D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Aldarc]

Let's suppose a scenario. The party steps through a portal and is transported 5,000 years into the past. What features would actually work? There's obviously no contacts, criminal or otherwise. There may or may not be libraries for that sage to investigate. Even if you're Prince Grand High Poobah, it's of a country that won't exist for another 4,000 years so it's meaningless. Assuming the locals even recognize nobility as a thing.

There is no logical reason for someone to have a criminal contact, at least not right away. That pirate that can get away with minor crimes because of their reputation is just as unknown as everyone else. The archeologist might be able to tell people approximately when we are because of their training. The noble might have a better idea of what the social hierarchy is and even have advantage on interactions with the ruling class. But if they want to get an audience with the ruler of the land, which may not even have the concept of nobility in terms of inherited titles, claiming a noble lineage of somewhere that doesn't exist is not going to buy them anything.

It would be jarring to me as a player and be completely illogical world building if all of our background features still worked as written. Many of the background features are based on recognition, contacts and understanding how things work where people are from.

There are times when background features as written won't work. Doesn't mean the feature is totally worthless, it may or may not be. But these features are not built in to the framework of D&D, IMHO they're tacked on. Many are poorly worded or thought out and many only apply where the person would logically be recognized. I'll take a ruling from a DM that makes sense for the scenario we find ourselves in over strict literal reading of the rules for background features any day of the week.

As I read this, I thought about all the media out there where a "fish out of water "character themself in a strange new setting, and yet the inhabitants of this world seem to know that this is a "folk hero" who they should hide from the local authorities despite the character in question not being an established folk hero yet to these people.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Logic would dictate the DM would do those things.

The scenario you set up is illogical.

Seems like a missed opportunity for the inclusion of a certain Vulcan gif.

 

[Oofta]

As I said above: like recognizes like. This is literally written into the description of the ability. You look like you fit in, even if you don't actually fit in, because you have that je ne sais quoi aristocratic air. (Which, of course, can bite you in the butt too--you can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse, but a silk purse stands out pretty hard in the pigsty.) Certainly, things could be much more complicated, at the very least a language barrier is likely.

But guess what?

I've literally done something like this. And it worked! It was actually super cool, particularly because it put a frequently quiet player in an interesting role. So the fact that you think this is an utterly ridiculous, unbelievable scenario when I've not only done it but gotten a shy and casual player to open up some more and genuinely feel deeply invested as a result tells me maybe you shouldn't dismiss this as some utterly ridiculous, impossible example.

(Formally speaking, the character has class features for diplomatic stuff rather than a 5e-type Background, and it was a bit of time travel very roughly 3000 years into the past rather than 5000, but I hope you'd agree that those are rather less important than the event itself.)

Like recognizes like. Huh? If William, Prince of Wales was transported back to ancient Mesopotamia why would royalty recognize him as royalty? Why would the guards listen to a single thing he had to say? What separates Billy from some street performer charlatan?

Criminal contact, no. But just as above, like recognizes like, and you can't tell me that some cunning bastard wouldn't see the potential there and try to do something with it. Not only is that a sweet narrative moment, it's actually quite realistic--because when you're a prince-of-thieves kind of person, you learn how to size people up right quick, and more importantly, how to see potential where others see none at all. Seeking out and investing into a professional relationship--"networking," one might say--is a big deal, whatever stratum of society one calls home.

Long term they may have advantage on certain checks. Short term? Nah. They certainly aren't going to automatically have contacts. They certainly can't send a message to their contact back home.

Just a tiny bit of creativity can turn a dull, flat "nope, sorry, doesn't work, move on" into an amazing experience. This specific one hasn't happened (and isn't likely to; the time shenanigans probably won't come back), but something loosely analogous is likely in the future, and I can't wait to see how the vaguely-criminal-ish character (our party Bard) handles it.


And I assert that the "recognition" you speak of is much more fundamental than "oh yes, I literally already know your name, family history, rap sheet, and favorite dining establishment." That it can be built off of those intangible, ineffable, intuitive things that factor into nonverbal communication.


Conversely: Perhaps it is D&D--or, rather, a limited perspective of what D&D can be--that is at fault here. Perhaps we should exhaust as many avenues as we can reasonably try before finally admitting defeat, and that only with great reluctance. Perhaps, instead of viewing these backgrounds as a poorly-wrought, alien imposition that can and should be thrown off like a soiled jacket as soon as one is out of the rain, we should see them as a welcome pointer to new, interesting, useful things that we can leverage into excellent gameplay and/or narrative with just a few minutes and a dollop of creativity.

Perhaps we should be looking for a reason to say yes, rather than looking for a reason to say no.

