D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pointofyou]

Please stop selling this Story Now stuff so well. You're making me want to play it.

It's absolutely worth a try. It's not my preferred style of play but I learned some things from trying it and it's more than fine as an occasional change of pace.

 

[Cadence]

@Campbell @AbdulAlhazred @pemerton

How far off am I if I think of the classic D&D etc. RPG player as having a goal akin to writing the part of their chosen character in a play - like being portal fantasied into that characters mind and memories but with your will. So, strictly first person dialogue (internal and external) and action declarations, but not the resulting narration. And think of the Story Now RPG player as having a goal of writing the parts about that character in a shared novel. So, both the first person things above but also the surrounding narration to shape the story more directly.

 

[Maxperson]

So wait, we're at the point in the thread where those who think the wise GM needs to have a veto over all player actions to preserve fidelity to an imagined reality also think the GM is naive and easy to manipulate?

No. Not even close. This demonstrates that you never understood what we were saying earlier in the thread OR what is being said now. That or you are deliberately misconstruing it.

 

[Campbell]

@Campbell @AbdulAlhazred @pemerton

How far off am I if I think of the classic D&D etc. RPG player as having a goal akin to writing the part of their chosen character in a play - like being portal fantasied into that characters mind and memories but with your will. So, strictly first person dialogue (internal and external) and action declarations, but not the resulting narration. And think of the Story Now RPG player as having a goal of writing the parts about that character in a shared novel. So, both the first person things above but also the surrounding narration to shape the story more directly.

What you are doing as a player in both is pretty similar in my experience. You take on the experiences, knowledge, relationships, belief systems of a character and try to go after the things they desire. What differs is that there is no larger plot/adventure to pursue or focus on overcoming challenges. There also tends to be more individual focus on characters. The biggest difference I have noticed is that in more trad games we often will make decisions based on what we feel makes for a better all story, but in Story Now play I feel free to just like play the character and trust the game to sort that out.

I mean we do less up-front setup work than I am used to trad games, but the amount of integrating character stuff is pretty similar. I do come from a Vampire/L5R/Exalted background though where that stuff was much more common than it usually is at the D&D tables I have been a part of.

It's very different from the GM's perspective though. Part of the goal of most Story Now games is to just let players play their characters to their utmost and have the scene framing and resolution mechanics just kind of let things flow to a (usually) compelling conclusion.

 

[bloodtide]

In some RPGs, the GM has discretion over whether or not to grant advantage. In BW, the rules say that if a player wants an advantage die and articulates a reason for it, the GM should grant it - there are other aspects of the rules (in particular, the advancement rules) which mean that players won't always seek out an advantage die.

Now, see I could get behind a rule like this. Though D&D has mostly had this as a "suggestion" for years and years.

Though even with a rule, you still have the same page problem. Sure if the GM and players are all in step with each other, then the player will only say and suggest things the GM already agrees with. If not, you go back to the same old problem of the player vs GM type things.

In some RPGs, the player might desire scene X, but the GM has planned to deliver scene Y, and manipulating the GM to change their mind is a thing. In BW, if the player wants scene X, then there is a mechanic for that (Circles, Wises, even Perception to Assess in some contexts).

This is way too far for me. This is forcing a GM to do something: and I'm never going to support that. I get that there are some GMs that just LOVE to be told what to do by the players......but it's not for me.

And i think it's bad for the game play. Forcing a GM to do something they don't want to do will often, nearly always, give a bad result. The GM is just not going to put any effort into something they are forced to do: so it will be a luke warm dull scene...at best. And that is on top of the GM simply not making the scene 'count'.

I just think of the horror that SO MANY players want to sit down and play an RPG...but the "scene" they desire to play is "getting drunk at the bar" or "shopping". As an iron fisted GM, I smack down hard on things like that. I'll do the "oh rocks fall on your character and trap them till morning so you can go shopping". But the idea the game would have a rule where the player could go "haha, I force you to let my character go shopping". And then we WASTE 1-3 hours of game time while the character goes shopping. And because I don't want to do it, it will be endless "oh...the boot shop has boots for sale" with no engagement or descriptions from me, Just and endless "the store has boots...sigh, are you done shopping yet?"

