A Question Of Agency?

[FrogReaver]

(2) The shared fiction consists of more than setting. That an orc dies is as much a part of a shared fiction as that an orc exists or that a secret door exists.

I don't agree with you on alot, but I agree here. Anything in the established fiction is part of the shared fiction.

 

[FrogReaver]

I needed him to have a reason to have retired from adventuring. I've made it clear that in-fiction, sometimes things are beyond healing magic.

Sounds like a very good reason to add the leg brace to him. I'd say that's not fiat at all.

 

[prabe]

Sounds like a very good reason to add the leg brace to him. I'd say that's not fiat at all.

I hadn't described him as having one previous session, so there was something of a retcon going on--and there's an argument to be made that descriptions of NPCs and other details are GM Fiat, but it's not one I think I entirely agree with, and it's certainly not a hill I want to die on.

 

[generic]

Presumably that meant vectors that actually appear in games, not ones that can theoretically be imagined.

Anyway, retcons are super jarring, they might sometimes be needed, but no sane game designer would ever write a game that relies on them as an intentional feature.

Speak for yourself! I'd love to write a system wherein no player agency is ever permanent, and the whims of the Gods dictate the very nature of past events, and the actions which the players took or did not take.

Then again, I'm not entirely sane, so that much can be given.

 

[FrogReaver]

I look for a bridge absolutely is declaring an action.

Yes it is.

But the looking for a bridge isn't the part of the process/subloop that I'm objecting to. It's 1) Doing it outside the present so that the present is affected and 2) the player calling for a "flashback" to begin with.

In my Burning Wheel game, when we needed to travel along and across the river Thurgon found a former member of his order, who took us across on his raft.

Here's the bigger issue as I see it: from the point of view of gameplay, what is the difference between (i) player A building a character with strong Swimming skill, or Boatwrighting skill, and then resolving the process of getting across the river by swimming or by building a raft Talisman-style; and (ii) player B building a character with strong Circles, multiple Affiliations and Reputations to boost Circles, and then resolving the process of meeting a friend or former comrade who will carry the characters over the river on his raft?

If by gameplay, you mean can a sheer mechanical process handle both of those elements. Then yes! But those elements are different and it's those differences that are where the issue lies. Swimming simply requires your character and the element of the river that has already been established. Raftbuilding leaves the question open of whether you can find materials. But even finding the materials provided that your in an environment suitable for materials to exists and then to build the raft. In both cases it's a test against your characters capabilities. But then we come to the last example where you cause the party to meet a friend or former comrade. There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades and so a mechanic that basically allows this very thing breaks the normal flow.

Normal flow being: current fiction -> character action -> mechanic resolves -> updated fiction

The flow here being: current fiction -> invoke mechanic -> updated fiction (including adding the NPC's, the characters action/interaction with them and the outcome of that interaction including any complications)

For me this violates game integrity of the game by having the mechanics drive what's happening instead of the character actions driving that. I mean, what action did the character take to cause the meeting with a friend or comrade to happen?

 

[prabe]

There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades and so a mechanic that basically allows this very thing breaks the normal flow.

Any game that has a trait that enables players to establish their characters' contacts in places--roughly any supers game, lots of modern and SF games, Spirit of the Century (I Know a Guy). From the other direction, anything that allows a player to establish their character has a reputation (Spirit of the Century calls it "Do You Know Who I Am?") works to establish your character as a known personage in the game world.

 

[generic]

I think many of the disagreements about the narrative dissonance of ret-conning come from the perspective that a player's past actions dictate agency. This is, of course, something one can agree with. There's also the perspective that making a decision in the moment defines agency, and that ret-conning which is subsequent does not render null any agency which the player may have once had. However, in real life, it seems fairly reasonable to say, pragmatically, that you don't have agency in a world where what you did in the past has no relation to the action which you took in the past, et cetera.

As for the argument that a game mechanic can't drive a story, I'm inclined to agree that the point of a role-playing game is to allow the player to play their role, not to make the player a vessel for chance, but, as prabe mentioned, a game mechanic does not inherently violate the conventions of the simulation. I'm likely rambling, as I always do, so, I'll try to make the point a bit more concise.

If you invoke a mechanic to drive the fiction, it isn't necessarily a lack of agency, because the player chose the mechanic. If the Game Master/Adjudicator chooses this "reputation" mechanic, et cetera, player agency is negated.

 

[FrogReaver]

Any game that has a trait that enables players to establish their characters' contacts in places--roughly any supers game, lots of modern and SF games, Spirit of the Century (I Know a Guy). From the other direction, anything that allows a player to establish their character has a reputation (Spirit of the Century calls it "Do You Know Who I Am?") works to establish your character as a known personage in the game world.

You mean there's some game ability I can add to my character sheet that let's me have a character where that is true of. That to is a mechanic that is giving the player abilities and not the character.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think many of the disagreements about the narrative dissonance of ret-conning come from the perspective that a player's past actions dictate agency. This is, of course, something one can agree with. There's also the perspective that making a decision in the moment defines agency, and that ret-conning which is subsequent does not render null any agency which the player may have once had. However, in real life, it seems fairly reasonable to say, pragmatically, that you don't have agency in a world where what you did in the past has no relation to the action which you took in the past, et cetera.

As for the argument that a game mechanic can't drive a story, I'm inclined to agree that the point of a role-playing game is to allow the player to play their role, not to make the player a vessel for chance, but, as prabe mentioned, a game mechanic does not inherently violate the conventions of the simulation. I'm likely rambling, as I always do, so, I'll try to make the point a bit more concise.

I agree with alot of what you are saying here.

If you invoke a mechanic to drive the fiction, it isn't necessarily a lack of agency, because the player chose the mechanic. If the Game Master/Adjudicator chooses this "reputation" mechanic, et cetera, player agency is negated.

It depends on if you view integrity of the game/gameworld as integral to having agency and then whether you view the inclusion of mechanics that drive the fiction as taking away the integrity of the game/gameworld.

 

[prabe]

You mean there's some game ability I can add to my character sheet that let's me have a character where that is true of. That to is a mechanic that is giving the player abilities and not the character.

I would say that at least a reputation mechanic is entirely about the character. Your character walks into a room and people there know who he is. Whether it's Spirit of the Century's "Do You Know Who I Am?" or something more mundane like Champions' Reputation (roll to see if the person you're interacting with has heard of you), it doesn't impose anything on the game-world as far as moving NPCs around or deciding your character has met them, etc. Contacts mechanics are ... different. As @Aebir-Toril says, they might be part of the conventions of whatever genre you're simulating: I'd argue that it's easier to decide your character has been to This City before in a modern game than in something that at least looks medieval.