Manbearcat
Legend
I'm proud of you! Give that Maximilian what he's got comin' to him!
A Question Of Agency?
- Thread starter zarionofarabel
- Start date
I'm proud of you! Give that Maximilian what he's got comin' to him!
I didn't force a desired outcome to occur. I allowed a desired outcome to occur. Those two verbs - force and allow - are not synonyms. They're actually quite close to antonyms.
The PC doesn't need to know whether Lady Askol believes him or not. For all the character knows, as per @AbdulAlhazred's post upthread, Lady Askol doesn't believe him but is going along with him.
This is a case of the character wanting something - ie for Lady Askol to accept his lie about not having used psionics - but how do we know he doesn't have it? That's what this whole discussion is about. My job, as GM, is to decide whether I want to put that question to the test. I chose not to. The next part of this post will explain why.
Here's the passage from pp 248-49 of the Adventure Burner (it's also reproduced in the Codex):
The Say Yes rule is difficult to adjudicate, yet it's one of the most vital elements of the system. It grants the GM authority to cut right to the important stuff and skip extraneous or tiresome action.
In a recent campaign, our characters were crossing a narrow span over a chasm. The GM, Pete, described the bridge in vivid detail. One of the players, rich, described his character hopping up to the railing and capering along. Should Pete have called for a [check] for Rich's character to keep his balance? No. Never. Why? Certainly "in real life" there's a chance of falling, but in the story, it just didn't matter. Rich was roleplaying. He was embellishing, interacting with Pete's description. Rich made the scene better.
And what would the [check] have accomplished? He would have succeeded and stayed on the bridge. Success would have kept him at the same point. Or he would have fallen and we would have had to save him. It would have turned out like a false not in a bad action movie. There would have been quick cuts and close ups but nothing really would have happened.
Thus, Pete could Say Yes to this action. Rich wanted his character to look cool crossing the bridge. Great! Move on.
Later, those same characters needed to cross a narrow ledge to gain entry to a lost tomb. Pete described wind whipping along the cliff walls. We wold have to make [checks] to cross and get in. This was a totally legit [check]. The tomb was the goal of a long quest. Would we get in unscathed? Or would this cost us? In this case, it wasn't about us in particular, but about our gear and an NPC friend. If we failed, we'd lost those precious resources!
In another recent game, our previous session ended with Thor's summoner making a pact with a revenant to lead the group across endless plains. At the beginning of the next session, I had to resist every GM impulse. I wanted to call for Orienteering . . . , Survival . . ., Foraging [checks]. I wanted to dig right into that journey and make it real with dice rolls. But it would have been too much and unnecessary - and breaking the intent of the deal Thor made in the previous session. Thus I simply described the arduous journey and cut right to the good stuff - the group of travellers on the banks of the river that borders the Land of the Dead. Though I did not explicitly Say Yes, the idea is the same.
In a recent campaign, our characters were crossing a narrow span over a chasm. The GM, Pete, described the bridge in vivid detail. One of the players, rich, described his character hopping up to the railing and capering along. Should Pete have called for a [check] for Rich's character to keep his balance? No. Never. Why? Certainly "in real life" there's a chance of falling, but in the story, it just didn't matter. Rich was roleplaying. He was embellishing, interacting with Pete's description. Rich made the scene better.
And what would the [check] have accomplished? He would have succeeded and stayed on the bridge. Success would have kept him at the same point. Or he would have fallen and we would have had to save him. It would have turned out like a false not in a bad action movie. There would have been quick cuts and close ups but nothing really would have happened.
Thus, Pete could Say Yes to this action. Rich wanted his character to look cool crossing the bridge. Great! Move on.
Later, those same characters needed to cross a narrow ledge to gain entry to a lost tomb. Pete described wind whipping along the cliff walls. We wold have to make [checks] to cross and get in. This was a totally legit [check]. The tomb was the goal of a long quest. Would we get in unscathed? Or would this cost us? In this case, it wasn't about us in particular, but about our gear and an NPC friend. If we failed, we'd lost those precious resources!
