What is *worldbuilding* for?

[hawkeyefan]

It was pretty obvious what he was saying in the example. I think what is going on is very strict and literal readings, with very little charity. I pretty much got immediately what he was talking about.

That’s fine. Obviously, others took it differently.

Here’s the post:

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Let's say that I want to jump over a 3 foot ditch and I am unaware that there is a forcefield that is both invisible and inaudible in the way. We will call the forcefield hidden backstory. When I take a running leap and hit that forcefield, I have failed to succeed. What has not happened, though, is anyone else, even the creator of that force field, controlling my actions. I declared my action. I engaged in that action. I succeeded in the attempt. Nobody controlled me, but me. Failure when reasonable, even if due to causes unknown to the action declarer, cannot remove control from the player.

You are falsely equating hidden backstory(reasonable failure) with a DM saying, "You fail because I don't want you to succeed.", and that's a fallacy.

I don’t think that there’s much distinction between the two things based solely on this post. It’s why I mentioned in my reply “if there’s no way for the player to know” because of the fact he pointed out that the forcefield is invisible and inaudible.

Now, he’s since gone on to eleborate, and that’s fine....but no, I don’t think the initial post is as clear as you seem to think it was.

 

[Lanefan]

And? That doesn't change the fact that the GM authored the fiction that is now dictating the outcome of the player's declared action for his/her PC.

Upthread you got angry when I suggested that you don't distinguish between real life and fantasy. But here you are, again, not making the distinction.

Real life is not a game. The world I walk through in real life was not authored for game purposes.

From the PCs' perspective (a viewpoint you seem quite determined not to take even though it's highly relevant) the game world should ideally function like our real world in terms of not knowing everything, and sometimes having to make decisions based on little more than guesswork. And it naturally follows that for the PCs not to know things the players must also not know these things.

RPGing is a game. Like other games, it involves participants who make moves. You are describing a game in which the GM makes moves - the authoring of unrevealed backstory - which lead to the result that other participants' moves automatically fail, for reasons that haven't been revealed to them.

So stop thinking about it as a game for a moment and start thinking about it as a fully immersive experience where in your mind you are your PC. Once you do this these inconsistencies and player-vs.-character knowledge disparities will quickly become both obvious and annoying.

And yes for this to work you need a DM who is good at a) world/setting building, b) adventure design, and [most important!] c) describing what you see/touch/smell/hear/taste in pretty good detail.

In other words, instead of approaching an action declaration as "I'm a player using the game mechanics to have my character make a search move" think of it as "I (as Falstaff) think there might be a hidden door here, so I'll look for it while you keep watch". This sort of thing only falls apart in combat, where mechanics tend to take over no matter what you do.

That has a bearing on their agency. And it certainly has a bearing on their agency in respect of the shared fiction, which is the particular version of agency I'm talking about.


You can assert these things. That doesn't make them so. I am - clearly, unequivocally, and repeatedly - talking primarily about player agency over the content of the shared fiction.

And as you're (I think) the only one in here who has so harshly self-restricted your view and definition of what constitutes player agency, it's no surprise that you're catching some flak from those who see agency as a broader thing within the activity of RPGing beyond just this one element.

Lanefan

 

[Maxperson]

What I said was that players have, in my games, the same agency they have in YOUR games, AND THEN SOME, which is clearly true since they have additional options. Pemerton stated that your players lacked agency, and qualified that with the understanding that it was with respect to what the content of the fiction was (IE what options where available to players in given fictional situations). Frankly I think that he and I are saying nearly the same thing (in a sort of "a bonus is just a mirror image of a penalty" sort of way).

But they don't have the same agency as in my game. In my game they can declare any action they like that is within the rules of the game. In your game they are constrained from taking many actions that I would allow, but you do not allow by playing Story Now. Declared actions in your game must focus on the primary interests of the PCs. Their goals. That's not the case in mine. In mine they can focus on those goals, or on more minor things. You have reduced agency in some areas, and pumped up in others(as has [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]). Your agency is no greater than mine. It's only different.

