there a particular mechanic or decision loop you wanted people to look at, or issues of agency in any particular light?
> 
> The post in question is here



@AbdulAlhazred referred to _building a kind of 'decision tree framework' that would elucidate some of the different process choices, preferences, desired outcomes, and thus techniques and elements_.

I posted two examples of play that illustrate some of those different processes, choices and techniques. And commented on some of those differences - eg the role of thinking offscreen; the role of player vs GM agency in framing.

In that post and in a more recent reply to @Campbell, I've also invited a comparison to the techniques used in a sandbox to establish a feel of a real world. (The techniques I use in Prince Valiant are (i) maps of Europe, (ii) appropriate names eg Dacia, (iii) descriptions of people and places that evoke the imagined time and place.)


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Of course it's done with GM permission.



Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character.  It's just not true of the playstyle.



Ovinomancer said:


> Further, actions have to meet with the GM's approval of what's possible in a given situation.



And here you are conflating the action with the successfulness of that action. 



Ovinomancer said:


> For most physical actions, this isn't doesn't usually cause much conflict because those are usually stopped by details that are described in scene setting.  However, you can easily see this phenomenon in social interactions with NPCs that have predetermined responses to certain stimuli.  We both participated in the Valaki thread about the Burgomaster, so this shouldn't be something you don't have an example of.
> 
> Your 2) is an assumption -- there's no requirement to be especially principled.  Further, there's no set of requirement that this comes from to define a sandbox.  Much like your 3) implies very different sandboxes, largely where 2) doesn't particularly hold when character actions impinge on the GM's idea of what the NPC actions should conclude.



The player had the option of insulting the Burgomaster.  Thus the player didn't require DM permission to do that action.

What we debated in that thread wasn't whether the player had the ability to choose that action, but whether the DM was "right" to have the Burgomaster react the way he did.  I think the closest to consensus that was reached was that the burgomaster as presented in the book was a very unfun obstacle and that the DM in question had picked the most plausible and most unfun reaction, while there were other plausible reactions that would have been more fun.



Ovinomancer said:


> It really doesn't -- this is an assumption based on lack of experience.  I've played in a highly detailed and well run sandbox campaign -- it was an amazing amount of fun and the GM did a fantastic job.  We played in that world for 3 years, multiple sessions a week, many hours a session.  It was really what I cut my gaming teeth on.  And, it's nothing at all like what happens in a Story Now game as far as agency goes.
> 
> AND THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE THING!



But I'm not claiming and no one is claiming that sandboxes are the same as story now games.  All I said was that much of the same language being used to describe story now games can also apply to sandboxes. 

Like the concept of driving.  I detailed how players drive sandbox games.  It's not the same kind of driving present in story now games.  Which is really my point.  Driving is not a good word to differentiate story now and sandbox games because players drive both, just in different ways.



Ovinomancer said:


> The games aim to do different things.  I think this is a key issue in these discussion -- there's an assumption that any given game is attempting to do the same thing.



There really isn't. 



Ovinomancer said:


> This is why differences like relative player agency isn't a value statement -- it needs to be set into context.  Sandbox gaming is great, it's loads of fun, and, run well, it's near the top of "mainstream" play experiences, in my opinion.  However, it has less agency that pretty much any game based on Story Now approaches.  So what?  They're different games, so being different is fine.



Here's the deal.  In the context of our discussion right now, I don't care if it's a value judgement or not. 

1.  I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
2.  I don't think you can Prove that Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
3.  Story Now definitely doesn't have more agency according to my definition of agency.

To put this in perspective, you haven't actually defined how you measure more or less agency.  As far as I can tell there's just some vague notion that if you can show players have the ability to do something in a story now game that they don't have the ability to do in a sandbox game that this means story now has more agency.



Ovinomancer said:


> A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures.  A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons.  This is exactly a menu of adventures.  There's no one true sandbox.  Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."



That's fair.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character.  It's just not true of the playstyle.



We've spent the last _N_ pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).



FrogReaver said:


> I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.



In my BW game my PC was able to meet his brother. This didn't depend up on the GM having authored appropriate secret fiction about that particular NPC.

I really don't care whether you want to call that _agency_ or not. (Obviously I think that's a natural description of it.) But that's a real thing that happened and is a real difference from sandbox play as you describe it. I don't understand why you're denying this.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character.  It's just not true of the playstyle.
> 
> 
> And here you are conflating the action with the successfulness of that action.
> 
> 
> The player had the option of insulting the Burgomaster.  Thus the player didn't require DM permission to do that action.
> 
> What we debated in that thread wasn't whether the player had the ability to choose that action, but whether the DM was "right" to have the Burgomaster react the way he did.  I think the closest to consensus that was reached was that the burgomaster as presented in the book was a very unfun obstacle and that the DM in question had picked the most plausible and most unfun reaction, while there were other plausible reactions that would have been more fun.
> 
> 
> But I'm not claiming and no one is claiming that sandboxes are the same as story now games.  All I said was that much of the same language being used to describe story now games can also apply to sandboxes.
> 
> Like the concept of driving.  I detailed how players drive sandbox games.  It's not the same kind of driving present in story now games.  Which is really my point.  Driving is not a good word to differentiate story now and sandbox games because players drive both, just in different ways.
> 
> 
> There really isn't.
> 
> 
> Here's the deal.  In the context of our discussion right now, I don't care if it's a value judgement or not.
> 
> 1.  I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
> 2.  I don't think you can Prove that Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
> 3.  Story Now definitely doesn't have more agency according to my definition of agency.
> 
> To put this in perspective, you haven't actually defined how you measure more or less agency.  As far as I can tell there's just some vague notion that if you can show players have the ability to do something in a story now game that they don't have the ability to do in a sandbox game that this means story now has more agency.
> 
> 
> That's fair.



Oh, okay, you're back to "agency is the ability to try."  We're going to have to strongly disagree that this is a useful definition.  Or that saying that "you can try whatever" is a mark of any distinction for a playstyle.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> We've spent the last _N_ pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).



No, you've missed the rhetorical flourish, here.  It's specifically that the play can announce actions to try and find his brother -- that the GM can unilaterally decide the outcome of these actions is beside his point, he's just saying that they can try.

Again, why this is thought to be a mark of distinction is beyond me.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> We've spent the last _N_ pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).



In the sandbox the player was explicitly able to choose that he was looking for his brother.  That didn't require DM approval.  What you are presenting isn't a counterexample that players require DM permission do something in a sandbox.  It's an example that players don't get to choose the outcomes of the things they do in a sandbox. 



pemerton said:


> In my BW game my PC was able to meet his brother. This didn't depend up on the GM having authored appropriate secret fiction about that particular NPC.
> 
> 
> I really don't care whether you want to call that _agency_ or not. (Obviously I think that's a natural description of it.) But that's a real thing that happened and is a real difference from sandbox play as you describe it. I don't understand why you're denying this.



I'm not denying that there is not a real difference there.  There is.  Whatever gave you the impression I was denying that?  Heck, no one has denied that.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, okay, you're back to "agency is the ability to try."  We're going to have to strongly disagree that this is a useful definition.  Or that saying that "you can try whatever" is a mark of any distinction for a playstyle.



The lines of my post you copied were not related to agency but to DM permission.  Why are you acting like they were about agency here?


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> No, you've missed the rhetorical flourish, here.  It's specifically that the play can announce actions to try and find his brother -- that the GM can unilaterally decide the outcome of these actions is beside his point, he's just saying that they can try.
> 
> Again, why this is thought to be a mark of distinction is beyond me.



If you simply mean that the player in a sandbox has no input into the outcome of his action then we are in agreement.  But if that's all you mean, why not just say it that way?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> The lines of my post you copied were not related to agency but to DM permission.  Why are you acting like they were about agency here?



Because these things are directly related.


FrogReaver said:


> If you simply mean that the player in a sandbox has no input into the outcome of his action then we are in agreement.  But if that's all you mean, why not just say it that way?



Mostly because it confuses the heck out of me that you're making this argument, so I keep assuming you're making a different one.  I should not do this, and accept that you're actually making the argument that the inability to have any say in how a thing is resolved but you can try anyway is somehow as much agency as being able to both try and have a say.  My mind boggles, but you keep insisting.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> No, you've missed the rhetorical flourish, here.  It's specifically that the play can announce actions to try and find his brother -- that the GM can unilaterally decide the outcome of these actions is beside his point, he's just saying that they can try.
> 
> Again, why this is thought to be a mark of distinction is beyond me.





FrogReaver said:


> In the sandbox the player was explicitly able to choose that he was looking for his brother.  That didn't require DM approval.  What you are presenting isn't a counterexample that players require DM permission do something in a sandbox.  It's an example that players don't get to choose the outcomes of the things they do in a sandbox.



I don't understand. I didn't get to choose any outcome in my BW play. Nor did the GM. _Just as in D&D combat_, the outcome was resolved via a standard, dice-based action resolution process.

I don't understand why you keep denying this. _In the BW game it was possible for me (as my PC) to find my brother, without the GM having to write that possibility into the fiction in advance_. In your sandbox that is not possible. That is a real, concrete difference in _what the player can have his/her PC do_.
.


FrogReaver said:


> I'm not denying that there is not a real difference there.  There is.  Whatever gave you the impression I was denying that?  Heck, no one has denied that.



The difference is that in one approach the possibility of success is gated behind a prior, unilateral, secret decision made by the GM about the fiction. And in the other it is not.

Again, I don't understand why you deny this.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> If you simply mean that the player in a sandbox has no input into the outcome of his action then we are in agreement.



I very much doubt that this is true of how you resolve _attacks upon Orcs, attempts to avoid blasting fire_, _attempts to find secret doors that the GM has already noted on his/her map-and-key_, and all the other traditional types of action that D&D play revolves around.



FrogReaver said:


> you are conflating the action with the successfulness of that action.



There is no such conflation. What is being contrasted is whether success is _possible_ independent of a prior unilateral decision by the GM about the content of secretly-authored fiction.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I very much doubt that this is true of how you resolve _attacks upon Orcs, attempts to avoid blasting fire_, _attempts to find secret doors that the GM has already noted on his/her map-and-key_, and all the other traditional types of action that D&D play revolves around.



When a player attacks an orc he has no input the outcome of that action.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> There is no such conflation. What is being contrasted is whether success is _possible_ independent of a prior unilateral decision by the GM about the content of secretly-authored fiction.



And now you are trying to change subjects.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Definitions and philosophy aside let's talk specifics.  In your mind what I or any other participant are able to do that my take doesn't offer? What agency they have?
> 
> For example under my approach,
> 
> Player A: "Hey wouldn't be cool to have a campaign where everybody is part of a temple?"
> Me: "Yeah that sound cool. Everybody good with that"
> Group: "Yeah that sound fun."
> Me (to Player A): "Do you have any ideas on what kind of religion the temple is part of?"
> Player A (and Group): Have a discussion about which religion I have in my setting would be fun to roleplay. Settles on the Goddess of Justice.
> Me (to Group): "OK here the material I have currently on Delaquain. It a bit thin in these area especially on temple life. If you have any ideas this a good time pitch them."
> Player A and C: "We have some idea, we will work on it over the week and get with the group to see if it works out."
> Me and the Group: "Sounds good"
> 
> Following that we hash out those details and then the players generates characters and their background. I answer any questions they may have. I in turn will generate the specifics of life around the temple incorporating the details the player come up with along with my own ideas. Then after the backgrounds are done, I incorporate those details.
> 
> Then the next session we start playing and I describe the initial circumstance and we go from there using the process I described in earlier
> posts on this thread. Incorporating feedback from the players and the group along the way.
> 
> The "product" of doing things this way is some background on the setting, background on main locale the temple, background on the religion, and each of the character background which will have elements involving temple and religion and elements that involve the larger setting.
> 
> Contrast this with an example of the other approaches you talk about. If it helps it doesn't have to involve character centered around a temple.



Well, essentially there might be a similar discussion. Dungeon World is the ready example, technically everything can be done during 'session 0', but more likely this discussion has already happened, some people want to start a game, an agreement is reached as to the basic parameters. Now, where the temple discussion would probably differ slightly is only in that, generally speaking, DW assumes a 'zero myth' kind of arrangement. So the GM might start asking questions, or be asked questions and turn them back on the players. 
Player: "What kind of god is this a temple of?"
GM: "I don't know, what do you think?"
Player2: "Maybe the god of justice." 
GM: "And what is the name of this god?"
Player: "Oh, lets name him Atur!"
...
This can go on for a while, but we don't want to flesh out too much all at once. Just enough so the players can describe a bit of backstory, a few bonds, describe their characters in setting terms, and then the GM will be able to frame the first scene (which is suggested, but not mandatorily, in the midst of some action). 

Players will obviously, maybe somewhat before session 0, maybe during it, generate their characters and figure out what roles they play in the temple. The players will need to pick classes that fit into the theme, or at least explain how their choice relates to the theme, and in the process this will greatly help to define the direction that the game will go in (IE maybe one player makes The Barbarian, not an obvious temple dweller, but he asserts he came to seek justice for his father. Very well, we have one plot hook!). 

Perhaps the GM now frames a scene in which the PCs struck out into the North Woods to find the bandits who supposedly killed the barbarian's father. They have found more than they bargained for! The game can be left on this cliff hanger.

Now the GM has to develop a 'front', which is some sort of ongoing danger/situation/circumstance which can threaten the PCs interests (the obvious one being the temple itself). This is an adventure front, it should be threatening, but something that can be concluded fairly soon. Perhaps in a couple of sessions it will be history. Maybe it is a bandit group lairing in the North Woods, that would be logical! The PCs manage to escape from them, now they may threaten the temple. That will start to engage us in the question of exactly what sort of place is this temple, is it located in a steading (civilized resting place)? That may have already been decided earlier, but if not then it will clearly loom as a question, since the town wall would obviously be a source of protection, if there is one. 

The GM will also develop some degree of 'map with holes in it' that presumably indicates where the woods are, the temple, the steading (there should be one), maybe where the barbarians live, and it may have a couple other interesting locations. The GM might also start to work up another adventure front, and begin to outline the Campaign Front, based on more questions, feedback, and fiction established in the course of play in session 2. These don't need to be fleshed out entirely yet, perhaps they get names, maybe an omen and a danger? 

DW is a 10 level game, experience is gained for a few things, mostly resolving bonds. It should run somewhere between 20 and 30 sessions, typically. It isn't generally meant to be a perpetual sort of campaign, but I guess that might happen. So you can make endpoints pretty concrete, the campaign front could be a demon or something like that, you kill it, you 'win', basically.


estar said:


> If I wasn't clear I get that. The issue I have is that traditional roleplaying have less agency when it comes to actual play. That the point I am disputing. To be clear, my contention both have it, it achieved in different ways. That the way the games you mentioned handle work better for a sizeable segment of our hobby. Enough that it now it own niche. That both are subject to the vagaries of small group dynamics. To points like "fairness", "impartiality", "sportsmanship", etc are equal important to both. Finally that system can't fix this.
> 
> But to resolve this debate we are at the point where we need to talk specifics. What people do in actual situations. Then we look at their behavior and see how it work with my thesis or yours.



Right. I think, theoretically, that 'agency' is kind of a slippery concept, and the real key is not so much "who gets more choices", but what do the different play processes produce. What is different about one sausage vs the other.


estar said:


> I disagree that my approach is the baseline. I get a lot of pushback on many of my points on sandbox play from traditional roleplayers. The baseline is the use of the tournament style adventure. It gotten better but the general expectation still appears to be that it is polite to stick to the adventure that the referee has chosen. Time and time again, I have to tell players do what your character would do, don't worry about what I have prepared. Sounds like I am not the only one that needs to get up to speed.
> 
> 
> Is real life is limiting because we are bounded by the laws of physics? Yet people seemly achieve many things despite that.



I agree with you that 'AP' or at least 'module' play is pretty much the universal form of game nowadays. Only a very hard core group will play a long-running sandbox, and only a fraction of players really get enough of an interest to dig into things like narrative form game mechanics. I think Morris once stated in a thread I was in that only 2% of the people who read the news on EnWorld ever post. Most RPG players are pretty casual.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right. I think, theoretically, that 'agency' is kind of a slippery concept, and the real key is not so much "who gets more choices", but what do the different play processes produce. What is different about one sausage vs the other.



This 100%.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> When a player attacks an orc he has no input the outcome of that action.



That makes no sense at all: by choosing to attack the Orc, the player brings it about that the Orc might die from that attack. By choosing a weapon (or other attack mode) in games that care about such things, the player helps determine how likely the Orc's death is.

In 5e and some other versions of D&D, the player might choose for the attack to carry a special rider (eg by triggering a class ability, using a spell, activating a magical item, etc). Other systems (eg Rolemaster, HERO, I suspect GURPS, I believe modern versions of RQ) allow similar sorts of options.

More broadly, the whole point of "tactical agency" in relation to combat is to enable players to exercise influence over the outcome of the actions they declare. A well-known example in D&D play is the targeting of AOE spells.



FrogReaver said:


> And now you are trying to change subjects.



From what to what? You were talking about whether or not a player can have his/her PC do something. I am pointing out that in BW my PC has a chance of doing something that is independent of GM authoring of prior fiction. That's not a change of subject - that _is _the subject.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I watched your play for a bit, and there's a strong aspect of the players asking the GM questions to determine what the GM thinks the situation is.



I also watched a couple of bits of @estar's video. The start seemed to have a lot of GM-led framing. And then the bit with the shooting of the person who was threatening (? I think, if I followed - it's around the 44 minute mark) the two women, seemed to be a GM-framed scene with GM-determined responses by the NPCs and no real player contribution that I could see beyond rolling for the fight as the GM appeared to expect.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures.  A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons.  This is exactly a menu of adventures.  There's no one true sandbox.  Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."




The point is, Sandboxes are not just a menu of adventures to select from. And the reason is the living world/world in motion component. The players actions, particularly with NPCs and factions, but with other elements of the setting, generate adventure content that the GM never considered, thought of, or would have come up with. This is very important. And it is something that doesn't happen in a lot of games. The players are constrained by being locked inside their character. They don't have power over the setting. But like a person in real life, they are free to go about and do what they want within those constraints (and those are constraints but I think constraints that are meant to approximate real world ones, a pretty reasonable boundaries for agency)


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> The point is, Sandboxes are not just a menu of adventures to select from. And the reason is the living world/world in motion component. The players actions, particularly with NPCs and factions, but with other elements of the setting, generate adventure content that the GM never considered, thought of, or would have come up with. This is very important. And it is something that doesn't happen in a lot of games. The players are constrained by being locked inside their character. They don't have power over the setting. But like a person in real life, they are free to go about and do what they want within those constraints (and those are constraints but I think constraints that are meant to approximate real world ones, a pretty reasonable boundaries for agency)



I would agree that this is true of the kind of sandbox you're talking about, and it is pretty glorious. Would you agree that there are other sandbox games though, ones where the player side input is possibly more restricted (by table convention and desires, not anything nefarious) to picking from the menu of proffered hooks and just following the breadcrumbs from there? I realize that we're likely to trip over competing definitions about 'proper' sandboxing, but perhaps we can set those aside for the nonce and agree that there are a bunch of types of games that get called 'sandbox' and that there are some differences there that we can also profitably explore.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Ovinomancer said:


> No, you've missed the rhetorical flourish, here.  It's specifically that the play can announce actions to try and find his brother -- that the GM can unilaterally decide the outcome of these actions is beside his point, he's just saying that they can try.
> 
> Again, why this is thought to be a mark of distinction is beyond me.




I would say this isn't a reasonable characterization of what would happen in our campaigns. The player is trying to look for his brother. The brother being alive or dead isn't an outcome of that attempt (that is a whole separate decision that the GM makes independent of the search). And the search is going to involve a series of steps, many of which may involve a variety of rolls, or involved interaction with setting elements (depends on the game, the style etc). It is very hard to say how much the GM will simply be deciding here. In terms of setting content, yes the GM will be deciding what is going on in the setting (where the brother is, his condition, who knows about him, where he has been, etc). But being able to create facts about the setting, to me that is just not agency. That is something else entirely. 

I want to make an important point here, sandboxes do not preclude the use of things like social skills and investigations skills. That is a separate playstyle discussion (one we've had here many times). Different games, different Gms all tackle the 'player skill' thing differntly and 'interacting with the world' differently'. I reached a compromise in my system, where, though I prefer more of a vacuum around social and investigative skills, because I understand how popular they are and how expected they are, I have a full suit of mental skills and plenty of skills that can be applied toward investigation (I do try to conduct the rolls to maximize interaction with the setting, but those skills are still there).


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> It's definitely roleplaying.
> 
> What makes a game a game in my estimation is that games have objectives and conflict or obstacles to overcome. Games can be played more or less skillfully. Like I can say based on your play you played Apocalypse World well. I can also say you made a poor showing of it when you played D&D. Same for Burning Wheel. Same for Poker. Same for chess.
> 
> I should clarify that I am talking about the player here and getting treasure or making moves in Apocalypse World is just as valid as a character's long term plans here. Ideally the more character and player are in simpatico the better, but it's not like required.



To be frank, I think your definition of 'game' is unnecessarily limiting and doesn't correspond to how word is actually used. Like it or not, even LARP without any rules for resolving actions is 'a game.'

I play quite a bit of board games and a lot of tabletop wargames, but ultimately I want a pretty radically differnt experience from an RPG.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> I would agree that this is true of the kind of sandbox you're talking about, and it is pretty glorious. Would you agree that there are other sandbox games though, ones where the player side input is possibly more restricted (by table convention and desires, not anything nefarious) to picking from the menu of proffered hooks and just following the breadcrumbs from there? I realize that we're likely to trip over competing definitions about 'proper' sandboxing, but perhaps we can set those aside for the nonce and agree that there are a bunch of types of games that get called 'sandbox' and that there are some differences there that we can also profitably explore.




Yes I would. And I think those kinds of sandboxes are fine, I wouldn't knock them, because sandboxes are hard to run and hard to prep. Some people have called those subway station campaigns (because it isn't a railroad, but it is more like a series of adventures and adventure paths you can select from). I think subway is pejorative though, and probably misses a lot of the nuance that crops up in them. I think a very important factor to consider in the kind of campaign I run, is the presence of factions and live NPCs. If it was just a bunch of potential adventure locations, then the options would indeed be a lot more limited, but the direction the campaign can take when you have players interacting with factions and NPCs, really opens up the world. 

I also think sandboxes are a structure people should experiment with. I think it is a great style to play in, but it is one with a reputation for being difficult to run, and having a higher possibility of being aimless on the player side. So there should be different kinds of sandbox. My Drama+Sandbox for example that I talk about in Ogre Gate, is not a pure sandbox. That concept would bother a lot of people in OSR circles. However I did try to do it in a way I felt would be tolerable to that crowd. One way I did this was by making fate a real force in the setting. 

Also, I don't just run sandboxes. I ran several very long wuxia sandboxes in a row, and realized I just wanted to go back to players hunting monsters and investigating mysteries for a little while, so did a monster of the week type game. Sandbox is great, but it isn't the only structure out there. I quite like investigations with a 'ticking time bomb' in them. I like situational character driven adventures, and I like monster hunts.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> ones where the player side input is possibly more restricted (by table convention and desires, not anything nefarious)




To be clear about my opinion here, there is nothing nefarious in my opinion about a table deciding they want to play a certain way. If people all want to participate in an adventure path, they should be able to do that without feeling bad about it. If people all agree 'this is tonights adventure', that is fine too. I think it can be exhausting and time consuming to prep sessions and not everyone is going to want to prep and play in a way, where prepped material doesn't get used. And most players understand that if they sidestep an adventure, that could mean they are sidestepping hours of work the GM did that week. If I were in a campaign where there was an adventure each session, that the GM had planned, I wouldn't be a jerk and avoid that adventure (because that is hours of work, and I would know going in the adventure wasn't designed for that). With sandboxes, it is different because the GM preps knowing not all the prep will come in to play, knowing things will take a life of their own at the table, and the players know it is okay to 'not go on the adventure', that they are there to explore and interact how they want to.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> Yes I would. And I think those kinds of sandboxes are fine, I wouldn't knock them, because sandboxes are hard to run and hard to prep. Some people have called those subway station campaigns (because it isn't a railroad, but it is more like a series of adventures and adventure paths you can select from). I think subway is pejorative though, and probably misses a lot of the nuance that crops up in them. I think a very important factor to consider in the kind of campaign I run, is the presence of factions and live NPCs. If it was just a bunch of potential adventure locations, then the options would indeed be a lot more limited, but the direction the campaign can take when you have players interacting with factions and NPCs, really opens up the world.
> 
> I also think sandboxes are a structure people should experiment with. I think it is a great style to play in, but it is one with a reputation for being difficult to run, and having a higher possibility of being aimless on the player side. So there should be different kinds of sandbox. My Drama+Sandbox for example that I talk about in Ogre Gate, is not a pure sandbox. That concept would bother a lot of people in OSR circles. However I did try to do it in a way I felt would be tolerable to that crowd. One way I did this was by making fate a real force in the setting.
> 
> Also, I don't just run sandboxes. I ran several very long wuxia sandboxes in a row, and realized I just wanted to go back to players hunting monsters and investigating mysteries for a little while, so did a monster of the week type game. Sandbox is great, but it isn't the only structure out there. I quite like investigations with a 'ticking time bomb' in them. I like situational character driven adventures, and I like monster hunts.



Yeah, I think it's a positive trend in the thread that a concerted effort is being made to not knock playstyles. I've played subway games and they can be a lot of fun. I think people in some corners of the hobby need to be less precious in trying to defend their personal preferences. I tend to look at the idea of 'sandbox' as a spectrum of things, not one thing, and that spectrum is a toolset I can use as a GM to help frame the what and how in any given campaign. My sandboxes tend to be organized on more of a Dungeon World model, with fronts and threats, but that's just one more place on the spectrum. In short, I would probably talk about how 'sandbox-y' a particular game is rather than whether or not it meets some arbitrary standards of what a sandbox 'should be'.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, I think it's a positive trend in the thread that a concerted effort is being made to not knock playstyles. I've played subway games and they can be a lot of fun. I think people in some corners of the hobby need to be less precious in trying to defend their personal preferences. I tend to look at the idea of 'sandbox' as a spectrum of things, not one thing, and that spectrum is a toolset I can use as a GM to help frame the what and how in any given campaign. My sandboxes tend to be organized on more of a Dungeon World model, with fronts and threats, but that's just one more place on the spectrum. In short, I would probably talk about how 'sandbox-y' a particular game is rather than whether or not it meets some arbitrary standards of what a sandbox 'should be'.




And I think that is all good. I was very pleased to see sandbox and old school stuff getting more love at Story-Games.com. I stopped seeing this as a zero sum game along time ago. It is also why I keep mentioning Hillfolk, because immersion has always been important to me, and I developed this idea that if I broke the line between my character and the world, my immersion would break as well, but I found HIllfolk incredibly immersive (and that is the kind of game where you can narrative stuff into being, and everything is structured around scenes where each character wants something). Also, just thinking back, I loved games like TORG with the dramadeck, and Hong Kong Action Theatre! was probably the biggest martial arts RPG influence on me of any game (and in that one, you basically play an actor getting roles in martial arts movies ---the movies are the adventures, but they are understood to be films). So I have been a big point of opening my mind about this stuff and just focusing on what works at the table. So while I am happy to defend sandbox and OSR style games, those aren't the only kinds of games I want to play. And the bottom line, even in a given style is what's fun and what keeps the game alive. If I have a list of criteria for a good sandbox, and all those criteria are checked off, but people are bored or not engaged, I got to do something different. If you are trying to maintain a years long campaign, you can't just rigidly adhere to an ideology. You have to be flexible and willing to see if some principle you are operating by doesn't always work once in a while (which might mean throwing in an unusual mechanic or adventure structure once in a while---if only to mix things up).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> My sandboxes tend to be organized on more of a Dungeon World model, with fronts and threats, but that's just one more place on the spectrum. In short, I would probably talk about how 'sandbox-y' a particular game is rather than whether or not it meets some arbitrary standards of what a sandbox 'should be'.




And this is good in my opinion. And I would agree it is a spectrum. I was mainly talking in terms of what people think of as the iconic sandbox, and the iconic OSR campaign. But my style is probably best described as OSR adjacent, because I don't typically use D&D based rules systems. The element that is most important to me in a sandbox, is the living adventure aspect. And my understanding of that comes from Ravenloft (and particularly Feast of Goblyns) so my views are already a bit unorthodox here. I definitely wouldn't hold up my campaigns as reflecting the standard OSR sandbox. But I do draw a great deal from that sector of the hobby


----------



## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> To be frank, I think your definition of 'game' is unnecessarily limiting and doesn't correspond to how word is actually used. Like it or not, even LARP without any rules for resolving actions is 'a game.'
> 
> I play quite a bit of board games and a lot of tabletop wargames, but ultimately I want a pretty radically differnt experience from an RPG.



Yep. I’ve seen games as games talked about. But then I think about games like Minecraft and I cannot reconcile those kinds of positions to that game.


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> And this is good in my opinion. And I would agree it is a spectrum. I was mainly talking in terms of what people think of as the iconic sandbox, and the iconic OSR campaign. But my style is probably best described as OSR adjacent, because I don't typically use D&D based rules systems. The element that is most important to me in a sandbox, is the living adventure aspect. And my understanding of that comes from Ravenloft (and particularly Feast of Goblyns) so my views are already a bit unorthodox here. I definitely wouldn't hold up my campaigns as reflecting the standard OSR sandbox. But I do draw a great deal from that sector of the hobby



Seems like we're on the same page. What I'm looking for in a discussion of agency is to look at that spectrum, set next to other play styles, and all of them run using a variety of systems, and see where all those combinations fall on the agency spectrum and to discuss why certain trade offs, say of agency vs constraint, are important to various genres and also to different types of player, or table expectations.


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> The point is, Sandboxes are not just a menu of adventures to select from. And the reason is the living world/world in motion component. The players actions, particularly with NPCs and factions, but with other elements of the setting, generate adventure content that the GM never considered, thought of, or would have come up with. This is very important. And it is something that doesn't happen in a lot of games. The players are constrained by being locked inside their character. They don't have power over the setting. But like a person in real life, they are free to go about and do what they want within those constraints (and those are constraints but I think constraints that are meant to approximate real world ones, a pretty reasonable boundaries for agency)




I think it is entirely reasonable to have a preference for games where players have no more agency than they have in real life over how things go. I do not think it is reasonable to constrain discussion only to that band of agency and treat agency that extends beyond your personal tolerance as not actually being agency. It makes damn near impossible to have a broader discussion.

I also do not think you are being consistent if you speak in terms of real world constraints, but also consider mechanisms that speak to your character's feelings or internal state as limiting your agency because from where I am standing that is also a constraint on our personal agency that we must all deal with in real life.

Basically it feels like you only want to consider the agency you personally value as agency. This makes it almost impossible to have a discussion that crosses the boundaries of play preferences. 

I would say that people with other play preferences do also make somewhat similar mistakes in their framing where they fail to see the constraints of those play priorities as meaningful constraints. Like in most Story Now play a player is free to decide what their character wants, but there is a shared expectation that they will push hard for that once established. We all have expectations for their play. This means players are not free to explore for the sake of exploring. There's nothing to explore besides character. Setting is built in a lazy fashion. We  often do not see this as a constraint because it's what we want.


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## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Seems like we're on the same page. What I'm looking for in a discussion of agency is to look at that spectrum, set next to other play styles, and all of them run using a variety of systems, and see where all those combinations fall on the agency spectrum and to discuss why certain trade offs, say of agency vs constraint, are important to various genres and also to different types of player, or table expectations.




I think in that case, for the kind of sandbox Rob and I were talking about, the key constraint is you are limited by what your character can do in the setting. Other than that, you want maximal freedom. So if the player announces out of the blue, I walk over and kick the county magistrates son, that is where things are going to go (even if it seemed like they were on their way to help the magistrate deal with a local threat). So I think this is a style that embraces interruptions of flow and takes pleasure in the players surprising you. Personally that is what I like about it because it makes my job easier. This kind of sandbox is very hard to run, if the players are not taking initiative (to solve that problem, Estar often talks about applying training wheels if the players are having a hard time finding a direction). But when they do take initiative you are able to sit back and react to it, which I find enjoyable. It is sort of like, well I didn't think we were going to have a session about the players becoming local bullies trying to take over a little frontier town, but I guess that is what is going to happen (and it forces you to think on your feet in interesting ways----i.e. does that mean I should put together a party of heroes who hears about this and comes to take them on? Things like that).


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I also do not think you are being consistent if you speak in terms of real world constraints, but also consider mechanisms that speak to your character's feelings or internal state as limiting your agency because from where I am standing that is also a constraint on our personal agency that we must all deal with in real life.




It is possible I weighed in on this. But I generally don't take a very hard line on this particular issue. For example I am a big fan of fear and insanity mechanics. One thing I don't like to disrupt in my games is a player's ability to RP and interact with NPCs or other players, so I try not to have mechanics mediate that. But I don't think that is a matter of agency. That is a matter of my own personal preference (I just like having direct interaction with setting and characters because I find it immersive and I find it creates a vibe in the room that I like).


----------



## Campbell

FrogReaver said:


> Yep. I’ve seen games as games talked about. But then I think about games like Minecraft and I cannot reconcile those kinds of positions to that game.




I do not think you can really talk about what we do when we sit down to play with Minecraft or Sim City as a game. Pretty much the entire body of thought around games and game design has no bearing on it. Something like Heavy Rain is similar for different reasons.

Last night we did some structured freeform based in the Abberant setting. Our play was very focused around the narrative we were building together and there was a lot of collaboration on setting elements. No rules were involved. There was no real objective to play other than exploring who our characters were. I do not think I would call it a game. We cannot approach designing the experience in the same way.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think it is entirely reasonable to have a preference for games where players have no more agency than they have in real life over how things go. I do not think it is reasonable to constrain discussion only to that band of agency and treat agency that extends beyond your personal tolerance as not actually being agency. It makes damn near impossible to have a broader discussion.




I get that, but that is what was also being done to me in this conversation. I was being told my definition, is not valid (and I found this stunning, and maybe overreacted at times, because it is literally one of the only definitions I've encountered in the hobby). That doesn't mean there are not other ways to talk about agency. But I do get cagey around linguistic rhetorical techniques (because I think they can get abused and they can promote specious argumentation). That said, I agree with Frogreaver that we should probably talk about different modes of agency, because at the end of the day, the only line separating us in this discussion is the one between what your character can do in the setting and what the player can do in the setting. That aside, both sides seem interested in maximizing the players sense of freedom in the game


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I would say that people with other play preferences do also make somewhat similar mistakes in their framing where they fail to see the constraints of those play priorities as meaningful constraints. Like in most Story Now play a player is free to decide what their character wants, but there is a shared expectation that they will push hard for that once established. We all have expectations for their play. This means players are not free to explore for the sake of exploring. There's nothing to explore besides character. Setting is built in a lazy fashion. We  often do not see this as a constraint because it's what we want.




I am not trying to say you don't have agency in your style of play. I think it is a different variety of agency. I agree with Frog Reavers earlier point that it is more like apples and oranges. And I think you are hitting on a key reason here. I don't think me, Estar or anyone on my side is saying our approach is the best or a cure all. And definitely for the preferences posters like Pemerton have laid out, I don't think our approach would give them a satisfying play experience.


----------



## Fenris-77

Agency is just a way to talk about and understand the games we all love, not some sort of ranking system about who's doing it better.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I do not think you can really talk about what we do when we sit down to play with Minecraft or Sim City as a game. Pretty much the entire body of thought around games and game design has no bearing on it. Something like Heavy Rain is similar for different reasons.
> 
> Last night we did some structured freeform based in the Abberant setting. Our play was very focused around the narrative we were building together and there was a lot of collaboration on setting elements. No rules were involved. There was no real objective to play other than exploring who our characters were. I do not think I would call it a game. We cannot approach designing the experience in the same way.




Defining game is pretty tough. I am not even weighing in on this one, but I once wrote a history paper on boxing, and I had to define sports at the beginning of it. I had to read like three books to get a working definition.


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I do not think you can really talk about what we do when we sit down to play with Minecraft or Sim City as a game. Pretty much the entire body of thought around games and game design has no bearing on it. Something like Heavy Rain is similar for different reasons.
> 
> Last night we did some structured freeform based in the Abberant setting. Our play was very focused around the narrative we were building together and there was a lot of collaboration on setting elements. No rules were involved. There was no real objective to play other than exploring who our characters were. I do not think I would call it a game. We cannot approach designing the experience in the same way.




A game is a game.  To the rest of the world when you say you approach a game as a game and that they do not approach it as a game, it comes across as you calling them crazy or delusional for not approaching something as it actually is.

Your term playing a game as a game isn't illuminating the conversation.  It's needlessly making it contentious.  Which is what @Bedrockgames was getting at earlier with creating terms when plain language could suffice. If you just said what you mean plainly, that Minecraft is a game without any preset objectives - where the players can set their own objectives and change their objectives anytime, you would have found unanamious agreement.


----------



## estar

Ovinomancer said:


> Um, I specifically talked to why I disagreed, which is not dismissal, it's engagement.  I'm sorry if you feel attacked, that's not at all my intent.  I'm being 100% honest when I say that you appear to run a fun game for your players that they seem to enjoy (seem only standing in for the fact that I don't know them or you, and can only judge from appearances).  And, to me, that's the only goal of a game -- did you have fun?



I didn't feel attacked but I did think you had a misconception I find annoying as I encountered it many times. If I upset in my response I apologize.



Ovinomancer said:


> And, that looks grand for the approach you're taking, but you're talking about letting players choose parts of the setting prior to play, or at specific points in play where such is allowed.  After this, though, it's your evaluation of this.  A game like Blades in the Dark is fundamentally a different beast.



Excellent


Ovinomancer said:


> To give a quick example, the main part of the over-arching play loop



Ok so if I read your post right we are talking about.


It about the Score a shorthand for a heist or something similar.
A target is selected
An approach is selected
Once an approach is taken, a detail is selected.
Question and discussion follows the object of which is to determine the number of dice in the Engagement which starts out the heist.
The Engagement roll is made determine how well the Score starts out.
And this is where it ends in your example. I am a bit disappointed that you are describing how Blade in the Dark is played in general. Not a specific instance of actual play like I did. But I can work with this as while it is not a specific situation is a ingle narrow situation, the heist. Heists are something that occurs in my campaign as well.



Ovinomancer said:


> This is a lot of agency for the players that's almost completely unmediated by the GM.  The playloop in the Score also has a lot going on for the PCs, and I've described this recently since you've been in the thread in response to @FrogReaver.  This is, I'm almost positive, nothing like your play approach.  There's a lack of specificity until needed for instance.



I have players do the following

The player decides to pull off a heist in pursuit of their goal. *I don't have a say in this.*

The player select a target using their knowledge of the setting. *I don't have a say in this.*

An approach is selected. Unlike Blades in the Dark the players in my campaign are not constrained by a menu of choices. Instead they use their knowledge of the setting craft a approach tailored to the situation. _*I don't have a say in this*_.

Each approach has to have a detail is where there is a major difference. In general players know many of the details prior to the decision to do the heist by virtue of their knowledge of the setting. Here the detail are created after the decision that the group is going to play Blades in the Dark and create the experience of a heist movie. Another difference that the details are discovered not created on the fly. Through a combination of experience and out of game discussion I have an idea of what the player are considering doing and prepare accordingly if I don't have the details already. 

Next the discussion of the dice (modifiers) to the Engagement. This also a major difference with my approach. In my campaign every step is played out in resolved in the same way as if the players were there in a virtual reality as their character. When playing OD&D over GURPS the steps may be handled in more detail or in a more abstract way but the steps are still played out. Also in Blades in the Dark there is no chance that the heist will be avoided. 

The goal of the mechanics is just to see where in the heist the remaining steps start off yet. The assumption is that the heist will commence. In contrast in my approach, discovery of the details or more commonly the evaluation of the detail may result in the group not interested in commencing the heist. Which is OK because the point of the campaign is not to execute a heist. A heist in my campaign is just a means to an end of achieving some player's goal. 

Which is another a major difference between my campaigns and Blades in the Dark. In my campaign the players can do anything that their character are capable of. They can find a dungeon and explore (Dungeon World), they can wander the ruins of a fallen empire of magic (Apocalypses World), they can plan out a heist (Blades in the Dark) within the same campaign and the same setting. 

My view while the approach works for people, the actual implementations are so narrow in scope that the players wind up with less agency than my "traditional" campaign. Once the group embarks with Blades in the Dark the expectation is that the group will play out a heist to it conclusion. In all the session I been involved with or witnessed anything else  (romance, exploration of the setting, etc) was incidental to getting on with the heist. The same with Dungeon World and other games with a similar approach.

Sure it great to get up an going with little prep and with everybody pitching, the price seems to be reduced scope, with agency reduced accordingly.

And to wrap this part of. I don't get to pick the details the player choose focus on either.

I think one disconnect we have, is you don't realize importance of how the setting described. I am not making up stuff all the time. It is actually uncommon. I am instead acting on information that been established beforehand. In the case of the Majestic Wilderlands often established decades ago by other players in pursuit of long ago goals.  But even with my newer setting like Blackmarsh part of my preparation is talking with the players and making sure the details they focus on are established. If they are something the players ought to know as their character I provide them.  It rare but I have been called out when something happened that the players found implausible. And I am able to produce notes written well before. And explain all the ways that the player could have learned about them but choose not to.



Ovinomancer said:


> System absolutely can address this, and fairness, impartiality, and sportsmanship are utterly unnecessary.




Next the definition of sportmanship is fair and generous behavior or treatment while following the rules of a sport or game. So the only way that system can address this if the group exhibits good sportmanship by following the rules of the system. Can't have one without the other.




Ovinomancer said:


> but we certainly don't want to watch him have a relaxing evening without terrorists.



Sounds like limiting agency to me. In my campaigns I had sessions that players enjoyed that amounted to a relaxing evening. I don't assume that the players want anything in particular other than to play the character they created. Since character are created with the setting of the campaign in mind they have built-in motivations to interact with the setting. Otherwise we would playing some other campaign in some other setting.


Ovinomancer said:


> Instead, we're a fan because we love watching how he deals with the adversity of being trapped in a tower with terrorists, and how he succeeds!  This is the kind of "being a fan" and "adversity" that I'm talking about, and it has nothing to do with "fairness" at all.



Except in my campaigns the players get the choice of leaving the tower. Or ensuring they are never trapped in a tower with terrorist in the first place.


Ovinomancer said:


> System most definitely matters.  Claiming otherwise shows a lack of experience outside of a narrow set of systems.



Since 1978, I have played D&D, AD&D, Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, Universe, Dragonquest, Champions, Fantasy Hero, Harnmaster, Runequest, AD&D 2e, Ars Magica, GURPS, GURPS with Whimsy Cards, Vampire the Masquerade, Mage the Ascension, D&D 3.0, D&D 3.5, Fantasy Age, Fudge (even wrote the beginning of my own Fudge RPG), Fate, The Fantasy Trip, D&D 4e, D&D 5e, my own D&D variant, Blades in the Dark, Dogs in the Vineyard, Dungeon World. Plus many many wargames and boardgames. Do you need a more formal curriculum vitae? 

My view after all that is that system is a detail, an aide to make a specific campaign happen.  Otherwise the group might as well be playing a wargame for all the agency they have. Because there isn't a system on the planet that can encompass all the things 

Incidentally I find it humorous that I am being characterized as a "traditional" referee as because while people appreciate my comments and post on sandbox campaign, I also considered far out in left field by traditional referees because of my views on the role the rules, the system, setting, and campaign. 




Ovinomancer said:


> Oh, my, I haven't ever met anyone that thinks that tournament modules are a baseline for anything other than tournament modules.
> Those are aimed at eliciting a very specific type of play -- asynchronous competitive play.  I don't know any tables that look for this as a baseline for home play at all.  I'm afraid that we've been exposed to violently different sets of players.



Yeah that not what a tournament style dungeon is. There is a subcategory of tournament dungeons (C2-Ghost Tower of Inverness). But a tournament style dungeon is broader category a way of formatting an adventure. The format being you have a keyed map and text organized by those keys. That is by far the overwhelming most common format of adventure available in the hobby and industry. And this is not guess, just survey the various adventure category on DriveThruRPG or RPGGeek

It is format that I found that doesn't work well for sandbox adventure that maximize players agency as their character. The travelogue style found in games like Ars Magica or the World of Darkness series works better but it is too wordy to use at the table. Plus despite being better many of these adventure are basically a railroad of some type and not really a sandbox. So I had to develop my own which I first formally published in Scourge in the Demon Wolf. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, it is, but there are no laws of physics in the game, only the GM's ideas about laws of physics.  Comparing real life to games is silly.



I disagree.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> I do not think you can really talk about what we do when we sit down to play with Minecraft or Sim City as a game. Pretty much the entire body of thought around games and game design has no bearing on it. Something like Heavy Rain is similar for different reasons.
> 
> Last night we did some structured freeform based in the Abberant setting. Our play was very focused around the narrative we were building together and there was a lot of collaboration on setting elements. No rules were involved. There was no real objective to play other than exploring who our characters were. I do not think I would call it a game. We cannot approach designing the experience in the same way.



Then your definition of 'game' and the framework you use to understand games are obviously seriously flawed.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> So you wouldn’t say a player that lacks the ability to kill a dragon, lacks agency over/to kill a dragon?



IMHO this has nothing to do with agency. The dragon is an obstacle to the player's accomplishment of some goal (either fictional PC goal, or perhaps 'table goal' like 'have a super rich character'). Obstacles are there to simply create choices. Without them there is no meaning to the game at all. This is why the Czege Principal exists too, because there are no obstacles if you have power to simply declare them non-existent or overcome. Without obstacles/Czege there is just free-form 'table talk', which might be RP but has no real character as 'game' to it. At that point things like drama and tension cease to really happen at the table, though they might show up in a transcript of the session (IE read like a novel). 

This is why I continue to argue that all the discussion of 'character level agency', BY ITSELF, is not very meaningful. It can become meaningful to a degree where obstacles exist and choices about how to overcome them and what costs to pay in doing so, are partly choices made by players. Now, some of that, as yourself, @estar, et al have stated, is perfectly feasible for a GM to put into player's hands within the fiction (IE do you go right or left? Where the players have some information that distinguishes the two 'wet and moldy smelling', vs 'dusty with fresh tracks'). The GM could also offer up 'hard choices', and such. 

OTOH I think there's a difference between the above and what narrative systems offer, and I do call it another aspect of agency. Now, maybe @estar reaches this level by pure dint of being extremely sensitive to what his players ask for, but the more fixed nature of the fiction would IMHO put some pretty hard limits on that. Having run these sorts of games for roughly the first 20 years of my GMing career that was what I found was one of the issues. This is why a game like DW offers 'more agency', because the entire shape of the game, how the world itself works, can be built up in such a way as to 'work for the players'. And this working isn't in the form of 'gimmy' power gaming, it is at the more interesting level of simply engaging what is found to be most interesting during play.


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## FrogReaver

Crimson Longinus said:


> Then your definition of 'game' and the framework you use to understand games are obviously seriously flawed.



IMO. Flawed is too harsh. I think what he describes as a game is true of the “typical” game even though it’s far to narrow to describe all games.


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## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I am not trying to say you don't have agency in your style of play. I think it is a different variety of agency. I agree with Frog Reavers earlier point that it is more like apples and oranges. And I think you are hitting on a key reason here. I don't think me, Estar or anyone on my side is saying our approach is the best or a cure all. And definitely for the preferences posters like Pemerton have laid out, I don't think our approach would give them a satisfying play experience.




I am someone who likes and appreciates a lot of different play priorities and even likes to approach design from the perspective of finding new arrangements of priorities. Looking back at the Forge I think the biggest mistake that was made was not being more clear that the 3 creative agendas were just some possible arrangements of play priorities. Instead we get the impression that there was only one possible arrangement of play priorities. I think this types of agency analysis that is tightly constrained to a specific set of play priorities make a similar mistake.

I think it is possible to talk about this stuff in a nuanced way that applies to different arrangements of play priorities It is difficult, but think broadly worth the effort.


----------



## Campbell

Crimson Longinus said:


> Then your definition of 'game' and the framework you use to understand games are obviously seriously flawed.




I think the distinction between play and play done with shared purpose in mind. There is a large body of research and practice dedicated to this sort of game design. A significant chunk of people value that sort of play. Academically they have talked about purposeful play as games. If we need some other form of terminology to discuss I am fine with that.

I am not trying to put any moral weight on my words. I am just trying to be precise here. The current body of work in game design does not have anything to say about that sort of unstructured play. How can I talk about this in a way that you will not object to?


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## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> I think the distinction between play and play done with shared purpose in mind. There is a large body of research and practice dedicated to this sort of game design. A significant chunk of people value that sort of play. Academically they have talked about purposeful play as games. If we need some other form of terminology to discuss I am fine with that.
> 
> I am not trying to put any moral weight on my words. I am just trying to be precise here. The current body of work in game design does not have anything to say about that sort of unstructured play. How can I talk about this in a way that you will not object to?



I find it hard to believe that the current body of work has nothing to say about play in Minecraft.


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## Fenris-77

I prefer to examine agency through the lens of game mechanics and feedback loops as the base level. This sidesteps the issue of getting to caught up in playstyle, which can apply to multiple rules sets. This kind of analysis also includes issues of 'control' outside of the mechanics of course, as agency in RPGs can be delineated both by what is rolled for and how that happens, but also what is not rolled for and where that control lies. Playstyle does indeed play in as well, as different style conventions apportion agency in a variety of ways either at the suggestion of the rules set or through spoken or unspoken arrangements at the table between players (of whom the GM is one). Those are the really the three key axis of interpretation in a model that treats all systems and playstyles as equally worthy of consideration.


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## Campbell

There is a wealth of research on unstructured play and some game design curriculum will offer a course or two on it, but the discipline defines itself through the prism of structured play. Most research around unstructured play is not in the game design, but in psychology (usually with a focus on early childhood).


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## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this is an interesting element. Again, I'll lean on Blades in the Dark as a way of talking about it.
> 
> In Blades, this progression of the characters as a group is formalized in several ways. First and most obviously, they pick a specific type of crew to be, and they have a crew sheet for their team that works very much like a character sheet. It has abilities they get to select as they gain crew XP and advance. The crew also has a Tier, and this is kind of a ranking within the setting. So a Tier 0 gang is one that most people won't have heard of, and other gangs and factions likely are indifferent toward. It also gives a sense of the quality of their gear and their lair and so on.
> 
> So, a crew can gain XP, and then gain new abilities or new lair features, or underlings that work for them. They can also move up in Tier. The process for this is to gain Rep (which they gain with each Score they pull off). When they gain enough Rep, they can spend it to move up a Tier. So their standing improves overall, they can start to afford better gear, their underlings are more capable.....all that kind of stuff. It also means that other Factions, likely higher ranking Factions with more power and influence, may start to take notice of the crew. There's a very formal player facing element to it all, it can be measured and tracked, and the players can work toward those goals clearly.
> 
> Do you think this would fit in your kind of game?



I would consider something like that to be in line with the sorts of 'subsystems' one might construct in 'classic' D&D. There's nothing quite this elaborate in the more mainstream material, but IIRC there were a few specialized products. I recall Birthright has a bunch of 'kingdom management' subsystems, and wasn't there something in 'Council of Wyrms' too? For that matter even the 1e DMG has some domain management rules and whatnot, though they are not very well developed.

So, the only real question would be, again, is the system in BitD too abstract? For some players it would probably work OK. For other groups they would be constantly running up against the problem of trying to do very concrete things and then the GM having to try to filter that through the abstract system and producing generalized benefits and such. They would probably complain about how this all hangs together. It would create a lot of work to elaborate each instance of "you got +1 to your X roll" in terms of "we bribed the judge with 78gp last week" or whatever.


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## Fenris-77

AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, the only real question would be, again, is the system in BitD too abstract? For some players it would probably work OK. For other groups they would be constantly running up against the problem of trying to do very concrete things and then the GM having to try to filter that through the abstract system and producing generalized benefits and such. They would probably complain about how this all hangs together. It would create a lot of work to elaborate each instance of "you got +1 to your X roll" in terms of "we bribed the judge with 78gp last week" or whatever.



This is almost impossible to talk about in the, heh, abstract. You can posit the situation, sure, but I suspect that most groups wouldn't have that problem. Lots of games have more or less abstract systems for all manner of things, and players that like those games seem to do just fine. Obviously not every game is for everyone of course, so I'm sure at least some people would have the problem you outline, but I don't think it's a matter of Blades being too abstract at all, but rather a matter of some players enjoying an different play experience.


----------



## Campbell

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would consider something like that to be in line with the sorts of 'subsystems' one might construct in 'classic' D&D. There's nothing quite this elaborate in the more mainstream material, but IIRC there were a few specialized products. I recall Birthright has a bunch of 'kingdom management' subsystems, and wasn't there something in 'Council of Wyrms' too? For that matter even the 1e DMG has some domain management rules and whatnot, though they are not very well developed.
> 
> So, the only real question would be, again, is the system in BitD too abstract? For some players it would probably work OK. For other groups they would be constantly running up against the problem of trying to do very concrete things and then the GM having to try to filter that through the abstract system and producing generalized benefits and such. They would probably complain about how this all hangs together. It would create a lot of work to elaborate each instance of "you got +1 to your X roll" in terms of "we bribed the judge with 78gp last week" or whatever.




So mostly I think Blades just leans on different abstractions then D&D does. Obviously a fair number of people will internalize the abstractions they are used to.


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## Fenris-77

Campbell said:


> So mostly I think Blades just leans on different abstractions then D&D does. Obviously a fair number of people will internalize the abstractions they are used to.



That sounds right yeah. Most of the objections I hear about the system from people who haven't really played are things that pretty much vanish once you're comfy with the game. It does feel a little awkward the first time, or at least it did for me, but that passed quickly.


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## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> To kind of put that in perspective, I'm far less worried about a tyrant GM who stomps all over any decision I make and who openly shoves my PC back on the path of his plot and brags about his authority to do so......I'm far more concerned with the GM who is thoughtful and has a method, but who doesn't realize that certain decisions he makes are undermining my decisions as a player.



Right. I find this to be the case in the 5e games I've played in (both GMed by the same person, who is really a very good GM overall, AKA my sister...). So, these were reasonably fun games. But I have noted in both cases that the lack of principles and methods in 5e which lead to building on the player's interests caused things to not be ideal. 

I'd also say that the 2nd (ongoing) 5e campaign seems more interesting in terms of the GM going out of her way to literally instantiate character agendas as having a kind of mechanical support. For instance we were given a magical book. If you write a goal in the book, it will magically guide you to the thing you seek. It is a one-time effect and has significant limits, but it is clearly intended to inject some "you can work on your character's agenda" into the game. I'd just note that it would be better if this was a part of 5e itself! 

The same people in this game, with the same GM, have played Dungeon World games on several occasions. I would say that the DW games definitely come out a bit different, although it seems to me you can kind of play DW in a fashion that is more reminiscent of classical D&D play if the participants (especially the GM) haven't fully internalized PbtA. I really want to run another DW, or maybe Ironsworn, game and sort of push things to the uttermost limits of the system and really see what will happen. Maybe I can pitch that as an off-game for when the 5e campaign isn't running.


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## estar

pemerton said:


> I also watched a couple of bits of @estar's video. The start seemed to have a lot of GM-led framing.



Yes the details of the initial situation were established by me i.e. "framed by the referee." However the fact the players were there at all was the result of a two week long discussion about running a session about medieval fantasy. I piped up well I got an adventure that would work. Here the background of how it starts when I run it as a one shot. The players agreed, and I gave the info they needed to create characters.  As @Bedrockgames will attest they came up with all kinds of background details for their character that I incorporated. 

I go out of my way to make it easy for players to make their own character even at a con or game store event where time is restricted. It generally more fun that way and players feel more in control of the situation.



pemerton said:


> And then the bit with the shooting of the person who was threatening (? I think, if I followed - it's around the 44 minute mark) the two women, seemed to be a GM-framed scene with GM-determined responses by the NPCs and no real player contribution that I could see beyond rolling for the fight as the GM appeared to expect.



You and your group are camped alongside a road having stopped on a journey to the shrine. You see a campfire in the distance with maybe two or three people making camp around it. Later that night* you are awakened by screams of terror in the distance and more figures around that distant campfire. Clearly there something going on over there.

What do you do?

My adventure wasn't about creating a medieval story, it was about experience a medieval fantasy adventure as a character that could exist within that setting. The first time I ran the adventure was part of a sandbox campaign and the player frequented the area, and that was one situation that could happen if the players were at the right place at the right time. They were and the adventure unfolded. 

I noticed that out of the stuff I created for that campaign this adventure worked as as a self-contained sandbox so I developed it further like I did the Scourge of the Demon Wolf. The reason it works is because it has a clear inciting incident. The attack on the peasant boy and knight's daughter. Plus it is enough of a stereotype that most hobbyist "get" what the situation is without the overhead of the campaign background.

I added the whole "Get my tithe" elements because it turns "most" into "nearly all". A big problem with a poorly run sandbox is decision paralysis. But the expectation is that the player can do anything their character can do and that includes stealing the tithe for themselves if that what they want to do.


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## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I agree that talking about processes helps some, but I think that principles matter at least as much from a GMing standpoint as game mechanics. I know there are some in this thread who prefer to consider games as they are published--so the principles of play in, e.g., BitD, don't apply to D&D, even if a given DM is importing things. @Ovinomancer said elsewhere, IIRC, that he runs D&D 5E with much more of the mechanical bits player-facing (announced DC, public rolls, maybe other things) but when he talks about D&D 5E, _the game_, he's talking about what's in the books. That's fine, when one is talking about what's in the books; but I think it's fair to think of it as incomplete if someone who runs 5E is looking for ways to increase player engagement (since I think one can grab tricks or principles from other games and apply them to 5E to great effect).
> 
> I can see this. Of course, I'm not sure many of the instances of bad GMing I've seen discussed have been exactly degenerate--there have been systems published that seemed almost intended to generate what many would describe as "bad GMing" if played according to what was in the books.
> 
> Yeah. I think intentionally bad (abusive) GMs are ... less common than some people seem to think, but more common than I think most people would prefer. I think unintentionally bad GMs are much more common, and led astray by the games they're running (or by games they've run, and now they're applying those lessons to other games).



I think principles and mechanics go hand in hand. While principles matter, it is at best very difficult to actualize them when the mechanics of the game simply don't provide the avenues by which they can naturally enter into play, particularly at the more granular levels of individual scenes which actually make up most of a game. 

I say this from experience playing with the same GM in both 5e and DW, and of running PACE, DW, and 4e in a certain way, vs running classical versions of D&D, CoC, and a very long list of other games which lack these mechanics. I was especially disappointed with the experience I had with CoC a few years ago when trying to play it in a way analogous to how I would run narrative games. It just got in the way so much that I would really never run it again, though I am a fan of the genre. Maybe someone more skilled than I am can do it, but CoC actively inhibits narrative style play in multiple ways (and is just painfully clunky, I'm amazed I was able to run it back in the 80's without more trouble). I would have a lot of the same problems with 5e, which is why I basically wrote my own story game '4e hack'.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> but this argument has come up again and again, and the point my side makes is of course it isn't an actual pond. But the purpose is for the GM to emulate causality as best he or she can, within the confines of the genre of course (I expect different degrees of it in Silence of the Lambs than I do in Porky's). But no one here is claiming to be running a 1-1 simuailtion of reality (in fact, over the course of these discussions, we've made that point countries times). No analogy or metaphor is going to hold up to that level of scrutiny because it is just a comparison for aiding understanding of a point.



Right, and my position is that it is so far removed from anything like reality that this 'purpose' is meaningless and doesn't happen. There is instead a sort of 'genre sensibility' that definitely incorporates a lot of visceral ideas about basic ordinary situations and translates them into rulings at a granular level (IE what happens when you fall, etc.). However, anything beyond that is essentially just governed by these genre and table conventions, and steered by whatever creative inputs are at the table.

To be clear, obviously no other type of game gets any closer than this to reality, I just dispute the claim that a session of Dungeon World is any less realistic than a session of D&D, all other things being equal. IMHO the claim simply doesn't hold water. In fact what it does in inhibit objective analysis of game play.


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## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> I think the distinction between play and play done with shared purpose in mind. There is a large body of research and practice dedicated to this sort of game design. A significant chunk of people value that sort of play. Academically they have talked about purposeful play as games. If we need some other form of terminology to discuss I am fine with that.
> 
> I am not trying to put any moral weight on my words. I am just trying to be precise here. The current body of work in game design does not have anything to say about that sort of unstructured play. How can I talk about this in a way that you will not object to?



First of, I would avoid any phrasing that implies that some games are not actually games. Secondly, I'd have to wonder how useful it is to apply these theories to roleplaying games, if they have nothing to say about a huge chunk of stuff that is actually happening in these games. If this thread is any indication, the answer would be "not very."


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## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think principles and mechanics go hand in hand. While principles matter, it is at best very difficult to actualize them when the mechanics of the game simply don't provide the avenues by which they can naturally enter into play, particularly at the more granular levels of individual scenes which actually make up most of a game.



We not talking software but people. People do the actualizing not the mechanics. When mechanics are used it because people chose to use them as the way to actualize the principle. But is not necessary or a requirement but a preference.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I say this from experience playing with the same GM in both 5e and DW, and of running PACE, DW, and 4e in a certain way, vs running classical versions of D&D, CoC, and a very long list of other games which lack these mechanics. I was especially disappointed with the experience I had with CoC a few years ago when trying to play it in a way analogous to how I would run narrative games. It just got in the way so much that I would really never run it again, though I am a fan of the genre. Maybe someone more skilled than I am can do it, but CoC actively inhibits narrative style play in multiple ways (and is just painfully clunky, I'm amazed I was able to run it back in the 80's without more trouble). I would have a lot of the same problems with 5e, which is why I basically wrote my own story game '4e hack'.



Well I would suggest you write out to yourself how you run narrative games in a manner that relatively systemless. Then whenever you use a system don't use what fits, alter what needed and go from there.

This is speaking from the experience of dragging the same setting, Majestic Wilderlands, through a dozen system over 40 years. A hopefully more accessible example is Adventures in Middle Earth versus 5e. AiME successfully adapt 5e into a Middle Earth roleplaying by jettisoning most of the lists and creating new elements for their lists (class, creatures, cultures, items, etc). Adapting an existing mechanics (feats) into something different (virtues) but better suited for a ME mechanics. Finally adding new subsystems (Audiences, Shadow, etc) fill in things that needed to be addressed in a ME campaign but wasn't in 5e.

The same with how you run narrative. List out all that you do without reference to a system. Then evaluate the new system in that light. Jettison what doesn't fit like Wizards, Spells, and Cleric for AiME, kept what does, add what missing and keep it consistent with the bases system like AiME's Journey, Audience, and Shadow rules. 

There is no reason you can't use adapt the D&D mechanics to the structure that Blades in the Dark as long as you understand how D&D works and what it means to use that but not this. For example many people consider the encounter balance guidelines as part of the rules. They are not. However they were use extensively in D&D 4e organized play and the published modules. But one could, as I did, ignore them completely and run a D&D 4e campaign like one did for GURPS or AD&D. Like I did with my Majestic Wilderlands.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> Thanks. It's a setting and character creation process that I would like to see ported to other games. It's almost surprising to me that it hasn't. IME, it gives the players both a nice starting sense of place as well as personal investment in the setting. It's also easy for players to create kickers or play agendas from that as well.



Now, that whole idea, player input as rumor/myth/legend definitely seems like an interesting idea. It could work in a lot of games. I should think of a way to work that into HoML


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> This terminology is not neutral at all is the problem. Just in a vacuum if you have  choice between 'lazy evaluation' and 'active engagement' you always pick active engagement. One is an attractive descriptor, the other is an unattractive one.



As a fellow software engineer, I would characterize @Campbell's terminology here as simply heavily influenced by technical programmer jargon. 'Lazy' as a general term is used by programmers to mean "something that gets done in code at the last possible moment." Like you might have "Lazy Configuration" where you go read some values from a config file to find out some user preference, but you only do that a few lines of code before you would have to decide on program behavior based on that preference, vs doing it much earlier during some 'startup phase'. 

It isn't pejorative at all, rather the contrary in that context, it is an optimization which is intended to provide superior results (although it can create problems sometimes too). Obviously nobody who doesn't code for a living will likely know this, but it is just an example of cultural context, which is another dimension in human communications.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think principles and mechanics go hand in hand. While principles matter, it is at best very difficult to actualize them when the mechanics of the game simply don't provide the avenues by which they can naturally enter into play, particularly at the more granular levels of individual scenes which actually make up most of a game.



I think the vast majority of principles translate just fine from one game to another. Where the mechanics are different, they probably shape play differently.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I say this from experience playing with the same GM in both 5e and DW, and of running PACE, DW, and 4e in a certain way, vs running classical versions of D&D, CoC, and a very long list of other games which lack these mechanics. I was especially disappointed with the experience I had with CoC a few years ago when trying to play it in a way analogous to how I would run narrative games. It just got in the way so much that I would really never run it again, though I am a fan of the genre. Maybe someone more skilled than I am can do it, but CoC actively inhibits narrative style play in multiple ways (and is just painfully clunky, I'm amazed I was able to run it back in the 80's without more trouble). I would have a lot of the same problems with 5e, which is why I basically wrote my own story game '4e hack'.



I think CoC is really, really limited both by its history and by horror as a genre. The adventures published for the game over the decades have formed an expectation of play that is ... railroady, IMO. Horror, especially its Lovecraftian branch, is ... plausibly not the best genre of fiction to apply Story Now to, what with the tropes of hidden knowledge and secret histories and tainted bloodlines and insane narrators--it just seems as though the "gotcha" is part of (maybe the heart of) the fiction. In other words, I'm deeply unsruprised you had troubles trying to run it like a PbtA game. While 5E might be limited in similar ways by its history and by WotC's business model (making money by selling published adventures), I haven't found it to be limited in anything like the way it sounds as though you found it to me--horses for courses, probably.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> I don't know how to make it clearer, I am a referee who allows his players to "trash" his setting. That they are free to pursue any goal within the setting as their character that they find interesting regardless of what I had prepared or had conceived. The only limit is what their character can or can't do within the setting given what been described about the character. For example what a 3 Strength is capable of compared to a 18 strength.



Yeah, if that sounded judgmental it wasn't intended to be. What I mean is, in the game I wrote for example, there is (or would be if I bothered to add stuff like that since I don't personally need it) an explicit statement of agenda, clearly articulating what the game expects the GM to aim for. While D&D generally has always had some fairly general statements and 'DM Advice' bits in various core books, it never really goes very far into articulating these things. A lot of people have simply never gone back and really articulated their principles. If you played kind of typical D&D, like what 5e seems to be aimed at, there is probably not much reason to, the game's structure is built around a fairly obvious paradigm. 

It is hard to know with people who have spent a lot of time perfecting a very specific play style. I expect, based on what you have said, that you have very definite ideas and thus a set of principles you're sticking with. I see you've listed some of them. It can be helpful to see such embodied clearly in the terminology and process of a specific game in a way that is 'designed in'. There's a bit more formalism, etc. 

And yes, I get what you are saying about your playstyle. I think that's cool! It defends itself.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

prabe said:


> I think CoC is really, really limited both by its history and by horror as a genre. The adventures published for the game over the decades have formed an expectation of play that is ... railroady, IMO. Horror, especially its Lovecraftian branch, is ... plausibly not the best genre of fiction to apply Story Now to, what with the tropes of hidden knowledge and secret histories and tainted bloodlines and insane narrators--it just seems as though the "gotcha" is part of (maybe the heart of) the fiction. In other words, I'm deeply unsruprised you had troubles trying to run it like a PbtA game. While 5E might be limited in similar ways by its history and by WotC's business model (making money by selling published adventures), I haven't found it to be limited in anything like the way it sounds as though you found it to me--horses for courses, probably.



Lovecraftian horror is a genre that that is probably best run without any system. It just needs a GM that can evoke the right atmosphere and players that are willing to go along with. It really doesn't need a task resolution mechanic; if you investigate the correct thing you succeed, because the story needs that to move forward, and if you encounter monsters you lose in one way or another because that's how these stories end.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Sounds like you have an issue with the concept of fairness in general and not just in rpgs. Virtually everything you bring up about fairness applies to fairness in any setting.



I wouldn't consider myself a fan of 'unfairness', so I'm not sure what to say about that. Again, I think there's clear examples of fair and unfair in organized sports. I think there are articulatable concepts of fairness in interpersonal relations, and other areas of life, but they do involve a lot of context dependency. Nor will people always agree on what is or is not 'fair'. RPGs simply present a muddier context because they involve a largely subjective experience. Anyway, I wasn't denying the existence of a SENSE of fairness. I was asking a question. IMHO there are many cases where we could agree on "this is fair" or "this is not fair" but it is contextual.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I posted, about seven (?) pages upthread, a comparison/contrast of two instances of play: an imagined one from the AW rulebook, and an actual one from my Prince Valiant campaign.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> That also applies to @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames, @estar.



I read it, yes. It seems to me that, while there are definitely some differences in specific techniques, that the way you are employing PV has a lot in common with AW. PV seems to be somewhat less explicit about the processes by which players help to define the fiction, but then again maybe I'm just seeing it that way because I have never read/played that game myself. It feels VERY similar to the mini-game PACE, which strongly ties PCs to fiction (and has almost no rules, so it is clearly driven mostly by fiction), though again there are a few differences in mechanical details. 

I could probably run the PV scenario using PACE. The various decision points would involve players expending tokens in order to influence the fiction (you can only do this during a contest, and only WRT one of your character's attributes). PACE attributes are simply 2 'true statements' about your character (they can be one word adjectives even). You get a rating in each one that sets your basic ability to bend fiction with it, and then you can spend your tokens (a non-recoverable resource) to push things further. If you get negative or positive results the GM can write up a 'card' which explains how the fiction of your character is modified (these usually are 'wounds' and they go away eventually, but we extended this to 'assets' as well, and those can be leveraged like attributes). It is not really a good system for long term ongoing play though, but we did run an Arthurian Romance mini-campaign with it one time, and that worked fairly well


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> This doesn't describe sandbox play at all.
> 
> In sandbox play, the GM frames the world, places in the world, factions and NPC's in it.  In sandbox play the players set their agenda.  They have complete autonomy to do what they want and to interact with what they want as long as it's done via their character.  Nothing they do is by way of DM permission either.  In sandbox play it's the player's unalienable right to be able to set their own agenda.
> 
> 
> Agreed
> 
> Sounds correct, though there are important details you are missing.  The GM's job in sandbox play is twofold.
> 1.  He sets the stage that the characters act upon.
> 2.  He continually updates the stage by reacting to the players input into the setting via their characters actions.  This part is much more principled than it's being made out to be by you.  At the very least NPC beliefs and personalities are considered as a plausibility test for any potential actions.  The DM is responsible for picking one of the plausible reactions and adding it to the setting.  This updates the stage and the players are able to react to that change.
> 3.  The above describes a static sandbox.  In a living world sandbox, the above is true, but additional NPC factions make their actions that result in the stage being updated as well.
> 
> 
> So what?
> 
> 
> Sure.
> 
> 
> That same driver's seat description makes sense of a sandbox as well.  Players determine what is important to them and take actions via their characters in the fiction in order to obtain the things they want.  They are in the driver's seat and the DM is reacting to what they do.
> 
> 
> That's not how sandboxes work.  Players don't have a menu of adventures.  They have a world that they interact with.  If you are wanting to call the world the menu and all the things in the world the menu items, there's nothing stopping you - but that's pretty shaky ground IMO.



I think the key factor in our disagreement, such as it is, about sandbox play is in my deep skepticism about the feasibility of what you call the "DM's principled play" to be actualizable. My contention is that a fantasy game world is too abstract and cannot be realized in enough detail, and no single human has the sheer intellectual capacity, to really say what would or would not happen. That isn't even approaching the issue of a fantasy game where the laws of nature literally don't apply (at least consistently). 

So, my position here is that what the GM is doing when they consider how the world reacts, is they are enacting their agenda. This is literally the point where the GM is entirely in control. They can justify an almost limitless range of possible outcomes for most actions (certainly at a less granular level, but rules usually cover things like combat, climbing, falling, etc. with some degree of standardization at least). So, when it comes to "does the character's plot get back to the King?" this is going to be decided by what the GM wants to happen. Now, maybe the GM could (and maybe some do) follow an agenda indistinguishable from something out of, say, DW. That is they focus entirely on engaging with whatever the plot represents and they take their job as to make it dramatic, interesting, and to throw obstacles at the PC which will challenge the character in terms of values, concept, goals, etc. (IE his sister is sleeping with the Prince, does he warn her? Will she betray him?). 

I don't see that sandbox, as a conceptual framework addresses this at all. I don't see that there is any really objective process that can exist to adjudicate these things, and thus only principles rooted in narrative, or other real world concerns (the fiction being real fiction) actually carry water.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Ovinomancer said:


> A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures.  A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons.  This is exactly a menu of adventures.  There's no one true sandbox.  Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."



I'm rather unclear on this point! Every sandbox, at some level boils down to a 'menu', that is it is some sort of collection of 'interesting situations' which are scattered around on some sort of 'map' (these could actually be anything, they are dungeons/lairs/terrain typically in most D&D games which are spread on a literal map). By dint of exploration and decision making the players select (or maybe stumble upon) some of these 'situations', or possibly learn about them and select them explicitly (IE they get a treasure map, they follow it instead of selling it). 

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but this is the fundamental architecture of a sandbox in every case AFAIK. Certainly players can have their PCs simply 'dig into' any old random spot on said map and hope that they will unearth something. It is likely the GM will respond with some sort of material, although it isn't guaranteed. I would include social situations and such in this as well. The PCs could decide to go find the local Thief's Guild, even though it isn't included in the GM's material. Either they will find something, or they will find out there is no such organization, yah! Now the party thief starts one... So, yes, you may not have to explore, but then again you could simply derail any old arbitrary module/AP and do the same things, right? In either case the GM has to decide how to respond. So, I'm not sure how this kind of 'digging' would specifically characterize a sandbox.


----------



## Campbell

Crimson Longinus said:


> First of, I would avoid any phrasing that implies that some games are not actually games. Secondly, I'd have to wonder how useful it is to apply these theories to roleplaying games, if they have nothing to say about a huge chunk of stuff that is actually happening in these games. If this thread is any indication, the answer would be "not very."




It might not be useful for the way some groups (or individual players) choose to engage the hobby, but it is instrumental to the way a significant amount of us interface with the hobby. At the very least we should be mindful of that and integrate that into our understanding and actually treat it as legitimate.

I mean a substantial part of what drew me personally to 3e's back to the dungeon mentality, then the Forge which eventually led me to both indie games and the OSR was the sense that it was socially permissible to think and talk about roleplaying games in the same way I thought about and talked about other games.

I mean we are really dealing with a split that has been with us since the almost the very beginning of the hobby. Often within the same groups.


----------



## Manbearcat

> I think one disconnect we have, is you don't realize importance of how the setting described. I am not making up stuff all the time. It is actually uncommon. I am instead acting on information that been established beforehand.




Before I get into the below, I just want to talk about this.

There is no disconnect here. You’ve engaged with folks on this multiple times. If someone says something to the effect of “the GM (a) extrapolates the setting’s response via the collision of (b) what they have pre-authored about setting (“notes”) and (c) whatever input the players have into the evolving situation.”

The loop of this (and I discussed this upthread) will look and feel very much like (a multi-dimensional) Pictionary:

* The GM has a card (their pre-authored setting).

* The GM attempts to deftly telegraph what is on the card via drawing (without breaking the rules...in the D&D you’re depicting, that would entail outright giving the PCs the answer...there must be a level of opacity...because _skilled play_ is a priority).

* The players act upon the GM's telegraphing to attempt to put together what is being conveyed.  This is GM as cipher for their pre-established setting's motivations/dispositions and players as puzzle-solvers.  Whether they can decipher these motivations/dispositions and then act upon the setting in such a way that will facilitate their goals is _skilled play_.

If they fail to decipher, they lose (as you've depicted below) because they will invariably act upon the setting in such a way that will render their goals unreachable (ENDSTATE - TPK).



estar said:


> I ran a campaign using GURPS with two PCs. They played criminals, members of the Thieves Guild in the City State of the Invincible Overlord. Basically just brutes. One thing led to another a couple of session in and they wound up killing the local gang leader when they were not supposed to. When the Guild Lieutenant came around looking for them, they killed him too.  At this point they decided what the hell and started working up the guild hierarchy one by one. Executed their plans quite well and more importantly they caught the guild in a way that left them flat-footed for a while.
> 
> Finally they done enough that the guildmaster decided to call a truce and invite them in as lords of the thieves guild. The players did a lot of things right but what they didn't do is build up a following. I roleplayed the negotiations and was able to convince the players that they had a deal and meet with the guild leadership to formalize their place. They walked into his chamber and were killed.
> 
> It was pretty much as brief and brutal as you imagined. Now I know players through the decades who would have not taken that well. But for these two players, when the final confrontation ensued they knew how they were played and that they walked into a trap. And death was the only outcome.
> 
> Why was death the only outcome, because the player killed somebody who was important to the guildmaster. Done it a way that there no coming back for the NPC.
> 
> Some would be critical of this. Say that as a referee I should have handled that confrontation differently. All I can say that the players had ample opportunities to choose different courses of action that would have led to a different outcomes. There was tipping point where they figured (wrongly in hindsight) to go for it all and they came up short. Mostly because to the end they were lone wolf operators for the most part.




So one of a few things (or both) happened here.  I'm going to go back to my (multi-dimensional) Pictionary as shorthand:

_*1) The GM drew too opaque a picture that it was indecipherable.

2) The GM drew a sufficiently transparent picture but the players did not play skillfully.

3) All of the moving parts of drawing and deciphering in multiple dimensions over x period of time was more cognitive load than the players could manage in their attempt to play skillfully.*_

*4) The players deciphered but didn't care about the fallout.  They wanted to break stuff and when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.*

From the looks of it, your collective post-mortem led you to the conclusion that things went the way they went because of (2) above, yes?

Can you talk about a time where (1), (3), (4) were in play and things went south because of it/them?



estar said:


> Ok so if I read your post right we are talking about.
> 
> 
> It about the Score a shorthand for a heist or something similar.
> A target is selected
> An approach is selected
> Once an approach is taken, a detail is selected.
> Question and discussion follows the object of which is to determine the number of dice in the Engagement which starts out the heist.
> The Engagement roll is made determine how well the Score starts out.
> And this is where it ends in your example. I am a bit disappointed that you are describing how Blade in the Dark is played in general. Not a specific instance of actual play like I did. But I can work with this as while it is not a specific situation is a ingle narrow situation, the heist. Heists are something that occurs in my campaign as well.
> 
> 
> I have players do the following
> 
> The player decides to pull off a heist in pursuit of their goal. *I don't have a say in this.*
> 
> The player select a target using their knowledge of the setting. *I don't have a say in this.*
> 
> An approach is selected. Unlike Blades in the Dark the players in my campaign are not constrained by a menu of choices. Instead they use their knowledge of the setting craft a approach tailored to the situation. _*I don't have a say in this*_.
> 
> Each approach has to have a detail is where there is a major difference. In general players know many of the details prior to the decision to do the heist by virtue of their knowledge of the setting. Here the detail are created after the decision that the group is going to play Blades in the Dark and create the experience of a heist movie. Another difference that the details are discovered not created on the fly. Through a combination of experience and out of game discussion I have an idea of what the player are considering doing and prepare accordingly if I don't have the details already.
> 
> Next the discussion of the dice (modifiers) to the Engagement. This also a major difference with my approach. In my campaign every step is played out in resolved in the same way as if the players were there in a virtual reality as their character. When playing OD&D over GURPS the steps may be handled in more detail or in a more abstract way but the steps are still played out. Also in Blades in the Dark there is no chance that the heist will be avoided.
> 
> The goal of the mechanics is just to see where in the heist the remaining steps start off yet. The assumption is that the heist will commence. In contrast in my approach, discovery of the details or more commonly the evaluation of the detail may result in the group not interested in commencing the heist. Which is OK because the point of the campaign is not to execute a heist. A heist in my campaign is just a means to an end of achieving some player's goal.
> 
> Which is another a major difference between my campaigns and Blades in the Dark. In my campaign the players can do anything that their character are capable of. They can find a dungeon and explore (Dungeon World), they can wander the ruins of a fallen empire of magic (Apocalypses World), they can plan out a heist (Blades in the Dark) within the same campaign and the same setting.
> 
> My view while the approach works for people, the actual implementations are so narrow in scope that the players wind up with less agency than my "traditional" campaign. Once the group embarks with Blades in the Dark the expectation is that the group will play out a heist to it conclusion. In all the session I been involved with or witnessed anything else  (romance, exploration of the setting, etc) was incidental to getting on with the heist. The same with Dungeon World and other games with a similar approach.
> 
> Sure it great to get up an going with little prep and with everybody pitching, the price seems to be reduced scope, with agency reduced accordingly.
> 
> And to wrap this part of. I don't get to pick the details the player choose focus on either.




Some of this is correct.  However, on the whole, there is some significant misapprehension of how Blades in the Dark works here.  I don't know if you ran the game of Blades that you played or just played in it, but your takeaway is pretty wanting in terms of clarity and accuracy.

Before I go further, games like Blades and Dogs are thematically/premise-focused, yes.  They are not "kitchen sink games."  It seems odd (and this isn't the first time I've encountered this) to talk about "scope as agency reduction" in any given game in the same way that certain D&D GMs will chafe if someone says "where are my pistols or plasma cannons?"  Or, much more controversial, "my D&D Fighter is not mythically-capable...the 13th level spellcaster can do a, b, c, d, e, f, g, etc whle I can only do x and y...this scope reduction is agency reduction."

All games constrain scope of permissible action declarations and all games constrain scope of genre tropes and attendant conflict.

And I would say (very confidently) that scope without forensic examination means very little.  You can have all the scope in the world yet not have sufficient agency.  The inverse is also true.  You can have dramatically constrained scope and simultaneously have enormous agency within the confines of the scope.

Use my (multi-dimensional) Pictionary above.  You can have a D&D game that alleges to have all the scope in the world.  But if (2) or (3) seep into play such that gamestates start to become perturbed by it, then the players start to go the route of (4) because they're frustrated and then GM starts to deploy Force (using their exclusive access to all of the GM-facing aspects of play; unrevealed backstory to execute blocks or reign the players in or modifying DCs or action resolution results)...how much actual agency do they have?

In my opinion, (2) and (3) and GM Force are the biggest threats to agency loss in the type of D&D you're talking about.  I've been running games for 36 years.  I've sat in on (not played...but sat in on to see how the sausage is made and then discussed with the GMs afterward) 100s of hours of play where any 1 of those 3 things become inputs on play.  Alleged "Scope" does not make up for it.

Now frame the below Blades play excerpt (which parallels yours) in terms of (1), (2), (3), (4) and GM Force.  None of those things are a threat to play EVER in a game of Blades.  The fact that they're not a threat is an enormous social burden off of all of the participants at the table.  And that works hand-in-hand with "perceived agency" which is every bit as important as "actual agency."  When the two of those are basically 1:1 at any given moment of play, its a different experience.



Blades is structured with 3 phases of play:


Information Gathering/Free Play
Score
Downtime

In the 3rd instantiation of this Crew (these players liked the ideas of these characters and wanted to see if they could ascend to the top of the Duskvol hierarchy with them), they had made their way to Tier 2.  Tier, like all things in Blades and games of its kind, is Player-facing.  Not GM-facing.  Punching above your weight has consequences.  The Position of many Action Rolls will be Desperate which comes with significant Complications upon failure.  Punching above your belt and dealing with a Magnitude 4 (this equates to Tier) Demon is something else entirely.

The PCs had been antagonizing (and worse) the Circle of Flame (Tier 3 - refined secret society of antiquarians and scholars w/ one of their leadership being a Demon in disguise) since the end of Tier 0 before they became Tier 1. Recently, they had been on the warpath (as you describe your PCs), stealing items from the Circle, then smuggling them to auctioneers or private buyers, conjuring and bartering with spirits for reconnaissance, then putting it out into the city through the underworld and journalists that the Circle of Flame's Centuralia Club (a speak-easy featuring innocuous supernatural entertainment for high-society in rundown Six Towers) was actually run by a Demon.

This was achieved through several of all 3 aspects of play (including Longterm Downtime Projects).  All of the machinery of resolution broadly and specifically Player-facing.

