Player-side agency in OSR games - how does it even work?

[Inash]

On 10/31/2023 at 5:33 PM, cailano said:

I'll concede that more rules = a more transparent task resolution system, but the reality is that rules-light games can and do deal with those situations in a fun way for the group. A lot of times we just handle it with fewer rolls and more communication.

1) Player: "I'll try to convince the Mr Johnson: Listen, Chummer. If we command such a high pay, that's because we have a 150% success rate so far. Yeah, one-fifty. Doesn't make sense? Well we get the job done and then we'll grab extra paydata and plant evidence to incriminate the enemy of your choice. Revenge is sweet, especially if you get the revenge done first. So that'll be 15K for us."

GM: "He seems unfazed. Did you get yourself a bragging implant? I have seen dozen of drekheads like you with more chips than brain. It's 10k."

Player: OOC: I don't think this guy wants his secrets outed and I'm going to play that card. I show him the file on his clients we got from the last run...

GM: * Likes where the player is going with that line of questioning * Mr. Johnson looks like he might start to sweat soon...

A key idea in OSR games is to favor interaction with the game world over dice. As a GM, I like that approach for a couple of reasons:

1. If Mr. Johnson has information the players need to advance the story, I want them to find it. I'm not just going to throw it at them, but if they have a reasonable or clever plan, I'm not going to hide the information behind a die roll, especially not multiple dice rolls.

2. I want the player to role-play rather than looking for an answer on his character sheet. I'm okay with them using their character sheet as part of the solution, but I don't want the exchange to boil down to something like "I'm going to get information out of Mr. Johnson by using my smoking-gun feat. What do I need to roll?"

Now, in the scene you used as an example, I think the player is playing well. They are combining role and roll play and the scene should work.

But when you add dice, the world isn't going to be super predictable. In my OSR example, the player is going to get their info, or at least most of it, just by role-playing well and having a good strategy. In the crunchier example, there is nothing stopping that player from rolling all 1s and 2s on their check. Then what?

I guess I trust a good GM more than the dice, but of course, these problems come up in all games and a good GM can probably make any system work.

My problem is that I, as a person, do not have good social skills and have a tremendous amount of social anxiety, so forcing me to roleplay something that I could do with a die roll does not work for me and breaks immersion in an entirely different way.

[Michael Silverbane]

17 minutes ago, Inash said:

My problem is that I, as a person, do not have good social skills and have a tremendous amount of social anxiety, so forcing me to roleplay something that I could do with a die roll does not work for me and breaks immersion in an entirely different way.

You can choose not to play an extremely social character to mitigate that sort of issue, or you can choose not to play in strictly OSR style games. It is okay that not every game style suits every player.

[Inash]

13 minutes ago, Michael Silverbane said:

You can choose not to play an extremely social character to mitigate that sort of issue, or you can choose not to play in strictly OSR style games. It is okay that not every game style suits every player.

That's why I've never felt comfortable trying to play a bard, even though it sounds like a fun class.

[Lord Foul]

Inash raises an interesting point. There are, to my mind, two conflicting issues regarding people trying to play characters with skills and abilities far outside their own capabilities. On the one hand, it can be a little frustrating for others in the game when one of them continually struggles to 'represent' their character in the way it is intended to behave. But that could be seen as somewhat judgemental; like they are saying "you're doing it wrong and spoiling my fun as a result."

The other perspective accepts that, when it comes down to it, we all play these games to experience things that our real lives cannot provide. So how is it any different expecting someone to be able to 'adequately' represent a dwarf, elf, dragon or whatever, to expecting them to have the intelligence/charisma etc of their character?

I believe communication can go a long way to resolve these issues, so if one player tells the group "I really want to play a bard, because that sounds like such fun, but I know I'm going to struggle with the social interactions and poetry and singing and all that..." I'd expect the rest of the group to respond with "okay, you do that and enjoy it as much as you can, and we'll accept that sometimes you just need to make appropriate rolls and we'll all help our GM to bring that to life in the game."

 

[Actana]

I think denying someone the ability to play a charismatic character because they're not charismatic themselves is a bit insulting and quite exclusionary. While there is a lot to say about how to deal with such issues, I honestly don't find it any more complicated than "just do your best and we'll figure out the rest together". Games are played not to be a test of real life skills or to prove something to the GM, but to have fun.

