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What is player agency to you?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 9117268" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Well, I think players bring different tastes, and thus pursue different agendas and try to use different techniques. One way to look at it is the 6C 'cultures of play' sort of view, but that just kind of describes prevailing styles of play. Now, what a given player will experience when they try to play their agenda in each one is going to vary, so they will probably find one or another of the 6C styles more to their liking. I'd note that some of these styles might emphasize narrative or characterization or whatever more or less.</p><p></p><p>GNS also talks about agenda, very specifically, so there's a bit different perspective there, and it isn't really either built around say 'shared novel' vs 'immediate immersive experience'. It is more about what is being explored, character/dramatic premise, situation/setting/milieu, or strategy/tactics. </p><p></p><p>So, MY experience of 'classic' D&D, in the 6C sense, was basically pawn stance, with possibly some immersion. It was goal oriented, with 'fun' being a significant concern, playability was pretty important to support fun. IME we rarely spent a lot of time 'in character' in that sort of play. Nor was fiction in some greater sense even really considered. That is not to say I can speak for everyone in the era when that was the most common style, some people pushed against it and did something closer to trad or even neo-trad. Overall I think the prevailing early GNS orientation was mostly G. </p><p></p><p>I don't think Narrativist play, as a contrast, is really focused on the end resulting narrative. It is just focused on putting the PCs in the role of protagonists where the action centers on them. This will generally create a narrative about the PCs, but I personally have not experienced being concerned about the resulting shape of that narrative, its 'quality', etc. The rewards are fairly immediate and feel more like the description of "being immersed in the moments of play" where we actually try to RP our characters and then invoke the mechanical tools provided in ways that will evince those character traits.</p><p></p><p>So, like in BitD my character has a nemesis (a mechanical aspect of the game). He finds out his nemesis is endangering his plans, plotting to cause badness to happen to Takeo. The backstory is this nemesis used to be his friend who turned against him after Takeo and the friend's daughter got close. So, Takeo has moved on from the daughter (she's not an NPC at that point that is anything but backstory) presumably, but he doesn't want to screw with his ex-friend. Now, game wise it doesn't matter, he's got to stop the clock of badness, if he offs the nemesis a new one will appear (by game rules, you always have one). Purely as an element of RP then I want to neutralize this NPC (end the clock) but as a matter of gamist play I don't care what that entails. In game I go to his place, things go south, no other option is left, I RP my character losing it and killing the guy (there's a fight, I win). After the score I create a new nemesis, the daughter! I hand that over to the GM, we go with it, later she messes with me, though it was close to the campaign's finale so she never became a big thing again. </p><p></p><p>That's how BitD works, at least. Things 'cook' and you have to mechanically deal with them, and the fiction is how you play it out and gives you reasons for whatever you do. Now, as someone above pointed out, there's a fairly gamist bent in BitD, you want to manage these clocks and whatnot adequately to avoid being crushed by the system. So with the above scenario there were the RP aspects, but there was also the gamist "if I don't retire this clock my character and the crew will suffer." Of course that suffering will also be fun and dramatic play, but its a fun challenge to try to keep your crew going for a few tiers of play!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 9117268, member: 82106"] Well, I think players bring different tastes, and thus pursue different agendas and try to use different techniques. One way to look at it is the 6C 'cultures of play' sort of view, but that just kind of describes prevailing styles of play. Now, what a given player will experience when they try to play their agenda in each one is going to vary, so they will probably find one or another of the 6C styles more to their liking. I'd note that some of these styles might emphasize narrative or characterization or whatever more or less. GNS also talks about agenda, very specifically, so there's a bit different perspective there, and it isn't really either built around say 'shared novel' vs 'immediate immersive experience'. It is more about what is being explored, character/dramatic premise, situation/setting/milieu, or strategy/tactics. So, MY experience of 'classic' D&D, in the 6C sense, was basically pawn stance, with possibly some immersion. It was goal oriented, with 'fun' being a significant concern, playability was pretty important to support fun. IME we rarely spent a lot of time 'in character' in that sort of play. Nor was fiction in some greater sense even really considered. That is not to say I can speak for everyone in the era when that was the most common style, some people pushed against it and did something closer to trad or even neo-trad. Overall I think the prevailing early GNS orientation was mostly G. I don't think Narrativist play, as a contrast, is really focused on the end resulting narrative. It is just focused on putting the PCs in the role of protagonists where the action centers on them. This will generally create a narrative about the PCs, but I personally have not experienced being concerned about the resulting shape of that narrative, its 'quality', etc. The rewards are fairly immediate and feel more like the description of "being immersed in the moments of play" where we actually try to RP our characters and then invoke the mechanical tools provided in ways that will evince those character traits. So, like in BitD my character has a nemesis (a mechanical aspect of the game). He finds out his nemesis is endangering his plans, plotting to cause badness to happen to Takeo. The backstory is this nemesis used to be his friend who turned against him after Takeo and the friend's daughter got close. So, Takeo has moved on from the daughter (she's not an NPC at that point that is anything but backstory) presumably, but he doesn't want to screw with his ex-friend. Now, game wise it doesn't matter, he's got to stop the clock of badness, if he offs the nemesis a new one will appear (by game rules, you always have one). Purely as an element of RP then I want to neutralize this NPC (end the clock) but as a matter of gamist play I don't care what that entails. In game I go to his place, things go south, no other option is left, I RP my character losing it and killing the guy (there's a fight, I win). After the score I create a new nemesis, the daughter! I hand that over to the GM, we go with it, later she messes with me, though it was close to the campaign's finale so she never became a big thing again. That's how BitD works, at least. Things 'cook' and you have to mechanically deal with them, and the fiction is how you play it out and gives you reasons for whatever you do. Now, as someone above pointed out, there's a fairly gamist bent in BitD, you want to manage these clocks and whatnot adequately to avoid being crushed by the system. So with the above scenario there were the RP aspects, but there was also the gamist "if I don't retire this clock my character and the crew will suffer." Of course that suffering will also be fun and dramatic play, but its a fun challenge to try to keep your crew going for a few tiers of play! [/QUOTE]
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