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.
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?
