A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

I think referee is simply one of the more handy terms we draw on. I personally use facilitator when I talk about the GM's role in the game. But I do think there is a referee-like thing going on. In that the GM is the arbiter of the rules and the arbiter of the setting. Also a referee is there to enforce the rules of play in sports and to interpret them. That is similar to what a GM does. Johnny tries to use a fireball to make a cat, and the Ref says, no that isn't what fireball does according to the letter and spirit of the rules. But Johnny asks if he can use fireball to light some candles (without damaging anything), a GM might say, that isn't in the letter of the rules, but it follows the spirit of them, so I will allow it. I think that is a kind of refereeing. The big difference is the referee is also more involved in the action. And I think the GM has duties that go well beyond that of a referee in a sport.

I think a lot of the principles that drive fair referee decision, would drive fair GMing decisions. But yes, it is a different activity. And even between sports, what constitutes fair is going to vary depending on the specifics of the rules. That doesn't mean we can't develop, or that we haven't developed, a sense of what makes a fair referee. A lot of the conversations on threads I have been in with Estar have been about what makes a gamemaster fair.

Oh I have no problem with the term as a reference to the role of the GM that involves interpreting the rules. I get its use, and I'd probably use it for ease of reference in conversation.

But I think the more important question here is "What does 'fair' mean for a RPG?" and "How is what's fair different for a RPG when compared to sports or other activities?"

So to kind of put that in context.....yes, an umpire in baseball calls balls and strikes for batters on the same team, and we'd hope that his judgment is applied consistently from batter to batter. But more importantly, more crucially, he's also calling balls and strikes for the opposing team's batters. This is where being fair truly matters.

Removing the opposition from the situation, and that really shifts the idea of "fair", doesn't it?

What does it mean to be fair to participants in an activity who are all on the same team? Does being fair stop meaning the same thing as being consistent, and instead mean offering each participant the means to succeed? Does it become "unfair" to lean toward an individual player's strengths to give them a chance to succeed? If so, unfair to whom?

 

[prabe]

Yes, I didn't mean to imply you didn't do a good job before, but rather that consideration caused improvement in how feel about your play.

And, yes, I agree, the time to analyze is not during play, but before, so you can establish strong principles to guide your play to the place you enjoy it best. Hopefully you have fellow players that agree, of course!

No worries. "Did you do as good a job?" (paraphrasing) isn't the same question as "Did you do a good job?" and I didn't take you to be saying I wasn't dong a good job. I was, I guess, more along the lines of talking about the baseline against which any improvement would have to be measured.

 

[FrogReaver]

That isn't exactly what I said. But I am not sure what I said applies in this case, as neither I, Estar or Frogreaver are trying to tell you to use the term referee or imbue it with any kind of meaning that would nullify your use of the term agency (My issue with a lot of the language getting thrown around was the language seemed selected for its rhetorical power in the discussion). Here I think the use of referee is clarifying what Estar means. I don't actually use the term referee that much. In fact, I usually just say game master. And if people ask about what I think the role of the GM is, I would say a facilitator (and that isn't prescriptive, that is simply how I view my role as GM-----there are other ways to view it). When Estar invokes Referee, I immediately get a sense of what he means. I understand he is emphasizing things like the importance of making fair, impartial rulings, and I also understand he is referencing a more old school conception of the role (which is important if you want to understand what Estar is going for).

That said I have no objection to other titles being used. I think that is a longstanding thing in RPGs. In D&D it is Dungeon Master. The generic term is Gamemaster. But games, for flavor and philosophy pick other labels. Master of Ceremonies seems fine to me if that fits the focus of GMing a game like that.

I think where use of language gets bad is when you tell Estar, he can't use referee because its different from a sports referee, or if I tell you, you can't use Master of Ceremonies because that is a whole other kind of thing than RPGs. I think we all get that these are both involved because they point to something, and they are even a little playful and flavorful, to help get you in the right mind space for what you are about to be doing.

*Just a side note. This kind of thing has happened repeatedly in this discussion with various terms and concepts.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I recall you have also said that if the language of terms causes more problems than it's worth, then there may be an issue with using such loaded terms. I would argue that this would be the case for "referee.

