D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Oofta]

Ezekiel, I agree with your previous definition of agency from here:

1. I get a chance to learn about the world (even if I don't take it),
2. I can attempt a reasonable action based on what I should already know and what I have just learned,
3. I experience consequences which follow from the choice itself and the rules/structures/mechanics, not from invisible intrusions,
4. I get a chance to factor those consequences into future choices.

This is what I try to do when I DM.

Well, it would help if the players were actually making choices and not being led around by the nose and prevented from going anywhere the GM doesn't feel like letting them go. Which is the real contention here.

But nothing in the D&D rules assumes this. The person running the game can do this. There are many ways to be a bad GM, a 100% railroad is one of them. I've played for decades, I've never actually encountered it. I do play in games where we all agree to a predefined set of goals (e.g. I'm playing Curse of Strahd right now), but that's because we're playing a module. I can't imagine any game that supports adventure modules (not just settings) not hitting something similar.

Because to me that's what people keep describing. A world where the only choices you get to make are of the form "I attack this instead of that," "I act in the only way permitted by the world lore I'm not allowed to know," or "I try to do things, but actually whatever I do gets invisibly and secretly bent so it becomes what the GM wanted me to do anyway."

And ... we go off the rails with the unfounded accusations. What "people" are saying this? Because this is 100% railroad. Do some people somewhere do it? Of course. Some people like anchovies on their pizza. Doesn't make it right or common. It also ignores advice from the DMG "... your goal [as DM is] to create a campaign world that revolves around [the player's] actions and decisions...". Of course nobody actually reads the DMG.

And I fail to see even the tiniest problem with, for example, the Flashback mechanic that has been brought up so much. It's established in context that preparations occurred, they just aren't roleplayed immediately.

Occasionally a player will say "I meant to [buy/change something]" but forgot during a D&D session. It happened yesterday when we pointed out that the player of the bard could have selected another spell when leveling up for the game. It was no big deal. Sometimes I'll have them make an intelligence check to see if they remembered whatever it was but most of the time it just happens. If it's a relatively inconsequential thing, most DMs I've played with will allow it.

But I don't see it as an example of agency. It's an example of a game with different expectations from D&D on what they're trying to emulate. BitD, from my understanding, is recreating cinematic heist stories. More malleable inventory and prep simply shifts when the decision is made.

Is the issue that a player choice is not perfectly 1:1 mapped to a character choice? Because if that's the case, why in God's name does that matter here when there are tons of choices players make that cannot even in principle be mapped to a character choice?

I have no idea what this means.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, it would help if the players were actually making choices and not being led around by the nose and prevented from going anywhere the GM doesn't feel like letting them go. Which is the real contention here.

Because to me that's what people keep describing. A world where the only choices you get to make are of the form "I attack this instead of that," "I act in the only way permitted by the world lore I'm not allowed to know," or "I try to do things, but actually whatever I do gets invisibly and secretly bent so it becomes what the GM wanted me to do anyway."

And I fail to see even the tiniest problem with, for example, the Flashback mechanic that has been brought up so much. It's established in context that preparations occurred, they just aren't roleplayed immediately.

Is the issue that a player choice is not perfectly 1:1 mapped to a character choice? Because if that's the case, why in God's name does that matter here when there are tons of choices players make that cannot even in principle be mapped to a character choice?

I can only speak for myself really, but my players can have their PCs do anything they want, go anywhere they want. The only limits are what the PCs know and what they're capable of. What makes you think otherwise?

What are these "tons of choices" players make that have nothing to do with their PCs choices?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You are going to have to be a bit more specific for me to follow. I bolded a few places where I'm not clear what precisely you are saying.

Will reply with the example in mind once i get some clarification.

Both instances of "they" (the one you bolded and also the previous) = games I have read or played (such as Masks, DW, and now at least the Flashback rules for BitD; I can't speak for the whole system)

"them" = what you referred to as "those kinds of things," which from context I understood to mean rules empowering players to make fiat declarations of something (and, implicitly, something specifically advantageous)

"such a thing" = Unconstrained declaration of (implicitly advantageous) events/entities/locations/items/etc., which are now just permanent established fiction.

Players cannot, as folks have repeatedly claimed, just say something like, "Oh, I remember (nudge nudge, wink wink) that there's a hostel here where we can spend the night! No need to worry about sleeping in the dangerous wilderness. Thank goodness I remembered this was here!" There is literally nothing in any PbtA game I have ever read or played which works that way. The BitD Flashback rules do not work that way. No system I have ever seen which offers "narrative" tools (since "storytelling" apparently means something completely fixed and immutable now) permits players to just will an advantage into being simply because they declare that it exists. The rules themselves do not actually support doing that, and the decorum of play—relevant to your request that we not focus on degenerate approaches to play—is clearly opposed to such inappropriate, ungrounded manipulation.

 

[FrogReaver]

Both instances of "they" (the one you bolded and also the previous) = games I have read or played (such as Masks, DW, and now at least the Flashback rules for BitD; I can't speak for the whole system)

"them" = what you referred to as "those kinds of things," which from context I understood to mean rules empowering players to make fiat declarations of something (and, implicitly, something specifically advantageous)

"such a thing" = Unconstrained declaration of (implicitly advantageous) events/entities/locations/items/etc., which are now just permanent established fiction.

