A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

...this might come into play; though in truth it's far more likely that instead of stumbling directly on to an oasis they'll have stumbled on to a trail or tracks leading to it, or have seen someone/something going toward it.

But is this not coming out of thin air, per your previous posts? What are the criteria for something being crafted out of thin air, and something showing up in a way that's not out of thin air?

The distinction seems to fluctuate.

Not necessarily: even if you fail the jump and fall to the alley you could still - given a bit of good luck - manage to land safely (maybe you'll take a bit of temporary hit point damage or equivalent but you won't pick up any injuries that will immediately impede your speed or gracefulness) and be quiet about it.

I think it's likely a question of what the rules of whatever system we were using would indicate. A fall of significant height usually does damage of some kind in most editions of D&D and many other games. Allowing a player to somehow mitigate that may be possible or it may not. Being quiet seems less likely..."I make sure that when I hit the cobbles, I do so quietly" ....but perhaps mitigating the fall in some way would also lessen the sound? I could see a GM judging that way. I could also see a GM say, "no, you hit the pavement and it sounds like a body hitting the pavement".

Yes, they can. My point is that absent those rolls as idea-prompts most GMs will at best only come up with two or three potential mixed outcomes on the fly, rather than the six that are possible. I'd rather see them all be in play, and the added rolling puts them there.

I don't think that's really the case...at least not generally. I think having 3 possible outcomes, one of which covers several of the outcomes and possibly more, makes it more flexible and ultimately allows results beyond combinations of the Success or Fail states for the 3 checks you've offered as an example.

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.

Gah! Meta-gaming!!!!! Run for your lives!

Honestly, this is one of my major gripes with D&D. The characters are meant to be bold and daring.....they face death down regularly. Yet the game may, depending on edition and approach, reward cautious play.

Talk about immersion breaking.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, this is one of my major gripes with D&D. The characters are meant to be bold and daring.....they face death down regularly. Yet the game may, depending on edition and approach, reward cautious play.

Talk about immersion breaking.

I should point out with the older editions, there's serious question whether the characters were meant to be bold and daring--that's just how a lot of people played them.

And there's a complicating issue--for some people, if the game systems actually directly rewards that approach, there's a question whether characters are really daring, or are just showing a facade of it.

It depends heavily on how good people are at accepting the trappings rather than the reality of the situation.

 

[pemerton]

Look some of us see play primarily as playing the world through your character

Yes. I'm one of them. Yet you keep telling me I'm not. Is that so hard to grasp?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Clearly to a lot of people on this thread, no matter how you justify it, this feels like the player exerting a power normally reserved for the GM,

I think that this touches on an important part. Yes, in many ways, I think a lot of the conflict in this discussion is based around where power normally resides among participants of the game; with the GM, or with the players. I think @pemerton is simply pointing out how some examples of players wielding narrative control have existed all along. It's not that folks who are advocating for a more traditional, D&Desque mode of play have a problem with the concept.....it's more that they are incredibly selective about where it applies.

So, no one minds if a PC who is lost in the desert succeeds at a Survival check and then finds an oasis. But if a Survival or Wilderness check is used to determine the terrain north of the swamps, that's somehow problematic?

But why? It seems to me that they're both geographical elements determined by a skill check. Perhaps it's a question of scope? An oasis is a feature of a desert, where as hills may be seen as an entire region unto themselves. But that's pretty flimsy.

Maybe because the GM can add an oasis to his map easier than hills? This honestly seems to only exist because of the deeply rooted expectation that the GM is the one who draws the map, and the players are therefore limited to what's been pre-determined on the map.

There's a lot of potential conflict in how all these elements are established and handled.

because they are literally shaping the world. Now you can say, they are just 'remembering what is there' in character. That doesn't change that this is a very different way of approach ing things than some of the other posters here have.

Yes, it can be a bit different. Again, I think it's familiar because there are similar game elements where they just accept that that's the way it works (the Survival check, the Gather Information check, etc.), but it can seem different because traditionally, the GM decides.

And no, the players are not literally shaping the world just as there is not any literal remembering going on.

