A Question Of Agency?

[robconley]

I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.

If the primary play loop is centered around:

1) GM looks at card (setting notes).

Saying it looking a card is simplistic but the general gist is correct.

2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).

Unless circumstances are such that their character would know the right answer.

3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.

This step is incorrect
3) The players respond as if they are there as the character.

It very may be they are trying to solve a puzzle but often it not. I have no particular expectation about what the players are trying to do. I present the situation and ask "What do you do?". You wake up from your sleep to screams in the night. You see in the distance about a 100 yards up the road and to the side a campfire with some kind of commotion around it.

When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:

1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year.

Genre exist because of the circumstance incorporated into the narrative. Recreate the circumstances you experience the genre. But unlike a book or movie with tabletop roleplaying you can see what else there by interacting with the setting and its inhabitants. Like who actually lives down the lane from Bag's End.

2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve.

Inexperience and lack of skill as a player or referee can't be fixed by system. Every game requires some level of skill and insight to play. This issue is fixed by the referee developing experience and being receptive to feedback.

However there are elements of tabletop roleplaying that addresses this. It solved by simplifying the situation to make it more manageable for the novice. The most successful of which is the dungeon a type of adventure that easily described and created by a novice. It one of the reason D&D in all editions remains popular. No other genre of RPGs have an adventure format as compact and approach as drawing a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure.

3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs).

So you now complaining that tabletop roleplaying is centered campaigns rather than one-shots. That one-shots are an EVOLUTION a new GENERATION. Something to criticize? Give me a break. There is a reason that campaigns took hold is that because players become invested in their characters. Which was found enjoyable in of itself. Campaign continued to exist because players decade after decade found they that wanted to continue to see where they go and what they can do.

And if time is an issue, there is zero issue in running a one-shot with tabletop roleplaying rendering your criticism moot.

Most of us here have been doing this for 30+ years. I’ve spent 5000 + hours running or watching “trad” games. WAY more than the overwhelming # of GMs on this planet.

Granted I am just some random gamer from rural Northwest Pennsylvania so I guess that a strike against me. I have more experience than some less than many others.

But I think what more telling is what you are arguing. See I am saying all form of roleplaying work. Just in different ways. That agency comes in different flavors and with different focus. That the design of a campaign has both negative consequences and positive consequences including the "3rd generation" RPGs that are continually referred to as achieving the pinnacle of agency.

But that not where you are coming from. See with my 5,000+ hours I learned I have a way but it not THE way. That doesn't appear to the case on your end.

The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.

Yeah except what if they are actually dense and reckless.

How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?

This is has been explained in detail up thread. What explanation are you looking for at this point? The issues of the unexpected likewise has been addressed. And you continue to make inaccurate assertions (solving puzzles) even when it has been explain it otherwise.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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.

Well, I think "Wheaton's Rule" is simply an assumed principle of GMing in all cases (unless you really don't care if the players come back tomorrow, but even then...). AFAIK every edition of D&D has either assumed or outright stated 'Rule 0', even 4e has some statement to the effect that the DM's arbitration is final. NO edition of D&D calls out 'group decision making', certainly not as the assumed default mode, though I think some may suggest it as a 'DM advice' kind of thing. I think some editions also discuss the possibility of separating the roles of 'rules officiating' from 'game running' (I think 4e suggests this possibility, I would be surprised if 5e doesn't discuss some of this sort of thing somewhere either).

Still, no edition of actual genuine D&D brand RPG has ever put anything else ahead of Rule 0, explicitly, as the default assumption.

 

[prabe]

So, I don't claim to run sandboxy stuff, but I'll answer from the POV of running my campaigns.

If the primary play loop is centered around:

1) GM looks at card (setting notes).

I presume this includes session prep. With you so far.

2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).

Starting to drift away a little: I might have AN answer in my head for some things in play, but I don't believe I have THE answer for them. If the players get stuck and/or don't come up with their own solution/s, I'll start pointing them more directly at mine, but that's not best-case.

3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.

I don't think of the situations/scenarios in my game as "puzzles," exactly, but yes: The players/characters attempt to solve the situation. No further drift in agreement.

When this kind of multi-dimensional Pictionary serves as the primary means of action resolution mediation for virtually all arenas of conflict outside of combat, any given instantiation of play is vulnerable to:

1) GM extrapolation of setting collisions with PCs and modeling of events (THIS is the simulation component...and it doesn’t matter whether genre emulation is a part of it or not...in fact that could make things more fraught) will diverge from another GM’s modeling or even from themselves on a different day/year.

