A Question Of Agency?

[Manbearcat]

As written, more or less yes. (and why exclude 4e here?)

Those you've noted, rarely; and more for variety's sake than to specifically hose casters. (a null-magic zone that knocks out magic items hoses warriors every bit as much as casters!)

On a more overall level I've done a few things to rein in casters a bit - casting generally takes time and is easily interrupted, many spells require an aiming roll (you don't get to place it exactly where you want), wild magic is a risk if something goes wrong, you can't cast while in melee, that sort of thing.

Don't particularly want to turn this into a 4e thread and I'm somewhat surprised you're asking this because we've had this discussion many times before (and I'm certain you've been in them). But to refresh your memory (and anyone else who might care why 4e doesn't have the Spellcaster problem):

* All Classes are on the same, unified resource schedule scheme (AEDU). Character resources no longer have power discrepancy and refresh discrepancy that the game must be awkwardly balanced around (which introduces all of the other things like Magical Arms/Races, Rock/Paper/Scissors, and Calvinball GMing to block spellcasters).

* The most powerful Spells in classic D&D are siloed to Rituals. Rituals are (a) costly, (b) everyone has access to them, (c) they aren't usable in combat except very specific situations, and (d) they're almost exclusively a tool for either (i) reframing and/or transitioning scenes (as 4e is a scene-based game) or (ii) to invoke the fictional positioning necessary to allow for a Skill Challenge (to open up a scene that would otherwise be presently unavailable to the players).

* Everyone can get access to the Skill Arcana.

* The game is fully scene-based and Noncombat Conflict Resolution is the organized like Clocks in World/Forged in the Dark games or the Conflict mechanics of Mouse Guard et al. The Skill Challenge is a scene with an inherent dramatic arc and discrete gamestate moments that follows pretty much the exact same indie GMing ethos that is being espoused in this thread; play to find out, say yes or roll the dice, follow the fiction, follow the players lead (and react), genre logic, change the situation (after each moment of action resolution), and fail forward. The framework, the maths, and the GMing ethos means that Martial answers to gamestate problems are just as potent and reliable as Arcane/Divine/Primal answeres to gamestate problems.

+++++++++++++

The Martial and Arcane/Divine/Primal divide is no longer about extreme discrepancy in resource scheduling, potency, and breadth of answers to gamestate problems. Its now about how mythology and archetype manifest through play and the mechanical and thematic nuance of how a Paladin defends/commands/endures through valiance and divine intercession while a Fighter does it through incredible martial prowess, control of the melee, implacable grit and nerves of steel...meanwhile the Wizard still puppeteers enemies (whether in combat or parley), mows down fodder en masse, dons arcane disguise, and spies on enemies while not being present.

 

[FrogReaver]

What do you mean by "only on reasonable path to go down"? That is probably going to be the result of secret beliefs about the fiction that the GM then uses to shut down certain action declarations - ie it is not just framing.

Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations? I think it can.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations? I think it can.

Absolutely, but it doesn't help your point. Framing says where the action is and what it involves, at least to start. If I say, "Okay, you go to the Wal-Mart to see if you can find a PS5, but it's pretty crowded -- you're definitely going to have competition! What do you do?" And the player says, "I'm going to find a Blue Light Special - if we can't get a PS5, maybe there's a good deal." The problem here, if you've past the age wicket and Americana checks, is that Blue Light Specials are in K-mart, not Wal-Mart. Silly example, but absolutely framing restricts available action declarations -- things have to at least pertain to the fiction established, yeah?

However, outside that established fictional boundary, framing doesn't restrict the action. The same action as above would work for a Roll-Back special, and really the GM should just run with it because it's a semantic point.

And I've just revealed that I've shopped at Wal-Mart enough (and K-Mart, once upon a time) that I know these things. I'm okay with that.

 

[FrogReaver]

Going to use this post to discuss Framing and Consequences and try to put together a post that will help you understand why the bold word here is a category error and why there was no violation of The Czege Principle.

The word you should be using is propose. Author means fiat. You're stipulating a thing without resistance or recourse to dispute it. That is NOT what is happening in this case. The player is making a proposition and we're going to the dice to find out if (a) that proposition turns out to be a solution to his problem or (b) something else.

