A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

Quick addendum ---

For context, my primary, "go to" system is Savage Worlds, but I played BECMI as a teen, and played a significant amount of D&D 3.5 and GM'd Pathfinder 1e in my 20s.

Believe me when I tell you that despite some glaringly obvious mechanical differences, D&D and Savage Worlds are very much cut from the same cloth in terms of playstyle / expected kinds of player and GM engagement. They're both very "traditional," discrete task resolution systems. Mechanics providing added player agency over the content of the fiction (with a few minor exceptions) are largely absent.

At a certain point in the past 5 years, driven by the fact that the stuff @pemerton and @Manbearcat were talking about in these forums sounded completely outlandish and obtuse, I decided I actually wanted to really find out if this whole "narrative-driven" style of play was a real "thing," or just mental vaporware.

So despite never having tried any of it before, I picked up and tried Dungeon World. I bought Burning Wheel Gold and read it. I bought and ran a one-shot of Fate Accelerated. I just recently discovered and read through Ironsworn multiple times. I've read other Powered by the Apocalypse systems (Masks, Scum and Villainy).

I don't claim to be an expert on narrative-driven RPG techniques at all. But I've learned and explored enough to know that it really is a "thing", and that the techniques, when followed, drive play in the directions being described. And that in my experience, the techniques described enhance the enjoyment of play.

Significantly.

I just wanted to add that this description largely fits my experience as well. Until the last few years, and in part spurred by discussion with folks here on these boards, I was pretty much a D&D guy. I play with a persistent group so we've gotten to the point where the game does what we want and what we expect, and we're all very familiar and comfortable with each other.

And I think that I allowed that fact to influence how I viewed D&D as a system. Any kind of shortcoming or flaw or drawback was largely mitigated for my group by our social understanding and standards. But once I started removing that social factor and looking at the game as it is designed and written, it looked differently.

I branched out into other games. Just reading at first, but once I started doing that, I started wanting to see how these games would work, and how the experience would differ from D&D.

And the fact is that they absolutely function differently, and provide a different gaming experience than D&D. Now, whether that difference makes a game better or worse is of course a matter of preference, but its existence is not.

I still enjoy D&D quite a bit, but I do find games like Blades in the Dark and PbtA games to have a lot more player agency involved.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.

Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.

OK, but how does a sandbox, for example, alter that calculus? What the action will cover is "things the DM put in the sandbox." Now, the DM could have made a 'candy box' where its all stuff the players asked to be there because that's what they want. Or not. Even in the latter case the DM is in the driver's seat about how things play out.

Now, in this sandbox the players have the power to decide to go to different localities and engage with what is there. OTOH traditionally they don't know a lot about where things are. Maybe they do have a 'map' though. The players can then agree to go to the evil temple because the dwarf thinks his old buddies might be imprisoned there. Maybe the fighter decides to build a castle near the river. The GM can indulge these to whatever extent, there just aren't any pro forma processes in D&D for how to do that. The players may spend weeks or months just running into bits of the game that are pure DM content.

If there is a (meta) plot then again we just don't know where it stems from. Maybe the players can influence what it is about, maybe not. We just don't know.

None of these are questions in DW. There IS a plot (front) probably a meta-plot (campaign front), and these are built around questions the players answered, or things they expressed interest about. No value judgments here, but these are just really different types of game.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I did not make value statement, I just described what's going on. I have no doubt that Blades can be fun and engaging game if the people are invested in the fiction. Even quantum ogres are not inherently a bad thing, reskinned or not.

You sidestepped this argument by focusing on a word. Your analysis leaves all games as quantum ogres -- an analysis so broad that it renders the same judgement is useless. The only way you can avoid this is by making the value statement -- that your play avoids the quantum ogres because a single player predetermining and deciding things removes this effect. This the the argument that you've neatly avoided with a semantics attack.

Yes, different forms of agency can influence each other. That's why I place high value on agency over character's mental states as agency limitations placed on those are usually effectively also agency limitations on actions following from those mental states. In any case, I don't understand why you want to make discussing things and describing games harder. It seems that you're merely interested in ramming through you mental framework that is detached from the actual experience of people playing roleplaying games.