The GM's model being different from another's model isn't necessarily a problem. Serious thought and sincere best effort will suffice (given the capability). I think the likelihood of nternal inconsistency can be ... reduced (not eliminated) by taking good notes--I think notes on what happened will suffice; I don't know that notes on mechanics are necessary--and/or by running scenarios that resolve over a relatively few sessions. I think some minor internal inconsistency can be forgiven, but I'm not arguing that it can be a problem.

2) The GM may draw too opaque a picture, rendering it indecipherable to the players attempting the solve.

This possibility seems plausible to me. I know that I think differently from most of the players at my tables, so if I'm doing something that involves dropping clues I need to be careful to take that into account: Something that seems blipping obvious to me might be completely opaque to the other people at the table. Making sure there are multiple opportunities to acquire the clues and making sure the adventure can continue in some form if the players don't acquire them seem like ways to prevent the worst case, here.

3) Cognitive load and the wear and tear of daily life over the course of many weeks will have an impact on the bandwidth of GM and players when a multi-month-spanning series of pictures is being drawn and solved for, leading up to one huge gambit (where all the prior pictures we’re supposed to be inputs).

See my note about shorter scenarios above, though I agree that GMs and players might individually or collectively have bad days.

The number of times things go wrong in a campaign that GMs want to chalk up to “my players are dense and reckless” when it’s actually 1 or more of these 3 things (and the players will tell you so if you ask them in confidence) is legion.

I think the one of these most likely to be apparent to the players during play is what you call "cipher error." I'm not saying the others don't happen and/or don't cause problems, but I think they're maybe too subtle (at least most of the time) to observe from inside the game as it's being played.

And this doesn’t touch on the “interesting situations” question (which I brought up upthread):

How do GMs protect against sterile modeling/extrapolation where nothing unexpected happens when PCs and setting collide? How do you protect against an endless array of deterministic models (particularly when you’re trying to draw pictures that can be inferred by players so the can solve puzzles!)?

I think you're asking two closely-related but different questions, here.

The first reads to me like a scenario-design question/problem. It's not the sandbox answer (as I understand the playstyle; I do not claim to be running sandbox campaigns), but I think the answer here is to create scenarios/situations that will generate friction when the characters meet them.

The second reads to me like a session-running/operation question/problem. If there's not enough friction between the PCs and the situation, then ... I guess the GM is left to adjust the situation, whether by adding elements to try to generate the needed friction or just by having things happen in the absence of interference (or something other than either of those).

 

[FrogReaver]

I think these responses are mostly missing the point of what @AbdulAlhazred and @Campbell are talking about. It gets back to what I was talking about waaaaaaaaaaay up thread.

Now that I'm at the PC instead of on my phone. Let me break down my specific issues for you.

If the primary play loop is centered around:

1) GM looks at card (setting notes).

I'm with you here, but I think it is important to note that no card contains EVERYTHING. That some layer of content even in a sandbox is produced adhoc. Sometimes via mechanical process. Sometimes via principled judgements and in some games even by straight GM fiat (though preferably this is minimal).

2) GM draws picture, attempting to deftly telegraph what is on card based on principled constraints (if you just tell the players the right answer then there can be no skilled play).

The card is just important details about the world. That information does need conveyed to players. Players can't make decisions with no information after all. The part about their being a "right" answer is really bugging me.

3) Players attempt to solve the puzzle.

Puzzle is such a bad word for what is going on. They interact with the world. The world changes. Repeat.

It's like in the real world if you seen smoke coming from your neighbor's house. What do you do? What's the right answer there? Do you ignore it? Do you call the fire dept? Do you run over and try to put out the fire? Is that a puzzle?

 

[Manbearcat]

Saying it looking a card is simplistic but the general gist is correct.

Simple, but not simplistic (it is extremely complex). I'm terrible at being simple and to the point, but the best explanations encompass both of those things. Like you said, the gist is correct, and that is the point here.

Unless circumstances are such that their character would know the right answer.

Which is an aside. An interesting aside (when "would" a character know the right answer...how is that determined), but still an aside.

This step is incorrect
3) The players respond as if they are there as the character.

