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.

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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

 

[Sadras]

Fair enough. I'm not arguing that there is one true mechanic out there that will solve all problems. I'm simply arguing that the existence of such mechanics makes for a better game.

Yeah, I can certainly support it as another tool that may be used at the table.
The way I think I could implement something like this in a scenario at my table is if say one of the players asked me if I would allow them to make a persuasion roll to have his character convince a homesteader that to leave and seek safety in the city.
I, as DM, would then negotiate with the player and say I would allow for such roll on these conditions.

1. Success - Homesteader persuaded. Homesteader agrees to leave and seek safety in the city
2. Failure - Homesteader and PC persuaded. Homesteader agrees to leave and seek safety in the city after the party assists in rescuing the kidnapped loved ones.

So via negotiation between player-DM, player is allowed the roll if he agrees that his position can be swayed too.

That way, I get player buy-in, accepting the risks and player-agency is not compromised. I can definitely get behind something like that.

 

[Imaculata]

Or, perhaps a sort of social combat system where you make checks, each success causes X "damage". Take the PC's level vs the NPC's CR and go that way. There's a bunch of options here.

I improvised a homebrew social combat system for my 3rd edition campaign.

I made a list of all the npc's, and what topics they cared for, were neutral on, and did not care for (yay, meh, nay). I also listed whether they were partial to agreeing with certain other npc's.

Whenever the players would try to change the opinion of the npc's, they would need to succeed at a diplomacy check (the DC determined by their arguments). If they tried to use a topic that the npc didn't care for, they would be a lot harder to convince. And of course each npc had their own innate DC. I also added secrets for many of the npc's, which the players could learn about, and use to undermine the position of their political opponents.

 

[pemerton]

Whether you like it or not, the vast bulk of RPG play is either in D&D (all editions with 5e very much primary right now) or a very close offshoot (PF). So, bring in examples from niche games all you like; but if they don't speak to D&D/PF they might not get much traction.

FATE is not a "niche" game. Classic Traveller is not a "niche" game. Call of Cthulhu is not a "niche" game.

As I said, this is not a thread about D&D. It's a thread about the relationship between social resolution mechanics and player agency. If you won't talk or think about any mechanics but 3E's very poor Diplomacy mechanics, then you're not going to learn much about the thread topic!

To wit:

An action declaration of "I try to persuade the king to up his reward for finding the princess" is not roleplay, it's the social version of roll-play.

And what make you think that is a permissible action declaration in a game which features social resolution mechanics? By your own account you don't play such games; I believe you've never read any of the rules for such a game; so what are you basing your conjecture on?

Action declarations are not roleplay in themselves.

Again, how do you know? What experiences of the systems in question are you basing this on?

 

[pemerton]

Luke Crane does comment, in one of the Burning Wheel rulebooks, that in his experience the use of social mechanics to resolve PC vs PC arguments does (i) help the group at the table reach consensus on what to do next, and (ii) makes players feel more comfortable to have their PC argue with another PC, precisely because there's a way of resolving it at the table which sees the game go on, rather than having everything grind to a halt due to this social issue with no straightforward resolution.

This is awful.

Because? If Luke Crane and his gang want to use a mechanical framework to mediate PC vs PC argument, why is that awful?

I don't see why the fact that you don't want to play that way makes it awful that someone else does.

In my 4e game once, and in my Classic Traveller game more than once, I've used an impromptu social mechanic to resolve a seemingly interminable PC-vs-PC argument about what to do next

And this is worse.

Again, what is your objection to other tables using techniques that you don't?

The player(s) on the side that loses have just given up a great deal of their agency to game mechanics and meta-considerations; and further, are now forced by these mechanics into doing something their characters don't want to do.

How do you know their PCs don't want to do it? - maybe their minds got changed!

It's actually not wildly different from a coin-toss - which is a time-honoured method of resolving intractable disputes about what a group of friends should do next - except it's also integrated into the play of the game.

sometimes what the player wants to do and what the character wants to do are quite different; and here good roleplay dictates that the character's desires take precedence.

<snip>

If the argument becomes serious enough to split the party, so be it.

If the players wanted to split the party what makes you think they couldn't? The whole premise of a coin toss, or a social resolution roll, is that the PCs are going to stay together.

Just like in the real world, sometimes people agree to do things that they don't really want to do because they want to maintain some cooperative endeavour. It's hardly lacking in verisimilitude!

If the players in their roleplaying of their characters have put those characters into an argument with each other, if you-as-DM have an NPC in the party you can throw in that character's in-character take on things, but other than that you-as-DM have no business using game mechanics to cut it short and-or force a resolution.

If the argument goes on all night, so be it. Less work for you; sit back and enjoy your beer.

