RfP #013 - The Art of Player Agency

You're listening to episode 13, the Art of Player Agency. It's time once again to roll for Percept. I'm Terry, your forever GM and lover of all things roleplay.

And I'm Evelyn, roleplayer GM and unrepentant dice goblin.

Join us as we roll our dice.

And talk in strange voices and bring.

To you our excitement and joy for all things tabletop roleplaying.

For more on roll for Perceptacast, head over to www.rollforperception.com.

Yup. This episode 13 an unlucky number? Correct.

I mean, depends on how you look at it. You know, 13 can be very lucky if you know you need to at least roll a 13 to succeed on whatever you're trying to succeed on.

Well, and I feel like there are some Asian countries that actual 13 is a lucky number.

Might be. I don't know.

I know more about.

I need to do more research.

I know. I know more about color theory than I do numbers because I know in some Asian countries white is a morning color.

Exactly that one. So I just don't know about numbers.

No, I know. Oh, well, sorry folks, we're, we're getting off track.

Of the episode already off the rails this week.

We are talking, as you heard, about understanding and, or the art of player agency. And we're going to begin today talking about what is player agency. So what is player agency?

I mean, the literal definition or just how I think of it?

Yeah, so let's start there.

Letting a player have full power over their character and what happens to their character essentially.

All right, so now then, what's the actual definition?

I don't know. I don't have a dictionary definition. Why don't you tell me? Because I'm sure you do.

I actually don't. It's one of the few, because it's one of those things that player agency is just something that I know and that we understand as players and as GMs.

And so don't take away your players choices is essentially what it means.

Yeah. And so what we're going to be talking about today is some different topics that kind of relate to player agency. We, you know, as you just said, don't take away player agency. And player agency has a huge impact on the gaming experience.

Yeah, absolutely. It affects how immersed you are to within your actual character that you're playing. So, you know, that's kind of a major part of the game if you want to have a good game, which.

I think many times we do want to have.

We hope for that at least.

Maybe. Uh. All right, so. So can you think just off the. Off the top of your head, can you think of a moment in a game where player agency elevated the session?

Off the top of my head. Oh, goodness.

Yeah. I like to throw these out here.

Because I'm trying to think because, like, there's been so many moments where someone just makes a snap decision and we follow it. And I'm trying to think of a really good example of that.

Yeah, I. Well, and that's. I mean, we've played in a lot of games.

Oh, I. I know a great one. I know a great one. This was our friend Vivi.

Oh, okay.

Because she always made some really great choices.

She did.

But when your character was unconscious in the dungeon and she decided to marry you just to get to your horse while you were unconscious was such like a character choice. Now granted, this was like, not something that necessarily would. There was not something that, like, sure, when it would have been like, about, you know, but it was just such a funny moment and she just was like, yep, I'm going to do this just. Just to get to the horse. Because she loved that horse.

So what's nice about that is she wasn't stopped from doing that.

No. Yes, that was. That was lovely.

And that, you know, that's kind of the crux of this, of this, when we talk about player agency, is that it's allowing your players to do things without you, as the gm, saying, no, you can't do that.

Right. Within, obviously, a reasonable. Because, you know, boundary. Because you also have to remember that, like, you don't want your players character choices to infringe on your other player's enjoyment as well. So like that situation where Vivi was the Druid, she knew that Terry as his cavalier would consent to that action happening.

Right.

Whereas, like, if there was another situation.

What situation are you talking about?

I don't know. Portals. But where, you know, the. The other people that you are deciding to make those snap judgments with would not necessarily consent to that happening. That is where it becomes an issue.

Right.

And we'll kind of get to that further later. But consent is the biggest crux of that because you have to remember that, yes, let characters make creative choices.

Right.

But everybody has to be consenting to the outcome of those choices.

And so. And so on that real quickly. What. Which RPG systems do you think best support? Player agency?

I mean, every single one of them, I think, has the possibility. It just depends on the player's willingness to delve into making choices that like letting go a bit of this idea that everything has to be perfectly structured and you have to do it exactly this way. Or like, I can't be this if I don't do this. Like, I think every single one has the opportunity to do that. Obviously the more rules, light ones tend to be very open to that because you have to make more creative choices because you don't have as many. As much structure.

Right?

As much structure. But I think, you know, given the willingness of the person behind the screen and the other members at the table, I think really any of them have the potential to allow for some really awesome things to happen. It just, you know, letting go a bit of what the idea of what the perfect story is. Because sometimes as GMs, we get it into our head that we're going to tell the best story, this epic tale, and then someone makes a cool choice and we're like, but that's not how I wanted my story to work.

Yeah.

