D&D General What is player agency to you?

[bloodtide]

Right, but you probably should. Whatever game you're talking about... I assume D&D... you apply what you're saying to all RPGs. Which is just inaccurate.

I think saying in general and most covers it all.

You did. See below:

Right, I stated that a Casual game has little or no prep. This is true for this game type.

This is just untrue of many games, even some within the overall umbrella of D&D.

Are you saying that it's untrue that there are games that have little or no prep? That seems odd as there are such games. Or are you just saying that no Casual game can ever have little or no prep?

No, that's not the only other way to do it. That's the whole point.

Ok, agreed.

I know what casual means in general usage. You seem to have a particular take on what a casual game means which I don't think is entirely accurate or clear.

Guess it's odd to see someone dig in so much about a common game type. I can try again. A couple people meet and say lets play an RPG. They pick one, pick a time and place. Both the GM and players do little or no prep...many players don't even make characters ahead of time and the GM makes the bare minimum like a map on the back of a Starbucks napkin that says 'hometown' and 'dungeon' on it. No one shows up on time for the game...but not one cares either. One or two players will almost always be rushing to make characters as they had "no time" all week. It's very common for player Bob to make character Bob. Everyone will laugh, joke, relax, tell stories, watch you tube videos and hang out. Eventually someone will mention the game. The GM will then say random stuff, the players will then say random stuff...and some dice will be rolled. But really no one will care much. A roll of "19" hits...whatever. A roll of "3" misses..whatever. But still no one cares. It's all about having fun....the PCS kill six dragons in six minutes...because it's fun.

I don't know why other is in quotes. But even D&D can be played differently than you describe.

There sure is no One Way to play.

Sure, any kind of clash in this way is due to misaligned expectations between participants.

So you've said in the past that you have some players who seem to want something different from the game. That's because you have different ideas about the game than they do. Obviously, when this happens, the different expectations should be discussed and worked out in some way, or else the participants should go their separate ways.

I agree. For any type of long term game I will not allow anyone who disagrees to join. My house rules are made to do this....many player take a glance at them and say "I'm out" and leave.

Note, I'm not opposed to never playing with 'disagreeable people'. Just last year a group of 'other' games came to me and asked if I would run a 5E Spelljammer game for them. They could not find a DM and knew I'm an Old School Spelljamming expert. I had them agree to my hard fun, harsh, unbalanced, unfair, old school game...and they did. We are close to a year later and this game is still going on....they have learns to love my game....they have amazingly found my 'hard game to be fun'. And they have not only found an Ultimate Helm, but have even found themselves a Smalljammer...and are well on their way to finding The Spelljammer.

Then, over the summer, there are a lot of players without games. Most of the regular games take 'summer breaks'. So the players ask me to run some games....though we all hate each other. So, I do, three dragon slaying games and another Spelljammer game.

You appear to be labeling them as "casual games" by default, though. And you're definitely describing them using poorly conceived and absurd examples.

I don't appear to be doing anything of the sort. Most RPGs can be played in any kind of style.

What you've described applies to everything in D&D, except I'd say the DM does what the rules say, which is also true of the games you're trying to talk about.

I think you missed the point that D&D, like most RPGs has the DM free to do anything and there are no "rules" for it. In most RPGs a DM can "just say" what the weather is...there are no rules about Weather. So it's not like DM is "following any rules".

Player wants to hit the orc and says so. Player makes an attack roll. DM does what rules say.

Well, note this is a direct binary action....not the player "adding to the fiction". It's also a reaction to something the DM created.

See the huge difference the character walks into orc lands and says "I keep my eye out for an orc and if I see one I hit it". Player makes a roll. GM says "there is an orc right next to you and you hit it"

And

Character walks into orc lands....asks the DM what is around. Dm says "you see a lone orc rushing down the road towards you". Player then says "I will attack" and combat is roll played out.

But, also, the big, big, big one here is in games like D&D there are so many complex rules and more combat rules that the "simple rules" might not cover everything...and even more so to the players limited view point. For example: The player rolls high and hits the orc....but the DM says the hit does no damage. The player can whine and complain that the "rules on page 11" say "when you hit to do damage" but it does not matter....because there are also lots of ways in the rules for a creature to not take damage or be immune to damage and many other things.....but the player might very well not know why no damage was taken. So it's layers of rules that often leave the poor player lost like a leaf in a tornado.

