GM fiat - an illustration

[Crimson Longinus]

I actually don't think me, you or Micah care about agency at all. As it's conceived of by many of the Narratavists in this thread. I'm still trying to figure out a way of describing what we do care about.

Our basic loop of play is something like 'constrained positioning creates outcomes which creates constrained positioning.' Their basic unit of play is something like 'fictional story material creates player intentionality which creates fictional story material.'

When Hawkeyefan says:

Set aside the idea of narrative control... because it is itself a muddy term. I mean, telling the duke to go screw and heading off to the west... that's an exercise of narrative control. It's the players saying that they're not interested in this duke situation, and they want the characters to go west. Surely this will change the narrative.

It's alien to me. The players telling the Duke to screw and going west has nothing to do with what the players are interested in and is instead a result of constrained positioning (or whatever you want to call it)

I'm still seeing if I can sum it up in a pithy way.

I think we all care about something that could be called agency, but I still think I get your point. Like there is fundamental difference in what the purpose of playing a RPG is, which also probably reflects to how agency is understood. And it certainly is possible that the word is sufficiently ill defined that it is not terribly useful.

And I think the duke and going west example is interesting. Like if I was playing a game and my character would do that, then I would primarily do so because I was expressing the nature of my character. This is what they believe, this is what they would do. Whilst doing this certainly would affect the narrative direction of the game, I would not think this as making choices about it.

 

[Pedantic]

I actually don't think me, you or Micah care about agency at all. As it's conceived of by many of the Narratavists in this thread. I'm still trying to figure out a way of describing what we do care about.

Our basic loop of play is something like 'constrained positioning creates outcomes which creates constrained positioning.' Their basic unit of play is something like 'fictional story material creates player intentionality which creates fictional story material.'

When Hawkeyefan says:

Set aside the idea of narrative control... because it is itself a muddy term. I mean, telling the duke to go screw and heading off to the west... that's an exercise of narrative control. It's the players saying that they're not interested in this duke situation, and they want the characters to go west. Surely this will change the narrative.

It's alien to me. The players telling the Duke to screw and going west has nothing to do with what the players are interested in and is instead a result of constrained positioning (or whatever you want to call it)

I'm still seeing if I can sum it up in a pithy way.

I've written some stuff about "ludic agency" before to try and differentiate this divide before, but I'm not sure that's your precise concern. I'll try and find some representative definitions from those discussion I can link later.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think it does seem a bit pedantic. If I reject the duke's invitation to explore and map his lands (the GM's proposed hexcrawl style game) and instead go to the coast to be a freebooter, that's a shift in narrative. I as a player am able to exert influence over what is happening in the game. If the GM is like "come on man, I made this huge map and prepped all these hexes... can we at least give this a try" then my agency as a player is limited, and it has nothing to do with my character, even if we roleplay the scene out so that the duke convinces my character to do it with a greater reward.

Right, I think control of, or influence over, the direction of play, what content and narrative elements will be presented IS a form of agency. Now, some games are narrow in scope! In My Life With Master, the role the PCs play is pretty constrained and the game always produces a certain sort of fiction. So that's a factor, but within those bounds, things accepted in the agreement to play, I agree we can surely speak about players agency.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I meant that you generally find it undesirable for a game to do that, not that it is or that you think it is undesirable in and of itself.

I don't think it is generally undesirable at all. I am the type of person, when I get an RPG, I will play it fully to the premise that the book lays out. I am not averse to running different styles of game like this. And I am usually curious about different games. I don't get as much opportunity as I would like to run and play different things, but then I don't even get much time to run or play D&D, because I have to run and develop my own games. But just as an example about a year ago I spent the summer making a game called Wrath, which was a Vigilante RPG that relied heavily a lot giving players narrative power. I do have to be mindful of my audience and brands though so I wouldn't just throw that into my wuxia line. But I have often considered doing a more cinematic variation of either RBRB or Ogre Gate and am presently working on an adventure that is meant to play like a 2 hour Shaw Brothers movie. And I don't know how I am going to do it yet, but I was trying to encourage my players to be open to alternative approaches to narrative control. I am not sure if we will do it that way or not, and this will probably have several different approaches as we experiment with it, but it is something I am totally open to because I like the idea of a session that plays out over 2 hours with all the satisfaction of a wuxia movie: normally my campaigns are much more long form)

I feel like you're narrowing the definition of player agency to fit your general preferences. I'm trying to use a definition that is not limited by preferences.

