What is *worldbuilding* for?

[Maxperson]

What intersection? There is no world, there is no intersection, there are a series of scenes. Maybe we may assume that there are locations which exist between these scenes and which may be traversed, but there's literally no specific thing that any player has been 'railroaded past'. They stated they wanted to go to the reliquary and they went there! How is that a railroad?

What else is a series of scenes with no intersections? Being on a train!

The how it's a railroad involves the how they got there. See my response to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] above. It's really easy to railroad the players with that playstyle.

Railroading, by definition, isn't something that happens by the player's will. If they are in charge of the decisions which establish the content of the scenes they are in, by their choices, then they weren't railroaded, were they?

A buddy of mine who is beginning to DM and is just learning came to us last year and said that he wanted to run a short adventure. It took 3 months(10ish sessions) to complete. He let us know ahead of time that because he was new, we wouldn't be able to just do whatever we wanted and go wherever we wanted. We agreed to that railroad to help him learn to DM. Just because we were willing to be on that railroad, doesn't mean that the rails went away. It just means that we weren't kidnapped and forced onto it. We walked voluntarily. Walking voluntarily is what the players in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game do. It's okay to railroad if everyone agrees to it.

 

[Maxperson]

How are the chances set? Not by the player, as best I can tell. You are deciding whether or not to say no. You are setting the chance. The player is just waiting to be told.

I don't recall you telling me that the player set the DC for the feather. You were setting the chance. The player was just waiting to be told.

You, as GM, have to choose what the lie is about. You decide that the NPC is untrustworthy. Etc.

The DM is a player, too. He gets to author things as a playing member of the game.

It's not a distraction. It's the whole point.

When you or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] tell the players that their PCs are at an intersection, or stumble on a raised flagstone, or whatever else is part of you "neutral" framing, all you are doing is choosing (as a GM) to make some details salient. When I tell the player that his PC is at a bazaar where a peddler has an angel feather for sale, I am also choosing (as a GM) to make some details salient. The difference is that you have chosen something that you think is interesting/engaging; whereas I have chosen something that (given the player's signals) I know the player will find engaging/interesting.

It is a distraction, since it doesn't accurately represent the games we are describing.

You are choosing whether or not to mention a raised flagstone. Whether or not to mention an intersection. Whether or not to mention a bazaar. Both of us are choosing what to mention to the players.

That's not entirely true. When I describe an area am I deciding to mention the flag stone as part of the description? Yes. I am not deciding to mention an intersection, though. It's there and I have to let the players know about it regardless of what I wish, though I did author it. I'm also not deciding to mention the bazaar. The players forced that one on me when they decided to go to the bazaar to look around for something. Unless the town is too small to have a bazaar(in which case the players won't look for one), there's going to be one somewhere in the city. They are in effect authoring it by their request. I have no choice in the matter.

It's just that I'm choosing on the basis of the evinced dramatic needs of the PCs.

"Stopping at the intersection" isn't a rational world, any more than is one which mentions every flagstone on the floor of the tavern, and every splinter on its wooden stairs. It's just one where the GM is indulging some taste for that particular detail.

Intersections exist in any rational world. I wouldn't dream of depriving my players of their choice to decide which way to go by forcing them down the path of my choice.

This is just the same point. You think not mentioning the flagstone is not railroading. Why not? You're depriving your players of the chance to study them, assay them, excavate them, fireball them, etc.

I've already told them that they are walking on a flagstone floor. They know the flagstones exist, and can choose to study them, etc. as they wish. Once I've told them that the flagstones exist, I don't need to continue to tell them every step of the way. I DO need to let them know if things change, though, like if they hit an intersection, or if the flagstone floor smooths out into a passageway that is cave like.

But obviously that's ridiculous. These aren't real worlds. They have no objective existence, waiting to be explored. They're fictions, which the players encounter because the GMs tell them to them. Telling the players stuff that they have signalled will be interesting to them is not depriving choices anymore than telling them "neutral" stuff. It's just (in my experience) more exciting!

