A Question Of Agency?

[Bedrockgames]

I think going back to the roots, agency came up for RPG's first in the context of railroading. People at this early time were talking about agency and railroading and didn't care at all about whether the player could control any other part of the fiction (or control of it in any other way). They were simply concerned with the player being able to control the character and for that to have the possibility causing important changes in the fictional world. When they used the word agency that's what they were referring to. When I talk about agency that's what I tend to mean as well.

With this definition something that takes away player control is a removal of agency. The only time this is deemed acceptable is when the character itself is also experiencing a lack of agency. The reason for this is because it preserves character advocacy (a separate play goal).

With this definition the player having control of non-character details isn't agency as it's not the player's control of the character that is causing the important changes in the fictional world.

I think it's okay in the present to call out other types of agency. However, there's always the question of whether the techniques being used to add a different type of agency to a game are also impacting the historical type of agency described above. I think the techniques that we see being pushed back on the most are the techniques that do actually impact this kind of agency.

Which is why I think the kind of rhetoric people engage in matters in these threads.

 

[FrogReaver]

Which is why I think the kind of rhetoric people engage in matters in these threads.

Yea. Heck, even if we all shared the same terminology there's some pretty gaping holes when it comes to adaquately explaining everything happening in words. Like I just reread my definition above and it misses out on some important nuance that someone could use to hammer that definition on if they wanted to do that instead of understand where I'm coming from.

Consider: I can have control of my character and have his actions cause important changes in the fiction and it still be an illusionary railroad. Easy to miss that as the conversation hasn't focused on illusionary railroads for quite some time.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yea. Heck, even if we all shared the same terminology there's some pretty gaping holes when it comes to adaquately explaining everything happening in words. Like I just reread my definition above and it misses out on some important nuance that someone could use to hammer that definition on if they wanted to do that instead of understand where I'm coming from.

Consider: I can have control of my character and have his actions cause important changes in the fiction and it still be an illusionary railroad. Easy to miss that as the conversation hasn't focused on illusionary railroads for quite some time.

This has actually been a recurring point against your arguments, you've just missed it. So long as the GM controls the narration of both success and failure, the player is losing agency. They may retain some, but it's difficult to detect against manipulation like Illusionism. Compared to a player that can enforce half of the resolution space, meaning they can assert what can happen on a success, this is most likely a lower agency position. There's a weird space where the GM is allowing the players to define all success states in mainstream play, but this is difficult to do given how games like 5e structure play and require a level of necessary prep. What typically happens is that even a good GM trying hard to allow players to define the success state still temper this against the needs of the game and their own consideration of what should/could happen. This reduces agency.

And, as has been said so many times but ignored, this reduction in agency comes with trade-offs. The one that I get is that the game is more curated for a specific experience and often players enjoy the exploration of someone else's concepts. This isn't available in games that expect players to be more active in directing the game. For me, these games do different things, and scratch different itches, and so I'll keep playing both -- but it's pretty darned obvious that in a mainstream game, like 5e or Pathfinder 1e, that the GM has most of the agency in the game. I mean, you're posting this stuff pretty strongly in the GM Authority thread over in the D&D forum, but here you're making an argument that players have as much agency in a game where the GM wields maximum authority over the game as in a game where the GM is restrained from negating player declared actions. It's very, very odd.

And, again, there's no trap here, no gotcha, there's no thing waiting to be sprung if anyone decides that maybe there is less agency in a mainstream, GM with maximum authority game. Because, there are trade-offs and player agency isn't a moral or value statement until you are using your own preferences to select your game.

 

[pemerton]

You keep framing things a certain way, and I really don't agree with your framing or paraphrasing of me at all. It isn't just about being able to declare actions, it is about being able to have freedom in the setting. Most RPGs don't rule against agency, but countless adventure structures and playstyles do go against agency. My whole point earlier was the reason I went back to a lot of the older content and searched for new adventure structures is because the ones that were prevalent at the time, to me, felt like they were hampering agency.

<snip>

While few RPGs would stop you from looking for your brother, plenty of GMs, who are focused on say having a particular adventure set up or who want to keep on you the path your on, might not take such an attempt seriously should you try it.

Are you able to provide actual examples, rather than high-level description? As far as I can tell from your descriptions, you are contrasting your preferred approach with super-railroady AP-style play. Is that what you are meaning to convey?

Also, I'd be interested to know what you mean by taking such an attempt seriously. I've posted multiple times in this thread about the GM taking suggestions. Do you mean that, or something else?

What happens if the GM on day 1, writing his/her secret notes, decides that the brother is dead, and then in a session a week later on day 8 the player decides to have his/her PC look for his/her brother. Does it count as taking that seriously if the GM goes on to adjudicate (let's say) 3 hours of play where the upshot of that is that the player learns what the GM had already decided and had already known, namely, that the brother is dead?

 

[pemerton]

I think going back to the roots, agency came up for RPG's first in the context of railroading. People at this early time were talking about agency and railroading and didn't care at all about whether the player could control any other part of the fiction (or control it in any other way). They were simply concerned with the player being able to control the character and for that to have the possibility of causing important changes in the fictional world. When they used the word agency that's what they were referring to. When I talk about agency that's what I tend to mean as well.

