D&D General What is player agency to you?

[soviet]

covfefe

 

[Mort]

See, to me this is an argument to twist the fiction of the moment in order to allow a particular rules widget to work the way the rulebook says it does. I have zero interest in that philosophy, and have given up on games that promote it. Doesn't make it inherently bad or anything, but very much not for me.

What "fiction of the moment?"

9 times out of 10 the player requests an audience and the DM has NO IDEA what's going on in the background, especially if the noble has no idea (yet) who the PC even is. He either has to come up with a reason to say yes or no. The noble background is a "please say yes..." reminder.

 

[Micah Sweet]

What "fiction of the moment?"

9 times out of 10 the player requests an audience and the DM has NO IDEA what's going on in the background, especially if the noble has no idea (yet) who the PC even is. He either has to come up with a reason to say yes or no. The noble background is a "please say yes..." reminder.

If the DM has no reason to say no, then sure, go along with the feature. But if they do have a reason, then the feature, in my opinion, shouldn't be enough to force the issue.

 

[Mort]

If the DM has no reason to say no, then sure, go along with the feature. But if they do have a reason, then the feature, in my opinion, shouldn't be enough to force the issue.

What incentive does the player have to take the noble background if the DM can just disregard it's primary feature anytime they feel like it?

If there is a REAL reason such as the requested noble is dead then sure. Otherwise it's 9 out of 10 times just the DM blocking the feature arbitrarily.

 

[mamba]

What incentive does the player have to take the noble background if the DM can just disregard it's primary feature anytime they feel like it?

because the DM does not do so willy-nilly

If you somehow think it is better to get a red wedding audience than to not get one at all, let me know…

If you feel better about an audience where you get insulted and all your requests denied, but at least your feature got you one, let me know. I do not really see a difference here, so can the DM then not deny requests either?

 

[Scott Christian]

Well, I don't necessarily want examples per se. I just keep getting told that a huge swathe of TTRPGs out there very specifically work by having a rule on page XX which explicitly says that the player can just instantly fiat declare that they have an advantage or benefit, and further, that the GM can do absolutely nothing but agree unquestioningly.

I missed something. Who told you that and was it for D&D? That is not how I interpreted the conversation. Maybe a different game, but not D&D.

 

[bloodtide]

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.

Though this is my exact problem: Players will complain if the ONLY way to save the princess captured by pirates on an island, is to go to the island and rescue her.

Now - me as the DM - I do not know or care how the PCs accomplish this goal.

And this is the second half of the problem: Players come up with a bad, dumb, poor, or idiotic idea AND put zero effort into doing anything. At best they have thier character stumble and fumble around....AND THEN they are like "why did our plan not work?"

Because you keep SAYING that these games exist.

So, I'm only talking about D&D. Should I want to talk about other games, I'll make a thread with that game name.

You have said, repeatedly, that you will override what players are interested in, that in fact you aggressively do not care what they want out of a game. If they come out the other end copacetic to your goals, awesome; if they come out hating your guts, well, sucks to be them. Is that not correct?

Well, for this type of comment it is only about the bad/problem/exploitive players.

If so, why do you not apply that same concept one level higher? Instead of "running 5e because that's the only game players are willing to play" (meaning, you yield to the players' requirement that you run 5e), you go for the hilt, and tell people you just ARE running Call of Cthulhu or whatever and if they want to play some other game, sucks to be them, they can find a "buddy" DM that coddles them and never does anything they don't want to do etc. etc. whatever other things you think are bad about actually listening to others.

Well....it's kind of 5E or no game. Few players want to learn a new game.

So. Again. I challenge you to name any of these systems you claim to see "all the time" that have explicit rules forcing the GM to accept fiat declarations from players. Give me context. I am happy to go looking up the rules myself. But you have to actually name a game--one game--that actually works the way you describe. Unless and until you do, frankly, I'm calling BS on this whole argument.

