Realistic Consequences vs Gameplay

[FrozenNorth]

I do agree that fictional characters don't actually have agency. Then again nothing in fiction "actually" exists. Your fictional knight, he has no sword because his sword doesn't actually exists any more than my fictional characters agency. Hopefully the point there is clear.

Wait...am I in the Matrix?

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think that I'd say that a dice roll and the GM deciding are equally "outside of your control" as you suggest. With a dice roll, generally speaking, as a player I'm going to have some idea of my chances of success....certainly I'll know how good my character may be at a given task. For example, to kick in the door, my character has a high Strength and so it's reasonable he can do it. The GM will likely (hopefully) also share some details on the door that will help inform my decision. Ideally, he'd state what the DC of the check would be. And so on. So I can then as a player calculate my odds and the risk of failure, and can then proceed with the attempt or not. I'm making an informed decision.

These same details are also going to be shared with a player when the DM is going to make the full decision, though. The player can calculate the odds and and make an informed decision on whether the attempt has a good chance to auto succeed or auto fail. If making an informed decision gives agency to the player, then that agency is present when the player makes an informed decision to attempt something that he knows is very likely to be impossible, but is making the desperate attempt anyway and the DM says no.

If the GM decides, then I likely have a less clear idea of my chances. That may not be the case....I may still have a good idea of my chances because the GM has told me the door is made of flimsy wood and does no appear to be barred from the other side, and he's hopefully going to factor in my high Strength score and so on. If so, great. This is much more simple with certain actions than others, and the door kicking example is an easy one for sure.

Imagine a more complex action declaration, maybe of the sort offered in the OP.....a PC insulting a NPC. Now, we don't know exactly what the intent of the insult was in the OP, but let's imagine it had a purpose. Let's treat it as an intimidate check trying to convince the baron to negotiate with the PCs by letting them know if he doesn't, they're not fond of him and may act against him.

In such an example under the GM decides method, I may have no real sense for chance of success or consequence of failure or anything else. It's a much less informed decision. The GM can choose to narrate a result that I may not have thought was on the table.

If you're walking into a meeting with a despot that you know acts in this manner, "Going into the meeting, they knew the ruler was unstable and severely punished any dissent in his land - having heard from various NPCs and seeing it firsthand.", you have the information to make an informed decision about whether or not you should make an attempt to dissent in his presence, and that the consequences will be severe. And, since you heard stories about what he has done from "various NPCs" who saw it first hand, you have an idea of what those consequences will be.

Earlier in the thread, many people said that the DM controls when the mechanics get invoked. The DM decides if a declared action is outright successful, or if a roll is needed to determine success, or if the action is outright impossible. This gives the DM all authority on when the dice are rolled. Yes, we would expect and hope that the DM would use this authority in good faith and with principles guiding him in some way. But these factors are going to vary much more than game mechanics, no?

I wouldn't think all that much. The rules are very clear that the DM calls for a roll when the outcome of an action is uncertain and has a meaningful outcome. The rest of the time the DM will say yes or no. And while the DM is empowered to ignore the rules, it would be in bad faith to do so in a manner that goes against the spirit of the rules. The DM should only go against the rules when there is a good reason to do so. When I do that, I explain my thinking to the players as I do it.

The players can reasonably rely on the DM only deciding when something will clearly succeed or clearly fail, even if the success or failure is due to something the players are unaware of, which occasionally happens.

If you're playing with the same group you have been for some time, you may have a very strong sense of how your DM may judge these things. And that's great. I'm lucky enough for that to be the case for me and my group. But even still, at times conflict still comes up. No one is going to be 100% consistent. And no two people are going to agree on what 100% consistent may mean.

Now, if you are playing with a group that is new to you.....you have far less past experience to guide you here, so it becomes even less clear. How can you say what your expectations should be under this system? It's a much bigger gray area.

So, although yes, shooting down every idea is bad faith play and I doubt such a DM would keep a game together, but it doesn't require bad faith play for there to be less player agency under such a system. The DM could be doing everything that he thinks is right, and another DM could also be doing everything he thinks is right, and you can have two different ways it plays out.

