Quote from: trechriron;1032554There are some games out there where the designer tried to award this kind of behavior/choice in the game. "Get 12 XP when you mutilate yourself and then drink a 5th of vodka..." To me, they all feel super hollow and artificial. Instead, I would rather a player who wants to portray a self-destructive personality just do so.

At some point, RPGers need to see The Play as some kind of reward unto itself (I am speaking to the in character make-believe pretending part). Otherwise, we are leaning super hard on the "game" part. I love this hobby for the hybrid of both parts.

I go back and forth on that kind of "reward for playing the bad choices" mechanic.  Where I am at now, is that I think I like it if the mechanical reward is not all that great, but still a little useful.  You have your character do the thing because it is in character and sounds fun.  Then the GM tosses you the minor reward as much as for recognition of doing that, as anything else.  Even better if the minor reward lets you do more things like it.  Also, that means that when you don't want to have your character doing the obvious thing, it's about the character.  The reward is too minor to chase just for the reward.  Otherwise, sometimes you'll get players trying to do the crazy thing while coming up with crazy reasons why they don't suffer any consequences, just to get the reward.  That's too much work if the reward is minor.

Granted, in the right group, other players reacting with appreciation is greater recognition than any mechanical reward.  I frequently have shy players, where a little bit of grease to keep the process going is not a bad thing.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1032555... I frequently have shy players, where a little bit of grease to keep the process going is not a bad thing.

That's a good point. I could see a mechanic where the players right down 3 secrets. The GM knows them of course. Whenever they play one out, the GM hands them an XP and says "well played". Then the others guess their secret. This would be a means of teaching people how to a) portray characters in a believable way and b) encourage others to pay attention. It might also pull some shy people out of their shells. Essentially "gamifying" the roleplay of negative traits.

I would expect my experienced players to not need the training wheels, but I also would not criticize a group using these types of rules to encourage play.

Quote from: Azraele;1032544I mean, how rational is it exactly to go into a monster-haunted dungeon for gold?

When you're working for minimum wage, what would you risk for $100,000,000?

Quote from: Azraele;1032547I disagree that its fun, as do the people I run for. Of course, we often willingly choose to make boneheaded decisions because it's what the character would do (or because its fun, which has always sufficed as justification for me). In other words, the need for such mechanics isn't present at our games. Perhaps your players aren't as awesome and fun as mine? I tend to luck out that way... ;-)

I'm sorry you and your group are so stupid you don't comprehend the thematic elements of Le Morte d'Arthur as realized in Pendragon, but need to stomp around trumpeting about how you are masters of your own fate.

John Galt is a poor role model.  If you're so fucking insecure you can't stand the notion of your little paper man not following your every whim, you need to grow up.





See?  I can do it too.  I just leave the "passive" part out of "passive-agressively insulting other people's preferences and play styles."

Quote from: jhkim;1032550The simple answer is - more games don't include it because more players don't like it. In my experience, most players don't want trait-like mechanics.

It seems people don't want things that make them uncomfortable.
The feeling that they don't have a say usually does that.
Agreeing to it before the game doesn't seem to matter.
=

Quote from: Crawford Tillinghast;1032511Then you get Detective Lassiter from Psych.

Now I have to check out another TV show.....

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1032559When you're working for minimum wage, what would you risk for $100,000,000?

Depends on the GM.



Minimum wage can look mighty good when you're being dissolved by a green slime.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1032560See?  I can do it too.  I just leave the "passive" part out of "passive-agressively insulting other people's preferences and play styles."

It's better that way.

Your favourite game sucks, and you are wrong and stupid and probably don't even bring snacks.

See? That's much more fun than that drongo's wall of text.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1032471Look, not everybody is smart like Skeptcultist. Some people are just getting into the hobby. Some have some experience, but are still rounding out their mental toolbox. If you're going to get upset that some people are talking about a topic that you've got all figured, out, then move the fuck on. Let people re-tread the ground you've already trod, because they can't trod it until the trod it.

Right, which is why ignorant asshats like you who don't know what you're talking about are not helpful.  I'm the only person in this thread willing to tell OP that he's using the wrong terminology.  You, rather than help me educate OP, are insisting on waving your fucking ignorance like a flag and then getting upset and attacking people who know you're wrong.

QuoteThere's a big difference between explaining something and the other person understanding it. I'd been GMing for literally decades, but this video by Extra Credits (back when they were good) laid out some topics about choice in games that really helped me out.

