System matters and free kriegsspiel

[chaochou]

This post is clarifying for what we might mean by high-trust vs low-trust situations.

Why? Which part of the gameplay loop are you claiming I’m not doing?

You declare your action and I’ll tell you the outcome.

Thats what it says and that’s what will happen.

Aren’t you excited to demonstrate all the agency you’re so sure you have?

I certainly am. I can’t wait to see it!

 

[overgeeked]

My point was more that the rules and mechanics usually provide specific guidelines for what success and failure look like for a given action. So while, yes, the GM adjudicates the success or failure, they do so within a structure or framework provided by the rules.

There's two problems with that. First, in the thread -- and in RPG discussions -- it's been repeatedly shown and agreed to that the DM can arbitrarily change the rules on a whim. Second, the DM can, and is expected to, adjust the difficulty of actions while staying within the framework of the rules. D&D and DCs, for example. The DM sets the DCs. The DM declares whether an action is an automatic success, what the DC is, or if it's an automatic failure. What recourse does the player have to the DM deciding the difficulty of the action? None. It's literally the expected behavior of the DM. It's part of their job. So if a PC has a bit of text that declares they can light something on fire, the DM still has the ability to decide how difficult that is. And other mechanics and bits of text that declare other character can stop, start, slow, hinder, or enhance that fire. Right. So what in the rules prevents the DM from being a jerk about it? Literally nothing. It's not in the rules. It's in the social contract. You have to trust the DM not to be a jerk. You have to trust that they will set DCs fairly. You have to trust that they won't simply declare "rocks fall, everyone dies" the moment something they don't like happens. There's literally zero rules about that in the books. Yet, the overwhelmingly vast majority of DMs don't do that. Why? Because it's a jerk move and most DMs aren't jerks. And the players trust them not to be jerks.

Not so in the example here. Player agency, in cases of adjudication frameworks is that by selecting action X or action Y players have some control over the outcome, even if that control does not extend to narration (which it doesn't in a lot of TTRPGs). The lack of agency in the example from this thread is what it is, more in the way of fact than one of narrow definitions. That doesn't make it a bad thing, just a thing. How much people enjoy it will vary, as with any RPG.

The player's agency is in selecting their character options, deciding their gear and gold expenditures, and in declaring their intent of actions. That's where it stops, in traditional RPGs like D&D. The player controls their character, not the rest of the world. The player has zero control over the outcome. As above, the DM is free to set the DCs in D&D and most interesting actions have dice involved.

The example given isn't a lack of agency. It's a player not wanting to check with the DM before simply declaring something is true in the world. That's not a lack of agency, that's a lack of narrative control. Those are not the same thing.

 

[Malmuria]

My point was more that the rules and mechanics usually provide specific guidelines for what success and failure look like for a given action. So while, yes, the GM adjudicates the success or failure, they do so within a structure or framework provided by the rules. Not so in the example here. Player agency, in cases of adjudication frameworks is that by selecting action X or action Y players have some control over the outcome, even if that control does not extend to narration (which it doesn't in a lot of TTRPGs). The lack of agency in the example from this thread is what it is, more in the way of fact than one of narrow definitions. That doesn't make it a bad thing, just a thing. How much people enjoy it will vary, as with any RPG.

The rules don't depend on player knowledge of them, but do depend on dm knowledge of them. That is, in 5e for example, the player announces that they cast fireball, and the dm narrates the result of their declaration, but they have a rulebook in front of them to provide guidance/instruction as to what should happen when the player declares that specific action. Even if the player has read the rule, they have to trust that the dm will apply it fairly, even though it is within their prerogative to say, "oh but these specific goblins are actually immune to fire sorry."

I recently introduced my 8-year old nephew to dnd by giving him the excellent Young Adventurer's Guides. (We had already been playing No Thank You Evil). Anyway the YA guides are probably my favorite 5e books for a few reasons, but they include only "fluff" and no "crunch." He read through them with his mother, and so came to play with an understanding of and investment in the fiction of dnd. And he has trust in me, because, as should be obvious, I am the coolest and best uncle that ever lived. So when he casts magic missile at the ooze, he really had no idea what the mechanics of that were, he just knew what the fiction was. I used the rule to help me figure out damage, but I could have just made it up on the spot; the mechanic was really not the most important thing in that situation. He has no interest in the mechanics and is not really capable of reading the rule book, but he does like to role dice. Now, my neutrality as referee is compromised in all sorts of ways, because I want to remain the cool uncle and I want to encourage his imagination and so forth. So there's potential for the illusionism and railroading (that happens anyway in a lot of 5e games), and so a certain level of consistency in DM rulings is needed.

