D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

The activity was intended be one where failure has meaning as well as success has meaning

no, you said an activity that has no chance of failure has no meaning, that is not the same thing.

The activity can be meaningful in and of itself. That is what my example was about

 

[FrogReaver]

no, you said an activity that has no chance of failure has no meaning, that is not the same thing.

The activity can be meaningful in and of itself. That is what my example was about

We are talking about agency and meaningful choices.

I'm not quite following how a choice can be meaningful if nothing is at stake. I'm not sure when choice got morphed into 'activity'.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Say you could run D&D or whatever your preferred game without impacting anything else except also having more drama.

I don't believe that's possible, so the hypothetical doesn't seem relevant to me.

 

[mamba]

What do you mean by no cost?

your players not going ballistic over not getting an audience

 

[FrogReaver]

There are certainly games that attempt to eliminate bad GMing, changing to a different style that guarantees agency is one of them. I just find it hard to believe that the same person who DM's a complete railroad won't also find a way to be a bad GM in other systems. Of course we don't hear about those, so it is a bit of speculation on my part.

Then again the all-aboard-the-railroad DM is also something of a myth in my experience as well. At least for more than a session or two.

We could also speculate that D&D has a far greater share of new to RPG players and DM's. Or that if a person is a butthole that they are more likely to find a group of players that will put up with them for sometime in scene with more new players that don't really know what to expect.

IMO. There's systemic causes outside of the game system itself that probably prevent most of that. On otherwise equal footing would there also be a system difference? Maybe. I think story now games tend to have more transparency which definitely makes such things harder to pull off.

 

[FrogReaver]

I don't believe that's possible, so the hypothetical doesn't seem relevant to me.

Obviously. That's why I said no cost. Everything has a cost. I was trying to get you to think about whether Drama is desirable as long as it doesn't come at the expense of other things. But obviously you refuse to do that. So not much else can be said there.

 

[Maxperson]

Only if there was something at stake depending on how you chose.

Like if the yes choices yielded - you are through the door through the help of some other criminal organization and in return you will owe them a favor, which organization did you choose to help you? (for this example you have knowledge about these organizations and the kinds of things they might want you to do).

But if they player simply changed his query to i want through the door without help of a criminal organization... we are back to your list of options i guess and there's no stakes involved.

I think that there is almost always some sort of stake involved with going past a locked door, even if it's just to see what's on the other side vs. failing to see what is on the other side. Sure getting through the door with the criminal organization provides higher stakes, but there are rarely no stakes at all.

 

[Maxperson]

no, you said an activity that has no chance of failure has no meaning, that is not the same thing.

The activity can be meaningful in and of itself. That is what my example was about

I can tell you from personal experience that trying to find something to watch on TV can result in failure. I've cycled through hundreds of stations with useless crap to watch, only to just turn it off out of failure to find something interesting more times than I can count.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

Has anyone actually done that? There have been a lot of responses, but all I can remember seeing is the idea that it's not a perfect ability that can fail when in-fiction circumstances reasonably would result in failure.

 

[Maxperson]

This got me thinking.

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.

Planar travel and other settings exist. They have the option to pursue the goal of going to one of those of their choice instead. Is it the end of that setting/world? Probably. But they still have options.

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

I never do that, which is why I very, very rarely have setting ending campaign scenarios. I'm willing for it to happen if the PCs fail or refuse.