I've already provided examples, upthread, of players establishing (via Wises checks, or PC backstory) that the fictional positioning is there to make a Scavenging check to find a desired thing: this is what caused all the worry from @bloodtide and other posters about "I win" buttons and vorpal swords beneath the bushes and so on. These examples show that the player doesn't need to manipulate the GM into including desired fictional elements.

Yea, some type of rule where a player can just alter game reality and "find" anything with a roll of some dice is wrong for me. This is pure video game stuff...worse a video game using a cheat code. And if you put any kind of restrictions on this rule...well, a normal game without a fan/buddy GM will have the character auto fail 99% of the time.

From these various sources, plus more general things like...just talking with players, having a Session Zero, etc., the GM can get a pretty solid idea of what situations or topics the players find worthy of interest and engagement. They then take that input, and "frame scenes" (more on this below) where those situations or topics will be relevant, to which the players must respond.

Right, so each player hands the GM a huge list of things they Must Have in the game. And, even more so, the GM is forbidden from adding anything to the game that THEY want 100% independent of any player. So the GM just rolls out the Red Carpet and says "here is the game you wished for great player".

Narration means saying what, specifically, happens. You narrate, and whatever you said is simply true--and often, narration specifically means declaring the result of something that was previously in doubt. Framing means setting something up so that something could happen. Framing cannot declare what the final result is, for exactly the same reason that positioning your camera does not determine what the final picture would be, or why putting specific props and scenery on a stage does not make every play performed upon it Macbeth.

But your just doing the World Salad again.

(Nearly) Every RPG does the "what you call framing". Every time a character has an encounter the GM describes...."frames" it. Nearly every encounter in an RPG starts off with something like "You see two orcs guarding the bridge....what do you do?" or "The noble says he is busy and for you to go away...what do you do?"

I can't think of a game where a GM would say "Oh..ok, so you walk up to the two orc guards and the bridge and they attack and beat your character up and arrest your character and throw your character in jail the end. Sure you can play out those events...but it's not just the GM talking.

The two do have similarities. Most narration requires that some framing occurred first. This is not always true--sometimes, there just isn't anything in particular that is "at stake"--but usually something is in question. Narration, however, goes further and actually resolves the situation, declaring what has happened or is happening. This is why I and others say things like how the GM facilitates or enables things to happen, but only rarely (if ever) makes things happen. The Dark Forest and the Ogre that prowls its environs are created by the GM to enable a conflict between a vicious monster and a character, one that follows from the player's declared interests (e.g., perhaps the character wishes to become a hero brave and true). It is the character's choices which determine exactly what form that conflict takes and how the conflict comes to a head; the obvious choice is a physical battle, but it could be a battle of wits, or a sneaking into its lair, or a rallying of the people, or any number of other things. It is the rules, receiving the inputs from both the GM and the player, which resolve that conflict. This then provides the new raw material for the next conflict.

The difference I'm seeing is the Player May I idea. The GM has to constantly ask the players IF the GM is allowed to do anything. THE player MUST have some big fancy reason to have conflict with the ogre. The game world, common sense, simulated reality or the GMs wishes are all not valid reason for anything to happen in the game.

No, that's not true at all. Framing often requires creating things. But it, critically, requires never resolving things. That is left to player choices, mechanics, and (for DW) the Agendas and Principles. Framing almost always requires that you do and add things! You just do not do or add things which conclusively fix the endpoint of something. And, extremely importantly, when you do or add things, those things should be consistent with the players' declared interests (which I discussed above).

I'm confused on why you keep repeating "resolving things"? What are you talking about happening in an RPG?

Say the player has some Big Thing where they want to be a hero and kill the ogre. So the character goes and finds the ogre. And....Ok, nearly EVERY RPG would do some heavy crunch heavy rule based combat here rolling dice where "anything" could happen. You seem to be saying there is a game where the character finds the ogre and the GM just says "you loose, game over".

Your idea of "most players" is not nearly universal. In fact, I think most players are not like that. Most players do, in fact, desire a genuinely meaningful experience. You keep acting as though the vast majority of players are infantile trolls. This is not true. Unless and until you become willing to see morein players than "infantile troll," you'll never be able to engage with things that require players who are not infantile trolls.

