D&D General What is player agency to you?

[SteveC]

When I look at that noble audience, I see rewarding player agency, but also in my evil black DM heart, I see it as a chance to make things more interesting and dangerous for the group and move the game forward.

Moving it forward: what is going on in the area? What are the issues or problems it's having? Hey, I get to give an information dump to the group, from the perspective of the nobility. I get to give them a job or a quest to perform and maybe do something that I'd have trouble doing but a group of outsiders could accomplish. I also get to think about (if I don't already know) what does this noble think about the noble character's kingdom? Do they have issues with them? Is this an excuse to advance that noble's ambitions? And I also am giving the more murder hobo-ish players in the group the chance to step in it. So that maybe the group will have to take a job I need done.

All that and the group feels like they have made an impact on the game by their choices. What's not to like here? Is it a better game if they get a quest from a robed stranger in a tavern?

 

[pemerton]

I agree, I see this more as in a way not taking the players / the game seriously. It doesn't really remove agency, it removes good or bad gameplay, it removes any stakes.

By the way, you've now answered your question that you posed to me upthread: what is the point of the GM?

apparently to fill in the blanks in the rulebook. If the rulebook covered every case the players encountered / came up with, the players could do just fine without one

I posted a long reply to your question upthread, which followed many other posts with explanations/descriptions of various lengths; and then reiterated it in the post I've quoted: the function of the GM, in 4e D&D (as I read the rulebooks and play it), in Burning Wheel, in Torchbearer, is to frame scenes and establish consequences. It ensures that there are stakes, and thus permits there to be exciting game play.

Upthread you mentioned something about "living rulebooks", you now reiterate "fill in the blanks in the rulebooks", and I don't know what you're talking about.

I told you the key Burning Wheel action resolution rules in my post, and here they are again:

In Burning Wheel, an action declaration consists of intent and task. If nothing that matters to the player is at stake, the GM says "yes" and the intent and task are both realised.

If the GM does not say "yes", then the dice must be rolled. The task and intent, taken together, establish what skill or ability will be tested. The GM is responsible for setting the difficulty, though there are a lot of example difficulties to guide this - in Burning Wheel, setting consistent obstacles over time is one important aspect of world building that the GM has to do.

If the player succeeds on their test, then intent and task are both realised. If the player fails, then the GM is obliged to narrate something that negates the intent, and which may also but need not include failure at the task. Because we are only rolling if something that the player has prioritised is at stake, there is already some relationship between intent and stakes, and this will provide the cue and context for narrating a consequence.​

There's no gap in those rules. They satisfy @chaochou's desiderata from upthread:

*No agreement that the GM / MC / narrator can unilaterally disregard the rules - I've just set out the rules, and the GM is not entitled to unilaterally disregard them (and in a more recent post I noted that the players cant "say 'yes' to themselves";

*Transparent rules and processes that offer guaranteed outcomes (good and bad) - the rules I've just set out are transparent, as is the process they establish: the players know, if they are called upon to roll the dice, what is at stake (their intent, and the player-authored priorities that it flows from or relates to), what the outcome will be if they succeed, and what the GM will thwart if they fail;

*Transparent goals for characters (often through authorship of them by the players) - I've already talked in this thread about the ways the players in BW establish player priorities (Beliefs, Instincts, traits, relationships, Affiliations, etc);

*Facilitation of that authorship through group creation of setting and/or situation such that character goals are given meaning and context by player choice, not secret GM backstory - I've provided multiple examples of this (Thurgon's knightly order; Jobe's brother turned to evil and their ruined wizard's tower; and as further examples, in our Torchbearer game, the role of the Dreamwalker's ranger friend and enemy Megloss; and in our 4e game, the player of the Emergent Primordial establishing that PC's relationship to Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals; etc).​

What are the "gaps" you are talking about that you think the GM is filling?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I posted a long reply to your question upthread, which followed many other posts with explanations/descriptions of various lengths; and then reiterated it in the post I've quoted: the function of the GM, in 4e D&D (as I read the rulebooks and play it), in Burning Wheel, in Torchbearer, is to frame scenes and establish consequences. It ensures that there are stakes, and thus permits there to be exciting game play.

Upthread you mentioned something about "living rulebooks", you now reiterate "fill in the blanks in the rulebooks", and I don't know what you're talking about.

I told you the key Burning Wheel action resolution rules in my post, and here they are again:

In Burning Wheel, an action declaration consists of intent and task. If nothing that matters to the player is at stake, the GM says "yes" and the intent and task are both realised.​

​

If the GM does not say "yes", then the dice must be rolled. The task and intent, taken together, establish what skill or ability will be tested. The GM is responsible for setting the difficulty, though there are a lot of example difficulties to guide this - in Burning Wheel, setting consistent obstacles over time is one important aspect of world building that the GM has to do.​

​

If the player succeeds on their test, then intent and task are both realised. If the player fails, then the GM is obliged to narrate something that negates the intent, and which may also but need not include failure at the task. Because we are only rolling if something that the player has prioritised is at stake, there is already some relationship between intent and stakes, and this will provide the cue and context for narrating a consequence.​

There's no gap in those rules. They satisfy @chaochou's desiderata from upthread:

*No agreement that the GM / MC / narrator can unilaterally disregard the rules - I've just set out the rules, and the GM is not entitled to unilaterally disregard them (and in a more recent post I noted that the players cant "say 'yes' to themselves";​

