Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[pemerton]

I think that we can all agree that different games give differing amounts of agency to players over declaring their characters actions. Since games do this differently we should be able to talk about what impact restricting this kind of agency in games has on the play experience. You keep saying this kind of agency isn't meaningful, that differences in it aren't meaningful, but it's a very meaningful concept and type of agency to many of us. It may not be very meaningful to you but it's exceedingly meaningful to us. I mean one of the most common cited dislikes of certain games is that they don't have as much of this type of agency.

I don't know what games limit the ability of players to declare their character's actions in a way that generates dislike. I'm happy to be told about them.

But I think that's a tangent for this thread. @chaochou introduced the phrase player agency to help talk about what was happening in the OP. And the issue with what is going on in the OP is not that the players were forbidden from declaring actions, but that they did not seem to be able to exercise agency over the fiction at a key moment of resolution.

 

[pemerton]

If Storygame is too broad a term to encompass stuff like Sorcerer! I suggest those could be called Author Stance RPGs, as opposed to trad RPGs which are Actor Stance RPGs in Edwards' terminology.

I'm not totally happy with Actor Stance as a tern because it discounts or does not comprehend immersion as a play goal. But Author Stance seems fine for the Edwards play mode.

I'm going to disagree with this (in a friendly way among friends!).

I can't comment on Sorcerer. But games like Apocalypse World and Prince Valiant involve almost know author stance. I did a count a couple of months ago, for another thread, and found that fewer than10% of AW moves - I think it was - involve some sort of author stance, and they are all optinal choices. This is even moreso in Prince Valiant.

Most of the systems I run are also not inimical to immersion. Probably the least immersive system I run is Classic Traveller. Though I would say Cortex+ Heroic is also perhaps up there, because of the prominence of the dice pool in resolution. Prince Valiant is super-immersive, I think. And when I play BW, I identify closely with my character.

 

[S'mon]

I'm going to disagree with this (in a friendly way among friends!).

I can't comment on Sorcerer. But games like Apocalypse World and Prince Valiant involve almost know author stance. I did a count a couple of months ago, for another thread, and found that fewer than10% of AW moves - I think it was - involve some sort of author stance, and they are all optinal choices. This is even moreso in Prince Valiant.

Most of the systems I run are also not inimical to immersion. Probably the least immersive system I run is Classic Traveller. Though I would say Cortex+ Heroic is also perhaps up there, because of the prominence of the dice pool in resolution. Prince Valiant is super-immersive, I think. And when I play BW, I identify closely with my character.

What is your preferred term for these games in contrast to eg 1e ADnD? Is Dramatist close enough maybe? But that is usually used for "emulates dramatic fiction" without the story-build element I think?

 

[pemerton]

I will not speak for others, but I don't flatly say no often, and I don't do it capriciously.

OK. But I don't see how this affects whether or not the players are exercising agency over the fiction.

before the resolution gets to that point, there's the determination of appropriateness, possibleness (urk), and so forth; it's my understanding that if a proposed action doesn't meet those tests, there's a "no." That doesn't really seem different to me from a DM in D&D 5E (I really wish there was a game we both liked and played enough to be able to talk about the same game, don't you?) operating in good faith to determine when an Ability Check can't succeed (or, I guess in principle, can't fail).

Here is the difference between the GM unilaterally settling credibility; and doing it via table consenus: the former does not involve player agency, whereas the latter does.

When I decide whether to say no, I am applying the credibility test; something needs to be ... pretty thoroughly not-credible before I'll deny the player a chance to roll.

OK. I don't see how this changes the fact that there is a difference here between conensus, and unilateral GM decision-making. Particularly because, as @Campbell has said already upthread, knowing who has the power can affect how actions are declared.

The 5E DMG specifically gives all this authority and the responsibility that comes with it to the DM.

OK. I don't see how this tells us anything about player agency, though. I've read RPGIng books that tell the GM to fudge results and manipulate the fiction in order to keep the game "on track". That is an official statement of resonsibility for those games. It doesn't change the fact that those games, played in accordance with those principles, will be ones with little player agency.

 

[pemerton]

I believe it's possible for a GM operating in bad faith (or from bad premises--I'm not insisting on bad intentions, here) to "say yes" in a way that negates, or undoes, or denies player agency.

it's easy to see where bad faith play using that methodology can also destroy the agency of the other players and DM in that kind of game. Necessitating a roll with a chance of success for all actions, even those for ruling the world / mass mind control / etc, all tends to destroy agency just as quickly as a bad DM intent on forcing the characters to do something.

I don't understand what is going on with the reference to "ruling the world / mass mind control" - but do you two have actual play examples of this conjectured "bad faith" appicaiton of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"?

in the games I've played or read that were more ... explicitly about giving players agency in the fiction (mostly Fate; I've read the SRD for Blades in the Dark but haven't and likely won't play it) seems to me to have a clear trade-off, where the players get more ability to affect the fiction directly, outside of their character's capabilities, in exchange for the GM having more explicit ways to reduce their agency over their character. This seems to go with what's been said upthread about there only being so much agency to go around (as I understood it).

This is a recurrent thing I see on this board. There seems to be this idea that to give players agency involves so-called "narrative control".

That idea is false.

To give players agency in a (non-OSR/"skilled play") game, all that is needed is that that the GM does not use secret/unilateral fiction to declare that action declarations fail. Burning Wheel, Prince Valiant and Coretex+ Heroic all fit this description.

