Game Mechanics And Player Agency

The concept of player agency is a central pillar of all role-playing games. It is a balancing factor against the omnipotent, omniscient Game Master. For the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on the smaller-scale application of player agency and the role of game mechanics that negate or modify such agency.

View attachment 95347​

From the very first iteration of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, there have been mechanics in place in RPGs to force certain decisions upon players. A classic D&D example is the charm person spell, which allows the spell caster to bring someone under their control and command. (The 1983 D&D Basic Set even includes such a possible outcome in its very first tutorial adventure, in which your hapless Fighter may fall under the sway of Bargle and "decide" to let the outlaw magic-user go free even after murdering your friend Aleena!)

It didn't take long for other RPGs to start experimenting with even greater mechanical methods of limiting player agency. Call of Cthulhu (1981) introduced the Sanity mechanic as a way of tracking the player-characters' mental stress and degeneration in the face of mind-blasting horrors. But the Temporary Insanity rules also dictated that PCs exposed to particularly nasty shocks were no longer necessarily in control of their own actions. The current edition of the game even gives the Call of Cthulhu GM carte blanche to dictate the hapless investigator's fate, having the PC come to their senses hours later having been robbed, beaten, or even institutionalized!

King Arthur Pendragon debuted in 1985 featuring even more radical behavioral mechanics. The game's system of Traits and Passions perfectly mirrors the Arthurian tales, in which normally sensible and virtuous knights and ladies with everything to lose risk it all in the name of love, hatred, vengeance, or petty jealousy. So too are the player-knights of the game driven to foolhardy heroism or destructive madness, quite often against the players' wishes. Indeed, suffering a bout of madness in Pendragon is enough to put a player-knight out of the game sometimes for (quite literally) many game-years on end…and if the player-knight does return, they are apt to have undergone significant trauma reflected in altered statistics.

The legacies of Call of Cthulhu and King Arthur Pendragon have influenced numerous other game designs down to this day, and although the charm person spell is not nearly as all-powerful as it was when first introduced in 1974 ("If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the 'charm' is dispelled[.]"), it and many other mind-affecting spells and items continue to bedevil D&D adventurers of all types.

Infringing on player agency calls for great care in any circumstance. As alluded to at the top of this article, GMs already have so much power in the game, that to appear to take any away from the players is bound to rankle. This is likely why games developed mechanical means to allow GMs to do so in order to make for a more interesting story without appearing biased or arbitrary. Most players, after all, would refuse to voluntarily submit to the will of an evil wizard, to faint or flee screaming in the presence of cosmic horror, or to attack an ally or lover in a blind rage. Yet these moments are often the most memorable of a campaign, and they are facilitated by behavioral mechanics.

What do you think? What's your personal "red line" for behavioral mechanics? Do behavioral mechanics have any place in RPGs, and if so, to what extent? Most crucially: do they enhance narrative or detract from it?

contributed by David Larkins

 

[Afrodyte]

Then again, this hard line "THOU MUST NOT TELL ME WHAT MY CHARACTER IS THINKING" is pretty far removed from my experience.

Same here. In my own roleplaying style, I fall somewhere between (warning: Forge terminology ahead) author stance and director stance, and my preferences skew strongly Narrativist, so things like immersion and absolute control over my character's behavior, thoughts and feelings is not something I require in order to enjoy myself. In fact, the loss of control in circumstances when it's meaningful and/or interesting can be fun for me when I have ample opportunity to otherwise contribute to the game.

 

[Guest 6801328]

I go with the far, far simpler answer of, "You believe what the NPC is saying, you are going to move to that square, go ahead and narrate it however you feel is most appropriate."

Mostly because I trust my players to actually be mature enough to role play out a situation that is entirely plausible without being asshats (oh, I heard a noise, it must be ninjas because you never mentioned a noise before).

Then again, this hard line "THOU MUST NOT TELL ME WHAT MY CHARACTER IS THINKING" is pretty far removed from my experience.

Ah, so now it's a mature player vs. immature player argument. Gotcha.

 

[5ekyu]

"If their Insight roll did not beat the Deception roll, then no matter what they do they end up in the trap. "

A lot depends on the system/table and how it defines deception.

