Game Mechanics And Player Agency

Tony Vargas · Apr 18, 2018

hawkeyefan said:
Whether or not it's more intuitive or simpler will vary by person.

Particularly in the subjective sense, and by past experiences and expectations. Something familiar seems more intuitive and simpler than something new, even if, objectively, they're the /same/ thing, viewed from different perspectives. D&D is very complex, but the more you play it, the less you notice that complexity. Similarly, D&D deviates radically from many of it's sources of inspiration, so if you come into it with expectations formed from those same sources, it'll seem less intuitive than if you come to it with expectations shaped by past editions of the same game, or by, say CRPGs or MMOs - or fiction based on them - that cribbed heavily from D&D, themselves.

I'm not attempting to kid anyone. I don't really care about what went on in the preceding edition.

Your level of concern or knowledge of past editions doesn't change the facts. If you present 5e as having 'done' something for the first time that a past edition actually did first - and took further - you are simply wrong. I accept your explanation for the mistake you made, but it does not change the facts.

Meh. Unaligned is simply Neutral with a different name.

It's more like neutral simplified. In the classic game, 'Neutral' represented the rarefied philosophy of maintaining global moral/ethical balance in the broader world - typified by Druids - but also represented individuals who had no such philosophy, merely no strong commitment to any moral or ethical extreme, /and/ also those creatures that lacked the faculties to engage in morals & ethics in the first place (like animals). At various times, these were called 'Neutral' or 'True Neutral' or given parenthetical 'tendencies,' or characterized as lacking alignment. TN, in particular, could be unintuitive to those uninitiated into the inner mysteries of the 9-alignment system. And, mechanically, the balanced-committed Druid and the non-committal everyman - and the donkey they rode in on - were zapped the same by alignment-based gotchyas.
Unaligned, OTOH, was simply opting out of the already simplified other 4 alignments (LG, G, E, & CE), if a player happened to envision something like LN or CN or TN, it'd fall under that, as would any more intuitive/realistic/complex outlook & set of motivations.

hawkeyefan said:
I think that the DM telling you not that an argument is compelling, but that your character is swayed by the argument, leans more toward the puppet end of that spectrum. I'd be annoyed with it, and I don't do that to players when I DM. I just feel there are too many holes in this approach.

There's an innate problem with a game having a skill like 'Persuasion' in the first place, I suppose. Earlier versions of D&D didn't have it, IIRC. Diplomacy in 3.5 mechanically shifted attitudes, for instance, the Diplomancer could make an openly hostile enemy 'Helpful,' instead, but he couldn't use that helpfulness to get the target to do things it was unalterably opposed to doing - a helpful thief will steal from you, a helpful Paladin take on a dragon for you, the reverse is unlikely.

In 4e Diplomacy was simply dealing honestly in a negotiation (as opposed to Bluff), and any more meaningful/important negotiation would likely be a Skill Challenge, for the party, which means they wouldn't be being diplomasized into doing something, but would be trying to achieve a given goal going into it.

pemerton said:
Part of my point is that the discussion in this thread is somewhat distort by excessive focus on 3E's poor social rules.

Hey, at least 3e didn't actually have a 'Persuade' skill.

hawkeyefan said:
I will make the argument compelling if that's what I hope for. I'll let the players make Insight or whatever relevant skill check to see if they think the NPC is lying or anything like that. I'll give the player some information and then let them decide how their character feels.

Nod: a compromise between modelling the abilities of the characters in question and using those of the DM/players in their place.

Again, I think this is because no matter how compelling an argument can be made, people can still hear it and say "I don't care". Look at how many people smoke or eat McDonald's or do any other self destructive behavior. They have heard compelling arguments which they know to be true and they've chosen to ignore them.
Under your view of the rules, how do you allow for this phenomenon?

Psychological limitations, flaws that model addiction, and willpower as a limited, player managed resource, are some ways games have dealt with those sorts of things in the past - as early as 1981, now that I think of it. In that sense, D&D is still a 70's RPG, and maybe not the best example of mechanics supporting player agency....

hawkeyefan · Apr 18, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
Particularly in the subjective sense, and by past experiences and expectations. Something familiar seems more intuitive and simpler than something new, even if, objectively, they're the /same/ thing, viewed from different perspectives. D&D is very complex, but the more you play it, the less you notice that complexity. Similarly, D&D deviates radically from many of it's sources of inspiration, so if you come into it with expectations formed from those same sources, it'll seem less intuitive than if you come to it with expectations shaped by past editions of the same game, or by, say CRPGs or MMOs - or fiction based on them - that cribbed heavily from D&D, themselves.

