A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

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

These games, while similar in general approach, actually have very different resolution mechanics. Position and effect are entirely tied to the current fictional state, and clearly enunciate what's at stake. Reading the game without putting it into the context of a current fictional state might seem very vague, and that's intentional because it's supposed to be refined within the current context of play. Absent that context, reading the rules for Blades probably isn't going to sate a desire to know what's possible with a given action.

AW, from what I've read (I haven't had the opportunity to play or run), seems very similar -- outside of a context, the moves don't really clearly tell you what will happen when you use them. Certainly not like how a D&D spell description or class feature does.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

With respect, this is a bit rich when I've been a member of extreme minority tastes in the TTRPGing community for over a decade and a half and have consistently had that reality reinforced to me in discussions in order to basically tell me to "piss off" because mainstream tastes etc etc.

My tastes are niche (they absolutely are) and I take no offense to that. Its self-evident.

And its not my way of saying its a "fringe position" and elevating my own thoughts or experiences on it. Its clearly niche because of all the conversations we've had on ENWorld in the last many years on the subject, this is the very first time this has come up. Now many, many, many other objections have come up. But this one? First time ever.

And the other line of evidence that it is a niche cognitive framework (I'm not going to call it a "position" because its the habitation of an emotional state) is because (even without the 800 lb gorilla backing them), these indie games have been enormously successful and they've had at their beating heart the exact Success With Complications that we're talking about! And when (broadly) people don't play them its overwhelmingly because of access (they can't get a game or can't arouse a game because everyone is just playing D&D because overwhelmingly TTRPGers are casual and just play the cultural icon with the most ease of access).

Its no big deal to have a niche cognitive framework when it comes to this thing or that thing. I've got more than most. Plenty of others do as well.

 

[Ovinomancer]

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.

Right, but the fictional state should give you a very good idea of what could happen. If you're pulling heat on a guy with a pistol and get a failure or partial success, then you can expect that something involving that gun's gonna figure in it. If there's other things going on, then those might be the trigger. The point being that whatever the consequence is, you have a reasonable idea of the severity of consequence you may face and a pretty good idea of vectors for that given a specific action in a specific context. I've never had one of my group go "wait, WHAT?" to a consequence -- they're all direct evolutions of what's going on or what's reasonable within that context (ie, if you're sneaking into a guarded facility, guards showing up is expected).

 

[Thomas Shey]

The thread topic is not who enjoys Dungeon World? or who wants agency? It's about whether certain techniques thwart player agency.

That topic is (in my view) actually much more interesting than a discussion of who enjoys what. Learning what someone else enjoys doesn't give me any useful understanding about how to GM or play a RPG. Learning how various techniques relate to various possibilities of agency does.

I buy that. But when the response is "The people who feel that way aren't thinking it through" I can't think that's a useful way to engage with that reaction.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I buy that. But when the response is "The people who feel that way aren't thinking it through" I can't think that's a useful way to engage with that reaction.

I'm not fond of vinegar in any real quantity. The moment I'm saying, "hey, that's vinegar," is usually where the line is crossed. That said, I love a whole bunch of things with vinegar in them. Likewise, if you're going to say you don't the taste of success with complication when the complications are palette forward in your die rolls, but you're fine with it if it's hidden behind some GM spices, that's fine, but "I feel like it's partial failure," doesn't address the fact that you eat meals with partial failure in them all the time in traditional gaming; it just comes from the GM rather than your dice.

 

[prabe]

Right, but the fictional state should give you a very good idea of what could happen. If you're pulling heat on a guy with a pistol and get a failure or partial success, then you can expect that something involving that gun's gonna figure in it. If there's other things going on, then those might be the trigger. The point being that whatever the consequence is, you have a reasonable idea of the severity of consequence you may face and a pretty good idea of vectors for that given a specific action in a specific context. I've never had one of my group go "wait, WHAT?" to a consequence -- they're all direct evolutions of what's going on or what's reasonable within that context (ie, if you're sneaking into a guarded facility, guards showing up is expected).

Yeah, the fictional state should point to possible results--I'd argue in any TRPG. I guess in reading the rules, there really didn't seem to be anything preventing the complications from being, at best, tenuously connected to the check being made.

It'd be like ... having a criminal merchant show up to swindle the PCs as the result of a botched Performance check. It's not something I think someone running in good-faith would do, of course, but I didn't see anything preventing it--which seemed kinda strange for a game that came across as so tightly constrained in other ways.

 

[Manbearcat]

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.

Now this?

THIS is the overwhelmingly majority position held by TTRPG players. This is not niche. My position (and others like me) is niche.

But my issue with all of these aspects of play (system, emotional states of being - including jarred/agitated, GM techniques + action resolution = level of agency) is how impervious they seem to be to analysis from the greater community. There is this censorious impulse/offense-taking toward evaluating why/what/how a thing is. Its mystifying. I think two big factors are (a) profound cultural gatekeeping toward the status quo and (b) its because there is a powerful undercurrent of "its art, not engineering" among the GMing community whereby deep analysis feels like a perversion of the aesthetic (obviously I couldn't disagree more).

But there are clearly other, much more nuanced, aspects going on. Those interest me (as a curiosity), but that is another subject.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yeah, the fictional state should point to possible results--I'd argue in any TRPG. I guess in reading the rules, there really didn't seem to be anything preventing the complications from being, at best, tenuously connected to the check being made.

It'd be like ... having a criminal merchant show up to swindle the PCs as the result of a botched Performance check. It's not something I think someone running in good-faith would do, of course, but I didn't see anything preventing it--which seemed kinda strange for a game that came across as so tightly constrained in other ways.

It's literally in the constraints of the game, though. From the Blades rules, GM Principles:

Let everything flow from the fiction. The game’s starting situations and your
opening scene will put things in motion. Ask how the characters react and
see what happens next. NPCs react according to their goals and methods.
Events snowball. You don’t need to “manage” the game. Action, reaction, and
consequences will drive everything.

Emphasis in original.

If you're playing in AW or Blades and your GM is adding off the wall consequences, they're not following the principles of play. I mean, you can also have D&D GMs that force things, but that's not good faith play.

 

[prabe]

If you're playing in AW or Blades and your GM is adding off the wall consequences, they're not following the principles of play. I mean, you can also have D&D GMs that force things, but that's not good faith play.

Yeah. Bad-faith GMing is potentially a problem for any TRPG, though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

With respect, this is a bit rich when I've been a member of extreme minority tastes in the TTRPGing community for over a decade and a half and have consistently had that reality reinforced to me in discussions in order to basically tell me to "piss off" because mainstream tastes etc etc.

I can't see how my response is changed by the fact your tastes are fringe. It doesn't change my feeling that treating this as a fringe position is extrapolating beyond the available data. It also doesn't say your making that assumption is insulting; it just says that an argument based on it does not seem well founded.