A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

I don't disagree that happens. But similar things can happen even if they've played the game. "your experience is clouded because you had a bad GM" or "you weren't actually playing the game by the rules" or etc.

Sure, that kind of thing can happen. Absolutely. I think that's part of why we have these discussions, to get a variety of opinions on the topic. To analyze what may be going right or wrong in any example of play.

But my question there is, why even bring that up in a discussion with someone you know hasn't played a particular game? What's the purpose? Is it to coax them into playing it? Is it to minimize their opinions? Something else?

To get a kind of foundation for understanding? Either for me or for them?

Maybe you are focused more on the "this can happen" and I'm focused more on the "why is this being brought up?"

Maybe that speaks to your own motives for bringing things up? I don't know....I can't help you with that.

I can explain that the reason I pointed out an example of firsthand experience being the most relevant kind of experience is because that's what we've been talking about. That's my stance. So I provided an example that supported that.

Do I think @Bedrockgames 's opinion of Hillfolk prior to playing it was invalid? No. Do I think it was less informed than someone who has played the game? Yes.

D&D seeks to remain open to many playstyles and styles of DMing and so it gives fairly limited guidance about principles and such IMO. But as was established earlier, it's not just the rules in the game but also the unwritten social rules that the group playing the game has erected. I mean, are you just arguing that such guiding principles must be in the official rules and can't come either socially or internally from the GM?

I wasn't arguing anything with the bit you quoted here. I was asking some questions.

So I think that your comment here about the "unwritten social rules" is pretty relevant. I think that D&D and many games like it leave a lot of that stuff up to the specific participants. They use a lot of vague language and constantly remind the reader that "this is all just suggestion, you should do whatever works". And this is something that has both pros and cons.

I do think that having principles of that kind clearly stated is a good idea. It's not a necessity, but it's a good idea. A lot of modern games do it, and it serves to make those unwritten social rules actually written. It gives the participants in the game common ground to discuss things. It gives them a foundation for having discussions about the game.

This is why most GMs of a game that has these.....Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark.....are likely proceeding in a very similar manner in how they GM the game. Contrast that with D&D, where even within the same edition, you will get wildly varying accounts of how the game is played, and even in how it is "meant" to be played.

And for the most part, this is all a bit of a tangent, but as it relates to the agency of the player, I think knowing the rules of the game and how they're being applied and when is going to be a strong indicator that player agency is a consideration.

 

[hawkeyefan]

See below.

That's progress!

I can agree that sounds like a rather large difference. Would you say it's not typical for narrative style games to give players the ability to author their own obstacles?

What about the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?

What about the ability to author a detail about an obstacle/scene that changes the nature or difficulty of an obstacle (say by narrating some NPC or faction is also present in the scene and is willing to assist with overcoming the obstacle)?

So when you posted this, I think I was pretty clear that I didn't know what you meant. I think others have asked for clarification, as well, and if you've actually provided an example or explanation of what you mean, then it was not obvious, or was missed. I know I didn't see it.

What does "the ability to author the removal of an obstacle?" actually mean?

 

[Bedrockgames]

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)?

I see a lot of similarities and a lot of differences that may shape how we see the world. My background is mainly in striking: taekwondo, muay thai, sanshou, boxing and some Judo. I trained at a couple of MMA gyms and even took BJJ at them, but despite taking the classes, BJJ was always too much like learning math for me (not a knock against the style, as it is highly effective, just I never seemed to absorb it that well and afterwards my brain was exhausted, like I had been doing algebra or learning a new language). So I may or may not be able to grok the example you gave as BJJ is a style, I don't really have a firm handle on. I am also much smaller than you (I am 5'7" and when I competed was at 145----presently around 160). I do think strikers and grapplers tend to see the world a little differently and have slightly different personalities.

