D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

Not so. There's the agency inherent in the achieving the goal + the agency in the meaning of which choice was made to achieve the goal. Say yes or roll the dice, especially if fail forward is present, deprives me of the latter. I end up with the agency inherent in the achieving the goal - the agency in the meaning of which choice was made to achieve the goal, because the meaning in which choice was made is gone. There's no real agency in the choice itself, but only in achieving the goal.

but again, this is a bad argument because no actual game or GM will simply say "always say yes to the players", fiction ALWAYS (unless Toon) has some sort of say in this! If you try to stick the head of a rat in a lock NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, there's no 'say yes or roll' even triggered here, because no fictionally rational 'move' was invoked! Its like saying your character just plain walks through walls with the logic being "well, I have to roll dice for this." NO! You don't even get that far! There are NO GAMES IN EXISTENCE that tell you to completely discount fiction and just let people roll dice willy nilly anytime they say they want to! Even if there was a game where the authority to decide if that was appropriate rested with the players, allowing it would AT LEAST be monumentally bad faith play.

In other words, there is a huge significance to the part where you say "agency was deprived" because you had plenty of choice, to pick some sort of action that was fictionally sensible, or not I guess. Now, maybe there are situations that amount to "the hall goes to the east" where you have only one viable choice, go east. I mean, sometimes the orc attacks you, fighting may be the only option that makes sense. Sure, that's not a point of high agency, but nobody would claim it is, and its kind of irrelevant what sort of process is being used to play that...

 

[Maxperson]

but again, this is a bad argument because no actual game or GM will simply say "always say yes to the players", fiction ALWAYS (unless Toon) has some sort of say in this! If you try to stick the head of a rat in a lock NOTHING WILL HAPPEN, there's no 'say yes or roll' even triggered here, because no fictionally rational 'move' was invoked! Its like saying your character just plain walks through walls with the logic being "well, I have to roll dice for this." NO! You don't even get that far! There are NO GAMES IN EXISTENCE that tell you to completely discount fiction and just let people roll dice willy nilly anytime they say they want to! Even if there was a game where the authority to decide if that was appropriate rested with the players, allowing it would AT LEAST be monumentally bad faith play.

In other words, there is a huge significance to the part where you say "agency was deprived" because you had plenty of choice, to pick some sort of action that was fictionally sensible, or not I guess. Now, maybe there are situations that amount to "the hall goes to the east" where you have only one viable choice, go east. I mean, sometimes the orc attacks you, fighting may be the only option that makes sense. Sure, that's not a point of high agency, but nobody would claim it is, and its kind of irrelevant what sort of process is being used to play that...

I think you're missing the larger point. What can possibly, even if very unlikely to succeed, is a huuuuuuuge range. I mean, who's to say that the rat head bones can't fit the tumblers and move them enough to get the door open. Is it very unlikely to the point where the DM SHOULD say no? Yes. Is it within the realm of possibility? Also yes. Far more likely than winning the lottery and that happens several times a year.

You say that nothing would happen because no rational move happened? Why do you get to determine what's rational for the person engaging in the action? Sometimes a desperate action is the rational one for the situation, and if it has a chance to succeed, why does it not get to "say yes or roll the dice?"

 

[mamba]

Not so. There's the agency inherent in the achieving the goal + the agency in the meaning of which choice was made to achieve the goal. Say yes or roll the dice, especially if fail forward is present, deprives me of the latter. I end up with the agency inherent in the achieving the goal - the agency in the meaning of which choice was made to achieve the goal, because the meaning in which choice was made is gone. There's no real agency in the choice itself, but only in achieving the goal.

I don't see it, so let's try this again

1) If your character in game finds a lamp with a genie in it, the genie offers him three wishes, no questions asked, no conditions. Your char says 'well, in that case, my first wish is unlimited wishes', the genie looks surprised and says 'I did not consider this, but I gave you my word, so unlimited wishes it is'. You now have used 6 wishes so are certain it works, and anything you wished for did happen. Does having the genie increase or decrease your agency?

2) Is there a difference for your agency between the genie being called 'Abarax, the Magnificent' or 'Joe, the DM' ?

The only difference I see is how you initiate something coming true. In the first case you let your genie know in game, in the second you say 'I perform this silly little dance that has no reason to work, but somehow always does, I must really have stumbled onto something here, to …’ and the DM in both cases says 'you succeed'.