So the last Social Score (to convince high society to eschew going to the Centuralia Club) reduced Faction with the Circle of Flame to put the PC Crew At War with them.  This has significant (and Player-facing) fallout:


> - 3: War. This faction will go out of its way to hurt you even if it’s not in their best interest to do so. They expect you to do the same, and take precautions against you. When you’re at war with any number of factions, your crew suffers
> +1 heat from scores, temporarily loses 1 hold, and PCs get only one downtime action rather than two. You can end a war by eliminating your enemy or by negotiating a mutual agreement to establish a new status rating.




Before the final Gambit, we had to resolve Downtime:


They only get one apiece (rather than 2) due to War.
The Lurk Acquired an Asset (Goggles to protect himself from terror at the demonic visage...the Whisper already has protections against this).
The Whisper primed the Ritual to reveal the Demon's true form.

On the Information Gathering/Free Play phase, the PCs gathered intel on when (a) all 7 Leaders of the Circle of Flame would be at the Centuralia Club and (b) convince enough civilians to go so as to incentivize the remaining 6 Leaders to confront the revealed Demon. A séance and big party the following evening.

With that done, its onto the Linked Scores to finally resolve the conflict/War (their goal was to reveal the Demon to the other 6 Leadership of the Circle and then parley with them to destroy the Demon, the total of which leading to a new Faction Status of +1 (Helpful) due to the Crew helping literally uncover the Demon in their midst.

*OCCULT Score (1st of 2 Linked) - Engage a supernatural power. Detail: The ritual.
SOCIAL Score (2nd of 2 Linked) - Negotiate, bargain, or persuade. Detail: The social connection.*

We tally up the bonuses for the initial Engagement Roll (including a cohort that will help finish the Ritual) > Roll > frame the scene > Set up a pair of Linked Clocks (one for the 1st Score and then one for the 2nd after that one is complete).

Everything is Player-facing here.  Everything.

All GM moves are constrained by codified rules and binding principles.

Both Engagement Rolls.  Every Position and Effect negotiated.  Every Action Roll (which the player's pick).  Every tick of the Clocks (and how much).  Every deployment of Special Abilities and Loadout, Devil's Bargain, Assistance, Flashback, Push Yourself, Protect, Set Up, Lead a Group Action, Resistance, Special Armor.  The way Consequences and Effects emerge action resolution and the way the fiction evolves and the way the evolving gamestate orbits around the evolving fiction.

All Player-facing, all codified by rules and bound by explicit principles.

Score 1 is successful as the Clock is filled and the Demon is revealed.  The Whisper uses their Special Ability Tempest (powerful elemental magic) to keep the Demon mildy under control/at bay as all hell breaks loose in the club.  Civilians run for the exits/cover.  The Lurk then initiates the Social Score and tries to convince the 6 to help defeat the Demon; wrest control of the Circle of Flames.  Things go well initially, but eventually, the Whisper (after using their Special Armor and several Resistance Rolls to resist supernatural Complications) fills their last Stress box.  They're out of the scene and  going to accrue a Trauma if this doesn't end in a complete wipe.  Which it nearly did.  But through deft Flashback usage and great rolling, the Lurk and the Occultist Cohort were able to escape with their passed out companion as the Centuralia Club went up in an inferno.

So no TPK.  But now we have to resolve what happened.  The game has Fortune Rolls for this.

The Demon is Tier 4 so 4 dice.  However, the Whisper wrecked it with Tempest (nearly defeating it) so -1 d for Major Disadvantage.

The Circle of Flames is Tier 3 so 3 dice.  They're all used to dealing with the supernatural so no Major Disadvantage here for the nature of the enemy.  However, 2 of their numbers were killed in the ensuing calamity as the ceiling collapsed onto them with a massive light fixture (the Lurk tried a daring effort against Desperate Position and Limited Effect to tackle all 3 out of the area, but could only save 1).  So -1d for Major Disadvantage.

Opposing rolls = Demon 4-5 (Partial Effect) and Circle of Flames 1-3 (Little Effect).

We come to the conclusion that this means 2 things.  1 good for the PCs and 1 bad.  The Demon has destroyed the club, all assets and, for all intents and purposes the Circle of Flames.  They are no longer At War.  The Demon endured, will reconstitute itself an 8 tick Faction Clock (checked for ticks each Downtime), and will be set on nothing less than the Crew's destruction once its reconstituted.

This is a Linked Score and both must be successful for Payoff.  Because that isn't the case, they get neither Rep nor Coin. They get a RIDICULOUS amount of Heat (11) because of all of the particular fallout (again, codified).  This increased their Wanted Level.

Now this is not a TPK like in your game.  What happened here was extremely complex with an ENORMOUS amount of fallout for the PCs.  Losing a Score starts a negative feedback loop.  Wanted Level increase increases peril/fallout.  The Whisper has just gained their 2nd Trauma (4 and you're retired/dead) and both PCs took level 2 Harm with the Whisper also taking Level 1 Harm.  And the Lurk ate a bunch of Stress.  And they've got a ticking timebomb of a Demon.  And they don't gain Ally status with the Circle of Flames.

Really bad situation.



Now when I look at the above play excerpt from my Blades game, I know that even if I instantiated this scenario 100 more times, none of any of 1-4 would come into play to negatively impact (a) scope, (b) the perception of agency, or (c) actual agency.

There is a ton of scope and the chips are absolutely stacked against them (the average Blades game is profoundly more dangerous/short than your average D&D game).  The players perceive all of the actual agency that they have at every moment within every unit of play.  This is never under question for them.  And the agency that they have to (i) know the game always orbits about their dramatic needs, (ii) the can skillfully play to affect desired outcomes by managing/leveraging/interfacing with the longterm resource/asset/faction/advancement/unit of pressure/threat game, (iii) they can skillfully play to position themselves into making desirable (which shouldn't always read as "optimal") risk: reward action declarations, and (iv) none of this will ever not be Player-facing.

Now besides the reality that I'm sure you would find running/playing Blades _unpalatable_, what do you think about the above with respect to Scope, the confident affirmation that none of 1-4 above would ever be a part of any instantiation of a like scenario, and what that says about Agency?


----------



## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, if that sounded judgmental it wasn't intended to be. What I mean is, in the game I wrote for example, there is (or would be if I bothered to add stuff like that since I don't personally need it) an explicit statement of agenda, clearly articulating what the game expects the GM to aim for.



Articulating one's focus is always a good thing. When it was the early 2000s and the major forums where hitting their strides, it made discussion a lot easier when I said "Hey this was my focus or goal is for doing this." Which helped later when talking about sandbox campaigns in the mid 2000s as part of the Wilderlands boxed set promotions. Look if you want a campaign where characters set the direction and the freedom to go anywhere, this is why the hexcrawl format of the Wilderlands is a good thing.

Which is why in 2020 I included this in the book I just published







AbdulAlhazred said:


> While D&D generally has always had some fairly general statements and 'DM Advice' bits in various core books, it never really goes very far into articulating these things. A lot of people have simply never gone back and really articulated their principles. If you played kind of typical D&D, like what 5e seems to be aimed at, there is probably not much reason to, the game's structure is built around a fairly obvious paradigm.



True but be aware that when it comes to publishing as opposed to a discussion like this. I am more focused on the nuts and bolts than the overall picture.

_This section is here if you want to do (or have) X, Y, and maybe Z._

When talking to folks, I find the vast majority of campaigns are kitbashes centered around a system. Basically 75% of what they use comes from say GURPS, or D&D 5e, and rest comes from elsewhere. The common denominator is that the referee and/or group found it fun to have their campaign.

So my philosophy of publishing my system is to present in discrete chunks. I just published the Basic Rule that serves as the foundation tying everything together. The next book will be the Lost Grimoire of Magic which not present stuff like class, and spell list but material on bringing magic users to life within the setting. My focus is not on creating stories about magic-user but enabling a referee and their players to experience life as a magic-user within a medieval fantasy setting.

Since thanks to D&D, medieval fantasy is a common trope, it works out in terms of utility across the larger hobby.




AbdulAlhazred said:


> It is hard to know with people who have spent a lot of time perfecting a very specific play style. I expect, based on what you have said, that you have very definite ideas and thus a set of principles you're sticking with. I see you've listed some of them. It can be helpful to see such embodied clearly in the terminology and process of a specific game in a way that is 'designed in'. There's a bit more formalism, etc.



It too nuanced as far as my goals go. Blades in the Dark assumes that players using it want to experience a heist movie. So it narrowly focuses on supporting that idea. It neither good or bad. I on the other hand focus on giving my players the experience of being characters in a medieval fantasy setting. Which could mean that they try to execute a heist, or build a castle, or explore a dungeon, or weave a basket.

So I focus on not only how my subsystems work, but why they are there. My expectation if it not relevant to the referee then don't use it.

The same way with my referee advice. I have sections in the basic rules. One is on my experience making rulings with the OD&D mechanics. The other on how to bring the world outside of the dungeon to life as a place to adventure and experience.

What I don't do is focus on collaborative storytelling because that not what I write about. What I do is talk about my experience in making this work for players of different interest and skill. For example this comment I have on coaching.





Finally so do I have a structure or not in the sense of the Fate Economy or the BiTD heist? Kinda of which I will happy to discuss but in general I found while sharing and publishing stuff it doesn't really help other people trying to use my material. Eventually I will get to writing an Axioms of Adventure as part of the series but in general I prefer to show not tell as people find that more useful in figuring out whether my material is useful to them or not.

Like my ability system, if you don't do much outside* of combat or spell-casting, if your players don't care* if they better as some things outside of combat or spellcasting. Then the sub system is a distraction and shouldn't be used.

*I avoid trying to say, imply, or judge what people ought to be doing with their hobby. It counter productive and doesn't accomplish anything. Just explain why you do what it is you do and be done with it. The reason that some of my part in the thread is a debate is because I accomplish many of the goals of player agency sketched out here, but in a different way.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> And yes, I get what you are saying about your playstyle. I think that's cool! It defends itself.




Excellent and thanks.


----------



## prabe

Crimson Longinus said:


> Lovecraftian horror is a genre that that is probably best run without any system. It just needs a GM that can evoke the right atmosphere and players that are willing to go along with. It really doesn't need a task resolution mechanic; if you investigate the correct thing you succeed, because the story needs that to move forward, and if you encounter monsters you lose in one way or another because that's how these stories end.



In my experience Lovecraftian horror is something best sprinkled onto other games, like spice when finishing a dish. There are bits of it in the campaigns I run, but it's never the undiluted thing: I like my TRPGs too heroic for that to appeal to me.


----------



## Manbearcat

Crimson Longinus said:


> To be frank, I think your definition of 'game' is unnecessarily limiting and doesn't correspond to how word is actually used. Like it or not, even LARP without any rules for resolving actions is 'a game.'
> 
> I play quite a bit of board games and a lot of tabletop wargames, but ultimately I want a pretty radically differnt experience from an RPG.




What do you feel is the minimum bar for something to qualify as a game?

Three things right off the bat seem clear to me:

1)  There isn't a minimum threshold of participants.  Solitaire (and games like it) are _games_.

2)  Not all activities, past-times, and/or leisure pursuits are _games_.  *Looking at Christmas Lights* is not a _game_, but *I Spy* while you look at Christmas Lights is a _game_.

3)  Calvinball (where one participant changes the rules at will to perpetually facilitate their desired gamestate, undoing the integrity of play) is not a _game_.


So, to me, it looks like (a) something about shape, (b) something about desire/goal, and (c) something about structure giving shape to play and aiding integrity of play with respect to desire/goal (this is essential when two parties' have designs over desire/goal that collide).

Thoughts?


----------



## Fenris-77

Do we need to define game? Seriously, I'm not sure it's all that important to the discussion. Mostly because I don't think it aids in the move from there to a definition of role playing game, which would be helpful.  I mean the following is the standard def:
_a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck_
and that seems sufficient for the purpose.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Manbearcat said:


> What do you feel is the minimum bar for something to qualify as a game?



That the people who play it consider it a game.


----------



## Manbearcat

estar said:


> What I don't do is focus on collaborative storytelling because that not what I write about.



I think upthread you said the you feel that games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark fall under "collaborative storytelling games" (which presumably this has some contrast with "traditional roleplaying games")?

I've heard this before by other parties.  I'm wondering why you feel this way?

Again, like my (stupidly obnoxiously WTF) long post above, I have to bin this as another misapprehension of what is happening both at the systemization level and at the actual table level (the play) of these games.

If I were forced to give these games a tighter zoom name than _Story Now_ (which does not translate to collaborate storytelling) or _Play to Find Out_, it would be _Protagonist Collision_ gaming.

Players create dramatic need-laden protagonists under system premise (eg Gods watchdogs meting out justice and upholding the Faith in a supernatural wild west that never was) > GM creates threats/obstacles to the PCs dramatic needs > these things collide and we see who is ascendant, who is broken/bulwarked/changed (and how), and who is dust.

Story emerges out of that, but the process is definitely not collaborative (in the _"hey guys we're all on the same side here lets get this rock up this hill"_ kind of way).


----------



## Manbearcat

Fenris-77 said:


> Do we need to define game? Seriously, I'm not sure it's all that important to the discussion. Mostly because I don't think it aids in the move from there to a definition of role playing game, which would be helpful.  I mean the following is the standard def:
> _a form of play or sport, especially a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck_
> and that seems sufficient for the purpose.



I think it’s an interesting question detached from the present conversation. It may or may not have anything salient to add to our present conversation (can’t know that yet).


Crimson Longinus said:


> That the people who play it consider it a game.



You are consistent!


----------



## Fenris-77

Manbearcat said:


> I think it’s an interesting question detached from the present conversation. It may or may not have anything salient to add to our present conversation (can’t know that yet).



I think it's a pretty secondary concern for our purposes. We have enough trouble getting our crap together here without deciding that we need to proceed from first principles.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I think upthread you said the you feel that games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark fall under "collaborative storytelling games" (which presumably this has some contrast with "traditional roleplaying games")?
> 
> I've heard this before by other parties.  I'm wondering why you feel this way?



That's an interesting question.

I won't dare answer for estar but for me it's because such games... well see below.



Manbearcat said:


> Again, like my (stupidly obnoxiously WTF) long post above, I have to bin this as another misapprehension of what is happening both at the systemization level and at the actual table level (the play) of these games.
> 
> If I were forced to give these games a tighter zoom name than _Story Now_ (which does not translate to collaborate storytelling) or _Play to Find Out_, it would be _Protagonist Collision_ gaming.




In my little inexperienced box, collaborative story telling is about collaborating to tell a story (all rpgs do this)  DUH   But the games that I would label as such are ones where the player has the right to establish facts about the story other than what his character attempts to do.  In a more traditional game (no better word has been given than traditional) the DM would be the one doing that and even though he might sometimes delegate to the players or a player for some specific detail into the world, the player has no expectation that typical play will consist of the ability to do such things.



Manbearcat said:


> Players create dramatic need-laden protagonists under system premise (eg Gods watchdogs meting out justice and upholding the Faith in a supernatural wild west that never was) > GM creates threats/obstacles to the PCs dramatic needs > these things collide and we see who is ascendant, who is broken/bulwarked/changed (and how), and who is dust.
> 
> Story emerges out of that, but the process is definitely collaborative (in the _"hey guys we're all on the same side here lets get this rock up this hill"_ kind of way).



I don't actually have a problem with describing those games as catering more toward dramatic needs.  That's a description of them we all agree on?  Maybe Drama First Rpgs?


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I think it's a pretty secondary concern for our purposes. We have enough trouble getting our crap together here without deciding that we need to proceed from first principles.



Yea, I mean if we are going to question basic concepts like what a game is and what fairness is, we might as well forget about any kind of substantial conversation ever happening.


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## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm rather unclear on this point! Every sandbox, at some level boils down to a 'menu', that is it is some sort of collection of 'interesting situations' which are scattered around on some sort of 'map' (these could actually be anything, they are dungeons/lairs/terrain typically in most D&D games which are spread on a literal map). By dint of exploration and decision making the players select (or maybe stumble upon) some of these 'situations', or possibly learn about them and select them explicitly (IE they get a treasure map, they follow it instead of selling it).



I'm afraid your analogy can technically be used to describe the real world.  Life is just a menu of "interesting situations".  Which is why I said, call it that if you want, but that's a pretty shaky foundation to draw any kind of useful conclusions from.


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## estar

Manbearcat said:


> I think upthread you said the you feel that games like Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark fall under "collaborative storytelling games" (which presumably this has some contrast with "traditional roleplaying games")?
> 
> I've heard this before by other parties.  I'm wondering why you feel this way?



Because the focus on creating a narrative (story) collaboratively using the mechanics of a game. Just a wargames is a focus on achieving the victory conditions of a scenario, and tabletop roleplaying is about interacting with a setting as a character with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.

Now before you (and readers) thinking I am drawing hard and fast lines, it about focus. Focus is inherently fuzzy and readily adapted to hybrid forms. This can be illustrated clearly by the difference between Melee and The Fantasy Trip. Battletech and Mechwarrior. The former games are considered wargames, while the latter games are consider roleplaying game. 

As they both use the same mechanics the only substantial difference is of focus. What you intend to do with the mechanics. In Melee the intent is to defeat your opponent(s) in a melee by achieving the victory conditions of the scenarios like last man standing. In The Fantasy Trip the focus is on pretending to be a character having adventures using the rules of Melee to handle combat.

In Battletech the focus is on defeating your opponents by commanding Battlemechs and other forces and achieving some victory condition. In Mechwarrior the focus on playing the pilot of a Battletech and while the system uses Battletech to resolve Mech on Mech combat it incorporate a lot of other subsystems and material not relevant to people focused on playing Battletech.

So it was with Blackmoor the first tabletop roleplaying campaign. By all the account I read, at first it would look and feel like an elaborate wargame campaign. While players were their character within the campaign, it was more of means to fight the larger battle of law versus chaos with both side comprised of players. But with advent of the Blackmoor Dungeon the focus and campaign shifted into something we would recognize today as tabletop roleplaying. Why? Because exploration of the Blackmoor Dungeon was a choice of the player as their character. It wasn't really relevant to the law versus chaos scenario. Ultimately it proved a distraction which lead to the downfall and exile of the forces of law. But it was so popular and so well-like that exploration of dungeons and ruins like the City of the Gods became Dave Arneson's campaign focus thus giving birth to tabletop roleplaying.

So with storygames, the focus is on collaborative storytelling using the rules of a game. Which values certain mechanics over other. Just as mass combat rules fell by the wayside and became a niche for tabletop roleplaying.  It doesn't mean that there isn't overlap or hybrid system that straddle the line. As I said kitbashing previously I find kitbashing is the norm not the exception.

My view is that wargame, tabletop roleplaying, and story games lie on a spectrum. Yet each has a distinct focus. None of them are a 2.0 version of the others. Instead it represent increase in the variety and types of game. 


*So how is this theorycraft of any practical use?*
The implication of my assertion is that rather than picking a game and then building a campaign. You decide on a campaign, what you want to focus on. Build the setting of the campaign whether it is wargame, roleplaying game, or storygame. Then pick the rules that best suits the campaign. One case it may be Blade in the Dark, another is may be D&D 5e, and another still it may be Shadowrun Crossfire. And you don't have to "pure". You can take a little from each game the only value judgement is whether detail makes the campaign your group want to run less work and more fun to play out.

I happen to be focused on having the players play as their character experiencing a setting. You may be more focused on collaborative narrative with everybody pitching in on a equal basis.  With those as framework each of can work our group to pick or define a setting, and the rules we will play by.

Hope that clarify things.




Manbearcat said:


> Again, like my (stupidly obnoxiously WTF) long post above, I have to bin this as another misapprehension of what is happening both at the systemization level and at the actual table level (the play) of these games.
> 
> If I were forced to give these games a tighter zoom name than _Story Now_ (which does not translate to collaborate storytelling) or _Play to Find Out_, it would be _Protagonist Collision_ gaming.
> 
> Players create dramatic need-laden protagonists under system premise (eg Gods watchdogs meting out justice and upholding the Faith in a supernatural wild west that never was) > GM creates threats/obstacles to the PCs dramatic needs > these things collide and we see who is ascendant, who is broken/bulwarked/changed (and how), and who is dust.



My view it still a form of collaborative storytelling but one with a more competitive or resource bound aspect.  The challenge is how can I create a interesting with my group given the resources the system given me. The resource being some type of metagame mechanic or currency that player not the character can do. Or maybe it a zero sum setup and more competitive. Like I said all sort of hybrids are possible. 
However in traditional roleplaying because of it focus, players don't expect to be able to something that their character can't do. The game you describe, the player can do more than what their character can do. From I seen 
As player you have mechanics at your disposal  


Manbearcat said:


> Story emerges out of that, but the process is definitely not collaborative (in the _"hey guys we're all on the same side here lets get this rock up this hill"_ kind of way).



Competition can be a form of collaboration as far as the end result goes. Look at places of natural beauty like  rain forest. Definitely some competition there but yet the result is something complex that defies the laws of thermodynamic. 

*Wrapping it up.*
If you think I am an old gamer talking weird naughty word, I am not offended. I well aware that my view are not shared the mainstream or many of the niches of our hobby. 

I believe my view has a practical application help people produce campaign that are fun and interesting to play.

Figure out what you or the group want to focus on for the campaign
Make a setting for the campaign
Create or collect the rules need to make the above happen.
Play
Note that nowhere I am saying *how *to play the campaign. Just pick whatever make it work the way you and your group wants to work.


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## Fenris-77

I often consider the campaign and setting before I think about rules set, and the choose the rules that best suit the kind of game I/we want it to be, or the rules that best emulate some genre bits, or what have you. Rules in service of the desired play experience rather than the other way around.


----------



## Campbell

I have never really liked the comparison of games like Sorcerer and Apocalypse World to collaborative storytelling largely because the impression I get from that is players and GM colluding together and making decisions based on what they think will result in the best story. I have seen some groups do this in Fate as well as some mainstream RPGs (Vampire and Fifth Edition). I am no fan of this sort of play although Fate does an admirable job of enabling it.

That's about as far from my experience of Apocalypse World as you could be. As a player I'm just like advocating for my character in the same way I would in any other roleplaying game. There's some collaboration in setting design, but not like in the moment of play. Rather the focus is on playing the character in moments of stress and finding out who they really are when push comes to shove. It's an exploration of the inner world rather than the outer.

The GM's role is quite different, but again not really about telling stories. Rather their job is to design scenarios that test the character and get to their truth.

If anything I guess we could call it a storyfinding rather than storytelling game, but my preferred nomenclature these days is character exploration game as juxtaposed against setting or world exploration game.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Campbell said:


> I would say that people with other play preferences do also make somewhat similar mistakes in their framing where they fail to see the constraints of those play priorities as meaningful constraints. Like in most Story Now play a player is free to decide what their character wants, but there is a shared expectation that they will push hard for that once established. We all have expectations for their play. This means players are not free to explore for the sake of exploring. There's nothing to explore besides character. Setting is built in a lazy fashion. We  often do not see this as a constraint because it's what we want.



I think, maybe somewhat in a way that is analogous to other people saying that a sandbox can lead to player agenda focused play, that a 'story now' or 'zero myth' type of game can also lead to exploration. Think about it this way, it doesn't matter when the GM, or a player for that matter, made up a piece of fiction. It is equally unknown and surprising to the other participants in the game either way. No 'lesser amount of exploration' therefor happens in my DW campaign where the material flows directly out of my brain, and onto the table in real time, vs @Bedrockgames or @estar, @Lanefan, or @FrogReaver when they run a sandbox and make it up a month ahead of time, or the night before. Heck, they're telling me that most of what they do is made up on the spot anyway! So in terms of exploration, nobody is losing out. They may be, in my game, learning more about areas of the setting that they are directly interested in based on their 'drives' though. Nor are they necessarily likely to learn about something simply because I wanted it to appear, as might be the case in an AP.

There is a contention that somehow there is more verisimilitude in the sandbox, because somehow the decisions being made about what takes place are theoretically less focused on some notion of 'what naturally follows' from the current fiction. Also perhaps that there is likely less meta-plot in zero myth (I guess tautologically that is true on day one, but it need not remain so throughout the game). I'm not sure I buy these things. Maybe players feel that fairly arbitrary-seeming responses of the world to their queries (yeah, your brother is dead) seem more authentic? I'm pretty dubious. It could be that its a little easier to achieve that feeling in, say, a sandbox, but I'm kind of a data-driven type, so I'm suspicious of those kinds of claims.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> This is almost impossible to talk about in the, heh, abstract. You can posit the situation, sure, but I suspect that most groups wouldn't have that problem. Lots of games have more or less abstract systems for all manner of things, and players that like those games seem to do just fine. Obviously not every game is for everyone of course, so I'm sure at least some people would have the problem you outline, but I don't think it's a matter of Blades being too abstract at all, but rather a matter of some players enjoying an different play experience.



Yeah, I was only discussing that in the context of lifting it and dropping it into a D&D game of the type @estar was talking about. It works great in BitD because the players simply create some fiction for themselves as they go about taking advantage of a bonus or whatever. Because very little is nailed down about the setting in terms of factual details they are free to do that, and it is simply part of the process.

OTOH once you are in estar's high background detail 'Majestic Wilderlands' (or whatever) then how would the players do that? They can't easily just invent an old boarded over basement window everyone forgot about, for example. Nor can they simply invent a judge to be bribed to explain the +1 they got on some check because they own the Warehouse District. All of that COULD be sorted out, but it has to be sorted out by the GM, because nobody else has permission to introduce any fiction, and nobody else has his (what must be) 1000's and 1000's of pages of notes on everything under the Sun! In a more subtle way, how fitting are all of those details to the execution of a given sort of activity (IE gang building in this case) to the established fiction, which is so dense that there may well be no area in the whole setting where you won't run into endless obstacles that thwart any such effort? Now, we don't know of that is true or not in this specific case, but as a player contemplating taking on some sort of activity like that, I'm already a bit worried.


----------



## Fenris-77

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I was only discussing that in the context of lifting it and dropping it into a D&D game of the type @estar was talking about. It works great in BitD because the players simply create some fiction for themselves as they go about taking advantage of a bonus or whatever. Because very little is nailed down about the setting in terms of factual details they are free to do that, and it is simply part of the process.
> 
> OTOH once you are in estar's high background detail 'Majestic Wilderlands' (or whatever) then how would the players do that? They can't easily just invent an old boarded over basement window everyone forgot about, for example. Nor can they simply invent a judge to be bribed to explain the +1 they got on some check because they own the Warehouse District. All of that COULD be sorted out, but it has to be sorted out by the GM, because nobody else has permission to introduce any fiction, and nobody else has his (what must be) 1000's and 1000's of pages of notes on everything under the Sun! In a more subtle way, how fitting are all of those details to the execution of a given sort of activity (IE gang building in this case) to the established fiction, which is so dense that there may well be no area in the whole setting where you won't run into endless obstacles that thwart any such effort? Now, we don't know of that is true or not in this specific case, but as a player contemplating taking on some sort of activity like that, I'm already a bit worried.



To be fair, the presence of something like the boarded up window, or the judge, are perfectly possible in many many instances of sandbox. The players ask and the GM decides, right? In some, I will grant you, the ability of the players to 'ask' is pretty curtailed, but that's on the GM, not the play style. In my sandboxes, for example, both the window and the judge happen all the time because of the way I run my games. That's not to say there's no difference between Blades and traditional OSR sandbox play, because there is. The fact that the permissions are hard coded into the Blades rules set is a significant difference, as it means those things are no longer up to the whim of the individual GM, which I think is your main point, if I'm readings you right.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> We not talking software but people. People do the actualizing not the mechanics. When mechanics are used it because people chose to use them as the way to actualize the principle. But is not necessary or a requirement but a preference.
> 
> Well I would suggest you write out to yourself how you run narrative games in a manner that relatively systemless. Then whenever you use a system don't use what fits, alter what needed and go from there.
> 
> This is speaking from the experience of dragging the same setting, Majestic Wilderlands, through a dozen system over 40 years. A hopefully more accessible example is Adventures in Middle Earth versus 5e. AiME successfully adapt 5e into a Middle Earth roleplaying by jettisoning most of the lists and creating new elements for their lists (class, creatures, cultures, items, etc). Adapting an existing mechanics (feats) into something different (virtues) but better suited for a ME mechanics. Finally adding new subsystems (Audiences, Shadow, etc) fill in things that needed to be addressed in a ME campaign but wasn't in 5e.
> 
> The same with how you run narrative. List out all that you do without reference to a system. Then evaluate the new system in that light. Jettison what doesn't fit like Wizards, Spells, and Cleric for AiME, kept what does, add what missing and keep it consistent with the bases system like AiME's Journey, Audience, and Shadow rules.
> 
> There is no reason you can't use adapt the D&D mechanics to the structure that Blades in the Dark as long as you understand how D&D works and what it means to use that but not this. For example many people consider the encounter balance guidelines as part of the rules. They are not. However they were use extensively in D&D 4e organized play and the published modules. But one could, as I did, ignore them completely and run a D&D 4e campaign like one did for GURPS or AD&D. Like I did with my Majestic Wilderlands.



Well, we will have to differ on the subject of principles and mechanical structure to support specific styles of play. Believe me, I've gamed for as long as anyone here, and invented a wide variety of games of all ilks, including a few homebrew RPGs. Played a lot of published games too. 

For instance, I don't agree with you that you can really adapt D&D to work like BitD. The very structure of how characters are built and how they advance will work against you. By the time you removed all the rules from D&D that you don't want/need/get in the way, nothing would be left! Sure, you might be able to play a game where you have STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, CHA 3-18 ranges, hit points, and armor class, but maybe even those constructs won't work for you in all games! 

In any case, I find it extremely easy to say that there are appropriate games for specific styles of play, moods, genre conventions, and even specific milieu. I mean, sure AiME works, but as you pointed out, they got rid of a lot. I would also say that this is a 'D&D adjacent genre', but the same sort of process would never work to make an RPG about being a Marine in WWII in the Pacific, right?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I was especially disappointed with the experience I had with CoC a few years ago when trying to play it in a way analogous to how I would run narrative games. It just got in the way so much that I would really never run it again, though I am a fan of the genre. Maybe someone more skilled than I am can do it, but CoC actively inhibits narrative style play in multiple ways (and is just painfully clunky, I'm amazed I was able to run it back in the 80's without more trouble).



I would strongly recommend Cthulhu Dark. 4 pages. I've used it twice for one-shots. No prep required for an excellent play experience.


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## Fenris-77

Hmm, there's some middle ground there. Flashbacks work just fine in D&D, and the idea of a roll to determine starting position works fine too. I know becauce I've adapted some Blades stuff to run heist games in D&D. It's not identical of course, but you can nudge D&D closer than you might think with just some minor tinkering. It would be easier to just run Blades of course, but sometimes what you have is D&D players who want to play a heist. Anythewho, not to derail us, just tossing that out there.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> while there are definitely some differences in specific techniques, that the way you are employing PV has a lot in common with AW. PV seems to be somewhat less explicit about the processes by which players help to define the fiction



Agreed. I also think it gives the GM a little more latitude in managing "offscreen" elements, because there is no requirement to say/do what your prep demands.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> I think the vast majority of principles translate just fine from one game to another. Where the mechanics are different, they probably shape play differently.
> 
> I think CoC is really, really limited both by its history and by horror as a genre. The adventures published for the game over the decades have formed an expectation of play that is ... railroady, IMO. Horror, especially its Lovecraftian branch, is ... plausibly not the best genre of fiction to apply Story Now to, what with the tropes of hidden knowledge and secret histories and tainted bloodlines and insane narrators--it just seems as though the "gotcha" is part of (maybe the heart of) the fiction. In other words, I'm deeply unsruprised you had troubles trying to run it like a PbtA game. While 5E might be limited in similar ways by its history and by WotC's business model (making money by selling published adventures), I haven't found it to be limited in anything like the way it sounds as though you found it to me--horses for courses, probably.



Oh, but there are a couple of quite excellent 'Story Now' type games that do Cthulhu quite well! In fact we did a bit of experimentation with using PACE for that (a micro RPG that could be thought of as pretty close to what happens if you cut Maelstrom down to a couple pages and make it diceless). It works nicely! The parts of CoC that get in the way are all the clunky BRP/RQ legacy game process and mechanics where the GM invents everything, and resolution is all just 'PC skill test pass/fail' mechanics. What I found is that players loved stuff like having the option to 'go insane' as their response to something! Sure, that might spell the end of the character, perhaps, but the goal in a Cthulhu scenario really cannot seriously be said to be survival anyway, right? I mean, only a very few of HPL's main characters walk away relatively intact. Another approach might be to design the game such that the PCs are peripheral characters in the story, but I'm not sure how to really make that engaging. It might work as a sort of escalating thing though, where first you cross paths with your Mad Uncle and get a whiff of the weirdness, and then the game 'levels up' to "he's vanished, you have his journal, weird stuff is happening, what do you do...". 

Anyway, either way, I'd never go back to an 'old school' sort of RPG format for any of that, it just gets in the way. A PbtA might work.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> the goal in a Cthulhu scenario really cannot seriously be said to be survival anyway, right?



In my experience, that's the only viable goal, since the adventures are written so you're not really saving the world--succeed at the adventure or horribly bomb, the world won't end; the stakes you're playing for are a lie.

Can you tell I fell out of CoC a while ago?

Sounds as though you're using Lovecraftian tropes to play a game that generates non-Lovecraftian stories. Which is cool--I'm not a huge fan of undiluted Lovecraftian fiction in my TRPGs myself.


----------



## Fenris-77

The PbtA Mythos game is called _Tremulus_ I believe. 

Edit: Yup, that's it, I knew I had a copy somewhere. It's a pretty slick ruleset too.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> In my little inexperienced box, collaborative story telling is about collaborating to tell a story (all rpgs do this)  DUH   But the games that I would label as such are ones where the player has the right to establish facts about the story other than what his character attempts to do.  In a more traditional game (no better word has been given than traditional) the DM would be the one doing that and even though he might sometimes delegate to the players or a player for some specific detail into the world, the player has no expectation that typical play will consist of the ability to do such things.



This means that one of the most famous RPGs of all time, Traveller (1st published 1977), turns out to be a "collaborative storytelling game" rather than a traditional RPG.

This relates to what I posted upthread to @Bedrockgames: you two are using "traditional" or "old school" to capture something that is actually a retro-oriented reconstruction.

Even early D&D players - many of them being also wargamers - thought that plyers could establish facts about the story other than PC attempts, eg by using the combat rules to bring it about that opponents are dead.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I don't actually have a problem with describing those games as catering more toward dramatic needs.  That's a description of them we all agree on?  Maybe Drama First Rpgs?



We already have the phrase _story now_. Do we need a new one?


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think, maybe somewhat in a way that is analogous to other people saying that a sandbox can lead to player agenda focused play, that a 'story now' or 'zero myth' type of game can also lead to exploration.



Here's an example, from about 10 years ago. The system is 4e D&D.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> You and your group are camped alongside a road having stopped on a journey to the shrine. You see a campfire in the distance with maybe two or three people making camp around it. Later that night* you are awakened by screams of terror in the distance and more figures around that distant campfire. Clearly there something going on over there.
> 
> What do you do?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I noticed that out of the stuff I created for that campaign this adventure worked as as a self-contained sandbox so I developed it further like I did the Scourge of the Demon Wolf. The reason it works is because it has a clear inciting incident. The attack on the peasant boy and knight's daughter. Plus it is enough of a stereotype that most hobbyist "get" what the situation is without the overhead of the campaign background.





estar said:


> In my campaign the players can do anything that their character are capable of. They can find a dungeon and explore (Dungeon World), they can wander the ruins of a fallen empire of magic (Apocalypses World), they can plan out a heist (Blades in the Dark) within the same campaign and the same setting.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think one disconnect we have, is you don't realize importance of how the setting described. I am not making up stuff all the time. It is actually uncommon. I am instead acting on information that been established beforehand. In the case of the Majestic Wilderlands often established decades ago by other players in pursuit of long ago goals.



The players can't have their PCs find a dungeon and explore it if the GM hasn't written it (as per the _information that has been established beforehand_ ie the GM's notes, map and key).

A player can't have his PC find his brother if the GM has decided already that the brother is dead.

Etc.

Furthermore, the GM is framing these situations like attacks on peasant boys with - it seems to me - a relatively strong expectation that the players will engage with them.

Now if you're saying that the GM _alters_ or _adds to _the pre-authored fiction and _frames the scenes_ to reflect evinced player interests, how are you describing an approach any different from heavy-prep story now play?



estar said:


> Look if you want a campaign where characters set the direction and the freedom to go anywhere, this is why the hexcrawl format of the Wilderlands is a good thing.
> 
> Which is why in 2020 I included this in the book I just published
> View attachment 131043



I don't see that _allowing the playes to "trash" the setting by making their mark_ is very unique to your RPGing. It's something that has been part of my RPGing since at least the second half of the 1980s.

It's certainly an expectation in AW, DitV and I would expect BitD that the players will "trash" the setting. In all my RM GMing, and in our 4e game, and in all my current games, this is taken as a given.

I don't really understand what your point is, or on what basis you are claiming this is unique.


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## Fenris-77

Just because prep exists for a sandbox doesn't mean the DM is beholden to it. It happens all the time. So sure, in a vacuum, a dungeon or brother could be manufactured on the fly. I've done it, as, I'm sure, have lots of people. Not all of course, and maybe not even many, but some. I think it's a mistake to take the pov of the most prep beholden sandbox GMs and then project that onto the wider group. This is why taking playstyle as the first layer of analysis is so fraught IMO.


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## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Just because prep exists for a sandbox doesn't mean the DM is beholden to it. It happens all the time. So sure, in a vacuum, a dungeon or brother could be manufactured on the fly. I've done it, as, I'm sure, have lots of people. Not all of course, and maybe not even many, but some.



Sure. But why would a GM who is doing that assert so vociferously that there are these _fundamental differences_ between what is happening in their game and what is happening in (say) my BW and Prince Valiant games.

This is why I invited @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames and @estar to comment on my post upthread. In what ways do they think that the episodes I set out - one imagined by Vincent Baker, one actual in my Prince Valiant game - differ from a "true sandbox"?


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This is why I invited @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames and @estar to comment on my post upthread. In what ways do they think that the episodes I set out - one imagined by Vincent Baker, one actual in my Prince Valiant game - differ from a "true sandbox"?




I don't think any of us are trying to carve up the world into 'true sandboxes' and untrue ones. I used the term pure sandbox, to describe a style of play that adheres closely to the ideal of sandbox you often see described. And I said, my campaigns aren't even pure sandboxes. I think there is distinctions to be made between sandboxes in terms of style, system and techniques the GM uses, but I don't think there is a contest between them.


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## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Just because prep exists for a sandbox doesn't mean the DM is beholden to it. It happens all the time. So sure, in a vacuum, a dungeon or brother could be manufactured on the fly. I've done it, as, I'm sure, have lots of people. Not all of course, and maybe not even many, but some. I think it's a mistake to take the pov of the most prep beholden sandbox GMs and then project that onto the wider group. This is why taking playstyle as the first layer of analysis is so fraught IMO.




Yeah, I think sandboxes can vary considerably from one group to one group, and from one GM to another. I think of these campaigns when I run them, more as active world with factions in them (that also happen to have locations like dungeons, but those aren't the main course). There are prepped locations, but I find the chemical reaction of the live elements and the PCs is what is most interesting to me. I would say a campaign has several things: prepped material (locations, npcs, factions, etc), material produced on the fly, and the stuff that generates from the energy of the campaign once it starts to gain motion (i.e. a prepped NPC deciding to ally with another prepped NPC against the PCs). And everyone views prepped stuff different, and some people just do rough sketch, while others get real deep.


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## Fenris-77

@pemerton - I'll start by rejecting the notion of 'true sandbox' out of hand. No offense to anyone in particular but there is no such thing, and to insist that there is smacks of one-true-wayism. Here's the problem with having this conversation at the level of playstyle, sandbox especially. Most of the rules sets used to run sandbox play place a lot of agency in the GMs hands, and do not provide many strictures for it's employment beyond the adjudication of the basic pass-fail mechanic. There a *lot* of ways for that agency to be employed, so it becomes very difficult to talk about agency within the style. Some GMs use that agency splendidly, and some do not, some devolve a lot of it on the players in ways that are reminiscent of PbtA play, and others apportion it in any number of other ways. 

My point is that one sandbox game, one that proceeds from predetermined prep, would be very different, while others might be far more similar to your style. If the question is 'agency', a satisfactory answer isn't 'sandbox'.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> This relates to what I posted upthread to @Bedrockgames: you two are using "traditional" or "old school" to capture something that is actually a retro-oriented reconstruction.



I am just using handy descriptors. And yes, the OSR stuff is retro. In Estar's case though, a lot of what he is doing is just a style he has been developing from his early days in the hobby. 

I am not trying to assert anything about the lineage of the style i play in when I use these terms. Like I said, I actually agree with you about the history of the hobby: it often gets very simplified. And while I have only played classic traveller (I haven't run it or read the books), so I can't weigh in on that mechanic specially with deep knowledge, I do think, especially in the earlier days when a lot of these lines didn't exist, you saw all kinds of rules, techniques and mechanics that transcend and predate the boxes and concepts we have now. I remember things being all over the map when I first started in the mid-80s. I have always been wary of the 'history of the hobby' as it gets advanced online. It isn't like there are all that many secondary sources, and the primary sources are still living memory for many people. And most of the people writing about the history of the hobby are actively involved in it (that makes being objective about the history, especially around contentious topics, very difficult in my opinion).


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I was only discussing that in the context of lifting it and dropping it into a D&D game of the type @estar was talking about. It works great in BitD because the players simply create some fiction for themselves as they go about taking advantage of a bonus or whatever. Because very little is nailed down about the setting in terms of factual details they are free to do that, and it is simply part of the process.
> 
> OTOH once you are in estar's high background detail 'Majestic Wilderlands' (or whatever) then how would the players do that? They can't easily just invent an old boarded over basement window everyone forgot about, for example. Nor can they simply invent a judge to be bribed to explain the +1 they got on some check because they own the Warehouse District. All of that COULD be sorted out, but it has to be sorted out by the GM, because nobody else has permission to introduce any fiction, and nobody else has his (what must be) 1000's and 1000's of pages of notes on everything under the Sun! In a more subtle way, how fitting are all of those details to the execution of a given sort of activity (IE gang building in this case) to the established fiction, which is so dense that there may well be no area in the whole setting where you won't run into endless obstacles that thwart any such effort? Now, we don't know of that is true or not in this specific case, but as a player contemplating taking on some sort of activity like that, I'm already a bit worried.




I am not sure I 100% follow the boarded window thing, so apologies if this isn't an accurate response to your post, but the thought this prompts for me is in Estar's games, there is assumed to be more to the setting than is prepped. I mean even the Majestic Wilderlands, as much as it has in it, the players can always take more fine a comb to the setting or seek something that likely exists but hasn't been pinned down. In my own games for example, I have maps, and those maps have many cities and towns on them, but like real world maps, they are not all the towns assumed to exist. I assume there are villages, towns and other settlements. And even within an existing town, there is only so much I can prep in advance. The players may ask "Does this town have an X?" and if I haven't answered or thought about that, I have to come up with a decision on the spot about it. Or maybe the setting specifically mentions X existing broadly in the setting (for instance maybe every county has a patrolling inspector) but I haven't detailed the particular patrolling inspector and his men of that county.


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## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> OTOH once you are in estar's high background detail 'Majestic Wilderlands' (or whatever) then how would the players do that? They can't easily just invent an old boarded over basement window everyone forgot about, for example. Nor can they simply invent a judge to be bribed to explain the +1 they got on some check because they own the Warehouse District. All of that COULD be sorted out, but it has to be sorted out by the GM,



It sorted like if you were there as the character, you check the condition of the warehouses' basement windows before. Or you take your chances. You ask around to see if there is a bribable judge, bribe them and use them to further your goal. 


AbdulAlhazred said:


> to explain the +1 they got on some check because they own the Warehouse District.



They don't need to explain why the +1 because already die something as their character to earn that +1. At the level of specific action it expressed by having the players describe what it is their character is doing. And if it warrants a modifier then it get a modifier. And in majority of the case circumstances modifier is already defined in the rules. 




AbdulAlhazred said:


> because nobody else has permission to introduce any fiction, and nobody else has his (what must be) 1000's and 1000's of pages of notes on everything under the Sun!



I have a lot of notes but not 1,000s of pages. For what I haven't detailed at that moment, I will turn what been described about the setting. The odds are significant in a run down neighborhood that one of the basement are broken. So I make a roll reflecting those odds and those are the result the players and I deal with. If it exists the players caught a break, if it doesn't then the players have to deal the situation with that detail. 

If they want create a advantageous situation then they have to create as if they were there. The challenge is part of the appeal. And it not for everyone like any specific niche within this hobby. But it absolutely doesn't require 1,000s pages of note. It does require some work and some planning like access to a decent set of random tables for the setting. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> In a more subtle way, how fitting are all of those details to the execution of a given sort of activity (IE gang building in this case) to the established fiction, which is so dense that there may well be no area in the whole setting where you won't run into endless obstacles that thwart any such effort?



Life is vast and full of possibilities even in a medieval hamlet. What you are calling obstacles are not obstacles. The vast majority will be neutral towards the PCs.  Some will be allied or positive circumstances, other will be enemies or negative circumstances. I would say a referee running a campaign the way I do make everything negative or everything positive or even everything neutral is not doing a good job of making a compelling setting. Places have a mix. Exactly what there is discoverable. With that information one can formulate a plan to further one's goals.

Take my video for example. The inciting incident is that you are camped on the side of the road at night. You see another campfire, you hear a scream what do you do?

Do you get involved? Do you ignore what going on? Which side you join when youd.

If you opt to get involved you will find bandits attacking two individual. One obviously a young man who is a peasant, the other a young woman who obviously a noble's daughter. 

Now I have run this over half a dozen time. Every time the group decides to rescue the pair and fight the bandits. But I am prepared if they decide to join the bandits. Or to ignore the situation and let the bandits have their way with the couple. 

Most assume that I mean for the group to rescue the couple. That it is my preferred outcome. Well I don't have a preferred outcome. I tell players do what you want to as a character. I will roll with it. Join the bandit and make the couple the party's prisoners, OK. Ignore what going on, OK. 

But I find that everybody wants to be a hero and thus fight the bandits and rescue the couple. And they learn that the couple is running away and that the lady's father is a knight and that he doesn't want the two to marry. 

And this incident is the first major point of divergence in how the different groups handle the situation.  A slight majority will take the couple back to the village. All of them came up with a story to get the peasant boy out of trouble. Half of them succeed and other half didn't because father is a knight who is the bailiff (administrator) of the village and major naughty word. Some group are good at talking down assholes some are not. The last group did it succeeded because one of them was a paladin of the major faith of the region and she milked it for all it worth and intimidated the naughty word out of the knight. 

Keep in mind I let players roll up characters for my one-shot so I no idea beforehand this was going to happen. But she picked up on the social implication of the background details I gave her on paladins right away. 

Other groups will find a hiding place in the woods (there is an abandoned cottage that not far from the village that they can find) and stash the couple there while they deal with their mission from the bishop and figure the deal with the girl's father the knight.

So yes the players are not creating the fiction. But I breathed enough life into the setting to bring it to life so they don't need to in order to experience it and find opportunities  to advance their own goals. And because the place has it own life it has it own troubles that the players find themselves in the midst of.

Not something they anticipated as players. It not a fiction they created to experience. They literally had no idea of the complications they were about to face. But the part of the fun, dealing with the unexpected. Then finding a way to resolve it. 

I admit there is a chance they could ignore the complications. The conflict between the knight and the villagers, the plots of the Russet Lord a winter faerie lord seeking to recreate one of the stories that gave him birth that will result in the destruction of the village. The slothful monk who habitually late on the tithe. The players could march right in, drop off the couple, resolve getting the tithe, and march right out*. 

But the reason I work on this particular adventure is that like my Scourge of the Demon Wolf I found that the overall situation was compelling to a broad range of players.  That given human nature, players decide on their own to deal with it in a way that they find fun. And to me that how the best sandbox campaigns work. I don't have do anything keep the campaign going. They want to continue, to climb the next hill, talk to the next NPCs. 

And all this approach is neither better or worse than any of the other in this. But it does offer quite a bit of player agency. 

*So this happened not in my Russet Lord adventure yet, but in my Scourge of the Demon Wolf adventure there is a red herring where the players can encounter a group of bandit pretending to be wolves. Most group don't think the bandits are the cause of the problem that they were sent to investigate. But one group did, they were positive that they solved the mystery. And this was after 1 hour in a four hour time slot at a convention.

Luckily they encountered the bandits well before reaching the village  so never went there to talk to them. When they returned to the baron that sent them out, he asked OK are they going to bring in my harvest. The players realized they didn't complete that part of their task. So headed back out. And quickly found out that the bandit were not the sole cause of the wolf attacks.


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## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This means that one of the most famous RPGs of all time, Traveller (1st published 1977), turns out to be a "collaborative storytelling game" rather than a traditional RPG.
> 
> This relates to what I posted upthread to @Bedrockgames: you two are using "traditional" or "old school" to capture something that is actually a retro-oriented reconstruction.



This has got to end.  I've offered to use another term than "traditional".  It's your own dang fault that you haven't proposed something else.

My only issue with retro is that I've never played in any kind of retro game that I'm aware.  I've never been in any retro communities that I'm aware of.  So I don't really think it's ever had any measurable influence on me.  Which is why I'm baffled to hear that coming up as your reason for me using the term.  I use the term because D&D has pretty much dominated the RPG market from the beginning and to me that makes this style and those similar to it "traditional".  Again, I'll use another term as I'm not married to "traditional" but I don't know of a better one to use.  Retro rings too hollow to me.

My first familiarity with D&D was the baulders gate and icewind dale PC games.  I didn't play 3e and I'm fairly happy for that as the player facing mechanics for it feel too simulationy to me.  I started playing pen and paper early 4e.  I liked 4e but my 4e games are nothing like you describe yours as being.  I like 5e better than 4e.  I tend to enjoy analyzing tactical options and character builds about as much as I like playing the game.  That's the case for me and most games.  I probably like Stars Without Number a little more than 5e. 



pemerton said:


> Even early D&D players - many of them being also wargamers - thought that plyers could establish facts about the story other than PC attempts, eg by using the combat rules to bring it about that opponents are dead.



*Correction - they thought the combat rules could establish facts about the story other than the PC attempts.

This distinction has been pointed out 100's of times on this thread.  I don't know why you keep returning to it like the answer is going to be anything different.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I'm rather unclear on this point! Every sandbox, at some level boils down to a 'menu', that is it is some sort of collection of 'interesting situations' which are scattered around on some sort of 'map' (these could actually be anything, they are dungeons/lairs/terrain typically in most D&D games which are spread on a literal map). By dint of exploration and decision making the players select (or maybe stumble upon) some of these 'situations', or possibly learn about them and select them explicitly (IE they get a treasure map, they follow it instead of selling it).



I think the more active the players are, the less true this is. But it does depend on what you mean by 'interesting situations'.  A lot of things don't even become interesting situations until the PCs actively involve themselves. I often have places and people on my map, I don't think of as 'situations'. And a lot times I am inventing things on the fly. The players don't have the power of authorship that Pemerton has described in some of his examples, but they do have the ability to force the GM to create new things (with statements as simple as "hey is there a pizza shop in this area of town"). We had a group of players decide they wanted to rob a bunch of banks in a campaign a few months ago. That prompted a bunch of setting considerations on the GMs part (are there banks, what do banks actually look like in this setting, what kind of security do they have, what specific banks are here and in what settlements). I think this goes beyond selecting from a menu of options.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Even early D&D players - many of them being also wargamers - thought that plyers could establish facts about the story other than PC attempts, eg by using the combat rules to bring it about that opponents are dead.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Correction - they thought the combat rules could establish facts about the story other than the PC attempts.
Click to expand...


The combat rules set out the procedure and norms that govern how players establish those facts. That's what rules are for.

If the contrast that you are drawing were a sound one, then there would be _no _example of a RPG in which players can establish facts about stories other than PC attempts. Because in every case it would be the _rules_ that are doing it.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I use the term because D&D has pretty much dominated the RPG market from the beginning and to me that makes this style and those similar to it "traditional".  Again, I'll use another term as I'm not married to "traditional" but I don't know of a better one to use.  Retro rings too hollow to me.
> 
> My first familiarity with D&D was the baulders gate and icewind dale PC games.  I didn't play 3e and I'm fairly happy for that as the player facing mechanics for it feel too simulationy to me.  I started playing pen and paper early 4e.  I liked 4e but my 4e games are nothing like you describe yours as being.  I like 5e better than 4e.  I tend to enjoy analyzing tactical options and character builds about as much as I like playing the game.  That's the case for me and most games.  I probably like Stars Without Number a little more than 5e.



I first played D&D in 1982. @AbdulAlhazred first played in 1975, I believe. A style of D&D play that dates from the 90s or 2000s just doesn't seem very "traditional" to me.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> The players don't have the power of authorship that Pemerton has described in some of his examples, but they do have the ability to force the GM to create new things (with statements as simple as "hey is there a pizza shop in this area of town").



I posted two examples of play upthread, one an imagined example of AW play, one an actual example of Prince Valiant play.

How do these differ from your notion of a "sandbox"?


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## estar

pemerton said:


> This is why I invited @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames and @estar to comment on my post upthread. In what ways do they think that the episodes I set out - one imagined by Vincent Baker, one actual in my Prince Valiant game - differ from a "true sandbox"?



Sorry missed it.
*Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)*
Using D&D 5e because know the system.

_Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs)_. 
*No Difference here.*

_“I read the situation,” her player says_. 
*Roll an insight check but from the example Maries know the NPCs so there little chance of failure. I would say roll 1d20 don't roll a one. *

_You do? It’s charged?” I say.
“It is now.”_
*This wouldn't happen this way. Instead there would pre-existing tension to exist in for Marie arrival to "charge" the situation established earlier events in the campaign or something the player created for their character background. If that so then yeah the situation is charged. But of it wasn't charged to begin with then roll a Intimidation check DC 15. But only after Marie's player described how the character escalates things.*

_“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister._

*Yeah I don't view things like they unfold in a movie. I view things like if was a Holodeck or virtual reality. Neither way is better but very different focus.*

_She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says._

*Again this would play out differently with me. The players would get to make a DC 15 Insight check after asking about the biggest threat without any preconditions. If the player have encountered the NPCs before, then the check is not needed. I would just tell them. *

_“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard fucker. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)_

*So if Marie's player wanted more details that not obvious from past event or knowledge then I would have the player make a DC 15 Insight check if it is about a character emotional state or DC 15 Perception check if it about the physical environment of the target. In this case noticing that the Plover has a little gun in his boot.*

_“Hm, now I want an escape route. Can I read the situation again?”
“Of course not.” Once is what you get, unless the situation substantially changes._
*This exchange is baloney, given how the AW setting describes their characters, if Marie had enough situational awareness to scope out a escape route along with other things. So a DC 15 Perception check. But if this goes on after the second perception, there would be some type of reaction from the NPCs. Because basically what happening the Marie comes waltzing in and taking her sweet time in saying or doing anything. But I don't constrain the player saying "once is all you get". 

The worst case is that you can only do so much in the time you have. So if you are willing to accept the consequences of taking extra time by all means continue.*

So I will end it here because I don't really want to do the work to figure out what direct-brain whisper projection is but the context is obviously some type of psionic ability of the brainer.  But I don't see what I do playing about much differently.  AW and my technique align the closest when comes to extraordinary abilities.

*Prince Valiant*
_Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople._
I won't use fiat to that degree, I pregenerate the weather or it came about as result of random complication like with the AiME journey rules. 

_This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object._
*When it comes to major events, I better not have come up with it on a whim or the players will react negatively out of game. Random naughty word is fine provided the setup of the odds isn't judicious for the setting. A whole session of AiME came about because of some really naughty word up journey results that caught the players flat-footed. I give more details later if desired. None of it was planned and it was all result of random rolls and working past events in the campaign.*

_ I used the first of them....
[The PCs forces are victorious, with some effective leadership by the PC knights.]

Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability._
*Similar events had happen in my campaign.*

_I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify...

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario ...
...The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging ...._
*OK except I would have known what in the Rattling Forest in a broad sense and if I was pressed for time adapted some published forest adventure that fits. So it wouldn't be totally pulling something out of my ass. 

But lets say I really have don't know. Then I would make a series of random rolls look at the result. Throw out any that doesn't make sense and reroll until I have a set of results that inspired me. Of course if a 1,000 hobbyist used this techniques some of it would abuse it until they get a result that reflected it biases. My criteria is does it make sense in light of the setting and the other rolls. So I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.*

_The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.")._
*Yeah I don't use metagame mechanics. Either their would been a anchor for the curse or not. If there is then it would discoverable. If it was hidden, the discovery process would be difficult. *

I hope I illustrated how I would handle things given your situations.


----------



## aramis erak

Ovinomancer said:


> Earlier (and often) in the thread I referenced the benevolent dictator -- life can be very good under one, but some will still chafe at it.  D&D mostly runs this way, normally, as do other "mainstream" games.  It's the model where there is a Rule Zero in place.



Different games have different "rule 0" rules.
I assume you're referencing Gygax/D&D rule 0: The GM is always right and can change things on a whim.
Many newer games invoke "Wheaton's Rule": Don't be a dick.
A few invoke "The group shall decide" denying any one person the ability to alter rules.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I posted two examples of play upthread, one an imagined example of AW play, one an actual example of Prince Valiant play.
> 
> How do these differ from your notion of a "sandbox"?




I am having a little trouble following the language of the AW example. It might just be late, but I don't feel I absorbed the meaning well enough to comment. 

For the second one, it isn't that is is different from my notion of sandbox, but it is different from how I would run a sandbox in a few key ways I think (but again I may just not be following the meaning that well). The first thing is the bit about the ghosts in the forest. In my game, the players wouldn't propose that kind of thing, and I wouldn't materialize it based on their proposal. I don't think that makes it less of a sandbox, but I do think if you were to run a sandbox with say OSR gamers, they wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Another area is the way you used Fiat for the ship. Again, I may have misread, but it sounded like you just decided something happened, out of a desire for future scenarios (I could be misremembering as I don't have the page open in another window). But I generally use Survival (Water) for ship travel and if the captain fails, then something would happen. If I did use Fiat, it wouldn't be in service to a future scenario I want to happen, but because of something I feel ought to happen based on events. For example if they had just fought with a bunch of Lady White Blade's students, and cut of their heads...I may have decided Lady White Blade sent three Flying Phantoms after them, and attacking when they are traveling by sea might be a good time to take them by surprise. So by fiat I might decide a vessel carrying the flying phantom approaches. I would probably roll for the crew to see if they notice (if any PCs had saiid they were being vigilant, they might notice)....if no one notices a surprise midnight attack might occur on the ship. The third way your approach seems different is you talk about scenarios, and they seem like events or encounters that are pre-planned which you deploy. I don't really do that. It is possible I am misunderstanding you here, if I am, let me know (again it is getting a bit late for me). But when I do encounters, especially from travel, I use tables and I draw of things local to the area. So if the players fail a Survival Roll as they are passing through Fan Xu Prefecture on the western side of the canal, and I roll on a table and get Local Sect 1d10 disciples, I would look at the map, see that the nearest sect is Long Ma Hall (and escort company), and then start to think about why the Long Ma Hall people show up, how they show up, etc. The biggest thing to me is the why. If the players haven't done anything particularly unusual in the region, I would probably setting on the Sect's priority as the guiding principle (they are an escort company, trying to do good in the region and essentially fight crime-----so they probably approach the party in a friendly but stern way and request to inspect their carts. An encounter like this could be friendly, hostile, maybe even just be an opportunity for the sides to trade rumors, or be totally pointless. Where I think this kind of encounter is useful, and it is useful in a lot of ways, but where it would be useful in terms of agency is its meaning does shift if the players happen to have contraband. And if you are using your encounter tables like this constantly that can work great (because there isn't just Long Ma Hall but also patrolling inspectors and even potential encounters with higher ranked magistrates). 

Not sure how well this answers your question. Nothing you are doing strikes me as bad, or as not sandbox.I would probably really need to see it in play to say for sure. You aren't using a hex map, but I don't always use hex maps, and I don't think they are a requirement for sandbox---personally I just like them because they are a good way to measure distance over travel. It would certainly certainly be maybe a little unorthodox for some more 'traditional' sandbox players (and just using traditional for convenience here, not for any greater meaning). I also think, unless I misunderstand you, some of those scenario situations might be a little canned. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I've done that myself in my own sandboxes. I did a series of adventures keyed to an encounter table for instance (here: WUXIA INSPIRATION: BLOOD-STAINED ENCOUNTERS PART ONE). I think this stuff is good to throw in once in a while, and as long as the players are free to not engage it, I don't think it violates sandbox principles. But I have encountered enough players who might bristle at it, that it is worth mentioning. 

Keep in mind, my own style is probably pretty unorthodox for a lot of OSR and sandbox people. So take my opinions with that grain of salt in mind. For example I literalize fate in my games. In the wuxia setting it is literally part of the cosmology and the cycle of rebirth, but I do it in all my settings where I  just believe in the power of these cosmic coincidences that crop up in play. And I often use tables to make fate a concrete thing, though secret, in the setting (and that is one of the places where I give myself more leniency to introduce intrusive elements: things I might personally find too heavy handed for sandbox for example, but maybe dramatically interesting).


----------



## Ovinomancer

aramis erak said:


> Different games have different "rule 0" rules.
> I assume you're referencing Gygax/D&D rule 0: The GM is always right and can change things on a whim.
> Many newer games invoke "Wheaton's Rule": Don't be a dick.
> A few invoke "The group shall decide" denying any one person the ability to alter rules.



Rule zero has a rather specific history.  I don't disagree with your assertion of different baseline rules, but that any of those are referred to as rule zero.

I also find that Wheaton rarely lives up to his own rule, but that's just me.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> The combat rules set out the procedure and norms that govern how players establish those facts. That's what rules are for.



Let's start with your style.  In your style the player would establish 2 things.  1) that he attacks the orc and 2) the outcome on a success.  The DM would then establish the outcome on a failure and set the DC.  The player would roll and the dice would establish whether the player's outcome or the DM's outcome occurs in the fiction.  

Contrast this with D&D.  In D&D the player would establish 1 thing.  1) that he attacks the orc.  Since this is an attack the combat rules would establish what happens on a success and what happens on a failure.  Heck the combat rules even establsh what the DC is going to be set at.  The player would roll and the dice would establish which outcome from the rules occurs in the fiction.  *If not in combat then similar but different process is applied.

The process steps that generate a fictional outcome can be summed up below:
Success and Failure state outcomes established -> Success and Failure state determined via roll -> Fictional Outcome

The D&D player plays no role in any of these process steps.  The player of your game does play a role in the first.  Thus, IMO it's fair to say that the player in your style is part of the process for determining the fictional outcome whereas the player in the D&D game is not.


----------



## Ovinomancer

estar said:


> Sorry missed it.
> *Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)*
> Using D&D 5e because know the system.
> 
> _Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
> with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs)_.
> *No Difference here.*
> 
> _“I read the situation,” her player says_.
> *Roll an insight check but from the example Maries know the NPCs so there little chance of failure. I would say roll 1d20 don't roll a one. *
> 
> _You do? It’s charged?” I say.
> “It is now.”_
> *This wouldn't happen this way. Instead there would pre-existing tension to exist in for Marie arrival to "charge" the situation established earlier events in the campaign or something the player created for their character background. If that so then yeah the situation is charged. But of it wasn't charged to begin with then roll a Intimidation check DC 15. But only after Marie's player described how the character escalates things.*
> 
> _“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister._
> 
> *Yeah I don't view things like they unfold in a movie. I view things like if was a Holodeck or virtual reality. Neither way is better but very different focus.*
> 
> _She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says._
> 
> *Again this would play out differently with me. The players would get to make a DC 15 Insight check after asking about the biggest threat without any preconditions. If the player have encountered the NPCs before, then the check is not needed. I would just tell them. *
> 
> _“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard fucker. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)_
> 
> *So if Marie's player wanted more details that not obvious from past event or knowledge then I would have the player make a DC 15 Insight check if it is about a character emotional state or DC 15 Perception check if it about the physical environment of the target. In this case noticing that the Plover has a little gun in his boot.*
> 
> _“Hm, now I want an escape route. Can I read the situation again?”
> “Of course not.” Once is what you get, unless the situation substantially changes._
> *This exchange is baloney, given how the AW setting describes their characters, if Marie had enough situational awareness to scope out a escape route along with other things. So a DC 15 Perception check. But if this goes on after the second perception, there would be some type of reaction from the NPCs. Because basically what happening the Marie comes waltzing in and taking her sweet time in saying or doing anything. But I don't constrain the player saying "once is all you get".
> 
> The worst case is that you can only do so much in the time you have. So if you are willing to accept the consequences of taking extra time by all means continue.*
> 
> So I will end it here because I don't really want to do the work to figure out what direct-brain whisper projection is but the context is obviously some type of psionic ability of the brainer.  But I don't see what I do playing about much differently.  AW and my technique align the closest when comes to extraordinary abilities.
> 
> *Prince Valiant*
> _Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople._
> I won't use fiat to that degree, I pregenerate the weather or it came about as result of random complication like with the AiME journey rules.
> 
> _This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object._
> *When it comes to major events, I better not have come up with it on a whim or the players will react negatively out of game. Random naughty word is fine provided the setup of the odds isn't judicious for the setting. A whole session of AiME came about because of some really naughty word up journey results that caught the players flat-footed. I give more details later if desired. None of it was planned and it was all result of random rolls and working past events in the campaign.*
> 
> _ I used the first of them....
> [The PCs forces are victorious, with some effective leadership by the PC knights.]
> 
> Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability._
> *Similar events had happen in my campaign.*
> 
> _I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify...
> 
> I was using the Rattling Forest scenario ...
> ...The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging ...._
> *OK except I would have known what in the Rattling Forest in a broad sense and if I was pressed for time adapted some published forest adventure that fits. So it wouldn't be totally pulling something out of my ass.
> 
> But lets say I really have don't know. Then I would make a series of random rolls look at the result. Throw out any that doesn't make sense and reroll until I have a set of results that inspired me. Of course if a 1,000 hobbyist used this techniques some of it would abuse it until they get a result that reflected it biases. My criteria is does it make sense in light of the setting and the other rolls. So I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.*
> 
> _The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.")._
> *Yeah I don't use metagame mechanics. Either their would been a anchor for the curse or not. If there is then it would discoverable. If it was hidden, the discovery process would be difficult. *
> 
> I hope I illustrated how I would handle things given your situations.



You have -- there's much less agency in your approach. This is fine, it's not a value judgement, but you've clearly stated a few times in this that what the player wants out of a situation is impossible because you, the GM, judge that's not possible.  Again, this creates a very clear type of play, and one that is both common and well enjoyed.  This is because agency isn't not an independent marker of a fun game.  Or rather, it's rarely an independent marker -- I'm looking at you Candyland.

I'll also note that your approach to 5e is highly idiosyncratic.  There's no space in the 5e rules for "roll a d20, don't roll a 1."  This is very much a table rule.  I'd also be very curious to hear what would happen on a failure for any of the rolls you've detailed here.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Let's start with your style.  In your style the player would establish 2 things.  1) that he attacks the orc and 2) the outcome on a success.  The DM would then establish the outcome on a failure and set the DC.  The player would roll and the dice would establish whether the player's outcome or the DM's outcome occurs in the fiction.
> 
> Contrast this with D&D.  In D&D the player would establish 1 thing.  1) that he attacks the orc.  Since this is an attack the combat rules would establish what happens on a success and what happens on a failure.  Heck the combat rules even establsh what the DC is going to be set at.  The player would roll and the dice would establish which outcome from the rules occurs in the fiction.  *If not in combat then similar but different process is applied.
> 
> The process steps that generate a fictional outcome can be summed up below:
> Success and Failure state outcomes established -> Success and Failure state determined via roll -> Fictional Outcome
> 
> The D&D player plays no role in any of these process steps.  The player of your game does play a role in the first.  Thus, IMO it's fair to say that the player in your style is part of the process for determining the fictional outcome whereas the player in the D&D game is not.



No, the player is still establishing what will happen on a success.  This error you're making is that you're only evaluating a part of combat resolution against the whole of the other resolution.  When you compensate for the scope, the entire combat through to resolution is equivalent, especially to a system that features success with cost.  

And, in combat, the D&D player usually has a lot of agency in establishing the success state, because the combat rules are much tighter and feature resolution outcomes the player can leverage.  For example, a Battlemaster fighter can deploy a maneuver where, if successful, the target is knocked prone.  The GM may gainsay this, but will need a clear reason why to do so.  Success absolutely results in this outcome, and the player has a say in it.  They also usually have a say in the resolution via roll step, mostly due to build choices, but also do to any tactical elements of the combat -- like leveraging advantage or choosing to use GWM in the -5/+10 mode, etc, etc.  These directly alter the roll mechanics and give agency here.  The last is covered in the first -- the outcome in combat is usually pretty tightly constrained in 5e -- the GM has only a little wiggle room without deploying some clear reasons to block.

Finally, you've often mistaken Story Now resolution to be all or nothing -- this isn't necessary, and it's specifically dealt with in Blades.  Success requires movement towards the intent, but not necessarily full resolution.  In this mode, 5e combat even moves even closer in that it's usually about moving towards your goal of killing the orc on a success, and further or with complication on a failure.  Enough successes, and the orc is dead.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So, is there a RPG that isn’t on some level an exercise in collaborative storytelling? 

I saw that come up and it was positioned as a goal of some types of games, but not of others. I don’t know if I agree with that.

Perhaps it’s not the main focus or the primary goal of play, but I would think that no matter what, a RPG can be described as collaborative storytelling. 

It seems to me a very tenuous distinction.


----------



## Fenris-77

I tend to avoid that particular term as enormously loaded. Not that it isn't broadly accurate, but it tends to cause more arguments than it solves for some reason. IDK, maybe collaborative make-believe?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> I tend to avoid that particular term as enormously loaded. Not that it isn't broadly accurate, but it tends to cause more arguments than it solves for some reason. IDK, maybe collaborative make-believe?




Right, I’m not crazy about the term either, but I just don’t see the distinction being made given that it can be applied to any RPG I can think of.   

I’m responding to this idea not to argue definitions because I think we’ve done that enough, but instead because I think this was said in relation to the goals of play, or perhaps the focus of play, and how they may be different, depending on the game.


----------



## Fenris-77

hawkeyefan said:


> Right, I’m not crazy about the term either, but I just don’t see the distinction being made given that it can be applied to any RPG I can think of.
> 
> I’m responding to this idea not to argue definitions because I think we’ve done that enough, but instead because I think this was said in relation to the goals of play, or perhaps the focus of play, and how they may be different, depending on the game.



I don't have any problem with the term personally, but I've seen a lot of pretty heated responses to it from time to time, mostly from more traditional types. Anyway, I'm not trying to hack out another definitional debate here, just putting in my two cents about how divisive the term has proven to be in other discussions.


----------



## aramis erak

hawkeyefan said:


> So, is there a RPG that isn’t on some level an exercise in collaborative storytelling?



Several - but they're very limited systems intended for use in gamebooks. The story is already 90% written in the solo-module, and the game rules are used to fill out that  10%, usually with combat.


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## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> I don't have any problem with the term personally, but I've seen a lot of pretty heated responses to it from time to time, mostly from more traditional types. Anyway, I'm not trying to hack out another definitional debate here, just putting in my two cents about how divisive the term has proven to be in other discussions.



A better division would be to look at what's being advocated for by players -- is it telling an interesting story or is it advancing the character's agendas?  The way these are actualized in play goes further towards the distinction trying to be made by the loosely fit "storygame," and have much better resolution in analysis of play.

For instance, I think there's quite a lot of story advocacy in party play, because there's the inherent limitation on actions that "go against" the party.  This is advocating for something other than character advocacy, and is used to make sure that the story that forms is about the party.  It's a mild form of story advocacy, especially compared to others, but it's present nonetheless.  Which is a weird dichotomy in how these games are often portrayed as being rooted in playing from within the character -- so long as that character works with the group, that is.


----------



## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> I tend to avoid that particular term as enormously loaded. Not that it isn't broadly accurate, but it tends to cause more arguments than it solves for some reason. IDK, maybe collaborative make-believe?



Agreed about avoiding "collaborative storytelling." Part of it is that the table isn't just telling the story, and they're not even exactly writing it--there's some portion of being an audience in the mix; part of it is that in most TRPGs the story emerges through the processes of play, so it's different in important ways from authored fiction. The problem is, there's not a good word (or phrase even) in English that sums it up concisely.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> A player can't have his PC find his brother [alive] if the GM has decided already that the brother is dead.



You keep saying this, yet you leave out the one word you seem to be assuming (which I've taken the liberty of plugging in).

Sure the PC can learn the brother is dead, but if the PC is persistent and-or stubborn enough that's not the end of things.  I mean, any of the following are possible and this is just an off-the-cuff list:

--- if such magic exists in the setting, something like _Speak With Dead_ can be used to communicate with the brother, albeit briefly
--- if revival magic exists in the setting the PC can get the brother brought back to life
--- the PC can do whatever is needed to somehow journey to the land of the dead and find the brother there (and possibly generate several good adventures on the way in so doing!).


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## Fenris-77

I think it's also possibly for story and character advocacy to exist quite happily in a party that's sewn tight by connections and relationships from the get go, and playing a game where the teleos was already well established, either by genre or common interest. It depends on the table. You point is well taken though, there are different axes of advocacy at work in any game.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Right, I’m not crazy about the term either, but I just don’t see the distinction being made given that it can be applied to any RPG I can think of.
> 
> I’m responding to this idea not to argue definitions because I think we’ve done that enough, but instead because I think this was said in relation to the goals of play, or perhaps the focus of play, and how they may be different, depending on the game.



Focus of play I think it was. I agree it’s true of all rpgs to some extent.  I tend to think of story now games having a bit more of this than other styles because the input they give players into establishing what the successful outcome is.  May just be perspective though. 

I think focus of play for story now is definitely better described by exploring the character or setting up dramatic situations to learn about the character.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> I don't have any problem with the term personally, but I've seen a lot of pretty heated responses to it from time to time, mostly from more traditional types. Anyway, I'm not trying to hack out another definitional debate here, just putting in my two cents about how divisive the term has proven to be in other discussions.




Yeah, it doesn’t necessarily bother me personally, but I recognize it as a bit loaded to some folks. 

In this case, I don’t think it’s the term so much as the idea that it’s the goal itself for some games but not for others. 

Especially when, from many examples provided, often those who say storytelling isn’t their goal are eschewing actual game mechanics.  

In that sense, storytelling seems almost foundational for that approach. Seems odd to then say that it’s not a goal of play.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> A better division would be to look at what's being advocated for by players -- is it telling an interesting story or is it advancing the character's agendas?  The way these are actualized in play goes further towards the distinction trying to be made by the loosely fit "storygame," and have much better resolution in analysis of play.
> 
> For instance, I think there's quite a lot of story advocacy in party play, because there's the inherent limitation on actions that "go against" the party.  This is advocating for something other than character advocacy, and is used to make sure that the story that forms is about the party.  It's a mild form of story advocacy, especially compared to others, but it's present nonetheless.  Which is a weird dichotomy in how these games are often portrayed as being rooted in playing from within the character -- so long as that character works with the group, that is.



I agree with @Fenris-77 that the dichotomy between "telling an interesting story" and "advancing the characters' agendas" isn't so stark as you seem to imply here. There's absolutely nothing that says you can't tell interesting stories *by* advancing the characters' agendas. I mean, if a GM (or publisher) writes an "interesting story" in the form of an Adventure Path, there's not likely to be much if any consideration of any individual character's (or a given party's) agenda, but that's a specific type of play.


----------



## Fenris-77

The phrase 'storytelling' does seem to be a bee in some bonnets, yeah. Those same people tend to dislike emergent fiction as well, while I think that sounds like something you flash from under a beige overcoat. I can sympathize with people not wanting story to be a focus though, and there are conceptions of how that looks that can feel like you, as a player, are some how beholden to to the group in a way that in many games you aren't, or shouldn't be, because in many cases while each player is playing their character, and responding in character to the events in game, they aren't making any kind of conscious attempt to 'tell a story'.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, it doesn’t necessarily bother me personally, but I recognize it as a bit loaded to some folks.
> 
> In this case, I don’t think it’s the term so much as the idea that it’s the goal itself for some games but not for others.
> 
> Especially when, from many examples provided, often those who say storytelling isn’t their goal are eschewing actual game mechanics.
> 
> In that sense, storytelling seems almost foundational for that approach. Seems odd to then say that it’s not a goal of play.



Eh.  The replacement for mechanics isn't a goal of telling a story, but a goal of "replicating reality," or any other similar term.  Granted, I find this goal a grand lie, as all that is happening is that one person's assumptions are being substituted in and then reified as replicating reality, but the goal isn't storytelling, and I'm not sure the outcome can rightly be called crafting a story.  A story results, but, again, this is so broadly true as to be trivial.  I think that the label storygame only really fits if the goal is to craft a story primarily and/or story advocacy is strongly indicated by play.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I agree with @Fenris-77 that the dichotomy between "telling an interesting story" and "advancing the characters' agendas" isn't so stark as you seem to imply here. There's absolutely nothing that says you can't tell interesting stories *by* advancing the characters' agendas. I mean, if a GM (or publisher) writes an interesting story" in the form of an Adventure Path, there's not likely to be much if any consideration of any individual character's (or a given party's) agenda, but that's a specific type of play.



The word I used was advocacy.  What are you advocating for?  There's always a story that will emerge, for better or worse, entertaining or not, from any play.  The point of my post wasn't to say that story didn't happen with character advocacy, but that forming a good story was not the motivator for the player's actions.  IE, the player advocated for their character, and a story occurred, rather than the character was moved in a way that best created a story.  It's an important distinction, and why I used the word I did.

One of my favorite games featured quite a lot of story advocacy, in that I often subsumed my character's goals to maintain cohesion and promote story.  It was a hoot -- so I have nothing against this mode of play.  I think it's required for games like 5e, for instance, to often subsume character to the group.  Usually this is accomplished by limited the scope of characters to those that function in this manner, so it's hard to detect because the decision is made early and is nearly universal.  There's a reason there's a strong aversion to lone wolf types or evil characters in a lot of the D&D world -- character advocacy in these cases clashes with the norms of story advocacy in the zeitgeist.  

In other games, character is primary, and inter-character conflicts are not avoided if character advocacy demands it.  AW does this well, for instance.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I'll also note that your approach to 5e is highly idiosyncratic.  There's no space in the 5e rules for "roll a d20, don't roll a 1."



Sure there is.  The DM gets to set the DC of anything, and here it's been set at whatever 2-plus-modifiers would be.


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> Eh.  The replacement for mechanics isn't a goal of telling a story, but a goal of "replicating reality," or any other similar term.  Granted, I find this goal a grand lie, as all that is happening is that one person's assumptions are being substituted in and then reified as replicating reality, but the goal isn't storytelling, and I'm not sure the outcome can rightly be called crafting a story.  A story results, but, again, this is so broadly true as to be trivial.  I think that the label storygame only really fits if the goal is to craft a story primarily and/or story advocacy is strongly indicated by play.



If we want to talk about story I think the only level that it's close to universally true at, for given values of true, is that each player might perhaps be said to be crafting their own story, the story of their character. Like X versions of the same novel or something. In some games there might be a consensus that a larger story is a desirable outcome (great) but I still don't think that playing an RPG, described at the level of the party, is in any useful way synonymous with storytelling unless a group effort is made to make it so.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Sure there is.  The DM gets to set the DC of anything, and here it's been set at whatever 2-plus-modifiers would be.



Sure, although the DC can't be "don't roll a one" by the rules.  That's a die-based resolution, not a DC.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, although the DC can't be "don't roll a one" by the rules.  That's a die-based resolution, not a DC.



Just sounds like another way to describe the dc to me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> If we want to talk about story I think the only level that it's close to universally true at, for given values of true, is that each player might perhaps be said to be crafting their own story, the story of their character. Like X versions of the same novel or something. In some games there might be a consensus that a larger story is a desirable outcome (great) but I still don't think that playing an RPG, described at the level of the party, is in any useful way synonymous with storytelling unless a group effort is made to make it so.



A group effort IS made to make it so.  There's all kinds of agreements to not fight with each other, to share similar goals, to avoid acts that harm others, even indirectly.  This is an extremely common set of agreements made in party focused games.  The system itself reinforces this by framing challenges at the party level rather than the individual level (go ahead, figure out how to use the CR system for a single character) and by advice like spotlight sharing and pacing (the rest structure is focused on this kind of party-level balancing).  5e games that feature common PvP, or actions taken against other party members, are very rare.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> The word I used was advocacy. What are you advocating for? There's always a story that will emerge, for better or worse, entertaining or not, from any play. The point of my post wasn't to say that story didn't happen with character advocacy, but that forming a good story was not the motivator for the player's actions. IE, the player advocated for their character, and a story occurred, rather than the character was moved in a way that best created a story. It's an important distinction, and why I used the word I did.



That's fair and reasonable. I guess I think more-interesting stories are likely to emerge from play if the players are advocating for (or at least honestly playing) their characters in pursuit of their agendas, than if they are focused on what will make a better story, or persistently subsuming their agenda to make a better story (which I think is different than deciding to help another character pursue their agenda).


----------



## Fenris-77

First I had one hair, now I have two! Abracadabra!


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Just sounds like another way to describe the dc to me.



Okay, I have a character.  What's the DC if I succeed on any roll but a 1?


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> A group effort IS made to make it so.  There's all kinds of agreements to not fight with each other, to share similar goals, to avoid acts that harm others, even indirectly.  This is an extremely common set of agreements made in party focused games.  The system itself reinforces this by framing challenges at the party level rather than the individual level (go ahead, figure out how to use the CR system for a single character) and by advice like spotlight sharing and pacing (the rest structure is focused on this kind of party-level balancing).  5e games that feature common PvP, or actions taken against other party members, are very rare.



I think those concessions are necessary (desirable?) to play the game in many (most) cases, but I don't think they are place to serve some extrinsic goal of collaborative storytelling. Those things are all good of course, but collaborative storytelling they ain't. IMO anyway.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> That's fair and reasonable. I guess I think more-interesting stories are likely to emerge from play if the players are advocating for (or at least honestly playing) their characters in pursuit of their agendas, than if they are focused on what will make a better story, or persistently subsuming their agenda to make a better story (which I think is different than deciding to help another character pursue their agenda).



I'm not sure I agree.  I find that the stories that originate from character advocacy to be far more surprising, but I'm unwilling to call them more interesting (there's a difference, I think, between interesting and unexpected).  And, I think a number of quite common games feature a lot of subsuming character to story, at least in the sense of avoiding character advocacy because it goes against the party.

Full throated character advocacy can very easily not play well with others.  Some games handle this well -- again I point to AW -- but 5e is not one of them.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, I have a character.  What's the DC if I succeed on any roll but a 1?



Dunno the DC but I think your odds of success are 95%.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> I think those concessions are necessary (desirable?) to play the game in many (most) cases, but I don't think they are place to serve some extrinsic goal of collaborative storytelling. Those things are all good of course, but collaborative storytelling they ain't. IMO anyway.



How is not rocking the boat and getting on the same page goal-wise NOT aiding a collaborative story experience?  It's very purpose is to make the story about the ensemble rather than the individuals!


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, I have a character.  What's the DC if I succeed on any roll but a 1?



Well let’s see, you have a persuasion modifier of 0 so the dc is a 2...


----------



## Fenris-77

5e doesn't have systems to manage strong character advocacy anyway, nor does it encourage it.


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> How is not rocking the boat and getting on the same page goal-wise NOT aiding a collaborative story experience?  It's very purpose is to make the story about the ensemble rather than the individuals!



What I'm suggesting is that a collaborative gaming experience is not the same thing as collaborative storytelling. The things you describe are of course desirable and good.


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> Well let’s see, you have a persuasion modifier of 0 so the dc is a 2...



Insults, yes?  And we're talking about my character, not me, so try again.  

The real world, by the way, is not a game of D&D.  This may be the root of a number of our disagreements, come to think of it....


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> First I had one hair, now I have two! Abracadabra!



But can you define hair


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure I agree.  I find that the stories that originate from character advocacy to be far more surprising, but I'm unwilling to call them more interesting (there's a difference, I think, between interesting and unexpected).  And, I think a number of quite common games feature a lot of subsuming character to story, at least in the sense of avoiding character advocacy because it goes against the party.
> 
> Full throated character advocacy can very easily not play well with others.  Some games handle this well -- again I point to AW -- but 5e is not one of them.



