A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

That almost certainly is a factor. Part of it also that the attraction of a heist for me would be planning it out and then making it work, which ... is roughly exactly the opposite of how Blades plays.

hah yeah, kind of. I think the Flashback mechanic is one of the toughest to wrap your head around. But once you do, it opens up new avenues of play that are very interesting.

I would expect this aspect of Blades to not be for everyone, though.

Oh, sure, there's flexibility, but if you play everything zero-myth it feels to me as though everything is sorta indeterminate, with no fixed points for the PCs use for leverage.

I can see that may be a concern. I don't know how true it is. The players can leverage things in lots of ways. They can determine these points themselves.

Probably exactly how you think: You made the jump, but you attracted the attention of the guards below. This isn't exactly the same thing as having guards on the rooftop because you rolled a complicated success on a straight jump, IMO; among other things, by making it two checks you made the various failure-states pretty clear.

(And if I'm playing that pair of checks I almost certainly take Disadvantage on the Stealth, because being noticed is literally less painful than falling.)

Right, and this is success with complication.

As you've gone on to post in reply to @Lanefan , it's just a matter of the game kind of compressing multiple things into one roll instead of breaking it out into several. This is just the different mechanics manifesting.

I think maybe that it seems you would prefer more input points or dice rolls to determine what you see as aspects of failure, or complications. Rather than allowing one roll to kind of help determine it all, based on what makes sense for the fiction.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This thread is in General. It's not about D&D exclusively, or even in particular. And I note that even your "normal for D&D" appears to exclude 4e D&D.

The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal (if it was, skills like Gather Information couldn't work) and is a dogma and shibboleth that seems to have crystallised (as best I can tell) sometime in the first half of the 1980s.

It can be tracked across editions of Classic Traveller, where the 1980s revisions introduce text that was not only absent, but was implicitly contradicted, in the 1977 version.

My impression is that a lot of actual play in the 1970s was far more relaxed about player-introduced content I've got in mind things like the famous "baby balrog" in one of Gygax's campaigns; and even the shift from OD&D being very relaxed about players making up new character types - like balrogs - to Gygax's DMG being sternly against it. And Gygax is still relaxed about the matter in his discussion of stronghold-building (from his DMG, p 93):

Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that he can do so.​

The difference between this and the Great Masters-wise check made to establish that Aramina truly recollects the location of Evard's tower is that what Gygax describes is (i) more informal, and (ii) not gated behind a player build decision (ie spending points to develop Great Masters-wise). But there is no difference in terms of whose ideas are establishing the content of the shared fiction. Just like Dungeon World, it is an example of "drawing maps but leaving blank spaces" and then looking to one of the players to fill in those blanks.

What puzzles me is that no one seems ever to have thought the passage from Gygax worth mentioning, except for me! Whereas something basically the same but made more overt as a feature of playing other systems generates all this debate and discussion about "narrative perspective" or "narrative stance" or "narrative power".

I'm certainly not Gygax's number-one advocate, but I think that his rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running, although - like @AbdulAlhazred - I don't think he'd come up with a perfect set of tools to solve all the problems.

Normal D&D doesn't exclude 4E, but neither does a single edition define D&D (I can't take some rule from 2E or OD&D to show that it is a norm across editions). If something is present in 4E alone (and maybe it isn't, perhaps there are passages in other editions that support your point, and I just don't remember them or never read them), I just don't think it makes much a case for something being the norm. I think we'd both agree 4E was one of the more experimental editions. They definitely took some chances, and some of those things didn't make it into 5th. I don't play 5th though, so I can't say if this aspect of the rulebook is present or not (though speaking with my 5th edition friends, they seem to be playing the game more in the way I am talking about as the norm).

I don't know where I got the idea this was a D&D specific thread. If we are talking more broadly, I still think there is a default assumption similar to what you find in D&D in mainstream play, but I also think there are much larger audiences doing different things outside D&D. I don't even really play D&D much myself. Most of my games are either one of my own systems (because I publish I have to spend most of my game time playtesting my own stuff), or something like Savage Worlds. When I do play D&D these days it is usually a retroclone or prior edition (5E just didn't click with me).

In that passage Gygax is saying you allow it because it is possible (that is the whole point of "unless this is totally foreign to the area). The player isn't creating a bluff, he is able to put his stronghold overlooking a bluff, because bluffs are present there. And I don't think you can take a passage like this, dealing with the case of strongholds, and extrapolate that to the rest of play. Like I said, these games have gray areas. But gray areas and edge cases don't establish norms in other situations. It is pretty obvious what is guiding the GM ruling in that instance is whether something would plausibly exist in the area.