Sure, I agree with that.

But honestly, I don't think the addition of the word Chaotic or Lawful really muddies things all that much. My 8 year old self was able to suss it out pretty easily, and I wasn't some kind of prodigy.

Tony Vargas said:
Your level of concern or knowledge of past editions doesn't change the facts. If you present 5e as having 'done' something for the first time that a past edition actually did first - and took further - you are simply wrong. I accept your explanation for the mistake you made, but it does not change the facts.

No, I don't think I made a mistake. I made a general statement about what 5E does in contrast with some past editions of the game, notably 3E and derivatives based on the Diplomacy discussion. What I didn't do was say that it was first, which seems to be the issue you have with my comment. I am not claiming it was first. I just said that it does something I like.

If that happened in 4E first, that's fine. But irrelevant to my point.

Tony Vargas said:
It's more like neutral simplified. In the classic game, 'Neutral' represented the rarefied philosophy of maintaining global moral/ethical balance in the broader world - typified by Druids - but also represented individuals who had no such philosophy, merely no strong commitment to any moral or ethical extreme, /and/ also those creatures that lacked the faculties to engage in morals & ethics in the first place (like animals). At various times, these were called 'Neutral' or 'True Neutral' or given parenthetical 'tendencies,' or characterized as lacking alignment. TN, in particular, could be unintuitive to those uninitiated into the inner mysteries of the 9-alignment system. And, mechanically, the balanced-committed Druid and the non-committal everyman - and the donkey they rode in on - were zapped the same by alignment-based gotchyas.
Unaligned, OTOH, was simply opting out of the already simplified other 4 alignments (LG, G, E, & CE), if a player happened to envision something like LN or CN or TN, it'd fall under that, as would any more intuitive/realistic/complex outlook & set of motivations.

If you were going to convert a 4E character who was unaligned to 5E, what alignment would you make him?

I get the distinction you're making about Neutral being devoted to the balance like a Druid, or about it being not devoted to any ethos like a simple animal, but I look at Unaligned as covering the same category.

I suppose Lawful Neutral and Chaotic Neutral maybe muddied things a bit, but again, I was able to grasp it at 8, so it's hard for me to really think of this as too complex.

Tony Vargas said:
There's an innate problem with a game having a skill like 'Persuasion' in the first place, I suppose. Earlier versions of D&D didn't have it, IIRC. Diplomacy in 3.5 mechanically shifted attitudes, for instance, the Diplomancer could make an openly hostile enemy 'Helpful,' instead, but he couldn't use that helpfulness to get the target to do things it was unalterably opposed to doing - a helpful thief will steal from you, a helpful Paladin take on a dragon for you, the reverse is unlikely. In 4e Diplomacy was simply dealing honestly in a negotiation (as opposed to Bluff), and any more meaningful/important negotiation would likely be a Skill Challenge, for the party, which means they wouldn't be being diplomasized into doing something, but would be trying to achieve a given goal going into it.

Yeah, I hated the way skills were so heavily codified in 3E and its versions, and that's a big part of what I've been talking about in my posts. I like the way 5E functions in this regard. I realize it's a bit vague, but to me that makes it flexible for multiple approaches.

So for me, in the case of an NPC making a compelling argument for some course of action on the part of the PCs, I prefer to focus on player actions to add information for them to make a decision rather than have an NPC action make or strongly influence their decision.

Tony Vargas said:
Nod: a compromise between modelling the abilities of the characters in question and using those of the DM/players in their place.

Mostly, but it's situational.

On the part of the NPC, the DM can make what he thinks is a compelling argument by the NPC, or he can make a weak argument. Although it certainly is possible for him to make one or the other depending on a roll. So if he rolls a Persuasion check, and the result is high, he can make a strong argument, and if the result is low, he can make a weak argument.

But for me, the PCs can use their skill checks to help them gather information. "Is he lying?" make an insight check, and the like.