In this case, here is how i would resolve it:

The NPC would actively be trying to get the guy onto the trap. That would be done in actuality, on the map grid, etc. If done ToM i would keep describong the trickery guy moving back, withdrawing, etc and giving the pc the choices to press attack etc. ToM the trap would be tagged to a setting piece like by the big chair as its key instead of a grid spot.

The insight deception would be a check to see if the pc catches on, if the tricker reveals his intent and the focus on the spot becomes apparent.

Pc makes check, they "see" the tricker is paying attention to the spot, perhaps even that he avoids it himself on a move. If they dont, the npc tells are missed.

Using grid, when/if they move onto the square, bam. Easy.

ToM the insight check is rolled when the narrative gets them close to the setting pieces tagged with the trap (by the big chair), and the next time or two the pc follows around the big chair, they get bam.

Key is, its the failed insight to give the pc info that guides the sequence... Not a deception roll to compel the pc movement.

Now if a system defines deception as a form of mind control, different story.

Is this more than a semantic difference - yes in one regard. Since i leave the choice to the character, at any time the decision can be made to withdraw or maybe to use acrobatics to leap over the chair, not go around it.

 

[Guest 6801328]

"If their Insight roll did not beat the Deception roll, then no matter what they do they end up in the trap. "

A lot depends on the system/table and how it defines deception.

In this case, here is how i would resolve it:

The NPC would actively be trying to get the guy onto the trap. That would be done in actuality, on the map grid, etc. If done ToM i would keep describong the trickery guy moving back, withdrawing, etc and giving the pc the choices to press attack etc. ToM the trap would be tagged to a setting piece like by the big chair as its key instead of a grid spot.

The insight deception would be a check to see if the pc catches on, if the tricker reveals his intent and the focus on the spot becomes apparent.

Pc makes check, they "see" the tricker is paying attention to the spot, perhaps even that he avoids it himself on a move. If they dont, the npc tells are missed.

Using grid, when/if they move onto the square, bam. Easy.

ToM the insight check is rolled when the narrative gets them close to the setting pieces tagged with the trap (by the big chair), and the next time or two the pc follows around the big chair, they get bam.

Key is, its the failed insight to give the pc info that guides the sequence... Not a deception roll to compel the pc movement.

Now if a system defines deception as a form of mind control, different story.

Is this more than a semantic difference - yes in one regard. Since i leave the choice to the character, at any time the decision can be made to withdraw or maybe to use acrobatics to leap over the chair, not go around it.

I'd probably do something similar to that, too. As I said, I've never actually used the "move the trap to where the PC who failed his roll goes" trick, I'm just not opposed to it.

Tony will likely disagree with your approach, though, because it's still allowing the player to make decisions that avoid the trap, even if the character rolls poorly.

 

[pemerton]

Second, if the game rules allowed npcs aka gm to roll persuasion to force us to take actions thru social skills on a natural 20, essentially handing every tom dick and harry control over our players... Thats not a setting system game i would go for at the start.

This seems like another instance of (sensibly) objecting to poor mechanics.

I think it's more helpful to think about systems with effective social mechanics to discuss what such mechanics bring to the game, and also what might be some players concerns aobut them.

Dukes persuasion...

Made roll i present a compelling case then you. You get persuasive input.

Failed roll i make unconvincing case, you get non-persuasive input.

In each case you then choose your reactions.

I like a system which generates an experience for the player which, in some tenable sense, mirrors the experience the PC is going through. A simple example: blind action declarations in combat mirror the PC's uncertainty about what his/her opponent is going to do next.

I think it's hard to achieve this with the persuasive/non-persuasive input method. When my PC is persuaded, they want to do X. So a "mirroring" system should make me want to do X. But if I haven't myself experienced the duke's charm, then why am I going to want to do X if I'm otherwise not disposed too? To me, it seems to require more pretending to be my PC, rather than "inhabiting" my PC.

if dice rolls for mental/emotional actions take precedence over player thoughts/desires, how do we handle puzzles and riddles? If the player solves a puzzle, but his character fails an Int check, does that mean he fails the puzzle? If so, why bother to have actual puzzles in the game? Why not just describe them abstractly?