And you have to remember that like it's their story too. Yeah, you're telling it together. And sometimes you have to go, okay, this is going to shift things slightly. We can still get to the same major points, but we need to shift things a little bit.

Yeah, that's exactly it. I. The. You're, you're. I completely agree with you regarding Rule Lights systems. I'm seeing that in Legend of the Mist. I'm seeing that in Cipher System. I'm seeing the ability of players to kind of do what they want without being pigeonholed into things. And I think that's my. One of my big issues with The D&DS and the Pathfinder 2ES is maybe you've created a character, you know, in one direction, but, you know, you come to a lock and you want them to at least try picking the lock. And in some systems you're not allowed to.

Right.

Because you don't have the tools or you don't have the, the skill. And I think those can pull away from the player really controlling themselves. Not saying that somebody who has no training in it or doesn't have the tools is going to succeed, but they should be allowed to try.

Well, and I think that's where a lot of house ruling comes in for stuff like that in like those types of systems where that you, you would literally be precluded from doing that because of the certain class choices you've made.

Right.

I think it's where there you have a GM who goes, well, everybody can try something at least once. It doesn't mean you'll be successful at it. And it might mean the check is harder to make to do it.

Yes.

But like, I have a group who has a character who, like, he keeps breaking his lock picks. He's trained in thievery. He keeps breaking his lock picks and literally they've just started breaking all the doors down because it's a faster option to avoid the whole lock picking issue to begin with. So like, you know, there's, there's choices and I just roll. I'm like, okay, we got a broken down door, Cool, let's keep rolling.

I mean, that is a way to do it. Then you have other characters, I. E. One who couldn't break down a door in another game of ours.

And yet the sorcerer managed to get it open.

I know, it's brilliant. All right, all right, so let's refocus. Let's switch to another part of this. We want to look at balancing structured storylines with player driven narratives. And this is where it's important to kind of, as a gm, be able to balance things because you don't want to lose out on one or the other. We'll start with a structured storyline. And when I say structured, understand that. I don't mean that it is a straight line, on the rails structure in that sense. What I'm saying is most GMs have a general idea of where their story is going to go.

Yep.

I mean, you're GMing two games right now. Now, one of them is an adventure path, but the other is a homebrew. I'm GMing a homebrew game. We have ideas of where. And then my play by post is homebrew. So we have ideas of what is going to happen within our game.

Right? Yeah.

And it's important as a GM to have that. You don't want to be completely, completely lost. When you go into a session or a campaign, you want to have some idea. And at the same point, your characters, your players are going to bring characters to that system. They're going to bring characters into the world that you have created and you have built.

Exactly.

And so that idea is, how do you then integrate their narratives into the story? How do you strike that balance between plot and player freedom?

Well, one thing is a, which we've talked about this before, but utilizing backstory information because it helps figure out before the, the campaign's even begun how those pieces can fit into the campaign as a whole.

Right.

And then that allows them to work to those things where you've already kind of established little things for them to work for, you know, work toward. Because they've made choices.

Right.

To give you plot points and hooks that you can use for them to kind of pull that a little bit. Now, granted, you know, they also have to remember what they wrote in their backstories and then, you know, seek those things out.

Yes.

Because you can. You can sort of dangle that a bit at them, but if they're. If they're not interested at the certain point, then, you know, you. You can only dangle it so much before you have to move on to something else. So really utilizing those things to kind of encourage, you know, getting into those moments, but also being willing to, like, if they see something differently than the way you thought about it.

Right.

Allowing yourself to let that shift a little bit.

Yes.

So you can still keep it within kind of the same structure. And this is why I primarily work on story beats and, like, major points rather than, like, fully scripting out anything.

Yeah.

Because it just. I find it. It gives me enough structure but allows them wiggle room to play within it. Now, when you have an adventure path, obviously, that's very structured.

Yes.

But ones that are a little more sandboxy, like Sky King's Tomb, which is the one that I'm running right now, kind of allows them to bounce off the. The rubber walls of that, so to say, because, like, it. It allows a little bit of flexible room where you can still get to the point, but have opportunities to kind of go off track a bit. Because a lot of the adventure pass that are the more sandbags style like that actually has, like, story seeds and suggestions at the ends of the books so that, you know, like, okay, if they don't want to go in a straight line, they can come over here on this little detour and come back around later, you know?

Yeah. And if you're curious, we do talk a little bit about backstories in Roll for perceptor cast episode 10. Yep. So feel free to bop over to that if you're interested on our thoughts on that. And, you know, as you're saying this, as a gm, one of the biggest things is make sure that you're continuously looking back at a player's backstory so that you can incorporate it. Don't forget about it, because, again, this comes back to using their ideas to continue to move this story forward. And players have wonderful ideas. They come up with some really kickass things. And so as you're working on. Oh, man, that's gonna. I'm gonna have to say that we cursed in this one now.

