A Question Of Agency?

[Bedrockgames]

I will try!

In essence, I was wondering if I offer my players choices that matter. Choices that are meaningful. Choices that satisfy their desire to alter the narrative in a meaningful way.

I just make it all up as we play. I add elements to the narrative moment by moment and that made me wonder if I was guilty of something I think is called illusionism. As in, I instead offer only the illusion of choice because I, well, just make it all up at the table.

I hope that helps!

Thanks!

When you say agency, just because this has come up in this thread and we are debating without getting back to how it ties to what you want, do you mean it in terms of the players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting and adventure you are running, or do you extend that to include stuff like what some of the others are talking about, like giving them power to control the narrative itself (i.e. is this agency through their character, or is this agency the player can exert on the world itself).

I would say, when it comes to agency two things matter here: do the players actually have agency, and do the players sense the agency that they have. I think that can become illusionism (though I do think that itself is a loaded term) if you are improvising and you are not giving serious consideration to the players actions and factoring those into your decisions. Ultimately what needs to happen if you are on the improv side, is you need to make sure you are factoring in their choices. I think a lot of that is going to come down to how you make your decisions about what happens as a GM. Something that might help, which I incorporate into my games, is to be conscious of moments during play where it is clear to you that how the players react to something is going to matter. Ultimately your players know half the answer to this question and you know the other half. Basically if they do something unexpected, do you honestly consider where that will lead to, and honor that, or do you try to steer things back towards what you've come up with on the fly. And when you are improving and responding organically to what the players do, are you really giving consideration to what they decide and saying okay, here is where that would lead to. I realize it can get murky when you are improving.

Something that helps me, and I probably mentioned this already, is to take a living world approach, where I treat my NPCs as fully fleshed out and independent characters as the PCs. If the PCs do something unexpected my NPCs react to that in a way that I think fits their personality. This has led to all kinds of interesting chemistry in the game, and it is still highly situational, so fits in with a more improvisational style. We've had characters end up proposing marriage to their nemesis for example, and its led to campaigns going in quite unexpected directions.

Again I think this boils down to: do you feel your players have agency in the game and do they feel they have agency in the game.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think that many games allow players to create setting elements out of thin air. Yes, some games allow the players to introduce fictional elements as part of play, but there are rules and/or techniques that are involved.

Sure there are. Look at the example a bit upthread (I think it came from AbdulAlhazrad) regarding the PCs starting the game in the middle of a swamp where within the first minute one of the players has created some hills to the north out of thin air.

And even if it's mechanically bounded, on a successful check the result to me ends up looking exactly the same: something in the setting (a secret door, a wizard's tower, whatever) gets created out of thin air. When one is looking for setting consistency to base one's play off of, this doesn't give it.

I agree with the first paragraph, but not with the second. I think you should always consider what a game is telling you to do and why, and changing that only makes sense if you have a really compelling reason to do so.

In this case the compelling reason is that using a non-granular form of resolution has far too much potential to a) lead to, for some players, unsatisfactory or incomplete outcomes and b) leave out some end-result outcomes that would otherwise be possible.

 

[Lanefan]

No.

It gives the player points of connection to the world. It gives them the ability to help say what kind of story they want the game to be.

To give a specific example so that you don't think I'm some short attention simpleton....tonight I just finished a session in my group's new campaign, which is a super hero game based on the Blades in the Dark rules. The setting is one that I've loosely designed, the details of which we are establishing through play.

One PC has a background of "Criminal" in that he used to be a criminal before seeing the light and deciding to try and be a hero. The exact details had not yet been established. So in tonight's game, when the team ran afoul of some enhanced street gangs, the player asked if he could use his past as a criminal to shed light on the local gangs. We decided that he was a one time member of one of the gangs, and so he had some basic details at his disposal.

So he leveraged some backstory to hep with their current situation. Nothing he did was some kind of predetermined thing of mine as the GM. He came up with it, and asked about it, and then we talked it out, and established the details. Now it's a part of his character's backstory.

How do you see this as a cheat code that somehow invalidates any risk or cost? It's simply not the case.

