A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

Nope. By the book, the background just gives you a slight social perk that’s more general than specific. The Bond can earn you Inspiration if you roleplay its importance to your character, which you can turn in at any time to have Advantage on a roll.

They’re meager as written.

That fits with my impression.

 

[aramis erak]

A key thing about success with complications is whether the game was designed around it. Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both are - and a common feature of both games that makes them different from D&D is that the GM never picks up the dice. Instead things happen round the PCs (no need to roll for NPC on NPC action). Also there are normally a list of suggested (abstract with the GM making them concrete) options for failure; a fail is always a hard move picked by the GM. Is it fiat if picking from a list and it only happens in response to a failed roll or the players being utter twits and "giving you a golden opportunity"?

That the GM Never Touches the dice is irrelevant to the frequency of complications; it's really a strawman. Plus, player facing has been an option in 3.x and 4.x ... and Success with Cost is in 5th.

Also note: D&D 3.x has, in both DMG versions, provisions for player facing rolls. (3.5 DMG p. 25). It doesn't have complicated success as an option in rules, but a DM minded to do so can do so easily enough.
D&D 5E has Success with Cost as a variant in DMG 242.
D&D 4E has skill challenges set to player facing only for balance reasons (DMG 74)

There's nothing inherently nor mathematically different mechanically with player facing only vs mixed vs GM facing only rolls... It's a MacGuffin you've been slinging about blindly, looking for a problem to solve with it. The difference is in play flow, not in outcomes; just remember when to flip the sign.

Likewise success with cost - it was hinted at in the 3.x DMG. And it's implied in 4.0 as well.

You've conflated it with the GM not having turns - that is the distinction you're blindly trying to beat people with, but have failed to elucidate. And that is a big difference, but is utterly irrelevant to AW as written. (Watching the Burning Wheel crowd tear into the theory with someone asking for help with the conceptuals is priceless - and you've not grasped what is different well enough to make it clear to others. That difference is that NPCs in most AWE/PBTA don't get turns per se unless a player fails a roll, when the GM gets to throw a hard move. But the most common successes are, for starting characters, success with complication, and the GM is expected to use that as a soft move for the NPCs...

But in all these cases, it's still better to have more ideas than get used.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't have Cortex Prime - the closest I've got is the Hacker's Guide, but with that I haven't read the Smallville or Leverage bits very closely.

Prime is essentially Hacker's Guide v2.

 

[aramis erak]

The only issue with this is that it moves the players from character advocacy into story advocacy. If this isn't a concern, then no problem. I like both, but prefer them separate, kinda like how I enjoy a salad but don't want any veggies on my burgers.

'struth there...
I measure my own GMing in terms of how many informed choices am I giving my players, rather than directly measuring agency, because (in no small irony) when I open up the agency too far, the players can wind up at a total loss for where to go and how to kick things off.

That's where Mouse Guard and Burning Wheel are outstanding - the need to have BITS in BW, and BIGs Mouse Guard helps spur that. When you're forced to build BW style beliefs, you've prioritized elements you want framed.

My wife dislikes BW, but is happy with MG... She doesn't flourish in Marvel Heroic, either, but had few issues with Firefly. She has issues in T&T, where I use the implied and exampled but not in the blackletter rules stupid PC tricks, because she seldom has good ideas for them unless I use support mechanics.

To exemplify the support mechanics...
Taking 1 extra share of damage is a Level 2 SR on a suitable attribute by description of how; 2 extra shares is Level 4, 3 is level 6, and so on.
Doing directed damage (identical to missile damage in effect) to one target with spite (rather than spreading it out) SR 1 on Luck. Doing directed damage with melee weapon, SR (dice)... noting that in 5.x and later, weapons all do 2d6 or more...
Isolating yourself and a target from the larger melee: SR based upon ratio of Hostiles to Friendlies in the fight.
3:1 against is SR 6; 2:1 is SR 4, 1:1 is SR 2, 1:2 (ie, 2:1 your favor) is SR1, and better than that, SR 0. Usually I use speed as the basis for that save.

