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

[AlViking]

I’m focused on game play because that’s where player agency is found.



Not doubling down. I’m asking because it makes no sense to me.

Do you mean you’d just reject what the dice were telling you? Something else?

I’m not following.

I can't think of any way to make it more clear. A game mechanic that relies on dice rolls would be meaningless to me. Actually, strike that. It would be annoying knowing that when the GM waved the metaphorical red flag that I would be forced to roll dice to see if the flaw I was forced to choose comes into play. That despite what I would think could potentially be an interesting turning point, something I could really like to sink my teeth into what someone in that situation and personality would do, is now reduced to random chance. It would lose all emotional meaning to me.

It's rare that I get emotionally invested in a character or a game but it was awesome the few times it happened. Making it artificial and dependent on rolling dice would basically guarantee for me that it wouldn't happen.

If you don't understand, fine. I'd play along because that's what the rules say. But I wouldn't be discovering anything because the structure of the game took that option away from me.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Two examples of play:

Running the excellent dungeon crawl "Winter's Daughter" for a group. I am running entirely per map&key notes, acting as an impartial referee per the procedures of OSE. The dungeon is full of context clues, Landmark/Hidden/Secret design philosophy environments ready for the players to poke, and traps. One of these is a giant silver mirror, facing a stairway. Plenty of clues across the dungeon, space to sidle behind it (or a variety of other possibilities), but if the players walk directly in front of it such that their reflection is caught, they must make a Save vs Paralyzed (or Doom or something, there's like 3 different iterations of the module for OSE/Dolmenwood/5e). One of the players, after doing some back and forth questioning on their turn, opts to walk in front of the mirror. I prompt for a save. They fail, and are paralyzed.

This is a consequence of a choice the player made in character.

Is their agency harmed by their actions triggering a trap?

I see where you are going but this isn't the same issue. The point I was making is Hawkeye was advocating for a definition of agency where it isn't considered infringement when the characters thoughts or actions are taken away from the player: for most people being able to control your characters thoughts or actions are the very essence of agency. Now that can still come up in a high agency game and overall the players still have agency. But by shifting the focus so much on mechanical play, rather than what is happening in the setting, and how the player is able to control their character in the setting, he is glossing over a very important aspect of aagency

Now I am not sayin agency can't shift depending on the context. In some games, there trade offs are different. I just find this starting point skews everything away from what most people would think of as being agency in an RPG

Running Stonetop, the Judge is pursuing a goal: find the remains of the ghostly Quiet Twins to lay them to rest. We know the veil between the living world and the Dead is thin in the area of the Crossroads near to town, he has further done a Know Things where I've referred to the setting guide and told him Something Useful per it about how to open a door, and shown him the Custom Move which along with what you can get, also shows the potential downsides (including something of Undeath comes through and makes things difficult). He goes out to the Crossroads, does a ritual to open Death's Door a crack and the twins manifest (a roll of the custom move: 7-9, a complication occurs: I give him a choice of something or an Undead coming through). He has a moment to talk with the twins, they shape a needle out of the remains of the vessel the corrupted spirit which drowned them ages ago was inhabiting before the Judge purged it. Then they flee in terror before a Dool Spirit, something which has never lived.

One of its moves is "Sense a victim's doubt and worries," so I ask him what it's sensing. He thinks for a second, and tells the table about how he's actually really worried that the town is turning on him because of how he's speaking up against the God Tor. I ask him what he does next, and he says he wants to strike at this thing; I Set Conditions and Ask. and use another of its Moves: "Manifest as the victim's fears (harmed only by one who has mastered their fear)" to say that as he strikes out the spirit melts into a crowd of faceless Stonetoppers jeering at him - and his fear is becoming overwhelming, what do you do? He says he calls upon his god to bolster him and his purpose (Defy Danger, Wis/Willpower); he succeeds and strikes out.

Was his agency harmed by calling forth his fears and making him confront them before he could take action?