Players cannot, as folks have repeatedly claimed, just say something like, "Oh, I remember (nudge nudge, wink wink) that there's a hostel here where we can spend the night! No need to worry about sleeping in the dangerous wilderness. Thank goodness I remembered this was here!" There is literally nothing in any PbtA game I have ever read or played which works that way. The BitD Flashback rules do not work that way. No system I have ever seen which offers "narrative" tools (since "storytelling" apparently means something completely fixed and immutable now) permits players to just will an advantage into being simply because they declare that it exists. The rules themselves do not actually support doing that, and the decorum of play—relevant to your request that we not focus on degenerate approaches to play—is clearly opposed to such inappropriate, ungrounded manipulation.

Good. Then I think we are in agreement there. My point was - and I think it's best illustrated with a question -

Why has it been suggested that D&D players have less agency because they cannot do what you describe above?!

Note: your example i'll tackle in a fresh post.

 

[Aldarc]

Players cannot, as folks have repeatedly claimed, just say something like, "Oh, I remember (nudge nudge, wink wink) that there's a hostel here where we can spend the night! No need to worry about sleeping in the dangerous wilderness. Thank goodness I remembered this was here!" There is literally nothing in any PbtA game I have ever read or played which works that way. The BitD Flashback rules do not work that way. No system I have ever seen which offers "narrative" tools (since "storytelling" apparently means something completely fixed and immutable now) permits players to just will an advantage into being simply because they declare that it exists. The rules themselves do not actually support doing that, and the decorum of play—relevant to your request that we not focus on degenerate approaches to play—is clearly opposed to such inappropriate, ungrounded manipulation.

Neither PbtA nor FitD, but players can potentially do something like this in Fate; however, players must first (1) invoke an applicable/appropriate aspect, (2) discuss it with the GM whether such the new fiction is feasible, and then (3) spend one of their Fate points. So even if this were possible in Fate, my first question would be "What PC aspect could a player invoke to declare that?"

FWIW, I think that another time and time again problem with the discussion of agency is that people get offended by the notion that some games have greater player agency then others. But if you intentionally prefer playing games where a player's action declarations are limited to the PC's action in the fiction and players cannot establish new fiction for the game, then that will be less player agency (all else being equal) to a game where the player is not similarly restricted.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Neither PbtA nor FitD, but players can potentially do something like this in Fate; however, players must first (1) invoke an applicable/appropriate aspect, (2) discuss it with the GM whether such the new fiction is feasible, and then (3) spend one of their Fate points. So even if this were possible in Fate, my first question would be "What PC aspect could a player invoke to declare that?"

FWIW, I think that another time and time again problem with the discussion of agency is that people get offended by the notion that some games have greater player agency then others. But if you intentionally prefer playing games where a player's action declarations are limited to the PC's action in the fiction and players cannot establish new fiction for the game, then that will be less player agency (all else being equal) to a game where the player is not similarly restricted.

That's certainly true, but "less agency than FATE" is not the same as "no real agency", as some have claimed.

 

[Aldarc]

That's certainly true, but "less agency than FATE" is not the same as "no real agency", as some have claimed.

Could we keep are arguments focused please? I feel like you are combining several different positions into one here, and I'm not commenting on those.

Also I only mention Fate with respect to the aspect in EzekielRaiden's post in bold. It's not really applicable to the paragraph that follows. That was a separate aside.

 

[Maxperson]

"In my Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM Railroad Tycoon Unfair Unbalanced Style."
Umm ... okay. So basically you are not going to tailor your style at all to what the players want. "Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM" is just not going to work for a lot of people. Even if this is only a short term game some people want to become invested in their PCs.

This is where I think the lack of agency his players are feeling comes from. I mean, if no matter what you do you are going to be killed in an unfair manner, where do your choices matter?

 

[Maxperson]

No agency is the GM tells the players what the characters do without asking for action declarations or any other input from the players. Possibly the GM has decided everything ahead of time.

Minimal agency is the players get to declare actions but the GM decides and narrates all outcomes. Possibly the GM has a story in mind.

More agency than that is the players get to decide what success looks like and probably what failure looks like. Possibly the GM is reacting to what the players are doing.

More agency than that opens up the possibility that the players get to decide what's in the world or what the story of the game is about.

There are many, many, many more points on that spectrum than those you list. Minimal agency would be being able to pick your class, but not your race or anything else, including in game play. A bit more than that lets you pick your race, and so on. By the time you get to picking all of your creation AND making choices for your characters that matter, you have a good amount of agency even if the DM is narrating(not deciding, because in D&D many outcomes are decided by dice and other situations) all of the outcomes.

When people try to say that more traditional game play has "minimal" player agency, but their way has more or the most agency, it comes across as One True Wayist, even if not intended that way.

 

[Oofta]

This is where I think the lack of agency his players are feeling comes from. I mean, if no matter what you do you are going to be killed in an unfair manner, where do your choices matter?

Long ago in a century far, far away I had a true killer DM. I can pretty much guarantee that the guy who wrote up the PC that had the giant hand come out of a wall and smash him flat did not feel any sense of agency because there was no warning, no way to avoid it. The DM simply rolled a dice to determine which PC was going to die. There was a reason he was only DM for one session.