What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Ovinomancer]

Well, that's a player who isn't going to be exercising much agency over the content of the shared fiction! In effect, she's outsourcing that to the GM. Your post says as much.

Without finality of resolution, what does it mean to work towards the goal of becoming king (just to pick up one of your examples)? And if there are backstory elements that are known to the GM, but unrevealed, but also apt to be used in the context of action resolution as "hidden" elements of fictional positioning, then where is the player agency located?

The notion of "player choice of goal" doesn't do any work, as far as agency is concerned, until you tell me something about how this choice actually matters to the content of the shared fiction. It is very easy for a non-dungeon sandboxing game to become the making of moves to trigger the GM to say stuff. Changing the way backstory is established and managed makes a big difference in this respect.

Perhaps I've misunderstood.

The player tells you (speaking as his/her character) "I want to find an item that will help free my brother from possession by a balrog!" And you respond by . . . ? I thought you respond by asking "OK, how do you go about that?" and then the player says (eg) "I look for a sage" or "I look for a marketplace" or whatever it might be.

What difference that is important to you are you saying that I'm disregarding?

This is a set-up that is begging for player-driven play!

As you describe it, that's not a story. There's no rising action. There's no climax. There's no resolution.

Story now means story - in the sense of conflict > rising action > climax > resolution - as an ever-present element of play. But without pre-authorship of said story.

Roughly speaking, the players provide the characters with dramatic needs; the GM provides the framing which yields conflict; the playing through of the action resolution process yields rising action and climax, at various "levels"; and the outcome of action resolution yields resolution, again at various "levels".

To go back to the feather example: the PC wants a magic item, and is at a bazaar where an angel feather is for sale. But the PC is broke, and maybe the feather is a dud or a fake. That's the conflict. The PC tests the aura of the the feather -there's rising action. It's cursed! There's the climax. There's also a bit in there where the PC buys the feather - I can't remember how the purchase and the aura-reading interacted, but the upshot - the resolution - is that the PC now has a cursed feather, that might bring trouble upon him.

But the whole dealing with the feather is also itself a moment of rising action in the larger story arc of the balrog-possessed brother, which doesn't reach it's climax in that initial scene.

Here is how Eero Tuovinen describes it:

The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook.​

Instead of curtailing player agency to create story (which is what Dragolance, White Wolf, 2nd ed AD&D, fudging advice in other rulebooks, and indeed more RPGing text than I can count, recommend), this method of play relies on player agency to create story.

In your example, of the player waiting to be told by the GM where the action is - eg the local Baron is corrupt - story is not going to be reliably produced. What if the players aren't interested in the Baron? Or even suppose that they are - what is the conflict that drives the story, or even kicks it off?

The 3E module The Speaker in Dreams illustrates the issue: big chunks of the module are devoted essentially to plot download by the GM (often but not always accompanying combat encounters that, from the point of view of the players-as-PCs, are largely unmotivated ), and then the whole thing depends on the players adopting the outlook that will make the story work (eg opposing the mind flayer rather than seeking to work with it).

No. There's no trade-off. The player is free to choose what to do at any moment of play.

There is no difference in this respect between my style and yours. (And I see that [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] has made this same point.)

No, they aren't. This is obvious because all RPGs limit choice. It's a design feature. But, even further to that, player choice in player facing games is more limited, in that they really only have choices on how to deal with GM introduced crisis. That's the design goal: go to the action. This isn't a design goal in DM facing games, where action occurs when out dies and thers a heavier focus on the logistical and tactical choices available to the players. Or, some DM facing games, as pure railroads are pure railroads. Still, those kinds of choices are absent in player facing games -- by design.

 

[Maxperson]

Without finality of resolution, what does it mean to work towards the goal of becoming king (just to pick up one of your examples)?

The same way it worked in your example. You described the feather as being a starting point. The PC had to identify the feather as something that could be useful, get it enchanted, do a third thing, etc. With the goal of becoming king, there will also be steps that need to be successfully completed along that patch in order to become king. Probably more than just three, but theoretically it could be three or less depending on circumstances and background.

