A Question Of Agency?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Doesn't matter if you personally find it hard to say...it gives a pre-scripted response to my input.

Yes you expressed how you felt about there only being one type of agency earlier in the thread and yet here we are with meaningful choice that can be acted upon and because it has a pre-scripted response dependent upon the action chosen you seem to be claiming it's not "real" agency. I want to avoid going to internet definitions and yet the actual definition of agency makes no distinction in pre-scripted vs. freeform. That is wholly a differentiator that you prefer so either you have to accept that pre-scripted results have no bearing on forms of agency or you are by your own admission differentiating types of agency... which is it?

The meaningful choice is to play up (leverage) or not play up (not leverage or leverage something else) the characterization of piety to the Moon goddess. Its a meaningful choice because it changes the game state and choosing to leverage another aspect of your characters personality or characterization could change it in a different way. Again I see inklings of preference in your reply. the fact that you are not aware of whether agency will be available through a choice at some future nebulous time has no bearing on the fact that in the moment we are speaking to in the example above agency and meaningful choice are exhibited through characterization and leveraging of said characteristics in the fictional space.

OK, so there are two possiblities about my character. Either I have some sort of established notion of 'piety' or other character trait that would lead me to make the move 'Respect the Moon Goddess' or I don't. If I do then it either came about purely by chance WRT this encounter, or it was planned with this eventuality in mind (due to some foreknowledge by the player of what the GM was planning).

So, either I picked the trait and got luck that it was applicable to something - I see no agency here, it is just luck. Or I picked the trait because the GM's story made it useful and I knew that - Again no agency, I'm just responding to queues. Or thirdly I didn't pick it, in which case how my character acts is purely based on what I think will work in this situation. Here I have agency, but I'm just reacting. Sure, I could say "damn the drow, your Goddess rots! and fireball them." That seems like mostly a tactical choice which is explained 'after the fact' by some RP color. I don't see RP being strongly tied to where things go from here, pawn stance would work as well.

Again, this all assumes that the GM's choice of elements here came before anything the player did or expressed. If the player made her character a Moon Goddess worshipper and then used Discern Realities to make something about the drow position useful to her (one of the DR options) and the GM responded with the Moon Goddess thing, NOW I see real high level agency! The player wanted Moon Goddess stuff to matter, and she got it!

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you know what a Belief is in Burning Wheel? What role it plays in the game? What effect (if any) it has on the player's characterisation of his/her PC?

Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.

 

[FrogReaver]

delete. Phone jumped back to previous page and thought it was a new quote

 

[Ovinomancer]

You all tell me about the game. I analyze what you are telling me as if it was true. Unless you are intentionally misleading or doing such a poor job of explaining it to me then it’s not ignorance. You may disagree with my analysis, but that’s not really ignorance is it?

Actually, you restate it in an absolutely incorrect manner and then go forth. You haven't dealt fairly with any of the examples given, you just make up what you think they mean and then argue that. It's blatantly obvious to anyone that knows the games or similar styles of games and only convincing to people who harbor similar opinions and ignorances to yourself.

And, it's perfectly fine to be ignorant of things you haven't had experience with. It's unflattering if you continue to persist to pretend you do, especially after many posters pointing out your errors. The old saw about remaining silent is useful here.

 

[FrogReaver]

I can't roleplay my character's admiration of the sky visible overhead if the GM has told me my character is under a roof.

It's neither here no there that that doesn't bother you. My point is that it is a limit on the sort of agency you are pointing to - ie the ability portray your character's feelings.

This was addressed in depth like 1 page ago...

 

[Imaro]

Actually, thinking on this a moment more, your reaction is like going to a birthday party featuring cake and ice cream, then being asked what kind of cake you like and what flavor ice cream you like, then exclaiming when served cake and ice cream, "Well, this is a surprise, there's no way I could have seen this coming, it's a total gotcha!

Nope it's like checking to see if an ancient sword of alien make found in an illithid lair is magical and because my roll to see if it's magical failed... it's actually sentient and reaches out with magical psychic powers and feeds on my mind... Yeah I guess being in an illithid lair and it being of alien make COULD foreshadow a failed inspection will lead to being mind drained by a sentient sword.... I guess... if you say so...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Nope it's like checking to see if an ancient sword of alien make found in an illithid lair is magical and because my roll to see if it's magical failed... it's actually sentient and reaches out with magical psychic powers and feeds on my mind... Yeah I guess being in an illithid lair and it being of alien make COULD foreshadow a failed inspection will lead to being mind drained by a sentient sword.... I guess...

If you honestly think so, then either I've failed to demonstrate through two posts or you're set on maintaining your initial assumption.

