D&D General What is player agency to you?

[SteveC]

So this is just personal preference then. No worries.

If I've given the impression that anything I'm saying is more than personal preference here, I'm doing it wrong. I don't think that agency itself is more than personal preference. It's not something that is built into D&D very much, I'm just suggesting that where you can implement it, it's a good idea.

Edited to add

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

I think this is a pretty disingenuous thing to say. The real world doesn't have to do anything to get my attention and make me show up for it. It also has the advantage of having me grow up in it from session 0. The world I live in is something I've attempted to base as much as possible on me any my family.

A game does. You might design the greatest world in D&D history. If I'm not interested in it, I'll just head somewhere else. I get to choose whether to interact with it.

 

[Aldarc]

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 certainly true that your game world and our real world lacks intelligent design.

 

[mamba]

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.

wait, what? The world that is not designed with the players in mind feels more like a game while the one designed with them in mind feels more like a real world? I would have reversed that.... going by the one real world I am aware of (and pretty much any game I have ever encountered...)

 

[Scott Christian]

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.

My claim was, and always has been, that circumstances can lead the DM to say no. And part of those circumstances includes time. I never even implied "perhaps almost always," and in fact, directly stated the opposite - that it is rare and happens for a reason.

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.

If you don't mind me asking, where have you seen the bolded? I have read this thread, and many of the others a long time ago, and have never seen an experienced DM state such a thing on these forums. I have always seen a DM, when given an example, be able to say no - with a world or logical reason attached. That is quite different than what you are stating.*
*Again, we are talking about gameplay here, specifically the example of background features. I am not talking about session zero where the DM states that in their world, elves died out thousands of years ago due to (fill in the blank). So do not take an elf as a species.

 

[mamba]

he real world doesn't have to do anything to get my attention and make me show up for it. It also has the advantage of having me grow up in it from session 0. The world I live in is something I've attempted to base as much as possible on me any my family.

A game does. You might design the greatest world in D&D history. If I'm not interested in it, I'll just head somewhere else. I get to choose whether to interact with it.

yeah, but this was not about whether you like a world better in which you matter more by having it designed with you in mind, it was about whether it feels more realistic

 

[SteveC]

yeah, but this was not about whether you like a world better in which you matter more by having it designed with you in mind, it was about whether it feels more realistic

The world where I live is filled with people and places that I have more than a surface connection with. A fantasy game where I know and have relationships with the characters that make it up feels more real to me. If I travel to a neighboring village and come across a shopkeeper who I know and who knows my family feels more real than someone I just go in to buy things from. The first character gives a sense that there's a world where that character has a life and a story and exists outside of when my character visits to buy some rations. The random shopkeeper might as well not even have a name. The interaction with them might as well be "I need to get some rations before we get back on the road so I go buy them..."

And that seems less real to me.

I'm not saying the first concept is good and the second is bad ... sometimes you just need the rations before you go do something else, but I know which one gives the perception of more depth to me and makes the world sound more real.

This is only tangentially related to agency so I don't know how much more I can say about it.

 

[mamba]

The world where I live is filled with people and places that I have more than a surface connection with. A fantasy game where I know and have relationships with the characters that make it up feels more real to me. If I travel to a neighboring village and come across a shopkeeper who I know and who knows my family feels more real than someone I just go in to buy things from.

ok, now I understand what you mean. I guess that is true as long as your campaign stays local

 

[SteveC]

ok, now I understand what you mean. I guess that is true as long as your campaign stays local

You might be surprised. I'm from Wisconsin, and I travel with a Green Bay Packers jacket. I have found Packer bars and had people connect with me all over the world. The wildest one was in Tokyo. My best friend is a Mason and they have connections all over the world. We were stuck in London when the Iceland volcano erupted, and we stayed with a member of Scotland Yard that was a fellow Mason. It was surreal.

Having those connections for characters based on your class/background/species ... and so on gives a world more depth to me, and it feels more real. That's just a feeling of course.

 

[Oofta]

You might be surprised. I'm from Wisconsin, and I travel with a Green Bay Packers jacket. I have found Packer bars and had people connect with me all over the world. The wildest one was in Tokyo. My best friend is a Mason and they have connections all over the world. We were stuck in London when the Iceland volcano erupted, and we stayed with a member of Scotland Yard that was a fellow Mason. It was surreal.

Having those connections for characters based on your class/background/species ... and so on gives a world more depth to me, and it feels more real. That's just a feeling of course.

Knowing you're a cheesehead explains a lot.

I kid, I kid. Everyone is entitled to follow the wrong team.

 

[occam]

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.

Is this perhaps a disagreement about the definition of agency? To wit:

• Agency is about the ability to make choices (whether or not the choices end up mattering much).
• Agency is about the ability to make changes (that matter).

What you describe above is a player making all kinds of choices (which I think many would describe as agency), but those choices may have little to no impact in play, which you (and presumably others) would describe as a lack of agency. I think those are two different things, and should use different words.