Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[Hussar]

I'd just note you're overextending from D&D here, Hussar. There have been trad games that encouraged players, in practice, to add things to the setting for decades. Virtually any non-licensed superhero game for one. I don't disagree with your general point, but you're overstating it.

I dunno. Looking back at the trad games I played, Champions, Gurps, TMNT, Star Frontiers, Traveller, among others, I’m drawing a blank on any of them suggesting that the players collaborate on creating campaigns.

Which games are you thinking of?

Edit to add.

Note I did say Trad games. Fate and related games are not Trad games.

And, for all the point about how one style shouldn’t be placed over another, I’d point out that that’s kinda my point. One style - everything comes and must come from the DM- has been placed over any other consideration.

When even minor suggestions of allowing players to take an active hand such as wish lists were added to the game, there was VERY vocal opposition.

@Reynard I guess we’ll never really know because it’s far too late now to try and retrain players. Passive consumption play has been the standard since day 1 and adding non-trad gameplay to DnD just cannot happen.

 

[Fenris-77]

Even in game described as 'narrative' most of the 'agency' to be found at the table rests with the GM and is only grudgingly portioned out to players. I don't know that GM agency is a terribly useful term.

 

[Lanefan]

I’ll put this here for evidence of what I’m talking about. Ray Winneger (sp) in Dungeon Magazine, back when it was a print magazine, had a fantastic series about campaign design. Really the gold standard for campaign design. Fantastic stuff. Went on for quite a few years as I recall.

I don’t recall a single article talking about engaging the players in campaign design. Everything comes from the dm.

As it should be.

Players can change the plot by simply doing things and-or going directions that the DM doesn't expect, and a DM has to be ready willing and able to react when this happens. Which means, sure the DM can roll the plot wagon up to the door but there's nothing saying the players have to get on and ride it.

Setting design and adventure design, however: that's the DM's job.

I’ve got a cool little game that I picked up where the players collaboratively/competitively design a game world. Each player is a god and can do all sorts of things that you would expect gods to do - create lands, peoples, send disasters you name it. At the end of play, you have a complete world with geography, history etc.

Which is fine if nobody's interested in the entertainment provided by exploring that world - there's little point in exploring something if you already know all about it because you helped build it.

If the game wants to have an exploration pillar there have to be places to explore.

Even Adventure Paths are designed this way. Why not have collaborative dungeon design where each player builds a part of the dungeon, which the dm then stitched together. As the dm makes changes, the players are awarded a pool of bonus dice to use while exploring the dungeon. Great idea. Takes so much work load off the dm and engages the players to a huge degree.

And the players each get to sit out the bits they designed so as not to be in a positon of knowing all the solutions ahead of time? Yeah, that'll go over just fine I'm sure.

 

[Hussar]

As it should be.

Players can change the plot by simply doing things and-or going directions that the DM doesn't expect, and a DM has to be ready willing and able to react when this happens. Which means, sure the DM can roll the plot wagon up to the door but there's nothing saying the players have to get on and ride it.

Setting design and adventure design, however: that's the DM's job.

Which is fine if nobody's interested in the entertainment provided by exploring that world - there's little point in exploring something if you already know all about it because you helped build it.

If the game wants to have an exploration pillar there have to be places to explore.

And the players each get to sit out the bits they designed so as not to be in a positon of knowing all the solutions ahead of time? Yeah, that'll go over just fine I'm sure.

And this folks is exactly what I was talking about.

Never minding that there are five or six people creating the setting which means that you still don’t know much about 80% of the world. The setting must be 100% from the dm or it’s not worth playing.

And people wonder why players are passive consumers and why there is a massive bottleneck in the hobby because of a lack of GMs.

See, even in my Dirty Dungeon example, not only would you know nothing about 80% of the dungeon, the things you do know may very well not be true.

But nope. No point in exploring that.

Sigh.

 

[Lanefan]

I do know there was a time in a town I asked if there was a place I could buy chickens and what the restaurants were. Ironically, I think it was that gourmet Cleric who had his soul eaten by Cthulhu. Needless to say as a player I learned at that moment what the Necronomicon was for.

The Necronomicon is a cookbook?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I dunno. Looking back at the trad games I played, Champions, Gurps, TMNT, Star Frontiers, Traveller, among others, I’m drawing a blank on any of them suggesting that the players collaborate on creating campaigns.

