A Question Of Agency?

[FrogReaver]

This is the point where I'm curious to know what the deep contrast is between the following three processes:

(1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;​

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(2) The GM makes something up and narrates a situation (eg street bullies) that the player can have his/her PC engage with;​

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(3) The player decides that there is something s/he wants his/her PC to encounter - that is consistent with established fiction, genre, etc - and makes a check to establish his/her recollection/knowledge of that thing.​

Obviously there are technical differences. But there is also a lot of overlap: (2) and (3) both require a degree of spontaneity on the part of GM; (1) and (3) both require a check. I'm missing the fundamental cleavage between (3) and the others.

On (3)
1. Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world. You don't have a problem with that, but we do. Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
2. Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction. The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet. Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.
3. Besides, what is consistency? When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added? And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.
4. The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.
5. What happens on the failed check? Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc? Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.


The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No, I don't. Obviously miscommunication can happen, but that is a known possibility to the players in such a game. And we try to get things clear.

One thing I do is I don't narrate with a heavy hand. I usually just give the players a short sentence or two description, I don't conceal details for autmospheric effect. I choose one or two key words to emphasize things. But I am not the kind of GM to get into deep detail of a scene unless that details seems significant. And the players are free to ask for further details (which I always think of as reflecting them moving their eyes towards things). But this concern is pretty low on our list of priorities

I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.

What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction.

When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so.

I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think.

I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly.

So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.

If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly.

I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor.

Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?

 

[FrogReaver]

I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.

What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction.

When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so.

I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think.

I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly.

So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.

If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly.

I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor.

Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?

I get that, But there's a tradeoff right? It's not like putting things player facing doesn't alter the game experience. You've mentioned the pros of player facing mechanics but no cons. I'm interested in what the cons are before evaluating.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I get that, But there's a tradeoff right? It's not like putting things player facing doesn't alter the game experience. You've mentioned the pros of player facing mechanics but no cons. I'm interested in what the cons are before evaluating.

Well what would you say the cons might be?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I wasn’t talking about miscommunication in like establishing a scene. Although that can of course happen from time to time, I think it’s pretty common for any game, and every GM will have it come up from time to time, and will have their way of addressing it.

What I’m talking about is the GM erring in conveying less specific factual information about the world. Perhaps something like the level of danger posed by a specific NPC or faction.

When everything the players know about that NPC or faction is filtered through the GM, if that knowledge is incomplete in some way and it winds up costing the players, then it seems a failing on the GM’s part, no? Or at the very least, it is potentially so.

I think the question then becomes “did the GM fail to clearly convey the info or did the players fail to understand it?” And that’s a tricky question to answer, I think.

I’ve found that a GM being explicit can help, of course. And once you realize that, I think the idea of making at least some of this stuff player facing becomes more appealing...or perhaps less irksome(?)...because it does the job clearly and openly.

So something like a Faction rank to convey their overall power, resources, influence, etc. And maybe a Faction Standing, indicating where the PCs stand in this faction’s eyes, and vice versa. Those are just a couple of examples.

If you put at least some of this information in front of the players in a measurable or specific way, then their understanding is more concrete. They are no longer relying solely on the GM’s ability to convey every fictional aspect of a faction and the dynamics of the PCs’ relationship to that faction and the possible fallout should the relationship go poorly.

I hope I’ve clarified. As @pemerton mentioned, this is very much related to @Manbearcat ’s 3d pictionary metaphor.

Is this a concern for you as a GM in an approach that leans so heavily on your ability to communicate such a large amount of information and detail to your players?

One feature of a wuxia campaign is you won't always know what power level someone is when you confront them. That shouldn't be 100% transparent. Same with organizations (if a player is running a sect, he should have to rely on his information network and other tidbits, when it comes to assessing whether it would be wise to attack their headquarters).

I have to say this isn't a big concern. It is something I pay attention to, and I carefully answer questions players ask. But we understand they, just like their characters, could misunderstand a threat. Generally though I try to give them whatever information their character would reasonably have. And if things went extremely off the rails, like I forgot to mention a crucial detail, the player proceeds with something like a plan to attack a QI rank 8 character when he is only Qi rank 2, and that detail would have altered his choice to attack I have no problem we can undo that last action if this piece of information would have made a difference to you. I think that has happened a couple of times. But generally it hasn't been a big issue. The players know I am just there to fairly run things, they get that is a balance one needs to strike (I am definitely not playing it as a fan of the players or as their enemy). So they tend to be very even handed in their reactions to rulings (especially when I am willing to undo them if they are bonkers). And the same applies to descriptions.