The example you give is pretty specific to BJJ, so it is possible I won't understand how that transfers to something like boxing. First difference between us is I would probably never estimate my success rate in martial arts at 95%. And if I did provide that kind of number, it wouldn't really mean anything (it isn't like I am formulating it off anything more than instinct, experience and what I see in the other person).

When I spar with people (or should say sparred, as I haven't been to the gym since Covid), I never get a 95% degree of certainty about anything. I do get a sense of "I could probably take this person", "This person could probably take me", etc. But people are surprising, and with striking especially I can't predict how a match is going to until it happens (I can see weaknesses, and I can formulate a plan, but I can't know how it goes till it starts because I don't know what it will feel like to get hit by them yet, I don't how good their defenses really are against me specifically----I can watch them spar someone else, but that isn't the same as me sparring them). I will say, what you seem to be suggesting is that weight+strength+personal style+experience are all good measures of your overall chances, and if you are solid in all of those and the other person isn't, sure you probably are going to win. It would have to be a very extreme case though for me to say 95% (like if someone is just walking in, and not very athletic looking, and much smaller than me: keep in mind boxing gyms generally pair you with people within your weight category----and if there is a weight disparity there are usually specific instructions to follow so the other person doesn't get hurt). And my understanding is in BJJ this might be even more easy to measure because you generally are not advancing to the next belt unless you can soundly defeat belts in the the rank you presently occupy (it is a good system in my opinion, but correct me if I am wrong about that).

But most cases are going to be much more gray than that 95%. I can think of a handful of times I thought something was in the bag for me or the other person. And again, even then, there is always a punchers chance. Most of the time, I really don't have a good idea till things start, how good someone really is. And I just generally have found it unwise to go in with a high level of certainty about an opponent.

Also, what you are describing to me is what I would call 'sizing someone up'. In striking usually I look at size, muscle mass, how they carry themselves, the size of their wrists and hands (and if I see them practice I might try to watch their movements). In a game, I wouldn't be sizing up foes unless I specifcally asked to. So this kind of 'how much of a threat is this enemy', would likely arise as me asking the GM if I can look at the threat and try to assess how much of a threat it poses. I would understand, especially if the GM made a secret roll for say some kind of Detect or Perception ability, that I might be wrong about that.

I also, despite all this, am definitely not walking around in campaign with probabilities of actions and characters in my head that, if they are violated, will somehow rip me out of the game. Even if I size someone up like above, if it goes a different way, that isn't going to trouble me. If something screams "This is not believable!!!!" then sure, like most people, I react to that. but I have always been more comfortable with things like dice pools because they can cloud probabilities, which feels more realistic to me than say a d100 system (I like plenty of d100 games, just the whole precise probability that I know doesn't feel like the world feels to me) . Also my sense of how things ought to be in this world, are going to be very different from a game or movie (and each of those is going to vary depending on the style or genre).

All I can say is in play, playing the way I do, my sense of believability is rarely ever disrupted (and even when it is, its never enough to make me angry, or want to stop playing). Ultimately if what you are after is a game that emulates clearly the probabilities of real life (which I am not), even then you are either going to have a system that handles it, or a person, and both can result in bone headed things. I've played plenty of bad systems that didn't work out probabilities well. But what bothers me usually isn't "I should have at least an 80 percent chance of jumping a gap that large", it is usually more to do with the system just making getting successes hard unnecessarily (actually one of the reasons I am not too keen on 3E any more is I felt you ended up with too many characters that failed at things too often: generally I do like systems that lean more on success). But again, I think this has a lot less to do with probabilities and more to do with getting annoyed that we have to spend 20 minutes fighting because every other attack fails.

