D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Raiztt]

Is this in the same way that dragons being able to fly, despite their size, weight, wingspan etc isn't a metaphysical trait?

No, it's not. This isn't a question of 'realism', it's a question of internal consistency and whether or not something makes sense in the context of the game fiction.

 

[soviet]

I never disagreed with being able to think of something. I disagreed with that something always being / realistic / reasonable / believable / consistent / logical and that I have to take something that is less so, because the background feature maybe says so

Sure, and I've accepted that i) sometimes the ability really can't work, albeit I think this should be very rare, and ii) sometimes no-one can think of an appropriate justification, so what maybe could have worked doesn't have the opportunity.

I guess fundamentally I am looking to say yes rather than no, and I care less about whether it fits my own expectations than whether it fits the group's ideas (you can normally get a very clear sense of how much the group are buying in to the player's justification) and whether it will move the game in an interesting direction.

That's not to say I am letting people jump over the moon or find eggs in a lifeless vacuum that we have 1000% established does not have any eggs. But I will quite happily say that noble status is recognised for what it is outside jurisdiction, at least in some loose fashion, and that even if the Duke himself is away the household staff will feel obliged to at least set up a lunch with the Duke's unworldly third cousin.

 

[mamba]

to be unbelievable in the in-the-world sense. This was meant to be "no DM could possibly make this make sense." I did. That's why I'm saying this.

then I misunderstood what you wrote (or vice versa, did not check), I never said I don’t believe that any table could resolve it in a different way

Oofta even says, point-blank, "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." (Emphasis added, of course.)

in that one scenario, yes, I agree with them that is is unbelievable and I would handle it the same way.

I do not read this as ‘and therefore no table could possibly act otherwise’. Whichever table acts otherwise has a different emphasis however (or a very different idea about what the world they are in looked like back then)

 

[Mort]

yes, ultimately the DM decides. In no way does this mean he can just abuse that position and force the players to do whatever he wants, but it does mean that he can deny an action the player would like to take when from the DM’s perspective there is a good reason why it should not be possible.

When push comes to shove, one person has to decide, for me that will always be the DM. 99% of the time we are not in that situation however and things get resolved cooperatively.

The premise was ‘because the feature says the noble can get an audience, that means there is no way the DM can ever deny one’, I disagree with that, pure and simple.

I would amend the "In D&D a DM can't abuse that position..." to "the DM shouldn't abuse that position..."

Because they certainly CAN. I'm sure many of us have seen it happen - it's the downside of giving 1 party so much authority.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I haven't offered any reason for it to be person A or person B, beyond what I enjoy.

But if it is not the player, then we can hardly say the player is exercising much agency, can we?

Not in authoring the fiction, no. But that's not the only kind of agency, or the objectively most important kind, especially for players.

 

[mamba]

I think this is part of the problem. I don’t see what’s illogical about a noble being able to get an audience with another noble. Nearly everyone here has said that it makes sense.

and that already is accommodating the player… to me a reasonable reading of the rule is that ‘local noble’ refers to local in both space and time to where the character is from, not to where they currently find themselves. The latter is the accommodation

The objection is clearly about the player being able to say something that obliges the DM to honor it.

yes, last I checked the players also complain when I tell them what their chars are doing

Who decides these rules?

the DM, but more broadly speaking I at least base these kinds of things on how they work on Earth. The setting is fictional, but that doesn’t mean there is no gravity and people do not need to breathe etc. same with how nobility works

 

[FrozenNorth]

no, the one that is more logical given all available information, which just might mean the DM’s, as they know more about the circumstances

So, who decides which outcome is more logical?

 

[Mort]

Not in authoring the fiction, no. But that's not the only kind of agency, or the objectively most important kind, especially for players.

A confound that's been permeating this thread - Player agency vs. Player narrative control. In D&D especially, they are not necessarily interchangeable.

Player agency: The ability of the player, through their PC, to affect/influence the world around them. Generally also thought of as the ability of the player to have their PC make choices that "matter."

Player narrative control: The ability of the player to directly affect the game world in some manner. There are few examples of this in D&D. Player authored quests (4e) can be one. 5e backgrounds, if interpreted a certain (clearly disputed in this thread) way are another.

I do think it's worth separating the two for purposes of discussion. Though I would bet certain folks (I'd bet @pemerton, for example) would argue that they are linked enough that they SHOULD NOT be separated.

Edit to add: I would also bet that other's (willing to bet @Oofta for example) would heartily contend that their games feature PLENTY of player agency (ability to affect current and future events, choices that matter etc.) while deliberately and heavily veering away from any kind of player narrative control.

Thoughts?

 

[mamba]

I would amend the "In D&D a DM can't abuse that position..." to "the DM shouldn't abuse that position..."

works for me, I did not mean ‘cannot’ in the sense of it being literally impossible, I meant that if the DM does, the players will not simply go along and that there will be some pushback instead

 

[mamba]

So, who decides which outcome is more logical?

I don’t think this is unclear, the DM does, they are in a better position to / are the ones having more details by default