A Question Of Agency?

[prabe]

From my perspective the most empowering feature of Blades in the Dark is Position and Effect. It foregrounds negotiation of fictional positioning between the GM and other players. Because you do not have to commit until Position and Effect are agreed to you always know what you are getting into. Between Position/Effect and being able to ask specific questions with Gather Information pretty much all your decisions will be informed ones.

That's not to say that with the player agency that provides you lose nothing. Blades is not really a game that rewards you that much for being clever. Instead it provides you with the ability to influence the setting that in other games would require clever thinking. I like having to be clever sometimes. It provides a rush when I get it right and something to strive towards when I get it wrong. 3D Pictionary is a lot of fun for me sometimes. It also means that you lose out on the joy of discovery because you do not need to hunt information down or explore red herrings.

Your mention of red herrings has (of course) gotten me thinking of whodunit-esque mysteries--which aren't a super fit for TRPGs because the pleasures of the genre (in books, movies, etc.) aren't all that compatible with the pleasures of TRPGs. Obviously, if one is running such an adventure in D&D, the expectation is that the emergent story is going to be about the players figuring out who the killer is, probably with some sort of (probably metaphorical) ticking clock, and that the DM knows who did it. I know people have run mystery-type stories in FitD or PbtA games, but it seems to me that they'd have to work differently around the table. It seems likely to me they'd have to focus less on if the playerss will figure out the mystery and more on the results and repercussions when the PCs do so. This isn't intended on slagging on such games, FWIW; I'm just saying the play experience, here, would be a very different one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The doubling effect is about the PCs effect on the thugs, not their effect on the PC, although that does play in based on position.

To speak to 1) I have played Blades, I've also played other FitD games like Scum and Villainy, and a couple of others, so I'm pretty familiar with how the mechanics and adjudication work. The difference in this instance is player control over the outcome. Not only can the player move in-fiction to increase effect, the plyer can also elect to trade position for effect if they're willing to risk increased damage. This is before any dice are rolled. It's not even remotely about what PCs can attempt, as in both rules sets the PCs can attempt anything, but in Blades, after the declaration or as part of the declaration, the PC can substantively change the chances of or effect of the action they have proposed, which is something that doesn't really happen in, say, D&D.

No rolls, just player decision making and framing. The player chooses to engage with the proffered fiction, and by doing so in a competent way changes the dynamics of the test and resolution. That is the essence of player agency.

As far as complex actions go, Blades does handle those really well, but not any better than 4E's complex skill challenges does IMO. That level of competence can be had in 5E from a good DM, but it's not enforced and bounded by the rules like it is in Blades.

I wasn't really addressing your 2), although we could chat about that if you like. The flashback isn't what most people think it is when it comes to how it changes the basic experience of an RPG at the table.

Right, this is what I see as a big problem with more classic RPG processes similar to D&D's where each discrete element of any 'activity' invokes a separate check, with each one being binary pass/fail, gauged purely on some judged measure of difficulty for its DC, and not related in any way to a risk/reward kind of calculation. You see this very evidently when you try to do really serious action adventure with, say, 5e at most tables. Something like "I leap off the balcony, grab the rope, swing across the room, drop, and come down on the bad guy, slamming him with my legs, and then attacking with my sword!" Guess how many checks that is going to provoke in a D&D game? A smart, and nice, GM might be your ally in this sort of action and only make you take an acrobatics check, and a couple of to-hits, and then of course you have to roll damage. A dud roll on any of these will pretty much result in things not going off in an impressive manner. You'd be, mechanically, better off in 99% of cases to just get out your missile weapon and take a shot. Worst case you have to make several very difficult checks. Either way, the cumulative chances of success are low. This may be 'realistic', but is it fun? Sure, once in a while players will just toss common sense to the winds and try anyway, but at its core D&D's process rewards careful, conservative, systematic play, not risk taking. This is baked into its DNA! Other similarly structured games overall do the same thing to varying degrees.

A more macroscopic aspect of this sort of thing exists too. Imagine you built a game along the basic mechanical lines of D&D, and your goal was to be the first guy to land on the Moon. Forget it. Its literally a 1 in billions against you opportunity. 'Realistically' you'd have to play through a scenario where you already get to start with most of the qualifications, and then rely on luck and skill at play which will produce that result with fantastically low probability. It is simply put, impossible. This is the problem with the whole concept of play where each thing 'logically and plausibly follows from the rest' where dice, or picking the right options at various points, scale in difficulty in a plausible way. Sure, you are 'free to try', but this is a meaningless freedom.