But when I and others try to draw distinctions we make it feels like you are saying to us 'you are wrong, there is no such distinction'. I mean I can tell you honestly If I asked my players at my table, "Tell me what is to the north of that swamp', they'd look at me funny, because that simply isn't how we play (and it isn't how we play in most of my games). I am not knocking this style at all.

But if they are familiar with that style of play, they'd have simply answered you, or made a roll, or done whatever other response is used to determine these things.

It's the lack of familiarity that causes many to think there is a way it "must be". Should folks not discuss what actually is because some people are not aware of that? I would say no.

Like I said I really enjoyed Hillfolk, and one of the things it allowed you to do was fabricate setting details in dialogue during scenes (for instance I was playing a tribesmen trying to encourage war and expansion, and I remember inventing a whole group of people we were at war with to the north). I found that extremely immersive. It didn't interrupt my immersion one bit, but I do see the difference between that and a game where the GM decides who, if anyone, is to the north (and such a game seems much more standard to me than one like we had in Hillfolk).

So would you say that Hillfolk gave players more authority over the fiction? Not better authority, but more?

Honestly, that's all that the matter of agency is about.

Also I would not say that you are remembering anything in character in this case. You are inventing, then labeling it remembering. Nothing was actually recalled. If the GM had said to the player character earlier, there are hills to the north. Then the GM asked that player "What was to the north again?" and the player said "Hills". Fair enough, then you are remembering in character. But to me this feels like a post hoc justification for calling it an in character choice.

Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.

What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?

If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?

In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.

If the player is allowed to say "Being familiar with the area, I know that there are hills to the north, and we can escape the swamps and the lizardmen there" (and I'd expect this declaration to be tied to a check of some kind, or other use of mechanics) isn't this a case of the player having more agency over the fiction?

You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.

 

[pemerton]

This seems really strange to me. I think part of it is I genuinely have trouble with your communication style. I really think we are talking past each other 80 percent of the time. Clearly to a lot of people on this thread, no matter how you justify it, this feels like the player exerting a power normally reserved for the GM, because they are literally shaping the world.

When I declare that my PC attacks the Orc with my mace, and I succeed, I literally shape the world. It now contains an Orc who failed to dodge or block my attack.

It seems really strange to me that you cannot see that.

Now you can say, they are just 'remembering what is there' in character. That doesn't change that this is a very different way of approach ing things than some of the other posters here have.

<snip>


when I and others try to draw distinctions we make it feels like you are saying to us 'you are wrong, there is no such distinction'.

I'm sure you see a distinction. What I am responding to, in your posts, is the way you describe that difference. You describe that difference as me not playing my character. Those are descriptions that I don't accept. They're loaded. They imply that I'm not RPGing by instead engaged in "cooperative storytelling".

Ultimately I don't really care if you describe my RPGing in pejorative ways. I'm not that fragile. But given your posts upthread criticising other posters for, as you saw it, dressing up advocacy as analysis, I though I might point out how you're doing the same thing.

If you now can't avoid doing that yourself, or don't know how to, perhaps that will if nothing else make you more forgiving of those other posters!

 

[Bedrockgames]

When I declare that my PC attacks the Orc with my mace, and I succeed, I literally shape the world. It now contains an Orc who failed to dodge or block my attack.

It seems really strange to me that you cannot see that.

You are just taking an action your character take take in the setting, your influence on the setting is through your character. On the other hand, declaring a hill exists is not being done through your character. I think this difference is pretty clear and obvious

 

[Bedrockgames]

Ultimately I don't really care if you describe my RPGing in pejorative ways. I'm not that fragile. But given your posts upthread criticising other posters for, as you saw it, dressing up advocacy as analysis, I though I might point out how you're doing the same thing.

If you now can't avoid doing that yourself, or don't know how to, perhaps that will if nothing else make you more forgiving of those other posters!

I am not saying you aren't playing a character or that you are not roleplaying. I am saying there is a key distinction to be made between shaping the world through the actions and words of your character and shaping the world through the words of the player

 

[hawkeyefan]

I should point out with the older editions, there's serious question whether the characters were meant to be bold and daring--that's just how a lot of people played them.

