GMing: How to fudge NOT using the dice.

If you think there are fundamental differences in mode, like I do, then agency is a red herring. General game advice is not fungible across modes, it only appears so because the community tends to treat role-playing as very similar with just a few different procedure preferences. In actuality what's considered agency in one mode is utterly irrelevant in another.
If there isn't agency involved, I don't think you can call it "roleplaying." It might be collaborative storytelling, and it certainly is worthwhile if everyone is on the same page, but the ability to make meaningful decisions in the role of another person -- no matter how deep or shallow the inhabitation or immersion -- is what makes it an RPG.

Obviously that is just my opinion, but I don't think it is an uncommon one, either.
 

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If there isn't agency involved, I don't think you can call it "roleplaying." It might be collaborative storytelling, and it certainly is worthwhile if everyone is on the same page, but the ability to make meaningful decisions in the role of another person -- no matter how deep or shallow the inhabitation or immersion -- is what makes it an RPG.

Obviously that is just my opinion, but I don't think it is an uncommon one, either.

It isn't, but I think its far from universal, and there are some problems with it if taken too far.

As I've noted before, I've seen people who outright claim that if you don't have a completely open sandbox type situation that its not really a roleplaying game. There's at least fairly well-known person on this board who, if not in this bucket, is pretty close to it. That's because any game that constrains the situation, essentially tells the players that certain decisions are, functionally, off the table; if they make them, at least that character will be removed from play; the GM is not going to run a separate game for the one player who wants his member of the police squad to go rogue.

(I realize you've acknowledged social constraints as a limiting factor on this before, but I just did want to note the degree to which that is viewed as acceptable varies considerably).

So the question is, how "meaningful" does the decision making need to be maintain agency? If you've got a railroaded game, but one that within the bounds of the tracks the players are allowed to interact with each other and NPCs, potentially changing some elements of how things play out even if they end up at the same destination, does that count? If not, I suspect you've potentially excluded a pretty fair number of games out there from being RPGs, and I'm not talking about ones that are structurally different, but just how they're run and accepted they're going to be run, including probably a lot of adventures (where getting too far off the path breaks the adventure, and there's thus a lot of passive or even active encouragement not to do that).
 

A dungeon can't be a rule.
You clearly lack experience with certain publishers.

Gideon's Justifiers RPG, all the adventures I've gotten have 1/5 new rules content, 1/5 sourcebook, 2/5 adventure, and the remaining 5th varies between which of those three.

Traveller, Adventure 5: Trillian Credit Squadron is indeed Bk5-80 part 2, and includes errata for Bk5-80. The Traveller Adventure has a subset of the Alien Module: Vargr, explicitly states things aboout the OTU and jump destinations. Double Aventure Marooned/Marooned Alone has the operational rules for the ATV from the core rules vehicles list. Several of the adventures also canonically defined portions of the setting; The Spinward Marches Campaign is a handful of pages of adventure, mostly sourcebook on the 5th Frontier War (a timeline advancement sourcebook), a reprint of the rules material from Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, and one of 5 slightly differing canonical maps and world listings of the Spinward Marches between IY 1100 and 1117. Marc, Loren, and Frank mixed rules supplement and adventure repeatedly, not just in Traveller, but also in 2300, Twilight 2000 1e and 2e (rivercraft rules? Pirates of the Vistulq...etc)

West End included errata sheets in some adventures... not for the adventure, but for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game and the Star Wars Sourcebook...

A number of smaller games, the handfull or less of adventure or subsetting sourcebooks are also supplements. See also Pendragon editions 1-4 ... Each of the books was 2-3 adventures, a regional sourcebook, and several had expansion rules material (North of the Wall, for example, added pictish character gen.)
 


You clearly lack experience with certain publishers.

Gideon's Justifiers RPG, all the adventures I've gotten have 1/5 new rules content, 1/5 sourcebook, 2/5 adventure, and the remaining 5th varies between which of those three.

Traveller, Adventure 5: Trillian Credit Squadron is indeed Bk5-80 part 2, and includes errata for Bk5-80. The Traveller Adventure has a subset of the Alien Module: Vargr, explicitly states things aboout the OTU and jump destinations. Double Aventure Marooned/Marooned Alone has the operational rules for the ATV from the core rules vehicles list. Several of the adventures also canonically defined portions of the setting; The Spinward Marches Campaign is a handful of pages of adventure, mostly sourcebook on the 5th Frontier War (a timeline advancement sourcebook), a reprint of the rules material from Supplement 4: Citizens of the Imperium, and one of 5 slightly differing canonical maps and world listings of the Spinward Marches between IY 1100 and 1117. Marc, Loren, and Frank mixed rules supplement and adventure repeatedly, not just in Traveller, but also in 2300, Twilight 2000 1e and 2e (rivercraft rules? Pirates of the Vistulq...etc)

West End included errata sheets in some adventures... not for the adventure, but for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game and the Star Wars Sourcebook...

A number of smaller games, the handfull or less of adventure or subsetting sourcebooks are also supplements. See also Pendragon editions 1-4 ... Each of the books was 2-3 adventures, a regional sourcebook, and several had expansion rules material (North of the Wall, for example, added pictish character gen.)
In the context I was using it, we were discussing D&D. My statement wasn't meant to go outside of that context.
 


It isn't, but I think its far from universal, and there are some problems with it if taken too far.

As I've noted before, I've seen people who outright claim that if you don't have a completely open sandbox type situation that its not really a roleplaying game. There's at least fairly well-known person on this board who, if not in this bucket, is pretty close to it. That's because any game that constrains the situation, essentially tells the players that certain decisions are, functionally, off the table; if they make them, at least that character will be removed from play; the GM is not going to run a separate game for the one player who wants his member of the police squad to go rogue.

(I realize you've acknowledged social constraints as a limiting factor on this before, but I just did want to note the degree to which that is viewed as acceptable varies considerably).

So the question is, how "meaningful" does the decision making need to be maintain agency? If you've got a railroaded game, but one that within the bounds of the tracks the players are allowed to interact with each other and NPCs, potentially changing some elements of how things play out even if they end up at the same destination, does that count? If not, I suspect you've potentially excluded a pretty fair number of games out there from being RPGs, and I'm not talking about ones that are structurally different, but just how they're run and accepted they're going to be run, including probably a lot of adventures (where getting too far off the path breaks the adventure, and there's thus a lot of passive or even active encouragement not to do that).
I don't think railroad games are without agency. I actually prefer to call them "rollercoaster" games because they are still meant to be fun. The freedom to make decisions and enjoy or suffer the consequences is still present in those games usually, it's just that the major story beats and especially the climax are part of that agreed upon social contract.
 

THen you're in the wrong subforum...

Plus, 5E, the first several big book adventures had rules expansions in them.
No. Not in the wrong subforum. I got into a discussion for a bit with someone else specifically about D&D. D&D is part of every RPG, so it's perfectly on topic. ;)

Edit: Also, rules expansions, while in an adventure, are not the dungeon. A dungeon, the thing you wander around in, isn't a rule. And rules expansions in an adventure are also optional, so more like guidelines. :)
 

I don't think railroad games are without agency. I actually prefer to call them "rollercoaster" games because they are still meant to be fun. The freedom to make decisions and enjoy or suffer the consequences is still present in those games usually, it's just that the major story beats and especially the climax are part of that agreed upon social contract.

Okay, that's a little clearer (and for what its worth, when run well, I concur with you).
 

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