I mean i don't have any issues with you doing this at all. It is probably very fun, but yes I think many people would raise agency concerns here. Now I get a game like this is doing something different from D&D or something. So it is probably also taking a slightly different view of agency. I think there is room for agreement and discussion around that. But I would say for most people a mechanic that forces players to confront some kind of inner fear before they take an action is definitely interfering with their expectations around agency (as I would say the standard view of agency is probably more about being able to control your characters thoughts and actions). But like I said, I am a fan of fear effects. I think people take the agency argument too far sometimes here. But I get the concerns around their characters thoughts being controlled or their actions being hindered

 

[zakael19]

This is a consequence of a choice the player made in character.



I see where you are going but this isn't the same issue. The point I was making is Hawkeye was advocating for a definition of agency where it isn't considered infringement when the characters thoughts or actions are taken away from the player: for most people being able to control your characters thoughts or actions are the very essence of agency. Now that can still come up in a high agency game and overall the players still have agency. But by shifting the focus so much on mechanical play, rather than what is happening in the setting, and how the player is able to control their character in the setting, he is glossing over a very important aspect of aagency

Now I am not sayin agency can't shift depending on the context. In some games, there trade offs are different. I just find this starting point skews everything away from what most people would think of as being agency in an RPG



I mean i don't have any issues with you doing this at all. It is probably very fun, but yes I think many people would raise agency concerns here. Now I get a game like this is doing something different from D&D or something. So it is probably also taking a slightly different view of agency. I think there is room for agreement and discussion around that. But I would say for most people a mechanic that forces players to confront some kind of inner fear before they take an action is definitely interfering with their expectations around agency (as I would say the standard view of agency is probably more about being able to control your characters thoughts and actions). But like I said, I am a fan of fear effects. I think people take the agency argument too far sometimes here. But I get the concerns around their characters thoughts being controlled or their actions being hindered

Cool, yeah. I’m not aware of many games that are designed with conflict mechanics and also don’t do something vaguely similar, because “losing control of yourself” is such a core trope of like, all narratives (and life?). If somebody was so absolutist about like, consent based effects to that point I’m not sure I’d a
Play with them.

One further question: in both cases the player/character had a choice to not trigger the controlling effect. Does one of those preserve more agency? Either the fact that the OSE player just didn’t dig hard enough, or does the Stonetop player choosing to press their attack despite knowing that it would trigger what is in effect a Save mechanic? Or is it just the potential outcome that matters?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Cool, yeah. I’m not aware of many games that are designed with conflict mechanics and also don’t do something vaguely similar, because “losing control of yourself” is such a core trope of like, all narratives (and life?). If somebody was so absolutist about like, consent based effects to that point I’m not sure I’d a
Play with them.

Like I said I thin people sometimes take the argument too far, because there are going to need to be times when your agency is dampened in play IMO. And clearly a game like D&D has things like mind control magic. But that doesn't mean that a very basic concept of agency in an RPG isn't control of your character and their thoughts. "Don't tell me what my character thinks" is a thing. I don't worked up about that. But I have seen it enough to know it is a thing. ]

I am a big fan of Ravenloft from the 2E era. That had Fear and Horror mechanics (as well as powers checks, and later it incorporated madness checks). Call of Cthulhu also had madness rules, and I like that too. But when I talk about Ravenoft online among gamers who place high value on agency, I often encounter push back against the idea fear and horror effects.

One further question: in both cases the player/character had a choice to not trigger the controlling effect. Does one of those preserve more agency? Either the fact that the OSE player just didn’t dig hard enough, or does the Stonetop player choosing to press their attack despite knowing that it would trigger what is in effect a Save mechanic? Or is it just the potential outcome that matters?

