D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

For me it's "try to say yes..." not "always say yes..." (I wonder if anyone actually does do that).

It's more about not always (or way too often) saying no - and unnecessarily limiting things.

RPGs never simply consist of people making arbitrary statements without regard to fictional position, genre, etc. The entire idea is simply a straw man constructed by people who cannot seem to be bothered to really understand what they're criticizing. There are ZERO RPGs where players just 'say some stuff' and it happens, with or without rolling dice. It simply DOES NOT EXIST.

 

[Vaalingrade]

RPGs never simply consist of people making arbitrary statements without regard to fictional position, genre, etc. The entire idea is simply a straw man constructed by people who cannot seem to be bothered to really understand what they're criticizing. There are ZERO RPGs where players just 'say some stuff' and it happens, with or without rolling dice. It simply DOES NOT EXIST.

But I need them as a platform from which to attack the idea of player agency!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The world may have lots of things for PCs to do, but it isn't necessarily built for a particular group of PCs in mind. It just has cool stuff in it, and the players decide what they want their PCs to interact.

Yes, its filled with COOL STUFF, which is so incredibly unlikely to be the case in any plausible world! I mean, lets imagine an RPG set in a reasonable facsimile of the real world. Maybe its a crime drama, and its set in Renton, Washington (the home town of WotC, I happen to leave down the street from their HQ). What, realistically, will the PCs encounter? It will be drug dealers (not very exciting ones at that), a lady with no legs who yells at you whenever you pass her by at Fred Meyer, a bunch of very indifferent cops, an assortment of homeless people and druggies, and many ordinary citizens of various ilks.

I mean, maybe generously there are a few Chinese Spies lurking in town? I strongly doubt it... Its an ordinary place, like every other place in this country, basically. That's a place that is not specially built to cater to PCs in an RPG. That's what I expect every ordinary sort of place, and even the less ordinary places for the most part, to look like EVERYWHERE. If you want it to be plausible, to really tick the box of "this could be real" then that's what you need.

There are ZERO RPG settings in the entire history of RPGs from day one which look ANYTHING like this. End of argument!

Your insistence on RPGs always being the way you say is not helping the conversation, or likely to change hearts and minds IMO.

Well, that's your opinion, and you are entirely welcome to it.

 

[Oofta]

The whole argument is preposterous. What else does a fantasy setting exist for except as a stage upon which the PCs are placed an in which they act? It has no other point or purpose, unless you are simply doing world-building as a hobby with absolutely no intention to use it in play. The world doesn't just revolve around the PCs, it is built explicitly for PCs to adventure in! The whole category of arguments about settings that don't take account of the characters or operate around them is bogus, completely bogus. EVERY setting does that already.

What's preposterous is that you think you know how and why everyone builds their campaign world.

I've built, added to and modified my campaign world for decades. Multiple groups and campaigns have been set there and will continue to be set there. I'm currently running two separate campaigns with different groups there now. My wife has a (mostly) fenced off section of the world she runs games in. I've created outlines of histories and nations that has never come up.

I don't have reams of documentation and I don't know when or if I will ever use that kaiju island, but if I can ever think of a cool campaign or even an arc of a campaign it's there.

The PCs live in that world, they have the chance to change it for good or ill. Games I ran decades ago still occasionally influence current campaigns.

But the world doesn't revolve around the PCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, its filled with COOL STUFF, which is so incredibly unlikely to be the case in any plausible world! I mean, lets imagine an RPG set in a reasonable facsimile of the real world. Maybe its a crime drama, and its set in Renton, Washington (the home town of WotC, I happen to leave down the street from their HQ). What, realistically, will the PCs encounter? It will be drug dealers (not very exciting ones at that), a lady with no legs who yells at you whenever you pass her by at Fred Meyer, a bunch of very indifferent cops, an assortment of homeless people and druggies, and many ordinary citizens of various ilks.

I mean, maybe generously there are a few Chinese Spies lurking in town? I strongly doubt it... Its an ordinary place, like every other place in this country, basically. That's a place that is not specially built to cater to PCs in an RPG. That's what I expect every ordinary sort of place, and even the less ordinary places for the most part, to look like EVERYWHERE. If you want it to be plausible, to really tick the box of "this could be real" then that's what you need.

There are ZERO RPG settings in the entire history of RPGs from day one which look ANYTHING like this. End of argument!

Well, that's your opinion, and you are entirely welcome to it.

I sure am.

 

[mamba]

The whole argument is preposterous. What else does a fantasy setting exist for except as a stage upon which the PCs are placed an in which they act? It has no other point or purpose, unless you are simply doing world-building as a hobby with absolutely no intention to use it in play. The world doesn't just revolve around the PCs, it is built explicitly for PCs to adventure in! The whole category of arguments about settings that don't take account of the characters or operate around them is bogus, completely bogus. EVERY setting does that already.

What seems preposterous is you declaring with such conviction what some people are supposedly arguing for. No one at all is arguing for a world that does not take the chars into account. The difference is in the degree it does so.

 

[Maxperson]

What actual RPG, or actual (as opposed to imagined) gameplay process, are you talking about?

Also, when you talk about thing "making a lot of sense", are you meaning makes sense relative to the fiction that has been established in play, or makes sense to the GM given all the other stuff they are imagining that is private/secret to them?

Any or all. Usually it's going to be out in the open, but sometimes, depending on the system, there will be information that the DM knows that influences things.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not going to comb back through all the quotes, and I don't know if the term "I win button" was used all the time... but there was plenty of insistence that letting an ability always work would be problematic... it would lead to absurdities and inconsistencies and player abuse and so on.

It would/could lead to things that don't make sense, yes. I certainly never said or implied abuse, and I don't recall anyone else saying that, either.

If you don't think that's true, I don't know what to say. It's been very clear to me.

Okay, but you're confusing "doesn't make sense in all situations" with "Abuse" and "I win button." Those aren't even remotely equivalent.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It would/could lead to things that don't make sense, yes.

Right, this is what I'm saying. It hasn't in my games where I actually do this. This is why I described your concern as imaginary.

I certainly never said or implied abuse, and I don't recall anyone else saying that, either.

People absolutely have. If you don't recall it, then I would have to say go back and look at the thread.

Okay, but you're confusing "doesn't make sense in all situations" with "Abuse" and "I win button." Those aren't even remotely equivalent.

No, I'm not confusing anything. I'm taking all these concerns that you and others are imagining will come up with a style of gaming they don't play and telling you that they're all nonsense.

 

[Maxperson]

Right, this is what I'm saying. It hasn't in my games where I actually do this. This is why I described your concern as imaginary.

Just because you haven't come across those situations... They aren't imaginary just because you can't see them.

People absolutely have. If you don't recall it, then I would have to say go back and look at the thread.

Nah. I'm not saying it wasn't done, just that I don't remember it. I was leaving open that possibility. It's not worth the effort to comb back through to prove or disprove a claim I'm not making.

No, I'm not confusing anything. I'm taking all these concerns that you and others are imagining will come up with a style of gaming they don't play and telling you that they're all nonsense.

Yay for extreme arrogance! You are incapable of seeing these things and so they don't exist. Only you can be correct. There are people that can't see that the world is round, too.