A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

It definitely needs to potentially go somewhere. But it doesn't mean that 'somewhere' needs to be clearly defined that the moment of planting the hook. Pretty common in more improvisational style. Plant some interesting things with a vague idea of which sort of direction they might lead and then actually elaborate if the players bite.

You've, again, smeared a term to be so broad as to be useless.

 

[Lanefan]

I think I disagree that the constraints must (or at least strongly should) be mechanical in order for there to be player agency, the way you seem to strongly prefer, but I believe that GM constraint is a strong indicator of good (or at least good faith) GMing. Heck, much of how @Lanefan describes their games is radically different from how I play/run, but I'd say that sticking so meticulously to extensive prep is a form of constraint, just not one that you prefer (it's closer to my own preferences, I'll admit).

Thing is, and oddly enough, having that "extensive prep" in place allows me to not stick quite so meticulously to it during play!

What it does do is make it clear to me-as-DM at which point(s) I'm deviating from said prep (a fairly common occurrence, believe it or not), and gives me a pretty good idea of a) whether my deviation threatens violation of anything previously established in play and-or b) what effects if any that deviation might have in the long run.

 

[Manbearcat]

That is absolutely not my understanding of what a "plot hook" is. Plot hooks are things that try to engage the players in the GM's plot, which often take the shape of things that interest the players. But an interesting thing isn't a plot hook if there's no plot there. I mean, it's right there in the term -- plot hook.

Put another way:

All "plot hooks" are "provocations to action" but not all "provocations to action" are "plot hooks."

Indie games of the like we're discussing (of which the lead post may not be playing, but the way he is playing is "indie-inspired") are premised upon "provocations to action" (that do not entail metaplot but are ignited in the GM's creative center by the player and the system's overt signalling to that GM) whereas "plot hooks" are fundamental to a working metaplot.

I wrote above several of Baker's seminal indie axioms above; "There is no story/plot" and "drive play toward conflict" are what I'm talking about (Dogs also talks about provoking to action in its GMing section).

Dogs in the Vineyard 138

All I'm saying is that the PCs stories aren't yours to write and aren't yours to plan. If you've GMed other roleplaying games, this will be the hardest part of all: let go of 'what's going to happen.'

...Leave 'what's going to happen' to what happens."

Pretty apt for the lead post of this thread and his style of GMing. Know your genre. Know your game's premise. Know the PCs (who have been invested with thematic questions to be answered). Follow their lead. Do not plot...provoke. Follow the rules. Then follow their lead some more (rinse, repeat).

 

[Manbearcat]

It definitely needs to potentially go somewhere. But it doesn't mean that 'somewhere' needs to be clearly defined that the moment of planting the hook. Pretty common in more improvisational style. Plant some interesting things with a vague idea of which sort of direction they might lead and then actually elaborate if the players bite.

I don't think you're getting an disagreement here. This looks good. This looks exactly like "provoke...and follow their lead."

But that isn't the same as "plot hook." Its not semantics to say they aren't the same thing. A shared technical language is of the utmost important for analysis and my guess is that the overwhelming % of people will qualify "plot hook" as necessitating an intertwined relationship with a persistent metaplot. If that isn't there, its just a "provocation to action."

Again, all "plot hooks" are "provocations to action" but not all "provocations to action" are plot hooks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No, how people take things is not all that matters here. Here we're having a discussion about WHY people take it that way, so asserting that there's no discussion to be had because people don't like something is not terribly helpful.

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying dismissing what they feel and that they'd feel differently if they just looked at it right is not only useless, but counterproductive. If you genuinely feel otherwise on that, then we have nothing much to talk about.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying here. Let me clarify:

I'm not remotely saying (and I would never say because its absurd) that game designers should not engage in understanding and leveraging well-understood cognitive fundamentals of humanity at large. They 100 % have to. In fact, one of the primary things that these (PBtA, FitD, et al) games do (which I often champion) is that their reward cycles are entirely Skinner Theory motivated:

- xp for failure or xp for very specific things you want to reward so they animate players to pursue in play (pursuing thematic interests, making Action Rolls in Desperate Position in Blades, etc).

Things like this are absolutely insightful and brilliant game design.