Where I will agree with you is in the 70s no one was thinking about the stylistic lines that have been drawn on the internet (particularly in recent years). Gygax probably wouldn't have cared if you or I regarded something he did as narrative. Reading the 1E DMG, it is obviously not really a concept at the time (and I don't remember even encountering such ideas until the early 2000s myself.

In terms of this specific point:

The idea that is being described as "normal" - ie that the GM is the sole determiner of any fiction beyond the bodily motions of the PCs - is in my view not actually normal (if it was, skills like Gather Information couldn't work) and is a dogma and shibboleth that seems to have crystallised (as best I can tell) sometime in the first half of the 1980s.

This is why I mentioned gray areas. I don't think you are entirely wrong here, but I also think you are very much overstating the case and using things like exceptions and edge cases to paint things as being more widespread parts of the rules. Tables definitely varied a lot more back in the 80s. I don't dispute that. I think there wasn't really much in terms of homogenous play. And I think that was good. Now we have chunks of homogenization in the hobby. But I do think the idea that the player had control of setting material was pretty outside most of our experiences in the 80s and into the 90s. It certainly came up here and there, and as I said there were gray areas where you could sort of see it being negotiated (but I don't think people were even aware it was so). But again, just because something appears in the corner of the rulebook somewhere, that doesn't make it the standard way the game was played. I may well not notice, not mind, or enjoy something that appears as a minor blip during play. But if you make it more central its impact is going to be very different.

 

[pemerton]

That the players do not have ability to directly edit the fictional reality doesn't mean they're spectators.

I think this is actually a part of the reason why some players don't like having the narrative level control. They want to have the illusion that the setting is something 'real' that exists outside of them. Being able to edit that reality instantly breaks the illusion. I mean the GM knows it is naughty word and made up and probably in flux and the players actually know it too, but they don't want their attention to be constantly drawn to it. They want to pretend to be real people in a real world that exists independently of them, as fictional as it all may be.

In my Burning Wheel game I tell the GM "I'm looking out for Rufus as we ride through the outskirts of Auxol." Then I make a Circles check. This is pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

In the same game I tell the GM "Aramina has studied the lore of the Great Masters. She thinks that Evard's tower is somewhere arond here." Then I make a Great Masters-wise check. This is also pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

Upthread you said that who gets to control the randomiser is irrelevant. The only difference between what happened in my game, and a system in which there are two checks - first the GM's secret is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here roll; and then the player's does-my-PC-know-or-see-this roll - is that the two are bundled into one.

There is a more obvious difference between what happens in BW play and a system where the GM can, instead of making an is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here-roll, just decide unilaterally that the looked-for thing is not here. But that has nothing to do with whether the fiction exists "outside of" or "independently of" the player. It is entirely about who gets to establish the content of the shared fiction. (And as I posted not far upthread, this transition in expectations, from distributed authority over the fiction managed via checks to unilateral GM control, can be traced through the early 80s revisions of Classic Traveller. And again through the changes from 1st ed to 2nd ed AD&D.)

30 seconds into the game and we're already into the realm of co-operative storytelling rather than in-character role-playing.

Fine if that's what you want but for pity's sake own up to the fact that this is what you're doing.

To me it seems pretty in-character to remember something. As I posted upthread, I have experienced amnesia, for about a week-and-a-half. Having to rely on someone else's second-person narration to learn what it is that you know is not typical. Nor is it terribly immersive.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see player agency as an objectively good trait, honestly. I like it and prefer it, but that's my taste. There are plenty of people who enjoy games with low agency. One of my buddies occasionally runs short 3- 4 session Call of Cthulhu games for us. These by their very nature allow for less agency than what I'd typically look for in a game.....and yet I really enjoy them. It's because he weaves history and mythos lore in interesting ways, and puts forth an interesting goal for the PCs. There is a plot for us to engage with, although how we do so is fairly open. But we can't just disregard it and go hunting for mythos creatures in the forests of New England....we need to engage the core scenario that he's come up with.

I think well-GMed Cthulhu is the poster child for enjoyable but low-player-agency RPGing.

The situation and the plot - typically some sort of descent into madness - needs to be tightly constructed. (So I think it's not coincidence that we're talking relatively short-form one-shots here.)

And it's very demanding on the GM. S/he has to be a competent performer.

It's a long time since I've played this sort of thing, but I suspect I could still enjoy it. I certainly can't GM it.

