Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[hawkeyefan]

I mean, is there something wrong with that?

Nope!

 

[bloodtide]

Is it more or less living and breathing because it was generated via a roll on a table in accordance with the procedures of play? Or because no one (neither the players nor the GM) knows the in-fiction explanation for the food all turning to dust?

It's close.

Here though, the GM is super passive and only acts when the player(s) make a move or the rules tell them too. So, the GM needs permission to act.

And random table rolls are fine....except they give a bit of a static thing. And that can be a big problem. And it's the exact problem with a lot of Modern Media.

Too often, someone comes up with...or rolls....a random idea: it's hard to make it a story. For a movie, say someone thinks up(or rolls) the cool idea and visual of a robot squid attacking New York City. And they do the 'pitch' and everyone loves the idea. But then you have to make it a story. The image is set: visual of a robot squid attacking New York City. But how does that happen? What is the story? Now it's possible to make a good story here....BUT all too often it does get fumbled. A writer has to think up of some reasonable reason for a robo squid to attack the city. And they might not be up to it, so they just toss out...."er, um, the evil Dr. Sea bulit it to take over the world...yuck yuck yuck". And right there.....robo squid becomes a B-movie.

But even if the writer puts in some time and effort to make a "poor, misguided eco warrior mechanic that is just trying to make the world a better place". and they can write a great, deep backstory and make a great villain. But then, no matter what, the plan has to be "attack the city with robo squid". And then you have to end the movie somehow....but again you are locked into 'robo squid'. So a hero uses The Spoon, and defeats Robo Squid.

A living breathing world would not too often use such a random thing. It's more likely to use established things in the world.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Charts exist primarily to help the DM come up with ideas, and secondarily to assist with fairness.

They’re mostly suggestions? Like if the DM can’t come up with an idea?

And how do they assist with fairness?

 

[Reynard]

Why are there two methods, would you say? Why wouldn’t there just be one? There must be some difference, right? Neither would seem to yield a more coherent world, or a less coherent one. So they both accomplish the “living breathing world” goal.

What makes them different? Is your answer really that it doesn’t matter?

Because different GMs do things differently, and singular GMs do things differently at different times. There are two example methods because that's a simple way to express different methodologies, but they are hardly the only options. Not least: some designer wrote it that way.

The point is that the world being responsive to player choices is a good thing, even if those choice are to not get involved. If player agency is the defining feature of the RPG -- as I believe it is -- then consequences for choices is extremely important. How those consequences are actually determined and articulated is, of course, highly dependent on the individual GM.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Because different GMs do things differently, and singular GMs do things differently at different times. There are two example methods because that's a simple way to express different methodologies, but they are hardly the only options. Not least: some designer wrote it that way.

The point is that the world being responsive to player choices is a good thing, even if those choice are to not get involved. If player agency is the defining feature of the RPG -- as I believe it is -- then consequences for choices is extremely important. How those consequences are actually determined and articulated is, of course, highly dependent on the individual GM.

I feel like this totally ignores the differences between methods.
- “Why are there different methods?”

- “Because people may use different methods.”

It doesn't really say anything.

The thing is that it’s not the world responding to the PCs… it’s either the GM or the system or some combination of those two things.

Treating them as if they’re all the same just seems misguided.

 

[Lanefan]

Where is the choice? What is the agency?

To me it sounds like the players have decided they prefer a dungeon-crawler to an urban intrigue game. Now the GM muses on their imaginary city and a session or three later tells the player something about it. Either this is mere colour - not "depth" at all - and the players continue to play their dungeon crawl; or else the GM is dragging the players out of their dungeon crawl game into an urban intrigue game even though the players - at least to date - seem not all that interested. Which is still not "depth" at al.

When the players (through their PCs) get back to that town it won't be the same. Things will have happened in the town. Could be the Thieves are in charge, could be there was a big messy battle and some of the town burned down, could be that the Thieves were run out of the place, whatever. And like it or not those changes are likely to affect the PCs' dealings on this visit in some way(s) or other.

Whether the DM rubs their noses in it for not acting on the earlier threat or whether she just says nothing and lets the players speculate as to whether their prior choices were the cause of this change (if the players don't just ignore it completely) is a different issue.

As for player agency, the opportunity for - and exercise of - that came when they decided to do the dungeon rather than the Thieves.

The absence of real choice and agency becomes even more clear if we suppose that, had the players opted for the thief plot instead, then the dungeon dwellers would have started raiding the nearby farmers, because the PCs didn't stop them.

Having to choose between two potentially bad outcomes is still a valid choice. Sometimes the PCs just have to accept that they can't do everything, nor answer every threat, simply because they can't be in multiple places at once.

That said, I've in fact seen just this done in the past: the PCs in effect do put themselves in two places at once and deal with simultaneous threats, simply by splitting the party and having each half round up some new characters to make two parties. One party deals with one threa, one with the other, and at the table they're run consecutively - deal with the city party stoppign the Thieves, then put that party on hold and run the dungeon-crawlers while they do their thing.

 

[Lanefan]

My argument is that the “living, breathing world” is a fiction. It doesn’t exist.

"Guys, I've got this dead, lifeless game world where nothing ever happens. Wanna play in it?"

Pitching - and then running - a living breathing game world somehow seems far likelier to generate interest.....

 

[hawkeyefan]

Having to choose between two potentially bad outcomes is still a valid choice. Sometimes the PCs just have to accept that they can't do everything, nor answer every threat, simply because they can't be in multiple places at once.

It’s not about having to choose between two potentially bad outcomes so much as between two GM stories.

 

[Lanefan]

It’s not about having to choose between two potentially bad outcomes so much as between two GM stories.

What's the alternative? That there be no consequences stemming from what the players didn't choose to take on? No in-setting cause and effect where, if left uninterrupted, one thing reasonably leads to the next? No evolving backstory above and beyond that which the PCs specifically interact with? And how about campaigns or settings with more than one PC party?

Ideally, a game world doesn't just sit there static waiting for some PCs to show up. It evolves. Monarchs die and are replaced. Storms destroy a small town. A new temple is built to the glory of Jupiter. A war begins in the east, while another ends in the south. And so on.

And, ideally, a game world reacts to what the PCs do in or to it. The PCs kill the evil Emperor, so a five-way civil war erupts between factions looking to fill that void. The PCs destroy an imprisoned deity and in so doing quite literally take away the primary reason the game world is articifially held in its orbit, so the world starts drifting into its natural (and rather unsuitable for life) orbit. Both of these happened (with consequences still ongoing) in my current campaign, and while they've largely left the civil war to its own devices I strongly suspect there's going to be a lot of effort put towards trying to fix the planet's orbit; and not entirely intentionally they've already laid some of the groundwork for so doing.

 

[Hussar]

snip).
I mean, is there something wrong with that?

Nope. Perfectly fine. I mean that’s the way DnD has been presented since pretty much day 1. Fine.

But,

A) that’s not a “living world” as the term was being presented as if events in the world progress all over the world even stuff that has zero impact on the Pcs.

And

B) the point has always been that perhaps allowing the players to take a more active hand in determining those evens might be a way to increase player engagement and reduce dm workload.