Hope that answers your question, really trying to give a thorough and honest answer. But this is actually a pretty involved topic

 

[Bedrockgames]

The worst thing for immersion is IME having to look things up in the rulebook. Having to ask the GM is nowhere near as bad because it's not almost purely abstract but it's far, far worse than knowing because I understand the world and rules. For you it might be less of a barrier; this is largely personal about what clicks with you

I tend to share this view which is why I gravitate towards lighter games most of the time, systems that fade into the background and don't require frequent look up. But if I am crazing something very specific I will often be willing to put in the extra effort at mastery (in which case, once you have system mastery, the end result is much the same). With martial arts games, I experimented with a lot, and I came to the conclusion that sometimes I need a ton of kung fu abilities to replicate the feel of a good kung fu or wuxia movie/book. But sometimes I need something much lighter. It is a trade off though.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Glad you enjoyed I don't honestly think specifically immersive mechanics exist. There are anti-immersive ones and in general too many rules and things that take too long to resolve are anti-immersive for anyone. But a lot is down to both what clicks with you and what you have learned until you can use it without thinking. It's always hard jumping to a new perspective and I'm glad you could.

I think what made it immersive was how central it made dialogue in shaping things. It might be that I was not playing by the book (as someone else was organizing the game; though I have the book and am actually reading through it now). But when we played it, I felt like I was there, speaking in character. If I mentioned something that created something new in the setting, it worked, it wasn't the problem I thought it might be. Now it did achieve things differently. It wouldn't be how I would want to run a game about exploring a dungeon or wilderness. Because part of the appeal there is 'solving' the puzzle, and finding things in a world or place you don't have knowledge of. But if I wanted to run something that felt like I, Claudius, or even Babylon 5, I think Hillfolk would be an excellent game.

 

[Aldarc]

This is definitely true, which is why I find it helpful to read a diversity of opinions from knowledgeable people who have run the game. Typically IME a consensus forms around the game. In the case of many games nowadays, we also have the privilege that many creators will run their games on YouTube or Twitch as marketing tools to advertise or demo their game.

As an addendum to this statement, you (@FrogReaver) may find it helpful to watch videos of John Harper running Blades in the Dark on his YouTube channel, which hawkeyefan has mentioned before. That might help you understand the game better. I believe that some reflect the pre-release playtest form, but @hawkeyefan likely could point to some of the videos that helped him most.

Though I will say that watching and playing (IME) are two separate experiences, and you sometimes can't see what's entirely at work with how Blades operates until you are in the player or GM seat yourself.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Do I think @Bedrockgames 's opinion of Hillfolk prior to playing it was invalid? No. Do I think it was less informed than someone who has played the game? Yes.

I definitely agree that someone who played it has a more informed opinion. but I do think where people sometimes go wrong is assuming that having played it, they know how it would land with me in terms of things like immersion (because those are very individual reactions). It just happens that I played it and loved it, and it didn't upset immersion one bit (to the point I realized I had to rethink some of my notions about immersion itself).

But importantly the thing that made me want to try it was a friend suggested it, and he made it welcoming (it wasn't part of some playstyle debate). It was more like, here is a game I think you might enjoy. And if I didn't like it, he wouldn't have spent hours trying to convince me that I was missing out, he just would have moved on.

 

[innerdude]

Immersion is, to me, flow within the gameworld. And I keep it in part by having an understanding of the world and being able to act on that. Every time I stop focusing on the world and have to interact with the structures it breaks my immersion. And asking the GM takes longer than checking my character sheet. I am sufficiently numerate (I accept not everyone is) that I can keep track especially of a streamlined character sheet like the Apocalypse World one. Any back and forth about what I can do and how likely it is with the GM that I can do such and such a thing chips away at my immersion while doing it - and the longer it takes the more damaging.

Interestingly, I think this hearkens to something @FrogReaver was trying to get at earlier, which is that there's an important quality, or sensibility, that is derived from having a notion of "what the world is like" as a player. I believe his point was that rules systems that strongly correlate to "how my character interacts with the illusion of objective reality" are an aid to giving players more agency, because the players feel more "grounded" in the fiction.

And I don't necessarily think he's wrong. Most of the best roleplaying campaigns I've been involved with have stemmed from those campaigns having this sensibility, or quality of "understanding the world." And yes, there is a greater degree of freedom involved when the player is more firmly grounded in the established illusion that underpins the fictional reality.