And if there are backstory elements that are known to the GM, but unrevealed, but also apt to be used in the context of action resolution as "hidden" elements of fictional positioning, then where is the player agency located?

With the player still. There's very, very little chance that any hidden backstory will stop the player's goal, so at worst it will just represent an increase or added challenge, and at best make it easier to accomplish. It will still be the player driving the story where the player wants it to go, and I will still be reacting to the player.

The notion of "player choice of goal" doesn't do any work, as far as agency is concerned, until you tell me something about how this choice actually matters to the content of the shared fiction. It is very easy for a non-dungeon sandboxing game to become the making of moves to trigger the GM to say stuff. Changing the way backstory is established and managed makes a big difference in this respect.

I still don't see it. The player told you he wanted to find an item before he left the city that would allow him to free his brother from the Balrog. That triggered you to say stuff, and the stuff you said was about the bazaar and an angel feather. Then he said that he would check it with his arcana skill. That triggered you to say stuff based on the roll, and the stuff you said was about it being cursed.

Why is it okay for your players to trigger you to say stuff, but you speak like it's something to be avoided when discussing other playstyles?

Perhaps I've misunderstood.

The player tells you (speaking as his/her character) "" And you respond by . . . ? I thought you respond by asking "OK, how do you go about that?" and then the player says (eg) "I look for a sage" or "I look for a marketplace" or whatever it might be.

Probably that he's not going to say it like that for one. The player is going to tell me "I want to find an item that will help free my brother from possession by a balrog! So I am going to go to the bazaar to try and find something at one of the merchants there.", or "I want to find an item that will help free my brother from possession by a balrog! So I go to Easypeasyfreshandsqueezy Street to find a sage that specializes in possession/demons/magic items to find information.", or "I want to find an item that will help free my brother from possession by a balrog! So I go see if there is a wizard guild in the city." Those statements trigger me to say stuff in response, just as you player triggered you to say stuff in response.

How I respond to the player's statement will vary depending on the circumstances, prior game play, etc. Usually there will be a roll involved. Sometimes it will just automatically succeed, such as if the player had previously spoken to a sage that had the specialty in question. Sometimes, very rarely, it will automatically fail, such as if the player wants to find a wizard guild in a city that hates arcane spellcasters. Sometimes there will be success with a consequence, or failure with a consequence. Outright failure is okay, since there are many avenues to success. A failure isn't a failure at the goal, but just at that step in the process.

The important thing is that I am not dictating the process or how the process is to work. I'm not going to the player and saying "Your brother is possessed by a Balrog. If you want him to be free, you have to do A, B, C, D and E."

What difference that is important to you are you saying that I'm disregarding?

That my playstyle is nothing like a choose your own adventure book, or a railroad, or the other negative lights you have tried to shine on it. The players can't author things into existence, but that lack does not hinder their agency. They still drive the game through their choices and goals.

One of the things that pre-authoring adds that your style doesn't have, is the ability for both the DM and the players to draw from that large pool of pre-authored content. I have been running primarily the Forgotten Realms since 1e. If the players are in Baldur's Gate, they know many of the pre-authored elements and can draw from those. The player might tell me, "I go find some Flaming Fists to take this lost girl back to her parents." He has drawn on the depth of the world as an aid to what he wants to do. That's not something that's really available in your game. Your game lacks that depth(though it adds in other areas). Your game has a very limited amount of pre-authored content(just stuff that you guys authored prior to that moment), so the player is either forced to use that or come up with a name on the fly.

 

[Aenghus]

From a player point of view one of the big differences I see between GM-driven games and player-driven games is that conventional GM-driven games tend to encourage risk management and mitigation (even if the players don't bother with them). IMO this is the high level agency that can be provided by GM-driven games, where it is possible to discover threats and dangers, and then either choose to avoid them or engage them on the PC's terms.

Random choices, where the players have insufficient information to make an informed choice, do not provide player agency. Choices where the players are misinformed or working on faulty assumptions aren't great either from an agency point of view, too many such choices can undermine a game.

