D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, but then there are other things that are said that show a clear conflict in the priority.

Realism… which I think is probably better considered plausibility… was sited as being more important than sharing information with the players.

So yes, I’m going off what people say.

So realism isn't essential to sandbox, it is a common feature. It is also not more of a priority than agency when it does exist. And one of its main aims is the enhancement of agency, not its limitation. You are putting two things into conflict that generally are not in conflict because you introduced a strange idea about agency being limited when players don't have more access to information (even if it makes total sense they wouldn't have said information). Again, that isn't a limit on agency when you are talking about their ability to act in the world their characters inhabit and their ability to make meaningful choices (given them too much information can even interfere with the latter).

 

[robertsconley]

So realism isn't essential to sandbox, it is a common feature. It is also not more of a priority than agency when it does exist.

Cue in GURPS Discworld which can be run as a sandbox campaign (any type).

 

[Bedrockgames]

And what is even more crazy about the whole argument from more information being used is it wasn't just used to say sandboxes had less agency, it was used to say redefine the OSR too. This is why people are getting pissed off. Terms are being changed up to almost rewrite the history of these devlopments in the hobby

 

[EzekielRaiden]

COMPONENTS	RAILROAD	LINEAR	SANDBOX	PbtA
Driving Force	GM	GM	GM (via Setting) / Players	Players
Mechanics	GM Facing	GM Facing	GM Facing	Player Facing
Character Concepts	Not Applicable	Colour	GM Dependent	Critical
Setting Importance	Primary	Primary	Primary	Secondary
Realism Input	GM	GM/Mechanics	GM/Mechanics	Mechanics
Primary Goals	Story Goals only	Story Goals	Exploration / Story Goals	Character Goals
Player Agency	None	Little-Some	Some-Greater	Greater

This is how I see it in the very general sense, having not played any PbtA myself and only being exposed to this forum and the little I have read online. So I'm happy to be corrected. Each one of us may likely play things and judge things a little differently to the above, according to how we run things at our respective tables. And it varies from game to game and system to system.

There are probably many more components that should be added, maybe some that should be excluded or corrected - I'm certainly (given my lack of RPG experience) poor at defining our hobby which is best suited for the likes of @Manbearcat.

Now I do not think it's necessary to quibble about player agency given that many of the concerns shared amongst persons who run sandbox games is that player facing mechanics and players having some authorial agency spoils/lessens the immersive experience they wish to create and that is a fair argument. The GM is testing the player against the 'living' setting (GMPC) and there will be unknowns (and that is fine).
So does a PbtA have more player agency? I say of course, given that the player is more aware of the engine at play and by the limitations placed on the GM by the system.

On the other hand, PbtA GMs argue their experience is more immersive, despite the above (player knowledge), because of the necessary tensions created and questions being answered through the fiction which are the primary goals of the system and thus elevate the story being fleshed out and that too is a fair argument.
I feel the GM is also testing the player, but in a much different way to sandbox.
Will the character change going through the crucible and how?

Anyways, this is my two cents on this mammoth of a thread.

I would say that for a non-player, trying to be as concise as possible, this is far from a bad summary for PbtA games. Imperfect, to be sure, but all of them have minor imperfections or quibbles or "well okay kind of but also..." bits, so it's not like egregiously worse than any of the others.

The only truly "wrong" (in a certain sense) bits are under Mechanics and Realism Input. That is, I would have said "Agreement/Mechanics" rather than "Mechanics" alone for the "Realism Input", and "Mixed" for mechanical facing.

The realism input for PbtA games is what the table agrees is reasonable. The DW GM, for example, has quite a bit of pull for this--as an example, the move Spout Lore (functionally a "Knowledge" check in D&D terms) specifically says I, the DM, tell the player something which is interesting (partial success) or interesting and useful (full success) about something that, in the fiction, the character has either researched, academically scrutinized, or previously studied; I as GM may then ask the player how it is they would know such a thing, if the answer isn't already obvious from the situation at hand. So, for instance, a Wizard would be expected to have studied magic in the past. A Wizard claiming to have good zoological knowledge about mundane creatures--something rather outside the normal range of Wizardly education--would very much invite such a question, because I as GM would very much like to know where they encountered such a fact.

