D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Oofta]

My sole purpose in posting this was to help EzekielRaiden better understand how the "declare a story detail" mechanic that they tried to grok works in Fate. There was no value judgment about D&D, Fate, or any other game contained therein. There was no value judgment about agency in any game. I was simply explaining the mechanic.

Sorry if it wasn't clear, I wasn't criticizing. Just adding on my thoughts related to topics of conversation in this thread.

 

[mamba]

we just start the games. In my Classic Old School Hard Fun Killer DM Railroad Tycoon Unfair Unbalanced Style.

I wonder if the agency issue runs deeper and what they are really complaining about is that they have no say in the theme and style of the campaign. For example:

Players: 'We want to play Indiana Jones, hunting for treasure and lost cities in the jungle'
DM: 'Too bad, I am playing Curse of Strahd, so you will be Van Helsing hunting vampires in a horror setting'

instead of

DM; 'That sounds like Tomb of Annihilation could be a fit. Here is what that is about ... Should we play that?'

 

[Pedantic]

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.

This is the precise reason I've pushed to divide narrative and ludic agency. Depending on the implementation of narrative agency (FATE points being a prime example), you can get into a situation where the gameplay decisions narrow (or lead to trivial optimization cases) as the narrative choices expand. A game with fewer possible action declarations may have more space to string them together in different ways, with different decision points to reach a goal than a game with broader action declarations does. Ludic agency requires a certain amount of space and limitation between a starting board state and a victory condition, which can easily be collapsed down to a single point of resolution as the scope of action declarations expand, or in some cases the opposite, as evaluation becomes impossible because the game state changes too dynamically in response to player actions.

Players in a game of Iberian Gauge have less agency than players in a game of 1817, but both those games are about the same thing (building publicly traded rail networks and amassing wealth) and no player has any authority in either game over what the game is about. There are simply fewer, more constrained actions available in IG than 1817 that have less impact on the board and fewer possible paths to victory. RPGs don't escape questions of gameplay just because they also contain storytelling and worldbuilding and all their unique features over other kinds of games. Agency isn't an irreducible quantum; agency to do what, in what field? Those different fields impact each other.

 

[pointofyou]

I wonder if the agency issue runs deeper and what they are really complaining about is that they have no say in the theme and style of the campaign. For example:

Players: 'We want to play Indiana Jones, hunting for treasure and lost cities in the jungle'
DM: 'Too bad, I am playing Curse of Strahd, so you will be Van Helsing hunting vampires in a horror setting'

instead of

DM; 'That sounds like Tomb of Annihilation could be a fit. Here is what that is about ... Should we play that?'

It is possible that "being able to choose the published campaign" is not what people mean by "agency" or by "theme and style of the campaign."

 

[mamba]

It is possible that "being able to choose the published campaign" is not what people mean by "agency" or by "theme and style of the campaign."

of course it is possible, I wondered whether this could be the issue for the OP, I did not say this is the only possibility... Theme and style also is not limited to 'pick the published adventure' either, that was just an example

 

[Charlaquin]

You've created a default and immutable division of labour between players and DMs. I haven't.

To be fair, this division is explicitly spelled out in the “how to play” section of the 5e PHB. It’s not something D&D players/DMs invented, it’s how D&D teaches people to play itself.

 

[Maxperson]

To be fair, this division is explicitly spelled out in the “how to play” section of the 5e PHB. It’s not something D&D players/DMs invented, it’s how D&D teaches people to play itself.

And is the gold standard for RPGs ever since it came out. The big fish in the small pond of RPG games.

 

[soviet]

And is the gold standard for RPGs ever since it came out. The big fish in the small pond of RPG games.

Lol. Most popular, yes. Gold standard, I don't think that's ever been accepted as the case.

 

[soviet]

To be fair, this division is explicitly spelled out in the “how to play” section of the 5e PHB. It’s not something D&D players/DMs invented, it’s how D&D teaches people to play itself.

Why is this relevant? D&D isn't all RPGs. 5e isn't even all D&Ds.

 

[Maxperson]

Lol. Most popular, yes. Gold standard, I don't think that's ever been accepted as the case.

Show me another RPG that is the gold standard then. D&D is the one other RPGs are compared to.