Which games are you thinking of?

Champions? I mean, seriously, do you know any other game that's liable to find it okay to say "My character came from this alien planet in this alien star empire I just invented?" Or "I'm being pursued by enemies from an organization I just created?" That kind of thing happened all the time. People might use extent organizations and the like if it suited their purpose, but adding new things to the typical kitchen sink superhero setting doesn't even get a blink unless its something excessively sprawling. And even then it might be fine if someone didn't already have one in the niche involved.

Edit to add.

Note I did say Trad games. Fate and related games are not Trad games.

And, for all the point about how one style shouldn’t be placed over another, I’d point out that that’s kinda my point. One style - everything comes and must come from the DM- has been placed over any other consideration.

When even minor suggestions of allowing players to take an active hand such as wish lists were added to the game, there was VERY vocal opposition.

And I'm still saying that the less tightly connected a game was, the less this was true. The superhero games stand out because it was so common, but it wasn't exactly uncommon for people to be generating the planets they came from in Traveler as they went, unless the GM was using a very small area and didn't want people coming from outside it.

I don't disagree that some people have been very tight about this (I earlier mentioned the people who'd get stroppy about people coming up with their character's home town), but the more far-reaching the default setting assumptions were, the less true that's historically been, either because adding things to it was pretty much the default or because no one cared (in the Traveller example, because it'd probably never come up again).

 

[Thomas Shey]

And this folks is exactly what I was talking about.

I have to point out Lanefan is the poster boy for the extremes I was referring to. He's well beyond what even most trad GMs would do in terms of control, and I've known quite a number over the decades.

(But of course that doesn't mean they don't exist, which he also demonstrates, and people like him have a disproportionate impact on what expectations players have).

 

[Lanefan]

And this folks is exactly what I was talking about.

Never minding that there are five or six people creating the setting which means that you still don’t know much about 80% of the world. The setting must be 100% from the dm or it’s not worth playing.

If you ever want to create your own setting, go ahead - no-one's going to stop you.

Odds are good you'll then be able to find people willing to play in it, and congratulations - you're now a DM.

And people wonder why players are passive consumers and why there is a massive bottleneck in the hobby because of a lack of GMs.

I disagree that there's a hard-coded connection here. As a player I can still be an active (as in, very much not passive!) participant in a game set in a setting entirely of the DM's creation.

Now if the DM doesn't let us players go "off script" and change the plot by having our characters do unexpected things, that's a different (and IMO unrelated) issue entirely.

See, even in my Dirty Dungeon example, not only would you know nothing about 80% of the dungeon, the things you do know may very well not be true.

If the GM can that easily change what I designed then why did I bother designing it?

Further, having just one person doing the overall setting design makes it far easier to keep a consistent single view of the whole thing. Even just a second designer can quickly lead to a too-many-cooks situation, or to arguments. Five or six? That'd be an exercise in cat-herding.

Never mind that when I design a setting I'll have only the vaguest idea of who will end up playing in it to start with and no idea who'll be playing in it ten years on.

All that said, I've no problem with players adding in bits and bobs through their backstories etc. (though I'll always keep veto power in case they unknowingly trip over something already in place) and if they don't majorly change the setting through what their characters do during the campaign I'd be kinda shocked.

 

[pemerton]

I dunno. Looking back at the trad games I played, Champions, Gurps, TMNT, Star Frontiers, Traveller, among others, I’m drawing a blank on any of them suggesting that the players collaborate on creating campaigns.

I don't disagree with the general thrust of your posts, but want to note that Book 3 of Traveller absolutely does contemplate the players helping make sense of random world generation results.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And this folks is exactly what I was talking about.

Never minding that there are five or six people creating the setting which means that you still don’t know much about 80% of the world. The setting must be 100% from the dm or it’s not worth playing.

And people wonder why players are passive consumers and why there is a massive bottleneck in the hobby because of a lack of GMs.

See, even in my Dirty Dungeon example, not only would you know nothing about 80% of the dungeon, the things you do know may very well not be true.

But nope. No point in exploring that.

Sigh.

Are they creating their own parts of the world secretly? Because otherwise they basically do know everything.

You continue to overstate your point, I suspect because you prefer more collaborative worldbuilding, and believing that player disengagement is caused by a lack of it helps support that preference.

I do it too, it happens.