As a good example from my own game, our party Battlemaster (very much 4e-Warlord-like playbook) once rolled Spout Lore about a highly valuable jewel the party was seeking, and (after the successful roll) I asked him, "Okay Ayser, where did you learn that? Given you're a career military man whose focus has been strategy and diplomacy, why would you know about jewelry?" And the player, who is normally a bit shy and needs a bit of leading on, actually showed a lot of initiative and said that after his father's death (an established part of his backstory), he was partially cared for by a neighbor family, who were jewelers by trade. He didn't learn enough to practice the art himself, but at least enough to identify various types of gems and to haggle with a merchant about their worth. Perfectly good answer, which gave us some more insight into the rough time in his life (from, very roughly, the age of 8-10 to majority, when he was able to join the military full time, following in his father's footsteps).

All mechanics do--though that "all" is doing a hell of a lot of heavy lifting--is resolving points where it isn't clear what should happen next. Usually, that means someone or something is under threat, but it can also mean we don't know whether an act or effort would succeed, and both failure and success would be both interesting and reasonable.

As for the mechanics: players use names for their stuff (like the aforementioned Spout Lore). GMs are explicitly instructed: "Never speak the name of your move." I have plenty of mechanics as a GM--but I never call attention to them. Really, players shouldn't be thinking in terms of their move-names either, those are just useful labels for a variety of reasons. Players should be thinking about what actions they're taking within the fictional space. Because "you have to do it, to do it" (=you MUST take actions within the fiction in order for rules to proverbially "fire") and "if you do it, you do it" (=you MUST apply the appropriate rule when you have taken the actions which trigger it), the players should be focused on what actions make sense in context, and if that happens to involve a move, cool, we do that move and then go right back to answering "what action makes sense in this context?"

So...like...the mechanics that have names are player-facing, yes, 100%, absolutely. But all the monsters I run? All the fronts I put together? (Just put together another one yesterday, actually, though we're on sort of pseudo-hiatus as both a new not-yet-joined player and an old player are temporarily unable to play.) All of that stuff involves a lot of moves my players never, ever see. Not because I'm hiding anything, in the strictest sense, but because....there's no need to name it, the players will see the situation when the situation is happening, and if they prepare (as they usually do! Sometimes excessively!), they can get the situational information, which is both more in-character and more useful than the specifics of how I wrote up the...I dunno, alchemy-based "spell"casting rules for the dragon-steroid gangbanger alchemist they fought one time. (Yes, that is an actual fight that happened. Had some really interesting consequences, actually.)

 

[AnotherGuy]

The realism input for PbtA games is what the table agrees is reasonable. The DW GM, for example, has quite a bit of pull for this--as an example, the move Spout Lore (functionally a "Knowledge" check in D&D terms) specifically says I, the DM, tell the player something which is interesting (partial success) or interesting and useful (full success) about something that, in the fiction, the character has either researched, academically scrutinized, or previously studied; I as GM may then ask the player how it is they would know such a thing, if the answer isn't already obvious from the situation at hand. So, for instance, a Wizard would be expected to have studied magic in the past. A Wizard claiming to have good zoological knowledge about mundane creatures--something rather outside the normal range of Wizardly education--would very much invite such a question, because I as GM would very much like to know where they encountered such a fact.

I like this rule, this seems to suit PbtA nicely given the way the system seems to handle Lore.
It is a little trickier say to incorporate this idea within a D&D engine, not impossible though.
I like that a success can (via GM prompts) necessitate a player to flesh out their character during play. It provides some reflection on the priorities of the GM
(i) To make sense of the fiction in play as determined by the die roll.
(ii) To learn more about the character

In a sense, this is similar in a way to the Flash Forward idea of BitD, where the character gets to have remembered what they brought along via player exercising the mechanic while in this case the success on the die roll (being the mechanic in this instance) can provide the player the idea to sculpt their character to suit the present fiction.
Out of curiosity, does the additional content provided require DM prompting or can the player offer this creative input themselves when the success is rolled?