In another recent game, our previous session ended with Thor's summoner making a pact with a revenant to lead the group across endless plains. At the beginning of the next session, I had to resist every GM impulse. I wanted to call for Orienteering . . . , Survival . . ., Foraging [checks]. I wanted to dig right into that journey and make it real with dice rolls. But it would have been too much and unnecessary - and breaking the intent of the deal Thor made in the previous session. Thus I simply described the arduous journey and cut right to the good stuff - the group of travellers on the banks of the river that borders the Land of the Dead. Though I did not explicitly Say Yes, the idea is the same.
The idea is that the acrobatic character (I think I know it's an elf from another reference to the same character elsewhere in the book) is just that: a capable acrobat. So in embellishing the scene by narrating his PC's acrobatics, Rich is not introducing anything out of context, or at odds with the established fiction.
And then there's nothing at stake because no one - neither players nor GM - is interested in the question what if the PCs don't make it across the bridge? And if no one's interested in that question, it would be bad GMing to invoke the mechanics in such a way as to pose it!
The Classic Traveller example isn't strictly parallel, but it's in the neighbourhood. It's already established that (i) von Jerrel has swept Lady Askol off her feet, and (ii) that Lady Askol is not terribly bright (INT 5 on a 1 to 15 scale with 7 as typical), so it doesn't strain the fiction for her to accept the lie. And there is nothing at stake here because, at this point in play neither the player nor the GM is interested in the question what if Lady Askol decides that von Jerrel must be deported back to Ashar. That may be an interesting question in the future; likewise it may be interesting, in the future, to explore exactly why, and to what extent, perhaps even to what end, Lady Askol has accepted the lie. But at the moment no one cares to put any of this on the table. So we don't.
There is clearly curation of the fiction here: Luke Crane refers to it as an exercise of GM authority. But there is no force, as the GM is simply going along with the player.
As I posted already upthread, I am not GMing a "world simulation" game. Nor am I GMing a "self-writing fiction" simulation.
When I (or Luke Crane, or Vincent Baker, or similarly-inclined RPGers and RPG designers) talk about something being at stake they're talking about something that arises out of the interplay between what the character wants in the fiction and what the participants care about in respect of the fiction.
In the quote coming up next in this post, you use the notion in exactly that intended sense:
I don't think this is very accurate. It absolutely ignores the crucial role of the player - which is odd in a thread about player agency.
The player has made a choice for his PC - to tell a like to Lady Askol. That gives me two options: (i) put it to the test now; (ii) let the fiction unfold as the player wants, with everyone being able to see that he has thus raised the stakes for later. I chose (ii). If the player really wanted (i), he would have made that point. But he didn't. He went along with my going along with him.
Right. What Campbell said. If the player really wanted to put the matter of his PC's lie to the test, right now, he would say so. Either literally; or if he feels shy about calling out a GM error, by declaring a follow-up action that unequivocally demonstrates that desire.
As it happens this player isn't shy about calling out GM errors. He also does so from time-to-time by reference to Let it Ride - ie reminding me if I try unilaterally to put something back into question that has already been established in the fiction by way of a player's success in action resolution.
I realise that there seems to be a widespread ethos in the RPGing community that the GM is always right and its improper for players to draw attention to GM errors. But it seems to me that that ethos only makes sense if we assume predominantly GM-driven, high fiat/force, play. Play that begins from the starting point of player agency being desirable, and that deploys techniques and mechanics guided by principles that will help bring such agency about, doesn't need any such ethos.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
OK, I'll go beyond implying it and outright say it: the desires of the individual do not come before the desires of the group.
In that case, IMO you've got up to five different individual games trying to go on at once. Fine if that's what everyone wants, but hardly conducive to party play.
