A Question Of Agency?

[AbdulAlhazred]

A bit one true wayist IMO - Telling someone they might as well be not playing an rpg at all because their preferences don’t align with yours. That’s not cool.

much more to say on this post but I’ve got a few things I must do first.

Well, I didn't say you "weren't playing an RPG" in a general sense. I am just saying that your RP isn't participating in the G unless they have some connection. You RP to a given point in your story, and then you play a game (combat probably). I think this is a pretty good way to explain '2e era story teller D&D'. Its almost like you have these mechanical mini-games that you play, but they're not really connected together except by what the GM says is happening. Maybe your character's personality/etc is relevant, maybe it isn't. Its hard to call that part 'game'.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In @Lanefan's game, though, there are rules to the roleplay -- it's the GM decides what happens. This is a highly ad-hoc and informal ruleset that vests all authority over resolution in one person, so results in low agency play, but it can be a lot of fun with engaged players.

Aside from this, I'm slightly confused as to why the definition of roleplaying has come up -- it has very little to do with player agency.

It was not me that specifically brought it into the discussion, but it is relevant in that some RPGs are 'holistic', they have a way to incorporate it into the game process, and some don't. D&D is pretty much a prime example of the latter. You can explain your character's actions in terms of RP, but it isn't really necessary. Nor is the GM obliged to acknowledge it, as you point out here.
I'm not talking about what can or cannot be fun. A lot of things are fun! The question at hand was what was the nature of player agency. If we want to have a thread about what people find fun or not fun, we can have that discussion. I expect it will be light on analysis, because that is a pure matter of opinion and usually not based on some rational thought process.

 

[aramis erak]

Meaningful to whom? You're using 'meaningful' like it had was some objective, measurable thing, whilst it is actually a value judgement. This is what I have been saying all along, agency is subjective because what is 'meaningful' is subjective.

From a player perspective, perhaps.
A GM, however, has enough information to figure it out objectively...
You know whether or not you had two separate options ready, or just one that you quantum responsed.
You know as a GM whether or not you had two (or more) outcomes before the roll, and whether or not the roll actually mattered.
And you know whether or not you gave the players information about the various options that is valid for making informed decisions either on which choice to pick, or whether or not to roll.

Unless the GM goes the extra (burning) mile¹ and states "If you fail you will (insert short version of failure result)"... in which case, while the surprise factor is reduced, the meaingfulness of the rolls, at least, is assured.

And if one goes the apocalytic mile² instead, player agency is (theoretically³) assured unless and until the player either does something that triggers a move, does something asinine (which includes narrating things that violate the setting), or the players as a whole stop generating story motion and/or GM amusement.

It's not like the GM can't use those techniques in more traditional rulesets, either, and put heavy amounts of agency — considerably more, at times, than Gygax would, based upon his Dragon columns — and get some interesting results. In my Elestrial Concordat campaign (using Mongoose Traveller 1E), all sensor rolls were to pick what was there, not to see if anything was in fact out there. This lead to some nifty XD threats in Jumpspace. I won't run Traveller again that way — too much chance for out of genre ideas — but I might in fantasy of some stripe.

Notes:
1: As in Burning Wheel, where the standard for an action is the player is required to state the method AND the intended effect. The GM then offers up a fail condition, if one is interesting, or says "yes." If a fail condition, the GM then sets the difficulty and the player his/her/xer dice pool.
2: As in Apocalypse World, where the GM isn't supposed to actually do direct actions until a move goes wrong... or the story stagnates a bit, or that guy attempts to pull a very out-of-setting or past reasonable capability fast one... Instead, they're supposed to ask questions that help the players drive the story. At least, that's the ideal.
3: we all know that sometimes, reality is less than ideal theoretical results. Especially when humans are involved.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It was not me that specifically brought it into the discussion, but it is relevant in that some RPGs are 'holistic', they have a way to incorporate it into the game process, and some don't. D&D is pretty much a prime example of the latter. You can explain your character's actions in terms of RP, but it isn't really necessary. Nor is the GM obliged to acknowledge it, as you point out here.
I'm not talking about what can or cannot be fun. A lot of things are fun! The question at hand was what was the nature of player agency. If we want to have a thread about what people find fun or not fun, we can have that discussion. I expect it will be light on analysis, because that is a pure matter of opinion and usually not based on some rational thought process.

Yes, I understand that RP is part of RPGs. The issue isn't that I fail to understand this, it's that the particular definition of RP is irrelevant to agency -- you can play act, use pawn stance, or anything else and that feeds into the agency question exactly the same. The only time agency would be involved in how you choose to define roleplay would be if the table disallowed your favored definition, which isn't a player agency issue, but a social agency in the real world issue. And, even there, it's not a lack, but a question of agency.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well, if I just wanted to roleplay and not play a game, why would I get out my RPG rules? I don't need rules to roleplay. I enjoy the game element, AND the roleplay element, so we all invented a type of RPG where they are truly both equally important. Every part of one of these games is both roleplay AND game. It seems like a lot of what you describe involves them being two separate things. I note that comes up often, so for example @Lanefan often describes long rules-free RP sessions. The game he is describing involves decoupled RP which has no 'game' to it. Again, the players may then "decide they want to do X" based on something they roleplayed their characters talking about. That's fine, and that might establish some new fiction. It just didn't involve 'game' in any sense. There wasn't any tension. I include these 'interludes' in my own rules, but there they serve exactly this purpose of simply allowing some plot color to be established. Later the GM can use that to frame scenes where risk is taken.

