D&D General What is player agency to you?

[hawkeyefan]

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

They’re imaginary as far as this discussion goes. Anyone who doesn’t run their games always allowing the background features can’t say from experience that these potential problems are legit.

Anyone who does run their games that way is saying these problems don’t come up.

So why would we view them as legit concerns?

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.

Arrogance? Of the two of us, I’m describing D&D the way I actually run it, and sharing the results.

You’re imagining how I or others may run the game, and then telling us why it won't work.

Only one of those things seems arrogant to me.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

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

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.

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.

Come on. You all can disagree. You don't have to accuse every person who doesn't agree with you of being arrogant, believe it or not there are plenty of reasonable people who won't agree with you.

I mean, I've GMed and played, since roughly 2008, that's about 750 weeks, easily somewhere between 500 and 1000 sessions, likely considerably more, of which 95% I would call 'narrativist play', and yet never once, in even one scene encountered an issue of the sort that you seem concerned about. It just isn't a factor in actual real-world play of this type. Not at all! I mean, I'm sure if I put together a table full of hostile players who WANT to play in bad faith, yes they can try to abuse their agency in play, but short of that, it doesn't happen.

Nor have I ever seen players so lazy and uninterested in actual role play that they will fail to engage with narrativist play. Now, I certainly believe a few of those exist, they're probably also bricks in every other sort of game. I just happen to filter my list of potential players in a way to avoid them. In some venues you're undoubtedly getting one or even two at any table, but a game like Agon or DW is at least as good a way to get to them as plain old bog-standard D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

They’re imaginary as far as this discussion goes. Anyone who doesn’t run their games always allowing the background features can’t say from experience that these potential problems are legit.

That's false. I don't have to murder someone to be able to tell you that it's wrong. I can 100% say and see that it's legit that there are going to be situations where allowing that ability to work won't make sense.

Anyone who does run their games that way is saying these problems don’t come up.

Then they haven't come up for you.

So why would we view them as legit concerns?

Sure. If they aren't your concerns, why see them as legit? Makes sense to me.

Arrogance? Of the two of us, I’m describing D&D the way I actually run it, and sharing the results.

You’re imagining how I or others may run the game, and then telling us why it won't work.

Only one of those things seems arrogant to me.

And you're the only one doing that. I'm saying how I run it and that there are situations where it doesn't make sense. You're telling me that 1) my concerns are all imaginary, 2) my concerns aren't legit, and 3) my concerns are all nonsense!

Not once have I told you that you have to run it my way or that it won't work in your game.

 

[mamba]

They’re imaginary as far as this discussion goes. Anyone who doesn’t run their games always allowing the background features can’t say from experience that these potential problems are legit.

that does not follow, they can already pop up despite some audience being denied

I do not really care if things break down or not, I don’t think I ever said they would. For me it is about being able to have the option when I consider it to be the right option, no more, no less.

I grant you that I could just play out the audience and move on, but the point is I do not have to.

 

[pemerton]

I've built, added to and modified my campaign world for decades.

<snip>

But the world doesn't revolve around the PCs.

My gameworlds don't revolve around the PCs. My gameplay does revolve around the PCs. And the shared fiction is heavily driven by the players.

All the stuff that is happening in the gameworld that doesn't pertain to the PCs is going on, doing whatever it does. It minds its own business and doesn't trouble me or my players!

 

[pemerton]

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.

<snip>

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.

Right! Nonsense through-and-through.

Likewise that a shared fiction in which player priorities loom large will lack verisimilitude. That's a nonsense concern. Villains, curses, twists and turns, don't become less verisimilitudinous because they involve or pertain to ideas that the players as well as the GM came up with.

 

[pemerton]

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

But they're imaginary if they don't exist. Where are the actual instances of this, in your or anyone else's play?

 

[Oofta]

Right! Nonsense through-and-through.

Likewise that a shared fiction in which player priorities loom large will lack verisimilitude. That's a nonsense concern. Villains, curses, twists and turns, don't become less verisimilitudinous because they involve or pertain to ideas that the players as well as the GM came up with.

There's a big difference between "can't work" and "wouldn't work for me" or "there still has to be some restrictions on the shared fiction". If shared fiction works for you, great. It would make the game less enjoyable for me. It also isn't a core assumption of D&D, outside of a bit of character history over which the DM still has editorial control.

Just because it's not a concern for you does not mean it works that way for everyone.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So, here is a question/situation for the team that says "Securing an audience" is exactly like fireball.

We're playing D&D - say set in Faerun - and the level 1 PCs are somehow transported into the actual (fictional) Washington DC. One of the PCs happens to have the noble background and declares that he will secure a meeting with the President of the United States - who is very arguably a type of noble/ruler.

How do you justify this person meeting the sitting President? As in, if I ask you "how" what is your answer?

The feature grants an audience with a noble, not necessarily the noble you want. So, you don’t meet with the President, but instead some other functionary.

Just like if you were trying to use the feature in Faerun, maybe you don’t get to meet the king of Cormyr, instead, you meet with one of his courtiers, or a member of his family.

 

[soviet]

The feature grants an audience with a noble, not necessarily the noble you want. So, you don’t meet with the President, but instead some other functionary.

Just like if you were trying to use the feature in Faerun, maybe you don’t get to meet the king of Cormyr, instead, you meet with one of his courtiers, or a member of his family.

I think this is fine. The point is that something happens and the PC has an opportunity to leverage their position upwards. Finding compromise outcomes with potential for further development instead of just a flat 'no' is an important part of being an agency-supporting DM.