Basic play loop:
Step 1: Player proposes some fiction.
Step 2: RNG is successful.
Step 3: Player's proposal becomes fiction.

Regardless of what came before, the moment step 3 gets here the player has authored the fiction. All the RNG is doing in step 2 is picking whether the player got to be the author this time around.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Ah, I see. Let's look at your claim that the player can declare anything anytime as a solution and how this is missing some key parts of the puzzle.

Firstly, players are bound by the same genre expectations that the GM is. This means you can't declare that you're trying to find a ray gun in the Duke's toilet when in a typical fantasy setting. It's a genre violation. So, not anything can be a solution -- some violate genre. In this case, though, Duskvol is a haunted city, so there's not much genre problems with the example.

Secondly, the players are bound by the same "flow from the fiction" expectations that the GM is. They can't just introduce things that don't align with the fiction without conflict. Players actually have more leeway in this regard in Blades, especially with the Flashback move, but it's still a thing. This does pertain to the situation. If the score was in a normal, lived in manor house, declaring that a painting might be occult is much less in-tune with the fiction that one in the abandoned, haunted manor of a powerful occult family. So, where the fiction takes place is important.

How would this be reflected in the fiction? The GM's Effect determination. If a thing seems very unlikely or out of tune, then the GM should be setting effect to Lesser or even None. This is a fair move by the GM because the player has ways to alter the Effect by spending resources. So, if the player in the example did try to make a painting in a normal, unhaunted manor house an occult relic for his goals, then I, as GM, could easily say that this doesn't seem very likely, but you can try -- the effect will be Lesser. Or, if the home is owned by someone that abhors the occult, then I could say No Effect. The player is welcome to push or trade position to force the issue, but that's running some serious risks and will only bump up the effect by a step.

Finally, let's look at the "solution" space. Here, the task to change vices is a multi-clock effort, meaning you have multiple, complex tasks you have to accomplish that are very unlikely to be done in one go. Here, I worked with the player, and we established what getting back into the graces of the University would look like. The first clock -- 6 tick -- was to show that the PC could be valuable, and the second clock -- also 6 tick -- was to show that they were reliable and weren't going to slip back into their gambling habits again. What do clocks mean, though? They're a representation of a complex problem that can't easily be solved in one go. The PC usually engages these clocks as Downtime Activites -- which you've read about -- and can advance them some every time, depending on the result of a roll. The purpose of these clocks is to enact a cost (using Downtime) and a delay of gratification. The special bit about these clocks is that they set back by two ticks every time the player would use their old vice (which he didn't have a purveyor for, but that's a simpler task). So, at this point, the player was on the first clock, having spent 1 Downtime action to have a few ticks (I don't remember offhand, but it was not more than half-full). This leads to the example.

In the example of play, the player is trying to use an action in the Score to improve the clock. This is neat, as it puts the score into risk, which can have it's own entertaining fallouts. So, here we look again at the Effect space -- a normal effect success translates into 2 ticks (lesser 1, greater 3, critical 5). So, at best, the player understood that finding this painting, constrained by the genre and fiction considerations above, would only result in some movement towards a complex goal. This isn't a solution, it's a step in that direction, and it comes with risk. And, in this case, that risk caught up.

Right. So now you're advocating the GM to affect the outcomes and limit the effect of players' actions based on their subjective understanding of what's appropriate. Cool.

They kinda don't, though. The only things you can do in a murder mystery of this type are discover what the GM has planned. Sure, you have myraid ways to go about this, but this is like saying you can go to lots of different Chic-fil-a's to get a chicken sandwich -- the end result is the same.

Well, the murderer could react to what the characters do and attempt to cover their tracks or be a serial killer so it will matter how fast they're caught. The characters could also find out who the killer is, but decide that they were justified and destroy the evidence or even frame someone else. And even if it was really simple and static affair, I'd still feel that I've more agency in a situation where there is some real mystery I can uncover using my little grey cells, instead of just making up some naughty word and rolling the dice to see whether it sticks.

