A Question Of Agency?

[Crimson Longinus]

Hitpoints are a meta-level agency used to edit the reality of the fictional setting. View them in this lens: The GM rolls for the orc, declares a hit, and that your PC is killed! You say, wait, I want to spend some hitpoints to prevent that, how many do I need to spend. The GM then rolls to determine the cost for this rewrite, gets a 7, and tells the player. The player sighs, and says they only have 6 right now, so the orc does kill the player (ignoring death saves for now, which are another meta-level tool).

Nope. You don't decide to use hit points. Sure, they're not realistic but that's another matter.

All games have meta elements. Some you're used to, some you don't like, some you don't notice.

Of course they do. And I am not saying that no such elements should ever exist. But there is a difference in prevalence and scope of these things. People were talking about summoning entire towers and their evil owners into existence.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nope. You don't decide to use hit points. Sure, they're not realistic but that's another matter.

Curiously, if a player wanted their PC to die, would you force expending hp on them? I mean, presumably hitpoints are always used because there's a baseline assumption that players don't want their PCs to be defeated.

Of course they do. And I am not saying that no such elements should ever exist. But there is a difference in prevalence and scope of these things. People were talking about summoning entire towers and their evil owners into existence.

You've never once ad libbed something into a game because it was needed or because the idea just struck you? GMs do this ALL THE TIME. The issue here isn't the creation whole cloth of a tower and evil owner, but rather who has that power -- is it entirely vested in one player who gets a special title or is it shared? It's fine to like one structure over the other, but you shouldn't complain about meta-tools or making things up on the spot because that's not the issue -- that's entirely accepted so long as the right person is doing it. And, again, perfectly fine to like that structure -- I like it (I run D&D after all), but I also like games where it's not like that.

 

[Aldarc]

A single roll in PbtA/DW can represent a fairly large number of discreet/atomic actions in a game like D&D. So success-with-a-complication in PbtA combat, for example, can reflect a more complicated series of exchanges than the more discreet turn-based actions in D&D: e.g., you attack goblin 1, you damage the goblin, other goblins get opportunity attacks, you take damage, and now the goblins have you surrounded, etc. This can be resolved in a single roll in DW but it may require 3+ rolls in D&D to resolve. But this is largely because PbtA games are more interested/invested in the fictional positioning of the narrative than the resource management mini-game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Curiously, if a player wanted their PC to die, would you force expending hp on them? I mean, presumably hitpoints are always used because there's a baseline assumption that players don't want their PCs to be defeated.

That really isn't a situation the system is designed to handle. It would depends on the specifics. I guess in normal D&D paradigm they would at least 'spend' the hit points in a sense that the hit points would be gone. So basically they would choose to take extra damage.

You've never once ad libbed something into a game because it was needed or because the idea just struck you? GMs do this ALL THE TIME. The issue here isn't the creation whole cloth of a tower and evil owner, but rather who has that power -- is it entirely vested in one player who gets a special title or is it shared? It's fine to like one structure over the other, but you shouldn't complain about meta-tools or making things up on the spot because that's not the issue -- that's entirely accepted so long as the right person is doing it. And, again, perfectly fine to like that structure -- I like it (I run D&D after all), but I also like games where it's not like that.

Yes. And someone has to have that power. I prefer it to be the GM. (Mostly. There of course will be some small exceptions.) Now some people might have different preferences, and that's fine. But it would perhaps been clearer if people had said from the get go, that when they talk about player agency, they actually speak about the player having narrative level control. Because that is another matter entirely, and I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.

 

[darkbard]

I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.

What do you mean, then, by player agency?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What do you mean, then, by player agency?

To put it super simply, it is that the actions of the characters matter.

(Perhaps I should have said 'narrative control mechanics,' or 'direct narrative control' instead of just 'narrative control' because I guess it could be argued that by choosing the actions of their characters the players in a way indirectly partly control the narrative.)

 

[prabe]

Heck, upthread @prabe was discussing how and why a successful check to win over a gang by suborning the leader (Pup was the name) might be undone because the GM decides that such suborning rubs the gang members the wrong way! How is that not exactly a success with consequence -- you succeed in your action to win over the gang leader, but suffer a consequence because now the gang is surly about it?

I might not have been clear about my intent; if so, I apologize.

I didn't mean that (in the example) having Pup's followers resist forcefully was supposed to be the inevitable result of the PCs' suborning Pup. The idea was always that it'd be because of something the PCs did after suborning Pup. It might be a consequence of the original check, if the result allowed, or it might be the result of a subsequent one. Or (in a game with fewer/different mechanical restraints) it might happen when the PCs did something the GM thought Pup's followers would particularly resent. In at least the latter, it is in principle possible the PCs wouldn't trigger the rebellion.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That really isn't a situation the system is designed to handle. It would depends on the specifics. I guess in normal D&D paradigm they would at least 'spend' the hit points in a sense that the hit points would be gone. So basically they would choose to take extra damage.


