A Question Of Agency?

[Aldarc]

They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic.

If you want to make such sort of "not cool" insinuations, then one could thereby insinuate from the above statement that you make an appeal to logic so you can sidestep actual evidence or experience and attempt to wrestle authority that way. In the case of discussing the play of games, then it seems that firsthand experience of playing said games would be relevant.

One would hope, for example, that someone reviewing a video game has experience playing it, and that the opinion of someone who has played the video game would be more relevant and meaningful for discussing what gameplay is like than a smooth-talker with a half-baked opinion who hasn't.

Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?

Honestly? Yes, though I personally doubt you would have the exact same opinions. That rudimentary knowledge would at least give you better grounding and foundation for your argument than not. Imagine if the situation was reversed. Would you be appealing to "whoever makes the most logical argument," if you knew that your opposition had no actual experience running/playing D&D? I have difficulties imagining that this would be the case. The lack of experience would likely be your main point of criticism. How could they know how play operates for either GM agency or player agency in D&D if they didn't have any experience with the game under their belt? It would likely seem absurd to you, like a baseless argument.

Consider, for example in this very thread, how @prabe has stated that they played Fate for a year and they found the game not to their liking, which is perfectly fine. But shared first-hand knowledge of gameplay in Fate means that having a good faith conversation with prabe about Fate does not require arguing too many basic points about how the game works, and they can point to particular issues that they experienced. @aramis erak likewise has firsthand experience with Fate. If we discussed it, we may not agree on everything, but we likely could respect the fact that we both have experience running/playing Fate, and we would know that our opinions are informed by said experiences.

I disagree. It's a long thread so I'm not going to ask you to dig up any of those examples, but if you see one going forward then point it out so that I at least have a chance to defend myself from your attack that I'm being inconsistent.

My goal is not to attack any inconsistency on your part, but, rather, to raise the point that I believe you underestimate the importance that your personal game experience factors into what you deem as "logical analysis" and how analysis at odds with actual experience often falls flat.

You don't get to insinuate that I am acting in bad faith. That's not cool.

But somehow it's cool to insinuate that your opponents in this discussion are just appealing to firsthand experience so they can gain for authority over the topic?

Look, my point is not to insinuate bad faith on your part. My point here is that logic without evidence or experience regarding these games results in logic detached from reality, and this can be a dark area IME for bad faith arguments. Logic is not somehow the end all be all "good" of internet discussion that some people fetishize it as. I don't think that humans are fully rational. Much like Hume, I increasingly think that humans are ultimately biological creatures guided by their passions who use logic as window-dressing. But an important step for discussion often involves recognizing that our logic is not somehow impervious to the influence of our passions, experiences, and biases. Experience plays an important role for almost all discussions in these threads.

 

[Bedrockgames]

On the while predicting things in life @Manbearcat (and responding because you raise an interesting point): for me all I have is a vague sense. My background is in martial arts, boxing, music, my formal education in history and philosophy. Not a strong math person. I could not give you a numerical probability for anything I do. Vague odds maybe. But especially with something like martial arts or boxing, I think those situations are far too fluid and unpredictable to give concrete percentages on my chance of landing a specific punch (might be able to guess my rough odds against someone based on size, experience, etc; but that still is hard to be sure of). Needless to say, I think we view the world very differently despite sharing some things in common

 

[Manbearcat]

On the while predicting things in life @Manbearcat (and responding because you raise an interesting point): for me all I have is a vague sense. My background is in martial arts, boxing, music, my formal education in history and philosophy. Not a strong math person. I could not give you a numerical probability for anything I do. Vague odds maybe. But especially with something like martial arts or boxing, I think those situations are far too fluid and unpredictable to give concrete percentages on my chance of landing a specific punch (might be able to guess my rough odds against someone based on size, experience, etc; but that still is hard to be sure of). Needless to say, I think we view the world very differently despite sharing some things in common

Let me give you a few examples that you can apply to your own experience.

