A Question Of Agency?

[darkbard]

Maybe he is just opposed to bad analysis that frames his playstyle in a very negative light? Afterall, one can complain about bad analysis without being opposed to analysis.

How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Only to the point that the same might apply in real life.

Amnd in real life there's countless examples where one simply doesn't know a) the odds of success, and-or b) what success or failure might in fact look like in the end. I prefer this be reflected in the game where it makes sense to do so, to indicate the character's similar lack of knowledge.

In real there would be any number of other ways for people to examine their surroundings and the people with whom they interact and then draw those kinds of conclusions.

In a RPG all of that is subject to GM narration. So, throw the players a bone and share the numbers with them. Make them feel like their characters are capable.

An example would be cases where the player's hoped-for success condition is impossible for reasons beyond the player's control or knowledge (in other words, exactly what pemerton doesn't like!) .

An example might be something as simple as trying to persuade (or maneuver) the Emperor to go for a walk in the sunny garden. Unknown to the characters (or players) the Emperor is in fact a Vampire thus going out in the sun would be a bad idea. But as DM I can't just deny the attempt without arousing undue out-of-character suspicion, so I let 'em roll (and secretly hope the roll fails, to get me off the hook!).

But let's say the roll succeeds handily. The Emperor still ain't going out in that garden, so I have to deny that success either by having the Emperor act in a manner that might give his secret away or by having him in-character try to deflect by granting the PCs something else they might like e.g. "Alas, I cannot walk with you this day but for such a kind and unexpected offer please accept my invitation to remain at court until the Highsun Ball at the end of next month". Then if the players/PCs get suspicious we can take it from there.

Just prior to posting this you asked that people not use edge cases as examples. Then you come up with this scenario as a hypothetical.

Do you have any actual examples that have come up in play where you’ve taken a success and negated it or else replaced it with some other form of success?

If I allowed more player-side rolling it would come up every time they rolled success on searching for a secret door in a place where none was to be found.

So do you want to give any actual examples or do you just intend to dodge the question?

Truth be told, anti-railroading rules would handcuff a GM; because sometimes a bit of railroading can be a good thing.

I can’t even.

Like many other things, however, it needs to be used in great moderation and (usually) with a light touch*.

* - that said, sometimes the hamfisted approach can also work well: "You leave town intending to head for the coast; but about an hour out of town blip! your surroundings suddenly change: where before you were in open farmland you're now in a dark foreboding forest. What do you do?". Some of the best adventures I've ever played in have started this way.

Some of what you describe here may be more about framing a situation....setting up a scene to present some kind of challenge to the PCs. I don’t think that’s always the same as railroading, although it can be, depending on circumstances.

FYI in the Majors they're going to robotic umpires either this season or next to get around just this problem.

Huh, so they’re going to switch to a neutral system that can provide reasonably predictable and consistent results?!?!

Poppycock!

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames, you suggested that exchanges between you and @Manbearcat be closed down, to which he agreed, and now here (and a few posts earlier when you indirectly address him), you seem unable to stop yourself from jumping in with one (or two) last word(s). Do you not see why it becomes frustrating interacting with you?

I add that this mirrors your claims of not being opposed to (much) analysis with subsequent repeated posts decrying the ills of analysis (see our earlier exchanges on this subject).

Well, it was a parting remark, and not a negative one. Just a point of clarification based on something I saw he posted (and I didn't quote him, but just mentioned him by name instead). Also, whether he and I interact is between him and me. I think both of us are free to change our minds if we do see some positive exchanges arising (I've had experiences like that with posters, where I stop interacting, then interact after the tone shifts).

I don't know what to tell you about my views on analysis. I feel I have been clear about them. What can I say, I was interested in philosophy growing up and in logic, and in rhetoric, and while I see value in all three, I also understand one can be mislead by specious argumentation, adopt bad ideas by failing to catch a critical flaw in an argument's premise, etc. You can like analysis, but realize it has limits, and that it has things to be cautious about. And especially when it comes to games, you can also realize the limits of these kinds of conversations but still enjoy them and find beneficial things in them. It is just that what ultimately matters is table play---you can have the greatest playstyle argument or analysis in the world, wrapped in a perfectly pretty bow, but if it doesn't work in play, there is a problem. My points about analysis and online conversations isn't that they are all bad. They can be very good. They have helped me overcome issues around railroading for example in my own games. But online especially, they often lead to very extreme views (in a gaming sense, not in a political sense), where we avoid things we might like because we have a slightly imperfect model of gaming in our minds (one that may work great for conversation, and possibly even work for 80% of table play, but has areas where it falters in live play. One point I have been trying to make, that I think hasn't been noticed by everyone is one of the traps I fell into was in discussions around emersion and sandbox, I built up these rules and principles of gaming in my head (based on discussion and analysis) that were good for a lot of things but were too rigid in actual play. I also cut myself off from enjoying the very types of games folks like Pemerton are advocating. This is why it is was a revelation to me when I played Hillfolk and found it extremely immersive. I had great arguments, sound, battle tested arguments, for why it shouldn't be immersive, but that logic broke down in actual play because, while my arguments may have been sound, there were clearly either flaws I didn't see in the premises somewhere. The internet is very good at spreading valid arguments with flawed premises, and this was the point I was trying to make about the negatives of analysis. By all means engage in analysis, but when someone makes a valid argument about players creating dead orcs in the fiction when they swing a sword, that is when I pause and say, okay, even if I can't pinpoint it, clearly this argument has a problem because something in my bones is telling me this isn't true.

