A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

The players come to a fork in the road. If the players choose the left fork the PCs are supposed to meet an Ogre. If they choose the right fork the PCs are supposed to NOT meet an Ogre.

If the GM has the PCs meet an Ogre no matter which fork they choose that means the players have been DENIED agency.

However the above scenario only works if those things were decided beforehand either by the GM preparing the scenario in advance, or if it is part of a published module.

The problem I have is that I neither use published adventures nor prepare scenarios beforehand. Thus I am unsure if I offer the players real agency.

Who has narrated the PCs come to a fork in the road?

Who stops to ask Which way do you go? Why does anyone care about that?

Who has decided that an ogre will be met, and why does anyone care about that? Does it matter that it's an ogre and not (say) a medusa?

I'm pretty sure that the posters who are saying you have DENIED your players agency are making the following assumptions about answers: the GM narrated that the PCs come to a fork in the road; the GM stops to ask which way the PCs go; everyone at the table is assumed to care about that, because there is an assumption that play is unfolding using "map and key" techniques; that the GM has decided that an ogre will be met; that the players care about it being an ogre rather than a medusa because that is relevant to tactical decision-making.

Until you unpack those assumptions, work out what is true in your own play at your own table, and think about what techniques you're using and why, you can't work out whether the accusations of DENYING agency are true or false.

EDIT: I'll provide a slightly parallel example from my own play.

The system is Prince Valiant. The PCs are three knights, two of whom lead a holy order that they founded - the Order of St Sigobert - and a third who is somewhat reluctantly travelling with them, mostly at the urging of his wife.

In the episode I'm describing, the PCs were on their way to Constantinople, offering their services as crusaders. In the previous session they had survived an encounter with a skeleton knight in Dacia. Here's the actual play report:

The session started with a series of checks to determine how had it was for them to make their way across present-day Romania to arrive at the Black Sea coast. Sir Gerran led them, claiming a bonus die for his trained falcon (who know doubt can not only take down small birds but can also help guide its owner to Constantinople!). As a result of that check and then invididual checks for travel, they arrived at the coast in various degrees of exhaustion and dishevellment: Sir Gerran was in good health, Sir Morgath was tired (-1D to both Brawn and Presence) and Sir Justin, who had been badly wounded in the forest, was utterly spent (reduced to 1D in each of Brawn and Presence).

At the border of the Empire they made a good impression on the guards, who welcomed them to Rome (Sir Gerran made a successful Oratory check - he has the best Oratory of the group, and it's partly for that reason that he is Marshall of their Order). They were therefore able to board boats to take them to Constantinople. I described the vessels as galleys with "relatively low sides" - which the players correctly took to be an ominous sign - and then called for Brawn checks when some sort of creature emerged from beneath the PCs' vessel and attempted to overturn it. Sir Morgath and Sir Justin ended up in the water.

The attacking creature was a "dragon" (a giant crocodile, found in the episode "A Dragon" in the core rulebook).

<snip>

the dragon was slain by Sir Morgath. An Oratory check by Sir Gerran enabled him to maintain control over the soldiers still on the boat and that had fallen into the water, so only two Huns of the PCs' entourage were lost. The bones of one was recovered so that they could be placed in the reliquary for martyrs of the Order; and Sir Gerran (with successful Hunting + Brawn) was able to harpoon the dragon so that its body could be carried to Constantinople.

<snip>

When the PCs and their retinue arrived in Constantinople they were welcomed as dragon-slayers.

In this episode of play, there were no "forks in the road". The low-sided galleys flagged to the players that something unhappy and watery was going to happen to them.

Who decided the PCs want to go to Constantinople? The players.

Who decided that the PCs had to trek across Dacia/Romania to do this? The GM. In the previous session I'd stipulated that their boats had had to make landfall on the Dalmatian coast, due to weather.

Who established that the PCs met a "dragon" in the Black Sea? The GM. Did the players have any chance to avoid that through their play? No.

Does it matter that it was a "dragon" (giant crocodile) and not (say) a "serpent" (giant sea snake) or "kraken" (giant octopus or squid)? Not really. We've already had a conflict with a kraken, though, so I wasn't going to repeat that. And I didn't have anything written up for a serpent. Hence the dragon.

What are the real stakes in this episode of play? They are can the PCs make a good impression on the Byzantines? This was determined via action resolution: first the checks to travel, the results of which (ie debuffs to two of the PCs) then fed into the Oratory check at the border, and the conflict with the dragon. Success at these enabled the PCs to arrive at Constantinople on excellent terms.

I don't know what your "quantum ogre" posters would make of all this, but I think it's worth noting how it departs from some of their assumptions. (1) The players, not the GM, are the ones who have decided why their PCs are travelling to Constantinople. (2) There is no hidden map - we're working from shared maps of the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia. (3) There is no action resolution via "map and key". The map is colour - it informs our fiction - but there is no resolution of travel in terms of miles per day, hexes crossed, encounter checks, etc. (4) The encounters with the border, and then with the dragon, are not ends in themselves. They are means to ends. I frame them, as GM, so that we as a table can find out what sort of impression these British knights are able to make on the Byzantine Empire. They are not a strategic threat that the players need to somehow negotiate or avoid; and they are not really a tactical threat either - resolution in Prince Valiant is very straightforward and not a tactical mini-game.

I personally regard my Prince Valiant game as very high player agency. I suspect it is much higher in player agency than most of the games run by the "quantum ogre" posters.

 

[Bedrockgames]

These two sentences are in obvious contradiction!

What you call "declaring a hill exists" is what I call "remembering that a hill exists". Which is something my character does.