 

[Fenris-77]

I don't think examples of bad faith play, which is most of the @overgeeked example above, really move the discussion along. What prevents the DM from being a jerk, in most cases is the either implied or formal social contract that governs pretty much any game table. Agency and narrative control are not the same thing, and the example at hand is correctly identified as extraordinarily low agency compared to other games. I wasn't judging that state of affairs at all, obviously many people enjoy FRK games, just identifying the nature of one of the game elements.

Also, if you don't understand how adjudication frameworks add to player agency, perhaps stop and consider it for a moment. It is actually true, despite your protestations to the contrary.

@Malmuria - deciding by fiat that the goblins are immune to fire is not something that comes as a standard part of the DM tool kit, for 5E or any edition. Player knowledge of the rule enforces a certain amount of colouring inside the lines by the DM in terms of adjudication.

 

[Malmuria]

If the setting generation they created during their conversation has conflict that I feel needs to be resolved, I’d likely go to Dogs in the Vineyard player-authored-kickers during chargen, except more a hyper-rules-lite version of Blades complex flashbacks with binary results and Fail Forward informing failure.

Ok, you’ve set the scene player. Let’s roll our 2d6 contest and see who wins. You can take +/-1 because of this chargen element.

If they win, their setting stipulation is true. If they lose, sure…it’s true…but this other thing that sucks is also true.

We play from there and resolve the new scene that they’ve devised a kicker around.

We’ve just made up some layers of system so that It’s functional for play right now…but wholly unsatisfying for me to GM because I don’t want to spend any portion of my cognitive workspace devising rules, stress-testing them, and iterating during play (Id rather GM a hacked Dogs in the Vineyard where we’re subbing Napoleon-fealty for Faith and handling each of the chargen stuff like Dogs’ does and then use Dogs conflict resolution, agenda, and principles). There is so much meat missing from the bone that we’re inevitably building and stress-testing and iterating system through play to play at all (2d6 contests are not remotely sufficient to resolve conflicts let alone a host of them in snowballing succession…I’m going to have to devote cognitive space to working out the rest or negotiating it on a case by case basis).

And how I resolve this tells me nothing about what the standard distribution of tables does when this particular scenario arises. And it tells me nothing about how the standard distribution of this particular subset of TTRPGers (FKRers) would resolve this. So, therefore, if I’m a prospective player joining a game, it’s unclear what I’m going to get. If I’m a prospective GM courting players, it’s unclear what their expectations of the play experience are going to be.

Fair enough! I think in the end, yes, there will be rules that enter into the picture in some way. So a game that is designed and playtested will be better able to articulate a somewhat reliable set of rules. But I also always ask, what rules can be taken away from a game and have it still work. This came up somewhere in a discussion on starter sets for games...why are the starter sets so often a much better and clearer articulation of the rules than the main rulebook?

I also find it interesting with OSR games how much of them are taken up with random tables. Like, what is Mork Borg really? Because it's not a bunch of rules. It's mostly random tables, a bare-bones setting, and evocative (or annoying, depending on your pov) graphic design. Supplemental rules have been cobbled together by the community in various zines and unprintable pdfs.

 

[overgeeked]

What prevents the DM from being a jerk, in most cases is the either implied or formal social contract that governs pretty much any game table.

Yeah, I literally said that.

Agency and narrative control are not the same thing...

Yep. I said that, too.

and the example at hand is correctly identified as extraordinarily low agency compared to other games.

No, it isn't. It's exactly the same level of agency as the vast majority of games, D&D included.

your protestations to the contrary.

Since you're not quoting anyone..."your" is a bit vague. Who are you talking to?

@Malmuria - deciding by fiat that the goblins are immune to fire is not something that comes as a standard part of the DM tool kit, for 5E or any edition.

Uhm...the DMGs of every edition of D&D would like a word with you. The DM literally creates the world and everything in it. If in their world goblins are immune to fire, then the goblins in their world are immune to fire.

Player knowledge of the rule enforces a certain amount of colouring inside the lines by the DM in terms of adjudication.

Not really. DMs house rule things left, right, and center. DMs home-brew monsters on a daily basis. The players have one choice in how the DM runs the game: play or walk.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I don't think examples of bad faith play, which is most of the @overgeeked example above, really move the discussion along. What prevents the DM from being a jerk, in most cases is the either implied or formal social contract that governs pretty much any game table. Agency and narrative control are not the same thing, and the example at hand is correctly identified as extraordinarily low agency compared to other games. I wasn't judging that state of affairs at all, obviously many people enjoy FRK games, just identifying the nature of one of the game elements.

Also, if you don't understand how adjudication frameworks add to player agency, perhaps stop and consider it for a moment. It is actually true, despite your protestations to the contrary.

@Malmuria - deciding by fiat that the goblins are immune to fire is not something that comes as a standard part of the DM tool kit, for 5E or any edition. Player knowledge of the rule enforces a certain amount of colouring inside the lines by the DM in terms of adjudication.

