A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

There's no trait that makes a person more capable of running into former comrades

This claim isn't true. Being friendly is one such trait - it means one has more former comrades out there. Being well-known is another one. Being part of an organisation that gives rise to comradeship is a third.

In BW, the first is established via the derivation of Circles from Will. (The closest BW has to D&D's CHA stat.) The second is established via Reputation mechanics, and the third via Affiliation mechanics.

what action did the character take to cause the meeting with a friend or comrade to happen?

He kept a lookout for them, in a place where they might be around (ie in the neighbourhood of the old border forts along the river).

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)

The existence of these former comrades is already established at the very start of the campaign: Thurgon has a Reptuation (Last Knight of the Iron Tower) and multiple relevant Affiliations (including with the Order of the Iron Tower) which establish the existence of these NPCs. More generally, it is established that Thurgon has been alive for nearly 30 years, in that time serving as a page and a squire and a knight of his order, and hence has met many people. (Other Affiliations include with the nobility and with his family; he has since also acquired an infamous reputation in Hell, as an intransigent demon foe.)

So the flow is: current fiction, which includes the fact that Thurgon has former comrades and also that he is in the neighbourhood of the old border forts -> character action (ie keep an eye out for former comrades) -> mechanic resolves -> update fiction (ie Thurgon and Aramina meet Friedrich, a former member of Thurgon's order).

The first example of a mechanic I can think of that resembles this is the Streetwise mechanic in Classic Traveller (1977). There is the Yakuza's contact mechanic in original Oriental Adventures, though it works on a rationing basis (so many contacts per level) rather than on a check basis.

The attempt over 30 years later to paint this sort of mechanic as deviant in some fashion, and as not involving action resolution that flows from the established fiction, is not plausible.

 

[pemerton]

A further comment about mechanics that relate PCs to NPCs: they allow for RPGing that resembles genre fiction.

Super heroes frequently bump into people whom they know.

Han Solo is able to identify that he is in Lando's neighbourhood (but it backfires - a classic failed Circles check!). Luke is able to find Ben in the hills of Tatooine, and then later is able to arrive on Dagobah and encounter Yoda.

When the hobbits are abroad they encounter Strider, and then Glorfindel.

"A chance meeting", as they say in Middle Earth, is a recurrent feature of the stories that RPGs ostensibly emulate. GM fiat is one way to bring these about - that means that the GM is dictating the direction of the story.

Mechanics can put some of this into the hands of the player ("player agency") and also enable the GM to play to find out.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

These are not restrictions of the game. When discussing player agency, we're talking about how the game the player is playing enables or disables agency. These things you're talking about are social contract issues. I believe I just mentioned the problem of social contracts infiltrating understanding of how games work, and this is another excellent example.

The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.

 

[generic]

The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.

I believe everyone in the thread is cognizant of this, but there can be no discussion without a few defined parameters as to what constitutes the "standard", or, at least, the minimum social contract required for proper enjoyment of the game.

Evidently, the game does not exist independently of a social contract.

However, is there a better way to discuss these topics of contention without cleaving to the RAW? Is there a method of statistics which could show the common standard, or, I suspect, is this one of the times when having some good, old-fashioned common sense might do us all some good.

 

[generic]

The game is not just the rules, it is the whole experience. The rule book without any people does nothing. So you may be talking about RAW, I am not, I am talking about the holistic experience of playing a roleplaying game.

Dispensing with the absurd verbiage, I agree, but where can we draw the line and the definition of the standard social contract?

 

[pemerton]

Here's the yakuza contacts ability (OA, p 27):

Another resource of the yakuza is his contacts. Contacts are NPCs who can provide the yakuza with specialized information and aid. They will not join him on adventures, but wiII buy stolen goods. provide a secure hide-out. carry messages, and provide information Contacts never do anything that might put them in peril, although they may risk their reputations. They remain cooperative with the yakuza and silent about his activities (and their involvement) so long as they are fairly treated, not threatened, and not implicated in anything. A yakuza character receives one contact for every two experience levels. The contacts are not named or defined by the DM or by a table. Instead, when the player wants his character to use a contact, he decides the name and position of the contact and tells the DM. The DM decides whether the contact is appropriate for the character. The contact cannot be more than four experience levels above the yakuza, and the yakuza character must have had some plausible reason for meeting the contact in the past. If the DM rules the contact is acceptable, information about the contact is noted on the yakuza character's sheet. One available contact of the yakuza has been used. Thereafter the contact can be used again by the yakuza as needed. (The DM may want to note information about the contact and create a fitting personality.) The player is responsible for keeping track of the names of his character's contacts.