Though I quite like the way this turned out, and it's far from an egregious example of the type of thing I'm conerned about, what rubs me a bit the wrong way is that only when the PCs ran afoul of the gangs did the player pull out the previously-unseen 'knowledge' card. Ideally enough details would have been established ahead of time that during play both you and the player could have seamlessly flowed right into his knowledge of the gangs without having to figure it out at the time, because you'd both have a good idea as to how extensive (and-or accurate!) that knowledge was.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, trust me I do! I am perfectly aware that I often come across as snarky, smug elitist, but what you're doing here is approaching parody. Fine vintage wine indeed!

Yeah, I'm kind of having to say "I'm not saying what I'm doing is a higher order of approach but its a higher order approach" in reaction to an accusation of elistism is, well, definitely something.

 

[Thomas Shey]

By the by, I'd agree that fail-forward is not the same thing as success-with-complication. Its not even really the inverse (which does exist in some systems: mitigated failure). Its more a formalization of not having failures bring the game to screeching halt by having the failure actually go somewhere rather than stop you in your tracks in one fashion or another.

 

[Lanefan]

I'd just like to point out that this is BY FAR not the only such rule (stronghold building). There are many others in 1e, including anything to do with creating magic items, researching new spells, etc. It was certainly expected that players would suggest things like variants of clerics, different deities, races, possibly even classes. ALL of this was on the table in OD&D (which I think covers @pemerton's 'early D&D') and then things got 'tighter' in 1e, but still pretty open-ended on many things.

Agreed. It's something of an extension of this principle that has led us to 40 years of 1e modifications and given us the game we play today. Players have had input into and-or suggested rules, classes, deities, spells, and so forth; sometimes that input has been adopted wholesale either then or later*, other times it's been rejected flat, and more often it's been adopted in some form or other after considerable discussion and-or modification. Said discussions almost never happen during play sessions, though: they're what pubs were invented for.

Note however that the DM always has absolute right of veto over any of this and that this is noted in the books. Most half-decent DMs won't use that veto unless the player is trying to game the system somehow (e.g. creating an overpowered spell or item or class), but it's there nonetheless and can't be ignored.

* - in my current campaign I've twice had players make excellent suggestions (one a creature, one a spell) that I heard and quietly filed away for later use. In both cases when the thing in question appeared (and by sheer luck in both cases was first met by a PC of the suggesting player) the player had long since forgotten making the suggestion!

At least where I played, it was very common for PCs to end up with a lot of 'customizations'. These were often including stuff that the player wanted and initiated. Most of them were rooted in the narrative, but often it was a matter of "Hey, DM, can I get someone to make me a..." or "train me in...". There were even certain admonitions about things that you could NOT do, like learn how to make 'racial items' unless you were of that race (even then not really).

The point being, player input to the setting/narrative beyond the PC's actions was expected of 'good players'.

I wonder if the differences we're seeing now (and some of the arguments even in this thread) are based on a long-term divergence in the degree of encouragement of said input and of expectations as to its acceptance and-or adoption into the game. 3e-5e D&D, for example, seems in general to have very much moved away from player input on most such things (and from the idea of DM-as-kitbasher as well) in comparison to the 0e-1e ethos; while other games have moved sharply toward player input to the point of making it the underlying framework of play.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure there are. Look at the example a bit upthread (I think it came from AbdulAlhazrad) regarding the PCs starting the game in the middle of a swamp where within the first minute one of the players has created some hills to the north out of thin air.

Is there some reason there can’t be hills to the north?

If the GM decides there are hills to the north, is he making them appear out of thin air?

I imagine we’re kind of taking out of thin air to mean different things. I’m looking at it more as something unlikely or sudden or incongruous. Something out of place.

Hills to the north of a swamp?!?!?! Has the whole world gone mad?

And even if it's mechanically bounded, on a successful check the result to me ends up looking exactly the same: something in the setting (a secret door, a wizard's tower, whatever) gets created out of thin air. When one is looking for setting consistency to base one's play off of, this doesn't give it.

