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Message: <blockquote data-quote="robconley" data-source="post: 8165865" data-attributes="member: 5636">Well putting aside the whole "no this is what really happening with you" vibe of the responses, it all good. I did notice something about your phrasing about the issue that may clarify the disagreementWe been talking about games that require a small group of individuals to play. In traditional tabletop there a referee and the players.It seem that the way you put it and not looking back at the other posts like [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER] that we are not talking about the same thing.I focus on "players as their character" agency. My points only make sense if you realize that players in my campaigns can only do what their character can do, know what their character.You and other are talking about the agency of people participating in a small group activity. In traditional tabletop campaigns these are very different roles with different responsibilities.Now I been playing tabletop for over 40 years. I tried just about every type of RPG out there multiple times. I played the first glimmers of what many games try to do like Whismy. Played Fate, played Blades in the Dark. My opinion while fun they don't try to do the same thing as traditional tabletop campaigns. At least mine. Over the past two decades a class of games have arose that resolves around collaborative storytelling using a system of rules. In these games to be collaborative, the responsibilities are allocated different. What the participants can do by the system is allocated different. While this can be picked apart in general my experience with the games I played within this class that the overall theme is all the participants are allocated some or all of the creative responsibilities that were consider part of the responsibilities of a referee in a traditional campaign. The nuances of this ability is found in the specific system being used whether it Fate, PbtA, or BitD.So by that definition you, [USER=16814]@Ovinomancer[/USER], and other are correct. But not relevant to what I do. I focus on techniques that increase the agency of the player while under the limits of what their character know and can do. If you were join one of my campaigns, I would now say to you. Will you have fun being limited only to what your character can do within the setting and what your character knows about the setting? The basic challenge of my campaign since I was 15 years old how far can you go in the setting as your character. Giving them carte blanche to "trash" my setting in the pursuit of glory or whatever goal they set for themselves. One player in a early campaign goal was set up a secret cable of evil wizards. Another liked being the long-lost heir of a throne on a quest to win his father's throne back from the usurpers. All of this was started with "OK here your character, here where you start, how you go about this." Back then I thought more of it as a really flexible and expansive wargaming scenario. Then morphed to a focus on roleplaying and immersion by the late 80s. And finally over the 90s, after realizing that people playing a version of themselves with the abilities of their character worked out just as well, focused more on bringing the setting to life in a way that player had a wealth of choices to pursue. To the present day where I realized what defines my campaigns was how the setting was described not the system I used. That if the system conflicted with how the setting was described, I altered the system to conform not the other way around which is the common case.But I still held on to earlier goal (except I wasn't so anal about the immersion part any more). So player still get to try to "trash" my setting in a way they find fun.So what about player agency in generalI will be straight with you. After trying them, I dislike fate (but not fudge), I dislike PbtA games, I intensely dislike Blades in the Dark. The basic issue I have is that their distinctive mechanics are a distraction from what I do as a player (I immerse myself in my character) and are overly fussy for what I do as a referee. To expand the latter, I don't need a set of rules to have a player create stuff for my campaign. If somebody has a suggestion we talk about it and if it sound good we incorporate it. Like I said earlier, even after four decades my description of the Majestic Wilderlands is incomplete. There room for more and player pitch in material both for the setting and their character all the time. If it sounds good but sound implausible for the current campaign, then I will throw into the next campaign I run in the setting. For those who know me, know that I have a strong passion for creating content to be shared under an open license. Among friends I am even more liberal and had friends reuse material from campaigns all the time. Mostly it just a specific detail they like something it more expansive.While I am the referee, outside of the session, I am just one friend among a group. Everybody opinion is considered and incorporated about the setting and rules of campaigns I run as it is in Fate, Blades in the Dark, etc. It governed by the rules of good sportmanship, good manners, and by not being a dick about it. I consider it more flexible because as long as we have the time or interest, anything happen. For example in the 90s, we were bullshitting about my campaigns with them. We are talking about Ars Magica and other RPGs of the time. "One goes hey Rob what would be like to live as a magic-user in the Wilderlands". I said mmmm, well we got X, Y, and Z but we don't really know do we? Everything thought it was a good idea to run a GURPS campaign where everybody played a mage that is a member of the Order of Thoth. From that the background of magic expanded enormously for my setting.Then we did the Thieves GuildThen the City GuardWhere everybody was nobody living in a neighborhood in the City-State of the Invincible Overlord to see what life was like for regular folks.Hint: They drop blankets on a vampire, douse it with holy water and proceed to blanket beat it as a mob with furniture, clubs, pots, and pans.When I start a campaign with my oldest players who are familiar with the setting they invariably pick where the campaign will start because it some place or aspect of society they haven't experienced before. I am running a D&D 5e campaign centered around the City-State of Lenap because one of the players was so taken with how corrupt I portrayed the city in the previous campaign so wanted to play a campaign set in that region.So player agency as defined by you and other in this thread exists in my campaigns. Just not executed in the same way as it is with Fate and similar system. And I would argue that approach is far more flexible because it not bound by a system where ability to change or create things is rationed or follows a formal procedure.Hope that clarifies why continue to disagree about some of the points being made, and why I do the things I do.</blockquote>

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