D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Mort]

They stated early on that they don't believe in talking to people about issues at the table.

Yes, I know. Doesn't change that's what they probably should do. And they did ask.

 

[pemerton]

What I meant by that is that it's an exercise in futility to try and compare the levels of the different kinds of agency that the different playstyles use.

It's not futile for me. As I posted upthread, by comparing the levels of player agency in games I can work out which ones will or won't appeal to me. And also prepare myself in more technical ways for how they will play at the table.

 

[Mort]

I did keep the game running for everyone else. The good of the many trumps the good on the one.

Except you stopped the game for however long it took to do the ghost possession bit and embarrass the player. Which took what several minutes? It would have likely taken less time to either say "ok, you drink at the bar over the next hour... You're not with the rest of the group, for better or worse..." That takes seconds, and establishes the player is not with the rest.

Or you could just say, hey we agreed, no distractions, stay on point. Heavy handed, but it takes seconds, keeps the group together, and stays within your rules.

Every player in my game knows I demand no distractions.

Sure, then stress that as you disallow the action. Yes, that's agency denying. But it's agency denying as set by the table rules everyone agreed to.

 

[Voranzovin]

Maybe not for the players, but it definitely seems more restrictive for the DM, which contributes to my earlier theory that the GMs job in these kinds of games is simply to service the player's desires.

So I think I should preamble here by noting that I'm very much not trying to take a side in the gaming culture war going on in this thread, although, by virtue of being someone who likes pbta games, I suppose I can't avoid being assigned one by default. I nevertheless wish to stress that I am not trying to convince you of the superiority of any particular approach, or the unimpeachable correctness of any particular definition of the term "agency."

With that out of the way, the opinion you're expressing here is one that I think is interesting to discuss, because I think it does illuminate some of the differences between different types of agency, but from the DM side.

In my experience, pbta (the only narrativist system I have personal experience of) has the effect of simultaneously restricting and expanding DM agency. Notably, while the way I frame and narrate the game is restricted in some ways, my ability to directly mess with the PCs and make their lives difficult is vastly increased!

Take the example of a PC using the Hack And Slash move to attack a monster in Dungeon World. On a failed roll, I, the DM, have been handed a "golden opportunity" to freely apply a "hard move." That could just mean that the PC takes 1d6 points of damage from the monsters counter attack, but it can also mean more or less anything I want. For instance, I could decide that the monster's thrashing has destabilized these old ruins, and the PC is trapped under a collapsing wall!

Now, if I just decided that happened in Dnd, that would be a pretty significant faux pas! If there was a hazard there, the PCs should have a way to find out about it before hand and take precautions. Springing something i just made up on the PCs like that would prevent them from strategizing about the use of their resources, which is a big part of the game aspect of Dnd. But in Dungeon World? That's not only perfectly OK, it's expected! (But note that I could only do it because of a failed roll)

Naturally that's not going to be a great approach if you are into the resource management aspect of RPGs, but it's also not the DM being completely subservient to the players.

 

[pemerton]

Maybe not for the players, but it definitely seems more restrictive for the DM, which contributes to my earlier theory that the GMs job in these kinds of games is simply to service the player's desires.

@Voranzovin's reply to this says a lot of what I was going to say.

In 4e D&D, or Burning Wheel - which, as I've said, can be approached using many principles and techniques in common - the GM is non "servicing the player's desires". The GM is using the material provided by the players - the priorities they have established for their PCs - as the content and context for framing and narrating adverse consequences. In my 4e game, several players played Raven Queen devotees, and so naturally much of their opposition comes from Orcus and undead. One PC has an ambiguous relationship with Vecna, and so Vecna and his Eye, and Kas and his Sword, and Vecna cultists and opportunities for betrayal, all figure in play. Another PC serves Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals, and so - as I've posted about already in this thread - the relationship of that PC and the PCs more generally to the Djinn and to Yan-C-Bin naturally becomes an element of the fiction. The PCs are divided in their orientation towards Law and Chaos, towards the gods and the Primordials and the mortal realm, and so the action of the game focuses on these conflicts, inviting and obliging the players to take sides and (via their PCs) make the marks.

The only sense in which the players' desires are being serviced is that their contributions to the fiction are being honoured and built upon. This is why I talk about them exercising a high degree of agency over the fiction. For me, it contrasts with an approach to play where all the conflict and "movement" is authored by the GM as part of their setting, with an expectation that the players will first learn about what those conflicts and movements are (eg who are the factions, how are they related etc) and then make choices about how to relate to them.

Obviously in the gameworlds of my 4e, BW etc game there are events, even important events, occurring that the PCs are not participating in - but, as I posted upthread, that stuff "minds its own business and doesn't trouble me or my players!" Or to put it less metaphorically, the fiction we actually establish at the table is the fiction that pertains to those player-authored priorities, and the challenges and opportunities that flow from them. That's where, as a GM, I am putting my effort and attention.

I guess the question is how bound the DM is by those rules, they could have let the chars find another item, it is one they chose. I am not sure how the rules of the RPG played into what was chosen, but the arrows had some meaning to the chars already. On the other hand, there are probably several other items that do too and could have been chosen instead, giving a different spin on the event.

So in either case the DM directs what is going on. That is why I initially said I am only seeing degrees here, not fundamental differences.

