A Question Of Agency?

[aramis erak]

In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more. Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions. The DM is responsible for the setting, the NPC's, and the framing of scenes. He has agency over all those things. That said, I've never played in a D&D game where I felt like I had no say over the trajectory of play. My characters actions have always been the very mechanism that have allowed me to affect the trajectory of play (and sometimes some out of game input).

It's a small measure you choose to limit yourself to.

I've known several players who dislike having narrative authority. I, as a GM, dislike such players' style. I prefer players who can, as GD did 3 weeks ago, when I tossed in the wrong Senator... and he ran with it, defining the relationship with one well phrased, "Hello, Uncle Bob..."

I often throw such hooks and see which way the player spins it.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This kind of thing seems reasonable. I generally don’t like to say no if it can be avoided, but in D&D I do have that option. I think I’d likely still set a DC and let the player roll, though.

But I don’t mind when things established in the fiction are obstacles to PC strengths. I think that’s a reasonable way to challenge the PCs.

What I don’t like is when that kind of stuff happens routinely and with no real fictional support. Like, “oh we’re going to the ice caverns? Probably won’t be climbing much” makes sense, but “oh this trap is easily defeated by someone climbing.....so of course the room has walls that are supernaturally smooth” is annoying.

I think fictional positioning is key to a lot of this.

Yes. I like systems to be somewhat simulationistic in a sense that there is clear(ish) and consistent(ish) connection with a mechanic and a thing that exists in the fiction. So if at one time certain thing was represented by a certain rule then another time similar thing will be represented with a similar rule. This makes it easy to adjudicate what rule representation what fictional entity should have, so it is not just me arbitrary assigning rules for things each time without a rhyme or reason. And once you have this consistent framework and it is at least somewhat intuitive your players will start to understand it too. If a thing was assigned a DC 20 one time then a similar thing cannot just be impossible next time. And yes, the GM controls the framing, but if sheer obsidian walls always just happen to be around when it would be convenient to block the PC's attempts to climb then that will be noticeable in the same manner than many ways of GM trying to use force in Blades would.

 

[pemerton]

it would have to have been a vertical ice wall before the player said they wanted to climb it.

How is this established?

 

[Manbearcat]

I brought up this excerpt of me GMing 5e (I stood in for a GM now and again when he couldn't make his promised session to his boys and their friends for whatever reason) 3 years ago in another thread to examine play (I think it was actually to examine the relative agency/power of an endgame Wizard - Diviner specifically - vs Fighter and Rogue).

I'm going to do the same thing here but compare the agency of 5e play and GMing vs 4e and Scum and Villainy (Forged in the Dark Star Wars - Gang vs Gang vs Empire - hack). I'm focusing only on the bolded part of play.

Below is the 5e play excerpt:

Alright, so here was the last session I GMed in 5e. Of note:

1) This was an Epic Tier Aliens Invasion scenario with actual Far Realm "Grays", War of the Worlds type bio-constructs (like pilotable golems, but made of organics), and their mother ship. However, instead of harvesting bio-material, they were harvesting time, slowly turning back the clock of this prime material plane.

2) I didn't GM the preceding session or the climax of this session. The abstract that the GM gave me for the preceding session had it featuring 2-3 encounters. The climax of the session included the showdown with The Harvester; the alien entity that consumes the time that this world has accrued and assimilates it into its own consciousness, increasing its own god-like insight and knowledge. Again, I didn't GM it.

Here is how the gamestate was changed as play progressed until the session ended. Of note:

1) All enemies had Magic Resistance so Advantage on saving throws against the Wizard.

2) The Time Reaper - machine in the belly of the ship - caused local distortion that gave the PCs Disadvantage on attack rolls, ability checks, saving throws.

3) The Wizard had cast Foresight on the Fighter (their primary damage source) to offset Time Reaper.

Gamestate 1:

The 3 PCs are on the ground below the mother ship, having just defeated the initial welcoming party, which included single-man "hoverpods" Two hoverpods were intact after the encounter.

The Rogue fails one of the two rolls for his Disadvantage on his Investigation check (DC 20, Reliable Talent would apply, but wasn't sufficient to hit the mark as just Proficient, not Expert). The Diviner offsets it with the 1st of his 3 Portents and, due to the Wizard, the Rogue mans a hoverpod.

The Wizard fails his +11 Arcana at Disadvantage to start a hoverpod for the Fighter. So he just uplevels his Fly spell to 4th and the two of them fly up to the mothership.

Gamestate 2:

The PCs are attacked by the ship's defenses; a large number of small flying aberrations from the Far Realm.

The Rogue uses the flight (with Hover), HPs, and multi-attack of the hoverpod to engage them (which the Wizard enabled).

The Fighter has Fly and Foresight and wrecks them (thanks to the Wizard).