Player wants to pick a lock. Player makes an ability check. DM does what rules say.

Right....but now your switching to the rules for games like D&D, right? The DM and only the DM gets any say if there is a lock. Ad once the DM says 'there is a lock', then the player can roll a check, and the DM will adjudicate the action.

But again...this is not the example. The example is character walks to the back of the building where there is no secret entrance as the GM has not put one there or has not "made up anything about the back of the building". The player rolls a check. The GM then makes a secret door that the player wants and says "there it is".

How is this different than a player in D&D wanting their character to climb a wall?

Well, I'm guessing skill checks in both games are similar, so it really does not apply. After all we are talking about checks that give player agency.

But you're not even considering what happens if the roll fails.

Most other game examples have a "failing upwards" rule, right. So they "fail"....but still do the thing that was requested, just the GM adds a bit of hardship. Like the secret door is stuck so you need to take a minute to push it open.

In D&D, if such a roll failed (or if your notes said no secret door was present) you'd just say, "You don't find a secret entrance" and they'd all be back to the front gate. And what will they do there? Make a roll (or several, perhaps) and try to get what they want.

Right.

But in many other games, "nothing happens" is never an option for a failed roll. Something negative has to happen. So searching for a secret door at the back of the castle has a risk involved. Maybe they find it but it's also guarded. Or it's haunted by a dark spirit that's likely more dangerous than armed guards. Maybe they don't find it, and by the time they return to the front gate, there are additional guards there. Maybe they're spotted from the battlements as they make their way around the castle. Many games will have options for the GM to use based no what makes sense in the game world.

Again the example was....go to the back and find a secret door. You keep adding on tons of "oh well this or this or this" could happen too....but that is not the example.

Ultimately, what you're doing is forcing the conflict to go to the one you've had in mind... the front gate.

Well, no, there would be a least a couple other ways in by default like any place in a simulated reality world. I do oppose the Easy Button game play: where the players encounter anything, and then just 'roll' around it.

Other types of games are more open to there being more than one way to face or avoid an obstacle.

And I'm all for it.....except the Easy Button type where the player alters game reality.

In D&D, the player says they look for a secret door, and make a roll, and then the DM says "the secret door is right in front of you".

The differences are that in one, the DM decided that it was there prior to play, and in the other, if the roll is a failure, something bad is going to happen.

It's a huge difference between:

The DM creates something to be found as part of the game play

And

The Players can create things to avoid game play

Okay. I was trying to get a sense of how your players contribute to play, and this seemed like a good example, but now you're saying it wasn't really all that meaningful.

It's just too different.

Your way of agency is only the player using the rules.....my way has no rules.

Then how do you play?

The classic traditional "as GM I make the world/game reality and the players by the very limited use of their characters play though it "

That depends on the game and the GM. Even with D&D, I don't write everything down, and even what I do write down may not be "written in stone". I generally only treat what has been established in play as being certain.

This goes into lots of other topics. Lots of players hate it when GM change things they have written down. I change everything on my whim.

No, not exactly. You're taking a game process that works for another game and trying to say how it works in D&D. But it wasn't designed for D&D, so it's a poor fit. But you seem to only be able to conceive of games working like D&D, so you're not at all understanding how such a rule could actually work well in another game.

I'm sure the rule works just fine in a game of all agreed friends.

 

[pemerton]

The GM makes the Tower Terrible with lots of notes. It has no back secret door. The character wanders over and the players says "I want a back door". GM says nope, I Have Spoken and points to the game notes.

So the idea is if "the tower place" is just a "vague thing" with little or no notes....a player can say "I want a back door" and the GM will just blink and say "oh, ok, why not...poof...there is a back door" becasue they have no 'notes in stone'.

I can't comment on Luke Crane's game, which is where the example of the Architecture check came from. But I suspect that the place the PCs were trying to infiltrate was rather vibrantly described, because that's the sense I get of how Luke Crane and his friends play.

