D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

As I said, there is often no distinction between what a character does and what happens.

I am not sure why you are trying to convince me that your use of ‘what happens’ is correct and mine is wrong. As I said two times already, we simply use different terms for the same thing. We agree on the subject. My ‘what happens’ is your ‘outcome’.

Per the way the feature is described, it says nothing about attempting or a roll being needed or anything else.

it certainly says nothing about an audience being guaranteed. I don’t think it said anything at all about audiences, at least the version I read online.

EDIT: found it “You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.”. Doesn’t change what I said, whether you get one depends on circumstances, at least in my game.

In general I am not that happy with the description of the background “Thanks to your noble birth, people are inclined to think the best of you. […] The common folk make every effort to accommodate you” certainly was not always true throughout history and for every noble either, so this too depends on circumstances / the setting

This would likely (I hope) be known to me before the request, and so I would seek an audience with another local noble with whom there was no feud.

yes, I would expect that to be the case, I just used it to demonstrate that an audience is not guaranteed. The same would be true if you were on a different continent / world where nobody recognizes you / your title

Agency cannot be contingent upon approval. It's paradoxical.

I am not sure where in my reply that you quoted you infer that DM approval is required. I said pretty much the opposite (“imo the GM can never say ‘you cannot do that’, short of it being literally impossible”)

If you think he cannot even prevent impossible things, then let me introduce you to my fireball casting Fighter

 

[FrogReaver]

If one is attempting to analyze someone else's description of something one has not experienced or read then what one is analyzing is not the thing but someone else's report of it. It's like trying to analyze a novel by reading a review of it.

I mean it's either taking their example, inventing my own after reading how the rules work, or I could read the rules, play the game and then share my own examples - but since you believe people shouldn't be analyzing from other peoples examples, then none of that seems fruitful either. So fundamentally how do you propose we have discussions about RPG's?

 

[FrogReaver]

Look since this is enworld I'm sure this has already gone off the rails

How did you know

 

[Raiztt]

So again, I turn to the 'Net. What is player agency to you? What "should" a DM do? What "should" a player do?

To better answer your question, I'll give an abstract example.

Suppose the PCs need to do something or achieve a certain goal. If there is only one way, one method, one 'solution', then the players don't have agency in any meaningful sense. Here's a specific example from a game that I ran:

The PCs were attempting to rescue a merfolk princess who had been captured by pirates. The pirates have a small stronghold on a very small island. Now - me as the DM - I do not know or care how the PCs accomplish this goal. What they ended up doing was infiltrating the stronghold at night, had the merfolk princess drink a shrinking potion, and literally yeeted her back into the ocean. While I had imagined several different ways they could have gone about rescuing the princess, this was not one that I had imagined - but it was a really good/clever/interesting idea.

If on the other hand there was only and exactly one way to rescue the princess, then the players wouldn't have had any agency in any meaningful sense. IMO D&D is not the PCs playing out your script/novel, it's a DM creating situations and letting the PCs tackle those situations however they like and the DM adapting accordingly.

 

[pointofyou]

I mean it's either taking their example, inventing my own after reading how the rules work, or I could read the rules, play the game and then share my own examples - but since people shouldn't be analyzing from other peoples examples, then none of that seems fruitful either. So fundamentally how do you propose we have discussions about RPG's?

People who've played the same games can I think pretty reliably compare experiences in and with those games. If one wants to talk about a given game it is in my experience helpful to have at least read it and more helpful to have played or run it. It is at least occasionally useful to have experience in other games than the ones immediately under discussion though I think I agree with your implication that is not guaranteed to be the case.

 

[Professor Murder]

Thread is already too long so my post here is purely a response to the thread title.
Player Agency in a ttrpg for me is that the PCs are the ones called upon to resolve the conflict. They are the protagonists. The events of the story require the PC's presence. They cannot merely be passengers of the narrative. This does not mean they are always in control or that there are not things that dont go the way they want. That is the nature of conflict. The PCs are the protagonists and the success or failure to overcome the conflicts of the narrative come out of the player's choices. Dice do mean that random chance is involved yes, but the narrative construction should aways center around the PCs. A GM who is trying to tell their story that the PCs just are there to be swept up in and ultimately have no baring on the resolution of is, imho, making a critical error.

 

[Mort]

it certainly says nothing about an audience being guaranteed. I don’t think it said anything at all about audiences, at least the version I read online.

We are talking about the noble background feature, yes?

It says: You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

That would HEAVILY seem to imply that, yes, the audience would, at some point, be granted. Sure there might be conditions, the noble doesn't have to be the least bit friendly (and might be quite hostile depending on circumstances) but they WILL meet with you.

A DM that consistently denies the PC an audience (with a noble) when his PC requests one, is denying the use of the feature.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

For a simulationist type game, one player assumes more agency (the DM), and the other players assume less precisely because the demands of the play style require it. Simulationism play is based on a deliberate eschewal of agency over the fiction by the non-DM players in the pursuit of a specific relationship between those players and the fiction. The players have less overall agency in the frame of "all the various types of TTRPG play", but they have the exact amount they need in the frame of "playing a simulationist TTRPG".

See, on this I don't agree.

The distinction is that we are using this nebulous term (agency) in ways that are not accurate in terms of the play.

Let's use an easy-to-understand example.

Zeno: The rules say your sword causes d8 damage.

Achilles: No. My sword causes 3d00 damage.

Zeno: Um ... no?

Achilles: HOW DARE YOU RESTRICT MAH AGENCY!


I know, I know, it's silly. How about this?

Zeno: Okay, everyone ready for an exciting game of Blades?

Achilles: Yeah! Now, I jump over the moon! Ima author me some fiction!

Zeno: Um, that's not exactly what it means ....

Achilles: HOW DARE YOU RESTRICT MAH AGENCY!!!!!


The reason these examples should seem absurd is because they are absurd. When we talk about player agency, we are necessarily discussing it within the context of a game- within the context of the rules of the game (both the game rules qua rules as well as the second-order design, aka the expected style of play). Once people start to compare player agency between different types of games, it immediately breaks down.

Talking about "increased player agency" in a game that explicitly allows players to create the fiction is not actually about player agency; it's just about players having authority (either through rules or style of play) to author fiction. That's not "agency," it's just a different way of using the rules.

That's why these conversations are unproductive. DMs don't have more "player agency" in D&D than in other games, because that's not even the correct way to look at it. Instead, it's better to think of it in terms of the different roles (vis-a-vis authority over fiction) in terms of games, and the benefits and drawbacks to those approaches. As soon as you start trying to introduce "player agency" as a ranking system between games, you end up in useless discussions.

IMO, IME, etc.

 

[mamba]

It says: You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to.

yep, found it too after a reread and edited the post

That would HEAVILY seem to imply that, yes, the audience would, at some point, be granted. Sure there might be conditions, the noble doesn't have to be the least bit friendly (and might be quite hostile depending on circumstances) but they WILL meet with you.

I am ok with there never being an audience, if the circumstances justify it, the default is that it is being granted however.

Heck, I could even grant the audience and then have the guards attack the players or have them be poisoned during it, if the circumstances justify it. Not granting an audience could be a very tame response

A DM that consistently denies the PC an audience (with a noble) when his PC requests one, is denying the use of the feature.

there is a difference between ‘consistently’ and ‘once for a very specific reason’, apart from that we are in agreement

 

[Aldarc]

(I mean, basketball IS better, but for a host of other reasons. )

Wow. We really do see eye-to-eye on many important issues.