I can only call it as I have seen it. I guess you might have only ever encountered players with glowing pure hearts of gold who were perfect saints in every way. But...I have encountered a mix of Good, Bad, and Ugly....and more. And yes most players...much like most people...will often be greedy and/or take advantage of anything they can.

And more so, for this example, a boring dull all roll play all endless combat player...if given a "make the game interesting rule" will NOT just read the rule that then Suddenly and Spontaneously transform into a hard core deep role playing immersion player and start talking to the king in-character (and to STOP playing their character as just a self insert of themselves too). The boring dull all roll play all endless combat player, who has already asked 10 times in the last minute "can wes fights something now", will NEVER just change in a second and become and amazing player because a rule says so.

Who said anything about having to keep it "simple"? I don't think the focus needs to be that tight, and it definitely doesn't need to be simple. Jinnistani politics in my Dungeon World game are notoriously complicated, and the players have been on the receiving end of that complexity twice now. Both times have made them feel wary, but not cowed--which is precisely how I had hoped they would respond. Noble genies are weird, and dangerous, but they're also alluring and influential. Being on good terms with them is exceedingly useful. Getting on their bad side is exceedingly risky. (They are similar to fey, but more engaged with mortal-world stuff than the fey are usually portrayed to be.)

I've got a timeline spanning over three thousand years of formal history (with almost all of the events in that timeline determined as part of Session Zero, or elaborated through play and the players showing what things are of interest to them) and over ten thousand years of deep cosmological time. I, and my players, have developed Jinnistan (and their Genie Rajah forebears who ruled the mortal world), the mysterious El-Adrin, the War in Heaven and how it produced both Devils and Demons (and why all three sides believe they won the war), complex political shenanigans within the main city of Al-Rakkah and between Al-Rakkah and other cities like Al-Maralus, Al-Tusyoun, Shalast-Asmar, the City of Brass, and Mt. Matahat (the latter three being cities in Jinnistan.)

Well, my point is more specifically on improv or on-the-fly games vs any type of prep. It's said above some games are all about the focus on the PCs, and things are only create at the players whims. So you would NOT create a 100 year timeline EVER.....unless a player specifically asked you to do that. All you can create is single details if asked. If a player asks "who ruled 50 years ago?" you can answer/make up "It was king Bob", but you DON't make up any other details...unless told to by the players. This would leave massive holes in history and everything else.

But a simple game would not have 100 years of history. A simple game has little to no history.

All this, in a game you claim must somehow be bound to simplistic black-and-white morality and no-thought storytelling.

Again it's more the improv no prep I'm talking about.

Because I have confidence that my players are not infantile trolls. They are adults with whom I can have a respectful, adult conversation and get real results.

Would be nice if everyone was like this. However, in reality, it is not true.

It is unfortunate that you have been saddled with such problematic players. But you need to understand, they are not representative.

Well, no, really they are the majority.

Take any rule...or law for that matter. If you got rid of it, would nearly everyone STILL do the right thing as you say? The Purge is the perfect example: If murder was legal for 24 hours you would say most...nearly all people nationwide would NOT commit murder(s), right? I'm sure you'd say that 99% of all people would not Purge....right?

I...don't understand. That doesn't follow from what was said. At all. Like...not even remotely.

I think we established above your game is not Fly-By-Ear or Simple, so no it's not talking about Your individual game style, no matter what game you play.

What example have I posted that looks like this?

When you posted several times that the players make up things for the game, and then GM just nods and says "ok".

Why is the player wandering into the store? Why is this even a thing in play? Who authored the need for whatever it is that the player is hoping their PC can buy in the store?

Typically players just "do things"...they don't always make sense.

Then, how is it established what might be able to be purchased in the store? And whether or not it is for sale?

The GM makes it all up on the spot...or has some detailed setting notes to look at. Either way, it comes 100% from the GM.

Without any of this sort of information, how can we possibly speculate about who is exercising authority in respect of the shared fiction of the store?

The player just asks what their character sees. The GM has full power, agency and everything else.