I'm a 5'11", 185 lb fit male with a lot of wrestling history and a Brown Belt in BJJ, so I'm extremely heavy-hipped. My top game, half-guard, and underhook/overhook will control the overwhelming % of humans on this planet. Consequently, if I'm grappling with a Blue Belt who doesn't have a VERRRRRRRY specific type of physical makeup + a Choke game that is well above their level (there are a very few number of people like this...but they are unbelievably remote), any given 10 minute session is going to lead to me both (a) controlling the action for the duration and (b) virtually never getting tapped. The other party is going to be controlled, under duress and in danger of getting tapped via Choke or Kimura for the duration of the 10 minutes.

I can estimate that any 10 minute session with a Blue Belt (or below) will follow a very specific map 95+ % of the time.

If I'm rolling Action Resolution for any given "move" in that interval I know with extreme certainty the % chance that it will be successful based on a few specific contextual parameters. If you ask me to roll Conflict Resolution to abstract that session, it should be around 95 % success rate.

That is what I'm talking about.

When you've spared with people (after watching them move before hand and feeling them out for the first 30 seconds or so), don't you have a very strong idea of how the sparring session will go/watch you can get away with (eg, your Check Left Hook counter won't work off of their Jab because they immediately feint away from it after a Jab)?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Any one of those things would have made it not be an example of what I'm talking about.

OK.

Which is why I'm challenging you to come up with a real world example of a player authoring out a problem. Because, so far as you have explained it I can not think of one single game in which this happens. You are, so far as I can tell, talking about a strawman when you talk about a player authoring out a problem.

So I am once again challenging you to show an example that would be legitimate in an RPG of your choice. Because right now your objection here appears to be you inventing something something that does not happen then using this thing entirely invented by you as an objection to games where this is not legal.

Well then, it's a good thing I was talking about picking flaws at char gen and made that clear in my post. Why are you acting like I didn't?

I'm not. I'm clarifying things to make sure that you are either talking about games that are either extremely obscure or are complete strawmen. Literally every game I can think of with disadvantages you pick at chargen that give you the benefit at chargen rather than in play that has them built into rather than tacked onto the game has a form of point buy where disadvantages can have variable prices. There may be a few where there's random chargen - and rolling a bad disadvantage is a problem in the same way rolling a bad stat is, but for these that's also part of the expected game.

So once again you were inventing a problem that may exist in your head but does not exist in real world RPGs.

You've demonstrated you don't even know what I mean by authoring out a problem, so how can you say anything about whether any games actually employ that technique or not?

On the contrary. I was clarifying what you meant. Making sure that it wasn't what might be an awkward way of expressing something that might appear in the real world.

This is an example of two posters that are more familiar with Blades than me having a bit of a disagreement in how it's described to be played.

This is a misunderstanding.

We both agree on how Blades is intended to be played. What we're disagreeing on is whether something is actively against the rules or just pretty obviously bad practice but something that can be done in theory.

Which is to say, there's no wonder I look like I'm misconstruing how games play. I mean how could I not when the very players of those games tell me they play differently.

But we weren't saying that. I wasn't saying "this is how I play" or "this is how it should be played" but "This is not technically against the rules".

Is your point that everything I value must be valued equally, such that if I value agency then it must be to the same degree and similar way that I value car speed? If not, then what does cars and their speed matter?

I'm not sure where on earth this came from. I'm pointing out that you can value things and this is not a moral judgement. And that there are legitimate reasons for picking things that do not have the highest results on what you value.

I would say the offensive part is the implied:
"you say you like agency, well this game has more, so you should try it as you should like it more, and if you don't I guess that means you didn't really value agency that much to begin with"

Replace "agency" with "speed".

"You say you like fast cars. You should try this one if you ever get a chance. I think you'll like it more because it's faster." This is not an offensive statement.