 

[prabe]

I think maybe that it seems you would prefer more input points or dice rolls to determine what you see as aspects of failure, or complications. Rather than allowing one roll to kind of help determine it all, based on what makes sense for the fiction.

I believe you are correct, though you might have noticed I'm open to the possibility of accepting a complication (or whatever the term is in a given game) to turn a failed roll into a success, especially a near-miss.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am sorry @hawkeyefan (Re: Agency), but it really just feels like you are trying to define agency so that it perfectly fits the play style you want to advocate for. And since agency is being seen as a good thing (even a moral good I would argue as some are talking about it), I don't think that is a good way to have a discussion about this term (when it is clearly being used to mean very different things by these two posters). We have already had this discussion actually about agency and narrative versus more traditional approaches. I don't think it is worth diving into again. But I do think people trying to control the language in order to advance their preferred play style is a big reason these discussions often break down or end in tears

EDIT: Just to add here, I think it is a much better approach for you to talk about 'narrative agency', which sounds like a good term for what you are describing to me. But I don't think most people take character agency or player agency in RPGs to mean an ability to shape the narrative or plot. Certainly some might, but to me it seems like a play style concept is being loaded on to an existing term, to get people to agree with that approach. If you like narrative agency, that is fine. There is clearly an appetite for it out there, and the more clear you are about that as a play style approach, the more people you will win over to it. But I think this business of getting play style preferences into things by stealth is something we should really abandoned on both sides of these debates. It isn't good for the hobby, it isn't good for discussion and it just makes people hostile towards play styles they might otherwise enjoy.

Well, I would look at it as the idea of "bodily agency", that a player can expect to direct the physical activity of the character, and form her intentions and opinions is not really worth noting, except maybe where it might be lacking. I'll admit, there are a VERY few niche games that don't grant it (Paranoia, the computer regularly forces PCs to do things, shoving pills down their throats if necessary to get it done). D&D has 'charm', which might be placed on a PC in a very limited situation, generally (and few players are happy about it most of the time). Still, we can assume players direct their characters. There's no real need to discuss this in terms of 'agency', and if it is ALL a player gets, we can consider that to be the minimum of possible agency available in RPGs.

So, ANY really meaningful discussion of agency, and the way the OP framed his question, dealt not with that, but with actual power over the fate and destiny of the characters, and over the material which they will encounter, BEYOND simply choosing to go through the door with orcish voices behind it, or the one with the horrible rotting smell. As long as the plot and content of the game remain absolutely 100% the domain of the GM, there is certainly a hard limit!

We can establish that certain practices of principled play can increase agency. If the GM informs players of the consequences of their moves; if the GM only threatens players prior 'winnings' by offering to accept them as stakes in some new enterprise; if the GM always builds upon what the players are signalling they want to engage in when framing scenes or narrating consequences. These would be at a 'next level' where players and PCs are more central, where the shape and direction of the narrative often (or even always) shape themselves in a shape that the players influence. This is basically where DW and other PbtA games are. In a few cases DW gives the player a bit more. For example the previously mentioned wizard 'cast a spell' move, or even the Volley move, where the consequences of a 7-9 are picked by the player, though the GM usually still has some role in that. Players deciding which questions must be answered in the Discern Realities move can also be a form of input.

Now, beyond that we get into BW, where players regularly add information to the setting, as @pemerton has described in the game he was playing in. That is a bit higher level type of agency, though it certainly falls short of really directly dictating the narrative, except in specific areas. The GM is still pretty free to shape what exactly things mean in a lot of cases. Rufus would be a case where the player pretty much dictated, since he was getting something from his background.

Obviously we can go on from there into truly collaborative story telling games and whatnot, though I am personally not really familiar with that genre.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In my Burning Wheel game I tell the GM "I'm looking out for Rufus as we ride through the outskirts of Auxol." Then I make a Circles check. This is pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

In the same game I tell the GM "Aramina has studied the lore of the Great Masters. She thinks that Evard's tower is somewhere arond here." Then I make a Great Masters-wise check. This is also pretending to be a real person in a real world. The dice throw makes it independent of me.

Upthread you said that who gets to control the randomiser is irrelevant. The only difference between what happened in my game, and a system in which there are two checks - first the GM's secret is-Rufus-here roll or is-Evard's-tower-here roll; and then the player's does-my-PC-know-or-see-this roll - is that the two are bundled into one.

