Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[pemerton]

An Apocalypse World GM or a Burning Wheel GM is not a neutral arbiter in the way a B/X referee is. They have agendas laid out by those games they are supposed to follow. It's an active role. Not a passive one. It's like night and day.

So much this! It's why I'm a bad OSR-type referee.

In my Prince Valiant game, the PCs found themselves defending a castle in Bordeaux that they had taken with the help of a peasant uprising. The Count of Toulouse arrived leading a force coming to try and relieve the castle. Ahead of him was riding his beautiful and unhappy wife, hoping to use this chance to escape from her marriage. As written up in the scenario I was adapting, she had a special ability to incite affection in one person.

In classic D&D this would be analagous to a dryad's charm ability. That essentially creates a challenge - of potentially robbing the party of one of its members, perhaps even pitting that member against the others - and because a dryad is not evil it can oblige the players to try and resolve the challenge without an excess of violence.

In Prince Valiant the context is entirely different. One of the PCs was in a marriage that he didn't really want to be in - he had been talked into it by his wife and her father - and so naturally I fastened on him as the one in whom affection was incited. It's not a challenge to be dealt with - its me poking and prodding at the player and his character, and because Prince Valiant is at its core pretty light-hearted it produces some rom-com style hijinks - occasinally rising to the level of melodrama - involving this PC, his wife, and the "other woman". What makes it amusing and interesting as a component of play is that it's not neutral. It's targetted, deliberate and provocative.

 

[prabe]

I would say so. His ability to move about is limited to his speed based on race/class/feats/etc. without access to spells that would increase his ability to move. If he had the teleport spell/ability at his disposal, his movement range would be far more broad, and could impact the fiction in more ways. It becomes easier to bypass obstacles and to escape enemies or other threats, and so on.

Now, having said that, lesser agency in this instance is not a bad thing. It's simply part of the game mechanics and the choices that each player must make about how they want their character to interact with the world.

That seems to imply that a player in a dungeon-based campaign has less agency than one in a wilderness or urban campaign. It also seems to imply that a player with a faster character has more agency than one with a slower one. I would be inclined to disagree (though it's clear I look at agency very differently from you). If the only difference is movement, the players definitely don't have different agency over their characters; they might (depending on game and mechanics and whatnot) have less agency over the larger fiction, because there might be less they can accomplish, but I don't see that as set in stone.

 

[pemerton]

The player states an action-intent (I want to swim across the river). THIS IS THERE THE AGENCY HAPPENS.

This is not the definition of player agency that @chaochou (who introduced the phrase into this thread) was using. And because I have been essentially following up on chaochou's posts, it's not the definition I've been using either.

Yes, in more-or-less traditional RPGs players play the game by declaring actions for their PCs. I don't think that's controversial. But precisely because it's a ubiquitous feature of most RPGs it doesn't tell us much about ways in which they might differ.

What @chaohou and I have been talking about is something in respect of which RPGs do differ, namely, the capacity of a player to exercise control over the content of the shared fiction. Probably the most important way this control manifests is by chaning or authoring the shared fiction. It can also consist in curating it eg by helping establish what the genre limitations might be on changes.

So to determine whether I want to swim across the river actually involves or leads to an exercise of player agency in the sense that chaochou and I have used that phrase, it's not enough to note that it is legal for the player to say that thing as part of the gameplay. We need to look at how the player saying that thing then feeds into the process of establishing, maintaing, changing, etc the content of the shared fiction.

Resolution occurs. This can be the GM decides the outcome is not in doubt; this can be some dice-like mechanical thing (such as, rolling a die and comparing the result to a difficulty).

The result is narrated. THIS IS THERE NARRATIVE AUTHORITY APPLIES.

This is not the way that most games I play unfold. Which is a point I've made upthread. The approach that you set out here tends to reduce player agency in ways that I dislike.

For me, the canonical procedure is:

(1) Is this a permissible action declaration? If there is no river (eg it's an illusion) or if the PC is bound and gagged or if the PC is a 1st level PC and the River is the Styx or for any other sort of reason, then it may be that the action is not permissible. Someone needs to decide this: if the fiction is not curated in this way it can lead to inanity or incoherence.

When I GM I treat this as a matter of table conensus with the GM taking the lead - something like a chairing role. I prefer this approach to an approach of unilateral GM authority and curation because the latter reduces the agency the players enjoy over the shared fiction.

