A Question Of Agency?

[Crimson Longinus]

Maybe? I don’t think that most such mechanics are so extreme. Like, if you’re playing a dungeon delving style of game, a player being able to author a room just seems over the top.

Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it gets 'over the top.'

 

[Aldarc]

I'm wondering what you find about 5E that makes it so hard to run without Force, if we're using the same understanding of it (where the GM changes the outcomes after they're determined). It can be very obvious to frame the fiction so there aren't a lot of options for the PCs, but I'm not sure that's Force as I understand it.

I think I'm another 5E DM whose game looks very far from the "standard 5E game." At least, from inside 5E--it's plausible someone from a different perspective wouldn't see them as very different.

Seems as though anything the PCs wouldn't have lived experience with is the GM's to describe? I can live with that, both as a player and a GM.

Even if one chooses to exercise disciplined and restrained play principles when running D&D 5e, I think that GM force is still both presumed as part of keeping the game slogging forward and, in some cases, downright encouraged per the rules (e.g. GM fudging on the presumption of the "best interests of the players' fun"). Note how heated threads can be when it comes to the matter of whether (1) fudging is acceptable, (2) fudging constitutes cheating, and/or (3) fudging is permissible by the rules as a power afforded to the GM. GM Force often is flexed under the pretentions of the GM authorizing the "greater good" of the game. (GM Chorus [chanting]: "the greater good.")

Other games either present the GM with less opportunities or ability to do so as part of the play process or are guided by more focused play principles. Simply having "GM doesn't roll" or "GM rolls in front of the players" as a baked-in part of the system takes away opportunities for GM force.

Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it get 'over the top.'

"Does it follow/expand the pre-existing fiction?" Also, have you considered the possibility here of discussing this in good faith with the player and/or group? If it seems (subjectively) far-fetched based on the fiction, then it's likely that the fiction will be negotiated between relevant participants. I'm not sure why these matters are treated as if negotiation, conversation, and discussion are absent (or even irrelevant) parts of a social game about the various players framing and engaging an emerging fiction.

That said, I have a similar story in regards to the secret door of a tower with a game in Fate. The players wanted to gain entrance into the manor of the prince to stop an assassination from a political rival. The players, however, were not permitted entrance by the guards due to a "compel" on one of the character's high concepts (to paraphrase): "Disgraced Bodyguard of Prince X". However, that same player later spent a Fate point to declare a story detail based on their high concept. Because they were the bodyguard of the prince, the player reasoned that their character likely knew hidden entrances and escape routes for ushering the prince to safety. So I framed the stakes of the fiction again, establishing that there are guards stationed around the main building of the manor. The player proposed that there was a secret entrance to a tunnel that connected the garden to the kitchen inside for funneling nobility to safety. This seemed reasonable, and so it was added to the fiction. I still requested that the player roll either Notice or Investigate (can't remember which) to find the entrance since there were potential interesting negative consequences that could come from that: e.g., urgency of time, stationed guards, changes to the tunnel since their last time using it, etc. This tunnel came up several other times in play and it remained a consistent part of the fiction.

 

[Manbearcat]

About your alien invasion example, I think you might be a bit exaggerating the difference between 5e and 4e. Antimagic fields and other fictional elements that cause penalties or prevent actions could exists in either. I have to note that the element that caused disadvantage to basically all rolls seemed to be designed to punish non-caster (or it does, whether the GM intended that or not) as many spell effects just work without a roll and thus are unaffected. Not sure how relevant that is for agency, except that it might have caused some frustration in the players as their sensible-seeming attempts kept failing due this effect.

My main observation was how you described 5e method of assigning DCs and such as 'arbitrary' compared to clear level appropriate guidelines of 4e. It is funny, because I would describe them as completely opposite manner. In 5e the DC actually represent something concrete, they're reflection of the fictional reality, whereas in 4e they're just arbitrary and do not represent anything concrete beyond being sufficiently challenging to the players (I think they tried to walk back that in some of the later material.)

Now, considering that you were running a scenario written by someone else, containing a lot of atypical elements, I can understand how it might feel 'arbitrary' in that context. What is the proper DC (or even skill) for operating alien hoverboard in D&D? Who the hell knows, there normally even aren't alien hoverboard in D&D! But with a GM who has a good mental picture of the setting, consistent(ish) approach for assigning DCs and players who are familiar with this it is not arbitrary. The same task will have the same DC regardless of the level of the character attempting it.

Alright, lots of stuff.