I'm sorry, but it is you who is trying to separate the game and roleplaying. It is a roleplaying game, all of it is part of the game, even when no formal rules are involved. It can have no rules beyond 'players decide what characters do, GM decides what happens and describes the world' and it is still a game, a LARP is a game.

Also that 'the characters talk and decide to do something' is crucial for agency. That is them establishing the direction of the game, you can't get more important act for agency than that.

I see risk as a central part of RPGs, in general. It is a central part of story telling, there is conflict, something is at stake. You can have a sort of narrative without that, but it is not capable of 'coming to a head'. At best it is sort of like a Soap Opera, where you know that no matter what happens the characters will be back next week.

Something is at stake! And that still needs no rules for happen. It is the narrative that creates the stakes, not the rules.

Now for back to our friend Lancelot. 'I'm love with the queen' is an important driving force for the character, it is part of his central motivations. This sort of character defining driving force is something the player should accept, otherwise the GM, system or whatever, is effectively creating the character for the player (and if players agree to that, then its fine, but they're willingly giving away a part of their agency.) But being able to decide 'this is what my character cares about' is pretty damn central for agency as it is from those core beliefs all the other decisions follow. Lancelot is in love with his best friends wife, and the fate of the nation depends on this friend. But the player does not control Arthur, they do not control Guinevere, they do not control the other NPCs (unless this is the sort of game where player has narrative level powers.) Numerous risks and conflicts arise from this central motivation, and it is for the player to decide how to handle these situations, what choices to make. Relegating these vital choices to some mechanic would rob the player from agency, make them a spectator and is bizarre to think otherwise.

 

[pemerton]

Possibly Pendragon or Prince Valiant.

Prince Valiant has no personality mechanics of the sort that seem to be in issue.

Is @Crimson Longinus thinking of Pendragon? That's not a game where most play is dictated by a PCs traits or passions.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Prince Valiant has no personality mechanics of the sort that seem to be in issue.

Is @Crimson Longinus thinking of Pendragon? That's not a game where most play is dictated by a PCs traits or passions.

I'm not thinking about any specific game, it was not my example to begin with.

 

[pemerton]

I've never had a GM refuse to let me play something without a good reason. Now sometimes I didn't know the good reason till months in to the campaign, because of things our characters didn't know. GM gives the story. If player decides to go off on incompatible tangents and get marginized, that's a player issue.

<snip>

People keep confusing Agency as something that is free of consequences. You have agency to make decisions, those decisions will have consequences. If you don't like the consequences, change your behavior or find a new game.

This is a perfectly fine description of GM-driven RPGing in which the players exercise little or no agency.

In the first two sentences we see the GM exercising the bulk of agency over broad questions of setting, theme, trope etc. Eventually the player might be told what and why the GM has made those decisions - the why here being a GM-generated and GM-unilaterally applied aesthetic preference.

GM gives the story is the GM exercising the same degree of agency over the nitty-gritty situation of play.

The stuff about consequences seems to misunderstand how games like AW or BW or Prince Valiant play - they are hardly free of consequences, but those consequences are established by the GM typically as narrations of failure or of further complication having regard to the evinced preferences of the player for the focus/theme/content of play. When consequences are established by the GM having regard mostly to his/her own aesthetic preferences and vision of where "the story" should go then we have GM-driven action resolution.

I think that what @nevin describes here is a pretty common mode of RPGing. I've participated in it. I've witnessed more of it. And I see people - not just nevin - posting about it all the time.

 

[pemerton]

Descartes' notions are largely obsolete, though I would accept that 'cogito ergo sum' is a sort of tautological demonstration that consciousness is indeed a 'thing', as if we really needed such a proof...

For what it's worth, I think the cogito is a bad argument, or rather a failed argument: given that my perceptual access to the event of thought occurring is no different to my perceptual access to the event of a towel-hanging-on-clothesline-in-garden-type-percept there is no particular difference in our knowledge of the "internal" and the "external". And in both cases something more than one perceptual event is needed to warrant the inference to (i) that thought-event is a constituent of an enduring thing called me or (ii) that visual event is a constituent of an enduring thing called the towel's hanging on a clothesline in the garden.

(The above argument is not really unique to me. It's work I did a long time ago now influenced very much by AJ Ayer, GE Moore and Bertrand Russell.)

 

[TwoSix]

I'm sorry, but it is you who is trying to separate the game and roleplaying. It is a roleplaying game, all of it is part of the game, even when no formal rules are involved. It can have no rules beyond 'players decide what characters do, GM decides what happens and describes the world' and it is still a game, a LARP is a game.

But there is a distinction. Acting like your character, doing funny accents, etc., may be roleplaying, it may be roleplaying you're doing during the game, but it's not part of the actual game. Throwing out plans to the DM and letting the DM decide if they succeed or fail is part of the game, just not one that has a formal mechanic.

Now, if the in-character discussion is basically group strategizing to get to the point where you make a declaration to the DM that they can adjudicate....I'd say that's ultimately part of gameplay, just like negotiating is during a game of Diplomacy.