A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

Game five of the National League Championship Series, 1997. Livan Hernandez was throwing to a strike zone that at times was literally three feet wide--so, of course the Braves struck out fifteen times against him. Now, he did it against the Braves, so I have no real complaints, but I don't think there was much they could have done with a strike zone that out of whack.

I dunno, have you seen Victory? Sly, Craine, Slydow, and Pele overcome all of the Nazi's advantages and the extremely biased refereeing to not just win the game against all odds, but escape the Nazis anyway! I mean, if a bunch of actors* can do it, surely professional athletes can!

*and one of the greatest footballers of all time

 

[darkbard]

This does go the agency point, though -- if only the GM has the say, then it should be obvious the players have less say. That's really the end of the point. You clearly think you wouldn't like having more of a say, so that's that -- you've got your value statement and it's a good one. The argument hasn't been about which is better in any way, but how it works.

Excellent and useful explication throughout your post. I picked this last point out because it has been made so many times in so many ways and yet keeps running up against the specious argument of a roadblock that there exist different kinds of player agency that somehow are separate from the overall totality of player agency. Until y/our interlocutors look beyond their blinders, facilitated by, y'know, actual play of these games, I don't see how else it can be argued to make the case not only apparent but, upon reflection, obvious!

 

[Campbell]

There are a couple of features in Blades that make it much easier to notice when GMs are trying to lean play in a particular direction.

There is no invisible machinery on the GM's side. When they do a thing you know it's the GM deciding to do it. The GM rolls no dice to fudge, has no enemy stats to obfuscate what they are doing, and is beholden to no prep. You know when and when not a GM is exercising their latitude. In many ways they have more latitude, but it is ridiculously transparent.

Gather Information requires a GM to provide useful information that directly answers the question the player poses. This makes it quite trivial to learn real, reliable information to use as the basis for your fictional positioning.

Another feature which makes it pretty difficult is that Blades resolves player intent and makes success incredibly transparent. There are no DCs, TNs, or Obs. You look at the dice and you know. Blades also provides for resistance rolls to overturn consequences. Playing games there is trivial to see.

Games are not mind control. You will never be able to control behavior through system. The best we can do is make as obvious as possible when people are acting in a way that is contrary to our shared expectations.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There are a couple of features in Blades that make it much easier to notice when GMs are trying to lean play in a particular direction.

Thank you, this is a clear post. And I agree that it is definitely harder such in Blades in many ways.

There is no invisible machinery on the GM's side. When they do a thing you know it's the GM deciding to do it. The GM rolls no dice to fudge, has no enemy stats to obfuscate what they are doing, and is beholden to no prep. You know when and when not a GM is exercising their latitude. In many ways they have more latitude, but it is ridiculously transparent.

True. Though I feel that openness of consequences really requires a a lot of GM judgement.

Gather Information requires a GM to provide useful information that directly answers the question the player poses. This makes it quite trivial to learn real, reliable information to use as the basis for your fictional positioning.

Sure. But GM still provides the information and that certainly directs things.

Another feature which makes it pretty difficult is that Blades resolves player intent and makes success incredibly transparent. There are no DCs, TNs, or Obs. You look at the dice and you know. Blades also provides for resistance rolls to overturn consequences. Playing games there is trivial to see.

The GM sets the position and effect though. So that's them setting the DC.

Games are not mind control. You will never be able to control behavior through system. The best we can do is make as obvious as possible when people are acting in a way that is contrary to our shared expectations.

True.

 

[Lanefan]

All I can say here is that this may be your concern. Perhaps you’ve attempted this and it’s gone as you describe here. If so, then I don’t blame you for feeling that way.

But please trust me when I say that this style of game actually exists and functions perfectly fine.

Also, you bring this up a lot....why do you always assume that players won’t care about stories related to other players’ characters? It seems a bit bizarre.

Heh - I quite literally just finished playing in a session where this is about to rear its ugly head in a rather big way.

We all have multiple PCs which have until now been split into multiple parties. All of the parties - yes, all four (!) of 'em - just returned to our collective home base at around the same time: there's now over 40 adventurers there.

Two of my PCs have specific personal agendae they want to follow for the near-mid future that at most peripherially involve anyone else. Another has a specific agenda shared with two other PCs (this will almost certainly turn into a played adventure before long). Another player's PC has a specific personal agenda (rescuing some stranded family members) that will ironclad involve an adventure, and she's just started trying to recruit other people to join her*. Other PCs quite likely have their own agendae of which I-as-player know little to nothing.

