A Question Of Agency?

[pemerton]

The players don't have the power of authorship that Pemerton has described in some of his examples, but they do have the ability to force the GM to create new things (with statements as simple as "hey is there a pizza shop in this area of town").

I posted two examples of play upthread, one an imagined example of AW play, one an actual example of Prince Valiant play.

How do these differ from your notion of a "sandbox"?

 

[robconley]

This is why I invited @FrogReaver, @Bedrockgames and @estar to comment on my post upthread. In what ways do they think that the episodes I set out - one imagined by Vincent Baker, one actual in my Prince Valiant game - differ from a "true sandbox"?

Sorry missed it.
Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)
Using D&D 5e because know the system.

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).
No Difference here.

“I read the situation,” her player says.
Roll an insight check but from the example Maries know the NPCs so there little chance of failure. I would say roll 1d20 don't roll a one.

You do? It’s charged?” I say.
“It is now.”
This wouldn't happen this way. Instead there would pre-existing tension to exist in for Marie arrival to "charge" the situation established earlier events in the campaign or something the player created for their character background. If that so then yeah the situation is charged. But of it wasn't charged to begin with then roll a Intimidation check DC 15. But only after Marie's player described how the character escalates things.

“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.

Yeah I don't view things like they unfold in a movie. I view things like if was a Holodeck or virtual reality. Neither way is better but very different focus.

She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says.

Again this would play out differently with me. The players would get to make a DC 15 Insight check after asking about the biggest threat without any preconditions. If the player have encountered the NPCs before, then the check is not needed. I would just tell them.

“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard fucker. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)

So if Marie's player wanted more details that not obvious from past event or knowledge then I would have the player make a DC 15 Insight check if it is about a character emotional state or DC 15 Perception check if it about the physical environment of the target. In this case noticing that the Plover has a little gun in his boot.

“Hm, now I want an escape route. Can I read the situation again?”
“Of course not.” Once is what you get, unless the situation substantially changes.
This exchange is baloney, given how the AW setting describes their characters, if Marie had enough situational awareness to scope out a escape route along with other things. So a DC 15 Perception check. But if this goes on after the second perception, there would be some type of reaction from the NPCs. Because basically what happening the Marie comes waltzing in and taking her sweet time in saying or doing anything. But I don't constrain the player saying "once is all you get".

The worst case is that you can only do so much in the time you have. So if you are willing to accept the consequences of taking extra time by all means continue.

So I will end it here because I don't really want to do the work to figure out what direct-brain whisper projection is but the context is obviously some type of psionic ability of the brainer. But I don't see what I do playing about much differently. AW and my technique align the closest when comes to extraordinary abilities.

Prince Valiant
Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople.
I won't use fiat to that degree, I pregenerate the weather or it came about as result of random complication like with the AiME journey rules.

This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object.
When it comes to major events, I better not have come up with it on a whim or the players will react negatively out of game. Random naughty word is fine provided the setup of the odds isn't judicious for the setting. A whole session of AiME came about because of some really naughty word up journey results that caught the players flat-footed. I give more details later if desired. None of it was planned and it was all result of random rolls and working past events in the campaign.

I used the first of them....
[The PCs forces are victorious, with some effective leadership by the PC knights.]

Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability.
Similar events had happen in my campaign.

I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify...

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario ...
...The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging ....
OK except I would have known what in the Rattling Forest in a broad sense and if I was pressed for time adapted some published forest adventure that fits. So it wouldn't be totally pulling something out of my ass.

But lets say I really have don't know. Then I would make a series of random rolls look at the result. Throw out any that doesn't make sense and reroll until I have a set of results that inspired me. Of course if a 1,000 hobbyist used this techniques some of it would abuse it until they get a result that reflected it biases. My criteria is does it make sense in light of the setting and the other rolls. So I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.

The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.").
Yeah I don't use metagame mechanics. Either their would been a anchor for the curse or not. If there is then it would discoverable. If it was hidden, the discovery process would be difficult.

I hope I illustrated how I would handle things given your situations.

 

[aramis erak]

Earlier (and often) in the thread I referenced the benevolent dictator -- life can be very good under one, but some will still chafe at it. D&D mostly runs this way, normally, as do other "mainstream" games. It's the model where there is a Rule Zero in place.

Different games have different "rule 0" rules.
I assume you're referencing Gygax/D&D rule 0: The GM is always right and can change things on a whim.
Many newer games invoke "Wheaton's Rule": Don't be a dick.
A few invoke "The group shall decide" denying any one person the ability to alter rules.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I posted two examples of play upthread, one an imagined example of AW play, one an actual example of Prince Valiant play.

How do these differ from your notion of a "sandbox"?

I am having a little trouble following the language of the AW example. It might just be late, but I don't feel I absorbed the meaning well enough to comment.