I've posted actual play examples. What doesn't make sense? What is the "random mish mash". To be blunt, I'll put the depth and coherence of the fiction my group creates up against anyone else posting in this thread any day of the week.

Well, we can't really tell from your posts. After all they are cherry picked posts.....it's not like you would post stuff that made no sense and was random mish mash.

But then we can never know the 'behind the screen' stuff anyway. You can just 'say' you did anything...we'd have no idea if it was true or not.

When else would the GM act? I mean, playing a game means doing the things, in the game, that the rules tell you to do. Doesn't it?

Not just those three. Your forgetting Simulated Game Flow Reality, Common Sense, Times Arrow and MOST of all GMs whim and will. Everything that is 100% independent from the players and any action they might take.

Correct. What you describe here is a recipe for GM-driven play. I prefer high player agency play, as I think I've made clear in this thread for the past 180-odd pages.

Glad we can agree on something.

So I begin all my RPG play, as well as my discussion of RPG play, from the assumption that I am sitting down at the table with a group of like-minded people, who like me love the tropes and genre material that are foundation for our games - in my case, that is REH and Roy Thomas Conan, LotR and the Silmarillion, King Arthur and John Boorman's Excalibur, Star Wars and Jedi Knights, the films Hero and The Bride With White Hair and Tai Chi Master, etc, etc. Any given individual might have drunk from a slightly different well from me, but I assume that they care about this stuff, enough to want to play a game that is built around this stuff and the themes it speaks to.

Wow....sadly...except for my two Super Advanced Die Hard gamers groups......everyone else I play with just barley meets 'they can read, write and roll dice". Except for my two groups, it is always hard for me to find any player who even comes sort of close to myself.....unless I take the player under my wing and mold them into a gamer like myself.

But if the only interesting course of action a player can see, in the game, is "I attach the king yuck yuck yuck" then something has gone badly wrong. Either that's someone who actually doesn't want to lay RPGs, in which case we can cheerfully part ways; or else I am presenting situations that are so lacking in interest that the best move the player can see is a completely degenerate one.

Well, a full third of players are just disruptive jerks. But plenty of players just are clueless and don't know any better....so they can be helped.

If the fiction in my RPGing could be half as compelling as Star Wars, one of the great fantasy films of all time, I'd regard that as a triumph!

Well....this is not the place to talk about how bad of a film Star Wars is....no matter how popular it is.....

But, by fiction, it's a VERY low standard.

ALL that narrativist play really, at its heart does, is say that there are EXPLICIT 'rules' for the GM to follow, as in the ones laid out in Apocalypse World which he will always follow. This simply makes it so everyone knows what is happening and it becomes an actual game instead of Calvin Ball.

This right here is IT.

Many years ago....people started to play RPGs. SOME of the people playing those games thought the rules were neat and all....but they wanted MORE. They wanted More then a Play-By-The-Rules Roll playing experience. They wanted a simulated game world reality.

So they utterly left the rules on the pages in the books and created True Role Playing. That is everything about RPGs that have NOTHING at all what so ever to do with rules at all. The RPG Culture.

But when ever your dealing with people, and words....you will get lots of vagueness and interpretation and more. And some people will always Disagree.

And a good chunk of those people that disagreed broke off of the main RPG culture to go back to the All Rules Game. The Cricle will be Unbroken.

 

[Manbearcat]

@Campbell @AbdulAlhazred @pemerton

How far off am I if I think of the classic D&D etc. RPG player as having a goal akin to writing the part of their chosen character in a play - like being portal fantasied into that characters mind and memories but with your will. So, strictly first person dialogue (internal and external) and action declarations, but not the resulting narration. And think of the Story Now RPG player as having a goal of writing the parts about that character in a shared novel. So, both the first person things above but also the surrounding narration to shape the story more directly.

This isn’t to me, but, I have to say, the framing is well off to me to be honest.

No matter what kind of D&D I’ve run, no matter what kind of non-D&D game I’ve run (and I’m not sure even Fate or Dread quite gets there), I’ve never felt like the process of play or the output of play oriented my participation toward “a play” or “a creative writing project.”

