A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

Oh c'mon, cult could be anywhere! If the players had themselves looked at the map (or setting info or whatever) and decided to go raid the haunted mansion, then it would have been player driven. Albeit not more so than in any even somewhat sandboxy D&D game.

No, because here the GM has already determined the particulars of that location, and the players are just choosing which aspects of the GM's ideas they're going to explore at this time. There's no ability for the players to add anything they care about -- it's all up to the GM. You're confusing the ability to pick which choose-your-own-adventure book to read for agency in that book.

In Blades, I do not direct play at all. As @hawkeyefan has said, the players pick what's important. I have inputs, yes, but they're entirely triggered by the players. Here, they picked a haunted neighborhood, a source that dealt with ghosts, and a mission that involved recovering a kidnapped ally from a creepy cult. Sure, I could have picked any number of other places, but it's really hard to say that the choice of a haunted, abandoned manor house was, in any way, incongruous with the players' intent or the fiction established. I certainly had no idea we were going to a haunted manor house at the start of the session. I have no idea what would happen in our next session. That's the point -- I, as GM follow the players' lead.

And this would have been more player driven, as the PCs had directly chosen the location unlike here where they had to seek information about the location and then GM providing the information directing them to the location of GM's choosing.

You're misunderstanding the nature of the investigation. The players tell me they're talking to this source about this topic, and, well, that source knows something about that topic. Because that's how it works. You said above I could have picked anything for where the cult was, and that's true in a trivial sense. Here, though, no matter what lead the players choose to follow it will pan out for information. Why? Because getting information isn't the point of Blades in the Dark, the score is, and finding info on a score is what drives the game towards it's point. So, when they picked a ghost dealer in a haunted neighborhood, they chose a lot of what things were going to be about. I could have put the cult in a steampunk rave club, but given what the players cared about (save ghost friend, haunted neighborhood, dealing with creepy cultist) that wouldn't have made sense.

Was my choice unoriginal? Guilty. Was it cliched? Also guilty. I find cliches to be useful quick mood and setting tools so everyone's on the same page very quickly. I actually spoke to my friend who plays in this game and described this argument to him -- he was taken aback that anyone would suggest that things turned out in any way different from what he (he plays the Whisper who was searching for his ghost friend) expected or wanted.

I mean, right now, in that Blades game, here's some of the things that the Crew is dealing with:

-One of the crew is in jail, serving time, and that's not a nice thing.
-The cult has expanded operations using the madness formula to create seeming zombies from their victims, in reality, this is an alchemically boosted form of possession that has nasty effects.
-One member's ghost friend is missing, presumed kidnapped by the cult.
-One member is trying to change his vice.
-One member is trying to find a way to get revenge on an old slight by a Priestess of the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh.
-One member is trying to build a Hull for the ghost of their dog.
-The Crew is tasked by a Demon to recover the alchemical formula being used by the cult.
-One member has a locked box, known to be an artifact from near or before the apocalypse, and wants to discover it's secrets.
-Every member of the crew has a rival looking to knock them down a rung.
-*There's a gang war in the Crew's neighborhood, and they're caught in it because the winner of the war will take control over the neighborhood, and the Crew will have to pay tribute or go to war themselves.
-The Spirit Wardens are looking for the Crew, due to a number of untimely deaths around the Crew's activities.
-The Dimmer Sisters have allied themselves with the Crew, and have some needs to be met to keep them pleasantly happy.
-One member is developing a contact within the Bluecoats to help deflect heat from their activities.
-*The neighborhood of Dunslow harbors a grudge against the Crew for starting a fire there, and is trying to get them arrested for the deed.
-The Railjacks are angry with the Crew for a heist in their railyards, and may seek to cause mischief for the crew.
-Ulf Ironborne has an issue with the Crew, and his gang is on the lookout for the "traitorous" Skovlander on the Crew.
-The Greycloaks have an issue with the Crew, and are looking for some payback for the humiliations caused to them during the haunter house score (the Greycloaks were hired muscle).

I'm missing a few things here, I'm sure, but this is pretty close to the list of current things the Crew is dealing with. I've asterisked the ones that were part of initial crew generation. If you think I'm prepping for that list, please dream on!

