D&D General What is player agency to you?

[EzekielRaiden]

Why? Why should I have to explain such a simple concept as time is limited.

That's not what your claim was, though. Your claim was that such efforts are frequently--perhaps almost always--such an onerous burden of effort that, because time is limited, it should be forgone or dismissed and other things should get focus instead.

All that has been argued is that sometimes circumstances allow a DM to say no to a background's feature. Sometimes circumstances allow a DM to diminish a class's strengths. And I am going to add another - sometimes circumstances allow a DM to override a species' feature.

That is the claim. The other side's claim - doing the above takes away player agency.

And what I have seen is quite different.

What I have seen is one side claiming, "I get to dismiss this whenever I want. I don't have to do any work for that. I'm the GM. If I don't like it, it's out."

And the other side saying, "That takes away player agency."

I very clearly stated this quite a bit upthread, and had people pushing--for the first of those two claims. That was why I pushed back so hard against the "point to a spot in the setting notes I wrote 20 years ago to nix a thing a player wants to do" example. Because that's not doing the work to establish that things are true within the world.

 

[Maxperson]

I still don't know where the TPK or not moving the game forward comes into play. Sometimes you won't be able to achieve a goal and you have to move on to different goals, perhaps to circle back around when you are better prepared or have a different approach. Not achieving specific goals never brings the game to a halt in my campaigns because I don't have a story or plotline preplanned. I have locations, NPCs, factions, motivations. What the PCs decide to do with all of that is up to them.

Yep. I don't want my first idea to always get a yes and have a chance of working based on some flimsy justification created so that the DM can say yes. If it doesn't make sense for it to work, say no. It doesn't stymie my agency for me to have to rely on my 2nd, 3rd or even 6th idea in order to get past the obstacle. In fact, if I'm on my 4th idea before I come up with something that can work, I have even MORE agency as my idea actually MEANS something. First ideas always having a chance to succeed = my ideas being mostly meaningless. Why bother coming up with something clever or strong if any old idea can achieve success due to "say yes." A DM is diminishing my choices by always saying yes.

 

[FrogReaver]

I think that's the exact reason for the EnWorld maxim, "I double-dog dare you to describe how totally awesome your favorite (game/playstyle) is, WITHOUT comparing it to any others."

I know that it seems en vogue in current society to just trash things, but there's a reason that people have always said that you get more flies with honey than vinegar. I know that you are not alone with your negative feelings about certain things due to the way some people feel it is necessary to constantly trash the things you like. I am not entirely certain where the idea that "If you tell someone that the things that they like suck, often and repeatedly, they will bow before your wisdom and repetition" came from. But from my perspective, that idea does not seem to be effective.

Or, as Mama Snarf used to tell me, "Snarf, life is tough alright, but it's a whole lot tougher if you are stupid. Now shut yer piehole and get yer Mama some laudanum and a few bottles of Night Train at the packie."

I’d suggest there’s also a secondary effect, if our tastes are so different that you obviously hate the thing I like, then you trying to tell me that the thing you like is better rings a bit hollow. At that point I simply don’t trust that our tastes are close enough.

 

[FrogReaver]

What I have seen is one side claiming, "I get to dismiss this whenever I want. I don't have to do any work for that. I'm the GM. If I don't like it, it's out."

And the other side saying, "That takes away player agency."

I very clearly stated this quite a bit upthread, and had people pushing--for the first of those two claims. That was why I pushed back so hard against the "point to a spot in the setting notes I wrote 20 years ago to nix a thing a player wants to do" example. Because that's not doing the work to establish that things are true within the world.

Then you misread or misunderstood or read into comments something that wasn’t there. This whole tangent started with a claim that the DM should never override those features - and we were pushing back against that by talking about examples where we think he should do so.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But you can also run a perfectly cromulent game just setting everything up without thinking about your players at all. Maybe something will line up and that's great. Otherwise the world is what it is. I think that's a game with less agency and not one that I prefer to play in at this point in my life.

How is this game one with less agency in your view? Like, specifically?

 

[Maxperson]

So you accept your game has less player agency?

Players doing whatever that want =/= more agency. Agency = having choices matter, and failure is very often a result that matters, even if that failure came without a roll from the player.

 

[dave2008]

So I'm a bit allergic to assertions of what is fundamental to D&D that tend to frame my many decades of involvement with D&D, in one way or another, as if it were deviant.

Oh, I much refer it if my style of D&D play is considered deviant

 

[SteveC]

How is this game one with less agency in your view? Like, specifically?

Sure. Players make choices for skills/backgrounds/species/class/sub-classes with the idea that they are going to be relevant. If those choices don't mix with what the DM plans for the world, the choice doesn't matter. Now the DM may be able to help mitigate this by telling the group that a particular choice won't apply to the game, but how many do that? And if you do that, depending how much of that you do, you can severely restrict what options are in play.

I think the best example I can think of that may make sense is how a character can pick favored enemies or terrain types. If the campaign never includes those options, the player is going to feel like they have less of a character as a result. Or (in previous editions) how a character playing a rogue feels like they have less of an impact in an undead or construct heavy game.

If a DM designs the world and doesn't collaborate with the characters that are going to play in it, a character might make a choice that lines up with the game and get a lot of extra connection to the campaign. The rest of the group is likely going to feel left out.

The real difference for me is the world that's not designed with the players in mind is something that you visit, where as one where they do matter feels like something you live in. The difference is that the first feels like a D&D game and the second feels more like a world.

There's nothing wrong with a game feeling like a D&D game (that's what it is, after all) but it also means that I'm less invested in it. I care less about the world elements, since they're just places and names. If I'm lucky enough to have a character that fits in with the world, that will help, but I'd much prefer that to not be due to chance.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. Players make choices for skills/backgrounds/species/class/sub-classes with the idea that they are going to be relevant. If those choices don't mix with what the DM plans for the world, the choice doesn't matter. Now the DM may be able to help mitigate this by telling the group that a particular choice won't apply to the game, but how many do that? And if you do that, depending how much of that you do, you can severely restrict what options are in play.

I think the best example I can think of that may make sense is how a character can pick favored enemies or terrain types. If the campaign never includes those options, the player is going to feel like they have less of a character as a result. Or (in previous editions) how a character playing a rogue feels like they have less of an impact in an undead or construct heavy game.

If a DM designs the world and doesn't collaborate with the characters that are going to play in it, a character might make a choice that lines up with the game and get a lot of extra connection to the campaign. The rest of the group is likely going to feel left out.

The real difference for me is the world that's not designed with the players in mind is something that you visit, where as one where they do matter feels like something you live in. The difference is that the first feels like a D&D game and the second feels more like a world.

There's nothing wrong with a game feeling like a D&D game (that's what it is, after all) but it also means that I'm less invested in it. I care less about the world elements, since they're just places and names. If I'm lucky enough to have a character that fits in with the world, that will help, but I'd much prefer that to not be due to chance.

So this is just personal preference then. No worries.

Incidentally, we all live in a world that was not designed with us specifically in mind. Doesn't make it any less real.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So this is just personal preference then. No worries.

Incidentally, we all live in a world that was not designed with us specifically in mind. Doesn't make it any less real.

It's also not something we consented to participate in, not designed as a form of leisure activity, or various other things. "IRL doesn't work like that" is not a particularly compelling argument in this context. I'd really rather most games not expend excess effort resembling real life. My real life has far too many problems in it.