I don't use puzzles of this sort that often in RPGing. In the course of a 30-level 4e game, there were (from memory) 3 riddles. The playiers solved the rivddles.

The last puzzle I remember was in my Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy game. I established a scene distinction: Mysterious Sigils on the Walls. Now the PCs were - at that time - lost in the dungeon, and hence were suffering an appropriate complication. So one of the players declared "I reckon those mysterious sigils have information about where we are in the dungeon", and made a check using the Scene Distinction in his pool - the check succeeded and indeed he was able to decipher the sigils and eliminate his Lost in the Dungeon complication.

Cortex+ supports this sort of thing better than 4e - an "abstract" puzzle in 4e would just be a (pretty uninteresting) INT check; whereas in Cortex+ there is the interaction with the fiction both in building the dice pool, and in establishing what effect is being sought (eg, in this case, eliminating a complication).

But notice that the Cortex+ player himself had to do a clever thing, namely, coming up with the idea that the Sigils might be a map or guide to the dungeon. No one else in the group thought of it, so it was not an utterly obvious possibility. That sort of cleverness is pretty fundamental to RPGing, in my view - otherwise what's the point of playing at all?

I never use puzzles. But it's for a reason related to the principle I've been espousing: puzzle and riddle solving belongs in the domain of what the character "thinks" so you can't use dice rolls, but to not use dice rolls is also problematic. So out they go.

But for players/DMs who don't believe in the sanctity of the character's thoughts it shouldn't be a problem at all.

I don't see why not using dice rolls is problematic. There are a lot of decisions in the game that don't use dice rolls (eg, in a typical D&D game, deciding what equipment to buy for a PC; deciding whether to talk to an orc you meet, or attack it; deciding which corridor to take at a dungeon intersection; etc). I'm not sure why riddles being decided by thinking about it, rathter than rolling dice, is a problem.

I mean, it might be weird of the INT 8 brute solves the riddle; but it's also odd if the INT 8 brute is always the one who has the best advice about which corrridor to take at the intersections (because the player is a clever wargamer). Or if the CHA 8 wizard is the party leader (because the player has a powerful personality). This is just a consequence of allowing the human players of the game to play PCs whom the rules and at least the odd occasion in the fiction is presented as less clever or less persuasive than the player is.

(There can be other problems of course: riddles can suck if the players spend an hour on it and can't solve it! Luckily at least two of the riddles I used were solved pretty quickly. I can't remember the first one well enough, though I do think it came closer to the sort of suckitude I just described.)

In a fight, the enemy...a manipulative, trickster type...tries to lure a PC into a square that is trapped. I proposed that you secretly roll for the bad guy's Deception, then allow the player to roll Insight. If the Insight roll beats a fixed DC (maybe 10) you tell the player that they can tell they are being or have been lured into a trap. Then you ask them what they do.

If their Insight roll did not beat the Deception roll, then no matter what they do they end up in the trap.

Note that I haven't actually done this, and I'm not sure I would...I'm just theorizing. But what I like about this is that it doesn't dictate thoughts/actions to the player: you are allowed to say/do/think whatever you want. But the trap is wherever you go if you fail, and it's someplace you don't go if you succeed.

That'd be a way to 'improvise' a deceptive action in a system that doesn't give you effects-based tools to model such things, and it'd be a fairly 'immersive' one. The player is being fed information such that his experience will as closely as possible mirror that of the character. He gets a sense of making choices and facing consequences, but it's false, 'illusionism' game theorists like to call it. The 'secret roll' is a big part of keeping the illusion - any secret roll could really be checked against a DC/contested-roll/whatever, or it could just be a 'placebo' there to make the player think the Dice Gods are choosing his fate, when really the DM has slaved his destiny to the story, but, either way, Game Theorist Logic, goes, the player's 'Agency' has been compromised.

There's only one "game theoretic" notion of "illusionism", namely, The Forge's. And in that usage, it's not illusionism if the player gets to make a check (eg Insight) and success on that check would have changed the outcome.

In 4e, the "trickster" ability would, as a matter of mechanical convention, be more likely to involve an attack vs Will; but otherwise could play out the way described - if the attack succeeds (or, in a departure from convention, the Insight check fails) then the PC falls prone (or whatever) which - in the fiction - corresponds to having been lured into a trap.

