A Question Of Agency?

[aramis erak]

I'm not familiar with the DGP task system - but I have a copy of MegaTraveller and its task system. The only thing I like in MegaTraveller, which I have borrowed for my Classic Traveller game, is the Special Duty line on the PC gen tables. With the extra skills from the supplements - which are already there on the Supplement 4 charts and which I've retrofitted into my Book 1 charts (except for Legal, Trade and Gravitics - I just use Admin, Broker and Engineering) this helps give a good number of skills for the PCs.

I wouldn't say that the Classic subsystems are a "One True Way". But for me they're an important part of the Traveller "feel" and I think they help shape the implied setting very effectively. Whereas the MegaTraveller resolution framework and skill lists make me want to run back into the arms of Space Master!

The DGP CT task system differs little from the MT one. MT adds some special cases in the ref's manual, and the research rule Referee's Companion. But it's still 2d6 + Asset1 and Asset 2, with an asset being any one of (Att/5), Skill level, or computer model, by the book, plus in some adventures, Rank or Terms.

As for the "One True Way" guys, I mean each guy picks one mode, and claims that was Marc's intended method for everything, potentially excepting combat. (Marc maintains that he's always used Xd6 ≤ Att+Skill.)

The advantages of the Task System are consistency and easy choice of resolution method. 5 difficulties (plus auto and no chance) and labels that (after doing the math) seem to fit really well for an assumed Att 5-9 and skill 1.

The disadvantage of it is that the difficulties are wide steps, and that it's not as flexible as the full panoply of approaches buried in CT.

One of the interesting things I've used in MT, and it would work just as well in CT, is letting players apply rank or terms as a skill; this makes up for protocol skills and/or knowledge of service related things other than the core skills. And, like in Burning Wheel, I've happily let players make wises checks to establish facts, a technique Luke was discussing on his boards when I started running BW.

 

[Aldarc]

Do you remember the interviews of Emilia Clarke about the last season of GoT? How she was really upset when she go the scripts for the last episodes and how it took her for several days to adjust? Method actors absolutely will have issues if their characters are written in a way that go against their previously internalised mental image. They're professionals and can of course eventually make it to work, but it is unlikely that they have to do it in a moments notice like in a RPG. Also they're under million dollar contracts that highly incentivise them to not to just say 'sod it' and walk away...

Sure, but there is also a difference of medium. How one might play a character will likely differ in a theatrical stage production than in an improv comedy troupe than in a serialized television drama. Likewise, if you are a super serious thespian (top in your class at Julliard and M.A. at the Yale School of Fine Arts) going into a fantasy elf game for kids knowing how certain mechanics will work and operate in play, then your roleplay should likely account for the possibility that these internal states are subject to change in response to dice resolution, and I expect that an accomplished method actor would be able to adapt accordingly. It requires setting your expectations and adapting accordingly.

I also recall a lovely story about Jason Alexander on the set of Seinfeld. He was reading his part in the script for George Costanza, and he found it absolutely incredulous that anyone, let alone George Costanza would realistically do what transpired in that week's script. It was too crazy. "No human being would do this." So he went to head writer Larry David to complain. He said, "Who in their right mind would tell their boss that they quit and then show up to work for several weeks pretending that they never quit?! No one would react like this." Then Larry David replied, "What are you talking about? This is exactly what I did at SNL with Lorne Michaels." That was a watershed moment for Jason Alexander, who had previously been playing George Costanza more like Woody Allen. That's when he realized that his understanding of the character was wrong: George Costanza was Larry David. This was essentially the character correcting the actor.

Why do you keep denying those examples were brought up?

I’m sorry. Isnt this a discussion about rpg analysis? If so what does having played a particular rpg have to do with analyzing it?

You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true. Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?

Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.

Analyze it? Excuse me? When people pressed you for citations about any of the mechanics you and @Crimson Longinus were foaming at the mouth about, I felt guilty because I was the one who introduced Monsterhearts into the discussion. So I lobbed you two a slow softball and copy-pasted the "Turn Someone On" Move from Monsterhearts 2. No scratch that. I set up the tee-ball for you to hit at your leisure. You didn't even have to look through these games to make your citations. The bare minimum you and @Crimson Longinus had to do was engage the provided text and maybe use it support your argument.

