A Question Of Agency?

[Campbell]

@PsyzhranV2

I think Avery is wrong if we are talking about roleplaying games that are actually like games. Roleplaying games test our ability to position our characters within a shared fiction. For gameplay to exist that needs to have teeth. From OSR play to indie blood operas the Czege principle allows players to take on a character advocacy stance so they can use their skill at fictional positioning to achieve the game's objectives. They become things you can play well.

I really like playing For The Queen, The Quiet Year and Dream Askew. However they really feel more like shared experiences than games to me. There's no real sense of mastery there.

I personally think they 'we have moved on' narrative is often overused. I mean the OSR community shows there is real value in some wisdom of the past.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Why do we have a combat system in D&D? The 'test' can be a narrative one, can it not?

Sure, it can. I've done that. It is however not how D&D is designed to be run.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is possible that Czege principle might be an useful guideline, but I have a feeling that people are taking it far too literally and mechanistically.

 

[prabe]

In a 5e game you can say that your character wants to "Avenge his father" and make that a central motivation, but unless you can actually put that to test within the fiction (IE will you let the orphans burn in order to track your father's killer) then it isn't really central. In this example it cannot happen unless either the GM adds this content to play, or the player somehow evokes it via mechanics/process.

Funny you should mention that. In one of the 5E campaigns I'm running, a player decided his character was going to want to avenge his whole family. First information appeared in Session Five. The party killed the thing that killed his family in Session 41. They're now (as of Session 65) working their way up the food chain, working to fix something connected to what killed his family (a greater wrong than that, probably). Yes, that campaign is going exceptionally well, but it's clearly within the range of what 5E can do.

I mean, sure, RPGs don't need to test anything about the character, but then what is the character to the story? It is just a 'game piece', right? I mean this would be very true if all your abilities, AC, HP, etc. didn't matter and combat was decided by a coin toss, or by narrative description. It is equally true about the PC's beliefs and personality. If they are only addressed by narrative description or by happenstance, then they really don't matter. At best they will be minor factors in the game. Only by testing them, and for the same reason we have a combat system mechanics are beneficial here.

I'd be inclined to say the party has been tested, in their various goals and ideals, even without using the relatively weak mechanics in 5E for doing so (and they are weak, and I don't like them). I think the in-story resolutions were more satisfying than if they'd been triggered mechanically--but then, I would, and others will of course have other preferences/tastes.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Aside: I saw the Czege Principle get invoked a few times over the course of the thread, and I just want to say that current designers don't really take it as a given anymore (if it ever was, I don't know). In particular, solo RPGs are growing in popularity, and if I understand the formulation of "When one person is the author of both the character's adversity and its resolution, play isn't fun" correctly, those games completely fly in the Czege Principle's face.

Not sure what implications this aside has for the current discussion of agency, vaguely feeling there may be a thread to pull here but not sure what it is.

Supporting quote, with relevant text reposted below:

"In my opinion, there have been a wealth of amazing solo RPGs that have effectively challenged the Czege Principle. Creative answers have emerged to the question, "how CAN it be fun for a player to introduce and resolve their own opposition?"

Well, my response to this is that I am not in agreement. That is, any such conclusion based on solo games is taking a very narrow position. I would state that all the solo games I'm aware of generate conflict as a purely mechanical process. So there is a 'game engine' which is responsible for throwing up obstacles, and then the player resolves them. I suppose such a game might also put the player in much more of a 'spectator' role, making it almost like a novel, where the author of the game, or the game engine takes on both roles. Anyway, solo games tend to be VERY niche. Each game has only a very small number of elements and only addresses a very fixed and limited milieu and set of situations. Again, this is more 'novel like' than RPG-like.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Your attempts to control the language and impose your worldview is not helpful and makes discussion more difficult. (Also inertial forces are useful concepts for discussing physics.)

Hey, if you just want to throw out things like "control the language" and not participate, be my guest, but please don't blame me for clearly stating my position, or accuse me of vaguely sinister things like "attempts to control the language." This looks paranoid.

Also, there's no such thing as inertia forces. Nor are they useful for discussing physics -- this is how centrifugal force persists.

'Gamestate' is here used as another way to arbitrarily divide thing that happen in game to those that matter and those that do, according to the preferences of the speaker, in attempt to represent a subjective judgement as a basis of something objective.

I... uh... I'm actually struck momentarily speechless by this claim. You're saying that what's happening in the game is an arbitrary division from some other, non-game thing, that you want to be part of the game, but not part of the game? I can't even follow this.

