A Question Of Agency?

[Crimson Longinus]

Well ... possibly there's just less agency overall. I'm willing to suppose it's possible for games to have differing amounts of agency. I'm willing to find out that's not so.

Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.

 

[prabe]

Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.

You and @Ovinomancer managed to get to what I was struggling to get into words.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Very mechanically and/or thematically constrained games can have less agency overall. Instead of either the player or the GM deciding the thing, the mechanics or the theme simply dictate the thing.

There's a difference between agreeing to play in a thematic game and the agency you can wield within it. The first is a necessary entry into looking at a game -- you have to play it. I don't think there's a larger agency to choosing to play Blades in the Dark, with its tight theme, than whatever Bob has prepared. At least as a player.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Link, please, because I frankly don't trust your gloss. Not that I think you dishonest, far from it, but rather that you've already shown a resistance to nuance on these topics.

It's literally in the there you quoted earlier:

Judgement calls vs "railroading"

on this failure, did you author that the brother was evil or did the player? Finding cursed arrows, even knowing they were made by the brother, would not prove guilt to me. There are a ton of other explanation that fit, especially in a game where facts are ephemeral until a failed search for a...

www.enworld.org

 

[Crimson Longinus]

There's a difference between agreeing to play in a thematic game and the agency you can wield within it. The first is a necessary entry into looking at a game -- you have to play it. I don't think there's a larger agency to choosing to play Blades in the Dark, with its tight theme, than whatever Bob has prepared. At least as a player.

Well, this depends again how we define agency. If Bob is running a open sandbox where your character can do a lot of differnt things then it is in certain ways more agency than just being able to be a criminal in Blades. And it's just not that. In a very thematically tight game the theme may in effect limit the participants in genre appropriate moves and outcomes. And this is not criticism, I like thematically focused games.

 

[Fenris-77]

The decision to play game A, or not, has nothing to do with player agency. In Blades, playing a criminal is part of what you signed up for, its not reducing anyone's agency for that to be the case. Player agency doesn't begin with "do whatever the hell you want regardless of game, genre or anything else" and somehow go downhill form there.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The decision to play game A, or not, has nothing to do with player agency. In Blades, playing a criminal is part of what you signed up for, its not reducing anyone's agency for that to be the case. Player agency doesn't begin with "do whatever the hell you want regardless of game, genre or anything else" and somehow go downhill form there.

Makes sense. So similarly when a person signs up to play D&D their agency is not reduced by the GM deciding certain things as that is part of that game.

 

[innerdude]

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.

This is such an odd statement.

So the only meaningful actions a player (through their character) can take are ones that directly interface with the illusion of "objective" in-fiction reality?

Any action that directly addresses a character's in-game concerns/agenda are made null and void if they aren't first parsed through whatever "illusory fictional objective reality" filters (read: GM say-so) are deemed necessary?

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.

1) Permission to tell a bit of the story, 2) deciding who gets to tell it, and 3) deciding whether it's true (or not) are ultimately the only "meaningful choices" that matter in RPG play.

Every single RPG rule ever constructed exists to determine one of these three things. Period. Rules literally serve no other function.

 

[Manbearcat]

So I was reading the old thread @Ovinomancer referred to and in that I found exchanges between @Manbearcat and @Nagol about Dungeon World. Nagol seemed to be very familiar with the game, and made similar observation than I did regarding Blades in the Dark (these game are related, right?) That due the open endedness of the consequences it is susceptible to GM force. So whilst I don't particularly want to continue to argue to which extent this is case or not, as I have no practical experience of the system, I nevertheless feel somewhat vindicated that a person who seems to have extensive experience thinks this too.

The conversation with @Nagol was about "soft-balling" (I brought this precise point upthread if you recall) and not classical Force.

It was the fact that the 6- (which is a failure and mark xp) result in World games will have occasions where a Soft Move is more appropriate than a Hard Move. Navigating this will rely on all of the principles and directives of the game.

