Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[pemerton]

I was told quite clearly that it was impossible for the players to explore the world if the players have any hand in how the world is designed. It is impossible to have a living breathing world if the players can directly influence the world as opposed to indirectly through their characters.

My argument is that the “living, breathing world” is a fiction.

<snip>

There is no such thing as a “living, breathing world”. This is just a convenient talking point. The notion that you cannot explore a collaboratively designed world is ludicrous. There are a dozen games out there that easily disprove this. Fate, Blades in the Dark, I’m sure there are many more.

Just to add to this:

When I started my Torchbearer game, the first thing we did was build PCs. Each PC in Torchbearer has a home town, chosen from a list of around 15 settlement types. One of the players decided that his Dwarven Outcast, with Explosives-wise, was from a Forgotten Temple Complex. I'd already told the players that, in terms of maps/geography, we were in the Bandit Kingdoms-Tenh-Theocracy of the Pale part of Greyhawk, as that seemed to fit the "northern" vibe of Torchbearer. Looking at the map, I asked the player where the Forgotten Temple Complex was and he said that of course it's in the Theocracy of the Pale. I asked what sorts of gods they worship there and he said "Gods of explosives! What else did you think?" or something very much along those lines.

The same player also chose, during the relationship building phase, that his PC was an orphan but had a mentor (in the Temple Complex), a friend (an alchemist in the Wizard's Tower that another of the PCs came from) and an enemy (a rival in the Complex, who cheated on the exams and hence pipped the PC to a lucrative post, thus leading to the PC being an Outcast).

In a subsequent session (the fifth, maybe?) this PC was in a tavern at the Wizard's Tower and so I rolled on the Tavern Rumours Table, which told me that he heard an unhappy story about his parents. Now, being an orphan, how could this work? So I told him that one of the old-timers in the tavern told the PC a story about how his alchemist friend seemed to always have had Dwarven friends. Why, only 40 or so years ago, a Dwarven couple had come through town and stayed with the Alchemist, and they were expecting a bairn!

The player has mused on this, but hasn't yet had his PC try to find out what happened to his parents.

A little later, prompted by a friend talking about playing through the Temple of Elemental Evil, I decided to convert the Moathouse to Torchbearer. This required thinking about a Temple of Elemental Evil, and our game already had a Forgotten Temple Complex associated with explosives - and right near a swamp (the Troll Fens) just like the moathouse is. In our most recent session (the twelfth of the campaign, I think) the PCs were reading books of lore in the Tower of the Stars, and read something that talked about a "forgotten temple" whose members regarded the Void as an admixture of elemental earth and elemental air. The player of the Dwarven Outcast turned to me and asked, "Is my temple complex full of nutters?" and I replied "Well, they worship the god of explosives, so what do you think?"

Now from my point of view I feel like I've just described a world as living and breathing as any other. With background lore, hints of mystery, NPCs who know and care about one another and the PCs. And at least one player who cares about it all too.

And in this post I've fully described the process of creation, including the respective roles of the players and the GM.

 

[pemerton]

Look, just say you don't like games where the players don't have more control over things than is common in traditional play (including most versions of D&D). That's clearly what you mean, and you've provided plenty of reasons for your preference. You don't have to constantly deny what other people are saying about their preferences. I don't see what benefit this provides to anybody.

The question of whether or not the players were exercising agency seems to me more like a matter of fact than of preference.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Look, just say you don't like games where the players don't have more control over things than is common in traditional play (including most versions of D&D). That's clearly what you mean, and you've provided plenty of reasons for your preference. You don't have to constantly deny what other people are saying about their preferences. I don't see what benefit this provides to anybody.

You just admonished someone for inferring your meaning and then in your very next post, you go way farther.

I like traditional play just fine. I know @pemerton does, too. Being able to examine traditional play and describe it accurately instead of with fluffy words isn’t the same as not liking it.

 

[Hussar]

It feels like it depends on what they are consequences of?

The consequences of not going off to deal with a bad guy somewhere feel like they would result in bad things more than good to me.
The consequences of visiting country X and not country Y feel like they could go either way like you say.

True.

Except that it results in bad things 100% of the time. Which isn’t really a consequence anymore. It’s just a foregone conclusion.

When every consequence is always 100% negative then, well, now you’re writing fiction. It has nothing to do with “bringing a world to life”.

And thus exploring the world or discovering the world doesn’t actually matter much. You know that there will be bad things everywhere you go. The only question becomes what bad things?

Which again. Totally a fun game. No worries there. But definitely not a “living, breathing” world.

