D&D General What is player agency to you?

[soviet]

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.

And even in 5e, many of the background traits are quite nicely set up as flat declarative abilities that always work. I was disappointed they didn't go on to expand that with a big book of backgrounds, additional background slots for martial characters, and paragon and epic tier traits that reflect what kind of deeds you've accomplished or what kind of ordeals you've suffered

 

[pemerton]

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?

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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.

I once played in an AD&D campaign where the GM decided, unilaterally, that the PCs all teleported 100 years into the future. The consequence of this - which I'm sure was intended by the GM - was that all the information we (as players) had acquired about the gameworld, all the connections we'd established and plans we had made, were rendered irrelevant.

The game had had railroad-y tendencies prior to this, but this was the last straw. I left the game. I believe it broke up not long after I left.

Some games, some campaigns, are going to have more or less player agency. That has little effect on enjoyment of the game.

Well, speaking for myself, this has a significant effect on enjoyment of the game. See, eg, the story just above.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Player agency refers to the agency that the player enjoys in the play of the game. The play of a RPG is about establishing a shared fiction. Hence, the agency of a RPG player is all about their capacity to establish the shared fiction. The canonical way of doing that - given the player/GM role divide that is mainstream for RPGs - is via action declarations for their PCs.

The more the GM decides what happens as a result of declared actions - eg as is being discussed in the Noble case, the eggs case, etc - then the less the player is establishing fiction and the more the GM is doing so. (I'm not saying that agency over the fiction must be strictly zero sum, but in the particular examples being discussed there is a pretty clear zero-sum structure.)

And establishing fiction as a player via your PCs actions alone simply isn't enough agency for you? Is that it?

 

[SkidAce]

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.

I was just getting ready to post a similar thought. Thanks.

Both sides seem to be pushing each other up against the wall of the extreme example in order to "highlight" their point. While sometimes this can bring clarity, its takes away all nuance and dynamic to discussions when both side get entrenched and fixated on the examples.

I may not return to this thread. Game on friends.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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

Exactly! Once the world starts spinning (ie, session 1) the world is what it is, and events follow from that established baseline and how the PCs actions interact with it. If the world is meant to be consistent/believable.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So to me 'having the same information' or 'knowing more about the circumstances' means the GM has already decided that eg the duke is away (and it may be in their notes, may have been alluded to in play, may have been discoverable through investigation, etc). I agree that would be a valid reason to say no to an audience.

But I think that's different from 'now that you ask, hmm, no I think the duke would be away right now because of XYZ'. That's not having additional information. That's making a decision not to allow something, and coming up with a justification for it. That GM could have easily made a different decision.

And some people are assuming that either the second thing is always happening in these situations, or the first and second things are actually the same.

 

[pemerton]

And establishing fiction as a player via your PCs actions alone simply isn't enough agency for you? Is that it?

What do you mean by establishing fiction as a player via your PC's actions?

I get the impression that you mean prompting the GM to extrapolate new fiction from your action declarations for your PC. And that is not enough agency for me. I don't play RPGs to learn what the GM thinks should happen next. I don't GM RPGs to tell the players what happens next.

 

[Mort]

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

I fully agree, but I don't think what this back and forth is revolving around.

At its core - One side is just vehemently against, in D&D, a player being able to force the DM to say yes.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Why is the GM telling a story like this? What benefits are had by their framing the fiction in this way?

why is the GM telling a story where the characters actions and choices can affect the larger world in which they exist? beyond what is within an immediate 60ft radius of them or for more than the next 48 hours?

Why is the GM employing such directly relevant session notes and then saying nothing about them? Why is this particular noble so foolish as to take a vacation and not leave anyone at all who can attend to the needs of her household while she's away? Even if it's literally the medieval equivalent of, "I'm sorry, the lady of the house is out, can I take a message?"

because the events happened outside the players direct sphere of awareness? i don't know about you but i'm not constantly aware of all the goings on of the next three towns over, it might of been alluded to and the players just didn't consider it important or relevant "after you rescuing the kidnapped prince from the neighboring kingdom i'm sure all the local nobles will have their hands full clearing up this political mess of an aftermath."
i'm not saying the noble couldn't or didn't leave someone to take messages, but that doesn't change that fact that they're not there and not available for the players.

Three sessions? So...the GM has had three weeks to come up with literally any kind of compromise or alternative? This is sounding less and less like a terrible time crunch. Now, I get that preparation can be difficult to squeeze into one's life (particularly with memory being a problem!) but it seems to me that this is ample time for the GM to come up with literally anything besides, "no, sorry, that just does not work at all. Do something else."

i don't believe the world should alter itself to make sure the player's intents go off without a hitch, the world simply exists, indifferent to their goals and plans, if the store is sold out of bread for the day when i too run out that doesn't mean more coincidentally gets delivered or found in the back of the stockrooms for my benefit.

Then they are playing in bad faith. I flatly refuse to consider any argument based on players playing in bad faith unless and until it is equally acceptable to field arguments based on GMs playing in bad faith.

it is bad faith to not inform the players of the information of their absence if the players never consider to inquire around themselves if the noble might be away before they visit them? these adventurers don't exactly have a perpetual newsfeed updating them of every change to the world that might influence their plans if they knew them.

No. But that's not the problem, is it?

The problem is the GM saying, "No, sorry, that just does not work at all. Do something else." And yes, I am quite comfortable saying that it is the GM's fault that, apparently, the one and only possible response was to simply shut down the effort, and not any of the nigh-infinite variety of alternative options. Options it takes me all of two minutes to come up with.

it is not the GM's fault to run a world that continues to exist and turn outside the immediate observation of the players, sure the doorkeep could've said 'sure here's a scroll of teleportation to take you all right to them' but some of us would feel that is unlikely and contrived, the players could be given the noble's current location and meet them there after 2 weeks travel, they're still getting to meet the noble that way, the players could decided they don't actually need to see the noble all that badly after all and that fighting ring they passed down the street looked interesting instead.
not being able to use your ability to meet this one NPC doesn't bring the entire plot to a screeching halt,
sometimes we don't want to spend two minutes to come up with an alternate solution that's 'more favourable for the players' because we think the one we have makes pretty good sense to work how it does even if it's inconvenient to them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

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.

Yeah, to be honest I've never been comfortable with the rules aspects of background features. Seems to me we would be better off just working that kind of stuff out through RP rather than than calling out a rules widget and getting irritated when it isn't followed exactly.