Do you allow survival checks or the like when PCs are in the wilderness? Can they find shelter or water or food sources by making a wilderness or nature skill check? Are they conjuring these things out of thin air? Does the GM need to have this level of detail determined ahead of time?

What about random tables? Aren’t results determined by random tables coming out of thin air?

In this case the compelling reason is that using a non-granular form of resolution has far too much potential to a) lead to, for some players, unsatisfactory or incomplete outcomes and b) leave out some end-result outcomes that would otherwise be possible.

I agree with you that (a) is possible. Conversely, I think it’s just as likely that dividing actions up into multiple micro-actions would be frustrating for many. It seems this is just a manner of preference.

But (b) I’m not so sure about. I’m sure we can come up with examples where there are eight rolls with an associated turn, and so there are many possible combinations of outcomes. But I think in most cases, a system that has success, failure, and then some kind of partial success or success with consequence is going to give you the same spread of outcomes.

 

[Lanefan]

I don't think players are automatically invested in their PCs goals in the sense of "succeed and not have any risks."

I do, in that out of a sense of self-preservation the PCs themselves would (one hopes!) naturally tend to gravitate toward the least-risk option(s) when faced with an in-fiction task.

When players awaken to dramatic possibilities in the game, they are much more likely to see 'higher goals'. It is a bit like the way the ancient Epicureans saw higher forms of self-accomplishment. Basic primal drive satisfaction was a low bar for them. I feel like basic "my character gets all the lootz!" is a pretty low bar form of RP. Its OK, just like eating fine food is OK, but there are more sophisticated and rewarding forms of play, ultimately. I don't mean everyone needs to go there, but a lot of players are at least willing to explore that sort of thing, particularly if they have played for a while, or have a real creative urge to their play. An ideal game can provide something for each sort, without breaking down. D&D seems to not really cater much to the more sophisticated kinds of "hey lets make a story where our characters..." kind of play.

I think it can, but it requires a degree of long-term player buy-in that I'm rather unlikely to ever see (and unless it was a one- or few-session one-off I'd be very unlikely to buy in myself; I'm too gonzo a player for that)

I mentioned the "everyone is doomed" on-shot I ran once. That was high concept play. It is pointless to approach that type of game like murder hobos in the dungeon, it would just be meaningless. Dying was not a negative there, and plans failing was simply a part of the concept, nope, the lifeboat won't save you after all that work to get it fixed, ah well...

Sounds cool - though I fail to see how it couldn't be played murder-hobo style as in "We're all gonna die, let's just get out there and see how many of 'em we can take with us!"

 

[hawkeyefan]

Though I quite like the way this turned out, and it's far from an egregious example of the type of thing I'm conerned about, what rubs me a bit the wrong way is that only when the PCs ran afoul of the gangs did the player pull out the previously-unseen 'knowledge' card. Ideally enough details would have been established ahead of time that during play both you and the player could have seamlessly flowed right into his knowledge of the gangs without having to figure it out at the time, because you'd both have a good idea as to how extensive (and-or accurate!) that knowledge was.

Establishing it during play was fun, though! It wasn’t like we spent an hour agonizing over every day of his life as a gang member. We did the broad strokes. Any details can be decided when desired.

The benefit to this is that it ties the PC more intimately to the action that’s going on. It gives me as GM more to work with to present the PC with compelling challenges. And now it’s a part of his backstory, which gets fleshed out and now carries forward as we continue to play.

I think that you’re so used to approaching play a certain way that you kind of imagine the worst way that this approach could possibly turn out. But there are (in the games I’m familiar with, at least) principles that are in place for both the GM and the players. These really help make sure the kind of abuse that you’re worried about doesn’t happen.

 

[darkbard]

I do, in that out of a sense of self-preservation the PCs themselves would (one hopes!) naturally tend to gravitate toward the least-risk option(s) when faced with an in-fiction task.

What an odd conception of RPGing! I view the protagonism it affords as encouraging the heroic, where such is defined not only by skill with sword and spell (or whatever genre-appropriate stand ins) but by temerity, risk, and racing headlong into challenge, not "turtling." Of course, some of the aspects of Gygaxian skilled play do encourage the kind of non heroic gameplay you suggest.