For the second one, it isn't that is is different from my notion of sandbox, but it is different from how I would run a sandbox in a few key ways I think (but again I may just not be following the meaning that well). The first thing is the bit about the ghosts in the forest. In my game, the players wouldn't propose that kind of thing, and I wouldn't materialize it based on their proposal. I don't think that makes it less of a sandbox, but I do think if you were to run a sandbox with say OSR gamers, they wouldn't be expecting that to happen. Another area is the way you used Fiat for the ship. Again, I may have misread, but it sounded like you just decided something happened, out of a desire for future scenarios (I could be misremembering as I don't have the page open in another window). But I generally use Survival (Water) for ship travel and if the captain fails, then something would happen. If I did use Fiat, it wouldn't be in service to a future scenario I want to happen, but because of something I feel ought to happen based on events. For example if they had just fought with a bunch of Lady White Blade's students, and cut of their heads...I may have decided Lady White Blade sent three Flying Phantoms after them, and attacking when they are traveling by sea might be a good time to take them by surprise. So by fiat I might decide a vessel carrying the flying phantom approaches. I would probably roll for the crew to see if they notice (if any PCs had saiid they were being vigilant, they might notice)....if no one notices a surprise midnight attack might occur on the ship. The third way your approach seems different is you talk about scenarios, and they seem like events or encounters that are pre-planned which you deploy. I don't really do that. It is possible I am misunderstanding you here, if I am, let me know (again it is getting a bit late for me). But when I do encounters, especially from travel, I use tables and I draw of things local to the area. So if the players fail a Survival Roll as they are passing through Fan Xu Prefecture on the western side of the canal, and I roll on a table and get Local Sect 1d10 disciples, I would look at the map, see that the nearest sect is Long Ma Hall (and escort company), and then start to think about why the Long Ma Hall people show up, how they show up, etc. The biggest thing to me is the why. If the players haven't done anything particularly unusual in the region, I would probably setting on the Sect's priority as the guiding principle (they are an escort company, trying to do good in the region and essentially fight crime-----so they probably approach the party in a friendly but stern way and request to inspect their carts. An encounter like this could be friendly, hostile, maybe even just be an opportunity for the sides to trade rumors, or be totally pointless. Where I think this kind of encounter is useful, and it is useful in a lot of ways, but where it would be useful in terms of agency is its meaning does shift if the players happen to have contraband. And if you are using your encounter tables like this constantly that can work great (because there isn't just Long Ma Hall but also patrolling inspectors and even potential encounters with higher ranked magistrates).

Not sure how well this answers your question. Nothing you are doing strikes me as bad, or as not sandbox.I would probably really need to see it in play to say for sure. You aren't using a hex map, but I don't always use hex maps, and I don't think they are a requirement for sandbox---personally I just like them because they are a good way to measure distance over travel. It would certainly certainly be maybe a little unorthodox for some more 'traditional' sandbox players (and just using traditional for convenience here, not for any greater meaning). I also think, unless I misunderstand you, some of those scenario situations might be a little canned. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. I've done that myself in my own sandboxes. I did a series of adventures keyed to an encounter table for instance (here: WUXIA INSPIRATION: BLOOD-STAINED ENCOUNTERS PART ONE). I think this stuff is good to throw in once in a while, and as long as the players are free to not engage it, I don't think it violates sandbox principles. But I have encountered enough players who might bristle at it, that it is worth mentioning.

Keep in mind, my own style is probably pretty unorthodox for a lot of OSR and sandbox people. So take my opinions with that grain of salt in mind. For example I literalize fate in my games. In the wuxia setting it is literally part of the cosmology and the cycle of rebirth, but I do it in all my settings where I just believe in the power of these cosmic coincidences that crop up in play. And I often use tables to make fate a concrete thing, though secret, in the setting (and that is one of the places where I give myself more leniency to introduce intrusive elements: things I might personally find too heavy handed for sandbox for example, but maybe dramatically interesting).

 

[Ovinomancer]

Different games have different "rule 0" rules.
I assume you're referencing Gygax/D&D rule 0: The GM is always right and can change things on a whim.
Many newer games invoke "Wheaton's Rule": Don't be a dick.
A few invoke "The group shall decide" denying any one person the ability to alter rules.

Rule zero has a rather specific history. I don't disagree with your assertion of different baseline rules, but that any of those are referred to as rule zero.

I also find that Wheaton rarely lives up to his own rule, but that's just me.

 

[FrogReaver]

The combat rules set out the procedure and norms that govern how players establish those facts. That's what rules are for.

Let's start with your style. In your style the player would establish 2 things. 1) that he attacks the orc and 2) the outcome on a success. The DM would then establish the outcome on a failure and set the DC. The player would roll and the dice would establish whether the player's outcome or the DM's outcome occurs in the fiction.