 

[Hussar]

There's no reason consequences always have to be negative. I don't think anyone ever said that. You instead inferred it because...you don't traditioning GMing? I'm actually not sure, but there sure seems to be a lot if that going on around here.

Inferred? What non negative consequences have even been hinted at? Negative consequences is the entire point of the conversation.

 

[Hussar]

Look, just say you don't like games where the players don't have more control over things than is common in traditional play (including most versions of D&D). That's clearly what you mean, and you've provided plenty of reasons for your preference. You don't have to constantly deny what other people are saying about their preferences. I don't see what benefit this provides to anybody.

Because you have used your declaration of preference to tell others that their ideas aren’t welcome in DnD. And then tried to cover up your preferences in all sorts of verbiage to disguise the fact that you want the dm to retain complete control over the campaign and to oppose even the suggestion that this might not be the best or even only way to play an rpg.

 

[billd91]

The term “living breathing world” was used to describe a goal of play. I’m asking how one achieves that. To me, there seem to be multiple paths such that categorizing them all under that label doesn’t help discussion.

I mean, there are a lot of factors for this scenario that we don’t know. Are there no other factions/forces/groups that can deal with the thieves’ guild? How powerful is the guild? How much do the PCs and players care about this city? And so on.

Many of these factors will have been determined by the GM. So when we say things like “decide based on what makes the most sense” I don’t really see it as significantly different from what the GM wants.

For example, you’ve mentioned the PCs would return to find the guild has taken over the city. I’m supposing here that this would be because of a lack of rivals to keep them in check, and likely a lack of some strong central authority, or similar circumstances.

This is just me taking your examples and using them to make my own… but doesn’t this sound like a story that the GM has already arranged? The relevant factors are decided by him, the outcome of the PCs leaving is then decided by him, and how things are upon their return is decided by him. Also, interesting that the outcome would seem to be perpetual… that it’s unclear if the amount of time spent away from this city matters at all to the situation upon their eventual return. Yes, the players decided to leave, but otherwise this is already a predetermined outcome.

Certainly there are a lot of factors in presenting a world to the players that gives them the impression it's a living, dynamic world. We know that it's about us looking at the situation and coming up with a plausible sequence of events and, if big events, ones that will be interesting hooks for the PCs and interesting situations to interact with.
As far as stories the GM has already arranged - as a GM, I'm constantly adjusting things based on decisions my players make and things they do - as well as choose not to do. If there are competing things going on that might interest them and they choose to interact with one, I'm going to decide what happens with the other one as long as they choose to NOT interact with it. It's not that different from deciding what the dungeon denizens are doing to the left if the PCs go right, just in a somewhat bigger scale (particularly if the PCs are off adventuring for 5 months).
I mean, is there something wrong with that?

 

[bloodtide]

The GM making stuff up about what happens, independently of the players' choices about what sort of game they want to play and what matters to them in the play of their PCs, is not "realism" or "depth". It's a type of solitaire play, which may or may not be used to railroad the players in a subsequent session.

This would be the big difference between the Reality Simulation type game and the Interactive game.

The Realty Simulation is a fictional "living breathing world". Time advances things in the world, in the back ground and foreground. A lot of things happen with no character (or player) foreknowledge. A few things the players/characters might learn of can maybe be effected by the characters, if they choose too. But the game world does not revlove around the players.

The Interactive game does revolve around the players. Like a video game, anything in the world that the characters are not directly interacting with is shaded gray and frozen in time. Only the presence of the characters brings the small section around them to an anamtronic half life.

The GM making stuff up about what happens, independently of the players' choices about what sort of game they want to play and what matters to them in the play of their PCs, is not "realism" or "depth". It's a type of solitaire play, which may or may not be used to railroad the players in a subsequent session.

This would be the big difference between the Reality Simulation type game and the Interactive game.

The Realty Simulation is a fictional "living breathing world". Time advances things in the world, in the back ground and foreground. A lot of things happen with no character (or player) foreknowledge. A few things the players/characters might learn of can maybe be effected by the characters, if they choose too. But the game world does not revlove around the players.

The Interactive game does revolve around the players. Like a video game, anything in the world that the characters are not directly interacting with is shaded gray and frozen in time. Only the presence of the characters brings the small section around them to an anamtronic half life.

Now from my point of view I feel like I've just described a world as living and breathing as any other. With background lore, hints of mystery, NPCs who know and care about one another and the PCs. And at least one player who cares about it all too.

Your description is not quite what most people would call a living breathing world. Your describing the Interactive game: everything is frozen in time and space unless the player asks about it.

I'd add a simple statement to a living, breathing world definition: A world that changes and advances with time without any player input or knowledge and can directly or indirectly effect the character(s) in both good ways and bad ways.

