A Question Of Agency?

[Lanefan]

What you’re describing here is a process where the GM decides and then the players discover these decisions through play.

This is what @pemerton describes as “playing to find out what the GM has in his notes”, which is usually a description that sees some hard pushback.

Mostly because of the condescending/dismissive tone it carries. Taken on its own, pemerton's description is more or less correct.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Easy.

Monday: Rupert the Elf lives at 23 Chestnut.
Tuesday: Mortimer the Troll eats Rupert the Elf, loots his keys, and moves into his house.
Wednesday: Mortimer the Troll lives at 23 Chestnut.
Thursday: the PCs try to exact revenge on Rupert's behalf.

This totally avoids the question.

Have you never as a GM had an idea ready to introduce and then, for whatever reason, changed your mind and gone with something else?

I’ve done this even in games like D&D and Call of Cthulhu which are kind of prep oriented. Thinking about it now, it would almost have to be in a game like that.

So, assuming you’ve done this, is what you had originally planned in any way “real” in the fiction?

Mostly because of the condescending/dismissive tone it carries. Taken on its own, pemerton's description is more or less correct.

I don’t think it’s meant as condescending so much as it’s clearly a style of play he doesn’t enjoy, and so it’s presented with no positivity.

But either way, I think it’d help if people stopped pearl clutching at any perceived slight on their preferred style.

 

[FrogReaver]

There's a lot of talk about sides in this thread, which is, to my mind, unfortunate.

I don't know if everyone does this - but I use the term "other side" as short hand. Nothing more and nothing less. It just doesn't carry any negative connation to me. I do think it's worth mentioning that even those on the "same side" of this issue aren't identical in their thoughts and opinions on every part of it - which may be what you are really getting at.

The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading.

You are probably right about most not accepting that. I would. It's a matter of degree for me. A short stretch of railroad or illusionary railroad that speeds up the process for getting the players to an interesting situation. I'm all for. I actually think such techniques when used sparingly can enhance the amount of agency players have when measured against real-time. Or said another way, taking away agency now can lead to more agency later.

So we really have two issues here. First, the unfounded notion that there are two clear sides to this 'argument', which there are not, and also that there seems to be a tendency to reductio ad absurdum in the characterization of competing or contrary viewpoints. Neither notion is helpful to the overall dialogue.

IMO having sides doesn't mean everyone on each side has the same viewpoints on everything related to the discussion. It simply is saying there is a major issue that people lean one way or another on.

I really think you are reading more into that phrase than what is ever intended.

 

[Fenris-77]

Nah, I know I'm not. I was characterizing the whole thread, not just the one post. Too much us and them is complicating things. People, rightly or wrongly, felt attacked and started drawing lines in the sand.

 

[FrogReaver]

This here, this thing---this is the point that everyone in favor of player-centered agency is trying to explicate, which is that this basic notion is false. The game reality DOES NOT EXIST outside the gameworld at all. There is no "absolute reality" to the game world. It only exists as a shared mind-space.

You know, you've got me thinking. I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.

I think there is only the fiction. I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles. By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.

 

[FrogReaver]

Nah, I know I'm not. I was characterizing the whole thread, not just the one post. Too much us and them is complicating things. People, rightly or wrongly, felt attacked and started drawing lines in the sand.

Maybe. I would disagree though. I think it's easy to blame the notion of sides as the problem instead of the discussion techniques and rhetoric deployed by some on those sides, which is where 90% of discussions break down IMO.

 

[hawkeyefan]

You know, you've got me thinking. I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.

I think there is only the fiction. I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles. By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.

Okay....so what is “the fiction” as you’d define it for this discussion?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Then I think the only conclusion is that you prefer a GM directed style. If everything is already predetermined and cannot change, then I would propose that your players’ agency is much more limited than you realize.

This isn't a fair characterization of what I have said at all: and no my players have a great deal of agency. Agency is one of my goals.

Also, the point of my post was to show that things in the setting can have existence and reality prior to becoming what you describe as 'the shared fiction'. I wasn't defining a playstyle, I was describing an aspect of the playstyle.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You know, you've got me thinking. I question the validity of the concept of shared mind space and shared fiction.

I think there is only the fiction. I think this is just another case where framing the analysis around "shared fiction" is actually language meant to promote what I'm going to term "shared fiction" playstyles. By "shared fiction" playstyles I mean those playstyles where fiction isn't generally established ahead of play.

This times 1,000

 

[Bedrockgames]

The bolded sentence above is in no way shape or form anything that most participants in this thread would tolerate, as it's a pretty clear case of illusionism and railroading.

I understand that. I wasn't suggesting that people were taking that position as a style of gaming to promote. But I was using it to illustrate a point about the difference between things that exist and have reality before 'the shared fiction' arises and things that don't.