A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

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?

This, again, ignores that a single roll in D&D combat can cause a major swing -- which can't be "evened out" by further rolls. And I never said that tactics require randomness, I was pointing out that you can't remove it from this analysis the way you're trying to do without engaging in special pleading.

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.

There is no objective base reality in a make-believe game. There's only the make-believe you've chosen to treat as objective reality. This isn't a strong argument for a rational evaluation, though.

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

Yes, because you, who haven't played it or experienced it at all, have the clarity of vision. Doesn't this bode ill for your own analysis of your own game, being that direct experience must be discounted for supposition from the outside? I suppose this means that I can tell you where the decision points in your game are and you lack the ability to refute it with your experience, you must accept my framework and argue from within that.

Yes, please pull the other one, it's got bells on.

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.

Again, you have to either be unable to understand or unwilling to do so, because this has been explored a massive amount. The player knew exactly what the chance of failure was, the player knew exactly what the level of consequence was, and the player knew exactly what any consequence would center around. This is like saying to a D&D player that their option to tank the orc and protect the wizard is low-agency because they don't know exactly how much damage the orc could do if it hits them. It's bonkers.

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.

This is the same thing in Blades in the Dark. I mean, you've already mentioned the free-play investigation mode, and everything in Blades is player facing, so there's NO hidden information to miss. When you, as a player, find out something in Blades, so does everyone else. This makes it no less "independent" than asking Bob what Bob thinks.

You're confusing your preference -- you like finding out what Bob thinks -- for an effective analysis tool. It's not, it's just what you're used to. It's like preferring well-done steak (you monster!) and then arguing that medium-rare is not even steak.

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.

No, it doesn't, because I'm not even talking about the RNG, here. Yes, if the player decided a flower pot might be important, then yes, it is, and we need to resolve this. The bit your missing is that this is exactly the same in D&D -- if a player decides a flower pot is important, then we need to resolve if it is. What you're utterly confusing is that in Blades, that question can't be resolved by the GM saying "no." It must either be a "yes" or we must test it. In D&D, the GM can say, "no," but could also say yes or test it. Almost always in D&D, this will be a no, because the GM didn't think the flower pot was important, so it isn't. The GM is exercising agency, here, the player isn't. In Blades, though, either it's not very interesting the way the player thinks the flower pot is important, so the GM says, "yes," or it is interesting, and we test it -- because the GM is not allowed to block the players just because the GM has an idea of what should be happening and so prevents anything else.

This is the entire basis of the argument that some games feature more player agency than others -- the ability of the GM to say, "no," is absolutely agency limiting.

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.

There is no "reality" -- it's all make believe. What you're doing here is reifying the GM's make-believe in your game and then denying this same privilege to other games. It's a double standard. The way Blades runs is not a conch-passing story game, and thinking it is only displays your ignorance of broader game theory. It certainly doesn't mean you're right.

You still haven't dealt with the fact that three years ago I was making your arguments -- nearly verbatim. And, now, after running these games, I'm on the other side of the issue. I know, the apostate is inviting to just dismiss, but this is an act of dogma, not consideration.

 

[prabe]

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?

I think it'd be more like a D&D player getting mad because he didn't kill a monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire. Which might work if it's set up well enough, but that kinda requires prep ...

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.

I DMed a party through a dungeon-esque series of sessions without drawing a real map--just stuff for when fights arose.

Yeah, I know Blades needs the Consequences to keep things moving--that's why the odds are weighted the way they are. I just don't think that removing them from the GM's control puts them in the players'.

 

[FrogReaver]

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.

The premise is true, though leaves out some pertinent information - there's plenty enough rolls taking place in a single combat to cause the results to trend much more toward average even if they don't completely average out. (I estimate about 56 attack and damage rolls for a typical D&D combat encounter)

The conclusion though is so far off I don't know where to begin. In D&D you have more choices in combat than to simply do damage the same way every single turn. At any time you can choose to dodge, to disengage, to Dash toward the more threatening enemy, to drink a potion, to healing word an ally, to fireball the enemies, to buff your allies, to action surge, to rage, to use a ranged weapon, to cast grease under the enemy, etc (assuming you are a class which has some of these abilities).

The only way what you said above about RNG averaging out making tactics not matter could possibly make sense is if players had no choices in combat and just had to use their basic attacks each and every turn. Then and only then would an averaged out RNG essentially guarantee one side wins and the other loses.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I think D&D generally has this spellcaster problem, yeah, although it varies pretty significantly by edition. 5E seems a bit less severe. I think it was at its worst in the 3E iterations.

I had a high level campaign with a wizard character run by a very savvy player. Between his spells, the abilities from the archmage prestige class, and his accumulated magical crap, he was ridiculous.

I mean, I embraced it in ways. It was fun to watch him do his thing. But to meaningfully threaten that character, I had to throw over the top threats at the party. Ones that would largely squash many of the other PCs.

So you almost start to split things. Here’s the thing the wizard will need to do, and here’s what the other characters will do. Which becomes pretty challenging to make work repeatedly without the other characters starting to feel like they’re sidekicks.

You also try and have evil wizards and the like prepare against the wizard PC in some ways. Which then becomes a kind of magical arms race.