I think I agree that we have a difference in viewpoint here, or maybe taste (the stories I find interesting are not always the stories you find interesting). I haven't found 5E to struggle with the players at the tables I run playing their characters honestly, but different experiences are anecdotes not data, I think.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Articulating one's focus is always a good thing. When it was the early 2000s and the major forums where hitting their strides, it made discussion a lot easier when I said "Hey this was my focus or goal is for doing this." Which helped later when talking about sandbox campaigns in the mid 2000s as part of the Wilderlands boxed set promotions. Look if you want a campaign where characters set the direction and the freedom to go anywhere, this is why the hexcrawl format of the Wilderlands is a good thing.
> 
> Which is why in 2020 I included this in the book I just published
> View attachment 131043
> 
> 
> True but be aware that when it comes to publishing as opposed to a discussion like this. I am more focused on the nuts and bolts than the overall picture.
> 
> _This section is here if you want to do (or have) X, Y, and maybe Z._
> 
> When talking to folks, I find the vast majority of campaigns are kitbashes centered around a system. Basically 75% of what they use comes from say GURPS, or D&D 5e, and rest comes from elsewhere. The common denominator is that the referee and/or group found it fun to have their campaign.
> 
> So my philosophy of publishing my system is to present in discrete chunks. I just published the Basic Rule that serves as the foundation tying everything together. The next book will be the Lost Grimoire of Magic which not present stuff like class, and spell list but material on bringing magic users to life within the setting. My focus is not on creating stories about magic-user but enabling a referee and their players to experience life as a magic-user within a medieval fantasy setting.
> 
> Since thanks to D&D, medieval fantasy is a common trope, it works out in terms of utility across the larger hobby.
> 
> 
> 
> It too nuanced as far as my goals go. Blades in the Dark assumes that players using it want to experience a heist movie. So it narrowly focuses on supporting that idea. It neither good or bad. I on the other hand focus on giving my players the experience of being characters in a medieval fantasy setting. Which could mean that they try to execute a heist, or build a castle, or explore a dungeon, or weave a basket.
> 
> So I focus on not only how my subsystems work, but why they are there. My expectation if it not relevant to the referee then don't use it.
> 
> The same way with my referee advice. I have sections in the basic rules. One is on my experience making rulings with the OD&D mechanics. The other on how to bring the world outside of the dungeon to life as a place to adventure and experience.
> 
> What I don't do is focus on collaborative storytelling because that not what I write about. What I do is talk about my experience in making this work for players of different interest and skill. For example this comment I have on coaching.
> 
> View attachment 131045
> 
> Finally so do I have a structure or not in the sense of the Fate Economy or the BiTD heist? Kinda of which I will happy to discuss but in general I found while sharing and publishing stuff it doesn't really help other people trying to use my material. Eventually I will get to writing an Axioms of Adventure as part of the series but in general I prefer to show not tell as people find that more useful in figuring out whether my material is useful to them or not.
> 
> Like my ability system, if you don't do much outside* of combat or spell-casting, if your players don't care* if they better as some things outside of combat or spellcasting. Then the sub system is a distraction and shouldn't be used.
> 
> *I avoid trying to say, imply, or judge what people ought to be doing with their hobby. It counter productive and doesn't accomplish anything. Just explain why you do what it is you do and be done with it. The reason that some of my part in the thread is a debate is because I accomplish many of the goals of player agency sketched out here, but in a different way.
> 
> 
> 
> Excellent and thanks.



hehe, yeah, see, I have this setting. When I was a kid, before I even played D&D, so age 10 maybe, I drew the map. Heck, its not even a bad map! I loved world building, but not so I could do some expository thing about it, just as pure self-indulgence really. Played a lot of D&D using that world though, but I had the same idea about it, just that it was nothing but a place for people to play in. I can't imagine some idea that I needed to be in charge of it, or tell people what (not) to do in it. Its a little constraining to stick to that one setting nowadays, but I do still run some games in it. Usually there's someone I played with back in the 80s or 90s in most games, so they get a kick out of running into some long-forgotten PC. 

I just got to where I had neither really the time, nor the sheer mental energy to build things like that, with no expectation that they would end up being used, but with the constraint that they MIGHT. I can write endless whatever, if I never need to actualize it, but for play, I have grown attached to pure ad-lib. It does work, but for me it is a fine mix of process and consciously arranged agenda, with lighter rules. I liked 4e a lot (oddly, it isn't exactly light) but I've now cut it back and rewritten it so it is pretty hard to recognize. 

Now, we play almost effortlessly. I almost want to go out and start a few more groups, see what more people think, but I darn well know it will eat up time I don't even have. Oh well.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> 5e doesn't have systems to manage strong character advocacy anyway, nor does it encourage it.



Exactly.  If I"m not advocating for my character, or I cannot do so very well, what am I advocating for?

I suppose there's a null state here?  That's depressing.


Fenris-77 said:


> What I'm suggesting is that a collaborative gaming experience is not the same thing as collaborative storytelling. The things you describe are of course desirable and good.



Again, the word is advocacy.  I can advocate for story and not be involved in a collaborative storytelling exercise.  However, if I choose actions that advocate for party unity over character, the reason for this is because this tells a story one prefers -- that of a party.  Why one would prefer this is left to the individual to answer.

In other words, this choice is made because doing so advocates for a specific type of story.  One need not script scenes to engage in story advocacy, you must merely put the concerns of the story foremost.  And the decisions involved in party play absolutely put a specific kind of story first, explicitly over character concerns.


----------



## FrogReaver

Ovinomancer said:


> And we're talking about my character, not me



exactly!



Ovinomancer said:


> The real world, by the way, is not a game of D&D.  This may be the root of a number of our disagreements, come to think of it...



Derp, thanks for enlightening me great wise one. Whatever would I do without your boundless wisdom.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Eh.  The replacement for mechanics isn't a goal of telling a story, but a goal of "replicating reality," or any other similar term.  Granted, I find this goal a grand lie, as all that is happening is that one person's assumptions are being substituted in and then reified as replicating reality, but the goal isn't storytelling, and I'm not sure the outcome can rightly be called crafting a story.  A story results, but, again, this is so broadly true as to be trivial.  I think that the label storygame only really fits if the goal is to craft a story primarily and/or story advocacy is strongly indicated by play.




Right, storytelling isn’t the goal, but it seems to be one of the most often used tools. As you say, the process being used is one that ostensibly is “reflecting reality” but really is just the GM telling a story. 

So I thought the characterization that other games being discussed may have storytelling as the goal to be a bit odd. They may, I would expect, but I don’t think it’s inherent. 



Ovinomancer said:


> The word I used was advocacy. What are you advocating for? There's always a story that will emerge, for better or worse, entertaining or not, from any play. The point of my post wasn't to say that story didn't happen with character advocacy, but that forming a good story was not the motivator for the player's actions.




Advocacy is a good way to look at it. For what are the participants advocating? I would expect that the answer for this can be entirely independent of the rules system or playstyle used, though it doesn’t have to be. 

I mean, I can imagine versions of many games of all kinds whose participants have decided to place emphasis on, and therefore advocate for, the story.

I’d say many livestream games with an audience would fit this description. It seems far less to me like a quality of a particular game or subset of games.


----------



## Fenris-77

@Ovinomancer - I agree with everything you're saying except your use of the word story. Advocating for group goals over your own is part of a collaborative endeavor. I just don't think a desire for story is the right word to describe it. I'm sure it is in some cases of course, just not as a broadly descriptive term. People are playing a collaborative game, not telling a collaborative story.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> In my experience Lovecraftian horror is something best sprinkled onto other games, like spice when finishing a dish. There are bits of it in the campaigns I run, but it's never the undiluted thing: I like my TRPGs too heroic for that to appeal to me.



Eh, I'd call it 'Cosmic Horror', that is the heart of it, so its hard for it not to be central to the cosmic aspects of a setting. That doesn't have to touch the PCs much though I guess. After all, the conceit is that most 'ordinary humans' never really notice what lies just under the surface of their supposed reality...

The Laundry Files are really the best stuff. Lovecraft himself is kinda just too vile of a human being to really admire, sadly.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> The first thing is the bit about the ghosts in the forest. In my game, the players wouldn't propose that kind of thing, and I wouldn't materialize it based on their proposal.






pemerton said:


> I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.​​I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that. . . .​



I'm not sure what "materialisation" you are referring to.

I narrated that the PCs came to a forest. I asked them who would be with them - they nominated their hunters.

I described the "deep and clawing shadows" etc and that they were confronted by the knight and his men. I narrated the "broken trinkets and personal effects". The players, as their PCs, took these to be a sign that that the knight and his men were Celts, Which as I say I ran with.


----------



## Ovinomancer

prabe said:


> I think I agree that we have a difference in viewpoint here, or maybe taste (the stories I find interesting are not always the stories you find interesting). I haven't found 5E to struggle with the players at the tables I run playing their characters honestly, but different experiences are anecdotes not data, I think.



Again, I think if you carefully look at this, it's because the players have chosen to play characters that fit party play.  As I said before, this is a challenge to tease out because the motivations are deeply ingrained and are largely invisible because that's just how you play.

Look at what you consider if making a character for D&D versus what you might consider in making a character for AW -- the goals and aspects of character are very different.  This also usually shows up in the "no evil" or "no CN" rules for tables -- the idea is to not introduce character concepts that fight against party play.  Interestingly, the game I was speaking of that featured a lot of story advocacy on my part?  I was playing a very selfish and evil character.  This was, in fact, a large part of the reason for the story advocacy -- I had to subsume these strong aspects of character to other concerns, which were rationalized as an unwavering loyalty to another character and a general avoidance of screwing over crewmates.  Often.  Well, when you could be caught.  Look, they'll get over it, really.  Alright, fine, it's a bad idea, but this is the reason we're still poor!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Manbearcat said:


> What do you feel is the minimum bar for something to qualify as a game?
> 
> Three things right off the bat seem clear to me:
> 
> 1)  There isn't a minimum threshold of participants.  Solitaire (and games like it) are _games_.
> 
> 2)  Not all activities, past-times, and/or leisure pursuits are _games_.  *Looking at Christmas Lights* is not a _game_, but *I Spy* while you look at Christmas Lights is a _game_.
> 
> 3)  Calvinball (where one participant changes the rules at will to perpetually facilitate their desired gamestate, undoing the integrity of play) is not a _game_.
> 
> 
> So, to me, it looks like (a) something about shape, (b) something about desire/goal, and (c) something about structure giving shape to play and aiding integrity of play with respect to desire/goal (this is essential when two parties' have designs over desire/goal that collide).
> 
> Thoughts?



There needs to be a 'process of play', otherwise we cannot draw a bound which says "this is the game, this is not." If we don't know when we are playing, we cannot be said to be playing 'a game'. 

There needs to be a participant or participants, each of which serves some function in the game. 

There is some sort of 'game state', or there cannot be 'play', because play is a process, and all processes involve some sort of state space and some functions which map from inputs of the participants onto that state space and transform it.

Am I mathy enough?


----------



## Ovinomancer

FrogReaver said:


> exactly!



My character isn't me, and doesn't have a 0 in persuasion. However, I accept your implied apology for accidentally insulting me.  We can move on.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> I tend to avoid that particular term as enormously loaded. Not that it isn't broadly accurate, but it tends to cause more arguments than it solves for some reason. IDK, maybe collaborative make-believe?



Posting this yet again in this thread:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. . . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​
We don't need to reinvent all this stuff from scratch in this thread.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Fenris-77 said:


> @Ovinomancer - I agree with everything you're saying except your use of the word story. Advocating for group goals over your own is part of a collaborative endeavor. I just don't think a desire for story is the right word to describe it. I'm sure it is in some cases of course, just not as a broadly descriptive term. People are playing a collaborative game, not telling a collaborative story.



Sure, disagreement is fine!  I'm choosing to use story because the two things result in different kinds of story being told.  I may not be advocating for a specific scene or phrase or plot in a story, but I am definitely advocating for a specific _kind _of story.


----------



## prabe

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, I think if you carefully look at this, it's because the players have chosen to play characters that fit party play.  As I said before, this is a challenge to tease out because the motivations are deeply ingrained and are largely invisible because that's just how you play.



That's plausible. There's also a lot to your contention (which I'm not disagreeing with, to be clear) that 5E is pretty specifically built for party play (what @Fenris-77 was calling "collaborative play" I think). That doesn't mean there's no room for individual characters or their motivations/goals, but unless you want the party split all the time, they're probably only going to pursue one goal at a time--sometimes that might be a given character's goal, sometimes it might be a party goal, sometimes it might be a situational goal the DM has framed into the fiction.


Ovinomancer said:


> Look at what you consider if making a character for D&D versus what you might consider in making a character for AW -- the goals and aspects of character are very different.  This also usually shows up in the "no evil" or "no CN" rules for tables -- the idea is to not introduce character concepts that fight against party play.  Interestingly, the game I was speaking of that featured a lot of story advocacy on my part?  I was playing a very selfish and evil character.  This was, in fact, a large part of the reason for the story advocacy -- I had to subsume these strong aspects of character to other concerns, which were rationalized as an unwavering loyalty to another character and a general avoidance of screwing over crewmates.  Often.  Well, when you could be caught.  Look, they'll get over it, really.  Alright, fine, it's a bad idea, but this is the reason we're still poor!



I've played (or tried to play) characters that didn't fit in well with what the rest of the table wanted to do, and it's a challenge. I think I'd be in that position with AW, for a lot of reasons. Like, I think I'd probably take a pass on it rather than screw up the game for everyone else at the table.


----------



## Fenris-77

Ovinomancer said:


> Sure, disagreement is fine!  I'm choosing to use story because the two things result in different kinds of story being told.  I may not be advocating for a specific scene or phrase or plot in a story, but I am definitely advocating for a specific _kind _of story.



If we stick with the notion that this is a game, and replace the word _story_ there with the phrase _play experience _ would it significantly change your meaning?  We aren't, I don't think, actually disagreeing about much here, I'm just trying to avoid the use of the word story, for a bunch of useful (to me) definitional reasons.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> Sorry missed it.
> *Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)*
> Using D&D 5e because know the system.
> 
> _Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
> with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs)_.
> *No Difference here.*
> 
> _“I read the situation,” her player says_.
> *Roll an insight check but from the example Maries know the NPCs so there little chance of failure. I would say roll 1d20 don't roll a one. *
> 
> _You do? It’s charged?” I say.
> “It is now.”_
> *This wouldn't happen this way. Instead there would pre-existing tension to exist in for Marie arrival to "charge" the situation established earlier events in the campaign or something the player created for their character background. If that so then yeah the situation is charged. But of it wasn't charged to begin with then roll a Intimidation check DC 15. But only after Marie's player described how the character escalates things.*
> 
> _“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister._
> 
> *Yeah I don't view things like they unfold in a movie. I view things like if was a Holodeck or virtual reality. Neither way is better but very different focus.*
> 
> _She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says._
> 
> *Again this would play out differently with me. The players would get to make a DC 15 Insight check after asking about the biggest threat without any preconditions. If the player have encountered the NPCs before, then the check is not needed. I would just tell them. *
> 
> _“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard fucker. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)_
> 
> *So if Marie's player wanted more details that not obvious from past event or knowledge then I would have the player make a DC 15 Insight check if it is about a character emotional state or DC 15 Perception check if it about the physical environment of the target. In this case noticing that the Plover has a little gun in his boot.*
> 
> _“Hm, now I want an escape route. Can I read the situation again?”
> “Of course not.” Once is what you get, unless the situation substantially changes._
> *This exchange is baloney, given how the AW setting describes their characters, if Marie had enough situational awareness to scope out a escape route along with other things. So a DC 15 Perception check. But if this goes on after the second perception, there would be some type of reaction from the NPCs. Because basically what happening the Marie comes waltzing in and taking her sweet time in saying or doing anything. But I don't constrain the player saying "once is all you get".
> 
> The worst case is that you can only do so much in the time you have. So if you are willing to accept the consequences of taking extra time by all means continue.*



So in AW the constraint is "once is all you get". In your approach the constraint is the GM's sense of how much time there is available.



estar said:


> *Prince Valiant*
> _Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople._
> I won't use fiat to that degree, I pregenerate the weather or it came about as result of random complication like with the AiME journey rules.
> 
> _This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object._
> *When it comes to major events, I better not have come up with it on a whim or the players will react negatively out of game. Random naughty word is fine provided the setup of the odds isn't judicious for the setting. A whole session of AiME came about because of some really naughty word up journey results that caught the players flat-footed. I give more details later if desired. None of it was planned and it was all result of random rolls and working past events in the campaign.*



I'm not sure how you define _major events_. But I infer from this that you are OK with GM authoring of maps - topography etc - but not GM authoring of weather.



estar said:


> _I was using the Rattling Forest scenario ...
> ...The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging ...._
> *OK except I would have known what in the Rattling Forest in a broad sense and if I was pressed for time adapted some published forest adventure that fits. So it wouldn't be totally pulling something out of my ass. *



I'm not sure what the point is that you're making here. I had a set-up from the Prince Valiant episodes book that I wanted to use. It happens in a forest. So I framed the PCs into a forest - I think there were and maybe still are forests in Dacia/Transylvania/Romania.



estar said:


> *I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.*



What do you see as important about randomising an encounter rather than choosing it?



estar said:


> _The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.")._
> *Yeah I don't use metagame mechanics. Either their would been a anchor for the curse or not. If there is then it would discoverable. If it was hidden, the discovery process would be difficult. *



A storyteller certificate isn't a metagame mechanic. It's an auto-success on an appropriate action - in this case, finding something. I as GM allowed that there was something to find - following the players' lead in that respect - and narrated it.


----------



## Fenris-77

@pemerton - honest question here, how is that *not* an example of a metagame mechanic?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Let's start with your style.  In your style the player would establish 2 things.  1) that he attacks the orc and 2) the outcome on a success.  The DM would then establish the outcome on a failure and set the DC.  The player would roll and the dice would establish whether the player's outcome or the DM's outcome occurs in the fiction.
> 
> Contrast this with D&D.  In D&D the player would establish 1 thing.  1) that he attacks the orc.  Since this is an attack the combat rules would establish what happens on a success and what happens on a failure.  Heck the combat rules even establsh what the DC is going to be set at.  The player would roll and the dice would establish which outcome from the rules occurs in the fiction.  *If not in combat then similar but different process is applied.
> 
> The process steps that generate a fictional outcome can be summed up below:
> Success and Failure state outcomes established -> Success and Failure state determined via roll -> Fictional Outcome
> 
> The D&D player plays no role in any of these process steps.  The player of your game does play a role in the first.  Thus, IMO it's fair to say that the player in your style is part of the process for determining the fictional outcome whereas the player in the D&D game is not.



Doesn't the D&D player decide _which Orc to attack_, _which weapon to use_, _whether or not to use a special ability _(eg power attack or similar; backstab if that is limited to once per turn; Battlemaster dice; a magical item ability that works on charges; etc), etc?

Doesn't the player also decide whether to attack to cause damage, to attack to disarm, to attack to grapple, whether or not to kill if the Orc is dropped to zero hp, etc?

I don't get why you're dropping all these decision points out of your account of D&D combat.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> You keep saying this, yet you leave out the one word you seem to be assuming (which I've taken the liberty of plugging in).
> 
> Sure the PC can learn the brother is dead, but if the PC is persistent and-or stubborn enough that's not the end of things.  I mean, any of the following are possible and this is just an off-the-cuff list:
> 
> --- if such magic exists in the setting, something like _Speak With Dead_ can be used to communicate with the brother, albeit briefly
> --- if revival magic exists in the setting the PC can get the brother brought back to life
> --- the PC can do whatever is needed to somehow journey to the land of the dead and find the brother there (and possibly generate several good adventures on the way in so doing!).



I don't see how the fact that there are ways to respond to a brother being dead changes my point. Especially as your three dot points rest on premises that may not be true in any given RPG. (Eg they're not true in Prince Valiant. They may or may not be true in any given Burning Wheel game, depending on the campaign details.)


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> @pemerton - honest question here, how is that *not* an example of a metagame mechanic?



How is "auto-success" a metagame mechanic? In that case every spell in D&D is a metagame mechanic, given that they are always successfully cast (eg no misspeakings, magical vortices that muck them up, fumbling with the components pouch, etc).

I thought a metagame mechanic is something that generates a change in the fiction, or perhaps the resolution process, that doesn't correspond to anything the PC does. When a player in Prince Valiant spends a storyteller certificate, his/her PC is doing something - in that example, is looking for something.


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## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> How is "auto-success" a metagame mechanic? In that case every spell in D&D is a metagame mechanic, given that they are always successfully cast (eg no misspeakings, magical vortices that muck them up, fumbling with the components pouch, etc).
> 
> I thought a metagame mechanic is something that generates a change in the fiction, or perhaps the resolution process, that doesn't correspond to anything the PC does. When a player in Prince Valiant spends a storyteller certificate, his/her PC is doing something - in that example, is looking for something.



There's no connection between the attaining of the certificate and the spending of it. It allows you to influence the outcome of events in a way that has nothing to do with the situation or the character, _in situ_ anyway. IDK, It sounds like a FATE point to me. I'm not trying to tweak your nose here either. Not that it matters I guess.


----------



## pemerton

On story vs character advocacy: as I understand it, the goal of good "story now" design is to ensure that _the play of the game_ in which the player participants _advocate for their characters_ will reliably produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.

In successful designs - I'm thinking BW, PbtA, HeroWars/Quest - this is achieved by managing framing, probabilities and consequences. The biggest variation is probably in how the probabilities are generated (eg contrast PbtA fixed outcome spreads with BW fiction-based difficulties but player-side artha that can ameliorate some but not all of them). But there is also variation in how framing and consequences are handled. Some of that has been discussed in this thread (though quite a way upthread at this point).


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> There's no connection between the attaining of the certificate and the spending of it. It allows you to influence the outcome of events in a way that has nothing to do with the situation or the character, _in situ_ anyway. IDK, It sounds like a FATE point to me. I'm not trying to tweak your nose here either. Not that it matters I guess.



Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.

But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> There's all kinds of agreements to not fight with each other, to share similar goals, to avoid acts that harm others, even indirectly.  This is an extremely common set of agreements made in party focused games.  The system itself reinforces this by framing challenges at the party level rather than the individual level





Fenris-77 said:


> I think those concessions are necessary (desirable?) to play the game in many (most) cases, but I don't think they are place to serve some extrinsic goal of collaborative storytelling. Those things are all good of course, but collaborative storytelling they ain't.



One of the challenges in my Classic Traveller game has been to (try and) reconcile some serious attention to character with the fact that the PCs all live on the same spaceship and mostly travel around together.


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## Fenris-77

Urgh, sorry mate, I'm not willing to grant you the GNS story now Narrativism card here. I really don't think that character advocacy has anything particular to do with the desire to "produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.".  You can advocate for your character, their interests, and whatever, without having the faintest interest in telling a group story.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.
> 
> But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.



I disagree. Those abilities are baked into the character, that's the teleos. The certificate isn't. Granted by the GM for one thing and used for an unrelated task. Take a moment and try to explain to me how it differs manifestly from a FATE point. I'm not saying you can't btw, just that I don't see it.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Exactly.  If I"m not advocating for my character, or I cannot do so very well, what am I advocating for?
> 
> I suppose there's a null state here?  That's depressing.



I think this is a little harsh!

I agree that if the game is AP-style, and character advocacy is being suppressed in order to make the AP work, then we have a sort of default story advocacy, though it might be closer to "advocating by refraining from doing anything else" than any full-throated advocacy of the sort one might expect in a firing-on-all-cylinders Fate group.

But suppose that the game is Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and the players are having their PCs cooperate to beat the dungeon and escape with (hopefully) some loot - I agree there's no character advocacy but I don't see story advocacy either. I see a type of puzzle-solving. It's like @Manbearcat's multi-dimensional Pictionary model upthread; together with some of the thrill of an escape room.

EDIT: I guess there are some groups who have played Hidden Shrine not as I've just described it, but for the explorative experience of its Meso-American themes etc. That would be story advocacy of a sort, I guess. But I'm not sure Hidden Shrine is the best vehicle for this experience, though it may be the best that some groups know of.


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## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> One of the challenges in my Classic Traveller game has been to (try and) reconcile some serious attention to character with the fact that the PCs all live on the same spaceship and mostly travel around together.



That's the rub, isn't it. There's a built in conflict between character and group advocacy, and one which is only highlighted by players with strong personalities who like to build idiosyncratic characters.


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## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> I disagree. Those abilities are baked into the character, that's the teleos. The certificate isn't. Granted by the GM for one thing and used for an unrelated task. Take a moment and try to explain to me how it differs manifestly from a FATE point. I'm not saying you can't btw, just that I don't see it.



I don't know enough about the varieties of Fate play to know what a Fate point represents, so I don't know if I can comment. If they represent _giving it your all_ and modify dice rolls as a result, then I think they are similar to how I think of artha in Burning Wheel. A Storyteller Certificate in Prince Valiant is not a dice manipulation tool - it allows player fiat in lieu of a check. (From a menu of genre-appropriate options.)

I don't see what difference "baked into the character" makes. What's baked into the Battlemaster character is fighting with cleverness. But the dice are earned on an arbitrary clock (the pool refreshes on a short rest) and can be spent independently of the clock (eg all in one fight; spread out over fights; not spent at all if the player doesn't care to).

The basis for earning a Storyteller Certificate is different from the basis for earning BM combat dice (though one could say that acting with flair and gallantry is baked into a Prince Valiant PC). But neither resource is connected in its accrual and expenditure to any salient change in the fiction. (Contrast, say, a bonus damage die that results from _the prior fiction establishing that a strike is a dangerous one_ - a version of this was the old AD&D rule that any character attacking a non-magically sleeping opponent could use the assassination chart to try for instant death.)


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## Fenris-77

Hmm, well I'm no FATE master myself, that's just an easy way to index metacurrency. The key difference, for me, in defining metacurrency, is that it's granted by the GM for actions X and used to influence unrelated actions Y, i.e. it's granting and use escapes the flow of the fiction, hence the use of meta. Anyway, this is an interesting but probably not terribly important bit of subtext to the larger discussion, so I'm not going to push it.

The difference between that and a character feature should, I think, be obvious. The feature is an integral part of the character, it's use is specific and determined before play even begins. That's what I was getting at with the use of 'teleos'. The BM dice aren't any different than his bonus to hit, it's just a more finite character resource. The GM has nothing to do with it.


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## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If we don't know when we are playing, we cannot be said to be playing 'a game'.



Sorry, but this claim isn't plausible in general or in this case. I can read a novel without knowing that I'm reading a novel - either because I'm unfamiliar with the genre, or because the book I'm reading is an atypical example of the genre that I don't recognise as such. (Eg maybe I think it's a biography, or an epic poem.)

The same is true for playing games.


----------



## Aldarc

Fenris-77 said:


> Hmm, well I'm no FATE master myself, that's just an easy way to index metacurrency. The key difference, for me, in defining metacurrency, is that it's granted by the GM for actions X and used to influence unrelated actions Y, i.e. it's granting and use escapes the flow of the fiction, hence the use of meta. Anyway, this is an interesting but probably not terribly important bit of subtext to the larger discussion, so I'm not going to push it.



5e Inspiration is far more detached from the fictional play loop than Fate points are in Fate. Fate points have to be spent on Aspects, and they should generally be treated more holistically as part of the character. In Fate they operate more like character karma and it represents the character's sort of push and pull within the fictional setting. It's granted by the GM for Character Aspect/Trouble X (as selected by the player), and the same player can use it on Character (or Scene) Aspect Y. Aspects - whether they are character or scene based - are fundamentally lightening rods for such karmic influence. It's certainly a meta-mechanic, but I definitely don't share the same boogey-man hang-ups that some do about anything in our hobby labeled "meta."


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Urgh, sorry mate, I'm not willing to grant you the GNS story now Narrativism card here. I really don't think that character advocacy has anything particular to do with the desire to "produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.".  You can advocate for your character, their interests, and whatever, without having the faintest interest in telling a group story.



I didn't say otherwise. I'll repeat what I said:

as I understand it, the goal of good "story now" design is to ensure that _the play of the game_ in which the player participants _advocate for their characters_ will reliably produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.​
If you are playing a game in which the system does not mediate or bridge _character advocacy_ into _recognisable story_ then you are not playing a game that answers to good "story now" design. Self-evidently, I would say, as you're not getting a story now!

Of the top of my head I don't know any RPGs expressly designed to be played this way, but I think some D&D one-shots/tournament-type games might be like this: set all the characters - typically pre-gen so as to have clear and conflicting motivations - loose and see what happens! (I'm thinking eg of the Bar-room Brawl in Best of WD scenarios 1, and Lowe Canon Court in Best of WD scenarios 2.) I've played non-D&D scenarios too, at conventions, that work like this.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> That's the rub, isn't it. There's a built in conflict between character and group advocacy, and one which is only highlighted by players with strong personalities who like to build idiosyncratic characters.



This isn't a problem in Burning Wheel or Prince Valiant. For me it's distinctive to Traveller because of the travel motif.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Anyway, this is an interesting but probably not terribly important bit of subtext to the larger discussion, so I'm not going to push it.



Yes and no. I think it's pretty relevant to player agency, so I'm happy to go another round or two.



Fenris-77 said:


> Hmm, well I'm no FATE master myself, that's just an easy way to index metacurrency. The key difference, for me, in defining metacurrency, is that it's granted by the GM for actions X and used to influence unrelated actions Y, i.e. it's granting and use escapes the flow of the fiction, hence the use of meta.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> The difference between that and a character feature should, I think, be obvious. The feature is an integral part of the character, it's use is specific and determined before play even begins. That's what I was getting at with the use of 'teleos'. The BM dice aren't any different than his bonus to hit, it's just a more finite character resource. The GM has nothing to do with it.



5e Battlemaster dice are, for present purposes, no different from 4e D&D martial encounter powers.

It was widely contended during the great 4e discussions that those powers _escape the flow of the fiction _in their granting and use. I've indicated upthread how this is true for BM dice (eg the clock is arbitrary - you recover 1 or  N dice on a rest whether you used them 5 hours ago or 3 minutes ago in the fiction, and can spend them once recovered at whatever pace you like).

To say that they are "part of the character" is just to point to the resource game that the player of a BM buys into. In Prince Valiant every player buys into a framework where doing stuff that exhibits gallantry, flair and the like will earn a certificate. It's obviously filtered through GM judgement, but that can't be what makes it "metagame". (What if the GM decides the BM's rest wasn't restful enough, or introduces an encounter 53 minutes into it?)

This is why I think these all - BM dice, 4e martial encounter powers and storyteller certificates - rise or fall together.

I would contrast a Plot Point in MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic. When spent, this does not (as a general rule) correspond to anything in the fiction. It's just a dice pool manipulator.


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## pemerton

@Fenris-77 

I went back to Ron Edwards on "metagame mechanics":

Metagame mechanics, by definition, entail the interjection of real-people priorities into the system-operation. . . .

To clarify for purposes of the essay, compare the following: (1) an in-game essence or metaphysical effect called "Karma," which represents the character's moral status in that game-universe according to (e.g.) a god or principle in that game-world; (2) a score on the sheet which has literally nothing to do with the character's in-game identity, also called "Karma," recognized and applied by the real people with no in-game entity used to justify it. In both systems, Karma is a point-score which goes up and down, and which can be brought into play as, say, a bonus to one's dice roll. But I'd say that #1 is not metagame at all, and #2 is wholly metagame.

Mechanically, how do they differ? One thing to consider is how the score goes up and down - by player-use, or by in-game effects? Another is whether the score is integrated with the reward/improvement system - does spending a Karma reduce one's bank of improvement points? In fact, is Karma a spent resource at all? Still another issue is whether in-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify its use. No one of these indicators is hard-and-fast, however; one must consider them all at once, and how they relate to Simulationism (and non-Simulationism) is a fascinating issue. At this point I tend to think that the main issue, basically, is who is considered to "spend" them - character or player.​
Looking at Storyteller Certificates in this light:

(1) The resource goes up by GM response to in-game effects, and goes down by player use;

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;

(3) In-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use (see the example of play upthread, where the PCs _find something hidden_ because they are looking for it);

(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
Looking at Battlemaster dice in the same light:

(1) The resource goes up by in-game effects (ie short rest) and goes down by player use;

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;

(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;

(4) I think it is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
That (4) might be controversial - how I've presented is consistent with the overwhelming weight of 4e D&D commentary, but I don't know if 5e has changed people's minds.  Looking at the others, the (1) for manoeuvre dice is less metagame than for Storyteller Certificates, but the (3) is moreso.

This is why I think they rise and fall together.

For completeness, MHRP Plot points:

(1) The resource goes up and down by player use or GM decision-making but with no reference to ingame effects;

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;

(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;

(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
These clearly _are_ metagame.


----------



## Fenris-77

Hmm, that's a nice analysis @pemerton. I wasn't trying to kick you in the balls about the certificate thing btw, just trying to clarify. I might still disagree a little bit with your analysis of the BM dice. I compare it to Ki for the Monk, another short rest resource, but one that seems pretty clearly spent by the character. The only difference between the two is the fluff describing the resource. At that point my tendency would be to call all the SR resources character spends and call it a day, but that might be because I don't care enough about 5e to think very hard about it.  

Back to Story Now! for a moment. I also struggle to think of game where this is a primary design goal. Thanks for clarifying btw.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Doesn't the D&D player decide _which Orc to attack_, _which weapon to use_, _whether or not to use a special ability _(eg power attack or similar; backstab if that is limited to once per turn; Battlemaster dice; a magical item ability that works on charges; etc), etc?
> 
> Doesn't the player also decide whether to attack to cause damage, to attack to disarm, to attack to grapple, whether or not to kill if the Orc is dropped to zero hp, etc?
> 
> I don't get why you're dropping all these decision points out of your account of D&D combat.



I don’t get why you are being pedantic instead of engaging with the important content


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what "materialisation" you are referring to.
> 
> I narrated that the PCs came to a forest. I asked them who would be with them - they nominated their hunters.
> 
> I described the "deep and clawing shadows" etc and that they were confronted by the knight and his men. I narrated the "broken trinkets and personal effects". The players, as their PCs, took these to be a sign that that the knight and his men were Celts, Which as I say I ran with.




I didn't mean materialize in the sense that it popped into being in the setting but I meant it looked like the detail was decided by the players basically. Again I could be wrong on how you are describing it. I am now unclear if this was a matter of procedure (you empowered the players to make the decision) or if it was simply a spur of the moment thing (the players assumed something about a thing you described, you liked the assumption, so you went with it). If that the latter, the only difference between what you are doing and how I would do it, is I would have settled on that detail already by the time of description. There was one time I can think of where a player came up with an explanation, and I liked it so decided to run with it (but that was pretty exceptional, not something that I typically do).


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.
> 
> But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.



I consider Battlemaster Dice to be a metagame mechanic.

The major difference between them and something like a fate point (as I understand them) is the Battlemaster dice's extremely limited scope, both in terms of when they can be applied and what they can affect.  Maybe to highlight that difference it'd be better to call them a metacharacter mechanic as their scope is basically my character whereas metagame mechanics are not.


----------



## estar

pemerton said:


> So in AW the constraint is "once is all you get". In your approach the constraint is the GM's sense of how much time there is available.



I view that is a negative as that a convention of the game rather reflecting the reality of the setting. Similarly I am not keen on how mechanics are activated like Second Wind, or the dice pools that accompanies the 5e Battlemaster variant. Both only make sense as part of a game not as a reflection of the reality of the setting.

To be clear the reality of the setting can something fantastic like a RPG like Toon which is about roleplaying characters in a cartoon world. It not about being realistic in terms of how our world works. 

Nor reflecting the reality of the setting has to be detail in the way that GURPS with all the combat option is detailed.  It can be highly abstract as long it can tied back to how the setting work as if you were there as the character.

So I view mechanics like "once is all you get" as a game convention.



pemerton said:


> I'm not sure how you define _major events_. But I infer from this that you are OK with GM authoring of maps - topography etc - but not GM authoring of weather.



Events that potential or certain negative consequences for the character that they zero control over. In my experience it doesn't end will over the long haul if that handled through fiat. Players are far more accepting of the results if it occurred because of random generation. And they know that these tables are being used as part of the campaign. So they factor the risk into their plan.




pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what the point is that you're making here. I had a set-up from the Prince Valiant episodes book that I wanted to use. It happens in a forest. So I framed the PCs into a forest - I think there were and maybe still are forests in Dacia/Transylvania/Romania.



Players are more aware than one would think that the referee just happened to create a forest in front of them to adventure in. It can be gotten away with is done sparely but done over and over it become a noticeable pattern. It doesn't mean it doesn't work for how you run your campaigns. But it does take away from running a sandbox campaign. 

Why? Because it takes away from the challenge knowing the referee is creating something out of whole cloth right then and there. 

Now this doesn't mean you have to make 1,000s of pages of notes. But it helps if it already on the map, and you have a sentence or two about it, even though you have to take a breather to create something or pull something off the shelf in order to supply details if the players choose to explore it.

This is based on my observation of doing this for decades with multiple groups of players. I first noticed this when I switched from using the World of Greyhawk to Judges Guild Wilderlands in the early 80s. The players considered what happened to be more fair knowing that many details were there ahead of time. That I wasn't just making naughty word up to spite them. 

Keep in mind player can and do make a bad plans. Underestimate the opposition or overestimate what they can do. And suffer negative consequences for it.  In short in my campaign there is the possibility of failure. But if you are going to have possibility of failure then you need to be a fair referee. And it more fair to have a certain level details already defined about the setting. In practice it doesn't have to be much.

It doesn't have even be as wordy as my Blackmarsh setting. It works with stat blocks similar to what Traveller uses. 









pemerton said:


> What do you see as important about randomising an encounter rather than choosing it?



Because the bias is minimized as a result. So the result is perceived as more fair. Provided of course the random table itself is perceived as fair. If you say on a 1 you met a goat, 2 to 6 you met Smaug the Golden. Well players will call out you out for using a dumb ass table. Unless of course is happens to be one for around Erebor. Then it fits what been said about the locale. But if a referee uses this for the Shire well they deserve the player's scorn.




pemerton said:


> A storyteller certificate isn't a metagame mechanic. It's an auto-success on an appropriate action - in this case, finding something. I as GM allowed that there was something to find - following the players' lead in that respect - and narrated it.



But it something that earned and saved to be used later by the player? The character in the world of Prince Valiant has no idea they he or she possesses a storyteller certificate. It does represent something ethereal like luck, faith, karma? If it doesn't tie back to the setting and it meant to be use as the player discretion not the player acting as their character then it is a meta-game mechanic.  If it ties back to something within the reality of the setting (luck, faith, karma) then it not. 

Hope that clarifies my view.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> The phrase 'storytelling' does seem to be a bee in some bonnets, yeah. Those same people tend to dislike emergent fiction as well, while I think that sounds like something you flash from under a beige overcoat. I can sympathize with people not wanting story to be a focus though, and there are conceptions of how that looks that can feel like you, as a player, are some how beholden to to the group in a way that in many games you aren't, or shouldn't be, because in many cases while each player is playing their character, and responding in character to the events in game, they aren't making any kind of conscious attempt to 'tell a story'.




Personally I don't have an issue with the term, and I never had an issue with words like story being used to describe the stuff that happens. Where it came to be an issue for me was strictly in online conversation, where you would use it to mean 'stuff that happens' but someone arguing with you would use it to equivocate. I encountered this in a number of different instances. I think the one where I found it the most infuriating, was me using language or agreeing to language like RPGs are shared storytelling or about a form of storytelling, and then someone responding with a point like 'if RPGs are shared storytelling, then the mechanics should result in good stories' or 'you should run a game that tells a good story'. Neither of these are outcomes I am particularly interested in, and sort of pivots on the two or three meanings of storytelling to trick someone into agreeing with a mechanic they might not like, or rejecting a style of play they like. That said, this really is a strictly online thing. Among most people I play with, if they say 'plot' or 'story' they just mean stuff that happened in play. Online though I think this term gets wielded more forcefully. So as an example I have been in conversations about running adventures where the players fail to reach the 'final goal' or where the end result is anti-climactic (say they confront a big villain, and get lucky and cut off his head in the first round). In many of those conversations, people would use my use of 'story' and 'storytelling' to argue this isn't a good story, so therefore you should have run that scenario differently (either through making sure in the prep that your villain couldn't have his head cut off like that, or through fudging, etc).


----------



## Aldarc

estar said:


> I view that is a negative as that a convention of the game rather reflecting the reality of the setting. Similarly I am not keen on how mechanics are activated like Second Wind, or the dice pools that accompanies the 5e Battlemaster variant. Both only make sense as part of a game not as a reflection of the reality of the setting.



The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics. It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.


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## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics. It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.




I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.


----------



## Campbell

So I think the timing of scenario design is not all that important. If the GM is coming up with the forest now or 10 months ago does not matter to me. What matters to me is the thought process behind it. What are they prioritizing? Are they trying to create a challenge? Are they framing something that provokes action? Are they trying to create something that should be interesting to explore? Are they guided by what they think will make the best story? For some GMs timing can matter because they feel more temptation to skew things away from what they really want to prioritize if they make that decision in play, but that experience is not universal.


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## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.



That's fine, but the point is that the issue may not necessarily be that the mechanics don't reflect reality, but, rather, that they reflect a different reality that lies outside of one's aesthetic preferences and/or sensibilities. If there are a number of players can imagine using BM superiority dice from the perspective of their character as if they were there (as I imagine there likely are) but estar cannot, then the problem may not be whether the mechanics actually reflect perceived notions of "reality."


----------



## Campbell

Bedrockgames said:


> I haven't played 5E really much, but my sense when I read it and with what little I have played, is it is about proportion. It really bothered me having these kinds of mechanics more widespread in the 4E system, but when they were not as prevalent, it wasn't as much of a problem. This again, is why I think these kind of conversations somethings cause us to paint our selves into rigid corners. It is very easy in a back and forth to start taking logical, principled stances, based on the points people make in a text based discussion, and it is is easy to miss flaws in the nuances of our own assumptions that we build through that. With mechanics like that, mechanics like class powers, it really comes down to how does the game feel overall to me.




From my perspective they are all over the place in 5e. Channel Divinity, Bardic Inspiration, Sorcery Points, Ki Points, Daily Barbarian Rage, Battlemaster Dice, Second Wind. The game is filled to the brim with loosely correlated mechanics that are much harder for me to personally justify than martial powers were in 4e (which have some features that feel like more like real human athleticism to me). Their presence as unique resources also make them feel more front and center to me personally.

PF2 is much better on this front in my experience, significantly better than either 4e or 5e in my opinion. Probably should not get into it though.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I don't actually have a problem with describing those games as catering more toward dramatic needs.  That's a description of them we all agree on?  Maybe Drama First Rpgs?



I don't really have a pet term, 'narrative game', 'narratively focused', 'story now', 'story game'. I guess 'dramatic game' works OK too, although it conjures up visions in my head of people hamming it up, lol.


----------



## estar

Aldarc said:


> The reality of the setting is shaped by the mechanics.



Or you can define the setting first and create, adapt, alter the rules to fit it. See Adventures in Middle Earth for a actual example of this in regards to 5th edition. But if the referee adopts a system 'as is' without doing anything then yes over time the much of the setting will become the world described by the rules.




Aldarc said:


> It's worth considering the idea that 5e and its Battlemaster reflects a different reality/setting than one that speaks to your own aesthetic preferences.



The 5e doesn't bother trying to tie the dice pool to anything that the character perceives. Doesn't explain why at each level why the character can do only so many maneuvers. Or why they reset the way they do.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> I'm afraid your analogy can technically be used to describe the real world.  Life is just a menu of "interesting situations".  Which is why I said, call it that if you want, but that's a pretty shaky foundation to draw any kind of useful conclusions from.



The real world is NOTHING like any game world (leaving aside the obvious point of not being real). The real world has a vast amount of texture to it which is lacking in any imagined space. Each element in the real world is linked in unbreakable causal relationships with a vast number of other elements, and there are a huge number of such elements. This leads to all sorts of collective behavior, emergent phenomenon, etc. which is all entirely lacking in an imagined space. 

From an everyday perspective, in the real world people have actual needs, things that they must have in order to continue to exist. They also have an entire array of unconscious and involuntary elements to their psyche, personality, and physiology which largely shape their overall behavior and impose a whole set of desires, which they usually find difficult to deny, at best (imagine talking about your PC going on a diet, describing his urge to eat some potato chips is almost ludicrous, but in the real world your diet has significant impacts on your overall well-being). 

The result is that imagined fantasy worlds are extremely 'cartoonish' in their character. The way elements interact and the character of the events and narrative lacks most of the character of real life, where simply fulfilling our ordinary material needs is an overwhelming consideration and we deal with mundane tasks and long term ongoing relationships as the primary focus of our lives. This is true even for a 'Thor Heyerdahl' type of guy, who had fantastic adventures. It is really nothing like the depictions of the lives of PCs in pretty much any game, even one focused on events in a world which is ostensibly meant to represent our own. 

So, no, my description has nothing of the character of describing real life. A sandbox is a set piece filled with adventure hooks. Real life is not. Again, this is also the basis of my fundamental objection to the characterization of any DMing process as 'deciding what would realistically happen' or even 'what is realistically plausible'.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The real world is NOTHING like any game world (leaving aside the obvious point of not being real). The real world has a vast amount of texture to it which is lacking in any imagined space. Each element in the real world is linked in unbreakable causal relationships with a vast number of other elements, and there are a huge number of such elements. This leads to all sorts of collective behavior, emergent phenomenon, etc. which is all entirely lacking in an imagined space.
> 
> From an everyday perspective, in the real world people have actual needs, things that they must have in order to continue to exist. They also have an entire array of unconscious and involuntary elements to their psyche, personality, and physiology which largely shape their overall behavior and impose a whole set of desires, which they usually find difficult to deny, at best (imagine talking about your PC going on a diet, describing his urge to eat some potato chips is almost ludicrous, but in the real world your diet has significant impacts on your overall well-being).
> 
> The result is that imagined fantasy worlds are extremely 'cartoonish' in their character. The way elements interact and the character of the events and narrative lacks most of the character of real life, where simply fulfilling our ordinary material needs is an overwhelming consideration and we deal with mundane tasks and long term ongoing relationships as the primary focus of our lives. This is true even for a 'Thor Heyerdahl' type of guy, who had fantastic adventures. It is really nothing like the depictions of the lives of PCs in pretty much any game, even one focused on events in a world which is ostensibly meant to represent our own.
> 
> So, no, my description has nothing of the character of describing real life. A sandbox is a set piece filled with adventure hooks. Real life is not. Again, this is also the basis of my fundamental objection to the characterization of any DMing process as 'deciding what would realistically happen' or even 'what is realistically plausible'.



You spent alot of time not telling me what is incorrect about referring to the real world as a menu of "interesting situations".  

You spent alot of time telling me a gameworld is not exactly like the real world... well duh!  So what?  My point isn't that the game world is like the real world, my point is that your analogy applies to both!


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> You spent alot of time not telling me what is incorrect about referring to the real world as a menu of "interesting situations".
> 
> You spent alot of time telling me a gameworld is not exactly like the real world... well duh!  So what?  My point isn't that the game world is like the real world, my point is that your analogy applies to both!




I have to agree with FrogReaver here. This argument keeps getting brought up, people either accept the argument or they don't. But I have never found the 'its impossible to simulate reality, so any striving towards realism is impossible' argument that convincing (since no one is even suggesting this is an attempt to simulate real world physics). It is an approximation of real world cause and effect, of real world plausibility. If that means to you that games can only play like Thunder Cats or GI Joe, I don't know, that is not how they feel to me at all. I think it is a sliding scale like movies, which some on a more realistic end and some on a more zany cartoonish end. No one would mistake them for reality, but they can be more or less plausible, more or less like the real world.


----------



## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> The real world is NOTHING like any game world (leaving aside the obvious point of not being real). The real world has a vast amount of texture to it which is lacking in any imagined space. Each element in the real world is linked in unbreakable causal relationships with a vast number of other elements, and there are a huge number of such elements. This leads to all sorts of collective behavior, emergent phenomenon, etc. which is all entirely lacking in an imagined space.



Movies, novels, and plays all have the same issue but yet they manage the immerse the viewer. And prior to tabletop roleplaying wargames managed to be pretty immersive. There is such a thing as good enough.  Which means one doesn't have to throw up their hands and say "It too complex so it not a consideration". Which is what your post is saying. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> So, no, my description has nothing of the character of describing real life. A sandbox is a set piece filled with adventure hooks. Real life is not. Again, this is also the basis of my fundamental objection to the characterization of any DMing process as 'deciding what would realistically happen' or even 'what is realistically plausible'.



Yet in real life people have adventures.  Of course what we do at the table isn't as detailed as life or as it could be if a fictional place actually existed. Down the lane from Bag's Ends were hobbit living their lives despite Tolkien never describing them. Yes a bunch of short cuts are used couple with some clever techniques to bring the setting to life. 

However when there a creative choice to be made, I opt for the one that reflect the reality of the setting. That what I choose to do. Other may use different criterias, for example opting for the choice that makes for the better game. Or the choice that makes for faster resolution of the action.  It a creative exercise, and deciding what would realistically happen is as valid of a criteria as any other.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Because the focus on creating a narrative (story) collaboratively using the mechanics of a game. Just a wargames is a focus on achieving the victory conditions of a scenario, and tabletop roleplaying is about interacting with a setting as a character with their actions adjudicated by a human referee.
> 
> Now before you (and readers) thinking I am drawing hard and fast lines, it about focus. Focus is inherently fuzzy and readily adapted to hybrid forms. This can be illustrated clearly by the difference between Melee and The Fantasy Trip. Battletech and Mechwarrior. The former games are considered wargames, while the latter games are consider roleplaying game.
> 
> As they both use the same mechanics the only substantial difference is of focus. What you intend to do with the mechanics. In Melee the intent is to defeat your opponent(s) in a melee by achieving the victory conditions of the scenarios like last man standing. In The Fantasy Trip the focus is on pretending to be a character having adventures using the rules of Melee to handle combat.
> 
> In Battletech the focus is on defeating your opponents by commanding Battlemechs and other forces and achieving some victory condition. In Mechwarrior the focus on playing the pilot of a Battletech and while the system uses Battletech to resolve Mech on Mech combat it incorporate a lot of other subsystems and material not relevant to people focused on playing Battletech.
> 
> So it was with Blackmoor the first tabletop roleplaying campaign. By all the account I read, at first it would look and feel like an elaborate wargame campaign. While players were their character within the campaign, it was more of means to fight the larger battle of law versus chaos with both side comprised of players. But with advent of the Blackmoor Dungeon the focus and campaign shifted into something we would recognize today as tabletop roleplaying. Why? Because exploration of the Blackmoor Dungeon was a choice of the player as their character. It wasn't really relevant to the law versus chaos scenario. Ultimately it proved a distraction which lead to the downfall and exile of the forces of law. But it was so popular and so well-like that exploration of dungeons and ruins like the City of the Gods became Dave Arneson's campaign focus thus giving birth to tabletop roleplaying.
> 
> So with storygames, the focus is on collaborative storytelling using the rules of a game. Which values certain mechanics over other. Just as mass combat rules fell by the wayside and became a niche for tabletop roleplaying.  It doesn't mean that there isn't overlap or hybrid system that straddle the line. As I said kitbashing previously I find kitbashing is the norm not the exception.
> 
> My view is that wargame, tabletop roleplaying, and story games lie on a spectrum. Yet each has a distinct focus. None of them are a 2.0 version of the others. Instead it represent increase in the variety and types of game.
> 
> 
> *So how is this theorycraft of any practical use?*
> The implication of my assertion is that rather than picking a game and then building a campaign. You decide on a campaign, what you want to focus on. Build the setting of the campaign whether it is wargame, roleplaying game, or storygame. Then pick the rules that best suits the campaign. One case it may be Blade in the Dark, another is may be D&D 5e, and another still it may be Shadowrun Crossfire. And you don't have to "pure". You can take a little from each game the only value judgement is whether detail makes the campaign your group want to run less work and more fun to play out.
> 
> I happen to be focused on having the players play as their character experiencing a setting. You may be more focused on collaborative narrative with everybody pitching in on a equal basis.  With those as framework each of can work our group to pick or define a setting, and the rules we will play by.
> 
> Hope that clarify things.
> 
> 
> 
> My view it still a form of collaborative storytelling but one with a more competitive or resource bound aspect.  The challenge is how can I create a interesting with my group given the resources the system given me. The resource being some type of metagame mechanic or currency that player not the character can do. Or maybe it a zero sum setup and more competitive. Like I said all sort of hybrids are possible.
> However in traditional roleplaying because of it focus, players don't expect to be able to something that their character can't do. The game you describe, the player can do more than what their character can do. From I seen
> As player you have mechanics at your disposal
> 
> Competition can be a form of collaboration as far as the end result goes. Look at places of natural beauty like  rain forest. Definitely some competition there but yet the result is something complex that defies the laws of thermodynamic.
> 
> *Wrapping it up.*
> If you think I am an old gamer talking weird naughty word, I am not offended. I well aware that my view are not shared the mainstream or many of the niches of our hobby.
> 
> I believe my view has a practical application help people produce campaign that are fun and interesting to play.
> 
> Figure out what you or the group want to focus on for the campaign
> Make a setting for the campaign
> Create or collect the rules need to make the above happen.
> Play
> Note that nowhere I am saying *how *to play the campaign. Just pick whatever make it work the way you and your group wants to work.



I think your 'evolution' perspective is good. I mean, surely wargames came first, and then 'Free Kriegsspiel', which included open-ended refereed elements, and that idea was then incorporated into hobby TT wargaming sessions, resulting in the first gen RPGs, which all feature a centralized structure with the referee describing the scenario, arbitrating the action and rules, and then describing outcomes. So, yes, modern 'Story Game' RPGs, which are 2nd or maybe 3rd generation games obviously started with the central RPG concept that was present in Arneson's games and blended that with ideas from other spheres (theater perhaps). 

However, I think there's not as much space between the structures of play as some people propose. Role Play, and thus the centrality of the fiction, and of the narrative that spins out of the frame, act, arbitrate, frame loop is pretty much the same in Dungeon World, for example, as it would be in Holmes Basic, which is utterly classic early D&D. I agree that you could play Holmes Basic in 'pawn stance' and it works, whereas DW really won't, so they aren't identical, but they both produce the same basic result, which is a narrative description of characters in a fictional world depicting actions selected and described by game participants according to a process and rules structure with an open-ended character. 

I think that speaks to your kit-bashing point. I wouldn't use that term myself, because I think the process is more generative of new elements and often a lot less informal than just wiring stuff together until it 'works'. I think it is plain that modern Indy RPGs, regardless of where they fall on the techniques and rules structure side of things, incorporate a LOT of theory and analysis in order to produce robust, well-functioning systems. D&D itself I would describe as a 'kit bash'. I mean, it literally is an amalgam of Survival, Chainmail, and some structure taken from the Blackmoor and Great Kingdom wargame/Braunstien-like campaigns. There is obviously a bunch of novel stuff in it, and taken as a package it surely represents a qualitative step into a new paradigm, but I would say something like PbtA is vastly less of a 'kit bash' than that! 

DW deliberately and consciously emulates D&D in terms of taking a few elements and recontextualizing them (classes, races, ability scores, hit points, genre elements) but one should not mistake that for simply picking up found pieces and jimmying them together. Instead the designers went through a long process of analysis and creating a conceptual framework, from which they extracted principles. Those principles were then applied to construct a core framework of a '3rd generation RPG' (and if you look at Apocalypse World you will see that it owes only its general structure as an RPG to D&D, not any particular mechanics or other elements). Dungeon World might fool you because it goes back and picks up D&Disms DELIBERATELY and reworks them in the context of this new framework and principles. So it is an RPG, and it is on your spectrum, but it is not simply a few different mechanics glued together in a slightly different way, it is a whole different beast. Maybe not as big a qualitative step as D&D is from Chainmail, but still qualitatively different (though clearly there are '2nd generation RPGs' which did all these things before PbtA, it is just an example of the type).


----------



## FrogReaver

Campbell said:


> From my perspective they are all over the place in 5e. Channel Divinity, Bardic Inspiration, Sorcery Points, Ki Points, Daily Barbarian Rage, Battlemaster Dice, Second Wind. The game is filled to the brim with loosely correlated mechanics that are much harder for me to personally justify than martial powers were in 4e (which have some features that feel like more like real human athleticism to me). Their presence as unique resources also make them feel more front and center to me personally.
> 
> PF2 is much better on this front in my experience, significantly better than either 4e or 5e in my opinion. Probably should not get into it though.



Yep, however, I think anything magical in nature can be viewed as a kind of well of power within you that gets depleted and recharged.  So I don't have any problem with Channel Divinity, Bardic Inspiration, Sorcery Points, Ki Points.  Just the not so magical abilities don't have a feasible explanation.

I couldn't look at 4e without seeing such abilities in everything martial characters did and I liked 4e.  With 5e the focus is most often not on such abilities.  My barbarian rages once.  The rest of the encounter I spend attacking.  My fighter uses one manuever, the rest of the fight I spend attacking.  In 4e, the bulk of your character creation was around what powers you chose.  The bulk of combat was about using those powers.  The focus was definitely front and center on the powers.


----------



## estar

Bedrockgames said:


> since no one is even suggesting this is an attempt to simulate real world physics). It is an approximation of real world cause and effect, of real world plausibility.



While it will always be an approximation it is a substantial niche in the hobby to create systems that simulate real world physics. Or more accurately the player has to weigh the same criteria, and do things in the same order as life and game mechanics will produce the same range of results as life at roughly the same odds as found in life. 

It a specific taste so it not common but it there and it works for many hobbyists. My opinion that for combat GURPS + GURPS Martial Arts is the most detailed yet playable example of this idea. But it not "better" than OD&D or Fate combat. If you want that level of detail then GURP is there.

And don't like how GURPS handles the details and thus we have RPGs like "Riddle of Steel" which also strives to emulate how life works as far as combat goes. We have RPGs that focus heavily on the social aspects. 

Again when realism is the goal is to get the system to the point where the player has to weigh the same criteria, and do things in the same order as life and game mechanics will produce the same range of results as life at roughly the same odds as found in life. And the result is playable and enjoyable as a hobby. It not a impossible task but also not for everybody.


----------



## Campbell

To a certain extent I think the sort of sandbox aesthetic talked about here is actually coming from a perspective of a version of the real world that actually makes sense. Where people's decisions are based on logic and somewhat accurate readouts of the way the world works instead of delusions and fantasies. Where the shape of history is actually based on what is likely to happen. I mean even a cursory glance at the moment in history we find ourselves should make it obvious that unlikely things happen everyday.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Campbell said:


> To a certain extent I think the sort of sandbox aesthetic talked about here is actually coming from a perspective of a version of the real world that actually makes sense. Where people's decisions are based on logic and somewhat accurate readouts of the way the world works instead of delusions and fantasies. Where the shape of history is actually based on what is likely to happen. I mean even a cursory glance at the moment in history we find ourselves should make it obvious that unlikely things happen everyday.



Crazy cultists are a common feature of  the fantasy genre too, and I am sure as present in those sandbox settings as they're in our real world. And the recent events you're referring to were not unforeseen; not the political turmoil, not the insurrection nor the pandemic. People have foreseen them coming and have tried to warn about them. And that such warnings were not heeded was not surprising either.


----------



## Bedrockgames

estar said:


> While it will always be an approximation it is a substantial niche in the hobby to create systems that simulate real world physics. Or more accurately the player has to weigh the same criteria, and do things in the same order as life and game mechanics will produce the same range of results as life at roughly the same odds as found in life.




I agree, and I think this just helps demonstrate the point I was trying to make. In this thread, my point is, no one has even made an argument for real world simulation of reality in their games. But I remember playing gams with all kinds of hit location charts. Millennium's End had some pretty intense tables and mechanics as I recall (if I remember correctly, stuff like heart rate was factored in). It also had some interesting mechanics around vehicles towards the same end. I also recall playing a lot of those old bookshelf games that tried to bring real world physics to things like WWI Dog fighting and Roman Chariot Races. Heck at one point I made a sepsis mechanic for one of my games, and I consulted with a real world doctor to get the actual probability of bacterial infections taking root from wounds (it wasn't hyper realistic, but it was much closer than handwaving away sepsis or just picking a probability off the top of my head). My point is just that this argument "true 1-1 simulation of reality is impossible so its all cartoons' just doesn't pass the smell test to me: some RPGs will strive for and achieve greater levels of realism than others, greater levels of plausibility than others). And many RPGs are really striving for something more like Plausibility (which I would tend to frame as having real world cause and effect in terms of everyday life, but maybe not getting into he nitty gritty of stuff like real world physics). I do think even in realistic games, there are variables in life you won't be able to account for, and the level of detail, for obvious reasons, won't be the same. But like you say, you can take real world probability and bring those into a system. I've seen this done and played games like this. One can quibble and say, yes but real life is still more complicated. That doesn't change the fact that a game like that would be closer to realism than a game of OG or Savage Worlds.


----------



## Fenris-77

Yeah, simulationist play isn't actually about 100% reality at all, but rather the best approximation of reality that can be managed for a very narrow slice of the mechanics. I see this most often with combat, but it turns up other places. Essentially, the goal is realism in genre important facets of the game in question.


----------



## FrogReaver

Simulationism for me is about simulating the world in a very granular and detailed way.

A game like 5e is just not granular or detailed enough for me to call it simulationism. 

5e does contain some level of simulation though.  Attacks, jumping, persuasion, etc. the goal of such simulation isn’t to be extremely real world accurate. It’s to establish playable mechanics that loosely approximate such things.

the simulationism mindset would be to make those mechanics more accurate even at the expense of playability.


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Simulationism for me is about simulating the world in a very granular and detailed way.
> 
> A game like 5e is just not granular or detailed enough for me to call it simulationism.
> 
> 5e does contain some level of simulation though.  Attacks, jumping, persuasion, etc. the goal of such simulation isn’t to be extremely real world accurate. It’s to establish playable mechanics that loosely approximate such things.
> 
> the simulationism mindset would be to make those mechanics more accurate even at the expense of playability.




This is why I usually draw a distinction between realism and plausibility. Even in a game not striving for realism, plausibility can be strained (especially in things like how groups react to events, how the mechanics handle cause and effect, etc). The point is simply, just because one isn't aiming for NASA level simulation, that doesn't mean one wants to completely abandoned reality. It may be more shoot from the hip, but fidelity to cause and effect may still be an aim.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, simulationist play isn't actually about 100% reality at all, but rather the best approximation of reality that can be managed for a very narrow slice of the mechanics. I see this most often with combat, but it turns up other places. Essentially, the goal is realism in genre important facets of the game in question.



It’s not even technically realism that anyone is after.  Realism gets mentioned primarily because fantasy worlds in most of their incarnations are intended to be very real world centric (or historic or future based real world centric).  Even the most cartoonish things like looney toons or Tom and jerry are very real world centric with a few unreal details and over exaggerations sprinkled in.

which is to say if someone wanted a looney toons or Tom and jerry rpg you would find most mechanics would need to be “realistic” to some degree with a few unreal mechanics mixed in to depict the zany interactions.

*story now would probably be an excellent platform for such a game.


----------



## Fenris-77

What I was talking about was the interesting divide in what simulationist players actually want. It tends to start with weapons and combat, might extend to rations, but often doesn't get much farther than that. I always chuckle when people shrilly claim to love realistic rules when what they actually want is realism for the bits that really interest them and thats it. Guns are a popular target. No one, for example, wants realistic tax forms in their games. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with wanting detail about something you're in to at all.


----------



## estar

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think your 'evolution' perspective is good. I mean, surely wargames came first, and then 'Free Kriegsspiel', which included open-ended refereed elements, and that idea was then incorporated into hobby TT wargaming sessions, resulting in the first gen RPGs, which all feature a centralized structure with the referee describing the scenario, arbitrating the action and rules, and then describing outcomes. So, yes, modern 'Story Game' RPGs, which are 2nd or maybe 3rd generation games obviously started with the central RPG concept that was present in Arneson's games and blended that with ideas from other spheres (theater perhaps).



Sounds good to me.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> However, I think there's not as much space between the structures of play as some people propose. Role Play, and thus the centrality of the fiction, and of the narrative that spins out of the frame, act, arbitrate, frame loop is pretty much the same in Dungeon World, for example, as it would be in Holmes Basic, which is utterly classic early D&D. I agree that you could play Holmes Basic in 'pawn stance' and it works, whereas DW really won't, so they aren't identical, but they both produce the same basic result, which is a narrative description of characters in a fictional world depicting actions selected and described by game participants according to a process and rules structure with an open-ended character.



Well you can throw Dungeon into that mix, or a later boardgame that similar Tomb. You can include the CRPG Moria or later Diablo like games. All of these produce the same basic result when recounted as a narrative later. But the experience of play are vastly different between all of these. Which is why I consider them related but distinct forms of gaming, with different creative demands.

And to stress an earlier point I made which I is why I learned to explained not only why I wrote a work but explain at various why each subsection is in there. Because there is a lot of ways to produce the same basic result. But hobbyist generally have preference over how that result is achieved. Thus my explanation help in deciding whether my approach is for them. 

It been my experience people playing DW style RPGs don't generally find only a small subset of my material useful. Which is OK. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think that speaks to your kit-bashing point. I wouldn't use that term myself, because I think the process is more generative of new elements and often a lot less informal than just wiring stuff together until it 'works'.



It how games are created. The polished games that appear to be a seamless whole are that way because the author spent the time refining their idea. But nearly every account I read about how these games created is that it started out as a kitbash. The author was playing a RPG, though "Hey wouldn't it be neat to do X." Trying it out, then kept refining it until it was it 100% own thing. Of course experienced authors with a firm handle on what they do creatively can start with a blank page and go from there. But that the exception not the norm in my opinion.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think it is plain that modern Indy RPGs, regardless of where they fall on the techniques and rules structure side of things, incorporate a LOT of theory and analysis in order to produce robust, well-functioning systems.



Whatever works is my mantra. But why these games are not for me is that my experience many modern Indy RPGs limit agency and scope. In my opinion Blades in the Dark sacrifices just about everything about a RPG to make a finely tune game to help a group recreates a heist movie. Sure general idea behind BitD can be used to for other situation but you would have to write a whole new version while related is also it won finally tuned game that recreates X.  Similar to the relationship between AW and DW. 

I am not sold on the theory and analysis part. My approach is refinement through actual play. Try something, see how it works and go from there. Do this campaign after campaign until you have something to share. When you share it listen to the feedback and refine it again. Until get something that based on the feedback achieves one's creative goals and in a form accessible to other hobbyists.

The downside that it is  time consuming beyond belief. And to work requires to you go with how things actually worked out rather than how you think they ought to work out. Which is why I only have a handful of products after ten years of publishing on my own. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> D&D itself I would describe as a 'kit bash'. I mean, it literally is an amalgam of Survival, Chainmail, and some structure taken from the Blackmoor and Great Kingdom wargame/Braunstien-like campaigns. There is obviously a bunch of novel stuff in it, and taken as a package it surely represents a qualitative step into a new paradigm, but I would say something like PbtA is vastly less of a 'kit bash' than that!



OD&D released in 1974 is definitely a product of the kitbash culture that existed in miniature wargaming hobby of the Upper Midwest in the later 60s and early 70s. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> but I would say something like PbtA is vastly less of a 'kit bash' than that!



I haven't read any account by Baker about the genesis of AW but Dungeon World is definitely a kitbash. I believe he said

*The idea is to create a mega-dungeon packed with all the stuff I like, and extract rules....*



AbdulAlhazred said:


> DW deliberately and consciously emulates D&D in terms of taking a few elements and recontextualizing them (classes, races, ability scores, hit points, genre elements) but one should not mistake that for simply picking up found pieces and jimmying them together. Instead the designers went through a long process of analysis and creating a conceptual framework, from which they extracted principles. '



 I think taking genre elements welding them onto a completely different system is part of the very definition of kitbashing. Your definition of kitbashing is too narrow. It not just taking the rules of a miniature wargaming and welding to a board game about Wilderness Survival. Kitbashing can be about welding together idea as well as more tangible things.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Those principles were then applied to construct a core framework of a '3rd generation RPG' (and if you look at Apocalypse World you will see that it owes only its general structure as an RPG to D&D, not any particular mechanics or other elements). Dungeon World might fool you because it goes back and picks up D&Disms DELIBERATELY and reworks them in the context of this new framework and principles.



It not a 3rd or any generation RPG. It just one more game that increases the diversity of games within our hobby. At best it can be part of or the center of family of related games.  Which is why you are calling it a 3rd generation because a bunch of Indie authors started sharing ideas in the 2000s and from that arose a family of games with similar very broad creative goals, and within that subfamilies of games related by mechanics like PbtA or Fate. But it not a successor whatever it is you think 2nd generation is. 

As the Elusive Shift by Jon Peterson shows once the idea that a fun hobby could be had by playing individual character interacting with a setting with their action adjudicated by a referee took hold, the diversity of what was offered immediately started expanding. And only increased since. But any game is as fun or easy to play today as it was back in the day or yesterday. It not technology. 

Continually been calling various game modern or latest generation. My Majestic Fantasy RPG was published in 2020 which makes it a later generation than Dungeon World. But using modern in reference to my system is a useless adjective. Doesn't encompass any of the things that makes the MWRPG the same as other RPGs or different than other RPGs. The MWRPG is just one more systems in a sea of other systems.

So it isn't helpful to the discussion. If there something distinctive about what YOU consider to be 3rd generation RPGs then state that distinction rather than use easily misunderstood jargon.


----------



## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> What I was talking about was the interesting divide in what simulationist players actually want. It tends to start with weapons and combat, might extend to rations, but often doesn't get much farther than that. I always chuckle when people shrilly claim to love realistic rules when what they actually want is realism for the bits that really interest them and thats it. Guns are a popular target. No one, for example, wants realistic tax forms in their games. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with wanting detail about something you're in to at all.



Sure, but I hope no game has added tax forms to its rules except maybe tax simulator 2000.

i don’t think that I would even go so far to say it’s only over mechanics they like.  They want simulationism in the parts of the game that matter.  Tax forms or bathroom mechanics just don’t matter in most games.


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## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Sure, but I hope no game has added tax forms to its rules except maybe tax simulator 2000.
> 
> i don’t think that I would even go so far to say it’s only over mechanics they like.  They want simulationism in the parts of the game that matter.  Tax forms or bathroom mechanics just don’t matter in most games.



Matter? I guess. I find just as often its so they can fully demonstrate specialist knowledge of their own. People that really like and know guns are the ones who tend to want super detailed firearms combat rules and selection. People who at are expert (or think they are) in medieval combat are the ones who want super detailed and realistic melee rules. Plus they whine a lot about the difference between a longsword and an arming sword.

There's nothing wrong with wanting that level of detail,  but you only really get full value out of them,  past a certain point, if you have the requisite real world knowledge.


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## Aldarc

Fenris-77 said:


> Matter? I guess. I find just as often its so they can fully demonstrate specialist knowledge of their own. People that really like and know guns are the ones who tend to want super detailed firearms combat rules and selection. People who at are expert (or think they are) in medieval combat are the ones who want super detailed and realistic melee rules. Plus they whine a lot about the difference between a longsword and an arming sword.
> 
> There's nothing wrong with wanting that level of detail,  but you only really get full value out of them,  past a certain point, if you have the requisite real world knowledge.



Not sure. I find that the people who want "specialist knowledge of their own" in RPGs tend to fall somewhere between knowing too little and too much about their field or as you say "think they are" experts. I also tend to think of simulationism less as a matter of how well it simulates any notions of reality, but, rather, how well that it simulates genre. What simulationism looks like, for example, for a heroic superhero RPG will likely not look like simulationism for either a Pride & Prejudice RPG or a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe RPG.


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## Manbearcat

I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.

If the primary play loop is centered around:

1) GM looks at card (setting notes).

2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).

3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.

When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:

_1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year.

2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve.

3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs)._

Those are three significant failure points built into the model; modeling/extrapolation error + cipher error + multiple input assimilation along with the wear and test of time.

Most of us here have been doing this for 30+ years. I’ve spent 5000 + hours running or watching “trad” games. WAY more than the overwhelming # of GMs on this planet.

The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.

And this doesn’t touch on the “interesting situations” question (which I brought up upthread):

How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> To be fair, the presence of something like the boarded up window, or the judge, are perfectly possible in many many instances of sandbox. The players ask and the GM decides, right? In some, I will grant you, the ability of the players to 'ask' is pretty curtailed, but that's on the GM, not the play style. In my sandboxes, for example, both the window and the judge happen all the time because of the way I run my games. That's not to say there's no difference between Blades and traditional OSR sandbox play, because there is. The fact that the permissions are hard coded into the Blades rules set is a significant difference, as it means those things are no longer up to the whim of the individual GM, which I think is your main point, if I'm readings you right.



Right, and I have no evidence it wouldn't be, at least usually, true for any of the GMs posting here that run a 'classic' GM-centered fiction type of game. They might all explain a bonus that way, or let that be the entre into a 'score', or whatever the abstract system is asking for at the given moment. But who will posit that? I am sure a player can literally speak "Maybe there is an old forgotten boarded-up basement window" at any table. Likewise a GM can simply invent that feature, but there is actually a stricture against it in 'skilled play'! It is a form of 'cheating' for someone to add a way around some obstacle during play! Now, I didn't hear, say @estar really say that Gygaxian 'skilled play' was a specific goal (at least my old brain doesn't remember him saying it particularly) so again I don't want to draw a conclusion. Just that there are some potential issues, depending on exactly what flavor of D&D you espouse. Given that 'sandbox' has been stated, my basic working assumption is that as long as the PCs are in 'mapped territory' a paradigm of this sort is in effect, the challenge is set, although there is always wiggle room to elaborate (IE how flammable is the building if the PCs decide to burn the bad guys out, this might need to be adjudicated on the fly).


----------



## estar

Simulationism is a preference. It there it exists people choose RPGs on how realistic it is but it is narrow niche. 

Also I think people do themselves a disservice that if emulating reality is involves detailed mechanics. Level of abstraction still come into play. You can be realistic at a high level of abstraction. Like a subsystem that tells you what happens to a kingdom of that game year. Or a system that resolves a combat encounter with opposing check instead of blow by blow. 

The criteria for me is that for the level of detail presented I am considering the reverent factors, I am doing relevant actions at that level of detail, and do the result fall in the same range as the real world. Now I may like the system because if I as a player that think it makes a big difference whether it matters if I use  5x scope versus a 3x scope. Whether I am using a set of Craftsmen tool versus a set of Channellock tools. Or the reverse where as a player I am interested that level of detail, and find them bogging down play wished the designer or referee just assumed that people would equip a sniper rifle with the proper scope or a mechanic would have decent tools.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I would strongly recommend Cthulhu Dark. 4 pages. I've used it twice for one-shots. No prep required for an excellent play experience.



Yeah, I've glanced at it and heard good things. 

Now, I just had a thought, what if we turned the genre inside out? Instead of the players being investigators, what if they play the cosmic horrors? hehehehehe. Admittedly this would be a very different sort of game, maybe not really a classic kind of RPG setup at all, but it could be fun.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> Hmm, there's some middle ground there. Flashbacks work just fine in D&D, and the idea of a roll to determine starting position works fine too. I know becauce I've adapted some Blades stuff to run heist games in D&D. It's not identical of course, but you can nudge D&D closer than you might think with just some minor tinkering. It would be easier to just run Blades of course, but sometimes what you have is D&D players who want to play a heist. Anythewho, not to derail us, just tossing that out there.



Right, I think if you are willing to adopt some of the BitD techniques, you can create a 'D&D heist game' that borrows from the 'FitD' engine and subsystems. At least to a degree. I am also sure you can add significant narrative game elements to D&D, 4e is a little covert about it, but it does a pretty decent job given that it had to not stray too far from the classic formula. My own hack, Heroes of Myth and Legend, takes that a bunch further, but is still recognizably akin to D&D and is probably not really 'further out' than 13th Age. HoML could do this kind of stuff fairly well, although I never developed something akin to BitD's elaborate tracks and clocks (there is the 'affliction track' but it only tracks bad things, and SCs are a bit different from clocks). Still, you can easily start a scenario 'at the action', and the players have resources they can expend to create favorable plot elements. So a heist could well be an SC, with plot elements, and expenditures to push for better odds (IE use a ritual, pay extra, burn your Inspiration, etc.). I think I could produce approximately the results of the epic battle of one Crew against a Demon and another superior crew for example, though I think BitD clearly does it better, being its main focus.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.
> 
> If the primary play loop is centered around:
> 
> 1) GM looks at card (setting notes).
> 
> 2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).
> 
> 3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.
> 
> When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:
> 
> _1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year.
> 
> 2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve.
> 
> 3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs)._
> 
> Those are three significant failure points built into the model; modeling/extrapolation error + cipher error + multiple input assimilation along with the wear and test of time.
> 
> Most of us here have been doing this for 30+ years. I’ve spent 5000 + hours running or watching “trad” games. WAY more than the overwhelming # of GMs on this planet.
> 
> The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.
> 
> And this doesn’t touch on the “interesting situations” question (which I brought up upthread):
> 
> How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?



I think your primary playloop part is missing a lot or incorrect, at least in relation to a sandbox.


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## AbdulAlhazred

prabe said:


> In my experience, that's the only viable goal, since the adventures are written so you're not really saving the world--succeed at the adventure or horribly bomb, the world won't end; the stakes you're playing for are a lie.
> 
> Can you tell I fell out of CoC a while ago?
> 
> Sounds as though you're using Lovecraftian tropes to play a game that generates non-Lovecraftian stories. Which is cool--I'm not a huge fan of undiluted Lovecraftian fiction in my TRPGs myself.



Yeah, you could say that. I mean, I'm OK with a story that is pretty close to some of the classics. OTOH The Laundry Files material provides an example of what is probably a more interesting variation of the milieu. The world IS DOOMED, eventually 'Case Nightmare Green' is going to happen (return of the Great Old Ones/The Stars are Right) and nobody is coming out of that 'intact' in any sense we would accept. However, in the meantime, which could be centuries if we're lucky, we can strive to keep things going. Maybe The Laundry and its allies will find a way to at least construct some sort of 'lifeboat' or make some allies who will help us out, etc. None of the main characters in the stories seem to believe that will happen, but they go on about their business because there simply isn't any other choice. Once in a while someone goes mad and becomes a 'case' that has to be dealt with. There's already an RPG built on that specific milieu, but I have not ever had a chance to read it. In any case, it makes a bit more of a workable setting, since the PCs have the backing of an organization with significant resources and the ability to resolve situations and possible survive, and even advance in ability, while retaining the fundamental cosmic horror vibe.


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## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> I think your primary playloop part is missing a lot or incorrect, at least in relation to a sandbox.




That is because its not the play loop.  Its a game analogy meant to map to the (a) modeling aspect (turning the card into a picture) and (b) cipher aspect (drawing the picture for the players to decipher).  

Those are the two features that are relevant to the simulation/modeling issue that I was addressing.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> Just because prep exists for a sandbox doesn't mean the DM is beholden to it. It happens all the time. So sure, in a vacuum, a dungeon or brother could be manufactured on the fly. I've done it, as, I'm sure, have lots of people. Not all of course, and maybe not even many, but some. I think it's a mistake to take the pov of the most prep beholden sandbox GMs and then project that onto the wider group. This is why taking playstyle as the first layer of analysis is so fraught IMO.



Oh, sure, you can mix and match, I think that is one of @estar's most salient points. Probably the vast majority of GMs running high-prep games will do something like that. If the PCs take some detail and start chewing on it, the GM will often add substance to it. The reason zero myth has been fairly popular in story now games is that it just makes this easier, and avoids the distraction of 'stuff that the GM unilaterally wanted included'. If the players are determined to find something in the ruined south gatehouse, then maybe they uncover the Wizard's Tomb, which they were searching for, but the entrance is inscribed with a dark curse! This could happen in any type of game, but the denser the existing fiction is, the more likely some other material that is less salient is already placed there. Also the more tempting it is for the GM to reason "well, if I just encourage the players to send their PCs 5 miles north, I won't have to write up a whole new thing." and it is pretty easy to just steer things that way. 

So, there are certainly also heavy-prep story now games, and ones set in existing extensive settings/genres (IE superheros would be an example) where a LOT of lore already exists. Naturally this can have advantages too. If the players already have a lot of genre knowledge then they are in a better position to leverage that in their play.


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> That is because its not the play loop.  Its a game analogy meant to map to the (a) modeling aspect (turning the card into a picture) and (b) cipher aspect (drawing the picture for the players to decipher).
> 
> Those are the two features that are relevant to the simulation/modeling issue that I was addressing.



Okay. I’m still confused. You said above “if X is the primary playloop”. My contention was that X is not the primary playloop of a sandbox.

but if your not really talking about that then have at it.


----------



## Manbearcat

FrogReaver said:


> Okay. I’m still confused. You said above “if X is the primary playloop”. My contention was that X is not the primary playloop of a sandbox.
> 
> but if your not really talking about that then have at it.



Check out the post again.  Not what I said.

I said "if the primary play loop is centered around <then I go on to make the analogy of modeling + cipher and the downstream effects of that >"

Every moment of GM describes situation > player asks clarifying questions > rinse/repeat until player declares action > GM handles action resolution (yes, no, rolls themselves, tells player to roll d20, tells player to roll d20 and gives target number, etc etc) pivots upon what I depicted above.

If it goes south (due to modeling error, due to cipher error, due to bandwidth/fatigue error) its all related to that.


----------



## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, you could say that. I mean, I'm OK with a story that is pretty close to some of the classics. OTOH The Laundry Files material provides an example of what is probably a more interesting variation of the milieu. The world IS DOOMED, eventually 'Case Nightmare Green' is going to happen (return of the Great Old Ones/The Stars are Right) and nobody is coming out of that 'intact' in any sense we would accept. However, in the meantime, which could be centuries if we're lucky, we can strive to keep things going. Maybe The Laundry and its allies will find a way to at least construct some sort of 'lifeboat' or make some allies who will help us out, etc. None of the main characters in the stories seem to believe that will happen, but they go on about their business because there simply isn't any other choice. Once in a while someone goes mad and becomes a 'case' that has to be dealt with. There's already an RPG built on that specific milieu, but I have not ever had a chance to read it. In any case, it makes a bit more of a workable setting, since the PCs have the backing of an organization with significant resources and the ability to resolve situations and possible survive, and even advance in ability, while retaining the fundamental cosmic horror vibe.



That setting does sound as though it would allow for more heroism in a TRPG (depending on the game system, of course).


----------



## estar

Manbearcat said:


> I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.
> 
> If the primary play loop is centered around:
> 
> 1) GM looks at card (setting notes).



Saying it looking a card is simplistic but the general gist is correct.


Manbearcat said:


> 2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).



Unless circumstances are such that their character would know the right answer. 


Manbearcat said:


> 3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.



This step is incorrect
3) The players respond as if they are there as the character. 

* It very may be they are trying to solve a puzzle but often it not. I have no particular expectation about what the players are trying to do. I present the situation and ask "What do you do?".  You wake up from your sleep to screams in the night. You see in the distance about a 100 yards up the road and to the side a campfire with some kind of commotion around it. *



Manbearcat said:


> When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:
> 
> _1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year._



Genre exist because of the circumstance incorporated into the narrative. Recreate the circumstances you experience the genre. But unlike a book or movie with tabletop roleplaying you can see what else there by interacting with the setting and its inhabitants. Like who actually lives down the lane from Bag's End.



Manbearcat said:


> _2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve._



Inexperience and lack of skill as a player or referee can't be fixed by system. Every game requires some level of skill and insight to play. This issue is fixed by the referee developing experience and being receptive to feedback.

However there are elements of tabletop roleplaying that addresses this. It solved by simplifying the situation to make it more manageable for the novice. The most successful of which is the dungeon a type of adventure that easily described and created by a novice. It one of the reason D&D in all editions remains popular. No other genre of RPGs have an adventure format as compact and approach as drawing a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure.



Manbearcat said:


> _3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs)._



So you now complaining that tabletop roleplaying is centered campaigns rather than one-shots. That one-shots are an EVOLUTION a new GENERATION. Something to criticize? Give me a break. There is a reason that campaigns took hold is that because players become invested in their characters. Which was found enjoyable in of itself. Campaign continued to exist because players decade after decade found they that wanted to continue to see where they go and what they can do. 

And if time is an issue, there is zero issue in running a one-shot with tabletop roleplaying rendering your criticism moot. 



Manbearcat said:


> Most of us here have been doing this for 30+ years. I’ve spent 5000 + hours running or watching “trad” games. WAY more than the overwhelming # of GMs on this planet.



