A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

I feel that in this case, his agency was about him being allowed to pursue that course in the campaign.

Yes. He wanted to be a scholar. It’s not about success or failure being predetermined. It’s that this was his goal and you found out what happened through play.

What if you simply told the player “Sorry, your character doesn’t become a scholar” at the end of session 1 (or whenever he made this goal known)?

What if you said “a character’s status as a scholar is up to the GM”? Or what if there simply were no rules in place to support that kind of character goal?

It doesn't mean I am going to block him from that path deliberately.

Except with the dead brother that’s exactly what you’d be doing.

In this, I really do think the brothers status as alive or dead, would be something that players would expect the GM to decide, and they wouldn't see that decision as infringing on their agency.

I know plenty of players who would not expect the GM to decide something so significant as that. There’s several engaging with you right now.

I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.

 

[FrogReaver]

I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.

Pretty major quibble. The player is finding out what happens to the PC's brother through play regardless of whether the DM decides or whether some mechanical RNG process establishes that detail or even whether the players all get a vote about whether the brother is alive or dead - majority wins. Almost no matter how the brother is determined to be alive or dead the player is playing to find out.

Literally the only time the player wouldn't be playing to find out is if the player gets to state, my brother is alive. The player isn't playing to find out then, he's dictating by fiat. But even then play goes on and players go on to finding out about other details.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Well, ongoing drama of all kinds except looking for lost brothers.

I am absolutely comfortable with sandbox play. I do it all the time. I just also like my players to be involved in what the game is about and where it goes. these things aren’t mutually exclusive.

And that is fine: you can run a sandbox however you like. But there is also nothing wrong with running it the way I am taking about

 

[Bedrockgames]

I know plenty of players who would not expect the GM to decide something so significant as that. There’s several engaging with you right now.

I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.

there is nothing wrong wrong with this preference, but it isn’t the preference I bring to mort of my sandboxes

 

[Bedrockgames]

Who wouldn’t?

I don’t know but some of the ways I see Pemerton talk about these kinds of checks, it looked like there might be an approach on the table in this conversation that does that (which I could be wrong about, but that was my reasoning for saying that)

 

[FrogReaver]

This is not what I said. I don't think it's what @hawkeyefan said either.

I referred to an "exercise in futility" because the GM already knows what is going to happen.

In the style of play being discussed, The GM doesn't know the player will find their brother whether alive or dead. So it's not a fair classification to say the GM knows what is going to happen.

It is possible for the PC's desire to find his/her brother to fail, perhaps to fail because the brother is dead, without the GM deciding that in advance. For instance, there could be a soft move in response to a failed check - You hear that your brother was in the parts, getting ready to cross swords with notoriously ruthless swordfighter so-and-so, etc - and then a further failed check that triggers a hard move - When you get to the fighting ground it's all over. They tell you the fight happened yesterday. There's a child hanging around - she offers to take you to your brother's gravestone for a grote and a bowl of warm meal.

I've used PbtA terminology - soft move, hard move - but the same sort of thing could be done in other systems too (eg Burning Wheel).

We aren't saying that cannot be done. All that's being said is that these techniques have consequences in addition to whatever pros you see in them.

 

[Campbell]

I do not view the example as railroading. I do not regard it as high agency play in the context of the goal the character is pursuing, but do you.

I will say that personally I might enjoy playing in that kind of game, but would absolutely not invest in my character on an emotional level. In the Vampire game I am a player in my recently turned Vampire is still married and absolutely loves his wife. If she randomly decided to divorce him or something happened to her where as a player I had no chance to intervene I would check out of treating my character as a person.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would argue that a sandbox....or just about any RPG, really....is going to consist of a series of adventures. I mean this in the normal context and not one specific to RPGs. Like, Caine had many adventures as he wandered the old west looking for his brother.

I expect that the PCs in your games, sandboxy as they may be, are still engaging in events and happenings that can be called “adventures”. Certainly your descriptions of sone of your campaigns sounded like things out of adventure fiction.

And to be clear, what I’m saying is a dick move is for the GM to agree about the brother and then immediately do away with it.

Now, if you want to answer the question I asked....how would you handle this if a player came to you and presented this idea....with “I’d tell him that’s not something that’ll fit this game; maybe some other game in the future” then I’d say that’s perfectly fine. Not all games should be the same, and not all will include everything that other games do.

Like player agency.

again we simply disagree on agency

if I understand the request, and at this point I may have lost sight of it, I would say the player can certainly try to look for huu it s brother. I would go over who his brother might be in the setting and we could figure out where and what he was doing when he went misding. But from there I would, if it was a new player who didn’t know the group, explain the brother could be living dead, or in any number of predicaments, and that it wouldn’t necessarily be a focus of the campaign (it might become that through organic play, but it wouldn’t be certain to be). I think I am generally pretty good at setting expectations. Now obviously if I have 6 players with your kind of preferences, I would adapt my style to theirs or just have someone else GM. But in groups that are down with this style (and that hasn’t been a problem finding at all) I wouldn’t have to go that

 

[Bedrockgames]

I would want to find out what happens to my PC and his brother through play. Not from the GM simply deciding.

To be clear: you finding out what happened would be done through play. Just whether he is alive or dead, that would be determined by the GM (i.e. The GM would know the brothers status while you look, but you would not know until you found that information)

 

[FrogReaver]

I do not view the example as railroading. I do not regard it as high agency play in the context of the goal the character is pursuing, but do you.

I will say that personally I might enjoy playing in that kind of game, but would absolutely not invest in my character on an emotional level. In the Vampire game I am a player in my recently turned Vampire is still married and absolutely loves his wife. If she randomly decided to divorce him or something happened to her where as a player I had no chance to intervene I would check out of treating my character as a person.

Personally I tend not to have anything happen close family NPC's of the characters, and it's because some I know some players have a serious adverse reaction to it. But it's technically a possibility in true sandbox play. I view it as there are endless possibilities, why pick the one that may adversely affect the players investment in their character. But I would argue it's technically allowed in sandbox play and if it won't impact your player's investment then there's no longer an issue with having it happen.