Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A Question Of Agency?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8137131" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>I think you haven't fully seen my point, and I'm optimistic that if I make it clearer you might actually agree with me!</p><p></p><p>I've bolded a bit of your quote that I agree with but that needs more consideration. In my post that you replied to I said that <em>Gygax's rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running</em>. In the sort of game he was running strongholds play one sort of role, and NPC wizard's towers play a different sort of role. Whether or not the latter exist in the fiction is under the purview of the GM. This is because, in the sort of game Gygax was running (as best I can tell from his rulebooks and my knowledge of the historical record), <em>finding a NPC wizard's tower</em>, with its promise of lore and spellbooks, is itself an accomplishment. Whereas finding somewhere to built your stronghold is more like a starting point than a finishing point.</p><p></p><p>Burning Wheel, and Dungeon World, are not "accomplishment"-oriented games in that sense. (Which is why I found another poster's invocation of "video games" weird - in terms of play goals these RPGs are a long way away from EQ or WoW as I understand them.) Finding Evard's tower is not an accomplishment that needs to be gated behind GM decision-making, such that establishing it via a player-initiated check is a type of "cheat". It's a starting point, not a finishing point, just like the bluff overlooking the river.</p><p></p><p>Related to the "success with complications discussion": it would be fair to say that games like BW and DW don't really have "finishing points" until the campaign itself comes to an end. The whole purpose of "success with complications" (in PbtA-type games) or "fail forward" (in BW-type games) is to ensure that everything is always a starting point, with the more that is to come already being implicit in the current situation. That's also why PbtA games use the language of moves "snowballing".</p><p></p><p>Playing a non-accomplishment oriented RPG of the sort I have described, but confining Gygax's bluff-overlooking-a-river technique to the case of strongholds, would be a mistake. With the change of play purpose, it would be sheer reaction or dogma to not use the technique in other contexts where it can serve the same purpose, of establishing player-driven "starting points".</p><p></p><p>And a final comment, somewhat of an aside: the stronghold-building character didn't create the bluff - <em>in the fiction </em>it was already there. But the <em>player </em>of that character is clearly the one who introduced, into the shared fiction, the existence of that bluff overlooking the river.</p><p></p><p>If Evard's tower being present was "totally foreign to the area" then the GM in my Burning Wheel game would have politely pointed that out - eg maybe we're in a land where all towers have been demolished by the god of ruin - but that's a fairly high threshold for a fantasy RPG. Like Gygax's player I introduced into the shared fiction the idea of Evard's tower being nearby the PCs. But my character didn't create it - <em>in the fiction </em>it was already there. That's how she had been able to learn about it.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8137131, member: 42582"] I think you haven't fully seen my point, and I'm optimistic that if I make it clearer you might actually agree with me! I've bolded a bit of your quote that I agree with but that needs more consideration. In my post that you replied to I said that [I]Gygax's rulebooks demonstrate a clear sense of the dynamics of player agency for the sorts of games he was running[/I]. In the sort of game he was running strongholds play one sort of role, and NPC wizard's towers play a different sort of role. Whether or not the latter exist in the fiction is under the purview of the GM. This is because, in the sort of game Gygax was running (as best I can tell from his rulebooks and my knowledge of the historical record), [I]finding a NPC wizard's tower[/I], with its promise of lore and spellbooks, is itself an accomplishment. Whereas finding somewhere to built your stronghold is more like a starting point than a finishing point. Burning Wheel, and Dungeon World, are not "accomplishment"-oriented games in that sense. (Which is why I found another poster's invocation of "video games" weird - in terms of play goals these RPGs are a long way away from EQ or WoW as I understand them.) Finding Evard's tower is not an accomplishment that needs to be gated behind GM decision-making, such that establishing it via a player-initiated check is a type of "cheat". It's a starting point, not a finishing point, just like the bluff overlooking the river. Related to the "success with complications discussion": it would be fair to say that games like BW and DW don't really have "finishing points" until the campaign itself comes to an end. The whole purpose of "success with complications" (in PbtA-type games) or "fail forward" (in BW-type games) is to ensure that everything is always a starting point, with the more that is to come already being implicit in the current situation. That's also why PbtA games use the language of moves "snowballing". Playing a non-accomplishment oriented RPG of the sort I have described, but confining Gygax's bluff-overlooking-a-river technique to the case of strongholds, would be a mistake. With the change of play purpose, it would be sheer reaction or dogma to not use the technique in other contexts where it can serve the same purpose, of establishing player-driven "starting points". And a final comment, somewhat of an aside: the stronghold-building character didn't create the bluff - [I]in the fiction [/I]it was already there. But the [I]player [/I]of that character is clearly the one who introduced, into the shared fiction, the existence of that bluff overlooking the river. If Evard's tower being present was "totally foreign to the area" then the GM in my Burning Wheel game would have politely pointed that out - eg maybe we're in a land where all towers have been demolished by the god of ruin - but that's a fairly high threshold for a fantasy RPG. Like Gygax's player I introduced into the shared fiction the idea of Evard's tower being nearby the PCs. But my character didn't create it - [I]in the fiction [/I]it was already there. That's how she had been able to learn about it. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
A Question Of Agency?
Top