Fair enough, but I feel like you are expanding the definition to load your preferences onto the concept . Again, I don't think we will settle the linguistic part of this discussion. I just felt the need to say I wasn't fully onboard with this definition because I feel like the definition started doing a lot of the argument's work

I think it does seem a bit pedantic. If I reject the duke's invitation to explore and map his lands (the GM's proposed hexcrawl style game) and instead go to the coast to be a freebooter, that's a shift in narrative. I as a player am able to exert influence over what is happening in the game. If the GM is like "come on man, I made this huge map and prepped all these hexes... can we at least give this a try" then my agency as a player is limited, and it has nothing to do with my character, even if we roleplay the scene out so that the duke convinces my character to do it with a greater reward.

I get what you are saying. My point is not everyone conceives of this as a narrative. I understand your point, but then you are using that in order to shift to discussing narrative control. It just feels like there is a slight change in meaning that muddies the waters here for me.

I am a little confused by the hex crawl example. Being in a hex crawl that is truly free ought to include the possiblity of going to the coast and being a freebooter. If the GM is putting his foot down on something you say your character wants to do, on conceptual grounds like 'but no this is supposed to be a hex crawl!', yes agency has been violated, but its s violated because he is saying your character can't do something your character ought to be able to do (or at least try to do). If on the other hand, you are saying, "I want to skip over all these hexes and just be at the coast already so I can be a freebooter there". I think that is something different. If it was established your character was on point A in the Map and you want to skip a bunch of hexes to get to point B, the GM isn't thwarting your agency by applying the standard hex crawl mechanics. I am not saying this couldn't be a problem for the group. If the GM is making you play a hex crawl and you have no interest in a hex crawl, then yes that is a n issue you two need to figure out somehow. But I wouldn't see that as an agency issue. That is more of a table negotiation issue

If I can spend a Benny and call upon the duke's trait to be weak-willed and use it to override his request, I'm using agency granted to me by the game to get what I want as a player. Some would say this use of metacurrency is beyond what a character can do, and others would say it's representative of the characters... but that's irrelevant to whether or not it gives me agency as a player.

I don't tend to think of bennies themselves as agency but I would have to think more about this one though. I would tend to think of a benny as just a resource.

To use something even more removed from the setting... if I invoke a Devil's Bargain in Blades in the Dark... the GM offers me a consequence that will happen no matter what, but gives me an additional die to roll, that's another form of player agency. It's a resource that I as a player can use to improve my chances in play.

I don't know this mechanic well enough to weigh in on it. Not trying to dodge the point, I just don't want to wrestle with a mechanic I have too little understanding of

Do you look at the two examples from the OP and see how one could be concerning when it comes to railroading and the like, and the other is less so?

I certainly think there can be railroading issues that emerge in that example. Like I said very early in this thread, someone mentioned doing all these precise things to get around alarm so an Assassin could attack the party and I thought those things were too perfect and would likely feel as though the GM were trying to railroad an encounter.

 

[Pedantic]

Here's some stuff I've said about ludic agency that I think might be driving at the point you were making @thefutilist

Dealing with agency and retcon (in semi sandbox)

D&D 5E - How do you define “mother may I” in relation to D&D 5E?

I offered I think my pithiest definition was here:

Dealing with agency and retcon (in semi sandbox)

The narrative concern is assuring the player that what they are interested in is at stake in a conflict and might even extend to ensuring the player has the ability to affect the outcome of a conflict. The ludic concern is assuring the player that their choices will affect the evaluation of the conflict. You could do the former without evaluation at all or with completely arbitrary evaluation; imagine a system you provide an intent that defines success and a stake that defines failure and resolve every check with a coin toss.

