A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

It indeed is. The interesting stuff happened before when the player made decisions against objective reality and after when that reality reacted to the action. RNG is not agency.

No one said it was. But I don’t think you can separate the things you seem to be trying to; desire and risk. The PC wants something. This want is shaped by play, the prior events in the fiction have led to this point.....these things inform the need to hit the orc or disable the trap.

We understand why the orc needs to die or why the party needs to get through that door.

Whether or not the PC can succeed is the question. That combination of desire and risk is where the drama comes from, no?

Well, it is not super interesting. But what makes it interesting is not the RNG, it is the tactical decisions which matter as there is objective reality against which they can be made.

How do tactical decisions not take into consideration the odds? I think you are again trying to separate things that must be connected. Any tactical decision in D&D that hasn’t taken into consideration how the dice can go is a pretty poor one, no?

 

[Fenris-77]

If you're making 'tactical decisions' without regard to the chances of success then 'tactical' probably means something very different from what you think it does.

That said, systems where the mechanics produce something different from a 'common sense' level of success is a whole other issue. YMMV with common sense too, it's not a universal metric, just a personal taste metric.

 

[nevin]

No. I don't think any version has a spellcaster problem. If Dm is running his game right by the time the spellcaster can "alter reality" the non spell caster players should have magic items that can either do the same or can neutralize the spell caster.

I think all versions of D&D have a tunnel vision/imagination problem. Once the game steps up to high level DM has to start having the smart baddies plan for stuff like that. It requires Imagination and strong familiarity with the spells and what they can do. I know some DM's scream about how teleport and other spells destroy their plots etc. I've been running games since 1974 and no one has ever short circuited a game by teleporting, resurrecting, or Wishing something. They may have changed a plotline, caught me by surprise but I promise you, if you talk to anyone who's ever played a high level mage in my games they've never felt like they could, with impunity just kill or blow things up without consequence.

The DM has to think of the world as an ecosystem. Mage starts screwing too much with reality Gods give a paladin high SR and send them after the mage. I had a mage once cursed by the god of healing, whose high priest he killed to be forever without any access to any divine healing. Thieves Guilds, Assasain Guilds don't want the world rocking that's bad for business. Poisons, assassains,hiring other mages to help deal with the problem. I don't care how powerful you are, if the underword wants you dead you better be scared. If the gods want you dead you better be scared. If you cause enough problems kingdoms will band against you. The children of your dead enemies will find relics and artifacts to use against you. Power lets you do big things, big things have big consequences.

I think a lot of GM's try to "simplify" their games. Generally this means they don't do followers, high level fighters don't build keeps, baronies, or kingdoms, rogues don't eventually become masters of their orders etc and the game originally assumed they would. By the time a Wizard or Cleric can change reality, a rogue can turn the entire underworld on them. A high level fighter can turn kingdoms against them, and messing with other clerical orders can turn Gods against them. If you've let your players gain what they should have gained in political connections, power, magic items, favors from gods or other mages or high clerics, they shouldn't feel unable to deal with a high level mages.

now if you want to run simple dungeon crawls, or low magic games, then yes high level spellcasters can be a problem. My suggestion in that circumstance is don't run high level games, or use a different system.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

You've just contradicted yourself -- if the RNG averages out (which is a false assumption on the prob and stats side for a single combat), then tactics don't really matter as much -- it's really just the average numbers that matter.

What? None of this made any sense. Of course the odds don't completely even out, but large number of rolls makes the situation far less swingy. And of course tactics can matter in a situation where there would be zero randomness. You don't think chess is tactical?

Luckily, as I noted, your assumption about the averaging out isn't exactly correct, so tactics can make more of an impact. And, I fully agree, ability to deploy tactics in D&D is a mark of agency. The combat sub-system in D&D, with it's tightly codified rules and expectations, is a place that players get to wield more agency because the GM is strongly discouraged from just overriding those rules -- they're usually expected to abide by them.

Odd, then, that you're claiming more agency exists in a tightly codified mechanical ruleset when it comes to D&D, but saying that it does the opposite in other games? Very odd, indeed!

What makes the action meaningful is not whether the things are codified in the rules, it is the existence of objective base reality against which you can make decisions. Rules are one (and often good) way to communicate such reality, but not the only one.

I've explained the entire process a few times, now, and if this is your take after that, then I can only assume that you're incapable of understanding or intentionally unwilling to do so. Given how often you've shifted the goalposts, though -- moving from RNGs, to Czege Principle violations, and now to claiming that being able to push your interests onto the fiction is a mark of low agency, I'm leaning towards the latter.

At this point I must conclude that you do not understand where the decision points lie in your own game.

I mean, you've just said that the player being able to make their PC's goals relevant in the game is low-agency! What, praytell, is a mark of high agency if it doesn't involve the player making things they care about part of the game?!

