A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

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.

I think some actual play examples that illustrate your point would be helpful.

That's not at all an example of what I mean by authoring the removal of an obstacle. In your example above there's more than one reason it doesn't fit.

1. It was simply a reminder to the DM that something had occurred in the fiction which should have prevented the obstacle he was trying to place.
2. This is not an example of removing an avoiding one in the first place.
3. This was accomplished via in-fiction, in-character play.

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

Can you provide an illustration, then, of what you are talking about?

 

[pemerton]

I dislike replying with just questions but you didn't leave me much to go on.

Howso? Which part?

You said:

The pure mechanics and the playloops of those games I completely defer to them on - that's what knowing more about the game really means. But the analysis of what those mechanics and playloops mean in relation to agency isn't something that experience with a game is going to aid one with (provided that those with knowledge of the game are forthcoming in the relevant details that would enable one to analyze the game).

The assertion that I've bolded is contentious.

I think that if you have not read the rules text of a game, and have not played it, and have not played other games that are similar to it or that it is inspired by, then your analysis would necessarily have to be very tentative and very broad-brush. Experience with playing a game is absolutely the best way to understand how it supports player agency.

@hawkeyefan

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. Now imagine if I had taken one of those descriptions to heart, then anyone discussing with me that had played and disagreed with that posters description would also disagree with most analysis I'm doing on that basis.

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.

When @Manbearcat makes posts about American football, a sport/game about which I know almost nothing, I don't try to second-guess him. When someone else from the US disagrees with him about his analysis, I stand back. It's a conversation I have nothing to contribute to.

You may have noticed that @Campbell and I disagree on the degree to which Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP is story vs character advocacy. I'm fairly confident in my view - it is based on my experience (which I think, perhaps wrongly) is more than Campbell's. Maybe Campbell has played the system with a group that is more influenced by Fate than me - no one in my group has ever played Fate and I suspect I'm the only one in our group who's even heard of it. In any event, I would expect someone who's never played the system or who's never even read the rules for it to hold off from intervening and telling @Campbell which of us is correct.

I just played a session of Classic Traveller today. At one stage the question came up about how the PCs' group in our game resembled a "traditional" or "typical" Traveller table. My comment was that the typical Traveller table existed in the late 70s/early 80s and I don't really know what it looked like. (In our game the PCs' group is currently close to 20 individuals.) My GMing of Traveller is influenced by my own reading of the 1977 rules, plus my knowledge of Apocalypse World and the fact that the Traveller rules lend themselves to being read as PbtA-style "moves" ie when you do such-and-such, make such-and-such a roll. In today's session "moves snowballed" in a fashion adversely to the PCs, so that an attempt by one key PC with another PC offsider to steal the NPC rivals' air/raft and infiltrate the alien ruins ended up with the key PC taken prisoner by the rivals while the offsider changed sides.

Is that typical of how Traveller was played c 1980? I have no real idea, though I suspect probably not. Is it the way most contemporary Traveller posters play the game? Probably not. Is it a way that Traveller can be played? Absolutely. When I talk about player agency in Classic Traveller, I'm talking about my own game and experiences.

 

[pemerton]

Going through life without being able to tightly predict the odds of success of almost any action I take is completely alien to me.

I'm 43. I spent all of my life in athletics, martial arts, and in the sciences and having dealt with numerical and spatial relationships constantly. I don't know what the background is of folks who feel like its "not immersive or counterintuitive to have a deep understanding of their prospects for any action", but it has to be profoundly different than my own.

<snip>

What sort of margin of error do some of you guys think you're working with when you try to predict your prospects in any given arena?

I'm reasonably good at estimating my prospects of success in jogging/running and jumping.

I'm very good at estimating my prospects of success in reading and writing. I can budget the amount of time I need to read a paper sufficiently to discuss it with its author, and given that amount of time to estimate how confidently I can make remarks about that paper, very finely (down to the minute; and very nuanced in respect of comments). If I wasn't able to do this, I couldn't do my job.

 

[pemerton]

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?

What is interesting is whether your opinions would stay the same. It seems unlikely that they would.

 

[Campbell]

@pemerton

My personal experience with Cortex + Heroic is fairly limited. I have played and run short runs of Marvel Heroic Roleplay using the event books (about 6 sessions each). I did once run a longer term game using the Smallville Roleplaying Game (Cortex+ Drama) set in the X-Men Universe, but that is a phenomenally different game.

 

[Aldarc]

@pemerton

My personal experience with Cortex + Heroic is fairly limited. I have played and run short runs of Marvel Heroic Roleplay using the event books (about 6 sessions each). I did once run a longer term game using the Smallville Roleplaying Game (Cortex+ Drama) set in the X-Men Universe, but that is a phenomenally different game.

Cortex Prime has basically put both of these games in the same umbrella system.

I'm reasonably sure these may have already been posted, but no harm in doing it again.

Here is the earliest series run by John Harper, and the rules are still in a state of flux, so sometimes things change a bit as the series progresses.

Thank you. I'm sure @FrogReaver will find this informative to watch.

 

[Lanefan]

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.

This isn't all that far adrift of my own position - sums it up pretty well, in fact.

Looking at some earlier posts about different types of agency, one thought occurred to me:

@pemerton is always talking about having agency over the shared fiction; where you're helping build the stage as well as acting on it.

I think when some of us including me talk about agency we're referring to agency within the shared fiction; where you're acting on a stage someone else has built.

This was one of the points I made earlier regarding @Lanefan's introduction of the undead death cult on his players.

Er...I have to plead not guilty on this one, y'r honour. I think that was someone else's death cult.

 

[pemerton]

Have you heard @pemerton talk about D&D?

I believe I have more D&D actual play posts on these boards than almost any other user.

 

[aramis erak]

I agree that it's not strictly zero sum. I posted a bit more about that upthread.

I don't agree that AW hard moves, or similar approaches to failure narration in a system like Burning Wheel, pull the GM into "tweaking" or "controlling" more than in D&D.

That's been my experience, as well, with BW, BE, and Sentinel Comics... especially with the duel of wits requirement for stakes to be agreed to in BW (I found it; I had, at Luke's suggestion, expanded the scope on that particular rules element. It's still present in DoW in Gold.)

I'll note, tho', that the Sentinel Comics rules do allow a lot of GM force to be applied, in ways not like how AW is written. (It's a genre appropriate level of force.)

And to explicate my comment about group vs GM for success with complication - listening to the players is often far better than GM only, no matter the rule system, when using success with complication. Why? More independent views give the GM more creative options than just his/her/xer own ideas. It's just as true in D&D as it is in Blood and Honor, Fate, or Cosmic Patrol. It's served me well since I started moving more towards complicated success instead of outright failure.

 

[pemerton]

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.

All of this seems right to me.

I still don't know what this "authored away" thing is.

Making a (series of) check(s) to resolve a fight takes a certain amount of time at the table, and may or may not consume player resources. Making a check, or series of checks, to recollect something useful takes a certain amount of time at the table, and may or may not consume player resources. I'm still not seeing what the ostensible difference is supposed to be, other than the (self-evident) fact that recollecting something estabilshes a setting element in the shared fiction.