 

[Crimson Longinus]

See, here's the thing, I don't pay attention to that much at all! It's the player's job to bring the things they care about into the game, not mine as GM. I shouldn't block, and should offer opportunities, and it's okay if I pluck something out, but really it's not my job to do this. If they want to bring something up, then it works exactly like my example works -- the player makes it a thing. I mean, I get that you really want your point to stick, for some reason, I guess so you can say this is the same as D&D, but we're discussing some kind dickish things to do to friends or fellow hobbyists, so maybe can you tone down the half-accusations that I want to manipulate things? This is shading heavily into bad-faith play, and any argument based on bad-faith play is the problem of bad-faith, not the system or approach.

I am not accusing you of doing anything, though I feel you really do not appreciate how much the information the GM provides will impact the direction of play. In your explanation I see multiple points where the GM clearly either influences or has an easy opportunity to influence the outcome. But I do believe that you do not use this to consciously direct the game in any preplanner direction.

And things like reading the player reactions, taking account their character's motivations, carefully nudging the game in certain directions, inserting preplanned cool elements where they naturally fit, drawing players' attention to certain things are not dickish behaviour to me; these are things that a good GM should do! Now I understand that this is not within the spirit of the Blades, so that is another reason why I wouldn't be interested in that game.

Okay, sure, let's look at this. Let's say that we have a situation where the players have declared an action. We can let the GM decide, in which case the GM has a lot of agency and the players not much, because the GM has the say and the players don't. We can imagine a situation where the mechanics do all of the deciding -- they must be invoked and live by. This is the boardgame approach, and neither the GM nor the players have much of a say. Then we can look at something like Blades, where both the player and the GM has a say on different aspects, and we just let the mechanics decide who has final say on this issue. Evaluating for player side agency, they have very little with GM decides (mostly just the ability to pose the action); they have very little in the mechanics always system (again, just the ability to pose the action); but they have more agency that either of these in the system where they get a say in how the mechanics work and the mechanic might give them the final say! They don't have this in any of the other toy examples.

As for Czege Principle, your example is a violation. Play in Blades doesn't do this. If it's not important, it's not a challenge, it just get's yessed. If it is important, it gets challenged -- the player states an action to determine if this sword is magical. No one knows if it is or not, we're going to play to find out. The player's intent and action is determined, the GM sets Position and Effect, and we make a check to see if the player is right -- it is magical how they hoped, or if it is but there's a problem, or if the GM gets to level a consequence. Here, the player did set the challenge, but not the resolution -- they are not both the author of the conflict and it's resolution, the mechanics and GM step in to assist with the resolution. Perhaps the player wins, but that's not a violation because the player didn't just narrate the resolution, it was the result of a test. There was drama involved.

The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced. And yeah, I just don't agree with you that evoking an randomiser makes a decision meaningful. In a situation where some sort of objectivish fictional reality exists and the GM can adjudicate the player's actions in good faith against that, the player's actions matter on a completely differnt level. There actually are right or wrong answers. You can study the reality and make informed choices, not just push the RNG machine to produce new reality in the flavour your choosing. It's chess instead of roulette.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Oh c'mon, cult could be anywhere! If the players had themselves looked at the map (or setting info or whatever) and decided to go raid the haunted mansion, then it would have been player driven. Albeit not more so than in any even somewhat sandboxy D&D game.

Curse of Strahd is pretty sandboxy. Tell me how the players set their agenda in that adventure.

Having run it, I can tell you. They do what the GM has told them to so through narration and NPC prompting and so on.

In Blades, the only reason they wound up in a haunted mansion is because they were pursuing a goal that would reasonably end up in a haunted mansion. Yes, it could have been elsewhere. This is where the GM steps in and picks a spot based on what makes sense for what’s at stake and what’s happened in the fiction and what factions may be involved and so on.

Are you assuming the GM has some kind of agenda to bring the haunted mansion into play and then jumped at the first chance to do so? What might this agenda be?

And this would have been more player driven, as the PCs had directly chosen the location unlike here where they had to seek information about the location and then GM providing the information directing them to the location of GM's choosing.

Not at all. Again, this is the GM taking their cues and crafting something accordingly.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Curse of Strahd is pretty sandboxy. Tell me how the players set their agenda in that adventure.

Having run it, I can tell you. They do what the GM has told them to so through narration and NPC prompting and so on.

In Blades, the only reason they wound up in a haunted mansion is because they were pursuing a goal that would reasonably end up in a haunted mansion. Yes, it could have been elsewhere. This is where the GM steps in and picks a spot based on what makes sense for what’s at stake and what’s happened in the fiction and what factions may be involved and so on.

