Interacting with the world: Insert pun about 'character limits'

I was thinking about something with regard to this recent article on The Alexandrian.

In tabletop roleplaying games, what is the exact extent of a player character's interaction with the world?

A common answer is: The player determines their character's actions. (In settings where thoughts and feelings can supernaturally impact the world without action, the player determines those too.)

I think that this holds, at least in traditional games (I'm not looking at collaborative storytelling here), with five caveats.

The player determines their character's actions

1.  ...Or several characters' actions
2.  ...Except sometimes when they don't
3.  ...But is not obliged to model a mental state
4.  ...And nothing else in the game world
5.  ...And more, when creating characters

...Or several characters' actions

Familiars, cohorts, hirelings, apprentices, summoned creatures, mercenary troops, battlefield formations... A player may at times be called upon to take responsibility for a character that is not strictly "theirs". A few games directly support or require multiple characters per player.

Often there is a distinction: these are not 'player characters', but the player has a secondary character assigned to them, perhaps temporarily. This distinction can mean that they are treated as special cases: the GM might assign a player to determine a character's actions but still use morale rules, or the responsibility begins (or ends) at combat, or the GM might sometimes overrule the player's decision based on their own conception of the character.

Sometimes a player might take over a character for a missing player. But in general, other than in exceptional circumstances, no player directly decides another player character's actions.

...Except sometimes when they don't

Sometimes the GM will need to take partial or full control away from the player. Usually this is due to organic or supernatural effects on the mind: charm, hypnosis, terror, hallucinations, mind control, sleep deprival, infiltration by doppelgangers, and so on. Without some within-world effect, in traditional games pretty much The One Thing The GM Cannot Do is depriving a player of agency by dictating their character's actions.

Characters' actions are also, technically, constrained by spoken or unspoken rules about what is acceptable gameplay. Even if a player determines that their character thinks X is the best move in the current situation, they will not (or at least ought not) have their character do X if X is contrary to the social compact at the table. This can be difficult for a player to reconcile, but a minor consideration due to its rarity (or if it's a common occurrence, then something is going wrong at a deeper level).

...But is not obliged to model a mental state

Characters, whether GM-controlled or player-controlled, should have a set of beliefs, goals, prejudices, flaws, values, etc, i.e., an internal mental state. However, because it's not fun (and also not possible) to fully model every aspect of an imagined mind, the internal mental state is always significantly abstracted.

In practice, people roleplay in different ways, along different axes. Here's one:

Some people default to roleplaying by immersion: they mentally take on the mantle of their character's abstracted internal mental state and that determines the choices they make 'as' their character.

Other people default to roleplaying by decision-making: they look at the component pieces of their character's abstracted internal mental state and use them to make choices 'for' their character.

So players aren't necessarily keeping track of a character's changing mental state. (Possibly relevant: Research says a small majority of people don't experience inner monologue at all.) This means that if the GM ever has an interest in what a character is thinking, it's not as simple as just asking the player.

In general, in a traditional game, the GM asking 'hey Derek, what is Dyrok the Thundersworn thinking about this revelation?' is breaking the rules, or at least this should be understood as coded language that actually means 'hey Derek, does Dyrok the Thundersworn visibly react to or say anything about this revelation?'

(That's not just pedantry. In traditional TTRPG play, other players' characters shouldn't know what another player character is thinking/feeling, unless the player decides that their character announces or indicates their thoughts/feelings via action! If the GM really truly needs to know something about the player character's abstracted internal mental state – e.g., due to something magical which interacts with thoughts or emotions – then this should be conveyed secretly.)

Corollary: In general, a player or GM can find out what their own character is thinking/feeling by deciding the answer, and has no way to find out what another character is thinking/feeling except by having their own character interact with the world (ask a question, cast a spell of divination, etc).

...And nothing else in the game world

Players decide how their characters act (and might decide what their characters think/feel) and don't decide anything else.

Again, I'm talking specifically about traditional tabletop roleplaying games. Collaborative storytelling games, and adversarial storytelling games, and group storytelling activities, and semi-structured roleplaying, and improvisation games, and so on, are a different beast.

Some modern tabletop roleplaying games officially (i.e., in their rules) depart from this model. Some modern tabletop roleplaying game groups unofficially (i.e., in their mode of play rather than the rules of the TTRPG they're playing) depart from this model. 'Hey Derek, you recognise these as the Sleety Mountains, which you've read about extensively. Tell us what the Sleety Mountains are like.' This is fine of course, as long as everyone is on board with it.

I think it's worth a word of caution, though: if this is your default way of playing, you might not know that it yucks some people's yum. Asking some players to build some of the world they're playing in will ruin the game for them (especially if it's unexpected, or contrary to the rules of the TTRPG). Players having the ability to implicitly determine parts of the world can make it feel less real: a lowering of the stakes, a reduction of verisimilitude, a perception that the GM is winging it or not invested in their own world or has lost control, a feeling that the way things go is a result of players' whims instead of characters' in-world decisions, etc.

(Aside: I quite often see group norms of player creative input into the world these days, even when using rule systems that don't allow it. I wonder if it's a trend that developed from getting into the hobby via D&D streams, where it's natural that professional actors doing improv for public entertainment would bend in that direction. Or maybe that's just a highly visible instance of a phenomenon that's always been there: in accounts of original Blackmoor, arguably the world's first TTRPG, Arneson was often incorporating and changing things based on his players' ideas - the cleric class, 'multiple hits', etc.)

In general, in traditional TTRPG play, players can expect there to exist a GM-determined answer to every question they could potentially ask about the world. However, their character may or may not have a way of accessing any particular answer, and the GM may or may not have determined the answer ahead of time.

...And more, when creating characters

There's an exception to the last subsection.

Players do have creative control outside of their characters' actions in one domain: character creation. Players are almost always allowed to choose their characters' parentage, gender, name, and age. Usually they can also choose the details of the character's mind and body. And often they can create their character's past, via backstory, which typically involves doing some limited worldbuilding.

Systems and GMs vary as to expectations and extent in this regard. But even in the most traditional oldschool game where a character is mostly a tuple of <nine numbers, name, list of starting equipment>, the scope of the player's interaction with the world is expanded when it comes to how their character came to be.

In sum

Those are, I think, the permissible ways for a player to have their character interact with the world from a traditional TTRPG play perspective. In general, the GM's control of the world is absolute outside of a player character's thoughts, feelings, actions, and history, and the player's control of those things is near-absolute.

I like games with some storytelling elements, too. I even helped write this free one. But I think there's something clean about the players having control over exactly one little set of things. It helps their skills shine.