Now in terms of faction rank, that really depends on what the character knows. A character might have access to that info, but if they don't they wouldn't' know it. And not all organizations are ranked in extreme granularity. For instance most sects tend to have junior disciples, senior disciples, sub chiefs and a head chief. There may be one or two additional ranks mixed in (for example there might be a right vanguard and left vanguard, or a third disciple tier), but mostly that is the pattern. Some are organized in more specialized ways though. The 87 killers is literally made up of 87 ranked members, plus associates (think of it a little like the mafia with made members who are ranked). The closer you are to rank 87, generally speaking, the more powerful and important you are. And in my Lady Eighty Seven campaign, because the players were part of that organization, they either knew that going in, or learned it at the time they were inducted (there are a finite number of ranks so you have to wait for people to die to enter them). If we started the game with them as ranked members, they would just have that info. If they started as associates, then they could learn that through a knowledge skill or someone in the organization would tell them (probably close to or at the time of their induction like I said).

Definitely, failure of the GM to convey information is a possibility in this style campaign. I think it isn't the enormous risk though you paint it to be, and I think it is manageable. It really hasn't been that much of an issue at all for us. My players will freely complain about things that bother them in a game and this is one area I just don't get any negative reaction on (like I said before I am much more likely to get in trouble with my players for forgetting a crucial action they started ages ago----i.e. whatever happened to that spy I sent to the Golden Dragons?). For me in play, pretty much most of the things you are talking about haven't been a problem. Doesn't mean they can't be. But they haven't been in my play experience. That said there are definitely areas where problems can arise (failing to take good notes in this kind of campaign, especially if you have my memory, is huge). Another area is failing to provide players mechanics that they are entitled to. For example in this system they can invent their own martial arts if they put in the time. I've found that is a place where you really need to get clear information from the player exactly what kind of martial art technique they want, even down to potential mechanics, and you need to work hard to both make a technique that fits what they are going for, reflects the rolls they got developing it, etc. That is one of the more thorny parts of my wuxia campaigns, because it allows for power disparities between techniques. Finding ways to decide if a player can exceed the power bubble with a particular technique (and in what ways it might do that) is not an easy ruling to make. There are definitely places where making rulings are hard. But the goal with that is enabling the players to really live in a fictional setting in ways characters from books do. Obviously a more player facing approach can work. But this approach works too if the GM is serious about the art of rulings (at least in my experience).

 

[Fenris-77]

One con that has been brought up a couple of times has to do with the sliding scale between mystery and discovery on the one hand and player setting input on the other. So there's that sort of thing. When it comes to lightly mechanized stiff like favours and influence I don't think there's huge downside overall.

One that does come up though, is if the mechanics you use are overly rigid and over-defined it can suck a lot of the creativity out of things. In the case of my versions of that I try to use a light hand when it comes to defining what, say, a minor favour is. I want to leave room for improvisation from the players, and also some room for me as the GM to factor in contextual stuff without contradicting the mechanics. I want guides to things like favors and influence, not rules.

Another potential pitfall that can hamper an effort to hack other systems into an existing game is that sometimes you end up with a bit of an unholy mess of different mechanics that are poorly integrated into the existing game, and different enough from each other that the players have more than I'd like to juggle when comes to remembering how everything works. This also applies similarly to games that simply have too many friggin' subsytems period, regardless of whether they're native or imported. I try to keep additional mechanics and subsystems for the key actions and bits that are the core of the desired emulation.

None of the above are insoluble of course, but they do need to be addressed when they appear.

 

[prabe]

Well what would you say the cons might be?

I'd feel more comfortable hearing what cons, if any, people who play more player-facing games, more often than I do, have to say about it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

(1) The player makes a Survival (Urban) check and succeeds, obliging the GM to provide some information that the GM has prepared in advance;​

​

Just for clarity this is Survival (Cities) in the game. Same basic thing but just wanted to clarify the terms.