Tony Vargas said:
Psychological limitations, flaws that model addiction, and willpower as a limited, player managed resource, are some ways games have dealt with those sorts of things in the past - as early as 1981, now that I think of it. In that sense, D&D is still a 70's RPG, and maybe not the best example of mechanics supporting player agency....

I don't think I'm saying that the mechanics support player agency, so much as I'm saying that I prefer that the mechanics in question don't limit that agency. I prefer for players to make decisions about what their characters say, think, or do in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Tony Vargas · Apr 18, 2018

hawkeyefan said:
Sure, I agree with that.

But honestly, I don't think the addition of the word Chaotic or Lawful really muddies things all that much.

Obviously, it's not just the word but the grid they define, and the moral/ethical gymnastics D&D has used with them.

but again, I was able to grasp it at 8, so it's hard for me to really think of this as too complex.

Yeah, yeah, imply anyone noting the complexity is a moron. Classy.
Really, though when you're 8, you're blithely able to accept and internalize questionable concepts, and for the rest of your life it seems simple & crystal clear & obvious truth. I suppose you're lucky it was D&D alignment and not some freaky religious dogma or divisive political agenda or something...

No, I don't think I made a mistake. I made a general statement about what 5E does in contrast with some past editions of the game, notably 3E and derivatives based on the Diplomacy discussion. What I didn't do was say that it was first, which seems to be the issue you have with my comment.

Yep, you said 'now' and contrasted that with past editions, that implies both first & only, when neither is true. If you want to be accurate, you could note that 5e hasn't gone back to the degree of mechanical entanglement with alignment of the classic game, even though it's returned to the same 9-alignment system.

If that happened in 4E first, that's fine. But irrelevant to my point.

Unfortunately your statement went beyond the point you were trying to make.

If you were going to convert a 4E character who was unaligned to 5E, what alignment would you make him?

Depends on the character, he might convert neatly to LN or CN or TN, or muddily to neutral, or he might be impractical to model in the 9-alignment system. Really, though, it might well be the least of the issues involved in such a conversion...

Yeah, I hated the way skills were so heavily codified in 3E and its versions, and that's a big part of what I've been talking about in my posts. I like the way 5E functions in this regard. I realize it's a bit vague, but to me that makes it flexible for multiple approaches.

Sure, and one of the approaches it enables is for the DM to strip away what folks are calling 'player agency,' by narrating a result of an NPC's CHA (Persuasion) check. I don't think it's a great way to narrate a result.

But for me, the PCs can use their skill checks to help them gather information. "Is he lying?" make an insight check, and the like.

My preference, as well. I don't think DMs should often roll such checks for NPCs in the first place, but should focus on resolving player actions - so not 'The Duke nails a Persuasion check on you,' but rather calling for a check from the PC whose player asks if the Duke is dealing honestly or if it seems like a reasonable request, or whatever it is the player ends up asking or declaring as an action... ).

But the DM is Empowered to lay track if he wants to.

On the part of the NPC, the DM can make what he thinks is a compelling argument by the NPC, or he can make a weak argument. Although it certainly is possible for him to make one or the other depending on a roll. So if he rolls a Persuasion check, and the result is high, he can make a strong argument, and if the result is low, he can make a weak argument.

Nod, and the players can respond to it in unexpected/inappropriate-seeming ways, because the DM may not be nearly as persuasive as he thinks he's being, to certain of the players.

I don't think I'm saying that the mechanics support player agency, so much as I'm saying that I prefer that the mechanics in question don't limit that agency. I prefer for players to make decisions about what their characters say, think, or do in all but the most extreme circumstances.

In 5e, specifically, the DM is Empowered to support or undercut player agency as he sees fit. A conscientious DM might always do the former, a bad one the latter, but a really good one, IMHO, will consistently present the appearance of the former, while judiciously doing the latter when it's best for the campaign & the player experience.

Ovinomancer · Apr 18, 2018

Aldarc said:
Please "note," to borrow your own imperative, Ovinomancer, that I have not advocated for forcing player choice. The pressing issue when players argue that their characters should be absolved from mechanical consequences of successful NPC rolls in what we may call "social combat" scenarios. Narrative consequences in any scenario are a given. And this becomes clear in the example that you raise below.