Granted I am just some random gamer from rural Northwest Pennsylvania so I guess that a strike against me. I have more experience than some less than many others. 

But I think what more telling is what you are arguing. See I am saying all form of roleplaying work. Just in different ways. That agency comes in different flavors and with different focus. That the design of a campaign has both negative consequences and positive consequences including the "3rd generation" RPGs that are continually referred to as achieving the pinnacle of agency. 

But that not where you are coming from. See with my 5,000+ hours I learned I have a way but it not THE way. That doesn't appear to the case on your end. 




Manbearcat said:


> The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.



Yeah except what if they are actually dense and reckless. 


Manbearcat said:


> How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?



This is has been explained in detail up thread. What explanation are you looking for at this point? The issues of the unexpected likewise has been addressed. And you continue to make inaccurate assertions (solving puzzles) even when it has been explain it otherwise.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> Different games have different "rule 0" rules.
> I assume you're referencing Gygax/D&D rule 0: The GM is always right and can change things on a whim.
> Many newer games invoke "Wheaton's Rule": Don't be a dick.
> A few invoke "The group shall decide" denying any one person the ability to alter rules.



Well, I think "Wheaton's Rule" is simply an assumed principle of GMing in all cases (unless you really don't care if the players come back tomorrow, but even then...). AFAIK every edition of D&D has either assumed or outright stated 'Rule 0', even 4e has some statement to the effect that the DM's arbitration is final. NO edition of D&D calls out 'group decision making', certainly not as the assumed default mode, though I think some may suggest it as a 'DM advice' kind of thing. I think some editions also discuss the possibility of separating the roles of 'rules officiating' from 'game running' (I think 4e suggests this possibility, I would be surprised if 5e doesn't discuss some of this sort of thing somewhere either).

Still, no edition of actual genuine D&D brand RPG has ever put anything else ahead of Rule 0, explicitly, as the default assumption.


----------



## prabe

So, I don't claim to run sandboxy stuff, but I'll answer from the POV of running my campaigns.


Manbearcat said:


> If the primary play loop is centered around:
> 
> 1) GM looks at card (setting notes).



I presume this includes session prep. With you so far.


Manbearcat said:


> 2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).



Starting to drift away a little: I might have AN answer in my head for some things in play, but I don't believe I have THE answer for them. If the players get stuck and/or don't come up with their own solution/s, I'll start pointing them more directly at mine, but that's not best-case.


Manbearcat said:


> 3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.



I don't think of the situations/scenarios in my game as "puzzles," exactly, but yes: The players/characters attempt to solve the situation. No further drift in agreement.


Manbearcat said:


> When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:
> 
> _1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year._



The GM's model being different from another's model isn't necessarily a problem. Serious thought and sincere best effort will suffice (given the capability). I think the likelihood of nternal inconsistency can be ... reduced (not eliminated) by taking good notes--I think notes on what happened will suffice; I don't know that notes on mechanics are necessary--and/or by running scenarios that resolve over a relatively few sessions. I think some minor internal inconsistency can be forgiven, but I'm not arguing that it can be a problem.


Manbearcat said:


> _2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve._



This possibility seems plausible to me. I know that I think differently from most of the players at my tables, so if I'm doing something that involves dropping clues I need to be careful to take that into account: Something that seems blipping obvious to me might be completely opaque to the other people at the table. Making sure there are multiple opportunities to acquire the clues and making sure the adventure can continue in some form if the players don't acquire them seem like ways to prevent the worst case, here.


Manbearcat said:


> _3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs)._



See my note about shorter scenarios above, though I agree that GMs and players might individually or collectively have bad days.


Manbearcat said:


> The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.



I think the one of these most likely to be apparent to the players during play is what you call "cipher error." I'm not saying the others don't happen and/or don't cause problems, but I think they're maybe too subtle (at least most of the time) to observe from inside the game as it's being played.


Manbearcat said:


> And this doesn’t touch on the “interesting situations” question (which I brought up upthread):
> 
> How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?



I think you're asking two closely-related but different questions, here.

The first reads to me like a scenario-design question/problem. It's not the sandbox answer (as I understand the playstyle; I do not claim to be running sandbox campaigns), but I think the answer here is to create scenarios/situations that will generate friction when the characters meet them.

The second reads to me like a session-running/operation question/problem. If there's not enough friction between the PCs and the situation, then ... I guess the GM is left to adjust the situation, whether by adding elements to try to generate the needed friction or just by having things happen in the absence of interference (or something other than either of those).


----------



## FrogReaver

Manbearcat said:


> I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.



Now that I'm at the PC instead of on my phone.  Let me break down my specific issues for you.



Manbearcat said:


> If the primary play loop is centered around:
> 
> 1) GM looks at card (setting notes).



I'm with you here, but I think it is important to note that no card contains EVERYTHING.  That some layer of content even in a sandbox is produced adhoc.  Sometimes via mechanical process.  Sometimes via principled judgements and in some games even by straight GM fiat (though preferably this is minimal).



Manbearcat said:


> 2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).



The card is just important details about the world.  That information does need conveyed to players.  Players can't make decisions with no information after all.  The part about their being a "right" answer is really bugging me.




Manbearcat said:


> 3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.



Puzzle is such a bad word for what is going on.  They interact with the world.  The world changes.  Repeat. 

It's like in the real world if you seen smoke coming from your neighbor's house.  What do you do?  What's the right answer there?  Do you ignore it?  Do you call the fire dept?  Do you run over and try to put out the fire?  Is that a puzzle?


----------



## Manbearcat

estar said:


> Saying it looking a card is simplistic but the general gist is correct.




Simple, but not simplistic (it is extremely complex).  I'm terrible at being simple and to the point, but the best explanations encompass both of those things.  Like you said, the gist is correct, and that is the point here.



> Unless circumstances are such that their character would know the right answer.




Which is an aside.  An interesting aside (when "would" a character know the right answer...how is that determined), but still an aside.



> This step is incorrect
> 3) The players respond as if they are there as the character.




It is not incorrect.  It is exactly what is happening under the hood.  You can add the caveat "through the lens of their character" as you like.  It doesn't change the fact that the PLAYER is trying to suss out what the relationships and collisions of all of the setting elements are conveying (decipher the picture).

After that solve (or lackthereof) has occurred, some players will proceed to attempt to declare an action declaration that the feel is well-represented by their prior characterizations of their PC.  Some will just eschew that and proceed based on their solve (or lackthereof) and subtly map their new characterization of their PC based on that.



> * It very may be they are trying to solve a puzzle but often it not. I have no particular expectation about what the players are trying to do. I present the situation and ask "What do you do?".  You wake up from your sleep to screams in the night. You see in the distance about a 100 yards up the road and to the side a campfire with some kind of commotion around it. *




Whether any given GM has an expectation of what the players are going to do isn't salient here.  You extrapolate from your setting and perform your cipher duties.  They may solve correctly, they may not (as apparently the players in your game that thought they were headed for amicable parley but instead endured the TPK against the Thieves Guild did not). 



> Genre exist because of the circumstance incorporated into the narrative. Recreate the circumstances you experience the genre. But unlike a book or movie with tabletop roleplaying you can see what else there by interacting with the setting and its inhabitants. Like who actually lives down the lane from Bag's End.




The reason why I brought genre logic up is because this gets folded into "extrapolation and modeling."  But when and to what degree is the moving target that becomes a problem if you're a player trying to decipher a picture.  "Is this thing going to happen because its a highly inferable naturalistic outgrowth of x + y...or is this other thing going to happen because its the prototype of genre logic application here...or is this third thing going to happen because its some kind of marriage of the two?"

I did a huge thread in the D&D 5e Forums 5 years ago on this trying to get GMs to expose their handling of endgame DCs from a Genre Logic vs/meets Naturalistic Logic perspective.  It_was_a_train_wreck.  Precisely because of what I'm talking about above.  Imagine being the players in those games trying to infer DCs and attendant risk:reward in action declarations?



> Inexperience and lack of skill as a player or referee can't be fixed by system. Every game requires some level of skill and insight to play. This issue is fixed by the referee developing experience and being receptive to feedback.
> 
> However there are elements of tabletop roleplaying that addresses this. It solved by simplifying the situation to make it more manageable for the novice. The most successful of which is the dungeon a type of adventure that easily described and created by a novice. It one of the reason D&D in all editions remains popular. No other genre of RPGs have an adventure format as compact and approach as drawing a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure.




On your 1st sentence, my point is that sometimes lack of skill by the player isn't actually lack of skill.  Its referee error or system issue or some combination.  On the second two sentences, I couldn't agree more.

On your 2nd paragraph, couldn't agree more.  In fact, I would go further.  Moldvay Basic is a million times better than Expert because the sandbox of the dungeon is beautifully constrained, the play loop for it elegant and coherent and consistent, and all of this leads to a delving experience that holistically integrates the premise of play with all the resolution machinery.  Then Expert tried to port this from the dungeon to the wilderness + city and it became profoundly unwieldy (because one of these things is not like the other...).

Development of hexcrawling and extra-dungeon sandboxing procedures needed a different model.



> So you now complaining that tabletop roleplaying is centered campaigns rather than one-shots. That one-shots are an EVOLUTION a new GENERATION. Something to criticize? Give me a break. There is a reason that campaigns took hold is that because players become invested in their characters. Which was found enjoyable in of itself. Campaign continued to exist because players decade after decade found they that wanted to continue to see where they go and what they can do.
> 
> And if time is an issue, there is zero issue in running a one-shot with tabletop roleplaying rendering your criticism moot.




I have...no idea why you made this leap.  I was talking about the 3 failure points inherent to style of play.  Given that I've run a bajillion campaigns in my life, it would be odd of me to denigrate them.  So I'm just going to move on to the next one as I don't know what happened here!



> Granted I am just some random gamer from rural Northwest Pennsylvania so I guess that a strike against me. I have more experience than some less than many others.




We're all just random gamers with more experience than some and less than others.



> But I think what more telling is what you are arguing. See I am saying all form of roleplaying work. Just in different ways. That agency comes in different flavors and with different focus. That the design of a campaign has both negative consequences and positive consequences including the "3rd generation" RPGs that are continually referred to as achieving the pinnacle of agency.
> 
> But that not where you are coming from. See with my 5,000+ hours I learned I have a way but it not THE way. That doesn't appear to the case on your end.




Well that escalated quickly!

So let me get this straight.  You think all the words I've put in this thread (you can go back and look them up...there is a lot!) and this latest post, which merely attempts to clarify what two posters were trying to get at when they were referring to their issues with "simulation"...is somehow a personal attack on you?  Or some kind of hubris by me?  Some kind of declaration by me that one of the primary ways (probably the majority) I've gamed is crap?  

Is that it?  

If it is, I feel like we're having a disconnect that proves my Pictionary analogy correct!  



> Yeah except what if they are actually dense and reckless.




It can happen.  

But what I see on this messageboard at large (and in the wild) are GMs with borderline contempt for their players when this happens.  That isn't the lens I would tell new GMs (certainly not what I would project on a messageboard for players as aspiring GMs) to look through when evaluating why/how something went wrong.  GMs, in my opinion, need a hell of a lot less hubris, a hell of a lot more self-awareness, a hell of a lot more accountability, and more willingness to consider offloading some of their cognitive workload onto system or onto players.



> This is has been explained in detail up thread. What explanation are you looking for at this point? The issues of the unexpected likewise has been addressed. And you continue to make inaccurate assertions (solving puzzles) even when it has been explain it otherwise.




I've been participating in this thread since the beginning and I've put a staggering amount of word count into my contributions (you can put that word in quotations if you'd like).  

I've given up on reading most posts for about the last 2 weeks because its gone down rabbit holes I'm not interested in and I'm getting general ENWorld fatigue.  So you'll have to forgive me for being the big jerk with all of these continued inaccurate assertions  who has missed what you're talking about.

I discussed this at length upthread with @Lanefan (and maybe @prabe ?).  Whomever I discussed it with admitted this is the trickiest pickle of all:

How does a GM present a model that is inferable (deterministic for our purposes here) while simultaneously injecting sufficient dynamism into the system to keep things interesting and non-sterile (stochastic for our purposes here).

Lets go back to your TPK with the Thieves Guild.  If you re-instantiated that 1000 times, would you have had it go down like that every single time?  What might you have changed and why?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't see how the fact that there are ways to respond to a brother being dead changes my point.



Your approach seems to be that the brother being dead ends the search.  Mine is that the brother being dead is merely one more obstacle - albeit a big one - in the way of completing said search; and if he thinks he can hide from me simply by being dead he's got another think coming.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> So I think the timing of scenario design is not all that important. If the GM is coming up with the forest now or 10 months ago does not matter to me. What matters to me is the thought process behind it. What are they prioritizing? Are they trying to create a challenge? Are they framing something that provokes action? Are they trying to create something that should be interesting to explore? Are they guided by what they think will make the best story?



Sorry, mate, but if you're thinking through that sequence every time a GM puts a forest in front of you you're taking this all *way* too seriously!


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> It can happen.
> 
> But what I see on this messageboard at large (and in the wild) are GMs with borderline contempt for their players when this happens.



If by that you mean I laugh at what they've done, you're right.  But odds are high they're laughing too, and all is good. 

Dense and reckless players are the most entertaining kind of players, and as I play the game for entertainment, why would I ever complain about them?


Manbearcat said:


> I discussed this at length upthread with @Lanefan (and maybe @prabe ?).  Whomever I discussed it with admitted this is the trickiest pickle of all:
> 
> How does a GM present a model that is inferable (deterministic for our purposes here) while simultaneously injecting sufficient dynamism into the system to keep things interesting and non-sterile (stochastic for our purposes here).



Hmmm - I don't think that was me; or if it was, I've completely forgotten the discussion.


----------



## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> @Fenris-77
> 
> I went back to Ron Edwards on "metagame mechanics":
> 
> Metagame mechanics, by definition, entail the interjection of real-people priorities into the system-operation. . . .​​To clarify for purposes of the essay, compare the following: (1) an in-game essence or metaphysical effect called "Karma," which represents the character's moral status in that game-universe according to (e.g.) a god or principle in that game-world; (2) a score on the sheet which has literally nothing to do with the character's in-game identity, also called "Karma," recognized and applied by the real people with no in-game entity used to justify it. In both systems, Karma is a point-score which goes up and down, and which can be brought into play as, say, a bonus to one's dice roll. But I'd say that #1 is not metagame at all, and #2 is wholly metagame.​​Mechanically, how do they differ? One thing to consider is how the score goes up and down - by player-use, or by in-game effects? Another is whether the score is integrated with the reward/improvement system - does spending a Karma reduce one's bank of improvement points? In fact, is Karma a spent resource at all? Still another issue is whether in-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify its use. No one of these indicators is hard-and-fast, however; one must consider them all at once, and how they relate to Simulationism (and non-Simulationism) is a fascinating issue. At this point I tend to think that the main issue, basically, is who is considered to "spend" them - character or player.​
> Looking at Storyteller Certificates in this light:
> 
> (1) The resource goes up by GM response to in-game effects, and goes down by player use;​​(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​​(3) In-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use (see the example of play upthread, where the PCs _find something hidden_ because they are looking for it);​​(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
> Looking at Battlemaster dice in the same light:
> 
> (1) The resource goes up by in-game effects (ie short rest) and goes down by player use;​​(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​​(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;​​(4) I think it is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
> That (4) might be controversial - how I've presented is consistent with the overwhelming weight of 4e D&D commentary, but I don't know if 5e has changed people's minds.  Looking at the others, the (1) for manoeuvre dice is less metagame than for Storyteller Certificates, but the (3) is moreso.
> 
> This is why I think they rise and fall together.
> 
> For completeness, MHRP Plot points:
> 
> (1) The resource goes up and down by player use or GM decision-making but with no reference to ingame effects;​​(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​​(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;​​(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​
> These clearly _are_ metagame.



Agreed; that said, they're not a major distraction in play, unlike some metagame. I'll quibble a bit on MHRP point 1... many times, it is referenced to ingame effects,
If it's for a new asset, that absolutely must affect the narrative side as well as the game state.
If it's to use an extra rolled  ___ above the free 1 per type, again, one is required to have enabling narrative.
If it's to keep an extra success die, it's not needing narrative linkage.
if it's to keep a second effect die for a single target, the post-roll narrative should be adjusted.
If it's to keep a second effect die for a second effect, that must link to the abilities used in the attempt, which should be narrated as a second action. 
If it is to trigger special abilities linked to the power, that should be narrated as well. 

Example: Spidey vs Green Goblin:
Spidey sees GG while patrolling, and wants to swing in, web, and then land into with his feet for an attack...
That requires 2 effect dice on the web powerset - so ...
Solo d8, Neighborhood Hero d8 (because patrolling), Spider-Powers: Superhuman Strength (for the punch) d10, Web: Swingline d8 (because swinging), web: weapon d8 (because pinning GG to the wall)[1pp for the second web set ability], Acrobat master d10 (to swing in in the right angle), combat master d8 (because both ranged and non-ranged attack) [1pp for second specialty]... and when the roll is said and done, if spidey wins the opposed roll, the first is the web, imposing the effect die as a complication, then a PP for the second effect die to actually hit, costing a PP... if Spidey's player doesn't spend #3 (maybe because  they spent it to win the roll), then the web hits but the kick doesn't
Only one doesn't need direct linkage: the extra die kept to hit, if needed.


----------



## aramis erak

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think "Wheaton's Rule" is simply an assumed principle of GMing in all cases (unless you really don't care if the players come back tomorrow, but even then...). AFAIK every edition of D&D has either assumed or outright stated 'Rule 0', even 4e has some statement to the effect that the DM's arbitration is final. NO edition of D&D calls out 'group decision making', certainly not as the assumed default mode, though I think some may suggest it as a 'DM advice' kind of thing. I think some editions also discuss the possibility of separating the roles of 'rules officiating' from 'game running' (I think 4e suggests this possibility, I would be surprised if 5e doesn't discuss some of this sort of thing somewhere either).
> 
> Still, no edition of actual genuine D&D brand RPG has ever put anything else ahead of Rule 0, explicitly, as the default assumption.



Note that several of us in the discussion don't routinely play the D&D (nor OSR knockoffs thereof) lines. 
Many of the metacurrency using games (BW, HotBlooded, Fate, 2d20, Cortex Classic, Cortex Plus/Prime) explicitly don't give the GM that kind of free-reign. D&D may be 2/3 of the market, but the market is changing; mid-range companies are getting audience growth faster than D&D is... the buying public is bigger now than 2 years ago, and 2ya more than 4 ya... I've not quibbled about D&D using Gygax's Rule 0... But many _other_ games explicitly don't use it.


----------



## aramis erak

AbdulAlhazred said:


> At least to a degree. I am also sure you can add significant narrative game elements to D&D, 4e is a little covert about it, but it does a pretty decent job given that it had to not stray too far from the classic formula.



Many of  narrative elements can be added to ANY edition of D&D. 
The easiest include:

Let it Ride
Hero Points (5e DMG 264 - each point is +1d6 to a d20 roll, max 1 per roll)
Success with Complication instead of failure
Fail-forward (implied in 4E and 5E DMG)
Decision in front with Fortune in the middle (pick action, roll, narrate attempt and result)
reward playing the psychology as defined with a metacurrency (5E does: Inspiration; if one wants to emphasize it more, allow PC's to bank PB or even level of inspirations, and refill a point anytime a psychological bit is played)
Group authority instead of GM authority on rules (rules interpretations get handled by table vote, instead of GM vote)
Note that the RAW standard for D&D is narrate the attempt, then the GM confirms the mechanic, player rolls, GM narrates the outcome. Resequencing this can allow for smoother narrative. Note that AWE is very similar to traditional D&D: narrate the attempt, GM notes it as a move, player confirms it was intended or acceptable, player rolls, GM or player narrates the results, and a player continues.

And, for the entirely oddball, some do things in other orders still...
Brute Squad has the pick attribute, roll attempt, pick what the roll represents and narrate it.


----------



## Campbell

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, I think "Wheaton's Rule" is simply an assumed principle of GMing in all cases (unless you really don't care if the players come back tomorrow, but even then...). AFAIK every edition of D&D has either assumed or outright stated 'Rule 0', even 4e has some statement to the effect that the DM's arbitration is final. NO edition of D&D calls out 'group decision making', certainly not as the assumed default mode, though I think some may suggest it as a 'DM advice' kind of thing. I think some editions also discuss the possibility of separating the roles of 'rules officiating' from 'game running' (I think 4e suggests this possibility, I would be surprised if 5e doesn't discuss some of this sort of thing somewhere either).
> 
> Still, no edition of actual genuine D&D brand RPG has ever put anything else ahead of Rule 0, explicitly, as the default assumption.




Here's Frank Mentzer's take in BECMI which is substantially different than most other official takes.



			
				BECMI said:
			
		

> *The Most Important Rule*
> There is one rule which applies to everything you will do as a Dungeon Master. It is the most important of all the rules! It is simply this: BE FAIR. A Dungeon Master must not take sides. You will play the roles of the creatures encountered, but do so fairly, without favoring the monsters or the characters. Play the monsters as they would actually behave, at least as you imagine them. The players are not fighting the DM! The characters may be fighting the monsters, but everyone is playing the game to have fun. The players have fun exploring and earning more powerful characters, and the DM has fun playing the monsters and entertaining players. For example, it’s not fair to change the rules unless everyone agrees to the change. When you add optional rules, apply them evenly to everyone, players and monsters. Do not make exceptions; stick to the rules, and be fair.
> 
> – Frank Menzer, Basic Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Rulebook p. 2 (1983)




Pathfinder Second Edition, while not on brand D&D is pretty relevant. Here's it's take :



> THE FIRST RULE
> The first rule of Pathfinder is that this game is yours. Use it to tell the stories you want to tell, be the character you want to be, and share exciting adventures with friends. If any other rule gets in the way of your fun, as long as your group agrees, you can alter or ignore it to fit your story. The true goal of Pathfinder is for everyone to enjoy themselves.




Both still ultimately feature the GM as a final rules arbiter elsewhere, although the impression I get from both is that the GM/Referee is expected to interpret the rules like a judge, not change them without the assent of the other players. This is a fairly unique perspective in the D&D space, but there are some corners that lean away from GMs having carte blanche over the rules.

Not really making a point here though. Just a digression.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I don’t get why you are being pedantic instead of engaging with the important content



I thought I was engaging with the important content. Perhaps you could explain what the important content is that I missed.

Here are two things that seem to me to be no different in terms of process, or in terms of influencing the state of the shared fiction.

(1) Player: _I attack the Orc with my mace_. <rolls dice, performs lookups in tandem with the GM, etc> GM: _The Orc is defeated_.

(2) Player: _I remember that Evard's tower is around here, don't I - I've studied the lore of the Great Masters_. <rolls dice, performs lookups in tandem with the GM, etc> GM: _Yep, that's right_.

Can you explain why you regard (2) as having an authorial dimension that is absent from (1)?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> If we want to talk about story I think the only level that it's close to universally true at, for given values of true, is that each player might perhaps be said to be crafting their own story, the story of their character. Like X versions of the same novel or something. In some games there might be a consensus that a larger story is a desirable outcome (great) but I still don't think that playing an RPG, described at the level of the party, is in any useful way synonymous with storytelling unless a group effort is made to make it so.



I don't think it is possible to generalize. Some 'story now' games have a very narrow agenda, and it can include really specific story elements, etc. Honestly, to an extent, this describes most RPGs, even D&D in its most elemental form. Some such games also put most of the formation of the plot in different places. It may actually be almost entirely in the GM's hands, and still be a game designed to 'explore the characters' or 'play to see what happens'. It will just have a narrow range of outcomes, or at least elements will be arranged in specific ways. 

A game can be pretty set like this, and thus there really aren't separate 'character agendas' as such, or at least they may not diverge from each other much. Or maybe they simply fill fixed roles in the story (IE a mystery game where one PC is always the murderer, his agenda is pretty fixed. Another PC might be the aggrieved relative, also pretty fixed, and a third may be the detective, again a very set agenda). They can thus be opposed, but mesh together to form one story.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Posting this yet again in this thread:
> 
> Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. . . .​​Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​
> We don't need to reinvent all this stuff from scratch in this thread.



Yeah, and I have always been keenly aware of this, because I don't just naturally work well in small group situations. OTOH playing an RPG is perfect. There are defined roles, you know when to say something, when to shut up, and there is some degree of collaboration that is built into the process. I can assure everyone that if this was not so, then I'd never have become a GM, or probably even played RPGs. It is probably the real underlying reason WHY I play them.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.
> 
> But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.



I agree they are exactly such, and suffer all the same objections which were leveled at 4e A/E/D/U (if you had an issue with it, I didn't). It is merely tradition which makes them more acceptable. Maybe in some cases such things can be colored as 'fatigue' or 'nobody will fall for that twice', or whatever. Of course those arguments again apply to even games some people don't like for those very mechanics...

So, I agree that the Story Certificate is a meta-game mechanic, because it doesn't itself correspond with anything within the fiction of the game world. If the game were coloring it as "the power of faith" or something, then you could maybe start to make it more concrete, but the rub there is you then have to explain it in a way that works in the story, is genre appropriate, etc. This is where many of the explanations like 'fatigue' for superiority dice or 4e power slots tend to fail. 

Of course, many of us are just fine with these sorts of mechanics, so it really need not be an issue. As you point out, it is amusing when people are so inconsistent about it though. Or maybe puzzling...


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I agree they are exactly such, and suffer all the same objections which were leveled at 4e A/E/D/U (if you had an issue with it, I didn't). It is merely tradition which makes them more acceptable. Maybe in some cases such things can be colored as 'fatigue' or 'nobody will fall for that twice', or whatever. Of course those arguments again apply to even games some people don't like for those very mechanics...
> 
> So, I agree that the Story Certificate is a meta-game mechanic, because it doesn't itself correspond with anything within the fiction of the game world. If the game were coloring it as "the power of faith" or something, then you could maybe start to make it more concrete, but the rub there is you then have to explain it in a way that works in the story, is genre appropriate, etc. This is where many of the explanations like 'fatigue' for superiority dice or 4e power slots tend to fail.
> 
> Of course, many of us are just fine with these sorts of mechanics, so it really need not be an issue. As you point out, it is amusing when people are so inconsistent about it though. Or maybe puzzling...



It’s not inconsistency. It’s focus. I don’t like onions but when they are finely chopped and there’s not a lot of them in something then I’m usually fine with them in it. Why would anyone expect rpg preferences to be any different?


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I didn't mean materialize in the sense that it popped into being in the setting but I meant it looked like the detail was decided by the players basically. Again I could be wrong on how you are describing it.



Which detail? I'm having trouble following you.

I'll repost:

I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that. . . .​
As I said, I - the GM - was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book. I described the forest, as per the quoted text from the book. I told the players they were confronted by the knight and his men, as per the book. I conveyed the scenario description of "broken trinkets and personal effects" and described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of those collars was taken by the players as a sign that the NPCs were Celts wearing torcs. I ran with that. It became particularly significant when, to quote myself again, "Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - 'a Celtic saint' as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order".



Bedrockgames said:


> I am now unclear if this was a matter of procedure (you empowered the players to make the decision) or if it was simply a spur of the moment thing (the players assumed something about a thing you described, you liked the assumption, so you went with it). If that the latter, the only difference between what you are doing and how I would do it, is I would have settled on that detail already by the time of description.



I'm not sure what you mean by "a matter of procedure".

I described the NPCs as wearing (among other things) collars. The players, playing their characters, took this to mean that the NPCs were Celts wearing torcs. They gave voice to this understanding, which is how I knew they had formed it. And I went along with that understanding; eg when they started talking to the lead NPC (the Bone Laird), "Because he was speaking an ancient form of Celtish - not the British the PCs are fluent in - a roll was called for on Presence + Lore. Sir Morgath and Twillany succeeded."

I'm sure there must have been occasions in your own play when a detail wasn't settled in advance. It's literally impossible to settle every potentially salient detail in advance.

When that happened, how did you handle it?


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I consider Battlemaster Dice to be a metagame mechanic.
> 
> The major difference between them and something like a fate point (as I understand them) is the Battlemaster dice's extremely limited scope, both in terms of when they can be applied and what they can affect.  Maybe to highlight that difference it'd be better to call them a metacharacter mechanic as their scope is basically my character whereas metagame mechanics are not.



And how would you locate the Storyteller Certificate within your framework?


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> Events that potential or certain negative consequences for the character that they zero control over. In my experience it doesn't end will over the long haul if that handled through fiat. Players are far more accepting of the results if it occurred because of random generation.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Players are more aware than one would think that the referee just happened to create a forest in front of them to adventure in. It can be gotten away with is done sparely but done over and over it become a noticeable pattern.
> 
> <snip
> 
> it takes away from the challenge knowing the referee is creating something out of whole cloth right then and there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Keep in mind player can and do make a bad plans.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Because the bias is minimized as a result. So the result is perceived as more fair. Provided of course the random table itself is perceived as fair.



I'm not sure what you mean when you say "players are more aware than one would think that the referee just happened to create a forest in front of them". What do you think I think? Do you think I'm lying to my players?

My players knew that I narrated a storm and the landing of their ships on the Dalmation coast. They knew that we collectively agreed they were travelling overland to Constantinople. They knew that I narrated that they came to a forest. They knew that we were working from a generic map of Europe that gives one a general sense of what is between the Dalmation coast and Istanbul/Constantinople.

I don't think the concepts of _fairness _or _challenge_ have much applicability in my RPGing, at least as you use them. I am not challenging the players in their ability to plan an overland trek. Or to avoid meeting the Bone Laird. The "challenge", such as it is, is to decide how to respond to an ancient ghost who lingers on for some reason.

If "sandboxing" means _play that prioritises geographical matters_, then I am not running sandbox games.

Though that would still leave it a bit unclear to me why it is OK for the GM to establish, say, a challenging bit of topography (without random rolling) but not a challenging bit of weather (without random rolling).



Campbell said:


> So I think the timing of scenario design is not all that important. If the GM is coming up with the forest now or 10 months ago does not matter to me. What matters to me is the thought process behind it. What are they prioritizing? Are they trying to create a challenge? Are they framing something that provokes action? Are they trying to create something that should be interesting to explore? Are they guided by what they think will make the best story? For some GMs timing can matter because they feel more temptation to skew things away from what they really want to prioritize if they make that decision in play, but that experience is not universal.



In my case, I narrated a forest because that was what I had in front of me in the scenario I wanted to use. It was colour, easily incorporated - surely there were forests in Dacia/Romania in the 8th century CE? - but not the principle focus of play. The focus of play was the NPCs and their ongoing status as ghosts. _Celtic ghosts_, as it turned out.

I would think that sometimes, even in a geography/architecture-focused sandbox, the GM must have to come up with details on the fly: colours of drapes, shapes of columns, manufacture of roofing materials, etc. Presumably most of the times these aren't very significant to what is at stake.


----------



## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> From an everyday perspective, in the real world people have actual needs, things that they must have in order to continue to exist. They also have an entire array of unconscious and involuntary elements to their psyche, personality, and physiology which largely shape their overall behavior and impose a whole set of desires, which they usually find difficult to deny, at best (imagine talking about your PC going on a diet, describing his urge to eat some potato chips is almost ludicrous, but in the real world your diet has significant impacts on your overall well-being).
> 
> The result is that imagined fantasy worlds are extremely 'cartoonish' in their character. The way elements interact and the character of the events and narrative lacks most of the character of real life, where simply fulfilling our ordinary material needs is an overwhelming consideration and we deal with mundane tasks and long term ongoing relationships as the primary focus of our lives. This is true even for a 'Thor Heyerdahl' type of guy, who had fantastic adventures. It is really nothing like the depictions of the lives of PCs in pretty much any game, even one focused on events in a world which is ostensibly meant to represent our own.



SO much this!


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> Movies, novels, and plays all have the same issue but yet they manage the immerse the viewer.



This is not a mode of immersion that involves agency on the part of the viewer/reader.



estar said:


> However when there a creative choice to be made, I opt for the one that reflect the reality of the setting.



What about the players. Are they are allowed to make creative choices that reflect the reality of the setting? Or it is "owned" by the GM?


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> And how would you locate the Storyteller Certificate within your framework?



I'd need more details on what all it can affect.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is not a mode of immersion that involves agency on the part of the viewer/reader.



But it does show that immersion can be had without agency.  Which I find a very interesting thought.



pemerton said:


> What about the players. Are they are allowed to make creative choices that reflect the reality of the setting? Or it is "owned" by the GM?



The man is talking about his role as GM and what guides his creative choices when he makes one and you immediately jump to "aha, see, players can't make creative choices".  That doesn't come across well.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> To be fair, the presence of something like the boarded up window, or the judge, are perfectly possible in many many instances of sandbox. The players ask and the GM decides, right? In some, I will grant you, the ability of the players to 'ask' is pretty curtailed, but that's on the GM, not the play style.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, and I have no evidence it wouldn't be, at least usually, true for any of the GMs posting here that run a 'classic' GM-centered fiction type of game. They might all explain a bonus that way, or let that be the entre into a 'score', or whatever the abstract system is asking for at the given moment. But who will posit that? I am sure a player can literally speak "Maybe there is an old forgotten boarded-up basement window" at any table. Likewise a GM can simply invent that feature



This is why I've been trying to hone in on this in relation to the play examples I posted upthread.

I give an example where the players, responding to my narration, posited that some NPCs were Celtic. I then ran with and built on that in what unfolded.

I'm interested in views on the extent to which that conforms to, or departs from, sandbox GMing norms.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> there is actually a stricture against it in 'skilled play'! It is a form of 'cheating' for someone to add a way around some obstacle during play!
> 
> Now, I didn't hear, say @estar really say that Gygaxian 'skilled play' was a specific goal (at least my old brain doesn't remember him saying it particularly) so again I don't want to draw a conclusion. Just that there are some potential issues, depending on exactly what flavor of D&D you espouse. Given that 'sandbox' has been stated, my basic working assumption is that as long as the PCs are in 'mapped territory' a paradigm of this sort is in effect, the challenge is set, although there is always wiggle room to elaborate (IE how flammable is the building if the PCs decide to burn the bad guys out, this might need to be adjudicated on the fly).



Given that @estar responded to my post by talking about the _challenge_, I think the sort of broad Gygaxian assumptions you refer to are in play. Perhaps not self-consciously - I don't know.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> My players knew that I narrated a storm and the landing of their ships on the Dalmation coast. They knew that we collectively agreed they were travelling overland to Constantinople. They knew that I narrated that they came to a forest. They knew that we were working from a generic map of Europe that gives one a general sense of what is between the Dalmation coast and Istanbul/Constantinople.



This whole scenario sounds normal to me.  The only question I have about it is whether the storm narration was due to fiat?



pemerton said:


> I don't think the concepts of _fairness _or _challenge_ have much applicability in my RPGing, at least as you use them. I am not challenging the players in their ability to plan an overland trek. Or to avoid meeting the Bone Laird. The "challenge", such as it is, is to decide how to respond to an ancient ghost who lingers on for some reason.



This sounds alot closer to my view and it's the biggest reason I liked the post.  In a sandbox I think it only makes sense to talk about something as an obstacle if the players decide to treat it as such.  For example, dealing with the ancient ghost may very well have led to it being an obstacle if it stood in the way of them and something they wanted.  Or the ghost could have became part of the goal as they decided to help it pass over to the next life.

From what I can tell this is pretty similar to your approach.



pemerton said:


> In my case, I narrated a forest because that was what I had in front of me in the scenario I wanted to use. It was colour, easily incorporated - surely there were forests in Dacia/Romania in the 8th century CE? - but not the principle focus of play. The focus of play was the NPCs and their ongoing status as ghosts. _Celtic ghosts_, as it turned out.



It does strike me that you use fiat though.  It's just over what you are intending to be trivial details.  I think that's fine, but interesting considering your dislike of DM fiat.  

One thing to note is that in a sandbox, those kinds of trivial details can often end up mattering a great deal.  If not now, then possibly later.



pemerton said:


> I would think that sometimes, even in a geography/architecture-focused sandbox, the GM must have to come up with details on the fly: colours of drapes, shapes of columns, manufacture of roofing materials, etc. Presumably most of the times these aren't very significant to what is at stake.



Fully agreed.  In my experience though, when I narrate something I expect to be a trivial detail the players quite often find a legitimate use for that detail.  Not always, but often enough.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Sure, but I hope no game has added tax forms to its rules except maybe tax simulator 2000.
> 
> i don’t think that I would even go so far to say it’s only over mechanics they like.  They want simulationism in the parts of the game that matter.  Tax forms or bathroom mechanics just don’t matter in most games.





Fenris-77 said:


> Matter? I guess. I find just as often its so they can fully demonstrate specialist knowledge of their own. People that really like and know guns are the ones who tend to want super detailed firearms combat rules and selection.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> There's nothing wrong with wanting that level of detail,  but you only really get full value out of them,  past a certain point, if you have the requisite real world knowledge.



One thing I like about Classic Traveller is that its rules for dealing with bureaucracy are nearly as detailed as its combat rules. This helps make it feel like a game set in a modern world, rather than just "D&D in space".



Aldarc said:


> I find that the people who want "specialist knowledge of their own" in RPGs tend to fall somewhere between knowing too little and too much about their field or as you say "think they are" experts. I also tend to think of simulationism less as a matter of how well it simulates any notions of reality, but, rather, how well that it simulates genre.



I ran a long-running (8 year) Rolemaster campaign, starting 1990, set in Greyhawk, I treated a number of GH gods as linked in their worship practices, theology etc: St Cuthbert, Pholtus, Celestian, Fharlaghn and others (plus a couple adapted from the Newhon entry in DDG). I wrote up many pages of descriptions of church structures, theological and metaphysical commitments, etc reflecting my understanding at that time of Platonist and post-Platonist philosophy and Reformation and post-Reformation theology. When I've re-read that material in more recent years I've still been pleased by my cleverness! But not a great deal of it actually saw play, and I don't think anyone else at the table was ever interested in making sense of the competing schools of epistemology among Tritherion's priesthood.

On the other hand: in our second-to-most recent Traveller session one of the PCs prepared a report (the PC has Admin-1 and EDU 13) which provided the basis for a different character - liminal on the PC/NPC scale and on this occasion being played by me as GM - to exercise her authority as an Imperial Navy Commander and Free Imperial Knight and establish a preliminary First Contact site administration, with herself in charge and appointing another noble PC (and her lover) as Imperial Overseer while she returned to her base to seek further advice and instruction.

The player didn't actually draft the report (which in the game took the character an hour to prepare) but he described it to me and I was able to write down the four-or-so dot points.

I wouldn't expect this sort of thing to be part of the action of a 4e D&D or Prince Valiant game.


----------



## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> Agreed; that said, they're not a major distraction in play, unlike some metagame. I'll quibble a bit on MHRP point 1... many times, it is referenced to ingame effects,
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Example: Spidey vs Green Goblin:
> Spidey sees GG while patrolling, and wants to swing in, web, and then land into with his feet for an attack...
> That requires 2 effect dice on the web powerset - so ...
> Solo d8, Neighborhood Hero d8 (because patrolling), Spider-Powers: Superhuman Strength (for the punch) d10, Web: Swingline d8 (because swinging), web: weapon d8 (because pinning GG to the wall)[1pp for the second web set ability], Acrobat master d10 (to swing in in the right angle), combat master d8 (because both ranged and non-ranged attack) [1pp for second specialty]... and when the roll is said and done, if spidey wins the opposed roll, the first is the web, imposing the effect die as a complication, then a PP for the second effect die to actually hit, costing a PP... if Spidey's player doesn't spend #3 (maybe because  they spent it to win the roll), then the web hits but the kick doesn't
> Only one doesn't need direct linkage: the extra die kept to hit, if needed.



Agreed. Because only a few posters on this thread are familiar with the system, I was treating it as sufficient for my point that the plot point does not have to be connected to an ingame effect - eg it can be earned just for rolling 1s, which steps up the Doom Pool but needn't be connected to any ingame effect beyond "ominous music"; and it can be spent eg just to keep a third die for the total which doesn't have to be connected to any ingame effect beyond what might have occurred anyway.

But you're right that there are occasions of connection eg if the GM pays Captain America a Plot Point to have his shield bounce of a truck during a ricochet and land in the middle of the freeway (ie activates the Gear Limit) that is connected to something ingame.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Here's Frank Mentzer's take in BECMI which is substantially different than most other official takes.
> 
> Pathfinder Second Edition, while not on brand D&D is pretty relevant. Here's it's take :
> 
> Both still ultimately feature the GM as a final rules arbiter elsewhere, although the impression I get from both is that the GM/Referee is expected to interpret the rules like a judge, not change them without the assent of the other players. This is a fairly unique perspective in the D&D space



I don't think the original (ie pre-Essentials) version of 4e D&D especially supported "rule zero" as I sometimes see it propounded. Nor does B/X, does it?

I even think it underwent change during the 3E era - in the original 3E PHB "rule zero" was a rule of PC building (_check with your GM_), not a rule about action resolution.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> I view that is a negative as that a convention of the game rather reflecting the reality of the setting. Similarly I am not keen on how mechanics are activated like Second Wind, or the dice pools that accompanies the 5e Battlemaster variant. Both only make sense as part of a game not as a reflection of the reality of the setting.
> 
> To be clear the reality of the setting can something fantastic like a RPG like Toon which is about roleplaying characters in a cartoon world. It not about being realistic in terms of how our world works.
> 
> Nor reflecting the reality of the setting has to be detail in the way that GURPS with all the combat option is detailed.  It can be highly abstract as long it can tied back to how the setting work as if you were there as the character.
> 
> So I view mechanics like "once is all you get" as a game convention.



But you don't necessarily have to. In the case of the AW stricture, it is most likely to be a simple design construct. That is, a check like that can only be taken once because it represents the total effect of the effort of the character over the entire scene in that direction. They have done their utmost, and there is simply no more that they can do. It is like saying in D&D that the thief cannot keep rolling 'pick locks' endlessly on the same lock. That check means "you fiddled with it until you reached an end state in any attempt to pick it, there's nothing more you can do." 

It might also be possible to cast some other things in that light. It is probably hard to do so with something like Superiority Dice in 5e, or encounter power slots in 4e, but what about spending an Action Point in 4e, or 5e BM's equivalent? While, in a crude mechanical sense, it is depicted as an extra action, I think it is quite possible to view it as "I am expending effort at the maximum rate, which is faster than normal." You cannot do it twice because the expending, the going faster, isn't something that simply happens all at once, it is a state of going faster which results in approximately one extra action. Remember, in games with a lot of mechanical structure like this, things like actions, attacks, hits, turns, etc. all have a somewhat abstract relationship to the fictional world (unless you hold that the world actually advances time in discrete 6 second steps as soon as someone swings a sword). 

This was always my argument with 4e's A/E/D/U, plus APs and whatnot. who's to say how this looks in a narrative? It doesn't actually play out FICTIONALLY anything like there being certain discrete moves and blows made, and 'extra actions' taken, etc. If you composed it into such a narrative (during play or after the fact) and then examined it, you wouldn't be able to tell for sure what resources each PC expended. Nor for that matter how many hit points anyone lost, etc. Some of those might be a little tighter than others, but even HP are pretty suspect, given how they cannot logically possibly represent any exact physical measure of damage. 

Of course, none of this is to say there are no meta-game resources or mechanics. I think its clear that, considered mechanically, MUCH of the game is of this character, at least partly. Some things pretty much entirely, like PV's Story Certificates, which do seem fairly 'meta' in that they come into existence for 'table reasons', and don't represent anything fictional when used. So they exist purely in mechanical terms (this may well make my definition incompatible with @pemerton's, though I don't have a big problem with his either).


estar said:


> Events that potential or certain negative consequences for the character that they zero control over. In my experience it doesn't end will over the long haul if that handled through fiat. Players are far more accepting of the results if it occurred because of random generation. And they know that these tables are being used as part of the campaign. So they factor the risk into their plan.
> 
> Players are more aware than one would think that the referee just happened to create a forest in front of them to adventure in. It can be gotten away with is done sparely but done over and over it become a noticeable pattern. It doesn't mean it doesn't work for how you run your campaigns. But it does take away from running a sandbox campaign.
> 
> Why? Because it takes away from the challenge knowing the referee is creating something out of whole cloth right then and there.



As opposed to creating said thing last Tuesday? I mean, its a fantasy world, so nobody can say what "should" or "should not" appear in a given location, and hence no player can say "this would have existed along any path we took." So, you are really concerned about RAILROADING, as I see it. Now, in @pemerton's case the players had chosen to "go to the Holy Land" (I think) and they didn't pick the specific route, so there's actually no question in this case of railroading, no player choice was negated! You could argue that the overall journey is partaking of more the character of a linear adventure with one path, vs a sandbox character, and I would agree with that. Still, I am sure that Pemerton's players could say "we go around the forest", although that might have entailed some sort of other cost.


estar said:


> Now this doesn't mean you have to make 1,000s of pages of notes. But it helps if it already on the map, and you have a sentence or two about it, even though you have to take a breather to create something or pull something off the shelf in order to supply details if the players choose to explore it.
> 
> This is based on my observation of doing this for decades with multiple groups of players. I first noticed this when I switched from using the World of Greyhawk to Judges Guild Wilderlands in the early 80s. The players considered what happened to be more fair knowing that many details were there ahead of time. That I wasn't just making naughty word up to spite them.
> 
> Keep in mind player can and do make a bad plans. Underestimate the opposition or overestimate what they can do. And suffer negative consequences for it.  In short in my campaign there is the possibility of failure. But if you are going to have possibility of failure then you need to be a fair referee. And it more fair to have a certain level details already defined about the setting. In practice it doesn't have to be much.



Yes, though all of this is founded on the core notions of Gygaxian skilled play. That there is 'success' and 'failure', and a fair referee doesn't stack the deck against the players, because they should have a 'fair chance to win'. Granting that 'victory' has a lot of gradations and is a very incremental thing that is probably only rarely arrived at fully, nor are its conditions entirely spelled out (IE get a million gold, did you win the game, or do you have to be 20th level first?). Even when ultimate victory is rarely considered at all, this ethos still prevails. 

I think, in my games, there isn't a contest in which anything that can be accomplished within the fiction really equates with 'victory'. Characters could achieve their goals more or less completely, but those are just things which drive the characters, not the GAME or the PLAYERS. If the players 'find out what happens' and a 'story with dramatic pacing' is perceived in play, then they succeeded (at least if it was fun). So there really isn't a sense in which placing obstacles is 'fair' or 'unfair'. The question is "did the existence of this obstacle lead to suitable and enjoyable play?" If it did, then who would criticize it? Of course if the game botched things, then boo GM!


estar said:


> Because the bias is minimized as a result. So the result is perceived as more fair. Provided of course the random table itself is perceived as fair. If you say on a 1 you met a goat, 2 to 6 you met Smaug the Golden. Well players will call out you out for using a dumb ass table. Unless of course is happens to be one for around Erebor. Then it fits what been said about the locale. But if a referee uses this for the Shire well they deserve the player's scorn.



Yeah, but you do run the risk of things just becoming uninteresting. If the players are hankering for social intrigue and big-city action, and all the table coughs up are airless rocks and TL2 worlds with no spaceport and a law level of A, they are probably going to think that's boring. Anyway, I don't think it is a problem at the scale of a sector/sub-sector map because it is such a vast region, SOMETHING interesting can be scared up. But that again speaks to how much Traveler leans on "the ref can add stuff that makes things interesting" (though to be honest, TAS, patron tables, random encounters, bureaucrats, etc. goes a long way, space is rarely a snooze for long). 

Anyway, as I said above, if the goal is interesting story, and the story tracks the desired themes and interests of the people in the game, then this 'bias' simply isn't a meaningful measure, in my style of play. The GM can be a total rat bastard and just lay it on thick and then dish a whole nuther load on top of that, if it results in good enjoyable play!


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> But it does show that immersion can be had without agency.  Which I find a very interesting thought.



I guess so. It's not a new thought, to me at least.



FrogReaver said:


> The man is talking about his role as GM and what guides his creative choices when he makes one and you immediately jump to "aha, see, players can't make creative choices".  That doesn't come across well.



I asked questions. You're the one who has treated them as rhetorical. I'm not sure why.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> One thing I like about Classic Traveller is that its *rules for dealing with bureaucracy are nearly as detailed as its combat rules*. This helps make it feel like a game set in a modern world, rather than just "D&D in space".



Which edition and book are these in? I'd like to read those rules.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> You spent alot of time not telling me what is incorrect about referring to the real world as a menu of "interesting situations".
> 
> You spent alot of time telling me a gameworld is not exactly like the real world... well duh!  So what?  My point isn't that the game world is like the real world, my point is that your analogy applies to both!



Well, because there aren't a bunch of interesting (for some reading of that word) situations in the real world. there is a 'cloth' of interrelated things that all blend into each other. At a very granular scale you can kinda look at it like a very small 'sandbox', if you like. Shall I eat pizza or spaghetti? Maybe you can even think of "Shall I travel to Greece or Italy for vacation?" like that, but which you will actually do is very likely to be mediated by a large number of small factors (tour guide schedule, costs of each element of the trips, what the other 4 people want to do, whether it rained on the day you would need to see the travel agent to get the tickets for Greece and you didn't feel like driving over, so you ended up going to Italy). That sort of thing. It is not really reasonable to characterize life as 'menus of discrete choices', but it is perfectly possible to do so with an RPG. Very few of the things I've mentioned above are likely to come up in most RPGs, the players just choose based on some aesthetic criteria, or maybe someone dices for it. 

Beyond that, I said "Greece or Italy" but the real choices are probably a list 10 pages long, and then the more nebulous in-between choices. While @estar will rightly say that all these could be countenanced by a GM in a game, practicalities don't really make it feasible, and many facts simply don't exist. I cannot go to Tibet due to certain government restrictions, but does estar actually know the foreign travel rules for all the polities in his campaign? I doubt it, and there are 1000 other similar POSSIBLE considerations. EACH is operative in the real world, but in the game world such things are simply contrivances, someone thought to bring one up (invent it), or not. Certainly nobody diced for every one of a 1000 reasons you can or cannot travel to fantasy Tibet this year!


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> This whole scenario sounds normal to me.  The only question I have about it is whether the storm narration was due to fiat?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It does strike me that you use fiat though.  It's just over what you are intending to be trivial details.  I think that's fine, but interesting considering your dislike of DM fiat.



I dislike GM fiat for action resolution. Framing a scene is not action resolution.

And to requote myself:



pemerton said:


> Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople.
> 
> This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The PCs and their warband continued their crossing south-east - and (as I narrated it) found themselves on the edge of a heavy forest somewhere in the vicinity of Dacia (=, in our approximaring geography, somewhere in the general area of modern-day Transylvania - I haven't checked yet to see how butchering of the map this is).
> 
> I asked the PCs who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.
> 
> I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that.




As I believe I already posted a way upthread, and reiterated not far at all upthread, _avoiding the forest or avoiding encountering the Bone Laird and his men _is not a goal of play.

The orientation of play _in no way_ resembles a traditional dungeon crawl, in which the goal is to explore and thus loot the dungeon while taking the minimum losses to encounters.

The nearest analogue to XP in Prince Valiant is _fame_, which is earned primarily by performing "notably successful" deeds and can also be earned for doing notable things even if they don't succeed. Unlike a classic dungeon crawl, though, it doesn't really require _skill_ as a player to earn fame, or certainly not the sort of skill that is involved in successfully taking loot from a dungeon. As long as you play your character in a way that conforms to or evokes stereotypes of romantic, Arthurian-style fantasy - anywhere between Excalibur and A Knight's tale will do - then you should find yourself earning fame for your PC.

There is no _point_ in the players trying to avoid encountering the Bone Laird. That would be the same as avoiding playing the game; it's analogue in Moldvay Basic play would be not entering the dungeon and instead returning to the village to work the fields of one's farm. (Of course, _once the PCs have encountered the Bone Laird and his fellow ghosts_ they might try and sneak or parley past them. Two of the PCs in fact did that. But that takes place in the domain of action resolution, not scene-framing.)

If the players think that the Bone Laird is a poorly-conceived situation, Prince Valiant doesn't give them the same mechanical resources as BW players have (and in relation to which I quoted the relevant principles upthread). They would have to use out-of-game devices - eg conversation - to indicate what they want to do. Of course those devices are available even if the players _don't_ think a scenario is poorly conceived. It's precisely because the players, via out-of-game conversation, indicated that they wanted to take their order on Crusade that the action of the game has moved from Britain to France to Italy to Dacia to Anatolia and now to Cyprus. But none of that geographical change has depended upon action resolution except for one or two occasions when I've called for Brawn checks to determine whether and to what extent the characters are suffering from fatigue.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> The character in the world of Prince Valiant has no idea they he or she possesses a storyteller certificate. It does represent something ethereal like luck, faith, karma? If it doesn't tie back to the setting and it meant to be use as the player discretion not the player acting as their character then it is a meta-game mechanic.



The character doesn't know anything about a Storyteller Certificate. Nor does s/he know anything about dice, either.

Whether looking for a hidden thing is resolved via a Presence check (the default resolution procedure) or via spending a Certificate to Find Something Hidden (a procedure available only if the player possesses a certificate and wants to spend it), what the character knows is that s/he was looking for something and then (perhaps if the dice are rolled, certainly if the Certificate is spent) found it.


----------



## pemerton

estar said:


> So I view mechanics like "once is all you get" as a game convention.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> It is like saying in D&D that the thief cannot keep rolling 'pick locks' endlessly on the same lock. That check means "you fiddled with it until you reached an end state in any attempt to pick it, there's nothing more you can do."



Gygax's AD&D has a prohibition on retries for picking locks (I think you can try again when a level is gained), for finding and removing traps, for trying to open locked or magically held doors (assuming STR is high enough to permit a check in the first place) and for bending bars and lifting gates. Also, I think - though maybe it's not as clearly stated?, I haven't gone back to check - for searching for secret doors.

Forcing ordinary doors and listening at doors permit retries, but there are other costs built in (eg chance of wandering monsters due to noise made and/or the passage of time).

In Burning Wheel the ban on retries ("Let it Ride") is interesting because it cuts against the GM as well as the player.



estar said:


> it helps if it already on the map, and you have a sentence or two about it, even though you have to take a breather to create something or pull something off the shelf in order to supply details if the players choose to explore it.
> 
> This is based on my observation of doing this for decades with multiple groups of players. I first noticed this when I switched from using the World of Greyhawk to Judges Guild Wilderlands in the early 80s. The players considered what happened to be more fair knowing that many details were there ahead of time. That I wasn't just making naughty word up to spite them.





AbdulAlhazred said:


> you do run the risk of things just becoming uninteresting. If the players are hankering for social intrigue and big-city action, and all the table coughs up are airless rocks and TL2 worlds with no spaceport and a law level of A, they are probably going to think that's boring. Anyway, I don't think it is a problem at the scale of a sector/sub-sector map because it is such a vast region, SOMETHING interesting can be scared up. But that again speaks to how much Traveler leans on "the ref can add stuff that makes things interesting" (though to be honest, TAS, patron tables, random encounters, bureaucrats, etc. goes a long way, space is rarely a snooze for long).



From Classic Traveller (1977), Book 2 p 36 and Book 3 pp 8, 19:

When a ship enters a star system, there is a chance that any one of a variety of ships will be encountered. The ship encounter table is used to determine the specific type of vessel which is met. This result may, and should, be superseded by the referee in specific situations, especially if a newly entered system is in military or civil turmoil, or involves other circumstances.​​[T]he referee should always feel free to impose worlds which have been deliberately (rather than randomly) generated. Often such planets will be devised specifically to reward or torment players.​​Adventurers, as they travel about on planets, also have random encounters with an unpredictable variety of individuals or groups. . . . Some random encounters are mandated by the referee. For example, a band may encounter a guard patrol at a building while in the course of visiting (or burglarizing) it. The referee is always free to impose encounters to further the cause of the adventure being played; in many cases, he actually has a responsibility to do so.​
Putting to one side the terminological contradiction in the last quoted paragraph (ie mandated/imposed encounters are not _random_ ones), the idea is fairly clear: the Classic Traveller referee is at liberty, and indeed is encouraged, to implement setting and situation in such a way as to generate interest (whether in the form of reward or torment!) and to propel the action forward.

I don't think the word "fair" is used at all. Book 1 (p 3) says that the referee "may also indicate possible quests for the characters, using rumor, barroom conversation, or so-called general knowledge" and that s/he "must settle disputes concerning the rules . . . and act[] as a go-between when characters secretly or solitarily act against the world or their comrades". Book 3 (p 44) says that

Above all, the referee and players work together. Care must be taken that the referee does not simply lay fortunes in the path of the player, but the situation is not primarily an adversary relationship. The referee simply administers rules in situations where the players themselves have an incomplete understanding of the universe. The result should reflect a consistent reality.​
Whatever the notion of "sandbox" encompasses I think that Classic Traveller play has to fall within its ambit. But that same RPG system envisages GM intervention into setting-authorship and situation-framing so as to make sure things are interesting and that play is furthered.

To my mind, the main difference I see between Classic Traveller as presented and as I approach it is that I don't generate so much of the star map in advance. I began with, and from time-to-time added to, a stock of pre-generated worlds and have dropped them in as needed/appropriate, gradually building up the star map in the course of play. But to the extent that I do so to "reward or torment" or even just intrigue the players, I think that what I'm doing is consistent with the ethos of the game even if it's a bit of a departure from its professed methods.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Which edition and book are these in? I'd like to read those rules.



They are found in the skill descriptions in Book 1: Admin, Streetwise, Bribery and Forgery; and also in the discussion of Law Level and of vehicles in Book 3.

Here is my compilation of them, intended to make it easier to use them as a total system. In some cases I've adjusted the mathematical formulation to be +X for the 1st skill rank, rather than -Z for no ranks, having no affect on probabilities but making parsing and applying the rule in play more straightforward. I've also incorporates a little bit from Legal skill in Book 7, which I fold into Admin taking the view that a separate Legal skill doesn't add anything to the game:

*Officials and Bureaucracy*​_Day-to-Day Interactions_​To avoid harassment and arrest by police or other enforcement agencies, and to avoid close inspection of documents by officials (eg police, customs agents, clerks, etc):

Throw law level or higher, once per day and whenever officials are encountered (DM -1 if acting illegally).​
To resolve normal interaction with officials when they are approached (eg avoid close inspection of papers necessary for bank transactions, cargo transfers, personal identification, etc; ensure prompt issue of licence; allow approval of application; etc):
​Throw 10+ (DMs +5 if Admin-1, +2 per additional level of expertise; or +2 per level of Liaison expertise; a reaction DM may also apply, and inspection always occurs on a reaction result of 2);​​To be found in compliance if inspected, throw 7+ (DMs +1 per level of Admin expertise; -5 if anything illegal on person, in ship, in papers, etc that are subject to inspection);​​To avoid discovery of forged or faked documents that are inspected, throw 9+ (DM +2 per level of Forgery expertise).​​The referee will exercise control over blatant use of forged documents worth over Cr 200, or repeated use in the same location.​
To bribe a petty official (whose reaction is non-committal or better) to ignore regulations or poor documentation:
​Make a cash offer and throw 13+ (or 20+, with additional DM + law level of the world, as set by the referee); if this is refused, a second throw may be made with the cash offer doubled (DMs +6 if Bribery-1, +1 per additional level of expertise, +2 if the official’s reaction result is 12)

A bribe that is refused will be reported on a throw of 3-.​
To learn the name of an official who will issue licences without hassle, or the location of high quality guns at a low price, or for other activities or to obtain specified items:
​Throw 10+ (official), 14+ (guns), or an appropriate throw set by the referee (DM +6 if Streetwise-1, +1 per additional level of expertise; or +3 if Liaison-1, +1 per additional level of expertise).​
You'll see that these rules also rely on the Reaction Roll subsystem.


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## Fenris-77

You the best @pemerton, thanks. I only have Book One on hand and it would have taken me a month of Sundays to suss that out.


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## pemerton

On maps and "fairness" etc: as I've mentioned a few times, in my Prince Valiant game we use maps of Britain and of other parts of Europe, super-imposing a rough conception of 7th to 8th Century CE over the top of them. (For Britain this is done for us via the map on the inside of the Pendragon cover. I also have some photocopies of relevant pages from a historical atlas, which are pretty low-res.)

I'm curious what the sandbox practitioners think of that approach - it's obviously quite different from a discovery-oriented hexcrawl.


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## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> You the best @pemerton, thanks. I only have Book One on hand and it would have taken me a month of Sundays to suss that out.



No probs. I also should add that my treatment of Liaison is non-canonical. Officially it acts as both Admin and Streetwise at the next lower level, as well as giving a bonus to Reaction Rolls. I think that's a bit OP, and you can see the alternative approach I've adopted - it only applies to certain aspects of Admin or Streetwise use, at its own scaled-back rate.


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## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> I'm curious what the sandbox practitioners think of that approach - it's obviously quite different from a discovery-oriented hexcrawl.



I think doing a discovery-oriented hexcrawl in historical Europe would have to be handled differently anyway. The geography, broadly speaking at least, is a known quantity, as are the the cultures and whatnot in play. I think your approach sounds about right for the game you're running (and I'm talking about the map plus all of your accounts of play that I've read).


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## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> I think doing a discovery-oriented hexcrawl in historical Europe would have to be handled differently anyway. The geography, broadly speaking at least, is a known quantity, as are the the cultures and whatnot in play. I think your approach sounds about right for the game you're running (and I'm talking about the map plus all of your accounts of play that I've read).




So this is an interesting thought and it touches on something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve been catching up on this thread. 

Very often, a sandbox is about discovery....the exploration of a geographic space and learning what is out there. Very often, these spaces are described as frontiers, with all the inherent dangers that would imply. 

But I don’t think that this is the case for all sandboxes, by any means. 

To revisit Blades in the Dark, it’s definitely a sandbox. But the characters are all denizens of the city. They know the sandbox, geographically speaking. So the players’ goal, and the characters’ as well, has to be about some other form of discovery. 

 Then I was just kind of thinking that there is no actual geography, of course....it’s all fictional, the geography of the map is just an illusion that creates certain pathways. It’s a kind of flow chart. 

This format can be applied to the unknown frontier or to the city the characters grew up in, or a space sector or any other setting. It’s just that the setting will demand different uses of the “boxes” on the flowchart. 

It seems to me that what’s in each “box” on the flowchart and how it’s determined are, perhaps, the point of differentiation when it comes to sandbox play. Perhaps even all play.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I dislike GM fiat for action resolution. Framing a scene is not action resolution.



Right.  I wasn't trying to claim you were being inconsistent.



pemerton said:


> As I believe I already posted a way upthread, and reiterated not far at all upthread, _avoiding the forest or avoiding encountering the Bone Laird and his men _is not a goal of play.
> 
> The orientation of play _in no way_ resembles a traditional dungeon crawl, in which the goal is to explore and thus loot the dungeon while taking the minimum losses to encounters.



Right.  I understand many sandboxes are played in such a way where the "right" solution is the solution which gets them the most XP or loot for minimal losses.

But the particular subset of sandboxes I keep coming back to isn't played that way, or at least doesn't have to be.  The players decide their own goals.  That goal can be "XP and loot for minimal losses" or it could be "help the ghosts in the forest because it's the right thing to do" or "ghosts suck, lets get the heck out of this haunted forest and continue on our merry way to wherever we were going before this."

Encountering ghosts like you describe isn't something I personally would have preplanned for any particular forest.  It would most likely come up either from a random encounter roll or fiat.  Not that there's anything wrong having it tied to a particular map location.  That's just not my style.




pemerton said:


> The nearest analogue to XP in Prince Valiant is _fame_, which is earned primarily by performing "notably successful" deeds and can also be earned for doing notable things even if they don't succeed. Unlike a classic dungeon crawl, though, it doesn't really require _skill_ as a player to earn fame, or certainly not the sort of skill that is involved in successfully taking loot from a dungeon. As long as you play your character in a way that conforms to or evokes stereotypes of romantic, Arthurian-style fantasy - anywhere between Excalibur and A Knight's tale will do - then you should find yourself earning fame for your PC.
> 
> There is no _point_ in the players trying to avoid encountering the Bone Laird. That would be the same as avoiding playing the game; it's analogue in Moldvay Basic play would be not entering the dungeon and instead returning to the village to work the fields of one's farm. (Of course, _once the PCs have encountered the Bone Laird and his fellow ghosts_ they might try and sneak or parley past them. Two of the PCs in fact did that. But that takes place in the domain of action resolution, not scene-framing.)
> 
> If the players think that the Bone Laird is a poorly-conceived situation, Prince Valiant doesn't give them the same mechanical resources as BW players have (and in relation to which I quoted the relevant principles upthread). They would have to use out-of-game devices - eg conversation - to indicate what they want to do. Of course those devices are available even if the players _don't_ think a scenario is poorly conceived. It's precisely because the players, via out-of-game conversation, indicated that they wanted to take their order on Crusade that the action of the game has moved from Britain to France to Italy to Dacia to Anatolia and now to Cyprus. But none of that geographical change has depended upon action resolution except for one or two occasions when I've called for Brawn checks to determine whether and to what extent the characters are suffering from fatigue.




Right.  The more you talk about your play and mine the less I think there's some huge divide in how our games function in practice.  I mean there is a huge divide between us on preferences for meta mechanics and also on preference for action resolution mechanics.  But how you describe the actual play of meeting the ghosts in the forest and not treating them as some obstacle to treasure, that's totally part of the kinds of sandboxes I'm talking about.

I guess I should note that I'm not a huge fan of XP only being obtained for killing monsters.  So I award XP more for what's accomplished in play instead of just killing monsters.  Mostly ensures players know they will be able to level even if they don't murder hobo everything in sight - which helps most get over the kill everything mindset.


----------



## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> Encountering ghosts like you describe isn't something I personally would have preplanned for any particular forest.  It would most likely come up either from a random encounter roll or fiat.  Not that there's anything wrong having it tied to a particular map location.  That's just not my style.



I didn't have it tied to a particular location. I had it tied to a particular _session_ - in the sense that I'd looked through the Episode Book for something good to run, and the Bone Laird looked like it - and therefore I framed the PCs into a forest. That forest could have been in Britain, or France, or anywhere else there are forests. As it happened, I used a forest in Dacia/Romania.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Moldvay Basic is a million times better than Expert because the sandbox of the dungeon is beautifully constrained, the play loop for it elegant and coherent and consistent, and all of this leads to a delving experience that holistically integrates the premise of play with all the resolution machinery.  Then Expert tried to port this from the dungeon to the wilderness + city and it became profoundly unwieldy (because one of these things is not like the other...).
> 
> Development of hexcrawling and extra-dungeon sandboxing procedures needed a different model.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> How does a GM present a model that is inferable (deterministic for our purposes here) while simultaneously injecting sufficient dynamism into the system to keep things interesting and non-sterile (stochastic for our purposes here).



As you know I agree with the first para. And the second - I'm posting my own preferred approaches in this thread, though whether they count as "sandboxing" I don't know. They're not exploration oriented, as I've posted.

The question in your third para is a good one. It depends a bit what on counts as "sterile" (cf "meaningful"). If the goal is primarily _inference_, then that is its own reward regardless of "sterility" (ie non-dynamism). If the goal is something more, then as you know I think there are better and more reliable techniques than the GM's prior establishment of fiction.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Which detail? I'm having trouble following you.
> 
> I'll repost:
> 
> I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify whether the band could pass safely through the forest, and they nominated their two NPC hunters - Algol the Bloodthirsty who is in service to Sir Morgath, and Rhan, the woman who had joined them at the end of the last session I posted about.​​I was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book, and described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging from his shoulders, and six men wielding swords and shields, their clothes equally tattered. The scenario description also mentions that they have "broken trinkets and personal effects" and I described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of the collars was taken by the players as a sign that these were Celts (wearing torcs), and I ran with that. . . .​
> As I said, I - the GM - was using the Rattling Forest scenario from the Episode Book. I described the forest, as per the quoted text from the book. I told the players they were confronted by the knight and his men, as per the book. I conveyed the scenario description of "broken trinkets and personal effects" and described rings and collars that were worn, notched and (in some cases) broken. The description of those collars was taken by the players as a sign that the NPCs were Celts wearing torcs. I ran with that. It became particularly significant when, to quote myself again, "Sir Justin had the idea of converting these ancient Celtic ghosts to Christianity and the reverence of St Sigobert - 'a Celtic saint' as he emphasised several times - and he also thought that their bones could be put in the reliquary that had been made for martyrs of the order".




All I meant was it seemed like a detail in there, that they were celts, was initiated by the players. I was unclear initially if this was something where, as a matter of procedure in the game, player suggestions automatically became real, or if this was simply you liking their conclusion and going with it. It sounds like the latter. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. 



> I'm not sure what you mean by "a matter of procedure".
> 
> I described the NPCs as wearing (among other things) collars. The players, playing their characters, took this to mean that the NPCs were Celts wearing torcs. They gave voice to this understanding, which is how I knew they had formed it. And I went along with that understanding; eg when they started talking to the lead NPC (the Bone Laird), "Because he was speaking an ancient form of Celtish - not the British the PCs are fluent in - a roll was called for on Presence + Lore. Sir Morgath and Twillany succeeded."
> 
> I'm sure there must have been occasions in your own play when a detail wasn't settled in advance. It's literally impossible to settle every potentially salient detail in advance.
> 
> When that happened, how did you handle it?




Generally this isn't how my decisions about these kinds of details would be guided but because you had a vacuum, where you didn't establish the detail, and the players proposed something quite plausible, it basically boils down to going with what they said, arriving at another explanation or making it a coin toss. I don't really think it is all that important. I definitely wouldn't make a habit of going with the players explanation though in a sandbox. That is just me


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> On maps and "fairness" etc: as I've mentioned a few times, in my Prince Valiant game we use maps of Britain and of other parts of Europe, super-imposing a rough conception of 7th to 8th Century CE over the top of them. (For Britain this is done for us via the map on the inside of the Pendragon cover. I also have some photocopies of relevant pages from a historical atlas, which are pretty low-res.)
> 
> I'm curious what the sandbox practitioners think of that approach - it's obviously quite different from a discovery-oriented hexcrawl.




Out of curiosity do you take modern day maps and project back a sense of what these would be like in the 7th or 8th century (simply curious)? For what it is worth here, I use historical atlases for historical campaigns. And I don't usually run them with hexes or anything (though I am far from averse from using hex maps of historical places if other people have made them). I also wouldn't say I run my sandbox campaigns as hex crawls. 

Personally I think maps are just tools and you need to use what works for you toward whatever goal you are striving for. Presently I do use Hex Maps for my wuxia sandbox, but because most of it is set in a civilized area, the hexes are more for gauging distance and charting courses than to use as discovery hex crawls. When they venture far from civilization or find themselves in a hostile environment like a desert, then I might shift to focus more on individual hexes (but even then, it isn't keyed like Isle of Dread; though there may be key places on the map). I also use hexes to zoom in when I need to flesh out an area. 

Also I do play in different modes. When I am running my Ogre Gate sandbox it is very much a you can move about 1 hex a day, and each hex would impose a Survival Roll to avoid encounters or problems. But I have taken a looser wuxia sandbox approach where I only check for encounters every 7 days or so, and the encounters are much more social oriented (more like the encounters you would see between sects in a shaw brothers movie). 

I also do what I call small sandboxes, which are more like concepts. I have a chinese supernatural game I run that is intended as monster of the week (intentionally not a sandbox). But I did include sandbox options and because there was some curiosity about it, I put a small sandbox of it on my blog. This isn't how I would run the wuxia sandboxes I was talking about though: THE STARLIT INKSTONE: A STRANGE SANDBOX


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> On maps and "fairness" etc: as I've mentioned a few times, in my Prince Valiant game we use maps of Britain and of other parts of Europe, super-imposing a rough conception of 7th to 8th Century CE over the top of them. (For Britain this is done for us via the map on the inside of the Pendragon cover. I also have some photocopies of relevant pages from a historical atlas, which are pretty low-res.)
> 
> I'm curious what the sandbox practitioners think of that approach - it's obviously quite different from a discovery-oriented hexcrawl.




I don't take an issue with this approach if I understand it. I think historical atlases are really helpful (I also think maps from the time period itself can be very good----where the GM maybe has a more objective historical atlases and the players have something from the period. I also think you can run historical campaigns under the paradigm of the period in questions. For example when I run my Roman campaigns (which usually have a slight supernatural bent) I often use maps based on Pomponius Mela (see here: Pomponius Mela - Wikipedia)

Also I have found google earth helpful for both historical and real world campaigns (it gets very tricky though with historical campaigns sometimes if place names have changed a lot).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So this is an interesting thought and it touches on something I’ve been thinking about as I’ve been catching up on this thread.
> 
> Very often, a sandbox is about discovery....the exploration of a geographic space and learning what is out there. Very often, these spaces are described as frontiers, with all the inherent dangers that would imply.
> 
> But I don’t think that this is the case for all sandboxes, by any means.
> 
> To revisit Blades in the Dark, it’s definitely a sandbox. But the characters are all denizens of the city. They know the sandbox, geographically speaking. So the players’ goal, and the characters’ as well, has to be about some other form of discovery.
> 
> Then I was just kind of thinking that there is no actual geography, of course....it’s all fictional, the geography of the map is just an illusion that creates certain pathways. It’s a kind of flow chart.
> 
> This format can be applied to the unknown frontier or to the city the characters grew up in, or a space sector or any other setting. It’s just that the setting will demand different uses of the “boxes” on the flowchart.
> 
> It seems to me that what’s in each “box” on the flowchart and how it’s determined are, perhaps, the point of differentiation when it comes to sandbox play. Perhaps even all play.




Again, I think this is where living world becomes important. For me it is much less about hex crawl discovery and more about what is there to work with in the setting. My games place a lot of emphasis on sects, grudges, and politics. So if players are seeking to establish their own sect for example, while they may venture into crazy dungeons to obtain a manual with a special technique or go off to the southern lands where they trudge through unknown places in order to gain audience with some powerful being, inside the known world, they are very much more focused on things like arranging a meeting with a rival sect leader, forming an alliance with one of their enemies enemies, securing salt mines in the desert so they have wealth to use for gaining recruits, etc. They may be looking at the geography more from a 'where is the ideal location for our headquarters' kind of thing.


----------



## Fenris-77

Yeah, if the game is focused more on human geography the standard hexcrawl is less than helpful. Personally, I tend to use faces and factions and their web of connections and motivations as the 'map' for that kind of game.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, if the game is focused more on human geography the standard hexcrawl is less than helpful. Personally, I tend to use faces and factions and their web of connections and motivations as the 'map' for that kind of game.




I usually rely on both a map of the sects and NPCs, and a geographic map. I also do it as notes in my entries (sects will usually have a list of enemies and allies, and sometimes do this for NPCs too). But my sect maps would normally just be a bunch of boxes with lines connecting them (and the lines have symbols indicating the nature of the connection), along with notes about their goals


----------



## Fenris-77

Bedrockgames said:


> I usually rely on both a map of the sects and NPCs, and a geographic map. I also do it as notes in my entries (sects will usually have a list of enemies and allies, and sometimes do this for NPCs too). But my sect maps would normally just be a bunch of boxes with lines connecting them (and the lines have symbols indicating the nature of the connection), along with notes about their goals



Yeah, you still need a map of the physical space,  for sure, its just way less important than it is in other games. My faction maps look just like yours btw, flowncharts. Lots of lines and boxes. I do a lot of social gating to keep things interesting too. Some people are harder to get a meeting with or find than others. A reputation mechanic can be a good tool there, as can something that tracks favors and influence


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I didn't have it tied to a particular location. I had it tied to a particular _session_ - in the sense that I'd looked through the Episode Book for something good to run, and the Bone Laird looked like it - and therefore I framed the PCs into a forest. That forest could have been in Britain, or France, or anywhere else there are forests. As it happened, I used a forest in Dacia/Romania.



Yea.  I'm in total agreement.  I thought that was obvious from your post.  I said that about it not being wrong to tie that to a particular location as many sandboxes would have - not because i thought you did.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Again, I think this is where living world becomes important. For me it is much less about hex crawl discovery and more about what is there to work with in the setting. My games place a lot of emphasis on sects, grudges, and politics. So if players are seeking to establish their own sect for example, while they may venture into crazy dungeons to obtain a manual with a special technique or go off to the southern lands where they trudge through unknown places in order to gain audience with some powerful being, inside the known world, they are very much more focused on things like arranging a meeting with a rival sect leader, forming an alliance with one of their enemies enemies, securing salt mines in the desert so they have wealth to use for gaining recruits, etc. They may be looking at the geography more from a 'where is the ideal location for our headquarters' kind of thing.




Right, okay cool. So if your game is less about discovery or exploration of the geographical kind, then the question is what are in the boxes of your flowchart? 

Is it rival groups and factions? Mysterious locations or items? @Fenris-77 gives an interesting take on it; would you say your game is similar to his (generally speaking, there will always be exceptions)?

I think if we’re examining our play, our first step is to find out what are the points of discovery. What are the boxes on the flow chart? 

Then I think we have to look at how they inform one another. How do the players go from one box to the next? 

And then the next step may be to look at how the boxes and their connections are determined. Are they decided ahead of time by the GM? Are they procedurally generated in some random way? Are they based on player input in any way? 

I think the answers to these questions (knowing some may be difficult to pin down or quantify) are going to reveal a lot about the amount of player agency in a given game.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I think the answers to these questions (knowing some may be difficult to pin down or quantify) are going to reveal a lot about the amount of player agency in a given game.



Maybe.  For the moment I've given up talking about agency.  It seems counterproductive toward having a good conversation about playstyles.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Right, okay cool. So if your game is less about discovery or exploration of the geographical kind, then the question is what are in the boxes of your flowchart?
> 
> Is it rival groups and factions? Mysterious locations or items? @Fenris-77 gives an interesting take on it; would you say your game is similar to his (generally speaking, there will always be exceptions)?
> 
> I think if we’re examining our play, our first step is to find out what are the points of discovery. What are the boxes on the flow chart?
> 
> Then I think we have to look at how they inform one another. How do the players go from one box to the next?
> 
> And then the next step may be to look at how the boxes and their connections are determined. Are they decided ahead of time by the GM? Are they procedurally generated in some random way? Are they based on player input in any way?
> 
> I think the answers to these questions (knowing some may be difficult to pin down or quantify) are going to reveal a lot about the amount of player agency in a given game.




I think we might be talking past each other. I don't use flowcharts. I have boxes on my sect conflict diagram simply to track all the groups in play, what they want, etc. Sometimes I don't even use a map of it (I just note down who is in conflict with who). 

I don't think I understood the rest of your post hawkeye. Again, I think there is a fundamental difference here in how we approach play and understanding play, which isn't bad, but it makes real communication across our styles very challenging. I have a world, with a map, and I have groups and NPCs in that world that are active. I drop the PCs into that world and let them do what they want. Any mechanics, procedures or tools I use are simply done to help bring that to life, to settle unknowns and certain interactions, etc.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe.  For the moment I've given up talking about agency.  It seems counterproductive toward having a good conversation about playstyles.




Okay, then maybe reply to any other part of my post other than the one you don’t want to talk about?


----------



## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Maybe.  For the moment I've given up talking about agency.  It seems counterproductive toward having a good conversation about playstyles.




I don't think we are going to make much headway on agency either


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Is it rival groups and factions? Mysterious locations or items? @Fenris-77 gives an interesting take on it; would you say your game is similar to his (generally speaking, there will always be exceptions)?




Can you quote the pertinent post from Fenris (think I responded to it already but not sure)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> And then the next step may be to look at how the boxes and their connections are determined. Are they decided ahead of time by the GM? Are they procedurally generated in some random way? Are they based on player input in any way?




Just to be clear, I think you may be reading my boxes through the lens of another style of play and design. This is literally just a map of a conflict and the groups involved. Or a diagram of various alliances. It would be something the GM creates ahead of play, but actions the players take might alter it (for example if they successfully cause problems between two allies on the map). Also, this map is just a tool I use as the GM. It isn't something I lay on the table for the players to interact with. Below is a small section of a map I sketched for the Lady Eighty Seven campaign. The T lines indicate a working relationship, the straight lines indicate an alliance and the Xs indicate conflict. I also have a diamond, not seen on this map, which indicates things are moving towards conflict.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I think we might be talking past each other. I don't use flowcharts. I have boxes on my sect conflict diagram simply to track all the groups in play, what they want, etc. Sometimes I don't even use a map of it (I just note down who is in conflict with who).
> 
> I don't think I understood the rest of your post hawkeye. Again, I think there is a fundamental difference here in how we approach play and understanding play, which isn't bad, but it makes real communication across our styles very challenging. I have a world, with a map, and I have groups and NPCs in that world that are active. I drop the PCs into that world and let them do what they want. Any mechanics, procedures or tools I use are simply done to help bring that to life, to settle unknowns and certain interactions, etc.




The flowchart is metaphorical, mostly. Although the more I’m thinking about it, I think we could likely breakdown all play into a flowchart of some kind. And I don’t think I’m introducing a new concept here, just this is what’s been bubbling in my mind. 

So if you can accept for now my idea of play as a flowchart, with the boxes on the chart corresponding to the points of discovery in the sandbox and the connections from box to box being some mix of the relation between those elements and the things that lead the players from one to the next....if we try to look at play that way, perhaps it helps shed some light.

What are the boxes? What are the poibts of discovery in the sandbox? 

So, perhaps it’s geographical. Town is the starting point of the flowchart. Perhaps another box on the chart is “The Lost Caves”, a dungeon nearby. 

How do the PCs get from Town to The List Caves? And why? This is the line on the flowchart between the two boxes. Perhaps they want gold and treasure, a pretty typical and general goal. Perhaps they find out about the Lost Caves through rumor or hearsay. Perhaps they have to do some hexcrawling type exploration to find the Caves’ exact location.  

If we break up the sandbox like this, I think it helps to examine what we’re doing and maybe how and why. 

I don’t think this is at all about style. I thibk maybe this is maybe a tool that can be used to analyze any style.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think if we’re examining our play, our first step is to find out what are the points of discovery. What are the boxes on the flow chart?




To be clear, this is the portion I am unclear on. Not sure if this helps, but I don't think of my campaigns as being prioritized around one thing. So exploration and discovery are elements of play, but when it comes to sect conflict, I wouldn't say I see that as an act of discovery (it may involve gathering information and individual acts of discovery but it will also discover a great deal of social interaction, planning, combat, etc). All I am doing with these sects is trying to create a vibrant martial world that is active, that the players can interact with, etc. The movie I usually point people to is Killer Clans. This is a bit like the Godfather (in fact it seems to inspired a lot by the Godfather), where you have a powerful sect leader in the martial world whose supremacy is challenged by a rival and being undermined by traitors from within his own organization. If I introduce the players to this martial world, I want them to be able to approach is however they like. They may start in a particular organization with its own agenda, so that will shape things at the start, but like the traitors in the sect leaders group, they are free to change alliances themselves if they want to. They could seek an alliance with the rising challenger in the martial world, try to work with the powerful sect leader to restore his hold on things, or maybe they just go around committing bank heists while everyone else is focused on a power struggle. I don't really care what they do, as long as they do something.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> The flowchart is metaphorical, mostly. Although the more I’m thinking about it, I think we could likely breakdown all play into a flowchart of some kind. And I don’t think I’m introducing a new concept here, just this is what’s been bubbling in my mind.
> 
> So if you can accept for now my idea of play as a flowchart, with the boxes on the chart corresponding to the points of discovery in the sandbox and the connections from box to box being some mix of the relation between those elements and the things that lead the players from one to the next....if we try to look at play that way, perhaps it helps shed some light.
> 
> What are the boxes? What are the poibts of discovery in the sandbox?
> 
> So, perhaps it’s geographical. Town is the starting point of the flowchart. Perhaps another box on the chart is “The Lost Caves”, a dungeon nearby.
> 
> How do the PCs get from Town to The List Caves? And why? This is the line on the flowchart between the two boxes. Perhaps they want gold and treasure, a pretty typical and general goal. Perhaps they find out about the Lost Caves through rumor or hearsay. Perhaps they have to do some hexcrawling type exploration to find the Caves’ exact location.
> 
> If we break up the sandbox like this, I think it helps to examine what we’re doing and maybe how and why.
> 
> I don’t think this is at all about style. I thibk maybe this is maybe a tool that can be used to analyze any style.




But it isn't a flow chart in my case. So I don't know how I can weigh in in that respect (at least in terms of how I run things)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What are the boxes? What are the poibts of discovery in the sandbox?
> 
> So, perhaps it’s geographical. Town is the starting point of the flowchart. Perhaps another box on the chart is “The Lost Caves”, a dungeon nearby.