It may possibly be offensive to say "Rather than actually look at the track performance you're just going to claim that that hatchback of yours must be at least as fast. I'm pretty sure that at this point it's not speed you are interested in." but so is "lalalala no it isn't! Mine's the fastest around! Yours can't possibly be faster!" or even "They're all equally fast! No matter whether they do different things in different ways they must be as fast as each other!"

And if the problem is either the "moral weight" behind the word agency or the idea that other games might have more player agency than theirs then those people should never again say that their game offers more agency than an adventure path because they are wilfully giving offence when they say this.

I don't think so. Have you heard @pemerton talk about D&D?

Given the amount of D&D and especially 4e I know he's run I would be confident calling him a fan. It might be that 4e's the only edition he's actually a fan of.

I think it depends on what a and b are.

And "properties in a game" is among the less offensive ones.

They make that appeal to firsthand experience so that so they can gain authority over the topic. Do you really think this would go over any better if I went out and played those games and came back with my same exact opinions?

I think that if you claimed to have played those games and came back with your same exact opinions that it would be proof positive that you either had not actually played those games or you had gone in to those games determined to force your way of looking at them onto those games rather than with an open mind. Because they do not work the way your objections claim they do.

I do. If I wasn't assuming good faith I wouldn't be discussing this.

I'm doing my best to assume good faith from you - but there reaches a point and you're pretty close to it where good faith does not matter. I'll stick to the good games that exist in the real world and we talk about and play in the real world, not the ones that you are talking about that so far as I can tell do not actually exist.

 

[FrogReaver]

Look, my point is not to insinuate bad faith on your part.

It may not be your point, but in trying to make your point you did.

 

[Aldarc]

It may not be your point, but in trying to make your point you did.

This seems like the least pressing issue to take away from my post, particularly after my clarification on that matter.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm assuming what he's saying here (and you'll have to clarify @Neonchameleon ) that "the game tech exists in Blades to completely and obviously play without integrity and pull obvious nonsense like "HEY GUYS, I KNOW YOU'RE DOING A DECEPTION SCORE AT ULF IRONBORN'S (TIER 1) GAMBLING DEN (eg an elaborate dealing from the bottom of the deck/signalling heist with 3 members of the Crew secretly playing cards collectively against 3 individual member's of Ulf's Crew) AND THE POSITION OF YOUR ACTION ROLL IS ONLY RISKY BUT OMG A 1-3 (!)...RIGHT BEFORE YOU WIN AND GET THE COIN FROM YOUR SCORE, THE SPIRIT WARDENS (TIER 4) EXPLODE THROUGH THE FRONT DOOR AND EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL AS THEY TRY TO CONTAIN A ROGUE SPIRIT LIKE THE GHOSTBUSTERS DESTROYING THE HOTEL AS THEY TRY TO CAPTURE SLIMER!"

That doesn't follow the rules for Position Complication handling and it defies the GMing Goals, Actions, and Principles Six Ways to Sunday...basically the integrity of the game is ruined. That doesn't even amount to farce. Its basically a suicide mission by the GM to destroy their game.


Even throttling that back on several different axes, its going to be bloody obvious if the GM either (a) doesn't know what they're doing or (b) isn't playing with integrity. There is no version of even the most modest form of "rocks fall, you die" in Blades. Its too tightly structured, too player-facing, the rules are too intuitive, and the difference between poor GMing/good GMing and best practices/worst practices are far too blatant.

So, I'm pretty confident that @Neonchameleon just meant that the action resolution mechanics (utterly by themselves...removed from the holistic synthesis with the rest of the game) allow for incompetent play/GMing and GMing without integrity (regardless how obvious it will be that its incompetent and without integrity). Yes, any game with a death wish can degenerate to Calvinball. "Because humans." That is not a very bold thesis!

To clarify I meant something only slightly more modest than that. That a GM can ditch the goals and principles because these are not hardcoded rules. And then sticking with the actions they can get something only a little less extreme than this outcome.

