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<blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8604152" data-attributes="member: 16814"><p>Attempting to follow multiple agendas leads to incoherent play.&nbsp; This isn't bad, necessarily, I think that most play is rather incoherent because of this very thing.&nbsp; As an example, let's look at the combat engine of 5e -- it clearly can produce outcomes where PCs are killed, and killed through &quot;bad luck.&quot;&nbsp; So, I might have, at one point, an agenda that this is an important fight, that we need to have it's outcome be fairly derived, and play through so that the &quot;bad luck&quot; is a legitimate outcome.&nbsp; But then, in a following game, I might decide that losing an important PC to random happenstance is not good, so I fudge the combat engine so it doesn't happen.&nbsp; These agendas are incoherent -- they cannot exist at the same time; they do not cohere.&nbsp; I posit that it's a rare situation where you have agendas that both work together and require fudging the system for one and not fudging it for the other.&nbsp; Rather, in this case, you're toggling agendas between two that are not compatible.&nbsp; Which, again, I think is pretty common at TTRPG tables.&nbsp; It's usually not at mine, because I try very hard not to toggle agendas of play, but then I also spend a good bit of time thinking about agendas of play and how systems align or fight them, and tend to select games based on what I want from them or, vice versa, alter what I want from a game based on what it provides.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Ovinomancer, post: 8604152, member: 16814"] Attempting to follow multiple agendas leads to incoherent play. This isn't bad, necessarily, I think that most play is rather incoherent because of this very thing. As an example, let's look at the combat engine of 5e -- it clearly can produce outcomes where PCs are killed, and killed through "bad luck." So, I might have, at one point, an agenda that this is an important fight, that we need to have it's outcome be fairly derived, and play through so that the "bad luck" is a legitimate outcome. But then, in a following game, I might decide that losing an important PC to random happenstance is not good, so I fudge the combat engine so it doesn't happen. These agendas are incoherent -- they cannot exist at the same time; they do not cohere. I posit that it's a rare situation where you have agendas that both work together and require fudging the system for one and not fudging it for the other. Rather, in this case, you're toggling agendas between two that are not compatible. Which, again, I think is pretty common at TTRPG tables. It's usually not at mine, because I try very hard not to toggle agendas of play, but then I also spend a good bit of time thinking about agendas of play and how systems align or fight them, and tend to select games based on what I want from them or, vice versa, alter what I want from a game based on what it provides. [/QUOTE]

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