Last night I ran my 2nd session of Agon (tales of Greek Myth as you go from conflict-fraught island to island, legend and favor or wrath of Gods on the line). In doing so, I created my own island scenario. All I wanted to do was generate a thematic plunge within the structured loop of Agon, do my part as Strife player (GM), and see where the players and the system took things and how it all resolved. Depending upon how the players (through their PCs) interpreted the Signs and the affairs on the habitable island of the archipelago and then who they allied with/sacrificed to, play would generate different fiction pending resolution results of their Contests which would generate different Trials which would generate a different Battle/Finale. This would then generate different legends, change character builds and relationships to the Gods, change the Vault of Heaven, onward and upward (or downward). Just inherent dynamism + interconnected variables + structure + thematic decision-points and marshaling build resources > resolved island and new legends.

There was no sense of or attendant affectations towards the dynamics of “a play” or “collective creative writing.” Its just “do the game’s things each of us are supposed to do the best we can until all the things are done.”

 

[Micah Sweet]

Now, see I could get behind a rule like this. Though D&D has mostly had this as a "suggestion" for years and years.

Though even with a rule, you still have the same page problem. Sure if the GM and players are all in step with each other, then the player will only say and suggest things the GM already agrees with. If not, you go back to the same old problem of the player vs GM type things.

This is way too far for me. This is forcing a GM to do something: and I'm never going to support that. I get that there are some GMs that just LOVE to be told what to do by the players......but it's not for me.

And i think it's bad for the game play. Forcing a GM to do something they don't want to do will often, nearly always, give a bad result. The GM is just not going to put any effort into something they are forced to do: so it will be a luke warm dull scene...at best. And that is on top of the GM simply not making the scene 'count'.

I just think of the horror that SO MANY players want to sit down and play an RPG...but the "scene" they desire to play is "getting drunk at the bar" or "shopping". As an iron fisted GM, I smack down hard on things like that. I'll do the "oh rocks fall on your character and trap them till morning so you can go shopping". But the idea the game would have a rule where the player could go "haha, I force you to let my character go shopping". And then we WASTE 1-3 hours of game time while the character goes shopping. And because I don't want to do it, it will be endless "oh...the boot shop has boots for sale" with no engagement or descriptions from me, Just and endless "the store has boots...sigh, are you done shopping yet?"


Yea, some type of rule where a player can just alter game reality and "find" anything with a roll of some dice is wrong for me. This is pure video game stuff...worse a video game using a cheat code. And if you put any kind of restrictions on this rule...well, a normal game without a fan/buddy GM will have the character auto fail 99% of the time.


Right, so each player hands the GM a huge list of things they Must Have in the game. And, even more so, the GM is forbidden from adding anything to the game that THEY want 100% independent of any player. So the GM just rolls out the Red Carpet and says "here is the game you wished for great player".

But your just doing the World Salad again.

(Nearly) Every RPG does the "what you call framing". Every time a character has an encounter the GM describes...."frames" it. Nearly every encounter in an RPG starts off with something like "You see two orcs guarding the bridge....what do you do?" or "The noble says he is busy and for you to go away...what do you do?"

I can't think of a game where a GM would say "Oh..ok, so you walk up to the two orc guards and the bridge and they attack and beat your character up and arrest your character and throw your character in jail the end. Sure you can play out those events...but it's not just the GM talking.



The difference I'm seeing is the Player May I idea. The GM has to constantly ask the players IF the GM is allowed to do anything. THE player MUST have some big fancy reason to have conflict with the ogre. The game world, common sense, simulated reality or the GMs wishes are all not valid reason for anything to happen in the game.



I'm confused on why you keep repeating "resolving things"? What are you talking about happening in an RPG?

Say the player has some Big Thing where they want to be a hero and kill the ogre. So the character goes and finds the ogre. And....Ok, nearly EVERY RPG would do some heavy crunch heavy rule based combat here rolling dice where "anything" could happen. You seem to be saying there is a game where the character finds the ogre and the GM just says "you loose, game over".


I can only call it as I have seen it. I guess you might have only ever encountered players with glowing pure hearts of gold who were perfect saints in every way. But...I have encountered a mix of Good, Bad, and Ugly....and more. And yes most players...much like most people...will often be greedy and/or take advantage of anything they can.