And "say yes or roll the dice", "follow the players' lead", "do NOT have a solution in mind", "drive play toward conflict", "no plot points/don't play the story/there is no story/play to find out what happens" (Vincent Baker's axioms from Dogs in the Vineyard that informed Apocalypse World and all of its offshoots and, in my opinion, are the most influential indie design tenants there is) are ALL about broad human psychology. They're about how to invest agency and provoke action within the players thus handing over a huge chunk of the responsibility for the trajectory of play.

What I AM saying in my post above is the following:

(a) Human neurological diversity is extreme.

(b) Among that diversity are absolutely niche cognitive frameworks.

(c) I've been running these games and talking to people about them (thousands of people) for 16 years now (since I first ran Dogs in the Vineyard). This is the FIRST time I've encountered it. I've never encountered people saying "Success With Cost/Complication" feels indecipherable from "Failure." That doesn't mean its not legitimate. I'm sure they/you feel that way.

I think if this is your way of saying "this is rare fringe position" it is elevating your own experiences, which probably involve at least some degree of self-selection in the people you encountered on this subject to a more dominant group than is supported. I could also note I've hit at least a half dozen people like it before, and that's in addition to the people in this thread who've indicated they share the same position.

So, while I won't say its a majority by any mean, I'm afraid your premise--that its "niche"--is not one I accept.

 

[prabe]

So I just read this and was kind of dumbfounded; the world of Blades in the Dark involves a specific setting, though it is sketched rather than fully drawn.

But I just realized the SRD does not contain the setting information. So you didn’t have any of the setting specific info at hand, just the mechanics.

I think that a lot of context would be missed in that case. I remember the SRD not doing much for me, too....but I had forgotten that there was no setting info in it.

Yeah, but I was talking as much about Apocalypse World as Blades.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Not what I'm saying. I'm saying dismissing what they feel and that they'd feel differently if they just looked at it right is not only useless, but counterproductive. If you genuinely feel otherwise on that, then we have nothing much to talk about.

No one's done that. I've said the arguments presented so far are incoherent in that arguing that success with complication is a partial failure means ignoring when it's happening all around you in more traditional play. Not liking that particular iteration of it is, of course, just fine. It bears discussing what makes it different though, which you appear to be shutting down by just making it a preference thing. I can tell you exactly why I hate green beans, for instance (I'm a supertaster, which is anything but super). Saying you don't like it because you it feels like your success is being partially negated is fine -- so long as you can also explain why it's fine when this happens in more traditional play, because it does, all the time.

 

[Thomas Shey]

If you want to talk about the psychology of a complicated success, I would say that I often feel that I have a greater deal of agency when it comes to PbtA games than in traditional D&D games.

That's absolutely legitimate. I'm not saying PbtA and similar systems automatically violate people's sense of agency. The lines people draw in terms of what impinges on that are almost always personal and idiosyncratic. All I'm noting is that some degree-of-success systems can butt up against that, and it seems like ones that really want to center the result of attempts as mixed can very much do so, especially since their whole point is to be plot drivers. If it doesn't do so for you, you aren't one of those.

This is because (1) success still happens, (2) complications are often negotiated from the fiction, and (3) a number of PbtA hand players the ability to decide (in part) what happens when it transpires. In DW I may decide what ongoing effects or issues may wizard is facing as a result of the complicated success when casting a spell. This is not dictated to me by the GM. Even though it triggers a GM soft move, there is also a player-facing component. That's often more psychologically satisfying to me than the GM dictating my character's errors or incompetency.

I'll also note from this one of the issues is that you're comfortable being involved in outcomes on a metalevel, which not everyone is.

 

[prabe]

Yeah, @prabe, the very play of the game is wholly rooted in the fiction, so a given action has clear results that flow directly from the fiction -- there's plenty of handles. If you mean the rules don't state explicitly what given actions do -- yeah, they don't at all. If you're just reading the rules and trying to figure out what a Hunt action results in, I cannot tell you without a game context to place it into, only say it likely involves you trying to shoot or track or hunt something or someone.

So, the lack of setting information was about Apocalypse World. In both games, though, it is--as I understand the games, and an intentionally-designed aspect of them--roughly impossible to know beforehand what complication is going to arise when you fail to get an uncomplicated success on a given check. My feeling--I think aside from my dislike of the implementations of complicated success--is that being forced to make the checks partially-blind that way seems to have less agency than making them with the results known.