A Question Of Agency?

[Bedrockgames]

I'm also not sure why you think I'm ignorant of what you're describing. I've participated in the sort of game you described. As a GM, though, play fairly quickly drifted towards something I (and I imagine the players) preferred more. Though it was tricky because of the system being used (Rolemaster) and my lack of knowledge of the full range of suitable techniques.

If you or anyone else is interested in the techniques, I would highly recommend Robert Conley's sandbox guide on his blog: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox

It was made in 2009 I believe, so it is probably dated in that I imagine Rob might have slightly different views that could be found on more recent blog entries. But that is a good starting point (and his Majestic Wilderlands material is quite good too for it). He is a sandbox GM who I know, and who I have gamed with, and I quite respect his approach (I do thing somewhat differently but a lot of my ideas were shaped by his).

 

[Ovinomancer]

Rape jokes aren't cool.

I agree. Again, though, I challenge you to reconcile this.

 

[FrogReaver]

I agree. Again, though, I challenge you to reconcile this.

To my understanding, doing so would be against the forum rules

 

[pemerton]

I think, in the oft-cited examples from BW, that roleplaying would be impossible without the resolutions (We found the tower; I found my brother). I think that in any system that boils down to "The GM Decides" where the GM is convinced/persuaded by roleplaying (along the lines of what I understand @pemerton to mean by "free narration") that the resolution is directly derived from the roleplaying. I think that in any system or instance where the odds of resolution are affected by what has been roleplayed, roleplaying and resolution are intertwined.

I don't think I fully follow what you are saying here in the context of your discussion with @FrogReaver, but to the extent that I do follow I think I agree.

I don't really understand what FrogReaver's point about dice is. The use of dice is, generally, to establish what is happening in the fiction when that isn't just being settled via consensus or deferral.

Here are some examples of deferral and of consensus that I think are fairly typical in FRPGing:

A player typically doesn't have to dice for their PC to be wearing a brown rather than a green tunic, because the rest of the table defers to the player. The GM typically doesn't have to dice for the tavern to have a man rather than a woman serving the drinks, because the rest of the table defers to the GM; and nor does the player typically have to roll dice to establish that my PC sits down at a table near the door. Typically no one has to dice to establish the players' marching order or watch order for their PCs, because with a bit of back-and-forth between everyone at the table something is established which everyone agrees to and agrees makes sense in the fiction given the relevant traits of the PCs (eg settling on a marching order might require having regard to PC heights; settling on a watch order might require having regard to how long the spell-users need to sleep to rememorise their spells or regain their spell points).​

Here are a couple of examples where I think it is fairly typical, in FRPGing, to look to the dice:

The GM narrates an attacking Orc. The player of the archer responds I shoot it with an arrow. I think it's typical in FRPGing to call on dice to help determine what happens next.​

​

The GM narrates a burst of fire from a triggered magical trap. A player responds I take cover behind my shield. I think it's typical in FRPGing to call on dice - in D&D it would often be a saving throw - to help determine what happens next.​

The use of dice in resolution doesn't seem, to me, to have any bearing on whether we are roleplaying or not. Saying I wear a brown tunic or I sit down at a table near the door isn't any more roleplaying than I shoot the Orc with an arrow or I take cover from the blast behind my shield just because no one will call for the dice to be rolled in order to accept the statement as true in the shared fiction.

 

[Aldarc]

If you or anyone else is interested in the techniques, I would highly recommend Robert Conley's sandbox guide on his blog: How to make a Fantasy Sandbox

It was made in 2009 I believe, so it is probably dated in that I imagine Rob might have slightly different views that could be found on more recent blog entries. But that is a good starting point (and his Majestic Wilderlands material is quite good too for it). He is a sandbox GM who I know, and who I have gamed with, and I quite respect his approach (I do thing somewhat differently but a lot of my ideas were shaped by his).

My eyesight is not what it used to be but I can’t seem to find the part in Rob’s sandbox write-ups where it instructs the GM to kill a PC’a lost brother that they declared they are looking for.

 

[pemerton]

I am the one being told my style is a problem.

Who has told you this?

Certainly not me. I've said I don't want to play it.

You've said you don't want to play "linear adventures" of the 3E-era style. Are you intending by that to say that RPGing in that way is a problem? That there is something wrong with others doing it?

 

[prabe]

I don't think I fully follow what you are saying here in the context of your discussion with @FrogReaver, but to the extent that I do follow I think I agree.

It started as a discussion about the boundary between roleplaying and worldbuilding (when done by a player, not a GM), and it evolved into a discussion about the difference between roleplaying and action-resolution. I think it's easy-ish to point at examples where a player is clearly worldbuilding, not roleplaying; and think it's easy-ish to point examples where a player is clearly roleplaying, not worldbuilding; I think the boundaries between roleplaying and action-resolution are much blurrier, and it's possible roleplaying entirely contains action-resolution (not something I've put thoughts about into words before, that I know of).

 

[pemerton]

look again at the example. He didn’t realize his goal. He failed at the exams.

He attended the exams when they were offered (which is not all the time in the setting). But failing the exams is a real possibility (and fail them he did).

How was it determined that the character failed the exams?

 

[pemerton]

I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: in a sandbox, the player is only able to say he wants to search for his brother.

<snip>

Once the player says I am going to search for my brother, then the GM needs to seriously consider what happened to the brother.

<snip>

whatever is going on with your brother, that is for the GM to decide. You only have control of what your character does.

And I don't know how else I can phrase this and make it clear: you are describing a game in which the player has less agency than I prefer in the RPGing that I participate in (whether as player or as GM).

It is a valid style of play.

Again with the normative language! I don't even know what this means. What style of RPGing do you think is "invalid"?

 

[pemerton]

this last parts not true though. Having control over your character is only part of what is required for agency. There’s also the part where you can cause important things to change in the setting.

But presumably there's a definition of "agency", favoured by players of APs and similar hard railroads, according to which there is no expectation that players can declare actions whose resolution might require the GM to rethink significant elements of the setting.

And by the lights of that definition, a hard railroad maximises player agency. We can even imagine what the player of such a game might say - "I mean, it's not as if the GM is the one declaring actions for the PCs in our game!"