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

[AlViking]

How do you find out if your character dies in D&D? How do you find out if you locate a secret door?

Because of a dice roll.

Saying that you don't find out about a character if their emotional or mental state is determined by a die roll seems to contradict the idea that you can find anything out that way. No?

External events affecting a character physical state, a character not achieving something they attempt is completely different from what my character thinks or feels. Do you really not see a difference?

 

[zakael19]

But we say this because we find it more complex than you are describing it. And people don't just stop there, they explain why. If it frustrates you, that isn't on us. We find your descriptions of our play style equally frustrating I am sure.

And none of this is saying we can't unpackage agency. Rob just broke down two components of agency being discussed. But saying how we talk about agency needs to consider the particulars of the game: that would seem to be a very very basic step in terms of understanding agency. If you are just using it like a bludgeon to categorize some games as having more, some as having less, when clearly there is a lot more going on in the details (like whether you are prioritizing POV or not, whether you are prioritizing power to impact game state, versus the autonomy you have as a character, etc). The problem with with the way you guys are talking about it, is it effectively is just a synonym for control of the game, which I don't find very illuminating.

It feels like goalpost shifting most of the time. @hawkeyefan or myself or somebody else will make a set of statements operating under a constrained, workable for internet discussion set of either caveats or assumptions, and then Robert will go "well we can't really discuss that, because we need to expand to The Entirety of Play" or something.

Like, since he keeps bringing work into things: where I work we do a lot of analysis of highly complex human factor systems. We state assumptions up front that kinda level set the discussion that "we're not able to model everything here because of variation." So things like "we're using the rules of the game as a starting point for discussion of agency because we simply cannot account for all the house rules or bit and bobs added in."

If you want to further add in "some styles of play within the same ruleset allow for greater or lesser agency because of xyz" as has been pulverized around sandbox vs non-sandbox play here, cool! You can speak from teh assumption of "given the same ruleset, player-chosen direction/priority of play within a GM provided sandbox gives more agency then AP play because..." and we're on the same page.

 

[zakael19]

The "game" part is there in order to abstract those parts that can't be role-played. The "role-play" part does the rest.

If-when you try to shove the "role-play" parts under the "game" umbrella with binding social mechanics then you're ripping the guts out of the role-playing part of the exercise.

That's, like, your opinion man. I seem to get incredibly rich, deep (to the point of serious emotional resonance) roleplaying out of games that are designed with binding social mechanics that far exceed anything I was able to experience in 5e Adventure Path or OSR sandbox play.

 

[Bedrockgames]

It feels like goalpost shifting most of the time. @hawkeyefan or myself or somebody else will make a set of statements operating under a constrained, workable for internet discussion set of either caveats or assumptions, and then Robert will go "well we can't really discuss that, because we need to expand to The Entirety of Play" or something.

How can we not consider entirety of play?

 

[Maxperson]

Sorry, let me clarify. Both are subsets of "player agency" as both are ways in which a player may influence the game.

That's just another way to say that there are two types of agency. The old computer tapes and modern hard drives have more in common with one another than the two types of agency.

If the living portion of the world still happens, then something like what I've described should spring up.

That's not how you do a living world. If the DM decides right then and there that something shows up and hits the PCs, it wasn't produced by the living world portion of the game.

First, why not? Just say "you lay about town for a few weeks, when suddenly, a bell rings out... it's the alarm bell from one of the lookout towers! Cries of 'Gnolls!' can be heard from near the wall. What do you do?" Time is mutable... as the GM, you can set the pace however you like if the players aren't doing anything.

Why not? Because it's not only not my job to play their characters for them, in my opinion it's a mortal DM sin to play their characters like that. I don't get to decide that they sit around for days or weeks. They need to tell me that they are sitting around for that long.

Second, as I've explained, this scenario with the gnolls would be something that would already be "in motion". This would happen over sessions of play if the players chose not to interact with those elements of play. It could be very easily summarized like this:

1. Gnolls are raiding caravans along the western road
2. Emboldened, the gnolls have begun to attack homesteads and farms not far from town
3. The gnolls use their pillaged funds to hire a couple of giant mercenaries to bolster their force
4. The gnolls attack the town

As a GM, you'd track these events and mark the progression from one step to the next, provided that the players don't get involved in some way. If the players do get involved, then you'd determine the impact that involvement would have on this track of events.

They weren't already in motion, though. I can't retroactively have them already set in motion weeks prior and have it be the result of a living world.

I can absolutely do something like that, but it takes away from both living world and sandbox play.

Well, I think people can adapt and/or improve. I also think that players can be encouraged to be reactive or proactive or inactive. The GM plays a huge part in this.

People's personalities rarely change. Someone who is passive rarely becomes proactive.

 

[hawkeyefan]

External events affecting a character physical state, a character not achieving something they attempt is completely different from what my character thinks or feels. Do you really not see a difference?

I see a difference, I just don’t think it matters.

I understand that you and others have strong feelings about rules that remove your ability to control your character and/or your character’s thoughts and feelings. I don’t blame anyone who feels that way.

But that doesn’t mean that games that involve such rules are automatically removing player agency.

 

[Gimby]

Against NPC opponents, sure - but does it work if-when used by NPCs on PCs, or by one PC on another?

The trigger is "When you hit a creature", so yes, by default

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I honestly don't know of really any games that actually allow one PC to force another PC to think or act a certain way due to failed die rolls without magic or similar being involved.

How do you count the "impose a condition" case?

 

[Micah Sweet]

So are you trying to throw out in-fiction causality entirely?

Also, there's no good reason why the fiction invented by another person (or by me) can't try its best to reflect reality except when fantastic elements dictate otherwise.

Some folks really like to completely dismiss GM attempts to adjudicate based on plausibility and verisimilitude as simple fiat. And somehow don't see that as reductive and insulting.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is a convention of D&D (and many other roleplaying games) that players author their characters (for the most part) and GMs (for the most part) author the setting. It is also a convention that only magical social influence is allowed to have teeth. But these conventions of play are not some natural form, inherent to the medium or intrinsic to the act of roleplaying. It's just one possible arrangement for how we choose to organize this thing we're doing.

What makes zero sense is to evaluate a game operating under different conventions and address discrete mechanics as if they were operating under the conventions you are used to. Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition gives the GM some rules limited shared authorship of the player characters to inflict strife, to determine when anxieties apply and has options for binding social conflicts. These things are not mind-control. It just operates off different conventions than D&D 5e does. You might not like these conventions, but attempting to describe it in terms of your normative conventions does no work and only results in poor communication.

You prefer games with a different set of conventions. That's fine, but it's just a preference. And games get to set the conventions they operate off of.

Deciding to re-release L5R after AEG sold it as a considerably more Narrativist system (as I saw it) is a big reason why I decided to end my until that point complete collection right there. Changes in the setting made a difference too.