A good example maybe would be this city, in the War of Swarming Beggars. The map is probably a good example because I hand wave many of the of details (I just never needed to flesh out all of it for my purposes). But this is what a city might look like in my notes:

THE CITY OF DEE

 

[Bedrockgames]

On (3)
1. Frame it however you want but it can also be truthfully framed as the player attempting to add some setting or faction detail to the world. You don't have a problem with that, but we do. Gating the success for an act like this behind a die roll doesn't change what's going on.
2. Given how the game works the player isn't privy to all the established fiction. The DM may very well have established things in the fiction that haven't been revealed yet. Essentially making it impossible for the player to stay consistent with established fiction.
3. Besides, what is consistency? When additional details can change the entire meaning of situations, motivations, etc - is it enough to simply not violate a mathematical truth table (overwrite specific fictional details) - or does consistency demand that the meaning of situations and motivations, etc need to also remain unchanged even when new details are added? And if so, then we are back to the player not having the knowledge to be able to ensure he does this.
4. The DM and player may have somewhat different expectations for agreed upon genre.
5. What happens on the failed check? Does that mean that such a thing doesn't exist at all, that it exists but not at the location the PC remembered, that it exists exactly where the player wanted but there's some complication around it, etc? Contrast with failure on checks 1 and 2 where existence of such things are never in question - only whether the player finds such things.


The difference in your 1 and 2 vs 3 is so vast and obvious I don't understand why you keep asking this kind of question.

Also it is probably worth noting, how I handle encounters may rub some sandbox players the wrong way. Me and the co-designer of my game settled on using the Survival skill against a TN set by the terrain (if it is a really dangerous city the TN might be 9 for example rather than 6). This means you roll, and if you fail, an encounter is rolled on the table (and the table doesn't have blank spaces, so if you fail an encounter will happen). So technically this system assumes the encounter is present whether you roll or not. And that could be a problem for some people in this style (it was something we felt we could hand wave, but we understood the potential concern). However this also meant, technically, if I wanted to, I could always roll on the encounter table (because the encounter is there, the survival roll just means they get around it), and a successful roll just meant the players saw it and could avoid it (but some parties might want to engage it). I don't always do this, because I forget, but when I do I find it adds a lot to play.

 

[FrogReaver]

Also it is probably worth noting, how I handle encounters may rub some sandbox players the wrong way. Me and the co-designer of my game settled on using the Survival skill against a TN set by the terrain (if it is a really dangerous city the TN might be 9 for example rather than 6). This means you roll, and if you fail, an encounter is rolled on the table (and the table doesn't have blank spaces, so if you fail an encounter will happen).

Is this handled in the background by the DM, is it player initiated or DM initiated?

So technically this system assumes the encounter is present whether you roll or not.

I don't think that's the only viable way of looking at it. I for one have no problem with the DM using mechanics like that to determine whether such happenings are occurring at all. The hangup is really the difference in DM/rules initiated and player initiated.

And that could be a problem for some people in this style (it was something we felt we could hand wave, but we understood the potential concern). However this also meant, technically, if I wanted to, I could always roll on the encounter table (because the encounter is there, the survival roll just means they get around it), and a successful roll just meant the players saw it and could avoid it (but some parties might want to engage it). I don't always do this, because I forget, but when I do I find it adds a lot to play.

There's a few ways of looking at things and tying die rolls to them.

1a. Is there anything encountered?
1b. If so then what is encountered?
Issue is the existence of an encounter is tied to PC survival check and that's quite illogical

2a. Is something the PC's cannot bypass encountered?
2b. If so then what is encountered?
This scenario relies on the abstract and not yet defined nature of all possible states based on these checks. *Note that no check rolled establishes whether something was encountered. Thus, all successes can mean that nothing was encountered and all failures can mean something was encountered that couldn't be bypassed. No particular issue here, but simulationists might dislike that the checks aren't covering all the important game states.

3a. What encounters are present?
3b. Do the PC's encounter that?
Issue is that if an encounter is present and PC's are in the area then they may be interested in intervening and this gives them no path to do so.

I think 2 is the best framing to explain how that is working in your game.