Now, some other players come up with all kinds of off the wall stuff....
EG: "I want to time my attack to coincide with Steph's Take that you Fool! so that they can't see it."
"How many dice you want to add to damage?"
"Double," said he.
"That's 5 extra... SR 4, Luck."

Many players who read T&T don't grasp that that kind of "wild idea and an off the cuff save to implement it" is actually core to Ken St. Andre's intent. In exactly the same way the super simple combat in 3:16 or Mouse Guard is.

 

[aramis erak]

Honestly, I can't think of an example of this, so its place in the discussion is kinda tenuous. Given an example thought, sure.

Extant Story alteration vectors (IE: retcons) are actually used in a couple of games. Including FFG Star Wars.

the best example is the "I need a whoziwatzit. Flip a destiny, so I have it." Likewise, similar in 2d20 games.
Cortex Plus and Prime also allow for it as a form of asset. Those are minor, but altering extant narrative is a valid approach in all of those, as well as in HotBlooded and B&H.

Plus lots of "he couldn't have found it" type talents. It's usually kept to minor stuff, like sneaking a weapon past a guard, or stealing it back from the stash right after entry.

 

[prabe]

Plus lots of "he couldn't have found it" type talents. It's usually kept to minor stuff, like sneaking a weapon past a guard, or stealing it back from the stash right after entry.

What comes to mind in this vein is taking an Aspect in Fate like "My Father's Gun" which, IIRC, ensures you can always have access to it. Same-same, I think.

 

[aramis erak]

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.


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).

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.)

Plus one can use wises to know of someone in the local organization. If the GM is on the generous side, that provides a bonus (1 or 2 dice) on a following circles check.

I'm trying to come up with an example that fits your Character Agency above, but not your Situation Agency, and vice versa....but I'm struggling to do so.

My 4E experience is limited, but I'm thinking of Come and Get It since you mentioned it, and it seems to be an example of both. Likewise, a Cutter calling for a Flashback in Blades would seem to fit both, depending on the details.

I'm not sure if I'm just not looking at it correctly, or if that means that there isn't much reason for the distinction?

I can demonstrate the difference:
Character agency without situation agency is "The player controls what the character attempts, not what the character does." This is the fundamental but seldom spoken truth of many playstyles. In fact, unless the game has success with cost and no fundamental failure, that's the limit of direct player agency over the character.

Situation agency is often inobvious - If a player declares, "When I get to the temple, I meet with the abbot" and the GM lets them, that's situational agency.
Contrariwise, If the GM says, "Roll a Circles Check or he's not in" that's a limited situational agency. You're where you wanted to be, but not with whom.
If he says, "Roll a circles to track him down since he left before you got there" that's also limited in that you're not with him, but are where you narrated.
Both are gated with that circles check, too, requiring
If he instead says, "You get jumped by evil cultists on the way," that implies no situational agency.
If he says, "Make an Opposed Lustful vs Chaste, on lustful, you get distracted by the prostitutes for the evening" that's a gated situational agency built upon character creation and successful rolls.

 

[aramis erak]

What comes to mind in this vein is taking an Aspect in Fate like "My Father's Gun" which, IIRC, ensures you can always have access to it. Same-same, I think.

Yup. Or Luke, having been disarmed by the Wampa, spends a destiny for it to be where he can telekinesis it back to his hand.
Or luke spending a triumph on his perception roll to see where it fell.

As with BW, FFG star wars has multiple mechanical methods of doing what we see on film: Luke looks around, sees his lightsaber, then barely makes the roll to TK it before the wampa gets back for the Luke Lunch Special...

 

[aramis erak]

The only issue with this is that it moves the players from character advocacy into story advocacy. If this isn't a concern, then no problem. I like both, but prefer them separate, kinda like how I enjoy a salad but don't want any veggies on my burgers.