The Wizard (Warcaster, Resilient, and + Int for other two feats) uses Mirror Image and mobility (to ensure that Concentration isn't an issue for he and the Fighters' Fly), and Grease (his typical Spell Mastery spells) to effectively death spell several of the flyers (prone and they didn't have hover).

The Fighter uses his bow while the Rogue uses the hoverpods multi-attack and they win the day.

Gamestate 3:

Puzzle challenge to open the hatch. PC build neutral.

Gamestate 4:

The welcoming party. Mass Suggestion reduces the HUGE enemy force by 1/3. Forcecage cuts them by another 1/3. The rest are obliterated by the Rogue and Fighter.

They leave one alive to interrogate to attempt to locate The Time Reaper. They don't speak the same language (the Wizard doesn't want to burn a 3rd level for Tongues when he can...see below). The Fighter tried to pantomime what they were looking for and threaten the creature, but his Intimidate failed as he rolled really low (a 3 I think).

Gamestate 5:

Wizard casts Locate Object. This saved them 4 random encounter rolls during exploration so, while they ended up having an encounter on the way there (a defense system - equivalent of a Trap - that the Rogue was able to successfully deal with), it saved them another resource-depleting encounter (obviously no Long Rests, but Short Rests were fine) on this ship.

Gamestate 6:

The Time Reaper and the General. A parlay begins with the ship's commander and engineer. Tongues + Geas + 2nd use of Divine Portent to deal with the Magic Resistance and he's charmed. Fighter fails to destroy the arcane machine via Athletics and a nasty Time Warp AoE attack ensues on the PCs. Rogue with Disadvantage fails to destroy it via Expertise Thievery, but the Diviner turns his low roll into a 13 with his final use of Divine Portent and The Time Reaper is destroyed. Now, no Disadvantage for the Rogue and Wizard and the Fighter's Foresight equals Advantage.

Due to the charmed commander, they (a) get some relevant mechanical info for the combat to come with The Harvester, (b) enable a Short Rest, (c) they don't have to use their resources to fight him, (d) they avoid multiple further potential random encounters with a Take Me to Your Leader scene transition.

That is where the session ended. I didn't GM the climax.

5e GMs have huge latitude here and that latitude has a significant impact on the perceived agency (by the players) and the real agency (upon post-mortem). They both matter significantly. Some things in relation to this:

5E D&D

* GM has latitude here to either (a) leverage secret backstory/offscreen in order to say "No" or (b) makeup secret backstory/offscreen on the spot in order to say "No" if they believe vetoing this move by the players would make for a better story and more fun/compelling gameplay (their own fun is a consideration here as well). They can do this for any/all of:

• You can't hack/rig/interface with the hoverpods.
• Portent doesn't work here because the time distortion effects (or something else).
• The mothership has antimagic contingencies (or something else) so the Fly spell doesn't work.

* GM has latitude here to set the DC (the DC setting parameters are enormously vague - I started a HUGE thread on this exact thing 4 years ago but the forum wipe at it). Its some combination of genre and causal process logic, which on any given occasion will depend upon the GM in question. It gets murkier as things head toward the endgame (things like hacking/rigging/interfacing with alien/Far Realm tech?).

* The GM doesn't have to to give the DC to the players and in certain cases is advised not to (this one would likely be a case where the majority of 5e GM wouldn't give the players the DC even if they would in other cases).

* The GM decides if a Skill applies, not the player(s).

* The GM doesn't even have to let the players roll their own Attribute/Skill Check here. They can (and are encouraged to a degree) roll the player's Attribute/Skill check behind their GM Screen to keep the results and the realities of the "alien tech" mysterious.

* Group Check or are each of these discrete things? GM decides.

* What happens upon failure? There are no procedures/principles, its just "meaningful consequences." Could be a simple binary "it works/it doesn't." It could be that the tech starts or immediately engages a self-destruct sequence or countermeasures. Who knows?

---

4E D&D

4e procedures and mechanics would handle this entirely differently and the play would look extremely different:

* 4e would handle the "Getting into the Mothership" as its own discrete scene/encounter. The above gamestate would be the beginning framing (after the combat scene/encounter).

* There is very specific guidance on the Complexity of a Skill Challenge. Its not an arbitrary decision. Level of the noncombat scene/encounter is a little different, but the significant majority of them are "of-level" of the PCs. Only on certain occasions are noncombat scenes "up-leveled" (and then only 1 or 2 levels). So this would almost surely be a Complexity 2, Level + 0 Skill Challenge. All of the interfacing tech would be player-facing:

• 6 Successes before 3 Failures to achieve "Win Condition or Loss Condition."
• 5 Medium DCs (DC 27 for level 23 PCs) and 1 High DC (37) must be passed. The 2 Secondary Skills are DC 20.
• 1 Advantage usable (players can negate a failure or "down-level" a DC).

