D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Aldarc]

Well, I also legitimately don't think they're the same, but thanks for the consideration.

FWIW, I don't think that the problem is some hypothetical other person you are imagining denigrating your favored game on this basis. Instead, I personally think that this reflects your own belief and values that more player agency is better and that it exists as moral good that should be maximized. You would like to believe that you are maximizing player agency. However, when you are confronted with the idea that other roleplaying games may have more player agency than the games you prefer, you perceive it as a threat to your belief system, wherein you claim to value player agency and therefore desire to maximize player agency.

Yet instead of seeing the value of how restricting player agency in key areas enhances your play experience, you become upset that your game preference could hypothetically be perceived as having less player agency than those games that exist outside of your preferences. Again, this is because your own choice to see player agency as a moral good or simply in terms of more player agency is better. Because if you choose to believe that more player agency is better, then any roleplaying game or viewpoint that has a more expansive view of player agency would carry for you the value judgment that your game is inferior. That possibility is unacceptable to you.

However, your solution to this perceived threat then becomes to deny that any player agency outside of your play preferences is a form of player agency at all! This is where I and others take umbrage, because I do believe that a player's agency as part of gameplay entails more than the declarations that they make for their player character in the game fiction.

At least that's my personal reading of the situation.

You go around so many threads to parade the idea to other posters talking about the direction D&D is taking that "new is not always better." I personally don't see why you can't do something similar with player agency and adopt the mantra, "more agency is not always better." And I would agree with you there because like with the former, it's a more defendable motte position than what is likely your more controversial bailey position.

However, the actual argument you made earlier just seems like a null point for me. I would like to think that I have I made my stance on this issue pretty clear here, and @Campbell likewise put forth a similar view above. I have no interest in denigrating other games on the basis of agency as a moral good. I don't think or believe that more player agency is always better. Instead, I think that it's important to recognize how the restrictions on player agency can improve the play experience of some preferences, styles, and modes of play. The amount of player agency that I may want is not a constant; instead, it depends on the tabletop roleplaying game I want to play, what I hope to get out of it, or even who I am playing it with.

My own partner seems to prefer games with less player agency than likely you or I do. They play video games for story that is revealed to them, and I think that they approach TTRPGs with a similar preference. They don't like having to pro-actively pusue their own goals in the game. They like adventure paths with story. I don't think less of them for their game preferences. I'm past the point of judging people who prefer adventure paths. I'm not judging my partner for their TTRPG preference for less player agency, and I honestly hope you aren't either. Otherwise, we will have more serious problems.

What the heck is a "furphy"?

It turns out that it's something that can be learned through a simple Google search: furphy.

 

[pemerton]

In these games, players get to establish goals for their PCs, and declare actions for their PCs which put those goals, or elements of those goals, at stake. And the GM is obliged to have regard to that in their own framing and narration of consequence.

That's it.

I see little difference to what 'we' are describing, apart from the 'obligated' part

The difference is huge. Think through what it really means, at every moment of GMing, to be oriented towards thing that the players have put at stake through their choices made for their PCs (goals and aspirations established and signalled; action declarations; etc).

This would mean, for instance, that the PC will not end up on a lifeless demiplane unless the players have somehow put that at stake via their play. Making the whole discussion of eggs utterly moot, as obviously players whose own choices lead them to a lifeless demiplane will not then declare actions that contradict the fiction they themselves contributed to.

And it would mean, more broadly, that there would be no occasions where the GM works out consequences by reference to secret notes or their own intuitions about the fiction, rather than by references to concerns that the players have put on the table - which, as just one instance, makes all this stuff about nobles being absent although the players don't know that or why it's the case go away.

What you call "little difference" is in fact a vast gulf in approaches to RPGing.

 

[pemerton]

I doubt you have a campaign in which the players know as much as the DM either

Huh? I regularly run sessions in which the players know as much as the GM. Sessions of Burning Wheel. My most recent session of Torchbearer (which didn't feature a pre-planned dungeon).

And I even more regularly run sessions in which secret information is not a tool that can be used to defeat/thwart player action declarations for their PCs (eg Prince Valiant, Cortex+ Heroic, other sessions of Torchbearer).

 

[pemerton]

Should we then conclude from your post that the DM is never allowed to not make something happen the players want to do?

That's what failed dice rolls are for. When the players succeed, what they want to happen, happens. When they fail, something they didn't want to happen, happens.

It's not complicated, and actual play examples have been posted upthread.

 

[pemerton]

To me, equating the two gives someone who believes that more agency is inherently better an excuse to denigrate games that don't provide much in the way of player narrative control. I'd really like to avoid that.

I think that "denigrate" here doesn't mean anything beyond "express dislike for". And why do you care what others dislike?

