Dealing with agency and retcon (in semi sandbox)

[Clint_L]

OP, if you're going to put the campaign on a rail, put it on a rail. Sometimes there are good reasons for this, such as when you are playing with beginners who are still learning the ropes, or somewhat passive players who prefer to react to a fairly obvious plot rather than exercise a ton of agency. The latter is a valid preference for some players, so I'm not criticizing it.

Pre-published adventures (and Pathfinder is lousy with good pre-published adventures) can do railed campaigns very effectively.

And if you're gonna sandbox, as you claim, then you gotta let the players legitimately have significant agency and story control. As others have suggestions, prepare various story kernels and react to what the players do. Collaborate with them.

But from how you describe the situation, your campaign was neither fish nor fowl. You had a very meticulously plotted out arc, which suggests a railed campaign, but then you gave the players some significant story latitude, which suggests sandbox. So of course they went way off script.

Since you've asked for advice, I would suggest being much clearer about the structure of the campaign right up front. As well, I don't know about their party structure of a cleric of Asmodeus and Paladin of Serenae battle for hearts and minds. I mean...I kind of love it, but that's a really hard dynamic to pull off and sort of demands serious roleplaying chops, which doesn't necessarily fit with how you describe your group.

 

[TheSword]

I think that often when it comes to RPGs, there's fuzziness around the idea of player agency. It's likely due to several factors, but there are two that seem most relevant to me, and I think they're connected.

First, I don't think the simple act of taking part in the game... the ability to play... is enough to constitute agency. In an RPG, this entails declaring what your character does. This alone should is a bare minimum, and its presence isn't sufficient to establish agency. Too many people seem to think this is enough to establish agency. It's not.

Second is the perceived need to separate character knowledge and player knowledge. This is something that generally doesn't exist in other games. In almost any other game, you're a participant in the game, and so you know what's going on, what may happen at any time, what you are allowed to do, what the stakes are... and so on. There may be information that you're not privy to... let's say like an opposing team's playbook in football, for example... but the range of possibilities are known. You know what the other team can do, and you likely know their strengths and weaknesses.

Look at almost any other game other than pure games of chance, and the player is aware of the odds and the stakes and so on. In chess, you can literally see the entirety of the board... yet you can still miss an opponent's move, or be unable to stop it. In poker, there are cards that you cannot see... but there are cards you can see, and you know what's in the deck, and what cards are likely, and so on... you have the ability to act in an informed manner.

That's agency. Being able to actually play the game, just as you'd expect in almost any other game.

Apply this weird restriction to any other game, and you immediately see it. If you could somehow limit the knowledge of participants in other games so that they could not know the opponents' strengths, or could not know what cards are in the deck, or were not allowd to know how many yards they had to get to make a first down, or what inning it was or how many outs there were... such restrictions would be considered awful for the state of a game.

Yet people do it in RPGs all the time.

This whole "meta" angle really needs to be dropped if you want to promote agency. Simply share information with the players. Let them make informed decisions. They are players in a game... let them be so. I know this often leads to cries of "RP is more important than the G" and "role play rather than roll play" but that's all garbage. Role playing is not diminished by sharing game information.

If you want to allow agency, you have to empower players. And as with any other game, they need to understand the circumstances, odds, and stakes at any point of play.

If that's not something that appeals, then you're not interested in player agency.

And this is before we even really get into the mechanics and processes of play. Sharing information with the players so that they can then use that information to make meaningful decisions is the first step toward actual agency.

The problem with this approach is that it decreases mystery. Sure there is a fun random element to that kind of player improvised game, but when players are effectively playing ‘who’s line is it anyway’ you lose some of the wonder of solving mysteries. Before anyone responds - Thr fact that you made it up on the spot doesn’t make it a mystery.

Whenever I have heard/read actual descriptions of players setting their own stakes and outcomes in these kinds of play things always seem to become self indulgent and in some cases bogged down by that. I get that it might be fun for some people but I know for a fact my players like the fact that things are fixed before they start the session because then the choices make made a difference to something tangible. The challenge is set and they beat it, fail at it or come somewhere in the middle. Maybe this is simplistic but it is satisfying.

Knowing all the facts is not the blessing you think it is. I think mystery is essential for a good story. TTRPG is not a board game or a game of poker. The unknown and the desire to explore the unknown are very powerful motivations and the reason a lot of people play the game I think.

 

[TheSword]

OP, if you're going to put the campaign on a rail, put it on a rail. Sometimes there are good reasons for this, such as when you are playing with beginners who are still learning the ropes, or somewhat passive players who prefer to react to a fairly obvious plot rather than exercise a ton of agency. The latter is a valid preference for some players, so I'm not criticizing it.

Pre-published adventures (and Pathfinder is lousy with good pre-published adventures) can do railed campaigns very effectively.

