NPC Deception/Persuasion and player agency

[Thomas Shey]

This is a factor of game design. Modern D&D is built around players choosing multiple combinations of largely flavourless technical ability packets in a way that's akin to building a Magic deck. It's natural therefore to try to build something that is mechanically effective. It's natural then to focus on how to deploy that effectiveness as optimally as possible during play.

I'd suggest that whether they had "flavor" or not, many people will chose more effective options from less effective, just because playing an ineffective (or even mediocre) character is not something they find fun. Though its a little snarky, I think expecting everyone to want to "die for their art" is a fundamental mistake.

 

[Celebrim]

Don't you want your game to be fun?

Yes, I do. I think you are not understanding the conversation.

Is failing the only option?

No, failing isn't the only option. In fact, in the most common forms of railroading failure isn't an option. The most common employment of railroading is to prevent player or party failure because the GM perceives failure as not being fun for anyone. For example, it's very common for GMs to fudge in order to prevent undramatic PC deaths, or as in my example above to avoid punishing the whole party for one player's failure of wisdom and seriousness.

I learned that RPGs are about solving problems and having fun doing so. What is gained by the GM not wanting the party to succeed?

I don't even understand the question in context. As I said, most of the time GMs justify railroading because they want to the party to succeed. They aren't railroading to create story failures, but to create drama. Whether or not this is a good thing is a matter of debate, though almost everyone agrees that some amount of loss of agency is bad and total loss of agency is always bad.

It is of course possible that I don't understand what this conversation is about at all.

I think that's likely.

The classic definition of "railroading" used to be that the GM doesn't allow the players to make their own decisions either outright or otherwise. Sometimes players do things you don't want them to do. That's just how it goes.

Yes, but turns out that definition of "railroading" is very very broad. And what you'd see is that different people would treat different things as unacceptable. The arguments got so bad that I even saw a particular faction say that game prep was itself railroading because if the GM prepped something the expectation would be that is what you would do. At that point, I felt I really needed to sit down and think through for myself what was going on with this whole player agency deal, and I started to realize that there is no such thing as unlimited player agency. All player agency is limited in some fashion as an inherent aspect of play, and that in many cases it is limited by conscious choice of the GM - even GMs that are running so called 'open worlds' or 'sandboxes'. The question is, what is or is not an a good conscious choice of limiting player agency? And granting that players always have limited agency, how do we go about giving them a reasonable amount of it?

Player agency is just a new fancy way of saying "playing the game." I would not continue in a game where i wasn't allowed to have an impact.

No, it's really, nor is that necessarily true. Consider a game like Half-Life or Half-Life II. Despite the apparent freedom you have, you are really on a mostly linear ride. Everyone's versions of the game plays quite similarly, and even the creative ways you solve a puzzle are scripted out and in fact the way everyone solves them most of the time. You may not in fact notice this the first time through, because you are having a lot of fun for a lot of different reasons. And everyone gets to the same end, so in what sense are you having an impact?

You might say, "Well, computer games are different than roleplaying games." and to a certain extent that isn't true, but within a table top game it's entirely possible that you could be presented with a scenario, make a bunch of choices a long the way, have a lot of fun, and yet everything that happened was prescripted and the ending was foreordained based on carefully steering your choices and the expectation of player success. All the other endings were just deaths and failure. If you didn't notice the walls, would you not have fun? And could you or would you notice the wall the first time through when you weren't looking for it and weren't trying to take alternate paths?

I hope you find the answers you are looking for.

This turns out to be a really complex topic. You said that agency is a fancy way of saying "playing the game", and I disagree. But I do think that addressing what makes for giving a player sufficient agency is pretty close to addressing the topic of "what makes for a good game".

 

[soviet]

I'd suggest that whether they had "flavor" or not, many people will chose more effective options from less effective, just because playing an ineffective (or even mediocre) character is not something they find fun. Though its a little snarky, I think expecting everyone to want to "die for their art" is a fundamental mistake.

That's the point I was making?

 

[Bill Zebub]

It also can be quite fraught, especially if freeclimbing.

You probably mean "free soloing".

 

[Thomas Shey]

I would argue not being invested in outcomes is one important guideline for respecting player agency.

The problem is, as noted before, everything isn't a sandbox. Games with any sort of investigative element kind of demand that somehow the players get to Point X at some point. You may (and ideally should) have several routes to get there, but there's still going to be an incentive to make sure people do.

(And I will be, shall we say, unsympathetic in claims that such games are intrinsically hostile to player agency, the same way I'm unsympathetic when people make claims that games that more or less require the players to actually stay inside the bounds of the campaign premise are).

I am not as into the naturalism that @Micah Sweet seems to be a proponent of (though I could be wrong as I don't know Micah's style), but I do like to be surprised and not know where things are going when I GM. So not thinking in terms of how this or that produces a particular outcome is useful, as is letting the dice fall where they may, and listening to what the players want to do in good faith

See my comment above. Not all games--probably not even most games--are set up with "Let's just see where things go" as the purpose. Sometimes they're about "Let's see how the players work it out" or even "Let's see what happens along the way."

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's the point I was making?

It was the implication that if the choices weren't "flavorless" this would be different I was largely arguing with.

