A Question Of Agency?

[Neonchameleon]

I'm going to focus on the first style of mechanic for the rest of this post. The first only works when players are forced to pick some relatively equal impact flaw compared to the other players. Otherwise a player can just pick no flaw or very minor flaw and perform better than the other players PC's. Essentially leading to the same kind of problem - you screw over the team if you pick a bad flaw and so social pressure to not pick bad flaws. This shows that the solution isn't actually the mechanic, but the constraint on character design that only includes characters that have flaws that have nearly the same impact. A game like D&D could accomplish the same thing by constraining you to making a character that always acts in the best interests of the party or that are all as equally flawed with the social expectation being that the flaws need to be played to when they arise.

Well, yeah. Which is why literally no game I can think of does it this way. Almost every game I can think of where you are expected to pick flaws in advance (as opposed to as the result of a failed sanity check) and the flaws do not provide some sort of meta-mechanic as compensation uses some sort of point-buy system in which some flaws are worth more points than others. So they don't design flaws "that have the same impact". The closest to an exception I can think about is Pathfinder 1e with the entirely optional drawbacks system from Ultimate Campaign where each drawback is worth a single trait.

It's like the authoring out a problem issue. "This would be a bad way to do things" isn't much of an argument when just about no game that intends to do the things you are talking about does things the way you are proposing to be a bad way.

 

[aramis erak]

I have a story. We were playing a Star Trek game (this was around 1993, so forgive me if I don't recall the exact game). I was playing the ship engineer, and the crew was tasked with dealing with a raider in a distant system (so no support) that had a technologically advanced ship of unknown origin. Our ship was limited to Warp 4 (or 3, exact number irrelevant), while the raider could achieve Warp 5. While looking through the rulebook, I came across a chart showing how warp levels worked. The warp numbers existed as stable plateaus of power that required a power climb above the plateau level as you approached it, but then fell to the lower power to maintain the warp speed. In looking at the chart, I saw that the power needed to climb over the hump for Warp 4 was higher than the stable power for 5 -- that, in fact, we could get close to warp 5 if we redlined the engines -- at least to give chase enough to find the raider's base.

Given the time frame, there were only two trek RPGs in print: FASA's STRPG and TFG's Prime Directive; PD doesn't cover ships at all until the GURPS versions post 1996. FASA had pretty robust ship rules. The warp chart you mention first appears in the ST:TNG Tech Manual, IIRC, and isn't in the STRPG rules (I just checked, to be certain, and it's neither in cores, nor in the TNG products that cost FASA their Trek license), so there was some home-brewing happening.

The GM's "solution" to the "I'm not prepped" was a bit of a jerk move.

 

[Neonchameleon]

None, and no games prevents a player from playing against the rules, either. If you consider games where the participants are following the rules in good faith, then D&D still allows for this, while a game like Blades in the Dark absolutely does not. Blades tightly constrains the GM's framing authority to be within the scope of the score the players have decided, and the GM must frame within the initial engagement roll scope and then from there on out only within the scope of the action resolution and it's position markers. I can't just pour more mooks into a room, or even add unlimited mooks in one go, because these things are constrained.

I've run Blades. And the GM's scope isn't that tight until the players are rocking stats of 3s and 4s. If the GM wants to make something almost impossible they can pull the tier rules. If the GM wants more mooks they just need one roll of a 1-3 on the dice to announce reinforcements.

Of course a GM who's acting in good faith shouldn't and I hope wouldn't do this. But the tools actually exist to do it.

The trick to this is that the only person evaluating the "exceptionally good reason" is the GM, at least in "mainstream" games like 5e (and other D&D games) or Pathfinder 1e. What the GM considers a good reason may not meet anyone else's thinking at the table. There was a fairly recent thread about the Burgomaster of Vallaki where this happened. In games that allow for GM negation of action, it actually happens quite often, for as poor a reason as a misalignment of understanding of the current fiction. And, in those cases, it's the GM's vision that wins every time.

In games that allow GM negation with GMs who actively want to negate and think their vision should dominate then it can happen quite often. And for as poor a reason as misalignment of understanding. A better strategy is to double check you are on the same page

 

[Aldarc]

If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.

The problem is that most discursive logic is not necessarily about "better logic" or what actually is the "most logical" as a lot of our sense of logic is also informed and guided by our own biases, preconceptions, and past experiences. This is to say, you likely find the people who tend to be most convincing and logical likely also are supporting your own preconceived notions and viewpoints. This is how appeals to "logic" can be quite (unintentionally) self-deceptive. This is also why people also appeal to possessing the additional perspective of firsthand experience with playing/running game systems, because logic on its own doesn't cut it.

