Game Mechanics And Player Agency

The concept of player agency is a central pillar of all role-playing games. It is a balancing factor against the omnipotent, omniscient Game Master. For the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on the smaller-scale application of player agency and the role of game mechanics that negate or modify such agency.

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From the very first iteration of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, there have been mechanics in place in RPGs to force certain decisions upon players. A classic D&D example is the charm person spell, which allows the spell caster to bring someone under their control and command. (The 1983 D&D Basic Set even includes such a possible outcome in its very first tutorial adventure, in which your hapless Fighter may fall under the sway of Bargle and "decide" to let the outlaw magic-user go free even after murdering your friend Aleena!)

It didn't take long for other RPGs to start experimenting with even greater mechanical methods of limiting player agency. Call of Cthulhu (1981) introduced the Sanity mechanic as a way of tracking the player-characters' mental stress and degeneration in the face of mind-blasting horrors. But the Temporary Insanity rules also dictated that PCs exposed to particularly nasty shocks were no longer necessarily in control of their own actions. The current edition of the game even gives the Call of Cthulhu GM carte blanche to dictate the hapless investigator's fate, having the PC come to their senses hours later having been robbed, beaten, or even institutionalized!

King Arthur Pendragon debuted in 1985 featuring even more radical behavioral mechanics. The game's system of Traits and Passions perfectly mirrors the Arthurian tales, in which normally sensible and virtuous knights and ladies with everything to lose risk it all in the name of love, hatred, vengeance, or petty jealousy. So too are the player-knights of the game driven to foolhardy heroism or destructive madness, quite often against the players' wishes. Indeed, suffering a bout of madness in Pendragon is enough to put a player-knight out of the game sometimes for (quite literally) many game-years on end…and if the player-knight does return, they are apt to have undergone significant trauma reflected in altered statistics.

The legacies of Call of Cthulhu and King Arthur Pendragon have influenced numerous other game designs down to this day, and although the charm person spell is not nearly as all-powerful as it was when first introduced in 1974 ("If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the 'charm' is dispelled[.]"), it and many other mind-affecting spells and items continue to bedevil D&D adventurers of all types.

Infringing on player agency calls for great care in any circumstance. As alluded to at the top of this article, GMs already have so much power in the game, that to appear to take any away from the players is bound to rankle. This is likely why games developed mechanical means to allow GMs to do so in order to make for a more interesting story without appearing biased or arbitrary. Most players, after all, would refuse to voluntarily submit to the will of an evil wizard, to faint or flee screaming in the presence of cosmic horror, or to attack an ally or lover in a blind rage. Yet these moments are often the most memorable of a campaign, and they are facilitated by behavioral mechanics.

What do you think? What's your personal "red line" for behavioral mechanics? Do behavioral mechanics have any place in RPGs, and if so, to what extent? Most crucially: do they enhance narrative or detract from it?

contributed by David Larkins

 

[delericho]

They're only extremely rare because they are the most extreme cases of such action. Look at all of the millions of people who smoke, or overeat, or spend too much money on their romantic partners. These are all instances of people acting against their own best interests, usually at the urging of someone else. It is incredibly common.

Sigh. You've now managed to miss all three of the things I said - 'knowingly', 'nigh-impossible' and "betray their nearest and dearest".

Yes, it is possible to persuade someone to do long-term damage to themselves or others by selling them a short-term pleasure. You won't have the same success persuading them to go home and kill their children.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

Sigh. You've now managed to miss all three of the things I said - 'knowingly', 'nigh-impossible' and "betray their nearest and dearest".

Yes, it is possible to persuade someone to do long-term damage to themselves or others by selling them a short-term pleasure. You won't have the same success persuading them to go home and kill their children.

Not with that attitude, you won't.

There are tons of other historical examples of things like, people voluntarily going with their families into gas chambers, or families killing their daughters because of a regulatory policy on the number of allowable children, as well as numbers on extortion, scamming, people remaining in abusive relationships, allowing their children to be abused, and so on.

It must be that all those people have been coerced by magic, and not that it is reasonably easy to get other people to do what you want.

 

[Imaculata]

Sigh. You've now managed to miss all three of the things I said - 'knowingly', 'nigh-impossible' and "betray their nearest and dearest".

Yes, it is possible to persuade someone to do long-term damage to themselves or others by selling them a short-term pleasure. You won't have the same success persuading them to go home and kill their children.

Its exactly as the Captain America example illustrated. Loki can make the most epic speech, and roll really high on his persuasion/diplomacy/social skill. That may sway the crowd, but Captain America can still stand up for his principles and defy him.

The players can do the same.