Ludic agency requires space before evaluation where the player can input actions, and that different sequences of actions influence evaluation differently, and that ideally more than 1 sequence of actions that succeed and or fail.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This thread is about identifying and analysing GM fiat as a way of establishing the shared fiction in RPGing. My experience is that, often, many cases of GM fiat go unnoticed, or at least unremarked upon. Here's one example, that I posted in a recent thread:



In this post I want to present another example, and say a bit about it. My example is the Alarm spell, from D&D 5e:

Casting Time: 1 Minute​

Range/Area: 30 ft. (20 ft. )​

Duration: 8 Hours​

​

You set an alarm against intrusion. Choose a door, a window, or an area within range that is no larger than a 20-foot Cube. Until the spell ends, an alarm alerts you whenever a creature touches or enters the warded area. When you cast the spell, you can designate creatures that won’t set off the alarm. You also choose whether the alarm is audible or mental:​

​

Audible Alarm. The alarm produces the sound of a handbell for 10 seconds within 60 feet of the warded area.​

​

Mental Alarm. You are alerted by a mental ping if you are within 1 mile of the warded area. This ping awakens you if you’re asleep.​

On its fact, this spell looks like something that a player could use to help control the risk environment for their PC. But on closer analysis, it turns almost entirely on GM decision-making that is significantly unconstrained.

For instance,

* Does the player's character have an uninterrupted minute of time to cast the spell?​

​

* Does any potential intruder come within 8 hours, or do they turn up (say) 8 hours and 5 minutes after the spell was cast?​

​

* Does a potential intruder come within the warded area, or open the warded portal? Or do they sneak around the warded portal, or inspect/attack from outside the area?​

​

* If the caster (and friends) are asleep, and are woken by this spell, how much can the intruder accomplish while they rouse themselves?​

All of this depends on GM decision-making. That decision-making is largely unconstrained, except by some pretty loose notions of "fair play". By choosing to use the spell, does a player actually affect the risk to their position in the game? Does this happen in any way other than by invoking the GM's notion of "fair play"? Perhaps if the GM is relying on a very precise timeline for introducing threats, the 1 minute and/or 8 hour issue might be obviated. But that still leaves the other issues.

Here is a superficially similar spell from a different game - Torchbearer 2e's Aetherial Premonition:

The caster sets an aetherial alarm in the Otherworld to provide warning against approaching danger.​

​

AETHERIAL PREMONITION EFFECT​

This spell wards a camp, house or the like. It creates the sound of a ringing bell in the event of trouble. Cast this spell as you enter camp (before rolling for camp events) and the spell grants +1 to the camp events roll. The watch in camp are granted +1D to tests to avert disaster.​

The fiction of this spell is very much the same as that of the D&D Alarm spell. But the gameplay is different:

* The player is permitted to have their PC attempt to cast the spell as part of the declaration that the party is camping - if the roll to cast fails, then the GM might narrate that as an interruption of the casting, but there is no unilateral power the GM to narrate some interruption analogous to something disturbing the caster during the 1 minute casting of Alarm;​

​

* The way the use of the spell affects the risk to which the player's character is exposed is clear, and not subject to GM decision-making: when the GM makes the camp event roll, as part of the process of determining what happens during the camp phase (which can include resting in town - "camp phase" and "camp event" are semi-technical terms), the player benefits from a +1, which reduces the likelihood of bad results and increases the likelihood of good results;​

​

* If disaster strikes (due to a poor camp event roll), the benefit of being alerted is clear: the watch gain a bonus die in their pool when they declare some action in response​

It's possible, in TB2e, for a wily intruder to avoid the alarm, but that would be a narration adopted after the camp event roll is made and an unhappy event results despite the bonus. And it is possible for the watch to be too distracted or drowsy or whatever to effectively respond, despite the alarm; but again, that would be a narration adopted after their test to avert disaster fails, notwithstanding the +1D bonus.

The GM is not at liberty just to narrate things in such a way that the spell makes no difference.