Going to start with some misconceptions that you have of 4e (I'm presuming you haven't read it or run it?):

1) There is no such thing as the classic Antimagic Field in 4e. Its not in the DMG, DMG2, or any of the Dungeon Magazine articles. Its not a Ritual in any of the PHBs. Its not in any of the sourcebooks. Also (and these are lost to us now) I'm very confident that this was specifically called out in the design articles and was a HUGE point of contention for certain GMs (that like using Antimagic Fields and such) 13 years ago or so. I'm fairly certain it was called out as "not fun" (in the same way that Sneak Attack/Backstab/Criticals not working on Constructs and Undead and Elementals is "not fun"...a separate article) so the game was designed with intent to not have them. The game is balanced such that all characters recharge their abilities the same and all characters are on the same power curve. There was (again) a huge point of contention for some fans. Some thoughts:

a) Even if you wanted to erect some kind of classic Antimagic Field, the game would seriously fight you (not just in your own hacking, but also in the corner cases that would come up in said hacking - do Constructs, Elementals, Undead come apart...which Monster Powers are affected, and in actualizing it in play...the impacts of a Wizard having only the MBA of a dagger and the RBA of a Crossbow on the Combat Encounter maths and on the duration-dragging of combat would be SEVERE) because of the Keyword tech and the way the game is structured.

b) There are EXTREMELY limited 4e iterations of the classic Antimagic Field and they are cordoned off to the Traps/Hazards section. These are very specific and codified things (like all of 4e). The Entropic Collapse Hazard for instance. Any creature carrying a magic item or using an Arcana Keyword Power (a "Spell" in 4e) has an Attack vs Will. Its a very (relative to classic Antimagic Fields) small Area of Effect and it doesn't shut down magic like in days of yore. It does level-equivalent damage and dazes (save ends). And, because it is a Hazard, it has an Experience Point value (based on its details, which includes the size of its Close Burst 5 Attack) that gets folded into the Combat Encounter Budget (which is a very codified thing).

So yeah...I can feel you thinking/saying aloud "TTRPGs are art, not engineering and this is why I hate/didn't play 4e."
There are no classic Antimagic Fields in 4e. And that is a product of intentful design, not a happy accident or omission.

2) You have the same confusion over 4e DCs as many others who didn't play it or were smuggling in the system engineering/architecture from other systems (D&D of yore perhaps). We had many, many conversations on these boards regarding subjective vs objective DCs, with many who hated or didn't understand 4e framing things this way. Here is the reality of 4e's DC system:

a) It works exactly as many indie games do. Port the philosophy of PBtA or FitD games directly over to 4e where, from first principles, the core mechanic is there to challenge THESE PCs and scale with them. Everything is about the framing. For instance:

In Dungeon World the core mechanic is always 2d6+ x vs 6- (failure and mark xp), 7-9 (success with cost/complication), 10+ (success). These numbers don't change, but the PCs do. What changes are "the conflicts, and their attendant obstacles, that you will be framing the PCs into." THIS will scale with the PCs in the exact same way that monsters scale in the story of D&D that the PCs go through (you fight goblins > orcs > trolls > giants > dragons). For noncombat obstacles it might be parleying with bandits/pirates > town elders > the king or his archmage > an angel/devil or dealing with a trapped oak door with town guards > an aware door that animates the entire room > dispelling an open portal to the Far Realm, with horrific aberrations undulating into this world, that a mad Sorcerer has conjured to end the world.

Exact same thing happens with 4e. The DCs scale with the PCs. Oak doors w/ town guards still exist (as does the Heroic Tier DCs that you used for the scene many moons ago)...but you aren't going to be dealing with that conflict at Epic Tier when you're dealing with mad Sorcerers, Far Realm horrors, and open gates to the insanity therein. If, for whatever odd reason (and by "odd reason" I mean "GMing error"), your Epic Tier PCs are dealing with the mundane conflict of a town...you just "say yes" to action declarations. You don't need to "roll the dice" (consult the resolution mechanics). Fighter pulls the door off the hinges and threatens the guards? The door is off the hinges and the guards are cowed. Done.

4e DCs and PC Skill #s are all about genre framing, genre logic, and testing the PC archetypes within that genre milieu.

---

On 5e and the game above:

1) As you noted, not my game so I couldn't tell you the reason why the GM constructed things the way they did. My guess is, however, that (a) he was mapping the effects that he has in his head for the scenario onto 5e's mechanical architecture and (b) he wanted to make things very difficult for the players.

One thing you missed in the play excerpt is that the Wizard suffered significantly as everything had Magic Resistance (so Advantage against his spells). So pretty much every dice roll and action declaration for all the PCs suffered. By no means did running this session feel like it was unfair in particular to any of the particular classes there (Fighter, Rogue, Wizard). They all felt pretty equally boned.