I don't know if it is worth splitting hairs over this level of detail here. Like I said, I think both things are fine in a game if they fit what people want. My point wasn't to speculate on how much agency a game having either of these is losing. My point was just that any working definition of agency, probably needs to account for peoples desire to control their character and their character's thoughts (and not strictly view agency from the mechanical game play approach). It is just odd to classify a game that controls player thoughts and actions as having more agency than a game where you are in control of your characters thoughts and actions. I think a more reasonable way to approach these things is to realize the meaning of agency changes according to the games we are playing (i.e. agency in a living world sandbox does not deduct agency from Burning Wheel-----they just approach agency differently)

 

[pemerton]

If the system forces them to manipulate the setting such that player concerns are always paramount, then yes. It is meta player agency.

Do you have a view on my question: If you are GMing 3E D&D, and a player builds a ranger with Orcs as a favoured enemy, and so that means you as GM decide to use some Orcs as NPCs, does that count as the player exercising "meta agency"?

 

[pemerton]

you seem to treat every question, every attempt at clarification as if we're attacking you personally.

Well, only when I am accused of lying, or when you say X is clear in response to a post where I've explained in detail why its not the case that X.

We ask simple questions which have simple answers that we don't get. Instead we repeatedly get a sample scenario that isn't representative or blocks of rules when we just want a simple answer.. Some of this is just how different BW is and it's hard to grasp sometimes because it's such a polar opposite approach in many ways.

I've given simple answers. But you reject them, I think because of the apparently radical ideas that (i) the GM would frame scenes always having regard to player priorities for their PCs, and (ii) there is no resolution of conflict by consensus.

 

[pemerton]

If you don't allow the circumstances in the setting to influence, or in some cases outright dictate, GM adjudication, then IMO you're not playing Living World. You're playing backdrop to PC protagonism. Imaginary things absolutely can (and IMO should) participate in causal process, because they are a major factor in determining what decisions are made.

Imaginary things cannot have actual causal effects. By definition, they are imaginary, and hence have no more real effects than do <spoiler alert> Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

The GM can imagine circumstances in the setting, and on the basis reach a view as to what should happen. That's a method of making a decision. Authors use it a lot.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I mean i don't have any issues with you doing this at all. It is probably very fun, but yes I think many people would raise agency concerns here. Now I get a game like this is doing something different from D&D or something. So it is probably also taking a slightly different view of agency. I think there is room for agreement and discussion around that. But I would say for most people a mechanic that forces players to confront some kind of inner fear before they take an action is definitely interfering with their expectations around agency (as I would say the standard view of agency is probably more about being able to control your characters thoughts and actions). But like I said, I am a fan of fear effects. I think people take the agency argument too far sometimes here. But I get the concerns around their characters thoughts being controlled or their actions being hindered

Here's an observation though about that. In @zakael19 example, I don't know how else you could do anything even similar to that scene where the guy overcomes his self-doubt and defeats the Dool Spirit. Even if you did it in D&D, I almost guarantee it would be implemented with a saving throw, which is basically going to have the same sort of fiction. And, what's wrong with it? I mean, suppose it was 'deadly cold' instead? It could be virtually identical mechanics.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

By definition, they are imaginary, and hence have no more real effects than do <spoiler alert> Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.

Spoilers!

 

[Bedrockgames]

Here's an observation though about that. In @zakael19 example, I don't know how else you could do anything even similar to that scene where the guy overcomes his self-doubt and defeats the Dool Spirit. Even if you did it in D&D, I almost guarantee it would be implemented with a saving throw, which is basically going to have the same sort of fiction. And, what's wrong with it? I mean, suppose it was 'deadly cold' instead? It could be virtually identical mechanics.

Sure, I am not saying there is anything wrong with the mechanic, or that something like that would happen in D&D without some adjustment. I suppose if the player were legitimately feeling that self doubt, that would be a way for you to have it in a game where there is more 1-1 between the player and the characters thinking. My only point was I think by any reasonable definition, removing a players control of thoughts or action is an interruption of agency. Like I said thought, that doesn't mean a game doing that in one case, is automatically low agency (and context might even mean it is enhancing it somehow). But what I was pushing back against was a statement made earlier where the players ability to control the character simply weren't even a consideration in the definition of agency because all that was being considered was game play