As for the rest of the topic, I probably have a lot to say but I don't know if I really have the energy to write it all out. I find a lot of the talk here about procedures on GMing and not simply relying on rolls can be equally applied to non-OSR games, not as something OSR games pioneered or have exclusive say in.

Second, there are many different ways of doing rules-light games, and OSR are just one of them. There are games that give the GM freedom to apply consequences as befits "the fiction", but also in ways that make them feel a lot less arbitrary than "because I'm the GM and I say so", and I find that helps a tremendous amount in making the game feel fair and not as the GM's personal playground subject to their whims.

[Tecmes]

3 hours ago, Inash said:

My problem is that I, as a person, do not have good social skills and have a tremendous amount of social anxiety, so forcing me to roleplay something that I could do with a die roll does not work for me and breaks immersion in an entirely different way.

I'm happy you bring that up. I strongly believe that RPG quite precisely sprung up to avoid social anxiety, specifically stemming from the collapse of social structures in late 60s small-town USA. That's what the wargame hobby provided.

It's close to my dodgeball team analogy: if I find social life confusing and distressing (and who doesn't really, when a social revolution is going on?), I need a place where rules are clearly laid-out and followed. Where I have agency and control.

Problem is, RPGs, initially as fantasy wargames, were soon overtaken and redefined by a kind of church-basement type that had charisma, the opposite of social unease: he's Dave the GM. Dave the GM, in this simplified scheme I present, is the original OSR GM: he's the one that vets players' actions. This pulls players back into a social-interaction-based game that wargames eschewed.

(Now of course I'm painting a stark psycho-social picture here. A colleague pointed out that he loves OSR simply because of the aesthetics of the games, and also the lively, creative back-and-forth between player and GM. As @cailano pointed out a couple times: trust; trust goes a long way! I have no social anxiety - but I probably have trust issues!)

Edited November 3, 2023 by Tecmes (see edit history)

[cailano]

3 hours ago, Inash said:

My problem is that I, as a person, do not have good social skills and have a tremendous amount of social anxiety, so forcing me to roleplay something that I could do with a die roll does not work for me and breaks immersion in an entirely different way.

I find that social skills are the most common skill roll that I use. I let the player abstract complex social scenes, only requiring them to tell me what they are trying to do.

"I try to convince the soldiers that the queen has gone crazy and their duty is to the crown. If they won't help us, I'll try to get them to stand aside." That's good enough for me. What would not be good enough is, "What do I need to roll to adjust the soldier's friendliness level two steps?" The difference is that one of those abstractions interacts with the game world, and the other is strictly mechanical.

But I'm glad to see that at least one person doesn't play Bards. My hate for Bards knows no limit, and I never allow them in my games in any system. Awful class. Fight me (but not here since it is off-topic.)

[cailano]

Another fun social skill issue is when I play with my younger kids. My son is only nine-years-old, so he role-plays his character in a very "kid" way. But he's trying and he's interacting with the game world, so we use a lot of Charisma checks and it works out well.

[cailano]

48 minutes ago, Actana said:

I think denying someone the ability to play a charismatic character because they're not charismatic themselves is a bit insulting and quite exclusionary. While there is a lot to say about how to deal with such issues, I honestly don't find it any more complicated than "just do your best and we'll figure out the rest together". Games are played not to be a test of real life skills or to prove something to the GM, but to have fun.

As for the rest of the topic, I probably have a lot to say but I don't know if I really have the energy to write it all out. I find a lot of the talk here about procedures on GMing and not simply relying on rolls can be equally applied to non-OSR games, not as something OSR games pioneered or have exclusive say in.

Second, there are many different ways of doing rules-light games, and OSR are just one of them. There are games that give the GM freedom to apply consequences as befits "the fiction", but also in ways that make them feel a lot less arbitrary than "because I'm the GM and I say so", and I find that helps a tremendous amount in making the game feel fair and not as the GM's personal playground subject to their whims.

I agree with both points here. There's no reason a player who is maybe less than a social butterfly can't play some uber-charismatic leader if she wants to. That's what role-playing is all about! I'm not a master thief in real life, but it sounds fun to play that role in a game.

And knowing when NOT to consult the dice is a fantastic GM skill in any system. I'd put it in the top five of GM skills.

And, of course, there are many rules-lite systems. Some borrow a lot from OSR, and some are more narrative style. Different strokes for different folks.