Some RPGers might prefer the GM fiat-free Torchbearer 2e approach; others might prefer the approach of the Alarm spell, which puts some parameters around the GM's narration (eg the GM can't just narrate someone wandering into the warded area 4 hours after the spell is cast without also narrating that the alarm is triggered) but otherwise leaves the GM free to introduce a threat, or not, that does or does not trigger the alarm, as they see fit.

But I think the difference between the two approaches is clear.

Well I do think that the latter seems harder for the GM to undermine. At the same time, I haven't really experienced the issue of a GM undermining Alarm in this way, so I don't know how much of an existing problem it solves. That said, I don't have any issue with the torchbearer spell. It seems like a perfectly fine spell. I don't know the rules to that game though so there may be lots of nuances I am missing

Just going to touch on some points you made in the post here:

On its fact, this spell looks like something that a player could use to help control the risk environment for their PC. But on closer analysis, it turns almost entirely on GM decision-making that is significantly unconstrained.

​

To be clear I probably wouldn't consider this stuff Fiat (another poster mentioned the GM doing their job in the game and this seems more in the realm of a GM doing things GMs are supposed to do, like decide what actions an NPC is taking, what woodland creatures show up, etc. But any of these could be exploited by a GM who was bent on making sure the spell didn't work

For instance,

* Does the player's character have an uninterrupted minute of time to cast the spell?​

I think interrupting the PC is a place where they could keep pestering the party with stuff so the spell was impossible to cast, but I also think this would be super obvious. There is a fine line here too because one of the reasons stuff like this matters is circumstances are sometimes meant to be a balancing factor with spell casting. So there may be times when it would be appropriate for alarm to be hard to cast, but that shouldn't be because the GM wants to stop a particular encounter or wants a particular encounter to happen a specific way. One thing I learned about GMing a long time ago is it is often a mistake to conceptuatlize of an encounter before it happens. The game is more engaging if you let things play out and see where they go. Maybe the Assassin gets around the alarm and surprises the party, but more likely the assassin sets it off and he is the one who is surprised and starts the fight out on uneven footing.

​

* Does any potential intruder come within 8 hours, or do they turn up (say) 8 hours and 5 minutes after the spell was cast?​

I think this is less of a concern as the players themselves would know the spell ends at this point and be a lot more on guard anyways. But this is why I do things like track NPC movement. If there were a question about when they arrive, I might leave it to some kind of roll. But a GM having having the NPC show up five minutes after in order to stage the encounter the way he wants, is bad GMing IMO. I could maybe see an argument for the assassin knowing the spell has been cast somehow and waiting, but like I said in my post about the precision here, I think there are a lot of Ifs in that scenario so if the GM wants to play the Assassin smart or give him a sporting chance, he should really set some ground rules and procedures and follow them.

​

* Does a potential intruder come within the warded area, or open the warded portal? Or do they sneak around the warded portal, or inspect/attack from outside the area?​

I think if the assassin has a ranged attack and that is how they would launch their assault anyways (and it can be made from outside the range of the spell) fair enough. And if they know the spell has been cast so are being appropriately cautious fair enough. But if the GM is manipulating NPC tactics using his own knowledge of the spell and not the NPCs to get around the spell, that is an issue. I would think that the ranged attack itself though would set off the alarm right as it was striking

​

* If the caster (and friends) are asleep, and are woken by this spell, how much can the intruder accomplish while they rouse themselves?​

The spell is kind of pointless if they can't at least roll initiative and not be surprised by the assassin. I would think they should be able to do whatever a character can do once combat begins because this seems like it has triggered a combat to me. But I would play it by ear if the assassin freezes and they try to engage or feel each other out

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Well I do think that the latter seems harder for the GM to undermine.

Though it can be undermined by a bad roll instead.

(And I broadly agree with the rest of your assessment.)

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I certainly think there can be railroading issues that emerge in that example. Like I said very early in this thread, someone mentioned doing all these precise things to get around alarm so an Assassin could attack the party and I thought those things were too perfect and would likely feel as though the GM were trying to railroad an encounter.

