A Question Of Agency?

[Bedrockgames]

For the purposes of this thread I think what is important is the player facing side, or the output side of the things we're talking about. Pure GM organization isn't really that novel, nor does it bear on agency in and of itself. Social and faction interactions can be complex to run and can be baffling for players who don't have those GM notes to fall back on, even if their character would know at least some of the details in question.

So how do our various techinques, tools, and mechanics impact the decision making processes of our players? Do they make players more capable of formulating a plan without constant GM help, more knowledable about the setting and how it works, more able to bring thier character mechanics to bear on problem solving, or less?

Again, I think we come at this very much from a different perspective, so if your starting point for agency is it requires player facing techniques or mechanics, then this approach isn't going to work for you. For us, this allows us to engage with the specifics of what is going on in a way that feels right to us. None of us would claim it is novel (though you do see the occasional novel technique crop up from time to time). Our focus is on what works, and for a large number of people engaged in the style it works. Clearly though there are people who have difficulty with this approach (such as the players you mention who are baffled by the social interaction and faction component). I think that is why having alternative approaches is good. But I am not convinced that player facing stuff produces more agency. I just think the agency debate is at a bit of an impasse.

One thing I will say here, is most of how players become aware of the sects and people in the jianghu, is through interacting with the setting, talking to NPCs, and through things like knowledge rolls (we have a Sect knowledge mechanic, a places knowledge mechanic, etc). But mostly, the longer players exist in the setting, the more familiar they become with it, and the more organically this stuff arises (i.e. a player who is head of a sect or part of a sect and been playing in the campaign for a year, will know all the major players). This works especially well if the players start out as nobodies, who know no one, and are rising up in the martial world.

 

[Fenris-77]

I've seen dungeons drawn as flowcharts, it works fine, even if it isn't much on aesthetics. The more complicated the physical layout the less optimal the flowchart is, naturally.

 

[Fenris-77]

@Bedrockgames The more complex the faction set, and the more intricate their various entanglements, the less likely it is that a player is going to successfully keep all that info stored in his head and be able to access it later when it might become important.

I'm not mandating for bespoke mechanics here at all. What I am interested in is how these various ways of doing things affect our players, and the extent to which any of us even consider that when we're designing adventures and campaigns. So how does your way if running factions impact your players? What knobs and dials do they have to access information and act on it? That sort of thing.

I notice you talk about players starting off as nobodies. That does allow for some organic growth in player setting knowledge. What would you do differently if the starting characters were supposed to be knowledgable about the setting and its factions, but this was not reflected by matching player knowledge?

 

[pemerton]

So if the goals might be to accrue wealth and magic relics (a pretty classic motivation) then that likely means that there is treasure to be had, right? Which implies a geographical map with locations that may offer treasure of some sort.

So, again to kind of view this is a flowchart.....there's likely a home base town as the starting point, with a few options for potential treasure hunting as other boxes in the flowchart. Things like "the ruined temple" and "the cave of the lizardfolk" and "the dungeon of lunacy" and so on.

Now, these boxes need not be set ahead of time, but I'm kind of assuming that's the case based on what folks have been saying about the sandbox style. They could just as easily be generated procedurally through random charts and the like. They could just as easily be crafted according to actions declared by the players. There are multiple ways to do it, but let's go with "GM creates the setting prior to the start of play".

I just want to start with this.

As I've posted, at the start of the BW game where I'm a player Thurgon's sidekick Aramina had the Belief I'm not going to finish my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse! That's an example of your goal of accruing wealth and magic relics.

The geographical map we were working with was the GH map. The GM started the action on the Ulek/Pomarj border, on the south/west side of the Jewel River. Established on that map are various forts and the like - we agreed that these were the old border forts. Thurgon and Aramina were travelling along that frontier on a hazily-defined mission (hazy at the table; not necessarily hazy in the fiction, but the details didn't matter at that point) among those abandoned forts and ruined homesteads. Pretty classic/traditional stuff.

The problem of locations that may offer treasure of some sort was resolved via the Great Masters-wise check I've mentioned upthread, whereby Aramina remembered (in general terms) the nearby location of Evard's tower.

This is an example of your crafted according to actions declared by the players. At this point, and especially after the discussions of my Prince Valiant example where it was the players who introduced (by way of assumption, not assertion) the fact that the ghosts were Celts, I'm less clear than ever on what the boundaries of "sandbox" are and why this doesn't count.

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames The more complex the faction set, and the more intricate their various entanglements, the less likely it is that a player is going to successfully keep all that info stored in his head and be able to access it later when it might become important.

My players are pretty good at remembering this stuff (sometimes better than me to be honest). But usually this is managed by them taking notes. I am also happy to repeat information if they need it. In practice this hasn't really been a problem when I've run campaigns like this. Honestly the biggest problem isn't on the player side at all, the biggest problem is on the GM side and tracking all the little things the players do, all the little operations they have going on, all the resources they are amassing, that is where I've run into much bigger issues (and the solution there is keep very good notes and track everything consistently).

 

[Lanefan]

You don’t sit down to a new campaign, having built this fictional world for the players, with any kind of expectations?

In terms of generalities i.e. that adventuring will be done, magic will be cast, and fun will be had: yes.

In terms of specifics, I've learned to temper any expectations with a huge grain of salt, as I've no way of knowing what my players or their PCs are going to do after the first adventure (which I usually kinda force somehow just to get them started).