Less clear still equals a very good chance to read things correctly, though, so long as the DM is describing things the way he should be. If the DM is giving poor descriptions then there will be issues, but those issues will affect new and old players.

I don't really agree with your number 2, and therefore your conclusion 3. Doesn't that render the idea of player agency moot? When is there not player agency in such a broad application?

No it's not moot, and broad doesn't take away meaning. Think of how often you're near earth in your daily life. I'd wager for probably 99% or more of your life there is earth near you. That broad presence doesn't take away meaning from the word earth or what earth means. It just means that the vast majority of the time, earth is present.

It's the same with player agency. Since my PC is shaping the fiction with the vast majority of both his successful and his failed attempts, agency is present. I can make an informed decision and shape the fiction with my actions whether I succeed or not. And if we add "informed" into the mix of what grants agency, then even an answer of no from the DM will still result in agency, still the player made an informed decision, decided to make the desperate attempt, and through that attempt shaped the fiction into something new.

You can have greater and lesser amounts of agency depending on the system, but a DM acting in good faith results in agency almost without fail, regardless of system. I doubt there's a RPG system out there that is designed so that there is no player agency.

Also, the bit about players "having full control over how their character will shape the fiction through both successes and failure"; I don't think this exists in D&D, in many cases. The player doesn't decide that when he fails to kick down the door, he breaks his foot, or he makes such a ruckus that it attracts a wandering monster, or any other result of the failure. The DM decides that.

I disagree. First, the player isn't going to break his foot unless the player is playing in a game with critical fumbles, in which case he is making an informed decision to kick down the door knowing that if he rolls a 1, his foot could break. Second, even a brand new player should be able to realize that kicking a door is going to make a lot of noise and could be heard, success or failure. So he's making an informed decision to make a ton of noise, too, unless makes the informed decision to use a silence spell first and not make noise.

Are you saying that player agency is only taken away if control of a character is taken from them?

That or bad faith DMing where the DM says no inappropriately. Though I guess that could be viewed as a form of losing control of the character.

If so, does this apply to such in game effects as Charm and Dominate Person?

Sure, but an in fiction method of taking away player agency is perfectly acceptable. It's going to be limited in duration.

 

[FrozenNorth]

I wouldn't think all that much. The rules are very clear that the DM calls for a roll when the outcome of an action is uncertain and has a meaningful outcome.

(Off-topic) In my games, “meaningful outcome” includes “a success or a failure would be interesting to the table even if it doesn’t advance the adventure” (such as the Barbarian succeeding on an untrained Performance check to dance at the cotillion).

 

[Campbell]

Years ago John Harper posted about what make a character a good fit for a game he was designing at the time. I think it is a pretty good stand in for character focused play, I will have more on this later, but I think it is instructive towards the impact scenario and character design can have on agency.

What makes a fit character for this game? The Four Cs.

Connected: The character has relationships (positive and negative) with other significant characters in the situation.

Committed: The character has a stake in the outcome of the situation, and will stay to see it through.

Capable: The character has the capacity to affect change in the situation by taking decisive action.

Conflicted: The character has beliefs and goals that are in conflict. They must make choices about which are more important, and which must be abandoned or changed.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I can agree with the essence of those, although I might quibble on some details.

 

[pemerton]

I read a post by @Ovinomancer about differing degrees of agency across sytems.

I have several active campaigns in my group. Classic Traveller gives players less agency than (say) Burning Wheel. This is because Traveller relies heavily on random determination to establish framing; and it has no system for the players to intervene and influence dice rolls. That doesn't mean the GM has more agency, because the GM is also bound by those random rolls!

 

[pemerton]

I don't appear to have explained it adequately.

Spells are actions, something the player declares the character is doing. One acquires spells by finding them--either in captured spellbooks or on scrolls--or by random chance--the spells one acquires at a new level. One has a set number of spells one can prepare and cast, as a feature of one's class level (in the case of passwall it looks as though that class would have to be Magic-User). Once one has cast a prepared spell it's no longer available (barring preparing it more than once). Casting a spell takes some amount of segments or rounds (or longer in some instances), and the effects are clearly defined--passwall has specific effects, which are different from phantasmal force, which are different from alter reality.

