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

[pemerton]

If what I quoted doesn't explain all the nuances, then by all means, explain and show us the original text so we can verify its accuracy. At this point I am not going to accept your word that something is true about Burning Wheel without you providing proper citations.

See, this is why I'm not posting any more BW rules.

I've posted the key rules multiple times including in reply to you (see eg post 1933). You have ignored them. And you repeatedly accuse me of lying, insisting that you know better about a game that you've never played and the rules of which you haven't read, even though you can download them for free (via a DTRPG link that I've posted).

The game is not complicated. It's not hard to understand. Scenes are framed by the GM, having regard to the PC priorities established by players. Action declaration is intent and task. If the action is a social one, the task is saying what your PC says. If the action is a prayer, the task is speaking your prayer. If there is something at stake in the situation - which there typically will be, given the principle that governs framing - then the dice must be rolled to determine if the action the player declares for their PC succeeds. If the roll succeeds, the task succeeds and the intent is realised. If the roll fails, the intent is not realised and the GM narrates what happens, always having regard to the principle that governs framing.

That's basically it. It's not hard to understand. And see the bits that say the GM frames scenes having regard to player-determined priorities for their PCs and if a roll succeeds, the task succeeds and intent is achieved and if a roll fails, the GM narrates a failure of intent, having regard to the basic principle of framing scenes that speak to player-determined priorities for their PCs: those are the bits that give the player agency.

It is nothing to do with so-called "meta-agency". All the player does is play their PC, making decisions. (Including, for instance, decisions to attempt cold-blooded murder.) It is the rules that govern the GM - which at every point require the GM to be making decisions having regard to player-determined priorities for their PCs - which ensure the player's agency.

As far as I can tell from your posts, you reject such rules. You want the GM to be free to make decisions about framing, consequences, etc based on their own ideas about the setting and without having regard to player-determined priorities. That is why, again as far as I can tell from your posts, the play that you favour is driven by the GM to a greater extent than is BW play.

EDIT: the reference to post 1933 should be to post 3346.

 

[hawkeyefan]

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.

I don’t know if we fundamentally agree… but if it helps for you to look at it this way, sure.

 

[pemerton]

But yes, it is clear that the content of their statement has no impact on chance of success. Which to me means the player has less agency for this type of interaction than in my D&D campaign.

How is this clear?

Are you just ignoring this rule, that you presumably are familiar with from the free downloadable Hub and Spokes (p 28)?

Whenever a player can claim his character has a clear advantage over his target - definitively favorable conditions like higher ground, pushing your opponent onto an ice patch or a weight advantage in wrestling - he gains +1D to the ability being tested. . . . In the case of social skill tests, good roleplay, keen description or just good timing can earn the advantage die.

The GM has final say over what is and isn’t an advantage. If he thinks the target of such a leveraged attack has equally beneficial advantages, then no bonus need be granted. The GM can also add additional advantage dice if he thinks the character is in a strong position. If he disagrees with the player regarding the nature or benefit of an advantage, then no bonus is granted. Only one to two advantage dice should be granted to each roll (at maximum).​

Are you also ignoring this rule, on the same page of Hub and Spokes:

Any time the GM feels that conditions put a character at a disadvantage, he must increase the obstacle of the test. Disadvantages come from myriad sources - the character is moving quickly, the light is dim, the air is smoky, the ground is slippery, the character doesn’t speak the language well or he’s dressed inappropriately. All disadvantages are cumulative - each one increases the obstacle by one.​

And presumably you missed this rule too, when reviewing the Duel of Wits rules (it's on p 103 of the Revised rulebook):

Players are encourage to play on their opponent's Belies, Instincts and traits during the exchange. Using these facets of personality against their opponents, they can lead them on and predict their moves. Simply baiting an opponent to Dismiss prematurely can cause the fatal error one needs to pull off a coup!​

 

[hawkeyefan]

No, this is not true all. Plenty of people see RPGs as games and don't share your definition of agency. One does not necessarily flow from the other. Again, I am okay with you having this different usage. But this conversation isn't going to go forward if we acknowledge there is at least a dispute over the term here.