 

[Manbearcat]

Basic play loop:
Step 1: Player proposes some fiction.
Step 2: RNG is successful.
Step 3: Player's proposal becomes fiction.

Regardless of what came before, the moment step 3 gets here the player has authored the fiction. All the RNG is doing in step 2 is picking whether the player got to be the author this time around.

In my experience of playing CRPGs/games that feature dice/card games (from Hold 'em to MtG), "RNG" is invoked when the player-base feels that the "input > output" maths aren't elegant/functional, are arbitrarily swingy, and therefore drown out the signal of skill/deft play.

I think in some games, the epithet of "RNG" is warranted. But I'm certain that is not a prominent feature of the games being invoked in this thread (even 5e with Advantage/Disadvantage...which is trivially still the swingiest game of all the games discussed in this thread).

Each game's basic play loop is going to be subtly different. And in that process, whatever Fortune Resolution mechanic (roll 1d20 + modifier vs target number, gather and roll dice pool and take best vs spread of possible results, etc) is involved in the game will have its variability muted to whatever degree.

For Blades:

Step 1: Player proposes fiction and states goal.
Step 2: Say yes? No? Roll the dice.
Step 3: Player chooses Action Rating.
Step 4: Discuss Position and Effect based on circumstances and Factors.
Step 5: Trade Position for Effect and vice versa?
Step 6: Discuss possible fallout/Consequences.
Step 7: Set Up? Push? Assistance? Teamwork? Group Action? Devil's Bargain? Flashback?
Step 8: From Step 3 and Step 7 gather dice pool. Roll and consult results relative to Position and Effect.
Step 9: Less than 6? Consequence?
Step 10: Anyone Protect(ing) PC from Consequence? Resistance Roll to mitigate Consequence?
Step 11: Mark Stress/Harm/Heat/Coin/Trauma/Clock Ticks/Rep.
Step 12: Reframe situation according to gains and consequences and with respect to the gamestate of the Score.

Repeat.

---

Unsurprisingly, 4e Skill Challenges have a huge amount of overlap with the above.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Right. So now you're advocating the GM to affect the outcomes and limit the effect of players' actions based on their subjective understanding of what's appropriate. Cool.

Yes, there's some give an take. I see where you're going here, and you're missing that the GM isn't blocking, they're challenging. This is very different from saying no based on your subjective understanding of the fiction. Plus, everything is entirely player facing -- there's no notes or thoughts that haven't yet to show up but go into the evaluations.

No one's ever claimed the GM doesn't have input, they've claimed that input is player facing and tightly constrained. You're building a strawman.

Well, the murderer could react to what the characters do and attempt to cover their tracks or be a serial killer so it will matter how fast they're caught.

And the GM determines this, which the players have to solve.

The characters could also find out who the killer is, but decide that they were justified and destroy the evidence or even frame someone else.

Pursuant to the GM agreeing this is possible.

And even if it was really simple and static affair, I'd still feel that I've more agency in a situation where there is some real mystery I can uncover using my little grey cells, instead of just making up some naughty word and rolling the dice to see whether it sticks.

Yes, we've determined that you prefer to solve the puzzle, but that isn't agency. You using your ability to solve the GM's puzzle, according to the information the GM parcels out, going through the wickets the GM designs, and with the approval of the GM doesn't look much like agency, although it can be hella fun.

Lesser agency is not a bad thing. I will be leaning heavily into the agency restrictions that come with running 5e when I start back up next year with, of all things, an published adventure path. I clearly don't have a problem with this -- I plan to run a very fun game and entertain everyone. It will just have less agency than my recent Blades game. It's no big.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not looking for an argument this morning (my time), but I'm noticing there's a difference between us--especially also thinking about your post just upthread about running a mystery scenario for your family.

I've said (and I maintain) that I'm not a big fan of ratiocination-type mysteries in TRPGs, for a few reasons, but I don't think that setting up a relatively traditional mystery (who killed the merchant?) is more than framing the fiction, while you seem to consider it on the lines of a railroad if the players can't decide, e.g., who killed the merchant, as opposed to figuring it out (or not figuring it out, or being wrong).

