A Question Of Agency?

[Ovinomancer]

exactly!

My character isn't me, and doesn't have a 0 in persuasion. However, I accept your implied apology for accidentally insulting me. We can move on.

 

[pemerton]

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?

Posting this yet again in this thread:

Roleplaying is negotiated imagination. . . .

Mechanics might model the stuff of the game world, that's another topic, but they don't exist to do so. They exist to ease and constrain real-world social negotiation between the players at the table. That's their sole and crucial function.​

We don't need to reinvent all this stuff from scratch in this thread.

 

[Ovinomancer]

@Ovinomancer - I agree with everything you're saying except your use of the word story. Advocating for group goals over your own is part of a collaborative endeavor. I just don't think a desire for story is the right word to describe it. I'm sure it is in some cases of course, just not as a broadly descriptive term. People are playing a collaborative game, not telling a collaborative story.

Sure, disagreement is fine! I'm choosing to use story because the two things result in different kinds of story being told. I may not be advocating for a specific scene or phrase or plot in a story, but I am definitely advocating for a specific kind of story.

 

[prabe]

Again, I think if you carefully look at this, it's because the players have chosen to play characters that fit party play. As I said before, this is a challenge to tease out because the motivations are deeply ingrained and are largely invisible because that's just how you play.

That's plausible. There's also a lot to your contention (which I'm not disagreeing with, to be clear) that 5E is pretty specifically built for party play (what @Fenris-77 was calling "collaborative play" I think). That doesn't mean there's no room for individual characters or their motivations/goals, but unless you want the party split all the time, they're probably only going to pursue one goal at a time--sometimes that might be a given character's goal, sometimes it might be a party goal, sometimes it might be a situational goal the DM has framed into the fiction.

Look at what you consider if making a character for D&D versus what you might consider in making a character for AW -- the goals and aspects of character are very different. This also usually shows up in the "no evil" or "no CN" rules for tables -- the idea is to not introduce character concepts that fight against party play. Interestingly, the game I was speaking of that featured a lot of story advocacy on my part? I was playing a very selfish and evil character. This was, in fact, a large part of the reason for the story advocacy -- I had to subsume these strong aspects of character to other concerns, which were rationalized as an unwavering loyalty to another character and a general avoidance of screwing over crewmates. Often. Well, when you could be caught. Look, they'll get over it, really. Alright, fine, it's a bad idea, but this is the reason we're still poor!

I've played (or tried to play) characters that didn't fit in well with what the rest of the table wanted to do, and it's a challenge. I think I'd be in that position with AW, for a lot of reasons. Like, I think I'd probably take a pass on it rather than screw up the game for everyone else at the table.

 

[Fenris-77]

Sure, disagreement is fine! I'm choosing to use story because the two things result in different kinds of story being told. I may not be advocating for a specific scene or phrase or plot in a story, but I am definitely advocating for a specific kind of story.

If we stick with the notion that this is a game, and replace the word story there with the phrase play experience would it significantly change your meaning? We aren't, I don't think, actually disagreeing about much here, I'm just trying to avoid the use of the word story, for a bunch of useful (to me) definitional reasons.

 

[pemerton]

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 in AW the constraint is "once is all you get". In your approach the constraint is the GM's sense of how much time there is available.

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'm not sure how you define major events. But I infer from this that you are OK with GM authoring of maps - topography etc - but not GM authoring of weather.

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.

I'm not sure what the point is that you're making here. I had a set-up from the Prince Valiant episodes book that I wanted to use. It happens in a forest. So I framed the PCs into a forest - I think there were and maybe still are forests in Dacia/Transylvania/Romania.

I still get the randomness to help minimize by own bias but also a result that useable in the context of that session.

What do you see as important about randomising an encounter rather than choosing it?

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.

A storyteller certificate isn't a metagame mechanic. It's an auto-success on an appropriate action - in this case, finding something. I as GM allowed that there was something to find - following the players' lead in that respect - and narrated it.

 

[Fenris-77]

@pemerton - honest question here, how is that not an example of a metagame mechanic?

 

[pemerton]

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.

Doesn't the D&D player decide which Orc to attack, which weapon to use, whether or not to use a special ability (eg power attack or similar; backstab if that is limited to once per turn; Battlemaster dice; a magical item ability that works on charges; etc), etc?

Doesn't the player also decide whether to attack to cause damage, to attack to disarm, to attack to grapple, whether or not to kill if the Orc is dropped to zero hp, etc?

I don't get why you're dropping all these decision points out of your account of D&D combat.

 

[pemerton]

You keep saying this, yet you leave out the one word you seem to be assuming (which I've taken the liberty of plugging in).

Sure the PC can learn the brother is dead, but if the PC is persistent and-or stubborn enough that's not the end of things. I mean, any of the following are possible and this is just an off-the-cuff list:

--- if such magic exists in the setting, something like Speak With Dead can be used to communicate with the brother, albeit briefly
--- if revival magic exists in the setting the PC can get the brother brought back to life
--- the PC can do whatever is needed to somehow journey to the land of the dead and find the brother there (and possibly generate several good adventures on the way in so doing!).

I don't see how the fact that there are ways to respond to a brother being dead changes my point. Especially as your three dot points rest on premises that may not be true in any given RPG. (Eg they're not true in Prince Valiant. They may or may not be true in any given Burning Wheel game, depending on the campaign details.)

 

[pemerton]

@pemerton - honest question here, how is that not an example of a metagame mechanic?

How is "auto-success" a metagame mechanic? In that case every spell in D&D is a metagame mechanic, given that they are always successfully cast (eg no misspeakings, magical vortices that muck them up, fumbling with the components pouch, etc).

I thought a metagame mechanic is something that generates a change in the fiction, or perhaps the resolution process, that doesn't correspond to anything the PC does. When a player in Prince Valiant spends a storyteller certificate, his/her PC is doing something - in that example, is looking for something.