For instance, it is an extremely rare occasion where a Hard Move makes sense for a Spout Lore in Dungeon World. There are some occasions where a Soft Move makes more sense on other moves that come up 6- (when the arrangement of the fiction doesn't have any imminent/present threats to deploy to immediately invoke a Hard Move and nothing makes sense from a strict follow the fiction principle). However, if you've already telegraphed something prior with a Soft Move, then its appropriate to follow through on that and invoke a Hard Move.

For instance:

A Wizard is in a summoning chamber of a Warlock. There are glyphs scribed in chalk on both the floor and the wall; the former forming a circle and the latter in the shape of a door. As the Wizard approaches to inspect the wall's "door glyphs" you describe them subtly pulsing with a soft red glow, incomprehensible whispers in a tongue long forgotten to the ages accompanying it. Visions of violence and torcher assail the Wizard as he draws nearer.

The Wizard pulls out his Bags of Books (+1 to Spout Lore per use) to consult his collected knowledge on summoning glyphs, languages, and the words used to turn them on and permanently shut them off. On a Success, the GM tells Wizard player something interesting and useful. On a 7-9, the GM tells the Wizard player only something interesting; its on them to make it useful.

Despite a +2 Int and the +1 for the BoB, the Wizard gets only a 6. The Wizard marks 1 xp. The GM activates the portal (a Hard Move) and an Abyssal horror skulks through the gateway (because of the setup - Soft Move - above). Without the appropriate fictional circumstances and the setup framing, the GM should deploy a Soft Move. Same thing goes for anything without immediate obvious physical fallout. Its basically tantamount to Controlled Positioning in Forged in the Dark games.

This is easily the most difficult and nuanced part of World games, one that later iterations and the Forged in the Dark games (Blades) have cleaned up pretty much entirely (Blades Position and Effect does all the heavy lifting for this as mentioned above).

 

[Ovinomancer]

The conversation with @Nagol was about "soft-balling" (I brought this precise point upthread if you recall) and not classical Force.

It was the fact that the 6- (which is a failure and mark xp) result in World games will have occasions where a Soft Move is more appropriate than a Hard Move. Navigating this will rely on all of the principles and directives of the game.

For instance, it is an extremely rare occasion where a Hard Move makes sense for a Spout Lore in Dungeon World. There are some occasions where a Soft Move makes more sense on other moves that come up 6- (when the arrangement of the fiction doesn't have any imminent/present threats to deploy to immediately invoke a Hard Move and nothing makes sense from a strict follow the fiction principle). However, if you've already telegraphed something prior with a Soft Move, then its appropriate to follow through on that and invoke a Hard Move.

For instance:

A Wizard is in a summoning chamber of a Warlock. There are glyphs scribed in chalk on both the floor and the wall; the former forming a circle and the latter in the shape of a door. As the Wizard approaches to inspect the wall's "door glyphs" you describe them subtly pulsing with a soft red glow, incomprehensible whispers in a tongue long forgotten to the ages accompanying it. Visions of violence and torcher assail the Wizard as he draws nearer.

The Wizard pulls out his Bags of Books (+1 to Spout Lore per use) to consult his collected knowledge on summoning glyphs, languages, and the words used to turn them on and permanently shut them off. On a Success, the GM tells Wizard player something interesting and useful. On a 7-9, the GM tells the Wizard player only something interesting; its on them to make it useful.

Despite a +2 Int and the +1 for the BoB, the Wizard gets only a 6. The Wizard marks 1 xp. The GM activates the portal (a Hard Move) and an Abyssal horror skulks through the gateway (because of the setup - Soft Move - above). Without the appropriate fictional circumstances and the setup framing, the GM should deploy a Soft Move. Same thing goes for anything without immediate obvious physical fallout. Its basically tantamount to Controlled Positioning in Forged in the Dark games.

This is easily the most difficult and nuanced part of World games, one that later iterations and the Forged in the Dark games (Blades) have cleaned up pretty much entirely (Blades Position and Effect does all the heavy lifting for this as mentioned above).

Yeah, this is what I was coming back to say. I wouldn't have ruled as you did in that scene, but I see how you got there, and the difference is a matter of individual taste.