D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Pedantic]

I think it is can be equally true if someone else authors that part of the fiction, but it depends a lot on how the fiction is authored. @Enrahim had some nice posts about this a while back. From what I recall, the point is that the GM is constrained in authoring that part of the fiction by the fixed details of the world.

For example, in the rune case, if you go to investigate and the GM says "hmm, I think it would be nice for the players to get out of here. Let's make it a map", then you aren't exercising much agency as actor, because the GM's authorship overrides your decisions as actor.

But if the world had already been authored such that the runes are a map, then the GM has to present them as a map. Then you exercise a lot of agency as actor, because the direction of the fiction is deterministic with respect to your decisions.

I love this example! It's a very clear presentation of why it's necessary that the world be treated as an independent entity to give the player ludic agency. The GM making directorial/pacing decisions necessarily devalues the impact of player decision making.

 

[Enrahim]

It might be better to pick a different one. There are clearly two different conceptions of agency...and both sides think their method leads to more agency.

Perhaps we can frame them as agency as player and agency as character.

When I as a player say "my character examines these runes" or "my character picks the lock", I am asserting agency as a character. My character interacts with the world and to the extent that the world is fixed my character's actions have specific effects that can improve the game state.

When I say "I hope the runes are this", roll and that becomes reality, I'm asserting agency as a player. Or perhaps an author? I'm authoring new fiction to generate the outcome my character hoped for.

My point is that these two types of agency are opposed. For agency as character to be meaningful, the actions must be interacting with an objective game state. If I read the runes, get a 10+, and they turn out to be beneficial, I didn't exercise meaningful agency as character because I didn't take a specific action which improved the game state. Instead the roll led to meta result of good and the player was permitted to author some new fiction.

From the character's perspective...the author is still not me. It is someone else. And the fact that someone else can roll dice and see what happens with my life, and this takes precedence over the actions I choose to take, means I have very little agency indeed.

I think this more effectively explain the issue with your reasoning:

First of all, there's a somewhat different attitude towards characters and roles. Trad play is fundamentally rooted in a competitive skill-test model of play where the GM's goal is to play the opponents. So, in that model of roles, the idea of trying to subvert this opposition by some meta-channel is a viable concept. But this kind of arrangement of roles is absent in Narrativist play. I'm exploring the nature of my character, and/or possibly some other elements of the fiction that form the premise. There's no concept of petitioning anyone. I can propose fiction, or interpretations of fiction, perhaps enact them.

You're fundamentally misunderstanding what the roles are and what is being accomplished. I'm in no position to critique other poster's play of systems like Dungeon World, but DW particularly, but not uniquely, is well-known to often be played as largely a trad/neo-traddish game. Hell, the developers of DW2e have literally absolved themselves of any notion of Narrativist play. IMHO they are not even understanding what that is. So, yes, I am deeply skeptical of the idea that someone ran a certain game system means they're particularly well-versed in the style. As with other types of play there's also different opinions on certain things.

I got a similar vibe from @Campbell 's exelent post a while back.

So, in games were intent is meaningful, I expect two things. That the intention is the character's diegetic intent and not the player's hope for the scene and that intention is credible. If that is not the case, I will simply say it's not the case and ask the player to establish the equivalent of task and intent that fits within those criteria.

Part and parcel of this sort of play is that the game's credibility is also on the players, but it should be anyway. Like in a traditional game when we are establishing things like backgrounds my expectation is that players are interested in the integrity of the setting and creating a compelling play experience. My expectation is the same during play - that players are playing their characters with integrity and not weaseling for advantages that are not diegetic.

There's a reason why don't be a weasel is one Blades' player best practices. Honestly, this is something we really should not have to say but really said in some way as a bit of a reminder in most games.

The resolution lie in that in this style of play your wishes as a player should be surpresed compared to the motivations of the character. This is similar to how some sim play is requiering the self dicipline of not to take meta knowledge into account when declaring actions.

If it is a common understanding of this, then the player agency you refer to evaporates. It is true that there is a mechanism for modifying the world outside standard in-fiction causality, but this mechanism is still based on character, not player. There are hence no player agency competing with character agency in this type of play as long as you are not a weasel

 

[clearstream]

Well, quite. That should probably tell you something. Even @Hussar, who doesn't align with those self-identified simulationists, defines it in a way that's contrary to Edwards and Tuovinen.

What it tells you is that they've got some reading to do. I'd add Sam Sorensen's "New Simulationism" to that list. If it's GNS they're thinking of they should read Vincent Baker's recent assessment, on Anyway. Or if it's GDS John Kim's essay and curated list of links.

 

[Pedantic]

I'm not sure about the "evaluation of victory" part. What did you have in mind there?

Omitted is something about intended obstacles and skills, or experiences. Bernard Suits covers all this quite well in The Grasshopper.

Gameplay requires a goal, so you can structure your actions to try and achieve it, and a condition that triggers evaluation of that goal, so you can know if you were correct in your structuring of actions. Without those two things, I don't think an activity can be a "game."

