A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

I think it would help to show it this way:
1. My level 1 fighter swings my mundane sword at the Orc
2. Mechanical Resolution "successful"
3. A meteor falls from the sky and kills the orc.

If you want to call that a causal relationship of the sword swing causing a meteor to fall feel free. But that's missing the rather important point that swinging swords don't actually cause meteors to fall from the sky.

*Note this is the same mechanical framework present in the "I look for friends" -> mechanical resolution "successful" -> "your friends are here"

Until you disentangle actual causal processes in the real world, and imagined causal processes in the fiction, what you post here makes no sense.

For instance, your (1) is a purely imagined event in the shared fiction. Whereas your (2) is an actual event in the real world. Obviously (1) and (2) cannot be part of the same causal process.

 

[FrogReaver]

Until you disentangle actual causal processes in the real world, and imagined causal processes in the fiction, what you post here makes no sense.

For instance, your (1) is a purely imagined event in the shared fiction. Whereas your (2) is an actual event in the real world. Obviously (1) and (2) cannot be part of the same causal process.

It's not just the real world. In the fiction your character would never say that his looking for his friends caused them to be at the place he needed them. In the fiction there is no causal link between your character looking for friends and them showing up just when and where he needs them.

 

[pemerton]

It's not just the real world. In the fiction your character would never say that his looking for his friends caused them to be at the place he needed them. In the fiction there is no causal link between your character looking for friends and them showing up just when and where he needs them.

Who thinks that, in the fiction, the character thinks that looking for his friend made the friend turn up?

Putting to one side the actions of providence, that would be as silly as thinking that recollecting a tower caused the tower to exist.

But what does any of this have to do with action resolution processes? Which are sequences of events that occur in the real world.

 

[FrogReaver]

Who thinks that, in the fiction, the character thinks that looking for his friend made the friend turn up?

No one, which only strengthens my point.

But what does any of this have to do with action resolution processes? Which are sequences of events that occur in the real world.

I would say that they are entangled to such a degree that this isn't really the case.

"I look for friends"
"I swing my sword at the orc"

These are fictional actions of the character that prompt a real world dice roll that prompts a fictional change.

 

[Campbell]

No one, which only strengthens my point.


I would say that they are entangled to such a degree that this isn't really the case.

"I look for friends"
"I swing my sword at the orc"

These are fictional actions of the character that prompt a real world dice roll that prompts a fictional change.

I think you are speaking to an aesthetic preference that dice rolls only resolve an uncertainty in how well a character performs an action. In games like Burning Wheel and Blades in the Dark the roll does not resolve how well you did. It tells us what happens.

You have an aesthetic preference for the GM at least feigning certainty about where the ally might be in this moment. They might not be certain of what is happening offscreen, but you do not want them to use the roll to decide that.

For what it is worth my preferred way to handle this in character focused games is for the GM to just be permissive instead. Unless there is a well established reason for a player not to be able to meet with an ally I think they should be able to. Just frame a scene around it. I believe in rewarding engagement with the setting. It's what I want to see.

I mean in sandbox games there might be other concerns (they might have other stuff they are doing), but I still believe in leaning into those ties.

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe this will help.

A real world mechanical resolution can be used to cause the fiction to change in any way conceivable. That is the kind of causality @pemerton is talking about. This is a trivially true point. I think everyone agrees with it.

But I'm talking about something different. I want my characters fictional actions to cause fictional changes. I find it horrendous roleplaying that a game would expect a player to have his character "look for friends" when fictionally it's not going to be the cause of anything. Like why would my character ever do that? The answer is he wouldn't. Having your character "look for friends" isn't roleplaying IMO, it's just a smoke and mirrors trick to make invoking the mechanic sound like it's driven by playing your character.

 

[Campbell]

Maybe this will help.

A real world mechanical resolution can be used to cause the fiction to change in any way conceivable. That is the kind of causality @pemerton is talking about. This is a trivially true point. I think everyone agrees with it.

But I'm talking about something different. I want my characters fictional actions to cause fictional changes. I find it horrendous roleplaying that a game would expect a player to have his character "look for friends" when fictionally it's not going to be the cause of anything. Like why would my character ever do that? The answer is he wouldn't. Having your character "look for friends" isn't roleplaying IMO, it's just a smoke and mirrors trick to make invoking the mechanic sound like it's driven by playing your character.

Maybe I'm not understanding, but of course the action would have more specificity. Vertigan the Bold would not look for friends. He would seek the aid of Solace, his brother in arms who can usually be found near his keep on the edge of the Forest of Lost Hope.

 

[prabe]

But do you think this comes up very often (at all?) in systems that use these mechanics?

With Contacts? I guess it might seem to work at cross purposes with keeping what happens in a game consistent with what has happened. If it comes up a lot, I can see it starting to strain credulity for some players.

And the thought skitters across my mind every time your Evard's Tower example comes up: If going to Evard's Tower is so important to your character, why didn't you go there instead of the town?

This is my brain, and I'm not critiquing y'all's play, or BW. I'm just saying that my brain (at least sometimes) interprets things like this as contradicting what has gone before (or at least tending toward inconsistency).

 

[FrogReaver]

Maybe I'm not understanding, but of course the action would have more specificity. Vertigan the Bold would not look for friends. He would seek the aid of Solace, his brother in arms who can usually be found near his keep on the edge of the Forest of Lost Hope.

Okay, but how does more specificity tie back into my objection? What part of my objection is that an answer to? I'm not following.

 

[Campbell]

Okay, but how does more specificity tie back into my objection? What part of my objection is that an answer to? I'm not following.

I guess I'm look for clarity here. Is it seeking allies that you are objecting to? Is it that the dice roll resolves uncertainty as to what happens rather than how well the character did?

If it is the second I can understand that aesthetic preference, but it does not change that the real world process is the same as far as what the player is doing in meat space. I'm personally not a huge fan of intent based conflict resolution myself, but I think it's important to be able to have a more precise discussion here. My personal objections are pretty different though.

So an important thing to consider is that Burning Wheel is played out on very zoomed out level. Let It Ride means that a single roll often encapsulates what would be the result of entire adventures in D&D in a single roll.