Are you assuming the GM has some kind of agenda to bring the haunted mansion into play and then jumped at the first chance to do so? What might this agenda be?



Not at all. Again, this is the GM taking their cues and crafting something accordingly.

I haven't played in Curse of Strahd, so no idea of the accuracy of this. But in a proper sandbox, you don't have to go to the haunted mansion. You can say something like we go to town to look for a coffee guild, or we try to see if there are any gangs or bandits operating here we can work it. The GM does decide if those things are present in the setting but the players can pursue what they want (though in a living setting, things will also occasionally come their way)

 

[Ovinomancer]

I am not accusing you of doing anything, though I feel you really do not appreciate how much the information the GM provides will impact the direction of play. In your explanation I see multiple points where the GM clearly either influences or has an easy opportunity to influence the outcome. But I do believe that you do not use this to consciously direct the game in any preplanner direction.

Yes, I get you say this. This is exactly what I thought as well (I provided the quote above). However, when you play the game, this rapidly becomes obviously incorrect. You cannot push a Blades game into any preplanned direction without it being blatant.

Does the GM affect play with their choices? Yes, this is trivially obvious. The issue isn't that the GM has no influence, it's how much influence does the player have? And, it's very clear that that influence is very much increased in Blades over 5e. No one has argued that the GM doesn't have any say -- I missed this was your thrust because it hasn't been argued and seems perfectly clear to me that the GM must have at least some say.

And things like reading the player reactions, taking account their character's motivations, carefully nudging the game in certain directions, inserting preplanned cool elements where they naturally fit, drawing players' attention to certain things are not dickish behaviour to me; these are things that a good GM should do! Now I understand that this is not within the spirit of the Blades, so that is another reason why I wouldn't be interested in that game.

And I'm telling you this can't actually happen without being blatant. I mean, you're imagining a mastermind with heavy manipulation skills just to create this hypothetical! It's silly.

The player is still forcing their desired outcome to the reality, it just is a gamble. But there really is no mystery. "Is this painting magical" is not really an interesting question any more. "It is because I decided to examine it, though it may eat my face." or even "It has certain chance of being magical because I decided to examine it" are ultimately both answers that the player just directly produced. And yeah, I just don't agree with you that evoking an randomiser makes a decision meaningful. In a situation where some sort of objectivish fictional reality exists and the GM can adjudicate the player's actions in good faith against that, the player's actions matter on a completely differnt level. There actually are right or wrong answers. You can study the reality and make informed choices, not just push the RNG machine to produce new reality in the flavour your choosing. It's chess instead of roulette.

Then you've misunderstood the idea behind the Czege Principle. It applies to games like poker as well. If one player was able to both set the bet and the result of the hand, this wouldn't be much of a game. That the player of the game can set the bet (which is what the player can do) and then win that bet in a gamble is what makes it a game. Being able to win what you wanted isn't a problem -- if you think it is we have some serious differences in what makes for games. It's being able to say, "this is what I want to win," and then say, "and I win it," that is a problem.

The painting wasn't magical because the player examined it. I'm not sure where you got that. The painting was of interest because the player examined it. How that turned out really depended on what the player wanted and if a check was called for. Look, here's how I thought during that transaction. The player asked about the painting, and I asked what they were after. They said they thought it could be something they could take back to their contact at the Uni to buy some forgiveness. I said, sure, it might be, what do you think they would like? The player said something occult. I said, cool, this is the place for it. How are you going to go about it -- what are you doing? The player thought they could just take it, and I said, cool, we can establish the value of it to your friend after the score with a fortune roll. The player thought about that, and decided they wanted to know now instead of just carrying around a potentially worthless painting, so they decided they were going to Attune the ghost field and suss out if the painting had any occult auras or whatever (actually, they first wanted the Whisper to do it, but that was nixed by the player). So they did, and failed. I had to deliver a consequence that leaned on the Controlled situation, the nature and intent of the action (Attune to detect auras), and that fit the established fiction of the scene (haunted house). I did so with a hostile magical portrait. A successful result could have been a lingering aura of an old, nearly insensate ghost attached to the painting which would be of good value to the PC's Uni contact.