I am struggling to connect this to how I run things. I may be missing your point. I just don't understand having a flowchart and a starting point for 'points of discovery' in a sandbox. I simply don't think of a sandbox as points of discovery.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Can you quote the pertinent post from Fenris (think I responded to it already but not sure)




Here it is below. I think you did respond since then. I had not yet seen all replies when I made my post. He talks about faces and factions as the “map” for his game, which I think is the kind of thing I’m talking about with my flowchart analogy. 



Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, if the game is focused more on human geography the standard hexcrawl is less than helpful. Personally, I tend to use faces and factions and their web of connections and motivations as the 'map' for that kind of game.






Bedrockgames said:


> Below is a small section of a map I sketched for the Lady Eighty Seven campaign. The T lines indicate a working relationship, the straight lines indicate an alliance and the Xs indicate conflict. I also have a diamond, not seen on this map, which indicates things are moving towards conflict.




I mean, you just provided a good example of the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s not an exact match, but it’s very much along the lines of what I’m going for with the flowchart thing. 

What is it that you want your players to discover through their characters? Geography? Competing factions? Personal revelations? The fractured pieces of the rod of seven parts? 

Then, how is discovery of those elements facilitated in play?


----------



## Fenris-77

If it helps, the faction and face map I'm talking about is something I use for more socially indexed urban fantasy campaigns (although it could be used for any social exploration game I guess). What it isn't is a node based clue crawl, although my firm decision not to do that informed some of my design choices. I don't show the map to my players either, but the products of the map are something they get. Influence and favors measure ease or possibility of access to various factions and individuals (and places). The point is to give the players something tangible to use for planning. 

So, for example, you need to see the duke but he won't see plebs like the players, so you investigate his secretary looking for foibles or something to exploit. As it turns out the secretary has a gambling problem. The players decide that they're going to engineer some gambling debts which they will then take on as a favour after some carousing allows them to position themselves as new friends. That gets them a favor owed. The favor isn't exactly a metacurrency, it's an actual in-game measure of indebtedness. In this case the payers cash it in to get the meeting they need. In another scenario they might keep it and count it as influence with the the duke's faction (those are the two ways favors get used in my game). The idea of influence works as a bonus to reputation, but just with that faction.

So, back to tangible for a moment. They players get a list of favours owed and influence with various factions. The point of that is to allow them, at a glance, to have a good handle on where they stand in the political currents of the place. Having something specific, something written down, gives the players handles for planning and execution that they wouldn't have with a more nebulous list of "this is who you know". This doesn't have to be tied to the plot either, in fact I prefer it not to be. This but accretes over time in the campaign, and favors earned several adventures ago can all of a sudden prove useful later in ways I could never have predicted as the GM. It gives the players a lot of control over things, which was the goal.

What I really need to do is write this up more formally, as the system currently exists more in the form of post-its, scraps, and after game analysis.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, then maybe reply to any other part of my post other than the one you don’t want to talk about?



Because I wanted to make the point that we have beaten that dead horse enough.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Here it is below. I think you did respond since then. I had not yet seen all replies when I made my post. He talks about faces and factions as the “map” for his game, which I think is the kind of thing I’m talking about with my flowchart analogy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I mean, you just provided a good example of the kind of thing I’m talking about. It’s not an exact match, but it’s very much along the lines of what I’m going for with the flowchart thing.
> 
> What is it that you want your players to discover through their characters? Geography? Competing factions? Personal revelations? The fractured pieces of the rod of seven parts?
> 
> Then, how is discovery of those elements facilitated in play?




again, it isn’t about discovery the more I think about it, that is just a component. The diagram is for me, so I can decide how factions act and respond. It is more about the interactions. Yes, the players may want to learn something about one of those sects as they plan and act, but I think it would be a mistake to liken that to hex crawl discovery. Sorry if this text terribly clarifying, I just think we can over essentialize play if we distill it to a concept like points of discovery: it is much more comprehensive and dynamic than that ImO


----------



## darkbard

Fenris-77 said:


> What I really need to do is write this up more formally, as the system currently exists more in the form of post-its, scraps, and after game analysis.




This thread may not be the worst place to pilot such a write up, allowing you multiple inputs from various playstyles and perspectives.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Because I wanted to make the point that we have beaten that dead horse enough.




Okay then engage with something else man. 

I was connecting my post back to the topic of the thread, but doing so that let anyone draw whatever conclusions about agency that they’d like. It was a comment on how examining play can help us understand agency or any other goal of play. 

So, to move away from the dead horse....what would you say might be some of your goals in play? You sit down to start a new campaign....what are the things you want to see your players engage with? 

This is just a question and is not a trick or a trap. It literally is me trying to have a conversation.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> again, it isn’t about discovery the more I think about it, that is just a component. The diagram is for me, so I can decide how factions act and respond. It is more about the interactions. Yes, the players may want to learn something about one of those sects as they plan and act, but I think it would be a mistake to liken that to hex crawl discovery. Sorry if this text terribly clarifying, I just think we can over essentialize play if we distill it to a concept like points of discovery: it is much more comprehensive and dynamic than that ImO




You can’t break it down a bit? Just so we can have a conversation? 

You don’t sit down to a new campaign, having built this fictional world for the players, with any kind of expectations? 

I mean, that can’t be true. What guides you when you craft the fictional world? You have to be thinking “oh this would be a cool place for them to go” or “I’m interested to see how they might deal with this guy”.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay then engage with something else man.



Okay.



hawkeyefan said:


> I was connecting my post back to the topic of the thread, but doing so that let anyone draw whatever conclusions about agency that they’d like. It was a comment on how examining play can help us understand agency or any other goal of play.



I get that.  I wasn't trying to crap on your post just to be crapping on it.  My fear is that bringing that up will only cause this discussion to go south again.  Apparently even voicing this fear has already done that 



hawkeyefan said:


> So, to move away from the dead horse....what would you say might be some of your goals in play? You sit down to start a new campaign....what are the things you want to see your players engage with?



In a 1 shot I tend to expect that they will incorporate the goal of the 1 shot as their goal.  My current 1 shot is stealing the MCguffin from the wizard king's vault.  This is to give the other DM time to finish up the details for his more sandbox style campaign.

In a sandbox style campaign, there might be some high level initial goal but they are ultimately free to move away from that anytime they want.  I guess that's the biggest thing about this kind of sandbox, they make their own goals.



hawkeyefan said:


> This is just a question and is not a trick or a trap. It literally is me trying to have a conversation.



Thanks.


----------



## Fenris-77

darkbard said:


> This thread may not be the worst place to pilot such a write up, allowing you multiple inputs from various playstyles and perspectives.



Yeah, could be useful. Hawkeyefan just got a little taste of this system in an OSR game I'm running that he's in. The party just agreed to their first 'quest'. They're being paid for it, but perhaps more importantly, they now have a marker with a faction in town that may or may not prove important. The game in question isn't urban, so I'm using a pretty abbreviated version of 'the system', but I am using it.

If I were to write it up, I think I'd do it system neutral but with an index to OSR, which would also make it broadly compatible with D&D. I think the feedback loop would work no matter what game you slotted it into, which is kinda neat.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> You can’t break it down a bit? Just so we can have a conversation?
> 
> You don’t sit down to a new campaign, having built this fictional world for the players, with any kind of expectations?
> 
> I mean, that can’t be true. What guides you when you craft the fictional world? You have to be thinking “oh this would be a cool place for them to go” or “I’m interested to see how they might deal with this guy”.




I tend to think in terms of 'is this content that players can engage'. But that is about it. So I try to avoid making setting material that is just there to be toured for example. But often all that means is giving my NPCs and groups palpable motivations that can serve as fuel. For locations those tend to be an outgrowth of things in the setting or just things that feel like they would fit. So in a wuxia campaign, it is about getting in interesting things that seem to fit the genre. And each Jianghu I do has a slightly different flavor. 

But in terms of that map, there are no procedures related to it. I do have my sect war guide (which has evolved a lot and in its present form is different from the one posted below). i posted this earlier but in case you didn't see it, this might clarify how I handle things related to the sects. Again though, this is just a tool: 









						WAR OF SWARMING BEGGARS CHAPTER ONE: RUNNING THE ADVENTURE
					

Note:  I will include the stats and sect information in coming days as I release sections of Gazetteer chapter and NPC chapter. If you have ...




					thebedrockblog.blogspot.com


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> If it helps, the faction and face map I'm talking about is something I use for more socially indexed urban fantasy campaigns (although it could be used for any social exploration game I guess). What it isn't is a node based clue crawl, although my firm decision not to do that informed some of my design choices. I don't show the map to my players either, but the products of the map are something they get. Influence and favors measure ease or possibility of access to various factions and individuals (and places). The point is to give the players something tangible to use for planning.
> 
> So, for example, you need to see the duke but he won't see plebs like the players, so you investigate his secretary looking for foibles or something to exploit. As it turns out the secretary has a gambling problem. The players decide that they're going to engineer some gambling debts which they will then take on as a favour after some carousing allows them to position themselves as new friends. That gets them a favor owed. The favor isn't exactly a metacurrency, it's an actual in-game measure of indebtedness. In this case the payers cash it in to get the meeting they need. In another scenario they might keep it and count it as influence with the the duke's faction (those are the two ways favors get used in my game). The idea of influence works as a bonus to reputation, but just with that faction.
> 
> So, back to tangible for a moment. They players get a list of favours owed and influence with various factions. The point of that is to allow them, at a glance, to have a good handle on where they stand in the political currents of the place. Having something specific, something written down, gives the players handles for planning and execution that they wouldn't have with a more nebulous list of "this is who you know". This doesn't have to be tied to the plot either, in fact I prefer it not to be. This but accretes over time in the campaign, and favors earned several adventures ago can all of a sudden prove useful later in ways I could never have predicted as the GM. It gives the players a lot of control over things, which was the goal.
> 
> What I really need to do is write this up more formally, as the system currently exists more in the form of post-its, scraps, and after game analysis.




This doesn't sound too different from what I do in practice. The difference may just be the tools we draw on. For example all the stuff about debts, the players would just make notes about that, I would make notes about that, as it comes up. And if they wanted to call in a favor, they would go to that person or group and call it in (and we'd all essentially be working from memory and our notes of what happened-----in a long, long campaign, those notes might be very important). I don't give the players anything to interface with though. Sometimes I will draw rough sketch maps of setting for them, of cities, etc. But for the most part it is all theater of the mind. 

There may be one point of difference worth examining here, and I might be wrong about it. The way I see some people describing things, we may deal with specificity differently, in that specifics in the setting come first, always. And this is something that has made using certain tools or models difficult (especially those that abstract things). Any mechanics or tools we draw on are in service to those specifics. And OSR GMs and Sandbox GMs are very big into having tools. But they are more like optional levers for the GM to draw on more than anything else. As an example of how specifics can make procedures and tools unhinge a bit, whenever I run my crime campaigns I always tried to make a crime subsystem (with rolls for committing crimes, having a steady flow of cash from ongoing rackets, etc). For like 20 percent of players in my groups that isn't a problem. They can let a racket burn in the background and just leave it to weekly or monthly rolls. But with a lot of old school players and a lot of players who like direct setting interaction (which always seems to be like 80% of my group) those kinds of tools break down because want to micromanage their rackets (where instead of being able to abstract it to a monthly amount, I am almost forced to deal with specific moments of them earning through the racket: i.e.. This happened so much, I just gave up on using my crime subsystems (these are actually still in my mafia RPG books, but I stopped using them myself long ago).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, that can’t be true. What guides you when you craft the fictional world? You have to be thinking “oh this would be a cool place for them to go” or “I’m interested to see how they might deal with this guy”.




To address this specifically. Sure but these are just things I consider among many other things. And sometimes I might be thinking of specific groups of players, sometimes not. It kind of depends on the type of group I am dealing with. But the thing is, I dont' want to plan too far ahead in my mind where it will all go. I mean, I may have a sect in a canyon that does X, and believes Y, and is allied with this sect, enemies with that sect. But that may or may not be relevant to the direction the party goes. I have no idea going in if that group will be of zero interest, if they will be someoen the players try to work with, fight against, etc. So for me, my fun, really comes from not knowing what will arise. I tend to view the campaign as a chemical reaction. And each reaction, produces a moment of history that steers the campaign in a direction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> In a 1 shot I tend to expect that they will incorporate the goal of the 1 shot as their goal.  My current 1 shot is stealing the MCguffin from the wizard king's vault.  This is to give the other DM time to finish up the details for his more sandbox style campaign.




Okay, so with a one shot, things may be a bit different, because things are going to be more constrained. I was thinking of more sandbox or open world play when I was picturing flowcharts, but let's see what we can come up with.

So if we were to break things out as a flowchart for this scenario, how would it look? I expect that there's a base location of some kind, and of course there's the wizard king's castle, and his vault. So maybe those are three boxes on the flowchart. So how do we move from one to the other? 

Are the PCs hired to steal the maguffin? Is in something of personal interest? How do they know about it? 

What makes them move from the base location to the wizard king's castle? 

Again, the answers to these questions may be incredibly obvious for one shot that has such a specific goal, but maybe the above helped explain what I'm talking about.



FrogReaver said:


> In a sandbox style campaign, there might be some high level initial goal but they are ultimately free to move away from that anytime they want.  I guess that's the biggest thing about this kind of sandbox, they make their own goals.




Based on what? Surely there has to be some structure in place in order for them to base their goals, no? 

So if the goals might be to accrue wealth and magic relics (a pretty classic motivation) then that likely means that there is treasure to be had, right? Which implies a geographical map with locations that may offer treasure of some sort. 

So, again to kind of view this is a flowchart.....there's likely a home base town as the starting point, with a few options for potential treasure hunting as other boxes in the flowchart. Things like "the ruined temple" and "the cave of the lizardfolk" and "the dungeon of lunacy" and so on. 

Now, these boxes need not be set ahead of time, but I'm kind of assuming that's the case based on what folks have been saying about the sandbox style. They could just as easily be generated procedurally through random charts and the like. They could just as easily be crafted according to actions declared by the players. There are multiple ways to do it, but let's go with "GM creates the setting prior to the start of play". 

So you have these locations and they're there for the PCs to engage with. 

How does that engagement get facilitated? Do they need to explore the map and find one at random? Are there NPCs who offer clues or suggestions about the locations? 

What do you do as a GM to help the players set their goals and then what do you do to help them try and achieve those goals?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

estar said:


> Movies, novels, and plays all have the same issue but yet they manage the immerse the viewer. And prior to tabletop roleplaying wargames managed to be pretty immersive. There is such a thing as good enough.  Which means one doesn't have to throw up their hands and say "It too complex so it not a consideration". Which is what your post is saying.



I'm not making an argument about 'immersion'. In fact it seems like I would have to take your comment as indicating that only a game which works in a certain way can achieve that, though I certainly don't think you're actually saying that. In fact, IMHO, by providing vivid and focused characterization, IMHO a game that centers on specific concerns and themes can lead to an experience in which immersion in the RP can be quite intense. Obviously this is subjective. I have heard a lot of variations of arguments that 'story games' are anti-immersive before though, its a trope, but hard to really substantiate.


estar said:


> Yet in real life people have adventures.  Of course what we do at the table isn't as detailed as life or as it could be if a fictional place actually existed. Down the lane from Bag's Ends were hobbit living their lives despite Tolkien never describing them. Yes a bunch of short cuts are used couple with some clever techniques to bring the setting to life.
> 
> However when there a creative choice to be made, I opt for the one that reflect the reality of the setting. That what I choose to do. Other may use different criterias, for example opting for the choice that makes for the better game. Or the choice that makes for faster resolution of the action.  It a creative exercise, and deciding what would realistically happen is as valid of a criteria as any other.



Yeah, my experience with this line of discussion is that nothing can really be concluded. I agree it is a creative exercise, and my observation is that the 'creativeness' is the overwhelming part, while any constraints placed by the 'reality of the setting' are basically just matters of underlying agendas. There are also genre/tone sort of factors in there. While story now certainly works fine with different tones, it is much harder to maintain the fiction of 'a place which actually existed' when the genre moves in a more fantastic direction. That is, lower level or 'lower powered' play works well in a setting like Middle Earth, where the really super fantastic stuff is a lot more abstract and is the realm of NPCs who deal largely with the concerns of immortal beings and such. The sorts of action that might happen in my 'Heroes of Myth and Legend' play doesn't usually make sense unless it is couched in terms that are PC-concern centered. When I tried to do such play with straight up D&D (particularly 2e) it was not real pretty. 4e is better, but doesn't quite give the right feel for "Mythic Figures", though epic tier is fairly robust in a lot of ways.


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, so with a one shot, things may be a bit different, because things are going to be more constrained. I was thinking of more sandbox or open world play when I was picturing flowcharts, but let's see what we can come up with.
> 
> So if we were to break things out as a flowchart for this scenario, how would it look? I expect that there's a base location of some kind, and of course there's the wizard king's castle, and his vault. So maybe those are three boxes on the flowchart. So how do we move from one to the other?



Not seeing setting that up as a flowchart being helpful.  What might be useful is a flowchart of the obstacles they are going to encounter, but the kinds of physical details a map would provide for the whole locations, trivial details for this 1 shot.



hawkeyefan said:


> Are the PCs hired to steal the maguffin? Is in something of personal interest? How do they know about it?



They were released from death row after being wrongfully sentenced to death by a resistance sympathizing magistrate to steal a particular treasure.



hawkeyefan said:


> What makes them move from the base location to the wizard king's castle?



Not doing so would have meant not playing the game.



hawkeyefan said:


> Again, the answers to these questions may be incredibly obvious for one shot that has such a specific goal, but maybe the above helped explain what I'm talking about.



Not particularly.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> To address this specifically. Sure but these are just things I consider among many other things. And sometimes I might be thinking of specific groups of players, sometimes not. It kind of depends on the type of group I am dealing with. But the thing is, I dont' want to plan too far ahead in my mind where it will all go. I mean, I may have a sect in a canyon that does X, and believes Y, and is allied with this sect, enemies with that sect. But that may or may not be relevant to the direction the party goes. I have no idea going in if that group will be of zero interest, if they will be someoen the players try to work with, fight against, etc. So for me, my fun, really comes from not knowing what will arise. I tend to view the campaign as a chemical reaction. And each reaction, produces a moment of history that steers the campaign in a direction.




Yes, I understand all this. I get it. You don't need to describe this in general any more. I am asking for a specific example of how you do this. Pick a specific group of players you ran a specific adventure for and talk about it. 

To lean on your linked blog post about the War of the Swarming Beggars, you say the below:


> There is not an “Adventure” written in advance because the adventure is discovered in the course of play.




How was it discovered when you GMed this material?



> However, there are still likely courses of action that could occur. The most likely scenario is the players get drawn into the War of Swarming Beggars through the manipulation of Twin-Fisted Eagle, who seeks an alliance with brave and powerful heroes.




Does Twin-Fisted Eagle reach out to the PCs? Do they hear of him by reputation and seek him out? So it sounds like you have two factions set up in conflict and the PCs are kind of in the middle, free to join one side or the other, or play them against each other, or whatever.

This is what I mean when I ask what play is meant to be about. It's the central premise of the campaign, seemingly.



> Then once they are drawn in, they need to use their wits and brawn to survive and help Twin-Fisted Eagle defeat Yellow Mantis, leader of Southern Hill Sect. They will contend with Killer Squads and intrigue. They can also explore and help find new allies, weapons, and other resources to increase their side’s chances of victory. The most coveted object, would be the Thousand Painful Deaths Flower at Iron Temple. But it is a dangerous place, rumored to be haunted.




So to kind of place this into my idea of a flowchart.....Twin-Fisted Eagle might be one box and Yellow Mantis/Southern Hill Sect would be another. How do they get from one to the other? What other boxes would be between these two? 

Maybe they pursue another ally? Maybe they try to get the Thousand Deaths Flower from Iron Temple? How do they know of these allies or items? How are these introduced into play? 

In the below, you kind of touch on how some of these things may be introduced:


> The Gamemaster can add complexity to the adventure by bringing other sects into the conflict (either sects from the core rulebook, the Sects of the Martial World Books, or of the GM’s own devising). If you use the Sects of the Martial World Books, the Crocodile Sect and Silken Robe Society are good fits. The daily event tables also account for this, bringing other sects in automatically on certain rolls.




But is that just for additional factions? Are other methods involved? 

How would the players learn that The Crocodile Sect might be a willing ally? How would they go about securing their aid? What might they have to do?



> *GETTING THE PLAYERS INVOLVED*
> This is meant to be a brutal adventure, that emphasizes the dark underbelly of the Martial World, so the Gamemaster should feel free to bring the players in, in a way that matches that feeling. This needs to be tailored to the specific party in question. But at the start of the adventure both The Southern Hill Sect and the Twin-Fisted Eagle Clan are equally eager to defeat the other side and looking to gain any advantage they can. It is possible either side reaches out to them. An unorthodox party would most likely be contacted by Twin-Fisted Eagle Clan, while an Orthodox Party would most likely be contacted by Southern Hill Sect. However, keep in mind that Twin-Fisted Eagle is not above deception and would happily invite a powerful group of orthodox heroes, even lie to them about the reasons for the conflict.
> 
> The reason the party is recruited is both sides would have heard of the players exploits and are attempting the recruit heroes from all over Qi Xien to give them an edge over their foe.




Above you provide some suggestions on how to get the PCs involved in the conflict. This is followed by some tables for rumors and daily events. These are the kind of specific things I'm asking about. It seems like these charts are meant to highlight the growing conflict, and to show how it is escalating.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Campbell said:


> To a certain extent I think the sort of sandbox aesthetic talked about here is actually coming from a perspective of a version of the real world that actually makes sense. Where people's decisions are based on logic and somewhat accurate readouts of the way the world works instead of delusions and fantasies. Where the shape of history is actually based on what is likely to happen. I mean even a cursory glance at the moment in history we find ourselves should make it obvious that unlikely things happen everyday.



Right, in fact if we start to examine 'likely' and 'unlikely' as concepts we will run into huge problems right away. The real world contains an uncountably vast array of possible outcomes of situations. Simply by application of basic mathematical logic we can derive that the probabilities of all these outcomes are thus individually infinitesimal. Fundamentally nothing is likely, and nothing is 'more likely' than anything else. Likeliness emerges only at the level of our own cognition, where we 'bin' things together and say "well, all these outcomes are, for my purposes, nearly the same." Now you can start to say "this bin is bigger than these other ones." However, you can see that this is actually subjective. In fact it is a well-known (to physicists) fact that even the entropy of a system is a subjective value which is observer-dependent for basically the same reason.

So, when we say that we are 'figuring out what is likely' even in the real world, we are establishing our cognitive biases at a very basic level. In the game world this vast array of possible outcomes never exists to start with, so we're simply left with our judgment as to how some bins might hypothetically be constructed by some observer. There are really large amounts of judgment here, and very few firm guidelines to follow. Its easy to say "oh, you fell down the 40' shaft and landed on a stone floor. Here's the sorts of likely outcomes of that." but as soon as things get more complicated, we either just defer to dice, or make something up that supports one or another set of criteria (agendas).


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## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Not seeing setting that up as a flowchart being helpful.  What might be useful is a flowchart of the obstacles they are going to encounter, but the kinds of physical details a map would provide for the whole locations, trivial details for this 1 shot.
> 
> 
> They were released from death row after being wrongfully sentenced to death by a resistance sympathizing magistrate to steal a particular treasure.
> 
> 
> Not doing so would have meant not playing the game.
> 
> 
> Not particularly.




Okay @FrogReaver . I said that a one shot may not be the best example, but I quickly sketched it and asked some questions. It sounds like if it was a flow chart, it would be one box stacked on top of another with an arrow pointing from one to the other. Awesome. 

Nothing to say about the second half of my post where I kind of talk about sandbox play?


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> It’s not even technically realism that anyone is after.  Realism gets mentioned primarily because fantasy worlds in most of their incarnations are intended to be very real world centric (or historic or future based real world centric).  Even the most cartoonish things like looney toons or Tom and jerry are very real world centric with a few unreal details and over exaggerations sprinkled in.
> 
> which is to say if someone wanted a looney toons or Tom and jerry rpg you would find most mechanics would need to be “realistic” to some degree with a few unreal mechanics mixed in to depict the zany interactions.
> 
> *story now would probably be an excellent platform for such a game.



Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics. 

It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Based on what? Surely there has to be some structure in place in order for them to base their goals, no?



Their characterization of their character?  In a sandbox, I convey important world information to them.  I place interesting situations in front of them.  They decide whether they want to engage a particular situation and if so how they want to engage.  I have the NPC's react to them and whatever they accomplish may or may not affect how the world progresses from there.



hawkeyefan said:


> So if the goals might be to accrue wealth and magic relics (a pretty classic motivation) then that likely means that there is treasure to be had, right? Which implies a geographical map with locations that may offer treasure of some sort.



That may be their goal right now.  But they may change goals anytime.  It's not enough to just put a map out there with treasures and treasure locations in this style.  And to make that contrast clear, that's the exact kind of sandbox I dislike.  Put me on an adventure path over that anyday. 

A map is important as some sense of where places and people are can be important - especially when the players are up against a clock as the physical distances between these places often limit what can be done quickly enough.





hawkeyefan said:


> So, again to kind of view this is a flowchart.....there's likely a home base town as the starting point, with a few options for potential treasure hunting as other boxes in the flowchart. Things like "the ruined temple" and "the cave of the lizardfolk" and "the dungeon of lunacy" and so on.




It would be more like, here's your hometown, here's the dwarves territory, here's the elves territory, here's the halflings territory etc.  Here's the portal to the plane of fire.  Here's some ancient ruins.  Etc.  But what drives the world isn't the players going to a specific location on the map.  There are events transpiring in the world even if the players sit still.



hawkeyefan said:


> Now, these boxes need not be set ahead of time, but I'm kind of assuming that's the case based on what folks have been saying about the sandbox style. They could just as easily be generated procedurally through random charts and the like. They could just as easily be crafted according to actions declared by the players. There are multiple ways to do it, but let's go with "GM creates the setting prior to the start of play".



Sure



hawkeyefan said:


> So you have these locations and they're there for the PCs to engage with.



Kind of but not necessarily.  The focus is not as much the locations as events.



hawkeyefan said:


> How does that engagement get facilitated? Do they need to explore the map and find one at random? Are there NPCs who offer clues or suggestions about the locations?



It depends on the specific campaign.  Sometimes it's you are on the frontier so explore.  Sometimes the world is already established so the players know where most things are and you are mostly dealing with factions/tribes/and people within the explored setting.  And even in the frontier scenario, it eventually leads to an established world where you are dealing with such things.



hawkeyefan said:


> What do you do as a GM to help the players set their goals and then what do you do to help them try and achieve those goals?



Nothing.  I tell them about the world and the people and places in it.


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## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay @FrogReaver . I said that a one shot may not be the best example, but I quickly sketched it and asked some questions. It sounds like if it was a flow chart, it would be one box stacked on top of another with an arrow pointing from one to the other. Awesome.



Okay.



hawkeyefan said:


> Nothing to say about the second half of my post where I kind of talk about sandbox play?



Give a guy some time!


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## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics.
> 
> It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.



Hitting people with hammer's isn't reality?  Houses, rivers, lakes, trees aren't reality?  Walking and falling isn't reality?

I think if you did a dip dive over everything real in looney toons and everything unreal, you would find a huge percentage of what's in it is realistic.  I think what happens is we tend to focus on the unrealistic elements as those are what stands out about it.  But that doesn't mean there aren't a ton of realistic elements there.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yes, I understand all this. I get it. You don't need to describe this in general any more. I am asking for a specific example of how you do this. Pick a specific group of players you ran a specific adventure for and talk about it.
> 
> To lean on your linked blog post about the War of the Swarming Beggars, you say the below:
> 
> 
> How was it discovered when you GMed this material?




Couple of things about this one. The War of Swarming Beggars I put up on my blog. I think I put it up in 2018, but I actually wrote the material closer to 2016, so it has been a long time. I will try to answer this and the other questions as best I can, but I have an atrocious memory, so do take my answers with that in mind as I could easily be misremembering something. 

But the first thing to bear in mind is War of Swarming Beggars was written to be a module and campaign setting supplement. That it is part module, means it isn't going to be exactly like a campaign at my table (there is more of a premise here if that makes sense). But what it is intending to do is to give the GM a sense of how a sect more might arise and be handled in my Drama+Sandbox setting. This was also written before my Disposable Disciples campaign. That campaign was quite long and reshaped some of my thinking about how to run drama sandbox. 

The most important thing though is War of Swarming Beggars is really much more than the sect war premise. That is part of it. But if you look at the other sections you will see there are places, NPCs, and more. For example, players could completely ignore the sect war, and go to the city of Dee to seek their fortune. 

When I say there is no adventure, all I mean there is I didn't structure the adventure around set-pieces, scenes, events, nodes, etc. The adventure is a scenario: there is this sect war, here is what everyone is trying to do, here is how the players might be hooked into it. If they engage the sect war, let it play out organically. All the tools such as the tables, as there to help facilitate the background sect war unfolding (this can become really important though because sit matters if one side is losing badly, and it matters if specific members of the organization are alive or dead). 

So the discovery is through the interactions. The players decide to involve themselves and do X, when word of this reaches the rival sect, maybe they do Y . Also because that sect war is running in the background the GM needs to account for how the sects react to their changing fortunes. Not sure if this answers your question or not. I don't think it can be pinned down to one procedure if that is your question.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Does Twin-Fisted Eagle reach out to the PCs? Do they hear of him by reputation and seek him out? So it sounds like you have two factions set up in conflict and the PCs are kind of in the middle, free to join one side or the other, or play them against each other, or whatever.




Yes, one thing this scenario doesn't capture well is the number of factions that are involved in my other map I sent you (which is probably a better reflection of how things tend to be). This adventure is very much modeled after the Killer Clans film in that it features two main sects.

In terms of Twin Fisted Eagle reaching out, that is up to the GM based on what he thinks should happen. Basically if the party is unorthodox, then he is likely to seek them out. If the party is orthodox it is more likely Yellow Mantis seeks them out instead. This is purely to get a hook into it as it was intended to be a published scenario. In a regular campaign, these kind of conflicts only involve the PCs if that naturally arises. So there is a bit of artifice here. But your basic sense is true, the players are free to join one side or the other, or play their own game (they can even ignore the conflict). However because Twin Fisted Eagle is nefarious, his hook somewhat forces their hand:



> *Invited by Twin-Fisted Eagle*
> If the party is invited to join to join by Twin-Fisted Eagle he will employ manipulation. His preferred method is to create a grudge between the party’s sect (or the party itself) and Southern Hill Sect. He will use whatever opportunity presents itself based on the party and its sect’s recent history. If there is something he can exploit to create a real conflict between them and Southern Hill, he will. Otherwise he takes more extreme action.
> 
> His favorite method is to send a large statue of Hen-Shi filled with Divine Powder to the sect headquarters of the party, presented as a gift from Southern Hill sect. The gift-bearer then ignites the divine fire and tries to cause as much death and mayhem as possible. The porters immediately attack and kill as many as they can (these would all be Twin-Fisted Eagle Disciples pretending to fight in the style of Southern Hill Sect). It is a suicide mission designed to infuriate the PC’s and draw them into the conflict. Twin-Fisted Eagle then reaches out to the party, saying they share an enemy in Southern Hill Sect.
> 
> If Twin-Fisted Eagle is trying to gain the loyalty of a group of orthodox heroes, or even unorthodox heroes who don’t seem terribly bloodthirsty he will tailor his explanation to them. Once Twin-Fisted Eagle has the party’s attention he will definitely use his son Tu-an to gain their sympathies. He will point to his precious child, and lie that he was having some harmless fun and beat up some locals (certainly an act worthy of a father’s punishment but not the extreme measures that Yellow Mantis employed). He will try to convince the PCs that Yellow Mantis is a fanatic who harms many innocent people in his constant quest to render ‘justice’.
> 
> If the party is particularly bloodthirsty, he is blunt and makes clear it is only a matter of time before Yellow Mantis relentlessly hounds them.




EDIT: Also just want to note, this is just the twin fisted eagle hook angle (there is one for yellow mantis presented, and a couple of other possibilities listed after that as well)


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is what I mean when I ask what play is meant to be about. It's the central premise of the campaign, seemingly.




Not really. The campaign is the entire region. The sect war was a module intended to demonstrate what a sect war looks like. Usually I try to avoid creating an angle for the campaign and instead see what the PCs are interested in doing. The one exception to this was my Lady 87 campaign, where I asked if they would be happy to just all be criminals in the Lady 87 Organization. But interestingly I ran that setting material for three different campaign groups and one of them didn't engage any of the criminal elements at all.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Above you provide some suggestions on how to get the PCs involved in the conflict. This is followed by some tables for rumors and daily events. These are the kind of specific things I'm asking about. It seems like these charts are meant to highlight the growing conflict, and to show how it is escalating.




I addressed some of this in the above post, but those are mainly there to help give the GM a tool for tracking and managing the conflict. For example, it will need to be clear who is wining and losing at a certain point, and how things are panning out from time to time. You also need a way to decide who is getting killed. The rumors are just ways for facts of the setting to become apparent to the players. That table is a tool. A more experienced GM could handle rumors through other methods (for instance i don't usually use rumor tables in my own campaigns.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So to kind of place this into my idea of a flowchart.....Twin-Fisted Eagle might be one box and Yellow Mantis/Southern Hill Sect would be another. How do they get from one to the other? What other boxes would be between these two?
> 
> Maybe they pursue another ally? Maybe they try to get the Thousand Deaths Flower from Iron Temple? How do they know of these allies or items? How are these introduced into play?




I don't really know what you mean. Twin Fisted eagle sect and Yellow Mantis have objective headquarters in the setting. So they arrive at them by traveling from one to the other (and obviously in a sect war, traveling into enemy territory is potentially dangerous). Maybe I am missing what you mean. But I do think this may be a place where we just don't conceive of play in the same way 

Sure, they could try to pursue another ally or obtain the Thousand Deaths flower. It is a big setting. They seek all kinds of things. 

There are knowledge skills in the game. So these would be used to determine what they know about sects, or artifacts. They can also seek out people who know these things. Usually this come up because players are looking for possible allies and weapons, but sometimes NPCs who know about specific things could offer the information organically. It very much defends. A lot of times a player might say something like "Do I know of any device rumored to exist that can kill dozens of people at a time" for example. That might lead to a check (or no roll if they have a very high skill rank), and then I would tell them about the Thousands Painful Death Flower. Also a lot of times, by this point in the campaign, the players have amassed knowledge of this stuff already and just say "the thousand painful deaths flower we heard about at the House of Paper Shadows might be useful here" .


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> But is that just for additional factions? Are other methods involved?
> 
> How would the players learn that The Crocodile Sect might be a willing ally? How would they go about securing their aid? What might they have to do?




The GM can add complexity however they like. But given it is a sect war, one of the most likely developments is other sects join in. For this game I have PDF sect books, so people who have those could incorporate them. Or they could use other sects from the core book, sects in the war of swarming beggars book, or make up their own.

Getting their aid would be played out. And that would all depend on the specifics of how they do it. They would obviously need to find a group whose interest aligned with their own, and give them a good reason for risking the lives of their own men (and often that is going to mean tangible rewards of somekind).

In terms of learning about crocodile sect being a potential ally, that might be knowledge they already have (if they have been playing in the setting a while) or it could be resolved with a Sects knowledge roll)


----------



## Fenris-77

For the purposes of this thread I think what is important is the player facing side, or the output side of the things we're talking about. Pure GM organization isn't really that novel, nor does it bear on agency in and of itself. Social and faction interactions can be complex to run and can be baffling for players who don't have those GM notes to fall back on, even if their character would know at least some of the details in question.

So how do our various techinques, tools, and mechanics impact the decision making processes of our players? Do they make players more capable of formulating a plan without constant GM help, more knowledable about the setting and how it works, more able to bring thier character mechanics to bear on problem solving, or less?


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Yeah, you still need a map of the physical space,  for sure,



Can you elaborate on this?

I tend to think that maps of physical spaces aren't that important outside of the context of map-and-key resolution. Eg in my Prince Valiant game we've had action in multiple castles, as you'd expected, but have not had maps of any of them. When the action of three or four sessions took place on the coastline of Bordeaux we didn't have any maps (we knew the water was to the west; we just used free narration to describe trips from coast to village to castle and back). In fact, it was one of the players who established that we were in the Bordeaux region - I'd just narrated travel to the south of France, and that player said "Bordeaux!" That worked well because I had a duke in my castle, and with that extra detail from the player we were able to make him Duke of Bordeaux.



Bedrockgames said:


> I do use Hex Maps for my wuxia sandbox, but because most of it is set in a civilized area, the hexes are more for gauging distance and charting courses than to use as discovery hex crawls.



As I've posted upthread, I am trying to get a handle on some differences of technique.

When you are counting hexes to gauge distances, what follows from that? I'm guessing _passage of time _calculated via movement speeds. And therefore encounters?

As I already posted, when the PCs in my Prince Valiant game crossed the Balkan Peninsula from Dalmatia to the Dacian Black Sea they only had two encounters, neither random: the Huns and the ghosts.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Gygax's AD&D has a prohibition on retries for picking locks (I think you can try again when a level is gained), for finding and removing traps, for trying to open locked or magically held doors (assuming STR is high enough to permit a check in the first place) and for bending bars and lifting gates. Also, I think - though maybe it's not as clearly stated?, I haven't gone back to check - for searching for secret doors.



I think you can try again on many of these if something materially changes in the meantime.  For example, a Fighter fails to bend bars at a portcullis, continues exploring elsewhere, finds and dons a Girdle of Giant Strength, and returns to the portcullis.  Because something material - in this case her Strength - has changed, she can try again.  Same thing if someone cast _Heat Metal_ on the bars to soften them.  Gygax doesn't spell this out - he wasn't always great on following up on obvious what-if scenarios - but it's implied.

But yes, in general your one roll represents the best you're going to do.  I like this, in that it makes resolution far less binary and-or final than does, say, a take-20 mechanic (one of 3e's very worst ideas IMO).


pemerton said:


> Forcing ordinary doors and listening at doors permit retries, but there are other costs built in (eg chance of wandering monsters due to noise made and/or the passage of time).
> 
> In Burning Wheel the ban on retries ("Let it Ride") is interesting because it cuts against the GM as well as the player.



As it does in 1e also, if the DM is true to the principles of the game as regards her NPCs if-when they try similar things.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> On maps and "fairness" etc: as I've mentioned a few times, in my Prince Valiant game we use maps of Britain and of other parts of Europe, super-imposing a rough conception of 7th to 8th Century CE over the top of them. (For Britain this is done for us via the map on the inside of the Pendragon cover. I also have some photocopies of relevant pages from a historical atlas, which are pretty low-res.)
> 
> I'm curious what the sandbox practitioners think of that approach - it's obviously quite different from a discovery-oriented hexcrawl.



For a quasi-historical setting/game such as you're doing, this is cool.  I like it!

For a full-on fantasy setting/game I'd probably find it a bit disappointing, as I-as-player would already know far more of what's where than my PC likely would and that'd spoil some of the exploration piece for me.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> The flowchart is metaphorical, mostly. Although the more I’m thinking about it, I think we could likely breakdown all play into a flowchart of some kind. And I don’t think I’m introducing a new concept here, just this is what’s been bubbling in my mind.



I think there are some tensions in the notion of a "flowchart", because a flowchart implies a network of options/choices over time.

This can be at odds with "no myth" approaches, and I'm not 100% sure it works for dungeon-crawls either (I've heard dungeon maps described as "flowcharts", but I'm not sure I agree with that).

Maybe I'm taking your flowchart metaphor too literally? Moving on to the next quote . . .



hawkeyefan said:


> I think if we’re examining our play, our first step is to find out what are the points of discovery. What are the boxes on the flow chart?
> 
> Then I think we have to look at how they inform one another. How do the players go from one box to the next?
> 
> And then the next step may be to look at how the boxes and their connections are determined. Are they decided ahead of time by the GM? Are they procedurally generated in some random way? Are they based on player input in any way?



If the boxes and connections aren't determined ahead of time, I'm not entirely sure we have a flowchart.

Anyway, the two campaigns I've GMed where this was really a big thing were the second RM one, and my 4e one. In both of them I had a beginning sense of the cosmology, but it unfolded over time as (i) the players made moves that required me to establish more details, and (ii) I introduced new elements or new connections as part of the process of maintaining pressure on the players.

In the RM campaign one of the players maintained a chart of the relationships: it's attached. But it wouldn't have been possible to draw that chart at the start of the campaign. Just as one example: the chart has the PC Hideyo as an Animal Lord fallen from the heavens; but at the start of the campaign everyone (including me and his player) thought that the character was an ordinary fox who had managed to "improve" himself into human form (along the lines of the movie Green Snake).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> As I've posted upthread, I am trying to get a handle on some differences of technique.
> 
> When you are counting hexes to gauge distances, what follows from that? I'm guessing _passage of time _calculated via movement speeds. And therefore encounters?
> 
> As I already posted, when the PCs in my Prince Valiant game crossed the Balkan Peninsula from Dalmatia to the Dacian Black Sea they only had two encounters, neither random: the Huns and the ghosts.




It can reflect time. It definitely is a reflection of how long it takes to get from A to B in the setting, and generally each hex is a day's travel and warrants one survival check to see if encounters or difficulties arise. It also indicates things like the time it takes to send messages through the imperial postal service or by messenger pigeon.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> This is just a question and is not a trick or a trap.



I wanted to add - that's not very Gygaxian of you!


----------



## Fenris-77

@pemerton  Sure, I can expand. Moat campaigns still need some kind of map, some kind of guide to what is where and how far. The exact need really depends on the campaign. For a city, in any setting, it might be as little as a map of neighborhoods or sectors,  or something really detailed with all the building and alleys detailed. In your case you didnt need maps of the castles, which is fine, your game obviously didnt need them. If someone wanted to run an infiltration scenario in those same castles then they might need a map.

I've run D&D with maps not much different from your maps of Europe, and little in the way of scenario or encounter maps. I've also run keyed hexcrawls. It just depends on what you need. Knowing what 'that' is a key GM skill.

Really it comes down to the breakpoint of what players can keep in their head without risking confusion. I can't think of a campaign that would require no maps at all though. Im sure there are examples but those examples are going to be niche, IMO.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> For the purposes of this thread I think what is important is the player facing side, or the output side of the things we're talking about. Pure GM organization isn't really that novel, nor does it bear on agency in and of itself. Social and faction interactions can be complex to run and can be baffling for players who don't have those GM notes to fall back on, even if their character would know at least some of the details in question.
> 
> So how do our various techinques, tools, and mechanics impact the decision making processes of our players? Do they make players more capable of formulating a plan without constant GM help, more knowledable about the setting and how it works, more able to bring thier character mechanics to bear on problem solving, or less?




Again, I think we come at this very much from a different perspective, so if your starting point for agency is it requires player facing techniques or mechanics, then this approach isn't going to work for you. For us, this allows us to engage with the specifics of what is going on in a way that feels right to us. None of us would claim it is novel (though you do see the occasional novel technique crop up from time to time). Our focus is on what works, and for a large number of people engaged in the style it works. Clearly though there are people who have difficulty with this approach (such as the players you mention who are baffled by the social interaction and faction component). I think that is why having alternative approaches is good. But I am not convinced that player facing stuff produces more agency. I just think the agency debate is at a bit of an impasse. 

One thing I will say here, is most of how players become aware of the sects and people in the jianghu, is through interacting with the setting, talking to NPCs, and through things like knowledge rolls (we have a Sect knowledge mechanic, a places knowledge mechanic, etc). But mostly, the longer players exist in the setting, the more familiar they become with it, and the more organically this stuff arises (i.e. a player who is head of a sect or part of a sect and been playing in the campaign for a year, will know all the major players). This works especially well if the players start out as nobodies, who know no one, and are rising up in the martial world.


----------



## Fenris-77

I've seen dungeons drawn as flowcharts, it works fine,  even if it isn't much on aesthetics. The more complicated the physical layout the less optimal the flowchart is, naturally.


----------



## Fenris-77

@Bedrockgames  The more complex the faction set, and the more intricate their various entanglements, the less likely it is that a player is going to successfully keep all that info stored in his head and be able to access it later when it might become important.

I'm not mandating for bespoke mechanics here at all. What I am interested in is how these various ways of doing things affect our players, and the extent to which any of us even consider that when we're designing adventures and campaigns. So how does your way if running factions impact your players? What knobs and dials do they have to access information and act on it? That sort of thing.

I notice you talk about players starting off as nobodies. That does allow for some organic growth in player setting knowledge. What would you do differently if the starting characters were supposed to be knowledgable about the setting and its factions, but this was not reflected by matching player knowledge?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> So if the goals might be to accrue wealth and magic relics (a pretty classic motivation) then that likely means that there is treasure to be had, right? Which implies a geographical map with locations that may offer treasure of some sort.
> 
> So, again to kind of view this is a flowchart.....there's likely a home base town as the starting point, with a few options for potential treasure hunting as other boxes in the flowchart. Things like "the ruined temple" and "the cave of the lizardfolk" and "the dungeon of lunacy" and so on.
> 
> Now, these boxes need not be set ahead of time, but I'm kind of assuming that's the case based on what folks have been saying about the sandbox style. They could just as easily be generated procedurally through random charts and the like. They could just as easily be crafted according to actions declared by the players. There are multiple ways to do it, but let's go with "GM creates the setting prior to the start of play".



I just want to start with this.

As I've posted, at the start of the BW game where I'm a player Thurgon's sidekick Aramina had the Belief _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!_ That's an example of your goal of accruing wealth and magic relics.

The geographical map we were working with was the GH map. The GM started the action on the Ulek/Pomarj border, on the south/west side of the Jewel River. Established on that map are various forts and the like - we agreed that these were the old border forts. Thurgon and Aramina were travelling along that frontier on a hazily-defined mission (hazy at the table; not necessarily hazy in the fiction, but the details didn't matter at that point) among those abandoned forts and ruined homesteads. Pretty classic/traditional stuff.

The problem of _locations that may offer treasure of some sort_ was resolved via the Great Masters-wise check I've mentioned upthread, whereby Aramina remembered (in general terms) the nearby location of Evard's tower.

This is an example of your _crafted according to actions declared by the players_. At this point, and especially after the discussions of my Prince Valiant example where it was the players who introduced (by way of assumption, not assertion) the fact that the ghosts were Celts, I'm less clear than ever on what the boundaries of "sandbox" are and why this doesn't count.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> @Bedrockgames  The more complex the faction set, and the more intricate their various entanglements, the less likely it is that a player is going to successfully keep all that info stored in his head and be able to access it later when it might become important.




My players are pretty good at remembering this stuff (sometimes better than me to be honest). But usually this is managed by them taking notes. I am also happy to repeat information if they need it. In practice this hasn't really been a problem when I've run campaigns like this. Honestly the biggest problem isn't on the player side at all, the biggest problem is on the GM side and tracking all the little things the players do, all the little operations they have going on, all the resources they are amassing, that is where I've run into much bigger issues (and the solution there is keep very good notes and track everything consistently).


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> You don’t sit down to a new campaign, having built this fictional world for the players, with any kind of expectations?



In terms of generalities i.e. that adventuring will be done, magic will be cast, and fun will be had: yes.

In terms of specifics, I've learned to temper any expectations with a huge grain of salt, as I've no way of knowing what my players or their PCs are going to do after the first adventure (which I usually kinda force somehow just to get them started).

As an example: over all my playing and DMing career I had somehow managed to avoid touching Keep on the Borderlands either as player or DM, and so for this campaign my take was "Dammit - I'm starting with KotB come what may!".  The players were cool with this - three of them had also never touched it and the fourth played it about 25 years prior and had forgotten nearly all of it - and so that was the game's first adventure.  After that it became much more open-ended; even more so as the party split in two and I started running twice a week at that point.


hawkeyefan said:


> I mean, that can’t be true. What guides you when you craft the fictional world? You have to be thinking “oh this would be a cool place for them to go” or “I’m interested to see how they might deal with this guy”.



To some extent.  What guides me more is making sure things like geograpical features make sense (or have an in-fiction rationale if they don't), that the history is halfway cohesive, and that I've left enough blanks both in history and geography to allow for later developments (or later ideas!) to fill them in.

And sure, there's an element of "wouldn't it be cool if...", but there's also an element of "if they ever want to go this way, how are they going to get over/under/through that mountain range...".  As for important NPCs, I create some ahead of time in full knowledge that the players/PCs might never engage with them, or that said engagement might be one-and-done if-when it happens.  Many of the NPCs that turned out to be important were created almost on the fly during play at the time, and expanded upon since.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm not mandating for bespoke mechanics here at all. What I am interested in is how these various ways of doing things affect our players, and the extent to which any of us even consider that when we're designing adventures and campaigns. So how does your way if running factions impact your players? What knobs and dials do they have to access information and act on it? That sort of thing.
> 
> I notice you talk about players starting off as nobodies. That does allow for some organic growth in player setting knowledge. What would you do differently if the starting characters were supposed to be knowledgable about the setting and its factions, but this was not reflected by matching player knowledge?




Again, I think there is a difference in how we conceptualize things. I don't think in terms of knobs and dials. I think of the setting first. The player may ask me a question for instance (what are the sects in the region and what do I know about them), and I may give an answer based on a mechanic, or I may simply provide the information if there is an in setting reason that character ought to know those things. It very much always starts with what is happening, what is going on with the setting, how would the PC have access to this information, and working from there. This is not an attempt to side step the question, it is just my approach is very fluid, and I think very much in terms of the setting, then loosely applying the mechanics as needed. Another thing I do use is information networks. This is not a formal part of the rules but it is something I often do because players have so often organically formed some kind of information network in the setting. Basically I assign an information network a dice pool of 0d10 to 6d10. The players roll that pool against the target number for information when using their information network. 

If the players are supposed to start with knowledge of sects, and they don't have it. I would probably give them a handout breaking down what they know of the various sects. I haven't run too many sessions like that though. Usually they start at level 1 and work their way up (and if they make a higher level character later on, they've already been playing in the campaign for a bit so they have that info in their head). 

Also, just as a technical answer to this question, the rulebook for WHOG is divided into player chapters (which the GM obviously reads too) and GM chapters. Chapter Six (the sect chapter) is the last player chapter before the GM chapters start. So the players can read the sect entries in the rulebook if they want to. The NPCs, the setting entries, monsters, etc are all in the later GM chapters.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> Their characterization of their character?




How so? Think of a player and their character. How did their characterization shape that character's goals? What did you as GM do to either facilitate those goals or to challenge those goals?



FrogReaver said:


> In a sandbox, I convey important world information to them.




How do you do this? through straight narration? Through NPCs? Do the players have to have their characters interact with the right people/objects/locations to learn this information?



FrogReaver said:


> I place interesting situations in front of them.




Like what? I'm looking for examples. What do you think may be interesting? How do you decide that? Is it based on the players and you knowing their tastes? Is it more broad than that? Is it more specific?



FrogReaver said:


> That may be their goal right now.  But they may change goals anytime.  It's not enough to just put a map out there with treasures and treasure locations in this style.




Yes, of course. I'm not saying this is the only goal or best goal or anything like that. Just that it may be a goal, and if it is, then locations for treasure are going to be something that the GM needs to bring to the table. Right?



FrogReaver said:


> A map is important as some sense of where places and people are can be important - especially when the players are up against a clock as the physical distances between these places often limit what can be done quickly enough.




Maybe. My point is that the map is more of an illusion in a sense. 



FrogReaver said:


> Nothing.  I tell them about the world and the people and places in it.




That's not nothing! 

My question is how do you do this? I'm not looking for vague descriptions like "I share details with them" or "It's a living world" or any of that. I'm more asking "A bog witch named Yargessa knows the location of the lost tomb, so they must seek her out, but she can only be found in the swamp" or "Performing research in the great library requires a check; for every 5 points of the total roll, the PC learns one fact from table R."


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Not really. The campaign is the entire region. The sect war was a module intended to demonstrate what a sect war looks like. Usually I try to avoid creating an angle for the campaign and instead see what the PCs are interested in doing.




How do you find out what they're interested in doing? Are they familiar with the setting to the point that they can set their own agenda? 

Or do you share information with them in some way? If so, how do you share it? Through the characters? Through narration? Do you ask the players what their characters goals may be and then craft elements of the fiction accordingly? 

I'm trying to move away from the vague language and into some specific examples.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Fenris-77 said:


> For the purposes of this thread I think what is important is the player facing side, or the output side of the things we're talking about. Pure GM organization isn't really that novel, nor does it bear on agency in and of itself. Social and faction interactions can be complex to run and can be baffling for players who don't have those GM notes to fall back on, even if their character would know at least some of the details in question.
> 
> So how do our various techinques, tools, and mechanics impact the decision making processes of our players? Do they make players more capable of formulating a plan without constant GM help, more knowledable about the setting and how it works, more able to bring thier character mechanics to bear on problem solving, or less?




Right, this is what I'm getting at. I thought the visualization of the flowchart might help, but that only confused the matter more!


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> To lean on your linked blog post about the War of the Swarming Beggars, you say the below:
> 
> <snip quote>
> 
> How was it discovered when you GMed this material?
> 
> Does Twin-Fisted Eagle reach out to the PCs? Do they hear of him by reputation and seek him out? So it sounds like you have two factions set up in conflict and the PCs are kind of in the middle, free to join one side or the other, or play them against each other, or whatever.
> 
> This is what I mean when I ask what play is meant to be about. It's the central premise of the campaign, seemingly.
> 
> So to kind of place this into my idea of a flowchart.....Twin-Fisted Eagle might be one box and Yellow Mantis/Southern Hill Sect would be another. How do they get from one to the other? What other boxes would be between these two?
> 
> Maybe they pursue another ally? Maybe they try to get the Thousand Deaths Flower from Iron Temple? How do they know of these allies or items? How are these introduced into play?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> How would the players learn that The Crocodile Sect might be a willing ally? How would they go about securing their aid? What might they have to do?



In contradiction of my use of "just" in my previous post, I'll say something about this too!

The most recent "faction"-oriented campaign I've GMed is my current Classic Traveller one.

At the start of the campaign there was a single faction - the bioweapon conspirators - whom the PCs were recruited by. (But at the start only one of them, the PC spy, worked out the nature of the conspiracy. The others just thought they were transporting some medical gear from one world to another.) In mechanical terms this was handled as a patron encounter, with me - as GM - introducing the details in a way that seemed to speak to established backstories and starting dispositions of the PCs.

On the destination world the PCs met someone - another, later-introduced PC - who had herself been a victim of and test-subject for the conspirators. Around this point they turned against the conspirators and dobbed them in to the local authorities. They also learned about a break-away group of conspirators operating from an abandoned army base on this world and travelled there in their ATV and shot them up. The background here was established no-myth style.

Around this point one of the players had his PC take the necessary steps to trigger another patron encounter. I built on this to have it be a civilian Imperial operative who retained the PCs to uncover details of what was happening on the conspirators' base world. This also helped solidify an emerging idea that the conspirators were a rogue group involving both civilian (Scout Service) and military (Naval and Marine personnel) elements of the Imperial government. (I wrote up a couple of pages outlining the workings/structures of these Imperial agencies at some early point during the campaign, drawing from and weaving together a mix of official and old White Dwarf material)

The players had their PCs take on this mission, and ended up destroying the conspirators' base and stealing their ship (the laboratory vessel St Christopher). During these episodes of play (3 or 4 sessions) I also took the opportunity to introduce further elements into the shared fiction, responding to evinced player interests and riffing off things the players said and had their PCs do - these involved aliens and psionics, which is where the campaign has mostly headed for the past 10 sessions. In the course of that another faction has been introduced - the Imperial Navy trying to suppress psionic activity.

The current state of the campaign - as I've said a bit about upthread - is bringing some of these things together: the PCs are exploring the psionically-inclined alien site on Zinion; they have an Imperial Naval Commander on their side, but she either doesn't know or is in denial about the PCs' psionic inclinations; the naval armada the PCs earlier escaped from is apparently on its way across the galactic rift; and also, last session, the players (and some of their PCs) learned that Leila Lo, the previous owner of the St Christopher who is still part of their "team" has not given up on bioweapons conspiracy.

To elaborate on that last point: the noble PC Vincenzo von Hallucida won the St Christopher from Leila in a game of chance played amid the rubble of the bioweapons conspirators' base, and the relevant reaction roll and ensuing resolution established that there were no hard feelings on her part; so she stayed with the PCs, and has proved a valuable member of their group given she is both a surgeon and a starship pilot. Last session it was established (by me as GM narrating both the framing of a scene and some downstream wrap-u) that she had implanted spores taken from Vicenzo's lungs during surgery (after he breathed in "dust" on an alien starshi) into the body of an enemy NPC who was under her medical care; as a result the NPC had turned into an Alien which ran amuck on the St Christopher while it was in jump space.

I tend to prefer this sort of "snowball" approach to trying to set it all up in advance. I've found - from experience, especially in running my first long RM campaign - that setting up in advance tends to produce wasted or redundant work, because you don't know at that stage what details will and won't be necessary. The "snowball" approach also makes it easier to make sure that whatever I'm doing as GM is also relevant to what the players are interested in.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Maybe I'm taking your flowchart metaphor too literally? Moving on to the next quote . . .




Yup! My bad.....it was something that I pictured that seemed clear to me, but obviously I didn't convey it clearly. 

I was just thinking of boxes on the flow charts as the "points of interest" and then the lines between the boxes as "the techniques or processes used by the GM to help the players engage with these points of interest". 




pemerton said:


> I just want to start with this.
> 
> As I've posted, at the start of the BW game where I'm a player Thurgon's sidekick Aramina had the Belief _I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!_ That's an example of your goal of accruing wealth and magic relics.
> 
> The geographical map we were working with was the GH map. The GM started the action on the Ulek/Pomarj border, on the south/west side of the Jewel River. Established on that map are various forts and the like - we agreed that these were the old border forts. Thurgon and Aramina were travelling along that frontier on a hazily-defined mission (hazy at the table; not necessarily hazy in the fiction, but the details didn't matter at that point) among those abandoned forts and ruined homesteads. Pretty classic/traditional stuff.
> 
> The problem of _locations that may offer treasure of some sort_ was resolved via the Great Masters-wise check I've mentioned upthread, whereby Aramina remembered (in general terms) the nearby location of Evard's tower.
> 
> This is an example of your _crafted according to actions declared by the players_. At this point, and especially after the discussions of my Prince Valiant example where it was the players who introduced (by way of assumption, not assertion) the fact that the ghosts were Celts, I'm less clear than ever on what the boundaries of "sandbox" are and why this doesn't count.




Right, that's the kind of stuff I mean! There's a lot of vague language being used, so I'm driving for something more concrete.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In Burning Wheel the ban on retries ("Let it Ride") is interesting because it cuts against the GM as well as the player.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As it does in 1e also, if the DM is true to the principles of the game as regards her NPCs if-when they try similar things.
Click to expand...


That's not what I meant. Let it Ride limits the power of the GM to call for further checks from the players.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> In terms of generalities i.e. that adventuring will be done, magic will be cast, and fun will be had: yes.
> 
> In terms of specifics, I've learned to temper any expectations with a huge grain of salt, as I've no way of knowing what my players or their PCs are going to do after the first adventure (which I usually kinda force somehow just to get them started).




Okay, this is what I mean. You start with a specific adventure. Do you mean a specific published module? Or one of your own design? Or can it vary by group?



Lanefan said:


> As an example: over all my playing and DMing career I had somehow managed to avoid touching Keep on the Borderlands either as player or DM, and so for this campaign my take was "Dammit - I'm starting with KotB come what may!".  The players were cool with this - three of them had also never touched it and the fourth played it about 25 years prior and had forgotten nearly all of it - and so that was the game's first adventure.  After that it became much more open-ended; even more so as the party split in two and I started running twice a week at that point.




Okay, cool. That's a perfectly good starting point, thank you. Where did it go from there?

Like, when the party split.....why? They must have had a reason....how did they come to this decision? Meaning, what information did they need, and how was this information provided to them?



Lanefan said:


> To some extent.  What guides me more is making sure things like geograpical features make sense (or have an in-fiction rationale if they don't), that the history is halfway cohesive, and that I've left enough blanks both in history and geography to allow for later developments (or later ideas!) to fill them in.
> 
> And sure, there's an element of "wouldn't it be cool if...", but there's also an element of "if they ever want to go this way, how are they going to get over/under/through that mountain range...".  As for important NPCs, I create some ahead of time in full knowledge that the players/PCs might never engage with them, or that said engagement might be one-and-done if-when it happens.  Many of the NPCs that turned out to be important were created almost on the fly during play at the time, and expanded upon since.




But if you don't give them some kind of prompt.....a map found in a treasure hoard, a rumor heard in an inn, a reward poster on a community board......absent those kinds of prompts, how do your players know what to engage with? Are they that familiar with your setting that they can simply set their own agenda? 

Everyone's talking about "players get to do whatever they want" so I'm trying to understand how those wants might develop.


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> Really it comes down to the breakpoint of what players can keep in their head without risking confusion. I can't think of a campaign that would require no maps at all though. Im sure there are examples but those examples are going to be niche, IMO.



In my MHRP campaign we haven't used maps, but maybe that doesn't count? The action started in Washington, DC and has also taken place down the east coast of the US and over Florida (an aerial battle between War Machine and Titanium Man) and in Tokyo (most of the PCs tracking down the Silver Samurai/clan Yashida elements and bumping into Wolverine who was looking for the kidnapped Mariko).

In my Cortex+ Heroic Vikings campaign we haven't used maps. The PCs mostly go north but occasionally have gone south. We did a dungeon but maps weren't needed. I just used Scene Distinctions to establish relevant features. I've done terrain the same way.

My Classic Traveller game has a starmap, and we have plans for some of the ships (one that come with published plans; I haven't drawn any) and some of the bases the PCs explore (ditto). We've never had a world-surface map.

I'm not really trying to contradict you here - I know you're not being dogmatic in your post - but I do have an agenda: I think that RPGing has inherited a bit of a map fetish from its wargaming origins, and I think breaking away from that a little bit isn't necessarily a bad thing.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> But if you don't give them some kind of prompt.....a map found in a treasure hoard, a rumor heard in an inn, a reward poster on a community board......absent those kinds of prompts, how do your players know what to engage with? Are they that familiar with your setting that they can simply set their own agenda?
> 
> Everyone's talking about "players get to do whatever they want" so I'm trying to understand how those wants might develop.



I don't claim to run complete sandboxes, but in the campaigns I run, the PCs have things in (at least some of) their backgrounds, and they find things as they adventure--sometimes they find those things by accident (from their POV) and sometimes they find those things by intent. By the time the PCs get to mid-high level, they can pick and choose among things from their background/s and from prior campaign events.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> How do you find out what they're interested in doing? .




They make decisions in the game setting and that indicates where they want to go (or they ask me questions like "is there a school here that teaches sabres techniques). It ins't like a menu where they say "I want the high adventure with a dash of romance please". It is more handled through their characters and setting. 




> Are they familiar with the setting to the point that they can set their own agenda?



Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. The longer they play, the more familiar they become. When they first start out, they have a more narrow field of vision. 




> Or do you share information with them in some way? If so, how do you share it? Through the characters? Through narration? Do you ask the players what their characters goals may be and then craft elements of the fiction accordingly?




This really depends. If they have goals, they can share those with me. It doesn't mean I am going to craft adventures around them. It is more about what their characters actively do in the setting. I try to make my settings comprehensive enough to handle all kinds of campaigns. That is why there are dungeons, there is wilderness, there are supernatural threats, but there are also sects, heroes, politics, etc. The players are pretty free to set an agenda and pursue it, they just have to do that through their characters. As an example one of the campaigns that we had, one of the players was focused on building alliances with different groups and forming a secret powerful sect made up of many key members of the martial world (but they all assumed disguises when serving the secret sects interest: this I believe I added to the War of Swarmign beggars material). However two other players in the group were less interested in that, so they decided to help him achieve his bigger goal, by seeking out manuals and artifacts that would increase the sect's prestige and power. So they basically went on a bunch of adventures that were more like heists and dungeon crawls (which is what those players felt like doing). I have no problem running a split party (as long as things don't get too disconnected). Once the other player had established this power base, they returned to help him manage things. 

Everything is pretty much through the characters. The players can definitely talk to me, but most of our conversations tend to be about what is possible for their characters to achieve. That said I do listen to what my players want. I'll give an example. 

In the Disposable Disciples campaign, the players came into conflict with the House of Paper Shadows, an organization that is intentionally mysteries in the setting (all they really knew about it was it had these supernatural shadow puppets that did its bidding, and it had a vast information network). One of the players told me at the end of a session that he was planning on attacking the house of paper shadows next week. Because this was a very important organization and I didn't have much material on it, and I knew it would take me at least two weeks to research what I needed and flesh it out, I said he can do that, but could he wait three weeks so I have time to prepare (because I had only a rough sense of what existed in their headquarters). This is something I don't mind doing at all. There is a location, the players want to go there, I genuinely don't have enough information and it seems too big to just ad lib (I could have ad libbed it if I had to but I just think it wouldn't have been underwhelming if I had). That way I was able to just think for a straight week about what it ought to be, then set to work on fleshing it out and mapping it out. It worked very well. I was quite happy with how it came out and the player seemed happy that I put the work in.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> In my MHRP campaign we haven't used maps, but maybe that doesn't count? The action started in Washington, DC and has also taken place down the east coast of the US and over Florida (an aerial battle between War Machine and Titanium Man) and in Tokyo (most of the PCs tracking down the Silver Samurai/clan Yashida elements and bumping into Wolverine who was looking for the kidnapped Mariko).
> 
> In my Cortex+ Heroic Vikings campaign we haven't used maps. The PCs mostly go north but occasionally have gone south. We did a dungeon but maps weren't needed. I just used Scene Distinctions to establish relevant features. I've done terrain the same way.
> 
> My Classic Traveller game has a starmap, and we have plans for some of the ships (one that come with published plans; I haven't drawn any) and some of the bases the PCs explore (ditto). We've never had a world-surface map.
> 
> I'm not really trying to contradict you here - I know you're not being dogmatic in your post - but I do have an agenda: I think that RPGing has inherited a bit of a map fetish from its wargaming origins, and I think breaking away from that a little bit isn't necessarily a bad thing.



I don't disagree with you that TRPGs have historically overemphasized maps--I never do anything for cities that's more than the neighborhoods in relation to each other, and I've never done anything for larger areas other than overall continent-ish map/s. That said, I don't think having done some sort of maps is a bad thing: I find they help with consistency and with letting the players/characters have an idea of where things are.

I also think I agree with your implication that the Supers campaign is something of a special case: I've never played a Supers game that used anything other than the occasional tactical map (if the game in question had tactical movement, of course).


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> In my MHRP campaign we haven't used maps, but maybe that doesn't count? The action started in Washington, DC and has also taken place down the east coast of the US and over Florida (an aerial battle between War Machine and Titanium Man) and in Tokyo (most of the PCs tracking down the Silver Samurai/clan Yashida elements and bumping into Wolverine who was looking for the kidnapped Mariko).




I think anytime you are in our world, it is easier to run things without maps. I often set my mafia campaigns around Boston (where I live) for that very reason, it is just very easy to know an NPC has a house in Lynn or Malden (and we all have a sense of the geography there, to the point that we can even say what neighborhood or street and it will have meaning). If you do need to look stuff up, google maps works. But you don't really need a map when someone says I drive to the mall, and you know how long that takes.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> A map is important as some sense of where places and people are can be important - especially when the players are up against a clock as the physical distances between these places often limit what can be done quickly enough.



The use of maps (together with movement rates?) to resolve actions as described here is one particular technique. Ron Edwards has some nice discussions of it (eg in The Right to Dream essay I linked to upthread).

I think it puts a lot of pressure on the GM to be accurate and "fair" in relation both to the details of the map and the details of time spent. Classic dungeon handle this through (i) their fine-grained mapping down to the last 5' or 10', (ii) their relative sparseness of detail, and (iii) established conventions about how much time passes taking certain core actions (like searching a room or forcing open a door).

If the setting is a city, or a forest, each of (i) to (iii) comes under pressure: it becomes hard or impossible to have such fine-grained mapping, and there is more detail than can be recorded in notes, and the suite of actions becomes too broad to be easily handled via dungeoneering-like conventions about the time required.

I therefore tend to handle this sort of action (_can we get from A to B in time_) via opposed checks (or perhaps checks against a difficulty if it's not a race) and then use the map (if there is one) to help contribute to the colour of the consequence narration.

(A footnote: Classic Traveller starmaps together with its rule for interstellar travel _do _satisfy the (i) through (iii) constraints. It's one of the clever conceits of the system.)


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> I don't disagree with you that TRPGs have historically overemphasized maps--I never do anything for cities that's more than the neighborhoods in relation to each other, and I've never done anything for larger areas other than overall continent-ish map/s. That said, I don't think having done some sort of maps is a bad thing: I find they help with consistency and with letting the players/characters have an idea of where things are.
> 
> I also think I agree with your implication that the Supers campaign is something of a special case: I've never played a Supers game that used anything other than the occasional tactical map (if the game in question had tactical movement, of course).



We had a multi-location battle in Washington at one stage: War Machine hung his opponent from the top of the Washington Monument, while Iceman froze the pond/moat at its base to trap someone, and Nightcrawler teleported to the top of the Capitol Dome where he abandoned a supervillain after proposing marriage to her (and broke her heart the next day by not turning up) and he then teleported to the Smithsonian.

I've never been to Washington but one or two of the players have. I don't know how much, if any, geography we mucked up in ways that might matter, but free narration of the locations seemed to work.

Also on neighbourhoods: I've lived in the same neighbourhood for 20+ years. It's inner city and has many little sidestreets and lanes (these were once for carrying out the "night soil" and many of them still remain). About a week ago I discovered a little side-street that runs for about 2 blocks, less than 1 km from my house, that I reckon I've never known about before. My partner reckons I have, but if she's right I'd certainly forgotten it completely, because the surprise when I discovered it was genuine.

This is why in urban contexts I think you just add in what you need to make the unfolding fiction work!


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## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, this is what I mean. You start with a specific adventure. Do you mean a specific published module? Or one of your own design? Or can it vary by group?



I've only ever started three campaigns (ignoring one-offs) so it's a pretty small sample size, but in order it went: homebrew, homebrew, published.


hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, cool. That's a perfectly good starting point, thank you. Where did it go from there?
> 
> Like, when the party split.....why? They must have had a reason....how did they come to this decision? Meaning, what information did they need, and how was this information provided to them?



On the meta-level: a new player wanted to come in, and two of the existing players had extra characters and were willing to start a second party; so those two plus the new one started party (B) on Fridays while the original four players (including those two) carried on with (A) on Sundays.  Not too long after, another new player came in to (B).

In the fiction, things found/seen/encountered during KotB and the lands around it opened up a raft of further adventuring opportunities (i.e there were hooks dangling all over the place!).  Party A followed up on one, party B was going to follow up on another but then kinda blundered right into a third when it fell into their laps.  And note this was all completely gonzo - their run through KotB might never be matched again for the sheer insanity that went on, nor for the level of hilarity and entertainment we all found in it - and that tone prevailed for quite some time after, though a bit less so in (B) due to the addition of different players.


hawkeyefan said:


> But if you don't give them some kind of prompt.....a map found in a treasure hoard, a rumor heard in an inn, a reward poster on a community board......absent those kinds of prompts, how do your players know what to engage with? Are they that familiar with your setting that they can simply set their own agenda?



Heh - sometimes I go the other route: there's more prompts than they can ever hope to deal with, so they have to pick and choose which one(s) to act on.  Or, as happens occasionally, they manage to ignore the lot of 'em... 


hawkeyefan said:


> Everyone's talking about "players get to do whatever they want" so I'm trying to understand how those wants might develop.


----------



## prabe

pemerton said:


> We had a multi-location battle in Washington at one stage: War Machine hung his opponent from the top of the Washington Monument, while Iceman froze the pond/moat at its base to trap someone, and Nightcrawler teleported to the top of the Capitol Dome where he abandoned a supervillain after proposing marriage to her (and broke her heart the next day by not turning up) and he then teleported to the Smithsonian.
> 
> I've never been to Washington but one or two of the players have. I don't know how much, if any, geography we mucked up in ways that might matter, but free narration of the locations seemed to work.



I've lived in the DC area for most of my life. I've always derived amusement from watching how film and TV (and to a lesser extent novels) get the geography wrong. I'm sure you didn't make any mistakes a non-native would catch. 

(FWIW, if the body of water Iceman froze was rectangular, it was the Reflecting Pool; if it was irregular, it was the Tidal basin.  )


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## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> We had a multi-location battle in Washington at one stage: War Machine hung his opponent from the top of the Washington Monument, while Iceman froze the pond/moat at its base to trap someone, and Nightcrawler teleported to the top of the Capitol Dome where he abandoned a supervillain after proposing marriage to her (and broke her heart the next day by not turning up) and he then teleported to the Smithsonian.
> 
> I've never been to Washington but one or two of the players have. I don't know how much, if any, geography we mucked up in ways that might matter, but free narration of the locations seemed to work.
> 
> Also on neighbourhoods: I've lived in the same neighbourhood for 20+ years. It's inner city and has many little sidestreets and lanes (these were once for carrying out the "night soil" and many of them still remain). About a week ago I discovered a little side-street that runs for about 2 blocks, less than 1 km from my house, that I reckon I've never known about before. My partner reckons I have, but if she's right I'd certainly forgotten it completely, because the surprise when I discovered it was genuine.
> 
> This is why in urban contexts I think you just add in what you need to make the unfolding fiction work!



This is quite similar to how the city 'map' in the Dresden Files in handled. You could use a city map if you wanted, but mostly the characters just decide where their going and then get there, no navigation needed. The campaign is more focused on the places associated with factions and investigation as set dressing rather than being concerns with their physical relationship in space. That makes great sense in a modern or futuristic city setting, _especially_ for a Supers game IMO.

I agree with your sentiments here, both that the need for maps is overblown in many cases, and also that a GM should use whatever maps he actually needs to run the game he wants to run. I think a lot of GMs might over prep and overuse maps. What's more, too much map can be, IMO anyway, a real distraction for the players in some cases.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I don't claim to run complete sandboxes, but in the campaigns I run, the PCs have things in (at least some of) their backgrounds, and they find things as they adventure--sometimes they find those things by accident (from their POV) and sometimes they find those things by intent. By the time the PCs get to mid-high level, they can pick and choose among things from their background/s and from prior campaign events.




That’s cool. It sounds similar to my 5E campaign and how we do things, at least as far as I can tell.

What kinds of things do the PCs have as agendas? What kind of background details shape their goals? 

In my own campaign, we have a fighter who is a Neutral human. He took the soldier background and determined that he was a mercenary. This was the first PC the player made for 5E (this was when it first came out) and the player specifically wanted to just focus on mechanics and so on. The character was almost a blank slate. 

But through play, we established that he’d been a member of a righteous mercenary company, but eventually left. He had a dwarf cleric companion that became a NPC and later a PC. With the players’ input, we determined that the merc company lost its leader, and the new one who took over started taking on less righteous work. That NPC and the merc company became ongoing foils for the PCs. 

Each of the PCs has similar stuff going on. Most of them have been incorporated into ongoing events to one extent or other. 

How do you guys handle it?


----------



## Fenris-77

I'll take any opportunity, at any time, to connect a character to the larger setting. Nothing (very few things?), IMO, fosters investment or immersion more.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> That’s cool. It sounds similar to my 5E campaign and how we do things, at least as far as I can tell.
> 
> What kinds of things do the PCs have as agendas? What kind of background details shape their goals?



In one campaign, it's been mostly PCs who'd lost either their whole family or their home village (after the rest of their family moved). There's another who's kinda obsessed with elemental stuff.

In the other campaign, it's mostly a PC whose lover disappeared prior to the campaign's start; the party has since found they're a "guest" of a fey noble. There are further details to be worked out. There's another PC who has ... history with diabolists, and another who is struggling with her attitude/s toward people in authority.


hawkeyefan said:


> How do you guys handle it?



I ask for backstories for the PCs, but it's voluntary: I get written backstories from about half the players, overall. Other motivations arise during play, as favors that need repaid, places to find information/treasure, whatever. After the initial adventure sequence (I kick off campaigns by throwing smelly stuff at a convenient fan) the party can choose from among the various things they have pending, from whatever source.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> They make decisions in the game setting and that indicates where they want to go (or they ask me questions like "is there a school here that teaches sabres techniques). It ins't like a menu where they say "I want the high adventure with a dash of romance please". It is more handled through their characters and setting.
> 
> 
> 
> Sometimes they are, sometimes they are not. The longer they play, the more familiar they become. When they first start out, they have a more narrow field of vision.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This really depends. If they have goals, they can share those with me. It doesn't mean I am going to craft adventures around them. It is more about what their characters actively do in the setting. I try to make my settings comprehensive enough to handle all kinds of campaigns. That is why there are dungeons, there is wilderness, there are supernatural threats, but there are also sects, heroes, politics, etc. The players are pretty free to set an agenda and pursue it, they just have to do that through their characters. As an example one of the campaigns that we had, one of the players was focused on building alliances with different groups and forming a secret powerful sect made up of many key members of the martial world (but they all assumed disguises when serving the secret sects interest: this I believe I added to the War of Swarmign beggars material). However two other players in the group were less interested in that, so they decided to help him achieve his bigger goal, by seeking out manuals and artifacts that would increase the sect's prestige and power. So they basically went on a bunch of adventures that were more like heists and dungeon crawls (which is what those players felt like doing). I have no problem running a split party (as long as things don't get too disconnected). Once the other player had established this power base, they returned to help him manage things.
> 
> Everything is pretty much through the characters. The players can definitely talk to me, but most of our conversations tend to be about what is possible for their characters to achieve. That said I do listen to what my players want. I'll give an example.
> 
> In the Disposable Disciples campaign, the players came into conflict with the House of Paper Shadows, an organization that is intentionally mysteries in the setting (all they really knew about it was it had these supernatural shadow puppets that did its bidding, and it had a vast information network). One of the players told me at the end of a session that he was planning on attacking the house of paper shadows next week. Because this was a very important organization and I didn't have much material on it, and I knew it would take me at least two weeks to research what I needed and flesh it out, I said he can do that, but could he wait three weeks so I have time to prepare (because I had only a rough sense of what existed in their headquarters). This is something I don't mind doing at all. There is a location, the players want to go there, I genuinely don't have enough information and it seems too big to just ad lib (I could have ad libbed it if I had to but I just think it wouldn't have been underwhelming if I had). That way I was able to just think for a straight week about what it ought to be, then set to work on fleshing it out and mapping it out. It worked very well. I was quite happy with how it came out and the player seemed happy that I put the work in.




Okay, so I get the sense that you design the setting and that you’re very thorough about it. 

What I’m asking about and struggling to see from your example is how your players learn of the goals they want for their players. You said it varies....and I get that. But without a specific example, it’s hard to gage. 

What are the nuts and bolts of how your players learn enough about the setting in order to craft their goals? Do you start with a setting gazetteer? Do you use random tables? Do you base it on geography? Like, if they talk to this person, they’ll learn about A and B, and if they talk to that person, they’ll learn about Y and Z. Then they can engage with whatever they want of those options.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Sorry, mate, but if you're thinking through that sequence every time a GM puts a forest in front of you you're taking this all *way* too seriously!



How else would one proceed then and actually play? When a GM says "You see a forest in front of you" then you, as a player, start to ask yourself questions:

1. Does the GM intend this forest to be an obstacle we must overcome, or is it just scenery? 
2. What sort of challenge does the forest represent? Is it filled with fearsome beasts, or is it a rich landscape with lots of game and bountiful firewood?
3. What sort of probabilities is the GM going to assign to different tasks, like navigating, finding food, avoiding encounters, etc.? How will that contrast with the difficulties WRT these things if we go up into the hills and avoid the forest? 

Probably a lot of what the players are going to think is going to be in terms of 'campaign logic' and 'logic of play'. Like, there wouldn't be a forest here for no reason, something about it is different from 'grassland' or whatever terrain we were in before. You might even think in terms of parsimony of play, like "we might as well go into the forest and deal with it, the GM has probably prepped something here and if we go around we'll undoubtedly still run into some sort of challenge, but it will likely be less crafted." These are all thoughts that go through my mind when I play, as a player. Obviously I can also resort to thinking in character, but when the level of detail in campaign worlds is fairly sparse, there's often not a lot to go on. It helps here to learn to ask a LOT of questions, and this is one reason that techniques like those espoused by DW can be handy, because they speed this up a lot!


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> How else would one proceed then and actually play? When a GM says "You see a forest in front of you" then you, as a player, start to ask yourself questions:
> 
> 1. Does the GM intend this forest to be an obstacle we must overcome, or is it just scenery?
> 2. What sort of challenge does the forest represent? Is it filled with fearsome beasts, or is it a rich landscape with lots of game and bountiful firewood?
> 3. What sort of probabilities is the GM going to assign to different tasks, like navigating, finding food, avoiding encounters, etc.? How will that contrast with the difficulties WRT these things if we go up into the hills and avoid the forest?



You as a player might think these things and in this degree of depth, but I rather suspect you'd be in a minority.

I - and I think most players - on something this mundane* would say or think "That's nice" and carry on; and whatever the forest turns out to be, that's what it'll be.  Maybe a small consideration for "what's in the forest" as per your #2 above, but that's it unless we were specifically heading to this forest for some particular reason.

* - exception: if the forest has suddenly appeared in a place in the setting where it was previously established there was no forest then we're all going to sit up, pay attention, and start asking questions such as where did it come from, why is it here, and did we just time-travel without noticing it.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> Probably a lot of what the players are going to think is going to be in terms of 'campaign logic' and 'logic of play'. Like, there wouldn't be a forest here for no reason, something about it is different from 'grassland' or whatever terrain we were in before. You might even think in terms of parsimony of play, like "we might as well go into the forest and deal with it, the GM has probably prepped something here and if we go around we'll undoubtedly still run into some sort of challenge, but it will likely be less crafted." These are all thoughts that go through my mind when I play, as a player. Obviously I can also resort to thinking in character, but when the level of detail in campaign worlds is fairly sparse, there's often not a lot to go on. It helps here to learn to ask a LOT of questions, and this is one reason that techniques like those espoused by DW can be handy, because they speed this up a lot!


----------



## Fenris-77

The forest is probably a tough example without some of the descriptive wrappings it would come with in a real game. Normally GMs, at the very least, telegraph a little bit of information via the description. So _a sun dappled forest grove, alive with butterflies_ would elicit different player responses than _a grim wood, with mist seeping between twisted trees. _Obviously I'm exaggerating a little for effect. The import of the forest is also conveyed by the fiction that has come before, and player expectations about where they are headed. In other words, context matters.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, so I get the sense that you design the setting and that you’re very thorough about it.
> 
> What I’m asking about and struggling to see from your example is how your players learn of the goals they want for their players. You said it varies....and I get that. But without a specific example, it’s hard to gage.
> 
> What are the nuts and bolts of how your players learn enough about the setting in order to craft their goals? Do you start with a setting gazetteer? Do you use random tables? Do you base it on geography? Like, if they talk to this person, they’ll learn about A and B, and if they talk to that person, they’ll learn about Y and Z. Then they can engage with whatever they want of those options.




It basically takes them coming into contact with the setting and asking questions about it (and developing a sense of the jianghu over time). Usually what they start out knowing depends on who they are. So it all begins with what sect they belong to, who their master is, what techniques they know, and what knowledges they take. It also depends on how independent they are. The disposable disciples campaign originated with a party who we largely free agents in the martial world, and they basically began by looking for ways to prove themselves locally (one of them if I recall started out a little murder hobo like, bullying some local thugs into serving under him for instance). 

A lot of this stuff can vary because it can arise from the setting details I have established (i.e. I know red claw gang is active in this area, and so if the players go around looking for local bullies, they stand a good chance of encountering Red Claw Gang members). Usually this kind of stated goal, I ask for a Survival roll for (and it kind of operates as a more fluid inversion of the encounter table). And Survival has a bunch of sub skills (so there is one for cities, one for wilderness, etc). So survival can also be used for things like moving from one district in a city to another district. But sometimes these details are things I just invent based on what seems plausible. For example I think the above bullying incident was in a tiny village, for which I had very little information and there wasn't a lot of sect activity in the area, so they were just a couple of nobody's bullying a local street vendor, who the player called out and attacked. Now, the moment I introduced them, I wrote down basic details and motives, Qi rank (level), and techniques. These guys were 0 level so they didn't really have much to throw at the player. This at least gave me enough information to know what social approaches would work with them, how they might respond to being defeated publicly, etc. I am hazy on the details as this was a long time ago, but it eventually led to them becoming aware of a group called the Demon Moon Cult, and when they had amassed enough of their own power, they plotted against its leader and turned the subchief of the organization against him, effectively taking control of the sect (again fuzzy on the details but I think the way they did this was the leader of the party became the disciple of the sub chief and was able to exert soft power over the organization through her: but it has been a long time and I could be way off----however these are the sorts of things that would happen in the campaign either way). Some of what they knew about the sect was from going to the sect and interacting with it, some was what they were told by other sects in the region and individuals they met. 