(2) If the action declaration is permissible, determine whether a mechanical process is required or whether it just succeeds. In some systems, a mechanical process is required independently of the opinions of anyone at the table (eg Classic Traveller always requires certain checks to be made when a starship makes an interstellar jump; Apocalypse World has the notion that if you do it, then you do it - ie if a character in the fiction does a certain sort of thing, then the corresponding mechanical "move" has to be resolved). In some systems, if no one at the table cares about whether the action succeeds or fails, then it succeeds and play moves on. This is what Vincent Baker and Luke Crane call "say 'yes' or roll the dice". @Manbearcat posted an interesting example not far upthread of a player being the one who didn't "say 'yes'" to another player's actions (attempting to kill some winter fey) and hence mechanics being invoked to see which PC got to prevail in that particular situation.

(3) If a mechanical procedure has been invoked, apply that procedure. This will generally tell us whose job it is to say what happens next, and in most reasonably traditional systems will set some constraints on what that is. These might be rather narrow - eg in Classic Traveller if a physical stat is reduced to zero as a result of combat resolution then the character in question is unconcsious in the fiction - or they might be broader - eg in Prince Valiant if Brawn or Presence is reduced to zero the character in question has lost the conflict but the GM is permitted to narrate this in a wide variety of ways, from swooning, or being tossed into the moat, to being dead, as seems appropriate given considerations of established fiction, verisimilitude, pacing, drama, etc. Generally if the player succeeds in the mechanical process a good chunk of what s/he was hoping for becomes true in the fiction, but not necessarily all of it; eg AW often allows "success with a cost/twist"; in Burning Wheel a Duel of Wits can be won but with a compromise required; etc.

Step (3) is where "the dice decide". I think it is obvious that the way in which player agency operates here is quite different from "the GM decides". I've alread spelled this out in some detail upthread and so don't think I need to repeat it here.

If there's nothing that can/will stop the PC from opening the door, then the outcome of the action isn't in doubt

<snip>

The limits on what a tugboat can do don't change the player's agency any more than walls in a dungeon do.

The first half of the first quoted sentence, and thhe whole of the second quoted sentence, are framed as if the fiction is self-actualising or exercises causal power. But it's not and it doesn't.

How is it established, in the shared fiction, that there's nothing that can/will stop the PC from opening the door or that a tugboat can't do that or that there are these walls in this dungeon or even that (to go back to the OP) this NPC will call the guards on you if you insult him? Until we know the answers to these questions, we don't know much about how player agency is exercised in the RPG.

I've given some answers to those questions, that are analytical accoounts of my own approach to play, in this and my previous posts. (In this post, see my steps (1) and (2) above). And I've explained how these differ from simple GM decides and how that difference creates room for player agency that GM decides would tend to exclude.

 

[pemerton]

I would say so. His ability to move about is limited to his speed based on race/class/feats/etc. without access to spells that would increase his ability to move. If he had the teleport spell/ability at his disposal, his movement range would be far more broad, and could impact the fiction in more ways. It becomes easier to bypass obstacles and to escape enemies or other threats, and so on.

That seems to imply that a player in a dungeon-based campaign has less agency than one in a wilderness or urban campaign. It also seems to imply that a player with a faster character has more agency than one with a slower one. I would be inclined to disagree (though it's clear I look at agency very differently from you). If the only difference is movement, the players definitely don't have different agency over their characters; they might (depending on game and mechanics and whatnot) have less agency over the larger fiction, because there might be less they can accomplish, but I don't see that as set in stone.

Suppose that the canvassed implication was really there: that wouldn't mean that hawkeyefan is wrong. It would tell us something about the constraints that arise from different setting conceits and associated mechanical procedures.

It seems obvious that, in a D&D-type game a player whose character was unable to move (paralysed; speed 0; whatever other reason) and who had no magic to compensate would not be able to impact the fiction much at all, and so it's not counterintuitive that - in such a system - higher movement rate is one mechanical device for increasing player agency in certain respects. (To put it another way: in D&D, movement rates and distance are not mere colour. Contrast Prince Valiant, where there is fictional positioning but nothing like a D&D movement resolution system.)

