A Question Of Agency?

[Fenris-77]

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.

There's no connection between the attaining of the certificate and the spending of it. It allows you to influence the outcome of events in a way that has nothing to do with the situation or the character, in situ anyway. IDK, It sounds like a FATE point to me. I'm not trying to tweak your nose here either. Not that it matters I guess.

 

[pemerton]

On story vs character advocacy: as I understand it, the goal of good "story now" design is to ensure that the play of the game in which the player participants advocate for their characters will reliably produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.

In successful designs - I'm thinking BW, PbtA, HeroWars/Quest - this is achieved by managing framing, probabilities and consequences. The biggest variation is probably in how the probabilities are generated (eg contrast PbtA fixed outcome spreads with BW fiction-based difficulties but player-side artha that can ameliorate some but not all of them). But there is also variation in how framing and consequences are handled. Some of that has been discussed in this thread (though quite a way upthread at this point).

 

[pemerton]

There's no connection between the attaining of the certificate and the spending of it. It allows you to influence the outcome of events in a way that has nothing to do with the situation or the character, in situ anyway. IDK, It sounds like a FATE point to me. I'm not trying to tweak your nose here either. Not that it matters I guess.

Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.

But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.

 

[pemerton]

There's all kinds of agreements to not fight with each other, to share similar goals, to avoid acts that harm others, even indirectly. This is an extremely common set of agreements made in party focused games. The system itself reinforces this by framing challenges at the party level rather than the individual level

I think those concessions are necessary (desirable?) to play the game in many (most) cases, but I don't think they are place to serve some extrinsic goal of collaborative storytelling. Those things are all good of course, but collaborative storytelling they ain't.

One of the challenges in my Classic Traveller game has been to (try and) reconcile some serious attention to character with the fact that the PCs all live on the same spaceship and mostly travel around together.

 

[Fenris-77]

Urgh, sorry mate, I'm not willing to grant you the GNS story now Narrativism card here. I really don't think that character advocacy has anything particular to do with the desire to "produce something that is recognisably a story - as in it has rising action, climax, etc.". You can advocate for your character, their interests, and whatever, without having the faintest interest in telling a group story.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well in that case a Battlemaster's dice are a metagame mechanic, as is Action Surge and Second Wind on a 5e fighter. And many if not most other rationed 5e mechanics too.

But I didn't think @estar was counting those as metagame mechanics given he said he doesn't use such mechanics.

I disagree. Those abilities are baked into the character, that's the teleos. The certificate isn't. Granted by the GM for one thing and used for an unrelated task. Take a moment and try to explain to me how it differs manifestly from a FATE point. I'm not saying you can't btw, just that I don't see it.

 

[pemerton]

Exactly. If I"m not advocating for my character, or I cannot do so very well, what am I advocating for?

I suppose there's a null state here? That's depressing.

I think this is a little harsh!

I agree that if the game is AP-style, and character advocacy is being suppressed in order to make the AP work, then we have a sort of default story advocacy, though it might be closer to "advocating by refraining from doing anything else" than any full-throated advocacy of the sort one might expect in a firing-on-all-cylinders Fate group.

But suppose that the game is Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, and the players are having their PCs cooperate to beat the dungeon and escape with (hopefully) some loot - I agree there's no character advocacy but I don't see story advocacy either. I see a type of puzzle-solving. It's like @Manbearcat's multi-dimensional Pictionary model upthread; together with some of the thrill of an escape room.

EDIT: I guess there are some groups who have played Hidden Shrine not as I've just described it, but for the explorative experience of its Meso-American themes etc. That would be story advocacy of a sort, I guess. But I'm not sure Hidden Shrine is the best vehicle for this experience, though it may be the best that some groups know of.

 

[Fenris-77]

One of the challenges in my Classic Traveller game has been to (try and) reconcile some serious attention to character with the fact that the PCs all live on the same spaceship and mostly travel around together.

That's the rub, isn't it. There's a built in conflict between character and group advocacy, and one which is only highlighted by players with strong personalities who like to build idiosyncratic characters.

 

[pemerton]

I disagree. Those abilities are baked into the character, that's the teleos. The certificate isn't. Granted by the GM for one thing and used for an unrelated task. Take a moment and try to explain to me how it differs manifestly from a FATE point. I'm not saying you can't btw, just that I don't see it.

I don't know enough about the varieties of Fate play to know what a Fate point represents, so I don't know if I can comment. If they represent giving it your all and modify dice rolls as a result, then I think they are similar to how I think of artha in Burning Wheel. A Storyteller Certificate in Prince Valiant is not a dice manipulation tool - it allows player fiat in lieu of a check. (From a menu of genre-appropriate options.)

I don't see what difference "baked into the character" makes. What's baked into the Battlemaster character is fighting with cleverness. But the dice are earned on an arbitrary clock (the pool refreshes on a short rest) and can be spent independently of the clock (eg all in one fight; spread out over fights; not spent at all if the player doesn't care to).

The basis for earning a Storyteller Certificate is different from the basis for earning BM combat dice (though one could say that acting with flair and gallantry is baked into a Prince Valiant PC). But neither resource is connected in its accrual and expenditure to any salient change in the fiction. (Contrast, say, a bonus damage die that results from the prior fiction establishing that a strike is a dangerous one - a version of this was the old AD&D rule that any character attacking a non-magically sleeping opponent could use the assassination chart to try for instant death.)

 

[Fenris-77]

Hmm, well I'm no FATE master myself, that's just an easy way to index metacurrency. The key difference, for me, in defining metacurrency, is that it's granted by the GM for actions X and used to influence unrelated actions Y, i.e. it's granting and use escapes the flow of the fiction, hence the use of meta. Anyway, this is an interesting but probably not terribly important bit of subtext to the larger discussion, so I'm not going to push it.

The difference between that and a character feature should, I think, be obvious. The feature is an integral part of the character, it's use is specific and determined before play even begins. That's what I was getting at with the use of 'teleos'. The BM dice aren't any different than his bonus to hit, it's just a more finite character resource. The GM has nothing to do with it.