The difference is vast, and I think you are missing it because you are not taking seriously intent and task - if the player succeeds at an action declaration, the intent and task come to pass and the GM is bound by that.

This is how Yan-C-Bin and the Djinn become bound to an agreement with the PCs (as per my 4e example), how Megloss becomes obliged to help the PCs confront Gerda about the Elfstone (as per my Torchbearer example), why Thurgon and Aramina are able to find Evard's tower and, later on, why they meet Thurgon's brother Rufus (some of my Burning Wheel examples).

This is very different from some widespread approaches to D&D play - AP play, or GM-setting-focused play - where the direction of events, the possible discoveries, etc are determined overwhelmingly by the GM and the players' role is to respond to those setting and/or plot elements that the GM is presenting to them.

well yes, you are a party, it cannot really work that way. So you are not talking about in game goals, you are taking about preferences how to play, got it

Just to be clear, while party play is a thing in (say) 4e D&D or in Torchbearer, it is not a thing in (say) Classic Traveller or Burning Wheel - the PCs are connected and interact, but they don't form a goal-oriented collective in the manner of a traditional D&D party.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have no problem with it being on the spot. If the game goes in a direction I did not anticipate, then I might not have decided on stuff beforehand. It really does not matter to me whether I made the same decision in prep or during play - or if some other DM did in their game

I’m not saying it’s necessarily a problem, just that the nature of it means it’s less likely to be set up in some way, and therefore less likely to be communicated to the players, and so will seem as though a decision is being made just to shoot the idea down.

I'm not just making up ways to say "no" on a whim. It's annoying that you keep implying that I'm doing stuff like this in order to thwart the player somehow or because I just don't feel like it. I've explained repeatedly situations where it wouldn't work in my campaign, that the party is in the land of the giants who don't give a flying fig about humanoids, much less humanoid royalty. It's a well established aspect of the campaign.

It’s annoying that you keep assuming I’m talking about you specifically. I didn’t even use the word “you” in the general sense in that post.

 

[pemerton]

The main difference I am starting to take away from all of this is that BW and similar games are a lot more formal and rules-oppressive (do not want to say heavy, that term is already taken), pressing both the players and DMs in a formal rules corset of interactions, much less freeform than D&D.
I am not saying that makes the game more restrictive, the players probably can do essentially the same things they can do in D&D, but how they go about it is much more dictated by the rules. Or at least it looks like that to me

I think this is a false impression.

To pick on some really low-hanging fruit, combat in Dungeon World is far more freeform than D&D, in which it is located within a tightly bound turn-by-turn, hit point ablation, structure. Burning Wheel combat can be played as freeform as DW, although BW also has tighter structures (Fight!, Range and Cover) that can be used if desired.

Navigating a catacomb in D&D is pretty tightly structured, at least by default - there is a map, and the players have to declare which way they move, and which turns they take, and the GM needs to kep track of how long this all takes (to measure spell durations, etc). In Burning Wheel that can all be resolved via a Catacombs-wise test (I know, I've done it). Likewise crossing the Bright Desert doesn't require tracking travel times and movement rates and the like - it can be resolved via an Orienteering test (again, I've done it). Torchbearer also uses a journey system that in my view is streets ahead of D&D approaches that I'm familiar with.

The difference - unsurprisingly - is that an increase in player agency corresponds to the GM being bound by the rules, most particularly the rules for action resolution. That 's the point. That's how players get to impact the shared fiction. That's how everyone at the table gets to be surprised by what happens.

 

[mamba]

Just to be clear, while party play is a thing in (say) 4e D&D or in Torchbearer, it is not a thing in (say) Classic Traveller or Burning Wheel - the PCs are connected and interact, but they don't form a goal-oriented collective in the manner of a traditional D&D party.

Are they playing at the same time / at one table? That sounds like herding sheep, are they even all in one place in the game world? What makes them stay together if they have completely separate agendas with some overlap?

 

[pemerton]

Are they playing at the same time / at one table?

Yes.

That sounds like herding sheep

There's no herding. The PCs don't need to be a goal-oriented collective. And the players can take responsibility for their own play.

are they even all in one place in the game world? What makes them stay together if they have completely separate agendas with some overlap?

In my Classic Traveller game, in its current state, the PCs have two starships which have just rendezvoused after being in different systems. The PCs need the starships to get about - some work on them, others are spongers - which is why (in the fiction) they mostly stay together.

Their agendas are distinct, but it's my job as GM to interweave them.

In my most recent BW play, the two PCs are an embittered dark Elf and an impoverished weather witch hoping to make good. They met on the same ship, and for different reasons both disembarked at Hardby. They have reason to help one another - for instance, both are happy to rob the master of the vessel they were sailing on - but they are not a collective like a D&D party.

Even in my most recent Torchbearer session, the Dwarven Outcast did not help the Elven Dreamwalker and the other PCs fight his friend Gerda; and the Dreamwalker did not help the Outcast and the other PCs fight Megloss, even though Megloss was her enemy (because of her Creed, that these are dark times - all Elves need help).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is not an absolute. If I'm in your game with 4 other players and none of us wants background features, forcing them on us reduces our agency. You're not giving us what we want or would choose to have.

So while yes there are things that would increase or decrease player agency in 5e, they remain specific to individuals, tables and playstyles.

I don't think it's useful to confound preference with agency, they're utterly different topics.