D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Oofta]

It would seem that most people only want the solutions the DM has already imagined to work.

This is total BS. Just because PCs don't have narrative control over the world, just because the DM will enforce their vision of how the world works (which is their role after all) does not mean the players can't come up with alternative solutions.

My players do unexpected things all the time. It's awesome and I celebrate their victories and inventive solutions right along with them. DMs that want a world that works in a fashion that logically results from world building in no way limits player agency.

 

[FrogReaver]

This is total BS. Just because PCs don't have narrative control over the world, just because the DM will enforce their vision of how the world works (which is their role after all) does not mean the players can't come up with alternative solutions.

My players do unexpected things all the time. It's awesome and I celebrate their victories and inventive solutions right along with them. DMs that want a world that works in a fashion that logically results from world building in no way limits player agency.

Unless player agency is really just code for ‘narrative authority’.

Honestly, looking back on all the agency threads, one of the most prevalent features is a denial that d&d (or at least one fairly typical way of playing d&d) players have agency and that the only way they can get agency is via narrative authority. All these threads and arguments make a lot more sense if this is the starting premise for one ‘side’ (for lack of a better word).

So maybe the starting point really should be - do d&d players generally have player agency? Note: there’s always exceptions like railroads.

 

[CreamCloud0]

This is total BS. Just because PCs don't have narrative control over the world, just because the DM will enforce their vision of how the world works (which is their role after all) does not mean the players can't come up with alternative solutions.

My players do unexpected things all the time. It's awesome and I celebrate their victories and inventive solutions right along with them. DMs that want a world that works in a fashion that logically results from world building in no way limits player agency.

agreed, players coming up with unexpected solutions we as GMs didn't think of is great, it's when the player start trying to write new solutions into the world that we start to have problems

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

The analogy I would make is the old 4e argument about 'can you trip a gelatinous cube?'.

A sim kind of approach is to say that no, what the rules literally say isn't plausible, my vision of the game world is my priority here, I will veto the rules. So, your power doesn't work and the cube is unaffected.

A more narrativist or agency-supporting approach is to say OK, what the rules literally say isn't plausible, supporting player agency is my priority here, I will seek an interpretation of that rules effect that makes sense in the gameworld. So, your power does work, but instead of actually being tripped over we will say that you slam it into the wall with a similar temporarily disabling effect.

I think this maps exactly to the Noble discussion.

See, when I read that, it dovetails into exactly what I see if the problem when people are discussing "player agency."

What, exactly, do you mean by player agency? To you, and in that example, the concept of player agency in that example is nothing more than "Rules are followed, despite what the fiction allows." On the other hand, a person might reasonably say that 4e constrains player agency to the extent that ... wait for it .... "Rules are followed, despite what the fiction allows."

So while you might credibly say, "Look, a player has this cool ability. He should be able to use it, even when it doesn't make sense. The GM must accommodate the player in order to increase player agency," another person might look askance at that and say, "Sure, but in that ruleset, the player's agency is constrained because while they might be able to 'trip' a gelatinous cube, 'tripping' is a defined function of the rules, and it can only be employed in the exact manner of the rules, no matter what the player wants and the fiction allows. Therefore, those rules deny player agency."

In essence, it's nothing more than rehashing an old debate about the utility of certain specified rules while employing the term "player agency," which doesn't add to the conversation. It's a terrible term because it's essentially a meaningless term when people use it.

The most notable feature is when you say that "A more narrativist or agency-supporting approach ..." Here, we see what was earlier discussed with @TwoSix in the analogy with sports (and defining "player agency" in terms of "ability to influence winning"). What you are doing is simply using the term as a synonym for narratavist, which means that the term add no value- just like saying that an amateur bowler has more "player agency" than LeBron James because that amateur bowler is playing individually.

As far as I can tell, having seen this argument countlessly replayed, it's a completely pointless term that doesn't add, and usually subtracts, from any conversation.

 

[FrogReaver]

See, when I read that, it dovetails into exactly what I see if the problem when people are discussing "player agency."

What, exactly, do you mean by player agency? To you, and in that example, the concept of player agency in that example is nothing more than "Rules are followed, despite what the fiction allows." On the other hand, a person might reasonably say that 4e constrains player agency to the extent that ... wait for it .... "Rules are followed, despite what the fiction allows."

