A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

I have not read the BitD rulebook. I know that the system was, in a general sense, inspired by Apocalypse World. And John Harper has posted many blogs about AW - I linked to one just upthread in which he discusses consequences.

So I'm going to guess that the "telegraphing" in BitD works very much as it does in AW. And AW at least has pages of discussion of principle and illustration of them being used in play to address this point.

The most basic of those principles is that hard moves build on soft moves.

Yes, it's largely the same in Blades, although there aren't soft and hard moves, per se. But you should first establish a threat, and then follow through. So if a PC attempts to skirmish with an enemy, and the player's roll indicates a consequence, then perhaps another foe exits from a nearby room, gun drawn and ready to shoot. Then you say "what do you do?" and the player has to decide how the character is to proceed, knowing that he's at risk of being shot.

Hastily drawn, but I think you get it. The big thing is to follow the fiction. They always say "fiction first" in the actual plays that I watched with Harper teaching the game to the players.

 

[Imaro]

Isn't this all pretty much like a D&D game where the PCs hear there's a ravine filled with monster-infested caves. They go there, and they enter the first cave, and there are, wait for it.... MONSTERS! Not only that, the monsters are at least mildly aggressive and fairly dangerous to the level 1 PCs. Nobody could complain about this, and I think the same is true for this BitD scenario (never played myself, but it sounds pretty genre appropriate, etc.).

I mean, the BitD example illustrates a lot more than just this, because the B2 example above is stock, the PCs get to choose exactly one main activity, going to the Caves of Chaos and fighting monsters. The type, number, motives, etc. of said monsters, and the treasure they possess is totally defined by the B2 module (or the DM could alter it, then the DM). Nothing in the PCs backstory, personalities, etc. is going to alter that one bit. In the BitD example the player drove the whole thing. It was about what he wanted it to be about (within the limits of genre and fiction).

Yes... very much like D&D.

Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about. The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend. Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.

Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact. Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system. That's my point. What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires. The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.

 

[prabe]

Yes... very much like D&D.

Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about. The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend. Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.

Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact. Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system. That's my point. What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires. The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.

I'm sure you'll hear from others, here, and I'm a strange one to be defending Blades in the Dark (I actively, strongly dislike it), but the play example you're responding to seems as though the game is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, and it's doing it very differently from D&D.

Everything bad that happened to the characters in the play happened because they failed (or got success-with-complication) at declared tasks. Those complications are directly derived from what the PCs said they were looking for and the skills (or whatever they are in Blades) they used.

So, the events of the game are deriving exactly from the characters' actions and intents and the results of the dice. Before checks were made, the portrait was nothing more than creepy-ish set-dressing (meaning no disrespect to the GM). So, the characters aren't getting what they want because they didn't roll well enough (because they didn't choose the right skills, apparently). While the results aren't wildly unlike a D&D trap, the process is almost entirely opposite.

That's probably not going to be very helpful to you. Sorry.

 

[Manbearcat]

@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!"

Im just skimming and don’t have time for more thoughts (I was going to put together a post on Cloaks/Coats and how they might manifest in different systems - Mouse Guard, Dogs in the Vineyard - but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble at this point), but I do want to comment on this.

@Imaro

Does this exchange you’re having with @Ovinomancer remind you of conversations you and I had in the past on 4e Skill Challenges? The one with the Gorge being a complication of a failed navigation check?

Just like in that old thread, I’m completekg dumbfounded by your reply to Ovinomancer above. His play excerpt is (a) absolutely 100 % in line with coherent Blades playing and GMing in every way, (b) the Complication is very good and appropriate GMing, (c) and how in the world are you coming to the conclusion that the play loop (including the player’s decision-point and subsequent conversation and action declaration) wasn’t informed and sensibly resolved? Everything about this situation screams coherent and inferable from the player’s side! The moment I began reading the excerpt I knew what the complication was going to be! So if there is any charge to be made it’s that the Complication was “too genre cliche! (Which I don’t think it was...but if someone is going to cry foul, that is the side of the continuum to land on...not it’s an unintuitive “gotcha”)”

This is so eerily like out exchange those years ago.