I prefer not to play all my characters as if they suffer from amnesia.

you can call it that all day, it doesn’t mean I will look at what you are saying and agree

 

[pemerton]

This is just word play Pemerton. Those wouldn't have existed in the game, until you declared part of your memory: therefore you have created them (just like when the GM says there are hills to the north, the GM has created those hills).

The dead Orc wouldn't have existed in the game, until the player declared that s/he attacks it with a mace.

All action declaration, if successful, changes or adds to the fiction. That's its point. If I couldn't change or add to the fiction, what would I be doing at the table?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

In reading this, I do not see the distinction you made above as choosing actions in Actor stance that are detrimental to the character because it makes for a better story, and, in fact, see In Character Stance as something you use Actor stance with. These aren't opposed, but flavors of the same thing. And, frankly, I find the concept of IC stance as presented here as incoherent in anything except a storygame. I could, perhaps, see an argument that exists in a game like Fiasco, which features free-form scene making between characters with no mechanics or GM, but not in a D&D game with all the mechanics -- unless the GM is utterly winging it and you're just doing a bit of freeform roleplay. Certainly not the situation in discussion.

Seems pretty coherent to me, but of course what is presented here is some sort of a Platonic ideal of the stance. I think the full immersion stance works best in LARPs. It is trickier with tabletop, but you can do it pretty decently with the right people. It doesn't mean that you literally become unaware of the rules etc, just that your focus is not on them. But it definitely works best with rules light games and rules light sections of more crunchy games. I for example like how D&D has really little rules social situations so that they don't get on the way of IC interaction too much.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The dead Orc wouldn't have existed in the game, until the player declared that s/he attacks it with a mace.

All action declaration, if successful, changes or adds to the fiction. That's its point. If I couldn't change or add to the fiction, what would I be doing at the table?

the orc already existed, whether that orc lived or died was dependent on you attacking it and succeeding at doing so (not on you declaring the orc). Your declared action didn’t summon or invent a dead orc that wasn’t there. With the hills your words have shaped the geography of the setting. Again this isn’t rocket science. Maybe I am horrible at explaining, but the difference it very very obvious. I really don’t know why this needs to even be discussed

 

[pemerton]

This is a very weird argument. The orc already was established as existing by the GM. And its death was contingent on a successful attack roll and doing the right amount damage. You didn't create a dead orc. You killed an orc that existed in the setting. The hill exists because you said it does. There is an obvious difference between these two things. If they feel the same to you, that is fine. I can't change that. But they don't feel at all the same to me.

I will use an actual rather than imagined play example because it is a bit more concrete.

The GM and I are sitting at the table. We are both looking at a map of the Pomarj (a peninsula in the World of Greyhawk). I am playing two characters, one of whom is a sorcerer with Great Masters-wise skill.

So it is already established that the PCs are in a place (i) which has lots of forest and hills (the Pomarj) and (ii) which has sorcerers, some of whom (iii) are Great Masters, and that (iv) my PC knows stuff about those Great Masters.

Playing the sorcerer, I declare what my character recalls about Evard's Tower. A check is made. It succeeds. I recall a fact about a tower that exists in the setting.​

Just as the death of the Orc is gated behind various rolls, so the successful recollection of a fact about Evard's tower is gated behind a check.

The example of the hills is different from this in one respect: there is no check. The GM simply invites the player to say what his/her PC knows and remembers. The analogue in Orc-fighting would be the one that some posters on other threads talk about from time-to-time: instead of resolving a combat via rolls, where it is easy/straightforward and the outcome not in doubt they just ask the players to quickly narrate their success.

 

[pemerton]

This is naughty word unreal. A player being able to just invent any memories for their character about the setting and have those memories to be true, is a clear carte blanche to shape the setting. This is blindingly obvious.

A character being able to just delcare attacks against Orcs and have those attacks kill said Orcs is a clear, carte blanch to shape the setting. Before you know all its Orcs will be dead!

This is blindingly obvious.

It's also called playing a RPG. If the players can't change the fiction, what are they doing at the table?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Pemerton, I understand your argument I just don’t agree with the conclusion you have reached. And I have entertained your point as long as I can. We are clearly not going to agree

 

[pemerton]

the orc already existed, whether that orc lived or died was dependent on you attacking it and succeeding at doing so (not on you declaring the orc). Your declared action didn’t summon or invent a dead orc that wasn’t there. With the hills your words have shaped the geography of the setting.

The hills already existed, too. If they didn't the character couldn't know about them!

Maybe when you say "the orc already existed" you mean that everyone at the table already agreed that an Orc was part of the shared fiction. But that Orc was alive. The action declaration, when it succeeds, changes the shared fiction. Now it contains a dead Orc.

In the geography case, everyone at the table already agreed that, in the shared fiction, there was some land-form or other north of the swamp. But the details of that land-form were not specified. The action declaration, when it succeeds, renders the shared fiction more precise. Now everyone knows that the land-form north of the swamp is hills.

This is the best I can do to make sense of what you're saying, and all I can conclude is that you regard it as normal for players to exercise agency in respect of whether or not orcs their PCs are fighting are dead, but don't regard it as normal for players to exercise agency in respect of the details of their PCs memories about the lands which they have lived in and heard stories of.

That's your prerogative. But I would prefer that you describe it in a way that does not misdescribe what other RPGers are doing.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A character being able to just delcare attacks against Orcs and have those attacks kill said Orcs is a clear, carte blanch to shape the setting. Before you know all its Orcs will be dead!

This is blindingly obvious.

It's also called playing a RPG. If the players can't change the fiction, what are they doing at the table?

In the real life you could go around hitting people with maces, and as a result they might die (so don't do that, it's illegal in most places.) In real life you cannot go around thinking hills and having them to appear where you want. Capisce?