 

[Thomas Shey]

You probably mean "free soloing".

I've heard multiple terms for it, but to be clear I'm talking about climbing without gear.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem is, as noted before, everything isn't a sandbox. Games with any sort of investigative element kind of demand that somehow the players get to Point X at some point. You may (and ideally should) have several routes to get there, but there's still going to be an incentive to make sure people do.

Sure, I run investigative adventures too. I am not saying you can't have conceptualized adventures in this frame work, or even that it needs to be all sandbox. If I had to describe my approach it would be less sandbox and more situational GMing, whatever the structure I am operating in happens to be (for the the fundamental thing is I don't want to about outcomes before the players interact with things: so if I am setting up an investigation, I am going to set up what happened, what clues might exist and what the overall situation is, but let the players do as they will)

(And I will be, shall we say, unsympathetic in claims that such games are intrinsically hostile to player agency, the same way I'm unsympathetic when people make claims that games that more or less require the players to actually stay inside the bounds of the campaign premise are).

I am not saying that they are. I am defending the idea that a GM who 'lets the players decide' is doing so to help player agency, and that this style of GMing is very different from one where there is a much more structured approach (i.e. scenes, or some kind of linear structure). I am not saying you can't also have agency in other approaches to play. Sometimes I run monster of the week for example. When I do that, there is an adventure that is going to take place (they will deal with the werewolf of Rockport this session). But I can still run a game like that and respect player agency within that framework

 

[Celebrim]

I mean if your definition of railroad includes the GM allowing the players to go on unexpected paths, and not trying to keep them on a particular adventure or plot, I don't think it is a particularly practical definition of the term.

This is complicated by your limited understanding of how a GM can control players, but your intention in the above is I think good even if your strict definition isn't. Let's call it railroading when the GM wants to control what the players can accomplish or how they can accomplish it, and I think we'll both be in agreement.

Again if you take that literally, then sure, there is a problem with the statement because the GM is also making things happen and has ultimate say if we are talking about a system or campaign where the GM has traditional GM authority. But it is clearly meant to be about letting the players try to go where they want to go, to set the agenda in the setting by declaring "We go north!" or "Screw this guy, I let's start a bootlegging enterprise in Dee instead of helping this guy obtain the Manual of the Nine Claws".

Simplistically you might think that the party that chooses to start a bootlegging enterprise in Dee instead of helping the guy obtain the Manual of the Nine Claws has more agency and if the GM says "yes" that they are letting the players go where they want to go and set the agenda. And most of the time you would probably be right, but in both cases the GM is equally "making things happen". This can be a bit of a side trek, but lets say I have envisioned this interesting story in which this guy obtaining the Manual of the Nine Claws is one step, and my players don't cooperate but decide to set their own agenda and become bootleggers. Bootlegging isn't an inherently interesting occupation. It's mostly going to be tedium with long periods establishing yourself as trustworthy business men in the black market, finding buyers, earning their respect, and basically living out a pretty normal life like going into work every day and managing finances.

So who is the railroader? The one that gives the players a realistic but boring campaign as bootleggers, or one that "makes things happen" by upon seeing that the players are excited about this theme goes ahead and begins introducing dramatic twists, foils, rivals, and interesting story lines around the player's choice? Which group of players ends up with more agency? The one that is given a realistic but boring story where nothing exciting happens, or the one where the GM is introducing plots and devices of his own imagining? The notion the players that are creating the boot legging story are creating all their own fun is a flawed one. It's not real. It's an illusion.

It is about adapting and reacting to the players.

Yes, but you do that by making things happen. That's why I said every good GM utilizes the coincidence. Wherever the players go, there is the fun. Real life doesn't work that way. It's an aesthetic choice and you create it as a GM by making things happen.

If one doesn't find that to be different from a much more story driven "GM as narrator" approach, or even a adventure path built around encounter challenge ratings like you often had in the 2000s, then I don't really know what to say. You can scrutinize it and say 'but the GM is still making things happen'. But the point is the GM is responding to the players agenda and actions rather than just walking in with a game plan he expects them to follow.

There is a spectrum here, but it's a little more complicated that most people realize when they are for "team sandbox" or whatever. There is a difference between linear and open world games in presentation and feel, but we can't easily say which is better or which has more agency or that one doesn't involve the GM making things happen. And remember, I start with a session zero where I get player agreement as to what sort of game we are going to play. So if suddenly in the middle of that, someone wants to change what the game is about and get off the adventure path and become a bootlegger, something probably went wrong. If I'm such a bad GM that I can't make the adventure path fun and now everyone wants to get off the train, then chances are I can't make bootlegging fun either.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I've heard multiple terms for it, but to be clear I'm talking about climbing without gear.

Yeah, that's free soloing.

"Climbing" used to mean getting up the mountain however you could.

Soloing is climbing by yourself, with or without gear. Note that it is possible, albeit complicated, to protect yourself with a rope while still climbing by yourself.

At some point the sport distinguished between "Aid Climbing"....which was the old style...and "Free Climbing" in which the gear (rope and attachment points) is only there in case you fall; you don't use it to make forward progress

Free Soloing is Free Climbing....without the backup. R.I.P. Derek Hersey, John Bachar, and many others.