If anything was reduced / taken away in the 2nd case it is your ‘ability’ to fail against your will (in the first case you can simply not talk to the genie), but to me that is no reduction in agency

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you're missing the larger point. What can possibly, even if very unlikely to succeed, is a huuuuuuuge range. I mean, who's to say that the rat head bones can't fit the tumblers and move them enough to get the door open. Is it very unlikely to the point where the DM SHOULD say no? Yes. Is it within the realm of possibility? Also yes. Far more likely than winning the lottery and that happens several times a year.

I don't think this is usually a very substantive issue. I mean, where you generally run into questions of there potentially being MANY courses of action is actually in social sorts of interactions where you could say any of a zillion things. Still, most game systems have good ways of categorizing stuff. Like, in 4e you have Diplomacy, Intimidation, Bluff, and perhaps Streetwise. Any of those could represent 'something I said', but ALL possible utterances are going to come down to one of those checks. The player will have already declared their objective, and if its not perfectly clear that something is possible it is nothing like "rat bones" that is simply absurdly implausible.

You say that nothing would happen because no rational move happened? Why do you get to determine what's rational for the person engaging in the action? Sometimes a desperate action is the rational one for the situation, and if it has a chance to succeed, why does it not get to "say yes or roll the dice?"

No move happened because no fictional conditions were described under which it would be plausible for the player's desired outcome to result from their actions under the given circumstances. Now, if a player can describe to me how it is plausible, that's different. When proposing an action the burden is generally on you to explain how the fiction supports it.

There are variations on this, which are interesting to talk about. I ran Agon for the first time last night. In Agon there's a fairly standard narrativist loop, GM describes the situation, players act on it, any conflicts are resolved using the contest rules, rinse, repeat. However, the contest rules themselves are fairly high level. So, the GM will note that a 'worthy opponent' exists (IE something significant is at stake and there's an obstacle/threat). The GM might even have framed in this opponent and forced the conflict, or the players might have said "we engage this guy in conflict!" Either way, the GM decides the 'domain' (relevant skill set). Is it a melee, a debate, a poetry contest, etc. based on the situation and whatever action precipitated it.

Now, interestingly, the GM generates his dice pool and uses it to set the target number for success. The PCs now declare which of them is engaging (some could sit out, or might not be present). They each state their name and heroic attributes, and then build their dice pools, using those, possibly secondary attributes, resources like bonds and divine favor, etc. Then they roll their dice and describe the fiction from lowest performing hero to best, with the GM describing how the opponents act/react. The players have to factor in all the attributes they used, resources, etc. and describe how they were part of the story. If a given hero beat the GM's target number she describes victory, otherwise defeat (and may take harm). This proceeds until all the heroes have described their part in the action. If no hero beat the target, the contest is lost, otherwise the PCs are victorious overall.

The interesting part here is that Agon doesn't make you explain your actions ahead of time, it uses a 'fortune first' model in which you spend resources first, and then explain how you did it and what the fictional effects were, at the end. Finally there could be a sort of 'fallout' at the end where any additional consequences happen. The heroes might have gained a boon, angered a god, or if they lost then they would presumably suffer a setback.

 

[pemerton]

Since this whole thing started with agency, how is you closing the scene not a denial of player agency? Or is this seen the same way a failed dice roll is, i.e. it was the rules, not the DM getting in the way? The players had their chance but let the doom pool build too far, much like the players had their chance to roll a die, they just did not succeed?

How much agency do you have over how you are closing a scene / how is that different from the DM telling the players ‘this is what happens’?

The difference is as you say: it is gated behind the growth of the Doom Pool, which the players can see and respond to.

The Doom Pool mechanic does change the play experience from (say) Burning Wheel - it introduces an element of "and then . . ." which is absent from BW.

The rulebook for MHRP explains this rule on pages OM17, OM39:

As the Watcher, you have the power to end a Scene before the normal goals, requirements, or achievements have been met by spending 2d12 from the doom pool. This is useful in a big pitched battle, which can drag out for a long time when the two sides are evenly matched or there are a lot of characters involved. This rule gives you a helpful pacing mechanic for these larger Action Scenes. Usually, the use of the doom pool to end the Scene means cutting away to a later point in the story, with the outcome being narrated by the Watcher with input from the players. . . .