And they do not give the GM more explicit ways to reduce players' control of their PCs. They have nothing comparable, for instance, to D&D's dominate mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

What is your preferred term for these games in contrast to eg 1e ADnD? Is Dramatist close enough maybe? But that is usually used for "emulates dramatic fiction" without the story-build element I think?

In this thread I've been using a negative phrase - not OSR/not "skilled play".

"Story-oriented" is probably OK. That covers quite a bit. When I read the OP, the play seems to have been more about "the story" then Moldvay-esque/Gygaxian/Pulsipherian skill.

 

[S'mon]

In this thread I've been using a negative phrase - not OSR/not "skilled play".

"Story-oriented" is probably OK. That covers quite a bit. When I read the OP, the play seems to have been more about "the story" then Moldvay-esque/Gygaxian/Pulsipherian skill.

"Non skilled play" or "non Gamist" seems much broader though, encompassing for instance railroad gaming with pre written story, as well as Pemertonian Scene Framing and heavy Narrarivist Exploration of Premise, right through to non RPG round robin story creation games.

 

[prabe]

Only where a game has mechanics to ensure that their proposal can result in specific outcomes they want, and irrespective of whether the GM wants or likes that outcome, does a player have actual agency - not just the fake versions of it so beloved of railroading GMs in this thread.

So maybe if you want reasoned responses you shouldn't presume others are acting in bad faith, either in the conversation or in the games they run. I don't see how anyone concerned enough about player agency to follow a conversation about it sixty-five pages into the rabbit hole would be likely to be run railroad games, do you?

EDIT: As an example, though @pemerton and I have been going at it pretty hard in this thread, I don't doubt for a single moment that he (?) runs games that work exceptionally well for his table. I don't think he thinks I GM in bad faith. I think there is some failure to understand each other, which we both no doubt find frustrating.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If I describe a dragon as being armored, what armor class is it? You could take a guess, just like you can take a guess that someone unstable has a good chance of taking your head off if you insult him.

The dragon has an armor class.

What is the baron’s anger class?

Do you see the issue now? In this case, the baron's anger class was effectively infinite.

The DM deciding that an insult cannot work and failure is the only outcome removes whatever agency the player was trying to exercise.

How would he know the PCs are more powerful than his soldiers? He knows Strahd. He knows the townsfolk. The PCs are from somewhere else.

It’s entirely up to the DM whether he would recognize the PCs are capable, and possibly more capable than his men could handle. I chose to play him as a madman, not an imbecile, so when I ran Curse of Strahd, he recognized capable opponents when he saw them.

How does D&D make the DM sloppy with descriptions or the players miss details?

It doesn’t make them do that. But it can lend itself to that. Look at the OP.

Okay, but leaving stuff out applies to every system. It's because those playing it are human and imperfect.

And so are the games themselves. This is just one of the flaws with 5E.

Failure = don't succeed. It does not = don't succeed plus setback. There are no rules for critical failures like that. If the DM is breaking feet over simple failed attempts at opening doors, he is stepping beyond what is written.

This is not even remotely true.

If my PC tries to jump a canyon, and he doesn’t succeed....what happens? Does he just skid to a stop at the precipice? Does he land on the other side but maybe takes some HP in damage from a hard impact? Or does he fall into the chasm?

If my PC tries to intimidate a Baron and fails, does the Baron simply remain unintimidated? Is he intimidated, but perhaps more guarded about negotiation? Does he get angry and call for his guards?

I think it’s very clear that a DM can apply additional consequences on a failed roll. I feel like you didn’t really think about what you were claiming. This happens all the time in the game.

 

[prabe]

OK. But I don't see how this affects whether or not the players are exercising agency over the fiction.

If the players changing the fictional state, specifically through their characters, aren't they exercising agency?

Here is the difference between the GM unilaterally settling credibility; and doing it via table consenus: the former does not involve player agency, whereas the latter does.

Wouldn't allowing a player a say in whether his own declaration was credible bring back one of the problems that having a GM is supposed to solve? If you're excluding that player from the decision I don't believe he has agency as you've been talking about it. I mean, it seems like a reasonable presumption that the player believes the proposed action is credible.

OK. I don't see how this changes the fact that there is a difference here between conensus, and unilateral GM decision-making. Particularly because, as @Campbell has said already upthread, knowing who has the power can affect how actions are declared.

Yes, unilateral decision-making is different from concensus decision-making; that's practically a tautology. What I'm saying is that there's not a lot of difference between "the GM [not the player] says no" and "the table [not the player] says no."

OK. I don't see how this tells us anything about player agency, though. I've read RPGIng books that tell the GM to fudge results and manipulate the fiction in order to keep the game "on track". That is an official statement of resonsibility for those games. It doesn't change the fact that those games, played in accordance with those principles, will be ones with little player agency.

Yes, fudging results and outcomes, not letting player/character decisions matter is bad GMing, and keeping the campaign on a specific story is a common reason for doing those things; advice to do those things is crap advice, and advice to do those things for those reasons is crappy crap advice. A good GM, operating in good faith, encourages player agency.

My point in quoting the 5E DMG at you is that a DM in 5E who doesn't run decisions by the table for concensus isn't necessarily operating in bad faith. They're just doing what the rules tell them to do. The 5E DMG is ... depressingly neutral about fudging and such.