D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

Yeah, I know. And my point is that it's nothing to get up in arms about.

If you put down the viking hat for a minute, and just think about what this stuff means for play instead of getting up in arms about any challenge to almighty DM authority, I think you'd likely see it's really not that big a deal.

funny, given that you are also up in arms about it. How about you accept that it is no big deal to get a 'no' then?

 

[Maxperson]

Does this apply to specific rules beating general phrases that describe the DM's authority?

There are no such rules in 5e. The SPECIFIC DMG portions give the DM the authority to change any rule. The rules SPECIFICALLY serve him and not the other way around.

Yeah, I know. And my point is that it's nothing to get up in arms about.

If you put down the viking hat for a minute, and just think about what this stuff means for play instead of getting up in arms about any challenge to almighty DM authority, I think you'd likely see it's really not that big a deal.

And that's our point. If the ability fails for good reasons every now and then, it's no big deal and nothing to get up in arms about.

Like, imagine a game where the ability just works. No matter what, the DM just lets it work and the noble character is able to obtain audiences whenever they want.... what's the problem?

That sounds horrible. It means that there will be times when it makes absolutely no sense for it to happen, but it ridiculously happens anyway. For some tables that don't care about that sort of thing it works out fine, but for other tables where they want the world to make sense, it doesn't work out fine at all.

I was once invited to join a group, but they neglected to tell me that the world was full of punny humor. That sort of ridiculous play worked out fantastically for that group. They loved it and had a blast. At the end of the night I politely let them know that sort of game didn't work for me and that I wouldn't be coming back. I'm sure that group would have no problem always allowing the ability to work, even when it would be nonsensical.

You can use all the lampshades you want... logic, consistency, whatever... it seems pretty obviously to be about maintaining the DM's preconceived ideas.

And you'd still be very, very wrong.

Not entirely, though that is an example. Player agency is what I can do as a player to affect play.

But not to dictate the result of the action declaration. That's DM agency and some games give portions of DM agency to the players.

Being put up for the night might be something I request in the audience, but whether that's granted or not would likely depend on some kinf of roll, I'd expect.

Like any other situation, it can auto succeed, auto fail or get a roll if the outcome is in doubt.

I don't think I should add that kind of phrasing if we're talking about player agency.

We're talking about how D&D plays. You can't just ignore a significant portion of the game that has a huge impact on how the ability plays out just because we're talking about player agency.

No, that's really not true. Is that applied across the board? As mentioned previously, do you block players from using feats, spells, class abilities, and so on that are described simply as working? Or when the conditions as stated have been met?

No generally, no. I don't block them unless there is a good in-fiction reason for a feat, spell or class ability to fail. It does apply across the board, though. Players get to declare that their PC is attempting X spell, Y feat or Z class ability. and 99.35152% of the time it will work out that way. The rest of the time something like counterspell, an area where no healing is possible blocking second wind, etc. happens.

I get to say my PC takes a second wind as long as I have a bonus action to do so.

And if you're in an area where a god has used his power to stop all healing, it will appropriately fail. The vast majority of the time your declaration to try and use second wind will be met with success. However...

 

[Maxperson]

So, here is a question/situation for the team that says "Securing an audience" is exactly like fireball.

We're playing D&D - say set in Faerun - and the level 1 PCs are somehow transported into the actual (fictional) Washington DC. One of the PCs happens to have the noble background and declares that he will secure a meeting with the President of the United States - who is very arguably a type of noble/ruler.

How do you justify this person meeting the sitting President? As in, if I ask you "how" what is your answer?

Maybe the President comes to visit the noble in the mental ward.

 

[pemerton]

You seem to assume that unless the players directly have control over the narrative, the DM just drags them wherever.

I've not posted this. And I don't really know what you mean by "direct control over the narrative". I have talked about the principle for framing and for establishing the consequences of action declaration: these operate on the GM side, not the player side.

For instance, consider the action declaration, by the player of a Noble PC in a 5e D&D game, "I send my herald to <such and such a castle> to request an audience with <the noble who lives in the castle>". That is an action declaration, and the only "direct control" the player is exerting is over what their PC does. It is the GM, not the player, whose job it is to follow the rules and thus narrate a consequence in which an audience is granted.

While this is possible, the DM still can incorporate a lot of player ideas / wishes, the players ‘just’ have no way to ensure it

Obviously a GM who has agency can incorporate whatever they want, coming from whomever. But if they are not obliged to by the rules of the game, then all the players are doing is providing prompts, or making suggestions, that the GM may or may not take on board.

 

[pemerton]

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).

so you are literally never introducing any idea of your own, no twist, no nothing?

That is a non-sequitur.

I introduce ideas and twists. But I don't know them any more than the players do. Because when I describe them, I know them and the players know them.