It is not incorrect. It is exactly what is happening under the hood. You can add the caveat "through the lens of their character" as you like. It doesn't change the fact that the PLAYER is trying to suss out what the relationships and collisions of all of the setting elements are conveying (decipher the picture).

After that solve (or lackthereof) has occurred, some players will proceed to attempt to declare an action declaration that the feel is well-represented by their prior characterizations of their PC. Some will just eschew that and proceed based on their solve (or lackthereof) and subtly map their new characterization of their PC based on that.

It very may be they are trying to solve a puzzle but often it not. I have no particular expectation about what the players are trying to do. I present the situation and ask "What do you do?". You wake up from your sleep to screams in the night. You see in the distance about a 100 yards up the road and to the side a campfire with some kind of commotion around it.

Whether any given GM has an expectation of what the players are going to do isn't salient here. You extrapolate from your setting and perform your cipher duties. They may solve correctly, they may not (as apparently the players in your game that thought they were headed for amicable parley but instead endured the TPK against the Thieves Guild did not).

Genre exist because of the circumstance incorporated into the narrative. Recreate the circumstances you experience the genre. But unlike a book or movie with tabletop roleplaying you can see what else there by interacting with the setting and its inhabitants. Like who actually lives down the lane from Bag's End.

The reason why I brought genre logic up is because this gets folded into "extrapolation and modeling." But when and to what degree is the moving target that becomes a problem if you're a player trying to decipher a picture. "Is this thing going to happen because its a highly inferable naturalistic outgrowth of x + y...or is this other thing going to happen because its the prototype of genre logic application here...or is this third thing going to happen because its some kind of marriage of the two?"

I did a huge thread in the D&D 5e Forums 5 years ago on this trying to get GMs to expose their handling of endgame DCs from a Genre Logic vs/meets Naturalistic Logic perspective. It_was_a_train_wreck. Precisely because of what I'm talking about above. Imagine being the players in those games trying to infer DCs and attendant risk:reward in action declarations?

Inexperience and lack of skill as a player or referee can't be fixed by system. Every game requires some level of skill and insight to play. This issue is fixed by the referee developing experience and being receptive to feedback.

However there are elements of tabletop roleplaying that addresses this. It solved by simplifying the situation to make it more manageable for the novice. The most successful of which is the dungeon a type of adventure that easily described and created by a novice. It one of the reason D&D in all editions remains popular. No other genre of RPGs have an adventure format as compact and approach as drawing a maze with rooms filled with monsters and treasure.

On your 1st sentence, my point is that sometimes lack of skill by the player isn't actually lack of skill. Its referee error or system issue or some combination. On the second two sentences, I couldn't agree more.

On your 2nd paragraph, couldn't agree more. In fact, I would go further. Moldvay Basic is a million times better than Expert because the sandbox of the dungeon is beautifully constrained, the play loop for it elegant and coherent and consistent, and all of this leads to a delving experience that holistically integrates the premise of play with all the resolution machinery. Then Expert tried to port this from the dungeon to the wilderness + city and it became profoundly unwieldy (because one of these things is not like the other...).

Development of hexcrawling and extra-dungeon sandboxing procedures needed a different model.

So you now complaining that tabletop roleplaying is centered campaigns rather than one-shots. That one-shots are an EVOLUTION a new GENERATION. Something to criticize? Give me a break. There is a reason that campaigns took hold is that because players become invested in their characters. Which was found enjoyable in of itself. Campaign continued to exist because players decade after decade found they that wanted to continue to see where they go and what they can do.

And if time is an issue, there is zero issue in running a one-shot with tabletop roleplaying rendering your criticism moot.

I have...no idea why you made this leap. I was talking about the 3 failure points inherent to style of play. Given that I've run a bajillion campaigns in my life, it would be odd of me to denigrate them. So I'm just going to move on to the next one as I don't know what happened here!

Granted I am just some random gamer from rural Northwest Pennsylvania so I guess that a strike against me. I have more experience than some less than many others.

We're all just random gamers with more experience than some and less than others.

But I think what more telling is what you are arguing. See I am saying all form of roleplaying work. Just in different ways. That agency comes in different flavors and with different focus. That the design of a campaign has both negative consequences and positive consequences including the "3rd generation" RPGs that are continually referred to as achieving the pinnacle of agency.

But that not where you are coming from. See with my 5,000+ hours I learned I have a way but it not THE way. That doesn't appear to the case on your end.

Well that escalated quickly!

