D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Arilyn]

Out of interest and since you engage with both styles (and this is an open question to others), I'm imagining narrative games have shorter sessions, generally because of the constant creative mode they are on (referencing back to your "no coasting" comment).
We usually run 6-7 hour face-2-face sessions easy, am I correct in saying this would not be usually common for face-2-face narrative games?

It has been many years since I've had 6-7 hour sessions! But man, they were fun.

Both styles of games tend to run the same length (typically 3 hours and in person). If I had been engaged in narrative games back in my younger years, I strongly suspect your assumptions would be correct, unless everyone was in the flow.

 

[Manbearcat]

Remember when you were saying you didn't need extensive knowledge of every game ever to analyse aspects of them?

Narrativism is literally just playing make believe where each player is a little DM. Literally any game can have that sit ontop of it. I could be playing candy land and sit there and just make up stories and narratives while I did it.

In so far as anyone here has been able to explicate, narrativism interfaces not at all with mechanical rules. If people can sit around and just collaboratively tell a story and play make believe, they can slap that ontop of any other activity.

I've barely been involved in this thread for awhile (and even then, not much) and I'm just doing a really quick look at what has transpired.

Wow.

This is one of the more (confidently asserted) incorrect takes on Narrativism that I've seen. Your mental model for how these games work is not connected to the reality of the play of these games. Every sentence you have written above is incorrect. If you're interested in this subject at all and interested in having an updated mental model of these games that more resembles what is happening under the hood and what transpires at the table, I would look a lot further into the subject and I would actually play a nice cross-section of the games in question (actually play them though...not sub in traditional models/conceptions of play and ignore the principles and procedures of the systems).

* Narrativism isn't just make believe where every player is a little DM. The roles of GM and player are absolutely and vitally different. In fact, there is a case to be made that, although Narrativist GMs are deeply constrained in certain ways that traditional GMs are not, the authority over situation-framing that Narrativist GMs have absolutely surpasses that of traditional GMs.

* System and mechanical rules matter profoundly to these games (not just to distinguish them from alternative models of play but to distinguish them from each other within the category of Narrativism). Dovetailing with the above bullet-point regarding significant GM authority over situation-framing, the bulk of these systems have mechanical architecture that imposes conditions on PCs that most traditional players find seriously troubling.

* The procedures and experience of play is absolutely not collaboratively telling a story, "conch-passing", or a "writers room dynamic." Players build protagonists with motivations. GMs play rules & principally-constrained adversity/antagonism to those protagonists and their motivations. In the middle of it, characters rise, fall, change, retire (for whatever quality of "retire" the game in question supposes). Rinse & repeat until all matters are settled.

* To put the above three bullet points together, there is a GM meta + player meta = general orientation to play dynamic in these games that would be cast as "adversarial GMing" by GMs/players of a traditional mindset; 100 % (I've seen it live on multiple occasions). GMs must relentlessly attack PCs where it hurts. All the time. Put them in spots. Push their buttons. Buttons that are cited by players (at PC build stage) and by the design of the game generally as "meant to be pushed." In fact, if the GM lets up or doesn't attack, they aren't doing their job. If you're a player who doesn't have their head around this concept, it will break your brain and you'll wind up having a bad time. If you can get your head around it and enjoy playing to find out who this character is while aggressively advocating for them (the same way as happens in real life...we don't know who we are or who we'll end up being...but we sure as hell will advocate for ourself in the course of finding out), you'll have a great time.

---

I really think a lot of people have Story Now ("Narrativism") play mashed together with NeoTrad/Original Character Power Fantasy/Flex kind of play in their minds. This harkens back to my problem with the "Storygame" taxonomy erroneously capturing both of these orientations to play. They are very_very_very different play agendas/cultures of play/system designs and using Storygame is a contributor to this confusion (imo).

Story Now games are the opposite of Power Fantasy. They have no ROFLSTOMP Flex moments or character arcs that the GM is responsible for curating play towards as is fundamental to NeoTrad/OC games. There is no "players bring a conception of character to play and the GM must ensure those story beats/character arcs are realized in the course of play" in Story Now games. Its actually the inverse of that in both ways.

 

[Raiztt]

I've barely been involved in this thread for awhile (and even then, not much) and I'm just doing a really quick look at what has transpired.

Wow.

