D&D General What is player agency to you?

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't follow. First of all, I denied the use of your class feature on one noble, not every time. Second, the black arrows come from a completely different case where the char was not looking for black arrows either... they are not what you get instead of an audience. In either case the char / player did not get what they were looking for, that is the only commonality here.

What's confusing here? I stated a hypothetical, instead of an audience you got a black arrow. Clearly you asked for the audience and it was denied, THIS TIME. Maybe some other audience will get granted, so what? Instead you got the unwanted arrow, this is clearly an example of less player agency, right?

 

[Maxperson]

we are saying the same thing, I just do not call it agency

If nothing you do matters, where's the control. There's no point in even calling the control agency if it's meaningless.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not futile for me. As I posted upthread, by comparing the levels of player agency in games I can work out which ones will or won't appeal to me. And also prepare myself in more technical ways for how they will play at the table.

You aren't comparing levels. You're comparing types and seeing which ones have the type you like.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s not how it works. Your enjoyment is one thing… and it’s perfectly valid. But that doesn’t change the amount of agency available in play.

If I have less agency(nothing I do matters), I have less agency. Yes it affects my enjoyment, but my enjoyment doesn't transform it into something other than a loss of agency.

 

[mamba]

There's no herding. The PCs don't need to be a goal-oriented collective. And the players can take responsibility for their own play.

I was solely thinking of keeping them in the same place, they all need some reason to be there after all, and it sounds like they would have different ones

 

[mamba]

What's confusing here? I stated a hypothetical, instead of an audience you got a black arrow. Clearly you asked for the audience and it was denied, THIS TIME. Maybe some other audience will get granted, so what? Instead you got the unwanted arrow, this is clearly an example of less player agency, right?

I do not see any of this affecting agency in the first place, sorry. You chose what you want to do, it failed, you do something else (in the case of the audience). The audience is just a means to an end, so find a different way. That does not affect your agency unless I keep denying your choices, one noble you cannot get one with does not register.

 

[mamba]

If nothing you do matters, where's the control. There's no point in even calling the control agency if it's meaningless.

We had this discussion already. Not interested in repeating it, so I will only say this once and move on. What you do matters, it succeeds after all. That something else would have succeeded too does not mean the action does not matter

 

[mamba]

The difference - unsurprisingly - is that an increase in player agency corresponds to the GM being bound by the rules, most particularly the rules for action resolution. That 's the point. That's how players get to impact the shared fiction.

Yes, the DM has to be restricted if you want to ensure 'good behavior' instead of just expect it. But these declarations and putting your wager on the table as a player also means the rules are much more formal and prescriptive on the player side. At least that would be my expectation based on some comment of yours, not sure I would find that again though It sounded like the player basically says something along the line of 'I want to achieve X and am willing to risk Y for it' and then that gets resolved. There is not really a formal 'and risk Y' in D&D

 

[pemerton]

You aren't comparing levels. You're comparing types and seeing which ones have the type you like.

I'm comparing the type of agency where I learn from the GM what is happening next to the type of agency where I am able to meaningfully impact the content of the shared fiction.

To me, those look like comparisons of degree.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess the question is how bound the DM is by those rules, they could have let the chars find another item, it is one they chose. I am not sure how the rules of the RPG played into what was chosen, but the arrows had some meaning to the chars already. On the other hand, there are probably several other items that do too and could have been chosen instead, giving a different spin on the event.

Well, arrows or whatever aside, narrativist systems, at least of a PbtA sort of ilk (and I'd say FitD, and Agon both also exhibit this, and BW has a pretty strong flavor of it too) the GM being cast in a specific role which includes following certain rules is a VERY important aspect of the process of play of those games and how they are structured. I mean, sure, the GM and the players are only as much bound by the rules of an RPG as they feel like, but if you ignore these concepts in play you will be playing a very significantly different game in fundamental ways! A GM in Dungeon World can ONLY make moves as described by the game's rules. The moves they make, and way they frame scenes, and the prep (fronts and maps) the develop are specifically intended to fulfill goals which support the agenda of the game. This agenda includes, centrally, a game which shares direction between the different participants, by design.

So in either case the DM directs what is going on. That is why I initially said I am only seeing degrees here, not fundamental differences.

Dungeon World and D&D, as examples of generally Narrativist and Trad games, are fundamentally different, trust me. The GM does not 'direct what is going on' in a correctly run Dungeon World game. Yes, they frame the scenes and introduce elements via moves, so they have a part in direction, but they can only introduce stuff that plays to the characters. The GM's part in decision making DOES NOT function to put bounds on play.

The main difference I am starting to take away from all of this is that BW and similar games are a lot more formal and rules-oppressive (do not want to say heavy, that term is already taken), pressing both the players and DMs in a formal rules corset of interactions, much less freeform than D&D.
I am not saying that makes the game more restrictive, the players probably can do essentially the same things they can do in D&D, but how they go about it is much more dictated by the rules. Or at least it looks like that to me

They are no more 'rules oppressive' than D&D. What can be more 'oppressive' than a GM with absolute power and only the most informal of mechanisms (basically complaining) by which anyone else can get a say outside of "my character says X"? D&D is far LESS freeform than Dungeon World, for sure! The rules of DW simply clearly establishes how the process overall is supposed to work. Its actually IMHO empowering and freeing as it clarifies play immensely and lets it be centered on what is interesting in ways that are difficult to achieve in trad play.