So let me get this straight. You think all the words I've put in this thread (you can go back and look them up...there is a lot!) and this latest post, which merely attempts to clarify what two posters were trying to get at when they were referring to their issues with "simulation"...is somehow a personal attack on you? Or some kind of hubris by me? Some kind of declaration by me that one of the primary ways (probably the majority) I've gamed is crap?

Is that it?

If it is, I feel like we're having a disconnect that proves my Pictionary analogy correct!

Yeah except what if they are actually dense and reckless.

It can happen.

But what I see on this messageboard at large (and in the wild) are GMs with borderline contempt for their players when this happens. That isn't the lens I would tell new GMs (certainly not what I would project on a messageboard for players as aspiring GMs) to look through when evaluating why/how something went wrong. GMs, in my opinion, need a hell of a lot less hubris, a hell of a lot more self-awareness, a hell of a lot more accountability, and more willingness to consider offloading some of their cognitive workload onto system or onto players.

This is has been explained in detail up thread. What explanation are you looking for at this point? The issues of the unexpected likewise has been addressed. And you continue to make inaccurate assertions (solving puzzles) even when it has been explain it otherwise.

I've been participating in this thread since the beginning and I've put a staggering amount of word count into my contributions (you can put that word in quotations if you'd like).

I've given up on reading most posts for about the last 2 weeks because its gone down rabbit holes I'm not interested in and I'm getting general ENWorld fatigue. So you'll have to forgive me for being the big jerk with all of these continued inaccurate assertions who has missed what you're talking about.

I discussed this at length upthread with @Lanefan (and maybe @prabe ?). Whomever I discussed it with admitted this is the trickiest pickle of all:

How does a GM present a model that is inferable (deterministic for our purposes here) while simultaneously injecting sufficient dynamism into the system to keep things interesting and non-sterile (stochastic for our purposes here).

Lets go back to your TPK with the Thieves Guild. If you re-instantiated that 1000 times, would you have had it go down like that every single time? What might you have changed and why?

 

[Lanefan]

I don't see how the fact that there are ways to respond to a brother being dead changes my point.

Your approach seems to be that the brother being dead ends the search. Mine is that the brother being dead is merely one more obstacle - albeit a big one - in the way of completing said search; and if he thinks he can hide from me simply by being dead he's got another think coming.

 

[Lanefan]

So I think the timing of scenario design is not all that important. If the GM is coming up with the forest now or 10 months ago does not matter to me. What matters to me is the thought process behind it. What are they prioritizing? Are they trying to create a challenge? Are they framing something that provokes action? Are they trying to create something that should be interesting to explore? Are they guided by what they think will make the best story?

Sorry, mate, but if you're thinking through that sequence every time a GM puts a forest in front of you you're taking this all way too seriously!

 

[Lanefan]

It can happen.

But what I see on this messageboard at large (and in the wild) are GMs with borderline contempt for their players when this happens.

If by that you mean I laugh at what they've done, you're right. But odds are high they're laughing too, and all is good.

Dense and reckless players are the most entertaining kind of players, and as I play the game for entertainment, why would I ever complain about them?

I discussed this at length upthread with @Lanefan (and maybe @prabe ?). Whomever I discussed it with admitted this is the trickiest pickle of all:

How does a GM present a model that is inferable (deterministic for our purposes here) while simultaneously injecting sufficient dynamism into the system to keep things interesting and non-sterile (stochastic for our purposes here).

Hmmm - I don't think that was me; or if it was, I've completely forgotten the discussion.

 

[aramis erak]

@Fenris-77

I went back to Ron Edwards on "metagame mechanics":

Metagame mechanics, by definition, entail the interjection of real-people priorities into the system-operation. . . .​

​

To clarify for purposes of the essay, compare the following: (1) an in-game essence or metaphysical effect called "Karma," which represents the character's moral status in that game-universe according to (e.g.) a god or principle in that game-world; (2) a score on the sheet which has literally nothing to do with the character's in-game identity, also called "Karma," recognized and applied by the real people with no in-game entity used to justify it. In both systems, Karma is a point-score which goes up and down, and which can be brought into play as, say, a bonus to one's dice roll. But I'd say that #1 is not metagame at all, and #2 is wholly metagame.​