One of the reasons I've stuck with Savage Worlds for as long as I have is that it's very easy for players to "grok" how the Savage Worlds rules interface with the fictional underpinnings. They are able to quickly grasp how their character "fits" into the world, how their character's skills and attributes point to the "fictional face" that they put on inside the world. Savage Worlds makes it very easy to intuit when a character makes an action declaration how the resulting mechanical process will translate into the in-fiction output.

But now having had some experience with more player-facing systems, I'm firmly of the opinion that this is significantly more related to the players' ability to correctly place themselves within their own fictional positions than it is with the rules themselves.

I've mentioned previously that this principle is one of the reasons that I strongly dislike gameplay that focuses on planar / ethereal / abyssal worlds. As a player I can never firmly grasp the underpinnings, and so I feel caught --- I have no notion of what's an "optimal" or even "allowed" character action declaration. And when this happens, I very much feel trapped, railroaded, and lacking in agency. It's basically, "Whelp, guess I'll just wait for the GM to narrate/introduce something actionable, but until then, bleh."

I think @FrogReaver's issue is that he believes that this sensibility or quality of play is damaged or diminished by games that allow for more player-facing control of the fiction. That somehow, when a player is allowed to introduce fictional elements, that it takes away from the player's ability to apprehend the fictional underpinnings, because we've somehow unmoored the fiction in a way that makes it less understandable---and as a consequence, some player agency is removed. Reality has become "unmoored" in some fashion, and the attached element of the fiction is no longer reliably viewable as an avenue for player action, thus reducing agency.

And without having ever tried systems like Dungeon World or Fate, I could completely see how that would seem like a valid concern---because it's one I shared. I couldn't wrap my head around how this wouldn't be problematic.

Now having had some experience with it, I've learned that the things @Ovinomancer , @hawkeyefan , @pemerton, and @Manbearcat are saying are correct.

The fictional underpinnings and player agency are not lessened, because 1) the group has agreed to let the fictional framing direct and constrain action declarations in appropriate ways, 2) the rules constrain GMs to stay within the bounds of principled play, and 3) the rules direct and push the players to frame their characters and the obstacles they face in ways that are appropriate to the character.

Basically, I learned that in Dungeon World, Items 1 and 3 in the previous paragraph can correctly substitute for Savage World's task resolution system, as long as players are all on the same page about how to correctly frame their characters in the appropriate context.

The main issue our group had with Dungeon World---and the reason we abandoned it after 6 or 7 sessions---is that there was one particular player who had an extremely hard time with this principle. He wanted the more prescriptive, "these are the explicit things my character can do" rules of Savage Worlds.

Another note --- One of @FrogReaver's other objections has been the idea that players can simply handwave/"author" away obstacles as they see fit.

In my experience, this is largely not the case. Once obstacles are introduced into the fiction, the players (through their characters) are obligated to deal with those obstacles through principled play (action declarations and their attendant resolutions).

What this does, however, is place a large burden on the GM to only introduce obstacles that are relevant, directive, and appropriate to the concerns at hand.

This was one of the points I made earlier regarding @Lanefan's introduction of the undead death cult on his players. In Dungeon World, obstacles that are not germane to the goals/directives of the players (as expressed through their characters), should only be introduced sparingly, if at all.

If an obstacle is "handwaved"/authored away (or allowed to be by a player), it's because the GM recognizes that the presented obstacle is not germane to the goals of play.

As a GM, it requires a very, very different mindset. It requires a significant amount of a GM "unlearning what you have learned," to quote our favorite green muppet Jedi master.

Does it mean there's no wiggle room to allow for tangents, red herrings, and the occasional trivial encounter? No, not necessarily. But the basic context of Dungeon World will push hard against such things, and as so many have said, much like Blades in the Dark, it will be very, very obvious to everyone at the table what the GM is doing.