I don't mind players exercising reasonable situation agency. It saves me having to parse their intent...

Player Agency is required to some degree to have a role in the story...
Player Agency requires limits to be a game and to be useful.

Player agency over character capabilities and nature is almost always limited. Otherwise, you get Callahans¹ on LSD.
Player agency over character attempts is vital in RPGs where the characters are personally owned, but it need not be unlimited.
Most games do not grant ungated player agency over outcomes - that's what rolls/cards/point-spends/budgets are for.

Player agency over situations is highly variable in value.
If it's limited to starting situations, it can get buy in. That's a default mode for many Fate games.
If it's active with rolls, as in BW with Circles and with location-based wises rolls, it's useful but can step on others' toes.
If, like Burning Empires, it's a budgeted resource, it's powerful for getting what the player wants done attempted... and since BE, like BW, is fail-forward complicated-successes in many cases....

Burning Empires has a scene budge system...
Building Scenes a player frames for his character, and at their discretion, others, and up to 3 actions requiring rolls. (those actions are big-sweep things, like marshalling your troops for a battle, or installing backscatter radar scanners on the castle.)
Color scenes are in character monologue or description. It can set up for providing help but cannot itself do anything requiring a roll.
Interstitials (poor name, IMO) is a scene with two or more characters interacting. No rolls allowed.
Conflict Scenes: use Duel of Wits, I Corner Him and Stab Him With My Knife, or Battle sequences.

Each session, each player gets 1 color, 1 interstitial, and either a building or a conflict scene.
The GM gets 1 color per figure of note on the opposition not played by a player, as many interstitials, and as many building scenes, but may swap 1 (and only 1) builder for a conflict scene.

Each scene is framed by its owner, with some caveats:

• If you're doing a color scene, you may invite others to be present, but they have to agree. Other scenes, you may invite, or may force them.
• If you want to force someone, that's a circles roll. They get to oppose it. And one Circles roll doesn't actually count against the rolls limit.
• The table can override the framing if it's way out of line...
• You cannot force a conflict.

Burning Empires, page 292:
When to Roll: Vincent’s Admonition
I’m going to paraphrase a friend here. I call this Vincent’s Admonition. In his game, Dogs in the Vineyard, Vincent Baker articulates a convention of Burning Empires so well that I’d rather use his words than my own. He says: “Every moment of play, roll dice or say ‘yes.’”
What he’s saying in that brilliantly succinct statement is: If it’s not a conflict—if it’s not important to the character’s Beliefs, traits, relationships, etc.—then agree with each other about how cool it is, but move on. It’s color or an interstitial. Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying, but as soon as your character wants something—needs something—that he doesn’t have, that someone else has, jump into the conflict and roll the dice.
Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Empires game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.
I Won’t Fight You
If a player finds himself heading toward a conflict he doesn’t want to be in, he has three options. He may either escalate the conflict and change the nature of it, accept the intent of what the other player wanted or walk away. If he walks away, he may have escaped trouble, but his scene is over: no more discussion, argument or debate.
There’s No Conflict
If during the course of a scene a player wants something, but there is no conflict—no risk—say, “Yes, sure, of course,” and move on. Keep moving until there is a risk or a conflict—until the player says “I want this” and you have to say, “No,” or, “Only if you accept this!” Then it’s time to move to the dice.

Note also: Anything that affects another's abilities or status requires a roll.

The combination makes for a lot of agency - but it also makes the game harder to play, because you cannot force a conflict. Nor even force someone to be set up for a conflict.

 

[pemerton]

Extant Story alteration vectors (IE: retcons) are actually used in a couple of games.

<snip>

Cortex Plus and Prime also allow for it as a form of asset. Those are minor, but altering extant narrative is a valid approach in all of those, as well as in HotBlooded and B&H.

I see those aspects of Cortex+ as closer to flashbacks than to retcons - it establishes that the PC did something in the past to get ready for the current situation.