 

[Maxperson]

I’m pointing out how your original post could have been construed. In the way that you originally described it, it certainly seemed to amount to nothing more than a gotcha by the DM. So, without adding later comments into it, look at the scenario as described and then try and see if you can understand some of the responses.

Adding comments afterward may clarify things, but I was trying to explain to you why your post was taken the way it was when you made it.

It’s not that I didn’t accept it. It’s that there was nothing else in the initial description that would serve as a reasonable explanation for why it happened. I was explaining how your post could be perceived.

I said explicitly that I wasn't acting on my desire. Therefore, the only way to perceive what I said as acting on DM desire is by effectively calling me a liar. I don't think that you intended to call me a liar, but that's the result of that perception.

Well, why does a gotcha moment have to be severe? I mean, I get how the scenario as you’ve gone on to elaborate has virtually no consequence, so it’s not a big deal, but what if the ditch was a bit larger and a maybe a bit of falling damage was involved? Even such a small consequence, to me, would constitute a gotcha by the DM.

Because "gotchas" are negative. Not only is every surprise failure due to the unknown not negative, but many are in fact positive. Only negative ones would be "gotchas" as they are typically used in posts here.

I don’t think it’s irrelevant for someone to poibt out examples of why they do or don’t prefer a certain playstyle in a thread that’s about exactly that.

Of course not, but then that's not what I said, either.

 

[hawkeyefan]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] No, I was not calling you a liar. Look at your first post and tell me what is in it that would serve as a reason for the situation.

Then about surprise failure due to the unknown....you don’t think it’s negative. You think it’s positive. And that’s great.

Others are saying they don’t like it.

For them, the player’s success or failure being within their own ability is more important then the backstory predetermined by the DM. So when the character goes to jump the ditch, he can either succeed or fail based on his check alone.

Now, if he fails, perhaps the reason for that is because there’s an invisible forcefield in place...that’s up to the GM to decide as part of narrating the results of the check, based on player interest and what’s been established already in the game. That’s how some of the games in question work.

I’m not saying I prefer that method or that I find it to be the best or that I personally never allow unknown elements established by the DM to influence success or failure of a PC action.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] No, I was not calling you a liar. Look at your first post and tell me what is in it that would serve as a reason for the situation.

I didn't feel it needed a reason. My simple statement that it was not DM desire is all that is needed to keep it from being DM desire.

Then about surprise failure due to the unknown....you don’t think it’s negative. You think it’s positive. And that’s great.

Not necessarily positive, but there was nothing inherently negative about it. It wasn't as if they opened the door on a medusa or bodak without any way to know about it in advance.

Others are saying they don’t like it.

For them, the player’s success or failure being within their own ability is more important then the backstory predetermined by the DM. So when the character goes to jump the ditch, he can either succeed or fail based on his check alone.

Cool beans. I have absolutely no problem with someone not liking my style of gaming. None at all. My beef is with them acting superior by saying things like, "My way has more agency than your way" and "Your way is basically a choose your own adventure book." Dislike my style all you want. Tell me why you disagree with it. Don't try to prop your(general you) way up as superior and/or attack my way or I'm going to come back at you, rather than just having a civil conversation about the differences in gaming styles.

Now, if he fails, perhaps the reason for that is because there’s an invisible forcefield in place...that’s up to the GM to decide as part of narrating the results of the check, based on player interest and what’s been established already in the game. That’s how some of the games in question work.

I get that. I've understood that since before this thread started.

 

[hawkeyefan]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]
Okay. I was hoping to clarify things. But it seems no clarification is needed. My bad, carry on.

 

[Maxperson]

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]
Okay. I was hoping to clarify things. But it seems no clarification is needed. My bad, carry on.

No worries. Clarification is generally a good thing.

P.S. To those others in this thread, this civil conversation that Hawkeyfan and I have been having is what discussions are like when you aren't acting like your way is superior and/or attacking my way.

 

[pemerton]

why are you suspicious of other peoples' enjoyment of play?

