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What is player agency to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9117231" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>OK, but lets look at this in the context of, say, Dungeon World, since I know it much better than BW. There are no 'levels of difficulty' in DW. The game is simply an endless loop of describe->act->adjudicate->describe repeated endlessly, with 'adjudicate' usually involving a toss of 2d6. There are no varying target numbers! Granted, your ability bonus factors into play, so you may be better at some moves than others, but its the fiction which will decide which move you made, and so you have to PLAY THE FICTION, not the GM. </p><p></p><p>There is simply, inherently, no playing the GM. The most you could say is that progress in the story arc might be at a different rate of adjudication loops depending on your strategy. So maybe seducing the Princess takes 5 steps, and infiltrating the Dungeon takes 10 steps. In the end though, once those things are accomplished you will simply go on to more things which also take steps, its not like anything mechanically or in the reward system will really change. I mean, sure, you may decide you value whatever the reward is for finishing the Princess or Dungeon forks in the story and pick Princess because it gets you gratification faster. That's simply you PLAYING YOU! </p><p></p><p>This is the sense in which, if I was having the "show me playing the GM" discussion with Max, I would be saying "I cannot see how you do that in Dungeon World" because you really cannot. I mean, I guess you could try to make up a character that you think the GM will have an inordinate degree of sympathy with and thus play softball with you and give you a high rate of 'you achieved your goal' vs adjudication loops? I don't see how that gains you much, it might create a lower-quality experience, at least in some people's reckoning. I think [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] might say that PbtA games are intended to push hard against the PCs and playing softball is bad play, but it is all a bit subjective anyway. I don't see this as a 'strategy' to play the GM, at most it is a set of preferences of the type of play you want, and trying to achieve it. If the game breaks down or runs poorly in some people's experience due to that, its probably more a question of quality of function of the group than of 'manipulation'.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9117231, member: 82106"] OK, but lets look at this in the context of, say, Dungeon World, since I know it much better than BW. There are no 'levels of difficulty' in DW. The game is simply an endless loop of describe->act->adjudicate->describe repeated endlessly, with 'adjudicate' usually involving a toss of 2d6. There are no varying target numbers! Granted, your ability bonus factors into play, so you may be better at some moves than others, but its the fiction which will decide which move you made, and so you have to PLAY THE FICTION, not the GM. There is simply, inherently, no playing the GM. The most you could say is that progress in the story arc might be at a different rate of adjudication loops depending on your strategy. So maybe seducing the Princess takes 5 steps, and infiltrating the Dungeon takes 10 steps. In the end though, once those things are accomplished you will simply go on to more things which also take steps, its not like anything mechanically or in the reward system will really change. I mean, sure, you may decide you value whatever the reward is for finishing the Princess or Dungeon forks in the story and pick Princess because it gets you gratification faster. That's simply you PLAYING YOU! This is the sense in which, if I was having the "show me playing the GM" discussion with Max, I would be saying "I cannot see how you do that in Dungeon World" because you really cannot. I mean, I guess you could try to make up a character that you think the GM will have an inordinate degree of sympathy with and thus play softball with you and give you a high rate of 'you achieved your goal' vs adjudication loops? I don't see how that gains you much, it might create a lower-quality experience, at least in some people's reckoning. I think [USER=6696971]@Manbearcat[/USER] might say that PbtA games are intended to push hard against the PCs and playing softball is bad play, but it is all a bit subjective anyway. I don't see this as a 'strategy' to play the GM, at most it is a set of preferences of the type of play you want, and trying to achieve it. If the game breaks down or runs poorly in some people's experience due to that, its probably more a question of quality of function of the group than of 'manipulation'. [/QUOTE]
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