 

[clearstream]

The Paradox of Player Agency​

First to (re)sketch out agency to save reviewing my earlier post

“…a being has the capacity to exercise agency just in case it has the capacity to act intentionally, and the exercise of agency consists in the performance of intentional actions and, in many cases, in the performance of unintentional actions (that derive from the performance of intentional actions”​

​

“…to act for a reason [i.e. intentionally] is to act in a way that can be rationalized by the premises of a sound practical syllogism, which consists, typically, of a major premise that corresponds to the agent’s goal and a minor premise that corresponds to the agent’s take on how to attain the goal”​

As Suits put it, to play a game is to accept “unnecessary obstacles”

To describe rules as operating more or less permissively with respect to means seems to conform to the ways in which we invent or revise games. But it does not seem to make sense at all to say that in games there are always means available for attaining one's end over and above the means permitted by the rules. Consider chess. The end sought by chess players, it would seem, is to win, which involves getting chess pieces onto certain squares in accordance with the rules of chess. But since to break a rule is to fail to attain that end, what other means are available? It was for just this reason that our very first proposal about the nature. of games was rejected: using a golf club in order to play golf is not a less efficient, and therefore an alternative, means for seeking the end in question. It is a logically indispensable means.​

To list then the normal goals of an agent when playing a game

• To play the game
• To achieve some game states
• To follow or work within the defined processes

In most cases, overall, an agent has the goal of experiencing play of the game (including experiencing the processes.) They may have the goal of excelling in play of the game, and they might have extrinsic rewards (or penalties) riding on the result. The “paradox” alluded to in the title is that players obtain greatest agency to play a game by constructively surrendering agency. Some modes of TTRPG play introduce further goals

• To change the game parameters, processes, or contents
• To achieve some ideal game states

By "ideal", I mean to refer to forms translated into the game based upon external ideas of what its states ought to be like. For example, the ideal of driving a dramatic narrative arc, or genuine protagonist dilemmas. This has historically been the province of game designers, but increasingly sophisticated designers / players are blurring the boundaries of the magic circle: finding routes to exerting metagame agency that don’t “shatter the play-world itself” as Huizinga might have feared. It’s no surprise though to read reactions along the lines levelled at spoilsports, e.g. that they would step outside what has been predefined, to help themselves to outcomes.

Above I wrote that moment-to-moment agency is seen "wherever player is turned to for the direction or outcome of play", but that cuts it too short. I should have said wherever player is turned to for the contents, direction or outcome of play. A statement roughly aligned with actor, author, director stance distinctions. Again, the paradox of agency is that it must be constructively surrendered, which I have dealt with in my earlier post by dividing agency focused upon moment-to-moment ("minor premise") influencing (such as toward creating a shared narrative) from agency focused upon the higher-order ("major premise") outcome (the experience of distinct game play). Thus I dissolve my "paradox" by saying that player agency is multi-faceted, and each facet needs its own treatment.

 

[pemerton]

@clearstream

When people talk about player agency in the context of RPGing, or games in general, they are not in my experience normally talking about choosing to pay the game, and participate in the game experience. I mean, if that were the case, it would be meaningless to contrast the agency available to players in (say) snakes and ladders compared to (say) chess.

Agency, in the context of game play, is not normally used to refer to the capacity to act for reasons. It is normally used to refer to the capacity to bring about change in the context of the play of the game: as Google puts it when I ask it what "agency" means, I normally see it used to refer to the capacity to act or intervene so as to produce a particular effect. Snakes and ladders lacks this; so does roulette. Chess does not, at least if I have some knowledge of how to play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

@clearstream

When people talk about player agency in the context of RPGing, or games in general, they are not in my experience normally talking about choosing to pay the game, and participate in the game experience. I mean, if that were the case, it would be meaningless to contrast the agency available to players in (say) snakes and ladders compared to (say) chess.

Agency, in the context of game play, is not normally used to refer to the capacity to act for reasons. It is normally used to refer to the capacity to bring about change in the context of the play of the game: as Google puts it when I ask it what "agency" means, I normally see it used to refer to the capacity to act or intervene so as to produce a particular effect. Snakes and ladders lacks this; so does roulette. Chess does not, at least if I have some knowledge of how to play.

I would argue that "choosing to participate in the game experience" comes before any possible discussion of player agency.

One has not become a player until one chooses to play the game. It may or may not still be agency, but it is not player agency. (Hence why I stubbornly refuse to engage with anyone who invokes that "you are playing the game and thinking about the game means you lose" argument. I choose not to play. The rules cannot tell me I don't get to choose not to play.)

 

[pemerton]

I would argue that "choosing to participate in the game experience" comes before any possible discussion of player agency.

