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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 7084715" data-attributes="member: 16586">I'm going to take another stab at the framing of play as either GM driven or driven by the other players. Previously, I have taken issue with presenting this as a binary, particularly in regard to my desire to not really have anyone driving for particular outcomes, but for everyone to simply bring it and play the game to find out what happens. I am going to attack it from another angle.If player agency is not a thing that you either have or you do not have is it a spectrum? I do not think so. I believe we have agency over specific things. Historically, one of my major pain points with playing most mainstream roleplaying games is the tactical overhead view it tends to give you of your character, the setting, and their situation instead of the deeply personal view that we have of our own lives. We tend to have far more agency over our characters in a roleplaying game than we do over our own lives. Things like the weight of social obligations, the people we care about, our cultural traditions and practices, emotional safety, limits of perspective, our natural curiosity, our personalities, and our own intuitions and emotions hold far more sway over us than they do for our characters. This often results in a sort of Uber Rational form of play where Player Characters seldom seem like authentic people. Roleplaying games often do a good job of representing physical violence and consequences, but often ignore the vast and far reaching impact of other elements of the fiction.One of the things that most indie roleplaying games push back against is the Walled Off Gardens we create when we play most mainstream roleplaying games. In Systems Design a Walled Off Garden is an information system where users can only interact and use data in pre-approved ways. Access is rigidly controlled. The ways in which we generally play most mainstream games function in very similar ways. We have Character Concepts, Visions For Our Worlds, and The Story to think of. We don't want to risk that anyone might get hurt, but we don't really want to talk about stuff so we construct these very elaborate webs of ways you are allowed to use my stuff.I don't mean for that to come off super harsh. I just mean that we are generally very protective of the things that belong to us. Because play exists in this culture where my character wholly belongs to me and is not shared it is precious to me. Generally as a condition of play I accept that physical violence might happen to my character, but other forms of violence are generally off the table. This includes social violence, psychological violence, emotional violence, and can even include what I would call Conceptual Violence. Conceptual Violence occurs when the events of play redefine a character in a way that makes a player like them or identify with them less. So if I'm the Social Guy and I fail a crucial Diplomacy roll in a crunch moment I look over to the GM because I don't want the dice to define my character. Here's another example: I am playing a Paladin because I love the idea of playing a good guy with a Code of Honor. I don't really want my character to be put in situations where following the code is difficult for me as a player because I want to play a good guy - not a conflicted guy. This is a form of player agency generally expected in mainstream play, but not in most indie play. Fate is real big on protecting players from Conceptual Violence.Consider social mechanics in most mainstream roleplaying games. Generally players' characters are immune to being meaningfully influenced by other players' characters and NPCs except in ways that players allow. Additionally mechanisms for influencing NPCs are entirely under the GM's purvey. Let's contrast this with a game like Masks. In Masks there are no mechanisms to represent lasting physical harm, but there are mechanisms with teeth to represent who a character cares about, how they see themselves, and their emotional states. These mechanisms can be deployed from one player's character to another player's character, on NPCs, and as consequences applied by the GM. We are all required to follow the fiction, and the player character affecting mechanisms provide more room for decision making. Still this is a meaningful difference in player agency. When running Masks one of my hard moves is to say now you care about what this NPC has to say and there are mechanics that back that up. A player can also provoke someone susceptible to their words say what an NPC does and as long as it makes sense in the fiction and they succeed as the GM I cannot do a damn thing about it. I have to follow the fiction.Let's say I am running Burning Wheel and two players' characters get into an argument about stuff that hinges on their beliefs. According to my principles as I GM if one player isn't willing to Say Yes to the other we are going to Roll The Dice. I would call for a binding Duel of Wits.The same concept applies for things like character backstory. In the games I prefer to run and play you do not get to come to the table with a 2-3 page backstory or any backstory at all really. We are all collaborators. I want everyone to be interested in everyone's stuff. I also want this stuff to actually matter to play. The best way to encourage that is to work on it together in a meaningful way. I fully expect connections between various players' stuff and active and vigorous collaboration. This is a meaningful difference in agency.Finally, let's take a look at the assumption that the players' characters are part of a group and can depend on one another. In many of the games I like to run and play this is not a valid assumption to make. I expect shared interests on the part of all players, but do not require it of their characters. Often a significant portion of the active adversity in a game like Apocalypse World can come from the other players' characters. If you want their help you generally have to actually earn it. Alliances are often temporary and tend to shift over time. I feel like this is also a fundamental difference in player agency.</blockquote>

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