But would you like to know something that surprises absolutely no who has been discussing this with you? Neither of you engaged the mechanics or wording of the Move that I provided for you! A drive-by post 'like' was it! It was there for easy pickings without you having to do any work for it. Yet you didn't demonstrate any actual evidence of having read it. In the 20+ pages since then, you haven't quoted it, mentioned it, or used it to illustrate a single point. Even now, you are struggling to name a possible applicable game when pressed, and even then you can't actually explain how the mechanic works. You are regurgitating hearsay in Satanic Panic fashion. Sorry, but you don't get credit for "analyzing" anything after that. Y'all don't even get an "F" for "Effort." Just a big, fat ZERO.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.

This is like me telling you that I don't like banana and you insisting that I have not properly analysed and understood the recipe of your exquisite banana smoothie and thus I must be wrong. That's really the trend in this thread.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It is interacting how with that Blades examples all the subjective calls the GM must make are described to 'be dictated by the fiction' etc by the same people who think that in GM driven game players have no agency if the GM decides things, though of course in such game too the GMs decisions are equally dictated by the fiction present.

Also in the Blades example the player getting to choose the flavour of doodah they poke and the flavour of bad stuff being tangentially affected by that is seen as player being able to direct the fiction yet the same people see characters talking, having emotional reactions etc as inconsequential flavour.

 

[Aldarc]

It is not like these mechanics are complex. It imposes certain feeling on the player character and expects the player to roleplay it.

This is like me telling you that I don't like banana and you insisting that I have not properly analysed and understood the recipe of your exquisite banana smoothie and thus I must be wrong. That's really the trend in this thread.

Sword fighting is not complex. The pointy end goes into the other guy. Now I am ready to have a debate about sword-fighting with a practiced fencer and a SCA sword fighter.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've just described the core play loop of Blades in the Dark; "choose to <do something> challenging, dangerous, troublesome, or signal to the GM that you're excited about this potential conflict, roll dice, and see if it "explodes in your face" (or not)."

As to agency (or "even the opposite"), who was following whose lead in @Ovinomancer 's play excerpt? A sincere appraisal of that question takes "possibly even the opposite" behind the woodshed.

The players agency here is to somewhat affect the fictional flavour of the bad stuff that happens to them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Sword fighting is not complex. The pointy end goes into the other guy. Now I am ready to have a debate about sword-fighting with a practiced fencer and a SCA sword fighter.

Good example. I don't like when I'm poked with a sword (in real life.) Your position is that I need to study different sword fighting techniques in order to make that statement.

 

[Aldarc]

Good example. I don't like when I'm poked with a sword (in real life.) Your position is that I need to study different sword fighting techniques in order to make that statement.

Saying that you don't like being poked by swords is a non sequitur, and I doubt it would be a controversial opinion to have even among sword fighters. The issue is not whether you like being poked or stabbed by swords. @prabe also doesn't like "sword poking," but there is not a problem there. The issue is your ignorance in a conversation you are engaging yourself with that involves discussing sword-fighting techniques and insisting that you understand what's going on.

 

[chaochou]

It is interacting how with that Blades examples...

No, what's interesting about the Blades examples is that all the people who have read, played and understand Blades in the Dark agree with the points made. And all the people who are groping around in the dark trying to guess what the examples mean miss the target, clearly and laughably.

The reason you and other look like complete morons, over and over and over again, is that just because someone cites you a specific mechanic doesn't mean they've cited or explained the complex interactions of play principles and context and authority over gameplay elements which are pre-requisites to understanding the example.

These are implicitly understood by - would you know it - people that have played the game, and completely missed by frothing blowhards playing a tragic and infantile game of playground gainsaying. And that is all you and frogreaver are doing. You're incapable of actual discussion because that requires knowing something. So you rely on others providing content for you to gainsay.

Yet again - from your own play experience describe the differences in player agency between Blades in the Dark, Monsterhearts or Burning Wheel with any edition of D&D.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Saying that you don't like being poked by swords is a non sequitur, and I doubt it would be a controversial opinion to have even among sword fighters. The issue is not whether you like being poked or stabbed by swords. @prabe also doesn't like "sword poking," but there is not a problem there. The issue is your ignorance in a conversation you are engaging yourself with that involves discussing sword-fighting techniques and insisting that you understand what's going on.

So what have I misunderstood? Do Monster Hearts mechanics impose a feeling on character that the player is expected to roleplay? Yes or no?

It is perfectly possible that I misunderstand things, and if I do, it is fair to point out specific mistake I may have made. However, this is not what you're doing here.