Some examples of acceptable contacts include the gate keeper of a ward, a ship captain, a minor samurai in the Service of a daimyo. a district
magistrate, or a wealthy merchant. Basically, the DM must rely on his judgement when determining whether a contact is acceptable.​

I first read this ability in mid-1985, at which point I was familiar with B/X, AD&D and Classic Traveller. It didn't think I actually saw it in play (the PCs I remember from our early OA games were samurai, bushi and kensai (sic)) but as best I recall it didn't generate any particular reaction in me. I don't remember seeing any discussion of it in Dragon magazine as a point of possible controversy. It's hard for me to recollect any details decades later, but it probably seemed like a reasonable development of the thief ability to speak Thieves' Cant, and of the ability of thieves and assassins to attract gangs of followers at higher levels. I remember a series of articles about thieves in Dragon 115 (1986) which talked about guilds and the like - I don't recall how much player involvement they anticipated, but it all reinforced a sense that thieves could be played as characters who were embedded in their local community and situation, rather than strangers to it.

I don't recall anything developing a similar idea in relation to paladins, or wizards and their academies, but obviously such ideas aren't absurd and would fit fairly naturally into the AD&D of that era.

 

[FrogReaver]

Dispensing with the absurd verbiage, I agree, but where can we draw the line and the definition of the standard social contract?

Maybe there isn’t one?

 

[FrogReaver]

How is it not fiat? I don't think @prabe had to roll on a random NPC prosthetics table or anything similar in order to be able to make this true in the shared fiction.

Because a lack of a roll is not enough to make something be fiat.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I think the comparison between gameplay and the legislative process is not very helpful. (And I realise you didn't introduce it. But I think it may have led you a little astray.)

Upthread, @Campbell has (multiple times) mentioned social pressure/understanding. In politics the use of veto powers - be that the literal veto a president can exercise in the US system, or something like the guillotine in a Westminster-type power - is subject to all sorts of constraints that professional politicians are incredibly good at intuiting, that political journalists spend their careers reporting on, and that political scientists try to theorise. At the extreme limits this is the stuff of constitutional crises and even of coups. (Think of the fairly recent debates, now moot given the prorogation fiasco followed by the recent Brexit deal and so I believe not in violation of board rules, about whether the UK government could legitimately advise Her Majesty not to assent to a Bill that had duly passed both houses but that the government did not support. It would make no sense to say that Parliament enjoyed no agency although in some sense the government enjoyed this veto option - which ultimately it didn't exercise, for obvious reasons to do with constitutional tradition.)

When we are talking about RPGing, the veto power we typically have in mind is the GM's, and there are nothing like these formally and informally institutionally-generated pressures. In games that contemplate GM veto (eg some approaches to D&D) there is typically a social norm that requires other participants to go along with it, to not muster pressure against the GM not to do it, etc. It's nothing like the political case.

To get something even remotely comparable to the political case, I think we'd need to be talking about a GM in a club game (ie played among those who are, in some meaningful way, strangers to one another) where there are multiple candidate GMs and where participants are able to generate feedback that helps determine who GMs in the future. Even then it would depend on other features of the club norms - I've seen club groups that nevertheless work under a very strong GM-is-always-right ethos.

Well, I explicitly mentioned political pressures on the use of the veto in government, so... As for the game table, the difference is really a matter of scale -- both revolve around the political negotiations and assumptions of the table and where it sits. You've pretty much made the same case for government and for the table, I think that the only real difference is that you've assumed the government is operating in a certain way and have allowed tables to reflect a broader range of possible outcomes. Let's not forget there are a number of nominally democratic states in the world where one person is actually in charge regardless of what the paper says. I don't think the comparisons are as far off as you think, if you allow for the full range of governments to be considered. It's all politics.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Social contract issues are, however, part of the game no matter what table you're sitting at; and even if they're not written down in the published rules some GMs write some of the social contract out as house rules.

No, not really. Your social contract is part of your game. My social contract is part of my game. These are separate things. You cannot impute your social contract to the game as a whole, and should not.

I'm looking at agency as viewed and experienced by the end user - the player at the table - which must perforce include all these factors. What the written rules say is only a part of that end-user experience.

I am as well. And, if I can play-act, but the GM gets to unilaterally say what happens when I do, then I don't have agency in that situation. If your game is "convince Bob", then Bob has agency, you don't.

The moment you-as-player say something* because Bob-as-character says* it, you're role-playing.

Yes.

Until and unless this happens, I'd debate whether you're in fact role-playing or merely game-playing on a par with Risk or Stratego.

One-true-wayism isn't something I'm going to consider. Roleplaying is a much broader category of behaviors that what you prefer.

Playing a role means taking on a persona, usually not your own.

No, it means, literally, taking on a role. If I take on the role of Bob the fighter in the game, then Bob the fighter is my avatar there. I don't have to play-act or take on a persona for this to be true.

* - or, in very rare cases, physically do something in-character (usually around riddle or puzzle solving).

This is never required.

Well I hope I'm entertaining people, otherwise what the bleep am I doing there?

This I agree with 100%.

What's acceptable at your table is still a part of the game you are, in the end, playing. I think attempting to divorce these things is what's clouding the issue - you're trying to talk about only the rules-as-written and I (and maybe others) are trying to talk about the game-as-played.

But it's not part of the game you're playing, or the game I buy off the shelf. The moment we look at a game as only the custom version we create at a table, that's the moment there's no point in discussing it.