This is one of the more (confidently asserted) incorrect takes on Narrativism that I've seen. Your mental model for how these games work is not connected to the reality of the play of these games. Every sentence you have written above is incorrect. If you're interested in this subject at all and interested in having an updated mental model of these games that more resembles what is happening under the hood and what transpires at the table, I would look a lot further into the subject and I would actually play a nice cross-section of the games in question (actually play them though...not sub in traditional models/conceptions of play and ignore the principles and procedures of the systems).

* Narrativism isn't just make believe where every player is a little DM. The roles of GM and player are absolutely and vitally different. In fact, there is a case to be made that, although Narrativist GMs are deeply constrained in certain ways that traditional GMs are not, the authority over situation-framing that Narrativist GMs have absolutely surpasses that of traditional GMs.

* System and mechanical rules matter profoundly to these games (not just to distinguish them from alternative models of play but to distinguish them from each other within the category of Narrativism). Dovetailing with the above bullet-point regarding significant GM authority over situation-framing, the bulk of these systems have mechanical architecture that imposes conditions on PCs that most traditional players find seriously troubling.

* The procedures and experience of play is absolutely not collaboratively telling a story, "conch-passing", or a "writers room dynamic." Players build protagonists with motivations. GMs play rules & principally-constrained adversity/antagonism to those protagonists and their motivations. In the middle of it, characters rise, fall, change, retire (for whatever quality of "retire" the game in question supposes). Rinse & repeat until all matters are settled.

* To put the above three bullet points together, there is a GM meta + player meta = general orientation to play dynamic in these games that would be cast as "adversarial GMing" by GMs/players of a traditional mindset; 100 % (I've seen it live on multiple occasions). GMs must relentlessly attack PCs where it hurts. All the time. Put them in spots. Push their buttons. Buttons that are cited by players (at PC build stage) and by the design of the game generally as "meant to be pushed." In fact, if the GM lets up or doesn't attack, they aren't doing their job. If you're a player who doesn't have their head around this concept, it will break your brain and you'll wind up having a bad time. If you can get your head around it and enjoy playing to find out who this character is while aggressively advocating for them (the same way as happens in real life...we don't know who we are or who we'll end up being...but we sure as hell will advocate for ourself in the course of finding out), you'll have a great time.

---

I really think a lot of people have Story Now ("Narrativism") play mashed together with NeoTrad/Original Character Power Fantasy/Flex kind of play in their minds. This harkens back to my problem with the "Storygame" taxonomy erroneously capturing both of these orientations to play. They are very_very_very different play agendas/cultures of play/system designs and using Storygame is a contributor to this confusion (imo).

Story Now games are the opposite of Power Fantasy. They have no ROFLSTOMP Flex moments or character arcs that the GM is responsible for curating play towards as is fundamental to NeoTrad/OC games. There is no "players bring a conception of character to play and the GM must ensure those story beats/character arcs are realized in the course of play" in Story Now games. Its actually the inverse of that in both ways.

I disagree.

 

[Manbearcat]

I disagree.

I actually laughed out loud (not at you...but at the response); spit-take sort of laugh. Very well done! I feel like I know where we stand now!

 

[Arilyn]

I disagree.

Why? @Manbearcat gave a thorough description of the narrativist style, refuting your description.
What do you disagree with?

 

[Raiztt]

I actually laughed out loud (not at you...but at the response); spit-take sort of laugh. Very well done! I feel like I know where we stand now!

Really this can boil down, IMO which obviously some people here do not agree with, to this:

There are plot driven games and there are character driven games. IMNSHO, turning up your nose and saying "Oh, me, i prefer games with high player agency, as opposed to your low player agency games" is definitional of condescending one-true-wayism. No one has put forth a knock down argument for why one allows for more "player agency" than the other, they simply keep begging the question over and over again.

I don't think either of these is better than the other, which is why I can't believe this thread is still going, they're just different expectations and desires from TTRPGs.

In your post, one thing that really stands out to me is how irrelevant that all is to my experience as a player and a DM. Not irrelevant in an insulting or condescending way, but in a literal way. The games that I run and that my players enjoy are very much "Here is some naughty word that is happening to you, how will you solve this problem" and "who the characters are" (which sounds extremely navel-gaze-y) just doesn't come up.