I mean, it is one thing to say "its hard in E. Gary Gygax's D&D campaign for your PC magic user to survive and make it to name level." However, if you play for a while, and hone your skills, you have a pretty decent chance to achieve that. Probably most people who played in 'Greyhawk' for a while 'made it'. Sure, the difficulty made it an interesting challenge, and I'm all for that, but it didn't involve 1 in a million odds. Not because that would be unrealistic (What is the % of name-level wizards in Oerik, it surely isn't very high), but because it wouldn't be that much fun.

These are the considerations which led me to cinematic play and resolution systems which match risk to reward and don't pile on layer after layer of accumulated luck as a task becomes more dangerous or implausible. And I get that when in Dungeon World swinging from the balcony, knocking down the bad guy and hacking on him succeeds (at least partly) on a 7+, that in a 'this is a challenging game move' sense it isn't some big deal, but it is STILL COOL, you thought of it, the results are spectacular, the consequences of failure are undoubtedly nasty (even on a 7-9 you can pretty well guarantee you're in some hot water) and even in the best case the bad guy may just stand up again and look REALLY PISSED before he proceeds to try to thrash you! Yes, if you manage to pull off the 20% chance of passing all the various checks in the D&D version you will have done something literally very risky and pulled it off. The coolness is IME not really different though, and in the long run you will have to endure a lot of "you fall on your ass and look stupid" if you play like that every day.

 

[Fenris-77]

I completely agree. What's more, I generally want my players swinging from chandeliers. So in games like D&D I often find it difficult to adjudicate and strike a balance between fostering the kind of play I want and maintaining some fidelity to the rules set. It's actually easier in OSR games because there are fewer subsystems and over determination bogging things down, but its still that same binary resolution system.

I'm actually in the middle of trying to design some complex task rules for my own OSR hack, and this kind of situation is exactly the sort of thing I want to be able to accomodate.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I completely agree. What's more, I generally want my players swinging from chandeliers. So in games like D&D I often find it difficult to adjudicate and strike a balance between fostering the kind of play I want and maintaining some fidelity to the rules set. It's actually easier in OSR games because there are fewer subsystems and over determination bogging things down, but its still that same binary resolution system.

I'm actually in the middle of trying to design some complex task rules for my own OSR hack, and this kind of situation is exactly the sort of thing I want to be able to accomodate.

Yeah, I've been thinking about it too. When I first hacked on 4e I didn't really think a lot of these ideas all the way through. I just kind of accepted task resolution process as it already was (which is, for discrete checks basically classic D&D style). Obviously you can use SC mechanics too, but they don't REALLY address this issue head on. Nor does "I swing from the chandelier rope" seem like a very good candidate for an SC.

So, I haven't really come to firm conclusions on what approach to take. Perhaps simply insuring that any 'improvised action' type of move in an 'action sequence' (more generic term for 'combat encounter') is gauged in a risk/reward manner. I just haven't sorted out how, and then that check mechanic needs to be consistent with checks used in SCs as well, so I have to consider how to rework that too.

Now it is a lot less 'a variant of d20 D&D', so is it even worth writing that game vs simply adopting some existing engine or complete system? These games are fairly tricky to get right.

 

[prabe]

You see this very evidently when you try to do really serious action adventure with, say, 5e at most tables. Something like "I leap off the balcony, grab the rope, swing across the room, drop, and come down on the bad guy, slamming him with my legs, and then attacking with my sword!" Guess how many checks that is going to provoke in a D&D game?

I think I see an Acrobatics or Athletics check (player's choice) resolved as a Push check (and occupying the PC's move and bonus action, because it's doing two things) to knock the bad guy down. Then an attack with advantage. If the PC's a rogue, that's probably going to hurt. But I am probably what you'd call a "smart DM" and I'm very much a fan of the PCs and I am completely unafraid of the PCs doing things I hadn't anticipated (though if they start making "planning something weird" moves, I'll outright ask where they're going--I don't care if they wrongfoot the NPCs/monsters, but I don't want to be wrongfooted as the DM).

RAW, the Push is the only thing I see that needs a separate check, which, if that's a straight rogue, means they don't get a weapon attack; that's why I'd rule it the way I would.

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, i think there's a range of possibilities when it comes to fostering this kind of play. On the one hand, at least some part of this cinematic play is straight description with nothing at stake from a mechanical perspective. That part is easy to deal with, just dont call for a roll and move along.

