D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Micah Sweet]

I believe this is an issue comics have in a lot of ways. There are events that cannot be changed generally - the Waynes will always leave Bruce an orphan, Uncle Ben will die and give Peter Parker guilt, etc - but what they are running into are things where... Marvel used to have a policy where certain events - Ibelieve like the Fantastic Four getting their powers, Uncle Ben dying, etc - always being 'twenty years ago'. Not an issue for Peter to get his powers in 2003 instead of 1963. Captain America can stay asleep since WW2 without an issue, but it becomes harder and harder for Magneto to have been in the concentration camps.

I've seen a suspended animation thing done for Magneto occasionally, so that he would wake up in time to have all those early interactions with Xavier. I think the idea is that the Nazis were studying him during the war and put him "on ice" for later.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why does it make a difference?

Because if the existence of the merchant is directly based on the PCs current circumstances, then their choices lack agency, because the DM has decided in the moment to help them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The player is making the declaration, not the PC.

If the player is just speaking for themselves out of character, what difference does it make in the game at all?

 

[Vaalingrade]

In all circumstances ever? I don't think that would be accurate. In some circumstances - sure.

So the DM has sole authorship and sometimes lets the players add tiny, insignificant things as long as it doesn't disturb their live action novel.

 

[pemerton]

I don't see the point you're trying to make.

The assertion that "the DM can always negate what the players say and do" is not true of D&D in general. Nothing in Moldvay Basic, or Gygax's PHB, suggests that it is true in those versions of D&D (and Gygax's advice to players towards the end of his rulebook would make no sense if it was true). The rules for skill challenges in 4e D&D strongly imply that it is false in that version of D&D.

On the other hand, the advice for players in AD&D 2nd ed - which is, roughly, to focus on presenting the characterisation of a PC without worrying about any further influence over what it is that everyone is imagining - is consistent with the assertion made about the DM's power to negate what players say and do.

 

[pemerton]

If the player is just speaking for themselves out of character, what difference does it make in the game at all?

They can make suggestions to the GM about what they might find interesting. They can tell the GM what their goals and aspirations for their PCs are.

These are just examples from a longer list.

the core assumption of D&D is and always has been that the players are responsible for their PCs and what they do, the DM is responsible for pretty much everything else.

This is likewise true in Apocalypse World. From the rulebook (p 109):

Apocalypse World divvies the conversation up in a strict and pretty traditional way. The players’ job is to say what their characters say and undertake to do, first and exclusively; to say what their characters think, feel and remember, also exclusively; and to answer your questions about their characters’ lives and surroundings. Your job as MC is to say everything else: everything about the world, and what everyone in the whole damned world says and does except the players’ characters.​

Differences in degree of player agency, in a RPG, can be created without changing the subject matter that the different participants get to talk about. As per my post upthread, that I reposted at @Micah Sweet's request,

in the RPGs I know that have higher player agency, the players cannot "alter game reality" in the way some posters in this thread are talking about. Rather, they establish their own goals and aspirations for their PCs (including working with the group collectively to establish the appropriate backstory and setting elements to underpin those goals and aspirations), and then the GM relies on those goals and aspirations as cues for their own narration of framing and consequence.

There may also be techniques that permit the players to declare actions or make decisions pertaining to their PCs' memories. This goes together with the players' establishing goals and aspirations, to overall produce characters that have "thicker" lives, relationships, etc than is typical of much D&D play.​

What distinguishes (say) AD&D 2nd ed (as presented in its rulebooks) or @Oofta's version of D&D as presented in this thread) from (say) AW or DW is not the subject matter that the different participants get to talk about. Rather, in these approaches to D&D there is a core assumption that the GM is permitted to establish situations in which the PCs find themselves, and to establish consequences of what the PCs do in those situations, that are independent of the players' goals and aspirations for their PCs. This is the idea of the GM as a "neutral" referee, or as a presenter/narrator of the imaginary world that they have prepared in advance of actual play.

