Is "GM Agency" A Thing?

[Reynard]

We should not confuse the ability to influence outcomes with the particular choice of how to do that.

The choice to closely follow a published adventure closely is still a choice, and thereby an exertion of agency. If the GM reads an adventure and thinks, "This written stuff is really cool! I want to make it happen," then making it happen is an exercise of their agency.

Plus, even while they are "quoting a book" (that phrasing sounds a bit loaded with assumptions, to be honest) there's a whole lot of space for the GM to shape events with exactly how they present that information, the detailed choices they make for NPCs, their rule interpretations and applications, and so on.

Even in the most egregiously over written adventures, I have never encountered one that asked me as GM to simply quote from it. There is a lot of decision making that goes into GMing even by the book.

It almost feels like someone who.would suggest this doesn't have a lot of GMing experience, to be honest.

 

[Umbran]

Even in the most egregiously over written adventures, I have never encountered one that asked me as GM to simply quote from it. There is a lot of decision making that goes into GMing even by the book.

To be fair, many published adventures give you "boxed text" that you can read verbatim. I think it is more that they offer that, rather than "ask you to simply quote", though.

It almost feels like someone who.would suggest this doesn't have a lot of GMing experience, to be honest.

We should avoid suggesting or assuming attributes of the speaker.

A lot of internet discussion drives to hyperbole, polarized positions, and overstatement for effect, and that then doesn't really tell us much about the speaker.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

We should not confuse the ability to influence outcomes with the particular choice of how to do that.

The choice to closely follow a published adventure closely is still a choice, and thereby an exertion of agency. If the GM reads an adventure and thinks, "This written stuff is really cool! I want to make it happen," then making it happen is an exercise of their agency.

It doesn’t fly in the player agency context that the player has chosen to play in a railroady adventure path. Their agency is still lesser than in some other types of play. Same with the GM here.

Plus, even while they are "quoting a book" (that phrasing sounds a bit loaded with assumptions, to be honest) there's a whole lot of space for the GM to shape events with exactly how they present that information, the detailed choices they make for NPCs, their rule interpretations and applications, and so on.

Sure. It was obviusly an exaggeration. They of course have some agency. But to me it seems plainly obvious that a creative that is following even a loose script that someone else has written is excercising less agency than one that is making it all up from scratch.

My objection was to the claim that running a published module is high GM agency play. It is not. That of course Doesn’t mean that they have no agency at all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that makes sense to me.

The thing I find curious is that the consistency they are willing to get in return is not necessarily a high likelihood of success, but just a known probability.

I'd much rather have consistency than success that's at the mercy of a GM's decisions.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I'd much rather have consistency than success that's at the mercy of a GM's decisions.

Huh.

I see three possibilities, but if there's another way of looking at this I'm very interested:

GM Fiat: The player narrates a desired action and the GM simply decides if it works.
Middle Ground: The player narrates a desired action, which triggers a rule and a dice roll, but the GM sets the difficulty level
Strict Rules: The player narrates a desired action, and the system has both a rule and a difficult to cover that

My issue with the third option is that either the rules are vast and unwieldy, or fun scenarios that the players dream up are just not supported. Neither of which (to me) is satisfactory. I think of all the posts where somebody says, "My player wanted to do X. What rule covers that?"

Some might see the middle hyrbrid option as a happy medium, but instead of combining the best parts I think it really combines the part disliked by both sides: it really is a kind of GM fiat, because the GM is free to pick either a really high or really low difficulty level. But then it still subjects it to RNG. Blah.

So I'd rather just acknowledge the at the GM gets to make these calls, and let the GM do so, with as little RNG as possible. I see the GM not as "the person who drew the short straw and got tasked with implementing the rules" but "the person inviting us into their imaginary world". I'm perfectly happy to let the GM make arbitrary decisions that they feel bring that world to life. If I end up disagreeing with how they do that, I won't join their games in the future.

 

[Umbran]

It doesn’t fly in the player agency context that the player has chosen to play in a railroady adventure path. Their agency is still lesser than in some other types of play. Same with the GM here.

I am not going to get into arguments over who has more or less agency. I don't think we have a practical measure, because "agency" is not all one currency with the same value to all comers.

