Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[prabe]

This sentence is hard for me to parse, because when (in the fiction) the Gorechain devil treats another person as a marionette, in the real world, at the table, the GM will be telling a player what that player's character does.

It's not the least bit clear to me.

In Fate, for instance, if the GM offers a compel, then in the ficiton something is tempting or motivating your character. Or, perhaps, something about your character is motivating others.

I'll try it again, because there's a distinction that's clear in my head that I apparently haven't been able to make clear to you--I don't need or expect or even want you to agree with me, just to understand.

Effects that come from the in-fiction opposition--things like being charmed or paralyzed or petrified or dominated or frightened (I know that's a negative condition in 3.x and 5E, don't know about 4E) or whatever, coming from what my character in the fiction is encountering in the fiction, such as a harpy or a gorgon or an illithid or a dragon--do not bother me at all. They are happening to my in-fiction character in the fiction, because of other things in the fiction that are behaving according to their natures as established in the fiction. The marionette-style dominate effect/attack described as something the Gorechain Devil does, as something that happens in the fiction of the game, wouldn't bother me. I would think of the DM in that instance as reporting what is happening (yes, I know he's running the Gorechain Devil, and he's deciding to use that attack, and he's choosing to target my character with it--it's his job to put things in between my character and my character's goals, and if he's running the Gorechain Devil that way, he's doing his job). Even something like a Berserk Disadvantage in Champions, where every time X happens you need to roll to see if your character starts attacking everyone and everything around them, doesn't bother me, because the events that trigger the Berserk chance arise in the fiction.

Effects that come from around the table--whether they come from the GM or another player--things like Compels in Fate, or the strings or whatever in Monsterhearts, or IIRC the various ways Stress is applied to characters by the GM in Blades in the Dark--bother the heck out of me, because though they represent things in the fiction (I'm clear on that, really) they aren't emerging naturally from the events in-fiction; they're emerging because someone else around the table has decided to use them to force my character's story to change. Yes, I know that a Fate GM's job is to offer Compels to my character, and I know the other players in Monsterhearts have among their jobs to pull on my character's strings--that doesn't change how I feel about it, though. The closest thing I can come up with for why is Chekhov's Gun (if a gun is onstage in the first two acts, it must be fired in the third; if a gun is fired in the third act, it must be onstage in the first two): Whatever effect is being placed onto my character by GM as GM (not as opposition) or fellow player (not as character) by metagame mechanics does not feel to me as though it is emerging naturally from the events preceding it; it feels as though a gun is appearing onstage during the third act.

No, the item is cursed because it was stolen from a mummy's tomb. And the character did read its aura - that's how he learned that it is cursed!

So, what happened in the fiction was that the character read the feather's aura and discovered it was cursed. What happened at/around the table was that the player rolled dice and didn't get a result that gave him (the player) authority to declare what the feather was, so the feather's properties were determined ... I'm guessing by table concensus? So the test to read the aura wasn't about properties the feather had, as established previously in-fiction (whether in play or in notes) but instead about who was going to decide what its properties were?

Is that a more accurate description?

To be clear, those are propositions stated within the context of the fiction.

In the real workd, the item doesn't exist but various actions of rolling dice, comparing numbers of successes to target numbers, narrating imaginary things and events, etc really do take place. I as GM narrated that the item is cursed because the player made a roll and failed (ie didn't meet the target number for success).

I'm clear on the difference between fiction and reality. Thank you. If I am talking about something in fiction having an objective reality, it's because the word for what really happens in. e.g., a novel, as opposed to what, e.g., an unreliable narrator tells you happens, has fallen out of my head, apparently irretrievably. I know there's a word, but I can't remember it (and it might be obscure enough that even using it might not help with communication.

If the GM already decides that the angel feather that the PC will find at the bazaar is cursed, then the game becomes a puzzle: the player has to work out whether or not the angel feather his/her PC has purchased is cursed.

Well-known examples of RPGs and allied game forms which feature a fair bit of this: Tomb of Horrors; any dungeon designed along the lines set out by Moldvay and Gygax in their well-known and classic D&D rulebooks; Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks like Warlock of Firetop Mountan and The Forest of Doom.

Using the approach to narration that I have illustrated in my example of play does not have even a hint of this. The player doesn't need to solve puzzles. S/he needs to inhabit his/her PC and engage the fiction.