2) I mentioned the 5e DC 30 (?) thread that I put together a long time ago. Many, many 5e GMs were involved in this. There was no consensus on anything. Answers in terms of DC setting about everything under the sun in were all over the map (which I expected going in...it was more or less a Rorschach Test for the system and the people running it). In fact, if anything, that thread showed just how profoundly disparate across tables the handling of even seemingly mundane or innocuous things were (jumping high, jumping long, enduring x, etc); both input/procedures for DC setting and the actual output (the DCs themselves) of those procedures. The reason for this (and what I was trying to get at in that thread) is that 5e's GMing ethos is informed by some combination of (a) Rulings Not Rules (its up to the individual GMs) while (b) simultaneously trying to thread the (ever evasive) needle of Genre Logic Married to Naturalistic Simulation.

The arithmetic of (a) + (b) creates WIDLY different handling from various GMs on an action declaration to action declaration and obstacle to obstacle basis. That (b) is particularly fraught (which was what I was trying to disentangle in that thread). That is your "art." And because it is "art", its extraordinarily difficult to not lead to contention and a sense of arbitrariness...PARTICULARLY as play moves up toward the Epic Tier of 5e. I mean this is where the Far Realm conflicts or Modron/Planescape conflicts come into play. Due to genre, there will invariably be biology infused alien tech here ("tech" meaning infrastructure, gadgets, means that the civilization deploys). Forgetting those kinds of things for a moment, even dealing with the deranged machinations of Demons or the detached cosmical power of Primordials or Elder Spirits (and all of the crazy environments they inhabit) is completely non-intuitive.

Somehow, that (ever evasive) needle-threading of Genre Logic Married to Naturalistic Simulation must occur...and it must be actualized in a way that is coherent and functional sufficient to facilitate the actual playing of a TTRPG (meaning players need to be able to infer or intuit DCs within a pretty narrow window and then make informed action declarations for their PCs accordingly...or the whole agency thing goes tits-up).

---

On your last statement:

As for the second quote, I am not quite sure what your point was there. If it was to point out that in 5e there are many different way in which the GM could apply force if they so chose, then that is not in dispute.

That is precisely the conclusion that I was building toward! So we're on the same page!

So, to be clear, you do in fact believe that the below aspects of system/GMing are indeed vectors for Force and as you move toward the left, you're introducing more and greater prospects for Force (or outright ensuring the manifestation of Force during play):

latitude vs constraint

mandate vs verboten

opaque vs transparent

unsystemitized (Rulings not Rules) vs codified

GM-facing vs player-facing

 

[Bedrockgames]

Cool. How does that work? Like, are there physical or geographic boundaries in the setting? Does your game use NPC stats that need to be set before play? Maps and minis or theater of the mind?

Because the description “there is setting material, but the whole way I like to play is just to unleash the players on the setting and see what they try to do” sounds like my Blades game.

I expect there are some differences, though, and I wonder what they might be.

So it is traditional, in that as GM, I establish much of the setting material before hand: geography, key locations, towns, sects, NPCs, religions, etc. I've been running a lot of wuxia so my main setting is a fantasy Chinese analog modeled roughly after the Song Dynasty period (but it includes more supernatural elements and horror elements than is common in most wuxia). The players make their characterrs (they can do what they want, but are encouraged to be members of a sect or at least a martial arts lineage----you do get the occasional "but I learned it on my own on a mountain somewhere" guy and that is fine too. Then I ask the group why the party is together. They wouldn't do anything like create setting details, but like I said before, reasonable stuff about family and goals is fine (that gray area I mentioned before). Usually this is phrase like "Can I be the son of a sect leader who is looking to avenge his enemy". This can get more specific of course. But typically they ask so I can recommend a good sect that fits what they are looking for, and if the thing they want doesn't exist we might hash it out if it feels okay for the setting.