<snip>

IME if it's the players that are splitting the group they're also always cool with helping decide what gets run next. (usually, IME if the party splits into groups A and B the players in group B roll up new characters for group A and vice versa, then A gets run for a while and B put on hold, after which A gets put on hold and B gets run. The definition of "a while" varies by group and situation.)

Newsflash! - your experience is not the same as everyone else's.

Maybe my players don't want the argument to go on all afternoon. Maybe they are happy with a coin-toss mechanism, and maybe they like that better when it correlates more closely to the fiction (eg by reflecting that a character with Leader expertise is more charismatic, and a character who is a noble will receive more deference).

You could ask, rather than just project your own experiences as if everyone approaches RPGing the same way you do.

 

[Sadras]

Both @Lanefan's and @pemerton's experience have occurred at my table.
i.e. Running a split group or deference to Party Leader's decision or resolved with a coin/die toss.

Usually, after much discussion has already been had and when its gone full circle, if a player looks to me for a resolution that is when I get involved and put forward suggestions, otherwise I generally sit back and enjoy the debate that ensues.

 

[TheSword]

Just a sidebar question: Is it normal to have such long responses? There are lots of them from different posters but quite often there are line by rebuttals of up to 20 different points. This makes them quite hard to follow and makes it seem less of a conversation as much as a court battle. There is no particular person but is seems quite common. After all isn’t brevity the soul of wit.

 

[Sadras]

Just a sidebar question: Is it normal to have such long responses? ...(snip)... There is no particular person but is seems quite common.

Pretty much the standard. We are a pedantic group.

 

[Aldarc]

After all isn’t brevity the soul of wit.

I'm fairly certain that internet wall-of-text arguments is where "wit" goes to die.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Umm, what?

Here's the quote again:



Sorry, but, it's pretty clear. How well you can delight means you are able to delight them in a range from not liking it at all (failed check) to delighting them very well (a very high check). It's not can you change their minds at all, it's how much you can change their minds.

Again, "can" does a lot of work there. A high performance check CAN delight a crowd, but it doesn't mean the crowd is delighted.

I think a clear and persistent issue in how we see check is that you see the check as having a defined outcome -- perform will always determine how delighted any listener is. I see the check as a possible means to resolve and uncertainty -- will the crowd be delighted? The nuance here is that the outcomes in my view are determined by each individual situation -- a 15 on a perform check may delight a crowd that came to hear a famed performer play, while it may not delight the recently awoken and hungry dragon that prefers viola to the lute. Delightment may not even be the outcome, maybe in the second case the check is to see if you can lull the dragon back to sleep, a case where the dragon's delightment isn't at stake.

This difference, and the way we're going to read the same sentence, is probably going to continue to occur. I don't see a prohibition that the check automatically determines delightment because of the word "can". You read "can" to mean that the check will do this delighting thing. English is fun!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Umm, what?
Sorry, but, it's pretty clear. How well you can delight means you are able to delight them in a range from not liking it at all (failed check) to delighting them very well (a very high check). It's not can you change their minds at all, it's how much you can change their minds.

'Can' as opposed to 'may,' possibly?

Okay. But they don't help a player at all to come up with a reason why the character is more likely to commit good or evil acts. So, what purpose do alignments serve, again?

They make a game seem more like D&D. Especially important if the game in question had "D&D" on the cover.

Thinking in alignment categories is thinking in boxes, and when has that ever been a good thing?

Organizing and categorizing things can be very helpful.

But, again, that's presuming that we're using 3e mechanics. That wouldn't be a heck of a lot of fun would it?

In this instance, the 3e mechanics aren't all bad, at least it's a diplomacy skill affecting attitude rather than a persuasion skill dictating choices.

Personally, I'm partial to the idea of a sort of skill challenge, or extended skill checks, whatever you want to call them, to come to a conclusion. Could be something as simple as first past the post - whoever can make 5 arguments and 5 skill checks first (perhaps each one opposed, or against a static DC) wins.

Nod. And part of a more structured/playable sub-system like that could be setting the stakes/conditions, so that no one is surprised or feels betrayed by the results if they go against them.

Let's be honest, D&D sucks as far as these sorts of mechanics go.

A lot of folks are deeply invested in and feel very proprietary towards D&D or even just a specific one of it's editions. So acknowledging suckage that way is asking a lot.

I'm frankly rather baffled by the push back here. There's all sorts of games out there with social mechanics. It's not like this is some bizarre notion out of thin air. Social combat mechanics have been part of RPG's for decades. It's that D&D has remained stubbornly set in the notion that anything that isn't combat should be free formed.

D&D is not set in that notion - it has lots of non-combat magic with explicitly spelled(npi)-out effects, including dictating what PCs think/feel/do.
It is loaded with a tremendous amount of inertia from the 20th century, though. For a good 25 years, D&D just didn't change appreciably, while other RPGs evolved into myriad, but still tiny forms, D&D remained the biggest coelacanth in the pond, and saw no need to do things differently.