Different GM techniques, different sorts of fiction and differing levels of connection to the setting are obviously going to result in more ability to impact how things turn out in a given game. Whether or not anyone is going to call that "agency" is frankly immaterial to these differences. How much and what sorts of ability to impact this stuff is down to preference. What is not down to preference is that these differences actually exist.

<snip>

Trying to play language games to minimize very real differences and set acceptability criterion for others is the mark of someone who wants to portray some sorts of play as deviant. That's not how this works. We all get to decided what is acceptable and what is not for us individually.

Right. Trying to argue that there is no difference in the experience of playing (on the one hand, say) 4e as I've described it upthread, or Burning Wheel and (on the other hand, say) AD&D 2nd ed or 5e AD&D as described by other posters in this thread - with the GM deciding as they wish, based on their imagination about the fiction, what PC abilities work and what don't, and more generally exercising extensive control over what happens next - is ridiculous.

And given that the thread asks "what is player agency to you?", and I have answered It is the capacity to shape the game, which in the context of a RPG means capacity to shape the shared fiction, I have no hesitation in describing the difference between these play experiences as experiences of high and low player agency.

 

[pemerton]

Again, you're saying authoring the fiction and agency are the same thing. That's your opinion, but certainly not mine.

I've deliberately used the phrase establishing fiction. Not authoring, which is more specific.

And given that a RPG is all about establishing a shared fiction, what else would agency of a participant consist in when playing the game?

 

[pemerton]

What the heck is a "furphy"?

It's an Australian term that can have a few different meanings, but in this context means something like a red herring. I just learned that there is a wikipedia entry - Furphy - Wikipedia - although I don't think it covers the full range of use. (And I also don't know if any of its conjectured etymologies are sound, although it is true that Furphy was a prominent ironmonger in pre-federation Australia.)

EDIT to @Aldarc - in case you're interested in a participant observer elaboration on this!

 

[Scott Christian]

I mean, to me those are all great. Just lots of material there to draw on and to connect the characters to the world. Really bolsters the very limp social and exploration “pillars”. I think the game needs more stuff like this. Sadly, it seems like they’re replacing background features with feats. Maybe they’ll mimic some of these abilities? One can hope.

Also interesting how some of them include qualifiers, isn’t it? When you look at them all together like that, it’s interesting to see such conditions on some and not on others.

Look at the Sage ability. That’s great. Miss a History or Arcana check? Well, you don’t know, but you do know where you can find out. That could be several sessions worth of play to travel to the place, gain access to the location, learn the information… and all the related activities. This is content generation BEGINNING WITH THE PLAYER.

Look at the Guild Artisan. You head to the guildhall and there are patrons and hirelings and possibly political implications and intrigue. Again… coming from the player’s choice of Background and their use of this feature.

Places to rest and recover… connections to be made… NPCs to care about and to rely on or be relied upon by… sources of information and adventure. All without having to be spoon fed by the DM.

I 100% agree. They seem like great movements in the roleplay pillar.

And it is interesting some of them contain qualifiers. It's actually kind of odd, because it is obvious, they are not really going for a "balance of power" or even "balance of utility." To me, they are just trying to get the player involved in roleplaying their character by adding a perk.

And 100% agree about the sage. It is so vague that it leaves the DM crazy amounts of room, but still has the player starting the quest. I mean the DM could place it in the town they're in or 250 miles away based on their world.

I have actually never had a PC take the guild artisan while I was DMing. I think if I did, I would have them create those NPCs in their guild if they wanted to. Or, if they didn't want to, I would place them in the old NPC block of the campaign.

And I agree. It does do all that. Although, I still think for most players, they expect the DM to come up with the details. Most players I know say things like: "I use my guild artisan feature to contact their lawyer" after being charged with some crime (true or not). And even when pressed, such as the DM asking which lawyer, many players might just state: "The best lawyer."

But we are in agreement. They are pretty good, with very little attention paid to balance.

 

[mamba]

The difference is huge. Think through what it really means, at every moment of GMing, to be oriented towards thing that the players have put at stake through their choices made for their PCs (goals and aspirations established and signalled; action declarations; etc).

I meant in the description, I understand that the resulting difference is bigger than that.

I still think you are overselling it somewhat though. You seem to assume that unless the players directly have control over the narrative, the DM just drags them wherever. While this is possible, the DM still can incorporate a lot of player ideas / wishes, the players ‘just’ have no way to ensure it

 

[Scott Christian]

In what way?

Well, many have said under special circumstances that are certainly outside the norm, some of these might not work. For example, I see the folk hero not working in some circumstances. I think back to that old module Cult of the Reptile God where (if I remember correctly*) the entire town was under the trance of the naga. I mean, would a folk hero feature override the naga's trance?
* There is a very good chance I do not remember this correctly. I last read it about thirty years ago.