And more so, for this example, a boring dull all roll play all endless combat player...if given a "make the game interesting rule" will NOT just read the rule that then Suddenly and Spontaneously transform into a hard core deep role playing immersion player and start talking to the king in-character (and to STOP playing their character as just a self insert of themselves too). The boring dull all roll play all endless combat player, who has already asked 10 times in the last minute "can wes fights something now", will NEVER just change in a second and become and amazing player because a rule says so.

Well, my point is more specifically on improv or on-the-fly games vs any type of prep. It's said above some games are all about the focus on the PCs, and things are only create at the players whims. So you would NOT create a 100 year timeline EVER.....unless a player specifically asked you to do that. All you can create is single details if asked. If a player asks "who ruled 50 years ago?" you can answer/make up "It was king Bob", but you DON't make up any other details...unless told to by the players. This would leave massive holes in history and everything else.

But a simple game would not have 100 years of history. A simple game has little to no history.



Again it's more the improv no prep I'm talking about.

Would be nice if everyone was like this. However, in reality, it is not true.

Well, no, really they are the majority.

Take any rule...or law for that matter. If you got rid of it, would nearly everyone STILL do the right thing as you say? The Purge is the perfect example: If murder was legal for 24 hours you would say most...nearly all people nationwide would NOT commit murder(s), right? I'm sure you'd say that 99% of all people would not Purge....right?


I think we established above your game is not Fly-By-Ear or Simple, so no it's not talking about Your individual game style, no matter what game you play.



When you posted several times that the players make up things for the game, and then GM just nods and says "ok".



Typically players just "do things"...they don't always make sense.

The GM makes it all up on the spot...or has some detailed setting notes to look at. Either way, it comes 100% from the GM.

The player just asks what their character sees. The GM has full power, agency and everything else.

Well, we can't really tell from your posts. After all they are cherry picked posts.....it's not like you would post stuff that made no sense and was random mish mash.

But then we can never know the 'behind the screen' stuff anyway. You can just 'say' you did anything...we'd have no idea if it was true or not.


Not just those three. Your forgetting Simulated Game Flow Reality, Common Sense, Times Arrow and MOST of all GMs whim and will. Everything that is 100% independent from the players and any action they might take.

Glad we can agree on something.

Wow....sadly...except for my two Super Advanced Die Hard gamers groups......everyone else I play with just barley meets 'they can read, write and roll dice". Except for my two groups, it is always hard for me to find any player who even comes sort of close to myself.....unless I take the player under my wing and mold them into a gamer like myself.


Well, a full third of players are just disruptive jerks. But plenty of players just are clueless and don't know any better....so they can be helped.

Well....this is not the place to talk about how bad of a film Star Wars is....no matter how popular it is.....

But, by fiction, it's a VERY low standard.


This right here is IT.

Many years ago....people started to play RPGs. SOME of the people playing those games thought the rules were neat and all....but they wanted MORE. They wanted More then a Play-By-The-Rules Roll playing experience. They wanted a simulated game world reality.

So they utterly left the rules on the pages in the books and created True Role Playing. That is everything about RPGs that have NOTHING at all what so ever to do with rules at all. The RPG Culture.

But when ever your dealing with people, and words....you will get lots of vagueness and interpretation and more. And some people will always Disagree.

And a good chunk of those people that disagreed broke off of the main RPG culture to go back to the All Rules Game. The Cricle will be Unbroken.

My take-away is that enjoying storygames as a GM requires a person who gets their joy primarily from fulfilling the players desires to have their PCs be the focus of everything you're doing, and giving them what they want. If anything else matters to you as much or more than that in gaming, storygames are not for you.

 

[Cadence]

What you are doing as a player in both is pretty similar in my experience. You take on the experiences, knowledge, relationships, belief systems of a character and try to go after the things they desire. What differs is that there is no larger plot/adventure to pursue or focus on overcoming challenges. There also tends to be more individual focus on characters. The biggest difference I have noticed is that in more trad games we often will make decisions based on what we feel makes for a better all story, but in Story Now play I feel free to just like play the character and trust the game to sort that out.