Yes. And someone has to have that power. I prefer it to be the GM (Mostly. There of course will be some small exceptions.) Now some people might have different preferences, and that's fine. But it would perhaps been clearer if people had said from the get go, that when they talk about player agency, they actually speak about the player having narrative level control. Because that is another matter entirely, and I definitely do not agree with the idea that player agency requires narrative control.

I don’t know if narrative control is what’s needed so much as narrative influence. Or at least, the potential for narrative influence through the established mechanics of the game.

And this narrative influence need not be absolute....it actually can’t be....but the more of it that is present, the more agency a player will have.

So I run a 5E D&D game. I run it in a way that is very player driven compared to the default assumptions. The players have helped shape the setting through introduction of elements of their characters’ backstories and though ideas suggested during play. The “adventures” they go on are largely of their choosing. Yes, there are some metaplot elements that I’ve scattered throughout, and which will largely serve as the “endgame” but those have all been crafted with these specific PCs and players in mind. So there are still plenty of GM driven elements.

Overall a decent amount of agency for the players, but still plenty for the GM.

Compared with my Blades in the Dark game with the same players, it has less player agency. It’s largely just due to the way each game is designed. D&D requires that I as GM limit player agency in how challenges are crafted and how play proceeds. Even in our approach where I try to do so less than what’s expected in the game as designed. Blades is designed to actively promote the style I’ve adopted for my 5E game. It’s inherent in the design of BitD. I don’t have to radically tweak the game and its mechanics and techniques to get to that point.

All this is to say that it sounds like you enjoy games where player agency is more limited, and where the GM is driving the action, with the players responding, and then the GM building on that response. This is a perfectly fine way to play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

No. I want the world to respond to the PCs' successes. I want Duke Fornyard to resent them for succeeding in swaying the king; I want the merchant thief Iltan to mark them as potential marks after a profitable dungeon raid; I want Winter's Fang to notice that Auriqua is no longer under the Tundra Queen's protection and take interest. To take examples that at least would fit into the campaigns I'm running.

And every one of these is accomplished in Dungeon World's mechanics/process. Duke Fornyard, Merchant Thief Iltan, Winter's Fang, these are all 'Dangers' within 'fronts' in Dungeon World, and part of the GM's job is to both construct these, and manage them through 'doom clocks'. There's an entire chapter in which all of this is spelled out in great detail in the DW rules. These things are established (either at/near the start of a campaign, or as added adventure fronts as-needed). There is a structure to them, including portents, goals, dramatic conflicts to be addressed (IIRC they're called 'questions'), etc. Whenever a 'Doom' comes to pass, the world changes. This will then reflect back onto the PCs in some fashion, usually creating difficult conditions, bringing consequences of failures home to roost, etc. The purpose though is always to bring focus onto the PCs' stories.

So, in these kinds of narrative games, generally speaking, there may be things which happen where the explanation is consequences of PC actions in the past, as simple 'living world, stuff happens', or even as someone gunning directly for the PCs (and this could simply be introduced by the GM, not necessarily a consequence of anything). The focus is always on how these situations relate to the premises and goals of play.

Now, it would be PERFECTLY consonant in a game of this kind for some action that PCs took in the past to boomerang back onto them for completely unknown reasons. This might, for example, be a great way to develop the theme of pathos and ultimate hopelessness in the face of cosmic forces which would inform a Cthulhu Mythos (Cosmic Horror) genre game. Yes, the protagonists closed the gate and dismissed the Mi Go menace, but now the investigator has vanished and left behind only a strange pool of icor, the reporter is hearing strange piping sounds and wakes up in the mornings dressed exhausted. The Miskatonic U professor has a strange compulsion to peruse certain books in the library's secret collection... Rumors of strange events in the South Pacific filter into the news wires. Apparently something is still loose in the world, and it is even WORSE than the Mi Go! And it knows who you are...

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm willing to accept that there's a preference thing about how a thing feels, but this argument is incoherent in that EVERY RPG does this thing, you're just used to it in the RPGs you prefer to play. Combat in D&D is all about incomplete success, often with a cost or consequence -- you successfully hit the orc, but don't kill it (partial success), and now the orc tries to hit you (consequence). Heck, upthread @prabe was discussing how and why a successful check to win over a gang by suborning the leader (Pup was the name) might be undone because the GM decides that such suborning rubs the gang members the wrong way! How is that not exactly a success with consequence -- you succeed in your action to win over the gang leader, but suffer a consequence because now the gang is surly about it?

Success coupled with cost or consequence is part of almost every RPG out there -- it's just traditionally hidden behind the GM's screen. It might not taste the same, and so not be liked, if it's out in the open, but it's not any different, really, from the things you're used to eating.

But how it feels to people is absolutely all that matters here. You can make an argument about it being the same as what you're used to all you want, but if it doesn't feel that way to them--and for a lot of people it absolutely doesn't--then the problem is every bit as real.