A Question Of Agency?

[hawkeyefan]

Per the 5E rules, yes. I'm not saying it's great, but it's the rules.

I've only flat said "no" once, that I remember. I personally treat that authority/responsibility as a plausibility check. "You're trying to climb an ice wall without tools/magic? Um ... no." Presuming the ice wall is established in fiction, of course.

This kind of thing seems reasonable. I generally don’t like to say no if it can be avoided, but in D&D I do have that option. I think I’d likely still set a DC and let the player roll, though.

But I don’t mind when things established in the fiction are obstacles to PC strengths. I think that’s a reasonable way to challenge the PCs.

What I don’t like is when that kind of stuff happens routinely and with no real fictional support. Like, “oh we’re going to the ice caverns? Probably won’t be climbing much” makes sense, but “oh this trap is easily defeated by someone climbing.....so of course the room has walls that are supernaturally smooth” is annoying.

I think fictional positioning is key to a lot of this.

 

[aramis erak]

A proposed new agency framework:

A. Agency is having the ability to affect the outcome of something via your choices and skill.
1. Thus, agency is always in relation to something.
2. Since agency is about the ability to affect the outcome then you either you have agency over something or you don't because you can either affect the outcome or not. It's a binary state.

False dichotomy fallacy. One can affect the outcome in a range of levels, since many situations can have multiple outcomes each, and most have qualitative result differences.
THe rest of your analysis is thus based upon the false premise.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Interesting. At what point would you say someone actually does lose their agency?

"Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next."

-- Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 1, "Down the Rabbit Hole", by Lewis Carroll.

 

[aramis erak]

Uh. No actually! And given that myself and my partner are scientists that would be doubly odd!

"All models are wrong but some (most if you'd like) are useful" is a straight-forward statement: "In proportion to parameterization being incorrect (and there is always going to be mis-parameterization...even if just due to degree but not due to lack of understanding the phenomena), the model is going to diverge from observations at some point...but that doesn't make them cease to be useful."

It is far better to say incomplete for omissions and unknowables, because some are genuinely wrong!!!
As in, deceptively designed, or based upon non-facts. Further, your phrasing is the one the local flat earthers cling to to discredit science, hence my reaction to it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

What do you think your players would say if you told them combat was simply going to be narrated? You’ll establish initiative and then players will declare action in order, but instead of rolling dice, the GM decides each outcome turn by turn.

Do you think they’d balk at that? Do you think their trust in the GM would be sufficient to play this way?

I think both they and myself would be uncomfortable with no mechanics for combat. Not due to a lack of trust, but because combat isn't like gauging a social reaction, or the solving of a puzzle. I am comfortable adjudicating those things, but not comfortable adjudicating combat without some kind of system

 

[Bedrockgames]

Why not? What distinctions make you feel this way?

That isn't an easy thing to assess. And I am not sure how useful assessing it is to be honest. Just off the top of my head, there is a difference between violent, physical action, and social ones. But there are probably lots of other reasons behind why these two feel very different to me in play. All I can tell you is I find it very easy to adjudicate social interactions, puzzles, exploration without mechanics (sometimes I like having mechanics for some of those things, but it never feels completely necessary). With combat it is totally different. At the end of the day, again, we can try to provide you with explanations for why these things just land differently with us. But I don't know how useful that is to be honest. I think one can fall into the same trap that occurs when you try to identify what you it is you don't like about a particular game or edition. I've done that, and it has led me astray many times. Because that kind of insight isn't easy to come by. It is very easy to misidentify the cause, or to miss an important nuance. But the important thing, really is the end result. So any distinctions I can provide are provisionary and not as important as the fact that I just know from playing that I am comfortable having no mechanics for one, but not comfortable having no mechanics for the other (on either side of the GM screen).

 

[FrogReaver]

Is this true of combat resolution in D&D?

That's not a simple question to answer.

Generally speaking when a mechanical process for combat is outlined in the book that is the process followed. So when a player attacks an enemy, they roll an attack roll, the DM (or sometimes players) compare the AC to the resulting roll with modifiers and on a success they hit and damage is rolled. As we have noted here there is some difference in opinion about whether the normal part of the D&D playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty actually can ever apply by rule to combat situations. I would say it technically does, but I'm sure others have rather strong opinions that it doesn't. But in practice that's mostly a distinction without a difference as a dang good reason would be needed to alter that part of combat resolutoin, as whether or not the rules might allow such things, it's generally an expectation of the players that combat will be resolved by the mechanics in the rules (or potentially houserules given out ahead of time).