And if you're gonna sandbox, as you claim, then you gotta let the players legitimately have significant agency and story control. As others have suggestions, prepare various story kernels and react to what the players do. Collaborate with them.

But from how you describe the situation, your campaign was neither fish nor fowl. You had a very meticulously plotted out arc, which suggests a railed campaign, but then you gave the players some significant story latitude, which suggests sandbox. So of course they went way off script.

Since you've asked for advice, I would suggest being much clearer about the structure of the campaign right up front. As well, I don't know about their party structure of a cleric of Asmodeus and Paladin of Serene battle for hearts and minds. I mean...I kind of love it, but that's a really hard dynamic to pull off and sort of demands serious roleplaying chops, which doesn't necessarily fit with how you describe your group.

If the GM is willing to adapt the direction of the story, and doesn’t force the players to do things they don’t want to do, what’s wrong with having both? Why can’t you plan a series of events and the answer to some unknowns and then see how it goes.

Sandboxes are about going where you want. I often see this result in published sandboxes being location based. Go to this dungeon, explore this ruin, visit this settlement. The problem is that the events happening here are occurring over time and time only goes one direction (unless you have some freaky chronomancy going on). Having freedom in this case is not that events are chosen by the PCs but that they proceed from the PCs choices.

I see absolutely nothing wrong with what @ZebraDruid has done. He’s just coping with managing players for the first time.

As a side note (not in reference to your post) it’s really frustrating when someone asks for advice and the advice is change system! It’s refreshing that this is one of the few game advice questions that doesn’t involve D&D. Use a different system is probably the least helpful thing anyone can say.

 

[pemerton]

it’s really frustrating when someone asks for advice and the advice is change system!

The advice has not been change system. It's been make clear to the players what choices they need to make to ensure the railroad doesn't derail.

With a secondary line of, if you want to play a high-player-agency game based around a struggle among the PCs over good vs evil, PF2 is not the best system for that.

 

[pemerton]

The problem with this approach is that it decreases mystery.

Is this based on actual play experience of mysteries in Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and other high-agency-oriented RPGs?

Whenever I have heard read actual descriptions of players setting their own stakes and outcomes in these kinds of play things always seem to become self indulgent and in some cases bogged down by that.

Which actual play descriptions?

I've linked to some and posted some in this thread. Where is the self-indulgence and "bogging down"?

 

[TheSword]

Is this based on actual play experience of mysteries in Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, and other high-agency-oriented RPGs?

Which actual play descriptions?

I've linked to some and posted some in this thread. Where is the self-indulgence and "bogging down"?

I’m not going to get personal. It’s my observation alone and I fully admit it’s my option.

Folks either recognize the risk of self-indulgence when players determine not just their actions but the world around them and the outcomes - or they don’t.

Other concerns I have is the lack of coherence when you have five people determining the world and the events in it rather than 1.

I also don’t think a mystery that is improvised on the spot is as interesting usually as one that exists tangibly before the game begins.

I am interested to hear though, if there are specific elements of the game that makes a mystery satisfying and interesting. Every day is a school day.

 

[Clint_L]

If the GM is willing to adapt the direction of the story, and doesn’t force the players to do things they don’t want to do, what’s wrong with having both? Why can’t you plan a series of events and the answer to some unknowns and then see how it goes.

That's not how I read the OP's post. They seemed concerned about the direction the story had taken.

In my experience, heavily pre-plotting in advance typically leads to the GM either trying to exercise a lot of control over the direction of the story, which as I noted is not necessarily bad depending on the nature of the group, or reacting awkwardly when players go off script. YVMV. Having a detailed mystery or NPC-driven plot for the players to interact with can be fun; that's not what I mean by pre-plotting.

I agree that recommending a different game is not useful advice most of the time.

 

[CreamCloud0]

rereading the OP and noticing that it was actually the cleric who asked the group/paladin to not come to the ritual rather than OP/GM, the wizard and ranger also remained outside while the ritual was performed i assume?

 

[hawkeyefan]

The problem with this approach is that it decreases mystery. Sure there is a fun random element to that kind of player improvised game, but when players are effectively playing ‘who’s line is it anyway’ you lose some of the wonder of solving mysteries. Before anyone responds - Thr fact that you made it up on the spot doesn’t make it a mystery.

Decreases mystery how? This seems related to the point I was making. There can be mystery in the game world. There shouldn't be mystery for the players in understanding how the game works.

Whenever I have heard/read actual descriptions of players setting their own stakes and outcomes in these kinds of play things always seem to become self indulgent and in some cases bogged down by that. I get that it might be fun for some people but I know for a fact my players like the fact that things are fixed before they start the session because then the choices make made a difference to something tangible. The challenge is set and they beat it, fail at it or come somewhere in the middle. Maybe this is simplistic but it is satisfying.

So, you're saying that allowing multiple participants to decide stakes is self indulgent... but having one participant do so isn't? Doesn't that seem inconsistent?

