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

[AlViking]

So no, you must do what your Duel of Wits action is to get the benefit. If you're driving home a point, you as your character drive home your point. If you're deflecting an argument, you deflect. Etc. IT's the polar opposite of classic "say words until the GM feels like you've gotten somewhere" because each thing your character says is tied directly to a mechanical outcome within a larger conflict (do I achieve my goal before my opponent overcomes me?). Besides, most D&D play in a ruleset that has skills is functionally exactly the same just with one roll, unopposed, and you see if all your pretty words mean anything (otherwise the GM is just fiating an outcome).

It may not be for you, clearly that level of mechanization doesnt work for everybody, but your characterization here is deeply unkind.

I may have used a bit of a short-cut to my explanation, but how is it that you drive home your point? Is there a judgement call that you have done an adequate job? If you've done a poor job is the chance of success lowered, if you've done a good job is it increased? Can previous interactions make a difference?

I'm not trying to be antagonistic but this question has been asked time and time again and what I see as a clear question keeps getting sidestepped. How well a DM in D&D takes into consideration the argument the player makes varies. I can only relate what I do and what I prefer, which is to take into consideration what they say and what has come before to adjust the target DC.

 

[AlViking]

I mean, I don't know if we can break it all down to such specific instances like that... but assuming we could, sure, this may be the case.

So then fundamentally we agree that more options to express agency doesn't necessarily lead to more agency? Because that's all I've been trying to say - just because agency in most D&D games is limited to character agency it does not necessarily mean that a player has less agency. Their agency is just expressed in different ways.

 

[AlViking]

But let's be very clear here. What you want is to have your stated actions and narrations be meaningful (or to paraphrase you here, "the chance of success is affected by what you say or anything the character has done up to this point").

The only way to make this happen is to have your actions and statements be evaluated by the GM. Much like in figure skating or gymnastics, your agency is to submit the best performance you can, and have it evaluated by a judge or judges and assume/hope the performance is evaluated using objective, fair heuristics.

Obviously, this play loop is the core of FKR-style play and still drives a large portion of the hobby. But more rigorously defined rules procedures and limits on GM authority arose precisely because contingents of the player base found the negotiation-evaluation play loop aesthetically unsatisfying.

It's obviously a matter of preference. I would find what I say having no impact on my chance of success would make anything I say meaningless. I make no judgement call on what works for other people.

 

[TwoSix]

In typical D&D play, isn't it in the GM's court to narrate?

I think a lot of D&D groups DO do that; I simply haven't for the past 15 years or so.

But D&D is also famously reticent about explaining clear play principles and procedures, as a result of trying to be broadly palatable to a wide audience. (A fairly conservative audience, to make a periodic attempt to adhere to the thread topic. )

 

[AlViking]

No.

Of course you and @Faolyn can believe what you like. But what you say in this post is incorrect.

If you don't have anything of value to add, why bother responding? I asked a simple question, one I have asked many times with the same results. A non-answer or an answer that doesn't just simply answer the question.

In BW does what the player says make a difference to the chance of success. If so, how?

 

[AlViking]

We already had this discussion in another thread a few months ago. Suffice it to say that playing a character who needs to ask the DM who lives in his hometown or who his family members are is something many of us find deeply anti-immersive.

The whole point of being able to say, as a player, what sort of patrons I see in a tavern is to enhance my immersion.

You asked my why I personally would find it less immersive. I answered. You don't have to agree with my experience.

 

[TwoSix]

You asked my why I personally would find it less immersive. I answered. You don't have to agree with my experience.

I don't agree with your experience, of course. I'm just pointing out that I have no desire to engage with it because we just had this discussion recently.

 

[AlViking]

Upthread, you said that you thought it would be bad RPGing for the players to just get everything they want. Now you're complaining about a RPG where a player might fail to achieve their goal of having their PC murder in cold blood.

And in D&D, a character can hesitate even if the player doesn't choose for them to hesitate: they can be surprised; or lose initiative; or miss a roll to hit and have the GM narrate that as hesitation.

A player can choose to have their character hesitate. The player can even choose to roll a die to see if they hesitate. But it's the player making the decision not the dice. When a character attempts something, whether it's to stab a zombie in the eye or act more quickly than their opponent, there's no guarantee of success. But deciding the emotional state of the character? If the dice are determining that it means there is less agency for the player.

What BW isn't necessarily bad even if it wouldn't work for me. I'm not even saying whether or not overall a player has more agency in one game or another. I'm just saying that when the rules dictate emotional state of or a decision made by the character there is less agency.

 

[robertsconley]

Yes. This is crucial to how they secure player agency.

But that doesn't involve the player doing anything but play their PC. It just requires the GM to follow the rules.

This is just wrong.

All the player of a Burning Wheel character has to do is be their character. When I play Thurgon, this is what I do. It is the rules that govern the GM that ensure that (for instance) scenes are framed that speak to the things that I, as Thurgon, care about.

Nor are they in the RPGs that I am posting about.

Your misunderstanding here appears connected to your early posts about character arcs, story and the like which @Campbell, @hawkeyefan and I responded to.

