A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

This doesn't describe sandbox play at all.

In sandbox play, the GM frames the world, places in the world, factions and NPC's in it. In sandbox play the players set their agenda. They have complete autonomy to do what they want and to interact with what they want as long as it's done via their character. Nothing they do is by way of DM permission either. In sandbox play it's the player's unalienable right to be able to set their own agenda.

Of course it's done with GM permission. The GM is presenting the fiction, according to how the GM thinks it should be, and most of it is secret until you make a move to find out. If done "fairly", which is I believe the term, then the secret fiction is held as immutable even when it hasn't been introduced yet, so you can easily make action declarations that fail due to the GM's conception of this secret fiction.

Further, actions have to meet with the GM's approval of what's possible in a given situation. For most physical actions, this isn't doesn't usually cause much conflict because those are usually stopped by details that are described in scene setting. However, you can easily see this phenomenon in social interactions with NPCs that have predetermined responses to certain stimuli. We both participated in the Valaki thread about the Burgomaster, so this shouldn't be something you don't have an example of.

Agreed

Sounds correct, though there are important details you are missing. The GM's job in sandbox play is twofold.
1. He sets the stage that the characters act upon.
2. He continually updates the stage by reacting to the players input into the setting via their characters actions. This part is much more principled than it's being made out to be by you. At the very least NPC beliefs and personalities are considered as a plausibility test for any potential actions. The DM is responsible for picking one of the plausible reactions and adding it to the setting. This updates the stage and the players are able to react to that change.
3. The above describes a static sandbox. In a living world sandbox, the above is true, but additional NPC factions make their actions that result in the stage being updated as well.

Your 2) is an assumption -- there's no requirement to be especially principled. Further, there's no set of requirement that this comes from to define a sandbox. Much like your 3) implies very different sandboxes, largely where 2) doesn't particularly hold when character actions impinge on the GM's idea of what the NPC actions should conclude.

So what?

Unspoken objective are unclear objectives.

Sure.


That same driver's seat description makes sense of a sandbox as well. Players determine what is important to them and take actions via their characters in the fiction in order to obtain the things they want. They are in the driver's seat and the DM is reacting to what they do.

It really doesn't -- this is an assumption based on lack of experience. I've played in a highly detailed and well run sandbox campaign -- it was an amazing amount of fun and the GM did a fantastic job. We played in that world for 3 years, multiple sessions a week, many hours a session. It was really what I cut my gaming teeth on. And, it's nothing at all like what happens in a Story Now game as far as agency goes.

AND THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE THING!

The games aim to do different things. I think this is a key issue in these discussion -- there's an assumption that any given game is attempting to do the same thing. They are not. Just like Minecraft and Doom don't try to do the same thing. This is why differences like relative player agency isn't a value statement -- it needs to be set into context. Sandbox gaming is great, it's loads of fun, and, run well, it's near the top of "mainstream" play experiences, in my opinion. However, it has less agency that pretty much any game based on Story Now approaches. So what? They're different games, so being different is fine.

That's not how sandboxes work. Players don't have a menu of adventures. They have a world that they interact with. If you are wanting to call the world the menu and all the things in the world the menu items, there's nothing stopping you - but that's pretty shaky ground IMO.

A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures. A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons. This is exactly a menu of adventures. There's no one true sandbox. Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."

 

[Ovinomancer]

I will say this on sandboxes. I tend to hate sandboxy video games. Those really feel to me like a small menu of items that they serve up on request where the choices feel pretty inconsequential.

a well run tabletop sandbox is nothing like this though.

It is, though, just more granular.

Try the Long Dark. Every choice in that game is consequential. It's a masterpiece of design. Survival modes are total sandboxes, and play is enjoyable because of the weight of every choice. Do I wear my good gloves out hunting today, and risk being attacked by wolves and having them torn when I can't repair them, or do I wear my cheap ones, and risk frostbite if I stay out too long? Do I carry one of my precious few marine flares to ward off the wolves? Do I try to fight a wolf by spending ammo, or using my hatchet (very dangerous)? Can I stretch my rations, because I really need the carry weight to bring back more firewood, but it's a long way to fresh wood? Do I risk getting wet by falling through thin ice because this shortcut will take 15 minutes off my journey, and that's precious time out of the cold?