DM-driven games can train players to be risk-aware, or even risk-adverse. Making choices though a series of small procedural steps can give players the impression they can bail out if things turn bad, and reduces the number of single-big-risk choices they are presented with.

Whereas in a player-driven game, the game is fundamentally about the risks players take, which are often complex high level questions of the sort that GM-driven games don't provide a method of directly addressing. Risk mitigation is much reduced in importance or even impossible. Conversely, risk management is often improved, in that the player(s) choose what risks to take and which not to take, often with more player information than in a GM-driven game. The negotiation step attempts to ensure that players have sufficient information to make an informed choice, rather than making random choices in a vacuum, and that whether the PC wins or loses, the player (hopefully) remains engaged in the game.

Player-driven games can guarantee the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't.

More than once in the latter case the answer turned out to be "That question was pointless in the setting but the GM wouldn't reveal that for ages over concern for campaign secrets. If I had know I wouldn't have played in the game in the first place."

 

[Lanefan]

Without finality of resolution, what does it mean to work towards the goal of becoming king

Just that, I guess - to work toward the goal.

Nothing says the campaign has to go far enough that the PC actually becomes king, or even if it does that this whole story has to be played out.

Using my own current example of my PC who eventually wants to become Empress* of [Rome], while it's a background goal I've got her slowly building up to there's no way I'd expect the other players to sit through all the non-adventuring political machinations she's likely going to have to attempt. Hell, I might not want to sit through it myself! In any case I expect that'll all happen after she's retired from adventuring (as in, no longer an actively-played character but still existent in the game world).

* - though very recent developments have suggested there might not be much left to be Empress of, by the time we get back there...

And if there are backstory elements that are known to the GM, but unrevealed, but also apt to be used in the context of action resolution as "hidden" elements of fictional positioning, then where is the player agency located?

In the case of the wanna-be Empress, almost certainly. As a player, I'd be rather surprised if there weren't.

As you describe it, that's not a story. There's no rising action. There's no climax. There's no resolution.

Here and now the story is about defeating the orcs, and whatever's gone into getting to that point. The climax, I suppose, might be the battle against the orcs' chieftain, or whatever.

Story now means story - in the sense of conflict > rising action > climax > resolution - as an ever-present element of play. But without pre-authorship of said story.

Roughly speaking, the players provide the characters with dramatic needs; the GM provides the framing which yields conflict; the playing through of the action resolution process yields rising action and climax, at various "levels"; and the outcome of action resolution yields resolution, again at various "levels".

That doesn't sound unique to player-driven games. In and of itself (ignoring any plot or setting or background or external considerations) this pretty much is the essence of every RPG out there; with the only exception being that sometimes the players/PCs frame themselves into conflict without the DM having to provide anything.

Matter of scale, though. You're looking for the needs-framing-action-climax-resolution cycle almost on a per-encounter scale, it seems; where I look for it on a larger scale - perhaps per-adventure - and don't worry about forcing it into each individual encounter.

Instead of curtailing player agency to create story (which is what Dragolance, White Wolf, 2nd ed AD&D, fudging advice in other rulebooks, and indeed more RPGing text than I can count, recommend), this method of play relies on player agency to create story.

Which is a euphamistic (sp?) way of saying the workload of creating and maintaining the story is removed from the DM and dumped in the players' laps.

In your example, of the player waiting to be told by the GM where the action is - eg the local Baron is corrupt - story is not going to be reliably produced. What if the players aren't interested in the Baron? Or even suppose that they are - what is the conflict that drives the story, or even kicks it off?

If the players aren't interested in the Baron and ignore that whole element, I'd say that's player agency at work! They've chosen to focus on something else, as is their right.

If they do end up going after the Baron, particularly if the Baron a) doesn't see them coming or b) is in fact innocent, the players/PCs are very likely going to create the conflict as they go along. There doesn't need to be a conflict to kick the story off, just a curiosity and desire to investigate.

The 3E module The Speaker in Dreams illustrates the issue: big chunks of the module are devoted essentially to plot download by the GM (often but not always accompanying combat encounters that, from the point of view of the players-as-PCs, are largely unmotivated ), and then the whole thing depends on the players adopting the outlook that will make the story work (eg opposing the mind flayer rather than seeking to work with it).