The fact that you posted this video, which is about video games, really demonstrates how much you don't get what "player agency" is about.  This video has NOTHING to do with the issue of player agency, because player agency isn't an issue with video games.  Video games are produced, packaged and sold to the consumer complete, and the player in a video game has no ability to input ideas into the game's fiction because the game's fiction is settled before the game is released.

The OP's question is inherently confused because he doesn't understand what player agency is.  If he means "Why is character agency such a critical issue when real people don't always have agency?", which you are all assuming he does because none of you morons knows what player agency refers to anymore than he does, then his error is thinking this is a critical issue.  It's not.  It's long and well established that constantly nullifying a player's control of their character outside of the rules of the game and choices made by the player to surrender control is on the list of Things Shitty DM's Do.  I don't know the full list or it's exact order, but it includes "Shitty DMs constantly tell players what their characters do in non-trivial ways."

Anything beyond that is just a discussion of which rules system you prefer for handling such issues, and whether those systems achieve the effect they are aiming for (if its even a consideration), or if they fail, and your personal opinions on those -- and it is, as you say, beginner's stuff.  It is not a critical issue.

What is a critical issue, that is an issue around which there is a lot of debate, is the issue of player agency, which in this case means the ability of the player to exert control over the meta-game, the creation and presentation of the setting, the adventure, the non-player characters, etc.

For example, at one extreme is the video game, where the player is completely limited to the setting, adventure and NPCs presented by the game designer.  In an RPG context, imagine a DM picks Basic D&D as the game, assigns the players pre-generated characters, then runs Keep on the Borderlands except the characters may never leave the "Wilderness" map except to go to the Keep or the Caves of Chaos sub-maps, or to a terrain appropriate battle mat for random wilderness encounters (and the encounter with the hermit and his panther).  Also, the player may only take actions described in the book.  If it's not in the book, you can't do it. No extrapolating either.

At the other end of the extreme is total player agency, where essentially the gamemaster (if there even is a gamemaster) simply says "I'm running a game.  What happens?" and the players contribute everything about the setting, the nature of the adventure, the nature of their adversaries, etc.  So one player might declare his character is the last of the Lizard People, and he's on a quest to reach the moon to find a device hidden there by his people to restart their race, while another might declare that sentient, magical Prismatic Ponies exist in this world, and that his character is one of them and uses Friendship Magic, and a third player says it's a gritty modern cyber-noir story about corporate intrigue.  And then the GM runs that.

Neither extreme really works -- one is too boring for the players, the other is too frustrating for the GM -- but many players are tired of suffering through bad, boring campaigns written by GMs who don't know how to create good stories, and want a solution other than "run your own game," while GMs rightfully fear having Dragonkin and Tieflings crammed down their throat as soon as they loosen their grip on setting control. Which is what makes it a critical issue.

QuoteIf the goal is to cuss and discuss topics, to help others improve their Gming skills, and maybe think of things from a new angle, great. If you're here to demonstrate how very clever you are, and shut down discussion because you've already got it all figured out, then don't expect me to take you very seriously.

lol.

I personally love these mechanics that induce succumbing to temptation, loss of control, in my PCs. I don't find many GMs handle them with any sort of tact, or even bother with modeling succumbing or disorientation, however. Often (diagnosed from my inner armchair therapist) it is an issue of participants (from GM to players) having deep seated control issues. I can't fix that, and I am not being paid to do therapy at the table.

But as for how to make such loss of control palatable? I find a good sugar to make the medicine go down to be an offer between two bad choices once we've established a PC has crossed a mechanical threshold. At least there's a choice, a form of resistance and struggle, instead of what should be outright "storytime" narration.

So for example, I cannot stand when GMs use Charm Person like Domination (mindless automaton), with the added implication that the PC is the responsible agent for all that happens. My personal example is my Paladin is Charmed by a Vampire, treated like a mindless automaton (already a misuse of how Charm Person works), made to do gross violations of his church and clergy against his will with no save, and (somehow) falls as a Paladin as if it was his choice. It was basically a lone failed roll, drawn out exposition -- which wastes gaming time -- and devoid of pathos beyond "Fuck your character, hur, hur, hur! " It's lazy GM-ing and a waste of a good horror moment.

What you can do with a Vampire charming a Paladin is befriending them into choices between small, ever building, violations -- or friendship disappointment from that seductive stranger -- that snowball into a larger consequence. Now that, that works with Charm Person as written, works with players picking their poison, and a grand horrific reveal. It doesn't do stupid-evil reveals "Mwa ha ha! I reveal I'm a vampire, now I'll make your paladin commit sacrilege and fall!" And it doesn't take 10 minutes of game time where players make no choices beyond watching bad storytelling against one player's PC, which is essentially listening to a GM's inner-14 y.o. sadism fapping.