I don't know why you say that I am. Even in the post you replied to, I said that that is obviously the prerogative of people to play as they like.

I do wonder what the point is of emphasising that agency consists in the player being free to declare actions for his/her PC - because that is true in any episode of RPGing at any table in the world (isn't it?), and so doesn't seem to identify any very interesting feature of various approaches to RPGing.

In most games I play in, PCs are always able to declare what they try to do.

I assume by "PCs" you mean players? Ie the players are free to declare actions for their PCs.

I would be very surprised if there were any episodes of RPGing in which that was not true. What would it even mean to "play" a RPG if you were not free to declare actions for your PC?

I feel like your attitude towards people who play different is somewhat sneering

With respect, I think you are projecting something onto my posts that isn't there.

In a game in which the GM adjudicates action resolution by reference to unrevealed elements of framing ("hidden backstory") the player has less of that than otherwise.

This simply isn't true, though. Let's go with there are two definitions of agency. I only see two ways that your statement can be true, the first is if you are at my game trying to use your playstyle in it, which is impossible since my playstyle is the only one allowed in my game. If your definition of agency isn't being used in my game, then my game doesn't have less agency than yours. It just has an equal amount(full agency) of the type that my game uses. The second way is if I'm trying to play with my playstyle in your game, which also(I assume) isn't going to be allowed. Other than those two things which will simply never happen, agency is 100% in both of our games.

I can look at your game, or anyone else's game, and see how much agency occurs in it of the sort I care about, and then express a view about that. The fact that you don't measure your own game by my standard doesn't stop me doing that. Given that you are defending an example - namely, the forcefield example - in which the player obviously does not have unfettered agency over the content of the shared fiction (because the GM has already determined that the shared fiction can't include an unobstructed jump across the ditch), I would think it is obvious that you favour a game in which a burden on the sort of agency I care about is par for the course.

Your relativsitic contention, that no one is allowed to apply their standards to something that someone else enjoys for different reasons, is not applied in any other field of entertainment. To give a very trivial example from another entertainment medium: I have a good friend who dosn't much like violence in movies. She applies this standard even to movies in genres where violence is expected, like gritty thrillers and action movies. There is nothing surprising about doing that - it's how she works out what films she might or might not enjoy. It's hardly to the point that films she would rather not see, because too violent, might - by the standards of their genre - be considered only mildly violent.

Similarly, in describing what sort of RPGing I enjoy, I point to the features that are important to me. That you don't care to evaluate your own RPGing by reference to those standards doesn't bear on what I'm doing.

 

[pemerton]

How do the players learn who their friends are, where the local swimming holes are, what the local customs are?

My experience of the sort of play you describe is that the answer to these sorts of questions if "The GM tells them." Which, for me, is fairly unimmersive - it's like having to ask someone else to remind me of what and who I am!

EDIT for clarity: I'm not talking about learning new things here - eg the PC sees a new landscape or building, and the player has the GM describing it to him/her. I'm talking about all the things that are intuitive and second nature to a person, which it's therefore weird to experience as if they're being newly-learned from outside.

Well wouldn't that be their back story? If they haven't bothered to write a backstory before the game, why should they expect free will to rewrite their backstory? Wouldn't they know the general idea of the world?

I think it's unrealistic to expect a player-written backstory to cover anything but the tiniest fragment of a person's life. This is the case even in a game with lifepath PC generation (eg Classic Traveller, Burning Wheel) and moreso in games that don't use that sort of method (eg D&D).

For instance, if a PC is a member of an organisation there may be literally dozens or hundreds of NPCs to whom s/he is connected by that. If s/he grew up in a village or town, the same thing will be true. My experience is that no player can be expected to write up all of that.

Now for the swimming hole question I have yet to find the GM who has every city detailed to all the pools or projects. I like using a world overview, with major NPC's defined and major cities/ city buidlings defined but the rest is up to what I and the players create.

OK, so you seem to be agreeing with me, give that what you describe here is not the GM tells them, which is what I was responding to.