Yeah, Long Dark is a marvel of a game of so many small but massively consequential choices, and there's no point where you get enough stuff that the game gets easy -- the cold is brutal.

 

[pemerton]

We are looking for smooth, streamlined, easy to deploy mechanics that reflect what is happening in the game and don't interfere with it.

Do you have any experience of RPGs or RPGing which was looking for something different in its mechanics?

For me personally it makes it much easier to have a conversation in these terms (doing your best to reflect casualty) then speaking in terms as if this stuff had an independent animus. As someone who puts a lot of work in to make this stuff go in sandboxes games I actually think acknowledging that effort and talking about the techniques that enable it make it easier to achieve reliably. You do a lot to make the setting feel like a real place. I would certainly want to take credit for that blood, sweat, and tears.

How do you think this differs from Vincent Baker thinking offscreen about whether Plover has enough time to get a crew together to attack Marie at her house? Not a rhetorical question - I'm curious.

 

[pemerton]

If we're going to read play excerpts, we should probably be reading with a purpose, something beyond simple compare and contrast. @pemerton , is there a particular mechanic or decision loop you wanted people to look at, or issues of agency in any particular light?

The post in question is here

@AbdulAlhazred referred to building a kind of 'decision tree framework' that would elucidate some of the different process choices, preferences, desired outcomes, and thus techniques and elements.

I posted two examples of play that illustrate some of those different processes, choices and techniques. And commented on some of those differences - eg the role of thinking offscreen; the role of player vs GM agency in framing.

In that post and in a more recent reply to @Campbell, I've also invited a comparison to the techniques used in a sandbox to establish a feel of a real world. (The techniques I use in Prince Valiant are (i) maps of Europe, (ii) appropriate names eg Dacia, (iii) descriptions of people and places that evoke the imagined time and place.)

 

[FrogReaver]

Of course it's done with GM permission.

Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character. It's just not true of the playstyle.

Further, actions have to meet with the GM's approval of what's possible in a given situation.

And here you are conflating the action with the successfulness of that action.

For most physical actions, this isn't doesn't usually cause much conflict because those are usually stopped by details that are described in scene setting. However, you can easily see this phenomenon in social interactions with NPCs that have predetermined responses to certain stimuli. We both participated in the Valaki thread about the Burgomaster, so this shouldn't be something you don't have an example of.

Your 2) is an assumption -- there's no requirement to be especially principled. Further, there's no set of requirement that this comes from to define a sandbox. Much like your 3) implies very different sandboxes, largely where 2) doesn't particularly hold when character actions impinge on the GM's idea of what the NPC actions should conclude.

The player had the option of insulting the Burgomaster. Thus the player didn't require DM permission to do that action.

What we debated in that thread wasn't whether the player had the ability to choose that action, but whether the DM was "right" to have the Burgomaster react the way he did. I think the closest to consensus that was reached was that the burgomaster as presented in the book was a very unfun obstacle and that the DM in question had picked the most plausible and most unfun reaction, while there were other plausible reactions that would have been more fun.

It really doesn't -- this is an assumption based on lack of experience. I've played in a highly detailed and well run sandbox campaign -- it was an amazing amount of fun and the GM did a fantastic job. We played in that world for 3 years, multiple sessions a week, many hours a session. It was really what I cut my gaming teeth on. And, it's nothing at all like what happens in a Story Now game as far as agency goes.

AND THIS IS NOT A NEGATIVE THING!

But I'm not claiming and no one is claiming that sandboxes are the same as story now games. All I said was that much of the same language being used to describe story now games can also apply to sandboxes.

Like the concept of driving. I detailed how players drive sandbox games. It's not the same kind of driving present in story now games. Which is really my point. Driving is not a good word to differentiate story now and sandbox games because players drive both, just in different ways.

The games aim to do different things. I think this is a key issue in these discussion -- there's an assumption that any given game is attempting to do the same thing.

There really isn't.

This is why differences like relative player agency isn't a value statement -- it needs to be set into context. Sandbox gaming is great, it's loads of fun, and, run well, it's near the top of "mainstream" play experiences, in my opinion. However, it has less agency that pretty much any game based on Story Now approaches. So what? They're different games, so being different is fine.

Here's the deal. In the context of our discussion right now, I don't care if it's a value judgement or not.

