D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Bill Zebub]

2.My game is loaded with lore and information. It's one of my favorite things. Even the player that just coasts through the game will have to go through a little. But then they would have to remember things and use things in gameplay. And plenty of casual players refuse to do this. They are "forced" to listen to flavor text, but they never speak to NPCs in character or interact much with the game world. Their character walks into an inn common room and sees an open book in the fire place that is not being consumed by the flames...and they just ignore it and say "when are we going to fight something?" This comes up a lot for the "informed agency" thing. Players say they "don't know stuff", so they can't make informed decisions. My counter is the players are unwilling to role play, interact or immerse themselves in the game to learn anything. And the classic "they don't write anything down"

Admittedly this is not a lot of information to go on, and I may be totally off-base here, but the above paragraph makes me wonder if your investment in lore and information also means that when you design adventures you have preconceived notions of how that adventure is going to play out...how it is going to fit into the story you have envisioned for your world...and as a result some of the players feel like they don't really have any ability to influence that story.

Again, maybe I'm off base, but in my experience there is often (or maybe just sometimes?) a correlation between DM investment in world-building, and DM desire to (perhaps inadvertently) keep the story on the arc they have invested in.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Players can make choices and have them matter if they are willing to put in the time, effort, work, immersion, focus and force to do intelligent meaningful actions.

That's a huge red flag, imo. Players should be able to make choices and have them matter, period. Not "if they are willing to..." play in ways that the DM thinks are legitimate RPGing.

There were a lot of other things you said in the post I quoted from that make it sound like you expect players to engage in the game in certain ways, and that if they don't they are "lazy", etc.

I'm picking up a badwrongfun vibe, which I think could be the source of your problem.

EDIT: Which could explain the "player agency" complaints. Those two players may feel you are trying to force them to engage in a way that is not how they enjoy RPGs.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've been invoked a surprising amount for a thread I haven't posted in. For context, my point there was that agency to determine what a story or world is about is not the same as the agency that allows players to advance different strategies in a board game, and that it's a difference of kind, not scale.

Yeah, but I make no claims outside of RPGs, Chess or other sorts of games have their own characteristics. I merely assert that you cannot classify any given unit of play into a specific category within an RPG. They are all multi-dimensional.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If you could provide a starter link for this I would be grateful.

Intro to Israeli Theory - Your Game Doesn’t Have a Story (third part, but it has backlinks). Its not a bad article, though I would read Baker's stuff if you want something more in depth. @pemerton can no doubt reel off a list of other classic essays .

 

[Mort]

Nothing much. Billy is a casual Lone Wolf gamer. He just does whatever his friend Alex (one of the good players) does.

Ok this has been bugging me and maybe an explanation will help me understand the actual (agency) issue.

How can someone be a "lone wolf gamer...." Who does basically whatever his friend does?

A lone wolf is someone who does his own thing, regardless of what the rest of the group does or wants to do.

A player who does whatever his friend does is a follower; the complete opposite of lone wolf?!?

the terms seem contradictory when applied to the same player.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

If at any point the players start trying to tell DM how to decide consequences, right, wrong or not they are impinging upon the DM agency.

What book of lore does this spring from? Was it a precept of St Gygax? lol. You may certainly play according to this doctrine, but do not imagine it is in any way shape or form inherently true or even necessary or better for play. Roles of participants are up to the people playing.

 

[Oofta]

What book of lore does this spring from? Was it a precept of St Gygax? lol. You may certainly play according to this doctrine, but do not imagine it is in any way shape or form inherently true or even necessary or better for play. Roles of participants are up to the people playing.

The DM making the final call is part of D&D's DNA and pretty much always has been. Obviously each group should run the game the way they see fit, but the default role of the DM is pretty clearly spelled out.2

From the PHB
One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee
... the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience.

From the DMG
as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

 

[nevin]

What book of lore does this spring from? Was it a precept of St Gygax? lol. You may certainly play according to this doctrine, but do not imagine it is in any way shape or form inherently true or even necessary or better for play. Roles of participants are up to the people playing.

The book of lore that started with the post what does player agency mean too you unless you changed the title of the thread we are posting in. .

Agency is ability to do what you should be able to do. all those roles you talk about require the player or the DM to have the agency to do what they need to do and if you start messing with that then trust goes out the window and game falls apart. sorry you forgot the question that started the post. Now you can you can laugh or rage at yourself.

 

[bloodtide]

How can someone be a "lone wolf gamer...." Who does basically whatever his friend does?

In this case, Alex is a very independent gamer....and he does not like the other two players at all. So he keeps apart and independent , but still plays the game with them. Billy goes to the full Lone Wolf extreme of ignoring all the players...though he does the "copy Alex" thing. Billy will make a big deal that is "not" coping Alex, and that he is just randomly picking the same things as him every time.

As they are "Summer Mash up" games....they are far from perfect.

a huge red flag, imo. Players should be able to make choices and have them matter, period. Not "if they are willing to..." play in ways that the DM thinks are legitimate RPGing.

This is the big split between me and the Gaming Collective. I don't think any and every action a player randomly has a character randomly take can and should alter game reality.

There were a lot of other things you said in the post I quoted from that make it sound like you expect players to engage in the game in certain ways, and that if they don't they are "lazy", etc.

A lot of my requirements are fairly basic: Pay Attention, Focus, Engage and use Common Sense.

I'm picking up a badwrongfun vibe, which I think could be the source of your problem.

EDIT: Which could explain the "player agency" complaints. Those two players may feel you are trying to force them to engage in a way that is not how they enjoy RPGs.

HUmmm....possible.

Admittedly this is not a lot of information to go on, and I may be totally off-base here, but the above paragraph makes me wonder if your investment in lore and information also means that when you design adventures you have preconceived notions of how that adventure is going to play out...how it is going to fit into the story you have envisioned for your world...and as a result some of the players feel like they don't really have any ability to influence that story.

Again, maybe I'm off base, but in my experience there is often (or maybe just sometimes?) a correlation between DM investment in world-building, and DM desire to (perhaps inadvertently) keep the story on the arc they have invested in.

They might be mixing Easy Button play with Player Agency. Most of the players are used to the "no effort easy button" play where their Fan DM just alters game reality and rolls out the red carpet no matter what they do. I'm nothing like that.

 

[Bayushi_seikuro]

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

"This campaign isn't Burger King. You don't get it your way, right away. You take it my way or you don't get the mf'er"