System matters and free kriegsspiel

[chaochou]

My fundamental issue is that the play loop for this style is zero agency from the player point of view. People are absolutely free to enjoy it, but I don't.

1. The DM describes the environment.
2. The players describe what they want their characters to do.
3. The DM narrates the results of their actions.

If the goal of the game is to announce actions then I can achieve that, but the moment the goal of the game is defined in terms of affecting the gameworld this loop only gives power to do that to the DM.

I'm confused what you mean by agency.

Which part of what I’ve said above are you not able to understand?

In that play loop only the GM changes the game world, so any goals of play which involve altering the state of the game world are only achievable by the GM. Its a crystal clear construction.

 

[Malmuria]

Which part of what I’ve said above are you not able to understand?

In that play loop only the GM changes the game world, so any goals of play which involve altering the state of the game world are only achievable by the GM. Its a crystal clear construction.

You said that resulted in "zero agency." I disagree with this--players have agency over what their character does, and the DM narrates how the world reacts to their characters actions. The player can choose to have their character stab a town guard in the throat, the dm narrates if the character is successful, and if so how the town reacts. It's the core gameplay loop of 5e...do you think 5e is a game where players have zero agency?

Agency in the above context is the ability for the player to make a decision about what their character does, not their ability to narrate how the world reacts to what their character does. It's similarly up to the DM to think about how the PCs actions would affect the gameworld, and narrate accordingly.

The above loop won't work as well if you are aiming for collaborative setting-building or story-making, but it does work for an rpg where you play a character in a simulated world. (And I'll mention again this has nothing to do, really, with FKR specifically).

 

[chaochou]

You said that resulted in "zero agency." I disagree with this--players have agency over what their character does, and the DM narrates how the world reacts to their characters actions.

Again, unless the goal of play is to announce actions then the goals of play can only be met by the GM.

if you disagree then show me. I’ll GM, you play and your goal is to stab the guard in the throat. Give it a shot. We both know you’ll fail, because the only one with permission to say if that happens is me.

But go ahead. Show me.

 

[overgeeked]

It's an interesting theme amongst dictators through history that they always claim to be absolutely essential. Personally, I've never been convinced.

The DM as dictator. Wow. That's certainly a steaming hot take.

 

[Fenris-77]

The issue, agency-wise, is that the player statement described has zero impact on what actually happens. Most games, at the very least, offload some of that onto the mechanics, and in many cases offload a little, or more than a little, onto the player as well. Here, it's entirely with the GM. I wouldn't argue with the use of 'zero agency' here. Keep in mind that doesn't necessarily mean 'not fun' or 'wrong'.

 

[overgeeked]

The issue, agency-wise, is that the player statement described has zero impact on what actually happens. Most games, at the very least, offload some of that onto the mechanics, and in many cases offload a little, or more than a little, onto the player as well. Here, it's entirely with the GM. I wouldn't argue with the use of 'zero agency' here. Keep in mind that doesn't necessarily mean 'not fun' or 'wrong'.

In most traditional RPGs, the players have control over their PC but not the world or NPCs. So a PC trying to do something or interact with an NPC needs the DM to adjudicate, whether that's a roll or rubber stamp. Because that action should have consequences that have an effect on the world going forward. That cannot be integrated into the world unless the DM knows about it...because the DM controls everything outside of the PCs. If players want to define "zero-agency" as the inability to affect the game world without DM input...well, then you're not going to be interested in the vast majority of RPGs. Which is fine. It's a "big" hobby in that there are all kinds of games with all kinds of mixes for player vs DM control of the narrative. Seems like intentionally shooting yourself in the face to define agency that narrowly.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The issue, agency-wise, is that the player statement described has zero impact on what actually happens. Most games, at the very least, offload some of that onto the mechanics, and in many cases offload a little, or more than a little, onto the player as well. Here, it's entirely with the GM. I wouldn't argue with the use of 'zero agency' here. Keep in mind that doesn't necessarily mean 'not fun' or 'wrong'.

I would, for two main reasons.

First, if you are using a term, it is best to use it in a manner that promotes discussion. If you are using it as a defined term (or jargon), then that might be one thing. But if you are using it in such a way that it is likely to cut-off discussion, or cause debate about the term itself, then you probably shouldn't use it that way. "Player agency," as commonly described by the majority of gamers (since the vast majority of gamers plays some variation of D&D- either one of the main D&D games or a variant like PF) use the type of action resolution system we typically describe-
A. DM describes environment.
B. Player announces action.
C. DM announces resolution.
D. Goto (A).

There are variations, twists, modifications, but that's the basic process. Now, people can (and do!) have debates about player agency within the ambit of this resolution system. We all recognize that, right? Because that's exactly what @Malmuria was talking about- issues like illusionism and railroading and all that good stuff.

So, if someone else says, "Hey, listen y'all. And by y'all, I mean the vast majority of gamers .... none of you have player agency. NONE OF YOU. And ZERO PLAYER AGENCY." Well, that's not likely to lead to a productive discussion because that's just an antagonistic way to have a discussion, which I think should be obvious? It would be more productive to have a conversation about, say, players authoring the fiction instead of using a term like agency that is already widely used for something else by a lot of people.