As best I can recall I've never used a monster/NPC with this exactly ability; the closest I've come is a pact hag. And the closet I've come to doing what Elfcrusher describes is the following:

The PCs were in rather tense negotiations with the pact hag and friends. Mechanically, this was being resolved as a skill challenge.
The player of the dwarf fighter failed a check (Insight? I can't remember now, more than 5 years later.) I narrated the result - manipulated by the hag, the PC moves across the room, and then the hag pulls the rope and a pit opens beneath the dwarf's feet, dropping him into tunnels below.

When I've posted that example of play in the past, many posters have responded that it was a railroad. I personally don't see how - it's just the narration of adverse consequences for a failed check.

There are two or three reasons I didn't do it exactly as Elfcrusher describes:

(1) 4e likes maps, and so I had maps, and to make my tunnel map and my upper floor map line up, the pit has to be in a particular place;

(2) But 4e only likes maps in combat, and this was a skill challenge, so we weren't bothering with the maps at that point except perhaps in general terms ("you're near the doorway, the woman you're talking to is on the other side of the room") and so there was no sense in which the player might have indicated a movement to a square where I would then place the trapdoor;

(3) In real life people walk around when talking, and it is not too hard to manipuate them into going to place X or place Y (stage magicians depend in part upon being able to manipulate people in these sorts of ways) - but when resolving a conversation while everyone is sitting around at the table, it is trivially easy for a player to just have his/her PC stand still regardless of what the NPC interlocutor is saying/doing. So to have the manipulation actually work, I included as a component of the failure narration that the PC took some steps across the room.​

I think it's obvious, also, that there's not the least illusionism in the example I've described: the player makes a check, sees it fail, and knows exactly why the adverse consequence is being narrated by me as GM. It's just action resolution and result thereof.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I like a system which generates an experience for the player which, in some tenable sense, mirrors the experience the PC is going through. A simple example: blind action declarations in combat mirror the PC's uncertainty about what his/her opponent is going to do next.

*bleck* Sorry, just personal distaste for that kind of thing.

I'm not sure why riddles being decided by thinking about it, rathter than rolling dice, is a problem.

Dice aren't the critical issue, it's the ability of the character to solve puzzles. If you're playing the Riddle Master of Hed, but you personally suck at solving riddles, especially your DM's idea of what's an "obvious" riddle, it's not going to go well for you if your character's ability can't be modeled by the system, and it depends on the DM making up riddles & you solving them, instead. It's like telling a player in a wheelchair that they can't play a character who can walk.

There's only one "game theoretic" notion of "illusionism", namely, The Forge's. And in that usage, it's not illusionism if the player gets to make a check (eg Insight) and success on that check would have changed the outcome.

In this instance, success/failure is hidden from the player, and he is asked to make a decision, the decision makes no difference, that sounds like illusionism. It also sounds like 'immersion' the way it's often used.

In 4e, the "trickster" ability would, as a matter of mechanical convention, be more likely to involve an attack vs Will; but otherwise could play out the way described - if the attack succeeds (or, in a departure from convention, the Insight check fails) then the PC falls prone (or whatever) which - in the fiction - corresponds to having been lured into a trap.

It could even have been a power that slid the victim into a square that had already been determined to contain a trap (and may even have been marked as such on the map), if the PC knew about the trap, he'd also have gotten a save to fall prone adjacent to it, instead, to avoid it. The difference it all that would be open and above-board, no hiding the success/failure.

The PCs were in rather tense negotiations with the pact hag and friends. Mechanically, this was being resolved as a skill challenge.
The player of the dwarf fighter failed a check (Insight? I can't remember now, more than 5 years later.) I narrated the result - manipulated by the hag, the PC moves across the room, and then the hag pulls the rope and a pit opens beneath the dwarf's feet, dropping him into tunnels below.

When I've posted that example of play in the past, many posters have responded that it was a railroad. I personally don't see how - it's just the narration of adverse consequences for a failed check.