Yep. We were doing so well. And that's two in a row.

Oh, Boggaribo. Okay, so I'll remember not to do that for our next episode. Sorry, guys. Children at home, please ignore what we just said.

We just went up to pg.

But as a, as a gm, also think about maybe, you know, if you, if you don't have a fully fleshed out arc, you know, if the, if your campaign you feel is going to be fairly lengthy, think about how you can use your players backstories to then create either arcs or side arcs.

Yeah.

How can you.

Opportunities for story.

Opportunities for story. Because a player's backstory can be. Can be just as intriguing as what the GM comes up with. Oh, yeah, we. We've. We've all. You know, I. There have been times that I've hit blocks and I look at a character's backstory and I go, I think we're going to go in this direction now because it's great to use something that's already created. All right, so have you ever had a time where player choice completely upended your plans?

Not so far. Not so far. I mean, you know, there's always that chance, but not so far. But I also have very, like clever players and they like making creative choices. And like I said, I try to keep things to story beats and like major points rather than. So really I can. I'm fairly flexible as far as like how I get to them to those points rather than like going, okay, you have to stay exactly on this track. You need to go exactly to this place. Like if they ran the opposite direction, either of these groups right now, like, I could totally find a way to get them back to the major points at, at the, you know, time that they need to.

So as a gm, some things not to do. Right. Don't. And you said this earlier, don't stick to a pre written script. Right. Even in an adventure path, allow yourself. Or an adventure module, allow yourself to kind of veer off if you need to and don't ignore the player's contributions and decisions. And this is something that you, as you're running a session, make sure we talk all the time about player engagement. But this is a point that the GM has to be engaged as well.

Yes.

Because a lot of times you will see a GM get so stuck in what they're doing and what they want to do that they won't see what their players are doing.

Right.

They'll continue to GM and they'll continue to do things, but eventually what happens is some tension Builds and there's a clashing and well, bad things are going to happen.

Nobody wants that.

No, exactly. And of course avoid overwhelming your players with too many open ended choices so that they have so many things to finish all at once.

Right.

I have. That is something that I probably pay attention to more than anything else myself because I know that I would be willing to go in six different directions and I'm more than happy to throw those things out there.

Right. But you have to, you have to know what your player's limit is. Because like I could run around with 20 quest lines like I'm playing a World of Warcraft game, but I don't think that's necessarily the way a lot of people want to play either.

So this question. This question or that quest to skip. Skip. It's. That's exactly it. And we, we also have to understand that a sand. But a sandbox. A sandbox doesn't mean chaos.

No. It just means a place to play.

Yeah.

And build stuff.

And we're talking about TTRPGs.

I know.

Okay, good.

I mean it can be both. Why not both? Both is good.

Man, that would be great. Having an in person session where you just put a sandbox on the table and you're like, your group is in the desert.

Go start building a whole village out of sand castles. We're building the town. Give us like 20 minutes.

I want to do this now.

World's messiest campaign right there.

Allow your. Allow yourself to have some flexible endpoints. You know we talk about these arcs. Right. Don't be afraid to let your arc bounce in a different direction at the end.

Oh yeah.

Like you might have this idea, this plan that you're going to do this and your player is going to come out and go, nah, I think I'm just going to take this guy out to dinner. Oh my gosh. That was like the Kobolds when we were doing Friday night roll for Perception Nights. And the group that I was jamming at the time, we were doing some Pathfinder 2e and they had run into some Cobalt outside of Atari.

Yes.

And they. I realize I say. And a lot I need to say and a lot less sorry. Side. Side venture. They decided they were going to befriend these Kobolds.

Well, yes, we had to invite them to the fishy clubhouse.

And that's exactly. Invited him to the fishy clubhouse. Now we never got to go to the fishy clubhouse, unfortunately with them, you know. But that was one of those cool things like what's supposed to happen is they're supposed to be defeated.

I was inviting everybody to dinner.

I know you were.

A lot of people took us up on it. A lot of them did not.

And so, you know, those. Those kobolds were supposed to be defeated, but instead what happened is they said, yeah, we're super excited about this dinner. Can't wait for it. So. And that was in. That's in an adventure book.

Right.

And I just decided to switch that part.

Yeah.

You can do that. If your players come with you with some agency. Switch it.

I think so many, like, adventure paths and things that are like, you have to do this combat exactly this way. Have so many opportunities for other things to happen that isn't combat. That one of the big things is, like, everybody defaults to combat.

Yes. Yes, they do.

And, like, I found that a lot of times with kids, they're more willing to try to befriend.

Oh, yeah.

