D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Maxperson]

This is a sloppy analogy. It paints a preference as being wrong.

Pretty much all analogies are sloppy. Their point isn't to be perfect, but to help you understand the point. That you're going out of your way to ignore the point and argue the analogy tells me that you understand my point.

Because I’m saying this type of play 100% does not cause these concerns.

You have no basis to claim that D&D play does not cause those concerns as a general statement like that.

Those are the same thing!

I agree. All of them are rather stark examples of arrogant one true wayism.

And all efreeti are the same? So many suggestions were made about this example, I don’t know why you’d bring it up again.

Because it's still a valid one. Sure you can do an end around what makes sense and push a square peg into a round hole, but that doesn't invalidate the example.

They’re not. Anyone can make up a hypothetical fear about someone else’s playstyle and then claim that it’s a concern for that playstyle.

Holy hell you make it hard not to laugh. Nobody was making up a "fear about someone else's playstyle." Hypotheticals are just hypotheticals, not attacks that you imagine are coming at you.

Or you’d cast a cantrip and draw your flametongue and then get an audience. shot dead.

Fixed that for you.

 

[mamba]

Noble feature doesn’t say you approach anyone. Just that you can get an audience with a local noble.

and how do you go about that, you wait on some street corner until they approach you?

 

[Maxperson]

Noble feature doesn’t say you approach anyone. Just that you can get an audience with a local noble.

It's an ability that you use. I would think that you need to engage it by seeking an audience, rather than passively sit back and the audience comes to you.

 

[FrogReaver]

It's an ability that you use. I would think that you need to engage it by seeking an audience, rather than passively sit back and the audience comes to you.

I think that’s reasonable but unstated in the feature.

If that’s how it’s used, then I think you would be seeking an audience with a specific noble and there’s quite a few times I can see that reasonably not working.

 

[FrogReaver]

and how do you go about that, you wait on some street corner until they approach you?

Not typically.

There is a way antithetical to most d&d play that could work. Invoke the feature out of character. Not my preference but a possibility.

 

[Maxperson]

I think that’s reasonable but unstated in the feature.

If that’s how it’s used, then I think you would be seeking an audience with a specific noble and there’s quite a few times I can see that reasonably not working.

"You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

You can secure, not others secure on your behalf. It's written so that the PC seeks the audience. When you secure a loan, you've gone to the bank, the bank hasn't come to you. When you secure a babysitter, you go to the babysitter, the babysitter doesn't spontaneously come to you.

Now there are exceptions where things do come to you and you secure them, but the general rule is that you go do it yourself.

 

[FrogReaver]

"You can secure an audience with a local noble if you need to."

You can secure, not others secure on your behalf. It's written so that the PC seeks the audience. When you secure a loan, you've gone to the bank, the bank hasn't come to you. When you secure a babysitter, you go to the babysitter, the babysitter doesn't spontaneously come to you.

Now there are exceptions where things do come to you and you secure them, but the general rule is that you go do it yourself.

Nice microcosm of this whole thread.

 

[nevin]

sure, I am not saying this is the best approach, no one ever argued that. The one and only question has been 'can the DM deny the audience', and I have always said yes, if the DM has a good reason, but it should be rare. No one says it is not affecting player agency, no one says the players love it, etc. all of that is besides the point.

You can use all of that to say 'and because of this I say he cannot', but the question is: can the DM, or not.

99 percent of all of these arguments (both sides) are entirely invalidated by one simple fact, players can walk away. DM's that push thier players too far either way simply stop being DM's.

 

[FrogReaver]

99 percent of all of these arguments (both sides) are entirely invalidated by one simple fact, players can walk away. DM's that push thier players too far either way simply stop being DM's.

Though I’d also point out that this is a fact that cuts both ways.

 

[nevin]

yet people go ballistic when we said that an audience with a specific noble is not guaranteed

What killed 3rd edition in my experience was rules and splat books. It was the most prolific version I remember. At the beginning it was like mana from heaven after a drought, as a DM I was buried in new books and new splat books and magazine articles. All the new content I could ever wish for. Then the players that felt because WOTC wrote it meant they were entitled to play it anywhere anytime destroyed it.

Those players are the ones you just uninvite and move on because they'll ruin every edition of every game you invite them too.