Our GM just went into cat-herd mode.

* - interest might not be high in the immediate, as an adventure we just finished was around doing exactly the same thing: rescuing family members stranded in the Far Realm.

Why would you assume multiple PCs and high lethality?

Those things - multiple PCs and in-play lethality (maybe not "high" per se, but moderate) - are things I expect as aspects of any game I'm in either as DM or player. The lethality because, to quote a player of mine, dungeons without mortailty are dungeons without life. The multiple PCs part is an aspect of wanting to play in a setting that's deeper and broader than just a single AP, where there's more to it than just the in-play party.

Honestly, my group crafts their PCs together, even when playing games that don’t require that (some games do). So we talk all this stuff out, splitting the creative burden up and sharing it.

Where I prefer independent character-making, so people don't feel pressured to play something just to fill a gap in th elineup.

 

[Aldarc]

True. Though I feel that openness of consequences really requires a a lot of GM judgement.

It's important to keep in mind - and @Ovinomancer has already touched on this regarding the lightness of the SRD compared to the book - that one of the most important aspects of play discussed in the BitD book is that it's a conversation involving a negotiation of the fiction between the GM and the players. The GM may have final say, but the play principles push gameplay towards negotiating the fiction with the players through conversation.

 

[FrogReaver]

Game five of the National League Championship Series, 1997. Livan Hernandez was throwing to a strike zone that at times was literally three feet wide--so, of course the Braves struck out fifteen times against him. Now, he did it against the Braves, so I have no real complaints, but I don't think there was much they could have done with a strike zone that out of whack.

Baseball is one sport I’ve never had much interest in. But based on the description this would be an example of a game wherein the braves had no agency at all. Not even a little bit.

which plays right back into my overall point.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's important to keep in mind - and @Ovinomancer has already touched on this regarding the lightness of the SRD compared to the book - that one of the most important aspects of play discussed in the BitD book is that it's a conversation involving a negotiation of the fiction between the GM and the players. The GM may have final say, but the play principles push gameplay towards negotiating the fiction with the players through conversation.

I think this difference really comes down to the kinds of consequences the Blades GM can level -- equipment, position, harm, complication, etc. The 5e GM also has all of these options, but they gate a bit behind engaging other mechanics (like combat or saving throws) so the through-line is less clear.

 

[prabe]

Baseball is one sport I’ve never had much interest in. But based on the description this would be an example of a game wherein the braves had no agency at all. Not even a little bit.

In principle, they had agency when the Marlins were at bat. In practice, Livo and the home plate umpire were going to carry the day, yes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This, again, assumes that you're playing in a more D&D style, where the GM anticipates things. The way that play of Blades so rapidly moves means prep is pretty useless to begin with, and prep that's you try to force into the play becomes obvious because it doesn't fit. You're still not adapting to the entire play process. I thought the same way, prior to gaining experience with it -- it's a natural thought if you haven't entirely moved the paradigm. I'll even say my first few sessions I was still trying to do things like this, but I quickly saw how that just didn't work out and fully adapted to the style. Now, it's not that I don't want it to be possible and am arguing to protect the game (I don't have much stake at all in this, I'm not stuck defending Blades at all), but rather I have the experience to say that this just doesn't and mostly cannot happen at all.

I am not talking about should, I'm talking about could. Things such as 'this thing contains a ghost and tries to souldrain you' are pretty damn easy to place in various differnt places without it feeling forced at all. Furthermore, there is a continuum from 'totally made up on spot,' 'made up on spot but influenced by some vague musings the GM had before' to 'totally preplanned.'

The players did. Or rather, they decided to go after a cult doing creepy things, we did free form roleplay where they investigated where that cult my be by contacting a source in Six Towers (a neighborhood of Duskvol). From there, it was determined in play that the cult was there and the source knew where they were, but needed payment (the fortune roll was mixed). So, I decided that the source wanted something stolen from the cult's location in addition to what the PCs wanted to accomplish, to pay for his information. I then looked over the neighborhood description for Six Towers, saw Lord Scurlock's abandoned manor was a landmark, and pitched it. Here's the lore on the Six Towers neighborhood:

And here's Scurlock's Manor:

This is what informed the decision to use a cool landmark from the game -- "Bring Duskvol to life" -- and lean into the haunted nature of the neighborhood and Lord Scurlock's past -- "Paint the world with a haunted brush." I mean, haunted manors are solidly within scope of the game. Plus, the cult they were seeking had occupied play for the previous few sessions -- it didn't even exist at first, but the PCs' failures led to the addition of a cult, then the kidnapping by the cult of one PC's ally (a ghost), and then a demon got involved wanting this issue closed (am entanglement roll of "demonic notice" at a time where it fit perfectly), so the crew had a lot of motivation to do this thing. This entire quest line started with a job to recover some sets of alchemical notes that were driving alchemists mad (a rolled score, when the crew went to one of their contacts for a job). Everything else snowballed from there, as the system is built to do -- create complex stories from simple inputs and play.

Right. So you found a cursed manor in the setting lore and decided to send the PCs there. This is how Curse of Strahd works too. The players decided to seek information about a thing, but you decided where they have to go to get the thing.

As for who decided, I did, from player input. They chose to sneak into the manor, and had a great engagement roll, so the opening scene had to be Controlled, which means, usually, a foreshadowed threat rather than a present one. So, they entered the manor through an old servents tunnel (the player decided "detail" of the engagement), and that let out into a storeroom off of a hallway in the manor (I decided this, from the detail). Since Blades runs on obstacles, I am required to frame one in the opening scene, and start a new scene when one is played out. So, I narrated a guard being present and needing to be bypassed, but currently unaware of the crew -- hence a controlled situation completely grown out of many, many inputs, some decided immediately before (the engagement approach and detail and the result of the roll).

And I am sure there are countless differnt framings that could have fit those results. This was one of them and you chose it. And that will affect what the players do.

I anticipate that you'll try to point out this could have been planned in advance, but I'll go ahead and counter with asking you to plan something in advance for a Blades mission, and we'll see how well it survives the PCs choosing a score and approach and detail -- that it might theoretically perfectly play out so that pre-planning is even remotely relevant, much less useful, is very long odds.

A lot of this could have indeed be planned in advance. And even when it wasn't, you made a lot of choices that massively impacted the direction of the game. Not that this is bad thing at all, but I feel you're downplaying the amount of influence the GM has here.

So, for one, the SRD is very light. The actual rulebooks spends pages on these, and has examples to illustrate. Harm is presented in levels -- 1, lesser, 2 moderate, 3 severe, and 4 dead. These correspond nicely to the positions -- controlled, risky, and desperate. Dead is reserved for your second severe injury or fictional situations where the effect is very severe and foreshadowed. Given that the PCs can always choose to Resist, although that may take them out, it's okay to occasionally have such dire threats if it fits the game.

But the Gm decides the position, which is based on the fiction which is based on their framing so...

Again, remember you've read the SRD, which is very basic and covers topics just enough to get by.

This certainly may influence my views.

Oh, I assure you, it would have looked different. I would have played up the portrait more, making it more interesting than I did, and I wouldn't have included the guard as the primary point of conflict and interest in the scene. Had that player not had the motivation they did, it wouldn't even have been remarked on -- I add lots of color to my descriptions, and it's usually just that. Just because this particular piece of color caught a player's wants doesn't make it anything like what you're trying to claim it could maybe have been. This is a deep dive into Maybe Lake.

But you knew the character's motivation, so it is even easier. You also know your players and if playing live can read their reactions. I am not saying that you were intentionally guiding them, but that could easily be done.

Sure, that's fine. I don't think it works out this way -- you find something interesting and it's interesting, you're not checking with the GM to see if it's interesting or not. But, still, I totally get that you might prefer having someone else make that call so you can feel like you're exploring some reality. It's all still make-believe, though, so this is definitely a thing of how you're choosing to suspend your disbelief over what's the same thing at the end of the day, just with different people responsible for it.

This does go the agency point, though -- if only the GM has the say, then it should be obvious the players have less say. That's really the end of the point. You clearly think you wouldn't like having more of a say, so that's that -- you've got your value statement and it's a good one. The argument hasn't been about which is better in any way, but how it works.

Not necessarily so. You can offload a lot of decision points to mechanics and randomisers, so no one has agency over them. I think Blades does that quite a bit. And with these sort of mechanics I have to question how meaningful the decisions ultimately are. There has been a lot of talk about Czege principle (usually not by me.) But if I want to know whether an item is a magical and my act of investigating it makes it so that it is, how is that not violation of that? Would certainly seem rather unsatisfying to me.