I've read some GMing advice that suggests start with a small constrained setting to make it easier to anticipate and adjudicate player actions. That advice seems to rest on a premise that a small constrained setting will reduce player agency over the fiction and hence make the GM's job easier.

But in fact - and here I'd be curious if @Campbell agrees - in the history of actual D&D play we tend to see that the growth of less dungeon-focused and more "living breathing world-focused play has reduced player agency. This is because GM discipine tends to reduce with the growth in the scope of the setting, and so an ability like teleportation that seems as if it could be agency-enhancing in fact becomes a device just for triggering new narration from the GM (When you arrive here's what you see . . .).

TL;DR: You can't just look at a mechanical element, or at a bit of fictional content, and work out whether and how it affects player agency. You've got to look at the whole procedure of play of which it is a part.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That seems to imply that a player in a dungeon-based campaign has less agency than one in a wilderness or urban campaign. It also seems to imply that a player with a faster character has more agency than one with a slower one.

For the dungeon based game versus wilderness based game, I don't know if that's always applicable. I mean, my games tend to contain both those elements and more....so I don't know if defining them as such at the campaign level is all that useful. But, I tend to think that generally speaking, characters being in a wilderness environment are not as constrained as those in a dungeon, right? I mean....that's the key difference, I would think. You can only move according to the boundaries and properties of the dungeon, which tend to be far more restrictive than ones in the wild. Generally speaking, of course....someone can no doubt come up with some example that runs counter to this.

But I don't know if this dungeon versus wilderness angle is all that meaningful. I mean, the context of each area as established by the fiction and events in the game so far may place far more importance on what happens in the dungeon.....so perhaps the agency found there by the players is far more important and meaningful in how the fiction unfolds. So I think there is more to it than simple geography, although that can be a part of it.

As a basic example, my PCs in my 5E game played through Tomb of Annihilation. In the Tomb, they could eventually face and defeat Acererak, and thereby shape many significant events for the future of the campaign. At any point in the trek through the jungle to get to the Tomb, they could not exercise any actions that had such meaningful implications for the game. Sure, they could use magic to fly 50 feet into the air and they could see for miles in some areas.....but does this mean that the agency they had in the wild is greater than that they had in the dungeon? The players were free to declare more of a variety of actions for their characters, but any such instance did not have as significant an impact on the fiction. Again, there will be exceptions, but I think my point is clear.

As to movement speed, I don't think it's fast/slow that matters. It's the options available. Can the fighter traverse the 200 foot chasm? Can the wizard with teleport memorized? Who has more options to bring about the outcome? If the characters find themselves in over their heads, the fighter's ability to retreat is limited to his movement (barring assistance from others, or the appropriate magic item, etc.). The wizard can run just as fast, most likely, or very close to it, and also has Fly, Spiderclimb, and Teleport memorized.

I think it's very clear that the wizard has more agency in those instances. He simply has more options at his disposal, and those options have different ways that they interact with the fiction.

I would be inclined to disagree (though it's clear I look at agency very differently from you). If the only difference is movement, the players definitely don't have different agency over their characters; they might (depending on game and mechanics and whatnot) have less agency over the larger fiction, because there might be less they can accomplish, but I don't see that as set in stone.

I don't think that the ability to control the actions I declare for my character is really all that meaningful an example of agency unless it is also coupled with some chance that these actions I declare actually can impact the fiction. As others have pointed out, players declaring actions for their characters is present in all RPGs except for perhaps a few fringe exceptions. So we have to go beyond the declaration itself, and look at what that declaration can accomplish in the fiction.

I think that many are looking at player agency as "I am able to declare all actions for my characters, and no one else can do so, barring certain specific instances" and I think that's only a very small part of it. I do think that a player controlling their character, and not being restricted in how they do so is generally a good thing.....I just don't think it constitutes a meaningful definition of player agency for the context of this conversation.

If I am simply able to say "My character tries this" and it happens, then I have agency. If I am able to say "My character tries this" and we use dice to determine success, then I have agency. If I say "My character tries this" and the GM has to determine if it's possible.....here's where it gets tricky. I may still have agency because my desire may come about in the fiction (ME: "I want to kick in the door"--->GM (decides by fiat): "The door goes flying off its hinges"; in this way the GM has facilitated my agency, as @pemerton mentioned earlier). But if the GM unilaterally decides to block my action, then it's a restriction on my agency (ME: "I want to kick in the door" ---> GM (decides by fiat): "You try your hardest, but the door simply will not budge").