I think it is possible that the Alarm spell in the OP could be bypassed in a principled way. It would require that the players reasonably know this possibility exists and that they are then free to choose consequential courses of action. One of those might be "risk an ambush" presumably because there are costs to thwarting it, or no available method to do so is more effective than the spell

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think it is possible that the Alarm spell in the OP could be bypassed in a principled way. It would require that the players reasonably know this possibility exists and that they are then free to choose consequential courses of action. One of those might be "risk an ambush" presumably because there are costs to thwarting it, or no available method to do so is more effective than the spell

While I don't think it is necessary for the players to know about the possibility, I do think bypassing it requires greater attention and consideration from the GM. I would be very reluctant to do so without good reason and without following procedures or rolls that feel fair

 

[AnotherGuy]

@pemerton

In my recent game something happened which very much I think speaks to the issue in your OP re DM fiat with the Alarm spell.

2 NPCs charged with tailing and bringing a PC to a named NPC of Sigil (Estavan) went terribly wrong.
PC killed one of his tailers, the other managed to paralyse the PC and took his backpack informing him if he wanted it back he could find it at Estavan's manor. The backpack had 1 particularly valuable item within.

Some hours later the PC rocked up at the manor.
Estavan had the time, resources (Consortium merchant) and the capabilities (Ogre Mage) to figure out the most valuable item in the backpack. Estavan allowed the backpack to be returned but without the item.
Negotiations were initiated. Estavan wanted the PC to remain in Sigil to find and investigate the other two doors from the 2e module Doors to the Unknown. This was an impossible task for the PC as he had to return home...
After some tough negotiations, the PC agreed to answer Estavan's questions on the 2nd door he had found and investigated in exchange for an hour or so researching the item. The PC claimed he wished to Identify + document his research and thus needed the time.

Now Estavan is an extremely intelligent opponent, at the time of play since this was an unexpected turn of events, I had not come up with the ways the Ogre Mage would have safeguarded the asset should the PC had tried to flee with it, but I expected that Estavan would have been more than prepared. The PC would have surmised the same thing...
At the very minimum the PC knew there was an invisible creature or two in the room wherein they were negotiating.
Estavan having agreed to the PCs demands, left him in the lounge alone with the object.

The PC's plan was simple - to use the Weapon Bond class feature of the Eldritch Knight. Now the item was not a weapon but a rod (actually, part of a rod ), but I allowed the ability. It was cool and fun idea by the PC.

Weapon Bond. At 3rd level, you learn a ritual that creates a magical bond between yourself and one weapon. You perform the ritual over the course of 1 hour, which can be done during a short rest. The weapon must be within your reach throughout the ritual, at the conclusion of which you touch the weapon and forge the bond.

Once you have bonded a weapon to yourself, you can't be disarmed of that weapon unless you are incapacitated. If it is on the same plane of existence, you can summon that weapon as a bonus action on your turn, causing it to teleport instantly to your hand.

Sure enough, before leaving Sigil, the PC used the ability to summon the rod to his hand and then he left, plane-hopping for a number of days...

After the session, I did some research about magically "marking items"
I came across Arcane Mark and Instant Summons.

• It would make sense that Estavan would have made the necessary preparations for the safeguarding of the rod. He was also the type of person to scry on the PC and use the Instant Summons once he made his way home.
• Now, long story, but we had gone back to flesh out this Sigil + plane-hopping storyline, so the actual campaign timeline is some weeks beyond this point. In that future timeline, the inference of a rod was not present. That is not to say that I would be "taking" this rod because of that, but should I exercise it, it would make sense with the storyline as it progressed.
• The future plan was and is for the entire party to eventually get to Sigil, so this Estavan and the rod would likely be part of a future campaign.

How would you have handled this?
I mean this Estavan meeting and the inference with the rod came out of nowhere. So I had no time to prepare nitty-gritty stuff, besides the main crux of the session was to see how long (and if) the PC made it home back from Sigil to the rest of the party.

[There was a fail-safe which was player-facing, should the character have died, since we were dealing with a past timeline, but that is beyond the scope of the issue we are addressing]