As the Watcher, you can always cut the Scene early - before the problem or conflict has been resolved - by spending 2d12 out of the doom pool and handing out 2 XP to each affected player. If you do this when the heroes are looking good and the villains are on the ropes, ask the players how they want to wrap it up. Ask questions just like you do at the beginning of a Scene. If a major villain’s involved, present a tough choice to the heroes, though make it clear that they’ve won something even if the villain’s presence colors it somewhat. . . .

If, on the other hand, you spend the 2d12 when the Scene is going against the heroes, or they’re struggling against insurmountable odds, you can bring the Scene to a close and invite the players to describe how they lost or what they had to sacrifice. . . .

Bringing the players in on this underscores how important they are as the writer/artist of their heroes, while still making it clear that the doom pool brought this about.​

Here's an example from my play:

I started the session at Rivendell and got each player to establish a reason for leaving. The ranger had heard of orcs re-entering Angmar; Gandalf had hear rumours of a palantir discovered in the north.

A Doom Pool die was spent to have a second Nazgul turn up - Adunaphel joined Khamul (I was using the ICE identities for the Nazgul). Just as in LotR, so in the game, we didn't need to investigate the precise causal mechanism whereby the shadow's influence operates.

Gandalf used fiery blasts from Narya, plus Glamdring, to drive off the Nazgul. But once the party got to Forochel, orcs from Angmar had already carried off the (newly rediscovered) Palantir of Annuminas. In mechanical terms, the Doom Pool had come to include 2d12. The rules of Cortex+ Heroic enable the GM to spend 2d12 from the Doom Pool to end the scene. Which is what I did.

The growth of the Doom Pool is something that is managed mechanically. The size of the Doom Pool was in part due to the Limit on Narya The enemy seeks it ("unless you are performing a recovery action you must spend 1 PP to include a Narya power in a pool, in which case both 1s and 2s on your dice count as opportunities"). So Gandalf cutting loose with Narya increased the rate of Doom Pool growth.

What worked about all this, I felt, was that Gandalf was able to drive off Nazgul - which seems right - but that in doing so, he alerted the shadow to his presence which therefore stepped up its efforts (ie the orcs carry off the palantir). Spending 2d12 to end the scene gave the growth of the shadow a concrete meaning (ie a group of orcs carrying the palantir south).

 

[pemerton]

I think one the biggest differences in such games is that narration of consequences doesn’t need to meet the same standard that it would in a typical d&d game. Consequences just need to be plausible from the context of the already established fiction/genre/setting.

In D&D style play gaps aren't filled based on solely plausible, they are mostly filled with what's most plausible (with a few exceptions).

I find this account of an additional standard that applies in D&D not the most plausible account! The closest I can get to finding it plausible is to rewrite it as "the thing that the GM thinks is most plausible", or even better "the thing the GM thinks is the best fit with what they are imagining in the situation".

it’s more twists and turns than d&d style play typically yields.

This I think is true.

My view is that this is not about standards but about techniques. The techniques that are typically used in D&D - reading consequences more-or-less directly off the notes (say "Save vs Petrification or take 2d6 damage from the pendulum blade trap), or the GM extrapolating more-or-less immediate causal consequences from their notes and their conception of the fiction - tend to produce fewer twists and turns.

For instance, consider the Dreadnought hoax that was mentioned upthread. In my experience, the typical GM of a D&D game is not going to regard that as the best fit with their conception of the fiction, and so it won't happen. Or for a fantasy version, Bilbo's hijinks with the spiders in Mirkwood.

If we go beyond hoaxes and trickery, let's think of chance meetings: Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard; Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas meet Eomer; Conan meets Pelias the wizard; the whole drama of Turin Turambar is driven by chance meetings.

I think the encounter and reaction rules in classic D&D are intended, among other purposes, to help produce these sorts of events as components of the game - and not unlike the player's use of their Noble background, these often require the GM to invent some account, in the fiction, of why things happen as they do (eg the roll of 12 tells us that the Ent enthusiastically befriends the Hobbits - what explains this in the fiction?). The difference between my preferred approach and the classic approach is that the random elements are more tightly anchored to resolution of player-declared actions, and the elements of the fiction are more tightly related to priorities the players have established for their PCs.

 

[pemerton]

What's the stake in getting past a locked door if it will just be unlocked if you want it to be? I think that was essentially your point as well.

I am struggling to follow this.

