A Question Of Agency?

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I have to say I don't quite get this one either. Ideally the player figures out what the character's interests are and then advocates for them, be they beneficial or harmful or (often) a bit of both, be it in the fiction or at the table.

Edit to add: @Thomas Shey 's subsequent post makes his point much clearer.

I was going from your post that you assumed survival instinct as a prior, barring reasons for it to be otherwise. If I misunderstood, that's on me.

 

[Lanefan]

I suspect Lanefan is assuming people not playing characters with suicidal tendencies, and without that characters will at least somewhat be prone to survival-positive outcomes. "Never" is a broad term because a lot of things can happen, but it doesn't change the basic premise in that case unless you assume a character with one degree or another of a deathwish.

Yes, this.

I'm also assuming a game type where death and other bad things are things that can and will happen to the unwary, rather than just being empty threats or bluffs, and thus that there's a real in-play reward for reducing the odds of thier occurrence.

An Actor stance player is not immune to doing things for dramatic purposes alone; he may pay a lot of attention to what makes sense for a character but he's not allergic to putting his thumb on the scale to produce a dramatic scene. A purely IC player doesn't do that, except to the degree it arises naturally from the character's nature.

Basically, it comes down to this situation: A character is presented with three choices, all of which make some degree of sense in-character. What criterion does the player use to decide? An IC player will, barring randomness in his own mood, default to the one that seems the most in character. An Actor player may well chose the one that's most interesting to portray.

Pretty much spot on.

Sometimes, if the character either is intentionally being played to be largely an entertainer (be it in-the-fiction, at-the-table, or both) then often the best-in-character option and the most-interesting/dramatic option will very often be the same.

 

[Lanefan]

I was going from your post that you assumed survival instinct as a prior, barring reasons for it to be otherwise. If I misunderstood, that's on me.

No, you got it - your next post made it much clearer.

 

[pemerton]

Some posters are talking about "actor stance players" and "author stance players". To the best of my knowledge the terms actor stance and author stance have no well-established meanings outside of their use at The Forge. And as used there, they are not properties or tendencies of players:

Stance is very labile during play, with people shifting among the stances frequently and even without deliberation or reflection.​

​

Stances do not correspond in any 1:1 way to the GNS modes. Stance is much more ephemeral, for one thing, such that a person enjoying the Gamist elements and decisions of a role-playing experience might shift all about the stances during a session of play. He or she might be Authoring most of the time and Directing occasionally, and then at a key moment slam into Actor stance for a scene. The goal hasn't changed; stance has.​

​

However, I think it's very reasonable to say that specific stances are more common in some modes/goals of play. Historically, Author stance seems the most common or at least decidedly present at certain points for Gamist and Narrativist play, and Director stance seems to be a rarer add-on in those modes. Actor stance seems the most common for Simulationist play, although a case could be made for Author and Director stance being present during character creation in this mode. These relative proportions of Stance positions during play do apparently correspond well with issues of Premise and GNS. I suggest, however, that it is a given subset of a mode that Stance is facilitating, rather than the whole mode itself. Some forms of Simulationism, for instance, may be best served by Director Stance, as opposed to other forms which are best served by Actor Stance. Similarly, some forms of Narrativism rely on Actor Stance at key moments.​

​

Had the hills to the north been pre-established and had the players been told of their existence during session 0's setting outline (e.g. by being shown a rough map of the area their PCs were in; as unless the PCs are being dropped in from another world they'd in theory already know this stuff) then in-play decisions can be based off that:

Rather than a whole lot of "downloading" from the GM in "session zero", @AbdulAlhazred has suggested cutting straight to session one, and using the more immersive technique of having the player of the ranger tell us what s/he knows!

The same outcome: the ranger knows that there are hills, and where they are. More immersion: the player of the ranger doesn't have his/her access to his/her character's knowledge mediated via second-person exposition. More play: instead of wasting time with "session zero" we just start playing the game! @hawkeyefan and @AbdulAlhazred's approach seems like wins all round to me.

The advantages only get magnified as we get to stuff that isn't introduced in "session zero" (eg is their a hunting lodge in the hills where we can take shelter?) - because obviously such stuff is going to come up in any halfway decent RPG in pretty short order - and the immersive-disrupting amount of second-person exposition increases.

