A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

I'd like to think so, but the hard edge comes down to "Event happens; player decides his character will do X; X effectively removes the character from the game". Is this unacceptable?

While I absolutely think the GM should be communicating enough to make it clear where these sorts of borders are, I've gotten the sense from some respondents that the above situation is considered unacceptable, and that's why I've been claiming that there seem like some problems here.

I think it depends on the game and the expectations that have been set for play. Certainly, if I have some desire for my PC that will significantly depart from that of the other participants such that we'd essentially be playing two separate games, then yes, I think the GM is free to tell the player that this will remove the PC from play. Like if I'm playing Blades in the Dark and I decide my PC wants out of the criminal life, then I don't expect the game to veer into my PC's desire to open a bakery or what have you. Maybe there's still some way to incorporate that desire....balancing the stability and monotony of running the bakery versus the riches and rush of crime or whatever.....but if it's literally, no I quit and want to run a bakery, then yeah.....the story ends for that PC.

And I've got absolutely no problem with someone who is willing to contextualize their goals and expectations. If that's what people are talking about, we're talking past each other.

I think the confusion is more a case of Person A is listening to Person B talk about the practices of Game Z, and then imagining those practices in Game Y, and finding that they don't work, or at least don't work with their approach to Game Y.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think the confusion is more a case of Person A is listening to Person B talk about the practices of Game Z, and then imagining those practices in Game Y, and finding that they don't work, or at least don't work with their approach to Game Y.

Possibly so, or generalizing from the practices used in a particular context (a game that has practices that assume certain things about the setting and genre its getting used in) to assuming that's what the person wants generically.

(Of course its always possible that a given person simply wouldn't want to play in a game with more narrow borders in the first place, as AA indicated a couple pages back. Nothing wrong with that, either).

 

[hawkeyefan]

We are really talking past each other. I have nothing against the action in the game being related to the motivations of characters. I've been pretty clear that I'm for it. But this tangent was about some people thinking that agency over characters feeling and motivations for some reason doesn't count, and that expressing character's feelings and desires via portraying them are not proper events in the game.

It depends on the nature of what is being talked about.

If I craft a belief or a goal for my PC, that's me putting that thing out into the game, right? Does it mean that I will absolutely get what I want? Or does it mean that I may struggle with my belief, or that I may fail to reach my goal?

If a player actively hands the GM something and says "I want my play to revolve around this thing" is it robbing the player's agency for the GM to put that thing at risk? Maybe the GM puts that goal in opposition to another that comes up in play and puts the PCs conviction to the test; which goal is more important to them?

So.....my PC wants to save his brother. Maybe there's a Belief or an Ideal indicated on the character sheet that says something like "I'll do whatever it takes to find and save my brother." The PC's adventures lead him to a confrontation with a member of the cult that the brother ran off with. The cultist seeks to escape by setting fire to an orphanage. He then runs off. My PC can decide to chase him, or can stop and put out the fire, knowing that the cultist will escape.

This (admittedly hastily sketched) scenario puts my PC's belief directly into question. Will the PC actually "do anything"? Or are there limits to what he will do, or what he will allow to happen through inaction on his part? This may actually alter my perception of the PC. Maybe I'm surprised to find that yes.....yes indeed he will do whatever it takes, and he runs off from the burning orphanage. Or maybe that's what I had always expected, but through play, I've realized that my PC has a sentimental streak and he stops to save the kids, letting the possible lead on his brother slip through his fingers.

Whether or not beliefs remain intact, or goals are achieved is something that we find out through play, right? This goes back to the idea of risky play. It's not about controlling every single aspect of a PC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Both of those are fine as long as the players agreed to play that sort of a game. Both restrict the player agency, hopefully for some purpose that all the players feel is worth it.

OK, I was just using this to point out how there are only certain 'facets' of play (to use an ontology term, roughly equivalent to 'degree of freedom' in engineering) that traditionalists seem to be willing to grant legitimacy to.

In terms of 'agency' though, I don't think it is really worthwhile to define this way. I think we haven't really talked about that aspect much, or at least not in quite these terms (I'm old, my memory of 40 pages ago is foggy, forgive me if we have). OBVIOUSLY there have to be some constraints on what PCs are fictionally able to do. We call this 'fictional position'. Nothing is wrong with this, and I don't think anyone reasonable doesn't acknowledge that these constraints will be a factor in play. In fact, without such constraints, we are again at Czege Principle violation land, because that implies I as player can pose a conflict and then simply resolve it by waving my magic agency wand! So play in all meaningful RPGs (of which I am aware) requires fictional constraints to exist. These may also be expressed in terms of mechanics and/or process in play.

So, in D&D generally a wall is a physical barrier to movement. Its existence is traditionally always established by the GM. In narrative play it might be established by the player, but more likely it is still a GM thing, and how to overcome it may be developed by the player. They can only do so in ways which relate to elaborating on the narrative and honoring the constraint. So in BW a PC might be able to "find a secret door" or something like that, although it might cost them resources, time, whatever (I am not much of a BW guy, played Mousegard a few times). Often a PC will simply have no answer for a particular constraint outside of those ordinarily available to anyone 'in game' (IE walk around it). In Prince Valiant a feeling of Lust for Guenevere is apparently also a constraint! Granted it is a less concrete one and navigating it is trickier perhaps, but it has about the same effect on agency as the wall.