 

[Aldarc]

@Micah Sweet should have called for folk who  love both! Undoubtedly too, it's modes of play rather than game texts we should be considering.

I do love more traditional gaming. It's what I cut my teeth on after all. Again, my own issue has more to do with 5e D&D and I falling out of love with each other rather than any issue with traditional gaming itself. Or to put it in Marie Kondo terms, "5e no longer sparks joy." To me, 5e has become something of a "D&D Milquetoast Edition." It feels a bit unoffensive but bland. I feel nowadays like the game doesn't really have anything interesting to say or add to the conversation in the hobby.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I’d say different, with the sandbox leaning towards more agency.

Ultimately it depends on the module and DM. In a module you are more likely to run into it’s boundaries than in a sandbox. At that time it is a matter of what the DM does as a result, roll with the punches or bounce you back when you cross this invisible border. Some modules are a lot more open / sandbox-y than others too.

You might never run into the borders, then it does not really matter / is the same

Sure, but this is pretty much what I meant about options. In an adventure path type module, there are more likely to be fewer options. Fewer ways for the players to progress through play.

In a sandbox, there are likely to be more. I don't always agree with the common take that a sandbox is significantly different from an adventure path except that I think it tends to allow for a broader range of activities. But ultimately, it's still play that revolves around exploring what the DM has prepared. But I think the confines are larger, which allows for players to engage with the things they're interested in within those confines.

 

[Umbran]

Narrativism is literally just playing make believe...

Mod Note:
Because what this discussion needed was more dismissive positions?

It is unclear what positive outcome you expected to get from the above, but the outcome you did get was a moderator giving you the hairy eyeball for your unconstructive approach to the discussion.

So, maybe, next time treat other people's points with rather more respect than you are showing here.

 

[hawkeyefan]

So again, agency is binary. You have it or you don't, so the comparison doesn't mean much as far as how much agency you have. "How much" is based on your feelings about the various aspects of agency.

I don't think this is true of examples of agency of any other sort, so I'm not sure why it would be true of agency for players of RPGs.

Each game may place priority on different aspects of agency, yes. That doesn't make that game have more or less agency than the RPG over there that has a different priority. It just means that people who want the focus of the first RPG will FEEL like they have greater agency than the second RPG.

I don't agree with that. I agree there may be a difference in how a game feels versus how much agency there may actually be, but I don't think that perception changes what's actually true.

That is correct.

I don't see how.

That is also correct.

Picking a door of stone rather than wood doesn't mean that the DM is sitting there thinking of which options to include and which options to exclude. The DM doesn't pick options. Options exist independent of the DM.
The DM, but this is not selecting which options are available. The players are coming up with options. If an option isn't possible, say if the PC spits on the door, then it was never a true option that existed and the DM will decide it doesn't work. Setting DCs is also not selecting which options are there.

Picking a door and setting it as an obstacle does set certain options, though. The options exist because the DM chose to place a locked door there.

If the door didn't exist, the players could walk through it, look through it, throw a torch through it, or ignore it (and so on). If there's a locked door, they can't do all those things without first addressing the lock. So they can try to pick the lock... with a DC set by the DM... or they can try to smash the door... with a DC set by the DM... or they can use a spell.

But the DM is also free to add any other defenses to the door. Perhaps it's magically barred, or locked with an arcane lock spell. And so on.
All of these decisions influence what options are available to the players.

Great example! I've seen huge numbers of DMs post on this site. I can count on 1 hand with fingers left over the number of DMs like Bloodtide that have posted. He's the second one I've seen, and internet anonymity means that his claims can't be substantiated. Even so, it's a miniscule percentage of posting DMs here who make claims like his. This just backs me up.

I don't think it does. He's an extreme example. But look how many folks were much closer to his side on the whole Position of Privilege feature. Or any anything that obliges the DM to rule a certain way.

It's not so much about the extreme examples... those are easy to spot and to avoid, if so desired. It's more about the subtle instances that are hard to spot until one's had sufficient exposure to play that reveals them.

Maybe. A low level fighter with a noble background could easily do more to change the world than a wizard with his 9th level spells. Roleplaying is more powerful than simple mechanical spells. It would be nice, though, if fighters had more support in the social arena.

Because they'd have more ability to affect play. They'd have more means to do so.

In other words... more agency.