 

[Imaro]

The other thing I find kind of dissonant about BitD is that it claims that players

Im just skimming and don’t have time for more thoughts (I was going to put together a post on Cloaks/Coats and how they might manifest in different systems - Mouse Guard, Dogs in the Vineyard - but I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble at this point), but I do want to comment on this.

@Imaro

Does this exchange you’re having with @Ovinomancer remind you of conversations you and I had in the past on 4e Skill Challenges? The one with the Gorge being a complication of a failed navigation check?

Just like in that old thread, I’m completekg dumbfounded by your reply to Ovinomancer above. His play excerpt is (a) absolutely 100 % in line with coherent Blades playing and GMing in every way, (b) the Complication is very good and appropriate GMing, (c) and how in the world are you coming to the conclusion that the play loop (including the player’s decision-point and subsequent conversation and action declaration) wasn’t informed and sensibly resolved? Everything about this situation screams coherent and inferable from the player’s side! The moment I began reading the excerpt I knew what the complication was going to be! So if there is any charge to be made it’s that the Complication was “too genre cliche! (Which I don’t think it was...but if someone is going to cry foul, that is the side of the continuum to land on...not it’s an unintuitive “gotcha”)”

This is so eerily like out exchange those years ago.

Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me. Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???

EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yes... very much like D&D.

Also IMO... the player didn't drive the whole thing and honestly from that reading it wasn't really about what he wanted it to be about. The player seemed to want to find something interesting and magical (focused on the portrait) that he could take back as a gift for his friend. Instead he got a magical trap sprung on him and his soul partially leeched away, and caused the magic capabilities of another PC to be diminished in some way.

Now again IMO, if we were letting the player drive the story and it was supposed to be about what he wanted it to be about then the "story" would have been about him getting the painting out of the house and back to his friend safely and intact. Instead there is no story... the painting attacks him and his party and causes damage and nothing the player was hoping for was built upon... it's a D&D trap in a different system. That's my point. What agency was there that wouldn't have been in a D&D game... Everything that happened in this post was built upon via the GM's setting and fiction not the players desires. The GM asked him a few questions for color and guidance (something many do in D&D as well) but ultimately everything that happened was created and directed by the GM or a direct tie in/result of the GM's setting.

Well, I think it would be a pretty uninteresting game if you didn't have to take some risks, right? I mean, in B2 there is a very real chance of the PCs dying. I doubt their goal was to go jump in some caves and get turned into stew by some orcs! This is kind of par for the course in RPGs. The PC in BitD wanted to get a painting that was somehow 'spiritual' or something and give it to his friend, which I assume would produce some advantage for him or his crew. Instead he got a bit of damage, and the other PC got some too. That was a bit of bad luck on their part, but note that the first failed check was one where the player KNEW it was hard to succeed, he was doing something he had ZERO ability at. Everything else flowed from his choice to do that.

So, I see this as all entirely fiction driven by an action taken by a PC that was risky in order to get a reward, failing, and then paying a consequence (which seems like it was actually not that big, though my lack of detailed knowledge of BitD makes that a little unclear to me).

Also my understanding of BitD is that the setting is kind of a 'crapsack world' type of deal. Ultimately the trajectory of the game is vastly likely to lead to the PCs and their crew getting wiped out or perhaps at best 'crash landing' into some not too horrible fate. I don't think you get to become the equivalent of high level D&D characters that don't have to take crap from anyone and live high on the hog. Maybe there is such a potential outcome, I don't know for 100%, but it does not sound that way...

 

[prabe]

Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me. Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???

EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.

So, I haven't ever played Blades, but every single step in that particular downward spiral made sense to me, having read the rules (and talked about with people here). That said, I don't disagree with you that the character exhibited a similar helplessness to a D&D character in a similar situation.

