D&D General What is player agency to you?

[pemerton]

Wow. Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed reply that helps me understand your point of view.

I've posted my view many many times in this thread. Here's an example:

Anyway, the topic of this thread is player agency. To me, it seems obvious that if all players can do is establish "inconsequential", "minor" or "not directly pivotal" elements of the fiction - so that all the significant elements of framing, consequence etc are established by the GM - then their agency is modest at best.

And in order to pre-empt, or at least attempt to pre-empt, confused or incorrect statements about how (say) Dungeon World works: in the RPGs I know that have higher player agency, the players cannot "alter game reality" in the way some posters in this thread are talking about. Rather, they establish their own goals and aspirations for their PCs (including working with the group collectively to establish the appropriate backstory and setting elements to underpin those goals and aspirations), and then the GM relies on those goals and aspirations as cues for their own narration of framing and consequence.

There may also be techniques that permit the players to declare actions or make decisions pertaining to their PCs' memories. This goes together with the players' establishing goals and aspirations, to overall produce characters that have "thicker" lives, relationships, etc than is typical of much D&D play.

Here's another:

Burning Wheel does not use rolling on a table. As per the quotes from the rulebook that I set out upthread, framing and consequences are deliberate, and intended to challenge player priorities and give expression to the consequences of those challenges.

So someone has to make it up.

Sometimes the GM makes it up, and incorporates it into framing, or (as the black arrows illustrate) into a consequence. But that is not the only way. The point of a mechanic like Circles, or Wises, or Scavenging - looking for people (or hoping to meet them), recalling stuff, looking for stuff - is to create a framework within which player priorities for the fiction can be given effect to.

As a player, I made a Scavenging check when Thurgon searched Evard's tower for spellbooks. At the table, who invented the idea of Evard's tower? Me, the player. How did it come into play? Via a successful Great Masters-wise check for Aramina. Who invented the idea that there would be spellbooks in the tower? Me, as part and parcel of making the Wises check in the first place (Aramina had a Belief about finding spellbooks). Who initiated the Scavenging check? Me, playing Thurgon (Aramina was Taxed to unconsciousness from an attempt to cast a spell).

And when the Scavenging check failed, who invented the letters from Xanthippe to Evard, that tended to imply that Thurgon is the grandson of a demon-summoning wizard? The GM, introducing a complication that challenges Thurgon's Beliefs and Relationships. (Very analogously to the black arrows.)

This is how the game works.

<snip>

This is not the only approach to high player agency RPGing - Apocalypse World exhibits a different one - but in my experience it works pretty well.

And another:

There is a type of human creative endeavour called storytelling. It includes certain elements which can be understood at least semi-technically: characters who have dramatic needs; rising action; perhaps most importantly crisis or climax in which the question of whether the character will fulfil their dramatic need is posed and answered; and, as a result, resolution one way or another.

The appeal of RPGing, for me at least, is that it enables the creation of stories with (i) no one having to be the storyteller, and (ii) the possibility of having the experience of "being" the character. This is a distinctive type of aesthetic experience.

Key to achieving (ii) is to have PC build establish dramatic needs for those PCs. These are the player priorities that I have talked about in this thread. And I've said a bit about how various RPG systems permit players to express them (eg player-authored quests in 4e D&D).

Key to achieving (i) is to have a system for framing, and for resolution, that will make dramatic need salient without anyone have to choose, in advance, what the resolution of those needs will look like. I've given examples, and explanation, that show how certain GMing principles can achieve this. (There are other RPGs with principles that are a bit different from what I've discussed that can also do this, most prominent Apocalypse World and some of its offshoots.)

And another:

In Burning Wheel, an action declaration consists of intent and task. If nothing that matters to the player is at stake, the GM says "yes" and the intent and task are both realised.

If the GM does not say "yes", then the dice must be rolled. The task and intent, taken together, establish what skill or ability will be tested. The GM is responsible for setting the difficulty, though there are a lot of example difficulties to guide this - in Burning Wheel, setting consistent obstacles over time is one important aspect of world building that the GM has to do.