Because kids don't see the world as everything needs to be defeated. You know, I mean, some do, but, like, a lot of times they're like, well, let's try talking it out first.

Or tickling.

Tickling works well to tickle all.

Which we just. We just had that happen in our Gumdrops and Gumptions.

Yes.

Campaign that we're currently running.

There was tickling.

They. They tickled the. The Pirate Captain.

Yep.

Who gave in.

Yep.

You know, sometimes that has.

It was his weakness.

Tickled.

Tickled. But I mean, like, in general, a lot of times there are characters who. I mean, Adventure Pass, a lot of times have it written in that they. There's other options.

Right.

Sometimes they don't. But I still like to give my players that option if they want to approach that. Like, I have so many. I've had so many situations where, like, my players, like, okay, we're adopting all the Goblins because they're just so cute and adorable and they're like, well, you know, super technically, they're supposed to be the bad guys in this, but they'll make friends with you because you guys are nice, you know, so you guys are awesome. And you offer them shiny things. And Goblins love shiny things.

All right, so that. That's balancing structure. Let's move into encouraging player creativity.

Yeah.

I love creative characters. I love creative players. I love when players can sit and come up with something weird and fun and interesting. I like it better now that I'm doing more rules, lights, games.

Right.

It was much more diff. I. I look back on my early days of DMing, especially when I was doing A lot of paid dming. I was such a, like a stickler on the rules. And I'm realizing if I could go back now, I would have changed that because I do feel that when you're a stickler on the rules, it kills the creativity of the players. They're not willing to come up with cool ideas because they just assume it's.

They're gonna get shot down.

Yeah, that's exactly it. So some techniques for fostering a creative environment. One of the first and biggest is open ended questions and prompts. You know, one of the biggest ones that we all hear. What do you do next? Right.

Well, how do you proceed? And that's usually how I start my sessions. I do a recap.

Right.

Or I let my players do the recap, depending on the group. And then I say, so this is where you ended last time. How would you like to proceed? Yeah, because I, you know, they could be in the middle of combat and they could just say, yeah, we're done. Let's, let's walk out of here. And I'd be fine with that. You know, they could be in the middle of a major roleplay scene and they'd be like, yeah, we're done with that. And you just have to roll with that, you know, and sometimes you have to take those pre planned things and just wad it up and throw it over your shoulder and be okay with that.

Yeah, And I've had to do that. I've had to do that. And you know, that's. But that's part of the fun, Right? As a gm, seeing that happen just means that the session is going to be that much more unpredictable and interesting. Of course. I'm a big fan also of collaborative world building.

Absolutely.

I like having my players help build the world that is surrounding them, which we've been doing. Yep. I have to be careful sometimes because sometimes players get a little too enthusiastic.

I don't know who you could possibly.

I won't name names. That player may listen and they may realize it's them. But I do like having, in fact, with our Cipher game, that podcast hopefully coming out in about two weeks. In our Cipher game, the world is actively being built by the players you described to the mayor.

Yes, I did.

That's what the mayor looks like. You came up with a religion, it's there. Eric came up with a city. It's there. We came up with Shunkles.

Oh, and Pinnacles.

And Pinnacles.

That's our currency system.

It's our currency system.

We still got to figure out the other coinage.

But why has there got to be more? I think it's just two coinage types.

Well see no, but we were talking about how like they have the coin changer. So there's other currency types in other.

Areas that will be developed as we'll get there. But having your players participate that in that if you're playing either in a fully homebrew world or, or in a known world with homebrew elements.

Right. Like my Thursday afternoon game is it.

Gives them buy em.

Exactly. It gives them something to invest in and it gives them something to get excited about adding to.

Yes. Oh yeah. Then you've also got rewarding creative problem solving and role playing which again and I'm going to say it is harder to do in crunchy games.

That's when you give them hero points.

Right. But, but that's again, but that doesn't.

Necessarily feel as like much of a like reward as you might want to give them for cool choices. Like yeah, hero point gives them an extra, you know, reroll of a die. But does that always feel great?

I remember when I was jamming Quest RPG with our Sunday morning coffee TTRPG week which was, was fantastic. We had some creative problem solving in that because we had a mix of ages that were playing, we had a mix of people that were playing and it was just fun.

Yeah.

And so, and it was one of.

The games that was a drop in like anybody could show up and play.

Correct, correct. So. So think about, you know, think about how you reward that creative problem solving. Let them, let them be epic. Yeah.

I like do cool stuff.

So some ways you can do this without derailing your campaign. Something that you've created is allow player driven side quests. I've talked about before, I'm not going to talk about again because I've talked to death about it. But Shore Wind Sister, you know, any type of side quest like that that they can go on is, is going to, it's going to enhance their enjoyment of the game.