Once the party is together I usually choose a starting point (or they do----they might say "Can we start in Daolu to get into the local tournament"---Daolu is a city famous for having tournaments in the setting. But once they are there I let them do whatever they want. So one group I had started in a frontier region called the Banyan, where they basically tried to make their way up in the Jianghu. I didn't really plan anything in advance, they would just go around looking for named people to beat to enhance their reputation. Then they would look for rumors or information on places to find manuals and riches (this was a group focused on building up their power in the martial world). Eventually they decided to go to an Inn, called the Ogre Gate Inn, which is my version of the Dragon Gate inn. Beneath the inn was a complex with a powerful cursed creature. I don't recall all the details but after what I thought would be just a stop at an inn or a dungeon delve, they took over the inn and made it their base of operations (this, took a number of sessions), and worked with the creature below, coming to an arrangement.A lot happened in this campaign. I believe this eventually led them into conflict with imperial forces as they were in a border region, but would have to review my notes to see the details. I believe they ended up forming a bunch of alliances, sorting out an arrangement with the emperor and officially relocating their sect at the top of a mesa where they officially formed their own sect, which one of the players became the chief of. Once this happened, the campaign became more political, and the players began setting goals like finding a suitable marriage wife or husband so they could have children. This sect became a kind of focus for two or three campaigns that was multi-generational. I should say, there was plenty of dungeon delving between (often players would want something themselves or they would want to get the aid of an NPC, and to obtain it, find out what that person wanted or desired (and this would lead them to old temples, tombs, etc). But there was also a bit of sect conflict (sometimes conflicts they started, sometimes begun by other sects or as an outgrowth of their sect's activities).

Sometimes campaigns will begin with more of a premise though. I ran one inside the empire where the players would be criminals and part of an organization called the 87 Killers. So I told them before hand, I want you all to be people trying to join this group. To get into the group they did have to go on an initial mission to prove themselves, that was assigned by Lady 87. But after that, with an exception here or there if she needed something, they were basically operating like gangsters taking their own initiative to make riches and send tribute to Lady 87. The more they helped the 87 killers, the more they earned, they higher they rose through the ranks (though it did get a bit intrigue heavy, as there are a finite number of ranked positions and you basically need people to die to advance). At the set up, one of the players wanted to be married to the daughter of Lady 87, which I allowed (especially since it came with some serious downsides). The others wanted to be two brothers who were the sons of an apothecary (so we had them be the sons of an apothecary and his wife in a nearby village). They pretty much went around coming up with heists, finding goods to sell on the black market, etc. Eventually they had a spat with a rival group, an escort agency that was on the side of the law, and this led to a low grade sect conflict. I did introduce some dramatic elements of my own.

I usually call my style drama and sandbox, which is total freedom to explore but I am not affraid to throw in stuff for drama here and there (and the players can react however they want to it). I also use what I call the twenty year backstory in my campaigns---something modeled after stuff you see in Jin Yong novels and in a lot of other wuxia. Basically I had set up a backstory where there were a number of heroes twenty years ago in the region who fought against the empire but were betrayed Pei Mei style (complete with a burning temple). A nun from that temple, Saffron Tigress, like many others, went into hiding, and assumed a false identity marrying a local apothecary who used to work as a smuggler for the rebels (this was the mother and father of the two players). The players learned about this after they had formed a network with a local criminal named Iron God Meng, who bought shipments of a drug they were smuggling. Iron God Meng was a former disciple of Saffron Tigress (whom he thought was dead) and he explained some of the backstory to the party after his connecting to the party led to a meeting with her. I don't often do the secret PC past thing, but in wuxia campaigns it is more of a genre trope, so I am fine with it occasionally.

The reason for this long description of the backstory and events, is because when the party found out, they decided to abandoned their criminal ways and fight the empire. This wasn't where I 'wanted' the campaign to go. I wanted a criminal empire campaign. I had done the backstory mainly just to give them some drama and maybe add a little internal conflict. So the campaign completely changed direction once they decided to go the other way.

For me, as long as the PCs are doing something, I don't really care what they do.

Hope this answers the question. Know I have an atrocious memory and many of these things happened a while ago, so it is very possible I got details wrong or blended details together that were separate things (there are some actual play sessions of the Lady Eighty Seven campaign on my podcast, and the other campaign, I kept a log of on my blog).

I should add, this all sometimes requires that I invent things on the fly too. My general approach is to rely on established material in the setting and work logically from there. But if players ask "Is there a blind merchant in the town", for something that random, I usually quickly arrive at an answer or leave it to a random die roll, and if the answer is 'there is'. I take a moment to quickly decide key details about him and write those down----like to keep a notebook for this sort of thing. It might be mundane or it could be more involved with adventure potential. But mostly I focus on what the character wants, who they are connected to, etc.

Couple of other things: my games are pretty informal in my opinion. I also get lazy and handwavy sometimes. So I will sometimes shift how I do things for expediency for example. I also don't mind explaining my behind the screen rationale from time to time (just so the players get a sense of how I think about this stuff----don't do it all the time, but I have problem with that kind of transparency periodically).

