D&D General What is player agency to you?

[Maxperson]

I've read the passage in which Aragorn meets Eomer many times. Here is the core of it:

"Come! Who are you? Whom do you serve? At whose command to you hunt Orcs in our land?"​

​

"I serve no man," said Aragorn . . . "the Orcs whom we pursued took captive two of my friends. In such need a man that has no horse will go on foot, and he will not ask for leave to follow the trail. Nor will he count the heads of the enemy save with a sword. I am not weaponless."​

​

Aragorn through back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it,, and the bright blade of Anduril shone like a sudden flame as he swept it out. "Elendil!" he cried. "I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dunadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!"​

​

. . .​

​

Eomer stepped back an a look of awe was in his face. He cast down his proud eyes. "These are indeed strange days," he muttered. "Dreams and legends spring to life out of the grass.​

​

"Tell me, lord," he said, what brings you here?"​

That's not magic. In D&D terms, Aragorn has not cast a spell. That's a dramatic example of one noble gaining an audience with another.

There is supernatural charisma and ability in the Dunedain. Just because it was not explicitly written into that passage doesn't mean that it was not there. A world builder like Tolkien would have been keenly aware of Aragorn's gifts and coupled with the magic of Anduril that was written there, would have had a very high chance of being convincing.

The 5e feature is clear: it refers to high birth and contrasts that with common folk. It doesn't talk about audiences with oligarchs, or merchant guild leaders, or abbots, or the leaders of communes. It talks about nobility.

High birth isn't supernatural. There's nothing supernatural about the 5e ability. Any sufficiently skilled faker can well, fake it.

 

[pemerton]

it matters in the sense that without one the DM is never actually bound, they just go along.

This isn't true at all. A written text doesn't have magic power. A group can establish binding norms, and the GM can be bound by those as much as any other participant.

 

[Raiztt]

...What happens in the world they run and make all the decisions for.

Just the messenger?

the DM is not IN the game world? So they can't be "the oppressive hand of the system" because that system takes place in the game world.

 

[pemerton]

Ya, that, now just in a fantasy world. You attempt to affect change given your constraints and it may or may not work out.

The DM is just reporting what happens.

The fantasy world doesn't exist. There is nothing to report. The actual causal process you seem to be pointing to, in saying "it may or may not work out", is the GM making decisions.

We can talk about the constraints that govern those decisions - what can they involve, how if at all must they connect to player-established goals and stakes, etc - and then we can see to what degree the player or the GM is exercising agency.

 

[Vaalingrade]

the DM is not IN the game world? So they can't be "the oppressive hand of the system" because that system takes place in the game world.

And who is deciding that the system is there and what it does?

 

[Raiztt]

The fantasy world doesn't exist. There is nothing to report. The actual causal process you seem to be pointing to, in saying "it may or may not work out", is the GM making decisions.

We can talk about the constraints that govern those decisions - what can they involve, how if at all must they connect to player-established goals and stakes, etc - and then we can see to what degree the player or the GM is exercising agency.

Sorry I meant to say...: "The DM is just reporting what happens... as determined by the rules they have created/applied to govern the physical and metaphysical principles of their game world."

Ideally, the DM creates a sort of 'machine' that has its own internal logic and rules and then the PCs interact with that 'machine'.

 

[pemerton]

Sorry I meant to say...: "The DM is just reporting what happens... as determined by the rules they have created/applied to govern the physical and metaphysical principles of their game world."

Ideally, the DM creates a sort of 'machine' that has its own internal logic and rules and then the PCs interact with that 'machine'.

What you are describing strikes me as very GM-driven play. I would regard it as low player agency.

 

[pemerton]

And who is deciding that the system is there and what it does?

The GM!

 

[mamba]

This isn't true at all. A written text doesn't have magic power. A group can establish binding norms, and the GM can be bound by those as much as any other participant.

so they are never bound then, works for me too. So it always is just trust, nothing more to it

 

[pemerton]

so they are never bound then, works for me too. So it always is just trust, nothing more to it

I don't follow.

When I play Incan Gold with my family, we have rules about how you drop (to avoid the hesitation problem). Those rules aren't written down anywhere. And even if they were - I mean, we could write them down if we wanted to - that wouldn't change anything. Cheating is still cheating, and will get called out.