A Question Of Agency?

[FrogReaver]

So, Bob's player used no agency to choose to not do this? Herein lies the rub. As far as agency goes, they're exactly the same, because the decision process or ancillary acting doesn't adjust the agency of making the choice, and as far as they go, they cancel out.


So, if in-character roleplay mostly cancels out with not choosing in-character roleplay, we're back to evaluating how the choice to go towards water is resolved -- do the players actually have a say in doing this, or is there another player (the GM) that can veto it?

Seems that criticism applies to any agency discussion. As long as one has a choice to do or not to do their is agency or at least the potential for agency.

The question is about what kinds of things can take away agency? We all agree the DM can ( at least in many games) by either eliminating the choice or eliminating the consequence. Can’t mechanics do the same thing?

Or is it simply that the player exercised their agency by agreeing to play in a game with such mechanics? In which case didn’t the player that agreed to play in the DM decides game do the same thing except towards the DM?

What am I missing?

 

[FrogReaver]

I think you can see from my previous post that I (at least, perhaps I can say 'we') don't consider any of this to be an imposition on my play. First there is no principle that says narrative games include compulsion of PCs actions (some games may, but so does D&D at times). Secondly, even if it did, I am not going into that without my eyes wide open.

And yes, you are building your 'salient actions' (ones that change things materially in the state of the game where rules and other participants can see it and act on it) based on your ideas of what your character thinks/feels/knows. Nobody is denying that! Nobody is saying that is unimportant. It doesn't seem to bear on agency though, per se. Not unless you believe there is no other agency in RPGs than imagining what your character thinks/feels/knows. I would find that to be a very odd theory!

Thirdly, in those cases where I have some authority in these games beyond what is granted in, say, Moldvay Basic, then I don't really see how that can possibly reduce my agency as a player. It certainly creates opportunities to play in ways that Basic cannot provide. Depending on the game, it might not work for some other things as well (IE Basic is pretty great at 'skilled play' OSR stuff, though I think you could imagine an OSR type game with narrative mechanisms in it). Overall I think it is useful to discuss these games in terms of agency, and I am still not seeing where they are lacking there.

I think you see it. You explained it fittingly above. You just refuse to call it agency. That’s the rub.

choosing motivations, thoughts and mental states is an exercise of player agency because these things are choices and are consequential to how the character is played and how the character is played is consequential to how the rpg is played.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well I think @Manbearcat 's three criteria do apply to more indie or narrative type games. I agree, it's a matter of process and HOW these things come about, but the fact that there is some kind of 1) goal of play, 2) events built on prior events through play, toward 3) some kind of resolution of the events is pretty universal. I think it applies to just about any game.

I took his approach of breaking it down this way to put all games on equal ground, and then examine how each actually does go about the process of getting from 1 to 3. In that sense, yes, some of the possibilities will be wildly different.

Right, there's a lot that happens in a different way, and is contributed by different participants. Anyway, we don't really disagree, certainly not on much that I can see. I am less extreme in my categorizations that maybe Pemerton, not sure, but I also have more skepticism about people's explanations of how some of these methods of play actually work vs how they are commonly depicted.

 

[pemerton]

When I play five hundred it's with friends. Some are more serious than others. Some like to chat away while we play; others like to focus on the game at hand.

If I was playing in a club (are there 500 clubs? but suppose it's a bridge club) then I'm guessing there's less chit-chat when we play and more serious focus.

But if we talk about player agency in playing cards that chit-chat isn't really part of it.

Different RPG tables have different expectations about how the participants will socially interact, spend time speaking to one another "in character" about this or that.

But three things:

(1) That is obviously not what the OP was asking about. Because nothing about GM practices - including so-called "quantum ogres" has any implications for any of this stuff about table chit-chat in or out of character;

(2) All RPGers are able to do this all the time whatever RPG they are playing.;

(3) Sometime the fiction will constraint the permissible in-character chit-chat: if, in the fiction, we're all in a tavern then I can't, in character, ask another PC to admire the beautiful sky directly above us; and if, in the fiction, I'm in love with Guinevere and am an honest paladin then there may be limits on how much I can, in-character, tell the others that I hate her.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, I agree. And that's why I also want the players to be able to decide what their characters want instead of mechanics dictating that to them.

In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?

 

[Aldarc]

In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?

In the most irrelevant place of all: their own mind.

 

[pemerton]

Personally, I am fine with the external world being beyond the control of the PCs

Are you extending this to combat resolution? Ie are you saying you're fine if the effect of an attack on an Orc, declared by a player for his/her PC, is all beyond the control of the player and is just decided by the GM?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yes, you can see it that way. So same way that if one of them had chosen that their character stays put, they would have used their agency to do so. It doesn't still change the fact that they're using their agency to have their character to do things, whether it was to go somewhere or reminisce about the past. Why you think that having the character move is a choice, but having the character reminisce isn't?

Sure, let's continue ad argumentum. The situation you have here is that you claim that there is agency in choosing or not choosing to do in-character role play. That this choice is largely a wash -- both work equally well.

We're still, then, back to looking at how the actions are resolved in the game as the prime measure of agency. How the choice to go towards water works is where we'll find any differences in agency. Here, we're back to the structures I posted earlier -- either the GM has full authority to determine the resolution of the action (including negating it) or the player has some ability to determine the resolution space, either through a mechanic or the GM not being allowed to negate the action, only test it. Here, it seems clear that the agency balance still tilts away from GM decides systems, even as you claim that there's still agency in choosing whether or not this happens while you choose to act in-character or don't.

Put simply, even if we accept your premise that the choice to act in-character or not is agency (and I agree it is, just not player agency but rather outside of the game), then we're still looking to the same set of issues to determine whether or not one method involves more agency than another. Your claim doesn't impact the situation. Feel free to pose a counter example where you think it does, though. I played traditional style D&D for decades, and I can't think of any.

And, again, this isn't a value statement. There's lots of other things the games can do that can matter more to you. Clearly, I don't have a problem with playing a game I think has less agency than others. You still haven't addressed this point, by the way -- why would I engage in devious redefinitions to win a point that aims squarely at my own play?

 

[Ovinomancer]

In a 5e game playing through the Ravenloft RP, where does a player get to decide what his/her PC wants?

Yeah, I played in the recent 5e Curse of Strahd adventure. I made a fighter/rogue, solider background. The character was a quartermaster who always seemed to get into trouble for missing supplies, but wasn't severely punished because said supplies always ended up in his unit's stores. He had a bond that comrades come first and a trait "If it isn't nailed down..." The times either of these came into play was just about zero. I did get to do the "isn't nailed down" in the first scene, where I looted lots of stuff from a house and placed it in a tapestry torn from the wall, but, alas, it was a haunted house so when I exited, none of the stuff came with me. I mean, that's pretty much definitionally what we're talking about with lack of agency -- I tried to push my character's stated traits, but was nixed by the GM and/or module (which is really the same thing).

 

[hawkeyefan]

Seems that criticism applies to any agency discussion. As long as one has a choice to do or not to do their is agency or at least the potential for agency.

The question is about what kinds of things can take away agency? We all agree the DM can ( at least in many games) by either eliminating the choice or eliminating the consequence. Can’t mechanics do the same thing?

Or is it simply that the player exercised their agency by agreeing to play in a game with such mechanics? In which case didn’t the player that agreed to play in the DM decides game do the same thing except towards the DM?

What am I missing?

Do you think that there's a difference between chance and a person deciding?