A Question Of Agency?

[Bedrockgames]

How so?

See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and all my moves here seem really well chosen, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton - the difference is between the player finding a secret door that was already there (GM planning etc), and rolling well enough that the player gets to decide themselves that yes, there is indeed a secret door in that wall.

If you don't think there's a difference between those two in terms of agency then we'll have to agree to disagree.

There is a difference between RPGing-as-puzzle-solving and RPGing-as-story-now.

But the idea that there is something inherent to a story about a protagonist finding a secret door that therefore means RPGing must or ought to or even naturally will handle that differently from a story about a protagonists killing an Orc - that is the idea that I reject.

Also, I reiterate that the player does not find a secret door. The player sits at a table in a living room, participating in a story about an imaginary character finding a secret door. In the puzzle-solving approach, the player learns that the GM has decided that the fiction includes a secret door. That's why another description of RPGing-as-puzzle-solving is RPGing-as-learning-what-is-in-the-GM's-notes.

 

[pemerton]

See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and all my moves here seem really well chosen, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.

Who decides the bolded thing. The player? The GM? The other players?

Slightly related: did Cicero ever lose an argument? Did he ever lose an argument even though his moves seemed really well chosen?

 

[Bedrockgames]

What does a “GM doing their job right” mean? I mean, if the rules don’t work to prevent railroading, and there are few or no GMing principles to guide a GM, then how do they know they’re doing things right?

That is a long topic, but I don't think having rules to stop railroading is the way to go, especially if they undercut the powers GMs wield that make RPGs so unique. Good adventure structures are the solution in my opinion. I don't have time to get into that now, but I do have a lot of thoughts on what makes a good adventure structure. I think it is very easy to know when you are railroading. And it is very easy to avoid railroading. You have an adventure in mind, the haunted castle on forest hill. But the players, after hearing a rumor about the castle, decide they want to go south to see if they can gather men to help them rob a bank. If you are doing things to push them back to the castle, you are railroading. If you are rolling honestly considering what they want to do in the south, and coming up with things like NPCs they might recruit, you are not railroading. I don't think avoiding railroads is all that hard. But I think it happens because many GMs are affraid to run stuff they haven't prepared for in advance. This is where something like a living world becomes useful.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No it’s not trust. I agree that can be a part of it....and honestly I think trusting the other participants is a hugely important thing. But if we’re going to say that there’s one thing that can be done to end railroading, saying “don’t railroad” does nothing.

Sure it is. You have a problem: picking your nose. You stop picking your nose, the problem is done. My point is railroading is as easy to see as the problem of nose picking. It is also a habit, which you break by not engaging in it.

 

[prabe]

What counts as good or bad faith depends (doesn't it?) on prior commitments and understandings.

Yes. I think some understandings are baked into the games, and others are baked into people's preferences regarding games and/or playstyles. I think it's plausible you and I don't have radically different ideas about good faith play/GMing, though we have, I suspect, markedly different preferences as regard playstyle and systems. I'm pretty sure neither of us is entirely wrong;

If I sit down to play the Dragonlance modules, then presumably it's agreed that Kitiara can't be killed by a few lucky bowshots (to get the damage high enough let's suppose they're from an Unearthed Arcana bow specialist at point blank range) early in the module series.

Aren't the Dragonlance modules a pretty notorious railroad? I've never played them (or, for that matter, read the books) but it's my impression that the modules are pretty specifically about giving players a chance to experience the books as a D&D campaign. Given my feelings about books and TRPG play being very different types and experiences of fiction, that seems like a very, very bad idea.

That said, I agree that killing one of the main characters of the books, early in a campaign through those modules, would almost certainly be against the players' expectations (and probably the DM's, too).

If I sit down to play a standard game of Burning Wheel, then the GM deciding that there are no secret doors and thus not allowing the action to be resolved in the normal way is acting in bad faith.

That is consistent with your descriptions of play. You mentioned early that plausibility-checking in TRPGs is interesting, and I agree; how is it handled in BW--who, if anyone, could say it was implausible for there to be a secret door in that wall? Also, if the GM ended up narrating (IIRC, because the player failed at the action-resolution check) I believe their options would include "there's not a secret door" as well as "there's a secret door and you can't open it" or "there's a secret door and it leads to something even worse," yes?

I don't see Orcs, ice walls or secret doors as being a priori different as far as unilateral GM decision-making is concerned.

I think there's a case for all three being in the realm of fiction-framing. Which, in D&D, means they're placed by the DM, yes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Just another point about this. The point of using the term traditional is both convenience of language and descriptive.

I would be willing to accept that your use of “traditional” is not meant as a slight or as an appeal to what’s normal, and is instead just your way of saying “the most common”, if you’re willing to accept that stating a game has less player agency is not a value statement.

