What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Lanefan]

To carry it a bit further --- let's suppose that there's far more options available to "forward" the fiction than even that.

• The orcs immediately band together and go on a raiding rampage to a nearby village.
• The orcs are okay with it, because they didn't really like the taste of that water anyway, and can sustain healthful hydration from the demonic fountain that's spouting blood on Level 19 of the dungeon.
• The orcs are convinced that it was a sign from Gruumsh, and they should immediately evacuate the area.
• The orcs laugh and smile and eat apple pies together with their pet winter wolf, while wearing sombreros and stilts because clearly these orcs are acrobats.

Now of course the argument here might be, "Well none of those are realistic! None of those follow-up results seem to follow from the authored fictional cause!"

The first three each could be quite realistic, depending on circumstance and context of course. I'm a little dubious about the sombreroed stilt-wearing dudes, however; though if on finishing the pie they then ate the winter wolf we might be back on track.

And this is true---but it doesn't change the fact that no matter what result is chosen by the GM, he or she is still the one authoring the fiction.

Yes she is; and in this case she should be, as it's both her place and her job to determine* how the various elements of the game world (in this case, some orcs) react to actions performed by the PCs (in this case, cutting their water off). When and if they become observable by the PCs it's also her job to narrate these reactions.

* - by whatever means she likes - could be pre-authored, could be dice rolls, could be off the top of her head, some combination of these, or whatever.

Lanefan

 

[hawkeyefan]

Deleted post, it doesn't matter.

 

[innerdude]

I think my idea here, though, was to demonstrate that the number of ways the fiction can be constructed and still maintain widely plausible "causality" are generally much, much greater than we often allow.

And I don't disagree with you, @Lanefan, that depending on context, the GM could choose any of my presented options (yes, even our sombrero, stilt wearing, apple-pie-eating orcs ).

So why then, if the range of possibilities is generally much more broad than we often allow, is it so verboten for the players to have input? It's mostly tradition, right? It's just not expected that the players should ask to have input, so it's not offered. Over the past 4-5 years, I've become much more in line with @pemerton's idea that this "tradition" is problematic and regularly leads to poor GM-ing habits and un-enjoyable play.

 

[Aenghus]

For a while as a player and referee I thought comprehensive accurate simulation was a goal to aim for in a RPG gameworld.

At some point after more refereeing experience I came to the conclusion that such an accurate simulation was (a) impossible and (b) not something most players wanted or needed. That the work I put into generating background stats and tweaking rules was often not productive, and cut into time that I could have used to work on npcs and plots which were far more likely to be relevant to the game as played.

My extensive view from behind the scenes of various gameworlds suggests at least to me that from the referee's point of view the gameworld is fictional and to some extent malleable. There are always unknowns and placeholders, some of which players unerringly seem to home in on, ignoring the surrounding pre-prepared content. I do less preparation nowadays, but then I know my setting very well and have got much better at improvisation in recent years.

As I see it, in a conventional GM-run RPG, my job as referee is to present a believable gameworld to the players and facilitate them playing their characters in a hopefully-enjoyable way. I know the gameworld is fictional, fake, made up and that knowledge can IMO help me run it better because I work hard to present a dynamic, interactive setting to my players, and I'm willing to change details of the gameworld when it's necessary. Most changes are off camera, but I do rarely retcon previously established details for various reasons I feel are legitimate.

I devised large parts of my gameworld, and my players contributed a lot of it, subject to my editorial control.

I prefer clear transparent rules, as I found obfuscated or deceptive adjudication, as a player ,extremely annoying and
discouraging. That said, I've found that so long as players are presented with sufficient real choices, it's possible to remove temporarily a lot of the the conventional trappings of fantasy RPGs. In my campaigns, particular in trips to other planes where cause and effect work differently, I've experimented with a mixture of real choices and railroaded narration. It can work well in short doses for an otherworldly feel.

For a long time I though rules as physics was a worthy goal, but I have come to the conclusion that it's impossible, as rules are imperfect and generally not written to produce viable simulations of cause and effect. It's still possible to produce "good enough" gameworlds and I do like to extrapolate some findings from the rules, but I no longer feel obliged to accept dodgy extrapolations that aren't clearly stated in the setting.

From behind the GM screen, I create the illusion of cause and effect for the benefit of the players. I as a referee know it's an illusion, I don't have numbers for a bunch of stuff I describe until it's clear I need them and then I make them up. But now I try to create only what I actually need and leave out stuff I don't need right now. My NPCs and monsters don't need to follow player rules, as they serve a different purpose to PCs in my game, and simplifying them significantly reduces the prep workload on me.

 

[chaochou]

Yet again, you're falsely seeing player agency level only in terms of how much of the stage or set they get to build; where stage-building is in fact not even a part of their job description. Get over this - or at least step back from it a ways - and this discussion will go a lot further.

The people who disagree with you, myself included, have years of experience of that type of play - so we know it has zero player agency. There's no 'false seeing' about it.

You, on the other hand, don't have a single minute of play experience of the type of game which I, and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] say does offer player agency.

In other words, you approach this topic from a position of complete and profound ignorance, while we do not.

Educate yourself, and this discussion will go a lot further.