A perfect example of a living breathing world:

The characters hear and see about how all the lands around them are on the brink of war that might start any day now. The players pick to go on a dungeon adventure nearby and don't care about anything else. The characters spend three weeks in the wild on a dungeon adventure. Then when they head back to town with their treasure....they find the towns shelves empty. Food, equipment, weapons, armor, healing potions, everything is gone off the shelves. The war started and everyone bought up everything. The characters have tons of treasure, but can't spend it.

 

[pemerton]

Your description is not quite what most people would call a living breathing world. Your describing the Interactive game: everything is frozen in time and space unless the player asks about it.

I'd add a simple statement to a living, breathing world definition: A world that changes and advances with time without any player input or knowledge and can directly or indirectly effect the character(s) in both good ways and bad ways.

A perfect example of a living breathing world:

The characters hear and see about how all the lands around them are on the brink of war that might start any day now. The players pick to go on a dungeon adventure nearby and don't care about anything else. The characters spend three weeks in the wild on a dungeon adventure. Then when they head back to town with their treasure....they find the towns shelves empty. Food, equipment, weapons, armor, healing potions, everything is gone off the shelves. The war started and everyone bought up everything. The characters have tons of treasure, but can't spend it.

That just seems like a variant on @Reynard's example of the thieves' guild. The GM decides to impose some consequence that flows form their solitaire play, without it being in any way connected to the players' play of the game.

But anyway, does this count as a "living, breathing world"?

The session began with Telemere's player giving us the prologue, and thereby recovering Exhausted.

Then there was some discussion of what to do. With three of the PCs being eligible for level gain, the group decided to enter town phase. Before doing so, Golin's player tested Labourer so that Golin could carry off his newly-found plate armour. Naturally he failed the Ob test despite rolling 3 dice, and so became Exhausted (I think it was?) while the turn count ticked over to 4, meaning that everyone became Hungry and Thirsty.

The one camp check was spent, and Korvin recovered from his Exhaustion.

Then I rolled the Town Event - the roll was 7, with a -2 penalty for two disasters (destruction of the hedge witch's establishment, and of Megloss's house), for a final 5:

Dust to dust. All food in the area has turned to colorful dust. Remain in adventure phase until you reach another settlement or until the magical famine is reversed.​

The players now wrote their Goals: for Golin, to get safely out of town; for the other three, variants on finding out the cause of this magical catastrophe.

There was mayhem in the streets, as the winds (no longer gale force, but still blowing) sent what had been food, but was now colourful dust, flying through the air. The PCs could see the constable who blames Golin (not entirely unjustly) for the fire at the Hedge Wizard's coming down the street. Golin made himself scarce, heading down a side alley and on out of town. The other PCs, led by Telemere, distracted the constable with questions about the food-to-dust situation: the constable blamed "that Dwarf", while Telemere tried to suggest there might be another cause. The PCs succeeded in Beginner's Luck Manipulator against the constable's Beginner's Luck Will, and so Golin got away and the others were able to catch him up outside of town.

Is it more or less living and breathing because it was generated via a roll on a table in accordance with the procedures of play? Or because no one (neither the players nor the GM) knows the in-fiction explanation for the food all turning to dust?

 

[Cadence]

True.

Except that it results in bad things 100% of the time. Which isn’t really a consequence anymore. It’s just a foregone conclusion.

When every consequence is always 100% negative then, well, now you’re writing fiction. It has nothing to do with “bringing a world to life”.

There aren't good things that come from the people they chose to help? That would be a sad game. :-(

And thus exploring the world or discovering the world doesn’t actually matter much. You know that there will be bad things everywhere you go. The only question becomes what bad things?

I mean, I assume there are places that seem at least relatively peaceful that the party can show up at, especially if they have money? Is that not true in someone's game?

As far as bad stuff, I can't think of things much less real than having to look very far to find badness if you're paying attention and not trying to avoid it.

Which again. Totally a fun game. No worries there. But definitely not a “living, breathing” world.

Pretty much every cop show has bad things happen each week. Imagine show (A) has some non-main characters developing and plots that build on each other and non-main characters remembering what happened before and recurring characters affected by what the main characters do and imagine another show (B) that doesn't, where every episode starts with the same status quo for all the background characters.

The bad things happen each week because it's a cop show and presumably they don't make episodes often that focus on the non-cop parts (presumably Holmes and Watson have boring fun days... presumably they aren't the ones people would pay to read). (A) would be an example of the show runner trying to capture a living world. (B) would not. Lot's (most) of the most popular shows in history feel like they have been (B).