Of those three admittedly basic processes for the game.....1) action simply happens, 2) we use dice to determine outcome, or 3) GM decides yea or nay......only one of them can result in 0% agency. Not that it always does or even mostly does.....but only one of them has it as a possibility. Would you agree with this?

If so, then a player declaring actions for his character does not display agency in and of itself.....because the GM can deny every single action. Again, this is why we have to go beyond simply the declaration. We have to look at the effect that these declarations have on the fiction. Can that player shape events meaningfully through the actions that he or she declares?

I think what's happening in this conversation a lot is that people are looking at it as "agency is good" and "My game is not bad" so "My game must have agency". And I think this is leading to some real contortions and justifications to prove that agency is present. I am not saying this is true of you, but I think that it accounts for the fact that there are different definitions of agency being used in the discussion.

If we take away the idea that "agency is always good" and then just start to look at it as a thing that exists or does not.....that there are good instances of agency being removed, and there are bad instances of agency being present.....then we have a clearer view.

In D&D, every choice I make for my character potentially grants agency in some ways, and may cost me agency in others. This can apply to chocie of race, class, background, subclass, spell loadout, feats, and gear, among other things. If I choose to play a fighter, I am willingly accepting stronger limits on my ability to have my character move in ways other than those that are available to all characters. I am accepting that I will not cast spells (barring choice of a subclass that allows it, or multiclassing or similar) nor will I likely have an animal companion and so on.

None of these are bad....because I want to play a fighter. As such, I accept that my character's ability to teleport will be nil.

 

[pemerton]

I don't think that the ability to control the actions I declare for my character is really all that meaningful an example of agency unless it is also coupled with some chance that these actions I declare actually can impact the fiction. As others have pointed out, players declaring actions for their characters is present in all RPGs except for perhaps a few fringe exceptions. So we have to go beyond the declaration itself, and look at what that declaration can accomplish in the fiction.

I think that many are looking at player agency as "I am able to declare all actions for my characters, and no one else can do so, barring certain specific instances" and I think that's only a very small part of it. I do think that a player controlling their character, and not being restricted in how they do so is generally a good thing.....I just don't think it constitutes a meaningful definition of player agency for the context of this conversation.

<sniop>

we have to go beyond simply the declaration. We have to look at the effect that these declarations have on the fiction. Can that player shape events meaningfully through the actions that he or she declares?

All this.

 

[prabe]

This is not the definition of player agency that @chaochou (who introduced the phrase into this thread) was using. And because I have been essentially following up on chaochou's posts, it's not the definition I've been using either.

So to determine whether I want to swim across the river actually involves or leads to an exercise of player agency in the sense that chaochou and I have used that phrase, it's not enough to note that it is legal for the player to say that thing as part of the gameplay. We need to look at how the player saying that thing then feeds into the process of establishing, maintaing, changing, etc the content of the shared fiction.

I believe I have located at least one locus of the failure to communicate, here. Player agency (as I've been trying to use it consistently) is about the players making decisions for or through their characters, which choices alter the fictional state. So player agency isn't involved in the action of swimming across the river so much as in the decision to do so. If the fictional state doesn't change--if the encounters are the same whether or not the river is swum, if the same results attain--then there's no player agency involved, even if the action (swimming across the river) is resolved. When I say "THIS IS WHERE THE AGENCY HAPPENS" I mean in the decision to swim across the river, not as much in the declaration of the action.

I know I use the term differently than you; I'm hoping that you can see what I mean, and why I see things like "The DM Decides" (as a method of action resolution) as I do--as not impinging on player agency as I use the term.

For me, the canonical procedure is:

{snip}

I don't see any deep fundamental difference between the procedure you describe and the one I describe, if you leave out any assertions about where player agency comes into play. You share some of the curation/decision-making around the table, which almost certainly works at your table, for the games you play, the way you run them. Because I have in the past had a hard time with coherence when I did that, I don't. It's a preference, and I am not convinced your approach is objectively wrong--just wrong for me.

I said:

If there's nothing that can/will stop the PC from opening the door, then the outcome of the action isn't in doubt

<snip>

The limits on what a tugboat can do don't change the player's agency any more than walls in a dungeon do.