 

[Sadras]

The people who disagree with you, myself included, have years of experience of that type of play - so we know it has zero player agency.

You, on the other hand, don't have a single minute of play experience of the type of game which I, and @pemerton and @Manbearcat and @AbdulAlhazred say does offer player agency.

In other words, you approach this topic from a position of complete and profound ignorance, while we do not.

This is fair, however it is painfully obvious that the two camps define player agency differently and this is what seems to be causing the disconnect in the debate. @Maxperson, @Lanefan @hawkeyefan and others (including myself) have not hidden the fact that player authorial control is limited in our games, we just do not equate player agency with authorial control over the setting.

Step 0 is agreeing to the definition of agency

2 : the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power : OPERATION
3 : a person or thing through which power is exerted or an end is achieved : INSTRUMENTALITY

and authorial power

Ability to author elements into the fiction

As a first step, I propose for the sake of the debate that @pemerton's camp (i) Defines player agency as the ability to declare action declarations only and NOT exercise authorial power (again just for the sake of the debate);

The second step, is for @Lanefan's camp to (ii) Acknowledge that due to the DM's authorial power, his/her NPCs have greater agency (able to declare a greater number of actions) than the PC's. This point seems like a fairly obvious one to accept.

Finally, the resultant conclusion being (iii) If the authorial power of the players is increased, then by the acknowledgement of (ii) above, player agency would be increased.

i.e. Players with authorial power naturally have a larger degree of player agency than players that have a limited or lesser degree of authorial power, because a greater number of action declarations (options) are now open to them due to the ability to establish/create elements into the fiction.

EDIT: So yes, I'm willing to accept players at my table have a lesser degree of player agency than players at @pemerton's table because of the greater degree of authorial power his players possess over mine. Now how much player agency his players have over mine - one can only guess. Based on what we have read @chaochou's players have an even greater amount of player agency than @pemerton's given the authorial power they possess.
So yes, player agency varies across the board from the so-called GM-driven games to the Player-driven games.

 

[Maxperson]

This is fair, however it is painfully obvious that the two camps define player agency differently and this is what seems to be causing the disconnect in the debate. @Maxperson, @Lanefan @hawkeyefan and others have not hidden the fact that player authorial control is limited in their games, they just do not equate player agency with authorial control over the setting.

Step 0 is agreeing to the definition of agency

That's probably not going to happen, as the other side has literally created a fictional definition for player agency and are using it to support their view on the topic. Hmm. If their definition is fiction, does that mean that their agency can't cause anything to happen?

As a first step, I propose for the sake of the debate that @pemerton's camp (i) Defines player agency as the ability to declare action declarations only and NOT authorial power (again just for the sake of the debate);

The second step, is for @Lanefan's camp to (ii) Acknowledge that due to the DM's authorial power, his/her NPCs have greater agency (able to declare a greater number of actions) than the PC's. This one seems fairly obvious.

I don't give my NPCs fantastic abilities just because, and I allow players leeway to do things outside the set rules if they seem reasonable. Also, NPCs even if they have different options than the PCs available to them, usually have far fewer total options, so I don't think my NPCs have greater agency than PCs. The PCs will have more feats, magic items, spells, skills, etc. to use than I do with my NPCs.

 

[Sadras]

I don't give my NPCs fantastic abilities just because, and I allow players leeway to do things outside the set rules if they seem reasonable. Also, NPCs even if they have different options than the PCs available to them, usually have far fewer total options, so I don't think my NPCs have greater agency than PCs. The PCs will have more feats, magic items, spells, skills, etc. to use than I do with my NPCs.

No take a step back from feats and abilities. As an author (DM) you can establish (create) history, relationships, allies, assign wealth, equipment, magical items even artifacts to your NPCs, nevermind secret backstory knowledge which should expand the options available to your NPCs over that of the PCs.

 

[Sadras]

So why then, if the range of possibilities is generally much more broad than we often allow, is it so verboten for the players to have input? It's mostly tradition, right? It's just not expected that the players should ask to have input, so it's not offered. Over the past 4-5 years, I've become much more in line with @pemerton's idea that this "tradition" is problematic and regularly leads to poor GM-ing habits and un-enjoyable play.

Good points, but let us not pigeon whole this, there are many factors at play besides tradition* such as the type of game and mechanics, genre, preferred style of play by the players, published AP or module or free-style play, published setting or homebrew world...etc

*I believe tradition is probably the largest contributing factor and this might be due to the fact that D&D which promotes this style of play is also the largest RPG and more importantly the gateway RPG for the hobby.

 

[Maxperson]

No take a step back from feats and abilities. As an author (DM) you can establish (create) history, relationships, allies, assign wealth, equipment, magical items even artifacts to your NPCs, nevermind secret backstory knowledge which should expand the options available to your NPCs over that of the PCs.

The role of DM is different than the role of player. It's the DM's job to create the campaign world, NPCs, etc. that become the backdrop for the collaborative story that is created through game play. Let's call it DM agency. The players aren't supposed to do things like that, other than to create the history of their PCs. Player agency isn't increased by giving players more authorial power. Their player agency is the same as in my game, but they are additionally granted some level DM agency.