But in a different campaign as members of the same organization. And that organization had goals, which they were involved in. So that started them out with a basic package of knowledge (they knew about their own sect, they knew about the sects major rival, they knew about the important cities in the area where their sect did business, etc).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> What are the nuts and bolts of how your players learn enough about the setting in order to craft their goals? Do you start with a setting gazetteer? Do you use random tables? Do you base it on geography? Like, if they talk to this person, they’ll learn about A and B, and if they talk to that person, they’ll learn about Y and Z. Then they can engage with whatever they want of those options.




I answered some of this above, but no I don't share a setting gazetteer. I do have a sect section in my rulebook (which I mentioned in a prior post) and that is something the players can read if they are inclined. My general attitude is I never like to dump information like that on people before a game (I don't like giving anything that feels like homework). So instead I focus on questions and answers before a session usually if we need to establish what they know. We can also do that during the session, I don't particularly worry about stopping to explain things if they need some info. But I would say it is all very freeform and organic, and based on my sense of what characters would know (perhaps based on who they are, where they are, the occasional knowledge roll, etc). I don't usually get super specific (like this man in this village knows this, unless i am running a mystery or something). There are probably other ways things crop up in play. I basically do what feels natural. 

One impression I am getting from this conversation is you like clear procedures and it seems you probably like consistency too in that respect. My style is probably much more intuitive and hand wavy than yours. When I make a game for example, I may have a vision of how I want to run it, but I could care less if others cleave to that vision. They are free to run the game how they like. And in my own games I am not overly precious about any of this. 

Also I am pretty low ego as a GM. I am not the greatest GM in the world by any stretch, and freely admit to being a bit on the lazy side, but I also admit when I make errors to my players, I am pretty transparent about my thinking process and rationale when I make judgements, and all that goes a long way I find. I am also not an 'actor'. I have such a dry delivery sometimes I have to give my players additional descriptive information so they know if an NPC is being sarcastic or angry. 

One procedure or technique I do frequently use that may be of importance here is the long distance villain: LONG-DISTANCE VILLAINY

I did this two or three times in my Ogre Gate Campaign. Most recently in the Lady 87 campaign I had the player who played Bone Breaker in the original disposable disciples, play Scholar Han (a character who emerged as an antagonist to the party over the course of play). What this does is allows me to throw a villain at the party who is truly gloves off. While I embrace let the dice fall where they may and I have no compunction about killing PCs, you still are always restrained by a sense of fairness I find. So this helps shake things up. I make clear to the players that another player is taking on the villain role, has resources and is going all out against them. The only problem that arises with this is you can sometimes misunderstand or misapply the orders given the long distance villain (since that person is usually not at the table).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I answered some of this above, but no I don't share a setting gazetteer. I do have a sect section in my rulebook (which I mentioned in a prior post) and that is something the players can read if they are inclined. My general attitude is I never like to dump information like that on people before a game (I don't like giving anything that feels like homework). So instead I focus on questions and answers before a session usually if we need to establish what they know. We can also do that during the session, I don't particularly worry about stopping to explain things if they need some info. But I would say it is all very freeform and organic, and based on my sense of what characters would know (perhaps based on who they are, where they are, the occasional knowledge roll, etc). I don't usually get super specific (like this man in this village knows this, unless i am running a mystery or something). There are probably other ways things crop up in play. I basically do what feels natural.




Okay, that helps me get a sense. Survival skill as a kind of means of gathering info or understanding the local situation. Some freeform narration from NPCs and the like.



Bedrockgames said:


> One impression I am getting from this conversation is you like clear procedures and it seems you probably like consistency too in that respect. My style is probably much more intuitive and hand wavy than yours. When I make a game for example, I may have a vision of how I want to run it, but I could care less if others cleave to that vision. They are free to run the game how they like. And in my own games I am not overly precious about any of this.




It honestly depends on the game for me. My 5E campaign is pretty loose. Mostly because the rules system is a bit of a mixed bag. But I’m lucky enough that my group and I have been playing together for years and so we understand each other, and so we kind of run the game the way that we want to. So there are plenty of rules that we change or ignore or handwave away.

Now, having said that, I try to be aware of my procedures and how they impact players’ decisions, and so on. I try to remain consistent in my approach and I do utilize some best practices that I think help. All of my rolls are made in the open, all DCs are announced. I almost never call for a roll...I prefer that the player be the one to decide to act (I haven’t been able to quite eliminate this entirely). Besides those more rules focused things, we use the Backgrounds and the Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws a bit more significantly. A lot of those decisions are what we base play on. I also try as much as possible to use certain principles that are cited by PbtA and BitD....play to find out, ask questions and build on the answers, be a fan of the characters....that kind of stuff.

With my Blades in the Dark games, I stick closer to the rules because they’re very tightly integrated and they’re designed with a clear intent which is coherent and consistent. They’re not the Frankenstein’s monster that 5E D&D kind of is....and they work really well.

But I do think if we’re examining how we play, that understanding what we’re doing and why, and the impact that has on player decisions and their ability to fully realize the setting and their characters’ place in it, is, if not necessary, then at least beneficial.



Bedrockgames said:


> Also I am pretty low ego as a GM. I am not the greatest GM in the world by any stretch, and freely admit to being a bit on the lazy side, but I also admit when I make errors to my players, I am pretty transparent about my thinking process and rationale when I make judgements, and all that goes a long way I find. I am also not an 'actor'. I have such a dry delivery sometimes I have to give my players additional descriptive information so they know if an NPC is being sarcastic or angry.
> 
> One procedure or technique I do frequently use that may be of importance here is the long distance villain: LONG-DISTANCE VILLAINY
> 
> I did this two or three times in my Ogre Gate Campaign. Most recently in the Lady 87 campaign I had the player who played Bone Breaker in the original disposable disciples, play Scholar Han (a character who emerged as an antagonist to the party over the course of play). What this does is allows me to throw a villain at the party who is truly gloves off. While I embrace let the dice fall where they may and I have no compunction about killing PCs, you still are always restrained by a sense of fairness I find. So this helps shake things up. I make clear to the players that another player is taking on the villain role, has resources and is going all out against them. The only problem that arises with this is you can sometimes misunderstand or misapply the orders given the long distance villain (since that person is usually not at the table).




That’s pretty interesting. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard anyone do that before. That’s cool.

I can sometimes be a bit soft on the characters in my D&D game. The players have grown quite attached to the group, and I suppose I have, too. So I get the idea of relying on the long distance player to kind of be tough on the characters.

I’ve found that less necessary with Blades because the way the game works it gives the players strong means to prevent character death. It allows you as a GM to swing hard when you should. That can be harder to do in other games.

I think that what I would worry about if I was to actually run 5E D&D for a group of players who were new to me is that I would struggle to do what the game actually expects the GM to do. It’s very GM centric....the players only understand what the GM tells them. The GM sets the scene and the stakes and the difficulty and likely the outcome. Several points where errors or miscommunications can be made that impact a player’s understanding, which then influences their choices.

Is this ever something you worry about?


----------



## Lanefan

Bedrockgames said:


> One procedure or technique I do frequently use that may be of importance here is the long distance villain: LONG-DISTANCE VILLAINY



I've never done long-distance villainy but I have done long-distance party-NPC running; where a remote ex-player would email me during the week with (usually very over-the-top!) instructions for what a particular party NPC would do in the coming session if possible, and then during the session I-as-DM would play this out as best I could.

It didn't always work - sometimes the right situation just never arose where the given instructions would make sense - but when it did it was rather hilarious. 

I didn't tell the players until after the NPC was dead and gone that it had in fact been ghost-run by an ex-player that many of them knew.  On hearing this, and knowing the player in question, all the crazy over-the-top-ness suddenly made sense.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> Note that several of us in the discussion don't routinely play the D&D (nor OSR knockoffs thereof) lines.
> Many of the metacurrency using games (BW, HotBlooded, Fate, 2d20, Cortex Classic, Cortex Plus/Prime) explicitly don't give the GM that kind of free-reign. D&D may be 2/3 of the market, but the market is changing; mid-range companies are getting audience growth faster than D&D is... the buying public is bigger now than 2 years ago, and 2ya more than 4 ya... I've not quibbled about D&D using Gygax's Rule 0... But many _other_ games explicitly don't use it.



Of course! There is no 'rule 0' in a PbtA game for example, though the GM is certainly expected to direct the action. In fact such a rule would simply be out of place in that sort of a system where the whole agenda of the GM is to provide for the players. It is 'servant leadership' in a rather pure form. You don't 'rule 0 your SCRUM team' so to speak.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> It’s not inconsistency. It’s focus. I don’t like onions but when they are finely chopped and there’s not a lot of them in something then I’m usually fine with them in it. Why would anyone expect rpg preferences to be any different?



Should we actually measure the number of 'onions' in 5e? I don't think that comparison will come out the way you are implying...


----------



## pemerton

prabe said:


> FWIW, if the body of water Iceman froze was rectangular, it was the Reflecting Pool; if it was irregular, it was the Tidal basin.



We - or at least I - assumed rectangular. (I just Googled a map. Definitely the Reflecting Pool.)


----------



## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> The forest is probably a tough example without some of the descriptive wrappings it would come with in a real game. Normally GMs, at the very least, telegraph a little bit of information via the description. So _a sun dappled forest grove, alive with butterflies_ would elicit different player responses than _a grim wood, with mist seeping between twisted trees. _Obviously I'm exaggerating a little for effect. The import of the forest is also conveyed by the fiction that has come before, and player expectations about where they are headed.



In this particular case, the GM - me - described the "deep and clawing shadows [that[ stretch across the path, and the wind [that] rattles through the trees." I don't think the players found the ghosts to be too out-of-character for that forest!


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that what I would worry about if I was to actually run 5E D&D for a group of players who were new to me is that I would struggle to do what the game actually expects the GM to do. It’s very GM centric....the players only understand what the GM tells them. The GM sets the scene and the stakes and the difficulty and likely the outcome. Several points where errors or miscommunications can be made that impact a player’s understanding, which then influences their choices.
> 
> Is this ever something you worry about?



This is what @Manbearcat has pointed to with his comparison to multi-dimensional Pictionary.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> One impression I am getting from this conversation is you like clear procedures and it seems you probably like consistency too in that respect.



For what it's worth, I don't get that impression from @hawkeyefan. I think he is encouraging us to drill down into detail about particular play episodes and the techniques used. But those techniques/procedures won't necessarily be the same as those used in other episodes of play.



Bedrockgames said:


> It basically takes them coming into contact with the setting and asking questions about it
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A lot of this stuff can vary because it can arise from the setting details I have established (i.e. I know red claw gang is active in this area, and so if the players go around looking for local bullies, they stand a good chance of encountering Red Claw Gang members). Usually this kind of stated goal, I ask for a Survival roll for (and it kind of operates as a more fluid inversion of the encounter table). And Survival has a bunch of sub skills (so there is one for cities, one for wilderness, etc). So survival can also be used for things like moving from one district in a city to another district. But sometimes these details are things I just invent based on what seems plausible. For example I think the above bullying incident was in a tiny village, for which I had very little information and there wasn't a lot of sect activity in the area, so they were just a couple of nobody's bullying a local street vendor, who the player called out and attacked.



This is the point where I'm curious to know what the deep contrast is between the following three processes:

(1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;

(2) The GM makes something up and narrates a situation (eg street bullies) that the player can have his/her PC engage with;

(3) The player decides that there is something s/he wants his/her PC to encounter - that is consistent with established fiction, genre, etc - and makes a check to establish his/her recollection/knowledge of that thing.​
Obviously there are technical differences. But there is also a lot of overlap: (2) and (3) both require a degree of spontaneity on the part of GM; (1) and (3) both require a check. I'm missing the fundamental cleavage between (3) and the others.


----------



## Aldarc

Bedrockgames said:


> I think anytime you are in our world, it is easier to run things without maps. I often set my mafia campaigns around Boston (where I live) for that very reason, it is just very easy to know an NPC has a house in Lynn or Malden (and we all have a sense of the geography there, to the point that we can even say what neighborhood or street and it will have meaning). If you do need to look stuff up, google maps works. But you don't really need a map when someone says I drive to the mall, and you know how long that takes.



_Jein. _I once ran a one-shot supernatural investigation game set in 1840s Vienna. Even though my players and I all live in Vienna, I had to use an old historical map of the city from the 1840s because the boundaries and make-up of the city looked different then. A number of the current city districts, for example, were townships outside of the city that were subsequently incorporated into the city from 1850 onwards, and the city walls were not taken down until 1857 (i.e., Ringstraße), which was when and the area where a lot of the current major buildings were moved: e.g., Rathaus, Universität Wien, Burgtheater, Parliament, State Opera House, museums, etc. But this is a case where the geography is both familiar and different enough.



prabe said:


> I've lived in the DC area for most of my life. I've always derived amusement from watching how film and TV (and to a lesser extent novels) get the geography wrong. I'm sure you didn't make any mistakes a non-native would catch.



One of my favorite ludicrous film geography moments was in the recent U.S. Godzilla movie when about 5-8 troops in San Francisco get a one ton bomb from Chinatown to the docks in less than 10 minutes on foot. I watched the film in Berkeley, California. People were all scratching their heads at that one.


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> For what it's worth, I don't get that impression from @hawkeyefan. I think he is encouraging us to drill down into detail about particular play episodes and the techniques used. But those techniques/procedures won't necessarily be the same as those used in other episodes of play.
> 
> 
> This is the point where I'm curious to know what the deep contrast is between the following three processes:
> 
> (1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;​​(2) The GM makes something up and narrates a situation (eg street bullies) that the player can have his/her PC engage with;​​(3) The player decides that there is something s/he wants his/her PC to encounter - that is consistent with established fiction, genre, etc - and makes a check to establish his/her recollection/knowledge of that thing.​
> Obviously there are technical differences. But there is also a lot of overlap: (2) and (3) both require a degree of spontaneity on the part of GM; (1) and (3) both require a check. I'm missing the fundamental cleavage between (3) and the others.




I would do 1-2 because 1-2 can still result in the player discovering there are not bullies (because it was a success though I would probably offer more information on why, or provide information on otters possibilities that are potentially attractive to the player based on what they said. For the bullies, because virtually every place has them, I would probably say yes though, so there wouldn't be a discernible difference between 1-3. But if the thing they were looking for was different, like they were looking for house of paper shadow agents, then it is much more likely successful Survival checks would not result in them finding any agents (though again I would provide them whatever information might be available locally).


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Okay, that helps me get a sense. Survival skill as a kind of means of gathering info or understanding the local situation. Some freeform narration from NPCs and the like.




It has become that for me. Technically I would also allow knowledge skills to be used actively (and by the book, those are more what you are supposed to use). But because Survival is used to move through territory and avoid encounters, I started using it the opposite way, so players can find encounters.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that what I would worry about if I was to actually run 5E D&D for a group of players who were new to me is that I would struggle to do what the game actually expects the GM to do. It’s very GM centric....the players only understand what the GM tells them. The GM sets the scene and the stakes and the difficulty and likely the outcome. Several points where errors or miscommunications can be made that impact a player’s understanding, which then influences their choices.
> 
> Is this ever something you worry about?




No, I don't. Obviously miscommunication can happen, but that is  a known possibility to the players in such a game. And we try to get things clear. 

One thing I do is I don't narrate with a heavy hand. I usually just give the players a short sentence or two description, I don't conceal details for autmospheric effect.  I choose one or two key words to emphasize things. But I am not the kind of GM to get into deep detail of a scene unless that details seems significant. And the players are free to ask for further details (which I always think of as reflecting them moving their eyes towards things). But this concern is pretty low on our list of priorities


----------



## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> Obviously there are technical differences. But there is also a lot of overlap: (2) and (3) both require a degree of spontaneity on the part of GM; (1) and (3) both require a check. I'm missing the fundamental cleavage between (3) and the others.




While I don't have a standard way of handling this every time, this is a common way I've done it and it might clarify this a bit (also this is a procedure that cropped up naturally after players essentially kept asking to run into specific people, types of creatures, etc. So here is an example: the players desire to run into local officials for some reason (and they know this means most likely a patrolling inspector or constable, because they tend to be patrolling the region with their men). So they tell me, we try to find a patrolling inspector. I would have them make a survival roll, and then my most likely next course of action, if they succeed, would be to consult the encounter table for the area. If patrolling inspector is on the table I would go with it. If it isn't on the table but still seems within reason, I would roll a d10 and asking a x in 10 chance). However if they were deep into the frontier where there were no constables or patrolling inspectors, it wouldn't crop up. Something else might though (maybe they spot some Kushen riders or something). And I wouldn't always do it that way, but that is a way that I have naturally started to do it and has become a bit of a pattern over time. Though my method will definitely vary based on the specific thing they are looking for. 

Now if it is something that is ubiquitous, then I am not going to stop them from finding it (and in that case I think 1-3 feel the same in practice).


----------



## Bedrockgames

Aldarc said:


> _Jein. _I once ran a one-shot supernatural investigation game set in 1840s Vienna. Even though my players and I all live in Vienna, I had to use an old historical map of the city from the 1840s because the boundaries and make-up of the city looked different then. A number of the current city districts, for example, were townships outside of the city that were subsequently incorporated into the city from 1850 onwards, and the city walls were not taken down until 1857 (i.e., Ringstraße), which was when and the area where a lot of the current major buildings were moved: e.g., Rathaus, Universität Wien, Burgtheater, Parliament, State Opera House, museums, etc. But this is a case where the geography is both familiar and different enough.




This happened to me when I ran an adventure set in Revere in the 1920s. It also happened when I ran some Colonial Gothic adventures in the area around Lynn and Marblehead. The 1920s map was pretty easy to find and most of the geography was similar enough we could figure things out. The Colonial Gothic adventure took a lot of research, and things were so different that it was quite a challenge to figure out before play


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I can sometimes be a bit soft on the characters in my D&D game. The players have grown quite attached to the group, and I suppose I have, too. So I get the idea of relying on the long distance player to kind of be tough on the characters.
> 
> I’ve found that less necessary with Blades because the way the game works it gives the players strong means to prevent character death. It allows you as a GM to swing hard when you should. That can be harder to do in other games.
> 
> I think that what I would worry about if I was to actually run 5E D&D for a group of players who were new to me is that I would struggle to do what the game actually expects the GM to do. It’s very GM centric....the players only understand what the GM tells them. The GM sets the scene and the stakes and the difficulty and likely the outcome. Several points where errors or miscommunications can be made that impact a player’s understanding, which then influences their choices.




What I like about it is you are basically recruiting someone to play a villain. So you can really present them with a challenge that is different from facing a villain run by you. For example if you have a player who is great at concocting schemes, or knows how to exploit the system more, it will be easier for him to present a threat at a level the players are not accustomed to. Because of this though, this is when I do things like making  a real point to track the movement of the villain and his henchmen on the map in real time ( I usually put figures on a map of the setting on my table----since we play on line the players can't see this) and track their movement day by day.


----------



## FrogReaver

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Should we actually measure the number of 'onions' in 5e? I don't think that comparison will come out the way you are implying...



It does.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> I therefore tend to handle this sort of action (_can we get from A to B in time_) via opposed checks (or perhaps checks against a difficulty if it's not a race) and then use the map (if there is one) to help contribute to the colour of the consequence narration.




I have no problem with having dice set distance.  I think there's a few challenges with that.  Future consistency and information overload.  Maps tend to help with both.  One could Map things out based on the dice - essentially a procedurally created world.

Also one could maintain consistency by introducing fictional events that do so.  Ex:  You were delayed due to a snow storm that slowed your travel.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> This is the point where I'm curious to know what the deep contrast is between the following three processes:
> 
> (1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;​​(2) The GM makes something up and narrates a situation (eg street bullies) that the player can have his/her PC engage with;​​(3) The player decides that there is something s/he wants his/her PC to encounter - that is consistent with established fiction, genre, etc - and makes a check to establish his/her recollection/knowledge of that thing.​
> Obviously there are technical differences. But there is also a lot of overlap: (2) and (3) both require a degree of spontaneity on the part of GM; (1) and (3) both require a check. I'm missing the fundamental cleavage between (3) and the others.



On (3)
1.  Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world.  You don't have a problem with that, but we do.  Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
2.  Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction.  The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet.  Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.
3.  Besides, what is consistency?  When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added?  And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.
4.  The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.
5.  What happens on the failed check?  Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc?  Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.


The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> No, I don't. Obviously miscommunication can happen, but that is  a known possibility to the players in such a game. And we try to get things clear.
> 
> One thing I do is I don't narrate with a heavy hand. I usually just give the players a short sentence or two description, I don't conceal details for autmospheric effect.  I choose one or two key words to emphasize things. But I am not the kind of GM to get into deep detail of a scene unless that details seems significant. And the players are free to ask for further details (which I always think of as reflecting them moving their eyes towards things). But this concern is pretty low on our list of priorities




I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.

What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction. 

When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so. 

I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think. 

I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly. 

So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.

If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly. 

I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor. 

Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?


----------



## FrogReaver

hawkeyefan said:


> I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.
> 
> What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction.
> 
> When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so.
> 
> I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think.
> 
> I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly.
> 
> So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.
> 
> If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly.
> 
> I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor.
> 
> Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?



I get that, But there's a tradeoff right?  It's not like putting things player facing doesn't alter the game experience.  You've mentioned the pros of player facing mechanics but no cons.  I'm interested in what the cons are before evaluating.


----------



## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> I get that, But there's a tradeoff right?  It's not like putting things player facing doesn't alter the game experience.  You've mentioned the pros of player facing mechanics but no cons.  I'm interested in what the cons are before evaluating.




Well what would you say the cons might be?


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.
> 
> What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction.
> 
> When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so.
> 
> I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think.
> 
> I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly.
> 
> So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.
> 
> If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly.
> 
> I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor.
> 
> Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?




One feature of a wuxia campaign is you won't always know what power level someone is when you confront them. That shouldn't be 100% transparent. Same with organizations (if a player is running a sect, he should have to rely on his information network and other tidbits, when it comes to assessing whether it would be wise to attack their headquarters). 

I have to say this isn't a big concern. It is something I pay attention to, and I carefully answer questions players ask. But we understand they, just like their characters, could misunderstand a threat. Generally though I try to give them whatever information their character would reasonably have. And if things went extremely off the rails, like I forgot to mention a crucial detail, the player proceeds with something like a plan to attack a QI rank 8 character when he is only Qi rank 2, and that detail would have altered his choice to attack I have no problem we can undo that last action if this piece of information would have made a difference to you. I think that has happened a couple of times. But generally it hasn't been a big issue. The players know I am just there to fairly run things, they get that is a balance one needs to strike (I am definitely not playing it as a fan of the players or as their enemy). So they tend to be very even handed in their reactions to rulings (especially when I am willing to undo them if they are bonkers). And the same applies to descriptions. 

Now in terms of faction rank, that really depends on what the character knows. A character might have access to that info, but if they don't they wouldn't' know it. And not all organizations are ranked in extreme granularity. For instance most sects tend to have junior disciples, senior disciples, sub chiefs and a head chief. There may be one or two additional ranks mixed in (for example there might be a right vanguard and left vanguard, or a third disciple tier), but mostly that is the pattern. Some are organized in more specialized ways though. The 87 killers is literally made up of 87 ranked members, plus associates (think of it a little like the mafia with made members who are ranked). The closer you are to rank 87, generally speaking, the more powerful and important you are. And in my Lady Eighty Seven campaign, because the players were part of that organization, they either knew that going in, or learned it at the time they were inducted (there are a finite number of ranks so you have to wait for people to die to enter them). If we started the game with them as ranked members, they would just have that info. If they started as associates, then they could learn that through a knowledge skill or someone in the organization would tell them (probably close to or at the time of their induction like I said). 

Definitely, failure of the GM to convey information is a possibility in this style campaign. I think it isn't the enormous risk though you paint it to be, and I think it is manageable. It really hasn't been that much of an issue at all for us. My players will freely complain about things that bother them in a game and this is one area I just don't get any negative reaction on (like I said before I am much more likely to get in trouble with my players for forgetting a crucial action they started ages ago----i.e. whatever happened to that spy I sent to the Golden Dragons?). For me in play, pretty much most of the things you are talking about haven't been a problem. Doesn't mean they can't be. But they haven't been in my play experience. That said there are definitely areas where problems can arise (failing to take good notes in this kind of campaign, especially if you have my memory, is huge). Another area is failing to provide players mechanics that they are entitled to. For example in this system they can invent their own martial arts if they put in the time. I've found that is a place where you really need to get clear information from the player exactly what kind of martial art technique they want, even down to potential mechanics, and you need to work hard to both make a technique that fits what they are going for, reflects the rolls they got developing it, etc. That is one of the more thorny parts of my wuxia campaigns, because it allows for power disparities between techniques. Finding ways to decide if a player can exceed the power bubble with a particular technique (and in what ways it might do that) is not an easy ruling to make. There are definitely places where making rulings are hard. But the goal with that is enabling the players to really live in a fictional setting in ways characters from books do. Obviously a more player facing approach can work. But this approach works too if the GM is serious about the art of rulings (at least in my experience).


----------



## Fenris-77

One con that has been brought up a couple of times has to do with the sliding scale between mystery and discovery on the one hand and player setting input on the other. So there's that sort of thing. When it comes to lightly mechanized stiff like favours and influence I don't think there's huge downside overall. 

One that does come up though, is if the mechanics you use are overly rigid and over-defined it can suck a lot of the creativity out of things. In the case of my versions of that I try to use a light hand when it comes to defining what, say, a minor favour is. I want to leave room for improvisation from the players, and also some room for me as the GM to factor in contextual stuff without contradicting the mechanics. I want guides to things like favors and influence, not rules.

Another potential pitfall that can hamper an effort to hack other systems into an existing game is that sometimes you end up with a bit of an unholy mess of different mechanics that are poorly integrated into the existing game, and different enough from each other that the players have more than I'd like to juggle when comes to remembering how everything works. This also applies similarly to games that simply have too many friggin' subsytems period, regardless of whether they're native or imported. I try to keep additional mechanics and subsystems for the key actions and bits that are the core of the desired emulation.

None of the above are insoluble of course, but they do need to be addressed when they appear.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Well what would you say the cons might be?



I'd feel more comfortable hearing what cons, if any, people who play more player-facing games, more often than I do, have to say about it.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> (1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;​​




Just for clarity this is Survival (Cities) in the game. Same basic thing but just wanted to clarify the terms. 

A good example maybe would be this city, in the War of Swarming Beggars. The map is probably a good example because I hand wave many of the of details (I just never needed to flesh out all of it for my purposes). But this is what a city might look like in my notes: 

THE CITY OF DEE


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## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> On (3)
> 1.  Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world.  You don't have a problem with that, but we do.  Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
> 2.  Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction.  The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet.  Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.
> 3.  Besides, what is consistency?  When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added?  And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.
> 4.  The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.
> 5.  What happens on the failed check?  Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc?  Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.
> 
> 
> The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.




Also it is probably worth noting, how I handle encounters may rub some sandbox players the wrong way. Me and the co-designer of my game settled on using the Survival skill against a TN set by the terrain (if it is a really dangerous city the TN might be 9 for example rather than 6). This means you roll, and if you fail, an encounter is rolled on the table (and the table doesn't have blank spaces, so if you fail an encounter will happen). So technically this system assumes the encounter is present whether you roll or not. And that could be a problem for some people in this style (it was something we felt we could hand wave, but we understood the potential concern). However this also meant, technically, if I wanted to, I could always roll on the encounter table (because the encounter is there, the survival roll just means they get around it), and a successful roll just meant the players saw it and could avoid it (but some parties might want to engage it). I don't always do this, because I forget, but when I do I find it adds a lot to play.


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## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> Also it is probably worth noting, how I handle encounters may rub some sandbox players the wrong way. Me and the co-designer of my game settled on using the Survival skill against a TN set by the terrain (if it is a really dangerous city the TN might be 9 for example rather than 6). This means you roll, and if you fail, an encounter is rolled on the table (and the table doesn't have blank spaces, so if you fail an encounter will happen).



Is this handled in the background by the DM, is it player initiated or DM initiated?



Bedrockgames said:


> So technically this system assumes the encounter is present whether you roll or not.



I don't think that's the only viable way of looking at it.  I for one have no problem with the DM using mechanics like that to determine whether such happenings are occurring at all.  The hangup is really the difference in DM/rules initiated and player initiated.



Bedrockgames said:


> And that could be a problem for some people in this style (it was something we felt we could hand wave, but we understood the potential concern). However this also meant, technically, if I wanted to, I could always roll on the encounter table (because the encounter is there, the survival roll just means they get around it), and a successful roll just meant the players saw it and could avoid it (but some parties might want to engage it). I don't always do this, because I forget, but when I do I find it adds a lot to play.



There's a few ways of looking at things and tying die rolls to them.

1a.  Is there anything encountered?
1b.  If so then what is encountered?
Issue is the existence of an encounter is tied to PC survival check and that's quite illogical

2a.  Is something the PC's cannot bypass encountered?
2b.  If so then what is encountered?
This scenario relies on the abstract and not yet defined nature of all possible states based on these checks.  *Note that no check rolled establishes whether something was encountered.  Thus, all successes can mean that nothing was encountered and all failures can mean something was encountered that couldn't be bypassed.  No particular issue here, but simulationists might dislike that the checks aren't covering all the important game states.

3a.  What encounters are present?
3b.  Do the PC's encounter that?
Issue is that if an encounter is present and PC's are in the area then they may be interested in intervening and this gives them no path to do so.

I think 2 is the best framing to explain how that is working in your game.


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## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I'd feel more comfortable hearing what cons, if any, people who play more player-facing games, more often than I do, have to say about it.




I think there are maybe three things that come to my mind. A couple @Fenris-77 touched upon.

1) Mystery- it can make it harder for a GM to maintain an air of mystery around something. It does not make it impossible, but removes some of the mystery.

2) Mechanics- such elements could become things that require tracking or calculation on the part of the GM. I would recommend keeping them simple so that this doesn't become a pain point. The idea is that this eases some of the burden of being a GM, not add to it. 

3) Binding- it's a commitment, right? It's established and is shouldn't be revised without some compelling reason. 

For me, I think the benefit of sharing this kind of thing in an established way outweighs anything that's lost. I mean, the loss of mystery to me is minimal; I have no problem surprising my players in other ways than just how strong an influential a faction may be. For the mechanics, that's pretty easy to avoid by keeping it simple. You don't need multiple charts to cross reference and so on when you can literally just use a ranking system or similar. 

The binding aspect may be a sticking point for some, and not for others. I don't think of it as a big deal at all. This is probably also at least a little connected to (1), too. Both a a bit of relinquishing of control on the part of the GM, right? Like, okay that's out there now....I have to honor it. That can run against what many have in mind for the role of the GM.

I suppose what it boils down to is this.....do I think my ability to narrate the situation to the players is equal to the world being able to narrate itself to the characters? If the answer is "no", as I expect it would be for every GM, then can these kinds of things help narrow whatever gap there may be? And if so, have I helped the players be better equipped to understand the world and to make informed, meaningful decisions about it?


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## Campbell

I missed the map conversation, but I think it's fairly interesting. When running my character focused games I take a somewhat principled stance away from engaging the gamer brain. That often includes visible maps, hexes, battle maps, concrete distances and the like. As much as possible I want to avoid that 1000 foot view and create an environment where players have to engage from their character's perspective of their environment. I try to be generous with the truth, but everything is framed directly from my best handle on the character's perspective.

My sandbox games are somewhat more emphatically from that 1000 foot view.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I missed the map conversation, but I think it's fairly interesting. When running my character focused games I take a somewhat principled stance away from engaging the gamer brain. That often includes visible maps, hexes, battle maps, concrete distances and the like. As much as possible I want to avoid that 1000 foot view and create an environment where players have to engage from their character's perspective of their environment. I try to be generous with the truth, but everything is framed directly from my best handle on the character's perspective.
> 
> My sandbox games are somewhat more emphatically from that 1000 foot view.



This is why I use the hex maps in my games but I generally don’t share them (I have broader world maps I give if they need that sort of thing)


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## Bedrockgames

FrogReaver said:


> Is this handled in the background by the DM, is it player initiated or DM initiated?




the players tell me they want to travel from Tung-On to Fan, so I ask what route, then ask for a Survival roll through each hex (often sorting out the details of what they do for rest and such in between). I try to get my players to say what they do in the setting then I ask for rolls. This is why I like having individual techniques: the player can ask to use Kick of the Golden elephant technique and that is something the character has in the world


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## FrogReaver

Bedrockgames said:


> the players tell me they want to travel from Tung-On to Fan, so I ask what route, then ask for a Survival roll through each hex (often sorting out the details of what they do for rest and such in between). I try to get my players to say what they do in the setting then I ask for rolls. This is why I like having individual techniques: the player can ask to use Kick of the Golden elephant technique and that is something the character has in the world



Yea, that's what I would refer to as DM initiated.  The mechanics are "hidden" to some degree and invoked by the DM, even though the player is aware the mechanic is being invoked and that it was in response to something his character did. 

One can view the player having his character do something as invoking the mechanic, but that's not really what I was contrasting here.


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## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> 1) Mystery- it can make it harder for a GM to maintain an air of mystery around something. It does not make it impossible, but removes some of the mystery.



Yeah. I can see how it would be difficult to do anything that involved the PCs not knowing things. Even a result like "The GM will tell you three things that are true and useful" seems as though it'd be likely to make it hard to keep secrets from the PCs. It seems as though this is probably the root of the differences in the types of stories that'd emerge from play.


hawkeyefan said:


> 2) Mechanics- such elements could become things that require tracking or calculation on the part of the GM. I would recommend keeping them simple so that this doesn't become a pain point. The idea is that this eases some of the burden of being a GM, not add to it.



I think anything that adds to the GM's mental workload needs to accomplish a lot--there's enough on the GM's plate, I think. Heck, I think a TRPG that insists on the GM taking notes is probably adding to the workload (definitely would be adding to mine).


hawkeyefan said:


> 3) Binding- it's a commitment, right? It's established and is shouldn't be revised without some compelling reason.



This doesn't seem like a change to me. I don't know of any instances I've contradicted anything major that'd been established. Part of the challenge is fitting my ideas into/around/between what's already there. Now, I suppose in a more zero-myth game, I'd find it a little harder, because I feel as though I'm more comfortable if I have prep to fall back on, if I know the world well enough to extrapolate if I have to (both of which seem counter to the principles of the zero-myth game/s).


hawkeyefan said:


> For me, I think the benefit of sharing this kind of thing in an established way outweighs anything that's lost. I mean, the loss of mystery to me is minimal; I have no problem surprising my players in other ways than just how strong an influential a faction may be. For the mechanics, that's pretty easy to avoid by keeping it simple. You don't need multiple charts to cross reference and so on when you can literally just use a ranking system or similar.



I've never had any trouble surprising my players, in any system, so that's not a surprise. When there are factions at play in a place the PCs arrive to, I generally take a moment or three to decide which ones are waxing or waning or holding steady, but I don't bother ranking them or anything like that. I use those notes to see which ones might need the PCs help, maybe figure out who's beating up on whom. They show me potential interactions.


hawkeyefan said:


> The binding aspect may be a sticking point for some, and not for others. I don't think of it as a big deal at all. This is probably also at least a little connected to (1), too. Both a a bit of relinquishing of control on the part of the GM, right? Like, okay that's out there now....I have to honor it. That can run against what many have in mind for the role of the GM.



Staying consistent is important to me. I suppose I might come across as a bit of a control freak as a DM, but I really don't think I am. I honestly don't care where a given game-world fact is coming from. I just find it easier to remain consistent with stuff I've worked out and written up than with something a player hands me (literally or metaphorically).


hawkeyefan said:


> I suppose what it boils down to is this.....do I think my ability to narrate the situation to the players is equal to the world being able to narrate itself to the characters? If the answer is "no", as I expect it would be for every GM, then can these kinds of things help narrow whatever gap there may be? And if so, have I helped the players be better equipped to understand the world and to make informed, meaningful decisions about it?



I guess I've come to the conclusion that *for me*, the world feels more consistent when there's one good GM running it than when the players are running it, too. I agree the players need to be able to understand the world well enough to be able to make reasonably informed decisions, but I don't think player-facing mechanics are a panacea for this.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> Yeah. I can see how it would be difficult to do anything that involved the PCs not knowing things. Even a result like "The GM will tell you three things that are true and useful" seems as though it'd be likely to make it hard to keep secrets from the PCs. It seems as though this is probably the root of the differences in the types of stories that'd emerge from play.




Well, no, not entirely. My players in my Blades game are unaware of plenty of things. Doskvol is a mysterious place by nature, and the way the setting is presented leaves a lot of uncertainties, which are meant to be discovered and defined through play. There is still plenty to discover. 

What's not mysterious is that The Crows are a Tier 2 gang, or that the Hive is a Tier 5 gang. 

The geography is also generally known by the characters. Sure, they aren't aware of every nook and cranny, but they know their way about, and if they need to find something of a general sort, most of the time they'd simply know it. 

To look at the specific example of gang Tier.....if my players run into members of the Crows on a score, they have a good sense of the kind of opposition they may face, based on comparative Tier. If they break into a warehouse to steal some crates of illicit goods, and they find those crates marked with the honeycomb symbol of the Hive, they have a good sense of what kind of fallout they're facing if they decide to steal them. 

What's the advantage of leaving that unknown? "You see a mysterious symbol. You think it may belong to a group called The Hive. You don't know anything about them. What do you do?" Why not share this info? What does maintaining the mystery do? 

I'm not saying there's never a reason to keep things mysterious, just that there's a time and place, and I think we have to examine when and where it makes sense to do so based on how it impacts play and the players. For example, the members of the Hive are unknown. They're very much a secretive organization, so finding out who they are is going to be challenging in and of itself. But knowing they're dangerous? Why hold that back?

I also read some really good advice about RPGs recently, and I sadly can't recall who to credit, but it was something like "A secret kept is never as interesting as a secret learned." I think that's fantastic advice. We GMs can very often get caught up in all the unknowns that we've hoarded, and I think that's something that needs to be challenged.



prabe said:


> I think anything that adds to the GM's mental workload needs to accomplish a lot--there's enough on the GM's plate, I think. Heck, I think a TRPG that insists on the GM taking notes is probably adding to the workload (definitely would be adding to mine).




Sure, I agree 100%. I know a lot of people love charts to help determine things randomly.....weather, encounters, and so on. And I think that they absolutely can be useful. I tend to struggle with that kind of stuff simply because it's a lot of referencing and cross referencing, and that can be a pain at the table. 

However, there are games where I think that method absolutely makes sense. I'm planning no running Mothership soon, and tables like that are pretty much a requirement. 

But, what I'm suggesting is pretty simple by comparison.



prabe said:


> This doesn't seem like a change to me. I don't know of any instances I've contradicted anything major that'd been established. Part of the challenge is fitting my ideas into/around/between what's already there. Now, I suppose in a more zero-myth game, I'd find it a little harder, because I feel as though I'm more comfortable if I have prep to fall back on, if I know the world well enough to extrapolate if I have to (both of which seem counter to the principles of the zero-myth game/s).




I'm not worried about contradictions so much as a little gray area that may exist. Like, something's been hinted at, the players respond accordingly, and then when it's actually revealed....surprise, it's slightly different than you thought! 

I think this is very easy for GMs to do in systems that don't actively guard against it. Some GMs may not....your reaction implies this is not something you'd consider, but plenty would. And, perhaps a bit more uncertain.....would those GMs who would actively try to not do this somehow do it unintentionally? 



prabe said:


> I've never had any trouble surprising my players, in any system, so that's not a surprise. When there are factions at play in a place the PCs arrive to, I generally take a moment or three to decide which ones are waxing or waning or holding steady, but I don't bother ranking them or anything like that. I use those notes to see which ones might need the PCs help, maybe figure out who's beating up on whom. They show me potential interactions.




I get that. My question would be why not let the players know about potential interactions? 

And don't get me wrong.....I'm not necessarily saying you have to just infodump all this on them. Let them explore a bit and find it out. Share it in bits as it makes sense to, so that their understanding expands with their actions. I'm not trying to imply that you don't do this....I'm sure there's at least some of that going on. 

But generally speaking, what would be an advantage of keeping information from the players in that kind of faction-status-and-situation kind of scenario?



prabe said:


> Staying consistent is important to me. I suppose I might come across as a bit of a control freak as a DM, but I really don't think I am. I honestly don't care where a given game-world fact is coming from. I just find it easier to remain consistent with stuff I've worked out and written up than with something a player hands me (literally or metaphorically).




Right, and I absolutely understand that. I don't think that anyone would advocate for the players to be able to adopt as much of the setting building through play as it seems many worry about in this and similar discussions. 

Consistency with what's been established is a goal of pretty much every game I know. As someone who used to be a very prep-heavy DM, I've found that the more I let be established through play, the more consistent things tend to be.



prabe said:


> I guess I've come to the conclusion that *for me*, the world feels more consistent when there's one good GM running it than when the players are running it, too. I agree the players need to be able to understand the world well enough to be able to make reasonably informed decisions, but I don't think player-facing mechanics are a panacea for this.




No, it's certainly not a panacea. It's one tool that can help support/maintain/promote the A word. It's not the only tool, and it's not suited for every job, but it's an example of one.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> The geography is also generally known by the characters. Sure, they aren't aware of every nook and cranny, but they know their way about, and if they need to find something of a general sort, most of the time they'd simply know it.



Yeah. I give out neighborhood-level maps of every city the PCs enter. I almost never make it difficult for them to find what they need/want (or at least, where what they need/want would be).


hawkeyefan said:


> To look at the specific example of gang Tier.....if my players run into members of the Crows on a score, they have a good sense of the kind of opposition they may face, based on comparative Tier. If they break into a warehouse to steal some crates of illicit goods, and they find those crates marked with the honeycomb symbol of the Hive, they have a good sense of what kind of fallout they're facing if they decide to steal them.
> 
> What's the advantage of leaving that unknown? "You see a mysterious symbol. You think it may belong to a group called The Hive. You don't know anything about them. What do you do?" Why not share this info? What does maintaining the mystery do?



In a game where the Hive is a known entity, not much. OTOH, if the Hive (or the PCs) were a moving into new territory, this could a form of foreshadowing (to the extent that's a thing in Blades).


hawkeyefan said:


> I'm not saying there's never a reason to keep things mysterious, just that there's a time and place, and I think we have to examine when and where it makes sense to do so based on how it impacts play and the players. For example, the members of the Hive are unknown. They're very much a secretive organization, so finding out who they are is going to be challenging in and of itself. But knowing they're dangerous? Why hold that back?



I guess I'd rather reveal they're dangerous, unless there's a way to measure the reputation of NPC groups. Have them lay waste to something/someone, leave that symbol around.


hawkeyefan said:


> I also read some really good advice about RPGs recently, and I sadly can't recall who to credit, but it was something like "A secret kept is never as interesting as a secret learned." I think that's fantastic advice. We GMs can very often get caught up in all the unknowns that we've hoarded, and I think that's something that needs to be challenged.



That's true, to an extent. It's also true that once you reveal a secret, you have to honor it. If the PCs never come across a secret, it might not ever be a factor for them; if it's never a factor or otherwise revealed, that space is (possibly) available for something else, should it need to be, without needing to worry about remaining consistent with every detail of the prior secret. Or, the secret could evolve into a different secret, I suppose. I'm not in favor of information-hoarding, but I'm not opposed to knowledge being ... hard (if not impossible) to obtain, on occasion.


hawkeyefan said:


> I'm not worried about contradictions so much as a little gray area that may exist. Like, something's been hinted at, the players respond accordingly, and then when it's actually revealed....surprise, it's slightly different than you thought!
> 
> I think this is very easy for GMs to do in systems that don't actively guard against it. Some GMs may not....your reaction implies this is not something you'd consider, but plenty would. And, perhaps a bit more uncertain.....would those GMs who would actively try to not do this somehow do it unintentionally?



Huh. So ... if the PCs are trying to figure out who's been impersonating people in the dwarven stronghold, and they guess doppelgangers, and it turns out to be oni ... That doesn't sound quite like what you're talking about.

So ... if they find out that an NPC wizard they've trusted (and always taken to be human, as she presented herself) is an ancient silver dragon with wizard levels ... maybe that's closer? (I think I figure it out around session  36, and I revealed it in session 62, which is about a year, real-world.)


hawkeyefan said:


> I get that. My question would be why not let the players know about potential interactions?



Um. Because the PCs aren't local, so they wouldn't know all the details. Also, I'm probably going to improvise the details of the interactions; the PCs will learn about them roughly the same time I do. 


hawkeyefan said:


> And don't get me wrong.....I'm not necessarily saying you have to just infodump all this on them. Let them explore a bit and find it out. Share it in bits as it makes sense to, so that their understanding expands with their actions. I'm not trying to imply that you don't do this....I'm sure there's at least some of that going on.



Pretty much exactly as it goes.


hawkeyefan said:


> But generally speaking, what would be an advantage of keeping information from the players in that kind of faction-status-and-situation kind of scenario?



Generally speaking, it's more about flexibility for me in the moment. That, and giving them a bunch of information about the factions (if they don't go looking for it) seems as though I'm somewhere between encouraging them to join a faction and forcing them to--and neither is my intention (in fact, I think I'd kinda prefer they not ...).


hawkeyefan said:


> Consistency with what's been established is a goal of pretty much every game I know. As someone who used to be a very prep-heavy DM, I've found that the more I let be established through play, the more consistent things tend to be.



These days I mostly prep large-scale things, and let the details come out in play. I use my wife's notes to stay consistent. I prep big things when I need to, and otherwise just prep small things.


hawkeyefan said:


> No, it's certainly not a panacea. It's one tool that can help support/maintain/promote the A word. It's not the only tool, and it's not suited for every job, but it's an example of one.



It's a tool. I think some of the principles from that kind of play can go a long way toward improving the experience at the table in games that otherwise aren't built for it, but I haven't really found a need to do much else in this direction.


----------



## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> I would do 1-2 because 1-2 can still result in the player discovering there are not bullies (because it was a success though I would probably offer more information on why, or provide information on otters possibilities that are potentially attractive to the player based on what they said. For the bullies, because virtually every place has them, I would probably say yes though, so there wouldn't be a discernible difference between 1-3. But if the thing they were looking for was different, like they were looking for house of paper shadow agents, then it is much more likely successful Survival checks would not result in them finding any agents (though again I would provide them whatever information might be available locally).





Bedrockgames said:


> It has become that for me. Technically I would also allow knowledge skills to be used actively (and by the book, those are more what you are supposed to use). But because Survival is used to move through territory and avoid encounters, I started using it the opposite way, so players can find encounters.



If using method 3, and the encounter or place that the player is interested in is less likely than bullies, then the DC can be set appropriately.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> This is why I've been trying to hone in on this in relation to the play examples I posted upthread.
> 
> I give an example where the players, responding to my narration, posited that some NPCs were Celtic. I then ran with and built on that in what unfolded.
> 
> I'm interested in views on the extent to which that conforms to, or departs from, sandbox GMing norms.
> 
> Given that @estar responded to my post by talking about the _challenge_, I think the sort of broad Gygaxian assumptions you refer to are in play. Perhaps not self-consciously - I don't know.



I consider 'traditional'/'old school' play as being almost entirely dominated by 'the long shadow of E. Gary Gygax.' Although I would not characterize a lot of it as 'how D&D was played in 1973' perhaps, it all very clearly descends from that period and the way people are thinking about things, the terms they use, and what they consider to be the nature and standard processes of an RPG are entirely reflective of that. Again and again we hear statements and analysis that amount to "an RPG (or roleplay) can only be a GM describing scenes to players which (s)he has authored and to which their sole response is limited to those available in-character'. The goal ALWAYS encompasses some flavor of "adjudicate and present situations such that they never deviate from some (how determined?) measure of 'things which could happen without respect to PCs'."

I don't really have good terminology for a lot of these 'Gygaxian assumptions' as you put it, or the process attached to them, because I feel that the analysis served up with them is really pretty weak. The process, as presented by its practitioners, simply doesn't seem to 'hold water' to me. I can use their words sometimes, but I think the connotations they are attempting to convey don't apply at all to the way I think about it.

As you suggest, I don't think any of this is intended. I think the whole structure came about without any real analysis. It was simply a result of tinkering with different possibilities, welding various pieces from different aspects of wargaming together with 'free play', and something popped out the other side. Later some people went back and started to really think seriously about 'what and why' but as a hobby activity there isn't a lot of reason for most people to do that, they play games, they don't usually design them or feel a need to come up with much terminology or theory. OTOH, if you are deeply invested in your practice, you may feel that the analysis has a negative caste to it, when it doesn't really. I mean, I don't care that a Dungeon Crawl or Sandbox has no character of plausibility or logic to it at all. Its a game!


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I don't think the original (ie pre-Essentials) version of 4e D&D especially supported "rule zero" as I sometimes see it propounded. Nor does B/X, does it?
> 
> I even think it underwent change during the 3E era - in the original 3E PHB "rule zero" was a rule of PC building (_check with your GM_), not a rule about action resolution.



Yeah, just taking a spin through the first couple pages of the 4e DMG1/PHB1, it definitely does NOT state anything even close to rule 0. In fact its tone and terminology are REALLY similar to the prefatory material of Dungeon World. It compares a D&D game to a 'Novel' or 'Movie' and very explicitly labels the DM as working with the players to make the PC's adventures 'challenging', but where they 'ultimately succeed'. The PHB is pretty entirely consistent with that. My assumption is they were written by the same person/people as a single coherent statement. While there is a passing mention of the DM as having a role in interpreting the rules, 4e doesn't explicitly grant one participant more authority than the others.

Interestingly, Holmes Basic doesn't speak about this issue at all. It has a VERY brief introduction, which segues into an explanation of ability scores after 2 paragraphs on "how to use this book." Preceding this is a 2 paragraph intro. Here the role of the DM is specified merely as being the one who draws up the dungeon, and that the players "don't know where anything is located in the dungeons until the game begins and they enter the first passage or room." The rest of the text indicates that they 'explore' and 'map'. The text then dives immediately into the meat of the rules, I don't think anything more is said about the DM or players and their roles in the game.

Looking at the 1e material, the 1e DMG introduces the DM's role in a writing mode which is 'person-to-person' it isn't written as 'rules text', it is written almost like a lore book, passing on established information and process which is stated as canonical. It says things like "you will know when to take upon yourself the ultimate power." and "they are playing the game the way you, their DM, imagines and creates it." The rest of the 1e DMG is most certainly written with the tone being that the DM is an absolute and ultimate arbiter, even going so far as to state that he should use, modify, or set aside the rules as he sees fit to suite the situation. I don't see that 'rule 0' is really explicitly stated here, it is more like an axiom of the system, just assumed, like breathable air and dice. 

The 2e DMG doesn't call it 'rule 0', but there is a statement to the effect that the rules and all other aspects of the campaign are entirely the province of the DM. It is also suggested that the rules really are not something for the players to concern themselves with (this is distinguished from things like how classes work, which are in the PHB and concern the players). Again, the rules are plainly written in a way which only makes sense when we assume axiomatically that the DM has arbitrary rules and fiction authority. 

I think 3.0 actually states 'rule 0' outright, but no version of classic D&D really makes sense without that, though you MIGHT interpret the text of Holmes Basic literally enough to assert that the DM's authority ONLY extends to 'the dungeon' and not to any other possible location (but no such locations are discussed beyond the assertion that beyond the dungeon entrance is "the town"). I guess you could have fun with that


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> On (3)
> 1.  Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world.  You don't have a problem with that, but we do.  Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
> 2.  Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction.  The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet.  Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 4.  The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.



There is really only one difference you're pointing to here: the priority of GM over player authorship.



FrogReaver said:


> 3.  Besides, what is consistency?  When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added?  And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.



The sort of change of meaning that you refer to can happen if the GM introduces something spontaneously (my 2 upthread). Or if the GM picks up on player leads (eg when I picked up on the players' idea that the ghosts were Celts). I think insisting that only the GM's preconceived meaning is valid is a very strong constraint. In its strongest form it means that the GM gets to decide whether an encounter is a combat or a social one, or whether an encounter results in a new ally or a new enemy.



FrogReaver said:


> 5.  What happens on the failed check?  Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc?  Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.



Different systems adopt different approaches to the narration of failure.

If the PCs go Streetwising or Urban Survivaling around to try and meet up with people who are interesting to them, and fail, there's a fair chance that the GM won't just narrate "nothing happens". I would expect that, more likely, the PCs meet the wrong people or perhaps the wrong people (guards, thieves' guild, old nemeses, etc) find them! Even if the outcome is _you don't meet anyone interesting_ there's still likely to be a rider, like _you waste a day not finding anyone interesting_.

I don't see there being any big difference here between my (1) and my (3) - as I said, both require a check and if that check fails the GM needs to establish the consequence of failure.


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## pemerton

prabe said:


> I can see how it would be difficult to do anything that involved the PCs not knowing things. Even a result like "The GM will tell you three things that are true and useful" seems as though it'd be likely to make it hard to keep secrets from the PCs.



Personally I don't find it hard to have things be secret from the players (or PCs) in "story now" play that gives a greater role to player decision-making or conjecture about the content of the shared fiction than some of the sandbox approaches being described in this thread.

But the approach is different from the classic CoC modules which have all the answers and interconnections spelled out as GM notes.

The approach to composition is more step-by-step, building on what comes before. The "soft move"/"hard move" approach from PbtA games becomes important - a lot of _revealing of unwelcome truths_ which don't initially escalate to hard moves, and so leave room for more narration or elaboration as things develop.

I don't know if something as complex as (say) Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy could be done this way. My view - from experience - is that a pretty standard Cthulu-type mystery can be done.


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## aramis erak

Fenris-77 said:


> Which edition and book are these in? I'd like to read those rules.



the Traveller Book has the adventure Exit Visa... which is a hair shy of a programmed solo, but boyhowdy, there is an entire adventure about getting permission to take off...
Plus, any of the CT cores has the bribery skill, and the admin skill, which have mini-mechanics in the skill section.
So, Books 1-2-3 in the CT basic set, or the deluxe set (be they either the 1977-1980 printings, aka CT 1E, or the CT2E of 1981-1988), Starter Traveller, or The Traveller Book, or the QLI reprint. Or the GW version(s) of Bks 1-2-3.


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## aramis erak

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, 'Toon' is that game, it was actually produced in the mid-1980's. NOTHING that happens in the game relates to reality in any substantial way. I mean, there MUST be some sort of way for a player to come up with criteria for what moves they make in the game, so "Hit someone with a hammer" in Toon and the target is likely to 'fall down', and there's a mechanic that you can call out that is likely to produce that result. However, 'falling down' is in no real sense similar to injury, disability, or death in the real world, it is just a genre convention (like when a Loonytoons character hits another one and they see stars for a few seconds and stop moving). And yes, I would consider Toon to be an early example of a game evincing a lot of Story Now type characteristics.
> 
> It is especially worth pointing out that at the level of "the world" in Toon there is essentially nothing. There are zero fictional constraints on the PCs that relate to anything in the world. A player can simply "have some dynamite" or "go get a shotgun" or "build a wall", "dig a tunnel", etc. and none of those things have any logistical or even logical aspect to them at all. There is essentially no set of rules for "the world", there are simply some rules for 'setting a scene' and what elements can appear, which relate only to facilitating 'toonish results'. It is a quite playable game too, though I admit it is not one you will likely play as an ongoing activity as your primary RPG.



Except that there ARE constraints in Toon. You have to have the hammer to conck the guy with in order to hit him with it, or a schtick that lets you produce it.


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## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> I think there are some tensions in the notion of a "flowchart", because a flowchart implies a network of options/choices over time.
> 
> This can be at odds with "no myth" approaches, and I'm not 100% sure it works for dungeon-crawls either (I've heard dungeon maps described as "flowcharts", but I'm not sure I agree with that).
> 
> Maybe I'm taking your flowchart metaphor too literally?



A standard dungeon is 95% reproduceable as a node map. And a node map is a form of flow chart, just one that often has bidirectional links. Unless the characters can bypass the walls, the walls constrain flow of PC's (and monsters) to specific directions and encounters.

The walls govern which way you can proceed. Some, especially those in solo-modules, severely restrict backwards movement.  The other 5% of the time, one goes through the walls or back in directions not envisaged.

Of the 4 times I've run the hatching caves dungeon in Hoard of the Dragon Queen, 3 of them, the party went the wrong way round, and got the halfdragon in their 3rd room.... as 2nd and 3rd levels. they're not supposed to look for that route, but can spot it, so...


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## pemerton

aramis erak said:


> A standard dungeon is 95% reproduceable as a node map. And a node map is a form of flow chart, just one that often has bidirectional links.



A dungeon isn't just movement. There's listening at doors, forcing them open or failing to do so, encountering traps, wandering monsters, etc.


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## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> A dungeon isn't just movement. There's listening at doors, forcing them open or failing to do so, encountering traps, wandering monsters, etc.



All of which can be done with a node map just fine, with cases where it cannot done on a given link being marked by a colored or otherwise differentiated link.

The map creates a branching (usually, at least) path through the dungeon. It reduces the directional choices, both for players and many monsters.

The times when it's not equivalent involve ignoring walls, or abstracting out the hallways.

I've seen one too many hintbook for Infocom games - all of them are node maps, and all of them are essentially flow charts.


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## Fenris-77

Even if my end game is to draw an actual map for a dungeon, whilst in the design phase it exists as a flow chart, which is actually a better design tool than a rough map IMO. IN the design phase I'm concerned with paths and connections and gates, not so much the details of the physical space.


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## AbdulAlhazred

FrogReaver said:


> Hitting people with hammer's isn't reality?  Houses, rivers, lakes, trees aren't reality?  Walking and falling isn't reality?
> 
> I think if you did a dip dive over everything real in looney toons and everything unreal, you would find a huge percentage of what's in it is realistic.  I think what happens is we tend to focus on the unrealistic elements as those are what stands out about it.  But that doesn't mean there aren't a ton of realistic elements there.



None of it is driven by logic of the sort which is like "these are the laws of physics about hammers, and these are the facts of human physiology about being hit in the head." They are driven instead by 'genre logic' and by various tropes (I won't link to TVTropes because half the thread will vanish down a black hole). Now, are those tropes/genre logic, to a degree, modeled on reality? Of course they are, that's what makes them relatable, but in NO CASE is an argument like "this wouldn't happen in the real world" or "being hit with a big hammer will critically injure you" going to have ANY PLACE WHATSOEVER in Toon, or in a cartoon of this ilk. And if instead of being hit with a hammer causing a character to fall down, instead it caused a herd of rainbow farting unicorns to fly from their head, this would not even cause the viewers/participants to bat an eyelash. In that sense, Toon is utterly ridiculous, and players have no expectation that their actions will produce sensible results. As I said, the game is not really about achieving anything, etc. It is just about slapstick and silly jokes. At best it might rise to the level of sly commentary on life.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> I think there are some tensions in the notion of a "flowchart", because a flowchart implies a network of options/choices over time.
> 
> This can be at odds with "no myth" approaches, and I'm not 100% sure it works for dungeon-crawls either (I've heard dungeon maps described as "flowcharts", but I'm not sure I agree with that).
> 
> Maybe I'm taking your flowchart metaphor too literally? Moving on to the next quote . . .
> 
> If the boxes and connections aren't determined ahead of time, I'm not entirely sure we have a flowchart.
> 
> Anyway, the two campaigns I've GMed where this was really a big thing were the second RM one, and my 4e one. In both of them I had a beginning sense of the cosmology, but it unfolded over time as (i) the players made moves that required me to establish more details, and (ii) I introduced new elements or new connections as part of the process of maintaining pressure on the players.
> 
> In the RM campaign one of the players maintained a chart of the relationships: it's attached. But it wouldn't have been possible to draw that chart at the start of the campaign. Just as one example: the chart has the PC Hideyo as an Animal Lord fallen from the heavens; but at the start of the campaign everyone (including me and his player) thought that the character was an ordinary fox who had managed to "improve" himself into human form (along the lines of the movie Green Snake).
> 
> View attachment 131091



I would call it a "mindmap" or maybe "entity relationship diagram" (well, those are a thing, and this is not one, but it has a sort of analogous role). It seems essentially similar to the diagram presented by @Bedrockgames, although more granular (his only shows entire organizations). I assume he might break his down, or at least describe, some of the details inside his organizations in a fashion similar to this.

As you say though, this was a post hoc diagram. I don't see what purpose these would serve 'ante play' in a game like mine, though I have used similar tools maybe 12 years ago, at the start of my 1st 4e campaign. I quickly concluded that blank sheets of paper were superior! Because that campaign, and the couple of follow-ons, happened in my established D&D setting, they were really never exactly 'zero myth' (and 4e doesn't especially have support for that anyway). Still, I would simply look at my existing maps and notes, and start either weaving existing NPCs and whatnot into the narrative, or adding new ones which seemed thematically coherent and addressed the players. I guess a diagram like this for "The Midrealms" or "Kinergh", etc. could be generated. For myself it is enough to have a personal Wiki where each thing or group of related things has an article and links to whatever it relates to. These are mostly purely documentation of things discovered in play.

In fact, I have never felt wedded to anything, even things I have established for my own edification in the past about the setting, such as Cosmology. While I've assumed a sort of 'World Axis like' (WA amuses me since they clearly followed the same path I did, but 40 years late) kind of cosmology, there's never been a resolution of such basic facts as the literal structure of the Erth! (How big is it, is it flat, is there an 'outer space', etc.). Nobody ever cared, so why define that? I may have written up a few ideas at various times back in the 70's and 80's, but I have no reason to take them as canonical 30-40+ years later. 

Likewise, if I happen to get ahead of myself and write some notes on what I think is going on in a game now and elements to use later, I am often surprised by how things go and just throw them away or recycle the parts. I don't do this much anymore though.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> None of it is driven by logic of the sort which is like "these are the laws of physics about hammers, and these are the facts of human physiology about being hit in the head." They are driven instead by 'genre logic' and by various tropes (I won't link to TVTropes because half the thread will vanish down a black hole). Now, are those tropes/genre logic, to a degree, modeled on reality?




There is a vast excluded middle here. It isn't a choice between 100 percent fidelity to real world physics (which would involve finely detailed computer models and math) and genre logic. People can model the physics they see in the real world and use common sense. It isn't a computer model but it is what I have been causing plausibility. And 'genre logic' operates on a spectrum of plausibility. But unlike movie and book genres, RPGs are not beholden to the same concerns. A book has a plot and the physics of the world the book's characters inhabit is beholden to that plot. In a game you don't have to have a plot. NPCs can react, not based on what makes a good story, but on what the GM thinks they would (applying common sense based on what he or she has seen in the real world, and what he or she knows about the NPC in question). The argument you are making here really feels like reductio absurdum to me, based on what my side has said they are trying to do


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would call it a "mindmap" or maybe "entity relationship diagram" (well, those are a thing, and this is not one, but it has a sort of analogous role). It seems essentially similar to the diagram presented by @Bedrockgames, although more granular (his only shows entire organizations). I assume he might break his down, or at least describe, some of the details inside his organizations in a fashion similar to this.




All that is, is a map of a sect conflict. It is not the core of the campaign (just a tool for tracking who is fighting with who and how is allied). There are about twelve other sects on that map. Every single one of those sects is described (its key members are fleshed out NPCs, its list of techniques are fully described and statted, its hierarchy, its headquarters are placed on the map, history, beliefs, etc are all described). In the case of the 87 killers, most of the top leadership are fleshed out NPCs, and every single one of the ranked members is at least named and put into the hierarchy somewhere---and the names are often shorthand for personality so I at least have a launching pad if they do come up). This diagram is just a small part off the campaign. I have a map of the prefecture. Again this includes all the major towns and cities, roadside teahouses, the sect headquarters, geographic features, roads, canals, rivers, imperial post offices, imperial forts, etc. I have all the sheriffs and patrolling inspectors listed, with their allegiances on a chart, I have all the district magistrates statted, I have the prefectural magistrate statted. I don't go into detail at the county level because those are too small (though a few of my village and town entries have county magistrates in them): I also like giving my setting map and gazetteer room to breathe. In addition to this I have all relevant laws explained, along with their normal punishments, the procedures for managing arrests, etc (this is relevant because this map is part of the crime focused campaign). Areas on the map are mapped out too (cities, towns, villages, temples, manors, etc): not all, but many, and enough that I can easily extrapolate if I need. There is also an ongoing background situation between all these sects involving a major shift in control of territory (think The Godfather). Right now for this area of the campaign there are over 100 full NPC entries. This is all just one area on my world map (some of which I have fleshed out in this level of detail, some of which I have yet to do (but do as needed usually).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> But if you don't give them some kind of prompt.....a map found in a treasure hoard, a rumor heard in an inn, a reward poster on a community board......absent those kinds of prompts, how do your players know what to engage with? Are they that familiar with your setting that they can simply set their own agenda?
> 
> Everyone's talking about "players get to do whatever they want" so I'm trying to understand how those wants might develop.



I can give you a bit of an idea of how things fell out in my 1st 4e campaign. This game was very evolutionary for me. I hadn't run D&D, and only played a few times, during the 3e era. Back in the 90's I ran a very heavily plotted 2e game set in a specific region of my old D&D home brew setting (maps from days predating even the existence of D&D in some cases, lol). Anyway, when I started the 4e campaign I wanted to just let the players establish what they wanted to do, so I just extrapolated the happenings from the old campaign a few years forward in time, and described the PCs as being in the largest town in the midst of a large crowd of refugees who appeared to be packing up into organized groups and heading out for somewhere.

The players established their own backgrounds, and I just answered a few questions they had from my existing material, or told them to go ahead and make stuff up. IIRC there was a Warlock from a far southern continent, looking for his father. There was a dwarf fighter trying to find some of his family members who were apparently refugees. There was an eldar (eladrin, but I gave them a bit different flavor) wizard girl running away to the world. There was a young woman who's family held a fiefdom on the borders to the south and sold their services as spies, who was supposed to be gathering info. There was also a priestess of the Sun God, Lir, who supposedly had a prophesy told about her birth (never 100% established what it meant of course). 

The players didn't really firmly establish exactly why they established themselves as a group, but the gist of it seemed that they were all recruited by a local land holder to escort a bunch of refugees back to a village from which they had fled during the war (in the previous campaign). So the PCs were given directions and a factotem to accompany them and insure that they performed their escort duties. IIRC a few subplots quickly developed. The factotem (and his boss as it turned out) was an unsavory sort, and some of the PCs made an enemy of him right off. It was also established that the dwarf came on this specific trip because he had learned that his relatives had worked in the village the PCs were headed to.

Along the way I presented them with choices of which route to take. They decided on a bit less safe, but shorter, option, maybe at the urging of the factotem who was only concerned with being in a hurry. As a result they met up with some goblins and got to test out the combat system. They then tracked down the goblins to an old estate nearby and I wrote up a very small 'dungeon' for them to take on. IIRC there was a hook here that pointed at some kind of 'boss' that the goblins might be working for.

The party then traveled through a town, where there was another adventure. I'm not sure I recall all the details, but there was a monster of some sort operating as the ruler of the town and pretending to be a human, along with some of his minions. They plotted to break up the PCs, but the characters managed to thwart the plot, after a few hijinks. In the process they made some allies in this town and established the basic structure of its politics and such, but it was a pretty small place and they moved on after a couple of days. 

Finally they reached their destination, there was some sort of blow up with the local ruler, due to his questionable treatment of his people. At this point the party used strong arm tactics, threats to get the priesthood of Lir involved, etc. to extract some better behavior, but it was now established that there was a creepy manor full of villains down the road! However the PCs ignored this story line. Instead they decided to investigate the nearby Forest of Grin, a wild and dangerous area known to be full of monsters. There were 2 reasons, the dwarf learned that his relatives might have been taken into the forest, and more goblins from the tribe they had encountered before were spotted scouting the village. Although the lord refused to officially commission them, they all felt that they could help even if they didn't get paid much.

After this there were various forays into the forest. I don't recall all the details of each one, but they discovered that most of the goblins were peaceful, but one faction had put itself into the service of some sort of mysterious personage. There was some fighting with those goblins, a battle against a couple of Hill Giants (turned into lower level solo/elite monsters IIRC), etc. The spy character established that she was in contact with her people and was sending them intel about this area, the dwarf had his motive, the wizard's family tracked her to the village, and the warlock's patron gave him a sign that he was pleased with the dedications of monster souls (it was a starlock, the patron is some sort of creepy elder being from the 'far realm'). So the PCs finally just launched themselves deep into the forest and discovered that there was indeed some sort of evil big bad brewing. In the process they fought a bunch of fun fights. The one against a very Cthulhuoid demon called "the thousand legged one" being the most fun. All of this was pretty much a 'mini sandbox', the PCs just traveled around the forest as they wished. Finally they got to a point where they were outclassed by the monsters 'on the mountain', and decided they would go back to civilization and follow up on various clues about a 'Well of Stars'. 

I don't recall without going back through all the player's notes exactly which things happened after that in what order. There was a series of adventures in an ancient dwarven city, and the PCs took over a small fort (this was in an area a ways from the original village). Eventually they figured out part of the Well of Stars, which related somehow to the warlock. There was a story arc in which the PCs went to a neighboring kingdom to chase after a Palladin they rescued from the dwarf city whom the eladrin wizard had a crush on, but then he ran off to fight some war and they broke up. There was also a scenario with a white dragon in an ice cave, and the establishment that there was a nation of warlike hobgoblins on the other side of a mountain range, etc. etc. etc.

At some point the PCs went back to the original village and ran into a nasty hag who almost managed to eat two of them. A warden (I think it was a Goliath, we were into PHB2 by then). Around this time the PCs were into paragon tier. So at that point I started to make things more fantastical. They went to a flying castle/mountain and expelled an invasion of demons, and then got on the track of an ancient vampire who was one of the kingdom's powerful nobles. That eventually lead to the PCs entering the Shadowfell (somewhere in there they also went to the Feywild and the warlock acquired a second patron, a hag, and they tussled with a copper dragon and some Fomorians). During the flying castle they also established a quest to find the artifacts related to the first King of Kinergh, and some mythology establishing that he was supposed to 'return' at some point, etc. 

All of this stuff drew both on extrapolation and use of existing material that I had left from decades of previous campaigns, but also simply asking the players what was going on, who they were, what did you find, etc. I think the eladrin wizard PC was retired at some point, she had one big arc with the paladin and then seemed kind of played out. A Warden was added, but that player left after a while and the character fell out of use. The dwarf ran into his uncle at one point, a former PC from a 1970's era game! Their were a LOT of details, much of which I can't remember precisely 10 years later, but the material was pretty dense and a huge amount of stuff got added. There was a whole set of themes. It was established that behind the scenes there is an ancient ongoing battle between chromatic and metallic dragons which shapes a lot of history. There is some sort of cosmic danger to the world that relates to this 'Well of Stars', there is a big evil bad guy up in the mountains. The ancient dwarf city is actually a fortress established to plug up the Drow's route to the surface (and the PCs accidentally damaged the seal). The kingdom to the east is now caught up in a civil war where one side is pacted with an arch devil. To the northeast a subarctic hobgoblin kingdom has found the 'Invincible War Banner' and they are now making war on their neighbors. Lots of stuff happened. We never really progressed beyond the vampire lord scenario for some reason, and this game has been 'sleeping' for several years at mid paragon. I'm not entirely sure why, it was an online game to start with (using Maptool) and it wouldn't be hard to continue.

Basically things started out pretty much along the lines of "run around in this setting, which is effectively a sandbox because there is so much old stuff lying around" but by the later parts it was getting pretty unscripted. I think I did create some maps and whatnot to use for the Shadowfell part of the Vampire thing. In the campaigns I ran after this (all set in a different area of the same world) I did nothing more than establish the existence of some towns, their basic features, and some NPCs were developed and then fleshed out as-needed. I also borrowed some thematics, like the dragon conflict is also active in that area, so interactions with dragons sometimes happen and that might come up as a ready explanation of whatever plot element is needed. This kind of thing can be useful, and since some of the players have been common between several of those campaigns it does create some sense of consistency. OTOH this kind of metaplot IS restrictive, and we have discussed some completely different premises that would require a whole new setting, presumably with a lot less 'myth' attached.


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## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Everyone's talking about "players get to do whatever they want" so I'm trying to understand how those wants might develop.



Well, there could be a few ways to approach that. I outlined what sorts of things, and sometimes why, that happened in one of my 4e campaigns. Mostly the players established what they wanted to do, or at least what their motives were, through background, class, and questions they asked or answered. Because it was 4e, this wasn't super formal and only followed general suggestions and our own ideas about how to run a fairly player-focused game.

So, the warlock's motivation was to find out about his father and why his father had a book which the PC read and then became bound to his patron. The eladrin wizard was just running away from her family. The rogue was providing intel to her family and sometimes carrying out missions. The dwarf was trying to rescue his father and brother (I think he found the father eventually, but the brother was still to be rescued). The priestess of Lir got wrapped up in the mythology of the King who is supposed to return, now carries his shield, and has a prophesy (she was also raised by a temple). These are probably fairly conventional D&D character backgrounds for a lot of games. The players wrote them, and then during play I sometimes either tied them to some feature that came up in play, or the players asked about it or added the connection themselves. 

Lots of stuff emerged simply by suggestions of the mechanics. At one point the PCs went to the Feywild and ran into a powerful hag. The warlock hit paragon IIRC and as part of that he added a second patron (I think that is feat) and made a pact with the hag. His relationship with his primary patron was always described as somewhat of an involuntary kind of thing, so in this case he was elaborating on his personal conflict with that. I think the dwarf was the simplest and most straightforward PC, he just kept relentlessly going after his family members, and this was played up as him being a 'super dwarfy dwarf'. IIRC he took a PP that established him as a really super defendery sort of character (I'd have to go back and look at the particulars on that). I would say with 4e that this was a really major aspect of establishing who and what PCs were, and I tried often to make things like leveling and acquisition of items provide lots of inputs into that. For example, the dwarf finally met his father, who forged an axe for him, which was especially effective against demons. Later, when the PCs were in the floating castle fighting demons the axe took on the aspect of an ancient dwarvish weapon, the Axe of the Balrog Slayer. This made it an artifact during that story arc, although this aspect faded at the end of the story and the axe simply became a really good axe with demon slaying capabilities. In fact I think the whole thing culminated with the appearance of a 'Balrog Gate' which the PCs had to close (IE a fun skill challenge). Some of the PCs build options that happened during that time reflected this part of the story, and undoubtedly this theme would arise again during epic play (if we ever got there). 

One thing I will say, a lot of these techniques evolved a lot during play. While I rapidly started to 'get' that 4e wanted to play like an action adventure movie, it took several years of play to fully evolve the whole set of techniques for letting the players drive things, and for making the game really fully "amped up". Nowadays I tend to run my own more hacked up rules that make this stuff easier, but the gist of it is that I don't even bother with classic D&D-style location/map type stuff anymore to any large degree. Every fight has significant plot ramifications and takes place in a way where there are goals, subgoals, dynamic terrain, etc. At no point do the PCs simply go to a place and fight something they 'just find there' to the death simply because its there, and might have treasure. If a fight probably wouldn't show up in an action adventure movie, it probably won't show up in one of my 4e sessions either.


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## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> Except that there ARE constraints in Toon. You have to have the hammer to conck the guy with in order to hit him with it, or a schtick that lets you produce it.



Right, there is a 'game' aspect in Toon, which is a bit in tension with producing the pure 'Loony Tunes Experience' at times. Although I think it is pretty consistent with the way WB characters each have their characteristic shticks. I would not, however, say that any of this is related, except in the most distant way, to 'real world logic', or even logic in general. The hammer pops out of thin air when needed, or perhaps the PC 'runs off stage and fetches it.' or something like that. Some characters also seem to just have 'super powers', like Bugs Bunny will pull a carrot out of thin air, munch on it, and then stuff the end into Elmer Fudd's shotgun, just before he pulls the trigger. Another time he might just tie the barrel in a knot, or even just use his finger. Toon characters tend to be a bit more tightly bound to specific shticks, although TBH it has been a LONG time since I played and I don't have a copy of the rules on hand, so I don't recall every detail of chargen.


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> A dungeon isn't just movement. There's listening at doors, forcing them open or failing to do so, encountering traps, wandering monsters, etc.



Also a big aspect of classic style dungeon play was to make an accurate map and then suss out where the secret rooms and such are located based on spatial relationships and such. A lot of early trick design was intended to make this hard, like the rotating corridor that sneakily turns the PCs 90 degrees without their knowledge, thus messing up their map, or ramps/elevators that move them up or down without their knowledge. The dwarf's abilities were clearly meant to let them avoid these problems and this was deemed important enough that OD&D seems to think a dwarf which cannot even reach name level is a fair trade-off against those advantages.


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## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, there could be a few ways to approach that. I outlined what sorts of things, and sometimes why, that happened in one of my 4e campaigns. Mostly the players established what they wanted to do, or at least what their motives were, through background, class, and questions they asked or answered. Because it was 4e, this wasn't super formal and only followed general suggestions and our own ideas about how to run a fairly player-focused game.



This is very similar to what has happened in the 5E games I'm running.


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## Fenris-77

I don't do maps like that anymore at all, and I don't actively encourage detailed mapping at the table as I find it often bogs things down more than it helps. Of course I don't do random traps or secret doors either.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> There is a vast excluded middle here. It isn't a choice between 100 percent fidelity to real world physics (which would involve finely detailed computer models and math) and genre logic. People can model the physics they see in the real world and use common sense. It isn't a computer model but it is what I have been causing plausibility. And 'genre logic' operates on a spectrum of plausibility. But unlike movie and book genres, RPGs are not beholden to the same concerns. A book has a plot and the physics of the world the book's characters inhabit is beholden to that plot. In a game you don't have to have a plot. NPCs can react, not based on what makes a good story, but on what the GM thinks they would (applying common sense based on what he or she has seen in the real world, and what he or she knows about the NPC in question). The argument you are making here really feels like reductio absurdum to me, based on what my side has said they are trying to do



Clearly 'Toon' is not your average RPG, so I would not disagree with you that in MOST other RPGs there is a sort of background assumption that the laws of physics as we know them would adequately describe most events, barring magic or whatever. This is, IMHO, more a matter of 'relateability' than anything else. This can be seen in certain interesting tropes that RPGs carry. For example, Traveller (and a lot of other Space Opera type RPGS) has artificial gravity. Now, we know that Hollywood LOVES artificial gravity, it just obviously makes their job feasible, but why would it exist in an RPG? There's no special effects budget to constrain scenes filled with zero-G action, yet every single location in Traveller is absolutely ASSUMED to have a 1G gravity field. The reason for this is plainly relateability, we players are used to living in a 1G gravity field, and imagining most of the action taking place in zero-G, or under heavy acceleration, etc. is simply burdensome. IMHO this is the explanation for pretty much all of this kind of thing. The game needs to work this way in order to be playable and to conform to genre tropes which originate from other mediums. 

I don't think 'plausibility' is really all that much a factor. Anti-gravity, for example, is utterly implausible. As a physics-conversant person I can tell you with utter assurance that such a thing is completely unphysical and no more likely to exist in the real world than spell-casting, no matter the level of technology. So it isn't adding any plausibility to Traveller, quite the contrary! I will agree that in other genres there wouldn't be much motivation for something like gravity, or the existence of the Sun, etc. to be changed, unless you want to deliberately create a very alien sort of environment. D&D traditionally uses this technique for 'other planes of existence', and that's cool. Again though, I don't think this is due to plausibility, these other weird worlds are not really 'implausible' to any vastly higher degree than a world full of dragons and magic is.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Clearly 'Toon' is not your average RPG, so I would not disagree with you that in MOST other RPGs there is a sort of background assumption that the laws of physics as we know them would adequately describe most events, barring magic or whatever. This is, IMHO, more a matter of 'relateability' than anything else. This can be seen in certain interesting tropes that RPGs carry. For example, Traveller (and a lot of other Space Opera type RPGS) has artificial gravity. Now, we know that Hollywood LOVES artificial gravity, it just obviously makes their job feasible, but why would it exist in an RPG? There's no special effects budget to constrain scenes filled with zero-G action, yet every single location in Traveller is absolutely ASSUMED to have a 1G gravity field. The reason for this is plainly relateability, we players are used to living in a 1G gravity field, and imagining most of the action taking place in zero-G, or under heavy acceleration, etc. is simply burdensome. IMHO this is the explanation for pretty much all of this kind of thing. The game needs to work this way in order to be playable and to conform to genre tropes which originate from other mediums.
> 
> I don't think 'plausibility' is really all that much a factor. Anti-gravity, for example, is utterly implausible. As a physics-conversant person I can tell you with utter assurance that such a thing is completely unphysical and no more likely to exist in the real world than spell-casting, no matter the level of technology. So it isn't adding any plausibility to Traveller, quite the contrary! I will agree that in other genres there wouldn't be much motivation for something like gravity, or the existence of the Sun, etc. to be changed, unless you want to deliberately create a very alien sort of environment. D&D traditionally uses this technique for 'other planes of existence', and that's cool. Again though, I don't think this is due to plausibility, these other weird worlds are not really 'implausible' to any vastly higher degree than a world full of dragons and magic is.




This honestly just looks like more of the same argument. But also you are accepting the plausibility I am talking about, pointing out that RPGs often rely on deviations from plausibility for magic and exceptions, then you introduce the exception of anti-gravity, to say plausibility isn't a thing in RPGs. That doesn't make sense. Whether you file anti-gravity under a trope or an outdated theory, obviously it is operating as an exception here. But anything else in the setting is going to be assumed to conform to common sense perceptions of reality. And the anti-gravity itself is still going to be expected to abide by the players and GMs sense of gravity (unless there is something special stated about it in the rules: like it only approximates earth gravity or something).


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> I don't do maps like that anymore at all, and I don't actively encourage detailed mapping at the table as I find it often bogs things down more than it helps. Of course I don't do random traps or secret doors either.



Right, and I wouldn't normally use much in the way of maps, except maybe as aids to communications a bit, in a game I was starting up 'zero myth' either. I ran part of a CoC game (it consisted of episodes GMed by each of the participants in round-robin fashion where the PCs were reincarnations of themselves in different periods of time) where I set my part in 1920's Cornwall. I used a real map to kind of fact check my geography a bit, and created a railroad schedule based on what seemed logical from online research, but overall the setup didn't really have maps. The PCs went into an area that I described and had some encounters/did some stuff, and then they ended up finishing up my part stranded on the Moon! Presumably they, at best, survived a while in the alien base there, but again there was no map and not a lot of details. I think the next segment took place in the far future and the PCs found the bodies of their former selves. There were a few other similar details that carried through from the Roman Britain part as well. IIRC the timeline was non-linear too, I think the medieval section was actually the end of the whole 'mini-campaign'.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> This honestly just looks like more of the same argument. But also you are accepting the plausibility I am talking about, pointing out that RPGs often rely on deviations from plausibility for magic and exceptions, then you introduce the exception of anti-gravity, to say plausibility isn't a thing in RPGs. That doesn't make sense. Whether you file anti-gravity under a trope or an outdated theory, obviously it is operating as an exception here. But anything else in the setting is going to be assumed to conform to common sense perceptions of reality. And the anti-gravity itself is still going to be expected to abide by the players and GMs sense of gravity (unless there is something special stated about it in the rules: like it only approximates earth gravity or something).



yeah, I just don't think 'plausibility' is all that high on the list of reasons for things, really. It is familiarity mostly, and that can be considered a type of 'gamist consideration'. Now, there are games which aim more at being plausible than others, Aftermath seemed to value that, and there is at least one SF RPG which attempts to accurately describe spacecraft (maybe a couple of them, never looked into it much). I just don't see it as the focus of most games.


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## hawkeyefan

@prabe I'm snipping your post a bit, not because I think anything you said wasn't relevant, but because I think we're largely in agreement, and I'd like to just hone in on a few points.



prabe said:


> Yeah. I give out neighborhood-level maps of every city the PCs enter. I almost never make it difficult for them to find what they need/want (or at least, where what they need/want would be).




Right. So what impact, if any, would you say this has on the players' ability to make decisions on that matter? I mean, these decisions probably relate to the things found on the map, but I think you get what I mean. 

