Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 8166628" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Before I get into the below, I just want to talk about this.There is no disconnect here. You’ve engaged with folks on this multiple times. If someone says something to the effect of “the GM (a) extrapolates the setting’s response via the collision of (b) what they have pre-authored about setting (“notes”) and (c) whatever input the players have into the evolving situation.”The loop of this (and I discussed this upthread) will look and feel very much like (a multi-dimensional) Pictionary:* The GM has a card (their pre-authored setting).* The GM attempts to deftly telegraph what is on the card via drawing (without breaking the rules...in the D&D you’re depicting, that would entail outright giving the PCs the answer...there must be a level of opacity...because skilled play is a priority).* The players act upon the GM's telegraphing to attempt to put together what is being conveyed.  This is GM as cipher for their pre-established setting's motivations/dispositions and players as puzzle-solvers.  Whether they can decipher these motivations/dispositions and then act upon the setting in such a way that will facilitate their goals is skilled play.If they fail to decipher, they lose (as you've depicted below) because they will invariably act upon the setting in such a way that will render their goals unreachable (ENDSTATE - TPK).So one of a few things (or both) happened here.  I'm going to go back to my (multi-dimensional) Pictionary as shorthand:1) The GM drew too opaque a picture that it was indecipherable.2) The GM drew a sufficiently transparent picture but the players did not play skillfully.3) All of the moving parts of drawing and deciphering in multiple dimensions over x period of time was more cognitive load than the players could manage in their attempt to play skillfully.4) The players deciphered but didn't care about the fallout.  They wanted to break stuff and when all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.From the looks of it, your collective post-mortem led you to the conclusion that things went the way they went because of (2) above, yes?Can you talk about a time where (1), (3), (4) were in play and things went south because of it/them?Some of this is correct.  However, on the whole, there is some significant misapprehension of how Blades in the Dark works here.  I don't know if you ran the game of Blades that you played or just played in it, but your takeaway is pretty wanting in terms of clarity and accuracy.Before I go further, games like Blades and Dogs are thematically/premise-focused, yes.  They are not "kitchen sink games."  It seems odd (and this isn't the first time I've encountered this) to talk about "scope as agency reduction" in any given game in the same way that certain D&D GMs will chafe if someone says "where are my pistols or plasma cannons?"  Or, much more controversial, "my D&D Fighter is not mythically-capable...the 13th level spellcaster can do a, b, c, d, e, f, g, etc whle I can only do x and y...this scope reduction is agency reduction."All games constrain scope of permissible action declarations and all games constrain scope of genre tropes and attendant conflict.And I would say (very confidently) that scope without forensic examination means very little.  You can have all the scope in the world yet not have sufficient agency.  The inverse is also true.  You can have dramatically constrained scope and simultaneously have enormous agency within the confines of the scope.Use my (multi-dimensional) Pictionary above.  You can have a D&D game that alleges to have all the scope in the world.  But if (2) or (3) seep into play such that gamestates start to become perturbed by it, then the players start to go the route of (4) because they're frustrated and then GM starts to deploy Force (using their exclusive access to all of the GM-facing aspects of play; unrevealed backstory to execute blocks or reign the players in or modifying DCs or action resolution results)...how much actual agency do they have?In my opinion, (2) and (3) and GM Force are the biggest threats to agency loss in the type of D&D you're talking about.  I've been running games for 36 years.  I've sat in on (not played...but sat in on to see how the sausage is made and then discussed with the GMs afterward) 100s of hours of play where any 1 of those 3 things become inputs on play.  Alleged "Scope" does not make up for it.Now frame the below Blades play excerpt (which parallels yours) in terms of (1), (2), (3), (4) and GM Force.  None of those things are a threat to play EVER in a game of Blades.  The fact that they're not a threat is an enormous social burden off of all of the participants at the table.  And that works hand-in-hand with "perceived agency" which is every bit as important as "actual agency."  When the two of those are basically 1:1 at any given moment of play, its a different experience.[HR][/HR]Blades is structured with 3 phases of play:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Information Gathering/Free Play</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Score</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Downtime</li> </ul>In the 3rd instantiation of this Crew (these players liked the ideas of these characters and wanted to see if they could ascend to the top of the Duskvol hierarchy with them), they had made their way to Tier 2.  Tier, like all things in Blades and games of its kind, is Player-facing.  Not GM-facing.  Punching above your weight has consequences.  The Position of many Action Rolls will be Desperate which comes with significant Complications upon failure.  Punching above your belt and dealing with a Magnitude 4 (this equates to Tier) Demon is something else entirely.The PCs had been antagonizing (and worse) the Circle of Flame (Tier 3 - refined secret society of antiquarians and scholars w/ one of their leadership being a Demon in disguise) since the end of Tier 0 before they became Tier 1. Recently, they had been on the warpath (as you describe your PCs), stealing items from the Circle, then smuggling them to auctioneers or private buyers, conjuring and bartering with spirits for reconnaissance, then putting it out into the city through the underworld and journalists that the Circle of Flame's Centuralia Club (a speak-easy featuring innocuous supernatural entertainment for high-society in rundown Six Towers) was actually run by a Demon.This was achieved through several of all 3 aspects of play (including Longterm Downtime Projects).  