In both cases, presumably, agency equates to the player having a say in if the play of the game is focusing on traversing a maze, or in mastering their feelings and whatever. They must have agreed to these constraints in some way by consenting to this form of play. I think the main contention here is simply that narrative games where the player has input into the 'form of play' in a concrete way DURING play provide an explicit path to exercising this agency, and that, from a certain perspective it is really the only agency that ultimately matters, since constraints will always exist. When people misunderstand narrative play as being "free of unwanted constraints" they are misapprehending what it is. Constraints are just as significant as in any other type of play, but their origin and nature are different, and who is responsible for them is different (to an extent, sometimes).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not going to say anyone outright has said that here, but some people have seemed to dance up to the idea that its an imposition, and as I've mentioned, I've absolutely hit a few people in the past who seemed to think anything but an open-world sandbox was not vastly different than a railroad, so I've been trying to make sure that wasn't where we were going here.

Once you get past that, you can at least get down to the idea that where the line is drawn is pretty subjective.

I agree that different games put that line at different places. Different tables clearly do as well, at least when the game doesn't spell it out pretty clearly. I think if you played 'BitD' you'd find that where things fall is pretty clearly delineated, because the game defines it pretty clearly, same for Dungeon World. I don't think that anyone should be saying that one place to draw it is better or worse than another either. I advocate for analyzing the options though.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Possibly so, or generalizing from the practices used in a particular context (a game that has practices that assume certain things about the setting and genre its getting used in) to assuming that's what the person wants generically.

(Of course its always possible that a given person simply wouldn't want to play in a game with more narrow borders in the first place, as AA indicated a couple pages back. Nothing wrong with that, either).

Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of folks in this thread who would not want to play at the tables of other folks in this thread based solely on the approach to play, or the specific game being played.

Most of these mismatches would be unlikely to happen, I think, and instead are a byproduct of discussing hypotheticals.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes, absolutely. There are plenty of folks in this thread who would not want to play at the tables of other folks in this thread based solely on the approach to play, or the specific game being played.

Most of these mismatches would be unlikely to happen, I think, and instead are a byproduct of discussing hypotheticals.

I'm weird. I often play in games that don't work the way I want them to, lol. There are just other considerations. There ARE games I'll pass on, partly due to considerations mentioned here, but the more that the game addresses something I find interesting, particularly if I am coming up with a character concept that is highly aligned with that, then do I absolutely need narrative process? It would be better, but it might not outweigh other considerations. I'll definitely play AD&D with my old buddy, the master of railroads, but not because I am excited by that aspect of play. That's just people I would want to socialize with and they are fun to play with, for reasons which may be hard to analyze.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes it is. It relies on concept of 'meaningful choices' and what is meaningful is subjective.

Okay, let's go with this, let's say "meaningful choices" is subjective (not conceding the point, just for argument). Can we not then say that, even with the subjectiveness of "meaningful choices" that a game that requires GM approval of player choices must necessarily have fewer "meaningful choices" than a game where players can choose at least some things without GM approval, and therefore less agency, regardless of how you choose to subjectively value "meaningful choices?" Unless you're engaged in bad faith defining that "meaningful choices" has no relation to the words used in the term, this argument falls to the same problem the one that doesn't depend on asserting "meaningful choices" is subjective. I can look at a situation where I must have permission of a GM, even one that is a benevolent dictator and fair, to realize my choice and say that I have less agency here than if I don't have to have the permission of the GM -- if, say, some fair mechanic was employed. That's not the only way this can happen, of course, but as an example it illustrates that the argument that agency is subjective fails because I don't need to rely on the part you deem subjective to arrive at the same conclusion.

 

[Aldarc]

Whether or not beliefs remain intact, or goals are achieved is something that we find out through play, right? This goes back to the idea of risky play. It's not about controlling every single aspect of a PC.

This. It's playing to find out what happens, and sometimes your values, beliefs, and feelings may get squeezed through the ringer as part of play.

 

[FrogReaver]

It can. But any system that is telling me that my mental image of my characters inner life is mistaken is definitely seriously limiting my agency.


Cogito, ergo sum, I think, therefore I am. You are your mind, not your body. A mind without a body would be a person, a body without a mind wouldn't.


Desires are feelings and motivations are based on those. You are perfectly free to like games where the mechanics can affect those, just don't try to disingenuously argue that this is not limiting the player's agency in pretty serious way.

This is what I was trying to hint at with my previous post. That enabling one preferred type of agency actually diminishes another type of agency.

You do not have agency over your characters thoughts and feelings if the game system puts those things at risk.

You do not have agency for optimal play if the game system puts at risk the fictional elements before you.

That is, enabling one type of agency often disabled a different type. This is why I say that these other playstyle don’t actually allow more agency. That just allow different types of agency at the expense of other types.