D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pemerton]

The agency is in declaring what the character does, not in deciding the outcome, all your examples are just that, declaring the char action

In every RPG ever, the player declares what their PC does. But everyone knows that some RPGs are railroads. Therefore action declaration on its own can't be a touchstone of agency.

The touchstone is action resolution. And @hawkeyefan has deliberately provided examples where the canonical means of resolution (in D&D at least) is that the player saying it makes it so:

I go down the western fork in the road.

I speak to the innkeeper.

I choose the door on the left.

These and many more instances of play that require no mechanics are exactly that. Some would argue that even these basic declarations are subject to DM approval… but pointing that out only serves to prove there is no player agency.

We can go even further if we want to include instances where the system tells us what happens. I want to cast fireball… we know how it works, we don’t need the DM to allow anything. I declare an attack… we know how it works… I tell the DM what my character is doing, the system tells us if I succeed or fail.

For an example of a RPG in which "I speak to the innkeeper" requires the player to succeed at a check before we know whether or not it is true, in the fiction, that the PC is speaking to the innkeeper, I suggest Wuthering Heights.

For an example of a RPG in which the player can not only declare "I speak to the innkeeper" and have it be true, but can also declare "And the innkeeper falls madly in love withe me", I suggest Prince Valiant - though only if the player has a Storyteller Certificate and spends it to create that effect.

I think trying to understand player agency as if a certain typical approach to D&D is more-or-less exhaustive of the possibilities is not very helpful.

 

[mamba]

In Burning Wheel, the action declaration can't be resolved if the GM doesn't know what the player hopes their PC might find.

interesting, so it is not predefined what the cupboard contains? Schroedingers container...

Well, presumably @Vaalingrade is either talking about a non-5e D&D version of the game, or departs from what I described as the canonical approach.

or misunderstood what I meant, in any case I disagree with their assessment If anything, I would find the opposite miserable / undesirable

 

[mamba]

In every RPG ever, the player declares what their PC does. But everyone knows that some RPGs are railroads. Therefore action declaration on its own can't be a touchstone of agency.

The touchstone is action resolution. And @hawkeyefan has deliberately provided examples where the canonical means of resolution (in D&D at least) is that the player saying it makes it so:

yeah, I would have never considered the DM intervening here, not even on a railroad (if you prevent the player from choosing the second door, why even have it, etc. ....)

I think trying to understand player agency as if a certain typical approach to D&D is more-or-less exhaustive of the possibilities is not very helpful.

I am not saying that other TTRPGs cannot have different approaches, but to me this is about agency in a 5e framework, because that is what the OP plays

 

[pemerton]

interesting, so it is not prefdefined what the cupboard contains? Schroedingers container...

What colour are Sherlock Holmes's socks, when he first meets Watson? Or was he wearing hose? Schroedinger's hosiery!

Alternatively: when playing a RPG, I want to exercise influence over the content of the shared fiction. Agency!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yep! I'd also suggest that they also typically takes some player agency and gives that to the DM.

Er...what? How? Which games?

Then I'd go even further and suggest that the typical mechanical structure used to give players 'DM Agency' in No-Myth games also reduces actual player agency in certain ways as well.

How? Which games?

I'm noticing a pattern here, where the people who claim games work this way speak in abstractions and airy references. When asked for specifics, they either do not answer, refuse to elaborate, or ask people to (somehow) point to examples of absence. Thus far, AFAICT, only three examples of actual game mechanics have been made: Spout Lore (which I have already rebutted quite thoroughly), Flashbacks (which I studied up on and found seriously lacking in the "player gets to just declare advantage" department!), and Fate Aspects. Only the latter even remotely looks like what people have described--and even then, as I have been helpfully informed by someone much better versed with that system, the player CANNOT just willy-nilly declare things, there must be good backing for it already, and without that, the GM is not required to accept anything of the sort.

Can you name one game where this stripping of player agency occurs?

Not from my perspective, to me the proper declaration is simply 'I search the cupboard', I have no idea what I will find so I am not looking for specifically these items.

But intent absolutely matters. It's extremely important, even. That's what makes the difference between murder and self-defense. Intent is what makes the difference between sin and error, cruelty and ignorance, injustice and incompetence. That doesn't mean it is specifically more or less important than impact (which is more important varies), but intent matters a hell of a lot, especially with action declaration.

Either way, the question is, do I declare that I perform a search, in whichever way, or do I declare that I perform a search and what items the search found? That is the real question here...