 

[pemerton]

When I'm playing my Burning Wheel character, my primary thoughts (as my character) are not about safety. They are about glory, and also about protecting Aramina. There's even stuff on my PC sheet that signals this:

Beliefs

• The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory
• I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory
• Xanthippe and I will liberate Auxol
• Aramina will need my protection

Instincts

• When entering battle, always speak a prayer to the Lord of Battle
• If an innocent is threatened, interpose myself
• When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning

I'm guessing this might be the sort of thing @darkbard had in mind upthread.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

To me, this is like say you can walk across the street but you could also drive to the airport, fly to a different city, then jump a train back, and take a cab from the station to the address across the street -- there's absolutely no need to use Illusionism if you're following along what the players want to do! Can you? Sure, I guess, but why are you Forcing your preferred outcomes just to go to where the players want to go? This line of argument makes no sense to me.

It has to do with combining going (roughly) along with the direction the actions of the characters dictate with creating an illusion of a consistent world that exists independently them and perhaps even adding some preplanned elements in the mix for more crunchy games.

 

[Aldarc]

OK. It certainly comes across as being in something of a rush, in that it's painted as eschewing the minutae (which can sometimes be the most interesting parts of the game, and-or can sometimes lead in or point to different directions play can go) in favour of jumping ahead.

It may blow your mind to discover that this can all be done in a single roll generating a complicated-success and adhering to basic fiction-first principles.

 

[pemerton]

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 don't know if you appreciate how loaded this in, in terms of building in assumptions about approach to play, and allocations of authority in play, that are very specific.

For instance, I have talked about action declarations like I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol and I believe that Evard's tower is around here somewhere - I look out for it. But I absolutely reject any description of them as agency the player can exert on the world itself which is in some way different from the players being able to make meaningful choices within a setting through their characters.

I keep my eyes open for Rufus as we enter the borders of Auxol is something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Thrugon meet Rufus depends, in part, on something that Rufus does. But that is just the same - if you ask me - as the case where I attack the Orc with my mace. Whether or not I hit the Orc depends, in part, on something that the Orc does (eg dodge, or block and turn aside the blow with its shield).

I believe that Evard's tower is around here somewhere - I look out for it also declares something that my character does, within the setting, that is meaningful. It's true that whether or not Aramina's recollection is correct depends, in part, on something that Evard once did - ie build a tower. But again, most other action declarations also depend, for their success, on things done or not done by other persons and forces in the gameworld.

For reasons that are somewhat opaque to me, you and other posters might want to treat the action declaration about meeting someone differently from the action declaration about finding a remembered building from the action declaration about hitting an Orc with a mace. I don't see them as different in any underlying structure or significance, and certainly don't think that the language you have used to try and characterise them is apt.

Here's an example of something that I would accept counts as a player exerting agency on the gameworld itself without making a choice through his/her character: the player declares The King of Keoland meets an envoy from the Queen of Celene (and the player is neither the king nor the envoy nor the Queen nor otherwise connected to this event taking place). That's not an action declaration for a PC.

But no one in this thread has connected that sort of thing to player agency in the context of RPGing.

 

[Lanefan]

When I'm playing my Burning Wheel character, my primary thoughts (as my character) are not about safety. They are about glory, and also about protecting Aramina.

What is your general game-state expectation of survival? Or in other words, what is the expected lethality of that game as it's being run?

Becuase this makes a massive difference.

If you-as-player know the game is being run at low (or no) lethality you can have your PC be a lot more gung-ho and risk-takingly heroic than if you know or believe that death awaits around every corner thus making survival and safety goal number one. And sure you can risk other things than just death, but losing out on those still means you're able to come back and fight another day. Death, absent affordability and-or availability of revival mechanics, doesn't.

I always assume the game world is out to kill me - and would be rather disappointed if I ever learned it wasn't.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don't think suggesting the sample location distorts the result too much is demanding perfection. Its just suggesting that surveys need to screen for things as much as possible or they get distorted results. You obviously don't think that'd be relevant here and a I do. If you want to read ulterior motives into that, that's on you.

We aren't writing a paper, we're looking for loose evidence of a trend. This is exactly making the perfect (paper quality data) the enemy of the good (doing a bit of exploration).