So, if something exists in the fiction, and it wasn't put there around the table, that's something you'd describe as RPG-as-puzzle? That seems to imply that if I as a GM decide anything about a scene and don't tell the players about it, it's instantly RPG-as-puzzle, which (heh) puzzles me.

 

[prabe]

@Ovinomancer

Thank you for that. You seem to have it.

I'll say that I think I understand what Fate is doing with Compels, it just is like fingernails on a blackboard. It seems visceral enough that I suspect it connects to whatever broken bits are rattling around in my head.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I think this rather obviously depends on whether failure carries any built-in consequences.

In the case of a failed jump the built-in consequence is falling or some variant thereon, which should be obvious to all involved.
In the case of failure to pick a lock the consequences might very well be nothing at all, the door or chest simply remains locked.

Yeah, I wouldn’t disagree with that. My point has been that it’s the DM who decides what the consequences of a failed check. Yeah, sometimes those are obvious, other times they’re not.

Because the PCs in the fiction wouldn't know this info except in the most general of terms, thus the players at the table shouldn't know it either except in the same most general of terms.

The dragon's scales look thick, hard and tough.

That's what the PCs see, so that's all the players need to know.

The PCs are experiencing the fiction. The players are experiencing a game. Game mechanics are meant to be an expression of the fiction. I don’t have any problem sharing the mechanics with the players. In fact, I think it’s my responsibility to do so. This way the players are as informed as the PCs.

Does this mean that I always share every single score or value? No, not necessarily....there may be times when it makes sense to not share. But there are plenty of times where sharing those details does the work of making the players as informed as their characters.

 

[Lanefan]

The PCs are experiencing the fiction. The players are experiencing a game. Game mechanics are meant to be an expression of the fiction. I don’t have any problem sharing the mechanics with the players. In fact, I think it’s my responsibility to do so. This way the players are as informed as the PCs.

Often, however, that way the players end up more informed than the PCs.

Both the players at the table and the PCs in the fiction more or less know what sort of defensive ability a knight in plate mail and shield is going to have, as they can simply compare it with how those same defenses function on in-party PCs either past or present: "Hell, this guy's going to be as hard to hurt as Gretta used to be when she ran with us". Here the description, player knowledge, and character knowledge are quite reasonably going to agree; with the only unknown variables being any enchantments on the knight's armour bits, or on the knight himself.

When I describe a Troll's rubbery hide, though, or the thick tough-looking scales of a Dragon, I neither want nor expect the players to immediately leap to a hard numerical AC value, for a few reasons: one, the PCs don't think in numbers; two, the PCs probably haven't met enough of these creatures to be able to generalize; and three, thinking in numbers really breaks the 'fourth wall'.

Sure they might figure the actual AC value out after a few rounds of combat - as a player I find myself doing this far too often, and get mad at myself every time for doing it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Often, however, that way the players end up more informed than the PCs.

Both the players at the table and the PCs in the fiction more or less know what sort of defensive ability a knight in plate mail and shield is going to have, as they can simply compare it with how those same defenses function on in-party PCs either past or present: "Hell, this guy's going to be as hard to hurt as Gretta used to be when she ran with us". Here the description, player knowledge, and character knowledge are quite reasonably going to agree; with the only unknown variables being any enchantments on the knight's armour bits, or on the knight himself.

When I describe a Troll's rubbery hide, though, or the thick tough-looking scales of a Dragon, I neither want nor expect the players to immediately leap to a hard numerical AC value, for a few reasons: one, the PCs don't think in numbers; two, the PCs probably haven't met enough of these creatures to be able to generalize; and three, thinking in numbers really breaks the 'fourth wall'.

Sure they might figure the actual AC value out after a few rounds of combat - as a player I find myself doing this far too often, and get mad at myself every time for doing it.

I absolutely get that approach. I used to be very much that way myself. I’ve loosened up over the past several years and I’ve found that the things that I was worried about weren’t nearly as big a problem as I had thought they may be, and also that our play became more focused and my players more decisive, which I hadn’t really anticipated, but which was a nice surprise.

That stuff doesn’t really break the fourth wall for me so much as it gives it a reference point that I can immediately grasp.