Think of everything you can learn by looking at a map. The proximity to other places that may matter, how many paths one can take from point A to point B, and so on. All of this is placed in the players' hands rather than relying on the GM explaining it all. Or replying on the players to know to ask every single relevant question for the GM to answer. 

Now, it's on the players. If they overlook the fact that the watch station is three buildings away from their target, they shouldn't be surprised when the watch shows up. It's their mistake. 

The same can apply to other elements beyond just physical geography.



prabe said:


> In a game where the Hive is a known entity, not much. OTOH, if the Hive (or the PCs) were a moving into new territory, this could a form of foreshadowing (to the extent that's a thing in Blades).
> 
> I guess I'd rather reveal they're dangerous, unless there's a way to measure the reputation of NPC groups. Have them lay waste to something/someone, leave that symbol around.




Oh, sure.....I think using that kind of thing is likely a good way to display the threat that the faction poses. You can even combine the two. "You see this honeycomb symbol, and you remember hearing about The Hive from Slade at the Tin Whistle Tavern...." and then sharing the details. 



prabe said:


> Huh. So ... if the PCs are trying to figure out who's been impersonating people in the dwarven stronghold, and they guess doppelgangers, and it turns out to be oni ... That doesn't sound quite like what you're talking about.
> 
> So ... if they find out that an NPC wizard they've trusted (and always taken to be human, as she presented herself) is an ancient silver dragon with wizard levels ... maybe that's closer? (I think I figure it out around session  36, and I revealed it in session 62, which is about a year, real-world.)




No, not exactly. Definitely not the first example, and I have no problem with the second as long as it doesn't require altering facts that have been established. 

I just mean that with any judgment that the GM makes, there's going to be a little leeway. And what's "obvious" to the GM may not be obvious to the players. So to go with The Hive example from Blades......let's say there was no Tier system in place, and instead all of this relied on nothing but GM narration of some sort in order to be established. 

What if the GM portrays The Hive as having done something that establishes them as dangerous. In his mind, he thinks it's clear that The Hive are among the most dangerous factions in the city. But the players have taken it as pretty standard levels of danger. If the PCs are to make decisions that matter about The Hive, then the better they understand The Hive the more informed those decisions will be. 

I would not say that the Tier system for gangs in Blades is meant to replace narration. I think it's there just as a quick reference to facilitate understanding in the same way narration would facilitate understanding, but to help leave it a bit more concrete. 

Like a Strength of 18 isn't the most descriptive way to convey how strong a NPC may be, but it lets players know exactly what it means in the game.



prabe said:


> It's a tool. I think some of the principles from that kind of play can go a long way toward improving the experience at the table in games that otherwise aren't built for it, but I haven't really found a need to do much else in this direction.




I think, based on the way you describe your approach to play, that perhaps you already have considered some of these things, even if not for this exact reason.


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## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Right. So what impact, if any, would you say this has on the players' ability to make decisions on that matter? I mean, these decisions probably relate to the things found on the map, but I think you get what I mean.
> 
> Think of everything you can learn by looking at a map. The proximity to other places that may matter, how many paths one can take from point A to point B, and so on. All of this is placed in the players' hands rather than relying on the GM explaining it all. Or replying on the players to know to ask every single relevant question for the GM to answer.
> 
> Now, it's on the players. If they overlook the fact that the watch station is three buildings away from their target, they shouldn't be surprised when the watch shows up. It's their mistake.
> 
> The same can apply to other elements beyond just physical geography.



Oh, sure. If a party were doing something that I needed to detail out the buildings nearby, I would; for finding, e.g., stores or inns or libraries, I haven't needed to.


hawkeyefan said:


> No, not exactly. Definitely not the first example, and I have no problem with the second as long as it doesn't require altering facts that have been established.



Oh, good. Both of those are sequences that happened in my campaigns (as might be clear, at least from the second example).


hawkeyefan said:


> I just mean that with any judgment that the GM makes, there's going to be a little leeway. And what's "obvious" to the GM may not be obvious to the players. So to go with The Hive example from Blades......let's say there was no Tier system in place, and instead all of this relied on nothing but GM narration of some sort in order to be established.
> 
> What if the GM portrays The Hive as having done something that establishes them as dangerous. In his mind, he thinks it's clear that The Hive are among the most dangerous factions in the city. But the players have taken it as pretty standard levels of danger. If the PCs are to make decisions that matter about The Hive, then the better they understand The Hive the more informed those decisions will be.
> 
> I would not say that the Tier system for gangs in Blades is meant to replace narration. I think it's there just as a quick reference to facilitate understanding in the same way narration would facilitate understanding, but to help leave it a bit more concrete.
> 
> Like a Strength of 18 isn't the most descriptive way to convey how strong a NPC may be, but it lets players know exactly what it means in the game.



Oh, sure. Like, wizards in a D&D world might not think of spell-levels, or slots, but they have an understanding of how things work in practice (and the players talk in game terms). I'm not any kind of fan of insisting that players at the table not use game-terms, even when speaking in-character, just on the grounds of sanity being a precious, non-renewable resource. ;-)


hawkeyefan said:


> I think, based on the way you describe your approach to play, that perhaps you already have considered some of these things, even if not for this exact reason.



Probably. I GMed Fate for close to a year, IIRC, and I definitely had put some thought into how I wanted the campaigns I'm running to work before I started them.


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## Fenris-77

I'm going to throw out an example from Blades here because, first, I'm re-reading it for design purposes, and second, there's on bit of the rules that really captures the idea of putting decision making in the hands of the players. Actions in Blades have a two part rubric that determines how easy and effective they will be. This is the bit about the Blades mechanics that mystifies a lot of new players, so bear with me.

First, you have _position _which doesn't determine the level of effect, but rather the scale of consequences for failure. Keep in mind here that Blades is a 'player rolls' game, so bad guys don't attack PCs, that part of melee (just as an example) is determined by the success of the player's roll. Failure means the PC takes damage, Success with conditions means both sides take some damage, and complete success means the enemy takes damage. Position can be Controlled, Risky, or Desperate with the default being Risky (roll the dice only when there are consequences that matter etc etc). In melee, to keep using the same example, you're looking at lesser harm, harm, and severe harm as consequences in those three positions. It's not super important exactly what those mean, the labels speak for themselves for our purposes. Position is determined by the GM based on the fiction, but the players have some resources they can choose to spend to add dice to their pool once it's set. However, it's the second part of the rubric I really wanted to talk about, which is _Effect_.

_Effect_ is also set into three levels, which are Great, Standard, and Limited. This is also baselined by the GM, who has three categories to base their decision on - Potency, Quality, and Scale. The base roll in Blades is Risky-Standard. Here's where things get interesting, at least for me. Let's take Scale as an example. A Warrior decides to charge a band of 20 thugs, sword waving. Well, that was silly, 20-1 isn't great, so the effect there is going to limited (and probably Desperate position as well). However, and this is the bit I really wanted to drill into, is that player choices can change this without rolls. Lets say that same Warrior decides to defend a choke point so only a few thugs can get to him at a time. That would change his Effect to Standard, which in mechanical terms doubles his effectiveness. No rolls, just tactical thinking, and you success *doubles*. That's a huge carrot, and one that makes complete sense within the fiction. Of course, you can make the same tactical move in any game, but the results for doing so are nowhere nearly as stark and obvious. 

I'm going to back this up and get a little more general. What this example shows is that by engaging with the fiction, and declaring actions that makes sense within that fiction, a Blades player can dramatically shift the odds in his favor, and in a way that doesn't quite get matched by other games I can think of. This isn't about better or worse, just about agency. The same logic applies to any test in Blades, not just combat, so framing on the part of the players is crucial and incentivized to a large degree. You can't always do this in Blades of course, it has to make sense within the fiction as presented by the GM., there's no get out jail free card here.

If you compare that to D&D or it's OSR children, just to pick an opposed rules set that I'm intimately familiar with, there's is nothing in terms of framing and approach to situations that carries the same weight. Anyway, this isn't a Blades is better post by any means, I just wanted to throw out an example of how one rules system really makes great hay out of the players' interaction with the fictional framing in a way that allocates a lot of agency to the players.


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## FrogReaver

Fenris-77 said:


> I'm going to throw out an example from Blades here because, first, I'm re-reading it for design purposes, and second, there's on bit of the rules that really captures the idea of putting decision making in the hands of the players. Actions in Blades have a two part rubric that determines how easy and effective they will be. This is the bit about the Blades mechanics that mystifies a lot of new players, so bear with me.
> 
> First, you have _position _which doesn't determine the level of effect, but rather the scale of consequences for failure. Keep in mind here that Blades is a 'player rolls' game, so bad guys don't attack PCs, that part of melee (just as an example) is determined by the success of the player's roll. Failure means the PC takes damage, Success with conditions means both sides take some damage, and complete success means the enemy takes damage. Position can be Controlled, Risky, or Desperate with the default being Risky (roll the dice only when there are consequences that matter etc etc). In melee, to keep using the same example, you're looking at lesser harm, harm, and severe harm as consequences in those three positions. It's not super important exactly what those mean, the labels speak for themselves for our purposes. Position is determined by the GM based on the fiction, but the players have some resources they can choose to spend to add dice to their pool once it's set. However, it's the second part of the rubric I really wanted to talk about, which is _Effect_.
> 
> _Effect_ is also set into three levels, which are Great, Standard, and Limited. This is also baselined by the GM, who has three categories to base their decision on - Potency, Quality, and Scale. The base roll in Blades is Risky-Standard. Here's where things get interesting, at least for me. Let's take Scale as an example. A Warrior decides to charge a band of 20 thugs, sword waving. Well, that was silly, 20-1 isn't great, so the effect there is going to limited (and probably Desperate position as well). However, and this is the bit I really wanted to drill into, is that player choices can change this without rolls. Lets say that same Warrior decides to defend a choke point so only a few thugs can get to him at a time. That would change his Effect to Standard, which in mechanical terms doubles his effectiveness. No rolls, just tactical thinking, and you success *doubles*. That's a huge carrot, and one that makes complete sense within the fiction. Of course, you can make the same tactical move in any game, but the results for doing so are nowhere nearly as stark and obvious.
> 
> I'm going to back this up and get a little more general. What this example shows is that by engaging with the fiction, and declaring actions that makes sense within that fiction, a Blades player can dramatically shift the odds in his favor, and in a way that doesn't quite get matched by other games I can think of. This isn't about better or worse, just about agency. The same logic applies to any test in Blades, not just combat, so framing on the part of the players is crucial and incentivized to a large degree. You can't always do this in Blades of course, it has to make sense within the fiction as presented by the GM., there's no get out jail free card here.
> 
> If you compare that to D&D or it's OSR children, just to pick an opposed rules set that I'm intimately familiar with, there's is nothing in terms of framing and approach to situations that carries the same weight. Anyway, this isn't a Blades is better post by any means, I just wanted to throw out an example of how one rules system really makes great hay out of the players' interaction with the fictional framing in a way that allocates a lot of agency to the players.



Good example by the way. I don’t think the contrast is quite as large as you think. A 20-1 choke point in d&d will have a huge effect vs being surrounded 20-1.  Much greater than double.

However, it’s good to explicitly point out that Blades action resolution does depend on fictional positioning which does tend to get lost in translation a bit.

My issues that I keep coming back to with blades are:
1. The players role in determining the outcome of a success.  It’s very possible this is overblown in critics minds as there may be some fairly large constraints on what can be achieved with a success. But if those constraints exist to the extent that would be necessary then it’s really hard to see how it’s nearly as agency enhancing as advertised. What I’m afraid is most likely happening are that players adapt to the boundaries in any given system and so as long as they can do what they want within those boundaries then agency!  IMO.  I don’t see blades or d&d as having fewer boundaries over what a PCs can attempt, just different ones.  nor does the set of outcomes that can be achieved via each systems action resolution actually differ much if any as far as I can tell.

I might be wrong and change my mind later, but i get the feeling that blades is set up to handle complex actions better, whereas d&d is set up more to handle simple actions. That’s an interesting difference to me.

But agency isn’t a useful descriptor here. We all agree that the major thing the blades player can do that the d&d player cannot is set what the success state of his action is.  (Well some forms of d&d play approximate this with goal and approach).  What we disagree on is whether that’s actually more agency.  That’s not something we are going to agree on.

2. The players ability to change fictional positioning by creating fictional details their character in the now doesn’t have control over.  (Think flashbacks and possibly some details they can add to the scene on a success or via some other mechanic).


----------



## Fenris-77

FrogReaver said:


> Good example by the way. I don’t think the contrast is quite as large as you think. A 20-1 choke point in d&d will have a huge effect vs being surrounded 20-1.  Much greater than double.
> 
> However, it’s good to explicitly point out that Blades action resolution does depend on fictional positioning which does tend to get lost in translation a bit.
> 
> My issues that I keep coming back to with blades are:
> 1. The players role in determining the outcome of a success.  It’s very possible this is overblown in critics minds as there may be some fairly large constraints on what can be achieved with a success. But if those constraints exist to the extent that would be necessary then it’s really hard to see how it’s nearly as agency enhancing as advertised. What I’m afraid is most likely happening are that players adapt to the boundaries in any given system and so as long as they can do what they want within those boundaries then agency!  IMO.  I don’t see blades or d&d as having fewer boundaries over what a PCs can attempt, just different ones.  nor does the set of outcomes that can be achieved via each systems action resolution actually differ much if any as far as I can tell.
> 
> I might be wrong and change my mind later, but i get the feeling that blades is set up to handle complex actions better, whereas d&d is set up more to handle simple actions. That’s an interesting difference to me.
> 
> But agency isn’t a useful descriptor here. We all agree that the major thing the blades player can do that the d&d player cannot is set what the success state of his action is.  (Well some forms of d&d play approximate this with goal and approach).  What we disagree on is whether that’s actually more agency.  That’s not something we are going to agree on.
> 
> 2. The players ability to change fictional positioning by creating fictional details their character in the now doesn’t have control over.  (Think flashbacks and possibly some details they can add to the scene on a success or via some other mechanic).



The doubling effect is about the PCs effect on the thugs, not their effect on the PC, although that does play in based on position.

To speak to 1) I have played Blades, I've also played other FitD games like Scum and Villainy, and a couple of others, so I'm  pretty familiar with how the mechanics and adjudication work. The difference in this instance is player control over the outcome. Not only can the player move in-fiction to increase effect, the plyer can also elect to trade position for effect if they're willing to risk increased damage. This is before any dice are rolled. It's not even remotely about what PCs can attempt, as in both rules sets the PCs can attempt anything, but in Blades, after the declaration or as part of the declaration, the PC can substantively change the chances of or effect of the action they have proposed, which is something that doesn't really happen in, say, D&D.

No rolls, just player decision making and framing. The player chooses to engage with the proffered fiction, and by doing so in a competent way changes the dynamics of the test and resolution. That is the essence of player agency.

As far as complex actions go, Blades does handle those really well, but not any better than 4E's complex skill challenges does IMO. That level of competence can be had in 5E from a good DM, but it's not enforced and bounded by the rules like it is in Blades.

I wasn't really addressing your 2), although we could chat about that if you like. The flashback isn't what most people think it is when it comes to how it changes the basic experience of an RPG at the table.


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## Campbell

From my perspective the most empowering feature of Blades in the Dark is Position and Effect. It foregrounds negotiation of fictional positioning between the GM and other players. Because you do not have to commit until Position and Effect are agreed to you always know what you are getting into. Between Position/Effect and being able to ask specific questions with Gather Information pretty much all your decisions will be informed ones. 

That's not to say that with the *player *agency that provides you lose nothing. Blades is not really a game that rewards you that much for being clever. Instead it provides you with the ability to influence the setting that in other games would require clever thinking. I like having to be clever sometimes. It provides a rush when I get it right and something to strive towards when I get it wrong. 3D Pictionary is a lot of fun for me sometimes. It also means that you lose out on the joy of discovery because you do not need to hunt information down or explore red herrings.


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## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I would not disagree with you that in MOST other RPGs there is a sort of background assumption that the laws of physics as we know them would adequately describe most events, barring magic or whatever. This is, IMHO, more a matter of 'relateability' than anything else. This can be seen in certain interesting tropes that RPGs carry. For example, Traveller (and a lot of other Space Opera type RPGS) has artificial gravity. Now, we know that Hollywood LOVES artificial gravity, it just obviously makes their job feasible, but why would it exist in an RPG? There's no special effects budget to constrain scenes filled with zero-G action, yet every single location in Traveller is absolutely ASSUMED to have a 1G gravity field. The reason for this is plainly relateability, we players are used to living in a 1G gravity field, and imagining most of the action taking place in zero-G, or under heavy acceleration, etc. is simply burdensome. IMHO this is the explanation for pretty much all of this kind of thing. The game needs to work this way in order to be playable and to conform to genre tropes which originate from other mediums.
> 
> I don't think 'plausibility' is really all that much a factor. Anti-gravity, for example, is utterly implausible. As a physics-conversant person I can tell you with utter assurance that such a thing is completely unphysical and no more likely to exist in the real world than spell-casting, no matter the level of technology. So it isn't adding any plausibility to Traveller, quite the contrary! I will agree that in other genres there wouldn't be much motivation for something like gravity, or the existence of the Sun, etc. to be changed, unless you want to deliberately create a very alien sort of environment. D&D traditionally uses this technique for 'other planes of existence', and that's cool. Again though, I don't think this is due to plausibility, these other weird worlds are not really 'implausible' to any vastly higher degree than a world full of dragons and magic is.



What I would add to this is that D&D worlds don't assume _the laws of physics as we know them_, just common sense.

Eg D&D worlds tend to have a sun, but there's no reason to suppose that the sun is a giant thermonuclear furnace. Maybe it's a ball of light, or of fire.

Things fall to earth, and so in that sense there is gravity; but there's no reason to suppose that the explanation for objects falling to earth is the same as the explanation for planets orbiting the sun. (And maybe planets don't orbit the sun at all!)

Conversely, a game like Traveller does assume _law of physics_ but "cheats" with them in certain respects - eg anit-grav as you say, and FTL travel. Which shows that in a sci-fi game even laws of physics are just a trope, not a deep thing about plausibility or realism.


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## prabe

Campbell said:


> From my perspective the most empowering feature of Blades in the Dark is Position and Effect. It foregrounds negotiation of fictional positioning between the GM and other players. Because you do not have to commit until Position and Effect are agreed to you always know what you are getting into. Between Position/Effect and being able to ask specific questions with Gather Information pretty much all your decisions will be informed ones.
> 
> That's not to say that with the *player *agency that provides you lose nothing. Blades is not really a game that rewards you that much for being clever. Instead it provides you with the ability to influence the setting that in other games would require clever thinking. I like having to be clever sometimes. It provides a rush when I get it right and something to strive towards when I get it wrong. 3D Pictionary is a lot of fun for me sometimes. It also means that you lose out on the joy of discovery because you do not need to hunt information down or explore red herrings.



Your mention of red herrings has (of course) gotten me thinking of whodunit-esque mysteries--which aren't a super fit for TRPGs because the pleasures of the genre (in books, movies, etc.) aren't all that compatible with the pleasures of TRPGs. Obviously, if one is running such an adventure in D&D, the expectation is that the emergent story is going to be about the players figuring out who the killer is, probably with some sort of (probably metaphorical) ticking clock, and that the DM knows who did it. I know people have run mystery-type stories in FitD or PbtA games, but it seems to me that they'd have to work differently around the table. It seems likely to me they'd have to focus less on if the playerss will figure out the mystery and more on the results and repercussions when the PCs do so. This isn't intended on slagging on such games, FWIW; I'm just saying the play experience, here, would be a very different one.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> The doubling effect is about the PCs effect on the thugs, not their effect on the PC, although that does play in based on position.
> 
> To speak to 1) I have played Blades, I've also played other FitD games like Scum and Villainy, and a couple of others, so I'm  pretty familiar with how the mechanics and adjudication work. The difference in this instance is player control over the outcome. Not only can the player move in-fiction to increase effect, the plyer can also elect to trade position for effect if they're willing to risk increased damage. This is before any dice are rolled. It's not even remotely about what PCs can attempt, as in both rules sets the PCs can attempt anything, but in Blades, after the declaration or as part of the declaration, the PC can substantively change the chances of or effect of the action they have proposed, which is something that doesn't really happen in, say, D&D.
> 
> No rolls, just player decision making and framing. The player chooses to engage with the proffered fiction, and by doing so in a competent way changes the dynamics of the test and resolution. That is the essence of player agency.
> 
> As far as complex actions go, Blades does handle those really well, but not any better than 4E's complex skill challenges does IMO. That level of competence can be had in 5E from a good DM, but it's not enforced and bounded by the rules like it is in Blades.
> 
> I wasn't really addressing your 2), although we could chat about that if you like. The flashback isn't what most people think it is when it comes to how it changes the basic experience of an RPG at the table.



Right, this is what I see as a big problem with more classic RPG processes similar to D&D's where each discrete element of any 'activity' invokes a separate check, with each one being binary pass/fail, gauged purely on some judged measure of difficulty for its DC, and not related in any way to a risk/reward kind of calculation. You see this very evidently when you try to do really serious action adventure with, say, 5e at most tables. Something like "I leap off the balcony, grab the rope, swing across the room, drop, and come down on the bad guy, slamming him with my legs, and then attacking with my sword!" Guess how many checks that is going to provoke in a D&D game? A smart, and nice, GM might be your ally in this sort of action and only make you take an acrobatics check, and a couple of to-hits, and then of course you have to roll damage. A dud roll on any of these will pretty much result in things not going off in an impressive manner. You'd be, mechanically, better off in 99% of cases to just get out your missile weapon and take a shot. Worst case you have to make several very difficult checks. Either way, the cumulative chances of success are low. This may be 'realistic', but is it fun? Sure, once in a while players will just toss common sense to the winds and try anyway, but at its core D&D's process rewards careful, conservative, systematic play, not risk taking. This is baked into its DNA! Other similarly structured games overall do the same thing to varying degrees. 

A more macroscopic aspect of this sort of thing exists too. Imagine you built a game along the basic mechanical lines of D&D, and your goal was to be the first guy to land on the Moon. Forget it. Its literally a 1 in billions against you opportunity. 'Realistically' you'd have to play through a scenario where you already get to start with most of the qualifications, and then rely on luck and skill at play which will produce that result with fantastically low probability. It is simply put, impossible. This is the problem with the whole concept of play where each thing 'logically and plausibly follows from the rest' where dice, or picking the right options at various points, scale in difficulty in a plausible way. Sure, you are 'free to try', but this is a meaningless freedom. 

I mean, it is one thing to say "its hard in E. Gary Gygax's D&D campaign for your PC magic user to survive and make it to name level." However, if you play for a while, and hone your skills, you have a pretty decent chance to achieve that. Probably most people who played in 'Greyhawk' for a while 'made it'. Sure, the difficulty made it an interesting challenge, and I'm all for that, but it didn't involve 1 in a million odds. Not because that would be unrealistic (What is the % of name-level wizards in Oerik, it surely isn't very high), but because it wouldn't be that much fun.

These are the considerations which led me to cinematic play and resolution systems which match risk to reward and don't pile on layer after layer of accumulated luck as a task becomes more dangerous or implausible. And I get that when in Dungeon World swinging from the balcony, knocking down the bad guy and hacking on him succeeds (at least partly) on a 7+, that in a 'this is a challenging game move' sense it isn't some big deal, but it is STILL COOL, you thought of it, the results are spectacular, the consequences of failure are undoubtedly nasty (even on a 7-9 you can pretty well guarantee you're in some hot water) and even in the best case the bad guy may just stand up again and look REALLY PISSED before he proceeds to try to thrash you! Yes, if you manage to pull off the 20% chance of passing all the various checks in the D&D version you will have done something literally very risky and pulled it off. The coolness is IME not really different though, and in the long run you will have to endure a lot of "you fall on your ass and look stupid" if you play like that every day.


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## Fenris-77

I completely agree. What's more, I generally want my players swinging from chandeliers. So in games like D&D I often find it difficult to adjudicate and strike a balance between fostering the kind of play I want and maintaining some fidelity to the rules set. It's actually easier in OSR games because there are fewer subsystems and over determination bogging things down,  but its still that same binary resolution system.

I'm actually in the middle of trying to design some complex task rules for my own OSR hack, and this kind of situation is exactly the sort of thing I want to be able to accomodate.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> I completely agree. What's more, I generally want my players swinging from chandeliers. So in games like D&D I often find it difficult to adjudicate and strike a balance between fostering the kind of play I want and maintaining some fidelity to the rules set. It's actually easier in OSR games because there are fewer subsystems and over determination bogging things down,  but its still that same binary resolution system.
> 
> I'm actually in the middle of trying to design some complex task rules for my own OSR hack, and this kind of situation is exactly the sort of thing I want to be able to accomodate.



Yeah, I've been thinking about it too. When I first hacked on 4e I didn't really think a lot of these ideas all the way through. I just kind of accepted task resolution process as it already was (which is, for discrete checks basically classic D&D style). Obviously you can use SC mechanics too, but they don't REALLY address this issue head on. Nor does "I swing from the chandelier rope" seem like a very good candidate for an SC. 

So, I haven't really come to firm conclusions on what approach to take. Perhaps simply insuring that any 'improvised action' type of move in an 'action sequence' (more generic term for 'combat encounter') is gauged in a risk/reward manner. I just haven't sorted out how, and then that check mechanic needs to be consistent with checks used in SCs as well, so I have to consider how to rework that too. 

Now it is a lot less 'a variant of d20 D&D', so is it even worth writing that game vs simply adopting some existing engine or complete system? These games are fairly tricky to get right.


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## prabe

AbdulAlhazred said:


> You see this very evidently when you try to do really serious action adventure with, say, 5e at most tables. Something like "I leap off the balcony, grab the rope, swing across the room, drop, and come down on the bad guy, slamming him with my legs, and then attacking with my sword!" Guess how many checks that is going to provoke in a D&D game?



I think I see an Acrobatics or Athletics check (player's choice) resolved as a Push check (and occupying the PC's move and bonus action, because it's doing two things) to knock the bad guy down. Then an attack with advantage. If the PC's a rogue, that's probably going to *hurt*. But I am probably what you'd call a "smart DM" and I'm very much a fan of the PCs and I am completely unafraid of the PCs doing things I hadn't anticipated (though if they start making "planning something weird" moves, I'll outright ask where they're going--I don't care if they wrongfoot the NPCs/monsters, but I don't want to be wrongfooted as the DM).

RAW, the Push is the only thing I see that needs a separate check, which, if that's a straight rogue, means they don't get a weapon attack; that's why I'd rule it the way I would.


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## Fenris-77

Well, i think there's a range of possibilities when it comes to fostering this kind of  play. On the one hand, at least some part of this cinematic play is straight description with nothing at stake from a mechanical perspective. That part is easy to deal with, just dont call for a roll and move along.

Things get sticky when we start talking about mechanial advantage of some kind (bonuses etc). In the chandelier example, we'd need to be specific about the stakes in order to decide how it should be handled. Is the chandelier just a clever use of terrain to bypass some mooks? If so, that's entirely within the idea of intelligent play that sits at the heart of OSR play. That shouldn't be penalized by compound rolling. My answer there would be make a Dex check for the acrobatics portion and I'd use the results of the Dex check to adjudicate the following attacks, with a range if possibilities between disadvantage and advantage, with some spots in between.  That would be easier with a different mechanic, say PbtA's, but it's doable with the binary if the first check is just set up for the second. To be clear, the first roll can't fail, per se, only set you up better or worse for the following roll.

Where I start to flail about a little is once this idea gets past two rolls.


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## FrogReaver

We have talked some about plausibility.  I don’t think anyone has phrased it this way, but it sounds like in blades the player is choosing which plausible outcome will occur on the success.  The Dm determines the position (almost an advantage like slider).  The effect part wasn’t as clear to me.  I thought the player set the outcome which sounds a lot like effect to me?


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## Fenris-77

By the book, if I'm remembering right, the GM and player narrate success cooperatively as a back and forth thing.

Edit, sorry that wasn't very clear, that is how it works I just don't have the book open to quote the wording. The player has a range of options on extra successes to modify the outcome, but the GM is in charge of the mechanical side of things. Mostly the outcomes is bound, as it should be, by the nature of the action declaration and the choice of skill that was rolled.


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## hawkeyefan

FrogReaver said:


> We have talked some about plausibility.  I don’t think anyone has phrased it this way, but it sounds like in blades the player is choosing which plausible outcome will occur on the success.  The Dm determines the position (almost an advantage like slider).  The effect part wasn’t as clear to me.  I thought the player set the outcome which sounds a lot like effect to me?




The player states their goal for the action. "I want to dash across this courtyard without being seen." The GM considers all the relevant factors and then says something like "The courtyard is pretty big. If you want to remain unnoticed by being as quiet and careful as possible, then you'll only make it part of the way. I'd say your position is Risky, and the Effect would be limited."

This is the GM taking the players goal and saying that they can only achieve part of that goal with a success. Their Effect will be Limited. I think one of the things to notice here is that the GM is gauging everything based on the player's stated goal.

The player has a few options at that point.

1) "What if I just run full speed and try to get across before anyone sees me? So I'm less careful, but going at full speed. What then?"

The GM might respond "Okay, so it sounds like you're trading Position for Effect. So the chance that you're noticed goes up, but you can make it all the way across. I'll say Desparate Position, Standard Effect. Go ahead and mark an XP." The player has made the action riskier....they're more likely to be noticed, but they can make it all the way in one action. Standard Effect means you should achieve what we would consider a full success. The player also gets an XP for a Desperate action.

2) Or the player can say. "Okay, Risky/Limited. I'll spend 2 stress to Push for Effect. That makes it Risky/Standard, right?" Spending 2 stress allows you to either roll an extra die as part of your roll, or allows you to increase the Effect by one stage on a success. In this case, from Limited to Standard.

In this case, the GM says, "Okay, yeah....if you Push for Effect here, then it's Risky/Standard. You can make it all the way across and you can stay pretty quiet about it, but it costs you some real effort."

3) Finally, the player may have other factors that they want considered. So they may say something like "Limited Effect? Well, I took a Light Load specifically so I'd be mobile for a situation exactly like this. Do you think that's enough to give me a shot at Standard Effect?"

The GM would consider this, and decide yes or no based on all the relevant factors. If it was me, I'd say "You took Light Load? Okay, yes, then I think you're prepared for exactly this kind of fast but silent move. Go ahead and roll with Risky/Standard."

4) The player could accept the initial statement of Position and Effect as Risky/Limited, knowing that a success will only get them partway across the coutyard, and they'll likely need another action to make it the whole way.

***

The player has various ways to provide input on the process. The GM does use their judgment to set the initial Position and Effect, but these are based on the player's stated goal. Then, once established, the player may use resources or negotiation to alter the Position and Effect, and the GM is bound by this. Whatever option from the above happens, the Position and Effect are finalized and agreed upon before the roll is made. The player can always decide not to proceed once it's all been worked out.

Then, based on the actual outcome of the roll, the player and GM discuss what happens, with the GM having final say. Very often, the outcome may be obvious based on the established fiction and the outcome of the roll.


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## Fenris-77

That's a much more complete description than mine.


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## hawkeyefan

ha I saw your response like halfway through that and I almost stopped.


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## pemerton

prabe said:


> Your mention of red herrings has (of course) gotten me thinking of whodunit-esque mysteries--which aren't a super fit for TRPGs because the pleasures of the genre (in books, movies, etc.) aren't all that compatible with the pleasures of TRPGs. Obviously, if one is running such an adventure in D&D, the expectation is that the emergent story is going to be about the players figuring out who the killer is, probably with some sort of (probably metaphorical) ticking clock, and that the DM knows who did it. I know people have run mystery-type stories in FitD or PbtA games, but it seems to me that they'd have to work differently around the table. It seems likely to me they'd have to focus less on if the playerss will figure out the mystery and more on the results and repercussions when the PCs do so. This isn't intended on slagging on such games, FWIW; I'm just saying the play experience, here, would be a very different one.



At one stage (low Paragon) my 4e D&D game involved a "kidnap" mystery. The general shape of the events and personalities was established by me (as GM), in advance. I'm sure there was some tweaking/massaging to reflect developments as we went along, but it's a bit hazy.

The big reveal was that the "kidnapped" niece (daughter? it's a bit hazy) was in fact herself a necromancer and member of the Vecna cult rather than their victim. I can't recall at what point I decided on that. I can't find stats for her in my files, which means I may have been using a sourcebook (probably Open Grave), which means the decision _might_ have been made quite close to the moment of play. But it seems more likely I had it in mind as part of the set-up.


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## Fenris-77

@pemerton - Did you really Patty Hearst you D&D game? That's awesome.


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> At one stage (low Paragon) my 4e D&D game involved a "kidnap" mystery. The general shape of the events and personalities was established by me (as GM), in advance. I'm sure there was some tweaking/massaging to reflect developments as we went along, but it's a bit hazy.
> 
> The big reveal was that the "kidnapped" niece (daughter? it's a bit hazy) was in fact herself a necromancer and member of the Vecna cult rather than their victim. I can't recall at what point I decided on that. I can't find stats for her in my files, which means I may have been using a sourcebook (probably Open Grave), which means the decision _might_ have been made quite close to the moment of play. But it seems more likely I had it in mind as part of the set-up.



It's a tricky line to walk (but I'm sure you and your players enjoyed it): The pleasures of ratiocination mysteries (IMO) are either you beat the detective to the solution, or you follow the detective's thoughts as they explain the solution; the former seems difficult without some sort of clock, and the latter doesn't seem tenable to me in a TRPG.

My solution when I ad-libbed myself into this particular corner was to have the mystery they were trying to solve--if the merchant didn't murder his lover, who did (and why)?--tie into a larger plot that was a threat to the entire dwarven stronghold the party were in. The party figured out the broad outlines and started working to alert the stronghold--in the larger scale, it didn't matter much that they'd guessed doppelgangers when the shapeshifters in question were oni (ogre magi), and the party's moves to get word of the plot to the hierarchy turned the party into targets, so things worked out relatively well.


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## Fenris-77

prabe said:


> It's a tricky line to walk (but I'm sure you and your players enjoyed it): The pleasures of ratiocination mysteries (IMO) are either you beat the detective to the solution, or you follow the detective's thoughts as they explain the solution; the former seems difficult without some sort of clock, and the latter doesn't seem tenable to me in a TRPG.



That sounds true for detective fiction, but I'm not sure it's true for mysteries in RPGs. Personally, I think the main draw is straight up the joy of finding things out. Plus a side order of feeling clever.


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## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> That sounds true for detective fiction, but I'm not sure it's true for mysteries in RPGs. Personally, I think the main draw is straight up the joy of finding things out. Plus a side order of feeling clever.



Yeah, I think that's the way they play at the table. The hard thing, I guess, is getting the difficulty level right, just like anything else. I guess I just didn't (before running one) trust myself to do so--and failing on the too-hard side is kinda fun-breaking, IMO.


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## Fenris-77

Lotsa clues, and some flex on the GM side and you'll be fine.


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## prabe

Fenris-77 said:


> Lotsa clues, and some flex on the GM side and you'll be fine.



As it turned out, lots and lots of clues, and there was some flex as to when other things were going to happen. I think the one that did it was when the merchant and his lover were seen arguing in two places at the same time (or close enough). When the players figured out there were shapechangers at play I was happy we were gaming online so they couldn't see my victory arms. \o/!


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## pemerton

Fenris-77 said:


> @pemerton - Did you really Patty Hearst you D&D game? That's awesome.



I didn't think of it in quite those terms.


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## AbdulAlhazred

I can think of other variations that might work. The PCs are actually trying to pull off the murder (IE cover it up, not solve it). @prabe's idea sounds quite good too. Another set of scenarios might involve situations where it isn't required to solve, like it is politically expedient to pin it on M, and it doesn't really matter who the real killer is (though this begs for a plot twist as well). The PCs could be any of the parties in this sort of thing, or maybe even all of them...

Another option would be a party of PCs who don't trust each other. The Netflix series IMPOSTERS has a story arc sort of like this (there isn't a murder to solve, but there are some other crimes). None of the main characters knows exactly who to trust, and neither do the viewers. Everyone is a con artist, so who trust anything anyone does or says? 

I think you can make some of these work with various story telling models as well, but maybe not all of them. A classic whodoneit pretty much seems like it needs one GM who knows the plot and players who don't.


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## Fenris-77

I love those victory arms moments. It makes the rest of the drudgery worth it.


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## pemerton

prabe said:


> It's a tricky line to walk (but I'm sure you and your players enjoyed it): The pleasures of ratiocination mysteries (IMO) are either you beat the detective to the solution, or you follow the detective's thoughts as they explain the solution; the former seems difficult without some sort of clock, and the latter doesn't seem tenable to me in a TRPG.



I think the analogue in a RPG of "beating the detective" is _figuring it out before the GM reveals it in a way that counts as a loss for the PCs _(and so for the players too).

I don't think my kidnapping mystery would have slowed down Poirot for very long! I also think it's hard to do physical evidence or personality/behaviour-type evidence in a RPG because that has to be conveyed via the spoken word which tends to foreground the stuff that the detective should be inferring.


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> I think the analogue in a RPG of "beating the detective" is _figuring it out before the GM reveals it in a way that counts as a loss for the PCs _(and so for the players too).



That's probably about right. I don't know that an actual clock is necessary--the sense of diminishing time before something goes bad might work well enough. Certainly the other (lesser?) pleasure of the genre--following along with the detective as they solve the mystery--is not going to translate to TRPG play.


pemerton said:


> I don't think my kidnapping mystery would have slowed down Poirot for very long! I also think it's hard to do physical evidence or personality/behaviour-type evidence in a RPG because that has to be conveyed via the spoken word which tends to foreground the stuff that the detective should be inferring.



Yeah. The PCs in my mystery had received a trustworthy divination that told them the merchant wasn't a murderer, so they knew it was someone else. The witness-type evidence they developed worked out well--as I think you are saying would be likely. I can see how maybe some physical-type evidence could be made to work in play, if you have players who can make the leaps (the head is bashed in, but there's no blood spatter, so it was done with one blow, so the killer is really (plausibly superhumanly) strong), and using something like Insight/Sense Motive to see if someone is lying seems to make sense; but I agree there are kinds of detective-type activity that are hard to make go as part of play, and letting skill checks take care of the inferences seems more likely than not to lead to the players being in "watch the detective figure it out" mode.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Mysteries can be tough. 

About a year ago, my group played some of Modiphius’s Star Trek Adventures. A buddy of mine is a big Trek fan and wanted to run it, and despite nit being a big Trek fan myself, I’m always happy to take a break from the GM seat and play a bit.

I bounced off of this game in almost every way possible. Some of the mechanics were pretty interesting, and they have a kind of lifepath character generation method that’s cool, but everything else felt very predetermined. 

This was not helped by one of the scenarios that he ran us through. It’s a published one, but I couldn’t say in what product. It’s a mystery. There’s been what appears to have been an accident with some experiment, and some scientists are dead. The goal of the scenario is to piece together bits of info to try and get to the actual truth. 

It basically became a case of the PCs asking questions of different NPCs and some answers were gated behind rolls. So it’s just a slow crawl to ultimately solving the mystery. 

It was brutal. 

I don’t think it was just the scenario. The GM who ran it is a very by the book kind of GM. He’s run countless hours of public games at a game store for a wide variety of players. I think this has conditioned him to always stick with prewritten adventures. So that was part of it too. Plus, my kind of chafing at the Star Trek constraints, which is my own thing.

Before playing that game, I already tended to avoid games or scenarios that involve that kind of “whodunnit” mystery. That game pretty much convinced me to never mess with it again. I’m sure it can be done, but for me it’s a risk/reward thing.


----------



## prabe

@hawkeyefan That's kinda a worst-cast scenario, and one of the failure-states I was trying to avoid. Even though the mystery-adjacent scenario I ran worked out pretty well, I'm still leery of them in general.

Of course, I also have never been able to make sense of any published adventures, so I don't run them.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Mysteries can be tough.
> 
> About a year ago, my group played some of Modiphius’s Star Trek Adventures. A buddy of mine is a big Trek fan and wanted to run it, and despite nit being a big Trek fan myself, I’m always happy to take a break from the GM seat and play a bit.
> 
> I bounced off of this game in almost every way possible. Some of the mechanics were pretty interesting, and they have a kind of lifepath character generation method that’s cool, but everything else felt very predetermined.
> 
> This was not helped by one of the scenarios that he ran us through. It’s a published one, but I couldn’t say in what product. It’s a mystery. There’s been what appears to have been an accident with some experiment, and some scientists are dead. The goal of the scenario is to piece together bits of info to try and get to the actual truth.
> 
> It basically became a case of the PCs asking questions of different NPCs and some answers were gated behind rolls. So it’s just a slow crawl to ultimately solving the mystery.
> 
> It was brutal.
> 
> I don’t think it was just the scenario. The GM who ran it is a very by the book kind of GM. He’s run countless hours of public games at a game store for a wide variety of players. I think this has conditioned him to always stick with prewritten adventures. So that was part of it too. Plus, my kind of chafing at the Star Trek constraints, which is my own thing.
> 
> Before playing that game, I already tended to avoid games or scenarios that involve that kind of “whodunnit” mystery. That game pretty much convinced me to never mess with it again. I’m sure it can be done, but for me it’s a risk/reward thing.




I think it is about goals going in. If the fun for the players is the solving of the mystery, the finding of clues, and the possibility of failure (because the game is the mystery), the traditional approach with structural approaches like the three clue rule are a good approach (I like adding a ticking time clock to my mysteries to make sure things stay exciting even if they bog down: works well for counter terrorism mystery adventures). If failure to solve is a problem for the group, Gumshoe has a good approach for getting around that issue (and even if you don't use Gumshoe, some of its advice is still helpful: for example while I don't take the Gumshoe approach it has prompted me to realize some clues, due to their nature, simply don't need to be rolled to obtained). 

My approach to clue finding is: big obvious clues need no roll. Less obvious clues need to be searched for actively (in which case specific types of searches like "I look in the drawer" would yield the clue without needing a roll). Basically I try to use skill searches when players are not actively engaging the environment but doing so more passively. Also, spending an hour to search through everything in a room can turn it up, unless it is particularly well hidden. Also the same clue can often be found in multiple places, and I always consider whether an action taken by the PCs would reasonably yield a given clue, even if I hadn't thought of it before the game----this happened for instance when a group of players did a phone records search that I never considered when I was making the mystery. 

One technique I use is having some looming disaster that triggers if the players don't solve the mystery by a certain point. I like this because it also means the outcome is very different depending on what the players spend their time doing (I have had supernatural adventures where monsters are unleashed if the mystery isn't solved, and I have had adventures where a terror attack takes place at a festival if the mystery isn't solved. Both these outcomes still gave the players something to do, even something to investigate, in the adventure. They just kind of kick it into high gear and show the players how high the stakes are (and you can have multiple tiers of these kinds of events).


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> @hawkeyefan That's kinda a worst-cast scenario, and one of the failure-states I was trying to avoid. Even though the mystery-adjacent scenario I ran worked out pretty well, I'm still leery of them in general.
> 
> Of course, I also have never been able to make sense of any published adventures, so I don't run them.




Oh yes, I realize it was a worst case kind of scenario for sure. It was a combination of a few things. 

My takeaway though, from the perspective as a player, is that if everything is already determined ahead of time, then as a game, it's just a matter of jumping through the necessary hoops for the GM to narrate what has already been determined to me. It's very possible this can be mitigated in some way, as people have suggested above, but the risk with a "whodunnit" kind of mystery is that all the facts/clues/details are typically set beforehand, so that's a challenge. If I as a player feel that I'm not bringing anything unique or specifically me to the game, that things would (not may or could, but would) play out exactly the same if someone else was in my chair, then I'm probably not gonna dig it.

So from a GMing perspective, my takeaway is two things. First, if I already know everything that's going to happen in play, then I've erred. There needs to be things that are and can only be determined by the players at the time of play. I've very much embraced the "play to find out" mindset for the GM. 

Second, why run this kind of scenario given how risky it would be to devolve into a railroad, when even if I manage it perfectly, it'll likely be as well received as any other scenario? And I'm certainly not averse to investigation based scenarios.....but the "whodunnit" style just requires so much predetermination by the GM that I don't see the reward being worth the risk. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.


----------



## prabe

I don't disagree about whodunits--as whodunits--being at least potentially problematic. That said ...


hawkeyefan said:


> So from a GMing perspective, my takeaway is two things. First, if I already know everything that's going to happen in play, then I've erred. There needs to be things that are and can only be determined by the players at the time of play. I've very much embraced the "play to find out" mindset for the GM.



I knew what was going on and who was doing it and why, and I knew (at least mostly) how they were going about it. I didn't know how the PCs were going to approach the situation, and I didn't know how they'd handle things--and it was at least in principle possible that they'd be able to demonstrate the merchant was innocent without digging up and triggering the larger problem.


hawkeyefan said:


> Second, why run this kind of scenario given how risky it would be to devolve into a railroad, when even if I manage it perfectly, it'll likely be as well received as any other scenario? And I'm certainly not averse to investigation based scenarios.....but the "whodunnit" style just requires so much predetermination by the GM that I don't see the reward being worth the risk. The juice isn't worth the squeeze.



As I said, I kinda ad-libbed myself into running that mystery. The merchant hired the party to escort him to the dwarven stronghold, and I ended up needing reason/s for him to be persona non grata there. I didn't think the PCs would continue with the job if he was guilty, so he wasn't. So, if he wasn't guilty, something else needed to be going on, and that something else was what the party ended up finding as they were solving what looked like a whodunit.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> That sounds true for detective fiction, but I'm not sure it's true for mysteries in RPGs. Personally, I think the main draw is straight up the joy of finding things out. Plus a side order of feeling clever.




I like to call this do you want to be in a Sherlock Holmes story or do you want to try to be Sherlock Holmes. Those are very different goals. One expects certain story tropes to emerge, clues to come together in certain ways, for the mystery to be solved by the master detective, and for him to find and piece together clues most of the time (even if he is stumped, you expect Sherlock Holmes to figure it out eventually). But if you are trying to be Sherlock Holmes, you want to experience the challenge of solving a mystery, which demands the possibility of not solving mystery to have any value. There are times, especially for certain types of adventures, for some, where it is more about giving in to the players desire to play a strategic or tactical game of chess in the setting. I think knowing what you are after, knowing what your group is after, is extremely important here.  A lot of the arguments I've seen online about mysteries and investigations, are more about two people walking into a game with totally different goals in mind. Once you realize what yours are, it is a lot easier to find solutions to the mystery structure (that is why for some the three clue rule works great, but for others it doesn't; why some love Gumshoe, and some don't). This is an adventure structure I have used a lot, and done well, if you know what you are trying to do with it, it works great.


----------



## prabe

Bedrockgames said:


> This is an adventure structure I have used a lot, and done well, if you know what you are trying to do with it, it works great.



I agree with the post, overall, but I think "if you know what you are trying to do with it" includes--at least--knowing what the players want to get out of it, and having a pretty good sense of how challenging to make it to give them the level of challenge they want (which means knowing how good they are at figuring out stuff). I'm pretty sure you meant that--it seems to be in the subtext of your post--but in this instance making the implicit explicit hurts no one, IMO.


----------



## hawkeyefan

prabe said:


> I don't disagree about whodunits--as whodunits--being at least potentially problematic. That said ...
> 
> I knew what was going on and who was doing it and why, and I knew (at least mostly) how they were going about it. I didn't know how the PCs were going to approach the situation, and I didn't know how they'd handle things--and it was at least in principle possible that they'd be able to demonstrate the merchant was innocent without digging up and triggering the larger problem.
> 
> As I said, I kinda ad-libbed myself into running that mystery. The merchant hired the party to escort him to the dwarven stronghold, and I ended up needing reason/s for him to be persona non grata there. I didn't think the PCs would continue with the job if he was guilty, so he wasn't. So, if he wasn't guilty, something else needed to be going on, and that something else was what the party ended up finding as they were solving what looked like a whodunit.




Yeah, there are ways to make it work. And I wouldn't say that my games don't wind up with some of this kind of content involved. It can sometimes come up as a natural progression of the game and what the players do.

Also, I want to clarify in regard to my recent posts....when I say "erred" or that things are "going to go poorly" or any of that, I only mean for my own tastes and what I am hoping to get out of a game, either as player or GM. There may be any number of games where this works great for all involved, and I realize that. A lot of this is just my preference.


----------



## prabe

hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, there are ways to make it work. And I wouldn't say that my games don't wind up with some of this kind of content involved. It can sometimes come up as a natural progression of the game and what the players do.
> 
> Also, I want to clarify in regard to my recent posts....when I say "erred" or that things are "going to go poorly" or any of that, I only mean for my own tastes and what I am hoping to get out of a game, either as player or GM. There may be any number of games where this works great for all involved, and I realize that. A lot of this is just my preference.



Yeah. It's not a type of story I'm ever looking to drop into a campaign; the one that happened, just kinda happened--as you say, a natural progression of the fiction. I was not--honest!--taking it as any sort of personal statement that I had erred or that my game had gone poorly, though I gotta admit I* was* worried I had erred, when I realized I was committed to running a mystery.

I think part of GMing is knowing the tastes of the people at the table, and at least not aiming dead-center at something someone detests. I honestly think that if the mystery had been nothing but frustration for the players, I could have worked something out--probably explicitly out-of-game--to get around that. Sincere apologies go a long way, I've found, in cases like that.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> I like to call this do you want to be in a Sherlock Holmes story or do you want to try to be Sherlock Holmes. Those are very different goals. One expects certain story tropes to emerge, clues to come together in certain ways, for the mystery to be solved by the master detective, and for him to find and piece together clues most of the time (even if he is stumped, you expect Sherlock Holmes to figure it out eventually). But if you are trying to be Sherlock Holmes, you want to experience the challenge of solving a mystery, which demands the possibility of not solving mystery to have any value.




So this is an interesting look at it. And it kind of raises a question in my mind. And this is just something that popped into my head reading the above, I don't mean this as a question specifically for you, @Bedrockgames , though I am interested in your take, too!

How does a player feel like Sherlock Holmes? How do we try to portray that in play?

There's the idea with this kind of mystery that there is information that's been intentionally obscured, and Holmes is going to find it, right? That's kind of the essential element. 

Is the best way portray that in a game to be to try and replicate it? By that I mean, have the players be searching for the clues that are hidden in hope of finding them? 

Or is there some other way? Because to be honest, Holmes stories sometimes require major intuitive leaps made by the character because he is a fictional character allowed to make those leaps......it's all the product of one author, and so Sherlock can make these crazy proclamations and he seems amazingly intuitive and observant. But it's all artifice. 

I would think that trying to replicate that would either see the players fall short because their crazy intuitions will not likely be right, or the mystery itself would be simple in comparison to those of the kinds Holmes tends to get involved with. 

Would that still make for an engaging game? Very possibly. 

Or would it feel more Holmesesque if the players had some kind of ability to steer things beyond simply finding what's there? Would that _feel_ more like Holmes? 

If we think of his deductions as being class abilities and Doyle as his player......maybe there's a case for approaching mysteries in another way. 

Not that I have any idea how you would do that. But just some thoughts.


----------



## Campbell

I am not opposed to mysteries, even of the who killed this man variety. I am just not super big on it being the main course. Even if we are playing a game where we play detectives it should be more like Homicide - Life on the Street than Sherlock Holmes or the mystery genre. There should be multiple balls in play, the perpetrators should have real goals and plans, and our characters should have their own naughty word going on. Like everything should not slow down and be about solving this one single crime. I love PC Adventure games, but I am not looking for that experience in a roleplaying game.

Part of the issue from my perspective is that I believe scenario design should be focused on what the player characters will do when faced with a given situation. The story in mystery novels are not about the detectives. It's about the crime that already occurred. I am looking to focus on what's going on right now. Mysteries can and should inform that, but should not be primary for my tastes.


----------



## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> So this is an interesting look at it. And it kind of raises a question in my mind. And this is just something that popped into my head reading the above, I don't mean this as a question specifically for you, @Bedrockgames , though I am interested in your take, too!
> 
> How does a player feel like Sherlock Holmes? How do we try to portray that in play?
> 
> There's the idea with this kind of mystery that there is information that's been intentionally obscured, and Holmes is going to find it, right? That's kind of the essential element.
> 
> Is the best way portray that in a game to be to try and replicate it? By that I mean, have the players be searching for the clues that are hidden in hope of finding them?
> 
> Or is there some other way? Because to be honest, Holmes stories sometimes require major intuitive leaps made by the character because he is a fictional character allowed to make those leaps......it's all the product of one author, and so Sherlock can make these crazy proclamations and he seems amazingly intuitive and observant. But it's all artifice.
> 
> I would think that trying to replicate that would either see the players fall short because their crazy intuitions will not likely be right, or the mystery itself would be simple in comparison to those of the kinds Holmes tends to get involved with.
> 
> Would that still make for an engaging game? Very possibly.
> 
> Or would it feel more Holmesesque if the players had some kind of ability to steer things beyond simply finding what's there? Would that _feel_ more like Holmes?
> 
> If we think of his deductions as being class abilities and Doyle as his player......maybe there's a case for approaching mysteries in another way.
> 
> Not that I have any idea how you would do that. But just some thoughts.




In the answering the question it is really, really important to put your game bases aside in terms of style I think. Everyone, myself included, tends to answer this question with their own preferences in mind. This is why I drew a distinction between being in a sherlock holmes story (which is more what you describe) and being (not feeling) Sherlock Holmes. Neither approach is wrong or right, they are just different goals (and to be clear, there are more distinctions to be made here. The type of play I think aligns with being Sherlock homes is where the players are experiencing the challenges of solving, or failing to solve, the mystery by finding clues, piecing together the clues, etc. This is, I think, for the kinds of fans of mystery for whom so many bookshelf games were made in the 70s (you can look these up to see what I am talking about). So I think the answers your questions suggest are much more in the realm of players who want to be in a Sherlock holmes story, or those who want to simulate sherlock holmes (i.e. they want to make a character who can do the things Sherlock holmes does, and use something like a set of skills or abilities to do those things, rather than do those things as directly themselves as possible). Again, there is nothing wrong with any of these preferences, but they are preferences you see emerge in discussions around mystery adventures where some people want Sherlock Holmes to be able to make 'crazy proclamations' and have those be true, others want to see if they can piece together the available data and arrive at something true.


----------



## Bedrockgames

If I were to break it down more clear types of distinctions, it would be: 

Do you want to emulate a Sherlock Holmes Story 
Do you want to simulate sherlock holmes
Do you want to play the game of detective that Sherlock Holmes plays 

There are probably better ways to describe this. You can easily discern three or four different sets of preferences around mysteries in these discussions (and in truth some campaigns are going to be a blend because groups are made up of people with all different kinds of preferences and sometimes people like to engage all three of these things at different points in play: humans are complicated


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> So this is an interesting look at it. And it kind of raises a question in my mind. And this is just something that popped into my head reading the above, I don't mean this as a question specifically for you, @Bedrockgames , though I am interested in your take, too!
> 
> How does a player feel like Sherlock Holmes? How do we try to portray that in play?
> 
> There's the idea with this kind of mystery that there is information that's been intentionally obscured, and Holmes is going to find it, right? That's kind of the essential element.
> 
> Is the best way portray that in a game to be to try and replicate it? By that I mean, have the players be searching for the clues that are hidden in hope of finding them?
> 
> Or is there some other way? Because to be honest, Holmes stories sometimes require major intuitive leaps made by the character because he is a fictional character allowed to make those leaps......it's all the product of one author, and so Sherlock can make these crazy proclamations and he seems amazingly intuitive and observant. But it's all artifice.
> 
> I would think that trying to replicate that would either see the players fall short because their crazy intuitions will not likely be right, or the mystery itself would be simple in comparison to those of the kinds Holmes tends to get involved with.
> 
> Would that still make for an engaging game? Very possibly.
> 
> Or would it feel more Holmesesque if the players had some kind of ability to steer things beyond simply finding what's there? Would that _feel_ more like Holmes?
> 
> If we think of his deductions as being class abilities and Doyle as his player......maybe there's a case for approaching mysteries in another way.
> 
> Not that I have any idea how you would do that. But just some thoughts.



Well.... Doesn't this kind of point at a sort of 'Story Now' approach? I mean, the players indicate they are wanting to solve a mystery, or the entire game is pitched that way/falls into that genre or whatever. So the GM frames a scene, which establishes the essential starting point. Inspector Lastrade calls the doctor in (or these are analogous characters anyway), there's been a murder! It is vital that it be solved, 'Scotland Yard' is stumped, etc. From here on out the players start asking questions and 'looking for clues'. The GM might have certain answers, there is some mud on a shoe, etc. That doesn't mean he knows exactly what it all means! As the players achieve successes they dig into further levels of story, danger, intrigue, whatever the GM thinks to frame into a scene that 'turns the screws'. Complications likewise arise, perhaps there are red herrings, or evidence is missed or destroyed. Even Holmes was sometimes stumped for a time, and did make mistakes. 

In this sort of process there isn't 'one single solution' to the mystery. There could be no specific solution in the GM's mind at the start, or perhaps she's thought of several possibilities. There can definitely be surprising elements which come up, but it may well be that one or more of the players actually defines the 'solution to the mystery'. This is still finding a solution, and it is still clever, though it might be a bit different type of puzzle solving than figuring out a mystery defined entirely by someone else. I can certainly see it as potentially entertaining.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Campbell said:


> I am not opposed to mysteries, even of the who killed this man variety. I am just not super big on it being the main course. Even if we are playing a game where we play detectives it should be more like Homicide - Life on the Street than Sherlock Holmes or the mystery genre. There should be multiple balls in play, the perpetrators should have real goals and plans, and our characters should have their own naughty word going on. Like everything should not slow down and be about solving this one single crime. I love PC Adventure games, but I am not looking for that experience in a roleplaying game.
> 
> Part of the issue from my perspective is that I believe scenario design should be focused on what the player characters will do when faced with a given situation. The story in mystery novels are not about the detectives. It's about the crime that already occurred. I am looking to focus on what's going on right now. Mysteries can and should inform that, but should not be primary for my tastes.



True. Something like 'CSI the RPG' would probably work better. There are various threads going on, the PCs are parts of a team, each with their own areas of expertise and skills. Several cases could be going at once, and the focus is more on how they go about what they do vs just focusing on solving a crime which is over and done with. This sort of setup would also work in a pretty wide variety of settings. It could certainly be pulled off in a D&D game, for example. This also mitigates the 'dud problem'. Yeah, maybe some cases will be easy to solve, but there are always other harder ones, and maybe some that stump the party.


----------



## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well.... Doesn't this kind of point at a sort of 'Story Now' approach? I mean, the players indicate they are wanting to solve a mystery, or the entire game is pitched that way/falls into that genre or whatever. So the GM frames a scene, which establishes the essential starting point. Inspector Lastrade calls the doctor in (or these are analogous characters anyway), there's been a murder! It is vital that it be solved, 'Scotland Yard' is stumped, etc. From here on out the players start asking questions and 'looking for clues'. The GM might have certain answers, there is some mud on a shoe, etc. That doesn't mean he knows exactly what it all means! As the players achieve successes they dig into further levels of story, danger, intrigue, whatever the GM thinks to frame into a scene that 'turns the screws'. Complications likewise arise, perhaps there are red herrings, or evidence is missed or destroyed. Even Holmes was sometimes stumped for a time, and did make mistakes.
> 
> In this sort of process there isn't 'one single solution' to the mystery. There could be no specific solution in the GM's mind at the start, or perhaps she's thought of several possibilities. There can definitely be surprising elements which come up, but it may well be that one or more of the players actually defines the 'solution to the mystery'. This is still finding a solution, and it is still clever, though it might be a bit different type of puzzle solving than figuring out a mystery defined entirely by someone else. I can certainly see it as potentially entertaining.




The problem is, for a lot of players this isn't actually solving the mystery, this is helping to write a mystery story. Which is fine, but it isn't what someone who wants to have a go at the challenge of being a detective is looking for. And in such a case, I think having a concrete mystery external to the player is crucial. That said, it shouldn't mean there is only one way to solve. There may be one true event that occurred, but there ought to be many paths to arrive at the truth of that event, and the GM should be open to pathways that would realistically yield clues to the truth (even if the GM has not foreseen those pathways). In this sort of scenario, the GM is basically doing his or her best to run a holodeck Sherlock Holmes scenario for Data. If the GM just allows Data's theory, even if it is wrong, to become the truth, it isn't really beating the challenge (and players in this style want to genuinely win or genuinely lose)


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> The problem is, for a lot of players this isn't actually solving the mystery, this is helping to write a mystery story. Which is fine, but it isn't what someone who wants to have a go at the challenge of being a detective is looking for. And in such a case, I think having a concrete mystery external to the player is crucial. That said, it shouldn't mean there is only one way to solve. There may be one true event that occurred, but there ought to be many paths to arrive at the truth of that event, and the GM should be open to pathways that would realistically yield clues to the truth (even if the GM has not foreseen those pathways). In this sort of scenario, the GM is basically doing his or her best to run a holodeck Sherlock Holmes scenario for Data. If the GM just allows Data's theory, even if it is wrong, to become the truth, it isn't really beating the challenge (and players in this style want to genuinely win or genuinely lose)



Well, 'multiple paths' might work, but at that point is there some value to there being one and only one correct solution? My experience with other sorts of Story Now play indicates that, as long as the results are consistent and plausible, and engage the PCs in the expected way, that the literal solution isn't usually the primary point. I certainly don't, myself, as a player feel like there can really BE one and only one solution, that's more just a fixed idea that the GM came up with. It is all fiction.


----------



## Campbell

I think nuance is important here. Story Now is a creative agenda. It just means that the GM is designing scenario with regard to the PCs' dramatic needs. While there are plenty of Story Now games that operate under the assumption of No Myth it's not an intrinsic feature of Story Now nor is any particular resolution method.

My Scion game is mostly run in a Story Now fashion, but there is a decent amount of binding secret backstory. It's also not utilizing intent based resolution. A lot of my approach to scenario design is based on Sorcerer which does very much utilize some myth.

This article, which I want to dig into later this week lays out the Standard Narrativistic Model like this:



			
				 The Standard Narrativistic Model said:
			
		

> Here’s how games like _Sorcerer_, _Dogs in the Vineyard_, some varieties of _Heroquest_, _The Shadow of Yesterday_, _Mountain Witch_, _Primetime Adventures_ and more games than I care to name all work:
> 
> 
> One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications.
> The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants.
> The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.
> The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. (Chargen is a key consideration in these games, compare them to see how different approaches work.) The GM might have more difficulty, as he needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> In the answering the question it is really, really important to put your game bases aside in terms of style I think. Everyone, myself included, tends to answer this question with their own preferences in mind. This is why I drew a distinction between being in a sherlock holmes story (which is more what you describe) and being (not feeling) Sherlock Holmes. Neither approach is wrong or right, they are just different goals (and to be clear, there are more distinctions to be made here. The type of play I think aligns with being Sherlock homes is where the players are experiencing the challenges of solving, or failing to solve, the mystery by finding clues, piecing together the clues, etc. This is, I think, for the kinds of fans of mystery for whom so many bookshelf games were made in the 70s (you can look these up to see what I am talking about). So I think the answers your questions suggest are much more in the realm of players who want to be in a Sherlock holmes story, or those who want to simulate sherlock holmes (i.e. they want to make a character who can do the things Sherlock holmes does, and use something like a set of skills or abilities to do those things, rather than do those things as directly themselves as possible). Again, there is nothing wrong with any of these preferences, but they are preferences you see emerge in discussions around mystery adventures where some people want Sherlock Holmes to be able to make 'crazy proclamations' and have those be true, others want to see if they can piece together the available data and arrive at something true.




Yeah, I agree that it's all a matter of preference. And I absolutely understand what you're saying about "emulating a Holmes story"; I get that as a description.

But I'm making a small, but maybe significant, distinction about how it would be best to put the players in the shoes of someone like Holmes. About "being" Holmes and what might best promote that.

I mean, Holmes is a genius, and most players are not. Do they feel like Holmes if they solve a relatively mundane mystery of the sort that would work for a game? Or if they fail to solve a more involved mystery because of the limitations of the format and also their own "limits" as non-genius people who don't benefit from being the star of the show?

Would playing it in that more mainstream, GM driven mode be as satisfying as a game? The answer for me with the Star Trek scenario I posted above, was a pretty resounding no, although there were a few things that contributed to that.

Also....players' actual physical capabilities never (almost never, I suppose) limit their characters' physical capabilities. When we're talking about mental capability, there are inherent limits. Does it make sense to try and bridge that gap some way? If so, how so? How do we do that, and still have a scenario that would be an interesting game? I'm not sure. 

Also, I'm not proposing any specific method. I'm not saying that having the player be able to make proclamations and have those be true would be fun for a game. Just that Holmes is able to do such.

Again, preference will matter of course, but I'm just asking the questions because they occurred to me and I think they're interesting. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.


----------



## Fenris-77

Mysteries are one place where node based design really shines. The clues are essentially an information dungeon where each clue has obvious links to other places and people. If there are enough nodes that there is some choice in approach, and no dead ends, then it's up to the players to put the pieces together as quickly as they can. You could use rolls for some of that I suppose, but I'd rather lean on my design. I tend to do layers where you have smaller nested sets of information, sort of like mysteries within mysteries. Not to make things more complicated, but to provide a sense of accomplishment and cleverness at multiple steps. I set things up more like a web than a line, so there's always the chance for a clever party to strike right to the heart of things.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Campbell said:


> I think nuance is important here. Story Now is a creative agenda. It just means that the GM is designing scenario with regard to the PCs' dramatic needs. While there are plenty of Story Now games that operate under the assumption of No Myth it's not an intrinsic feature of Story Now nor is any particular resolution method.
> 
> My Scion game is mostly run in a Story Now fashion, but there is a decent amount of binding secret backstory. It's also not utilizing intent based resolution. A lot of my approach to scenario design is based on Sorcerer which does very much utilize some myth.
> 
> This article, which I want to dig into later this week lays out the Standard Narrativistic Model like this:



Right, so 'narrative play' as I have often called it, certainly doesn't require zero myth. However, in the context of a mystery it does require that the plot progress (at least I would find it hard to understand how a stalled/thwarted investigation in a game largely focused on that element would produce drama). Now, the 'CSI RPG' I mentioned before (is there one?) would probably not have an issue with that, as there would be multiple plot threads and within that genre a failed investigation could be dramatic, if handled right (the issues would simply be elsewhere, I'm pretty sure at least one of the CSIs had some plots like this). 

I classify at least my earlier 4e campaigns as being in a similar vein. There was PLENTY of setting, a huge amount! The game also focused, to a degree, on 'D&D themes', that is it was D&D and it could lean on all the classic tropes and common genre assumptions of a D&D campaign. Quest givers and other plot devices work fine in this genre because they are expected, and can be built into setting and scene framing.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Yeah, I agree that it's all a matter of preference. And I absolutely understand what you're saying about "emulating a Holmes story"; I get that as a description.
> 
> But I'm making a small, but maybe significant, distinction about how it would be best to put the players in the shoes of someone like Holmes. About "being" Holmes and what might best promote that.
> 
> I mean, Holmes is a genius, and most players are not. Do they feel like Holmes if they solve a relatively mundane mystery of the sort that would work for a game? Or if they fail to solve a more involved mystery because of the limitations of the format and also their own "limits" as non-genius people who don't benefit from being the star of the show?
> 
> Would playing it in that more mainstream, GM driven mode be as satisfying as a game? The answer for me with the Star Trek scenario I posted above, was a pretty resounding no, although there were a few things that contributed to that.
> 
> Also....players' actual physical capabilities never (almost never, I suppose) limit their characters' physical capabilities. When we're talking about mental capability, there are inherent limits. Does it make sense to try and bridge that gap some way? If so, how so? How do we do that, and still have a scenario that would be an interesting game? I'm not sure.
> 
> Also, I'm not proposing any specific method. I'm not saying that having the player be able to make proclamations and have those be true would be fun for a game. Just that Holmes is able to do such.
> 
> Again, preference will matter of course, but I'm just asking the questions because they occurred to me and I think they're interesting. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer.




When I say be Holmes, I mean in Holmes shoes to play detective. What you are describing is what I mean by simulating Holmes, which is a totally viable option. But it isn't the same as playing the game Holmes is playing. In this style I am there to strive to be like Holmes, to pit my wits against the scenario the way Holmes does. I think a lot of people who are fans of mysteries, approach mystery novels this way (they are interested in solving the mystery before the story reachers its conclusion). That is how I read mystery novels, and for this type of person and for me, the most fun I have in mystery scenarios is getting an opportunity to truly play detective. This isn't about Sherlock Holmes specifically. This is about seeing how good of an ace detective you can be, and trying to become a better one. My point is, that is the game some players want to be playing. If you are playing it this way for this reason, you don't care if tests of strength in the game are testing your real world strength, you care that your mind is solving the puzzle. Bridging the gap between the players mental abilities and the characters makes sense if you want to simulate Sherlock holmes, but bridging that gap interferes with playing the game of solving the mystery i you want to be in Sherlock Holmes' shoes. 

Again, both approaches are fine.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> Mysteries are one place where node based design really shines. The clues are essentially an information dungeon where each clue has obvious links to other places and people. If there are enough nodes that there is some choice in approach, and no dead ends, then it's up to the players to put the pieces together as quickly as they can. You could use rolls for some of that I suppose, but I'd rather lean on my design. I tend to do layers where you have smaller nested sets of information, sort of like mysteries within mysteries. Not to make things more complicated, but to provide a sense of accomplishment and cleverness at multiple steps. I set things up more like a web than a line, so there's always the chance for a clever party to strike right to the heart of things.



Yes, but there are difficulties. The 'walls' of this 'maze' are invisible, which is a big problem. I have a section in my 'classic dungeon' where there is a whole sub-level with invisible walls (they also shock you if you touch them, just to be even meaner). Nobody gets through that. Trying to navigate that stuff is just super nasty. There are almost no landmarks, it is hard to orient, even if you invent some tricks to (partially) map it. A mystery of this sort of similar. Nobody knows where any clue really leads. At best you must be VERY VERY specific and spell everything out in great detail. This was not so needed in Doyle's writing because most of the things described tied in to common knowledge people had. If Holmes found a clue, people could interpret it, at least to some degree. Of course, if the game is set in a modern 'real world' type setting, then this helps a lot here!

'sub-mysteries' I agree would give a sense of progress. So a mystery that was, perhaps, an intricate conspiracy, where it is revealed in layers, would be a good design. I feel like we're getting into some very elaborate game scenarios though, which are hard to actually implement.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, 'multiple paths' might work, but at that point is there some value to there being one and only one correct solution? My experience with other sorts of Story Now play indicates that, as long as the results are consistent and plausible, and engage the PCs in the expected way, that the literal solution isn't usually the primary point. I certainly don't, myself, as a player feel like there can really BE one and only one solution, that's more just a fixed idea that the GM came up with. It is all fiction.




When you say correct solution, what do you mean? Does solution here equal who did it, or does solution mean the ways you can discover who did it? I would see those as two very different things. I think for the style of play I am talking about,  you need an objective event that is set: Frank killed John by strangling him  to death in the attic, because he was jealous over Loraine. The GM might plan out all the possible ways clues could be found (and these, in my view, should fit a consistent and logical backstory so the clues all make sense). But the players might come up with a way to find clues that would reasonably yield them in this scenario, even if the GM hadn't considered them. That is what I mean more than one path to a solution. Understand with mysteries for someone like me solving what actually happened is the point. If you are a fan of mysteries this is also often the point of reading them (if you sense the writer didn't know who did it and how from the beginning, and didn't have all the details pinned down, it can ruin the book). So if the GM is deciding that Loraine Kills Frank instead because the players went down that path of reasoning instead, I think this would take away from any real sense I had of solving it were I to know this (and I think one would start to suspect this after several sessions)


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> If Holmes found a clue, people could interpret it, at least to some degree. Of course, if the game is set in a modern 'real world' type setting, then this helps a lot here!




Certainly the players can take things to a lab for analysis if that is a resource available to them. It is also worth considering how modern law enforcement gathers evidence if the players are in the FBI or something. If that is the case you can also have evidence gathering teams, and the situation might be more about the players directing where those teams go. Another thing modern games introduce is phone communication. A good example of this in an investigation like show is 24 (which made cell phones central just as they were starting to become ubiquitous). That changed so much in terms of how the characters got information in the field (to the point that there is a parody of 24 set in the 90s where Jack Bauer has to use the pay phone to communicate with Chloe). These are the kinds of alternative paths to a solution I think the GM has to be open to. 

The way I look at a mystery adventure is I don't worry about the players moving through a bunch of preset place or steps I wanted them to. I come up with a background event that happened, think about where all the clues would plausibly be, apply principles like the the three clue rule (not 100% but I check in on whether clues are abundant enough), then I let the players investigate and see what happens. I also usually have some kind of terrible outcome if they don't solve it by a certain point so things stay interesting. Sometimes I mix this process up, but basically this is it. So usually i have a map of the places and characters where the clues are (or I have a bunch of entries for each of these things). But again, that is more like a base or starting point. If someone was shot in the street, and I have two witnesses who are in custody who are the noted clue bearers for the attackers identity or description, but my players decide instead to go to every single house and see who saw something (and I think to myself, yeah, I guess somebody would have seen something----I live on a street with houses and look out the window when something sounding like gunfire makes a noise), I think it is reasonable and fair to say they can get the information from this path rather than going to the suspects in custody. I find something like this happens several times when I run mysteries.


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## Fenris-77

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but there are difficulties. The 'walls' of this 'maze' are invisible, which is a big problem. I have a section in my 'classic dungeon' where there is a whole sub-level with invisible walls (they also shock you if you touch them, just to be even meaner). Nobody gets through that. Trying to navigate that stuff is just super nasty. There are almost no landmarks, it is hard to orient, even if you invent some tricks to (partially) map it. A mystery of this sort of similar. Nobody knows where any clue really leads. At best you must be VERY VERY specific and spell everything out in great detail. This was not so needed in Doyle's writing because most of the things described tied in to common knowledge people had. If Holmes found a clue, people could interpret it, at least to some degree. Of course, if the game is set in a modern 'real world' type setting, then this helps a lot here!
> 
> 'sub-mysteries' I agree would give a sense of progress. So a mystery that was, perhaps, an intricate conspiracy, where it is revealed in layers, would be a good design. I feel like we're getting into some very elaborate game scenarios though, which are hard to actually implement.



I wasn't really talking about elaborate conspiracy, although I would use the same design scaled up to do that.  I'm going to continue to use the metaphor of node based design, even though that's not actually what going on, precisely. I'll identify groups of places and faces that have obviously strong ties, either of proximity or relationship to form a 'sub-mystery'. Let me spin an example, which will illustrate better than some blathering.

1. I start with the meta connect that the Guild of Stevedores is transhipping illegal cargo for Duke Hufflepuff (who is either the next level or the big bad). Drugs go from a ship, to a warehouse, to a farm just outside of town, owned by the Duke's nephew (who's also in on it).

2. Then I build a bundle of faces and places around the guild, and make a list of the kinds of clues the PCs might find. Lets say you have the Guild Master, his secretary, and one particular group of dock workers. The PCs already have the name of a ship and Wharf inspector, which is what leads them here in the first place. There's the Guild Hall, a club the Master frequents, a couple of bars frequented by Dockers, plus the docks and warehouses. 

3. Then I figure out what kind of information the PCs might find that connects the pieces. I decide the secretary is the go between for the Duke and his crew at the docks. I also decide that wagons pick up the cargo late at night and move it to the farm (late night could be noticed, plus maybe there are night watchmen). The crew connects to the ship and the warehouse and the crooked inspector. The Duke connects to the secretary and the farm and the ship (I just added that in because it makes sense). The Duke and the Guild Master connect to the club, as does the secretary. The Guild Master connects to the Inspector and the crew. All of these connections can potentially be identified through surveillance and interviews with locals. 

4. Now for hard proof. There are the drugs, shipping manifests, building ownership, letters, bank drafts, diaries, notes, Ducal signets, club reservations, plus assorted other stuff that might be suggested by the NPC details. From that I'll produce a list of what might be found in what location. Keep in mind these aren't master criminals, nor are they going up against the CSI crew, so you can be liberal with clues. 

I can do that whole nexus using random tables and without having to locate anything in any particular place. I might put some specific things in places, but the point is that I don't have to.

I'd build another one or maybe two other nexus points that also point toward the Duke, and figure out what initial clues and information would be necessary to get the PCs pointed at least generally toward at least one of those points (like the ship and inspector examples from above). In this case one idea that suggests itself immediately is to build a nexus around drug distribution in fancy clubs to dilettante aristos, a nexus I can connect both to the farm from above, to the duke, and possibly to other nexus points.

Finally, I'll look at the nexus points and see what makes sense to connect any of those together, if anything. I'll massage the idea and move some parts around until the whole web hangs together. What you need to make this model work is a group of guilty parties. It gets very hard when its some kind of lone gunman. This example took me less than 10 minutes to bang out, and it's good enough that I'd run it for my own group with some polishing with some confidence that they won't lose the thread of events.


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## prabe

@Fenris-77 That's an impressive piece of work. I didn't work things out in anything like that much detail, at least not before I started. I think that whatever layers emerged at my table came from answering questions from one session while prepping the next.


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## Fenris-77

prabe said:


> @Fenris-77 That's an impressive piece of work. I didn't work things out in anything like that much detail, at least not before I started. I think that whatever layers emerged at my table came from answering questions from one session while prepping the next.



Its really just a mind map and some point form notes. I just already knew I needed faces, places, movement, and physical clues. Once you start I find new ideas tend to pop up as an organic part of the process.


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## Fenris-77

Also, the random clue tables can be a life saver because they can be used in any other location that makes sense, should the players go off script.


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## aramis erak

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Now, the 'CSI RPG' I mentioned before (is there one?)



I've not seen one tied to the CSI lineage of TV shows, but...

There are a bunch of games where the process of solving mysteries is a major expected avenue of play...
Including L5R, Crime Fighters (the late 80's one from TFG), Dresden Files, and Call of Cthulhu, amongst dozens of others.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> I've not seen one tied to the CSI lineage of TV shows, but...
> 
> There are a bunch of games where the process of solving mysteries is a major expected avenue of play...
> Including L5R, Crime Fighters (the late 80's one from TFG), Dresden Files, and Call of Cthulhu, amongst dozens of others.



Yeah, I was just thinking of a format where there is ongoing solutions of cases or something. That would make 'solve this specific mystery' not so big of a deal. I would point out that many games that have had mysteries as an integral part have actually had NO real solution for how to handle them. CoC is a poster child for this, it is really no help at all. The rules are actually more in the way than helpful. Never played or read L5R, but what I understand of it is a pretty classic 90's RPG. Likewise no knowledge of Crime Fighters. Dresden Files is based on SotC is it not? I'd hope that it can basically handle this in a Story Now sort of sense.


----------



## Aldarc

hawkeyefan said:


> So this is an interesting look at it. And it kind of raises a question in my mind. And this is just something that popped into my head reading the above, I don't mean this as a question specifically for you, @Bedrockgames , though I am interested in your take, too!
> 
> How does a player feel like Sherlock Holmes? How do we try to portray that in play?
> 
> There's the idea with this kind of mystery that there is information that's been intentionally obscured, and Holmes is going to find it, right? That's kind of the essential element.
> 
> Is the best way portray that in a game to be to try and replicate it? By that I mean, have the players be searching for the clues that are hidden in hope of finding them?
> 
> Or is there some other way? Because to be honest, Holmes stories sometimes require major intuitive leaps made by the character because he is a fictional character allowed to make those leaps......it's all the product of one author, and so Sherlock can make these crazy proclamations and he seems amazingly intuitive and observant. But it's all artifice.
> 
> I would think that trying to replicate that would either see the players fall short because their crazy intuitions will not likely be right, or the mystery itself would be simple in comparison to those of the kinds Holmes tends to get involved with.
> 
> Would that still make for an engaging game? Very possibly.
> 
> Or would it feel more Holmesesque if the players had some kind of ability to steer things beyond simply finding what's there? Would that _feel_ more like Holmes?
> 
> If we think of his deductions as being class abilities and Doyle as his player......maybe there's a case for approaching mysteries in another way.
> 
> Not that I have any idea how you would do that. But just some thoughts.





Bedrockgames said:


> The problem is, for a lot of players this isn't actually solving the mystery, this is helping to write a mystery story. Which is fine, but it isn't what someone who wants to have a go at the challenge of being a detective is looking for. And in such a case, I think having a concrete mystery external to the player is crucial. That said, it shouldn't mean there is only one way to solve. There may be one true event that occurred, but there ought to be many paths to arrive at the truth of that event, and the GM should be open to pathways that would realistically yield clues to the truth (even if the GM has not foreseen those pathways). In this sort of scenario, the GM is basically doing his or her best to run a holodeck Sherlock Holmes scenario for Data. If the GM just allows Data's theory, even if it is wrong, to become the truth, it isn't really beating the challenge (and players in this style want to genuinely win or genuinely lose)



I would possibly consider something akin to a solo play of Clue with the various cards regarding perpetrator, weapon, motive, etc. being selected face down and then placed away in a sleeve. Maybe something akin to Ironsworn could work, though with "solving mysteries" rather than "fulfilling oaths." You could then set up "easy," "medium," and "hard" mysteries that require various effort to solve. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Dresden Files is based on SotC is it not? I'd hope that it can basically handle this in a Story Now sort of sense.



Yeah, it's the Fate engine. There was a Dresden Files RPG that I believe used something closer to the SotC rules, but Dresden Files Accelerated is comparatively lighter, using the Fate Accelerated engine, but with the added complexity of playbook-like Mantles.


----------



## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but there are difficulties. The 'walls' of this 'maze' are invisible, which is a big problem. I have a section in my 'classic dungeon' where there is a whole sub-level with invisible walls (they also shock you if you touch them, just to be even meaner). Nobody gets through that. Trying to navigate that stuff is just super nasty. There are almost no landmarks, it is hard to orient, even if you invent some tricks to (partially) map it.



Side question: is this invisible shock-maze something you designed yourself, or did you get it from a published source?

I ask because as a player I've met something very similar; which means if you designed your version yourself then you and my DM must share a hive mind or something.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> If someone was shot in the street, and I have two witnesses who are in custody who are the noted clue bearers for the attackers identity or description, but my players decide instead to go to every single house and see who saw something (and I think to myself, yeah, I guess somebody would have seen something----I live on a street with houses and look out the window when something sounding like gunfire makes a noise), I think it is reasonable and fair to say they can get the information from this path rather than going to the suspects in custody.



In resolution structure, how is that different from the AW or DW moves which oblige the GM to answer a question like _What here is not what it seems? _or _Who is in charge here?_

The players are making a move that obliges the GM to author new fiction that answers a question the players have posed.


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> In resolution structure, how is that different from the AW or DW moves which oblige the GM to answer a question like _What here is not what it seems? _or _Who is in charge here?_
> 
> The players are making a move that obliges the GM to author new fiction that answers a question the players have posed.




i don’t know AW enough, so you may have to answer that. But this is just a pretty standard GM technique. Perhaps it is more formalized in AW. so possibly the difference is in the formal ways moves operate in those games. The one possible difference I see is in my situation the GM is working if the facts established about the mystery and answering as logically as possible when the players go into unexpected territory or take unexpected action. But a question like what here isn’t what it seems appears more likely to be changing material of the mystery that wasn’t there before (not sure, just going by what the question suggests). Not sure why it would matter here though if they are similar or the same


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## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> I would possibly consider something akin to a solo play of Clue with the various cards regarding perpetrator, weapon, motive, etc. being selected face down and then placed away in a sleeve. Maybe something akin to Ironsworn could work, though with "solving mysteries" rather than "fulfilling oaths." You could then set up "easy," "medium," and "hard" mysteries that require various effort to solve.



Yes, but interestingly you don't 'solve a mystery' in Clue. There is actually no explanation of what the clues are. In fact, amusingly Clue has no clues at all! You simply reveal cards without the slightest explanation of how the investigation is carried out, or what it consists of. Why is it not possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study? We have no idea, this is not addressed. So Clue is not a model for a mystery game at all, and in fact it is a pretty silly game with as much sophistication as Tic, Tac, Toe when you get right down to it.

I don't really see how Ironsworn helps much either. It is a thoroughly narrativist game in which the players invent the fiction, or else it is generated via 'oracles'. The 'fulfilling oaths' part is a structured set of GOALS that the players, through their PCs, construct, but the rules don't really address how you achieve them, except through the mechanics of play. It is in these actual mechanics that a pure mystery story game would have to deal with a mystery. In order for that game to achieve success by the criteria of the 'traditional' non-narrativists in this discusion it would have to involve a fixed answer to a mystery which can only be revealed by either specific player declarations "I search the dresser." or mediated through skill checks which resolve those actions "I do a thorough search and roll an X on my Search skill check." 