No, it isn't. Because, again, I ask for you (or anyone) to name one single game where the rules actually tell players to do the thing you describe and tell GMs to simply roll over and accept whatever players say.

I am pretty confident you won't find any. Which is why I keep calling this a boogeyman.

I agree, what the player finds by searching the cupboard is up to the DM. That was my point.

That isn't what was said. What was said is that the DM consults their notes on whether the sought objects are there, and then determines how hard it is to find out that they are there. You keep forcing this into a situation where the player cannot ever look for something specific, no matter what. Pemerton explicitly is describing something where the player IS looking for something specific--but just because they seek does not mean they will find. Why are you forcing this to be the player NEVER EVER looking for anything specific?

To expand to other examples: Why can't players try to attack a specific body part? By your restrictions, the player cannot ever attempt anything more specific than "I attack the orc." They can't try for a trick shot, or pinning the orc's foot to the floor, or anything else. Only absolutely detail-free generic actions are allowed. By your restrictions, the player cannot ever say which book they want to read from a bookshelf. They can only say they read a book. By your restrictions, the player cannot ever say what song they perform to distract an audience, they can only say they perform a song (heck, even that might be too much!) Etc., etc., etc.

 

[pemerton]

@EzekielRaiden

I provided an example (including actual play) of the Burning Wheel Circles mechanic.

That's another one that has been mischaracterised by subsequent posters who seem to have little or no familiarity with it.

 

[mamba]

But intent absolutely matters. It's extremely important, even. That's what makes the difference between murder and self-defense.

not in searching a cupboard

If I say 'I search the cupboard for a sword +1', the DM can say 'you do not find one' and not tell me what else is in it (granted, that is not what I would do), so I rather leave it open ended.

No, it isn't. Because, again, I ask for you (or anyone) to name one single game where the rules actually tell players to do the thing you describe and tell GMs to simply roll over and accept whatever players say.

I am pretty confident you won't find any. Which is why I keep calling this a boogeyman.

I have no idea what you are talking about... where the player declares what he finds? I am not talking about a game, that was a reply to @Vaalingrade who found my explanation of what the player has agency over (whether they search the cupboard) and what not (what the search finds) utter misery

That isn't what was said. What was said is that the DM consults their notes on whether the sought objects are there, and then determines how hard it is to find out that they are there. You keep forcing this into a situation where the player cannot ever look for something specific, no matter what.

not really, they can search the cupboard specifically for a petrified Tarrasque for all I care, I just see no point in declaring an item I am searching for when searching through a cupboard however

To expand to other examples: Why can't players try to attack a specific body part? By your restrictions, the player cannot ever attempt anything more specific than "I attack the orc." They can't try for a trick shot, or pinning the orc's foot to the floor, or anything else.

that does not follow at all from what I wrote... at no point did I say the player cannot search for something specific, I just said why when I search a cupboard, I am leaving it open ended because I usually want to learn what is in the cupboard, and not whether it contains a specific item

 

[FrogReaver]

Has that been suggested? To be clear, I am understanding your question here as, "Why has it been suggested that D&D players have less agency because they cannot <make fiat declarations of benefit>?!"

Yes. Here is an explicit example. Maybe you don't agree with this position?

So think about your game, and think about when play works in such a way that the player gets to tell the GM what happens… and crucially, cannot be vetoed… and that’s where the agency is.

It’s that simple.

 

[pemerton]

@mamba, @EzekielRaiden

On searching and player declared intention, consider the following:

Let's suppose that finding something would be something that mattered to play. In D&D, this is often the case - especially if the something is a magic weapon or healing potion. Likewise in many other FRPGs. (By way of contrast, Agon 2e is a RPG in which finding things is not normally a big part of play.)

And let's suppose that agency, in the context of game play, means something like having influence over things that matter in the play of the game.

If the player's intention or desire as to what might be found is not relevant to what (if anything) is found, then the player is exercising less influence over something that matters in play than if the player's intention or desire was relevant.

This is one illustration of why I regard (say) 4e D&D or Burning Wheel as involving more player agency than (say) 5e played in the canonical way I set out above. (Where what, if anything, is found is decided solely by the GM.)

 

[pemerton]

@FrogReaver , @hawkeyefan in post 388 just upthread makes it clear that success or failure via mechanics can be a mode of player agency. In other words, the emphasis is not on player fiat but on absence of unilateral GM control.

This is how many RPGs work: 4e D&D (skill challenges), Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, among others.