They aren't real worlds with objective existence, waiting to be explored. They ARE rational(dare I say realistic) worlds with imaginary existence, waiting to be explored.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]: I've posted a number of actual play reports, and linked to more. What do you think was the pre-planned outcome in the scene with the feather? When the player made contact with Jabal? When the PCs disaremd and defeated Athog?

Or, in a different game, when the PCs decided to go to the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen?

Or, in a different game, when the PCs came to the house of the Snow Queen, and then - the next morning - decided to split into two groups, one going north and the other south with the frightened villagers?

You're so locked into a GM-driven conception of play that you seem to be having trouble actually recognising that it's possible to establish setting and outcomes in play, via the interaction of framing and action resolution.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

This is like saying that chess and snakes and ladders are no different in player agency, because each allows the player full control over the parts of the game that the rules allow.

Or, if you think that's too cheap a shot, then I'll make the same comment about bridge and five hundred. The upshot of the auction + kitty in 500, together with the bower rules (which significantly lengthen the trump suit), means that once the hand actually starts being played players have less agency than they do in bridge. This is why five hundred is a lighter game (in terms of mental overhead) to play than bridge (no trumps can be an obvious exception - at that point the resemblance to bridge becomes much greater).

If, in the context of a RPG, the player has no agency in respect of the shared fiction except to express what his/her player desires (and there are some posters on this board who take that view) then it is self evident that the player has less agency in respect of the content of the shared fiction than one who is playing in a standard Fate or Burning Wheel or HeroWars/Quest or Cortex+ Heroic or 4e game. (Just to pick some examples.)

Exactly. Because they are an "agent" of the game. Nobody can control their piece except them. Even in something like Sorry!, you are still in control over your own pieces, even though others can make moves that impact them. In something like Snakes and Ladders you really only have the choice to play or not to play.

Or to go to the other extreme, 100% player agency could only be achieved by one player in any given game, since any time somebody else has "agency" in respect of the shared fiction, then are taking agency away from another.

Yes, you can define it this way (they are an agent of the story). But by allowing everybody to be an agent of the story without context or rules to determine how much control they have over the story leads to the conch-passing analogy that Eero talks about. The reality is, nobody has agency over the story in that approach since the next person to gain agency can undo everything the prior player did.

You are fond of quoting Eero's "Standard" Narrative Model. In that, he talks about the player's role of one of advocacy, not agency. He also argues against giving the players narrative control. As long as "you do not require player(s) to take part in determining ... moments of choice." He elaborates on this point several times throughout the essay.

That's why I'm saying player agency is different than narrative control, or to be more specific, control of the fiction beyond their character.

Eero's model is really no different than what most consider D&D to be: The GM is in control of the narrative, and the players are advocates for the characters. He appears to prefer to leave backstory under the control of the DM, although I think most would agree that the players have considerable freedom in backstory, with the GM having veto power, along with the ability to amend or modify it - including after play has commenced.

The narrative aspect of his model is that the GM frames the action toward the dramatic needs, provoke thematic moments, and introduce complications. In other words, by your definition it puts more agency in the hands of the GM.

The only real restriction placed on the GM in this model is to keep track of backstory. The implication being that the "front" story maintains consistency with the backstory. But it's also clear in his essay that the backstory isn't necessarily fully known to the players, and argues (as I have) against it being entirely known. This brings us back to the OP as well - as world-building is a part or extension of backstory - provides context, and consistency (or at least the appearance of consistency).

The model itself is not talking about agency, it's talking about the GM's ability to craft an interesting narrative, and is defining "interesting" by "going where the action is," providing moments that "carry weight as commentary on the game's premise," and complications. These all imply an active DM role, changing things on the fly, to what they (the GM) feel meets those goals. In reality, these three "requirements" are qualitative aspects, and in my mind, subjective. They make an assumption as to what the players are expecting to get out of the game. They make sense in his narrativist model, because he's talking about a narrativist style game. But that doesn't apply to all RPGs, and even if he were talking about player agency (which he's not), it wouldn't mean that alternate RPG models provide less agency.