If you think that block of play is the player getting to say both what they want and that they get it, then we're, again, worlds apart on our understanding of the basics of what makes a game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I haven't played in Curse of Strahd, so no idea of the accuracy of this. But in a proper sandbox, you don't have to go to the haunted mansion. You can say something like we go to town to look for a coffee guild, or we try to see if there are any gangs or bandits operating here we can work it. The GM does decide if those things are present in the setting but the players can pursue what they want (though in a living setting, things will also occasionally come their way)

Yeah, it’s not as much a sandbox as like an open hexcrawl or anything. But there are many different areas and they can largely be engaged in any order after the arrival ofthe PCs in the village of Barovia. From there and their fortune reading with Madame Eva, they’re free to pursue whatever goals have been established in any order they’d like. They could even go straight to the Castle, but that would be pretty foolish until they’ve leveled up a bit and armed themselves with some of the magical gear they’ll need.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then you've misunderstood the idea behind the Czege Principle. It applies to games like poker as well. If one player was able to both set the bet and the result of the hand, this wouldn't be much of a game. That the player of the game can set the bet (which is what the player can do) and then win that bet in a gamble is what makes it a game. Being able to win what you wanted isn't a problem -- if you think it is we have some serious differences in what makes for games. It's being able to say, "this is what I want to win," and then say, "and I win it," that is a problem.

This is what I want, then gamble whether you get it is not very interesting decision.

The painting wasn't magical because the player examined it. I'm not sure where you got that.

Because that is literally what you describe happening here:

The player said something occult. I said, cool, this is the place for it. How are you going to go about it -- what are you doing? The player thought they could just take it, and I said, cool, we can establish the value of it to your friend after the score with a fortune roll. The player thought about that, and decided they wanted to know now instead of just carrying around a potentially worthless painting, so they decided they were going to Attune the ghost field and suss out if the painting had any occult auras or whatever (actually, they first wanted the Whisper to do it, but that was nixed by the player). So they did, and failed. I had to deliver a consequence that leaned on the Controlled situation, the nature and intent of the action (Attune to detect auras), and that fit the established fiction of the scene (haunted house). I did so with a hostile magical portrait. A successful result could have been a lingering aura of an old, nearly insensate ghost attached to the painting which would be of good value to the PC's Uni contact.

If you think that block of play is the player getting to say both what they want and that they get it, then we're, again, worlds apart on our understanding of the basics of what makes a game.

RNG is not interesting. What makes a good game is actually being able to study the situation and make either tactical or dramatic decisions based on that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is what I want, then gamble whether you get it is not very interesting decision.

I want to attack the orc. I then roll to see if I hit it.

I want to pick the lock. I then roll to see if I do.

I want to turn the undead. I then roll to see if It works.

I want to scribe the scroll. I then roll to see if I do.

Yeah.....pretty boring stuff, I’d say.

 

[FrogReaver]

I want to attack the orc. I then roll to see if I hit it.

I want to pick the lock. I then roll to see if I do.

I want to turn the undead. I then roll to see if It works.

I want to scribe the scroll. I then roll to see if I do.

Yeah.....pretty boring stuff, I’d say.

For each of those actions what happens on the fail state? You miss the orc. You don't pick the lock. The don't turn the undead. You don't scribe the scroll. The fail state is inherently tied to simply not getting the thing you wanted. Gambling inherently implies that there is a win condition where you come out ahead and a lose condition where you come out behind. That's not happening in these examples.

That's quite a bit different than the success state giving you exactly what you wanted and the fail state turning the fictional element into something that is now revealed to be out to harm you as the painting example in blades did.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For each of those actions what happens on the fail state? You miss the orc. You don't pick the lock. The don't turn the undead. You don't scribe the scroll. The fail state is inherently tied to simply not getting the thing you wanted. Gambling inherently implies that there is a win condition where you come out ahead and a lose condition where you come out behind. That's not happening in these examples.
That's quite a bit different than the success state giving you exactly what you wanted and the fail state turning the fictional element into something that is now revealed to be out to harm you as the painting example in blades did.

Not really. The means by which the PC examined the painting...Attuning to the Ghost Field...is an inherently dangerous thing. It’s like letting your mind touch the spirit realm. A similar thing in D&D would be traveling on the Astral Plane. It is dangerous to do so.

So, when the player rolled poorly, the consequences were in line with the nature of the action.

Much like if a fighter doesn’t put the orc down, he’s likely to be attacked by the orc. Or if the rogue fails to pick the lock, his lockpick may break. And so on. None of these consequences would be surprising to the player.

I’d imagine @Ovinomancer ’s player was not surprised to face that consequence.