So while you might credibly say, "Look, a player has this cool ability. He should be able to use it, even when it doesn't make sense. The GM must accommodate the player in order to increase player agency," another person might look askance at that and say, "Sure, but in that ruleset, the player's agency is constrained because while they might be able to 'trip' a gelatinous cube, 'tripping' is a defined function of the rules, and it can only be employed in the exact manner of the rules, no matter what the player wants and the fiction allows. Therefore, those rules deny player agency."

In essence, it's nothing more than rehashing an old debate about the utility of certain specified rules while employing the term "player agency," which doesn't add to the conversation. It's a terrible term because it's essentially a meaningless term when people use it.

The most notable feature is when you say that "A more narrativist or agency-supporting approach ..." Here, we see what was earlier discussed with @TwoSix in the analogy with sports (and defining "player agency" in terms of "ability to influence winning"). What you are doing is simply using the term as a synonym for narratavist, which means that the term add no value- just like saying that an amateur bowler has more "player agency" than LeBron James because that amateur bowler is playing individually.

As far as I can tell, having seen this argument countlessly replayed, it's a completely pointless term that doesn't add, and usually subtracts, from any conversation.

I think there’s a better example!

It would be like me criticizing that narrative games have less agency because they don’t give players the agency to explore a DM’s world.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is total BS. Just because PCs don't have narrative control over the world, just because the DM will enforce their vision of how the world works (which is their role after all) does not mean the players can't come up with alternative solutions.

My players do unexpected things all the time. It's awesome and I celebrate their victories and inventive solutions right along with them. DMs that want a world that works in a fashion that logically results from world building in no way limits player agency.

I don't know if I consider the DM's role to "enforce their vision of how the world works". And that's what your use of "world building" means. The DM's choices ahead of play.

And I'm not talking about narrative control. I'm talking about abilities granted to the players by the rules. You're saying that your vision of the world trumps those rules.

Which is a perfectly fine decision to make. But it impacts player agency. It can't not do that.

 

[Oofta]

Unless player agency is really just code for ‘narrative authority’.

Honestly, looking back on all the agency threads, one of the most prevalent features is a denial that d&d (or at least one fairly typical way of playing d&d) players have agency and that the only way they can get agency is via narrative authority. All these threads and arguments make a lot more sense if this is the starting premise for one ‘side’ (for lack of a better word).

So maybe the starting point really should be - do d&d players generally have player agency? Note: there’s always exceptions like railroads.

Meanwhile others will state that any action declaration a player takes in a PbtA game has to make narrative sense. Which makes sense. But if I say that an action declaration in my D&D game has to make narrative sense, how dare I put limits on background features. Can't win.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think there’s a better example!

It would be like me criticizing that narrative games have less agency because they don’t give players the agency to explore a DM’s world.

It's a term that, when employed by the people who were using it in a specified manner to critique then-current playing styles in order to design new games (the narrativist and indie games of a little more than two decades ago) certainly had some use for that community.

As a general term of comparison between games, however, it adds nothing. It generates heat, but no light.

 

[FrogReaver]

Meanwhile others will state that any action declaration a player takes in a PbtA game has to make narrative sense. Which makes sense. But if I say that an action declaration in my D&D game has to make narrative sense, how dare I put limits on background features. Can't win.

But to be fair to PbtA, it codified the must make narrative sense as a principle in the rules (at least that’s what I’ve been told). If only D&D had a line that says that. Honestly, it probably does have something along those lines somewhere - probably in the DMG - which no one reads

 

[Maxperson]

A GM can always use their imagination to come up with a logical reason why a particular ability doesn't work.

A creative player and/or GM can nearly always come up with a logical reason why it can at least be tried.

Prioritising 'no' over 'yes' is prioritising the GM's preferred outcome over the player's agency. Doing it with any frequency means players have less agency in your game.

A creative player/DM can nearly always come up with at least a weak justification, sure. Nearly always a logical reason? No.

No vs. Yes generally does not enhance or limit player agency, because entertaining weak justifications is not adding to player agency. Players don't have a right to expect that the DM will say yes to those sorts of things.