D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

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.

I am on board with that, I am just not expecting that the char searching the cupboard for a +1 sword increases the probability of the cupboard containing a +1 sword

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.)

I agree with this too, I just don't think I care for it. In my world the probability of my drawer containing the winning lottery ticket or the keys I misplaced does not increase depending on how much I wish for it.

 

[FrogReaver]

Er...what? How? Which games?

Which games? - Most if not all of them. I'd say all but this is the internet so there's inevitably an exception to eveything.

How? - Just as the player tends to get narrative control over the world on a successful check, the GM tends to get narrative control over the character on a failed check. Example - player wants to cut the NPC's head off on a success. Player rolls a check and receives a failure. GM now has some limited narrative control over the PC and what happens to him. Perhaps his response is: about the time you would have went to swing your sword you experience a mind numbing migraine - you fall to the ground and shriek in pain.

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.

Just a suggestion - but discussion would go alot better if you laid off such accusations.

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

I already have in this thread. Flashbacks in Bitd. Players are deprived of any agency related to the outcome of the flashback in determining what score they ultimately take, what downtime activities they do, and really most any preplanning at all (yea, the game is premised on limited preplanning by the players and for good gameplay reasons, but that's still something a D&D player almost always has agency over that a BitD players doesn't).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I don't see it, do the players in your game tell the GM 'I attack the Orc and chop off his head, killing him instantly' ? That is telling the GM what happens. Saying 'I attack the Orc' is telling the GM what you do.

That wasn't the scenario.

The question was when the players get to say what happens and the answer was 'almost never'. As in the players never get any input into worldbuilding and story, only ever following the DM's script with zero cooperative storytelling or narrative agency on the part of the players.

None of this hyperbole of the players declaring they win or whatever.

And I certainly wasn't offering up a cudgel to use against other posters.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

I am on board with that, I am just not expecting that the char searching the cupboard for a +1 sword increases the probability of the cupboard containing a +1 sword

For what it's worth, at least in Burning Wheel, just a player having her character search a cupboard for a magical sword wouldn't increase the probability of there being a magic sword in that cupboard. If a character is searching the cupboard for a magic sword, there needs to be a reason for the character to expect that specific cupboard possibly contains a magic sword (hopefully a specific magic sword).

In the rules about the Die of Fate, Crane says, "The dispute must be about a detail of the setting — something reasonable and feasible within the situation. A player cannot make a stand for beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet and hope to get a DoF roll. Gear mongering for superior quality arms in a village is also an executable offense" (BW Gold Revised, p. 560). This is a different part of the rules than the rules about task resolution, but whenever I've run Burning Wheel, I've taken this as a sign post for just about every decision — things need to be reasonable and feasible in the situation as it stands. That is, assuming Horace the Pickler is and has only ever been a purveyor of fermented cucumbers and it hasn't previously been established in play that Horace the Pickler somehow does have a magic sword in his outhouse, then he just doesn't have a magical sword in his outhouse. No amount of searching will change that. This would be a failure on my part as GM if we got into a situation where both (1) the player was searching Horace's outhouse for magical swords and (2) there was no justifiable reason for magical swords to be in the outhouse.

 

[FrogReaver]

That wasn't the scenario.

The question was when the players get to say what happens and the answer was 'almost never'. As in the players never get any input into worldbuilding and story, only ever following the DM's script with zero cooperative storytelling or narrative agency on the part of the players.

None of this hyperbole of the players declaring they win or whatever.

And I certainly wasn't offering up a cudgel to use against other posters.

I'd suggest there's a vast chasm between players don't get to say 'what happens' and players only ever follow the DM's script.

If I get to declare what my PC's attempt and the DM acts as a neutral arbitrator in determining the outcomes then I don't need to ever say 'what happens' in order to not follow the 'DM's script'.

 

[mamba]

The question was when the players get to say what happens and the answer was 'almost never'.

well, that is ‘what happens’, as opposed to ‘what they do’…

As in the players never get any input into worldbuilding and story, only ever following the DM's script with zero cooperative storytelling or narrative agency on the part of the players.

no, saying ‘I attack the orc’ is input into the story. Saying ‘we travel east’ is input into the story.

The players have control over their actions, but not control over the results of their actions (what happens because of their actions)

And I certainly wasn't offering up a cudgel to use against other posters.

no idea what you are talking about… I did not use your post in that way, I only referenced it to explain where I was coming from

 

[FrogReaver]

For what it's worth, at least in Burning Wheel, just a player having her character search a cupboard for a magical sword wouldn't increase the probability of there being a magic sword in that cupboard. If a character is searching the cupboard for a magic sword, there needs to be a reason for the character to expect that specific cupboard possibly contains a magic sword (hopefully a specific magic sword).