I'm not making it harder, I'm avoid the simple traps that allow you to make the mistake that your ability to freely imagine your character's mental state doesn't, in any way, translate into the game by itself. Me imagining my character one way doesn't allow me to put that imagining into the game. If I convince myself that I have agency to imagine, then I have to also convince myself that a lack of agency to do anything with this is okay -- these are severable. In reality, the only way imagining your character has any weight whatsoever is if you can put that imagining into the game, and that's not part of the subdivision of agency you're claiming. It literally hides the fact that it's irrelevant without additional authorities.

And, you aren't free -- you're absolutely ignoring the many ways that the game you choose abridges your ability to freely imagine your character's mental state. At this point, you're just willfully ignoring these as you seem to have completely abandoned even trying to lampshade them.

Your problem is that you seem to only recognise narrative authority to control the setting as agency. In your Blades example that was present, albeit in a small way.

No, this is another subdivision I disagree is useful. I argue that agency is the ability to direct play in meaningful ways. Here, the GM has done so in imagining water down a passage and then putting that into play. Fynn's player has a nice bit of acting about the GM's decision, and then makes a choice that is no more informed than if he imagined his family used to have ski holidays. This bit of acting by Fynn's player doesn't direct play in any meaningful way -- but it is entertaining. Bob's player at least considers the options and his ability to deal with them and selects the option that he's most prepared to interact with in ways that can direct play (Bob can choose to breathe underwater, if that's something he wants to do). This isn't at all ability to direct the setting at all. No, that part was when I said that the only way that Fynn's acting could translate into agency would be if the acting leads to being able to imprint the fiction such that the acting was realized in play. That's directing play in a meaningful way.

Better how?

Barely better than random? He told a story to make a choice rather than roll a die, but, functionally, neither evaluate that choice in any way. In other words, Fynn's player chose one way and then acted out a story to support the choice. The story was post hoc the choice, which, while not entirely uniformed, was made arbitrarily.

Of course it is an use of agency. The player uses their agency to introduce an event 'my character reminisces about their childhood and waxes poetically about it'. Now the fiction has changed, it contains this new element.

And if they hadn't, nothing else about the fiction is different. If Fynn's character just said, "sure, water passage it is," then they've exercised the same choice but didn't act. The lack of the reminiscence is unremarkable -- except in terms of entertaining the players at the table. It's introduction changes nothing and only adds some flavor. If this is the agency you seek -- the ability to add bits of otherwise unimportant flavor -- then it's a poor agency, and the observation that there's low player agency stands.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So let’s suppose some reason was given that you believe is coherent and I do not. It’s still an issue solely rooted in a disagreement about terms and analysis. The larger game as a whole had no bearing on that discussion.

Now let’s suppose the objection is due to some additional mechanic that wasn’t introduced in the example or mechanic summarization provided. If that other mechanic was important to the discussion it’s still not my fault it wasn’t introduced originally.

Like seriously, it’s common knowledge I’ve not played those games. To engage me in a conversation about them is a defacto agreement that you are okay with my lack of knowledge about them. You don’t get to 1000 posts later start demanding I have more knowledge to have this discussion.

You are entirely empowered to decide what topics to engage on here. Nobody can fault anyone else for what they are or are not familiar with, nor demand that they read this or read that. They can certainly comment on whether or not a post was made with sufficient knowledge of the topic. I think it is interesting to hear from people with all different perspectives, but nobody is obliged to accept points that don't make sense, or to discuss the topic as if everyone is equally informed. If you want to be equally informed then you will have to do the work, else you won't be. It is really that simple and we didn't invent the rules of the world that make it so.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Well, I think that's what a lot of discussion boils down to: "We need to have rules that stop a terrible GM from railroading me". And my answer is that if you don't like railroads, don't play with GMs that run railroads.

Also adventure path discussion is pretty besides the point. By their nature they're railroady, and everyone who agrees to play them understand this. That really is not due the system, it is due them being prewritten things that naturally cannot take into account individual desires of everyone who might play them. Should be pretty obvious.

I'm the GM for my group, with only rare occasions otherwise. I don't, and haven't, run a railroad since the early 90's. I'm not looking at games like Blades in the Dark to stop myself from railroading. This argument is dead on arrival.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Once again, just quickly skimming so nothing of much quality to say. Just wanted to address this.