 

[pemerton]

From where I'm sitting, all it's illustrating is that it's easy to craft an example that at least superficially appears to suit any given argument, if the example doesn't need to have any basis in reality.

Your example is an attempt to suggests that if someone compares two things and decides one is more suitable than the other for a particular task, then that person must accept as true and fair any other claim that one thing is better than another for that task.

I'm not suggesting that anyone must accept anything as true.

But the notion that the argument about agency depends on rhetorical devices is in my view flawed. The argument has a clear and obvious character.

 

[pemerton]

There are two major types. Your type which focuses on the player control over the fiction, and my kind which focuses on the player having meaningful control over what his PC says and does. Those are not the same kind of agency.

In AP play, the players have meaningful control over what their PCs say and do. Does that mean there's nothing to be said about the difference of player agency between AP play and a sandbox?

 

[AlViking]

Is it artificial if it’s a specific meaning with weight around dynamics of the game, player facing mechanics, premises of play, and table outcomes, just because you don’t agree with it?

@hawkeyefan seems to generally prefer a degree of player-side agency that is greater in aggregate then what most conventional systems provide even with sandbox style play (which we’ve seen tend to weight “character-set goals within the enumerated setting” as the agency Id say?).

Yes it's artificial. I could define "more" agency in a way that changes which approach comes out on top. Let's say a player wants to convince NPC Sir Important to support their cause. In D&D we take into consideration several factors that, as far as I can tell are frequently not taken into consideration. I say as far as I can tell because no matter how many times I've asked I never seem to get an answer. Do other games adjust the odds of success based on what came before?

In D&D I can take into consideration everything that has happened in the campaign up to that moment into consideration. I can allow the use of different checks, from a History check to remind Sir Important of their heritage, an Arcana check to influence their advisor, perhaps choose between persuasion and intimidate depending on how the player wants to approach it.

As far as I can tell in many other games nothing that happened up to the point where a critical point is reached has any impact. Established in fiction that Sir Important may be more or less likely to help? Doesn't make a difference. Have something you want to do that has some game reason for restriction? Roll a die or you don't actually do it. Another character wants to affect what you do? Roll a die. I could declare that those types of things, limitations and guardrails for player and GM, remove agency.

But I don't think these differences give one game or the other "more" or "less" agency. Agency is just expressed in different ways. Talking specific rules doesn't change anything because we're simply talking apples and oranges here. When it comes to agency there is no standard. That's also not the issue I had, it was the statement that player agency isn't as important as other factors and the implication that if it was we'd play a different game.

Also: why are your criteria "natural" but mine "artificial"? Are the criteria by which you judge that your RPGing involves more agency than AP play artificial ones?

I never said my criteria was "natural". I said that the criteria provided to measure agency is artificial. It doesn't matter what game you play or how it's measured.

 

[AlViking]

Until you tell me what principles govern the GM's response to those action declarations, then I can't tell if agency is the # priority.

If the GM's response includes a heuristic that foregrounds the GM's ideas about what should happen in, or what makes sense in, the setting, then I see that there is some other high priority which is sitting alongside and perhaps even displacing the priority given to player agency. That priority being something along the lines of the GM's vision of the setting.

All you're doing is just reaffirming that you've created a definition of agency that is not widely shared to "prove" that the game you prefer has "more agency".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I like this rule, this seems to suit PbtA nicely given the way the system seems to handle Lore.
It is a little trickier say to incorporate this idea within a D&D engine, not impossible though.
I like that a success can (via GM prompts) necessitate a player to flesh out their character during play. It provides some reflection on the priorities of the GM
(i) To make sense of the fiction in play as determined by the die roll.
(ii) To learn more about the character

Yep. The three Agendas (=core, over-arching goals as GM, which you should always pursue and do everything you can to avoid opposing) are:

• Portray a fantastic world
• Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
• Play to find out what happens

The first (and to some extent the second) are in your point (i), while the third (and to a certain extent the first) are part of (ii). Further, some of the GM moves (which again, I never "speak the name" of such moves) include things like "Reveal an unwelcome truth", "Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment", and "Turn their move back on them", all of which are part of learning more about something, and often, specifically learning more about the characters.