Eero Tuovinen actually explained the point very beautifully quite a while ago now:

I find that the riddle of roleplaying is answered thusly: it is more fun to play a roleplaying game than write a novel because the game by the virtue of its system allows you to take on a variety of roles that are inherently more entertaining than that of pure authorship. . . .

all but the most experimental narrativistic games run on a very simple and rewarding role distribution that relies heavily on both absolute backstory authority and character advocacy. . . . These games are tremendously fun, and they form a very discrete family of games wherein many techniques are interchangeable between the games. . . . The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook. And it works . . .​

What Tuovinen says here is exactly accurate for my experience playing Thurgon in BW. All I have to do is play my character and be Thurgon. The rest is taken care of by the GM following and applying the rules of the game. Your idea that there is "meta agency" is simply false.

To reiterate: as I and @Campbell have posted, in reply to you, the things that you describe here are not part of narrativist/"story now" RPGing.

They are not part of any RPG that I play.
How would players being told what the stakes are count as an exercise of "meta agency" by a player? It would seem to be a purely receptive role.

You appear to be talking about the players prompting the GM to make decisions: about how the world responds to declared actions, about what is at stake in the resolution of declared actions, about what thematic significance (if any) will emerge. It does puzzle me a bit that you seem oblivious to the extent of GM control over the shared fiction that you are describing here.

But anyway, I don't know what you mean by "structural control", unless that is a jargon term for the GM follows the rules of the game.

By "formal control mechanisms" and "procedural guarantees", I again take you to mean rules (and principles and the like). Yes, rules that govern the GM are important for player agency - these are what permit the players to declare actions with a sense of what impact they are then having on the shared fiction.

Why you characterise rules as "player meta agency" I have no idea, though. That makes no sense to me.

So? Formal procedures are one way of understanding consequences and what is at stake. They're not the only way. I've posted about this quite a bit upthread already, with reference to classic dungeon-crawling and Gygax's essay on Successful Adventures.

Well, that would depend on the heuristics that the referee is using, how those relate to the players' knowledge of the setting and how the setting and the heuristics and that knowledge have all been built up together, etc.

Just to give a simple example: asking completely novice players to play through a Gygax-esque dungeon with ear seekers, trappers, pit traps that open when the floor 5' in front of them is tapped, etc would be an extremely low agency experience. Those players would have no way of making meaningful choices to navigate that dungeon and gather information.

But for players who have built up their knowledge of and expectations around dungeon tropes in the context of extensive play, with the GM simultaneously over the course of that play pushing boundaries, coming up with new tricks and monsters, etc - then it may be a quite agential experience.

This is a particular illustration of the general point that informal heuristics are very context sensitive. My understanding of Blackmoor is that it developed analogously to my paragraph just above - Arneson extended the scope of the game, the ideas, the tropes etc in parallel with the players developing their familiarity with and experience of the game.

I have no idea how much of your "living world" play is like that.

I want to be clear about what I have been saying, because at this point you keep insisting I am wrong while describing exactly what I am talking about.

The distinction I make between character agency and meta-agency is not about players stepping outside the fiction to co-author the story. It is about how different systems resolve action declarations. In a Living World campaign, agency comes from what the character does in a consistent world. The outcome is shaped by the world’s logic. In Burning Wheel, the player may be acting as the character, but the system ensures that what the character wants becomes the reality of the setting. The player is not just navigating the world. The system gives their intent structural weight and enforces it on the fiction. That is meta-agency. The player does not have to speak out-of-character to be exerting control beyond the character's point of view.

You say all you do is play Thurgon, but that overlooks what the rules are doing behind the scenes. Beliefs, Intent and Task, Let It Ride, and Say Yes or Roll are not passive tools. They are mechanisms that guarantee the fiction will shape itself around the character’s goals. This is not just acting as the character. The system makes sure those actions carry extra narrative authority. That is what I mean by meta-agency.

You also say stakes are not negotiated in Burning Wheel. But the moment a player declares an intent, that becomes the stake. If the roll succeeds, the GM is required to make that intent happen. That is not the same as discovering the stakes through play. That is the player, using the system, to set the stakes in advance. The GM cannot override it once the roll is made. The player’s intent does not just express what the character is doing. It directs what the fiction must now deliver. That is a structural feature of the system, and it is not present in Living World play.

When you bring up Blackmoor and say agency was possible without formal procedures, you are agreeing with the core of my argument. Agency can come from a consistent world and shared expectations, not just from rules that constrain the GM. But instead of acknowledging this, you cast doubt on whether my Living World play works the same way. That move avoids the issue. Either you believe informal structures can support agency, or you do not.

Finally, throughout this exchange you have dismissed my use of meta-agency as false, while repeatedly describing situations where it clearly applies. You deny the term, but your own examples depend on system structures that elevate player input beyond the character's point of view or what the character is capable of in the setting. When this happens once or twice, it is a misunderstanding. When it happens over and over, it raises questions about whether you are engaging seriously with what I am saying or just refusing to let go of your framing.

If you want to keep this productive, then we need to stop acting like all systems support the same kind of agency. Burning Wheel and Living World campaigns offer different kinds of player influence. Recognizing that difference is not a threat to either model. It is the basis for a better d.

 

[AlViking]

What do you mean by "significant impact"? Do you mean bringing about a change that they hoped to bring about? Or bringing about a change that has significant ramifications for a goal that the PC hopes to attain? Or prompting the GM to say something that is a big change to the setting?

Or perhaps something else?

An attempt to have an impact on the state of the game. Attempting to convince an NPC to help and how, deciding whether to attempt to kill the shopkeeper you think is a changeling, pursuing the monster that attacked the NPC or staying back to help the NPC. Any number of things that has real impact what happens next or later on in the campaign. The attempt doesn't have to succeed for it to be an expression of agency.