So, yes, let us note choices. Your examples here point not to the crux of the problem but cruxes, namely that there are narrative and mechanical consequences at play. The choice, the agency, for both the NPC and PC lies in the decision to engage in combat and how they go about it. They choose their target and how they fight (e.g., weapons, spells, maneuvers, etc.). The PC and NPCs can react and adjust what they do. These are narrative choices. They do not choose to hit. They do not choose to avoid being hit. These things are resolved in dice resolution mechanics. They "hit" and they are "hit" throughout the course of combat. But do note as well that players, particularly in at least 3-5e D&D, do not always have absolute authority over the combat narration of their characters, such that if they say that they are aiming for the eyes, and they hit their target, the eyes themselves are not necessarily what is "hit." The details of combat narration are often abstracted or left open for both GM and player input depending upon table preferences.

Many social scenarios, IMHO, are a form of combat. And as with combat, there should be mechanical consequences for PCs from a "hit" or a skill success made by NPCs. A successful social "hit" of a PC from an NPC's skill check would not necessarily take the form of "[getting] to tell you what your character does," and this appears to be an absurd extreme case rather than one that would be seen in actual play. As has been acknowledged by others in this thread, those pressing this argument are leaving out a tremendously large healthy middle range of alternative solutions. But a success and a fail for making a mechanical roll should have mechanical consequences and not just narrative ones. Hence my comparison with the invisible impenetrable force field that removes the player from consequences, which I hope you now understand is meant to refer to mechanical consequences, much as being "hit" in the context of combat.

So to bring back my earlier point, my issue is when an NPC succeeds at "hitting" a PC within the mechanical context of a social scenario but then the PC attempts to render themselves immune from mechanical consequences of that "hit." What that "hit" entails may vary depending upon the system. In Fate Core, for example, players can take Mental Stress (and Consequences) in social combat. And enough stress of any sort, whether physical or mental, can take characters out of play.

Never did I figure that my use of "note" would draw such a keen reaction. I was merely stating a clarification on my statement it wouldn't be taken in an unintended manner.

That said, and ignoring that you say narrative consequences are a given after asking if players can just declare force-field to negate narrative consequences, there's some things we agree on here and some we don't. Primarily on the "don't" side is that NPC and PCs are equivalent structures and should be impacted by mechanics in the same way. They should not, and aren't, even in the systems you're referencing (Cortex+, Fate, etc.).

First and foremost, there's a keen difference between an NPC and a PC, and that's represented in the DM/player role distribution. This distribution varies across game systems and styles, but, generally, the DM has the duty of framing scenes and presenting backstory and the player has the duty of declaring actions within the scene. Systems differ on the resolution, be it subject to DM review or only mechanical resolution, but regardless of where on that spectrum the DM usually retains the power to narrate the results according to the resolution method. This feeds back into the frame/declare/resolve paradigm. This is broadly true in 5e, 4e, 3e, Cortex+, PbtA, etc. The DM frames, the player acts, and the situation resolves. I'm intentionally ignoring games where the players can frame or where there's large amount of narrative sharing between player because those really don't use mechanics like what we're talking about here for resolution of conflicts. There's some, but they're niche and not broadly applicable.

That being said, the difference between PCs and NPC becomes more clear because of the positions they occupy in the above. To clarify, the difference is that NPC action declaration break the frame/act/resolve paradigm because now the entirety of the resolution is on the DM side of the equation -- the NPC is standing in for the player in the act portion and this means that the DM now has authority to frame and declare the action (and thereby exert disproportionate force on the resolution by dint of perfect knowledge of the variables). The player is without choice in the matter. This is fine, for narration, but making this process appear to be gameplay is a farce. This is clear in 5e play, if you assume Diplomacy single checks can force PC actions -- the DM sets the stage for the scene, introduces the challenge, has the NPC declare actions to resolve the challenge, and then narrates the results to the players. No room for the players, here.

