A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

I'm not familiar with it, as I don't really care for railroady adventure paths, but I'd still assume that pretty much all the time when not being mind controlled by vampires (which given the name of the adventure might admittedly be a frequent occurrence.)

The campaign not offering opportunities for the characters to act on their wants is a perfectly valid criticism, no one is denying that.

I'm not engaging in criticism but analysis.

When I play a CoC one-shot I'm not expecting to get to (i) decide what my PC wants and then (ii) act on that. I'm expecting to be either directly told what my PC wants (via a pre-gen) or to be presented with a scenario which makes it easy to ascribe wants to my PC that will mesh with the scenario (which is something @AbdulAlhazred mentioned a page or two upthread).

The fun of play is in performing my PC - characterisation and pantomime - while the GM describes what happens and narrates my descent into madness.

Now let's consider the Curse of Strahd, accepting for the moment @hawkeyefan's sketch of it upthread:

The objective of the game is to slay the vampire Strahd and escape the haunted land of Barovia.

We became lost in the mists. We arrived in Barovia. We could not leave; the Mists seem to be magical in nature, and they seem to keep us in Barovia. We then encountered the Burgomaster of Barovia’s children. This prompts us to head to Castle Ravenloft to confront Strahd.

<snip>

The game ends when we confront Strahd in his castle, and either succeed in destroying him and saving Ireena and the other Barovians, or we die trying.

It seems to me that, if a player decides that what his/her PC wants is to charter a company of mercenaries, that is probably not going to happen in this campaign. (See also @Ovinomancer's actual play observation upthread, about his PC background in a Curse of Strahd campaign.)

When we say that this player is free to decide what his/her PC wants, what is the nature of that freedom? S/he can write it down on her PC sheet. She can grumble her way through the campaign, in character, about being trapped by the mists when she should be back on the Sword Coast (or wherever) leading her company of freebooters. But when the push comes to shove of actually playing the module, it seems that that stuff will not really matter. Similar to how the backstory and desires of PCs in the Giants modules don't really matter to most of the play of those adventures.

I don't really see how a RPG could prevent a player from doing that sort of free-characterisation of his/her PC, and so if it is a manifestation of player agency at all it seems to be a component of a baseline.

It could certainly be compatible with playing a total railroad.

Hence why I don't really understand how it addresses the topic of this thread as raised by the OP.

 

[pemerton]

The player had agency to attempt to try and persuade the NPC.

In what RPG is this not the case? - subject of course to fictional positioning (eg if the PC is dead and awaiting resurrection, is bound-and-gagged, is charmed or geased not to, etc).

That players are able to declare actions for their PCs within the constraints of the relevant fictional positioning is a baseline for RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

Sorry, but I really dislike this framing. This is exactly the 'RP as optional afterthought' framing that I meant earlier. The players talking in-character is not some separate thing from the game, it is a a central part of it. It is most likely the way they coordinate all their agendas, so thus important for what will actually happen in the game. And even when it is not about that, it is still just as much part of the game than anything else the characters do.

I reiterate:

But three things:

(1) That is obviously not what the OP was asking about. Because nothing about GM practices - including so-called "quantum ogres" has any implications for any of this stuff about table chit-chat in or out of character;

(2) All RPGers are able to do this all the time whatever RPG they are playing.;

(3) Sometime the fiction will constraint the permissible in-character chit-chat: if, in the fiction, we're all in a tavern then I can't, in character, ask another PC to admire the beautiful sky directly above us; and if, in the fiction, I'm in love with Guinevere and am an honest paladin then there may be limits on how much I can, in-character, tell the others that I hate her.

Do you have any response to (1) through (3)?

Do you agree that "in character RP" is obviously not what the RPG was asking about? Do you agree that is because, in part, there is no RPG in which this cannot happen if the players want it to?

And perhaps most interestingly, do you agree that there is no difference beween roof of the tavern and the love for Guinevere as constraints arising from the fiction on permissible Iin-character RP"?

 

[prabe]

And perhaps most interestingly, do you agree that there is no difference beween roof of the tavern and the love for Guinevere as constraints arising from the fiction on permissible Iin-character RP"?

If the inability to see the night sky matters (maybe there's some sort of astrological thing happening) then the roof of the tavern is a real constraint and it matters; if the inability to control oneself around one's Queen matters, then one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere matters. I would say whether there's a difference between the roof of the tavern and one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere depends on what matters in a given game.

That's ... probably longer than the yes/no answer your question seemed to be looking for.