Regarding the challenge... I'm not saying it can't be fixed beforehand. I'm saying that information should be made available to the players.

Knowing all the facts is not the blessing you think it is. I think mystery is essential for a good story. TTRPG is not a board game or a game of poker. The unknown and the desire to explore the unknown are very powerful motivations and the reason a lot of people play the game I think.

Are you telling a story or playing a game? I think that's probably a key question to ask when we start playing. If we're concerned about player agency (and we don't have to be, it's a preference), then we have to focus on the player... we have to focus on the game.

If you're telling a story, then player agency isn't going to be as much of a concern.

 

[pemerton]

"I described Asfaloth as stopping suddenly, almost having hurt himself at a hole in the ground. They inspected the hole and decided to lower themselves down. This Dungeoneering check failed, and so they fell. Golin succeeded at the subsequent Health check, even though he was the first (so Ob 3); Fea-bella failed, and so was injured with a sprained ankle."

<snip>

In this instance, Fea-bella had no agency, because she didn't know there was a hole in the ground, and thus sprained her ankle. Her sprained ankle was out of her control, as it was determined by the DM. She failed a roll, but it is irrelevant because she didn't have the agency to decide whether or not her stepping in the hole would cause her ankle to sprain.

I don't follow you.

First, Fea-bella is a PC, who thus exists only in imagination. We're talking about player agency, a real thing in the real world.

Second, the reason that the PCs are encountering Asfaloth is because one of the players built a PC - Fea-bella - with an adventuring friend, an Elven ranger whom the PCs have set out to try and rescue. The players have set their own goal (well, goals - there are two PCs and the scenario I had prepared spoke to both of them).

Third, the players knew there was a hole in the ground, and declared an action to have their PCs enter it. Had the check succeeded, then they would have achieved their goal and the PCs would have descended safely into the dungeon.

The trees purpose is irrelevant.

I don't see how we can even say anything about player agency if we are not talking about the purposes for which bits of fiction are established. Given that agency in RPGing is all about shaping the shared fiction, the purposes for which shared fiction is established is practically determinative of the extent and manner in which it manifests agency.

at what point was their dealings with a necromancer more akin to a tavern trap, than a dungeon trap?

From your OP:

I gave them a quest, given to them by a noble to steal the body of his father from a family crypt. He lied and said he was resurrecting his father from his evil brothers clutches who just wanted the inheritance. The young noble was a necromancer whose family had a curse/pact with Asmodeus that basically bound them to him if they were ever resurrected. (A poorly worded deal with a contract devil that the dealer wanted his family lineage to be immortal.) The curse would break if no living members were alive who were still pact bound/resurrected. The younger brother wanted to force his entire family into the deal, and the older brother was trying to abide by his fathers wish to break the curse, without harming his brother and just letting him be.

<snip>

They went to the older brother and failed their diplomacy checks to gleam information, so they broke into the family crypt to steal the body, believing the younger brother had good intentions (he lied to them, they could have stolen information from the house and found wills etc, reported it to the guards, so on)

They brought the body to a graveyard late at night as instructed, and the evil cleric and the neutral wizard were curious about how exactly this resurrection ritual of theirs was going to go.

<snip>

So the necromancers performed the ritual, pact bound the father to Asmodeus through the contract, and once they exited the crypt, paid the group for their efforts, and went off into the night. (To then go to the older brothers home and murder his entire family, resurrecting the older brother and son to also be in the necromantic circle.)

You gave the players a quest. You established the consequences of permitting the noble to perform the ritual (including not only the triggering of the curse, but the killing of the rest of the family).

So when the players have their PCs accept the quest, that is not an exercise of their agency. (Suppose they had their PCs say "no" - what was that evening's play going to be about?)

When the players collect the body and hand it over, the consequence of that is not known to them and has been authored by you as part of the secret backstory. Again, there is no exercise by them of any agency.

Also from your OP and another post upthread:

I had intended the paladin to go in with the group and stop the necromancers, but he didn't think that was an option and I wasn't respecting his agency, and that his actions didn't matter. Where as it was actually the exact opposite. I respected his agency as a player so much, that I didn't make the very obvious suggestion that he should go investigate the crypt some shady people just took a body into and find out what they were up to. Thus, evil basically won, and the bad guys triumphed without a fight. The family could have been kept from harm, and he was more or less one of the people who could have stopped it.

Per the paladins words he felt that he didn't have the option to go into the crypt because the cleric and the necromancer said not to.

<snip>

If I can sum it shortly in his words. "I didn't think I could go in because I thought it was pre planned, and the cleric and necromancer said I couldn't"

As you set it out here, the player of the paladin did not know what was at stake in the decision about whether to enter or not enter the crypt, and the player was declaring actions based on their best guess as to what you as GM expected them to do in order to make the scenario work.

Again, I don't see any exercise of agency here by the paladin. The shape of the shared fiction is entirely under your control as GM.