hawkeyefan
Legend
The accumulation of treasure need not be the goal of any game, really. My 5E game is not about that at all. One of the primary goals my players had was to set up a source of income beyond their gains feom adventuring.
What is *worldbuilding* for?
The accumulation of treasure need not be the goal of any game, really. My 5E game is not about that at all. One of the primary goals my players had was to set up a source of income beyond their gains feom adventuring.
Tony Vargas
Legend
But it has been the primary goal of more than a few. If you give out XP for treasure, or have a victory condition of acquiring so much treasure, for instance, it's prettymuch a goal.
One of the things I like about 5e is that advancement is almost entirely treasure-independent (heavy armor-dependent classes are a glitch, that way), so you can, in theory, run a campaign about hard-scrabble mercenaries eking out a living from 1-20, or one about naïve kids who blunder into a dragon's horde at 1st.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
It would kinda suck if that PC had found a feather at the bazaar that was actually useful in saving his brother from the Balrog, only to be unable to buy it because he never looted his dead enemies.
Yes. I'm an academic philospher. I don't need Google to tell me what philosophers mean by agency.
This is all irrelevant to my point that I am using the same word as you. I am not "redefining" anything. Just like the argument between (say) Kantians and Humeans about what agency consists in is not an argument about definitions. It's an argument about actual real stuff.
In the context of this thread, to repeat, I assert that if a player's declared action cannot succeed, because of an unrevealed decision by the GM about the setting/backstory, then the player does not have control over his/her PC's actions. The GM has, on that occasion of play, exercised control. You thing I'm wrong. Fine. But I'm not wrong about the meaning of any words.
I think the non-semantic subject matter of this discusssion comes through clearly in the following post . . .
Yes, in a sense. If the check succeeds, then the player's goal is realised - so the player has a chance of having control. But the player - as a general rule - cannot guarantee the success of a check. (Some systems have exceptions to this. In 4e many rituals don't require checks, just like most spell casting in other D&D editions; but they are rationed in various ways.)
I think we have a different view of that. I regard looking for beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet as an invalid action declation. It's in the same category as "I flap my arms and take off". (Which is not in the same category as "Being deluded, I flap my arms believing I might take off.")
The significance of the distinction, for me, is that the invalidity of the hunt for beam weapons in the duke's toilet is established via a metagame discussion. It doesn't get to the stage of actually activiating the action resolution procedure.
For me, the issue isn't whether or not my PC can (per impossible) tell how his/her story came to be established, but rather how, at the table, playing the game, some state of fictional affairs comes to be established.
If a player thinks I've misconceived what's really at stake, they can tell me.
To me, this is in the same category as my reply to [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] not far upthread - as Ron Edwards says, a GM can take suggestions.
And it is also in the same category as my response to you and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] about the trip to the giants' cavern upthread - the players at my table don't need permission to speak, and so if they think something is heading in a weird direction, or think a call about framing seems wrong, they can say so.
Then we can talk about it.
EDIT: This is basically what [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] said.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Let's say that I want to jump over a 3 foot ditch and I am unaware that there is a forcefield that is both invisible and inaudible in the way. We will call the forcefield hidden backstory. When I take a running leap and hit that forcefield, I have failed to succeed. What has not happened, though, is anyone else, even the creator of that force field, controlling my actions. I declared my action. I engaged in that action. I succeeded in the attempt. Nobody controlled me, but me. Failure when reasonable, even if due to causes unknown to the action declarer, cannot remove control from the player.
You are falsely equating hidden backstory(reasonable failure) with a DM saying, "You fail because I don't want you to succeed.", and that's a fallacy.
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hawkeyefan
Legend
But are those things different?
If the presence of the force field is in no way hinted at, if the player has no idea it could possibly be there, then the character cannot succeed at the attempt. In which case, the decision of success and failure has already been made. So in that sense, there is a lack of agency in the sense that the chance for success does not originate with the PC.