Things get sticky when we start talking about mechanial advantage of some kind (bonuses etc). In the chandelier example, we'd need to be specific about the stakes in order to decide how it should be handled. Is the chandelier just a clever use of terrain to bypass some mooks? If so, that's entirely within the idea of intelligent play that sits at the heart of OSR play. That shouldn't be penalized by compound rolling. My answer there would be make a Dex check for the acrobatics portion and I'd use the results of the Dex check to adjudicate the following attacks, with a range if possibilities between disadvantage and advantage, with some spots in between. That would be easier with a different mechanic, say PbtA's, but it's doable with the binary if the first check is just set up for the second. To be clear, the first roll can't fail, per se, only set you up better or worse for the following roll.

Where I start to flail about a little is once this idea gets past two rolls.

 

[FrogReaver]

We have talked some about plausibility. I don’t think anyone has phrased it this way, but it sounds like in blades the player is choosing which plausible outcome will occur on the success. The Dm determines the position (almost an advantage like slider). The effect part wasn’t as clear to me. I thought the player set the outcome which sounds a lot like effect to me?

 

[Fenris-77]

By the book, if I'm remembering right, the GM and player narrate success cooperatively as a back and forth thing.

Edit, sorry that wasn't very clear, that is how it works I just don't have the book open to quote the wording. The player has a range of options on extra successes to modify the outcome, but the GM is in charge of the mechanical side of things. Mostly the outcomes is bound, as it should be, by the nature of the action declaration and the choice of skill that was rolled.

 

[hawkeyefan]

We have talked some about plausibility. I don’t think anyone has phrased it this way, but it sounds like in blades the player is choosing which plausible outcome will occur on the success. The Dm determines the position (almost an advantage like slider). The effect part wasn’t as clear to me. I thought the player set the outcome which sounds a lot like effect to me?

The player states their goal for the action. "I want to dash across this courtyard without being seen." The GM considers all the relevant factors and then says something like "The courtyard is pretty big. If you want to remain unnoticed by being as quiet and careful as possible, then you'll only make it part of the way. I'd say your position is Risky, and the Effect would be limited."

This is the GM taking the players goal and saying that they can only achieve part of that goal with a success. Their Effect will be Limited. I think one of the things to notice here is that the GM is gauging everything based on the player's stated goal.

The player has a few options at that point.

1) "What if I just run full speed and try to get across before anyone sees me? So I'm less careful, but going at full speed. What then?"

The GM might respond "Okay, so it sounds like you're trading Position for Effect. So the chance that you're noticed goes up, but you can make it all the way across. I'll say Desparate Position, Standard Effect. Go ahead and mark an XP." The player has made the action riskier....they're more likely to be noticed, but they can make it all the way in one action. Standard Effect means you should achieve what we would consider a full success. The player also gets an XP for a Desperate action.

2) Or the player can say. "Okay, Risky/Limited. I'll spend 2 stress to Push for Effect. That makes it Risky/Standard, right?" Spending 2 stress allows you to either roll an extra die as part of your roll, or allows you to increase the Effect by one stage on a success. In this case, from Limited to Standard.

In this case, the GM says, "Okay, yeah....if you Push for Effect here, then it's Risky/Standard. You can make it all the way across and you can stay pretty quiet about it, but it costs you some real effort."

3) Finally, the player may have other factors that they want considered. So they may say something like "Limited Effect? Well, I took a Light Load specifically so I'd be mobile for a situation exactly like this. Do you think that's enough to give me a shot at Standard Effect?"

The GM would consider this, and decide yes or no based on all the relevant factors. If it was me, I'd say "You took Light Load? Okay, yes, then I think you're prepared for exactly this kind of fast but silent move. Go ahead and roll with Risky/Standard."

4) The player could accept the initial statement of Position and Effect as Risky/Limited, knowing that a success will only get them partway across the coutyard, and they'll likely need another action to make it the whole way.

***

The player has various ways to provide input on the process. The GM does use their judgment to set the initial Position and Effect, but these are based on the player's stated goal. Then, once established, the player may use resources or negotiation to alter the Position and Effect, and the GM is bound by this. Whatever option from the above happens, the Position and Effect are finalized and agreed upon before the roll is made. The player can always decide not to proceed once it's all been worked out.

Then, based on the actual outcome of the roll, the player and GM discuss what happens, with the GM having final say. Very often, the outcome may be obvious based on the established fiction and the outcome of the roll.

 

[Fenris-77]

That's a much more complete description than mine.