Absolutely.

Now of course if your players don't necessarily give you background information, it becomes more difficult. But that's where you've got to encourage that you've got to encourage and you don't need, you don't need a nine page story.

But also. Yeah, I'm gonna totally interrupt. I apologize.

No, that's good.

But also even if they don't give you a backstory sometimes they're just like hey, I'm gonna repair your roof and that becomes a side quest for them.

Yeah, that happened. That happened. In Lost Vale of Chalice Storm.

Yep.

Yeah, no I remember. Never did repair that roof either.

Nope, didn't get around to that one.

One of these days, these side quests will actually complete.

See, that'll be a great one. Like our adventure. Like mini campaigns. It's just gonna be a collection of side quests that we never got around to. Dinner. Dinner with Cobalt. Repairing the chef in the barracks's roof.

Yeah.

You know.

Oh my gosh. We could. If we sat here long enough, we could probably think of so many little side quests that we started.

It would be kind of fun just to do a bunch of little one off.

Like, oh, one from the break rpg.

We wanted to open a bakery.

That's. Yep, yep.

So side quest. Like we could literally do a collection of side quests and just have them.

Yeah.

Yeah, that could be fun.

Anyway, I want to play Break again. That was so fun.

That was a really fun one.

All right. Of course, integrating players ideas into the main story. We've talked about that. Utilizing session zero to set expectations and gather input. This is actually kind of important.

Oh yeah.

Especially if you plan on incorporating the players writing into the campaign. The players need to know that it's going to be coming.

Right, exactly right.

You don't want to kind of throw that on to them last minute because things could go sideways. They might not be ready for it. It's just one of those things. It's communication. Right.

Yeah. I mean, once again, TTRPGs are like good relationships. As long as you communicate, things will go well.

It's so true. So true. All right, so some things not to do, of course, don't shut down players ideas without consideration. And this is going to be hard for some of you. I'm looking at you, Frederick.

Calling out Frederick.

Yep. A new name this week. Not Jonathan.

This is Frederick anymore.

You've got to avoid shutting down players ideas. Look, at least think about it. Somebody comes up with an idea, you go, let me see. And it might not work. Oh yeah, that's fine. But at least consider it because you might have very easily pushed past something that in the long run could be super epic.

Right.

So don't do that. And don't favor one player's creativity over another. Yeah, I've read enough of RPG horror stories on Reddit.

Yeah. Where like there's the person who a lot of times is either like related to the. The DMGM or the significant other of the dmgm.

Or the Crush.

Or the Crush. Like is it typically is one of these three things or like their long, long time friends and they have a bunch of new players at the table. So one of these types of things and then they favor that person over all the other players, the whole thing. And like they're like RPG horror stories 100. So many of them about like my GM is favoring. Blah. I haven't even talked in a session in like three weeks. Should I quit this game? It's so terrible. And it's like, yes, you should quit that game. Like that sounds miserable. And you know, it's important to try to now balancing it can be hard because you don't, you know, at certain points, if you're focusing on one of the side quests at a point, you know it's going to be more focused on that character for a little bit. But you have to kind of remember how to spread the love around. Let everyone and you know, give them all, you know, at least equivalent time to focus on the things that they're trying to accomplish.

Yes. Completely and totally. And of course, avoid creating an environment where players feel their input is irrelevant.

Yeah. If you're constantly shutting them down, they're always going to feel like they're.

Why.

Why even say anything?

Well, and the, the, the game's gonna feel, it's gonna, it might feel great to you as the gm, but it's gonna feel so boring to your players.

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Because it's going to feel like they are sitting on a railroad track. Yeah. You know, adventure paths are the worst about that.

Yeah.

We look back on Outlaws Alkinstar and we learned a lot.

Well. And a lot of the problem with Outlaws of Alkanstar, like it was a great setting.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

And like the lore and stuff was great, but it gave you so little time to actually develop your characters.

Yes.

Because it has to be on a timer because of the nature of what's happening. Literally things are going to explode.

Yes.

And so like you're, you're running on a lit fuse, essentially the entire adventure path. And so like you don't ever get really a moment to go, you know. And that also means that you don't really get to develop the characters very much.

Right.

So like we had character deaths where we weren't really super attached to the characters because there just wasn't time to figure out really who they were.

No. And that's. Yeah, it. Yeah, it's rough. Let me talk a little bit about a session where a player idea reshaped the direction of a campaign and I'm going to look at Echoes of Archonic's isle, where what you all did in the first hour of that campaign completely changed the direction that it was going in. Yeah, I was able to keep some parts of it, but the players in that group, we had four players, five players. Four players.

I think it was just.