My concern there (and I've seen this in action) is that while the current decision path might be leading to general blase-ness on the part of all, changing that path so as to make one person happy risks turning the general blase-ness of the other four into active dislike or even anger; and I count that as a negative outcome.
And I've fought in the brawls that followed.
Truth be told, I don't see any of those three reasons as having been relevant IME. Character-driven play is always going to veer away form what the GM has prepped
Time has a lot to do with it. Dealing with an individual PC's family stuff for half an hour in a session once in a long while - so what. But if an individual PC's goals lead her on a 6-adventure arc (which here could easily mean a year or more of play) that has little or nothing to do with any other PCs' goals, are the other four players expected to a) play through it all with her and b) even remember what their own goals were when it's all done?
At the very least a GM risks crossing the 'favouritism' line (IMO one of the worst possible of GM sins) if following one PCs' goals is chosen as the focus of play for the next however-long-it-might-take.
Were that character in my game and I-as-GM were presented with those at roll-up, I might think of ideas on how to work that in at some point down the road (maybe I'd look to modify the A-series of modules and run 'em once the party got to suitable level, for example) but in full knowledge that I might never have to worry about any of it as a) your odds of that particular character suriving that long are not great and b) even if it did, there's always a chance that in-game events will provide a different or changed series of goals for that PC - and you-as-player - to seize on.
Manbearcat
Legend
After reading this, let me take this opportunity to make an open pronouncement:
I've been running games for 36 years. 36 years doesn't make me immune to mistakes/errors. I make them. I'm VERY glad when a player points it out and we correct it. I don't want to screw up but I REALLY don't want anyone at the table to feel the weight of my screw up hanging over a game session (and I DEFINITELY don't want to reflect on it afterward and realize I screwed up and wasn't able to correct it).
So thank you players out there who (politely and expeditiously) correct your GMs when they screw up. Keep doing what you're doing.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
BW game? I thought we were talking about a Traveller game that pemerton was GM for.
OK, got it - this makes sense.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Heh - that'd shorten down pretty close to the name of a party NPC in my current game: McMack.
This feels like a rehash of a series of posts about 50 pages upthread.
The default answer is, if the players declare actions that put the archivist's loyalty to their PCs under pressure, then one consequence of failure might be for the GM to narrate that something that follows from a betrayal by the archivist.
Huh?
I've already referred to an actual play example in Burning Wheel where a PC was affected by Force of Will and so the player had to change a Belief to reflect that. The player didn't cry blue murder. He accepted that that was the upshot of a fairly rolled check on my part for the Dark Naga to cast the spell, in a properly framed encounter with the Dark Naga.
I've already referred to another BW actual play example where I pre-empted the GM's desire to get me in a Duel of Wits with my (PC's) mother. I pre-empted by speaking a prayer which freed her from her burdens and weakness. Had that check failed, then - whatever the other consequences - I would have found myself in that Duel of Wits. Which could have generated an outcome binding on me.
In Classic Traveller the social mechanics are not fully applicable to the PCs, but some are. We've had cases where players have failed rolls which means that their PCs' morale has broken in combat.
In Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP all actions are resolved the same way (there are no subsystems). In our LotR game using this system there are characters with Mind Control 6 who are not necessarily magical, just persuasive. If the PCs end up in conflict with them it's possible that they may end up persuaded, partly or even completely.
In our Prince Valiant game - as I already said upthread - one of the PCs is hopelessly infatuated with a woman who is not his wife. Mechanically that outcome was established because I used the Incite Lust special effect on the PC. Special Effects, whether used by the GM or by the players (in the latter case via Storyteller Certificates) are sheer fiat. There is no mechanical aspect to it. (There are guidelines to GMs on how to ration the allocation of Special Effects to scenarios: these are the closest that system comes to having something like encounter building guidelines.)