The question of whether RPGs are games, how much the G matters in an RPG, that is also a point of debate in this thread. How rigidly we should adhere to game as a model. But that is a whole other issue.

I’m not the one that has a “different usage”. I’m using agency the way it works for everything else.

As for RPGs being games… I don’t think that’s a point of debate. They are clearly games. There seems to be some debate about whether they should be viewed as such for the purposes of agency… but that is the special pleading that I reject.

 

[pemerton]

I do my best to not let emotions control my decisions. But my real point is that it's a game and a fantasy. I'm not playing me, I'm playing Sir Badass who is never afraid unless I'm playing Sir Scaredycat in which case I'll run the character differently. But yes, I want to choose ... call it wish fulfillment if you like I don't care.

Burning Wheel is not a wish-fulfilment RPG. The player can find out that their PC is not who they thought they might be. For example, I found out that Aedhros is not as ruthless as I expected him to be. When the moment came, he hesitated.

 

[pemerton]

They have to speak. Does the GM decide if they are "speaking robotically" or if it's not adequately addressing the situation?

See, this is what I don't understand. Where does "speaking robotically" come from?

What the rule I quoted actually says is "spitting out moves in a robotic fashion is not viable". To spit out moves in a robotic fashion is, for instance, to just say "Point, Point, Dismiss" or "Rebuttal ,Obfuscate, Point" or whatever.

You keep asking for rules, then when people actually state them you seem to ignore them, or make up some variation on them, in order to prove that this thing you've made up is silly.

 

[SkidAce]

... It leaves the impression that it’s all fiat, which it’s not. It’s a series of considered judgments, based on factors I weigh consistently.

Well said.

 

[pemerton]

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.

There is no world that exercise causal potency. Where you say the world, you are actually talking about the GM making a decision, using whatever heuristics and processes they think will ensure "consistency".

In Burning Wheel, the GM uses different processes - not ones that foreground their ideas about "world consistency", but ones that respond to player-determined priorities for their PCs.

The idea that one is more "meta" than the other has no foundation that I can see - they are simply different GMing principles.

And it is simply not true that 'what the character wants becomes the reality of the setting". Unless you mean nothing more than the truism that sometimes characters succeed at what they attept. I mean, even in D&D sometimes players succeed, and then things they want become the reality of the setting (eg the Orc is dead; the door is open; the trap is disarmed; etc).

You say all you do is play Thurgon, but that overlooks what the rules are doing behind the scenes.

How am I possibly overlooking these things, when in the post that you are replying to I say "The rest is taken care of by the GM following and applying the rules of the game." Did you not read that sentence before replying?

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.

I don't know what you mean by an "active tool" (cf "passive tool"). But all those rules govern the GM. So now you are saying that it is "meta-agency" that the GM follows the rules. Which, as I already posted, is bizarre.

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.

Just to be clear - are you saying that in Living World RPGing the GM can override the results of a player's roll? So eg the player succeeds in the roll to hit and kill the Orc, but the GM can just decide that the Orc remains alive. If so, what is the point of the player rolling the dice?

When you bring up Blackmoor

You brought up Blackmoor, not me. I brought up Gygax on Successful Adventures.

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.

I'm sorry, you don't get to tell me what I believe, and to affirm simplistic dichotomies and insist that I must do the same.

I have posted extensively, in this and other threads, about my understanding of classic dungeon play. I have expressed my general doubts about the possibility of extending this to "living world" play, with a particular focus on the players' ability to know what the outcomes of their declared actions will be. Given that, just above, you seem to have said that you don't regard players' successes on rolls as having any binding significance for the GM, I retain those doubts.

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.