 

[Fenris-77]

AC is kind of tough from a descriptive standpoint because it isn't really indexed to anything specific, or rather it's indexed to a bunch of different things . This is especially evident in the platemail example, or indeed fighters in general. The actual skill of the fighter doesn't really impact how easy or hard he is to hit. That part is modeled with Hit Points. With plate, it makes at least a certain amount of intuitive sense that landing a telling blow would mean getting past the plate. However, in the case of a master duelist in leathers, it doesn't make much sense at all, or at least not as much sense. To make matters worse, some of the skill indexed stuff, like fighting styles and feat, does directly impact AC. D&D just can't make up its mind.

It would be intuitive to think that overcoming the skill of the swordsman would be in the initial barrier to landing a telling blow, but it isn't. Don't get me wrong, the system does what it's supposed to, it just doesn't always lend itself to easy description. Not compared to some other systems anyway.

 

[Ovinomancer]

AC is kind of tough from a descriptive standpoint because it isn't really indexed to anything specific, or rather it's indexed to a bunch of different things . This is especially evident in the platemail example, or indeed fighters in general. The actual skill of the fighter doesn't really impact how easy or hard he is to hit. That part is modeled with Hit Points. With plate, it makes at least a certain amount of intuitive sense that landing a telling blow would mean getting past the plate. However, in the case of a master duelist in leathers, it doesn't make much sense at all, or at least not as much sense. To make matters worse, some of the skill indexed stuff, like fighting styles and feat, does directly impact AC. D&D just can't make up its mind.

It would be intuitive to think that overcoming the skill of the swordsman would be in the initial barrier to landing a telling blow, but it isn't. Don't get me wrong, the system does what it's supposed to, it just doesn't always lend itself to easy description. Not compared to some other systems anyway.

Yup. Quite often D&D requires you to abstract while it encourages you to be specific.

 

[FrogReaver]

Your argument is that there's a division of agency, one of which is agency over declaring actions. In this framework, agency over declaring actions isn't abridged because the player was allowed to declare the action. Therefore agency wasn't abridged.

Not quite. Just that one particular type of agency wasn't abridged.

The issues I have with your argument (and correct it where it is wrong, please, I've done my best) is that I disagree that it's a valid to separate agency over declaring actions from agency in general. I've followed this up by showing the definition of agency used by many to be not only making choices but also having the ability to see those choices come true. Not guarantee, but ability. In this framework, declaring an action is a necessary but not sufficient part of agency. If I cannot declare actions, then I have no agency. If I can, then we have to continue to look to see if agency is sustained. My framework includes yours, it just continues to go further. Applying this to the OP, we can see that the player did indeed declare the action -- so we're good so far, a choice was made and a proposal was made. However, the GM decided unilaterally to say no. The player has no ability to see the declared action come true -- no chance at all. And so, agency is not present.

The only reason yours may go further is that we haven't sit down and defined those other types of agency yet. I think both frameworks are valid (they both include each other) but that mine has benefits that yours does not. In mine we can talk about agency more precisely. We can talk about the exact place each type of agency fails. We can talk about whether a game has agency of types A, B, C, D but not E and contrast that with games using other combinations of agency. In your framework that's really not possible. The other benefit is that it let's us more accurately discuss and pinpoint when there is a disagreement about a specific type of agency and where that disagreement is coming from. Is someone rejecting a type of agency as valid. Are people talking about 2 different types of agency, etc. I think the basic concept has already done a lot for this conversation in keeping people from talking past each other.

And, that's not, in and of itself, bad. It just is. We need to go to look to see if this instance of play enforces the play goals the table wants or if it runs counter to them. I can't say if the action was good or bad for the OP's table, although indications are that it was bad as at least one player expressed unhappiness. I can say it would be bad at my table because it wouldn't enforce my table's play goals -- specifically mine, as I strive to avoid hidden dead-ends in my prep and play. That's just my preference.

I think the same thing can be done with types of agency and be even more illuminating.

Secondly, even if we do accept your premise that agency over action declaration is a separate thing, we still need to evaluate the separate agency involved in the resolution. If we accept that agency is fulfilled at the action declaration stage, that doesn't mean other kinds of agency were denied. In this case, the GM choosing to auto-fail the action means that the player has no agency over the fiction -- again, there's no chance this action could ever succeed due to the GM's appraisal of the fact pattern. So I could, accepting your argument as true, say that agency over action declaration is present and uninhibited, but I would be wrong to say that all agency is present and uninhibited in the play example.