But in any event, even if we were to accept your premise, the answer is obvious. The player and GM have completely different roles as participants in the RPGing endeavour. This bring with it different authorities, different responsibilities, and (unsurprisingly) different capacities in the control of the bits of the fiction they "own" which can lead to different liabilities for those bits to be affected by the play of other participants.
Apocalypse World makes this super clear in its seduce or manipulate move, which (unlike all the examples I gave earlier in this post) is resolved differently depending on whether the character being seduced/manipulated is a PC (ie the outcome implicates a player's decision about his/her character) or a NPC (ie the outcome implicates a GM's control over one of his/her characters).
But of course the players will realise it's happened!
You asked "if you "say yes" when it's not appropriate as per the system, then what?" In systems that use "say 'yes' or roll the dice", it is inappropriate to say yes if the action undertaken by the PC (eg telling the lie; capering along the bridge railing) actually is important to someone at the table, rather than something with which everyone can simply go along by way of free roleplay and uncontradicted narration.
So if the GM allows something to simply be established via free roleplay and uncontradicted narration, and the player actually wanted it to matter and be put to the test, the player will know because she'll notice that s/he isn't getting the check that s/he hoped for.
Reconciling PC goals with party play
There are many techniques, formal and informal, to handle this.
D&D traditionally doesn't have any - hence the problem (to paraphrase Ron Edwards) of the player turning up ready-to-go, one with a paladin and the other with an assassin. But D&D is not the only tech out there.
This can be player-side: DW handles this formally via Bonds, In Burning Wheel it can be handled informally via Beliefs; Fate Core uses this sort of thing as part of the PC building process.
It can also be handled GM-side: use the resources you have to hand, given genre and setting and the like, to establish fictional situations that speak to the various PCs. This is how I ran 4e D&D and what I do in Traveller. 4e D&D has the tech to formalise it - player-authored Quests - but I know from experience it works perfectly fine if you do it informally instead.
There are many techniques, formal and informal, to handle this.
D&D traditionally doesn't have any - hence the problem (to paraphrase Ron Edwards) of the player turning up ready-to-go, one with a paladin and the other with an assassin. But D&D is not the only tech out there.
This can be player-side: DW handles this formally via Bonds, In Burning Wheel it can be handled informally via Beliefs; Fate Core uses this sort of thing as part of the PC building process.
It can also be handled GM-side: use the resources you have to hand, given genre and setting and the like, to establish fictional situations that speak to the various PCs. This is how I ran 4e D&D and what I do in Traveller. 4e D&D has the tech to formalise it - player-authored Quests - but I know from experience it works perfectly fine if you do it informally instead.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
That's like saying there's a big difference between a room with only one exit and a room with ten exits but nine of them are fake and only one of them goes anywhere.
By allowing one outcome to occur (whether desired or not isn't the point here) you also blocked any other possible outcomes from occurring.
Where conversely I think it would be bad GMing to skip it, and I also see that bridge example as being horrible GMing advice! Not for the actual example, but because it establishes an ethos of 'let the players get away with stuff' when it doesn't matter and thus to me makes it harder to suddenly have to enforce checks when it does matter.
Consistency in rules application goes a long way toward consistency in setting and thus a solid foundation for the players to base their actions on.
Or, in other words that mean exactly the same thing, GM fiat.
Of course he did! Players will always go along with the GM when the GM is giving them what they want!
I'm not sure it's the player's job to determine whether or when the action should be tested. It's the player's job to declare the action, absolutely, but it then falls to the GM to decide when or if that action needs a test - and in this case I humbly suggest it did, then and there; in order to lay the groundwork for, and set the direction of, the fiction to come next.
That sounds more like a typical player - advocating to keep what he's won.
There may be, but if I blow a call (and hell knows I'm no stranger to blowing calls!) I willingly stand open to correction; and I think my players know this. All too well.
Where "The GM is always right" rears its head is when a call could go either way as whatever it's based on (rule, precedent, whatever) is unclear; or - less commonly these days - the situation has simply never arisen before; and someone has to make a decision.
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