D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Oofta]

If you don't have rules that mediate joint creation, and yet you have rich fiction, then that fiction wasn't produced jointly, was it? It was produced by the GM.

I disagree. The decisions of the player's characters can dramatically change the direction of a campaign.

As @Campbell has just posted, this is a very common approach to RPGing. As best I can tell, from my own experience, plus reading about others' experiences, it is the predominant approach by a significant margin.

For some DMs yes. For public play and modules, of course. But there's nothing that limits D&D of any edition to strictly linear campaigns, and it doesn't have to involve narrative game elements.

 

[Micah Sweet]

If you don't have rules that mediate joint creation, and yet you have rich fiction, then that fiction wasn't produced jointly, was it? It was produced by the GM.

As @Campbell has just posted, this is a very common approach to RPGing. As best I can tell, from my own experience, plus reading about others' experiences, it is the predominant approach by a significant margin.

And yet referring to it as "GM Story Hour" is something I've never heard from anyone who wasn't a proponent of storygames.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Eero Tuovinen uses the phrase "GM story hour" - https://www.arkenstonepublishing.net/isabout/2020/05/14/observations-on-gns-simulationism - in the course of explaining why he thinks it is worthwhile GMing. @clearstream has echoed Tuovinen in this thread.

I have no idea whether your or @Oofta are playing in that fashion or not. But it's a thing. The DL modules, CoC modules, Adventure Paths and the like are real things that happen in the world of RPGing.

I don't care where the term came from. It still sounds incredibly dismissive.

 

[Cadence]

I don't care where the term came from. It still sounds incredibly dismissive.

Skipping down to the part on GM Story Hour, the article actually seems a fairly interesting snarky read so far. "GM Story Hour" is roughly a very linear dungeon/railroad. (Which doesn't necessarily address your concerns about how it is being applied here or how it sounds; and I can't vouch for the rest of the article.)

Edit: Getting through the descriptions I don't find myself with an urge to start reading from the beginning. YMMV

 

[pemerton]

I disagree. The decisions of the player's characters can dramatically change the direction of a campaign.

How does that happen, if you don't have rules to mediate the joint creation?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How does that happen, if you don't have rules to mediate the joint creation?

Because you react to what the players have decided?

Is this a trick question?

You have played RPGs, right? Not just read about them?

 

[Oofta]

How does that happen, if you don't have rules to mediate the joint creation?

The campaign is created by the DM setting the stage and the characters bringing it to life. I don't make linear campaigns, the direction the campaign takes is up to the players and informed by the action of the PCs.

This insistence that players can't make a difference in a campaign's direction even if it's not a narrative game is just bizarre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Some players will skillfully use some game mechanics to dodge the spirit of some campaigns. Maybe it is because they want to "win" or "optimize", or maybe it's because they find themselves drawn to doing things in spite of their intentions. If such players are in the group, then games with those mechanics might not unfold in the spirit others at the table would appreciate.

Well, if I am running Dungeon World, for example, then there IS no 'spirit of the campaign' that is separate from what the players want to do! This is precisely illustrating the fundamental nature of the difference between trad and narrative approaches (at least in low myth play, there could be some other dimensions to it in other styles).

It feels like this could happen if you have a group of 3.5/PF players who are all interested into getting into their characters heads via the role play and most find having access to all the character options helps them design exactly the character they want to investigate the thoughts, but then another player is sidetracked into min-maxing and finds themselves using the full array of options to design something that is at an entirely different power level from the rest of the party and warps the structure of the sessions. The same could be true for a group that decided they want to be efficient at finishing the dungeon, but one player can't resist some thematic choices that are suboptimal in the dungeon itself.

Why would there be an either/or? I mean, if you designed your 3.5e play in such a way that it was NECESSARY to create highly sub-optimal characters (IE anything but a full caster) in order to have narrativist tools, well then you get what you deserve! I can't think of a reason why a game would be so arranged though. Certainly no system that purposely built to do narrativist play will suffer this way. Were I using some version of D&D to do it, I'd just tack on whatever mechanics I thought would help, why mess with that is already there? I mean, unless you want to alter something that hurts your agenda, but then wouldn't that play out for all PCs too? Obviously games are sometimes complicated and maybe that's not perfectly true, but I don't see it as a general problem.

It feels like it could be a problem in social commander/EDH where most of the group has self modulated their decks to roughly the same power level. Some sprinkle the otherwise powerful deck with quirky choices to modulate it down and try fun things, while others have a quirky theme that is made playable by choosing some very powerful cards that would be overkill in many other decks. But one of them takes advantage of the format having very few restrictions to construct something that generally blows everyone else off the table.

But, again, translated into the realm of RPGs I don't see how this happens, unless you have insisted on playing a badly-designed game, or one that is especially badly-suited to the chosen form of play. Just don't do that!

It feels like mechanics people call meta-gamey (which are called that or felt to be that seem to vary a lot from player to player) are disliked by some because they are detrimental to staying in character or in the spirit of the game. ("My Barbarian jumps off the 500' cliff to escape." "But that's crazy!?!" "Nah, I've got more than enough hit points and the falling damage caps off pretty soon." - others might be not be tripped up by that's but the rules about how things don't catch fire, or encumbrance, damage coming with no penalties, or inspiration).

I certainly don't think the availability of all the game books, no banned lists, and being able to jump off 500' cliffs or anything else that passes the letter of the rules (are they all things that when allowed give more options and choices for the players)- should be taken away from everyone. But I think they might not be optimal choices for all players and desired play styles or goals.

I'm not sure what those have to do with either narrativist play possibilities nor with agency.

I am much happier personally with more options in the first two and many things others find too "meta-gamey" in the third, but there are other "meta-gamey" things that get me out of character and grate against my soul. I know others who seemingly can't avoid optimizing for power no matter what and didn't mesh well with the groups. The mystic ability to pause time to go back and prepare something that is needed in the present (even if there is a cost based in how big the change is and a chance of failure) seems way to meta-gamey for me in most genres. I gather that there are some versions of the stochastic ogre I'm fine with that are not fine for others. Thankfully there are many play groups and systems.

There are.

 

[Umbran]

So even 10 years ago you ...

Mod Note:
Despite several warnings in this thread, you apparently intend to make this discussion about the speakers, rather than the topic.

That's enough. You get to go find another discussion.

 

[Umbran]

... GM story time.

Eero Tuovinen uses the phrase "GM story hour"...

Mod Note:
Who cares what phrase Eero uses?

Here, in this context, that kind of phrasing is insultingly condescending. With it, you are helping to create animosity in these discussions. You almost followed the other guy out of the discussion.

So, be better. Starting now.