The difference, there, is there was that the player knew the roll was failed and you simply narrated the consequence, vs being told after a hidden opposed check "you think somethings up with the hag, like she's trying to trick you, what do you do" and then whatever he did, *poof* there was a trap there. "I stay right in my seat." *poof* the floor drops out from under you chair. "I get up and leave the room *poof*" the floor under the doorway opens up. "I use my potion of levitation to float in the middle of the room" *poof* the roof opens up and a whirlwind pulls you up through it because you're weightless!

 

[pemerton]

The difference, there, is there was that the player knew the roll was failed and you simply narrated the consequence, vs being told after a hidden opposed check "you think somethings up with the hag, like she's trying to trick you, what do you do" and then whatever he did, *poof* there was a trap there. "I stay right in my seat." *poof* the floor drops out from under you chair. "I get up and leave the room *poof*" the floor under the doorway opens up. "I use my potion of levitation to float in the middle of the room" *poof* the roof opens up and a whirlwind pulls you up through it because you're weightless!

Is anyone in this thread advocating what you describe here? That just seems like bad RPGing.

I'm not against all hard framing, but I don't see what having the player roll dice adds!

Dice aren't the critical issue, it's the ability of the character to solve puzzles. If you're playing the Riddle Master of Hed, but you personally suck at solving riddles, especially your DM's idea of what's an "obvious" riddle, it's not going to go well for you if your character's ability can't be modeled by the system, and it depends on the DM making up riddles & you solving them, instead.

If someone wants to play a riddle master whose riddle-solving ability takes the form of making INT checks (or whatever) then I've got nothing againts that, although personally I don't think I'd care for it - the narrative progressions in solving a riddle aren't the sort of thing that easily lend themselves to narration in (say) a skill challenge format.

But there is always going to be some domain in which the issue can occur. I can play a warlord who, in the fiction, is the greatest tactician of all time, but I might still suck at knowing when to use my powers! And so my warlord won't play as quite the tactical genius the fiction wants him/her to be. Action declaration is fundamental to RPGing, which means that there's always the prospect of being more or less effective, as a player of the game, than might seem appropriate given the PCs' notional in-fiction capabilities.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Is anyone in this thread advocating what you describe here? That just seems like bad RPGing.

He may not have been advocating it, but, that was comparable to the method Elfcrusher outlined. There is a secret roll (or DC), if the player beats a lower, arbitrary DC, he's told something up and asked to make a decision, the decision has no impact on the result, which is determined by the secret roll (or, I added, just as easily by the DM, arbitrarily, it makes no difference to the player's experience, either way).

And, no, it's not bad RPGing, it's just a different, really rather common/classic style. I guess I'll advocate for it, as I have for 'illusionism' in the past. It's a legitimate way to run a game, to get behind the screen and use misdirection to provide a great, even 'immersive,' play experience, like a stage magician entertaining his audience with 'illusions.'

I'm not against all hard framing, but I don't see what having the player roll dice adds!

It adds a sense of fair play, tension, fate, etc. In Elfscrusher's example, it actually determines the result, but that fact is hidden from the player, who is instead allowed to believe that had he made a correct choice he could have avoided the trap.

If someone wants to play a riddle master whose riddle-solving ability takes the form of making INT checks (or whatever) then I've got nothing againts that, although personally I don't think I'd care for it - the narrative progressions in solving a riddle aren't the sort of thing that easily lend themselves to narration in (say) a skill challenge format.

Coming up with good riddles is not always easy, and gauging the difficulty of a riddle is really iffy. A player can be befuddled by something you think is simple, or blurt out the answer to something you thought would be hard before you even finish it - and it in no way reflects the character.

Even if you do run a riddle in a skill challenge or similar format that takes several cycles of checks, it's not going to add a lot to the experience if you leave it completely abstract. To really make it work, you'd have to come up with a genuinely good riddle or puzzle that can be solved incrementally, so you can see progress, successive checks fill in more of the picture, the players may or may not figure it out before it's completed, so either there's some level of tension to see if the characters will figure it out, or to see what the correct solution is. So, really, much like watching characters in a story trying to solve a puzzle.

But there is always going to be some domain in which the issue can occur. I can play a warlord who, in the fiction, is the greatest tactician of all time, but I might still suck at knowing when to use my powers!