I, personally, don't agree that those three things are the only (or even most important) things that make the game interesting. It is noting that the more narrative control you give the players, the less able the GM is in creating a compelling narrative. And that as a result, the quality of the narrative (particularly from the player's perspective) suffers as a result. I find that interesting.

Some folks want a game that hands more narrative control to the players, and while narrative and backstory consistency are somewhat important in assessing the "quality" of the narrative, they may have different criteria, such as creativity, or dramatic impact, or what have you. But to imply or say that this gives more agency to the players is, in my opinion, misguided. It's different, but not necessarily more. It provides more freedom in narrative control, but perhaps less freedom in other areas. To actually compare agency, were it even possible, you'd have to compare the games as a whole, not individual parts. That would be pointless for many reasons, probably starting with the conscious and subconscious goals of the participants.

Personally, I think that it's important as a GM to address not only the narrative needs of the characters, but the players. It's much easier to have an impact on the player if you're addressing their needs too. Which is probably why Apocalypse World never resonated for me. I don't care for their particular "world slang" nor the character types and motivations they've created in their game. I don't really feel any connection to it at all. Yes, the GM can provide a narrative need for the character.

I think one of the main reasons for that for me, is that I'm not a great acting-type role-player. I can't "act," especially in an improvised manner, so as soon as the game requires me to rely solely on the character's internal motivations for drama, I'm lost. I need something else to hang my dramatic hat on, such as the tension created by the unfolding of the narrative itself, the tension created in uncertain situations, where creativity is needed to "solve" the situation, whether it's a combat that is a bit too much for the characters to be comfortable, or a puzzle that requires player ingenuity and not just engaging the rules through DCs and dice. Dice themselves can be an important part of building suspense, but only one part. A big part of the drama is the drama of the setting itself, meaning the impacts that the decisions of the characters have on the world around them, big and small. This is where world-building excites me, because it considers the complex interactions one life has on the world around them. It includes the drama of people, but without the requirement of being a decent actor.

Don't get me wrong, we have some very good acting-style improvisers in the group, and it's great fun to be a part of that, even if I can't participate in the same way. As the DM, however, I can ensure that they have the opportunity to engage that aspect of their skill set and play style. And that's where I think I differ a bit from Eero's, or similar descriptions. I don't typically need to "go where the action is," or "provide moments...(of) weight," or introduce complications. I have no doubt that I do that from time to time. But a lot of the time, it's enough to just let the narrative "write itself." In most of my groups, I often provide very little input beyond a simple description of the location. They take things from there narratively, but not in a world-sense, just their actions and decisions. Much of it is between the players, and I "let the world" react to what they do. Other times I have a more active role and, occasionally, take over the narrative entirely, such as in the realm of things like powerful illusions or hallucinations, dream states or worlds, etc. The illusion being that they have control, when they really don't. It doesn't happen often, always involves magic, and the drama is not only in the events, but the reveal also has an enormous impact if the scenario was done well. I always have clues that something is not quite right, but they usually don't notice those until after the fact. Similar situations would be if characters are captured or imprisoned, whether it's a complex magical trap, or simple apprehension by the local watch after they've chosen to drink a bit too much and black out.

Is that taking away agency? I don't think so, although I know a lot that would argue that it is. It's extremely rare that it can't be avoided, and even in those cases where it can't, it's the result of other choices the PCs have made to get to that point. Is it a more narrativist approach? I think so, at least as defined by Eero in that I'm not handing over narrative control to the players, which is in line with what he recommends. I haven't run into a player personally that didn't like this shifting "agency" in my games, although, at least theoretically, I've met quite a number online that appear to hate the idea.

Which is why expanding "agency" to include "how much" control you have, to me anyway, becomes a futile effort, simply because RPGs are terribly complex. For example, Apocalypse World has a quite restrictive character creation approach, while 4e has an expansive character creation approach. Which has more agency? Or is it just that the agency is different? Is AD&D different than OD&D or 4e? I think it's better to understand what aspects of an RPG you like, what are you trying to get out of it.