But you are also never sure how an npc is going to react. No matter how high a player rolls on their diplomacy, it is not going to make an npc believe things that they know to be untrue.

I had a situation in my pirate campaign where one of the players was trying to convince a merchant, that one of their crew members was an honest and good man, and that the merchant's negative image of him was not correct. But despite his high diplomacy roll, the merchant refused to let this drunk pirate marry his daughter. Because the merchant was of a higher social standing, and for his daughter to be associated with this notorious drunk, and a pirate of all things, would be a severe embarrassment. However his words did make the merchant think on the matter.

 

[delericho]

There are tons of other historical examples of things like, people voluntarily going with their families into gas chambers, or families killing their daughters because of a regulatory policy on the number of allowable children, as well as numbers on extortion, scamming, people remaining in abusive relationships, allowing their children to be abused, and so on.

We're way beyond the scope of a single Persuasion check here.

 

[cmad1977]

Social skills don’t work on PCs.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

The concept of player agency is a central pillar of all role-playing games. It is a balancing factor against the omnipotent, omniscient Game Master. For the purposes of this article, we will be focusing on the smaller-scale application of player agency and the role of game mechanics that negate or modify such agency.

View attachment 95347​

From the very first iteration of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974, there have been mechanics in place in RPGs to force certain decisions upon players. A classic D&D example is the charm person spell, which allows the spell caster to bring someone under their control and command. (The 1983 D&D Basic Set even includes such a possible outcome in its very first tutorial adventure, in which your hapless Fighter may fall under the sway of Bargle and "decide" to let the outlaw magic-user go free even after murdering your friend Aleena!)

It didn't take long for other RPGs to start experimenting with even greater mechanical methods of limiting player agency. Call of Cthulhu (1981) introduced the Sanity mechanic as a way of tracking the player-characters' mental stress and degeneration in the face of mind-blasting horrors. But the Temporary Insanity rules also dictated that PCs exposed to particularly nasty shocks were no longer necessarily in control of their own actions. The current edition of the game even gives the Call of Cthulhu GM carte blanche to dictate the hapless investigator's fate, having the PC come to their senses hours later having been robbed, beaten, or even institutionalized!

King Arthur Pendragon debuted in 1985 featuring even more radical behavioral mechanics. The game's system of Traits and Passions perfectly mirrors the Arthurian tales, in which normally sensible and virtuous knights and ladies with everything to lose risk it all in the name of love, hatred, vengeance, or petty jealousy. So too are the player-knights of the game driven to foolhardy heroism or destructive madness, quite often against the players' wishes. Indeed, suffering a bout of madness in Pendragon is enough to put a player-knight out of the game sometimes for (quite literally) many game-years on end…and if the player-knight does return, they are apt to have undergone significant trauma reflected in altered statistics.

The legacies of Call of Cthulhu and King Arthur Pendragon have influenced numerous other game designs down to this day, and although the charm person spell is not nearly as all-powerful as it was when first introduced in 1974 ("If the spell is successful it will cause the charmed entity to come completely under the influence of the Magic-User until such time as the 'charm' is dispelled[.]"), it and many other mind-affecting spells and items continue to bedevil D&D adventurers of all types.

Infringing on player agency calls for great care in any circumstance. As alluded to at the top of this article, GMs already have so much power in the game, that to appear to take any away from the players is bound to rankle. This is likely why games developed mechanical means to allow GMs to do so in order to make for a more interesting story without appearing biased or arbitrary. Most players, after all, would refuse to voluntarily submit to the will of an evil wizard, to faint or flee screaming in the presence of cosmic horror, or to attack an ally or lover in a blind rage. Yet these moments are often the most memorable of a campaign, and they are facilitated by behavioral mechanics.

What do you think? What's your personal "red line" for behavioral mechanics? Do behavioral mechanics have any place in RPGs, and if so, to what extent? Most crucially: do they enhance narrative or detract from it?

contributed by David Larkins

So to start with, I don't think that what you are describing is taking away player agency. I can't stand that term to start with, because there is no agreed-upon definition of it, particularly when it comes to RPGs.

So I'll give you my definition:

Player Agency: The actions and decisions that a player is allowed to make as defined by the rules of the game. In an RPG, the rules of the game also include, to a significant degree, the setting. So taking away player agency inhibits that. But you can't compare player agency between games, because no game operating within its rules takes away player agency.

I'll give you a non-RPG example. In soccer (football for the rest of the world), you cannot touch the ball with you hands. Is that taking away player agency? Not at all. It makes no difference that in (American) football that you can touch the ball with your hands. It's a different game. The player still has their full agency to play the game within the rules.