However they emphatically should not do this and they should stick with the game's goals and principles. So pretty close. The GM can drop the tarrasque on a low level party in almost any game - and they should not do it.

 

[FrogReaver]

OK.

Which is why I'm challenging you to come up with a real world example of a player authoring out a problem. Because, so far as you have explained it I can not think of one single game in which this happens. You are, so far as I can tell, talking about a strawman when you talk about a player authoring out a problem.

So me asking a question about a playstyle suddenly becomes - inventing a strawman? You realize that's how this whole tangent of a discussion began right?

I'm not. I'm clarifying things to make sure that you are either talking about games that are either extremely obscure or are complete strawmen. Literally every game I can think of with disadvantages you pick at chargen that give you the benefit at chargen rather than in play that has them built into rather than tacked onto the game has a form of point buy where disadvantages can have variable prices. There may be a few where there's random chargen - and rolling a bad disadvantage is a problem in the same way rolling a bad stat is, but for these that's also part of the expected game.

The post I quoted was not what you describe here. You made an assumption about what I was saying that was demonstrably false in the very quote of mine you were replying to. You went on to use that assumption and make further points off it. Maybe you made a mistake there. I'm not saying you did it on purpose. But don't come back later and act like that was about clarification.

This is a misunderstanding.

We both agree on how Blades is intended to be played. What we're disagreeing on is whether something is actively against the rules or just pretty obviously bad practice but something that can be done in theory.

Which still makes it a perfect example for what I was talking about.

But we weren't saying that. I wasn't saying "this is how I play" or "this is how it should be played" but "This is not technically against the rules".

You say that like it's somehow relevant to the point I was making to hawkeyefan when it doesn't really matter if it's just a disagreement about whether something is technically against the rules or not.

Anyways, I question the value of continuing with you on this topic. So don't expect much more interaction from me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But my point is this is just your subjective experience. I don't have enough experience with Dungeon World to weigh in on its level of agency. I can say, much of what people who play it here have described about it, doesn't seem like it would provide more agency than a well run sandbox to me, but like I've been saying all thread, what matters is what works at the table, not arguments on a thread. So I would be totally open to the idea that the kind of agency I am talking about is present in AW (I am just not seeing it based on your descriptions of the game). And I should say, the amount of agency I feel in a sandbox is enormously high, so my bar would be pretty high on that front. I used to say immersion wasn't possible with narrative mechanics that allow the players to establish setting details, then I played Hillfolk and had to admit I was incredibly immersed. And like I said before, there are plenty of people who are open minded and curious about these games and willing to try them. But that doesn't mean we will have the same experience of them that you do (just like not everyone is going have the same experience with a sandbox). People think differently and react to systems differently.

So here you provide an example of you having a preconception about how a game plays....and then after actually playing it, that preconception is gone.

I just think that this is incredibly relevant, so I wanted to highlight it.

On GM decisions by fiat:

I see examples of GM's in other systems making a ruling and I'm told that it's not fiat because there's some general principle written in the rules pages that is guiding that decision. Okay that's fair, but if all it takes is some kind of guiding principle or reason to make something not be fiat, then I'd have to say that in the great history of RPG's very few if any DM decisions have ever been made by fiat as defined this way. Whether explicit to the system or not, GM's tend to have guiding principles and reasons for their decisions.

So this brings to mind two questions for me.

What are the principles that are stated in order to guide a DM in D&D? Pick whatever edition you like; what are the principles that a DM should keep in mind?

What are the principles that guide your GMing? Again, pick any game you like and list some of the ideas that guide your GMing in that game.

 

[FrogReaver]

This seems like the least pressing issue to take away from my post, particularly after my clarification on that matter.

I didn't think so?

I thought it was just about the only thing that hasn't been hashed and rehashed to death. I agree on some level with many of the general points you made. A good portion of the problem is framing the situation solely from your perspective and thus framing the situation such that those points can be used against me.