D&D General What is player agency to you?

[EzekielRaiden]

Before I delve into a detailed answer, do you mind to elaborate on what if any difference you see with that and the third bullet point about deciding your shirt is blue?

Depends. I had taken that as simply a preplanned backstory thing, e.g. "Agnar the Wrinklebrained prefers to wear the heraldic colors of his clan, primarily blue." But if it's meant to be something said later, e.g. session 7 establishes that Agnar the Wrinklebrained has always worn blue shirts, then there doesn't seem to be much gap there. Same as establishing some important cultural fact "after" it should already be super well-known, or any other such "this has always been true we just didn't mention it until now" stuff.

The only real difference I can see with the "My shirts are, and have always been, blue" and "My character hates, and has always hated, elves" is that the former is more conceptually self-contained, but not totally so, while the latter is more outward-focusing, but again not totally so. That is, for example, the resolution to a mystery in my DW game once actually did turn on a player noticing that a fancy dress failed to remain a single distinct color (revealing that its wearer was a talented illusionist, and thus could have pretended to look like someone else, e.g. the murder victim, AFTER his actual time of death), while hatred of elves could end up being pure color in a game where elf NPCs are rare or irrelevant. The elf-hate is more likely to end up mattering, but neither has any guarantee of relevance nor lack thereof.

 

[FrogReaver]

I know what it's not:

I was reading the Agents of Dune rpg starter, and not only is the adventure highly railroaded (players often given binary choices; lists of potential answers that NPCs have for PC questions), but the box text will even have PC quotes for the gamester to read. At one point, the scenario tells the GM that it's okay to let players improvise a little but warns not to let them get too far from the plot.

Wow! That example sounds fairly egregious.

In general, for a linear RPG, your agency is mostly found in how, not what. And even then, most linear RPG's have some branches that are quite different (the what's). I typically have no problem with linear or menu of options. I like having a clear sense of what the heck I'm supposed to do in the game and the knowledge that the GM isn't having to totally make everything up on the fly because I went in a totally unexpected direction.

 

[pemerton]

Thanks for the obvious?

Do you find these baffling too?

 

[FrogReaver]

Thanks for the obvious?

Edit: on second thought this comes off much snarkier than the light hearted quip i meant for it to be. So apologies for that. I assume there's some reason you are pointing out these things and was hoping the quip would spur some additional explanation.

If you prefer I will delete (just let me know), but I also don't want you to think i was purposefully being snarky and just deleting to avoid reprimand.

@pemerton Apologies.

 

[FrogReaver]

Do you find these baffling too?

I do not.

 

[FrozenNorth]

If the player is given authorial power to establish a prior event or detail for the purpose of gaining an advantage in the games present - (whether that's via PC memory or other means), then that is very much what it meant by 'altering the games reality'.

That definition seems to imply that when a GM uses authorial power to establish a prior event or detail, than the GM is “altering the games’ reality”. Is that your intent?

I think it would normally be called railroading if the GM used his authorial power to establish a prior event or detail with the purpose of disadvantaging the players in the present scene.

And yes railroading is one form of altering the games reality.

With this clarification it seems that “with the purpose of advantaging the player” is a key part of your definition “altering the game’s reality”.

So let’s test this definition. Earlier in the thread, @EzekielRaiden gave the example of Conan coming up against an evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom. Conan’s player then declares that Thulsa Doom is the person who razed his tribe’s village several years ago.

The party was going to fight Thulsa Doom anyway: he’s the big bad of the scenario. Conan’s player gains no advantage from identifying Mr. Doom as a person from his past. So, this doesn’t qualify as “altering the game’s reality”?

 

[Oofta]

Although it really shouldn't be. Players do what your bullet point says all the time, even without realizing it. They make decisions for their characters on the spur of the moment and the justification for the decision comes later.

A group's very first adventure has them going into the woods and they come upon a band of goblins. Almost arbitrarily the DM calls for initiative and the players then fight the goblins. But at no point prior to that moment did that player necessarily think about how their PC felt about goblins, the DM never specifically said how goblins were considered bu humans in the world they were playing in, and the only reason a fight happened was because of the collective unconscious of D&D players and DMs that said "Goblins-- low-level D&D enemies-- fight them!"

