A Question Of Agency?

[Umbran]

Well, this turned anxiety-provokingly philosophical!

Sorry about the anxiety. I was kind of expecting folks to not be nihilistic, and say, "Well, okay, yes, so a planned end isn't the issue - impact on the course of events is the issue."

For example - the GM probably doesn't plan for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?

 

[MGibster]

For example - the GM probably doesn't plan for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?

<Furtively looks left and right> Right. We don't "plan" for that kind of thing to happen.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If your players feel that they have agency then they have sufficient agency.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

These days, it doesn't take much to trigger anxiety for me, alas. No worries.

You are correct, it's not always about a planned end (and some of the best moments in D&D can come from not having one). Rather, perhaps it's about intentions. As a DM I can plan that there's a cultist that wants to summon a demon lord into the world, unleashing all sorts of horrible consequences. Their success may not be assured, but they have a goal that the party can affect, one that exists outside of the PCs. If an improved game comes up with this cultist and they didn't exist until just then and there, are the PC's subsequent actions really affecting the world? Yes, the course of events from their actions will have an effect on the world, but if they hadn't encountered that cultist, nothing would've happened, because they didn't exist. Whereas a party that knew that the cultist was out there and decided to do something else would end up with a definite consequence of that inaction.

Sorry about the anxiety. I was kind of expecting folks to not be nihilistic, and say, "Well, okay, yes, so a planned end isn't the issue - impact on the course of events is the issue."

For example - the GM probably doesn't plan for you to die in a particular combat. Your good (or bad) tactical choices will partly determine character life and death. That probably matters, right?

 

[Tonguez]

I find that improv tends to mean you are responding directly to what the players are presenting as their characters actions and motivations. Indeed, with no pre determined plot it means that players and GM are in an active dialogue concieving the game and setting in situ with each response - that to me is absolutely Player Agency. The only way it could be better is if you allowed for players to actively describe setting elements and influence NPC description/action (say via a Action Point system)

and if the players keep coming, then it must be working for them.

 

[Tonguez]

I find that improv tends to mean you are responding directly to what the players are presenting as their characters actions and motivations. Indeed, with no pre determined plot it means that players and GM are in an active dialogue concieving the game and setting in situ with each response - that to me is absolutely Player Agency. The only way it could be better is if you allowed for players to actively describe setting elements and influence NPC description/action (say via a Action Point system)

and if the players keep coming, then it must be working for them.

That's a question I go back and forth on - if there was never a planned outcome for the PCs to have an effect on or completely change, do their decisions matter? If the all-improv adventure has a world that's defined, has places and NPCs that will react to the PCs' choices, that's enough. If everything is just appearing before them, the track being laid before them as they go, then is that just another form of railroading? I don't really have an answer.

I tend to go with a mix of improv and planning, to try to get the best of both worlds. One thing I read is that your mind will come up with different things based on whether you're doing it in the moment or thinking it through at leisure.

I Think this essentially comes down to NPC motivation - even in an pure Improv session with only a very vague plot (say fetch the Mcguffin for the local Noble) the antagonistic NPCs need to have a motivation beyond ‘be an obstacle for the PCs’.
AS DM I should at least know Why they are being obstacles to the PCs. Answering Why is enough to make PCs actions matter regardless of the outcome, revealing the Why acts as another hook for the players.

NB I also tend to follow the maxim of every answer should be 5-Whys deep. I suppose those 5 whys could be called a plot.

 

[Ovinomancer]

If your players feel that they have agency then they have sufficient agency.

I don't agree with this. An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.

These days, it doesn't take much to trigger anxiety for me, alas. No worries.

You are correct, it's not always about a planned end (and some of the best moments in D&D can come from not having one). Rather, perhaps it's about intentions. As a DM I can plan that there's a cultist that wants to summon a demon lord into the world, unleashing all sorts of horrible consequences. Their success may not be assured, but they have a goal that the party can affect, one that exists outside of the PCs. If an improved game comes up with this cultist and they didn't exist until just then and there, are the PC's subsequent actions really affecting the world? Yes, the course of events from their actions will have an effect on the world, but if they hadn't encountered that cultist, nothing would've happened, because they didn't exist. Whereas a party that knew that the cultist was out there and decided to do something else would end up with a definite consequence of that inaction.

You're comparing different events here -- one in which the NPC is invented (prior to play, presumably) to one where the NPC is not invented at all. In your first instance, the GM has invented the NPC prior to play and imagined how that NPC will act. Then you have the same NPC invented in play and concede that this is largely equivalent. But, then you imagine that the NPC was not created prior to play and then not created in play, and wonder how this works against a case where the NPC is invented. If you lay it out this way, the resolution becomes apparent -- there's no issue because that NPC wasn't created. It's the same as asking what happens if you, as GM, don't create this NPC prior to play -- does nothing happen then? Yes, nothing happens with that NPC, because it wasn't created. Instead, presumably, something else was created (a game was played), so that's what happens -- and it doesn't really matter, for this argument, whether the something is created before or during play. Compare like to like.

 

[MGibster]

I don't agree with this. An equivalent statement would be that if players don't catch a lie, they have sufficient truth.

You can objectively determine whether or not someone has told a lie. How do we objectively measure agency? If the players feel they have enough agency then they have enough agency. There's no other way to determine whether they have enough.

 

[Ovinomancer]

You can objectively determine whether or not someone has told a lie. How do we objectively measure agency? If the players feel they have enough agency then they have enough agency. There's no other way to determine whether they have enough.

Let's examine illusionism. I offer you the appearance of a choice, but, no matter what you pick, my preplanned encounter occurs. A specific example would be the I have an encounter with orcs planned, but ask the party how they plan to traverse the Dark Wood. The party can choose to move quickly, hoping to avoid encounters, but get orcs. Or then can choose to sneak through, but they get orcs. Or they may decide something else, and still get orcs. From the player perspective, the choice they made appears to have weight, but something bad happens. They cannot tell that their choice is meaningless. According to your argument, here, they have as much agency as a party who's choice do affect what they encounter -- if they sneak, then maybe no orcs, for instance. I disagree this is the case.

To further this, the players involved could find out that the GM forced the encounter, about as easily as a person might find out a lie. In this case, the situation is exactly the same as a lie discovered. I also disagree that lies are objectively discoverable as a trait. Some are, some aren't.

 

[aramis erak]

If you do this -- follow through on resolutions from actions the players choose -- then you're engaging player agency. They get to make important decisions and those decisions have consequences -- good and bad. As long as you're not forcing choices (railroads, illusionism, etc) and you don't blunt resolutions, you're doing just fine. And this goes for prep or improv.

If you want to ensure that players are seeing the story-direction when it comes to mechanical points, you can make it very clear by use of the "If you fail, you get..."
While this can mitigate some of the surprise, it can also increase the tension of a die-roll.

Let them have a sight of the consequence their roll avoids.