It was four is you, Robert. It was Don and it was Eric, I think. So we had four players playing and what they came up with was unbelievable. And so my initial ideas of what was going to happen veered.

Yeah.

And it was all about opening a bakery eventually.

Yeah.

And oh man, so much sugar in that campaign. The Sugar Skulls. Such a great group.

That's a fun one though.

All right, let's talk a little bit next up about maintaining coherence in the campaign.

That sounds like a question.

Coherence, question mark, question mark. So these are some ideas that you can do to help as a gm, to help use these players ideas and continue their ability to do what they wish to do through the story. It's about weaving the player's actions into the main storyline. And so one of the things that you might need to do is reframe the player decisions to fit in the narrative. And what I mean by that, players are going to make decisions. They're going to say, I'm going to do this. Which when you originally developed the campaign might not have made any sense.

Right.

And so as a gm, you've got to go. Okay, they've decided to go to point B instead of point A based on all of this information that I gave them about point A. Like I had an NBC tell them they should go to point A. They found clues that pointed to point A and there was this little speck of dirt that said point B. Seems pretty cool.

Yeah.

And that's what they latched onto.

That reminds me of that like, that meme about like the like ominous looking guy with the like the bones floating around his head. And then there's a goblin named Sam Smorkel. And everybody wants to talk to Sam Smirkle. Instead of the obvious, like quest giver. Sometimes you gotta let your players talk to Sam Smorkel. Just do it.

Goblins, they make the best. Sam Snorkel.

Sam Smorkel, Smorkle.

Smorkle. I need to look at that. I'm, I'm. Evelyn has much more memory than I do.

Well, I, I make them.

Yeah, I know, I know. Of course, using recurring NPCs and plot devices to kind of tie the events together. So if your group does something unexpected, use your NPCs and let them Figure out a way to weave what they've done back into the story that we're already doing.

Absolutely. Yeah.

And now obviously that means you're going to have to make sure that you know your NPCs and have developed your NPCs and know how to use them within the context of what is happening. But NPCs are powerful things.

Oh yeah. They are the voice of the gm. They are the, the way the, that you can insert yourself into the story, you know, and I know that most GMs have their favorite NPCs that they keep pulling back and go, okay, you, you go tell the kids to come.

And play Five for Fighting.

Yeah. Yes. Yep.

That's my, that's my group.

Yeah, I know.

Every campaign. They haven't showed up yet.

Not yet.

Not yet. They will.

Was worried that Jonathan was going to be one of the members, but not so far.

Nope. And if you want to read a little bit about NPC creation, I wrote a blog post. You can find it on rollforperception.com it's all about NPC creation and how I'm now doing it, which finally feels like a very comfortable way for me to create the characters that can be incorporated into the stories. And you guys have met a couple, several already in Cipher System you've got names of about a quarter of them. So that's good. And then you just blumb past all the rest. It's okay though.

I'm asking everybody's name for their mother's maiden name and their last four digits of the Social Security number going forward.

And one of the things you might have to do as the GM is kind of find a way to work the players ideas into the thematic ideas that you've created. Massage them in, coax them, coax them. Because sometimes players ideas don't fit what's going on.

No. Sometimes they're like a wet cat they will struggle to find. But you'll get it, you know, in there eventually.

So we're hoping, we're hoping beyond hope that our, that our, our current game, Thousand's End.

Yeah.

Will have that ability to have the players backstories really weave into the game. And that's important because you know, you've got to keep the campaign from turning into disconnected Stories.

Right, right, right.

Have you ever had that happen with Disconnected Stories?

Not so far.

Been lucky.

I mean I've also, I've only, you know, like I said, for a long time I was only running like one shots and many things. So like you can kind of make it work for. For those much easier than you can.

But have you seen it in any.

Of the games that you've played where like the.

A player, several players, their stories are kind of going off in all directions?

It can. Especially if you have a character that's very much just pure chaos.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, they will just do whatever pops in at the moment and that can make things a little like, hard to. To wrangle. I've seen, you know, this happen to DMs before where like, especially when. And I, and I call this feral Goblin mode. You might not actually be a goblin, but like where a player. And like I said, I've been lucky not to have this to deal with this as a DM so far.

Right.

But I've seen it happen at tables where like a character just decides they're gonna do whatever seems the most like, interesting thing at the moment. And it can completely like, kind of upend.

Yeah.

The, the, the pacing. It can kind of break the, the roleplay moment too if they just completely go. I'm gonna, you know, we've been having this great diplomacy discussion and I'm just going to like, stab this guy. And it's like, what? Why?

Just for the funsies.

Yeah. Sometimes it's just like, why though?