​

*Transparent rules and processes that offer guaranteed outcomes (good and bad) - the rules I've just set out are transparent, as is the process they establish: the players know, if they are called upon to roll the dice, what is at stake (their intent, and the player-authored priorities that it flows from or relates to), what the outcome will be if they succeed, and what the GM will thwart if they fail;​

​

*Transparent goals for characters (often through authorship of them by the players) - I've already talked in this thread about the ways the players in BW establish player priorities (Beliefs, Instincts, traits, relationships, Affiliations, etc);​

​

*Facilitation of that authorship through group creation of setting and/or situation such that character goals are given meaning and context by player choice, not secret GM backstory - I've provided multiple examples of this (Thurgon's knightly order; Jobe's brother turned to evil and their ruined wizard's tower; and as further examples, in our Torchbearer game, the role of the Dreamwalker's ranger friend and enemy Megloss; and in our 4e game, the player of the Emergent Primordial establishing that PC's relationship to Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals; etc).​

What are the "gaps" you are talking about that you think the GM is filling?

Sounds like @chaochou should be playing Burning Wheel.

 

[pemerton]

The point is that if my choices don't matter due to the "say yes" policy, what agency is there?

Choosing matters. For instance, suppose the situation offers possibility P - and whether I as a player choose P or not P, the GM will say "yes". My choice is meaningful - it brings it about that either P, or not-P, is part of the fiction.

As I've posted, and @mamba has said much the same, there doesn't seem to be any gameplay here, and so one might assert that (as a matter of tautology) it's not player agency. But the notion that these choices don't matter seems bizarre. That would mean that the author of a story has no agency and no scope to meaningfully choose the content of their story, which seems flat-out wrong.

To have agency I need to not only be able to make choices, but those choices have to mean something. Success or the chance for success has no meaning if it's not warranted.

This makes no sense. The meaning in choosing something that I am guaranteed to obtain consists in what I chose. Like, at my child's school they can choose some electives. They're guaranteed to get some of their choices. That doesn't make their choices meaningless.

A railroad invalidates my choices and agency by removing any meaning, and so does "say yes."

This is back to the idea that the GM has to veto things to save the player from the tyranny of getting what they want!

 

[pemerton]

Sounds like @chaochou should be playing Burning Wheel.

As far as I know, @chaochou does play Burning Wheel. And DitV. And Apocalypse World. And at least a bit of 4e D&D.

 

[soviet]

When I look at that noble audience, I see rewarding player agency, but also in my evil black DM heart, I see it as a chance to make things more interesting and dangerous for the group and move the game forward.

Moving it forward: what is going on in the area? What are the issues or problems it's having? Hey, I get to give an information dump to the group, from the perspective of the nobility. I get to give them a job or a quest to perform and maybe do something that I'd have trouble doing but a group of outsiders could accomplish. I also get to think about (if I don't already know) what does this noble think about the noble character's kingdom? Do they have issues with them? Is this an excuse to advance that noble's ambitions? And I also am giving the more murder hobo-ish players in the group the chance to step in it. So that maybe the group will have to take a job I need done.

All that and the group feels like they have made an impact on the game by their choices. What's not to like here? Is it a better game if they get a quest from a robed stranger in a tavern?

100%, yes. These audiences aren't going to be make a wish tea parties full of ponies and +1 swords. They're going to be tough negotiations, quid pro quos, staredowns, loyalty tests, and so on. They're going to be fun to play out.

 

[mamba]

I posted a long reply to your question upthread, which followed many other posts with explanations/descriptions of various lengths; and then reiterated it in the post I've quoted: the function of the GM, in 4e D&D (as I read the rulebooks and play it),

yes, I appreciated that. I loved that post and thumbs-uped the one where you wrote I should know now (as a sign of agreement), This reply had nothing to do with your explanation and everything with how some people here say that the DM has to go out of their way to never impact player agency (or rather, exclusively positively)

 

[pemerton]

One thing that I’ve been thinking

Suppose a game has the DM roll 100 rolls before the game instead of contemporaneously with player actions. He then simply reveals the next roll to the players when a check would normally be required.

With respect to player agency is there any impact?

No. It's just a different process of randomisation. It would change the feel of play, and for that reason I personally wouldn't recommend it - players of games generally enjoy rolling their own dice. For similar reasons I prefer dice to computer random number generators, even when playing online. But this does not affect player agency over the shared fiction.

 

[pemerton]

There are other matters where players can prefer not to have agency, such as managing adversaries and adversities.

this can be handled by the rules too

How? What unmediated rule will produce the results I've described in this thread: the black arrows, Gerda running through the Elven Dreamwalker, who as a result is purged of her obsession with the Elfstone; Thurgon's unhappy reunion with his brother Rufus; etc.

 

[pemerton]

100%, yes. These audiences aren't going to be make a wish tea parties full of ponies and +1 swords. They're going to be tough negotiations, quid pro quos, staredowns, loyalty tests, and so on. They're going to be fun to play out.

In the context of 5e, presumably the social conflict rules in the DMG would be the appropriate resolution framework.

In my mind, I'm imagining something like a Duel of Wits (Burning Wheel), a Convince conflict (Torchbearer) or a skill challenge (4e D&D).