This assertion is also at odds with a number of your own points in this debate about how you claimed that certain arguments people made were not consistent with your own experiences playing your game (system/style/mode) of choice. It's also why even if you believe someone provides "the most logical analysis" but others who have firsthand knowledge of the various respective game systems don't find it persuasive at all. This is pretty telling about the importance of actual experience, knowledge, and familiarity for these "logical" analyses of games. Logic on its own without experience or evidence, particularly for discussions involving the cultivated experience of game systems and mechanics seems mostly detached from reality, likely for the self-serving purposes of reinforcing preconceptions and biases or to "win" debates rather than to come to an actual good faith understanding.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you don't want to come across as attacking a playstyle then you need to make a much better case that your preferred games have more agency than my preferred games than you actually are. We all highly value agency. Being told your preferred game has less of something you highly value than some other game is offensive. It's even more offensive when the offensive thing is believed to be untrue and an unfair characterization of your playstyle and believed to be based on shallow and self-serving analysis.

So if you value speed in cars being told that another car is faster than yours or that F1 cars or Indy 500 cars are faster than stock cars is offensive?

Me, if I value something and someone else tells me that something else does it better my reaction isn't "that's offensive" it's "that's interesting. How does it do that?" This comes twice over when the people saying that are familiar with both sides of the argument - and almost everyone posting on ENWorld (a D&D forum) also plays D&D so they are familiar with both approaches. This isn't "Fans of game A vs fans of game B" - it's "fans of both coming down very consistently on the side of B doing this specific thing better".

Which doesn't say what D&D does better (IME long term campaigns - in part because the players are less empowered so the campaign doesn't spiral off in completely unexpected directions).

I also could comment on the accusations of "shallow and self-serving analysis" when I've recently replied to one about how not all social disadvantages have the same drawback and how there have been comments about "authoring something out of existence". However I prefer to assume good faith.

Now, offensive things can sometimes be true. If they are true then the way to lessen the offense is to make what will be perceived as a strong and fair case for why it is true.

And "a is better than b at x" is not in and of itself offensive. Even if it isn't true then you start by assuming good faith on the other side. It can become offensive when it's objectively untrue and a point refuted a thousand times or it's deliberately being used to exclude. None of that applies here.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So if you value speed in cars being told that another car is faster than yours or that F1 cars or Indy 500 cars are faster than stock cars is offensive?

Speed of a vehicle can be objectively measured and has no moral value. Concepts like freedom or agency do have moral value (that is why so much moral language gets invoked in these kinds of discussions) and they can't be objectively measured in the way that a physical thing like speed can. Also let's keep in mind how these arguments usually arise, someone says I like style A because style a gives me the most X, and the other side says, actually style B gives maximum X. And it happens so often, it doesn't feel like objective analysis. It feels like these arguments are really just used to push playstyle. There is a real "I suppose if you aren't interested in X, you could just play A" kind of thing (where X is presented as a highly attractive and desirable quality). When people debate that over playstyle issues tempers will flair, especially when people start accusing one another of ignorance, failure to understand, or a lack of experience of exposure (in ways I would describe as judgmental and condescending). Now I think offensive is a strong word to use here. And I think in some places we'd have good discussions. But there is a reason people get a bit peeved in this kind of thread

 

[aramis erak]

A PC can actually author an obstacle in HotB. In the second example I gave, to add some detail, the PC enters a dark room and asks the GM is there anyone in here? The PC rolls essentially a perception check plus wagers and the result is him getting to add the assassin and details. HotB is a pretty singular example though.

The only practical difference in practice in HotB (and B&H) between GM and Players is the GM is allowed to bring in new characters without a roll and gets to hand out Style/Honor. Players can, with a roll, narrate things about just introduced NPCs that completely reverse the GM's intent for them. PVP is intentionally allowed.
It made for some fun emergent fiction, but it also lead to such inanities as the Jolly Green 6-Jo-tall Oni as an ally. (Hint for would be B&H or HotB GM's: if you're introducing them as an enemy, define their opposition first, so that players can't define them as an old ally.)

I see a possible place of disconnect. Let me expand these for "mainstream" games (ie, D&D-sphere games):

1a) the GM has notes that say the orc is killable.
1b) the GM has notes that say the orc is unkillable.

2a) the GM has notes that say a secret door is findable
2b) the GM has notes that say a secret door is unfindable.

