D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Mort]

What is the problem with receiving orders from a higher authority? That's what kings and their ilk do, and it happens all the time in games, and stories, and real life. Besides, being told to do something doesn't mean you have to do it, so agency is preserved.

This got me thinking.

Is the DM presenting an end of the world scenario agency denying?

The players (and the PCs) CAN refuse, but if the DM then follows through - it's likely the end of the campaign.

Sure the DM can have "others" save the world instead, but after that happens a few times, it's basically the DM crying wolf.

 

[mamba]

After so many pages, I'm still confused how some seem to regard the noble position of privilege feature as some kind of unfair "I win" button.

no one does.... we just say it is a button that does not always work, when it does, it works as you described

 

[mamba]

Is the DM presenting an end of the world scenario agency denying?

no

The players (and the PCs) CAN refuse, but if the DM then follows through - it's likely the end of the campaign.

depends on how imminent it is, the campaign can fall apart before then, finish before then or live through things getting worse. I doubt the GM eventually says 'this was our last session, since you ignored the end of the world, it has now ended', and if he is willing to, then he can also say at any time 'a meteor hits the world near you, the campaign is over'

 

[Mort]

no


depends on how imminent it is, the campaign can fall apart before then, finish before then or live through things getting worse. I doubt the GM eventually says 'this was our last session, since you ignored the end of the world, it has now ended', and if he is willing to, then he can also say at any time 'a meteor hits the world near you, the campaign is over'

Yes the DM can. And isn't inserting an end of the world plot the players don't want doing extract l exactly that?

I'm not sure imminence (unless it's a HUGE timeline) matters. As the DM is basically saying, do this or the world will end it's still thrust into the players.

 

[Mort]

I would actually be fine with supernatural nobility being a thing, but only if it were called out as such. There is no reason such a thing would be simply assumed because the genre is fantasy. a Song of Ice and Fire is. A fantasy story full of nobles, but apparently none have the Noble background.

Hmm, really?

Seems to me being a true noble in/from Westeros actually means something. Daenerys (and initially her brother) gets all sorts of meetings in a completely foreign land by dint of being a noble even a displaced one.

Doesn't mean if you get the meeting you don't get cheated robbed or murdered during it!

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure imminence (unless it's a HUGE timeline) matters. As the DM is basically saying, do this or the world will end it's still thrust into the players.

to me this does not remove player agency, the players are free to either ignore it, with all the potential consequences that entails, or go about it however they want.

If presenting this goal is agency denying, then so is presenting any other goal. The only difference are the possible consequences. So if your perspective is that presenting any goal is, it all has to come from the players, then that is your prerogative. I do not share it.

 

[mamba]

Seems to me being a true noble in/from Westeros actually means something. Daenerys (and initially her brother) gets all sorts of meetings in a completely foreign land by dint of being a noble even a displaced one.

that all falls under local noble, they get them because they are known there / someone vouches for them being who they say they are. They are the heirs to the most notorious ruling dynasty of the last centuries, not some hedgeknights. Now get her to Buckingham Palace and see what happens... it doesn't even have to be someone much closer to what a char in your campaign would be as a noble

 

[Oofta]

After so many pages, I'm still confused how some seem to regard the noble position of privilege feature as some kind of unfair "I win" button.

It's just a shortcut call to adventure and can easily cause more problems than it solves (for the PCs).

Frankly, the DM can easily make the PCs lives much more complicated and difficult than if they hadn't used the feature.

It has nothing to do with "I win", at least not for me. It's about players having control over NPC actions when it isn't magic. It's about adhering to a narrative consistency in a campaign world. It's about nobles not ruling by divine right or being supernatural. It's about rulings over rules. It's about not slavishly following what I think is a poorly structured feature.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hmm, really?

Seems to me being a true noble in/from Westeros actually means something. Daenerys (and initially her brother) gets all sorts of meetings in a completely foreign land by dint of being a noble even a displaced one.

Doesn't mean if you get the meeting you don't get cheated robbed or murdered during it!

Those people know who they are, or at least they know their family. Drop Dany anywhere they don't know or care about the Targaryans and she has to deal on her own without guaranteed audiences (which, in fact, she did).

 

[pemerton]

the combat part I see no issue with handling purely mechanical, at a high enough level of abstraction.

I think it can be hard to resolve combat without knowing what it is that the combatants want from it: what about it matters to them.

what if during the audience the king says 'I will grant your request, but you will have to do this thing for me first...'? Seems perfectly valid, are you actively avoiding this? Are you entangling this with things the players brought up, so it still revolves about their story?

Yes.

What is the problem with receiving orders from a higher authority? That's what kings and their ilk do, and it happens all the time in games, and stories, and real life.

There's nothing wrong with fiction about receiving orders from an authority.

But who gets to establish that fiction, including the content of the orders? And in accordance with what principles? The answers to those questions will tell us whether or not the players have agency over the content of the fiction.