D&D General What is player agency to you?

[mamba]

As I've repeatedly posted upthread, in high player agency RPGing the players establish the goals/priorities/aspirations for their PCs.

I guess I was not really asking that.... I knew the answer already, as my post was supposed to show

What lead to this was the following exchange:

me: "I do not see a fundamental difference between steering the game by denying an audience and steering the game via having the chars find black arrows"

you: "I'm pretty sure I quoted the text upthread from the Burning Wheel rulebook, that tells the player that "If the story doesn't interest you, it's your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself""

[not really sure how that is an answer, but I ran with it instead of asking. I then tried a different approach to get to the answer I was looking for]

me: "how is that different from the players finding another way to accomplish their goal after the audience was denied, or setting new goals altogether?"

you: "It is about creating interesting situations. It's not about setting goals. Nor looking for new ways to accomplish goals."

me: "so where do goals and the actions to accomplish them come from?"

What I really am still looking for is the answer to my original question, so let me rephrase that:

I see no fundamental difference between steering the game by denying an audience and steering the game via having the chars find black arrows. To me this is a difference in degree only. Why do you think / insist that it is more than that?

 

[mamba]

I think that many D&D tables would not last long if GMs purported to exercise veto power over the action declarations I described (very simple things like choosing which corridor to go down, which door to open, whether or not to attack someone).

No idea, to me it is a matter of how often the DM actually does it in a way I consider unfair. As I wrote, to me the DM has that power. So him saying 'I reserve the right to' would not be a problem for me.

 

[Oofta]

As I've repeatedly posted upthread, in high player agency RPGing the players establish the goals/priorities/aspirations for their PCs.

But the principle I quoted is not about that. Here are some duties of players in Burning Wheel, stated on the same page as the players (which refers, at the top, to "the sacred and most holy role of the players"):

offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .​

​

use their character to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones . . . to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in surprising ways​

Those are principles about adopting goals/priorites/aspirations and about declaring actions that give expression to them

But the principle I quoted is about establishing situations - and, as I said and as I explained, is the exact opposite of play where the GM establishes situations, and vetoes/negates player action declarations, such that the players then have to "experiment" with various action declarations until they find one that won't be vetoed/negated. (Upthread, you described this as the players having to work out, via play, what the function f is that will return results on S that fall with R(O).)

Here are two actual play reports. You can tell me whether or not they exemplify random and aimless play.

So D&D is low agency because they don't work like your preferred games? Because you keep bringing in other games that simply work differently with different goals and rules of play. It's not particularly helpful when that is all you ever fall back on.

The players in my game establish their own goals/priorities/aspirations, even if there is no rule support for it. If they want to pursue something I didn't come up with, they can always ask. When we're done with a particular short arc (typically 2-3 sessions) in my campaign, I'll give people options or they can suggest things. It's a group game though so the entire party decides what direction to go. They don't establish the world or NPCs, but they do have a wide range of options and choices.

But yes in D&D the DM is by default responsible for creating and describing the world. Just like I don't have personal control over the world in real life yet feel like I still have a fair amount of agency, the players in my game also have it. Even though we're not playing a shared fiction narrative game. Because that's not a style of game I would enjoy, either as GM or player.

 

[gban007]

Oh noes! I'm being judged by someone I've never met, who has never played in my game, has obviously never talked to anyone I've ever DMed for, who has declared that because we disagree on some aspects of the game I must therefore run an unbearable railroad! Good grief.

For the record I run a far more free-form campaign than just about anyone I have ever had as a DM.

I don't think that you are being judged here, Pemerton has made clear in the past what they consider railroad play (it doesn't match my definition, but that's okay) - and so what they are saying here is that they know which sorts of game they would prefer to play vs not play.

That isn't casting a judgement on your game, just that your style of game doesn't match his preference, so seems a bit of a harsh response, if we generally agree that people can have different preferences and will like different games.