Dungeon World isn't a delve game. It doesn't do anything like Moldvay Basic (its structure doesn't deliver that sort of play at all...Torchbearer is that game), its merely a love-letter to the broad tropes of D&D (but the foreward of Moldvay Basic, which is nothing like the game, was probably what inspired Koebel and LaTorra).

Dungeon World is pulp Fantasy Heroic D&D with strong archetypes and snowballing danger and discovery meeting the fellowship and journey quality of LotR (Bonds + Journey mechanics). It also lends itself toward robust, Big Damn Heroes. In this way, its very much like a PBtA version of 4e D&D.

While my Torchbearer games are all Crawls/Camp/Town, I've never had a single dungeon delve featured in all my DW games (though there has been some subterranean and complexes/ruins play); probably 600 and change hours of play?

EDIT - I just read your preferences post. To be honest, your preferences sound absolutely perfect for Dungeon World. However, if Blades and AW turn you off as a system, you're probably not going to like DW.

Agreed, what DW gives you is the ELEMENTS that appear in BECMI, with basically the same genre/tropes. In BECMI you deal with torches and wandering monsters and exploration turns, etc. If you do a delve in DW (quite possible IME) it won't be about some resource games and such, that is for sure! Resources exist, but largely to be leverage points for GM pressure. You wouldn't count your torches in DW and calculate when you have to turn back. Instead you'd get hit with a soft move "your torch sputters, it is about to go out." Obviously in DW you need a group that 'wants to delve' to make this stuff happen.

Torchbearer could be fun, though I am personally less interested in that kind of delving at this point. hehe.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Thank you for providing an example that we can discuss. You clearly don't like it. Do you think it limits agency? If so, why?

How not being able to decide how my chracter behaves and acts limits my agency? Should be rather apparent.

It kind of seems to me like it doesn't, but it's hard to say for sure because I'm not familiar with the system. So a few questions. How is the PCs Valor score determined?

Is this the point where I according to the forum etiquette am supposed to snap at you that I'm not here to educate you?

But seriously, I have the books packed somewhere (two copies of most of them in fact) but I haven't opened them in years. This is why I really didn't want to go into specifics, as I simply do not remember the specifics even though it is one of my most played games. It has been too long.

You get to assign points to your virtues, but regardless of how you assign them at least one will end up as three, even on a starting character.

Doesn't having a strong sense of Valor mean that you would not turn down a duel or flee a battle? Doesn't that seem perfectly in character?

In certain situations yes. And I would rather trust the players to determine whether this was the sort of situation instead of mechanics making that decision for them. People know how to roleplay their characters without the rules doing it for them. And as written, this virtue would literally force the character to commit a suicide against an overwhelming foe.

And the player also has a resource to avoid being "forced" into these actions?

Yes. But it is used for other things and is really valuable. And as it is also main way to overcome conditions imposed on you by social combat. So it might be a choice of being autopiloted by virtues or directed by NPCs. And that was just the mundane stuff. On top of that there is magical mind control and the Solar Exalted (and IIRC other too, but it might be slightly different...) have a curse. They have a 'limit break' track (not a nice thing like in Final Fantasy) that accrues in certain situations and once it gets filled they kinda go mad and lose control completely for a while. And one way to accrue this is to use willpower to resist your main virtue. So it might be a choice between a small lose of control now or larger later. This game really has a lot of mechanics that cause you to lose control of your character one way or another.

That could be one solution. Another could be to use a rules system that doesn't allow for railroad because GM authority is reasonably constrained.

You should use whatever system is most fun for you, but but I really don't believe in systems fixing people issues.

It absolutely is due to the system. If the system didn't allow for the railroad, then there couldn't be a railroad.

That the system allows railroading doesn't mean that system results railroading. And if it wouldn't allow railroading, these adventure paths wouldn't exist! (Not a loss for me, but would be for people making them.)

So, to save @Aldarc the trouble of posting it again for you, here's the relevant rule from Monsterhearts that is in question. I've bolded what I think is a relevant bit about how to react being up to the player.

Turn Someone On
When you turn someone on, roll with Hot. On a 10 up, gain a String on them and they choose a reaction from below. • On a 7-9, they can either give you a String or choose one of the reactions.

• I give myself to you,
• I promise something I think you want, or
• I get embarrassed and act awkward.