A lot of that doesn't sound different (as you say in the first sentence). I don't know if in trad games I worry a lot about the story as opposed to playing the character... with the exception of being sure to join with the other characters and not blowing that part of the game up willy nilly. I've had that not work a few times as player or DM and a new PC has worked as the solution . Certainly if the DM sets it up to go fight giants, I'm gonna want to go fight giants. But I assume lots of games have things like that; I'm guessing one doesn't join a heist game if they don't want to heist

I mean we do less up-front setup work than I am used to trad games, but the amount of integrating character stuff is pretty similar. I do come from a Vampire/L5R/Exalted background though where that stuff was much more common than it usually is at the D&D tables I have been a part of.

There seems to be a lot of variance in how much pre-character work goes in to different D&D games. In some I'll have pages of background and in some a name and class and rough idea in my head.

It's very different from the GM's perspective though. Part of the goal of most Story Now games is to just let players play their characters to their utmost and have the scene framing and resolution mechanics just kind of let things flow to a (usually) compelling conclusion.

It feels like the edge of a DM who improvises most things for D&D could at least see that in the distance. Am I right that the DM just doesn't have as many constraints on them (such as being able to use prep and not just the cues from the players)?

Anyway, building on your post it almost sounds like the player in both gets to exercise agency and it's just how much the GM corrals that in a trad game.

Is players' + GM's agency a constant? Or is it clearly not?

 

[Cadence]

This isn’t to me, but, I have to say, the framing is well off to me to be honest.

No matter what kind of D&D I’ve run, no matter what kind of non-D&D game I’ve run (and I’m not sure even Fate or Dread quite gets there), I’ve never felt like the process of play or the output of play oriented my participation toward “a play” or “a creative writing project.”

Last night I ran my 2nd session of Agon (tales of Greek Myth as you go from conflict-fraught island to island, legend and favor or wrath of Gods on the line). In doing so, I created my own island scenario. All I wanted to do was generate a thematic plunge within the structured loop of Agon, do my part as Strife player (GM), and see where the players and the system took things and how it all resolved. Depending upon the players (through their PCs) interpreted the Signs and the affairs on the habitable island of the archipelago and then who they allied with/sacrificed to would generate different fiction pending results of their Contests which would generate different Trials which would generate a different Battle/Finale. This would then generate different legends, change character builds and relationships to the Gods, change the Vault of Heaven, onward and upward (or downward). Just inherent dynamism + interconnected variables + structure + thematic decision-points and marshaling build resources > resolved island and new legends.

There was no sense of or attendant affectations towards the dynamics of “a play” or “collective creative writing.” Its just “do the game’s things each of us are supposed to do the best we can until all the things are done.”

Thanks! I had kept editing it as I was going and didn't know where to go with it and hit post.

I want to ask if the phrase I put in about being like your an actual person experiencing portal fiction made sense ... but I feel that I need to ponder that more too.

 

[Cadence]

What you are doing as a player in both is pretty similar in my experience. You take on the experiences, knowledge, relationships, belief systems of a character and try to go after the things they desire. What differs is that there is no larger plot/adventure to pursue or focus on overcoming challenges. There also tends to be more individual focus on characters. The biggest difference I have noticed is that in more trad games we often will make decisions based on what we feel makes for a better all story, but in Story Now play I feel free to just like play the character and trust the game to sort that out.

Catching up on other things makes me wonder how this by @pemerton fits with what you say above:

In some RPGs, the player might desire scene X, but the GM has planned to deliver scene Y, and manipulating the GM to change their mind is a thing. In BW, if the player wants scene X, then there is a mechanic for that (Circles, Wises, even Perception to Assess in some contexts).

Changing what's going on in the background (what's in the GM's mind for a scene's set-up) seems different to me than just playing the character. Just playing the character feels like a standard D&D thing (as would the DM deciding to change something because a suggestion sounded cool). But making the DM change it is kind of what I was trying to get at (inelegantly) by talking about 1st person vs 1st person + narration during play.

I have no clue if that will make sense, but I swear I have a thought in my head that does.