I'll bite.

I think you started by identifying the division correctly. But then ... not so much. So I will explain this in more detail.

Player agency (in other words, do players have meaningful choices) is one thing.
Player authority is a different thing.

Let's break down player agency, first.

To have meaningful choice (beyond chargen, etc.), you usually need three things:
A. Player has control over the alter ego ("PC") decisions.
B. Decision must have consequences within the gameworld.
C. Player can reasonably anticipate consequences before making decisions.

A, B, C. That's a pretty standard way to look at it. Right? In a traditional RPG, such as D&D, this is achievable through the standard process of play.
1. The player declares the action.
2. The action will have consequences (that the DM will narrate) within the gameworld.
3. The player can reasonable anticipate the consequences of the decision.

Again, all of this requires the basic background of "Don't be a jerk" for the DM and the player - but it works. And it's the same with FKR, too!

When does this break? On the standard issues that people talk about in trad games when discussing player agency.

Player says, "I go west."
(DM has only planned one combat, and it was to the east, so moves it on the map to the east)
The action had no consequences- no agency.

The bard surrenders to the party.
Snarf says, "I kill the bard!"
The DM says, "No, you character wouldn't do that."
The player isn't allowed to declare their own action.

Fenris comes up with a great plan to bamboozle the shopkeeper.
The DM doesn't want that to happen, so decides that there is a spell there that is triggered by any bamboozling and prevents Fenris's plan.
The player could not reasonably anticipate the consequences of the decision.


Here, we have examples of the type that are CONSTANTLY DISCUSSED at enworld in terms of player agency- for someone to label these as "not player agency" is beyond silly.


That said, this is different that player authority. Player authority (the ability to narrate the fiction, or decide consequences) is also important to people, but to have a real discussion, you really need to separate it out from player agency.

 

[Fenris-77]

No, it isn't. It's exactly the same level of agency as the vast majority of games, D&D included.

Uhm...the DMGs of every edition of D&D would like a word with you. The DM literally creates the world and everything in it. If in their world goblins are immune to fire, then the goblins in their world are immune to fire.

Not really. DMs house rule things left, right, and center. DMs home-brew monsters on a daily basis. The players have one choice in how the DM runs the game: play or walk.

As to your first point above without an adjudication framework, which D&D has in spades, you are incorrect.

As to your second point, I said deciding by fiat that they are immune to fire. I thought that was clearly indexing a decision made in the moment, not something done during setting design. Sure, of course goblins can be immune to fire in D&D, but not because you just now decided that was the case.

As to your third point, I wasn't talking about house rules at all. I was talking about the adjudication guidelines present in the rules at the time of play. So the fact that fireball works like X (it doesn't matter of its RAW or house-ruled) confines or constrains the way the DM adjudicates the results of that action. If your DM gets to randomly change rules like that on the fly I think your D&D experience is non-standard, to say the least.

 

[Fenris-77]

I'll bite.

I think you started by identifying the division correctly. But then ... not so much. So I will explain this in more detail.

Player agency (in other words, do players have meaningful choices) is one thing.
Player authority is a different thing.

Let's break down player agency, first.

To have meaningful choice (beyond chargen, etc.), you usually need three things:
A. Player has control over the alter ego ("PC") decisions.
B. Decision must have consequences within the gameworld.
C. Player can reasonably anticipate consequences before making decisions.

A, B, C. That's a pretty standard way to look at it. Right? In a traditional RPG, such as D&D, this is achievable through the standard process of play.
1. The player declares the action.
2. The action will have consequences (that the DM will narrate) within the gameworld.
3. The player can reasonable anticipate the consequences of the decision.

'C' and Number three there was what I was indexing. Without the adjudication framework provided by the rules that bit can get mighty slippery. I'm not even saying it can't work because sure it can, but it's a lower agency way to play. I'm surprised this was such a controversial statement. Surprised, but not upset. I like a good discussion.

 

[Malmuria]

@Malmuria - deciding by fiat that the goblins are immune to fire is not something that comes as a standard part of the DM tool kit, for 5E or any edition. Player knowledge of the rule enforces a certain amount of colouring inside the lines by the DM in terms of adjudication.

Maybe, but the point is that the rule comes in at step 3 of the gameplay loop--"the DM narrates the results of their actions." DMs are free to make up new monsters...why not fire-resistant goblins?

What if I'm playing with my nephew (or really any new player)...they don't yet know the rules, or even some of the common tropes. So they would respond to the situation by saying, "oh darn, I'll try something else," where a player familiar with the rules would declare the gm to be acting in bad faith to negate a PC ability.

The difference between those two situations does not come down to the core gameplay loop described in the opening pages of the book, but rather a number of contextual elements, like player knowledge and player expectations.