D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

It is however a core assumption of D&D. Other games work differently with different controls, costs, ways of balancing the different roles. It's comparing apples and oranges to compare D&D to PbtA games for example.

Those options may be preferred by you, they are not preferred by a lot of people. You don't get to decide for everyone else the best way, especially when it's worked for the most popular RPG for nearly half a century.

Again though I am not telling people how they need to play, but doesn't it behoove us all to have an objective idea what the different forms of play are?

As for a core assumption of D&D, 2 decades ago I would have agreed with that statement, far less sure about it now. WotC made an edition where that's arguably only one option, and it's pretty much established only to a limited degree at most. 5e is supposed to be a big tent and clearly has elements like background benefits that are intended to belong to the players. So yeah, it is the most common interpretation, but far less so than 1980s classic D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don’t think anyone claimed that

Yeah, people have repeatedly, in discussion after discussion stated exactly that. Blatantly

 

[TwoSix]

As for a core assumption of D&D, 2 decades ago I would have agreed with that statement, far less sure about it now. WotC made an edition where that's arguably only one option, and it's pretty much established only to a limited degree at most. 5e is supposed to be a big tent and clearly has elements like background benefits that are intended to belong to the players. So yeah, it is the most common interpretation, but far less so than 1980s classic D&D.

Agreed. 3e was pretty hard in the sim/trad camp, but it did expand player authority a bit by dint of the amount of RAW a 3e player could leverage in their favor. You can argue how narr 4e is, but it definitely made a hard swerve away from simulationism, and 5e only really made a partial swerve back.

 

[Raiztt]

It's perfectly ok for some people to sit down and play with that process, but the way you put it is like you can't or won't understand that it is not only not the only way to do it, it's arguably not even the best way or even the most preferred when other options exist.

You must have missed my post where I said that lots of different people play lots of different ways and that's just fine.

 

[mamba]

Yeah, people have repeatedly, in discussion after discussion stated exactly that. Blatantly

no, they claimed that playing this way does not mean there is no agency, that is a far cry from claiming it is the apex

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agreed. 3e was pretty hard in the sim/trad camp, but it did expand player authority a bit by dint of the amount of RAW a 3e player could leverage in their favor. You can argue how narr 4e is, but it definitely made a hard swerve away from simulationism, and 5e only really made a partial swerve back.

Right, I think it is fair to say that 5e is largely a fairly trad game, and you can certainly extrapolate a fairly hard 'rule 0' sort of play, but it is not like old days. 4e benefits a lot from very nailed down rules for a lot of situations though that are much more ambiguous in 5e. I still like running 4e best.

 

[Raiztt]

... 3e ...

All Hail the King

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

no, they claimed that playing this way does not mean there is no agency, that is a far cry from claiming it is the apex

I can only suggest going back and, for example, reading threads started by @pemerton . Sure they didn't use the term apex but they denied that anything else increased agency, what else does that mean?

 

[Oofta]

Well... I say the same of yours! You claim that the situation where players are limited to declaring their PCs actions, strictly limited by GM rulings, some of you even stating without knowing enough to evaluate the costs and benefits, is the apex of player agency. When I point out that this is plainly not the case, by presenting genuine examples of play where the players have greater agency by any reasonable definition, then I'm met with a whole host of objections, none of which are convincing, many of which feel contrived.

Everyone can play as they like but lets all stick to calling it preference instead of all the mental gymnastics.

I never said D&D was the apex of player agency. No one has. Agency is only one aspect of the game that I want to play, a lot of other things factor in. It also depends on your definition of agency and how to measure it which basically no one agrees upon.

 

[Oofta]

Again though I am not telling people how they need to play, but doesn't it behoove us all to have an objective idea what the different forms of play are?

As for a core assumption of D&D, 2 decades ago I would have agreed with that statement, far less sure about it now. WotC made an edition where that's arguably only one option, and it's pretty much established only to a limited degree at most. 5e is supposed to be a big tent and clearly has elements like background benefits that are intended to belong to the players. So yeah, it is the most common interpretation, but far less so than 1980s classic D&D.

Let's see
PHB Introduction:

One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. ​

...​

Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience.​

​

Under How to Play:​

The DM describes the environment. ​

...​

The players describe what they want to do. ... the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions.​

...​

The DM narrates the results of the adventurers’ actions. ​

The DMG

The D&D rules help you and the other players have a good time, but the rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM, and you are in charge of the game. ​

...​

As a referee, the DM acts as a mediator between the rules and the players. A player tells the DM what he or she wants to do, and the DM determines whether it is successful or not​

I'm sure I could find more along this line if I bothered to look past the first chapter. The point is, that the DM being in charge is still the default. Of course the DM can share that authority and that's perfectly fine as well. It doesn't make the game inherently better, but the game is reasonably flexible to allow different styles. Doesn't change the core assumptions of the game if individual groups choose to deviate from those assumptions.