I don’t agree with all of pemerton’s conclusions, but I do understand what he’s criticizing in this regard.
darkbard
Legend
No need to remind me of said consensus as I'd never have agreed to it in the first place.
There seems to be an assumption (or is it baked into the system?) that story-now always directly equates to story-fast...but other than simple player or DM impatience there's no reason for this to be the case. If time needs to be spent on some non-dramatic but still useful-to-the-PCs aspect of the game e.g. looting bodies or "Greyhawking the dungeon" then spend the flippin' time. I mean, realistically it's what the PCs would in many cases do...
That, and no matter what dramatic story arc I've put myself on in the fiction - be it saving my brother's soul from a balrog or preventing giants from overrunning my family's lands or whatever - why can't I and my companions try to get rich (or at least make a decent living) as a side effect of sorting these dramas out?
I think it's not a matter of Story Fast but of avoiding Story Stalled (aka Tedium). I understand that this is not your view of such play, that you seem to enjoy play that includes searching the corpses of fallen foes, meticulously tracking PC coppers and arrows, etc. But in a game approach whose primary directive is to "go where the action is," those situations rarely qualify, and so those who want a Story Now game would have agreed to such a mode and pacing. And, as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] says a little upthread, if the players change their mind and want to search the corpses, etc. they need only ask. It is just assumed that this will not be the focus of play, that they are not missing out on expected wealth or needed information, etc. by not taking such actions at every possible opportunity.
I don't think anyone is adocating for the total removal of rewards (be they coin, magic items, whatever) as a requisite of Story Now gaming. But, let's be realistic: in D&D, for example, of any edition, after the first adventure or two, the assumed economics of the game make worries about buying food, basic equipment, etc. nonissues in the game except by agreed upon group consensus (we're playing in Dark Sun and want to make basic survival a focus of play, we want a "gritty" game, where fungible rewards are few and far between, etc.).
Indubitably, and I didn't mean to imply that this was the sole province of Story Now gaming. I did want to emphasize that Story Now gaming tends to run in this mode.
Arilyn
Hero
In Story Now games, the GM would not place the force field ahead of play. Placing it ahead of time restricts the player because there is no way that jump will be successful. In a Story Now game, there could be a force field as a result of a very badly failed jump roll, but it wasn't automatically there. Now once it is declared to be there by the bad roll, it was of course always there in the world, but not in the GM's backstory.
The advocates of Story Now gaming don't enjoy making declarations, and having the GM tell them yes or no based on pre- written notes, or the GM's decision based on said notes. It differs from classical play, because the world unfolds based on the results of scenes, which are in turn, driven by character drives and dice rolls. The loss of player agency in classical games is not just the GM being tyrannical, or characters being forced in a single direction. It's, in my understanding, more the players feeling that they are simply tourists in the GM's world. This is where the loss of control is felt. In Story Now games, the characters' drives and motivations feed the drama and determine the direction of the story. They are not, for example, going to become key players in a war against hobgoblins because the GM thought it would be cool to do a hobgoblin war story.
The example of your character having free will in a classical game is perfectly valid, but is irrelevant to Story Now gaming, because in Story Now, you as a player have lost agency if a lot of backstory exists. Technically, pemerton is right in saying classical gaming is pretty much a Choose Your Own Adventure. It's also unfair, because a living GM can make it so complex that it doesn't really have much in common with those adventure books. The GM can also rewrite bits on the fly.
These are two different styles of rpging. Both work and are fun. It's interesting discussing the different approaches, but trying to prove the objective superiority of one over the other? This has no end, as this thread Is proving.
hawkeyefan
Legend
Absolutely...I didn’t mean to sound like I was disagreeing. Just mentioning it because I play a game that I think would be considered fairly traditional in that there is a “Main Story” and that as GM I’ve come up with many story elements, but I do incorporate lots of elements that seem more Story Nowish (for lack of a better term).
So our traditional game is very much not about simply exploring and accumulating treasure.
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