In RPGs, sometimes when a player declares (speaking as their character) I do X then X becomes part of the fiction. In a lot of D&D play, action declarations like At the T-intersection, I turn left rather than right or I open the north door, not the south door work like that: the action declaration means that the character is going left, not right; or is mucking about with the north door, not the south door. I have never heard it suggested that these are "meaningless" action declarations, or that they are negations of player agency, prior to this thread.

In fact, the whole OSR approach to designing dungeon maps (Jacquay and all that) rests on the premise that those sorts of action declarations are highly meaningful and are high agency.

In most versions of D&D, there are spells which do not require any sort of check to be successfully cast. For instance, in most circumstances casting Passwall just permits the player to declare the hole in the wall to have been created. Or suppose that a PC is on the floor of a room with a very high ceiling, and wishes to get to a ledge right up near the ceiling: the player can declare I cast Dimension Door (assuming it is one of their memorised spells, or on a scroll, or similar) and declare that they teleport up to the ledge and - lo and behold - it happens.

In 5e, as I read the rulebooks, the action declaration by a player with the Noble background I seek an audience with the local potentate works similarly to those pedestrian examples - it elides time and space a bit more than the dungeon navigation action declarations, but the upshot of the action declaration is that the audience takes place.

Prince Valiant permits these sorts of action declarations if the player has, and spends, a Storyteller Certificate. In one of our sessions, Sir Morgath (a PC) was jousting with Sir Lionheart (a NPC), self-proclaimed greatest knight in all Britain. Sir Morgath's player was of the very strong (and sound) view that in an opposed roll of the dice Sir Lionheart would easily defeat Sir Morgath: so he cashed in a Certificate and elected to Kill a Foe in Combat: as the player narrated it, when the lances of the two knights connected, the one wielded by Sir Morgath splintered, and a shard flew through a gap in Sir Lionheart's visor and entered his brain through his eye, killing him!

That was not a meaningless decision. The fact that I, as GM, had no power of veto didn't mean the player had no agency. They had full agency, which they exercised, achieving the outcome they desired.

As I posted upthread, this argument that players getting what they want via fiat declarations is at odds with agency, or the exercise of agency, is a dead end, and it baffles me that anyone is putting the argument.

 

[pemerton]

In an RPG players have an expectation that their choices will mean something.

<snip>

Let's take a locked door in a long abandoned ruin. I want to open it. That's my choice. If I'm playing with someone who just wants to find reasons to say yes, I can do any of the following.

1) Take out lockpicks and try to open the door.
2) Run really hard at it and try to bash it open.
3) Take out a weapon and hack at it.
4) Pick up a stone and try to bash the lock.
5) Spit on the lock and hope(I guess) to loosen the mechanism.
6) Knock on the door and get someone on the other side to open it up.
7) Punch the metal lock with my hand.
8) Pick up a rat and shove it's head in the lock and twist.
9) Take out my lute and play a mystical sounding tune in the hopes that it has some sort of musical tone opening mechanism.
10) Tap dance in front of it in the hopes that it has some sort of dance combination to open.
11) Wait 10 hours for it to unlock itself.

All of those are done because of my choice to open the door, but some of them should get flat out "No" as a response, while others are good ideas. If all(or even nearly all) of the ideas put forth, both good and bad are going to get me a yes or a chance to work, then none of my choices really have any meaning.

Really? Meaningless in all RPG systems? And you know this how?

@AbdulAlhazred has already discussed the idea of engaging the fiction, and credibility tests (which @Citizen Mane and I also posted about way upthread), and so I don't need to reiterate that.

But suppose that a character declares (9) and it passes the credibility test. What skills and attributes are brought to bear to establish the player-side effort? What is the difficulty? If the test succeeds, what does this tell us about the overall situation? Suppose the test fails, what consequence follows - it seems obvious that it will be different from, say, the consequence that might flow from a failed attempt at (4).

Here's an actual play example that is in the neighbourhood:

In a Cortex+ Fantasy Hack game that I GMed, the PCs had been teleported deep into a dungeon by a Crypt Thing. Mechanically, the doom pool had grown to include 2d12; I spent those dice to end the scene, and open a new scene with the PCs in an unknown dungeon room. I also declared that each of the PCs was subject to a Complication (d12 Lost in the Dungeon); and I narrated, among other things, strange runes on the walls of this room. One of the players declared that his PC read the runes to see if they provided clues as to a way out of the Dungeon; mechanically, he put together a pool of dice to try and eliminate his Lost in the Dungeon Complication. The roll succeeded, and so it was established that the runes did, indeed, provide such a clue. Had the roll failed, a different sort of consequence would have followed.

