NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9100590" data-attributes="member: 6696971">Alright, so a collection of thoughts.  First bullet point will be some thoughts on the above, second will be some thoughts on [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] 's position on agency and where (a) there is some daylight between us on Torchbearer (and a little bit on why) yet (b) why there is little to no daylight between us on the importance of "protagonism as agency" when it comes to this particular conversation.* With respect to agency, I don't agree that reduction/suspension of agency is the correct framing for what distinguishes one game from another.  It is the structure of agency (which is derived from the goal/premise of the structured form of play) that matters.  Yes, one part of that is a carefully curated reduction of agency, but that is only one component.  Any particular structure targets expansion and contraction of agency until it lands on the decision-tree dynamics that are relevant to the particular form of play.  The decision-tree dynamics of the creative intelligence/lateral thinking game "how many different configurations of objects x, y, z can you array with the constraining goal of n" is different than Texas Hold 'Em is different than American Football is different than Brazilian Jiujitsu sparring which is different than Bouldering competitions (the last two of which have myriad intra-discipline differences pending tourney/sparring rulesets).* [USER=42582]@pemerton[/USER] and I have some differences on how high agency Torchbearer is and my guess is the daylight is due to the following considerations and where we land on them:(i) Do the Gamist and Narrativist priorities of Torchbearer reach and sustain equilibrium and a feedback loop that informs each?  Or do the dynamics (conceptual and the system architecture that interacts with those things) of either priority capture play such that equilibrium and intended feedback loop are upturned?  I land on equilibrium and feedback loop can be maintained.  (ii) In a game such as Torchbearer where player protagonism (via system premise and PCs built upon and orbiting around motivations and relations) is central to play, is its forebear Burning Wheel (whose participant orientation and play process is interested exclusively with motivations and relations, unburdened by Gamist priorities and attendant feedback loops) a relatively higher agency game?  Further, if your answer to (i) above is "Torchbearer's equilibrium and feedback loop will inevitably be overwhelmed (therefore, undermined to one degree or another) by Story Now imperatives," then the answer to (ii) would seem to be "yes, Burning Wheel is a higher agency game than Torchbearer."So this is interesting conversation for pemerton and I to have (we've had it a little bit around the margins here and there I think), but I don't bring it up to have that discussion.  I bring it up for this reason:In games that lay claim to "story" as their core, there is an inescapable siting of protagonism (the motivations that propel play and give rise to story and compel its shape) as the apex expression of agency.  "What the hell is the point of all of this (?)" is the most foundational question that play addresses and the answer to that is either PC-centered or setting-centered (including NPCs).Remove the "burden" of story as a/the defining priority for play (and therefore the quandary of protagonism; eg Strahd's motivations clearly are what propel play, give rise to story, and compel its shape in a Ravenloft campaign), like in a hexcrawl or dungeoncrawl where the dominating feature of play is skillfully navigating successive, challenge-based decision-trees, and the conversation changes as the structure of agency applied to the particular form of play changes.  However, a game that retains that "burden" of story retains the persistent inflection point for agency that is the inherent question of "which participant(s) sites the play-propelling protagonism."That isn't me giving an autobiographical answer about "more" or "less" agency.  But it is definitely an attempt to distill some signal from this ongoing, thread-spanning conversation.</blockquote>

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