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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ilbranteloth" data-source="post: 7415497" data-attributes="member: 6778044">I can understand the criticism, but I think it is different if the intent is different.If the GM's intent is to make it an interesting challenge along the way to whatever their goal is, then it is quite different than "you fail because I don't want you to succeed." If the force field is something that goes beyond that, and tells the characters (players) something they didn't know about the scenario, and is foreshadowing a tougher challenge in the future, then again it is far from "you fail because I don't want you to succeed." Whether the GM created that force field on the spot, or ahead of time is irrelevant in the player's experience of the game. At least it should be. The player indicates and attempt to leap across, the GM adjudicates. And the reality is, the GM can have the wrong intention whether it's prewritten or not. To me there are two things that matter here - what is the GM's intent, and does the GM have the ability to alter the preauthored material to suit the game if needed? That is, if the preauthored material isn't appropriate, can he alter it before bringing it into play? If so, the preauthoring doesn't restrict anything.Regardless, I also don't consider a preauthored "failure" to be bad either if the intent is good. For example, the GM couldn't know that the PCs would attempt to jump. Perhaps he expected them to search for force fields. In that case it would be an automatic success. Perhaps it's just a thing that's there, and the PCs don't interact with it all. Again, it is just part of the setting that presents a challenge for the characters to overcome. So they fail to jump through the force field. How tall is it? Can they go over it? Can they go under it? Around it? Disable it? Use magic to go through it? Their agency remains fully intact - they can roleplay their character's reaction to this new bit of information without restriction. Part of the issue with all of these examples (including my own, and I'm not sure how to get around it), is that whether you succeed or fail on a specific task such as this is too narrow of a moment in time to really describe what's going on in the campaign. And that's also why I disagree with the idea that it's affecting player agency. At the table, success or failure of a task is far from success or failure in the game as a whole. If the player is able to make decisions and take actions for their character, that is, they can role-play their character, then I think they have their full player agency.If I were to give an extreme example, how about an RPG where your character is imprisoned hanging by chains in an oubliette? The guards periodically throw filth or cold water down the hole, they sometimes drag you out of the hole and beat you, they give you stale bread and sour wine. Most of the time it is simply dark, the stench horrific as whatever water they throw down is never enough to wash away the waste through the sluices, rats crawl down the chains to gnaw at the sores on your arms and shoulders, and you never get more than what seems a few minutes of sleep. The character, and indeed the player, has no idea if they will ever be released or even survive. Is escape even possible? Is death the escape? Your character literally has almost no agency at all. But the role-playing of the character is all about what's going on in his head. You have 100% agency in role-playing your character in this horrific, potentially character defining experience. Again, I think there is a meaningful difference between character agency and player agency. A previously undiscovered force field affects character agency, not player agency.</blockquote>

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