Do Random Tables Reduce Player Agency?

[mamba]

Is there a way to find out the nature of the danger? If the players are just picking blindly based on “more dangerous”, I would not consider that an informed decision.

it is informed, it just is not fully informed. No idea if they can, depends on the scenario I guess.

As was pointed out by others, unless there are time constraints, there is no reason to take the faster route anyway, what these are probably matters more than what the dangers are, unless the dangers are either ridiculously low or ridiculously high.

 

[Committed Hero]

I don't see how unless the chart is inherently unfair in some way.

 

[pointofyou]

Why, if he rolls twice for the more dangerous route for each roll on the less dangerous route? what is the effective difference?

You are correct. My thinking was that the tables would reflect the difference but frequency of rolls could also serve.

 

[kenada]

Informed here is a sliding scale. A matter of degrees. "More dangerous" is info. It's just minimal. "This road occasionally has troll raiders on it" would be more info. "The trolls number exactly 15 in total, though no more than 5 have ever been seen in a single warband" would be even more. "The trolls are hungry now due to a lack of recent traffic and the forest being denuded of game by the magical smog currently infesting it, so the entire pack is desperately hunting up and down the road, day and night, looking for food" would be yet more.

I agree, but I would not consider knowing just enough information to get started as being particularly informed. It’s better than nothing I suppose, but it’s not by much. There’s little you can do to effectively mitigate or manage the risk of the “more dangerous” path knowing just that it is. You’re effectively reduced to gambling —and you (presumably) don’t even know the odds.

 

[Mannahnin]

I agree, but I would not consider knowing just enough information to get started as being particularly informed. It’s better than nothing I suppose, but it’s not by much. There’s little you can do to effectively mitigate or manage the risk of the “more dangerous” path knowing just that it is. You’re effectively reduced to gambling —and you (presumably) don’t even know the odds.

To be fair, DMs CAN give more info. Ideally even that T junction in the dungeon I mentioned above has at least a little clue or two, some sound or smell or heat or any sensory data or clue to go on.

I've heard of DMs actually sharing the random encounter chart for a given territory with the players after the PCs got some time to learn about the area.

 

[kenada]

it is informed, it just is not fully informed. No idea if they can, depends on the scenario I guess.

See my reply above in post #34. I would consider just knowing you have options as a starting point. It may be “informed” in a technical sense, but it’s just barely so.

As was pointed out by others, unless there are time constraints, there is no reason to take the faster route anyway, what these are probably matters more than what the dangers are, unless the dangers are either ridiculously low or ridiculously high.

We don’t know that because the odds are hidden (per the OP). If the extra danger is something that can be mitigated, then the faster route may still be better (or at least no worse). That’s why being able to obtain information is important for decision-making.

 

[kenada]

To be fair, DMs CAN give more info. Ideally even that T junction in the dungeon I mentioned above has at least a little clue or two, some sound or smell or heat or any sensory data or clue to go on.

I’m looking at it from what the players can do. Can they investigate further to determine what kind of dangers may be out there? That’s how they become more informed. If they’re stuck with the initial information they get, having some hints is better than none, but it’s still a reduced decision space compared to one where you can work to obtain more information.

I've heard of DMs actually sharing the random encounter chart for a given territory with the players after the PCs got some time to learn about the area.

I favor being pretty transparent about the resolution process. My homebrew system has things you can do to obtain information, which becomes something you can rely on knowing once it is established (e.g., establishing patterns of stirge behavior a couple of sessions ago). However, if the players really wanted to know what’s on the tables I use, I’d probably just show or tell them depending on the area.

Areas designated as civilized or frontier would have some common knowledge about what’s out there. It’s only once you away from those areas into wilderness hexes that you’ll probably have to go there yourself to find out (but the system supports finding out if you’re willing to spend the time conducting a survey).

 

[mamba]

We don’t know that because the odds are hidden (per the OP). If the extra danger is something that can be mitigated, then the faster route may still be better (or at least no worse). That’s why being able to obtain information is important for decision-making.

I am not disagreeing with this, that doesn't mean you had no agency when making the decision based on the information you had however. One of the options you implicitly have is to not make a decision but ask questions instead, to learn more about the situation, if you feel the available information is not sufficient for a decision.

What we do not have without more information (about the consequences of taking the longer road on our goals, and the risks involved in taking the shorter one) is a good way to determine which route to take

 

[kenada]

I am not disagreeing with this, that doesn't mean you had no agency when making the decision based on the information you had however. One of the options you implicitly have is to not make a decision but ask questions instead, to learn more about the situation, if you feel the available information is not sufficient for a decision.

Note that I haven’t said anything about “agency”, and that’s intentional. I find “agency” as it’s used in gaming to be a rather nebulously defined bit of jargon. I would rather focus on the decision space and what one can do in it.

We seem to agree that the decision space when all one knows is that one option is more dangerous than the other is pretty limited. Even knowing the fast route is “twice as dangerous” doesn’t really mean much without a benchmark for danger. I’d also agree that trying to obtain more information is a smart play, assuming you are able to do so. It expands the decision space and lets you make trade offs other than just time for unknown risk.

What we do not have without more information (about the consequences of taking the longer road on our goals, and the risks involved in taking the shorter one) is a good way to determine which route to take

Right. That is why I likened it to gambling without knowing the odds.

 

[Lanefan]

A further thought:

Are we talking about agency in respect of colour/flavour text? Then if the players choose the swamp road rather than the desert road, it would seem rude to present encounters with dust-themed stuff rather than slimy mud stuff. But that seems like a pretty modest sort of agency.

If we're talking about agency in respect of meaningful game outcomes, then then choosing fast-and-more-dangerou road A over slow-and-safer B is meaningless until we know what's at stake in the choice. And given that D&D will almost always end up in a fight at some point, the fact that on path A your fight will come after 2 in-game days, while on path B it will take 4 in-game days, doesn't seem to matter (again, that's mere colour). So the choice of A vs B again itself looks like mere colour. At least until we have some understanding of why it matters that the PCs get to a certain place in a certain time.

Absent all other considerations, e.g. if the amount of time the trip takes simply doesn't matter and the journey is being made "just because", there's still agency in that the players can, in-character, choose the relative degree of risk and-or threat (along with, one hopes, potential reward in terms of xp, loot, or whatever) they're willing to accept.

That the exact nature of those risks and threats will be determined by random roll is, for this purpose, irrelevant; and doesn't impact this agency.