Frankly, I don't see that the above approach will ever avoid the pitfalls of "its too simple" or "its too complicated." Any given mystery MIGHT manage to fall in the 'sweet spot', but that spot is going to be different for every set of players and GM. So writing one would be pure hit and miss. Thus any rules which would produce reliable success at a session would need to 'calibrate'. However, the mere fact of that calibration is anathema to some, as it implies a game architecture in which there is some roughly fixed overall probability of success which doesn't map too closely to the approach taken by the players. This undermines any goal of building a system where the players both reliably enjoy solving a challenging mystery, AND feel like solving said mystery was a genuine challenge and not a pretense.

For these reasons I conclude that the most sensible design paradigm for such a game (or subsystem of an existing game if you will) would be a narrativist approach, a kind of Story Now in which the focus was moved from purely "can we follow the clues and solve the mystery" to some kind of social and psychological, or political/other implications and ramifications arise in the course of trying to solve this particular mystery. I think we've already discussed some examples of such story lines.


Aldarc said:


> Yeah, it's the Fate engine. There was a Dresden Files RPG that I believe used something closer to the SotC rules, but Dresden Files Accelerated is comparatively lighter, using the Fate Accelerated engine, but with the added complexity of playbook-like Mantles.



Ah, given that I was never really sucked into that whole genre much I guess I never knew there were TWO different RPGs covering the same IP. I remember the earlier SotC based one as being favorably received. I've never played any SotC-based games, but I did read through the core rules way back when. It seemed like a fairly reasonable system core for this kind of thing.

I'm thinking that a PbtA might work pretty well too. You could spin that a few different ways. Focus on the social conflicts, on the 'police procedure' aspect, or perhaps on the internal mental state of the 'detective' (ala a lot of 'film noir' detective pictures). I'm sure there would be other possibilities as well that would work with a playbook centered system like that. It sounds like the 'playbook-like Mantles' you mention would be pretty suitable to this kind of psychological 'grey area' sort of game.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> Side question: is this invisible shock-maze something you designed yourself, or did you get it from a published source?
> 
> I ask because as a player I've met something very similar; which means if you designed your version yourself then you and my DM must share a hive mind or something.



Yeah, I invented it, it is in a huge dungeon that is 'explained' as "Ancient ruined dwarf city that various squatters have hacked on." I guess one was a particularly sadistic evil wizard... I don't recall an inspiration from other material for this part. I also don't tend to read a lot of modules/dungeons since I like making up my own stuff, so I am not sure where I would have gotten an idea for it. Anyway, it was definitely something I invented before about 1994, since it was part of at least one 2e campaign I ran with people I lived with back then. 

I also doubt anyone copied it from me. A bunch of people have had the pleasure of stumbling into that maze, but I don't think any of them have gone to the trouble of publishing any RPG material, nor writing about it, etc. There is one person on EnWorld that was in the 4e campaign where it featured, though I don't think she's very active these days.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> i don’t know AW enough, so you may have to answer that. But this is just a pretty standard GM technique. Perhaps it is more formalized in AW. so possibly the difference is in the formal ways moves operate in those games. The one possible difference I see is in my situation the GM is working if the facts established about the mystery and answering as logically as possible when the players go into unexpected territory or take unexpected action. But a question like what here isn’t what it seems appears more likely to be changing material of the mystery that wasn’t there before (not sure, just going by what the question suggests). Not sure why it would matter here though if they are similar or the same



I think there are a couple of aspects to a "what here is not what it seems." (This is one of the outcomes of the 'Discern Realities' move in Dungeon World, not sure about AW). First of all it obviously has an aspect of simply 'perception' and assuming the GM can simply answer the question straightforwardly (IE a section of the wall to the north is actually a secret door) then it can function like that.

However, in DW, the GM is OBLIGED to answer the question, and an answer of "all is as it seems" isn't really kosher. In fact DW specifies that the PC making the move gets a "+1 Forward when acting on the answers" (so the GM's response logically must have fictional in-game utility to the PC which explains why they get this bonus). Of course the bonus will only assert itself if the PC's further actions engage with the answer. If the GM responded to "what happened here recently?" (another question that can be asked) and the GM said "some goblins passed through, you see their footprints" then surprising the goblins later might get the +1, assuming the PCs track them. If they ignore the clue, then there's no benefit.

The main point is, DR often obliges the GM to make something up. If it was a move in a mystery solving scenario, then clues would appear wherever it was applied! I would expect a mystery game based on PbtA would have to tweak the core moves, but I'm not sure what that would look like without first working out what the focus of the game really was.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but interestingly you don't 'solve a mystery' in Clue. There is actually no explanation of what the clues are. In fact, amusingly Clue has no clues at all! You simply reveal cards without the slightest explanation of how the investigation is carried out, or what it consists of. Why is it not possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study? We have no idea, this is not addressed. So Clue is not a model for a mystery game at all, and in fact it is a pretty silly game with as much sophistication as Tic, Tac, Toe when you get right down to it.




I don't think this is a fair assessment of clue. It approximates the feel of a mystery by providing a game, if I recall correctly, based largely on the process of elimination. There is still some mental challenge there, and its simplicity is its appeal. Like I said, there were much deeper bookshelf mystery games made in the 70s (I have an aunt with shelves of them) and they were often better at getting at the sort of mystery solving game I am talking about. But that doesn't make clue a bad game or a bad mystery game. Clue is perennially popular I think because it is a very easy, fast, and fun way to do mystery but with broad appeal.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think there are a couple of aspects to a "what here is not what it seems." (This is one of the outcomes of the 'Discern Realities' move in Dungeon World, not sure about AW). First of all it obviously has an aspect of simply 'perception' and assuming the GM can simply answer the question straightforwardly (IE a section of the wall to the north is actually a secret door) then it can function like that.
> 
> However, in DW, the GM is OBLIGED to answer the question, and an answer of "all is as it seems" isn't really kosher. In fact DW specifies that the PC making the move gets a "+1 Forward when acting on the answers" (so the GM's response logically must have fictional in-game utility to the PC which explains why they get this bonus). Of course the bonus will only assert itself if the PC's further actions engage with the answer. If the GM responded to "what happened here recently?" (another question that can be asked) and the GM said "some goblins passed through, you see their footprints" then surprising the goblins later might get the +1, assuming the PCs track them. If they ignore the clue, then there's no benefit.
> 
> The main point is, DR often obliges the GM to make something up. If it was a move in a mystery solving scenario, then clues would appear wherever it was applied! I would expect a mystery game based on PbtA would have to tweak the core moves, but I'm not sure what that would look like without first working out what the focus of the game really was.




If that is the case and if I understand then this is definitely different than the example I provided of the witnesses on the street. In that case the players are simply going to place the GM didn't expect (to peoples houses on the street) and asking if anyone saw anything. The GM thinking about this, decides yes there was a gunshot in the street, certainly it is plausible someone who lived on the street saw the event or saw the suspect fleeing. What information that person might have the GM either decides or rolls based on some sense of the likelihood. But nothing about the event they witnessed is changed by this, and nothing really is changed. The GM is brining enabling their exploration of the mystery by going beyond the notes for it, but being true to the backstory and events that transpired.


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> When I say be Holmes, I mean in Holmes shoes to play detective. What you are describing is what I mean by simulating Holmes, which is a totally viable option. But it isn't the same as playing the game Holmes is playing. In this style I am there to strive to be like Holmes, to pit my wits against the scenario the way Holmes does. I think a lot of people who are fans of mysteries, approach mystery novels this way (they are interested in solving the mystery before the story reachers its conclusion). That is how I read mystery novels, and for this type of person and for me, the most fun I have in mystery scenarios is getting an opportunity to truly play detective. This isn't about Sherlock Holmes specifically. This is about seeing how good of an ace detective you can be, and trying to become a better one. My point is, that is the game some players want to be playing. If you are playing it this way for this reason, you don't care if tests of strength in the game are testing your real world strength, you care that your mind is solving the puzzle. Bridging the gap between the players mental abilities and the characters makes sense if you want to simulate Sherlock holmes, but bridging that gap interferes with playing the game of solving the mystery i you want to be in Sherlock Holmes' shoes.
> 
> Again, both approaches are fine.




Right. I agree that both approaches are fine in so far as they may be fun and the participants may be perfectly happy to play in such a way. All approaches are fine in that sense. 

I'm just trying to consider if different methods would suit a whodunnit style mystery as RPG. My experience with the Star Trek scenario, which had an apparent accident as the point of investigation, and then different clues or details that could be gathered from either investigating the scene of the accident or a couple of other locaitons, or from questioning the people involved, with all of these being resolved through Skill rolls (or whatever the game calls them!), was not very fun for me at all. I mean, I had fun in the sense that I was hanging with my friends and we had some laughs and so we all had fun. But the game in and of itself was not engaging for me as a player at all. 

I simply didn't feel like a detective or like I accomplished anything by piecing together the puzzle. Because this is a perfect example of "RPG as puzzle solving" that was mentioned earlier in the thread. Now, I'm not saying that I can never be engaged by that kind of game.....thinking about it now, I can likely rattle off several examples of that kind of play that I did feel was engaging.....but as the central focus of an entire session it left a lot to be desired. 

The mystery wasn't all that compelling and the use of game mechanics was not all that exciting. It wasn't terribly difficult to figure out, ultimately; any difficulty in that regard was more a case of format. Like I remember at one point someone saying somthing along the lines of "Oh wait, you said that engineer we spoke to went to academy with the victim right? Or was it the scientist?" which are the kinds of details that can be blurry in a game but no so when you're actually a detective experiencing interactions with people. Once we resolved any of those, and we had our characters engage in the right locations/NPCs to the correct extent, the answer became clear, and the culprit was revealed. The one bit of credit I will give this published scenario is that the actual culprit was not the most obvious choice.

At the same time, I feel if the mystery were to be more complex, it would easily move into impossible to solve territory. So I think it's a tricky tightrope to walk as a RPG. I know other games address this in different ways....Gumshoe, notably, and some others that have been mentioned. @Fenris-77 provided a pretty interesting node based approach, which I think would probably map to the Gumshoe system pretty well. I've still seen plenty of criticisms of that kind of approach online, as well.



Bedrockgames said:


> When you say correct solution, what do you mean? Does solution here equal who did it, or does solution mean the ways you can discover who did it? I would see those as two very different things. I think for the style of play I am talking about,  you need an objective event that is set: Frank killed John by strangling him  to death in the attic, because he was jealous over Loraine. The GM might plan out all the possible ways clues could be found (and these, in my view, should fit a consistent and logical backstory so the clues all make sense). But the players might come up with a way to find clues that would reasonably yield them in this scenario, even if the GM hadn't considered them. That is what I mean more than one path to a solution. Understand with mysteries for someone like me solving what actually happened is the point. If you are a fan of mysteries this is also often the point of reading them (if you sense the writer didn't know who did it and how from the beginning, and didn't have all the details pinned down, it can ruin the book). So if the GM is deciding that Loraine Kills Frank instead because the players went down that path of reasoning instead, I think this would take away from any real sense I had of solving it were I to know this (and I think one would start to suspect this after several sessions)




Here is my question for you in this regard. What if the process for this was still all in the hands of the GM in the sense that the GM decides what happened and how, but doesn't actually commit to all of it before hand? Because it seems to me that your sticking point is looking at this as a challenge, and the satisfaction from overcoming the challenge. 

Do you think that in order for this to be challenging to players, all the relevant details or clues need to be established ahead of time? Or maybe only most of them? Or do you think that such a scenario can still be challenging to players if a GM is determining some of these things at the time of play?


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Frankly, I don't see that the above approach will ever avoid the pitfalls of "its too simple" or "its too complicated." Any given mystery MIGHT manage to fall in the 'sweet spot', but that spot is going to be different for every set of players and GM. So writing one would be pure hit and miss. Thus any rules which would produce reliable success at a session would need to 'calibrate'. However, the mere fact of that calibration is anathema to some, as it implies a game architecture in which there is some roughly fixed overall probability of success which doesn't map too closely to the approach taken by the players. This undermines any goal of building a system where the players both reliably enjoy solving a challenging mystery, AND feel like solving said mystery was a genuine challenge and not a pretense.




This is a really great summary of the problem, in my opinion. 

Too easy and it's boring. Too hard and it's frustrating. Combined with the fact that a mystery kind of requires some structure; by its very nature, it's plot driven, so it risks becoming a railroad.


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## Fenris-77

One of the main complaints about node based design is that it's a recipe for a railroad (to quote @pemerton from upstream). To an extent that's a fair criticism too. One the other hand, if you're talking about a mystery or a conspiracy there are, by their very nature, going to be a finite number of clues, a finite number of things to find out. Where node based design goes off the rails for me is to tie clue X specifically to location A. Sure, there's the three clue rule too, but that doesn't cover locations that aren't on the concept map. So I make room in my game for off piste players by using clue tables that I can roll on for all those unexpected player moves, and those clues tend to index the core nexus points of the mystery and are only partially defined, so the same result could be rolled a couple of times to produce and still work - identical basic content but set dressing improvised based on the the fiction. The use of tables also saves me from charges of illusionism and forces me to be more honest in adjudication.


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## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> This is a really great summary of the problem, in my opinion.
> 
> Too easy and it's boring. Too hard and it's frustrating. Combined with the fact that a mystery kind of requires some structure; by its very nature, it's plot driven, so it risks becoming a railroad.




I think what's most difficult is tying it to the here and now. A mystery on its own is not what I would consider a playable scenario. There need to be real stakes and real decisions to be made by the players. It should not just be about figuring out what already happened. It should be input in how things are about to happen.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> Here is my question for you in this regard. What if the process for this was still all in the hands of the GM in the sense that the GM decides what happened and how, but doesn't actually commit to all of it before hand? Because it seems to me that your sticking point is looking at this as a challenge, and the satisfaction from overcoming the challenge.
> 
> Do you think that in order for this to be challenging to players, all the relevant details or clues need to be established ahead of time? Or maybe only most of them? Or do you think that such a scenario can still be challenging to players if a GM is determining some of these things at the time of play?




The sticking point for me is whether I am actually solving the mystery or not. I think for there to be a real mystery, with real clues, to solve as a game or puzzle, you need to have those concrete details hammered out first. What happens in the course of play, this does not need to be hammered out first. Who did it, where, when, why, etc. all that is the stuff that needs to be detailed by the GM before the game for this kind of mystery to solved. So it isn't just about challenge. You can challenge me with a more amorphous mystery and tough foes. But the challenge I want is to pit my brain against a scenario where an objective crime or situation has occurred, and I have to solve it. I do think there will always be gray areas (for example the GM may realize something naturally would have happened, that he hadn't thought of before, due to players investigating and questioning certain things). But anything the Gm makes up on the fly needs to honor the backstory that was established and the clues that came from that backstory, for it to be the kind of play I am describing.


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## Bedrockgames

hawkeyefan said:


> This is a really great summary of the problem, in my opinion.
> 
> Too easy and it's boring. Too hard and it's frustrating. Combined with the fact that a mystery kind of requires some structure; by its very nature, it's plot driven, so it risks becoming a railroad.




I get it may not be your cup of tea. I get you may get frustrated if you don't solve the mystery. Plenty of us have engaged this style and been perfectly satisfied (and can accept some mysteries will be easier and some will be harder). Again, if it isn't your style that is fine. But this style of play is far from impossible to pull of or to enjoy.


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## Bedrockgames

Campbell said:


> I think what's most difficult is tying it to the here and now. A mystery on its own is not what I would consider a playable scenario. There need to be real stakes and real decisions to be made by the players. It should not just be about figuring out what already happened. It should be input in how things are about to happen.




I think this is going to vary by mystery. Again, in the style I am talking about, the mysteries could be anywhere from leisurely (where the detectives are slowly and freely piecing things together, with no real threat in the mix) to dangerous (where there is an actor or force still active and threatening even after the initial triggering event. This could be in the form of someone trying to thwart the PCs from finding the truth to something more serious like a terrorist attack or a supernatural event (this is what I meant by a looming countdown before).


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## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> I think what's most difficult is tying it to the here and now. A mystery on its own is not what I would consider a playable scenario. There need to be real stakes and real decisions to be made by the players. It should not just be about figuring out what already happened. It should be input in how things are about to happen.




That's fair, too! Looking at the Star Trek game, that was something missing as well. The entire game was for us as the crew of a starship to solve this mystery and then once we did, it was over. 

There was nothing compelling us to find this out before X happens, or anything like that. In isolation like that, it really fell flat for me.


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## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Its really just a mind map and some point form notes. I just already knew I needed faces, places, movement, and physical clues. Once you start I find new ideas tend to pop up as an organic part of the process.




How I do things in terms of diagrams and models for prep is sometimes I will map out the events that happened and draw lines to obvious clues stemming from those events. Obviously this usually tie to locations, so then I transfer those clues to location entries (but having that map is important I find for tracking all the facts about the mystery while you are preparing other material: that way you don't insert a contradictory clue in an NPC entry or something)


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## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> The sticking point for me is whether I am actually solving the mystery or not. I think for there to be a real mystery, with real clues, to solve as a game or puzzle, you need to have those concrete details hammered out first. What happens in the course of play, this does not need to be hammered out first. Who did it, where, when, why, etc. all that is the stuff that needs to be detailed by the GM before the game for this kind of mystery to solved. So it isn't just about challenge. You can challenge me with a more amorphous mystery and tough foes. But the challenge I want is to pit my brain against a scenario where an objective crime or situation has occurred, and I have to solve it. I do think there will always be gray areas (for example the GM may realize something naturally would have happened, that he hadn't thought of before, due to players investigating and questioning certain things). But anything the Gm makes up on the fly needs to honor the backstory that was established and the clues that came from that backstory, for it to be the kind of play I am describing.




Okay, gotcha. The area at the end is kind of what I was asking about. If I was to try and play a scenario like this and tailor it so that it suited my preferences as a GM, I'd probably only loosely establish the details. I think you need to have some in place for sure....the victim or equivalent, and the perpetrator. Any obvious details found on the scene like the murder weapon or the like. 

Beyond that kind of stuff, I think I'd mostly prefer to leave the rest of it open, and allow the players to determine the angles of investigation, and then I'd likely try to have clues emerge accordingly. I think that might work and deliver something closer to how I prefer to GM. It actually reminds me of a Blades campaign I ran, which I think I'll post about to see what people think, as it's related to this in some ways.



Bedrockgames said:


> I get it may not be your cup of tea. I get you may get frustrated if you don't solve the mystery. Plenty of us have engaged this style and been perfectly satisfied (and can accept some mysteries will be easier and some will be harder). Again, if it isn't your style that is fine. But this style of play is far from impossible to pull of or to enjoy.




Yeah, I get it. Honestly, you don't need to continually defend this.....it's totally my preference, and I think I've been pretty clear about that. There's nothing wrong with this style of play, all of my comments are filtered through my perceptions and my preferences, and those are no more valid than anyone else's.

I'd honestly prefer to hear examples from your game that show how this can be engaging. Like an example of one that went well, or how you approach it (which you just shared a little of in response to Fenris).


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## hawkeyefan

So I have an example that kind of touches on some of these ideas. 

I ran a campaign of Blades in the Dark where investigation was a key component. It was actually a campaign using the playtest for playing the game as the Bluecoats of the Watch, the police of the setting. There are some mechanical changes to the game to facilitate this, but more importantly, the approach has to be very different.

The key difference, I think, is that a crew of scoundrels tends to be challenging the system, fighting against the powers that be to take what they want, but a crew of Bluecoats is a part of the system, and they are working toward resolving some disruption to the system.

When we decided to give this a try, an idea occurred to me to have this campaign be investigating the same players crew from our first Blades Campaign. So they would be playing the task force of police that was assigned to deal with the rise of their gang from our earlier campaign. I was thinking about how to do this, and I decided against it. But then, in our session zero, the players all seemed to have that same idea....they all wanted to be taking on their earlier crew. So we decided to do it.

I was worried that it would not go well because Blades as a system kind of expects many details to not be set ahead of time, and in this case many would be.

The challenges were:

(1) how to play out an investigation when the players already know a lot of the details of the situation; how do you play to find out if everybody already pretty much knows?
(2) how to handle gap between what the players know and what the characters should know; the Bluecoat PCs would have resources at their disposal, but the criminal former PCs aren't exactly household names in the setting. They were very careful about being unknown.
(3) how to not feel like we're just working our way through things we already know like a checklist; I didn't want this to just be a kind of gimmick sightseeing tour type of game- just seeing the previous campaign's locations and characters from another perspective. That was an interesting angle, but I didn't want that to be all the game was.

How I addressed each of these was:

(1) There are always greater forces at work in Doskvol, and so I took some of the unanswered questions from our initial campaign, and made them relevant to what was actually going on. So the investigation didn't focus on "who" the criminal crew was or "how" they rose to power, because that was what our earlier campaign was about. It became more about "why".
(2) I didn't hold most of the "known" elements back; the cohorts and former PCs were mostly established on a kind of suspect board, like you'd see in a cop show. The players knew who they were, or at least had a good idea, and we quickly filled in many of the blanks to bring the PCs up to speed on the basics. This also kind of retroactively added to the histories and characterization of the former PCs, which was an interesting byproduct. We found out more about the old PCs as the new PCs investigated them. For instance, the Lurk from the original crew had been an orphan and lived in an orphanage and that's where he learned his thieving skills. That kind of thing.
(3) I think opening the investigation up to the idea of there being a larger conspiracy or situation at play as mentioned in (1) really helped in this regard. What more was going on? What was behind this crew's rise beyond their own ambition? Those became the true unknowns, even to me as the GM, and that's what let us play to find out.

I think that this campaign wound up going very well, overall. There were certainly a few rough spots as we kind of dealt with, or learned to deal with, the challenges unique to the approach we were taking. Things certainly got better as we went along and realized the challenge points and could kind of work around them or otherwise deal with them.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think this is a fair assessment of clue. It approximates the feel of a mystery by providing a game, if I recall correctly, based largely on the process of elimination. There is still some mental challenge there, and its simplicity is its appeal. Like I said, there were much deeper bookshelf mystery games made in the 70s (I have an aunt with shelves of them) and they were often better at getting at the sort of mystery solving game I am talking about. But that doesn't make clue a bad game or a bad mystery game. Clue is perennially popular I think because it is a very easy, fast, and fun way to do mystery but with broad appeal.



Clue is exactly nothing but a 'process of elimination' game, but it has no clues in it. That is the 'clues' are simply 3 variables which can each take on one of several values (location, weapon, perpetrator). Each player simply guesses different combinations until they have eliminated all but the correct answer. There is a modicum of skill which consists of noting the various guesses. Careful tracking of eliminations can get you to the answer in the least amount of time, but there is one fairly obvious optimum strategy. Most germane to the current discussion there is no 'fiction' involved (at least which matters). Nobody is questioned, no clues are actually gathered, and nothing either mechanically or fictionally justifies one's guesses, nor explains fictionally the mechanism of eliminating the different solutions, cards are simply revealed to do that. The point being, it isn't possible (except by bad record keeping) to be mislead or 'miss a clue', etc. So the game has nothing to teach us about RPG mysteries. 

I guess you could say that, to the degree that Clue serves to provide the feel of a mystery, then you could model an RPG mystery process on it. This may suffice for whomever is not particularly interested in really 'playing detective' and simply wants to run around to different locations making vaguely 'crime solution-like statements' and having the fun of eventually being right. Dressed up well, this may in fact be quite sufficient in many cases, and is probably better than a more straightforward process which ends with the players totally stumped and unable to move forward.

So, I kind of agree with you, Clue does provide a model. Just don't be fooled into thinking it is a model of actually solving a mystery!


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## Lanefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I invented it, it is in a huge dungeon that is 'explained' as "Ancient ruined dwarf city that various squatters have hacked on." I guess one was a particularly sadistic evil wizard... I don't recall an inspiration from other material for this part. I also don't tend to read a lot of modules/dungeons since I like making up my own stuff, so I am not sure where I would have gotten an idea for it. Anyway, it was definitely something I invented before about 1994, since it was part of at least one 2e campaign I ran with people I lived with back then.



OK, cool.  What I met was much more recent - maybe in the 2010-2012 range.

I've got tons of modules as I like mining them for ideas (or sometimes running them stock, if they fit what I'm doing, to save me some work), and I don't recall seeing this idea anywhere.  That said, there were also gobs of modules and mini-modules in Dungeon magazine, which I largely avoided, thus I easily could have missed it there.


AbdulAlhazred said:


> I also doubt anyone copied it from me. A bunch of people have had the pleasure of stumbling into that maze, but I don't think any of them have gone to the trouble of publishing any RPG material, nor writing about it, etc. There is one person on EnWorld that was in the 4e campaign where it featured, though I don't think she's very active these days.



So you invented it for 2e and then ran it back for 4e?  Nice!


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> If that is the case and if I understand then this is definitely different than the example I provided of the witnesses on the street. In that case the players are simply going to place the GM didn't expect (to peoples houses on the street) and asking if anyone saw anything. The GM thinking about this, decides yes there was a gunshot in the street, certainly it is plausible someone who lived on the street saw the event or saw the suspect fleeing. What information that person might have the GM either decides or rolls based on some sense of the likelihood. But nothing about the event they witnessed is changed by this, and nothing really is changed. The GM is brining enabling their exploration of the mystery by going beyond the notes for it, but being true to the backstory and events that transpired.



Yeah, I think that would be a quite viable way to go, and if feels both realistic and sensible. This doesn't seem like it needs any kind of narrative play really, just the basic ability of the GM to extrapolate a known fact to its subsidiary consequences. In the case of things like 'magic' this might get more tricky of course...


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## AbdulAlhazred

Fenris-77 said:


> One of the main complaints about node based design is that it's a recipe for a railroad (to quote @pemerton from upstream). To an extent that's a fair criticism too. One the other hand, if you're talking about a mystery or a conspiracy there are, by their very nature, going to be a finite number of clues, a finite number of things to find out. Where node based design goes off the rails for me is to tie clue X specifically to location A. Sure, there's the three clue rule too, but that doesn't cover locations that aren't on the concept map. So I make room in my game for off piste players by using clue tables that I can roll on for all those unexpected player moves, and those clues tend to index the core nexus points of the mystery and are only partially defined, so the same result could be rolled a couple of times to produce and still work - identical basic content but set dressing improvised based on the the fiction. The use of tables also saves me from charges of illusionism and forces me to be more honest in adjudication.



POTENTIALLY another way to do it, and maybe this is another way of saying the same thing, is to have 'meta-clues' which are simply clues which steer play back to the really direct clues. So, if you miss the murder weapon at the scene somehow, then forensics tells you later what to go look for. If some handwriting would clue you in, then some NPC analyzes it and lets you know it was significant if you missed it somehow, etc. These meta-clues are not guaranteed to be uncovered either, you still have to do legwork, but they would tend to 'fail safe' the solving of the core mystery to an extent. These might be generated on the fly too by a GM. This would make the core mystery a definite 'fact' established at the start (it was Mustard in the Library with the Pipe Wrench) but you get another chance to 'pick up the ball'. This might even work with something like the 4e SC framework, where the number of times a save like this is brought into play is related to mechanical progress in the challenge. You could probably work out something close to FitD's clock methodology as well.


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## Bedrockgames

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Clue is exactly nothing but a 'process of elimination' game, but it has no clues in it. That is the 'clues' are simply 3 variables which can each take on one of several values (location, weapon, perpetrator). Each player simply guesses different combinations until they have eliminated all but the correct answer. There is a modicum of skill which consists of noting the various guesses. Careful tracking of eliminations can get you to the answer in the least amount of time, but there is one fairly obvious optimum strategy. Most germane to the current discussion there is no 'fiction' involved (at least which matters). Nobody is questioned, no clues are actually gathered, and nothing either mechanically or fictionally justifies one's guesses, nor explains fictionally the mechanism of eliminating the different solutions, cards are simply revealed to do that. The point being, it isn't possible (except by bad record keeping) to be mislead or 'miss a clue', etc. So the game has nothing to teach us about RPG mysteries.
> 
> I guess you could say that, to the degree that Clue serves to provide the feel of a mystery, then you could model an RPG mystery process on it. This may suffice for whomever is not particularly interested in really 'playing detective' and simply wants to run around to different locations making vaguely 'crime solution-like statements' and having the fun of eventually being right. Dressed up well, this may in fact be quite sufficient in many cases, and is probably better than a more straightforward process which ends with the players totally stumped and unable to move forward.
> 
> So, I kind of agree with you, Clue does provide a model. Just don't be fooled into thinking it is a model of actually solving a mystery!




I wasn't saying it would work as a resolution or model for mystery in RPGs. I was just saying it is a fun game and people like it. And it is very simple: emulating the feel of mystery through the process of elimination (which has a certain Holmes-like quality to it). The kind of mysteries I am talking about in RPGs are much more about clue finding and analyzing. And for that there were plenty of in-depth bookshelf games that are fine alternatives to clue. My point is: simple fun board games are often popular precisely because they are not as in-depth---and that gives them broader appeal. To take that into RPG territory, I think what I am advocating for, and what you are advocating for, are both highly specialized modes of play. We could both highly please two narrow audiences if we made games doing exactly what we are talking about. But a mystery game that wants the whole hobby as its audience is going to have to be less specialized, and be able to appeal not just to you and me, but other people as well. So if WOTC did a 5E mystery version of D&D (and for all I know they have done it and I missed it), I would expect it to only to include sprinklings of what I am talking about.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Lanefan said:


> OK, cool.  What I met was much more recent - maybe in the 2010-2012 range.
> 
> I've got tons of modules as I like mining them for ideas (or sometimes running them stock, if they fit what I'm doing, to save me some work), and I don't recall seeing this idea anywhere.  That said, there were also gobs of modules and mini-modules in Dungeon magazine, which I largely avoided, thus I easily could have missed it there.
> 
> So you invented it for 2e and then ran it back for 4e?  Nice!



Yeah, I do tend to revisit a lot of stuff in D&D campaigns, since we created a stupid amount of material back in the day. Also, I'm just a rat bastard when it comes to torturing players, and that was such an especially effective little gimmick. The Gelatinous Cubes cycling around the maze make it even more amusing (and explain how it all stays nice and clean of course).


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## hawkeyefan

Funny enough, I was looking through my bookmarks on my phone, and I came across this blogpost by Sean McCoy, the creator of Mothership.

Investigation Blogpost

This touches on some of the things mentioned over the last few pages, sometimes almost verbatim! 

The investigation sheet is an interesting idea.


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## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yes, but interestingly you don't 'solve a mystery' in Clue. There is actually no explanation of what the clues are. In fact, amusingly Clue has no clues at all! You simply reveal cards without the slightest explanation of how the investigation is carried out, or what it consists of. Why is it not possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study? We have no idea, this is not addressed. So Clue is not a model for a mystery game at all, and in fact it is a pretty silly game with as much sophistication as Tic, Tac, Toe when you get right down to it.



Sure, but I think that you could build from this idea to a more complex and robust game. As Bedrockgames says, part of how Clue works is a game of deduction based upon the limited list of possible suspects, rooms, and weapons. Of course it's possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study, but what matters is that he actually did it in the Billiards Room. But you can certainly probe the possibility that Mr Mustard did in the Study, and doing so may help narrow down your list of possibilities even if you know that he didn't do it in the Study. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> I don't really see how Ironsworn helps much either. It is a thoroughly narrativist game in which the players invent the fiction, or else it is generated via 'oracles'. The 'fulfilling oaths' part is a structured set of GOALS that the players, through their PCs, construct, but the rules don't really address how you achieve them, except through the mechanics of play. It is in these actual mechanics that a pure mystery story game would have to deal with a mystery. In order for that game to achieve success by the criteria of the 'traditional' non-narrativists in this discusion it would have to involve a fixed answer to a mystery which can only be revealed by either specific player declarations "I search the dresser." or mediated through skill checks which resolve those actions "I do a thorough search and roll an X on my Search skill check."



I'm not proposing Ironsworn as a traditionalist, non-narrativist RPG here, only as a system that I think could do Holmesian mysteries with the appropriate setup and re-tooling. So it seems a bit misplaced that you criticize Ironsworn as being inappropriate for being thoroughly narrativist while later then suggesting that the best approach would be a narrativist one. While the players invent the fiction, Ironsworn definitely makes the game about stakes and goals, which are IMO an important part of mysteries. One could set up separate mysteries and Oracles for things like the suspect, the weapon, the location, the motive, and the grand solve. Complications may arise with characters in the game, interrogating witnesses, cooperating with law enforcement, the femme fatale, pursuing a shadowy eavesdropper, and the like. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Ah, given that I was never really sucked into that whole genre much I guess I never knew there were TWO different RPGs covering the same IP. I remember the earlier SotC based one as being favorably received. I've never played any SotC-based games, but I did read through the core rules way back when. It seemed like a fairly reasonable system core for this kind of thing.



They are "two different RPGs" but at the same time they are built on the same Fate engine, though the _Dresden Files RPG_ is pre-Fate Core, and _DFA_ is post-Fate Core. The way mantles work in DFA is that you are picking essentially an archetype, much as a playbook, which comes with a set of preselection of Conditions and Stunts. You may check off boxes to use some of your Mantle abilities. Or you may have to check off a box when that condition is triggered (e.g., violate your oath, etc.). When you run out of boxes or want to recover boxes, typically one of several things must happen depending on the tag: 

Fleeting: You recover your conditions at the end of the scene or some trivial point.
Sticky: Concrete action must be taken and typically a dice roll.
Lasting: Same as sticky, but typically time must also pass (the session) or the completion of a secondary objective.

What this entails will naturally vary based on the Mantle and character. Mantles also have access to a choice of Stunts that can provide additional archetype-themed bonuses or assist with the mantle conditions. 

I actually used Dresden Files Accelerated for the aforementioned one-shot of a Supernatural Investigation Society set in 1840s Vienna. If I were to run it again, as I one day hope, I would still consider DFA but also Monster of the Week, Urban Modern Fantasy (i.e., "Dungeon World Modern"), or Vaesen, though the latter is a little too Swedish/Nordic and not enough Austrian/Central Europe.


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## pemerton

Bedrockgames said:


> i don’t know AW enough, so you may have to answer that. But this is just a pretty standard GM technique. Perhaps it is more formalized in AW. so possibly the difference is in the formal ways moves operate in those games. The one possible difference I see is in my situation the GM is working if the facts established about the mystery and answering as logically as possible when the players go into unexpected territory or take unexpected action. But a question like what here isn’t what it seems appears more likely to be changing material of the mystery that wasn’t there before (not sure, just going by what the question suggests). Not sure why it would matter here though if they are similar or the same





AbdulAlhazred said:


> in DW, the GM is OBLIGED to answer the question, and an answer of "all is as it seems" isn't really kosher. In fact DW specifies that the PC making the move gets a "+1 Forward when acting on the answers" (so the GM's response logically must have fictional in-game utility to the PC which explains why they get this bonus). Of course the bonus will only assert itself if the PC's further actions engage with the answer. If the GM responded to "what happened here recently?" (another question that can be asked) and the GM said "some goblins passed through, you see their footprints" then surprising the goblins later might get the +1, assuming the PCs track them. If they ignore the clue, then there's no benefit.



An answer _everything here is exactly as it seems_ might be boring in many contexts, but in the context of solving a mystery might actually be helpful- and thus provide a +1 forward.

In any event, in a mystery game of the sort Bedrockgames was describing we might be looking at different questions - eg he had the PCs asking the bystanders what they saw. This would be a version of _what happened here recently?_


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think what's most difficult is tying it to the here and now. A mystery on its own is not what I would consider a playable scenario. There need to be real stakes and real decisions to be made by the players. It should not just be about figuring out what already happened. It should be input in how things are about to happen.



I really think it depends what the game is meant to achieve. As I posted way upthread, I ran a freeform murder mystery for my daughter's birthday last year. The answer was pre-authored by me. The setting was a spaceship in jump-space, so like an "Orient Express" or isolated mansion whodunnit - and reinforced by my framing - there were a finite number of suspects in a finite space. (Though the actual solution cheated a little bit in this respect, it was within fair parameters I think.)

The actual play consisted of (i) the set-up, letting the players get the hang of their characters and meeting the NPCs (including the victim) and then (ii) the investigation. This was all just "poking around" Poirot-style.

I think it counted as a game. And it was a RPG - there was shared fiction and the players had their own characters to play, each of which has a motive to be the killer and thus establishing a possible red-herring for the other players (there was no promise in advance that the killer was a NPC; and two of the player positions included associated and also suspect NPCs).

Where it differed from what you (@Campbell) describe in your post was that there were no real stakes, and no player agency over the shared fiction. It was entirely exploration of a situation established, adjudicated and developed by me as referee.


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think you need to have some in place for sure....the victim or equivalent, and the perpetrator. Any obvious details found on the scene like the murder weapon or the like.
> 
> Beyond that kind of stuff, I think I'd mostly prefer to leave the rest of it open, and allow the players to determine the angles of investigation, and then I'd likely try to have clues emerge accordingly.



The bioweapons conspiracy in my Classic Traveller game wasn't exactly like this - it was even looser at the start - but was closer to this than to the murder mystery I've described.

In the murder mystery the only clue I remember adding that went beyond what was already in the scenario I was drawing on was one about the dinner service. That clue seemed a natural fit with the solution. And its inclusion was driven more by me as GM than by the players. (I think maybe it came up when NPCs were being asked about their whereabout etc.)


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## Bedrockgames

pemerton said:


> In any event, in a mystery game of the sort Bedrockgames was describing we might be looking at different questions - eg he had the PCs asking the bystanders what they saw. This would be a version of _what happened here recently?_




I am not familiar with this particular term so don't know what it encompasses. In this case, the existence of background details doesn't preclude active elements like antagonistic NPCs or other things the players themselves may be pursuing. So the players are not simply finding out what happened recently in the adventure, they may also be contending with threats and forces that were involved in what happened. Now there is an objective thing that happened (or at least the GM is treating the backstory as if it really occurred and trying to honor that in all of his or her adjudication as the players go into unexpected territory). Occasionally this might mean the GM has to invent something on the spot because a player presses for a detail that would be obtainable, but was something the GM simply hadn't considered. I think the key there is making sure anything you come up with, flows as logically from the backstory and NPCs as possible, or at the very least, doesn't contradict them. So, for example players may use an autopsy to discover what the victim had for breakfast that morning. To me that doesn't seem like an outrageous expectation, so I would provide info (in fact I might even ask for a moment to quickly google autopsies just so I am getting things right----or I would make clear I know very little about autopsies and will be forming a judgment based on what little knowledge I have----also being open to thoughts from players who may know more" these kinds of conversations are actually quite common in my games). The bottom line though is, if I go this direction with the players, I need to decide what the NPC ate, and I need to not just make it some random thing (because obviously this could be a relevant clue even if it doesn't seem like it right away). This will be based on what my backstory says first and foremost, and then driven by what logic I can apply. If I have in my backstory, that he was simply walking down the street when he was accosted by the murderers, that is going to restrict me a lot more than if I don't have that kind of detail (and there is a 2 hour gap between him leaving his house in my notes and being shot). Whatever the case, I will try to think of what he hate, when, where and with who, just in case any of those details could possibly be deduced (again no expert on autopsies so some of that will depend on what is settled about how good autopsies are at determining if someone just at a big mac). 

On the active end, all the perpetuators involved in the event, all the suspects, are still being treated as living NPCs. Some may be taking actions against the players, some may be plotting other nefarious deeds, and some may be working to cover things up or conspire to pin the blame on someone else. 

Also, there is no telling what the players will do. If they just start shooting suspects (which has happened in games I've run before), that takes things in a radically different direction.


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## pemerton

AbdulAlhazred said:


> POTENTIALLY another way to do it, and maybe this is another way of saying the same thing, is to have 'meta-clues' which are simply clues which steer play back to the really direct clues. So, if you miss the murder weapon at the scene somehow, then forensics tells you later what to go look for. If some handwriting would clue you in, then some NPC analyzes it and lets you know it was significant if you missed it somehow, etc. These meta-clues are not guaranteed to be uncovered either, you still have to do legwork, but they would tend to 'fail safe' the solving of the core mystery to an extent.



As you present this, I find it hard not to see it as a railroad. That's not an objection as such, but does tend to push against the presence of player agency in play.


----------



## FrogReaver

pemerton said:


> As you present this, I find it hard not to see it as a railroad. That's not an objection as such, but does tend to push against the presence of player agency in play.



I thought having mechanics around something prevented DM force and thus prevented railroading.


----------



## Fenris-77

pemerton said:


> As you present this, I find it hard not to see it as a railroad. That's not an objection as such, but does tend to push against the presence of player agency in play.



Well, I think that's maybe unfair. A mystery only has so many pieces, and only so many clues that point in so many places. You can build some choice and agency into that scenario, but it differs from a lot of games because many possible player choices are counter to the desired player outcome, which is to solve the mystery. Maybe it's just that the term railroad has such a heavy negative load, and in this kind of scenario you need at least some linearity. Yeah, it might just be the term that irks me. Is it the case that every kind of plot that has linear elements, even if that's desire of all the parties at the table, needs to be labelled with a negative label, like there's something wrong with it? I'm not sure that's where we want to be. It stinks too much of badwrongfun for my tastes.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> Sure, but I think that you could build from this idea to a more complex and robust game. As Bedrockgames says, part of how Clue works is a game of deduction based upon the limited list of possible suspects, rooms, and weapons. Of course it's possible that Mr Mustard did it in the Study, but what matters is that he actually did it in the Billiards Room. But you can certainly probe the possibility that Mr Mustard did in the Study, and doing so may help narrow down your list of possibilities even if you know that he didn't do it in the Study.



Sure, but how does Clue's mechanics, such as they are, inform us about how to do this? There is no 'clue' in Clue, no fiction at all, aside from naming the variables and the puzzle in a suggestive fashion. Looking at Clue doesn't help us develop an RPG process. It is divorced from fiction and from RP at all. Saying "model your game on Clue" doesn't even get me one iota closer to an RPG solution to a mystery game. I mean, yes, we could cloak Clue's core mechanic in a more open world type of game where you RP going from location to location, and perhaps you actually need to find a murder weapon instead of just guessing them. But how do you explain the 'process of elimination' part in game world fictional terms? It doesn't really make sense. The "I need to guess the murder weapon" is a nonsensical and utterly gamist construct. MAYBE we can more carefully build other constructs, but the core issue remains. In Clue you simply blurt out "Mr Mustard did it in the Study with the Knife" but in an RPG you'd have to play through finding some evidence for those assertions, and then some process by which making them would lead to either their validation or refutation. None of that process is informed by modeling on Clue.


Aldarc said:


> I'm not proposing Ironsworn as a traditionalist, non-narrativist RPG here, only as a system that I think could do Holmesian mysteries with the appropriate setup and re-tooling. So it seems a bit misplaced that you criticize Ironsworn as being inappropriate for being thoroughly narrativist while later then suggesting that the best approach would be a narrativist one. While the players invent the fiction, Ironsworn definitely makes the game about stakes and goals, which are IMO an important part of mysteries. One could set up separate mysteries and Oracles for things like the suspect, the weapon, the location, the motive, and the grand solve. Complications may arise with characters in the game, interrogating witnesses, cooperating with law enforcement, the femme fatale, pursuing a shadowy eavesdropper, and the like.



OK, but if the particulars of the case are determined by oracles (as I understand it these are random tables) how does this work? The real issue here with mysteries in particular is nuts and bolts. How do you go from the initial idea of playing a mystery, through the conceptual maze of what that means in game structural terms, and then down to the final level of actualization of a specific mystery story in play. We've all discussed a few proposals in the first 2 areas, but I don't think we can go further in that discussion without bringing it all the way down to the "what exactly happens at the table" (and obviously to work out which proposals 'gel' in actual play would require testing them, but I am confident we're not going to do that in a thread here).


Aldarc said:


> They are "two different RPGs" but at the same time they are built on the same Fate engine, though the _Dresden Files RPG_ is pre-Fate Core, and _DFA_ is post-Fate Core. The way mantles work in DFA is that you are picking essentially an archetype, much as a playbook, which comes with a set of preselection of Conditions and Stunts. You may check off boxes to use some of your Mantle abilities. Or you may have to check off a box when that condition is triggered (e.g., violate your oath, etc.). When you run out of boxes or want to recover boxes, typically one of several things must happen depending on the tag:
> 
> Fleeting: You recover your conditions at the end of the scene or some trivial point.
> Sticky: Concrete action must be taken and typically a dice roll.
> Lasting: Same as sticky, but typically time must also pass (the session) or the completion of a secondary objective.
> 
> What this entails will naturally vary based on the Mantle and character. Mantles also have access to a choice of Stunts that can provide additional archetype-themed bonuses or assist with the mantle conditions.
> 
> I actually used Dresden Files Accelerated for the aforementioned one-shot of a Supernatural Investigation Society set in 1840s Vienna. If I were to run it again, as I one day hope, I would still consider DFA but also Monster of the Week, Urban Modern Fantasy (i.e., "Dungeon World Modern"), or Vaesen, though the latter is a little too Swedish/Nordic and not enough Austrian/Central Europe.



Interesting. It is a genre I've really not had a lot of contact with. Kinda stuck more with the 'Cthulhuoid' sort of modern fantasy. Most of the 'elves exist in the real world' sort just never seemed to push my buttons that much (and don't get me started on all these Vampire stories, Anne Rice was compelling fiction back in the day, but I don't see much value in what came after).


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> An answer _everything here is exactly as it seems_ might be boring in many contexts, but in the context of solving a mystery might actually be helpful- and thus provide a +1 forward.



Yes, I agree. It is a different context. You might even make that argument now and then in DW itself.


pemerton said:


> In any event, in a mystery game of the sort Bedrockgames was describing we might be looking at different questions - eg he had the PCs asking the bystanders what they saw. This would be a version of _what happened here recently?_



Right, so maybe a move would be "Question the Witnesses". Another move might be "Analyze the Evidence" or something like that (for doing forensics or Holmes-style super acute observation). Then we get into the more nitty gritty details of how that would work, but we need to first establish the overall conceptual ground rules of our hypothetical game a bit better. 

I think if this discussion were to go further it would have to, as I told @Aldarc, both establish a specific conceptual approach, and then get into the nitty gritty of an actual implementation.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Fenris-77 said:


> Well, I think that's maybe unfair. A mystery only has so many pieces, and only so many clues that point in so many places. You can build some choice and agency into that scenario, but it differs from a lot of games because many possible player choices are counter to the desired player outcome, which is to solve the mystery. Maybe it's just that the term railroad has such a heavy negative load, and in this kind of scenario you need at least some linearity. Yeah, it might just be the term that irks me. Is it the case that every kind of plot that has linear elements, even if that's desire of all the parties at the table, needs to be labelled with a negative label, like there's something wrong with it? I'm not sure that's where we want to be. It stinks too much of badwrongfun for my tastes.



Also, players can ‘convict’ the wrong person in a mystery, they can fail to solve it, the murderer can start trying to murder other people (and their actions can impact the murderers behavior). An investigation isn’t a railroad just because it gets solved, it is only a railroad if the GM only allows for the outcome of it be to that they solve it. And I would even argue, given the premise of a mystery if people are playing in a way where solving us an expectation there is still plenty of space to freely move within that that it probably isn’t a real railriad. A railroad is ‘the adventure happens whether the players want it or not. If the players are fully engaged with the mystery, i don’t think it is a problem (whatever style of mystery one is running)


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## AbdulAlhazred

pemerton said:


> As you present this, I find it hard not to see it as a railroad. That's not an objection as such, but does tend to push against the presence of player agency in play.



Right, but then you start to rub hard against the question about what sorts of 'agency' are compatible with each other. I mean, its a situation faced by the PCs. Sure, "all roads lead to Rome" but walking them is still the journey. I'm not saying RPG play must always be like this, as some seem to imply to a degree, but there may be times and places where that is going to get you your best mileage. Also, there might be a kind of middle ground. Suppose the motives and consequences of the action are all up for grabs in Story Now fashion, not determined up front, but the literal details of what happened are immutable. Then these 'meta-clues' would support this immutable element of the plot, but provide at least some of the opportunity to re-interpret things and put them into new contexts, which can be driven largely by the players. 

I mean, I'm just brain storming really. Frankly I'm not good at mystery scenarios, so I am acutely aware of their pitfalls. I would want a system that had some firm 'guardrails' myself.


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Also, players can ‘convict’ the wrong person in a mystery, they can fail to solve it, the murderer can start trying to murder other people (and their actions can impact the murderers behavior). An investigation isn’t a railroad just because it gets solved, it is only a railroad if the GM only allows for the outcome of it be to that they solve it. And I would even argue, given the premise of a mystery if people are playing in a way where solving us an expectation there is still plenty of space to freely move within that that it probably isn’t a real railriad. A railroad is ‘the adventure happens whether the players want it or not. If the players are fully engaged with the mystery, i don’t think it is a problem (whatever style of mystery one is running)



Yeah, I agree that it seems quite possible to provide other elements which take on the roles of player mediated degrees of freedom which would work for @pemerton and play out the central mystery part in a more fixed fashion.


----------



## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Right, so maybe a move would be "Question the Witnesses". Another move might be "Analyze the Evidence" or something like that (for doing forensics or Holmes-style super acute observation). Then we get into the more nitty gritty details of how that would work, but we need to first establish the overall conceptual ground rules of our hypothetical game a bit better.




So the Bluecoats playtest for the Blades in the Dark system does some very interesting things along these lines. The Action Ratings....essentially Character Stats....for Bluecoats and Investigators are different than those of Scoundrels from the core game. So instead of Prowl and Skirmish and Consort, they have Actions like Patrol and Analyze and Subdue. It's an interesting distinction that helps shift the focus of play in a subtle way that supports the different approach.

The game functions in the same way, and has the same components like Stress and Pushing and so on, but the focus is different. So the Playbook Abilities are similarly altered. Rather than helping with being sneaky or cunning and other things that a scoundrel may need to be, the Playbook Abilities for the Bluecoats are based on diffusing a violent situation, or resisting the effects of skullduggery, or cutting through red tape. 

The game is very investigation based, but I don't think that the expectation would be for a straight up whodunnit such as a Holmes story may offer. But I think there's likely some overlap, where elements from this game would work well in a game more specifically aimed at solving mysteries.


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## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> So the Bluecoats playtest for the Blades in the Dark system does some very interesting things along these lines. The Action Ratings....essentially Character Stats....for Bluecoats and Investigators are different than those of Scoundrels from the core game. So instead of Prowl and Skirmish and Consort, they have Actions like Patrol and Analyze and Subdue. It's an interesting distinction that helps shift the focus of play in a subtle way that supports the different approach.
> 
> The game functions in the same way, and has the same components like Stress and Pushing and so on, but the focus is different. So the Playbook Abilities are similarly altered. Rather than helping with being sneaky or cunning and other things that a scoundrel may need to be, the Playbook Abilities for the Bluecoats are based on diffusing a violent situation, or resisting the effects of skullduggery, or cutting through red tape.
> 
> The game is very investigation based, but I don't think that the expectation would be for a straight up whodunnit such as a Holmes story may offer. But I think there's likely some overlap, where elements from this game would work well in a game more specifically aimed at solving mysteries.



Interesting. I think that is what I would mostly expect in this sort of game. The PCs are 'police' and the focus is on their activities as a whole. A given 'adventure' might be a 'case', but there are probably various things going on at any one time. So, mysteries or 'detective work' is there, but it is just one element. And obviously BitD has a lot of just plain player/PC focused stuff. That would seem like the general structure of play would lead to players coming up with a fair amount of the plot. Anyway, definitely interesting stuff to think about.


----------



## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Sure, but how does Clue's mechanics, such as they are, inform us about how to do this? There is no 'clue' in Clue, no fiction at all, aside from naming the variables and the puzzle in a suggestive fashion. Looking at Clue doesn't help us develop an RPG process. It is divorced from fiction and from RP at all. Saying "model your game on Clue" doesn't even get me one iota closer to an RPG solution to a mystery game. I mean, yes, we could cloak Clue's core mechanic in a more open world type of game where you RP going from location to location, and perhaps you actually need to find a murder weapon instead of just guessing them. But how do you explain the 'process of elimination' part in game world fictional terms? It doesn't really make sense. The "I need to guess the murder weapon" is a nonsensical and utterly gamist construct. MAYBE we can more carefully build other constructs, but the core issue remains. In Clue you simply blurt out "Mr Mustard did it in the Study with the Knife" but in an RPG you'd have to play through finding some evidence for those assertions, and then some process by which making them would lead to either their validation or refutation. None of that process is informed by modeling on Clue.



The "clue" in Clue are the cards that you have in your hand. It's the deductive process of elimination. It's the "cross-examination" of your fellow players regarding their own set of clues. I'm not suggesting that Clue is a perfect working model, but it is a model. Of course guessing murder weapons and the like are gamist, but it's not as if we should regard that as a flaw in a RPG, which are chock full of gamist constructs that we choose to overlook. 

In regards to the matter of "guessing," it could work just as easily as something like Spout Lore in DW. Your success may provide you the ability for the GM to answer certain questions truthfully. It may not be all (i.e., "who dun it?") but it could be pieces (e.g., "What substance is on the pipe?"), though it may come with complications (e.g., GM: "It's blood, but you are not sure whose blood. Also you see street lamps cast the images of shadowy figures."). The District Attorney or judicial system may require that the accuser present particular evidence of certain things for trial. 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> OK, but if the particulars of the case are determined by oracles (as I understand it these are random tables) how does this work? The real issue here with mysteries in particular is nuts and bolts. How do you go from the initial idea of playing a mystery, through the conceptual maze of what that means in game structural terms, and then down to the final level of actualization of a specific mystery story in play. We've all discussed a few proposals in the first 2 areas, but I don't think we can go further in that discussion without bringing it all the way down to the "what exactly happens at the table" (and obviously to work out which proposals 'gel' in actual play would require testing them, but I am confident we're not going to do that in a thread here).



These are things that I would obviously look were I to take the serious work of adapting Ironsworn to the mystery genre. But I would tentatively suggest Ironsworn as a possible place to look for modeling a mystery due to my aforementioned reasons, particularly along the lines of Sherlock Holmesian "solo play." (Watson doesn't count.) 



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Interesting. It is a genre I've really not had a lot of contact with. Kinda stuck more with the 'Cthulhuoid' sort of modern fantasy. Most of the 'elves exist in the real world' sort just never seemed to push my buttons that much (and don't get me started on all these Vampire stories, Anne Rice was compelling fiction back in the day, but I don't see much value in what came after).



I'm sure plenty of people would say the same about Cthulhuoid fantasy, that it was "compelling fiction back in the day," but with not much value afterwards. I'm not particularly invested though in defending urban fantasy or Dresden Files as a genre.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

Aldarc said:


> The "clue" in Clue are the cards that you have in your hand. It's the deductive process of elimination. It's the "cross-examination" of your fellow players regarding their own set of clues. I'm not suggesting that Clue is a perfect working model, but it is a model. Of course guessing murder weapons and the like are gamist, but it's not as if we should regard that as a flaw in a RPG, which are chock full of gamist constructs that we choose to overlook.
> 
> In regards to the matter of "guessing," it could work just as easily as something like Spout Lore in DW. Your success may provide you the ability for the GM to answer certain questions truthfully. It may not be all (i.e., "who dun it?") but it could be pieces (e.g., "What substance is on the pipe?"), though it may come with complications (e.g., GM: "It's blood, but you are not sure whose blood. Also you see street lamps cast the images of shadowy figures."). The District Attorney or judicial system may require that the accuser present particular evidence of certain things for trial.



I think you could certainly make a game with some RP elements which was a lot like Clue, sure. 

Yeah, so there would be 'facts', and then there would be 'evidence'. There is definitely a difference between the two, and you could imagine entirely different processes for establishing each one, given that there is obviously a relationship between the two.


Aldarc said:


> These are things that I would obviously look were I to take the serious work of adapting Ironsworn to the mystery genre. But I would tentatively suggest Ironsworn as a possible place to look for modeling a mystery due to my aforementioned reasons, particularly along the lines of Sherlock Holmesian "solo play." (Watson doesn't count.)



Solo play certain is something they have addressed. I should really go through a solo session and learn the game better.


Aldarc said:


> I'm sure plenty of people would say the same about Cthulhuoid fantasy, that it was "compelling fiction back in the day," but with not much value afterwards. I'm not particularly invested though in defending urban fantasy or Dresden Files as a genre.



Yeah, I am not really down on Urban Fantasy, and I know some of it is pretty good. Like any popular genre it seems like it got flooded with a lot of mediocre work at some point, particularly certain themes... Same can be said for traditional fantasy, etc. I only mentioned Cthulhuoid "existential horror" since it also happens to often be set in a modernistic setting and relies on some similar tropes (IE 'the truth about the world is hidden' which is pretty common in Urban Fantasy).


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## hawkeyefan

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Interesting. I think that is what I would mostly expect in this sort of game. The PCs are 'police' and the focus is on their activities as a whole. A given 'adventure' might be a 'case', but there are probably various things going on at any one time. So, mysteries or 'detective work' is there, but it is just one element. And obviously BitD has a lot of just plain player/PC focused stuff. That would seem like the general structure of play would lead to players coming up with a fair amount of the plot. Anyway, definitely interesting stuff to think about.




Yes, there is meant to be a core Mandate that the unit is assembled to deal with. In our case, it was "Investigate the influx of the drug Third Eye into Nightmarket by the gang known as the Steel Syndicate". Some of the tension of the game comes from the fact that the entire city and its institutions are largely corrupt, and so investigations will eventually lead into conflict with other institutions. The idea is how do you administer justice in such a place when there are many forces that will be working against you. 

There were certainly elements that were kind of mysteries that needed solving before the unit could move further in their investigation, but there was also lots of related action and drama of rival factions and institutions and so on. As you say, any mystery type of situation was one element of many.


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## pemerton

FrogReaver said:


> I thought having mechanics around something prevented DM force and thus prevented railroading.



What mechanics?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Now you’ll be asked to define “mechanics”....


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## Fenris-77

Great googly moogly. Just erase the whole thread.


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## Aldarc

AbdulAlhazred said:


> Yeah, I am not really down on Urban Fantasy, and I know some of it is pretty good. Like any popular genre it seems like it got flooded with a lot of mediocre work at some point, particularly certain themes... Same can be said for traditional fantasy, etc. I only mentioned Cthulhuoid "existential horror" since it also happens to often be set in a modernistic setting and relies on some similar tropes (IE 'the truth about the world is hidden' which is pretty common in Urban Fantasy).



For my 1840s Vienna Urban Fantasy game, the supernatural was also a way to explore the ethno-nationalistic,* liberal, imperialistic, and class tensions within the Austrian Empire before the 1848 Revolutions. 

* Before the 1848 the Austrian Empire included territories part of the following modern day countries: Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Italy (Venice and Milan), Poland, and the Ukraine.


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## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> For my 1840s Vienna Urban Fantasy game, the supernatural was also a way to explore the ethno-nationalistic,* liberal, imperialistic, and class tensions within the Austrian Empire before the 1848 Revolutions.
> 
> * Before the 1848 the Austrian Empire included territories part of the following modern day countries: Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Italy (Venice and Milan), Poland, and the Ukraine.



This raises a further element of player agency: _who gets to answer thematic/evaluative questions raised by the play of a RPG?_

One well-known answer is _the GM_, by policing alignment, forbidding evil PCs etc. An alternative is to allow other participants to express their own views through play. This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.


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## prabe

pemerton said:


> This raises a further element of player agency: _who gets to answer thematic/evaluative questions raised by the play of a RPG?_



Maybe it's because I managed to drop out of both high school and college, but can you unpack "evaluative question" a little, here, at least as it would apply to an RPG? I mean, what comes to mind is "what is it to be a hero?" but that seems thematic.


pemerton said:


> One well-known answer is _the GM_, by policing alignment, forbidding evil PCs etc. An alternative is to allow other participants to express their own views through play. This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.



Presuming I understand you well enough, I think the GM--by putting whatever limitations on their setting they do, such as no-evil--might not be so much limiting who gets to answer the types of questions you're talking about, as defining what those questions are. If I, as the GM, tell the players, "Make characters who are at least willing to be heroes," it seems at least plausible that I'm setting up the thematic questions of "What does it mean to be a hero?" and/or "What is the price of being a hero?" but it seems to me as though those questions are available for the players to answer. (In reality, I just find it easier to run heroic motivations, and I at least am not intentionally setting those questions up in the campaigns I'm running.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> This raises a further element of player agency: _who gets to answer thematic/evaluative questions raised by the play of a RPG?_
> 
> One well-known answer is _the GM_, by policing alignment, forbidding evil PCs etc. An alternative is to allow other participants to express their own views through play. This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.




I think that, for me, if the players don’t have at least as much say as the GM, then there’s a problem. Assuming of course that they want to have some say on this kind of thing. 

I think a lot of it will be constrained by the setting, as @prabe has said. So if the chosen game/setting has assumptions about who the PCs are, that’ll of course play a big part. 

But beyond that kind of thing, I think it’s best when the players are free to contribute anything further. Especially when it comes to things specifically tied to their characters. 

Perhaps ideally, this kind of stuff emerges in play, and either the player or GM or both run with it.


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## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> This raises a further element of player agency: _who gets to answer thematic/evaluative questions raised by the play of a RPG?_
> 
> One well-known answer is _the GM_, by policing alignment, forbidding evil PCs etc. An alternative is to allow other participants to express their own views through play. This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.



The players are welcome to express their own themes and questions, but 1840s Vienna was chosen due to the particular socio-political backdrop (and lack of digital technology) and the diversity of nationalities that players could potentially pull from while still being "Viennese" citizens of the Austrian Empire.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This raises a further element of player agency: _who gets to answer thematic/evaluative questions raised by the play of a RPG?_
> 
> One well-known answer is _the GM_, by policing alignment, forbidding evil PCs etc. An alternative is to allow other participants to express their own views through play.



On this, I agree...I think.


pemerton said:


> This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.



Can, but don't have to; these things can be explored just as well absent mechanics.


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## pemerton

Here is Ron Edwards on theme/evaluative questions, contrasting "right to dream" (which he labels _simlationism_) and "story now" (which he labels _narrativism_)::

I also recommend examining Theme carefully. In this game [ie simulationist RPGing], it's present and accounted for already, before play. The process of prep-play-enjoy works by putting "what you want" in, then having "what you want" come out, with the hope that the System's application doesn't change anything along the way. . . .

In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all.

The point is that one can care about and enjoy complex issues, changing protagonists, and themes in both sorts of play, Narrativism and Simulationism. The difference lies in the point and contributions of literal instances of play; its operation and social feedback.​
@prabe's game is about _heroes_. @Aldarc's Vienna game is about (I think) _the meeting of different ethnicities in a pre-20th century multi-national empire_.

Who decides what counts as _heroism_? Who decides what counts as (say) _problematic ethno-nationalism?_ If the answer is _the system, as adjudicated by the GM_, then the game falls into the category labelled by Edwards as _simulationism_. And for the game to work, the participants, and particularly the players, have to buy into that. This need not give more agency to the GM than players if the system is very clear and everyone buys in (some supers systems might be instances of this). Conversely, the more that the system manifests via GM interpretation/adjudication of GM-authored fictional starting points and background elements, then the more I would say this is giving agency to the GM _rather than _the players. (The previous two sentences contrast two broadly-described ways in which a RPG system might put "the imagined world", "the cosmos", into action.)

If the answer is_ we work this out via play, _so that maybe one or more participants might get a shock, or have to change their minds, or just find themselves in disagreement with some other participant, then the game falls into the category labelled by Edwards as _narrativism_.

The relevance of social mechanics in this respect is that a major, perhaps primary, way that a system as adjudicated by a GM can reveal answers to these sorts of questions is via the social/"human-oriented" fiction that it generates. Even in D&D, where this can manifest itself through supernatural phenomena like losing access to spells, I frequently see that articulated in social terms - the Gods of Good are NPCs under the GM's control, and they don't like what the PC has done and so withhold their favour.

I don't think it's a coincidence that in Vincent Baker's systems DitV and Apocalypse World, which are self-consciously intended to be _narrativist_ in Edwards's sense, allows the players to impose their vision on the human/social and hence moral world as much as on the physical/"nuts-and-bolts" world. This means that the system, as the working out of "the imagined world"/"the cosmos", won't in and of itself yield answers to the thematic/evaluative questions both games are intended to raise. There is no _putting "what you want" in advance of play, then having "what you want" come out simply via GM adjudication of the system_.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> On this, I agree...I think.
> 
> Can, but don't have to; these things can be explored just as well absent mechanics.




I do not think mechanics are required to routinely get to place where we are meaningfully exploring character. Freeform techniques are part of the answer, but not always the whole answer. What I absolutely do think is absolutely required is intention, technique, and discipline on the part of everyone involved. You have to be able to get past the performative instincts to get to the real stuff. The right mechanics can sometimes be a boon here, but can also serve as a safety valve to avoid engaging with your character and their environment.

This is seriously hard stuff to get right. I personally struggle with performative play almost every session where I play/run character focused games and I have substantial training in acting. You have to do the work if you want to get it right. Part of that work can involved incorporating feedback from more formal techniques (games rules) or it may involve more informal feedback mechanisms.

My personal experience is that if you want to reliably get to that place where you really embody a character it does not just happen naturally. It requires intention and discipline. The right set of rules and/or less formal techniques applied artfully can help to maintain that intention and discipline. There's nothing special about whether you write your process down on paper or not.


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> @prabe's game is about _heroes_. @Aldarc's Vienna game is about (I think) _the meeting of different ethnicities in a pre-20th century multi-national empire_.



It's about a Viennese supernatural investigation society.


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## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I do not think mechanics are required to routinely get to place where we are meaningfully exploring character. Freeform techniques are part of the answer, but not always the whole answer. What I absolutely do think is absolutely required is intention, technique, and discipline on the part of everyone involved. You have to be able to get past the performative instincts to get to the real stuff.



I'm probably missing something here, but why does one need to be able to get past performative instincts (as opposed to just turn them loose and embrace them) in order to do anything?

Put another way, isn't exploration of your character most likely to come via inhabiting said character and then performing as it?


Campbell said:


> The right mechanics can sometimes be a boon here, but can also serve as a safety valve to avoid engaging with your character and their environment.



Now and then, yes.  As long as the mechanics can get out of the way (or be forced out of the way) when they're not needed, all is good.


Campbell said:


> My personal experience is that if you want to reliably get to that place where you really embody a character it does not just happen naturally.



When using someone else's script, e.g. for a stage performance, I agree; in that you have to try to interpret what someone else has written.  By contrast, in RPGs - unless using pre-gens - 99+% of the time you are the sole author of your character and thus you're only having to interpret your own ideas, which (in theory) is much easier.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> This is also an aspect of play where social mechanics can become significant.





Lanefan said:


> Can, but don't have to; these things can be explored just as well absent mechanics.





Campbell said:


> I do not think mechanics are required to routinely get to place where we are meaningfully exploring character.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My personal experience is that if you want to reliably get to that place where you really embody a character it does not just happen naturally. It requires intention and discipline. The right set of rules and/or less formal techniques applied artfully can help to maintain that intention and discipline. There's nothing special about whether you write your process down on paper or not.



In my reference to _social mechanics_ I wasn't thinking so much about _inhabiting_ or _expressing a character_, but about _making a point, via play, about some thematic/evaluative/moral issue_. I think this can b hard if - for instance - the GM is free, or even moreso is obliged, to have all the right-minded NPCs/gods/cosmic forces respond in a pre-given way to what a player's character does.


----------



## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> For my 1840s Vienna Urban Fantasy game, the supernatural was also a way to explore the ethno-nationalistic,* liberal, imperialistic, and class tensions within the Austrian Empire before the 1848 Revolutions.
> 
> * Before the 1848 the Austrian Empire included territories part of the following modern day countries: Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Czechia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Italy (Venice and Milan), Poland, and the Ukraine.





Aldarc said:


> It's about a Viennese supernatural investigation society.



I was responding to the first of the above quotes - using "about" to refer to the theme that is explored rather than the literal subject matter.


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> I was responding to the first of the above quotes - using "about" to refer to the theme that is explored rather than the literal subject matter.



So it's Simulationism when the GM picks the themes and Narrativism when the players pick the themes? So what does Ron Edwards say it's called when pemerton, who was neither a player nor a GM in this one-shot, picks my campaign's themes?

IMO, the setting shapes a lot of a game's themes. If the group decides to sit down and play Blades in the Dark, a lot of the themes are essentially pre-selected and outside the hands of either the GM or players. Same would certainly be true if people sat down to play Prince Valiant. This was a setting that I selected for this one-shot because it was (1) genre appropriate, and (2) an era in 1800s Austrian history of rising political tension in the backdrop.


----------



## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> So it's Simulationism when the GM picks the themes and Narrativism when the players pick the themes? So what does Ron Edwards say it's called when pemerton, who was neither a player nor a GM in this one-shot, picks my campaign's themes?



I'm not picking. I'm trying to describe based on what you posted. If I've misunderstood what you meant by "the supernatural was also a way to explore the ethno-nationalistic,* liberal, imperialistic, and class tensions within the Austrian Empire before the 1848 Revolutions" then you might explain how. Or not, obviously. But I think your actual approach is a bit weird. Are you inviting me to keep guessing? Or hinting that you don't want to talk about it? Or something else?



Aldarc said:


> the setting shapes a lot of a game's themes. If the group decides to sit down and play Blades in the Dark, a lot of the themes are essentially pre-selected and outside the hands of either the GM or players. Same would certainly be true if people sat down to play Prince Valiant.



That's not in dispute. The issue of player agency arises when we consider _who it is who gets to decide the answers to the thematic questions that are posed?_

In Prince Valiant the players get to decide (or at least try to; if their action declarations fail they might have to change their minds, much as can happen in (say) Burning Wheel). This contrasts with Pendragon, which builds in the answers via its Passion and Traits system.

I don't know, in your 1840s Austrian one-shot, whether the game system itself oriented towards nationalism (this tends to be D&D's default, but you weren't playing D&D I don't think) or cosmopolitanism (I believe that is your personal inclination, but I don't know if you built that into your system) or left it open (in the sort of fashion that, say, DitV does).


----------



## Aldarc

pemerton said:


> I don't know, in your 1840s Austrian one-shot, whether the game system itself oriented towards nationalism (this tends to be D&D's default, but you weren't playing D&D I don't think) or cosmopolitanism (I believe that is your personal inclination, but I don't know if you built that into your system) or left it open (in the sort of fashion that, say, DitV does).



It was oriented towards supernatural investigation. The ethno-nationalistic themes that could have been explored were not because it was a one-shot focused on investigating a haunted house and not a long-term campaign. As we were using Fate, my players were of course more than welcome to answer whatever questions were naturally posed by the setting or to incorporate said themes into their aspects. Due to the political makeup of my players, I doubt though that my players would have been fond of answers supportive of either nationalism (definitely not big in Austria post-WW2) or Austrian imperialism.


----------



## hawkeyefan

So some thoughts based on recent posts......

I think when it comes to theme, the genre and setting will play a big part, for sure, but even still, there's usually leeway to explore other themes than just those imposed by setting. And some themes can be pretty universal, so you can take them and drop them into any genre or setting.

I think what can be tricky, whatever game we might be talking about, is that there's going to be a call to action of some sort, and a general need to work as a group. These things can be challenges to examining theme through an individual character. 

Take 5E D&D for instance. The published material makes it pretty obvious that the expectation is that PCs be at the very least inclined to heroics; there's little motivation in each of the published adventures to engage the characters beyond the call to heroism, and perhaps the call to adventure. It's simply expected that the characters band together and then proceed to try and save the day. These can be added or altered by a specific group so that it's less altruistic or so that the goals of the scenario as published can somehow coincide with personal goals of the PCs. But it's pretty constraining to kind of have that expectation and motivation be inherent. 

The fact is that the group element is already a strong constraint on what you can do with a character thematically. And this is one that most games struggle with, to some extent; RPGs are (mostly) a group activity, after all. Adding more restrictions like "only good alignments" and so on just makes it even tougher.

My 5E campaign has elements of this, for sure. I try to put it at odds with other goals, though, so that there's some tension. Some decisions that need to be made that aren't always easy. And each PC has goals of their own, as well, so I try to bring those to bear. The game doesn't do much in this regard, so it all boils down to the players giving me ideas and me using them in play. We know each other well, and I have an idea of what they'd like to see, how they want their characters to be challenged, and so it works well enough. 

But it's far from the optimal game for this kind of play, and even with as much as my players and I try to put this stuff in there, the thrust of play is primarily heroics. In an earlier edition, the thrust of play might be in raiding a dungeon. In this edition, it's about stopping the bad guys.

If you're examining a theme of some kind with a character, then I think there needs to be risk involved. I think this came up a hundred or so pages ago, but I think it's really relevant. The risk of failure needs to be real.....if your theme is one of redemption, then that's something that the character must be able to either succeed or fail at. It shouldn't be as simple as a player deciding at character generation "My character is trying to atone for his horrible past" and then simply plays the character as they would just about any other, engaging in the group's goals, and occasionally monologuing about their sordid past. If there is no struggle for the....if it's all simply up to the player, then it's not much of an examination of redemption.

Now, this doesn't require mechanics; it can be done simply through play, with the player deciding things for the character. But in the absence of mechanics that can help here, then things need to be framed by the GM so that there are consequences that matter at stake. There needs to be some kind of drawback, whichever way the player decides to go. There needs to be a challenge.

I think it's only through that kind of challenge where we get to actually examine a theme instead of simply using it as some kind of character trait to help us roleplay. 

Anyone can play a character with a haunted past and use it in their portrayal of the character. But if you want to actually examine trauma and its effects on someone through play, if you want to see if a character can overcome their past and gain some sense of peace or redemption, then you need to go beyond just playing the role. That theme needs to be a focus of play (shared as play may need to be among the group).

To me, that speaks of, if not more agency, then maybe a deeper agency as a player.


----------



## Bedrockgames

Also, not all campaigns or games are intended to explore themes in the sense of a pervading idea. And a lot of this is blurring several meanings of theme. Theme can just mean something like "a horror themed RPG" which is just the subject matter really, but it can also be used to talk about redemption, morality in a godless universe, right and wrong in a world with competing cosmological oughts,  or the conflict between freedom and security----those are much more about ideas pervading a game or campaign.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> If you're examining a theme of some kind with a character, then I think there needs to be risk involved. I think this came up a hundred or so pages ago, but I think it's really relevant. The risk of failure needs to be real.....if your theme is one of redemption, then that's something that the character must be able to either succeed or fail at. It shouldn't be as simple as a player deciding at character generation "My character is trying to atone for his horrible past" and then simply plays the character as they would just about any other, engaging in the group's goals, and occasionally monologuing about their sordid past. If there is no struggle for the....if it's all simply up to the player, then it's not much of an examination of redemption.



Well, it can be a more complex equation than that. There doesn't necessarily need to be a 'risking failure' element. Success (or failure) could be a forgone conclusion, even built into the premise. The questions can be in the nature of "what is the price of success?" for example. Is it worth the price you paid? If you pay this terrible price to achieve what you originally intended, did you actually achieve something worthwhile or not? I mean, this is just one example, there could be many others. It could be straightforward like "you can die, or you can submit to slavery." What role does your conception of honor play in this? Or, as in my 'doomed space station' one-shot, how do you face certain death? What sort of perspective does that give you?


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## AbdulAlhazred

Bedrockgames said:


> Also, not all campaigns or games are intended to explore themes in the sense of a pervading idea. And a lot of this is blurring several meanings of theme. Theme can just mean something like "a horror themed RPG" which is just the subject matter really, but it can also be used to talk about redemption, morality in a godless universe, right and wrong in a world with competing cosmological oughts,  or the conflict between freedom and security----those are much more about ideas pervading a game or campaign.



Yeah, though I would say that strong themes generally work by examining or highlighting something and then asking questions about it. Horror looks at our assumptions about the world, our fears and insecurities, and how we deal with them, or the effects of them. I agree, you can play a 'haunted house' kind of a game where this examination is very superficial and nobody even identifies the underlying elements of the theme. Some themes don't really admit of this kind of superficiality though, or it is very forced.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Bedrockgames said:


> Also, not all campaigns or games are intended to explore themes in the sense of a pervading idea. And a lot of this is blurring several meanings of theme. Theme can just mean something like "a horror themed RPG" which is just the subject matter really, but it can also be used to talk about redemption, morality in a godless universe, right and wrong in a world with competing cosmological oughts,  or the conflict between freedom and security----those are much more about ideas pervading a game or campaign.




Sure, absolutely. This isn't something that every game needs to have. But for those folks who do want the players to not just determine the thrust of the game through their characters' actions, but also the feel of the game, or the themes the game is about, this is a pretty important element.



AbdulAlhazred said:


> Well, it can be a more complex equation than that. There doesn't necessarily need to be a 'risking failure' element. Success (or failure) could be a forgone conclusion, even built into the premise. The questions can be in the nature of "what is the price of success?" for example. Is it worth the price you paid? If you pay this terrible price to achieve what you originally intended, did you actually achieve something worthwhile or not? I mean, this is just one example, there could be many others. It could be straightforward like "you can die, or you can submit to slavery." What role does your conception of honor play in this? Or, as in my 'doomed space station' one-shot, how do you face certain death? What sort of perspective does that give you?




Right. I termed it as risk, but I think maybe "cost" is a better fit? Like, there need to be consequences, there needs to be fallout from any decision put to the player for their character. That's what makes it an actual decision. 

If there's no cost, then there's no real choice in the matter.


----------



## AbdulAlhazred

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, absolutely. This isn't something that every game needs to have. But for those folks who do want the players to not just determine the thrust of the game through their characters' actions, but also the feel of the game, or the themes the game is about, this is a pretty important element.
> 
> 
> 
> Right. I termed it as risk, but I think maybe "cost" is a better fit? Like, there need to be consequences, there needs to be fallout from any decision put to the player for their character. That's what makes it an actual decision.
> 
> If there's no cost, then there's no real choice in the matter.



I think, fundamentally, if it is a dramatic narrative type of experience, then it must be explorative in some way. We must learn something, about humanity. This means there will be change, some 'impulse' must exist which exerts some pressure on the character, or on the group. Normally this will lead to an attempt to solve some sort of problem, to relieve that pressure, or accommodate to whatever forces are at work. This may have a price. Certainly it will engage the character, and normally be challenging.


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## aramis erak

@AbdulAlhazred boiling that down, it seems to be: _True Agency means paying the cost in consequences._
That what you were aiming at?


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> If you're examining a theme of some kind with a character, then I think there needs to be risk involved. I think this came up a hundred or so pages ago, but I think it's really relevant. The risk of failure needs to be real.....if your theme is one of redemption, then that's something that the character must be able to either succeed or fail at. It shouldn't be as simple as a player deciding at character generation "My character is trying to atone for his horrible past" and then simply plays the character as they would just about any other, engaging in the group's goals, and occasionally monologuing about their sordid past. If there is no struggle for the....if it's all simply up to the player, then it's not much of an examination of redemption.
> 
> Now, this doesn't require mechanics; it can be done simply through play, with the player deciding things for the character. But in the absence of mechanics that can help here, then things need to be framed by the GM so that there are consequences that matter at stake. There needs to be some kind of drawback, whichever way the player decides to go. There needs to be a challenge.
> 
> I think it's only through that kind of challenge where we get to actually examine a theme instead of simply using it as some kind of character trait to help us roleplay.
> 
> Anyone can play a character with a haunted past and use it in their portrayal of the character. But if you want to actually examine trauma and its effects on someone through play, if you want to see if a character can overcome their past and gain some sense of peace or redemption, then you need to go beyond just playing the role. That theme needs to be a focus of play (shared as play may need to be among the group).





AbdulAlhazred said:


> I think, fundamentally, if it is a dramatic narrative type of experience, then it must be explorative in some way. We must learn something, about humanity. This means there will be change, some 'impulse' must exist which exerts some pressure on the character, or on the group. Normally this will lead to an attempt to solve some sort of problem, to relieve that pressure, or accommodate to whatever forces are at work. This may have a price. Certainly it will engage the character, and normally be challenging.



In thinking about _theme_ in RPGing, I tend to start with comics (especially X-Men!), and movies that are comparable. If I run a RPG session that is (in narrative terms) half-way as compelling as an episode of Claremont X-Men I count that a success. If it even has an echo of a film like Hero or Ashes of Time I count that a triumph!

I like @hawkeyefan's contrast between characterisation (_I have a haunted past_) and actually engaging with a theme _(What will I have to do to find redemption?_). I think RPGing can struggle with this, especially if the model for the "adventure" starts with White Plume Mountain or the like. And the problem isn't solved by making the motivation for entering White Plume Mountain being to rescue a friend rather than recovering the stolen treasures, if the action is still just moving from room to room and dealing with the orcs or giant scorpions or whatever inhabitants are detailed in the dungeon key.

I don't know if it's true that there has to be a chance to fail. I think on that I tend to agree with @AbdulAlhazred. In Star Wars, for instance, I don't think we every really worry that Luke will be killed by Darth Vader, and what makes the end of Empire Strikes Back so ripe for another episode is precisely that it leaves Luke's arc unresolved. But the idea of "cost" or "loss" or "risk" seems important (and failing to realise a character's goal as a protagonist might be a special case of that). Luke loses his family; his landspeeder; his homeworld; Obi Wan; his father; his "innocence". He finds things, too, that he didn't expect - his force powers, Yoda, his father, his sister. These aren't all things that he wanted to find, either- learning that Darth Vader is his father is itself a cost at the same time as it is a source of growth and self-realisation.

How do we introduce this sort of material into a RPG? Does the player conjecture and the GM decide (say as part of consequence narration)? Does the GM decide and then the player learns via an action that obliges the GM to reveal that part of his/her notes? What is fair game to put at stake? Of RPGs I know I think Burning Wheel brings the most structure to these questions, because of its various moving parts - Beliefs, Relationships, Circles etc. But it still requires subtle judgement. Eg if I've paid build points for my PC to have a relationship with his mother, how far is the GM allowed to go in turning that against my PC's interests (say by calling for a Duel of Wits as my character's mother tries to persuade my character not to leave her again) or elaborating relevant backstory (say by introducing fiction that strongly implies that the demon-summoner Evard was my character's mother's father)?

Doing nothing of this sort means there is no struggle of the sort hawkeyefan points to - I'm just playing a guy who cares for his mum. But too much the other way and now it's the GM rather than me who's playing my character and writing his story! To move from BW to PbtA-type concepts, I think there's a lot to be said for sticking to "soft" moves in framing, and even initial consequences, and only following through with hard moves if the player keeps pushing with his/her character and fails a check - now the character has invited the foreshadowed "hard" move (it's not just that Darth is trying to trick you by declaring he's your father - _you've searched your feelings and you know it to be true!_).



hawkeyefan said:


> I think what can be tricky, whatever game we might be talking about, is that there's going to be a call to action of some sort, and a general need to work as a group. These things can be challenges to examining theme through an individual character.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The fact is that the group element is already a strong constraint on what you can do with a character thematically. And this is one that most games struggle with, to some extent; RPGs are (mostly) a group activity, after all.



This is where I find Claremont X-Men helpful as a model - individual characters have their themes and arcs even though much of the activity involves the group.


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## AbdulAlhazred

aramis erak said:


> @AbdulAlhazred boiling that down, it seems to be: _True Agency means paying the cost in consequences._
> That what you were aiming at?



It all gets a bit hard to parse, but it seems like the whole debate about basic choices, who gets to decide where the 'walls of the maze' are, doesn't really take us too far. That is because there WILL be these challenges, these fictional positions which limit choice and/or demand action. Agency thus seems to be more, in a core sense, manifested in the process of determining the nature, the topic, of these challenges. Are they physical challenges, mental ones, emotional? What sort of costs must be paid to meet them, or things risked? 

If ALL of this is entirely within the confines of a fiction which is entirely contained in a milieu invented by one participant, than certainly the role of the others is only to react to what is proposed. This is fine when you want to simply pose a specific question. The doomed space station wasn't an option chosen by the players, certainly not by any choices made during play, it was a contrivance of the GM intended to address certain questions. Obviously this is a valid mode of play, and it can stretch from there all the down to the most basic Gygaxian dungeon crawl which only engages on the level of 'what will you risk to get treasure, and can you get it?'

If the players instead pose at least some of the parameters of these questions, if not basically invent them, then it is more of an inverted situation. The GM is reacting. He's throwing the players questions right back at them in the form of increased pressure. Lets play and see what happens. I like that pressure cooker myself.


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