Contrast this with D&D. In D&D the player would establish 1 thing. 1) that he attacks the orc. Since this is an attack the combat rules would establish what happens on a success and what happens on a failure. Heck the combat rules even establsh what the DC is going to be set at. The player would roll and the dice would establish which outcome from the rules occurs in the fiction. *If not in combat then similar but different process is applied.

The process steps that generate a fictional outcome can be summed up below:
Success and Failure state outcomes established -> Success and Failure state determined via roll -> Fictional Outcome

The D&D player plays no role in any of these process steps. The player of your game does play a role in the first. Thus, IMO it's fair to say that the player in your style is part of the process for determining the fictional outcome whereas the player in the D&D game is not.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sorry missed it.
Vincent Baker's example (AW pp 154-55)
Using D&D 5e because know the system.

Marie the brainer goes looking for Isle, to visit grief upon her, and finds her eating canned peaches on the roof of the car shed
with her brother Mill and her lover Plover (all NPCs).
No Difference here.

“I read the situation,” her player says.
Roll an insight check but from the example Maries know the NPCs so there little chance of failure. I would say roll 1d20 don't roll a one.

You do? It’s charged?” I say.
“It is now.”
This wouldn't happen this way. Instead there would pre-existing tension to exist in for Marie arrival to "charge" the situation established earlier events in the campaign or something the player created for their character background. If that so then yeah the situation is charged. But of it wasn't charged to begin with then roll a Intimidation check DC 15. But only after Marie's player described how the character escalates things.

“Ahh,” I say. I understand perfectly: the three NPCs don’t realize it, but Marie’s arrival charges the situation. If it were a movie, the sound track would be picking up, getting sinister.

Yeah I don't view things like they unfold in a movie. I view things like if was a Holodeck or virtual reality. Neither way is better but very different focus.

She rolls+sharp and hits with a 7–9, so she gets to ask me one question from that move’s list. “Which of my enemies is the biggest threat?” she says.

Again this would play out differently with me. The players would get to make a DC 15 Insight check after asking about the biggest threat without any preconditions. If the player have encountered the NPCs before, then the check is not needed. I would just tell them.

“Plover,” I say. “No doubt. He’s out of his armor, but he has a little gun in his boot and he’s a hard fucker. Mill’s just 12 and he’s not a violent kid. Isle’s tougher, but not like Plover.” (See me misdirect! I just chose one capriciously, then pointed to fictional details as though they’d made the decision. We’ve never even seen Mill onscreen before, I just now made up that he’s 12 and not violent.)

So if Marie's player wanted more details that not obvious from past event or knowledge then I would have the player make a DC 15 Insight check if it is about a character emotional state or DC 15 Perception check if it about the physical environment of the target. In this case noticing that the Plover has a little gun in his boot.

“Hm, now I want an escape route. Can I read the situation again?”
“Of course not.” Once is what you get, unless the situation substantially changes.
This exchange is baloney, given how the AW setting describes their characters, if Marie had enough situational awareness to scope out a escape route along with other things. So a DC 15 Perception check. But if this goes on after the second perception, there would be some type of reaction from the NPCs. Because basically what happening the Marie comes waltzing in and taking her sweet time in saying or doing anything. But I don't constrain the player saying "once is all you get".

The worst case is that you can only do so much in the time you have. So if you are willing to accept the consequences of taking extra time by all means continue.

So I will end it here because I don't really want to do the work to figure out what direct-brain whisper projection is but the context is obviously some type of psionic ability of the brainer. But I don't see what I do playing about much differently. AW and my technique align the closest when comes to extraordinary abilities.

Prince Valiant
Exercising GM fiat, I declared that as they were crossing between Italy and the Balkan Peninsula the storms were incredibly fierce, and the captain of their ships decided to cut his losses, and dock and sell his cargo in Dalmatia. The PCs therefore set of on the overland trek to Constantinople.
I won't use fiat to that degree, I pregenerate the weather or it came about as result of random complication like with the AiME journey rules.

This was a fairly obvious contrivance to seed some scenarios. The players didn't object.
When it comes to major events, I better not have come up with it on a whim or the players will react negatively out of game. Random naughty word is fine provided the setup of the odds isn't judicious for the setting. A whole session of AiME came about because of some really naughty word up journey results that caught the players flat-footed. I give more details later if desired. None of it was planned and it was all result of random rolls and working past events in the campaign.

I used the first of them....
[The PCs forces are victorious, with some effective leadership by the PC knights.]

Sir Justin failed in a Healing check to save the lives of injured soldiers on his side, and so the forces were slightly depleted, but Sir Gerran gave a speech to the captured Huns explaining the greatness of St Sigobert and the order's cause and made a very successful Oratory roll, with the result that 32 Huns joined the PCs' forces, giving them a highly useful mounted archery capability.
Similar events had happen in my campaign.