All of the machinery of resolution broadly and specifically Player-facing.So the last Social Score (to convince high society to eschew going to the Centuralia Club) reduced Faction with the Circle of Flame to put the PC Crew At War with them.  This has significant (and Player-facing) fallout:Before the final Gambit, we had to resolve Downtime:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They only get one apiece (rather than 2) due to War.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Lurk Acquired an Asset (Goggles to protect himself from terror at the demonic visage...the Whisper already has protections against this).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The Whisper primed the Ritual to reveal the Demon's true form.</li> </ul>On the Information Gathering/Free Play phase, the PCs gathered intel on when (a) all 7 Leaders of the Circle of Flame would be at the Centuralia Club and (b) convince enough civilians to go so as to incentivize the remaining 6 Leaders to confront the revealed Demon. A séance and big party the following evening.With that done, its onto the Linked Scores to finally resolve the conflict/War (their goal was to reveal the Demon to the other 6 Leadership of the Circle and then parley with them to destroy the Demon, the total of which leading to a new Faction Status of +1 (Helpful) due to the Crew helping literally uncover the Demon in their midst.OCCULT Score (1st of 2 Linked) - Engage a supernatural power. Detail: The ritual.SOCIAL Score (2nd of 2 Linked) - Negotiate, bargain, or persuade. Detail: The social connection.We tally up the bonuses for the initial Engagement Roll (including a cohort that will help finish the Ritual) > Roll > frame the scene > Set up a pair of Linked Clocks (one for the 1st Score and then one for the 2nd after that one is complete).Everything is Player-facing here.  Everything.All GM moves are constrained by codified rules and binding principles.Both Engagement Rolls.  Every Position and Effect negotiated.  Every Action Roll (which the player's pick).  Every tick of the Clocks (and how much).  Every deployment of Special Abilities and Loadout, Devil's Bargain, Assistance, Flashback, Push Yourself, Protect, Set Up, Lead a Group Action, Resistance, Special Armor.  The way Consequences and Effects emerge action resolution and the way the fiction evolves and the way the evolving gamestate orbits around the evolving fiction.All Player-facing, all codified by rules and bound by explicit principles.Score 1 is successful as the Clock is filled and the Demon is revealed.  The Whisper uses their Special Ability Tempest (powerful elemental magic) to keep the Demon mildy under control/at bay as all hell breaks loose in the club.  Civilians run for the exits/cover.  The Lurk then initiates the Social Score and tries to convince the 6 to help defeat the Demon; wrest control of the Circle of Flames.  Things go well initially, but eventually, the Whisper (after using their Special Armor and several Resistance Rolls to resist supernatural Complications) fills their last Stress box.  They're out of the scene and  going to accrue a Trauma if this doesn't end in a complete wipe.  Which it nearly did.  But through deft Flashback usage and great rolling, the Lurk and the Occultist Cohort were able to escape with their passed out companion as the Centuralia Club went up in an inferno.So no TPK.  But now we have to resolve what happened.  The game has Fortune Rolls for this.The Demon is Tier 4 so 4 dice.  However, the Whisper wrecked it with Tempest (nearly defeating it) so -1 d for Major Disadvantage.The Circle of Flames is Tier 3 so 3 dice.  They're all used to dealing with the supernatural so no Major Disadvantage here for the nature of the enemy.  However, 2 of their numbers were killed in the ensuing calamity as the ceiling collapsed onto them with a massive light fixture (the Lurk tried a daring effort against Desperate Position and Limited Effect to tackle all 3 out of the area, but could only save 1).  So -1d for Major Disadvantage.Opposing rolls = Demon 4-5 (Partial Effect) and Circle of Flames 1-3 (Little Effect).We come to the conclusion that this means 2 things.  1 good for the PCs and 1 bad.  The Demon has destroyed the club, all assets and, for all intents and purposes the Circle of Flames.  They are no longer At War.  The Demon endured, will reconstitute itself an 8 tick Faction Clock (checked for ticks each Downtime), and will be set on nothing less than the Crew's destruction once its reconstituted.This is a Linked Score and both must be successful for Payoff.  Because that isn't the case, they get neither Rep nor Coin. They get a RIDICULOUS amount of Heat (11) because of all of the particular fallout (again, codified).  This increased their Wanted Level.Now this is not a TPK like in your game.  What happened here was extremely complex with an ENORMOUS amount of fallout for the PCs.  Losing a Score starts a negative feedback loop.  Wanted Level increase increases peril/fallout.  The Whisper has just gained their 2nd Trauma (4 and you're retired/dead) and both PCs took level 2 Harm with the Whisper also taking Level 1 Harm.  And the Lurk ate a bunch of Stress.  And they've got a ticking timebomb of a Demon.  And they don't gain Ally status with the Circle of Flames.Really bad situation.[HR][/HR]Now when I look at the above play excerpt from my Blades game, I know that even if I instantiated this scenario 100 more times, none of any of 1-4 would come into play to negatively impact (a) scope, (b) the perception of agency, or (c) actual agency.There is a ton of scope and the chips are absolutely stacked against them (the average Blades game is profoundly more dangerous/short than your average D&D game).  The players perceive all of the actual agency that they have at every moment within every unit of play.  This is never under question for them.  And the agency that they have to (i) know the game always orbits about their dramatic needs, (ii) the can skillfully play to affect desired outcomes by managing/leveraging/interfacing with the longterm resource/asset/faction/advancement/unit of pressure/threat game, (iii) they can skillfully play to position themselves into making desirable (which shouldn't always read as "optimal") risk: reward action declarations, and (iv) none of this will ever not be Player-facing.Now besides the reality that I'm sure you would find running/playing Blades unpalatable, what do you think about the above with respect to Scope, the confident affirmation that none of 1-4 above would ever be a part of any instantiation of a like scenario, and what that says about Agency?</blockquote>

Verification