If the player succeeds on their test, then intent and task are both realised. If the player fails, then the GM is obliged to narrate something that negates the intent, and which may also but need not include failure at the task. Because we are only rolling if something that the player has prioritised is at stake, there is already some relationship between intent and stakes, and this will provide the cue and context for narrating a consequence.​

There's no gap in those rules. They satisfy @chaochou's desiderata from upthread:

*No agreement that the GM / MC / narrator can unilaterally disregard the rules - I've just set out the rules, and the GM is not entitled to unilaterally disregard them (and in a more recent post I noted that the players cant "say 'yes' to themselves";

*Transparent rules and processes that offer guaranteed outcomes (good and bad) - the rules I've just set out are transparent, as is the process they establish: the players know, if they are called upon to roll the dice, what is at stake (their intent, and the player-authored priorities that it flows from or relates to), what the outcome will be if they succeed, and what the GM will thwart if they fail;

*Transparent goals for characters (often through authorship of them by the players) - I've already talked in this thread about the ways the players in BW establish player priorities (Beliefs, Instincts, traits, relationships, Affiliations, etc);

*Facilitation of that authorship through group creation of setting and/or situation such that character goals are given meaning and context by player choice, not secret GM backstory - I've provided multiple examples of this (Thurgon's knightly order; Jobe's brother turned to evil and their ruined wizard's tower; and as further examples, in our Torchbearer game, the role of the Dreamwalker's ranger friend and enemy Megloss; and in our 4e game, the player of the Emergent Primordial establishing that PC's relationship to Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals; etc).​

And here's how one rulebook sets out the basic idea:

In Burning Wheel, it is the job of the GM "to challenge and engage the players" by "introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices" (Revised p 268; the same text is found in Gold). And as pp 12-13 explain,

players take on the roles of characters . . . represented by a series of numbers . . . and a list of player-determined priorities. . . . Manipulating these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about. . . .

The conflicts of the characters' aforementioned priorities creates (sic) situations for the players to resolve, and resolving conflicts (and creating new ones) is what play is all about.​

So we shouldn't even be hearing about a cupboard, or a pickler called Horace, or the possibility of a magic sword, unless it somehow pertains to a player-authored priority, and hence is part of a situation in which challenges to those priorities, and/or conflicts, complications or consequences resulting from them, are present.

The player establishes their PCs goals, priorities and aspirations: not by first learning what the GM has decided is part of the gameworld and choosing from those but at the outset, and ongoing through play, just like the 4e player who decides that their parent is the one who was lost in the fortress of the Iron Ring.

The GM draws on those elements to frame scenes. The player stakes those elements, or their PC's relationship to them, by declaring actions. If the player succeeds, their intent and task is realised. If they player fails, the GM narrates a consequence which responds to and builds on what was at stake, drawing the player - via the play of their PCs - further into challenge and conflict.

As I posted in reply to @mamba somewhere upthread, this is how the player contributes to a story with a rising action, and climax, without having to ever do anything but describe their character, who their character is, and what their character does.

 

[TwoSix]

Wow. Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed reply that helps me understand your point of view.

Dude's got 30K+ posts, mostly on variations of this exact topic, over the past 15 years. I'm not sure what part of his overall gaming philosophy is somehow not clear at this point.

 

[Oofta]

I've posted my view many many times in this thread. Here's an example:

Here's another:
And another:
And another:
And here's how one rulebook sets out the basic idea:
The player establishes their PCs goals, priorities and aspirations: not by first learning what the GM has decided is part of the gameworld and choosing from those but at the outset, and ongoing through play, just like the 4e player who decides that their parent is the one who was lost in the fortress of the Iron Ring.

The GM draws on those elements to frame scenes. The player stakes those elements, or their PC's relationship to them, by declaring actions. If the player succeeds, their intent and task is realised. If they player fails, the GM narrates a consequence which responds to and builds on what was at stake, drawing the player - via the play of their PCs - further into challenge and conflict.

As I posted in reply to @mamba somewhere upthread, this is how the player contributes to a story with a rising action, and climax, without having to ever do anything but describe their character, who their character is, and what their character does.

It's fine that you prefer a different game. I've looked into other games (Dungeon World in particular), reading the rules and listening to streams. They just aren't what I want in a game whether I was GM or player. That's perfectly okay, to each their own. But comparing D&D to PbtA games is comparing apples to oranges. The games are different and take different approaches to agency. You keep repeating the same Burning Wheel examples as if it's some holy text descended from on high. It works for you, cool. But this is a D&D forum and I don't want to play a PbtA game and you saying "My game does it better" doesn't make it so. The condescending language of "D&D grants no agency to players" and "Standard D&D is a railroad" is condescending and irritating.

My D&D games are very player directed. You seem incapable of acknowledging that for many people not being able to change the world outside of their PCs does not inhibit their sense of agency. In D&D I am not a storyteller. I set the stage, envision motivations and goals for actors other than the PCs and then the players run with it. A story emerges, the players interact with the setting, but I am not controlling anything.

I can't think of anything else to add because anything I say will likely just be countered by "You're wrong, in Burning Wheel...". It's an endless loop.