One has not become a player until one chooses to play the game. It may or may not still be agency, but it is not player agency. (Hence why I stubbornly refuse to engage with anyone who invokes that "you are playing the game and thinking about the game means you lose" argument. I choose not to play. The rules cannot tell me I don't get to choose not to play.)

It depends whether one takes a de re or de dicto approach to player, I guess?

Either way, to me it doesn't seem very interesting to talk about the choice to play the game as a meaningful expression of agency in the context of a message board premised on the fact that we all choose to play these games from time to time!

 

[clearstream]

I would argue that "choosing to participate in the game experience" comes before any possible discussion of player agency.

One has not become a player until one chooses to play the game. It may or may not still be agency, but it is not player agency. (Hence why I stubbornly refuse to engage with anyone who invokes that "you are playing the game and thinking about the game means you lose" argument. I choose not to play. The rules cannot tell me I don't get to choose not to play.)

That and similar responses misses what I am saying. To restate for clarity: to play a game is not solely to seek an outcome, such as creating a shared narrative, but to intend to do so in a specific way.

 

[pemerton]

That and similar responses misses what I am saying. To restate for clarity: to play a game is not solely to seek an outcome, such as creating a shared narrative, but to intend to do so in a specific way.

I did not miss what you're saying, which is that "to play a game means to play a game via its rules.

Which I'm pretty confident is also what @EzekielRaiden means by "choosing to participate in the game experience". The game experience is the specific way of achieving the outcome of play.

I reiterate: when people talk about player agency in the context of game play, including RPGing, they are typically not talking about the capacity of a rational agent to choose to play the game by the rules. At least in my experience.

Because outside of cases that are not really applicable to most RPGing (duress, addiction, trickery, etc) all RPGing, and indeed all boardgame and parlour game play, involves rational agents choosing to play the games they are playing by the rules.

Yet we can differentiate RPGs, and boardgames, and parlour games, by the amount of agency they confer on those who play them. See, eg snakes & adders vs chess.

 

[Cadence]

Yet we can differentiate RPGs, and boardgames, and parlour games, by the amount of agency they confer on those who play them. See, eg snakes & adders vs chess.

That feels helpful.

Would players in something like Stratego (where pieces of more value win combats against pieces of lesser values with one or two exceptions) have less agency if some randomness was injected (say each player rolled a Fate (+/=/-) die in combat and the value of their respective pieces might be made one larger, kept the same, or made one smaller based on the roll)?

 

[clearstream]

I did not miss what you're saying, which is that "to play a game means to play a game via its rules.

Player agency is aligned with and fettered by not solely rules, but also principles. One such principle expressed in this thread, and commonly among RPGers, is to play in and through the character. Exercising agency over how their avatar in the game world thinks, feels and acts.

Which I'm pretty confident is also what @EzekielRaiden means by "choosing to participate in the game experience". The game experience is the specific way of achieving the outcome of play.

I would argue that "choosing to participate in the game experience" comes before any possible discussion of player agency.

One has not become a player until one chooses to play the game.

ER's words appear to refer to choices made before play, rather than the nature of agency within play.

I reiterate: when people talk about player agency in the context of game play, including RPGing, they are typically not talking about the capacity of a rational agent to choose to play the game by the rules. At least in my experience.

Again, I am speaking of the ongoing process of play, a constructive surrender of agency that does not end with choices lying outside the game itself. In my experience, when folk are talking about player agency in the context of game play they typically are talking about playing the game by their rules and principles. They're typically not talking about doing whatever they like to achieve their outcomes. If we are grasping the same point here, then it is accurate to say it is

meaningless to contrast the agency available to players in (say) snakes and ladders compared to (say) chess.

At least in respect to that facet (the major premise) of player agency.

Because outside of cases that are not really applicable to most RPGing (duress, addiction, trickery, etc) all RPGing, and indeed all boardgame and parlour game play, involves rational agents choosing to play the games they are playing by the rules.

Yes, and with consequences for agency that I have already outlined.

Yet we can differentiate RPGs, and boardgames, and parlour games, by the amount of agency they confer on those who play them. See, eg snakes & adders vs chess.

I agree that for the appropriate facet of agency (the minor premise) we can do that. I might observe golf and come up with ways to more effectively get the golf ball into the hole, based upon agency to get balls into holes seen in other games or even outside of games. And then based upon that advocate "higher-agency" golf. However

...using a golf club in order to play golf is not a less efficient, and therefore an alternative, means for seeking the end in question. It is a logically indispensable means.​