GM fiat - an illustration

[Bedrockgames]

But then we still must ask, in a broader sense, what, practically is the difference in general play, and to what degree does the activity resemble a non-trivial game in absence of player information? I think the OP is effectively about this.

Can you rephrase this. I am not 100% sure I understand the question

 

[FrogReaver]

IMHO this line of argument actually does a disservice to your actual position.

Okay. Why?

Less information always produces less agency.

That’s what you believe but you are doing nothing to establish that. However I have an example where less information didn’t produce less agency. RTS games and full fog of war vs no fog of war. Can you justify your belief?

What you need to assert, and it's a perfectly valid position, is that maximal agency is not always the best way to achieve certain goals. Again, this is self-evident, governments are instituted on this very proposition!

What I’m saying about equal agency in narrativism and non-narrativism and what you say here can both be true.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think, first, it's worth agreeing that there's something of a continuum here. That is, players can, and surely do, have information that is non-diegetic in nature. This is true for all RPGs. Even in a game that was perfectly scrupulous about converging character and player knowledge, simply knowing the game is a game is huge. Real players in real games know much more than this. I accept that, in the mystery case, which information is established as diegetic and part of the 'myth' ahead of time is relevant. OTOH, either way, there's a lot of air between the player and the character.

Sure I am not saying there is an iron wall between Player and PC. I'm just saying that out of character knowledge doesn't increase agency in my view. And there are times it can even thwart agency (like in the mystery example or in the dungeon example).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

What do you think the benefits of having a GM are then?

Because to me, having hidden information seems one the features. although given it's the feature i'm least keen on the other reason I've found is strong scene framing authority. gmless games have to deal with that somehow and it does have limitations. although maybe i'm not looking at enough gmless games.

I agree that hidden information can be used in a very specific type of play, a couple of them actually, but it is not great at producing good Narrativist play. It's good for what I would consider pretty niche styles. One would be full up mystery story play, which IMHO is a very specific thing that is best addressed by dedicated rules sets. Another might be classic DC play where much of the interest focuses on risky exploration and management of risk/resources. Both are, in my long experience, quite vulnerable to failure modes of various sorts.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I agree that hidden information can be used in a very specific type of play, a couple of them actually, but it is not great at producing good Narrativist play. It's good for what I would consider pretty niche styles. One would be full up mystery story play, which IMHO is a very specific thing that is best addressed by dedicated rules sets. Another might be classic DC play where much of the interest focuses on risky exploration and management of risk/resources. Both are, in my long experience, quite vulnerable to failure modes of various sorts.

I'm pretty sure that compared to mystery solving and exploration in trad(ish) games whole narrativism is an incredibly tiny niche.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't think in the context of an RPG this is true. If the GM hands the player the dungeon map, do they suddenly have more agency? I don't think they do (in the sense of what agency generally means in an RPG). Again there seems to be a divide here, I would point people to the Monte Cook article I posted, because it is a closer use of the term to how I and I think how people like @FrogReaver are using it. For me, if the players make choices in the campaign, that lead their character to obtain that map in setting, so they can then exploit it, that is agency. On the other hand, if the GM just hands the map to the players soley to give them more information (not because of something that happened in game), that info doesn't make their choices meaningful. It doesn't enhance agency. It simply shifts their POV from first person to something else. A shift in POV is not an expansion of agency

This above just doesn't seem helpful to any broad discussion of TTRPGing. It also seems to obscure or mystify what is actually happening in these games.

Only a certain from of TTRPGing is contingent upon:

* freeform puzzle solving where players explore a GM-exclusive prefabricated conception of an imagined space and that GM's attempts at deftly veiled elucidation of content in order to prompt clues, reveals, exposition dumps and then attempt puzzle solves.

* freeform, conflict-neutral or premise-neutral play (or sometimes free of both) where color, affect, and overall performance of participants are central (at least in isolated chunks) as participants explore or give expression to mundane & benign "goings-ons."

* social pressure-enforcement along with techniques deployed (no orientaint/clarifying meta-conversation, GM vetting "what you would know" as a fundamental part of player's decision loop, GM rolling behind a screen, "blind" action resolution numbers) to constrain player POV thereby limiting information expressed or acted upon to only that which the table perceives and agrees "the character would know."