You are depriving my choice to get that door open of meaning by trivializing it with the "say yes" playstyle.

What I've just said, including an actual play example, shows that this is nonsense.

if everything or almost everything results in my getting through the locked door, then what does it really matter how I choose to do it?

This question has been answered above, and will be further answered below.

For me to have full agency my choice needs to have meaning. There needs to be a reason for me to try and pick a good choice over the first mediocre choice that springs to mind

You are assuming here that good choice vs mediocre choice is something that flows from the GM's decision-making about the fiction. But it needn't. Choices can be good and bad because of the way the system allows the player to build a dice pool (as in Burning Wheel, or Torchbearer, or Agon 2e, or MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic) or to adjust their dice roll (as in the choices made in a 4e skill challenge). They can also be good or bad in an aesthetic sense, in so far as they reveal or establish something about the character or the situation.

The example I just gave of reading the runes illustrates both possibilities. So does this example, from a 4e skill challenge:

he was expecting a visit in a few days from his Duke overlord, but his special apple grove was not fruiting as it normally would.

This was an adaptation to 4e mechanics and backstory of the scenario "The Demon of the Red Grove" in Robin Laws's HeroWars Narrator's Book. The reason for the trees in the grove not fruiting is that a demon, long bound there, has recently been awoken but remains trapped within the grove, and hence is cursing the trees. Mechanically, this was resolved as a skill challenge. First the PCs had to endure the demon's three cries of "Go Away!" (group checks, with failing PCs taking psychic damage - the sorcerer, who is also a multi-class bard, was the most flamboyant here, spending his Rhythm of Disorientation encounter power to open up the use of Diplomacy for the check, which in the fiction was him singing a song of apples blossoming in the summer).

It's not so much the stake will change, but rather that there's no meaning to the choice that gets me to it. No matter what I'm going to see what's on the other side. "Say yes or roll(often with fail forward)" will guarantee that.

I don't know what you mean by "fail forward" here. You're not using it in the way that those who coined the term (Ron Edwards, Luke Crane) used it.

@pemerton's method of "say yes" also deprives me of any chance of having to try say the rats head in the lock out of PC desperation because of prior failed attempts. That sort of adversity to overcome won't be present.

And you know this how? In this thread I've provided multiple actual play examples, via links, quotes and retellings. Many illustrate adversity occurring. For instance, I posted an example of a PC, in Traveller, crawling through a tight space and tearing their protective suit in the process, thus being exposed to the world's corrosive atmosphere (mechanically, consecutive failed Vacc Suit throws). The PC then had to try and find a way into the enemy's installation before dying from the effects of the atmosphere. Where is this mooted lack of adversity?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As I posted upthread, this argument that players getting what they want via fiat declarations is at odds with agency, or the exercise of agency, is a dead end, and it baffles me that anyone is putting the argument.

Yeah, that's a VERY bizarre notion.

 

[bloodtide]

Has anyone said that the players just get their way all the time? Or that the game will consist of them just getting everything they want?

I'll say it.

It's very common for Young, Inexperienced, or "fan of the characters"/"Best Buddy" Type GMs.

And it's just about the definition of the Casual DM:They want to sit back and have the Players do most,nearly all the "work".

You had me agreeing right up until that last paragraph and especially the last sentence. When I playing a PC instead of DMing, my creativity is different but it is still creative. I'm focused on only one aspect of that fiction but it is not a passive role. A cognitive role implies something akin to reading a book or watching video which is simply not the case.

I'd also add the other big part here: Altering Game Reality.

In the first game, where "everyone is a player, but one player is called a GM sometimes" is all about Altering the Game Reality. Each player, by using some game rule and dice, can Alter the Reality of the game. While the Player called GM, just sits back and watches with awe. Once the player is finished, they giver the GM permission to do things in support of the games new reality. The Player called GM, in awe, does this quite willing(with the secret hope that someone will do it for them in the next game when they get to be a Player Player).

The traditional, classic game, the player can never ever alter game reality: they can only effect change by the actions of a single fictional character in the game world...with all the reality limitation of that single character. This is the big change from the one above.