And there's a complicating issue--for some people, if the game systems actually directly rewards that approach, there's a question whether characters are really daring, or are just showing a facade of it.

It depends heavily on how good people are at accepting the trappings rather than the reality of the situation.

Sure, as I said it can depend on edition and approach to play.

But I'd say that, inherently, the fiction involves the PCs doing dangerous things, no? They're delving into dungeons or chasing down cultists or fighting dragons and so on.

For me, nothing is more frustrating than when players get very tentative with their PCs because they're concerned about something that could potentially be risky to them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think that this touches on an important part. Yes, in many ways, I think a lot of the conflict in this discussion is based around where power normally resides among participants of the game; with the GM, or with the players. I think @pemerton is simply pointing out how some examples of players wielding narrative control have existed all along. It's not that folks who are advocating for a more traditional, D&Desque mode of play have a problem with the concept.....it's more that they are incredibly selective about where it applies.

So, no one minds if a PC who is lost in the desert succeeds at a Survival check and then finds an oasis. But if a Survival or Wilderness check is used to determine the terrain north of the swamps, that's somehow problematic?

But why? It seems to me that they're both geographical elements determined by a skill check. Perhaps it's a question of scope? An oasis is a feature of a desert, where as hills may be seen as an entire region unto themselves. But that's pretty flimsy.

Maybe because the GM can add an oasis to his map easier than hills? This honestly seems to only exist because of the deeply rooted expectation that the GM is the one who draws the map, and the players are therefore limited to what's been pre-determined on the map.

There's a lot of potential conflict in how all these elements are established and handled.



Yes, it can be a bit different. Again, I think it's familiar because there are similar game elements where they just accept that that's the way it works (the Survival check, the Gather Information check, etc.), but it can seem different because traditionally, the GM decides.

And no, the players are not literally shaping the world just as there is not any literal remembering going on.



But if they are familiar with that style of play, they'd have simply answered you, or made a roll, or done whatever other response is used to determine these things.

It's the lack of familiarity that causes many to think there is a way it "must be". Should folks not discuss what actually is because some people are not aware of that? I would say no.



So would you say that Hillfolk gave players more authority over the fiction? Not better authority, but more?

Honestly, that's all that the matter of agency is about.



Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.

What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?

If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?

In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.

If the player is allowed to say "Being familiar with the area, I know that there are hills to the north, and we can escape the swamps and the lizardmen there" (and I'd expect this declaration to be tied to a check of some kind, or other use of mechanics) isn't this a case of the player having more agency over the fiction?

You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.

Because there isn't anything to remember. You haven't experienced that aspect of the region yet, so yes, from the approach I am coming from, the player would ask the GM if there are hills. In real life you don't ask because you are actually remembering. In the example you give, you are not remembering anything. You are inventing and calling it memory

 

[pemerton]

I would not say that you are remembering anything in character in this case. You are inventing, then labeling it remembering. Nothing was actually recalled. If the GM had said to the player character earlier, there are hills to the north. Then the GM asked that player "What was to the north again?" and the player said "Hills". Fair enough, then you are remembering in character. But to me this feels like a post hoc justification for calling it an in character choice.

Not really. What you've described is the player remembering a detail shared with him by the GM.

What if the GM hasn't shared with the PCs what's north of the swamp yet? But the PC has been established as knowing the region. Does the GM substitute as the PC's memory? So that the player has to consult the GM the way the PC would consult his mind?

If so, would you say that the GM or the player has agency here?

In real life, I don't have to consult anyone else to decide what I know or remember.

Hawkeyefan has really got it right here, in my view.

Asking the GM what do I remember and being told some information, and then later on reciting that back is not (in my view and experience) remotely immersive, nor is it anything like remembering in character. It's just playing an effective puzzle-solving game.

As I've posted upthread multiple times - but had no response to from any other poster - what it does remind me of is the experience of having amnesia. Because - and I am saying this from experience - when you have amnesia then you need someone else to tell you what it is that you know and (should) remember.

You're arguing that there are no limits, while saying that these limits are simply the way people play. It's a kind of a confused argument.

This too.