What makes it low-agency is the player not being able to gain meaningful information or make meaningful choices regarding that goal, at least according to your definition which discounts flavour. The player could have latched into any item, any time, anywhere, and interrogate it in the same manner than the painting to force the check. The rest is RNG.

No, that's not it at all. I think that making my interests part of the game is agency. That I engage the game's mechanics is just a pathway, the important bit for agency is that I can make the game acknowledge what I am interested in. Contrast this to D&D. Similar situation, the player wants to see if this painting is worth something towards their PC's goal. The GM checks their notes and says, "nah."

Right. So there actually is some independent reality you can learn about. You actually need to study it more to progress your quest. Meaningful choices can be made.

How is this somehow more agency than in Blades where the GM has to acknowledge this and then uses the system to resolve the question -- "is this painting worth something to the PC's goal?"

Because this question is meaningless here. The player forces the answer themselves. They could ask the same question regarding a flower pot, and it wouldn't really matter, it would be just the same. The RNG just obfuscates the fact that this is what's happening.

I'm utterly baffled by your analysis, largely because of the double standard involved -- you try to pin down the Blades play and claim that having to roll dice removes agency, or the player being able to make the game about things they care about removes agency, but when you look back at your own play you do not apply these things -- you make different arguments that checks don't matter because they average out(!) and that you have agency when you get to playact your asking the GM for their favor in making what you care about part of the game(!). It's ridiculous the knots you're tying yourself up into -- arguing out of one set of standards on the for side, and a different set of standard on the against side. And, every time it's pointed out, it's either ignored or you trot out some new form of special pleading that says that doesn't count.

There needs to be some reality against which to make decisions for the decisions to matter. Sure, getting to tell a bit of the story and randomising who gets to do it is a form of agency, and if you like that sort of agency good for you. But it is not really making meaningful choices, except perhaps flavour wise, and this is something you had low regard earlier.

 

[Fenris-77]

Any statement about Blades that contains the phrase "the player forces the result" is fundamentally mistaken. It shows a misunderstanding of the core tenets of the game's play, as well as the mechanics that support it. I would have thought this was trivially obvious, but apparently not.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If you're making 'tactical decisions' without regard to the chances of success then 'tactical' probably means something very different from what you think it does.

That said, systems where the mechanics produce something different from a 'common sense' level of success is a whole other issue. YMMV with common sense too, it's not a universal metric, just a personal taste metric.

You of course have to take the odds into account. A situation where you make several decisions choosing from differnt alternatives and weighing the odds is tactics. A situation where you know the odds and your only decision is to whether to roll or not is a slot machine.

 

[Campbell]

I can understand a preference for playing through prepared scenarios and more traditional sandboxes. I quite like the sort of sandbox play that Sine Nomine games are designed to enable quite well. Let's not fool ourselves though and pretend we are capable of more than we really are as GMs. If players are doing anything that is halfway interested the GM is probably making a fresh judgement call approximately every 12 seconds or so. No one keep an entire world in their head or even in notes.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So what you've brought up at the bottom of that is actually one of the historically big issues where Force is applied in D&D and it brings up a question that I want to post to the thread commenters (I will do that at the bottom).

D&D has a Spellcaster problem.

I'm wondering if the fault-line of the conversation cleaves exactly the same way as the ideological fault-line of the above statement. I already know several members thoughts on it and, interestingly, it does for those participants, so I wonder if its across the board.

If the play ethos, GMing Principles, capabilities of PCs, and the action resolution mechanics in Blades were ported over to D&D, it wouldn't have a Spellcaster problem. But it doesn't have this kind of architecture and it does have a Spellcaster problem.

How has D&D (outside of 4e and Moldvay Basic) historically resolved this "Spellcaster problem?"

Force in the exact same way you're potentially imputing to Blades above; at the framing level and at the outcome level. How and why does this manifest in (non 4e) D&D? As follows:

* GMs has mandate as lead storyteller, adventure writer, rules mediator, spotlight balancer, and "ensure everyone has a good time...er". Do what it takes to get "the job" done.

* The process for specific types of action resolution is entirely GM facing. However...spellcasting...is not. It has the unique privilege of being little packets of "fiction/gamestate fiat". "Fire and forget authorial control." Literally.

* How do you deal with this GM/Player Arms Race once Spellcaster power becomes proliferate enough that it can be routinely deployed and potent enough that it gets to routinely reframe or obviate content/conflicts? Spotlight balancing (which is one of your big directives in D&D GMing) becomes impossible because Spellcaster players co-opt play just by sincerely playing their class (which no one should be castigated for...everyone else gets to play their class to the hilt). Encounter intuitiveness on the GM's side of things gets thrown off because you may think you've built this interesting climactic fight and the Spellcaster just says "nope." Intrigue, exploration, journey all get short-circuited because the Spellcaster just says "nope." All that stuff in the first * becomes nigh impossible. What's a GM to do?!