If you prefer more narrative control as a player, then Burning Wheel or similar games may be more your style. Certainly the design of 4e is conducive for playing in this style as well. And there's really no reason why D&D can't be played in the same manner, although many D&D players probably don't want to share narrative responsibilities in that way.

Alternatively, to consider games that don't provide the same level of narrative control "choose your own adventure" or "just guessing what's in DMs notes" is disingenuous. Just because a certain game doesn't give players narrative control over the world doesn't mean they can't influence the narrative or world around them indirectly. A DM who has full control of the world narrative can be operating entirely from improvisation, not to mention they could be operating entirely within Eero's model.

If you go back to a lot of Gygax's and Arneson's descriptions of games, particularly early ones, the maps and their keys are starting points. They often changed things on the fly, and had empty rooms that might be filled in the moment. Once a room was explored, those maps and keys became tools to help maintain consistency in the backstory - the backstory now including what prior adventurer's did. The rest of the backstory could be improvised as needed, but once improvised became part of the world itself. For those that don't improvise well, not to mention those who just enjoy the exercise, world-building became an end in itself. It's fun. How strictly a DM sticks to that pre-authored material depends as much on their skill set as it does the needs of the game. A published adventure might include story (narrative) elements in the world-building process.

In a more sophisticated world-building approach, like the Forgotten Realms, story elements are in place, but are designed as background and hooks with undetermined consequences. The Realms relied more on sourcebooks than adventures (although there have been plenty), where the published stories (including novels) provide backstory for the setting, and rumors provide hooks for the DM to flesh out. Where I think they failed, is that they also published novels based on many of those rumors, which often had the effect of "ruining" the DM's own campaigns. Even if they avoided using those rumors altogether, though, altering the state of the setting always runs that risk. They seemed to have a decent handle on that, other than the 4e changes which seemed to spark a specific backlash. I'm still not entirely sure if it was the sheer amount of changes, or that they didn't like the changes they made. I usually incorporate even the changes I don't like into my campaign, because we don't always like what happens in the world. I might make some changes, and there have certainly been some I've outright ignored. But since I utilize the published lore as backstory, as I think it's intended, it's often irrelevant whether or not it actually happened. It might just be a bard's tale, or it might be fact. Usually it lies somewhere in between.

Do some D&D (and other RPGs) rely solely on the published or pre-authored content? Absolutely. Does it remove player agency? I say no. Because in the context of "how much" agency a player has in a game is dependent upon what that player defines as agency. If they are a type that is more focused on their character build, and the primary goal is to gain XP to get to the higher levels of the character, than narrative control isn't necessarily important. They may never have heard of narrative control, nor care to. They might have little interest in the actual story altogether. They might view things that affect their ability to gain XP, or effects that reduce level as impacting their agency.

So I go back to where I started - "player agency" is a useless term without the context of the game being played. Within that context it can have some benefit, but the reality is that most games rarely advocate impacting player agency anyway. Whatever agency the players have is hopefully consistent within the structure of the game. Comparing two different games requires more refined comparisons, centered on the goals of the player.

 

[Maxperson]

You said what [the player] decides may or may not truly be the best way. In other words, the player's action declarations following his/her decision as to how his/her PC will further his/her goal don't determine that matter.

And I'm 99% sure that you don't have in mind the possibiity that the player's chosen approach may turn out to be a mistake because eg an aura reading check fails; because I'm 99% sure you dont' run a system in which these elements of setting are established as consequences of checks rather than inputs into them.

It may not be the best way. If they go to the wizard and miss their check, he may not help them, or even be able to help them, and it would not be the best way. If they go to the bazaar and it turns out that there is nothing there to help them, that's a lot of time on what turns out not to be the best way. Just because the player thinks it will be the best way, doesn't mean that it will end up being the best. It has nothing to do with pre-authorship or my desires.

This looks very similar. The resolution of the theft of the necklace is not established with finality. The GM is the one who is making decisions about whether the lord hires a wizard, where the wizard walks and detecs, etc. This is not being done as part of consequence narration, or as the setting of stakes in scene framing.