I do want to clarify this point. I said a variety of things a long these lines and I am not sure which specific instance you are pointing to (it does matter a little here I think). But generally I think what I was talking about was the heavy use of jargon, and words that force a result in an argument. I don't object to PbtA players adopting their own language to describe what they are doing. it think where it gets a lot more thorny is when that language is exported to other games and styles, and we are told we are doing something that we simply don't think we are doing. I was also talking about the creation of new terms in the course of this conversation. First, I am generally resistant to that idea unless a new term is truly needed (because you end up with pockets of communities speaking their own language about RPGs and I just think that is not terribly conducive to good communication). Second, I think you have be very careful when you have two sides vying for control of a term like agency and they are trying to draw distinctions around two potential uses of that term. I think a lot of times, we just think we are saying the truth, and we don't realize how much we are trying to advance an agenda or to simply 'win' the conversation and a place where things can go south is in the coining of terms if those are poisoned by that motivation.

Here though, Estar is just using a term that has a long history of use in the hobby and generally points to exactly what he is saying it is (it is a handy way to communicate about the GM role he is conceiving of). But it isn't something he is saying you must adopt

 

[Fenris-77]

The jargon you've seen in this thread isn't even remotely a case of PbtA players making up words to describe what they're doing. There's an established enough body of research and writing into RPGs that a vocabulary has developed to talk about the moving parts. You might not be familiar with that vocabulary, which is fine, but tossing it aside as something someone made up in order to be gatekeep-y betrays some significant misapprehension on your part.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think it's worth pointing out that I and many others wouldn't actually talk about agency to do something. For example we would never talk about agency to kill a dragon. Instead our conception of Agency begins with the fictional situation. You are level 1 and there's a dragon attack the town you are in. Agency is then about whether you have meaningful choices in that situation. If so then you have agency. Does a level 20 character have a more expansive list of choices he can choose between? Yes! But having a more expansive set of meaningful choices to choose between isn't having more agency.

This is why it's only considered railroading when there is a total lack of meaningful choices over a situation.

That's the issue I have with the alternate definition of agency. It's a hodge podge idea of some combination of agency and autonomy and power. If you insist on calling what you are talking about agency then that's fine. I can accept there being 2 contradictory definitions of a thing. But please note that when you start saying game A has less agency than game B that you aren't talking about the same thing as most of the rest of us.

 

[prabe]

I mean, when I get to actually play instead of run a game, I don't want things to just go easy for my PC. Do other people hold this view? Would anyone out there want to simply narrate away their PC's problems? I highly doubt it. So any conclusions that rely on that idea should just go away, same as any conclusions that rely on a GM who totally abuses his power.

I think that players who are used to having to fight the GM for everything, when presented with a game situation where they have more ... agency (mechanical or social--I'm talking about practical agency, here, not theoretical) might overreach in the direction of making things easy for their PCs, but that's not a matter of their being abusive, IMO. It's plausible that a given GM or player more used to a more top-down gaming structure might not see it that way, and might lean harder into giving the players less agency--I think some of this shows up when you see a GM (presumably on the inexperienced side) talking about the players "ignoring my plot" or similar; or, more likely, after the event in question, that GM takes to railroading harder to get their precious plot (purchased or self-written) into the game. Clearly this is not what @estar and @Bedrockgames are doing or talking about in the games they run.

 

[FrogReaver]

The jargon you've seen in this thread isn't even remotely a case of PbtA players making up words to describe what they're doing. There's an established enough body of research and writing into RPGs that a vocabulary has developed to talk about the moving parts. You might not be familiar with that vocabulary, which is fine, but tossing it aside as something someone made up in order to be gatekeep-y betrays some significant misapprehension on your part.

You 5 or 6 are the only handful that I've ever seen define it the way you are. I'm sure there's more but I think that's the experience with most of us.

And it's not that we are rejecting what you call agency as being the correct definition because we aren't thinking through implications, it's really that you are describing something totally different than what we've ever used or heard the term used for. At best that makes 2 different definitions of agency and if that's the case the issue is the lack of acknowledgement on your side of that.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Oh I have no problem with the term as a reference to the role of the GM that involves interpreting the rules. I get its use, and I'd probably use it for ease of reference in conversation.

But I think the more important question here is "What does 'fair' mean for a RPG?" and "How is what's fair different for a RPG when compared to sports or other activities?"

