What three way? The players are flat out denied any ability to author fiction in trad games. All they can do is react to whatever the dm authors. They cannot deal with that civil war if the dm doesn’t add a civil war to the game. They cannot as players create anything.
ITT: Players don't actually control their characters and their role in the ongoing narrative.
For what its worth, I think its fair to say one of the big reasons that GMs tend to make the best Players is because they actually recognize that Players
do have this capability, whether they can put a name to that capability or not, and as such have the confidence to actually use it.
And frankly, if you believe the characters role and choices within a narrative don't actually matter, to the point where nothing the player makes them do matters at all, this tells me you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what it is to play these kinds of games.
Which...tracks given your general thoughts and attitudes towards these games. There's a reason Ive been disagreeing with practically everything you've ever said even back when I was still lurking here years ago.
Players reacting to the dm rolling up the plot wagon is not player authoring anything.
Yes, it is. You just don't seem to value the interactivity games afford as a medium.
And when every plot can only come from the dm who decides how the world “changes” based on whatever the dm feels is appropriate, the illusion of a living world is just that.
This what game designers call a sweet lie. Its a part of the proverbial social contract of any game (no matter the medium) that requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief. The GM serves to enable the game to run, and this often requires some conciets to allow for smooth gameplay.
But, this is
also why systemic authorship matters; GMs do not in fact have full authority unless they are taking the option to fully abandon the system as created.
And its true, many do. But at that point, the game itself cannot fix whats become a social problem between real humans. Those real humans have to resolve their BS and this typically takes the form of Session Zeros to establish what is or isn't going to be used vis a vis the rules.
And after such things have been established, you can no longer claim that the system is not commanding its own authorship, nor that, if the system has been abandoned, that it is a bad thing that its happened;
you agreed to it.
But even in that case, the players are still authoring the role their characters will play, which in turn will have very substantial effects on the resulting narrative.
If you believe it won't, then all I can say is that either you or the GMs you play with are just unskilled and do not understand how to run the game in question properly.
Im sure that will incense you, but thats only natural, because cognitive dissonance isn't supposed to be comfortable. If player authorship is truly being denied, the GM is doing something incredibly wrong and inappropriate.
But the more likely result is that whatever your issue is isn't
actually rooted in what we've all been talking about, and it'd take a greater examination of where your emotions are coming from to nail down whats actually causing the problem. Because it isn't an authorship problem, and that much is apparent.
I just don’t see why it can’t coexist with other options as well
If already does,
especially in open-worlds. If it doesn't, you or your GM are railroading the players.
Do refer to my previous post linking the GDC panel and that graphic.
Having pre-written outcomes and scenarios is not a problem of player agency being
denied, but of player agency being
validated.
Choices without consequences are meaningless. If you are presenting choices, consequences
must follow.
If you are not presenting choices,
only then are you not allowing for agency.