Sure it is. He stole it. Period. That's final. What happens next is post final theft. And yes, it is a consequence of the narration. The narration resulted in a stolen necklace. The lord's response is a consequence of that narration.

A contrast would be the resolution of this as a skill challenge in 4e: at a certain point, for instance, the GM might narrate - as part of the framing of a check during the course of resolution - "Word reaches you that a wizard is wasndering the stressts, apparently looking for an enchanted item." The player can then declare an action to indicate how s/he overcomes this obstacle (anything from a Streetwise check to stay ahead of the wziard, or some sort of magical action to conceal the magic of the necklace, as takes the player's fantasy and fits the fiction of his/her PC and whatever is already established about genre and setting). If the skill challenge eventually succeeds, that is finality: the PC's theft of the necklace has defeated the lord's attempt to recover it.

All of which are possible in my game as well. I'm not going to frame it as a skill challenge, but the players might learn about the wizard and they can come up with ways to avoid him.

Of cousre if the player deliberately restakes it, that's a different matter. But walking around in it is probably not going to be an instance of that - as opposed to, say, trying to use it to pay off a debt to the self-same lord!

While I've read of thieves in the real world being stupid enough to wear clothing they stole to the hearing about the theft, my players are not among that group.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]: I've posted a number of actual play reports, and linked to more. What do you think was the pre-planned outcome in the scene with the feather? When the player made contact with Jabal? When the PCs disaremd and defeated Athog?

Or, in a different game, when the PCs decided to go to the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen?

Or, in a different game, when the PCs came to the house of the Snow Queen, and then - the next morning - decided to split into two groups, one going north and the other south with the frightened villagers?

You're so locked into a GM-driven conception of play that you seem to be having trouble actually recognising that it's possible to establish setting and outcomes in play, via the interaction of framing and action resolution.

Or perhaps that there are more ways than one to get to the same results of play? Because I look at what both of you are posting, and thing that while the mechanics you use are different, the results can be the same.

Looking through both of your posts (and others), the reality is that in all cases, the GM has an influence on the fiction. The methods might be different, but by inclusion/omission alone, the GM will direct the fiction in some fashion. How much, or perhaps how directly, the players have an impact on the fiction might vary.

In an example like the flagstones, I think that in many games (including [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s, but I could be wrong), there are times where the players will ask to do something ("I want to examine the flagstones in this area, something seems off to me") that the GM has to react to. In some games, they very well could just default to nothing out of the ordinary, since nothing has been pre-authored. And for many (most?) casual players, by which I mean they use the rules as written to simply run a published adventure "as is"), this very well may be the case.

But I think that when presented with a question like this, many GMs will respond with improvisation. As I considered threads like this, it occurred to me that I as a DM would often default to "no" simply because I hadn't considered whether there would be anything there. However, when thinking about it afterwards, I'd often think that I should have:

1 - At least developed the scene. That is, describe the search and what they found (or didn't), rather than just say, "no, or you found nothing"
2 - Consider the setting, the NPCs, etc. I can't pre-author everything (and don't). So would somebody have hidden something here?
3 - My world-building helps determine whether there should be something there. Or more likely, whether there shouldn't be.

I think there are few GMs or players that would object to the GM placing something that wasn't pre-authored in this scenario. Where I think you and I would differ is that, assuming something is found, you would tie it into the current narrative. I, on the other hand, would consider that possibility, mentally (even subconsciously) assign a probability, and then decide if it is related to the current narrative, or something unrelated. In which case it might head off on an entirely new and different direction, should the players/characters choose. Or it might lead nowhere, leaving no clues (or undetected clues) as to its origin, whatever "it" might be.

The fact is, I think in many games, the player do contribute to the fiction in this and similar manners. Again, if you're simply running a published adventure, and that's what the players are enjoying, there's little reason for more. That's not to say that they can't do more, but it's probably not necessary.