In other systems, with more robust social combat mechanics, it's fine, though, but that's not because we're accepting that the mechanics affect players and NPCs the same (they don't), but because those systems have built in choice mechanics for the players to exercise. The process is the same -- the DM frames a scene with a social challenge, the PCs elect actions to counter/mitigate that challenge, and then the resolution occurs and the results are presented. Even then, most of these system have a fourth step which again allows the players to bring PC resources to bear to mitigate the challenge. Regardless, the stakes for the challenge are set and the PCs then have choices on how they are going to resist the challenge. For instance, if the scene is set for the King to try to persuade the PCs to undertake a quest, that challenge is framed with clear stakes -- what happens if either side wins -- and the players are free to add resources to modify that challenge or avoid it or mitigate it. Then, once all those resources are declared and the final stakes are set, the resolution mechanics kick in. The player has already had many choices on the issue, so they aren't at the whim of the DM like in the 5e example. Even if the resolution goes against the players, most of these systems have options to accept a different cost rather than acceeding to the resolution (mental stess is Fate's, stress is how Blades in the Dark does it, etc.). This kind of play leave player choice intact and has the players accepting the stakes of the contest before rolling. It differs from the 5e example because of these aspects -- the system Fate uses explicitly hedges against removing player choices about how mechanics work even while using those mechanics to increase drama and create story. It's well done.

But, to return to the difference between PCs and NPCs, the NPCs don't have the same levels of resources or even the same options on how to expend resources that the PCs do. NPCs are bound tightly to the resolution, and rarely have the ability to swap to a different costing to avoid the resolution. This is because the point of the NPCs is not to be the focus of the story, but to aid in telling the story.

And that's the key, for me -- PCs are the ONLY way the players interact with the game. NPCs are one of many many authorities that the DM controls for the game. Claiming that PCs must be susceptible to the same mechanics as NPCs is saying that the PCs are unimportant in the game, because there are so many more NPCs and the DM has 100% control of them all. Rather, I subscribe to the idea that NPCs are just a tool to frame scenes for the game and are there to provide foils to the PCs, not usurp them. The Prince that wants his daughter rescued is a challenge to the PCs, not a controller of them. If the PCs decide this isn't a challenge they care for, why am I going to force them to go along using a mechanic when it's clear that the players don't want to do that? Do I, as DM, have the right to decide what the players want to play? Rhetorical questions, my answers are 'I wouldn't, that's bad' and 'No, I do not.'
[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s statement that it's rude of the players to ignore what the DM has prepped by trying to ignore the hook and so he's justified in using mechanics to force them to bite the hook is a social contract problem being addressed in the game -- he should, instead, be talking to his players as players and finding out what assumption mismatches are going on at the table instead of relying on his ability to force a check and tell the players what they're going to play. This is basic game social interaction 101 -- deal with player problems directly with the players and not in the game.

And, again, as a note (heh), I used to be on the 'NPCs and PCs should be subject to the mechanics equally' side of this. I came around when I realized that my real issue was trying to recover from failure points in game. If I had a great scenario lined up but it hinged on the PCs taking the quest, and, for whatever reason, I did a bad job selling it, then I was out time and had no prep. So, I thought it should be right that the NPCs should be able to lie/convince/whatever using mechanics because it rescued my plot. But, it led to increased reluctance on the player's part to go along. So, I stopped doing it. And, in a fit of mental dissonance, I still ascribed to the idea that mechanics were a level field even as I ceased actually playing that way and avoided it like the plague. It was a discussion here, with @Iserth (which got heated), that I finally recognized that I was arguing for a position I didn't agree with anymore (and that some time after that thread). I got to thinking, and realized that there's a huge power mismatch in using mechanics against PCs in the same way they're used against NPCs, and that I didn't agree with that power mismatch and, further, I wasn't playing that way anymore either. So, yeah, just taking a moment to point out that I fully understand the position you're taking, I've held it, and I've since rejected it.

ON a different note, I believe you asked what's the point of NPC skills if they aren't used against PCs. That's easy. They are used against PCs, but only in to set DCs and/or contested checks. They're also useful against other NPCs. If, for instance, I have a group of orcs that the party is facing, and the party barbarian attempts to intimidate the orcs, then I'm going to use their WIS saves as a DC. Let's say the orcs fail as a group, but their leader, an orog, succeeds. The orog can then attempt to regain control of the orcs by using his intimidate to try to convince them other orcs that he's the scarier of the two. This isn't something I think I is uncertain as a DM, so I'll roll the Orog's intimidate against the orcs. Results can vary - a failure means the orcs back down, a success means the orcs attack (or whatever). Optionally, I can declare that the orog leader is going to try to rebut the barbarian's attempt directly and have them roll opposed Intimidates to determine who's more successful.