I asked the players who would be with the four of them if they were scouting ahead to verify...

I was using the Rattling Forest scenario ...
...The PCs soon found themselves confronted by a knight all in black and wearing a greatsword, with a tattered cape hanging ....
OK except I would have known what in the Rattling Forest in a broad sense and if I was pressed for time adapted some published forest adventure that fits. So it wouldn't be totally pulling something out of my ass.

But lets say I really have don't know. Then I would make a series of random rolls look at the result. Throw out any that doesn't make sense and reroll until I have a set of results that inspired me. Of course if a 1,000 hobbyist used this techniques some of it would abuse it until they get a result that reflected it biases. My criteria is does it make sense in light of the setting and the other rolls. So I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.

The players, and at least some of the PCs, had decided that there must be something in the forest that would be the anchor or locus of the curse, and Twillany's player spend the earlier-awarded Storyteller Certificate to Find Something Hidden ("An item which is lost, hidden, or otherwise concealed is discovered almost by accident by a character. The thing must be relatively close at hand, and the character must be searching for it at the moment.").
Yeah I don't use metagame mechanics. Either their would been a anchor for the curse or not. If there is then it would discoverable. If it was hidden, the discovery process would be difficult.

I hope I illustrated how I would handle things given your situations.

You have -- there's much less agency in your approach. This is fine, it's not a value judgement, but you've clearly stated a few times in this that what the player wants out of a situation is impossible because you, the GM, judge that's not possible. Again, this creates a very clear type of play, and one that is both common and well enjoyed. This is because agency isn't not an independent marker of a fun game. Or rather, it's rarely an independent marker -- I'm looking at you Candyland.

I'll also note that your approach to 5e is highly idiosyncratic. There's no space in the 5e rules for "roll a d20, don't roll a 1." This is very much a table rule. I'd also be very curious to hear what would happen on a failure for any of the rolls you've detailed here.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Let's start with your style. In your style the player would establish 2 things. 1) that he attacks the orc and 2) the outcome on a success. The DM would then establish the outcome on a failure and set the DC. The player would roll and the dice would establish whether the player's outcome or the DM's outcome occurs in the fiction.

Contrast this with D&D. In D&D the player would establish 1 thing. 1) that he attacks the orc. Since this is an attack the combat rules would establish what happens on a success and what happens on a failure. Heck the combat rules even establsh what the DC is going to be set at. The player would roll and the dice would establish which outcome from the rules occurs in the fiction. *If not in combat then similar but different process is applied.

The process steps that generate a fictional outcome can be summed up below:
Success and Failure state outcomes established -> Success and Failure state determined via roll -> Fictional Outcome

The D&D player plays no role in any of these process steps. The player of your game does play a role in the first. Thus, IMO it's fair to say that the player in your style is part of the process for determining the fictional outcome whereas the player in the D&D game is not.

No, the player is still establishing what will happen on a success. This error you're making is that you're only evaluating a part of combat resolution against the whole of the other resolution. When you compensate for the scope, the entire combat through to resolution is equivalent, especially to a system that features success with cost.

And, in combat, the D&D player usually has a lot of agency in establishing the success state, because the combat rules are much tighter and feature resolution outcomes the player can leverage. For example, a Battlemaster fighter can deploy a maneuver where, if successful, the target is knocked prone. The GM may gainsay this, but will need a clear reason why to do so. Success absolutely results in this outcome, and the player has a say in it. They also usually have a say in the resolution via roll step, mostly due to build choices, but also do to any tactical elements of the combat -- like leveraging advantage or choosing to use GWM in the -5/+10 mode, etc, etc. These directly alter the roll mechanics and give agency here. The last is covered in the first -- the outcome in combat is usually pretty tightly constrained in 5e -- the GM has only a little wiggle room without deploying some clear reasons to block.

Finally, you've often mistaken Story Now resolution to be all or nothing -- this isn't necessary, and it's specifically dealt with in Blades. Success requires movement towards the intent, but not necessarily full resolution. In this mode, 5e combat even moves even closer in that it's usually about moving towards your goal of killing the orc on a success, and further or with complication on a failure. Enough successes, and the orc is dead.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So, is there a RPG that isn’t on some level an exercise in collaborative storytelling?

I saw that come up and it was positioned as a goal of some types of games, but not of others. I don’t know if I agree with that.

Perhaps it’s not the main focus or the primary goal of play, but I would think that no matter what, a RPG can be described as collaborative storytelling.

It seems to me a very tenuous distinction.

 

[Fenris-77]

I tend to avoid that particular term as enormously loaded. Not that it isn't broadly accurate, but it tends to cause more arguments than it solves for some reason. IDK, maybe collaborative make-believe?