However, for the types of campaigns we're talking about, I think there's generally an element of the player's impacting the fiction during the course of play. And each group has a sort of middle ground where they are comfortable allowing the players to have more influence. A common area is something [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] has alluded to. The players are free to make assumptions about the world around them:

"We're in a city, I want to go to the bazaar" - the play moves toward the bazaar.
"I'd like to find my friend, Bob" The PCs go to places they might find Bob.
"I'd like to search the library for secret hiding places, compartments or doors"

These are exploration-type things. But it can include story elements too:

"I'd like to spend some time in the tavern to get a lay for the political state of affairs" - Where the DM might not have considered the politics of this town prior to the request
"I think we can get more out of this thug if we can locate his family or friends, let's let him get away and try to find his local haunts" Where the DM might not have considered the local relationships of the thug, nor his usual movements.

Or my recent favorite:
"My chronic drinker is temporarily magically immune to the effects of alcohol, I wonder if we can find anybody who deals drugs in the caravan?" - Nope, I didn't see this coming at all (and the session where this particular character developed the problem was months ago...)

What differs, I think, is how explicitly the players have control over the fiction. In my case it's a mix. They have full control over their character's decisions and actions, and by extension, the narrative itself. They have further influence because I try to work things that they think of or say during the course of play back into the narrative. What we don't like as a group, are scenarios that seem too contrived. That each scene or event has a direct impact on their current narrative direction.

This is most evident in terms of style of play, where somebody like [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], or I prefer to let the characters explore the world more continuously. The GM doesn't fade from one scene to the next, nor put the PCs in a perilous position, without the players consent.

As an example, the drug scenario occurred once the players decided which characters they were using that night (as they started in their home town), and the characters initially determined that they would be able to gather some information regarding their planned trip to Llorkh in the caravan that arrived from there a day or so earlier. One of them also had a plates from some brigandine armor where the leather parts had decayed, and wanted to see if he could either do something with them, or sell them.

I know that they can definitely gather some information, since the caravan just came from Llorkh. I also "know" that there would be shady individuals, and not-shady individuals, that there would be different types of information available depending on who they asked, and how they went about it. I didn't have any specific information in mind, this is simply because of what I (and they) know about the current state of the world around them. After establishing a little better, through questions, what sort of information they were looking for, I could have framed the scene around a merchant that had some information of note. I could tie this to skill checks that would set the level of trust between them, and give me a good idea of the amount and quality of the information. The information itself would have to be improvised within the context of what I know of the current backstory.

I, on the other hand, don't want to assume that's the direction they would go. While it would make life easier for me, and keep them more "on track," with their stated goals, it was my decision to soft frame it - "so you're walking up to the caravan grounds, where do you go, who do you talk to or search out, really, how are you going about getting this information?" My expectation is that they would decide what type of person - merchant, porter, guard, pilgrim, etc. that might be a good starting point for the information. Instead it was a wistful musing from a sorcerer who had found himself sober for more than a week longer than he wanted to be wondering if he could find another way to dull his senses.

Had I framed it solely for the "needs of the narrative", this would never have happened. By too tightly framing the scene, it eliminates other options. On the other hand, you can't describe everything. The real art of GMing is finding the right balance between tight framing and exploration, of which choices to present, and which ones not to.

The direction the fiction took was probably 80% them, and 20% me. They lacked funds for such an endeavor, since such contraband was rare in such a small town. That necessitated an alternate means of acquiring the goods, in which one option turned out to be taking care of something for the merchant. They debated trying to steal it, but decided that doing some work wasn't an unreasonable request. They either didn't consider that work for a drug dealer might be less than legal, and potentially dangerous, or if they did, they didn't care. When performing the job, I had assumed (or would have allowed) for them to be at least armed, if not in their armor. But when things went south, they made the decision that there wouldn't have been any compelling reason to them to head home first and get their armor and weapons. They had gone to wander around the caravan grounds looking for information, and agreed to transport some goods to their destination. When presented with some orders (with coercion) from the recipient of the contraband, and after they received payment, two of them agreed to the further work, while the other agreed to return the payment to the dealer. Which led to one sorcerer to brewing some tea of questionable legality by himself, while the other two wandered unarmed into the Underdark.

None of this was really pre-authored on my part. The job that he wanted done was a criminal racket I had thought of years ago but never used. It seemed like a good fit here. Beyond that, it was driven, as usual, almost entirely by the players, with my job to adjudicate whether it was possible.