Using a Hero Point in Mutants and Masterminds (or using the similar rules in Fate, whereby one can use a Fate Point to "Declare a Detail") is a thing the player is explicitly doing as the player; it's not an action they're declaring their character as doing. They are much more limited a resource than spells are in AD&D--the default in Mutants and Masterminds is one Hero Point; the default number in Fate Core is three Fate points. Using a Hero Point in this way (as a subset of "Inspiration) in Mutants and Masterminds is described in the rules as "intended to give the players more input into the story and allow their heroes chances to succeed"; using a Fate Point this way (as "Declaring a Detail") is described in the rules thus: "Sometimes you want to add a detail that works to your character's advantage." Note that both rules are explicit that it's the player doing it, not the character. Hero Points in Mutants and Masterminds are acquired when a character undergoes a "Setback" (defined as a failed check with the worst possible result) or a "Complication"(which are described as "essentually setbacks the players choose for their heroes in advance" with examples given as Accident, Addiction, Enemy, Fame, Hatred, Honor, Obsession, Phobia, Prejudice, Reputation, Responsibility, Rivalry, Secret, and Temper. One can also earn Hero Points for suitably heroic acts or particularly good roleplaying (at the GM's description). In Fate, the primary way of acquiring Fate Points is by accepting Compels from the GM.

Does that help clear things up?

There was nothing inadequate about your explanation. In this more recent post you point out that casting a spell is a thing a character does in the fiction; whereas spending a fate/hero point does not. But the event that the expenditure engenders typically will correspond to something in the fiction: eg if I spend a fate/hero point so my PC can pull a handy skeleton key out of his/her toolbox, or can notice a chandelier to swing on, that does correlate to an event in the fiction.

More generally, both casting a spell and spending a fate point let the player change the fiction, often in identical ways. Hence my post that I don't understand all this talk about players editing scenes. We just seem to be talking about players affecting the fiction.

I don't see any deep fundamental difference between the procedure you describe and the one I describe

I described a procedure in which, first, genre and ficitonal positioning and the like are assessed to see if an action declaration is permissible in the context, and then - if it is - the GM decides whether or not to say yes or call for a dice roll. Distinguishing those two steps is quite important, because the role of players and GM in respect of each of them is quite different.

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.

OK. I don't see, though, how you can assert that these different approaches are irrelevant to the question of who is exercising agency in repsect of the shared fiction.

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.

<snip>

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).

Again, I say: how can this all be irrelevant to player agency.

If the question of whether or not an action declaration is permissible - in the sense of being eligible to proceed to resolutoin by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice" - depends on the GM's notes, and the GM's common sense, and the GM's inferences drawn from research, then the players' agency is clearly being subordinated to that of the GM.

That may be good. It may be bad. I don't see how it can be denied.

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.

From this it follows that the AD&D game I played - in which no actions could affect the fiction unless they conformed to the GM's planning and expectations - was one with unconstrained player agency. I mean, when the NPCs knew nothing and could provide no help, that was because the fiction contained only ignorant and useless NPCs!

Obviously that's an absurd conclusion. Which therefore shows that something has gone wrong with the premises. And what has gone wrong is the premise that player agency over the shared ficiton is not affected by the way the GM makes decisions about whether or not action declarations are able to have a chance of success.

 

[pemerton]

I will explain why this doesn't compute for me. The dice are inscrutable; I have no way of knowing before I know the roll what the outcome will be. I might know the odds, and I might be able to alter them, but on a fundamental level I have no control over the outcome. The GM may or may not be as inscrutable as the dice; I might know the GM's tendencies, or I might not. I might be able to frame the attempted action in such a way that the GM will allow an auto-success, I might not be. I might have more control over the outcome if the GM is deciding than if I'm rolling a die.

I don't see any difference in agency, there.

Another thought: If a failure on a die roll doesn't remove/negate/falsify agency, neither does a failure because the attempted action is impossible. The method by which failure is derived doesn't change the fact that it's a failure, and failure doesn't seem to me to on its own remove/negate/falsify agency.