Perhaps we should leave it up to the DM and group to decide what makes the most sense to them. Because I disagree with pretty much everything you wrote. Which is fine, there's no one true way. I wouldn't want to play in a game where the default answer to anything I tried was "yes".

Just because a feature doesn't automatically work it does not mean that backgrounds suddenly become worthless. If I'm a Clan Crafter, perhaps I can get a job at a forge or help with building something and prove my worth. But I'm not going to automatically get free room and board with dwarves because I say I'm good at what I do until I prove it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No.

People are fallible. If you've played for a long time (like, I am assuming, all of us have), you've undoubtedly seen bad DMs.

And you've undoubtedly seen bad players.

I am not sure what the purpose of any conversation is when one side is always assuming all good players and bad DMs, and the other side is always assuming all bad players, and good DMs.

Instead, it's probably best to assume that people are people, and taking examples of dysfunctional play as the norm (from either players or DMs) is probably not conducive to making grand and sweeping points about how all games really function.

Then it would be really nice if one side of this argument would finally agree to stop invoking bad-faith players.

I am perfectly happy to speak only of people who game in good faith. Delighted, even. I have yet to see a single person on the other side actually commit to avoiding such things. In fact, in just the previous page, we had someone bring up how thoughtless and inconsiderate players "frequently" are.

Right here and now, I am happy to vow to you: I won't refer, even obliquely, to bad-faith GMing. I won't go back and cite any previous posts, not even obliquely. I won't make any argument in that direction--and if you feel I have, I will even give you one free "nope, sorry, can't do that" callout just to make sure my own biases about this sort of thing don't betray me. No questions, no challenges--it's fully your decision to make that callout, and if you do make it, I will concede, regardless of what I think about the subject.

But--because you knew there would be a "but"--I will only consider this oath valid as long as nobody in this thread makes an argument which hinges on bad-faith players. I won't consider any posts made on this page (so, posts 1001-1020), just in case something leaks through early, nor any prior posts.

So long as people are willing to uphold that truce, you have my word. It may not mean much to you, but it certainly means something to me.

 

[pemerton]

I agree, it is because the DM imagines that the world is like that, he is bound to the world as he believes it is, just like the players are, if the world is meant to be consistent / believable

This isn't correct.

There is almost never only one plausible or tenable extrapolation from a given bundle of "truths" about a fiction. The world can be consistent if the GM is not the only one who gets to establish elements of it. I know, because I play RPGs which (i) feature consistent worlds, yet (ii) I am not the only participant who establishes elements of them.

 

[soviet]

As I read this, I thought about all the media out there where a "fish out of water "character themself in a strange new setting, and yet the inhabitants of this world seem to know that this is a "folk hero" who they should hide from the local authorities despite the character in question not being an established folk hero yet to these people.

Yeah. I think it's an interesting situation. An uncharitable reading would be to say that shifting everyone to an alien world where none of their abilities work is textbook denial of agency, but I don't think that's what was intended. My personal expectations in that scenario would be a session or so of fish out of water style miscommunication and then settling into 'like recognises like'. It seems to me that the Duke of Gloucester being loosely accepted into King Arthur's Court, or dastardly ronin reaching an accommodation with modern day street gangs, would be pretty fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is the thing. D&D is not even remotely representative of how things are in the Middle Ages. One of the most defining features of the European Middle Ages was the institution of the Church and its theological worldview. Its absence changes everything! Magic changes everything! People playing D&D often have very modern outlooks, attitudes, methods, and solutions when they play the game. Applying notions of realism about the European Middle Ages to D&D is about like trying to apply realistic notions of modern warfare to Fortnight or Team Fortress 2.

The basic assumptions lack a dominant theological framework, true. But it doesn't have to. The primary polity in my current world definitely has a strong religious tradition that affects its policies and the actions of its citizens.

 

[soviet]

This isn't correct.

There is almost never only one plausible or tenable extrapolation from a given bundle of "truths" about a fiction. The world can be consistent if the GM is not the only one who gets to establish elements of it. I know, because I play RPGs which (i) feature consistent worlds, yet (ii) I am not the only participant who establishes elements of them.

Yes, we had this come up in another thread recently. The GM isn't channeling a world simulator machine and making 'the' logical and unavoidable outcome known. They're imagining some likely outcomes and picking one.

 

[soviet]

Yes, we had this come up in another thread recently. The GM isn't channeling a world simulator machine and making 'the' logical and unavoidable outcome known. They're imagining some likely outcomes and picking one.

Meaning, they could just as easily pick another. Denial of agency is nearly always a choice.

 

[pemerton]

D&D is not designed to automatically assure player authoritative control outside of what their character does.

This takes us back to what counts as D&D.

The last version of D&D that I played regularly was, in fact, designed to easily accommodate high player agency over the fiction.