In this case the entire table decided on a whim to alter the reality of the world by deciding that goblins are only there to be fought. Something that up until that point had never even been thought of, let along considered true. None of us can think of everything for our characters beforehand, we always have to make snap decisions that end up changing the world without us even knowing it is happening.

By default goblins usually default to evil in D&D unless stated otherwise. It's not the group suddenly deciding that the goblins are evil, it's the group assuming the default behavior of goblins because they haven't been told there are non-evil goblins in this campaign.

In my world, there are two types of goblins with the "normal" goblins PCs encounter being evil. If they encounter fey goblins, I'll let them know that they look (and act) different. If they are not evil goblins, then it's up to the DM to let the group know or at least give them a chance to know it.

 

[FrogReaver]

With this clarification it seems that “with the purpose of advantaging the player” is a key part of your definition “altering the game’s reality”.

Yes

So let’s test this definition.

Delightful

Earlier in the thread, @EzekielRaiden gave the example of Conan coming up against an evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom. Conan’s player then declares that Thulsa Doom is the person who razed his tribe’s village several years ago.

Assuming this is a D&D game and that all the declaration there was made up at that moment. If so then also assuming the DM has no issue with those details conflicting with something as of yet unrevealed (perhaps he had already wrote up the village as some important place that the players may eventually discover) I don't find that to be game altering. - though wanted to add, if the pcs goal had been to track down that sorcerer and campaign time had already been spent toward that end, then my answer would change.

That said it would be a stretch for most D&D players to do that. The more likley scenario - Player: we previously established in my backstory that my town was raised by a sorcerer, do i know if this is that sorcerer? DM: rolls a die - yes this is the same sorcerer, or no but he may have info on that sorcerers whereabouts!

The party was going to fight Thulsa Doom anyway: he’s the big bad of the scenario. Conan’s player gains no advantage from identifying Mr. Doom as a person from his past. So, this doesn’t qualify as “altering the game’s reality”?

Right.

 

[FrozenNorth]

It seems clear to me that the real issue is, people are very adverse to anything which can be parsed as declaring an advantage simply because. You can make attempts at things, and you can declare context, but you can't write "this is just what happened, which is beneficial to me." That's why 99.9% of the time when people balk at this, they very specifically bring up that players are using it to their advantage. You wouldn't see such a strenuously repeated refrain unless it mattered.

I’m not sure the issue is really players seeking an advantage. I think the real issue is DMs having to share authorial intent with players, particularly in circumstances where the players’ exercise of authorial intent conflicts with something the DM intends, but has not established at the table.

If your interpretation is true, a player who used authorial intent to disadvantage their character wouldn’t trigger a reaction, people’s posts suggest they do.

Which goes back to @pemerton ’s implied point. The phrase “altering the game’s reality” means altering the game state the GM holds in their head, even if it hasn’t been established at the table, and even if the game state as established at the table is consistent with two or more outcomes.

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m not sure the issue is really players seeking an advantage. I think the real issue is DMs having to share authorial intent with players, particularly in circumstances where the players’ exercise of authorial intent conflicts with something the DM intends, but has not established at the table.

Do you not think there's a rather large practical problem in a game where the DM has authorial control so that he can present the players with an engaging world to let players willy nilly override that?

I'd also suggest that this is very related to authorial power, but it's not like D&D is devoid of player authorial power, it's just extremely limited and the DM tends to have veto power unless it's a PC's present actions.

If your interpretation is true, a player who used authorial intent to disadvantage their character wouldn’t trigger a reaction, people’s posts suggest they do.

Do you mind to give me an example of a player using authorial intent to disadvantage their character that you suspect I'll have a problem with?

Which goes back to @pemerton ’s implied point. The phrase “altering the game’s reality” means altering the game state the GM holds in their head, even if it hasn’t been established at the table, and even if the game state as established at the table is consistent with two or more outcomes.

I understand your suspicion. Devise a test!