As a D&D DM, this is really what I think has been promoted all along, starting with the AD&D DMG for me: When the players declare what they are doing or want to do, the DM sets a probability, and adjudicates accordingly. If it's a significant chance of success or failure, I usually just go with what's appropriate. If the characters have skills or other relevant modifiers to the circumstance, I take that into account. If the probability is somewhere in the middle, then I'll roll.

Again, the world-building aspect, or backstory, helps me adjudicate these scenarios. For example, in an isolated town of 300 or so, what's the likelihood of finding drugs? Slim for anything significant, but probably decent for some local herb with minor hallucinogenic properties, real or perceived. This was a specific question of one of the players, and they went to collect what they could on the way, since one of the characters was a ranger-type who knows the area well. The likelihood of finding them in a caravan coming from a town of questionable lawfulness, that is willing to trade in things that would be illegal elsewhere, yes, something more substantial may be present. It took a considerable amount of investigation to find somebody that could help, and then a lot of persuasion to be able to make some sort of deal.

Again, I don't think this has anything to do with agency. It's about who has control of the narrative, when, and by how much. So the players can control the narrative in my campaign any time they want, simply by making a decision and acting. Based on the setting as they understand it (and again, this is where world-building comes in, even if it's as simple as describing the setting as similar to 900 AD vikings, or whatever), they can make educated decisions about what things are more likely to be successful.

The ironic thing, seems to be that the more you go toward a Burning Wheel approach, it seems like the players have more impact on the fiction, having a freer hand in their development of it, they also seem to have less impact on the direction of the narrative itself, based on limitations imposed by the GM's framing.

Don't get me wrong, it's not bad. It's just a different priority. The players are giving up freedom (you might want to call it agency) in determining how they get to someplace, exploration, and certainly many opportunities for other stories, for the benefit of a more tightly "composed" narrative. The fat is trimmed, but so are options.

And that goes back to not talking about "player agency" so much, and talking about what sort of approach the players like in their narrative. Do they like a comic book (or soap opera) approach where the scenes are tightly framed, and jump from important scene to important scene, or a more exploratory approach, a wide-angle view if you'd like, a la Jordan or Tolkien where the journey, and how they get there is as important as the fact that they get there?

 

[Lanefan]

What intersection? There is no world, there is no intersection, there are a series of scenes. Maybe we may assume that there are locations which exist between these scenes and which may be traversed, but there's literally no specific thing that any player has been 'railroaded past'. They stated they wanted to go to the reliquary and they went there! How is that a railroad?

Railroading, by definition, isn't something that happens by the player's will. If they are in charge of the decisions which establish the content of the scenes they are in, by their choices, then they weren't railroaded, were they?

I still say they were, though it's possible that if the players are that dead-set on ignoring everything around their PCs they may have railroaded themselves.

In reality, if I state to myself that I want to go downtown I can quite easily get there be it by car or foot or whatever means...but I can't ignore or skip over the numerous traffic lights en route no matter how much I'd like to.

Now if I ride a bus I can ignore those things...but the tradeoff for this is that I've lost some control over where I go and when I get there.

Were this in a modern-day-set game world and I was entering a town I'd never been in before, on my-as-player/PC statement that I want to go downtown I'd like some mention to be made of the crossing roads and traffic lights and scenery etc. rather than the DM just saying "OK, you're downtown". Or put another way, I'd rather walk or drive than take the bus.

What you are positing is that only a procedure in which every moment of the character's lives from game start to game end is played through at some arbitrary level of detail which you feel is sufficient to represent 'freedom of choice'. ALL we are arguing about is what that level of detail is, in essence. I'm perfectly happy to have the PCs skip a week and end up in another town, you're not. This has NOTHING to do with 'railroading' or 'agency' at all, its about process of play!

It's not quite as simple as that, I'm afraid.