1. I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
2. I don't think you can Prove that Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
3. Story Now definitely doesn't have more agency according to my definition of agency.

To put this in perspective, you haven't actually defined how you measure more or less agency. As far as I can tell there's just some vague notion that if you can show players have the ability to do something in a story now game that they don't have the ability to do in a sandbox game that this means story now has more agency.

A sandbox can very well feature a menu of adventures. A valid sandbox can be a town, a bit of wilderness, and a bunch of themed dungeons. This is exactly a menu of adventures. There's no one true sandbox. Granted, you're making a reasonable point if you're contesting just the fact that a sandbox need not be a menu of adventures, but you aren't doing any favors by returning a "must" with a different "must."

That's fair.

 

[pemerton]

Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character. It's just not true of the playstyle.

We've spent the last N pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).

I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.

In my BW game my PC was able to meet his brother. This didn't depend up on the GM having authored appropriate secret fiction about that particular NPC.

I really don't care whether you want to call that agency or not. (Obviously I think that's a natural description of it.) But that's a real thing that happened and is a real difference from sandbox play as you describe it. I don't understand why you're denying this.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Players don't require DM permission to do anything in a sandbox so long as they do it via their character. It's just not true of the playstyle.


And here you are conflating the action with the successfulness of that action.


The player had the option of insulting the Burgomaster. Thus the player didn't require DM permission to do that action.

What we debated in that thread wasn't whether the player had the ability to choose that action, but whether the DM was "right" to have the Burgomaster react the way he did. I think the closest to consensus that was reached was that the burgomaster as presented in the book was a very unfun obstacle and that the DM in question had picked the most plausible and most unfun reaction, while there were other plausible reactions that would have been more fun.


But I'm not claiming and no one is claiming that sandboxes are the same as story now games. All I said was that much of the same language being used to describe story now games can also apply to sandboxes.

Like the concept of driving. I detailed how players drive sandbox games. It's not the same kind of driving present in story now games. Which is really my point. Driving is not a good word to differentiate story now and sandbox games because players drive both, just in different ways.


There really isn't.


Here's the deal. In the context of our discussion right now, I don't care if it's a value judgement or not.

1. I don't think Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
2. I don't think you can Prove that Story Now has more agency according to your definition of agency.
3. Story Now definitely doesn't have more agency according to my definition of agency.

To put this in perspective, you haven't actually defined how you measure more or less agency. As far as I can tell there's just some vague notion that if you can show players have the ability to do something in a story now game that they don't have the ability to do in a sandbox game that this means story now has more agency.


That's fair.

Oh, okay, you're back to "agency is the ability to try." We're going to have to strongly disagree that this is a useful definition. Or that saying that "you can try whatever" is a mark of any distinction for a playstyle.

 

[Ovinomancer]

We've spent the last N pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).

No, you've missed the rhetorical flourish, here. It's specifically that the play can announce actions to try and find his brother -- that the GM can unilaterally decide the outcome of these actions is beside his point, he's just saying that they can try.

Again, why this is thought to be a mark of distinction is beyond me.

 

[FrogReaver]

We've spent the last N pages discussing a counterexample to this very claim, though: a player can't have their PC find his/her brother without the GM's "permission" (which takes the form of the GM authoring appropriate secret fiction about the NPC in question).

In the sandbox the player was explicitly able to choose that he was looking for his brother. That didn't require DM approval. What you are presenting isn't a counterexample that players require DM permission do something in a sandbox. It's an example that players don't get to choose the outcomes of the things they do in a sandbox.

In my BW game my PC was able to meet his brother. This didn't depend up on the GM having authored appropriate secret fiction about that particular NPC.


I really don't care whether you want to call that agency or not. (Obviously I think that's a natural description of it.) But that's a real thing that happened and is a real difference from sandbox play as you describe it. I don't understand why you're denying this.

I'm not denying that there is not a real difference there. There is. Whatever gave you the impression I was denying that? Heck, no one has denied that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Oh, okay, you're back to "agency is the ability to try." We're going to have to strongly disagree that this is a useful definition. Or that saying that "you can try whatever" is a mark of any distinction for a playstyle.

The lines of my post you copied were not related to agency but to DM permission. Why are you acting like they were about agency here?