* You unilaterally take it away. You frame a situation with intrinsic Spellcaster blocks or you leverage offscreen/backstory that you have exclusive access to (and often times "leverage" means impromptu make it up in order to execute a block). Antimagic Zones, Counterspells or NPC Wizards that are perfectly loaded out to counter PC Mages, Wild Magic Fields, Spellbook/component theft, Divination/recon, etc etc, etc.

* This ham-fisted stuff starts getting sniffed out from miles away in D&D and unless you're playing with passive, Participationist type players, its going to initially illicit eye-rolls > then passive-aggressiveness > then aggressiveness > then walk-out.

---

So a couple of questions (for everyone):

* Do you believe that (non 4e) D&D has a Spellcaster problem?

* If so, have you ever leveraged those blocks?

* Try to Steelman my argument against the idea that "framing" and "choosing outcomes" is where you may find Force in Blades GMing. If you're able, where/what in that group of stuff above puts it at odds with the paradigm of Blades? If you can't that is fine, I'll fill in the blanks later. But I think this paradigm above should be pretty instructive.

Good questions!

I really don't believe in blocking the PC abilities in that way. Sure, sometimes there might be logical reasons why something doesn't work, but if the GM keeps constantly constructing such to prevent the player from using their character's capabilities, then that's a rather dick move and will be frustrating to the player. My principle is that the players choose the capabilities of their characters for a reason and should be allowed to use them. If the GM thinks some capability would be a problem in the sort of game they want to run, then the right call is just not let the player to choose it in the first place. Granted, systems can be complex, and inexperienced GMs can be caught off guard. I actually went through all the spells in 5e in preparation of my upcoming campaign and simply banned a small number of them. The players get to choose from the rest and everything they choose will be useful.

And yes, I think D&D has a 'caster problem', though definitely 5e less so than 3e. A lot of spells simply let completely sidestep things that would be challenging (and interesting) to less magical characters. And the issue really isn't the existence of powerful reality editing powers. In Exalted (which is one of my favourite games despite my earlier complaints about specific mechanics) all characters are powerful magical superbeings with all sort of crazy powers and it works just fine. (Though perhaps sometimes a tad challenging to GM in the same way that writing good Superman stories is hard.) Having a game where the characters have no reality editing powers works just fine and having a game where they do works just fine. The issue arises when you try to place both types of characters in one game.

 

[Fenris-77]

You of course have to take the odds into account. A situation where you make several decisions choosing from differnt alternatives and weighing the odds is tactics. A situation where you know the odds and your only decision is to whether to roll or not is a slot machine.

The second part is how we make decisions in the first part. I think we take that as given. Are we talking about a game with abundant instances where only one action is possible? Again, that's not Blades, which specifically has stated overlap between skills when it comes to accomplishing task X.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I've only read the SRD for Blades, but I don't remember seeing much in the way of mechanical constraints on the GM for framing scenes, or choosing outcomes. Those would be the places I would look

I don’t know if you’ll find a lot of that stuff in the SRD because they’re more guidelines than mechanics. The book itself is chock full of them.

Framing scenes, at least for a Score, is dependent on three things. The kind of Plan, the Detail, and the Engagement roll. The players actually pick the first two....they choose how they want to go about this score (Assault, Stealth, Deception, Social, Transport, Occult) and then they pick a Detail for that....the point of attack or entry, the manner of the deception. So the players can say “we’re going with Stealth and the detail is the old servants’ entrance to the manor”.

Then the Engagement roll is made. They start with 1 die and additional dice are added or subtracted according to relevant factors (how bold this is, the strength of the target, their weakness/strength against this type of approach, etc). Once the number of dice is agreed upon, the result determines if the PCs are in a Controlled, Risky, or Desperate position.

The GM then takes all this detail, and frames the scene. Generally speaking he puts them at the first obstacle they’re to face, and the Engagement roll determines how dangerous that obstacle may be.

So the GM absolutely has input, but it is certainly constrained.

Yeah. The situation is in some way worse than it was before you made the check ... As I said to @hawkeyefan I'm a "this glass is one-eighth empty" kinda guy.

I know we discussed this earlier in the thread (it seems like months ago now) and I know you have your preferences. However, this is a matter of perception and I hope you are able to get past it.

It would be like me as a D&D player getting mad that there’s another room with another monster after this one. I mean....that’s the game, right?

Without the map and key (or similar GM prep or improv) Blades relies on consequences to keep things moving and dynamic. Resisting that is like resisting the map.