However, if you tell a player that they are too good, and that they are only allowed to score 3 goals in a game, after which they are pulled from the game, then their agency is being impacted - provided that it's not a rule that applies to all players. In that case, you might choose not to play because you don't like the rules, but if the rule exists in the game for all players, then it is not impacting your player agency.

In an RPG, the rules are often impacted by the setting. The obvious modifications are to available races, classes, etc. House rules also apply. As long as the rules apply equally to all, and the rules aren't being changed at the whim of the referee or DM, then they aren't affecting player agency.

Having said that, you might not like rules that take away your character agency. The Pendragon and Cthulhu rules do this. When certain circumstances are met, the player either has additional input that requires them to roleplay in a certain way, or the GM takes over the character's actions for a period of time.

Madness and Insanity have always been issues with any RPG. I love the way 5e handles it, by moving it into the realm of role-playing. The problem is, it would be disruptive at the very least, and downright risky in terms of real relationships at the table, if the kind of madness that Cthulhu is simulating to be addressed solely through role-playing. That's not to say that some groups couldn't handle it, but in most cases when a player has a character that is dangerous to the others in the party, or the character is argumentative or combative to the degree that it brings the game to a halt, it's very, very hard to run the game itself.

Some examples (based specifically on comments where people across the internet have specifically flagged "player agency" in threads I've participated in):

A game that requires players to start with pre-generated characters, or partially pre-generated characters does not take away player agency. The player doesn't participate in the full character creation process that RPGs often include, but they still have 100% control over what to do with that character. This isn't that different than an actor being given a role in a play or movie. They have a framework provided that they flesh out based on that framework. Even a script that includes all of the dialogue doesn't take away "actor agency," it just provides a more restrictive framework.

Likewise, a game that requires the players to roll stats, even in order, does not alter player agency.

Rules that might result in somebody sitting out for a period of time (death of a character, unconscious, or even the party splitting up), do not alter player agency. They reduce "in game time." This isn't all that different than playing defense in football, or when your team is at bat in baseball. In many sports you might be on the bench for most if not all of the game. While RPGs aren't sports, and they are designed for everybody to be able to play as much as possible, if the table is more concerned with continuity than providing a character to a player who's character just died hundreds of miles from civilization, then they might be out for a while.

Some games are designed to specifically eliminate everybody (10 Candles, for example), but it doesn't mean that the ones that die early aren't still part of the game, and can't participate as spectators and experience the night in a meaningful way. Science fiction games are often more susceptible to something of this nature, if they are literally thousands, if not millions, of miles from anybody else, and somebody dies. An Alien-based RPG would be of this sort, but it certainly would still be exciting to see how things turn out, even if you died early.

The examples you've given - Cthulhu and Pendragon - don't (can't) inherently take away player agency. Although Cthulhu might have fewer safeguards in place. That's really going to depend on whether the players and the GM are all on the same page and they trust the GM to be fair.

And that, to me, is really the most important thing. The DM and players need to be in agreement about what agency the players have. What they are and aren't allowed to do in the rules, and when they have control of their character and when they don't. I've never had issues with a player being upset when they've had to "sit out" because of certain circumstances. I give the players options (discussed at session 0, and out-of game discussions as well), but also in the moment, the table and the player are free to speak up if they want to address it specifically. When we're in a situation where it seems clear that it might be a while, I explicitly give them options and let them decide how we'll handle it. Almost always, they choose to sit out and enjoy the story for what it is, and what's going on at the time.

I should also point out, that I consider all players to be participants, even when their character isn't present in a given scene. In an RPG, everything is in our heads, and we often forget things, fail to connect things, act out of character, etc. I do not restrict my players from participating, viewing them as part of the "collective memory/conscience/intelligence" of any given character or group of characters. That doesn't mean they get to act for others, but speaking up to remind somebody of something they found three weeks ago that might be important, is fine. We also operate under the general assumption that with all of the time the characters spend together, that they will relate experiences of importance away from the group when they have the chance. Unless there is something they specifically don't want to share, then everybody is at the table and they are assumed to know what happened once they are back together.

 

[Skepticultist]

I have to agree with Ilbranteloth that this thread seems to be about character agency and not player agency.

As a general rule I avoid using villains and monsters that rely on mind control abilities, as I find the outcome of using such effects is generally boring and uninteresting at the table. I'm fine with using very short-term effects, such as command spell used to force a player to "Halt!" and lose an action, or even a villain using a mass charm to escape the party, but long-term dominations and charms mostly result in me controlling the character, and I consider that a poor outcome. There's very little I find less interesting that forcing a player to sit out a combat while I play their character against the rest of the party, and my experience is that most players either don't enjoy being forced to attack their fellow players or enjoy it way too much.