These are the cases for "mainstream" games. I think the disconnect is that 1a is an implicit default judgement and not thought about as an explicit decision by the GM. This is further reinforced by the rarity of 1b -- most GMs do not consider rendering the orc unkillable because it violates their understanding of the game's social contract. However, 2 is the reverse: 2b is the implicit default assumption and it's 2a that's the exception. As such, when someone introduces 1c or 2c -- let the system decide -- then there's a massive disconnect because the assumed positions of 1 and 2 are inverse of each other and therefore cannot be the same. The reality is that there's only an assumption of what the default state is, and also the assumption that a default state must exist.

I might, just might, be speaking from experience.

There's really no practical difference between 1a and 2a except the skill used, likewise 1b and 2b. if the GM has a map and notes, those are established in the fiction as revealed, but are established in the GM's game-state simply by inclusion, and the players see the game state mostly through their character sheet and the GM's narration, unless the GM is a terrain monger.

No. I don't know HotB except through your posts. If you want to elaborate it using my taxonomy (if it's a helpful one) that would be great.

But I think you know how the game you're playing works!

I'll second his statements about HotB; I've read it, and played the other game in the engine, Blood and Honor. It's mechanics are mostly about who controls the success/failure, and lots of «Yes, and» & «Yes, but», which, while limited to the scene, are explicitly not limited to the initial question rolled, provided they stay near the ongoing changes to game state and fiction state of play. The GM's not even the arbiter of "out of bounds" - that's the table as a whole.
It's the highest advocacy game I've ever run. With the right people, it's really nifty. With the wrong ones (ones who don't respect other players' mental health and/or persons, nor their fun), it's the most miserable experience. Note that 7th Sea 2E is a walked back version of the mechanics.

I don't think this is true of Cortex+ Heroic/MHRP. I think it's a character advocacy system. (For the players. The GM has to think at the story level, and probably moreso than (say) Burning Wheel.)

I can't comment on Fate as I've never played or GMed it. Though I agree that, on reading, it seems to have story advocacy elements to it.

Fate makes a show of being "story-first" but fails to really support that all that well. At least, the mechanics as written are merely rules-light mostly-traditional with the ability to describe most mechanical elements as aspects, and fate points to create limits on abuse of the aspects. Not unlike 2d20, especially in the more recent versions.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If we are talking about analysis then I'm going to go with the person who has the most logical analysis.

I'm not. Logic on its own outside the realm of pure mathematics) is nothing more than mental masturbation. I'm going with the person whose analysis is both logic driven and ties to the observable facts. If you get any incorrect facts into your logic then you can end up just about anywhere (Bertrand Russell notoriously proved that if 1+1=1 then he was the Pope).

Same here. I think you are trying to conflate better understanding of the game with more correct analysis of the game and that's where I object.

I'd say that gaining a better understanding of the game should almost always lead to a better analysis in your own head.

I don't think it is happening at all. Do you have any examples of anyone telling someone they are incorrect about how their game is played? I'd love to see what's making you think someone is doing this. My gut reaction is that you are conflating analysis with telling someone they are incorrect about how a game is played.

The problem here is that I'm pretty sure that you personally have introduced at least two to my certain knowledge incorrect analytical cases, one of which you've wanted to talk about at length and people have been asking you about. That one is your "authoring challenges out of existence". Unless you mean by way of a disintegration spell or equivalent I can not think of a game where you get to do this. When something is in the fiction it is in the fiction. Retcons are not something you get to do. Now you can go round it, subvert it, or be one step ahead so it's non-serious (as my example of buying magical endless rations showed). But you can't just say "that challenge was never there" except in the event of a complete screw-up and you are trying to bring that game back on track.

An example would be if you were to introduce spider-monsters crawling all over someone and they were to hit the X-card because they had a debilitating fear of spiders rather than a normal one and were literally shaking and hyperventilating you might well replace the spiders with some other threat.

I thought you did an excellent job explaining the flashback mechanic.


It depends on how you want to define authoring. It's certainly not how I'm meaning it right now. If one wants to call in fiction character actions an attempt to author I won't fault you for it. I think I've used authoring that way earlier in this conversation as well.

But when I'm contrasting the difference of in character action resolution and authoring, I'm certainly not talking about 2 equivalent things. If you want to say that the difference is types of authoring as opposed to authoring vs not, then I'm fine with that. As long as some distinction is given.
...
I'd describe the player's ability to shift the narrative in the game back to some past event so that some help may be had with the present obstacle as a very metagame thing to do.