Another point is analysis of games is extremely hard to do. I've explained why in prior posts, regarding things like not liking an edition, identifying the suspected mechanical reason, but then wrongly extrapolating that reason to a general principle. And the reverse happens too (well you were fine with Barbarian rage but now daily martial powers bother you?)----again these things are often about the volume, the focus, the specifics, etc. and that very regularly gets overlooked in these discussions. I can ask you to tell me why you don't like chocolate ice cream (and perhaps you do like chocolate ice cream so just insert whatever flavor you dislike). You may be able to provide some subjective analysis of why. But I think there is a good chance those might just be initial impressions, not anything fundamental to your taste. And even if you hit on something, that might be largely dependent on context. So me saying well, you said you don't like the richness of chocolate flavor, but in this other post you declared your love for salmon, and that has a rich, omega fatty taste. Which is it sir?! Do you like richness in your food or do you not??!!!!?? ----note there is a lot wrong here: richness is very subjective, I am possibly equivocating on richness when I talk about fish because richness applies to a wide variety of flavor components, and obviously the richness of chocolate is different from the richness of salmon.

 

[Campbell]

I am not going for @Manbearcat here.

Personally I find that players who are exclusively interested primarily in exploration focused play have a hard time with analyzing what's happening at the actual table between the actual players. They tend to give causal powers to things that have no causal powers. I have also noticed a tendency to filter everything through a exploration focused mindset. Like not being able to contemplate why a mechanic is needed or desired if it does not directly feed into the only play agenda they care about.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Both could be plausible. The point is simply the GM is supposed to be aiming for plausibility here. And because the GM is the one with the power to decide, that is where things go.

This is an argument against player agency right here. The GM has the power to decide.

You must see that, right?

I don't think the GM is steering things. That term suggests the GM is guiding towards a particular outcome or storyline. But I am describing a GM who is much more reactive to what the PCs do, than a GM trying to guide things along a path or steer the course of the campaign.

The GM absolutely is steering things. It may not be their goal, or their primary reason for making the decision they make, but it is in fact them steering the game.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That is because your side's use of the term simulationist doesn't jive with the way we play the game. This is one of the major reasons people on my side reject GNS theory for example. I have tried to explain I am not running a realistic simulation of reality.

I do think Manbearcat's approach to my way of handling NPCs was very engineer-like. I get that may not be how he plays at the table. But his insistence that to do it my way, I'd need to be figuring out the actual level of 'hits' in real life social situations and using a formula to replicate that....that struck me as very 'engineer-like'.

No, it’s that your appeal to “believability” sounded like simulationism.

That you’ve now clarified that to mean what’s internally consistent with the game world and what fits the NPC has made it clearer.

 

[Bedrockgames]

How many times has it been pointed out in this thread that analyzing degrees of relative agency is not an attack on a playstyle, no matter how much the purportedly aggrieved wish it so?

There is a lot of " I am just analyzing' while crapping on playstyle X going on. I think that is a lot of peoples sense, and I think that sense is accurate. But more than that, it is just clear to us that the analysis being used isn't capturing our style. So maybe it is not guided by a desire to attack the style, but there is defintiely a kind of failure to understand how the style actually operates in practice. I think it feels a lot like someone coming from without imposing meaning on what we are doing, and then getting upset when we don't agree with them (and the answer is well I am analyzing so what I am saying is true).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure, but that tension isn't necessarily connected to what the player is saying (I could add tension with all kinds of mechanics outside the actual events of play----I could create a whole mini-game to increase the tension). But I want to focus on the actual exchange (and there is usually plenty of tension there: often something as simple as the GM pausing before giving an answer will produce it).

These elements are not absent from the games I play where all of this is also handled with clear processes and game mechanics.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So I think that both economists and gamers greatly overestimate the degree to which human beings are rational actors.

I think if your aim is skilled play of the fiction not having meaningful social mechanisms makes a certain degree of sense. After all you want to reward a player's ability to build up evidence and make a compelling case. In my experience it's not a good model for the way like actual human beings behave. We are convinced to do many things we do not want to initially do. Seldom by a compelling argument. It also tends to make for fiction that resembles Star Trek far more than The Last Kingdom or Vikings.

I think if you want a game where characters have rich emotional lives that are somewhat removed from the rich emotional lives of their players (hence not LARP style drama) having some sort of mechanism to reinforce that is usually a good thing.

You might be factually correct. But...

I think highly immersive LARP is the gold standard of roleplaying, I want social situations on my tabletop game to be like that, and more they are the better! So introducing mechanics that make it less like that would be insane, and I literally cannot understand why anyone would want to do that. I mean I intellectually understand that people have differnt tastes, but this is a position to which I cannot relate at all.

I also love Star Trek.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This is an argument against player agency right here. The GM has the power to decide.

You must see that, right?

I have already covered this. If the GM is just deciding regardless of what the PC says, sure, but if the GM is trying to have the NPC react and the world react, in an honest way to the choices the player is making in terms of actions and words, then that power is being used to enhance agency (and a random die roll, if it takes away from the choices of actions and words, is being detrimental to agency)