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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7628194" data-attributes="member: 42582">The function of players in RPGing is often described as deciding what their PCs do. But this can be quite ambiguous.A classic article on the analysis of actions (Donald Davidson, "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" (1963)) gives the following example:I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I need not have done four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.In RPGing, I think it's a big deal who gets to decide what descriptions of the PCs' actions are true, and how.For instance, suppose that my ability to decide what descriptions are true of my PC's actions is confined to very "thin" descriptions focused on the character's bodily movements, like I attack the orc with my sword or I wink at the maiden. Playing that game will produce a very different experience from one in which I can decide that the following description is true of my PC's actions: I kill the orc with my sword or I soften the heart of the maiden with a wink.The same point can be made in relation to success on checks: if succeeding at a check makes a description such as I find what I was looking for in the safe true, that game will produce a different experience from one in which it makes true only a description such as I open the safe, with the description of my action in terms of I find X in the safe remaining something for someone else - eg the GM - to decide.This example shows how it is possible (i) for it to be true that the players choose what their PCs do - under a certain, fairly thin or confined sort of description - and (ii) for there to be fudge-free checks and yet (iii) for it also to be the case that the GM decides everything significant that happens - ie it is the GM who gets to establish the richer, wider, consequence-laden descriptions of what the PCs do.I think that a failure to recognise this point makes a lot of discussions of railroading, "player agency" less productive or insightful than they might be.What do others think about who does, or should, get to establish the truth of descriptions of PC actions, and how?</blockquote>

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