Occasionally I will find myself running a game with a player who is an exceptionally good role-player with a high commitment to the game and campaign, and when that happens I have used both long-term domination magic (like geas) and outright replacement of the character (such as with a doppleganger), but I leave control of the character with the player. I simply discuss the idea with player before it comes up in game, and if I get a buy-in from them, then we move ahead. At this point the player is essentially a co-DM, a conspirator helping me pull a long con on the rest of the players.

When it comes to nonmagical forms of influence, I generally eschew using any kind of social skills except in very limited circumstances. I mostly run HERO System and the Social Skills in that game are largely intended for use against generic NPCs. I allow players to use skills like Trader, Oratory, Streetwise, and High Society when they do things like sell goods, try to convince crowds of people, or gather information/rumors.

I don't allow NPCs to use Social Skills to influence PC actions, or the inverse. A villain can't roll Persuade and convince the PCs to leave him alone, and likewise the PCs can't roll Persuade to convince a villain to surrender without a fight. That's what role-playing is for. It does mean that a player can't really play a character who is much more charismatic and persuasive than they are themselves, but I'm old school and okay with that.

 

[Lanefan]

Some examples (based specifically on comments where people across the internet have specifically flagged "player agency" in threads I've participated in):

A game that requires players to start with pre-generated characters, or partially pre-generated characters does not take away player agency. The player doesn't participate in the full character creation process that RPGs often include, but they still have 100% control over what to do with that character. This isn't that different than an actor being given a role in a play or movie. They have a framework provided that they flesh out based on that framework. Even a script that includes all of the dialogue doesn't take away "actor agency," it just provides a more restrictive framework.

Likewise, a game that requires the players to roll stats, even in order, does not alter player agency.

Rules that might result in somebody sitting out for a period of time (death of a character, unconscious, or even the party splitting up), do not alter player agency. They reduce "in game time." This isn't all that different than playing defense in football, or when your team is at bat in baseball. In many sports you might be on the bench for most if not all of the game. While RPGs aren't sports, and they are designed for everybody to be able to play as much as possible, if the table is more concerned with continuity than providing a character to a player who's character just died hundreds of miles from civilization, then they might be out for a while.

Some games are designed to specifically eliminate everybody (10 Candles, for example), but it doesn't mean that the ones that die early aren't still part of the game, and can't participate as spectators and experience the night in a meaningful way. Science fiction games are often more susceptible to something of this nature, if they are literally thousands, if not millions, of miles from anybody else, and somebody dies. An Alien-based RPG would be of this sort, but it certainly would still be exciting to see how things turn out, even if you died early.

The examples you've given - Cthulhu and Pendragon - don't (can't) inherently take away player agency. Although Cthulhu might have fewer safeguards in place. That's really going to depend on whether the players and the GM are all on the same page and they trust the GM to be fair.

And then there's the further element of player agency, being promoted (not by me!) in some other threads, to do with being able to author setting elements and gain some narrative control - depending on what the dice say when you try. It seems some games e.g. Burning Wheel bake this sort of thing into their rules.

And that, to me, is really the most important thing. The DM and players need to be in agreement about what agency the players have. What they are and aren't allowed to do in the rules, and when they have control of their character and when they don't. I've never had issues with a player being upset when they've had to "sit out" because of certain circumstances. I give the players options (discussed at session 0, and out-of game discussions as well), but also in the moment, the table and the player are free to speak up if they want to address it specifically. When we're in a situation where it seems clear that it might be a while, I explicitly give them options and let them decide how we'll handle it. Almost always, they choose to sit out and enjoy the story for what it is, and what's going on at the time.

Exactly.

And there's always ways to mitigate sit-out time if it looks like it\ll be a while: having party NPCs or henches to temporarily take over and-or playing more than one PC at a time are two we use constantly.

Lanefan

 

[Ilbranteloth]

And then there's the further element of player agency, being promoted (not by me!) in some other threads, to do with being able to author setting elements and gain some narrative control - depending on what the dice say when you try. It seems some games e.g. Burning Wheel bake this sort of thing into their rules.

Yes. If that's part of the rules of the game, then something that takes that away (outside of the rules themselves) is impacting their player agency.

 

[aramis erak]

I still don't like the use of the term "agency" for RPGs. It's not a term you can tell to a stranger and expect them to know what you mean. It's unnecessary jargon.

It's needed jargon - if we hadn't borrowed Psychology's term, we'd have had to invent a new one.