 

[innerdude]

Realize I already wrote one essay-length post today, but I had a few additional thoughts.

One, I want to recognize that despite my disagreement with @FrogReaver and @Crimson Longinus on what they see as untenable components of player-facing systems, I don't want to discount that their objections are coming from a real place.

In a socially constructed activity like roleplaying, there is a significant element of risk any time a GM considers upsetting the status quo. Despite my desire to branch out from more "traditional", GM-facing, task-resolution systems, that's not to say that there isn't value in what such systems provide.

There's absolutely a core substance, or space, or experience derived from D&D and its progeny, offshoots, and alternatives that has provided sustained value to participants for close to 50 years.

That's not trivial. It is, in fact, remarkable in the extreme.

I think the purpose of having conversations like this one is to give all of us ideas, considerations, components, techniques, and systems of thought that will increase our ability to achieve consistent excellence of play and high satisfaction within our hobby.

This is also not trivial (even though our games contain seemingly trivial elements like elves, gnomes, and dragons).


Two, I've been thinking tremendously about how much result follows intent when it comes to how much player agency to allow/disallow.

The why behind systems like PbtA, Burning Wheel, BitD, Fate, etc., is extremely important. A tremendous amount of effort, thought, and design rationale has been explicitly "baked in" to those systems, because they are designed from a specific intent.

I think much of the tenor of conversation around these systems stems from how much that intent is personally valued.

If the intent is to provide a different experience from "classic" D&D, then conversations will naturally revolve around processes that are perceived weaknesses or flaws in "classic" D&D.


Three, the idea has come up over and over that there's different "kinds" of player agency at stake when a game is in action. And I don't know that it's ever fully been addressed whether this is a "thing" or not.

Earlier, @Manbearcat broke down player agency into subsets: Setting, Situation, and Character.

As that was 50+ pages of posts ago, I don't know that I fully explored this.

The problem as I see it, is that the notion of whether there's different "kinds" of agency is related to the interplay between subsets. Meaning, does an increase in player agency in one subset have the ability to decrease agency in another? And if so, does the increase in one subset increase the overall level of agency relative to the whole, even if agency is diminished in another subset---or is it zero-sum?

Furthermore, have we fully identified the ways that players can actually express, or activate agency in play?

As I see it, there's a few ways for a player to activate agency:

• Direct authorship ("I declare this to be true about the fiction, without any consultation to systematic rules framework").
• Rules-mediated authorship ("I'm spending metacurrency X, which by rule means I can now declare the following thing(s) to be true in the fiction").
• Character generation/advancement ("Because my character has these skills, this background, and these traits and flaws, it must naturally follow that the following things are true in the fiction").
• Action declaration ("My character chooses to perform action X. If he/she succeeds at his/her intent, then the following thing(s) in the fiction must be true"). (Naturally, action declarations will largely be mediated through rules conventions to determine the "truthiness" or "falsiness" of the declaration.)

Are there additional ways to activate player agency?

*Edit --- added Rules-mediated Authorship.

 

[Campbell]

Among people who have not played Blades or Apocalypse World these player strategies for avoiding playing the game basically seem like a pretty big deal. A lot of that comes from being used to the way incentives and play loops reinforce a certain set of player behaviors in mainstream games. It seems obvious that would continue.

First just like GM behavior when a player is playing against the best practices its pretty damn obvious and easy to call out. More importantly the game just does not reward playing it safe in the same way. I have seen this play out multiple times in multiple games. The game will kick you in the teeth if you try to play it safe and avoid conflict. You will get no experience, not succeed, and generally have a poor time. To make your way up in the criminal underworld people have to know who you are and what you have done. You get experience for overcoming obstacles yes, but also for dealing with your vices, traumas and internal conflicts. Same goes for your crew for the most part.

The bigger piece here is that the game rewards you for boldness. Not for playing it safe. You have to put your safety on line, try to desperate things, and use your stress if you want to succeed. It's fundamentally a game about pushing your luck.