To me, it’s a real weak spot in the design because no matter how you handle it, it’s kind of disruptive.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

@Ovinomancer, you agreeing with me tree years ago and not anymore is about as relevant than someone who was not a Scientologist three years ago agreeing with me then but not any more. Not comparing you to anything, but the argument simply has zero weight so that's why I haven't addressed it.

As for the rest, I can't be bothered any more...

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think it'd be more like a D&D player getting mad because he didn't kill a monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire. Which might work if it's set up well enough, but that kinda requires prep ...

Heh, usually this isn't the kind of thing that happens in Blades, but I did have almost this exact thing happen. The Crew was in a heist where things has moved from stealthy entry to smash and grab. The other Hound (not the one in the Haunted House, but the one now in jail) declared an action to shoot the lantern that a guard coming up a hallway had in hand. His intent was to start a fire and take out the guard -- the fire was to be a diversion, and to slow any more guards from coming down the hallway. He failed. So, one of the things in Blades is to never narrate failures that make the PCs look incompetent -- things should occur that accepts that the PCs are, in general, competent. So, I was put in a place where I had to narrate a consequence against this PC's core competence -- shooting things. This pushed me away from a miss, so I looked at the intent of the action and peverted it. The shot hit, as intended, and the lamp shattered, as intended, but the result wasn't a small fire, but an explosion that killed the guard but started a major conflagration! Now the fire wasn't a useful distraction, but a problem for the PCs, as it started racing down the hallway and they still hadn't gotten the safe open in the study at the end. I started a "fire" clock, 6 ticks, with 2 wedges filled in. This also gave me a nice way to add a consequence to a partial or failed action -- if it looked like it would spend time, I'd advance the "fire" clock. If it filled up, the PCs would have to deal with the fire directly!

So, I guess you could characterize this as not kill the monster with enough panache and now the building is on fire.

I DMed a party through a dungeon-esque series of sessions without drawing a real map--just stuff for when fights arose.

Yeah, I know Blades needs the Consequences to keep things moving--that's why the odds are weighted the way they are. I just don't think that removing them from the GM's control puts them in the players'.

Consequences are absolutely in the GM's control, with constraints. This is one of the primary areas of GM agency in Blades.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer, you agreeing with me tree years ago and not anymore is about as relevant than someone who was not a Scientologist three years ago agreeing with me then but not any more. Not comparing you to anything, but the argument simply has zero weight so that's why I haven't addressed it.

As for the rest, I can't be bothered any more...

Sigh. Okay. I mean, if the topic of conversation was about what the cult thinks and what they do, it would appear that the convert might have more information. If the topic of conversation was about whether or not you liked or wanted to be a cultist, then, sure, it's not relevant.

Are we talking about how Blades in the Dark works, or are we talking about whether or not you like it?

 

[nevin]

I think D&D generally has this spellcaster problem, yeah, although it varies pretty significantly by edition. 5E seems a bit less severe. I think it was at its worst in the 3E iterations.

I had a high level campaign with a wizard character run by a very savvy player. Between his spells, the abilities from the archmage prestige class, and his accumulated magical crap, he was ridiculous.

I mean, I embraced it in ways. It was fun to watch him do his thing. But to meaningfully threaten that character, I had to throw over the top threats at the party. Ones that would largely squash many of the other PCs.

So you almost start to split things. Here’s the thing the wizard will need to do, and here’s what the other characters will do. Which becomes pretty challenging to make work repeatedly without the other characters starting to feel like they’re sidekicks.

You also try and have evil wizards and the like prepare against the wizard PC in some ways. Which then becomes a kind of magical arms race.

To me, it’s a real weak spot in the design because no matter how you handle it, it’s kind of disruptive.

I can prepare for any mage with, rogues, or clerics, or even smart fighters. Can they always take the mage if he gets to prepare first. Of course not that's the mages strength. When they know what thier facing, and they get to prepare they are at the top of thier game. But in high level games if your players always know what's coming you've messed up. Memorizing spells and then being attacked by something you didn't expect is all it takes to turn a mage form near god to nervous wreck hoping to survive the battle.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I can prepare for any mage with, rogues, or clerics, or even smart fighters. Can they always take the mage if he gets to prepare first. Of course not that's the mages strength. When they know what thier facing, and they get to prepare they are at the top of thier game. But in high level games if your players always know what's coming you've messed up. Memorizing spells and then being attacked by something you didn't expect is all it takes to turn a mage form near god to nervous wreck hoping to survive the battle.

The argument was that spellcasting in D&D becomes a problem that requires special preparation to counter, or else it starts to overwrite the game. You disagree, and then list all the ways you can specially prepare to avoid spellcasting being a problem that overwrites the game.

You see this, right? It's not a matter of "oh, I can deal with that," it's a question of what it is you have to deal with and why.

 

[prabe]

It seems as though you handled the consequence well. As I said, given foreshadowing or other narrative placement, it could work--even in D&D.

Consequences are absolutely in the GM's control, with constraints. This is one of the primary areas of GM agency in Blades.

While what a given Consequence is, is under the GM's control (subject to the constraints you mention), the timing of when a Consequence happens seems to be a good deal less so. That seems to be between the players and the dice. I mean, a GM might (I think reasonably?) have several Consequences in mind at a given time and pick what seems best when the dice allow it.