We just favour a consistent, intentionally constructed world, which is easier to achieve when you have one person running the design of it, we believe that in DnD it is the sole point and job of the DM to impartiality create and play out the world, and the point of the players to exist inside the world and exercise their agency from within, thinking, remembering and taking don’t change the world, just like real life, you have to actually go out there and do something meaningful to create change in the world.
Sometimes there are factors and information outside of the players awareness, sometimes the dice just don’t roll well, well tough break, sometimes it’s just like that in life, sorry, it happens, better luck next time.
Like there are Casual GM that don't make up much of anything for the game. Then when something is needed they just ask a player to do the GM work and make something up. So they player just says something random like "the town is full of gnomes with guns" and then GM just says "wow, cool, OK". And every so often some new random stuff is added, and everything is changed....and nothing ever makes any type of sense. This is not my type of game.
As GM I'm making the setting for the players to explore and interact with...and not alter the game reality.
@bloodtide , I hope this has helped you with your group.
It's always helpful for me to read such discussions. As I've said it's hard to get most of the real life players to talk about the game.
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.
Except this is how an adventure works. And the players did agree to go on the adventure.
I get there are some game play styles where the GM just sits back and lets the players just do endless random simple things. Oh, the players pick to do this for a couple minutes, or then this other thing. Or another thing. Or whatever. So you get five hours of whatever and nothing....but it's Fun for Some.
A lot more game play styles are more focused. The players are doing a job/task/quest, and ONLY that.
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?
Well....nothing about a Killer DM means "no matter what" your character will die. In the Ye Olden Terms it means : your character can die at any time, anywhere and in anyway. It's saying I will not alter things just to save your character. This is a very common thing for GM to do.
It's not directly about "choices". Though if you choose to have your lone character say jump into a room with 20 hostile drow...then there is a good chance of character death.
Character creation. Character advancement. Strategic coordination in combat. Several forms of interacting with the skill and/or saving throw system. E.g., the player choosing to fail a save against an illusion because they think it would be more interesting for the character to believe the illusion is real. Backstory writing, as noted previously. Emotional responses to events--it is the player who decides whether Gonad the Barbarian feels sick relief that his ex-lover survived a perilous fall, or burning resentment. (I don't know about you, but IRL, I have little choice in a lot of my emotional responses to things, the only choice I have is how to act on those emotions.) In 5e specifically, things like applying Inspiration, or invoking certain class features (e.g. Fighter's Action Surge/Second Wind/Indomitable, Barbarian's Relentless Rage, Rogue's Stroke of Luck). These things fail to map to character choices, and yet they are often pretty important tools in the players' hands.
The above are Player Agency? Have not heard that before.
And while I do have several good players, many that i had to make myself, that do the things listed above....they are not the problem.
It's the player that just comes up with a random act, and then wants it to work 100% and work 100% exactly the way they want it to benefit their character. Then when I say it does not happen they whine about 'agency'. The classic example here is the rock toss. Two orcs guard a back door. Player Bob has the idea to have his character toss a rock "over there". I have the guards ignore it. Bob gets all upset as in his mind the guards should have abandoned their post and run off into the woods for at least an hour looking for the source of the noise.