GMing a Skill Challenge is run by a specific (indie) ethos:

• Say "yes or roll the dice."
• Dynamically change the situation after every moment of action resolution.
• The scene should yield a dramatic arc.
• Players make all rolls and everything is out in the open.
• Fail Forward.

So what would this play loop look like in 4e?

1 - GM frames the scene and describes the obstacle/adversary.

2 - Players declare goal/intent, action, and that the Rogue is leading a Group Check (he has Dungeoneering which is Far Realm Lore - which almost every Rogue would have and certainly at this point - and is using his Dungeoneers Guidance 6th level Utility - this is one of the best 6th level Encounter Utility Power for Rogues in the game so many would have this - if either the Fighter or the Wizard fails...turning their failure into a Success).

3 - The Fighter and the Wizard roll their Skills based on their actions (and again, this is a "say yes" system so if its even remotely feasible, that is the Skill they are using). The Wizard might go with magic (Arcana) or Far Realm Lore (Dungeoneering) and the Fighter might go with "the computer has a built-in translator and I can talk to it directly so I'm imposing my will upon it" (Intimidate) or "I'm studying the manual's pictorial representation of these humanoids initiating take-off and following the procedures" (Perception) or "the controls look straight-forward enough but they require extreme physical coordination to use and strength to control the stick" (Athletics).

4 - If 1/2 succeed, its a success and the gamestate changes to a positive trajectory for the PCs (the hoverpods start up, they have the controls, and now they have them as an asset for the conflict). Agency to affect that gamestate positively is already seriously tilted in the PC's favor due to the procedures above and the Rogue player deploying Dungeoneer's Guidance.

So its almost surely 1/6 Success and 0/3 Failures and up to the mother-ship we go with the PCs having a pair of Vehicles and using the "Monster Math on a Business Card" for them and giving them a couple of Encounter Powers (probably an Attack and a Utility).

If they fail, its 1/3 Failures and now we have to dynamically change the situation adversely (either create a new obstacle or escalate an existing one).

Rinse/repeat.

---

SCUM AND VILLAINY (FORGED IN THE DARK)

The Loop for Scum and Villainy is exactly as Blades as I mentioned above and very similar to 4e except for idiosyncratic mechanical architecture. I wrote the entire loop out upthread so not going to copy/paste it again here (just refer back to that).

* A Clock of some variety would likely be deployed here (maybe a discrete Danger Clock to get into the ship before the aliens realize what has happened and send reinforcements/a patrol or a Mission Clock for the whole thing depending upon the context of the situation).

* The Scoundrel has been around the block so he uses a Setup move via Hack (interfaces with the alien tech to bring up the system's interface to understand its controls) to improve the Position or Effect (Scoundrel player's choie) of the Mystic and the Muscle. He generates Gambits (community dice pool that can be used on Action Rolls) like crazy and causes the Crew to start with one so he negotiates Desperate Position so he can use Daredevil (which gives him +1d if he wants it instead of mark 1 xp). He'll also generate a Gambit because of the Desperate Position due to Never Tell Me the Odds. So he has a huge dice pool (maybe 5-6 dice) to get at least a 4/5 and he'll probably get a 6. He can always Resist if he gets a Complication.

* The Muscle uses Helm to pilot the vehicle.

* They Mystic Attunes (to the Way) to interface directly with the AI of the hoverpod.

---

Anyone who is looking at the above (and again, go back to my Blades play loop for reference for Scum and Villainy):

* Is it not readily apparent all of the vectors for Force that 5e GMing/play entails whereas 4e and Forged in the Dark games (in this case Scum and Villainy) do not?

* Having a lot of vectors for Force means, bare minimum, the PERCEPTION of potentially being beholden to externalities (even if they are benevolent such as the GMing believing "this will make for a better story or a more fun time!"...which they have mandate to do) is significant in a game like 5e.

* However, having a lot of vectors for Force also means, as a function of time, its considerably more likely that, on an instance to instance basis, Force becomes increasingly likely to either (a) have been deployed or (b) be deployed.

Now...

How does the above fundamentals of play (the ethos, the procedures, the player-facedness, the action resolution and PC build tools) present in the above play examples not relatively decrease the agency of a 5e player and relatively increase the 5e GM with respect to the trajectory of play?

 

[pemerton]

In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more.

This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.

Generally speaking when a mechanical process for combat is outlined in the book that is the process followed. So when a player attacks an enemy, they roll an attack roll, the DM (or sometimes players) compare the AC to the resulting roll with modifiers and on a success they hit and damage is rolled. As we have noted here there is some difference in opinion about whether the normal part of the D&D playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty actually can ever apply by rule to combat situations. I would say it technically does, but I'm sure others have rather strong opinions that it doesn't. But in practice that's mostly a distinction without a difference as a dang good reason would be needed to alter that part of combat resolutoin, as whether or not the rules might allow such things, it's generally an expectation of the players that combat will be resolved by the mechanics in the rules (or potentially houserules given out ahead of time).