Can't speak to that one as I've never seen/read/played it; but I've seen many modules vaguely like it. The trick is to be able to adapt away from the module to reflect what the players do to it e.g. if the PCs kill the bad guys before they get the chance to monologue* and provide the exposition, or if they decide to work with the mind flayer

* - my players are great for this - as soon as there's even a hint that my villain is about to monologue they drop a Silence on him and do everything they can to kill him before it wears off!

No. There's no trade-off. The player is free to choose what to do at any moment of play.

So you say, but as I've pointed out upthread this is in fact not so.

The player is free to choose what to do within any given framed scene, but has no choice what to do between framed scenes. In your feather example the player didn't get to choose how to begin the investigation, or where to start looking for information, or who else to engage for help (there's not been much mention of what the rest of the party was doing during all this).

DM-driven games can guarantee the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't.

Not quite sure what you're getting at here, as DM and GM are in this case just different terms for the same thing. For one of these did you mean to say "player-driven"?

Lan-"if I'm driving, who's navigating?"-efan

 

[Aenghus]

Not quite sure what you're getting at here, as DM and GM are in this case just different terms for the same thing. For one of these did you mean to say "player-driven"?

Lan-"if I'm driving, who's navigating?"-efan

Misprint on my part, and a fairly obvious one, Player rather than DM. In any case, thanks for pointing it out, I corrected the original post

 

[Maxperson]

Player-driven games can guarantee the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't.

Hmm. Well, next time you play in a player-driven game, please find out for my why of all the creatures that fly, fly got the name.

 

[Lanefan]

Player-driven games can guarantee the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't.

Two things here.

First, 'prompt' isn't always desireable for a few reasons. First, if the meaty question's meaty answer comes too soon or too easily it loses some of its tasty meaty flavour. Second, if the finding of these meaty answers can be spun out for a while or only given in little bits and pieces at a time it helps keep the campaign going longer and as a side effect helps keep the players engaged as they look for the rest of the answer.

Second, this assumes the players have questions with more meat to them than "are there any cold ones in the fridge?" or "which way to the treasure haul?". Not all do.

More than once in the latter case the answer turned out to be "That question was pointless in the setting but the GM wouldn't reveal that for ages over concern for campaign secrets. If I had know I wouldn't have played in the game in the first place."

So you're saying a player would hinge her entire participation in a game on one story piece relevant only to her? Seems more than a bit selfish...

LAn-"and what about the quite-likely enjoyable and fun play that took place during all that time where the DM wasn't revealing the answer - does that count for nothing?"-efan

 

[Aenghus]

Hmm. Well, next time you play in a player-driven game, please find out for my why of all the creatures that fly, fly got the name.

I don't understand the statement. In a game where this was important, it would be discussed until there was some understanding or the issue was dropped. Here, it's probably a distraction from the OP.

I will revise my original statement quoted above from "guarantees" to "facilitates" ie Player-driven games can facilitate the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't. There are no absolute guarantees, of course.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't understand the statement. In a game where this was important, it would be discussed until there was some understanding or the issue was dropped. Here, it's probably a distraction from the OP.

I will revise my original statement quoted above from "guarantees" to "facilitates" ie Player-driven games can facilitate the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't. There are no absolute guarantees, of course.

hu·mor
ˈ(h)yo͞omər/Submit
noun
1.
the quality of being amusing or comic, especially as expressed in literature or speech.
"his tales are full of humor"

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't understand the statement. In a game where this was important, it would be discussed until there was some understanding or the issue was dropped. Here, it's probably a distraction from the OP.

I will revise my original statement quoted above from "guarantees" to "facilitates" ie Player-driven games can facilitate the prompt resolution of meaty questions important to players, while GM-driven games often don't. There are no absolute guarantees, of course.

I don't know that's correct, still. It might be better to say that meaty questions the players have are guaranteed to be the focus of play in player facing ganes. Resolution of those questions can be pretty equal in both styles, but focus of play isn't.