 

[Oofta]

I don't think that you are being judged here, Pemerton has made clear in the past what they consider railroad play (it doesn't match my definition, but that's okay) - and so what they are saying here is that they know which sorts of game they would prefer to play vs not play.

That isn't casting a judgement on your game, just that your style of game doesn't match his preference, so seems a bit of a harsh response, if we generally agree that people can have different preferences and will like different games.

It came off as "You run a railroad game" to me. I guess I really don't understand why their language has to be so absolutist, we all enjoy different types of games. For that matter it seems we all have different definitions of agency. I've asked for clarification, something other than "In Burning Wheel the players establish goals/priorities/aspirations" to no avail.

When you tell everyone on a D&D board that their game is lacking because .... well I'm not sure why ... it tends to raise hackles now and then.

 

[soviet]

'I insist that I get a veto over all rules and player actions but how dare you suggest that my players have less agency'

 

[Campbell]

Agency is not in itself a virtue. One of my personal favorite roleplaying games is Quietus, a game that focuses on melancholy horror. It's a game where players have fairly agency over the outcome of the game. The deck is stacked against their characters, and they will likely die or at the very least narrowly escape death but be fundamentally broken by their personal trauma.

I don't think it should be controversial that different games, different tables of the same game, different scenarios and even different PC builds experience both different sorts of agency and differing amounts.

One example that is common in D&D is the town game versus wandering vagabond games.

In a wandering vagabond game PCs are mostly disconnected from the setting, often find themselves as fish out of water with no real knowledge of their surroundings except what they are able to scout out.

In what Luke Crane calls the town game player characters are deeply entrenched in a community and their adventures are all connected to addressing threats to the community or building connections with the surrounding areas. Player characters have allies they can depend on, often are members of factions with real power in the setting and have a high level of knowledge about the environment surrounding their community.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't think that you are being judged here, Pemerton has made clear in the past what they consider railroad play (it doesn't match my definition, but that's okay) - and so what they are saying here is that they know which sorts of game they would prefer to play vs not play.

That isn't casting a judgement on your game, just that your style of game doesn't match his preference, so seems a bit of a harsh response, if we generally agree that people can have different preferences and will like different games.

His definition doesn't meet any generally accepted definition of railroad. Further, given the very negative connotation of railroad in RPGs which he understands, it's hard to avoid seeing the definition he uses as a deliberate aspersion on play where the DM has greater authority than he likes.

It's also interesting to see, given his predilection for unique definitions, many of which put DM authority in a negative light, that he's fighting so hard to invalidate an alternative definition/view of agency that doesn't keep his preferred style in the #1 spot. You'd think he would embrace unique/different definitions.

 

[gban007]

His definition doesn't meet any generally accepted definition of railroad. Further, given the very negative connotation of railroad in RPGs which he understands, it's hard to avoid seeing the definition he uses as a deliberate aspersion on play where the DM has greater authority than he likes.

It's also interesting to see, given his predilection for unique definitions, many of which put DM authority in a negative light, that he's fighting so hard to invalidate an alternative definition/view of agency that doesn't keep his preferred style in the #1 spot. You'd think he would embrace unique/different definitions.

Yeah, agree with this, I think would help Pemerton's cause if could come up with a less loaded term.

 

[gban007]

When I think on it further (always a dangerous thing), I can see there are two levels of player agency occurring, out of game and in game.

The first, out of game, I see most people (Except perhaps the OP, and others in the forum that seem to feel 5e gives too much in game player agency) giving same amount - the players basically free to choose how much in game agency they want, and are happy to operate from there.

For myself, as much as I seem to often end up posting in opposition to Oofta / Maxperson / Micah Sweet - the level of player agency they offer in game aligns with what I want as a player, I don't want any more agency than that, as puts feels requires more effort than I want to give.

Interestingly, as a DM I want even less in game player agency, instead relying on prepared adventures, as makes my life easier, but as long as my players are happy to opt into playing those games, buying in to what is required there, I see no issue.

Pemerton / Hawkeyefan want more in game player agency than I want, which is fine, just means I likely won't ever play the sort of games they want to play