I guess you would think that the solution to the mystery (who killed the merchant?) would best not be decided by the GM, at least not beforehand (maybe as the result of an action resolution the gave them that responsibility)?

One connotation of the word railroading is that there will be multiple pre-determined scenes. In the murder mystery I described that's not quite the case, although it's fairly close to that: there's the inspection of the staterooms, the interviews with the handful of salient NPCs, etc. But unlike (say) the famous Dragonlance modules there's no story development. The situation is essentially static and the players "poke" at it with their PCs and extract information from the GM.

So (i) it lacks the motion or dynamism that might be connoted by railroad, and (ii) it doesn't really involve a "living, breathing world" and so in some ways is closer to classic map-and-key exploration (in my game I achieved this result by setting it on one level of a starship in jump space - so no one getting on or off - with only a handful of characters, more than half of whom were played by the players).

The whole thing was a big puzzle, and so in that sense it's all about GM agency. As I think I posted upthread, there was one point where the GM agency really came to the fore: when the PCs interviewed one of the conspirators. We were no using any mechanics, and so I just had to play her responses - but I am not an actor, and the players made it clear that they weren't sure what to make of the way I portrayed her: was it my bad acting, or was I portraying her bad acting/lying, or something else? That moment of play certainly involved deliberate GM manipulation of the situation in this sense: for reasons entirely to do with pacing and satisfactory resolution, I wanted to keep this NPC a viable suspect but not to have her crack under pressure.

Whether that counts as railroading isn't something I want to die in a ditch over. But in a game experience with overall low player agency, that was probably the moment at which it was lowest.

****************************************

On the bigger picture about mysteries: to me it depends in part on what the point of play is. The episode I've just described was one where the players came into it knowing it would be a murder mystery, because that's what my daughter wanted.

In my Prince Valiant game I ran the Episode from the Episode Book called the Blue Cloak. This has a mystery to it, in the sense that one of the NPCs turns out to be a ghost. Here's the actual play write-up (the three PCs are Sir Gerran, Sir Justin and Sir Morgath):

As they were getting close to Warwick, and travelling in the dark still looking for a place sheltered enough to camp without a tent, they came across a weary old man in a blue cloak. (The scenario in the Episode Book is called The Blue Cloak.) A merchant, he had been set upon by bandits who had taken his mule and his goods. He knew the game trail they had travelled down, and asked the PCs to help him. Being noble knights, of course they agreed to do so! As they travelled through the woods and down the trail, he asked about their families - learning that one was the son-in-law of the Duke of York ("What an honour to be aided by such a noble knight"), and that the other was returning to Warwick to woo the Lady Violette - and told them of his own daughter and son-in-law living in Warwick. Then, as they could hear the lusty singing of the bandits at their camp, he asked the PCs to go on without him as he was too weary to continue. The PCs were a little suspicious (as were their players) but opposed checks of his fellowship vs their Presences (even with bonus dice for suspicion) confirmed his sincerity.

The PCs approached the camp, and Sir Gerran drew his sword and called on the bandits to surrender. Their leader - wearing a very similar blue cloak to that of the merchant - was cowed, as was one other, but the third threw a clay bottle at Sir Gerran (to no effect) and then charged him sword drawn (and gaining a bonus die for knowing the lie of the land in the darkness), only to be knocked almost senseless with a single blow, resulting in his surrender also ("When I insulted you, it was the wine talking!").

The wise woman and old man, who had been waiting up the trail with the merchant, then arrived at the camp to say that the merchant had (literally) disappeared! Which caused some confusion, but they decided to sleep on it. The next morning, in the daylight, they could see that the brooch holding the bandit leader's cloak closed was identical to that which the merchant had worn. Sir Justin suggested he no doubt had multiples of his favourite cloak and fitting, but Sir Morgath had a different idea - "When you left the merchant you robbed, was he dead?" His presence roll was a poor one, and the bandits answers that the merchant fell from his mule and hit his head and died, and that they had buried him and had intended to place a cross on his grave first thing in the morning. Sir Morgath doubted this - "You didn't give him a proper burial - his ghost came to us last night!" - and I allowed a second presence check with a bonus but it still failed, and the bandits simply muttered protestations of innocence under their breaths.

