GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

I think part of the problem, and I referred to this upthread, is the idea that one way has a "real mystery" and the other does not.

But one does have a real mystery the players can solve.

Neither do. Instead, each is a game and the players can make moves to try and attain the goal of the game... which in your example would be to "solve" the mystery.

Again there is an actual mystery to solve in the approach Hawkeye is describing

 

[hawkeyefan]

But one does have a real mystery the players can solve.



Again there is an actual mystery to solve in the approach Hawkeye is describing

No, there's no real mystery. There is a pretend mystery in both games. The way that this pretend mystery is "solved" is different in each game.

You have to let go of this idea that because something was made up prior to play it's somehow more real make believe than make believe that's only revealed through play.

They're both make believe.

 

[Bedrockgames]

No, there's no real mystery. There is a pretend mystery in both games. The way that this pretend mystery is "solved" is different in each game.

You have to let go of this idea that because something was made up prior to play it's somehow more real make believe than make believe that's only revealed through play.

They're both make believe.

Yes there is an actual mystery to solve. No one is saying it exists in the real world. But the details of the mystery are established and can be discovered and deduced by the players. It has objectivity to it: the killer, the evidence, the backstory this has all been pinned down so there is consistency as players investigate. I am not saying you can’t do mysteries another way. But for many gamers the fun if a mystery is actually solving them

 

[Maxperson]

No, there's no real mystery. There is a pretend mystery in both games. The way that this pretend mystery is "solved" is different in each game.

A mystery is mental. The game is mental. Solving both is a mental exercise. The game can have a real mystery.

You have to let go of this idea that because something was made up prior to play it's somehow more real make believe than make believe that's only revealed through play.

They're both make believe.

Doesn't stop it from being a real mystery. A real mystery can be had in make believe land. The player is here in the real world trying to solve a mystery.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think this is a flawed way of looking at it. That something can fail doesn’t mean agency is undermined or removed or anything like that.

Yet if it fails because of GM generated fiction, you think agency is undermined? I think your way of looking this is illogical. To me it seems you have irrational bias against the GM being involved in the resolution. I am far more concerned with what actually happens rather than how we got there. And of course my character, whose viewpoint I try to inhabit for most of the game, wouldn't know either way. They do not know of camp event rolls or of GMs making decisions.

And you can say "Aetherial Premonition affects the odds" but in long run, so does Alarm. What Alarm does it shuts down certain avenues of surprise. Now there might be situations where surprise comes from avenue not protected by it, but in good faith play obviously that is not always the case. Over the course of campaign you use Alarm many times in different situations. Most times the situation is such that it will protect you from ambushes, but sometimes situation might be such that it doesn't. But overall it reduced the cases of you being ambushed, just like Aetherial Premonition.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

No, there's no real mystery. There is a pretend mystery in both games. The way that this pretend mystery is "solved" is different in each game.

You have to let go of this idea that because something was made up prior to play it's somehow more real make believe than make believe that's only revealed through play.

They're both make believe.

Mate, this is just silly. Of course it is all made up. So are the crime puzzles in a Sherlock Holmes computer game I've been playing. Those puzzles still are real mysteries that can be really solved even though no real people were killed in making it. (I hope!)

 

[chaochou]

Agency in a game is a product of inviolable rules which players know and can rely on to achieve known goals.

But the most prevalent style of roleplaying features GMs claiming they can obfuscate the rules (or design them in the moment hidden from the players), undermine the efficacy of any known rules (in the name of their assumed understanding of the games' greater good), all while concealing the goals of play (in the name of 'mystery') and call it agency. The only agency the players have in such games is the choice to participate at all. It's why such a playstyle is called 'participationism'.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Agency in a game is a product of inviolable rules which players know and can rely on to achieve known goals.

But the most prevalent style of roleplaying features GMs claiming they can obfuscate the rules (or design them in the moment hidden from the players), undermine the efficacy of any known rules (in the name of their assumed understanding of the games' greater good), all while concealing the goals of play (in the name of 'mystery') and call it agency. The only agency the players have in such games is the choice to participate at all. It's why such a playstyle is called 'participationism'.

Hard disagree. There are a ton of hidden information in real life, and "rules" of the system are fuzzy at best too, yet I think people in real life have agency.

Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices that affect the direction of the game. And there are a lot of ways to get there.

 

[FrogReaver]

Hard disagree. There are a ton of hidden information in real life, and "rules" of the system are fuzzy at best too, yet I think people in real life have agency.

Agency is the ability to make meaningful choices that affect the direction of the game. And there are a lot of ways to get there.

Agreed. Perfect situational awareness is not a prerequisite for having agency.

I think real time strategy games with permanent fog of war when your units aren’t in an area is a good example.

You lose some agency around knowing what units to build at all times compared to games with no fog of war or fog of war that goes away once initially revealed. However, you gain a new vector upon which you can apply agency, that vector is your ability to make decisions around managing the fog of war obstacle such as when to scout what to scout with, whether to progress toward units or buildings with special abilities to provide more information from within the fog of war.

Neither of these style RTS games are more or less agency. You just have more agency over some aspects of the game and less agency over others.

 

[FrogReaver]

It depends on so much. Why is the GM saying no? What led us to this point of play?

That’s exactly what we have been saying, yet it keeps getting major pushback.

RPG play. Player agency is about the agency of a player playing a game. The more that a player can understand and affect the state of the game, the greater the agency.

RPGs are different and play differently. It matters how we generate the fiction and not just what fiction is generated. Thus different RPGs are different games and thus generate different play and shape of play.

Now yes, each game will have its own constraints and limits on what the players can do. But there's plenty of commonality that we can compare and contrast.

Not when your premise is that greater agency equates to a greater ability to influence the shape of play. If that’s the premise then your definition of agency is dependent on whatever play you are talking about.

To be more precise. You start with something like this. Play in an RPG is about manipulating the fiction in any way. Players in narrativist type games can manipulate fiction in ways that players in other RPGs cannot. Therefore players in narrativist games have more agency.

But there’s intense disagreement that RPG play is about the players manipulating the fiction in any way, because for many RPGs the play is about manipulating the fiction solely or predominately through the vector of your character.

Then there’s the supplementary issue that the techniques deployed to give the players agency over the fiction through more than there character while maintaining the activity as an RPG game requires that one gives up certain agency over there character as well. The giving up of those aspects of player agency over character is one of the most common places intense pushback to the narrativist paradigm is observed.