 

[Oofta]

Dude's got 30K+ posts, mostly on variations of this exact topic, over the past 15 years. I'm not sure what part of his overall gaming philosophy is somehow not clear at this point.

I was hoping for something other than a repeat of Burning Wheel rules as the one true way.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Has anyone on this thread said that they largely ignore background features?

Did I say anyone did? Or did I ask a question?

Don’t blame me when you draw conclusions about what I was trying to say instead of just reading what I say.

Nothing. There's more nothing. Only different preferences for what you want out of a game. Why? Because telling me no when it's warranted HONORS my background features, even if it doesn't honor yours. That's why you way diminishes my agency if we try to argue for agency to be some sort of uniform thing. Your way dishonors my background features.

This makes no sense.

If I were forced to play with that background feature, I would want the possibility of a veto. But I would far prefer free roleplay and a reaction roll.

Sure. Out of curiosity… if you had to pick from the two options I presented, which do you think you’d prefer? And would that vary as player or DM?

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

It really depends. I prefer to have more, but I tend to adjust my expectations depending on the game and the GM.

With 5e D&D, I generally don’t expect as much agency as I find as a player in other games. Some of the GMs in my pool that run D&D may allow for a little more than others. The current game I’m playing in has very little agency.

When I GM 5e, I try to allow as much agency as I’d hope for as a player. It isn’t always possible… the system isn’t exactly designed with it in mind, but I do what I can.

 

[Raiztt]

I dunno what burning wheel is, but my gut intuition is that it's gar-bage.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A plateau. No one said it is all downhill from here.

That handling the situation differently has nothing to do with agency because it is an outlier.

Possibly that agency is more about you deciding your action than you being able to narrate the outcome.

That is not a novel concept and @pemerton agreed not too far back that deciding where to go in a dungeon is agency (albeit in his view rather limited), even if you have nothing to go on.

nobody said it's isn't, granting that you have some sort of way to differentiate choices. I don't know what is an 'outlier'. I virtually guarantee you that @pemerton also qualified whatever he said as 'limited agency '.

 

[pemerton]

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"

<snip>
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?

I told you what the fundamental difference is. The rules of Burning Wheel say that, if a player fails a Scavenging test, the GM's job is to narrate a consequence that incorporates their intention, and thwarts it. This is one point at which the GM introduces their ideas; the other is when the GM frames scenes/situations. When the player succeeds at a test (Scavenging, Wises, Circles or anything else) then the player's intent and task are realised within the fiction. This is one point at which the player introduces their ideas; the other is when they establish their priorities for their PC.

The game has many interlocking parts, including about how the "ideas" I've referred to are worked out, what the player gets to do (declare actions for their PC, establish priorities for their PC), what the GM gets to do (narrate consequences of failure, frame scenes), how the GM incorporates player priorities into what they say, etc which - taken together - mean that this interplay of GM introduces stuff, player introduces stuff produces dramatic need => rising action => crisis/climax.

The GM doesn't know what will happen (the dice are random). The player doesn't know what will happen (the dice are random).

The difference between this, and the GM just deciding when to inject their preferred view of the fiction, with or without regard to any player-established priorities, is vast.

 

[pemerton]

So D&D is low agency because they don't work like your preferred games?

You have the order of explanation the wrong way around. I prefer games that are high player agency.

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.

You mean like 4e D&D?

This thread is in D&D general. It is not in D&D Oofta. I'm not obliged to share your rather narrow view of what D&D play is capable of.

EDIT:

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.

<snip>

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.

You are not the universal arbiter of what counts as playing D&D. I've repeatedly posted actual play examples of 4e D&D, which are high player agency play. I've explained, in quite a bit of detail, the techniques and approaches that have produced that high player agency play.

I've also mentioned, multiple times, that high player agency play is possible in AD&D - I know, because I've done it in the second half of the 1980s - but the system is pretty rickety.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Did I say anyone did? Or did I ask a question?

Don’t blame me when you draw conclusions about what I was trying to say instead of just reading what I say.



This makes no sense.



Sure. Out of curiosity… if you had to pick from the two options I presented, which do you think you’d prefer? And would that vary as player or DM?



It really depends. I prefer to have more, but I tend to adjust my expectations depending on the game and the GM.

With 5e D&D, I generally don’t expect as much agency as I find as a player in other games. Some of the GMs in my pool that run D&D may allow for a little more than others. The current game I’m playing in has very little agency.

When I GM 5e, I try to allow as much agency as I’d hope for as a player. It isn’t always possible… the system isn’t exactly designed with it in mind, but I do what I can.

What were the two options again? I'm sorry, I'm in a lot of threads at the moment.