A Question Of Agency?

[Campbell]

So ... I'm not looking to argue, here, but when would you say the ability to negate removes agency? Does the fact the GM can say "no" to any given action the players propose mean (to you) that the players never have agency? Even if the GM approximately never says "no"? I think it's obvious that some games will vary more in this regard from table to table than others will.

From my perspective if not constrained at least by social expectations that they will play with integrity absolutely there is no meaningful agency to be had. From my perspective if manipulation of setting to achieve certain outcomes or picking and choosing when to apply the rules when not guided by something exceptional in the fiction, or fudging dice rolls is ever an option then it is always an option. By choosing not to do these things in a given moment of play you are still making an active decision as a GM. You have all the influence. The players have none except through you.

It pretty much ruins the integrity of the whole thing for me personally.

 

[Manbearcat]

One of the reasons I've been reluctant to frame agency in terms of types is that I see your tactical and strategic agencies as means of achieving protagonist agency. That is, that protagonist agency is a metagame concern (what system do we play, what are its governing principles, and how does the game distribute agency among participants) and that tactical and strategic agency are the system's architecture, the gears and levers of actually playing the game. But I'll need to think about this some more.

The reason I separate them is this:

A Step On Up game like Pawn Stance Moldvay Basic doesn't have any Protagonist Agency. There is no dramatic need to address so it can't be the play premise. The actual play premise is about Tactical and Strategic agency exclusively. So at every moment of play, the agency a player possesses within those decision-points, and the skill with which they execute them, are the exclusive locus of agency in the game.

My Life With Master is almost the exact inverse. Its basically full bore Protagonist Agency where the game is 100 % about the Player Characters' dramatic need but their exercising of Tactical and Strategic agency is profoundly muted (this is intentful design) by comparison to most games (certainly not close to as muted to the degree that a "descent Into madness" theatrics and pantomime railroad of a Cthulu is however...but the chips are deeply stacked against any one of the Master's Minions and against them collectively).

@Ovinomancer , thanks for posting. Don't have time to dig into your post, but I'll take a look at it tonight and respond.

 

[FrogReaver]

Situation Agency - The immediate conflict is x, the corresponding stakes are y, the relationships of relevant objects within the gamestate are z. Make a move that affects either/or/both y or z, which will in turn impact certain qualities of x (the level of danger, the participants, the prospects of success).

Going to answer both of these in one post.

Take Flashbacks in Blades or Immediate Interrupts in D&D 4e.

Flashbacks and Immediate Interrupts ("retcons" in this case) will (a) ALWAYS being agency expressed via the Situation vector, (b) SOMETIMES be expressed via the Setting vector, (c) but NEVER expressed via the Character vector because of the violation of the now proviso.

But I said I wasn't talking about flashbacks. The whole, I can't think of any game that uses a retcon included those that use flashback mechanics.

The player, through the character, is proposing an alteration to the Situation (we're not actually in dire straights because I've stashed some guns in the laundry chute or this spell doesn't hit us because I erected this arcane barrier just in time) and maybe the Setting (its a double-cross because I greased the palm of this NPC or the people in the marketplace are my agents so a riot will break out to get these agents of the Court Mage off our tail). But this is always expressed as an alteration to the present course of the gamestate/fiction via the deployment of these player-facing mechanics.

That's not the kind of thing I meant and I wouldn't call any of those things retcons. A retcon would be where something was established as having happened in the fiction only to be revealed later that it didn't actually happen. Often it will be portrayed that what was just established as happening was actually due to a dream or some kind of altered mental state.

Such a mechanic doesn't impact certain qualities of x, it removes x, y and z pretty much entirely.

And again, I'm not going to (and its not appropriate to) smuggle in an "immersion rider" to this. Some folks find this jarring. Others (like myself) not only don't find it jarring, they find it immersion-enhancing. But its still always Situation and sometimes Setting as a vector for agency because its always a proposed amendment to the temporal continuity of play (the now proviso). I think that's important (and others clearly do), so I think something distinguishes these things are important (while not smuggling BUT IMMERSION into it).

I'm not talking immersion.

 

[Manbearcat]

But I said I wasn't talking about flashbacks. The whole, I can't think of any game that uses a retcon included those that use flashback mechanics.


That's not the kind of thing I meant and I wouldn't call any of those things retcons. A retcon would be where something was established as having happened in the fiction only to be revealed later that it didn't actually happen. Often it will be portrayed that what was just established as happening was actually due to a dream or some kind of altered mental state.

Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.

I know you're not talking about immersion. That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).

 

[Fenris-77]

Story games generally treat established fact as inviolate. The retcon isn't a mechanic I can think of any examples for. Maybe someone else can.

 

[Campbell]

So I think given the shared nature of the fiction once something has been established and we all agree to it then changing it also requires agreement from the group. Usually retcons are part of a group conversation in my experience.

 

[prabe]

Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.

I know you're not talking about immersion. That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).

I can think of one or three that seem to fit the description, but I don't think they're what @FrogReaver has in mind.

First is GM Fiat, in games that allow for it. It's not really an action resolution thing, but it's frequently technically allowed (did it myself this past Wed, when I described that an NPC had a leg brace and this wasn't a change, just something I hadn't figured out yet previous session). Second is that being Taken Out in Fate can involve looking like certain death, but it doesn't need to be, and it's always possible to narrate it as not having been so certain as it looked (roughly the way Doyle kept Holmes alive). Third is a character feature (stunt? forget what they're called) in Spirit of the Century that specifically allows you as a player to insert your character into a scene by "unmasking" an unnamed NPC in the scene (third mook from the left) as having been your character the whole time.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you have a game in mind (not Free-Form where its just table consensus/social contract) where this is actualized in play via structured procedures/action resolution...or maybe a quick play excerpt, because if we're not talking about Flashbacks or Immediate Interrupts in 4e, I'm not sure I have any actual experience (in terms of actual expression of agency through the play of a game...again, not just a moment of consensual storytelling) with what you're talking about.

I know you're not talking about immersion. That was for everyone involved in the conversation (because immersion gets brought up on this particular facet of TTRPGs a lot).

I cannot think of that style of mechanic ever being implemented in any games I have heard about.

as I said it’s rare to no -existent In the wild as of this moment but it is something that if it did crop up wouldn’t fit your framework.

 

[prabe]

So I think given the shared nature of the fiction once something has been established and we all agree to it then changing it also requires agreement from the group. Usually retcons are part of a group conversation in my experience.

The change in an NPC's description that I did in one of my campaigns worked out this way. The players asked to be certain it wasn't something that had changed in the fiction, and I assured them the NPC had had a leg brace when they met last, and this wasn't something their characters were perceiving as a difference, just a detail I'd worked out between sessions (with some apologies from me for the confusion).

 

[Fenris-77]

None of that really sounds like a retcon. Mostly it sounds like adding new detail, or massaging current curcumstamce.