Second, I wouldn't do it because it tends to overheated rhetoric like, "dictator," and so on. But that's me. Overheated rhetoric should be reserved for the truly deserving and evil, like soulless, dead-eyed elves.


EDIT- ninja's by @overgeeked

 

[Fenris-77]

In most traditional RPGs, the players have control over their PC but not the world or NPCs. So a PC trying to do something or interact with an NPC needs the DM to adjudicate, whether that's a roll or rubber stamp. Because that action should have consequences that have an effect on the world going forward. That cannot be integrated into the world unless the DM knows about it...because the DM controls everything outside of the PCs. If players want to define "zero-agency" as the inability to affect the game world without DM input...well, then you're not going to be interested in the vast majority of RPGs. Which is fine. It's a "big" hobby in that there are all kinds of games with all kinds of mixes for player vs DM control of the narrative. Seems like intentionally shooting yourself in the face to define agency that narrowly.

My point was more that the rules and mechanics usually provide specific guidelines for what success and failure look like for a given action. So while, yes, the GM adjudicates the success or failure, they do so within a structure or framework provided by the rules. Not so in the example here. Player agency, in cases of adjudication frameworks is that by selecting action X or action Y players have some control over the outcome, even if that control does not extend to narration (which it doesn't in a lot of TTRPGs). The lack of agency in the example from this thread is what it is, more in the way of fact than one of narrow definitions. That doesn't make it a bad thing, just a thing. How much people enjoy it will vary, as with any RPG.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't know...what would you do in that situation? I skimmed the rules...it seems for any action the player declares where they might be uncertainty, the dm and player roll 2d6 and compare results. In terms of players collaborating on building the setting, I suppose our group could rely on whatever knowledge we had about Napoleonic Europe, and maybe it would help if we read some of the referenced novels. Then we would just talk about it and see what's most fun. Might take a page out of a book like The Ground Itself and go around the table building up aspects of the world.

I think the result would be, is that you would start with the short Dark Empires pdf, use some combination of historical and literary knowledge, and design some mechanics or subsystems to use on the fly, probably based on prior rpgs people at the table have played. You would forget about half your houserules by the next session, and make it up again? I imagine it would almost be like designing an rpg game together, and what you design would vary from table to table. And maybe it would devolve into an argument! Or maybe there are social dynamics at the table between the players, including players that are shy or want to be polite, that would affect gameplay. That's certainly a risk that other games try to mitigate in one way or another.

It will be argued that some of the FKR blogs don't include principles or procedures to ensure that the above conversation happens, or happens in a particular way. I'm not sure I can articulate why that doesn't bother me? I think I try to imagine how the scenario would work with my play group, based on how we already play, and feel confident that we could figure it out.

Anyway, I'll again mention that the above is not particular to "FKR" games. The question about whether players can contribute to the setting, for example, would extend to any trad or osr game, where the general answer is 'no' or 'yes, with DM consent.' Similarly, I don't think Dark Empires is very sharply distinguished from an OSR zine. For example, there are games like Whitehack and Maze Rats that include free-form magic systems that basically involve the player naming their spell and the dm and player together deciding what it does. That is, many OSR games already play like some of these proposed FKR games (which maybe makes the FKR label somewhat meaningless in the context of the hobby, but that's separate from how a game plays).

If the setting generation they created during their conversation has conflict that I feel needs to be resolved, I’d likely go to Dogs in the Vineyard player-authored-kickers during chargen, except more a hyper-rules-lite version of Blades complex flashbacks with binary results and Fail Forward informing failure.

Ok, you’ve set the scene player. Let’s roll our 2d6 contest and see who wins. You can take +/-1 because of this chargen element.

If they win, their setting stipulation is true. If they lose, sure…it’s true…but this other thing that sucks is also true.

We play from there and resolve the new scene that they’ve devised a kicker around.

We’ve just made up some layers of system so that It’s functional for play right now…but wholly unsatisfying for me to GM because I don’t want to spend any portion of my cognitive workspace devising rules, stress-testing them, and iterating during play (Id rather GM a hacked Dogs in the Vineyard where we’re subbing Napoleon-fealty for Faith and handling each of the chargen stuff like Dogs’ does and then use Dogs conflict resolution, agenda, and principles). There is so much meat missing from the bone that we’re inevitably building and stress-testing and iterating system through play to play at all (2d6 contests are not remotely sufficient to resolve conflicts let alone a host of them in snowballing succession…I’m going to have to devote cognitive space to working out the rest or negotiating it on a case by case basis).

And how I resolve this tells me nothing about what the standard distribution of tables does when this particular scenario arises. And it tells me nothing about how the standard distribution of this particular subset of TTRPGers (FKRers) would resolve this. So, therefore, if I’m a prospective player joining a game, it’s unclear what I’m going to get. If I’m a prospective GM courting players, it’s unclear what their expectations of the play experience are going to be.

 

[Malmuria]

Again, unless the goal of play is to announce actions then the goals of play can only be met by the GM.

if you disagree then show me. I’ll GM, you play and your goal is to stab the guard in the throat. Give it a shot. We both know you’ll fail, because the only one with permission to say if that happens is me.

But go ahead. Show me.

This post is clarifying for what we might mean by high-trust vs low-trust situations.