D&D General What is player agency to you?

[FrogReaver]

But if the guy with the criminal background ALWAYS (or even often) encounters these situations, where his picked ability doesn't work? Why even bother writing it down?

No one has suggested this is okay.

Saying exceptions are okay doesn’t mean exceptions being the norm are okay.

 

[Scott Christian]

Or it could just as easily mean a noble LOCAL to the area you are in (wherever that may be). Natural language is like that.

Backgrounds are optional, and their features are optional. I think interpreting it the way I am adds a fun element to the game. Your mileage may vary

I 100% agree it can be read both ways. Sorry, I thought I implied that in my response.

My point was, it can be read either way, so therefore, a DM could interpret it one way or the other.

 

[mamba]

If the DM instead rolls on a loot table, would it still be Schroedinger’s container? If not, why not? If so, does it mean that Schroedinger’s container isn’t a bad thing?

this ultimately is all just make believe, so I grant you that these are just constructs you either accept or do not. In game the content of the cupboard was always whatever the chars find in it. Whether the DM put it there explicitly, rolled it on a table (beforehand or at the table), or a player wished it there are all just variations on a theme and equally acceptable when everyone agrees to it.

Personally I see the first two options (DM placement, whether by design or through a random roll before the game) as somewhat more 'solid' than the latter two. The latter two allow more of a peek behind the curtain, but if everyone agrees that there is nothing behind the curtain, then they are fine too.

 

[FrogReaver]

If the DM instead rolls on a loot table, would it still be Schroedinger’s container? If not, why not? If so, does it mean that Schroedinger’s container isn’t a bad thing?

You asked this to mamba but I’m interjecting. The answer to your question is No. For what it’s worth I agree with you that the focus on the unfixed nature up until resolution is misplaced.

The difference is related to how that random loot table is established. In one case it was pre established in the DMs notes or extrapolated from them. In the other it was established at game time with the player selecting one random loot table entry and the dm selecting the other.

IMO that’s a clear difference and seems to be what @mamba is trying to get at.

 

[Mort]

No one has suggested this is okay.

Saying exceptions are okay doesn’t mean exceptions being the norm are okay.

When the exception swallows the rule - It's the rule not the exception. And from what I'm reading some posters certainly HAVE suggested that the feature wont' function quite a bit of the time. This should be revealed at session 0.

 

[SteveC]

The group is lost in the underdark. Everyone they've encountered is hostile and tries to either kill or enslave them. One of the PCs has the criminal background that has the feature that they can get a message to their criminal contact. I'm not going to invent a (relatively) friendly smuggler just so they can pass a message along. Perhaps once they figure out how to survive and somehow establish at least a temporary truce and relationship with the locals it can happen. But when every time they encounter other humanoids it's quickly followed by "Roll for initiative"? No.

I wanted to take a moment to address this because I think it's very illustrative of different expectations about agency.

If I'm running part of the game in the Underdark, I have to decide what my goal is here. The Underdark is one of those amazing parts of the D&D world that's dangerous, scary, and filled with wonder. What do I want to do there? Am I going to run a bunch of encounters where I describe what's happening and then move to "roll for initiative!" Yeah, some of them are going to be like that. Unintelligent monsters, horrors live there and it's very dangerous. I want to establish that. I hear there's a fat red dragon down there.

And at the same time, there are intelligent factions, drow, duergar, mind flayers ... you name it. All of them are vying for power and control. And here we have a group of powerful outsiders (we know they're powerful because they aren't dead from the horrible monsters yet). This is an opportunity to have some outsiders do my dirty work for me and get rid of an enemy faction while keeping my hands clean. And at this point, I'm thinking of the movie Yojimbo here.

The fact that one of the characters is a criminal who has contacts everywhere gives me the perfect opportunity as the GM to introduce a high-stakes diplomacy element to the game. Sure the dark elves have heard of that criminal faction! What a perfect opportunity for them. Sure we'll help with supplies and information, but you need to do something for us in return.

What this does is link the characters to the larger world. It makes them feel like they are a part of something bigger.

That was one suggestion that I thought of about how to handle a criminal background in the Underdark. There are many others. Maybe the creatures want to use that surface level criminal syndicate to have connections on the surface for nefarious purposes. Or countless others.

Those are ideas as to why the character's ability might make sense to use in terms of the game, and they would turn things into more negotiation, diplomacy, and hard choices (do we really want to help out a group of drow slavers?) It gives the players a feeling that their choice to be a criminal mattered, and that's agency in a nutshell to me. That's a different game than "you enter a cavern, there are a party of duergar there, roll for initiative!" Which is better? I'm not willing to say objectively better (and my 2023 motto is "don't yuck in someone's yum") but I know which one I'd prefer.

 

[FrogReaver]

When the exception swallows the rule - It's the rule not the exception. And from what I'm reading some posters certainly HAVE suggested that the feature wont' function quite a bit of the time. This should be revealed at session 0.

Seems to me like you are reading into comments a lot that isn’t there. We can confirm by asking. Who here thinks the Nobel background feature in 5e should work more often than it doesn’t?

 

[Oofta]

When the exception swallows the rule - It's the rule not the exception. And from what I'm reading some posters certainly HAVE suggested that the feature wont' function quite a bit of the time. This should be revealed at session 0.

Then it's a good thing I explain things like this during my session 0. I would always recommend you discuss expectations and style, I do it even before a session 0 when I invite people to join.

 

[Mort]

Seems to me like you are reading into comments a lot that isn’t there. We can confirm by asking. Who here thinks the Nobel background feature in 5e should work more often than it doesn’t?

I was speaking specifically of @Oofta (as recent posts show). And he does exactly what I think is best - discuss the ramifications at session 0 or even before.

 

[FrogReaver]

I was speaking specifically of @Oofta (as recent posts show). And he does exactly what I think is best - discuss the ramifications at session 0 or even before

Fairly certain @Oofta agrees with my question.