This appears to be an exception from your previous statement.

The PC's and their actions are part of the shared fiction. So long as the player has agency over their PC's actions then they have agency over the shared fiction. Maybe what you mean is that the players don't have agency over all the shared fiction? But I don't think that really correctly summarizes your position either.

<snip>

Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions.

As well as some or all there are apposite words like much.

There is also the question of what description of the action does the player control? I attack the Orc? I kill the Orc? I look for such-and-such? I find such-and-such? I walk down the corridor? I fall down the pit? I meet the lady? I fall for the lady?

And who controls those other descriptions?

I think the example about climbing a wall with no handholds is more akin to framing the scene, which I think we all agree is okay for the DM to do unilaterally.

Do we? I don't, not when I'm playing (say) Burning Wheel, where scenes are intended to be set so as to speak to a PC's Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.

I've also posted upthread more generally about taking suggestions. @chaochou and @Campbell have also posted about different approaches to framing scenes which have different consequences for play agency.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.

I really don't think this position holds a lot of water. There is clearly an idea that you play your character and are not in control of the setting in the way the GM is in the 1E DMG and in OD&D. You've taken a few edge cases, in areas of the game that were quite specialized (like castle building). But to take that and then apply it to the game generally, I think is faulty logic. In fact, they seem to be exceptions to the overall rule of you playing just your character (and I also think your reading of some of these rules is a bit anachronistic any possibly wrong-----I would need to comb over my 1E DMG again to see for sure, which I am not going to do as I would much rather read In Those Dark Places today than prove a point online). But this just isn't resonating with me. It is like when people pointed to Barbarian rage to show that daily martial powers were cool in earlier D&D: these were exceptions and the issue of taking an edge case and making it a much bigger part of the game, is it totally changes how the game feels (just like taking a particular reading of a few edge cases can totally change what Gygax meant). I don't think anyone would seriously argue that Gygax meant D&D to be a game that gave narrative control to players. Again, that is anachronistic of course, because narrative control hadn't crystalized as a concept. But it seems way outside the playstyle and GMing advice of the man.

 

[Campbell]

Here's what I expect when I play early D&D and what I strive to do when I run it : I expect the DM to play with integrity. I expect that success will be determined by the strength of our fictional positioning and our dice rolls when it comes to it. I expect that anything that impacts our chance of success will be meaningfully knowable. I expect the DM will not be guided by outcomes when they make judgement calls. I expect that clever play will win the day.

The tools available to me come from my character, but I expect to be able to leverage them to change the fiction. I expect that my decisions and skilled use of fictional positioning will have an impact on what I do and do not achieve. I expect that if I made different decisions it would lead to a different result.

 

[prabe]

How is this established?

That's a fair question, and I was thinking some about how it likely happens at your table (connected to how plausibility checking likely happens at your table). I realize I'm probably wrong in ways subtle and not, but I'm guessing plausibility checking happens around the table, as in anyone is allowed (doesn't feel like the right word) to call out anyone else for attempting something implausible; I'm also guessing it doesn't happen much (it doesn't happen much at my table, either--I suspect we both have good, good-faith players at our tables). I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?

In my games, the sheer ice wall would be established as part of framing the scene. So, it's the GM's decision, but it's in the GM's role of adventure-writer/designer, not ... a decision made when the PC decides to try to climb the wall. I get ... prickly when my sense of fair-play gets violated, and deciding the wall is sheer ice when a PC decides to try to climb it would ... grate.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm guessing the wall would be established as a sheer wall of ice in your games as a result of a player/character failing a climbing-related check and the GM narrating the failure and its reasons?

At which point I would have to wonder on what basis the original difficulty of the check was assigned as it obviously couldn't have been based on the the suitability of the wall for climbing as that information didn't exist before the check was made...

 

[FrogReaver]

This is a biographical fact about you. It's not an inherent feature of D&D as such - for instance, this is not how 4e works as written, and it's not how Gygax presents his game either.

My 4e never worked the way you claim yours did

This appears to be an exception from your previous statement.

How so?

There is also the question of what description of the action does the player control? I attack the Orc? I kill the Orc?

Seems obvious?

Do we? I don't, not when I'm playing (say) Burning Wheel, where scenes are intended to be set so as to speak to a PC's Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.

Having a constraint on the decision doesn't mean it's not a unilateral decision.

I've also posted upthread more generally about taking suggestions. @chaochou and @Campbell have also posted about different approaches to framing scenes which have different consequences for play agency.

But the question isn't can it be done some other way. The question is whether it's acceptable for framing to be unilateral. That's a point you've carefully curated your responses to avoid answering.