This is a semantic problem though, because the word game has other playful meanings that are not, in the sense I'm trying to use it, "games." we do a lot of playful things that are not subject to evaluation and cannot produce gameful decision making as a result.

Consider the improv use, i.e. "this character's game" wherein game is a guide to act, but does not require evaluation, and produces a different kind of decision making.

 

[Faolyn]

To be fair, there's a difference between monster hunters in the vein of Dracula vs those in Buffy (including Xander post Halloween).

I dunno; that was a pretty unique band of monster hunters. It's just that most modern day supernatural isn't written in an epistolary style.

 

[Faolyn]

I want the setting to be the focus, with the players exploring it, including NPC interaction, through their PCs. How many times have I said this?

If for you it's all about telling the story of the PCs, have fun. But that's not the way I most enjoy RPGs.

That just means the setting itself is an NPC.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Metacurrencies are often considered narrative, because you use them not to do the best manipulation of the rules (which would be gamist), and are instead used to make the resulting story turn out as you want it.

Agreed, they can be a form of control of the story. They're, interestingly not generally a part of Narrativist play (and I am happy to agree that points out how imperfect the label is). So, there may be games where a currency plays such a role, I'm far from versed in all such games, but I don't think I have run into one.

In the cases I'm aware of currencies tend to be gamist devices, very similar to D&D hit points, but maybe you can spend them, like BitD stress. Yes, those can effect the narrative, but do so in a pretty typical way. Now, there are games, FATE springs to mind, where players use distinctions to assert outcomes in keeping with their character concepts, though even there it's not assured. I'd consider that sort of play to be more 'neo-trad' in nature, the players are less exploring the nature of the characters and more just asserting it as a fact to be granted. But it's largely a blurry distinction.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think this more effectively explain the issue with your reasoning:

I got a similar vibe from @Campbell 's exelent post a while back.

The resolution lie in that in this style of play your wishes as a player should be surpresed compared to the motivations of the character. This is similar to how some sim play is requiering the self dicipline of not to take meta knowledge into account when declaring actions.

If it is a common understanding of this, then the player agency you refer to evaporates. It is true that there is a mechanism for modifying the world outside standard in-fiction causality, but this mechanism is still based on character, not player. There are hence no player agency competing with character agency in this type of play as long as you are not a weasel

I think this brings us closer to an understanding. Dungeon World repeatedly admonishes the participants, especially the GM, to speak to the characters. Also to speak as the NPCs. Thus you ask "Thor, what are trying to do here?" Not "John, what do you want Thor to do?" This is exactly what @Campbell is talking about in the post you quoted. The players don't have desires within the fiction! They're advocates for their characters, but they don't steer the fiction. The game is about playing out what the characters think, feel, and do. This ties back to me saying that the GM is not really 'the opposition' either. DW then has a separate channel for what the players want to see in play, answering questions about the setting and situation, and at the mechanical level of play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I love this example! It's a very clear presentation of why it's necessary that the world be treated as an independent entity to give the player ludic agency. The GM making directorial/pacing decisions necessarily devalues the impact of player decision making.

I OTOH am not understanding a distinction. Either way the GM made fundamentally the same calculation, that a map would be fun. In both cases the GM chose, and both cases present the same fictional causality, and map it in the same way to actual causes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I disagree. It is still a Doylist, not Watsonian action, because in-universe the character could not define the meaning of the runes. They are external to the character. They are part of the world. Doyle, not Watson, determines what the runes are. You are in author stance.

In-universe, the character expressed an idea of what the runes may be. Ultimately, it's the GM who decides what they are... in this case, the GM took that player's suggestion and, combined with the successful roll, decided that the idea was correct.

The player never had to be in author stance. The decision... the authorship... was made by the GM.

Unless it's something I don't want, that's worse than nothing!

Well, no... characters' actions mattering works as much for negative outcomes as positive ones.

It's when "nothing happens" where their actions seem to have the least outcome.

Maybe not, but I learned to DM via Metzer's Basic and Gygax's 1e DMG.

Not a new DM, so a book primarily aimed at them is not a very efficient purchase for me.

Did the 5e DMG really offer you anything more about worldbuilding than what you already knew?

I'm not sure Watsonian vs Doylist is the same thing as Trad vs Narrativist. Our play is as much 1st person reasoning as the character as trad play! I do both, and the notion that one is a kind of analysis of narrative from outside is not valid. In fact most real play is not 100% one or the other. Or at least much of it looks the same.

Watsonian vs. Doylist is basically character vs. author... it's another take on stances. Watson is the character, Doyle the author.

I think it may vary by game, but generally speaking, I agree with you, I don't find narrativist games to be a whole lot more author stance than other games. Does it happen? Sure. Does it also happen in other games? Sure.

I think this is something that gets overstated quite a bit. Many folks seem to think that players are just narrating new bits into the game during narrativist play.