Ultimately, the question is not "Who has more agency?" because having agency is not, in and of itself, a goal. The question is whether folks have the agency they need to have a satisfactory play experience.

 

[PencilBoy99]

This came up in another thread and I want to see what folks think about the idea.

When we talk about "Player agency" (which we do a lot around here) usually we are talking about the ability of the players to make informed decisions that impact the outcome of play.

I am curious is folks think there is such a thing as "GM agency" with a similar definition. More importantly, I am wondering if folks think if there are styles or elements of play that limit "GM agency" in a meaningful way.

For my own part, if we are talking about traditional RPGs (like D&D or GURPS or whatever), I don't think "GM agency" is a meaningful term. It is all "GM agency" because the rules start with the premise that the GM decides on the rules, and all decisions ultimately flow from the GM. While a GM may decide to allow game mechanics, die rolls or player decisions to inform or usurp that decision make, the GM still ultimately has the authority to change any decision. There is no mechanism in traditional RPGs that can limit "GM agency."

There are other kinds of games -- story now, for example -- that I think do define the GM much more as "just another participant" and therefore include rules and mechanisms that inherently limit what options are available to the GM. In these cases, "GM agency" is just a different kind of "player agency" because the GM is just another kind of player. Granted, I am not overly familiar with games of this type and it is totally possible I am misunderstanding the nature of, say, GM moves in Apocalypse World as a mechanism that defines and restricts "GM agency" in a way similar to player moves. I am sure @pemerton and @overgeeked will be along to correct me soon enough.

So, what do you think. Is "GM agency" a meaningful term and worth talking about in a similar context to "player agency"?

Very good idea. Yes, it seems like the modern game design movement is to aggressively reduce the scope of GM agency.

 

[chaochou]

GM agency isn't a worthwhile concept. Player agency is a worthwhile concept because it is undermined (often completely) by a combination of authority mismatch, information shortage, and rules and process absence.

Player agency - that is inviolable rules which players know and can rely on to achieve known goals - is self-evident, whether you play chess or go, poker or bridge, Buckaroo or Litoral Commander. It's absence is obvious when you play Snakes and Ladders.

It's only RPGs that have developed playstyles whose goal is to mislead players with regard to the agency they are exercising. This is why terms related to this play borrow terms from magic performance (force and illusionism) where no-one sees a lack of 'audience agency' as a problem or insult.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Yes, it seems like the modern game design movement is to aggressively reduce the scope of GM agency.

I don't know about that, but I will say that the main reason I've ditched 5e and gone all-in on Shadowdark is for the OSR approach to GM agency.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Huh.

I see three possibilities, but if there's another way of looking at this I'm very interested:

GM Fiat: The player narrates a desired action and the GM simply decides if it works.
Middle Ground: The player narrates a desired action, which triggers a rule and a dice roll, but the GM sets the difficulty level
Strict Rules: The player narrates a desired action, and the system has both a rule and a difficult to cover that

There's a lot of room between your second and third cases. The one I prefer is "the rules cover the difficulty of most common cases but outliers may require GM decisions."

My issue with the third option is that either the rules are vast and unwieldy, or fun scenarios that the players dream up are just not supported. Neither of which (to me) is satisfactory. I think of all the posts where somebody says, "My player wanted to do X. What rule covers that?"

I suspect our definitions of "vast and unwieldy" are probably far enough apart to not make a good connection here. I've played several games that fit my between-case above, and I don't consider them unwieldy.

Some might see the middle hyrbrid option as a happy medium, but instead of combining the best parts I think it really combines the part disliked by both sides: it really is a kind of GM fiat, because the GM is free to pick either a really high or really low difficulty level. But then it still subjects it to RNG. Blah.

So I'd rather just acknowledge the at the GM gets to make these calls, and let the GM do so, with as little RNG as possible. I see the GM not as "the person who drew the short straw and got tasked with implementing the rules" but "the person inviting us into their imaginary world". I'm perfectly happy to let the GM make arbitrary decisions that they feel bring that world to life. If I end up disagreeing with how they do that, I won't join their games in the future.

And as I've noted any number of times, the less time people have to spend making a guessing game of how the GM will resolve things, the better. There's obviously some practical limits to this in anything but a very schematic game, but as I said, I expect where I draw that line and where you do are not in the same ballpark.