All kinds of things can Turn Someone On, especially if that person is a teenager. Maybe this is a flirtatious glance, a whispered promise for later, or a goofy smile at
the right moment. Maybe it’s just something they notice about you as you walk past them in the hall. When you use this move, feel free to take the opportunity to step outside your character, to speak like an author would: describing your character’s pouty lips or moonlit silhouette. Unlike the other basic moves, Turning Someone On can be triggered even if there’s no specific action being taken; your character doesn’t have to intend to Turn Someone On – sometimes, it just happens.
This move is at the heart of how Monsterhearts understands sexuality, especially teen sexuality. We don’t get to decide what turns us on, or who. Part of your agenda is keeping the story feral, and that means letting your character’s sexuality emerge in all of its confusing and unexpected glory.
When someone turns your character on, the emotional dynamic between them shifts. If a String is gained, the power dynamic shifts a little bit as well. How you react to that is up to you. What honesty demands is that you acknowledge the shift, imagine what your character might be feeling, and play from there. If Julia turns Monique on, it doesn’t mean Monique has to throw herself at her. Just play out how Monique would naturally respond. Maybe Monique blushes and turns to leave, or maybe she suddenly gets nervous and starts stammering.

The ability of the player to determine the reaction seems pretty in line with what we'd expect in D&D. For example, the DM may tell you that you've been struck for 12 points of damage, but I would think the DM adding "you shriek in pain" as a reaction would likely be seen as overstepping on their part. The player gets to decide how the PC reacts.

First of I don't think that being physically hurt* and being attracted to someone are comparable things. This system definitely tells the player how their character feels and in turn how to roleplay them. Now I fully admit that this system is way subtler that the Exalted one. I'd simply say this is a better made system that gives the player leeway how to interpret things. It still is not the sort of mechanic I like. Furthermore, unlike in Exalted where virtue mechanics and social combat are just one small facet in the game and can easily be amended/overruled/ignored by a sensible GM, my understanding is that Monster Heart is basically built around this kind of mechanic, it is central to the whole game. So in that sense it would be an bigger issue for me. None of this is saying that it is a bad game, I get what they're doing and why. But it is still trading the sort of agency that I care about a lot to get those results, so it is unlikely that I would like this game.

* (That being said, being able to control the physical integrity of your character would be a form of agency. It is not something most games have, but it could in theory exist. In certain types of freeform roleplay it does exist, also in some LARPs)

 

[prabe]

I'm the GM for my group, with only rare occasions otherwise. I don't, and haven't, run a railroad since the early 90's. I'm not looking at games like Blades in the Dark to stop myself from railroading. This argument is dead on arrival.

From the little bit I've read about the ... inspirations for Blades, et al. (and the systems themselves) I don't think it's an unreasonable thought that they were written (or other verbed) in response to bad GMing in other games. I think in some instances they blamed the systems for the bad GMing, which given the GMing advice in some games isn't completely bonkers (though it's probably further than I'd go).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Ovinomancer I am no longer bothering to reply point by point, but:

1) Any game contains different things, different areas. Now as all this a social construct, sometimes the categories may be slightly blurry, none of this is something that is physically existing and objectively measurable. But this doesn't mean they're not useful way to communicate things. Player can have agency over one area while not over other. The agency also almost never is absolute, albeit in theory it could. A player can have, none, a little, some or a lot agency over any given area. From this it inevitably follows that it is coherent to say that different types of agency exist and it can exist in different quantities. Arguing against this is both illogical and counterproductive.

2) But now we get to a distinction that you make but it doesn't exist, at least not in the way you try to use it. There is not any objective divide between 'just flavour and 'meaningful things' in a roleplaying game. The fiction exists in the shared imagination of the players and intentionally introducing new elements in this fiction is an act of agency. Now, you can of course say things that like 'that was just flavour' and 'that was really meaningful' but ultimately it is a value judgement, it is not something that can be objectively measured.

 

[pemerton]

So how does combat [in D&D] get resolved then?

0. Roll initiative.
1. wait for your turn.
2. when it is your turn choose an action.
2b. Roll dice as directed in the rules depending on your action.
3. Repeat steps 1-3 until the combat is over. (Typically the enemy dies, retreats, or is captured)

Who decides if the action declared at step 2 is successful? Who decides if the enemy dies? Or retreats?