The first half of the first quoted sentence, and thhe whole of the second quoted sentence, are framed as if the fiction is self-actualising or exercises causal power. But it's not and it doesn't.

This may be another locus of our failure to communicate, here. I believe that fiction emerges from play; that may sound to you as though I believe it to be self-actualizing (sorry for the American spelling, there). I do believe that established facts in the fiction do exert causal power--I suspect that you do, too.

How is it established, in the shared fiction, that there's nothing that can/will stop the PC from opening the door or that a tugboat can't do that or that there are these walls in this dungeon or even that (to go back to the OP) this NPC will call the guards on you if you insult him? Until we know the answers to these questions, we don't know much about how player agency is exercised in the RPG.

That depends. In the instance of tugboats we have concensus reality to fall back on--the real-world capabilities of tugboats are easily researched, though converting those to game mechanics may take some work. In the instance of setting-elements in a game world, we have published materials if we're running those; we have the GM's notes if it's a homebrew adventure; we have common sense (or an unreasonable facsimile thereof) if something is not covered in the notes or published material--the GM exercises judgment (possibly in consultation with the table, the way you describe your tables at least sometimes operating, which I'll say again isn't something I'm trying to argue against).

Any of those would seem as though they'd be part of the fictional state. If player agency (in either the definition you've been using or in mine, I think) is about changing the fictional state, it must be defined before it can be change; that's what notes and prep and GM judgment (and real-world knowledge) are for. Without a fictional state to change, there is nothing to choose, there is nothing to change, and there can be no player agency.

 

[prabe]

This is a good post. I'm snipping my way through it because there are specific things I want to respond to. It doesn't feel as though I'm arguing with them now--we'll see how they turn out.

I think it's very clear that the wizard has more agency in those instances. He simply has more options at his disposal, and those options have different ways that they interact with the fiction.

The wizard certainly has more options. That probably means he has more (or different) opportunities to exert agency (if that's the right verb, there).

I think that many are looking at player agency as "I am able to declare all actions for my characters, and no one else can do so, barring certain specific instances" and I think that's only a very small part of it. I do think that a player controlling their character, and not being restricted in how they do so is generally a good thing.....I just don't think it constitutes a meaningful definition of player agency for the context of this conversation.

I think being able to change the fictional state is what matters. Obviously, not being able to control your character means you can't change the fictional state. Having your character's actions not matter means that, too, I think.

If I am simply able to say "My character tries this" and it happens, then I have agency. If I am able to say "My character tries this" and we use dice to determine success, then I have agency. If I say "My character tries this" and the GM has to determine if it's possible.....here's where it gets tricky. I may still have agency because my desire may come about in the fiction (ME: "I want to kick in the door"--->GM (decides by fiat): "The door goes flying off its hinges"; in this way the GM has facilitated my agency, as @pemerton mentioned earlier). But if the GM unilaterally decides to block my action, then it's a restriction on my agency (ME: "I want to kick in the door" ---> GM (decides by fiat): "You try your hardest, but the door simply will not budge").

Of those three admittedly basic processes for the game.....1) action simply happens, 2) we use dice to determine outcome, or 3) GM decides yea or nay......only one of them can result in 0% agency. Not that it always does or even mostly does.....but only one of them has it as a possibility. Would you agree with this?

In the sense that the door can open, I agree. In the sense that opening the door matters ... not so much. If the next encounter is [THING], whether you kick open the door or go down the hall, I don't think you really have agency.

If so, then a player declaring actions for his character does not display agency in and of itself.....because the GM can deny every single action. Again, this is why we have to go beyond simply the declaration. We have to look at the effect that these declarations have on the fiction. Can that player shape events meaningfully through the actions that he or she declares?

This is what I mean when I talk about it needs to matter if you open the door (or cross the river, or whatever). If the next thing happens wherever you are, whatever you do, you might not have as much agency as you think you do.

In D&D, every choice I make for my character potentially grants agency in some ways, and may cost me agency in others. This can apply to chocie of race, class, background, subclass, spell loadout, feats, and gear, among other things. If I choose to play a fighter, I am willingly accepting stronger limits on my ability to have my character move in ways other than those that are available to all characters. I am accepting that I will not cast spells (barring choice of a subclass that allows it, or multiclassing or similar) nor will I likely have an animal companion and so on.