Diplomacy is an excellent skill for the spurned Prince to use after the players refuse to rescue his daughter. A roll sets a nice DC that the players will now have to overcome to receive any aid from anyone that knows of the Prince's displeasure with the party. Want to buy some horses? You get to contend with the Prince's diplomacy roll as the Stable owner read the proclamation the Prince sent out declaring the party non-grata. Is the stable owner more concerned with helping you, even though he likes you, or with not being seen going against the Prince?

NPC skills are great, and very useful, even if I'll never initiate a roll against PCs that the PCs will be bound to. It will always be as a DC or opposed roll to what the PCs are trying to do. This goes for the ninjas, too -- the PCs set the circumstance as to how they're keeping watch and I test that against the ninja's stealth skill. If the ninja succeeds, the next framing will have them at an advantage. If they fail, the PCs get the advantage. I don't need to tell the players what their PCs think or do, I just need to present the new framing with the new situation.

Ovinomancer · Apr 18, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
In 5e, specifically, the DM is Empowered to support or undercut player agency as he sees fit. A conscientious DM might always do the former, a bad one the latter, but a really good one, IMHO, will consistently present the appearance of the former, while judiciously doing the latter when it's best for the campaign & the player experience.

I disagree. The presented play procedures are as @Iserth keeps repeating: the DM narrates a scene, the players declare actions, the DM resolves the actions (via mechanics or declaration) and narrates the results. Wash, rinse, repeat. The amount of DM Empowerment is in the first and last parts, not the middle part. The players get the freedom to declare actions however they wish. They may declare impossible actions, to which the DM narrates failure, but the DM shouldn't be choosing player actions.

As for deciding what's best for the campaign and the player experience, under what metric is the DM determining this? What means does he use to divine this truth? What guidelines are there for adjudicating questions about what's best?

All rhetorical questions, to which I answer: there's nothing special about the DM that gives them special insight into what's best for the players. Yes, they have authorities in the game that surpass the player authorities, but this doesn't extend to the social contract at the table. If the players cede this authority, well and good, it's decided by that table, but the game does not empower the role of DM with special perception and wisdom to create the best possible game. It's far better to let the play at the table, without hidden superceding of player agency, let the game become awesome that imagine that DM's have special abilities to know when this infringement of agency will ultimately lead to a better outcome. I'm honestly staggered by the apparently unaware hubris of this statement.

Tony Vargas · Apr 18, 2018

Ovinomancer said:
I disagree. The presented play procedures are as @Iserth keeps repeating: the DM narrates a scene, the players declare actions, the DM resolves the actions (via mechanics or declaration) and narrates the results. Wash, rinse, repeat. The amount of DM Empowerment is in the first and last parts, not the middle part. The players get the freedom to declare actions however they wish.

Sure, but depending on the first and last parts, the middle part may or may not entail actual agency. If the players' declared actions make no difference to the resolution, for instance, or if the scene gives them only one viable choice. Yet 'depriving them of agency' like that may be critical to keeping the campaign on track and/or the experience 'immersive,' or whatever else it might be the table values that the game couldn't deliver by itself, at that point.

As for deciding what's best for the campaign and the player experience, under what metric is the DM determining this?

I'm not aware of an objective metric, but it's not /that/ hard (also not as easy as one might think) to tell if players in a campaign are generally finding it fun or not.

What means does he use to divine this truth?

Experience as a player & DM, of course - decades of it, in some cases.

What guidelines are there for adjudicating questions about what's best?

No good one's I've ever seen. DMs must exercise their own judgement in these matters. It's what separates RPGs from boardgames and MMOs and the like, where there's no DM - a DM can adapt to the circumstances and the players, a boardgame is just the rules & the board it is what it is, an MMO is just it's programming until the next update.

Lanefan · Apr 18, 2018

pemerton said:
Part of my point is that the discussion in this thread is somewhat distort by excessive focus on 3E's poor social rules.

Likely because while earlier versions of D&D (i.e. the game most familiar to most people) had some vague and easily-ignored attempts at social rules (e.g. morale), 3e was the first time they were both hard-coded and pushed to the fore. Thus, 3e's social rules by default became both the benchmark then and the go-to example ever since.