 

[Imaro]

Well, I think it would be a pretty uninteresting game if you didn't have to take some risks, right? I mean, in B2 there is a very real chance of the PCs dying. I doubt their goal was to go jump in some caves and get turned into stew by some orcs! This is kind of par for the course in RPGs. The PC in BitD wanted to get a painting that was somehow 'spiritual' or something and give it to his friend, which I assume would produce some advantage for him or his crew. Instead he got a bit of damage, and the other PC got some too. That was a bit of bad luck on their part, but note that the first failed check was one where the player KNEW it was hard to succeed, he was doing something he had ZERO ability at. Everything else flowed from his choice to do that.

So, I see this as all entirely fiction driven by an action taken by a PC that was risky in order to get a reward, failing, and then paying a consequence (which seems like it was actually not that big, though my lack of detailed knowledge of BitD makes that a little unclear to me).

Also my understanding of BitD is that the setting is kind of a 'crapsack world' type of deal. Ultimately the trajectory of the game is vastly likely to lead to the PCs and their crew getting wiped out or perhaps at best 'crash landing' into some not too horrible fate. I don't think you get to become the equivalent of high level D&D characters that don't have to take crap from anyone and live high on the hog. Maybe there is such a potential outcome, I don't know for 100%, but it does not sound that way...

@AbdulAlhazred I have no issues with your analyzation of the game above, In fact it pretty much aligns with how I am reading what happened as well. My issue is with 2 things specifically, the claim that the outcome for failure was foreshadowed to the point that the player knew his risk vs his reward. If the player had known the risk was a soul-sucking painting... or even an attack by the painting would he have made the same choice? I don't know, but if you have no clue what the outcome of failure will be outside of...some bad stuff...does that diminish the meaningfulness of that decision? Again I don't know but if the GM is making it up on the fly after the roll it kind of feels that way to me.

My second issue is that I am failing to see how more agency in this example is being exerted than in a D&D session. The player is looking for something... the DM decided if it was or wasn't there, a roll to figure out if it was magical was made and failure = trap sprung. PC and party attacked. I'm trying to see where the extra agency came in here... where the player shaped the story.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The other thing I find kind of dissonant about BitD is that it claims that players


Maybe there's just something I'm not getting... again this doesn't seem different from D&D to me. Yes the consequences were based on the character failing a roll but honestly, from the moment you started reading it, you knew it would be a magical soul-sucking portrait that would attack him and his friends if he failed a roll to determine if it was magical or not... really???

EDIT: And to be clear I am not arguing whether it is or isn't in line with BitD priciples what I'm arguing is that the player in this example had no more agency in the events than a D&D player who failed his perception and saving throw for a similar trap.

Except in D&D the PCs are, as I was pointing out in my B2 example, engaged with some GM-derived (or module) content. So any trap they ran into was not elicited because of what they wanted to engage in. It might e that it was encountered because they chose the most interesting available content to play with, and it turned out to be trapped.

I mean, this situation might not have been engaging some big central concern of the character. It sounds like he was kind of just scrounging for stuff, but his goal could as easily have been to find his long lost brother and it would have worked the same....

 

[Imaro]

So, I haven't ever played Blades, but every single step in that particular downward spiral made sense to me, having read the rules (and talked about with people here). That said, I don't disagree with you that the character exhibited a similar helplessness to a D&D character in a similar situation.

I just want to be clear... I'm not arguing that the steps of play didn't make logical sense. I'm asking whether the player in that moment had sufficient information to weigh what he would get from delivering the portrait to his friend vs. the consequences he would suffer for failing...to determine if it was magical I guess. That's my hang up. Yes a soul sucking painting, is perfectly reasonable in an immortals haunted mansion... but was there enough information given for the player to understand that was a possibility? Otherwise how is it any different form the D&D traps that were being disparaged earlier in this thread?