There's a spectrum of detail ranging from playing out every second of a PC's day to ignoring absolutely everything that happens between the most major of events. Each end of this spectrum is ridiculous, and we all fall in the middle somewhere. What I'm saying is that as you move along the spectrum from more detail toward less, at some point you're going to cross a line after which you are impacting player agency through denial of choice.

And while we each probably see that line as being in a different place we can't deny it exists.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

All the complications, and the increasing of pressure on the players, is done by reference to PC dramatic needs. This is what player-driven RPGing looks like: the GM frames scenes, and "[e]ach scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character."

Other than the reference to 'PC dramatic needs' this could apply to a typical DM-driven game as well.

Something these guys seem to be (intentionally?) ignoring is that beyond the dramatic needs of any individual PC there's also the dramatic needs of the game/campaign as a whole. The sense seems to be that the PCs are bigger than the game...that the whole world revolves around them...where I prefer both as player and DM to see the PCs as small fish in a big ocean full of lots of bigger fish that are nearly all very hungry. I also see PCs as being more temporary than their party, and it's the party's story I'm after.

Yes. This is why they have mechanics like Beliefs or Milestones; or why, in my 4e game, I asked the players at the start of the game to give their PCs a loyalty, and a reason to be ready to fight goblins.

Interesting.

The goal of most of our crew most of the time is just to have some fun at the table. Occasionally one of us will play a truly goal-oriented character...until the rest of the party gets fed up with it and either runs it out or just stops listening to it...but it's not that common. Sometimes there's a temporary goal, either achieved quickly or abandoned as unattainable, but rarely if ever is there anything campaign-long.

I've had highly goal-oriented players in my game in the past, and what I found in general was that they also took the whole thing far too seriously for my tastes.

That said, the party as a whole can and does have goals both short and long term.

But you don't need to try and divert. What does that add?

In-game: depth, intrigue, choices, options, alternatives, sometimes confusion. At-table: choices, options, alternatives, campaign length, sometimes frustration. And in this case I see both in-character confusion and at-table frustration to be positives, in moderation.

I'm sure I've posted multiple times upthread that this sort of RPGing depends on finality in resolution. There are no retries.

Not on the feather - I've already blown that one. But the opal at the jewel merchant? The ceremonial sword at the merchant of fine things? The book of prophesy at the bookseller's?

Yeah, I can keep thinking these up all day.

Maybe not so well. So maybe the GM starts exercising more agency. But it's hard for me to see that a non goal-oriented, "gits and shiggles" player is at the same time one who is exercising lots of agency over the content of the shared fiction.

Of course...and I think that more or less encompasses most players out there. Add to that the players who simply don't see it as thier place to influence setting details related to their PCs except as rules allow (cf 1e stronghold-building) and that puts goal-oriented fiction-bending players in the severe minority, I think.

 

[Maxperson]

Or perhaps that there are more ways than one to get to the same results of play? Because I look at what both of you are posting, and thing that while the mechanics you use are different, the results can be the same.

Looking through both of your posts (and others), the reality is that in all cases, the GM has an influence on the fiction. The methods might be different, but by inclusion/omission alone, the GM will direct the fiction in some fashion. How much, or perhaps how directly, the players have an impact on the fiction might vary.

In an example like the flagstones, I think that in many games (including @Maxperson's, but I could be wrong), there are times where the players will ask to do something ("I want to examine the flagstones in this area, something seems off to me") that the GM has to react to. In some games, they very well could just default to nothing out of the ordinary, since nothing has been pre-authored. And for many (most?) casual players, by which I mean they use the rules as written to simply run a published adventure "as is"), this very well may be the case.

**Snip**

Amazing post. Thank you for taking the time to write that.

 

[darkbard]

The goal of most of our crew most of the time is just to have some fun at the table.

<snip>

I've had highly goal-oriented players in my game in the past, and what I found in general was that they also took the whole thing far too seriously for my tastes.

<snip>

Add to that the players who simply don't see it as thier place to influence setting details related to their PCs except as rules allow

I have a very hard time understanding how, on the one hand, you can make comments like these and then, on the other hand, extol the virtues of GM--driven, preauthored backstory play for its "depth," "choices," verisimilitude, and agency.