A Question Of Agency?

[Lanefan]

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.

Allow me to disagree: the "decoupled RP" is the game, in those moments.

If you wish to define 'the game' as only being those bits where mechanics are involved, that's up to you; but I don't hold with that definition. To me the game is everything that goes on in-character, whether rules-bound or not, along with the mechanical things the rules make us do at the table.

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.

Will they?

I can think of many a time when those 'rules-free' sessions ended up with at least one PC dead (usually courtesy of some cursed treausry item or other). 'Being back next week' is not guaranteed.

That said, yes; sometimes the best (or worst) of these do approach soap opera in a way, with all the attendant affairs of the heart and so forth. I think it does the game a great discourtesy not to allow these the time to play out.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

Someone either said or strongly implied that the characterization and personality of one's character, and things done as a result of that, are either not agency or not enough agency (I forget which); and either that same person or someone else ran with this and got to - the term used was 'play-acting', I think - isn't a valid part of the game, as that person defined 'game'.

Needless to say, this was - and is - being challenged.

 

[Lanefan]

OK, fair enough, in D&D or in Diplomacy there are no rules or even process really (I think Diplomacy has a time limit on each turn, though it is common to change it) to govern this. Literally anything goes, I can lie, steal, spy on people, etc. in Diplomacy (actual laws and common decency obviously place limits here). The only thing of substance is the game board situation, and my orders for the turn. In fact I recall that in one Origins Diplomacy tournament I was in one of the players slipped fake orders for another player into the other players clipboard and they got turned in. There was a bit of a controversy on the legality of that, since it was impinging on the structure of the game. I think they decided it was a bridge too far, rolled the turn back and accepted the orders the player claimed were genuine.

In Diplomacy I'd let that go all day long! If players aren't careful enough with their orders to a) check them on handing them in and b) keep close watch on them (as in have them physically in hand!) between writing them out and handing them in, I have no sympathy whatsoever.

In a real war, it'd be the same as if enemy spies intercepted orders heading out to the field and replaced them with different.

 

[Lanefan]

I would add - those whose RPGing experience is confined to play where the GM exercises most of the agency are not familiar with the possibility of a high degree of player agency, such that the GM might also be playing to find out what happens.

The players find out what happens, the GM finds out how it happens.

The reason I prefer backgammon to chess is that it is easier - "lighter" - to play and hence demands just the right amount of effort + thinking from me. That doesn't mean backgammon involves as much agency as chess. I think it clearly doesn't. As is shown by the fact that from time-to-time a weaker player can beat a stronger one. In chess that won't happen - unless the players are pretty evenly matched the stronger will win.

'Should', not 'will'.

Ages ago I was in a chess club for a few years. Wide range of abilities represented; at my best I was maybe halfway-to-2/3 down the totem pole i.e. far from the best there. But even given that, once in a rare while I could rise up and knock off one of the club heavyweights...an upset about on a par with a National League club knocking off a Premier League side in the FA Cup, to be sure...but my point is that while on paper this shouldn't ever happen in practice it sometimes does.

 

[Lanefan]

Absolutely. I think there's a conflation by the Crimson/Frogreaver camp that agency is somehow synonymous with "play experience I prioritize". A 3 hour deep philosophical conversation between your characters in a tavern exhibits no agency,

Sure it does, if agency is defined as the ability to drive play. The players here are, through their conversation, absolutely driving play: in this case the play is that conversation. The GM isn't doing a thing!

If the GM were to cut that conversation short the players' agency would be blown to hell in that moment, as where they were driving play that ability to drive it has been arbitrarily curtailed.

 

[Lanefan]

Gamestates are sequences of play characterized by the following features:

1) They address the objective/premise of the game.

2) Each sequential gamestate is fundamentally changed (the existing orientation or nature of objects in play are changed in some relevant way - see (1) above) from the prior gamestate.

3) The gamestate marches inexorably toward the endgame or "game over", terminating when the objective/premise of the game has been resolved.

* Of note, depending upon the TTRPGs, there will be a macro gamestate (Dogs in the Vineyard - mete out justice and uphold the Faith as one of God's Watchdogs) and one or more micro gamestates (take my Dog's coat into Suzanna for mending as an excuse to attempt to romance her so I may marry her and retire) persisting simultaneously. However, some TTRPGs have an extremely small play loop such that there is only one gamestate that exists (One-shots and games like My Life With Master).

... But does what I wrote above make sense?

Yes for a board game or sports match, but maybe not so much for an RPG.

1. In an RPG, one could argue that there is no real universal objective/premise of the game other than to play one's own character; and that is in theory being addressed at all times during play.
2. Yes, though in an RPG those changed things may be in-character mental rather than in-game physical.
3. While some RPGs may have a defined end-state or game-over condition, many are or can be completely open-ended meaning there's no clear definition of "toward" here.

 

[aramis erak]

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



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!​

1: I never got Adventure burner
2: I'm working from BWR and BE, not BWG, and while I have BWG, I've only read certain parts. The ability to backdown is explicit in BWR core.

 

[aramis erak]

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.

You really should read Burning Empires. It establishes just how little the GM is needed in the system - because the GM is little more than the head of the opposition side when you have 4-5 players. It even has GMPCs as GMPCs, and is otherwise the same character mechanics as BWR. (different lifepaths, different races, but the same methods.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You really should read Burning Empires. It establishes just how little the GM is needed in the system - because the GM is little more than the head of the opposition side when you have 4-5 players. It even has GMPCs as GMPCs, and is otherwise the same character mechanics as BWR. (different lifepaths, different races, but the same methods.)

I believe this. To me it has constantly seemed that logical end point of the methods @pemerton is advocating is collective storytelling where the dice are used to determine who has the authority to tell the story at the moment. And that is a fine thing if that's what one wants to do. Now one doesn't need to take it that far, and that is a matter of preference, just like it is a matter of preference to not to take it even the point Pemerton is taking it.

And that's why the concept of different types of agency matter, even though a lot of people do their darnest to fight against it and pretend there is no difference. People experience these differences and have different tastes regarding different categories, and trying to obfuscate this merely makes discussing these things impossible.

 

[pemerton]

The ability to backdown is explicit in BWR core.

Where? I know it fairly well (better than Gold) and have just been looking through the Spokes. But didn't see the reference to backing down.