See the example I gave of the social skill roll undermining the player's choice of argument to present. If I am playing Cicero in an Ancient Rome campaign, and make a series of specific political maneuvers, and then give speeches in the senate, to have some uppity conspirators executed, and all my moves here seem really well chosen, but I blunder my Politics roll and my Smooth Talking roll, then that would undermine my agency, not enhance it. I am not saying these mechanics can't also enhance agency at times. I am saying they definitely also have the ability to undermine meaningful choices.

I think this is relevant, but it still doesn’t seem to reduce agency. Here, you seem to be placing a high value on the arguments/words chosen by the player to influence the outcome in the game?

But why? Wouldn’t Cicero make a compelling argument? Couldn't he do so and still leave his target unswayed? A poor roll here need not mean that Cicero stuttered and babbled like a buffoon. It simply means his opposition was unconvinced.

I don’t see how this reduces the player’s agency if mechanics are involved. They know the odds and can decide to make the attempt, and then the dice decide.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see Orcs, ice walls or secret doors as being a priori different as far as unilateral GM decision-making is concerned.

I think there's a case for all three being in the realm of fiction-framing. Which, in D&D, means they're placed by the DM, yes.

I think the following would be relatively atypical framings:

You come to a wall. It has no secret doors in it. (Cf You come to a wall. It seems to have no doors or other ways through it.)

You come to an ice wall. It's unscalable. (Cf You come to an ice wall. It looks smooth, practically impossible to climb.)

Aren't the Dragonlance modules a pretty notorious railroad?

I believe so. That doesn't make the bad faith.

You mentioned early that plausibility-checking in TRPGs is interesting, and I agree; how is it handled in BW--who, if anyone, could say it was implausible for there to be a secret door in that wall? Also, if the GM ended up narrating (IIRC, because the player failed at the action-resolution check) I believe their options would include "there's not a secret door" as well as "there's a secret door and you can't open it" or "there's a secret door and it leads to something even worse," yes?

An absence of a secret door would be a possible although perhaps boring narration of failure.

It's very hard to think, out of context, of a circumstance where a secret door would be ruled out on credibility grounds. Nearly any wall might have a secret way through it - and if the wall is interesting enough for a player to actually care about searching it, that probably reinforces the possibility of there being a secret way.

 

[Manbearcat]

But why? Wouldn’t Cicero make a compelling argument? Couldn't he do so and still leave his target unswayed? A poor roll here need not mean that Cicero stuttered and babbled like a buffoon. It simply means his opposition was unconvinced.

Madness! No one has ever made a compelling (or even devastating or undefeatable) argument and failed to convince their opposition! Doesn't happen!

This is important as a point that we have in the entirety of this thread and it dovetails with conversation upthread:

1) In Social (or Journey or Escape or Chase) (etc) conflicts, resolution mechanics aren't just deciding was Cicero's argument robust and compelling? They're deciding was Cicero's opposition compelled!

2) There are all kinds of reasons why an argument that 100 % of the time should compel an audience fails to move them. This is the significant (throw in a few more significants here) norm when two parties are inclined to not be moved off of their position!

So how is it (a) not arbitrary and (b) somehow simulating what is most likely when the GM determines (via fiat unconstrained by any intermediaries; resolution mechanics, or some kind of fortune roll, high resolution principles integrated holistically with the rest of the system) that Cicero's opposition is moved this time in this situation vs all the abundant times they (or those just like them) were unmoved in that situation.

I tried to get @Lanefan to discuss this upthread and we had an exchange. But it wasn't particularly satisfactory to me (that is, to say, I decided by fiat that I was unmoved by his/her argument that he/she surely thought was robust and compelling)!

 

[prabe]

I think the following would be relatively atypical framings:

You come to a wall. It has no secret doors in it. (Cf You come to a wall. It seems to have no doors or other ways through it.)

You come to an ice wall. It's unscalable. (Cf You come to an ice wall. It looks smooth, practically impossible to climb.)

Those would be, though the first would be narrated as a wall, I don't know that a DM would flat out say "there aren't any secret doors"; most, in my experience, would simply narrate, repeatedly, "you don't find any secret doors." Yes, that's annoying; in something like 100 sessions between two 5E campaigns, I think I've placed exactly one secret door. The second would be narrated as a sheer vertical wall of ice, and I wouldn't let anyone roll to climb it if they didn't have suitable magic or tools--if I were at the top of my game, I'd probably say something to that effect in my description of it.

An absence of a secret door would be a possible although perhaps boring narration of failure.

Yeah. I figure that's probably the least-interesting result.

It's very hard to think, out of context, of a circumstance where a secret door would be ruled out on credibility grounds. Nearly any wall might have a secret way through it - and if the wall is interesting enough for a player to actually care about searching it, that probably reinforces the possibility of there being a secret way.

I thought about it for a minute or two and couldn't think of a situation where it would be implausible for a secret door to be in a given wall, either. Personally, I think the secret door is likely to be in the least-interesting wall, not the most-interesting one, but that's nothing to do with TRPGs.