As an example: over all my playing and DMing career I had somehow managed to avoid touching Keep on the Borderlands either as player or DM, and so for this campaign my take was "Dammit - I'm starting with KotB come what may!". The players were cool with this - three of them had also never touched it and the fourth played it about 25 years prior and had forgotten nearly all of it - and so that was the game's first adventure. After that it became much more open-ended; even more so as the party split in two and I started running twice a week at that point.

I mean, that can’t be true. What guides you when you craft the fictional world? You have to be thinking “oh this would be a cool place for them to go” or “I’m interested to see how they might deal with this guy”.

To some extent. What guides me more is making sure things like geograpical features make sense (or have an in-fiction rationale if they don't), that the history is halfway cohesive, and that I've left enough blanks both in history and geography to allow for later developments (or later ideas!) to fill them in.

And sure, there's an element of "wouldn't it be cool if...", but there's also an element of "if they ever want to go this way, how are they going to get over/under/through that mountain range...". As for important NPCs, I create some ahead of time in full knowledge that the players/PCs might never engage with them, or that said engagement might be one-and-done if-when it happens. Many of the NPCs that turned out to be important were created almost on the fly during play at the time, and expanded upon since.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I'm not mandating for bespoke mechanics here at all. What I am interested in is how these various ways of doing things affect our players, and the extent to which any of us even consider that when we're designing adventures and campaigns. So how does your way if running factions impact your players? What knobs and dials do they have to access information and act on it? That sort of thing.

I notice you talk about players starting off as nobodies. That does allow for some organic growth in player setting knowledge. What would you do differently if the starting characters were supposed to be knowledgable about the setting and its factions, but this was not reflected by matching player knowledge?

Again, I think there is a difference in how we conceptualize things. I don't think in terms of knobs and dials. I think of the setting first. The player may ask me a question for instance (what are the sects in the region and what do I know about them), and I may give an answer based on a mechanic, or I may simply provide the information if there is an in setting reason that character ought to know those things. It very much always starts with what is happening, what is going on with the setting, how would the PC have access to this information, and working from there. This is not an attempt to side step the question, it is just my approach is very fluid, and I think very much in terms of the setting, then loosely applying the mechanics as needed. Another thing I do use is information networks. This is not a formal part of the rules but it is something I often do because players have so often organically formed some kind of information network in the setting. Basically I assign an information network a dice pool of 0d10 to 6d10. The players roll that pool against the target number for information when using their information network.

If the players are supposed to start with knowledge of sects, and they don't have it. I would probably give them a handout breaking down what they know of the various sects. I haven't run too many sessions like that though. Usually they start at level 1 and work their way up (and if they make a higher level character later on, they've already been playing in the campaign for a bit so they have that info in their head).

Also, just as a technical answer to this question, the rulebook for WHOG is divided into player chapters (which the GM obviously reads too) and GM chapters. Chapter Six (the sect chapter) is the last player chapter before the GM chapters start. So the players can read the sect entries in the rulebook if they want to. The NPCs, the setting entries, monsters, etc are all in the later GM chapters.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Their characterization of their character?

How so? Think of a player and their character. How did their characterization shape that character's goals? What did you as GM do to either facilitate those goals or to challenge those goals?

In a sandbox, I convey important world information to them.

How do you do this? through straight narration? Through NPCs? Do the players have to have their characters interact with the right people/objects/locations to learn this information?

I place interesting situations in front of them.

Like what? I'm looking for examples. What do you think may be interesting? How do you decide that? Is it based on the players and you knowing their tastes? Is it more broad than that? Is it more specific?

That may be their goal right now. But they may change goals anytime. It's not enough to just put a map out there with treasures and treasure locations in this style.

Yes, of course. I'm not saying this is the only goal or best goal or anything like that. Just that it may be a goal, and if it is, then locations for treasure are going to be something that the GM needs to bring to the table. Right?

A map is important as some sense of where places and people are can be important - especially when the players are up against a clock as the physical distances between these places often limit what can be done quickly enough.

Maybe. My point is that the map is more of an illusion in a sense.

Nothing. I tell them about the world and the people and places in it.

That's not nothing!

My question is how do you do this? I'm not looking for vague descriptions like "I share details with them" or "It's a living world" or any of that. I'm more asking "A bog witch named Yargessa knows the location of the lost tomb, so they must seek her out, but she can only be found in the swamp" or "Performing research in the great library requires a check; for every 5 points of the total roll, the PC learns one fact from table R."

 

[hawkeyefan]

Not really. The campaign is the entire region. The sect war was a module intended to demonstrate what a sect war looks like. Usually I try to avoid creating an angle for the campaign and instead see what the PCs are interested in doing.

How do you find out what they're interested in doing? Are they familiar with the setting to the point that they can set their own agenda?

Or do you share information with them in some way? If so, how do you share it? Through the characters? Through narration? Do you ask the players what their characters goals may be and then craft elements of the fiction accordingly?

I'm trying to move away from the vague language and into some specific examples.

 

[hawkeyefan]

For the purposes of this thread I think what is important is the player facing side, or the output side of the things we're talking about. Pure GM organization isn't really that novel, nor does it bear on agency in and of itself. Social and faction interactions can be complex to run and can be baffling for players who don't have those GM notes to fall back on, even if their character would know at least some of the details in question.

So how do our various techinques, tools, and mechanics impact the decision making processes of our players? Do they make players more capable of formulating a plan without constant GM help, more knowledable about the setting and how it works, more able to bring thier character mechanics to bear on problem solving, or less?

Right, this is what I'm getting at. I thought the visualization of the flowchart might help, but that only confused the matter more!