​

Mechanically, how do they differ? One thing to consider is how the score goes up and down - by player-use, or by in-game effects? Another is whether the score is integrated with the reward/improvement system - does spending a Karma reduce one's bank of improvement points? In fact, is Karma a spent resource at all? Still another issue is whether in-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify its use. No one of these indicators is hard-and-fast, however; one must consider them all at once, and how they relate to Simulationism (and non-Simulationism) is a fascinating issue. At this point I tend to think that the main issue, basically, is who is considered to "spend" them - character or player.​

Looking at Storyteller Certificates in this light:

(1) The resource goes up by GM response to in-game effects, and goes down by player use;​

​

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​

​

(3) In-game effects must be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use (see the example of play upthread, where the PCs find something hidden because they are looking for it);​

​

(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​

Looking at Battlemaster dice in the same light:

(1) The resource goes up by in-game effects (ie short rest) and goes down by player use;​

​

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​

​

(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;​

​

(4) I think it is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​

That (4) might be controversial - how I've presented is consistent with the overwhelming weight of 4e D&D commentary, but I don't know if 5e has changed people's minds. Looking at the others, the (1) for manoeuvre dice is less metagame than for Storyteller Certificates, but the (3) is moreso.

This is why I think they rise and fall together.

For completeness, MHRP Plot points:

(1) The resource goes up and down by player use or GM decision-making but with no reference to ingame effects;​

​

(2) The resource is not integrated with the reward/improvement system;​

​

(3) No in-game effects need be in place, or inserted into place, to justify their use;​

​

(4) It is the player, not the character, who spends the resource.​

These clearly are metagame.

Agreed; that said, they're not a major distraction in play, unlike some metagame. I'll quibble a bit on MHRP point 1... many times, it is referenced to ingame effects,
If it's for a new asset, that absolutely must affect the narrative side as well as the game state.
If it's to use an extra rolled ___ above the free 1 per type, again, one is required to have enabling narrative.
If it's to keep an extra success die, it's not needing narrative linkage.
if it's to keep a second effect die for a single target, the post-roll narrative should be adjusted.
If it's to keep a second effect die for a second effect, that must link to the abilities used in the attempt, which should be narrated as a second action.
If it is to trigger special abilities linked to the power, that should be narrated as well.

Example: Spidey vs Green Goblin:
Spidey sees GG while patrolling, and wants to swing in, web, and then land into with his feet for an attack...
That requires 2 effect dice on the web powerset - so ...
Solo d8, Neighborhood Hero d8 (because patrolling), Spider-Powers: Superhuman Strength (for the punch) d10, Web: Swingline d8 (because swinging), web: weapon d8 (because pinning GG to the wall)[1pp for the second web set ability], Acrobat master d10 (to swing in in the right angle), combat master d8 (because both ranged and non-ranged attack) [1pp for second specialty]... and when the roll is said and done, if spidey wins the opposed roll, the first is the web, imposing the effect die as a complication, then a PP for the second effect die to actually hit, costing a PP... if Spidey's player doesn't spend #3 (maybe because they spent it to win the roll), then the web hits but the kick doesn't
Only one doesn't need direct linkage: the extra die kept to hit, if needed.

 

[aramis erak]

Well, I think "Wheaton's Rule" is simply an assumed principle of GMing in all cases (unless you really don't care if the players come back tomorrow, but even then...). AFAIK every edition of D&D has either assumed or outright stated 'Rule 0', even 4e has some statement to the effect that the DM's arbitration is final. NO edition of D&D calls out 'group decision making', certainly not as the assumed default mode, though I think some may suggest it as a 'DM advice' kind of thing. I think some editions also discuss the possibility of separating the roles of 'rules officiating' from 'game running' (I think 4e suggests this possibility, I would be surprised if 5e doesn't discuss some of this sort of thing somewhere either).

Still, no edition of actual genuine D&D brand RPG has ever put anything else ahead of Rule 0, explicitly, as the default assumption.

Note that several of us in the discussion don't routinely play the D&D (nor OSR knockoffs thereof) lines.
Many of the metacurrency using games (BW, HotBlooded, Fate, 2d20, Cortex Classic, Cortex Plus/Prime) explicitly don't give the GM that kind of free-reign. D&D may be 2/3 of the market, but the market is changing; mid-range companies are getting audience growth faster than D&D is... the buying public is bigger now than 2 years ago, and 2ya more than 4 ya... I've not quibbled about D&D using Gygax's Rule 0... But many other games explicitly don't use it.