A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

Your character could being sarcastic about the food, or describing the night sky, I suppose, but I'm quibbling, not really disagreeing. (Sorry, @pemerton )

The quibble is absolutely fine. My response would be - if the GM tells me I'm in love with Guinevere then I can do the same thing. For real-life examples, look at 14 year olds (especially 14 year old boys) in coed schools.

 

[pemerton]

I agree. Those are limitations placed upon narrative agency.

They're limitations on your favoured baseline, because they limit how I can characterise and "roleplay" my character.

 

[FrogReaver]

Your character could being sarcastic about the food, or describing the night sky, I suppose, but I'm quibbling, not really disagreeing. (Sorry, @pemerton )

You actually are 100% right in that sense. If what is meant is can my character say these words even if objectively untrue then a player had agency for that.

but while it’s not explicitly stated there’s a “and have it be true” qualifier intended at the end of that example.

in which case its really talking about narrative agency.

 

[FrogReaver]

Can you actually name some games that do so?

Maybe with reference to rules, or mechanical systems, or play experience, or similar?

I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.

 

[pemerton]

Here's another example (which @AbdulAlhazred already posted 20 or 30 pages upthread):

The GM narrates you come to a dead end.

Now I can't describe the following action for my character (assuming that I'm not ethereal or similar): I keep walking straight ahead.

Thus the GM's description is a limit on "baseline" agency.

And this sort of thing happens in D&D all the time.

The bigger point is this: "baseline" agency is constrained by the fictional position of the PC; and that fictional position contains both internal and external elements.

 

[pemerton]

I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.

Which ones? Have you played any of them? The only game I've seen mentioned which strongly controls a PC's beliefs is D&D, in which if the GM says You come to a dead end then my PC now believes I'm at a dead end and so can't keep going forward.

 

[FrogReaver]

Here's another example (which @AbdulAlhazred already posted 20 or 30 pages upthread):

The GM narrates you come to a dead end.

Now I can't describe the following action for my character (assuming that I'm not ethereal or similar): I keep walking straight ahead.

Thus the GM's description is a limit on "baseline" agency.

And this sort of thing happens in D&D all the time.

The bigger point is this: "baseline" agency is constrained by the fictional position of the PC; and that fictional position contains both internal and external elements.

I most certainly can narrate my character walking straight ahead at a dead end.

I may take some damage. Or maybe I’ll find it’s an illusory wall...

 

[FrogReaver]

Which ones? Have you played any of them? The only game I've seen mentioned which strongly controls a PC's beliefs is D&D, in which if the GM says You come to a dead end then my PC now believes I'm at a dead end and so can't keep going forward.

Why do you keep denying those examples were brought up?

 

[chaochou]

I reference the ones previously mentioned in this thread as controlling my characters beliefs.

Again, name the games and provide reference to the rules, and your play experiences. No-one else is going to answer for you. Let’s hear your experiences.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

But the adventure is responding... again whether pre-scripted or not it is a specific response to my actions. And my choice is whether I do or don't play that piety up or rather I go in a different direction with my characterization which may or may not have different results. As long as there is a reasonable way for me to determine the likely effect my characterization will have beforehand, I would argue that is choice with agency... and if we are using D&D as an example insight would be my go to skill for that.

It seems you are looking at a specific type of agency (non-scripted results perhaps). I on the other hand accept that agency can exist even if there is pre-determined results for the exertion of said agency.

EDIT: I am curious when dealing with non-scripted results where the player can narrate success but not failure how does the player measure risk vs reward in order to make a meaningful choice? Especially if the GM is creating the failure state on the fly...

I agree that the player could be having agency in this situation, but you said yourself we cannot tell without details of things like how the possible attitudes towards the Moon Goddess were telegraphed, or what process the GM used to decide to include it. So, at best, the amount of player agency here is essentially 'borrowed from the GM' and not an inherent aspect of the system. It can be said to be inherent to a technique of play. So, we can discuss DMs and their techniques here, but all we can say of games similar to D&D is "they give us nothing by default." Which is all any of us have said...

On the matter of non-scripted results and player defined success. This will vary by game. In BW the consequences are determined before any checks are made, in both directions. The player specifies an intent and a fiction, the GM describes failure. Now @pemerton states you can't back out at this point, but I think what he's really saying is that the stakes should already be clear/negotiated before the formal steps happen. In Dungeon World the principles of play and agenda of the GM pretty well circumscribe things. The GM could respond to a 6- with almost any sort of "hard move" in most cases, which could include serious consequences (damage, even death) but I would say that harsh moves against a PC when the stakes didn't seem to be that high would not be in keeping with those ideas.

If you think about it, this is not really different from the core unspoken concept in D&D, where a DM who puts a CR10 monster on level 1 of a dungeon that level 1 PCs are sent into is probably doing it wrong (at least if he's not being very careful to telegraph this all to the players so they know how to react, and that they have an 'out').