Gamestate is just shorthand for holistically referring to what's going on in the game. However hard you imagine what your character is thinking, though, this isn't part of the game until you actualize it in the game. You may think you're playing the game, but you're just imagining things (literally). The game doesn't care, nor does anyone else, until and unless you introduce it to the game. That's the only place where you can then evaluate agency -- does your introduction result in agency for you, the player? Most of the time, it doesn't. I mean, talking in funny voices with the other players is hella fun, I love it, but it doesn't do anything agency wise within the game -- it's, in fact, a meta-game of entertaining your friends, which you can do with or without the RPG you're playing. It's just freeform roleplay, for the most part. It only impact agency in the game when you provide an action that the game can operate on. I love acting out characters, but this isn't agency -- the game certainly doesn't allow or disallow it. Just like the Monopoly discussion earlier -- a funny voice and some characterization does not add agency to Monopoly.

Whether they're 'different types of agency' or 'agency over different types of things' is meaningless semantics. The distinctions are nevertheless experienced, thus they're real.

Good I didn't make that argument, then, huh?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why do we have a combat system in D&D? The 'test' can be a narrative one, can it not?

My experience with purely narrative roleplay in my MUSHing days says "Yes."

Now, the question is, how stress-intensive (on a player-and-GM level) that would be in the majority of cases, and my personal suspicion is "Quite a bit." I'd absolutely not care to be the GM for that.

I also have to note just as a side comment that its very clear that a large number of people are much, much less tolerant of mechanical resolution the farther you get from the avowedly physical sphere. I understand why that is while not being entirely on-board it (and not entirely not).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If one could decide of their own volition whether their character lusts after the queen doesn’t that result in more agency than not being able to make that decision at all?

The choice will have meaningful consequences or at least potentially so. In other words, framing in circumstances like you indicated above do take away a players agency.

If you get to decide you lust after the Queen, and then choose how to resolve that lust, how is that anything but just the equivalent of saying "there's a sack of gold on the floor." and then "I pick it up." Sure, that is depicting your greediness I guess? I mean, there's nothing wrong with a player deciding to go for something, but then someone else needs to resolve what happens, right? You need a test, maybe you can seduce her, or maybe not! But what if you want to resist the temptation? Your formulation doesn't really allow for any meaningful exploration of that. Your character is no more exploring 'altruism' because he passes up the gold you invented on the floor, than he is if he passes on his lust for the Queen.

One or the other, the lust or the resolution of the lust, must be handled by another agency, and since there are things at stake we usually commit at least some of that to a roll of the dice (not all games do this of course). I mean, I see nothing wrong with a player just 'doing color' by saying "My character thinks the Queen is hot, he's going to go take a shower." but big wow?

 

[FrogReaver]

If you get to decide you lust after the Queen, and then choose how to resolve that lust, how is that anything but just the equivalent of saying "there's a sack of gold on the floor." and then "I pick it up." Sure, that is depicting your greediness I guess? I mean, there's nothing wrong with a player deciding to go for something, but then someone else needs to resolve what happens, right? You need a test, maybe you can seduce her, or maybe not! But what if you want to resist the temptation? Your formulation doesn't really allow for any meaningful exploration of that. Your character is no more exploring 'altruism' because he passes up the gold you invented on the floor, than he is if he passes on his lust for the Queen.

One or the other, the lust or the resolution of the lust, must be handled by another agency, and since there are things at stake we usually commit at least some of that to a roll of the dice (not all games do this of course). I mean, I see nothing wrong with a player just 'doing color' by saying "My character thinks the Queen is hot, he's going to go take a shower." but big wow?

Pointing out that what I’m suggesting lacks agency of some type doesn’t show what you are suggesting doesn’t lack agency of some other type.

Keep in mind my argument is that there are many types of player agency and many of these are mutually exclusive.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Seems like a rather narrow definition of meaningful.

Whether it’s objectively meaningful or just meaningful to me, it matters to me how my character plays. If something is going to force my character to play or think or feel a certain way it is removing from me a meaningful choice, aka agency.

Let's say your have a 5e character, with a background and everything, and a Bond that "family is everything." During play, the GM puts family at risk (you've indicated this is something important to your character and imparted to the GM that this is a means by which you wish to receive Inspiration). Does this violate your agency because you now have to decide if "family is everything" is actually right?

This is the kind of thing being discussed -- you've already made the choice that these things are up for grabs, and you absolutely get to decide how you react to them being put to the test.

It would be helpful if you'd stop guessing at what other play entails, especially when you have no practical experience or understanding of it.