In a sense, this is similar in a way to the Flash Forward idea of BitD, where the character gets to have remembered what they brought along via player exercising the mechanic while in this case the success on the die roll (being the mechanic in this instance) can provide the player the idea to sculpt their character to suit the present fiction.

I'm given to understand that Blades in the Dark started its life as a PbtA game, but went further afield, changing enough of the fundamental mechanics and structures to be a similar but distinct thing. Sorta like how Gamma World and D&D grew from similar soil, but went in wildly different directions, even when later efforts aped from earlier ones (e.g. how GW7e is clearly mechanically related to D&D 4e, but the two are not the same.)

Out of curiosity, does the additional content provided require DM prompting or can the player offer this creative input themselves when the success is rolled?

It's almost always acceptable for the player to provide input, if they think it would help, but the answer itself is given by the GM, at least for this roll. I have definitely worked with player suggestions for Spout Lore stuff, especially if the answers are in an area I personally don't know super well but the person I'm talking to does. So, for example, if I had a lawyer in my group, and a Spout Lore check about law came up, while it's still on me as GM to answer the question, the lawyer's input would be invaluable to me since I don't know law anywhere near as well as an actual lawyer would!

An example where the player has more direct input would be the Wizard's Ritual move, which I have genericized (don't have any Wizards in the party at present, but if someone decided to play one, I'd replace it with something appropriate, or make Wizards really really good at it, or in some other way compensate them for the loss of that move, since it really is a lovely thing to have.) Here's the Ritual move:

Ritual​

When you draw on a place of power to create a magical effect, tell the GM what you’re trying to achieve. Ritual effects are always possible, but the GM will give you one to four of the following conditions:

It’s going to take days/weeks/months.
First you must ______________________.
You’ll need help from ______________________.
It will require a lot of money
The best you can do is a lesser version, unreliable and limited
You and your allies will risk danger from ______________________.
You’ll have to disenchant ______________________ to do it.

Note what it says there: Ritual effects are always possible. That's a hard, binding rule on me as GM. I am not allowed to tell the players they simply cannot achieve a ritual effect, unless doing so would grossly violate reason/sense/etc. (we are presuming people participating in good faith). But, by that same token, I am at liberty to specify up to four of the above conditions, and a particularly powerful effect might require particularly onerous conditions. Also, note that the player must (as the bolded part--the "trigger phrase"--says) "draw on a place of power to create a magical effect". That means they need a place of power, and if they don't already have one on hand, they'll need to find one before they can even attempt this.

So, say they want to resurrect a long-dead champion of the kingdom, so she can fight off the evil sorcerer she slew long ago (hence "champion of the kingdom"). That's a pretty damn powerful effect, to restore life and vigor to someone who died, presumably of natural causes, centuries ago. So maybe I say they'll need help from the Church of Bahamut (which they aren't on great terms with because this group isn't at all shy about some skullduggery), they'll risk danger from the Sorcerer's second-in-command who has taken up residence inside the hero's tomb, and they'll have to make a great sacrifice to show Bahamut that he should relinquish this honorable soul back to the land of the living for one final deed of derring-do (read: disenchant something powerful and personally valuable, such as the Fighter's ancestral blade or the Wizard's staff of power.)

Here, the players have 100% control over what the ritual itself accomplishes. I can't touch that. But I can set costs--perhaps costs that the party might not be willing to pay. Maybe the Rogue isn't really willing to apologize for stealing that silverware from the bishop's home. Maybe the Wizard and Fighter aren't willing to part with their treasured valuables. Or maybe they think taking on the Sorcerer's second-in-command won't be that much easier than taking on the Sorcerer himself, so they might as well just do it themselves.

But generally you would want to pick costs that are challenging but interesting, costs that inspire them to new adventure, rather than costs that make them not want to engage. My highest goal is always to kindle and support player enthusiasm, so costs which are dull or leave the player crestfallen would be a monumental failure on my part. Instead, I want to make them excited to try something creative, to have them feel like when they show their creativity it matters.