In the rules about the Die of Fate, Crane says, "The dispute must be about a detail of the setting — something reasonable and feasible within the situation. A player cannot make a stand for beam weaponry in the Duke's toilet and hope to get a DoF roll. Gear mongering for superior quality arms in a village is also an executable offense" (BW Gold Revised, p. 560). This is a different part of the rules than the rules about task resolution, but whenever I've run Burning Wheel, I've taken this as a sign post for just about every decision — things need to be reasonable and feasible in the situation as it stands. That is, assuming Horace the Pickler is and has only ever been a purveyor of fermented cucumbers and it hasn't previously been established in play that Horace the Pickler somehow does have a magic sword in his outhouse, then he just doesn't have a magical sword in his outhouse. No amount of searching will change that. This would be a failure on my part as GM if we got into a situation where both (1) the player was searching Horace's outhouse for magical swords and (2) there was no justifiable reason for magical swords to be in the outhouse.

And that sounds much better. Though it seems there would have to be some way to bring in yet unestablished facts into the world. Like in a no-myth game at some point the idea of a specific magic sword gets introduced. Howso? And wouldn't that introduction violate the 'reasonable and feasible' in a given situation. Then the sword must be found - not placed and then stumbled upon as this is no-myth. So the players try to determine it's location - howso, and doesn't specifying any location violate the reasonable and feasible constraint? Then finally the players get to the locations and search for the sword - i think we are good at this step but it's not clear to me how the preceeding steps don't violate the same thing.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'd suggest there's a vast chasm between players don't get to say 'what happens' and players only ever follow the DM's script.

If I get to declare what my PC's attempt and the DM acts as a neutral arbitrator in determining the outcomes then I don't need to ever say 'what happens' in order to not follow the 'DM's script'.

Never actually getting to declare anything and only ever giving the DM a prompt to respond to as they want is effectively following their script.

I find the idea of only being able to ask what happens when I try to not be much agency at all.

When I play, I'm coming up with family members, friends, talking about the arc I want my character to have. If I get a stone wall on that, well time for a new DM. Thankfully, that's not been an issue in our group for years.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

And that sounds much better. Though it seems there would have to be some way to bring in yet unestablished facts into the world. Like in a no-myth game at some point the idea of a specific magic sword gets introduced. Howso? And wouldn't that introduction violate the 'reasonable and feasible' in a given situation. Then the sword must be found - not placed and then stumbled upon as this is no-myth. So the players try to determine it's location - howso, and doesn't specifying any location violate the reasonable and feasible constraint? Then finally the players get to the locations and search for the sword - i think we are good at this step but it's not clear to me how the preceeding steps don't violate the same thing.

I'm going to continue working from an assumption that we're playing Burning Wheel, as it's where I'm most comfortable. (For what it's worth, I tend to think of BW as low-myth or story-now, more than no-myth.) Assuming that the situation established between the players and GM in Session 0, prior to the beginning of play isn't about retrieving magical swords, then it's going to come up through a belief a player creates for their character. That belief doesn't necessarily have to have anything to do with magical swords, but the sword would have to come out of the player pursuing their character's beliefs. And if the situation established is about retrieving magical swords, then it's going to come out of the players' beliefs, too — one player might have a belief about a magical sword being located in their village and another might have a belief about Horace being more than he seems, so they start investigating and stirring things up, and, yada yada yada, it turns out Horace the Pickler might have the magical greatsword of King Ivan the Scrupulously Clean in his, er, honeybucket. (For what it's worth, I love the possibility that the players get to Horace's outhouse, start searching, fail the roll to find the sword, and it becomes apparent that the sword was there and someone else has beat them to it.)

 

[hawkeyefan]

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

It’s more about determining the direction of play.

In my initial comment, I didn’t say it was about outcomes. It is about when a player gets to say what happens in the game. Not the GM, the player.

That will almost always be, in one way or another, through the cypher of their character. Think about chess and think of a player’s agency there… it’s about the moves they make.

So at its most basic it’s about declaring actions, and understanding that those actions will affect the direction of play, or that they will at least have a chance to do so.

well, if these are your examples of 'what happens', then we are in agreement, that is my 'what the char does', not the 'what happens'.

If I say I want to talk to the innkeeper, and then I talk to the innkeeper, how have I not determined what happens?

The what happens is 'because you took the west road, you are ambushed by Goblins', 'the inkeeper replies ...', etc. is 'what happens'.

And if I took the eastern fork, something different would happen (unless some chicanery is going on).

all of these are perfectly fine as well. All of these still are 'declaring what the char does', not 'what happens'. The 'what happens' for the attack is decided by the dice rolls. It seems we simply use different terms then

What the character does is what happens. I don’t see the need for a distinction. Imagine a movie or novel. Would you ever describe what characters do in them as being something other than what happens?

It’s not about the outcome… the outcome can be in doubt. It’s about the player choosing what they want to do, and having some chance of achieving that effect.

To bring it back to the backgrounds… if you have a character with the noble background, and it’s been determined they’re in an area where there is other nobility… the player gets to declare that they obtain an audience with a local lord or lady. That’s what the background feature for nobles does.

If the GM steps in and says “no, you can’t do that”, absent a very compelling argument, I’d say that’s problematic as it relates to player agency.