But even within this particular form of TTRPGing, there are ways to evaluate how expansion or contraction of player POV expands or contracts agency, particularly when these contingent pieces above persist simultaneously with a game engine + GMing regime that randomly gives expression to play in the form of structure in play loop, codified units integrated within a superstructure of procedures, action economy, resolution economy, clarified finality of resolution and then randomly does not. Or a game engine + GMing regime that provides currency for players to parley into moves but then randomly renders that currency unreliable.

The interaction of this bolded gets to the heart of the lead post. If I'm a player of a Ranger or Wizard who has invested in PC build scheme resources or play to have at my disposal the Alarm spell, it would yield more agency if:

* those 8 hours and effect size are a functional unit of play (Exploration Turn dynamics and threat mitigation dynamics) that are (a) persistent, (b) reliable, (c) therefore able to be engaged with in an actionable way (denoting structure). Remove those unit dynamics (their intrinsic value and their integration in a greater exploration & recovery regime) and I'm on very unsteady footing when making plays around Alarm...and the currency of Alarm which I invested in becomes unreliable, not actionable in a coherent way.

* there is a knowable, persistent, actionable engine of Wandering Monsters/Random Encounters. If it is arbitrary to opaque from a player's perspective (a) when & how hostile encounters are introduced to play, (b) how that hostile encounter is rostered (type, how many, reaction), and (c) what the arsenal and weaknesses of the opposition are, then I'm on very unsteady footing when making plays around Alarm...and the currency of Alarm which I invested in becomes unreliable; not actionable in a coherent and durable way.

---

Here is an example of enhanced agency with respect to the above. The game includes:

1) an immutable Exploration Engine replete with (i) Exploration Turns, (ii) moves and currency that interact with the economy of (i), (iii) a Wandering Monster clock w/ supporting tables, (iv) a Rest clock, (v) codified Recovery procedures for currency, (vi) Inventory/coin system and management that is high-impact yet reasonable cognitive load.

2) a hexmap that is mapped, keyed, and stocked with all the relevant particulars such as (i) travel rates and any travel-attending resolution procedures, (ii) stock hex encounters, (iii) day/night Wandering Monster tables per hex, (iv) safe/dangerous intrahex locations for mandatory Rest or to initiate Recovery procedures.

3) governing resolution procedures that are persistent, reliable, and knowable (therefore actionable).

4) a within-structure means (therefore there is clear risk and/or cost to make relevant moves) to recon/research a hex's obstacle dynamics (terrain and related hazards/travel rates, stock encounters, Wandering Monster table dynamics) so you can outfit mundane kit, hire useful retainers, loadout relevant spells, and generally be prepared for the coming exploration regime.

Now as you either remove any constituent part (structure, economy, handles, currency, resolution procedures) above or you render one its immutable qualities arbitrary in application (thereby not actionable as a feature of play), that Alarm spell (with very specific units that presumably aren't meant to be mere color) that you spent PC build resources on or in-game efforts to attain suddenly becomes unreliable currency. Ranger players will rightly eschew Alarm for Absorb Elements or Hunter's Mark while Wizard players will go with any number of spells that are actual reliable currency.

Alternatively, in a formulation of play where all the stuff above is intact my Ranger might have spent an increasing sum of coin in a safe haven (some village or whatever) to:

(a) buy a map or hire a guide which will facilitate increased Travel Rate per Exploration Turn through x hex or will give some table-facing advantage on obstacle action resolution or the ability to outright bypass an obstacle in x hex...

* (b) learn of a cave in x hex that shuts down certain Wandering Monster entry hits...

* (c) learn of the Flying Poison Spitting Vipers (Range 30 of course!) + their predator's scent + how to attain it, allowing me to...

* (d) swiftly lead my charges through nearly the whole hex to make camp in the cave for resource recovery/mandatory rest > deploy the scent outside of the cave > cast my Alarm spell > thereby ensuring the now (post moves I've made) very few remaining Wandering Monster entry hits that could come up will trigger my Alarm spell.