All right, let's roll into some practical tips for GMs. All right, first off, and you actually talked a little bit about this. And so I want you to kind of go in a little more in depth if you're willing to. But yeah, the idea of flexible story beats or, or I don't remember how you put it now because I didn't.

Write it down, like, basically like arc. Like arc points.

Yeah.

So a lot of times I'll, you know, write down a couple of sentences roughly. So one of the things I learned, I'm just gonna side note, one of the things that I learned early on is when my. With my first couple of games that I ran, I was super over preparing for things. Like I was writing out full scripts for my NPCs to say and like trying to like track down where I wrote that stuff where. Whereas now I've gotten to the point where I like just make a bulleted list essentially of the points I need them to hit to convey the information. But also like, whenever I'm sitting down to prepare for a session, like, I make sure to keep track of like, what the major arc that I'm in right now because like I have all my mini arcs and then I have my big Overarching things that I'm trying to accomplish by the end based on however many levels that they're doing. But I always go, okay, so here's the main thing I'm trying to do right now. And then I kind of jot down a few ideas of the direction things could potentially go and how I would handle those. And then, like. But those always were kind of flexible. Like, I never. Like, I never want to have it be a situation where it's so set in stone that I can't go anywhere with it. Especially, like. Especially in a remote game.

Right.

Because I can't just, like, go grab a map from another room, throw it on a table, throw some minis on it and call it good. Like, I have to have kind of, like, general ideas.

Right.

And then prepare for other possibilities.

Yep.

But, like, it. Like I said, it's not strict preparation. It's like, kind of loose preparation. Okay, this could happen. Maybe this. If this. If 9 of none of those things happen, maybe I can pull over from this. But, like, if they start going down the road, I gotta know the destination. And, like, I love when they make that choice to just go, I'm gonna go down the road. Like, okay, let's do that. Let's. Let's definitely do that. Let me find where you're going based on these things that we kind of need to hit to make the general arc happen.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. No, that's the Midwest.

Yeah. No, no.

Yeah, no. Yeah, that I've. I've. I've come to take as part of myself now, of course, using session summaries to reinforce plot coherence. I think we both do that, generally speaking. And it's a great way to. We talked about reframing as a callback. It's a great way to reframe something that was done into the story as a whole.

Well, it's a great way to, like, refresh everybody's memory, because not everyone is a great note taker, and that's okay. Like, I don't. You know, I don't expect every single one of the people that sit down at my table to be an amazing scribe. Like, it's my job to help, like, if. If you. You know, if you have a great note taker, that's awesome. We love you, but, you know, it. The point is to kind of work together with those things and at least, you know, hit those major points. It's like. Like, for example, my Thursday night group, I have them tell me what happened, and then I help Refill in maybe some of the things that were a little murkier that, that got lost in the remembering. So that, that way when they start, they kind of have all the details that they should have.

Right.

Because I think in some ways it's very unreasonable the way that some people expect you to remember exactly what happened 18 sessions ago. Right. Like, I am a good note taker.

Yes, you are. I'll agree.

And, but even like, I, it takes me a while to flip back through all of my notes to something because, like, I don't. I cannot keep in my brain, you know, however many months later this thing. That was an important plot point in session number five.

Right.

That is now reemerged in session number 25.

Correct.

And so I think expecting any of your players to do that, unless they have like eidetic memory, which is like, cool, but like, not everybody does.

No.

Kind of rare. And so like expecting them to do that, you have to make sure that, like, there's a reason why your favorite TV shows have a recap so that you know what you forgot from the previous season. It's. It kind of works the same way in.

Yes.

This, in, you know, TTRPGs. You got to recap those things and you got to remind them, hey, you met this person a while ago. They were significant because.

Yes.

And then a lot of times that'll trigger that. Oh yeah, I remember that person because, you know, it just, I just, I, I can't expect my players to like, I appreciate them being involved and I appreciate them taking notes, but I can't expect them to like, devout, you know, devote all of their personal time to scouring over their notes and living the story over and over again because they're human and they have lives of their own outside of my game. And, you know, I can't expect them to devote more time to the game than they do or can because people have lives outside of the game.

I expect them to fully devote all of their life to my games.

Oh, I know.

It just.

The lashings will continue until morale improves.

Oh, man. One of the big things to avoid is obviously adversarial relationships between GM and players. I mean, we've talked about this ad nauseam. It's nothing new. But if that happens, the ability of the player to really feel like they can be comfortable doing what they feel like they should be able to do is going to be not good.

Yeah, that's where you have breakdown at the table. And that is going to probably end the campaign flat out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pretty much. Every time.

Yeah. What's some advice for new GMs struggling to let go of control?