Nod. But, at least when he does use a power, it displays an effect consistent with the concept. You can be a great tactician, but fight for the wrong side or choose the wrong battle for an emotional reason or because of a personal blindspot, tragic flaw, or whatever.

Action declaration is fundamental to RPGing, which means that there's always the prospect of being more or less effective, as a player of the game, than might seem appropriate given the PCs' notional in-fiction capabilities.

If the game is done well, the in-fiction capabilities shouldn't be compromised by player system mastery/player-skill or lack thereof. The PC may succeed or fail (to the victory conditions of the game) based on game-play decisions made by the player, but he'll succeed or fail in character, and modeled true to concept.

 

[Guest 6801328]

He may not have been advocating it, but, that was comparable to the method Elfcrusher outlined. There is a secret roll (or DC), if the player beats a lower, arbitrary DC, he's told something up and asked to make a decision, the decision has no impact on the result, which is determined by the secret roll (or, I added, just as easily by the DM, arbitrarily, it makes no difference to the player's experience, either way).

If I were actually implementing this, if the player did nothing and stood still (or levitated or whatever) I wouldn't find some way to spring the trap anyway, because I don't mind having player decisions supersede failed skill checks.

On the contrary, the style of play you are advocating leads me to conclude that you are mocking ("poof") the same outcomes you espouse. Because if the player fails the Insight/Deception contest he must do whatever the NPC is trying to make him do, right? So even if the player says, "Hmmm...something is up, I think I will cast 'Levitate'" your response would have to be, "That's you speaking, not your character, so it doesn't get you out of the consequences of the failed skill check." You either have to disallow the Levitate, or have the player levitate into the trap. (Foresightful NPC, that one!)

Then again, you conclude with this:

If the game is done well, the in-fiction capabilities shouldn't be compromised by player system mastery/player-skill or lack thereof. The PC may succeed or fail (to the victory conditions of the game) based on game-play decisions made by the player, but he'll succeed or fail in character, and modeled true to concept.

Which seems to be a contradiction of the hard line you were taking against my viewpoint about agency. So I have no idea what you believe.

 

[Tony Vargas]

If I were actually implementing this, if the player did nothing and stood still (or levitated or whatever) I wouldn't find some way to spring the trap anyway,

The example you gave:

Ok, here's a scenario to consider. I posted this a year or two ago and some people went postal.

In a fight, the enemy...a manipulative, trickster type...tries to lure a PC into a square that is trapped. I proposed that you secretly roll for the bad guy's Deception, then allow the player to roll Insight. If the Insight roll beats a fixed DC (maybe 10) you tell the player that they can tell they are being or have been lured into a trap. Then you ask them what they do.

If their Insight roll did not beat the Deception roll, then no matter what they do they end up in the trap.

Note that I haven't actually done this, and I'm not sure I would...I'm just theorizing. But what I like about this is that it doesn't dictate thoughts/actions to the player: you are allowed to say/do/think whatever you want. But the trap is wherever you go if you fail, and it's someplace you don't go if you succeed.

particularly the bolded bit, gave me the impression that standing still would also leave you trapped.

On the contrary, the style of play you are advocating leads me to conclude that you are mocking ("poof") the same outcomes you espouse.

I was mocking the Forge presentation of 'Illusionism' as necessarily a bad technique.

I think it's a fine technique for certain styles and a workable - even ideal - approach in certain systems.

Which seems to be a contradiction of the hard line you were taking against my viewpoint about agency. So I have no idea what you believe.

It's not a hard line about your viewpoint (though I don't find it compelling or consistent), so much as about how your viewpoint should be handled. The example you posed is a good one, it illustrates how a system & GM can deal with such a viewpoint without preemptively excluding swaths of characters (determinedly uncooperative loners, fearless warriors, edgy emo types, reluctant heroes, etc), foes (manipulative trickster types), classes (Warlord! You knew it was coming!), and challenges (Traps, Puzzles, Riddles, etc) from the campaign.

because I don't mind having player decisions supersede failed skill checks.

That, OTOH, I don't find a great policy: it encourages players to get all argumentative & whiny in the hopes of overturning results when die rolls don't go their way.