I mostly agree with the part about evaluating the type of agency you are referring to here as well. I think there's a problem with the notion of auto-fail. I use that phrase to differentiate between a DM deciding an action fails and having a chance to make an ability check and having the dice determine failure. With that said let's evaluate this type of agency.

I think there's a major difference in terms of agency when a DM takes the information in the fiction and his notes and makes a decision about success, failure or uncertainty while only taking into account those things. I think that's much different than a DM ignoring that information and ruling success or failure so that the players will be in a future position he thinks will be better. To me it's clear the DM in the OP was at least attempting to do the prior. Anyways, back to the agency question. From this analysis it seems to me the difference between a DM's decisions taking away agency and not taking away agency is one of Force. A DM deciding from fiction and notes whether something fails involves no forcing on his part. Whereas a DM making rulings to get the outcomes he wants is forcing. IMO That's the essential difference here and why I say that a DM ruling failure is not necessarily taking away player agency.

Finally, if we make and accept the argument that only agency over the character's action declarations matters, then we're left in the position that a railroad has exactly as much player agency as a fully-open sandbox (to stay with D&D styles of play). Both involve the same amount of being able to declare actions for your character.

My position isn't that only agency over character's action declarations matters. It's more that I view it as the most important type of agency for an RPG.

In summation, even if your argument is accepted that agency means being able to make action declarations for your PC, it has some pretty major hurdles to overcome to be a meaningful tool to evaluate how games work. On the other hand, my framework handles all of this without having to invoke separate bundles of agency and do separate analyses. The key component to my framework, though, is that it is not a value statement. The value regarding the reduction or increase of player agency is if it meets the play goals of the game. I'd clearly say that GM deciding auto-failure is an important tool in 5e to meet the play goals and play structure of the game. I can't say that saying no is a bad action absent context. I find a tool it better when it can make an assessment that is both differentiating (which I don't find yours to be) and nonjudgemental. A tool should be informative, like a ruler. I can measure a piece of wood and I'll get an answer from a ruler. I might not like the answer, though, which is a value judgement that ruler didn't make.

I think your too narrowly defining my argument here. I would only say that if you have at least 1 type of agency that you have some agency, not that you have Agency. In fact, one interesting piece of my framework when it matures will be evaluating what all types of agency make up what typically gets referred to as Agency.

Also, my framework isn't a value statement either. But it does enable people to talk about the types of agency they value in games. It's not inherently about labeling one more important than another. I would say that the value regarding the combination of agency and their reduction or increase is if that meets the play goals of the game. A DM determining if something fails is an important tool (and we can even discuss whether that tool necessitates a player losing a particular type of agency).

I'm curious how you find types of agency not differentiating. It seems to me like that is even more levels of differentiation than you are used to talking about the concept in. Maybe you can elaborate here? Why would discussing types of agency not be comparable to having a ruler with which to make measurements?

One final thing that is on my mind. Disagreeing with your position does not entail that someone only thinks of agency as a positive.

 

[pemerton]

It seems as though you associate it with bad-faith GMing and/or a degenerate form of play, and it seems as though it comes up a lot around things I don't see as either.

If the goal is to collectively contribute to a shared fiction with dramatic trajectory, then I think it is tending towards a degenerate form of play.

If the GM says that player agency will have a big impact on the game, then I think it is tending towards bad faith.

If the goal is for the players to learn how the GM imagines the fictional world, and to put pieces of that together to come up with solutions to in-fiction questions and problems, then puzzle-orinted RPGing is just what the doctor ordered. I think a lot of RPGIng seems to have something like this as its goal (some examples: most Ravenloft modules I've read; the 3E module Speaker in Dreams; the 3E Demonweb Pits hardback; most Planescape modules I've read).

If the GMing is vibrant and evocative, then I can enjoy this in modest doses (eg a convention one-off). But I would like the GM to be upfront. Don't tell me that I can have a big impact on the shared fiction, and then set me these sorts of puzzles to solve.

 

[Maxperson]

Before they start the fight, sure. After a round or two, though, I don't see the harm if the players know the AC--it streamlines combat resolution some if they don't need to ask if they hit. It adds up around a large table.

The to hit rolls will clue them in on that. With 4 PCs and to hit rolls being used by most classes, it doesn't take them long to figure out AC.