EDIT: It's also so self-evident as to be practically tautological, so I might have missed your point--sorry if I did.

 

[pemerton]

where that fails to me is I know no rpgs that constantly have an either or choice that the dm gives the player. Instead it’s: the scene is this, what do you do?

The player answers (for his/her PC): I do X.

Concrete example: in one of my recent Traveller sessions the "scene" was closed doors in an ancient alien pyramid complex. The X was I concentrate on them to use my psionics to open them. This was from a PC who has a psionic strength rating, but no psionic abilities, and who believed strongly that the pyramid complex was designed to enhance psionic power.

How is this action declaration resolved? According to the module I was drawing on, that action declaration fails. There are only two ways to open the doors - via strength, or via a control panel.

So in effect the player is presented with an A or B or C choice - open the door using strength, open the door using the control panel, or fail to open the door. Maybe we can add a couple of extras: blast the door with a plasma gun, or use plastic explosives on it, and it will probably "open".

But what about the attempt to use psionics? This is - in my view - the crunch point for player agency, because this is the point at which we have potentially competing conceptions of the shared fiction. Whose gets to prevail?

This is also why this ongoing debate about dice is super-weird to me. The dice aren't in themselves a source of agency. They're a technique for choosing between competing suggestions as to the content of the shared fiction.

I my Traveller game I set a check and had the player roll. It succeeded, and the door opened and I rolled to see the number of psionic strength points lost. From memory I also imposed a light wound (1D) to reflect the strain/exhaustion.

This established that psionic are able to open those doors. If the player had failed, it would have been an open question whether that was because it can't be done, or because the PC wasn't able to do it on this occasion.

Stepping back to the bigger picture, this is very like the discussion about PC desires and goals: that players establish these for their PCs is pretty much a baseline (unless the game uses pregens). Just like saying what the PC tries to do.

Where the discussion about agency becomes interesting - because we now have a way in which different RPGs are different - is when we consider who gets to decide whether it is feasible to actually take up those goals in play or who gets to decide whether it is feasible for that action declaration to succeed. If the GM is the one making all those decisions then the game is one (i) that I think clearly involves less player agency than if those matters were otherwise, and (ii) that I personally would characterise as a low-agency game. Because, just to reiterate, even in a railroad the player can do things - set goals, and declare actions - that you say mark out the important boundaries of player agency.

 

[pemerton]

If you run it as written, Burning Wheel and Burning Empires do so.
The outline of action resolution is roughly this:

1. Player gets notified it's time to act
2. player narrates an action that the GM wants rolled.
3. GM askes them
   1. What are you hoping to get out of that?
   2. What skill are you using to succeed at getting that
4. player answers, or backs down and alters narration to avoid the roll-requiring action if they don't back down
5. GM informs them of effects of failure and either that the roll is opposed or is of a specific difficulty, and if specified, what difficulty.
6. Player may assemble their dice pool
7. Player can back down at this point, before rolling, abandoning their desired outcome but not facing the result of failure, either.
8. Player who hasn't backed down rolls. If the Roll is opposed, the opposing character's player (or the GM) rolls.
9. the specified result happens, and return to narrative mode or to another player's turn.

Note that Mouse Guard and Torchbearer are slightly different in this process, because players don't always have the option to back down during the GM turn in mouse guard (nor it's TB equivalent). In the Player turn in Mouse Guard, however, it does pretty much do the same thing.

According to Luke Crane in the Adventure Burner and Codex, there is no step 7. As he presents it,

1. Player declares action;
2. GM either says 'yes' (if no/low-stakes) or calls for a check - at this point it is too late for the player to back out (Adventure Burner p 247 - "Don't let them weasel out of the test");
3. If its not clear what the intent of the action is, the player clarifies that (perhaps with help from the GM);
4. The GM identifies what abilities/skill(s) are to be tested - if the player disagrees, the two work together to clarify the task being undertaken, exactly how it relates to the intent, and what will be tested;
5. The GM now sets the obstacle and announces the consequence of failure;
6. The player makes the roll (perhaps using available resources to manipulate their dice pool or particular results).

Adventure Burner p 248 reiterates: Once you've stated your intent and task, once your character is in motion and the obstacle has been presented, you're expected to roll the dice. Even if it's too hard!

I think the only time a backdown would be OK is if at steps 3 and 4 it becomes clear that the player and the GM had quite different understandings of the PC's fictional positioning.