I'm not sure I get the obsessive focus here. Even if I point out an example....you are just going to say the GM "agreed" to it. And...ok, they "agreed"? So that makes it all right in your view.

I don't see it as a good thing when the player just alters game reality and the GM just does the Fan/Buddy thing of saying "Ok-Day, whatever you want player".....even IF the GM is just hiding behind the rules.

Why do you assume that telling the GM what happens means always giving yourself an amazing, unprecedented, unrealistic, overpowered advantage?

Because only a few players are saints and angels.

None of my players--not a single one, not even the most munchkin-y among them--ever even considered doing the kinds of $#!+ behavior you describe.

Ok, so lets say that is true for the players you know....what about the other couple million?

Have you actually seen this type of game? It's certainly not "standard" 5e or Dungeon World or Blades in the Dark, or anything else I'm aware of.

If a DM is just riffing, still ok, but that's no games fault.

I see it often across three counties in all sorts of games by all sorts of DMs

Do you shut these down cold?

This is playing the game....and using game rules....so it's just fine.

But games have mechanisms for this, 5e certainly does. What if the PC has a really high deception skill? And wants to fool the guards into going to investigate a false sound. Would you allow Bob (through his PC) to utilize his deception skill like this?

Well, the beauty of 5E is that it's all generic.

 

[Mort]

I am not saying that in any of the scenarios they could not still meet you, I am saying that any of these are reasons why they could decide not to grant an audience

I'm saying the provided excuses are NOT good enough to override the feature. they're basically just the DM saying "No, I don't want you to..."

Are there good enough reasons? Sure, the Noble is dead (though for a high enough level group this wouldn't be an obstacle) the noble is far, far away (again, little issue for a high level group) - or stuff of that nature - where a meeting is near physically impossible.

I just don't think "because I don't want to..." cuts it.

no, the DM should choose what makes the most sense given what he knows. If that is no audience, fine. If that is an audience that turns into the red wedding, also fine. If that means just a regular audience, no objections either

I see this as incomplete It really should be - the DM should choose what makes the most sense given what he knows AND the fact that the player is exercising a specific, fairly niche, character feature.

If there is a way to make the audience work (ie the noble is not dead, not far, far away and IS available for an audience) the DM really needs to examine why he's saying no.

 

[hawkeyefan]

as I posted a while ago, a long running feud between your two houses, but there are plenty, you could be on a different world where no one knows you, it could be a friendly noble, but he is too scared to meet you because your powerful enemies let him know in no uncertain terms that doing so would be very detrimental to his health, …

I think @Mort already did a good job of commenting on these.

It seems that the DM's job appears to be finding a reason to work with the player's idea, or finding a way to shoot it down.

If the DM has no reason to say no, then sure, go along with the feature. But if they do have a reason, then the feature, in my opinion, shouldn't be enough to force the issue.

My point is that whatever reason it is, this is an example of the DM overriding the player's idea. Can you see how that impacts player agency?

 

[Scott Christian]

So, when I run D&D 5e, I most often don't have locations mapped out ahead of time. I realize this may be different than the way many people do it, but I point it out so that I can be clear that I'm talking about 5e and not some other game.

Thanks for the clarification. That is one of the reasons I use an example of the impromptu DM. Nothing wrong with it. It's just another playstyle.

If the DM has decided that long ago any secret passages have been blocked up or what have you, this is the DM placing his prep above player agency.

If as you say, in the end it all boils down to the DM, then that doesn't sound like player agency is a concern.

We will just have to agree to disagree. If, a player gave me a character background of a noble, and as we played, I, as DM, saw that this was part of their character - and then planned a plot point around it, that is using player agency. If the plot point happened to be a scorned younger brother had usurped the father and mother and banished them, then that brother might absolutely know he is on a hit list, especially from his older brother/sister. And he will do everything to thwart that sibling from reaching him - including trapping the secret passageways and/or sealing them up.

This does not remove player agency at all. It adds to it.