There is good form and bad form on how to manage these things: If you as a GM find yourself in such a long, uninterrupted exposition, about your puppeteering someone's PC, you are wasting game time. If you as a GM find your PCs succumbing to a mechanic that is not actual direct possession and domination, but more like fears, urges, compulsions, and temptations -- play them as such, including whatever is left of a PC's feeble thing called will. That means let players make real choices between similar options, even if, no, especially if!, they are between several bad ones.

There's nothing wrong with players losing control of their character. But it's often a matter of degree, not binary, not between full autonomy and mindless automata. And there is no "story pathos" in watching a GM 'play with action figures by themselves'.

Quote from: Skepticultist;1032596The OP's question is inherently confused because he doesn't understand what player agency is.  If he means "Why is character agency such a critical issue when real people don't always have agency?", which you are all assuming he does because none of you morons knows what player agency refers to anymore than he does, then his error is thinking this is a critical issue.  It's not.  It's long and well established that constantly nullifying a player's control of their character outside of the rules of the game and choices made by the player to surrender control is on the list of Things Shitty DM's Do.

Thanks for the coherent answer. Yes, I tripped up on the terminology.
I did mean character agency and think player agency is the point of having a live game instead of reading a book.
=

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1032560See?  I can do it too.  I just leave the "passive" part out of "passive-agressively insulting other people's preferences and play styles."

Ah Gronan; I'll have you know I read this post and chuckled luxuriantly over my glass of Musigny Grand Cru.

But I remain aloof in my invulnerable snoobery: you've been gaming longer than I've been alive, and even you refused to relay a single argument, or even shred of anecdotal evidence to support your stance.

It's simply precious

But since you amuse me so, with your pants-defecating and beer-swilling, I'll deign to offer you this wager: Do you see that handsome mug in the corner over my posts? That's me darling. And that fabulously bred name underneath? Me as well. If you have an anecdote, argument or other actual answer to my original point, I'll grant you specific permission to put my sparkling self in your memoirs under the heading "assholes I've proven WRONG on the INTERNET"

For the sake of you rum-pickled memory, I'll repeat that point: "It is never preferable for the dice to dictate the choices of a character"

I jovially anticipate your response. Now if you'll excuse me, my impeccable mane won't coif itself...

Quote from: Azraele;1032629

I'm going to be honest, I've completely lost track of what you two were fighting about, what with the much more extremely loud foxtrot going on over on the other side of the thread. So for all I know, you are the bigger man in this exchange. I am also all for the Herbertian living well being the best revenge. However, if you have to tell the target of said subtle revenge that you are doing so (all the whilst name-dropping fancy booze), it kinda takes away the supposed respectability of the action.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1032635I'm going to be honest, I've completely lost track of what you two were fighting about, what with the much more extremely loud foxtrot going on over on the other side of the thread. So for all I know, you are the bigger man in this exchange. I am also all for the Herbertian living well being the best revenge. However, if you have to tell the target of said subtle revenge that you are doing so (all the whilst name-dropping fancy booze), it kinda takes away the supposed respectability of the action.

I mocked his mocking of other people's play styles.

He responded by apparently mixing Ex-Lax and Red Bull.

Quote from: Skepticultist;1032596Right, which is why ignorant asshats like you who don't know what you're talking about are not helpful.  I'm the only person in this thread willing to tell OP that he's using the wrong terminology.  You, rather than help me educate OP, are insisting on waving your fucking ignorance like a flag and then getting upset and attacking people who know you're wrong.

Jesus fucking christ! Someone mixed up player agency and character agency! Incorrect terminology! Everybody flip out and insult each other!

Let me guess, you're the guy who calls the police and reports a murder when a GM jokes about killing off the players.

QuoteThe fact that you posted this video, which is about video games, really demonstrates how much you don't get what "player agency" is about.  This video has NOTHING to do with the issue of player agency, because player agency isn't an issue with video games.  

Correct! I'm glad you're paying attention. I posted it as an example of something I didn't quite grasp until explained to me in that way. And I found it relevant because it was about players making choices in games. The fundamental building block of RPGs.

QuoteThe OP's question is inherently confused because he doesn't understand what player agency is.  

No, his question wasn't confused at all. You just came along and nit picked terminology for whatever chip on your shoulder reason.

Quotelol.

lulz.

It's good to see you've cooled off a bit. Why don't you try engaging with the original topic for a while. You might have something to contribute.