 

[pemerton]

no, there is no action ‘I get an audience’, there only is an action ‘I request an audience’,

This is why I have repeatedly dismissed all talk of "player narrative control" as a furphy, and instead have focused on what the rule require the GM to do, in response to player action declarations. In a RPG with a fairly mainstream player/GM distinction - which is nearly all the RPGing I do, and is the RPGing I've been talking about in this thread - player agency is the result of the rules that govern the GM in their decisions about framing and consequences.

Which is something I've been saying since at least page 11 (so upwards of 1000 posts ago).

 

[pemerton]

If I put a dragon in a void, it's still a dragon.

Really? Without its relationship to Tiamat or Bahamut?

In the case of Smaug, without its relationship to The Lonely Mountain, and the Dwarves, and the Arkenstone?

I mean, that's one way of thinking about a dragon. It's not the only one.

You're equivocating as to what is meant by nobility. Having the personality trait of nobility is not the same thing as having the social rank of nobility. So while a hero might have the internal trait of being noble as per the adjective, that does not make them noble as per the noun.

I'm not equivocating. I'm expressly eschewing the framework of analysis that you are applying. As per @Aldarc's post upthread, I am asserting that, in a game based around pre-modern tropes and cultural forms, it is not at all absurd to treat the social structure as a manifestation of inner metaphysical properties. The sort of atomism that you are positing is not obligatory, and in the context of FRPGing can even be anachronistic.

 

[pemerton]

me saying ‘no, you do not lift off and fly just because you are flapping your arms real fast’ is not denying agency.
If you say the player has less agency because of that, be my guest, I simply do not see that as a bad thing in and off itself

Where do the rules of D&D say that a PC can fly by flapping their arms?

I know where the rules say that a Noble PC who requests an audience from a local noble will receive one - it's in the Position of Privilege feature description.

 

[SteveC]

So I've been out of the thread for a bit (work + dad duty) but I've been trying to keep up with things. A couple of thoughts...

I think there are people who are discussing a lot of games other than D&D when talking about what the DM can do. Since we're in the D&D section of the boards, I've taken this thread to be about D&D. In that light: talking about what a DM can do isn't helpful. D&D puts the ultimate authority on the DM. So yes, the DM can say "you can't have that audience." They can also say "you can't cast fireball." They have the authority right up to "rocks fall, everyone dies." If people are saying otherwise, they're talking about another game. There are plenty of games where the DM/GM ... what have you can't do that stuff.

But the topic of the thread is about agency, and a lot of what the DM can do can also directly goes against agency. Or is perceived that way. The only discussion here is how far the line moves before it becomes a bad thing. Yes, you can say "player abilities don't trump my worldbuilding!" but when you say that, unless you're very careful you go against player agency. And end up with confused and unhappy players.

That is especially true when the players and the DM aren't on the same page about what the world the DM has created is like. If a player objects to the DM saying they can't get an audience because they're too provincial or they're in a neighboring country that doesn't respect them or really for any number of other reasons, they're going to object most times than not because they don't know what being a noble means in the world.

I have found that the root of almost all disagreements about what happens in a game (in "the fiction") comes because the DM/GM has an understanding of how the world works that the players don't. It's really that simple, most of the time. This is the case where neither the players nor the DM are really wrong, they just are talking past each other.

The disagreement about the audience and the feelings of loss of agency for the players likely comes from the fact that the DM saying no either doesn't explain why the attempt fails, when the character would likely know how it would work but the player doesn't, or the perception that this was something the DM didn't want to happen and was simply making an excuse for.

If you're a DM, you control the setting. It behooves you in my opinion to have frequent conversations with your players about how things work so that it doesn't come as a surprise to them when they can't do something.

And just one more thing on this lengthy post: have you noticed that all of the problems with agency come from the DM shooting the players down and saying "no, you can't do that?" No one is complaining about agency when the DM suddenly allows something that seems at odds with what the player expects they can do. DM worldbuilding about unexpected things a character does know or can do ... well that's equally valid, and tends to be something everyone genuinely enjoys. Isn't that something to think about?

 

[mamba]

I've not posted this.

huh? It still jumps back to a post of yours, #1182

And I don't really know what you mean by "direct control over the narrative".

declaring the outcome of an action

I have talked about the principle for framing and for establishing the consequences of action declaration: these operate on the GM side, not the player side.

"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" seems to restrict the DM to things the players mentioned first, so while there might be something going on on the GM side, it cannot do so without explicit player decision / permission

For instance, consider the action declaration, by the player of a Noble PC in a 5e D&D game, "I send my herald to <such and such a castle> to request an audience with <the noble who lives in the castle>". That is an action declaration, and the only "direct control" the player is exerting is over what their PC does. It is the GM, not the player, whose job it is to follow the rules and thus narrate a consequence in which an audience is granted.

the highlighted part is why I say your GM has no agency, it all is decided by the players (and the rules). I am not really sure why a GM is needed in your vision at all.

Obviously a GM who has agency can incorporate whatever they want, coming from whomever. But if they are not obliged to by the rules of the game, then all the players are doing is providing prompts, or making suggestions, that the GM may or may not take on board.

agreed