That said, not all potential actions in combat in D&D are codified - just the most common. When a player attempts to do something creative in combat then the DM does lean back into the general purpose playloop of determining success, failure or uncertainty and will proceed to some kind of check to resolve the uncertainty in the event that's what he has determined.

Is it true of a declaration I try and climb the wall? Eg is the GM just allowed to say, Sorry, you can't find any handholds?

Yes.

This is exactly what I have described upthread as the GM relying on unilateral decisions about the fiction to make the determination that a player's action declaration fails.

I disagree. I think the example about climbing a wall with no handholds is more akin to framing the scene, which I think we all agree is okay for the DM to do unilaterally.

When this is happening, I don't see how it can be said that the player is exercising agency over the content of the shared fiction. It's inherent to the very situation that the GM is deciding unilaterally!

The PC's and their actions are part of the shared fiction. So long as the player has agency over their PC's actions then they have agency over the shared fiction. Maybe what you mean is that the players don't have agency over all the shared fiction? But I don't think that really correctly summarizes your position either.

This can very easily bleed into the sort of circumstance that @Campbell has described not far upthread - where so little of the relevant fiction is known to the players that the GM's unilateral control over it turns into flat-out decision-making about the trajectory of play.

In D&D, I sign up to play a game where I control a PC and nothing more. Controlling that PC gives me agency over the fiction via that PC's actions. The DM is responsible for the setting, the NPC's, and the framing of scenes. He has agency over all those things. That said, I've never played in a D&D game where I felt like I had no say over the trajectory of play. My characters actions have always been the very mechanism that have allowed me to affect the trajectory of play (and sometimes some out of game input).

 

[Lanefan]

I think that even in D&D, many actions that are declared have an expected outcome. Some are vague as hell and cause all kinds of issues, but many are straightforward. By that I mean that when a player declares an action, they have a success state in mind.

Most of the time.

Sometimes they might declare an action with a failure state in mind, i.e. where any outcome - including the status quo - will do other than this bad one I've thought of!

Also, just because a player has a success state in mind (or even says it outright as part of the declaration) doesn't always mean that's the only possible success state*; and - and here's the bit that's key for me - doesn't always entitle the player/PC to that success state even if the roll would say otherwise**.

* - many things are binary, with but one success state and one fail state: a combat roll is the most obvious of these. But in non-binary situations e.g. many social interactions, the player might talk to the Duke in hopes of uncovering duplicity within the court and (if-when mechanics are invoked) roll really well; there's no duplicity to be found but the PC comes away with a new patron and a friend in high places. Success, but not what was expected or sought.
** - this arises if-when the player asks for too much as a success state. I mean, I don't care if your d20 roll adds up to 95, a random declaration of "I check the wardrobe to see if it holds the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords" ain't getting a "yes" out of me.

 

[Lanefan]

So the issue for you is one of where an idea in the fictional world originates; is that a fair assessment? You think that is the purview of the GM and not the players, except under very specific circumstances.

Setting is the purview of the GM. Therefore, any setting-based idea comes from or through the GM unless the GM has proactively delegated this purview to a player (e.g. the 1e DMG guidance re a Fighter building a stronghold; or e.g. the GM delegating a player to write up the home village of that player's PC).

Character, by contrast, is the purview of the player. Absent control mechanics, the GM (or anyone else) can't tell me how to play my character.

 

[Lanefan]

The man begging for his life acted and it influenced events such that the outcome he desired was arrived at. That's agency. (What's cool is that it could even be agency if he failed at his begging attempt).

Someone else having final say over whether you live or die doesn't mean you have no agency over that situation. Having the capability to influence the one with the decision making power over your life is having agency over your life.

You seem to be making the incorrect assumption that having agency requires the ability to guarantee the thing comes out the way you want.

I'm reminded of a quote from someone I once knew in student politics:

"The point of lobbying isn't to get what you want, it's to not get what you don't want."

Replace 'lobbying' with 'agency', perhaps?