Saying that the DM deciding failure has removed player agency is no different than saying a dice coming up failure has removed player agency.

Two cricket teams are having to decide who fields first. Here's one way: the home side captain decides.

Here's another way: a coin is tossed, and the winner of the toss decides whether that team fields first or bats first.

The second is the way it's actually done. I don't think any cricket players or cricket fans would think that changing to the first way would not make a difference.

A GM deciding that an action fails automatically is preventing the player from changing the fiction in a way that the player cares about (given s/he declared the action for his/her PC).

A GM declining to "say 'yes'" to a declared action and therefore funnelling it into the action resolution mechanics is allowing the dice to determine whether the fiction changes as the player wants it to, or whether it changes in some other way more adverse to the PC.

The first looks like a unilateral decision about the fiction. The second looks like the playing of a game in which the participants are able, via the mechanical frameworks, to change the fiction in varous ways. The idea that they are not different in respect of the capacity of various participants to influence the fiction is simply not credible.

Another way to come at the same point: if the GM gets to decide everything, player input is mere suggestion. It's like a monarch and his/her courtiers and advisors. In a structure of "say 'yes' or roll the dice" either the players get their way or the issue is rolled for. Rolling (or lottery, or other randomisation) as an unbiased decision procedure, which distributes the possibility of winning the issue over multiple participants and hence respects the agency of all of them, has a long history. Applied repeatedly - as happens in RPGIng - it is a way of integrating various participants' contributions into the unfolding shared project.

I'm baffled that this is the least bit contentious.

If you cannot announce your characters action then you have no agency over your character. That is a very important point.

But this isn't even true. For instance, in Burning Wheel my character might be unconscious, and hence not in any literal sense taking actions, but I might be able to make a Circles check to see if an acquaintance, having heard of my plight, comes to rescue me.

BW is not the only game in which player moves are confined to the character's locus of control, but that locus of control is not only geographic but charismatic. Even in AD&D if my character is unconscious but I have a henchman in the neighbourhood then I can call for a Loyalty check to see if my henchman tries to help me rather than run away. A GM who declined to make that check would not be running things in the spirit of the game - given that NPCs have a loyalty rating that is affected by PC CHA and that there is a bundle of subystems intended to give effect to that PC ability, and that even have modifiers that apply if the PC is hors de combat or dead.

The focus on the character is just a distracting way of trying to approach the actual question, which is can the player meaningfully affect and change the shared fiction?

 

[pemerton]

players certainly don't need control of the metagame as in story-games in order to have player agency.

Absolutely. I'm not a big fan of the "story game" label, but in Classic Traveller players can enjoy and exercise agency although that game has almost no metagame mechanics (in the sense of mechanics that allow players to establish elements of the fiction that don't correspond to their PCs creating or bringing about those elements of the fiction).

Prince Valiant has a lot of player agency although very little metagame mechanics. (Storyteller Certificates are not generally metagame; they're just autowins.)

 

[pemerton]

If you're walking into a meeting with a despot that you know acts in this manner, "Going into the meeting, they knew the ruler was unstable and severely punished any dissent in his land - having heard from various NPCs and seeing it firsthand.", you have the information to make an informed decision about whether or not you should make an attempt to dissent in his presence, and that the consequences will be severe. And, since you heard stories about what he has done from "various NPCs" who saw it first hand, you have an idea of what those consequences will be.

This is a framework for puzzle-solving.

I don't mind doing the odd crossword or sudoku. These are ways of demonstrating a certain sort of cleverness. But they don't demonstrate a whole lot of agency.

In the RPGIng context, much the same is true.

Contrast that with @Campbell's OSR-ish emphasis on cleverly leveraging the fiction. Now that's agency - it's doing something that actually impacts the shared fiction. What would the analogue of that be for the despot? The players would eg know that he has a fondness for rabbits - and so now they can try and find some and bring them to him. Where was that in the framing of the OP's situation? If anyone's spelled it out I missed it. If the only information we have on the mad despot is what will shut things down rather than what will open things up then where is the scope for the exercise of agency?