Because it's not "meta". There is nothing "meta" about just playing the game and following the rules.

I mean, it's notorious that Gygax included the Fraz-Urb'luu room in Castle Greyhawk because he thought it would be fun and interesting. Does that mean that the players were exercising "meta-agency"?

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.

I'm not misunderstanding. I just think you're wrong. You seem to think it's the pinnacle of player agency to prompt the GM to make a decision. I don't agree.

 

[CellarHeroes]

Burning Wheel is not a wish-fulfilment RPG. The player can find out that their PC is not who they thought they might be. For example, I found out that Aedhros is not as ruthless as I expected him to be. When the moment came, he hesitated.

I am also one of those folks completely unfamiliar with Burning Wheel...it was being championed by someone I thought was absolutely annoying on YouTube.

I can see how this could ruffle some feathers. There are some in the D&D world who have their characters planned out 1-20 with a 10-page backstory, then there are those who believe the character's story is what happens at the table. BW's resolution seems to lean towards the latter.

In this situation of hesitation, were the dice rolled and determined the action didn't succeed, and the player decided that their character hesitated? Or did the outcome of the dice determine that the failure was due to hesitation? In the latter, it would be understandable how that might not sit well with someone, even those who believe their story happens at the table.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Affecting the world through PC actions is not the same as the player authoring stuff without the PC being involved at all. 1 =/= 2.

One is a subset of the other.

The more of one you have, the less of the other. There's only so much time during a game and you can't be doing both all the time. Further, the focus of your games is different, so character agency takes a huge hit. You guys don't focus on the "boring" stuff PCs do and instead do character testing stuff.

I’m not sure what this means. I play and run a variety of games, and I’m applying the idea of agency consistently to them all. I’m not changing agency for my Spire campaign from how I view it for my Mothership campaign.

Since the amount of time is the same(ie 4 hours for your games is the same as 4 hours for mine), you can't have more agency than my games do. You either have yours and I have mine, or you break yours and mine up so that it totals 100% and mine is also 100%.

Ha okay.

It's comments like this that prove just how little you understand what we are saying. Or more likely, you don't bother to try and understand, because you just said that you figured that in less than 10 seconds of game time, living world stuff would happen gnolls running off to hire giants and then getting those giants to attack town. All in 10 seconds!!!

I don’t know who the “we” is that you’re referring to. Proponents of a living world would not allow the game to grind to a halt due to players not being proactive.

I understand the approach quite well. As I said, if the PCs do nothing, that doesn’t mean nothing happens. That goes against the idea of a living world. I find your accusations that I don’t understand this type of play to be unfounded and clearly ironic.

As for time, two things. First, the passage of time is an illusion. It can go as fast or as slow as we’d like. However, second, I never said to take only ten seconds to do this. If you were familiar with a living world, you’d know that the GM would be determining these developments at regular intervals. So, if the PCs don’t address the gnoll pack raiding caravans, then the pack collects booty from the raids. Maybe after a month, they’ll have enough to coin to approach the giants. Maybe a couple weeks later, they attack the town.

At any point, the players may take action that may impact these events in some way. But if they don’t, then this is what develops. So, the GM would be determining these things as play progresses.

In the event of players who don’t do anything, you can offer them opportunities for action. If they don’t take any, then you have the gnolls and giants attack town. Now they have to do something. Hopefully, this provokes them to be less inactive in the future.

Maybe you run your game as absurdly as that. But I don't.

If nothing is happening in a sandbox game, it's because there are no proactive players. You also clearly don't read my posts before responding to them. For once in your life, try reading to understand instead of reading to reply. It will save you from typing ignorant stuff like that paragraph above this response, because I said that if they stare like that, I initiate something to get things moving along, but that it's no longer a sandbox if I have to do that.

I read your post. I don’t think that having the word act makes the game no longer a sandbox. Yes, the players are reacting… that can happen from time to time without it meaning that the approach has failed.