There are all sorts of things for which mechanics aren't needed. The question is whether they might, by some, for some purposes, be wanted.

Perhaps, but in this particular case (social negotiation) there's no legitimate reason to want them either. Short-cutting or skipping actual spoken-word roleplay; jumping to the end of the scene rather than talking through a stalemate; a desire to force PCs (or NPCs, for all that) to be "persuaded" where their free will might go otherwise: none of these are legitimate reasons for social mechanics in any way, and any who say otherwise are also strongly implying the value they place on the "RP" part of RPG: little to none.

This I don't agree with at all. (When [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] said something similar, he described it as an empirical prediction but didn't use the normative language of reasonable.) The whole "hook" model of RPGing is something I don't care for.

Which puts you greatly in the minority, I think.

This point recently came up in another thread - I forget which one - in that if the DM offers a hook (a common enough occurrence) the players will often take it up out of sheer courtesy to the DM, in recognition of the work she's put in to preparing whatever it is she's trying to hook you into. Reversing this, a DM will often more or less tailor her hooks to suit the known interests of the players - e.g. if she knows she's got a couple of players interested in maritime adventuring she's more likely to set hooks toward maritime adventures than if she knows her players are interested in straight dungeon-crawling or courtly intrigue.

And if she doesn't know her players' interests - or is aware those interests are subject to change on a more or less frequent basis - she drops a series of different hooks leading to different adventures and sees what comes of it.

This is one area where I might not do well in a story-now type of game: what interests me now and thus goes on my sheet as goals-beliefs-whatever might bore me to tears after a few months...I don't want to be bound to those interests - or even that character - for the duration of the campaign. (and if the duration of the campaign itself is only a few months why did I bother playing in it in the first place) I'd rather play out the story of the party as said story - and party - changes and morphs and develops over the long term.

Lan-"the story of the party is and always must be bigger than the sum of the stories of the individual characters"-efan

Lanefan · Apr 18, 2018

Ovinomancer said:
I disagree. The presented play procedures are as @Iserth keeps repeating: the DM narrates a scene, the players declare actions, the DM resolves the actions (via mechanics or declaration) and narrates the results. Wash, rinse, repeat. The amount of DM Empowerment is in the first and last parts, not the middle part. The players get the freedom to declare actions however they wish. They may declare impossible actions, to which the DM narrates failure, but the DM shouldn't be choosing player actions.

Agreed.

As for deciding what's best for the campaign and the player experience, under what metric is the DM determining this? What means does he use to divine this truth? What guidelines are there for adjudicating questions about what's best?

Usually, she's using her knowledge of what her players' interests are, and of what her own interests are (no rational DM is going to run a game she's not herself interested in). After that there's usually a lot of trial and error involved on both sides of the screen, which builds experience; and to get it right sometimes you have to first get it wrong so you know what wrong looks like.

As for PCs and NPCs using the same mechanics as far as possible: I still lean this way. PCs are special-snowflake enough already, no need to make it any worse.

But instead of having mechanics that apply to NPCs also apply to PCs (e.g. Diplomacy), which runs into obvious problems with player agency, the answer is to remove those mechanics so they don't apply to anyone.

Lanefan

Tony Vargas · Apr 18, 2018

Lanefan said:
But instead of having mechanics that apply to NPCs also apply to PCs (e.g. Diplomacy), which runs into obvious problems with player agency, the answer is to remove those mechanics so they don't apply to anyone.

Thing is, if you still have scenes that would have called for those mechanics, you haven't removed them, you've replaced them - with DM fiat if the scenes are narrated without player input, or with player ability taking the place of character ability if you "role play through it." In the former case, you lose player agency, in the latter you lose modeling of the characters.

And, if you don't have such scenes, you've cut out half the game.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 18, 2018

Tony Vargas said:
And, if you don't have such scenes, you've cut out half the game.

That doesn't leave a very large slice of the pie for Exploration...

Game Mechanics And Player Agency

Tony Vargas

Legend

hawkeyefan

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Tony Vargas

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Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

Ovinomancer

No flips for you!

Tony Vargas

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Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Lanefan

Victoria Rules

Tony Vargas

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Guest 6801328

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