So to kind of put that in context.....yes, an umpire in baseball calls balls and strikes for batters on the same team, and we'd hope that his judgment is applied consistently from batter to batter. But more importantly, more crucially, he's also calling balls and strikes for the opposing team's batters. This is where being fair truly matters.

Removing the opposition from the situation, and that really shifts the idea of "fair", doesn't it?

What does it mean to be fair to participants in an activity who are all on the same team? Does being fair stop meaning the same thing as being consistent, and instead mean offering each participant the means to succeed? Does it become "unfair" to lean toward an individual player's strengths to give them a chance to succeed? If so, unfair to whom?

I think people are going to have different answers here, and that this is more of an ongoing conversation in each style within the hobby. Ultimately I find, when I talk with Estar, a lot of what he says about fairness resonates. But there is a lot here.

For me, first and foremost is fair application of the rules. I shouldn't give apply the rules differently to Steve than I do to John. And I think I would add to that, you should apply the rules fairly to the monsters and the NPCs too (this may just be my own take, I can't say I am speaking for others on this one). To me that is important because that gets at the fairness of the players expectations of things like strategic choices, tactics, etc. I think fairness also extends to what the players try to do: if a player wants to start a cult to a new deity of coffee, and has some methods for persuading people to follow, the GM ought to hear those out and try to adjudicate that scenario as fairly to the player as possible (and unfair adjudication here would be something like, the GM simply not wanting to deal with a coffee cult at the moment, so he makes it never materialize or barely materialize). A fair GM will take that goal seriously. Now maybe starting a coffee cult in that setting, at that moment, with the players present resources, is a bit boneheaded and won't work. But I think a fair GM will also give the player a sense why such efforts are not working, so it is clear it isn't just an arbitrary decision. Fairness is giving players the win, even when it is inconvenient to the campaign, the adventure, what the GM wants, if the players legitimate get a win. Fairness is also how you treat people at the table, and I do think that can extend to situations like having a player who simply isn't good at one aspect of play but wants to engage it (here is where I usually give people an A for effort, or I rely on things like Skill rolls to help balance that stuff our). I do think this one is a delicate situation because if you shift something like that for a player who is having a hard time, a player who isn't may feel like they are having to work harder for their success. But just as an example, Elliot in both those games is one of the most eloquent players in the group, and a great actor when it comes to playing his character. I am not, but I can string sentences together and make a compelling case for things. If I were a GM handing me and elliot in the same situation, I would focus more on what I (the player in the example) is saying, and more on Elliot's performance probably to get a sense of how convincing each one is being (because obviously there is a massive disparity in acting talent there). So I think as long as the player is bringing something to the table, in those cases, it is pretty manageable and neither one feels shortchanged.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think that players who are used to having to fight the GM for everything, when presented with a game situation where they have more ... agency (mechanical or social--I'm talking about practical agency, here, not theoretical) might overreach in the direction of making things easy for their PCs, but that's not a matter of their being abusive, IMO. It's plausible that a given GM or player more used to a more top-down gaming structure might not see it that way, and might lean harder into giving the players less agency--I think some of this shows up when you see a GM (presumably on the inexperienced side) talking about the players "ignoring my plot" or similar; or, more likely, after the event in question, that GM takes to railroading harder to get their precious plot (purchased or self-written) into the game. Clearly this is not what @estar and @Bedrockgames are doing or talking about in the games they run.

I look at this as a spectrum, and a given GM just kind of reflects the 'harsh realities' of the setting to the degree they are harsh. I have players who like the challenge the setting can present to them. So I do make an effort to adhere to what I call 'the evolving martial landscape'. This is rather specific to wuxia, but in a wuxia campaign, your 'rise' is very much linked to your martial prowess. And what techniques you know, what techniques you develop, what combinations you come up with, will matter in terms of your ability to defeat people and impose your will on the setting. I think every GM handles this challenge differently, I tend to take a peaks and valleys approach, where if the players are weak, no one is particularly threatened by them or concerned with defeating their martial style. As they rise up, and gain more power, and get increasingly effective, or if they are just well built from the start, which can happen, they pose a greater threat, which is going to cause NPCs and sects to be more likely to form alliances against them, and it is also going to cause people to try to devise counters against their techniques (so they may see more responses to their arsenal emerging over time). I don't know if this addresses your post suffiencitly @hawkeyefan but your post prompted these thoughts.