Tada. More agency (much more agency) and more Rangeritude than in play which is unstable or arbitrary (or at least seemingly from a player's point of view) in its application of freeform, structure, unit economy and resolution dynamics, and/or its handles/currency is unreliable rather than reliably actionable/deployable.

Now all of the above bullet points for playstyle at the top of this post could still be in play here. Maybe 3 out of our 4 players have all of their immersion particulars checked if they were boxes. But our 4th player, or maybe even our GM, demands that coin economy/inventory is hand-waved or Wandering Monster clock particulars are veiled or...hell...Exploration Turns are outright excised (and all related economy/currencies/resolution as the whole travel/overland exploration paradigm of play is freeformed or seemingly so from the reference point of a player)...because engaging with these or their presence hurts this particular participant's immersion...they feel it doesn't constrain their POV enough.

Ok. Fine.

But now while 1 participant's (autobiographical quality of) immersion is enhanced due to extra constraints on POV, player agency has both specifically (for the Ranger player) and broadly been negatively impacted and that reality is both trivially inferable and becomes empirically obvious as the play of the game unfolds. Various currencies go from reliable to unreliable while various lines of play have their actionable portfolio, impacts, and experience of undertaking diminished...likely leading them into extinction.

 

[Bedrockgames]

This above just doesn't seem helpful to any broad discussion of TTRPGing. It also seems to obscure or mystify what is actually happening in these games.

happy to engage you but can you express why this obscures and mystified and why it isn’t helpful to broad discussion more concisely and clearly in plain English (having a lot of trouble following what the rest of your post is saying: and that might be on me, but really can’t get what us being said)

 

[robertsconley]

I find this is very much about reading the room and adapting to the group. I have some players who are thrilled by rudderless play. I.E. they would be perfectly content to open up a muffin shop and sell muffins the whole campaign, perhaps growing their very own muffin empire.

I prefer basket weaving as my go to example but muffins work just as well.

Also on the rudderless thing, this is also something can happen with players who aren't accustomed to this much freedom to explore. @robertsconley talks about using training wheels in sandboxes to avoid this problem and I think that is a very handy approach.

The general principle I found is that some folks enjoy pretending to be characters having adventures if their character lives have some structure to them.

For example, some would enjoy being more part of a noble court following their liege's agenda rather than being in charge of the noble court and having to come up with their own agenda.


The other thing I found is a lack of experience with the campaign's circumstances. For example, the group wants to play characters who are the crew of a starship but don't know much about starships and space travel.

In which case, this would involve me coaching the players on what they need to know, and the first few adventures/sessions would focus on getting them comfortable with that knowledge.

I would also leverage my experience as a referee to make this feel as organic as possible. But sometimes I will devote a session to getting folks up to speed. I often do this with more detailed systems, such as GURPS, and run them through combat, skill checks, and other scenarios. Combined this with trying out their characters in various situations to see if what they created matched what they wanted to create.

And I will do this with certain settings like Middle Earth, Star Trek, the Expanse, that have their quirks and feel compared to what most players know about a genre.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IMO on mysteries I suppose that to me what makes one real and the other less real is that if the game were to end prematurely could the dm or someone tell you who actually did it?

Now why is that important? Because the knowledge that there is a concrete culprit from the start impacts how the game is played. It’s the difference in trying to suss out an objective answer vs trying to steer the answer towards the culprit one would like it to be.

(Because the ability to steer the fiction external to your pc is the kind of player agency narrativism typically advocates for and the kind of mechanics it typically employs).

Narrativist play revolves around "play to find out" not "play to author your favored plot". The latter is probably closer to some form of neo-trad/oc play where the main goal is showcasing defined characters and story arcs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes. It is not a real murder. But it is a real mystery.

I would call Clue just a pretty basic logic puzzle. I recall realizing this around age 6. If you index all the answers to all the players guesses you can derive the contents of the envelope. It is really just an exercise in note-taking at that point. It's about as much a 'mystery' as working out the product of 2 10 digit numbers, you just grind through an algorithm and get the answer.

Clue does have a game component, rolling dice and disrupting other players be guessing their character into the wrong room, but the solution to the game is just logic.