The flipside of this is set out on p 249, under the heading "Don't Be a Wet Blanket, Mr GM":

Don't call for a test just to see a character fail. . . . Ask yourself, "is anything really at stake here?" . . . If not, just roleplay through it. If [otherwise], negotiate an intent and task and roll some dice!​

 

[pemerton]

I feel that perception is not an ideal area to examine agency as it very often is passive or reactive.

In my Burning Wheel game, the PC bound to the will of the dark naga was in Joachim's bedchamber just as an assassin cut of Joachim's head.

At this point, and as I mentioned upthread, the player changes his PC's "Force of Will" Belief from I will find Joachim for my master to I will bring Joachim's blood to my master.

When I asked the player what he (as his PC) wanted to do, he said "I look around for a vessel to catch the blood in!" I framed a Perception check - not very hard, given that it seemed likely that the bedchamber of a convalescing mage might have a ewer or similar vessel in it - and the player rolled. He succeeded, and I told him that he could see a ewer sitting on a table in the room.

The idea that perception is passive or reactive is already taking as a premise that there is a whole category of action declarations where only the GM has agency to determine what happens next.

 

[pemerton]

If the inability to see the night sky matters (maybe there's some sort of astrological thing happening) then the roof of the tavern is a real constraint and it matters; if the inability to control oneself around one's Queen matters, then one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere matters. I would say whether there's a difference between the roof of the tavern and one's uncontrollable love for Guinevere depends on what matters in a given game.

That's ... probably longer than the yes/no answer your question seemed to be looking for.

EDIT: It's also so self-evident as to be practically tautological, so I might have missed your point--sorry if I did.

I don't dissent from your point about why it might matter.

My point, rather, is that - contra at least @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus - a player being limited in deciding what his/her PC feels is no more or less a constraint on how s/he can roleplay that PC than is the GM getting to decide the architecture, the weather, the nature of the planes, etc.

To elaborate further:

If I (playing my character) want to inspect the night sky (eg for an astrological thing) and can't because the GM has established that there is a roof over my head (eg maybe I lost a brawl and got locked up in a windowless dungeon), then that is just as limiting - on action declaration and on free narration of my PC's words and thoughts - as if some game process has established that I love the Queen.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish that I love the Queen - eg in typical D&D the fiction has to involve magic for this to happen.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish I got locked upon in a windowless dungeon - eg in Burning Wheel it's open to me to declare a Dungeons-wise or even Window-wise check (drawing on my in-character recollection that (eg) dungeons in this part often have small window high up to let out the reek) and if it succeeds then my recollection is correct and there is a small window high up in the dungeon wall through which I can see the night sky.

 

[prabe]

That's a sturdy analysis.

My point, rather, is that - contra at least @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus - a player being limited in deciding what his/her PC feels is no more or less a constraint on how s/he can roleplay that PC than is the GM getting to decide the architecture, the weather, the nature of the planes, etc.

I think there are some players (I'm one) who would experience hard, permanent, mechanical limitations on what their characters feel as dissonant (please don't bring charm spells and the like into this), to the point of feeling as though they had less agency--no matter what other kinds of agency they were gaining elsewhere in the game's mechanics. I think it's reasonable that my feelings about that ... shape my approach to GMing.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish that I love the Queen - eg in typical D&D the fiction has to involve magic for this to happen.

I'll agree that there aren't mechanical means for a DM in 5E to make characters feel things (outside the usual charm-spell exceptions), but I've found that a skilled DM can get the players to feel things--and I've found that works just as well, without the dissonance I mentioned above.

In some games there are limits on how strictly the GM or some other process can establish I got locked upon in a windowless dungeon - eg in Burning Wheel it's open to me to declare a Dungeons-wise or even Window-wise check (drawing on my in-character recollection that (eg) dungeons in this part often have small window high up to let out the reek) and if it succeeds then my recollection is correct and there is a small window high up in the dungeon wall through which I can see the night sky.

I have played games where players could do those sorts of things, and I've run them. I have found that I ended up not liking them as much as a player--mainly because they came with mechanics that imposed emotional/mental states on my character, leading to that dissonance; and some of the victories I achieved by rewriting the world felt ... cheap--or as a GM--my reluctance to generate the dissonance in my players' minds that I find so unpleasant makes me not the right person to GM those games, and I find it easier to keep the world consistent when I only have to remember what I've figured out, not what others have added.

 

[pemerton]

BW almost doesn't need a GM.

I don't agree with this. The GM has a central role in BW: drawing on his/her conception of "the big picture" (this is BW's version of AW's "think offscreen") to frame situations, establish consequences, manage pacing, etc.