Sir Justin received a vision from St Sigobert, and by plunging his dagger into the ground at the head of the grave was able to sanctify the ground. A cross was then placed there, and the group returned to Warwick with their bandit prisoners and returned the merchant's goods to his daughter.

In this episode of play, there is first an extended period of framing and free back-and-forth narration: meeting the merchant, agreeing to help him, coming upon the lustily-singing bandits.

Then there is an action declaration - Presence vs Fellowship (in Apocalypse World this might be read a person or read a charged situation) - which does not produce any additional insight into the mystery: the framing remains essentially unchanged.

Then there is some more framing - the bandits and the cloak - and action declarations, to cow and beat down the bandits. These succeed.

Then there is yet more framing, established via narration from two NPCs (the old man and the wise woman) - the merchant has disappeared, it's morning, not only is there a duplicate cloak but it has a duplicate broach.

This finally leads to more action declaration: the bandits are interrogated but don't confess, there is the vision - I don't remember now whether there was a check of some sort, or if it was free GM narration, but my best guess would be that it was some sort of Presence check - and then the sanctification of the ground (that was probably "say 'yes'" following a check for the vision).

The return to Warwick is freely-narrated denouement.

By looking at the action declarations we can see what was the point of play: defeating the bandits and trying to get them to confess, and sanctifying their hasty burial of the merchant. There are no exploration-oriented action declarations aimed at solving the mystery. All the information needed to solve the mystery is provided in the framing exposition.

How might the situation have resolved differently, had some of the checks been different? The bandits might have confessed and been taken on as servants by the PCs. The ground might not have been sanctified and so a haunting of the PCs could have continued or perhaps their conversion of the wise woman from paganism (which had happened earlier in the same session) might have been undone. What is at stake is not the mystery as such but these relationships between the PCs, the NPCs, their faith, etc.

 

[pemerton]

to me it sounds that your murder mystery would have pretty decent amount of agency, though of course being a limited situation with singular focus it is not near the highest possible amount. But the player's actions matter here, they can actually deduce things. There is not even dice, so all that matters is their real skills. What would render all that pointless, if the players would be able to accuse one person, use their master detective attribute, and if they rolled well enough that person would be the guilty one. Sure, that would be a type of agency, but having that sort of agency would render actual detective work and decisions related to that pointless. So yea, this is exactly how having one type of agency lessens another type of agency, and ultimately it is about what type you prefer having. That is literally what this whole thread is about: people being unable to recognise this.

I've been talking about puzzle-solving from pretty much the beginning of the thread. And I believe am the only person to actually post an example of actual play of that sort of game. So I wouldn't agree that this is something that has not been recognised.

What's at issue is whether it involves player agency. As I've posted, it uses much the same skill set as solving a crossword or the book The Eleventh Hour. (I don't know about the US, but in Australia the recruitment notices for our domestic spy service literally suggest being good at solving crosswords as one of the indicators of aptitude to join ASIO.)

In a RPG, this sort of puzzle-solving ability can be deployed by the players in a pure railroad. There are choose-your-own-adventure and Fighting Fantasy books that use this sort of ability. It is not any sort of agency in respect of the shared fiction.

 

[pemerton]

Can something that's just framing ever shut down action declarations? I think it can.

Well of course you're free to use the word framing however you like.

But in the way I'm using it, which I believe is fairly standard in the context of describing scene framing in RPGing, "framing" is just that: establishing some fiction which provides a context for further action declaration.

On its own that clearly cannot give rise to a railroad. I can't conceive of a framed situation that only permits one reasonable action declaration.

To get a railroad you have to also build in as-yet-unrevealed elements of the fiction that will lead to certain actions being unsuccessful.

Here's a simple example: the GM tells the players you're set upon by a band of marauding Orcs.

At the barest minimum the players can choose to have their PCs fight, or surrender. Surrendering is an unreasonable option only if the GM has already decided - unilaterally - that these Orcs grant no quarter. Fighting is an unreasonable option only if the GM has already decided - unilaterallly - that these Orcs cannot be defeated in combat by the PCs.