Who rolls the dice indeed doesn't matter. Who gets to decide what is rolled for, when, and what are the possible outcomes matters quite a bit. But I see that you have adamantly decided to not to understand, so there is really no point in this discussion.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, I would look at it as the idea of "bodily agency", that a player can expect to direct the physical activity of the character, and form her intentions and opinions is not really worth noting, except maybe where it might be lacking. I'll admit, there are a VERY few niche games that don't grant it (Paranoia, the computer regularly forces PCs to do things, shoving pills down their throats if necessary to get it done). D&D has 'charm', which might be placed on a PC in a very limited situation, generally (and few players are happy about it most of the time). Still, we can assume players direct their characters. There's no real need to discuss this in terms of 'agency', and if it is ALL a player gets, we can consider that to be the minimum of possible agency available in RPGs.

Except this ignores the issues of things like railroads, linear adventures, GM fudging, etc. These are all obstacles to agency. In a lot of these threads, when people invoke agency, they mean their ability to move and act freely in the setting. Taking that, and saying "well maximum agency only occurs when you have narrative control" I think is almost a form of equivocation to get people to sign onto a play style when it is done in this way.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, ANY really meaningful discussion of agency, and the way the OP framed his question, dealt not with that, but with actual power over the fate and destiny of the characters, and over the material which they will encounter, BEYOND simply choosing to go through the door with orcish voices behind it, or the one with the horrible rotting smell. As long as the plot and content of the game remain absolutely 100% the domain of the GM, there is certainly a hard limit!

I think a better approach would be to ask the OP if they had an interest in giving narrative powers to the players. If that is what they mean by agency, then sure, it makes sense. I just get the sense that this wasn't really what the OP had in mind when they invoked agency (and certainly didn't seem to be what many of the posters in the last few pages had in mind)

 

[pemerton]

In that passage Gygax is saying you allow it because it is possible (that is the whole point of "unless this is totally foreign to the area). The player isn't creating a bluff, he is able to put his stronghold overlooking a bluff, because bluffs are present there. And I don't think you can take a passage like this, dealing with the case of strongholds, and extrapolate that to the rest of play. Like I said, these games have gray areas. But gray areas and edge cases don't establish norms in other situations. It is pretty obvious what is guiding the GM ruling in that instance is whether something would plausibly exist in the area.

I think you haven't fully seen my point, and I'm optimistic that if I make it clearer you might actually agree with me!

I've bolded a bit of your quote that I agree with but that needs more consideration. In my post that you replied to I said that Gygax's rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running. In the sort of game he was running strongholds play one sort of role, and NPC wizard's towers play a different sort of role. Whether or not the latter exist in the fiction is under the purview of the GM. This is because, in the sort of game Gygax was running (as best I can tell from his rulebooks and my knowledge of the historical record), finding a NPC wizard's tower, with its promise of lore and spellbooks, is itself an accomplishment. Whereas finding somewhere to built your stronghold is more like a starting point than a finishing point.

Burning Wheel, and Dungeon World, are not "accomplishment"-oriented games in that sense. (Which is why I found another poster's invocation of "video games" weird - in terms of play goals these RPGs are a long way away from EQ or WoW as I understand them.) Finding Evard's tower is not an accomplishment that needs to be gated behind GM decision-making, such that establishing it via a player-initiated check is a type of "cheat". It's a starting point, not a finishing point, just like the bluff overlooking the river.

Related to the "success with complications discussion": it would be fair to say that games like BW and DW don't really have "finishing points" until the campaign itself comes to an end. The whole purpose of "success with complications" (in PbtA-type games) or "fail forward" (in BW-type games) is to ensure that everything is always a starting point, with the more that is to come already being implicit in the current situation. That's also why PbtA games use the language of moves "snowballing".

Playing a non-accomplishment oriented RPG of the sort I have described, but confining Gygax's bluff-overlooking-a-river technique to the case of strongholds, would be a mistake. With the change of play purpose, it would be sheer reaction or dogma to not use the technique in other contexts where it can serve the same purpose, of establishing player-driven "starting points".

And a final comment, somewhat of an aside: the stronghold-building character didn't create the bluff - in the fiction it was already there. But the player of that character is clearly the one who introduced, into the shared fiction, the existence of that bluff overlooking the river.

If Evard's tower being present was "totally foreign to the area" then the GM in my Burning Wheel game would have politely pointed that out - eg maybe we're in a land where all towers have been demolished by the god of ruin - but that's a fairly high threshold for a fantasy RPG. Like Gygax's player I introduced into the shared fiction the idea of Evard's tower being nearby the PCs. But my character didn't create it - in the fiction it was already there. That's how she had been able to learn about it.