D&D General What is player agency to you?

[gban007]

Ya that's a giant reach. None of the events you just described are literally inexplicable - i.e.: there are reasons that explain why those events happened. And, in fact, that is what a lot of people are trying to say - they expect that the things that happen 'in game' have 'in game' explanations rather than soley out-of-game explanations.

He's saying that events that happen in-game must have sufficient in-game explanations for why they happen, that is coherent with the logic of the game world.

Then you give a bunch of examples that have explanations as to why they happen that is coherent with the logic of the fictional world.

Not sure where that was supposed to go.

When the poster says "reasonable", he doesn't mean reasonable to HIMSELF, he means reasonable as far as the NPC/world feature is concerned.

But I don't see that any of what Pemerton or Hawkeyefan have presented as being literally inexplicable either, they are just items where someone has to come up with the explanation. Also, the poster didn't say just 'reasonable', but 'most reasonable', and are the examples Pemerton presented really the most reasonable outcomes? I think they were all plausible, but if ran with this hard 'most reasonable' outcome should apply, I don't think any of those examples would have occurred.
What Pemerton and Hawkeyefan seem to be saying to me is that there can be a plausible reason in most instances to say yes, even in some of these tougher situations, to help look for where the NPC / world feature allows for it to occur, rather than saying the most likely outcome is x, so only x may occur. As per above post, I think this takes more effort that I'm generally willing to give as a DM in many cases, but doesn't mean it isn't achievable if wanted to go down that road.
Someone listed multiple reasons why an Efreeti noble may meet characters, or the president or high ranking lacky meet characters in certain scenarios, and all seem plausible, if unlikely, but I would argue Pemerton's examples were also on the side of plausible but unlikely. 'It was picked up by the most unlikely creature imaginable.'

 

[mamba]

I said "as the DM determined", which may or may not be what they want. Though if they're free to just decide, I imagine they'll be much more likely to convince themselves that what they want is also the most reasonable!

someone said “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.”, so no, I can distinguish between the two

Not calling myself a first rate mind, the two are rarely entirely opposite, they certainly can differ however

Is there only one reasonable outcome for most actions?

no, but there are unreasonable ones, I try to avoid those

That's funny because what I had in mind is when something has a slim chance to succeed, and yet the dice determine that they do

that is fine, I was thinking in the context of it happening because someone at the table wants it to, not random chance. We are not discussing random chances here after all

So, you are happy with ‘roll 6d10, if they all come up 0 you get your audience’?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I don’t think you particularly care about believability one way or the other

Why is that?

 

[Oofta]

I don't believe the options presented by Pemerton were intended to be around the noble background, but to the prior poster's comment of 'most reasonable' outcome - that the above events / outcomes weren't the most reasonable outcome of a situation, not that they weren't reasonable at all. I don't think Pemerton was pushing back on what you were necessarily presenting, but on what Creamcloud was presenting.

Generally, my style of GMing is a bit more like yours, but possibly more towards the railroad as due to time commitments etc I tend to run published adventures these days, no longer sandboxes, and running Dragonlance one at the moment which creates a bit more of an imbalance in player vs DM knowledge (I normally play in FR where most players have as much knowledge as I do on the setting).

Like you, I will tend to limit the amount of player agency / authority to what I think the adventure / setting allows for, but in many ways I do this because it is just easier for me, even then sometimes I need to finish a session a little early as the players choose to do something that is still roughly in line with the overall adventure objectives, but left field enough that I need to work out what will happen as a consequence, and sometimes I just do do a hard no - is my preferred way of gaming, but I can see how it has less player agency than the narrative games, and I don't see that what others are coming up with in their examples of narrative play as being unreasonable outcomes, even if they aren't outcomes I would choose, they aren't less believable for it, just more of a hassle implementation wise than I can commit to really.

Those outcomes were reasonable given the fictional events and motivations of NPCs in that world.

 

[mamba]

Ultimately I like to resolve these things through the rules. That's what they're for.

what about the one that says the DM can overrule written rules?

But if there is even a chance of a particular approach working, even if it's not the most likely outcome, then that's what the dice are for

who decides the odds?

 

[mamba]

Why is that?

your replies? Your insistence to grant what the players want even if it stretches credulity to the breaking point

Weren’t you the one saying (or at the minimum agreeing with) that you’d let a player with the feature to find eggs, find eggs even on a lifeless plane, because some could have visited it [in the same place and very recently], so the player could find some? The part in brackets is mine, but clearly required

 

[Maxperson]

You keep presenting this fiction, with no account of how, at the table, it came to be. And then think it can tell us something about who, at the table, is exercising agency.

Well, no. This particular subdiscussion is about whether the ability makes sense in every single possible situation or not. Agency isn't a part of this tangent.

 

[Maxperson]

Having your decisions produce the outcome you desire from them is agency, however.

Having your decisions have meaning and/or the possibility to produce the outcome is agency, assuming the act has a possibility to succeed. You can fail though mechanical means or if your decision has no possibility to succeed. If your decision was one with no chance to succeed, then you must have wanted to fail so saying no honors your agency in that situation I suppose.

 

[Maxperson]

I would say that if Hawkeyefan is pushing one true way intentionally or not, then the same is for yourself and Maxperson, around how all these options other people are presenting are 'not reasonable'. And so one true way is for it to only be 'reasonable'. I don't think this is your intent either, but I think both sides are pushing hard on their preferences, and both are coming across a bit one true way.

I might come across that way due to the one true wayism of the other side. Initially we were just saying that there can be rare instances where it's reasonable for the ability to fail. Nothing about how it much happen. Nothing about the other side being wrong if they don't do it that way. Then the one true wayism got pushed hard, "The ability should always work!" and so we had to push back hard against that attack. It's the defensiveness against that attack that you're seeing from us and mistaking for one true wayism.

 

[Maxperson]

As Pemerton says, can a bunch of misfits (Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas) with no real proof of heritage, be able to convince a noble to give them treasured horses as the most reasonable outcome? Or more likely the three would taken prisoner / executed?

Aragorn was the king, and had the blood of elves, high men and angels running through his veins. He had extreme charisma and mental powers. He was far more than a wandering misfit and could have persuaded(and did) strangers to loan the horses. What happened was very reasonable from an in-fiction point of view and could have happened in any of our games.

Here, I think most reasonable is a bit extreme, and still very subjective, question is whether people think the above is a reasonable outcome, regardless of whether most likely to occur or not, and how much flex a DM will give in such a situation.

I also don't think the given decision has to be the "most reasonable" and can just be "one reasonable decision among many." I just find ridiculously unreasonable decisions to be off the table.