 

[pemerton]

Let's start here. Non-rpgs where the players just take turns weaving together a story feature player agency! Other than yielding their agency when it's not their turn they could potentially have no limits on their agency!


IMO. The agency wholly unique to RPG's is the players agency over their characters attempted actions within the shared fiction.

I think you can mix this wholly unique RPG player agency with the kinds of player agency found in non-rpg narrative games. That definitely seems to be your preference.

No. I play RPGs because they are different from taking turns weaving together a story.

This is why I, time and again, am puzzled by these assertions about "alter game reality". What characterises the RPGing I prefer, whether that be 4e D&D or (back in the day) vanilla narrativist AD&D or RM, or (these days) Burning Wheel, or Agon 2e, or Classic Traveller approached in the spirit of a PbtA game, or the various other RPGs that I enjoy, is that the GM, in talking about the stuff that it is their job to talk about, has regard to the players' goals and aspirations for their PCs. At its core it's that simple. Once we get past the core, we find these different games adopt different technical approaches to how the GM acts on that regard.

 

[FrogReaver]

No. I play RPGs because they are different from taking turns weaving together a story.

Agreed. I wasn't suggesting otherwise.

This is why I, time and again, am puzzled by these assertions about "alter game reality".

I know. It's just that it puzzles me that anyone would be puzzled by that. Puts us in quite a conundrum.

What characterises the RPGing I prefer, whether that be 4e D&D or (back in the day) vanilla narrativist AD&D or RM, or (these days) Burning Wheel, or Agon 2e, or Classic Traveller approached in the spirit of a PbtA game, or the various other RPGs that I enjoy, is that the GM, in talking about the stuff that it is their job to talk about, has regard to the players' goals and aspirations for their PCs. At its core it's that simple.

I'd suggest the same is true of most D&D play (at least these days). Though there's certainly a difference in degree.

Once we get past the core, we find these different games adopt different technical approaches to how the GM acts on that regard.

Agreed, among other things.

 

[FrogReaver]

On RPGing vs taking turns weaving a story together. There's alot of similarities there, even in D&D.

• Each player takes a turn.
• Each adds to the shared fiction on their turn.

But there are differences too.

• 1. Players have authority over their PC's and little else (though rarely is it nothing else)
• 2. Generally, (but there's exceptions) when a player tries to do something using the authority he would have that would impact something another player (most likely the DM) has authority there is a resolution mechanic. In 5e D&D that would be 1) DM decides if success, failure, or uncertain and 2) if uncertain the DM determines the DC (or in some cases like spells the game provides this) and then a roll is made to determine success or failure.

I think most players don't compare their preferred game to taking turns weaving a story together, but when they encounter a game giving players authority over more than they are used to it's hard not to draw that parallel. I'm suggesting that more overlapping authority that players share the more similar the take turns weaving a story together where each participant has authority over everything the game is. It's a spectrum IMO and even D&D is on that spectrum. Games like PbtA are certainly close to D&D on that spectrum, but they are also a bit closer to the extreme of taking turns sharing authority over everything. Something like this where the vertical lines Represent D&D, PbtA, and full blown taking turns sharing all authority -|-|---------|

 

[FrogReaver]

Then let me clarify what I meant. I believe it is possible in a D&D game for players to exercise some authorial control. Other games give examples of how it could be implemented, as do previous editions of D&D.

I don't know how to say this more clearly. I've provided examples of scenarios where players get authority over something outside their PC in D&D. No one batted an eye. It's the jump you are trying to make from authority over a few things outside the PC, to it would generally be fine to allow PC's in D&D authority over anything outside the PC's that's simply not true. There is so much the DM is doing in a D&D game that is hidden from the players that giving them authority over those things is eventually going to cause issues even if the player isn't trying to.

The purpose of the spyglass example was to test it. As was the Thulsa Doom example.

I thought I passed Thulsa Doom with flying colors?

Do the player’s motivations matter? Does it matter if the player’s motivation is different from the character’s motivation?

I think so. I took forgranted earlier that player and pc motivation need not overlap. I think either is enough to make it fall into the category of 'altering the games reality'