Which "people" are you referring to here? Which "early time"?

I've quoted Ron Edwards writing nearly 20 years ago. His concerns, and his way of talking about them, are near enough to identical to those being expressed in this thread by me, @Ovinomancer and @hawkeyefan. And there is less but still a high degree of overlap with @Campbell.

So I infer that Ron Edwards is not one of your "people" and 2003 is not your "early time". But I remain curious about who, and when, you have in mind.

I also think that your repeated return to "controlling the character" is a red herring. The DL modules are rather notorious for railroading, but none of that depends on the players losing control of their characters. It's all done by the GM manipulation of other elements of the fiction.

The start of the 3E module Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is a mega-railroad, and most of the module continues in similar vein. But again none of that depends on the players losing control of their characters. It's rest on sheer social pressure/assumptions that the players will exercise that control in the "right" way.

 

[pemerton]

What typically happens is that even a good GM trying hard to allow players to define the success state still temper this against the needs of the game and their own consideration of what should/could happen. This reduces agency.

And, as has been said so many times but ignored, this reduction in agency comes with trade-offs. The one that I get is that the game is more curated for a specific experience and often players enjoy the exploration of someone else's concepts.

I've kept in the first quoted sentence just to provide a bit of context for the second, which is what I want to pick up.

The demand for RPGing that involves someone else's concepts is, as far as I can tell, huge (at least as a component of total demand for RPGing). The idea of "shared experience" across tables, which seems a very big deal for many RPGers, practically depends upon it.

 

[pemerton]

Two more observations:

(1)
In my BW game, giving effect to the Force of Will spell in mechanical terms by mandating a change of Belief was my own ruling. But last week I looked through the Revised version of Gold, which I acquired in 2019 (ie well after the episode of play I've been describing) and saw that it has added the following to the spell description:

The sorcerer may rewrite one Belief [of the victim of the spell]. That Belief may not be changed without use of another Force of Will spell.​

Now I don't entirely agree with that second sentence - eg the write sort of prayer, or even a non-"magical" revelatory moment, might do the trick. But I was pleased to see the first sentence because it confirmed that my reading of the game system corresponds with the designers'.


(2)
Classic Traveller has a patron encounter system - if a player has his/her PC hang out for a week in the right sort of place (eg the lounge of the Travellerss Aid Society) then on a 5+ on 1D6 (or 4+ if the PC has Carousing-1+) a patron will be encountered.

This isn't quite the same as having Prince Edward turn up and lie about your ancestry to free you from the stocks. but it does put a certain aspect of setting and situation outside the sole control of the referee.

And that was back in 1977.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Is it bad that I am amused by how many times someone posts "You can't do X in a RPG!" and then someone else responds with "Burning Wheel does that!"

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think my position is incoherent at all. You might disagree with it, or you might misunderstand it, but it is a coherent point of view.

Neither do flat-earthers. Sorry if that makes you feel slighted, but it's true. People rarely, if ever, believe that they hold incoherent positions. It's psychologically perturbing and discomforting to do so. Everyone has "incoherent" positions that frequently masquerade themselves publicly as coherent ones. Simply declaring that your position is coherent doesn't mean that the position passes the test of coherency. Plus, it hardly seems like it would be in a position to be so easily misunderstood by critics when you also position your preferences and views with loaded terms like "traditional" and "majority," as most are people here are incredibly well-versed with traditional styles of play that form the bulk of games out there. However, just because a playstyle is "traditional" does not mean that it is "coherent."

And, again, there's no trap here, no gotcha, there's no thing waiting to be sprung if anyone decides that maybe there is less agency in a mainstream, GM with maximum authority game. Because, there are trade-offs and player agency isn't a moral or value statement until you are using your own preferences to select your game.

Here's the thing: what does @FrogReaver, @Crimson Longinus, or even @Bedrockgames stand to possibly "lose" when it comes to their own games from agreeing that either you, @pemerton, @hawkeyefan, @Fenris-77, @Hriston, or whoever else may be right when it comes to the player agency? How would their own, respective games be impacted (or threatened) in anyway if they agreed that their preferred games may have less player agency than other games on the market? There couldn't possibly be such opposition to this all if there were no stakes to this debate, right?

It's not as if the rest of us have stopped playing D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, OSR, or other more mainstream games with enjoyment as a result of our respective viewpoints. I personally find it baffling but I love playing different games. Because much like card or board games, I hold the uncontroversial opinion that different TTRPGs do different things well. And when it comes to TTRPGs, you learn a lot about your own preferences, play styles, or even how to improve your "art" as a player or GM through playing other games or even exploring other modes of play with the same game.

 

[Lanefan]

This totally avoids the question.

Of course it does; it was supposed to be a joke...

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?

Once something becomes known by any player it's pretty much locked in. Example: I'm committed to the geography in the parts of my world that I've mapped, even though I've come to be mildly annoyed by some of it, because those maps are now player-facing.

And yes, there's lots of blank-looking space on the maps. Some of it I have ideas for (and-or it's already filled in with things the players/PCs have yet to encounter), and some of it is truly 'blank' and open for future use or development.