To use your example, if the player was exploring a Illithid lair and I described an ancient sword of alien make, the way that we'd get from this to where the player was being drained by a sentient sword would be if the setting information had lots of horrible, soul draining, sentient things, especially in Illithid lairs (I mean, you said you'd played Blades before, so clearly you're aware of the setting of a haunted city with lots of horrible demons, devils, ghosts, leviathans, and occult things, right?). Then, the player would have to say, "I'm interested in figuring out if that sword is magical," knowing that "magical" in this setting is usually bad news. Then, the player would have to say, "I'm trying to attune to the sword and feel if it's magical by opening myself up to it," again, knowing that magical things can be very bad news. Then, the player has to fail the check. At which point, the GM says, "hey, yeah, it is a magical sword, but it's the bad kind, and it kinda wants to drain your soul, like, you know, it somewhat common in this setting of magical swords, what do you do?" Then, the player has to fail to get away from the sword, and so the magical soul sucking starts.

Again, the gates here are background setting details that indicate occult things are usually very dangerous. Further background details that you're in a haunted manor that belonged to one of the head creepy guys around. Then you get a creepy description of a portrait. The the player CHOOSES to make this interaction about the occult, knowing all of the above. Then the player CHOOSES to interact in a way that directly puts them in contact with the occult thing in a way that's dangerous (again, known from the action description). And then, when they fail, the fact it's a bad thing -- foreshadowed heavily already -- is confirmed, which changes the situation from the intent to find a benign occult item to having to deal with a hostile occult item.

Seriously, if you're claiming this looks at all like your strawman of it after it's explained again, I really can't assist you, and think that whatever experience you had with Blades must now be partially your fault -- you clearly haven't accepted any of the paradigms of play necessary to play the game.

 

[pemerton]

Classic Traveller was published in 1977. Characters in that game have a stat called Intelligence. At the beginning of the PC gen process it can range from 2 to 12 (depending on the roll of two dice). By the end of that process it can range from 1 to 15. During play it may go up (eg if a PC undergoes high-tech brain enhancement) and also may go down (mostly if a PC fails aging rolls). If it ever reaches zero then the PCs is suffering a health crisis of some sort and may die.

Intelligence is described in the rules (Book 1, p 4): "Intelligence corresponds to IQ".

There is also an Education stat, which corresponds (Book 1, p 4) to "the highest level of schooling attained".

Traveller does not have any general framework for transforming stat values into adjustments in action resolution (in this way it differs from a number of systems, including D&D from 3E onwards, Rolemaster and its cousins like MERP and HARP, RuneQuest and other BRP systems, etc). In given situations the referee may impose a modification that is extrapolated from a stat value.

A player is also expected to roleplay his/her PC - including characterisation, actions declared, etc - in a way that reflects his/her stats.

In our current campaign we have had two PCs with striking contrasts of INT and EDU - a retired soldier with INT 3 and EDU 9 and a former Imperial Naval officer with INT 2 and EDU 10 and a number of technical skills. In each case the way this PC has been portrayed has been as not very bright but having excellent knowledge of all the training and procedural manuals.

My reason for spelling out this example is to make the point that there is a long history in RPGing of expecting players to be prepared to play characters whose mental lives differ from their own.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

All that aside though, if the BitD GM is making this all up on the fly dependent on the roll at the time... how does he telegraph to the players what the consequences of a failed roll will be before they choose to go for it? Yes there are some restrictions on the GM's choice but they are broad enough that there still could be numerous consequences arising from the same action dependent upon what the player rolls. Is this what playing to find out means because if so it seems one's ability to make a meaningful choice is reduced since one cannot know the consequences for ones actions until the roll is made.

So, you are pointing out something that is material. That is, if there is no pre-established context, then what do different declarations of consequences actually mean? You could look to a few places for that:
1) Genre - waking up a Shoggoth is BAD, encounting a Fungi From Yuggoth not so bad, encountering a member of the Great Race of Yith probably least risky of the three.
2) Pre-established facts - Lord Shudderstone is to be feared, crossing him is not cool.
3) Agreement - The consequences of this are going to be real bad if you fail (now make up something out of whole cloth).
4) Revelation - That drug you took last week? Its actually mutating your DNA, this is dangerous

The Player could also be allowed to make up the consequences (ask questions in DW could accomplish this quite handily).

Obviously we don't know how bad any of these situations are going to turn out to be IN PRACTICE. That's what we play to find out. Still, you can use these kinds of techniques to create 'hard choices' for players, which is generally what most games are aiming for.

 

[pemerton]

Seems straightforward enough that it has an effect on the players characterization of their character. Which is all that really matters for me to be able to use this example as proof that such does occur.

Right. So you're just making stuff up. This is why @chaochou and I are finding it hard to take your claims seriously.

I have actually posted, multiple times in this thread, that it did not affect the players portrayal of his PC. And I was there.

If you do a search using the site Search function on "pemerton" as poster and "Force of Will" as keyword you'll be able to find the relevant posts in this thread and read them.