EDIT: also, one important thing I should mention, while I have my ideas about what makes a good campaign and adventure structure, I am a big believer in focusing on what actually works at the table. That means responding to the types of players you have. In one of those campaigns I had a couple of players who loved setting agendas for their characters and going after them in terms of building up power and wealth, but I had two other players who were more into going on quests and facing supernatural forces, as well as things like seeking insight from supernatural entities. So while I didn't let them generate this content, I did make sure such content was present in the setting for them to go after from time to time. So we ended up with a campaign that was a balance between those two things, and we were not affraid to split the party when the group wanted to explore different thing. That campaign log eventually became podcasts of the sessions, this is the last one I have up (not sure how many sessions we had after this one): DISPOSABLE DISCIPLES SESSION 81

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also I should mention: drama and sandbox is basically a way for me to fix an over-correction I made style wise. I found that I was so afraid of railroads, linear adventures, and the GM imposing a story on the party, I was making the game too much about the players just going around exploring, and not adding enough dramatic elements on my own as the GM. This was a way for me to remedy throwing out the baby with the bathwater (and this is one of the reasons I keep saying here that I think online discussions and analysis can be useful, but you have to be wary of it, if the ideas you construct from them become rigid or start negatively impacting play at the table). Posted an expert on drama and sandbox at some point in this thread I believe.

 

[FrogReaver]

@FrogReaver - I believe that @hawkeyefan is asking for an example of your own play because to date you seem to be talking only about feelings evoked in you by others' examples of actual play.

I think he knows good and well that I haven't played your kind of games. I don't think @hawkeyefan would ask for something he knows I can't provide.

 

[FrogReaver]

I do believe that a couple have been offered in the thread, but since you expressed this concern that player based narrative mechanics start getting in the way, I would expect that you’d have firsthand knowledge of them.

You've been involved in the parts of the conversation where I've plainly stated I don't play those kinds of games. So I'm going to chalk it up as you forgetting. This has been a very long discussion afterall.

Heck, you even agree with my assessment on this despite my lack of first hand experience as evidenced by your expressed agreement with that very notion in your recent posts with @Bedrockgames. I think you even mentioned that examples of this were given by others in one of your recent posts.

EDIT: Wanted to add. I am a bit sensitive to bringing up lack of firsthand knowledge, as others have attempted to use that fallacy to shut down my thoughts and opinions on the subject. So while I think you are reasonable and rational and wouldn't do that, it did kind of come across that way to me initially.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Also @hawkeyefan i do theatre of the mind (hate using miniatures). Most of my games are conducted online these days (and hate online miniature platforms even more than real ones)

 

[FrogReaver]

On setting details I am a firm believer in John Harper's conception of the line in Apocalypse World. Asking players to describe stuff their character has direct experience with such as relationship to NPCs or factions they might belong to is kosher. Anything outside that lived experience is not kosher.

You know, if that's all that narrative style games were described as giving players narrative control over I don't think you'd find nearly as many people objecting to them. I certainly wouldn't be.

That said I think there's one other part to narrative style games that actually doesn't have anything to do with the player gaining control over some part of the narrative that's also a big part of the objection to such games. Most narrative games I see mentioned also add mechanics about PC's emotional states/mental states/beliefs/etc. But the more I think about it, those style of mechanics actually are orthogonal to narrative playstyle. I mean, I can easily imagine a game with the narrative elements you restricted the player to in your above example without these type of mechanics.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Right, So that would feel 'over the top' to you. But ultimately it is similar thing than being able to narrate paintings being just what the university wants or the tower or a secret door being right here. As noted, there are games where the room thing can happen too. It is pretty subjective at which point it gets 'over the top.'

Sure, what people will like is pretty subjective, of course.

I don’t think that being able to author what’s in the next room of a dungeon is the same as the other examples, though, because it’s the players setting up their own challenge. Depending on how it’s resolved, that would likely be problematic. If by “the room thing” you mean @Fenris-77 ’s example, I donmt think it fits because he’s not describing a situation where the player is authoring an obstacle. His example is the player narrating the resolution of an obstacle.

And to revisit the painting example of @Ovinomancer ’s; the painting wasn’t the “exact thing” wanted by the university. It was a possible thing; I don’t think there was any one exact thing mentioned. It was an idea that was prompted by the GM’s narration; the player thought “wow this painting sounds like it might have some arcane crap going on.....if so, maybe I can give it to the university to smooth things over with them; they love this kind of thing.”

Also, and more importantly, that was a kind of secondary concern. The crew was in the mansion for other reasons. The player did this whole attempt to Attune to the painting knowing that it would actually complicate their main goal. To me, a player deciding that their character would do something risky because of their drives/beliefs is great. Blades does this really well, and I think that the painting scenario is a good example.