The thing about the flashback mechanic is that it is very heavily a genre convention and is about as appropriate to other genres as wizards getting to cast fireballs is appropriate to most genres. The only two and a half games I can think of with it (Leverage and Blades in the Dark with the half being some Fate settings) are very explicitly heist games. And if you watch almost any heist movie or series (such as Ocean's X or Leverage, the latter of which was licensed for the game) then you frequently see flashback scenes where the flashback explains what was really going on and how although our characters appear to be up the proverbial creek without a paddle instead that's just how they want to look to the bad guy.

The flashback mechanic is in some ways meta because it's doing things out of chronological order for the characters. But it's doing things in exactly the same order you'd see it if you watched a show or a movie of what the characters did. Is it authoring? In the same way that casting disintegrate (or even fly) to eliminate problems is, yes. But it's entirely expected for the genre and if I want to play a heist game that doesn't take ridiculous amounts of time in planning it's the best way to do it.

The name Stress certainly has different connotations that would make it easy to assume things about it that weren't true.

I am curious on what it's supposed to represent in the fiction though? Is it some kind of magical energy? Something else? Possibly abstract like D&D hp and can be one of many things at any given time?

Abstract - and it's also effectively your mental and emotional hit points. Run out of stress points and you're out for the rest of the heist and you take a trauma long term.

There's a bit of a process going on there right?

1. Player describes the scene
2. Stakes are set
3. Success/Failure is determined via a die roll
4. On a success the GM establishes new fiction in accordance with the player's desires. On a crit the GM establishes something additionally good for the player.

Is now the time to open the can of worms about how the most likely outcome in some of these modern games is success-with-consequences. Which gives the GM a lot more control while at the same time meaning that player actions are more closely connected to the world?

 

[aramis erak]

Is now the time to open the can of worms about how the most likely outcome in some of these modern games is success-with-consequences. Which gives the GM a lot more control while at the same time meaning that player actions are more closely connected to the world?

given the level of implication-of-badwrongfun as a continuous subtext in this thread? Probably not.

But, what the hell... most of the time, in my experience, success with complication is best handled by group suggestion rather than GM fiat, because it is too common, so more brains on it is better.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Speed of a vehicle can be objectively measured and has no moral value.

I disagree that speed has no moral value. As for measuring it objectively, I can legitimately say that for most of the journeys I take walking is faster than taking the plane and no amount of "but planes fly at 200mph" will make that incorrect.

Also let's keep in mind how these arguments usually arise, someone says I like style A because style a gives me the most X, and the other side says, actually style B gives maximum X. And it happens so often, it doesn't feel like objective analysis.

And then, if the discussion is going anywhere the next question is "How does your style give maximum X?"

And as in this case we have all the people on side B showing how the player can have more agency with things like flashback mechanics or the effectiveness of things like the Fate approach or the GURPS approach or the D&D approach relating to playing a drunken character.

From side A we get back either attempts to understand, misrepresentations (and sometimes it's hard to tell the two apart), appeals to different values (such as "no metagaming") which are in and of themselves productive because they show a moral hierarchy, or frequently crickets.

One of my crickets examples on the subject of agency is asking people to explain how D&D 4e is any less empowering than e.g. 5e for the GM. I can give an obvious way where it's more empowering (a functional CR system with effects based monster creation makes improvising far easier) but no one has ever given me a direct answer to how 5e is more empowering for the DM other than that it's simpler to remember how to set the DCs if you don't have one tiny table that's on the DM screen to hand.

It feels like these arguments are really just used to push playstyle.

And this, to me, feels like One True Way-ism. I run games including Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, and D&D (4e, 5e, and Rules Cyclopaedia). Each of them provides different things and player agency is not a D&D strength. But player agency isn't the only value. Some people like modern indie RPGs, some people like old school sandboxes, and some people like adventure paths. And each have things to offer - but in terms of player agency I've ranked them from high to low.

In terms of expected longevity the rankings would be very different and the last Apocalypse World campaign I ran became a glorious player-driven trainwreck in just six sessions, complete with a satisfying and unplanned narrative arc for each of the PCs. That was quick by the standards of Apocalypse World - but I don't expect a campaign to last more than a dozen sessions. Is campaign longevity a value? I'd say yes. So is the accomplishment from conquering a sandbox and more agency would lower the challenge.

The biggest pushing of playstyles I see here is from people who think that their playstyle is The One True Way. And that although they claim (rightly) their playstyle allows for more player agency than adventure paths with pre-written plot do they really object to any suggestion that there's even more player agency possible.

And in my experience the people actually interested in player agency are very interested in what different games can do to maximise it, and in the trade-offs that come with it. I know if you tell me that a style gives greater player agency it's a selling point - but there's a reason that compacts and pickups are more popular than sports cars even if how fast your car goes is a selling point.