D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pemerton]

I prefer some realism over a fever dream, even in my fantasy fiction

Your fantasy fiction which includes a gritty realist contemporary United Kingdom? As I posted, I'm not the one who posited the genre mash-up. If you don't want it, why are you as GM introducing it into the game?

 

[FrogReaver]

In general, when playing a game there is a big difference between losing on a roll of the dice and having the other participants decide, by fiat, that I lose.

Agreed. There are many differences there. But not in regards to player agency. In every instance the player was denied the ability to do what he wanted to do.

And just to be clear - there is also a big difference in the DM decides by fiat that you lose and the DM decides as an impartial referee that you lose.

In the context of RPGing, what the dice rolls do, primarily, is establish the constraints around establishing new fiction - who gets to say it, and what they get to say. Just as, in craps, the dice are a mechanism for the allocation of money, so in RPGing the dice are a mechanism for the allocation of responsibility and constraints around who gets to say what.

Agreed. But Constraining what fiction a player can establish is diminishing their agency. If I told you a DM by fiat constrained the fiction a player can establish then you'd jump at calling that a reduction in agency.

When I agree to play the game, I agree to the rules. Why do I want to play a RPG, which has rules that constrain what I and my friends can say about what happens next? Because it makes the resulting fiction more compelling, as per the quotes from Vincent Baker that I discussed in this recent thread.

Agreed again. But here we are talking about how that impacts player agency.

As I've posted, and as I've illustrated with multiple examples from actual play, the GM frames scenes and narrates consequences (especially consequences that flow from failure).

I don't think this part was to me, but I agree here as well. No additions or buts either.

Edit: removed content that likely will cause more problems than being an additive force for the discussion.

 

[pemerton]

what if the players say that the noble feature working makes no sense and it therefore should not?

Then why would they try and use the ability?

 

[Maxperson]

Not because they claim to be a noble. Because they are a noble. Hence, as I already posted, people are inclined to think the best of them, and they are welcome in high society. People assume they have the right to be wherever they are, and other people of high birth treat them as a member of the same social sphere.

How is this any different than a rogue who dresses and acts like a noble. People would be inclined to think the best of them and welcome them into high society, assuming they have the right to be wherever they are. If those are the reasons that the noble ability works, then it's not really an ability of the background, but rather one that anyone who makes an effort to portray can have.

 

[Maxperson]

Then why would they try and use the ability?

Because players? Because human? People do a lot of things that don't make sense. Often not being aware, and often trying to see if they can get it by(in the general sense. I trust my players. In before someone wants to accuse me of that one again), and often because they are just mistaken.

 

[pemerton]

How about if someone claimed to be royalty and asked for a tour of the Navy's most prestigious battleship? And this demonstrates that actual royals would have got the same treatment without scepticism. "Illogical" actions happen in the real world constantly.

That's far too unrealistic to happen in one of my games . . .

 

[pemerton]

Seems like the players have implicit narrative control over the game anyway, since all of your actions are dictated by their desires and/or the rulebook.

This is false. When I narrated that Megloss killed Gerda, I was not acting on the dictates of anyone's desire but my own. (I thought it would be interesting and provocative, and was proved right.)

 

[pemerton]

But  why would they do that? Do you have any reason to give other than, "the rules widget says so"? If not, it means nothing to me.

Because they can recognise a person of high station.

That high station reveals itself is the whole premise of the Noble background.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

How is this any different than a rogue who dresses and acts like a noble. People would be inclined to think the best of them and welcome them into high society, assuming they have the right to be wherever they are. If those are the reasons that the noble ability works, then it's not really an ability of the background, but rather one that anyone who makes an effort to portray can have.

I think the answer's in your first sentence: the rogue is dressing and acting like a noble, but the rogue isn't necessarily a noble? It's maybe kind of a Gatsby situation.

 

[Maxperson]

I think the answer's in your first sentence: the rogue is dressing and acting like a noble, but the rogue isn't necessarily a noble? It's maybe kind of a Gatsby situation.

Unless you get into divine right to be noble that's able to be sensed by other nobles, and that opens a rather large can of worm, I don't see how a noble having no idea of either PC would be able to tell the difference between the guy who dresses like a noble and seems to be one and the other guy who dresses like a noble and seems to be one.