None of these are bad....because I want to play a fighter. As such, I accept that my character's ability to teleport will be nil.

Agreed.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, I don't know about fictional outcomes, since I'm still not 100% sure what you mean by that, but I can give you two examples, one about actions adjudication, and one not.

If your use of fictional outcomes indexes action adjudication the way I think it does, then yes, it is different from broader ideas of narrative control. Action adjudication by the DM is very much a key component here of course. A DM who has a very strict, textual approach to the rules, might often limit the outcome of actions to strict ideas about failure and success, and avoid expanding on success in any kind of narrative way. So, for example, I say I'm going to disguise myself as a old man to fool the gate guard (I'm wanted by the authorities!). One style of adjudication on a success gets you the response ok, he thinks you're an old man, now what? At which point the player has to make another action declaration about going through the gate, which involves another potential fail state. That GM, by requiring multiple rolls, is limiting player agency by multiplying the chance of failure. A different GM, one with a more narrative bent, might reply to the first success with no problem, he waves you through the gate without a second glance. Both GMs are following the rules, but with significantly different outcomes as far as agency is concerned. Don't take that simple example to seriously, it's only meant to index the propensity of a given DM to call for more or less rolls to accomplish tasks - it's the frequency there that matters for us. That's our action adjudication example.

I'm not sure about this one at all.

You're conflating level of player agency - the ability to declare actions and play the character as intended - with level of challenge being posed by the GM. They're not the same thing.

In your above example the player's agency in each case is exactly the same. The second GM, however, is simply making things more challenging for the PC/player than is the first; and is not automatically assuming the disguise succeeds in its intended task but is instead putting that disguise to a further test. Either way is fine, I suppose, though my preference leans toward the added-challenge side: an easy game is not a fun game.

I'll give you a second example that isn't action adjudication, nor even really covered under the rules, but is more a part of style and table conventions. Let's call it the chandelier question. A frequent feature of many RPGs, D&D included, is that a player will ask the GM is there X? , in our case it'll be the chandelier. We all know that the reason the player is asking is because they're going to swing from it if it's there. Some GMs, the one who are heavily maps and notes oriented, base their answer strictly on predetermined ideas about the space - if there's a chandelier in their notes you're good, otherwise, not so much. Even if it's not in the notes, they'll probably use their notes to help them decide if there's a chandelier or not. A different GM, one with a more fiction first approach, will base their decision on different criteria. There, unless there's a good reason that there shouldn't be a chandelier there is one, because the player asked and saying yes moves the narrative forward. This example extends to all manner of things, not just chandeliers, obviously any physical features are in play, but it also applies to NPCs and lore, just to name a couple. The first GM is running a lower agency game than the second GM. What we are really talking about here is the likelihood that player suggestions and ideas will be incorporated into the narrative. Players in the first game are far less likely to ask that kind of question because they quickly learn that they mostly wont get the answer they want. In the second game they will. Less agency, more agency.

Here we're on to an entirely different question: whether or not players can add or modify setting elements.

Players adding or changing static setting elements, i.e. things they've yet to have their PCs interact with, falls outside my definition of player agency (control of the character) and gets into a much messier question of who actually controls the setting and its elements.

I say this control resides - and almost completely must reside - with the GM, if only because simple human nature is going to trend players towards adding or modifying setting elements to the advantage of their PCs most of the time in attempts to reduce or overcome challenges. In theory the GM is a neutral arbiter, and while on being asked if there's a chandelier* she's well within her purview to say "Sure, it's over the central table." or wherever she should by no means feel obligated to put one in just because a player asked about it.

* - one might ask, if there's a chandelier there that's big enough to swing from, why it wasn't already mentioned in the room description...

 

[Lanefan]

serious question for all: In d&d does a Player That’s playing a fighter PC that’s not able to teleport have a limitation put on his agency in any way due to the restriction that his PC cannot cast a teleport spell?

No, for several reasons:

--- the overarching rules of the game (meta-level) tell us that single-class Fighters cannot cast arcane spells
--- the internal rules of the fiction as presented also tell us that single-class Fighters cannot cast arcane spells
--- NPC Fighters and PC Fighters operate under the same restriction.

Were any of the above not true then there either might be or would be a limitation being imposed, depending on the situation.