On an unrelated point - what's your view of LostSoul's hypothesis about skill challenges, situation design and player agency, that I responded to half-a-dozen or so posts upthread?
Sorry for the winding response. This was written in segments and I don't have time to go back and format/edit to confirm coherency. It will probably read like stream of thought. Here goes:
I would say that Skill Challenges share more in common with the intimate experience of reading a book than they do with watching a film. For Skill Challenges we have two multiple running, concurrent conduits through which the tapestry is composed and experienced:
1 - The subtle rendering of the scene in our minds which is the confluence of our assimilation of what is conveyed to us by our co-players/GM with our own unique presuppositions/expectations/mental processes.
2 - The concrete rendering of the scene by way of specific intra-challenge outcomes and the ultimate outcome to the scene.
You may have a chase scene through a forest whereby 2 dictates the concrete "what". However, 1 fleshes out the scene and brings it to life. It makes it our own. For one person, this tree might be here, while for another it is over there. For one person there is an odd stillness to the moment broken up by the cackling of a murder of crows...while another "hears" the thunderous roar of the waterfall which overtakes all other sounds. There is a lot of subtle nuance that goes into 1 for each person at the table. If you take out that subtle nuance, make the "color" of the topography, the exact sounds, the exact nature of every motion concrete, then you take away the abstraction that their mind in-fills with their own inputs. It is no longer their own and, as such, their level of engagement likely moves from that of a pro-active reader of a book, conjuring the imagery (etc) in their minds, to that of a passive movie watcher.
It seems that many speak of "player agency" being contingent upon as close to an absolute shared rendering (1) as possible, and accompanying expectations of what is and what shall come, otherwise it is "jarring." Their scene must be precisely the same as the person next to them, otherwise it is "jarring." Their shared interpretation of an Acrobatics check under all circumstances (regardless of context) must have internal consistency otherwise it is "jarring". Their expectations of stance must be consistent (typically actor), otherwise it is "jarring." These folks come at the game from a Process-Simulationist (with a side of G) agenda. Precise, shared narrative and precise, shared "understanding" of PC perspective and mechanical output is mandatory for them. So, it would make sense for them to seek concreteness and thus marginalizing 1 as much as possible. As such, it would make sense for them to seek a physical rendering of the scene before them (the precise location of the rock from the tree from the path from the waterfall, etc).
My position is that a hgihly functional Skill Challenge is predicated upon the table adopting, and fully buying into, a High Concept Sim + Story Now agenda and the players/GM developing the skill-set for that agenda whiile cultivating chemistry between each other. For this, 1 needs not be stifled or marginalized. It needs to proliferate as much as possible for their to be dynamism at the table and interesting renderings of each step along the way.
I suppose then that there may be some sort of proportion of 1 (above): "player agency"...either truly or objectively. The thing is is that "player agency" at a Process Sim + (small) g table is very different than "player agency" at a High Concept Sim + G + N table...and any of the other potential incarnations. "Player agency" at my table (which is the latter) is something like:
- Does my PC's mechanical build tools properly represent the archetype I'm going for when I mechanically interact with the game world/challenges?
- Do I have the authority to express my PC's theme/archetype and impose that upon our shared narrative and is it mechanically supported?
- Do the mechanics of the game support my genre preferences (the backdrop in front of which my PC will express himself)?
That is player agency at my table. We don't need a concrete rendering that marginalizes 1. In fact, I'm all but certain that if we used it with any frequency, it would have a negative afffect and, subconsciously, the G portion of our agenda would grow, an S would manifest naturally, and the HCS and N would shrink proportionately. My guess is that many folks on here would not like playing in my games as they would likely percieve their "player agency" infringed upon because of the table agenda and accompanying dynamics.