This is one of those things that the more you do it, and I mean gm, the better you'll get to understand this. But you may be God of this universe, but your players get to play a role in that too. And if you can't let go of a preconceived idea of what it should be, your game will not last.

No.

Period.

Correct.

And you will discover nine times out of ten that you will have way more enjoyment if you loosen those reins. Let them run free. Because like, like we've said many times in this episode so far, your players have great ideas. And just as much as you know you want to tell a good story, they do too. Like, they're invested in it. Their character to them is important. They don't want their character to die. But man, those moments of sacrifice where they're like, I'm going to do this thing and it's just going to be so powerful because, like, maybe they go completely against their character type and save everybody. The, the, this roguish type that's always been selfish, that's always done it for themselves. And they're like, nah, this moment, these people are too important for me. And that's a good story. I apologize. That was a swear word. But that's such a good story. That's such a good story. Like, it's such powerful, like, powerful moment. And it will always, like, trump anything because it's completely spontaneous and character driven.

As a, as a extremely wise woman once said, playa's gonna play, play, play, play.

Yeah, they will.

So. So let them.

Yeah.

You like that?

I liked it. I liked the. I like the reference. It was good.

All right, so let's, let's do a quick recap of some of the things that we talked about today as we start to pull towards the end of this week's session. Understanding player agency. We know players want to control their characters. They want to do things. They want to have a say in how their characters are used. You want to balance the storylines that both the structured and the player driven, they need to come together as a complement to each other. That work in harmony as you develop your campaign. Three, you want to encourage player character creativity. Don't, don't deny them. Let them do within the rule set. You know, we're not going to let them be chaos monkeys. Let them do things. Four, maintain coherence in the campaign. And then five, we talked about some tips. I mean, this really is about making the campaign something that both you and the players can both enjoy and be proud of. Yes.

Well. And there's lots of resources out there to, like, help you with these things, too. You can find videos on YouTube and blogs all over the place.

Yeah.

So if you ever have questions where you're like, okay, I feel like I'm stifling my players a bit. What can I do to kind of help step back a little bit. And I mean, that's a good step. Right there. Is just realizing that things are being. There's a problem that you can fix.

Right.

But also one of the major things is. And I emphasized the importance of session zero before, but it's so important that when you sat down with your players for the session zero, that you're very honest and upfront about how you gm.

Yes.

How you handle your storytelling. You know, what kind of, you know, are you able to let go of the reins?

Right.

Because some players are fine with being railroady all the time.

Oh, yeah.

Some players are fine with that. But you need to be very honest with them up front about that so that they know when they're coming in, what to expect. Because if they are expecting something a little more loose and free flow, and you, like, clamp down and say, this, this story is mine, and this is how it has to be, you're gonna lose your players, like, day one. So if you want your players to be the type of players that, you know, are. That. Find those people.

Yes.

Find your people. It's, you know, make. Make your table the table that you want to play at. You know, and that's one of the things that's, like, really important for us as GMs to think about. Would I want to play at my table?

Right.

Every single time? Would I want to be part of the story I'm telling? Would I feel comfortable being a player with myself? Would I allow myself the ability to make choices for my character that are meaningful and impactful?

Yes.

And just consider that because that can really help make it, everybody happy.

All right, so next week, our episode, we're going to be actually talking about the rules lawyer dilemma. Super excited about that episode. So make sure you tune into that. I also want to mention we are doing our giveaway for this month. The webpage is finally up and rocking. So if you're interested, we have a vase and core rulebook that we want to give away. We want you to send us your art and your stories. You can check out that information over on the website. It's at www.rollforperception.com vasin-giveaway and if you don't know how to spell Vasin, it's V A E S E. So send us your art, your stories. We want to give this away. We're accepting submissions until the 30th. Evelyn and I will be choosing the winner as we come to the end of the month. I want to thank all of our listeners. This has been. It's a good discussion. Player Agency is important, I know to you, and it's huge to me for lots of reasons. So I'm glad that people have had a chance. If you have a story about Player Agency, either positive or negative, make sure to send us that story and send it to us on our Facebook page. BlueSky, contactollforperception.com or discord@discord GG Backslash, RFP. Any of those are great ways. I think we have a contact page on the website, too. Yeah, I should double check. I'm not sure.

Pretty sure we have the voicemail thing.

Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, you can leave a voicemail on our website, which is pretty cool. Yeah, I like that a lot. As always, I want to thank you for joining us for this week's podcast. We hope we inspired you to continue your TTRPG journey, however that may look.

Make sure to stop by www.rollforperception.com and leave a comment on our podcast page. We're always looking to answer questions and discuss new TTRPGs, so make sure to have your D20 ready and your goblin voice arrested as you head out into.

The world of TTRPGs with roll for Perceptic.